지구온난화로 생태계 뒤죽박죽 … 동식물도 헷갈린다
중앙일보 기사입력: 07.03
지난달 27일 강원도 강릉 경포대에서는 좀처럼 보기 드문 커다란 새가 나타나 사람들의 눈길을 끌었다. 최대 시속 400㎞로 세상에서 가장 빠르고, 무려 4000㎞를 쉬지 않고 날아간다는 군함조였다. 태평양·인도양 등 열대 바다에 사는 이 새가 느닷없이 강릉에 모습을 드러낸 것이다.
29일 오전(현지시간) 미국 뉴욕의 JFK국제공항에서는 거북(diamondback terrapin) 150마리가 활주로를 기습 점령했다. 갑작스러운 거북 떼 출현에 공항당국은 활주로를 확보하느라 비상이 걸렸고, 항공기 10여 편의 이륙이 30여 분씩 지연됐다. 지난달 20일 뉴질랜드 북섬 페카페카 해변에는 황제펭귄 한 마리가 돌연히 모습을 드러냈다. 남극대륙에서 3400㎞ 떨어진 이곳에 황제펭귄이 나타난 것은 44년 만이었다.
최근 세계 곳곳에서 야생동물들이 이처럼 엉뚱한 곳에 나타나는 사례들이 자주 보고되고 있다. 왜 이런 현상이 생길까.
강릉에 나타난 군함조에 대해 조류 전문가들은 미조(迷鳥·길 잃은 새)라고 판단한다.
국립생물자원관 한상훈 척추동물연구과장은 “2004년에도 제주도 등에서 군함조가 관찰된 적이 있다”며 “이 새가 나타난 것은 제5호 태풍 ‘메아리’에 휩쓸려 한반도까지 밀려온 것으로 보인다”고 말했다.
황제펭귄은 남극에서 먹이를 찾다가 길을 잃고 떠내려온 것으로 추정된다. 철새의 경우 지구 자기장이나 별자리 등을 이용해 장거리 이동을 한다. 하지만 황제펭귄은 남극에만 살기 때문에 기본적으로 이처럼 먼 거리를 이동할 일이 없다고 전문가들은 지적한다.
JFK 공항에 거북이가 나타난 것은 이번이 처음이 아니다. 지난 20여 년 동안 거의 매년 항공기 이착륙을 방해한 것으로 알려졌다.
뉴욕 호프스트라 대학의 생물학자 러셀 부르크는 과학 학술지 사이언스와의 인터뷰에서 “거북이가 알을 낳는 바닷가 습지가 JFK 공항 근처에 있고, 1940년대 공항이 건설되기 전에도 이들 거북은 알을 낳기 위해 지금과 꼭 같은 경로로 이동했을 것”이라고 말했다.
◆“지구온난화 영향”=특정 지역에서 과거에는 볼 수 없었던 생물들이 ‘갑자기’ 나타나는 경우가 점점 많아지고 있다. 이에 대해 학자들은 지구온난화 영향이 크다고 주장한다.
한반도의 경우, 지난해 제주도에서 아열대성 조류인 뻐꾸기사촌과 검은슴새가 발견된 것이 그런 사례다. 국립공원 철새연구센터 채희영 박사는 “2000~2009년 10년 동안 국내에서 새로 보고된 미기록 조류가 69종이나 된다”며 “이 중 70%는 길 잃은 새들이지만 검은이마직박구리·붉은부리찌르레기·파랑딱새 등 30%는 지구온난화의 영향으로 나타난 것”이라고 말했다. 중국 남부나 동남아에 살던 것이 서식지·번식지를 한반도까지 넓혔다는 것이다.
바닷속 물고기들도 비슷한 상황이다. 국립수산과학원 강수경 박사는 “한반도 주변 연안해역의 연평균 수온이 최근 41년 동안 1.31도나 상승했고, 이로 인해 동남아 해안에 사는 보라문어·민전갱이·깃털제비참치 등 아열대 희귀어종들이 동해에서도 종종 관찰되고 있다”고 말했다. 강 박사는 “참다랑어 같은 경우는 90년대 후반부터 어획량이 크게 늘어 경제성도 있다”고 말했다.
한반도 육상 생태계도 크게 바뀌고 있다. 제주도와 남해안에서만 관찰되던 후박나무·호랑가시나무 등 난대성 상록활엽수들이 서해안 안면도나 동해안 포항까지 서식지를 넓히고 있다. 1941년과 2009년을 기준으로 비교할 때 상록활엽수들의 북방한계선이 북쪽으로 14~74㎞ 이동했다는 게 국립생물자원관의 설명이다.
