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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
anthropogenic change ~ weather extremes ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ global warming ~ economic myopia ~ health impacts ~ drought ~ climate impacts ~ toxic water ~ holyshit ~ deniers

ApocaDocuments (19) gathered this week:
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 from DoomerHumor: Dot-connecting is so complicated ...	When the dots get big enough, it'll be simple. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 from New York Times: Pipeline Spills Put Safeguards Under Scrutiny This summer, an Exxon Mobil pipeline carrying oil across Montana burst suddenly, soiling the swollen Yellowstone River with an estimated 42,000 gallons of crude just weeks after a company inspection and federal review had found nothing seriously wrong. And in the Midwest, a 35-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Mich., once teeming with swimmers and boaters, remains closed nearly 14 months after an Enbridge Energy pipeline hemorrhaged 843,000 gallons of oil that will cost more than $500 million to clean up. While investigators have yet to determine the cause of either accident, the spills have drawn attention to oversight of the 167,000-mile system of hazardous liquid pipelines crisscrossing the nation.... Meanwhile, budget limits and attrition have left the agency with 118 inspectors -- 17 shy of what federal law authorizes. Pipeline operators, critics argue, have too much autonomy over their lines, and too much wiggle room when it comes to carrying out important safeguards, like whether to install costly but crucial automated shut-off valves. ...	That's one inspector per 100,000+ miles of pipeline. I'm guessing: Time-and-a-half overtime! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Sep 10, 2011 from GDACC: Pennsylvania Groups Express Concerns over Fracking Fluids in Flood Water As tropical storm Lee continues to dump massive amounts of rain throughout Pennsylvania, concerns are growing over natural gas drilling pits overflowing and spilling their toxic contents into flooded creeks, streams and rivers. There are no currently safeguards in place by the State of Pennsylvania to prevent natural gas drilling and the placing of open pits containing toxic fracking fluids in flood plains.... "While the industry mouths rhetoric about 'safe and responsible' drilling, they do the absolute opposite in fact, storing hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic flowback fluid in open frack pits, now flowing into floodwaters," said Iris Marie Bloom, director of Protecting Our Waters. "Fracking fluid chemicals, and even worse, the radioactive materials, arsenic and other deadly contaminants brought up from the deep shale, should never come into contact with air, water or earth. But here they are flowing with flood waters irreversibly into our ecosystem. This is a public health disaster in the making. Not one more fracking permit should be issued. All open frack pits must be permanently abolished and life-cycle cumulative impact studies done." ...	Who could have predicted that every day wouldn't be sunny and bright!? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Sep 10, 2011 from Charles Eisenstein, via The Oil Drum: Weekend Read: Peak Oil, Peak Debt, and the Concentration of Power Both the energy system and the money system are based on accumulation and the concentration of power. Not only our energy infrastructure, but our dominant yet invisible way of thinking about energy, presupposes a centralized system of distribution based on a highly concentrated energy source. Many alternative energy technologies have made little headway, not because they are technologically unfeasible, but because they don't fit into our present physical, financial, and psychological infrastructure. There is a causal as well as a metaphorical parallel between the concentration of power in oil and in money. A concentrated power source that can be stored allows social and political power to concentrate in the hands of those who control it. It generates very different social dynamics from an energy source that is universally distributed and constantly renewed. For one thing, the profit potential of the latter is intrinsically less. Once you have sold the geothermal pump or the PV array, the buyer is self-sufficient, unlike the electrical power consumer who has to pay the metered rate in perpetuity. Energy dependency and economic dependency are closely linked. ...	My corporate masters want me to listen, but that elephant over there keeps distracting me. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Sep 9, 2011 from Associated Press: UN chief calls for urgent action on climate change United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that urgent action was needed on climate change, pointing to the famine in the Horn of Africa and devastating floods in northern Australia as examples of the suffering caused by global warming. Ban lashed out at climate change skeptics during a speech at the University of Sydney, arguing that science has proven climate change is real..."Watching this high tide standing on the shore of Kiribati, I said, 'High tide shows it's high time to act,'" Ban said. "We are running out of time." ...	"High" this... "high" that... I just want to get high. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Sep 9, 2011 from NOAA: U.S. experiences second warmest summer on record The blistering heat experienced by the nation during August, as well as the June through August months, marks the second warmest summer on record according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C. The persistent heat, combined with below-average precipitation across the southern U.S. during August and the three summer months, continued a record-breaking drought across the region. ...	Gee, thanks, NOAA; next you'll be telling us there's no need to build an ark. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Sep 8, 2011 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Last two winters' warm extremes more severe than their cold snaps During the last two winters, some regions of the northern hemisphere experienced extreme cold not seen in recent decades. But at the same time, the winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11 were also marked by more prominent, although less newsworthy, extreme warm spells. New research examines daily wintertime temperature extremes since 1948 The study finds that the warm extremes were much more severe and widespread than the cold extremes during the northern hemisphere winters of 2009-10 (which featured an extreme snowfall episode on the East Coast dubbed "snowmaggedon") and 2010-11. Moreover, while the extreme cold was mostly attributable to a natural climate cycle, the extreme warmth was not, the study concludes.... "Over the last couple of years, natural variability seemed to produce the cold extremes, while the warm extremes kept trending just as one would expect in a period of accelerating global warming," says Scripps climate researcher Alexander Gershunov, a report co-author. ...	