UPDATE: Earth May Be in Early Days of 6th Mass Extinction

Earth May Be in Early Days of 6th Mass Extinction - Yahoo News Philippines: "the looming sixth mass extinction is linked to human activity, Rodolfo Dirzo, a professor of biology at Stanford University in California, said in a statement. Dirzo is the lead author of the new review of past research on the topic, which suggests Earth is in the early days of this sixth mass extinction.
A past study, which involved data from the fossil record and modern-day conservation biology, suggested Earth could enter such a mass extinction within the next 300 to 2,000 years. That study was detailed in the March 2, 2011, issue of the journal Nature.
Up to one-third of all vertebrates are threatened or endangered, the researchers said. Large animals — such as elephants, rhinoceroses and polar bears — have the highest rates of decline, which is a trend shared by other mass extinctions. These large animals are at particular risk because they tend to have few offspring and low population growth rates. Hunters and poachers, however, find their fur, meat, tusks or horns attractive targets. [7 Iconic Animals Humans Are Driving to Extinction]
Losing a species of large animal can have unexpected effects on the ecosystem and nearby human developments, a process known as defaunation. In one study, researchers isolated patches of land from animals, including zebra, giraffes and elephants. Without the animals, the grass and shrubs grew tall, and the soil became looser. Rodents quickly took over and doubled in numbers, eating the seeds from the plants and living in the patchy soil that was relatively predator-free.
Rodents can carry diseases and parasites that infect people, the researchers said.
"Where human density is high, you get high rates of defaunation, high incidence of rodents and thus high levels of pathogens, which increases the risks of disease transmission," Dirzo said. "Who would have thought that just defaunation would have all these dramatic consequences? But it can be a vicious circle.""



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Peaceful Responses: UNFCCC brought nations together to peacefully negotiate a shared solution to dealing with climate risks

What If Climate Change Triggers Cooperation, Not Conflict? | Diana Liverman: "We have a climate convention (UNFCCC) that has brought nations together to peacefully negotiate a shared solution to dealing with climate risks and an unprecedented series of international scientific assessments - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - that brings together thousands of researchers to communicate climate risks to policy makers. Despite criticisms of lack of progress, the climate negotiations have resulted in transfer of funds from richer to poorer countries, collective efforts to reduce emissions, and intensive collaboration to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. And when climatic disasters strike, such as Hurricane Haiyan, we see outpourings of humanitarian response founded in the long tradition of cooperation across international boundaries in response to hazards and the military helping with peaceful emergency response and recovery.

So, conflict or cooperation? To decide, we need better-designed studies, more rigorous analysis and less melodramatic claims. We need studies that hypothesize peaceful resolution to tensions connected to resource competition and climate change, and statistical studies that use research designs that are open to the possibilities that climate extremes might have no influence on conflict and might, in fact, have positive outcomes. Rather than raise fears of conflict, scholars and strategists should seek best practices for cooperative and peaceful responses to the stresses of climate change."



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UPDATE: “Transformational” Deep Decarbonization Climate Strategies, Global Solution to Climate Change

“Transformational” Deep Decarbonization Climate Strategies (video): "Deep Decarbonization is the first global cooperative program to identify practical pathways for major industrial economies toward a low-carbon world economy by 2050. Unlike many recent assessments, it focuses potential solutions rather than agonizing statistics and definitions. In this sense, says Laurence Tubiana, the French Ambassador for climate change, co-chair of SDSN, and IDDRI founder, it is a “transformational milestone.”

From the report introduction:

The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) is a collaborative initiative to understand and show how individual countries can transition to a low-carbon economy and how the world can meet the internationally agreed target of limiting the increase in global mean surface temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C)."



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UPDATE: AUSTRALIA: Cleaning up its Electricity Sector on a New Clean Coal Technology called DICE

The search for the clean coal holy grail - Background Briefing - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "That technology is called DICE—or Direct Injection Carbon Engine, a modified diesel engine running on a mix of coal and water—and it has just received $9 million in funding for stage one trials, including $1 million from the Victorian and Commonwealth governments.  

Ignite Energy Resources, a member of the DICE network, recently recieved a $20 million grant to produce liquid fuel for DICE engines from brown coal, among other things.

‘Minister Greg Hunt and Minister Ian Macfarlane for energy are very interested in DICE, because it offers the opportunity of reducing CO2 emissions for electricity from brown coal by 50 per cent, and it offers the opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions from black coals by around 30 per cent,’ says John White, chairman of the DICE Network and co-founder of Ignite."



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UPDATE: AUSTRALIA: Misconceptions helped kill Australian carbon tax. Read, how it happened.

Misconceptions helped kill Australian carbon tax - Yahoo News: "CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — In 2007, Australians were ready to do something to combat climate change, even if it was expensive. More than two-thirds of them said so in a poll, and both major political parties vowed to make industries pay for greenhouse-gas emissions.

The undoing of that perspective will likely be complete after a new Senate is sworn in Monday. It's expected to give Prime Minister Tony Abbott the votes he needs to repeal a 2-year-old tax charged to around 350 of Australia's biggest carbon polluters. Three top political leaders lost their jobs over the issue as support for climate-change measures plummeted.

A global recession, political miscalculations and failed negotiations only partially explain the dramatic change.

Opponents of the carbon tax implemented in 2012 had the media largely on their side. Electricity prices soared — not mainly because of the tax, but because power companies were spending billions on infrastructure. Most electricity users were compensated for the added cost of the tax, but many of them didn't know that. And rising gas prices fed the fury — even though the tax didn't apply to gasoline.

Australia's experience illustrates how easy it is to scuttle complicated environmental laws"



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UPDATE: CARRIBEAN CORAL REEFS: Parrot Fish and Sea Urchins can save Coral Reefs, Study says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9aWMIexrcs

The Key To Saving Caribbean Coral Reefs Could Be These Fish, Researchers Say: "Drawing from more than 35,000 surveys of Caribbean reefs conducted between 1970 and 2012, a team of experts from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network detailed the drastic decline of the reef and highlighted threats to the delicate ecosystem. The largest threat, it seems, is not climate change, but the loss of a particular type of marine life.

"We saw that reefs with no grazers ended up getting smothered by algae. And after a period of time they see a significant or even complete collapse of the reef area," Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Program, told BBC News.

As authors write in the report, the population of parrotfish -- and other grazers, such as sea urchins, that consume algae and contribute to the health of tropical reefs -- has decreased significantly, primarily due to over fishing and pollution. However, if these types of fish are protected so that their numbers bounce back, Caribbean reefs have a good chance of recovering."



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UPDATE: CHINA 10 Year Green Horizon Initiative: IBM signs up to help fight China's war on smog

click link to read full article: IBM signs up to help fight China's war on smog | Reuters: "Under the agreement with IBM, Beijing's city government will be one of the partners in the company's China-focused 10-year "Green Horizon" initiative, which aims to draw on IBM's forecasting expertise and the collection of real-time emissions data to predict smog build-ups.

"It is about how we can help cities improve management based on 'Big Data', and better predict (pollution) with accuracy so the government can take proactive action," said Xiaowei Shen, China director of IBM Research, speaking at IBM's lab in Beijing's northwest high-tech district of Zhongguancun."



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