국립생물자원관 윤종학 박사는 “기후변화 시나리오와 토지 이용 상황 등에 따라 차이가 있겠지만 앞으로 기온이 지속적으로 상승할 경우 한반도 내에서 난대성 상록활엽수의 잠재 서식 가능 면적이 지금의 2만8230㎢에서 최대 8만9285㎢까지 늘어날 수 있다”고 말했다.
외국에서도 지구온난화로 인한 생태계 변화는 곳곳에서 관찰되고 있다. 남반구에서는 왕게 떼가 온난화 영향으로 남극 쪽으로 이동하고 있어 연약한 남극 생태계가 위협받고 있다고 과학 웹사이트 ‘사이언스 데일리’가 올 4월 보도했다. 왕게가 부드러운 껍질을 가진 남극의 조개·달팽이·거미불가사리 등을 닥치는 대로 먹어치울 경우 남극 먹이사슬 전체가 흔들릴 수 있다는 것이다.
일본 연안에서는 지난 30년 동안 어종이 300㎞ 북상했고, 올 1월 일본 국립환경연구소는 태평양쪽 연안에서 산호가 매년 14㎞씩 북상하고 있다고 밝혔다.
1.War with Drought in East Africa
head of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
A woman waits to be processed into Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp. Located in Kenya 55 miles from the Somali border, the overcrowded camp houses many people fleeing violence in Somalia. Others have fled their homes due to famine and severe drought, a category now being described as "climate refugees."
A girl takes drinking water back to her family at the Dadaab refugee camp.
Some 700 children are born here each month. Built to house 90,000 people, the camp received 62,000 arrivals from Somalia in 2008 alone – nearly half children.
Ethiopians fleeing famine and drought in their country arrive in Galkayo, northern Somalia. Many of these refugees are trying to get to Yemen. The drought is so severe in Ethiopia that even camels have been dying of thirst.
Across Africa, warming temperatures are expected to worsen droughts and access to water. "By 2020, between 75 million and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change," the U.N. panel on climate change wrote in its most recent assessment. "The area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield potential, particularly along the margins of semi-arid and arid areas, are expected to decrease."
Newly arrived refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia wait to be registered at the U.N. offices at Dadaab. Refugees without registration are not given any help.
Kenya closed its border with Somalia in 2007, but that has not stopped the refugee influx.
Kenya drought crisis 2009
Women wait for food to be distributed at Dadaab. While most refugees here come from other countries, Kenya itself is feeling the pressure of severe drought.
"It is nearly certain that 2010 and possibly beyond will be periods of prolonged drought and water scarcity," the U.N. said of Kenya in October 2009.
Somalis regularly cross this area into Kenya, bribing border guards in order to make it to Dadaab. In 2009, some 4,000 refugees made their way each month to the camp.
While parts of the Horn of Africa are experiencing severe drought, this area saw severe flooding that only aggravated poor farming conditions.
Somali and Ethiopian refugees arrive in Aden, Yemen, after crossing the Gulf of Aden on smugglers' boats. Some die on the way, beaten to death or thrown overboard. Tens of thousands cross each year, hoping for a better life but often being deported back to Somalia or Ethiopia.
Ethiopian refugees in Galkayo build ramshackle huts while waiting to move on toward Yemen. The town in northern Somalia includes several U.N. refugee camps.
2.Greenland's shrinking ice
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
It's hard to get any more remote than Uummannaq, a region in northwestern Greenland with some 2,800 Inuit natives, half of them living in this settlement.
Ice is a foundation of the culture here, but one that is weakening. In fact, Greenland's entire ice sheet has become less stable in recent years due to warmer temperatures and earlier spring thaws.
In Uummannaq, boats are becoming more valuable than traditional dog sleds due to the unstable ice. That is also forcing adult males to give up hunting of polar bear and seals for fishing, which locally is seen as traditionally more of a task for women and chilldren.
"The Greenland ice sheet is no longer in equilibrium," the U.S. National Science Foundation says, "and it contributes annually to global sea-level rise, currently at a rate of about 0.5 millimeters (.02 inches) per year. In 2007, the melt area exceeded the previously set record by 10 percent. The edges of Greenland are experiencing the greatest amount of change, with record amounts of pooled melt water appearing in recent years."
