44,000

The horizontal length, in feet, that BP wants to drill offshore in Alaska

After BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the U.S. Interior Department issued new safety regulations for offshore drilling.

Now, BP wants to drill two miles into the seabed of the Beaufort Sea off the northern coast of Alaska -- and then drill horizontally for up to eight miles to get to the oil they believe is there.

It is called the Liberty Project, which calls for drilling into the seabed three miles off Alaska's coast. There is a moratorium on offshore drilling. But so far, regulators have cleared the project because BP is claiming that this is an onshore project due to the fact that they will begin drilling from an artificial island they built out of gravel...three miles off the coast.

BP has secured federal and state environmental permits, but they still await final approval from the Department of the Interior.

Liberty is "not covered by the moratorium," BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said in June, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. "It’s a land-based rig on a gravel island in shallow water and is not exploration."

According to the New York Times, one federal scientist said, "The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre."

"What they’re actually proposing to do is insane," according to a Greenpeace statement. "It’s a disaster waiting to happen in a place where oil spill cleanup is impossible."

"It makes no sense," said Rebecca Noblin, the Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "BP pushes the envelope in the gulf and ends up causing the moratorium. And now in the Arctic they are forging ahead again with untested technology, and as a result they’re the only ones left being allowed to drill there."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Greenpeace letter urging Interior Secretary Salazar to deny BP’s application to drill for the Liberty project
• Sign a Change.org petition urging President Obama to stop offshore oil drilling and demand a clean energy future
• Sign the Food & Water Watch petition urging President Obama and Secretary Salazar to shut down BP Atlantis
• Sign a Climate Protection Action Fund letter demanding that the U.S. Senate pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation

RELATED POSTS

• The Dirty Man of Europe (June 29, 2010)
• Jimmy Carter Was Right (June 26, 2010)
• The Age of Corporatocracy (June 24, 2010)
• What Fresh Hell Is This: Sea Turtles Burned Alive by BP (June 23, 2010)
  
• Shantih Shantih Shantih (June 22, 2010)
• A Decade of Planetary Change in Pictures (June 11, 2010)
• Polar Bear Habitat Melting Rapidly (June 10, 2010)
  
• Our Carbon Future (May 27, 2010)
• Big Oil vs. Polar Bears (May 25, 2010)
• Which Countries Are Killing the Environment? (May 12, 2010)
• More Oil Rigs or New Wind Farms? (May 4, 2010)
• The Disaster of Drilling (April 26, 2010)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: The BP drilling station on the artificial island in the Beaufort Sea (credit: Damon Winter/New York Times)

90

The percent loss of big ocean fish that have disappeared in the last 50 years due to overfishing

We have plundered the world's oceans.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over 80% of the world's fisheries are fully exploited or overfished. By 2003, a study published in the journal Nature found that 90% of the world's big ocean-going fish had disappeared over the last half century.

"From giant blue marlin to mighty bluefin tuna, and from tropical groupers to Antarctic cod, industrial fishing has scoured the global ocean. There is no blue frontier left," said Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada, and lead author of the study.

"Since 1950, with the onset of industrialized fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource base to less than 10 percent -- not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species from the tropics to the poles."

At the current rate of ocean exploitation, the ocean's big fish could be gone in the next 40 to 50 years. Some scientists believe that their could be a "total collapse" of the world's fisheries by 2048. The bluefin tuna, which has helped pushed sales of sushi worldwide, is on the verge of extinction.

Overfishing is a problem for both the rich world and the poor world. While the rich world may have to forgo eating expensive sushi and other top-dollar items from the sea, it is the poor who will go hungry. According the FAO, "Small island developing states -- which depend on fisheries and aquaculture for at least 50 percent of their animal protein intake -- are in a particularly vulnerable position."

And the lack of fish is affecting both the rich and poor worlds. A 2008 U.N. report found that the world's fishing fleets are losing about $50 billion each year due to depleted stocks.

But it's not just overfishing -- it's also mismanagement of the fish we do have. One pound of farmed salmon, for example, needs to eat three pounds of smaller fish. In fact, many conservationists recommend switching our diets from bigger fish (like tuna) to smaller fish (like sardines), not only to help the big fish recover, but because smaller fish are often more nutritious.

Scientists also fear that the continued decline of the ocean's big fish will upset the marine balance. But fish can fully recover, if left alone for some time. For now, the world will be much better off with more live fish in the ocean and less dead fish on our plates.

After all, as W.C. Fields once remarked, "A dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream."

