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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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Species Collapse:	(5)
Plague/Virus:	(2)
Climate Chaos:	(8)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
contamination ~ oil issues ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ economic myopia ~ massive die-off ~ climate impacts ~ short-term thinking ~ carbon emissions ~ governmental idiocy ~ toxic buildup ~ superbugs

ApocaDocuments (32) gathered this week:
Sun, May 16, 2010 from London Daily Mail: After 12,000-mile flight to green meeting, there's MUTINY in the Climate Camp A decision by a climate-change group to fly leading activists 12,000 miles to a conference threatens to tear the movement apart. The leadership of Climate Camp - which is opposed to flying and airport expansion - have been accused of hypocrisy after they sent two members on a 1,200 [pounds] round-trip to Bolivia. The leaders argued it was necessary to attend the 'transnational protest' - even though the flights generated eight tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases. Now a furious backlash against the trip threatens to split the group, which in the past has blockaded Heathrow airport and clashed with police at demonstrations against coal-fired power stations. ...	Why can't we all just get (telepathically) along? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, May 16, 2010 from Scientific American: Fungi Take a Bite out of BPA Bisphenol A. Also called BPA, it's used to make shatter-proof plastic known as polycarbonate, found in everything from water bottles to medical devices to the lining of food packaging. As much as 2.7 million tons of plastics are manufactured each year with BPA. But it's also an endocrine disruptor posing a threat to fetuses and young children. And it's been linked to cancer and metabolic disorders leading to obesity. So how can plastics be properly disposed of to avoid releasing BPA into the environment? Some fungus may help. So say researchers publishing in the journal Biomacromolecules. ...	Some of my best friends are biomacromolecules! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, May 16, 2010 from Reuters: Faster, stronger, deadlier: the MRSA superbug When she first described it in 1961, Patricia Jevons, a British bacteriologist, may have had a hard time imagining that the tiny bug she was staring at would soon become a penicillin-mocking juggernaut -- a superbug that kills an estimated 19,000 Americans a year and make millions more sick. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- or MRSA for short -- is the subject of journalist Maryn McKenna's new book Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA (Free Press, March 2010)... But hospitals aren't the only breeding ground for MRSA: A strain known as community-MRSA has been around for years. Although there isn't sufficient surveillance, according to McKenna, one study estimated that seven million Americans make a trip to the doctor every year because of these bacteria. ...	A great summer read! except in the hospital and on the beach and ... ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, May 16, 2010 from Associated Press: Huge oil plumes found under Gulf as BP struggles Oil from a blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes as much as 10 miles long below the visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said as BP wrestled for a third day Sunday with its latest contraption for slowing the nearly month-old gusher. BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the U.S., has been unable to thread a tube into the leak to siphon the crude to a tanker, its third approach to stopping or reducing the spill on the ocean floor. Engineers remotely steering robot submersibles were trying again Sunday to fit the tube into a breach nearly a mile below the surface, BP said. ...	I no like it when stuff is going on beneath the surface. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, May 15, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg.com: Asian ivory black market poses danger to African elephant Carefully, the Chinese ivory dealer pulled out an elephant tusk cloaked in bubble wrap and hidden in a bag of flour. Its price: $17,000. "Do you have any idea how many years I could get locked away in prison for having this?" said the dealer, a short man in his 40s, who gave his name as Chen. A surge in demand for ivory in Asia is fuelling an illicit trade in elephant tusks, especially from Africa. Over the past eight years, the price of ivory has gone up from about $100 per kilogram ($100 per 2.2 pounds) to $1,800, creating a lucrative black market. Experts warn that if the trade is not stopped, elephant populations could dramatically plummet. The elephants could be nearly extinct by 2020, some activists say. Sierra Leone lost its last elephants in December, and Senegal has fewer than 10 left.... In Kenya alone, poaching deaths spiked seven-fold in the last three years, culminating in 271 elephant killings last year. The Tsavo National Park area had 50,000 elephants in the 1960s; today, it has 11,000. And at least 10 Chinese nationals have been arrested at Kenya's airport trying to transport ivory back to Asia since the beginning of last year. ...	I think the elephant decline is just natural variation. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, May 15, 2010 from PhysOrg.com: Rivers closest to Toronto have highest concentrations of PCBs, other chemicals: study A University of Toronto study of the concentrations of PCBs and other chemicals in the rivers running into Lake Ontario reveals significantly higher concentrations in areas closest to the centre of Toronto, an indication of the profound effects the city has on water quality.... The team looked specifically at concentrations of chemicals that have been strongly associated with human health problems: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a banned industrial chemical from the 1970s; polycyclic musks, a common fragrance compound used in a range of personal care products; polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a recently banned flame retardant; and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a toxic byproduct of fossil fuel combustion in the rivers. They also measured the concentration of these chemicals in air, soil and rain. "In the Humber River watershed we saw an almost 100-fold increase in concentrations of polycyclic musks in the river water in the downtown area around Old Mill compared with parts of the river north of the city," said Matthew Robson, a research fellow in the Department of Geography and Program in Planning. "We saw similar increases in concentrations for all of the other chemicals in air, rain and soil...." ...	I'm sure Milwaukee is different. And Des Moines. Or LA. Or Houston. Or Nairobi! Those silly Canadians. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, May 15, 2010 from Nola.com: Tiniest victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may turn out to be most important But scientists who know these estuaries best are more concerned about a less photogenic community. The grass, microscopic algae and critters living in the wafer-thin top layer of marsh mud - called the benthic community - are the fuel that drives the whole system. If it's covered with oil, everything above, including birds, fish and cute, furry critters, will be in trouble. And so will the humans who rely on the marsh for storm protection and seafood production. "The top two millimeters of that marsh muck is where the action is in a coastal estuary," said Kevin Carman, dean of the College of Basic Sciences at LSU. "That's the base, the food that fuels the whole system... fish, shrimp, oysters, all the species that rely on the estuary." Half of the all the life created in the one of the world's most productive estuaries takes place in this slimy zone just seven-hundredths of an inch thick. It's a world too small for the human eye to detect and involves creatures few people have ever heard of, but one that looms huge for the larger critters in the system.... But if the oil is thick enough to coat the soil as well as the leaves and stems and seeps into the soil to affect the roots, the impact could be far longer, and much more serious. "In that case it might be five or six years before the oil is degraded enough, because the soil would have no oxygen and no light and the organisms that can degrade the oil would not be there," he said. "We seen examples at inland spills when the soil was soaked, and nothing really grew there for four years." ...	And here I thought the oil would work like moisturizer! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, May 14, 2010 from MIT, via PhysOrg.com: New water-splitting catalyst found, for feeding H to fuel cells He has focused his research on the development of less-expensive, more-durable materials to use as the electrodes in devices that use electricity to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water molecules. By doing so, he aims to imitate the process of photosynthesis, by which plants harvest sunlight and convert the energy into chemical form. Nocera pictures small-scale systems in which rooftop solar panels would provide electricity to a home, and any excess would go to an electrolyzer -- a device for splitting water molecules -- to produce hydrogen, which would be stored in tanks. When more energy was needed, the hydrogen would be fed to a fuel cell, where it would combine with oxygen from the air to form water, and generate electricity at the same time.... This time the material is nickel borate, made from materials that are even more abundant and inexpensive than the earlier find. Even more significantly, Nocera says, the new finding shows that the original compound was not a unique, anomalous material, and suggests that there may be a whole family of such compounds that researchers can study in search of one that has the best combination of characteristics to provide a widespread, long-term energy-storage technology.... The original discovery has already led to the creation of a company, called Sun Catalytix, that aims to commercialize the system in the next two years. ...	Are you kidding? I prefer good ol' coal-fired plants and high monthly bills. At least that's dependable. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, May 14, 2010 from New York Times: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say But scientists and environmental groups are raising sharp questions about that estimate, declaring that the leak must be far larger. They also criticize BP for refusing to use well-known scientific techniques that would give a more precise figure. The criticism escalated on Thursday, a day after the release of a video that showed a huge black plume of oil gushing from the broken well at a seemingly high rate. BP has repeatedly claimed that measuring the plume would be impossible. The figure of 5,000 barrels a day was hastily produced by government scientists in Seattle. It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills.... BP has repeatedly said that its highest priority is stopping the leak, not measuring it. "There's just no way to measure it," Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said in a recent briefing.... "If we are systematically underestimating the rate that's being spilled, and we design a response capability based on that underestimate, then the next time we have an event of this magnitude, we are doomed to fail again," said John Amos, the president of SkyTruth. "So it's really important to get this number right." ...	Whyever would BP want to hide their gushing blunder? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, May 14, 2010 from ChemicalWatch: Bill on screening for endocrine disrupters in drinking water enters Congress Ed Markey, chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee,and Jim Moran, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior and the Environment,have introduced the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Enhancement Act (HR 5210), which is designed to update the US Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program. The Bill requires the US Environmental Protection Agency to establish a programme that tests chemicals found in drinking water to determine whether they are endocrine disruptors and if so, to determine the extent of their ability to interfere with the body's hormonal system. The EPA would have to produce a schedule for identifying and testing substances found in drinking water, ensuring that at least 100 chemicals found in drinking water were tested within four years. ...	And not a moment too soon! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, May 14, 2010 from Guardian: Bill Gates' cloud-whitening trials 'a dangerous experiment' Campaigners have criticised plans for a sea trial of cloud-whitening technology, funded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. A US-based research body, Silver Lining, which has received $300,000 from Mr Gates, is developing machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles to be sprayed into clouds. Scientists believe this will increase the whiteness, or albedo, of clouds and increase their ability to reflect more sunlight back into space, reducing global warming. The Gates-backed sea trial would be the largest known attempt to geoengineer the climate so far, reported to be conducted over an area of 10,000km2. However, campaigners say such a large-scale trial is 'risky' and that a global ban on geoengineering experiments should be put in place until regulations governing the sector can be introduced. ...	The fearful Vista, from my Windows, is that the XPeriment may lead to the "blue sky of death." ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, May 14, 2010 from BBC: Climate change link to lizard extinction Climate change could wipe out 20 percent of the world's lizard species by 2080, according to a global-scale study. An international team of scientists also found that rising temperatures had aready driven 12 percent of Mexico's lizard populations to extinction. Based on this discovery, the team was able to make global predictions using an "extinction model". They conclude, in an article in Science journal, that "lizards have already crossed a threshold for extinctions". Although the grim prediction for 2080 could change if humans are able to slow global climate warming, the scientists say that a sharp decline in their numbers had already begun and would continue for decades. ...	Pshaw, in 70 years we'll have fixed every problem. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, May 13, 2010 from Reuters: China scientists find use for cigarette butts Chemical extracts from cigarette butts -- so toxic they kill fish -- can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, a study in China has found. In a paper published in the American Chemical Society's bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water. They applied the extracts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting. ...	I'll smoke to that! 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!
Thu, May 13, 2010 from Post-Tribune: Feds: State pollution regulations too soft MERRILLVILLE -- The state of Indiana is too lax in its proposed rules for when polluters can discharge more pollution into Lake Michigan and other lakes and rivers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says. In some circumstances, revamped state rules would allow up to 2.5 times more pollution than federal law allows, the EPA says. By request from environmentalists, the agency has intervened to require the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to change the rules to make them acceptable. ...	Hoosiers tend to be 2.5 times more resilient than average Americans. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, May 13, 2010 from DC Bureau: Poseidon's Desalinization Plant: Dream Water Supply or Draining the Pacific and Taxpayers? ...After 12 years of permitting battles, the [Poseidon] desalination plant - which could open the floodgates for many others on the California coast - may finally be built. Best of all, the developers promise, it will cost the public nothing to build... But dozens of interviews and a review of available records by the Public Education Center's DCBureau.org shows that while private equity and bonds would be used for upfront construction, southern Californians would pay at least $640 million over 30 years for the project, including as much as $374 million in public subsidies...But critics say that far from being a New Age answer to water woes, the plant and others like it are costly, unnecessary boondoggles that often malfunction and carry damaging environmental side effects. They argue keeping water prices artificially low through subsidies for costly desalination plants is the wrong approach, and that conservation, recycling wastewater, and other far cheaper alternatives should be tried first. ...	Sounds like a Poseidon adventure waiting to happen. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, May 13, 2010 from Financial Times: BP's Hayward in 'battle' for hearts and minds One man sits in a room surrounded by eight empty bottles of water as if he has not moved in hours. On a table in another room, name cards from Halliburton, Oceaneering and others who have offered assistance are scattered across a table spread with papers.... Yet, Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, appears to be taking it all in his stride. He began at 6am on Wednesday in discussions with the US secretaries of energy and the interior, Steven Chu and Ken Salazar, as well as top scientists and engineers on BP's efforts to cap and contain the leak. That ended close to noon, when he had a conference call with BP's board - something he has been doing every week to 10 days to update them on progress.... "We will only win this if we can win the hearts and minds of the local community," he said. "It's a big challenge."... "Apollo 13 did not stop the space programme. The Air France airplane that fell out of the sky off of Brazil did not stop the aviation industry,'' he said.... "I've actually got some good friends through this," he said, noting he had been dealing with people he would not ordinarily. "We are fighting a battle." ...	My heart is black with toxic oil. My mind reels. This is not a war. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, May 13, 2010 from New Scientist: Baby vaccine contaminated with pig virus Swine viruses are back - but this time they don't seem to be making anyone sick. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reported that stocks of Merck's Rotateq vaccine against rotavirus are contaminated with the pig viruses PCV1 and PCV2. But the agency has not advised doctors to stop using it as the pig viruses aren't known to cause disease in humans, and rotavirus kills roughly half a million infants worldwide each year. An FDA advisory panel said the vaccine's benefits still outweigh its risks. The FDA plans to monitor recipients for pig virus-related illness. "There will be quite careful monitoring of the people that have received the vaccine and I think that's entirely appropriate," says virologist Stephen Hughes, who advised the FDA on the issue. Rotavirus vaccines are mainly given to infants in the developing world, where the virus is most likely to kill. ...	That way, when the pig virus mutates, these infants will be pre-vaccinated! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, May 13, 2010 from AFP, via Yahoo: Scientists stunned as grey whale sighted off Israel The appearance of a grey whale off the coast of Israel has stunned scientists, in what was thought to be the first time the giant mammal has been seen outside the Pacific in several hundred years. The whale, which was first sighted off Herzliya in central Israel on Saturday, is believed to have travelled thousands of miles from the north Pacific after losing its way in search of food.... "What has amazed the entire marine mammal research community is there haven't been any grey whales in the Atlantic since the 18th century," he said. Scheinin said the creature, a mature whale measuring some 12 metres (39 feet) and weighing around 20 tonnes, probably reached the Atlantic through the Northwest Passage, an Arctic sea route that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and is normally covered with ice. ...	That's not quite what I was thinking when I said "save the whales." ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, May 12, 2010 from HousingWatch: Gulf Coast Real Estate Threatened by Oil Spill Five years after the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, real estate players are predicting that BP's oil spill has the potential to hinder the Gulf Coast more severely than that epic storm. "This will be 100 times worse," says Christine Weber, a real estate agent near Biloxi, Miss., who says she can already smell the fumes from her house five miles from the shoreline. "It is not something that can be cleaned up like a hurricane where you can replace a roof. You can't remove oil from the sand or the water."... "We won't have anything around here," she adds. "It will be desolate."... It is still not possible to really know for sure just how costly this debacle will prove to be to both the region's and nation's economy: It is a tragedy that is still very much unfolding--or, in this case, flowing. Often, initial guesstimates of economic damage from natural (or man made) disasters prove to be wildly overstated. But why do I have a feeling that, in this case, the initial estimates will prove to be largely understated? ...	On the bright side, it saves the hassle of dealing with sea level rise. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, May 12, 2010 from SciDev.net: Biodiversity leaders lament failure to reach the powerful Poor communication has contributed to the failure to meet the 2010 global conservation targets, according to a major report released yesterday (May 10). The world is nearing ′tipping points′ in which whole ecosystems could collapse, said the third Global Biodiversity Outlook, produced by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). But, though the importance of biodiversity loss has reached some parts of many governments around the world, it has failed to be absorbed by those with the power to act, the report finds.... "The CBD has very nearly universal participation from the world's governments, yet those involved in its implementation rarely have the influence to promote action at the level required to effect real change," says the report. ...	There, there, biologists. You just go and do another of your little studies, and we'll put it on our "to be read" stack. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, May 12, 2010 from CBC: Perfumes' chemical safety unknown: report Top-selling fragrances contain chemicals that can trigger allergic reactions or disrupt hormones but are not listed on labels, according to a new report calling for changes in federal regulations. The report, released Wednesday by Environmental Defence in Canada and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in the U.S., assessed 17 fragrances bought in both countries that were tested by an independent laboratory in California. They included Britney Spears' Curious, Calvin Klein Eternity, Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce and Old Spice body spray. The tests found a dozen or more chemicals not listed on labels, multiple chemicals that can trigger allergic reactions or disrupt hormones, and substances that have not been assessed for safety by the beauty industry's self-policing review panels, the groups said.... An average of 10 sensitizing chemicals that can trigger allergic reactions such as headaches, wheezing, asthma, infant diarrhea and vomiting and reduced pulmonary function, were found in each product. * An average of four hormone-disrupting chemicals were found in each product. The chemicals may mimic the hormone estrogen. ...	Some perfumes just stink. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, May 11, 2010 from DesdemonaDespair: South pole has warmest year on record: 2009 The South Pole experienced its warmest year on record in 2009, according to newly released data from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The average temperature at the South Pole last year was still a bone-chilling minus 54.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 47.9 degrees Celsius) in 2009, making it the warmest year on record since 1957, when temperature records began at the South Pole. The previous record high was minus 54.4 F (minus 48 C), recorded in 2002, according to Tim Markle, senior meteorologist at the South Pole Station in Antarctica. Last year was also the second warmest year on record for the planet, according to NASA measurements of global surface temperatures released earlier this year. The global record warm year, in the period of near-global instrumental measurements since the late 1800s, was 2005. ...	What good is that? We don't even need a Southwest Passage. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, May 11, 2010 from Inter Press Service: Adding More Coal to the Fire Bucking recommendations to build up renewable energy sources, Argentina is forging ahead with a plan that will increase its dependence on coal, regarded as the most polluting fossil fuel. Next to the Rio Turbio coal mine, in the southern Argentine province of Santa Cruz, a group of private companies is building a coal-fired thermoelectric power station that will supply electricity to the national grid. Environmentalists are opposing the power plant, designed to have a capacity of 240 megawatts, consume 5,400 tonnes of coal a day and produce 1.6 million tonnes of waste a year, the disposal of which is not clearly addressed in the environmental impact study, they say. ...	I'd say it's about time to start crying for Argentina. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, May 11, 2010 from New York Times: Energy Interests Spend Millions for Their Seat at the Climate Table Businesses with significant stakes in the outcome of climate and energy legislation ramped up lobbying spending earlier this year as they worked to shape the Senate bill scheduled to be unveiled this week. Electric utilities and the coal, chemical and natural gas industries in particular boosted influence efforts and appear poised to receive key parts of what they sought in new climate policies. Utilities and coal are likely to see language that lets power plants escape most penalties for greenhouse gas emissions in the early years of a carbon restriction program, according to those familiar with the draft legislation. Chemical companies could garner a delay in having to comply with new rules. Natural gas hopes to win incentives that would help companies increase their share of the energy market. ...	We wouldn't want to be in a hurry would we? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, May 11, 2010 from Edmonton Journal (Alberta): BP tragedy makes oilsands look good BP's tragic oil well rupture in the Gulf of Mexico points out a cruel irony -- Canada's "dirty oil" from the Athabasca Sands now looks pretty good compared with oil from offshore drilling. For 10 years, green-leaning politicians and policy gurus have talked about the "ecological carnage of the tarsands" and targeted them as the "worst project in the world." Now the oilsands and heavy oil of Alberta and Saskatchewan are proving themselves one of the world's most stable and productive petroleum sources. It's a resource that has turned Canada overnight into the world's major new petro power.... Will this bonanza last? The only threat to the Athabasca party comes from solar technology. Current silicon cells are only 30-per-cent efficient at best, but new thin-film nanosolar technology will be up to 85-per-cent efficient and able to compete with gasoline in 10 to 15 years, eventually powering most short-haul cars and delivery vehicles. Meanwhile, we are blessed with a huge resource that will let us survive the growing threat of peak oil and reach a more sustainable future. ...	Hooray! Now it's only the second-most-hideous project in the world! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, May 10, 2010 from National Geographic News: Underground "Fossil Water" Running Out In the world's driest places, "fossil water" is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel, experts say. This ancient freshwater was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers. And like oil, no one knows how much there is--but experts do know that when it's gone, it's gone....paleowater is the only option in many water-strapped nations. For instance, Libya is habitable because of aquifers--some of them 75,000 years old--discovered under the Sahara's sands during 1950s oil explorations. The North African country receives little rain, and its population is concentrated on the coasts, where groundwater reserves are becoming increasingly brackish and nearing depletion. ...	I fear there will be fur in my 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.
