Animals
In 1900, the oceans of the world contained six times more fish than they did in 2009. Now, it takes 17 times more effort to catch one ton of North Sea fish than it did then. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 80% of the world’s fish stocks are either being over-exploited or have already been depleted.
I wrote, in May, about a WWF-UK effort to protect the Cerrato in Brazil, a unique habitat that is being destroyed faster than the Amazon. WWF has gotten many UK supermarkets to help address the habitat destruction by agreeing to not buy soy connected to Cerrato destruction. But there’s still a long way to go. Here’s a useful infographic on the Cerrato, how we are destroying it, and what we can do to save it.
Earth Day… Earth Day, Earth Day. What to say today? I spend most of the day every day writing about environmental issues and solutions to them. So many hours every day, and every week and month and year.
Why do I do it?
April through June 2011, the Let’s Go Chipper Into the Great Outdoors Tour crisscrosses the country to encourage children and families to get outside and play in time for Earth Day and summer fun. Chipper is an inquisitive city squirrel who will visit schools, parks, stores and events to generate enthusiasm for outdoor activities.
The new Congress seems to be spending too much time drinking Tea and not catching up on the latest science (or it is just gets all its science information from the fossil fuel industry). It has launched a full out attack on science and the environment. The Endangered Species Act and certain iconic species haven’t been spared.
As part of the EcoFarm Conference last week, I had the opportunity to see several local organic farms. The tour was led by Amigo Cantisano, and it included visits to four nearby farms. Cantisano grew up in the region, and as our bus was driving to our various farm destinations, he regaled us with the secret history of the pioneering nurseryman Felix Gillet, and also shared his insights about the land we passed, especially noting the rapid disappearance of orchards…
It seems this has become pretty big news. And beyond the mass fish and bird deaths in Arkansas, a large number of sudden bird deaths have occurred in Louisiana, Sweden, Kentucky, and other places, and a large number of sudden fish deaths have occurred in other states and countries. A lot of people have been visiting my articles on the mass bird deaths in Arkansas and Louisiana over on our sister site Planetsave, as well as an article on…
Thanks to leaked official documents, we now have a bit more insight into what may be contributing to the increase of colony collapse disorder, and causing the death of our planet’s bees. A recently leaked memo has shown that the Environmental Protection Agency blatantly disregarded the findings of its own scientists, and allowed the Bayer Corporation to market its toxic pesticide, clothianidin, despite repeated warnings that the chemical could be devastating to a wide variety of creatures, most especially pollinating bees.
My spouse and I have been helping out on our friend’s organic farm in Carmel Valley, harvesting vegetables, planting cover crops, making compost, and getting everything ready for winter. While we are clearing out garden beds, instead of weeding by hand, we have been weeding by chicken, letting the resident poultry help us to cultivate the soil. Chickens are very useful when it is time to dig up beds; not only do they eat noxious weeds, pests and withered plant…
With global weirding comes a lot of huge ecological changes that we will need to adapt to quickly. As the global climate warms, nature does strange things,.. strange meaning not what it has done for centuries upon centuries. Scientists are now identifying one such critical change concerning Australia’s tropical marine life. Here’s more via Joshua S. Hill of our sister site Planetsave: Many scientists believe and have witnessed, with the increase in global warming, a shift in marine life as…
Good news coming out of the European Union (EU) recently is that it is proposing a 5-year ban on the cloning of farm animals and livestock. However, the EU is fine with other animals being cloned, including sports animals like racehorses and fighting bulls. Why is it ok to clone these animals? Who knows, really, but the reason why the ban is so limited is considered to be due to politics. “Sadly, it would seem that the political will simply…
In the middle of the world’s 6th great extinction, it is hard to find a lot of positive news on biodiversity and saving species — we currently have a rate of extinction the world has not seen since dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. However, at the end of the Convention of Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan this last weekend, environment ministers from every country of the world except Andorra (population 83,000) and the United States came to some historic agreements…
Brazil’s Minister of Environment, Izabella Teixeira, delivered a statement to the COP10 Convention on Biological Diversity yesterday, highlighting Brazil’s positions and priorities for the remainder of the negotiations in Nagoya, Japan. Minister Teixeira’s statement came on the first day of the High-Level Ministerial Segment of COP10. The statement is a powerful one and something I thought was worth sharing on Ecolocalizer, so I’m including it in full here. Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity…