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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(5)
Plague/Virus:(1)
Climate Chaos:(6)
Resource Depletion: (3)
Biology Breach:(8)
Recovery:(6)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
anthropogenic change  ~ climate impacts  ~ contamination  ~ health impacts  ~ deniers  ~ economic myopia  ~ global warming  ~ toxic water  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ fracking  ~ people rise up  



ApocaDocuments (29) gathered this week:
Sun, Mar 6, 2011
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Gloomy Malthus provides food for thought as world's appetite builds
At some point, argued Malthus, the demands of the human race will exceed agricultural capacity, sparking violence, population decline and radical social change. A highbrow version of the man with the "End is Nigh" sandwich board, Malthus banged his "impending catastrophe" drum until his death in 1834 - hence the "dismal" sobriquet.... The United Nations index of global food prices hit yet another record high in February - the eighth successive monthly increase. The respected UN index - which tracks prices of cereals, meat, dairy, oils and sugar - is now up 40 percent on a year ago and 5 percent above its June 2008 peak. The price of corn - a widespread staple crop - is now 95 percent higher than a year ago. While there were many factors behind the outbreak of dissent in Libya, soaring food prices were the catalyst. A wave of price-related resentment has swept across a number of North African nations and could yet cause a political eruption in the Gulf. Since before the days of Malthus, economists have tracked the natural swing and counter-swing of food prices, as production has responded with a lag to price signals and the vagaries of the weather. But maybe Malthus was right and that self-correcting cycle is now over. ...


Relax! We'll just make a bigger pie!

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Sun, Mar 6, 2011
from The Vancouver Sun:
Alberta dairy cow tests positive for BSE
A dairy cow from Alberta has tested positive for mad cow disease, the first Canadian case in more than a year. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed the six-and-a-half year old cow, from an undisclosed location in the province, was discovered with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, on Feb. 18. No part of the cow's carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems, the agency said, and the discovery should not affect exports of Canadian cattle or beef. It also said the age and location of the infected cow are consistent with previous cases detected in Canada. The agency would not release the details about the location or farm, citing privacy reasons. ...


Indeed we must respect the privacy of this poor cow's relations.

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Sun, Mar 6, 2011
from The Vancouver Sun:
Researchers find more plastic in the guts of Arctic seabirds
When biologist Jennifer Provencher headed to the Arctic, she signed on to help assess how seabird diets are changing as temperatures climb in the North. She never expected to find plastics on the menu. But she and her colleagues at the Canadian Wildlife Service are pulling remarkable amounts of trash from birds in some of the remotest spots on Earth. Fulmars are strong flyers that skim the surface swallowing tasty tidbits, and 84 per cent of the ones the researchers examined from two Arctic colonies had plastics in their guts. One had swallowed the mangled remains of a red bottle lid, with a striking resemblance to a Coke cap, along with 20 other bits of plastic. "It's hard to believe a bird could have that much plastic," said Provencher, who has been combing through the stomach contents for her graduate work at the University of Victoria. "That's the equivalent of a human being having a baseball-sized chunk of plastic in your stomach." ...


If these birds enjoy ingesting plastic, there's an entire planet to feast on.

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Sun, Mar 6, 2011
from Time:
Testing the Waters
...Corals build colonies that secrete calcium carbonate to form ocean reefs. When they're healthy, coral reefs provide shelter and food for animals all along the food chain, including the top: us. Across the planet, half a billion people rely, directly and indirectly, on corals for their living. That's why what happens to the 9,000-year-old Great Barrier Reef, as well as to other reefs worldwide, is critical. The recent Queensland floods were most notably tragic for the lives lost and property destroyed. But they have also hurt the Great Barrier Reef by funneling into the ocean vast plumes of freshwater and agricultural runoff that could severely damage the coral. Besides the extreme rain that sparked the floods, rising ocean temperatures, changes to the ocean's chemistry and the global trade in natural resources -- all symptoms of our fossil-fuel economy -- are waging a multifront war on the marine environment. "You can't walk into a forest and start hacking at branches and killing off animals and denuding the forest cover without killing the trees," says Justin Marshall, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland. "The outlook for the whole reef is poor." ...


