Green Earth Africa

Image courtesy of NRDC 

When it comes to global warming, humans have certainly felt the effects, and this year more than ever.  With one weather disaster after another hammering the globe (there were a dozen in the U.S. alone that topped the billion-dollar mark for damages), there’s no denying that the natural course of the climate has been altered due to the many greenhouse gas emissions we spew into the air courtesy of industry and transport.  And the results of our pollution are not only affecting us, but also the many species of wildlife that call this planet home.  The question is: how is our negligent attitude towards the protection of the environment affecting wild animals?

1. The warming trend.  Warmer temperatures are only one part of the extreme weather conditions that global warming is responsible for, but they are a biggie.  In the Arctic Circle, melting polar ice caps have taken away the hunting grounds that support polar bears as well as the cool waters that salmon depend on for breeding.  Eventually, this could spell disaster for both species.  And in the deserts of the world, nomadic animals like elephants that have trekked the same migratory paths for centuries are finding watering holes dried up thanks to higher temperatures and drought conditions.
2. The cooling trend.  Although climates near the equator are more likely to suffer from extreme heat, their neighbors to the far north and south are struggling with longer, colder winters that see animal populations dwindling.  Thanks to plummeting temperatures and a surge in winter storms, many animals that can’t find adequate shelter are freezing while others starve due to winters that seem to last longer.
3. Storms.  Human have suffered not only monetary damages in the last year, but also a fairly high death toll thanks to extreme storms like tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and fires (brought on by drought).  Animals, too, have suffered.  Many have lost their habitat, which means they have had to wander closer and closer to the dangers of human civilization in search of basic sustenance, breeding grounds, and a place to raise their young.
4. Ocean acidification.  This is a side effect of greenhouse gas pollution that few people have heard about, and although it isn’t directly linked to global warming, it is related to the same pollutants that cause climate change.  When hydrocarbons are absorbed by the waters of the ocean, it causes the pH levels to drop, which affects bottom feeders like lobster, shrimp, and clams (not to mention corals).  It renders them unable to form the hard outer shells (or exoskeletons) that they rely on for survival.  The result is that these populations will begin to die out, followed by a chain reaction (up the food chain) that could deplete marine life across the globe.
5. Overall.  If you thought mining operations, mountaintop removal, and crop dusting were detrimental to surrounding ecosystems, multiply that damage by a thousand (and you still won’t come close to the destruction that continues to be wrought by global warming).  Not only are animals all over the world finding themselves short of food and water, the situation is also upsetting migratory patterns and breeding cycles, which mean some species could be heading rapidly towards extinction.

Log burning and diesel vehicles two of the biggest culprits in developed world in generating pollution causing black carbon

Burning logs in fireplace releases black carbon in the air, which, in large quanitities causes short term climate change. Photograph: Andrew Holt/Alamy

The FAO report said the Asia-Pacific region, in recent years, had halted the deforestation trend

Involving local groups has been a key factor in halting the loss of forest cover in the Asia-Pacific region, a UN study has concluded.

The report found that low-cost projects offered communities an incentive to protect the habitats in return for job opportunities and income sources.

Such schemes also enhanced ecosystems, restored biodiversity and increase carbon storage, the authors added.

The results were published at the start of theUN Asia-Pacific Forestry Week.

Despite the threats from illegal deforestation, forest fires and climate change, the Forest Beneath the Grass report – produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – said the region had “not only stopped the drastic decline in forest cover of the 1990s”, but had actually increased tree cover over the past decade.

“The Asia-Pacific region has accomplished this feat of reversing the trend of forest loss faster than any other region in history,” said Eduardo Rojas, assistant director-general of the FAO’s Forestry Department.

Helping hand

The report credited “assisted natural regeneration” (ANR) projects as one of the key factors in turning the net loss of tree cover into an annual net gain.

ANR is a forest restoration and rehabilitation technique that converts grass dominated areas into productive forests, based on the natural process of plant succession, encouraging the regeneration and growth of indigenous tree species.

One of the most invasive grass species is Imperata cyclindrica, also known as blady grass. Native to the region, it thrives on disturbed soil – such as roadsides and felled forests. Once established, it quickly forms a monoculture and suppresses other species from becoming established.

As opposed to more resource-intensive programmes, such as agro-forestry schemes or large-scale plantation projects, the authors highlighted how ANR schemes were relatively passive and cheap, allowing local communities to become actively involved.

They added that while the vast grasslands provided grazing sites for cattle and roofing material, there were relatively few other benefits when the potential productivity of the area was taken into account.

