Global Warming for the Skeptical, or the Merely Inquisitive
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Last month the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (that’s an international group of peer-reviewed scientists—not cabinet ministers, congressmen, or oil lobbyists, n.b.) released the summary of its fourth assessment report on the topic of global climate change. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative, discussing how much is changing, what is changing, and why it is changing.
The latest report takes advantage of both more precise physical observations and data collection as well as a better understanding of the data provided by computer models. It is the most sophisticated and circumspect collection of analyses and projections available to humanity.
You can view the summary here (PDF). Below I’ve extracted some of the information that I found most interesting and revelatory.
What does all of this data mean? I’m not in a position to pontificate, although I have wildly gesticulated in the past.
I will merely say that it seems to me that common sense dictates:
- Global warming is a matter which is of concern to our generation not only because of the immediate manifestations of its effects—which are felt most harshly in the less-developed world, not in air-conditioned suburbia—but because of future manifestations. This is because the industrial activity of today generates the climatic fallout of tomorrow. It is precisely because of this slow-motion reaction that the danger is so easy to ignore. In this respect, response to global warming can be viewed as an extremely important test of the ability of humanity to organize and act on behalf of future generations. This is a skill which is altogether foreign to the capitalist/imperialist ideal, and a skill which has never before been of such urgent importance to the well-being of life on Earth.
- It is important for citizens to petition their governments to act decisively in enforcing regulations on industries which contribute to global warming and pollution. Will these regulations restrict economic activity in certain sectors? Will jobs be lost? Absolutely. Is that too high a price to pay for the continuation of an environment which is conducive to complex life? Hardly. We are faced with a situation in which we must bear unpleasant responsibility for a cultural dysfunction for which we are not personally responsible in the generative sense. It’s strange that this sort of altruism is the basis for much proud flag-waving and militarism when it is perverted to the uses of nationalist profiteering pursuits such as warfare, wherein it is lauded as “proud sacrifice” or something similar, and yet is viewed by many as hardly worthwhile when it needs to be applied to the future health of the entire planet.
- Even more important is individual responsibility and accountability in developing sustainable lifestyles. Clearly the automobile-driven lifestyle is a primary culprit in hydrocarbon emissions, so the elimination of unnecessary fuel consumption and participation in biopowered transportation and public transit are helpful. Likewise, opting for low-energy devices in the home and the pursuit of local, unprocessed foodstuffs and other goods are positive contributions that the average person can make. Furthermore, raising the issue as widely and as intelligently as possible is one of the most productive enterprises in which one can engage. Don’t look to the government for solutions. Create your own, and be proud of them. Make some noise; then the government will react and take credit for the initiative.
Let’s have a look at some of this data.
The most reliable data on atmospheric conditions before the period when such data began to be measured in real time comes from Antarctic ice cores. Just as geologists can tell much about conditions on Earth in a given geologic period by examining the differences in strata of rock, climatologists can also discern, with a surprisingly high degree of precision, the climate conditions from a given period by examining strata of unexposed ice which are known to have been deposited at a given rate. Through this type of analysis, climatologists have been able to reconstruct temperature and atmospheric composition data for the past several hundreds of thousands of years.
The graph below is a composite of changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels as recorded in the ice cores over the past ten thousand years, and as recorded by active human measurement of atmospheric levels over the past several years. The red lines show the contemporary data collected from real time atmospheric sampling; the other colors represent various interpretations of the ice core data and so naturally extend back much further in time. Note that, while the ice core-derived values from the different studies vary slightly, they coincide with one another remarkably as to the general trend of increase. Pictured are carbon dioxide levels (parts per million) and methane and nitrous oxide levels (parts per billion):
Since the graphs cover a large expanse of time, the last several centuries of activity are presented in exploded views. You can see that carbon dioxide levels, for instance, have risen from roughly 300 to about 375 parts per million in the last century, compared to a net increase of about thirty parts per million over the previous ten thousand years.
The following graph shows changes in average temperature, sea level, and snow cover in the northern hemisphere from various periods ending in 2000. The changes are relative to averages from the period of 1961-1990.
The solid black lines represent decadal averages of values; the circles indicate plotted annual values and the blue shaded regions represent reasonable uncertainty resulting from these discrepancies. This data was obtained entirely from real time human measurement.
