DAILY QUICK READ - AUGUST 31, 2016

The Age of Humans Begins

If we continue our current habits, this will be a very short epoch.  Look at the list of human accomplishment below. 

The Anthropocene Epoch has begun, according to a group of experts assembled at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa this week.

After seven years of deliberation, members of an international working group voted unanimously on Monday to acknowledge that the Anthropocene—a geologic time interval so-dubbed by chemists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000—is real.

The epoch is thought to have begun in the 1950s, when human activity, namely rapid industrialization and nuclear activity, set global systems on a different trajectory. And there's evidence in the geographic record. Indeed, scientists say that nuclear bomb testing, industrial agriculture, human-caused global warming and the proliferation of plastic across the globe have so profoundly altered the planet that it is time to declare the 11,700-year Holocene over.

• ·        Pushed extinction rates of animals and plants far above the long-term average. The Earth is now on course to see 75 percent of species become extinct in the next few centuries if current trends continue.
• ·        Increased levels of climate-warming CO2 in the atmosphere at the fastest rate for 66m years, with fossil-fuel burning pushing levels from 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution to 400ppm and rising today.
• ·        Put so much plastic in our waterways and oceans that microplastic particles are now virtually ubiquitous and plastics will likely leave identifiable fossil records for future generations to discover.
• ·        Doubled the nitrogen and phosphorous in our soils in the past century with our fertilizer use. This is likely to be the largest impact on the nitrogen cycle in 2.5bn years.
• ·        Left a permanent layer of airborne particulates in sediment and glacial ice such as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.

More Evidence of the Anthropocene

The conspiracy of virtually every government agency, academic institution and anyone with any common sense apparently believes that human activity may be the cause of global warming.  Bunch of fools – the carbon energy industry has the proof – global warming is a hoax. 

The planet is warming at a pace not experienced within the past 1,000 years, at least, making it “very unlikely” that the world will stay within a crucial temperature limit agreed by nations just last year, according to Nasa’s top climate scientist.

This year has already seen scorching heat around the world, with the average global temperature peaking at 1.38C above levels experienced in the 19th century, perilously close to the 1.5C limit agreed in the landmark Paris climate accord. July was the warmest month since modern record keeping began in 1880, with each month since October 2015 setting a new high mark for heat.

But Nasa said that records of temperature that go back far further, taken via analysis of ice cores and sediments, suggest that the warming of recent decades is out of step with any period over the past millennium.

The increasing pace of warming means that the world will heat up at a rate “at least” 20 times faster than the historical average over the coming 100 years, according to Nasa. The comparison of recent temperatures to the paleoclimate isn’t exact, as it matches modern record-keeping to proxies taken from ancient layers of glacier ice, ocean sediments and rock.

Habitat Loss

The Tricolored Blackbird is heading toward the brink and we of the West Coast could actually do something to save this incredible social species.  Will we?

The Tricolored Blackbird breeds in groups of thousands, forming the largest colonies of any species in North America. Like the Passenger Pigeon, the bird's colonial nature makes it particularly vulnerable to rapid population declines: Tricolored Blackbird populations have plummeted by roughly 66 percent over the past six years due to habitat loss. An estimated 140,000 birds remain; all are in California.

American Bird Conservancy's Western Program, formed in 2015, is on a mission to save the Tricolored Blackbird from extinction. Working with researchers, ranchers, dairymen, state public officials, and several NGOs, ABC aims to identify and conserve key remaining habitat for the species.

Now May Be A Good Time - For A Pep Talk

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