Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

ALERT! Demand India Protect Old-Growth and Abandon Coal

TAKE ACTION! India is a thriving democratic nation with tremendous potential to achieve just, equitable, and ecologically sustainable national development that could last forever. Yet India is heading towards social and ecological collapse unless it stops burning coal and clearing its natural ecosystems, especially important old-growth forest remnants. The momentum of unfettered economic and population growth sweeping India is so severely damaging to the environment that failure to stop burning and cutting threatens the nation's reliable climate, food and water supplies, and its future potential for sustained national advancement. India is an amazing place in so many ways. There is still hope that they will come to understand the importance of a different development model.

ESSAY: The Green Liberty Party

The "Earth is dying if we let it. Without ecology there can be no economy. Stop burning and cutting, work less and live more. Live free and green, or die" Political Philosophy. Human growth in population and industry, at the expense of ecosystems is destroying the natural world, causing mass extinction, abrupt climate change, and economic as well as biosphere collapse. The challenge facing humanity, the greatest challenge of all time, is to foster a political, social, and economic transformation that realigns the human project with its ecosystem habitat. The corporate-owned American two-party duopoly has proven to be corrupt, unethical, and profoundly ecologically unsustainable. It is time for a political agenda that values all species and ecosystems and plans for the long-term well-being of humanity and all life. It is time for global political Earth revolution to sustain land, water, and air and to achieve universal human rights and economic fairness. Earth Meanders by Dr. Glen Barry Personal essays from Earth's Newsdesk with Ecological Internet ECOLOGY CENTRAL Earth is collapsing and dying. Humanity is systematically destroying the biodiversity, ecosystems, climate, and biosphere upon which all life depends. Earth's ecosystems continue to be plundered for profit as if air, land, water and oceans have no intrinsic ...

ALERT! Massive Chinese Dam Threatens Cambodia’s Cardamom Rainforests

By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal TAKE ACTION! The Areng Valley's rainforests in the Cardamom Mountains [search] of south-west Cambodia is threatened with flooding by a Chinese hydropower dam. This biodiversity gem - home of the Siamese crocodile and indigenous Khmer Daeum - is to be destroyed for a relatively small amount of electricity. Standing large, connected, and ecologically intact old-growth forests are required for local and global ecological sustainability and well-being.

Tell Avon, New Jersey: Old-Growth Rainforest Boardwalks Cause Abrupt Climate Change

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW! Tiny Avon, New Jersey, is moving forward with plans to rebuild their ocean-front boardwalk - recently destroyed by Hurricane Sandy – for the second time in 20 years using ill-gotten old-growth rainforest timbers. Loss of primary rainforests is a primary cause of abrupt climate change [search], as well as mass extinction, social disintegration, and ecosystem decline. Unless we break the cycle of destroying ecosystems for luxury consumption, we can expect further climate weirding and biosphere collapse. Tell Avon to please follow New York Cities lead and use readily available alternatives. TAKE ACTION! http://www.climateark.org/shared/alerts/sendsm.aspx?id=rainforest_boardwalk

EARTH MEANDERS: Earth Is Dying, Yet Climate and Forest Movements Lack Urgency and Substance

Human industrial growth is systematically liquidating the natural ecosystems that are the habitat for humans and for all life. Earth is dying, one logged old-growth tree and tank of gasoline at a time, yet most environmental groups are shilling solutions that are inadequate and ill-conceived – such as logging old-growth forests to protect them. Nothing shows this better than Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network – in an age of mass extinction, abrupt climate change, and ecosystem collapse – wanting us to wipe our asses with toilet paper from "certified" old-growth forest pulp. Essay by Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk A profound lack of understanding exists, even amid the supposedly radical environmental movement, of the seriousness of merging ecological crises. If Gaia – the Earth System or biosphere – is alive, as science has come to understand, then clearly she can die as key ecosystems are destroyed and biogeochemical processes fail. To survive, much less thrive, humanity must stop scraping Earth's land of life, spewing waste into our air and water, and claiming it can all be certified as sustainably done, while calling it "development." Industrial growth's destruction of ecosystems is undermining the habitability of the planet, threatening ...

OLD-GROWTH ALERT! Protest Continued Tasmanian Old-Growth Logging in Proposed World Heritage Area

TAKE ACTION! An important new report finds that while the Australian government has made pledges to protect Tasmania's priceless temperate rainforests [search], yet shockingly industrial clearcut logging of old-growth continues in what is to be a World Heritage Area. Important forest wildernesses covering some 170,000 hectares and including Butlers Gorge; and the Florentine, Weld and Styx valleys, have been nominated to be added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and could finally be given protection after decades of protests. Alarmingly, however, industrial scale clear felling is still continuing within those forests, with timbers being sold as "eco ply" by the Malaysian timber mafia. From the top of the "Observer Tree" in the middle of this ancient forest, conservationist Miranda Gibson is calling for your help to protect these globally significant forests. Miranda's action is part of long running grassroots campaigns to protect Tasmania's forests, which Ecological Internet has successfully participated in for nearly 20 years, including leading international protests which helped get notorious Gunns logging to stop logging old-growth forests. We need your help again to call on the Australian government to honor their international obligations and protect these World Heritage nominated old-growth temperate rainforests from industrial destruction.

