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Electric ars aren't as clean as they seem.

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Electric ars aren't as clean as they seem.

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By Matthew Petersen

This article gives proof that electric cars, while they seem cleaner than traditional gas cars, are actually less environmentally friendly. Electric cars are powered by electricity, obviously, and others cars are powered by gas. But where does the electricity come from? The electricity is produced from coal-burning power plants, which produce the most CO2 in terms of percentage. Electric cars also use materials that require high-processing machinery. What this means is that an electric car releases 15-68% more CO2 by just being built than a traditional gas powered car. These metals include (but not restricted to) aluminum, for the chassis, and lithium, for the battery.

Link:
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/electric-cars-co2-emissions-global-warming/

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 Effect of Human Activities on the Environment- Samuel Olson

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 Effect of Human Activities on the Environment- Samuel Olson

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This article covers several ways that humans have impacted the environment. One of these reasons being that we have had a negative effect on the cleanliness and quality of our natural water sources. We introduce large amounts of nutrients into the water. These nutrient lead to the overgrowth of certain bacterias and algae that have a negative effectg on the other species in the environment.

http://education.seattlepi.com/effect-human-activities-environment-3653.html

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In recent years the ozone layers has been detereorating due to the pollution and chemicals humans have been spreading. This is a problem because the ozone layer is what protects us from the powerful rays of the sun. With it slowly deteorating there are higher chances of skin cancer. The increase in ultra-violet radiation also has it's affects on plants. With enough exposure it can make plants vulnurable to disease and produce toxic substances.

-Consuelo Mendoza

http://eco-globe.com/what-destroys-the-earths-ozone-layer/

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As polar icecaps are predicted to melt rapidly within the nest couple years this brings in a lot of problems . This can interrupt the earths overall temperature by not allowing the ice caps to reflect light into outer space consequently interrupting the earths temperature .  Not only that but as the ice caps melt it will make the ocean level rise causing floods and bad storms . This is a huge and will be a huge problem for all living organisms if we can not stop to help our planet and make it healthier to slow down problems like these .
- Isabella Reynoso

https://www.greenandgrowing.org/polar-ice-caps-melting/

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Climate change is negatively affecting our environment, and humans are the number one cause of this. Due to the climate change, fjords are melting in Kenai Fjords National Park. Alaska's average annual temperature has risen by about 35 degrees Fahrenheit over these past few years. The melting rate of glaciers has also increased. This is interfering with Alaska's water cycle, therefore affecting their water level. This will affect Alaska's ecosystems as well, as the habitats will constantly change as glaciers continue to melt faster and faster.

Sachin Shurpalekar

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Climate Change Impacts - Kenai Fjords National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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The estimated total volume change of the Harding Icefield and associated glaciers, more than 50% of which are contained in Kenai Fjords National Park, decreased by 34 km3 (8.1 miles3), with an average decrease in elevation of 21 m (68.7 ft), between the 1950s and the mid-1990s (Aðalgeirsdóttir et al.

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Chinese 'airpocalypse' affects half-a-billion people as smog crisis worsens

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Chinese 'airpocalypse' affects half-a-billion people as smog crisis worsens

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Kevin Nguyen
460 million people have been affected by the severe polution level which is 6 times higher than the World's Health Organisation guideline. China has declared war on the smog that hangs over the country, but it struggles to deal with the polution that arose from decades of economic growth. Despite China's efforts some powerpoints and chemical producers still have not scaled back operations in regard to the new regulations.

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Residents living in 24 cities across north-east China have been told not to leave their homes after thick grey fog engulfed the region.

The build up of the most severe episode of poisonous smog in a year has prompted a red alert warning, triggering the closure of schools and restrictions on road traffic.

Some 460 million people have been affected by pollution levels that environmental group Greenpeace claimed were six times higher than the World Health Organisation's guideline levels.

China declared a "war on pollution" in 2014 amid concern its heavy industrial past was tarnishing its global reputation and holding back its future development

But it has struggled to reverse the damage done by decades of breakneck economic growth, much of it based on the coal-burning power sector.

The smog - which has shrouded the area for four days- has grounded more than 300 flights from the country.

The chief executive of the world's biggest oil exporter was also caught up in the disruption, with his plane prevented from landing in Beijing on Tuesday due to the heavy smog.

Amin Nasser, CEO of the Saudi Arabian oil producer Aramco, was due to attend an event on Saudi culture at Beijing's National Museum.

China's environment ministry has warned that firms were flouting emergency restrictions.

Some power plants and chemical producers had not scaled back operations in line with new regulations, according to China Environmental News, the official publication of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The region affected includes several major cities in the industrial province of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing.

Red alerts are issued when an air quality index (AQI) is forecast to exceed 200 for more than four days in succession, 300 for more than two days or 500 for at least 24 hours.

In Handan, a major steel producer, the 24-hour average AQI at one monitoring station reached a record 780, Greenpeace said.

"The scale of the red alert measures show that the Chinese government is taking air pollution seriously," said Dong Liansai, a climate and energy campaigner with the group.

"However, the ongoing 'airpocalypse' is further evidence that China must implement far stricter limitations on coal consumption and accelerate the restructuring of the economy away from the heavily polluting sectors," Mr Dong added.

Pollution alerts have become common in China's northern industrial heartland, especially during winter when energy demand - much of it met by coal - skyrockets.

Official data from the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang showed average readings of small breathable particles known as PM 2.5, a major components of China's AQI, had risen to 665 micrograms per cubic metre.

The World Health Organisation recommends concentrations of just 10 micrograms.

The government said average PM 2.5 concentrations in the first three quarters of 2016 dropped 8.5 per cent compared with the same period last year, but officials have expressed concern that heavy winter pollution has overshadowed any progress.

China has repeatedly blamed "unfavourable weather" for much of the pollution this month, with high humidity and low wind speeds preventing the dispersal of emissions from coal-fired winter heating plants.

Several lawyers are suing the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei province for what they say has been their failure to fulfil responsibilities in battling the smog.

In recent days, Beijing has imposed an "odd-even" licence plate restriction in a bid to remove half the vehicles from the roads, but there have been at least 85,000 cases of violations.

The capital has also suspended outdoor operations at more than 3,000 construction sites.

According to forecasts, the pollution will gradually abate with the expected arrival of northerly winds on Thursday.
Reuters contributed to this report
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The astonishing number of people suffering through China's 'airpocalypse'

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Residents living in 24 cities across north-east China have been told not to leave their homes after thick grey fog engulfed the region. The build up of the most severe episode of poisonous smog in a year has prompted a red alert warning, triggering the closure of schools and restrictions on road traffic.

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The article describes the impacts of deforestation on the Great Mekong ecoregion.   It aslo talks about the Mekong region's future. Abhishta Umesh

http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/forests/deforestation_fronts/deforestation_in_greater_mekong/

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How have people impacted Earth. By Cat Medina

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How have people impacted Earth. By Cat Medina

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We are the cause for many endangered and extinct animals. For instance the Woolly Mammoth is dead because of us. Due to clothes, food, and other resources we use come from these animals.poacher kill these animals and they eventuall start to die off. This could disrupted food chain and kill us all as a planet. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24044545

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https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/climate-change-and-biodiversityhttps://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/climate-change-and-biodiversity
Citlalli Ruiz
The Earth will continue to warm for some time even if greenhouse gas emissions are somehow instantly curbed. The Earth is warming becuase of greenhouse gases but biodiversity

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California has eight of 10 most polluted U.S. cities

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California has eight of 10 most polluted U.S. cities

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Despite California's strict environmental regulations, our state has eight of the ten most polluted U.S. cities. Although California has some of the strictest regulations becasue of global warming, ozone has become an issue in certain areas. This happens to include eight of our cities.
-Madeline Vu
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/04/18/california-has-eight-10-most-polluted-u-s-cities/524815002/

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The San Joaquin Kit Foxes lost most of their habitat in the Central Valley due to agriculture, over usage of land, and poisons. Foxes eat small rodents. Humans use rodentcides which kill or poison rodents, their food. Their food is alao their water source. Foxes also burrow, but due to having less than seven percent of undeveloped land left, they have a limited amount of options to find a home in. Basically, human development is causing Kit Fox depletion.

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/species.html

Maddy Cinco

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Many animals become endangered for two main reasons. Either loss of habitat or loss or genetic variation. A loss of habitat can happen naturally, but most of the time human activity can contribute to a loss of habitat. Many times people have to clear land to make room for new houses or buildings. So then many creatures' habitats get destroyed because of the loss of habitat. Genetic variation is the diversity found within different species. This genetic variation allows species to adapt to changes in their own environment. Although most of the loss of the genetic variation occurs naturally, human activity can cause a loss of genetic variation. This is because of overhunting and overfishing.

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An endangered species is a type of organism that is threatened by extinction. Species become endangered for two main reasons: loss of habitat and loss of genetic variation.

Loss of Habitat
A loss of habitat can happen naturally. Dinosaurs, for instance, lost their habitat about 65 million years ago. The hot, dry climate of the Cretaceous period changed very quickly, most likely because of an asteroid striking the Earth. The impact of the asteroid forced debris into the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat and light that reached Earth's surface. The dinosaurs were unable to adapt to this new, cooler habitat. Dinosaurs became endangered, then extinct.

Human activity can also contribute to a loss of habitat. Development for housing, industry, and agriculture reduces the habitat of native organisms. This can happen in a number of different ways.

Development can eliminate habitat and native species directly. In the Amazon rain forest of South America, developers have cleared hundreds of thousands of acres. To "clear" a piece of land is to remove all trees and vegetation from it. The Amazon rain forest is cleared for cattle ranches, logging, and urban use.

Development can also endanger species indirectly. Some species, such as fig trees of the rain forest, may provide habitat for other species. As trees are destroyed, species that depend on that tree habitat may also become endangered. Tree crowns provide habitat in the canopy, or top layer, of a rainforest. Plants such as vines, fungi such as mushrooms, and insects such as butterflies live in the rain forest canopy. So do hundreds of species of tropical birds and mammals such as monkeys. As trees are cut down, this habitat is lost. Species have less room to live and reproduce.

Loss of habitat may happen as development takes place in a species range. Many animals have a range of hundreds of square kilometers. The mountain lion of North America, for instance, has a range of up to 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles). To successfully live and reproduce, a single mountain lion patrols this much territory. Urban areas, such as Los Angeles, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, grew rapidly during the 20th century. As these areas expanded into the wilderness, the mountain lion's habitat became smaller. That means the habitat can support fewer mountain lions. Because enormous parts of the Sierra Nevada, Rocky, and Cascade mountain ranges remain undeveloped, however, mountain lions are not endangered.

Loss of habitat can also lead to increased encounters between wild species and people. As development brings people deeper into a species range, they may have more exposure to wild species. Poisonous plants and fungi may grow closer to homes and schools. Wild animals are also spotted more frequently. These animals are simply patrolling their range, but interaction with people can be deadly. Polar bears, mountain lions, and alligators are all predators brought into close contact with people as they lose their habitat to homes, farms, and businesses. As people kill these wild animals, through pesticides, accidents such as collisions with cars, or hunting, native species may become endangered.

Loss of Genetic Variation
Genetic variation is the diversity found within a species. It's why human beings may have blond, red, brown, or black hair. Genetic variation allows species to adapt to changes in the environment. Usually, the greater the population of a species, the greater its genetic variation.

Inbreeding is reproduction with close family members. Groups of species that have a tendency to inbreed usually have little genetic variation, because no new genetic information is introduced to the group. Disease is much more common, and much more deadly, among inbred groups. Inbred species do not have the genetic variation to develop resistance to the disease. For this reason, fewer offspring of inbred groups survive to maturity.

Loss of genetic variation can occur naturally. Cheetahs are a threatened species native to Africa and Asia. These big cats have very little genetic variation. Biologists say that during the last ice age, cheetahs went through a long period of inbreeding. As a result, there are very few genetic differences between cheetahs. They cannot adapt to changes in the environment as quickly as other animals, and fewer cheetahs survive to maturity. Cheetahs are also much more difficult to breed in captivity than other big cats, such as lions.

Human activity can also lead to a loss of genetic variation. Overhunting and overfishing have reduced the populations of many animals. Reduced population means there are fewer breeding pairs. A breeding pair is made up of two mature members of the species that are not closely related and can produce healthy offspring. With fewer breeding pairs, genetic variation shrinks.

