30 years of industrialization in China has destroyed at least 80% of coral reefs

By Agence France-Presse

China’s economic boom has seen its coral reefs shrink by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years, according to a joint Australian study, with researchers describing “grim” levels of damage and loss.

Scientists from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology said their survey of mainland China and South China Sea reefs showed alarming degradation.

“We found that coral abundance has declined by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years on coastal fringing reefs along the Chinese mainland and adjoining Hainan Island,” said the study, published in the latest edition of the journal Conservation Biology.

“On offshore atolls and archipelagos claimed by six countries in the South China Sea, coral cover has declined from an average of greater than 60 percent to around 20 percent within the past 10-15 years,” it added.

Coastal development, pollution and overfishing linked to the Asian giant’s aggressive economic expansion were the major drivers, the authors said, describing a “grim picture of decline, degradation and destruction”.

“China’s ongoing economic expansion has exacerbated many wicked environmental problems, including widespread habitat loss due to coastal development, unsustainable levels of fishing, and pollution,” the study said.

Coral loss in the South China Sea — where reefs stretch across some 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 square miles) — was compounded by poor governance stemming from competing territorial claims.

Some marine parks aimed at conservation had been established but study author Terry Hughes said they were too small and too far apart to arrest the decline in coral cover.

“The window of opportunity to recover the reefs of the South China Sea is closing rapidly, given the state of degradation revealed in this study,” he said.

The South China Sea is strategically significant, home to some of the world’s most important shipping lanes and believed to be rich in resources.

China claims most of the sea including waters close to the shores of its neighbours. Rival claimants include Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and tensions over the issue have flared in recent years.

From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/26/study-coral-reefs-decimated-by-chinese-economic-boom/

USGS study shows climate change having catastrophic effect on ecosystems

By United States Geological Survey

Plant and animal species are shifting their geographic ranges and the timing of their life events – such as flowering, laying eggs or migrating – at faster rates than researchers documented just a few years ago, according to a technical report on biodiversity and ecosystems used as scientific input for the 2013 Third National Climate Assessment.

The report, Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services, synthesizes the scientific understanding of the way climate change is affecting ecosystems, ecosystem services and the diversity of species, as well as what strategies might be used by natural resource practitioners to decrease current and future risks. More than 60 federal, academic and other scientists, including the lead authors from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Wildlife Federation and Arizona State University in Tempe, authored the assessment.

“These geographic range and timing changes are causing cascading effects that extend through ecosystems, bringing together species that haven’t previously interacted and creating mismatches between animals and their food sources,” said Nancy Grimm, a scientist at ASU and a lead author of the report.

Grimm explained that such mismatches in the availability and timing of natural resources can influence species’ survival; for example, if insects emerge well before the arrival of migrating birds that rely on them for food, it can adversely affect bird populations. Earlier thaw and shorter winters can extend growing seasons for insect pests such as bark beetles, having devastating consequences for the way ecosystems are structured and function. This can substantially alter the benefits people derive from ecosystems, such as clean water, wood products and food.

“The impact of climate change on ecosystems has important implications for people and communities,” said Amanda Staudt, a NWF climate scientist and a lead author on the report. “Shifting climate conditions are affecting valuable ecosystem services, such as the role that coastal habitats play in dampening storm surge or the ability of our forests to provide timber and help filter our drinking water.”

Another key finding is the mounting evidence that population declines and increased extinction risks for some plant and animal species can be directly attributed to climate change. The most vulnerable species are those already degraded by other human-caused stressors such as pollution or exploitation, unable to shift their geographic range or timing of key life events, or that have narrow environmental or ecological tolerance. For example, species that must live at high altitudes or live in cold water with a narrow temperature range, such as salmon, face an even greater risk due to climate change.

“The report clearly indicates that as climate change continues to impact ecological systems, a net loss of global species’ diversity, as well as major shifts in the provision of ecosystem services, are quite likely,” said Michelle Staudinger, a lead author of the report and a USGS and University of Missouri scientist.

