Tom Engelhardt writes: Consider the following little list of 15 numbers that
offer an indication of just how much less safe we are now than we were in
January 2001, when George W. Bush entered the Oval Office:

536,000,000,000:
the number of dollars the Pentagon is requesting for the 2009 military
budget. This represents an increase of almost 70% over the Pentagon’s
2001 budget of $316 billion.

1,390,000:
the number of subprime foreclosures over the next two years, as
estimated by Credit Suisse analysts. 

1,000,000:
the number of “missions” or “sorties” the U.S. Air Force proudly claims
to have flown in the Global War on Terror since 9/11.

509,000:
the number of names found in 2007 on a “terrorist watch list” compiled
by the FBI. 

300,000:
the number of American troops who now suffer from major depression or
post-traumatic stress, according to a recent RAND study.

51,000: the
number of post-surge Iraqi prisoners held in American and Iraqi jails
at the end of 2007. 

5,700:
the number of trailers in New Orleans — issued as temporary housing after Hurricane
Katrina and still occupied.

658:
the number of suicide bombings worldwide last year.

511:
the number of applicants convicted of felony crimes, who were accepted into
the U.S. Army in 2007.

387:
the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, “up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the
highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

126:
the number of dollars it took to buy a barrel of crude oil on the
international market this week. 

82:
the percentage of Americans who think “things in this countryÖ have
gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track.”

40:
the percentage loss (”on a trade-weighted basis”) in the value of the
dollar since 2001. 

37:
the number of countries that have experienced food protests or riots in
recent months.

0: the number of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda or similar groups inside the United States since September 11, 2001.

So, are we safe? (05/17/08)

more…

NOAA- National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

The graph to the left shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii.

CO2 levels
in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost
40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the
last 650,000 years.

The shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its
natural ability to soak up billions of tons of carbon each year.
Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be
re-absorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may
be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the
atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than
currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

Click for a graph of the full Mauna Loa record.
The last year of
data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of
reference gases and other
quality control checks.

The Mauna Loa data are being
obtained at an altitude of 3400 m in the northern subtropics, and may not be
the same as the globally averaged CO2 concentration at the surface. (05/17/08)
more…

BBC Social Science — Seen
from a small boat emerging from Puraquequara lagoon into the full flow
of the Amazon River, this is a world reduced to water, trees and sky.
It’s a full three kilometres to the other side and at that distance
even the forest giants that tower over the canopy seem reduced in size.

Amazonas state - a territory three times the size of France but with a
telephone book just a centimetre thick - is 98% pristine rainforest.
But it is an environment threatened by powerful forces - like the march
of economic development.

Former Harvard law professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the man charged
with implementing Brazil’s new Plan for a Sustainable Amazon (PAS), is
under no illusions about the difficulties he faces. “The Amazon is not
simply a collection of trees,” Unger, Brazil’s minister for strategic
affairs told the BBC. “It’s a group of people: 25 million Brazilians.

“If those people lack economic opportunities, the practical consequence
will be disorganised economic opportunity, which will hasten the
deforestation. What we must do is develop a regulatory legal and tax
regime, ensuring that the forest standing is worth more than the forest
cut down.” …

One of the state’s most ambitious, and controversial, environmental
programmes - The Bolsa Floresta (forest bursary) scheme - was set up to
compensate the state’s traditional and indigenous people.

It amounts to a straightforward exchange - cash in hand for trees left
standing. To qualify for a hand-out of 50 reais (US$30) per month, a
family must attend a two-day training course on environmental awareness
and commit to zero deforestation. Local community associations can get
up to $3,000 under the scheme, financed by a partnership between
Amazonas State and Brazil’s largest private bank, Bradesco.

Another programme offers cash for sustainable activities that do not
produce smoke, such as bee-keeping, fish-farming or forest management. (05/17/08)
more…

BBC Biological Science — Between
a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970,
according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.

Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.

Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one
of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way,
it says.

Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.

The Living Planet Index, compiled by the society in partnership with
the wildlife group WWF, tracks the fortunes of more than 1,400 species
of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, using scientific
publications and online databases.

It
said numbers had declined by 27% in the 35 years from 1970 to 2005.
Some of the worst hit are marine species which saw their numbers
plummet by 28% in just 10 years, between 1995 and 2005.

Populations of ocean birds have fallen by 30% since the mid
1990s, while land-based populations have dropped by 25%. Among the
creatures most seriously affected have been African antelopes,
swordfish and hammerhead sharks. Another, the baiji - or Yangtze River
Dolphin - may have been lost altogether. (05/17/08)
more…

BBC Evolution Science – The ancestors of humans, apes and monkeys may have taken to the trees because of their small body size.

Scientists have long wondered why early primates inhabited forest
canopies, given that climbing appears to consume more energy than
walking.

US researchers studied primates climbing and walking on treadmills.

They say there was no difference in energy consumption for small
primates, giving clues to how their ancestors entered the trees 65
million years ago.

Dr Jandy Hanna of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, said the
data suggested that the earliest primates were able to exploit a new
environment without added cost if they remained small.

“The earliest primates differentiated from other mammals partly due to
their exploitation of a new arboreal niche - that of the terminal
branches of trees,” she told BBC News.

Early primates, which would have been about the size of large rats,
then underwent a number of evolutionary changes as they adapted to
their new environment.

These changes included nails rather than claws and grasping hands and feet.

“The benefit/payoff of invading this new environment (and the
appearance of these anatomical changes) was an insect- and fruit-rich
environment,” said Dr Hanna.

Professor Robin Crompton, of the Primate Evolution and Morphology group
at the University of Liverpool, UK, said it had been observed in the
wild that small animals such as the mouse lemur and dwarf bushbaby move
in much the same manner on verticals as horizontals. (05/17/08)
more…