ApocaDocuments (45) gathered this week:
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Sun, Jun 8, 2008
from Natural News:
Nanosolar Price Barrier Breakthrough Makes Solar Electricity Cheaper Than Coal
A new combination of nano and solar technology has made it possible for solar electric generation to be cheaper than burning coal. Nanosolar, Inc. has developed a way to produce a type of ink that absorbs solar radiation and converts into electric current. Photovoltaic (PV) sheets are produced by a machine similar to a printing press, which rolls out the PV ink onto sheets approximately the width of aluminum foil. These PV sheets can be produced at a rate of hundreds of feet per minute.
"It's 100 times thinner than existing solar panels, and we can deposit the semiconductors 100 times faster," said Nanosolar's cofounder and chief executive officer, R. Martin Roscheisen. "It's a combination that drives down costs dramatically."
Nanosolar is ramping up production of its PowerSheets at factories in San Jose, California, and Berlin, and expects to have them commercially available before the end of the year. The buzz around the PowerSheets is so strong that the company already has a three to five year backorder. ...
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That's three to five years too many -- jeez, ramp this up, outsource if you have to!
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Sun, Jun 8, 2008
from AP, via Abilene Reporter-News:
Markets emerging for old-fashioned farming, ranching
A recent study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that intensive industrial livestock production has yielded antibiotic-resistant bacteria, degraded the environment and devastated rural communities by replacing farm and ranch jobs with poorly paying feedlot positions.
By contrast, operations such as Hearst Ranch raise their animals without growth-promoting hormones or antibiotics -- and don't confine their livestock to teeming feed lots.
"In the consumer's mind, there's a connection to better health and to better for the environment and to good corporate citizenship," Goldin said. "It's just starting, but I think it's going to be a very powerful movement." ...
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We need folk songs and slogans:
Back Home on the Range?
That Land is Our Land?
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Sun, Jun 8, 2008
from Detroit Free Press:
Mercury fillings are now said to pose risk for some
After years of asserting that mercury in fillings was safe, the Food and Drug Administration now says it may be harmful to pregnant women, children, fetuses and people who are sensitive to mercury exposure.... The American Dental Association said the settlement "in no way changes the federal agency's approach to or position on dental amalgam."
Amalgam is "a safe, affordable and durable material that has been used in the teeth of more than 100 million Americans," the ADA said in a statement. ...
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Maybe they should just simplify that list to "anyone with teeth."
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Sun, Jun 8, 2008
from Weekend Post (South Africa):
Species being fished into oblivion, researchers warn
Anglers in the Eastern and Southern Cape are fishing the region's line fish into oblivion and researchers warn it could spell the end of line fish altogether if authorities don't act decisively to enforce quotas.... "These [line fish] are slow-growing, and what was abundant initially has now been exploited."
Cowley described the trend as "serial exploitation". As one popular line fish reached near-extinction, anglers switched to the next more abundant species, [leading to] 80 per cent of the fish which would occur naturally already fished out. ...
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Serial exploitation:
now in reruns.
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Sat, Jun 7, 2008
from People's Daily:
How to kick the carbon habit?
To seriously de-carbonize the current energy economy, the greatest challenge perhaps lies in how to integrate the new energy resources into the existing energy infrastructure that was designed around fossil fuels.
Electricity is the most important element of today's energy system. Mostly produced by coal-fired power plants, it also happens to be the largest and most easily replaced contributor to carbon emissions because almost all renewable sources, including solar, wind, geothermal, ocean and bioenergy, are all able to produce electricity. ...
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In The People's Daily!?
Maybe we need a Little Green Book and a cultural revolution.
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Sat, Jun 7, 2008
from Boston Globe:
Home oyster gardening popular restoration effort
"Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay have been all but wiped out, but amateur conservationists are signing on to the growing hobby of home aquaculture to help bring the struggling bivalves back.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has sent out thousands of wire cages over the last decade to people in Maryland and Virginia willing to grow oysters under home docks for nine months and return them for "planting" on sanctuary reefs on the Chesapeake's tributaries." ...
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To paraphrase the idiom,
the oyster is your world.
