Major study shows biodiversity losses can be reversed

Posted on April 1, 2015 by GarryRogers

“The study is the first global analysis of human impacts on local biodiversity. It is a major collaboration between the Natural History Museum, United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), and British universities.

“Scientists submitted data from more than 70 countries and considered 26,593 species, adding more than 1.1 million records to the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) survey database.

“The team’s figure of a 14 per cent drop in species in local ecosystems is a global average. So local biodiversity in some areas is still quite intact, but others – including Western Europe – have had losses of 20-30 per cent.” Source: www.nhm.ac.uk

GR: Making projections requires assumptions about what we are going to do. Reviews of this research try to be optimistic by emphasizing positive projections. However, if we make the most likely assumption that we will do nothing substantive to stop global warming, deforestation, and human population growth, the red areas will spread. As stated earlier, everyone that cares needs to begin making local efforts to preserve biodiversity.

Fracking: New aerial research to track pollutants above western fossil fuel development zones

Posted on March 28, 2015 by GarryRogers

GR: As always, we study the consequences of our actions after we act. We often do not attempt to determine effects before we act, and if we do try to predict consequences, the attempt is usually feeble and inadequate. Even more disappointing, the companies and government agencies involved rarely do any kind of follow-up research. And if they do, their results usually justify the action. For mining and energy development, the U. S. Bureau of Land Management is the biggest failure.

Summit County Citizens Voice

Sensitive instruments to track methane, VOCs and other airborne toxins from New Mexico to North Dakota

The Four Corners area (red) is the major U.S. hot spot for methane emissions in this map showing how much emissions varied from average background concentrations from 2003-2009 (dark colors are lower than average; lighter colors are higher). Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan.

Staff Report

FRISCO — A recent study of satellite data showing a hotspot of potent heat-trapping methane pollution over the Four Corners region makes it clear that we’re digging an ever-deeper global warming hole by fracking every last corner of the country.

As NOAA put it, “Vast regions west of the Mississippi River are under development for oil and gas extraction … but while one focus is on what comes out of the ground, NOAA and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences researchers and their colleagues are studying what escapes…

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Unlike Temperatures, Climate Change Deniers Are Falling Fast

Posted on March 14, 2015 by GarryRogers

If you’re hoping to deny the reality of global warming, things aren’t looking so good for you right now. A couple of events are making it ever more clear that those vocal about it are in trouble. Deservedly. The first big item is that solar physicist Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon appears…

Source: www.slate.com

GR: They will persist as long as there is oil in the ground. Good article.

Keep fossil fuels in the ground to stop climate change | George Monbiot

Posted on March 10, 2015 by GarryRogers

George Monbiot: Once coal, oil and gas are produced, they will be used. And yet, after 23 years of UN negotiations there have been almost no steps taken to stop the production – rather than the use of – fossil fuels

“Scientific assessments of the carbon contained in existing fossil fuel reserves suggest that full exploitation of these reserves is incompatible with the agreed target of no more than 2C of global warming. The unrestricted extraction of these reserves undermines attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.” Source: www.theguardian.com

GR: Monbiot says what a lot of people have been thinking: Our climate representatives have not really been trying to find solutions. They have just been playing the big environmental negotiator game.

How will everything change under climate change?

Posted on March 9, 2015 by GarryRogers

Global Warming

Naomi Klein

In the second excerpt from the Introduction to This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein, the author calls the climate crisis a civilisational wake-up call to alter our economy, our lifestyles, now – before they get changed for us. Source: www.theguardian.com

GR: Unless you are a climate-change skeptic (and I hope there aren’t any left), you should read this. We are running out of time to prevent the worst effects of global warming. Some experts believe that we have only two more years to make the necessary changes. After that, nature will force us to change. In this excerpt from her book, Klein reviews the explanations for our failure to act on the warnings that scientists have been giving us, and argues that our free-market system is to blame.

Do we have only TWO YEARS to change our society? For a dozen years, I have focused on invasive species as the greatest danger to Earth ecosystems. The acceleration of global warming has forced the invasives into second place. It is quickly becoming a distant second. We may have only 24 months to make some big changes.

From this point forward, I will emphasize news that relates to fossil fuel emissions, climate change, and global warming. There are good news sources on the Internet. I’ve collected some of them into a Newsletter (https://garryrogers.com/climate-news) that will give you a place to start. I invite all of you to join efforts to deal with global warming on the Internet and in the streets. Hope to see you there.

Survivable IPCC projections are science fiction – the reality is much worse

Posted on February 27, 2015 by GarryRogers

GR: Important article. Even to non-specialists, there is glaring incongruity between the potential disaster and promised political action. Nick Breeze dissects the issue with interviews and data.

The IPCC’s ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ are based on fantasy technology that must draw massive volumes of CO2 out of the atmosphere late this century, writes Nick Breeze – an unjustified hope that conceals a very bleak future for Earth, and humanity. Read more: www.theecologist.org

Starving Sea Lion Pups and Liquified Starfish — How We’ve Turned the Eastern Pacific into A Death Trap for Marine Species

Posted on February 27, 2015 by GarryRogers

As of late January, the news reports were coming in hot and heavy. Baby sea lions were dying in droves. More than 15,000 of the pups were already lost due to starvation. And with each passing week, more than 100 of the emaciated, beleaguered, hopeless animals were washing up on California shores.

The pups staggered across beaches, wandered into vacant lots, or tottered, disoriented, along roadways. Refugees all to some unspeakable disaster. Orphans lost or abandoned by parents unable to provide them with even the most basic of sustenance. Source: robertscribbler.wordpress.com

GR: Warming ocean with falling oxygen level may explain this growing disaster. Maps in evidence are included. The author points to a more deadly situation that could arise if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to climb to and beyond 800ppm. Then it’s silo (bunker) time folks.

Bad Climate Outcomes — Atmospheric Warming to Ramp up as PDO Swings Strongly Positive?

Posted on February 26, 2015 by GarryRogers

Last year, quietly and without much fanfare from the mainstream press, the Pacific Ocean underwent a powerful shift. A shift from a state in which cooler surface waters absorbed atmospheric heat, to a phase in which surface water warming caused ocean heat to be transferred to the world’s already warming air.

It’s a major swing in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures to a phase where more heat is dumped into the atmosphere. One that is causing some scientists to warn that a new period of rapid atmospheric warming may just be getting started.

Source: robertscribbler.wordpress.com

GR: We thought this was coming.

Planet Earth is a sick patient due to climate change, says Prince Charles

Posted on February 26, 2015 by GarryRogers

Speaking at Royal Society event on health and climate change, prince says that failure to act on global warming would be ‘death sentence’ for the planet The Prince of Wales has compared the planet to a “sick patient,” warning it could face its…