i have written to several caedes members about this and thought i would put it up as a general topic.
i visit a wildlife refuge for most of my photos. for the past 3 years i have seen blue and green heron, egrets daily and a nesting owl and ospreys and even a bald eagle there. i noticed back in december that the populations that i have become used to were thinning out. now it is late march and i see none of these animals. by this time in the spring i should be seeing FLOCKS of robins and red winged blackbirds. some are around but definitely not in flocks.
las tuesday i saw my first red tailed hawk of this season. he was perched on a lower limb of an undergrowth tree. these birds are usually perched high up in a tall tree (looking for food). very strange.
i talked with my father in law tonight. he lives in florida. he says all of the opreys and eagles nests and owls are gone from his preserve too.
am i an alarmist?? i live near philadelphia. i would like to here if these problems exist in other parts of the country.
i'm sorry i had to write this but i would like to know.

Hi!
OVER-DEVELOPMENT? I know that around my area, condos and townhouses are replacing forests....{ I guess everywhere, this is going on}. :( It's pretty sickening to see bulldozers clearing out the wooded areas, golf courses popping up....and more and more cheesy townhouses and malls....
Later on....the alligators get trapped for eating some dumbassed golfer and coyotes trapped/shot/poisoned and called nuisance animals. WE are the nuisance animals. Humans.:(
Today....at a baseball game, the giant light/poles { spotlights} were all full of nests....{Osprey nests}. I felt guilty....seeing them making nests wherever they can....cell phone towers, light poles, etc.
I guess that song "Nothing but flowers" by Talking Heads....is very much where we are all headed...

One word-

Humans.

Yep, the human race is naught but cockroaches. If you have a bunch of humans in a dark room, as soon as you flick on the lights, they all scatter.

But, um, this has been going on for years. The destruction of the planet, the ozone, the artic area melting, and of course the saddest of all, the animals.

That's my opinion anyway.

Michael.

i know it's just a movie, but there's a scene from "the Matrix" that suits this. it's where Agent Smith is telling Morpheus his experience with humans. upon review, he found "us" to not be mammals, but a virus. just one of many interesting points made..

YUP...WE BE PAVING PARADISE AND PUTTIN UP PARKING LOTS...
IRKS ME TOO, TO ABSOLUTLEY NO END!
we are but guests, and are abusing the privilege!

Maybe - just an idea - those birds are somewhere else. Last winter the birds did not leave Vienna, since it was warm enough to stay. So maybe your birds stayed somewhere, where it is also warm enough this year ... I can not believe, that all of them died in one year, even they get less and less every year because of ... humans.

Have you also heard that more than 60% of the bees in the U.S. have vanished? Bees are so important for humans because without bees there will be less and less fruits and vegetables. It is time for all of us to wake up.

Or you could look at the results from the latest core sample from the Antarctic from the Andrill project. They have recovered a core sample over a kilometre long (the longest ever) revealing many new features of the earth’s climate though in history. Of particular relevance is the discovery of fossilised algal blooms known to exist only in warmer climates and evidence that far from the oceans of today being the warmest ever – they have throughout history been much warmer and that rather than being a permanent fixture and fitting, the polar ice caps have varied in size from not existing at all to being much larger than they are today.

The new core sample represents about 10 million years of sedimentary and climate change evidence and no doubt its results will not sit well with sound bite happy politicians (like Al Gore – you remember him – the guy who didn’t know the difference between the ozone layer and greenhouse gases) and ultra conservative teachers polluting children’s minds with rubbish like the planet only being 6000 years old but I’m guessing a ten million year old piece of earth’s history is the ultimate in cold hard facts :-)

It’s very easy to jump on trendy bandwagons blaming easy targets for the world’s woes without accepting the real problems or realising that for the most part – much of the hyperbole today amounts to little more than the usual human arrogance that we are in some way superior to our surroundings and are able to affect real change in it. Yes, things that we do now certainly aggravate the climate but it is a nonsense to believe this is a new occurrence particular to the modern world and humanities impact on it.

