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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:	(1)
Plague/Virus:	(2)
Climate Chaos:	(12)
Resource Depletion:	(4)
Biology Breach:	(9)
Recovery:	(3)

This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
weather extremes ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ climate impacts ~ contamination ~ health impacts ~ food crisis ~ airborne pollutants ~ heavy metals ~ anthropogenic change ~ holyshit ~ technological innovation

ApocaDocuments (31) gathered this week:
Sun, Aug 15, 2010 from New York Times: In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming The floods battered New England, then Nashville, then Arkansas, then Oklahoma -- and were followed by a deluge in Pakistan that has upended the lives of 20 million people. The summer's heat waves baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and above all Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record. Seemingly disconnected, these far-flung disasters are reviving the question of whether global warming is causing more weather extremes. The collective answer of the scientific community can be boiled down to a single word: probably. ...	And thus we are probably screwed. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Aug 15, 2010 from InvestigateWest: States struggle to curb pollution by cruise ships In a single day, the federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates, passengers aboard a typical cruise ship will generate: * 21,000 gallons of sewage * One ton of garbage * 170,000 gallons of wastewater from sinks, showers and laundry * More than 25 pounds of batteries, fluorescent lights, medical wastes and expired chemicals * Up to 6,400 gallons of oily bilge water from engines * Four plastic bottles per passenger - about 8,500 bottles per day for the Carnival Spirit Cruise ships incinerate between 75 and 85 percent of their garbage, according to the EPA in its 2008 study, contributing to smog in coastal communities and on the ocean. They also release incinerator ash and sewage sludge into the ocean. They contribute nutrients, metals, ammonia, pharmaceutical waste, chemical cleaners and detergent to deep marine environments from sewage treatment systems that either don't work as planned or aren't able to remove such substances, according to tests in Washington and Alaska, interviews with state officials, the EPA study, and information provided by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. It's legal to discharge untreated sewage in most areas of the United States farther than three miles from shore. ...	You cruise... you lose. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Aug 15, 2010 from Miami Herald: Tiny toxic town takes on a corporate Goliath A Florida hamlet where parts for nuclear weapons were made is fighting both an environmental calamity and a major defense contractor... Environmental contamination threatens to destroy this historic black town and its heritage. In one of the nation's most emotional environmental divides, the residents find themselves pitted against giant defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Manatee County, and the state of Florida. The divide takes root at the former American Beryllium Company plant, anchoring five acres at 1600 Tallevast Road across from a community church. Opened in 1961 and shuttered in 1996, the plant manufactured machine parts for nuclear weapons using beryllium-containing metals. Workers inhaled hazardous dust and handled a toxic degreaser that cleaned machine parts. ...	They better have some bad-ass slingshots. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 14, 2010 from BBC: Rain triggers fresh China landslides Torrential rain has brought landslides to more areas in China, as relief teams in devastated Zhouqu county battle against the bad weather. Teams are continuing to recover bodies in the remote region in Gansu province, in the wake of Saturday's landslides that left 1,700 people dead or missing. Elsewhere in Gansu 24 people were killed in landslides, and five people died in Sichuan province to the south. More rain is forecast for the area in the next few days. ...	Oh, mirror in the sky / what is love? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 14, 2010 from London Independent: Children bear the brunt of Pakistan's nightmare ...Two weeks after unprecedented monsoon rains started causing chaos and devastation in the north-west of the country, in this region the effects are still being felt. Further south, in Sindh province, it is likely that the worst is yet to come.... Half the people being rescued by the troops and volunteers are children. Experts estimate that of the 14 million people affected by these floods, six million children are at risk. In every natural disaster, it is often children who suffer the most. When food is in short supply, they are often the last to eat, they are more vulnerable to contagious diseases and water-borne illnesses such as cholera, and under such hardship a child's needs may not always be a family's priority. In these floods, many children, inclined to swim and splash in the deep brown waters, have been attacked by snakes. ...	Whatever happened to the meek inheriting the earth? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 14, 2010 from Anchorage Arctic Sounder: Borehole network confirms, permafrost is thawing worldwide An expanded network of boreholes across the northern hemisphere has confirmed that permafrost throughout polar and sub-polar regions is thawing, say scientists who studied the topic during International Polar Year... Using information collected from 575 boreholes located throughout North America, Russia and the Nordic region, researchers found that permafrost temperatures during the International Polar Year were as much as 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than they were 20 or 30 years ago. ...	My blood runs cold when I hear news like this. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 14, 2010 from Reuters: FDA OKs new "morning-after" pill Health officials on Friday approved a new, longer-lasting "morning-after" pill to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. The prescription drug, called ella, is made by French company HRA Pharma and will be sold in the United States by Watson Pharmaceuticals. It is the first emergency contraceptive approved since a five-year battle under the Bush administration ended with limited over-the-counter sales and age checks by pharmacists for a rival pill. Ella has been shown to prevent pregnancy for up to five days after unprotected sex. ...	Ella, our completely overwhelmed planet thanks you. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 13, 2010 from Christian Science Monitor: China mudslides were predicted 13 years ago Monster monsoon rains may have loosened the mud and rock that buried and killed more than 1,000 people in the northwestern Chinese Province of Gansu over the weekend, but the mudslide in Zhouqu was more than a natural disaster. Official records show that government-run lumber companies cut 313,000 acres of forest from the slopes of Zhouqu county between 1952 and 1990, denuding the geologically vulnerable mountainsides and subjecting them to soil erosion. Thirteen years ago two Chinese scientists published a paper warning that following "the destruction of the eco-system" in the district, "a rainstorm will carry debris down the gully, destroying farmland, houses, roads, bridges, water facilities, and power systems and causing death and injury." ...	What were those scientists' names -- Nostra and Damus? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 13, 2010 from Scientific American: Plastic Surf: The Unhealthful Afterlife of Toys and Packaging By now even schoolchildren know that the plastics we discard every year in the millions of tons persist in the environment for hundreds of years. And we have all heard of the horrors caused by such debris in the sea: fur seals entangled by nylon nets, sea otters choking on polyethylene six-pack rings, and plastic bags or toys stuck in the guts of sea turtles....Scientists fear the possible effects of this plastic confetti on zooplankton and other creatures at the base of the marine food web, which get consumed by larger organisms--turtles, fish, birds--and, ultimately, by us. ...	So if schoolkids know this, then why do they keep asking Santa for this crap!? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 12, 2010 from Marketplace: A green way to dispose human remains ...Cutting carbon emissions, greenhouse gasses, has become a goal that reaches into every corner of life. And now, it seems, death. Six states in this country have approved a new, low-carbon way to dispose of human remains. Resomation is being offered as an alternative to cremation -- reducing the body to a mixture of liquid and minerals...The process was developed by a Scottish firm. With zero carbon emissions and using seven times less energy than cremation, this... would make for the greenest of funerals...but many people recoil from it for other reasons. Resomation produces a kind of powder, which can be tastefully placed in an urn and given to the bereaved. But it also leaves a fluid -- and that, it has been suggested, might be washed down the drain. ...	Being washed down the drain seems fitting somehow. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 12, 2010 from Associated Press: Long hot summer of fire and floods fit predictions Floods, fires, melting ice and feverish heat: From smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Pakistan and the High Arctic, the planet seems to be having a midsummer breakdown. It's not just a portent of things to come, scientists say, but a sign of troubling climate change already under way. The weather-related cataclysms of July and August fit patterns predicted by climate scientists, the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization says -- although those scientists always shy from tying individual disasters directly to global warming. The experts now see an urgent need for better ways to forecast extreme events like Russia's heat wave and wildfires and the record deluge devastating Pakistan. They'll discuss such tools in meetings this month and next in Europe and America, under United Nations, U.S. and British government sponsorship. "There is no time to waste," because societies must be equipped to deal with global warming, says British government climatologist Peter Stott. ...	Can't I waste ... just one more day, please? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 12, 2010 from Guardian: World feeling the heat as 17 countries experience record temperatures 2010 is becoming the year of the heatwave, with record temperatures set in 17 countries. Record highs have occurred in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine - the three nations at the centre of the present eastern European heatwave which has continued for more than three weeks - but also many African, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries. Temperatures in Moscow, which have been consistently 20C above normal, today fell to a more manageable 31C (86F). But the extreme heat experienced there would barely have registered in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Niger, Pakistan and Sudan, all of which have recorded temperatures of more than 47C (115F) since June. The number of record highs is itself a record - the previous record was for 14 new high temperatures in 2007. ...	The 99 degrees in Finland feels like the 125 in Iraq. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 12, 2010 from Agence France-Press: New superbugs spreading from South Asia: study Plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide, researchers reported Wednesday. Many hospital infections that were already difficult to treat have become even more impervious to drugs thanks to a recently discovered gene that can jump across different species of bacteria. This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria -- Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli -- in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India. Worryingly, the new NDM-1 bacteria are resistant even to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics often reserved as a last resort for emergency treatment for multi-drug resistant bugs. ...	Nothing gets an ApocaDoc's blood racing like a new class of superbugs! 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!
