6th MASS EXTINCTION's topics - tribe.net

Extreme heat wave temperatures expected by 2100, experts say

Chopper22 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:42:51 GMT

Extreme heat wave temperatures expected by 2100, experts say

Hot future shock: Heat wave temperatures to soar

WASHINGTON - During the European heat wave of 2003 that killed tens of thousands, the temperature in parts of France hit 104 degrees. Nearly 15,000 people died in that country alone. During the Chicago heat wave of 1995, the mercury spiked at 106 and about 600 people died.

In a few decades, people will look back at those heat waves "and we will laugh," said Andreas Sterl, author of a new study. "We will find (those temperatures) lovely and cool."

Sterl's computer model shows that by the end of the century, high temperatures for once-in-a-generation heat waves will rise twice as fast as everyday average temperatures. Chicago, for example, would reach 115 degrees in such an event by 2100. Paris heat waves could near 109 with Lyon coming closer to 114.

Sterl, who is with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, projects temperatures for rare heat waves around the world in a study soon to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

His numbers are blistering because of the drying-out effect of a warming world. Most global warming research focuses on average daily temperatures instead of these extremes, which cause greater damage.

His study projects a peak of 117 for Los Angeles and 110 for Atlanta by 2100; that's 5 degrees higher than the current records for those cities. Kansas City faces the prospect of a 116-degree heat wave, with its current all-time high at 109, according to the National Climactic Data Center.

A few cities, such as Phoenix, which once hit 122 degrees and is projected to have heat waves of 120, have already reached these extreme temperatures once or twice. But they would be hitting those numbers a little more often as the world heats up over time. For New York, it would only be a slight jump from the all-time record of 104 at John F. Kennedy Airport to the projected 106.

It could be worse. Delhi, India is expected to hit 120 degrees; Belem, Brazil, 121, and Baghdad, 122.

Those figures make sense, Ken Kunkel, a top Midwestern climate scientist and interim director of the Illinois Water Survey.

These are temperatures that are dangerous, said University of Wisconsin environmental health professor Dr. Jonathan Patz.

"Extreme temperature puts a huge demand on the body, especially anyone with heart problems," Patz said. "The elderly are the most vulnerable because they don't sense temperature as well."

And it's not just at the end of the century. By 2050, heat waves will be 3 to 5 degrees hotter than now "and probably be longer-lasting," Sterl said.

By mid-century, southern France's extreme heat waves should be around 111 degrees and then near 118 by the end of the century, Sterl's climate models predict. In the 1990s, that region's extreme heat wave peaked at 104 degrees; in the 1950s, the worst heat wave peaked around 91 degrees, according to Sterl."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080702/ap_on_sc/sci_extreme_heat

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posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 2 replies

How to talk to global warming skeptics

Brian — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:35:25 GMT

This is a well organized and fairly comprehensive resource of responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming.

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 9 replies

Of Politics, Fish, and Whales...

Frozenstars — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:53:41 GMT

BBC NEWS
Africa fish fall blamed on Japan
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

A coalition of conservation groups and a leading fisheries scientist have accused Japan of damaging the fisheries interests of poorer countries.

They say Japan promotes the argument that whales are responsible for declining fish stocks in order to boost support for whale hunting.

They say this stops poor countries from focussing on real causes of decline.

A spokesman for Japan's whale research institution described the accusation as "absurd and irresponsible".

The groups involved presented their conclusions on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) annual meeting.

Daniel Pauly, director of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, said there was abundant evidence that whales are not behind the decline in fish stocks.

"Blaming whales is an issue that is not only false - whales are no more responsible than the Martians - but which prevents the very small resources of West African countries from being devoted to understanding the real reasons why their fisheries are declining," he said.

Decline and fall

There is little doubt that fish stocks globally are shrinking. One recent major study projected there would be no commercial fisheries left in 50 years if current trends continued.

Some developing countries, notably along the west coast of Africa, have seen stocks fall abruptly as fleets from Europe and East Asia have moved either legally or illegally into grounds that had previously been the preserve of small scale local fishermen.

But some of these countries evidently believe the fish are disappearing largely because whales are eating them.

In February, a group of 11 African countries - all members of the IWC - published conclusions from a workshop held in Rabat, Morocco, at which senior Japanese whaling officials were present, referring to "the natural competition existing between whale species and (human) populations of developing countries in regard to utilisation of living marine resources".

Dr Pauly said that focussing on whales diverted attention from the real causes of depletion.

"In some countries, a fisheries division would consist of just five or six people; and if their minister comes along and says 'it's the whales', how are they going to be motivated to look for illegal fishing, to look at the access agreements (signed with European or Asian governments) that feed back only 1% of the value of the fish landed?"

In a paper written for the IWC meeting, Dr Pauly argues that whales cannot be a significant cause of fisheries decline because in the past, numbers of both whales and fish were much higher than they are now.

He also cites evidence assembled in the 1990s showing that only about 1% of the food eaten by any group of marine mammals was taken in areas home to important fisheries for human consumption.

Local impacts

Dan Goodman, a councillor to Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research which manages the nation's scientific whaling programme, said Japan had never said that whales were the cause of declining fish stocks.

However, he told BBC News: "In the western North Pacific off the coast of Japan, whales are eating large quantities of at least 10 species that are the target of commercial fisheries; some of these stocks have significantly declined.

"What the Japanese Government has been saying is that their research, as well as research done by Norway and Iceland, clearly indicates that at least for some areas whales do consume large quantities of fish and that interactions between whales and fisheries need to be addressed in ecosystem approaches to management."

Mr Goodman also dismissed as "an absurd allegation and a gross misrepresentation" the notion that Japan can be held responsible for how African countries address overfishing in their waters.

But Remi Parmentier from the Pew Environment Group said Japan has been raising the issue "to scare and recruit countries into supporting its move to end the (whaling) moratorium."

There was now so much evidence against the "whales eat fish" argument that it should, he said, now be closed.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7470934.stm

Published: 2008/06/24 11:56:35 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

BBC: Nature's carbon balance confirmed

Frozenstars — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:17:55 GMT

Nature's carbon balance confirmed

Scientists have found new evidence that the Earth's natural feedback mechanism regulated carbon dioxide levels for hundreds of thousands of years.

But they say humans are now emitting CO2 so fast that the planet's natural balancing mechanism cannot keep up.

The researchers, writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, say their findings confirm a long-believed theory.

Carbon spewed out by volcanoes is removed from the air by rock weathering and transported to the ocean floor.

Using evidence from an Antarctic ice core, the team calculated that over a period of 610,000 years the long-term change in atmospheric CO2 concentration was just 22 parts per million (ppm), although there were larger fluctuations associated with the transitions between glacial and interglacial conditions.

This suggests a natural thermostat which helps maintain climate stability
Richard Zeebe

By comparison, two centuries of human industry have raised levels by about 100 ppm - a speed of rise about 14,000 times faster.

