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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:	(2)
Plague/Virus:	()
Climate Chaos:	(9)
Resource Depletion:	(2)
Biology Breach:	(8)
Recovery:	()

This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
contamination ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ global warming ~ climate impacts ~ anthropogenic change ~ health impacts ~ massive die-off ~ airborne pollutants ~ habitat loss ~ ocean warming ~ carbon emissions

ApocaDocuments (21) gathered this week:
Sun, Dec 26, 2010 from Associated Press: The problem with wheat In these volcanic valleys of central Mexico, on the Canadian prairies, across India's northern plain, they sow and they reap the golden grain that has fed us since the distant dawn of farming. But along with the wheat these days comes a harvest of worry. Yields aren't keeping up with a world growing hungrier. Crops are stunted in a world grown warmer. A devastating fungus, a wheat "rust," is spreading out of Africa, a grave threat to the food plant that covers more of the planet's surface than any other. ...	Let them eat rust. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Dec 26, 2010 from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via ScienceDaily: Growing Hypoxic Zones Reduce Habitat for Billfish and Tuna Billfish and tuna, important commercial and recreational fish species, may be more vulnerable to fishing pressure because of shrinking habitat, according to a new study published by scientists from NOAA, The Billfish Foundation, and University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. An expanding zone of low oxygen, known as a hypoxic zone, in the Atlantic Ocean is encroaching upon these species' preferred oxygen-abundant habitat, forcing them into shallower waters where they are more likely to be caught. ...	...as if we'd planned it all along. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Dec 26, 2010 from Science News: Flower sharing may be unsafe for bees Wild pollinators are catching honeybee viruses, possibly from pollen... Eleven species of wild pollinators in the United States have turned up carrying some of the viruses known to menace domestic honeybees, possibly picked up via flower pollen. Most of these native pollinators haven't been recorded with honeybee viruses before, according to Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State University in University Park. The new analysis raises the specter of diseases swapping around readily among domestic and wild pollinators, Cox-Foster and her colleagues report online December 22 in PLoS ONE. ...	Just like needles. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Dec 24, 2010 from New York Times: Climate Change and 'Balanced' Coverage In an article this week on the relentless rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I outlined one of the canonical projections of climate science: if the amount of carbon dioxide doubles, the average surface temperature of the earth is likely to increase by 5 or 6 degrees Fahrenheit, a whopping change. I contrasted that with a prediction from skeptics of climate change who contend that the increase is likely to be less than 2 degrees. One major voice on climate science, Richard B. Alley of the Pennsylvania State University, told me he gets annoyed by the way this contrast is often presented in news accounts. The higher estimate is often put forward as a worst case, he pointed out, while the skeptic number is presented as the best case... The true worst case from doubled carbon dioxide is closer to 18 or 20 degrees of warming, Dr. Alley said -- an addition of heat so radical that it would render the planet unrecognizable to its present-day inhabitants. ...	Just when you thought it was safe to slip back into denial. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Dec 24, 2010 from BBC: New cars in Beijing cut by two-thirds to battle traffic New rules have taken effect in China that restrict car purchases in an effort to combat serious traffic problems in the capital, Beijing. City authorities will allow only 240,000 vehicles to be registered for 2011 - one-third of this year's total. Car buyers have been swamping dealers in anticipation of the new rules, which will still leave about five million cars on the road in the capital. Traffic and air pollution in Beijing is among the worst in the world.... Yang Ailun of Greenpeace China told the BBC that the restrictions had come far too late... "Everything in China now happens so quickly, and the government always fails to anticipate what's coming, and as a result normally policies are only introduced when things are already out of control." ...	Thank goodness 'Mericans are free to ruin the planet without interference. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Dec 23, 2010 from Wall Street Journal: Bunnies Are in Deep Doo-Doo When They 'Go Nuclear' at Hanford The little pellets that government contractors found near a building here in October looked like any other pile of rabbit droppings. A Geiger counter told a different story. The scat was radioactive, and that could only mean one thing: There was a cottontail on the loose with access to sensitive nuclear material...Sleuthing for atomic flora and fauna is serious work at Hanford, which once had nine nuclear reactors and produced plutonium for the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. Since 1989, Hanford has been the site of a cleanup that's cost over $30 billion. Most of that work is decommissioning reactors, demolishing tainted buildings and burying waste. But animals tend to root around contaminated areas at the 586-square-mile site, so federal contractors closely monitor plants and critters to curb the spread of radiation. ...	Isn't radioactive bunny poop one of the Seven Signs of the Apocalypse? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Dec 23, 2010 from Los Angeles Times: Polar bear status pits environmentalists vs. administration A dispute about how much the government should protect polar bears has turned into a battleground for environmentalists and some of the country's most powerful business organizations over the larger question of global warming. On Wednesday, the Interior Department filed arguments in federal court defending its decision to classify polar bears as "threatened" rather than "endangered" despite widespread shrinkage of the sea ice that forms the bears' natural habitat. What makes the issue so sensitive is that, if polar bears received the stricter endangered classification, the Obama administration would be pressured to attack the problem at its source: the petroleum, coal and manufacturing companies that emit the greenhouse gases scientists say are a major factor in climate change. ...	