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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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Species Collapse:	(3)
Plague/Virus:	(1)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
ecosystem interrelationships ~ contamination ~ global warming ~ anthropogenic change ~ toxic water ~ ocean warming ~ arctic meltdown ~ stupid humans ~ climate impacts ~ death spiral ~ governmental idiocy

ApocaDocuments (39) gathered this week:
Mon, Mar 1, 2010 from Sydney Morning Herald, from DesdemonaDespair: Rampant logging 'destroying Papua New Guinea' Brother Jim Coucher worked in and near Vanimo on the north-west coast of PNG for 43 years until five years ago. Just returned from his first visit since, he was utterly horrified at the changes, he said yesterday, the speed of destruction caused by logging and corruption, and the plight of the local people.... ''I don't think anyone has an idea of the extent of logging, and I don't think anything can be done,'' Brother Coucher said. He does not want his religious order identified for fear of reprisals against members still working in Papua New Guinea.... The landowner, a sub-clan chief, said loggers destroyed a creek that had provided fish for his villagers. They bulldozed breadfruit trees, sago and coconut palms, and built a wharf in the harbour that meant villagers could not fish. They hired almost no villagers, he said. Instead, they brought in unskilled Asian workers. ''Malnutrition is rampant. It is horrible to see young mothers who are skin and bone. There is no sanitation, no running water -- it is a time bomb,'' the landowner said. ''They are logging Vanimo to its death.'' ...	Gotta make a profit, right? What's the point otherwise? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 28, 2010 from The Economist: The bleakest outlook in the world: the future of the Arctic The Arctic is changing faster and more dramatically than any other environment on the planet. The ice that defines it is melting with alarming speed, taking with it life that can survive nowhere else. Oil, gas, shipping and fishing interests have been heading into the newly open water, with diplomats, lawyers, and now authors, in their wake.... Mr Anderson looks in on the extraordinary, tiny world of the tributary system within the Arctic ice, formed by trickles of briny water which gets squeezed as it freezes. But from the bear above to the microscopic wonders within, all are doomed once the summer ice goes, which is expected to happen at some point between 2013 and 2050. ...	The Arctic will only melt if we accept the theory of the greenhouse effect. Clap with me three times, and then we can fly. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 28, 2010 from Living on Earth: Here Comes the Sound ...Across the American West, millions of acres of forests are dead because of beetles about the size of a grain of rice -- the pine bark beetles. The beetles' range is expanding due, in part, to climate change. Warmer winters mean the beetles survive farther north and higher up. And drought weakens a tree's resistance. Forestry experts call it the largest insect infestation in North American history and warn some 20 million acres could be lost in the next decade or so. Now an unusual trio of researchers -- a sound artist, a scientist, and a student -- might have a powerful new way to control the beetles... why not use military control technology where they use acoustics to control crowds or Somali pirates to push them off. ...	Barry Manilow vs. the beetles. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 28, 2010 from Associated Press: Warming Panel, Under Attack, Seeks Outside Review The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it's seeking some kind of independent review because of recent criticism about its four 2007 reports. Critics have found a few unsettling errors, including projections of retreats in Himalayan glaciers, in the thousands of pages of the reports. Scientists say the problems are minor and have nothing to do with the major conclusions about man-made global warming and how it will harm people and ecosystems...But one of the troubles is that the IPCC is written by most of the world's top experts in climate science. And the experts who don't write it, often review it, so it's hard to find someone both independent and knowledgeable. ...	Then let's get skeptics and deniers to review it! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 28, 2010 from Madison Wisconsin State Journal: Tracking a rising tide of waste Wisconsin is churning out permits for industrial-scale farms to spread millions of gallons of manure on state fields but provides little oversight after that, inspecting them only once or twice every five years, a Wisconsin State Journal investigation has found. At stake is the health of thousands of homeowners who draw their drinking water from wells near the giant farms or the fields where the manure is spread... But a review of the state's oversight of the huge farms turned up weaknesses and missteps, including farms operating without permits, a dearth of on-site inspections and a monitoring system that consists largely of inspectors filling out paperwork at their desks. ...	