For example, she added, climate change is already causing shifts in the abundance and geographic range of economically important marine fish. “These changes will almost certainly continue, resulting in some local fisheries declining or disappearing while others may grow and become more valuable if fishing communities can find socially and economically viable ways to adapt to these changes.”

Natural resource managers are already contending with what climate change means for the way they approach conservation. For example, the report stated, land managers are now more focused on the connectivity of protected habitats, which can improve a species’ ability to shift its geographic range to follow optimal conditions for survival.

“The conservation community is grappling with how we manage our natural resources in the face of climate change, so that we can help our ecosystems to continue meeting the needs of both people and wildlife,” said Bruce Stein, a lead author of the report and director of climate adaptation at the National Wildlife Federation.

Other key findings of the report include:

  • Changes in precipitation and extreme weather events can overwhelm the ability of natural systems to reduce or prevent harm to people from these events. For example, more frequent heavy rainfall events increase the movement of nutrients and pollutants to downstream ecosystems, likely resulting not only in ecosystem change, but also in adverse changes in the quality of drinking water and a greater risk of waterborne-disease outbreaks.
  • Changes in winter have big and surprising effects on ecosystems and their services. Changes in soil freezing, snow cover and air temperature affect the ability of ecosystems to store carbon, which, in turn, influences agricultural and forest production. Seasonally snow-covered regions are especially susceptible to climate change because small precipitation or temperature shifts can cause large ecosystem changes. Longer growing seasons and warmer winters are already increasing the likelihood of pest outbreaks, leading to tree mortality and more intense, extensive fires. Decreased or unreliable snowfall for winter sports and recreation will likely cause high future economic losses.
  • The ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats are especially vulnerable to sea-level rise and more severe storms. The Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts are most vulnerable to the loss of coastal protection services provided by wetlands and coral reefs. Along the Pacific coast, long-term dune erosion caused by increasing wave heights is projected to cause problems for communities and for recreational beach activities. However, other kinds of recreation will probably improve due to better weather, with the net effect being that visitors and tourism dollars will shift away from some communities in favor of others.  
  • Climate change adaptation strategies are vital for the conservation of diverse species and effective natural resource policy and management. As moreadaptive management approaches are developed, resource managers can enhance the country’s ability to respond to the impacts of climate change through forward-looking and climate science-informed goals and actions.
  • Ecological monitoring needs to be improved and better coordinated among federal and state agencies to ensure the impacts of climate change are adequately monitored and to support ecological research, management, assessment and policy. Existing tracking networks in the United States will need to improve coverage through time and in geographic area to detect and track climate-induced shifts in ecosystems and species.

From United States Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3483

Time is Short: Every Day, All Around the World

Time is Short: Every Day, All Around the World

Wherever there has been oppression, there has been resistance.

Despite the narratives that are drilled and forced into our heads—narratives of the exceptionality and futility of resistance—the history of civilization is chalk full of individuals, groups, movements that stood in the face of subjugation and cruelty to fight for a better world.

This is as true now as it has ever been, whether we’re talking about underground and aboveground groups finding indirect ways to collaborate in defending Russian forests, Ogoni militants attacking pipelines in the Niger Delta, farmers in North Dakota toppling interstate electrical transmission lines, Norwegians sinking whaling ships, Saudi Arabians using computer viruses to attack the world’s largest oil company, Germans sabotaging sport hunting, bombings of nanotechnology labs in Mexico, or road occupations defending forests in Borneo. From the Luddites to the Naxalites, militant action against ecocide has a proud history and is nothing new.

Beyond these—the organizations and groups whose names we know—are an untold number of actions and actors, working on their own or in small groups to strike blows (however small) against the industrial machine. They often receive no recognition, their names and deeds don’t make the news and the glued locks on the slaughterhouse door or slashed tires on the logging truck are attributed to apolitical and trouble-making adolescents.

