Picture (c) WWF-Canon / Alain COMPOST
With so much comment on this blog, in the print media and else where - the new raging debate: is global warming real? Is global warming linked to our activity? Is there a robust theory which explains the phenomenon of global warming. Are we all barking up the wrong tree? Are we let off the hook?
Continue reading "Climate Change - The Mother of all Distractions?"
On Tuesday 6th March 大象传媒 Radio 4 at 11.02 GMT on FM & LW and streamed on the Radio 4 website - and on demand here on the blog. Slowing down the human contribution to CC accepted, this programme investigates what has to be done now to protect the natural world. Much of the advice is whole sale land grabbing.
Continue reading "How do we conserve the natural world in the face of CC?"
Have you seen ? French Carthusian monks living in a remote outpost in the French Alps as communal hermits. Have they and other monastic orders got something to show us all?
The Intergovernmental panel on climate change have the first of 4 reports - this one on the physical science basis of climate change.
The study of ecology can give us some important insights into our behaviour - And enviroment is now cool, there's surely a moment to be seized in a quest to find a sustainable future.
There has been a lot in the today about the EU's plans to combat the causes of climate change in Europe. There are some dire futures predicted for many Euro countries. For PEuT, in the early summer of 2006, we interviewed the Executive Director, Professor Jacquie McGlade. Here are some notes I took from that i/v.
Continue reading ""We must work with Nature - Not against it""
Spruce forest, like this in the rocky mountains, could actually make make global warming worse.
Continue reading "This type of Forest could turn against us"
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE WORLD DAY OF PEACE 1 JANUARY 2007
The pope can influence over one billion people all over the world. Not only in Europe, but Brazil and the Philippines together with parts of Africa and North America. All places that suffer from the consequences of climate change or are causal in its genesis and momentum. Here's an abstract which relates to the Papal view of our realtionship with the natural world and its consequences for peace.
As with many of your blogs - we still have the "human population" question.
The joke is on me..a trail with me getting my metaphors the wrong way round. Listen to the Now Show, it will make you laugh...a good song. Tune in to last Fridays show - 8th Dec. We've been reading your blogs...
Continue reading "We're on the Precipice of a Runaway Train !"
In Britain, this is a wonderful time of year to walk along estuaries. With Ireland, we certainly have an important European wide responsibility for them, and we're even up there globally. They are harsh flat places, often wet and windy and dominated by sticky mud - which if you tread in it smells of rotten eggs. Not many people like these places - but like a Rembrandt masterpiece, do you have to like it to appreciate its value - to love and treasure it. Climate change is hitting them.
Continue reading "You Might not Like it, but you have to Love it"
The Stern Review highlights the economic cost of climate change - hardly a laugh a minute. The IPCC report of 2001, with another due next year - this written by international scientists, is also tough reading. Both important - and what about the people on the ground, is their message down beat and depressing. The answer, probably, if they are talking about conservation.
We go out tonight. 大象传媒 Radio 4 at 21.02 GMT (92.4-94.6 FM - 198 LW and streamed live on the R4 website). There will be a listen again facility on this blog. Join Gabrielle for the first show and then get on the blog - we run now for 8 consequtive weeks, and then we repeat the whole series. Next week it's "Life on the Move".
Sand Eels are on the way out and Snake Pipe Fish are on the way in - And the seabirds of the East Atlantic don't know what to do.
(Picture 漏 Harry Scott)
Have you ever heard the scientific term "feedback loop"? It's a good one, it's how most of life is regulated and it might help this chasm of uselessness that exists between us lay people and the unweildy spectre of climate change that hangs over us.
Continue reading "From Science to Morality - And back Again?"
As people we like to surround our selves with home comforts - How we seek comfort might be the key to turning climate change around.
Planet Earth - the high definition block buster started screening again last night in the UK with a spectacular on the polar regions. Awe and wonder makes us care.