Who wants to look at shit more often than that! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 28, 2010 from US News and World Report: Air Pollution: It's Not Just Your Lungs That Suffer ...research has revealed more about how far air pollution's harms go beyond the respiratory system. "People thought that when we inhale pollutants the lung is the main target, but the lung is surprisingly resilient. It turns out the cardiovascular effects are predominant," says Aruni Bhatnagar, an environmental cardiology researcher at the University of Louisville. One major study, which followed subjects for 16 years, found that people living in cities with higher levels of fine particulates were at greater risk of cardiovascular death. A difference of 10 micrograms per cubic meter increased the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease (narrowed arteries) by 18 percent, arrhythmia by 13 percent, and cardiac arrest by 21 percent, the study revealed. It seems air pollutants incite processes that lead to high blood pressure, blood clotting, and electrical instability in the heart, which can translate into heart attack, stroke, and sudden cardiac death. Even short-term exposure can be hazardous. Research shows spikes in cardiac deaths, emergency room visits, and hospital admissions in the hours and days that follow a spike in cities' levels of particulate matter. ...	But... but ... the sunsets are so beautiful... ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 27, 2010 from Shanghai Daily News: Country's infertility rate 'on the rise': Shanghai The country appears to be suffering from rising infertility levels, with a number of regional surveys showing up to 10 percent of couples who have regular sex being unable to conceive within a year, reproduction experts have said. No nationwide epidemiology surveys on infertility have been conducted yet, but experts have estimated that the infertility rate stood at 3 percent in the early 1980s. For women, childbirth after 35 years of age and previous abortions were often to blame for increasing infertility, said Zhou Canquan, director of the department of obstetrics and gynecology under the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Male infertility was on the rise as well, with sperm counts decreasing from 100 million per ml on average in the 1970s to 40 million per ml currently, Zhou said on Friday. ...	It's a dweam come twue. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 27, 2010 from New York Times: Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics ...Acinetobacter baumannii...is one of a category of bacteria that by some estimates are already killing tens of thousands of hospital patients each year. While the organisms do not receive as much attention as the one known as MRSA -- for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- some infectious-disease specialists say they could emerge as a bigger threat..."In many respects it's far worse than MRSA," said Dr. Louis B. Rice, an infectious-disease specialist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland V.A. Medical Center and at Case Western Reserve University. ...	It better get itself a handy acronym, then. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 27, 2010 from The ApocaDocs: Weekend Reading: Converging Emergencies, 2010-2020 *From Converging Emergencies:* If you've gotten this far through our little tome, you have fortitude. Believe us, we understand what kind of fortitude it requires. Over the last few years, 'Docs Michael and Jim have gone through periods of deep depression (instant messages like "that story you just posted. Do you sometimes ask 'what's the point'?"); deep cynicism (later turned into a quip on a holyshit-tagged story: "Yeah right, as if humans would ever confront the collapse. We'll just keep on confirming the theory); even fundamental nihilism ("there is no escape from this machine but collapse"). Please be aware that we have moments of radiance and light too -- we'll get to that in a few pages -- but before we go there, we have to talk about the mother-of-all-elephants in the room: the Converging Emergencies. ...	The onomatopoetic assonance of "Converging Emergencies" is too cool for school. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 27, 2010 from New York Times: Independent Board to Review Work of Top Climate Panel An independent board of scientists will be appointed to review the workings of the world's top climate science panel, which has faced recriminations over inaccuracies in a 2007 report, a United Nations environmental spokesman said Friday.... The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been under fire since it was pointed out that the 2007 report included a prediction that Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, although there is no scientific consensus to that effect. That brief citation -- drawn from a magazine interview with a glaciologist who says he was misquoted -- and sporadic criticism of the panel's leader have fueled skepticism in some quarters about the science underlying climate change. The climate panel's assessments are a crucial source of guidance for policy makers addressing global warming. But mainstream scientists and the United Nations have said repeatedly that the evidence that human activity is a major factor in global warming remains unshaken. Mr. Nuttall said the review body would be made up of "senior scientific figures" who could perhaps produce a report by late summer for consideration at a meeting of the climate panel in October in South Korea. ...	