Monoculture, the agricultural method of growing a single crop, can also reduce genetic variation. Modern agribusiness relies on monocultures. Almost all potatoes cultivated, sold, and consumed, for instance, are from a single species, the Russet Burbank. Potatoes, native to the Andes Mountains of South America, have dozens of natural varieties. The genetic variation of wild potatoes allows them to adapt to climate change and disease. For Russet Burbanks, however, farmers must use fertilizers and pesticides to ensure healthy crops because the plant has almost no genetic variation.

Plant breeders often go back to wild varieties to collect genes that will help cultivated plants resist pests and drought, and adapt to climate change. However, climate change is also threatening wild varieties. That means domesticated plants may lose an important source of traits that help them overcome new threats.

The Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) keeps a "Red List of Threatened Species." The Red List defines the severity and specific causes of a species' threat of extinction. The Red List has seven levels of conservation: least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, and extinct. Each category represents a different threat level.

Species that are not threatened by extinction are placed within the first two categories-least concern and near-threatened. Those that are most threatened are placed within the next three categories, known as the threatened categories-vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered. Those species that are extinct in some form are placed within the last two categories-extinct in the wild and extinct.

Classifying a species as endangered has to do with its range and habitat, as well as its actual population. For this reason, a species can be of least concern in one area and endangered in another. The gray whale, for instance, has a healthy population in the eastern Pacific Ocean, along the coast of North and South America. The population in the western Pacific, however, is critically endangered.

Least Concern
Least concern is the lowest level of conservation. A species of least concern is one that has a widespread and abundant population. Human beings are a species of least concern, along with most domestic animals, such as dogs and cats. Many wild animals, such as pigeons and houseflies, are also classified as least concern.

Near Threatened
A near threatened species is one that is likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future.

Many species of violets, native to tropical jungles in South America and Africa, are near threatened, for instance. They have healthy populations, but their rain forest habitat is disappearing at a fast pace. People are cutting down huge areas of rain forest for development and timber. Many violet species are likely to become threatened.

The definitions of the three threatened categories (vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered) are based on five criteria: population reduction rate, geographic range, population size, population restrictions, and probability of extinction.
Vulnerable Species
Threatened categories have different thresholds for these criteria. As the population and range of the species decreases, the species becomes more threatened.

1) Population reduction rate
A species is classified as vulnerable if its population has declined between 30 and 50 percent. This decline is measured over 10 years or three generations of the species, whichever is longer. A generation is the period of time between the birth of an animal and the time it is able to reproduce. Mice are able to reproduce when they are about one month old. Mouse populations are mostly tracked over 10-year periods. An elephant's generation lasts about 15 years. So, elephant populations are measured over 45-year periods.

A species is vulnerable if its population has declined at least 50 percent and the cause of the decline is known. Habitat loss is the leading known cause of population decline.

A species is also classified as vulnerable if its population has declined at least 30 percent and the cause of the decline is not known. A new, unknown virus, for example, could kill hundreds or even thousands of individuals before being identified.

2) Geographic range
A species is vulnerable if its "extent of occurrence" is estimated to be less than 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles). An extent of occurrence is the smallest area that could contain all sites of a species' population. If all members of a species could survive in a single area, the size of that area is the species' extent of occurrence.

A species is also classified as vulnerable if its "area of occupancy" is estimated to be less than 2,000 square kilometers (772 square miles). An area of occupancy is where a specific population of that species resides. This area is often a breeding or nesting site in a species range.

3) Population size
Species with fewer than 10,000 mature individuals are vulnerable. The species is also vulnerable if that population declines by at least 10 percent within 10 years or three generations, whichever is longer.

4) Population restrictions
Population restriction is a combination of population and area of occupancy. A species is vulnerable if it is restricted to less than 1,000 mature individuals or an area of occupancy of less than 20 square kilometers (8 square miles).

5) Probability of extinction in the wild is at least 10 percent within 100 years.
Biologists, anthropologists, meteorologists, and other scientists have developed complex ways to determine a species' probability of extinction. These formulas calculate the chances a species can survive, without human protection, in the wild.

Vulnerable Species: Ethiopian Banana Frog
The Ethiopian banana frog ( Afrixalus enseticola) is a small frog native to high-altitude areas of southern Ethiopia. It is a vulnerable species because its area of occupancy is less than 2,000 square kilometers (772 square miles). The extent and quality of its forest habitat are in decline. Threats to this habitat include forest clearance, mostly for housing and agriculture.

Vulnerable Species: Snaggletooth Shark
The snaggletooth shark ( Hemipristis elongatus) is found in the tropical, coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its area of occupancy is enormous, from southeast Africa to the Philippines, and from China to Australia.

However, the snaggletooth shark is a vulnerable species because of a severe population reduction rate. Its population has fallen more than 10 percent over 10 years. The number of sharks is declining due to fisheries, especially in the Java Sea and Gulf of Thailand. The snaggletooth shark's flesh, fins, and liver are considered high-quality foods. They are sold in commercial fish markets, as well as restaurants.

Vulnerable Species: Galapagos Kelp
Galapagos kelp ( Eisenia galapagensis) is a type of seaweed only found near the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Galapagos kelp is classified as vulnerable because its population has declined more than 10 percent over 10 years.

Climate change is the leading cause of decline among Galapagos kelp. El Nino, the natural weather pattern that brings unusually warm water to the Galapagos, is the leading agent of climate change in this area. Galapagos kelp is a cold-water species and does not adapt quickly to changes in water temperature.

Endangered Species
1) Population reduction rate
A species is classified as endangered when its population has declined between 50 and 70 percent. This decline is measured over 10 years or three generations of the species, whichever is longer.

A species is classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 70 percent and the cause of the decline is known. A species is also classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 50 percent and the cause of the decline is not known.

2) Geographic range
An endangered species' extent of occurrence is less than 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles). An endangered species' area of occupancy is less than 500 square kilometers (193 square miles).

3) Population size
A species is classified as endangered when there are fewer than 2,500 mature individuals. When a species population declines by at least 20 percent within five years or two generations, it is also classified as endangered.

4) Population restrictions
A species is classified as endangered when its population is restricted to less than 250 mature individuals. When a species' population is this low, its area of occupancy is not considered.

5) Probability of extinction in the wild is at least 20 percent within 20 years or five generations, whichever is longer.

Endangered Species: Siberian Sturgeon
The Siberian sturgeon ( Acipenser baerii) is a large fish found in rivers and lakes throughout the Siberian region of Russia. The Siberian sturgeon is a benthic species. Benthic species live at the bottom of a body of water.

The Siberian sturgeon is an endangered species because its total population has declined between 50 and 80 percent during the past 60 years (three generations of sturgeon). Overfishing, poaching, and dam construction have caused this decline. Pollution from mining activities has also contributed to abnormalities in the sturgeon's reproductive system.

Endangered Species: Tahiti Reed-warbler
The Tahiti reed-warbler ( Acrocephalus caffer) is a songbird found on the Pacific island of Tahiti. It is an endangered species because it has a very small population. The bird is only found on a single island, meaning both its extent of occurrence and area of occupancy are very small.

The Tahiti reed-warbler is also endangered because of human activity. The tropical weed Miconia is a non-native species that has taken over much of Tahiti's native vegetation. The reed-warbler lives almost exclusively in Tahiti's bamboo forests. The bird nests in bamboo and feeds on flowers and insects that live there. As development and invasive species such as Miconia destroy the bamboo forests, the population of Tahiti reed-warblers continues to shrink.

Endangered Species: Ebony
Ebony ( Diospyros crassiflora) is a tree native to the rain forests of central Africa, including Congo, Cameroon, and Gabon. Ebony is an endangered species because many biologists calculate its probability of extinction in the wild is at least 20 percent within five generations.

Ebony is threatened due to overharvesting. Ebony trees produce a very heavy, dark wood. When polished, ebony can be mistaken for black marble or other stone. For centuries, ebony trees have been harvested for furniture and sculptural uses such as chess pieces. Most ebony, however, is harvested to make musical instruments such as piano keys and the fingerboards of stringed instruments.

Critically Endangered Species
1) Population reduction rate
A critically endangered species' population has declined between 80 and 90 percent. This decline is measured over 10 years or three generations of the species, whichever is longer.

A species is classified as critically endangered when its population has declined at least 90 percent and the cause of the decline is known. A species is also classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 80 percent and the cause of the decline is not known.

2) Geographic range
A critically endangered species' extent of occurrence is less than 100 square kilometers (39 square miles). A critically endangered species' area of occupancy is estimated to be less than 10 square kilometers (4 square miles).

3) Population size
A species is classified as critically endangered when there are fewer than 250 mature individuals. A species is also classified as critically endangered when the number of mature individuals declines by at least 25 percent within three years or one generation, whichever is longer.

4) Population restrictions
A species is classified as critically endangered when its population is restricted to less than 50 mature individuals. When a species' population is this low, its area of occupancy is not considered.

5) Probability of extinction in the wild is at least 50 percent within 10 years or three generations, whichever is longer.

Critically Endangered Species: Bolivian Chinchilla Rat
The Bolivian chinchilla rat ( Abrocoma boliviensis) is a rodent found in a small section of the Santa Cruz region of Bolivia. It is critically endangered because its extent of occurrence is less than 100 square kilometers (39 square miles).

The major threat to this species is loss of its cloud forest habitat. People are clearing forests to create cattle pastures.

Critically Endangered Species: Transcaucasian Racerunner
The Transcaucasian racerunner ( Eremias pleskei) is a lizard found on the Armenian Plateau, located in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey. The Transcaucasian racerunner is a critically endangered species because of a huge population decline, estimated at more than 80 percent during the past 10 years.

Threats to this species include the salination, or increased saltiness, of soil. Fertilizers used for agricultural development seep into the soil, increasing its saltiness. Racerunners live in and among the rocks and soil, and cannot adapt to the increased salt in their food and shelter. The racerunner is also losing habitat as people create trash dumps on their area of occupancy.

Critically Endangered Species: White Ferula Mushroom
The white ferula mushroom ( Pleurotus nebrodensis) is a critically endangered species of fungus. The mushroom is critically endangered because its extent of occurrence is less than 100 square kilometers (39 square miles). It is only found in the northern part of the Italian island of Sicily, in the Mediterranean Sea.

The leading threats to white ferula mushrooms are loss of habitat and overharvesting. White ferula mushrooms are a gourmet food item. Farmers and amateur mushroom hunters harvest the fungus for food and profit. The mushrooms can be sold for up to $100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds).

Extinct In The Wild
A species is extinct in the wild when it only survives in cultivation (plants), in captivity (animals), or as a population well outside its established range. A species may be listed as extinct in the wild only after years of surveys have failed to record an individual in its native or expected habitat.

Extinct in the Wild: Scimitar-horned Oryx
The scimitar-horned oryx ( Oryx dammah) is a species of antelope with long horns. Its range extends across northern Africa. The scimitar-horned oryx is listed as extinct in the wild because the last confirmed sighting of one was in 1988. Overhunting and habitat loss, including competition with domestic livestock, are the main reasons for the extinction of the oryx's wild population.

Captive herds are now kept in protected areas of Tunisia, Senegal, and Morocco. Scimitar-horned oryxes are also found in many zoos.

Extinct in the Wild: Black Soft-shell Turtle
The black soft-shell turtle ( Nilssonia nigricans) is a freshwater turtle that exists only in one man-made pond, at the Baizid Bostami Shrine near Chittagong, Bangladesh. The 150 to 300 turtles that live at the pond rely entirely on humans for food. Until 2000, black soft-shell turtles lived throughout the wetlands of the Brahmaputra River, feeding mostly on freshwater fish.

Unlike other animals that are extinct in the wild, black soft-shell turtles are not found in many zoos. The shrine's caretakers do not allow anyone, including scientists, to take the turtles. The reptiles are considered to be the descendants of people who were miraculously turned into turtles by a saint during the 13th century.

Extinct in the Wild: Mt. Kaala Cyanea
The Mt. Kaala cyanea ( Cyanea superba) is a large, flowering tree native to the island of Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The Mt. Kaala cyanea has large, broad leaves and fleshy fruit. The tree is extinct in the wild largely because of invasive species. Non-native plants crowded the cyanea out of its habitat, and non-native animals such as pigs, rats, and slugs ate its fruit more quickly than it could reproduce.

