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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(2)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(12)
Resource Depletion: (8)
Biology Breach:(6)
Recovery:(8)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ economic myopia  ~ carbon emissions  ~ technical cleverness  ~ smart policy  ~ overfishing  ~ alternative energy  ~ water issues  ~ capitalist greed  ~ endocrine disruptor  



ApocaDocuments (38) gathered this week:
Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from New York Times:
Freeman Dyson: We Can Fix It, It's Not A Big Deal.
Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus.... Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that "the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn't scare me at all"... A particularly distressed member of that public was Dyson's own wife, Imme, who, after seeing the film in a local theater with Dyson when it was released in 2006, looked at her husband out on the sidewalk and, with visions of drowning polar bears still in her eyes, reproached him: "Everything you told me is wrong!" she cried. "The polar bears will be fine," he assured her.... Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the carbon may well be salubrious -- a sign that "the climate is actually improving rather than getting worse," because carbon acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. "Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now," he contends, "and substantially richer in carbon dioxide." Dyson calls ocean acidification, which many scientists say is destroying the saltwater food chain, a genuine but probably exaggerated problem. Sea levels, he says, are rising steadily, but why this is and what dangers it might portend "cannot be predicted until we know much more about its causes." ...


James Lovelock
vs.
Freeman Dyson:
The Cage Match!

ApocaDoc
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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from Times Online (UK):
Consumers beware the costly spin of wind turbines
The view from the top could not be clearer: Ed Miliband, the minister for energy and climate change, said last week that opposing the onward march of wind turbines -- on which the government is pinning its hopes of meeting its targets on renewable energy -- should be as "socially unacceptable" as not wearing a seatbelt or failing to stop at a zebra crossing. Hmm. Tell that to the people who believe the view over Britain's last remaining wildernesses is about to be destroyed for ever -- and for a very dubious set of returns. Will wind farms turn out to be a truly revolutionary source of energy for the future or an expensive folly? Whatever the final answer, there's no doubt about the expense. Over the past decade developers have grown rich on lavish -- and, critics would say, misdirected -- government subsidies. Wind farming is the new gold rush. ...


Long-term survival?
Not folly.

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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from Yale Environment 360:
Satellites and Google Earth
...In the past several years, one of the chief uses for satellite imagery has been to accurately quantify the loss of tropical forests from the Amazon, to the Congo, to Indonesia. In Brazil, scientists and state environmental protection officials can now monitor fires and forest clearing almost in real-time and take action to combat the deforestation. But perhaps the most revolutionary advance in using satellites to monitor the planet has been the ever-widening use of remote sensing technology by ordinary citizens. Google Earth has been instrumental in this development and represents a critical point in its evolution, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to attach data to a geographic representation of Earth. Citizens and environmental groups are now using Google Earth to tracks threats to pristine rivers from hydroelectric projects, catalogue endangered species, help indigenous people in the Amazon protect their land, and alert citizens and government officials that boats are illegally fishing off the Canary Islands. ...


And the geek shall inherit the earth... what's left of it.

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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from London Guardian:
Shampoo in the water supply triggers growth of deadly drug-resistant bugs
Fabric softeners, disinfectants, shampoos and other household products are spreading drug-resistant bacteria around Britain, scientists have warned. Detergents used in factories and mills are also increasing the odds that some medicines will no longer be able to combat dangerous diseases. The warning has been made by Birmingham and Warwick university scientists, who say disinfectants and other products washed into sewers and rivers are triggering the growth of drug-resistant microbes. Soil samples from many areas have been found to contain high levels of bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes, the scientists have discovered -- raising fears that these may have already been picked up by humans. ...


Those are acceptable consequences for me smelling clean and fresh!

