by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 21, 2012 | Climate Change
By Agence France-Presse
Greenhouse gases are likely to result in annual costs of nearly $2 trillion in damage to the oceans by 2100, according to a new Swedish study.
The estimate by the Stockholm Environment Institute is based on the assumption that climate-altering carbon emissions continue their upward spiral without a pause.
Warmer seas will lead to greater acidification and oxygen loss, hitting fisheries and coral reefs, it warns.
Rising sea levels and storms will boost the risk of flood damage, especially around the coastlines of Africa and Asia, it adds.
Projecting forward using a business-as-usual scenario, the Earth’s global temperature will rise by four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, says the report, “Valuing the Ocean.”
On this basis, the cost in 2050 will be $428 billion annually, or 0.25 percent of global domestic product (GDP).
By 2100, the cost would rise to $1,979 billion, or 0.37 percent of output.
If emissions take a lower track, and warming is limited to 2.2 C (4 F), the cost in 2050 would be $105 billion, or 0.06 percent of worldwide GDP, rising to $612 billion, or 0.11 percent, by 2100.
“This is not a scaremongering forecast,” says the report.
It cautions that these figures do not take into account the bill for small island states swamped by rising seas. Nor do they include the impact of warming on the ocean’s basic processes, such as nutrient recycling, which are essential to life.
“The ocean has always been thought of as the epitome of unconquerable, inexhaustible vastness and variety, but this ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ image may be its worst enemy,” notes the report.
From PhysOrg: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-ocean-climate-trillion.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 12, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change
By Bari Bates
Our oceans face a grim outlook in the coming decades. Ocean acidification, loss of marine biodiversity, climate change, pollution and over-exploitation of resources all point to the urgent need for a new paradigm on caring for the earth’s oceans—”business as usual” is simply not an option anymore, experts say.
The extreme rate of acidification – the term used to describe the decrease in ocean pH levels caused by man-made CO2 emissions – has happened before, Carol Turley of Plymouth Marine Laboratory said, a claim that might have been comforting if she hadn’t been referring to the time when dinosaurs died out.
This is a “huge environmental crisis,” she told attendees at an information session at European Parliament this month, addressing challenges and solutions for the world’s oceans months ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, slated to be held in Brazil in June.
Turley joked that she’s often called the “acid queen” because of her bleak message, though the plight of more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface is not in the least bit humorous.
Each year, the ocean absorbs roughly 26 percent of total CO2 emissions, which have increased by 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750, according to the International Ocean Acidification Reference User Group.
Ocean acidification affects marine life with calcium carbonate skeletons and shells, making them sensitive to even small changes in acidity. Acidification also reduces the availability of calcium for plankton and shelled species, which constitute the base of the entire marine food chain, creating a disastrous domino affect that could wipe out entire ecosystems.
“[The] earth system is truly under the influence of man,” said Wendy Watson-Wright, assistant director general and executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The oceans could be 150 percent more acidic by 2100, she added. This means drastic decreases in yields from fisheries, and mass extinction of marine life.
The world is currently losing natural resources at a rate humans haven’t even begun to describe, she said.
Read more from Inter Press Service: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107042
Photo by SGR on Unsplash
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 28, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Ecowatch
Each year, mining companies dump more than 180 million tonnes of hazardous mine waste into rivers, lakes, and oceans worldwide, threatening vital bodies of water with toxic heavy metals and other chemicals poisonous to humans and wildlife, according to report released on Feb. 28 by two leading mining reform groups.
An investigation by Earthworks and MiningWatch Canada identifies the world’s waters that are suffering the greatest harm or at greatest risk from the dumping of mine waste. The report, Troubled Waters: How Mine Waste Dumping is Poisoning our Oceans, Rivers, and Lakes, also names the leading companies that continue to use this irresponsible method of disposal.
Mine processing wastes, or tailings, can contain as many as three dozen dangerous chemicals including arsenic, lead, mercury, and cyanide. The report found that the mining industry has left mountains of such waste from Alaska and Canada to Norway and Southeast Asia.
“Polluting the world’s waters with mine tailings is unconscionable, and damage it causes is largely irreversible,” said Payal Sampat, international program director for Washington, D.C.-based Earthworks. “Mining companies must stop using our oceans, rivers, and lakes as dumping grounds for their toxic waste.”
The report says some multinational mining companies are guilty of a double standard.
“Some companies dump their mining wastes into the oceans of other countries, even though their home countries have bans or restrictions against it,” said Catherine Coumans, research coordinator for Ottawa-based MiningWatch Canada. “We found that of the world’s largest mining companies, only one has policies against dumping in rivers and oceans, and none against dumping in lakes.”
