This past week, warming temperatures combined to create news of three separate climate disasters in different parts of North America.

1. Off Alaska’s northwest coast, a contractor for the federal Minerals Management Service spotted nine polar bears swimming in open ocean. According to scientists with the federal U.S. Geological Survey, the bears were probably floating on sea ice hunting ringed seals when warm temperatures caused the ice to melt or break up, forcing them into the water out of sight of either the coast or other sea ice – a perilous situation for the bears, who spend most of their lives on the ice.The plight of the polar bears is part of a larger story, of course. Temperatures off Alaska’s coast have risen 3 – 5 degrees Farenheit since the 1950’s due to global warming, and on Tuesday, August 26th, data maintained by the International Arctic Research Center and the Japanese Space Agency showed that the Arctic sea ice has reached the second lowest summer-time level ever recorded. Temperatures are expected to continue rising faster in the Arctic than elsewhere on the globe because as the ice melts there is more dark-colored land exposed that will soak up more of the sun’s rays. This has led some scientists to predict that the Arctic will experience ice-free summers by 2030 and possibly even as soon as 2012.
2. In Northern Greenland, a massive piece of the Petermann glacier, the Northern Hemisphere’s longest-floating glacier, broke off (pictures of the break are available here). Major cracks also appeared in the glacier, leading Professor Jason Box of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, who discovered the cracks, to predict that a further 60 square miles of glacier could be lost in the near future.
3. Hurricane (later Tropical Storm) Fay made landfall four times in Florida, dumping a whopping 26 inches of rainfall on the state. As of Sunday, flood waters were still rising in many parts of Florida, leaving alligators, snakes, and fish swimming in urban areas and people’s backyards. 200,000 people lost power and the storm is estimated to have cost more than $12 million. Although tropical storms and hurricanes have always been a part of Florida’s weather, the number and intensity of tropical storms in the North Atlantic has increased markedly over the last century, along with sea surface temperatures in the region. Scientists consider it likely that the climate crisis is making extreme weather events more intense and wetter, and possibly more frequent.

But last week also brought news of several major actions being taken by state governments, businesses, and others to combat the climate crisis and prevent future disasters:

• Two California businesses announced they would build the world’s largest solar power arrays, 10 times bigger than any now in existence, to meet a state requirement that utilities generate at least 20 percent of their electrity from clean energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal power.
• Google announced a major investment in geothermal power, which taps the Earth’s natural heat to produce electricity.
• Washington, DC announced new green building requirements.
• Colorado announced that its wind generation capacity has quadrupled in the last 18 months, also in response to a state clean energy requirement (23 other states have similar requirements).

While it is encouraging to see so many state and local governments as well as private entrepeneurs proving that solutions to global warming are ready to go, there are plenty of opportunistic politicians out there calling for more drilling.

President Bush, John McCain, and Congressional Republicans continue their attempts to open America’s coasts to oil drilling, and even Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has softened his opposition to drilling the outer continental shelf. As we’ve documented before, however, more drilling is neither a viable solution to high gas prices nor a path to energy independence. Not to mention more drilling increases the risk of large oil spills, and drilling for more oil will worsen the climate crisis by burning more fossil fuels and slowing the transition to a clean energy economy.

Global warming is far too big a  crisis for us to tackle individually; we need federal legislation to enforce real solutions across the board. That’s why it’s especially critical that supporters of real global warming solutions make their voices heard. We need real solutions, such as higher fuel efficiency standards and more investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, not political posturing.

Marine reserves are by far the most powerful at our disposal for restoring the former productivity of our oceans. The North Sea, like most of the oceans, has, through overfishing and other human activities, been emptied of marine life so that what remains is a mere shadow of what was once there.