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Sat, Jun 7, 2008
from Sydney Morning Herald (Australia):
Putting sea life to the acid test
"A new report by the Antarctic research centre, released at the Hobart meeting, says that about half the fossil fuel carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by humans has now dissolved into the oceans. If we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the current projections, by 2100 the ocean acidification will be three times that experienced at the end of the glacial period, 15,000 years ago." ...
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Whoa, dude, where's the other half?
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Sat, Jun 7, 2008
from International Herald Tribune:
$45 trillion urged in battling carbon emissions
In one of the strongest warnings so far about the world's thirst for energy, the International Energy Agency said Friday that investment totaling $45 trillion might be needed over the next half-century to prevent energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions from undermining global economic growth." ...
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Forty five trillion dollars sounds at lot like global economic growth to me!
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Sat, Jun 7, 2008
from Baltimore Sun via Associated Press:
In Congress, gas prices trump global warming
"Congress retreated Friday from the world's biggest environmental concern -- global warming -- in a fresh demonstration of what happens when nature and business collide, especially in an election year... A bill the Senate was debating would put a price on carbon emissions, targeting "greenhouse gases" that contribute to the warming that many scientists say could dramatically change the Earth."
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High gas prices is pretty durn dramatic, too!
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from AP News:
Oregon judge sends polluting company owner to prison
The owner of a company that repeatedly mishandled waste oil and other hazardous material in violation of federal environmental laws has been sentenced to six months in prison.
Donald Spencer will also pay a $150,000 fine on behalf of his company, Spencer Environmental Inc.
A prosecutor says a prison sentence in such an environmental case is rare.
Spencer was convicted of two federal felonies for failing to dispose properly of thousands of gallons of used oil and wastewater contaminated with highly corrosive hydrochloric acid. ...
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Let's hope it's not an endangered species.
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from The Independent (UK):
Paradise lost: climate change forces South Sea islanders to seek sanctuary abroad
After years of fruitless appeals for decisive action on climate change, the tiny South Pacific nation of Kiribati has concluded that it is doomed. Yesterday its President, Anote Tong, used World Environment Day to request international help to evacuate his country before it disappears.
Water supplies are being contaminated by the encroaching salt water, Mr Tong said, and crops destroyed. Beachside communities have been moved inland. But Kiribati -- 33 coral atolls sprinkled across two million square miles of ocean -- has limited scope to adapt. Its highest land is barely 6 feet above sea level. ...
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How handy: a practice round.
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from NIH, via EurekAlert:
Long-term pesticide exposure may increase risk of diabetes
Licensed pesticide applicators who used chlorinated pesticides on more than 100 days in their lifetime were at greater risk of diabetes, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The associations between specific pesticides and incident diabetes ranged from a 20 percent to a 200 percent increase in risk.... "Although the amount of diabetes explained by pesticides is small, these new findings may extend beyond the pesticide applicators in the study," Sandler said. ...
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Those organochlorides are a bit too sweet.
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from NOAA Fisheries Service, via ScienceDaily:
Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean Dolphin Populations Improving
The numbers of Northeastern offshore spotted and eastern spinner dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are increasing after being severely depleted because of accidental death in the tuna purse-seine fishery between 1960 and 1990, according to biologists from NOAA's Fisheries Service. ...
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This deserves a Flipper laugh:
ka-ka-KA-ka-ka!
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from Brantford Expositor (Canadian Press):
WHO concerned by Indonesia's bird flu plan
ndonesia's health minister said Thursday her country would no longer report H5N1 avian flu deaths as they happen but will share a revised death toll every six months -- a threatened policy change experts said would put the country in violation of a key international health treaty.... "We will not announce every single new bird flu death because sometimes it is misunderstood," Supari told Reuters. ...
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Just what we need:
a too-late warning system.
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from BioScience, via Science Daily (US):
Western U.S. Forests At Risk: Complex Dynamics Underlie Bark Beetle Eruptions
Biological interactions involving fungi as well as trees and competing insects drive bark beetle outbreaks. The processes are sensitive to a forest's condition and the local climate, but prediction is difficult because the processes turn on multiple critical thresholds.... Forest management that favors single tree species and climate change are just two of the critical factors making forests throughout western North America more susceptible to infestation by bark beetles, according to an article published in the June 2008 BioScience. ...
