Half the world could become unliveable

Global warming could make half the world’s inhabited areas too hot to live in and southern Europe may be turned into semi-desert, climate experts warned at a scientific congress in Copenhagen.

Marianne Bom:

The human body is unable to sweat as much as may be needed in half the world’s inhabited areas at the end of the century. If pollution by greenhouse gases continues to rise huge areas will become 'unliveable', Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, said at a scientific climate congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The human body will simply reach its physiological limits if the average temperature rises by 7 degrees Celsius in some places of the Earth, said Sherwood, on Thursday, according to The Guardian.
There will be some places on Earth where it would simply be impossible to lose heat," Sherwood said. "This is quite imaginable if we continue burning fossil fuels. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't end up there.

According to the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the average temperature could rise by 6 degrees Celsius this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates.Climate change could also lead to severe droughts every other year and semi-desert in Europe at the end of the century, if temperature rises by four degrees Celsius, said climate expert at the University of East Anglia Rachel Warren. Climate change could turn off rainfall in Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Greece and numerous other countries, leaving large areas of land from Portugal to Ukraine, as well as southern England, severely affected.

At the congress Rachel Warren was asked what life would be like in those areas. Hell, I should think. It is incomprehensible to imagine adapting to that level of drought,« Warren replied according to The Guardian.

European leadership on the road to Copenhagen

The financial and economic crisis continues to dominate the news, and understandably so. In the short term we all face a painful reduction in global prosperity. But in the long term perhaps the greatest threat of all – not only to our prosperity but also to the survival of millions of people in vulnerable areas of the globe – comes from climate change. by Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for the Environment

The Lincoln Plan about climate change

Climate change is a complex issue, but it can be summarized rather simply: the consensus of science is that global warming is a threat (1); the consensus of economics is that a carbon tax would be a cost-effective remedy (2). A carbon tax is a charge for emitting carbon dioxide (CO2), the main heat-trapping culprit.

For the last several years Ecological Internet has proposed a small U.S. government federal charge initially of $5 per ton of carbon emitted as CO2, which for gasoline is about 1 cent per gallon. Since Lincoln's portrait appears on both the penny and the $5 bill, the plan goes under his name - the "Lincoln Plan". A fundamental question in addressing climate change is whether cap-and-trade or a carbon tax would be more cost-effective. For a discussion of this matter, please see the following articles: Limiting Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Prices Versus Caps and After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming.

$5/ton is a very good starting point for a carbon charge - it would allow implementation mechanisms to be developed, and is modest enough to be politically achievable. Most of the revenue from the tax would be used to pay for measures to reduce CO2 emissions such as conserving forests, increasing energy efficiency, and adopting cleaner energy supplies.

As a stepping-stone to a $5 carbon tax, the U.S. Congress could give the public discounts on such things as compact fluorescent lights and 100 mpg vehicles. The cost would be about $1.5 billion. Congress could also announce that once a tax (or cap) was passed the discounts would be tripled. So most households could easily make more money on rebates and energy savings than the tax would cost them.

The size of the charge could then be increased as needed. Extra revenue from a charge over $5/ton would be used mostly to lower other taxes -- the plan would tax pollution rather than employment and savings.

From $5/ton, the carbon price could rise $10 a year for six or seven years, and $5 a year after that. By 2015 the charge would reach $75/ton of carbon, or about $20/ton of CO2. This is around 20 cents per gallon of gasoline and 2 cents per kWh of electricity from traditional coal-fired plants. A price trajectory such as this would appear to be reasonable. And it would greatly speed up the adoption of current low-carbon technologies and the development of new ones.

Further boosting the plan's attractiveness would be its considerable side benefits. Saving forests, particularly tropical forests (3) would help safeguard the majority of Earth's species; efficiency gains could save us a lot of money (4) while reducing dependence upon overseas sources of energy; and moving to cleaner energy supplies would reduce harmful pollutants of many kinds. Indeed, these ancillary benefits are so large that the plan would be worth trying even apart from its core benefit of climate protection.

