Greg Harman writes:
Message of Mérida: Saving Wild Places Will Save the Planet
Connectivity is a message reverberating in multiple work sessions as the week-long 9th World Wilderness Congress in Mérida [Mexico] comes to a close.
Conservation biologists have long understood that preserves and parks surrounded by developed land are essentially biological islands and so are more prone to species extinction and vulnerable to the invasion of destructive non-native species.
By contrast, a chain of protected areas spanning the length of India and Nepal’s boundary has already seen degraded lands reduced by about 4,400 acres after just a few years, and tigers are returning, said Ghana Gurung, conservation program director at World Wildlife Fund – Nepal.
A similar bi-national Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative habitat protection plan is gaining preliminary support from a range of private interests and nonprofits.
[... ]
"Yellowstone will not make it through time unless it is connected, or reconnected," said Harvey Locke, a Canadian conservationist, WILD9 committee member, and one of the visionaries behind the proposal to expand protected lands between Yellowstone National Park and Canada’s Yukon Territory.
[...]
As the most intact mountain ecosystem remaining on Earth, the 2,000 mile (3,200 km) long Yellowstone to Yukon region offers the kind of vast and resilient landscape that species and processes will need to survive the coming climate changes, Locke says.
Encompassing 463,000 square miles (1.2 million square kilometers) and spanning 15 degrees of latitude, Locke believes the region is uniquely situated to serve as a refuge for biodiversity in western North America.
The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative is working on a Climate Change Readiness Program to support the region's globally significant biodiversity, and serve as a world-class model for other initiatives operating at a large landscape scale. Phase I of this Program is scheduled for completion by the end of 2009. |
• • • • • • •
Green Diary Rescues appear on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The diary rescue begins below and continues in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.
• • • • • • •
MinistryOfTruth reported on the Gutting of climate change reform: "In a move that stripped the numbers out of the reform, only leaving a generic, reformishy framework for change in place. Unsurprisingly, while major polluters that compromise a large part of global trade will be allowed to play by softer rules, smaller, less wealthy nations who create less pollution like South American countries will have to face stricter restrictions, but even those will be watered down to allow for ‘economic growth.’ So, in the name of continued ‘economic growth,’ the growth of atmospheric CO2 and other man made pollutants will be allowed to continue. Meanwhile, the ice caps continue to melt, sea levels will continue to rise ... How sad, that in order for economies to slowly grow, the planet must slowly die."
A pair of diarists took on a subject in the news last week.
pollwatcher wrote about Peak Cheap Oil and Global Warming: "As best I can tell, the term "Peak Cheap Oil" was coined by Eric Janszen at iTulip.com. Here is an in depth commentary on where we stand currently in this looming crises. To summarize the Peak Cheap Oil problem:We are now approaching, or may have already reached, the point where Oil production has plateaued and will soon start to decrease. Ask yourself, how can oil be at historically high prices of $75+/brl in the midst of what is an economic depression? Oil is the life blood of our economy, we are the biggest users of oil, and the world is running out."
Climate change not enough was goffchris is take: "As we approach the likely trainwreck that is referred to as Copenhagen, it is worth pointing out that most of the key players are missing half of the picture. In my previous diary, I stated that world leaders are missing the point, and that they lack understanding of the gravity of the climate change crisis. Some commented that they really do know, but don't want to start a panic or encourage a descent into a nihilistic death spiral. That may be true, but comments by G20 world leaders suggest otherwise. Though some of them seem concerned about climate change, and vocalize support for strong measures to mitigate its effects, it seems clear that they are missing the complicating factor that changes everything: Peak Oil."
Among the stories in Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse latest Eco News Roundup was how Texas Coal Rush Chokes Obama's Climate Change Plan: "Texas, the top U.S. producer of wind power, now plans to become the "Coal Star State" with 12 new coal-fired power plants. While the nation and the world are working to move from fossil fuel to alternative energies, Texas is pushing new coal-fired power plants. Coal's comeback in Texas comes as the rest of the United States moves in the opposite direction. At least 107 proposed coal plants have been scrapped nationwide since 2002. Recently, high-profile battles in Idaho, Georgia, Kansas, Iowa and Nevada doomed proposed coal-fired plants."
RLMiller discussed The Value of a Mangrove Swamp: Climate Costs & Benefits: "Seven million dollars, if you don't want to read any further. A mangrove swamp doesn't seem to have any value at all: in coastal areas, mangroves are low-growing trees with long, tangled roots that thrive in water instead of in soil. They blanket shallow brackish waters in the tropics, and they're the first thing to be cleared for shrimp farming. Shrimp farming provides profit, while mangroves aren't good for much beyond wood gathering, right? A new United Nations report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, quantifies the benefits of ecosystems. They're staggering."
F*ck National Recycling Day.
