La vida va en un sentido, pero tal parece que los políticos suelen ir en sentido contrario. ¿Cuántas veces hemos detectado en nuestro diario vivir el contrasentido de decisiones políticas que se fundamentan en la ignorancia y no en el conocimiento…? .Creo que tantas que ya habremos perdido la cuenta.
Para ayudarnos a no perder la cuenta de lo que ocurre planetariamente, sin relación con el rumbo que dictan los políticos veamos estas dos noticias de la BBC una dedicada a insistir-una vez más- en la necesidad urgente de actuar, sin ambages para garantizar la biodiversidad planetaria (que nos incluye como seres vivos)
.Dice la primera nota :
1.-Biodiversity nears 'point of no return' , 17 de enero 2010 .-
The decline in the world's biodiversity is approaching a point of no return, warns Hilary Benn. In this week's Green Room, the UK's environment secretary urges the international community to seize the chance to act before it is too late.
In 2002, the world's governments made a commitment to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
Although it is hard to measure how much biodiversity we have, we do know these targets have not been met.
Our ecological footprint - what we take out of the planet - is now 1.3 times the biological capacity of the Earth.
In the words of Professor Bob Watson, Defra's chief scientific adviser and former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are in danger of approaching "a point of no return".
So the action we take in the next couple of decades will determine whether the stable environment on which human civilisation has depended since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago will continue.
To do this, we need to widen the nature of the debate about biodiversity. Flora and fauna matter for their own sake; they lift our spirits and nurture our souls.
But our ecosystems also sustain us and our economies - purifying our drinking water, producing our food and regulating our climate.
Climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked. We ignore natural capital at our peril.
Interdependence
The UK and Brazil are hosting a workshop in preparation for the next UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Representatives from more than 60 countries - from the Maldives to China - will attend the three-day event to discuss how we can ensure that the post-2010 targets stand a better chance of being met than those set in 2002.
The majority of those attending are from developing countries, including those with the rarest and greatest biodiversity. They need to be listened to.
It is easy to have principles when you can afford then - economics and ecology are interdependent.
So when it comes to biodiversity, we desperately need to start restoring links between science and policy, between taking action and evaluating it and between economies and ecosystems.
The big challenge will be for the real benefits of biodiversity and the hard costs of its loss to be included in our economic systems and markets.
Perverse subsidies and the lack of value attached to the services provided by ecosystems have been factors contributing to their loss. What we cannot cost, we don't value - until it has gone.
Investing in the future
Much greater concerted effort is needed to stop the plunder of our ecosystems.
Overfishing has reduced blue fin tuna numbers to 18% of what they were in the mid-1970s.
The burning of Indonesia's peat lands and forests for palm oil plantations generates 1.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, and demand is predicted to double by 2020 compared to 2000.
More than seven million hectares are lost worldwide to deforestation every single year.
The restoration of our ecosystems must be seen as a sensible and cost-effective investment in this planet's economic survival and growth.
I am optimistic. Talking about the danger of climate change has brought with it opportunities to tackle the biodiversity crisis.
While the 2010 targets have not been met, more than 160 countries now have national biodiversity action plans.
Mechanisms now exist for research, monitoring and scientific assessment of biodiversity, although we now need an Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to oversee progress in the same way the IPCC does for climate change.
One example of progress is the Brazilian Government's new target, which requires illegal deforestation to be cut by 80% by 2020.
Last year, deforestation rates in Brazil dropped by 45% against those of 2008, the largest fall since records began.
Other examples, closer to home, are the UK's Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) - 89% are in a good or recovering condition.
Our ninth National Park, in the South Downs, was created last year and agri-environmental schemes are producing significant improvements in biodiversity.
2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity and later this year - in Nagoya, Japan - we will have the chance to halt the decline of our planet's biodiversity.
It is up to us to seize it.
( Hilary Benn is the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) .- The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website.-
Y la segunda nota, debemos verla en referencia directa al gasto de solo mantener las ojivas nucleares ( barómetros de muerte) que tienen apuntándose uno al otro la URSS y USA ,que si se disminuye (para no pensar románticamente en su desaparición total) puede de sobra servir para crear y mantener un barómetro de vida como proponen varios científicos según detalla esta otra noticia de la BBC:
2.- 'World needs a barometer of life'
By Mark Kinver , Science and environment reporter, BBC News
The world needs a "barometer of life" to prevent ecosystems and species being lost forever, scientists have warned.
Existing schemes, they said, did not include enough species from groups such as fungi and invertebrates to provide a detailed picture of what is at risk.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said the barometer would increase the number of species being assessed from almost 48,000 to 160,000.
The data would help identify areas in need of urgent action, they added.
The article was penned by four leading figures in conservation, including Harvard University's Edward O Wilson and Simon Stuart, chairman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SSC).