"These long term cycles are way too slow to protect us from the effect of (anthropogenic) greenhouse gases," said Richard Zeebe from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

"They will not help us with our current CO2 problem. Right now, we have put the system entirely out of equilibrium."

Deep level

Scientists have long believed that the Earth’s climate was stabilised by a natural carbon thermostat.

In their model, carbon released into the atmosphere, primarily by volcanoes, is slowly removed through the weathering of mountains, washed downhill into oceans, and finally buried in deep sea sediments.

"A lot of people had tried to refute this hypothesis, but our study provides the first direct evidence (that it is correct)," said Dr Zeebe.

He studied levels of CO2 recorded in air bubbles trapped in a 3km ice core drilled from an Antarctic region called Dome Concordia (Dome C).

Data from the ice core, drilled by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica), was first published in 2005.

But rather than focusing on the peaks and troughs of CO2 - as other researchers have done - this group looked at the long term trend, and compared the ice core data with records of carbonate saturation in the deep sea for the last six glacial cycles.

"It is remarkable how exact the balance is between the carbon input from volcanoes and the output from rock weathering," said Dr Zeebe.

"This suggests a natural thermostat which helps maintain climate stability."

The delicately balanced carbon thermostat has been a key factor in allowing liquid water, and life, to remain on Earth, he said.

"If it weren’t for these feedbacks, the Earth would look very different today."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7363600.stm

Published: 2008/04/28 15:19:54 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 1 reply

Civilization's last chance

Brian — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:16:56 GMT

Civilization's last chance

The planet is nearing a tipping point on climate change, and it gets much worse, fast.

By Bill McKibben

Los Angeles Times
May 11, 2008

Even for Americans -- who are constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start -- even for us, the world looks a little terminal right now.

It's not just the economy: We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it helps send the price of a loaf of bread shooting upward and helps ignite food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem ... how best to put it, right.

All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth.

There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."

Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.

In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.

And suddenly the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. It appears that we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost, and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.

And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car; and Americans are buying TVs the size of windshields, which suck juice ever faster.

Here's the thing. Hansen didn't just say that if we didn't act, there was trouble coming. He didn't just say that if we didn't yet know what was best for us, we'd certainly be better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

His phrase was: "if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever-more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto protocol, which was already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.)

We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

And we have, at best, a few years to short-circuit them -- to reverse course. Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

In the next two or three years, the nations of the world are supposed to be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto accord (which, for the record, has never been approved by the United States -- the only industrial nation that has failed to do so). When December 2009 rolls around, heads of state are supposed to converge on Copenhagen to sign a treaty -- a treaty that would go into effect at the last plausible moment to heed the most basic and crucial of limits on atmospheric CO2.

If we did everything right, Hansen says, we could see carbon emissions start to fall fairly rapidly and the oceans begin to pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. Before the century was out, we might even be on track back to 350. We might stop just short of some of those tipping points, like the Road Runner screeching to a halt at the very edge of the cliff.

More likely, though, we're the coyote -- because "doing everything right" means that political systems around the world would have to take enormous and painful steps right away. It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way U.S. automakers made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.

It means making every decision wisely because we have so little time and so little money, at least relative to the task at hand. And hardest of all, it means the rich countries of the world sharing resources and technology freely with the poorest ones so that they can develop dignified lives without burning their cheap coal.

It's possible. The United States launched a Marshall Plan once, and could do it again, this time in relation to carbon. But at a time when the president has, once more, urged drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it seems unlikely. At a time when the alluring phrase "gas tax holiday" -- which would actually encourage more driving and more energy consumption -- has danced into our vocabulary, it's hard to see. And if it's hard to imagine sacrifice here, imagine China, where people produce a quarter as much carbon apiece as Americans do.

Still, as long as it's not impossible, we've got a duty to try to push those post-Kyoto negotiations in the direction of reality. In fact, it's about the most obvious duty humans have ever faced.

After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can't do this one lightbulb at a time.

We do have one thing going for us -- the Web -- which at least allows you to imagine something like a grass-roots global effort. If the Internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that "350" stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.

Hansen's words were well-chosen: "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.

Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won't exist, at least not for long, as long as we remain on the wrong side of 350. That's the limit we face.

Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and the author, most recently, of "The Bill McKibben Reader," is the co-founder of Project 350 ( www.350.org), devoted to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. A longer version of this article appears at Tomdispatch.com.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-mckibben11-2008may11,0,2392815.story

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 1 reply

Oceans Dying

Arion — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:06:55 GMT

Has the death cycle of the oceans begun? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15329993/

I have to wonder if we're past the tipping point.

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Executive Order to re-build Sustainably

Chopper22 — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:10:10 GMT

Executive Order to re-build Sustainably

I was just thinking with the recent bouts with tornadoes. Plus, the Hurricanes of Katrina and Rita a few years back plus other natural disasters. Why don't we organize a petition or mandate of some kind to re-build using only environmentally friendly products and install more sustainable energy systems? Rather than re-building exactly the same way, here's an opportunity to implement the positive environmental changes we'd all like to see come about.

What are some of the most effective ways to bring this about? Nows the time what with the Presidential election coming up in a few months.

Would you suggest a Petition, demand an Executive Order or what?

What are your thoughts?

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Check this out...

"After the tornado, the city council passed a resolution stating that all city building would be built to LEED - platinum standards, making it the first city in the nation to do so. Greensburg is rebuilding as a "green" town, with the help of the non-profit organization created to help the residents learn about and implement the green living initiative, Greensburg GreenTown[6].

Here is an account of the green projects on the towns official website:

Information and Resources available for residents and businesses to consider during the rebuilding process.

http://www.greensburgks.org/recovery-planning/green-or-sustainable-resources

http://www.greensburggreentown.org/links/

Wouldn't be great to see this done on a national and a global level!?!?

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posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

China passes US as top Carbon Polluter

Brian — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:31:19 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7347638.stm

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 3 replies

exultant apocayptic environmental anthem

Brian — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:11:39 GMT

PROTEST SONG: 'Maybe' by the Autons

Portsmouth electro punk band Autons have made a free-to-all environmental anthem directed by film maker Yesca, who is part of the Undercurrents (www.undercurrents.org) media collective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdowhGmxWYQ

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Extinction Level Event? Pointers To The Approaching Catastrophe!

psircles — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:27:09 GMT

Here's a thread at ATS which casts some light on what some governments and others are doing:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread343809/pg1

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 3 replies

Antarctic ice chunk seven times the size of Manhattan collapses

Chopper22 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:46:00 GMT

Antarctic ice chunk seven times the size of Manhattan collapses

Western Antarctic ice chunk collapses

"WASHINGTON - A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_sc/antarctica_collapse

-- yahoo news

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posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 2 replies

"Is a 'Sixth' Extinction Looming?"

Chopper22 — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:25:17 GMT

"Is a 'Sixth' Extinction Looming?"

