In Ireland, during Nov 2010, we had huge snowfalls that accompanied the arrival of the IMF and our economic collapse. Much of mainstream media is focussed on continuing global economic difficulties but the more frequently occurring extreme weather events and biosphere instability caused by our runaway growth-dependent economies (which some think is at the basis of our economic crisis) is rarely referred to.

I’ve recently been thinking of the loss of near 80 percent of global forest habitats worldwide in the next twenty years* which is also one of the chief causes of the earth’s current 6th great extinction period. Mass species extinction periods have happened in the past but none has ever been at the result of one species activities. Humanity’s extractive, globalised (read accelerating), industrial economies over the last 150 years means that we have lost 200 species yesterday, 200 more will be lost today and every day in the foreseeable future (Jensen, 2011). Many seem to miss the point that nature doesn’t do bailouts…

Wee ‘perfect’ isn’t an endangered bird but even so, this small wagtail spent ages looking for food.

Film notes:

I had this footage from our forest from last Nov – I was filming from inside our kitchen with the radio on. Cloud footage from top of Mt Leinster. I put this short film together one afternoon at the end of November. Somehow making short film commentaries is not something I wish to continue but at least it got me back into editing again.

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*  Global deforestation sharply accelerated around 1852.^[86][87] It has been estimated that about half of the Earth’s mature tropical forests—between 7.5 million and 8 million km² (2.9 million to 3 million sq mi) of the original 15 million to 16 million km² (5.8 million to 6.2 million sq mi) that until 1947 covered the planet^[88]—have now been destroyed.^[89][90] Some scientists have predicted that unless significant measures (such as seeking out and protecting old growth forests that have not been disturbed)^[88] are taken on a worldwide basis, by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining,^[86][89] with another 10% in a degraded condition.^[86] 80% will have been lost, and with them hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable species.^[86]