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You mean there are trees
and a forest?
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from Vineyard Gazette Online:
Against Odds, Piping Plovers Rebound
The first clutch of chicks hatched at Tashmoo on May 24. On other beaches all over the Vineyard, more happy events have since happened or are imminent. But the perpetuation of the threatened species is thanks as much to the efforts of human midwives as to the plover parents.
Ring the shorebird information line and you’ll learn that large parts of the East Beach on Chappaquiddick are closed to over-sand vehicles, lest roaming chicks be killed. Further closures are imminent on the Edgartown side of Norton Point. ...
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Thank goodness those plover are photogenic!
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Fri, Jun 6, 2008
from Chronicle-Herald (Canada):
What's behind huge plankton growth?
They're looking for answers to explain last year's "phenomenal" growth of phytoplankton in coastal waters off Nova Scotia — particularly in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Cabot Strait and Scotian Shelf. "It was incredible," Glen Harrison, head of the Ocean Research and Monitoring Section, part of BIO’s Ecosystem Research Division, said of the annual biological spring bloom. "It stood out," he said after comparing satellite imagery and oceanographic data of previous blooms over the past 10 years. "When we really see something like that -- a big signal -- we know something has changed in the environment." ...
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No answers yet -- but let's hope it's a self-correctional Gaia moment, rather than Gaian reflux.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from The Economist:
Bushmeat: Just let them get on with it
"Conservationists and animal-welfare types please take note: trade in wildlife products, as long as it is properly managed, is an indispensable boon for the poor. And what is more, it's big business, worth around $300 billion in 2005—chiefly in timber and fisheries.... But the report laments that far too much of the harvesting of, and trade in, wild products is poorly supervised, with the result that habitats are degraded and stocks depleted.... If no public authority is able to offer secure tenure of land or resource rights to a reasonable number of people, there is little incentive to invest in long-term sustainability." ...
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We'd better get every part of the globe in private hands, pronto, so we can treat those poor people like what they should be:
tenant farmers.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from Environmental Research Web:
Geoengineering could lead to droughts
Geoengineering schemes to cut the amount of sunlight reaching the earth have been proposed as a measure to reduce temperature rises brought about by increased levels of greenhouse gases. But now a team of researchers in the US has shown that such a move would decrease mean global precipitation, potentially leading to drought.
"Global mean rainfall changes are more sensitive to solar forcing than to carbon dioxide forcing," Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, US, told environmentalresearchweb. "Therefore, if you turn down the sun to counter carbon dioxide effects, you will end up with less rainfall and droughts." ...
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Drat! I was so looking forward to seeing the sun through a planetary umbrella, darkly.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from StraightGoods:
Climate change casts marine science adrift
Climate change is altering the world's oceans in so many ways scientists cannot keep pace, and as a result there is no comprehensive vision of its present and future impacts, say experts. Rising sea levels, changes in hurricane intensity and seasonality, declines in fisheries and corals are among the many effects attributed to climate change. In an attempt to put some order to their disconcerting findings, more than 450 scientists from some 60 countries gathered in the northern Spanish city of Gijón for the symposium "Effects of Climate Change on the World's Oceans...." ...
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On the surface, it looks
the same as it ever was.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from NSF, via ScienceDaily:
Human Viruses Appear To Be Making Wild Chimpanzees Sick
After studying chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park for the past year as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Virginia Tech researcher Dr. Taranjit Kaur and her team have produced powerful scientific evidence that chimpanzees are becoming sick from viral infectious diseases they have likely contracted from humans. ...
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I thought it was just our behavior that was making them sick.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from NSF, via ScienceDaily:
Large-scale Experiments Needed To Predict Global Change
In a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment on "Continental-scale ecology in an increasingly connected world" (June 2008), ecologists discuss how human influences interact with natural processes to influence global connectivity.
The authors conclude that networks of large-scale experiments are needed to predict long-term ecological change. ...
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Pffft. Scientists. Don't they know we're already in the middle of one giant experiment with climate? We just don't yet know the outcome.
