Polar Bears Are the Least of Our Arctic Worries - Newsweek.com

Polar Bears Are the Least of Our Arctic Worries - Newsweek.com

Uh, excuse me? Rumors of my extinction should not be discussed in my presence. You wreck my habitat and then you want to discuss "how to divvy up the globe's truly last frontier," while I'm still alive and kicking? Not bloody likely, mate.

Sigh.

"...Scientists have declared that both of the world's ice caps are in perilous states; the Arctic is more vulnerable than the Antarctic because of added climate volatility at the top of the planet. The intuitive victims are the polar bear, and further down the line, the world's grandchildren. Those, certainly, are the victims who have received the most attention.

But in his new book, After the Ice, Alun Anderson makes the insightful case that consequences cast too far into the future ignore geopolitical factors of today. Water where ice once stood changes global trade routes and national-security calculations, especially between countries like the U.S and Russia, whose icy relationship used to be separated by the expanse of the great Pacific. Just this summer, for example, the sea above Russia opened to international commercial shipping as the ice melted."

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Yes, so much for you all to figure out. Oh goody, we can run a boat through the Artic!! But who owns the shipping lanes?

Better get some more lawyers involved. You'll be hearing from mine.

Rev. Paul R. Bear, Blogger-in-Chief
www.CarbonConfession.org

Ekklesia:> Theology & the "Green Apocalypse"

Theology and the ‘green apocalypse’

By Juan Michel

23 Dec 2009

Ekklesia

 

"...The message that God loves the world and every creature on earth "has been the heart-beat of the ecumenical movement facing climate change", said Tveit, recalling the long history of WCC concern with ecological matters.  In an ecumenical perspective, the concern for creation has always been linked to the concern for justice and peace. "It is not a matter of saying this is a planet for some of us", said Tveit, "this is a planet for all of us".

This point was also stressed by Jesse Mugambi, from the University of Nairobi and a member of the WCC working group on climate change. "The world is a world in which we are all relatives, but somewhere along the line we decided […] to treat each other as strangers", he said.

Mugambi explained that in Africa climate change is already causing both severe droughts on the one hand, and flooding on the other.. With the help of maps he showed that those parts of the continent rich in water and cultivable land are also the areas of greatest conflict. Such a conflict "has nothing to do with ethnicity, it has to do with resources."

For Mugambi, the role of Christian faith and religion in general – through its leaders, theologians and ethicists – is that of "bringing us back to the norms" that can contribute to address a challenge like climate change.

"We are not talking about 'helping' African countries", Mugambi said. "It is not a matter of 'help', but of survival for all of us."

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Caribou herds disappearing

Mighty caribou herds dwindle, warming blamed
By CHARLES J. HANLEY (AP) – 1 day ago

ON THE PORCUPINE RIVER TUNDRA, Yukon Territory — Here on the endlessly rolling and tussocky terrain of northwest Canada, where man has hunted caribou since the Stone Age, the vast antlered herds are fast growing thin. And it's not just here.

Across the tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east, Canada's Beverly herd, numbering more than 200,000 a decade ago, can barely be found today.

Halfway around the world in Siberia, the biggest aggregation of these migratory animals, of the dun-colored herds whose sweep across the Arctic's white canvas is one of nature's matchless wonders, has shrunk by hundreds of thousands in a few short years.

From wildlife spectacle to wildlife mystery, the decline of the caribou — called reindeer in the Eurasian Arctic — has biologists searching for clues, and finding them.

They believe the insidious impact of climate change, its tipping of natural balances and disruption of feeding habits, is decimating a species that has long numbered in the millions and supported human life in Earth's most inhuman climate.

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Walrus populations threatened by climate change

Climate - Act for Our Future
Walrus populations threatened by climate change
from World Wildlife Fund

The retreating sea ice of the Alaskan and Russian Arctic is forcing walruses ashore, with deadly consequences for calves. Our WWF team in Alaska has obtained high definition footage along the Arctic shorelines showing the dramatic impact climate change is having on walruses.

In recent years, as Arctic sea ice has receded far from the Russian and Alaskan coasts, walruses – including many females and their calves – have been forced to take refuge on land, congregating in large numbers at “haul outs” along the coasts. These mass congregations can lead to violent stampedes, which are particularly dangerous to young walruses. Scientists also report a recent rise in the number of orphaned calves at sea after becoming separated from their mothers.

An investigative team led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service issued preliminary findings explaining the mass death of young walrus calves that is captured on the WWF footage.The footage shows some of the more than 100 walrus carcasses that were spotted on September 14 by US Geological Survey researchers flying near Icy Cape, southwest of Barrow, Alaska.

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Eco-sin hits the news

The Baltimore Sun looks at eco-sin!! Some good confessions and testifying going on here.

"What's your biggest eco sin?
Baltimore Sun
September 18, 2009

"Kim Walker here with another guest post: I wrote earlier today about being initially hesitant about switching to a low flow showerhead. Water (over)usage is my biggest eco sin. And every time I soak in a hot bath after a long day at work, I swear it'll be my last."

