The International Union for Conservation of Nature updated the "Red List" which may be the world's most respected inventory of biodiversity.
On Monday, at the IUCN's World Conservation Congress in Barcelona many experts agreed that the Earth is undergoing the "first wave of mass extinction since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years go."
Aggressive, commercial fishing techniques have more than tripled the amount of fish being harvested from the worlds oceans. Trawlers and factory ships using radar and sonar have been able to find fish with nearly pin point accuracy as they prowl the oceans stalking their prey. Using nets as large as jumbo jets has led to the extinction of some intended catches, and other unintended catches.
Over the past two decades an 89 percent decline in hammerhead sharks in the Northeast Atlantic have been attributed to bycatch. The Caribbean monk seal was officially, albeit woefully late, extinct in June of this year. Though the last reported sighting of this monk seal was reportedly in 1952.
I hope I'm not dead 56 years before anyone notices I'm gone.
The seals demise is also officially attributed directly to man. Will it be too late to save the last two monk seal species? There are now estimated only 1,200 Hawaiian monk seals, and only 500 Mediterranean Monk seals inhabiting the planet.
The photo was taken May 27, 2007 of two Hawaiian monk seals. One died from drowning after being tangled and trapped in fishing lines. The other followed his friend to shore barking at people for assistance at Makua Beach on Oahu.
The IUCN estimates that 25% of the planet's known Mammals are at risk of disappearing forever and in reality that number could be as high as 36%.
Experts say the window of opportunity to save great apes and monkeys appears to be closing far more quickly than Scientists realised.
Can Mankind be far behind?
Ocean-dwelling mammals are reportedly dying at a rate of 1,000 per DAY, victims of mile-wide fishing nets, vessel strikes, toxic waste and sound pollution.
For many decades man's hubris has increased as the quality of life in the world around him has decreased. If mankind has believed the world was his oyster, the Planet is setting out to prove him wrong.
Photo thanks Gordon Olayvar/ Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources.
Labels: IUNC, marine mammals, Mass extinct, Monk seal, Ocean, Ocean Habitat, Ocean Mammals
© 2007, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
www.pacificspirit.org
Tangled up and blue. Marine mammals and primates forecasted to be the first victims of mass extinction.
posted by Pacific Spirit on Monday, October 06, 2008
The Petermann glacier is breaking up. An 11 square mile area of the glacier in northern Greenland broke away after July 10th and before
July 24th. The Petermann Glacier is one of Greenland's largest glaciers.
Petermann has a floating section 10 miles wide and 50 miles long. At 500 square miles it is the longest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.
A 33.5 square mile of the Petermann broke away 2000-2001, but the Byrd Polar Research Center is predicting continued disintegration and more imminent breakup in the coming year.
An already large crack is widening even more while it moves toward the calving front of the glacier. The loss could be as much as an addition 60 square miles of the Massive ice tongue or 1/3rd. "The crack is advancing to a point where a massive breakup seems imminent, in which case, the area of break-up would be 60 square miles.
Greenland's fastest moving glacier, Jakobshavn is suddenly speeding up and has nearly doubled its ice flow from land into the ocean. Its flow has contributed to roughly 4% of the sea level increase of the 20th century.
When every dim-wit at the coffee shop argues that is glass never over-flows when the ice melts in his drink, you can remind him this ice is moving from land into the sea. His glass would overflow if he added ice to it from his refrigerator.
Researchers have found the glacier's speeding up is also coinciding with the very rapid thinning of the ice. It's loosing as much a 49 feet of thickness per year since 1997.
The glaciers ice-tongue, which began to break apart in 2000, had a restraining effect on the ice behind it. As it thins and breaks it opens a path for even yet more ice to pile into the ocean.
Waleed Abdalati, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center says, "...We think there is a dynamic effect in which the glaciers are accelerating due to warming." They believe the thinning of ice is too much to be attributed to melting alone.
Photo Thanks: Waleed Abdalati, GSFC
NASA MODIS
Byrd Polar Research Center
Labels: Glacier, Greenland, Jakobshavn, NASA, Petermann, Sea level
© 2007, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
www.pacificspirit.org
Sea level rise already increasing as glaciers melt faster than
posted by Pacific Spirit on Friday, August 22, 2008
Sometimes there just aren't any words.
Labels: Baby Whale
© 2007, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
www.pacificspirit.org
Baby Whale thinks boat is its mother. Outcome looks grim.
posted by Pacific Spirit on Thursday, August 21, 2008
The FDA has decided to allow food producers to radiate lettuce and spinach.
Put on your tinfoil hats when you try to figure this one out.
Irradiated meat has been around for years. In February 2000, the U.S.government began allowing food manufactures to irradiate raw meat and meat products. At that time it was doubtful the public would accept meat that had been zapped. Working toward a decade later I'd be hard pressed to find a shopper that knows their meat has been irradiated.
Huh?
If you happen to pick up a package at your local grocery right now, and you see the words, 'cold pasteurized' or 'electronically pasteurized you are holding an irradiated product.