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from Pew Institute for Ocean Science, via ScienceDaily:
Quotas Allow More Caviar Export, Further Jeopardize Endangered Sturgeon
[M]ore caviar will be exported from Caspian Sea and Amur River states this year as a result of unacceptably permissive new trade quotas... Most sturgeon species are endangered and some, like beluga sturgeon, are threatened with extinction. These quotas will further damage this ancient fish's chance of recovery and survival, since sturgeon must be killed to harvest their prized eggs which are then processed into caviar, the group says.... "Sturgeon have been on earth since the time of the dinosaurs, but are being wiped out because of inadequate international and domestic controls. We urge consumers to protest with their wallets by not purchasing any wild-caught caviar." ...
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Once they're gone, we'll just have to find another exotic item to value to extinction, lovey. Turtle tongues, anyone?
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Thu, Jun 5, 2008
from NOAA, via ScienceDaily:
Tornados, Flooding May Warn Of Climate Change
Record-keeping meteorologists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration say this year's tornado season is one of the deadliest in a decade and may be on pace to set a record for the most tornadoes. And flooding in the Midwest has been at 100-year levels this spring. "There is considerable concern that climate change due to greenhouse gases species increasing will lead to the enhancement of strong, large storms occurrences, such as hurricanes that also spawn tornadoes when they occur. Increased storm strengths also bring flooding events," he said. ...
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We're not just in Kansas anymore.
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from Telegraph.co.uk:
UN report: Coastal communities face disaster
Entire marine ecosystems are threatened because of human mismanagement, according to the UN academic study. It warns of a looming, potentially "terminal" disaster in several coastal areas unless they are given better care.... In the past 50 years bays and estuaries, sea grasses, and mangroves and wetlands have all suffered dramatically because of human activity, the report states. Shorelines have hardened, channels and harbours have been dredged, soil dumped, submerged and emergent land moved, and patterns of water flow changed. ...
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But we are the masters of nature. Aren't we?
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from Stabroek News (Guyana):
Quartz Hill mining highlights environment threat
Breaches of the mining regulations were evident during a recent visit to Quartz Hill and nearby areas, resulting in pollution and fouling of waterways even as the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) strives to enforce the rules and advocate self-regulation.... Meanwhile, unsafe use of mercury, breached tailings ponds and mining activities close to water courses were some of the infringements....
As a result of the breached tailings ponds, a section of the Omai Creek was heavily discoloured with a yellow sludge, which made its way to the Essequibo River. ...
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We've noticed that when the profit motive is involved, self-regulation is appealing only to the profiteers.
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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from Times Online (UK):
Wasps on the rise in Alaska as climate warms
Wasps used to be an uncommon sight in Fairbanks until two years ago. Then huge numbers of them swarmed on the city, ten times more than normal. The number of stings grew so bad that outdoor school events were cancelled, 178 patients were treated in hospital for stings and two people died. A study now reveals that wasp stings across northern Alaska have increased sevenfold over the past few years. ...
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This kind of biodiversity is not what we want.
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
End of the road for Hummer after sales of 'world's most anti-environmental car' dive
Loathed by environmentalists, military-style Hummers have survived years of vandalism, arson and abuse. But the lumbering American gas-guzzling vehicles have met their match in the rocketing cost of filling a tank with petrol.
Alarmed by a slump in demand for vehicles that consume vast quantities of fuel, Hummer's owner, General Motors, is reviewing the future of the Hummer brand which was originally a civilian version of the US military's armoured Humvee. The struggling Detroit-based carmaker said it was considering off-loading the business -- and with US sales plunging, its prospects are cloudy. ...
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One species we're glad to see going extinct.
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
Puffin numbers plummet in UK's biggest colony
Naturalists working on the Isle of May, a major seabird colony on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, disclosed today that puffin numbers on the island have unexpectedly fallen by nearly a third this year after decades of continual increases in population.... Although the bird – which has a relatively long 30-year lifecycle - congregates in large colonies such as the Isle of May to breed in the spring, it spreads across the sea to winter on the water. It also has a wide and varied diet, from zooplankton and worms, to small fish such as sand eels, and squid.
As a result, its decline suggests a profound problem across the North Sea rather than an isolated or one-off event, said Harris. "We're looking for something acting over a substantial part of the North Sea," he said. "Something big is going on at a wide scale." ...
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The puffin in the coal mine is getting black lung.
