Trophy Hunters Killed 1.7 Million Animals since 2010
The bloodthirsty “sport” of trophy hunting managed to kill one animal every three minutes over the past decades, according to a devastating new exposé of the industry.
Over 1.7 million animals – including elephants, lions, and rhinos – have been slaughtered by trophy hunters, with the wealthiest among them paying top dollar to kill rare and endangered creatures hovering at the brink of extinction.
Future generations will look back aghast at how we allowed the world’s most endangered species to be gunned down in their droves by adrenaline junkies in pursuit of grinning selfies and gruesome souvenirs.
The grim data underscores the ties between an industry that rakes in over $400 million per year and the global elites thirsty for a chance to kill the rare animals that conservationists have tirelessly worked to rescue.
The new book, entitled Trophy Leaks: Top Hunters and Industry Secrets, was written by Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting (CBTH) founder Eduardo Gonçalves, and exposes the shocking scale of an industry that disingenuously claims that it is pursuing the aim of conservation.
Instead, the book reveals that trophy hunters have killed some “100 endangered animals” every day in 2018.
The book, which also relies on analysis by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, shows that the life of an animal is taken for sport every three minutes in a blatantly irresponsible contribution to a loss of biodiversity that has seen the global rate of species extinction accelerate to unprecedented levels in recent decades.
For this reason, Gonçalves aptly characterizes the trophy hunting trade as an extinction industry that banks on the wholesale slaughter of creatures.
An estimated 1.7 million animals were shot by trophy hunters over the past decade – the equivalent of almost 500 animals a day, or one every 3 minutes.
The book also reveals how shills for the game-hunting industry have run high-profile disinformation campaigns on social media to counter the efforts of the U.K. government to outlaw imports linked to trophy hunters.
About £600,000 (USD $800,000) was used to prop up sock puppet accounts on Facebook and Twitter that purported to be Africans opposed to Boris Johnson’s pledge to ban trophy imports to Britain.
According to the book, nearly 800 hunters have won the “African Big 5” prize from the industry, which rewards those who have slain at least one buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and black or white rhino.
Hunting lobbyists with the Safari Club International (SCI) industry association have also awarded special prizes to hunters who have killed over 80 different African species.
Hunting advocates have also allegedly pledged over $2 million to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in hopes of seeing a generous return on investments under his administration.
Trophy-hunting isn’t about a handful of sick individuals – it is about a huge global industry which wields extraordinary power and manipulates governments.
The Mind Unleashed / Crickey Conservation Society.
Forest Garden with 500 Edible Plants
Historically, farms and forests have been at odds. Conventional wisdom says we have to cut down the forest to make way for agriculture. But a growing movement called Agro-Forestry “capitalizes” on the free services forests provide farmers and gardeners.
A forest garden with 500 edible plants requires only a few hours of work per month to reveal the answer. Not only do trees protect more delicate edible plants from the elements and extreme weather, they provide nutrients, water, pest control and pollination services.
Although you might not find all your traditional annual veggies in a forest garden, you will discover hundreds of new varieties of edible plants you never knew existed, that are often more nutrient-dense and flavorful.
And if you choose your plants carefully, they will propagate themselves each year and live symbiotically among the hundreds of diverse species around them, requiring no tilling, planting, fertilizing, weeding or watering.
This is what Martin Crawford has done in his 2-acre forest garden in England for over 20 years — let it do the work for him for the most part, after a few years of research and legwork.
While the initial planting of the forest required years of research and watering, Crawford now has over 500 varieties of food growing wild in his garden, which requires very little work other than plucking and eating the fruits of his “labor.”
From time to time, he adds a new exotic species to his garden or stomps on some overgrown cow parsley to give other herbs a chance to catch up, but for the most part, he’s “playing and tinkering” in his garden, rather than doing anything that resembles work.