But they continue—the faceless and the nameless, the mysterious who help to make sure that this war has two sides. Every year, hundreds of brave individuals enact their convictions: thousands of animals are freed from captivity & torture, locks are glued, equipment and vehicles torched, roads torn up, trees spiked, hunting lodges & towers sabotaged, cell phone towers destroyed, and more.

Militant action against the horror of civilization isn’t a mystical idea or lofty concept. Too often, it is made to seem something entirely unreal, impossibly distant from the world we actually live in. It is made out to be the work of mythical figures or shadowy organizations, compared to whom we are nothing of note. Real resistance is something that happens ‘out there’, far away from anything resembling our own lives.

But this is entirely untrue.

While the particular motives and passions of individual actionists inevitably vary, there are no superheroes, just those ordinary people who have moved beyond fear and into action. Similarly, no one is born knowing how to wire explosives or sabotage a train, but that hasn’t stopped pipelines from exploding or trains from being shut off. Despite what the dominant narratives tell us, it is not exceptional or unusual to fight back against brutality.

Tangible acts of resistance take place every day, building on one another slowly gradually. In the last year, there have been at least several hundred actions, and those are just the ones that were reported on websites like ‘Bite Back’ or DGR’s new Underground Action Calendar. And such action is nothing new either; quiet acts of sabotage against development and infrastructure projects—be they dams or railways—are forms of resistance that go back generations; resistance that persists through the silence and the years. Though these individual actions may not be much in and of themselves, they are not alone.

They are in the same spirit as the trees in a city, fighting to become a forest; as the grasses and flowers pushing up cracks through asphalt and concrete; as the crazy raspberry ants that swarm into electrical boxes and chew through wires to short circuit computer systems; as the salmon that throw themselves relentlessly against (excruciatingly) slowly crumbling dams; as the monsoon rains that wash away bridges and rail lines; as the blizzards that topple power lines; as the forest fires that race through McMansion subdivisions.

Life doesn’t just want to live—it fights to live.

And that fight isn’t static; it isn’t an isolated moment in time. It’s a struggle growing, being cultivated by generation after generation of those individuals who say “enough” and take action, and by those who support them and tell their stories, replanting the seeds and watering a maturing culture of resistance.

Resistance is fertile. But we should also remember that it isn’t a stagnant fertility; it is incredibly active and dynamic. It isn’t a passive seed waiting to be planted; it has been in the soil for generations, slowly growing and spreading roots and tendrils and pushing up through cracks in the asphalt that have been decades in the making. With it grows the possibility—and indeed the promise—of that better world for which so many yearn and fight. As Arundhati Roy said, “another world is not only possible, she’s on her way. Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”

Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org

Coal set to rival oil as world’s primary energy source by 2017

Coal set to rival oil as world’s primary energy source by 2017

By Fiona Harvey / The Guardian

Coal is likely to rival oil as the world’s biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world’s leading authority on energy economics.

One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the US.

Coal consumption is increasing all over the world – even in countries and regions with carbon-cutting targets – except the US, where shale gas has displaced coal, shows new research from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The decline of the fuel in the US has helped to cut prices for coal globally, which has made it more attractive, even in Europe where coal use was supposed to be discouraged by the emissions trading scheme.

Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, said: “Coal’s share of the global energy mix continues to grow each year, and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade.”

Coal is abundant and found in most regions of the world, unlike conventional oil and gas, and can be cheaply extracted. As a result, coal was used to meet nearly half of the rise in demand for energy globally in the past decade. According to the IEA, demand from China and India will drive world coal use in the coming five years, with India on course to overtake the US as the world’s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter, having temporarily overtaken Australia.

According to the IEA’s Medium Term Coal Market Report, published on Tuesday morning, the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today – the equivalent of the current coal consumption of Russia and the US combined. Global coal consumption is forecast to reach 4.3bn tonnes of oil equivalent by 2017, while oil consumption is forecast to reach 4.4bn tonnes by the same date.