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from eFluxMedia:
Bird Flu Strain at Tyson Foods Leads to Killing of 15,000 Hens
While the virus discovered at Tyson Foods is harmless to humans, shares of U.S. chicken companies dropped as investors worried foreign buyers may ban U.S. chicken. The U.S. exports about 16 percent of its chicken and a loss of key overseas markets could create a glut of chicken here.
Following the discovery, the U.S. Agriculture Department has already suspended shipments of chicken from Arkansas to Russia, the most important overseas market for U.S. chicken. ...
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A chicken glut is one worry -- but what about all those orphaned eggs?
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from Chicago Tribune:
Reminder: Siberian permafrost and feedbacks
Among Zimov's findings: The release of greenhouse gases — particularly methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide—from thawing permafrost underneath Siberian lakes could accelerate global warming and represents an especially worrisome trend in the battle to slow climate change.... Melting permafrost awakens dormant microbes that devour thousands of tons of organic carbon, creating methane as a byproduct if no oxygen is present. ...
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Time to declare war on microbes.
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from Daily Galaxy:
Is There a Solution to the "Continent of Plastic" that Pollutes the Pacific?
Are there really 'continents', or massive floating garbage patches residing in the Pacific? [T]hese unsightly patches are reportedly killing marine life and releasing poisons that enter the human food chain, as well. [T]hese plastic patches certainly aren't solid surfaced islands that you could build a house on... Ocean currents have collected massive amounts of garbage into a sort of plastic "soup" where countless bits of discarded plastic float intertwined just beneath the surface.... The enormous Texas-sized plastic patch is estimated to weigh over 3 million tons. ...
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I wonder where Crawford is, in this Texas-sized gyre?
"Henh-hehn. Time to clear me some brush."
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from BBC (UK):
Images reveal 'rapid forest loss'
High-resolution satellite images have revealed the "rapid deforestation" of Papua New Guinea's biodiversity rich rainforests over the past 30 years.
An international team of researchers estimates that the current rate of loss could result in more than half of the nation's tree cover being lost by 2021.... Although it only accounts for less than 0.5 percent of the Earth's land cover, the heavily forested island nation is home to an estimated 6-7 percent of the planet's species. ...
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Heck, we can just replant it, right? Or maybe build golf courses.
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from Peterborough Examiner (Canada):
Holistic permaculture looks at whole system
Permaculture is permanent agriculture (agriculture that can be sustained indefinitely) and permanent culture (a method of working with, rather than against, nature).... using multiple crops that form beneficial plant communities, forest farming, crop rotation, no till, preserving native seeds and plants, composting, conservation of land and water, and bringing nature back to our homes. ...
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Working with Nature?
That's not the way we do things here.
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from Washington Post (US):
Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds
An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.
The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters. ...
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This administration? Trying to control the message? Distorting the truth? Shocking!
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from Polish Radio:
Dangerous ladybird species reaches Poland
The bug, which is a native of mid-eastern Asia, was introduced in Western Europe in 1997 as a natural method to control greenfly. However, the ladybird, which has a voracious appetite, has proved dangerous not only to greenfly but also to other European insects, its cousin included. It can also damage orchard fruit and vineyards, and its bite may cause an allergic reaction in humans. Polish researchers from the Academy of Sciences are trying to monitor the situation but they say that currently there are no ways of dealing with the insect. ...
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Bitten again by that old bug, unintended consequences.
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from Tulsa World:
High fertilizer prices a growing worry
Urea, a key form of solid nitrogen fertilizer, doubled in price from 2000 to 2007 and then went another 40 percent higher over the past year, according to reports. Potash, another key ingredient in some fertilizers, now costs nearly $600 per ton, while phosphate is nearing $1,000 a ton.... Fuel cannot be blamed for everything that goes up, he added; fertilizer demand is also reaching all-time highs and may bear some responsibility for the costly chaos. Some chemical components are fetching record orders worldwide for everything from farming to mining.
"It's real global," Robinson said. "This is the first year in 30 years that (fertilizer) demand exceeds supply."
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It won't be the last year, either.
