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Giant trees to clear excess CO2
 Fifth of bird species 'threatened'
The Worlds ancient forests
Reintroduction of mammals
 Chemical Contamination
 Humans are damaging the planet
Corporate and Government Lies
 Greenlands ice cap is melting
 Changes in the Gulf Stream
 Nuclear is not the answer 
 Kids environment
 Books on Global Warming
External Links

There is a great deal of controversy about the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and foods. Many people are concerned that growing GM crops could lead to irreversible harm to the environment. Others argue that GM crops have been rigorously tested and offer many benefits.

Seeds of Deception: Exposing Corporate and Government Lies About the Safety of Genetically Engineered Food

It is a staggering fact that there have been virtually no clinical or biochemical tests of the impacts of eating GM foods on human health. It is fantasy to still beleive that governments act in accordance with their manifesto in the general interests of society. The exercise of power today is much more hard-nosed and ruthless, and the power-brokers are not the electorate, but big business.

There are no consumer benefits from GM crops. The alleged benefits to farmers are deeply disputed, environmental and health testing has never been carried out, and non-GM farmers are being put seriously at risk. So why is GM being pressed at all? The answer, set out painstakingly and frighteningly in a book by Jeffrey Smith, tells us a great deal about how power is exercised today - funding political parties and key individuals, networking around opinion formers and decision makers, and fixing strategic job swaps between the biotech industry and Government. And this is not just conjecture.

Seeds of Deception: Exposing Corporate and Government Lies About the Safety of Genetically Engineered Food

Jeffrey M. Smith

FROM: http://www.organicfood.co.uk/sense/betterforyou.html
Organic food regulations prohibit hydrogenated fat (cause of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity), aspartame (neurotoxin), phosphoric acid (in cola drinks — causes osteoporosis), antibiotics (reduced immunity), hormones (gender confusion, obesity, multi-generational cancer), pesticides (mutagenic, carcinogenic and with unknown 'cocktail effects'), BSE (human vCJD), GMOs (Puztai's research suppressed, but probably IBS, Crohn's disease, autism, other gut-based disease), or any of the 7000 artificial colourings, flavourings, preservatives and processing aids that are permitted in conventional food (cancer, liver disease, gut problems).

But that's only the dodgy chemicals that you avoid when you eat organic. Organic farming also keeps animals healthy as the use of drugs is restricted, so salmonella, cryptosporidium and listeria are rare in organic foods. E.coli O157:H7 kills over 200 Americans and Britons each year and arises directly from intensive cattle-rearing. It is virtually non-existent in organic beef. Surviving E.coli is better than dying, but hamburger consumption is now the main cause of kidney failure among American kids. That's a high price to pay for a 99 cent hamburger.

Choosing organic foods whenever possible is the nearest we can get to eating a pure diet today. By supporting the organic movement, we help to minimise the damage of chemical pollution which poses a real threat to the future of humanity. It is especially important to buy organic grains. Each and every non-organic grain has been sprayed. The surface area of your breakfast cereal is vast, and many leading brands of cereals are found to contain large amounts of organophosphate fertilisers.

People simply don't understand how dangerous Pesticides are. Some of them are related to nerve gases and all of them are poisonous. They have to be — they are designed to kill. But what we don't know is what the accumulation of potent pesticide residues do to us. It is particularly worrying for children, who may consume large quantities of fruit juice and fresh fruit. It is not a risk we should even contemplate taking and it is especially not a risk we should take with our children. Dioxins, Lyndane and DDT are regularly found in non-organic milk.

Naturally grown and ripened produce, especially when it's local, has a higher content of essential vitamins and minerals. Organically reared beef contains less of the artery-clogging saturated fats in the muscle tissue, so more of the fat content is visible and easily removed. Only grass fed beef contains the essential CLA fat which helps regulate the way our bodies deal with other fats.

Should Beavers and other lost mammals be reintroduced to Britain's countryside? Amongst other naturalists, the Kent Wildlife Trust thinks so.

Experience on the continent shows that the reintroduction of Beavers, Lynx (which have not been seen in the wild since the Roman occupation), wolves, and wild boar, could boost tourism and provide new economic life to remote rural areas. The argument goes that Britain's fauna would be better balanced if extinct predators were brought back. It has even been suggested that one group of mammal enthusiasts might have already released Lynx into the wild without the knowledge of the authorities.

