The climate changes the planet is currently undergoing,
and the threats posed by greenhouse gases, all interlink with the entire planet’s ecosystems which have been carefully balanced for millennia. Since the industrial age, this has changed, and the way we now exploit the Earth’s resources affect everything in the chain. Forests, wetlands and oceans have absorbed carbon forever – now with mining, eradicating forests for agriculture etc., these gases are building in the atmosphere and can endure there for a century permitting ever-increasing rises in temperature, which in turn leads to ice-melt and rising sea-levels. Deforestation alone can add more of a threat to global warming than all the cars on the planet’s roads.
See the eight links below for more information
Polar Ice-caps – includes a closer looks at Arctic and Antarctic ice-melts
Water – Groundwater and Aquifers – the planet’s fragile water resources
Glaciers – glaciers around the world.
Oceans – Plastics in the oceans crisis – including sea-level rise and pollution
Coral Reefs – news of Great Barrier Reef and sunscreen issue
Deforestation – deforestation accounts for about 20% of global emissions of CO2
Wetlands – Over 50% of wetlands worldwide have been destroyed in the past 100 years
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Below
- General information on Earth’s fragility
- Importance of soil
- Permafrost
- Desertification
- Sea grass and sea level
- Miscellaneous
Separate page on Agriculture, including methane pollution from factory farming
General information on Earth’s fragility
October 2013: Without plants, Earth would cook under billions of tons of additional carbon. According to a new study conducted at Princeton University, Earth’s leafy greens have significantly slowed the planet’s warming by absorbing carbon in the form of CO2, especially during the past 60 years. How much carbon are we talking about? Approximately 186 billion to 192 billion tons of carbon have been taken out of the atmosphere since the mid-20th century. Those “carbon savings” amount to a current average global temperature that is cooler by one-third of a degree Celsius. Since the early 1900s, the planet has warmed by 0.74 degrees Celsius. link
| The World Environmental Organization – working to prevent climate change. World.Org is devoted to the preservation of the natural diversity of plant and animal species, and their habitats, through the prevention of environmental degradation and destruction – link |
April 2018: Rivers worldwide threatened by pharmaceutical waste. River systems around world are coursing with over-the-counter and prescription drug waste harmful to the environment. On current trends, the amount of pharmaceutical effluence leaching into waterways could increase by two-thirds before mid-century, researchers told a science conference in Vienna. Both the EU and the US EPA have identified endocrine disruptors as an environmental threat. More than 10,000 kilometres of rivers around the globe have concentrations of the drug in excess of the EU “watch list” limit of 100 nanogrammes per litre, new research found. link
(February 2018) Understanding the polar vortex. It might seem counterintuitive, but global warming plays a role in blasts of bitter cold weather. The reason: It influences the jet stream. Read more.
May 2017: Planting trees will not slow global warming. Nothing, not even the creation of huge plantations of trees to absorb CO2, is a viable alternative to drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Humans cannot simply plant their way out of trouble: trees simply cannot absorb the ever-increasing quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere, according to a new study. The tree could be regarded as low-technology carbon removal machinery. The sheer scale of plantations needed would have devastating environmental costs. link
September 2018: Rice farming up to twice as bad for climate change than previously thought. Past estimates have suggested that 2.5% of human-induced climate warming can be attributed to rice farming. The main culprit is methane, however, there is another gas produced by rice fields that can have a harmful climate effect – nitrous oxide is also produced by soil microbes in rice fields. Analysis has shown that the process of alternately wetting and drying rice fields – while reducing methane levels – is producing up to 45 times more nitrous oxide than constantly flooded fields. (As a staple food crop rice provides more calories to the global population than any other food.) link
November 2016: Global warming wreaks havoc with ecosystem. Climate change has already begun to alter the world’s ecosystems – at sea, in rivers and lakes, and in the forests and meadows on land, according to an international team of scientists. As climate change negotiations continue in Marrakech, scientists warn that global warming is affecting four-fifths of ecological processes vital to ecosystems. They have identified 94 vital ecological processes that support healthy ecosystems, and have found that more than 80% of them are already affected by climate change. link
 January 2012: If our ecosystem were a valued commodity. Some of the world’s poorest people would be half a trillion dollars a year better off if the services they provide to the rest of the planet indirectly – through conserving natural habitats – was given an economic value, a new study has found. Many of the valuable habitats and species preserved in some of the world’s key biodiversity hotspots are under threat. But the people who live in these areas lack the means to improve their conservation efforts according to a new study in the journal BioScience. If poor people were paid for the services they provide in they could reap $500bn. There are some fledgling schemes that could help to raise this cash, for instance, the United Nations-backed system called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which uses carbon trading to generate cash to preserve trees, but so far they are small in scale. link |