There are safer methods of disposing of mine tailings, including returning the waste to the emptied mine. In other places, dumping of any kind is too risky. No feasible technology exists to remove and treat mine tailings from oceans; even partial cleanup of tailings dumped into rivers or lakes is prohibitively expensive.
“We are really suffering because of the millions of tons of mine waste that Barrick Gold dumps in and around our river system every year,” said Mark Ekepa, chairman of the Porgera Landowners’ Association. “Our rivers run red, our houses have become unstable, we have lost fresh drinking water and places to put our food gardens, and sometimes children get carried away by the waste.”
A number of nations, including the U.S., Canada, and Australia, have had restrictions on dumping mine tailings in natural bodies of water. Even these national regulations, however, are being eroded by amendments, exemptions, and loopholes that allow destructive dumping in lakes and streams. Even though U.S. law long banned lake dumping, in 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Coeur D’Alene Mines of Idaho to dump 7 million tonnes of tailings from the Kensington Gold Mine in Alaska into Lower Slate Lake, filling the lake and destroying all life in it.
In Canada, Taseko Mines Ltd. is proposing to reclassify Little Fish Lake and Fish Creek in British Columbia as a tailings impoundment for its proposed Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine. The watershed is home to grizzly bear and highly productive rainbow trout, and is an important cultural area for the Tsilhqot’in People. After being refused environmental approvals for the past 17 years, the company has re-applied with plans to build a tailings impoundment to dispose of 480 million tons of tailings and 240 million tons of waste rock in the basin of the creek and lake, burying the ecosystems under a hundred meters of waste.
From Ecowatch
Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 22, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change
By Katharine Gammon
The oceans have already absorbed about one-third of the 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide that human activity has added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. Absorbing carbon dioxide reduces the pH of seawater, indicating an increase in its acidity.
While more attention has been focused on the ecological fragility of coral reefs, cold-water life in other regions — from urchins and sea-stars to tiny plankton-like copepods — may be more at risk than their warmer-water counterparts, according to information presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Vancouver.
Like many effects of climate change, the impacts of acidification can vary from place to place.
“Ocean warming-related issues that have economic punch will not be evenly spread around the globe,” said Gretchen Hofmann , a professor of marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “They will be local, focal, and intense.”
The physical mechanisms are clear: because cold water tends to hold more gas, the Arctic and Antarctic oceans already contain more carbon dioxide than other areas. In a world with oceans even more acidic than they are today, marine creatures that form shells or body structure from calcium carbonate may struggle to create their structures. Losing those species will negatively affect species that are higher up on the food chain, like herring.
Already, some oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest recently failed to produce oysters because the water had become too acidic for the larvae to form shells, Hofmann said.
Scientists are just beginning to predict what will happen in the future with more acidic waters. Jason Hall-Spencer, of Plymouth University in the U.K., studies life at sites where natural carbon dioxide bubbles like a Jacuzzi from the ocean floor. He chooses places along the carbon-rich sea floor vents that mimic the effects of high acidity in the rest of the ocean’s future — a time machine for looking at hundreds of species in conditions that will exist 10 or 50 years down the road.
Hall-Spencer has studied volcanic vents in Italy, California and Papua New Guinea. All of them show similar effects. “What we see are dramatic shifts in ecosystems, with a tipping point predicted at end of this century,” he said. That tipping point would spell out a 30% drop in biodiversity in everything from corals to fish, he added.
Hall-Spencer said that some organisms strain attempt to keep up with changing conditions. “It’s like us panting for oxygen at high altitude – they’re struggling,” he said.
Hall-Spencer called the combination of warming and acidification “a deadly noxious cocktail.” He said that worst-case scenarios predict that acidity will increase another 150 percent by 2050 — and warming and acidification are a double-whammy.
From Physorg: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-world-oceans-acid.html
by DGR News Service | Dec 27, 2024 | Lobbying, NEWS
By Olivia Rosane is a staff writer for Common Dreams from Dec 02, 2024
Environmental organizations cheered as Norway’s controversial plans to move forward with deep-sea mining in the vulnerable Arctic Ocean were iced on Sunday.
The pause was won in Norway’s parliament by the small Socialist Left (SV) Party in exchange for its support in passing the government’s 2025 budget.
“Today marks a monumental victory for the ocean, as the SV Party in Norway has successfully blocked the controversial plan to issue deep-sea mining licenses for the country’s extended continental shelf in the Arctic,” Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said in a statement. “This decision is a testament to the power of principled, courageous political action, and it is a moment to celebrate for environmental advocates, ocean ecosystems, and future generations alike.”
