It's the last month of the International Year of Biodiversity: in the Rainforest

Rainforests are some of the absolute most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. As such, they are also some of the most delicately balanced. Intact untouched rainforests are becoming increasingly rare, and are being destroyed for human development at a fantastic rate. They are incredibly important to the Earth's climate, as major sources of water and rain, oxygen, carbon dioxide sequestration, and habitat for countless species.
This video is available on youtube in HD. When I post it in HD on here though, the window is ridiculously huge.

I'm the worst blogger in the world

SO as an environmental student, my good intentions of spreading my learnings through this blog have really amounted to nothing much; especially since there's so much of it that I can't possibly blog enough to get it all down. It's finals now, and I'm super pressed to study and write more papers. I think I will procrastinate a bit more though, and post something here.
The world Climate Conference is underway again in Mexico. I've been taking Climate Systems this semester, and have learned an incredible amount about the science of the Earth's climate and how it works, how it has changed over time, and the current state of climate change. As I have maintained on here, the climate is indeed warming drastically at an unprecedented rate, due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Canada's annual carbon dioxide emissions is about 17 metric tons per capita.
Which is all just the tip of the iceberg - literally. The whole system is vast and complex, and the crisis is far greater than most people believe.

Canada won the "Fossil of the Year" award at the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of 2009, because a) we are the only country which signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol and has completely reneged on our committment to those targets; b) instead of actually setting real mitigation goals, Canada has instead invested heavily in the Alberta Tar Sands, the military, and expansion of extractive industries (especially mining, oil, shale, and natural gas).
According to Postmedia News, documents have leaked that expose that Canada’s oilsands strategy includes lobbying against global-warming measures.
“There are states, there are regions, there are countries in this world that are trying to make progress to deal with the problem of climate change, and our government is actually trying to stand in their way,” said Graham Saul, executive director of Climate Action Network, which represents environmental, labour and faith-based groups concerned about global warming.

“(Canada has) actually created a monster that’s going into other countries and trying to undermine clean-energy and climate-change policy and that’s totally inexcusable and it’s outrageous.”

The Alberta Tar Sands are seriously the largest and dirtiest industrial project in all of history. Some things you should know about the Alberta Tar Sands:
there are ongoing conflicting stories about the environmental impacts of the whole deal. If you consult the Alberta government, the Federal government, or the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, there is absolutely nothing negative going on, the carbon emissions are being safely sequestered, the scientists are working hard to maintain the ecology, we're extracting oil responsibly, safely and sustainably and we'll mitigate our carbon emissions all in good time.
Here's what they would have you believe:

http://www.energy.alberta.ca/OilSands/791.asp
http://www.capp.ca/oilsands/Pages/default.aspx#13quuW6aFz7a



Here's the other side of the debate:

Climate and Capitalism: The Facts About the Alberta Tar Sands
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/01/alberta_tar_san.php
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/
http://forestethics.org/tar-sands

The fact is though that this gigantic exercise in greed isn't going to stop unless the people stop it.
I helped petition people to pass the Climate Change Accoutability Act through the House of Commons. Canadians enthusiastically voted it in.
Then the conservative - corporate agenda played a dirty move. They called a Senate meeting in the middle of the night without telling the opposition (effectively making it a secret Senate meeting) where they voted on the bill and defeated it. Which is a flagrant assault on the principles of democracy, which most Canadians don't seem to realize have been under attack throughout all of Stephen Harper's administration. And/or they don't appreciate how important democratic accountability is.
As Natural Resources Canada policy adviser Paul Khanna wrote, “The activities of the oil sands sector has emerged as one of the high priority files for the federal government.” Other communiqués from the leaked documents stress the need for campaign strategies against “well-orchestrated media campaigns” against the oilsands as well as “restrictive legislative and regulatory proposals that associate oil sands with ‘dirty oil.’”

“Some (environmental groups) have targeted oil sands in proactive, well financed and well organized ‘dirty oil’ campaigns.”

Damn right; that`s what I`m trying to do right now.

