Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 30,949
Watch how the "watermelon" activist use this to call for government ownership of land, and more restrictive access laws. Now that their 'sky is falling' circus has been exposed, they have to adjust their coercive tactics.
Despite population growth, logging and other environmental threats, nearly half the land on Earth remains wilderness -- undeveloped and nearly unpopulated, according to a study released today. The study by 200 international scientists, the most comprehensive analysis ever done on Earth's wild places and population trends, was seen by some experts as a surprising cause for optimism.
``A lot of the planet is still in pretty decent shape,'' said Russell Mittermeier, a Harvard primatologist and president of Conservation International, an environmental group in Washington, D.C., that organized the study.
Using databases, computer maps and satellite photos, the study found that 46 percent of the Earth's land can be classified as wilderness -- from the forests of Russia, Canada and Alaska to the Congo, the Amazon, the Sahara and New Guinea.
That area, totaling 68 million square kilometers -- more than seven times the size of the United States -- is home to only 2.4 percent of world population, or 144 million people.
Antarctica and the Arctic tundra make up roughly a third of that wilderness, or 23 million square kilometers.
To qualify as wilderness, researchers required areas to have fewer than five people per square kilometer, or 247 acres; at least 70 percent of their original vegetation; and a size of least 10,000 square kilometers, about the equivalent of Yellowstone National Park.
The research was done over two years by scientists from such institutions as the World Bank; Cambridge and Harvard universities; Zimbabwe's Biodiversity Foundation for Africa; and the National Amazon Research Institute in Brazil. The results will be published in a 500-page book next year: ``Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places,'' by the University of Chicago Press.
The study was bankrolled in part by donations from Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, of Woodside, a major donor to Conservation International.
"It makes the point that there are lots of little-affected areas, more than most people might think.''
*Watermelon" is a term for extremist environmental activists, green on the outside for show, and red on the inside for the real agenda. They do make great compost!
Despite population growth, logging and other environmental threats, nearly half the land on Earth remains wilderness -- undeveloped and nearly unpopulated, according to a study released today. The study by 200 international scientists, the most comprehensive analysis ever done on Earth's wild places and population trends, was seen by some experts as a surprising cause for optimism.
``A lot of the planet is still in pretty decent shape,'' said Russell Mittermeier, a Harvard primatologist and president of Conservation International, an environmental group in Washington, D.C., that organized the study.
Using databases, computer maps and satellite photos, the study found that 46 percent of the Earth's land can be classified as wilderness -- from the forests of Russia, Canada and Alaska to the Congo, the Amazon, the Sahara and New Guinea.
That area, totaling 68 million square kilometers -- more than seven times the size of the United States -- is home to only 2.4 percent of world population, or 144 million people.
Antarctica and the Arctic tundra make up roughly a third of that wilderness, or 23 million square kilometers.
To qualify as wilderness, researchers required areas to have fewer than five people per square kilometer, or 247 acres; at least 70 percent of their original vegetation; and a size of least 10,000 square kilometers, about the equivalent of Yellowstone National Park.
The research was done over two years by scientists from such institutions as the World Bank; Cambridge and Harvard universities; Zimbabwe's Biodiversity Foundation for Africa; and the National Amazon Research Institute in Brazil. The results will be published in a 500-page book next year: ``Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places,'' by the University of Chicago Press.
The study was bankrolled in part by donations from Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, of Woodside, a major donor to Conservation International.
"It makes the point that there are lots of little-affected areas, more than most people might think.''
*Watermelon" is a term for extremist environmental activists, green on the outside for show, and red on the inside for the real agenda. They do make great compost!