BY ED STODDARD
Reuters

"Many credible scientists fear that the sixth mass extinction in the planet's long history is unfolding -- a doomsday scenario dismissed as alarmist by some.

A recent U.N. report, prepared ahead of a summit next month in Johannesburg on the environment and poverty, warned that 12 percent, or 1,183 bird species, and 1,130, or nearly a quarter of all mammal species, are regarded as globally threatened.

A SIXTH EXTINCTION?

Mass extinctions have occurred five times in the four billion year history of life.

They are loosely defined as moments in geological history when half or more of all marine species -- which today are preserved in fossils -- die off in a short period of time. (Terrestrial life is also not believed to fare well during these periods).

According to one book on the subject, "The Sixth Extinction," by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, the grim reaper first visited Earth on this vast scale 450 million years ago.

The second mass extinction took place 100 million years later, giving rise to coal forests. In the Triassic period 250 and 200 million years ago, two mass extinctions snuffed out countless species.

Then, 65 million years ago, scientists believe the dinosaurs were killed off when a giant meteorite collided with Earth.

Scientists say the sixth extinction will have been brought about entirely by people.

"In the next 50 to 100 years there is a good possibility that there could be a mass extinction of species which is human-induced," said Dr. Susan Lieberman, director of the Species Program for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

"We are heading for a crisis. And we have to act now if we are going to avert this," she told Reuters.

Leakey and Lewin estimate that perhaps 50 percent of all species will become extinct in the next 100 years. Others take a more measured view but agree that a crisis is looming."

Enjoy the full article -
http://www.cambodianonline.net/earth02048.htm

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posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 2 replies

Studies Deem Biofuels a Greenhouse Threat

Brian — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:59:17 GMT

"Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these 'green' fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded."

See the full New York Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 1 reply

Can i be the sanity in a mad world ?

LEA — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:10:58 GMT

http://www.boomboxradio.com/soundstrue/Modules/ShoppingCart/sample_Video.aspx

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Eco-Buddhism

Brian — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:23:29 GMT

Please have a look through the new website www.ecobuddhism.org

It features original material.
A Buddhist Response to Global Warming, integrating science, solutions and spirit.
In its first 2 weeks since launch on Losar, the website received 52000 hits and 2600 visits of more than half an hour.

This project addresses the international Buddhist community [365 million people; 6% of all religious adherents] progressives, environmentalists and all people of good heart.

The Science section comprises up-to-date, illustrated and concise articles on all aspects of global warming.

The Solutions section presents the latest developments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate protection, the positive solutions to global warming.

The Wisdom section contains original teachings, interviews, or aspiration prayers by Buddhist master-teachers such as Thrangu Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Commentaries by Dalai Lama and Gyalwang Karmapa are also included.

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Mini Earth Video (short)

Brian — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:56:58 GMT

Here is a short, beautifully done video modeling the world as if it
were a village of 100 people.

http://www.miniature-earth.com/

Open and enjoy!

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Good News for Wolves

Brian — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:27:11 GMT

Wolves to Be Removed From Species List

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, February 21, 2008
A gray wolf in captivity at the Wolf Education and Resear... Gray wolf facts. Chronicle file graphic by John Blanchard

(02-21) 18:02 PST Billings, Mont. (AP) --

Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday.

An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the U.S. outside of Alaska in the early 20th century.

"Gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains are thriving and no longer require the protection of the Endangered Species Act," said Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett. "The wolf's recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains is a conservation success story."

The restoration effort, however, has been unpopular with ranchers and many others in the three states since it began in the mid-1990s, and today some state leaders want the population thinned significantly.

The states are planning to allow hunters to target the animals as soon as this fall. That angers environmental groups, which plan to sue over the delisting and say it's too soon to remove federal protection.

"The enduring hostility to wolves still exists," said Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold, who is preparing the lawsuit. "We're going to have hundreds of wolves killed under state management. It's a sad day for our wolves."

Plans submitted by Idaho, Montana and Wyoming indicate the states will likely maintain between 900 and 1,250 wolves for the foreseeable future, federal officials said.

Wolves have increasingly preyed on livestock as they expanded into new territories. At the same time, ranchers and wildlife agents have made more wolf kills, which are allowed under the Endangered Species Act in response to livestock conflicts.

Since the late 1980s, 724 wolves have been killed legally, and roughly the same number are estimated to have been killed illegally by poachers. Despite that, the overall population has continued to grow at the rate of 24 percent a year.

"We've been managing wolves pretty aggressively for livestock problems, but there are still a ton of wolves over a big area," said Ed Bangs, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who led the wolf recovery effort.

The wolf was nearly wiped out in the West through a government eradication program in the 1930s that included widespread poisoning of wolves. In the late 1980s the wolf had just 200 square miles of territory around Glacier National Park, in Montana near the Canadian border.

Wolves were listed as endangered in 1974, and the government has spent more than $27 million on recovery efforts in the Northern Rockies.

Since an initial 66 wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s, their population has grown rapidly. The wolf's territory now covers an estimated 113,000 square miles, Bangs said.

The wolf will be formally removed from the endangered species list 30 days after the federal government's decision is published in the Federal Register, which is expected next week.

Meanwhile, wildlife agencies in the three states have already begun crafting rules for wolf hunts. Officials say the hunts will be similar to those for other big game species such as mountain lions and black bears.

In Montana, state wildlife commissioners this week adopted regulations for a hunt to begin this fall. Idaho also is eyeing a fall hunt, and Wyoming plans to complete its plans in the next few months.

Limits on how many wolves could be killed in each state have not been set.

Public hunting could significantly decrease the size of the wolf's range. It could also reduce the chance of wolves spreading to neighboring states such as Utah, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

Environmental groups critical of such hunts say the government should be moving in the opposite direction, restoring wolves to areas where they are not now found.

The only other areas of the lower 48 states where gray wolves live are the western Great Lakes and the Southwest. A population of about 4,000 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin was dropped from the endangered list last year, while a reintroduced population of dozens of animals in Arizona and New Mexico has struggled to expand.

In a petition filed Wednesday with the Department of Interior, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resource Defense Council argued new wolf populations should be established in Maine, New York, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Washington and possibly New Hampshire, Texas and portions of the mid-Atlantic.

Federal officials said Thursday there were no immediate plans to reintroduce wolves into other states or regions.

However, an independent wolf biologist said he would be "shocked" if the animal again ends up on the endangered list.