A boy rests on a rock in the village, dressed in fur-lined clothes made from polar bears and seals. That attire has helped Inuits survive extreme cold for centuries, but shrinking and less stable sea ice not only makes it harder for the Inuits to hunt, it also makes it harder for polar bears and seals to survive. Seals rely on sea ice to rest, hunt fish from and even to bear pups. The bears use the sea ice to hunt down seals.
Hunters like Ole Jorgen Hammeken increasingly feed their dogs halibut since there's less meat from polar bears, whales, walruses or seals. "Once one piece of the hunter's life disappears," says photographer Stanley Greene, "then it all starts to melt away, just like the ice that is going away, and soon the hunters of Uummannaq may disappear as well. Without good ice they cannot survive, and without ice they are no longer 'Kings of the Ice,' and then they are nothing at all."
Two fishing boats are surrounded by weak ice off Ilulissat, Greenland. The town is near Uummannaq and home to Sermeq Kujalleq, northwestern Greenland's biggest glacier. Scientists recently found that the glacier is being eroded by pulses of warmer ocean water.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
WITNESSING THE ICE MELT IN GREENLAND!!
Inuits make up the majority of Greenland's population, which totals just 55,000 people on an island the size of Texas. Greenland's Inuits share ties with Inuits in Canada, Alaska and Siberia.
The signs of a changed Uummannaq include this field of junk, much of it lost cargo from container ships that has been washed up by currents.
Ole Jorgen Hammeken studied law before following his Inuit calling to become a hunter. In 2007, after a postal sled route to Ilulissat could no longer be used due to unstable ice, he opened a route farther inland. He has also appeared in documentaries and even as the lead actor in a French-Greenlandic film, "On Thin Ice", about his culture.
A hunter walks through an abandoned settlement in the Uummannaq area. Some hope the retreating sea ice around Greenland will uncover oil and mineral wealth for residents here. Indeed, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates 31 billion barrels of oil and gas sit off Greenland's east coast, and 18 billion barrels beneath the Arctic waters between Greenland and Canada. How that would impact the local Inuit culture is a big unknown.
Will Climate Change Affect the Greenland Ice Sheet?
3.Burning coal deposits pollute lives in
India
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
Our carbon culture includes a reliance on coal that can be dangerous but also rewarding. Jharia, India, is a testament to both. The area supplies the country with most of its coal but also has dozens of underground fires burning in mines and coal seams. In this photo, smoke from one underground fire wafts from a hillside in the background.
While Jharia is remote, its history of coal fires is shared by areas around the world where coal is mined. In the United States, hundreds of coal fires burn annually. Most are in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Many coal fires occur naturally; others happen due to mining activity. Both types can take decades to extinguish, all the while emitting carbon dioxide and methane, both greenhouse gases tied to global warming, as well as toxic mercury.
The fires cause land to subside, swallowing buildings and releasing poisonous gases that contaminate air, water and land.
Truck drivers wait their turn to pick up coal in Jharia. Coal worth $12 billion is said to lie under an area covering 110 square miles, but only a small portion is mined due to the danger of underground fires and people living atop coal seams.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
Women make off with coal taken illegally from an open-pit mine in Jharia. The region has a population of several hundred thousand. In 2006, the regional government announced plans to move residents out due to the danger of mine fires, but that has yet to happen.
Sulfurous smoke rises from fissures around the edge of a vast open-pit mine in Jharia. Several dozen people have died in recent years when the fires caused areas to collapse.
"For the impoverished residents of Jharia, stealing coal to sell and picking through collapsed buildings for salvageable material is a dangerous way of life," says photographer Philip Blenkinsop. "And now, with the earth literally collapsing beneath their feet, they face an ecological disaster."
Villagers steal coal from a loading area in Jharia. Some 80,000 families are supposed to be resettled in an area 15 miles away, but most are reluctant, citing the lack of jobs in the new location.
A man takes his evening bath on the edge of an open-pit mine in Jharia. The region's residents are destitute, with no means of sustenance other than the coal fields.
Children play on a makeshift jungle gym on the edge of a vast coal mine in Jharia. Some 7,000 families are said to live in the most dangerous areas around mine fires.
This coal mine site in Jharia is one of dozens in the area. When coal mine fires burn, they emit the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane as well as mercury.