A complete garden should include 7 layers :
1. Tall trees
2. Smaller trees
3. Shrubs
4. Perrenials
5. Groundcover
6. Root crops
7. Climbing vines
It includes directly useful plants like fruit trees, nuts, tubers, vegetables, medicinal herbs, timber. It also includes indirectly useful plants that help the system function better like nitrogen fixers, mineral accumulators, plants that attract beneficial insects that eat pests.
Because almost all of the plants are perennial, there’s no need to “dig the soil.” Not digging the soil is really important in terms of sustainability because every time you dig the soil, a load of carbon goes into the air.
Additionally, digging or tilling the soil to plant annual crops, releases nutrients, and kills bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms that keep the soil alive by exposing them to the sun.
The soil in a forest garden is extra rich because the deep tree roots breakdown minerals deep in the subsoil and bring the nutrients up to the topsoil. They also drop leaves, which act as a natural compost.
Also, the canopy layer of the trees keeps moisture from evaporating out of the garden, so that as your forest grows denser you will have to do less and less watering. When forests grow big enough, they create their own rainfall, eliminating the need for irrigation altogether.
And… Crawford notes, the forest attracts wild game, so if you’re into meat, you don’t have to raise it, you can just shoot it. So, in short, don’t clear the forest to start a farm, let the forest grow your food for you.
Creating a Forest Garden / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
The Human Body responds to Sharp Changes in Solar & Geomagnetic Activity
Multiple studies have shown how changes In solar & geomagnetic activity correlate with human biology. This is usually measured by autonomic nervous system activity. Now, how much of an influence does the Cosmos have on human consciousness?
Over the past few years, a number of publications have emerged from scientists and researchers all over the world regarding the human magnetic field.
Not only have they been studying the human magnetic field, they’ve also been studying the magnetic field of the planet, and how all these fields, including our own, can impact ourselves and the people around us.
It’s similar to quantum entanglement, in that both show that everybody and every living thing is “connected” in ways we have yet to fully understand.
A large portion of the research at the HearthMath Institute has investigated heart and brain interaction. Researchers have examined how the heart and brain communicate with each other and how that affects our consciousness and the way in which we perceive our world.
For example, when a person is feeling really positive emotions like gratitude, love, or appreciation, the heart beats out a certain message. Because the heart beats out the largest electromagnetic field produced in the body, it can yield significant data for researchers.
Now, the Institute has published new research which suggests that daily autonomic nervous system activity not only responds to changes in solar and geomagnetic activity, but also synchronizes with the time-varying magnetic fields associated with geo-matic field-line resonances and Schumann resonances.
In 1952, German physicist and professor W.O. Schumann of the Technical University of Munich began attempting to answer whether or not the Earth itself has a frequency — a pulse.
His assumption about the existence of this frequency came from his understanding that when a sphere exists inside of another sphere, an electrical tension is created.
Since the negatively charged Earth exists inside the positively charged ionosphere, there must be tension between the two, giving the Earth a specific frequency.
Following his assumptions, through a series of calculations he was able to land upon a frequency he believed was the pulse of the Earth. This frequency was 10hz.
It wasn’t until 1954 that Schumann teamed up with another scientist, Herbert König, and confirmed that the resonance of the Earth maintained a frequency of 7.83 Hz.
This discovery was later tested out by several scientists and confirmed. Since then, the Schumann Resonance has been the accepted term to describe or measure the pulse or heartbeat of the earth.
The preliminary findings have confirmed and extended the results of the first study and they indicate humanity’s heart rhythms are synchronized on a global scale. We are synchronized not only with each other, but also with the earth’s energetic systems.
The results are consistent with other studies showing that changes in solar and geomagnetic activity correlate with changes in the human nervous system activity.
It’s long been known that all biological systems on Earth are exposed to invisible magnetic fields of all kinds, and at all range of frequencies, and that these fields can affect every cell and circuit to a greater or lesser degree.
A number of physiological rhythms, as the study points out, have been shown to be synchronized with solar and geomagnetic activity.