GET INVOLVED

• Download the Environmental Defense Fund's "Pocket Eco-Friendly Fish Selector" to make choices that help prevent overfishing
• Watch a trailer for "The End of the Line," the first major documentary about overfishing
• Take the Sea Turtle Restoration Project Seafood Pledge
• Sign a WildAid petition to prevent longline fishing in the Galapagos

RELATED POSTS

• Nothing But Net (April 7, 2010)
• The Monaco Proposal (December 28, 2009)
• No More Lox for Bears (November 24, 2009)
• The Rime of the Modern Mariner (November 10, 2009)
  
• Atlantic Salmon Dying in Chile's Pacific (August 4, 2009)
• Another Inconvenient Truth: Overfishing (June 18, 2009)
• Ted Danson's Fight to Prevent A Bluefin Tuna Collapse (September 26, 2008)
• The End of An Odyssey Draws Near (May 25, 2009)
• Gone Fishin': Independence Day in Liberia (July 26, 2009)
• If Fish Could Talk: Get Off of Our Lawn (July 8, 2009)
• Pick up the Fish Phone (January 20, 2009)
• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) (credit: José Antonio Gil Martínez)

75

The number of months we have until it becomes more than less likely that the global average surface temperatures will rise two degrees above pre-industrial levels, according to Andrew Simms

When it comes to the environment, big business and consumerism, Andrew Simms has been connecting the dots. He is the policy director of the New Economics Foundation, an independent British think-tank, the author of Ecological Debt: Global Warming and the Wealth of Nations (2009) and the co-author with David Boyle of Eminent Corporations: the Rise and Fall of the Great British Corporation (2009), which includes a history of the petroleum giant BP.

Last week, Simms joined 150 scientists, corporate leaders, activists and policymakers in Lyon, France, for a three-day event to discuss such hot-button global environmental issues as climate change, water, energy, biodiversity and genetically-modified food.

The event,"The Sustainable Planet: Three Days of Debate, Opinion and Discussion," was hosted by three major European newspapers -- The Independent (United Kingdom), Libération (France) and La Repubblica (Italy).

Reporting on the event for The Independent, John Lichfield writes that Simms and Eva Joly -- a former French magistrate and corporate corruption investigator -- discussed the troubling issue of the world's big businesses "asset stripping" the planet.

Lichfield noted Simms' "broader argument" that "the world could no longer afford to pursue an economic model based entirely on competition and growth. Mankind must break the 'vicious cycle' which assumed that greater wealth and consumption always equalled greater happiness. We would have to seek alternative approaches, based on principles of "equilibrium" -- such as 'cooperation' and 'symbiosis' -- which were as much present in nature as raw competition."

"If lucky," Simms said, "we have 75 months, until the end of 2016, before the accumulation and concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make it more rather than less likely that global average surface temperatures will rise 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels -- critically this is the level around which climate-driven environmental dominoes fall unpredictably."

Interestingly, neither the words "population" nor "overpopulation" were on the forum's schedule of discussion topics. Certainly, if the world's human population weren't about to approach seven billion, "asset stripping" would not be such a problem.

The future is looking quite hot -- and very crowded.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the EDF letter urging your senators to oppose legislative efforts to eliminate, delay or constrain the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to protect citizens from climate pollution as authorized under the Clean Air Act (U.S. citizens)
• Sign a Climate Protection Action Fund letter demanding that the Senate pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation
• Monitor the growing devastation with Peter Russell's World Clock
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
• Add your voice to the WE Campaign to affect bold action on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• 514,000,000 (September 27, 2010)
• 10,000 (September 23, 2010)
• 37 (September 15, 2010)
  
• To Brazil! (August 25, 2010)
• To Snow Mold! (August 20, 2010)
• Too Many People (July 22, 2010)
  
• The Dirty Man of Europe (June 29, 2010)
• Shantih Shantih Shantih (June 22, 2010)
• Jimmy Carter Was Right (June 26, 2010)
  
• A Decade of Planetary Change in Pictures (June 11, 2010)
• Polar Bear Habitat Melting Rapidly (June 10, 2010)
  
• Our Carbon Future (May 27, 2010)
• Which Countries Are Killing the Environment? (May 12, 2010)
• Fading Beauty (May 5, 2010)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Global warming map. This plot is based on the NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP), which combines the 2001 GISS land station analysis data set (Hansen et al. 2001) with the Rayner/Reynolds oceanic sea surface temperature data set (Rayner 2000, Reynolds et al. 2002). The data itself was prepared through the GISTEMP online mapping tool, and the specific dataset used is available here. This data was replotted in a Mollweide projection with a continuous and symmetric color scale. The smoothing radius is 1200 km, meaning that the reported temperature may depend on measurement stations located up to 1200 km away, if necessary. This figure was prepared by Robert A. Rohde from public domain data and is incorporated into the Global Warming Art project.

