Apocadocuments, for the week of

[About the Project]
[About the ApocaDocs]
[About Equal Share]
[TwitterFollow: apocadocs]

Explore:

Play:

It's weekly, funny, and free!

Play:

Click for paper-free fun!

	Ads for potentially microfunding this site:

What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:	(3)
Plague/Virus:	(2)
Climate Chaos:	(14)
Resource Depletion:	(3)
Biology Breach:	(4)
Recovery:	(5)

This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
anthropogenic change ~ contamination ~ carbon emissions ~ climate impacts ~ global warming ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ deniers ~ efficiency increase ~ hunting to extinction ~ algal bloom ~ falling fertility

ApocaDocuments (31) gathered this week:
Sun, Nov 21, 2010 from AP, via PhysOrg: That 'other' climate problem Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - at a perilous rate. Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.... Yet awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new that it was not even mentioned in the seminal 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.... As the Earth warms, the summer thaw bites a bit deeper, awakening ice-age microbes that attack organic matter - vegetation and animal remains - buried where oxygen cannot reach, producing methane that gurgles to the surface and into the air. The newly released methane adds to the greenhouse effect, trapping yet more heat which deepens the next thaw, in a spiraling cycle of increasing warmth. ...	Apocaiku: The ice-age microbes / reawaken. Can we wake / all the sleepwalkers? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Nov 21, 2010 from Guardian: Global emissions of carbon dioxide drop 1.3 percent, say international scientists Global emissions of carbon dioxide dropped by 1.3 percent in 2009 compared with the previous year, largely due to the effects of the economic crisis and an overall fall in GDP, according to an international team of scientists. The drop is smaller than the 2.8 percent fall predicted by many experts for 2009, however, because the reductions in carbon emissions per unit of GDP - a measure of efficiency called the carbon intensity - was smaller than expected in many emerging economies.... Despite the 1.3 percent overall drop, the 2009 global fossil fuel emissions - 30.8bn tons of CO2 - were the second highest in human history, just below the all-time high of 2008. The small overall decrease in global emissions masks some big regional shifts, according to the report published today in Nature Geoscience. Because the global financial crisis has mainly affected developed nations, this is where emissions dropped by the largest amounts: in the US by 6.9 percent, the UK by 8.6 percent, Germany by 7 percent, Japan by 11.8 percent, Russia by 8.4 percent and Australia by 0.4 percent. In the emerging markets, however, there were big increases: China rose by 8 percent, India by 6.2 percent and South Korea by 1.4 percent. ...	Big sale! 1.3 percent off $30 billion dollars! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Nov 21, 2010 from BBC: Only 3,000 tiger left in the wild Governments of the 13 countries where tigers still live aim to agree moves that could double numbers of the endangered big cats within 12 years. The International Tiger Conservation Forum in St Petersburg will discuss proposals on protecting habitat, tackling poaching, and finance. About 3,000 tigers live in the wild - a 40 percent decline in a decade. There are warnings that without major advances, some populations will disappear within the next 20 years.... A recent report by Traffic, the global wildlife trade monitoring organisation, said that body parts from more than 1,000 tigers had been seized in the last decade.... "Some people are saying 'well, doubling the tiger population is good, but we have no room' - I've heard that said [in preliminary meetings]," he told the BBC. "It needs to be done everywhere - especially we need to see a doubling where you have significant populations. ""If you leave tigers alone and don't kill them and don't poach them, then naturally they will double in 10 years." ...	What kind of vicious, voracious alien could be a predator of tigers? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Nov 21, 2010 from AFP, via DesdemonaDespair: Fading fish stocks driving Asian sea rivalries Maritime incidents in the East and South China Seas, such as the one that sparked a major row between China and Japan, could intensify in a fight over dwindling fish stocks, experts say. Past incidents have been sparked by regional competition for strategic sea routes and the search for oil, but fishermen from Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam are increasingly heading outside their own territorial waters -- and into disputed areas -- to earn a living.... "Fish stocks are depleting very rapidly in eastern Asia and there is a scramble for fish," Jonathan Holslag, a researcher at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary Chinese Studies, told AFP.... Fish has become "a kind of new gold in Asia", he said.... "China is consuming more and more fish, and global fish stocks are down, especially in that region -- it makes perfect sense that Chinese boats are going to go farther and farther" and into disputed waters, he added. ...	