Sensible climate protection should, indeed, be profitable. As Amory Lovins writes, "If properly done, climate protection would actually reduce costs, not raise them. Using energy more efficiently offers an economic bonanza...because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it."

In short, the Lincoln Plan could handle a serious problem with great effectiveness and at low, even negative, cost. Those who would like to contact a legislator or write a letter to the editor in support of the plan may forward this page or quote from it as they wish.

UPDATE, 2008
It now seems advisable to ramp up the carbon price more quickly than was envisioned above--perhaps $5 per metric ton of CO2 (about 5 cents a gallon of gas) for the first year; $10 for the second and third years; and $5 for the fourth. This builds on British Columbia, Canada's schedule of $10,5,5,5, and 5.

Indonesia to sell carbon credits to conserve forests

Indonesia has applied to join a World Bank programme intended to help developing nations fight deforestation by selling traceable carbon credits. International climate negotiators are working to allow developing nations the right to sell some carbon credits if they clamp down on deforestation, which is responsible for roughly 20% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

The World Bank's US$300-million Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is designed to lay the groundwork for such an international agreement.

The programme already includes 25 countries, but Indonesia, the world's third-largest greenhouse-gas emitter, had remained on the sidelines until it applied in February. The bank estimates that the country could earn between US$ 400 million and $2 billion selling credits for protecting forests.

Is there a technological solution for global warming?

A German research ship, the Polarstern, is steaming towards a region off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic, where it intends to release six tons of iron sulphate over an area of 115 square miles. The scientists point out that this supports the idea that iron-rich seas result in greater amounts of carbon being sequestered in deep layers, because atmospheric carbon dioxide is drawn into the sea by the vast blooms of plankton at the surface.

The flood due to Global Warming risks California

Sea level rise compelled by global warming could flood parts of the California coast in coming decades. The report by an independent Oakland research group, the Pacific Institute, says that nearly half a million people statewide and 110,000 in Orange County could be at risk by the year 2100 under some climate change scenarios. In Orange County which means a 55 percent increase over those already known to be at risk for a 100-year flood.

The level of risk is going to increase in the future and there are folks already in the flood plain who are going to experience increased risk. It will reach higher and reach further inland in some cases. The strategy is to look at different sectors of the economy -agriculture, energy, water supply, forestry, parks, transportation. It helps the climate action team focus priorities for informed policy. The study says that the rise in sea level of four to five feet would place an additional 220,000 people statewide at risk in a 100-year flood event from 260,000 estimated to be at risk in 2000 to 480,000.Nearly a quarter of those would be in Orange County, the study says, although Los Angeles, Monterey, San Mateo, Sonoma and Ventura counties would have significant populations at risk as well.

In all, some $100 billion in buildings would be placed at risk along the California coast. The flooding could affect roads, hospitals, schools, emergency facilities and railroads. Wetlands and natural ecosystems also could be destroyed by changes in sea level.

Potential costs in Orange County, part of the estimated $17 billion total, include $14 billion in residential costs, $2.3 billion for commercial facilities, $610 million for industrial facilities, and $110 million each for educational and religious facilities. Because of these the actual market costs could be several times higher. Even places that are not directly subject to flooding could suffer erosion because of sea level rise. And sea level rise in Northern California could have troubling effects in the south. Increased salinity in the California delta could reduce supplies of drinking water piped to Southern California.

The report draws a distinction between mitigation measures to reduce the effects of global warming, such as reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and “adaptations” to coming changes along the coast -changes that will be inevitable, even if we reduced greenhouse gas emissions to zero tomorrow.

California is already moving to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But a variety of stakeholders, including those involved in everything from shipping, boating and recreation to habitat conservation, must come together. The choices we make in the next few years are going to have a big bearing on whether this plays itself out or not, both in terms of mitigation- greenhouse gas reduction -and in terms of adaptation.

Environment: Algae Against Climate Change?

ntil very recently, the proliferation algae was interpreted as an undesirable consequence of the overuse of agro-chemicals, whose immediate results included skin irritation in humans and the death of aquatic fauna from lack of oxygen.