"The contribution of coal fires to the global pool of atmospheric CO2 is little known but potentially significant," the U.S. Geological Survey says. "For China, the world’s largest coal producer, it is estimated that anywhere between 10 million and 200 million metric tons of coal reserves (about 0.5 to 10 percent of production) is consumed annually by coal fires or made inaccessible owing to fires."
Piles of coal burn in this neighborhood of Jharia. Long-term inhalation of the fumes can promote asthma and chronic bronchitis as well as lung and skin cancer.
4.Rising Ocean levels threaten Maldives
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
While the sources of greenhouse gases are often in the industrial world, consequences often are visible in non-industrial areas. The Indian Ocean nation of Maldives, which is struggling to hold back rising seas, is one such example. The capital Malé, seen here, is one of the world's most densely populated cities. Nearly 104,000 people are crammed onto an island about a square mile in size.
Malé sits on an island just three feet above sea level. The natural shape was added to by filling shallow waters with sand and rocks. That took the land closer to an outside coral reef, reducing the reef's ability to buffer the island from storms and rising seas.
To counter the tides and storms, a $60 million concrete barrier system, part of it seen here, now rings Malé.
"I chose Maldives because it's the country which is the closest to sea level," says photographer Francesco Zizola. "If it's true what the majority of scientists claim regarding global warming, then Maldives would be the first country to disappear underwater."
Residents often take advantage of low tide to collect rocks and other material to reinforce exposed areas near their homes or businesses.
Over the last century, sea levels globally have risen about eight inches, much of that from melting ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula, as well as thermal expansion of warmer waters. Eight inches might not sound like much, but for Maldives every inch counts.
Maldives plans to move toward renewable energy but still uses a diesel-powered plant to produce electricity for Malé.
The $60 million seawall was financed by Japan and runs nearly four miles around Malé. It's about 11 feet tall.
Rising sea levels are not the only worry here. Warming seas, and more acidic seas due to CO2 emissions, have the potential to impact fisheries and the coral reefs on which many fish rely. Fishing makes up 20 percent of Maldives' gross domestic product and provides an estimated 22,000 jobs.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
MALDIVES / CLIMATE CHANGE
Sand is mined at Villingili Island and some of the other 1,200 that comprise Maldives. The practice is often done illegally, most of it to supply the cement industry, making the islands even more vulnerable to rising seas, high tides and storms.
Besides climate concerns, Maldives struggles with trash from locals and tourists. Most of its garbage is sent to Thilafushi Island, also known as "Rubbish Island." Originally a vast lagoon, it became an island in 1992 when garbage was used to fill it in.
Workers incinerate or bury most of the waste. Crushed cans, metals and cardboard are shipped to India, but any hazardous waste is not removed from regular garbage.
Malé's residents are hardly a symbol of green living. Besides burning diesel to make electricity and shipping trash to Thilafushi, the Maldives capital pumps sewage untreated into the sea.
Maldives has an international airport on Hulhulé Island. The runway is just 6 feet above sea level. At high tide, that can narrow to just 20 inches.
Residents of Malé and the rest of Maldives are part of an island culture that dates back at least 2,000 years. "We do not want to leave the Maldives," President Mohamed Nasheed has said, "but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades."
5.Canada's oil sand
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
The road to and from the airport at Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, is hardly the one less traveled. Thousands of workers come and go, taking turns on shifts at huge industrial sites that process what's known as oil sands.
The region promises jobs, company profits and government royalties for decades to come. The costs have been toxic ponds and greenhouse gas emissions.
One of Alberta's first oil sands plants sits abandoned five decades after its last use.
Alberta's three major deposits here lie under 54,000 square miles of sparsely populated but heavily forested land and peat bogs. They are thought to hold 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen, comparable in magnitude to the world's total proven reserves of conventional petroleum. But oil from the sands is much more expensive to produce. Some 10 percent of those deposits were considered to be economically recoverable at 2006 prices, making Canada's total oil reserves the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia's.
The deposits make Canada one of the largest producers of petroleum in the world. These oil sands consist of crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude oil), sand, clay and water.
A flare from a plant that processes oil sands into crude lights up the night.
A 2006 study by researchers at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, British Columbia, calculated that the oil sands industry creates five times as many greenhouse-gas emissions as conventional oil wells. On top of that, forests are cleared to make way for the extraction, releasing carbon dioxide in the process.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
This oil sands plant lies north of Fort McMurray. In 2007, Arberta enacted a law requiring large facilities to reduce their emission intensity by 12 percent from 2003 - 2005 levels starting in 2007.