Next, a depiction of changes in regional average temperature changes from 1900 to 2000 is presented. The black lines represent decadal averages of actual observations of temperatures. Here is the important twist: the pink shaded areas represent ranges of values derived from computer models which included anthropogenic forcing of climate shift (models which accounted for industrial activity.) The blue shaded areas represent ranges of values derived from computer models which did not include human industrial activity. You can see that, particularly from about 1950 forward, the actual observations follow models which included human industrial activity much more closely than those which did not. This means that, according to an array of a total of 33 simulations, it is virtually certain that the rises in temperature experienced throughout the past half-century to century are explicitly associated with human industrial activity. Put another way, absent of human emissions of greenhouse gases, we could expect to have seen temperature changes within the blue shaded areas. Unfortunately this has not been the case, as the trajectories of the black lines clearly denote.
Now, let’s talk about the future. This last graph represents a variety of predictions of changes in surface temperature from the present up through the year 2100, based on computer simulations of several different scenarios, each scenario reflecting a different projection of rates of increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases based on projections of increasing economic/industrial activity, population increases, and other variables. The orange line represents values from an experiment at which greenhouse gas concentrations were frozen at the levels observed in the year 2000.
Please review the assessment report summary (link at top) for a description of each of these projected scenarios (page 18/18). Based on these values, it is reasonable to project an increase in average global surface temperature of 4-6º C by the year 2200 or of 6-8º C by the year 2300 if human emissions are not drastically and permanently reduced in the immediate future. Such temperature increases and the associated climatic changes, if not prevented, will very likely result in massive depopulation and extinction of thousands of species of plant and animal life. This prediction is based on climate change alone, without consideration of environmental compositional degradation (pollution, urban sprawl) associated with human industrial activities and population increase.
Here are some various observations/predictions based on the IPCC’s fourth assessment:
- Eleven of the past twelve years (1995 – 2006) rank among the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850.) … Urban heat island effects are real but local, and have a negligible influence (less than 0.006º C per decade) on these values.
- The average atmospheric water vapour content has increased since at least the 1980s over land and ocean as well as in the upper troposhere. The increase is broadly consistent with the extra water vapour that warmer air can hold.
- Observations since 1961 show that the average temperature of the global ocean has increased to depths of at least 3000 m and that the ocean has been absorbing more than 80% of the heat added to the climate system. Such warming causes seawater to expand, contributing to sea level rise.
- Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years.
- It is virtually certain that the 21st Century will be marked by warmer and fewer cold days and nights over most land areas.
- It is virtually certain that the 21st Century will be marked by warmer and more frequent hot days and nights over most land areas.
- It is very likely that the 21st Century will be marked by an increasing frequency in heat waves over most land areas.
- It is very likely that the 21st Century will be marked by an increasing frequency in heavy precipitation events over most land areas [such as the extreme snow accumulations experienced in the eastern U.S. this winter -ed].
- It is likely that in the 21st Century the geographical areas affected by drought will increase in size.
- It is likely that in the 21st Century there will be an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity.
- It is likely that in the 21st Century there will be an increased incidence of extreme high sea levels, excluding those which can be accounted for by tsunamis.
- Average northern hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th Century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and very likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.
- It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have taken place.
- The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that the global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone.
- Warming tends to reduce land and ocean uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing the fraction of anthropogenic emissions that remains in the atmosphere.
- Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations leads to increasing acidification of the oceans.
- Snow cover is projected to contract.
- Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios. In some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice disappears almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st Century.
- Climate carbon cycle coupling is expected to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as the climate system warms, but the magnitude of this feedback is uncertain … Based on current understanding of climate carbon cycle feedback, model studies suggest that to stabilize at 450 ppm CO2, could require cumulative emissions over the 21st Century to be reduced from an average of approximately 670 GtC to approximately 490 GtC.
- Contraction of the Greenland Ice Sheet is projected to continue to contribute to sea level rise after 2100.
- Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescale required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere.
The Working Group of the IPCC which prepared this report is composed of more than fifty independent authors. [correction—in addition to the authors referenced on the summary frontispiece, the working group contains hundreds of additional researchers and representatives of industry and government bodies.]
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say
“I want to see the manager.”
– William S. Burroughs
When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.