It's strangely as if the more we overfish, the more reason there is for overfishing. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Nov 21, 2010 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Widely adopted indicator of fisheries health questioned The most widely adopted measure for assessing the state of the world's oceans and fisheries led to inaccurate conclusions in nearly half the ecosystems where it was applied. The new analysis was performed by an international team of fisheries scientists, and is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature. "Applied to individual ecosystems it's like flipping a coin; half the time you get the right answer and half the time you get the wrong answer," said Trevor Branch, a University of Washington (UW) aquatic and fisheries scientist.... In 1998, the journal Science published a groundbreaking paper that was the first to use trends in the trophic levels of fish that were caught to measure the health of world fisheries. The trophic level of an organism shows where it fits in food webs, with microscopic algae at a trophic level of one and large predators such as sharks, halibut and tuna at a trophic level around four.... An example of the problem with the measure is in the Gulf of Thailand where the average trophic level of what is being caught is rising, which should indicate improving ecosystem health according to proponents of that measure. Instead, it turns out fish at all levels have declined tenfold since the 1950s because of overharvesting. "The measure only declines if fisheries aimed for top predators first, but for the Gulf of Thailand the measure fails because fisheries first target mussels and shrimp near the bottom of the food web, before shifting to fish higher up," Branch said. ...	So half the time the cream I'm skimming is at the bottom of the barrel? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 20, 2010 from Guardian: Severe weather warning: Peru as canary For the indigenous Quechua people like Flores Choque, who have farmed Peru's highlands since the 15th century, the warning signs are already very real. Their farming calendar, dictated by the weather, has traditionally given their lives a steady rhythm. But in the last few years uncharacteristic and unpredictable weather - flooding, frosts, hail, intense heat and drought - has bombarded it. Crops have continually failed and Save the Children research reports production in some areas has fallen as much as 44 percent since 2007, with animal mortality rising from 20 percent to 48 percent. Water supply has diminished and the health and livelihoods of thousands been jeopardised.... "The people are becoming poorer and malnutrition is increasing," Apaza Maita stresses. "Children don't have defences and their health is suffering. They've always had respiratory problems but now they're much worse. For the first time we have cases of bronchitis."... Kallpa is also encouraging farmers to use natural fertilisers rather than chemicals. Hardy native potatoes are being planted again instead of the white potatoes previously grown for export, as well as crops such as tarwi, a bean that, though tasteless, bursts with nutrition.... "It's all connected with the weather and melting glaciers. Four years ago a small river near here ran at eight litres per second. This year it's four litres per second. Now there isn't enough water for the community." ...	It ain't just the heat, it's the extremity. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 20, 2010 from TheEnergyCollective: Oil industry insider exposé: what it took to wake some of them up on climate. I've just read Challenged by Carbon: The Oil Industry and Climate Change, which was written by Dr. Bryan Lovell, a former senior executive at British Petroleum.... Lovell writes about how it came to be that the senior European oil executives backed Kyoto while Exxon-Mobil continued on with its denial campaign. In the process, he also shows us what he and his European counterparts believe about how dangerous climate change is. I was astonished.... The oil execs understand and believe that the amount of carbon that is being moved into the atmosphere as civilization accelerates its use of fossil fuels is going in at such a rate that the only comparable event in Earth's history is the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum). They believe a recurrence of this event is not only possible but likely. They can't face being held responsible by history. The European senior oil execs, unlike their American counterparts, and perhaps only briefly, lost their nerve about the denial policy, backed Kyoto, and confronted the Americans. The science described by Lovell is why BP started its "Beyond Petroleum" campaign. The science hasn't changed. Obviously, BP has. ...	Hey, you think there'll even be any historians left? Ha! I'm safe. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 20, 2010 from USA Today: Kimberly-Clark rolls out tube-free Scott toilet paper On Monday, Kimberly-Clark, one of the world's biggest makers of household paper products, will begin testing Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the Northeast. If sales take off, it may introduce the line nationally and globally -- and even consider adapting the technology into its paper towel brands. No, the holes in the rolls aren't perfectly round. But they do fit over TP spindles and come with this promise: Even the last piece of toilet paper will be usable -- without glue stuck on it.... The 17 billion toilet paper tubes produced annually in the USA account for 160 million pounds of trash, according to Kimberly-Clark estimates, and could stretch more than a million miles placed end-to-end. That's from here to the moon and back -- twice. Most consumers toss, rather than recycle, used tubes, says Doug Daniels, brand manager at Kimberly-Clark. "We found a way to bring innovation to a category as mature as bath tissue," he says. ...	And if sales don't take off, maybe you can just do the right thing anyway? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Nov 20, 2010 from New Scientist: US reserves of rare earth elements assessed for first time The US has 13 million tonnes of rare earth elements but it would take years to extract them, suggests the first detailed report on the country's supply.... China controls 97 per cent of the world's supply and has been tightening its export quotas, sparking concerns that the rare earths could live up to their name. Now, the US Geological Survey has looked at all known national reserves of the elements as part of a larger assessment of the threat posed to defence by limited rare earth supplies. It found that the domestic pipeline is "rather thin". The US boasts the third largest reserves in the world after China and the Commonwealth of Independent States, made up of nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. But the only rare earths mine the US has ever operated, at Mountain Pass, California, is currently inactive. Mining may restart there within two years, but any other mines will be far behind. ...	Maybe we should change the name to really expensive earths. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 from Earth Institute: 'Small is Also Beautiful' - Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Famers' Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India But the Green Revolution in Punjab came with a heavy price. Even as yields per acre shot up year after year, heavy use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizer and tube-irrigation soared as well, contributing to cancer, degrading the natural capital of the soil and-perhaps most importantly-depleting non-renewable underground aquifers at staggering speed. Now, even as agricultural productivity has plateaued, a dropping water table now puts the food security of the entire country at risk.... The team then installed the tensiometers in rice fields. In order to get accurate results, farmers were instructed to irrigate only one acre of their fields based on the tensiometer readings, and to use the other fields as control plots. Initial results were remarkable. On average, farmers irrigated the tensiometer fields 30 to 35 percent less than on control plots--with no adverse impact on yield. In fact, anecdotal reports suggested that in some cases yield actually improved, as farmers were able to minimize some pest diseases associated with excessive standing water. ...	"Appropriate technology" seems so appropriate! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 from Christian Science Monitor, via Yahoo: Son of Stuxnet? Variants of the cyberweapon likely, senators told Stuxnet, the first known weaponized software designed to destroy a specific industrial process, could soon be modified to target an array of industrial systems in the US and abroad, cyber experts told US senators Wednesday. The Stuxnet malware, discovered this summer, was apparently designed to strike one target - Iran's nuclear-fuel centrifuge facilities, researchers now say. But Stuxnet's "digital warhead," they caution, could be copied and altered by others to wreak havoc on a much grander scale. Variants of Stuxnet could target a host of critical infrastructure, from the power grid and water supplies to transportation systems, four cybersecurity experts told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.... "from automobile assembly lines to mixing baby formula to processing chemicals," said Mr. McGurk.... "... Stuxnet is an important harbinger of things that may come if we do not use this opportunity to learn about this threat and apply it." ...	What I want to know is why they can't just spray the computers with antibiotics. Wouldn't that kill the virus? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 from Huffington Post: U.S. Embassy: Beijing Air Quality Is 'Crazy Bad' Pollution in Beijing was so bad Friday the U.S. Embassy, which has been independently monitoring air quality, ran out of conventional adjectives to describe it, at one point saying it was "crazy bad." The embassy later deleted the phrase, saying it was an "incorrect" description and it would revise the language to use when the air quality index goes above 500, its highest point and a level considered hazardous for all people by U.S. standards. The hazardous haze has forced schools to stop outdoor exercises, and health experts asked residents, especially those with respiratory problems, the elderly and children, to stay indoors. "We've canceled 10 days worth of games since August," said David Niven, chief operating officer of China ClubFootball, which runs extensive youth and adult football leagues in Beijing. "If the air is above 240, some of the schools will ask us to move football games indoors or cancel them altogether. Because of the bad air this year, we've had to cancel more games than ever before." ...	