Another example of regional ecosystem collapse that cumulatively place humanity on the brink of global ecological collapse. The Earth cannot continue to have its ecosystems plundered and used as waste repositories.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Asia's dust storm misery mounts

Scientists say they believe the dust and sand storms that for centuries have blanketed north-east Asia are becoming more dangerous to people's health. They think the storms are now combining with airborne pollutants emitted by human activities, and are adding to the region's severe air quality problems.

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New reports indicate large portions of the ocean have become "dead zones" that are devoid of life; and that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have abruptly surged. This comes fast upon findings that the Amazon's composition is changing due to climate change, that the Australian Great Barrier Reef is dying, that the World Bank is funding industrial logging of the Congolese rainforest and numerous other indicators that unconstrained industry, individual over-consumption, and government intransigence are pushing the Earth towards ecological and social collapse.

It remains an unanswered question whether democratic capitalism can address spiraling collapse of key global ecosystems, or feed the world's one billion chronically hungry. Global leaders are failing dramatically to provide the leadership necessary to address the myriad of interconnected issues that threaten the Earth and all its inhabitants. Survival of the Earth may well depend upon a peaceful Earth Revolution that overthrows the whole stinking, inequitable, unjust and unsustainable political and social order.

The sky is falling! What could threaten global security and prosperity more than dead oceans and forests, soaring and unpredictable temperatures, lack of potable water and billions of desperately poor people encircling a few bastions of ethically depauperate and militarized over-consumers?

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Tasmania, Australia's ancient forests, which contain the world's tallest hardwood trees, some more than 400 years old, are being turned into wood chips and shipped to Japan to make cardboard. This can be added to the environmental tragedies - listed in my recent diatribe - that are contributing to global ecological collapse. Not only is clearcutting old-growth hardwood destructive and wasteful - it is Evil, Stupid and Deadly. These forests regulate climate, cycle water, contain innumerable species and genes, and contribute immeasurably to global ecological sustainability. Australia's callous treatment of its ecological heritage - and Japan's complicity in their use - is shocking and revolting. The article below updates our earlier efforts to support those putting their lives on the line to protect Australia's ancient forests - see
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/tasmania/ for more information.

P.S. I pledge to continue speaking eco-truth to power - whether it seems intemperate, lacking in objectivity, or leads to feelings of hopelessness. From truth comes hope informed by knowledge necessary to craft solutions.

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Prior to opening of the Range mine in Australia's Kakadu National Park, expert after expert assured the public that new mining methods made mining in a special protected area possible. We now see the lie as radioactivity is in the water. Oil production and mining are anethema to landscape sustainability.

ENN News Story - Uranium mine in Australian national park is closed after uranium is detected in water supply

A uranium mine in the middle of a pristine heritage-listed national park in northern Australia was temporarily shut down Wednesday after tests revealed increased levels of uranium in its water supply, the mine's operator announced.

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President Bush has opened up America's last much reduced old-growth forests to increased logging. He has eliminated protections for endangered species as a response to forest fires, which are largely natural, though exacerbated by past overly intensive management and climate change. Allowing logging of America's last ancient forests caps a record setting month of environmental rollbacks that included ensuring mercury continues to enter our air and water and gutting funding for National Parks. Such actions have deservedly earned the President the moniker of "Toxic Texan".

The Toxic Texan, and the oil oligarchy cabal that props him up, epitomize the dangerous American ideal that economies and political stability are distinct from natural ecological systems. America's perpetuation of an empty and illusory
worldview - that gluttonous consumption of resources is a desirable lifestyle - threatens the very basis of biological life. The old-growth forests that will now surely be logged are some of the last vestiges of non-human structured natural
ecosystems found in America. They contain evolutionary, ecological and genetic knowledge and processes that are irreplaceable - indeed priceless.

Ancient forest cathedrals bursting with pure and vibrant life are to be made into throw away consumer items. This is pure and unadulterated evil. While no political party has yet enunciated a compelling message adequate to pursue and achieve environmental sustainability - it is imperative that the Toxic Texan's reign of ecocide and ecoterror end as soon as possible - if only to slow the damage and buy humanity time to reform its ways.

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We can deal with our nation's oil dependency now, while there are still a few large, healthy and intact natural habitats remaining; or we can drill and open with roads every last wild area on the Earth before we make the necessary moves into renewable energy and conservation. The longer we wait the more at risk we are from oil financed fanatics, the more our children suffer from childhood asthma, and the more big oil rules our government. Break the habit - park your car, develop a lifestyle built around walking. And for god sakes, vote to get the Oil Bomber out of office.