Human regulatory systems are designed to adapt to daily and seasonal climatic and geomagnetic variations; however, sharp changes in solar and geomagnetic activity and geomagnetic storms can stress these regulatory systems, resulting in alterations in melatonin/serotonin balance, blood pressure, immune system, reproductive, cardiac, and neurological processes.
Disturbed geomagnetic activity is associated with the intensification of existing diseases, significant increases in myocardial infarction incidence and death, changes in blood flow, aggregation, and coagulation, increased blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmias, and seizures in epileptics.
The study outlines how, during periods of increased solar activity, which peaks every 10.5 to 11 years, “the sun emits increased ultraviolet (UV) energy and solar radio flub, which is measured by the 2.8 GHz signal” and “although the details of the physiological mechanisms in humans and animals are not yet fully understood.
However, it is apparent that solar and magnetic influences affect a wide range of human health and behavioral processes, with the cardiovascular and nervous systems being the most clearly affected.
The study goes on to outline several examples where the human autonomic nervous system seems to be responding to this type of activity.
- The Earth’s magnetic fields are a carrier of biologically relevant information that connects all living systems
- Every person affects this global information field. Large numbers of people creating heart-coherent states of love, appreciation, care, and compassion can generate a more coherent field environment that benefits others and helps off-set the current planetary discord and incoherence
- There is a feedback loop between human beings and Earth’s energetic/magnetic systems
- Earth has several sources of magnetic fields that affect us all. Two of them are the geomagnetic field that emanates from the core of the Earth, and the fields that exist between Earth and the ionosphere. These fields surround the entire planet and act as protective shields blocking out the harmful effects of solar radiation, cosmic rays, sand, and other forms of space weather. Without these fields, ice as we know it could not exist on Earth. They are part of the dynamic ecosystem of our planet.
- The Earth and ionosphere generate frequencies that range from 0.01 hertz to 300 hertz, some of which are in the exact same frequency range as the one happening in our brain, cardiovascular system, and autonomic nervous system. This fact is one way to explain how fluctuations in the Earth’s and Sun’s magnetic fields can influence us.
- Changes in these fields have also been shown to affect our brain waves, heart rhythms, memory, athletics performance, and overall halth.Changes in the Earth’s fields from extreme solar activity have been linked to some of humanity’s greatest creations of art, as well as some of its most tragic events.
- We know how these fields affect us, but what about how we affect these fields? That’s the real question here. GCI scientists believe that because brainwave and heart rhythm frequencies overlap the Earth’s field resonance, we are not just receivers of biologically relevant information, but also feed information into the global field, thus creating a feedback loop with the Earth’s magnetic fields.
Research is indicating that human emotions and consciousness encode information into the geomagnetic field and this encoded information is distributed globally. The Earth’s magnetic fields act as carrier waves for this information which influences all living systems and the collective consciousness.
These days, it’s not just knowing information and facts that will create change, it’s changing ourselves, how we go about communicating, and re-assessing the underlying stories, ideas and beliefs that form our world.
We have to practice these things if we truly want to change. At Collective Evolution and CETV, this is a big part of our mission.
Amongst 100’s of hours of exclusive content, we have recently completed two short courses to help you become an effective change maker, one called Profound Realization and the other called How To Do An Effective Media Detox.
Collective Evolution / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Volcanoes currently erupting around the world?
What is going on right now! As if all volcanoes together had decided erupting all of a sudden around the world. It’s probably to end this satanic year quickly after the mark of the beast made its debut in 2020.
The recent volcanic activity at Italy’s Mount Etna intensified overnight, as a large stream of lava spewed out westward from Europe’s largest and most active volcano, putting local residents on edge as 2020 draws to a close.
The eruption at the 3,329-meter (10,922-foot) volcano’s southeast crater reignited, resulting in yet another lava-fountain episode (known as a paroxysm), lighting up the Sicilian skies in the early morning, before filling them with thick clouds of smoke and ash.