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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from Scientific American:
Some Food Additives Mimic Human Hormones
A discovery that two commonly used food additives are estrogenic has led scientists to suspect that many ingredients added to the food supply may be capable of altering hormones. More than 3,000 preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients are added to food in the United States, and none of them are required to undergo testing for estrogenic activity, according to the Food and Drug Administration.... The first food additive, propyl gallate, is a preservative used to prevent fats and oils from spoiling that can be found in a range of foods including baked goods, shortening, dried meats, candy, fresh pork sausage, mayonnaise and dried milk. The second additive, 4-hexyl resorcinol, is used to prevent shrimp, lobsters, and other shellfish from discoloring. ...


Are you so sure that those preservatives aren't preserving us? Hunh?

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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Fish tales, sad ones, from S.F. fishermen
But the runs of salmon back to the rivers to spawn went into a sharp decline, and last year, for the first time in 150 years, the state banned fishing for salmon. Seven years ago, 800,000 salmon returned to the Sacramento River to spawn, part of a mysterious ancient cycle; in 2007, only 68,000 were counted. Dams and water diversions were blamed, overfishing, warming waters in the ocean, mismanagement of the fishery. Whatever the reasons, it is almost certain the salmon season will be closed again this year.... "What we have is two lost salmon seasons in a row, plus the worst crab season in 40 years," said Pete Kellogg, who is 47 and has been fishing out of San Francisco for 30 years. "The first day of crab season was a disaster," said Don Ashwin. "And then it got worse." ...


We need to retrain these fishermen for something practical, like credit default swaps and derivative hedging.

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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from Times Online (UK):
British eco-migrants flee to New Zealand
New Zealand is seeing its first influx of British eco-migrants, environmental refugees who have quit the UK because they fear the long-term impacts of climate change. The country's islands, renowned for their temperate climate, clean environment and low population, have often been put forward by greens as potential "lifeboats" for a world suffering serious warming.... Scientists agree that New Zealand is likely to be more resilient to any global warming than many other countries -- but that could lead to problems with immigration. Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at Britain’s Met Office, said: "A lot of countries in temperate zones could come under pressure to take eco-migrants." ...


I wonder what would happen if we thought of the earth as a lifeboat?

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from AFP:
Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough
Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.... "To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device," added the study's co-author in a statement... Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.... "It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons," he told the Houston Chronicle. ...


Dang. I hate it when hope's bubble is popped by science.

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from CBC (Canada):
Film sheds light on shadowy world of germ warfare
One of the things that I found out was that this world of biological weapons research was really shrouded in secrecy, and there's all these skeletons in the closet that go back decades -- human experimentation, secret programs, illicit programs. And it's not just in the United States -- the U.K., Russia, my home continent of Africa -- Zimbabwe, South Africa.... [T]he United States government has budgeted more than $50 billion US on biodefence, and a lot of that money is now going to private companies, to private foundations, to university labs... One of the scary things about biological weapons is that even if you're working on biodefence, you still have to create the actual weapon to know how to defend against it so you have a very, very blurry line between what is biodefence and what is bio-offence. And we must remember that ... offensive biological weapons have been illegal under the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention that has been signed by more than 170 countries [in] 1972. They've been outlawed. ...


Thank goodness it's all secret. That means that nothing bad could happen.

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from Aspen Daily News:
Third-World women hit by climate change
In ski towns like Aspen the conversation about global warming's local effect focuses around the threat of shorter winters, less skiing, and the possibility of our resort economy crumbling as a result. On the other end of the spectrum in poor, developing nations it's more about fighting wild animals for clean water and spending your waking hours searching for firewood on an eroding landscape. And the hardships wrought by global warming in these countries are disproportionately shouldered by their women, as attested by the environmental leaders of Nicaragua, Mozambique and Jordan on Friday at the Aspen Environment Forum. ...


Figures that Mother Earth's mothers would be suffering the most...

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from Miami Herald:
Ample evidence Florida's feeling effects of climate change
...People who study South Florida's environment say global warming is starting to have a significant impact on Florida's fish, fowl and flora... Changes in Florida's climate are far more subtle than, say, a melting Alaskan glacier. But the state has a lot at stake: Florida has 1,200 miles of coastline and 11 million acres of wetlands and low elevations, making it more vulnerable to rising seas, beach erosion and the inland movement of saltwater in places like the Keys. The last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that tropical cyclones (which we call hurricanes) are increasing in intensity in some ocean basins, especially in the North Atlantic basin where hurricanes form, because of warming seas. ...