Mt. Kaala cyanea trees survive in tropical nurseries and botanical gardens. Many botanists and conservationists look forward to establishing a new population in the wild.

Extinct
A species is extinct when there is no reasonable doubt that the last remaining individual of that species has died.

Extinct: Cuban Macaw
The Cuban macaw ( Ara tricolor) was a tropical parrot native to Cuba and a small Cuban island, Isla de la Juventud. Hunting and collecting the birds for pets led to the bird's extinction. The last specimen of the Cuban macaw was collected in 1864.

Extinct: Ridley's Stick Insect
Ridley's stick insect ( Pseudobactricia ridleyi) was native to the tropical jungle of the island of Singapore. This insect, whose long, segmented body resembled a tree limb, is only known through a single specimen, collected more than 100 years ago. During the 20th century, Singapore experienced rapid development. Almost the entire jungle was cleared, depriving the insect of its habitat.

Extinct: Sri Lankan Legume Tree
The Sri Lankan legume tree ( Crudia zeylanica), native only to the island of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, was a giant species of legume. Peas and peanuts are smaller types of legumes.

Habitat loss from development in the 20th century is the main reason the tree went extinct in the wild. A single specimen survived at the Royal Botanical Garden in Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, until 1990, when that, too, was lost.

Endangered Species and People
When a species is classified as endangered, governments and international organizations can work to protect it. Laws may limit hunting and destruction of the species' habitat. Individuals and organizations that break these laws may face huge fines. Because of such actions, many species have recovered from their endangered status.

The brown pelican was taken off the endangered species list in 2009, for instance. This seabird is native to the coasts of North America and South America, as well as the islands of the Caribbean Sea. It is the state bird of the U.S. state of Louisiana. In 1970, the number of brown pelicans in the wild was estimated at 10,000. The bird was classified as vulnerable.

During the 1970s and 1980s, governments and conservation groups worked to help the brown pelican recover. Young chicks were reared in hatching sites, then released into the wild. Human access to nesting sites was severely restricted. The pesticide DDT, which damaged the eggs of the brown pelican, was banned. During the 1980s, the number of brown pelicans soared. In 1988, the IUCN "delisted" the brown pelican. The bird, whose population is now in the hundreds of thousands, is now in the category of least concern.

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An endangered species is a type of organism that is threatened by extinction. Species become endangered for two main reasons: loss of habitat and loss of genetic variation.

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In the article it explains how climate change is transforming Mexico’s geography, environment, and future. It talks about the heat, the security and drought as well as the agriculture. The end of the article has a paragraph deticated to teaching the readers what they can do to help -celine lombardi
https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-climate-change-affecting-mexico

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Human poaching impacts Arakan Forest Turtle population

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Human poaching impacts Arakan Forest Turtle population

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Melany Brondo

Scientist have found what is to beleived in endangered species of turtles in the forest. For many years scientist have thought the Arakan Forest turtle was extinct because of poachers selling them ilegally. Despite the fact that they have a protection group fo these turtles many turtles have been stolen from sanctuaries.

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Photos show two juvenile Arakan forest turtles observed in the wild in Myanmar by a team of scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Photo by: Steven Platt.

Detail of one of the turtle's found.In 1908 a British Army officer collected the last Arakam turtle until 1994 when a dead specimen was found in an Asian food market. Photo by: Steven Platt.

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Critically-endangered turtle seen in the wild for the first time by scientists

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Photos show two juvenile Arakan forest turtles observed in the wild in Myanmar by a team of scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Photo by: Steven Platt. Detail of one of the turtle's found.In 1908 a British Army officer collected the last Arakam turtle until 1994 when a dead specimen was found in an Asian food market.

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His aticle explains how air pollution is greatly affecting our earth, but if we do try to take pollution out of the air it could increase global warming. With the removal of pollution, it gives chemicals more room to spread the global warming crisis while it seeps into our earth's crust.
-Annabelle Tran

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Pollution in the atmosphere is having an unexpected consequence, scientists say-it's helping to cool the climate, masking some of the global warming that's occurred so far.

That means efforts worldwide to clean up the air may cause an increase in warming, as well as other climate effects, as this pollution disappears.

New research is helping to quantify just how big that effect might be. A study published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters suggests that eliminating the human emission of aerosols-tiny, air-polluting particles often released by industrial activities-could result in additional global warming of anywhere from half a degree to 1 degree Celsius.

This would virtually ensure that the planet will warm beyond the most stringent climate targets outlined in the Paris climate agreement. World leaders have set an ambitious goal of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius of their preindustrial levels. But research suggests the world has already warmed by about 1 degree-meaning even another half a degree of warming could push the planet into dangerous territory.

"Since we're trying to keep to a 1.5- or 2-degree target, then this is something we still need to keep in mind," said Bjørn Samset, a climate scientist at Norway's CICERO Center for International Climate Research and the study's lead author.

The research also suggests that removing aerosols could have striking regional consequences by causing major changes in precipitation and other weather patterns in certain parts of the world. Aerosols don't linger in the atmosphere for very long, meaning they don't have time to spread around the world the way carbon dioxide and some other greenhouse gases do. Their effects tend to be strongest in the regions where they were emitted in the first place.

This means the places where air pollution is most severe are likely to experience some of the greatest effects if that pollution were to disappear. East Asia, where aerosol emissions are some of the highest in the world, would be likely to experience a strong increase in precipitation and extreme weather events. To a certain extent, these effects might carry over to other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, which are connected to Asia via major atmospheric currents.

"We also see that the impact that these aerosols have on temperature in Asia really transports northwards to the Arctic region, northern Europe, Norway, the northern U.S.," Samset noted. "That part of the world is also quite sensitive to the changes in aerosols in Asia."

Scientists have long known that some types of pollution can actually help cool the climate. Certain aerosols-sulfate, for instance-can reflect sunlight away from the Earth or enhance sun-reflecting cloud cover. As nations around the world have begun to crack down on air pollution, scientists have grown interested in figuring out how much extra warming might be expected as they disappear. This is critical information for strategizing ways to meet global climate goals, like the 2-degree target.

The new study relied on four global climate models, which the researchers used to simulate the effects of removing all human-caused emissions of the major aerosols, including sulfate and carbon-based particles like soot. The resulting global warming, they concluded, would be anywhere from 0.5 to 1.1 degrees Celsius.

These results are in line with other studies that have investigated the cooling "mask" of aerosols. A 2016 paper published in Nature Geoscience found that up to a half-degree Celsius of the warming that has been observed in the Arctic-the most rapidly warming region on the planet-since 1980 was caused by pollution reductions in Europe. Like the new study, those findings speak to both the considerable cooling effect aerosols have had on the climate and to the atmospheric linkages between different regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Other research has also supported the idea that aerosols have influenced global temperatures as a whole. Another 2016 paper, also published in Nature Geoscience, suggested that about a third of all the warming that occurred over land areas over the past 50 years was masked-temporarily covered up, in other words-by aerosol pollution.

Collectively, the research indicates that greenhouse gas emissions have had an even greater effect on the climate so far than it appears-it's just that part of it has been obscured by the presence of air pollution. As the air gets cleaner, those masked effects will start to make themselves known.

The new study demonstrates how much extra warming might be expected if all those aerosol emissions suddenly stopped-but it can't predict how long it might take the world to get to that point.

Many nations, including the United States, have made significant strides in cutting down on air pollution-often for health-related reasons-over the last few decades, and other countries are stepping up their efforts now, as well. Additionally, global efforts to cut down on greenhouse gases are likely to have a spillover effect on aerosols, because air pollution is often a byproduct of the same industrial sources that produce carbon emissions. Reducing one type of emission can help cut down on the other.

So it's likely that aerosols will continue to decline in the atmosphere. At what point they'll disappear entirely-which is where that 0.5 to 1.1 degrees of warming would reach its full potential-is another question.

Some scientists have already pushed for caution when interpreting the new study's results.

"While aerosols are linked to many of the activities related to CO2 emissions (coal burning, deforestation), there is not a one-to-one correspondence," noted climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in a Twitter thread commenting on the new research. "You cannot assume that net zero CO2 emissions must also imply zero anthropogenic aerosol emissions."

As a result, he added, it's important to note that anthropogenic aerosols "will not suddenly disappear and make global warming much worse."

Still, other scientists say the new research lends support to the idea that current global goals-particularly the 1.5-degree target-are now almost certain to be overshot, even if the timing is uncertain.

In his own Twitter comment, researcher Glen Peters (also of CICERO, although he is not an author on the new study) suggested that meeting the 1.5-degree target is only possible with the help of geoengineering-using technology to bring global temperature back down below a certain threshold.

In fact, one major proposed form of geoengineering involves using aerosols to cool the climate-although ideally a form that's not hazardous to human health. Other ideas include drawing carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere. So far, none of the proposals are anywhere near developed enough to be considered a viable global solution-but some scientists suggest that they deserve more research, and quickly.

For now, Samset said, he hopes the new study can help "inform the next generation of climate scenarios."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has established a number of possible future climate trajectories, assuming different levels of climate mitigation efforts and greenhouse gas emissions. It has accounted for future aerosol reductions in all of these scenarios, Samset noted, but with very little variation in the amount of reduction assumed.

Because it's still uncertain exactly how quickly aerosol emissions will decline in the future, some scientists believe a greater variety of possible scenarios should be investigated.

"I think we need to have more variety in those projections, since even matching up the real world today with the emissions projections from 2000 that we used last time shows a significant mismatch," said Schmidt, the NASA scientist (who was not involved with the new research), in an email to E&E News.

What remains clear, though, is that the full extent of human-caused global warming is still revealing itself-and the future may be more severe than the past would seem to suggest.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

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Cleaning Up Air Pollution May Strengthen Global Warming

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Pollution in the atmosphere is having an unexpected consequence, scientists say-it's helping to cool the climate, masking some of the global warming that's occurred so far. That means efforts worldwide to clean up the air may cause an increase in warming, as well as other climate effects, as this pollution disappears.

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Ulan Bator, Mongolia is one of the coldest capitals in the world, and contains high levels of toxic. The dangerous levels are the result of chemical releases, industrial emmisions, and automotive exhaust. The pollution is so bad that UNICEF Mongolia warned of a "child health crisis." Furthermore, respiratory infections have increased by 270%, and in the last ten years, there has heen a 40% decrease of lung functionnin Mongolia. In the womb, babies can face bahavior oroblems, a lower IQ, neurological disorders, and lower disease resistance. Brooke Millar.

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It's 11 below (-24C) outside but the stove is burning and baby Almasbek Toltalkhan is warm in his family's yurt. His mother, Nursaule, scoops him from a crib engraved with pictures of coconut palms and joggles him on her knee while the doctor readies his shot.

At 11 months old, Almasbek is just past the nebulous state of babyhood. He cannot say 'mom' or 'dad' but knows bainuu, the greeting with which Mongolians answer the phone, and he wears tartan felt pajamas. He also has a pug-like wheeze on every out-breath and has been hospitalized eight times since birth.

"Our youngest is sick very often," says Nursaule, 25, who like many Mongolians goes by her first name. Almasbek was initially diagnosed with bronchitis in September. Pneumonia followed, and the family ended up spending most of November and December in hospital. "We would go to the hospital for ten days of treatment. Then after four or five days at home, we would have to go back again," she says. "Last time they took him into intensive care."

Pneumonia is now the second-leading cause of death for children under five in Mongolia. In Ulan Bator, the capital, respiratory infections have increased at a rate of 270% over the last 10 years and children living in the city have a 40% lower lung function than those living in rural areas, according to UNICEF.

In 2016, Ulan Bator overtook both New Delhi and Beijing as the capital with the highest air pollution levels in the world. The city's topography is one factor: like Beijing, Ulan Bator was built in a river valley and surrounding mountains trap smog like soup in a pan. The extreme climate is another cause. In the world's coldest capital, the average January low is 27.4 below (-33C) but temperatures can dip beneath -40, the point at which Fahrenheit and Celsius intersect.

Locals say winter air pollution was barely noticeable until the mid-2000s. Now, the city has among the world's highest peaks of PM2.5-the ultrafine particles that can carry carcinogens such as arsenic and mercury and are small enough to permeate most of the body's defensive filters. In late January, a government-installed sensor reported a PM2.5 per cubic meter rate of 3,320 in parts of Ulan Bator. That's 133 times the level the World Health Organization (WHO) deems safe.

