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Archive for March, 2012
ALERT! Congo’s Rainforests Including Gorilla Rich Virunga National Park – Targeted by UKs SOCO Oil Company
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on March 22nd, 2012
By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal
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The Congo Basin [search] home to some of Earths last large, ecologically intact, biodiversity rich rainforests may soon be decimated by oil rigs, pipelines, deforestation, and oil spills. SOCO International a London-listed oil company has announced oil exploration plans in Virunga National Park - Africas oldest national park. Virunga is an UNESCO World Heritage site, home to a large population of wild gorillas, and many other important wildlife species, ecosystems, and local forest-dependent communities.
Oil exploration in these globally vital rainforest ecosystems will further set a dangerous precedent that nowhere whether protected, or ecologically and socially important - is immune from oil industry destruction. Given record oil prices and growing global demand, it appears every last bit of Earth's large, wild and intact ecosystems will be sacrificed to industrial development to extend our dependence upon fossil fuel, and delay transition now to renewable energy sources while ensuring abrupt run-away climate change and global ecosystem collapse. Further rainforest ecocide for oil must end if we are to sustain global ecology. And standing old forests offer hope for advancement to the worlds forest dependent peoples.
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http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/sendsm.aspx?id=congo_oil_virunga
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Comments Off on ALERT! Congo’s Rainforests Including Gorilla Rich Virunga National Park – Targeted by UKs SOCO Oil CompanyALERT! Critical Indian Elephant Habitat Threatened Again, Must Enact Important Elephant Corridor
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on March 10th, 2012
TAKE ACTION to protect key Asian elephant habitats and their ecosystems
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More than 6,000 Asian elephants [search] and hundreds of tigers still roam wild in South India, but rampant development and rapidly growing villages in the Sigur region of the Nilgiri foothills are choking off critical access corridors utilized by elephants to travel between still viable habitat areas. Following a 2006 national government declaration to protect elephant corridors (which Ecological Internet and YOU played a critical role in achieving), the Madras High Court of Tamil Nadu in 2010 issued an order to declare the Sigur Region an Elephant Corridor to regulate development and other activities affecting elephant habitat. Nevertheless, vested interests are vigorously opposing the order, causing the Tamil Nadu Ministry of Environment and Forests to delay action.
Posted in Uncategorized Comments Off on ALERT! Critical Indian Elephant Habitat Threatened Again, Must Enact Important Elephant CorridorWeathering of rocks impacts climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 5th, 2012
Physorg: The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in rainwater forming carbonic acid, which, once in contact with rocks, slowly dissolves them. This atmospheric carbon is then transported by rivers into the oceans, where it is trapped for several thousand years, before returning to the atmosphere or alternatively being stored in marine sediments or in corals.
This chemical weathering process stores around 0.3 billion tons of atmospheric carbon in rivers and in the oceans every year: although this...
World’s most toxic frog gets new reserve
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 5th, 2012
Mongabay: Touching a wild golden poison frog could kill you within minutes: in fact, a single golden poison frog, whose Latin name Phyllobates terribilis is even more evocative than its common one, is capable of killing 10 humans with its one milligram dose of poison. Yet the deadly nature of this tiny frog has not stopped it from nearing extinction. Now, in a bid to save the species, the World Land Trust (WLT) and Colombian NGO ProAves have teamed up to establish a 50 hectare (124 acres) reserve in the Chocó...
Why Rio+20 must not leave politics out of sustainable development
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 5th, 2012
Guardian: In the runup to June's Rio+20 Earth Summit, sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a hot topic. First proposed by the Columbian government, SDGs are now regarded by many as possible concrete outcomes from a conference whose prospects for delivering change otherwise seem gloomy at best. SDGs feature prominently in Rio's zero draft document and the recommendations of the UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability. Others argue that SDGs should be signed in 2015, the deadline for the millennium...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Why Rio+20 must not leave politics out of sustainable developmentUnited States: Spill from hell: Diluted bitumen
Posted by The Tyee: Mitchell Anderson, on March 5th, 2012
The Tyee: On a July morning in 2010 in rural Michigan, a 30-inch pipeline owned by Calgary-based Enbridge Energy Partners burst and disgorged an estimated 843,000 gallons of thick crude into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. This was no ordinary crude -- it was the first ever major spill into water of diluted bitumen from the Alberta oil sands.
The cleanup challenges and health impacts around Kalamazoo were unlike anything the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had ever dealt with, and raise serious...
Climate change, drought and social unrest in Syria
Posted by Reuters: Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell on March 5th, 2012
Reuters: Syria's current social unrest is, in the most direct sense, a reaction to a brutal and out-of-touch regime and a response to the political wave of change that began in Tunisia early last year. However, that's not the whole story. The past few years have seen a number of significant social, economic, environmental and climatic changes in Syria that have eroded the social contract between citizen and government in the country, have strengthened the case for the opposition movement, and irreparably...
United States: Climate change made the drought worse, scientists say
Posted by San Antonio Express: Colin McDonald on March 5th, 2012
San Antonio Express: Several scientists at NASA and the state climatologist say the record-setting heat and drought of last summer in Texas was made worse by climate change.
More than just providing bragging rights that Texas now holds the record for hottest summer ever recorded in the United States, that conclusion adds another layer of uncertainty for water planners.
James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute titled his still unpublished climate analysis,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United States: Climate change made the drought worse, scientists sayAustralia: UN probes threat to barrier reef
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 5th, 2012
BBC: A UN team has arrived in Australia to investigate possible damage to the Great Barrier Reef by the mining industry.
Fears that coal exports and oil and gas exploration would jeopardise the reef prompted the Unesco delegation's visit.
Environmentalists have urged the government to suspend mining development until a government review is completed.
The reef is home to 400 types of coral and 1,500 species of fish.
The Great Barrier Reef, which holds Unesco World Heritage status, lies off...
Climate change threat to ice hockey
Posted by Belfast Telegraph: None Given on March 5th, 2012
Belfast Telegraph: Man-made climate change is said to be threatening the future of ice hockey in Canada, where the sport is a cornerstone of national culture.
Top players have traditionally learned their skills on frozen lakes and backyard rinks but as winters get warmer, experts believe aspiring ice hockey stars in years to come will struggle to find suitable outdoor facilities.
Canadians are passionate about ice hockey. Last year, riots broke out in Vancouver after the home side, the Canucks, lost to rivals...