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Half the Amazon Rainforest to be Lost by 2030
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(NaturalNews) Due to the effects of global warming and deforestation, more than half of the Amazon rainforest may be destroyed or severely damaged by the year 2030, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The report, “Amazon’s Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire,” concludes that 55 percent of the world’s largest rainforest stands to be severely damaged from agriculture, drought, fire, logging and livestock ranching in the next 22 years. Another 4 percent may be damaged by reduced rainfall caused by global warming. This is anticipated to destroy up to 80 percent of wildlife habitat in the region.

read more..

http://hernadi-key.blogspot.com/2008/11/half-amazon-rainforest-to-be-lost-by.html
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Lets stop debating climate change and get on with practice and policy that factors in the real social and environmental cost of development.

We have an extraordinary opportunity in the heart of Melbourne’s suburbia to establish a benchmark project that demonstrates sustainable urban development. Act Now Go to………

http://www.youtube.com/user/BLEEPNOW

Was this because the experts found Tasmania’s wilderness and its forests to be well managed, completely contradicting the claims of the wilderness society and the Greens Political Party? Is it more than a coincidence that the Wilderness Society’s nominee Senator Christine Milne is a Vice President of the IUCN.

In the past as well as now threatened species are used as a weapon to stop development by the greens. The Orange belied parrot is on the red list and despite its breeding habitat being secured in Tasmania’s southwest national park, its threatened status was used as a reason to stop a wind farm in Victoria. Perhaps it is threatened not by wind farms but that its likely winter habitat is now occupied by 3.1 million people.

Another is the Tasmanian Devil, given as a reason to stop the pulp mill and to halt timber harvesting, despite it being listed due to a facial disease of unknown origin but definitely not forestry or a value adding factory.

Then there is Bob Brown’s Wielangta Federal court case against Forestry Tasmania and the parties to the Regional Forest Agreement that he lost. That was over the Swift Parrot, the Wedge Tail Eagle and the Wielangta Stagg Beetle. Swift parrot habitat is all ready well reserved, wedge tail eagle reported number have dramatically increased so that they are over 80% of the population estimated to exist in 1750. The only known death of the Wielangta stag beetle in recent years was when one was trapped in a chemically laden pit trap to provide evidence for Bob Brown’s prosecution.

P.S. In China, to arouse people’s awareness is more important than to punish them for what they have done. I can see more and more people purchase SUV as their forst choice which has a big oil consumption than the Hybrid cars. As I know, in many western countries SUV could be seen as a lack of the envirionmental awareness , ironically in my country this is the symbol of wealth and high social status.

Moreover, I think that the extinction of so many animals are the results of human activities rather than the changing of the climate. Some would argue that changing of climate such as global warming have a strong negative influence on the habitat in which animals live, however, the direct cause of the changing of the climate attribites to our activities or what we called “exploring the earth” rather than other factors.

another problem which I concerned is should we protect the endangered spices by using our limited resources when we still have so many pressing problems such as hungery, poverty, and unemployment. Can we protect all the endangered spices? If we cannot, do we have the rights to decide which of them have the priority to be protected? For those spices whose extinction are the force of nature choice, will the protection be efficient?