Plant a Tree

Today is Arbor Day

In 1872, J. Sterling Morton, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland, founded Arbor Day in Nebraska City, Nebraska.

A national holiday of tree-planting celebrated on the last Friday in April, Arbor Day is observed in dozens of countries around the world.

On the first Arbor Day, an estimated 1 million trees were planted.

In the face of the alarming high rates of global deforestation, the annual tree-planting of Arbor Day has taken on a greater significance.

The net annual forest loss for the ten-year period following 2000 is "equivalent to an area about the size of Costa Rica," according to a recent press release issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

"World deforestation, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land, has decreased over the past ten years but continues at an alarmingly high rate in many countries."

According to EraseCarbonFootprint.com, the average person produces 26 tons of global-warming carbon dioxide every year. It would take more than 150 pine trees (each at least 25 years old) to absorb that amount.

So, cutting trees down -- to make paper, room for agriculture or Christmas trees -- isn't such a great idea. Plus, birds seem to be quite fond of them (and vice versa).

It is estimated that more than 350,000 people are born every day. We're going to need a lot more trees.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Greenpeace letter thanking Kimberly-Clark for protecting ancient forests
  
• Download the Greenpeace Tissue Guide to find out which tissue brands are sustainably-sourced and which are made from clearcutting ancient forests (PDF download)
  
• Visit the Arbor Day Foundation get 10 free trees when you join
  
• Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Read Olivia Judson's recent New York Times blog post, "Tree-mendous"
• Read about the 10 countries with the highest deforestation rates
• Read about Anne Frank's tree, which is dying
  

RELATED POSTS

• The World's Rarest Tree (April 28, 2010)
• From Syrup to Seals in Canada (February 15, 2010)
• Magic Mushroom (January 4, 2010)
• Exit Koala (November 19, 2009)
  
• Nazca Redux (November 12, 2009)
  
• We Didn't Start the Fire (November 5, 2009)
• The Trees of the Maya (July 29, 2009)
• Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree (July 17, 2009)
• Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees (February 25, 2009)
• Trees Are Dying Faster (January 24, 2009)
• EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director of the Mangrove Action Project (October 27, 2008)
• Saving Sumatran Forests, Keepers of Carbon (October 11, 2008)
• Ancient Forests Not Something to Sneeze At (September 18, 2008)
• Amazon Threatened By Oil and Gas Exploration (August 15, 2008)
• Kenya's Economy Tied to Forest Health (July 19, 2008)
• Global Land Grab May Decimate Forests (July 15, 2008)
• UN Urges Southeast Asia to Stop Deforestation (June 26, 2008)
• Happy Markets, Happy Forests (April 27, 2008)
• Swedish Tree May Be Oldest Living Thing (April 19, 2008)
• Canadian Logging May Explode "Carbon Bomb" (April 12, 2008)

image: Diamond Geyser

Chevron's Toxic Legacy in Ecuador

The second-biggest American oil company has resorted to desperate measures in an effort to avoid a multi-billion dollar lawsuit

More than 17 years ago, a group of indigenous people from the Ecuadorian Amazon sued Texaco for $27 billion dollars.

They allege that the company dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the rainforest. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001 and inherited the long-running dispute.

The case is finally coming to head, as the plaintiffs have asked a U.S. court to block the Chevron's attempt to bring the case to international arbitration.

"Chevron’s tactics -- ranging from quietly trying to wield U.S. trade policy to compel Ecuador’s government to squelch the case, to producing a pseudo-news report casting the company as the victim of a corrupt Ecuadorean political system -- were designed to win powerful allies in Congress and the Obama administration as well as to shape public opinion and calm shareholders," writes Kenneth P. Vogel on Politico.com.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Avaaz.org petition urging Chevron to take responsibility and compensate the affected communities
  
• Sign the ChevronToxico Campaign for Justice in Ecuador petition urging Chevron's new CEO John Watson to redress the damage
• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Donate to the Rainforest Action Network

RELATED POSTS

• The Disaster of Drilling (April 26, 2010)
• Obama: Offshore and Off Base (April 1, 2010)
• Forgetting the Forest People (February 2, 2010)
• The World's Most Important, Most Destructive Edible Oil (January 26, 2010)
• Twenty-Six Ounces of Oil (And the Flesh from Several Cows) (November 9, 2009)
• Gone Bananas (October 12, 2009)
• Oil and Water Don't Mix (October 7, 2009)
• Don't Cry for Trees Argentina (September 28, 2009)
• Plight of the Penan (September 14, 2009)
• Lost World (September 9, 2009)
• The Trees of the Maya (July 29, 2009)
• Environmental Showdown in the Amazon: Big Oil vs. Native People (July 21, 2009)
• The Rare Animals of the Amazon (June 13, 2009)
• Atlantis Rising (July 12, 2009)
• Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud (May 30, 2009)
• Polar Transcendentalism (May 11, 2009)
• Selling the Arctic's Future to the Oil Industry (March 6, 2009)
• Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees (February 29, 2009)
  
