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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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climate impacts ~ health impacts ~ global warming ~ contamination ~ airborne pollutants ~ deniers ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ alternative energy ~ stupid humans ~ anthropogenic change ~ weather extremes

ApocaDocuments (25) gathered this week:
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 from Sydney Morning Herald: Sydney's heavy weather: six weeks' rain in a day Sydney has switched from its driest start to the year since 1965 to one of its wettest weeks in March after up to 200 millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours this weekend - 1.5 times the monthly average, a meteorologist says.... Persistent rain is showing no sign of letting up, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting rain and thunderstorms throughout the day and further showers on Tuesday.... Mr Dutschke said that, on Saturday and yesterday, 99 millimetres fell on the city - the highest 24-hour total in 3.5 years, with the heaviest downpours of about 150 to 200 millimetres along the beaches and the northern suburbs. "It's been a big turnaround in events, given that Sydney has been one of the parts of the state that has really missed out on La Nina-type rainfall," he said.... ...	These days, when it pours, it deluges. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Mar 20, 2011 from San Francisco Chronicle: A new clue in the case of the toxic strawberries It was disappointing, if not downright strange, when California's Department of Pesticide Regulation decided in December to approve methyl iodide for use on the state's strawberry crops despite more than 50,000 letters of opposition -- the most DPR has ever gotten on any proposed rule. Was DPR head, Mary-Ann Warmerdam, in the pocket of the chemical industry? There's no smoking gun, but Warmerdam had been subject to aggressive lobbying by Arysta LifeScience, the largest privately held chemical manufacturer in the world and the maker of the profitable methyl iodide. Earlier this week, Warmerdam resigned her post, announcing she would be taking a job at chemical maker Clorox. (Clorox does not manufacture methyl iodide.) DPR's approval raised eyebrows because methyl iodide is known to cause cancer, nerve damage and late-term miscarriage.... "Due to the potent toxicity of methyl iodide, its transport in and ultimate fate in the environment, adequate control of human exposure would be difficult, if not impossible."... California produces almost 90 percent of all strawberries grown in the U.S. ...	If I can pronounce a chemical's name, it can't be that bad, right? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Mar 20, 2011 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Deadly heatwaves will be more frequent in coming decades, say scientists The heatwave that scorched eastern Europe in 2010, killing thousands of people and devastating crops, was the worst since records began and led to the warmest summer on the continent for at least 500 years, a new scientific analysis has revealed. The research also suggests that "mega-heatwaves", such as the prolonged extreme temperatures that struck western Europe in 2003 will become five to 10 times more likely over the next 40 years, occurring at least once a decade. But the 2010 heatwave was so extreme - 10 deg C above the average for the first week of August between 1970 and 2000 - that similar events are only expected to occur once every 30 years or so.... The findings of the study are consistent with this, said Barriopedro: "Under global warming this kind of event will become more common. Mega-heatwaves are going to be more frequent and more intense in the future." ...	It ain't the heat -- it's the megaheat. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Mar 19, 2011 from The Vancouver Sun: Ocean garbage: Floating landmines No matter where you travel on the B.C. coast, no matter how remote or seemingly untrammelled and pristine the fiord or inlet, a piece of plastic, Styrofoam or other garbage has been there before you. God knows how it got there: Dumped recklessly off a vessel, swept down a river or through a storm drain, blown by the wind off the land, or brought in by the ocean currents flowing across the vast North Pacific - including debris from the Japanese tsunami, which could start arriving on our coast in two years. What we do know is that marine garbage is ubiquitous and wreaking havoc at every level of the marine environment. A new B.C. study estimates there are 36,000 pieces of "synthetic marine debris" -garbage the size of fists to fridges -floating around the coastline, from remote inland fiords to 150 kilometres offshore. ...	We are the only species that shits where it sleeps and pisses into the wind. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Mar 19, 2011 from Nature: 'Wilful ignorance': Nature opinion At a subcommittee hearing on 14 March, anger and distrust were directed at scientists and respected scientific societies. Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents.... [T]he legislation is fundamentally anti-science, just as the rhetoric that supports it is grounded in wilful ignorance. One lawmaker last week described scientists as "elitist" and "arrogant" creatures who hide behind "discredited" institutions.... [T]o deny that there is reason to be concerned, given the decades of work by countless scientists, is irresponsible. ...	