I propose a third category for polar bears: screwed. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Dec 23, 2010 from Politics Daily: Salinas, California: The Salad Bowl of Pesticides Locals call this place the world's salad bowl. Dole, Naturipe and Fresh Express are here, where much of the global fruit and vegetable trade emerges in neat green fields just over the hills from the Pacific Coast... It is here that University of California, Berkeley public health professor Brenda Eskenazi and her colleagues have spent the past 12 years studying mothers and children who are exposed to pesticides used in the fields... Investigators tracked the women throughout their pregnancies, waiting at hospitals as babies were born to collect the umbilical cord blood. As the children grew, Eskenazi and her team also charted their growth, mental development and general health. This group is now 10 and a half years old, and Eskenazi's work has set off alarms among public health officials. She and her colleagues have found that at age 2, the children of mothers who had the highest levels of organophosphate pesticide metabolites in their blood had the worst mental development in the group. They also had the most cases of pervasive developmental disorder. ...	These are not the salad days, anymore. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Dec 22, 2010 from Reuters: Invasive species lie in wait, strike after decades Species that are moved away from their natural predators back home can displace native species in their new habitats, and scientists say the problem already costs Europe 12 billion euros ($16 billion) a year. The study, which is likely to hold true for other continents too, means that the seeds of future, perhaps bigger, problems have literally already been sown. The study compared the effects of "alien species" such as American ragweed, Canada geese or Japanese deer in 28 European countries. The study's findings indicated that it can take decades to figure out which alien species will be disruptive, and looking at those that arrived in 1900 was a better indicator of current problems than looking at those from 2000. ...	They're invasive... their alien ... and they're sneaky, too! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Dec 22, 2010 from AolNews: Risky Business: EPA Builds List of Potentially Dangerous Chemicals As the rates of learning disabilities, autism and related conditions rise, the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to release a roster of the pollutants likely to contribute to these or other neurological disorders. In an ongoing, three-year effort, an EPA team has determined which developmental neurotoxicants -- chemicals that damage a fetal and infant brain -- may pose the biggest risk to the American public. Some compounds on the EPA's list are ubiquitous in household products, drinking water, medicine, and within the environment. They range from cadmium, used to etch colorful cartoons onto children's glasses, to flame retardants used to fireproof upholstered furniture. ...	I'd rather not know! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Dec 22, 2010 from Guardian: The day my innocence bit the dust On the tour, the environmental director pointed out all the buggies spraying water on the track - this was to keep the coal dust under control. Dust rising from the mine and drifting in the wind was blamed by local communities for lung problems and environmental damage.... "See, all this fuss about coal dust. Look, there really isn't any." I looked across the pit and had to admit that he was right - the air seemed fairly clean.... The cab driver asked if he could take a friend along for the long drive. About five minutes into the journey the friend turned around from the front seat and said: "Were you the visitors to the mine today?" "Yes," I said. "I thought so. I work there, with the cutting machinery," said the passenger. "I just wanted to tell you something. Just before you arrived at the viewpoint we received an order to turn off the cutting machines. And after you left, we were instructed to switch them back on again."... What interested me most was the reaction of my local colleague, a lawyer who had been working on these issues for some time. She was utterly unsurprised. In her world, big multinational, and smaller national, companies lie and deceive as a matter of course to get their way in the world and to make a quicker buck. ...	Corporations might lie just to make more money, even if it endangers lives?? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Dec 22, 2010 from IRIN: Water shortage hits Somaliland Residents in parts of Somalia's northeastern self-declared republic of Somaliland are facing severe water shortages after poor October to December Deyr rains. "In the eastern regions of Somaliland, such as Sool, Sanag and Togdheer, the people are already facing livelihood difficulties, as well as water shortages, because all the barkads [water pans] have run out of water," said Mohamed Muse Awale, director of Somaliland's National Disaster Committee.... "The nearest place to get water is Damal Hagare [160km northeast] in Sanag region and the prices have increased from US$8 to $15 [for 200 litres]," Said Mohamoud Abdi Mohamoud, from the Hudun District in Sool, told IRIN. According to a Famine Early Warning Systems Network report, poor rainfall in December is likely to "further stress water resources and negatively impact [on] crop and rangeland conditions in the Greater Horn of Africa". ...	Why don't they just move? That's what I'd do. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Dec 22, 2010 from University of Bristol, via EurekAlert: New fossil site in China shows long recovery of life from the largest extinction in Earth's history Some 250 million years ago, at the end of the time known as the Permian, life was all but wiped out during a sustained period of massive volcanic eruption and devastating global warming. Only one in ten species survived, and these formed the basis for the recovery of life in the subsequent time period, called the Triassic. The new fossil site - at Luoping in Yunnan Province - provides a new window on that recovery, and indicates that it took about 10 million years for a fully-functioning ecosystem to develop.... 'The fossils at Luoping have told us a lot about the recovery and development of marine ecosystems after the end-Permian mass extinction,' said Professor Benton. 'There's still more to be discovered there, and we hope to get an even better picture of how life reasserted itself after the most catastrophic global event in the history of our planet.' ...	I think the word "heretofore" may be missing from that description. ApocaDoc permalink
