In 2002 there was a global agreement to slow biodiversity loss by 2010. We failed, and biodiversity is still declining at an alarming rate.
The importance of biodiversity and our failure to recognize it
Barry Gardiner a UK Labour MP has written a great article on the importance of conserving biodiversity and our failure to recognize it.
Over, the last three months, climate change has had 1,382 mentions in British national newspapers.
How much does the loss of biodiversity cost?
How much does the loss of biodiversity cost? A lot more than most people realize. In fact, we do nothing to address the issue, the coming ‘nature crunch‘ will make the current financial crisis seem like a cake walk.
Biodiversity loss costs six percent of world income; biodiversity drops more than a quarter
Just as we are beginning to realize the incredible importance of biodiversity
The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment
Originally published by John Dupuis
Rio+20: 20 years of standing still
Rio+20 has come and gone. It ended in the traditional fashion for UN environmental summits with the nations of the world agreeing that, at least in principle, it would be preferable to prevent wide-scale degradation of the planet’s natural systems.
Green madness: how the green movement lost its way and alienated the public
Like it or not (I obviously don’t) the green movement has failed. It has failed to inspire the public to care about the environment we all depend on, it has failed to make the public understand the gravity and scale of our current environmental problems, and it has failed to get politicians to do anything at all.
Irregular Climate Episode 4
This week: The Bonn talk-fest, Lindsey Graham’s flip-flop, Respect the EPA’s authority, Biodiversity at the UN, Lawyers don’t do science, and the skeptic debunk of the week
Bashing economists is not helping
Bashing economists is commonplace within the environmental movement, and while some of the criticisms are justified, they need to to put into proper context. The fact is that a large majority of economists agree that we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and that placing a price on carbon (be it via a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system) is the best way to do it.
Amazonian contradictions
Looks like the Amazon(non)gate wont die. And in keeping it alive the deniers are again showing their self-contradictions.
So what happened? It started in 2007, when a study (Saleska et al.
Wilson’s Law of conservation
The renowned biologist EO Wilson on conservation, and what he unabashedly calls Wilson’s Law:
If you save the living environment, the biodiversity that we have left, you will also automatically save the physical environment, too.
The Encyclopedia of Life
When I was in University I read a paper by renown biologist EO Wilson, about his dream to create an online database that contained the sum of human knowledge on all the millions of organisms that inhabit our planet.
The latest IPCC report is the most dire yet; reality likely to be much more dire
The latest report from the IPCC describes the effects of climate change more specifically and forcibly than any other IPCC report. Yet The IPCC process is inherently conservative and many scientists believe that the report is understating the severity of climate change and some of the biggest risks.
How Many Species Are “Enough”?
Plants are the only source of oxygen on Earth — the only source. And studies around the world show that as plant species become extinct, natural habitats can lose up to half of their living plant biomass.
State of the planet, in graphics
Globally human populations are growing, trade is increasing, and living standards are rising for many. But, according to the UN’s latest Global Environment Outlook report (large PDF), long-term problems including climate change, pollution, access to clean water, and the threat of mass extinctions are being met with a remarkable lack of urgency.
The insignificant organisms that run the world
These seemingly insignificant, poorly understood organisms are essential to the survival of the ecosystems we depend on, yet there is little public interest or grant money to study these organisms. Since our understanding of these vital organisms is minimal, we may fail to detect the serious harm our actions can have on them.
The age of extinction
Biodiversity loss is an even greater problem than climate change, yet it is even less understood by the general public, and therefore has received very little attention by anyone other than biologists, who have called the current extinction crisis the sixth mass extinction event.
Species at Risk Act being weakened
The Species at Risk Act (SARA) is already a very weak act; no need to make it weaker. SARA only applies to federal lands, NOT provincial lands. Provincial land account for the vast majority of the Canadian land mass; federal lands are limited to waterways, national parks, and not much else.
Why all this debate over climate change?
From Climate Ark “Is climate change a terrible threat or a beat-up? A bang or a whimper? Perhaps it’s something in between – an issue that humanity must face, but not yet.
Mass Extinction of Insects May Be Occurring Undetected
From National Gepgraphic “The term “endangered species” typically conjures up images of charismatic animals—tigers, pandas, orangutans, whales, condors. But a new study says that the vast majority of species on the verge of extinction is in fact humble insects.