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global warming ~ climate impacts ~ arctic meltdown ~ weather extremes ~ economic myopia ~ holyshit ~ deniers ~ toxic buildup ~ melting glaciers ~ drought ~ rising sea level

ApocaDocuments (19) gathered this week:
Sun, Aug 7, 2011 from Grist: The new normal: billion-dollar disasters The National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC) latest "Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters" report finds the U.S. has racked up more mega-expensive natural disasters in 2011 than ever before. So far we've suffered more than five times the huge disasters typical at this time of year. Already damage costs have reached nearly $32 billion. Compare that to the first half of the average year -- prior to the onset of "big" hurricane season -- between 1980 and 2010, where disaster costs typically run $6 billion.... All told, the U.S. has suffered 99 weather-related disasters over the past 31 years, where overall damages and economic costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The normalized losses (that is, the numbers adjusted for the GNP inflation index) add up to more than $725 billion for those 99 disasters. ...	Ain't much compared to the shareholder value the coal and oil companies have provided to the economy. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Aug 6, 2011 from Agence France-Press: US opens ways for Shell drilling in Arctic Ocean US officials have granted Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell conditional approval to begin drilling exploration wells in the Arctic Ocean from next year, in a move swiftly slammed by conservationists as "inexcusable." The US Interior Department has opened the doors to Shell's proposal for four shallow water exploration wells in Alaska's Beaufort Sea to start in July 2012, said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) in a statement Thursday. ...	The Apocalypse has now officially commenced. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 5, 2011 from Maggie Koerth-Baker, on BoingBoing: Climate change and earthquakes: It's complicated This is a story that contains a whole lot of yesbut. Yes, it really does make sense that climate change could trigger earthquakes. But it's very, very unlikely that that effect is responsible for any of the monster quakes we've experienced recently. And behind that apparent contradiction lies some really, really interesting science. Let's start with a quick overview of why scientists think climate change and earthquakes are connected.... It begins with the forces that cause earthquakes. The surface of this planet, what we see, is actually the crust--just the crispy coating on a ball of nougat. The crust is broken up into large pieces and those pieces move over the surface of the gooey mass beneath. At the borders, the pieces of the crust are riddled with faults. These are places where the crust has broken and different pieces are moving in different directions--away from each other, towards each other, or slipping past one another.... Basically, it boils down to this: Climate change can trigger earthquakes. There's evidence that naturally occurring climate change did that in the past. There's some evidence that anthropogenic climate change might be doing that today. And there's evidence that we could see more climate change-related earthquakes in the future. But, if you're actually concerned about evidence (and you should be) then you can't go around, pointing to earthquakes that make the news today, and calling them consequences of climate change. And we can't oversimplify research to the point of forgetting all the yesbut. ...	Evidence is for people who don't watch FOXnews. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 5, 2011 from London Daily Telegraph: Was pollution responsible for mass stranding of pilot whales? Scientists are probing whether pollution may have caused 70 pilot whales to strand in north west Scotland last month. The whales may have been poisoned by years of toxic waste. Experts have now asked the UK government for Ł20,000 to carry out the first such major diagnostic tests on a super pod in Scotland - which could show the legacy of decades of pouring toxic chemicals into the sea. No such link between strandings and pollution has ever been proved before - but scientists say they are now finding killer whales with toxic readings "hundreds" of times over the limit. There are growing fears that Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB's) - which are now banned - are so prevalent in the marine environment that over a period of time they have entered the food chain widely. ...	Turns out those so-called killer whales are softies. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Aug 5, 2011 from Agence France-Press: Arctic ice cap near 2007 record minimum: Russia The polar ice cap in the Arctic has melted to near its 2007 record minimum level and in some areas is 50 percent smaller than average, Russia's environmental monitoring agency said Thursday. "According to the results of observations, the Arctic ice sheet is currently near the minimum that was observed in 2007 in the polar region," the Roshydromet agency said in a statement. It said the ice sheet covered an area of 6.8 billion square kilometres (2.6 billion square miles) and was much smaller than normal in Russia's Arctic seas.... "In September we can expect very easy navigation conditions in the Northern sea route," it said. ...	Whew! For some reason, I thought this was going to be bad news! