This Report is Essential Reading-Melting Planet

[buzzsaw_23]

Is it too late? Have we gone past the tipping point?
Wake up others around you.

Act Now!


Melting Planet

Species are dying out faster than we have dared recognise, scientists will warn this week. The erosion of polar ice is the first break in a fragile chain of life extending across the planet, from bears in the north to penguins in the far south

By Andrew Buncombe in Anchorage and Severin Carrell in London

Published: 02 October 2005

Some of its findings include:

* Four out of five migratory birds listed by the UN face problems ranging from lower water tables to increased droughts, spreading deserts and shifting food supplies in their crucial "fuelling stations" as they migrate.

* One-third of turtle nesting sites in the Caribbean - home to diminishing numbers of green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles - would be swamped by a sea level rise of 50cm (20ins). This will "drastically" hit their numbers. At the same time, shallow waters used by the endangered Mediterranean monk seal, dolphins, dugongs and manatees will slowly disappear.

* Whales, salmon, cod, penguins and kittiwakes are affected by shifts in distribution and abundance of krill and plankton, which has "declined in places to a hundredth or thousandth of former numbers because of warmer sea-surface temperatures."

<snip>

The science magazine Nature predicted last year that up to 37 per cent of terrestrial species could become extinct by 2050. And the Defra report presents more problems than solutions. Tackling these crises will be far more complicated than just building more nature reserves - a problem that Jim Knight, the nature conservation minister, acknowledges.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article...

[highplainsdem]

1. Kicked, and recommended. Thanks for posting this!

[alfredo]

2. K&R depressing reading, but important to remind us why

we fight.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. We up here in the northland

are the canaries in the coal mine, for sure. I've been in Alaska since 1975, and the evidence of global warming up here over the past 15 years or so is truly alarming.

[Old Mouse]

4. The sad truth

is the rate of change is faster than our scientific method to measure. The only real chance is immediate change of leadership. 2008 is too far off, 2006 might be too late as it is.

The pre-Kyoto UN report on climate change is one of the reasons I joined DU, but the refusal to sacrifice personal cause for guaranteed result keeps us from success.

[lonestarnot]

5. This is too screwed... we are so screwed!

[Gregorian]

6. My experience with discussing this issue is frustrating.

Denial. From the idiots, to the educated- I am confronted by smug selfindulgent denial. Just last week I got these two comments, which I remember vividly-
"There's no greenhouse affect around here."
"We can agree on one thing- the temperature is changing."

I've stated the facts. It's not debatable. Scientists are in complete agreement, save a few crazy websites that freepers like to cling to for their information. And I have to ask why. Why would anyone want to be right when being wrong means death?

Bush is to blame for his cocksuredness. We need immediate concentration of knowledge and funding to stop as much of our combustion as we possibly can.

[FreedomAngel82]

24. I've talked with this a little bit

with my immediate family before. My dad I think believes it's going on but his whole reply is "what can you do?" That's what he said yesterday at lunch when we were talking about it. My Mom agrees it's happening. Last summer about a week or two before the hurricane hit we were in Gulf Shores and my mother said she thought the water was a bit warm than usual. And what can we do about it?

[gordianot]

7. You are right.

There is a greater disaster coming that will make the current political horrors seem tame.

We are getting some very loud wake up calls and few are paying heed. Poor old Al Gore was (is) right, too bad not enough voters wanted to drink a beer with him.

[rawtribe]

8. Teach your children

how to survive in the the wilderness. Survival in the "civilized" world is worthless. With peak oil and climate change the paradigm is changing. Better yet, teach them to live in both worlds.

[gordianot]

9. I have succeeded with my 23 year old son.

We can bug out to the farm on short notice.

One who can live in both worlds. By the way living in the wilderness is not nearly as bad as living with the real savages in the so called "civilized" world.

[rawtribe]

12. I agree,

the wilderness is so much more life affirming. You have taught your son well.

:thumbsup:

[Old Mouse]

13. that isn't good enough

Wind will be the real killer. Right now diseases are turing out forests into powder-kegs. When the wind and heat hit, the wilderness will be no place to hide.

All of our industrial dangers will be spread globally, like the contamination of new Orleans but on a grand scale, our chemical and nuclear pollutants, our plutonium. Genetically modified organisms tend to "leak" into natural fauna... the profitable terminator gene has the potential to accidentally kill off crops and forests en mass. When you start to think about the secondary damages, it's unlikely anything will survive.

[opihimoimoi]

10. We Have the What is Happening, we know the WHY Its Happening

What we should be looking for is a system to address the problem.

AN AWARENESS project is needed...we humans need to solve for SUSTAINABILITY...and in doing so, we address the Environs/the health Status of the Human race, and how to prevent/minimize Famines...

We need to avoid wasting our energies and focus on food production, new cities, and new efficient designs. We need to wake up....it will take a Global Effort to avert hard times.

[Savannah Progressive]

11. The first thing we have to do

The very first thing we need to do, as a party and a people is keep the fuel prices rising.

If the fuel prices rise, then people will drive less, use less energy, and begin to conserve like they haven't had to do in their lives. The era of cheap energy is over, and the only thing we can do is push the prices as high as possible. By doing this we can economically stimulate people to do the right thing, and make the alternatives more attractive to corporations and power companies.

Solar, wind, and even Geo-thermal become more attractive the more expensive that gas becomes.

[Old Mouse]

14. We have to take back the government

and declare a global crisis. Moratorium on development. Rationing of energy usage. Severe regulation of pollution output on an international scale.

Your thought is a good idea, but I doubt we have the time for capitalist economics to alter public opinion.

[Beam Me Up]

15. Try this link:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article316604.ece

That is: article316604.ece

[buzzsaw_23]

16. thanks n/t

[mom cat]

17. OK...Flame me but: Stop over breeding....Us... here... now

We have to make radical changes. Neither do it voluntarily or have it forced upon us by the unspeakable misery that is to come or by the ruthless dictators who will grab increasing control during the decline and chaos that are coming.
Bringing more children, especially high consumptive children, into this already over populated planet is murder is to the planet and cruel to the children who will be born.
We must vastly reduce the population...Start a trend..."no more than one", (except for multiple births). Stop fertility treatments. Adopt or do without.

[Beam Me Up]

18. I do believe that is what the elites have in mind.

Looks to me like we've been moved in this direction for some time now.

Did you ever read minstreal boy's piece (rigorous intuition) on "Maurice"? -- I'll see if I can find it...

Edit:

Right. There is this one:

Some People Call Me Maurice
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/04/some-people-call-me-maurice.html

Followed by this one:

Carrying Moon's Water
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/04/carrying-moons-water.html

[mom cat]

25. So THIS is project "X"

[Old Mouse]

19. There is an extreme drop in fertility

in all developed countries. Japan has the worst problem, facing radical depopulation in a single lifetime.

[mom cat]

23. Great...Maybe our own pollution is sterilizing us. It cannot happen

fast enough.

[CrispyQ]

20. 6 billion miracles is enough!

I have this bumper sticker but now the count is 6.7 billion.

As long as we continue to ignore our numbers, we leave the balancing up to nature & nature is going to be so, so much more harsh than simply limiting us to one child.

Regarding fertility treatments. A few years ago a couple in our area had 5 or 6 at one time due to fertility treatments. They were written up in the paper & made into celebrities. Corporations & local businesses donated goods & services to them & every few years on the children's birthday they are featured yet again in the local papers.

We celebrate this excess, we offer help & support to this family, yet a single mother having difficulty providing for her child or two is vilified.

[buzzsaw_23]

22. A miracle we are losing

The Japanese Egret

[buzzsaw_23]

21. kick