On Thursday 31st October Sir Nicholas Stern published his report on . This review is a bitter pill to swallow but I suspect no surprise to you if you have kept up with this blog. But climate change isn't the only thing effecting the ability of our earth to support life. We're killing forests, poisoning our rivers, fishing out the seas - the entirety of which is raining hell on Earth.
Continue reading "Raining Hell on Earth - The Chant of Certainty"
If you want to know what is the most mind blowing little angel that dances across the open ocean is - it's the diminutive giga bird, the . These belong to the seabird group Procellarformes, who are the tube noses (nostrils on their beak). The storm petrel is the smallest seabird in the world and the wandering albatross (in this group) is the largest flying seabird in the world. The Storm Petrels are rocking science and they are showing some grit living with climate change and oceanic warming.
Palaeontologists say that one species evolves per million species per million years - And conversely, one species goes extinct for every million species about once every million years. So it cancels and life on Earth moves on. Ecologists specialising in extinction rates, when all human activity is added up, are finding that the rate of extinction today is 100X that, probably 1000X and in the future is likely to be about 10,000X. By the end of 2100 50% of life on Earth might have vanished: that's plants, especially flowering plants, insects, birds, amphibians, mammals - groups that we know about. Little is known about the "little things that run the world" - no one knows how many bacteria, mini beasts, fungi etc might have popped it. All of this will take millions of years to evolve again (assuming we weren't on Earth). Not good.
I've got to write something that makes me feel good. I'm concerned that my recent blogs have been really cage rattling. So read on.
There are vast amounts of frozen methane sitting beneath the seabed. Methane is 60X as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and there is twice as much methane ready to blow as all the carbon dioxide contained in the global reservoir of crude oil and coal. How are we supposed to think about this planetary bomb shell?
The second show in our series is looking good with some big stories coming out. This show is about how wildlife is shifting about in response to climate change. On land, life is certainly on the move - it's not all bad news, so read on. But the trend is not good. What comes out of this is the value of long term observations, only then can the trends be seen.
Continue reading "A Call to Amateur Naturalists - your note books are Needed"
Where did the expression "The World is your Oyster" come from? For those of us who use the phrase it means the world out there is yours to go and get. But surely now, it's time out.
Continue reading "The World is your Oyster - Like hell it Is"
The tragedy within the Amish Community of Lancaster County Pennsylvania this week brought with it images of their life style. The pictures reminded me of a community of people who for countless years have been content living without the conspicuous . What can we take from this in the context of our lives and living with climate change?
Hi all heres another guest entry from our reporter
Its confirmed in the . 2006 has been the hottest summer since the 18th Century. Also here's another one, . Two weekends ago I tried digging my garden, now if there was ever an excuse not to garden this is the best one. The ground was so hard the handle of the spade broke, but its true! A road digging drill would not have got through the ground. However last weekend the heavens opened and thunder storm after storm rolled into the garden, at one point the ground could not take anymore rain and a flood began to appear. During one of these storms the wind felt really warm for the 1st of October. The wind got so strong at one point I guessed somewhere should have had a tornado, and sure enough on the national news a Tornado was reported, is it just my imagination or are Tornados really becoming more frequent in the UK? Have a look at the picture of a Tornado I took forming in Cumbria.
Continue reading "Chris Sperring reporting from his back garden"
Climate change is something that is going to effect every single one of us on the surface of the Earth. To maintain this unique planet as something fit to live in we need a global environmental leader who can connect the voyeurisitic images of the future to the ordinary people of our global community. This person I suspect doesn't know it's them. Their qualities will need to give us a fear of heights (read my last blog) and be able to show us how our individual interests need to be the same as humanity its self. Above all they will need to tell us we can fight back and win. What is the profile of this person?
For this series we've put teams of people in North America, Greenland, Madagascar, The Pacific, Europe and the UK. We've been talking to academics from some of the worlds great institutions and we've been talking to people on the ground. The big wigs think we're heading for catastrophe, those on the ground are mixed. It's the twice Pulitzer Prize winning Harvard academic who thinks we're heading for an age of loneliness, a planet with just us and not much else - also echoed by research from the for Climate Protection & Research in the UK. And in EO Wilson's latest book he believes we must all pull together and save life on Earth. Save The Creation.