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 4, 2011 from MITnews: The too-smart-for-its-own-good grid In the last few years, electrical utilities have begun equipping their customers' homes with new meters that have Internet connections and increased computational capacity. One envisioned application of these "smart meters" is to give customers real-time information about fluctuations in the price of electricity, which might encourage them to defer some energy-intensive tasks until supply is high or demand is low. Less of the energy produced from erratic renewable sources such as wind and solar would thus be wasted, and utilities would less frequently fire up backup generators, which are not only more expensive to operate but tend to be more polluting, too.... in MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, however, shows that this policy could backfire. If too many people set appliances to turn on, or devices to recharge, when the price of electricity crosses the same threshold, it could cause a huge spike in demand; in the worst case, that could bring down the power grid. Fortunately, in a paper presented at the last IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, the researchers also show that some relatively simple types of price controls could prevent huge swings in demand. But that stability would come at the cost of some of the efficiencies that real-time pricing is intended to provide.... But, Litvinov adds, an accurate model of the dynamics of energy consumption would have to factor in consumers' responses, not only to changing electricity prices, but also to each other's responses. "It's like a game," Litvinov says. "People will have to start adopting more sophisticated strategies. That whole dynamic is itself a subject for study." ...	The invisible hand of the smartgridplace may give us the back of it. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 4, 2011 from Technology Review: New Process Could Make Canadian Oil Cheaper, Cleaner New technology for extracting oil from oil sands could more than double the amount of oil that can be extracted from these abundant deposits. It could also reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from the process by up to 85 percent. The technology was developed by N-Solv, an Alberta-based consortium that recently received $10 million from the Canadian government to develop the technology.... The idea of using solvents to get at oil sands was proposed in the 1970s, but early experiments showed that the process couldn't produce oil quickly enough. Two things changed that, according to N-Solv. First, horizontal drilling technologies now make it possible to run a solvent injection well along the length of an oil sands deposit, increasing the area in contact with the solvent, thus increasing production. Second, N-Solv determined that even small amounts of methane--a by-product of using a solvent--could contaminate the propane and degrade its performance. So N-Solv introduced purification equipment to separate methane from the propane before it is reused. The separated methane can also be used to heat the propane, further reducing energy costs. N-Solv's process requires less energy because it uses a solvent rather than steam to free the oil, says Murray Smith, a member of N-Solv's board of directors. The solvent, such as propane, is heated to a relatively low temperature (about 50 deg C) and injected into a bitumen deposit. The solvent breaks down the bitumen, allowing it to be pumped out along with the propane, which can be reused. The solvent approach requires less energy than heating, pumping, and recycling water for steam. And because the heaviest components of the bitumen remain underground, the oil that results from the solvent process needs to be refined less before it can be transported in a pipeline. ...	Is cognitive dissonance is the sound of three hands clapping? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Aug 4, 2011 from Telegraph.co.uk: Record breaking UK spring due to warm weather The Woodland Trust survey of 40,000 volunteers found that the traditional signs of spring were on average 17 days earlier because of the hot weather in April. The orange-tipped butterfly was spotted almost a month early on 13th April, the earliest sighting since records began in 1891. The horse chestnut, dog rose and purple lilac also broke records for coming into leaf early.... Professor Tim Sparks, nature advisor to the Woodland Trust, said it was the earliest spring since 'bulk recording' began. People were also mowing lawns early and spotting rooks nesting and frog spawn in ponds early. "We had a cold winter but this was followed by a particularly warm and dry spring, which included the warmest April on record. This warmth is undoubtedly the main factor which led to many events occurring earlier than usual. ...	Some records were not made to be broken. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 3, 2011 from EurekAlert: Crop breeding could 'slash CO2 levels' Writing in the journal Annals of Botany, Professor Douglas Kell argues that developing crops that produce roots more deeply in the ground could harvest more carbon from the air, and make crops more drought resistant, while dramatically reducing carbon levels. In principle, any crops could be treated in this way, giving more productive yields while also being better for the environment.... Breeding crop plants with deeper and bushy root ecosystems could simultaneously improve both the soil structure and its steady-state carbon, water and nutrient retention, as well as sustainable plant yields.... "In addition to the simple carbon sequestration that this breeding could imply - possibly double that of common annual grain crops - such plants seem to mobilise and retain nutrients and water very effectively over extended periods, thus providing resistance to drought, flooding and other challenges we shall face from climate change. "While there is a way to go before such crops might have, for example, the grain yields of present day cereals, their breeding and deployment seems a very promising avenue for sustainable agriculture." ...	I'm rooting for this guy! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 3, 2011 from Reuters: Himalaya glaciers shrinking on global warming, some may disappear Three Himalaya glaciers have been shrinking over the last 40 years due to global warming and two of them, located in humid regions and on lower altitudes in central and east Nepal, may disappear in time to come, researchers in Japan said on Tuesday. Using global positioning system and simulation models, they found that the shrinkage of two of the glaciers -- Yala in central and AX010 in eastern Nepal -- had accelerated in the past 10 years compared with the 1970s and 1980s... "For Yala and AX, these regions showed significant warming ... that's why the rate of shrinking was accelerated," Fujita told Reuters by telephone. "Yala and AX will disappear but we are not sure when..." ...	In time to come? Researchers are now plying poetry to persuade. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 3, 2011 from Greenwire: House Democrats Take Aim at GOP Environmental Voting Record The Republican-led House has voted to "stop," "block" or "undermine" efforts to protect the environment 110 times since taking over the majority in January, two senior Democrats said last week. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who sponsored a bill that passed the House in 2009 that would have established a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions, said the current House has done more to scuttle environmental protections than any in history. "The new Republican majority seems intent on restoring the robber-baron era where there were no controls on pollution from power plants, oil refineries and factories," said Waxman, who serves as top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Natural Resources ranking member Markey, meanwhile, said the Republican agenda was a rifle "pointed right at the heart of America's clean energy future." ...	Republicans are good people who just tend to prefer a crappy, deadly environment. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 3, 2011 from Politico: Energy programs prepare for debt deal pain Popular energy and environmental programs should prepare for a decade of spending cuts under the debt deal reached late Sunday between the White House and congressional leaders. Less clear, however, is the effect that the landmark agreement will have on popular tax incentives for the oil, gas, renewable and other energy industries. Constituencies fighting in the trenches for every dollar insist that their programs are small relative to other big-ticket items in the annual appropriations process. But there's still plenty of concern that everything from wastewater grants to air pollution monitoring and biofuels research and development will face the scalpel as lawmakers start cutting about $2.7 trillion in spending over the next decade. ...	What's another lost decade? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Aug 3, 2011 from Live Science: End Times? Texas Lake Turns Blood-Red A Texas lake that turned blood-red this summer may not be a sign of the End Times, but probably is the end of a popular fishing and recreation spot. A drought has left the OC Fisher Reservoir in San Angelo State Park in West Texas almost entirely dry. The water that is left is stagnant, full of dead fish -- and a deep, opaque red. The color has some apocalypse believers suggesting that OC Fisher is an early sign of the end of the world, but Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries officials say the bloody look is the result of Chromatiaceae bacteria, which thrive in oxygen-deprived water. "It's just heartbreaking," said Charles Cruz, a fish and wildlife technician with Texas Parks and Wildlife in San Angelo, Tex. ...	What's "heartbreaking"? That's it's not the End Times? ApocaDoc permalink
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Tue, Aug 2, 2011 from AFP, via The Independent: Russia may lose up to 30 percent of permafrost by 2050: official Russia's vast permafrost areas may shrink by a third by the middle of the century due to global warming, endangering infrastructure in the Arctic zone, an emergencies ministry official said Friday. "In the next 25 to 30 years, the area of permafrost in Russia may shrink by 10-18 percent," the head of the ministry's disaster monitoring department Andrei Bolov told the RIA Novosti news agency. "By the middle of the century, it can shrink by 15-30 percent, and the boundary of the permafrost may shift to the north-east by 150-200 kilometres," he said.... Permafrost, or soil that is permanently frozen, covers about 63 percent of Russia, but has been greatly affected by climate change in recent decades.... Scientists have said that permafrost thawing will set off another problem because the process will release massive amounts of greenhouse gas methane currently trapped in the frozen soil. ...	Splendid vacation homes now available in Omsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 from PNAS, via Irish Weather Online: Small Amounts Of Warming Could Trigger Rapid Ice Shelf Collapse Only small amounts of subsurface warming of water is required to trigger a rapid collapse of ice shelves, according to a new report to be published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... The findings, the researchers say, provide historical evidence that warming of water by 3-4 degrees was enough to trigger these huge, episodic discharges of ice from the Laurentide Ice Sheet in what is now Canada. They claim the results are important due to concerns that warmer water could cause a comparatively fast collapse of ice shelves in Antarctica or Greenland, increasing the flow of ice into the ocean and raising sea levels. One of the most vulnerable areas, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, would raise global sea level by about 11 feet if it were all to melt. "We don't know whether or not water will warm enough to cause this type of phenomenon," said Shaun Marcott, a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University (OSU) and lead author of the report. "But it would be a serious concern if it did, and this demonstrates that melting of this type has occurred before." ...	Then we'd better stop all that hot air coming from the scientists! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Carbon nanotube 'solar fuel' could store solar energy Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) have designed a new solar thermal fuel that could store up to 10,000 times more energy than previous systems. The fuel, which has been studied using computational chemistry but not yet fully tested in the lab, consists of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) modified with azobenzene. It is expected to provide the same energy storage per volume as lithium-ion batteries and can store solar energy almost indefinitely. It can also be recharged by simply exposing it to sunlight - no electricity required.... What is more, the volumetric energy density of this fuel is very low in contrast to that of azobenzene/CNT, which has a value that is 10,000 greater. "This value is comparable to that of lithium-ion batteries, and high enough for us to realistically envisage our solar thermal fuel in real-world applications," Kolpak told physicsworld.com. "The fuel also has many other advantages, such as being emission-free and easily rechargeable - you don't need to be near an electricity source to recharge."... The researchers admit that there are still many challenges to overcome before they can even consider commercializing such a technology. ...	See? I told you that technology would solve the problem. Er, sometime in the future. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Aug 2, 2011 from ScienceDaily: The Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact On the Deep Sea The oceans cover 71 percent of our planet, with over half with a depth greater than 3000 m. Although our knowledge is still very limited, we know that the deep ocean contains a diversity of habitats and ecosystems, supports high biodiversity, and harbors important biological and mineral resources. Human activities are, however increasingly affecting deep-sea habitats, resulting in the potential for biodiversity loss and, with this, the loss of many goods and services provided by deep-sea ecosystems.... The impacts were grouped in three major categories: waste and litter dumping, resource exploitation, and climate change. The authors identified which deep-sea habitats are at highest risk in the short and mid-term, as well as what will be the main anthropogenic impacts affecting these areas, in a paper published in PLoS ONE on Aug. 1, 2011.... In particular, the accumulation of plastics on the deep seafloor, which degrade into microplastics, called mermaid tears, that can be ingested by the fauna, has consequences still unknown but predicted to be important. Moreover, there is increasing evidence of the accumulation of chemical pollutants of industrial origin, such as mercury, lead and persistent organic pollutants (e.g. dioxins, PCBs) in the sediment and fauna, including in species of commercial interest.... The main problem is that we still know very little of what we call the deep sea, making it difficult to evaluate accurately the real impact of industrial activities, litter accumulation and climate change in the deep sea habitats. ...	On the surface, everything looks just fine. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 from Reuters: Weather disasters seen costly sign of things to come The United States is on a pace in 2011 to set a record for the cost of weather-related disasters and the trend is expected to worsen as climate change continues, officials and scientists said on Thursday. "The economic impact of severe weather events is only projected to grow," Senator Dick Durbin said at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and Government, which he chairs. "We are not prepared. Our weather events are getting worse, catastrophic in fact."... As of June, the United States has seen eight weather disasters exceeding $1 billion each in damage, and the annual hurricane season has hardly begun, said Kathryn Sullivan, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction and NOAA's Deputy Administrator. The record is nine in a single year, 2008. But April alone saw separate tornado, wildfire, flood and drought disasters. "Any one such a event in a year would be considered quite notable, and we had four in totally different hazard categories in the space of a month," Sullivan told Reuters. The costs of weather-disaster damages have climbed past $32 billion for 2011, according to NOAA estimates.... "Every weather event that happens nowadays takes place in the context of the changes in the background climate system," University of Illinois scientist Donald Wuebbles, who worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the panel. "So nothing is entirely 'natural' anymore," he said. ...	I suppose I should be grateful to be alive while history is being made. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Aug 1, 2011 from Vanity Fair: Monsanto's Harvest of Fear Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his "old-time country store," as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.... As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto's genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company's patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him--or face the consequences. Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto's fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn't a farmer. He wasn't a seed dealer. He hadn't planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small--a really small--country store in a town of 350 people.... Rinehart says he can't remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: "Monsanto is big. You can't win. We will get you. You will pay." Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers' co-ops, seed dealers--anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country.... Farmers call them the "seed police" and use words such as "Gestapo" and "Mafia" to describe their tactics. ...	Other descriptors include "drug dealer" and "slave trader." Or maybe just "economic fascist." ApocaDoc permalink