|
|
|
|
|
[Resource Depletion]: from McGill, via EurekAlert, Sun Jun 16 2013:
Study of oceans' past raises worries about their future
A McGill-led international research team has now completed the first global study of changes that occurred in a crucial component of ocean chemistry, the nitrogen cycle, at the end of the last ice age. The results of their study confirm that oceans are good at balancing the nitrogen cycle on a global scale. But the data also shows that it is a slow process that may take many centuries, or even millennia, raising worries about the effects of the scale and speed of current changes in the ocean....
"We are changing the planet in ways we are not even aware of," says Galbraith. "You wouldn't think that putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would change the amount of nitrogen available to fish in the ocean, but it clearly does. It is important to realize just how interconnected everything is."
|
|
Interconnecteness means always having to say you're sorry.
|
[Read more stories about: carbon emissions, ocean warming, unintended consequences, faster than expected]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Climate Chaos]: from NASA, Fri Jun 14 2013:
Is a Sleeping 'Climate Giant' Stirring in the Arctic?
...Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850. Most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable topsoils within 10 feet (3 meters) of the surface....
"Permafrost soils are warming even faster than Arctic air temperatures - as much as 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius) in just the past 30 years," Miller said. "As heat from Earth's surface penetrates into permafrost, it threatens to mobilize these organic carbon reservoirs and release them into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, upsetting the Arctic's carbon balance and greatly exacerbating global warming."...
If climate change causes the Arctic to get warmer and drier, scientists expect most of the carbon to be released as carbon dioxide. If it gets warmer and wetter, most will be in the form of methane.
The distinction is critical. Molecule per molecule, methane is 22 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale, and 105 times more potent on a 20-year timescale.
|
|
Nothing stinks up the joint like melting permafrost.
|
[Read more stories about: permafrost meltdown, methane release, arctic meltdown, death spiral, holyshit]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Climate Chaos]: from Guardian, Fri Jun 14 2013:
Pentagon bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks
But why have Western security agencies developed such an unprecedented capacity to spy on their own domestic populations? Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies have increasingly spied on political activists, especially environmental groups, on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis - or all three.
Just last month, unilateral changes to US military laws formally granted the Pentagon extraordinary powers to intervene in a domestic "emergency" or "civil disturbance":
"Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances."
|
|
Aren't we already Occupying the world?
|
[Read more stories about: governmental corruption, corporate malfeasance]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Biology Breach]: from WTRF, Fri Jun 14 2013:
Gas Line Ruptures Under Ohio River Near Bellaire
A gas line that runs underneath the Ohio River near Bellaire ruptured Thursday morning, spewing gas out of the water.
The Neffs Fire Department responded to the call on the riverbank underneath the Bellaire Bridge. The company that owns the line has been notified of the situation.
Authorities say the leak is a big hazard because people often camp along the river and start campfires. They say they have made repeated calls to Columbia Gas, but no one has arrived at the scene as of 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
|
|
It's an anomaly! This is so rare! It almost never happens! Carry on, this is just part of economic development.
|
[Read more stories about: toxic leak, water issues]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Biology Breach]: from Globe and Mail, Thu Jun 13 2013:
Toxic waste spill in northern Alberta biggest of recent disasters in North America
The substance is the inky black colour of oil, and the treetops are brown. Across a broad expanse of northern Alberta muskeg, the landscape is dead. It has been poisoned by a huge spill of 9.5 million litres of toxic waste from an oil and gas operation in northern Alberta, the third major leak in a region whose residents are now questioning whether enough is being done to maintain aging energy infrastructure.
The spill was first spotted on June 1. But not until Wednesday did Houston-based Apache Corp. release estimates of its size, which exceeds all of the major recent spills in North America....
"Every plant and tree died" in the area touched by the spill, said James Ahnassay, chief of the Dene Tha First Nation, whose members run traplines in an area that has seen oil and gas development since the 1950s....
Neither Apache nor Alberta initially disclosed the spill, which was only made public after someone reported it to a TV station late last week....
|
|
Just think of all those new jobs, cleaning up Big Energy's messes!
|
[Read more stories about: toxic leak, oil issues, dead zones]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Resource Depletion]: from Texas Tribune, in New York Times, Tue Jun 11 2013:
Experts Urge Focus on Aquifers in Push for Water From Mexico
At least 20 aquifers stretch across the United States-Mexico border, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law and the director of the International Water Law Project. Some are being mined at a record pace, he said.
"I know you have a lot of agricultural interests in the Valley yelling and screaming about water in the Rio Grande; that is going to continue," he said. But of the 14 million people living within 50 miles of the border, "80 or 90 percent of them get their water from aquifers."