• Dismembering the Earth's Heart and Lungs (January 25, 2009)
• Gray Whales, Meet Big Oil (November 22, 2008)

image: Avaaz.org

The World's Rarest Tree

There is just one member of the species Pennantia baylisiana left in the wild

On the northern face Great Island -- one of the Three Kings Islands off New Zealand's coast -- there sits a solitary tree, the only remaining member of the species known as Pennantia baylisiana.

It is the world's rarest plant.

It wasn't always that way. But non-native goats brought to the island by humans ate all the others.

This single surviving tree was discovered in 1945 by Professor Geoff Baylis of the University of Otago.

Now, according to Scientific American, Peter de Lange, a botanist at the New Zealand Department of Conservation and author of the book Threatened Plants of New Zealand, has brought 1,600 P. baylisiana seeds to the island in the hope of saving the species. The seeds were obtained from cloned cuttings of the original tree.

It is expected to take six to 10 years for the seeds to become flowering trees. With a goal to grow 500 viable adult trees, de Lange's project highlights a larger issue: deforestation.

Humans have clearcut 80% of the planet's ancient forests, destroying the habitats of countless plants and animals, removing potential life-saving medicinal compounds and contributing greatly to global warming.

In a recent victory, Greenpeace's 8-year campaign to get Kimberly-Clark to stop deforesting ancient forests finally came to an end. The paper giant has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the wood fiber for its products -- including its flagship brand Kleenex -- from environmentally responsible sources.

Though de Lange's project might seem like a small experiment to save one tree species in a remote part of the world, if the rates of deforestation around the globe don't significantly decrease, hard-to-reach locations like Great Island might one day be the only places where a tree can mount its last stand.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Greenpeace letter thanking Kimberly-Clark for protecting ancient forests
  
• Download the Greenpeace Tissue Guide to find out which tissue brands are sustainably-sourced and which are made from clearcutting ancient forests (PDF download)
  
• Visit the Arbor Day Foundation get 10 free trees when you join
  
• Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Read Olivia Judson's recent New York Times blog post, "Tree-mendous"
  

RELATED POSTS

• From Syrup to Seals in Canada (February 15, 2010)
• Magic Mushroom (January 4, 2010)
• Nazca Redux (November 12, 2009)
  
• We Didn't Start the Fire (November 5, 2009)
• The Trees of the Maya (July 29, 2009)
• Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree (July 17, 2009)
• Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees (February 25, 2009)
• Trees Are Dying Faster (January 24, 2009)
• EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director of the Mangrove Action Project (October 27, 2008)
• Saving Sumatran Forests, Keepers of Carbon (October 11, 2008)
• Ancient Forests Not Something to Sneeze At (September 18, 2008)
• Amazon Threatened By Oil and Gas Exploration (August 15, 2008)
• Kenya's Economy Tied to Forest Health (July 19, 2008)
• Global Land Grab May Decimate Forests (July 15, 2008)
• UN Urges Southeast Asia to Stop Deforestation (June 26, 2008)
• Happy Markets, Happy Forests (April 27, 2008)
• Swedish Tree May Be Oldest Living Thing (April 19, 2008)
• Canadian Logging May Explode "Carbon Bomb" (April 12, 2008)

image: Tony Silbery, Scientific American

Model of Marine Hope: Glover's Reef

Belize offers a haven for ocean life to thrive

About 28 miles from the coast of Belize is a lush, tropical paradise spanning 87,000 acres called Glover's Reef.

It is unique in a few ways. Not only is Glover's one of the Atlantic Ocean's only true atolls (an island made of coral that surrounds a lagoon) as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is also the location of the nation's 17,500-acre "no-take" marine reserve, where fishing is illegal. Throughout the rest of the reef, some fishing is permitted, but strictly limited and monitored. Certain types of destructive fishing gear is prohibited.

These types of reserves are key to the success of contemporary marine conservation. Established in 1993 with the help of the Bronx-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Glover's Reef Marine Reserve is one of the healthiest reefs in the Caribbean Sea. At a time when a third of the world's coral reefs face extinction, this kind of success -- even on small scale -- offers a ray of hope for the future of marine ecosystems.

The four reef rangers who patrol the reserve have a wide variety of duties, from enforcing the fishing regulations to checking the health of the reefs and commercial species (lobster and conch in particular) to monitoring sea turtles, including nesting activity.

