Green Options

As the earth warms, the melting of the earth’s two massive ice sheets—Antarctica and Greenland—could raise sea level enormously. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, it would raise sea level 7 meters (23 feet). Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level 5 meters (16 feet). But even just partial melting of these ice sheets will have a dramatic effect on sea level rise.

Fourty percent or more of the Amazon rainforest will be “decimated” by the middle of the next century even if we cut all CO2 emissions by 2050, said the UK Met Office. The finding was presented this past month in Copenhagen, which is preparing to host the UN Climate Change Conference in December.

In this satellite image of deforestation in Brazil, tropical rainforest appears bright red, while pale red and brown areas represent cleared land. Black and gray areas have probably been recently burned.

Lester R. Brown - Earth Policy Institute

In the May issue of Scientific American Lester R. Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute, discusses how food shortages could be the weak link that brings down civilization.

In this feature article, “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” Brown notes that the biggest threat to global political stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse. Those crises are brought on by rising demand and ever worsening environmental degradation.

“In the twentieth century,” Brown says, “dramatic rises in grain prices results from poor harvests. They were event-driven and short-lived. In contrast, the recent escalation in world grain prices is trend-driven, making it unlikely to reverse the rise in food prices without a reversal in the trends themselves.”

A new study from the journal Nature Geoscience has found that 50% of the total temperature increases in the Arctic over the last century have been due to black carbon, a substance that only stays in the atmosphere for several days to weeks.

This means that if black carbon emissions were immediately halted, it may only take a few weeks for warming trends to reverse by half.

The Nature Conservancy announced this week that they have purchased ranchland in Shasta, California and hope to return Big Springs Creek to its former glory as a major salmon run.

The organization noticed the creek’s consistent, glacier-fed flowing water supply should make it the perfect spawning area for the embattled Pacific salmon, but it wasn’t being properly cared for. Years later, they’ve purchased 4,136 acres of surrounding land and plan to fence off the creek to protect it.

Tibetan glaciers are melting faster than predicted. Nearly a sixth of the world’s population, one billion people, directly depend on the glaciers for survival.

The Tibetan plateau has an average height of 14,000 feet above sea level. It is also home to over ten thousand glaciers. This gargantuan network of ice feeds some of the longest rivers in the world: Salween (2820 km) Mekong (4880 km) Yellow (3180 km) Yangtze (6380 km) Indus (3180 km) and Brahmaputra (2900 km).

Seasonal glacial melting provides vast quantities of water to these rivers and their watersheds. It is critical to all life there. An Ohio State University researcher named Lonnie Thompson, who has studied the region, is very concerned global warming could cause the glaciers to shrink below levels that currently support the local ecosystems, and human communities.

In a press conference on Thursday, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, shared his concern that greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere will lead to grain and water shortages in India and China as well as rising grain prices in the United States.

“The world has never faced such a massively predictable potential reduction in grain harvest as we are now looking at with the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau,” said Mr. Brown. “Keep in mind, this is not based off of a climate model with somewhat theoretical projections. This analysis is based on what is already happening–on a trend that’s very well established in both India and in China.”

Glaciers are melting. It’s a fact. In terms of global warming, the guilt rests with us. We already saw how many of Switzerland’s glaciers are disappearing. Unfortunately, they are not alone.

Pedro Skvarca, glaciologist from Argentina in Antarctica, witnessed the progressive retreating of glaciers from the White Continent in the last ten years.

The Canary Project is banking not only on the old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," but that the right picture — or pictures — can resonate and inspire viewers to take action against global warming.

Founded in 2006, The New York-based Canary Project initially set out to build public awareness of climate change by photographing landscapes around the world that are already feeling the impact. It has

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Think the Arctic is a sovereign landmass neutral to any particular country or organization? Think again. With Global Warming speeding up ice melt in the region, a massive competitive land grab is heating up between countries all over the world eager to get access to the riches that may become available. What's the number one resource everyone is eager to tap into? Well, oil of course.

It is estimated by scientists that nearly 25%

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