The earth will be re-shaped forever, once the Antarctic giant melting ice disappears. Does that not sound scary? It sounds very scary to me. And the water that is melting from the ice is enough to fill 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools.
Scientists say the antarctica’s once-massive Larsen B Ice Shelf is melting rapidly, and will likely be entirely gone by the end of this decade, according to a new report from NASA. A team led by Ala Khazendar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) found the shelf is developing large cracks while its tributary glaciers rapidly disintegrate.
Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans. As the ice sheets slowly thaw, water pours into the sea — 130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That’s the weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings, enough ice melt to fill more than 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools. And the melting is accelerating. See more
Australia’s iconic Cassowary is under threat of extinction.
I personally love the cassowary bird because of its unique beauty.
In Papua New Guinea(PNG), the cassowary is highly regarded in traditional myths as a source of life and spiritual energy. While cassowary is food in PNG cultures, it is also kept as a pet. Cassowary feathers are used for headdress and bones used for tools. I remember my grandfather (mother’s father) kept a cassowary wing bone he used to stitch sago leaves together for our roof. Some tribes, foe example the Abelam people in Sepik have used the femur of the cassowary birds to make weapons such as daggers (pictured below).
Cassowary daggers
The cassowary lives in north of Australia and PNG. I constantly read articles about the near-extinction of this giant bird and I wanted to share the awareness that if we in Australia (and PNG) are not careful, we will lose this species.
Southern Cassowary with three chicks crossing a road (photo courtesy of S. Hardy & D. Johnston) [Daintree to Port Douglas road, QLD, August 2013]Why did the cassowary cross the road?
This question is no longer a joke.
According to Megan Neal at Houston Zoo website:
“Unfortunately, there’s no punch line and the situation is no laughing matter. Habitat loss and fragmentation have left the Australian population of cassowaries on the brink of extinction. These huge birds need large amounts of land to roam in search of food and to breed”.
Like other species, cassowaries’ habitat have been repeatedly destroyed by the boom in residential and commercial construction. Everyone wants to live near the rainforests of Australia, but there’s simply not enough room for everyone.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) answer to the question gives another example of the problem. The cassowary crossed the road because its habitat has been chopped in half by a freeway. So far this year, more cassowaries have died from speeding cars, dog attacks and habitat loss than in all of 2014.
ACF report said the modern-day hazards are now increasing the extinction risk.
“While local groups are doing great work to protect these gorgeous creatures, governments need to catch up! We need to transform our national nature protection framework so local, state and national laws work in together to protect life in Australia”.
Near-frontal view of a female-Southern Cassowary (photo courtesy of D. Wilczynska) [Daintree NP, QLD, March 2015]The cassowary is far-north Queensland’s flagship species for both the tourism industry and the World Heritage rainforests.
It is an iconic and unique species that deserves better than the devastating carnage it faces on regional roads throughout the Wet Tropics.
Sadly, 2015 is off to a particularly bad start for the endangered – and rather large – flightless bird with reports of at least six cassowaries killed between Mission and Bramston Beach this year.
Another cassowary was killed recently by domestic dogs on the Atherton Tableland.
Until recently, the remaining wild population was thought to be at around 2000. However, new research by the CSIRO estimates that the cassowary population may be more than double that at around 4400.
But this number is spread over 730,000 hectares of potential habitat with strong populations known in some areas and few or no records from other areas.
Arriving at the beach, she reflected on her life. Mea searched the waves for two poles where the village bell hung. She had missed the bell sounds and the village gatherings. It has been 20 years since she left for Australia. The bell hung in the village centre; now, only seawater.
“I can’t see it,” she told her brother Tau.
“I don’t think it’s there anymore”.
“Right there” she pointed. “And what happened to Bubu Raga’s coconut trees?”
“The King tides, five years ago, took Moale’s family’s house, betel nut, breadfruit and the coconut trees. We dashed for the hill”.
“Oh My God! That would’ve been scary”.
“Yes, we lost everything. That was the day Chief Naka accepted the government’s offer to relocate us with other climate change refugees. It’s strange being on other people’s land. You are very restricted, but in the past 30 years, the water has raised so much. Our island will soon be completely submerged”.
