From gbarry@forests.org Sun May 2 16:13:55 2004
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 09:00:52 -0600
From: Forests.org
To: cestvr@ces.iisc.ac.in
Subject: FORESTS: Earth Crisis: Ocean Dead Zones and Soaring Climate Change
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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Earth Crisis: Ocean Dead Zones and Soaring Climate Change
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal
http://www.EnvironmentalSustainability.info/ -- Eco-Portal
http://www.ClimateArk.org/ -- Climate Change Portal
http://www.WaterConserve.info/ -- Water Conservation Portal
March 30, 2004
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Glen Barry, Forests.org
New reports indicate large portions of the ocean have become
"dead zones" that are devoid of life; and that atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels have abruptly surged. This comes fast
upon findings that the Amazon's composition is changing due to
climate change, that the Australian Great Barrier Reef is dying,
that the World Bank is funding industrial logging of the
Congolese rainforest (http://forests.org/action/africa/) and
numerous other indicators that unconstrained industry,
individual over-consumption, and government intransigence are
pushing the Earth towards ecological and social collapse.
It remains an unanswered question whether democratic capitalism
can address spiraling collapse of key global ecosystems, or feed
the world's one billion chronically hungry. Global leaders are
failing dramatically to provide the leadership necessary to
address the myriad of interconnected issues that threaten the
Earth and all its inhabitants. Survival of the Earth may well
depend upon a peaceful Earth Revolution that overthrows the
whole stinking, inequitable, unjust and unsustainable political
and social order.
The sky is falling! What could threaten global security and
prosperity more than dead oceans and forests, soaring and
unpredictable temperatures, lack of potable water and billions
of desperately poor people encircling a few bastions of
ethically depauperate and militarized over-consumers?
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM #1
Title: 'Dead zones' in world's oceans are growing, say alarmed
UN scientists
Source: Copyright 2004, Independent (UK)
Date: March 30, 2004
Byline: Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
It is as sinister a development as any in the list of things
going wrong with the planet. Marine "dead zones" - oxygen-
starved areas of the oceans that are devoid of fish - are one of
the greatest environmental problems facing the world, UN
scientists warned yesterday.
There are nearly 150 dead zones across the globe, they are
increasing, and they pose as big a threat to fish stocks as
over-fishing, the United Nations Environment Program (Unep) said
in its Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2003, released at a
meeting of environment ministers in Korea.
These lifeless areas of the sea are caused by an excess of
nutrients, mainly nitrogen, that originate from heavy use of
agricultural fertilizers, from vehicle and factory emissions and
from human wastes.
They have doubled in number over the last decade, with some
extending over 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles),
about the size of Ireland, Unep said.
Dead zones have long afflicted the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake
Bay off the East Coast of America but they are now spreading to
other bodies of water, such as the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea,
the Adriatic, the Gulf of Thailand and the Yellow Sea as other
regions develop, Unep said. They are also appearing off South
America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The nutrient run-off from farm fertilisers, sewage and
industrial pollutants triggers blooms of microscopic algae known
as phytoplankton. As the algae die and rot, they consume oxygen,
suffocating all marine life.
"Humankind is engaged in a gigantic, global experiment as a
result of inefficient and often overuse of fertilisers, the
discharge of untreated sewage and the ever-rising emissions from
vehicles and factories," said Klaus Toepfer, Unep's executive
director.
"The nitrogen and phosphorous from these sources are being
discharged into rivers and the coastal environment or being
deposited from the atmosphere, triggering these alarming and
sometimes irreversible effects. Unless urgent action is taken to
tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate
rapidly."
Dead zones are especially dangerous to fisheries because they
afflict coastal waters where many fish spawn and spend most of
their lives before moving to deeper water, said Marion Cheatle,
Unep's senior environmental affairs officer. "It hasn't been
something well known by policy-makers," Ms Cheatle said. "But
it's been getting noticeably worse."
The economic costs associated with dead zones is unknown, but
predicted to be significant on a global scale. Unep is urging
nations to co-operate in reducing the amount of nitrogen
discharged into their coastal waters, by cutting back on
fertiliser use or by planting more forests and grasslands
along feeder rivers to soak up the excess nitrogen.
ITEM #2
Title: Carbon dioxide levels blow sky high
Global Warming Accelerating Out of Control?
Source: Copyright 2004, Independent (UK)
Date: March 30, 2004
Byline: Geoffrey Lean
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have jumped abruptly,
raising fears that global warming may be accelerating out of
control.
Measurements by US government scientists show that
concentrations of the gas, the main cause of the climate
exchange, rose by a record amount over the past 12 months. It is
the third successive year in which they have increased sharply,
marking an unprecedented triennial surge.
Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken
place, but fear that it could show the first signs that global
warming is feeding on itself, with rising temperatures causing
increases in carbon dioxide, which then go on to drive the
thermometer even higher. That would be a deeply alarming
development, suggesting that this self-reinforcing heating
could spiral upwards beyond the reach of any attempts to combat
it.
