James Lovelock was on BBC's Radio 4 this morning, promoting his new book The Vanishing Face of Gaia. It was a great to hear him, even if what he said wasn't the most uplifting of messages.
Lovelock explained his belief that humanity as we know is a goner. Earth cannot feed 6 going on 7 billion people, he said.
Pressed by the interviewer he took a punt and suggested there could be just 1 billion of us left in 100 years time.
Lovelock's point seemed to be that we should give up on trying to save the planet and the entirety of the human species by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and focus instead on equipping "lifeboat nations" with the necessary infrastructure (schools, roads, houses) to support swarms of climate refugees.
(Via Futurismic.)
Showing posts with label dieback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dieback. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Is the future history?
Lovelock: "We can't save humanity"
Labels:
climate change,
dieback,
existential risks
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Bizarre absence of acorns in parts of the United States
In some parts of the US, there's been reports that trees aren't bearing acorns this year. "We're talking zero. Not a single acorn. It's really bizarre," said Greg Zell, a naturalist at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
British beekeepers seek help to save honeybees
Beekeepers swarmed Parliament and the prime minister's office on Wednesday, demanding more funds for research after the number of Britain's honey bees dropped by nearly a third in the past year.
The British bee losses have not been as dramatic as those in the United States, but beekeepers say it is getting worse.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
FROZEN UK'S TOO WARM FOR OUR SEABIRDS
An ecological disaster is decimating some of Britain’s most vital seabird colonies, experts revealed yesterday.
Kittiwakes, Arctic terns and Arctic skuas raised virtually no young in some of their top strongholds this summer.
Other birds hit include guillemots and puffins. Breeding failures in recent years have left cliffs once teeming with birds all but empty.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Scientists dismayed by vanishing of 7 whales
I don't see the problem. Simply ban the words "population drop." After all, aren't they "upsetting" and carry "negative connotations"?
Seven Puget Sound killer whales are missing and feared dead in what could be the biggest decline among the sound's orcas in nearly a decade, say scientists who carefully track the endangered animals.
"This is a disaster," Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, said Friday. "The population drop is worse than the stock market."
I don't see the problem. Simply ban the words "population drop." After all, aren't they "upsetting" and carry "negative connotations"?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Biosphere Bigger than Bailout
Led by a Deutsche Bank economist, the study puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion. A figure that is ". . . not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year."
Friday, October 10, 2008
Mammals Aren't Loners in Extinction Threat
Earlier this week, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature reported that 25 percent of the world's mammal species are at risk of extinction in our lifetimes due to habitat destruction and hunting. The IUCN is to be commended for its report.
The untold story here, which is far more ominous, is that the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which in 2007 won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work) projects that even we if succeed at reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050, approximately 20-30 percent of the species on earth are already at increased risk of extinction due to climate change. So this extinction crisis doesn't just involve hundreds of mammals, but instead, hundreds of thousands and perhaps more than a million species are at risk.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
One in Four Mammals at Risk of Extinction
The assessment, done as part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Species, took more than 1,700 experts from 130 countries five years to complete.
The report's findings were released today in conjunction with this week's IUCN meeting in Barcelona, Spain, and will appear later this week in the journal Science. "Our results paint a bleak picture of the global status of mammals worldwide," the study authors wrote.
Monday, September 22, 2008
World's common birds 'declining'
The populations of the world's common birds are declining as a result of continued habitat loss, a global assessment has warned.
The survey by BirdLife International found that 45% of Europe's common birds had seen numbers fall, as had more than 80% of Australia's wading species.
The study's authors said governments were failing to fund their promises to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
(Via The Keyhoe Report.)
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Electronic smog 'is disrupting nature on a massive scale'
Dr Ulrich Warnke – who has been researching the effects of man-made electrical fields on wildlife for more than 30 years – will tell the conference, organised by the Radiation Research Trust at the Royal Society in London, that "an unprecedented dense mesh of artificial magnetic, electrical and electromagnetic fields" has been generated, overwhelming the "natural system of information" on which the species rely.
He believes this could be responsible for the disappearance of bees in Europe and the US in what is known as colony collapse disorder, for the decline of the house sparrow, whose numbers have fallen by half in Britain over the past 30 years, and that it could also interfere with bird migration.
For more, click here.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The bees fitted with microchips to find out why they're dying
It is a remarkably hairy close-up.
But this tiny microchip attached to a bee’s back will hopefully explain why so many honeybees are dying from disease.
Professor Juergen Tautz and his team at the University of Wurzburg in Germany are studying the health of more than 150,000 bees, in the hope of halting the apparently inexorable decline in their worldwide population.
Hey, why didn't I think of that?
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Mystery of dolphin mass stranding
Post-mortem examinations of some of 26 dolphins found dead in Cornwall have revealed no clues as to the cause of a mass stranding.
They appear to have been well fed and there were no obvious signs of disease or poisoning, results showed.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
World's animal population has plummeted by a third since the 1970s
According to the WWF, most of the vanishing animals are victims of overfishing, intensive farming, habitat loss, wildlife trade, pollution or manmade climate change.
The conservation charity humans are consuming about 25 per cent more natural resources than the Earth can replace.
The report comes ahead of a major UN meeting on biological diversity next week which will discuss ways of cutting the rate of loss by 2010.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Species loss 'bad for our health'
"While extinction is alarming in its own right, the book demonstrates that many species can help human lives," said co-author Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist at IUCN (formerly known as the World Conservation Union).
"If we needed more justification for action to conserve species, it offers dozens of dramatic examples of both why and how citizens can act in ways that will conserve, rather than destroy, the species that enrich our lives."
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Bees under threat as pollution means flowers are losing their natural scent
(Thanks: Nick Redfern.)
Researchers claim pollution is dramatically cutting the distance travelled by the scent molecules of plants.
This is preventing flowers from attracting bees and other insects needed to pollinate them.
As a consequence, the numbers of insects are dramatically dwindling as they struggle to located the nectar off which they feed.
(Thanks: Nick Redfern.)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Disappearing bees threaten ice cream sellers
Let's just say if the worst thing to come out of Colony Collapse Disorder is the death of the gourmet ice cream industry then I'll be distinctively relieved.
(Thanks again, Nick!)
Let's just say if the worst thing to come out of Colony Collapse Disorder is the death of the gourmet ice cream industry then I'll be distinctively relieved.
(Thanks again, Nick!)
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate
I don't think it's an exaggeration to claim that if the rain forests go, we go. And right now they're going . . .
"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."
I don't think it's an exaggeration to claim that if the rain forests go, we go. And right now they're going . . .
Unexplained "White Nose" Disease Killing Northeast Bats
"What we've seen so far is unprecedented," said Alan Hicks, DEC's bat specialist. "Most bat researchers would agree that this is the gravest threat to bats they have ever seen."
Last year, some 8,000 to 11,000 bats died at several locations in New York, the largest die-off of bats due to disease documented in North America. This year, an unknown number of bats are at risk.
"We have bat researchers, laboratories and caving groups across the country working to understand the cause of the problem and ways to contain it," said Hicks. "Until we know more, we are asking people to stay away from known bat caves."
(Via The Anomalist.)
Friday, January 18, 2008
There are times when I wish I had a TV. This is one of those times.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
This just in:
Bush exempts Navy from environmental law
(Thanks to Nick Redfern.)
Bush exempts Navy from environmental law
Conservationists on Wednesday blasted President Bush's decision to exempt the Navy from an environmental law so it can continue using high-power sonar in its training off Southern California -- a practice they say harms whales and other marine mammals.
(Thanks to Nick Redfern.)