But their potential for absorbing one of the principal greenhouse gases - which cause global climate change - could be crucial for avoiding environmental catastrophes. Like terrestrial plants, the algae consume carbon during photosynthesis.

"We took algae from the ocean, we put it in plastic containers in greenhouses, where we fed it with carbon dioxide produced by conventional electric generators," explained Laurenz Thomsen, a bio-geologist from Jacobs University in the northern German city of Bremen.

"Exposed to solar light, the algae transform the carbon dioxide into biomass that can later be used as biodiesel, whose combustion doesn't emit greenhouse gases," he added. The Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Project (GGMP) is coordinated by Thomsen, with cooperation from the Bremen polytechnic university, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Marine Research, and several companies, including the European electricity supplier E.ON.

Thomsen has dubbed the small greenhouse "Algenreactor", set up at Jacobs University, where the algae transform carbon dioxide into organic fuel. The project is operating at the experimental phase, producing just a half-litre of biofuel. "The diesel that we refine here is absolutely organic. It satisfies the European standards. I'm confident that we will be able to move on to an industrial phase in the coming months," he added.

Fritz Henken-Mellier, director of the Farge thermoelectric plant just outside Bremen, agrees with that prediction. Some of the carbon dioxide emissions from this coal-fired generator were captured by GGMP. "Surely we need to build a much bigger greenhouse, covering hundreds of square metres, so that the capture of carbon dioxide and the production of biofuel correspond to the scope of a commercial energy plant," he said in an interview for this report.

Henken-Mellier calculates that "the capture of just 10 percent of the gases emitted by the Farge plant means a reduction of 600 tonnes daily of carbon dioxide." According to Thomsen, the area of a greenhouse capable of absorbing the carbon dioxide from a 350-megawatt electrical plant and transforming it into biofuel would have to be 25 square kilometres and would cost some 480 million dollars.

The sum is small compared to the cost of conventional crops to produce biofuel and reduce toxic gases at a scale similar to that of the "algae-based reactor." An equivalent planting of rapeseed, for example, could cost as much as 25 times more.

But Thomsen's project doesn't convince everyone. "Those calculations are very ingenuous," said Karl-Herrman Steinberg, director of one of Europe's leading algae producers, located in the northern German city of Kloetze.

"The costs of growing algae, the elimination of the water and distillation of the combustible oil are very high for this to be profitable on an industrial scale," said Steinberg.

Thomsen admits that the location of the greenhouses should be decided based on available sunshine. In northern Germany, with relatively few hours of sunlight, the model would not work. "The greenhouses would have to be built in the south and southeast of Europe," he said.

"We are already negotiating with German and foreign firms, from Brazil and India, which manage large algae crops," he added. The GGMP is not the only project of its kind. During the first global oil crisis, in the 1970s, U.S. scientists came up with a similar process for transforming algae into bio fuel. But the attempt was abandoned in 1996, when low oil prices erased the incentives to study organic fuels.

Now, with the current energy and environmental crisis, the U.S. company Green Fuel, in the north-eastern state of Massachusetts, is planning a greenhouse to cover at least one square kilometer for 2009. Isaac Berzin, of Green Fuel, says that to capture the carbon dioxide released by a 1,000 gigawatt generate would require an algae greenhouse between eight and 16 square km, which could produce more than 150 million liters of bio-diesel and 190 million liters of ethanol.

Scientists explore role of algae in climate change

The Arctic Ocean could be a sink for carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global climate change, say scientists studying the marine ecosystem. Researchers from Canada and nine other countries are on board the Amundsen icebreaker off Baffin Island. They're studying the exchange of carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere, which they say is key to understanding climate change.

As part of the research, an instrument called a rosette is raised from the seabed of Lancaster Sound, stopping at different depths to add water into each of its 24 bottles. It's just 4 a.m. – as Jean-Eric Trembly of Montreal's McGill University prepares to study the samples to learn more about phytoplankton. The tiny photosynthetic algae are an important food source in the Arctic marine ecosystem. They also absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As sea ice shrinks from warming, the algae could play an important role in slowing climate change, said Tremblay.