Where will the snow birds fly?

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
Australia kicks off Earth Hour climate campaign
The waters of Sydney Harbour plunged into darkness on Saturday night, with the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge killing their lights for an hour in a global call for swift action on climate change. Chatham Island, the largest of a tiny group of Pacific islands 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of New Zealand, unofficially began Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators at 0645 GMT, or 8:30 pm local time. The 25-hour energy-saving marathon officially began in Sydney shortly after 0930 GMT with a spectacular switch to darkness for an hour before spreading across the world for more than 80 countries to take part at 8:30 pm local time.... "Even if a billion people turn off their lights this Saturday the entire event will be equivalent to switching off China's emissions for six short seconds," said Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre think-tank. ...


If only Earth Hour could be Earth Day or Earth Week or...

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from Daily Kos:
The Golden Days: Bedtime, 2020
Are you sure you want stories from way back then? It's so long ago. You're sure? Ok, then, my sweet one, here it is. Let me think back a bit: In those golden days, we had something called the "pilot light." It was a small flame burning in our stoves, all day and night long. It was natural gas, burned for our convenience -- to let us light other fires on our stoves, piped from hundreds, even thousands of miles away, for our convenience. Because of that pilot light, we didn't have to strike flint, or use a match. ...


The future is just a figment of our imagination. I'm so sure of this.

ApocaDoc
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
Fri, Mar 27, 2009
from Amandala (Belize):
Cherishing Belize's fisheries
Officials of the Environmental Defense Fund, a US-based NGO with an international network, hosted a presentation and discussion Wednesday morning at the training room of the Coastal Zone Management Authority's office in Belize City to talk about a program they are implementing in Belize. The program involves a concept known as “catch shares,” which the group describes as an incentive-based management of fisheries.... Sustainable management of fisheries works better if the interests of government and fishermen are aligned towards sustainability for both parties, Bonzon said.... She demonstrated (using a PowerPoint presentation) that when catch shares are implemented (1) over-fishing stops, (2) wastage or the taking of unnecessary by-catch declines, and (3) revenues to fishermen increase remarkably by as much as 170 percent in the fifth year of implementation. ...


This cooperation smacks of socialism. How is it possible that everyone benefits?

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Fri, Mar 27, 2009
from MIT, via EurekAlert:
'Alarming' use of energy in modern manufacturing methods
Modern manufacturing methods are spectacularly inefficient in their use of energy and materials, according to a detailed MIT analysis of the energy use of 20 major manufacturing processes. Overall, new manufacturing systems are anywhere from 1,000 to one million times bigger consumers of energy, per pound of output, than more traditional industries. In short, pound for pound, making microchips uses up orders of magnitude more energy than making manhole covers.... Solar panels are a good example. Their production, which uses the same manufacturing processes as microchips but on a large scale, is escalating dramatically. The inherent inefficiency of current solar panel manufacturing methods could drastically reduce the technology's lifecycle energy balance -- that is, the ratio of the energy the panel would produce over its useful lifetime to the energy required to manufacture it.... One message from the study is that "claims that these technologies are going to save us in some way need closer scrutiny. There's a significant energy cost involved here," he says. ...


Let's make stuff now, while energy's cheap! I'm sure that "climate stuff" will work itself out.

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Fri, Mar 27, 2009
from The Nation:
The Dirt on Clean Coal
...the American coal industry, which pumps 2 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and contributes more than one-third of the nation's overall greenhouse gas emissions, is nothing if not resilient. Despite rising public concern about global warming and a growing awareness that coal is an irrevocably dirty business, the industry is spending millions of dollars on a slick messaging campaign stressing its "commitment to clean." Critics argue that "clean coal" means anything the industry wants it to, pointing out that of the country's 616 coal plants, none are carbon-free or close to it. The viability of an environmentally sustainable future for coal is questionable, and so is the industry's commitment to cleaning itself up. The Center for American Progress recently released a report showing that the country's biggest coal companies have spent only a fraction of their multibillion-dollar profits developing technologies to curb carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. "The ads and other public clean coal activities are merely designed to delay global warming solutions without suffering a public relations black eye," the CAP report stated. ...