This story brought to you by a mag once called TIME now called NO TIME LEFT.

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Sat, Mar 5, 2011
from Associated Press:
NASA research satellite plunges into the sea
For the second time in two years, a rocket glitch sent a NASA global warming satellite to the bottom of the sea Friday, a $424 million debacle that couldn't have come at a worse time for the space agency and its efforts to understand climate change. Years of belt-tightening have left NASA's Earth-watching system in sorry shape, according to many scientists. And any money for new environmental satellites will have to survive budget-cutting, global warming politics and, now, doubts on Capitol Hill about the space agency's competence... Thirteen NASA Earth-observing satellites remain up there, and nearly all of them are in their sunset years. ...


I wonder why I'm getting the feeling that we're in for some bad luck...

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Sat, Mar 5, 2011
from The Nation:
The Story of 'Citizens United' vs. the FEC
This is the best short history of the growth of corporate power I've ever read, heard or seen. It's also a primer on exactly why the Supreme Court's closely divided Citizens United decision is incompatible with basic notions of democratic governance. Created by the good folks at The Story of Stuff project, founded by Annie Leonard to creatively amplify public discourse on environmental, social and economic concerns, The Story of Citizens United v FEC explores the crisis in American democracy sparked by the Court decision that gave corporations the right to spend unlimited funds to influence elections... The ultimate solution is the Free Speech for People Amendment to the US Constitution. Corporations are not people, they do not vote, and they should not be able to influence election outcomes. ...


The revolution will be animated.

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Sat, Mar 5, 2011
from Grist:
How bicycling will save the economy (if we let it)
Imagine getting a $3,000 to $12,000 tax rebate this year. Now imagine it coming again and again. Every year it grows by around a thousand dollars. Imagine how this would change your daily life. Sounds like a teabagger's wet dream, but it's actually a conservative estimate of how much you'd save by ditching your car, or even just one of your cars -- and getting on a bicycle instead. ...


One teabagger's wet dream is another teabagger's swollen prostate.

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Sat, Mar 5, 2011
from DemocracyNow:
Leaked EPA Documents Expose Decades-Old Effort to Hide Dangers of Natural Gas Extraction
Efforts by lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to better police the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," have been thwarted for the past 25 years, according to an expose in the New York Times. Studies by scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on fracking have been repeatedly narrowed in scope by superiors, and important findings have been removed under pressure from the industry. The news comes as the EPA is conducting a broad study of the risks of natural gas drilling with preliminary results scheduled to be delivered next year. Joining us is Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, a firm that tracks environmental spills and releases across the country, based in Ithaca, New York, where fracking is currently taking place.... And if we want to make this an honest process, if we want to make sure that this extraction mining is properly regulated, there's no better time than right now. We've never seen these documents before. I've been doing this work for 34 years. All of those internal communications, as you know, are excluded from Freedom of Information, so this is really a cornucopia of documents revealing how the EPA thinks. And that's how come, for the first time, we know what they wanted to do, to their credit, to protect the environment. And in fact, there's even one document that said that the authorities didn't want EPA to write down what their best hopes were, because if it ever came to light, the public could hold their feet to the fire to implement it. So this is a tremendous opportunity to regulate an industry that's really never been regulated before. ...


Why would we want to regulate things as if our lives depended on it?