One of the things that is imperative is to voice your concern/opposition. Many people say you can take action by writing letters and emails to officials, and it often seems like a useless measure. However, it is possibly one of the most important things we can do. Well organized and extremely prolific writing campaigns and such have turned the tides for issues in the past; the people have the power to change things in the world, and if enough people voice their dissent enough to this government for long enough, then they can't ignore us.
Large scale public and political mobilizations in Canada have been seriously lacking these days, as everyone sits back and thinks that something should be done but "what can I do?", and then go back to youtubing their favourite celebrities. As a result, our country is going down the tubes; our rights are being eroded, our political consciousness and involvement is seriously waning, and money and power is increasingly in the hands of the few and the corrupt.
If we want this to change, then action is what is needed. There're many things we can do, but we should also at the same time still be writing as many letters and emails to as many prominent officials as possible (after exams, though).
My favourite place to go for Tar Sands action is the Polaris Institute's TARNATION.  The Polaris Institute is a Candian organization that was formed in 1997 in response to its view that citizens were becoming politically disenfranchised in an age of corporate driven globalization; specifically in response to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989 and the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994.

 Its stated goal is "to help empower citizen movements towards democratic social change".

I think I've taken long enough to do this for now. I really should be studying for finals.

Peace be with you.

Exams a-comin'

Here's the link to send a message to the government about Bill C-311

To all Canadians: the David Suzuki Foundation has an email message to send to the government; it gets sent to the leader of each party, and the head of the senate as well as your local MP. Please add your voice to the wave of support for the Climate Accountability Act. We're trying to get to 7500 emails. It's imperative that the Canadian People voice dissent in order for us to actually live in a democracy. Canadians who care about the environment, please take the time to write letters and emails to governmental officials and show your support for Bill C-311 and demand that these swindling bullshit tactics STOP. The problem with Canada today is that Harper can get away with his dictator-style whims because Canadians are so tuned out and aren't making their voices heard.
So again, please add your voice to the wave of support for the Climate Accountability Act by clicking here and joining the letter writing campaign.

NOOOOOOOOO! (Canadian Senate destroys Bill C-311)

GODDAMN CANADIAN GOVERNMENT! I petitioned for that bill!
A practically illegitimate surprise Senate vote has killed Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act.
I don't actually have time to rant about this the way I'd like to. However this is an example of the way our current government works to push for fossil fuel extraction, resource exploitation, and the removal of environmental standards and initiatives. It's the Harper agenda.

I hardly blog because of school right now

THIS IS SUPER COOL

So, check this out! World Land Trust is an organization which raises funds in order to purchase land and create wildlife sanctuaries; it's really awesome. If you go to the website, linked above, you can read Sir David Attenborough's story of his connections with the organization.
What's even cooler is something called Everyclick, which is a search engine that donates money to causes of your choice as you use it, through it's advertisers. It's actually fucking sick! I use it now as my default search provider. It seems legit; the practice of giving for free by clicking and the sponsors make the donations is something I found on the internet years ago, and at first I was sketched out and totally sceptical, but so far it seems legit. Other sites that are good are the Ecology Fund and the Hunger Site / the Rainforest Site, which can also be added as an app on Facebook. Anyway, I gotta go to class. If you're down for the above stuff, please tell all your friends!

Biodiversity again

Check this out.

2010 - INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY

Biodiversity is simply the diversity of species, as well as the diversity and variety within species. According to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), there are estimated to be approximately 14 million species. Of that, 1.75 million have been catalogued by western science. New species continue to pour in. Yet a huge amount of those species are endangered, threatened, at risk, or on the brink of extinction. Humanity has caused 6X, the sixth major extinction event, called "The Holocene Extinction Event", which is ongoing right now. The most threatened group of animals today are the amphibians. Long considered an indicator species due to their permeable skins, they are among the most diverse, ecologically essential, and vulnerable of animal groups.

If you haven't noticed, species are dying off all around us; including tigers, elephants, frogs and amphibians, sharks, and corals - all of which are incredibly important. (Let add quickly to that list -  the grey wolf, the lynx, walruses, monarch butterflies, oragutans, and sea turtles, according to the WWF). The most recent threat is to bats in north america, as I posted earlier this week.

The rate of biodiversity loss is completely obscene today, and is an indicator for the plight of the natural environment in general. Biodiversity is itself an indicator for the health of an ecosystem. As an ecosystem evolves, over huge amounts of time, the genetic diversity increases; given enough time, it goes to the point of developing entirely new species. As the diversity of a certain ecosystem increases, it becomes more complex and finely balanced. The most diverse ecosystems on the planet are near the equator; tropical rainforests and coral reefs. However, deserts, mountains, temperate and boreal forests, tundra, grassland, oceans, and ice are also incredibly biodiverse - or at least they used to be. At the time that humans evolved, the planet seems to have been at its utmost biodiverse. However, as humans spread around the globe, the extinctions started - beginning with the megafauna.

This is important because we need biodiversity; in fact, we need absolutely every species.