Why should we listen to egghead smarty-pantses? What do they know? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Mar 19, 2011 from ASA, via EurekAlert: Can biochar help suppress greenhouse gases? Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas and a precursor to compounds that contribute to the destruction of the ozone. Intensively managed, grazed pastures are responsible for an increase in nitrous oxide emissions from grazing animals' excrement. Biochar is potentially a mitigation option for reducing the world's elevated carbon dioxide emissions, since the embodied carbon can be sequestered in the soil. Biochar also has the potential to beneficially alter soil nitrogen transformations. Laboratory tests have indicated that adding biochar to the soil could be used to suppress nitrous oxide derived from livestock. Biochar has been used for soil carbon sequestration in the same manner.... Addition of biochar to the soil allowed for a 70 percent reduction in nitrous oxide fluxes over the course of the study. Nitrogen contribution from livestock urine to the emitted nitrous oxide decreased as well. The incorporation of biochar into the soil had no detrimental effects on dry matter yield or total nitrogen content in the pasture. ...	Can't we do the same thing with industro-char? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 from Huffington Post: Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan's Trial by Fire As the world collectively holds its breath to see how the Fukushima crisis plays out (the quote of the day has got to be: "The worst-case scenario doesn't bear mentioning and the best-case scenario keeps getting worse...") there's a positive story which is not yet being reported. Despite assertions by its detractors that wind energy would not survive an earthquake or tsunami the Japanese wind industry is still functioning and helping to keep the lights on during the Fuksuhima crisis. Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind facility damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm, located about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake "battle proof design" came through with flying colors. Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country. ...	Yeah, but can wind power generate radiation? I don't think so. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 from Greenwire: Christian Coalition Visits Hill for Energy Discussion The Christian Coalition of America came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, not to proselytize or discuss issues like abortion or gay marriage, but to talk about the United States' energy policy and the need to end the country's dependence on foreign oil....Announcing the event, the coalition said in a statement, "We believe that there needs to be a conservative discussion on a national energy policy that speaks to the values of energy independence, national security, prosperity, family and stewardship. That is why we are sponsoring this discussion."... Other speakers who addressed the group were C. Boyden Gray...Gray said, "The United States is drowning in substitutes for oil." He said the country must become more reliant on natural gas, which is plentiful in the United States, to become less dependent on oil. ...	That frucker Gray apparently hasn't been reading how frucked fracking is on the environment. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 from Twin Falls Times-News: Dairy industry pushes CAFO secrecy bill BOISE -- An Idaho House committee supported Wednesday a move to seal off more data related to confined-animal feeding operations from the public eye, making it harder for the public to tell if state regulations are enforced. A bill proposed by Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, would put all dairy nutrient management plans -- and related proprietary business information -- out of the public's eye. The plans essentially detail what becomes of animal waste produced at the dairies, which if not properly disposed of can pollute groundwater and soils. ...	I'd prefer they hide their shit... so it doesn't get in my eye. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 17, 2011 from University of York, via EurekAlert: Intervention offers 'best chance' to save species endangered by climate change A University of York scientist is proposing a radical programme of 'assisted colonisation' to save species endangered by climate change. Chris Thomas, Professor of Conservation Biology, says the strategy is applicable across the world, and he suggests Britain as a potential haven for species such as the Iberian lynx, the Spanish Imperial Eagle, the Pyrenean Desman and the Provence Chalkhill Blue butterfly. In an opinion paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Professor Thomas, of the University's Department of Biology, says that moving endangered species is the only viable option to maintain some climate-endangered species in the wild.... Professor Thomas says a more radical policy is now required if humanity wishes to minimise the number of species that become extinct from all causes, including from climate change and species invasions. He says increased local and regional species richness that would result is positive, provided that this does not result in higher global extinction rates. "Translocation represents one of the principal means of saving species from extinction from climate change; in conjunction with maintaining large areas of high quality (low human impact) habitats," he says. ...	