"The more open water there is, the more the phytoplankton are able to consume carbon dioxide and limit the effect of the greenhouse gas over the Arctic Ocean," he said. "This is one of the loops that we are looking at, but the net effect of all these processes is not known at present."

Scientists are also looking at the full cycle of carbon as it moves through the food chain, said Karine Lacoste of the Ocean Science Institute in Rimouski, Que. She explained that they're trying to determine what the capacity of the ecosystem is for taking out extra carbon dioxide from cars and industry. Lacoste and Tremblay say they're working to understand if there is more carbon dioxide going into the ocean than coming out, and how melting sea ice may effect the cycle.

Climate Change Risk Underestimated

The climate change science keeps on getting clearer, and it is not pretty. A new study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences updating a 2001 assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change that looked at temperature changes and the risks they pose, found the risks of negative impacts of climate change on humans and nature are larger than just a few years ago. The new study found that even small changes of global mean temperatures could produce the kinds of conditions singled out as "reasons for concern" in the 2001 assessment, such as damage to coral reefs or endangered species; and extreme weather events like cyclones, heat waves or droughts.

Humanity, the Earth, and our sister species are at a crossroads. We can continue to willfully downplay the dangers posed by climate change, or we can organize and resist in order to achieve the policies necessary to maintain our shared biosphere and thus our shared being. We know we must reduce human population and inequitable consumption. There is no future for logging old forests and burning coal. And energy efficiency, conservation and renewable are the only road to keeping the lights on. We can pursue these sufficient ecological policies with a revolutionary spirit of action, or we can roll over and die. We still have the power and time to stop this crisis, but just barely. Commit yourselves to a New Earth Rising.

Escalation of global Warming menace the universe

An international team of climate experts said that, the earth would not have to glow-up as much as had been thought to cause serious consequences of global warming, including more extreme weather and increasing threats to plants and animals. The risk of increased severe weather would rise with a increasing global average temperature between 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit and 3.6 degrees above 1990 levels. The National Climatic Data Center currently reports that global temperatures have risen 0.22 degree since 1990.

According to the recent research report, increases in drought, heat waves and floods are cautious in many regions and would have adverse impacts, including increased water stress, wildfire frequency and flood risks starting at less than 1.8 degrees.

Another research had found that, the liability of the 2003 heat wave in Europe led to the death of many number of people extensively increased by the growth of greenhouse gas. Now humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s. Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s.Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate. The new study found evidence of greater susceptibility to climate change for specific populations, such as the poor and elderly, in not only developing but also developed countries.

Hurricane Katrina and the 2003 European heat wave have shown to us the capacity, to adapt climate-related extreme events which is minimal than we expected. As a result, their liabilities are higher than previously thought.

Papua New Guinea Rainforests Deeply Threatened

The nation's future carbon payments for avoided deforestation in doubt. As a global leader in promoting such payments,the PNG government would be well advised to focus upon better protecting its rain forests, if it wants to fully access carbon monies based upon their continued carbon storage.

An important new study in the journal "Biotropica" finds that between 1972 and 2002, a net 15 percent of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) rain forests were cleared and 8.8 percent were degraded through logging. The clearance rate of 1.1 to 3.4 percent per year in commercially accessible forests is much higher than reported previously by the FAO.

PNG located in the South Pacific, northeast of Australia holds some of the world's largest and most important intact and contiguous forests. Their fate has important implications for local livelihoods and biodiversity, and both local and global climate change. The new study quantifies forest loss in PNG for the first time with a high degree of accuracy. And the findings are not good.