Wed, Aug 11, 2010 from New York Times: By Messing With Texas Air Pollution Permits, EPA Unleashes Power Struggle After simmering behind closed doors for more than 15 years, a disagreement between U.S. EPA and Texas environmental officials over air pollution permits has boiled over in a big way...During the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations, EPA routinely missed its 18-month deadline for making decisions on Texas' permitting programs. Meanwhile, experts say, TCEQ kept issuing permits without federal approval and Texas businesses kept applying for them, assuming that no complaints from EPA meant that everything was fine. To this day, there are about 30 Texas permitting programs in legal limbo, many of them more than a decade old. With EPA required by a court settlement to make yes-or-no decisions on all of them by 2012, experts say the current dispute could be just the beginning of a protracted legal battle to determine where state authority ends and federal oversight begins. ...	Keep your guvment mitts off our shitty air. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 11, 2010 from New York Times: Russian Fires Raise Fears of Radioactivity As if things in Russia were not looking sufficiently apocalyptic already, with 100-degree temperatures and noxious fumes rolling in from burning peat bogs and forests, there is growing alarm here that fires in regions coated with fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 24 years ago could now be emitting plumes of radioactive smoke. Several fires have been documented in the contaminated areas of western Russia, including three heavily irradiated sites in the Bryansk region, the environmental group Greenpeace Russia said in a statement released Tuesday. Bryansk borders Belarus and Ukraine. ...	Where there's radioactive smoke there's radioactive fire! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 11, 2010 from Guardian: Peak oil is the villain governments need Could peak oil lever politicians out from between the rock of the electorate and the hard place that is climate change mitigation?... Climate change is a stealthy foe, hard to feel, see or identify. Unlike peak oil. So here's another question: did western administrations know that the International Energy Agency (IEA) had been consistently concealing the imminence of peak oil? One might hope our leaders would know about something as serious as this. But if they did, why is it that renewable energy replacements haven't been far higher on the agenda, for much longer and addressed with rather more conviction?... One statement by professor Paul Stevens in particular caught my eye: "A supply crunch appears likely around 2013 ... given recent price experience, a spike in excess of $200 per barrel is not infeasible". What effect would a barrel price of $200 have on industrial economies, should that spike be sustained for any length of time? We would witness endemic global market disruption, reductions in agricultural yield, increased transport costs for both finished goods and raw materials (true pessimists would add an oil war or two for good measure). The shockwaves would be felt everywhere, although as ever, the poor will take the brunt of it. And yet when the price of oil shoots up, we use less - meaning we output less CO2. So let me rephrase my question: what effect would a barrel price of $200 have on the CO2 output of nations? ...	The Alberta Tar Sands contingent would love this. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 11, 2010 from PhysOrg: International travel increasing spread of new drug-resistant bacteria: Is this the end of antibiotics? A new gene [NDM-1] that enables bacteria to be highly resistant to almost all antibiotics is widespread in Enterobacteriaceae taken from patients in India and Pakistan, and has also been found in UK patients who travelled to India for elective surgery.... In some cases, isolates were resistant to all antibiotics. Importantly, the NDM-1 gene was found to be present on plasmids, DNA structures that can be easily copied and transferred between different bacteria, suggesting: "an alarming potential to spread and diversify among bacterial populations".... They go on: "Even more disturbing is that most of the India isolates from Chennai and Haryana were from community-acquired infections, suggesting that NDM-1 is widespread in the environment."... "India also provides cosmetic surgery for other Europeans and Americans, and it is likely NDM-1 will spread worldwide." ...	NDM-1 may just be Nature's Deadly Means of CCS. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 11, 2010 from Chicago Tribune: Poised on History's Doorstep: Super Salmon or Frankenfish? ...With global population pressing against food supplies and vast areas of the ocean already swept clean of fish, tiny AquaBounty Technologies of Waltham, Mass., has developed a variety of salmon that reaches market weight in half the time of other salmon. What's more, AquaBounty not only promises to slash the ready-for-market time - and production costs -- on a hugely popular, nutritious fish that currently commands near-record prices, it plans to avoid the pollution, disease and other problems associated with today's salt-water fish farms by having its salmon raised inland. But there's a catch: AquaBounty's salmon is genetically engineered. Indeed, it aspires to be the nation's first genetically-modified food animal of any kind. That means the Food and Drug Administration must approve it. It also means the company and its salmon must withstand vociferous opposition from environmental and other advocacy groups, win over skeptical producers and -- possibly most difficult of all - overcome potential consumer resistance to genetic tinkering with food. ...	