"Knowledge about species and extinction rates remains very poor, and species disappear before we know they existed," they wrote.
To date, about 1.9m species have been described and given scientific names, but the actual number may exceed 10m.
"As scientists are better able to assess the conservation status of the species that compose an ecosystem, the more they will understand the health of that ecosystem," they continued.
"It is time to accelerate taxanomy and scientific natural history, two of the most vital but neglected disciplines of biology."
Broader coverage
Currently, the most authoritative data on the status of at-risk species is the IUCN Red List, which has been assessing the conservation status of species around the globe for more than 40 years.
Dr Stuart, who oversees the compilation of the Red List, said it provided a good insight to the health of certain ecosystems, such as forests.
"But it is very weak in its coverage of freshwater, marine and arid land species," he told BBC News.
"There are a lot of additional species that we have to bring into the Red List."
At the moment, it evaluates almost 48,000 species, but it is acknowledged that there is a bias towards higher vertebrates, which include mammals, birds and reptiles.
"The barometer would broaden the reach of the Red List to make it representative of all life, that's what it's all about," Dr Stuart explained.
The authors hope that broadening the taxanomic base of the Red List and increasing the database to 160,000 species would deliver practical benefits.
"A representative barometer would provide a solid basis for informing decisions globally," the authors suggested.
"For example, on conservation planning, resource allocation, environmental impact assessments, monitoring biodiversity trends... and enabling countries to develop national-level biodiversity indicators."
'Not acceptable'
The authors, all of whom are leading figures in their field, decided to join forces in order to voice their concerns that the rate of progress was too slow.
"The amount that we are investing at the moment in the Red List to broaden its coverage means that it would take about 20 years to get there," Dr Stuart observed.
"At a time when everything on the planet is deteriorating, having to wait 20 years before we can measure everything properly is not acceptable."
However, the scientists acknowledge that a three-fold increase in the number of species regularly monitored by a global network of biologists would come at a price - an estimated US $60m (£39m).
But they argued: "The barometer would, from an economic perspective, be one of the best investments for the good of humanity."
Corolario:
Todos los que tenemos la posibilidad de leer, escribir, colocar ideas en la web debemos usar esa prerrogativa para insistir en que todo aquello que vaya en pro de la vida debe favorecerse y de que todo aquello que vaya en contra de la vida debe criticarse. Pero la crítica debe ser activa. Únase Usted lector a algún grupo pro ambiente en su país, o afíliese ,además, a organizaciones serias y responsables que luchan por nosotros a nivel global, caso de Greenpeace y de Aavaz.
Leer más...
Para ayudarnos a no perder la cuenta de lo que ocurre planetariamente, sin relación con el rumbo que dictan los políticos veamos estas dos noticias de la BBC una dedicada a insistir-una vez más- en la necesidad urgente de actuar, sin ambages para garantizar la biodiversidad planetaria (que nos incluye como seres vivos)
.Dice la primera nota :
1.-Biodiversity nears 'point of no return' , 17 de enero 2010 .-
The decline in the world's biodiversity is approaching a point of no return, warns Hilary Benn. In this week's Green Room, the UK's environment secretary urges the international community to seize the chance to act before it is too late.
In 2002, the world's governments made a commitment to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
Although it is hard to measure how much biodiversity we have, we do know these targets have not been met.
Our ecological footprint - what we take out of the planet - is now 1.3 times the biological capacity of the Earth.
In the words of Professor Bob Watson, Defra's chief scientific adviser and former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are in danger of approaching "a point of no return".
So the action we take in the next couple of decades will determine whether the stable environment on which human civilisation has depended since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago will continue.
To do this, we need to widen the nature of the debate about biodiversity. Flora and fauna matter for their own sake; they lift our spirits and nurture our souls.
But our ecosystems also sustain us and our economies - purifying our drinking water, producing our food and regulating our climate.
Climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked. We ignore natural capital at our peril.
Interdependence
The UK and Brazil are hosting a workshop in preparation for the next UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Representatives from more than 60 countries - from the Maldives to China - will attend the three-day event to discuss how we can ensure that the post-2010 targets stand a better chance of being met than those set in 2002.
The majority of those attending are from developing countries, including those with the rarest and greatest biodiversity. They need to be listened to.
It is easy to have principles when you can afford then - economics and ecology are interdependent.
So when it comes to biodiversity, we desperately need to start restoring links between science and policy, between taking action and evaluating it and between economies and ecosystems.
The big challenge will be for the real benefits of biodiversity and the hard costs of its loss to be included in our economic systems and markets.
Perverse subsidies and the lack of value attached to the services provided by ecosystems have been factors contributing to their loss. What we cannot cost, we don't value - until it has gone.
Investing in the future
Much greater concerted effort is needed to stop the plunder of our ecosystems.
