The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.
In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history".
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised.
The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.
The panel was convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), and brought together experts from different disciplines, including coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries scientists.
Its report will be formally released later this week.
"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.
"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."
These "accelerated" changes include melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea level rise, and release of methane trapped in the sea bed.
Fast changes
"The rate of change is vastly exceeding what we were expecting even a couple of years ago," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral specialist from the University of Queensland in Australia.
Some species are already fished way beyond their limits - and may also be affected by other threats "So if you look at almost everything, whether it's fisheries in temperate zones or coral reefs or Arctic sea ice, all of this is undergoing changes, but at a much faster rate than we had thought."
But more worrying than this, the team noted, are the ways in which different issues act synergistically to increase threats to marine life.
Some pollutants, for example, stick to the surfaces of tiny plastic particles that are now found in the ocean bed.
This increases the amounts of these pollutants that are consumed by bottom-feeding fish.
Plastic particles also assist the transport of algae from place to place, increasing the occurrence of toxic algal blooms - which are also caused by the influx of nutrient-rich pollution from agricultural land.
In a wider sense, ocean acidification, warming, local pollution and overfishing are acting together to increase the threat to coral reefs - so much so that three-quarters of the world's reefs are at risk of severe decline.
Life on Earth has gone through five "mass extinction events" caused by events such as asteroid impacts; and it is often said that humanity's combined impact is causing a sixth such event.
The IPSO report concludes that it is too early to say definitively.
But the trends are such that it is likely to happen, they say - and far faster than any of the previous five.
"What we're seeing at the moment is unprecedented in the fossil record - the environmental changes are much more rapid," Professor Rogers told BBC News.
"We've still got most of the world's biodiversity, but the actual rate of extinction is much higher [than in past events] - and what we face is certainly a globally significant extinction event."
The report also notes that previous mass extinction events have been associated with trends being observed now - disturbances of the carbon cycle, and acidification and hypoxia (depletion of oxygen) of seawater.
Levels of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans are already far greater than during the great extinction of marine species 55 million years ago (during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), it concludes.
Blue planet
The report's conclusions will be presented at UN headquarters in New York this week, when government delegates begin discussions on reforming governance of the oceans.
In the long run, greenhouse gas emissions must be cut to conserve ocean life, the report concludes IPSO's immediate recommendations include:
- stopping exploitative fishing now, with special emphasis on the high seas where currently there is little effective regulation
- mapping and then reducing the input of pollutants including plastics, agricultural fertilisers and human waste
- making sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
- Carbon dioxide levels are now so high, it says, that ways of pulling the gas out of the atmosphere need to be researched urgently - but not using techniques, such as iron fertilisation, that lead to more CO2 entering the oceans.
"We have to bring down CO2 emissions to zero within about 20 years," Professor Hoegh-Guldberg told BBC News.
"If we don't do that, we're going to see steady acidification of the seas, heat events that are wiping out things like kelp forests and coral reefs, and we'll see a very different ocean."
Another of the report's authors, Dan Laffoley, marine chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas and an adviser to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), admitted the challenges were vast.
"But unlike previous generations, we know what now needs to happen," he said.
"The time to protect the blue heart of our planet is now."
Showing posts with label environmental damage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental damage. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
..CO2 emissions highest ever in 2010: IEA
Carbon dioxide emitted by energy use hit a record high last year, dimming prospects for limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Monday.
Breaching the 2.0 C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold sharply increases risk of severe climate impacts, including flooding, storms, rising sea levels and species extinction, scientists have warned.
"Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history," the Paris-based IEA said in a statement posted on its website.
After a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions climbed to a record 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt), a five-percent jump from the previous record year in 2008, the agency said.
Moreover, 80 percent of projected greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 from energy sources are "locked in" as they will come from power plants already operating or under construction.
"This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2.0 C (3.6 F)," said IEA chief economist Fatih Birol.
UN climate change talks have agreed that average global temperatures should not increase by more than 2.0 C (3.6 F).
To achieve this goal, long-term concentration of greenhouse gases must peak at about 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, barely five percent more than in 2000, scientists say.
This target will slip beyond reach if global energy-related emissions in the year 2020 exceeds 32 Gt, the IEA has calculated.
The rise in emissions over the next decade must be less than the jump between 2009 and 2010, the agency cautioned.
"Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," said Birol.
"The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emission that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2.0 C (3.6 F) target is to be attained."
The UN's top climate official said the figures underscored the urgency for political action.
"The IEA estimates ... are a stark warming to governments to provide strong new progress this year towards global solutions to climate change," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
UN climate talks, resuming in Bonn next Monday, remain deadlocked on how to achieve the 2.0 C (3.6 F) target.
Even the Kyoto Protocol, whose first round of emissions-cutting pledges for rich nations expires at the end of 2012, may be in jeopardy as key nations say they do not favour renewal.
"The figures mean that the world is very far from achieving the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more that two degrees Celsius," EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in a statement, calling on other nations to set binding targets and emissions trading schemes as has the European Union.
Emerging countries say emission limits will stunt their development and argue that only rich economies can afford green technology which can boost living standards and cut emissions.
The IEA estimated 40 percent of global emissions in 2010 came from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club of advanced countries.
But these only accounted for a quarter of the annual emissions growth. The rest came came from rapidly developing countries, led by China and India.
On a per-capita basis, OECD countries emit on average 10 tonnes, compared with 5.8 tonnes for China, a voracious burner of coal, and 1.5 tonnes in India.
Breaching the 2.0 C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold sharply increases risk of severe climate impacts, including flooding, storms, rising sea levels and species extinction, scientists have warned.
"Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history," the Paris-based IEA said in a statement posted on its website.
After a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions climbed to a record 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt), a five-percent jump from the previous record year in 2008, the agency said.
Moreover, 80 percent of projected greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 from energy sources are "locked in" as they will come from power plants already operating or under construction.
"This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2.0 C (3.6 F)," said IEA chief economist Fatih Birol.
UN climate change talks have agreed that average global temperatures should not increase by more than 2.0 C (3.6 F).
To achieve this goal, long-term concentration of greenhouse gases must peak at about 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, barely five percent more than in 2000, scientists say.
This target will slip beyond reach if global energy-related emissions in the year 2020 exceeds 32 Gt, the IEA has calculated.
The rise in emissions over the next decade must be less than the jump between 2009 and 2010, the agency cautioned.
"Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," said Birol.
"The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emission that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2.0 C (3.6 F) target is to be attained."
The UN's top climate official said the figures underscored the urgency for political action.
"The IEA estimates ... are a stark warming to governments to provide strong new progress this year towards global solutions to climate change," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
UN climate talks, resuming in Bonn next Monday, remain deadlocked on how to achieve the 2.0 C (3.6 F) target.
Even the Kyoto Protocol, whose first round of emissions-cutting pledges for rich nations expires at the end of 2012, may be in jeopardy as key nations say they do not favour renewal.
"The figures mean that the world is very far from achieving the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more that two degrees Celsius," EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in a statement, calling on other nations to set binding targets and emissions trading schemes as has the European Union.
Emerging countries say emission limits will stunt their development and argue that only rich economies can afford green technology which can boost living standards and cut emissions.
The IEA estimated 40 percent of global emissions in 2010 came from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club of advanced countries.
But these only accounted for a quarter of the annual emissions growth. The rest came came from rapidly developing countries, led by China and India.
On a per-capita basis, OECD countries emit on average 10 tonnes, compared with 5.8 tonnes for China, a voracious burner of coal, and 1.5 tonnes in India.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Save our Seas!
Healthy coral reefs provide a living for about 275 million people – and ¾ of the world’s coral reefs are at risk due to factors such as overfishing, pollution and climate change.
According to studies made and compiled over the last 3 years by Reefs at Risk Revisited, the biggest threat is exploitative fishing. Another concern is that in 20 years’ time, most reefs will also be feeling the impact of climate change.
The report is compiled by a group of more than 20 research and conservation organisations, led by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington DC, in the hopes sending a wake up call for policymakers, business leaders, ocean managers, and others about the urgent need for greater protection for coral reefs.
Local and global threats, are already having significant impacts on coral reefs, putting the future of these beautiful and valuable ecosystems at risk.
The upside is that there are measures that can be taken to protect at least some. One variable that must be changed in this equation is the way fishermen make use of the reefs. Half of those around the world are threatened by methods ranging from simply catching more than nature can replace to the use of extremely damaging fishing methods such as dynamite fishing to stun or kill them - which also blasts coral formations to smithereens. Educating those in this particular industry of less abrasive and acquisitive methods for fishing would help preserve the balance of the reefs.
