It’s Time to Colonise Earth!
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, News, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh September 2, 2010
Ascension Island, in the Pacific Ocean (source)
It seems Darwin was a permaculturist!
In his days globetrotting aboard HMS Beagle, Darwin set in motion the transformation of a dead, volcanic island rock – Ascension Island, described by nearby islanders as "a cinder" – into a green, rain-creating oasis. How did he do it?
Comments (4)Words Fail Us
Biodiversity — by George Monbiot August 23, 2010
By Guillaume Chapron and George Monbiot
 Photo © copyright Craig Mackintosh Note by photographer/editor: This photo was taken in a wildlife park in New Zealand. Just a few weeks later the gecko was stolen from the park, and suspected of being smuggled into Asia. It had an estimated ‘value’ of NZ$10,000 according to newspaper reports at the time. If only people would go to such lengths to preserve rare species and habitats rather than cashing in on their rarity…. Please support Guillaume Chapron and George Monbiot’s bid to give the powers that be a bit of a push. |
It’s on course to make the farcical climate talks in Copenhagen look like a roaring success. The big international meeting in October which is meant to protect the world’s biodiversity is destined to be an even greater failure than last year’s attempt to protect the world’s atmosphere. Already the UN has conceded that the targets for safeguarding wild species and wild places in 2010 have been missed: comprehensively and tragically(1).
In 2002, 188 countries launched a global initiative, usually referred to as the 2010 biodiversity target, to achieve by this year a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss. The plan was widely reported as the beginning of the end of the biodiversity crisis. But in May this year, the Convention on Biological Diversity admitted that it had failed. It appears to have had no appreciable effect on the rate of loss of animals, plants and wild places.
In a few weeks, the same countries will meet in Nagoya, Japan and make a similarly meaningless set of promises(2). Rather than taking immediate action to address their failures, they will concentrate on producing a revised target for 2020 and a “vision” for 2050, as well as creating further delays by expressing the need for better biodiversity indicators. In many cases there’s little need for more research. It’s not biodiversity indicators that are in short supply; but any kind of indicator that the member states are willing to act.
Comments (0)A Call to Large Scale Earth Healing and Lessons from the Loess Plateau (Video)
Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Conservation, Consumerism, Dams, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Gabions, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Plant Systems, Population, Regional Water Cycle, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Swales, Terraces, Trees, Village Development, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh August 6, 2010
The world is coming unglued. The world burns. What are we going to do about it?
Map of fires in Russia
As I type, half of Russia is on fire after its hottest summer on record, Pakistan is dealing with the biggest floods in living memory and Australia is still in the clutches of a decade long drought. The last decade, worldwide, was the hottest since records began, and 2010 may break the records of 1998 and 2005 to become the hottest year we’ve ever known. We could spend weeks just examining the extreme weather events going on on a country by country basis.
Comments (12)Making The Case For Earth Repair Work – Part 2
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Development & Property Trusts, Economics, Ethical Investment, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Population, Rehabilitation, Society, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton — by Rhamis Kent August 5, 2010
Over the past couple of years, there has been quite a bit of attention paid to the purchase of massive amounts of agricultural land by rich countries and corporate entities in the developing world. Craig Mackintosh wrote about this on this site, as have many other very informative reports and press stories.
To summarize, there has been approximately US$100 Billion mobilized to purchase somewhere between 40 – 50 million hectares (roughly 100 – 125 million acres) of agricultural land worldwide.
Comments (6)Whale Tale
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change, News, Water Contaminaton — by Marc Roberts July 31, 2010
Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
With phyloplankton levels crashing and the whole marine food chain going belly-up, perhaps marine life should follow this whale’s example, and be a bit more pro-active.
Comments (0)Soil Carbon – Can it Save Agriculture’s Bacon?
Biodiversity, Compost, Conservation, Economics, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Fungi, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Society, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Water Contaminaton, Water Harvesting, peak oil — by Christine Jones PhD July 22, 2010
Editor’s Note: Thanks to Darren Doherty of ReGenAg for sourcing and getting permission to run this.
The number of farmers in Australia has fallen 30 per cent in the last 20 years, with more than 10,000 farming families leaving the agricultural sector in the last five years alone. This decline is ongoing. There is also a reluctance on the part of young people to return to the land, indicative of the poor image and low income-earning potential of current farming practices.
Agricultural debt in Australia has increased from just over $10 billion in 1994 to close to $60 billion in 2009 (Fig.1). The increased debt is not linked to interest rates, which have generally declined over the same period (Burgess 2010).