May 2010: Two UN bodies find massive loss of biodiversity threatened ecosystems. Unless “radical and creative action” is taken quickly to conserve the variety of life on Earth, natural systems that support lives and livelihoods are at risk of collapsing, finds a new biodiversity report released today by two United Nations environmental bodies. The Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 warns that massive further loss of biodiversity is becoming increasingly likely, and with it, the loss of many essential services to human societies as several “tipping points” are approached, in which ecosystems shift to less productive states from which it may be difficult or impossible to recover. link
March 2016: Biosphere important driver of climate change. Humans are making global warming worse in more ways than we think. A new important study in “Nature’ finds that the Earth’s land “biosphere” defined as all plants, animals, microorganisms living on the surface of the Earth (excluding the oceans), is now a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. link
| March 2017: “A Voice for the Planet” video. Our precious land forms the foundation on which much of the life on planet earth flourishes, so how we manage land is immensely important to the wellbeing and sustainability of the planet. We have a huge opportunity to improve our stewardship of our lands and how we utilize them. Humanity lives in a symbiotic relationship with the land, the earth and all life on the planet. It’s important to honor this relationship with the deepest reverence and respect we can imagine – view |
Importance of soil
December 2017: Soil power! The dirty way to a green planet. The last great hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change may lie in a substance so commonplace that we typically ignore it or else walk all over it: the soil beneath our feet. The earth possesses five major pools of carbon. Of those pools, the atmosphere is already overloaded with the stuff; the oceans are turning acidic as they become saturated with it; the forests are diminishing; and underground fossil fuel reserves are being emptied. That leaves soil as the most likely repository for immense quantities of carbon. Now scientists are documenting how sequestering carbon in soil can produce a double dividend. link
December 2012: Is soil really in danger of running out? A rough calculation of current rates of soil degradation suggests we have about 60 years of topsoil left. Some 40% of soil used for agriculture around the world is classed as either degraded or seriously degraded – the latter means that 70% of the topsoil, the layer allowing plants to grow, is gone. Soil erosion is most serious in China, Africa, India and parts of South America. link
July 2017: Carbon farming. In California, a new program called the Healthy Soil Initiative is about to put unorthodox farming practices to the test. With modest grants of up to $50,000 administered by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, a network of farmers and ranchers throughout the state will embark on a series of experiments in carbon farming. The term refers to improving soil health by biological processes that limit the amount of synthetic chemicals applied to crops and adopting techniques aimed to reduce nutrient loss. link
April 2016: Earth’s soil could play key role in locking away greenhouse gases. The role that soils could play in efforts to combat climate change has until now been largely overlooked, owing to a lack of effective monitoring tools, say a team of scientists including researchers at the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The world’s soils could store an extra 8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, helping to limit the impacts of climate change, research suggests. Previous research shows that soils currently lock away around 2.4 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, which are stored underground as stable organic matter. Adopting the latest technologies and sustainable land use practices on a global scale could allow more emissions to be stored in farmland and natural wild spaces, the study shows. Growing crops with deeper root systems, using charcoal-based composts and applying sustainable agriculture practices could help soils retain the equivalent of around four-fifths of annual emissions released by the burning of fossils fuels. link
| October 2010: How much carbon is in Earth’s soil? The total carbon stock (i.e., organic and inorganic carbon) in terrestrial systems is estimated to be around 3,170 gigatons, 2500 Gt in the soil and 560 Gt and 110 Gt in plant and microbial biomass, respectively. Total carbon in the oceans is much less at 38,000 Gt. link |
April 2015: Soil becomes climate change hot topic. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2015 the International Year of Soil. Soils, and the microbes that live within them, store three times as much carbon as is in the atmosphere, and four and a half times as much as in all plants and animals. So why is soil so important? “If you look at the global carbon created in nature under land-based systems, soil and trees are the two dominant reservoirs where carbon is,” according to Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University. link
December 2014: Soil degradation costs African farmers $68 billion annually. An estimated 180 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by soil degradation. Without funds and tenure, there is no incentive to invest in improving farming. Climate change, depletion of mineral nutrients and improper use of fertilizer threatens vital food production, and the problem is getting worse. link
July 2014: Global action plan to protect soil resources approved. A third of the world’s soils are degraded by erosion, nutrient depletion, acidification, urbanization, and chemical pollution. Soil is the basis for food, feed, fuel and fiber production. Without soils we cannot sustain life on Earth, and where soil is lost it cannot be renewed on a human timeline. The Food and Agriculture Organization is calling for urgent action to improve the health of the world’s limited soil resources to ensure that future generations have enough food, water and energy. link
Permafrost
