Environmental risks connected with fracking

Fracking or to be more precise hydraulic fracturing is just another example in constant fight between economy and ecology, and yet again it looks like ecology will come up short sleeves because of serious money involved in fracking business.

The fracking technology has developed significantly in the last couple of years and now thanks to this rapid development this business has potential value of trillions of dollars since it makes previously unreachable oil and natural gas reachable.

Why is fracking problem for our environment? Basically, process that involves blasting huge amounts of water, sand and chemicals deep into underground rock formations is certain to be connected with several major environmental risks.

One of the most talked about environmental risks connected with fracking is the large consumption of water, which is thing to worry, especially considering the latest droughts in United States. Fracking has larger water requirements compared to conventional gas drilling, though smaller than those of coal and nuclear power plants. There is also the fear of contaminating drinking water supplies with pollutants (failures in the steel and cement casings of wells nearer to the surface and the disposal of wastewater can lead to contaminated drinking water).

Most fracking wastewater in the United States is injected deep underground. This can lead to several major environmental risks and not just the contamination of drinking water, for instance it can cause earthquakes and unwanted seismic activity.

Why not use solar and wind energy instead of this natural gas found in shale rocks? The natural gas found in these rocks is abundant and cheap which makes it hard for renewable energy to compete against.

Fracturing wells can lead to significant release in volatile organic compounds and air pollutants which is not only harmful for our environment but also for our health.

This issue requires new comprehensive studies that would compare the economic benefits with environmental risks. If the risks are too great then even the cheap natural gas shouldn't come up as the winner but as always it is very difficult to emerge victorious against the most powerful industry in the world.

How to find optimum balance between increased farming and wildlife?

The human population is constantly growing. More humans need more food which results in more land being used by agriculture for farms. This in turn leads to many animal and plant species losing their habitats and can result in severe biodiversity loss.

Can animal and plant species coexist with increased farming? This is certainly difficult to achieve but many researchers believe that the solution can be found in more advanced approach to sustainable farming.

The science will be handed tough task to find the balance between optimizing future food production and protecting wildlife.

The UK scientists believe that we should be changing our current way of thinking that usually involves approach on how to make certain farm more eco friendly and instead be focusing on how to make the entire landscape better for producing both food and wildlife.

The several studies have showed positive results when the mixture of high-yield, intensive farming and land managed for nature; these studies showed both increased food production and more wildlife than the procedure of making eco-friendly farming across the whole landscape.

There is no doubt that certain amount of land needs to be left for animals and plants, and in order to determine this land we need to thoroughly study each landscape because some landscape might be better in producing food while others could be ideal to provide us with ecosystem services.

The UK researchers say that decision makers should concentrate more conservation efforts in specific areas with rich biodiversity, such as the uplands and coastal wetlands while in the same time enabling areas that are more suited to food production (areas with lesser biological diversity) to be farmed more intensively.

The land not suited for food production, or the one that produces low yields, could in many cases be used as a home for many wildlife species. This means that planning of new farms needs to be done with high level of precision so that we could separate “good” from “bad“ agricultural land.

This approach is not universal meaning that the sustainable management of farms and wildlife could vary from place to place, but nonetheless it will still require a common policy framework that should set overall goals as well as decision making processes.

We must not forget that we need both farms and wildlife, and finding the optimum balance between these two could well decide our future wellbeing.

Coal industry threatens Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is not only the world’s largest coral reef system but also a home to many other unique species, many of which are listed as endangered (such as sea turtles). The reef is habitat to a more than 1,500 species of fish and has Unesco World Heritage status.

Four hundred coral species inhabit the reef as well as five hundred species of marine algae.

The reef belongs to the areas with the richest biodiversity in our planet but this biodiversity could be soon put under great jeopardy, not just because of increasing climate change impact but mostly because of increase in Australian coal industry and related ship traffic.

Many environmentalists fear that rapid industrial expansion in Australia and increased coal mining will have a direct negative impact on health of the Great Barrier Reef and could even cause more damage than the climate change.

The main problem with Great Barrier Reef is its location as it lies off the coast of the state of Queensland, which is the largest producer of coal in the country. The state also recently announced plan to build the world's biggest coal port near the town of Bowen.

A UN team has already arrived in Australia to investigate a possible damage to the Great Barrier Reef from coal industry. Environmentalists hope that government will halt all new developments until a state and federal review of the health of the reef is carried out.

It's true that Australian government has imposed strict legislation to ensure water quality and protect marine life during industrial development but this doesn't mean that Australian sensitive environment is safe because powerful coal mining industry will certainly try to come out victorious from this situation.

It's yet another environment vs. industry battle in the making. This time hopefully environment will prevail.