MSNBC - Study: ANWR oil would have little impact

Opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil development would only slightly reduce America%u2019s dependence on imports and would lower oil prices by less than 50 cents a barrel, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Energy Department.

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Biological life and ecological processes, the bedrock of human existence, are being recklessly destroyed. Evidence abounds regarding human impact upon life and the global ecological system. Historically we know that Easter Island was transformed by humans from a lush, diverse habitat into a depauperate ecosystem. Easter Islands represents an extreme example of forest destruction - including starvation and crashing populations as plant and animal materials required for life were no longer available. This process is repeating itself across the globe as natural habitat is lost and diminished everywhere it exists and there is a buck to be made doing so. Ecologists inform us that one in eight of the world's bird species are threatened with extinction and several hundred are already gone forever. Birds are recognized as "indicator species" meaning what happens to them now is likely to happen to other forms of life later. The fate of Easter Island and the World's birds indicates "a fundamental flaw in the way that we treat our environment" that threatens the existence of innumerable species including our own. The Earth is dying at our hand. As go the trees and the birds shall go the humans. This is why we campaign for sustainable, just and equitable ways of living - and against the horrors of the natural resource fed global growth machine.

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Forest crime is rampant worldwide. Illegal and ill-conceived harvest of dwindling natural habitats decimates species, ecosystems and human potential. One would think that the United States would have the resources and management structures to combat forest crime. However, it is estimated that annually more than 10% of all trees cut in America's national forests are stolen, hundreds of thousands of trees valued at more than $100 million. Most of this illegal harvest is done by timber companies deliberately logging outside of timber sale boundaries, or cutting live trees during post-fire salvage logging. Yet the U.S. Forest Service, and both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, have consistently sought to cover up the extent of the problem, stonewalling policies to properly police political cronies such as Weyerhaeuser. America's ecological sustainability is being devastated as big resource companies run American government and hence run roughshod over most of the World's ecosystems and peoples. Planetary survival depends upon stopping this resource driven growth machine and embracing an era of ecological restoration and conservation.

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As go the birds, so go the humans...

Planet Ark : Study highlights global threats to bird populations

A new report by BirdLife International says more than 1,000 of the world's birds face extinction and that agricultural expansion in Africa and unsustainable forestry in the tropics pose grave threats.

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If you say something long enough and with authority, than certainly it is so, right? A government program called "Healthy Forests" presumably must be concerned with healthy forests, and "Clean Skies" is about, well, clear skies. And if Bush says he is "green" than he must be. Right? Either that or he is a psychopathic liar that will say or do anything to hold onto power on behalf of the energy oligarchy running the country - including unspeakable crimes against the Planet and humanity. I am convinced it is the latter. Bush has trashed the environment through hundreds of regressive policies. He is an environmental terrorist.

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Humanity is moving toward a massive extinction event, uniquely caused by the activities of a single species. The "Extinction Status Report" by the Earth Policy Institute provides a marvelous overview to these issues; as well as justification for the existence of Forests.org's network, and its commitment to ecological science based forest conservation advocacy in defense of the Earth and all its life.

Each year the earth's forest cover shrinks by 16 million hectares (40 million acres), with most of the loss occurring in tropical forests, where levels of biodiversity are high. The average extinction rate is now some 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the rate that prevailed over the past 60 million years. The greatest threat to the world's living creatures is the degradation and destruction of habitat, affecting 9 out of 10 threatened species. Humans have transformed nearly half of the planet's ice-free land areas, seriously impacting the rest of nature.

Healthy ecosystems make human and all life possible - including supplying air, filtering drinking water, and providing humanity with food, medicine, and shelter. When ecosystems lose biological richness, they become less resilient and more susceptible to the effects of climate change, invasions of alien species, and other disturbances.

Habitat destruction must be halted, widespread ecological restoration initiated and climate change slowed it order to stop and reverse weakening of the life-support systems we all depend on. The quest for environmental sustainability is the challenge of our time. Let us all recommit to growing and increasing the effectiveness of our movement.

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The era of forest conservation appeasement must end. Efforts by big environmental groups to greenwash first time logging of primary forests is too little too late. Given lack of capacity in tropical countries, there will never be a way to distinguish between illegal and relatively less damaging logging of primary forests. Forests.org calls upon the WWFs of the world to stop promoting industrial logging of natural forests.

European timber suppliers, paper companies and publishers face increasing scrutiny over the sources of their wood and paper after Greenpeace yesterday pledged an "accelerating" campaign against illegally-logged timber, with particular concern about Indonesia.

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