Polar bears, climate crisis, and oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: WWF site (excerpt)

Polar bear cubs at risk from climate change

"Sea levels are rising and oceans are becoming warmer. Longer, more intense droughts threaten crops, wildlife and freshwater supplies. From polar bears in the Arctic to marine turtles off the coast of Africa, our planet’s diversity of life is at risk from the changing climate."

"Climate change poses a fundamental threat to the places, species and people’s livelihoods WWF works to protect. To adequately address this crisis we must urgently reduce carbon pollution and prepare for the consequences of global warming, which we are already experiencing. WWF works to:

• advance policies to fight climate change
• engage with businesses to reduce carbon emissions
• help people and nature adapt to a changing climate"

"Humans and wild animals face new challenges for survival because of climate change. More frequent and intense drought, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans can directly harm animals, destroy the places they live, and wreak havoc on people’s livelihoods and communities."

Polar bears, climate crisis, and oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

"To adequately address the climate crisis we must urgently reduce carbon pollution and prepare for the consequences of global warming, which the world is already experiencing. Combining global outreach with local expertise, WWF:

• helps people and nature adapt to a changing climate
• advances policies to fight climate change
• combats deforestation
• engages with businesses to reduce carbon emissions
• challenges U.S. cities to prepare for more extreme weather"

"Adapting to Climate Change

To avoid the worst effects of climate change, we need to dramatically reduce global carbon emissions. But we must also prepare for the significant and unavoidable consequences of carbon

polar bear cubs

emissions such as increasing temperatures, shifting precipitaton patterns, ocean acidification, sea level rise and the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. WWF works with local communities, governments and others around the world to help nature and people prepare for the many impacts of a changing climate. To do this we:

• Increase resilience of communities in Nepal by promoting new farming techniques, community weather monitoring and creating seed banks
• Restore beach vegetation to shade marine turtle nests in the Caribbean
• Secure access to fresh water for elephants in Thailand during periods of drought
• Identify areas where polar bears can live on solid Arctic sea ice for decades to come"

 Go to WWF site

 Related: Brazil slashes budget to fight climate change as deforestation spikes: Reuters

State MPs dismayed at NSW Forestry logging unburnt habitat after bushfires: The Guardian

Endangered species have lost up to 82% of their habitat but Environment Protection Authority says logging of unburnt forest is legal

Lisa Cox

Logging is continuing in NSW forest north-west of Coffs Harbour in bushland that is proposed for the Great Koala national park. Photograph: International Fund For Animal Welfare

The New South Wales Forestry Corporation has continued to log unburnt forest that is habitat for some of the most imperilled species in the aftermath of the state’s bushfire crisis.

Logging operations have continued in the Styx River state forest on the north coast that is now remnant habitat for endangered species including the greater glider and the Hastings River mouse.

Both the federal and state governments have identified the mouse, which had 82% of its habitat burnt, as one of the species most at risk of extinction as a result of the bushfire disaster.

Trucks have also moved into an area of the Lower Bucca state forest north-west of Coffs Harbour in bushland that is part of the proposed Great Koala national park.

Twenty-four per cent of koala habitat in eastern NSW was burnt in the fire crisis and the environment minister, Sussan Ley, has said up to 30% of the koala population on the mid north coast may have been killed.

Environment groups and the independent state MLC Justin Field have expressed dismay that NSW Forestry Corporation has been able to continue with harvest plans in unburnt forest that is now important remnant habitat for wildlife.

Read the original The Guardian article

Aussie rodent becomes first 'climate change extinction': EWN

The rat-like Bramble Cay melomys -- whose only known habitat was a small sandy island in far northern Australia -- has not been spotted in a decade. 

SYDNEY - Australia officially declared a Great Barrier Reef rodent extinct on Tuesday, making it the first mammal believed to have been killed off by human-induced climate change.

Australian Liberal Government inaction on climate is dooming our natural environment

The Senate has backed  a Greens' motion declaring climate change is the biggest threat to life on our planet, calling on the Liberal Government to implement serious climate and energy policy.
"The biggest threat to humanity and life on this planet is climate change, and still the Liberal Government don't have a plan to reduce pollution," Greens environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

SMH: Logging deals are death warrants for native animals

 "Informed by no new research or effective assessment of the RFAs (Regional Forest Agreements) over the past 20 years – and despite no assessment of the impacts of climate change or climate-induced wildfires throughout the RFA forests – the Morrison government is locking in another 20 years of business as usual. It is unbelievable.

It will not even wait until the Senate inquiry into animal extinctions, which will hold a public hearing in Melbourne on Thursday, reports back with its recommendations.

RFAs have become death warrants for endangered native animals and governments seemingly want the slaughter to continue for another 20 years."

Read the SMH article

New York Times: Can Dirt Save the Earth?

Agriculture could pull carbon out of the air and into the soil — but it would mean a whole new way of thinking about how to tend the land.

By MOISES VELASQUEZ-MANOFFAPRIL 18, 2018

"Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, agricultural practices and animal husbandry have released an estimated 135 gigatons — 135 billion metric tons — of carbon into the atmosphere, according to Rattan Lal, a soil scientist at Ohio State University. Even at current rates, that’s more than a decade’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions from all human sources. The world is warming not only because fossil fuels are being burned, but also because soils, forests and wetlands are being ravaged."

Read New York Times article 

Climate change: Human driven mass extinction

https://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/climate-change/

Australia's Environment Minister has let the public down yet again with her silence on the WWF's damning report into human-driven mass extinction, the Greens say.

"Today's World Wide Fund for Nature report is harrowing. But, as usual, we have not heard a peep from our Environment Minister Melissa Price on how the Liberal Government is going to act," Greens environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.