Scientists investigating scientists? Have they no shame? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 27, 2010 from CBC: Massive icebergs drift from Antarctic coast An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg that struck a glacier off Antarctica and dislodged another massive block of ice could lower the levels of oxygen in the world's oceans, Australian and French scientists said Friday. The two icebergs are now drifting together about 100 to 150 kilometres off Antarctica following the collision on Feb. 12 or 13, said Australian Antarctic division glaciologist Neal Young.... This area of water had been kept clear because of the glacier, said Steve Rintoul, a leading climate expert. With part of the glacier gone, the area could fill with sea ice, which would disrupt the ability for the dense and cold water to sink. This sinking water is what spills into ocean basins and feeds the global ocean currents with oxygen, Rintoul explained. As there are only a few areas in the world where this occurs, a slowing of the process would mean less oxygen supplied into the deep currents that feed the oceans. "There may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die," said Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. ...	Of course. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 27, 2010 from Science, via DesdemonaDespair: Pacific Northwest 'dead zone' hypoxic events unprecedented A review of all available ocean data records concludes that the low-oxygen events which have plagued the Pacific Northwest coast since 2002 are unprecedented in the five decades prior to that, and may well be linked to the stronger, persistent winds that are expected to occur with global warming. In a new study to be published Friday in the journal Science, researchers from Oregon State University outline a "potential for rapid reorganization" in basic marine ecosystems and the climatic forces that drive them, and suggest that these low-oxygen, or "hypoxic" events are now more likely to be the rule rather than the exception. "In this part of the marine environment, we may have crossed a tipping point," said Jane Lubchenco... The rapid and disturbing shift of ocean conditions in what has traditionally been one of the world's more productive marine areas -- what's called the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem -- has garnered much attention in recent years, also raising questions about whether it has happened before, and what is causing it.... "At this point, I�d be surprised if this trend towards hypoxic events didn�t continue," Barth said... ...	Maybe the fish are just hyperventilating and using up the oxygen. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 from New Scientist: Arctic arch failure leads to sea-ice exodus Every winter the Arctic ice cap is penned in by curved barriers of ice spanning the straits that lead out of the Arctic Ocean. Now it seems that some of these ice arches are failing to form. The resulting exodus of sea ice into the Atlantic and Pacific could affect ocean circulation and marine life.... During most years, large blocks of sea ice clump together in mid-January to build one or two arches across the strait. The arches usually persist for around six months, acting as dams to prevent the ice from floating away. Then in 2007, the warmest year on record in the Arctic, no arches formed and vast quantities of sea ice were lost. "Around 1 per cent of Arctic ice by area went down the Nares Strait that year; more than double the usual amount," says Kwok. The next year wasn't much better -- only one weak arch formed and broke down after two months. Last year provided a brief respite, but so far in 2010 there is no sign of any arches in the strait. ...	Is there some way to move the logjam in Washington up there? ApocaDoc permalink
Want more context? Try reading our book FREE online: Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 from Sydney Morning Herald: Too late for all but prayers You could not accuse Clive Hamilton of peddling false hope. In his new book, Requiem for a Species, he sees no hope at all. The Australian National University professor and public intellectual, who has written about climate change for 15 years, says the world is on a path to a very unpleasant future and it is too late to stop it.... "Even the most optimistic assessment of the possibility of taking action on climate change is nowhere near adequate to the task of trying to protect the world from dangerous climate change,'' he says. ''It's just too late now.'' ...	I think you're hinting at something... something...? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 from Oregon Environmental News: Warning: Fish from Columbia Slough tainted with PCBs, heavy metals A swarm of fish inhabit the body of water from the mouth of Fairview Lake to the Willamette River and many of them are tainted with toxins, said Ken Kauffman, an environmental health specialist. Tests have turned up pesticide residuals, chlordane, mercury and heavy metals in the fish that live in the slough, including carp, black crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass and sunfish. But the biggest threat comes from polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are long-lasting chemicals that can harm a baby�s brain or nervous system. Health officials are most concerned about children and infants, along with pregnant women and women who could become pregnant. ...	I love that special "chlordane tang" flavor. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 from Daily Kansan: Decreasing water levels raise problems But these days in southern Meade County, located about five hours southwest of Lawrence, the Ross farm is restricted by declining water levels. Old sprinklers stand in fields with no chance of spreading water over the crops. Streams, creeks and ponds slowly turn to dust, revealing the lack of water available. As the water levels drop, these sights will become more common. Since 1996, the water levels in southwest Kansas have declined, except for a 1.2-inch increase in 1998, said Brownie Wilson, Geographic Info System and support services manager at Kansas Geological Survey. Irrigation started in the 1950s and '60s, and with the ability to obtain and use more water, large-scale production soaked up the water in the underground Ogallala aquifer. Increased water usage allowed Kansas' agriculture industry to make millions.... Wells averaged water level drops of 2 to 5 feet, but drops as low as 10 feet occurred in some areas of southwest Kansas this year, said Wilson. Though the water levels are visibly receding, the Kansas Division of Water Resources records the water movements every year so the exact amount of the decrease is known. So far, results have shown decreasing water levels throughout the state, except for a surprising increase in northwest Kansas, Wilson said. ...	Water, water, underwhere, but not a drop to spare. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 from Barnstable Patriot: Cape faces 'daunting challenges' on household chemicals in groundwater The problem of pharmaceutical and personal care product (PPCP) pollution is an issue that is especially dangerous to Cape Cod's water supply, said Dr. Laurel Schaider, staff scientist at the Silent Spring Institute. The Cape's unique combination of reliance on septic systems and almost exclusive use of groundwater, she said, makes it easier for contaminants of concern (COCs) to infiltrate wastewater. Silent Spring Institute maintains a list of potentially hazardous chemicals that includes human and pet prescriptions, cosmetics, caffeine and "endocrine disruptors" such as hormones. In 2005, said Schaider, a U.S. Geological Survey study found 13 such chemicals in Cape groundwater supplies, including antibiotics, a dry-cleaning solvent, an anti-convulsant prescription and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. "Everything that goes down your drains and your toilets, that's in the wastewater," she explained. ...	I thought when I flushed, it stopped existing. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 26, 2010 from Stony Brook, via EurekAlert: New research shows fishery management practices for beluga sturgeon must change A first-of-its-kind study of a Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon (Huso huso) fishery demonstrates current harvest rates are four to five times higher than those that would sustain population abundance. The study's results, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Conservation Biology, suggest that conservation strategies for beluga sturgeon should focus on reducing the overfishing of adults rather than heavily relying upon hatchery supplementation.... Populations of beluga sturgeon have declined by nearly 90 percent in the past several decades due to the high demand for black caviar, inadequate management, and habitat degradation. Black caviar, the unfertilized roe (eggs) of the beluga sturgeon, is the most valuable of all caviar, and can be sold for as much as $8,000 for one kilogram (2.2 pounds). There has been grave concern about increasingly dwindling numbers of this already depleted species, which has gone extinct in the Adriatic Sea and is on the brink of extinction in the Azov Sea. ...	But without caviar, how is life worth living? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 from FASAB, via EurekAlert: Why BPA leached from 'safe' plastics may damage health of female offspring New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy leads to epigenetic changes that may cause permanent reproduction problems for female offspring. BPA, a common component of plastics used to contain food, is a type of estrogen that is ubiquitous in the environment.... BPA has been widely used in plastics and other materials. Examples include use in water bottles, baby bottles, epoxy resins used to coat food cans, and dental sealants.... "We need to better identify the effects of environmental contaminants on not just crude measures such as birth defects, but also their effect in causing more subtle developmental errors."