"The last thing any of the states want is for wolves to be re-listed by the federal government," said Daniel Pletscher, director of the University of Montana's wildlife biology program. He added that tolerance of wolves has grown immensely since the species was nearly wiped out.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/21/national/a082314S49.DTL

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 1 reply

Eckhart Tolle: Allowing for the New Earth to emerge..

zigo — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:44:47 GMT

great video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx526pO9UV0

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Climate changes engineered by chemtrails?

psircles — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:00:43 GMT

Just a part of the bigger global story.
Engineered elections and disenfranchised voters; manipulated education; religions based on lies; fake 'terrorism' and 'false flag' terror operations; false democracy (economic slavery); ethnic cleansing; genetic experimentation; destruction of forests and species; children enslaved and disappearing; private central banks controlling government economics; wars created for elite corporate profit; vaccination programmes to toxify and implant; more nukes and weapons testing to terrorise humanity; secret use of depleted uranium in wars to create toxification and genetic damage; removal of constitutional rights and new laws to protect the elite, and on and on and on.

http://intelstrike.com/?p=181

The rot is so deep that humans cannot deal with it sufficiently...

Gaia is inviting all humans to prepare for purification or ascension. This was prophecied by planetary elders for hundreds of years. It happened before when humanity became too rotten and it must happen again.
This preparation for the shift of ages is happening and no humans can stop it!
The Children of the Earth will survive.

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

National Geographic Film - 6 Degrees Could Change the World

Brian — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:13:26 GMT

6 Degrees Could Change the World
Feb. 10, 2008

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/sixdegrees/

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Climate on Agenda of Candidates

Brian — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:09:57 GMT

The Wall Street Journal Online

Climate on Agenda of Candidates
By REBECCA SMITH
January 31, 2008; Page A8

The narrowed field of presidential candidates increases the likelihood that the winner will favor stepped-up efforts to fight global warming and change how the nation uses energy.

The leading contenders -- Sen. John McCain on the Republican side and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats -- support legislation that would gradually cut greenhouse-gas emissions, a sharp departure from the Bush administration's approach.

But key differences remain between the parties. And while another Republican -- former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- supports emissions cuts, Republican former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is pushing more-modest measures.

The Republican candidates see energy security mostly as a supply-side challenge that can be solved by increasing oil and gas drilling, building nuclear power plants, developing so-called clean-coal technologies and helping innovators find technological fixes. Many worry about the cost and effectiveness of emissions-control efforts. Most favor drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Among Republicans, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, sees the greatest role for government.

Democrats focus more on the demand side. They see a central role for the government to put in place programs to cut oil, natural-gas and electricity use and bolster renewable energy. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama both believe government should set mandatory targets to reduce corporate greenhouse-gas emissions, then allow companies to buy and sell permits to pollute, creating what is known as a cap-and-trade system.

Among Republicans, Mr. McCain is the most outspoken on the issue. In 2003 he broke with many in his party to sponsor greenhouse-gas legislation with Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, now an independent but at the time a Democrat; the legislation was unsuccessful. Mr. McCain hasn't co-sponsored more-recent efforts. His 2003 proposal -- which would have resulted in free emissions credits to big polluters like utilities -- was less stringent than the system currently supported by Sens. Clinton and Obama, one that called for auctioning the credits.
[Go to complete coverage]1MORE ON ELECTIONS

• Complete coverage: Campaign 20082
• Washington Wire: Updates from the campaign trail3

Mr. McCain warned in a recent speech that "unless we reverse what is happening on this planet, my dear friends, we are going to hand our children a planet that is badly damaged."

Mr. Romney has issued few specifics on energy, although he has said he favors opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling and accelerating construction of nuclear power plants.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have supported legislation calling for greenhouse-gas emissions to be reduced to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. They want clean-energy funds to quicken the deployment of advanced technologies. They would train people for so-called green-collar jobs and would recruit youth to weatherize homes in poor neighborhoods. Mrs. Clinton's goal is five million new clean-energy jobs.

Mr. Obama, in a speech in October, said the U.S. needs to make climate change a priority. "Washington hasn't acted, and that is the reason America hasn't led," he said.

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, has expressed skepticism about efforts to convert coal into a liquid fuel. Mr. Obama, from coal-rich Illinois, supports the idea. Mr. Romney expresses support for coal-to-liquids programs because coal is plentiful in the U.S.

--Elizabeth Holmes and Alex Frangos contributed to this article.

Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com4
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120174290582030611.html

Hyperlinks in this Article:
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(2) http://online.wsj.com/public/page/election2008.html
(3) http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire
(4) mailto:rebecca.smith@wsj.com

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6th Extinction article in Washington Post

Brian — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:50:11 GMT

from The Washington Post
Jan. 13, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011101994.html

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
It Happened to Him. It's Happening to You.

By Michael Novacek
Sunday, January 13, 2008; Page B01

The news of environmental traumas assails us from every side -- unseasonal storms, floods, fires, drought, melting ice caps, lost species of river dolphins and giant turtles, rising sea levels potentially displacing inhabitants of Arctic and Pacific islands and hundreds of thousands of people dying every year from air pollution. Last week brought more -- new reports that Greenland's glaciers may be melting away at an alarming rate.

What's going on? Are we experiencing one of those major shocks to life on Earth that rocked the planet in the past?

That's just doomsaying, say those who insist that economic growth and human technological ingenuity will eventually solve our problems. But in fact, the scientific take on our current environmental mess is hardly so upbeat.

More than a decade ago, many scientists claimed that humans were demonstrating a capacity to force a major global catastrophe that would lead to a traumatic shift in climate, an intolerable level of destruction of natural habitats, and an extinction event that could eliminate 30 to 50 percent of all living species by the middle of the 21st century. Now those predictions are coming true. The evidence shows that species loss today is accelerating. We find ourselves uncomfortably privileged to be witnessing a mass extinction event as it's taking place, in real time.

The fossil record reveals some extraordinarily destructive events in the past, when species losses were huge, synchronous and global in scale. Paleontologists recognize at least five of these mass extinction events, the last of which occurred about 65 million years ago and wiped out all those big, charismatic dinosaurs (except their bird descendants) and at least 70 percent of all other species. The primary suspect for this catastrophe is a six-mile-wide asteroid (a mile higher than Mount Everest) whose rear end was still sticking out of the atmosphere as its nose augered into the crust a number of miles off the shore of the present-day Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Earth's atmosphere became a hell furnace, with super-broiler temperatures sufficient not only to kill exposed organisms, but also to incinerate virtually every forest on the planet.

For several million years, a period 100 times greater than the entire known history of Homo sapiens, the planet's destroyed ecosystems underwent a slow, laborious recovery. The earliest colonizers after the catastrophe were populous species that quickly adapted to degraded environments, the ancient analogues of rats, cockroaches and weeds. But many of the original species that occupied these ecosystems were gone and did not come back. They'll never come back. The extinction of a species, whether in an incinerated 65-million-year-old reef or in a bleached modern-day reef of the Caribbean, is forever.

Now we face the possibility of mass extinction event No. 6. No big killer asteroid is in sight. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are not of the scale to cause mass extinction. Yet recent studies show that troubling earlier projections about rampant extinction aren't exaggerated.

