CambioClimáticoyTú! presente en RIO+20

"Love. Not loss": A new message for biodiversity

Communicate for the NATURE LOVE..!!!
Promote the environmental education in your country..!!!
Is our responsability with the present and the future!..!!

Pasión por las grullas / Passion for cranes

2 minutos para sentir que volamos libres como las aves, bailando con el ritmo del piano!
2 minutes to feel free as the birds fly, dancing with the rhythm of the piano!

Por Karina Gil

By Karine Gil

Solutions of climate change?

How important is the climate change for us? And avobe all, how we can combat this defiance? The people know how this social and environmental problem is changing the world and their lives.

Recently, in two social networks (facebook and twitter), I was share a question very important for the societies and it relation with climate change. Between the members of the informative community "Our Opportunity in Climate Change", I was share with all this question:

What do you think is the best solution to face the consequences of climate change?

And the possible answers were:

1. Renewable energies
2. Environmental education
3. Sustainable economy

And we had as a result, the following:

15% of all --> Renewable energies 

70% of all --> Environmental education 

15% of all --> Sustainable economy

So, what tell us, these results?

First of all, the three solutions mentioned earlier, are viable for the correct management of the natural resources, always looking the local development and focused environment problems with the social needs for a better and successful strategy of adaptation of climate change.

With these results, we can see how the most votated, the environmental education, is the main solution to counteract the environmental problems in the world. In this case, if we can create environmental awareness and citizen, we can see positive changes in the relationship man - nature.

We can help our world by the environmental education! Talk to your friends, children, at school, at home about the environmental problems in your country, in your community...

...And the most important: ACT NOW!

Mezcla optimismo y pesimismo en convención climática de ONU

Con una mezcla de optimismo y pesimismo como puntos extremos de valoración, concluyó hoy la Convención Marco de Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático, que sesionó en Panamá durante siete días.

Su secretaria ejecutiva Christiana Figueres la calificó de sesión provechosa, y aunque se mostró complacida porque a última hora se limaron detalles técnicos sobre el futuro del Protocolo de Kyoto y un nuevo período de compromisos, admitió que la decisión es política y dependerá de los jefes de Estado en Durban.

Recordó en una concurrida rueda de prensa final que la reunión no fue convocada para tomar decisiones, sino preparar la Cumbre de Durban, Sudáfrica, el ámbito donde los gobernantes fallarán sobre el futuro del Protocolo de Kyoto.

Figueres fue moderadamente optimista al expresar que en puntos muy polémicos en los que se llegaron con mucho atraso en Panamá, como los relacionados con el financiamiento a corto y mediano plazos, monitoreo, verificación y reporte de daños por emisiones, se lograron borradores de textos.

Representantes de grupos de países afectados por emisiones y principales perjudicados por el calentamiento global, la Alianza Bolivariana de los pueblos de nuestra América (ALBA), el de los 77, el Africano, indígenas, y ambientalistas, no comparten el optimismo de Figueres.

Así lo expresó Bolivia al analizar en nombre de los países del ALBA el mercado del carbono, o el Congreso indígena al exigir mayor participación en las decisiones y cuestionar la formación del fondo verde que pudiera ser dominado por transnacionales.

La venezolana Claudia Salerno, a nombre también de los países del ALBA, exigió transparencia en el diseño y manejo del fondo tanto a largo como a corto plazo e información actualizada de la marcha de ese proceso.

Sobre el financiamiento Figueres dijo que en el de corto plazo ha comenzado a tejerse la confianza entre las partes, mientras que en el del Fondo Verde, de cien mil millones de dólares, se logró avanzar en un borrador de texto y en la participación más activa de los industrializados.

A Durban le espera ahora, expresó Figueres al concluir su evaluación, cómo convertir las promesas sugeridas en los borradores de textos en cantidades concretas y cuantificables en la reducción de emisiones de gas invernadero, y en la asistencia financiera a la que están obligados los mayores emisores.

Desarrollo sustentable como salida ecológica

Vivimos gracias a las plantas

El científico británico Iain Stewart salió sano y salvo de la cámara hermética de plástico en la que estuvo encerrado 48 horas, en la que contó con la compañía de numerosas plantas. ‘Sobrevivió’ a la prueba gracias al oxígeno producido por ellas. El objetivo de su experimento era demostrar “la importancia de la fotosíntesis para la supervivencia de la humanidad”.

La idea de este experimento se remonta al siglo XVIII, cuando Joseph Priestley puso a un ratón en el interior de una caja hermética con plantas y a otro, en una caja similar, pero sin vegetación. El segundo murió después de unas pocas horas, mientras que el primero superó la prueba. Así se demostró que las plantas son realmente la fuente del oxígeno que necesitan los seres vivos.

Variables a tomar en cuenta

La cámara de Stewart y sus ‘acompañantes’ tenía 8 metros de longitud, 2,5 de altura y 2 de ancho. En su interior había 150 plantas, 30 grandes y 120 más pequeñas. Esta ’selva’ fue regularmente alumbrada con lámparas para mantener la fotosíntesis.

Stewart logró tener suficiente oxígeno para sobrevivir; sin embargo, enfrentó varios síntomas desagradables: le dolía la cabeza, se sentía cansado y tenía problemas de sueño, que en parte fueron causados por las condiciones del experimento, donde predominaban la humedad y el calor, algo cómodo para la vegetación, pero no para el hombre.

Además, se detectó que la cantidad de plantas no fue suficiente para Stewart, ya que, mientras el porcentaje del oxígeno a la hora del inicio del experimento constituía un 21%, cuando el profesor salió de la cámara, la proporción de éste en el aire se había reducido al 10%, lo que corresponde al nivel que habitualmente se observa a una altura de 4.500 metros sobre el nivel del mar.

