Vote Earth

Click on the picture and see what the Vote Earth Campaign is all about.

Global Warming Whitewash Proposed November 6, 2009

http://www.earthweek.com/2009/ew091106/ew091106c.html

Yerupaja mountain in the high Andes may be one area to be painted white after glaciers melt.

A Peruvian scientist told his country’s parliamentary commission on climate change that global warming could be combated by painting highly reflective white paint over rock and ground exposed by receding glaciers.

Eduardo Gold, president of Glaciers of Peru, says reflecting the sunlight would keep the ground from absorbing as much solar radiation.

He proposes using only environmentally friendly lime-based paint made without harmful chemicals.

His scheme has drawn interest from the World Bank, which is considering various “geoengineering” proposals to counter climate change.

Gold says hiring local residents to do the landscape painting could create about 15,000 jobs.

The glaciers of the tropical Andes have proven to be very sensitive to climate change.

Some scientists have estimated a loss in coverage of more than 30 percent over the past 30 years.

Antarctic glacier ‘thinning fast’

August 13 2009

Here is the latest on the melting Antarctica

The Sahara greening? Is it possible?

Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall.

Go to this link in the National Geographic to find out more.

Also worth a look is this link at the bottom of the page: a map of global warming’s impacts.) Click on each item and more explanation comes up about the effects of global warming

My MP, Roger Williams asked me to pay him a visit!

As a result of searching for material for the Amazon unit for Year 7, I came across something that bothered me a lot. As a result of an agreement between Peru and the US, the indigenous people were feeling exploited. Their rights had been removed by parliament and they rebelled. An unknown number were killed by the police. There were international protests and the US were sitting on their hands. What did the UK government have to say about this, I wanted to know. Enter email to my MP. No-one was more surprised than me when I was asked to meet him and discuss this. David Milliband will be asked a question or 2!

Watch this space – I will let you know what happens.

So if it bugs you, let them know. You never know what might happen next.

Thank you Roger for your concern.

To find out more click here

RSPB: Active In Sumatra

This is a really important project which our very own RSPB are involved in – do take a look

“I’m so involved with our work in Harapan Rainforest that I often get bogged down in the detail. But the image of a young, healthy Sumatran tiger staring back at me blew me away – I just had to share my excitement with you! As top predators, if tigers are doing well, you can be sure that so is most of the other rainforest wildlife.”

Ian Rowland
RSPB Tropical Forest Conservation Manager

This tiger image is just the latest in a long line of successes from our work in Sumatra. We already hold the management rights to part of Harapan Rainforest, meaning we have stopped the chopping down of trees and are planting them instead – creating a better home for all the rainforest wildlife.

Thanks to your support, all the pieces of our campaign to Save the Sumatran rainforest are now starting to fall into place.

See more images from our camera trap in Sumatra.

PS We thought you’d also like to know that in the next few weeks we’re expecting to receive the second management licence for Harapan Rainforest – giving us roughly 100,000 ha of some of the last remaining lowland rainforest in Sumatra. Just one more reason to celebrate this challenging and ground-breaking international project.

Amazon deforestation in 2009 declines to lowest on record

Global economic downturn drives slowing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell below 10,000 square kilometers for the first time since record-keeping began, reported Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc on Sunday.

Minc said preliminary data from the country’s satellite-based deforestation detection system (DETER) showed that Amazon forest loss between August 2008 and July 2009 would be below 10,000 square kilometers, the lowest level in more than 20 years. Official figures are due out in August or September.

Falling commodity prices and government action to crack down on illegal clearing are credited for the decline in deforestation.

Conversion to cattle pasture accounts for roughly 80 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Pasture is used for beef production as well as to speculate on rising land prices.

Nearly 20 percent of the Amazon has been cleared since the 1970s, but the Brazilian government has recently committed to significant reductions in deforestation under its climate change mitigation plan. The country aims to raise more than $20 billion in donations from industrialized countries to fund forest conservation.

Lives changed by a millipede

This is in Kenya, near Mombasa

Look around at the lush and fertile landscape and it’s hard to believe that this is a man-made environment. Yellow weaver birds making a huge din whilst building their pendulous nests, a sleek cormorant prepares to dive into the water and even a hippo wallows in the mud.

The hippo as it turns out has a vital role to play in the ecosystem. The mud on it’s back is removed from the ponds and so stops the water hole from silting up. The crocodiles too play their part. They feed on the dead farm animals or remnants from the thriving organic fish-farm. And their excreta helps fertilise the water making the algae grow, which is food for the fish as well as nutrients for the rice paddies and bananas

Only 30 years ago – this thriving forest landscape was a rocky, lunar-like desert, created by mining coral for cement. Actually, there are still parts of it which have been newly quarried to give one an idea of how it all started. The inspiration behind the transformation is Dr. Rene Haller, a Swiss agronomist, who has just celebrated his 50th anniversary of living on the Kenyan Coast.

He started experimenting with different trees to see if any would put down roots into the dry, rocky terrain. The Casuarina tree, whose seeds had been washed onto Kenyan shores when Krakatoa erupted in the 1860s, was the best candidate. It produces nutrients in nodules on its roots and so is self-sustaining

But Haller’s most miraculous discovery was the beneficial effects of the millipede. This marvellous red-legged insect loves eating the needles dropped by the casuarinas. It’s pooh then becomes the humus for the more vegetation – thus starting the whole ecosystem development.

Haller’s vision didn’t stop there. He managed to set up lots of different business enterprises supported by rehabilitated land, both employing and providing food for hundreds of local people. He also managed to demonstrate the value of conservation – for example, by showing farmers the benefits of tree-planting in preserving water for irrigation.

To find out more about his ideas go to www.haller.org.uk

Kitkat displaces orang-uotans?

Palm oil is present in Hovis and Kingsmill bread, the country’s best-selling margarine Flora, KitKat and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars, as well as Dove soap, Comfort fabric conditioner and Persil washing powder.

Palm oil  is driving the destruction of the rainforests, displacing native people and threatening the survival of the orangutan is present in dozens of Britain’s leading grocery brands, an investigation by The Independent has found.

Find out more here

Further Antarctic melting

Click on this map to find the full article.

“The northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has become unstable and the first icebergs have been released,” Angelika Humbert, glaciologist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said of European Space Agency satellite images of the shelf.

Humbert told Reuters about 700 sq km (270.3 sq mile) of ice — bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York City — has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.