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Sat, Mar 5, 2011
from LiveScience:
Arctic's Spring Phytoplankton Blooms Arrive Earlier
When summer comes to the Arctic, the tiny plants that feed the ocean's food chain form green blooms in the water. In some Arctic waters, the peak of this bloom has been arriving earlier every year since 1997, a study has found. These areas, where peak bloom time is creeping up, are roughly the same as those with decreasing sea ice in June, according to the researchers.... In some areas, the change was quite dramatic. For example, in the Baffin Sea, southwest of Greenland, the peak bloom moved from September to early July. Phytoplankton is crucial to the marine ecosystem, because it forms the base of the food chain. The creatures that eat the tiny plants, including fish and tiny animals called zooplankton, have adapted to make the most of these blooms. It's not clear if they are able to sync up with the earlier blooms and avoid disruptions to critical life stages, such as egg hatching and larvae development, according to lead study author Mati Kahru, a research oceanographer in the Integrative Oceanography Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. ...


The early fish gets the phytoplankton!

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Fri, Mar 4, 2011
from Washington Post:
Scientists want to help regulators decide safety of chemicals
Groups representing 40,000 researchers and clinicians are urging federal agencies responsible for the safety of chemicals to examine the subtle impact a chemical might have on the human body rather than simply ask whether it is toxic. In an open letter to the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to be published Friday in the journal Science, the scientists say the regulatory agencies need to tap into genetics, developmental biology, endocrinology and other disciplines when they analyze the safety of chemicals used in everyday products. "Although chemical testing and risk assessment have long been the domain of toxicologists, it is clear that the development of improved testing guidelines and better methods of assessing risks posed by common chemicals to which all Americans are exposed requires the expertise of a broad range of scientific and clinical disciplines," said the letter, which was signed by eight scientific societies.... "We're talking about picking the best geneticists, endocrinologists, reproductive biologists to consider new ways of testing these chemicals for safety," Hunt said. "The old toxicology paradigm doesn't work anymore." ...


We'd better check with industry before flying off the handle and bringing science into this.

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Fri, Mar 4, 2011
from Huffington Post:
Natural Gas Industry Dumping More Wastewater Into Rivers Than A Year Ago
Pennsylvania's natural gas drillers are still flushing vast quantities of contaminated wastewater into rivers that supply drinking water, despite major progress by the industry over the past year in curtailing the practice. Under pressure from environmentalists and state officials, energy companies that have been drilling thousands of gas wells in the state's countryside spent part of 2010 overhauling the way they handle the chemically tainted and sometimes radioactive water that gushes from the ground after a drilling technique known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.... But drilling in the vast, gas-rich rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale is growing so explosively that some of those gains are being erased by operators that still send their waste to plants that discharge into rivers.... By comparison, some 3.6 million barrels were sent to those same plants during the 12-month period that ended on June 30. That means that even with the recycling effort ramping up tremendously, more tainted wastewater is being dumped into rivers now than was the case a year ago. A total of 1,386 new gas wells were drilled in the state last year, up from 768 a year earlier. Thousands more well permits have been approved. ...


Is there any evidence that contaminants have been making us smarter?

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Fri, Mar 4, 2011
from WorldFishingToday.com:
Considering moratorium on Caspian sturgeon fishing
As per media report the coastal nations of Caspian Sea are ready for a moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the sea. The Azerbaijani ecology minister said that the moratorium will apply to commercial fishing only. He also added that Azerbaijan fully supported the proposal, which had been welcomed by President Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan has already stopped fishing for two types of sturgeon - Fringebarbel and beluga. It agreed a sturgeon fishing quota of 84 tonnes for 2010, which broke down into 46 tonnes of Russian sturgeon and 38 tonnes of starry sturgeon. The quota was agreed at a meeting of the Caspian Commission on Aquatic Bioresources in Tehran in June last year. The quota year runs from 1 March 2010 to 28 February 2011 in order to reflect the fishing season. According to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the government is stepping up its work to tackle corruption. He said that tough measures have been taken against forestry wardens from Sheki to Shamakhi. Over 120 forestry wardens have been sacked. At the last meeting, six senior people - a national park director, his deputy and the heads of forestry warden departments - lost their jobs. ...


Moratoriums are easy when there's not much left.