Public Relations = Public Ruination!

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Fri, Mar 27, 2009
from Environmental Health News:
Food may contain environmental estrogens
A discovery that two commonly used food additives are estrogenic has led scientists to suspect that many ingredients added to the food supply may be capable of altering hormones. More than 3,000 preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients are added to food in the United States, and none of them are required to undergo testing for estrogenic activity, according to the Food and Drug Administration. "We need to be mindful of these food additives because they could be adding to the total effect of other estrogen mimicking compounds we're coming into contact with," said Clair Hicks, a professor of food science at the University of Kentucky and spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists, a nonprofit scientific group. "The benefits of using these additives in food need to be weighed against the risks they present," Hicks said. ...


I really have to watch my figure now!

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from New Scientist:
Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity
"I AM shocked, truly shocked," says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. "I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes are forming everywhere and methane is bubbling up out of them." Back in 2006, in a paper in Nature, Walter warned that as the permafrost in Siberia melted, growing methane emissions could accelerate climate change. But even she was not expecting such a rapid change. "Lakes in Siberia are five times bigger than when I measured them in 2006. It's unprecedented. This is a global event now, and the inertia for more permafrost melt is increasing." ...What is certain is that the Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth. While the average global temperature has risen by less than 1 degree C over the past three decades, there has been warming over much of the Arctic Ocean of around 3 degrees C. In some areas where the ice has been lost, temperatures have risen by 5 degrees C. ...


She's just being ... emotional.

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from Associated Press:
Study: Range of pharmaceuticals in fish across US
Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday. Findings from this first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue have prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly expand similar ongoing research to more than 150 different locations. "The average person hopefully will see this type of a study and see the importance of us thinking about water that we use every day, where does it come from, where does it go to? We need to understand this is a limited resource and we need to learn a lot more about our impacts on it," said study co-author Bryan Brooks, a Baylor University researcher and professor who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment. ...


With all those drugs... fish will never be sick again!

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from Associated Press:
Biologists worry over increased turtle harvest
Surging demand for turtle meat in southeast Asia has prompted a huge jump in turtle harvesting, leading to concerns that populations of the reptiles could suffer permanent damage. Freshwater turtle populations have plunged in Asia, where the meat is a delicacy, leading to increased trapping in U.S. ponds and streams, said Fred Janzen, an Iowa State University professor who studies ecology. In Iowa, harvests have increased from 29,000 pounds in 1987 to 235,000 pounds in 2007. And during that period the number of licensed harvesters more than quadrupled to 175 people. In Arkansas, an average of 196,460 aquatic turtles a year were harvested from 2004 to 2006, according to the state Fish and Game Commission. ...


The hare no longer naps.

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from Newcastle University, via Eurekalert:
Drop in daddy long legs is devastating bird populations
Warm summers are dramatically reducing populations of daddy long legs, which in turn is having a severe impact on the bird populations which rely on them for food. New research by a team of UK scientists spells out for the first time how climate change may affect upland bird species like the golden plover -- perhaps pushing it towards local extinction by the end of the century.... "This is the most worrying development that I have found in my scientific career to date. However, by understanding these processes, we now have the chance to respond. If we can maintain good quality habitats for craneflies then we can help the birds too...." ...


I'm so sorry now that I pulled the legs off that little guy, back when I was 12.

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from The Onion (thanks, Peter):
Report: Majority Of Americans Unprepared For Apocalypse
Over 87 percent of Americans are unprepared to protect themselves from even the most basic world-ending scenarios, according to a study released Monday by the nonpartisan doomsday think-tank The Malthusian Institute. Despite "more than ample warning" for the most likely means of worldwide destruction, less than one million American households have taken even the simplest precautions against nuclear shockwaves, asteroid impact, or a host of angels bearing swords of fire, the study concluded.... "Almost no one is prepared for a sudden shift in the Earth's polarity or the eating of the Sun and moon by evil wolves Skol and Hati during Ragnarok." ...


