This article implies that narwhals may be in especially grave danger from global warming. Narwhals are unique cetaceans, a kind of small whale with a spectacular "horn." (I call them "sea unicorns," and I've written poetry about them.) Because of their narrow habitat and food preferences, changes can hit them harder than other animals. Little is known about them because -- like terrestrial unicorns -- they are extremely rare and elusive. Keep an eye out for further news in case they need special protection.

Tags: environment
Current Mood: busy

According to this article, the Earth may be losing its ability to absorb excess carbon dioxide. Previously some of the pollution was soaked up by forests and oceans. That seems to be happening less; the carbon sinks may be saturated. And the people in power seem to be mostly folks who can't figure out why there's sugar in the bottom of the cereal bowl...

Tags: environment
Current Mood: busy

Someone else raised a question about replacing lawns with gardens, in response to my post about "Surviving the Middle Class Crash." I added...

It's actually been done before, during World War II. They were called "victory gardens" and were used to supplement the food supply:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

I grew up watching the show "Crockett's Victory Garden" on PBS. There's a related site here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/victorygarden/

And someone has cleverly made the connection between fighting a war and fighting for our planet's survival, calling for the revival of the victory garden as a means of slowing global warming:
http://www.revivevictorygarden.org/

Our local efforts are coming along nicely. I got a bunch of flowers and a few more herbs planted today. A couple of friends dropped by to give me some spare tomato plants. I'm going to try growing those, although I've had marginal luck with vegetables. (They require a lot of attention, and I can't work in summer heat.) I may try drying more herbs than I need personally, though, and adding those to my list of trade goods. I'm hoping we'll get a good crop of fruit in this year, too. Several other folks I know are planting gardens. We plan to do some food swapping and communal canning later in the year.

Tags: community, economics, environment, food, gardening
Current Mood: busy

According to this article, the target threshold for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million -- if, the scientists explain, "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted."

Guess what the current amount is.

385 ppm and rising fast.

Not only is the frog not jumping out of the boiling water, he's actually turning up the dial on the stove. Yee.

More information on lowering the carbon threshold is here.

Tags: environment
Current Mood: busy

According to this article, some colleges are adapting their food service to provide food that is organic, locally grown, and otherwise more sustainable than previous mass-produced options. I have also heard of some lower schools raising some of their own food and using that for educational purposes.

Tags: economics, education, environment, food
Current Mood: tired

It's not enough to stop ravaging the Earth. We need to repair the damage already done. The beautiful thing is -- once we give it a little nudge, nature quickly takes over. This article describes a rainforest repair program.

Tags: environment
Current Mood: busy

This article raises some interesting points about environmentalism. I don't agree with all of them, but most are apt -- and they're not things that everyone is taking into consideration.

Tags: economics, environment, politics
Current Mood: busy

A speech originally intended for Earth Day arrives late, but still relevant -- a sharp reminder that humanity's feeble efforts to curb global warming are not nearly enough. Nobody wants to admit that we're already past some tipping points. Slowing down the rate of destruction isn't enough: we have to reverse it. I believe humanity has the brains required to accomplish the transformation; I doubt it has the balls.

Tags: environment
Current Mood: busy

This article explores the plummeting population of salmon and what could be done about it.

Watered Down  By Dan Bacher
   Salmon fishing is closed in ocean waters off California's shore for the first time in state history, regulators are poised to extend the ban to Sacramento-area rivers and the region's fishing industry - which includes everything from commercial fishing fleets to mom-and-pop bait shops - is scrambling to deal with the loss.
    While state and federal regulators openly suspect poor ocean conditions as causing the dramatic and "mysterious" drop-off in the salmon population in California and Oregon waters, a coalition of recreational and commercial fishermen, Indian tribes, environmental groups and some prominent scientists don't see the collapse as a mystery at all. And they point to a different culprit: other state and federal regulators.

Tags: environment, news, politics
Current Mood: tired

For years now I've been observing the climate shift. When I was little, the area where I live got heavy snowfall in winter, bracketed by substantial spring and fall rains, with hot dry summers. Now the winters are much dryer and somewhat warmer, spring and fall are dryer; summer sometimes brings droughts but has, bizarrely, also brought heavy rains in a few years. The overall climate is definitely warmer, enough to change what will and won't grow here. In my childhood our zone was 5b. Over the last decade I've become convinced that it's 6b.

Last year the Arbor Day Foundation updated its zone map. Sure enough, it says 6b for our area now.

The USDA is still lollygagging. That's government efficiency for you.

You want to know about the climate, for real and true? Go ask the farmers and the gardeners. Go ask the people who plant trees. They know.

Tags: environment, gardening, news, personal, politics
Current Mood: busy

This article takes a disturbing look at a new "tipping point" in global warming: the melting of permafrost can release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Melting Methane by Volker Mrasek
A storehouse of greenhouse gases is opening in Siberia.
Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel?

It's always been a disturbing what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor - hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure - could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more worrisome than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.

Tags: environment, news
Current Mood: busy

Every once in a while, the system works. I keep hoping this will catch on.

Federal Judge Tosses Plan to Export More Delta Water By Dan Bacher
Fresno - On April 16, Federal Judge Oliver Wanger tossed out a controversial federal plan that would have allowed more pumping of water from the imperiled California Delta at the expense of five species of protected Chinook salmon and steelhead trout.

Tags: environment, politics
Current Mood: busy

Today I discovered a new word which is tremendously useful: "biodiversicide." I gather that it refers to the culpable reduction of multiple species in a life zone, with the concurrent effect of weaking the biosphere as a whole. Homo sapiens is clearly guilty of this. No doubt the term will also be of use to science fiction writers who wish to explore future legal or moral issues relating to the appropriate or inappropriate usage of extraterrestrial biospheres.

Food Security: Neither Technology Nor Free Markets Nor the World Bank
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041608G.shtml
Editorials by Anne Bauer and Christian Pees in France's business paper, Les Echos, torpedo, respectively, GMO and unregulated markets as the answer to food security, while Le Grand Soir publishes an Olivier Chantry article accusing multinational seed companies and the World Bank of "Biodiversicide."

Tags: environment, news, politics, science fiction, writing
Current Mood: busy