The Pacific is a vast ocean peppered with island nation states. Both the sea and the coral islands are home to brilliant wildlife - And on this many peoples depend. But the corals can fight back - But can species such as turtles? Turtles have a profoundly important ecological role in the shallow seas and their conspicuous plight due to climate change can only further weaken the coral reefs on which so many species and people depend.
Be afraid. be very afraid. For lurking at the bottom of our oceans is a huge monster that has been lying dormant for thousands of years. And yet, global warming may just serve as an alarm clock that upon waking this behemoth would cause it to bellow its vast and smelly methane breath into the atmosphere, accelerating the current warming trend still further.
OK, got a bit carried away there, but how else to introduce what I find a fascinating story about gas hydrates! Honestly..stick with me here!
With regard to Owl Prowl series in Sweden then I think that this is a great idea, but then I would, wouldn't I?
Actually as was pointed out to us by Tom if we went to Sweden in the spring then we would hear all the different Owls calling and see them displaying. What would be good however is to go back to Sweden and celebrate predators, it was quite inspiring to listen to people enthusing about predators, because in the UK we tend to frown on predators mainly because we don't understand the complexed relationship they have with the environment.
Beatrice and I have just returned from Sweden and to be quite frank my head鈥檚 still buzzing from the experience. After landing in Stockholm we met with Professor Tom Arnbom, who immediately took us out to watch Red Foxes. Of course this is an animal which I am very familiar with here in England, but in this part of Sweden the Red Fox is a relative newcomer, and one which is steadily marching north.
Continue reading "Chris Sperring reporting for Planet Earth Under Threat in Sweden"
There seems to some work going on in what to do with increasing levels of Co2, scientists are looking at ways to store Co2 in the sea bed.
Recently the second part of The Last Great Wilderness on Radio 4 looked at how forests an important sink of Co2 might behave in the future with an increase in greenhouse gases.
There's an interesting post about the recent commentary regarding the Amazon drought.
Additionally be sure to have a look if you dont know already these interesting blogs
Hello all, Jody here and all is busy with the PEuT team, Gabrielle and I have just come back from Madagascar where we met up with the lemur expert and amongst other important stories Patricia told us of her recent study that has shown the ways that climate change can affect the Milne Edwards Sifaka - try saying that quickly! - Gabrielle will write on this shortly but it was a exceptional trip and we have some great material.
Feedback time!
In the meantime weve been doing this blog for a while and so It would be great to have some feedback on how we are doing,
Submitted by PEuT reporter Gordon Radley
What a nice change- a couple of days out of the intensity of a TV news studio and a chance to go to work in T Shirt and shorts. I am well chuffed-doing a story on global warming on the two hottest July days ever recorded. Also an opportunity to look at and find out about some of the country鈥檚 most beautiful creatures. Imagine an English summer鈥檚 day without a butterfly fluttering by? With global warming though things could change.
Chadden Hunter works with gelada baboons in the Ethiopian Highlands and with his colleagues is discovering they are going higher and higher up the mountain - and it's not long before "gelada's might lift off the mountain".
If the Gulf stream is changing then of course I think we all know the implications for that, and I look forward to studying Snowy Owls in South West England, but how long given current speed of changes do I need to wait to at least see them in the winter? UK owl conservationist and PEuT reporter Chris Sperring has sent this blog to you. Owls could be an important indicator of climate change - these are his questions - And read on: (Chris sending down some pics, so come back!)
1) How far reaching was the cold winter of 2005/6, was it the whole of the northern hemisphere, or just part?
2) How much did our (UK) cold winter have to do with a weakening of the gulf stream from the south west, thus allowing air flow from the east to be dominant (do we know)?
3) Or was this a one off to be repeated once in every few years?