Other major threats are pollution carried in rivers, coastal development, and climate change.
If climate projections turn into reality, then by 2030 roughly half of the world's reefs will experience bleaching in most years - rising to 95% during the 2050s. Coral polyps - the tiny reef-building creatures - live in partnership with algae that provide nutrition and give corals their colour. When the water gets too hot, the algae are expelled and the coral turns white. Although reefs can recover, the more often it happens, the more likely they are simply to die. In addition, the slow decrease in the pH of seawater as it absorbs more carbon dioxide - usually known as ocean acidification - will compromise coral's capacity to form the hard structures it needs.
Regionally, Southeast Asia is the worst affected region, with 95% of reefs on the threatened list. But in terms of the impact on human society, threat is only part of the equation; societies most affected by reef degradation would be those where the threats are high, where a big proportion of the population depends on reefs for their livelihood, and where people's capacity to adapt is low. Combining these criteria, the countries highest on the risk register are Comoros, Fiji, Haiti, Indonesia, Kiribati, Philippines, Tanzania and Vanuatu.
Once again, let us remember that hope springs eternal. Reefs are resilient; and by reducing the local pressures, we can help buy time to find solutions to global threats that can preserve reefs for future generations.
Research has shown for example, that allowing a diversity of life to flourish on a reef keeps it healthy and more resistant to rising water temperatures. Protecting important regions of sea would also be one obvious strategy.
On the other hand, circumstances have shown that more than 2,500 protected areas of reef, researchers concluded that even though over a quarter of the world's coral is nominally protected, only one-sixth of those areas offer good protection.
Nevertheless there remains to be real world examples, studies and further research made that have proven solutions – real world examples whereby people have succeeded in turning things around. If we don’t learn from these successes now while there is still time and resource, we may end up 5 decades into the future with most of our beautiful reefs replaces by eroding limestone, overgrown with algae and grazed merely by a variety of fish.
According to studies made and compiled over the last 3 years by Reefs at Risk Revisited, the biggest threat is exploitative fishing. Another concern is that in 20 years’ time, most reefs will also be feeling the impact of climate change.The report is compiled by a group of more than 20 research and conservation organisations, led by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington DC, in the hopes sending a wake up call for policymakers, business leaders, ocean managers, and others about the urgent need for greater protection for coral reefs.
Local and global threats, are already having significant impacts on coral reefs, putting the future of these beautiful and valuable ecosystems at risk.
The upside is that there are measures that can be taken to protect at least some. One variable that must be changed in this equation is the way fishermen make use of the reefs. Half of those around the world are threatened by methods ranging from simply catching more than nature can replace to the use of extremely damaging fishing methods such as dynamite fishing to stun or kill them - which also blasts coral formations to smithereens. Educating those in this particular industry of less abrasive and acquisitive methods for fishing would help preserve the balance of the reefs.
Other major threats are pollution carried in rivers, coastal development, and climate change.
If climate projections turn into reality, then by 2030 roughly half of the world's reefs will experience bleaching in most years - rising to 95% during the 2050s. Coral polyps - the tiny reef-building creatures - live in partnership with algae that provide nutrition and give corals their colour. When the water gets too hot, the algae are expelled and the coral turns white. Although reefs can recover, the more often it happens, the more likely they are simply to die. In addition, the slow decrease in the pH of seawater as it absorbs more carbon dioxide - usually known as ocean acidification - will compromise coral's capacity to form the hard structures it needs.
Regionally, Southeast Asia is the worst affected region, with 95% of reefs on the threatened list. But in terms of the impact on human society, threat is only part of the equation; societies most affected by reef degradation would be those where the threats are high, where a big proportion of the population depends on reefs for their livelihood, and where people's capacity to adapt is low. Combining these criteria, the countries highest on the risk register are Comoros, Fiji, Haiti, Indonesia, Kiribati, Philippines, Tanzania and Vanuatu.
Once again, let us remember that hope springs eternal. Reefs are resilient; and by reducing the local pressures, we can help buy time to find solutions to global threats that can preserve reefs for future generations.
Research has shown for example, that allowing a diversity of life to flourish on a reef keeps it healthy and more resistant to rising water temperatures. Protecting important regions of sea would also be one obvious strategy.
