8 May 2015 One Million Women is seeking support: We have been campaigning over the past 12 months urging the World Heritage Committee to declare the Great Barrier Reef as ‘World Heritage in Danger’ to protect it from reckless industrialisation for dirty coal and coal seam gas, and from chronic climate change threats. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE We have over 40,000 signatures to our open letter to the World Heritage Committee but we want to get that to 100,000 by the end of the month! (NEXT MONTH the World Heritage Committee meets to rule on the Reef’s fate – whether or not to declare it ‘in Danger’ and protect it for future generations.) PLEASE SHARE our new 1 Million Women clip with all your networks and ADD YOUR NAME to protect the Reef (if you haven’t already)! To Give Support go here
Category Archives: Ecosystem Stress
1 May 2015, The Conversation: Climate change could empty wildlife from Australia’s rainforests. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that the world’s wildlife and those who want to conserve it have ever faced. To save wildlife, we are going to have to help animals, plants and ecosystems adapt. But first we need to know just how many species are at risk and why. A paper published today in Science by Mark Urban, Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, estimates on average we will lose about 17% (or about one in six) of all species on Earth by 2100. This massive impact will be felt across all groups of species and ecosystems although it is predicted to be worse in South America, Australia and New Zealand. Australia is predicted to lose approximately 14% of its species…. Read More here
1 May 2015, The Conversation: One in six species faces extinction as a result of climate change.The Earth is on course to lose up to one in six of all its species, if carbon emissions continue as they currently are. This global extinction risk masks very large regional variations. Up to a quarter of South American species may be doomed. These are some of the findings of a comprehensive piece of new research conducted by evolutionary ecologist Mark Urban and published in Science. Read More here
29 April 2015 Climate News Network: High anxiety that mountain peaks are warming faster. Scientists call for international efforts to determine why temperatures on high-altitude mountains appear to be rising faster than in nearby lowlands. Temperatures could be climbing on mountains − with new research suggesting that the highest altitudes may be warming at a rate greater than expected.Members of the Mountain Research Initiative collective report in Nature Climate Change that they found evidence that mountain peak regions were warming faster than the surrounding plateaus and lowlands.The study − by Nick Pepin, leader of the Environmental Processes and Change Research Group at Portsmouth University in the UK, and colleagues from the US, Switzerland, Canada, Ecuador, Pakistan, China, Italy, Austria and Kazakhstan − comes with more than the usual set of health warnings. Read More here