Fig. 1. Increase in agricultural debt (AUD millions)
1994-2009 vs interest rates (%pa)
The financial viability of the agricultural sector, as well as the health and social wellbeing of individuals, families and businesses in both rural and urban communities, is inexorably linked to the functioning of the land.
There is widespread agreement that the integrity and function of soils, vegetation and waterways in many parts of the Australian landscape have become seriously impaired, resulting in reduced resilience in the face of increasingly challenging climate variability.
Agriculture is the sector most strongly impacted by these changes. It is also the sector with the greatest potential for fundamental redesign.
Comments (8)Measuring Soil Carbon Change
Biodiversity, Compost, Conservation, Fungi, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Water Contaminaton — by Craig Mackintosh June 24, 2010
 Measuring Soil Carbon Change 2mb PDF |
Thanks to Darren Doherty for the head’s up on this new draft document from the Soil Carbon Coalition on measuring changes in soil carbon levels – the key indicator of soil health and fertility.
As we all (should) know well, land use changes over the last several centuries have significantly increased atmospheric CO2 levels. Soil mismanagement, which has increased in tandem with our burgeoning human population, has released mammoth amounts of carbon from the soil, where it is a positive, into the atmosphere, where it becomes, in its present excessive levels, a negative instead. Correct soil management, in contrast, can play a significant role in reversing that trend by pulling excess atmospheric CO2 out of the sky, through photosynthesis, and returning it to the soil in humus, the stable, final state of decomposition of organic matter – thus transforming excess CO2 from being a pollutant into a rich habitat for the micro- and macro-organisms that are the foundation of all life on this planet. Permaculture, through its favouring small scale, low-to-no till polycultures, and where the soil is always protected by a ’skin’ of plant or mulch cover, and maintained by appropriate naturally harvested moisture levels, is a powerful system for restoring the Gaia state of carbon balance.
Comments (3)GrowUp Project
Biodiversity, Community Projects, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Presentations/Demonstrations, Social Gatherings, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Urban Projects, peak oil — by Lee Hewson June 21, 2010
The GrowUp project aims to develop a model community/communities which, as much as possible are self sufficient, low impact and carbon negative,and whose main objective will be to reforest/replant, as we believe that this is the starting point to solve the problems facing humanity. Assisting the Earth to regenerate biomass, soils, water and nutrient capacities. Following permaculture principles, we will address the problem of greenhouse gas emissions whist providing a source of fuel, food and material for shelter which will allow people to create low impact homes, and small communities and to provide for their needs locally and organically. By creating forest gardens to provide for our food supply, we will also work at increasing biodiversity, reducing carbon in the atmosphere,increasing carbon in the soil, at retaining more water in the soil and re establishing nature’s way of controlling the water cycle, at increasing the fertility of the soil and stopping soil erosion; the list of benefits that intelligently replanting achieves goes on.
The Money Gusher
Biodiversity, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by George Monbiot June 9, 2010
The oil industry’s decommissioning costs will dwarf those of nuclear power. The money being made now should be put aside to meet them.
First published in November 2007, by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Has BP ever made a profit? The question looks daft. The oil company posted profits of $26bn last year(1). There’s no doubt that BP has been pumping money into the pockets of its shareholders. The question is whether this money is what the company says it is. BP calls it profit. I call it the provision the firm should be making against future liabilities.
Despite an angry letter from two US senators(2) and a warning from Barack Obama about spending big money on their shareholders while nickeling and diming coastal people(3), despite the fact that it has no idea what its total liabilities in the Gulf of Mexico will be, BP seems to be planning to pay a dividend this year. It’s likely to amount to more than $10bn. As the two senators noted, by moving money “off the company’s books and into investors’ pockets”, BP “will make it much more difficult to repay the US government and American communities”.
Pollution has been defined as a resource in the wrong place. That’s also a pretty good description of the company’s profits. The great plumes of money that have been bursting out of the company’s accounts every year are not BP’s to give away. They consist, in part or in whole, of the externalised costs the company has failed to pay, and which the rest of society must carry.
Comments (5)Bees – Still Feeling Pretty Freakin’ Underappreciated
Biodiversity, Health & Disease, News, Plant Systems — by Craig Mackintosh March 30, 2010
Beekeepers opening their hives for spring 2010 are finding losses of up to 50%
 Click for full view Courtesy: Marc Roberts |
Spring has sprung in Europe, and yesterday I saw my first bee of the new decade zig by. I admire these unselfish little workers – conscientiously going about their daily duties, wholly unaware of their own significance. They ask little, give much, and so much depends on their instinctive behaviour.