In the language revision race, Fundamentally Toxic is neck-n-neck with Incredibly Awful, Stunningly Poisonous, and Nearly Lethal. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Nov 19, 2010 from New York Times: A Call to Action on Ocean Acidity States bordering water bodies that are becoming more acidic from the absorption of carbon dioxide should list them as impaired under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency declared in a memo this week. Carbon dioxide emissions are considered a threat not only because of their heat-trapping properties in the atmosphere but also because of their ability to change ocean chemistry. The world's oceans act as a sponge for carbon dioxide, and as the gas dissolves in seawater, it changes into carbonic acid.... In the case of ocean acidification, such declarations could conceivably compel states or the federal government to act to limit carbon dioxide emissions. "It gives the green light to states to go ahead and assess whether their waters are being impacted by ocean acidification and designate them if they are," said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Step two would be some kind of approach to controlling the pollution that's causing the problem, which in this case would be carbon dioxide." ...	Once again those filthy liberuls are trying to save civilization's future through regulation. 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, Nov 19, 2010 from BBC: Farms to harvest rare animal parts 'are not the answer' Farming rare animal species will not halt the illegal trade in animal parts, a conservation group has warned. Care for the Wild says the fact that the animals are worth more dead than alive is hampering efforts to save species such as tigers and rhinos. They add that selling parts from captive-bred creatures would not result in a halt of illegally traded animal parts and would instead fuel demand. A kilo of powdered rhino horn can fetch 22,000 pounds on the black market. Mark Jones, programmes director of Care for the Wild International, said recent media reports suggested that the South African government was considering "a feasibility study on some kind of farming or ranching of rhinos for their horns". "This flagged up that these sort of farming initiatives are still being considered at quite high levels," he explained. ...	Won't nature just increase the supply, if demand soars? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign via ScienceDaily: As Arctic Temperatures Rise, Tundra Fires Increase In September, 2007, the Anaktuvuk River Fire burned more than 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska's North Slope, doubling the area burned in that region since record keeping began in 1950. A new analysis of sediment cores from the burned area revealed that this was the most destructive tundra fire at that site for at least 5,000 years. Models built on 60 years of climate and fire data found that even moderate increases in warm-season temperatures in the region dramatically increase the likelihood of such fires. ...	You know you're in trouble when your tundra is on fire! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 from Environmental Health News: Wind whisks lead across the Pacific Ocean to California A new study finds lead from Asia in California air samples, providing evidence that wind can transport airborne pollutants across continents and oceans. This new research is further proof that air pollution is a global issue and needs international cooperation to reduce environmental and health impacts. Approximately one-third of the lead found in the air samples taken from sites in the San Francisco Bay area originated in Asia, but the fraction varied by season and weather patterns. It is likely that other contaminants originating in Asia may reach the U.S. in the same way. ...	Beware ... the whisking wind. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 from CNN: Climate project calls for citizen scientists An international team of climate scientists is calling on the public to help with a new initiative aimed at predicting how the climate will change during the 21st century. Using the collective power of ordinary home computers, scientists from the United Kingdom, United States and South Africa will run thousands of regional climate modeling tests which would otherwise take much longer to complete, even on the most up-to-date supercomputers... With the help of the public's PCs scientists will now start running regional climate models for the western United States, Europe and southern Africa. People interested in signing up to the project can visit http://climateprediction.net/weatherathome/ where they can download all the necessary tools to start running regional climate models from their own computers. ...	