With the highest carbon emissions of any major fossil fuel, coal is a huge contributor to climate change, particularly when burned in old-fashioned, inefficient power stations. When these are not equipped with special “scrubbing” equipment to remove chemicals, coal can also produce sulphur emissions – the leading cause of acid rain – and other pollutants such as mercury and soot particles.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/18/coal-challenge-oil-international-energy-agency

Campaign of terror escalating against human rights defenders in the Americas

By Amnesty International

Human rights defenders across the Americas are facing escalating levels of intimidation, harassment and attacks at the hands of state security forces, paramilitary groups and organized crime, Amnesty International said in a new report today.

The report Transforming pain into hope: Human rights defenders in the Americas, is based on around 300 cases of intimidation, harassment, attacks and killings of human rights defenders in more than a dozen countries primarily between January 2010 and September 2012.

“Human rights defenders are systematically harassed, attacked and subjected to unfounded criminal charges in almost every country in the Americas to prevent them from speaking out for the rights of the most marginalized,” said Nancy Tapias-Torrado, Americas Researcher on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders at Amnesty International.

Throughout the Americas, human rights defenders have been publicly condemned as “illegal”, “illegitimate”, “unscrupulous” or even “immoral”. They have been accused of being criminals, corrupt, liars, troublemakers or subversives; of defending criminals; and of supporting guerrilla groups. Such public criticisms have been voiced by government officials as well as non-state actors.

“Men and women who work to protect human rights are also targeted as they are seen by powerful political and economic interests as an obstacle to major development projects,” said Tapias-Torrado.

Those particularly targeted include people working on issues related to land and natural resources; the rights of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, abuses against migrants as well as those working to ensure justice for human rights abuses, plus journalists, bloggers and trade unionists.

Of the almost 300 cases analyzed by Amnesty International, those directly responsible were convicted in only four cases.

Almost half of the cases documented by Amnesty International took place in the context of disputes over land, in countries including Brazil, Colombia and Honduras. Several were related to large-scale development projects led by private companies.

In countries including Cuba and Mexico, human rights defenders have suffered judicial harassment, have been detained on the basis of flawed evidence or have had spurious charges hanging over them for years because arrest warrants are issued then not acted on.

Indigenous human rights defenders José Ramón Aniceto Gómez and Pascual Agustín Cruz, from Puebla, Mexico, were released from prison on 28 November 2012, after the country’s Supreme Court of Justice overturned their unfair conviction.

They were sentenced, in 12 July 2010, to seven years in prison, accused of stealing a car.

The case was brought by a member of a powerful local cacique group that had for many years restricted access to water and charged connection fees that represented four monthly wages for many community members. The two defenders had fought to establish free mains water connections to people’s houses.

The Court’s decision on this case confirms Amnesty International’s conclusion that the case against these defenders was a total injustice.

In several countries of the Americas, women human rights defenders who have campaigned on issues including violence against women, have faced rape, threats of rape, intimidation and their relatives have been threatened.

On 9 November 2011, an armed man and a woman entered the home of human rights defender Jackeline Rojas Castañeda in Barrancabermeja, Colombia. The man and woman held her and her 15-year-old daughter at gunpoint in separate rooms. They told Jackeline they would kill her daughter if she tried to call for help.

Jackeline was tied up and gagged, and red paint was sprayed on her body and clothes. The attackers repeatedly demanded information on the whereabouts of her son and her husband, a trade union leader. In addition to the attack, two laptops, USB sticks, mobiles and documents were taken from her house.

On 10 November, Jackeline – a prominent member of the Popular Women’s Organization (Organización Femenina Popular) — went to report the attack at the Attorney General’s Office. Her complaint was initially not accepted by staff who claimed she had invented the attack.

“When authorities fail to protect those who work to defend everyone’s human rights and fail to investigate attacks against them, they send a signal that those attacks are tolerated,” said Tapias-Torrado.

”Governments must guarantee that human rights defenders enjoy comprehensive protection, which includes as a minimum recognizing the importance and legitimacy of their work, the full investigation of abuses they face and the provision of effective protection measures.”

From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4026-americas-human-rights-defenders-increasingly-targeted-and-attacked-