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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
global warming ~ contamination ~ climate impacts ~ economic myopia ~ carbon emissions ~ governmental idiocy ~ arctic meltdown ~ smart policy ~ rising sea level ~ heavy metals ~ algal bloom

ApocaDocuments (32) gathered this week:
Sun, Nov 15, 2009 from New York Times: Leaders Agree to Delay a Deal on Climate Change SINGAPORE -- President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific "politically binding" agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future. At a hastily arranged breakfast on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting on Sunday morning, the leaders, including Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark and the chairman of the climate conference, agreed that in order to salvage Copenhagen they would have to push a fully binding legal agreement down the road, possibly to a second summit meeting in Mexico City later on. ...	How sweet they agree! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Nov 15, 2009 from London Times: Climate change catastrophe took just months Six months is all it took to flip Europe's climate from warm and sunny into the last ice age, researchers have found. They have discovered that the northern hemisphere was plunged into a big freeze 12,800 years ago by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream that allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.... The new description, reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of past climate changes yet attempted. ...	Isn't "Hollywood being right" one of the Seven Signs of the Apocalypse? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Nov 15, 2009 from Boston Globe: Bat soup in bat hell Thomas Kunz emerges from Aeolus cave in East Dorset, Vermont, with a half-dozen metal ID bands -- smaller than SpaghettiOs -- cupped in the palm of his latex-gloved hand. They're tiny emblems of death, having once been affixed to the forearms of little brown bats. The renowned bat biologist from Boston University, who bears a passing resemblance to Harrison Ford, minutes earlier had recovered the bands while trudging, like a real-life Indiana Jones, through a slippery mud-like ooze of rotting bat carcasses, liquefied internal organs, toothpick-sized bones, piles of guano, and a strange white fungus on the cave floor. If bats had come out of hell, it couldn't have been worse than this. "What we saw was bat soup. There were a lot of bones of wings and skulls and emulsified bodies," Kunz says. "There were dead bats -- decomposing bats -- hanging from the walls of the cave. ...	Bats as sympathetic characters... Who woulda thought! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 14, 2009 from Billings Gazette via DesdemonaDespair: Record snowfall destroys 9,000 buildings and strands 7.5 million in Northern China Unusually early snow storms in north-central China have claimed 40 lives, caused thousands of buildings to collapse and destroyed almost 500,000 acres (200,000 hectares) of winter crops, the Civil Affairs Ministry said Friday.... The snowfall is the heaviest in the northern and central provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong and Henan since record keeping began after the establishment of the Communist state in 1949, the ministry said without giving detailed figures.... More than 7.5 million people have been stranded or otherwise affected by the storms, which caused the collapse of more than 9,000 buildings, damaged 470,000 acres (190,000 hectares) of crops, and forced the evacuation of 158,000 people, the ministry said. ...	Just more evidence that "global warming" is an enviro-conspiracy. I mean, snow, right? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 14, 2009 from COP15: UN looks at COP15.5 option Acknowledging that the COP15 conference in Copenhagen this December is not likely to produce a final agreement on climate change, an extra summit in spring 2010 is considered, UN official reveals.... The main reason why a final deal is not expected to be reached at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen is the fact that the US Congress will not have national legislation in place before December. Short of a clear picture on which commitments the world's second largest emitter is likely to take, a number of other key players will most likely hide their cards. This situation may have changed by spring 2010, but then one can't be certain right now, which is why the UN has not decided yet if it will recommend a spring conference. ...	Six more months of dithering is great for the economy! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 14, 2009 from Times Online (UK): Greenland's ice sheet is melting faster than ever, data shows Greenland's ice sheet is melting at an accelerating pace, according to the most detailed observations to date. Until now scientists had been unable to establish whether the loss of the ice sheet had speeded up significantly since the 1990s. Using two independent measurement techniques, the latest study reveals that the melting accelerated rapidly over the period 2000-2008. If the acceleration of melting continues at the same rate, the sea level from Greenland's ice alone would rise by 40cm by the end of the century. If the melting continues at a steady pace -- the best-case scenario according to Met Office predictions -- Greenland ice will contribute an 18cm rise in sea level. The Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to cause a global sea level rise of seven metres. ...	And the rate of acceleration? Is it accelerating? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 14, 2009 from Helmhotz, via EurekAlert: TEEB: on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity for policy makers Policy makers who factor the planet's multi-trillion dollar ecosystem services into their national and international investment strategies are likely to see far higher rates of return and stronger economic growth in the 21st century, a new report issued today says.... Subsidized commercial shrimp farms can generate returns of around $1,220 per hectare by clearing mangrove forests. But this does not take into account the losses to local communities totaling over $12,000 a hectare linked with wood and non-wood forest products, fisheries and coastal protection services (Barbier 2007). Nor does the profit to the commercial operators take into account the costs of rehabilitating the abandoned sites after five years of exploitation -- estimated at over $9,000 a hectare.... The economic invisibility of ecosystems and biodiversity is increased by our dominant economic model, which is consumption-led, production-driven, and GDP-measured. This model is in need of significant reform. The multiple crises we are experiencing -- fuel, food, finance, and the economy -- serve as reminders of the need for change. ...	Placing a value on ecosystem services is so... arbitrary. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 from National Geographic News: Cocaine, Spices, Hormones Found in Drinking Water How's this for a sweet surprise? A team of researchers in Washington State has found traces of cooking spices and flavorings in the waters of Puget Sound.... The Puget Sound study is one of several ongoing efforts to investigate the unexpected ingredients that find their way into the global water supply. Around the world, scientists are finding trace amounts of substances -- from sugar and spice to heroine, rocket fuel, and birth control -- that might be having unintended consequences for humans and wildlife alike. ...	Water has never tasked sooooo good! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 from London Guardian: Brazil celebrates 45 percent reduction in Amazon deforestation A police offensive and the global economic crisis have combined to produce the largest fall in more than 20 years... The Brazilian government yesterday announced a "historic" drop in the deforestation of the Amazon, weeks before world leaders meet in Copenhagen for climate change talks. Brazilian authorities said that between August 2008 and July this year, deforestation in the world's largest tropical rainforest fell by the largest amount in more than 20 years, dropping by 45 percent from nearly 13,000 square kilometres to around 7,000 square kilometres (5,000 square miles to 2,700 square miles)... Since February 2008 the government has been waging an "unprecedented" campaign against the loggers, dispatching hundreds of heavily armed agents to remote rainforest towns where destruction was out of control. ...	If only we could dispatch armed agents to stop people from idling their cars. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 from Economist: Farmers v greens AMERICA will not pass a cap-and-trade law in time for the global climate-change summit in Copenhagen next month. To understand why, it helps to ask a farmer. Take Bruce Wright, for example, who grows wheat and other crops on a couple of thousand acres near Bozeman, Montana. His family has tilled these fields for four generations. His great-grandfather built the local church. He loves his job and the rural way of life. But he fears that higher energy prices will endanger both. To grow his crops, Mr Wright needs fertiliser, fuel and pesticides -- all of which are derived from oil. When the price of oil hit the sky last year, Mr Wright's operating costs nearly trebled. He survived because the oil-price surge also forced up the price of grain. But such wild swings make him nervous. If he has to invest three times as much in his crop and the crop fails, he says, he will be buried in debt. ...	We can save ourselves... if only we would stop eating. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: Threat of climate change should be treated like war say engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) said it would be almost impossible for the UK to meet ambitious climate change targets to cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050 without drastic action. The only way to reach the target would be to "go to war" against carbon emissions, its report said. This would mean setting up a Department of Climate Security to act like the War Cabinet and co-ordinate action across every other Government department. Unemployed people would be trained in making homes more energy efficient, factories would make solar panels and schools would encourage pupils to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Money would be pumped into wind turbines, nuclear power stations and solar panels as a matter of urgency. ...	We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the factories, we shall fight in our lifestyles. This is our finest hour. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 13, 2009 from University of Granada, via EurekAlert: Consumption of mercury-laden fish associated with poorer cognitive performance Children who eat fish more than 3 times per week show a worse performance in the general cognitive, executive and perceptual-manipulative areas. Those with higher levels of exposure to mercury show a generalised delay in cognitive, memory and verbal areas. Mercury is a contaminant found especially in oily fish and canned fish and to a lesser extent in white fish.... Researchers warn that although environmental exposure levels found in children are low enough not to cause any obvious concern, they could have an impact on child development in the long-term, only appearing as symptoms many years after first exposure. Consequently, they explain, "whatever the extent of involvement of environmental exposures in the etiology of the disease, the simple fact of acting very early in life opens the door to a transcendental field in public health: the possibility of applying early prevention measures to minimize problems." ...	I not stupid. I only have heavy metal. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Nov 12, 2009 from Environmental Science and Technology: Salt-loving algae wipe out fish in Appalachian stream A salt-loving alga that killed tens of millions of fish in Texas has struck for the first time in an Appalachian stream that flows along the border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Prymnesium parvum or "golden alga" caused the sudden death of thousands of fish, mussels, and salamanders in early September along some 30 miles of Dunkard Creek. University and government scientists fear the disaster could presage further kills in the region. Streams at risk due to high concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) include portions of the northern branch of the Potomac River and 20 other streams in West Virginia, according to state scientists. Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky also have many vulnerable rivers and streams, according to U.S. EPA scientists. ...	Golden Algae is the name of my cat! ApocaDoc permalink
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Thu, Nov 12, 2009 from The Daily Climate: The escape route Some ideas are the stuff of science fiction: 15 trillion mirrors positioned in orbit to shield the planet from the sun's rays; a fleet of blimps 20 kilometers up feeding a constant stream of sulfur into the stratosphere; a navy of robot-controlled ships prowling the world's oceans, spraying seawater skyward to generate reflective clouds. Others are more mundane: Plant trees to soak up carbon dioxide or paint roofs white to reflect sunlight. Most are unproven. All have major drawbacks. None offset ocean acidification. But the concept is gaining more traction as politicians, confronted with the ugly reality of trying to wean economies off fossil fuels, cast about for a strategy that will work if climate changes quickly or in nasty ways. ...	I know! Let's engineer a whole new planet! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Nov 12, 2009 from Mongabay: Boreal forests contain more carbon than tropical forest per hectare A new report states that boreal forests store nearly twice as much carbon as tropical forests per hectare: a fact which researchers say should make the conservation of boreal forests as important as tropical in climate change negotiations. The report from the Canadian Boreal Initiative and the Boreal Songbird Initiative, entitled "The Carbon the World Forgot", estimates that the boreal forest -- which survives in massive swathes across Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, and Russia -- stores 22 percent of all carbon on the earth's land surface. According to the study the boreal contains 703 gigatons of carbon, while the world's tropical forests contain 375 gigatons.... Researchers explain that while tropical forests store most of their carbon in vegetation, boreal forests store vast amounts of the greenhouse gas deep in permafrost soil and peatlands in addition to its trees. Cold temperatures prevent the complete breakdown of dead biomass in the boreal, so that carbon is accumulated over time, sometimes even millennia. Scientists have found carbon that has been locked away for 8,000 years. ...	All right! We can still burn rainforests for palm oil plantations! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Nov 12, 2009 from Georgia Institute of Technology, via EurekAlert: Reducing greenhouse gases may not be enough to slow climate change "Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole -- a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change. As a result, emissions reduction programs -- like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress -- may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming." According to Stone's research, slowing the rate of forest loss around the world, and regenerating forests where lost, could significantly slow the pace of global warming.... Stone recommends slowing what he terms the "green loss effect" through the planting of millions of trees in urbanized areas and through the protection and regeneration of global forests outside of urbanized regions. ...	Hot time, weather in the city, back of my neck's gettin' dirty and gritty. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 11, 2009 from Climate Wire: Las Vegas Gambles With an Uncertain Water Future Straddling the border between Nevada and Arizona, the Hoover Dam is a symbol of human engineering might. For more than 70 years, its massive walls have tamed the flows of the Colorado River, fueling the growth of cities like Las Vegas that depend on it to supply water and power from its generating station. But these days, what's most striking is the lack of water stored behind the dam's concrete arch. A thick white band of mineral deposits marks the walls of Black Canyon above the water line. Locals call it the "bathtub ring." It's where the water used to be, before the start of the current decade-long drought. ...	Craps! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 11, 2009 from St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Plan for coal ash landfill draws fire in Labadie Ginger Gambaro's book club was slated to dissect "The Hummingbird's Daughter" by Louis Alberto Urrea one night in late September. But the novel didn't end up dominating the conversation. Instead, the book club's members seized on a local hot topic: Ameren UE's plan to construct a 400-acre coal-combustion waste landfill at the nearby power plant located in the Missouri River bottomlands....they decided to organize. Less than two months later, the Labadie Environmental Organization formed and more than 65 people turned out for their first public meeting. Their mission? "Save Our Bottoms." ...	An opposition group has formed, called Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 11, 2009 from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: BPA raised workers' risk of sexual dysfunction, study says Chinese factory workers exposed to huge amounts of bisphenol A substantially increased their risk of sexual dysfunction, according to a study released late Tuesday that is expected to add more urgency to the question of the chemical's safety... The five-year study examined 634 workers in factories in China, comparing those working in BPA-manufacturing facilities with a control group working in plants where no BPA was made. The study found workers in the BPA facilities had four times the risk of erectile dysfunction, and seven times more risk of ejaculation difficulty....BPA, used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, is commonly found in baby bottles, plastic containers, the lining of cans used for food and beverages, and dental sealants. It has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of Americans tested. ...	No worries... We can just pump Cialis into the air systems of those factories! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 11, 2009 from Mongabay: Prime Minister of Kenya urged to ban lion-killing pesticide after child dies from ingestion On Monday October 26th a three-year-old girl mistakenly ate the pesticide Furadan (also known as carbofuran) in western Kenya. Her father, a teacher at a primary school, said that he had no knowledge of how dangerous the pesticide was, which he had purchased to kill pests in his vegetable garden. This tragedy comes after the conservation organization WildlifeDirect has campaigned for two years for Furadan to be banned in Kenya. The pesticide, which is a potent neurotoxin, has been used to kill dozens of Kenya's lions and millions of birds both of which are considered pests to farmers and pastoralists. Now WildlifDirect is going directly to Prime Minister Ranila Odinga for support in the ban. Odinga recently adopted a lion under the Kenya Wildlife Service's (KWS) Wildlife Endowment Fund. ...	Lions and birds are such pests! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 from Doc Jim: From the ApocaDesk Hundreds packed the IUPUI Campus Center in Indianapolis on Monday afternoon, Nov. 9, to listen to a "professional bummer-outer." Yes, that's what Bill McKibben called himself as he opened his talk. It was 20 years ago that McKibben published what is now considered the first general-reader book about climate change, The End of Nature. Yet, 20 years later, we are still in the pickle of a lifetime, on the brink of climate collapse for many species on the planet, including our own. It's easy to conclude, here on the eve of Copenhagen climate talks, that no progress has been made as our planet's peril becomes more irrefutable every day. McKibben, though, is fresh from the success of International Day of Climate Action Day, Oct. 24, instigated by his 350.org group, and is in no bummer-outer mode at all. International Day of Climate Action Day was a world-wide public protest/awareness-raising, that included 5200 actions on planet Earth, all pertaining to a single data point: 350 ppm. 350 ppm is the level of CO2 emissions that our planet can handle -- without stirring up extreme weather patterns or disturbing the hydrologic cycle or causing mass extinction or massive climate migration, etc. You know, the kind of thing we ApocaDocs post every day. You know that we've already far exceeded 350; we're hovering around 390, in fact, but still, 182 countries were represented and McKibben's slideshow at IUPUI of the actions people made were poignant and inspiring. See www.350.org to see the photos. CNN called it the "most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." In his talk, McKibben walked us through a short history of consumerism, pointing out that 1956 was the peak year for people responding a survey that they were "very satisfied" with their lives. Now, that number is around one quarter of those surveyed. The reason for this deterioration of happiness is that we've lost our "web of connections." People cite "half the number of friends" that they used to have (and we're not counting the amorphous, quasi-fictional friends we have on Facebook). Over these 50 years, he says, "We've built bigger and bigger houses farther apart from each other," encouraging that lack of human contact. Meanwhile, the consumer lifestyle created by readily-available (and affordable) fossil fuels is beginning to run out. And the effects of global warming are now visible almost everywhere, from the melting arctic ice to the desertification of Australia. McKibben says our average global temp has risen one degree -- many scientists believe we'll go up 4 or 5 degrees if we don't change, fast, and McKibben remarks "we don't want to know" what a world like that will be. To free ourselves from the trap of consumerism, we need to head in a "new direction"... that direction being how we deal with food. McKibben calls food "our basic economy" -- and points out that it's the resurgence of farmers markets that has created the context for people to interact again. Food, he points out, is usually a net gain when it comes to energy issues, but is definitely a plus when it comes to taste as well as the overall experience of buying locally-grown produce, conversing with farmers and growers, as well as other customers. Given McKibben's activism with Step It Up and now 350.org, this college prof and Sunday School teacher has moved far beyond his role as writer -- and bummer-outer. In fact, McKibben is one of the most vital voices we have, inciting us to think deeply about sustainability and how the "local" is linked to the "global." ...	