Archive for the ‘Global Warming’ Category

Solar Rush In the Golden State

Thursday, July 8th, 2010
by Dr. Mike Connor, WWP California
Desert Tortoise, Photo © Dr. Michael J. Connor

Desert Tortoise, Photo © Dr. Michael J. Connor

The verdict is still out on what the specific impacts of global climate change really will be for our desert wildlands but government responses are definitely posing new challenges to already stressed wildlife on public lands.  Climate change does pose a threat to biodiversity and may even threaten entire ecosystems.  Meeting these threats requires more protection of sensitive habitats, particularly those providing connectivity for species movements, to preserve ecological flexibility.  Unfortunately, so far the response of the agencies has been just the opposite of what is needed.  They are allowing many of the public lands that would provide this flexibility to be considered for the industrial scale development of so-called green energy projects by private industry. (more…)

Climate Change and Cattle: The One-Two Punch for Cutthroat

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
westslope cutthroat trout

Westslope Cutthroat Trout, photo: copyright Pat Clayton

by Larry Zuckerman, WWP

When Captain Meriwether Lewis spoke of “speckled trout” in his 1805
journal entry at Great Falls, Montana and then again in 1806, at Fort Clatsop near Astoria,
Oregon, he was unaware that he was first to write about these distinctive Western trout, which now bear the species name “clarki”, in honor of expedition partner, Captain William Clark. He also didn’t know he was describing two different subspecies: Westslope cutthroat trout in the Upper Missouri River and coastal cutthroat trout, an anadromous form, from the Columbia River. In fact, “Lewis and Clark’s trout” or Westslope cutthroat trout, the state fish for Idaho and Montana, bears Latinized versions of the brazen explorers’ names – Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi.

There are 14 subspecies of cutthroat trout in the West as described by eminent ichthyologist, Dr. Robert Behnke of Colorado State University. While two are extinct, the remaining 11 Interior subspecies have suffered catastrophic declines. Examining most of the 19th Century accounts of the Interior cutthroat trout, one would find only non-natives like brown trout, brook trout, and rainbow trout at historic sites like the Green River, Rio Grande, and Lake Tahoe. (more…)

Meat the Truth

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Meat the Truth is a high-profile documentary, presented by Marianne Thieme (leader of the Party for the Animals, the Netherlands), which forms an addendum to earlier films that have been made about climate change. Although such films have convincingly succeeded in drawing public attention to the issue of global warming, they have repeatedly ignored one of the most important causes of climate change, namely: intensive livestock production. Meat the Truth has drawn attention to this by demonstrating that livestock farming generates more greenhouse gas emissions worldwide than all cars, lorries, trains, boats and planes added together.

Part 1 :

Part 2:
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“Nothing grows there…”

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Desert Ferns

For a decade I have watched and complained as hordes of domestic sheep are annually run across melting snowbank areas in the Jarbidge country of the northern Humboldt-Toiyabe Forest. Untold thousands (millions?) of hoofprints compact and pock soils, and destroy newly emerging plants. Such damaging practices are well-known in the earlier range literature to denude, erode, gully, generally dry up and desertify headwaters.

In the arid West moisture dictates all. Prevailing winter winds blow snow across sagebrush plateaus and ridges. At the leeward edge, below rimrocks and upper slopes, this drifted snow accumulates in packed drifts. It persists into summer, slowly melting. The melting drifts can support diverse native plant communities. While grasses in the surrounding sagebrush uplands are already tan and dry, spring in the snow pocket comes in late July or even August. Rivulets of cool melt water feed stream networks.