The scheme follows a number of stages, including:

• site selection,
• modifications to encourage growth of preferred species,
• possible supplementary planting,
• site protection and monitoring.

“The success of ANR is dependent on the effective involvement of local residents in its implementation,” explained FAO senior forestry officer Patrick Durst, who presented the report’s findings at a news conference in Beijing.

“It is important that local communities are given incentives and ultimately benefit from [the] programmes.”

The benefits come in a number of guises, such as a diversity in harvestable crops, cost-effective land management, hunting grounds, and improved ecological services.

According to the FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment, the region recorded an average annual net gain of 1.5m hectares of tree cover over the past decade.

However, deforestation remains a global concern, with 13m hectares – with a large volume being primary, natural forests – being lost each year over the same period.

Mr Rojas observed: “The rate of deforestation is still very high in many countries and the area of primary forest – forests undisturbed by human activity – continues to decrease.

“Countries must further strengthen their efforts to better conserve and manage them.”

Our economy is changing our climate in dangerous ways, and the latest figures show it’s getting worse, with greenhouse gas emissions up a nauseating and unforgiveable 6% in 2010, despite the global economic slowdown. If you’re one of these self-proclaimed “skeptics” who still deny that man caused this mess and that man must fix it, then you’ve sacrificed your credibility as a sentient human being.

That’s the take-home message from the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Study, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers and headed by Richard Muller, a vocal critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  BEST examined the evidence that “Climategate” supposedly suppressed, and published its conclusion in mid-October.

“We find that the global land mean temperature has increased by 0.911 ± 0.042 C since the 1950s (95% confidence for statistical and spatial uncertainties)” the authors wrote on the very first page.  “This change is consistent with global land-surface warming results previously reported, but with reduced uncertainty.”

That means that everything you have heard about “institutional bias” among scientists in the IPCC is wrong.  It means everything you have heard about the rate of global warming slowing down in the last decade is wrong.  It means that, if anything, the earth is warming faster than the cautious scientists of the IPCC stated, and all signs point to mankind as the culprit.

If you still want to blame sunspots and volcanoes, read The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart to learn how those and other theories emerged and failed to pass scientific muster, while the concept of a man-made greenhouse effect not only passed those tests but evolved as new evidence came to light.

The cause is clear, and the solution is obvious – but it’s that solution that has conservatives in a state of paralytic denial. To fix this problem, we must fundamentally change the way our economy prices goods and services so that the cost of environmental degradation is embedded in the cost of production.  If we do that, everything else will follow. That’s the basic premise of carbon finance, and it’s a conservative idea – first proposed and then implemented by fiscal conservatives just a few short years before the whole movement went collectively insane.

The only thing we should be arguing about now is how to transition to a truly new and green economy as quickly and efficiently as possible.  There are no quick fixes, but there are stop-gap measures that will buy us time until we can reduce industrial emissions. Chief among these is to stop paying poor people to destroy our rainforests and start paying them to maintain them.

Smart money is moving in this direction, as we saw at the end of September with the publication of State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2011: From Canopy to Currency. This survey documents a record $175 million flowing to support forest carbon projects in 2010, representing commitments to sequester enough carbon to offset nearly 30 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The money comes from industrial companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint by paying poor people to act as providers of an ecosystem service – usually by either planting trees, shifting to sustainable forestry, or saving endangered rainforests (REDD – Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation).

Encouragingly, the report shows that private-sector companies aren’t just buying credits to reduce their footprints; they are also developing and brokering projects on an ever-larger scale – a role traditionally filled by environmental non-profits. This indicates the market’s growing confidence in our ability as a species to do the right thing.

And, as we all know, the market never lies.

Climate change poses “an immediate, growing and grave threat” to health and security around the world, according to an expert conference in London.

Food security was interwoven with the climate issue, speakers told the conference

Officers in the UK military warned that the price of goods such as fuel is likely to rise as conflict provoked by climate change increases.

A statement from the meeting adds that humanitarian disasters will put more and more strain on military resources.

It asks governments to adopt ambitious targets for curbing greenhouse gases.

The annual UN climate conference opens in about six weeks’ time, and the doctors, academics and military experts represented at the meeting (held in the British Medical Association’s (BMA) headquarters)argue that developed and developing countries alike need to raise their game.

Scientific studies suggest that the most severe climate impacts will fall on the relatively poor countries of the tropics.

UK military experts pointed out that much of the world’s trade moves through such regions, with North America, Western Europe and China among the societies heavily dependent on oil and other imports.

Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, climate and energy security envoy for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), said that conflict in such areas could make it more difficult and expensive to obtain goods on which countries such as Britain rely.