October 2012: 850 billion tons of carbon stored in frozen Arctic ground could be released. As much as 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 billion tons of carbon stored in arctic permafrost, or frozen ground, could be released into the environment as the region begins to thaw over the next century as a result of a warmer planet, according to a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey. This nitrogen and carbon are likely to impact ecosystems, the atmosphere, and water resources including rivers and lakes. For context, this is roughly the amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere today. link
April 2017: Global warming could thaw far more permafrost than expected. More than 40% of the world’s permafrost, landscape covered in frozen soil, is at risk of thawing even if the world succeeds in limiting global warming to the international goal of 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new study. Currently, permafrost covers about nearly 5.8 million square miles, and scientists found as much as 2.5 million square miles of that could thaw in a 2C scenario. link
November 2012: The importance of permafrost. Permafrost is the soil in high latitudes that stays frozen year-round. It occupies nearly 24% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere. In order to qualify as permafrost, the soil temperature must remain below 32°F for at least two years, but there are thick seams of permafrost that have remained solid for thousands of years. While a few inches of topsoil tends to thaw in the summer (even in arctic regions), a UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) report estimated that a global temperature increase of 5.4°F would lead to a 10.8°F increase in temperature in the Arctic, which would result in a loss of up to 85% of surface-level permafrost. A loss of that scale would have severe ecological and economic impacts. Those range from the increased frequency of rockslides, to the destruction of infrastructure built on the once-solid ground. Permafrost emissions could ultimately account for up to 39% of total emissions and should be factored in to treaty negotiations expected to replace the Kyoto Protocol. (UNEP estimates that 1700 gigatonnes of carbon, twice that currently in the atmosphere, could significantly amplify global warming should thawing accelerate as expected. Currently permafrost thaw is not included in any climate models used by the IPPC.) link
December 2015: Permafrost: How the Earth itself could undermine a Paris climate agreement. As the planet warms, this frozen northern soil is going to continue to thaw, and as it thaws, it’s going to release carbon dioxide and methane into the air. A lot of it, it turns out. Potentially enough to really throw off the carbon budgets that have been calculated in order to determine the maximum emissions that we can release and still have a good chance of keeping warming to 2C or below. Also permafrost emissions don’t end at 2100, they are expected to continue after that and even get worse. Most of the release will happen after 2100. link
December 2014: Amazonian peatlands store mega carbon. A new study finds peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon store ten times the amount of carbon as undisturbed rainforest in adjacent areas, making them more critical to fight climate change. link
August 2010: Peat bogs store more carbon than all trees. There is more carbon locked away in the world’s peat bogs than in all the trees put together, and is responsible for 7% of the world’s global emissions from fossil fuels. Yet peat is not recognised by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as a being a fossil fuel. Current fires in Russia indicate the serious threat if peat is ignored. link
Desertification
May 2013: Desertification and sustainable land management. Land degradation – more specifically drought and desertification – have become increasingly pressing problems for a growing number of countries around the world. Meeting for the first time in southern Africa, UNCCD (U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification) delegates will review implementation of the convention to date and plan for the ensuing two years of programs and actions. Desertification, along with climate change and the loss of biodiversity, were singled out as the greatest challenges to sustainable development at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Severe land degradation is estimated to be affecting 168 countries around the world. link
November 2014: Holding back the Sahara with 4,800 miles of trees. Since 2008, Senegal has been fighting back against the encroaching desert and has planted some two million seedling trees along a 545-kilometer ribbon of land that is the country’s segment of a major pan-African regeneration project, the Great Green Wall. First proposed in 2005, the program links Senegal and 10 other Saharan states in an alliance to plant a 15 kilometer-wide, 7,100-kilometer-long green belt to fend off the desert. link
May 2010: Soils contain two thirds of the world’s terrestrial carbon reserves, far more than the forests which sit atop the soils, and their accelerating degradation is releasing CO2 into the atmosphere in a process that could spiral out of control. Scientists call this process desertification. The soils in Bolivia provide a stark case of this advancing problem: almost half the soil in the nation is being affected. The Bolivian Science and Technology Ministry recently announced that “desertification… affects 41% of the national territory, 439,432 square kilometers, where 77% of the population lives, some 6.4 million people.” Over 89% of them are poor, following a well-established pattern in which environmental degradation damages those least able to adapt to it. Many of the factors that have made the Bolivian soil desertify, such as deforestation, changes in rain patterns, or a general lack of water, are indirectly or directly related to climate change. Desertification occurs as a land-mass dries up, the vegetation on top the soil withers away, the microbes in the soil die, the resulting soil erodes, and its carbon migrates into the atmosphere in the form of CO2. link
Sea grass and sea level