Mongolia is one of many urban centers, especially in developing countries, that are struggling with toxic levels of pollution as industrial emissions, automotive exhaust, and chemical releases rise. Pollution is responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths, or one in six of all deaths worldwide, according to an October 2017 study published in the medical journal The Lancet. More than 90% of those fatalities occurred in low or middle-income countries.

Pollution is a serious issue in cities in Africa and South America, but Asia is where the problem is most alarming. Delhi's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal recently described his city as a "gas chamber" and pollution caused a staggering 2.5 million deaths across India in 2015. In China, the Lancet study estimates, pollution killed 1.8 million people the same year. In response to the health crisis, Beijing in 2017 canceled plans to build more than 100 new coal-fired power stations, improving air quality in the capital.

Ulan Bator's air quality is less intensely polluted than Beijing, Karachi, Dhaka or Delhi when measured annually. But health officials say the extreme peaks in PM 2.5 levels during the winter are unlike those seen anywhere else-and that young children like Almasbek stand to suffer from it the worst. In February, with off-the-charts levels of pollution, UNICEF Mongolia warned of a looming "child health crisis." The toxic air could be snuffing out lives in Mongolia even before they begin; preliminary data suggests a 3.5-fold increase in fetal mortality rates between summer and winter and a near-perfect correlation between stillbirths and air toxicity.

"People don't really want to see what the potential impacts could be, they close their eyes," UNICEF's Mongolia Representative Alex Heikens tells TIME. "We really need to start talking about Mongolia - more than half the population is at risk."

In Nursaule's yurt - or ger as Mongolia's nomadic tent-like homes are known locally - the doctor has arrived. The treatment for Almasbek's most recent bout of pneumonia requires him to receive an injection of antibiotics every eight hours. The shots are usually administered by a neighbor, who once worked as a cleaner in a hospital. Today though, the visiting doctor flicks the syringe for air bubbles; Almasbek, distracted, fists a hunk of bread toward his mouth; Nursaule yanks down his pants. The swab. The shot. The squeal.

Nursaule's eldest son, 4, and her daughter, 2, were born in a rural province and have few health problems. But because of his difficulty breathing, city-baby Almasbek is entirely confined to the ger. Nursaule does not fry food inside and gets up three times in the night to put coal in the stove to keep him warm. Despite this, she fears, the damage may already have been done: "When I was pregnant, I did not stay in fresh air. I was mostly in the city."

Nursaule and her husband Alpysbai quit the Mongolian steppes where their parents herd livestock for a better life in the capital. They are not alone. A complex mixture of social and environmental factors have made nomadic life more difficult, and better schools, hospitals, and job prospects have drawn former herders to the city. Over the past three decades, around one-fifth of Mongolia's entire population has relocated to Ulan Bator, doubling the city's physical footprint and loading stress on the urban environment. New migrants arrive on the slopes surrounding Ulan Bator, which are crammed with tens of thousands of gers and self-built houses-almost all lacking central heating, running water, and plumbing.

Today, Ulan Bator's ger districts are home to about two-thirds of the capital's 1.5 million people. Here, rickety fences divvy up hillsides pocked with smoking chimneys, pylons, and long-drop toilets. The sleek hotels of the city center two miles south are invisible behind a pall of smog. On the coldest days, the stoves of hundreds of thousands of ger district homes burn in unison. Together, they use 1 million tons of coal a year. For the poorest families, even coal is too expensive: their stoves burn plastic bottles and rubber tires.

Nursaule and Alpysbai rarely regret moving to the city. For the most part, their circumstances have improved: their eldest is in kindergarten; they own a small plot of land and a partly-built brick house. Still, the question of Almasbek's health nags. Nursaule needs to keep him warm, but doing so adds to the pollution he breathes. "I miss the fresh air of the countryside," she says, restocking her stove with coal hefted from a tarpaulin-covered pile outside. "Sometimes you go out and almost nothing can be seen. It's scary."

Babies and young children are especially vulnerable to pollution because they have small lungs, breathe more rapidly than adults, and their immune systems are not fully developed. For some newborns, their very first breath is toxic: UNICEF staff visiting a western province this winter recorded PM2.5 levels 14 times higher than the WHO's safe level-inside a hospital's maternity ward.

The harm this does goes way beyond asthma and breathing difficulties. Airborne chemicals not only complicate pregnancies and harm babies' lungs, they can irreversibly stunt brain growth - even while a baby is still in the womb. Dr. Frederica Perera, director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, tells TIME that prenatal exposure to certain toxins can change the structure of DNA or how it expresses itself, which is particularly dangerous because a fetus' brain develops at such a rapid pace. "Think of it like complex dance choreography. One misstep somewhere could derail the whole program," she says.

Children exposed to toxins in the womb are more likely to exhibit neurological disorders and behavioral problems, and have lower IQs and disease resistance. "Not only do these very early exposures result in immediate adversarial impacts in children, but then can play out over adolescence, adult life, and possibly be transferred across generations," Perera adds.

Uugantsetseg Ganbat, an obstetrician and a director of a local family health center, sees the impact of toxic air on the 70 to 90 pregnant mothers that visit her clinic in the ger district every month. Tone-or contraction-of the uterus is a nearly ubiquitous complaint, she says: it can lead to the fetus being starved of oxygen, birth defects, and miscarriages. "There would almost be no single mom who doesn't have any complications, whose tests are all fine. This kind of normal pregnancy doesn't exist," Uugantsetseg tells TIME.

Treating infants diagnosed with respiratory infections has also become complex, Uugantsetseg says: "Nowadays respiratory infections progress very quickly. Treating them is more difficult and sometimes requires a combination of different medicines."

As a result, medical facilities are dangerously stretched. At a nearby district hospital, a gastrointestinal unit was converted to an additional baby ward with two or three babies to a bed. Doctors at Uugantsetseg's clinic recently diagnosed a two-day-old boy with pneumonia. Whether he developed the infection in the womb or outside was unclear, she says, but he was blue when his parents brought him in.

Two hours after Almasbek's pneumonia injection, his father Alpysbai's cobalt blue Hyundai truck pulls up outside their ger. At the black market down the hill, where a graveyard of rusted construction cranes separates secondhand Korean and Russian trucks, vendors hawk snow-dusted timber piles, sacks of coal, and used auto parts.

Selling his truckload of coal at the black market has afforded Alpysbai precious hours with his family. He removes his boots with soot-caked hands, plays with his three children, and eats from a plate of horse meat and potatoes. Less than two hours later, Alpysbai's cousin calls and it's time to leave for Mongolia's largest illegal coal mine. He won't return until around 5am the next day-when he will sleep for two or three hours before driving the night's haul back down to the black market.

Alpysbai knows that the coal he sells contributes to illnesses in children, but sees no other choice. "When I see my son getting sick all the time, I sometimes regret moving to the city," he says, "but my income from herding wasn't enough. We moved to Ulan Bator for the children's future. I myself did not study in a university. But I want my children to study in a big university."

After a back injury forced him out of a construction job, Alpysbai spent his savings on the secondhand porter truck: in summer he sells pebbles and sand to builders; in winter, coal. One porter's worth from the nearby Nailakh mine-which supplies 70% of the ger district's coal-sells for about $100 and heats a home for two months, he says.

But digging it from the ground is perilous. Officially, 12 miners die every year at Nailakh, where only a handful of some 200 mineshafts are legal to enter. But with many artisanal miners like Alpysbai arriving clandestinely at night, it's impossible to know how many bodies are buried beside the coal seams. Not many tunnels have timber supports, and few miners can afford ventilators. Still, Alpysbai considers himself lucky to even have a job. "If I am in good health, my children's future will be fine," he says. "If I get sick and become unemployed, the future will not be bright for them."

Coal and other commodities once meant bigger business in Mongolia. The country became the world's fastest-growing economy in 2011 on the back of a mining boom - and some began calling it "Minegolia." It recorded double-digit GDP growth the following two years and the World Bank at the time said the country was "at the threshold of a major transformation driven by the exploitation of its vast mineral resources." But the boom proved short-lived and although designer boutiques and glass and steel hotels went up in the capital, few Mongolians felt the benefit of the promised transformation.

When metal prices collapsed and China's coal demand slackened, the value of Mongolia's currency plummeted, national debt soared, and foreign investment calcified. From a high of 17.3% GDP growth in 2011, Mongolia posted 1% growth in 2016. A Louis Vuitton store that had opened in 2009-with a bespoke herders' saddle and caviar case as its centerpiece-shuttered last July. Social projects - like a 2013 Mongolian parliament-approved master plan to rehouse tens of thousands of ger-dwellers in new-build apartments connected to the grid-also stalled.

Mongolia has taken some steps to address its air pollution crisis. A World Bank-backed project to replace ger stoves with cleaner burning models temporarily improved air quality, but implementation problems and an influx of new migrants meant its gains were quickly undone; last year the Mayor of Ulan Bator put a freeze on the city registering new arrivals until 2020.

But until a lasting fix for Mongolia's social challenges can be found, mothers like Nursaule will be forced to burn coal to keep their gers warm, fathers like Alpysbai will risk their lives underground-and babies like Almasbek will struggle to breathe.

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Life in the Most Polluted Capital in the World

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It's 11 below (-24C) outside but the stove is burning and baby Almasbek Toltalkhan is warm in his family's yurt. His mother, Nursaule, scoops him from a crib engraved with pictures of coconut palms and joggles him on her knee while the doctor readies his shot.

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The Effects of Natural Gas on the Environment

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The Effects of Natural Gas on the Environment

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Mahsa Mir

This article explains how the usage of natural gas as a fossil fuel affects the environment in several different ways. The usage and drilling of natural gas affects global warming, pollution in the air, the land, wildlife, water and water pollution, and  earthquakes. In some ways, using natural gas is a good thing for the environment, in comparison to coal or oil, but most impacts of natural gases are negative.

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/environmental-impacts-of-natural-gas#.Wvne19FlChA

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Effect of Human Activities on the Environment

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Effect of Human Activities on the Environment

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http://img-aws.ehowcdn.com/600x600p/photos.demandstudios.com/getty/article/188/205/dv118015.jpgThis article contains several reasons and explanations as to how humans have an effect on earths natural resources. One of them being the effect we have on the quality of our natural water sources. Humans Introduce to many nutrients into our natural water sources.

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Our Earth is running out of oil, what happens now?

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Our Earth is running out of oil, what happens now?

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By Alyssa Porterfield- If technology does not improve, our choice will be simple: reduce the amount we run our computer to smooth resources over time, or use them all up and then starve. Thats the situation that we are having with the amount of oil we have for the future. You would think that we have a few years of oil left right? Well actually, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, global oil reserves at the end of 2012 were 1.7 trillion barrels. However considering that we consume about 86 million barrels of crude oil per day, we can conclude that we'll run out of oil in 55 years or sooner if we continue consuming the oil at this rate.

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What happens when we run out of oil?

This question, which comes up almost daily in the op-ed pages of this country's newspapers, was recently raised by Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail. "If you believe the economy is structured in such a way that it needs to grow continually in order to survive, then it will take an endless supply of energy to feed it," he begins. "How, then, does an economy grow exponentially forever if the one element it needs more than anything to flourish is contracting with time?" Statements like this represent a fundamental misunderstanding of resource economics, economic growth and the energy intensity of the economy.

Will we run out of oil? No. Surely it's not that simple, you'll say, but it is.

People will only be able to pay for a barrel of oil as long as that barrel performs valuable work, and so long as that same work could not be performed more cost-effectively using another source of energy. The price is capped not only by the product's usefulness, but by the relative costs of substitutes. There will always be barrels of oil too deep to extract, or that we never discover because it's not worth exploring areas that would be too costly to develop given the market for oil.

What about the next part: can we maintain our standard of living, or even enhance it, indefinitely while extracting finite resources? As Queen's economist John Hartwick taught us years ago, the answer depends on three things: the amount of resource you have, the capacity for technological improvements and the cost of investing in those improvements.

Think of our economy as a computer running calculations. Think of economic output as the number of calculations it completes. Now, imagine the computer runs on a finite resource and that, at current rates of consumption, you'll run out of the resource to run your computer in 30 years. It sounds dire, but it might not be.

