Posted on 03/28/2004 3:00:37 PM PST by blam
World getting 'literally greener'
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent in Jeju, Korea
About a third of the world is still covered with forests... The world seems to have begun to turn greener, in the strictly literal sense, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep). Satellite data show plant growth has been measurably more vigorous over the last 25 years.
The news comes in Unep's first Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2003, which highlights trends and problems.
The book is being launched at the opening here of Unep's annual council, attended by about 150 delegations.
The meeting runs from 29 to 31 March.
Changes
Satellite and climate data between 1982 and 1999 show an "apparent greening of the biosphere", Unep says.
"The amount of energy produced by plants through photosynthesis, minus what they use in respiration, increased globally by about 6% during the last two decades of the 20th century," it adds.
... but access to water remains a big problem worldwide. Advances in farming and successful conservation programmes around the world may have contributed to the greening trend, according to the organisation.
Unep says areas in tropical zones and in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere accounted for 80% of the increased growth.
Nearly 40% came from the Amazon rainforests, probably because of a decline in cloud cover and the resulting increase in solar energy reaching the surface.
Changes in monsoon dynamics meant more rainfall in the 1990s and increased vegetation over India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and the Sahel belt of sub-Saharan Africa.
Challenges
The Geo Year Book 2003 is the first in an annual series published to complement Unep's encyclopaedic Global Environment Outlook reports - the third of which was published in 2002.
"Without concerted action, about a third of the world's population is likely to suffer from chronic water shortages"
Klaus Toepfer Unep executive director
The new publication reviews major developments during the year, identifies developing challenges, and gives details of progress on key indicators like greenhouse gas emissions, and threats to animals and plants.
It says the economic losses these cause are estimated to have multiplied five times since the 1970s, to a total of $629bn for the 1990s.
A special feature examines the prospects for reaching international goals on providing more people with water, including the Millennium Development Goal agreed by world leaders in 2000 - to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
Unep executive director Klaus Toepfer, says: "Without concerted action, about a third of the world's population is likely to suffer from chronic water shortages within a few decades."
Reform urged
Much of the meeting will be given over to the need for water and sanitation.
Other issues include the problem of dust and sand storms caused by the spread of deserts in Mongolia and China, over a quarter of whose land is classed as desert.
The environmental problems facing small island states, like poverty, natural disasters and declining fish stocks are also on the agenda.
On the eve of the conference the campaign group Friends of the Earth called for Unep to be transformed into the UN Environmental Organisation, with the same membership and funding basis as other UN specialised agencies.
It said this was necessary because of "the rapid deterioration of the world's water resources, urban environments, oceans, forests and other ecosystems, and a too weak and ineffective system of international environmental governance".
Poverty is an environmental problem now?
1) Quillayute, Washington State - - 105"
2) Highlands, North Carolina - - 86"
3) Astoria, Oregon - - 66"
4) Tallahassee, Florida - - 65"
5) Mobile, Alabama - - 64"
6) Pensacola, Florida - - 63"
7) New Orleans, Louisiana - - 62"
8) Baton Rouge, Louisiana - - 61"
9) West Palm Beach, Florida - - 60"
10) Meridian, Mississippi - - 57"
I live in Mobile, we are having the driest March ever recorded.
It's the kudzu.
Then...Unep executive director Klaus Toepfer, says: "Without concerted action, about a third of the world's population is likely to suffer from chronic water shortages within a few decades."
Huh?
I still say it's the water hyacinth and the duckweed.
And grass carp.
Wow, that's pretty good... considering how much of the world is covered with oceans, deserts, grasslands, tundra, ice, and the like.
Yeah... don't you know that poor people don't recycle unless they can get 5 cents a can? The rest of the trash just piles up and causes enviromental problems. And forget the fact that they can't afford proper plumbing that is connected to sewage treatment plants!
The RICH on the other hand have their blasted SUVs and private jets!
Wait, wait, WAIT - I have an idea! Let's redistribute wealth so that there is no longer any poor people and no longer any rich people in the entire world! Then they can't be dirty poor people, OR SUV driving scumbags!
What? What's that? They are already working on this? Oh, nevermind.
It said this was necessary because of "the rapid deterioration of the world's water resources, urban environments, oceans, forests and other ecosystems, and a too weak and ineffective system of international environmental governance".
I know used car salesman that would be ashamed to run such a line of BS.
Note to UN from the "Vigilantcitizen foundation to eliminate CO2 emissions emitted out of the mouths of lying, beaurocrats."
Common sense has dictated that 99% of surplus CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the flapping mouths of lying, enviromentalist beauracrats warning us all of our impending doom from the coming global warming...er..ice age, repeatedely over the last 20 years.
Common sense also dictates that man has a very hard time predicting weather 48 hours in advance, so the very idea that man knows what is coming 10 years from now is absurd, especially based on 100 years of climate data.
100 out of millions of years does not a statistical representation make.
Due to these discoveries, Vigilantcitizen asks the UN to please refrain from talking as much as possible. It's fer da chilluns and da earth, ya know.
The UN is also required to pay a fine of $50,000,000,000 for causing the CO2 problem, and for being a complete waste of taxpayer time and money all these years. I figure that's cheap.
LOL! That is so true, and few realize it. The junk science in the environmental sciences is simply incredible.
What bothers me is...I an uneducated carpenter and see through their BS.
But at my shop, all the marketing majors which populate the office can be overheard in the coffee room, going through the "Try to appear enlightened by reciting NYtimes articles" ritual, saying things like,"Boy this June weather in Georgia sure is hot, must be global warming."
You ought to have seen the expressions on their faces when I brought up the fact that plants require CO2 to live, and that many indoor greenhouses install very expensive CO2 injection systems because it quickens the growth cycle of plants dramatically, also improving yield.
They don't hang out with me much. That's ok...I'd rather drink my coffee with the boys in the shop who discuss subjects they actually know, like racing, hunting, and fishing, and don't feel the need to appear "intellectual".
I run a natural gas heater in my greenhouse in the winter time. The plants love it. (I have to stay on my P's & Q's that someone does not wander in there and die though)
It's easier to believe what the NYT says and appear sophisticated than it is to think for yourself. Our schools have in many cases failed to teach critical thinking, and many parents have neglected that as well. While our public schools did their best to indoctrinate in groupthink, my children have a healthy sense of skepticism and do think for themselves. I taught them young what advertising meant, and how numbers can be used to mean just about anything. Sounds like you learned that early too.
They don't hang out with me much. That's OK...I'd rather drink my coffee with the boys in the shop who discuss subjects they actually know, like racing, hunting, and fishing, and don't feel the need to appear "intellectual".
I'm sure you're better off too. On the other hand, the humor in trying to point out the obvious to the 'elites' has its benefits too.
Yep. Many people base their opinions about current events on what everybody else says is the "hip, modern, and enlightened" side to take. Peer pressure can be tough amongst the "intellectual" crowd.
I was fortunate to have been raised by a person that instilled in me a healthy skepticism of "popular opinion", and to have found FR.
I'm sure you're better off too. On the other hand, the humor in trying to point out the obvious to the 'elites' has its benefits too.
Oh, sweet, delicious irony. However, I gain no pleasure from exposing their superficial opinions. There's no sport in it, and I've ran "Ask your kid to show you how to access the internet without AOL" into the ground. My whole intention is educating them unto the errors of their ways.
John / Billybob
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