"Glover's Reef is a very healthy ecosystem. It's got beautiful corals, it's got gorgeous structure, lots of big, healthy fish -- a very diverse ecosystem," said Dr. Ellen Pikitch, the executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science and professor at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, in a recent New York Times video.

For the past decade, Pikitch has runs the world's largest shark population study at Glover's Reef. While shark populations have plummeted around the globe, the ones at Glover's are stable.

"I think Glover's Reef is a model of hope," Pikitch says. "And it shows that marine reserves, even small marine reserves, can really work."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an Oceana petition urging Congress to enforce lower CO2 emissions to stop ccean acidification (U.S. citizens)
  
• Sign the Reef Check Foundation's International Declaration of Reef Rights
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• The Disaster of Drilling (April 26, 2010)
• Acid Waters (February 24, 2010)
• Senatorial Taste Test: Shark Fin Soup (December 8, 2009)
• The World's First Shark Sanctuary (October 14, 2009)
• The Island Mouse That Roared (July 22, 2009)
• If Fish Could Talk: Get Off of Our Lawn (July 8, 2009)
• Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Is A Time Bomb (July 5, 2009)
• South Africa's Shark Tale (June 24, 2009)
• New Caledonia (May 13, 2009)
  
• Ghosts in the Water (May 10, 2009)
• Once Upon A Time, Arctic Gators (May 4, 2009)
• Photographing the Coral Triangle (April 23, 2009)
• Enter the Dead Zone (April 20, 2009)
• Coral Reefs: Here Now, Gone Tomorrow? (April 3, 2009)
• 13.7 BILLION YEARS EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Philip Renaud, Executive Director, Living Oceans Foundation (Part 1 of 5) (March 15, 2009)
• Oceanic Acid Trip (March 10, 2009)
• Singapore's Dolphin Deal with the Solomons (December 8, 2008)
• Indonesia Creates Asian Reef Conservation Group (November 24, 2008)
• Sharks Get a New Best Friend in Galapagos (October 23, 2008)
• One-Third of Coral Reefs Face Extinction (July 11, 2008)

image: gloversreef.org

The Disaster of Drilling

The recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill is leaking 1,000 barrels of oil into the ocean every day

Last week, a $600 million oil rig exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers and injuring many others. It was leased by the petroleum giant BP.

Currently, there is an oil slick 20 miles long and 30 miles wide making its way to the shoreline. It is leaving a wide and nightmarish swath of death and destruction in its wake.

This is particularly bad news coming on the heels of President Obama's controversial decision to open vast areas of water along the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to offshore oil and natural gas drilling for the first time.

Indeed, there is no single event that highlights the environmental danger of the oil industry than an oil spill.

Fish, birds, marine mammals, coral reefs and beaches are all threatened by this man-made ecological disaster. Oil spills kill countless fish eggs, wreaking havoc on the normal population growth of many species vital to the entire marine food chain.

Last month, the Department of Interior issued a revised 2007-2012 offshore drilling plan that surprised and shocked many environmental experts. The plan calls for increased drilling in areas that had been closed to development by a Congressional moratorium, including Alaska's Cook Inlet, the fragile habitat of the endangered beluga whale.

If there is a silver lining to the oil spill, perhaps it will be the increased public concern about devoting more resources to the dangerous search for fossil fuel. As many rich countries move forward in renewable energy, the United States lags woefully behind. (Sweden, in particular, announced it will be gasoline- and oil-free by 2020.)

President Obama made a concession to the "Drill, Baby, Drill" proponents. But it was most certainly a mistake. A long-term energy strategy must focus on clean renewable technologies that create new jobs for the future of America's workforce -- not expanded drilling in our oceans.

Mr. Obama should take a close look at the sea of death that's currently growing in the Gulf. He'll see the past. Not the future.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an Oceana petition opposing President Obama's new offshore drilling plan
• Sign an Audubon petition urging Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to reject exploratory drilling in the ecologically sensitive waters of the Arctic Ocean, in particular Chukchi Lease Sale 193
  
• Sign a 350.org petition opposing offshore drilling, urging President Obama to stand by his campaign promises to make sure any climate bill before the Senate mandates at least 25% of our electricity come from renewable sources by 2025 and that we don't give free allowances to polluting industries like coal and oil
• Sign a Defenders of Wildlife letter urging Congress to support the the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act (H.R. 39) which will permanently protect the Arctic refuge (U.S. citizens)
• Sign an Audubon petition urging American lawmakers to vote NO on lifting the crude oil ban in Florida's coastal waters (U.S. citizens)
• Sign a Friends of the Earth petition opposing President Obama's drilling plan
  
• Read the list of the largest oil spills in history
• Find out more about the seven biggest environmental disasters
  