A COLLABORATIVE FILM BY GNARLY BAY + FOREST WOODWARD + FRIENDS
Special thanks to Doug Woodward, Brendan Leonard, Skip Armstrong, David Marx, Jeff Scholl, Elliot Ross, Jess Lowe, Howl Collective, Story & Heart
Another devastating natural disaster had hit a small Pacific Island nation. Five people died and thousands have lost everything in winds up to 250 kilometres per hour in Chuuk and Yap states in Micronesia about ten days ago. Photographer Brad Holland is hoping to raise awareness of the devastation caused by Super Typhoon Maysak with a series of images captured just days after it hit the islands of Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia.
The typhoon tore through islands in Micronesia at the end of March, killing at least five people and leaving thousands displaced. Because of their location, it took a while before the news became known.
Dramatic photos taken from the International Space Station show super Typhoon Maysak as it moves towards the Philippines.
The states of Chuuk and Yap, which were the worst affected, declared states of emergency with some islands experiencing damage to 90 per cent of homes.
Last month, many butterflies hatched on my lime trees. I have been looking through some of the You Tube videos to see how Butterflies transform – well, I have seen hundreds but they are still very interesting. The ones that grew on my two lime trees are now flying about in the yard which is wonderful to see. In this YouTube video, the complete life-cycle of the Monarch butterfly is shown from a tiny caterpillar hatching from an egg on a Milkweed leaf through metamorphosis to become a glorious adult butterfly. Filmed utilizing high-powered microscopic cameras and time-lapse photography. Produced for the Chicago Nature Museum in Chicago, IL.
Every year on 22 March we celebrate World Water Day. But this year is different. It will go to history as the year when we set the course for the future.
When the post-2015 development agenda is finalized this fall, it will shape the global agenda for water. But not only for the 10 to 15 years to come: the decisions we make this year and the paths we choose will influence generations to come.
Today, freshwater resources and their ecosystems are being degraded and depleted at an alarming speed – this despite our awareness of their pivot role to life on earth and the production of food, energy, goods and services.
This is a nice ending to a horrible story last week about Cyclone Pam, a category 5 cyclone that swept across several Pacific Island countries before hitting Vanuatu. Lessons to learn from the Melanesian villagers.
Destruction in a village on Togoa Island, Vanuatu.
Reuters reported that villagers in Vanuatu buried food and fresh water as one of the strongest storms on record bore down on them, fleeing to churches, schools and even coconut drying kilns as 300 kph winds and massive seas tore their flimsy houses to the ground.
Despite reports of utter devastation six days after Cyclone Pam pummelled the Pacific island nation, Vanuatu appears to be providing something of a lesson in how to survive a category 5 storm.
The United Nations says the official death toll is 11. Many officials anticipate that number will rise once they are able to more thoroughly inspect the outer islands of the scattered archipelago.
Still, the absence of a much higher toll has amazed aid workers and those who lived through it.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable the death toll is so low,” said Richard Barnes, 43, a property valuer from New Zealand who has lived near the capital Port Vila, on Efate island for seven years.
Two days ago, a helicopter flight over the north of Efate revealed scenes of total devastation with at least one coastal village destroyed and no sign of life.
When visited a day later, dozens of villagers were back rebuilding with what materials they could find and reporting only one injury, said Barnes, who was on Cayman Island in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan hit.
“The resilience is amazing … Everyone is just getting on with it, which was different from Cayman where everyone just sat around waiting for something to be done,” Barnes said.
Perched on the geologically active “Ring of Fire”, Vanuatu suffers from frequent earthquakes and tsunamis and has several active volcanoes, in addition to threats from storms and rising sea levels.
China joined in with Australia and New Zealand, pledging $4 Million to assist Vanuatu in the recovering process.
From ABC News, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has pledged long-term support for Vanuatu during a visit to the Pacific nation ravaged by Tropical Cyclone Pam.
Ms Bishop, who flew in on a Royal Australian Air Force flight, toured the command centre for cyclone relief efforts in the capital Port Vila, and visited a school and hospital being rebuilt with Australian assistance.
She also met with Vanuatu’s prime minister Joe Natuman and promised on-going support.
“Australia has responded quickly to requests from the government of Vanuatu, we have sent more than 11 military planes over with equipment, lifesaving supplies, humanitarian support personnel,” she said.
Thousands of people remain homeless in the stricken country, as Vanuatu’s government coordinates relief efforts to get immediate aid to more than 60 inhabited remote islands in the archipelago.
It has begun to send out food aid and seedlings to parts of the country hit hardest by Cyclone Pam after a week of assessments and planning.
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