If technology does not improve, your choice will be simple: reduce the amount you run your computer to smooth resources over time, or use them up and then starve. That's how the Mason article portrays our oil situation. Now, imagine the computer technology improves such that its calculating efficiency increases each year. As long as that improvement is fast enough, you could have exponential economic growth while using fewer resources. As time goes on, your annual resource use would get closer and closer to zero, so while your resource is still finite, you can use it for a time period that limits to infinity as long as your rate of productivity improvement was sufficiently rapid. Our global economy is not just an energy economy, although we use energy in much of what we do. Capital and labour are much more important inputs to production than energy, and so small increases in labour or capital productivity lead to large increases in production per unit energy (or decreases in energy per unit produced).

What Hartwick proposed - now known as the Hartwick rule - was the degree of investment in capital required to maintain economic growth with dwindling resources. You can think of this, if you like, as investment in human capital and technology including the development of alternative energy sources. It's not correct to say you can't have infinite growth with a finite resource - you just need resource productivity to grow quickly to accomplish it. Hartwick didn't say you could maintain any level of growth with a finite resource, or that any level of investment would be sufficient for consumption growth to go on forever, he just defined the conditions you'd have to meet to make it work.

But don't we only have a few years worth of oil left? According to BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, global oil reserves at the end of 2012 were 1.7 trillion barrels. Given that the world consumes about 86 million barrels of crude oil per day, it would be easy to conclude we'll run out of oil in 55 years, or sooner if we increase production consumption. This is where understanding what an oil reserve is important. The U.S. Geological Survey definition of an oil reserve is quantities of crude oil in discovered accumulations which can be legally, technically and economically extracted - oil reserves depend on discovery of new pools, but also on technology, prices and legal access to oil fields. This explains why oil reserves have been increasing, not decreasing, during the past 30 years, despite increasing oil extraction rates. Not only have reserves increased, but we've seldom had a lower rate of production out of global reserves than we have today.

So, what's the bottom line? Are we going to run out of oil? No.

Are oil prices going to increase dramatically? They might, or they might not.

If we knew for sure what was going to happen, people would adjust production behavior accordingly. Can we have infinite, exponential growth with finite resources? Yes. Does that mean we don't need to worry? No. Do we only have 55 years worth of oil left? No. Does that mean oil won't get a lot more expensive soon? No, but it might also get a lot cheaper.

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What happens when we run out of oil? - Macleans.ca

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What happens when we run out of oil? This question, which comes up almost daily in the op-ed pages of this country's newspapers, was recently raised by Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail.

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-Nathan Wilson

This article discusses the topic of overuse of fossil fuels and depletion of our natural resources. We as humans have abused and used way to much of our supply of oils and fuels, due to our increasing population, and decreasing storage supply, we are running out of fuel fast.

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The development of modern industrial societies was possible because of cheap and abundant energy in the form of fossil fuels. Today oil accounts for 40% of the primary energy production; natural gas contributes 23%, and coal's contribution is also 23%. The rest is made up by nuclear energy at 8% and hydropower at 6%. The other renewables constitute the remaining 0.5%, a number obtained by proper rounding of values for the major sources of energy. This tally makes plain how difficult it will be for a society to move quickly to renewable energy sources. Biomass is generally not taken into account in these calculations, for it is used primarily at a local level in developing countries and thus it is difficult to count.

Use of fossil fuels has made possible the expansion of human population from 1 billion in 1820 to 6.6 billion today. During the course of history societies have built an extensive infrastructure, which needs constant maintenance for its proper functioning. This adds to the energy needs of the daily activities of industry, commerce, and private life. When fossil fuels begin to deplete at a rapid rate, it is difficult to see how societies will manage, for dependence on fossil fuels has landed us in a trap. Historically it has taken from 40 to 50 years for a new energy source to increase from 1% to 10% of market share. To reach 50% has taken almost a century. We must now face this predicament and think about how to cope. By understanding these difficulties the Central Ohio Relocalization Effort firmly believes that we in Central Ohio need to begin to move toward local reliance. Local reliance movements have sprung up through the history of our country for various reasons; the present one is forced upon us by scarcity of resources.

Oil production in the United States is in its terminal decline. We passed the discovery peak for oil already in 1930. The production peak followed 40 years later, in 1970. The production is now so far down that U.S. imports about 60% of its oil and if the finished petroleum products are counted imports rise to 63%.

Oil and other petroleum liquids are produced in the world today at the rate of 85 million barrels a day, or one billion barrels every 12 days. By backdating the extensions of old fields to the date of initial discovery and adding these to the new discovery, the world's peak in oil discovery can be reckoned to have taken place in 1964. As a consequence of the lack of recent discoveries oil production has exceeded discovery since 1983. Today only one barrel is discovered for every three used in the world.

Natural gas production in the U.S. reached its peak in 1973, and went over a secondary, but lower peak, in 2001. This was also the date for North American peak production of natural gas. Production, both in the U.S. and Canada, is now in terminal decline. United States imports about 17% if its natural gas; 14% from Canada (which is one half of Canada's production) and 3% as liquefied natural gas, mainly from Trinidad.

A recent study by the Energy Watch Group in Germany projects the world coal production to peak by year 2025. This is an astounding claim, as we are used to hearing that coal will last more than 200 years. The study is based on recent reassessment of world's coal resources by the BGR, the national bureau of geological resources in Germany. A similar study for the European Commission also warns that coal is not available at near the quantities that most people think. A related issue is whether the world can afford to burn all its coal resources, for the danger of causing a catastrophic climate change.

Concern for the looming energy crisis prompted the Oxford educated geologist Colin J. Campbell to form the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, ASPO, in December 2000. This organization has convened five international meetings. It has also spawned national organizations in many countries. The ASPO-USA is holding its third yearly conference this fall in Houston.

A number of former and present ministers have attended the ASPO meetings and members of ASPO have been influential in convincing the government of Sweden to acknowledge that world's dependence on oil is becoming precarious. The U.S. House of Representative has formed a Peak Oil Caucus and this month the U.K. All Party Parliamentary Group was formed to study this issue. A report commissioned by the Department of Energy warns what depletion of world's oil will mean great difficulties to the United States. A member of ASPO has testified in the Australian Senate. He observed how all the base metal prices have soared and urged the Australian government to instruct local government to act to insure good public transportation for the period in which automobile travel will become prohibitive. A chart which shows how base-metal prices have soared over the last three years affirms this.

The prediction that world's peak oil production will take place before the end of this decade is based on six criteria. First is a mathematical model developed by M. K. Hubbert, who predicted the U.S. peak 14 years before it happened. Second criterion examines when and how much oil has been discovered in the world. Third, since about half of world's oil comes from some 120 best producing fields, the age and size of these fields is tallied and their expected topping in oil production is assessed. Fourth criterion compares the independently arrived estimates for world's ultimate recoverable reserves and compares these with the model predictions. Fifth way is to examine which countries are already past their peak production, how many are near their peaks, and which countries still can increase production. Finally, at the peak, decline rates can be compared to start of new field development, from which the time for peak production can be estimated. All these point to world peak oil production to take place during the next three years.

The mathematical model developed by Hubbert is based on the logistic equation. Hubbert showed how to estimate the parameters in the model and applied it with success to U.S. oil production. The model also provides an estimate how much oil is yet-to-find. For the U.S. the present reserves are 22 billion barrels and there is still about 24 billion barrels to find.

Independent estimates of the world's original oil endowment that were carried out over the last 50 years give an average value of 2050 billion barrels of oil for this ultimately recoverable reserves. Applying Hubbert's method of estimating this gives 2209 billion barrels. This shows a reasonable agreement between the model and the independent estimates. World oil production peak is predicted to take place midyear 2008 and for all petroleum liquids by 2011. Cumulative discovery and cumulative production track each other with a 38 year lag.

World's largest fields are in decline. The second best producing field in the world, the Cantarell field of Mexico, peaked in production at 2.1 million barrels a day in the year 2004 and Mexico's national oil company Pemex projects its production to drop to 1.33 million barrels a day by the end of 2007.

Saudi Arabia's oil production is also decreasing despite tripling the number of drilling rigs operating in the country. A recent report from Kuwait is equally discouraging, as the Burgan field, its largest, is now in decline and indications are that the stated reserves are overblown by twice the actual.

In summary, world's oil production will pass its peak before the end of this decade. Already in 1972 a United Nations study, compiled in the book "Only One Earth", by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubois concluded that world will pass its peak oil production around the year 2000. The mathematical model establishes this date to be within three years, and discovery trend affirms this. Analysis shows that nearly half of world's oil production comes from old and ageing fields. It also shows that 12 of the 26 of world's best oil producing countries are in decline today. Of the remaining 14, which can still increase production, 9 are members of OPEC. New project starts are tabulated yearly by Chris Skrebowski, the editor of Petroleum Review of London. His conclusion is that depletion overtakes production by 2011.

In the United States 65% of oil consumption is for transportation. The main consumers are cars, light, and heavy trucks. Other users include construction and farm equipment, airline, water, and rail transport. Movement of oil and gas over pipelines contributes a small fraction.

As Americans built up the suburbs after WWII, they became totally dependent on cars. The future American city will have a different form than it is today. It will have to be served by a multimodal transportation system, a system which we are only now beginning to construct.
Natural Gas Depletion in the United States and North America
Natural gas is depleting rapidly in the U.S. The influential National Petroleum Council issued a report in March 2000 stating that supply was adequate and able to provide for growing demand which by 2010 would be 27 to 30 trillion cubic feet and that prices would remain under $3 per thousand cubic feet. In April, just one month after the report was issued, prices rose above $3 and by December they were $10. National Petroleum Council commissioned a new study in November 2002, at which time it was clear that North American natural gas was in decline.

World's natural gas reserves lie mainly in Russian Siberia, Iran and Qatar. Natural gas is shipped mostly by pipeline. In order to gain access to the large reserves in Asia and Middle East liquefaction facilities need to be built. But as natural gas is in decline in many parts of the world, as soon as these are built, stiff competition for liquefied natural gas will come from Europe and the Far East.

World's natural gas discovery took a large jump in 1970, when the North Field off the coast of Qatar was found. This was the peak discovery year and today production exceeds discovery. For North America discovery dropped fast during the interval from 1975 to 1985. Should the production drop equally fast during the next few years, only a fraction could be made up by liquefied gas. As time evolves natural gas users in North America will become painfully aware of the coming scarcity.

The depletion rates for natural gas in the U.S. are larger than for oil. Fields put into production in 1990 were down 17% after the first year, those put into production today deplete more than 30% during their first year of operation.

Natural gas consumption in the U.S. divides in the various sectors of the economy in the following way. Industrial use is 33%, electricity production accounts for 31%, residential demand is 22%, and the commercial sector uses 14%. The total consumption is 20 trillion cubic feet a year. Owing to the high prices of natural gas over the last ten years, industrial demand has dropped 22% during this period. The chemical industry has been particularly vulnerable and of the 80 new chemical plants being planned in the world today, none will be built in the U.S.
Community Responses to the Looming Energy Scarcity
It will be difficult for humanity to admit that severe energy shortages will begin to take place shortly. Our thinking has co-evolved with the gadgets that are now our disposal. But technological progress is based on ready availability of inexpensive energy, and with energy scarcity technological advances are likely to also slow. Psychologically it will be difficult for us to accept that past progress does not guarantee future progress and even if we begin to accept that world's fossil fuel depletion will put severe stresses on modern life, many of us think that this will only happen after our lives are over. The institutional and societal arrangements we have built are impediments for coping with the predicament we now face. For example, rather than promote a sensible transportation system based on rail and bicycles, most advocate hybrids and plug-in-hybrids in an attempt to keep the "car culture" going. Our living arrangements have put us into a terrible bind, for they have made us entirely dependent on cars.

Our fundamental difficulties come from the still growing population in the world.
Demographers believe that it will reach near 10 billion before it stabilizes. Were this to happen, all of us would need to use much less energy. To prepare for the future, our society needs to embrace the "precautionary principle" and pursue "no-regret" policies, both of which would serve us well in uncertain times. For Ohio such policies include a multimodal transportation system based on the Ohio Hub plan for intrastate passenger rail; an intercity rail system to tie smaller localities to Columbus; a light rail or a street car system for the city and bus system for those routes that cannot be served by rail.