RELATED POSTS

• Obama: Offshore and Off Base (April 1, 2010)
• Twenty-Six Ounces of Oil (And the Flesh from Several Cows) (November 9, 2009)
• Oil and Water Don't Mix (October 7, 2009)
• Environmental Showdown in the Amazon: Big Oil vs. Native People (July 21, 2009)
• Atlantis Rising (July 12, 2009)
• Polar Transcendentalism (May 11, 2009)
  
• Selling the Arctic's Future to the Oil Industry (March 6, 2009)
• Gray Whales, Meet Big Oil (November 22, 2008)

image: Alternet

The 24th Annual Genesis Awards

Paying tribute to excellent works about animals

Born in 1932 in Bartlesvilles, Oklahoma, Gretchen Wienecke studied dance in Tulsa. When she was 19, she moved to New York when got a year-long job as a chorus dancer in the 1951 Broadway production of "Where's Charley." At some point, she changed her name to Gretchen Wyler.

She got her break at 23 when she landed the role Janice Dayton in "Silk Stockings," a role that garnered her the ("supporting actress") Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Wyler appeared in several Broadway productions ("Damn Yankees," "Bye Bye Birdie," "Annie Get Your Gun," "Annie," "Can-Can," "Mame," "42nd Street") and TV shows ("Dallas," "Santa Barbara," "MacGyver," "Friends"), but her real passion was animals.

Gretchn Wyler passed away in 2007, but she will long be remembered not only for her acting career, but for starting the Genesis Awards. Debuted in 1986, the award recognizes excellent news and entertainment media works that raise public awareness about animal issues.

Past winners show the breadth of the award. The heavy metal band Megadeth won for their 1992 album "Countdown to Extinction." The PBS series Nature won for the 2000 documentary "A Conversation with Koko," about the groundbreaking work of the Gorilla Foundation, where one resident has been speaking in sign language for over quarter of a century.

Wyler founded the Ark Trust, the presenter of the Genesis Awards, which later merged with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to become the Hollywood Office of the HSUS.

The 24th annual Genesis Awards will air on Animal Planet on April 24 at noon ET/PT and April 25 at 1:00pm ET/PT.

GET INVOLVED

• Support the Hollywood Office of the HSUS to help expose animal cruelty through the power of the major media
• Participate in World Week for Animals Week
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Do these animal-friendly actions recommended by the HSUS
• Download a list of companies that DO TEST on animals
• Download a list of companies that DON'T TEST on animals
• Donate to support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the globe
• Support the Gorilla Foundation
• Sign a Sierra Club petition to protect wildlife habitat from the effects of climate change

RELATED POSTS

• Portraits of Those on the Brink (April 21, 2010)
• Testing Animals, Testing Ethics (April 19, 2010)
  
• The Fate of Group Megan (April 13, 2010)
• Nothing But Net (April 7, 2010)
  
• Gorillas on the List (April 6, 2010)
• "The Cove" Wins Best Documentary (March 8, 2010)
  
• Freeing Our Family Members (January 14, 2010)
• Flipper: Smart Like Us, and a Lot Nicer (January 5, 2010)
  
• She's Got A (One-Way) Ticket to Ride (November 3, 2009)
• We're Not the Only Ones Capable of Suffering (October 28, 2009)
• Hold That Thought About Thought (September 21, 2009)
  
• Chimp Trauma (September 16, 2009)
• Protecting Great Apes (August 13, 2009)
• Chimp Apocalypse Now (June 15, 2009)
• A Peculiar Evil Grows in Austria (May 26, 2009)
• Military Torture: Not Just for Humans (May 17, 2009)

image: Genesis Awards, Humane Society

One Day to Think About the Big Blue Marble

Today is Earth Day

The Scottish-born American naturalist John Muir was born yesterday in 1838. So it is fitting that today is Earth Day, a celebration -- and a call to action -- that Mr. Muir would undoubtedly have supported quite keenly.

In 1892, Muir founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco. Today, it is America's oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization.

Earth Day is celebrating its 40th anniversary, having been founded in 1970 by American senator Gaylord Nelson.

"America's wealth of unspoiled natural places is testament to visionary leaders in our past who acted to preserve our forests, deserts, air and water from profit-driven industries," wrote Wilderness Society Director of Electronic Communications Kathy Kilmer, in an email.

Two of these visionary leaders were Muir and Nelson.

As Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen recently noted in an email, "We only have one world, and we're in this together."

But Muir knew the sad truth of human nature when he wrote, "Most people are on the world, not in it -- have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them -- undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate."