"We all try to lessen our footprint, but everyone has a weakness or two."

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September 21st Global Wake-Up Call

When you pick up the phone, it could be me.

Hey, what's a wake-up call for you humans, anyway? Seems like the Exxon Valdez, LA Riots, the Iraq War, and Katrina didn't get through. You tell me. Is there any intelligent life out there?

Rev. Paul R. Bear, blogging polar bear

September 21st Global Wake-Up Call: "The world is sleepwalking into a crisis of epic and historical proportions."

Maldives Unimpressed with G-8 Pledge to Limit Emissions

Climate Change Requires a Real Movement
by Mohamed Nasheed, president of Maldives
September 20, 2009
cross-posted from Huffington Post

"...[N]o one in the Maldives is applauding the recent pledge of the G-8 nations to try and hold temperature increases to 2 degrees and the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to 450 parts per million. A few years ago, those might have been laudable goals, but new science makes clear they're out of date."

"After the rapid Arctic sea ice melt in the summer of 2007, scientists realized that global warming was happening more quickly and on a larger scale than they had anticipated. Wherever they looked -- high-altitude glaciers, hydrological cycles, the spread of mosquitoes -- they found change happening decades ahead of schedule. In January 2008, James Hansen, one of the world's leading climatologists, published a series of papers showing that the actual safe limit for carbon in the atmosphere was at most 350 parts per million. Anything higher than that limit, warns Hansen, could seed "irreversible, catastrophic effects" on a global scale."

"We're already above that figure -- the current concentration is 390 ppm and rising. For the Maldives, climate change is no vague or distant irritation but a clear and present danger to our survival. But the Maldives is no special case; simply the canary in the world's coal mine. Neighboring Asian countries like Bangladesh are already suffering from saltwater intrusion as seas rise; Australia and the American southwest are enduring epic drought; forests across western North America are succumbing to pests multiplying in the growing heat. And all of this is with temperature increases of nearly 1 degree -- why on earth would we be aiming for 2 degrees?"


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Global warming may bring tsunami and quakes

Yes there is something earthshaking about climate change. Melting ice caps and thawing permafrost seems to bore the humans, and poppies will put them to sleep, but maybe tsunamis and earthquakes will get their attention...

Best regards,

Fr. Paul R. Bear

Global warming may bring tsunami and quakes-scientists
Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:03pm EDT
Reuters

"LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Quakes, volcanic eruptions, giant landslides and tsunamis may become more frequent as global warming changes the earth's crust, scientists said on Wednesday.

Climate-linked geological changes may also trigger 'methane burps', the release of a potent greenhouse gas, currently stored in solid form under melting permafrost and the seabed, in quantities greater than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) in our air today.

'Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well. The whole earth is an interactive system,' Professor Bill McGuire of University College London told Reuters, at the first major conference of scientists researching the changing climate's effects on geological hazards.

'In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change.'

The vulcanologists, seismologists, glaciologists, climatologists and landslide experts at the meeting have looked to the past to try to predict future changes, particularly to climate upheaval at the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago.

'When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis,' said McGuire, who organised the three-day conference.

David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the conference."

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Walrus congregations show worrisome behavior

newsminer.com • Arctic barometers:

Walrus congregations show worrisome behavior
Published Thursday, September 17, 2009

"Reports of thousands of walrus forming unusual congregations on Alaska’s North Slope appear to confirm again the environmental challenges posed by relatively low fall ice coverage within arctic water. Walrus need ice from which to dive in the relatively shallow water above the continent shelf; when it’s not there, they must come to land. With their typical foraging method disrupted, they will likely enter winter in poorer condition than is ideal."

"The news of huge on-shore walrus gatherings comes shortly after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took another step toward declaring the walrus an endangered or threatened species. The agency said last week that a petition to list the walrus presented a good case that the species could be threatened or endangered by the lack of ice. It opened public comment on the issue..."

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Endangered Species Listing Highlights Loss of Glaciers in Glacier National Park

The Mist Forestfly is a "tiny polar bear" that faces

extinction as glacier-fed streams warm up

Vail Valley mountain critter endangered? VailDaily.com:

"Responding to citizen petitions and lawsuits by environmental groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced it will consider adopting strict protections for 29 plant and animal species in the western U.S... Of the 29 species the service will be reviewing, 20 are plants, one is a fish, two are insects, and six are snails. The species are spread across 21 U.S. states and parts of Canada. Nearly all of these plants and animals are threatened by the loss or degradation of their habitat.

The Service also found that climate change is a threat for several of these species. The mist forestfly (Lednia tumana), for example, depends on glacier-fed streams in Glacier National Park for survival. The streams are under threat from rising temperatures. Scientists predict all glaciers in Glacier National Park will disappear by 2030.

