The Sixth Extinction

Somewhere on Earth, every 20 minutes, one animal species dies out. At this rate, we will lose 50% of all species by the end of the century. Time is running out to turn the tide.

By Jeff Corwin (in the Los Angeles Times)

There is a holocaust happening. Right now. And it's not confined to one nation or even one region. It is a global crisis.

Species are going extinct en masse.

Every 20 minutes we lose an animal species. If this rate continues, by century's end, 50% of all living species will be gone. It is a phenomenon known as the sixth extinction. The fifth extinction took place 65 million years ago when a meteor smashed into the Earth, killing off the dinosaurs and many other species and opening the door for the rise of mammals. Currently, the sixth extinction is on track to dwarf the fifth.

What -- or more correctly -- who is to blame this time? As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

The causes of this mass die-off are many: overpopulation, loss of habitat, global warming, species exploitation (the black market for rare animal parts is the third-largest illegal trade in the world, outranked only by weapons and drugs). The list goes on, but it all points to us.

Over the last 15 years, in the course of producing television documentaries and writing about wildlife, I have traveled the globe, and I have witnessed the grim carnage firsthand. I've observed the same story playing out in different locales.

In South Africa, off the coast of Cape Horn, lives one of the most feared predators of all -- the great white shark. Yet this awesome creature is powerless before the mindless killing spree that is decimating its species at the jaw-dropping rate of 100 million sharks a year. Many are captured so that their dorsal fins can be chopped off (for shark fin soup). Then, still alive, they are dropped back into the sea, where they die a slow and painful death.

Further east, in Indonesia, I witnessed the mass destruction of rain forests to make way for palm oil plantations. Indonesia is now the world's leading producer of palm oil -- a product used in many packaged foods and cosmetic goods -- and the victims are the Sumatran elephant and orangutan. These beautiful creatures are on the brink of extinction as their habitats go up in smoke, further warming our planet in the process.

One day while swimming off the coast of Indonesia, I came across a river of refuse and raw sewage stretching for miles. These streams and islands of refuse now populate all our oceans; in the middle of the Pacific, there is an island of garbage the size of Texas. This floating pollution serves to choke off and kill sea turtles -- driving them closer to extinction. At the same time, the coral reefs where sea turtles get their food supply are dying due to rising sea temperatures from global warming. To top it off, sea turtles are hunted and killed for their meat -- considered a delicacy in many Asian countries. It is an ugly but altogether effective one-two-three punch for this unique species.

It's important to understand that this is not just a race to save a handful of charismatic species -- animals to which we attach human-inspired values or characteristics. Who wouldn't want to save the sea otter, polar bear, giant panda or gorilla? These striking mammals tug at our heartstrings and often our charitable purse strings. But our actions need to be just as swift and determined when it comes to the valley elderberry longhorn beetle or the distinctly uncuddly, pebbly-skinned Puerto Rican crested toad or the black-footed ferret, whose fate is inextricably intertwined with that of the prairie dog. The reality is that each species, no matter how big, small, friendly or vicious, plays an important and essential role in its ecosystem. And we're in a race to preserve as much of the animal kingdom as possible.

Meanwhile, around the planet there are massive die-offs of amphibians, the canaries in our global coal mine. When frogs and other amphibians, which have existed for hundreds of millions of years, start to vanish, it is a sign that our natural world is in a state of peril. Bat and bee populations are also being decimated. Without bees, there will be no pollination, and without pollination, the predator that is decimating these other species -- humankind -- will also be headed toward its own extinction. Yes, there is a certain irony there.

This was all brought home to me in an intimate way after a recent trip to Panama. My young daughter, Maya, asked if she could accompany me on my next trip there so that she could see one of her favorite animals -- the frog -Panamanian golden frog -- up close and personal in the jungle. Sadly, I had to tell her no. This small, beautiful frog -- the national symbol of Panama -- no longer exists in the wild. Only a few live in captivity.

Is there hope? Yes. Because in every place I visited to witness the sixth extinction unfold, I met brave and selfless conservationists, biologists and wildlife scientists working hard to save species.

In Panama, biologist Edgardo Griffith has set up an amphibian rescue center to protect and quarantine rare frogs (including the Panamanian golden frog) before they are all wiped out by the deadly fungus Chytrid, which is rapidly killing off frogs on a global scale. In Africa, zoologist Iain Douglas Hamilton is one of many seeking to stop the illegal trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn. In Namibia, zoologist Laurie Marker is making strides to save the cheetah before it goes the way of the saber tooth tiger (or India's Bengal tiger, which is also on the precipice of extinction). In Indonesia, Ian Singleton is raising orphaned orangutans, training them to return to the remaining rain forest -- giving them a second chance at living in the wild. In South Africa, Alison Kock is leading a crusade to educate the world about the wholesale destruction of sharks.

