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Climate Change Takes a Bite Out of Global Food Supply

Tue, 2012-10-02 00:21 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

A Pakistani fisherman talks with young boys. Rising ocean temperatures are pushing many fish away from the tropics towards the poles where waters are cooler. (Credit: Akbar Baloch/IPS)

commondreams.org - by Stephen Leahy - September 29, 2012

Humanity’s ability to feed itself is in serious doubt as climate change takes hold on land in the form of droughts and extreme weather, as well as on the world’s oceans.

Less well known to many is the fact that emissions from burning oil, coal and gas are both heating up the oceans and making them more acidic. That is combining to reduce the amount of seafood that can be caught, according to a new report released here.

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(SEE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION HERE - Ocean-Based Food Security Threatened in a High CO2 World)
http://resiliencesystem.org/ocean-based-food-security-threatened-high-co2-world

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No Base in Paradise

Tue, 2012-09-04 13:42 — Maeryn Obley

Actor, filmmaker and environmental advocate Robert Redford. (photo: Contour/Getty Images) go to original article

Image: Actor, filmmaker and environmental advocate Robert Redford. (photo: Contour/Getty Images)

readersupportednews.org - Robert Redford - September 3rd, 2012

From September 6-15, some 10,000 environmentalists will converge on Jeju Island to attend the World Conservation Congress (WCC), organized by the oldest environmental organization, the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN's slogan is that it promotes "a just world that values and conserves nature." If recent actions are any indication, nothing could be further from the truth.

The WCC will take place only a few minutes away from Gangjeong, where the construction of a naval base is threatening one of the planet's most spectacular soft coral forests and other coastal treasures, assaulting numerous endangered species and destroying a 400-year-old sustainable community of local farmers and fishers.

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Antarctic Methane Could Escape, Worsen Warming

Tue, 2012-09-04 13:08 — Maeryn Obley

A cutaway view of Antarctica shows its southern ice sheet. (Map from National Geographic)

Image: A cutaway view of Antarctica shows its southern ice sheet. (Map from National Geographic)

news.nationalgeographic.com - Rob Kunzig - August 31st, 2012

Swamp gas trapped under miles of Antarctic ice, a chemical souvenir of that continent's warmer days, may someday escape to warm the planet again, an international team of researchers report in Nature this week.

The researchers suggest that microbes isolated from the rest of the world since the ice closed over them, some 35 million years ago, have kept busy digesting organic matter and making methane—a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

If global warming causes the ice sheets to retreat in the coming decades or centuries, the researchers warn, some of the methane could belch into the atmosphere, amplifying the warming.

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Heinz® Ketchup Inspires More Environmentally Responsible Living This Summer with PlantBottle™ Packaging Promotion

Sat, 2012-09-01 23:27 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Alison Thompson

businesswire.com - July 17, 2012

A new Heinz(R) Ketchup campaign called "Join the Growing Movement" invites consumers to promise to be more environmentally responsible through a mobile application. For each pledge, Heinz will help plant a tree, up to 57,000 trees. (Photo: Business Wire)

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=multimedia_detail&eid=50344063&newsLang=en

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120717006392/en/Heinz%C2%AE-Ketchup-Inspires-Environmentally-Responsible-Living-Summer

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Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) - Newsletter - Summer 2012

Sat, 2012-08-25 23:57 — Kathy Gilbeaux

                               

   

submitted by Albert Gomez

sei-international.org

(CLICK HERE - SEI Newsletter - Summer 2012)

http://www.sei-international.org/

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Tiny Pacific Island Tops World Ocean Health Index

Thu, 2012-08-16 18:29 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Coral off Jarvis Island in the central Pacific. Photograph: Jim Maragos/AP

Uninhabited Jarvis island, halfway between Hawaii and Cook Islands, gets score of 86 compared with global average of 60

(FOR LINKS TO THE OCEAN HEALTH INDEX - CLICK "READ MORE")

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - August 15, 2012

An uninhabited Pacific island has come top of the first comprehensive ocean health index, which compares all the world's coastal countries and scores them for how well the seas around them benefit both man and nature.

Tiny 4.5 sq km Jarvis island, halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands, was briefly mined for seabird fertiliser in the 19th century but both the waters around it and the island itself have been left more or less untouched since then, which accounts for its top score of 86 out of 100 compared with a global average of 60.

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What's the long-term impact of the EU’s carbon market crisis?

Wed, 2012-08-08 00:22 — Maeryn Obley

greenbiz.com - Bruce Kennedy - July 31st, 2012

The European Union’s new plan to shore up its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) following a plunge in carbon prices underscores just how volatile – and vulnerable – the carbon emissions trading market has become.

Battered by global economic uncertainty, an overuse of allowances and political polarization, the ETS will probably remain in limbo until at least September. That’s when the EU’s climate change commission next meets.

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Climate change the cause of summer's extreme weather, Congress told

Mon, 2012-08-06 23:04 — Maeryn Obley

guardian.co.uk - Suzanne Goldenburg - August 1st, 2012

Drought, wildfires, hurricanes and heatwaves are becoming normal in America because of climate change, Congress was told on Wednesday in the first hearing on climate science in more than two years.

In a predictably contentious hearing, the Senate's environment and public works committee heard from a lead scientist for the UN's climate body, the IPCC, on the growing evidence linking extreme weather and climate change.

"It is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disaster is clear," Christopher Field, a lead author of the IPCC report and director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institute for Science, said in testimony.

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Ecocities Emerging

Fri, 2012-08-03 23:27 — Kathy Gilbeaux

 

submitted by Jerry Erbach

Ecocity Builders

Mission and Vision

Ecocity Builders reshapes cities for the long-term health of human and natural systems.

We develop and implement policy, design and educational tools and strategies to build thriving urban centers based on “access by proximity” and to reverse patterns of sprawl and excessive consumption.

Ecocity Builders and associates’ definition of “ecocity” is conditional upon a healthy relationship of the city’s parts and functions, similar to the relationship of organs in living complex organism. We are concerned with city design, planning, building, and operations in an integral way and in relation to the surrounding environment and natural resources of the region, utilizing organic, ecological and whole-systems lessons to actually reverse the negative impacts of climate change, species extinction and the destruction of the biosphere.

We believe the form of the city matters, that it is within our ability, and indeed crucial, to reshape and restructure cities to address global environmental challenges.

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NASA - Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt

Thu, 2012-07-26 21:05 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

nasa.gov - July 2012

Extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8 (left) and July 12 (right). Measurements from three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically accelerated and an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. In the image, the areas classified as “probable melt” (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as “melt” (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. The satellites are measuring different physical properties at different scales and are passing over Greenland at different times. As a whole, they provide a picture of an extreme melt event about which scientists are very confident. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory
› Hi-res of left image
› Hi-res of right image

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