McKibben McRocks! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 from Science Daily: Antarctica Glacier Retreat Creates New Carbon Dioxide Store; Has Beneficial Impact On Climate Change Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonisation is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years. Reporting recently in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) estimate that this new natural 'sink' is taking an estimated 3.5 million tonnes* of carbon from the ocean and atmosphere each year.... *The 3.5 million tonnes of carbon taken from the ocean and atmosphere is equivalent to 12.8 million tonnes of CO2. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and land use change reached 8.7 billion tonnes of carbon in 2007. ...	That's just Nature's way of buying us an extra day or two! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 from RealClimate: Is Pine Island Glacier the Weak Underbelly of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? ... the 1978 publication by the late John Mercer, Ohio State U., who argued that a major deglaciation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) may be in progress within 50 years. This conclusion was based on the fact that the WAIS margin was ringed with stabilizing ice shelves, and that much of the ice sheet is grounded below sea level. The loss of ice shelves -- Mercer proposed -- would allow the ice sheet to thin, grounding lines to retreat and the ice sheet to disintegrate via calving. This is a much faster means of losing mass than melting in place. Mercer further commented that the loss of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, as has since been observed, would be an indicator that this process of ice sheet loss due to global warming was underway.... The increase from 2006 to 2007 was 6.4 percent at 55 km from the terminus and 4.1 percent at 171 km inland.... A separate data set, radar based was used by Rignot (2008) to identify a 42 percent acceleration of PIG between 1996 and 2007 accompanied by most of its ice plain becoming ungrounded.... Scott and others (2009) pointed out that the greater thinning toward the grounding line and terminus increased the surface slope and the gravitational driving stress, further promoting acceleration. Then Wingham and others (2009) reported that the 5400 km2 central trunk of the glacier had experienced a quadrupling in the average rate of volume loss quadrupled from 2.6 km3 a year in 1995 to 10.1 km3 a year in 2006. ...	It's all going to melt anyway -- let's pipe this "frozen aquifer" to Australia! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 from New York Times: Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one -- an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.... PCBs, DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve in water, but the plastic absorbs them like a sponge. Fish that feed on plankton ingest the tiny plastic particles. Scientists from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation say that fish tissues contain some of the same chemicals as the plastic. The scientists speculate that toxic chemicals are leaching into fish tissue from the plastic they eat. ...	What's that? You want to turn back time? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 from BBC (UK): 'Last chance' for tuna authority The annual meeting of the body charged with conserving Atlantic tuna opens on Monday to warnings that this is its "last chance" to manage things well. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) is criticised for setting high quotas and not tackling illegal fishing. Stocks of bluefin tuna are at about 15 percent of pre-industrial fishing levels.... "We'd like to have science-based management that has a good chance of stopping overfishing and rebuilding the stock, with effective compliance and monitoring."... It is estimated that the illegal take adds about 30 percent to the legal catches. ...	Last chance... otherwise we may have to give you a different acronym. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 10, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: World energy body 'exaggerated oil stocks under pressure from US' The International Energy Agency (IEA) has been underplaying the rate of decline at existing oil fields and overestimating the potential of new reserves to avoid panic buying, a senior official alleged. The agency last year claimed that oil production could be raised from its current rate of 83 million barrels a day to 105 million.... "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90 million to 95 million barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further," the newspaper quoted the whistle-blower as saying. ...	Change we wanted to believe in. ApocaDoc permalink
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.