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Tue, Dec 21, 2010 from London Guardian: That snow outside is what global warming looks like ... There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere.... Here's what seems to be happening. The global temperature maps published by Nasa present a striking picture. Last month's shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific. Temperatures in these regions were between 0.5C and 4C colder than the November average from 1951 and 1980. But on either side of these cool blue pools are raging fires of orange, red and maroon: the temperatures in western Greenland, northern Canada and Siberia were between 2C and 10C higher than usual. Nasa's Arctic oscillations map for 3-10 December shows that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were 15C warmer than the average for 2002-9. There was a similar pattern last winter. These anomalies appear to be connected. ...	In the future all our anomalies will be connected. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Dec 21, 2010 from Deutsche Welle: Campaigners target sandblasted jeans on health grounds Consumers looking for a pair of jeans with that special worn look might want to check the label, according to campaigners. The group Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) is calling for a global ban on the practice of sandblasting, in which denim is sprayed with sand at high pressure to give the material a distressed look. Sandblasting is associated with the disease silicosis - a lung disease caused by fine particles of sand thrown into the air during the process. Turkey was a major producer of sandblasted garments before a ban on the process was implemented in 2009. ...	Then I'll just have to sandblast 'em myself! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Dec 21, 2010 from Dallas Morning News: EPA's rule enforcement on pollution has dropped Texas Gov. Rick Perry has warned that the Environmental Protection Agency is punishing Texas by rejecting a state clean-air permitting program and advancing a scheme to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. But new data shows that EPA enforcement of existing regulations under the Obama administration has fallen by several key measures. In Texas, the amount of pollution that companies agreed to reduce - as a result of enforcement cases - fell 74 percent in 2009-10 from 2007-08. Nationwide, it fell 57 percent. Furthermore, the amount that polluters agreed to spend nationwide to upgrade controls and cleanup fell to $17.4 billion in 2009-10, from $22.3 billion in 2007-08. ...	Are we being jacked by Jackson? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Dec 20, 2010 from Knoxville News Sentinel: Rules for coal ash unclear: Enforcement will depend on whether EPA classifies waste as hazardous Two years after the disastrous coal ash spill in Kingston, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of enacting the first federal standards for the disposal of ash from coal-fired power plants. But after eight public hearings on the proposed regulations, the last of which was in Knoxville in October, and more than 200,000 comments from interested parties across the country, one key question remains unanswered: Will coal ash be treated as a hazardous waste under the new federal rules? Environmental activists who have been urging the EPA to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste say they have been unable to glean any insight into which direction the new rules might take. The EPA itself has offered no clues about its intentions or even when the new rules might be finalized. ...	It's hazardous [to] waste [time]. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Dec 20, 2010 from Nature: Newsmaker of the year: In the eye of the storm She set out to revolutionize US ocean management -- but first she faced the oil spill. Jane Lubchenco is Nature's Newsmaker of the Year. ...	We await our turn. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Dec 20, 2010 from ProPublica: Med Schools Flunk at Keeping Faculty Off Pharma Speaking Circuit As medical schools wrestle with how to keep drug companies from corrupting their faculties, Stanford University is often lauded for its tough stance. The school was one of the first to stop sales representatives from roaming its halls in 2006 [1]. It cut off the flow of free lunches and trinkets emblazoned with drug names. And last year, in a blow to its physicians' wallets, Stanford banned them from giving paid promotional talks for pharmaceutical companies. One thing it didn't do was make sure its faculty followed that rule. A ProPublica investigation found that more than a dozen of the school's doctors were paid speakers in apparent violation of its policy--two of them earning six figures since last year. ...	Money... is the sweetest drug of all. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Dec 20, 2010 from CNN: Going green to save the white of the Alps In the Alps, the term "going green" is not necessarily a good thing. While efforts to be more environmentally friendly are welcome, the region is under threat from climate change that could mean in the future the snowy, white slopes in the winter are more a grassy, green color... According to figures from an OECD report from 2007, a two degree Celsius rise in temperature would reduce the number of skiable areas in the Alps from nearly 700 to around 400. Those lying below 1,500 meters are most vulnerable.... ...	On the flip side, with sea level rise, we'll have more water skiing! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Dec 20, 2010 from Associated Press: 2010's world gone wild: Quakes, floods, blizzards This was the year the Earth struck back. Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 -- the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined. "It just seemed like it was back-to-back and it came in waves," said Craig Fugate, who heads the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010. "The term `100-year event' really lost its meaning this year." And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say. Even though many catastrophes have the ring of random chance, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and weird year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes. ...	The hand of man is a mighty instrument of ineptitude. ApocaDoc permalink