Environment

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The oxygen crisis
Peter Tatchell, Guardian
Could the decline of oxygen in the atmosphere undermine our health and threaten human survival?
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The rise in carbon dioxide emissions is big news. It is prompting action to reverse global warming. But little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects.

Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis.

I am not a scientist, but this seems a reasonable concern. It is a possibility that we should examine and assess. So, what’s the evidence?

Around 10,000 years ago, the planet’s forest cover was at least twice what it is today, which means that forests are now emitting only half the amount of oxygen.
(13 August 2008)

Suffocating dead zones spread across world’s oceans
David Adam, Guardian
Critically low oxygen levels now pose as great a threat to life in the world’s oceans as overfishing and habitat loss, say experts
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Man-made pollution is spreading a growing number of suffocating dead zones across the world’s seas with disastrous consequences for marine life, scientists have warned.

The experts say the hundreds of regions of critically low oxygen now affect a combined area the size of New Zealand, and that they pose as great a threat to life in the world’s oceans as overfishing and habitat loss.

The number of such seabed zones – caused when massive algal blooms feeding off pollutants such as fertiliser die and decay – has boomed in the last decade.
(15 August 2008)

“Green” land grab could sow seeds of new conflict
Gerard Wynn, Reuters via PlanetArk
A race to grab land in developing countries and exploit food supply fears and payments to conserve forests could spark conflicts in areas of land disputes, development and civil rights groups say.

Investors say higher land valuations are just what’s needed to settle claims which may have festered since colonial days.

But much marginal and forested land is common property, which in the past has given poor local communities little benefit from logging, mining and oil concessions.

“No-man’s land and hinterland is suddenly valuable,” said Andy White, coordinator for the Washington-based Rights and Resources Initiative, a development NGO.
(15 August 2008)