Shiveluch volcano, Russia – December 22
A spectacular volcanic explosion occurred on December 22, 2020, at 12:20 p.m. local time, sending a plume of ash to an altitude of 16,000 ft (4,876 m).
A second strong explosion occurred on the same day at 7:30 p.m., sending a spectacular ash plume 28,000 ft (8,500 m) in the air and spreading about 130 km to the southeast of the volcano.
Kilauea volcano, Hawaii – December 21
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano roared back to life on Monday, after a 4.4 magnitude earthquake struck the volcano’s south flank.
Meanwhile, two fissures continue to fill the Halema’uma’u crater, and no activity outside has been observed. Gas emissions and seismic tremor remain elevated, reports USGS.
Sakurajima volcano, Japan – December 21
The explosion occurred at 4:40 p.m. JST.
Suwanosejima volcano, Japan – December 22
The volcano is in an extremely active phase of activity with almost near-constant eruptions (up to 89 per day), with thick ash plume, reaching up to 1,968 ft-3,937 ft (600 m-1,200 m) altitude and lava bombs ejected as far as 800 m away from the crater.
The strong glow from the Otake crater suggests rise of flux of magma within the volcano. Beware of ballistic impacts of volcanic bombs and pyroclastic flows in an area of about 1 km distance from the main crater.
Increased seismic activity under Hudson volcano, Chile
SERNAGEOMIN has raised the alert level for Cerro Hudson volcano from Green to Yellow on December 22, 2020 due to an uptick in seismictivity (volcano-tectonic, long-period, and hybrid earthquakes) under the main crater.
The last eruption of Hudson was a VEI2 and occurred in 2011. The volcanic peak is known to produce VEI5-6 eruptions. The latest, also qualified as Chile’s second-largest eruption of the 20th century, took place between Aug. 8th and Oct. 27th 1991 (VEI5).
Unrest at Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand
Again, the Crater Lake temperature is rising at Mount Ruapehu (now around 40°C). In addition, the largest measured gas output in the past two decades was measured on dec. 21st, prompting officials to raise the Aviation Color Code to Yellow.
M3.9 hits Bárðarbunga volcano, Iceland
An earthquake of M3.9 hit Bárðarbunga volcano, under the ice cap of Vatnajökull glacier, yesterday at 11:37 a.m. local time. The quake hit at a depth of 1.7 km (1 mile), 5 km (3.1 mi) southeast of Bárðarbunga.
Now if you add to this the strange earthquake swarm in Antarctica and the latest M6.3 earthquake two days ago in Japan, there is really something going on along the Ring of Fire right now! Are we going to get a cataclysmic eruption soon? Time will tell but we are clearly overdue!
Strange Sounds Organization / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Siberia braces for record-cold temperatures to hit freezing -50 degrees
Russia’s Hydrometeorological Center has forecast that Western and Central Siberia will see temperatures as low as -50 Celsius before the end of the year – around 20 degrees lower than the typical December cold.
Earlier this year, in the height of summer, the highest-ever temperature seen above the Artic Circle was recorded, with the small town of Verkhoyansk seeing the mercury reach as high as +38C.
Extremely cold weather in Siberia has not happened for a long time, explained Roman Vilfand, the scientific director of the Hydrometeorological Center, noting that the upcoming freeze will come close to the all-time record. The temperature is 20 to 24 degrees below normal.
According to Vilfand, extreme cold is also a consequence of climate change, pointing out that “global warming is not only high temperatures, but also a large amplitude of variability.
The volatility of temperature was highlighted at the start of December, when the north of Siberia saw temperatures more than 10 degrees higher than the norm, with parts of the country breaking records for the highest-ever detected temperature for that period.
For example, on December 1, the Yakutia village of Saskylakh saw temperatures reach -4.4, beating the previous high of -7.7, set in 1954.
RT. com / Crickey Conservation Society.
Bestemmingsplan Vista Royal
Mag de bestemming van Woongebied ook als Toeristisch- en Recreatie gebied dienen? Dat was de vraag die Crickey Amigu di Natura via een LOB verzoek stelde. Maar zoals u kan zien wordt van de meet af aan de kern van het verzoek ondermijnd en in mogelijke dwaling gebracht.