In 2007, of 41,415 species assessed for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, 16,306 (39 percent) were categorized as threatened with extinction: one in three amphibians, one quarter of the world's pines and other coniferous trees, one in eight birds and one in four mammals. Another study identified 595 "centers of imminent extinction" in tropical forests, on islands and in mountainous areas. Disturbingly, only one-third of the sites surveyed were legally protected, and most were surrounded by areas densely populated by humans. We may not be able to determine the cause of past extinction events, but this time we have, indisputably: We are our own asteroids.

Still, the primary concern here is the future welfare of us and our children. Assuming that we survive the current mass extinction event, won't we do okay? The disappearance of more than a few species is regrettable, but we can't compromise an ever-expanding population and a global economy whose collapse would leave billions to starve. This dismissal, however, ignores an essential fact about all those species: They live together in tightly networked ecosystems responsible for providing the habitats in which even we humans thrive. Pollination of flowers by diverse species of wild bees, wasps, butterflies and other insects, not just managed honeybees, accounts for more than 30 percent of all food production that humans depend upon.

What will the quality of life be like in this transformed new world? Science doesn't paint a pretty picture. The tropics and coral reefs, major sources of the planet's biological diversity, will be hugely debilitated. The 21st century may mark the end of the line for the evolution of large mammals and other animals that are now either on the verge of extinction, such as the Yangtze River dolphin, or, like the African black rhinoceros, confined to small, inadequately supportive habitats. And devastated ecosystems will provide warm welcome to all those opportunistic invader species that have already demonstrated their capacity to wipe out native plants and animals. We, and certainly our children, will find ourselves largely embraced by a pest and weed ecology ideal for the flourishing of invasive species and new, potentially dangerous microbes to which we haven't build up a biological resistance.

Of course people care about this. Recent surveys show a sharp increase in concern over the environmental changes taking place. But much of this spike in interest is due to the marked shift in attention to climate change and global warming away from other environmental problems such as deforestation, water pollution, overpopulation and biodiversity loss. Global warming is of course a hugely important issue. But it is the double whammy of climate change combined with fragmented, degraded natural habitats -- not climate change alone -- that is the real threat to many populations, species and ecosystems, including human populations marginalized and displaced by those combined forces.

Still, human ingenuity, commitment and shared responsibility have great potential to do good. The IUCN Red List now includes a handful of species that have been revived through conservation

efforts, including the European white-tailed eagle and the Mekong catfish. Narrow corridors of protected habitat now connect nature preserves in South Africa, and similar corridors link up the coral reefs of the Bahamas, allowing species in the protected areas to move back and forth, exchange genes and sustain their populations. Coffee farms planted near protected forests and benefiting from wild pollinators have increased coffee yields. New York's $1 billion purchase of watersheds in the Catskill Mountains that purify water naturally secured precious natural habitat while eliminating the need for a filtration plant that would have cost $6 to $8 billion, plus annual operating costs of $300 million. Emissions of polluting gases such as dangerous nitrogen oxides have leveled off in North America and even declined in Europe (unfortunately emissions of the same are steeply rising in China). Plans for reflective roofing, green space and increased shade to cool urban "heat islands" are at least under consideration in many cities.

These actions may seem puny in light of the enormous problem we face, but their cumulative effect can bring surprising improvements. Yet our recent efforts, however praiseworthy, must become more intensive and global. Any measure of success depends not only on international cooperation but also on the leadership of the most powerful nations and economies.

The first step in dealing with the problem is recognizing it for what it is. Ecologists point out that the image of Earth still harboring unspoiled, pristine wild places is a myth. We live in a human-dominated world, they say, and virtually no habitat is untouched by our presence. Yet we are hardly the infallible masters of that universe. Instead, we are rather uneasy regents, a fragile and dysfunctional royal family holding back a revolution.

The sixth extinction event is under way. Can humanity muster the leadership and international collaboration necessary to stop eating itself from the inside?

Michael Novacek, a paleontologist, is senior vice president and provost of the American Museum of Natural History. He is the author of "Terra: Our 100-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem -- and the Threats That Now Put It at Risk."

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Story of Stuff

Brian — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:01:25 GMT

http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

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What's your consumption factor?

Brian — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:25:06 GMT

New York Times
January 2, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
What’s Your Consumption Factor?
By JARED DIAMOND

Los Angeles

To mathematicians, 32 is an interesting number: it’s 2 raised to the fifth power, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2. To economists, 32 is even more special, because it measures the difference in lifestyles between the first world and the developing world. The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences.

To understand them, consider our concern with world population. Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people, and that number may grow to around 9 billion within this half-century. Several decades ago, many people considered rising population to be the main challenge facing humanity. Now we realize that it matters only insofar as people consume and produce.

If most of the world’s 6.5 billion people were in cold storage and not metabolizing or consuming, they would create no resource problem. What really matters is total world consumption, the sum of all local consumptions, which is the product of local population times the local per capita consumption rate.

The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.

The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that’s a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya’s more than 30 million people, but it’s not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.

People in the third world are aware of this difference in per capita consumption, although most of them couldn’t specify that it’s by a factor of 32. When they believe their chances of catching up to be hopeless, they sometimes get frustrated and angry, and some become terrorists, or tolerate or support terrorists. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it has become clear that the oceans that once protected the United States no longer do so. There will be more terrorist attacks against us and Europe, and perhaps against Japan and Australia, as long as that factorial difference of 32 in consumption rates persists.

People who consume little want to enjoy the high-consumption lifestyle. Governments of developing countries make an increase in living standards a primary goal of national policy. And tens of millions of people in the developing world seek the first-world lifestyle on their own, by emigrating, especially to the United States and Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Each such transfer of a person to a high-consumption country raises world consumption rates, even though most immigrants don’t succeed immediately in multiplying their consumption by 32.

Among the developing countries that are seeking to increase per capita consumption rates at home, China stands out. It has the world’s fastest growing economy, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese, four times the United States population. The world is already running out of resources, and it will do so even sooner if China achieves American-level consumption rates. Already, China is competing with us for oil and metals on world markets.

Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption — that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China’s) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.

We Americans may think of China’s growing consumption as a problem. But the Chinese are only reaching for the consumption rate we already have. To tell them not to try would be futile.

The only approach that China and other developing countries will accept is to aim to make consumption rates and living standards more equal around the world. But the world doesn’t have enough resources to allow for raising China’s consumption rates, let alone those of the rest of the world, to our levels. Does this mean we’re headed for disaster?

No, we could have a stable outcome in which all countries converge on consumption rates considerably below the current highest levels. Americans might object: there is no way we would sacrifice our living standards for the benefit of people in the rest of the world. Nevertheless, whether we get there willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable.

Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures.

Other aspects of our consumption are wasteful, too. Most of the world’s fisheries are still operated non-sustainably, and many have already collapsed or fallen to low yields — even though we know how to manage them in such a way as to preserve the environment and the fish supply. If we were to operate all fisheries sustainably, we could extract fish from the oceans at maximum historical rates and carry on indefinitely.