Overfishing has reduced blue fin tuna numbers to 18% of what they were in the mid-1970s.
The burning of Indonesia's peat lands and forests for palm oil plantations generates 1.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, and demand is predicted to double by 2020 compared to 2000.
More than seven million hectares are lost worldwide to deforestation every single year.
The restoration of our ecosystems must be seen as a sensible and cost-effective investment in this planet's economic survival and growth.
I am optimistic. Talking about the danger of climate change has brought with it opportunities to tackle the biodiversity crisis.
While the 2010 targets have not been met, more than 160 countries now have national biodiversity action plans.
Mechanisms now exist for research, monitoring and scientific assessment of biodiversity, although we now need an Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to oversee progress in the same way the IPCC does for climate change.
One example of progress is the Brazilian Government's new target, which requires illegal deforestation to be cut by 80% by 2020.
Last year, deforestation rates in Brazil dropped by 45% against those of 2008, the largest fall since records began.
Other examples, closer to home, are the UK's Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) - 89% are in a good or recovering condition.
Our ninth National Park, in the South Downs, was created last year and agri-environmental schemes are producing significant improvements in biodiversity.
2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity and later this year - in Nagoya, Japan - we will have the chance to halt the decline of our planet's biodiversity.
It is up to us to seize it.
( Hilary Benn is the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) .- The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website.-
Y la segunda nota, debemos verla en referencia directa al gasto de solo mantener las ojivas nucleares ( barómetros de muerte) que tienen apuntándose uno al otro la URSS y USA ,que si se disminuye (para no pensar románticamente en su desaparición total) puede de sobra servir para crear y mantener un barómetro de vida como proponen varios científicos según detalla esta otra noticia de la BBC:
2.- 'World needs a barometer of life'
By Mark Kinver , Science and environment reporter, BBC News
The world needs a "barometer of life" to prevent ecosystems and species being lost forever, scientists have warned.
Existing schemes, they said, did not include enough species from groups such as fungi and invertebrates to provide a detailed picture of what is at risk.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said the barometer would increase the number of species being assessed from almost 48,000 to 160,000.
The data would help identify areas in need of urgent action, they added.
The article was penned by four leading figures in conservation, including Harvard University's Edward O Wilson and Simon Stuart, chairman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SSC).
"Knowledge about species and extinction rates remains very poor, and species disappear before we know they existed," they wrote.
To date, about 1.9m species have been described and given scientific names, but the actual number may exceed 10m.
"As scientists are better able to assess the conservation status of the species that compose an ecosystem, the more they will understand the health of that ecosystem," they continued.
"It is time to accelerate taxanomy and scientific natural history, two of the most vital but neglected disciplines of biology."
Broader coverage
Currently, the most authoritative data on the status of at-risk species is the IUCN Red List, which has been assessing the conservation status of species around the globe for more than 40 years.
Dr Stuart, who oversees the compilation of the Red List, said it provided a good insight to the health of certain ecosystems, such as forests.
"But it is very weak in its coverage of freshwater, marine and arid land species," he told BBC News.
"There are a lot of additional species that we have to bring into the Red List."
At the moment, it evaluates almost 48,000 species, but it is acknowledged that there is a bias towards higher vertebrates, which include mammals, birds and reptiles.
"The barometer would broaden the reach of the Red List to make it representative of all life, that's what it's all about," Dr Stuart explained.
The authors hope that broadening the taxanomic base of the Red List and increasing the database to 160,000 species would deliver practical benefits.
"A representative barometer would provide a solid basis for informing decisions globally," the authors suggested.
"For example, on conservation planning, resource allocation, environmental impact assessments, monitoring biodiversity trends... and enabling countries to develop national-level biodiversity indicators."
'Not acceptable'
The authors, all of whom are leading figures in their field, decided to join forces in order to voice their concerns that the rate of progress was too slow.
"The amount that we are investing at the moment in the Red List to broaden its coverage means that it would take about 20 years to get there," Dr Stuart observed.
"At a time when everything on the planet is deteriorating, having to wait 20 years before we can measure everything properly is not acceptable."
However, the scientists acknowledge that a three-fold increase in the number of species regularly monitored by a global network of biologists would come at a price - an estimated US $60m (£39m).
But they argued: "The barometer would, from an economic perspective, be one of the best investments for the good of humanity."
Corolario:
Todos los que tenemos la posibilidad de leer, escribir, colocar ideas en la web debemos usar esa prerrogativa para insistir en que todo aquello que vaya en pro de la vida debe favorecerse y de que todo aquello que vaya en contra de la vida debe criticarse. Pero la crítica debe ser activa. Únase Usted lector a algún grupo pro ambiente en su país, o afíliese ,además, a organizaciones serias y responsables que luchan por nosotros a nivel global, caso de Greenpeace y de Aavaz.
Entradas