10 Ways to stop wasting water

Discourse of Steve Jobs in Stanford (subtitulado en español)

Remember the inspiration of Steve Jobs, his strength and dedication! "I am convinced that the only thing that kept me going was my love for what he did".. 

Recordemos la inspiración de Steve Jobs, su fuerza y dedicación! "Estoy convencido que la única cosa que me mantuvo en marcha fue mi amor por lo que hacia"..

Huge hole opens in Arctic ozone layer

A massive Arctic ozone hole opened up over the Northern Hemisphere for the first time this year, an international research team reported Sunday.

The hole covered two million square kilometres — about twice the size of Ontario — and allowed high levels of harmful ultraviolet radiation to hit large swaths of northern Canada, Europe and Russia this spring, the 29 scientists say.

The discovery of the “unprecedented” hole comes as the Canadian government is moving to reduce staff in what Environment Minister Peter Kent calls the “streamlining” of its ozone monitoring network.

Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick, whose team played a key role in the report published Sunday in the journal Nature, is not being allowed to discuss the discovery with the media.

Environment Canada told Postmedia News that an interview with Tarasick “cannot be granted.” Tarasick is one of several Environment Canada ozone scientists who have received letters warning of possible “discontinuance of job function" as part of the downsizing underway in the department.

In Sunday’s report Tarasick and his colleagues say the “chemical ozone destruction over the Arctic in early 2011 was — for the first time in the observation record — comparable to that in the Antarctic ozone hole.”

It also highlights the importance of Environment Canada’s ozone networks, which scientists have warned could be drastically reduced. Department officials say ozone monitoring will continue but will be “streamlined” to eliminate “redundancy.”

“The Canadian stations were an absolutely key element of the network of stations we used to do the study,” says co-author Marcus Rex, of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, in Potsdam, Germany. “Canada is the backbone of that network.”

The scientists say maintaining “comprehensive” data is “critical” to understanding Arctic ozone depletion and the threats it poses.

They used U.S. and European satellites, along with ground stations and scientific balloons — including those operated by Environment Canada — to find and track the hole.

“The satellites, ground stations and balloons each provide a piece of the puzzle,” says co-author Kaley Walker, at the University of Toronto. “It is important to have them all.”

The hole formed over the Arctic in February and March, then swung across northern Canada, northern Europe and Central Russia to northern Asia, prompting scientists to issue warnings this spring about excess radiation.

Sunday’s report shows just how big and remarkable the hole was and how it moved. It also points to what scientists are calling “ominous” changes in the Arctic stratosphere, about 20 kilometres above the surface, which may be linked to climate change and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Tarasick and Walker are among four Canadian co-authors, who had front row seats as the hole formed. They released scientific balloons, known as ozone sondes, which make hundreds of measurements on their way from the ground to 30 kilometres up in the atmosphere.

The measurements helped confirm that chlorine-based pollutants in the stratosphere, 18 to 20 kilometres above the ground, triggered a process that chewed up molecules in the ozone layer that protects Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet light.

Walker says it was “exciting” as a scientist to see the hole form, but sobering to see how humans are altering the atmosphere.

Extreme and prolonged cold in the stratosphere last winter and spring speed up and enhanced the chemical reactions that destroy the ozone, says co-author Michelle Santee, of the Jet propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute for Technology. Her group was monitoring the hole from space using satellites.

The ozone-destroying chlorine compounds have been banned internationally, but they are so “long lived” the scientists expect them to stay in the atmosphere for decades.

Rex says it will likely be about 70 years — “a full generation of humans” — before the chlorine compounds disappear from the atmosphere. Meantime a cooling trend in the stratosphere, which is thought to be tied to increasing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, could create more ozone holes.

Rex says the spring’s hole “clearly showed us that we don’t have a good understanding of what the Arctic ozone layer will do during the next several decades.”

The scientists say the destruction this spring “attained, for the first time, a level clearly identifiable as an Arctic ozone hole.”

It “far exceeded” any previously observed loss in the Arctic, says the scientists who warn of even more “severe depletion” if temperatures in the stratosphere keep dropping.

They also say “more acute Arctic ozone destruction could exacerbate biological risks from increased ultraviolet radiation exposure, especially if the vortex shifted over densely populated mid-latitudes, as it did in April 2011.” The “polar vortex” is the frigid air mass that circles the Polar region in winter and can dip as far south as New York and Rome.

Environment Canada’s media office refused repeated requests for an interview with Tarasick. It sent an email instead saying the information could be attributed to Tarasick.

The email says that UV levels were as much as 60 per cent higher than normal under the hole this spring. The ozone layer recovered in late April and May when winds mixed the atmosphere, but the effects of the hole lingered for months.

There was “somewhat lower ozone over our heads this summer, and higher UV levels (about 3-5% higher than we would expect if there had not been a hole),“ the email says.

Environment Canada media officer Mark Johnson downplayed the “alleged cuts" to the department’s ozone monitoring programs. Many scientists and politicians are denouncing the department’s plan to reduce scientific staff and ozone measurements.

Johnson said the department will still continue to monitor ozone and is “integrating” the two different instrument networks now in place. He also said “sites critical for long-term ozone trend information, including the world’s oldest ozonesonde station in Canada’s far north, will be maintained.”

Rex says he understands the need for budgetary constraint, but takes issue with recent statements by Environment Canada official Karen Dodds who said there is “redundancy” in the existing Canadian networks that can be eliminated.

“There is no redundancy,” says Rex, noting that the current Canadian measurements are essential to the international ozone monitoring program.

“The scientists in Environment Canada are bright guys,“ he says. “They have never wasted money by doing redundant measurements.”