514,000,000

The amount that America's corporate polluters have spent over the last year and a half blocking climate legislation, in dollars

The first seven months of 2010 was the hottest such period on record, according to global temperature data compiled by NASA. But in the United States, where corporate polluters have fought hard against any limit to their carbon emissions, the legislative response to the facts on the ground -- and in the atmosphere -- was muted at best.

Today, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) derided the Senate's "failure to take up a strong climate and energy bill during a summer when the world baked, melted, flooded and burned."

It seems that politics is again trumping science -- and causing continued inaction on Capitol Hill, with the EDF reporting that "news accounts have surfaced that Congressional climate action opponents are promising to continue to block climate action in exchange for campaign cash."

The Senate's failed climate bill called for a 17% reduction in carbon emission by 2020. According to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the renewable electricity standard (RES) introduced into the Senate on September 21, which requires utilities to purchase a quarter of their power from clean energy sources would reduce power plant emissions a mere 2% by 2025. That is not nearly enough.

As American legislators continue the debate what Evan Lehnman of ClimateWire called "Climate-lite," they would do well to review the following ominous events that occurred this past summer, compiled by EDF:

• 10 U.S. states had their hottest summer on record and all but 7 states were above normal. And summer nighttime heat records were set in 37 states.
• June-August global land surface temperature was the warmest on record, 1.80 F (1.00 C) above the 20th century average of 56.9 F (13.8 C) and surpassing the previous record of 1.66 F (0.92 C) set in 1998.
• For only the third time in the satellite record and the third time in the last four years, the Arctic sea ice extent fell below 5 million square kilometers (1.93 million square miles). This summer's Arctic sea ice extent fell more than 25% below the 1979-2009 31-year average.
• Arctic sea ice volume (extent and thickness) reached the lowest level ever recorded, prompting Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center to predict, "The Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover."
• A record Russian heat wave caused massive wildfires and drought and may have killed up to 15,000 people, cost the Russian economy $15 billion, and destroyed a third of the Russian grain crop, causing global wheat prices to nearly double. Peat bog and forest fires filled Moscow's air with carbon monoxide levels reaching 6.5 times more than the maximum allowable levels.
• Devastating floods inundated one-fifth of Pakistan, drove millions from their homes, and led to the deaths of more than 1,600 people. Up to a foot of rain fell in a 36-hour period and Ghassem Asrar, director of the World Climate Research Programme, pointed to climate change: "There's no doubt that clearly the climate change is contributing, a major contributing factor. We cannot definitely use one case to kind of establish precedents, but there are a few facts that point towards climate change as having to do with this."
• Hundreds of walruses on Alaska's North Slope were stampeded to death when they beached themselves on land because there were no sea ice floes available.
• This year's extreme heat is causing only the second known global bleaching of coral reefs. In oceans from Thailand to Texas, scientists fear this year's die-off may be as bad as or worse than in 1998 when an estimated 16% of the world's shallow water reefs were severely damaged. In the waters off the Philippines, 95% of the corals have died this year.

The disturbing facts of the climate crisis continue to pour in. But in Congress, so are the campaign dollars from the nation's biggest polluters.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the EDF letter urging your senators to oppose legislative efforts to eliminate, delay or constrain the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to protect citizens from climate pollution as authorized under the Clean Air Act (U.S. citizens)
• Sign a Climate Protection Action Fund letter demanding that the Senate pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation
• Add your voice to the WE Campaign to affect bold action on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

RELATED POSTS

• 10,000 (September 23, 2010)
• 37 (September 15, 2010)
  
• To Brazil! (August 25, 2010)
• To Snow Mold! (August 20, 2010)
• The Dirty Man of Europe (June 29, 2010)
• Shantih Shantih Shantih (June 22, 2010)
• Jimmy Carter Was Right (June 26, 2010)
  
• A Decade of Planetary Change in Pictures (June 11, 2010)
• Polar Bear Habitat Melting Rapidly (June 10, 2010)
  
• Our Carbon Future (May 27, 2010)
• Which Countries Are Killing the Environment? (May 12, 2010)
• Fading Beauty (May 5, 2010)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Smokestacks, in Champaign, Illinois (credit: Dori)

230,000

The length of Saturn's Great White Spot, in miles

Today in 1990, Saturn's Great White Spot was last observed. A massive storm near the planet's equator, the GWS can grow to encircle the entire planet, looking like a swirling white band around its midsection over 230,000 miles long -- long enough to circle the Earth over nine times.

Not much is known about the causes of the storm, first observed in 1876 by American astronomer Asaph Hall and which occurs generally every 28.5 years. Scientists believe that the storm has something to do with instability in the temperature of Saturn's hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

The famous Saturnian storm is believed to next appear in 2016.