... These epigenetic changes caused the mice to over-respond to estrogen throughout adulthood, long after the BPA exposure. This suggests that early exposure to BPA genetically "programmed" the uterus to be hyper-responsive to estrogen. Extreme estrogen sensitivity can lead to fertility problems, advanced puberty, altered mammary development and reproductive function, as well as a variety of hormone-related cancers. BPA has been widely used in plastics and other materials. Examples include use in water bottles, baby bottles, epoxy resins used to coat food cans, and dental sealants. ...	Are you implying that one can extrapolate that effect to other mammals? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 from University of Liverpool, via EurekAlert: Scientists reveal driving force behind evolution The team observed viruses as they evolved over hundreds of generations to infect bacteria. They found that when the bacteria could evolve defences, the viruses evolved at a quicker rate and generated greater diversity, compared to situations where the bacteria were unable to adapt to the viral infection. The study shows, for the first time, that the American evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen was correct in his 'Red Queen Hypothesis'. The theory, first put forward in the 1970s, was named after a passage in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass in which the Red Queen tells Alice, 'It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place'. This suggested that species were in a constant race for survival and have to continue to evolve new ways of defending themselves throughout time.... "These experiments showed us that co-evolutionary interactions between species result in more genetically diverse populations, compared to instances where the host was not able to adapt to the parasite. The virus was also able to evolve twice as quickly when the bacteria were allowed to evolve alongside it." ...	But what if there's no other species with which to co-evolve? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 from University of Iowa, via EurekAlert: UIowa study measures levels of PCBs flowing from Indiana canal to air and water "We have analyzed PCBs in surficial sediment, water, suspended particles and air and examined the potential for chemical movement in the harbor system," Hornbuckle said. "We have shown that the system is currently a significant source of PCBs to the air and to Lake Michigan, even under quiescent conditions."... "We were not surprised to discover that PCBs were continuously emitted from the sediments of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. However, without our study, there was no way to determine how much was being released. Now we better understand the magnitude of the PCB release to Lake Michigan and to the air over the harbor and canal," Hornbuckle said. "We have found that this tributary releases more PCBs to Lake Michigan than any other known direct discharge of PCBs to the lake." ...	PCBs -- the gift that just keeps on giving. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 from TIME: A Deal Sours, and the Hummer Bites the Dust GM's efforts to sell its Hummer brand to a little-known Chinese company have fallen apart, the U.S. automaker announced Wednesday. As a result, GM will begin to dismantle a brand of gas-guzzling SUVs that were synonymous with pre-financial crisis wealth and excess. Specific reasons for the failure of the deal, first announced last June, were not released. But Chinese regulators had frowned on the purchase for much the same reason that U.S. consumers shunned Hummer; the vehicle's size and poor fuel economy were incompatible in an era of high fuel prices, general economic weakness and greater concern about the harmful effects of vehicle emissions on the environment. ...	My heart is breaking. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 from Oceanography: A Very Inconvenient Truth (PDF) Once atmospheric temperature reaches equilibrium at a certain peak-overall GHG concentration, it will not drop markedly for the next thousand years even as GHG concentrations decline. This irreversibility comes about because the atmosphere's loss of heat to the ocean is even more gradual than its loss of CO2. The thermal inertia of the ocean, which is delaying the rate of climate warming today, will delay the rate of climate cooling in the future. A crucial point for policymakers and the public to recognize is that the global GHG stabilization level reached during the twenty-first century will have climatic consequences for the remainder of the millennium. ...	I think that means we still have a decade or two to party! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 25, 2010 from Scientific American: Waiting to Inhale: Deep-Ocean Low-Oxygen Zones Spreading to Shallower Coastal Waters A plague of oxygen-deprived waters from the deep ocean is creeping up over the continental shelves off the Pacific Northwest and forcing marine species there to relocate or die. Since 2002 tongues of hypoxic, or low-oxygen, waters from deeper areas offshore have slipped into shallower near-shore environments off the Oregon coast, although not close enough to be oxygenated by the waves. The problem stems from oxygen reduction in deep water, a phenomenon that some scientists are observing in oceans worldwide, and that may be related to climate change. The hypoxic seawater is distinct from the well-known "dead zones" that form at the mouths of the Mississippi and other rivers around the world. Those areas result from agricultural runoff, which lead to algae blooms that consume oxygen. Rather, the Pacific Northwest problem is broader and more mysterious. ...	I LOVE a mystery... um, except this kind. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 from NUVO Newsweekly: State sidesteps climate change survey When the National Association of Insurance Commissioners decided it would require large insurance companies to publicly disclose the risks they face from climate change -- and the steps they are taking to combat them -- insurers across the country had every reason to believe they would make their first disclosures on May 1 this year, as agreed upon by state insurance commissioners. Not so for Indiana's insurers. Or for insurers in several other states that seem to be following Indiana's lead... At least two more states have abandoned the survey altogether. NUVO confirmed with state insurance commissions that Mississippi and North Carolina have joined Indiana. Meanwhile, Alabama, Connecticut and Utah told NUVO they were reconsidering it. ...	The domiNO effect of states who say NO. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 from Haaretz: Bomb plant seepage creating Israel's worst-ever water pollution Rocket fuel and remains of explosives that seeped into the aquifer from the Israel Military Industries Ramat Hasharon plant are continuing to spread, according to data presented yesterday for the first time by the Water Authority and obtained by Haaretz. The materials, which are now present in a 16 square-kilometer area, were detected at levels thousands of times greater than allowable U.S. standards, constituting the worst instance of water pollution in Israel's history. Ten water wells have been closed so far as a result... One toxic material discovered in the ground water is an explosive known as RDX, detected at 1,300 times recommended safe levels for drinking water in the United States. ...	That is one furry aquifer. 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.
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 from Mongabay: Extinct animals are quickly forgotten: the baiji and shifting baselines Lead author of the study, Dr. Samuel Turvey, was a member of the original expedition in 2006. He returned to the Yangtze in 2008 to interview locals about their knowledge of the baiji and other vanishing megafauna in the river, including the Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest freshwater fish. In these interviews Turvey and his team found clear evidence of 'shifting baselines': where humans lose track of even large changes to their environment, such as the loss of a top predator like the baiji. "'Shifting baseline syndrome' is a social phenomenon whereby communities can forget about changes to the state of the environment during the recent past, if older community members don't talk to younger people about different species or ecological conditions that used to occur in their local region," Turvey explains. "These shifts in community perception typically mean that the true level of human impact on the environment is underestimated, or even not appreciated at all, since the original environmental 'baseline' has been forgotten." In other words, a community today may see an ecosystem as 'pristine' or 'complete', which their grandparents would view as hopelessly degraded. In turn what the current generation sees as a degraded environment, the next generation will see as 'natural'. The shifting baseline theory is relatively new�first appearing in 1995�and so it has not been widely examined in the field. ...	How handy! The extinctions are just a figment of our memories. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 24, 2010 from Telegraph.co.uk: New floating garbage patch found in Atlantic Ocean Researchers have found a high concentration of plastic debris is floating in the Atlantic Ocean north of the Caribbean, months after concerns were raised over a vast patch of rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean. The study's principal investigator said that the findings were based on more than 64,000 tiny bits of plastic collected over more than 22 years by Sea Education Association undergraduates. Researchers believe surface currents carry the debris to the area between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude and that waves also deliver trash to a spot between Hawaii and California known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.... The Great Pacific Garbage patch was originally discovered in 1997 by Captain Charles Moore. Roughtly the size of Texas, the patch is characterised by exceptionally high concentrations of suspended plastic, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. ...	Now kids -- no competing. You're both big enough as it is. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 from Bloomberg News: Climate-Change Fervor Cools Amid Disputed Science (Update1) ... Three years after former Vice President Gore won a Nobel Prize for sounding the alarm on climate change and GE, whose equipment generates about one-third of the world' s electricity, joined a coalition of companies pushing for a cap on greenhouse gases, public concern is flagging, along with U.S. and global efforts to mount government responses. Polls find more Americans questioning whether human activity is leading to climate change, or whether the trend is so dire as to justify reshaping U.S. energy use during an economic slump, as President Barack Obama has proposed. Record snowfalls in the U.S. also are fueling doubts. ...	Americans lead the world in believing in their own opinions. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 from New York Times: EPA's Gradual Phase In of GHG Regs Garners Qualified Praise From Senators Facing mounting pressure from congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the Obama administration yesterday vowed to gradually phase in climate regulations for industrial sources. U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that no stationary sources will face greenhouse gas regulations this year and that small sources will not be subject to permitting requirements any sooner than 2016. EPA is also considering "substantially" raising the thresholds in its proposed "tailoring" rule to exempt more facilities from requirements that they minimize their greenhouse gas emissions. ...	Whew!! We are off the hook again! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 from TIME Magazine: What's in Household Dust? You Don't Want to Know ...The specific dust mix in any household differs according to climate, age of the house and the number of people who live in it — not to mention the occupants' cooking, cleaning and smoking habits. But nearly everywhere, dust consists of some combination of shed bits of human skin, animal fur, decomposing insects, food debris, lint and organic fibers from clothes, bedding and other fabrics, tracked-in soil, soot, particulate matter from smoking and cooking, and, disturbingly, lead, arsenic and even DDT... There's not much to fret about in simple particles of dirt or organic materials such as pollen (although they can trigger allergies), but lead, arsenic and DDT can be a more serious matter. ...	Plus, all we ARE is... dust in the wind... ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 from ScienceDaily: Hazardous E-Waste Surging in Developing Countries Sales of electronic products in countries like China and India and across continents such as Africa and Latin America are set to rise sharply in the next 10 years. And, unless action is stepped up to properly collect and recycle materials, many developing countries face the spectre of hazardous e-waste mountains with serious consequences for the environment and public health, according to UN experts in a landmark report released February 22 by UNEP.... Moreover, most e-waste in China is improperly handled, much of it incinerated by backyard recyclers to recover valuable metals like gold -- practices that release steady plumes of far-reaching toxic pollution and yield very low metal recovery rates compared to state-of-the-art industrial facilities. ...	I love the smell of toxics in the morning. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 from AAAS, in Mongabay: 'No change whatsoever' in scientists' conviction that climate change is occurring "There has been no change in the scientific community, no change whatsoever" in the consensus that globally temperatures are rising, said Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. Recent data has shown that the decade from 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record.... "The reporting on this has been truly abominable," said ocean scientist James McCarthy of Harvard in regards to the snow storms on the east coast. While media outlets, some politicians, and well-known figures -- such as business-mogul and TV personality Donald Trump -- have stated that the record snowfalls have proven climate change wrong, the science behind climate change has in fact predicted larger precipitation events due to a warmer atmosphere, and therefore increased evaporation.... The IPCC report spans thousands of pages, but has been undermined in the media, according to McCarthy, by "two sentences on glaciers". ...	I thought scientists could be convinced by groundless, passionate assertions. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 from SolveClimate: Australia Group Rolls Out Plan for 100 percent Renewable Energy by 2020 A report to be released in the first half of this year finds that Australia can use solar and wind power to produce 100 percent of its electricity in 10 years using technologies that are available now.... "We have concluded that there are no technological impediments to transforming Australia�s stationary energy sector to zero emissions over the next 10 years," said Matthew Wright, executive director of Beyond Zero Emissions. Australia now gets nearly 80 percent of its power from coal plants. Only 1 percent comes from wind power; less than half of 1 percent comes from solar energy.... Wright concedes that the plan is ambitious. At the same time, he says, it is "totally feasible," despite the price tag. The cost of quitting carbon entirely is estimated at around $36 billion per year, or up to 3.5 percent of Australia's annual GDP. ...	