The same is true of forests: we already know how to log them sustainably, and if we did so worldwide, we could extract enough timber to meet the world’s wood and paper needs. Yet most forests are managed non-sustainably, with decreasing yields.

Just as it is certain that within most of our lifetimes we’ll be consuming less than we do now, it is also certain that per capita consumption rates in many developing countries will one day be more nearly equal to ours. These are desirable trends, not horrible prospects. In fact, we already know how to encourage the trends; the main thing lacking has been political will.

Fortunately, in the last year there have been encouraging signs. Australia held a recent election in which a large majority of voters reversed the head-in-the-sand political course their government had followed for a decade; the new government immediately supported the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Also in the last year, concern about climate change has increased greatly in the United States. Even in China, vigorous arguments about environmental policy are taking place, and public protests recently halted construction of a huge chemical plant near the center of Xiamen. Hence I am cautiously optimistic. The world has serious consumption problems, but we can solve them if we choose to do so.

Jared Diamond, a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the author of “Collapse” and “Guns, Germs and Steel.”

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James Hanson press conference today

gratephil — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:00:56 GMT

.....specifics on the big melt and forecast for the decade ahead later this AM. When is NASA going to apologize for dissing this voice?

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speaking extinction

dreaming — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:38:56 GMT

the last or first lunar cycle in S.F is strongest tide mover for S.F. area when you see the full moon this Jan 21st the low tide will be its lowest for the year which isnt as low as natural due to water levels rising that damn ice!!! point being at 4;28 like at the end of that 420 joint the tide is as low as it will probably will ever get again in the history of your or anyone elses life... so if your by the beach enjoy it cause it like so many other natural wonders are slipping away from us....7 I dont mean to be negative but I sure do notice my nature dissappearing like sand through my fingers the only thing I can do is watch slowly go b 4 me

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10% of Madagascar forest left

dreaming — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 03:42:39 GMT

& it didnt look like old wood by any means...

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United Nations GEO-4 Report

dreamlion — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:31:31 GMT

On October 26, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) issued its GEO-4 Report, the most exhaustive audit of the Earth's environment ever conducted (and successor to the landmark GEO-3 Report of 2002).

The GEO-4 Report calls itself "the final wake-up call to the international community," and it is as grim as can be imagined. The Report warns in stark terms that "humanity's very survival" is now seriously and immediately at risk from environmental devastation. One of its main conclusions is that "each person in the world now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the Earth can supply."

The GEO-4 Report has (not surprisingly) gotten almost no coverage in the U.S. media, but The Times (U.K.) and the International Herald Tribune (the international edition of the N.Y. Times) published articles about it when it was released. I've copied both of those articles below.

One important thing to keep in mind about the GEO-4 Report is that it concludes that climate change, on which so much attention has been focused recently, is only one of a *number* of equally serious ongoing environmental catastrophes-- including biodiversity loss-- that the United Nations has now officially warned threaten the very survival of the human species (and of much of the natural world).

Another important consideration is that major international reports like the GEO-4 or those of the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change)-- because they are consensus documents (every government in the world needs to approve the final text)-- are by their very nature the most conservative possible interpretation of the evidence. This means that statements like "humanity's very survival" is at risk and "final wake-up call" are likely *understating* the gravity of the situation.

The full 540 page GEO-4 Report can be found at http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media .

David Ulansey, Founder
Species Alliance
http://www.speciesalliance.org

"Humanity's very survival" is at risk, says UN

The Times (U.K.)
October 26, 2007

The speed at which mankind has used the Earth’s resources over the past 20 years has put “humanity’s very survival” at risk, a study involving 1,400 scientists has concluded.

The environmental audit, for the United Nations, found that each person in the world now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the Earth can supply.

Thirty per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are under threat of extinction, while one in ten of the world’s major rivers runs dry every year before it reaches the sea.

The bleak verdict on the environment was issued as an “urgent call for action” by the United Nations Environment Programme, which said that the “point of no return” was fast approaching.

The report was drafted and researched by almost 400 scientists, all experts in their fields, whose findings were subjected to review by another 1,000 of their peers.

Scientists conducting the review, 157 of whom were nominated by 48 governments, were split into groups of expertise for each of the ten chapters of the report. Other experts were selected from more than 50 research centres in 47 countries.

Marion Cheatle, of the programme, said that damage sustained to the environment was of fundamental economic concern, and if unchecked would affect growth. The report assessed the impact on the environment since 1987.

Climate change was identified as one of the most pressing problems but the condition of fresh water supplies, agricultural land and biodiversity were considered to be of equal concern.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2739926.ece

UN issues "final wake-up call" on population and environment

International Herald Tribune
October 25, 2007

PARIS: The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage on the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report issued Thursday by the United Nations.

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, the UN Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

"The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns," Achim Steiner, the executive director of the program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are "among the greatest challenges at the beginning of 21st century," he said.

The program described its report, which is prepared by 388 experts and scientists, as the broadest and deepest of those that the UN issues on the environment and called it "the final wake-up call to the international community."

Over the past two decades the world population has increased by almost 34 percent to 6.7 billion from 5 billion; similarly, the financial wealth of the planet has soared by about a third. But the land available to each person on earth had shrunk by 2005 to 2.02 hectares, or 5 acres, from 7.91 hectares in 1900 and was projected to drop to 1.63 hectares for each person by 2050, the report said.

The result of that population growth combined with unsustainable consumption has resulted in an increasingly stressed planet where natural disasters and environmental degradation endanger millions of humans, as well as plant and animal species, the report said.

Steiner said that demand for resources was close to 22 hectares per person, a figure that would have to be cut to between 15 and 16 hectares per person to stay within existing, sustainable limits.

Persistent problems identified by the report include a rapid rise of so-called dead zones, where marine life no longer can be supported because of depletion of oxygen caused by pollutants like fertilizers. Also included is the resurgence of diseases linked with environmental degradation.

The report is being published two decades after a commission headed by the former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland warned that the survival of humanity was at stake from unsustainable development.

Steiner said many of the problems identified by the Brundtland Commission were even more acute because not enough had been done to stop environmental degradation as flows of goods, services, people, technologies and workers had expanded, even to isolated populations.

He did, however, identify some reasons for hope that pointed toward better environmental stewardship.

He said West European governments had taken effective measures to reduce air pollutants, and he praised efforts in parts of Brazil to roll back deforestation in the Amazon. He said an international treaty to tackle the hole in the earth's ozone layer had led to the phasing-out of release of 95 percent of ozone-damaging chemicals.

Steiner said more intelligent management of scarce resources including fishing grounds, land and water was needed to sustain a still larger global population, which he said was expected to stabilize at between 8 billion and 10 billion people.

"Life would be easier if we didn't have the kind of population growth rates that we have at the moment," Steiner said. "But to force people to stop having children would be a simplistic answer. The more realistic, ethical and practical issue is to accelerate human well-being and make more rational use of the resources we have on this planet."