GET INVOLVED

• Become a Zooniverse citizen scientist and help astronomers analyze data
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
• Download SETI@Home to help in the search for extraterrestrial life
• See what's in the sky tonight
• Buy a telescope from the Discovery Channel store

RELATED POSTS

• Aliens on Titan? (June 8, 2010)
• Venus Favors the Bold (June 2, 2010)
• It Came from Outer Space (January 18, 2010)
• Hunt for Earth 2 (January 8, 2010)
• How the Sun Will Die (December 18, 2009)
• Saturnian Hex (December 11, 2009)
  
• Planet Hunters (October 6, 2009)
• Seeing the Mother of Mars (September 18, 2009)
• Hubble Captures a Butterfly (September 11, 2009)
• Looking Into Space from the Coldest Place on Earth (September 3, 2009)
• Viewing Victoria (August 31, 2009)
• The World's Largest Telescope (August 28, 2009)
• Space Junk (August 24, 2009)
• Let There Be Light (August 19, 2009)
• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: the Great White Spot on Saturn's atmosphere (credit: Reta Beebe (New Mexico State University) D. Gilmore, L. Bergeron (STScI), and NASA/ESA)

10,000

The number of walruses (at least) that have been forced to come ashore in Alaska due to a lack of sea ice

For the third time in four years, walruses have had no choice but to come ashore in Alaska because the ice they normally live on has retreated due to global warming, according to a ClimateWire report.

During the summers, they usually remain on ice floating north, occasionally diving for food, but this year, they have been forced to take refuge on land -- as they had to do in 2007 and 2009 -- because of a lack of ice in the eastern Chukchi Sea.

According to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Fish and Wildlife Service, at least 10,000 walruses have gathered at Point Lay, Alaska.

"The most pressing concern was that the adult females -- who weigh about a ton -- would stampede and crush the younger, smaller walruses," according to a statement by the National Climactic Data Center (NCDC). "Typical congregation numbers are up to about 500 animals, as opposed to the more than 10,000 in this group."

And since sea ice is where walruses give birth, the lack of it will certainly decimate their population. So while the current stampede danger is of great concern at the moment, the larger issue is the melting sea ice -- and the anthropogenic global warming that is causing it.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Care2 petition to save the Pacific walrus from climate change through strong climate legislation
  
• Adopt a walrus from the World Animal Foundation
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

RELATED POSTS

• North Pole Rabbit Hole (October 5, 2009)
• Four Degrees (September 29, 2009)
• The Arctic Has a Hotseat, and Man Is Behind the Wheel (September 17, 2009)
• Closing Off the Arctic (July 23, 2009)
• A Sisyphean Climate Challenge for the G8 (July 9, 2009)
• The Pot Is Boiling (July 2, 2009)
• Gone in 75 Years: Polar Bears (June 29, 2009)
• Congress Tackles Climate Change (June 24, 2009)
• EDITORIAL: Polar Transcendentalism (May 11, 2009)
• Selling the Arctic's Future to the Oil Industry (March 6, 2009)
• North Pole May Be Ice-Free in Five Years (August 12, 2008)
• Meeting a Walrus (May 25, 2008)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Togiak National Wildlife Refuge (credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

12

The number of the U.S. highway that ExxonMobil wants to transform into a massive transportation corridor

Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil Canada have been trying to gain approval from the U.S. Forest Service for the Kearl Module Transportation Project, which aims to transport pre-assembled processing units from Montana to the Kearl oil sands project in Alberta, Canada.

The proposal suggests using a six-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 12 that not only traverses protected national forest land, but also runs adjacent to or on the Nez Perce National Historic Trail (which follows the 1877 journey undertaken by a group of the Nez Perce tribe as they fled the U.S. Cavalry) and the Lolo Pass, a pristine section of the Lewis and Clark Trail that straddles Idaho and Montana which has National Historic Landmark status.

The Korean-made processing units are huge. According to the Missoulian, a local Montana newspaper, the over 200 proposed truck loads "will be as high as a three-story building, as wide as a two-lane highway and nearly three-quarters of a football field in length."

Peter Lehner, executive director of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), yesterday slammed the proposal, saying it would "cause irreparable damage" to "this fragile ecosystem," adding that "it would pave the way for Exxon to extract more oil from tar sands development -- which has already caused devastation in Canada’s boreal forest."

"Tar sands mining creates vast toxic waste sites, destroys critical wildlife habitat for millions of migratory birds, and generates three times the amount of global warming pollution as conventional fuel production," Lehner said.

A piece of this larger puzzle is a the MEC Powerline Proposal, which aims to bury powerlines along Highway 12. (Lolo National Forest officials are accepting public comments on this proposal through September 24.)

