Category: save the planet

Race to carve up Arctic as Ice Melts

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to “carve up” Arctic resources – oil, gas and even rubies – as the ice retreats.

They suggest that Arctic states, including the US and Russia, are all pushing to stake a claim.

The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic.

The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.

The cables were released by the Wikileaks whistleblower website as foreign ministers from the eight Arctic Council member states – Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland – me

continued…

via BBC News – Newsnight – Wikileaks cables show race to carve up Arctic.

Climate Change Denial Syndrome –

Climate Change Denial..Heads in The Sand

  is the new book from ecologist Haydn Washington and the founder of Skeptical Science,

To begin with then, the authors recap climate science, talking us through the carbon cycle, the greenhouse effect, the natural changes and the man-made ones……

This is the science as accepted by every academy of science in the world and by 97 percent of climate scientists. That it isn’t accepted by a similar ratio of the general public is due at least in part to a concerted denial movement. Conspiracy theories, fake experts, misrepresentations and cherry-picked data proliferate, much of it sponsored by those with an interest in preserving the status quo. It is well known that Exxon has been a major funder of dissenting climate work, in partnership with the Global Climate Coalition. Koch Industries has since picked up the baton. This is not the truth seeking of true skepticism – it is big business paying millions to protect their own interests, by sowing doubt and kicking up dust..

Lobbying and paid experts are the tip of the iceberg. They’re the obvious villains but denial only takes hold because, fundamentally, it is something we want to believe……

At this point, those looking for another excuse to sneer self-righteously at the climate denial movement might get a wake up call of their own. Washington and Cook are adamant that we are all implicated. ‘We are compelled to conclude that we the people also have something to answer for. We as a society let denial prosper…

When they return from another round of failed talks, we don’t protest. We quietly prefer them to pretend. After all, if they actually paid attention to our petitions, they might take away our cars, holidays, and cheap imports.

via Climate Change Denial – Reviews – The Ecologist.

This blog promotes ‘The Free’, an adventure novel set in the collapse of Capitalism.  free DOWNLOAD page, click HERE 

‘Timber mafia’ devastate Russian forests

Siberian tigers under threat as ‘timber mafia’ devastate Russian forests

Sebastian Strangio

Criminal gangs are increasingly smuggling Russian timber into China for manufacture into baby cribs, picture frames and toilet seats sold in the west. Those trying to thwart them face violence and corruption….

…..The city is also the main transit point for a pernicious and largely unacknowledged international trade in illegal timber. Environmentalists say thousands of cubic metres of Russian hardwoods are being illegally exported by train through Suifenhe each day, prompted by a rising Chinese demand and a culture of official corruption and fear – a trade that also threatens the world’s last remaining populations of Siberian tigers……  CONT


via Siberian tigers under threat as ‘timber mafia’ devastate Russian forests – investigations – The Ecologist.

Landless occupy eucalyptus forests..Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 10, 2011 (Tierramérica) – Brazilian and international environmental organisations and peasant farmer movements are taking aim at the forestry industry once again, this time accusing transnational corporation Stora Enso of illegally profiting from the production of wood pulp in the state of Bahia….

The accusations specifically target Veracel Celulosa, a joint venture between “two international leaders in the pulp and paper market” according to the company website – namely Brazil’s Fibria and the Swedish-Finnish forestry giant Stora Enso…….

…..Women members of the Movimento Sem  Terra.. (Landless Movement), have staged frequent emonstrations and forest occupations.

The agency of federal public prosecutors, and the national environmental authority IBAMA have imposed fines on Veracel for the pollution of rivers and streams, stemming from the use of toxic agrochemicals, particularly herbicides, said Fernandes.

The MST leader blamed the intensive planting of eucalyptus trees for the depletion of water sources, erosion, and the rapid deforestation of the Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest, the vast forest biome that once stretched along the entire Atlantic coast and has now been reduced to seven percent of its original size after centuries of agriculture and livestock activities and urbanisation…….

The pulp produced and 60 percent of the profits are sent abroad, and “we are left with the environmental liabilities of industrial monoculture plantations and the impoverishment of southern Bahia,” national MST leader João Pedro Stédile commented to Tierramérica……..

via BRAZIL: Accusations Mount against Pulp and Paper Giant – IPS ipsnews.net.

This blog promotes ‘The Free’, an adventure novel set in the collapse of Capitalism.  free DOWNLOAD page, click HERE 

Mulheres invadem fazenda da Veracel

Um grupo de mulheres militantes do MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) invadiu uma fazenda em Eunápolis (671 Km de Salvador) na madrugada desta segunda-feira.

A fazenda, destinada à plantação de eucaliptos, pertence à empresa Veracel.

Segundo o MST, 1.500 pessoas –a maioria mulheres– participaram da invasão, que tem como objetivo “denunciar o uso de agrotóxicos e a monocultura em terras devolutas”. Não houve confrontos.

A ação, de acordo com o MST, faz parte da jornada de mulheres do MST e da Via Campesina que, neste ano, denuncia a violência contra a mulher.

Vit�ria fica no 2 a 2 contra o Bahia de Feira e est� a um empate do penta

via Mulheres do MST invadem fazenda da Veracel na Bahia – 28/02/2011.

Let’s defend Christiania.. ballad

A song for my favorite intentional community, the 1,000-member urban commune in the middle of Copenhagen, Christiania. Lyric: Bevar Christiania In ’67 it was…


Lyric:

Bevar Christiania

In ’67 it was abandoned as a military base

In 1971 it was squatted

Folks needed some land to implement their plans

And make the new society they had plotted

Some moved into barracks, some built little shacks

Of all sorts of dubious design

Some built cafes and workshops, built windmills, planted crops

Painted things the color of sunshine

via Bevar Christiania – Money-Free.

The Methane Gun

Methane & Warming Oceans (extracts)

Methane (CH4) is a very potent greenhouse gas, 20-30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) on a century timescale. Fortunately, it only occurs in very low concentrations in the atmosphere – about 0.3 to 0.4 parts per million during ice ages and 0.6 to 0.7ppm during warmer periods………

……The description of Stage 2: Very rapid and massive release of carbon with low ∂13C does put one in mind of the Methane Gun hypothesis. This hypothesis states that rising temperature and/or lower sea level causes clathrate at shallow depth to begin melting which in turn causes warming to increase, melting even larger and deeper clathrate deposits. The result: the relatively sudden, massive and catastrophic release of methane into the atmosphere – the firing of the Methane Gun. The recent discovery by Davy et al (2010) of kilometer-wide (ten 8-11 kilometer and about 1,000 1-kilometer-wide features) eruption craters on the Chatham Rise seafloor off New Zealand adds further ammunition to the Methane Gun hypothesis……

……..However, measurements by Shakhova indicate that emissions of methane from the ESA may be as high as 3.5 billion tonnes per annum (if verified, this amount is enough to trigger abrupt climate change), or about 3 times the total mankind artificially adds into the carbon cycle yearly. This methane release is likely coming from sediments previously covered by thin and now melting permafrost at the sea bed as well as melting clathrate, or some combination of both. Even more troubling, the ESA is estimated to hold 1,000 billion tonnes of methane in the form of clathrates alone…

Continued..(long article)

via Wakening the Kraken: Methane & Warming Oceans : TreeHugger.