Mass Extinction: Fewer Creatures-Great and Small

I don’t like market-based views either-but it’s still an interesting article.

ASW

The single biggest problem for Life on Earth is
that there are so many problems all at once.
Lance

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“Bees can’t pollinate, nor can trees store carbon, if they have all died.”

“Business as usual is simply not an option,” she says. But that is the option many
governments seem to be choosing.
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The Economist October 16, 2008

Fewer creatures great and small

Nature needs a bail-out, say those who fear that
a poorer, hotter world will bode ill for life’s
infinite variety

GREEN-MINDED folk of many shades came to Spain
this month, to talk about the need to save from
human recklessness as much as possible of
nature’s bounty of genes, habitats and species.
They brought bad tidings. Common birds are in
decline across the world. Almost one in four
species of mammals is in danger of extinction. If
current trends continue until 2050, fisheries
will be exhausted. As it is, deforestation costs
the world more each year than the current
financial crisis has cost in total, one economist
argued.

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Autumn Arctic Air Temperatures at Record High Levels

Autumn Arctic Air Temperatures at Record High Levels

Arctic air temperatures climb to record levels
Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:01pm EDT 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fall air temperatures have climbed to record levels in the
Arctic due to major losses of sea ice as the region suffers more effects from a
warming trend dating back decades, a report released on Thursday showed.

The annual report issued by researchers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and other experts is the latest to paint a dire picture of the impact
of climate change in the Arctic.

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Going Beyond Climate Change: The Cost of Biodiversity Loss

Published on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 by Inter Press Service
Going Beyond Climate Change: The Cost of Biodiversity Loss
by Ramesh Jaura

BARCELONA – While the financial mayhem continues to draw the headlines, the cost of
persistent biodiversity loss has yet to be established. But it is believed to be
bigger than that of the meltdown, and in many cases also irreparable.

While the financial mayhem continues to draw the headlines, the cost of persistent
biodiversity loss has yet to be established. But it is believed to be bigger than
that of the meltdown, and in many cases also irreparable. (Image: BBC media)The
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) now plans to gather
incontrovertible evidence on the value of preserving biodiversity and the cost of
losing it. The world’s oldest and largest global environmental network will task its
scientific commissions for this.

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Urgent Help Neded for Indigenous Gustav Survivors

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2008gustav-four-winds

Four Directions Action Alert: Urgent Help Neded for Gustav Survivors

Friday, September 05 2008 @ 05:51 PM CDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 249
Breaking News Despite the rosy media reports of light damage from
Hurricane Gustav, several of southern Lousiana’s coastal Indigenous communities are
reeling from a direct hit by Hurricane Gustav’s 115mph winds and large storm surge.
Their communities lie in shambles. The communities of lower Pointe-au-Chien, home of
the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe (PACIT), and the Isle de Jean Charles (“The
Island”) Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Confederation of Muskogees (BCCM) are
still trying to assess the severe damage and what it will take to rebuild after
Gustav’s devastating winds and storm-surge flooded homes, knocked
buildings off their foundations, and decimated the primary source of income in the
early season commercial shrimp harvest. The Island is still inaccessible due to
prevailing flood waters.

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