C'mon, America -- we can do better!

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from Springer, via EurekAlert:
Hormone-mimics in plastic water bottles
In an analysis of commercially available mineral waters, the researchers found evidence of estrogenic compounds leaching out of the plastic packaging into the water. What's more, these chemicals are potent in vivo and result in an increased development of embryos in the New Zealand mud snail. These findings, which show for the first time that substances leaching out of plastic food packaging materials act as functional estrogens, are published in Springer's journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.... "We must have identified just the tip of the iceberg in that plastic packaging may be a major source of xenohormone contamination of many other edibles. Our findings provide an insight into the potential exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals due to unexpected sources of contamination." ...


I like my estrogenic compounds chilled.

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences , via EurekAlert:
E-waste reduced by fees at time of purchase, says new study
The large amount of waste that follows the sale of computers and electronics is reduced when states charge consumers a fee at the time of sale, according to [a recent study].... The fast pace of new product introduction in the electronics industry imposes high costs on manufacturers and the environment as consumers each year discard millions of tons of obsolete electronics containing toxic materials, by one estimate, more than one million tons of e-waste in the United States alone.... [T]he authors find that fees-upon-sale induce manufacturers to introduce products less frequently and, consequently, the quantity of e-waste decreases dramatically -- and manufacturers' profits may actually increase. In contrast, fees-upon-disposal reduce manufacturers' profits and fail to reduce the quantity of e-waste. ...


You're saying everyone benefits if we produce and buy less crap?
But what about
consumer culture?

ApocaDoc
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Wed, Mar 25, 2009
from Associated Press:
AP source: EPA closer to global warming warning
The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the first step on the long road to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Politicians and the public, business and industry will have to weigh in along the way, but for now a proposed finding by the EPA that global warming is a threat to public health and welfare is under White House review. The threat declaration would be the first step to regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and could have broad economic and environmental ramifications. It also would probably spur action by Congress to address climate change more broadly. ...


It makes sense the worst per capita carbon emitter would be the last to admit CO2's a danger!

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Wed, Mar 25, 2009
from Times Online (UK):
Mosquito laser gun offers new hope on malaria
American scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.... The laser -- dubbed a weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD) -- has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.... The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito's wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. The research is backed by Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire. ...


Who needs bats when you have American technology?

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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
Wed, Mar 25, 2009
from Mongabay:
Ocean fertilization will not help reduce CO2 levels, suggests experiment
A controversial 'ocean fertilization' experiment suggests seeding the seas with iron to boost carbon-absorbing phytoplantkon will not sequester much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Some -- including researchers and private companies -- had hoped iron fertilization might be an easy fix for climate change. The Lohafex experiment, conducted by Indo-German team of scientists from the National Institute of Oceaonography and the Alfred Wegener Institute earlier this year, dumped 20 tons of iron sulphate into the Southern Ocean and measured the carbon uptake by plankton. Fertilization stimulated a short burst of phytoplankton growth which was negated by increased predation by crustaceans known as amphipods. "As a result, only a modest amount of carbon sank out of the surface layer by the end of the experiment," said the Alfred Wegener Institute in a statement. ...


Damn!
Time for "Plan C"?

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Wed, Mar 25, 2009
from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert:
New wheat disease could spread faster than expected
These historical studies of both plant and animal diseases show that some pathogens that can be carried through the air can actually accelerate as they move, and can become widespread problems much faster than had been thought possible.... ["T]his new study confirms that it is crucial to get prepared for the rapid spread of a new variety of wheat stem rust that appeared in Uganda in 1999." That new type of wheat stem rust, Mundt said, has the potential to attack 75 percent of the world's known wheat varieties, and in a bad year might cause up to 50 percent crop losses in some parts of the world. ...