Not every one of the 6.8 billion people on the planet can be visionary leaders when it comes to keeping the Earth healthy. But at least there's one day a year when everyone can stop being a "separate marble" and give a thought to how their own daily behavior might affect the big, blue marble that we all call home.

GET INVOLVED

• Make a green pledge for Earth Day with the Sierra Club
• Visit the official Earth Day Web site
  
• Sign a petition urging the U.S. Senate to pass (www.therainforestsite.com, www.protectanimalsandnature.ning.com)
• Do these animal-friendly Earth Day actions recommended by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
  
• Download the Sierra Club's Eco Hero app to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad
• Vote on the Rainforest Action Network's Top 20 Earth Day posters
  
• Dedicate a day of service for Earth Day with Defenders of Wildlife
• Sign the Declaration of Energy Independence
  
• Sign a petition to the United Nations to show your support of biodiversity
• Donate to support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the globe
• Join the Countdown 2010 Network to join the fight against biodiversity loss
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Support the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

RELATED POSTS

• China's Water Woes (April 12, 2010)
• Nothing But Net (April 7, 2010)
• Gorillas on the List (April 6, 2010)
• Ice Mission (March 30, 2010)
• Clean Bodies, Dirty Water (March 29, 2010)
• Earth Hour (March 26, 2010)
  
• Water, Water, Not Everywhere (March 22, 2010)
• The Real Price of Meat (March 19, 2010)
• Acid Waters (February 24, 2010)
  
• Killing Enemies, Saving Species (February 23, 2010)
• Gaia: How Dry She Is (February 17, 2010)
  
• Less Species = More Disease (December 10, 2009)
• Four Degrees (September 29, 2009)
• The Arctic Has a Hotseat, and Man Is Behind the Wheel

image: "The Blue Marble" is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972 by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft en route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometers (18,000 statute miles). It shows Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is Madagascar. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast. (credit: NASA. Photo taken by either Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans of the Apollo 17 crew)

Portraits of Those on the Brink

A new book captures the portraits of some species that may soon disappear forever

Planet Earth may be losing up to 1,000 species to extinction every week.

The vast majority of these extinctions are directly caused by the harmful effects of human activity, such as pollution, habitat loss, disease, poaching, overhunting, overfishing and anthropogenic climate change.

For three years, Joel Sartore studied America's Endangered Species Act and the creatures that the law protects. An award-winning nature photographer, Sartore has worked for National Geographic for the past 17 years.

Sartore's in-depth investigation has resulted in Rare, a new book released last month containing 80 iconic images of the species that may soon be gone forever.

"These are perilous times for life on Earth," says the narrator for the Rare video trailer on Amazon.com. "Habitat destruction and climate change are expected to wipe out a third of all species by the turn of the century. Nearly half the primates could vanish in the next 25 years. Amphibians will fare worse."

"Here's why this matters. Biodiversity produces the food we eat and the air we breathe. It filters our water, controls disease and maintains our climate. So it's really quite simple: When we save biodiversity, we're actually saving ourselves."

GET INVOLVED

• Watch the Rare video
• Watch the Rare book trailer
• Purchase Rare
  
• Sign a petition to the United Nations to show your support of biodiversity
• Donate to support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the globe
• Join the Countdown 2010 Network to join the fight against biodiversity loss
• Support the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

RELATED POSTS

• Nothing But Net (April 7, 2010)
• Gorillas on the List (April 6, 2010)
• The Ultimate Price of Ivory (March 15, 2010)
• Killing Enemies, Saving Species (February 23, 2010)
• How Much for That Polar Bear Rug? (February 2, 2010)
• Magic Mushroom (January 4, 2010)
• The Monaco Proposal (December 28, 2009)
• The Marines vs. the Dugongs (December 22, 2009)
• Less Species = More Disease (December 10, 2009)
• Elephants in Vietnam: Just 80 Left (December 3, 2009)
• Bye Bye Biodiversity (October 15, 2009)
• Exit Koala (November 19, 2009)
• The Rime of the Modern Mariner (November 10, 2009)
  
• Farewell from Christmas Island (September 10, 2009)
• Last Days for the Leatherbacks (September 5, 2009)
• Last Chance to Save the Saola (September 4, 2009)
• Exit the Mangrove Dwellers (August 25, 2009)
• Atlantic Salmon Dying in Chile's Pacific (August 4, 2009)
• Extinction Crisis in Oceania (August 3, 2009)
• Gone in 75 Years: Polar Bears (June 29, 2009)
• Silencing Whale Songs (May 31, 2009)
• The End of An Odyssey Draws Near (May 25, 2009)
• So Long to Species at Walden (Yellowstone, Too) (October 30, 2008)
• The Sixth Extinction (October 10, 2008)
• A Six-Step Plan to Save the Oceans from An Extinction Crisis (August 17, 2008)
• Slowing Human Population Growth May Stop Species Extinction (August 13, 2008)
• Elephant Extinction Possible by 2020 (August 3, 2008)
• Rate of Species Extinction Highest Since Dinosaurs (May 17, 2008)

image: Joel Sartore

Iceland's Volcano: Carbon Monster

Eyjafjallajökull is emitting as much carbon dioxide as a small- to medium-sized European country

Yesterday, NASA released this dramatic image of the continuing eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano. It was taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument onboard the Terra research satellite.

