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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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Species Collapse:	(6)
Plague/Virus:	(1)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
arctic meltdown ~ unintended consequences ~ water issues ~ toxic buildup ~ oil issues ~ climate impacts ~ fertilizer runoff ~ overfishing ~ ocean warming ~ global warming ~ governmental corruption

ApocaDocuments (38) gathered this week:
Sun, Aug 8, 2010 from SciDev.net: Scientists reject aerosol geoengineering Geoengineering schemes that could help some countries deal with global warming could have the opposite effect in others, according to a study.... Previous studies only examined a small number of scenarios for [Solar Radiation Management (SRM)] and did not look at how those impacts would differ on regional level. But a study published in the August issue of Nature Geoscience examined the effects of 54 different approaches to deflecting solar radiation on 23 macro-regions of the world and found that the impacts of SRM could vary at regional levels. Pumping aerosols into the atmosphere, for example, would have different effects on climate in China and India. The differences would grow with time, posing challenges to international governance of such interventions. The analysis showed that while a given action could restore climate in both countries to the baseline before man-made global warming, by the 2070s, the strategies needed to achieve the same results in different countries would conflict with each other. ...	I think that's called "the free market." We're free to screw everyone else, right? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Aug 8, 2010 from Daily Mail: Billions of pieces of rubbish clogging Three Gorges ... But China's Three Gorges superstructure is now under threat from vast floating islands of rubbish and debris which have been swept into the Yangtze River by torrential rain and flooding. The debris has clogged a large swathe of the river and the locks of the hydroelectric dam - which cost $25billion to build and claimed more than 100 lives - are now at risk. The crust of rubbish is jammed so thick in places that people can stand on it. The Three Gorges rubbish jam is not an isolated occurrence. Another island covering 15,000 square metres - more than 150,000 square feet - had lodged under a bridge in the north-eastern city of Baishan in Jilin province and was blocking water flow. Officials in Baishan are racing against time to clear the debris as they fear a fresh wave of flooding could bring down the bridge. If the island is washed downstream, it could block floodgates at the Yunfeng dam, now operating at full capacity.... 'We have collected 40 trucks of the trash, but the remaining trash might fill another 200 trucks,' police officer Wang Yong said. More rain is forecast in the coming days. ...	Thank goodness this is an isolated occurrence! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Aug 8, 2010 from Scientific American: Genetically Modified Crop on the Loose and Evolving in U.S. Midwest Outside a grocery store in Langdon, N.D., two ecologists spotted a yellow canola plant growing on the margins of a parking lot this summer. They plucked it, ground it up and, using a chemical stick similar to those in home pregnancy kits, identified proteins that were made by artificially introduced genes. The plant was GM--genetically modified.... What was more surprising was that nearly everywhere the two ecologists and their colleagues stopped during a trip across the state, they found GM canola growing in the wild. "We found transgenic plants growing in the middle of nowhere, far from fields," says ecologist Cindy Sagers.... Most intriguingly, two of the 288 tested plants showed man-made genes for resistance to multiple pesticides--so-called "stacked traits," and a type of seed that biotechnology companies like Monsanto have long sought to develop and market. As it seems, Mother Nature beat biotech to it. "One of the ones with multiple traits was [in the middle of] nowhere, and believe me, there's a lot of nowhere in North Dakota--nowhere near a canola field," she adds. ...	Those stacked traits belong to Monsanto now! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Aug 8, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg: Ruptured Mich. oil pipeline shows lengthwise rip Officials say a ruptured section of pipeline that spewed oil into a southern Michigan river had a lengthwise rip that likely is less than five feet long. The Environmental Protection Agency and pipeline company Enbridge Inc. said Saturday the section was removed a day earlier in Calhoun County and will be shipped to a National Transportation Safety Board lab in Washington, D.C. Enbridge Executive Vice President Steve Wuori (WUHR'-ee) says officials on the scene can't tell from looking at the pipeline what led to the failure. Enbridge reported the spill July 26. The EPA says more than 1 million gallons of oil have flowed into the Kalamazoo River and other waterways. The company estimates the total at 820,000 gallons. ...	I bet it was Uncle Buster using his mini-backhoe. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 7, 2010 from Associated Press: Climate talks appear to slip backward Global climate talks appeared to have slipped backward after five days of negotiations in Bonn, with rich and poor countries exchanging charges of reneging on agreements they made last year to contain greenhouse gases. Delegates complained that reversals in the talks put negotiations back by a year, even before minimal gains were scored at the Copenhagen summit last December. "It's a little bit like a broken record," said European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger. "It's like a flashback," agreed Raman Mehta, of the Action Aid environment group. "The discourse is the same level" as before Copenhagen. ...	We're a planet full of slackers. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 7, 2010 from LiveScience: Rare Coral Discovered in Pacific Ocean What could be the world's rarest coral has been discovered in the remote North Pacific Ocean. The Pacific elkhorn coral (Acropora rotumana) - with branches like an elk's antlers - was found during an underwater survey of the Arno atoll in the Marshall Islands. Corals are tiny creatures that live in skeleton-covered colonies, creating the illusion that a coral community is one single organism. This newfound coral colony may be the first time this species has been spotted in more than 100 years, according to researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) in Queensland, Australia. ...	Let's fire up our personal watercraft boats and check it out! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 7, 2010 from AolNews: Giant Ice Island Breaks Off From Greenland A giant chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan has broken off from one of Greenland's two biggest glaciers, creating the largest Arctic iceberg since 1962. The new ice island has a surface area of about 100 square miles and a thickness of about half the height of the Empire State Building. It broke off from the Petermann Glacier on Thursday, and was spotted by a NASA satellite sensor... Icebergs often break off from glaciers in summer, when the ice begins to melt and gets thinner in some areas, triggering cracks. The process has been exacerbated by global warming, and the melting of arctic glaciers could lead to a rise in global sea levels. ...	It better be a nice iceberg. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 6, 2010 from Biogeosciences: Ocean acidification shows no effect on Baltic Cod sperm Ocean acidification, as a consequence of increasing marine pCO2, may have severe effects on the physiology of marine organisms. However, experimental studies remain scarce, in particular concerning fish. While adults will most likely remain relatively unaffected by changes in seawater pH, early life-history stages are potentially more sensitive - particularly the critical stage of fertilization, in which sperm motility plays a central role. In this study, the effects of ocean acidification (decrease of pH to 7.55) on sperm motility of Baltic cod, Gadus morhua, were assessed. We found no significant effect of decreased pH on sperm speed, rate of change of direction or percent motility for the population of cod analyzed. We predict that future ocean acidification will probably not pose a problem for sperm behavior, and hence fertilization success, of Baltic cod. ...	We've got endocrine disruptors for that! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 6, 2010 from Fast Company: Desertification of Nebraska Not Enough to Convince Climate Change Deniers, Says Poll The tipping point that turns skeptics into believers seems nearly impossible to reach when it comes to climate change. That isn't changing anytime soon, according to the Shelton Group's new Green Living Pulse study. The poll surveyed 1,098 consumers who buy green products on occasion, and asked climate change skeptics what it would take for them to believe that climate change is real and caused by humans. Answer: even an ice-free North Pole or a dustbowl on the Great Plains barely move the needle. The study says that 15 percent of skeptical respondents would be convinced by a melted polar ice cap, 15 percent would respond if kids should no longer go outside to play in the summer because of dangerous pollution levels, 3 percent would be swayed if changing weather patterns turned Nebraska into a desert, 2 percent would warm to the idea if there were only 20 polar bears left in the wild, and just 0.6 percent would be convinced if residents of America Samoa had to relocate because of rising tides. ...	This ship is unsinkable! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 6, 2010 from BBC: Pakistan floods 'hit 12m people' The worst floods in Pakistan's history have now affected 12 million people, says the government relief agency. General Nadeem Ahmed, of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said that figure only covered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces. Figures for Sindh province were not yet available, he added.... As well the estimate of 12 million people affected, Gen Ahmed said that 650,000 houses had been destroyed. "In my opinion, when assessments are complete, this will be the biggest disaster in the history of Pakistan," he told a news conference in Islamabad on Friday.... And the region is only midway through monsoon season, with more rain forecast. ...	I hate it when "Singin' in the Rain" gets to that primal-scream part. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 6, 2010 from SciDev.net: Sufferers urge progress on sickle cell drug Nicosan "This remedy changed my life," said Tosin Ola, a US-based advocate for sufferers from the disease, who had used the drug since 2007. She has written an open letter, for which she is collecting signatures, to three banks.... "Dust gathers at the Xechem factory that could be our salvation ... equipment to manufacture Nicosan [is] rusting wastefully away while you sit behind your desk ignoring all attempts to put this matter to rest," says the letter. The banks --Bank PHB, Diamond Bank and Nexim -- control Xechem's Nigerian subsidiary following the company's failure to repay loans it obtained from them. Niprisan is based on extracts from West African plants known to a Nigerian family which made a pioneering agreement with NIPRD, widely cited as a case study in "benefit sharing" -- allowing local groups to have a stake in the profits from commercialising indigenous products. The licence to produce the drug was subsequently bought by Xechem International, which held it for six years -- during the last few of which it was dogged by allegations of fraud and mismanagement. ...	The free market rises to the occasion again. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 6, 2010 from SciDev.net: Chinese soil experts warn of massive threat to food security If China's current rate of soil loss continues, a layer the size of Puerto Rico will be washed away in the next 50 years -- resulting in a 40 per cent decrease in food production, according to a study led by the country's Ministry of Water Resources, and science and engineering academies.... Scientists found that the total area of soil erosion has reached 1.61 million square kilometres nearly 17 per cent of total land cover. According to the study, many parts of the black soil in northeastern China -- the country's breadbasket -- have disappeared already, a trend that, if it continues, could put at risk food security for one million people.... "The most serious soil erosion exists in the slope land, especially in farmland," Lu Zongfan, a researcher at China's Institute of Soil and Water Conservation and consultant for the expedition, told SciDev.Net. ...	How hard can it be to simply clear more land? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 6, 2010 from Guardian: Pesticides linked to bee decline, say green groups Environmental groups including the Soil Association and Buglife are making a renewed call for an end to the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which are among the most commonly used pesticides worldwide, after a new study linked them to a decline in bee in bee populations. The study, published in the journal Toxicology, says the effects on bees of two particular neonicotinoid pesticides, known as imidacloprid and thiacloprid, have previously been underestimated and may explain the decline in bee populations. It says even low concentrations of the pesticides may be more deadly then previously thought due to their high persistence in soil and water, supporting claims for the role that pesticides may play in bee deaths.... 'We will keep this area under review and will not hesitate to act if there is any evidence of an unacceptable risk to bees,' said a spokesperson. ...	Any other evidence, that is. 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, Aug 6, 2010 from Ecological Society of America: Scientists find the first evidence of genetically modified plants in the wild Scientists currently performing field research in North Dakota have discovered the first evidence of established populations of genetically modified plants in the wild. Meredith G. Schafer from the University of Arkansas and colleagues from North Dakota State University, California State University, Fresno and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established transects of land along 5,400 km of interstate, state and county roads in North Dakota from which they collected, photographed and tested 406 canola plants. The results--which were recorded in early July and are set to be presented at ESA's Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh--provide strong evidence that transgenic plants have established populations outside of agricultural fields in the U.S. Of the 406 plants collected, 347 (86 percent) tested positive for CP4 EPSPS protein (confers tolerance to glyphosate herbicide) or PAT protein (confers tolerance to glufosinate herbicide). "There were also two instances of multiple transgenes in single individuals," said one of the study's coauthors Cynthia Sagers, University of Arkansas. "Varieties with multiple transgenic traits have not yet been released commercially, so this finding suggests that feral populations are reproducing and have become established outside of cultivation. These observations have important implications for the ecology and management of native and weedy species, as well as for the management of biotech products in the U.S." ...	Awright! Now everything's becoming RoundupReady! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 5, 2010 from PhysOrg: Bats facing regional extinction from rapidly spreading disease A new infectious disease spreading rapidly across the northeastern United States has killed millions of bats and is predicted to cause regional extinction of a once-common bat species, according to the findings of a University of California, Santa Cruz researcher. The disease, white-nose syndrome, first discovered near Albany, N.Y. in 2006, affects hibernating bats and has caused millions to perish, writes lead author Winifred F. Frick, in a study published in the August 6 issue of Science.... "This is one of the worst wildlife crises we've faced," Frick said. "The bat research and conservation communities are trying as hard as possible to find a solution to this devastating problem." Frick notes that "bats perform valuable ecosystem services that matter for both the environments they live in and have tangible benefits to humans as well. Bats affected by this disease are all insect-eating species, and an individual bat can consume their body weight in insects every night, including some consumption of pest insects," Frick said. "The loss of so many bats is basically a terrible experiment in how much these animals matter for insect control," she said. ...	My skin is itching just thinking about it. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 5, 2010 from Q13Fox TV: Puget Sound is becoming threat to shellfish industry It's a multi-million dollar business that depends on Puget Sound to help it thrive. But, those very waters could be killing the shellfish industry. Scientists say the Sound is becoming more acidic and oysters are dying because of it.... "When you have the water incoming into the hatchery and it's very low PH waters it can kill off the larvae of many of our oyster species," said Feely.... There is no easy fix. Scientists believe the high acid levels we're seeing right now has been building up in Puget Sound for decades. Bill Dewey believes the best way to protect future generations of oysters is stop polluting the environment right now. "Even if we change carbon emissions, policies today, we still have got 50 more years of problems coming our way," said Dewey. ...	It's as if our own environment were becoming toxic to life... Oh, wait... we already know that! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 5, 2010 from Guardian: UN incineration plans rejected by world's rubbish-dump workers The waste-pickers who scour the world's rubbish dumps and daily recycle thousands of tonnes of metal, paper and plastics are up in arms against the UN, which they claim is forcing them out of work and increasing climate change emissions. Their complaint, heard yesterday in Bonn where UN global climate change talks have resumed, is that the clean development mechanism (CDM), an ambitious climate finance scheme designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries, has led to dozens of giant waste-to-energy incinerators being built to burn municipal rubbish, as well as hundreds of new landfill schemes designed to collect methane gas. "Waste-pickers, who are some of the poorest people on earth, recover recyclable materials. They are invisible entrepreneurs on the frontline of climate change, earning a living from recovery and recycling, reducing demand for natural resources," says Neil Tangri, director of Gaia, an alliance of 500 anti-incinerator groups in 80 countries. "But they are being undermined by CDM projects, which deny them entry to dumps. This is leading to further stress and hardship for some of the poorest people in the world and is increasing emissions," he said.... Nearly 60 percent of all Delhi's waste, for example, is recycled by an army of tens of thousands of pickers who scavenge for recyclable materials on the city's dumps.... But she said that the CDM would welcome groups of waste-pickers who wanted to apply for UN climate credits. "If they can show, with the correct methodology, that they are saving emissions, they would be eligible, too," she said. ...	Apply for UN climate credits, you wastepickers climbing through garbage piles. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 5, 2010 from BusinessGreen: UK Government: Too many firms ignoring climate risks Environment secretary Caroline Spelman last night called on UK firms to urgently improve their resilience to climate change, warning that too many companies were not prepared for the changes to weather patterns that climate change will inevitably bring. Speaking at an event at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, Spelman said that businesses needed to prepare for the opportunities and challenges that will arise from a warmer climate. "We know that some level of change is now unavoidable and it is the responsibility of us all to think about what a changing climate will mean for our health, our businesses and our way of life," she said. "I want to ensure that UK businesses are well placed to take advantage of the new opportunities that arise as well as ensuring they are ready for the difficulties that higher temperatures and more adverse weather could mean for their staff and working practices." ...	"Inevitable"? So the government is siding with the warmists? The conspirators are everywhere. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 5, 2010 from ACS, via EurekAlert: Homes of the Poor and the Affluent Both Have High Levels of Endocrine Disruptors Homes in low-income and affluent communities in California both had similarly high levels of endocrine disruptors, and the levels were higher in indoor air than outdoor air, according to a new study believed to be the first that paired indoor and outdoor air samples for such wide range (104) of these substances. The study appears in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology.... Examples include phthalates, which are found in vinyl and other plastics, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are found in older paints, electrical equipment, and building materials. EDCs also are among the ingredients in some pesticides, fragrances, and other materials.... Levels were generally higher indoors than outdoors -- 32 of the compounds occurred in higher concentrations indoors and only 2 were higher outdoors. The scientists expressed surprise at finding higher concentrations of some phthalates outdoors near urban homes contributing to higher indoor levels as well, but concluded that EDCs "are ubiquitously common across socioeconomic groups." ...	The disrupted will always be with us. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from Bill McKibben, in TomDispatch: We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any More I'm a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.... The task at hand is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone -- beginning with the president -- to start explaining that basic fact at every turn.... Step two, we have to ask for what we actually need, not what we calculate we might possibly be able to get. If we're going to slow global warming in the very short time available to us, then we don't actually need an incredibly complicated legislative scheme that gives door prizes to every interested industry and turns the whole operation over to Goldman Sachs to run. We need a stiff price on carbon, set by the scientific understanding that we can't still be burning black rocks a couple of decades hence.... That undoubtedly means upending the future business plans of Exxon and BP, Peabody Coal and Duke Energy, not to speak of everyone else who's made a fortune by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer for the byproducts of their main business. Instead they should pay through the nose for that sewer, and here's the crucial thing: most of the money raised in the process should be returned directly to American pockets.... Which leads to the third step in this process. If we're going to get any of this done, we're going to need a movement, the one thing we haven't had. ...	I'll give you your movement from the back end of my Hummer. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from Environmental Science & Technology: Specific Climate Impact of Passenger and Freight Transport An unambiguous ranking can be established for the freight transportation of the year 2000: The specific climate impact of air transport is 3 to 42 times higher, for a light truck it is 2 to 8 times higher than average truck transport. Rail transport of heavy goods has a 4 to 10 times lower specific climate impact than trucking, while it varies from negligible to half to a similar impact for volume products. Ship transport has by far the lowest climate impact: It exerts 5 to 10 to 30 times less warming per transport work than trucking and is even cooling on shorter time scales. This ranking holds for both climate metrics and both measures for transport work; most importantly it is robust for the time horizons considered. For the passenger travel of the year 2000 the modes with clearly lower specific climate impact than car travel can be readily identified: Rail travel has at least a factor 4 lower specific impact and is cooling on shorter times, bus and coach travel has 2 to 5 times lower specific impact, while travel with two- or three-wheelers has up to a factor 2 lower specific climate impact than car travel. Air travel results in a lower temperature change per passenger-kilometer than car travel on the long run; the integrated radiative forcing of air travel is on short- to medium time horizons much higher than for car travel. Per passenger-hour traveled however, aviations climate impact is a factor 6 to 47 higher than the impact from car travel. ...	So the rule of thumb is: If driving takes 6 times longer than the air travel time, then I'm still damaging the climate more than I should. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from New York Times: Pessimism Clouds Climate Meeting This week in Bonn, negotiators are meeting to prepare for this year's annual climate meeting, COP-16 (the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), which opens in late November in Cancun, Mexico. There is little optimism this time around. Even the few areas of agreement that were hailed as great accomplishments in the Copenhagen Accord seem to be back on the negotiating table. The negotiating document for the Bonn session, which ends on Friday, leaves open - once again -- whether the goal of a new treaty should be to limit the temperature rise to 1 degree, 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius. Delegates will have to decide anew whether developed countries should "commit to a goal of mobilizing" $100 billion to support poorer nations or should be "assessed contributions of 1.5 percent of the G.D.P." Likewise, the negotiating document suggests that delegates will be revisiting emissions reductions goals for richer nations: Should developed countries, as a group, be required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by "75 to 85 percent," or "at least 80 to 95 percent," or "more than 95 percent" from 1990 levels by 2050? ...	And once more, we'll revisit the question "is humankind fatal to humans?" ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from Guardian: Ecuador signs $3.6bn deal not to exploit oil-rich Amazon reserve Ecuador, home of the Galapagos Islands, the Andes mountain range and vast tracts of oil-rich rainforest, yesterday asked the world for $3.6bn not to exploit the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha oil block in the Yasuni national park. A knockdown price, it said, considering the oil alone is worth more than $7bn at today's prices. The 407m tonnes of CO2 that would be generated by burning it could sell for over $5bn in the global carbon markets. But neither the oil block nor the park is for sale, and under the terms of a unique, legally binding trust fund set up yesterday by the government and the UN, the oil and the timber in Yasuni will never be exploited. Instead, donor countries, philanthropists and individuals around the world are being invited to pay the money in return for a non-exploitation guarantee.... Conservation groups have been staggered by the biological riches in the park, which is situated at the intersection of the Amazon, the Andes and the equator. It was recently found to have 650 species of tree and shrub within a single hectare - the highest number in the world and more than in the whole of north America. In addition, it has more than 20 threatened mammal species, including, jaguars, otters and monkeys, and several hundred bird species. ...	Yeah, but are any of those trees and shrubs valuable? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from BBC: Europe breaking electronic waste export ban "We have an extraordinary amount of illegal shipment along the coast in Europe", says Karl-Heinz Florenz, a German member of the European Parliament who is working to update EU law. Traffickers trick the authorities by not labelling goods as electronics, by pretending they are for re-use, or by hiding them in the middle of a container. The containers that get through are shipped to West Africa - most commonly Ghana and Nigeria - and to South Asian countries including India and Pakistan. "The fundamental problem with electronics is that it's designed in a very bad way," says Kim Schoppink, a campaigner at the Dutch branch of Greenpeace who travelled to Ghana to look at the issue in 2008. "That makes it very expensive to recycle in Europe and therefore it's dumped in developing countries."... The e-waste contains valuable metals, which are extracted at informal recycling sites. But it also contains toxic heavy metals and hazardous chemicals that are handled by workers, some of them children. "They take some copper and aluminium and the rest they burn," says Ms Schoppink. "With this burning process a lot of toxic chemicals are released and these workers are exposed to that every day." ...	"Informal recycling" may produce "collateral damage." Or, "poverty-driven desperation" may "kill people." ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from New Scientist: Oil spill dispersant could damage coral populations Coral populations in the Gulf of Mexico could fall because of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster - from contact not with oil but with the dispersant that's supposed to get rid of it. Laboratory tests suggest that Corexit 9500A, the dispersant used by BP to tackle the largest offshore oil spill in US history, stops coral larvae latching onto the surfaces where they usually mature. The larvae, often the size of a pinhead, float in the sea before latching onto surfaces such as rocks on the sea floor, cliff faces or old oil rigs. It takes hundreds of years for a mature colony to develop.... Preliminary and as yet unpublished results show [coral] larvae in the oil-water mix are able to latch onto the discs, whereas those in beakers containing the dispersant remained suspended in the water.... "You should test each [coral species] individually, but of course we can't usually do that," says Steve Ross, a zoologist and deep-sea coral specialist at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. "I think we can assume that if there's a negative impact on one type of coral... there will be a negative impact on another." ...	