Baltic Sea needs more protection

Our seas are together with our rainforests, the areas of largest biodiversity in our planet. In order to protect biodiversity in our seas world needs to establish more marine protected areas.

The world's largest international marine conservation Oceana is constantly warning the world leaders about the urgent need for more marine protected areas. In their latest report on biodiversity and marine habitats they have proposed nine more areas in Baltic Sea, with a total of 3,500 Km2, to be included in marine protected areas.

Oceana started it extensive Baltic research in the spring of 2011 and has find areas in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, all of which have an extremely important biodiversity, that need to be protected from human activity in order to halt big biodiversity loss in Baltic Sea.

The Baltic Sea is experiencing huge biodiversity loss because of pollution and overfishing and giving the status of marine protected area to more areas in Baltic seems like the only logical solution to protect many marine species from extinction.

At this moment, the 12% of Baltic Sea belongs to marine protected area. Way too little according to conservationists who say that a minimum of 30 per cent of the Baltic Sea should be effectively protected.

The recovery of biodiversity in Baltic Sea is only possible with the immediate adoption of protective measures. These measures would over time create healthier marine environment and sustainable fisheries, giving many fish species a chance to recover their populations.

Oceana has proposed nine areas which include offshore waters and host habitats, communities and species that are not sufficiently covered by the current network of marine protected areas. All of the proposed areas are vulnerable to human activities, particularly to bottom trawling.

Oceana has since 2001 protected over 1.2 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea turtles, sharks, dolphins and other sea creatures. Their admirable work will hopefully achieve even more success in years to come.

Endangered Species Act not comprehensive enough

The world is experiencing huge biodiversity loss with many species being brought at the very brink of extinction. Many scientists have already issued warnings about our planet entering yet another mass extinction event, this time caused by human race and best characterized by climate change issue.

The number of endangered species is constantly growing so it is really no surprise that Endangered Species Act (ESA) is anything but comprehensive and therefore does not offer protection for many endangered species.

The latest research from the scientists at the University of Adelaide has compared the ESA list of endangered species with the world's leading threatened species list, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Their conclusion was that 40% of birds, 50% of mammals, and 80-95% of other species such as amphibians, gastropods, crustaceans, and insects that were included on IUCN list didn't make it to ESA list.

If we translate this into raw numbers then this means that 531 American species on the IUCN Red List haven't made it to the ESA protection list. Or in other words U.S. environmental agencies still have awful lot to do in order to save many endangered species from going extinct.

The Endangered Species Act certainly played its role in protecting many animal species since being established in 1973 but its currently covered number of endangered animals seems to be anything but adequate.

EPA hasn't lost its power over the years, it has most of all lost speed needed to include species before they become critically endangered.

There still hasn't been any major governmental evaluation of the ESA's coverage which is really no surprise when you consider the fairly low political impact of environmental issues in United States.

As of November 2011 only twenty-three species were delisted from ESA list due to recovery in population.

The ESA is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Habitat – Definition and meaning

Term habitat refers to a certain part of environment that is inhabited by a particular animal and/or plant species. Habitat therefore represents natural environment where certain animal and plant species live, find food and most importantly reproduce.

Habitat loss is one of the major environmental issues of our time. The human population keeps growing and is interfering with animal and plant habitats which in most cases leads to destruction of many animal and plant habitats.

It is very difficult to stop habitat loss and in order to do so world would need lot more protected areas where animal and plant species can thrive without being disrupted by humans. Habitat loss causes biodiversity loss and reduced biodiversity does not only cause huge environmental but also huge economic damage.

The coexistence between humans and animals and plants more often than not results in habitat destruction because humans overexploit natural resources for urbanization and industry. The overexploitation of natural resources leads to habitat's reduced carrying capacity which in the end results in population decline, sometimes even extinction of certain animal and plant species.

Endemic species are most affected with habitat loss because they can be found within a certain limited ecosystem and have very specific living requirements which can be found only in this ecosystem and nowhere else.

Habitat loss is a particularly big issue in areas with very rich biodiversity such as rainforests because these areas support thousands of different species. The rapid deforestation is taking heavy toll in tropical forests around the globe – in fact the environmentalists have calculated that tropical forests with the current deforestation rates lose approximately 1% of original forest habitat each year.

Habitat destruction sometimes also takes place via natural processes such as volcanism and earthquakes though such events are much rarer and create far less damage to habitat when compared with human activity.

If world fails to stop the current rate of habitat destruction this will in years to come lead to more natural disasters as well as new diseases. World needs more healthy ecosystems and more natural environments untouched by humans. This is really the only way to stop the global biodiversity loss and ensure wellbeing for our future generations.

How to ensure sustainable forest management?

