Tag: biosphere collapse

Humans and our livestock and Pets are now 97% of land mammals

check it  here:   /mass_of_humans_vs_wild_animals_is_xkcd_correct/

Today wildlife accounts for only 3 percent of earth’s land mammals

…..”Our destruction is so familiar—so synonymous with civilization—in fact, that we tend to overlook how strange the world that we’ve made has become. For instance, it stands to reason that, until very recently, all vertebrate life on the planet was wildlife.

But astoundingly, today wildlife accounts for only 3 percent of earth’s land animals; human beings, our livestock, and our pets take up the remaining 97 percent of the biomass.

This Frankenstein biosphere is due both to the explosion of industrial agriculture and to a hollowing out of wildlife itself, which has decreased in abundance by as much as 50 percent since 1970. This cull is from both direct hunting and global-scale habitat destruction: almost half of the earth’s land has been converted to farmland.

The oceans have endured a similar transformation in only the past few decades as the industrial might developed during World War II has been trained on the seas. Each year fishing trawlers plow an area of seafloor twice the size of the continental United States, obliterating the benthos.
Gardens of corals and sponges hosting colorful sea life are reduced to furrowed, lifeless plains. What these trawlers have to show for all this destruction is the removal of up to 90 percent of all large ocean predators since 1950, including familiar staples of the dinner plate like cod, halibut, grouper, tuna, swordfish, marlin, and sharks.

Continue reading “Humans and our livestock and Pets are now 97% of land mammals”

Kew Report: Extinction of Quarter of the World’s Plants

Study reveals plant extinctions and new discoverieswhenif11

New report marking first-ever assessment of global flora calls for radical action to protect world’s plants.  by  Nick Clark

From the threatened extinction of nearly a quarter of the world’s plants, to the Facebook discovery of an unknown giant carnivorous specimen, the first-ever evaluation of the world’s flora is complete.

Darlingtonia_californica_-top 10-amazing-beautiful-carnivorous -plantsIt’s staggering and somehow gratifying to find that every year around 2,000 new species of plants are discovered. But it’s troublesome and deeply worrying to learn that more than 10 percent of the world’s landcover type has changed in just 10 years, mostly from forest to farmland.

The State of the World’s Plants report took 80 scientists from the prestigious laboratories and archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in west London a year to complete.

ca2be54e2464d761748e8250ede35c3eIt was unveiled by Kew’s director of science, Professor Kathy Willis.

“We’ve had no end of the state of the world reports on everything from sea turtles to antibiotics,” Willis said. “But never plants.

“And I find this remarkable because plants are fundamental to the lives we lead. They underpin almost everything we know – from food, to clothing, to regulating the climate. They make living possible.”

And when you factor in how climate change appears to be turning the natural world upside down, threatening crop production and fuelling fears of food insecurity, never has the time been more apposite for such an assessment.

“Someone had to take the lead and shove plants to the top of the agenda,” Willis said.

Throughout years of domestication, traits have been bred into crops to create, say, the perfect banana or coffee plant. But these traits will not necessarily protect them from the ravages of climate change.

So the Kew scientists say we need to go back to the wild relatives of Amazing-Healing-Plantsthe crops and tap that pool of genetic variation.

These relatives have evolved over thousands of years and have huge climate resilience, which could then be bred back into our crops.

The problem is many of those wild populations are under considerable threat, due to deforestation and change of land use.no plants

“We need to become global landscape planners to really understand which of the most important areas to preserve because of the plant diversity they contain,” Willis said.

Kew has a botanical pedigree second to none. It was established in 1759 and now boasts more than eight million specimens, many dating back to Victorian times.

‘Doomsday’ seed vault comes to Syria’s rescue

Among the stars are cuttings taken by Charles Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle as he gathered evidence for his seminal work On the Origin of the Species.

I examined a sheet on which was pinned the fern-like Henslovianum, browned with age but surprisingly intact, its date and place of collection painstakingly recorded – September 3, 1835, Galapagos.

Adiantum Henslovianum, part of Charles Darwin’s collection from Galapagos in 1835, is displayed in the herbarium [Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP]
Alongside lay a specimen collected by David Livingstone, another famous Victorian Briton, while on expedition in South Africa. The old, greying paper is stained, you imagine with the sweat of the man himself.

Dr Timothy Utteridge is Kew’s head of plant identification and says that such detailed records are an invaluable resource.

“We can look at a specimen taken from say, Malaysia in the 1830s and know precisely where, when and by whom it was taken,” 235-cactus-species-extinctUttteridge said.

“We can then refer to Google Earth and see what’s there today. We might find no original trees at all – maybe a palm oil plantation instead. But it’s a good baseline to assess where we’re at today.”

Just like in Victorian times Kew still sends out botanists to far-flung corners of the Earth in search of new discoveries. And they frequently come home flush with success.

But there was that one that came from the unexpected direction of social media.

Apparently Brazilian amateur botanist Reginaldo Vasconcelos posted a photo on Facebook of a large carnivorous sundew plant in 2013, while exploring the mountains near his home.magnifica3

A year later it was spotted by a plant expert, who checked it out and yes, there it was, Drosera Magnifica, a new discovery.

The wonders of the plant kingdom it seems, still have the ability to surprise, but deep within this most important element of the planet’s biodiversity, there lies a warning to humankind, which we ignore at our peril.WOW-Amazing-FI-Plant-Forms

Underwater plants like these are among the most imperilled due to ocean acidification, pollution and climate change..amazing_ocean_plants_by_andrea1981g-d4y9z5z

13 activists may be Britain’s 1st Climate Prisoners

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These 13 People Could Become Britain’s First Climate Prisoners’

from Oil Change International  en español abajoplane13_750

Later this month, a judge in the UK is set to jail13 non-violent protestors who occupied one of the runways at London Heathrow in July last year.

The protest, the first ever on a Heathrow runway, lasted six hours and caused the delay or cancellation of some 25 flights.

It was carried out by activists from Plane Stupid, who are opposed to airport expansion. Continue reading “13 activists may be Britain’s 1st Climate Prisoners”

CO2-FREE FUEL REVOLUTION .. by Alex Lightman.. Ted-Talk

After 21 Conferences to ‘Fix The Climate’ we still see CO2 emissions rising and new fossil fuel prospection surging ahead. With the whole biosphere now teetering on the edge of collapse we need every tool possible to postpone disaster

Ammonia Energy SystemAlex Lightman has challenged the oil giants, with: 

  • his brilliant Ted-talk ‘How To Rid The US of Fossil Fuels by 2030′ see below. ,
  • slideshow (see below)
  • his presentation at the NH3 Fuel Conference :  NH3, Food Security, and The Transition to Fossil Fuel Free
  • and his coming book “The Infinite Feast: Food Security via Clean Energy”

  • WATCH HERE:

  • NH3 part starts at  minute 13.00

At last a major US  ‘tech guru’ is in favour of green-NH3, the non-fossil and CO2-free fuel that has always existed, suppressed by the fossil fuel industry.  We’ve been saying it for years with zero impact. all combustion motors can be run on green NH3, cutting climate destroying gases by 30% and minimizing air pollution,  and saving millions of us from an agonizing death.

Continue reading “CO2-FREE FUEL REVOLUTION .. by Alex Lightman.. Ted-Talk”

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