But thank God there's no oil on the surface! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 4, 2010 from Telegraph.co.uk: What Lies Beneath The Sea: Census of Marine Life The Census of Marine Life also points to the effect of so-called "alien species" being found in many of the world's marine ecosystems. The Mediterranean has the largest number of invasive species - most of them having migrated through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. So far, more than 600 invasive species have been counted, almost 5 per cent of the total marine creatures in the Mediterranean. Those annoying jellyfish on the Spanish holiday beaches may be sending us a message, or at least a warning. In recent years there have been other jellyfish "invasions". In 2007, 100,000 fish at Northern Ireland's only salmon farm were killed by the same "mauve stingers" that are affecting the Spanish beaches. The swarming jellies covered 10 square miles of water. In 2005, and again last year, Japanese fishermen battled swarms of giant Nomura jellyfish, each measuring six feet across and weighing 200kg. Once seen infrequently, they now regularly swarm across the Yellow Sea, making it impossible for Japanese boats to deploy their nets. One fishing boat capsized after the jellyfish became entangled in its nets. There is evidence that the global jellyfish invasion is gathering pace. As Mediterranean turtles lose their nesting sites to beach developments, or die in fishing nets, and the vanishing population of other large predators such as bluefin tuna are fished out, their prey is doing what nature does best: filling a void. Smaller, more numerous species like the jellyfish are flourishing and plugging the gap left by animals higher up the food chain. According to the Spanish environment ministry: "Jellyfish blooms have been increasing in recent years, and one of the suggested causes is the decline in natural predators - as well as climate change and pollution from land-based sources." ...	I'm so happy that I can choose to believe that our actions don't have consequences. 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.
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from McClatchy, via PhysOrg: As one non-native fish bears down on Great Lakes, notorious mussels spread across the West Despite all the attention they've gotten recently, Asian carp are not the most dangerous invasive species to threaten the Great Lakes. Their impact pales in comparison to that of the quagga mussel, which first showed up in the lakes in the late 1990s and has become ensconced there. The mussels reproduce rapidly and devour plankton, disrupting the lower levels of a food chain that native species rely upon. "We're probably looking at one of the biggest invasions in the Great Lakes right now with the quagga mussels," says Gary Fahnenstiel, a senior ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Notwithstanding the dire warnings from politicians, Fahnenstiel says, should Asian carp make it to Lake Michigan they probably would have a difficult time competing with the quagga mussels for food. "They beat them to the buffet table, you might say," Fahnenstiel says. Also, while state officials argue about sealing the lakes from the Mississippi, the biggest threat is likely to come from the north, where the Saint Lawrence Seaway connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Many of the 185 invasive species in the lakes hitched rides in the cargo holds of ships sailing through the seaway. ...	It's just hard to work up a fear-sweat about something called a quagga. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from University of Cambridge, via PhysOrg: Trawl fishing surviving through sale of previously discarded fish Although good for the fishermen, scientists warn that the prolonged trawl fishing along certain areas will lead to an 'ecological catastrophe' and the 'permanent loss of livelihoods for fishers' as well as other individuals who work in the industry.... A paper published in the current issue of the journal Conservation Letters by researchers from the University of Cambridge shows that the drivers for the use of this once discarded resource are twofold: declining shrimp stocks and profits, and the development of alternative markets, which include the rapidly growing poultry-feed industry. Trawl fishing is a technique employed the world over in which a fishing vessel drags a gaping net along the ocean floor. Unfortunately, though trawlers target a limited number of species such as shrimp and some fish, trawl nets capture anything in their path and seriously damage the seafloor as well. It's been estimated that trawlers in the tropics capture an average of 10 kilos of bycatch for every kilo of shrimp.... Looking to the policy implications of the study, Lobo says: "If appropriate measures are not taken immediately to limit overfishing then the outcomes could be catastrophic for the ecosystem and result in the permanent loss of livelihoods for the fishers in the region." ...	I don't think of it as "scraping the bottom of the barrel." I think of it as "stirring the pot." ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from Spiegel Online: Radioactive Boar on the Rise in Germany As Germany's wild boar population has skyrocketed in recent years, so too has the number of animals contaminated by radioactivity left over from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Government payments compensating hunters for lost income due to radioactive boar have quadrupled since 2007. It's no secret that Germany has a wild boar problem. Stories of marauding pigs hit the headlines with startling regularity: Ten days ago, a wild boar attacked a wheelchair-bound man in a park in Berlin; in early July, a pack of almost two dozen of the animals repeatedly marched into the eastern German town of Eisenach, frightening residents and keeping police busy; and on Friday morning, a German highway was closed for hours after 10 wild boar broke through a fence and waltzed onto the road. Even worse, though, almost a quarter century after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in Ukraine, a good chunk of Germany's wild boar population remains slightly radioactive -- and the phenomenon has been costing the German government an increasing amount of money in recent years.... Wild boar are particularly susceptible to radioactive contamination due to their predilection for chomping on mushrooms and truffles, which are particularly efficient at absorbing radioactivity. Indeed, whereas radioactivity in some vegetation is expected to continue declining, the contamination of some types of mushrooms and truffles will likely remain the same, and may even rise slightly -- even a quarter century after the Chernobyl accident. ...	You mean those Atomic Age sci-fi movies were right? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from University of Alaska, via EurekAlert: Study finds widespread permafrost warming Permafrost warming continues throughout a wide swath of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a team of scientists assembled during the recent International Polar Year.... The article notes that permafrost temperatures have warmed as much as two degrees Celsius from 20 to 30 years ago. They also found that permafrost near zero degrees Celsius warmed more slowly than colder permafrost.... ...	I wonder when we'll put the "im" in "impermafrost"? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg: La. fishermen wrinkle their noses at 'smell tests' Even the people who make their living off the seafood-rich waters of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish have a hard time swallowing the government's assurances that fish harvested in the shallow, muddy waters just offshore must be safe to eat because they don't smell too bad.... "If I put fish in a barrel of water and poured oil and Dove detergent over that, and mixed it up, would you eat that fish?" asked Graybill, a 28-year-old commercial oyster, blue crab and shrimp angler who grew up fishing the marshes of St. Bernard. "I wouldn't feed it to you or my family. I'm afraid someone's going to get sick."... "They capped the well, they stopped the oil, so now they're trying to hurry up and get us back working to where they can say everything's fine when it's not," he said. "It's not fine."... "It's nothing but a PR move," she said. "It's going to take years to know what damage they've done. It's just killed us all." ...	Something is rotten in the state of Louisiana. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 3, 2010 from AP, via CBC: Dead zone in Gulf one of largest ever Scientists say this year that the "dead zone" area that forms every summer in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest ever measured. The large area of low oxygen that chokes marine life comes in addition to the massive BP oil spill.... They say the dead zone is at least 7,722 square miles (20,000 square kilometres). The largest ever measured was just over 8,000 square miles (20,700 square kilometres) in 2001. Pollution, such as runoff from farms along the Mississippi River, cause regions of low oxygen content or hypoxia in the Gulf through the introduction of nitrogen and phosphorus into the water system. ...	Is this a year for records, or what? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 2, 2010 from University of Georgia, via EurekAlert: Ice-free ocean may not absorb CO2 Scientists have been looking at ways the Earth might benefit from natural processes to balance the rising heat, and one process had intrigued them, a premise that melting ice at the poles might allow more open water that could absorb carbon dioxide, one of the major compounds implicating in warming. Now, though, in research just published in the journal Science and led by a University of Georgia biogeochemist, that idea may be one more dead end. In fact, a survey of waters in the Canada Basin, which extends north of Alaska to the North Pole, shows that its value as a potential carbon dioxide "sink" may be short-lived at best and minor in terms of what the planet will need to avoid future problems.... "But our research shows that as the ice melts, the carbon dioxide in the water very quickly reaches equilibrium with the atmosphere, so its use as a place to store CO2 declines dramatically and quickly. We never really understood how limited these waters would be in terms of their usefulness in soaking up carbon dioxide."... And because of this carbon dioxide uptake, the waters become quite acidic and "a poor environment for calcium-carbonate shell-bearing marine organisms," Cai said. ...	I'm not sure how a cul-de-sac can be composed of so many dead ends. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 2, 2010 from NC State University, via EurekAlert: 'Ribbit Radio' shows frog populations likely overestimated Scientists track amphibian populations because these animals are sensitive to changes in their environment and can serve as "canaries in the coal mine" to give researchers early warnings about pollution or other ecological problems. But new research from North Carolina State University shows that data from the largest amphibian monitoring program in the country may have flaws that, if uncorrected, could result in overestimates of frog populations.... Simons and his co-authors wanted to test the accuracy of these surveys by using the "Bird Radio" system Simons developed previously to test the accuracy of bird census methods. The system, renamed "Ribbit Radio," consists of a series of remotely controlled playback devices that can be used to mimic populations of calling frogs. The researchers set up "Ribbit Radio" in a field and used it to test how well observers identify frog species. Simons says the researchers immediately noted a lot of "false positives" in the data - meaning that some observers were saying they heard species that were not played by the "Ribbit Radio" system. ...	