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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
ecosystem interrelationships ~ carbon emissions ~ short-term thinking ~ toxic buildup ~ death spiral ~ contamination ~ ocean warming ~ global warming ~ toxic water ~ ocean acidification ~ fracking

ApocaDocuments (21) gathered this week:
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 from New York Times: Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States. But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells. In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves.... "Money is pouring in" from investors even though shale gas is "inherently unprofitable," an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. "Reminds you of dot-coms." "The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work," an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009. ...	Madoff... Enron... Disaster Capitalism... Inverse Credit Default Swaps... what is the best comparator? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 from Times-Colonist, via DesdemonaDespair: Southern dolphins pay a rare visit, add to biologists' confusion Two dolphins that would be more at home frolicking in the warm bays of southern California or Mexico are cruising the chilly waters of Puget Sound and biologists are baffled by an apparent trend for tropical species to head north.... Victoria zoologist Anna Hall, who also skippers a boat for Prince of Whales whalewatching, said the only previously recorded sighting in local waters was in April 1953 when a longbeaked common dolphin stranded itself off Victoria. "It's really, really unusual," she said.... Another Bryde's whale stranded and died in southern Puget Sound in January 2010. Bryde's whales usually prefer tropical or warm temperate waters. It is a mystery why tropical species are coming north, Douglas said. "It seems there is a significant change and it's probably temperature related, but we don't know much more than that," she said. "Maybe in a year or two we will be able to say that this was the beginning of a change." ...	I bet they had a lot of SeaMiles™ they needed to use up, so they just took a vacation. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Jun 26, 2011 from AP, via PhysOrg: Sportsmen monitor gas drilling in Marcellus Shale A new coalition of outdoors groups is emerging as a potent force in the debate over natural gas drilling. The Sportsmen Alliance for Marcellus Conservation isn't against the process of fracking for gas, but its members want to make sure the rush to cash in on the valuable resource doesn't damage streams, forests, and the various creatures that call those places home. The movement grew out of grass-roots anger as passionate outdoorsmen found their questions about drilling and wildlife brought few answers from local or state officials. "Either we didn't get a response or the answer we got didn't seem feasible or acceptable. It didn't seem like the people who were in charge had their pulse on what was actually happening," said Ken Dufalla of Clarksville, Pa.... Already, preliminary water testing by sportsmen is showing consistently high levels of bromides and total dissolved solids in some streams near fracking operations, Dufalla said. Bromide is a salt that reacts with the chlorine disinfectants used by drinking water systems and creates trihalomethanes.... Dufalla stands alongside Whiteley Creek, a little mountain stream in Greene County. But something is wrong. The grass is lush and the woods are green, but the water is cloudy and dead-looking. "It used to be a nice stream," teeming with minnows, crawfish and other aquatic life, he told The Associated Press. No more, said Dufalla, a former deputy game and fish warden for Pennsylvania. He's worried that nearby gas drilling has damaged the creek, either from improper discharges of waters used in fracking, or from extensive withdrawals of water. ...	Fracking makes strange Earthfellows. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Jun 25, 2011 from SightlineDaily: Trouble on the Half Shell Four summers ago, Sue Cudd couldn't keep a baby oyster alive. She'd start with hundreds of millions of oyster larvae in the tanks at the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts, Oregon. Only a handful would make it.... A hatchery that has supplied seafood businesses for three decades had virtually nothing to sell for months, said Cudd, who owns the hatchery. "They would just sort of fade away... It was really devastating. We're kind of the independent growers' hatchery, and we had always been reliable up until that point. People were just shocked. I heard a lot of times how it was ruining people's businesses." It's tough to say with scientific certainty that ocean acidification is the sole cause of the die-offs that have plagued two of the Northwest's three major oyster hatcheries in the last few years. But this much seems clear: young oysters have a hard time surviving in conditions that will only become more widespread as carbon dioxide from cars, coal plants and other industries cause the fundamental chemistry of the ocean to become more acidic. ...	Thankfully, there's news about the Royal Couple I can focus on! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 24, 2011 from BBC: Serengeti road scrapped over wildlife concerns Controversial plans to build a tarmac road across the Serengeti National Park have been scrapped after warnings that it could devastate wildlife. The Tanzanian government planned a two-lane highway across the park to connect Lake Victoria with coastal ports. But studies showed it could seriously affect animals such as wildebeest and zebra, whose migration is regarded as among the wonders of the natural world. The government confirmed the road across the park will remain gravel. ...	Wildebeest party!!!!! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Jun 24, 2011 from The Indypendent: What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima? While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin's memoir, coverage of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan's now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters.... Months of spraying seawater on the plant's three melted-down fuel cores -- and the spent fuel stored on site -- to try and cool them has produced 26 million of gallons of radioactive wastewater, and no place to put it. After a struggle, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), finally managed to put in place a system to filter radioactive particles out of the wastewater, but it broke down soon after it started operating. A filter that was supposed to last a month plugged up with radioactive material after just five hours, indicating there is more radioactive material in the water than previously believed. Meanwhile, TEPCO is running out of space to store the radioactive water, and may be forced to again dump contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. ...	I think the media has been distracted by covering the ocean scientists who can't believe what they're seeing. "Shocking" declines that they didn't expect for another century or two. They fear it is the ocean's death sentence. You heard about that, right? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 23, 2011 from Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, David Suzuki, Wendell Barry, and others, in CommonDreams: Environmental Leaders Call for Civil Disobedience to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will likely get you arrested.... These corporations want to build the so-called 'Keystone XL Pipeline' from Canada's tar sands to Texas refineries. To call this project a horror is serious understatement.... But the Keystone Pipeline would also be a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet, the one place to which we are all indigenous. How much carbon lies in the recoverable tar sands of Alberta? A recent calculation from some of our foremost scientists puts the figure at about 200 parts per million. Even with the new pipeline they won't be able to burn that much overnight--but each development like this makes it easier to get more oil out. As the climatologist Jim Hansen (one of the signatories to this letter) explained, if we have any chance of getting back to a stable climate "the principal requirement is that coal emissions must be phased out by 2030 and unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground." In other words, he added, "if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over." ...	Let us lay waste to civilization, or we won't let you get re-elected. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 23, 2011 from Discover: Are Toxins in Seafood Causing ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's? The cause of ALS is unknown. Though of little solace to the afflicted, Stommel used to offer one comforting fact: ALS was rare, randomly striking just two of 100,000 people a year. Then, a couple of years ago, in an effort to gain more insight into the disease, Stommel enlisted students to punch the street addresses of about 200 of his ALS patients into Google Earth. The distribution of cases that emerged on the computer-generated map of New England shocked him. In numbers far higher than national statistics predicted, his current and deceased patients' homes were clustered around lakes and other bodies of water.... "I started thinking maybe there was something in the water," Stommel says. That "something," he now suspects, could be the environmental toxin beta-methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA. This compound  is produced by cyanobacteria, the blue-green algae that live in soil, lakes, and oceans. Cyanobacteria are consumed by fish and other aquatic creatures. Recent studies have found BMAA in seafood, suggesting that certain diets and locations may put people at particular risk. More worrisome, blooms of cyanobacteria are becoming increasingly common, fueling fears that their toxic by-product may be quietly fomenting an upsurge in ALS--and possibly other neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's as well. ...	We can start calling them "TFC" illnesses: Top of the Food Chain. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 23, 2011 from ChronicleHerald: Canada single-handedly keeps asbestos off UN hazardous chemicals list Canada has single-handedly blocked listing chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous chemical, the United Nations confirmed Wednesday, even as the Conservative government maintained its silence back home. At a summit in Switzerland, Canada's delegation ended days of silence and speculation by opposing the inclusion of asbestos on a UN treaty called the Rotterdam Convention. "Yes, I can confirm they intervened in the chemicals contact group meeting this afternoon and opposed listing," Michael Stanley-Jones of the UN Environment Program said in an email. Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan also initially opposed the listing. However, Stanley-Jones said one-by-one they switched positions after India announced it would support the listing. That left Canada as the lone voice against the listing. "All had consented when Canada announced its position opposing listing," Stanley-Jones said.... "The Conservative government is living in some other universe in which asbestos is safe, while we spend billions of dollars in Canada ripping it out of our homes." Until Wednesday, it appeared Canada's strategy was to abstain while other asbestos-exporting countries blocked the move. ...	O Conservatives, I single-fingeredly salute you. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Jun 23, 2011 from University of York, via EurekAlert: Ban on discards 'will boost fisheries', says new research Banning fisheries discards in the North Sea will promote fish stock recovery and increase fishermen's incomes, according to new research by scientists at the University of York. In the North Sea up to 75 per cent of fish are currently dumped after being caught, with the result that many fisheries are now badly overfished. In comparison, discards were banned in Norwegian waters in the late 1980s and their fisheries are now some of the most prosperous in the world.... But Dr Beukers-Stewart says: "Discards simply squander valuable resources. Our research demonstrates that while there may be some short-term costs, a ban on discards is essential if European fish stocks are to become sustainable in the long term." ...	I think he's saying "thank you." Or is that "took you long enough"? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 22, 2011 from IRIN: All wheat varieties will have to be replaced Winds carried ash clouds from a volcano in Chile thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic Ocean to affect flights in South Africa on 19 June, so it is possible that the spores of the variants of a deadly mutant fungus, Ug99, a wheat stem rust that surfaced in South Africa in 2009, could travel to Australia - one of the world's four main wheat exporters - in the same way.... The fungus, which causes rust-coloured patches on the infected parts of the plant, is spread by spores that can survive harsh winters. They germinate in warmer conditions and are usually transported by the wind - but sometimes even on clothing - over long distances and across continents.... Up to 90 percent of wheat varieties in the world are susceptible to Ug99 and its variants, and all of them will eventually have to be replaced by new "super" varieties that are resistant to the deadly pathogen.... "Our super wheat varieties are also resistant to yellow rust, so it makes a sound economic case to replace all varieties," said Singh. "You get more for the price of one." ...	Give us this day our super-bread, and forgive us our genetic trespasses.... ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 22, 2011 from Guardian: Experts puzzled by big decline in honeybees over winter Honeybee populations declined by 13.6 percent over the winter, according to a survey of beekeepers across England. Losses were most severe in the north-east, where the survey recorded a loss rate of 17.1 percent. Experts worry that the declines will affect plant productivity. There are also concerns that the declines, along with drought conditions in some areas, will mean less English honey this year.... However, there is good news that the rate of colony loss has slowed. Four years ago, one in three hives was wiped out.... A campaign being launched next week to save all bees, spearheaded by Sam Roddick and Neal's Yard Remedies, pins the blame for the decline on pesticide. It will start a petition to hand to Downing Street in October to ban the use of a class of pesticides that has been implicated in bee deaths across the world. Roddick said: "These neonicotinoid pesticides penetrate the plant and indiscriminately attack the nervous system of insects that feed off them, disorientating bees, impairing their foraging ability and weakening their immune system, causing bee Aids. On current evidence, Italy, Germany and Slovenia have banned some varieties. In the UK, it's up to the people to show the government that if there is any doubt that they are contributing to bee deaths, we need to ban them." ...	The rate of decline slowed! That's almost the same as recovering, right? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 22, 2011 from BioCycle: DuPont Herbicide Label Says 'Do Not Compost' Grass Clippings So when Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont began aggressively marketing a new post-emergent broadleaf herbicide to landscapers, lawn maintenance professionals and turfgrass managers -- under the name Imprelis and containing the active ingredient aminocyclopyrachlor -- some organics recyclers became concerned.... The red flag wasn't so much that the active ingredient sounded to the ear very much like other chemicals that have plagued the industry in recent years (and is in fact quite similar chemically). It had more to do with an ominous label restriction, which states: "Do not use grass clippings from treated areas for mulching or compost, or allow for collection to compost facilities. Grass clippings must either be left on the treated area, or, if allowed by local yard waste regulations, disposed of in the trash. Applicators must give verbal or written notice to property owners/property managers/residents not to use grass clippings from treated turf for mulch or compost." ...	Is there an "away" that I can throw that trash? ApocaDoc permalink