If we are successful in developing a multimodal transportation system, a "transit oriented development" will follow naturally. This means that housing will be denser and thus more energy efficient. Transportation costs will decrease and farmland will be preserved for local food production.

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Oil and natural gas depletion and our future

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The development of modern industrial societies was possible because of cheap and abundant energy in the form of fossil fuels. Today oil accounts for 40% of the primary energy production; natural gas contributes 23%, and coal's contribution is also 23%. The rest is made up by nuclear energy at 8% and hydropower at 6%.

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Worldwide Thermal Pollution Crisis on Earth's Oceans

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Worldwide Thermal Pollution Crisis on Earth's Oceans

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This article explains how thermal pollution through power plants creates an impact on the world's oceans. By adding thermal energy to ocean water and releasing it back in the environment, affects the animal life in the aquatic habitat. Thermal pollution can also be caused through defrestation as the trees which block the sunlight are cut down, causing the sunlight to directly hit the water surface. The wildlife in the ocean need a constant temperature in the ocean and a sudden increase in water temperature would prove harmful for organisms as they are not yet adapted for this crisis. Overall, through power plants and other activities, thermal pollution is increasing causing a negative effect on underwater wildlife.

Ved Pimple

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Since the beginning of the last century, fossil fuel power plants have drastically diminished the quality of the air we breathe by venting most of the undesirable contaminants into the atmosphere. Despite regulatory and technical progress in pollution control, the degradation of air quality still continues, albeit at a reduced rate. But how many of us are aware that power plants also pollute rivers, lakes, and oceans? Unfortunately, we hardly mention this kind of water pollution when discussing the general issue of pollution.
Waste heat is an inevitable by-product of the power plants. In a fossil fuel power plant, the amount of heat energy rejected is approximately 60%. The amount rejected by a nuclear power plant is even larger -- close to 70%. The medium that receives this no longer-needed heat is the coolant from where water was drawn to keep the equipment cool. That is why power plants are almost always built near rivers, lakes, or seashores for a ready supply of cooling water. This practice of dumping the waste heat in the form of hot water into its natural source is called thermal pollution.
Besides power plants, thermal pollution is also caused by deforestation and soil erosion. This exposes water bodies to more sunlight, thereby raising the temperature. Whatever may be the cause, thermal pollution degrades water quality of the source by a process that changes its ambient temperature.
Adding hot water to the environment is not the simple act of dilution it might appear to be. To put this subtle disturbance into perspective, we must view an aquatic organism together with its environment as an integrated ecosystem. Thus heated liquid waste discharged into a river not only affects organisms directly, but also the entire ecosystem of the aquatic environment.
One of the vital requirements for the survival of an aquatic life form is its ambient temperature. Because water can absorb thermal energy while experiencing only small changes in temperature, most aquatic organisms have developed enzyme systems that operate in a narrow temperature range.
If the temperature change is gradual or a small amount of heat is added, acclimatisation is possible and the effect on the aquatic ecosystem will be minimal. On the other hand, if the change in temperature is sudden or a large quantity of heat is added, conditions can shift beyond the tolerance limits of the aquatic organisms' metabolic systems. In most cases, the consequences are lethal. This change can devastate even heat-tolerant species that are inured to warmer waters.
The presence of dissolved oxygen is probably the single most important factor in the biology of aquatic systems, and a great variety of physical and biological interactions stem from it. But as the temperature of water increases, its dissolved oxygen content decreases. Since metabolism requires oxygen, some species may be eliminated entirely if the water temperature rises by 10 degrees Celsius. Additionally, dissolved oxygen is the key to assimilation of organic wastes by microorganisms. Heating a water body will impair this assimilation.
Thermal pollution not only kills heat intolerant fish, but also plants, thereby disrupting the web of life dependent on the aquatic food chain. Also, the elimination of heat-intolerant species may allow less desirable heat-tolerant species to take over.
The life cycles of many aquatic organisms are closely and delicately geared to water temperature. Fish are often disturbed, migrate, and spawn in response to temperature cues. When water temperature is artificially changed, the disruption of aquatic organisms' normal activities and patterns can be catastrophic. There may be large-scale migration to an environment more favourable to their survival. The addition of new species of fish will change the eco-balance of the migrated area.
Water temperature also influences the early development of aquatic organisms. Furthermore, it affects the larvae and eggs of fish in rivers. For instance, trout eggs may not hatch if the water is too warm. Even if they hatch, they won't survive for long because aquatic juveniles are the least tolerant to abrupt temperature changes. Thermal pollution can also increase the susceptibility of aquatic organisms to parasites, toxins and pathogens, making them vulnerable to various diseases.
If thermal pollution continues for a long time, it can cause huge bacteria and plant growth leading to algae bloom that will subsequently result in even less oxygen in the water. Algae have unfavourable effects on aquatic life.
We have to realise that human behaviour has led to the pollution of the planet on which we live. As renowned explorer and environmentalist Jacques Cousteau said: "Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans." If we want a healthier planet with breathable air and unpolluted water, we have to use less energy, cleaner energy, or use energy in ways that will minimize adverse environmental impacts. To that end, we have to shift from fossil fuels and nuclear power to energy sources that won't change the chemical make-up of our land, air, and water. Otherwise, we have to learn to arrest emissions from power plants and other industries and sequester them away from our environment.
The writer is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.

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Thermal pollution of water by power plants

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Since the beginning of the last century, fossil fuel power plants have drastically diminished the quality of the air we breathe by venting most of the undesirable contaminants into the atmosphere. Despite regulatory and technical progress in pollution control, the degradation of air quality still continues, albeit at a reduced rate.

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The Decrease in Elephant Population because of Poaching By: Jared Weissberg

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The Decrease in Elephant Population because of Poaching By: Jared Weissberg

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Over time, humans have continued to slaughter animal populations in search of extravagance and resources.  This dilemma has caused millions of elephants to die and now another hundred thousand.  Humans continue to harm innocent species in search for tips to their intstrumental bows, piano keys, and billiards balls.  This is all in disregard for the elephant population, shown below.

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Ivory-seeking poachers have killed 100,000 African elephants in just three years, according to a new study that provides the first reliable continent-wide estimates of illegal kills. During 2011 alone, roughly one of every twelve African elephants was killed by a poacher.

In central Africa, the hardest-hit part of the continent, the regional elephant population has declined by 64 percent in a decade, a finding of the new study that supports another recent estimate developed from field surveys.

The demand for ivory, most notably in China and elsewhere in Asia, and the confusion caused by a one-time sale of confiscated ivory have helped keep black market prices high in Africa.

The new study, published in the August 19 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, led by George Wittemyer of Colorado State University, included local and regional population estimates and concluded that three-quarters of local elephant populations are declining.

The study authors conducted the first large-scale analysis of poaching losses using data on illegally killed elephants maintained by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).

Wittemyer and his team hope the new information will move the discussion beyond anecdotes and wild guesses. "I think it's the only quantitatively based estimate out there," he said.

Researchers and conservationists hope the analysis will prompt policy makers to take further action to stem the years-long onslaught of poaching, which now threatens the survival of elephants in Africa.

Previous estimates of population declines produced by study co-authors Julian Blanc and Kenneth Burnham, both of CITES, used similar data to examine poaching trends, but those estimates limited the analysis to just 66 sites that were being monitored.

"Nobody's put out any scientifically-based numbers for the continent," Wittemyer said. "People have said numbers, but they're based off guesses. This is the first hard estimate we have at that level."
Targeting the Policymakers
Although conservationists have agreed for years that there's an ongoing poaching crisis with huge implications for the future of African elephants, the authors point out that it's been "notoriously difficult to quantify" the raw number of animals killed by poachers.

In recent years poachers have perpetrated mass killings, such as the 2012 slaughter of hundreds of elephants with automatic weapons in Bouba Ndjidah National Park in Cameroon.

Poachers have also used poisoned arrows to kill iconic individual elephants. In February, a poison-tipped arrow killed Torn Ear, a well-known Kenyan elephant. (See "Mourning the Loss of a Great Elephant: Torn Ear.") Three months later, Satao, another of Kenya's most beloved elephants, was also killed by a poisoned arrow by poachers, who cut off his face to remove his massive tusks. (See "Beloved African Elephant Killed for Ivory-'Monumental' Loss.")

These criminal acts have prompted some official actions, including a U.S. ban on the commercial trade in ivory, but the killings continue at an unsustainable level, with new births unable to keep pace with the killings.

"At the higher policy levels there have been a lot of questions and debate about what the numbers actually are, what they indicate, and how we should be interpreting them," Wittemyer noted.

"There hasn't been a robust scientific piece to rely on definitively as the source. In my mind what we've locked down here and provided the community-and in my mind we're really targeting the policymakers-are definitive numbers on which they can act and on which they can discuss and debate approaches they can take."

In 2002 CITES created a program called MIKE (Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants) to attempt to quantify the number of elephants killed by poachers. Rangers at MIKE sites note all dead elephants they find and determine what proportion of the dead animals was illegally killed.

But the growing number of locations where monitoring is done-the program now monitors between 30 and 40 percent of the population-is still only a portion of the range of the species, and there are big differences in how closely these sites are monitored.

Another problem is that no one knows how many African elephants there are. Elephants are present over many thousands of square miles, which makes it expensive and time-consuming to estimate their overall numbers.

The most recent comprehensive population estimate for the continent-a range of between 472,000 and 690,000 elephants-was published in 2007 by the IUCN's African Elephant Specialist Group. That figure was based on the best available data at the time, which for some locations were already nearly a decade old.

The African Elephant Specialist Group continually collects updated population survey data for portions of the continent and shares them with researchers via its public database. But it has yet to produce a new comprehensive population estimate for the continent. Meanwhile, a continent-wide aerial survey, the Great Elephant Census, is under way, with results expected in mid-2015.

For their study, Wittemyer and his co-authors used the most recent population numbers available from the African Elephant Specialist Group database for well-monitored locations. The researchers calculated that in the absence of poaching, about 3 percent of an elephant population would be expected to die each year.

Applying the percentage of deaths from poaching in 2010 through 2012, derived from MIKE data at the most closely monitored sites, they were able to calculate the percentage, and the numbers, of elephants poached regionally and continent-wide.

Kenneth Burnham, the statistician with the MIKE program who devised this method, used a similar approach to project the number National Geographic magazine used in its October 2012 cover story, " Ivory Worship." The magazine reported that "it is 'highly likely' that poachers killed at least 25,000 African elephants in 2011. The true figure may even be double that."

The new study puts the 2011 number at 40,000 elephants slaughtered at the hands of poachers.

Trevor Jones, of the Southern Tanzania Elephant Project, who didn't participate in the study, said, "I think this paper represents an honest attempt to interpret the MIKE data, and no doubt its results and conclusions are broadly correct in describing an overall trend of large declines in elephant populations across Africa."

He points to continued misgivings about the MIKE numbers because they are based on a smaller number of carcasses than aerial surveys. "Aerial censuses of the Selous Game Reserve," Jones said, "estimate a decline from 2009 to 2013 of 39,000 to 13,000-yet the MIKE data estimate 4,931 elephants poached from 2010 to 2012."

Jones, like many others, is eager for the results of the forthcoming Great Elephant Census. "The best way to update data on population sizes in most areas is by aerial sampling, and I strongly suspect that the census is going to confirm the unprecedented scale of the current crisis for elephants across the continent. Those results cannot come a day too soon."

But aerial surveying has drawbacks too. Forest elephants can't be seen from the air, and assessing their numbers takes labor-intensive foot surveys of dung piles. A recent forest elephant survey took "80 foot-surveys; covering 13,000 km; 91,600 person-days of fieldwork," according to the study abstract.
What We Lose When We Lose Elephants
The huge scale of the losses of African elephants could reduce genetic diversity to the point where healthy and robust populations become dangerously weakened.

But, as Wittemyer said, the problem is greater than genetic diversity. "You're talking about the distribution of species and its ecological role."

Elephants are vital to the web of life in Africa. As a keystone species, they help balance all the other species in their ecosystem, opening up forest land to create firebreaks and grasslands, digging to create water access for other animals, and leaving nutrients in their wake. Sometimes called the " megagardeners of the forest," elephants are essential to the dispersal of seeds that maintain tree diversity.

