Behold.. the Great Barrier Reef!

Off the northeast coast of Australia, it is the largest tropical coral reef system in the whole world! It stretches over 1,200 miles along the coast and the area of it is more about the size of 70 million football fields.. that’s half the size of Texas!

Almost 3,000 reefs built by over 360 different species of hard coral make an attractive home for a large variety of marine life. If you don’t believe me when I say a LOT of marine life, take a look at these numbers: 400 types of sponges, 4,000 kinds of mollusks, 1,500 unique fish species, 500 varieties of seaweed, and 800 kinds of echinoderms. Six of the world’s seven species of sea turtle call this place home, as do 30% of all soft coral varieties and hundreds of different sea birds!

Aside from being a wildlife metropolis, the corals also have other scientific uses. By drilling cores out of the reef, scientists can tell things about the past (much like rock core samples and geologists). They can tell things like sea levels, temperature, and ocean chemistry.

Currently, things aren’t looking so great for the GBR… rising sea temperatures and higher ocean acidity (the ocean absorbs excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere) are bleaching the reefs. The reefs themselves are white, but the microscopic plants they form a symbiotic relationship with are brightly colored. The corals can’t take the changing conditions on top of the relationship with the plants (the benefits from their photosynthesis creates too many free radicals which actually can hurt the coral) and kick them out. Coral reefs all over the world are suffering the effects of bleaching and are also being destroyed further by more frequent hurricanes, storms, and pollution. Commercial fishing and impacts of the tourism industry are both heavily felt on the GBR as well.

While corals which have been bleached are not automatically dead, they sure look it. The loss of the plants they’d ejected to save themselves means they can’t get enough energy/food to survive. They’re starving. If the stressful conditions are fixed quickly enough, they can make a weakened comeback. However, the growth rates will be slower, less reproduction, and they will be more susceptible to diseases. It can take up to 20 years for a reef to recover from a bleaching event, if it does at all.

And it goes almost without saying that if the coral cannot survive, the rest of the sealife won’t be much better off. The rising temperatures kill off baby seabirds because the fish leave for cooler waters and the parents cannot find food for their chicks.Sea turtles, whose eggs are dependent upon temperature to determine the baby’s sex, will become almost entirely female. Without males, the species will not be able to carry on.

To combat the seemingly impending doom of coral reefs worldwide, some measures are being taken: some protected areas around ‘resilient’ reefs are being set up; a ‘Coral Reef Watch’ allows people to report instances of bleaching, and the Svalbard Seed Bank may soon house specimens which could be used to repopulate when the conditions return to an ideal state. 

Sources:

images: econews.com.au, australia.com, reefresilience.org

information: The Weather of the Future - Heidi Cullen

Sahel comes from the Arabil sahil, meaning ‘shore’. This Sahel is the shore between desert in the north and the rainforests in the south which is constantly changing. This area of Africa has consistently been identified as one of the most vulnerable places in the world in reference to climate change.

In the past (ten thousand years ago), there were trees and lakes across the majority of the Sahel, but eventually they were replaced by sand. Frequent droughts in the area are helping to keep the trees at bay. Information from sea floor cores and other forensic climate data show the trends of the past, and help to tell the story for us.

About 2.8 million years back, there was a transition to cooler and drier climate, which aided in transforming the dense woodlands of the Sahel into open grasslands.This put pressure on the local animal life, and many had to adapt. Many more became extinct.

Around 1.8-1.6 million years ago, another shift in climate towards cold and dry conditions made it more difficult for vegetation to grow, and began the tradition of frequent and wide-spread droughts.

In the past 100 years, there have been three droughts which were just devastating to the people and ecology. The first lasted from 1910-1916, the second from 1941-1945, and the worst one began in the 1960’s and only began to improve in 1988. The unstable climate lasts to this day, and has been the cause for mass migrations, urban overcrowding, and political unrest.

The term people often use in talking about the Sahel is desertification, meaning that formerly productive land is turning into desert. There are many possible causes for desertification, including mismanagement of land by humans and changes in ocean currents, monsoons, or other ‘uncontrollable’ climatic factors.  Experts are stating that the African monsoons, if they are strong enough, make their way far enough north to bring rainfall to the Sahel. If they are not strong enough, they only bring rain to the southern rainforests. The strength of the monsoons is dependent upon ocean surface temperatures—when El Nino keeps the Pacific Ocean warm, rainfall is more scarce in the Sahel. When La Nina occurs and the Pacific is cooler, the rainfall in the Sahel is expected to be more abundant.

Of course, the ocean temperatures are not the only factor in the desertification of the Sahel. Human influences helped to clear the land of much-needed trees, and human influences are now working to do what they can on the land to combat the encroaching sand. Farmers in Niger have been responsible for about 12.4 million acres of trees, shrubs, and crops that now reside on what was once barren ground. The tradition of clearing trees from the land for crop planting and for neglecting trees because they were property of the government has come to an end. Realizing that the trees protected against sand storms which eroded the topsoil, farmers began to plow around the trees and eventually came to regard them as their own property. The government saw the benefits of this and allowed farmers to own individual trees—now they had incentive to take care of them. Local economies also began to improve as farmers could sell parts of the trees—fruits, seeds, leaves, and branches—while keeping the tree alive and healthy. The presence of these trees has encouraged growth of other plants and helped to save people from hunger during the late summer.