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Wed, Jun 22, 2011 from ClimateProgress: Another U.S. Coal Plant to Shutter. Will Renewables and Efficiency Fill the Gap? A municipal utility in Texas said this week that it plans to shut down an 871-MW coal plant within the next 7 years to avoid spending $3 billion for pollution controls. The Deely plant, operated by CPS Energy, has been running for more than 30 years - making it a candidate for environmental upgrades to comply with pending federal standards for mercury and air toxics. Rather than invest in a new coal plant, however, the company plans on making up for the production loss by investing in 780 MW of energy efficiency capacity and 1,500 MW of renewable energy, including 44 MW of contracts from solar PV plants. Sierra Club issued a statement this week celebrating the planned closure, saying that solar "will replace that dirty electricity and bring clean energy jobs to Texas."... What will fill in the gap? The contracts from CPS Energy are likely a good indicator of how that gap will be filled: Some efficiency, a mix of renewables, a good amount of natural gas, and, potentially, some cleaner coal electricity from new plants (if they get built.) According to data from the solar industry, the dropping costs of solar PV make the resource competitive with new coal plants that will be built over the next 8 years. These are solar PV plants in areas with high solar resources, not everywhere in the country. If that's the case, solar and other renewables will likely make up a larger portion of new contracts. ...	Seven years? No problem. We can wait. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Jun 22, 2011 from Al Gore, in Rolling Stone: Climate of Denial: Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison? Maybe it's just easier, psychologically, to swallow the lie that these scientists who devote their lives to their work are actually greedy deceivers and left-wing extremists -- and that we should instead put our faith in the pseudoscientists financed by large carbon polluters whose business plans depend on their continued use of the atmospheric commons as a place to dump their gaseous, heat-trapping waste without limit or constraint, free of charge. The truth is this: What we are doing is functionally insane. If we do not change this pattern, we will condemn our children and all future generations to struggle with ecological curses for several millennia to come. Twenty percent of the global-warming pollution we spew into the sky each day will still be there 20,000 years from now! ... Continuing on our current course would be suicidal for global civilization. But the key question is: How do we drive home that fact in a democratic society when questions of truth have been converted into questions of power? When the distinction between what is true and what is false is being attacked relentlessly, and when the referee in the contest between truth and falsehood has become an entertainer...? The best available evidence demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that the reckless spewing of global-warming pollution in obscene quantities into the atmospheric commons is having exactly the consequences long predicted by scientists who have analyzed the known facts according to the laws of physics. ...	That guy is so inconvenient. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 21, 2011 from NSF, via EurekAlert: Fastest sea-level rise in 2 millennia linked to increasing global temperatures he rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level. The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).... The team found that sea level was relatively stable from 200 BC to 1,000 AD. Then in the 11th century, sea level rose by about half a millimeter each year for 400 years, linked with a warm climate period known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Then there was a second period of stable sea level during a cooler period called the Little Ice Age. It persisted until the late 19th century. Since the late 19th century, sea level has risen by more than 2 millimeters per year on average, the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years. "Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change," says Horton, "as rising temperatures melt land-based ice, and warm ocean waters." ...	It can be beautiful when the laws of physics work together. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Jun 21, 2011 from NPR: Climate Change: Public Skeptical, Scientists Sure The American public is less likely to believe in global warming than it was just five years ago. Yet, paradoxically, scientists are more confident than ever that climate change is real and caused largely by human activities. Something a bit strange is happening with public opinion and climate change. Anthony Leiserowitz, who directs the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication, delved into this in a recent poll. He not only asked citizens what they thought of climate change, he also asked them to estimate how climate scientists feel about global warming. "Only 13 percent of Americans got the correct answer, which is that in fact about 97 percent of American scientists say that climate change is happening, and about a third of Americans just simply say they don't know," he said. Most Americans are unaware that the National Academy of Sciences, known for its cautious and even-handed reviews of the state of science, is firmly on board with climate change. It has been for years.... "The consensus statement is that climate changes are being observed, are certainly real, they seem to be increasing, and that humans are mostly likely the cause of all or most of these changes," he said. ...	Those surveys can be explained by natural variation. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 20, 2011 from BBC: World's oceans in 'shocking' decline The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists. In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history". They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised. The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.... "The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University. "As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised. "We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years." ...	I hear Britney is showing off plenty of skin on her new "Femme Fatale" tour! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 20, 2011 from The ApocaDocs: ApocaDocs Finally Gets Social In a stunning act of technical wizardry and innovation, the ApocaDocs site has adapted three lines of exceedingly straightforward computer code, provided by Facebook. This single bold act now means hundreds of millions of people can add their own quips to our news items (or to our quips), and simultaneously update their Facebook page, if they desire. "It occurred to us that maybe the rest of the world is funnier than we are," said 'Doc Michael. "After a grueling thirty minutes of study, it took nearly twice that long to implement. But in the end, we hope it's worth it to the world's sense of humor." Co-founder 'Doc Jim added, "Humor in defense of sanity is no vice." ...	Dare to Quip? ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 20, 2011 from SciDev.net: Small hydro could add up to big damage A belief that 'small' hydropower systems are a source of clean energy with little or no environmental problems is driving the growing interest in mini, micro, and pico hydro systems that generate from less than 5 kilowatts up to 10 megawatts of energy. Hydropower appears to be the cleanest and most versatile of renewable energy sources. But experience shows that optimism about its potential can be misplaced.... By the end of 1970s it had become clear that the very optimistic, almost reverential, attitude towards hydropower projects that had prevailed during the early 1950s was misplaced. These projects damaged the environment as seriously as did fossil-fuelled power projects.... A turbine here or there may not affect the river noticeably; but if we are to use the technology extensively and put turbines in every other waterfall in a river, and make small dams on most of its tributaries or feeder streams, the environmental degradation -- per kilowatt of power generated -- will likely be much higher than that caused by large hydropower systems. The factors that harm a river habitat with large hydropower projects are also at play with small projects: interrupted water flow, barriers to animal movement, water loss from evaporation and loss of biodiversity from the sacrificed portion of river are some examples. ...	There goes all my plans for our Three Gullies Dam. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Jun 20, 2011 from RealClimate: What if the Sun went into a new Grand Minimum? An analysis of historic sunspot observations shows that the 11-year solar activity cycle was interrupted during the late 17th century. This period of time, during which the Sun appeared without sunspots most of the time, was called the Maunder Minimum by Jack Eddy in his famous Science paper.... The Maunder Minimum falls within the climatically cooler period of the "Little Ice Age", during which temperatures were particularly low over continents in the Northern hemisphere (especially in winter). It has long been suspected that the low solar activity during the Maunder Minimum was one of the causes of the Little Ice Age, although other factors like a small drop in greenhouse gas concentrations around 1600 and strong volcanic eruptions during that time likely played a role as well.... According to these results, a 21st-century Maunder Minimum would only slightly diminish future warming. Moreover, it would be only a temporary effect since all known grand solar minima have only lasted for a few decades.... However, our model reproduces the historic Maunder minimum with these estimates of solar irradiance. Furthermore, even if one multiplied the solar effects by a huge factor of 5 (which is unrealistic), no absolute cooling would take place (the temperatures would be temporarily cooler than the base scenario, but the trends would still be warming). It is clear that if a grand minimum were to happen it would be a tremendously exciting opportunity for solar physicists, however it is unlikely to be very exciting for anyone else. ...	I was so counting on a solus ex machina. ApocaDoc permalink