C'mon kids let's put on a show! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 from Climatewire: The 'Fate of the World' Will Soon Be in Your Hands (Virtually Speaking) ...A British game designer is launching "Fate of the World," a climate change video game giving the gamer total control of the world's energy economy -- and a bird's-eye view of what happens if he or she flips the wrong switches. In a way, a computer game is the perfect medium for the topic. Part of the reason U.S. action is so lukewarm, environmentalists have complained, is that climate's too big to grasp. Carbon dioxide is invisible, and its consequences are too far away. The likely consequences -- future floods, drought, famine -- lack a personal touch. ...	Only problem is with most video games, it's most fun when you destroy things. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 from Inter Press Service: Melting glaciers threaten wildlife Kyrgyzstan's glaciers are receding at what scientists say is an alarming rate, fuelled by global warming. And while experts warn of a subsequent catastrophe for energy and water security for Kyrgyzstan and neighbour states downstream reliant on its water flows, devastation to local ecosystems and the effects on plant and wildlife could be just as severe. "Animals and vegetation will not be unaffected and the risks for some species will be great," Ilia Domashov, deputy head of the BIOM Environmental NGO in Bishkek, said. More than four percent - 8,400 square kilometres - of Kyrgyzstan's territory consists of glaciers. A natural process of water release from summer melting of the glaciers, which freeze again during the winter, feeds many of the country's rivers and lakes. Up to 90 per cent of water in Kyrgyzstan rivers comes from glaciers, local experts claim. ...	So... wildlife and civilizedlife will BOTH be impacted?!?!? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 from Viet Nam News: Doctors see rise in second-birth infertility The number of women diagnosed with secondary infertility has risen by 15-20 per cent, according to the director of the National Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynecology,Nguyen Viet Tien. Secondary infertility is the inability to conceive after already giving birth and, according to Tien, 50 per cent of couples seeking infertility treatments already have one or more children... about 40 per cent of infertility cases were due to male factors and another 40 per cent to female factors. The remaining cases were either due to factors from both partners or from unknown causes. About 90 per cent of male issues were sperm abnormalities, the remaining 5 per cent were to do with sexual dysfunction, including sexual desire disorders, erectile dysfunction, or dyspareunia, Tien said. Tuong explained that sperm abnormalities occurred because male sperm are highly sensitive to their environment, particularly to temperature and chemicals, and citizens in urban areas suffer from heavy pollution and food poisoning. ...	Somehow I knew our overpopulation problems would magically solve themselves. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 from London Daily Mail: Waiting in vain, the quarter of a million Haiti residents at risk from cholera who are wondering when all that help the international community promised will arrive For row after interminable row, the tents stretch as far as the human eye can see at a squalid camp on the northern side of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Each has a number on a board pegged into the rain-sodden ground outside and is home to a family waiting for cholera to strike them down. The disease began its rampage an hour's drive away from this camp, called Croix de Bouquet, last month. Now nearly one thousand people in Haiti are dead and cholera has reached the capital. UN soldiers with guns march down the lines of tents to stop rioting over deliveries of emergency medicines and water, while charity workers hand out soap in a desperate attempt to boost hygiene levels and stop the cholera in its tracks. It is a terrifying race against time. Boys and girls with ribs clearly visible after months of hunger play in the filthy rivulets of water amid piles of rubbish. These are the forgotten children of a forgotten country, still reeling from one of the world's worst earthquakes in January when 300,000 people were killed and a million more were made homeless in an instant. ...	This blame game is done being fun. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Nov 17, 2010 from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via ScienceDaily: Earth's Lower Atmosphere Is Warming, Review of Four Decades of Scientific Literature Concludes The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming and this warming is broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study that reviews the history of understanding of temperature changes and their causes in this key atmospheric layer.... The paper documents how, since the development of the very first climate models in the early 1960s, the troposphere has been projected to warm along with the Earth's surface because of the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere....This new paper extensively reviews the relevant scientific analyses -- 195 cited papers, model results and atmospheric data sets -- and finds that there is no longer evidence for a fundamental discrepancy and that the troposphere is warming. ...	