According to the NASA press release:

"The image shows a white eruption column being transported to the south by the prevailing winds. The image is dominated by the gray, ash-laden eruption cloud dispersed south and east by the winds, blowing from the southern Iceland coast towards Europe. The bright red areas mark the hot lava at the present vent, and the still-hot lava flows from the earlier phases of the eruption. The high-temperature material is revealed by ASTER's thermal infrared bands. This image covers an area of 58.6 by 46.8 kilometers (36.3 by 29 miles). The resolution is 15 meters (49 feet) per pixel."

The eruption is spewing quite a bit of CO2 into the atmosphere. In an email, Colin Macpherson, an Earth scientist at Britain's University of Durham, wrote that, assuming that the makeup of the gas is similar to that of an earlier eruption of an adjacent volcano ,"the CO2 flux of Eyjafjoell would be 150,000 tonnes per day," putting it on par with the emissions of a small- to medium-sized European economy, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

While the health of the entire planet is definitely affected by the eruption, there are also the more local effects on the flora and fauna that will have to be taken into consideration.

"Farmers across the region...have been scrambling to protect their herds from inhaling or ingesting the ash, which can cause internal bleeding, long-term bone damage and teeth loss," writes Carlo Piovano in an AP article.

"If animals feed on grasses covered with fluorine-filled ash, they can contract fluorosis, a fatal bone disease," according to Brian Handwerk in a National Geographic article.

GET INVOLVED

• Make a volcano
• Support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the world

RELATED POSTS

• Lost World(September 9, 2009)
• The Shadow Lives of Others (March 3, 2009)
• First Contact with Inner Earth: Workers Strike Magma (January 19, 2009)
  

image: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Testing Animals, Testing Ethics

Speaking out for those who cannot speak during World Week for Animals in Labs

Anglican priest and Cambridge professor of divinity William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) once famously said, "We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form."

Famed primatologist Jane Goodall has been working on changing that view.

Speaking at a 2008 symposium organized by animal rights groups and political leaders in the European Union, Dr. Goodall said, "As we move into the 21st century we need a new mindset, we should admit that the infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic and that the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings."

"The scientific establishment should actively encourage such research," said Goodall. "More funding should be made available for it. And rewards -- such as a Nobel prize -- should be given for it."

So far, there has been no prize. And the the burning, maiming, poisoning, blinding, wounding, suffocating, torturing and killing continues.

According to PETA, "Right this minute in laboratories across the U.S., rabbits are confined to stocks while chemicals eat away the soft skin on their backs, right down to the muscle and tissue beneath. After the chemical does its damage, the rabbits are killed -- their lives snuffed out in misery for just one more meaningless number on a chart."

It is hard to know the exact number of animals in labs all around the "civilized" world, but it is most certainly in the many millions. And the vast majority of them are used in non-critical experiments, such as testing for cosmetics.

In the United States, the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 requires laboratories to report the number of animals used in experiments, but it does not cover mice, rats and birds, which are used in up to 95 percent of all experiments. Apparently, the American government does not consider mice, rats and birds "real" animals.

Perhaps in the next few days, during World Week for Animals in Labs (WWAIL), more consumers will consider more closely the products they choose to buy and the companies they choose to support in the hopes that one day, "our distant cousins" would have no reason to "depict the Devil in human form."

GET INVOLVED

• Participate in World Week for Animals Week
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Download a list of companies that DO TEST on animals
• Download a list of companies that DON'T TEST on animals
  
• Sign a petition encouraging the Nobel Foundation to support alternatives to animal testing
  
• Sign a petition urging the Department of Energy to stop radiation experiments on monkeys
• Sign a petition reminding Proctor & Gamble that butylparaben is already an approved ingredient so that they stop unnecessarily force-feeding it to thousands of animals
• Sign a petition to stop lethal nicotine experiments on mother monkeys and their babies
  
• Sign a Humane Society letter urging your representative to support the Great Ape Protection Act (US citizens)
• Sign a PETA petition urging President Obama to ban military trauma exercises on animals
• Learn more about animals used in testing
• Visit StopAnimalTests.com
  