"I would suggest that focusing on just the rivers is a mistake," he said. "Every state is pumping based on its own rules without actually quantifying how much water is in the aquifers."
|
|
Translation from the original Malthusian: "What's ours is mine."
|
[Read more stories about: aquifers depletion, water issues, drought]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Climate Chaos]: from New York Times, Mon Jun 10 2013:
After Drought, Rains Plaguing Midwest Farms
About this time last year, farmers were looking to the heavens, pleading for rain. Now, they are praying for the rain to stop. One of the worst droughts in this nation's history, a dry spell that persisted through the early part of this year, has ended with torrential rains this spring that have overwhelmed vast stretches of the country, including much of the farm belt. One result has been flooded acres that have drowned corn and soybean plants, stunted their growth or prevented them from being planted at all.
|
|
Dear God: just give me the weather I want!
|
[Read more stories about: weather extremes, food crisis, health impacts, koyaanisqatsi]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
|
|
[Recovery]: from CNN, Wed Jun 5 2013:
Nepalese farmers go organic with human waste
Jeevan Maharjan has a different approach to human waste -- he considers it as wealth.
Rather than flush it down the toilet, the 47-year-old Nepalese farmer collects it to spray on his crops.
"It's three times better than chemical fertilizers," he said .... The urine and feces are stored in separate airtight compartments of the toilet, he said, for later use on the land. The urine is kept for about two weeks before it is used, while the feces, which is turned into manure, is used every six months.
|
|
Aged ... like fine wine.
|
[Read more stories about: climate impacts, contamination, corporate farming, wisdom]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Climate Chaos]: from London Guardian, Tue Jun 4 2013:
Jellyfish surge in Mediterranean threatens environment -- and tourists
Scientists across the Mediterranean say a surge in the number of jellyfish this year threatens not just the biodiversity of one of the world's most overfished seas but also the health of tens of thousands of summer tourists.
"I flew along a 300km stretch of coastline on 21 April and saw millions of jellyfish," said Professor Stefano Piraino of Salento University in southern Italy. Piraino is the head of a Mediterranean-wide project to track the rise in the number of jellyfish as global warming and overfishing clear the way for them to prosper. "There are now beaches on the island of Lampedusa, which receives 300,000 tourists a year, where people can only swim for a week in the summer," said Piraino.
|
|
Offer tourists the opportunity to kill the jellyfish and ... problem solved!
|
[Read more stories about: anthropogenic change, global warming, jellyfish, koyaanisqatsi]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
[Biology Breach]: from Alternet, Tue Jun 4 2013:
Monsanto Mystery Wheat Appears in Oregon, No One Knows Why
How did genetically modified wheat produced by the agricultural corporation Monsanto end up in Oregon? That's the question many people want answered after the discovery of the wheat by a farmer in Oregon, according to a report in the New Scientist. Genetically modified wheat has not been cleared for commercial use anywhere in the world, though the Federal Drug Administration approved it as safe for human consumption in 2004. It was never put on the market in the U.S., though, since Monsanto dropped it after citing a lack of demand. The Associated Press reported that the wheat was also not developed because "wheat growers did not want to risk retaliation from their biggest export markets."
|
|
It's gone rogue!
|
[Read more stories about: GMOs, corporate farming, health impacts, koyaanisqatsi]
|
[Care to Quip?]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Apoc-o-Meter
from the last 7 days
or visit our:
"Perfect as a bathroom reader."
Humoring the Horror of the
Converging Emergencies
94 color pages
$24.99 now $15!
Or read FREE online!
Play:
It's weekly, funny, and free!
Random Sample PANIQuestion:
According to climatologist Stephen Schneider, how is the media "screwing up"?
a) By spelling globl warming wrong.
b) By firing their science and environment writers.
c) By using big words too darn much.
d) By not "sexing up" the subject of global warming enough.
e) By emitting too many carbons in the production process.
Answer: By firing their science and environment writers.
|
|
|
The ApocaDocs try to make fun of the horror of environmental collapse
by locating a handful of news items every day, and giving each a
punchline. The stories are categorized into five main topics: Species Collapse (ecosystem
interrelationships, invasive species, the sixth extinction, pesticide
effects, and more); Resource Depletion (peak oil, peak
phosphorus, overfishing, topsoil loss, aquifer declines, and more);
Biology Breach (toxic runoff, radiation, GMOs, pharmwater,
contamination, and idle destruction); Climate Chaos (global warming,
weather extremes, ocean warming, and more); and Infectious Disease
(pandemics, viruses, antibiotic resistance). To avoid deep depression,
we also include stories of Recovery
(alternative energy, innovations, species restoration, better policies, social
change, and the like).
For more information, see About The ApocaDocs.
| |
