*Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) approved five permits, or, Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHC) for oil and gas seismic surveys along much of the Atlantic Seaboard.
It’s the first oil and gas exploration in the U.S. Atlantic in 30 years. The approval, which requires a final consent from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, has hideous consequences for millions of sea creatures.
*According to famed conservationist E.O. Wilson, we have entered the Age of Eremocene, or, the age of loneliness. The whales have gone quiet. The mammals, the birds and the insects have vanished. 138 acres of ancient forests are felled every minute. The Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction is occurring as much as 10,000 times the rate of the previous five others. Hideous.
*National Geographic’s Science Fair, directed by Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster, is an uplifting and inspirational film on the world’s future scientists.
Today, science is everywhere and within everything in our Man-made culture. In fact each month, the average child in the industrialized developed world sends 3,000 texts.
Who amongst us (that are old enough) wasn’t intrigued by the science that enabled Man’s first step on the moon?”
When you enter a dark room and flip the light switch, or flush the toilet many times each day, that’s science and engineering at a rudimentary level. Yet, most of us could not exist without these old technologies. Never mind how inextricably attached everyone is to the internet.
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*With 150,000 acres scorched and almost 12,000 homes in ruins, the touching animal stories from the Camp Fire in northern California, remind us of gratitude especially for the many intrepid animal rescuers.
Our pets are remarkable friends. Their unconditional love is indeed a treasure trove. Animals are unstinting companions. For some people, pets are their closest family members.
Hundreds of animal rescuers in both the north and the south of the state (which simultaneously experienced the Woolsey Fire) worked ceaselessly to help both domesticated and wild animals affected by the hellacious firestorms.
There are many heartwarming stories arising from California’s most devastating conflagration, the Camp Fire. Allow me to share just a few of them with you.
*Nature is irrefutably exhibiting the unavoidable effects from extracting and combusting fossil fuels: Death. The latest shocking reminder is the record number of fatalities from last week’s northern California firestorms.
In the meantime, the Paris-based International Energy Agency recently projected that by 2025 the U.S. will produce half the global oil and gas from its water-poisoning fracking bonanza.
Here’s what we know: Burning fossil fuels has caused atmospheric oxygen to plummet. Keep Reading
*250,000 Californians from the north and the south are currently evacuated from their communities. At least 48 people are dead with more than 7,000 structures in ruins. It’s five weeks before Christmas and once again firestorms are raging across the Golden State.
Six years of unrelenting drought in tandem with elevated (ocean and air) temperatures are most certainly a deadly combination.
Since 2010, more than 130 million mature trees have perished across the state. Water-starved coniferous trees communicate their plight to bark beetles. The insects deliver the coup de grâce.
In fact, across western North America this is a pattern that’s all too familiar: 30 billion mature dead trees. Instead of removing CO2 and giving off oxygen, gigantic tree graveyards are decomposing and contributing to the overburdened and overheated atmosphere.
No trees. No life.
*Each year, Man steals $400 billion of wild animals and ancient forests from Nature. In fact, 15 percent, or, 1.14 billion people, rise each morning to kill the planet. Much of this rapacious looting is controlled by organized crime.
Since 1970, 60% of wildlife on land is gone and it’s far worse under the sea, according to the 2018 Living Planet Report from the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF). Insect populations, too, have crashed. 250 billion metric tons annually of deadly Man-made chemicals along with the accelerated ocean heat from combustion of fossil fuels have taken a hideous toll on all earth-bound life.
Beyond toxic chemicals and unrelenting heat, destruction of habitat is also accelerating globally. For example, 104 football fields a minute of ancient forests are razed, 24/7/365.
The most perfect flying rivers and CO2 warehouses, the planet’s terrestrial climate stabilizers, are under siege like never before.
No ancient forests. No animals. No insects. No freshwater. No life.
*Since 2014, more than 872 of our brethren, the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) have been captured and enslaved in Chinese dolphinariums, or, amusement aquariums. It’s a horrid industry that pays millions in cash to Japanese and Russian mafia to supply live cetaceans.
Already there are 244 Chinese dolphinariums with Haichang Ocean Park, Guangzhou R & F Properties, Dalian Shengya and Chimelong Group driving rapid expansion of this inhumane industry. 36 new Chinese cetacean prisons are scheduled to open between 2019-2021.
This insatiable lust for more dolphins is stoking the monstrous drive-hunts that are taking place at this very moment off the shores of Taiji, Japan. Every morning, my colleagues at Sea Shepherd, the Dolphin Project and others awaken to bear witness to the cold-blooded and diabolical slaying and capturing of dolphins and porpoises.
*Bats are extraordinary pollinators and insect-eating creatures. These admirable masterpieces are the unsung heroes of the night sky. The last week of October is known as Bat Week. It’s a time to celebrate these beauties and to recognize their plight.
Bats have inhabited the planet for 50 million years. There are approximately 1,300 bat species worldwide, including 47 in the U.S. and 18 kinds in Canada.
*The world’s remaining ancient forests are breathtaking “flying rivers.” They move water on almost inconceivably large scales. The ancient forests are also vital medicine chests for the bees.
The oceans are the main drivers of climate, yet new information reveals just how critical ancient forests are at creating climate and influencing it across a continent and around the globe. When ancient forests are razed, all hell breaks loose halfway around the world.