Acceleration is just what we need to make the economy grow! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Sep 8, 2011 from Climate Cha nge Letters, via UCAR: Switching from coal to natural gas would do little for global climate, study indicates Although the burning of natural gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal, a new study concludes that a greater reliance on natural gas would fail to significantly slow down climate change.... While coal use causes warming through emission of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it also releases comparatively large amounts of sulfates and other particles that, although detrimental to the environment, cool the planet by blocking incoming sunlight. The situation is further complicated by uncertainty over the amount of methane that leaks from natural gas operations. Methane is an especially potent greenhouse gas. Wigley's computer simulations indicate that a worldwide, partial shift from coal to natural gas would slightly accelerate climate change through at least 2050, even if no methane leaked from natural gas operations, and through as late as 2140 if there were substantial leaks. After that, the greater reliance on natural gas would begin to slow down the increase in global average temperature, but only by a few tenths of a degree. ...	On the one hand, burning 100 million years of carbon has serious consequences. On the other hand, um. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Sep 8, 2011 from London Independent: Woodland birds join extinction danger list Two of Britain's most charming woodland birds, widespread until relatively recently, appear to be on the road to extinction. Populations of the lesser-spotted woodpecker and the willow tit have fallen so far and so fast that their populations are now to be monitored by a special panel of experts charting the UK's rarest breeding birds... The willow tit's fall in numbers appears to be linked to loss of suitable wet scrub habitat, Dr Charman said, while that of the lesser-spotted woodpecker appears to be linked to poor breeding success, although the reason for that was not yet known. Lesser-spotted woodpeckers also needed extensive wooded landscapes to flourish, and it was possible that changes in woodland management were also a factor in their decline... ...	And the worms shall inherit the earth. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Sep 8, 2011 from BBC: Giant crabs make Antarctic leap King crabs have been found on the edge of Antarctica, probably as a result of warming in the region, scientists say. Writing in the journal Proceedings B, scientists report a large, reproductive population of crabs in the Palmer Deep, a basin cut in the continental shelf. They suggest the crabs were washed in during an upsurge of warmer water. The crabs are voracious crushers of sea floor animals and will probably change the ecosystem profoundly if and when they spread further, researchers warn. Related species have been found around islands off the Antarctic Peninsula and on the outer edge of the continental shelf. But here the crabs (Neolithodes yaldwyni) are living and reproducing in abundance right on the edge of the continent itself. ...	Let's send scads of giant jellyfish to do battle! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Sep 7, 2011 from Marine Conservation Biology Institute, via EurekAlert: Deep-sea fish in deep trouble A team of leading marine scientists from around the world is recommending an end to most commercial fishing in the deep sea, the Earth's largest ecosystem. Instead, they recommend fishing in more productive waters nearer to consumers. In a comprehensive analysis published online this week in the journal Marine Policy, marine ecologists, fisheries biologists, economists, mathematicians and international policy experts show that, with rare exceptions, deep-sea fisheries are unsustainable.... Some deep-sea fishes live more than a century; some deep-sea corals can live more than 4,000 years. When bottom trawlers rip life from the depths, animals adapted to life in deep-sea time can't repopulate on human time scales. Powerful fishing technologies are overwhelming them. "The deep sea is the world's worst place to catch fish" says marine ecologist Dr. Elliott Norse... "Deep-sea fishes are especially vulnerable because they can't repopulate quickly after being overfished."... The deep sea provides less than 1 percent of the world's seafood.... Orange roughy take 30 years to reach sexual maturity and can live 125 years. Compared with most coastal fishes, they live in slow-motion. Unfortunately for them and the deep-sea corals they live among, they can no longer hide from industrial fishing. ...	Looks like we're floundering in the deep end of deep shit. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Sep 7, 2011 from BBC: Somalia famine: UN warns of 750,000 deaths As many as 750,000 people could die as Somalia's drought worsens in the coming months, the UN has warned, declaring a famine in a new area. The UN says tens of thousands of people have died after what is said to be East Africa's worst drought for 60 years. Bay becomes the sixth area to be officially declared a famine zone - mostly in parts of southern Somalia controlled by the Islamist al-Shabab. Some 12 million people across the region need food aid, the UN says. The situation in the Bay region was worse than anything previously recorded, said senior UN's technical adviser Grainne Moloney. "The rate of malnutrition [among children] in Bay region is 58 percent. This is a record rate of acute malnutrition," she told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. ...	This is one sad cirque du Somalia. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Sep 7, 2011 from The Ecologist: China exports its environmental problems as consumer culture booms Despite its well publicised investment in green technology, China today has an unenviable list of ecological problems; its reliance on coal has left it with 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world; the north of the country is prone to frequent water shortages which have created hundreds of thousands of "environmental refugees"; and the dumping of chemicals into the Yangtze and other rivers means half the Chinese population drink water contaminated with human and animal excrement. In a new book, 'As China Goes, So Goes the World', Oxford professor Karl Gerth, claims that many of these problems have been directly caused by China's move towards a more consumerist society. ...	Consumers consume. That's what we do. ApocaDoc permalink