Over two centuries ago, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was nearly defeated by a snowstorm at Lolo Pass. Now, this scenic and historic area is in danger of being destroyed by another kind of exploration -- the one for oil.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the NRDC letter urging the U.S. Forest Service to reject the MEC Powerline proposal, which would facilitate Exxon's plans for a transportation corridor through the region
  
• Connect with the Stop the Kearl Module Transportation Project on Facebook

RELATED POSTS

• 350 (September 1, 2010)
• To CLEAR! (August 8, 2010)
• Time Out in the Arctic (March 25, 2010)
• Selling the Arctic's Future to the Oil Industry (March 9, 2009)
• Environmental Showdown in the Amazon: Big Oil vs. Native People (July 21, 2009)
• Amazon Threatened By Oil and Gas Exploration (August 15, 2008)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Lolo Pass, at the border of Idaho and Montana, traversed by US Highway 12 (credit: John Paul James)

10

The number of captive Sumatran elephants at the Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta

"I was horrified to learn that the Department of Tourism promotes cruel animal attractions such as the Ragunan Zoo. The zoo imprisons more than 3,000 animals in conditions that could never compare to the vast jungles and forests that these animals are used to. Moats filled with dirty water flank desolate enclosures where lonely and miserable animals languish in their prison homes.

"What's most horrifying is the fact that the zoo keeps 10 Sumatran elephants captive. A recent PETA investigation revealed that one elephant was penned in an area no bigger than an average bedroom. The elephant was violently throwing his head against the gate, while two others stood chained at the back of another enclosure. Unable to move more than a few inches in any direction, the animals paced repeatedly and swayed their heads from side to side.

"There are many more tourists who are saddened by the sight of these animals than there are tourists who would actually pay to see them. I hope you'll consider immediately halting promotions of the Ragunan Zoo and other animal attractions."

-- text of a public letter to the Jakarta Department of Tourism by PETA Asia-Pacific

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the PETA Asia letter above to the Jakarta Department of Tourism urging them to halt promotion of the Ragunan Zoo
• Send a message to your senator and representative asking them to hold the USDA accountable for actions in the transfer of Queenie the elephant to the San Antonio Zoo
• Sign a petition to retire the elephants at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago
• Sign a petition to send the elephants of the Philadelphia Zoo to a the Elephant Sanctuary
• Help elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle
  
• Sign a PETA petition to stop more elephants from suffering at the Manila Zoo
• Sign a Born Free Foundation petition urging Argentina's Lujan Zoo to stop allowing visitors to enter animal enclosures
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Learn more about zoos and what you can do to help animals in captivity

RELATED POSTS

• To the Last Quagga! (August 12, 2010)
• Caging the World's Biggest Land Animal (June 17, 2010)
• Pachymama (May 7, 2010)
• Elephants in Vietnam: Just 80 Left (December 3, 2009)
• Was It A Happy Birthday, Vila? (November 2, 2009)
  
• Elephants Beaten At Ringling (July 24, 2009)
• RIP Ned (May 28, 2009)
• Free Lucky (April 27, 2009)
• Remembering Buddha's Precious Pachyderm (February 26, 2009)
• L.A. Times Poll: Should Billy the Elephant Remain at the L.A. Zoo? (January 9, 2009)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: These two elephants at Ragunan Zoo were found chained in the back of one enclosure. Both animals exhibited signs of zoochosis -- a condition cause by stress that can lead to self-destructive behavior, including pacing and head swaying. (credit: PETA Asia-Pacific)

21

Percent of Africa's freshwater species threatened with extinction

More than a fifth of the freshwater species living in continental Africa are now threatened with extinction, putting the livelihoods of millions of people at risk, according to a new study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The most comprehensive study of its kind to date, the Pan-Africa Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment encompasses the work of 200 scientists who analyzed over 5,000 African freshwater species over a 5-year period, including "all known freshwater fish, molluscs, crabs, dragonflies and damselflies, and selected families of aquatic plants."

"Africa is home to an astonishingly diverse range of freshwater species, many of which are found nowhere else on earth," says William Darwall, leader of the project and Manager of IUCN’s Freshwater Biodiversity Unit. "If we don’t stem the loss of these species, not only will the richness of Africa’s biodiversity be reduced forever, but millions of people will lose a key source of income, food and materials."

The IUCN identified four of the biggest threats as agriculture, water abstraction, dams and invasive alien species and has stated that they will try to use this new report to influence lawmakers and developers when developing freshwater infrastructure projects in Africa.

"Freshwaters provide a home for a disproportionate level of the world's biodiversity. Although they cover just one per cent of the planet's surface, freshwater ecosystems are actually home to around seven per cent of all species," says Jean-Christophe Vié, Deputy Head of IUCN’s Species Programme.

