Happy Biodiversity Day!

It's International Biodiversity day today! It's also the year of Biodiveristy. Of course everday is a biodiversity day. So what is it? The UNU university mentions that Biodiversity, "the earth's diversity of habitat and species — is vital for sustainable development, societies, and culture. Yet, like the climate, it is being lost more rapidly than ever before and this loss is most affecting the poor. Unlike climate change, the urgency, scale and impacts of biodiversity loss are poorly understood and the political will to tackle this issue is weak."You can't buy nature as a whole, just what it produces. Nature is not easily replacable.

Biodiversity is important to New Zealand too. As DOC mention: "New Zealand has a vast wealth of unique animals, plants and ecosystems, but we also have one of the highest percentages of threatened species in the world. We have much to lose so we need to do more to protect them."

Biodiversity is important for our food supply as well. It was one of the reasons for the Irish potato famine and it protected rice growers from the grassy stunt virus. 80% ofo ur food comes from 20 plant kinds, however we have 40,000 plants and animals we use as food. Diverse food gives diverse nutrition, which is important for our bodies to stay healthy. For instance Vitamin C that comes from kiwifruit, oranges or even other animals.

A report that's come out of the UN tells us that natures animals, trees and oceans are under threat. It's the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, which is produced by the Convention on Biological Diversity. The secretary general BAN Ki-Moon has a good summary(p. 3): "[T]he principal pressures leading to biodiversity loss are not just constant but are, in some cases, intensifying... In several important areas, national and international action to support biodiversity is moving in a positive direction. More land and sea areas are being protected, more countries are fighting the serious threat of invasive alien species, and more money is being set aside for implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, these efforts are too often undermined by conflicting policies. To tackle the root causes of biodiversity loss, we must give it higher priority in all areas of decision-making and in all economic sectors."

In the report has been a discussion of tipping points. A point where it's difficult or impossible to recover these ecosystems. They are:

A - The dieback of large areas of the Amazon forest, due to the interactions of climate change, deforestation and fires, with consequences for the global climate, regional rainfall and widespread species extinctions.

B - The shift of many freshwater lakes and other inland water bodies to eutrophic or algae-dominated states, caused by the buildup of nutrients and leading to widespread fish kills and loss of recreational amenities.

C - Multiple collapses of coral reef ecosystems, due to a combination of ocean acidification, warmer water leading to bleaching, overfishing and nutrient pollution; and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of species directly dependent on coral reef resources.

Biodiversity is something you can get involved in .

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” - Charles Darwin, father of evolution.

Art and Science, can they solve the issues together?

I was watching TV3's The Nation after attending the dawn service in Christchurch the other week. It mentioned a enviornmental project called Dialogues with Tomorrow. I was interested so I did some digging.

Now Future is a partnership between Sophie Jerram and Dugal McKinnon. It's about projects lead by art that investigate core issues in sustainability and ecology. It also aims to create a greater partnership between humanity and the enviornment. One of these projects is Dialogues with Tomorrow. It brings together artists and scientists to develop and exchange ideas to help solve enviornmental problems.

In two days it will be the 51st anniversary of C.P. Snow's Two Cultures lecture. This served as inspiration for Now Future. C.P. Snow was concerned that Science and Art were become further apart and their cultures weren't working together anymore. This would have detrimental effects for both of them. Fortunately today these cultures are working more together than they use to. Now Future is an example of this as well as the inventions and insights that have occured in recent years.

Art and science don't work seperately, though it sometimes might seem that way. Just look at Galileo and Einstein. Einstein's book, The World as I See It has some beautiful writing and artistic thought. Galileo had hundreds of inventions and ideas. They have displayed that art and science work together to imagine logical ideas. Though art and science see the world in different ways, they help eachother to see things they normally wouldn't see. If we wanted to be general, we could say science deals with logic and art deals with imagination.

As humans we have two hemispheres in our brain. Our left hemisphere and our right hemisphere. These affect our learning and thinking in different ways. Our left hemisphere is logic or science-orienated and our right one is imagination or art-orienated. Jill Taylor can give us understanding into the full world of both these hemispheres. In 1996 she suffered a massive left brain hemmorage. As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist her recovery was difficult but gave her keen, imaginative and logical insight into these hemispheres.

She has said that we have two parts and that our imagination is a method for peace on this earth. "I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be." Seeing as how she had to use her left brain for her explanation, it shows that she doesn't believe in abandoning logic. Logically understanding how we can use our imagination for peace is essential achieving peace.