Here in the United States, Chris Lucash of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is working to reintroduce the red wolf, now found only in captivity, to the woods of North Carolina. They are just a few of the many who are trying to reverse the species holocaust that threatens the future of our natural world.

These committed scientists bring great generosity and devotion to their respective efforts to stop the sixth extinction. But if we don't all rise to the cause and join them in action, they cannot succeed. The hour is near, but it's not too late.

Jeff Corwin is the author of "100 Heartbeats," a book about his experiences tracking the sixth extinction.

More Mercola on Cell Phone Danger

While, in theory, using a cell phone or other wireless device could interfere with the functions of an airliner, it’s not likely. Communication systems onboard planes have been shielded from electromagnetic interference since the 1960s.
The real reason why you can’t use your cell phone on a plane has much more to do with their impact on cell phone towers. If you’re flying at 35,000 feet, your cell phone’s signals could reach hundreds of towers at once, and cell phone companies are not set up to handle this type of roaming agreement.
That said, if you’re a frequent flyer you should be counting your lucky stars that cell phone use is currently prohibited on flights -- and not because you don’t have to suffer through other passengers’ loud personal calls, either!

A Flying Microwave Oven

An airplane is essentially a metal cylinder and is nearly an ideal structure to bounce around dangerous EMF radiation from any device that emits those signals inside the plane. Microwave exposure from cell phones and even Wi-Fi inside a plane is magnified by reflections from the metal body of the aircraft.
Airliners are worse than cars in this sense because there’s much less glass area relative to reflective metal. When you use a cordless phone or cell phone while standing near a metal door or refrigerator you also increase your exposure because of this reflective effect.
This holds true not only for planes and cars, but also buses, trains, elevators and any other moving vehicles, with the worst being perhaps a windowless van.
For the same reason, cell phone use should be banned at all times on commercial aircraft. Ideally, no one should be allowed to use their cell phones or laptop Wi-Fi inside a plane, even before takeoff, after landing or while sitting on the tarmac.

What Makes Cell Phones So Dangerous?

Cell phones, like all wireless communication devices, use radio (high frequency microwave) waves to transmit digital data, and the dangers of exposure were known as early as the 1950s in military applications. The hazards of radar, used in WWII, have been widely known in professional circles since the 1960s. Yet few have been willing to focus on the evidence, and the cellular industry has followed in the footsteps of the tobacco industry, vehemently denying any risks.
It’s worth remembering that the telecommunication industry is even BIGGER than Big Pharma, and they have far more influence than the drug companies.
My belief is that this exponential increase in this type of radiation exposure is far more serious a threat than tobacco ever was.

The first major indication that cell phones might be a health hazard came out of a massive, $25-million research project funded by the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA). To the industry’s surprise and dismay, the results of the study came to the opposite conclusion from the one they were hoping for.
The study's results included findings of:

• A nearly 300 percent increase in the incidence of genetic damage when human blood cells were exposed to radiation in the cellular frequency band
• A significant increase in cell phone users’ risk of brain tumors at the brain’s outer edge, on whichever side the cell phone was held most often
• A 60 percent greater chance of acoustic neuromas, a tumor affecting the nerve that controls hearing, among people who had used cell phones for six years or more
• A higher rate of brain cancer deaths among handheld mobile phone users than among car phone users (car phones are mounted on the dashboard rather than held next to your head and the antenna was typically outside of the car)

In addition to the widespread concern about brain cancer, scientists have found that digital radio waves transmitted by cell phones and other wireless devices can:

• Harm your blood cells and cause cellular changes
• Damage your DNA
• Possibly accelerate and contribute to onset of autism, and there are theories that it may be a trigger for Alzheimer’s disease because of the cellular decalcification effect.
• Damage your eyes
• Cause sleep disruptions, fatigue and headaches
• Change the exchange of nutrients and toxins across the cell membrane

And in all cases, the young are much more vulnerable to these risks than adults because of their thinner skulls, smaller heads, and still-developing brains and nervous systems. Their thinner skull bones allow for greater penetration of radiation. The radiation can enter all the way into the midbrain, where tumors are more deadly.

In addition, children's cells reproduce more quickly, so they're more susceptible to aggressive cell growth. Their immune systems are also not as well developed as adults. Lastly, children face a far greater lifetime exposure. Not only should children not use cell phones, but adults should not use them (or Wi-Fi) around children -- especially in light of the fact that brain cancer has now overtaken leukemia as the number one cancer killer of children.