We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Apocalypse. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 from UC Berkeley News: Dire messages about global warming can backfire, new study shows Dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively, making people less amenable to reducing their carbon footprint, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. "Our study indicates that the potentially devastating consequences of global warming threaten people's fundamental tendency to see the world as safe, stable and fair. As a result, people may respond by discounting evidence for global warming," said Robb Willer, UC Berkeley social psychologist and coauthor of a study to be published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science. "The scarier the message, the more people who are committed to viewing the world as fundamentally stable and fair are motivated to deny it," agreed Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral student in psychology and coauthor of the study. But if scientists and advocates can communicate their findings in less apocalyptic ways, and present solutions to global warming, Willer said, most people can get past their skepticism. ...	Dog-gone it! The world needs a humor site for global warming! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 from Climatewire: Can Social Scientists Help Ease the Nation's Rift Over Climate Change? Stop being so skeptical of climate skeptics, says one researcher who believes there's been a failure to understand the mounting cultural doubt around atmospheric warming. The national discussion on climate change is brimming with economic models, scientific findings and wonky plans to fix it. But something is missing: academic explanations of why people flout reams of scientific conclusions, bristle at the notion of cutting carbon and regard climate change as a sneaky liberal plot.... She came away with themes that will sketch an outline of the skeptical movement for future research: Adherents tend to be middle-aged, white males who resent government, are suspicious of scientists and their peer-reviewed protocols, and believe global warming is made up to hit them in the wallet. ...	They'll eventually die off... won't they? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 from WTHR 13 - Indianapolis: Dumped in Indiana ...This summer, just over the border in Ohio, Grand Lake St Marys was devastated by blue-green algae that killed fish, birds, and tourism. The iridescent algae is blamed for millions of dollars in lost revenue for businesses surrounding Ohio's largest inland lake. State officials say the algae crisis was a direct result of manure runoff that drained into the shallow lake from area farm fields. To curb the problem - and hopefully save the lake - state officials developed a detailed action plan to improve water quality at Grand Lake St Marys. The plan calls for Ohio to "promote manure hauling" away from the lake's watershed, and it includes using federal funds from the Environmental Quality Incentive Program to help Ohio farmers transport their manure to Indiana. ...	Here in Indiana we don't mind being shat upon. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Nov 16, 2010 from Associated Press: EPA announces Fla. water pollution rules The federal Environmental Protection Agency for the first time Monday in Florida set numeric water pollution standards for a state although 13 others already have adopted such rules on their own. The federal standards are required by the settlement of a lawsuit last year. They replace Florida's vague descriptive regulations for determining when rivers, lakes and other inland waters are polluted with such contaminants as fertilizer and animal and human waste. Those pollutants are blamed for toxic algae blooms that have clogged Florida's waterways. "The EPA has stepped in to rescue Florida from a powerful gang of polluters who for decades have used campaign contributions and intimidation to stop state government in Tallahassee from taking this action," said Frank Jackalone, Florida staff director for the Sierra Club. His is one of five environmental groups that sued EPA for failing to enforce the Clean Water Act of 1972, charging Florida was allowed to get away without adopting numeric standards. ...	This is especially important in a state that will have so much more water once sea levels rise. 