Long as it tastes like chicken I'm good with it! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from McClatchy Newspapers: EPA requires cleanup of mercury from cement plants The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced the nation's first limits on mercury emissions from cement plants. The decision also will require reductions of other harmful pollutants from cement plants, including soot, also known as particle pollution, which is linked to asthma, heart attacks and premature deaths for people with heart and lung diseases. The rules are part of a broader EPA air-cleanup plan. Next year the agency will put the first nationwide controls on mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from a much larger source, coal-fired power plants. The federal government presently doesn't require power plants to control mercury and other toxics. Coal-fired power plants are the source of 51 percent of the manmade mercury emissions in the U.S, followed by industrial and other boilers, at 15 percent. Cement kilns are third, with 7 percent, according to the EPA. ...	If they ain't careful, the EPA might find themselves wearing some cement shoes. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from Guardian: Greenland ice sheet faces 'tipping point in 10 years' The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress today.... "Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet. The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish. "What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said.... "While we don't believe it is possible to lose an ice sheet within a decade, we do believe it is possible to reach a tipping point in a few decades in which we would lose the ice sheet in a century." ...	Thank God! Long after I'm dead! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from Cumberland Times-News: Deep Creek fish kill toll at 1,000 -- and counting The death toll of the June fish kill in Deep Creek Lake has reached approximately 1,000 and counting, but environmental investigators are hopeful the rate of fish deaths is slowing. Investigators are attributing the fish kill to unprecedented high water temperatures in the lake, combined with the speed at which the water temperature rose. The water heated up too quickly for the fish to become acclimated. "The vast majority of fish kills are really natural, as this one apparently is as well," said Maryland Department of the Environment Program Manager Charlie Poukish, who investigated the incident. "Our main interest, of course, is to get out quick enough to try to document if there is some sort of toxin -- the old canary in the coal mine." But instead of a toxin, Poukish said the Deep Creek Lake fish appear to be victims of a combination of stresses. Those stresses, including the higher water temperature, made them more susceptible to parasites. "We noticed a very heavy parasite load on the fish," Poukish said, adding, "The ultimate cause of death was really septicemia, which was brought on by a common bacteria found in nature which really doesn't affect fish until they're stressed." ...	Maybe it's time we genetically modified fish, so they could sweat. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from New Scientist: Early puberty in girls doubles in a decade Twice as many white girls in the US reach puberty aged 7 as a decade ago. No one is sure why this should be the case, but obesity and exposure to chemicals that mimic the female hormone oestrogen are the prime suspects. The figures come from a study of 1200 girls in three US cities. Of the girls studied, 10.4 per cent of white 7-year-olds had breast development consistent with the onset of puberty, compared to 5 per cent in a 1997 study.... "To find the girls are starting breast development earlier and earlier is extremely concerning," she says. "To have that much change in such a short time, it has to be the environment." It appears that the proportion of black 8-year-olds entering puberty has dropped from 48 per cent in 1997 to 43 per cent today. Frank Biro of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, head of the new study, suggests this might be a sign that the numbers of black girls experiencing early puberty may finally be levelling off, while the percentage of white girls affected is still rising. ...	Who could have expected a flood of endocrine disruptors to disrupt endocrine systems? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from Guardian: Conservationists warn of elephant extraction from Laos to China circuses Once worshipped as gods, the animals are still considered sacred by many in Laos, but loss of habitat and tradition means there are now just 20 domesticated elephants under the age of 10 left in the country. The agreement with the circus company will see seven of these youngsters, along with four older animals of breeding age, exported from the remote Thongmixay district, in Laos's Sayaburi province, to southern China this autumn. Although Laos signed up in 2004 to the CITES international agreement against trading endangered wildlife, a loophole is being exploited. Elephants are being taken out of the country on "long-term loans" to zoos and circuses in foreign countries but are never returned. With the most recent government estimates suggesting there are now as few as 600 wild and only 480 domesticated elephants left in the country, hopes for the survival of the species in Laos are pinned on breeding programmes involving the domesticated population. The loss of so many young elephants will place that under threat, the NGO ElefantAsia has warned. The group has official responsibility for the animals, having been charged by Laos's department of livestock to manage the Laos Elephant Care and Management Programme. ...	Some day, they'll forget. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from New Dehli NDTV: Oil leak off Mumbai coast has stopped: Coast Guard sources In a big relief, two days after two ships collided off the coast of Mumbai, Coast Guard authorities have said the oil leak from the MSC Chitra has now been plugged. But the oil already in the sea along the Mumbai coast line will take a month to clear, according to environmental authorities and is still a serious worry... in a double whammy, there is an oil slick that is spreading fast with about three to four tones of oil spilling every hour and drums filled with pesticide have detached from the MSC Chitra - one of the ships that collided and is tilting precariously - and are now floating dangerously in the sea, also becoming a navigation hazard. ...	Oil leak... pesticides...what a delicious elixir! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from New Orleans Times-Picayune: Oil spill plugged, but more oiled birds than ever are being found More than three weeks after BP capped its gushing oil well, skimming operations have all but stopped and federal scientists say just a quarter of the oil remains in the Gulf of Mexico. But wildlife officials are rounding up more oiled birds than ever as fledgling birds get stuck in the residual goo and rescuers make initial visits to rookeries they had avoided disturbing during nesting season. 19 0 997Share Before BP plugged the well with a temporary cap on July 15, an average of 37 oiled birds were being collected dead or alive each day. Since then, the figure has nearly doubled to 71 per day, according to a Times-Picayune review of daily wildlife rescue reports. ...	Apparently, the birds aren't keeping up with all the good news! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 10, 2010 from PhysOrg: Scientists find Gulf of Mexico dead zone only 'fifth largest on record' NOAA-supported scientists have found this year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone to be the fifth largest on record at 7,722 square miles - an area the size of New Jersey, near the upper limit of their projections, but tropical storm activity in the Gulf of Mexico caused the zone to be a patchwork rather than a continuous band. This year's dead zone is nearly double that of 2009's, which was smaller than average. A series of storms and high wind and wave conditions in the shallower waters to the west of the Atchafalaya River delta mixed oxygen into the traditional dead zone area before last year's survey cruise. Last year's dead zone measured approximately 3,000 square miles.... The eastern portion of the dead zone does overlap with the region significantly impacted by the Deep Water Horizon oil spill, however, scientists conducting the cruise think that it is unlikely that the oil spill had a significant impact on the size of the zone.... The average size of the dead zone over the past five years has been 6,653 square miles, much larger than 1,900 square miles which is the target goal set by the Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi River Watershed Nutrient Task Force. ...	Since when did "average" and "traditional" and "target" come to be associated with a state-sized "dead zone"? 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 10, 2010 from Shanghai Daily News: Baby milk in new scare PARENTS are facing a new baby formula scare which will bring back memories of the Sanlu scandal in 2008 when 300,000 babies were affected by melamine-tainted milk. Shanghai industrial and commercial watchdogs said yesterday they were paying close attention to the local market after China-produced Synitra baby formula was reported as causing unusually early sexual development in infants in several provinces on the Chinese mainland. Synitra baby formula is not on the shelf at local major supermarkets but is available on e-commerce websites... Last month at Wuhan Children's Hospital, a 15-month-old girl was found to have the estrogen levels of a grown woman. Doctors suggested the parents stop feeding her Synitra formula immediately. ...	My understanding is Synitra translates to "puts hair on one's chest." ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 9, 2010 from Yale360: A Looming Oxygen Crisis and Its Impact on World's Oceans As serious as these dead zones are, however, they may be just a foreshadowing of a much more severe crisis to come. Agricultural runoff can only strip oxygen from the ocean around the mouths of fertilizer-rich rivers. But global warming has the potential to reduce the ocean's oxygen content across the entire planet. Combined with acidification -- another global impact of our carbon emissions -- the loss of oxygen could have a major impact on marine life. Scientists point to two reasons to expect a worldwide drop in ocean oxygen. One is the simple fact that as water gets warmer, it can hold less dissolved oxygen. The other reason is subtler. The entire ocean gets its oxygen from the surface -- either from the atmosphere, or from photosynthesizing algae floating at the top of the sea. The oxygen then spreads to the deep ocean as the surface waters slowly sink. Global warming is expected to reduce the mixing of the ocean by making surface seawater lighter.... more of the oxygen will linger near the surface, where it will be used up by oxygen-breathing organisms. ...	First it's CO2. Now it's O2. C'mon, science, make up your mind. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 9, 2010 from CBC: Record heat forces Northwest Territories folks to adapt Landslides and low water levels in the Northwest Territories in the wake of record-breaking warmth have prompted calls for changes in infrastructure planning. "It's really important that community decision-makers and government decision-makers are prepared to spend a little bit more to make sure that the design [of structures such as buildings and roadways], in terms of preparation for permafrost degradation, is as strong as possible," said Doug Ritchie, a spokesman for the environmental group Ecology North, in the wake of temperature changes that Environment Canada called "unprecedented." In the Northwest Territories this year, spring temperatures were almost six degrees warmer than average, surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by half a degree. Climatologist Dave Phillips said in his 40 years with Environment Canada, he's never seen such a rapid change in temperature. "In my business, you break records by a tenth or a hundredth of a degree, not by a full half-degree or a degree," he said. "This is unprecedented, this kind of warming that we've seen in the last six months."... The Yukon government is already spending millions fixing roads affected by landslides, erosion, and washouts caused by extreme weather such as heavy rainstorms, Ritchie said. ...	You don't need even a high school degree, to understand six degrees. Centigrade! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 9, 2010 from PhysOrg: Officials point to Russian drought and Asian deluge as consistent with climate change Government officials are pointing to the drought and wildfires in Russia, and the floods across Central and East Asia as consistent with climate change predictions. While climatologists say that a single weather event cannot be linked directly to a warming planet, patterns of worsening storms, severer droughts, and disasters brought on by extreme weather are expected as the planet warms.... On Friday Medvedev continued his sudden frankness on climate change, warning that climate change could impact the Winter Olympics. "Frankly, what is going on with the world�s climate at the moment should incite us all (I mean world leaders and heads of public organizations) to make a more strenuous effort to fight global climate change," he said. Russia is one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters: when emissions due to deforestation are not included, Russia is listed as among the top 4, after China and the US, and nearly equal to India.... At the same time as central Russia is experiencing record heat and debilitating fires, a number of Asian nations have been hit with catastrophic flooding and mud slides. Flashfloods in India have left 132 people dead and some 500 missing, while mudslides in China due to flooding has taken the lives of 127 people. Nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated in China. But to date no nation appears worst hit than Pakistan, where flooding has killed 1,600 people and affected 14 million. Landslides have followed the flooding killing dozens more. ...	Nattering nabobs of the negative "new normal." ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 9, 2010 from PhysOrg: Moscow's toxic smog fails to shift as anger, heat grows The toxic smog smothering Moscow showed little sign of abating Monday as media accused officials of covering up the scale of the disaster and the authorities raced to put out a fire near a nuclear site. Amid Russia's worst heatwave in decades, the raging wildfires and burning peat bogs in central Russia have choked Moscow for several days and even sent plumes of smoke as far as neighbouring Finland.... "Authorities do not release statistics in order to conceal their incompetence," the Kommersant daily quoted an unidentified head of an enterprise in the funerals industry as saying. "Morgues and crematoria are overcrowded."... "We have been strictly forbidden to hospitalize people barring the most extreme cases," he said, complaining of hazardous working conditions.... "Air conditioners work only on the floor of the administration, temperatures reach 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) in the operating room," he told Kommersant on conditions of anonymity. "It's hard to work in these conditions."... The heatwave created a national catastrophe which has affected all areas of life, with 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of agricultural land destroyed and the government ordering a controversial ban on grain exports. ...	But the vodka vendors are doing a bang-up business! ApocaDoc permalink