Since three out of four local populations are declining, those losses have serious ecological implications. "That's a problem we probably didn't speak to strongly enough in this paper," Wittemyer said.
Follow Brad Scriber on Twitter.

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monitoring the illegal killing of elephants

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100,000 Elephants Killed by Poachers in Just Three Years, Landmark Analysis Finds

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Ivory-seeking poachers have killed 100,000 African elephants in just three years, according to a new study that provides the first reliable continent-wide estimates of illegal kills. During 2011 alone, roughly one of every twelve African elephants was killed by a poacher.

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The Global Banana Crisis 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 By: Corbin Tai

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The Global Banana Crisis 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 By: Corbin Tai

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Bananas are threatened, and we could be losing entire populations or species of bananas. Diseases have infected the bananas, and the disease may be able to wipe out an entire species.  In the 1960s, the Gros Michel species of bananas were thriving. They were vastly superior to today's bananas in the fact they didn't need artificial ripening, they tasted better, and they were more resistant to transport. However, a fungal disease called the Panama Disease mad ethe entire species commercially extinct. Now, the same thing may happen to our current Cavendish variety.
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/22/africa/banana-panama-disease/

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The humble banana is under attack by a disease that is spreading around the globe, and threatening Latin America's all-important export industry.

The industry is so worried about it, that it moved this week's International Banana Congress from Costa Rica to Miami at the last minute so that attendees wouldn't transport the disease to the region with the contaminated dirt on their shoes. Latin America is the primary source of bananas for North America and Europe.

The disease -- known as "Panama disease" or "Fusarium wilt" -- has already spread from Asia to parts of Australia, Africa and the Middle East. It specifically affects the Cavendish banana, which is the fruit that consumers in the West are accustomed to eating.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned this month that the $36 billion banana industry must act "to tackle one of the world's most destructive banana diseases."

An earlier strain of the Panama disease wiped out what had been the most popular banana variety in the 1960s, the Gros Michel. Producers subsequently adopted the Cavendish banana, which was deemed an inferior product but was resistant to the disease.

Related: No loser in cola wars. Coke & Pepsi thriving

Now, banana scientists and growers are considering which new banana might replace the current Cavendish variety, as a new strain of the disease has caused production to collapse in parts of Asia.

Taiwan has created a number of "mutant" Cavendish bananas that are being tested in the Philippines and China, according to Inge Van den Bergh, a senior banana scientist at Bioversity International in Belgium.

"They're quite promising," but they're not necessarily as tasty or suitable for long-distance transport, she told CNNMoney. There's no "silver bullet solution," she said.

For now, banana prices in Western grocery stores aren't rising since Latin America has been spared.

But consumers in North America and Europe could start seeing changes to their banana varieties and prices over the next decade if the Panama disease spreads to Latin America, Van den Bergh said.

The developing world is most at risk from the spreading disease, which stays in the soil for up to 40 years. Billions of dollars and billions of tons of food are at risk, and planting new varieties of bananas is very expensive.

"The spread of Fusarium wilt could have a significant impact on growers, traders and families who depend on the banana industry," warned plant pathologist Fazil Dusunceli from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

CNNMoney (London) First published April 19, 2016: 12:40 PM ET

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The industry is so worried about it, that it moved this week's International Banana Congress from Costa Rica to Miami at the last minute so that attendees wouldn't transport the disease to the region with the contaminated dirt on their shoes. Latin America is the primary source of bananas for North America and Europe.

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Most human activities in forests can affect this. These activities can include camping, chopping down trees for resources and fires. These activities affect three things listed. 1. Total area of forest remaining. 2. The condiguration of forest left. 3. The structure and composition of remaining forest. Most of these things can affect not only the forest, but the habitats of various organisms and animals as well. If this keeps on goung these organisms can go extinct.

Cesar Ruiz Alavez

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Mekong's forests are being deforested...

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Mekong's forests are being deforested...

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This article describes the impacts of deforestation on the Great Mekong ecoregion. It also states the future of the region itself. Abhishta Umesh

http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/forests/deforestation_fronts/deforestation_in_greater_mekong/

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This article explains how the rise of GMO farms have impacted the enviroment around it and what the risks are of have Genetically Modified Organisms in our fields today. Shannon Cunningham

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The debate around genetically modified organisms (GMO) is huge and heated on either side. One of the major considerations when arguing against the use of GMO products is the potential for environmental harm. What exactly are the environmental risks to consider in regards to GMOs?

First of all, it is important to understand what a GMO is precisely. The World Heath Organization (WHO) defines them as organisms whose DNA has been altered in a non-natural way. GM plants are usually changed to be insect resistant, virus resistant, or herbicide tolerant. With these changes come some potentially problematic environmental challenges.

Firstly, toxicity is a huge issue surrounding chemical pesticides and herbicides, used commonly with GMOs, in addition to the toxicity inherent to these plants. GMOs may be toxic to non-target organisms, bees and butterflies being the most talked-about examples currently. Bees are hugely important in the pollination of many food crops, but are unfortunately extremely endangered by modern agricultural techniques, such as GM crops. Monarch butterflies are specifically at risk from GMO maize plants. In addition to bees and butterflies, birds are also at risk from pesticides, and work as biological control agents and pollinators, again, like bees.

Furthermore, the longterm effects of GMOs are not certain. Pests that are targeted by these agricultural methods can adapt to pesticides and herbicides, in addition to the DNA changes in GM plants to make them ¨resistant.¨ This means that they will not always be effective, but their toxic legacies will remain.

Cumulative effects of products such as GMOs are important to take into consideration. Evidence also suggests that small genetic changes in plants may produce even larger ecological shifts, meaning that there is potential for GMO´s to become persistent and weedy in agricultural conditions, since they are modified to be resistant to some modern agricultural techniques. This can also mean being invasive in natural settings, where GMOs, of course, do not occur naturally. It is not impossible for new, human modified, plants to become invasive species in delicate, natural ecosystems.

Finally, biodiversity, while it is critical in all ecosystems and to the sustainability of all species, is put at risk by GMOs. When GM crops are planted, generally in a monocrop fashion, many heritage seeds are no longer used. The nature of GMOs means fewer weed flowers and, therefore, less nectar for pollinators. Toxins released into the soil through the plants´ routes mean fewer soil bacteria, which are integral to healthy soil for plants to grow without the use of chemical fertilizers. Toxic residues are left in the soil of GM crops. Nutrients are not returned to the soil in mono crops and from GMO foods, meaning that soil is becoming dry and void of all nutrients, generally integral to the growing process. A cycle of dependence on GMO seeds and chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides is then created in order to grow a single crop. In addition to soil issues, the irrigation used to grow GM foods naturally carries all of these problems into water sources and into the air. This exposes different bacteria, insects, and animals to the same problems.

All of these impacts must be taken into consideration in the larger picture; GMO´s DNA may end up in soil, compost, animal feed and byproducts, and other living organisms from insects to larger pests. Bees can transport pesticides, herbicides, and DNA through the air into the environment. Once a plant is introduced in an agricultural environment, it is reasonable to assume it will become part of a larger ecosystem, meaning the problem of environmental damage done by GMOs is much larger than simply potentially harming our health.

Aside from environmental issues, GMOs are the topic of social and ethical debates as well. It goes without saying that we live in an inter-connected world, where the way we interact with nature can cause a complex array of consequences. Being informed on the food we are consuming, and the way modern agricultural techniques are affecting the environment, is one effective way of consciously interacting with the natural world.

Image Source: James Jordan/Flickr

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The debate around genetically modified organisms (GMO) is huge and heated on either side. One of the major considerations when arguing against the use of GMO products is the potential for environmental harm. What exactly are the environmental risks to consider in regards to GMOs?

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The Effects of Light Pollution on Sea Turtles

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The Effects of Light Pollution on Sea Turtles

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By: Amy Ollendorff

Light pollution has caused a huge impact on the sea turtle population. Sea turtles can become disoriented from the shore lighting while trying to follow the moon, and get lost on land and become sick or dehydrated. Years ago, these animals had no trouble finding there way to the sea, but now that humans have taken over their environment with the lighting we created, their population is declining.

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Information About Sea Turtles: Threats from Artificial Lighting – Sea Turtle Conservancy

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The Problem: Nesting turtles once had no trouble finding a quiet, dark beach on which to nest, but now they must compete with tourists, businesses and coastal residents for use of sandy beaches. U.S. beaches, popular with humans and turtles alike, are now lined with seaside condominiums, houses and…

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The impact on the Earth by humans has increased, but less than expected.

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The impact humans have on the environment has grown substantially in the last 16 years-so much so that a new study concludes three-quarters of Earth's land surface is under pressure from human activity. But the research also shows that humanity's footprint on the planet hasn't grown as fast as the overall population, and that may give conservationists cause for hope.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, is based on analysis of satellite imagery and other data from 1993 and 2009. Researchers sought to rigorously map our impact on the global environment-called the human footprint-and how it has changed. They found that while the human footprint has not grown in direct proportion to population or the economy, some of the most intense pressure is being felt in places with the highest diversity of plant and animal life.

It's become clear that humans are modifying the planet on a very large geological scale, says the study's lead author, forest conservation scientist Oscar Venter of the University of Northern British Columbia. "We thought the timing was right to get a better understanding of where the last wild places on the planet are and how those places have contracted over the last two decades and how the footprint has expanded into them," he says.

The new study is part of a growing research trend that capitalizes on improvements in satellite technology to map and monitor human activities such as deforestation, oil drilling, and movement of refugees. A recent study in Science used satellite data to map poverty. And as sensors become more sensitive, resolution improves. That, combined with more comprehensive satellite coverage, means scientists are able to map how all of these things change on finer and shorter scales, which is what Venter's team did with the human footprint.

Building on the first comprehensive human footprint analysis published by the Wildlife Conservation Society in 2002, Venter and his colleagues used various kinds of satellite data to analyze eight different categories of human impacts, including the extent of built environments, cropland and pasture land, population density, nighttime lights, roads, railways, and navigable waterways. They also used census data for population density and the gROADS project to track roads.

For every square kilometer of land on Earth (excluding Antarctica), each category was scored according to its impact on the environment relative to the other categories. The researchers then combined these scores for each square kilometer for 1993 and 2009, and looked at how things changed.

Much of what they found was predictably depressing. For example, in 1993, just 27 percent of the land had no measurable human footprint. By 2009, that had grown by 9.3 percent, or 23 million square kilometers. Most of the remaining footprint-free land was in places that aren't good for agriculture or cities, such as the Sahara, Gobi, and Australian deserts, the most remote portions of tropical rainforests in the Amazon and Congo, and the tundra. (You can explore the results online with interactive footprint maps, and the maps and data are all publicly available.) The upside of the findings is that while population increased by 23 percent, the average score for the human footprint increased by just 9 percent. Even more promising is the fact that during that same 16-year period, the global economy has grown 153 percent, 16 times the rate of footprint growth.

This is encouraging and potentially very important, says research ecologist Samuel Cushman of the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station. "We are in an age of extinction, but the difference between a truly mass extinction and just broad-scale extinction could hinge on this linkage between how fast the human footprint grows and if it is less than population growth or more than population growth."

But the news is not uniformly good. Human pressure on the environment is distributed unevenly, and while some wealthier regions are showing a modest decrease in human impact, other parts of the world have experienced increasingly intense pressure. The footprint more than doubled in areas such as the New Guinea mangroves and the Purus Varzea rain forest in the Amazon, and it jumped more than 1,000 percent in the Baffin coastal tundra. The Torngat Mountain tundra saw an increase of more than 10,000 percent.

Many of these areas experiencing the most pressure are also among the most biodiverse places on Earth. Among the hardest hit are areas with more than 1,500 plant species and areas with a at least 14 vertebrate species that are classified as threatened.

"When we looked at the most species-rich parts of the planet, the biodiversity hotspots, previously we thought about 15 percent of [their extent] was still natural. But our map of the human footprint showed actually only 3 percent of biodiversity hotspots are still natural," Venter says. "This is really important because this is the most biologically valuable real estate on the planet. This is where we have unusually high concentrations of species that you just don't see anywhere else."

Things look a little better for areas with the highest concentration of bird, mammal, and amphibian species, such as the Amazon Basin, which is still largely free from human impact. However, the researchers found that footprint-free territory within these biodiverse areas has rapidly declined since 1993.

