Group items tagged

"In 2006, Ron Suskind published "The One Percent Doctrine," a book about the U.S. war on terrorists after 9/11. The title was drawn from an assessment by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who, in the face of concerns that a Pakistani scientist was offering nuclear-weapons expertise to Al Qaeda, reportedly declared: "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat: a 'low-probability, high-impact event.' Soon after Suskind's book came out, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein, who then was at the University of Chicago, pointed out that Mr. Cheney seemed to be endorsing the same "precautionary principle" that also animated environmentalists. Sunstein wrote in his blog: "According to the Precautionary Principle, it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability, high-impact events - such as climate change."

"Eight years ago, world governments made a pledge to put a halt to growing biodiversity loss by 2010. They have not succeeded. The ongoing loss of biodiversity has instead become even more severe of a threat to the planet's once-balanced ecosystems--it's become a full-on extinction crisis. Thanks to human development and expansion, species are now going extinct exponentially faster than ever before--they're dying out at the frightening speed of 1,000 times the natural rate."

"Today, Target became the first major US retailer to stop selling farmed salmon products! Salmon consumption in the United States is a huge market for retailers. Aquaculture (farming fish) is often called the future of the seafood industry, but some types of aquaculture - such as conventional open-net salmon farming - can cause tremendous damage to the environment. Parasite infestations, concentrated fish waste, the uncontrolled spread of genetic material, and the unsustainable use of wild fish to feed farmed animals all pose significant threats to the sanctity of our marine ecosystems."

Global climate change poses a significant threat to migratory bird populations, which are already stressed by the loss of habitat and environmental pollution, according to a report released Thursday.

"Yesterday, Brazilian politicians took a decisive step towards opening the door to massive new Amazon deforestation, by voting in favor of radical changes to the Brazilian Forest Code - the primary legal instrument for protecting the Amazon.  If these changes become law they will let hundreds of forest criminals off the hook, and massively expand the amount of forest under threat from the chainsaws"

Great slideshow of some of the most threatened species in the world.

"Climate scientists say Colombia's glaciers could disappear within 15 years. Wet highland areas that provide much of the country's fresh water are getting warmer and drier. And each year, flooding becomes more severe. The coastal area of Tumaco has become an example of how environmental and security pressures are undermining previously stable communities."

"One in six mangrove species faces extinction as coastal ecosystems are being destroyed or damaged by development, aquaculture, logging, and climate change, according to a new study. On the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America, as many as 40 percent of mangrove species are threatened, the report said."

Officials and experts from across the Asia-Pacific region are meeting in Indonesia to discuss the future of the lucrative live fish industry.