Norway sparked outrage in January when its parliament voted to allow deep-sea mining exploration in a swath of its Arctic waters larger than the United Kingdom. Scientists have warned that mining the Arctic seabed could disturb unique hydrothermal vent ecosystems and even drive species to extinction before scientists have a chance to study them. It would also put additional pressure on all levels of Arctic Ocean life—from plankton to marine mammals—at a time when they are already feeling the impacts of rising temperatures and ocean acidification due to the burning of fossil fuels.
“The Arctic Ocean is one of the last pristine frontiers on Earth, and its fragile ecosystems are already under significant stress from the climate crisis,” Trent said. “The idea of subjecting these waters to the destructive, needless practice of deep-sea mining was a grave threat, not only to the marine life depending on them but to the global community as a whole.”
“Thankfully, this shortsighted and harmful plan has been halted, marking a clear victory in the ongoing fight to protect our planet’s blue beating heart,” Trent continued.
In June, Norway announced that it would grant the first exploratory mining licenses in early 2025. However, this has been put on hold by the agreement with the SV Party.
“This puts a stop to the plans to start deep-sea mining until the end of the government’s term,” party leader Kirsti Bergstø said, as The Guardian reported.
Norway next holds parliamentary elections in September 2025, so no licenses will be approved before then.
The move comes amid widespread opposition to deep-sea mining in Norway and beyond. A total of 32 countries and 911 marine scientistshave called for a global moratorium on the practice. More than 100 E.U. parliamentarians wrote a letter opposing Norway’s plans specifically, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has sued to stop them.
“This is a major and important environmental victory!” WWF-Norway CEO Karoline Andaur said in a statement. “SV has stopped the process for deep seabed mining, giving Norway a unique opportunity to save its international ocean reputation and gain the necessary knowledge before we even consider mining the planet’s last untouched wilderness.”
Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle, the deep-sea mining campaigner at Greenpeace Nordic, called the decision “a huge win.”
“After hard work from activists, environmentalists, scientists, and fishermen, we have secured a historic win for ocean protection, as the opening process for deep-sea mining in Norway has been stopped,” Helle said in a statement. “The wave of protests against deep-sea mining is growing. We will not let this industry destroy the unique life in the deep sea, not in the Arctic nor anywhere else.”
However, Norway’s Arctic waters are not entirely safe yet.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, of the Labour Party, toldTV2, on Sunday, “This will be a postponement.”
The government said that other work to begin the process of deep-sea mining, such as drafting regulations and conducting environmental impact surveys, would move forward. Norway is currently governed by the Labour and Center parties. The two parties leading in polls for September’s elections—the Conservatives and Progress Party—also both back deep-sea mining, according toReuters.
“If a new government attempts to reopen the licensing round we will fight relentlessly against it,” Frode Pleym, who leads Greenpeace Norway, told Reuters.
Other environmental groups tempered their celebrations with calls for further action.
Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation said that “while today is a cause for celebration, this victory must not be seen as the end of the struggle.”
“We urge Norway’s government, and all responsible global actors, to make this a lasting victory by enshrining protections for the Arctic Ocean and its ecosystems into law, and coming out in favor of a moratorium or ban on deep-sea mining,” Trent added. “It is only through a collective commitment to sustainability and long-term stewardship of our oceans that we can ensure the health of the marine environment for generations to come.”
Trent concluded: “Today, thanks to the SV Party and all those around the world who spoke up against this decision, the ocean has won. Now, let’s ensure this victory lasts.”
Andaur of WWF said that this was a “pivotal moment” for Norway to “demonstrate global leadership by prioritizing ocean health over destructive industry.”
As WWF called on Norway to abandon its mining plans, it also urged the nation to reconsider its exploitation of the ocean for oil and gas.
“Unfortunately, we have not seen similar efforts to curtail the Norwegian oil industry, which is still getting new licenses to operate in Norwegian waters, including very vulnerable parts of the Arctic,” Andaur said. “Norway needs to explore new ways to make money without extracting fossil fuels and destroying nature.”
Greenpeace also pointed to the role Norway’s pause could play in bolstering global opposition to deep-sea mining.
“Millions of people across the world are calling on governments to resist the dire threat of deep-sea mining to safeguard oceans worldwide,” Greenpeace International Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaigner Louisa Casson said. “This is a huge step forward to protect the Arctic, and now it is time for Norway to join over 30 nations calling for a moratorium and be a true ocean champion.”
Photo by Alain Rieder on Unsplash