The Top Cell Phone Safety Tips You Should Know

Cell phones have become an integral part of life and business for many of you reading this. So if you are not yet at the point where you want to give up your cell phone entirely, then please at least take note of the precautions you can take to help reduce the serious risks to you and your family.

• Children Should Never Use Cell Phones: Barring a life-threatening emergency, children should not use a cell phone, or a wireless device of any type. Children are far more vulnerable to cell phone radiation than adults for reasons stated above.
• Reduce Your Cell Phone Use: Turn your cell phone off more often. Reserve it for emergencies or important matters.
• Use A Land Line At Home And At Work: Although more and more people are switching to using cell phones as their exclusive phone contact, it is a dangerous trend and you can choose to opt out of the madness.
• Reduce or Eliminate Your Use of Other Wireless Devices: You would be wise to cut down your use of these devices. Just as with cell phones, it is important to ask yourself whether or not you really need to use them every single time.

It's important to realize that portable phones are also highly problematic. Recent research has linked portable house phones to an increased heart rate in people who are electromagnetically sensitive.
In some individuals, portable phone exposure almost doubled their heart rate in double-blind tests. This groundbreaking research has been accepted for publication and is expected to come out this spring, along with a large number of other studies focusing on the mechanisms of action to explain the biological damage we see from this type of radiation.
If you must use a portable home phone, consider using very early non-DECT version. Unfortunately, due to the lack of labeling, the only way to know for sure whether the type of phone you have is safe is to measure the amount of radiation emitted. The Web site www.emfsafetystore.com offers a helpful summary of the various meters recommended. 

• Use Your Cell Phone Only Where Reception is Good: The weaker the reception, the more power your phone must use to transmit. And the more power it uses, the more radiation it emits, and the deeper the dangerous radio waves penetrate into your body. Ideally, you should only use your phone with full bars and good reception.
• Turn Your Cell Phone Off When Not in Use: As long as your cell phone is on, it emits radiation intermittently, even when you are not actually making a call.
• Keep Your Cell Phone Away From Your Body When it is On: The most dangerous place to be, in terms of radiation exposure, is within about six inches of the emitting antenna. You do not want any part of your body within that area.

It's worth noting that your cell phone manual will actually tell you the minimum safety range of operation for your phone, even when not in use. For example, the iPhone states the phone must be at least 5/8 inch away from your body or ear for "safe operation." Almost all of them state that the cell phone "should NOT be worn or carried on the body."

• Use Safer Headset Technology: Wired headsets will certainly allow you to keep the cell phone farther away from your body. However, if a wired headset is not well-shielded -- and most of them are not -- the wire itself acts as an antenna attracting ambient radiation and transmitting radiation, not only directly to your brain, but also all along your torso.

The best kind of headset to use is a combination shielded wire and air-tube headset. Although there are wires that still must be shielded, there is no wire that goes all the way up to your head.

• Use a Shielded Case: There are several anti-radiation cases on the market, but you could also purchase a certain kind of EMF-shielding fabric, available at www.emfsafetystore.com. Making a pouch from this fabric to put inside your regular case can help shield over 99 percent of the radiation emitted if you cover the entire phone and antenna. Another thing some people do is sew a lining in their pockets with this fabric.

If you wrap most of the phone but leave the antenna out, you'd still achieve some reduction in radiation, but it would not be nearly as effective as wrapping up the entire phone. This is one approach to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure if you simply must carry the phone turned ‘on’ on your body.
Note, however, many phones today do not have an external antenna and it is not always obvious where the antenna is located in the phone. In this case, you would want to put the whole phone in a pouch made of the shielding fabric unless you are comfortable using an RF meter and can figure out where the antenna is located by experimentation.
Best advice, as a I said before, is to keep the phone away from your body. Get in the habit of carrying your phone in a purse, bag or backpack instead.

Future Farming: The Call for a 50-Year Perspective on Agriculture

An Interview with Wes Jackson by Robert Jensen

[Excerpt] As everyone scrambles for a solution to the crises in the nation’s economy, Wes Jackson suggests we look to nature’s economy for some of the answers. With everyone focused on a stimulus package in the short term, he counsels that we pay more attention to the soil over the long haul.

“We live off of what comes out of the soil, not what’s in the bank,” said Jackson, president of The Land Institute. “If we squander the ecological capital of the soil, the capital on paper won’t much matter.”

Jackson doesn’t minimize the threat of the current financial problems but argues that the new administration should consider a “50-year farm bill,” which he and the writer/farmer Wendell Berry proposed in a New York Times op/ed earlier this month.