Some 36% of the accessible forest estate has been degraded or deforested. This finding raises the question of whether the PNG government has a welcome leader in promoting avoided deforestation payments is pursuing the necessary policies to ensure large rain forests continue to exist as the basis for their country to receive large and continuous international payments for their forest's carbon storage.The study found that change in PNG rain forest extent and condition has occurred to a greater extent than previously recorded.The study assessed deforestation and forest degradation in Papua New Guinea by comparing a land-cover map from 1972 with a land-cover map created from nationwide high-resolution satellite imagery recorded since 2002. In 2002 there were 28,251,967 ha of tropical rain forest.

Between 1972 and 2002,a net 15 percent of Papua New Guinea's tropical forests were cleared and 8.8 percent were degraded through logging. The drivers of forest change have been concentrated within the accessible forest estate where a net 36 percent were degraded or deforested through both forestry and non forestry processes.

It was estimated that over the period 1990-2002, overall rates of change generally increased and varied between 0.8 and 1.8 percent/yr, while rates in commercially accessible forest have been far higher having varied between 1.1 and 3.4 percent per year. The study concluded that rapid and substantial forest change has occurred in Papua New Guinea, with the major drivers being logging in the lowland forests and subsistence agriculture throughout the country with comparatively minor contributions from forest fires, plantation establishment, and mining.

Ecological Internet provides the world's largest and most used climate and environment portals at http://www.climateark.org and http://www.ecoearth.info. Dr. Glen Barry is a leading global spokesperson on behalf of environmental sustainability policy. He frequently conducts interviews on the latest climate, forest and water policy developments and can be reached for comment at:

Ecological Internet calls upon PNG to immediately reappraise its logging, bio fuel and agriculture policies; to ensure maximum amounts of fully intact forests are available for anticipated international carbon market funding to stop deforestation and diminished, and for continued non-diminishing traditional local uses. First time industrial logging of primary forests releases huge amounts of stored carbon and permanently reduces the forest's carbon holding potential. Clearly industrial forestry, certified or not, is a dying industry with no future.

Carbon Markets are Collapsing in Europe

Revolving for the great pollution fire sale, the furthermost outlook to debris the climate on the cheap. Last summer it cost an eye watering 31 vpounds to throw up your smokestack, but in our give-away global recession sale been slashed to a crazy 8.20 pounds.Compare our offer with costly solar energy. At this low, low price you can't afford not to burn coal.

Europe's carbon markets are in collapse.Yet the jeer of escaping gas is almost inaudible.You can't see or hear a market for a pollutant fall.But at stake is what was supposed to be a central lever in the world's effort to turn back climate change.Intended to price fossil fuels out of the market, the system is instead turning them into the rational economic choice.something that exists called carbon trading which we all know. Europe has created carbon exchanges,and traders who buy and sell. Few but the professionals, however, know that this market is now failing to edge up the cost of emitting CO2. The theory sounded fine in the boom years, back when Nicholas Stern described climate change as "the biggest market failure in history"

A year ago European governments disorderly a limited number of carbon emission permits to their big polluters permits to ones that need more. As demand outstrips this capped supply, and the price of permits rises, an incentive grows to invest in green energy.All this only works as the carbon price lifts.A lot of the blame lies with governments that signed up to carbon trading as a neat idea, but then indulged polluters with luxurious quantities of permits. A tonne of carbon has dropped to about 8 pounds, down from last year's summer peak of 31 pounds and far below the 30-45 pounds range at which renewable can collide with fossil fuels.

The lesson of the carbon bust is that markets can be a passage, but not a substitute, for political will. They only work when properly primed and regulated.Europe hoped that the mere creation of a carbon market would drive everyone away from fossil fuels.It forgot that charge had to outstrip supply, and that if growth stops, demand drops too.

Carbon trading remains at the heart of the international response to climate change. Obama backs what Americans call cap and trade. Australia wants to try the same thing. But both are hesitating, given Europe's mess.The conclusive way would be to cut the number of circulating permits, but no government will be courageous to do that. And private initiatives such as Sandbag, which encourages individuals to buy and lock away permits which can exert little pressure on price in a market awash with them.