Syncrude, Canada's largest oil sands producer, runs the processing plant in the background. Environmental Services Manager Steve Gaudet says the company is committed to restoring the area back to nearly its natural state once mining is done. Some land has already been reclaimed, and 300 bison now roam there.
Also shown is a tailings pond, a byproduct of the mining process. The ponds hold clay, water, sand, hydrocarbons and heavy metals left over after water washes oil out of sand in the extraction process. The tailings ponds are quite toxic, and in 2008 1,500 ducks died after landing on the oily water. Noisemakers designed to scare the birds had failed to go off. Syncrude is facing charges.
This worker camp is one of many that dot the landscape around the oil sands developments. Some workers receive free lodging while others pay. They get three meals a day, have an entertainment room and typically their own private rooms.
"Many of the residents in Fort McMurray were concerned that this would just be another negative story about the oil industry and reflect poorly on their town," photographer Jon Lowenstein says. "I have tried as much as possible to tell the whole tale and connect the dots. Yes, there is great environmental destruction and impact by the mining of the land, and yet we are all complicit. I fill my car more than once a week with at least 15 gallons of gasoline. I am a part of this story and tried to take that attitude when telling it."
The Athabasca deposit is the largest reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits. The Athabasca deposit is the only large oil sands reservoir in the world that is suitable for large-scale surface mining, although most of its oil can be produced only using more recently developed in-situ technology.
5.Warming threatens lifestyle of Russian
Herders
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
The 435-mile-long Yamal Peninsula in Russia's Siberia is one of the world's last great wildernesses and home to the nomadic Nenet tribes.
For centuries, the Nenet have herded their domesticated reindeer to summer pastures above the Arctic Circle. But now, the Nenet’s traditional way of life is threatened by warming temperatures
Nenet families live on the tundra in reindeer-skin tents.
Until recently, the Nenets crossed the frozen Ob River in November to set up camps farther south. But the pilgrimage is now usually delayed until late December when the river ice is thick enough to cross.
Firewood is gathered for a Nenet campsite. The peninsula is 1,250 miles northeast of Moscow, and the Nenets migrate north to south more than 100 miles every year, spending only a few days in one place, living off reindeer and fish.
A Nenet herder prepares to lasso a reindeer. The Nenet culture relies on reindeer for food and clothing. Herds have been impacted, however, by the changing climate. The delay of the annual migration south means less fresh pasture for the herds to feed on before spring.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
The Nenets travel with herds of domesticated reindeer, using lassos when it's time to slaughter one.
Nenets, Chukchi, and Itelmens --- Russia
A Nenet family shares raw reindeer with pasta. A typical family slaughters a reindeer every couple of weeks.
This Nenet, Vasilyi Ivanovich, is the elder of his tribe. Some 42,000 Nenets live along the peninsula. Once a majority, they are now outnumbered by natural gas industry workers.
The Yamal Peninsula stretches deep into the Arctic Ocean. In the language of the Nenet, Yamal means “world’s end.” Like much of the Arctic, Yamal has been locked in permafrost, land that was thought to be in deep freeze. But the permafrost is thawing in places, and if the thaw goes deep and last long enough, the land will release methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide.
Mobile phones, albeit sometimes hard to use, have become part of the Nenet network. The peninsula contains huge natural gas reserves. It's already home to Russia's largest natural gas field, and more drilling is planned. Most gas is exported to Europe.
Environmentalists fear that the drilling could ruin the peninsula's delicate Arctic ecology. Gazprom, Russia's state energy giant, is building a new pipeline, a railway line and several bridges.
6.Amazon Rain Forest cut for cattle
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
When forests are cleared in Brazil's Amazon, the trees end up as lumber or charcoal, the latter produced in ovens like these outside the city of Rondon do Para.
The clearing of forests by fire and logging releases carbon dioxide earlier than would occur naturally, adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
The charcoal operation in Rondon do Para had 47 ovens when photographed and plans were to increase that to 200 in the near future. The charcoal is used at a steel smelter in Maraba, Brazil.
These ovens, and the once-forested land they are on, are owned by a cattle rancher. That's a typical scenario here, and often one whose legality is clouded.
Workers move charcoal into trucks for delivery to the steel smelter in Maraba. Each basket weighs 110 pounds.