UK owl guru Chris Sperring has been watching and monitoring owl populations in Britain for decades and he's surprised by what appears to be "a disasterous year for most UK owl species". More on owls next week.
Chris is going to report for PEuT
Hello all of you - thank you for your blogs. We read them all and in part this series is being informed by you. Here's a basic treatment of the series. We already have some trips behind us (UK & Greenland). We're off to Madagascar, the US, Sweden and the north country of the UK in the next 2-4 weeks, hopefully bringing back new and important stories for you. I'll populate the treatment with specific stories very soon, probably when we're back.
Mary Colwell has written a very interesting article entitled the Pope and the Iceberg which talks about the environment as a moral issue. She argues that faiths and particularly the Catholic faith should take a lead in the subject of global warming and the environment,
Read it
Hello all, were in the midst of a of tropical rainstorm down here in Bristol - here's a guest entry from Mary Colwell who is a is producer on the up-coming series "Planet Earth, The Future" on 大象传媒 4 later in the year -
I think one of the biggest questions we need to think about is who owns, and has responsibility for, the areas of earth that perform vital functions. I'm thinking of the ice cap where Julian and Gabrielle went to, the rainforests in the tropics and of course the vast oceans. Ice and forest may be under the control of the countries where they are found, but they are vital ecosystems that influence the climate of the whole planet. So is it right and fair that a small country like Greenland should be responsible for its ice cap?
Continue reading "Earths Vital Functions - Guest Blog entry from Mary Colwell"
Over the last month or two the Planet Earth Under Threat team has been talking to scientists worldwide, looking for research and 鈥榮tories鈥 to include in our radio series on climate change. Many of the biologists, ecologists, phenologists and other -ologists we鈥檝e approached are more than happy to talk to us about their research and its possible implications. But we鈥檝e also noticed an unexpected reaction in some quarters: a reluctance to discuss the interpretation of data and occasionally an unwillingness to talk to the media at all. What鈥檚 going on?
Continue reading "Message from Jan - Keeping mum on climate change?"
Hi all - just to let you know that weve got a new whizzy addition to the blog with a fli.
For those that dont know a flickr account is like an online photo album and will hold some some pics from our recording of the series. If you have a look on the right hand nav of our blog you can see some of the most recent additions click the link for some more. Well update more in the next few days - enjoy!
Hello, Beatrice here - one of the team out in Greenland at the moment. Just wanted to mention a bit about the people living here in East Greenland. We've asked people living here, like Carl in the picture above, if they've noticed the weather changing, ice melting etc and how they feel about it. Carl said he can feel that it's getting warmer - but when we asked him whether this worries him, he said that there are other issues in the community to worry more about at the moment, like the pollution from the open waste dump, social problems, noise pollution from the helicopters coming and going....
Hello Bloggers,
As Julian has already told you, I鈥檓 here with him in Greenland, studying the signs of Arctic meltback. We鈥檝e seen some of the evidence that the glaciers are retreating, and also we鈥檝e been up close and personal with several floes of sea ice. It can be very tranquil out here in the fjord, surrounded by the beautiful multiyear floes, which are so beaten up by their years of crashing into one another that they look like whipped up meringue. But once in a while you hear a sudden crack like a pistol shot, and watch a large block of ice tumble into the sea. And all around there are the uneven dripping sounds of the Arctic melting.
Melting sea ice is a perfectly natural thing. It happens here every summer, and even now鈥攚hich is quite early for Greenland鈥攕ome of the floes have blue-green ponds of meltwater on their surface. (Incidentally, even though sea ice is just frozen seawater, the older ice spends its first few years letting all the salt trickle out of wiggly channels below the surface, and the topmost part is now more or less salt free. That means the pools of meltwater taste fresh and sweet鈥擨 know, I drank some! Apparently whalers used to use these pools to replenish their water sources, and sometimes to take a chilly dip.)
However, we have also heard worrying evidence that the sea ice is melting more rapidly than before, and that the northernmost ice cap is shrinking. Satellite data show that the summer sea ice has receded by 8 % per year over the past three decades. And some models predict that by the end of the century, the white polar ice cap in summer will be replaced completely by a deep blue ocean.
