bare feet in the sand

the beauty of nature in a consumer economy

Tag Archives: carbon emissions


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Glaciers and water

Before I had heard much about the drought in California, I started reading a book on glaciers.  I didn’t know very much about glaciers or what they might have to do with a drought in California.  Christopher White wrote a book about his trips to Glacier National Park in Montana and his conversations with people at the U.S. Geological Survey there.  It’s called The Melting World: A Journey Across America’s Vanishing Glaciers.  What I learned was disturbing and kind of depressing.

The snowpack on glaciers in mountains around the world supply a lot of the world’s fresh water.  (According to Live Science, 30% of California’s water is supplied by the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.)  And glaciers are receding.  The Sierra Nevada snowpack is the lowest in recorded history.  Glacier National Park is on pace to have no glaciers anymore within decades. The lack of water for all the places that rely on snowpack are not the only concerns when studying glaciers and their recession.  There are a wide variety of species that rely on glaciers and the tree line on mountains.  The tree line is continuously moving up the mountain.  The species that live on the coldest top of the mountain are getting crowded out.  Glaciers recede and any animals who rely on white as camouflage are losing their ability to hide from predators.

GrinnellQuad_an

The USGS has some amazing photos that show the difference between the size of the glaciers early in the 20th century and today (such as the one above).  They have some wonderful information on their website: Retreat of Glaciers.  They also have a link to a better succinct explanation of everything than I could do: Crownscience.org.  I found a YouTube video that shows photo evidence of glacier retreat as part of the Extreme Ice Project: Chasing Ice.  Glaciers are amazing evidence of global warming.  And the retreat of glaciers is a global phenomenon, so it is not a matter of weather (local) but rather climate (global).  Glaciers are measurable and thus are a barometer for the effects of climate change.

This is another example of all the information being out there, but not enough people paying attention.


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Mangroves and shrimp

I love shrimp.  In fact, I love seafood.  I’m very aware of the scarcity of cod in the Northeast U.S.  But I wasn’t aware until recently of the devastation that shrimp farming causes.  It has caused me to pause a little before ordering shrimp.  I read a book on mangroves, which turns out to be all about shrimp.  It’s called Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea by Kenneth Warne.  He is a reporter and it tells of his journey to various places all over the globe that have mangrove forests.  It’s beautiful (and kind of sad) that all of the places are facing essentially the same problems, whether they’re in India or South America.  Shrimp farms destroy the mangrove ecosystem while bringing no replacement benefit to the local communities who depend on it.  I was really glad to hear about that these communities who find food, and materials for building and making fire, and essentially live on the mangrove forests still exist.  I hope that all the efforts described in this book are able to save those communities.  Shrimp farms seem like capitalism run amok.  They take one product, shrimp, and make as much of it as possible in order to make as big a profit as possible, for the one company that owns the farm.  They don’t care about the local people, or the local ecosystem.

rhyzophora_mangle_red_mangrove_trees_small1mangroves-fish-healthy

Mangroves are important, more important than I realized.  They are a carbon sink – they capture carbon that otherwise would be released into the air and increase global warming.  They protect shorelines from storms.  They give safe harbor to different kinds of baby fish as well as a vast number of species including birds and mollusks.  Their nutrients feed off-shore reefs.  If you’re not interested in the science of ecology, local ecosystems (including the human component) or mangroves, this book may not be for you.  But it confirmed for me how fascinating and important I think all of this is.

Here is more reading (from the websites where I found the pictures), if you’re interested:  Mangroves in Ecuador and Mangrove Hub


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Zero Carbon Britain

The Center for Alternative Technology in Britain released a report that says Britain could reduce their carbon emissions to net zero by 2030.  It means we don’t need to rely on technology that hasn’t been developed.  I hope it gets good publicity and maybe the U.S. can see what options are really available.

Executive Summary