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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:	(1)
Plague/Virus:	(1)
Climate Chaos:	(11)
Resource Depletion:	(4)
Biology Breach:	(4)
Recovery:	(4)

This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
health impacts ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ climate impacts ~ anthropogenic change ~ economic myopia ~ water issues ~ koyaanisqatsi ~ habitat loss ~ contamination ~ governmental idiocy ~ invasive species

ApocaDocuments (25) gathered this week:
Mon, Mar 28, 2011 from St. Petersburg Times: Bill will adversely affect environment, but will it create jobs? Builders of homes, offices, roads and other projects have been allowed to wipe out more wetlands in Florida than in any other state. But now, in the name of sparking job growth, state lawmakers want to make it even easier to develop wetlands and just write a check for the damage. The 63 pages of CS/HB 991, which passed its latest committee vote Wednesday 14-0, are packed with changes to the state's wetlands, water pollution and development permitting rules. The bill makes it easier to build roads through wetlands, easier for polluters to escape punishment, easier to open new phosphate mines and harder for regulators to yank a permit from someone who did things wrong. ...	No worries. All this raping of the earth will create plenty of jobs in the Post-Apocalypse. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 28, 2011 from Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio poised to take center stage in natural gas drilling debate as it considers tapping park lands ...geologists, energy experts and gas well drillers fully believe Ohio might be sitting atop a gold mine of natural gas embedded in the long-known, but only recently accessible shale deposit. They also are hopeful that those riches will soon be more available now that Ohio Gov. John Kasich favors and the legislature is considering allowing drilling companies on state park land to reach those deposits... The drilling and fracking questions are particularly acute in Ohio right now because of the state's financial woes and the promise that leasing of land for drilling could net untold millions of dollars, some of which could help cover a $500 million backlog in maintenance and repairs in the parks themselves. ...	I prefer we frack the wealthiest two percent instead. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 28, 2011 from Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres via ScienceDaily: Freshwater Content of Upper Arctic Ocean Increased 20 Percent Since 1990s, Large-Scale Assessment Finds The freshwater content of the upper Arctic Ocean has increased by about 20 percent since the 1990s, according to a new large-scale assessment... The freshwater content in the layer of the Arctic Ocean near the surface controls whether heat from the ocean is emitted into the atmosphere or to ice. In addition, it has an impact on global ocean circulation...This freshwater lies as a light layer on top of the deeper salty and warm ocean layers and thus extensively cuts off heat flow to the ice and atmosphere. Changes in this layer are therefore major control parameters for the sensitive heat balance of the Arctic. ...	That's the problem with this planet. It's sooooo sensitive. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Mar 26, 2011 from Sydney Morning Herald: Scientists find waves are getting bigger Ocean wind speeds and wave heights around the world have increased significantly over the past quarter of a century, according to Australian research that has given scientists their first global glimpse of the world's rising winds and waves. Published in the journal Science today, the research - the most comprehensive of its kind ever undertaken - used satellite data collected from 1985 to 2008. It shows the extreme wave height off the coast of south-west Australia today is six metres on average, more than a metre higher than in 1985. ...	Surf's up! Size matters. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Mar 26, 2011 from National Science Foundation via ScienceDaily: Kudzu Vines Spreading North from US Southeast With Warming Climate Kudzu, the plant scourge of the U.S. Southeast. The long tendrils of this woody vine, or liana, are on the move north with a warming climate. But kudzu may be no match for the lianas of the tropics, scientists have found. Data from sites in eight studies show that lianas are overgrowing trees in every instance. If the trend continues, these "stranglers-of-the-tropics" may suffocate equatorial forest ecosystems. ...	Sounds like someday we will all live in the Land of Kudzuliana. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Mar 25, 2011 from Leader-Post: Counting down to 2011 Earth Hour Major landmarks across Canada -from the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver to the MontRoyal Cross in Montreal -will stand in darkness Saturday as more than 100 countries pledge to turn their lights off as a call to action for climate change. Earth Hour started as a simple conversation between The World Wildlife Federation (WWF), Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett and the Sydney Morning Herald about climate change and how to raise and demonstrate public support. But that discussion sparked an idea that led to the now-annual, hour-long, lights-off event. ...	At my house, we're having Earth Night! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 24, 2011 from Edmonton Journal: U.S. energy giant sets up shop in Alberta An American energy conglomerate owned by two powerful billionaire brothers who help fund the Tea Party and climate-change denial movements in the U.S. has registered to lobby the Alberta government. Alberta's lobbyist registry shows that on March 15, Koch Industries signed up to lobby the province on energy and resource development policy issues, as well as taxation and economic development. The company is run by Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in the world. Koch Industries spokeswoman Melissa Cohlmia did not respond to interview requests Wednesday, but released a one-sentence statement. "Koch companies want to add value by providing quality services and products our customers desire and value in a way that is compliant with all laws and regulations," she wrote. ...	