"We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world." - Jill Taylor

Peak Oil VS Peak Water

I hear about Peak Oil. There is growing concerns that the world will not meet its energy supply needs. It seems to me that we have a much bigger problem on our hands. Humanity's water supply is limited right now. But let's compare Oil and Water first.

Let's look at Oil first.



Oil

How much do we have?

According to the US Government's Energy Information Administration, at least 1184.208 to 1238.892 billion barrels of oil. Infact according to the International Energy Agency: "The world’s energy resources are adequate to meet the projected demand increasethrough to 2030 and well beyond." In 2006 we were consuming 30 billion barrels a year. Of course I'm not saying we own the earth(Private property is theft rar rar. Just kidding.). I'm talking about the oil we have available.

So why the fuss?

Well, according Kjell Aleklett(Professor of Physics at Uppsala University, Sweden, and President of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas): "The oil industry and IEA accept the fact that the total production from existing oil fields is declining."(World Watch 2006, p. 10) As well as this, the US military says our surplus oil production capacity could disappear as early as 2015. This means while we have lots of oil, we aren't able to get to it enough to meet our needs.

The use of oil also contributes to the widely academically accepted fact of man-influenced climate change. As well as this the oil we mostly have is in countries with a track record of corrupt government.

























Now I think we need to eventually switch to an alternative. But right now there's just not anything like oil to help us. We need it for our ships, our planes, cars and buses.

So what can be done?

Well I think we can do quite a bit. We could invest more money into energy research instead of war. We can make use of economical vehicles. Yeah this is pretty basic.

So here's something complicated: "[Government] Policy[s] should impose a large Btu or carbon tax on energy that is phased in over a long period, perhaps 20 years. This would signal entrepreneurs that there will be a market for alternative energies. Furthermore, increases in the energy tax should be offset by reducing other taxes, such as payroll or corporate taxes. Economic studies show that such an approach can generate a win-win solution—reduce energy use (and the environmental damages not paid by users), stimulate research and development on alternative energies, and speed economic growth."

So what is Rober Kaufmann(World Watch 2006, p. 20-21)(Professor in the center for Energy & Enviornment studies at Boston University) saying? Make a oil tax that slowly increases over a 20 year period. At the same time, personal and business taxes would slowly be reduced. Entrepreneurs will try to make alternative economical fuels or very economical engines, hoping to get rich. It'll be win win for both of us. Personally, I'd prefer for governments to do the research. If there's an alternative energy business monopoly it could screw everybody over. It could be more expensive than oil, though more enviornmentally friendly. However this is something we could do.

Now let's look at water.



Water

How much do we have?

They say if aliens discovered earth, they wouldn't call it earth. They'd call it water. That's because at least 70% of the earths surface is covered in water.

So what's the fuss?

Canada's Enviornment Department says our drinkable rivers, aquifer and lakes are limited. They are 2.5% of the water in the world. It's scattered and not everybody has access to it. Over 1 in 6 people don't have access to safe drinking water. Nearly 5/12 people have no water sanitation (UN 2005). As well as this, 2/3 people could face water scarcity in the next 20 years due to political and climate issues. (UN 2009)

So what can be done?

The World Health Organisation states that a clean water supply and sanitation is one of the greatest things we can do to reduce poverty. Infact they state for every dollar put into drinkable water and sanitation, we would achieve a return of 3 to 34 dollars. That's a 1:3-34 cost to benefit ratio. The cost of drinkable water and sanitation is $11.3 billion a year. Considering the world has around 2.5 billion people without proper sanitation, that would be $4.52 per person. $4.52 a year to give someone a basic necessity of human life (WHO 2005, p. 32). United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has also warned we need to insure we have integral ecosystems. This "means promoting peaceful collaboration in the sharing of water resources, particularly in the case of boundary and transboundary water resources.” (UN 2009)

Now let's draw a conclusion.


I think we could live in a country where oil is strictly regulated if we end up with not much oil. It would annoy us at first but we could adjust. I doubt we'll be doing that however. It's too authoritarian for peoples tastes. But the fact is oils likely to get more expensive. I don't think we could live without water. One of my biggest fears is that we will neglect the issue of accessible drinkable water in favour of looking for alternative energy. Political corruption and terrorism is affecting humanitys supply of water. Lack of water is affecting humanity far more right now than a lack of oil.

"Human ingenuity is one resource that won’t peak—but whether it can be mobilized quickly enough to surmount these challenges is not yet clear." - Christopher Flavin, President of the Worldwatch Institute.

They say a picture's worth a thousand words.

Credit goes to Joel Pett, who drew this for USA Today