The world’s wildlife populations have reduced by around a quarter since the 1970s, according to a major report published Friday by the WWF conservation organization.
Marine species have been particularly hard hit as the human population booms, while numbers of birds and, fish and animals have also gone down, said the WWF in a report.
The WWF’s Living Planet Index, which tracks the fortunes of nearly 4,000 populations of 1,477 vertebrate species from 1970 to 2005, showed an overall decline of 27 percent. MUCH MORE
The evidence is conclusive that mankind is at least partially responsible for global warming, and rather than taking a position to curb emissions in our own country, President Bush has again assaulted the environment by relaxing clean-air rules that protect our national parks. Even worse, these new “rules” that are supposedly put in place to help guarantee clean air for America are also facilitating the construction of more coal-fired power plants that will significantly add more pollutants to an ecological nightmare that has been aided by corporate greed and politicians that seek to gain favor with their corporate sponsors rather than protecting their own families. How will these CEO’s and greedy corporations explain to their own families that their actions border on genocide, not of one species in particular, but of the entire global community?
Clean-Air Rules Protecting Parks Set to Be Eased
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas, according to rank-and-file agency scientists and park managers who oppose the plan.
The initiative is the latest in a series of administration efforts going back to 2003 to weaken air quality protections at national parks, including failed moves to prohibit federal land managers from commenting on permits for new pollution sources more than 31 miles away from their areas and to protect air resources only for parks that are big and diverse enough to “represent complete ecosystems.”
Yesterday, the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, issued a report estimating that the rule would ease the way for the construction of 28 new coal-fired power plants within 186 miles of 10 national parks. In each of the next 50 years, the report concludes, the new plants would emit a total of 122 million tons of carbon dioxide, 79,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 52,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury into the air over and around the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and eight other national parks. MUCH MORE
The new regulations are absurd on their face and represent a not-so-clever approach to make it easier for corporate America to pollute our air without having to face any consequences for adding pollutants that are pressing the global ecosystem close to collapse; the change in how their pollutants will be measured is just another farce in a long history of the Bush administration backing big business rather than the people:
“For 30 years, regulators have measured pollution levels in the parks, over both three-hour and 24-hour increments, to capture the spikes in emissions that occur during periods of peak energy demand. The new rule would average the levels over a year so that spikes in pollution levels would not violate the law.”
To place this new rule change in perspective, it amounts to someone traveling at 75 miles per hour in a 35 Mph zone and explaining to the officer ticketing him that for the previous three months, he had always driven under the speed limit, therefore, averaging his speed for the prior three months of driving negated his responsibility for a sudden burst of speed that was an obvious infraction of the law. Maybe this should be the new defense for those caught speeding on our roads and highways; if it’s good enough for the corporations, then why isn’t it fair for “the people” to entertain such a ridiculous defense when they are in obvious violation of the law?
Now, as we are beginning to understand why honeybee colonies are being wiped out, it is of tantamount importance to reduce pollution, not make it worse. The threat of honeybee eradication is a danger to agriculture that will impact our fragile food cycle even more - and it will be you and I who will bear the brunt of their demise, not the corporate thieves who rob, steal and plunder our environment with impunity:
Why flowers have lost their scent
Pollution is stifling the fragrance of plants and preventing bees from pollinating them – endangering one of the most essential cycles of nature, writes Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean Sunday, 20 April 2008
Pollution is dulling the scent of flowers and impeding some of the most basic processes of nature, disrupting insect life and imperiling food supplies, a new study suggests.
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