"This latest IUCN Red List assessment clearly shows that lakes, rivers and wetlands haven’t escaped the grasp of the current extinction crisis."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Countdown2010.net petition to the United Nations General Assembly supporting biodiversity to help end poverty
  
• Participate in the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity
  
• Find local events in your area celebrating the International Day for Biological Diversity
• Build a pond
• Donate to support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the globe
• Read Telegraph UK's Top 10 Most Endangered Species in the World List
• Visit the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List to see which species are listed as endangered
• Support Amphibian Ark

RELATED POSTS

• International Day for Biological Diversity (May 21, 2010)
• A Warming Tanganyika (May 19, 2010)
• Stamp of Approval for Species Conservation (May 13, 2010)
• Water, Water, Not Everywhere (March 22, 2010)
  
• Bye Bye Biodiversity (October 15, 2009)
• Extinction Crisis in Oceania (August 3, 2009)
• Mending Walls (June 10, 2009)
• The Great Declination (April 30, 2009)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: The Blue River Crab, Potamonautes lividus, listed as Vulnerable (VU), is endemic to northeastern Kwa-Zulu Natal (South Africa), where it is restricted to isolated patches of wetland as a consequence of the ongoing drainage of its habitat for urbanization and agriculture expansion. (credit: Winks Emmerson)

5,355

The number of public elementary and junior high schools in Japan that have served whale meat to students

A recent survey of approximately 29,000 public elementary and junior high school in Japan found that 5,355 had served whale meat to their students, according to Japan Times.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, which carries out the country's whaling efforts, sold the whale meat to schools at one-third the market price, most likely because the demand among the general public has been on the decline.

"It is obvious that (Japan) continues whaling despite there being little demand," said Jun Hoshikawa, executive director of Greenpeace Japan.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, famed for its televised battles with Japanese whalers on the Animal Planet television program "Whale Wars" asserts that ICR "ultimately profits from the...annual illegal Antarctic whaling operation."

Though commercial whaling has been banned by the International Whaling Commission since 1986, Japan, Iceland and Norway have defied the ban and continue to kill whales. Japan maintains its whaling industry using a loophole in the moratorium that allows for whaling only for "scientific research."

"The cycle of greed behind the global whaling industry drove one whale population after another toward oblivion," according to a statement by Greenpeace. "

It is still not known if some species will ever recover, even after decades of protection."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Whale's Revenge petition urging the International Whaling Commission to close the loophole that allows whaling under the guise of "scientific research"
• Sign a Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) petition to stop whaling in Iceland
  
• Support Sea Shepherd's efforts to stop whaling

RELATED POSTS

• 350 (September 1, 2010)
• Ta din posisjon på harpunen (July 14, 2010)
• The Future of Whaling (June 18, 2010)
• Waste Land: Death Watch for Minke Whales in Norway (April 14, 2010)
• Could Commercial Whaling Be Legalized? (March 2, 2010)
• Singing the Blue Whale Blues (December 14, 2009)
• Of Whales and Shrimp (October 13, 2009)
• Silencing Whale Songs (May 31, 2009)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

Whale meat on sale at a Tokyo fish market in 2008.jpgimage: whale meat at the Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo, 2008 (credit: Stephan Powell)

4,000,000

The number of acres in America that will be threatened if the USDA cuts its conservation budget

Seventy percent of the land in the United States is owned by farmers, ranchers and landowners. Many of them receive federal funding to support vital conservation programs to protect important ecosystems around the country that exist on private property.

Now these programs might be rolled back or even dropped. In June, President Obama asked all non-security federal agencies to submit proposals to slash their budgets by 5% in an effort to reduce spending, a cut that would jeopardize many critical federally-funded initiatives.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) reckons that if the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) includes budget cuts to programs that are currently protecting the country's vital natural resources, then up to 4 million acres of land will "fall through the cracks."

"While we applaud this effort to move towards a more balanced federal budget, we cannot cut programs that...secure a cleaner future for our air, water and land," according to an EDF statement. "There are solutions to the nation's budget woes other than cutting programs that invest in a cleaner future for our air, water and land."

The programs that could be on the chopping block include the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, which offers assistance to farmers who want to implement specific conservation projects on their land; the Wetlands Reserve Program, which helps American landowners to protect and restore wetlands on their property; and the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, which sees a $3 investment from farmers, local and state programs for every $1 invested by the federal government.

The American Farmland Trust, a non-profit farmland conservation group, asserts that "slashing these programs will do nothing significant to address our nation's budget problems, while it will dramatically reduce our ability to protect the resources that supply our nation with abundant food and a cleaner environment."

