A man in New Zealand thinks it’s better to create your own piece of paradise than to move to a natural one and just taking it over. Back in 1987 Hugh Wilson moved to a neglected part of the country where the natural environment was not doing well and has
Continue readingTag: Biodiversity
Views from the Beltline: BIG step toward saving the oceans
Along with our other environmental sins, we are fishing the oceans dry. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, over a third of global fisheries have been fished beyond sustainable limits and almost two-thirds are being fished to their limits. Sharks and rays have declined by over 70 percent.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Will Steffan on What a Four Degrees Temperature Rise Looks Like in the Age of Ecological Disorder
For a trifecta of depressing posts for this Monday morning, I want to save this video here. It’s Will Steffan, an American chemist who became the executive director of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute, explaining back in 2018 that we only have two years to make a solid
Continue readingThings Are Good: Urban Ecology Cools Building, Cities, and Helps Biodiversity
Modern cities are full of biodiversity, you just need to know where to look .Urban ecology is a relatively new field of study that examines how isolated urban green infrastructure relates to one another to form an ecological understanding of our cities. This infrastructure includes green roofs, parks, water catchments,
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Time to start paying Mother Nature back
I’ve long thought that the sensible approach to the global economy is obvious, if complex. We calculate what the Earth can sustainably provide in terms of natural resources, then we set our economic demands at something less including a substantial safety factor. The total demand is then equitably shared by
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Six Mountains-The Unseen Forest
Larry Pynn’s ‘Drone Powered Video’ reveals the real story of North Cowchan’s logging practices. Originally published on https://www.sixmountains.ca Clearcutting by North Cowichan municipality revealed You won’t see the images from this video on the Read more…
Continue readingThings Are Good: Butterflies are Back Thanks to Small Gardens
If you planted native species in your garden then you deserve a pat on the shoulder. Your efforts have helped the butterflies return from dangerously low population levels. In Toronto we’ve seen the mass return of butterflies and it’s thanks to efforts by people and educational groups ensuring that pollinators
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Environmental destruction—more than a war crime?
The UN’s International Law Commission currently has on its agenda an item concerned with protecting the environment in times of war. The commission has drawn up 28 draft principles, the purpose of which is, according to Principle 2, “enhancing the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict, including
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Would It Really Take?
We all know the injunction – cut greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030 and entirely by 2050. To some that conjures up visions of the end of fossil fuels, a switch to alternative green energy, electric cars instead of gas guzzlers, baseboard heaters instead of oil or gas furnaces,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: "A Globe-Spanning Murder-Suicide" I Guess That Sums It Up.
If you’re planning on being around for another two or three decades you’ll be witness to a world like you’ve never known it. What’s in store for you is a darker, more dangerous and, ultimately, dystopian world as nature re-calibrates the biosphere. Talk about death by natural causes only on
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: I’m Glad This Week is About Over
This has been an unusually stressful week on the climate/environment front. Don’t worry, it’ll be back at full bore on Monday morning but at least there’s the weekend (I hope) to chill out. The week began with anxious wondering if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party would table a motion for a
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: ONE MILLION Species at Imminent Risk and That Includes You.
A UN scientific panel is about to release a jarring report. We are heading for extinction. The world’s leading scientists will warn the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken. Up
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Biodiversity, Climate Change, and the Attack of the Ocean Cockroaches
Earlier today I wrote about a new report that shows that in the last fifty years humanity has wiped out 60% of the mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles who share this planet with us. And I quoted scientists who said that the destruction of nature is as dangerous as climate change.So I
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Humanity’s Horrifying War On Animals
If the animals who share this planet with us could send us a message, it would be that one.But is it already too late?For at the rate we naked apes are going, there soon won't be many of them left.Read more »
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Win/Win Story
The polar bear population of Labrador is thriving and the credit goes to the collapse of the region’s harp seal hunt. Despite vanishing sea ice and shorter, milder winters, Labrador’s polar bear population is actually growing – which means a bigger harvesting quota for Inuit hunters. There are more than
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Unholy Trinity
The Unholy Trinity, the Three O’s – Overpopulation, Overconsumption and Overshoot – are mankind’s plague on the Earth. Surf’s Up, Indonesia Despite claims that, with just a bit more efficiency, we can grow our species to nine, perhaps even twelve billion, there are already far too many of our species
Continue readingreeves report: New ‘Tipping Point’ Model Could Help Predict Species Extinction
Species may be more adaptive to environmental changes than we thought, but small shifts can still be enough to cause extinctions. Snowshoe hares are facing increasing challenges as snow patterns shift dramatically as a result of climate change. ENVIRONMENTAL “TIPPING POINTS” can provide researchers with valuable clues to detect when species
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Think of It as the "Noah’s Ark" of Climate Change
What would Noah do? WWND?Let’s pretend there was a Noah and he built an ark within which he accommodated species, two by two, so that life on Earth would not be wiped out in God’s incredibly vindictive Great Flood. First thing we know, from the biblical description, is that Noah’s
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Living Planet Report 2014 – Biodiversity Body Blow
Forty years and counting. That’s how long mankind has been outpacing nature’s replenishment rate of essential natural resources – water, biomass, the atmosphere. For 40-years we’ve been running ecological deficits at a steadily increasing rate. Not only are we consuming more than the Earth can provide, our shortfall is
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: EG Radio April 25: The Future of Cities | Bike to Work month | Thomas Lovejoy
Download: earthgauge-podcast-april25-2013.mp3 This week on Earthgauge, we have a veritable green medley with a jam-packed show covering everything from urban sustainability, climate change, biodiversity, biking to work and even the latest green news. I have 4 features today: Presentation by Alex Steffen called The Shareable Future of Cities Alex Smith’s interview
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