I didn't know Noah had a doctorate. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 17, 2011 from Scientific American: House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming Congress has finally acted on global warming--by denying it exists. It's in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature's 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi. The Republican-led House of Representatives is currently working on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change. In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman had proposed an amendment calling on Congress to at least acknowledge that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," just as abundant scientific evidence confirms. But on Tuesday, March 15, all the committee's Republicans voted down that amendment, as well as two others acknowledging the threat of climate change to public well-being. ...	Rep. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Heat. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 17, 2011 from CBC: Storm surges the new normal, P.E.I. warned Coastal communities along P.E.I.'s North Shore need to prepare themselves for the impacts from climate change, a watershed management group was told Tuesday night. About two dozen residents gathered at the North Rustico Lions Club to hear a panel of experts discuss how climate change will hit North Shore communities. Flooding from storm surges, a combination of high tides and water driven on shore by strong winds, was a major focus of the meeting. "We're going to see bigger storm surges and they're going to occur more frequently," said Erin Taylor, climate change coordinator for the provincial Department of Environment. Taylor said storm surges like the one the North Shore saw on Dec. 21, in the 3.6-metre range, currently come about once every 20 years. By the 2050s, they are expected to happen once every two years. ...	At least there's order to that magnitude. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Mar 16, 2011 from Montreal Gazette: Could global warming be causing recent earthquakes? Severe earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and now Japan have experts around the world asking whether the world's tectonic plates are becoming more active -- and what could be causing it. Some scientists theorize that the sudden melting of glaciers due to man-made climate change is lightening the load on the Earth's surface, allowing its mantle to rebound upwards and causing plates to become unstuck....The surface of the Earth is elastic. A heavy load such as a glacier will cause it to sink, pushing aside the liquid rock underneath. ...	Regardless, these earthquakes are good practice for the Apocalypse. 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, Mar 16, 2011 from New York Times: E.P.A. Proposes New Emission Standards for Power Plants The Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first national standard for emissions of mercury and other toxins from coal-burning power plants on Wednesday, a rule that could lead to the early closing of dozens of generating stations and is certain to be challenged by the utility industry and Republicans in Congress. Lisa P. Jackson, the agency's administrator, unveiled the new rule with fanfare at agency headquarters, saying control of dozens of poisonous substances emitted by power plants was two decades overdue and would prevent thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of cases of disease a year. ...	Apparently, the utility industry and Republicans in Congress are impervious to death and disease. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Mar 16, 2011 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Isobutanol directly from cellulose Using consolidated bioprocessing, a team led by James Liao of the University of California at Los Angeles for the first time produced isobutanol directly from cellulose. The team's work, published online in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, represents across-the-board savings in processing costs and time, plus isobutanol is a higher grade of alcohol than ethanol. "Unlike ethanol, isobutanol can be blended at any ratio with gasoline and should eliminate the need for dedicated infrastructure in tanks or vehicles," said Liao.... "Plus, it may be possible to use isobutanol directly in current engines without modification."... While cellulosic biomass like corn stover and switchgrass is abundant and cheap, it is much more difficult to utilize than corn and sugar cane. This is due in large part because of recalcitrance, or a plant's natural defenses to being chemically dismantled.... The researchers noted that their strategy exploits the host's natural cellulolytic activity and the amino acid biosynthetic pathway and diverts its intermediates to produce higher alcohol than ethanol. ...	These guys are really smart. How come they're not in banking, or something productive like that? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 from TEDX: What you need to know about natural gas exploration An astonishing 48 minutes of Dr. Theo Colborn, on the mechanics, engineering, resource use, health impacts, and environmental impacts of fracking and the natural-gas process. Wordy, nerdy, factual, but utterly straightforward. A natural-gas version of "An Inconvenient Truth." Scarier, in many ways, than GasLand, the Oscar-nominated documentary. ...	Toxic from top to bottom, side to side, inside and out. What's left? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 from Alaska Dispatch: Huge ozone hole spreads over Arctic, scientists say Extremely cold temperatures in the upper atmosphere over the Arctic have triggered a "massive" loss of ozone in just the past few weeks, a situation that could create the most severe ozone hole yet observed in the Far North, according to Europe's leading Arctic research group....The depletion in the Arctic could migrate southward on air currents, Rex said, and ultimately lead to reduced protection against ultraviolet radiation in more populated areas of Alaska, Canada and Europe later in the season. An international network of more than 30 ozone measuring stations have tracked this sudden reduction in the concentrations of the trace gas that protects life on Earth from dangerous solar radiation, according to a release from the Alfred Wegener Institute. ...	I sense my tan will be luscious this coming season. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 from AFP, via Yahoo News: Fewer Americans worry about climate change: poll The number of Americans who are worried about global warming has fallen to nearly the historic low reached in 1998, a poll released Monday showed. Just 51 percent of Americans -- or one percentage point more than in 1998 -- said they worry a great deal or fair amount about climate change, Gallup's annual environment poll says. In 2008, a year after former US vice president Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize, two-thirds of Americans were concerned about climate change. The rate of concern among Americans has fallen steadily since then to 60 percent in 2009 and 52 percent last year.... "The reasons for the decline in concern are not obvious, though the economic downturn could be a factor," Gallup analysts say, citing a poll from two years ago that shows that in the minds of Americans, economy takes precedence over environment.... Just over a quarter of Americans believe reports in the press about climate change are generally correct, while nearly three in 10 believe the US media understates the effects of global warming. ...	Looks like our messaging is working! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 from New York Times: Wind and Solar Stocks Surge on Nuclear Fears Stocks for wind and solar energy producers jump as investors speculate that demand for renewable power will surge in response to the unfolding Japanese nuclear catastrophe. The German solar-panel maker Solarworld AG leads the pack, surging 32 percent. [Bloomberg]... Plans for a $10 billion expansion of a South Texas nuclear plant could be shelved because of repercussions from the growing disaster in Japan, analysts say. "We think the potential added pressure could be the end of its nuclear loan guarantee award," Barclays tells clients, referring to the project by NRG Energy. [Reuters] ...	So maybe that radioactive cloud has a silver lining? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 from Science News: Better by Design ...Many of today's chemicals -- in packaging, cleaning products, furniture and elsewhere -- go where they should not go and do more than they were designed to do. Bisphenol A, a common ingredient in polycarbonate plastics, has made headlines for getting into the body and interfering with tissue development and function (SN: 7/18/09, p. 5). Flame retardants new and old persist in the environment, contaminating soil, waterways and wildlife (SN: 4/24/10, p. 12). And a new analysis, reported online January 14 in Environmental Health Perspectives, finds that the blood and urine of 99 percent of pregnant American women tested contain a laundry list of chemical interlopers, including various PCBs, pesticides, PFCs, PBDEs, phthalates and the rocket-fuel ingredient perchlorate. Unless there is a fundamental shift in the way that chemicals are created from the outset, the next generation of compounds will probably be just as meddlesome... Currently more than 30 million metric tons of chemicals are produced in or imported to the United States each day, a quantity that would fill a line of tanker trucks 10,000 miles long. And industrial chemical production is expected to double in the next quarter century, outpacing population growth. ...	This is why my wife and I are gonna buy an android child! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 from New York Times: Heat Damages Colombia Coffee, Raising Prices But in the last few years, coffee yields have plummeted here and in many of Latin America's other premier coffee regions as a result of rising temperatures and more intense and unpredictable rains, phenomena that many scientists link partly to global warming. Coffee plants require the right mix of temperature, rainfall and spells of dryness for beans to ripen properly and maintain their taste. Coffee pests thrive in the warmer, wetter weather. Bean production at the Garzons' farm is therefore down 70 percent from five years ago, leaving the family little money for clothing for toddlers and "thinking twice" about sending older children to college.... Purveyors fear that the Arabica coffee supply from Colombia may never rebound -- that the world might, in effect, hit "peak coffee." ...	