"The debilitating cuts to US Department of Agriculture conservation programs proposed in President Obama’s budget will do permanent damage to America’s conservation efforts," says Craig Cox, a senior vice president of Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit environmental group.

"The implications for conservation funding are alarming," Cox says. "Instead of just slowing the growth of protected acreage -- with hopes of catching up later when the economy and tax revenues improve -- Obama is proposing to permanently limit USDA’s authority to enroll additional acres and to fund these proven conservation programs."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an EDF letter urging agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack not to slash conservation funding
• Send an America's Wetland Foundation e-card
• Support the American Farmland Trust
• Support the Environmental Working Group
  

RELATED POSTS

• Mangroves: Why Humans Need Nature (July 19, 2010)
• The Dirty Man of Europe (June 29, 2010)
• Shantih Shantih Shantih (June 22, 2010)
• A Decade of Planetary Change in Pictures (June 11, 2010)
• Polar Bear Habitat Melting Rapidly (June 10, 2010)
• Protecting America's Serengeti (June 7, 2010)
  
• Our Carbon Future (May 27, 2010)
• Which Countries Are Killing the Environment? (May 12, 2010)
• The Fate of the Tongass (March 9, 2010)
  

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: wetlands at Lake Wehrspann, Chalco Hills, Nebraska (credit: MONGO)

37

The number of Republican Senate hopefuls who deny the existence of climate change or oppose action on global warming (i.e., all of them)

In May, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that "the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change," adding that global warming is "caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for -- and in many cases is already affecting -- a broad range of human and natural systems."

However, this science-based research, which is accepted by the most respected international scientific organizations, is being denied by every single one of the Republican candidates in the upcoming November mid-term Senate elections, according to a new report by the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy research group.

"Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, no one supports climate action, after climate advocate Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) lost his primary to Christine O’Donnell," writes ThinkProgress Climate Editor Brad Johnson. "Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line."

Tea Party favorite Joe Miller -- who scored the biggest GOP primary upset when he defeated incumbent Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski last month -- told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, "We haven’t heard there’s man-made global warming."

"You might want to find yourself an indelible marker pen and draw a large black circle around 3 November," suggests Guardian UK editor Leo Hickman. "It could be the morning the world wakes up to discover that the U.S. Senate is now controlled by climate sceptics."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Climate Protection Action Fund letter demanding that the Senate pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation
• Add your voice to the WE Campaign to affect bold action on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• To Brazil! (August 25, 2010)
• To Snow Mold! (August 20, 2010)
• The Dirty Man of Europe (June 29, 2010)
• Shantih Shantih Shantih (June 22, 2010)
• Jimmy Carter Was Right (June 26, 2010)
  
• A Decade of Planetary Change in Pictures (June 11, 2010)
• Polar Bear Habitat Melting Rapidly (June 10, 2010)
  
• Our Carbon Future (May 27, 2010)
• Which Countries Are Killing the Environment? (May 12, 2010)
• Fading Beauty (May 5, 2010)
• One Day to Think About the Big Blue Marble (April 22, 2010)
• Ice Mission (March 30, 2010)
  
• Gaia: How Dry She Is (February 17, 2010)
  
• Terra Australis (December 1, 2009)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: the interior of the United States Capitol rotunda taken from behind the statue of George Washington. The image captures a portion of Constantino Brumidi's Frieze of American History starting from Pizarro Going to Peru to the beginning of Landing of the Pilgrims (credit: UpstateNYer)

1

The number of injured doves rescued today by your correspondent

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Today, your correspondent spotted an injured female juvenile dove on a New York City sidewalk; specifically, a common ground dove (Columbina passerina), a small New World tropical dove which is one of the world's smallest pigeons. Its call has been described as a "soft cooing wha-up."

When she was located, she couldn't fly and when approached, she scurried underneath a parked car. With the help of a passerby, your correspondent was able to nab her and place her in a cardboard box from a nearby store. She was frightened and made no cooing noises.

Thankfully, 13.7 Billion Years has been working with a Manhattan underground bird rescue, having rescued two other pigeons in the past two years with the help of this clandestine group.

She is now indoors at an undisclosed Manhattan location getting food, rest and treatment for a broken wing while she awaits transport to the group's bird sanctuary in upstate New York, where she will be far away from the tough life of Gotham City. Her prognosis is good for a complete recovery.

This lucky little girl will be "wha-up"-ing very soon.