Brazil's Amazon still accounts for more than half of the world's standing forest.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
A truck moves logs near Rondon do Para. Brazil says a larger environmental police force reduced illegal logging in 2009 to its lowest level in two decades. The slumping economy, and reduced demand for beef and timber, could also be a factor.
Deforestation peaked in 2004 at 10,000 square miles, but it still happens. The 2,700 square miles cleared in 12 months through August 2009 is nine times the size of New York City.
The Terra do Meio nature reserve in Para state has been partly deforested and burned for illegal cattle ranches. Ironically, the reserve was created in 2005 after the murder by cattle ranching interests of Dorothy Stang, a U.S. nun.
The Amazon's trees are a major natural defense against global warming, acting as "sinks" by absorbing carbon dioxide. But burning those trees to make room for ranches and farms releases that CO2. About 75 percent of Brazil's CO2 emissions come from rain forest clearing.
Globally, deforestation accounts for up to 20 percent of carbon emissions -- more than all the world's cars, ships and planes combined.
Cattle are transported from one pasture to another. While providing food and jobs, cattle are also greenhouse gas culprits, belching out methane as part of their digestive process. Methane is released in much smaller amounts globally than carbon dioxide but is some 30 times more potent.
Cattle industry continues to threaten rainforest
Slaughterhouses like this one in Xinguara, Para state, export much of their product to Europe and the United States. Brazil is the world's biggest exporter of beef, with the largest herd as well: 200 million cattle.
This area was recently cleared to use for cattle ranching. "In the dry season, the forest is set on fire, leaving a graveyard of burned trees," says photographer Kadir Van Lohuizen. "These forest fires are also a serious contributor to global warming. After the burning, bulldozers clear the area. Wood that remains is often used to produce charcoal in ovens, which are scattered in the states of Para and Mato Grosso. The charcoal is used in blast furnaces in and outside Brazil. After the land has been cleared, planes drop grass seeds to create the pastures."
At the charcoal ovens near Rondon do Para, workers often live in barracks on the property along with their families. Most of the 25 million people who live in the Amazon make a living off logging, ranching or farming.
Para state has become the epicenter of illegal logging in Brazil. For the 20 years before that it was Mato Grosso, which is now mostly cattle ranches and soy farms.
7.Coal dependence darkens Poland's sky
Ahead of the global climate talks in December 2009, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of the carbon culture.
Poland has long relied on coal for its energy, using mostly antiquated equipment like this extractor at the Adamow field in Turek. The country uses coal for 94 percent of its energy needs, among the highest rates anywhere. Plans are to reduce that to 60 percent in 2030 via a nuclear plant, natural gas and wind and solar power.
The Adamow mine in Turek pumps about 92 million cubic meters of water every year to help extract its brown coal. Of all fossil fuels, brown coal has the largest impact on climate change, in addition to the environmental impact of getting it out of the ground.
While gaps in climate science exist, leading some to question the degree of mankind’s impact as well as whether anything should be done, most governments as well as the science academies of the U.S. and other industrial nations agree that mankind is a significant factor and that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced.
Miners change shifts at a mine in Zabrze, Poland. Mining certainly poses risks, but it also provides 100,000 jobs in Poland.
Miners at a site near Zabrze work 2,500 feet below ground.
The Adamow mine in Turek has survived while others have been closed down in recent years. Poland has been reluctant to force the coal industry to invest billions of dollars to try to clean up smokestack emissions, fearful it would drive up electricity costs to consumers.
This waste pond is used by a coal-fired power plant near Konin, Poland.
Coal mining has wide-reaching effects on water resources. Tremendous volumes of water are required for mining operations. Often, land areas as well as rivers are drained to get coal out of the ground, and consequently whole bodies of water disappear.
When coal is excavated from deep underground, groundwater is pumped out to dry up the areas being mined. Removing vast amounts of water often drains water from an area beyond the immediate coal-mining environment. As a consequence, water tables are lowered, and ecosystems are damaged.
The Belchatów power plant is the largest in Poland, supplying almost 20 percent of the nation’s energy. Each year its chimneys belch more than 31 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
These residents of Bytom pass near a power plant built in 1920, which was among the largest in Europe in the 1930s. Now used for a few months each year, it is slated to close down for good in 2015.
This miner works above ground at a site near Zabrze.
With reserves estimated to tap out by 2020, Poland has been moving away from coal. The number of active mines has dropped from 70 in 1989 to 31 in 2008. The work force has shrunk from 400,000 to some 100,000.
Poland guarded over coal
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