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Tue, Sep 6, 2011 from Associated Press: In Greenland, lives are altered with the weather ...The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, and "Greenland is experiencing some of the most severe environmental impacts," social researcher Lene Kielsen Holm concludes in a preliminary report on a north-to-south survey of Greenlanders. Those impacts are broad and deep. For a village society whose dogsledding ice hunters long supplied it with seal and walrus meat and fish in winter, the "dark months" are now a time of enforced idleness, limited travel and emptier larders. On land, the thawing permafrost underfoot is leaving houses askew and broken. Climate change touches the animals, too: Greenlanders find lean polar bears, unable to stalk seals on sea ice, invading their settlements for food. And the very sound of Greenland is changing. Where villages once echoed to the howl of huskies, that old call of the wild has been muted. Dispirited hunters up and down the west Greenland coast, unable to feed winter game to their sled dogs, have been shooting them. ...	You know things are very very bad when you have to shoot your dog. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Sep 6, 2011 from Climate Central: Insurance Companies Unprepared for Climate Change, Report Says Across much of Vermont, New York, and New Jersey this week, home and business owners have been coping with devastating flood damage unleashed by Hurricane Irene. The immense storm is already listed as one of the costliest natural disasters in American history, and total damage expenses will probably surpass $10 billion. Unfortunately, for most people affected by the storm, standard insurance doesn't cover flooding, which means individuals will be footing repair bills on their own. But insurance companies aren't off the hook in the wake of Irene. In a year with a record number of billion-dollar weather disasters, Hurricane Irene has added to an already expensive year for insurers.... According to the Ceres report, most insurance companies are unprepared for how to cope with the risks that a warmer climate poses. ...	Sounds like the insurance companies need insurance companies with insurance... ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Sep 6, 2011 from Miami Herald: Wall of saltwater snaking up South Florida's coast South Florida's lakes, marshes and rivers pump fresh, crystal clear water across the state like veins carry blood through the body. But cities along South Florida's coast are running out of water as drinking wells are taken over by the sea. Hallandale Beach has abandoned six of its eight drinking water wells because saltwater has advanced underground across two-thirds of the city. "The saltwater line is moving west and there's very little that can be done about it,” said Keith London, a city commissioner for Hallandale Beach, who has worked on water conservation and reuse for the last decade. A wall of saltwater is inching inland into the Biscayne Aquifer -- the primary source of drinking water for 4.5 million people in South Florida. ...	Cue musical theme from "Salty Jaws." ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Sep 5, 2011 from Environmental Health News: Common plasticizer alters an important memory system in male rat brains. An ingredient widely-used to soften plastic containers and toys changed brain development in growing male rats when exposure occurs during a sensitive phase. The same exposure did not affect female rats, report researchers in the journal Neuroscience. The animal study shows that the phthalate DEHP can disrupt the normal development of the hippocampus in young male rats by reducing the number of cells and nerve connections that form. The hippocampus is important to learning as it is involved in the formation of long-term memories. The rat hippocampus matures in the first few weeks after birth while in people, the hippocampus largely develops before birth during the third trimester. This is the first research to connect phthalate exposure at a critical time of development with these cell and nerve effects in the hippocampus. ...	this explains plenty/ regarding disputes between/ me and my sweetheart ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Sep 5, 2011 from New York Times: A Debate Arises on Job Creation and Environment Do environmental regulations kill jobs? Republicans and business groups say yes, arguing that environmental protection is simply too expensive for a battered economy. They were quick to claim victory Friday after the Obama administration abandoned stricter ozone pollution standards. Many economists agree that regulation comes with undeniable costs that can affect workers. Factories may close because of the high cost of cleanup, or owners may relocate to countries with weaker regulations. ...	My job is to die prematurely due to toxic pollution. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Sep 5, 2011 from BBC: Endangered species set for stem cell rescue In a novel marriage of conservation and modern biology, scientists have created stem cells from two endangered species, which could help ensure their survival. The northern white rhino is one of the most endangered animals on Earth, while the drill - a west African monkey - is threatened by habitat loss and hunting. The scientists report in Nature Methods that their stem cells could be made to turn into different types of body cell. If they could turn into eggs and sperm, "test-tube babies" could be created.... "Only when numbers get so low that the genetic contribution of every last animal (including those represented only in frozen cell lines) contributes measurably to the total species diversity - maybe around 10 individuals - would we want to do everything possible to ensure that those genes are transmitted to future generations. "Tragically, northern white rhinos have undergone just such a decimation." ...	I hear there's big money in test-tube rhino horns. Not so much the animal itself. ApocaDoc permalink