U.S. fish stocks defecting to Canada? We can just see it now on Lou Dobbs Tonight…but remember where you heard it first — Cool, Green, Morning. Have a great weekend!
In case you missed it, a U.S. Senate committee passed a climate bill yesterday, with all Republican committee members boycotting the vote. The Vine yawns, saying the real action on the bill will be separate negotiations between Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham.
Where could coastal wetlands go when sea level rises? Um…nowhere, says a new report in Environmental Research Letters — more than 50% of the land along the U.S. Atlantic coast that could have been used for inland wetlands migration is developed or soon will be. (Hat tip: Journal Watch Online.)
The factual criticisms Matt makes aren’t that troublesome to me, and I can understand his perspective as someone who works to minimize the impact of coal mining on the environment. Matt makes the point that an acre of coal mining is not necessarily the same biodiversity impact as an acre with wind turbines, a point we totally agree with (that’s why we made it in the original paper!). And of course our one measure of land-use can’t capture all of the myriad ways energy production affects the environment; it was never meant to.
What bothers me is the accusation that my scientific paper is “poisoning” the public debate about climate change and energy policy. Indeed, Matt advocates “burning” his post (and perhaps my paper), as if retaining memory of energy sprawl issues was morally corrupting. What does this say about the way we today regard the meaning and responsibility of science to advocacy…and the fragility of public discourse?
Things are looking up today — climate talks are reportedly going well, America beats the world in geothermal R&D, and great white sharks now have their very own singles bar. Ain’t life Cool?
As UN negotiators from around the world gather in Barcelona this week to continue hammering out a global climate deal, the question of emissions reduction targets has grabbed center stage in the press.
But even if all countries stopped emitting greenhouse gas pollution today, the impacts of climate change will be felt for years to come.
We must reduce emissions to minimize any future impacts. But negotiators must also develop policies and financial mechanisms that will help communities – and the natural resources they rely upon for survival – adapt to and overcome the climate impacts we are already seeing today.
The Nature Conservancy hosted an event here in Barcelona (webcast) last night highlighting adaptation actions we and others are launching around the world. The actions presented are the types that UN negotiators should include in a global agreement to ensure it provides the support needed to protect people and nature from the ravages of climate change.
Ecotourism is often presented as the savior for wildlife and wild places — providing local communities with financial incentives to preserve nature while also reducing poaching and development pressure.
But, lately, others question whether rich Westerners jetting around the world really help much at all: They disturb animals, create demands for new development and only employ local people in low paying jobs.
Some conservationists even consider tourism to be a significant threat to natural areas.
Which view is correct? Is ecotourism a problem, or a solution?
This edition of Cool Green Morning is all about bringing people together, like Glenn Beck and PETA, who are bonding over their mutual dislike of Al Gore’s diet. Or German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who’s encouraging the U.S. to team up with Europe to fight climate change. Read on for more heart-warming tales of love and friendship– and a few less cuddly topics, too, like toxic cities and climate talk troubles:
The Conservancy’s very own Duncan Marsh was quoted in this Associated Press article about an unfortunate hold-up at the U.N. climate talks happening right now in Barcelona. Marsh says that further delays could be “tragic,” preventing necessary discussion on emissions targets.
Naturally we in the Cidade Maravilhosa are delighted to have beaten out the Windy City and snatched the 2016 Olympics from under the nose of the not-quite-glamorous-enough First Couple of the United States: even Obama can’t compete with Copacabana when it comes to wowing Olympic committees.
But now that the cheering has died down along with the hangovers, a sober consideration of what the Olympics will mean for the world’s most interesting and biodiverse urban environment is in order.
You don’t normally associate biodiversity and conservation with cities, but Rio de Janeiro is an exception. Its extraordinary topography means that steep hill slopes and mountainsides are still forested: not the least of the issues associated with the growth of favelas, Rio’s hillside slums, is that their expansion corrodes this green mantle.
Rio’s forests are a remnant of the Atlantic Forest that once covered most of coastal Brazil and stretched as far inland as Paraguay. Only 7 per cent is left, making it much more threatened than the Amazon and even more biodiverse, since the surviving fragments act as refuge areas for species that once had much wider ranges. This makes what survives of the Atlantic Forest extraordinarily important. One of Latin America’s oldest national parks, Tijuca National Forest, lies entirely within the city’s boundaries, a natural treasure greater than any of its beaches. What does the Olympics mean to all this? In short, a mixed bag.
It’s Election Day in the United States — get out and vote! Then immediately get back on your smartphone and check out the hottest in online green this morning — including what might possibly be the best green name ever…
Mt. Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is disappearing — but is that climate change’s fault? Two research teams are disagreeing, reports The New York Times, with one blaming a decline in moisture rather than rising temperatures. (No word on which side of this debate the band Toto — which had the 1982 smash hit song “Africa,” which in an eerie coincidence mentions both Kilimanjaro and “the rains of Africa” — comes down. We’ll keep you posted.)
The leader of Orthodox Christianity — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who calls himself “the green patriarch” — is in Washington this week, talking up the spiritual importance of environmentalism, reports the Washington Post.
My husband returns to the same reefs every year in the Bahamas, where he has been teaching a coral reef ecology class for the last 14 years. On his 2008 trip, he noticed that the reef fish were missing. The culprits were quickly identified — and during his 2009 course, he and his students were eating them.
Lionfish.
Lionfish do not belong in the Caribbean. They are native to the South Pacific and Indian Ocean and made their way into the Caribbean through the release (the exact event is unknown) of aquarium fish. Some say they were in a tank that was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Others say it was a release of just 3 or 6 specimens. Whatever the case, lionfish are now spotted as far north as Rhode Island, and are popping up all over the Caribbean, from Colombia to the Virgin Islands to the Bahamas.
The Bahamas‘ marine ecosystem has already been hard hit. The people that know these reefs well are witnessing a rapid decline in reef fish thanks to these voracious predators, which have an appetite for juvenile reef fish. Their method of attack is particularly unique. Instead of an ambush attack or high-speed chase, lionfish make their presence known and confuse their prey by displaying their beautiful fins like a peacock, slowly dancing towards their prey and then rapidly sucking the prey into their mouths like a vacuum. This technique is so effective because no other predator in the Caribbean uses it — so prey are not adapted to avoid it.