While these developments in Niger are encouraging, they are an isolated experiment. Hopefully, all of the positive effects will make it apparent that reforestation, while not an end-all cure, would be very helpful in the fight against desertification in the Sahel.

Sources:

image

information: Cullen, Heidi “The Weather of the Future: Heat waves, extreme storms, and other scenes from a climate-changed planet”

This petition is a baby, with only 40 signatures when I found it! Signal boost peeps! Whether you are vegan or vegetarian or omnivore, you must agree that it would be beneficial to us all for labels to say exactly what is in their products!

Processed ingredients in the foods we eat are a major contributor to climate change. The ingredients and processes often used for these foods can be sources of pollution and greenhouse gasses.

This little article gives you eight steps in cutting back on processed foods, including things like carefully reading your labels, eating whole foods (fruits and veggies), buying local bread, eating whole grains, and a few more tips that you’ll have to go read to find out! ;)

Corresponding to the notion of a Safe Minimum Standard, current U.S. policy (under the Endangered Species Act) is to protect endangered and threatened species.

• Endangered species: those species that are in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.
• Threatened species: those species that are likely to become danger unless actions are taken.

 
In passing the ESA in 1973, Congress recognized that species have
“esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and
scientific value” inadequately accounted for in economic growth and
development, and provided a program to conserve species listed as
threatened or endangered.

• No federal agency may jeopardize a listed species or adversely affect its habitat
• Private parties cannot “take” a species (i.e., harass, wound, or harm whereby harm includes habitat modification)

The ESA and Private Landowners:

• It is estimated that 70% of listed species depend on private land for the majority of their habitat (Natural Heritage Data Center Network, 1993).
• Under current conservation rules, information is a prerequisite to regulation.
• Under the “takings” provision of the act, private landowners with listed species on their lands are prohibited from engaging in activities that may harm species.
• It is true that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids the taking of private property for public use without payment of just compensation. However, the Supreme Court has generally imposed a stringent test for regulatory takings, limiting compensation to circumstances in which all economically viable use of the property has been denied.

• Because the Act is prohibitive rather than incentive-based in
nature, it has given rise to a particularly brutal and yet
alarmingly common form of self-interest known as the “shoot,
shovel, and shut-up” strategy.

As the golden-cheeked warbler was in the final stages of being
added to the endangered species list, a firm which owned hundreds
of acres of warbler habitat hired migrant workers to chainsaw the
entire stand of oak and juniper trees, thus preserving their
investment, since it could no longer be considered “warbler habitat.”

• Also, an incentive for landowners to prevent information
collection on their land.

From the Kansas City Star, November 20, 1994: A survey scientist spoke about his work in a public meeting near Houston. A man rose at the end to say he didn’t have any questions but wanted to alert everyone in the room. The man had heard the biological survey had entered into an agreement with the Girl Scouts of America to do survey work for them on private land. Why? “Because landowners would be more reluctant to shoot them than a bureaucrat.” 

Economics matters because economic incentives are critical to shaping human behavior and consequently to the recovery of the species.

• The current ESA, in which the burden of proof is on the regulator and compensation is provided only in extreme cases, both information collection and species conservation occur at less than optimal levels.
• Possible refinements to the ESA that make economic sense:
– Provide compensation for landowners who forego development in order to provide habitat for listed species.
– Switch the burden of proof from regulators to landowners who propose to develop.
– Change the incentives for the regulators

The variability among living organisms
from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other
aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which
these are a part: this includes diversity within species,
between species and of ecosystems.

-UN Environmental Programme (1993)

Biodiversity is a complex concept; it is often perceived as
having three dimensions:

• Genetic Diversity: variations in gene structure within and between species.
• Species Diversity (aka species richness): the number of different species in a given area. 
• Ecological Diversity: variability in ecosystem habitat types.

Some facts about problems in Biodiversity:

• Current global extinction rates are in the range of 10 to 1,000 
times natural (read: without humans) extinction rates.

Anthropogenic (human) causes of species extinction:

• Open-access harvesting
•  Loss of habitat, e.g. conversion of rainforest to marginal agricultural land. In U.S.: ~30% of wetlands converted; 85% of inland waters artificially controlled.
• Introduction of nonnative species
• Pollution. Global Climate Change

Mankind, in general, has but a very limited understanding of
the vast majority of the earth’s other inhabitants.

• Estimates of the number of species are as low as 4 million and as high as 112 million. Best guess of about 14 million.

• Approximately 1.5 million have been described and given scientific names

How many of you have heard of the CSA (community supported agriculture) where farmers deliver boxes of local produce to community members weekly (for money of course)? You might recognize some influence in Walmart’s newest program.. click the title and read up, then let us know what you think about it!

Good? Bad? Is is possible for giant corporations to do non-evil things?

In Amsterdam, the city is beginning to have problems with too much of a good thing. That good thing? Bicycles! There are more bicycles than people in the city, which is leading to bike traffic jams, parking problems, and even bicycle rage!

The city is investing $72 million to further improve the bicycle infrastructure, to make bike lanes safer, add parking, and other improvements.

Wouldn’t you love to have that problem here?