Links:
Kent Wildlife Trust
Trees For Life
Wolf Trust

Throughout the world, the ancient forests are in crisis. Many of the plants and animals that live in these forests face extinction. And many of the peoples and cultures who depend on forests for their way of life are also under threat. But the news is not all bad. If world governments choose now to SAVE the ancient forests, there is a last chance to protect these forests and the life they support.
Greenpeace is taking action worldwide to bring attention to the destruction of the world's remaining ancient forests. We are approaching governments and asking them to live up to their commitment to SAVE the world's ancient forests but we need your help to put pressure on governments to act. Click Here

Fifth of bird species 'threatened'

More than a fifth of the world's bird population are threatened with extinction, according to an annual survey. BirdLife, a global alliance of conservation groups, said that 1,212 of the planet's 9,775 bird species were in imminent danger of disappearing, while a further 788 were considered "near threatened." Among the species currently at risk, 179 were categorized as "critically endangered," the highest level of threat. These included the Azores bullfinch, one of Europe's rarest songbirds, which was upgraded from "endangered." Fewer than 300 of the species survive as a consequence of deforestation and changes to the vegetation of its native islands. Last year BirdLife launched a five-year project to save the species, with the Portuguese government creating a Special Protection Area to revive its surviving habitat.

Three other European species appear on the list for the first time. The Kruper's nuthatch has been threatened due to tourism development in its key habitats in Turkey, while the European Roller, which has populations in European Russia and Turkey has also declined markedly. And, despite a successful reintroduction program in the UK, the red kite population has fallen across Europe. In New Zealand, where at least five types of bird are known to have become extinct since 1900, an explosion of the introduced rat population in 1999 and 2000 continues to threaten several species, including the critically endangered orange-fronted parakeet, which now numbers fewer than 50 birds.

There is some good news for birdwatchers, however. There were eight sightings of the native North American ivory-billed woodpecker in the U.S. in 2004 and 2005, more than 60 years since it was believed to have become extinct. The Seychelles magpie robin, which had dwindled to less than 15 birds in 1965, was downgraded to endangered as a consequence of a program that has seen the bird relocated to predator-free islands, reviving the population to more than 130. Ornithologists also discovered a new species of rail on the island of Calayan in the Philippines. But BirdLife said it had found no trace of the thick-billed ground-dove in the Solomon Islands and had classified the species as extinct. "Despite the recent rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, overall more species are currently sliding towards oblivion," said BirdLife's Ed Parnell. "One in five bird species on the planet now faces a risk in the short or medium-term of joining the Dodo, Great Auk and 129 other species that we know have become extinct since 1500."

Humans are damaging the planet at an unprecedented rate and raising risks of abrupt collapses in nature that could spur disease, deforestation or "dead zones" in the seas.

The study, by 1,360 experts in 95 nations, said a rising human population had polluted or over-exploited two thirds of the ecological systems on which life depends, ranging from clean air to fresh water, in the past 50 years. "At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning," said the 45-member board of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. "Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it said.

Ten to thirty percent of mammal, bird and amphibian species were already threatened with extinction, according to the assessment, the biggest review of the planet's life support systems. "Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel," the report said. "This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on earth," it added. More land was changed to cropland since 1945, for instance, than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined. "The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years," it said.

The report was compiled by experts, including from U.N. agencies and international scientific and development organizations. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the study "shows how human activities are causing environmental damage on a massive scale throughout the world, and how biodiversity -- the very basis for life on earth -- is declining at an alarming rate." The report said there was evidence that strains on nature could trigger abrupt changes like the collapse of cod fisheries off Newfoundland in Canada in 1992 after years of over-fishing. Warming of the Great Lakes in Africa due to climate change, for instance, could create conditions for a spread of cholera. And a build-up of nitrogen from fertilizers washed off farmland into seas could spur abrupt blooms of algae that choke fish or create oxygen-depleted "dead zones" along coasts. It said deforestation often led to less rainfall. And at some point, lack of rain could suddenly undermine growing conditions for remaining forests in a region.The report said that in 100 years, global warming widely blamed on burning of fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants, might take over as the main source of damage.

