One-third of world fish catch used for animal feed

Fish fed to farmed animals threaten the ocean’s ecosystem. The results of a nine-year study by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University and the University of British Columbia found that an alarming 28 million tons of ocean fish are currently being ground up and fed to factory-farmed fish, pigs and chickens.

Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch of Stony Brook University stated, “…It’s an enormous percentage of the world’s fish catch. Skyrocketing pressure on small wild fishes may be putting entire marine food webs at great risk.” Dr. Pikitch and colleagues, we deeply appreciate these research findings. Our prayers for humanity’s soon awareness of the need to rebalance the global ecosystem through such quickly restoring measures as the plant-based diet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/29/eafish129.xml

Reducing livestock to counter global warming.

Research by Briton Dr. Andy Thorpe of University of Portsmouth has found that methane emissions are playing a more significant role in global warming, as their proportion is on the rise.

Compared to CO2, which has increased by 31 percent during the past 250 years, methane has increased by 149 percent during the same period. Moreover, methane is far more potent, trapping 72 times more heat than CO2 over a 20 year period. Dr. Thorpe stated, "Methane emission growth… has been increasing exponentially within the developing world due to rising incomes [causing] increased demand for meat proteins and developed countries sourcing meat from developing markets." Dr. Thorpe suggested reducing methane emissions via livestock down-sizing and corresponding reduced meat consumption.

At the same time, he also warns against shifting from eating meat to fish, saying that this would be devastating to the ocean ecosystems.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/emissions-from-burping-cows-higher-than-family-car-967995.html

Government advisor: eat less meat to tackle climate changewarming.

The United Kingdom's Professor Tim Lang, who formulated the concept of food miles, recently stated the world may be eating its way to starvation through inefficient and energy-intensive ways of producing food. Saying that food policy can be used to reverse global warming, the City University professor encouraged people to grow their own food and eat using fewer resources, stating,

"We need to lobby government for change, eat less meat and fewer dairy products, and garden more." 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/15/eafood115.xml

Arctic is melting even in Winter

Arctic ice now melting even in winter. In a study conducted by the Centre for Polar Observation, satellite data collected by UK researcher Dr. Kathrine Giles has found that the ice has continued to thin during what is normally the winter season for the thickening in the Arctic.
 
Moreover, the cause of the melting is very alarming. Because the air temperature has been cold enough for the ice to freeze, the thinning ice through the winter is most likely due to warming waters or changes in the circulation of the ocean, meaning that the Arctic ice cap may disappear more quickly than originally predicted.

“This is one of the most serious problems the world has ever faced.”

   - Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5014744.ece

Canadian Parliament Member speaks candidly on global warming.

Recently, Parliament Member Glen Pearson of the Liberal Party of Canada gave a presentation on “An Inconvenient Truth,” the engaging lecture designed by Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist Al Gore, on the dire climate changes occurring around the world.

Glen Pearson, Parliament Member, Canada (M): It’s increasing; you can’t deny it.
You can see that precipitation around the globe is going to increase in many areas. The two hardest hit areas are going to be Canada and Russia. During all of those 160,000 years hardly any species loss. And just in the last couple of decades, look what we’ve done.

VOICE: Glen Pearson and his wife recently adopted 3 children from Darfur, Sudan. He thus brought to the presentation first-hand information on environmental refugees based on his families’ frequent visits to the region.

Glen Pearson MP (M): This is Lake Chad. You see it starts in 1963. Just in that period of time it was gone. We were in South Sudan this year; we found 100,000 Darfur refugees who suddenly just showed up at our doorstep because they had no water. They weren’t fleeing persecution or war. They had nothing to live on.

VOICE: Following his speech, Mr. Pearson answered a question on curbing the meat industry to help reduce devastating global warming effects such as these. He stated that a main source of this solution lay in the voice of citizens.

Glen Pearson MP (M): The [meat] industry is so strong and the lobby is so strong, that’s where the real difficulty is coming from. I think people have been talking about this in Ottawa; we’ve been hearing about it. My wife became a vegetarian at the Earth Summit in 1992. Should we determine that these are things that we want to do something about, what political party is going to tackle that particular lobby group? If people come to us and give us these things and say, “We want you to take action on this,” this is how we know as a party we can’t get away with it.

For more information about Canadian Parliament Member Glen Pearson, please visit glenpearson.liberal.ca 

Global warming visually affects Mount Rainier.

The US national park, widely admired for its meadows of alpine asters and purple lupines, is now being overtaken by trees. The National Park Service attributes the change to decreased snowfall due to global warming, which reduces the snowpack needed for open meadow areas. Botanist Dr. Regina Rochefort, a science adviser at the National Park Service who has been studying the process since the early 1990s said, “We are trying to get a better handle on what changes we will see, where we will see the most rapid changes and how we can use that information to help manage parks.”

We thank Dr. Rochefort and National Park Service scientists for sharing this observation of humans’ effect on the balance of nature. May we quickly make more eco-friendly choices to preserve the colorful diversity and beauty of our Earth.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/front/topphoto/story/496324.html

World coral reefs in dramatic decline.

Like many of the ocean’s coral reefs, Latin America’s Chitales, which stretches from Cancun, Mexico to Honduras, is losing life at an alarming rate. Climate change, which warms the oceans and makes them more acidic, is one reason for the decline, while pollution from agricultural runoff and waste along with overfishing is said to be speeding it even more. The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network reports that across the Caribbean, in just the last three decades, living coral has diminished by 80%. Beside their remarkable beauty, coral reefs serve as buffers to coastal cities during hurricanes and are irreplaceable nurseries for fish.

Our appreciation, Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network and all who are working to save these uniquely precious marine treasures. May humanity further appreciate the interconnectedness of all life and act quickly to restore our planet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE48T01G20080930