First of all the Europe must end importing permits from countries like Russia.No one really believes that 15m tonnes of imported permits will not still be emitted by a steelworks somewhere east of Novosibirsk. Second, it must publish plans to crack down on the surplus of permits when the recession is over. Like medieval pardoners handing out unlimited indulgences, governments have created a over. Europe's whizz-bang carbon market is turning sub-prime.

Which generates climatic change?

The earth's climate is influenced by many factors, such as the amount of greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere, the amount of energy coming from the sun or the properties the Earth's surface. Changes in those factors, through human-related or natural processes, have a warming or a cooling effect on the planet because they alter how much of this solar energy is retained or reflected back to space.

The concentrations in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have all increased markedly since 1750, and now exceed by far their pre-industrial levels.

Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Its concentration in the atmosphere (379 ppm in 2005) is now far higher than the natural range over the last 650 000 years (180 to 300 ppm) and is growing faster than ever since the beginning of its continuous direct measurement in 1960, mainly due to fossil fuel use and to a lesser extent to land use change. For instance, emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use increased from 6.4 Gt per year in the 90s to 7.2 Gt of carbon per year over the period 2000-2005. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere have also greatly increased since pre-industrial times, and those increases are mostly due to human activities such as agriculture and fossil fuel use.

The effect on climate of each of the different drivers is expressed in terms of "radiative forcing", with positive forcing causing a warming of the surface and negative forcing a cooling of it. The overall effect of human activities since 1750 is very likely (> 90% certainty) to be one of warming, with an estimated increase of energy, or radiative forcing, of 1.6 Watt per square meter over the whole planet. The relative contribution of various factors can be seen in figure 2. The main warming drivers are the various greenhouse gases and it is likely that the warming that they cause has been increasing during the industrial era at a higher rate than at any time over the last 10 000 years. The main cooling drivers are aerosols and the changes in cloud cover that they cause

Earth's Leading Climate Change Portal Turns 10 Years Old

The Climate Ark Climate Change Portal at turned ten years old this new year. Tens of millions of users have and continue to enjoy the Internet's best climate search, news feeds, blogging and action alerts. Ecological Internet has been campaigning for sufficient climate policies and been a critic of global environmental policy since Al Gore actually had the power to do something about climate change.

To mark the event, Ecological Internet's President, Dr. Glen Barry, has recommenced writing biocentric, deeply thought provoking and critically acclaimed "Earth Meanders" essays at http://www.ecoearth.info/earthmeanders/. "There is a real hunger for truthful and ambitious solutions to climate change and the many other global ecological crises that threaten planetary annihilation," notes Dr. Barry.

"After much urging and a bit of a break, I am back meandering freely regarding the failure of the environmental movement and espousing a bio centric and sufficient environmental paradigm. I am going to continue speaking shrilly and forcefully regarding necessary actions to achieve global ecological sustainability. And this time it will be as a project of Ecological Internet. Expect more challenging ecological free thinking, remembering they are essays primarily meant to spur discussion."

To diversify funding at the decade mark, Climate Ark has broken with the past and begun to accept tasteful amounts of Google advertising. "This was a difficult decision, after nearly 20 years of ad free Internet activism, but it is crucial we take all measures to remain operational, as the Earth needs bright green biocentric advocacy as never before," explains Dr. Barry.

It is hoped site users will regularly click on advertisements in which they are genuinely interested, and thus financially support Ecological Internet's non-profit work. And report inappropriate ads that may be presented in their location so they can be blocked. Ecological Internet's end-of-year fund-raising drive has nearly completed, and is only a few thousand dollars short of its goal. Donations can still be made at http://www.climateark.org/shared/donate/.

Ecological Internet provides the world's largest and most used climate and environment portals at http://www.climateark.org/ and http://www.ecoearth.info/. Dr. Glen Barry is a leading global spokesperson on behalf of environmental sustainability policy. He frequently conducts interviews on the latest climate, forest and water policy developments and can be reached at: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org.