Volgens het Ministerie van Bestuur, Planning en Dienstverlening werd een verzoek tot inzage ingediend, waarbij er alleen gevraagd werd om een kopie van het bestemmingplan te Vista Royal III B. Dat is onjuist, en zodoende kan men in den beginne een waardevol en geldig antwoord vermijden.
Vista Royal wordt sinds jaar en dag gebruikt door recreanten, die de woonbuurt massaal al “Caminata” gebruiken. Verder verhuren belasting onduikende eigenaren van woningen op Jan Thiel zodat deze aangewend worden als vakantie woning, die voor minimaal fl.1000,= per dag verhuurd worden aan zeer luidruchtige, vaak dronken vakantie gangsters, waarbij schreeuwende kinderen de kroon spannen.
Aangezien beide aangelegenheden voor veel hinder en oneindige structureel aanhoudende overlast zorgen, werd er een LOB verzoek ingediend om de regering te verzoeken deze campagne te zuiveren, zodat de echte bewoners van Vista Royal niet verplicht worden hun woningen te verlaten en/of te moeten verkopen aan de toeristen netwerken.
Inmiddels heeft het ministerie al uitstel tot behandeling ingediend, aangezien de vraagstelling in de materie wel van zeer moeilijke aard blijkt te zijn. Op 22 December, 2020 verwachten we antwoord op het LOB verzoek en zal er hoogstwaarschijnlijk aangegeven worden dat de bestemming van Vista Royal (niet of wel alleen) “Woongebied” is?
Stichting Crickey Amigu di Natura 2007.
Knip developed for Mass Tourism?
Petitie om bouw werk van toegangs brug voor rolstoel gebruikers op Knip Baai te pareren, en de bestaande en uitermate geschikte achterliggende weg daarvoor te gebruiken. Dat kost de belasting betaler ook minder geld, wat er geeneens is om de armoede inhoudelijk te bestrijden?
Vele lokale bewoners zijn ernstig ontsteld geraakt van dit monsterlijk eco-terrorisme project, en eisen aftreden van de betrokken minister, maar die hangt een mooi verhaal op en daarmee mag, zoals gewoonlijk het volk het dan maar mee doen?
Dit zijn eco-terroristen die bezig zijn met dit monsterlijk gedrocht te plaatsen. Moet onmiddelijk worden stopgezet voordat het te laat is.
Als het zo hoognodig is, dat men rekening wilt houden met rolstoel toerisme, dan kunnen deze mensen beter nabijgelegen Klein Knip en/of Lagun bezoeken.
Terwijl de zogenaamde autonome Koninkrijks kolonies stijgende armoede krijgen voorgeschoteld en 70.000 van 300.000 inwoners (Aruba, Curacao en St.Maarten) afhankelijk werden gesteld van voedsel pakketten, geeft de regering op Curacao fl.200.000 uit aan een niets omhoudende loopbrug op Knipbaai?
Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Global Warming Record Year 2020
According to the UN 2020 is set to rank among hottest years on record despite ‘La Nina’ cooling and could also be contributing to an unusually active hurricane season.
Global temperatures boosted by climate change will still be higher than usual despite the cooling effect of a “moderate to strong” La Nina weather phenomenon, the UN said Thursday.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said La Nina “has developed and is expected to last into next year, affecting temperatures, precipitation and storm patterns in many parts of the world.”
La Nina is considered the stormy sister of El Nino, which occurs every two to seven years when the prevailing trade winds that circulate surface water in the tropical Pacific start to weaken.
El Nino, which has a major influence on weather and climate patterns and associated hazards such as heavy rains, floods and drought, has a warming influence on global temperatures, whilst La Nina tends to have the opposite effect.
All naturally occurring climate events now take place against a background of human-induced climate change which is exacerbating extreme weather and affecting the water cycle.