But what if we have no advancements in the next five years? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 from USGS, via EurekAlert: Ice shelves disappearing on Antarctic Peninsula Ice shelves are retreating in the southern section of the Antarctic Peninsula due to climate change. This could result in glacier retreat and sea-level rise if warming continues, threatening coastal communities and low-lying islands worldwide. Research by the U.S. Geological Survey is the first to document that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula has been retreating overall from 1947 to 2009, with the most dramatic changes occurring since 1990. The USGS previously documented that the majority of ice fronts on the entire Peninsula have also retreated during the late 20th century and into the early 21st century.... The Peninsula is one of Antarctica's most rapidly changing areas because it is farthest away from the South Pole, and its ice shelf loss may be a forecast of changes in other parts of Antarctica and the world if warming continues. ...	I know -- let's geobuild bookends for those shelves! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 from The Australian: Toxic water linked to forestry trees RESEARCH has linked toxicity in a Tasmanian river used for drinking water to the leaves of genetically improved plantation eucalypt trees, prompting calls for a wider inquiry. The woman behind the work, local GP Alison Bleaney, yesterday told The Australian the findings, featured on ABC TV's Australian Story tonight, warranted a full and thorough inquiry. "We need to get to the bottom of this so that forestry can go on growing their trees and we can continue to drink our water," Dr Bleaney said. A long investigation by Dr Bleaney and Sydney scientist Marcus Scammell -- involving the testing of water at independent laboratories interstate -- concluded a toxin found in the George River on Tasmania's east coast was from the leaves of the eucalyptus nitens. ...	This is a devil of a problem ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 from London Independent: Methane levels may see 'runaway' rise, scientists warn Atmospheric levels of methane, the greenhouse gas which is much more powerful than carbon dioxide, have risen significantly for the last three years running, scientists will disclose today -- leading to fears that a major global-warming "feedback" is beginning to kick in. For some time there has been concern that the vast amounts of methane, or "natural gas", locked up in the frozen tundra of the Arctic could be released as the permafrost is melted by global warming. This would give a huge further impetus to climate change, an effect sometimes referred to as "the methane time bomb". ...	Quit with the feedback already! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 from Associated Press: Study: Warming to bring stronger hurricanes Top researchers now agree that the world is likely to get stronger but fewer hurricanes in the future because of global warming, seeming to settle a scientific debate on the subject... The study offers projections for tropical cyclones worldwide by the end of this century, and some experts said the bad news outweighs the good. Overall strength of storms as measured in wind speed would rise by 2 to 11 percent, but there would be between 6 and 34 percent fewer storms in number. Essentially, there would be fewer weak and moderate storms and more of the big damaging ones, which also are projected to be stronger due to warming. An 11 percent increase in wind speed translates to roughly a 60 percent increase in damage, said study co-author Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT. The storms also would carry more rain, another indicator of damage, said lead author Tom Knutson, a research meteorologist at NOAA. ...	How about just one giant storm?! Oh wait... that's the Apocalypse. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 from Penn State via ScienceDaily: Diversity of Corals, Algae in Warm Indian Ocean Suggests Resilience to Future Global Warming Penn State researchers and their international collaborators have discovered a diversity of corals harboring unusual species of symbiotic algae in the warm waters of the Andaman Sea in the northeastern Indian Ocean. "The existence of so many novel coral symbioses thriving in a place that is too warm for most corals gives us hope that coral reefs and the ecosystems they support may persist -- at least in some places -- in the face of global warming," said the team's leader, Penn State Assistant Professor of Biology Todd LaJeunesse. According to LaJeunesse, the comprehensiveness of the team's survey, which also included analysis of the corals and symbiotic algae living in the cooler western Indian Ocean and Great Barrier Reef area of Australia, is unparalleled by any other study. ...	Sh... Don't tell anyone! ApocaDoc permalink