RELATED POSTS

• The Fate of Group Megan (April 13, 2010)
• Gorillas on the List (April 6, 2010)
• Freeing Our Family Members (January 14, 2010)
• She's Got A (One-Way) Ticket to Ride (November 3, 2009)
• We're Not the Only Ones Capable of Suffering (October 28, 2009)
  
• Chimp Trauma (September 16, 2009)
• Protecting Great Apes (August 13, 2009)
• Chimp Apocalypse Now (June 15, 2009)
• A Peculiar Evil Grows in Austria (May 26, 2009)
• Military Torture: Not Just for Humans (May 17, 2009)
  
• Killing Congo's Chimps (March 29, 2009)
  
• Tracking Our Second-Closest Relatives (March 24, 2009)
• The Gloomy Dean (January 30, 2009)
• UK Scientists Call for End of Animal-Pain Tests (August 18, 2008)
• Use of Lab Animals on the Rise in UK (July 26, 2008)
• Jane Goodall Urges EU to Review Animal Testing (June 9, 2008)
• Breeder Offers Greyhounds to Medical Research (June 2, 2008)
• Animal Testers Pressured After Week of Global Protest (May 10, 2008)
• No Alternative to "Lethal Dose 50" (April 14, 2008)
  

image: PETA

Lightning Seen on Saturn

The first movie of extraterrestrial lightning has been released

Last year, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured images of lightning on Saturn. Now, for the first time ever, scientists have released the first movie of lightning flashing on another planet.

The main storm was active for 10 months straight, from January to October 2009, making it the longest-ever lightning storm known in the solar system.

NASA's remarkable movie -- made from images taken during a smaller subsequent storm over a period of 16 minutes on November 30, 2009 -- reveals lightning on Saturn's night side flashing in a cloud illuminated by the planet's famous rings. The lightning is as bright as the brightest lightning flashes on Earth.

Named after the Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who was the first person to observe four of Saturn's moons, the Cassini spacecraft is the first space probe to orbit Saturn.

Part of the Cassini-Huygens joint mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, the spacecraft was launched in 1997 and is scheduled to continue its mission through 2017.

GET INVOLVED

• Watch the movie of lightning flashing on Saturn
  
• See an image of Titan taken by Cassini
  
• Participate in Cassini's Saturn Observation Campaign
• View a video of Titan's canyon country
  
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• Clash of the Titan (March 25, 2010)
• Titan's Sikun Labyrinthus (March 12, 2010)
• Encedalus Lives Again (February 12, 2010)
• Saturnian Hex (December 11, 2009)
• Saturn's Vanishing Rings (August 11, 2009)
• Orbiting Saturn, Five Years Later (July 10, 2009)
  
• Goodbye Ulysses (June 30, 2009)
• An Old Lake on the Red Planet (June 20, 2009)
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)

image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Gold Miners vs. "Human Beings"

Gold miners have invaded the ancestral land of one of the world's best known tribal people

Deep within the dense rainforest between northern Brazil and southern Venezuela live the Yanomami, a population of about 32,000 native Amerindian people who most likely migrated across the Bering Straits land bridge between Asia and America around 40,000 years ago.

Since being first contacted by the outside world at the beginning of the 20th century, they have become one of the most studied tribal groups. In their native language, "Yanomami" means "human being."

Last week, outside the office of FUNAI (the Brazilian government’s Indian Affairs Department) in the Amazonian state of Roraima, the Yanomami protested the invasion of their land by gold miners.

"The arrival of miners is increasing, and the Yanomami are very worried…Soon there will be conflicts between the miners and the Yanomami," said Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman and spokesman, according to Survival International.

"I know how the miners treat the Yanomami and I am also very sad because some Yanomami are working at the mining sites in return for food. They will fall ill; they’ll catch malaria and sexually transmitted infections, because the miners will use the Indian women as they have done in the past...We are fighting for our people, our land and our forest."

As Brazilian lawmakers witness what is happening to the Yanomami, they should consider what is more "human" -- allowing their native populations to live sustainably, as they have done for thousands of years, or allowing their ecosystems to be destroyed in the search for gold.