La Nina typically has a cooling effect on global temperatures, but this is more than offset by the heat trapped in our atmosphere by greenhouse gases.
Therefore, 2020 remains on track to be one of the warmest years on record and 2016-2020 is expected to be the warmest five-year period on record.
La Nina years now are warmer even than years with strong El Nino events of the past.
The UN agency pointed to fresh data indicating that this year’s La Nina would among other things lead to below normal rainfall in the Horn of Africa region and Central Asia, while Southeast Asia, some Pacific islands and the northern part of South America would see more rain than usual.
There is a connection between La Nina and El Nino and hurricane frequency. El Nino tends to suppress frequency and La Nina tends to encourage them, so if we do have a strong hurricane season, La Nina could be contributing to that.
The latest Hurricane Zeta barrelled through the southern United States and is the 27th storm of the season.
In September, meteorologists were forced to use the Greek alphabet to name Atlantic storms for only the second time ever, after the 2020 hurricane season blew through their usual list, ending on Tropical Storm Wilfred.
Zeta was expected to be the last hurricane of the season, which typically runs from June through October, although the warming of the oceans, which provides more energy for hurricanes, has allowed storms to rage later into the year.
La Nina was instead expected to create drier than normal conditions in the southern United States and northern Mexico over the next three months. So it may go from hurricanes and flooding to dry conditions fairly quickly.
AFP / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Curacao Weather Forecast
Curaçao doesn’t suffer the wrath of hurricane season. Curaçao’s weather tends to be sunny even throughout the months that other Caribbean islands experience torrential rains.
Situated along the coast of Venezuela, and only 12 degrees north of the equator, Curaçao’s average temperature rests in the mid-80’s all year. Most vacationers head to Curaçao between December and April, causing hotel rates and airfare to skyrocket.
If you’ve come to dive or snorkel, you’ll enjoy good visibility throughout the year. Because the island is located outside the hurricane belt, its marine life is unaffected by seasonal changes.
However, temperatures during the Hurricane Season tend to be exceptionally hot, with desert style extremely high UV ratings up to 11 beyond the scale readings from 1-10, with temperatures easily reaching the high thirties and sometimes 40+ Celsius, between July and November.
A tropical wave is producing widespread cloudiness, showers, and thunderstorms over the eastern Caribbean Sea, with locally heavy rainfall and gusty winds affecting portions of the ABC Islands, the Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Environmental conditions are expected to become a little more conducive for development, and a tropical depression could form next week while the system moves westward or west-northwestward at about 15 mph across the central and western Caribbean Sea.
Tropical Depression 25 formed late Friday morning amid an area of disturbed weather over the northwestern Caribbean that meteorologists have had their eyes on since the demise of Beta, Sally, Teddy and Paulette.
The new system, previously dubbed Invest 91L by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), will take on the Greek letter name Gamma upon strengthening beyond a tropical depression.
After waves of heavy rain already doused parts of the Yucatan Peninsula, more rain is on the way in the form of at least one organized tropical system.
A stalled front, stretching from southern Florida to the Bay of Campeche, brought tremendous flooding across parts of the Yucatan Peninsula and southern Mexico enough rain to flood the streets in Tabasco.
Crickey Amigu di Natura Foundation 2020
Last decade Inflicted the worst Climate Crisis on record
Last decade was hottest in recent history as global warming accelerates, while 2019 was one of the three warmest years recorded since the Industrial Revolution. The rise in global temperatures is linked to the ongoing increase in emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
Last year was one of the three hottest years since the records began in the 1800’s, only outstripped by 2016, and 2015 in some analyses, the 30th edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society reported.
Each decade since 1980 the temperatures had been successively warmer than the one before. The last decade, 2010-2019, was 0.2C warmer than the previous 10 years from 2000-2009.
And the years since the turn of the millennium had been warmer than any other comparable period since the Industrial Revolution, climate experts warned.
