Tragic Planet » Environment

New Species of Frogs Disappearing as Fast as They’re Found

sduford — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:52:01 +0000

New species of frogs in Panama are being lost nearly as fast as they are being found to a deadly fungal disease that is sweeping through the region.In an effort to document the diversity of frogs in Central America before the disease sweeps through the entire region, scientists are discovering new species, some of which are going extinct, and some of which are surviving.In Panama’s Omar Torrijos National Park, 11 new species of frogs were discovered in the course of the long-term survey. After the fungus epidemic in 2004, five of these species went locally extinct, but only one of them is thought to have no other known habitats.

via New Species of Frogs Disappearing as Fast as They’re Found | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Bee Catastrophe: 1/3 of Colonies Died This Winter, Threatening Massive Ecological Catastrophe

sduford — Mon, 03 May 2010 11:01:06 +0000

May 3, 2010 | Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed “Mary Celeste syndrome” due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives

via Bee Catastrophe: 1/3 of Colonies Died This Winter, Threatening Massive Ecological Catastrophe | | AlterNet.

7 Biggest Environmental Disasters — Where Are They Now?

sduford — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:29:04 +0000

These 7 catastrophic environmental disasters have had a profound effect upon the earth and local residents that continues today, as many as 50 years later.

via 7 Biggest Environmental Disasters — Where Are They Now? | | AlterNet.

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

sduford — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:06:28 +0000

From The New York Times
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: April 23, 2009

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. In 1997, the year an international climate agreement that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, its budget totaled $1.68 million, according to tax records obtained by environmental groups.

40 Years After the Cuyahoga River Caught Fire…

sduford — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:23:17 +0000

From Discover…

40 Years After the Cuyahoga Burned, Clevelanders Fish in It.

Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught on fire 40 years ago June 22 when oily garbage floating in it was ignited, probably by sparks from a passing train. In turn, the fire sparked the creation of environmental agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, along with passage of 1972’s Clean Water Act. And the river, once a dumping ground for industrial waste and an icon for environmental disrepair, today supports more than 60 species of fish along with beavers and various bird species, and serves as an example of environmental restoration.

The river’s recovery is an inspirational account of how even the most putrid bodies of water could be cleaned up.

Earth Day: 10 Big, Really Hard Things We Can Do to Save the Planet

sduford — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:48:51 +0000

Earth Day: 10 Big, Really Hard Things We Can Do to Save the Planet

Today is Earth Day

sduford — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:05:49 +0000

Today is Earth Day and here is a classic video by Carl Sagan to help put things back in perspective…

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M&feature=player_embedded]

Consumption or Population? What is the real problem?

sduford — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:13:09 +0000

Here’s an excellent and thought provoking essay from Environment360:
Consumption Dwarfs Population As Main Environmental Threat

Two trillion tons of ice have melted since 2003

sduford — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:17:49 +0000

More than two trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA’s GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.

(From The Globe and Mail)

Peak Oil coming faster then predicted?

sduford — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:07:58 +0000

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has revised its World Energy Outlook report, and it’s not pretty. They admitted to having finally done some research, and as a result, have moved their peak-oil date a lot. 2020, that’s in 11 years my friends.

At Last, A Date by George Monbiot

Tar sands threatens millions of birds, report says

sduford — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:36:31 +0000

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

December 2, 2008 at 4:27 AM EST

The development of the tar sands could lead to the loss of more than 160 million birds over the next 30 to 50 years because of the elimination of habitat and deaths from drowning in tailings ponds, according to a report being released today.

The impact of the oil sands on birds has been in the spotlight, especially since a flock of 500 mallards landed in a Syncrude Canada Ltd. tailings pond near Fort McMurray, Alta., in late April. Images of the dead ducks spread around the world and became a public-relations nightmare for the petroleum industry and the Alberta government.

But the new report, compiled by the Natural Resources Defence Council and the Boreal Songbird Initiative in the United States, and the Pembina Institute in Canada, says relatively few birds are likely to be lost because of accidental drowning in the ponds, perhaps only 8,000 to 300,000.

The far greater threat arises, the report says, from the destruction of habitat due to tar sands strip mining, along with habitat fragmentation and degradation in areas where the thick bitumen will be extracted in situ using wells.

The estimate of bird losses, when habitat effects are included, ranges from a low of six million to a high of 166 million, spread over the 30- to 50-year period of oil extraction. The oil sands lie within what is known as the boreal forest, the vast band of wilderness that stretches across northern Canada. About half of all birds in the U.S. nest in the boreal forest and depend on it for their survival. Estimates of breeding pairs in the forest are as high as 500 birds in every 2.5 square kilometres.

Baffin Island tourists evacuated amid flood fears

sduford — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:58:09 +0000

Things are melting really fast in the Canadian Arctic this year, causing all kinds of unwelcomed changes.

Here’s an article on another such event.

This is gonna hurt — but we’ll be thankful later.

sduford — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:28:21 +0000

An excellent article by journalist Dan Gardner. I very much agree with what he says.

Here’s an excerpt:

Like an addict kicking a habit, we will have to go through a period of painful withdrawal. But the good news is that, in time, we will all agree it was for the best.

America is doomed

sduford — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:27:57 +0000

The things that Bush can say and do while maintaing a straight face are just amazing. His pandering to his oil industry buddies knows no bounds.

He is perfectly OK with authorizing drilling for oil off the pristine coast of Alaska, but he has just put a freeze on solar farms in the desert because he is worried about their potential impact on the desert’s environment.

This is the same guy who said America needs to fix its addiction to oil.

The idiocy (or is it dishonesty?) is just absolutely staggering!

Report from the Subcommittee on Global Change Research

sduford — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:24:28 +0000

A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, a Bush appointed comittee.

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-3/final-report/default.htm