The overall biodiversity in an ecosystem is an indicator of its health and its balance. We depend on biodiversity and ecosystems for food, air, water (clean water), shelter, waste disposal and absorption, medicine, and many of our other resources such as wood/paper. These are all generated by natural ecosystems. They provide the most vital natural processes to us, and we are dependent on those processes. Among the most undervalued members of our living planet are insects, invertebrates, molds and fungi, and bacteria and viruses. Yet they are all unfathomably important. Invertebrates of all kinds are among the most valuable. The basis of most life is photosynthesis; thanks to plants and algae. The bottom of the food chain. Insects and invertebrates, on land and in the oceans, are fundamental to the food chain. If they were to be seriously threatened, the ecosystems we depend on would collapse. Of the invertebrates, one that is of extreme importance are: earthworms. There are many different species of worms, but what makes them crucial is that they eat decaying plant material, and turn it into nourishment for other plants. Soil fertility is dependent on biodiversity, worms, insects, fungi, and bacteria. The recycling of the natural world.

However, while the disappearance of species is a natural process (no species will last forever), the pace of extermination has been rapidly increasing over the last few hundred years. But like, from 1600-1900 the pace was about 1 species every 4 years. Now, it's 1-3 species EVERY DAY. In the past 100 years, 50% of the Earth's original forests and 50% of its wetlands have disappeared. Tropical species have been reduced by 40%, tropical rainforests being one of the most diverse, finely balanced, essential, and vulnerable ecosystems of all. In Canada, home to about 71,500 known species, we only have much data on 1600 species, and of that, 529 animal and plant species are at risk. However, while there is at least 71,500 known species in Canada, there are certainly more species in total  than that, and there are most definitely far fewer species now than there was long ago when our natural landscape was intact.

80% of the species decline is related to habitat destruction and degradation. Our government of course is still pursuing its path of inefficiency, resource mismanagement, overharvesting, depletion, pollution, and habitat destruction.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. The convention on biodiversity and other international players have been making political headway; however, that political headway is especially important because we need it in order to counter the massive economic interests of huge corporations like Exxon and other extractive industries. The amount of money to be made from exploiting natural resources is astronomical, and so we need to fight for the inherent value in maintaining biodiversity.The work being done now is barely enough to keep our integral species alive. It's therefore especially important that people understand and think about biodiversity, what it means, why we need it, and what is going on in the world.

I would love to keep writing, but I have to go, so more on this later. If you're reading this, go research what's going on for yourself, and ways you can help. Going green is a great first step.

North American Bats in Trouble, due to White Nose Syndrome

Did you know that species are dying off all over the place?
This latest development has resulted in a dangerous situation for North America's bats. We're in the pre-crisis stage right now, but it could easily advance to a serious crisis for the bats of North America. Scientists are taking drastic measures right now to avert the potential crisis. The bats are dying because of something called White Nose Syndrome.



The white stuff all over its skin is a fungus. The fungus might not even be the actual killer, but just taking advantage of weakened bats. They actually don't know. It seems though that the fungus is definitely what's causing the problems. White Nose Syndrome itself is not yet very well understood.
The evidence suggests that this fungus somehow came over to North America from Europe. There, these problems aren't happening because apparently similar fungi exist but the bats have developed immunities, unlike North American Bats.
Bats hibernate in the wintertime, but they need to wake up occaisionally to drink water. The White Nose Syndrome, once it has infected the bat, will make it wake up too often, and so the bats will starve to death. White Nose Syndrome is killing off whole caves of bats, and has killed over a million of them to date.
Invasive species are just one of the things happening in the world today that is fucking up the environment (and has been for a long time; the ultimate invasive species back in the day was humans). That, and climate change, is making conditions on the planet ripe for massive net biodiversity loss.
Have you noticed that species are dying off all around us? We are losing species to extinction at an astonishing rate, and it's humans who are causing it. Loss of biodiversity is one of the hugest environmental issues we face (or will ever face). Humans have been extinguishing entire species ever since we evolved. The thing is though, we now know that the more diverse an ecosystem is, the healthier it is. Biodiversity is what makes life on the planet work. Without ecosystems, we would be unable to survive. Biodiversity gives us food, clean water, oxygen, a stable climate, clothing, shelter, and medicine.
Therefore, every species we have, we need. Bats are very important, and for us they are especially essential for pollination and insect control.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3R708CNPxg

MIDTERMS

Ice Loss

This Shit Is Bringing Me Down

Harper hates democracy