GET INVOLVED

• Write a letter urging the Brazilian government expressing your concern about the deterioration of the Yanomami’s health since the government’s National Health Foundation took over responsibility for delivering health care to the Yanomami
• Write to your local Brazilian embassy
  
• Donate to Survival International's Yanomami campaign
• Write to your MP or MEP (UK) or Senators and members of Congress (US).
• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Donate to the Rainforest Action Network

RELATED POSTS

• Forgetting the Forest People (Febraury 2, 2010)
• The World's Most Important, Most Destructive Edible Oil (January 26, 2010)
• Gone Bananas (October 12, 2009)
  
• Don't Cry for Trees Argentina (September 28, 2009)
• Happy Markets, Happy Forests (April 27, 2008)
• Plight of the Penan (September 14, 2009)
• Lost World (September 9, 2009)
• The Trees of the Maya (July 29, 2009)
• Environmental Showdown in the Amazon: Big Oil vs. Native People (July 21, 2009)
• The Rare Animals of the Amazon (June 13, 2009)
• Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud (May 30, 2009)
• Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees (February 29, 2009)
  
• Dismembering the Earth's Heart and Lungs (January 25, 2009)

image: Yanomami and Yekuana Indians protest against goldminers, Roraima state, Brazil (credit: Mauricio Tomé Rocha, Huti Yanomami, Ivan Xirixana/Hutukara)

Waste Land: Death Watch for Minke Whales in Norway

Norway is poised to overtake Japan as the world's biggest whale-killer

"April is the cruellest month," wrote T.S. Eliot in his famous 1922 poem "The Waste Land."

For almost 2,000 minke whales currently in Norwegian waters, that statement has particular relevance: Norway's whaling season officially began on April 1.

Norway is only one of three countries -- along with Iceland and Japan -- that have defied the international ban on commercial whaling, put in place in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Now, Norway is set to overtake Japan as the world's biggest whaling nation, with a goal of killing 1,286 whales this year, compared to Japan's target of 1,280.

However, this reality flies in the face of a 2009 opinion poll which found that the majority of Norwegians believe that the suffering inflicted by whaling is unacceptable.

"Norway's own data shows that at least one in five hunted whales suffers a long, agonizing death," said Claire Bass, the Marine Mammals Program Manager for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), in an email. "Some take over an hour to succumb to their injuries."

The poll also found that only 1% of the population regularly eats whale meat. So where will all the meat go?

The whaling industry supplies a black market that is international in scope, with illegal whale meat recently identified in restaurants in the United States and South Korea.

According to Nature, scientists have identified several different whale species in sashimi at restaurants in Santa Monica, California, and Seoul, South Korea, including fin whale, sei whale and Antarctic minke whale.

These three species are listed with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an agreement by the members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) prohibiting the international trade of endangered species.

Instead of whaling, WSPA recommends that Norway pursue whale watching, a lucrative $2.1 billion industry that includes 119 countries.

Incredibly, the IWC is currently considering a ten-year plan to lift the moratorium and legalize commercial whaling, a plan hatched in closed-door meetings with pro-whaling members of the regulating body. In a horribly ironic public relations plan, they will announce their decision on April 22, which happens to be Earth Day.

As the IWC ponders the fate of the whaling ban -- and the lives of thousands of whales -- they would do well take into consideration something else Mr. Eliot wrote:

"It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long stroke of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both."

Killing these highly intelligent creatures is not adapting. It is regressing on a grand scale.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a WSPA petition urging Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg to look to the future and invest in a policy of promoting watching – not catching – whale
• Sign an IFAW letter urging your representative to co-sponsor the Whale Conservation and Protection Act of 2009 (U.S. citizens)
  
• Listen to the songs of humpback whales (The Whalesong Project)
• Support Sea Shepherd's efforts to stop Japanese whaling
  
• Sign a Greenpeace letter to Iceland's prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir urging her to cancel Iceland's five-year commercial whaling quota
  
• Sign the Whale's Revenge petition urging the International Whaling Commission to close the loophole that allows whaling in the name of so-called "scientific research"
• Learn more about whaling in defiance of the international ban
  

RELATED POSTS

• Could Commercial Whaling Be Legalized? (March 2, 2010)
• Singing the Blue Whale Blues (December 14, 2009)
• Silencing Whale Songs (May 31, 2009)
• First-Ever Whale Songs Heard in New York Waters (September 20, 2008)
• Of Whales and Shrimp (October 13, 2009)
• The Whale Warrior (July 31, 2009)
• Denmark: Humpback Whales Are Tasty (June 23, 2009)
• Illegal Whale Meat Still on Japanese Menus (April 14, 2009)
• Bloody Waters in the Faroe Islands (February 19 , 2009)
• Gray Whales, Meet Big Oil (November 22, 2008)
• Palin Rebuffed As Unique Alaskan Whales Score Major Victory (October 18, 2008)
• Whales Get New Sanctuary in Chile (September 30, 2008)
• Greenland's Request to Kill Humpback Whales Denied (July 1, 2008)
• Greenpeace Activists Jailed in Tokyo (June 22, 2008)
• The Future of Whaling (June 14, 2008)
• US Condemns Iceland's Whale Hunt (May 26, 2008)

image: a minke whale hauled aboard a whaling ship (WSPA)