Steiner said environmental tipping points, at which degradation can lead to abrupt, accelerating or potentially irreversible changes, would increasingly occur in locations like particular rivers or forests, where populations would lack the ability to repair damage because the gravity of a problem would be far beyond their physical or economic means.

Looking ahead, Steiner said parts of Africa could reach environmental tipping points if changing rainfall patterns stemming from climate change turned semi-arid zones into arid zones, and made agriculture that sustained millions of people much harder.

Steiner said other tipping points triggered by climate change could occur in areas like India and China if Himalayan glaciers shrank so much that they no longer supplied adequate amounts of water to populations in those countries.

He also warned of a global collapse of all species being fished by 2050, if fishing around the world continued at its present pace.

The report said 250 percent more fish are being caught than the oceans can produce in a sustainable manner, and that the number of fish stocks classed as collapsed had roughly doubled to 30 percent globally over the past 20 years.

The report said that current changes in biodiversity were the fastest in human history, with species becoming extinct a hundred times as fast as the rate in the fossil record. It said 12 percent of birds were threatened with extinction; for mammals the figure was 23 percent and for amphibians it was more than 30 percent.

"Scientists now refer to a sixth major extinction crisis that's under way," Steiner said.

The first mass extinction, about 440 million years ago, and the four succeeding extinctions were the result of physical shocks to the planet like volcanic eruptions and plate tectonic shifts.

The report said that annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels have risen by about one-third since 1987 and that the threat from climate change now was so urgent that only very large cuts in greenhouse gases of 60 to 80 percent could stop irreversible change.

The effects of global warming, like the melting ice in the Arctic are "accelerating at a pace that goes beyond the scenarios and models we've been using," Steiner said.

Climate change, however, was an issue that gained huge momentum over the past year, with governments, industries and citizens increasingly seeking solutions to the problem, Steiner said. The recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and to former Vice President Al Gore was a sign of widespread scientific consensus that climate change is under way, he said.

Steiner called for an accelerated effort on a far wider range of environmental issues to build the same sense of urgency as shown on climate change over the past year to address the worsening situations of biodiversity, land degradation, fisheries and freshwater.

Many biologists and climate scientists have concluded that human activities have become a dominant influence on the planet's climate and ecosystems. But there is still a range of views on whether this could result in a catastrophic unraveling of natural resources as the human population heads toward nine billion by midcentury, or more of a steady diminution in diversity.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/25/europe/environ.php?page=1

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Al Gores Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speach

Brian — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:52:13 GMT

SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE
OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
DECEMBER 10, 2007
OSLO, NORWAY

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.

I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.

Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.

Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.

Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.

Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”

The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.

We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.

Seven years from now.

In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.

We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.

Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.

But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless -- which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.

Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."

More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a "nuclear winter." Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.

Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.

No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.

Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”

In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.

Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.

We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”

That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.

This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”

In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.

My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.

Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.

We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.

Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.

This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.

Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:

The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.

That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”

We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 1 reply

does any one have documentations?

dreaming — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:35:05 GMT

I've heard a rumor confirmed over 4 times now about a gigantic "Texas sized" garbage deposit in the Pacifics center just kinda floating any one else? pictures?

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 2 replies

"THE BIOSPHERE IS DOOMED"

bearsky — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:50:36 GMT

Under the influence of mushrooms a being identifiying itself thus: "I am a New Creature/I am here to save the biosphere" went on to give a warning: "If you connect the mind of man to the mind of a machine before connecting the mind of man to the mind of a plant, the biosphere is doomed." I believe that what you could call the Gaian Mind of our planet is reaching out in alarm with this warning and that it is literal and real. It is refering to the fact that we humans are on the verge of creating a new consciousness by means of the cybernetic enhancement of our mind by means of an intelligent computer. This is imminent not 50 or 100 years away and this will not be merely ninety percent of all life on the planet as in other catastrophic extinctions, it will be all DNA - the entire biosphere. This New Creature always spoke literally and I think this means that It is advising that we connect our minds cybernetially to the plant mind instead of the machine mind - by machine It means computer. If you are in this field, or have the ear of someone in this field, please pass this on - pass if on as a joke but pass it on. I think this type of breakthrough is only about five years away and our position on the planet is already tenuous. We humans do not even remotely understand our own mind yet and we have no business creating a new consciousness.