GET INVOLVED

• Join the Great Backyard Bird Count
• Check out these 15 ways to attract birds -- and birdsongs -- into your backyard
  
• Read "What You Can Do to Help Birds" (StateOfTheBirds.org)
  
• 25 Things You Can Do to Help the Birds in Your Backyard
  
• Sign an Audubon petition urging Congress to take action on global warming based on Audubon's "Birds and Climate" report which clearly shows that climate change is affecting birds

RELATED POSTS

• The Great Backyard Bird Count (February 10, 2010)
• The World's Least Known Bird (January 19, 2010)
• Patrick Martins: About a Bird (November 20, 2009)
• The Rime of the Modern Mariner (November 10, 2009)
• Putting for Birdie (November 4, 2009)
• The Albatross and the Rising Sea (February 12, 2009)
• The Head of Thoth (September 30, 2009)
• An Avian Strutter Gets to Keep Its Home (August 18, 2009)
• Return of the Fisher King (July 19, 2009)
• Queen of Kings (July 14, 2009)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: injured common ground dove held by underground bird rescue group member, rescued today (credit: 13.7 Billion Years)

20,000

The estimated number of people who will be displaced by Brazil's controversial Belo Monte dam

The Xingu River in northeast Brazil is a tributary of the Amazon over 1,200 miles (1,900 km) long.

Over a dozen indigenous tribes live along the river. These tribal people live sustainably within their ecosystem, but the have long been threatened by expanding logging operations and cattle farming.

Now, they are facing a new threat in the form of the Belo Monte dam, a proposed hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian state of Pará located at the lower Xingu. If completed, it would generate over 11,000 megawatts of electricity to supply the region's industrial mining operations, making it the world's third-largest dam, behind China's Three Gorges Dam and the Itaipu Dam at the border of Brazil and Paraguay. In addition to creating an environmental nightmare, Belo Monte would displace over 20,000 people.

In Brazil, "over one million people have been displaced by the development of hydroelectric dams, with many human rights violations along the way," writes Max Ajl on Truthout.org.

"The Brazilian group MAB -- Movement of those Affected by Dams or barragens, in Portuguese -- contends that Brazilian hydroelectric power is another sop to industrial concerns, while the peasantry and indigenous groupings pay through massive spatial dislocation. Other beneficiaries include Western turbine manufacturers and joint Brazilian-Western industrial and raw materials processing enterprises."

The campaign to stop Belo Monte has ramped up, with Avatar director James Cameron teaming up with Amazon Watch to produce "A Message from Pandora," and actress Sigourney Weaver narrating a Google Earth 3D tour and video by Amazon Watch and International Rivers.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Change.org petition urging President Lula da Silva to stop the Belo Monte dam
  
• Sign the Amazon Watch petition to stop the Belo Monte dam

RELATED POSTS

• Gold Miners vs. "Human Beings" (April 15, 2010)
• Forgetting the Forest People (February 2, 2010)
• Environmental Showdown in the Amazon: Big Oil vs. Native People (July 21, 2009)
• The Rare Animals of the Amazon (June 13, 2009)
• Amazon Threatened By Oil and Gas Exploration (August 15, 2008)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Hypancistrus zebra, a species of catfish that gets its name from its zebra-like stripes is one of a number of species found only in the area affected by the planned Belo Monte dam (credit: Birger A)

269

The height of the world's sixth largest tree, which lives in a place that could see increased logging

At 269 feet (82 meters) tall, with a base circumference of 112 feet (38 meters), the Boole tree is the world's sixth largest tree.

A giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) named after the 19th-century logger who spared its life, the Boole tree lives within the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a 327,000-acre protected ecosystem in California's Sierra Nevada that was designated by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Even so, the logging industry has since tried to gain access to this area. (A national monument, which can be quickly declared by a president without the approval of Congress, has less protection than a national park.) In 2006, a federal judge struck down a plan to allow commercial logging in the Monument, ruling it illegal.

And now, loggers may get a foothold where these majestic coniferous redwoods live. The United States Forest Service has released a Giant Sequoia National Monument management plan that would allow extensive logging in old-growth habitat that was previously protected.

The forest service, which administers the nation's almost 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands, has come under fire by several environmental groups for the new plan, which is currently in the public comment period.

"Despite their draft's rhetoric, none of their proposed alternatives offer a true park management strategy for the Monument, said Sierra Club conservation director Sarah Hodgdon in an email, adding that the forest service "seems more interested in logging than preservation."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Sierra Club letter urging the Forest Service and your Congress members to craft "a management plan that protects these magnificent trees and their surrounding ecosystem permanently"
• Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees

RELATED POSTS

• To Shade Coffee! (August 14, 2010)
• Mangroves: Why Humans Need Nature (July 19, 2010)
• The World's Rarest Tree (April 28, 2010)
  
• Nazca Redux (November 12, 2009)
• Exit the Mangrove Dwellers (August 25, 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)

[Editor's Note: For the month of September, 13.7 Billion Years presents a number to think about each weekday.]

image: Boole tree (Wikimedia Commons)