If those amphibians would just fill out their census forms! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 2, 2010 from The Economist: Cod, phytoplankton, and shifting baselines As another biologist, Ted Ames, subsequently established, the memories of fishermen in their 80s and 90s weren't just tall tales: 100 years ago, cod thrived close to New England's shores in sizes and numbers that beggar the imagination of today's commercial and sport fishermen. Mr Pauly's insight was that the memory of this abundance has disappeared generation by generation. "This is not nostalgia on the part of the old or lack of empathy on the part of the young," Mr Greenberg writes. "It is almost a willful forgetting--the means by which our species, generation by generation, finds reasonableness amid the destruction of the greatest natural food system on earth."... Just as the global economy would probably largely adjust to global warming, abandoning desertified or flooded zones like Arizona and Florida, giving up on snow-skiing in favor of water-skiing, and so forth, future populations would probably adjust psychologically to the extinction of bluefin tuna, coral, killer whales, sea turtles, and hundreds of other species, and would be reasonably happy on a seafood diet of catfish and mussels. You don't miss what you never had. ...	That's even sadder than "you don't know what you got till it's gone." ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 2, 2010 from Center for Science in the Public Interest: CSPI Says Food Dyes Pose Rainbow of Risks Food dyes--used in everything from M&Ms to Manischewitz Matzo Balls to Kraft salad dressings--pose risks of cancer, hyperactivity in children, and allergies, and should be banned, according to a new report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. A top government scientist agrees, and says that food dyes present unnecessary risks to the public. The three most widely used dyes, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, are contaminated with known carcinogens, says CSPI. Another dye, Red 3, has been acknowledged for years by the Food and Drug Administration to be a carcinogen, yet is still in the food supply. Despite those concerns, each year manufacturers pour about 15 million pounds of eight synthetic dyes into our foods. Per capita consumption of dyes has increased five-fold since 1955, thanks in part to the proliferation of brightly colored breakfast cereals, fruit drinks, and candies pitched to children. "These synthetic chemicals do absolutely nothing to improve the nutritional quality or safety of foods, but trigger behavior problems in children and, possibly, cancer in anybody," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson, co-author of the 58-page report, "Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks." "The Food and Drug Administration should ban dyes, which would force industry to color foods with real food ingredients, not toxic petrochemicals." ...	But without artificial dyes, how shall we get "Cheet-O-range"? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 2, 2010 from Guardian: Floating debris threatens to block Three Gorges dam Thousands of tonnes of rubbish washed down by recent torrential rain are threatening to jam the locks of China's massive Three Gorges dam, and is in places so thick people can stand on it, state media said on Monday. Chen Lei, a senior official at the China Three Gorges Corporation, told the China Daily that 3,000 tonnes of rubbish was being collected at the dam every day, but there were still not enough resources to clean it all up. "The large amount of waste in the dam area could jam the miter gate of the Three Gorges dam," Chen said, referring to the gates of the locks which allow shipping to pass through the Yangtze river. The river is a crucial commercial artery for the upstream city of Chongqing and other areas in China's less-developed western interior provinces.... Environmentalists have warned for years that the reservoir could turn into a cesspool of raw sewage and industrial chemicals backing on to nearby Chongqing city, fearing that silt trapped behind the dam could cause erosion downstream. China has made scant progress on schemes drawn up nearly a decade ago to limit pollution in and around the reservoir. Chen said about 10m yuan is spent each year clearing 150,000 to 200,000 cubic metres of floating waste by the dam. ...	Dam! Who would have expected debris? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 2, 2010 from American Society of Agronomy, via EurekAlert: Is biochar the answer for ag? Scientists demonstrate that biochar, a type charcoal applied to soils in order to capture and store carbon, can reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and inorganic nitrogen runoff from agriculture settings. The finding will help develop strategies and technologies to reduce soil nitrous oxide emissions and reduce agriculture's influence on climate change.... The study revealed for the first time that interactions between biochar and soil that occur over time are important when assessing the influence of biochar on nitrogen losses from soil. The scientists subjected soils samples to three wetting-drying cycles, to simulate a range of soil moistures during the five-month study period, and measured nitrous oxide emissions and nitrogen runoff. Initially, biochar application produced inconsistent effects. Several early samples produced greater nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching than the control samples. However, during the third wetting-drying cycle, four months after biochar application, all biochars reduced nitrous oxide emissions by up to 73 percent, and reduced ammonium leaching by up to 94 percent. The researchers suggest that reductions in nitrous oxide emissions and nitrogen leaching over time were due to "ageing" of the biochars in soil. ...	Carbon sequestration and nitrogen stabilization and runoff control? This sounds like a conspiracy. ApocaDoc permalink