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 1 reply

No optimism with The Machine

bearsky — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:20:13 GMT

THE MACHINE

What is The Machine? It is a construct of our collective human consciousness. Even though It is a part of each of us, as we are of each other, The Machine is autonomous. One of the primary manifestations of The Machine we call The Free Market Economy. The Machine is the collective embodiment of our human greed and fear, our collective psychosis, and just as violent as psychotics can be! Think of it as a dissociative aspect of our collective human ego. The most important fact to know about The Machine is: It is an extrapolation of some natural biological mechanism providing for suicide of mutant, individual cells; a collective suicide Machine designed by our sociology from our biology and operating at a new, macro level via our human social system and our unique human consciousness, society, defined by technology and learning. The Machine has only one purpose and that is to destroy humanity. Right now The Machine has been building momentum for a long time and as it ravages us throughout the world as I write, The Machine has only one mind and one thing on Its mind and that is simply to destroy us all. Why? Because The Machine somehow – like the mutant individual cell – knows at a global level that we are basically an errant, dangerous mutation and must be stopped.
If It could, The Machine would simply pull the trigger on us all. Since It is disembodied, It cannot and so must take us out by an intelligent, seductive persuasion of our basest instincts. This mass suicide of our species may in Its throes wreck havoc upon much if not all of the earth, consistent with lack of consideration so often shown by suicides. In fact, this is already happening. Even if humans were magically beamed out by Scotty up on the Enterprise in-masse this very instant, the species extinction that we have produced by our exploitive and short sighted practices would continue on destroying this planet without us for decades into the future. I think this one fact alone if kept in mind when considering that in reality we are over 6 billion strong and growing exponentially on this earth with no Scotty in sight, should really help put things in perspective. Our perspective is just all fucked up. Part of what this means is that The Machine does not even need us because It rampages alone, destroying purely to destroy with no reason or menace or even awareness – on the one hand, It is the opposite of us, a mindless destroyer. On the other hand, It is the same as us, a mindless destroyer. I am tempted to assert morality into this and say that we should never have let evil get out of control like this. I doubt that is really very helpful. We will fail because we as a species failed to fit into our place here on this planet. Our destiny was to become the protective and guiding Over mind of the planet but instead we chose to because frightened, blusterous exploiters of the world that we are – we failed, made a big mistake, blew it.
Here is another very important aspect of The Machine. It is not human. It is not subject to human feelings, certainly not to dreams and hopes. So It is not subject to what we would consider normal, human appeals – say, such as we may dare to request even of a despotic human leader. It has no relationship to us – when we cut ourselves off from nature, The Machine cut Itself off from us. That is when it was born. That is how ancient a monster this Machine really is. And it is a monster such that we can say full and well that “we have created a monster”. With technology, agriculture, language we hunter gather bands of humans really exploded – populations exploding overnight and dependant upon local resources for survival forming enormous “hive” like city state structures with suddenly 10,000 closely cohabitating individuals working collectively on a multitude of highly coordinated tasks, with divisions of labor and a hierarchical social structure of familial fascist control. Failure of this kind of city state “tribe” involved not just a few dozen lives but many thousands of lives.
Yes, the Machine is Fascist. Everywhere you find The Machine, you find fascism. The Shakespearean tragedy of our human natures, our greatest weakness as a species, is the deal we made to facilitate that explosion caused by technology. The dirty little secret of how we humans act in the big city; a biologically rooted system of fascist social control. We human animals are designed to act for the good of all, or the dearth of all. So is a bee. What we have is our big old frontal lobe to add into the equation, really mixing things up! We were destined to be fascists. That innate desire to maintain the status quo exactly relative to how precious the status quo is to us as individuals, is part of our bee-like social system allowing us to function in such numbers and with such complexity. The idea that there is a self regulating system in our species for inducing individuals to undertake behavior good for the group is key. Our social structure – including language and even technology – comes from our biology, not the other way around. How do you suddenly shift the behavioral system of a species in such a way that small tribes of 50 to no more than 150 individuals of hunter gathers can function socially within agrarian city states numbering in the tens of thousands of individuals. The question is mind boggling and seems impossible when looked at in this manner. Fascism seems to be mechanism we humans employ to accomplish this momentous feat. I would suggest that our familial tribal structure and our hierarchical status seeking behavior as well as this inclination to self regulating status quo maintenance are the major underlying reasons behind the fact that fascism flowered with our numbers.
So most of us being Followers are going to tend to “go with the flow”, as it were. What that “flow” means is defined by the relative minority of dominant members in our society. How “they” become dominant is flexible – like the many different types of languages but what is not flexible is our unique, animal social structure, corresponding to human grammar, which is hard wired. Who becomes dominant does seem to often involve familial connections – even in the 21st century we speak here in America of the “Bush Dynasty”, and it is hardly a joke, reflecting a much deeper reality than we generally acknowledge. What I am saying is that The Machine was created from all that is human but that It has transcended all that is human. The Machine has taken the helm of this Ship of Fools from what would be our natural Alpha leadership and It careens out of control. I do not think now that any level of cooperative effort could stop this Machine because it has crossed some unthinkable threshold and exists now beyond the confides of our humanity and possibly even this mighty planet. No leader will arise to challenge The Machine. No Nation State or alliance of Nation States will arise to challenge The Machine. No corporate entity whatsoever could possible challenge this Machine.
It is our innate tendency toward fascism that is perhaps the unfortunate key to it all. Those unethical studies from the fifties that appalled us all by showing how cruel we could be given fairly innocuous circumstances, such as a man in white coat insisting that we “shock someone”. Maybe we drew the wrong lesson from that. We definitely drew back from it in horror of ourselves, evidently some aspect of our humanity preferring to think of us as more democratic and compassionate than perhaps we really are? The reason that we reacted the way that we did is that we are fascist literally down to the bone. Of course we shocked innocent people simply because an authority figure told us to do it. This is how exactly we got here today. If we had said, “no, absolutely not!” when the man in the white coat told us to shock another innocent human, those early city states would have either never formed in the first place or collapsed in chaos. Our social system in this regard is exactly like a conduit for energy, in this case a conduit between we humans and our new found technology. Without this fascist social system, our whole 10,000 years of civilization would have simply fizzled. Who the authority figure is, is flexible; that there is an authority figure is not flexible but a key aspect of our animal social structure. What is also key is our hard wired social obedience to our collectively chosen status quo. It is just our nature to listen to the man in the white coat, whoever that man may be!
Like Boy Dylan said: The Masters make the rules for the wise men and fools.

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Greenland's Life Span Shorter Than Previously Believed

Arion — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:48:07 GMT

Good report here on the shorter lifespan of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=3508197&page=1

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

"The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

Chopper22 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:47:02 GMT

"The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

"In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.

In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; what of our everyday stuff may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe."

http://www.worldwithoutus.com

;

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 0 replies

Climate Changing 3X Faster than Worse Predictions

Brian — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:01:38 GMT

Here is an article from the U.K. Independent about the National Academy of Sciences study that CO2 emissions are accelerating 3X faster than scientists feared. The full NAS study can be found at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0700609104v1

Global warming "is three times faster than worst predictions"

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

U.K. Independent

June 3, 2007

Global warming is accelerating three times more quickly than feared, a series of startling, authoritative studies has revealed.

They have found that emissions of carbon dioxide have been rising at thrice the rate in the 1990s. The Arctic ice cap is melting three times as fast - and the seas are rising twice as rapidly - as had been predicted.

News of the studies - which are bound to lead to calls for even tougher anti-pollution measures than have yet been contemplated - comes as the leaders of the world's most powerful nations prepare for the most crucial meeting yet on tackling climate change.

The issue will be top of the agenda of the G8 summit which opens in the German Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on Wednesday, placing unprecedented pressure on President George Bush finally to agree to international measures.

Tony Blair flies to Berlin today to prepare for the summit with its host, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. They will discuss how to tackle President Bush, who last week called for action to deal with climate change, which his critics suggested was instead a way of delaying international agreements.

Yesterday, there were violent clashes in the city harbour of Rostock between police and demonstrators, during a largely peaceful march of tens of thousands of people protesting against the summit.

The study, published by the US National Academy of Sciences, shows that carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing by about 3 per cent a year during this decade, compared with 1.1 per cent a year in the 1990s.

The significance is that this is much faster than even the highest scenario outlined in this year's massive reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - and suggests that their dire forecasts of devastating harvests, dwindling water supplies, melting ice and loss of species are likely to be understating the threat facing the world.

The study found that nearly three-quarters of the growth in emissions came from developing countries, with a particularly rapid rise in China. The country, however, will resist being blamed for the problem, pointing out that its people on average still contribute only about a sixth of the carbon dioxide emitted by each American. And, the study shows, developed countries, with less than a sixth of the world's people, still contribute more than two-thirds of total emissions of the greenhouse gas.

On the ground, a study by the University of California's National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that Arctic ice has declined by 7.8 per cent a decade over the past 50 years, compared with an average estimate by IPCC computer models of 2.5 per cent.

In yesterday's clashes, masked protesters hurled flagpoles, stones and bottles and attacked with sticks forcing police to retreat. The police said they were suffering "massive assaults" and that the situation was "very chaotic". They put the size of the demonstration at 25,000; organisers said it was 80,000.

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2609305.ece

posted in 6th MASS EXTINCTION - 6 replies