I鈥檝e just written about Arctic climate change in an article published this week in Nature called 鈥渢he tipping point of the iceberg鈥. Those of you who have a subscription can check it out here:
For the rest, I鈥檒l give a quick summary.
Hello everyone. We've had a certain amount of difficulty logging on, but I'm on-line now sitting over looking the Tasiilaq Fjord in East Greenland. I'm here with Gabrielle and Beatrice to see the Arctic melt back for real. One of the most important discoveries for me here is the nature of ice in all it's Arctic forms. The picture here is us [G & B above] and Norwegian ice expert Ola Johannessen from the Nansen Environmental & Remote Sensing Center in Bergen, Norway.
While Gabrielle, the world's climatologists and possibly most citizens of the UK accept the general idea that Global Warming is a present day fact, I am not sure the same can be said for my neighbours here in the USA. With the 2008 Presidential elections on the horizon, this feeling may well be why Al Gore is hoping to change the politcal climate here by stepping into the environmental fray with his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" which warns of the imminent dangers of climate changes. I understand the documentary is based on a PowerPoint presentation he's been toting around the world! Clearly it must be about as exciting as "The Da Vinci Code". Yet the doc. has opened to critical acclaim in the liberal hang outs of the Sundance Festival and the artsy theatres of the east and west coasts. But here in the heartland of conservative middle America, it's arrival has been heralded with an eerie silence only punctuated by the toll of the conservative church bell as tumbleweed blows down the real mainstreet USA.
Hello fellow bloggers,
Well, as Julian told you, we made it to Wicken Fen and in spite of his assurances ended up getting more than a little damp. Fortunately, the rain didn鈥檛 come until after the birds had provided us with a splendid dawn chorus. I鈥檝e heard cuckoos before, but never in such numbers, sparring over the airwaves about who has the best patch. It was awesome, well worth getting up at 4am for.
Cuckoos are some of the many migrant birds that Wicken houses, and it was fascinating to hear about how they and their fellow long-distance travellers might be affected by climatic shifts in different parts of their travels.
Speaking of long-distance travels, some of you have mentioned that we on the PEuT team seem to be planning to use up a fair amount of jet fuel to make this series, and have said that this isn鈥檛 exactly environmentally friendly. You鈥檙e right of course. But first of all, I don鈥檛 think you should assume anything about my (or the series鈥) 鈥渁genda鈥. Having spent more than a decade researching and writing about climate change I have now concluded, along with most of the world鈥檚 climate scientists, that global warming is upon us, that some changes are inevitable, and others are probably still avoidable if we decide to take certain steps. I also believe that there will be winners and losers from both the inevitable change, and the possible further changes that might follow.
Joining the Planet Earth Under Threat team is very exciting 鈥 this is a huge and important subject that I鈥檓 delighted to get my teeth into, if a little over-awed by the sheer volume of information. How to choose what we include?? One of the first things on my long to-do list is to line up some stories in the Americas for Howard Stableford to cover for us. A trip to the far north seems likely to look at the changes in the ice and permafrost and the resulting effects on polar bear and caribou populations. But hey, isn鈥檛 this all a bit familiar? Haven鈥檛 we all seen the pictures of stranded polar bears and submerging Pacific Islands? The 大象传媒 is currently running a Climate Chaos Season and on all sides there are signs of doom and gloom fatigue. So how can we engage with this subject so that we don鈥檛 all turn off, but are in equal parts inspired, informed and motivated?
Gabrielle and I have just come back from Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire (UK) to record the dawn chorus and hear about the ambitious expansion project of the National Trust to recreate "The Great Fen" of 300 years ago. This is a massive 100 year vision which we'll tell you about in another blog. 
But we also picked up an interview from Bill Adams (Professor of Conservation Development, Cambridge University). We asked him the question - why bother to protect anything: Bill came up with the best quote ever on that one. Keep an eye on this entry because we're going to give you a taster of the dawn chorus for you to enjoy.