Mon, May 10, 2010 from London Times: BP to try golf long shot to stop Gulf of Mexico oil leak BP was last night considering a new plan of attack in its attempts to stop a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico - blocking the ruptured well with golf balls and rubber tyres. Forced back to the drawing board following the failure of a salvage effort on Saturday - when a 120-tonne steel box was lowered to the seabed to cover the leak, only to become blocked by icy sludge - it was looking into changing tack with an operation that its chief executive, Doug Suttles, likened to "stopping up a toilet." Thad Allen, commandant of the US Coast Guard, explained: "The next tactic is going to be something they call a 'junk shot'. They're actually going to take a bunch of debris - shredded up tyres, golf balls and things like that - and under very high pressure shoot it in...and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak." ...	Gosh, if that doesn't work, how about a giant piece of bubblegum? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, May 10, 2010 from London Daily Mail: The infertility timebomb: Are men facing rapid extinction? There's a crisis brewing, but it has nothing to do with the economic deficit or the current political uncertainty. Scientists are warning that rising levels of male infertility have become so perilous that it is a serious 'public health issue'. And some go even further. Professor Niels Skakkebaek, of the University of Copenhagen, describes the issue 'as important as global warming'. Last week, one science writer even suggested, in starkly terrifying terms, that if scientists from Mars were to study the male reproductive system, they would possibly conclude that man was destined for rapid extinction. And if it continues, this trend could indicate men are on a path to becoming completely infertile within a few generations. ...	As long as there are a few studly guys like me still around, we'll manage. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, May 10, 2010 from PNAS: Importance of carbon dioxide physiological forcing to future climate change An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration influences climate both directly through its radiative effect (i.e., trapping longwave radiation) and indirectly through its physiological effect (i.e., reducing transpiration of land plants).... [R]elative humidity remains roughly constant in response to CO2-radiative forcing, whereas relative humidity over land decreases in response to CO2-physiological forcing as a result of reduced plant transpiration. Our study points to an emerging consensus that the physiological effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 on land plants will increase global warming beyond that caused by the radiative effects of CO2. ...	OMG! Even the plants are conspiring against us! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, May 10, 2010 from ScienceDaily: Rare 114-Year Record, Kept by Generations, Logs Changing Climate Every day since Jan. 1, 1896, an observer has hiked to a spot at The Mohonk Preserve, a resort and nature area some 90 miles north of New York City, to record daily temperature and other conditions there. It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years.... Prior to 1980, it was rare for the thermometer to surpass about 89 degrees more than 10 days a year; since then, such events have come to Mohonk on at least 10 days a year -- and often, on more than 20 days. At the same time, the number of freezing days has been decreasing--about a day less every five years over the long term, but since the 1970s, at the accelerated rate of a day every two years. This also matches wide-scale observations in North America and elsewhere.... "The advantage to Mohonk is that we can revisit the record in detail, with minimal corrections. This helps confirm the large-scale trends, and it helps us identify stations with errors that need to be corrected." ...	Um.... Uh... Yeah, but they weren't scientists! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, May 10, 2010 from BBC: Nature loss 'to damage economies' The Earth's ongoing nature losses may soon begin to hit national economies, a major UN report has warned. The third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) says that some ecosystems may soon reach "tipping points" where they rapidly become less useful to humanity. Such tipping points could include rapid dieback of forest, algal takeover of watercourses and mass coral reef death. Last month, scientists confirmed that governments would not meet their target of curbing biodiversity loss by 2010.... The global abundance of vertebrates - the group that includes mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and fish - fell by about one-third between 1970 and 2006, the UN says.... "If the world made equivalent losses in share prices, there would be a rapid response and widespread panic."... "Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity, or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world: the truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050." ...	And who are you to be calling my belief system an illusion? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, May 10, 2010 from SciDev.net: Biofuels from algae plagued with problems, says review Hopes that algae could become a source of biodiesel that is friendly both to the environment and the poor may be premature, according to a review. When early sources of biofuels -- mostly derived from food crops -- incurred widespread criticism for being harmful to the environment, undermining food security, and being unlikely to reduce overall carbon emissions, algae emerged as a potential biofuel source that could sidestep these problems. But they have serious drawbacks that may mean they can never compete with other fuels, according to Gerhard Knothe, a research chemist with the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.... Knothe found that "many, if not most" of the biodiesel fuels derived from algae have "significant problems" when it comes to their ability to flow well at lower temperatures ('cold flow') and they also degrade more easily than other biofuels.... Luiz Pereira Ramos, chemist at the Federal University of Parana, Brazil, said Knothe was "absolutely correct. Most of the algae-derived biodiesel investigated to date are not suitable for fuel use." ...	Not to worry! There won't be any "cold flow" temperatures anyway! ApocaDoc permalink