Climate Change Worse Than Thought

A biosphere cannot be engineered quite a week in climate science. Ends up global warming is accelerating more at a much faster pace, causing more environmental damage, than predicted even a few years ago. Continued use of coal is denounced as "death factories" . And crop-based bio fuels are speeding up global warming by fueling the destruction of rain forests .

These warnings comes from highly respected mainstream scientists, and illustrate how the science has progressed to indicate global ecological crises are much more dire than even recent worst case scenarios. Of course many of us have known climate change will be abrupt, and that maintaining standing rainforests and ending use of coal, would be keystone climate change responses for decades; but been stonewalled by media, government and mainstream and even radical environmental bureaucracies. It is clear that the IPCC report of 2007 is already dated, and we cannot wait until 2014 to finalize the next.

The Earth has found its voice. Unless action to topple industrial polluters and destroyers are taken immediately we are all going to die. Failure to address climate change is largely due to society's inability to transform itself, including away from coal and FSC certification of old growth forest logging. Much of the environmental movement is duped, incompetent or sold out -- or some combination of the above. Few dare to demand reducing human population and inequitable consumption immediately, which clearly is necessary to maintain a livable Earth. Without thinking big and becoming more aggressive in demanding social change, we are in for a world of hurt.

Ancient Forests Absorb 20% of Human's Carbon, Logging and Other Industrial Destruction of Old Forests Must Stop Now

Ecological Internet welcomes the emerging science published today in "Nature" indicating tropical trees in undisturbed forest are absorbing nearly a fifth of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels.This is in addition to the long-term carbon sequestered within old trees' wood and soils. This is the most recent of several major scientific studies indicating the need to fully protect all remaining primary and old growth forests as a keystone response to global climate, biodiversity and water crises.

"This is huge -- not only do ancient rainforest's reliably store massive amounts of carbon, as we have known for sometime, but they continue to remove enormous amounts of carbon every day they remain standing and are non-degraded. The study partially solves the mystery of where human carbon pollution has been going, and in so doing supports the need for avoided deforestation payments," said Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet's President.

It was found that remaining tropical forests remove a massive 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year. This includes a previously unknown carbon sink in Africa, which mops up 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 a year. Over the past 40 years, each hectare of intact African forest was found to have annually trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon. This builds upon last year's studies that found old-growth forests are "carbon sinks" and continually absorb carbon dioxide, and that their first time logging releases 40 percent of their carbon

"We are receiving a free subsidy from nature," says Dr. Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds, and the lead author of the paper. "Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change."

Dr. Lee White, co-author on the study, said "to get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a tonne of carbon, should be valued at around £13 billion ($USD 18.7 billlion) per year. This is a compelling argument for conserving tropical forests."

The findings critically demolish claims by groups as diverse as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), World Bank, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Greenpeace and WWF that "well-managed, responsible and low-impact" logging in the world's dwindling ancient forests can ever have environmental benefits. Over the past two years, each has been the target of Ecological Internet's campaign to end old growth forest logging, which is "certified" by FSC as being "green".

Late last year RAN agreed to review their long-time support for first time industrial logging of ancient forests. When Lafcadio Cortesi, RAN's new rainforest campaigner, was asked to comment upon the Nature report, he replied it is a "bit of a stretch and certainly premature to link. the nature paper findings with RAN and the FSC." He refused to answer the question "how does logging 500 year old ancient trees protect rainforests and the climate," continuing two years of RAN stonewalling on the most basic of questions regarding their support for FSC ancient forest logging.

EI President, Dr. Glen Barry, said "the science has never been clearer: global ecological sustainability depends critically upon protecting and restoring old forests. How much longer can RAN and the world dither? Our demand of RAN remains the same: either use your membership to get FSC to eliminate their sourcing of certified timbers from ancient forests, or resign immediately from FSC in protest."

"Sadly, our campaign resumes after failure by RAN to keep their earlier promises. We call upon RAN members to resign, and their funders to stop their support, in protest of America's leading rainforest group supporting -- against a growing body of ecological science -- first time industrial destruction of primeval forests. EI will be taking further protest action at a place and time of our choosing."