These results suggest that the best conservation strategy may be to focus protection efforts on these species-rich areas and on remaining swaths of wilderness.

"They're quite unique, and once they're gone, they're really gone," Venter says. "I think looking at the parts of the planet that are still wild and finding ways of keeping them as they are, keeping them free of humans, should be something that we're really thinking about."

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Maps Show Humans' Growing Impact on the Planet

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The impact humans have on the environment has grown substantially in the last 16 years-so much so that a new study concludes three-quarters of Earth's land surface is under pressure from human activity. But the research also shows that humanity's footprint on the planet hasn't grown as fast as the overall population, and that may give conservationists cause for hope.

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Scarcity in fish dictates that economic decisions must be made regularly to control the descending rates of species in the sea. Overfishing can have an adverse effect on marine biodiversity because it indirectly targets the surrounding aquatic organisms that rely on fish. In one way or another, we are creating an issue that will only harm us. We must all learn to manage the availability of resources to meet and defy human needs in society.

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Fossil fuels: The depletion and prevention

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Fossil fuels: The depletion and prevention

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Archis Shankaran

The article speaks about the growing demand  of urbanization and the
fear of the overusage of fossil fuels. Furthermore, the article speaks about how we are unecessarily wasting energy. Because of this, our natural resources are slowly running out. To add on, there are several reasons why we are overusing fossil. These range from automotive industries all the way to the overusage pf gasoline in automobiles to trains. Finally, various methods to prevent the overusage and waste of
fossil fuels is discussed. To prevent the overusage, one cam use electric cars and smarter methods to complete activities.

https://followgreenliving.com/fossil-fuels-depletion-prevention/

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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African Congo Deforestation may be on the decline...

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This article describes the decline of deforestation and rainforest clear-cutting since 2000. Mr. Isaacson.

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.

The special issue, which was put together by Yadvinder Malhi, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Rebecca Asare, Simon Lewis and Philippe Mayaux, covers a range of issues relating to the rainforests of the Congo Basin, including deforestation, the impacts of global change, the history and key characteristics of the region's forests, and resource extraction, among others.

With 178 million hectares of rainforests, the Congo Basin is second only to the Amazon in terms of tropical forest cover. Overall the region accounts for 89 percent of Africa's tropical rainforests and stores 39 billion tons of carbon, accounting for 79 percent of the continent's terrestrial carbon.
Congo deforestation on the decline
Analysis of satellite data by Philippe Mayaux and colleagues shows the Congo Basin - at 0.3 percent annual forest loss - has the lowest deforestation rate of the planet's major tropical forest regions, both in proportional and absolute terms. The region's deforestation rate is also declining, falling 36 percent from 285,400 hectares a year in the 1990s to 181,500 ha per year in the 2000s. Africa's overall rate of rainforest loss is outpacing that of the Congo, falling more than half from 592,000 ha in the 1990s to 288,000 ha per year during the past decade.

The special issue notes that Africa's relative low rate of forest loss is a product of its circumstances, including "the almost complete absence of agro-industrial scale clearing", which globally accounts for more than half of tropical forest loss. Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University analyses drivers of deforestation in the region and finds that oil and mineral wealth seem to be acting as a deterrent to deforestation by triggering urban migration away from forest areas. But at the same time, this shift appears to weakening food security by increasing countries' dependence on food importance.

"The wetter Congo basin countries had lower rates of deforestation, in part because tax receipts from oil and mineral industries in this region spurred rural to urban migration, declines in agriculture and increased imports of cereals from abroad," writes Rudel. "In this respect, the Congo basin countries may be experiencing an oil and mineral fueled forest transition."

The research found most deforestation is "found around transport networks and close to cities, including areas suitable for agriculture within 5 hours travel time to major markets, and wood fuel and charcoal provisioning within 12 hours from a city."

But unlike other parts of the world, research published in the special issue suggests that commercial logging does not appear to be a major driver of deforestation in the Congo Basin. Instead it drives forest degradation and is associated with the burgeoning bushmeat trade by granting access via logging roads to hunters.

"In the high diversity African tropics, there are typically only one to two timber trees harvested per hectare, and it makes little economic sense to clear cut forests remote from markets," write Malhi and colleagues. "This contrasts with Southeast Asia, where the dipterocarp-rich forests yield many more timber species, and are much more intensively logged (around 10-20 trees per hectare) and heavily damaged by logging."

"Mayaux et al and Rudel explore the possible linkages between logging and subsequent deforestation. They find little evidence of logging leading to deforestation, either at national or local scales. One key difference from Amazonia is the lack of an active colonization frontier with pressure to clear logged forest. The loose network of logging tracks, owing to the light exploitation density, combined with the low population density, does not provoke the critical conditions for deforestation, except around a few concessions in the DRC."

Another paper in the special issue looks specifically at the effects of logging on the structure and dynamics of the forest. Sylvie Gourlet-Fleury and colleagues found that while biomass and forest function rebounds quickly from logging within 25 years, commercial trees take "much longer" to recovery. Meanwhile, a review by Kate Abernethy reveals that "defaunation" from unsustainable hunting can have persistent, long-term impacts on forest structure by reducing the abundance of key seed dispersers and "forest architects" like elephants.
Elephants may have an outsized role in Congo Basin forests. As noted by Simon Lewis and others, elephants may be partly responsible for the region's tall trees and high biomass, by crushing and eating small trees.

"The extremely low stem density in African forests may relate to the very high large animal biomass: elephants ( Loxodonta africana cyclotis), gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and other large herbivores such as bongos ( Tragelaphus eurycerus) may keep the density of small trees very low," Lewis and colleagues write. "This view is reinforced by a recent paper from Southeast Asia showing a large increase in sapling density when the large animal fauna is extirpated."

Lewis and co-authors note that, on average, Congo forests are taller and less diverse than Asia or the Amazon. But they store nearly as much carbon as the great Dipterocarp forests of Borneo.
The great unknown for Congo forests: climate change
While Congo Basin forests appear to be absorbing more carbon at present, the science on the impact of climate change in the region is far from settled. Climate models agree that the Congo basin will see a sharp rise in temperatures - up to 4°C this century, but it is uncertain how vegetation and wildlife will respond to the new conditions. Furthermore, parts of the basin may see shifts in precipitation patterns, including "wetting of the eastern regions" and "intensified dry seasons in the western Congo Basin". Reconstructions of past vegetation cover in the region shows that Congo forests have waxed and waned with climate change, including a "substantial" retreat 3,000 years ago.

Richard Washington and colleagues note that part of the problem in predicting the effects of climate change in the Congo Basin is lack of understanding of current conditions.

"The Congo Basin is poorly studied because of the dearth of available ground-based climate observations from the region, particularly in the past few decades," write Malhi and colleagues. "This deficiency is of global significance, because the Congo Basin is the second most important convective 'engine' of the global atmospheric circulation after the Maritime Continent (insular Southeast Asia and the surrounding waters) and is also the region of highest lightning strike frequencies on the planet [57]. In transition seasons (March-May and September-November), the Congo Basin dominates global tropical rainfall."

Comparison of the satellite images and forest-cover maps over the region of Lisala-Bumba (DR Congo). (a) MODIS color composite; (b) Landsat color composite; (c) MODIS-derived map (Mayaux et al 2013 study); (d ) Landsat-derived map; (e) GlobCover map and ( f ) synthesis map.

Planning for the future
Given the importance of Congo forests, the special issue includes papers on conservation options in the region. Unsurprisingly, a big focus is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) mechanism, a program that aims to provide performance-based compensation to tropical countries for protecting their forests. REDD+ could potentially trigger the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Congo Basin countries, but has yet to overcome significant technical, economic, and political challenges. Nonetheless, some $550 million has already been committed to REDD+ in the region, which the issue suggests "may already be having an impact on slowing down deforestation and degradation activities in the region."

Malhi and colleagues note that there may be a limited window for consolidating conservation gains in the region given rising interest in industrial agriculture, especially oil palm plantations.

"A major threat to the forest biome is the potential of a shift to commercial agro-plantations, the write. "If poorly planned, then these industrial croplands could lead to extensive loss of forests as witnessed in Southeast Asia, and in soya bean regions of Amazonia, especially when combined with poor governance."

Rainforest logs in Gabon
Need for more research
The special section ends with a call to better understand Congo Basin forests.

"This short synthesis has highlighted many surprising aspects of the African rainforest biome, and how different it is in many aspects from other, perhaps better understood, rainforest regions. It has also highlighted how little we know and how much there is still to discover," write Malhi and colleagues. "There are reasons for concern, such has the heavy levels of defaunation and the potential impacts of climate change, and reasons for hope, such as the low rates of deforestation and the possible resilience of rainforest species to climate change."

"We call on the research and policy communities to redouble efforts to give this fascinating rainforest continent the attention it so richly deserves."

Young gorilla in Gabon

PAPERS IN THE SPECIAL ISSUE:

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. Introduction: The past, present and future of Africa's rainforests

Mayaux, Philippe; Pekel, Jean-François; Desclée, Baudouin; Donnay, François; Lupi, Andrea; Achard, Frédéric; Clerici, Marco; Bodart, Catherine; Brink, Andreas; Nasi, Robert; Belward, Alan. State and evolution of the African rainforests between 1990 and 2010

Lewis, Simon et al. Aboveground biomass and structure of 260 African tropical forests

Mitchard, Edward; Flintrop, Clara. Assessing the relative magnitude of woody encroachment and deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa's woodlands and savannas 1982-2006

Rudel, Thomas. The National Determinants of Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Oslisly, Richard; White, Lee; Bentaleb, Ilham; Favier, Charly; Fontugne, Michel; Gillet, Jean François; Sebag, David. Climatic and cultural changes in the West Congo Basin forests over the past 5000 years

Willis, Katherine; Bennett, Keith; Burrough, Sallie; Macias-Fauria, Marc; Tovar, Carolina. Determining the response of African biota to climate change: using the past to model the future

Abernethy, Kate; Coad, Lauren; Taylor, Gemma; Lee, Michelle; Maisels, Fiona. Extent and ecological consequences of hunting in Central African rainforests in the 21st Century

Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie; Mortier, Frédéric; Fayolle, Adeline; Baya, Fidèle; Ouedraogo, Dakis; Benedet, Fabrice; Picard, Nicolas. Tropical forest recovery from logging: a 24 year silvicultural experiment from Central Africa

Fisher, Joshua; Sikka, Munish; Sitch, Stephen; Ciais, Philippe; Poulter, Benjamin; Galbraith, David; Lee, Jung-Eun; Huntingford, Chris; Viovy, Nicolas; Zeng, Ning; Ahlström, Anders; Lomas, Mark; Levy, Peter; Frankenberg, Christian; Saatchi, Sassan; Malhi, Yadvinder. African tropical rainforest net CO2 fluxes in the 20th century
James, Rachel; Washington, Richard; Rowell, David. Implications of global warming for the climate of African rainforests

Washington, Richard; James, Rachel; Pearce, Helen; Pokam, Wilfried; Moufouma-Okia, Wilfran. Congo Basin rainfall climatology: can we believe the climate models?

Otto, Friederike; Jones, Richard; Halladay, Kate; Allen, Myles. Attribution of changes in precipitation patterns in African rainforests

Asefi-Najafabady, Salvi; Saatchi, Sassan. Response of African humid tropical forests to recent rainfall anomalies

Maniatis, Danae; Gaugris, Jerome; Mollicone, Danilo; Scriven, Joel; Corblin, Alexis; Ndikumagenge, Cleto; Aquino, André; Crete, Philippe; Sanz-Sanchez, Maria-José. Financing and current capacity for REDD+ readiness and monitoring, measurement, reporting and verification in the Congo Basin

Asare, Rebecca. The Community Resource Management Area Mechanism: A strategy to manage African forest resources for REDD+

Gond, Valery; Fayolle, Adeline; Pennec, Alexandre; Cornu, Guillaume; Mayaux, Philippe; Camberlin, Pierre; Doumenge, Charles; Fauvet, Nicolas; Gourlet-Fleury, Sylvie. Vegetation structure and greenness in central Africa from modis multi-temporal data

Malhi, Yadvinder; Adu-Bredu, Stephen; Asare, Rebecca; Lewis, Simon; Mayaux, Philippe. African rainforests: past, presents and future

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Deforestation rate falls in Congo Basin countries

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Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a set of 18 papers on the region's tropical forests.