Yes, true that the earth has been warmer before but that was all before humans existed on earth. Today it is all about saving humanity from a catastrophe - from flooded low lying islands in the Pacific and from terrible storms and hurricanes which will destroy the earth as we know, slowly. If there is anything at all that humans can do to prevent/slow down such a change we must do it for our children and their children now and not keep plundering our resources as if there is no tomorrow. The first step towards doing that is to start reducing environmental pollution. Nobody can deny that there is a connection between pollution and global warming.

To comment on the latter part of your post – no – i don’t believe anyone is denying a link between greenhouse gas and global warming. My main problem with the whole argument is the assumption that we are in some way solely responsible or even capable of affecting this change singlehandedly. The planets climate has always been cyclic and always will be – there is nothing we can do to change or slow that down to imagine you could is just a conceit, as is the notion that the world and everything in it is here for our entertainment. Nature is a constant state of flux – often a violent and cruel flux. Nothing on the planet is meant to be here permanently. Not the mountains. Not the glaciers. Not the polar ice caps. Not even whole species of creatures.

The main failing with modern humanity is there singular arrogance and inability to recognise this in some stupid King Canute fashion.

If everyone started driving prius hybrids and shut down coal fired power stations tomorrow – do you think greenhouse gas emissions would stabilise and start to fall? No – of course they wouldn’t. There are, as I mentioned far greater problems than these that need addressing – they are just too distasteful for us as a species to contemplate.

I agree, Phil, with you that the humans cannot influence the major changes that the earth will undergo in the future Millions of years but at least we can do something about reducing the changes in the coming centuries. Scientists have proved that the global warming has been increasing at an alarming rate in the past twenty years and that one of the main reasons is the emission of CO2. Should we just ignore it and carry on as we are saying what has to come will come anyway? And if we try to at least slow down that rate of global warming, can you put that down to arrogance of humans? I would say ignoring it will be arrogance on our part.

dont ignore it - recognise what the main culprits are - stop picking on easy targets that are bit players in the bigger picture.

This is a weighty subject and not one that I can comment on with any great knowldge but it always seems to polarize opinions.
Climate change is a fact - and some of us are even old enough to have observed it without having to read the data lol.
Looking at the bigger picture while it is true that climate patterns are cyclical it is also true that our planet is suffering from the actions of humans and most of us sit back and think there is nothing we could possibly do as individuals to change this, but here are some things that all of us can do to help...

Ten ways to help combat climate change

Use compact fluorescent bulbs: Replace frequently used lightbulbs with the greener alternatives. (Australia has recently passed legislation making the energy effective light bulbs compulsory - good move)

Inflate your tyres: Properly inflated tyres improve fuel efficiency. Check them monthly.

Fill the dishwasher: Run your dishwasher only with a full load.

Take shorter showers: Showers account for more than 60 per cent of all water-heating costs.

Buy minimally packaged goods: Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10 per cent.

Buy a fuel-efficient car: Getting a few extra kilometres per litre makes a big difference.

Carpool when you can: Own a big vehicle? Sharing the ride with friends and co-workers saves fuel.

Plant a tree: Trees suck up carbon dioxide.

Air-dry your clothes: Ditch the dryer for line-drying when possible.

Replace old appliances: Inefficient appliances waste energy.

New Zealand was to have been the first country to honour the Kyoto protocol and introduce a carbon Tax to address global warming, which would have added about 6% to household energy prices. It was due to begin this year but has been abandoned. :(

New Zealand, which produces about 29% of its electricity from gas- or coal-fired power stations, has a record of introducing the idea of green taxes but then not implementing them. In 2003 the government planned to impose a methane tax on farmers because flatulence of cows and sheep was responsible for more than half of New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions. But that was abandoned after criticism from farmers, who labelled it a "fart tax".

Makes one wonder if this would have extended to humans ?