Sustainable forest management is one of the prerequisites for our future wellbeing. Why? Because forests are areas with rich biodiversity that provide us with services and goods on which our wellbeing depends upon. Forests help regulate climate, supply health, energy and livelihood to our society.

Even despite the enormous importance of our forests thousands of hectares of forest are lost each year. Deforestation is the worst in Indonesia and Africa where tropical rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Our forests, especially rainforests, are together with our oceans the most important carbon sinkers, therefore very helpful in reducing the total climate change impact. The forest loss around the globe does not only mean less absorbed carbon emissions but is also releasing billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Current forest conservation efforts haven't been very successful and world needs to find quick solution(s) to preserve forests for our future generations. Among the proposed solutions are establishing more protected areas such as national and state parks, ensure better land-use planning and improve the current management of protected areas.

In order to give positive results all these solutions need big funding. By big funds I mean the tens of billions of dollars in the next decade because without such large funds we won't be able to halt the current forest loss.

The question that raises itself is how to ensure such a large-scale financing? The WWF believes that the solution for this may lie in forest bonds. Don Kanak, Advisor to WWF's Forest and Climate Initiative said that "we can't wait until the last tree has fallen to find this large-scale of finance. Forest bonds may be a promising way to close that short-term gap in financing so our forests don't slip away while we sort out how we're going to fund their long-term conservation."

The form of financing isn't as relevant as financing itself - the most important thing is to obtain the money for forests conservation, regardless of the finance tools used in the process.

Our forests need to be preserved at any cost. World has to do anything in its power to save the forest from disappearing. Our future may well depend on it.

There isn't enough protected areas to stop biodiversity loss

The ongoing huge biodiversity loss cannot be stopped with the current level of globally protected areas. The currently designated protected areas haven't been able to halt decline of animal and plant species.

What this means is that the urgent reduction in man's ecological footprint is the only way to save many animals and plants from going extinct, at least this is what the new study published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series suggests we should do.

The scientists have calculated that the levels of consumption and population growth mean world will need the productivity of up to 27 Earths by 2050 in order to halt current decline in biodiversity.

In 2010 world nations agree to design more than 17 percent of the world's land mass and 10 percent of the oceans to protected areas. However, even if world achieves this target this won't be enough to halt current level of biodiversity loss.

The scientists suggest that world would need to cover at least 30 percent of the world's ecosystems for protected areas to halt biodiversity loss. This however, given the current levels of expansion is not likely to be realized for 185 years on land and 80 years at sea and on the other hand climate change will likely cause mass extinction within the 50 years.

There are still not enough funds to establish new protected areas. Even currently protected areas need $24bn to proper management of which just $6bn is being spent.

Environmental protection - Definition and key issues

Environmental protection definition includes all available practices used to protect our environment, whether on individual, organizational or global (international) level. This basically means that each and every one of us can do something to protect our environment but of course, global actions are the ones that would help our environment the most.

The general opinion is that our environment is in the constant state of degradation due to so many different environmental problems (climate change, all forms of pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss, etc). The scientists have been issuing warnings about the negative state of our environment for quite some time but unfortunately world leaders do not listen to science and global action to protect our environment from further degradation still looks like mission impossible. This was best demonstrated in talks about the new climate change deal where world leaders once again failed to find the mutual language being divided by different individual interests.

Human population is constantly growing, and world still fails to find the right balance between the increase in human population and environmental needs. More people on this planet means more environmental problems quite simply because our society doesn't have the ecological conscience. In the world where everything is about the money it is impossible to develop global ecological conscience, and install it into our society.

In simple words we care too little for our environment and our planet in general. We have come to a point where we need to protect environment against ourselves, and that is the worst possible irony. Yes, there are many different organizations that try to protect our environment such as Environmental Protection Agency in United States but without the global ecological conscience very little can be achieved.

Some environmentalists even say that the environmental protection has become a lost cause because environmental problems keep on growing at rapid pace, giving us a zero chance to do something about it.

Calling environmental protection a lost cause is going too far because as long there is at least one healthy environment left in the world, environmental protection has its purpose, and is not completely useless as some may think it is. Without the environmental protection our environment would look much worse than it looks today, and we certainly must look for more ways to protect our environment.

Many countries have different organizations and other bodies devoted to environmental protection. There are even some international environmental protection organizations, for instance the United Nations Environment Programme. This means that something is still being done for our environment, though this something is far from being enough.

The most important thing in today's ecology is to solve things on global level, and environmental protection is no exception. World leaders must act as one when it comes to environment because this is the only possible road to successful environmental protection.

Only united world can save our environment and our planet for our future generations. Our planet, our environment, our responsibility.