The Arctic region, including the land masses of northernmost Europe and North America, have become an inadvertent dumping ground for chemicals

The Arctic may seem remote and pristine, but winds and tides carry man-made toxins to the region, endangering wildlife there. The fragile Arctic can serve as an early warning to the rest of world, said the World Wildlife Fund, launching an international campaign to control or ban man-made chemicals. "Like the small portion of an iceberg that can be seen from above the water, chemicals that scientists now know to be contaminating the animals of the Arctic may be a warning of a larger problem that, for now, remains hidden," the environmental group disclosed in a report released jointly in Oslo and Geneva. The 18-page report, called "The tip of the iceberg: Chemical Contamination in the Arctic," summed up existing research and through its DetoX campaign urged action. "The time to act and move toward safer, sustainable chemical use is now," said the report, urging adoption of such legislation as the European Union is considering: REACH, which stands for Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals. The harm such toxins do to wildlife has already been documented by scientists in Norway and elsewhere, and the WWF said safer replacements must be made and new laws passed to protect the fragile northern environment.

Researchers have long known that PCBs and other manmade toxins can cause hormonal imbalances in Arctic wildlife. For example, female bears with vestigial male sexual organs were found in 1997 on Norway's Svalbard Archipelago and the surrounding Barents Sea region. Only a tiny fraction of the estimated 30,000 to 70,000 chemicals made worldwide are banned, even though many more may be harmful, the report said. Europe is the largest producer, it said, accounting for about 35 percent. And even those now largely banned, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, polychlorinated napthalenes, or PCNs, and DDT, can continue to cause harm because they take so long to break down.

The report said the Arctic region, including the land masses of northernmost Europe and North America, have become an inadvertent dumping ground for many of the chemicals because of climate conditions. Air with contaminants reaches the cold Arctic, condensation forms and the toxins are carried to the ground in rain or snow, where the cold slows their decomposition. "As a result, the Arctic acts as a final 'sink' where pollutants from around the world accumulate and become trapped. The wildlife of the Arctic is especially vulnerable to chemical pollution," the report said. Contaminants are also carried by ocean currents. For example, decabromodiphenyl ethers, or deca-BDEs, are one of about 70 types of brominated flame retardants, and are commonly used in televisions, computers, stereos, and plastic toys. They have been found in what sounds like an International Who's Who list of wildlife, including: polar bears, arctic foxes, seals and beluga whales in Norwegian and Canadian areas as well as in white-beaked dolphins, minke and sperm whales, mackerel, harbor porpoises, blue mussels, salmon, endangered Vancouver Island marmots and glaucous gulls. Man-made toxins are also believed to cause cancers, reduce vitamin levels, and can even cause the thinning of the shell's of birds eggs, making them more vulnerable.

"A wake-up signal to the whole world"

Greenland's ice cap, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels globally by 23 feet (7 meters), is starting to melt and could collapse suddenly

"There is no doubt that something very major is happening here."
Carl Boggild of GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland

Studies looking at the oceans and melting Arctic ice leave no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, people are to blame, and the weather is going to suffer, climate experts have said.

New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming is well under way, Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said. Speaking at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Barnett said climate models based on air temperatures are weak because most of the evidence for global warming is not even there. "The real place to look is in the ocean," Barnett told a news conference. His team used millions of temperature readings made by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to calculate steady ocean warming. "The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people," he said. The report was published one day after the United Nations Kyoto Protocol took effect, a 141-nation environmental pact the United States government has spurned for several reasons, including stated doubts about whether global warming is occurring and is caused by people. Barnett urged U.S. officials to reconsider. "Could a climate system simply do this on its own? The answer is clearly no," Barnett said. His team used U.S. government models of solar warming and volcanic warming, just to see if they could account for the measurements they made. "Not a chance," he said. And the effects will be felt far and wide. "Anywhere that the major water source is fed by snow ... or glacial melt," he said. "The debate is what are we going to do about it."