ECOLOGY SCIENCE: Terrestrial Ecosystem Loss and Biosphere Collapse

By Dr. Glen Barry, scientific journal article under preparation Abstract Planetary boundary science defines key thresholds in the Earth System's ecological conditions that precede local or global ecosystem collapse and threaten human well-being. Terrestrial ecosystems enter into the nine originally defined planetary boundaries only indirectly, through boundaries such as biodiversity and land use. This observational study and literature review aggregate what is known regarding the quantity and quality of terrestrial ecosystems - particularly old-growth and primary forests - necessary to sustain the biosphere. The study seeks to answer the question: what extent of landscapes, bioregions, continents, and the global Earth System must remain as connected and intact core ecological areas and agroecological buffers to sustain local ecosystem services as well as the biosphere commons? Two preeminent considerations are connectivity of large ecosystem patches, enabling them to persist as the matrix for the landscape, and critical collapse of the dominant large habitat patch – or "percolating cluster" – into smaller, more isolated habitats, in a sea of human development. This transition, which has been found to occur at about 40% habitat loss in landscapes and bioregions, is likely to be similar at a continental and global scale. An example of the importance ...

For Earth, Giving Ecological Internet the Tools it Needs

Ecological Internet has an unmatched record of bringing global citizens together to protect Earth's rainforests, climate, and water; highlighting the severity of global ecosystem collapse, while advocating ecological-science based policy to sustain human and natural well-being, as well as the global biosphere. Ecological Internet has done so much over the past 14 years, and the best lies ahead, please support us in this – our final appeal for now – at http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/donate/. And make sure to participate in our current alert supporting Ecuador's rainforest tribes willing to die to protect their rainforests at: http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/sendsm.aspx?id=ecuador_oil Dear Earth-loving colleagues, Ecological Internet is extremely gratified to have raised $27,000 over the past couple months to meet our core budget until mid-year. Yet sadly we note the total number of donors is reduced – perhaps understandable given Presidential donor fatigue and a tough year for us personally. Yet we have never been more effective, or had a larger reach, and important priority areas including paying our existing computer programmer and upgrading vital server capacity will not be funded unless we raise a few thousand dollars more with this last appeal of this funding-drive. Please donate now to the best and most effective grassroots, global biocentric Earth action ...

ALERT! Ecuadorean Tribe Will “Die Fighting” to Defend Rainforest

By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal TAKE ACTION! Please support Ecuador's Kichwa villagers, who the Guardian newspaper reports vow to resist oil prospecting by state-backed company Petroamazonas at all costs. The Kichwa tribe has said they are ready to fight to the death to protect their rainforests which cover 70,000 hectares, adjacent and part of Yasuni [search] National Park, and huge additional Ecuadorean rainforests are threatened by new industrial oil auctions as well. Industrial development of rainforests for oil in the Amazon has a long history of destroying ecosystems including fouling water. Tell President Correa standing, intact old-growth forest ecosystems are a requirement for local advancement, and local and global ecological sustainability; and demand the invasion of indigenous nations' rainforests be halted.

ECOLOGY SCIENCE: Old Forests, Kerala India’s Elephants, and the Biosphere

Proposing a planetary boundary for terrestrial ecosystem loss By Dr. Glen Barry, December 16, 2012 Paper presented at the Kerala Law Academy International Law Conference on Conservation of Forests, Wildlife and Ecology, December 15-17, 2012   Theme - The Legal Regime and Measures for Conservation of Bio Diversity and Protection of Ecological Balance of Western Ghats   “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi   "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." – Anne Frank*Version 1.0, not yet peer reviewed, or final edits for publication in conference proceedings. Here is the most recent version entitled "Terrestrial Ecosystem Loss and Biosphere Collapse" being readied for publication.   Review Paper Abstract   Planetary boundary science continues the study of requirements to avoid ecosystem collapse and to achieve global ecological sustainability, by defining key thresholds in the Earth System's ecological conditions that threaten human well-being. Terrestrial ecosystems do not enter into the nine originally defined boundaries ranging from climate change to water availability, except peripherally through other boundaries such as land use and biodiversity. A rigorous research agenda is necessary to determine what quantity and quality of terrestrial ecosystems are required across landscapes so as to sustain the biosphere. This includes a spatially explicit way of indicating what extent of a landscape, bioregion, continent and global Earth ...