It is interesting to note that the inherent destructiveness of bottom trawling was already the subject of hot debate among fishermen following the introduction of steam trawlers in the late nineteenth century. In his book the Unnatural History of the Sea, Callum Roberts, gives an account of a Royal Commission of Inquiry hearing on the effects of trawling. Roberts quotes extensively from the testimony provided by small-scale fishermen complaining at how the trawlers were destroying vulnerable habitats and about the quantities of bycatch taken by this destructive fishing method. At that time much of the southern North Sea was in fact covered with a hard crust of oysters and other invertebrates, as is illustrated in the coloured maps of the Piscatorial Atlas of the North Sea, English and St Georges Channels published in 1883. Fishermen knew then that this living substrate was vital for many of the fish species that provided them with a living, but unfortunately for us all, the trawlermen held more sway.

Luckily for us the seas have enormous restorative powers and if left alone to assume a more natural state, as is made possible by establishing networks of marine reserves, marine life can rebuild and flourish.

The Sylt Outer Reef is an oasis of sea life in the southern North Sea but it is being plundered by fishermen and sand and gravel extraction. By establishing a fully protected marine reserve in the area we can safeguard the harbour porpoise and other creatures that live there and help rebuild the life that was once there. If wisdom prevails and a network of marine reserves is established then, given time, we may once again see the whole of the North Sea heaving with life as it did a couple of hundred years ago.

Image © Guenther Menn/Greenpeace
]]> http://clover87.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/the-north-sea-rocks/feed/ 0 3pv1 o1808081.jpg http://clover87.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/ridiculous-image-of-the-day/ http://clover87.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/ridiculous-image-of-the-day/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:44:23 +0000 3pv1 http://clover87.wordpress.com/?p=10 ]]> Take a look at the photograph on the front page of the website belonging to STUK, Finland’s nuclear watchdog.

Lovely, isn’t it?

We don’t know about you, but the first thing that comes into our minds when we think about nuclear power isn’t…

Chernobyl
(© Greenpeace/Steve Morgan)

…or…

The Olkiluoto 3 reactor, Finland
(© Greenpeace/Nick Cobbing)

…it is, of course, pretty flowers, green fields and blue skies. Isn’t that nice?

And all thanks to the so-called independent STUK.

You go along in a month to collect your cat. Very sorry, says the cat breeder, it’s going to be another couple of weeks before you can take your cat. Oh, and by the way, the price is now $150. It can be an expensive business breeding cats, you know.

You go back two weeks later. Wouldn’t you know it? The breeder says the cat’s still not ready to leave its mother and what with unforeseen costs, it’s now $200 you owe him.

Two weeks later you return and collect the cat. You pay $250. The cat’s a sickly, shivery, little thing. It leaves a mess all over the place and makes terrible smells. It will only eat one kind of food but you’re not sure how much longer they’re going to make it and you have to buy it from that nasty man across town who you’re sure beats his family. The vet’s bills are astronomical and the pet insurance companies refuse to cover an animal that looks like it’s going to cost a fortune to keep alive.

You decide to go on holiday and take the cat back to the breeder as he also runs a pet hotel. He looks after lots of cats. You’ve heard terrible rumours to the contrary but he says he runs a super cheap, safe and secure service. It’s $50 to look after the cat.

You come back after your two week holiday to find chaos at the pet hotel. All the cats’ litter trays are overflowing and the breeder isn’t quite sure what to do with all the poop. It’s piled up in a corner of the garden and the smell is annoying his neighbours. He’s thinking of burying the poop – though he says that might take a long time and need a special and really expensive shovel – or maybe breeding a new kind of cat that can eat it. He’s full of ideas. Don’t worry, says the cat breeder as he hands you your cat (who looks thinner and sicker than ever), everything’s absolutely fine. He charges you $100.

Concerned, you contact the animal welfare services who say they’ll investigate. They write to you a few days later assuring you that everything is absolutely fine. They asked the cat breeder if there were any problems with his cats and he said no. That’s good enough for the animal welfare people. Case closed.

Your cat limps on for a few more years before having to be put out of its misery. You wish you’d bought hamster – they run all day and cause hardly any mess.