Other researchers found clear effects on climate and animals. Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that melting ice was changing the water cycle, which in turn affects ocean currents and, ultimately, climate. "As the Earth warms, its water cycle is changing, being pushed out of kilter," she said. "Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet." A circulation system called the Ocean Conveyer Belt is in danger of shutting down, she said. The last time that happened, northern Europe suffered extremely cold winters. She said the changes were already causing droughts in the U.S. west.

Greenland's ice cap, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels globally by 23 feet (7 meters), is starting to melt and could collapse suddenly, Curry said. Already freshwater is percolating down, lubricating the base and making it more unstable. Sharon Smith of the University of Miami found melting Arctic ice was taking with it algae that formed an important base of the food supply for a range of animals. And the disappearing ice shelves meant big animals such as walruses, polar bears and seals were losing their homes. "In 1997 there was a mass die-off of a bird called the short-tailed shearwater in the Bering Sea," Smith told the news conference. The birds, which migrate from Australia, starved to death for several years running when warmer waters caused a plankton called a coccolithophore to bloom in huge numbers, turning the water an opaque turquoise color. "The short-tailed shearwater couldn't see its prey," Smith said.

THE GULF STREAM

Scientists now have evidence that changes are occurring in the Gulf Stream. Without the influence of the Gulf Stream and its two northern branches, the North Atlantic Drift and the Canary Current, the weather in Britain could be more like that of Siberia, which shares the same latitude. Cambridge University ocean physics professor Peter Wadhams points to changes in the waters of the Greenland Sea. Historically, large columns of very cold, dense water in the Greenland Sea, known as "chimneys," sink from the surface of the ocean to about 9,000 feet below to the seabed. As that water sinks, it interacts with the warm Gulf Stream current flowing from the south. But Wadhams says the number of these "chimneys" has dropped from about a dozen to just two. That is causing a weakening of the Gulf Stream, which could mean less heat reaching northern Europe. The activity in the Greenland Sea is part of a global pattern of ocean movement, known as thermohaline circulation, or more commonly the "global conveyor belt."

When Wadhams began his studies of Arctic Sea ice more than 30 years ago, there was not a focus on a warming of the region or the ice becoming thinner. His research aboard British Royal Navy submarines began as a way to use new tools, such as sonar, to study this harsh region of the planet. "Initially the idea was just to map what the ice thickness distribution was," Wadhams said. "You cannot measure it with satellites, and to drill through it is difficult," he said. But year after year, a dramatic pattern emerged. "We discovered the ice was getting rapidly thinner. It has thinned by 40 percent in the past 20 years," said Wadhams.

Wadhams and other scientists say the slowing of the Gulf Stream could contribute to other severe effects on the planet, such as the complete melting of the Arctic ice cap in the summer months. That could eliminate the habitat and lead to the extinction of Arctic wildlife, including the polar bear. Current predictions indicate that could happen as early as 2020 or as late as 2080. Scientists are getting other information about the disappearing ice cap from Alaskan Inuits. They report changes in where and when certain species of fish have been found, and in populations of seals and polar bears. Other oceanographers stress that Wadhams' findings are one piece of a very complex earthly puzzle. Terrence Joyce, senior scientist in the department of physical oceanography at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, says it's important not to get alarmist, but instead to keep up a wide array of research. For a dramatic climate change to take place, "A whole bunch of pieces have to fit together. Certainly this is one of them. We need to keep paying attention, and people are doing that," he said. Woods Hole is conducting research that measures the path and temperature of some parts of the Gulf Stream. Such a dramatic climate change would not take place in five days, but rather several years, said Joyce.

Warmer waters drive fish north. Cod is one species that is moving north. Many fish species in the North Sea are steadily moving northwards to escape warming waters, researchers report. Commercially important fish such as cod, whiting and anglerfish have shifted significantly north, while some other species moved to colder depths. Scientists warn in Science magazine that some fish may disappear from the North Sea by 2050. They say commercial fisheries will have to take account of global warming as well as dwindling fish stocks. "Some of these species are already depleted and this is yet another challenge that they face." Since the 70s, the average winter temperature at the bottom of the North Sea has risen by around one degree Celsius, and the researchers believe that rise, which they say is attributable to global warming, is forcing populations to shift.