[--] and butter, [--] and chocolate... please, Lord, give us this day our daily [--].

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Wed, Mar 25, 2009
from American Society of Horticultural Science, via EurekAlert:
Effects of 'herbicide drift' on white oak
Herbicide drift, which occurs when [herbicides] "drift" from the targeted application area to a nearby non-targeted area, is a particular concern in Midwestern regions of the United States.... White oak, a popular landscape and forest species native to the eastern United States, has been suffering from an abnormality called "leaf tatters", which give the leaves a lacy appearance. Leaf tatters in white oak trees have been reported in states from Minnesota, south to Missouri, and east to Pennsylvania.... The researchers found that visual injury to white oak seedlings was dependent on year, herbicide treatment, concentration, growth stage, and rating date.... This research is the first to document leaf tatters injury from exposure of oaks to chloroacetanilide herbicides. ...


Startling: a chemical designed to kill plants, actually hurts plants.

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Tue, Mar 24, 2009
from London Times:
Billion people face famine by mid-century, says top US scientist
Famines affecting a billion people will threaten global food security during the 21st century, according to a leading US scientist. Nina Fedoroff, the US State Department chief scientist, is convinced that food shortages will be the biggest challenge facing the world as temperatures and population levels rise. Food security in the coming years, she said, is "a huge problem" that has been met with little more than complacency. "We are asleep at the switch," she said.... Dr Fedoroff, who advises Hillary Clinton, said famines that strike a billion people are quite possible in a world where climate change has damaged food production and the human population has risen to nine billion. ...


They won't have any water either -- so at least it's even!

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Tue, Mar 24, 2009
from Nature:
Pancake ice takes over the Arctic
... In the past, Arctic waters have been dominated by thick slabs of sea ice that last from one year to the next. But sea-ice cover is diminishing and thick ice that lasts for several years is disappearing fast, with researchers seeing a greater proportion of thin, newly formed ice.... Under these conditions, globs of ice crystals tossed about in the water combine to form first a soupy mixture called 'grease ice', and then 'pancakes' of thin ice a metre or two in diameter. This can have all sorts of knock-on effects. Because the pancakes are round, for example, they have areas of open water between them when joined up, making the surface darker overall. This could have a warming effect as a result of less of the Sun's radiation being reflected. Water also slops up from these holes over the ice so that falling snow melts rather than settling, keeping the surface darker. ...


I'm more of a waffle man myself.

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Tue, Mar 24, 2009
from Washington Post:
Daily Red Meat Raises Chances Of Dying Early
Eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely, according to the first large study to examine whether regularly eating beef or pork increases mortality. The study of more than 500,000 middle-aged and elderly Americans found that those who consumed about four ounces of red meat a day (the equivalent of about a small hamburger) were more than 30 percent more likely to die during the 10 years they were followed, mostly from heart disease and cancer. Sausage, cold cuts and other processed meats also increased the risk. Previous research had found a link between red meat and an increased risk of heart disease and cancer, particularly colorectal cancer, but the new study is the first large examination of the relationship between eating meat and overall risk of death, and is by far the most detailed. ...


The animals are "dying early" as well.

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Tue, Mar 24, 2009
from Wall Street Journal:
Drought Turns Water Into a Cash Crop
... After three years of drought in California, water is now a potential cash crop. Last fall, the state activated its Drought Water Bank program for the first time since 1994. Under the program, farmers can choose to sell some of the water they would usually use to grow their crops to parched cities, counties and agriculture districts. Water -- or the lack of it -- has been costing the state dearly. According to Richard Howitt, a professor at the University of California, Davis, the drought and resulting water restrictions could cost as much as $1.4 billion in lost income and about 53,000 lost jobs, mostly in the agriculture sector. ...


But think of all the new job opportunities for rain dancers!