All the years after 2013 had been warmer than any previous years dating back to the mid-1800’s, the evidence showed. The changes in the polar environment are the worst for the Ice bears, but also at the start of the food chain the plankton nurseries are minimized by global warming.
The report, which has contributions from climate scientists from around the world, including from the UK Met Office, also said lake temperatures were above long-term averages, and temperatures for permafrost – or permanently frozen ground – were increasing.
The growing season in the northern hemisphere was eight days longer than average in 2019, mountain glaciers shrank across the globe for the 32nd consecutive year and massive wildfires raged in Australia, the Amazon, Indonesia and Siberia.
Global average temperature is perhaps the simplest climate indicator through which to view the changes taking place in our climate. The number of extreme events, such as wildfires, heatwaves and droughts, have at least part of their root linked to the rise in global temperature.
Independent / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Brazilian Forest Fires are south of the Amazon River
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has said it is a “lie” that fires are ravaging the Amazon rain forest, despite data from his own government showing the number of blazes is rising.
Yet satellite data from Brazil’s national space agency, INPE, show the number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon last month rose 28% from July 2019, to 6,803.
Experts say the fires are typically not sparked naturally, but set by humans to clear land illegally for farming and ranching. Especially the world’s largest cattle industry causes methane gases, which are 20 times more harmful compared to carbon dioxide.
Last year, huge fires devastated the Amazon from May to October, sending a thick haze of black smoke all the way to Sao Paulo, thousands of kilometers away. The world’s lungs are set on fire for endless corporate profit taking.
The fires triggered worldwide alarm over a forest seen as vital to curbing climate change. Experts warn this year’s dry season, which is just getting started, could see even more fires.
The scrutiny is pressuring Bolsonaro, who has called for protected Amazon lands to be opened up to mining and agriculture. The Gold mining industry works with heavy chemical pollutants, destroying habitat far larger then the forest fires reach.
He has deployed the army to the Amazon basin, 60% of which is in Brazil, to fight fires and deforestation, declared a ban on agricultural fires and launched a task force to combat the problem.
He said that was producing results, pointing to a more than 25% reduction in deforestation year-on-year last month. Brazil follows its own policy regarding the rain forest, Chico Mendez got killed for trying to protect the Amazon rain forest.
“We are making big, enormous efforts to fight fires and deforestation, but even so, we are criticized,” he told the meeting of the Leticia Pact, a group launched last year to protect the Amazon.
His government has been accused of cherry-picking data by trumpeting the July drop in deforestation. At the moment large pieces of rain forest are being destroyed, almost the size of Switzerland every year?
Despite the one-month decline, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon set a new record high in the first seven months of the year, according to INPE data.
The president’s comments on Tuesday come even as Reuters witnesses in the remote Amazon town of Apui observed smoke blanketing the horizon in all directions during the day and large fires setting the sky aglow at night.
Fires in Brazil’s Amazon for the month of August hit a nine-year high in 2019 and this month so far looks even worse. More than 10,000 fires have been recorded in the first 10 days of August, up 17% from the same period a year ago, according to data from the country’s national space research agency Inpe.
But in a speech to other South American leaders on Tuesday, Bolsonaro challenged foreign representatives to fly over the Amazon saying that traveling by air from the far flung cities of Boa Vista to Manaus, you would not see a single flame.
Experts say that fires are not a natural phenomenon in the rain forest, but are usually man-made in order to clear deforested land for pasture. Agriculture, Mining and Ranching are the main reason for the policy.
Deforestation rose 34.5% in the 12-months through July, compared to the same period a year ago. Forest clearances did fall in July, the first decline in 15 months, a point emphasized by Bolsonaro.
Foreign pressure is mounting on Brazil to protect the world’s largest rain forest, an ecosystem vital to preserving climate change because of the vast amount of carbon dioxide that it absorbs.
Global investors managing more than $2 trillion have threatened to pull their investments out of Brazil’s meatpackers, grains traders and government bonds if Bolsonaro’s administration doesn’t take action on Amazon destruction.