On the other hand, circumstances have shown that more than 2,500 protected areas of reef, researchers concluded that even though over a quarter of the world's coral is nominally protected, only one-sixth of those areas offer good protection.
Nevertheless there remains to be real world examples, studies and further research made that have proven solutions – real world examples whereby people have succeeded in turning things around. If we don’t learn from these successes now while there is still time and resource, we may end up 5 decades into the future with most of our beautiful reefs replaces by eroding limestone, overgrown with algae and grazed merely by a variety of fish.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Another man-made disaster
Five times as much oil as previously thought is leaking from a ruptured BP well.
The British energy giant launched one of the biggest containment operation ever, with the military joining dozens of ships and aircraft. The slick is estimated to cover an area of 4,700 square miles, making it one of the biggest oil spills in history. Despite attempts to slow its advance by setting it on fire, winds had blown the leading edge of the slick just three miles away from the mouth of the Mississipi Delta. The US Navy said it had sent 66,000 feet of inflatable boom and seven skimming systems to the disaster area to control the movement of spills.
The US Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil was gushing into the sea at the rate of 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) a day, five times more than earlier estimated. Thats a lot of precious oil and imagine the damage it will and has done. The head of BP's exploration and production arm admitted it had discovered a substantial new leak and conceded the revised US estimate of the amount of escaping oil could be correct. He said drilling a relief well to plug the leak, which is a mile down under the sea's surface, could take up to three months.
The spill followed an explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leased by BP, on April 20 in which 11 workers are presumed to have died. The rig sank two days later some 50 miles off the coast. The slick could cause severe environmental damage to beaches, wildlife and estuaries in Louisiana and other states such as Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, in which a tanker spilt 11 million gallons of oil off Alaska, is going to pale into insignificance in comparison to this as it goes on. Mr Miller, whose company became famous by dousing 180 of the 600 oil fires in Kuwait after the Gulf War, said the new slick bore comparison with the Kuwait fires but was likely to be far more environmentally damaging as it was at sea rather than in the desert. He criticised BP's initial response, saying it worsened the slick by putting the fire out on the rig. That action led to the rig sinking, cutting off the only connection to the well and ensuring the leaking oil went into the sea rather than being burned off, said Mr Miller.
Another short-term solution reportedly being implemented was a plan to set up a bell-shaped device to catch the oil as rose to the surface from the well, before being pumped into container ships. This all happened because of our greed and need for oil. If we weren't so dependent on it might never have happened. We are all guilty.
The British energy giant launched one of the biggest containment operation ever, with the military joining dozens of ships and aircraft. The slick is estimated to cover an area of 4,700 square miles, making it one of the biggest oil spills in history. Despite attempts to slow its advance by setting it on fire, winds had blown the leading edge of the slick just three miles away from the mouth of the Mississipi Delta. The US Navy said it had sent 66,000 feet of inflatable boom and seven skimming systems to the disaster area to control the movement of spills.The US Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil was gushing into the sea at the rate of 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) a day, five times more than earlier estimated. Thats a lot of precious oil and imagine the damage it will and has done. The head of BP's exploration and production arm admitted it had discovered a substantial new leak and conceded the revised US estimate of the amount of escaping oil could be correct. He said drilling a relief well to plug the leak, which is a mile down under the sea's surface, could take up to three months.
The spill followed an explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leased by BP, on April 20 in which 11 workers are presumed to have died. The rig sank two days later some 50 miles off the coast. The slick could cause severe environmental damage to beaches, wildlife and estuaries in Louisiana and other states such as Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, in which a tanker spilt 11 million gallons of oil off Alaska, is going to pale into insignificance in comparison to this as it goes on. Mr Miller, whose company became famous by dousing 180 of the 600 oil fires in Kuwait after the Gulf War, said the new slick bore comparison with the Kuwait fires but was likely to be far more environmentally damaging as it was at sea rather than in the desert. He criticised BP's initial response, saying it worsened the slick by putting the fire out on the rig. That action led to the rig sinking, cutting off the only connection to the well and ensuring the leaking oil went into the sea rather than being burned off, said Mr Miller.
Another short-term solution reportedly being implemented was a plan to set up a bell-shaped device to catch the oil as rose to the surface from the well, before being pumped into container ships. This all happened because of our greed and need for oil. If we weren't so dependent on it might never have happened. We are all guilty.
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