Mon, Nov 9, 2009 from Agence France-Presse: Copenhagen failure would be 'suicide': Maldives The president of the Maldives has warned that a failure to agree a deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions in Copenhagen next month would be an act of "collective suicide". "At the moment every country arrives at climate negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible," President Mohamed Nasheed said here. "This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide. "We don't want a global suicide pact. We want a global survival pact."... Nasheed opened a two-day forum for 11 countries considered the most vulnerable to climate change, urging them to go carbon neutral to show the rich world the way forward. ...	One world leader seems to be flying over this crazy cuckoo's nest. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 9, 2009 from Las Vegas Sun: Quagga mussels a toxic threat to Lake Mead ...Years before they showed up in Southern Nevada, the little mollusks colonized the Great Lakes, and researchers there have found that the rise in their quagga populations correlates with increases in dangerous toxins. There are two reasons for this: poop and algae. Quaggas can poop poison pellets and can turn swaths of open lake into algae-filled dead zones. The scoop on the poop is this: Each mussel works like a tiny liver, absorbing toxins and heavy metals such as mercury, selenium, polychlorinated biphenyls (known as PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (or PAHs) from the lake water in a process called bioaccumulation. But quaggas are not content to do a good deed. They later expel those chemicals and metals -- in the form of a highly concentrated pellet. Those toxic pellets sink to the lake floor. ...	Can we introduce some little portajohns for them? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 9, 2009 from McClatchy Newspapers: As oceans fall ill, Washington bureaucrats squabble ...Every summer a dead zone of oxygen-depleted water the size of Massachusetts forms in the Gulf of Mexico; others have been found off Oregon and in the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie and the Baltic and Black seas. Some studies indicate that North Pole seawater could turn caustic in 10 years, and that the Southern Ocean already may be saturated with carbon dioxide....As the grim news mounts, a storm is brewing in Washington, D.C., over who should oversee oceans policies...However, NOAA, the nation's primary ocean agency, which includes the National Ocean Service, the nation's premier science agency for oceans and coasts... is missing from the task force's list...."NOAA is the nation's primary ocean agency," NOAA administrator Lubchenco told the subcommittee. "Our name says it all." ...	In more ways than one. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 9, 2009 from McClatchy Newspapers: GOP's Graham steps out on a limb on climate change When it comes to combating global warming, Sen. Lindsey Graham is right where he loves to be -- ahead of the curve, in the mix on a major issue, at the table for high-level, bipartisan talks behind closed doors. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is working with Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to craft a climate change bill. They face the dual challenge of overcoming widespread GOP opposition and withstanding relentless attacks by Big Oil and allied energy interests. ...	Graham, Lieberman, Kerry... I feel such confidence. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 9, 2009 from George Monbiot: Death Denial There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.... A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there's solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71 percent to 57 percent in just 18 months.... On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1,2,4,5,7 and 8 in the global warming category(5). Never mind that they've been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on? ...	Could it be that denial is an evolutionary survival instinct? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 9, 2009 from PhysOrg.com: 15,000 reasons to worry about invasive species Candy Dailey spent a Fourth of July holiday splashing with grandkids on the sandy shore of Lake Metonga when she felt a nasty sting on her foot.... the culprit was a zebra mussel -- cuts from the razor-sharp shells have become as unremarkable as bee stings since the mussels invaded Dailey's lake eight years ago.... The natives of the Caspian Sea region first turned up in North America in the summer of 1988, thanks to overseas freighters' long-standing -- and ongoing -- practice of dumping their contaminated ballast water in the Great Lakes, which are now home to more than 185 non-native species.... Now, this ecological mess is spreading inland. ...	Those critters will mussel in, one way or another. ApocaDoc permalink