Central to such a bill would be soil. A plan for sustainable agriculture capable of producing healthful food has to come to solve the twin problems of soil erosion and contamination, said Jackson, who co-founded the research center in 1976 after leaving his job as an environmental studies professor at California State University-Sacramento.

Jackson believes that a key part of the solution is in approaches to growing food that mimic nature instead of trying to subdue it. While Jackson and his fellow researchers at The Land Institute continue their work on Natural Systems Agriculture, he also ponders how to turn the possibilities into policy. He spoke with me from his office in Salina, Kansas.

Robert Jensen: This is a short-term culture, and federal policies typically are aimed at short-term results. Why call for a farm bill that looks so far ahead, especially in tough economic times?
Wes Jackson: For the past 50 or 60 years, we have followed industrialized agricultural policies that have increased the rate of destruction of productive farmland. For those 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe the absurd notion that as long as we have money we will have food. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy.
Read full article

 

Take carbon from the air, put it in the ground...Part 2

Can Agriculture Stop Global Warming? Jeffrey P. Mitchell from CA Climate and Agriculture on Vimeo.

Take carbon from the air, put it in the ground...Duh!

How To Take CO2 Out of the Sky, Timothy J LaSalle from CA Climate and Agriculture on Vimeo.

Alcohol Fuel for Sustainable Living

This is a 2.5 hr, not to be missed, video. Stay tuned. We will be bringing Dave Blume to Bloomington in 2010 for a two-day Alcohol Can Be a Gas training. Download the outline for the workshop. Date to be announced here.

NOT too big to fail...with your help.

Move Your Money

Lies and Bad Science - GMOs

Here are some excerpts from a recent interview, in Acres, USA, with Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette.



...we've identified 65 different risks, including thousands of sick, sterile and dead "livestock", thousands of toxic and allergic reactions in humans, and damage to virtually every organ and every system studied in laboratory animals. We have now what I say is irrefutable, overwhelming evidence that the current generation of genetically modified foods are unsafe, should never have been approved, and should be withdrawn....They have no justification for keeping their "foods" on the market given the overwhelming evidence to date. GMOs may constitute one of the greatest health and environmental catastrophes we face, since they are deployed in the entire food supply.

Evidence on health dangers has prompted the American Academy of Environmental Medicine to say that according to animal feeding studies, GMOs are causally linked to immune system problems, organ damage, reproductive damage, accelerated aging, insulin disregulation, gastrointestinal problems and higher death rates. A study...by the Union of Concerned Scientists confirm(ed)...that genetically modified crops on average reduce yield.

A USDA report from 2006 showed that farmers don't actually increase income from GMOs, but many actually lose income. And for the past several years the US has been forced to spend $3-5 billion per year to prop up the prices of GM crops no one wants. They are not reliable. They are expensive. The take money away from more effective strategies - sustainable and organic methods have been shown to increase yields in some cases by 73 - 300%.

...the strategy we have adopted for eliminating GMOs from the food supply...is not to try and get the government to do it for us but to create a tipping point of consumer rejection against GMOs. We think that could happen with as little as 5 % of US shoppers (15 million people) avoiding GM brands. That will make GM ingredients a marketing liability...and force them out of the market. There are already 28 million people who buy organic food on a regular basis, 54 million who buy it occasionally. Most Americans say they would avoid GMOs if they were labeled.

To create this tipping point quickly, please share with your friends, family, colleagues, customers and suppliers the Non-GMO shopping guide
http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com
See, especially, the page WHY SHOULD I AVOID GMOs?
and, at Jeffrey Smith's site, The 65 Health Risks of GM Foods.

In India, they introduced Bt cotton [cotton engineered to contain bacillus thuringiensis, a pesticide that kills many insects and boll weevils] and it turns out that thousands of farm workers are reporting allergic reactions, rashes and itching after working in the fields - the same symptoms described by farmers in the US and Canada who were exposed to aerial spraying of Bt for gypsy moths. We know that Bt causes allergy and flu-like symptoms in humans but it gets worse. Indian farmers let animals graze the cotton after harvest only to have thousands of sheep, goats, cattle, and buffalo die. Out of shame and desperation many of the farmers then committed suicide. The UK Daily Mail estimated that 125,000 Indian farmers killed themselves because of Bt cotton.

The process of genetic engineering is so disruptive that by the time you've inserted the gene and grown the cell into a plant using cloning, you have hundreds or thousands of mutations up and down the DNA structure. We know that the GMO soy on the market has a soy allergen that's as much as 7 times higher than non-GMO and has an anti-nutrient that's about double.

Do yourself and your family a HUGE favor and learn all you can about this grand and foolish experiment that turns every American into an unmonitored lab rat. Stop buying into it.

Feast or Famine?