Year: 2009

Published on Friday, January 2, 2009 by Agence France Presse

Coral Decline Warns of Ocean Changes: Australian Scientists

SYDNEY - A sharp slowdown in coral growth on Australia's Great Barrier
Reef since 1990 is a warning sign that precipitous changes in the world's
oceans may be imminent, scientists said Friday.

Strong evidence points to the cause being a combination of warmer seas and
higher acidity from increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide,
Australian Institute of Marine Science researchers reported.

"The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is
unprecedented in at least 400 years," said Glenn De'ath, principal author
of a paper published Friday in the international journal Science.

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Watch out…the timber beast will be drooling all over this one.
Industrial logging is NEVER a solution-regardless of what “government
scientists” say.

ASW

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“Since 1999, and especially in the last five years, the forests have
shifted from being a carbon sink to a carbon source.”

“That grim reality is stoking a new debate over commercial logging, one of
Canada’s biggest industries.”
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Chicago Tribune  January 2, 2008

Canada’s forests, once huge help on greenhouse gases, now contribute to
climate change
By Howard Witt

VANCOUVER-As relentlessly bad as the news about global warming seems to be, with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted and world temperatures rising higher than expected, there was at least a reservoir of hope stored here in Canada’s vast forests.

The country’s 1.2 million square miles of trees have been dubbed the
“lungs of the planet” by ecologists because they account for more than 7
percent of Earth’s total forest lands. They could always be depended upon
to suck in vast quantities of carbon dioxide, naturally cleansing the
world of much of the harmful heat-trapping gas.

But not anymore.

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Climate Change Forcing Penguins North?

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/01-1

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2008  10:03 AM

CONTACT: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)  Luke Eshleman (202) 265-7337

Drilling and Mining in Store for Two Iconic Southwest Parks; Falling Commodity Prices Brings Brief Reprieve for Petrified Forest and Aztec Ruins

WASHINGTON – December 31. Drilling and mining may soon be affecting Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona and Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, according to an internal Interior Department document released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Only plummeting commodity prices caused by the current recession have delayed groundbreaking for new natural gas wells and potash mining in or adjacent to the parks.

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