“If there are risks to the trade routes and other areas, then it’s food, it’s energy,” he told BBC News.

“The price of energy will go up – for us, it’s [the price of] petrol at the pumps – and goods made in southeast Asia, a lot of which we import.”

Coffee climate

A number of recent studies have suggested that climate impacts will make conflict more likely, by increasing competition for scare but essential resources such as water and food.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies, for example, recently warned that climate change “will increase the risks of resource shortages, mass migration and civil conflict”, while the MoD’s view is that it will shift “the tipping point at which conflict occurs”.

Armed forces are “the gas-guzzlers of the world”

Alejandro Litovsky, founder of the Earth Security Initiative, said that even without the increasing effect of conflict, prices of essential goods were bound to rise.

“From the year 2000 onwards, we have been seeing commodity prices climb, and this is not likely to stop,” he said.

“It is primarily driven by resource scarcity, and the trends suggest that depletion of these natural resources is unlikely to be reversed in the near future without drastic interventions.”

He also said that degradation of natural resources such as forests and freshwater was removing much of the resilience that societies formerly enjoyed.

Last week, multinational coffee house Starbucks warned that climate change threatened the world’s coffee supplies in 20-30 years’ time.

Compromised by carbon

The military officers at the meeting also emphasised the interest that armed forces have in reducing their own carbon footprint.

In Afghanistan, for example, fuel has to be delivered by road from Pakistan.

By the time it reaches its destination, it can cost 10 times the pump price. And the convoys are regularly targeted by opposing forces.

Several officers admitted that armed forces were “the gas-guzzlers of the world” – and while that was sometimes necessary in operations, reducing fossil fuel use and adopting renewables wherever possible made sense from economic and tactical points of view.

Rear Admiral Morisetti recalled that when commanding an aircraft carrier, it took a gallon of oil to move just 12 inches (30cm), while as many as 20 tonnes per hour were burned during a period of intensive take-off and landing.

“You can do that [with oil prices at] $30 a barrel, but not at $100 or $200,” he said.

Health gains

On the health side, doctors warned of a raft of impacts, particularly in developing countries.

Hunger and malnutrition were likely to increase, and some infectious diseases were likely to spread, they said.

Poorer societies could expect to see an unholy symbiosis between the two, with under-nourished people more prone to succumb to infections.

Tackling carbon emissions, by contrast, would bring a range of health benefits, they argue in their statement.

“Changes in power generation improve air quality.

“Modest life style changes – such as increasing physical activity through walking and cycling – will cut rates of heart disease and stroke, obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, dementia and depressive illness.

“Climate change mitigation policies would thus significantly cut rates of preventable death and disability for hundreds of millions of people around the world.”

No cause for optimism

As the UN summit in South Africa approaches, the statement here calls on the EU to increase its ambition and pledge to reduce emissions by 30% from 1990 levels by 2020, rather than the current target of 20%.

Currently, there does not appear to be political consensus for such a move within EU governments, however.

Additional recommendations are that developing country governments should analyse climate threats to their health and security, and that all governments should stop construction of new coal-fired power stations without carbon capture and storage (CCS) – which, as commercial CCS systems do not exist, would as things stand amount to a complete ban.

Without urgent action, carbon emissions could rise to levels that should cause major alarm, said Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at University College London.

Already, he noted, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has risen to about 380 parts per million [ppm] – whereas in the millions of years before the pre-industrial era, it fluctuated between about 180ppm during Ice Ages and about 280ppm in the warm interglacial periods.

“If we don’t do something, then at the rate we’re going, carbon emissions will continue to accelerate, and the atmospheric concentration is not going to be 450ppm or 650ppm by the end of the century, but 1,000ppm,” he said.

“That is 10 times the difference between an Ice Age and an interglacial; and you have to be a pretty huge optimist to think that won’t bring major changes.”

Cost of damage may exceed that caused by Typhoon Ketsana exactly two years ago

Damage caused by the two typhoons that battered the Philippines last week was estimated at $228 million (PHP 10 billion) by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) on Wednesday.

Hardest hit was the region of central Luzon with an estimated damage of $161.7 million (PHP 7.092 billion), of which $137.8 million (PHP 6.044 billion) were agricultural crops. Heavy rainfall from typhoons Nesat and Nalgae and water released by dam operators resulted in several provinces in the region still chest-deep in waters.

NDRRMC Executive Director Benito Ramos said cost of damage may exceed that caused by Typhoon Ketsana exactly two years ago.

Among the infrastructure affected by the floods are 66 bridges and road sections in the Ilocos, Cagayan, Central Luzon and Cordillera administrative regions.