Bolsonaro has dispatched the military to fight fires and deforestation since May, with the armed forces working with environmental agency Ibama to combat fires near Apui, according to Reuters witnesses.
Yahoo / AOL / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Europe’s carbon dioxide monitoring mission becomes a reality
Taking the mission a significant step forward, the European Space Agency (ESA) and OHB System, a European multinational technology corporation based in Bremen, Germany, signed on July 29 a contract to build the first two satellites that make up the mission.
With the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere approaching levels that humans may have never before experienced, the need to monitor sources of emissions is more urgent than ever – hence the Copernicus Carbon Dioxide Monitoring mission being one of Europe’s new high-priority satellite missions.
With a contract secured worth €445 million, OHB will lead the industrial consortium to start building the two satellites. As the main contractor, OHB is responsible overall, and is also developing the satellite platforms.
As the main sub-contractor, Thales Alenia Space will supply the instruments: the near-infrared and shortwave-infrared spectrometer that will measure emissions of carbon dioxide.
Importantly, the mission will be the first to measure how much carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere specifically through human activity.
Although measurements on the ground have made it possible to track general changes in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, it is not possible to make reliable statements about anthropogenic emissions from individual countries or even individual regions and cities.
The Copernicus Carbon Dioxide Monitoring mission, or CO2M for short, aims to close this gap. In turn, data gathered by CO2M will be used to help track and implement targets set out in the still weakened Paris Agreement philosophy.
The question of how the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will develop in the coming decades will also determine the fate of the global climate.”
Today, most ships burn bunker fuel. Typically, this is the dregs left over at the end of the refinery process. It is an environmental nightmare. It is heavy and toxic, doesn’t evaporate, and emits more sulfur than other fuels.
Like aviation, shipping isn’t covered by the Paris Agreement on climate change because of the international nature of the industry.
The Paris deal aims to limit the global temperature rise to below 2°C this century by reducing emissions. Instead, it is the job of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to negotiate a reduction in emissions from the industry.
Reducing emissions from shipping is not an easy thing to do, agrees Maurice Meehan, director of global shipping operations with the Carbon War Room, an international think-tank working on market-based solutions to climate change.
The industry will simply say that they are doing a good job building more efficient vessels and retrofitting older ships. It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars.
The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world. International shipping produces nearly one billion tons of CO2 emissions, which is approximately 2% to 3% of global man-made emissions.
WWF / Crickey Conservation Society 2020
Tropical Storm Gonzalo heading for ABC-Islands
Tropical Storm Gonzalo is headed for the Windward Islands Saturday, but weakening is expected as the storm approaches. Some islands may receive gusty rain showers as Gonzalo passes through.
Gonzalo is the earliest seventh named tropical storm on record to form in the Atlantic basin, according to Phil Klotzbach, a tropical scientist at Colorado State University. The previous record was held by Tropical Storm Gert, which developed on July 24, 2005.
The most active part of the hurricane season is still weeks away, but experts’ predictions for a busy season appear to be holding true, with the National Hurricane Center now monitoring two systems.
Tropical Storm Gonzalo, which formed Wednesday, is expected to become the first hurricane of the season by Friday night. Meantime, a tropical depression has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
A hurricane watch has been issued for Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines as Gonzalo is expected to strengthen into a hurricane over the next 24 hours and peak at a Category 1. Either way, there is an increasing risk of wind and rain impacts to portions of the southern Windward Islands this weekend.
Gonzalo had sustained winds of 60 mph and was about 810 miles east of the southern Windward Islands. Beyond tropical storm-force winds, rainfall will be a massive concern for the ABC-Islands along the coast of Venezuela.
The official forecast continues to show Gonzalo becoming a hurricane in about 24 hours, but the uncertainty in this scenario cannot be stressed enough. Small storms are prone to more significant fluctuations in intensity, both up and down.
NOAA / Crickey Conservation Society 2020.
Crickey Amigu di Natura 