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, Nov 16, 2010 from The Daily Climate: Feds understate the cost of climate disruption, critics contend The Obama Administration has ignored wrenching climate impacts such as ocean acidification in its effort to estimate the cost of carbon emissions, making emissions limits disproportionately expensive, economists say... In February an inter-agency workgroup released the administration's best guess of what each ton of carbon dioxide dumped in the atmosphere costs society: $21, plus or minus, or roughly $121 billion worth of damages annually as a result of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions [pdf]... The lower the estimated cost of disruption - known as the "social cost of carbon" - the less action the Obama Administration can justify. And several economists and scientists fear that the Administration has low-balled the figure, handicapping its ability to curb emissions. ...	Somehow it seems like it's the president's job, whoever is in the position, to screw this up. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 from Louisiana State University via ScienceDaily: Oceanography Researchers Discover Toxic Algae in Open Water Louisiana State University's Sibel Bargu, along with her former graduate student Ana Garcia, from the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences in LSU's School of the Coast & Environment, has discovered toxic algae in vast, remote regions of the open ocean for the first time... Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, are reported as increasing both geographically and in frequency along populated coastlines. Bargu's research shows that the ubiquitous diatom Pseudo-nitzschia -- an alga that produces the neurotoxin, domoic acid, or DA, in coastal regions -- actually also produces DA at many locations in the open Pacific. The presence of these potent toxins in deep water environments is worrisome, given that in coastal waters, where the phenomenon has been studied, DA can enter the food chain, forcing the closure of some fisheries and poisoning marine mammals and birds that feed on the contaminated fish. The main concern, though, is that the adding of iron to ocean waters -- one of the most commonly proposed strategies to reduce global warming -- appears now to likely result in promoting toxic blooms in the ocean. ...	This bloom... could be our doom. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 from Agence France-Press: Hong Kong's first green jail sparks controversy Hong Kong's first environmentally-friendly prison has stirred up a debate in one of the world's most densely populated cities where many live in dingy and overcrowded high-rise flats. Billed as the jail of the future, the sprawling 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollar (200 million US) facility was built based on a sustainable concept that promotes open space with green and energy-efficient features. Authorities said the Lo Wu prison, the newest of the city's 16 prisons, which opened in August, aims to provide more humane living conditions for some 1,400 female inmates as the city moves to ease prison overcrowding. The prison boasts advanced features such as a "green" roof to lower temperature, rooftop solar panels, a natural lighting system, high-headroom spaces and large dormitory blocks to enhance natural ventilation. ...	The Shawshank Recyclables ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 from Reuters: Climate science "under-reported" at 2009 U.N. summit Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday. Based on analysis of 400 articles written about the December 2009 summit, the authors of the report for Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) called for a re-think of reporting on future such conferences. Author James Painter concluded that "science was under-reported" as the essential backdrop to the drama when about 120 world leaders met in Copenhagen but failed to agree a binding treaty to slow climate change. Much coverage from Copenhagen instead focused on hacked e-mails from a British university that some skeptics took as evidence of efforts by scientists to ignore dissenting views. The scientists involved have since been cleared of wrongdoing. ...	If it ain't sexy or dramatic, it ain't worth reading! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Nov 15, 2010 from London Independent: None flew over the cuckoo's nest: A world without birds ...It is nearly 50 years since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, the book that warned of environmental damage the pesticide DDT was causing. Today, DDT use is banned except in exceptional circumstances, yet we still don't seem to have taken on board Carson's fundamental message. According to Henk Tennekes, a researcher at the Experimental Toxicology Services in Zutphen, the Netherlands, the threat of DDT has been superseded by a relatively new class of insecticide, known as the neonicotinoids. In his book The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making, published this month, Tennekes draws all the evidence together, to make the case that neonicotinoids are causing a catastrophe in the insect world, which is having a knock-on effect for many of our birds. Already, in many areas, the skies are much quieter than they used to be. All over Europe, many species of bird have suffered a population crash. Spotting a house sparrow, common swift or a flock of starlings used to be unremarkable, but today they are a more of an unusual sight. Since 1977, Britain's house-sparrow population has shrunk by 68 per cent. ...	And the worms shall inherit the earth. ApocaDoc permalink