If it was my province, I'd show these Kochs the door. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 24, 2011 from London Daily Mail: The European invader that's after your blood: Ticks from continent discovered in UK A breed of blood-sucking tick normally found on the continent has been discovered in Britain for the first time. Scientists say that climate change has brought the parasite to the UK - and warned that it may have brought with it new strains of disease from Europe. The researchers, from the University of Bristol, also found that the number of pet dogs infested with ticks was far higher than previously thought. This increases the risk thatdiseases carried by the foreign tick - Dermacentor reticulatus - will spread quickly to people and animals in this country, they cautioned. ...	Foreign ticks... work harder than domestic ones! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 24, 2011 from The Spokesman-Review: Flooding spiked lead levels in Lake Coeur d'Alene An estimated 352,000 pounds of lead washed into Lake Coeur d'Alene on Jan. 18 after flooding related to a rain-on-snow event. That's the weight equivalent of 70 Dodge Ram 1500 pickups - and the highest volume of lead recorded in a 24-hour period since major flooding in February 1996. Greg Clark, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, attributed high lead concentrations to a rapid rise in the Coeur d'Alene River caused by pounding rains and melting snow. ...	Could you please translate that into how many Mini Coopers? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 24, 2011 from Forbes: Salazar opens 750M tons of Wyo. coal to mining nterior Secretary Ken Salazar announced plans Tuesday to auction off vast coal reserves in Wyoming over the next five months, unleashing a significant but controversial power source amid uncertainty about clean and safe energy development. ...	Salazar = Salaczar ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Mar 24, 2011 from BusinessInsider: Time Lapse Satellite Photos Show How Humans Are Destroying The World It takes a lot to provide for 7 billion humans. Mankind is destroying rainforests, draining marshes and drilling into mountains to provide timber, water, coal and other resources. Some of this destruction has been captured in before and after satellite photos.... Before a Soviet Union irrigation project in the 1960s, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth largest lake. During the 2005 to 2009 drought, the lake continued to dry up and was polluted by pesticides and fertilizer. A twenty-five year time-series of coal mining in West Virginia shows the surrounding "valley fills," streams filled with excess rock from the mountaintop removal. Scientists concluded that this mining process has "pervasive and irreversible" consequences. ...	They can Photoshop anything these days. I'm sure everything's just fine. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Mar 23, 2011 from AlaskaDispatch: Warmer Arctic could increase threat of disease for caribou, other foods Climate change in the Arctic could change the balance of power between humans, animals and the germs or pathogens that make them both sick, according to a paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks microbiologist Karsten Hueffer.... The rates of predicted climate change for the Arctic could spell disaster for this longstanding host-pathogen balance. A warmer Arctic could increase survival of organisms that carry disease and decrease survival of the animals they infect - including animals used as subsistence food by people living in the Arctic. "What happens when a caribou has its calf on ground warm enough to have pathogens the calf cannot fight off?" said Hueffer. "The same issue could face bears giving birth in dens." Muskoxen are affected by a lung worm known to develop much faster when it's warmer. "The faster the worm grows the more generations are born, which increases the disease pressure on the muskoxen," said Hueffer. Humans are at risk as well. A warmer Arctic and the prospect of an ice-free Northwest Passage is expected to drive an increase in development and other human activity in the North, all of which will increase contact among wildlife, humans and domesticated animals. ...	Caribou, muskox, and bears -- they die! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Mar 23, 2011 from Telegraph.co.uk: A global energy war looms HSBC has calculated what would happen to energy consumption by 2050 given plausible forecasts for economic growth and assuming no constraint on resources, or that humans carry on using energy in the "taken for granted" way they do at the moment. As you can see, demand in China, India and other emerging markets soars, but there is also quite considerable growth from advanced economies too. The big picture is that with an additional one billion cars on the road, demand for oil would grow 110pc to more than 190 million barrels per day. Total demand for energy would rise by a similar order of magnitude, doubling the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to more than three and a half times the amount climate change scientists think would keep temperatures at safe levels. It scarcely needs saying that regardless of the environmental consequences, energy industries would struggle to cope, and more likely would find it impossible. We may or may not already be perilously close to peak oil - or maximum productive capacity - but nobody believes the industry could produce double what it does at the moment, however clever it becomes in tapping previously uncommercial or inaccessible reserves. If something can't happen, then it won't, so is all that forecast growth in the developing world just a question of wishful thinking that will soon be dashed by the constraints of finite energy? Not necessarily, says HSBC's economics team. The world can still accommodate high growth, but only if there is a collective change in behaviour, including much greater energy efficiency, a big change in the energy mix, and urgent development of carbon capture technologies so as to limit the damage of fossil fuel usage. ...	