The development comes as official figures show that Britain's
emissions of the gas soared by three per cent last year, twice
as fast as the year before. The increase - caused by rising
energy use and by burning less gas and more coal in power
stations - jeopardizes the Government's target of reducing
emissions by 19 per cent by 2010.
It also coincides with a new bid to break the log jam over the
Kyoto treaty headed by Stephen Byers, the former transport
secretary, who remains close to Tony Blair.
Mr Byers is co-chairing with US Republican Senator Olympia Snowe
a new taskforce, run by the Institute of Public Policy Research
and US and Australian think tanks, which is charged with
devising proposals that could resolve the stalemate caused by
President Bush's hostility to the treaty.
The carbon dioxide measurements have been taken from the
11,400ft summit of Hawaii's Mauna Loa, whose enormous dome makes
it the most substantial mountain on earth, by scientists working
for the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
They have been taking the readings from the peak - effectively
breathalyzing the planet - for the past 46 years. It is an ideal
site for the exercise, 2,000 miles from the nearest land and
protected by freak climatic conditions from pollution from
Hawaii, more than two miles below.
The latest measurements, taken a week ago, showed that carbon
dioxide had reached about 379 parts per million (ppm), up from
about 376ppm the year before, from 373ppm in 2002 and about
371ppm in 2001. These represent three of the four biggest
increases on record (the other was in 1998), creating an
unprecedented sequence. They add up to a 64 per cent rise over
the average rate of growth over the past decade, of 1.8ppm a
year.
The US scientists have yet to analyze the figures and stress
that they could be just a remarkable blip. Professor Ralph
Keeling - whose father Charles Keeling first set up the
measurements from Mauna Loa - said: "We are moving into a
warmer world".
ITEM #3
Title: Rich Nations Gobbling Resources at an Unsustainable Rate
Source: Copyright 2004, Environment News Service
Date: March 30, 2004
OAKLAND, California, March 30, 2004 (ENS) ^Ö Excessive
consumption by the world^Òs richest nations is making life even
more difficult for the world^Òs least fortunate, according to a
new report by Redefining Progress. The U.S. based research group
says the wealthiest nations are depleting global resources at an
unprecedented rate ^Ö with the United States leading the way ^Ö
and are mortgaging the future at the expense of today^Òs
children, the poor and the long term health of the planet.
The 2004 Footprint of Nations analyzes the ecological impact of
more than 130 countries, demonstrating to what extent a nation
can support its resource consumption with its available
ecological capacity.
Redefining Progress's prior reports have focused on the dangers
of overusing our natural resources and the effect on future
generations. For the first time, this year's report documents
the current impact of overconsumption on the world's most
vulnerable populations.
"This measure speaks for those with the least power in today's
world: children, the poor, the environment, and future
generations," said Michel Gelobter, executive director of
Redefining Progress. "These are groups with little or no voice
in the political system or the economy, but whose resources are
being compromised. When we ignore their plight, we undermine our
collective future."
The report uses ecological footprint accounts to provide a
measurable estimate of humanity^Òs pressure on global ecosystems
^Ö to determine an ecological footprint, the organization
measures the biologically productive area required to produce
the food and wood people consume, to supply space for
infrastructure, and to absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
emitted from burning fossil fuels.
The accounts are composed of six factors: energy use, grazing
land, pastureland, fisheries, built land and forests.
Redefining Progress expresses ecological footprint in terms of
global acres, with each global acre corresponding to one acre of
biologically productive space with world average productivity.
Previous reports found that consumption exceeds the Earth^Òs
biological capacity by some 15 to 20 percent ^Ö the 2004 update
^Óindicates that the situation has remained fundamentally
unchanged except for one notable exception in the case of the
United States.^Ô
^ÓIn 2000, the United States became the country with the largest
per capita ecological footprint on the planet,^Ô according to the
report. The U.S. footprint is 23.7 acres per capita ^Ö a
sustainable footprint would be 4.6 acres.
The organization measures the global ecological footprint at 5.6
global acres per capita.
The United Arab Emirates ranks second with 22.2 acres per capita
and Canada third with 21.1 acres.
Developing countries such as Bangladesh and Mozambique represent
the other end of the scale ^Ö these nations have footprints of
1.3 acres per capita.
On a per capita basis the average footprint has declined by 1.2
acres over the past 20 years ^Ö largely because many areas of
production have become more efficient - but this decrease is
offset by population growth.
Even a developing nation with a small per capita footprint can
have a very large overall footprint when its population grows
rapidly.
These problems are compounded as wealthy nations continue to
grow their economies by exploiting the resources and economic
potential of their impoverished neighbors, the report finds.
Unsustainable consumption and population play a big part in the
size of a nation's footprint - much of an industrialized
nation's ecological impact is due to the use of fossil fuels.
The report details that shifting to renewable energy can
dramatically lessen a country's footprint.
Sustainable modes of production and consumption and attention to
social equity can help decrease national footprints and improve
quality of life around the world, according to the public policy
organization.
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