If you are under the age of 40, and you happen to carry a magnifying lens with you, you may just be able to read the fine print. If you're over 40 odds are you wouldn't be able to see it even with a magnifying glass.
In 2007 Consumer Reports found that 71% of consumers didn't want to buy irradiated products.
Don't worry though, the food that's been irradiated hasn't gone radioactive. You won't turn yellow and start glowing, but don't take off your tinfoil hat just yet.
It seems the maximum dose of irradiation on meat is 4.5 kiloGrays. A kiloGray is one unit of irradiation. 4.5 doesn't seem so bad. Not bad until we find out that is the equivalent of about 7 million chestX-rays. That Million with an 'M'.
Once we approach the 5 or 6 million chest X-ray mark, what's another 500,000 plus or minus?
Although our meat isn't glowing, irradiating items with fat in them causes a peculiar 'radiolytic byproduct' specific to irradiation. It changes the fat into 2-ACBs. [2-alkylcyclobutanones] 2-ABCs when put into rats cause tumors to grow in their colons.
There has been a tremendous increase in the U.S. in colon cancers since 1999. We would be led to believe that is due to more people being diagnosed with the disease. Maybe, but what are the odds?
Meanwhile...
How about cleaning up our act? Can we not figure out how to keep fecal matter, animal and human, out of our food supply? Can we really not figure that out?
Really?
Labels: 2-ABC, FDA, Irradiated, USDA
© 2007, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
www.pacificspirit.org
Starting Friday, U.S. lettuce and spinach go nuclear.
posted by Pacific Spirit on Thursday, August 21, 2008
Prince Charles thinks genetically engineered foods will be the "biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
The Prince also thinks GM [genetically modified] foods are an experiment that's gone seriously wrong, causing untold problem which become expensive and very difficult to undo.
The Times online has promptly published a piece rebuffing what Prince Charles has to say.
Read what 'The Independent Science Panel' has to say about the GM foods at their website.
Prince Charles also says,"...the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future" is relying on gigantic corporations for food that would result in "absolute disaster".
To rely on only a few gigantic corporations for anything could turn into absolute disasters. Antitrust laws were written precisely to avoid the 'absolute' problems that accompany absolute power.
"if they think this is the way to go...we (will) end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness." The Prince is quoted as saying.
I'm no expert, and I'm certainly not the son of the Queen, but I do have a backyard garden. This year that garden is tortured. Many of the plants in my vegetable garden are 'trade marked' plants. Admittedly my story is only anecdotal but none of these plants has born a fruit worth the energy it takes to remove it from the plant. It's horrible.
Scientists claim the attacks on their GM food research are setting them back. I'd be willing to bet my last dollar, the 'scientists' making those claims are working for some of the largest ag corporations on earth.
Insurance company spokespeople have compared GM crops to Thalidomide, Asbestos and Acts of Terrorism.
Read the Canadian canola farmer's, recipient of the Mahatma Gandhi award 2000's disconcerting story.
When asked 'why he would plant Monsanto's GM crops' Percy Schmeiser said, "I think the reason was this. ...Monsanto told farmers that it would be more nutritious, it would be a bigger yield, but most of all, less chemicals..."
"Our land is contaminated. Our water is contaminated. Farmers now realize that we're just killing ourselves and we're killing the environment-our insects (bees?) our birds, and everything else."
Schmeiser goes on to say,"Number one, it was not more nutritious. It was not a bigger yielder." Monsanto never noted anything about quality. Schmeiser says, "...farmers are now using from 6 to 10 times more chemicals."
Imagine that...
Monsanto would like to be the worlds sole food source. Monsanto seeds grow best with Monsanto fertilizers. Monsanto is the seed and fertilizer giant!
If you're looking for some good Karma, an investment in Monsanto may not be the place for you. If you are looking to make a killing...it may be.
Monsanto is increasing the price of its corn seed by $100.00 a bag. On 1,000 acres that an extra $40,000.00. At the U.N. Food Summit in Rome Monsanto announced that it would be saving the world from a food crisis. It pledged to double its yields on soy and cotton over the next 20 years.
Like Nancy Regan used to say..."JUST SAY NO".
Genetic diversity keeps our food system resistant to disease. Let's talk incest. There is a reason you cannot marry your cousin.
GM seeds, are 'akin' to incest. One more anecdotal story please...I once knew a wonderful family seemingly normal in every way. But, the parents were first cousins. All seemed well, until the children (2 of them) grew up and tried to start families of their own. The daughter of this union died while she was pregnant,(keeled down dead while making toast) the son was never able to produce any children. Kind of like the plants in my garden, unable to bring forth fruit.
If you are busy buying up any protected seeds as I am, your hopes may be dashed like mine.
While we were sleeping, Monsanto agreed to buy De Ruiter Seeds. The acquisition by MOnsanto will serve, "the protected-culture" vegetable seed market".
Photo: USDA ARS
Labels: Food Crisis, Food Shortage, gentically modified, GM crops, Monsanto, Prince Charles
© 2007, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
www.pacificspirit.org
Prince Charles says, "Count me out". Just say No to genetically modified foods.
posted by Pacific Spirit on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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