When there's wars, there'll be big profits! 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 23, 2011 from WHDH Boston: More sewage treatment disks on MA shores More of those little white disks from a New Hampshire sewage plant are washing up on shores further down the Massachusetts coast. The latest place they've been found is Revere Beach and there's word that they could end up on Cape Cod.... A new wave of sewage treatment disks are invading Massachusetts beaches further south than before.... Eight million of the mesh disks that filter sewage in Hooksett, New Hampshire overflowed. First the problem was on the Merrimack River and then it moved into Newburyport and Plum Island, and now Nahant, Lynn and Revere are all affected, and officials say there will be more. ...	Cleanup should be a breeze -- once we invent a magnet for plastic. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Mar 23, 2011 from London Independent: Shipwreck threatens island penguins A wrecked ship is threatening to cause an environmental disaster on an island which is home to endangered penguins, conservationists warned today. The vessel has grounded on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic, causing an oil slick around the island which is home to nearly half the world's population of northern rockhopper penguins. ...	Sticky Feet ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Mar 23, 2011 from New York Times: Japan Extended Reactor's Life, Despite Warning Just a month before a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant at the center of Japan's nuclear crisis, government regulators approved a 10-year extension for the oldest of the six reactors at the power station despite warnings about its safety. ...	What a relief! I thought this kind of stupidity only happened in the US. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Climate change adaptation 'needs to move up the agenda' Adaptation urgently needs to move up the climate change agenda, according to Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office in the UK. "Talking about adaptation to climate change has for a long time been frowned upon as it is seen as giving up on mitigation," Betts told environmentalresearchweb. "But people need to wake up to the fact that we are already locked into a certain amount of climate change and we need to make sure we are prepared for the consequences."... Betts believes it is the role of the media, climatologists and policymakers to make sure that the need for adaptation moves up the agenda and that people are not so distracted by mitigation alone. ...	Not to worry -- the Republicans already voted global warming down. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from Scientific American: The Enemy Within: A New Pattern of Antibiotic Resistance A new pattern of resistance has emerged among a particularly challenging group of bacteria called the gram-negatives; it threatens to make many common infections untreatable.... The bacterial genes responsible confer resistance to the carbapenems, a group of so-called last-resort antibiotics. Two of the most important resistance genes are dubbed NDM-1 and KPC. Carbapenem resistance in gram-negative bacteria is especially worrisome because these germs are ubiquitous and share genes easily. Plus, no new drugs for these bugs are being developed. This confluence of factors means many people in hospitals and in the wider community could die of newly untreatable infections of the urinary tract, blood and other tissues. ...	Carbapenem resistance? Carpe diem. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from PhysOrg: Portable solar device creates potable water By harnessing the power of the sun, a Monash University graduate has designed a simple, sustainable and affordable water-purification device, which has the potential to help eradicate disease and save lives. The Solarball, developed as Mr Jonathan Liow's final year project during his Bachelor of Industrial Design, can produce up to three litres of clean water every day. The spherical unit absorbs sunlight and causes dirty water contained inside to evaporate. As evaporation occurs, contaminants are separated from the water, generating drinkable condensation. The condensation is collected and stored, ready for drinking. Liow's design was driven by a need to help the 900 million people around the world who lack access to safe drinking water. Over two million children die annually from preventable causes, triggered largely by contaminated water. It is an increasing problem in developing nations due to rapid urbanisation and population growth. Mr Liow's simple but effective design is user-friendly and durable, with a weather-resistant construction, making it well suited to people in hot, wet, tropical climates with limited access to resources. ...	There's something a little fishy about a beautiful, clever, cheap device that improves people's lives. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from GOOD: Chart: Why Four-Dollar-Per-Gallon Gas Is Damn Cheap Inspired by Cord's thought-provoking post on the per gallon prices of various liquids, and by Sarah Palin's ill-informed Facebook rant on the "$4-Per-Gallon President," I decided to take a closer look at gasoline prices around the world. Mrs. Palin might be interested to learn, that the world already has quite a few $4-Per-Gallon Presidents. In fact, the world already has $6-Per-Gallon Parliaments, $7-Per-Gallon Prime Ministers, and $8-Per-Gallon Presidents!... An odd trend seems to be that the most of countries that have gas prices under our own, are those same countries that so many politicians routinely cite as "evil" or "undemocratic." Does Sarah Palin want our oil economy to be more like Iran and Venezuela? From this recent chart in the Economist, you can see that the bulk of the premium costs in most European nations is due to higher taxes and duties on crude and gasoline. Many nations recognize oil as a finite resource, and are utilizing gasoline taxes to reduce oil imports, create a more efficient transportation system, and better prepare for longer-term oil price volatility. ...	