– Benjamin Franklin
Peter Norvig’s Experiment on the Climate Change Consensus
Global Warming Facts: Top 50 Things to Do to Stop Global Warming
Union of Concerned Scientists – ExxonMobil’s Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science
Sierra Club of Canada – 10 Popular Myths About Global Warming
UNEP – World Environment Day 2007
The Ecologist Online – How Mankind Is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth
An Inconvenient Truth – climatecrisis.org
The Guardian – Arctic Ocean May Lose All Its Ice by 2040, Disrupting Global Weather
The Boston Review – Phaeton’s Reins – The human hand in climate change
BBC: The Stern Review at a Glance
Environmental Defense – Shifting Gears: Cars and Global Warming
Center for Biological Diversity – Bush Administration Issues Polar Bear Gag Order
EcoBridge – Causes of Global Warming
TheRealNews.com – Interview with David Suzuki
Foreign Policy in Focus – Going Green
Wired News – New Carbon Dioxide Tracking Developed
Wikipedia – Martin Durkin (producer, The Great Global Warming Swindle)
Greenpeace – The Energy Revolution
Yahoo! News – Canadian Activist Given Hearing on Global Warming/Human Rights
Bill McKibben – The Gospel vs. Global Warming
Carbon Footprint – Calculate Your Carbon Footprint
Project Earth – Tour the Wounded Earth
UN: Deforestation Out of Control
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The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a report indicating that improvements in forestation stability and recovery among developed nations are being negated by “out of control” slash-and-burn agriculture in less-developed countries, primarily in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
Forests in the developing world still suffer from widespread deforestation primarily caused by unregulated slash and burn farming practices and uncontrolled forest fires.
“Deforestation continues at an unacceptable rate,” said Wulf Killmann, a forestry expert at the FAO who helped compile the report, adding that the world currently loses approximately 32 million acres of forest cover a year.
Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are currently the regions with the highest losses.
Africa, which accounts for about 16 per cent of the world’s forests, lost more than 9 per cent of its trees between 1990 and 2005, the FAO said. In Latin America and the Caribbean, home to nearly half of the world’s forests, 0.5 per cent of the forests were lost every year between 2000 and 2005 – up from an annual net rate of 0.46 per cent in the 1990s.
Of particular concern is the future of the Amazon rain forest of Brazil. The Amazon has been shrinking for quite some time, but Brazil’s aggressive ethanol production may claim the rain forest at an increasing rate, particularly if Brazil becomes a major supplier to hungry economies like that of the United States. President Bush recently met with Brazilian President da Silva to discuss ethanol policy. While hefty U.S. tariffs currently make the import of Brazilian ‘clean’ fuel unfeasible—the U.S. favors its own corn-based ethanol, which requires large amounts of fossil fuels during its production process, over Brazil’s much neater cane-based product—a shift in this policy could spell doom for huge tracts of Amazonia and the many thousands of species that call it home.
Deforestation negatively impacts the biosphere as a whole because forests are key in regulating atmospheric CO2 and in producing fresh oxygen. Furthermore, the burning of forests releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
It seems clear that the primary solution is not alternative energy. It’s less energy.
On Vegetarianism
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For as long as men slaughter animals, they will kill one another. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
—Pythagoras, ca. 520 BC
If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth—beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals—would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?
—George Bernard Shaw
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
—Albert Einstein
I am a struggling vegetarian. As I get older the issue seems to weigh a bit heavier in my mind. I feel that vegetarianism is a noble and critical lifestyle choice, and it is the reasoning behind this that I wish to discuss here.
The ease with which I am parted from this conviction is due to a number of factors—chiefly convenience, since I do not do very much of the grocery shopping within my household; or sometimes social conformity, if I am dining with a group in a milieu that is not conducive to vegetarianism, as is often the case here in my home of the American ‘Deep South.’ Not infrequently it is self-deception that steers me from the course. The animal has already died; if you do not eat it, it is wasted. I simply wish to illustrate, before I begin, that I am not writing about vegetarianism from the standpoint of someone who (as yet) fastidiously practices that which he preaches.
However, I can offer that I have decided that, beginning next month, I will vigorously and resolutely pursue a vegetarian diet—eggs and dairy products, yes; red and white meat, furs and skins, no. For now, I hope you will allow me to explain my philosophical position on vegetarianism, and I hope that you will feel free to share your thoughts or arguments.
As a young man, I often asked myself the same question posed by Shaw in the quotation above. In fact, I did not know that Shaw had asked that question until a few moments before I began writing these words—which leads me to believe it is a question that must persist in the minds of a reasonable number of people.