 

"The global warming trend projected over the course of the next 100 years could, all of a sudden and without warning, dramatically accelerate in just a handful of years"

Giant trees 'to clear excess CO2'

The scientist who coined the term "global warming" in the 1970s has proposed a radical solution to the problem of climate change.

Wallace Broecker advocated millions of "carbon scrubbers" - giant artificial trees to pull CO2 from the air. Dr Broecker told the Hay literary festival in south-east Wales: "We've got an extremely serious problem. He added: "It's a race against time and we are just sort of crawling along at a slow pace." He said some 20 million of the scrubbing devices would be required to capture all the CO2 currently produced in the US.

"Okay, you say that's enormous, but we make 55 million cars a year, so if we really wanted to we could. Over 30 or 40 years we could easily make that number."

After addressing the festival, Dr Broecker said that 60 million of the devices would be needed worldwide at an estimated cost of £ 303bn a year. The towers would be about 50ft high and 8ft in diameter, and use a special type of plastic to absorb the CO2. The gas would then be either liquefied under pressure and pumped underground or turned into a mineral.

Dr Broecker said the most likely location for the towers would be desert areas of the planet. However, he admitted that such a project faced an uphill struggle. "If I were a betting man I would bet against it because I don't know if we have the political will to do it," he said. "But looking at countries like Germany and here in the UK the will is developing."

He said the challenge was to get rapidly developing countries such as China, India and Brazil behind the idea.

Nuclear is not the answer
The nuclear industry wants to build a new generation of power stations at a cost of £10bn. The government's chief scientific adviser is in favour of this. He makes the point that nuclear power is fossil fuel-free. But as the government itself has recognised, the power itself may be clean, but nuclear energy is derived from plutonium or uranium processed with high energy use. Fossil fuels are used as the energy source to refine the uranium, so nuclear energy has much of the same carbon dioxide and pollution problems as direct fossil fuel combustion. Perhaps the government should look at how much our fossil fuel consumption would be reduced by a £10bn investment in more progressive policies such as energy saving, cleaner motor fuels, photovoltaics, hydro-power and fuel cells among others.

The government has said it will cut emissions by 20% in the next 10 years; yet it intends to double the use of Gas which is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions.
Click here for more on this subject

America plans to build new power stations which will release more Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere in the next twenty five years than has been released over the last two hundred and fifty years.

Related Links:
Full page of related links
Recycling Guide
Nature Magazine
Scientists for Global Responsibility - SGR promotes the ethical practice and use of science and technology
Friends of the Earth
Shepway Friends of the Earth
Kent Against a Radioactive Environment
            Barrie Botley - Campaigns coordinator
            3 Abbott Road, Folkestone, CT20 1NG
            Tel 01303 257046
            email - barrie@kare-uk.org
Greenpeace :

The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity (Hardcover)
James Lovelock
...the only way for humankind to have a chance of surviving, is to embrace science and technology, not reject them. This is Lovelocks passionate manifesto of how to do that and so lessen our impact on the Earth before it is too late.

The Heat Is on : The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription
Ross Gelbspan
...unmasks the efforts of a few scientists backed by the oil industry to sabotage the findings of IPCC. It is also the book President Clinton read just prior to signing the Kyoto accord.

The Antarctic Treaty: Recommendation of the 18th Consultative Meeting Held at Kyoto 11-22 April 1994

The Solar Electric House
Steven J. Strong, William G. Scheller
...the most comprehensive solar electric book available

Cooking With the Sun : How to Build and Use Solar Cookers
Beth Halacy, Dan Halacy
... most solar cookers in this book can be built in a few hours, and the reflector size can be modified to provide adequate heat even under cold, cloudy conditions

The Passive Solar House
James Kachadorian
... technique for building homes that heat and cool themselves using ordinary building materials

Visit the new Kids for Forests website and find out what you can do to help protect the last ancient forests!

Little Factory
Sarah Weeks, Byron Barton
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover - 40 pages Book & Cd

Amazing Sun Fun Activities
Michael J. Daley, Buckley Smith (Illustrator)
...entertaining projects that enable children to produce useful items using recycled and recyclable materials and an energy source that's free for the taking - the sun.
Reading level: Ages 9-12