Hello everybody from rainy London. I鈥檒l be presenting this series, and I鈥檓 happy to report that the first of our trips will soon be underway. Next week, Julian and I should be heading over to the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge to talk to some Antarcticans about their work in the Deep South. That will make me very happy since, as you can probably see from the picture, ice is one of my passions. (More about that later.) 
The following day we plan to be at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire to record the dawn chorus and talk to some expert naturalists about the effects that drought and weather changes could have on this extraordinary habitat. We might have to postpone the trip if the nasty weather doesn鈥檛 pick up. (I offered to go and crouch in a field at 4am whatever the weather, but Julian assures me that the birds won鈥檛 sing properly if it鈥檚 windy and wet. Thank you birds!) Anyway, for that and all our other endeavours, watch this space.
Meanwhile, let me introduce myself a bit. I鈥檝e been writing and broadcasting about earth science and the environment for more than ten years now, for places like New Scientist, where I used to be Features Editor, and the 大象传媒鈥檚 radio science unit. But usually I鈥檝e been covering the physical side, climate, rocks, oceans and ice, rather than animals and plants. So it鈥檚 great to be working with the Natural History Unit, where I鈥檒l get much more of a chance to see the effects of climate change on living things. I do have some thoughts about this already, which I've added below (along with a few more pix). Please let me know what you think.
Like the pic? 
A little while ago we made a show about these lovely little creatures. Have a listen some time. Meerkats are despots! Female dominated despots at that. As a species they live in co-operative groups, with most of the individuals in the group helping the dominant female rear her young, instread of their own. So, the two big questions are: Why live in a group? And why not breed your self and help another? Read more.
Continue reading "When the interest of the individual is the same as the group"
Hello everyone - just had James Lovelock pass through the office and we're hoping to get him to do a far reaching interview for PEuT. For those of you who don't know him - he's the author of a number of books about "Gaia". Lovelock presents the earth has a whole system able to respond to change and counter the forces that move the earth away from stability. Lovelock last year famously came out in support of nuclear power in the UK to provide cleaner energy to meet our immediate needs. He argued that the re-newable solutions to solve our energy crisis are sufficiently far off in the distance to be too late to counter the causes of global warming (implicating coal and gas fired power stations). He told me briefly this afternoon that if climate change shifts the gulf stream away from the UK "we'd have fewer west winds" making the west country (where he lives) less suitable for wind turbines. I think he was implying that it might not make a great deal of difference, so why bother using the land in that way. Many would argue that every little helps.
What do you think about nuclear energy as a responsible way to reduce our carbon emmisions and maintain our life style?
And do you think we should change our life style to reduce our energy needs? If so, what are you prepared to do to reduce your need of electricity?
Written in 2002 Paul J Crutzen suggested we are now in a geological era which is defined by mankinds impact on the environment - more specifically an age defined by our generation of green house gases. Crutzen in the science journal "Nature" suggests this period started about 300 years ago - A time when industrialisation really got going. This is the Anthropocene.
Hello world. We have Jan Castle doing some specific research for this big series. She has a lot of cred. She's made radio programmes for us on many occasions and has worked for countless years in wildlife television - both for the 大象传媒 and the "inde" sector. Her native tongue is English, but she's fluent in French and Spanish - And this means we can really start probing into South America, Europe and Africa for stories. Her first major job is to sort our Howard out and get him into the field. From my end, Gabrielle and I have a trip to one of Britains most important wetlands - And actually our first official nature reserve. We're off to Wicken Fen to record a dawn chorus and learn about one of the most ambitious conservation projects in recent times, with a projected end game in 100 years time! Wicken Fen is near Cambridge - part of the "soft counties" of the UK and much is on or below sea level. These great flatlands are a Mecca for wildlife, but are vulnerable to sea level rises. Some have written "Cambridge-on-Sea by 2050" I'll tell you more next week when we go. Oh yes - we're also off to the Antarctic, to the HQ of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge to hear about their amazing work in the southern oceans. Keep blogging - talk to us.