“The mist forestfly is like a tiny polar bear; its existence is tied to habitat that is melting away due to the climate crisis. This forestfly deserves federal protection, and its recovery must entail defense of the glaciers in Glacier National Park,” Rosmarino said, explaining how climate change threatens species that rely on small slivers of high mountain habitat that are especially susceptible to climate change.

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More background on Glacier National Park conditions from US Geological Survey

Arctic tundra heats up and releases greenhouse gases

Arctic tundra hotter, boosts global warming: expert
By David Ljunggren
Reuters
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

"Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming, a leading expert said on Wednesday."

"Professor Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia also said higher temperatures meant larger plants were starting to spread across the tundra, which is usually covered by small shrubs, grasses and lichen. The thicker plant cover means the region is getting darker and absorbing more heat. He said tundra covers about 15 percent of the world's surface and makes up around 30 percent of Canadian territory."

"Henry, who has been working in the Arctic since the early 1980s, said he had measured 'a very substantial change' in the tundra over the last three decades, citing greater emissions and plant growth. Since 1970, he said, temperatures in the tundra region had risen by 1 degree Celsius per decade -- equal to the highest rates of warming found anywhere on the planet."

"'We're finding that the tundra is actually giving off a lot more nitrous oxide and methane than anyone had thought before,' Henry told reporters on a conference call from Resolute in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut."

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Rising temperatures threaten California fruit, grape and nut production

Grower-shippers unconcerned about global warming report
Published on 07/27/2009
By Don Schrack
The Packer

"...By the end of this century, global warming could make California’s San Joaquin Valley no longer suitable for stone fruit, grapes and nuts, according to researchers at the University of California-Davis and the University of Washington, Seattle."

“The main message to the industry is that we must start developing long-term strategies to deal with this quite likely problem of the future,” said Eike Luedeling, a post doctoral researcher at UC-Davis.

Most vulnerable to the warming climate, Luedeling said, is winter temperatures. To achieve proper dormancy, most tree fruit, grapes and nuts require a minimum number of chill hours — when the temperature is between freezing and 45 degrees.

According to the study, weather data from 1950 to 2000 indicates chill hours are likely to decrease by more than 50% during this century.

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More Polar Bear Populations in Decline

More Polar Bear Populations in Decline - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com:

"There is rising concern among polar bear biologists that the big recent summertime retreats of sea ice in the Arctic are already harming some populations of these seal-hunting predators. That was one conclusion of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, a network of bear experts who met last week in Copenhagen to review the latest data (and data gaps) on the 19 discrete populations of polar bears around the Arctic."

"The group, part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, includes biologists in academia and government and at nonprofit conservation organizations. Only one bear population is increasing (in the Canadian high Arctic), while eight are declining in numbers, the scientists said. At its last meeting, in 2005, the group concluded that five populations were in decline. Three populations appear to be stable and seven are too poorly monitored to gauge a trend."

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Melting Permafrost Could Unleash Massive Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Climate Change Calculus: Why It's Even Worse Than We Feared
Published Jul 24, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Aug 3, 2009
Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley
Newsweek.com

"Scientists have long known that permafrost, if it melted, would release carbon, exacerbating global warming, which would melt more permafrost, which would add more to global warming, on and on in a feedback loop. But estimates of how much carbon is locked into Arctic permafrost were, it turns out, woefully off."

" 'It's about three times as much as was thought, about 1.6 trillion metric tons, which has surprised a lot of people,' says Edward Schuur of the University of Florida. 'It means the potential for positive feedbacks is greatly increased.' "

"That 1.6 trillion tons is about twice the amount now in the atmosphere. And Schuur's measurements of how quickly CO2 can come out of permafrost, reported in May, were also a surprise: 1 billion to 2 billion tons per year. Cars and light trucks in the U.S. emit about 300 million tons per year."

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Politics-As-Usual While Planet Burns

Politics-As-Usual While Planet Burns: American Clean Energy and Security Act Can’t Solve Climate Crisis

By Brian Tokar
From the July 24, 2009 issue
of the Indypendent

"Carbon offsets have become the postmodern version of the indulgences the Catholic church used to sell in the Middle Ages to buy your way out of sin. But on a global scale, with corporations instead of individuals as the main players, they have become a scam of gigantic proportions."

"Rather than promoting innovative measures to reduce energy use in poor countries, as they are usually advertised, carbon offsets are subsidizing the already routine destruction of byproducts from China’s rising production of ozone-destroying hydrofluorocarbons, minor retooling of highly polluting pig iron smelters in India, and methane capture from a notoriously toxic landfill in South Africa."

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Should bags get an 'eco-sin' tax?

Should bags get an 'eco-sin' tax? tallahassee.com Tallahassee Democrat:
BY WAYNE T. PRICE
FLORIDA TODAY
July 4, 2009

"Supporters say forcing consumers to pay anywhere from 5 cents to a quarter a bag would do wonders at curbing plastic bags' popularity their use and protecting the environment. Just as there are so-called sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, the plastic bag fee would be an 'eco-sin' tax, they say."

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