Surely we would object if a superintelligent race of alien beings—against whose assault we, with our primitive intelligence, were quite defenseless—descended upon Earth and began to systematically consume us as food. Even if these hypothetical homovores were willing to allow us to make a case for ourselves, there would not be much we could say in our own defense given our own carnivorous history. It seems apparent, then, even with very little introspection, that killing living beings for their meat is grossly hypocritical, unless we ourselves are gladly willing to lie upon the butcher’s block.
What does require serious thought is the extrapolation of how the prevalent rationalizations of killing for food—and with that practice, I mean also to implicitly associate killing for hide—might manifest themselves elsewhere within the ethics of society, and this is the chief reason I wish to observe vegetarianism and hope that others will consider doing so. While Shaw’s hypothetical construction serves adequately to demonstrate the hypocrisy of carnivorousness, the application is less than practical (and hopefully will remain so!)
Science has taught us that, at one point in human history, our ability to eat the flesh of other creatures was crucial to our evolutionary and cultural development. Meat is a source of concentrated protein, and the ability to eat it safely through cooking was likely instrumental in developing the larger, more complex brain that is the hallmark of homo sapiens. Had we not been hunters and gatherers, it is unlikely that we could have become builders and thinkers. It is likewise clear that killing animals for inedible products such as bone and hide produced invaluable benefits unattainable through other means.
In the present, however—apparently at least as early as Pythagoras, anyway—it becomes more relevant to assess the psychology and the philosophy of willingly engaging in an unsymbiotic relationship with a fellow creature, a relationship which is clearly unnecessary for our survival and is as such ecologically excessive. The industry of agriculture now makes it possible to obtain more than sufficient nutrition from sources which do not bleed and have no nervous system. Why, then, must we continue to kill to live? I do not believe there is suitable justification which can withstand the scrutiny of logic.
A distinction based on outmoded metaphysics and silly theologies and on little, if anything, of empirical substance is widely drawn between the perceived ‘value’ of a human life and the value of nonhuman life. Few are they who would categorically state that it is ethically acceptable to take the life of a human, and yet the vast majority of those who would so attest would be willing to state that it is ethically acceptable to take the life of a nonhuman. What, then, makes a cow more worthy of murder than a human?
For some, the answer is a matter of theological doctrine. The Creator, in his wisdom, created animals so that humans might eat. The sensibilities of those who believe such fairy tales, I am afraid, must be perturbed on a plane more profound than ours here before they are fit to openly consider these arguments—for, believing that one thing is in a ‘divine plan,’ a person can so justify virtually anything of base immorality, and this is borne out by much of human history. Of course, there is no need to provide justification for that which is not prosecuted, and the gnashing of teeth upon the tissues of certain classes of living beings is hardly considered an offense in any culture I can call to mind.
Even those who do not espouse this brand of anthropocentric creationism, though, might conceivably argue that carnivorism is part of an evolutionary paradigm. The fittest survive, and by so doing, somehow have the right to inflict death upon the less fit. It is plausible that a lion has the right to eat a hyena, but it is more accurate to say that the lion has the instinct to eat a hyena. No human being living in even a marginally developed culture has an instinct to eat meat that can be conclusively isolated from learned behavior—and, for that matter, it would be difficult to prove that the lion’s supposed instinct is hardwired rather than learned from its parents.
But to invoke the idea of natural rights with respect to vegetarianism is absurd simply because a system of natural rights, if equitable, must be equally applicable to all who exist underneath its framework. The lion in the savanna does not recognize the common origin and the common value of all life on Earth, nor can he place himself in the place of his prey for purposes of empathy. Humans do not have this luxury, although we are adept at behaving as if we do. In truth, I think we must stand behind something like the philosopher John Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’ to view the situation rationally. If we believe that evolution has granted us the right to kill animals, how can we classify ourselves as super-animal with respect to the right to life? Put another way, how is it that only humans among all creatures are able to indulge in this right to life? Taken to its logical extreme, such an evolutionary answer to vegetarianism produces some rather startling consequences: a system in which it is logically permissible for one human to kill another in the name of evolutionary advantage!
I have yet to find, and am possessed of a great deal of certainty that I will not find, a justification for carnivorism that cannot be ultimately reduced to the hideous and all-too-human belief that it is perfectly all right for a human to engage in any activity from which he cannot be prevented and will not be prosecuted. This is the basis for killing for food in modern man, and it is the point of Shaw’s question.
Having achieved the status of sentience, it would appear that humankind has little need for natural selection unless it is for one sort of human over another; but, as a consequence of sentience, humankind is also explicitly imbued with the choice of complex cooperation over bloody predation.