Unfortunately too many of us are totally unaware of their significance too, it seems.
Comments (2)Earth Out of Sync – Rising Temperatures Throwing off Seasonal Timing
Biodiversity, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease — by Earth Policy Institute March 26, 2010
by Janet Larsen, Director of Research for the Earth Policy Institute
 Credit: Jack Dykinga/USDA |
A newly hatched chick waits with hungry mouth agape for a parent to deliver its first meal. A crocus peaks up through the snow. Rivers flow swiftly as ice breaks up and snows melt. Sleepy mammals emerge from hibernation, and early frog songs penetrate the night.
Spring awakening has long provided fodder for poets, artists, and almanac writers. Even for a notoriously fickle time of sunshine, rain, and temperature swings, some old-fashioned seasonal wisdom was consistent enough to be passed down through generations. The first blooming of a specific flower, for example, could traditionally signal when to find certain fish running the rivers, when to hunt for mushrooms, or when to plant crops. The timing of such seasonal events is coordinated in an intricate dance—a dance underappreciated, perhaps, until something jolts it out of step.
With global average temperatures up 0.5 degrees Celsius since the 1970s, springtime warming is coming earlier across the earth’s temperate regions. A number of organisms have responded to the warming temperatures by altering the timing of key life-cycle events. The problem, however, is that not all species are adjusting at the same rate or in the same direction, thus disrupting the dance that connects predator and prey, butterfly and blossom, fish and phytoplankton, and the entire web of life.
Comments (4)The Naming of Things
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot March 23, 2010
Here’s one small way in which the collapse of biodiversity could be slowed
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
The names alone should cause anyone whose heart still beats to stop and look again. Blotched woodwax. Pashford pot beetle. Scarce black arches. Mallow skipper. Marsh dagger. Each is a locket in which hundreds of years of history and thousands of years of evolution have been packed. Here nature and culture intersect. All are species that have recently become extinct in England.
I cannot claim that I’ve been materially damaged by their loss, any more than the razing of the Prado would deprive me of food or shelter. But the global collapse of biodiversity hurts almost beyond endurance. The sense that the world is greying, its wealth of colour and surprise and wonder fading, is so painful that I can scarcely bear to write about it. Human welfare, as measured by gross domestic product, is doubtless enhanced by the processes which drive extinction. Human welfare, as measured by the heart and the senses, is diminished. We have no use for most of the world’s natural exuberance; it cannot be commodified or reproduced. Biodiversity does not belong to us: that is why it is worth preserving.
Comments (4)The Domestication Spectrum: How Our Relationships With Plants and Animals Define Our Existence
Biodiversity, Bird Life, Consumerism, Economics, Fish, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, General, Livestock, People Systems, Plant Systems, Society, Village Development — by Kyle Chamberlain March 4, 2010
by Kyle Chamberlain, The Human Habitat Project
Our bonds with other species are as vital, to survival, as our bonds with other people. If we don’t choose our company carefully, disaster is likely to ensue.
As a species, we should be shopping for the best relationships. There’s a lot a stake, and we don’t want to be abused or neglected. When searching for a good fit, we should keep in mind the following characteristics of good relationships.
Comments (4)Growing Demand for Soybeans Threatens Amazon Rainforest
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation — by Earth Policy Institute January 10, 2010
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
Some 3,000 years ago, farmers in eastern China domesticated the soybean. In 1765, the first soybeans were planted in North America. Today the soybean occupies more U.S. cropland than wheat. And in Brazil, where it spread even more rapidly, the soybean is invading the Amazon rainforest.
For close to two centuries after its introduction into the United States the soybean languished as a curiosity crop. Then during the 1950s, as Europe and Japan recovered from the war and as economic growth gathered momentum in the United States, the demand for meat, milk, and eggs climbed. But with little new grassland to support the expanding beef and dairy herds, farmers turned to grain to produce not only more beef and milk but also more pork, poultry, and eggs. World consumption of meat at 44 million tons in 1950 had already started the climb that would take it to 280 million tons in 2009, a sixfold rise.
Comments (1)The Buffalo Commons
Biodiversity, General, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation — by Rhamis Kent January 3, 2010
Here’s an idea that should be embraced and championed by all earth repair advocates: The Buffalo Commons.
The Buffalo Commons is a conceptual proposal to create a vast nature preserve by returning 139,000 square miles (360,000 km2) of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie, and by reintroducing the buffalo, or American Bison, that once grazed the short grass prairie.
Comments (8)