Guess I'll have to give up some luxuries so I can afford my coffee. Like, maybe, food. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 from Wall Street Journal: EPA Tangles With New Critic: Labor The Obama administration's environmental agenda, long a target of American business, is beginning to take fire from some of the Democratic Party's most reliable supporters: Labor unions. Several unions with strong influence in key states are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency soften new regulations aimed at pollution associated with coal-fired power plants. Their contention: Roughly half a dozen rules expected to roll out within the next two years could put thousands of jobs in jeopardy and damage the party's 2012 election prospects. "If the EPA issues regulations that cost jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Republicans will blast the President with it over and over," says Stewart Acuff, chief of staff to the president of the Utility Workers Union of America. "Not just the President. Every Democratic [lawmaker] from those states." ...	Those of you hoping the US will get its shit together... are dreaming! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 from PhysOrg: Source of nutrients for ecosystem lost as coastal fisheries decline A new study by researchers at the University of Georgia and Florida International University has found that the elimination of large marine predators through overfishing and habitat alteration removes a vital source of nutrients for coastal ecosystems.... "When you eliminate these large predators, you also eliminate a major source of nutrients for algae and plants in the food web, especially in tropical and sub-tropical coastal areas."... Allgeier said that tropical and sub-tropical coastal waters are typically low in nutrients. "That's why places like the Bahamas have such clear water," he said. "That's also why the fish are so important there. They recycle the nutrients they take in from the food that they eat, making them available for lower-level organisms, like algae, that form the base of the food web." The researchers found significantly higher fish densities at the sites that experienced no human impacts, which led to much higher quantities of nutrients being recycled at these sites: 4.6 times more nitrogen and 5.4 times more phosphorus.... In a related paper currently in review in the journal Ecology, Allgeier and Layman continue their investigation into the mechanisms by which fish excretion enhances algal growth through a series of experiments using artificial reef habitats. ...	What a load of shark shit. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 from Environmental Health News: Smoke from wood fireplaces, stoves raises new health concerns Smoke curling from the chimney of the Clair Tappaan Lodge is a welcome sight to chilly snowshoers and cross-country skiers in California's Sierra Nevada. Guests at this landmark Sierra Club hostel relax in the warmth and aroma of the crackling log fire. Those same woodsy scents waft across the wintry north, as millions of fireplaces and wood stoves are lit by people seeking an environmentally friendly heating source. But recent research raises new concerns over the toxic substances borne aloft in wood smoke. Scientists say the tiny airborne specks of pollution carry carcinogenic chemicals deep into lungs and trigger DNA damage and gene changes comparable to the hazards of cigarette smoke and car exhaust. ...	I'll give up my car, my cigarettes, my mass produced appliances and food... but please don't take my fireplace away! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 from Yale360: African Corn Faces Threat From Even Moderate Warming, Study Shows A review of crop trial data from thousands of sites across Africa shows that a temperature increase of 1 degree C (1.8 F) could cause declines in corn harvests in two-thirds of the continent's maize-growing regions. Drawing on previously unstudied data from 20,000 trials of corn yields across Africa from 1999 to 2007, an international team of researchers found that the longer corn crops are exposed to temperatures above 30 degrees C (86 F), the more yields decline. And under drought conditions, the researchers found that more than 75 percent of corn-growing regions suffered yield declines of at least 20 percent as temperatures rose 1 degree C. Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, reporting in the journal Nature Climate Change, said the results surprised them because maize was assumed to be among the more heat-tolerant crops. The researchers reached their conclusions after gathering data from the 20,000 trial sites and then comparing it with temperature and rainfall data. They said the results show that corn, a staple crop for many Africans, could suffer significant yield declines if, as predicted, higher temperatures and drought impact Africa in the future. ...	So if 2/3 of corn growing regions decrease production at least 20 percent for every 1.8 degrees F, then starvation will increase.... oh, I hate story problems. What's on TV? ApocaDoc permalink