Environment/Climate Crisis archives - Page 9 of 9

A Day of Tears: Report from the “sHell No!” Action in Portland

July 31, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

As has been well-documented, Royal Dutch Shell has plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, despite their knowledge that such extraction will exacerbate Climate Change (see here, here or here). President Obama has given these plans his blessing, as could be expected of a politician beholden to the extraction industries. In order to commit such an ecocidal act, Shell has to transport many different resources to the area by ship, and activists have attempted to slow the process by blocking, if only temporarily, a couple of these key transports. In Seattle, kayakers delayed the departure of a Shell oil rig in June.

In Portland, the Fennica, a Shell ship carrying a key piece that is required on site before drilling can legally begin, docked for repairs about five days ago, giving local activists scant time to put together a response. Another kayak blockade was quickly planned, and to the surprise of most locals, Greenpeace pulled a surprise action a little after 3:00 a.m., early on the morning of July 29th. Thirteen people with climbing equipment lowered themselves off the St. John’s Bridge, downriver from the Fennica, and positioned themselves in harnesses about a third of the way down, with ropes strung between themselves. This simple, even elegant, set-up made passage of the Fennica impossible without injuring the climbers. They were provisioned with enough food and water to stay there for days.

Ecosystems At Risk, #1: The Belly Plants of the Pebble Plains

April 18, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

A tiny geological treasure can be found in the San Bernadino Mountains of southern California: the “Pebble Plains.” Located near the famous ski town of Big Bear Lake, this 92 square-mile area exhibits a soil type found nowhere else in the world, a combination of clay and quartz fragments left behind by a glacier lake that existed during the Pleistocene Era. Over the last 10,000 years, these ingredients have been subject to repeated swelling and shrinking from the freezes at that altitude (6000-7500 feet) and the sun’s heat at that latitude (34° North), resulting in a unique composition.

Tiny botanical treasures are also found there, collectively called, “Belly Plants” because they are so small you have to get down on your belly to see them. About a dozen of these plant species are found nowhere else in the world, having evolved there in isolation, adapting to the unique soil.

Like many other ecosystems worldwide, this one is at risk from the effects of Climate Change.
Read More…

Your Money or Your Life: Can We Afford to Work for Peanuts?

March 16, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

The author, with the giant peanut of Orick, California. Photo by Nikki Hill.

In Orick, California, there is a giant wooden peanut – over twelve feet long, six feet tall and weighing nine tons – carved from a single chunk of old-growth redwood. It was sculpted by local loggers in 1978, during the Carter administration, and brought to Washington, D.C., to protest the proposed expansion of Redwood National Park. Their message: “It may be peanuts to you, but it’s jobs to us.” To the loggers’ chagrin, the peanut was ignored and the Park expanded anyway, removing 48,000 acres from the reach of their axes. Now the rough-hewn sculpture sits unceremoniously at the south end of town, steadily wearing away under the effects of vandalism and the elements. No plaque tells its story; you have to know what you’re looking for, and even what you’re looking at.
Read More…

Refugees Without Legs: How Climate Change Leaves No Room for “Invasive Species” Theory

March 14, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Common Holly (Ilex species)

In the Summer of 2012, I met a Shoshone-trained elder named Finisia Medrano. (The story of that meeting is told in “Postcard from Eastern Oregon: When Planting Food is Illegal”). She has spent decades following the routes and practices of the ancient migratory “Hoop” of the Great Basin Native Americans, harvesting and cultivating wild food seasonally. In so doing, she has safeguarded vanishing knowledge and made invaluable observations of the ecosystems in an area spanning several states. Over that time she has witnessed the undeniable effects of Climate Change.

“Refugees without legs:” this is the phrase Finisia uses to describe the status of many species of native plants which were traditional staple foods for indigenous Americans that are now threatened in their current ecosystems by the effects of Climate Change. Temperature extremes, atypical rainfall patterns, and disturbances in seasonal patterns are all taking a tangible toll, disrupting cycles of sprout, flower, seed and root growth which had been stable for millenia. And at a rate that is fast and getting faster. Finisia insists that if these plants are going to survive – as viable species and as food sources – that they will need to be relocated to different areas, further north and/or to higher elevations, and that people will need to do the relocating. We, humans, have made them refugees, and we, humans, must be their legs so they can flee. The speed of Climate Change has already outpaced the ability of plants to migrate on their own as they might have in response to previous, more gradual shifts.

“Refugees without Legs”: This phrase, and its implicit call to action, has been rattling around in my head since I first heard Finisia use it. Indeed, humans have induced Climate Change, and I agree that with that culpability comes responsibility. Creatures are suffering who had no role in the destruction we are wreaking. If we are going to attempt to mitigate the change that has already occurred and try to prevent further change – as daunting as these tasks are – then what we must change first is our own minds; we need to adopt new ideas and practices, and discard those that have become irrelevant and counter-productive. One such idea and practice that we must now reject is that of so-called “Invasive Species.”

Navigation