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from NewsInferno:
BPA Found in Canned Foods
According to recent testing, canned foods sold in Canada have been found to contain BPA concentrations as high as double the levels that prompted many to stop using BPA-laced plastic baby and water bottles. Less than half a cup of tomato sauce or a cup of chicken noodle soup would exceed the lowest dose found in recent research to have an adverse effect on animals.
Bisphenol-A�or BPA�is a fairly ubiquitous chemical that mimics the hormone, estrogen, and is used in polycarbonate plastic products, including baby bottles and metal can coatings and could be linked to a range of hormonal problems. In the lab, BPA is linked to sex-hormone-imbalances, including breast and prostate cancer, early puberty, miscarriage, low sperm count, and immune-system changes. ...
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Wait, Popeye always had a can of spinach, and it made him more manly....
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Tue, Jun 3, 2008
from American Society for Microbiology, via EurekAlert:
Climate change could impact vital functions of microbes
Global climate change will not only impact plants and animals but will also affect bacteria, fungi and other microbial populations that perform a myriad of functions important to life on earth. It is not entirely certain what those effects will be, but they could be significant and will probably not be good, say researchers today at a scientific meeting in Boston.
“Microbes perform a number of critical functions for ecosystems around the world and we are only starting to understand the impact that global change is having on them,” says Kathleen Treseder of the University of California, Irvine, at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. ...
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Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous microbe
O what a panic's in thy warm globe.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from The Scientist:
Banana: R.I.P.
Panama disease - or Fusarium wilt of banana - is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America, which feed our hemisphere, the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions of people. ...
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This also threatens generations of slapstick artists.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from BBC (UK):
Unnatural roots of the food crisis
The current model of market-driven food production is leaving people hungry.
It has turned food into a commodity subject to all the market failures that create inequities and negative impacts on the environment.... Amazingly, there is very little attention being paid to what fundamentally underpins all of our food systems - biodiversity and the services provided by ecosystems, such as soil, water and resilience to disasters.
We need to attack market failures and change the economic rules of current food production systems. ...
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Change the rules?
C'mon, they've been working fine for decades.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from Religious Intelligence Ltd:
Climate change question not proven, says bishop
The Anglican Bishop of Chester has described the question of how much carbon dioxide contributes to global warming as "in some respects still open".... "[T]he phenomena under investigation are so large: the whole of the earth's surface, the whole of the earth's atmosphere, and the sun itself. That makes precision difficult to achieve. The history of science is littered with scientific consensuses that have come to be overturned one way or another. The fact that there has been a degree -- somewhat less than one degree -- of global warming over the past century does seem to be fairly clearly established. Its correlation with CO2 emissions is less so in my view, although there may be --- and we should probably say, 'probably is' -- a link. But it is still, I think, in the realms of probability." ...
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This bishop has been rooked, and is now a pawn. Good knight.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from Annals of Neurology, via Science Daily:
Even Low Levels Of Air Pollution May Pose Stroke Risk
These findings support the hypotheses that recent exposure to fine particulate matter may increase the risk of ischemic cerebrovascular events specifically. There is experimental evidence that particulate air pollution is associated with acute artery vasoconstriction and with increases in plasma viscosity (thickening of the blood) which may enhance the potential for blood clots, although this requires further study. ...
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So thickening the air thickens the blood... and sickens the brain.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
Last flight of the honeybee?
Close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.... "It's those new neonicotinoid pesticides that growers are using," he says. "That's what's messing up the bees' navigation system so they can't find their way home." ... With innocuous brand names such as Gaucho, Assail and Merit, these pesticides are used worldwide, from sunflower fields to apple orchards, lawns to golf courses. The chemicals they contain are an artificial type of nicotine that acts as a neurotoxin that attacks insects' nervous systems on contact or ingestion. ...
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Neonicotine gives these bees too much of a buzz.
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Mon, Jun 2, 2008
from BBC (UK):
Progress at UN biodiversity forum
Nearly 200 countries have agreed on measures to protect the world's most threatened wildlife. At a Bonn conference they pledged to set up a deep-sea nature reserve and increase by tens of millions of hectares the area of land protected. But environmentalists... said progress was too slow compared to the threat to the world's species. ...
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Pesky environmentalists. Why don't they just get a job while they still can?
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Other
Weeks' Archived
ApocaDocuments:
Sep 26 - Dec 31, 1969
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