NZ economy is largely dependant on farming, horticulture and forestry, all climate dependant, as is tourism. While we are considered globaly to be 'clean and green' I believe that complacency is the enemy, here and worldwide.

I am in no way advocating that people sit back and do nothing – just that they recognise the main cause of the problem. What is the main cause? Well it certainly isn’t SUV’s – it’s us. People. The Human civilisation. The very thing that you seek to increase and prolong. The biological by-products that we and the livestock created to feed us produce, adds far more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than all the cars and power stations in the world put together.

At its current rate of expansion, the Human population doubles in size every 100 years or so. That is an obscene, unnecessary and unsustainable rate of growth. We can barely care for and feed the people we have now let alone twice that amount a few generations down the line. Everyone in the western world used to criticise the Chinese for being cruel for their strict policy of only one child per family but in a sense they had got it right. They had already realised that their population was too massive to sustain itself whilst over in the west we carried on regardless pumping out ever increasing amounts of progeny for no other reason than the vanity of carrying on the family name.

If you seek to truly affect real change – fundamental and harsh changes in the entire fabric of society have to take place – anything less than that is little more than a futile gesture. Saying that, one nice gesture would be for governments to acknowledge their responsibilities to the electorate, rather than to the shareholders of the energy companies they all have vested interests in. For all the popularist chatter at press conferences – there is – for the moment at least very little impetus to improve or change the way people consume energy and resources. Far too much money in taxation would be lost and shareholders have to have those dividends remember :-)

All very true Phil,although it is a bit like Charity - it begins at home, and I still think those 10 ways to help that I printed can not do any harm.
What you say is exactly what I was pointing out about the CO2 emissions - the Kyoto Protocol was supposed to address that but until the countries that agreed to it actually put it into action it is a useless agreement.
The official estimate (published on the 19th April) for the cost to NZ for signing the agreement is NZ$600 million within 5 years, although others put it much higher at NZ$1.8 Billion. That is a great amount for a country of 4 million people to pay in taxes, so it is understandable there is opposition.
Another estimate is that we will fell 47,000 hectares of forest within 5 years increasing the country's carbon deficit from 41 million tonnes to around 59 million tonnes.
In the meantime while governments argue and bicker and allow the mighty dollar to influence all decisions the rest of us should do what little we can in our own backyard.

Strangely the Kyoto Protocol does not address he problem of population expansion at all.



Quote"Under the Kyoto Protocol New Zealand has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. Current emissions are more than a third higher than they were at that time and - surprisingly - New Zealand is one of the worst producers of greenhouse gases.

In emissions we are growing faster than any other country. The United States are growing at a quarter at the rate that they are in New Zealand" end quote

yes - no one seams willing to face up to the realities of population control at all but ultimately to survive in a sustainable fashion - that's exactly what is needed.

I’m still at a loss why there is so much resistance to the Kyoto protocol from government and why they imagine the burden for it should be solely shouldered by the tax payer. Yes the figures are high but not so much in comparison to things they already do. For instance, the cost to the USA would be about 300-350 billion dollars to modify their industry to comply with the agreement and yet US oil companies spend 400 billion dollars a year searching for new and more exotic methods of extracting more fossil fuels rather than conserving the ones we have left.

Indeed, it almost seems like there is a governmental driven agenda to AVOID implementing and procedure that would benefit the environment whilst at the same time speaking out to approve of the measures publically. Presumably this all driven by corporate lobbying – a pretty shameful example of this came out this week with the publishing of a report by Stanford university claiming that using bio ethanol as an alternative to petroleum in cars was bad as it could theoretically increase chemicals in the air liable to cause asthma. Much was made of this – less was made of the fact that whilst that may occur the numbers involved were miniscule and brushed over the fact that all the carcinogens produced by regular gasoline engines would be eliminated. You might find that a little surprising for such an apparently well respected university until you realise the sponsors for that research were ExxonMobil, General Electric & Schlumberger Oilfield Technology Services. Go figure.

There is a famous saying:

Re 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

Simply put...it's time.