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New Year’s Resolution Ideas: Red meat produces 3.5 times more greenhouse gases than other food

Monday, December 29th, 2008

More compelling science indicating livestock production significantly contributes to climate change.  (Emphasis added) :

 

American Geophysical Union
2008 Fall Meeting

The GHG and Land Demand Consequences
of the US Animal-Based Food Consumption

Martin, P A Dept. of Geophysics, 5734 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, United States

Eshel, G Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale, NY 12504-5000, United States

Abstract: While the environmental burdens exerted by food production are  addressed by several recent publications, the contributions of  animal-based food production, and in particular red meat—by far the most environmentally exacting of all large-scale animal-based foods—are less well quantified. We present several simple calculations that quantify some environmental costs of animal- and cattle-based food production. First, we show that American red meat is, on average, 350% more GHG (greenhouse gas) -intensive per edible calorie than the national food system’s mean. Second, we show that the per calorie land-use efficiencies of fruit and beans are 5 and 3 times that of animal-based foods. That is, an animal-based edible calorie requires the same amounts of land as 5 fruit calories or 3 bean calories. We conclude with highlighting the importance of these results to policy makers by calculating the mass flux into the environment of fertilizer and herbicide that will be averted by reducing or eliminating animal-based foods from the mean US diet. This also enables us to make preliminary quantitative statements about expected changes to the size and probability of Gulf of Mexico anoxic events of a certain O2 depletion levels that are likely to accompany specific dietary shifts.

You can do your part with a New Year’s Resolution to eliminate or significantly reduce your consumption of red meat – it’s not hard, and it’s good for the natural environment.

Federal Protection Sought for Rapidly Declining Sonoran Desert Tortoises

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Arizona, 10/09/08: Today, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians filed a petition requesting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) list the Sonoran desert tortoise population under the Endangered Species Act and designate critical habitat to protect the animal. The petition provides substantial scientific data showing that monitored Sonoran desert tortoise populations have declined by 51% since 1987 throughout their range in Arizona.

Sonoran desert tortoises show marked genetic and behavioral differences from tortoises found in the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Desert population was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. When the Mojave population of desert tortoises was listed, the USFWS declined to list desert tortoises east of the Colorado River on the grounds that they were less imperiled than their Mojave cousins. The dramatic declines seen in Sonoran Desert tortoise populations since then now require swift action by the federal government.

The petition catalogs many threats that contribute to tortoise declines including disease, livestock grazing, mining, urban sprawl, use of off-road vehicles, border patrol activities, and a lack of adequate legal protections. Extended drought caused by climate change is an additional threat. Biologists fear that human activities combined with environmental stress may be increasing susceptibility to two diseases that are now becoming increasingly common among Sonoran desert tortoise populations. A disease epidemic led to emergency federal protection for tortoises in the Mojave Desert in 1989. The combined assault of threats such as disease, cattle grazing, and development are pushing Sonoran desert tortoises closer and closer to extinction.

Click the links to read the Listing Petition and WWP Press Release

What’s wrong with what we eat

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

BLM proposes to fence one of largest ranges in West

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

The BLM is proposing to spend $1 million building 100 miles of fences in one of America’s largest fence-free ranges in Wyoming’s Green Mountain Common Allotment. This area has the potential to host abundant diverse wildlife – but has been pounded by livestock for so long that the BLM seeks to fence it down into 6 allotments.

BLM struggles to find balance on Green Mountain allotment

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Safari Club intervenes on grizzly protection litigation

Monday, November 12th, 2007

The Helena Independent Record reports on US District Judge Lodge’s decision to allow the Safari Club to participate in litigation concerning grizzly bears being dropped from Endangered Species Act protection.

Hunting group intervenes in lawsuit over grizzly bear protection

Safari Club officials said they want to prevent the grizzly bear from regaining protection under the Endangered Species Act. They said federal protection for the bear “deprives the states of their management authority,” blocks states from preventing declines in deer, elk and moose populations and would prevent sustainable bear hunting in the future.

Inadequate consideration for the health of grizzlies’ future food supply given die-off of white pine (grizzly bears eat the nuts) and global warming are among the major issues involved in the of seven conservation groups, including Western Watersheds Project, decision to litigate the rushed delisting.

Global Warming, Western Ranching, and the Bovine Curtain

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

George Wuerthner has written an excellent opinion piece published in NewWest about one of the many consequences of livestock production in the United States. Global Warming, Western Ranching, and the Bovine Curtain brings you compelling information about one of the most effective ways that anyone can change their behavior to reduce their contribution to global warming emissions ~ Stop eating beef.