Experts Sound Alarm on Health of Planet

[libby]

Even if you don't believe humans affect this beautiful planet, think about this: what if you're wrong?  What about your/our children and grandchildren, and theirs, and ... ?

The following is from the June 7, 2012 Washington Post:

As Earth summit Nears, Experts Sound Alarm on Health of Planet
Efforts To Protect Environment Called Dangerously Deficient
By Juliet Eilperin

As thousands of people prepare to convene in Brazil this month for the Rio+ 20 Earth Summit, scientists and environmentalists alike are sending a sharp message: The planet is in dire straits.

On Wednesday, the United Nations Environment Program issued a report showing that the world has made significant progress on only four of the 90 most important environmental objectives agreed on through the U.N. process. Gains have come in eliminating ozone-depleting substances, phasing out lead in gasoline, increasing access to water supplies and encouraging research into marine pollutants. In most other categories -- including protecting plant and animal species, curbing marine pollution and conserving water supplies-- humanity is falling short.

"If current trends continue, if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannot be reversed and 'decoupled,' then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

The journal Nature published a series of articles Wednesday on the precarious state of the planet, including a study that warns that the world could be approaching a tipping point at which human activities cause a "planetary-scale critical transition" to a different environment.
....

The most daunting assessment may have come from a team of 22 scientists from five nations that warned that humans have radically changed 43 percent of the Earth's surface from its natural state, far oupacing the 30 percent change that helped trigger the last planetary-scale environmental shift roughly 11,000 years ago, when glaciers advanced and then retreated.

The paper's lead author, Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative history at the University of California at Berkeley, said that although it is impossible to predict an exact moment when this change could occur, "what we're trying to convey is that these planetary tipping points actually do happen."

If development keeps up at its current pace, he added, humans will have transformed 50 percent of the world's land by 2025, and the consequences could be dramatic.

"People don't do so well with rapid change because we base our whole economic system and food production and way of life expecting what is natural now is going to be natural going into the future," he said, adding that many policymakers have not grasped how interconnected their communities now are. "People tend to think on a very local scale, and that's what we actually need to get away from, both scientifically and politically. We have to realize, in some sense, there is no local scale anymore."

eilperinj@washpost.com

www.washingtonpost.com

[Palehorse]

Great post libby!

I fear we'll only see the opposition trotting out the same old propaganda in response though, holding true to form.

The only time they are going to believe this data and the theory it supports is when they are sizzling like bacon in a hot pan. . .

[Exterminator]

[Bo D]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

[Locutus]

Those were great commercials. 

[Bo D]

Those were great commercials. 

Yep! Made in 1971! And some bastards still just don't get it.

[followsthewolf]

Wanna play hit and run again -- only this time with something besides bows and arrows? 

[Locutus]

Too much to post the entire article here, but read this report about what some of these oil and natural gas companies are doing in North Dakota.

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/08/12106895-oil-boom-brings-wealth-and-waste-to-north-dakota?lite

[Anne]

Anyone have any solutions?

[Exterminator]

Anyone have any solutions?

Yes, pursue renewable energy options.

[Anne]

Aren't we doint that?  Wind, solar, etc.

[Exterminator]

Aren't we doint that?  Wind, solar, etc.

Some much more than others.

[Bo D]

Anyone have any solutions?

Just for a start ....

Recycle
Use reusable bags
Recycle
Don't litter
Recycle
Keep your car tuned
Recycle
Walk, don't drive
Recycle
Recycle
Recycle

Everything starts on a personal level. It will grow from there.

[Anne]

Do all of that except the walking part as do most of my friends and relatives. I doubt what we do makes much difference.

[Bo D]

I doubt what we do makes much difference.

I beg to differ. Every thing you do, every little thing, makes a difference. The more people that do it, the more that difference grows.