Greetings fellow bloggers from Colorado, my home for the last seven years. Through my office window I can see the spectacular heights of Pike's Peak, a four thousand plus metre snow capped mountain along Colorado's Front Range. At least I can today. Yesterday it was snowing!
I am delighted to have been invited to cover the Americas for this series. My association with NHU Radio goes back several years during which time I have battled with the Generation X Cicada in Ohio, swum with sharks in the Bahamas and followed the trail of ace American biologist John Steinbeck in Monterey California. In fact while I am standing on this soap box of shameless self promotion I should point out that you can still hear some of my programmes on Radio 4's rather excellent "Listen Again" site!
I am equally delighted to have been given the opportunity to contribute to this blog. I must say that giving a presenter free reign to vent on an open forum is a bit like me offering the local population of black bears full access to the contents of my dustbin whenever they feel a bit peckish. However, I promise to use this site judiciously as long as you agree to rummage through the debris of my thoughts in similar fashion
This is an amazing story and one that shows there are things we can do to combat the effects of global warming. A year before this photograph was taken, there was a field of barley. Now the field is full of delicious mud and is the spawning ground for many species of marine fish.
This is part of the county of Essex in the SE of England. Not far from London. The Environment Agency (A public funded body that looks after the earth, water and air of England and Wales) have punched some holes through the sea defences and allowed the land to be reclaimed as salt marsh. A piece of landscape alteration called "managed retreat". Global warming has kicked in, sea levels are rising - And in this part of the UK, the land is gradually tilting into the sea to boot. The upshot - the sea walls built to protect farmland from salt water are at their very limit and valuable salt marsh on the seaward side has all but disappeared. And obviously there's the ominous threat of flooding. Managing the retreat in this way regenerates the salt marsh on the old landward side of the sea wall (at the loss of some farmland - but fantastic for marine biodiversity - fish, birds, sea snails etc) - And arguably the salt marsh is a better sea defence than the wall. The marsh absorbs the energy of the waves reducing the risk of flooding. Listen to a show we made about it.
In researching for this series we talk to many people and there are many different bodies of thinkers. There are those who work directly on the nature of global warming : its causes and effects. These are massive stories. But there are many other people who are interested in landscape changes, species extinctions and loss of habitats who don't directly blame global warming. Far from it. For many, the unsustainble use of natural resources is a far greater threat to life on earth and humanity - and a threat which, in their view, will be felt quicker and harder (fisheries, forests, rivers, viable farmland etc etc). In PEuT we're trying to balance these two huge fields of interest. At the moment we're talking to the people who design conservation strategies that both embody sustainable use of resources and take into account the impacts of global warming. These are big stories - one from the Congo and another from Madagascar. I'll tell you about them next week. And to you, fellow bloggers! Tell us about any inspriational people you have met or know of. It would be very valuable to us - we might be able to pay them a visit.
Picture copyright Andrew MacColl
Many of us here in blighty are familiar with this little bird. Their body is tiny (size of a grown man's thumb), but they look much bigger because of their long tail, and during winter they can be seen flitting in little bands between gardens and in open scrub country. And it's good news: Ben Hatchwell - a Reader at Sheffield University - has studied them for years and he says they're on the up, they probably like the milder winters.
We made a programme about them - have a listen. More about Long-tailed tits: 大象传媒 Radio 4 - The Living World
Picture copyright Andrew MacColl
Many of us here in blighty are familiar with this little bird. Their body is tiny (size of a grown man's thumb), but they look much bigger because of their long tail, and during winter they can be seen flitting in little bands between gardens and in open scrub country. And it's good news: Ben Hatchwell - a Reader at Sheffield University - has studied them for years and he says they're on the up, they probably like the milder winters.
We made a programme about them - have a listen. More about Long-tailed tits: 大象传媒 Radio 4 - The Living World
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