Vegetarianism I view as an invaluable discipline of human rationality. If we kill for food when it is unnecessary for us to do so, we allow ourselves a license that our rational cunning can and will ingeniously translate to our relationships with one another and with our planet at large. The ethic of vegetarianism is the ethic of preservation and of compassion, of cohabitation and cooperation. No one can argue that these are not admirable, invaluable qualities.
We can extend this reasoning beyond the realm of eats and into the area of animal servitude. Among this kind of servitude we might include keeping animals for their labor, wool, eggs, or milk. However, in most of these applications, I would posit that it is reasonable to understand the relationship between humans and nonhumans as symbiotic, provided that the animals in question are well cared for (which is certainly far from always the case.) That is why I do not necessarily subscribe to the vegan ideal—because, treated properly, I believe that a dairy cow or a wool-bearing sheep benefits from its servitude. When one’s only feasible sources of these kinds of animal products or services are ‘factory farms’ or other institutions which practice cruelty to their stock, the abstinence from consumption of these products is certainly noble and defensible—and it is granted as self-evident that participation in the economics of animal cruelty is tantamount to complicity. Animal servitude, though, does not necessarily involve the kind of barbarism which is part and parcel of carnivorism.
Now, should Shaw’s aliens wish to create this kind of relationship with humankind, then we might agree to their terms should they provide for the elevation of our quality of life. Then again, we might not. To each, we would hope, would be afforded the right of choice. The ethical issue might then become whether or not we were serving against our will, and this is not a criterion in man’s relationship with other animals which cannot communicate such notions. So the use of animals for those purposes which do not necessarily result in their slaughter, then, is ethically arguable, I think, in a way that carnivorism is not.
My conclusion is this: the human vegetarian displays a respect of his own faculties and of the natural order that is absent in the human carnivore, and the psychological and sociological implications of the absence of this respect certainly are not restricted to the dinner table. To those willing to grasp the concept, these implications are evident in interpersonal and intercultural relations the world over. Not only is human predation upon his fellow inmates generative of tragic folly and abject cynicism, it is impractical and wasteful in a time in which populations are booming and resources are being strained. For those who simply must kill for food in order to survive, not even the choice of survival is self-justified, although it is perhaps excusable to all but the most wizened ascetic. But for those to whom the freedom from predatory practices is ubiquitous, there can be no logical excuse.
In an age obsessed with nutritional health, the concern for the health of the conscience is yet neglected. Well, not by me; not any longer. We shall see how I fare.
The time will come when men like me will look upon the slaughter of animals as we now look upon the slaughter of men.
—Leonardo daVinci
The Swami Speaks
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Posted at the wondrous Reclaiming Space—in case, like me, you missed it—is the 2007 State of the Universe Address from the great and inexorable Swami Beyondananda (alias: humorist Steve Bhaerman.) Full of cogent observations, welcome encouragement, and hilariously punny, the Swami’s address poses interesting questions about the Endangering Species List, television versus tell-a-vision, Humanifest Destiny, and the true meaning of counterintelligence as it lays the foundation for a brighter, more sensible future.
Let Me See Your Hand, It’ll Only Take a Minute
From Fresh Pics, a captivating exhibition of the amazing “hand art” of Italian painter Guido Daniele.
Guido Daniele was born in Soverato (CZ-Italy) and now lives and works in Milan. Since 1964 until 1968 he attended Brera school of arts (majoring in sculpturing) in 1972. In 1972 he started working as a hyper-realistic illustrator, in cooperation with major editing and advertising companies, using and testing different painting techniques…official home page: guidodaniele.com.
Many more pictures available at Fresh Pics.
Teaching Bears to Swim
About a week ago, the Bush administration announced that, yeah, maybe we can squeeze the polar bear on the endangered species list. Turns out the polar bear’s habitat is…umm…melting.
Deke at Caffeinated Politics writes:
The fact that Bush and Company can respond to the dire circumstances of the melting ice by putting animals on an endangered list, but feel no need to start a much needed federal program to alter the way we negatively impact the planet and slow down global warming is a sign that this Administration does not know how to govern. Worse, it proves they just do not care.
This is not a bonafide Bush-bash I’m running here. The truth is that the Democrats are just about as entrenched in the pertinent corporatocracy as their Republican counterparts. But this latest maneuvre is a speciously vapid gesture, to be sure—which means it gets all kinds of flourish and fanfare from the state-sanctioned intellectual community in the US.