A Siegel wrote another in his long-running series, Energy COOL, Portable Schooling Gone Green: "When determining how to prioritize action using, by definition, limited resources, one criteria should be whether something is 'win-win-win,’ offering benefits across multiple arenas for the same investment dollars. If one of those wins is 'paying for itself,’ then the prioritization should go even higher. With this conception, greening schools should be a true national priority as it is a path to improve educational performance, reduce fossil-fuel energy use, improve health (of students and communities), and provide other benefits even while saving money."
shpilk asked Why isn't this bigger news?: "This graph represents the 15% level of ice present in the Arctic, over time by month of the year, and superimposed data points from previous years are as indicated. What the red arrows point out is the we have hit a new record low for this period of time, in mid November for the accumulation of ice that reforms as winter tightens it's grip on the Arctic. Weather fronts and conditions [apparently] have forced enough warm air into the polar regions to delay the freezing that would normally be expected during this period of time."
In Top Comments, emeraldmaiden considered her surroundings in Desert ForageLately I've been thinking about foraging for food. Now, I live in the Sonoran Desert, so it's not like when I was back in Pennsylvania. In PA, I wandered all over, picking berries (raspberries, mmmm) and finding other wild things to sample. Here, it's a little different. Plants are more protective of their fruit in more overt ways. Cholla, for instance, is very spiny, and the spines have barbs which make removal difficult and painful."
atmplant suggested TARP for National Parks!: "The other three things, maintaining , enlarging, and protecting are also good for the economy. We need to hire more Park Rangers to maintain the parks we have. Put some people to work, sounds good to me. And if we make them bigger, then we will need to hire more people to do that. Surveyors to start with, and I'm sure a lot more. And once they are bigger, we can hire more rangers. Then to protect them we need, more rangers."
No doubt sparking another cry of Daily Kos commies from wingnut blogs, lineatus reprised her trip to the forbidden island in Dawn Chorus Birdblog: Cuba: "In 2003, I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba with a group of ornithologists and other bird researchers. It was an officially licensed trip, with all of the necessary permits from appropriate agencies – when I re-entered the US, I could declare my destination to customs freely (and I did). Things being what they are these days though, I won’t mention the others on the trip by name. ... In 2003, I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba with a group of ornithologists and other bird researchers. It was an officially licensed trip, with all of the necessary permits from appropriate agencies – when I re-entered the US, I could declare my destination to customs freely (and I did). Things being what they are these days though, I won’t mention the others on the trip by name."
xxdr zombiexx took on Golf Pollution: The Green ain't that green: "En route to looking for something else I came across this story about Loch Ness monster researchers (yes, please hear me out) who have not found the famous monster, but HAVE found over 100000 golf balls at the bottom of the Loch. ...OK, I thought. It's Scotland, people love golf. I know absolutely nothing about this arcane pasttime but learned something today: The discovery illustrates an alarming report released from the Danish Golf Union showing that golf balls may take between 100 and 1,000 years to decompose in the wild. And decomposition is not a clean process. As the balls break down, they release toxins and heavy metals into the environment. The study shows that zinc, in particular, has the potential to cause problems because it attaches itself to sediments and poisons surrounding plants and animals."
Muskegon Critic gave us the skinny on The Fragile Climate of Fruit-Growing Perfection: "This little pocket of fruit growing perfection. A major supplier of the fruits that reach America's pies, pastries, jams, sauces, and tables. It's been cultivated for over a century, orchards passed through generations. Part of a larger fruit belt spanning the shores of Lake Michigan that has given rise to vinyards and wines...though I admit a weakness for cherry wine. Vineyards, wineries, fruit and agriculture...these have been some of the few expanding and thriving industries in the crumbling Michigan economy. And they're hanging by a fragile climatological thread. Thoroughly dependent on the oddity of placement and ideal climate."
epjmcginley spent some time thinking of food: "I have struggled a lot with the ethics of food, and eating. The formulas become very complicated at times. It is not an easy thing by any means to determine what it is we should eat, that is until we are hungry, and then it is exquisitely easy. The hungrier we get, the less important it is where an item was raised, or what the ingredients in the soup might be. So then, it is only a matter of time and deprivation before almost anything becomes sufficiently edible."
wide eyed lib went technical on us in Free Food: Foraging by Genus: "Scientific classifications of plants may seem confusing, but they're very useful. The groups (species, genus, family, etc.) are designed to reflect an evolutionary truth. All species within a genus descend from a common ancestor, as do all genera within a family. It's easy to use this information to your advantage. (The photo shows Rosehip (l) and Crab Apple (r), both family Rosaceae.) Walking in a park, I saw a tall bush that looked like staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina), except that the leaflets of its compound leaves were so finely divided they resembled ferns. After looking for other traits, I knew I'd found a Rhus species. As long as it developed upright, reddish clusters of berries, it would make delicious sumac-ade. And it did! Foraging by genus will expand the range of plants that you can collect as long as you keep in mind which genera have no poisonous species."
Other green diaries included:
A review of Mark Dowie’s Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples by Captain Future
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 5.39 by Frankenoid.
Maintaining the Status quo by Unenergy.