Understanding sea level. Sea-level isn’t level seas. Although sea level rise might, at first glance, seem to be a relatively easy subject to grasp, much of the misunderstanding that exists in the blogosphere can be put down to the flawed notion that the sea behaves like water in a swimming pool, or bathtub. In reality the Earth’s surface (lithosphere) is elastic and deformable which contributes to a complicated picture where local sea level might be somewhat different than the global sea level trend. The term Glacial Isostatic Adjustment describes the deformation of Earth’s surface from the growth and decay of giant ice sheets over time, or more specifically, from the exchange of mass, in the form of water or ice, between the continents and ocean during the ice age cycles. The planet-wide changes which result from this loading and unloading are due to the Earth’s lithosphere wanting to reach equilibrium (isostasy). link
 Seagrass – an important carbon sink – under threat. It turns out that seagrass ecosystems hold as much carbon per hectare as the world’s forests – and are now among its most threatened ecosystems. In the past century, 29% of seagrass has been destroyed globally, mostly by water pollution, dredging for new developments, and climate change. With seagrass meadows disappearing at an annual rate of about 1.5%, 299 million tonnes of carbon are also released back into the environment each year. Piecing together old and new data from 946 seagrass meadows around the world, an international team of researchers estimated that seagrass captures 27.4 million tonnes of carbon each year, burying it in the soil below. And unlike forests that hold carbon for about 60 years then release it again, seagrass ecosystems have been capturing and storing carbon since the last ice age. That means that up to 19.9 billion tonnes of carbon are currently stored within seagrass plants and the top metre of soil beneath them – more than twice the Earth’s global emissions from fossil fuels in 2010. link (What is seagrass?) November 2017: Seagrass habitats being degraded. Wherever seagrass exists in proximity to people, research finds that it’s used as a key targeted fishing habitat. Seagrasses provide the perfect hiding place for fish and invertebrates such as crabs, shrimp and clams, and this abundance of animal life is what attracts fishers, as these habitats are being damaged and degraded. link February 2017: Seagrass on decline jeopardizes human health. Underwater meadows of seagrass offer important protection against pollution to both humans and coral reefs, but are in jeopardy worldwide due to climate change, sewage and agricultural runoff. Globally, seagrass meadows are declining by about 7% each year since 1990, researchers. link |
Miscellaneous
October 2010: UN says biodiversity loss greater financial risk than terrorism. The financial risks posed by the loss of species and ecosystems have risen sharply and are becoming a greater concern for businesses than international terrorism. From over-depletion of fish stocks and soil degradation caused by agricultural chemicals to water shortages and mining pollution, the paper, commissioned by the UN Environment Programme, said the likelihood has climbed sharply that declines in biodiversity would have a “severe” $10bn to $50bn impact on business. link
October 2016: In USA lawns are costly to environment. Every year across the USA, lawns consume nearly 3 trillion gallons of water, 200 million gallons of gas (for all that mowing) and 70 million pounds of pesticides. Lawns provides virtually no habitat for pollinators and other animals and plants that make up a healthy, diverse ecosystem, and in fact can do substantial harm to the environment. link
August 2012: Earth continues to lend a helping hand to decrease emissions. The carbon soaked up from the atmosphere by the seas and by plants and soil on land rose to an estimated 5 billion tonnes in 2010 from 2.4 billion in 1960, according to the findings by a team of U.S. scientists. Over the 50-year period, nature had soaked up 55% of mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions that totalled 350 billion tonnes, mostly CO2 from burning fossil fuels. link
April 2011: New estimates on ecosystem’s ability to sequester carbon. A research group has concluded that forests and other terrestrial ecosystems in the lower 48 states can sequester up to 40% of the nation’s fossil fuel carbon emissions, a larger amount than previously estimated. That’s substantially higher than some previous estimates, which indicated these ecosystems could take up the equivalent of only about 30% of emissions or less. There’s still some uncertainty in these data, but it does appear that the terrestrial carbon sink is higher than believed in earlier studies. However, the scientists cautioned that major disturbances, such as droughts, wildfires and hurricanes, can all affect the amount of carbon sequestered in a given year. Large droughts that happened twice in the U.S. in the past decade reduced the carbon sink about 20%, compared to a normal year. link
| July 2011: Jellyfish shut down nuclear plants. A nuclear power station in Israel is shut down by jellyfish, a day after a nuclear facility in Scotland was closed in a similar incident, amid claims that climate change is causing a population surge among the species. Scientists say the number of jellyfish is on the rise due to the increasing acidity of the world’s oceans driving away the blubbery creatures’ natural predators. Ocean acidification is an often overlooked side effect of burning fossil fuel. Studies have shown that higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t just trigger climate change but can make the oceans more acidic. Since the start of the industrial revolution, acidity levels of the oceans have gone up 30%. link (October 2016) Power stations to get early warning against jellyfish invasions – link Jellyfish are taking over the seas, and it might be too late to stop them – link |
January 2011: Amount of carbon absorbed by ecosystem grossly overstated. According to a new paper published in Science, current carbon accounting methods significantly overstate the amount of carbon that can be absorbed by forests, plains, and other terrestrial ecosystems. That is because most current carbon accounting methods do not consider the methane and carbon dioxide released naturally by rivers, streams, and lakes. link