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Tue, Mar 24, 2009
from Scientific American:
Obama's Climate Challenge: Winning the Carbon Game
... At the close of 2009, the nations of the world will assemble in Copenhagen to negotiate a global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. If a U.S. climate policy doesn't exist by then, it is hard to see how developing countries such as India, Brazil and especially China -- whose emissions now exceed those of the U.S. -- can be convinced to sign an agreement. The U.S. has been emitting carbon dioxide for far longer and in far greater quantities; the other nations expect the U.S. to take the plunge first. No one doubts the Obama administration's dedication on the issue: the president's cabinet and the White House are filled with a dream team of scientists and climate policy experts committed to strong action (profiled throughout this article). Among the most valuable players are Harvard University's John Holdren (the president's science adviser) and Nobel laureate physicist Steven Chu (the secretary of energy). The president himself appears just as passionate. As he put it in November 2008: "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high; the consequences too serious." Yet as of this writing, several unresolved matters of policy -- and strategy -- raise questions about how President Barack Obama's team can best manage this gargantuan challenge. ...


Howzabout "whatever it takes" and "now!"

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Mon, Mar 23, 2009
from Denver Post:
Nestle plan sets off water war
A plan to suck, truck and bottle Arkansas Valley spring water has residents here crusading against the world's largest food and beverage company. "Nestle is seeking to drain the blood of Chaffee County," said Salida local Daniel Zettler during a fiery public hearing last week. Nestle -- with 12 U.S. brands of bottled water and almost $4.3 billion in North American sales in 2007 -- came calling for Arkansas Valley spring water about two years ago. The company wants to draw 65 million gallons a year from an aquifer feeding two freshwater springs near Nathrop, pipe it 5 miles to a truck stop and ship it 100 miles to a Denver bottling facility. It would be sold under the company's Arrowhead brand. ...


Sing with me now... Nestle makes the very best ... bottled water...

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Mon, Mar 23, 2009
from Reuters UK:
City-dwellers emit less CO2 than countryfolk: study
LONDON (Reuters) - Major cities are getting a bad rap for the disproportionately high greenhouse gases they emit even though their per capita emissions are often a fraction of the national average, a new report said on Monday. Published by the International Institute for Environment and Development, the report found that urban residents generate substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists blame for global warming, than people elsewhere in the country.... "The real climate change culprits are not the cities themselves but the high consumption lifestyles of people living across these wealthy countries," said report author David Dodman. He analyzed the per capita emissions from major cities in Europe, Asia, North America and South America. ...


Must be all those pick-up trucks.

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Mon, Mar 23, 2009
from Scientific American:
The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S. Water Source
On America's high plains, crops in early summer stretch to the horizon: field after verdant field of corn, sorghum, soybeans, wheat and cotton. Framed by immense skies now blue, now scarlet-streaked, this 800-mile expanse of agriculture looks like it could go on forever. It can't. The Ogallala Aquifer, the vast underground reservoir that gives life to these fields, is disappearing. In some places, the groundwater is already gone. This is the breadbasket of America -- the region that supplies at least one fifth of the total annual U.S. agricultural harvest. If the aquifer goes dry, more than $20 billion worth of food and fiber will vanish from the world's markets. And scientists say it will take natural processes 6,000 years to refill the reservoir. ...


The breadbasket is going to hell in a handbasket!

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Mon, Mar 23, 2009
from National Academy of Sciences, 2008:
Brave New Ocean
Finally, Jennings and Blanchard (2004) used the theoretical abundance-body mass relationship derived from macroecological theory to estimate the pristine biomass of fishes in the North Sea in comparison with the size and trophic structure of heavily exploited populations in 2001. The estimated total biomass of all fishes 64 g to 64 kg declined 38 percent while the mean turnover time of the population was estimated to have dropped from 3.5 to 1.9 years. Large fishes 4-16 kg were estimated to have declined by 97.4 percent, and species 16-66 kg were estimated to have declined by 99.2 percent. The great importance of these calculations is that they are entirely independent of all of the assumptions and controversies surrounding fisheries catch data and models, and yet lead to predictions entirely consistent with the most extreme estimates of fishery declines. ...


You mean theory is matching reality?
Again?

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