Since thousands of residents had to be evacuated, 115 schools were used as temporary shelters, disrupting classes.

To provide relief to the flood victims, several government agencies pooled a total of $1.9 million (PHP 83 million) in funds, which is being augmented by private donations and relief operations carried out by several private organizations.

The Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. said Wednesday that it will speed up the release of $5 million (PHP 223 million) to Luzon farmers affected by the typhoons. It is the largest payout the PCIC has made to date, according to the agency.

Based on a preliminary assessment of the damages, the PCIC said $7.6 million (PHP 333.93 million) worth of crops, mostly palay, were insured in 30 Luzon provinces. It covers almost 27,000 farmers who till a combined farm area of 40,000 hectares.

Researchers at Brown University in the US have combined predictions of climate change with the geographic ranges of well-studied amphibians.

While the animals will try to migrate to areas with more suitable weather, short-term temperature fluctuations can cut them off.

The findings suggest more effort should be made to relocate vulnerable species.

It has been recognised for the past decade that the continuing future trend of global warming may drive species to permanently migrate in order to stay in an ideal habitat.

Amid concerns that this long-term migration may be disrupted by towns and cities, scientists at Brown University Dr Regan Early and Prof Dov Sax set out to predict the shifts in species’ ranges over the next century.

Predictions of global climate change generally show warming trends, though both global annual oscillations and local climatic effects will play a role for given species.

The researchers combined these climate models with information on the ranges and tolerances of various species of frogs, toads and salamanders in the western US, with results that “really surprised”, said Dr Early.

While they set out to find the disrupting effect of urban areas, they instead saw that the short-term climate fluctuations were enough to stop a species’ migration in its tracks, cutting it off from ideal habitats and driving it to extinction.

They have published their results in the journal Ecology Letters.

Physical tolerance

Fifteen species of amphibians native to the western US were modelled in the study, as their ranges are well-known and their tolerances to physical extremes have been well-studied.

While none of these species is currently at risk, they predicted that over half of them would become extinct or endangered in the next 100 years due to these climate fluctuations.

Among the factors determining whether a species would survive were the speed at which it can migrate and its persistence, or robustness, in the face of climatic change.

For example, the models suggested that the Foothill Yellow-Legged frog would be able to make it into a new area, despite climate fluctuations, while the California newt would not fare so well in its migration across the Californian Central Valley.

Dr Early said: “This species isn’t endangered now, and in the future there is more than enough suitable habitat for it to remain safe, but…the newt has a really hard time following its climate path to its future range because repeated climatic fluctuations cause it to retreat over and over again.”

The tolerance of an animal to less-than-ideal climatic conditions will determine whether it can survive long enough to complete its migration.

“There is a lot of uncertainty in the ability of species to persist, and this is an under-appreciated factor,” said Dr Early.

“For example, if an animal lives for a long time, it may fare better,” she said. “If its eggs don’t survive one year, being able to lay again the following year will increase the chances of survival.”

Managed relocation

While the study was carried out on only a few species in a limited geographic range, the researchers are confident that the global climate fluctuations will drive similar patterns all around the world.

Small mammals, insects and plants are expected to react in a way similar to the amphibians, as they have similar tolerances to climate change; larger mammals may be less affected as their habitats are less climate-specific, the researchers believe.

The findings from this research are expected to add some clarity to discussions on whether to actively relocate species at risk from climate change.

There is concern over this “managed relocation” from conservation groups and governmental organisations, as the reactions of an ecosystem to the sudden introduction of a non-native species are poorly understood.

But research published in the journal Nature in 2004, which suggested that climate change-driven habitat loss could result in the extinction of 15-37% of all species, lends support to the idea of managed relocation as a way of maintaining biodiversity.

This new study from Dr Early and Prof Sax highlights the specific risks to species from climate fluctuations cutting off their migration paths.

“There are a lot of species that won’t be able to take care of themselves,” Prof Sax said. “We may instead need to consider using managed relocation more frequently than has been previously considered.”

Alun Hubbard, a researcher at Aberystwyth University’s Center for Glaciology in Wales, recently returned from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. Polar scientists last photographed the glacier, located in the northwest corner of the country, in the summer of 2009. They went back this summer to see how much ice it has lost in just the last two years, and the results were dramatic.

“Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless,” Hubbard said in response to the images. Below, you can see the original shots from 2009 beside those taken this summer:

Gore evokes the Iraq war, credit crunch, civil rights and emancipation to argue the US electoral system is broken and only a mass movement can deliver reason on global warming

Al Gore, pictured in Florida in September 2010, argues in a news article that people pressure on politicians is key to solving the climate crisis. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images