Yeah, but the quality of life in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany sucks. I heard that somewhere. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from The Washington Post: King crabs invade Antarctica Sven Thatje has been predicting an invasion of deep-water crabs into shallow Antarctic waters for the past several years. But the biologist and his colleagues got their first look at the march of the seafloor predators while riding on an icebreaker across frozen Antarctic seas this winter. The ship towed a robot sub carrying a small digital camera that filmed the seafloor below. It caught images of bright red king crabs up to 10 inches long, moving into an undersea habitat of creatures that haven't seen sharp teeth or claws for the past 40 million years. ...	Cue theme from "Claws." ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from Discover: Made in China: Our Toxic, Imported Air Pollution Mercury, sulfates, ozone, black carbon, flu-laced desert dust. Even as America tightens emission standards, the fast-growing economies of Asia are filling the air with hazardous components that circumnavigate the globe. "There is no place called away." It is a statement worthy of Gertrude Stein, but University of Washington atmospheric chemist Dan Jaffe says it with conviction: None of the contamination we pump into the air just disappears. It might get diluted, blended, or chemically transformed, but it has to go somewhere. And when it comes to pollutants produced by the booming economies of East Asia, that somewhere often means right here, the mainland of the United States. ...	What goes around ... comes around. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 from Daily Mail: Slaughtered for the market place: Huge rise in ray hunting threatens ocean's 'gentle giants' They are known as the ocean's gentle giants, but an alarming rise in manta and mobula ray hunting could threaten the very existence of the species. From India to Ecuador, manta and mobula fishing has become big business for fisheries who are selling their gills to be used in soups and traditional Chinese medicine. Conservationists have warned that demand could soon rival that of the controversial shark fin trade. The rays are pulled from the ocean, either with fine gill nets or spears, and slaughtered to meet growing demand, mainly from the Chinese market.... A single fishing fleet can easily wipe out a local manta population in weeks or months, with little chance of stocks replenishing given their slow reproduction, limited local populations and lack of migration for some of the species. Their slow maturation and reproductive cycles have raised serious concerns for the future of these species.... No international laws and only a handful of national laws exist to prevent ray fishing. ...	C'mon! There's always more rays in the sea! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 from Mongabay: UN: Want water? Save forests The UN-backed Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) is urging nations to conserve their forests in a bid to mitigate rising water scarcity problems. "[Forests] reduce the effects of floods, prevent soil erosion, regulate the water table and assure a high-quality water supply for people, industry and agriculture," said the Forestry Department Assistant Director General, Eduardo Rojas-Briales, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle." In addition, forests reduce the impact of droughts, while preventing desertification and salinization, while loss of tropical rainforests has been shown to decrease local rainfall. In addition, cutting-edge research has even established a link between forest cover and winds delivering rainfall, one that remains quite controversial.... According to the UN, within 15 years 1.8 billion people could suffer from 'absolute water scarcity', while two-thirds of the global population could see water scarcities. Currently, 20 percent of people in the developing world don't have access to clean water. ...	No thanks. I'll just drink beer. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 from ScienceDaily: Batteries Charge Quickly and Retain Capacity, Thanks to New Structure Braun's group developed a three-dimensional nanostructure for battery cathodes that allows for dramatically faster charging and discharging without sacrificing energy storage capacity. The researchers' findings will be published in the March 20 advance online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Aside from quick-charge consumer electronics, batteries that can store a lot of energy, release it fast and recharge quickly are desirable for electric vehicles, medical devices, lasers and military applications. "This system that we have gives you capacitor-like power with battery-like energy," said Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering. "Most capacitors store very little energy. They can release it very fast, but they can't hold much. Most batteries store a reasonably large amount of energy, but they can't provide or receive energy rapidly. This does both."... They have demonstrated battery electrodes that can charge or discharge in a few seconds, 10 to 100 times faster than equivalent bulk electrodes, yet can perform normally in existing devices.... "If you had five-minute charge capability, you would think of this the same way you do an internal combustion engine. You would just pull up to a charging station and fill up." All of the processes the group used are also used at large scales in industry so the technique could be scaled up for manufacturing. ...	It's Three! Three! Three wins in one! ApocaDoc permalink