We might as well be trying to teach polar bears to swim. Until large numbers of Americans become environmental activists in at least some nominal capacity, until enacting a truly rational approach to human-influenced climate change becomes a real issue for US voters, this kind of silliness will be just about the extent of our government’s “proactivity” on environmental issues.
Major Study Finds Marine Biodiversity in Catastrophic Decline
In the journal Science, an international team of researchers has published its carefully studied findings that sea fish in general may be around for as little as another half-century. (BBC report on the study [here]—this issue of global importance not involving warfare actually made the front page today, miraculously.)
The rapid decline in stable species of marine wildlife is associated with environmental problems from global warming to pollution to overexploitation of stocks by human beings, problems which have disturbed and continue to interrupt the food chain in many habitats throughout the world’s oceans. This study focuses on the latter issue, namely over-fishing and destructive harvest methods such as bottom-trawling.
“What we’re highlighting is there is a finite number of stocks; we have gone through one-third, and we are going to get through the rest,” said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, Canada.
The situation is not totally hopeless; these rather austere predictions are made assuming that past and current environmental and industrial trends continue with respect to overexploitation of marine life. Of course, these assumptions largely hold because the rate of abuse is steadily increasing. Combating the threat will require coordinated, not merely nominal efforts from multiple nations and international organizations. Enlargement of protected marine areas and an intensification of efforts to utilize them could help to safeguard many of the endangered sea species. A concerted global reduction in human consumption of seafood would also help to curb the disastrous trend, although such measures would also entail unpleasant circumstances and dire challenges for those whose livelihoods depend on the seafood industry.
Steve Palumbi, a Stanford researcher, said: “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last of wild seafood.”
Did you catch the ‘working ecosystems’ part? As in: mankind, in all of his munificent Kiplingian capitalist mastery, is not allowed to simply rob his planet blind without enduring harsh and permanent consequences, without forcing many less intelligent (and less harmful) species to endure even more tragic consequences? We are not detached from the ecology of this planet. We are a part of it, and we have already become an illness.
Go ahead, go ahead—those who will, please tell me how Mother Nature or Jesus or both of them together will persevere. I’d love to hear it; I’m trying to sleep.
Anyhoo. Not to get all fiesty on you…sorry. Here’s more from the article. The emphases are mine:
What the study does not do is attribute damage to individual activities such as over-fishing, pollution or habitat loss; instead it paints a picture of the cumulative harm done across the board.
Even so, a key implication of the research is that more of the oceans should be protected.
Modern fishing methods such as purse seine nets are very efficient
But the extent of protection is not the only issue, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at IUCN, the World Conservation Union.
“The benefits of marine-protected areas are quite clear in a few cases; there’s no doubt that protecting areas leads to a lot more fish and larger fish, and less vulnerability,” he said.
“But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries. Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem.”
But, he said, the concept of protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does make sense.
“This is a good compelling case; we should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off even in simple monetary terms through fisheries yield.”
Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice – something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year.
Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline.
“I’m just amazed, it’s very irrational,” he said.
“You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It’s a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it’s collapsed it’s not coming back.”
I used to be an optimist. That was before I began equating optimism with escapism, at least as far as the environment is concerned; but then there is a distinct difference between constructive optimism and escapist optimism. The problem is that as rational beings there is no limit to our capability to willfully confuse the two, particularly when we congregate into large groups under colorful banners.
You Think You Can Tell?
From BlueBear, an eloquent post by Agent99 in eulogy of the Dodo (and an appropriately subtle “screw you” to Kipling’s ‘burden’):
Dodos were daffy-looking flightless birds of the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. They were wiped out in the late sixteen hundreds by British sailors…
…An extinct bird, one that may well be the very epitome of undignity, symbolizes extreme dignity, where it is real, where the air is hollow. Untaintable trust is beautiful—even if on a practical level it is ill-advised.
The greatest pretender: Australia’s Superb Lyrebird
Ann at Reclaiming Space is eventually going to get on to me for copping off her blog so much, but this morning I really could not resist: this video is one of the most amazing things you’ll see today, I’d be willing to wager.
The Superb Lyrebird, or menura novaehollandiae, is a large Australian songbird so named because the plumage of the male, when fully displayed, resembles the shape of an ancient Greek harp or lyre. The male has a complex courtship ritual which includes vocal imitations of the sounds of the forest that are nothing short of stunning.
The species, thankfully, is not currently considered threatened. It has been featured on Australia’s 10-cent piece.
can't see the forest 
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