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Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Your own private Wisconsin
Chances are, if you're like me, if you're like most Americans, if you're paying reasonable amounts of thoughtful attention, you know spectacular things are afoot, urgent things, things that make politicians wail and envoys grumble, pundits furrow and ambassadors panic as various dictators and sultanates spontaneously combust.... Maybe you aren't exactly prepared to zip on over to Yemen, grab a burning Molotov and march. Hell, maybe you don't really care about the fat sheiks in Bahrain because what the hell do those billionaire misogynists have to do with the price of a decent dental plan for your kids? Nevertheless, you know the cause is just. Do not miss this ride. Do not let the opportunity swirl by untapped. Harness this moment like it's a goddamn wild horse and make changes in your own world, push back against boundaries and regimes, oppressive dogma and deception. Why not? Hold up a sign. Support a local organization. Seek release. Live authentically, love intently, push back again the injustices immediately around you. Sound simple? Sound obvious? Sure it is. I dare you. ...


Uh-oh. Sedition like this gets one, um, noticed.

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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!
Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from PNAS, via EurekAlert:
Rising CO2 is causing plants to release less water to the atmosphere, researchers say
As carbon dioxide levels have risen during the last 150 years, the density of pores that allow plants to breathe has dwindled by 34 percent, restricting the amount of water vapor the plants release to the atmosphere, report scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and Utrecht University in the Netherlands in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (now online).... "The increase in carbon dioxide by about 100 parts per million has had a profound effect on the number of stomata and, to a lesser extent, the size of the stomata," said Research Scientist in Biology and Professor Emeritus in Geology David Dilcher, the two papers' sole American coauthor. "Our analysis of that structural change shows there's been a huge reduction in the release of water to the atmosphere." ...


I don't think I can stomata this news.

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Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from NOAA:
Significant Climate Anomalies and Events of 2010
...


Anomalies? What anomalies?

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Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from Associated Press:
New report exonerates climate researchers
A Commerce Department investigation has found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of federal climate researchers whose e-mails were leaked in the debate over global climate change. The report Thursday from the department's inspector general is the latest to exonerate climate scientists whose communications with the Climate Research Unit at England's University of East Anglia were stolen and made public in 2009. The department reviewed all 1,073 leaked e-mails, but focused on 289 that involved National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists. ...


Can we please now let scientists proceed with the business of telling us how doomed we are.

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Thu, Mar 3, 2011
from Associated Press:
Federal researchers declare eastern cougar extinct
The "ghost cat" is just that. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday declared the eastern cougar to be extinct, confirming a widely held belief among wildlife biologists that native populations of the big cat were wiped out by man a century ago. After a lengthy review, federal officials concluded there are no breeding populations of cougars -- also known as pumas, panthers, mountain lions and catamounts -- in the eastern United States. ...


Younger men can now relax.

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times:
White-nose syndrome shows up in Yancey County
Biologists have confirmed white-nose syndrome at a third site in North Carolina, meaning two counties are now positive for the disease that has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the Eastern United States. The disease was confirmed last week in Yancey County. It was previously discovered in a retired Avery County Mine and in a cave at Grandfather Mountain State Park. While the news last week that a deadly bat disease had arrived in North Carolina was tragic, it did not come as a surprise to biologists.... "We knew that white-nose syndrome was coming and began preparing for its arrival, but we have a lot of work to do to address the impact of this disease on bats and our natural systems" said Chris McGrath, Wildlife Diversity Program Coordinator in the Commission's Wildlife Management Division. "We and our conservation partners must focus resources upon collaborative efforts, including monitoring the spread of the disease, understanding how the potential loss of a significant proportion of bats will affect the balance of nature and our lives, and finding ways to combat those effects." ...


Another cave done gone.

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from New York Times:
Distilled fracking wastewater residue can be sold as road salt without regulations
Under federal law, hydrofracking enjoys a number of important regulatory exemptions or exclusions that are not applicable to most other heavy industries. While it is not exempt from all federal environmental statutes, some of the rules in these laws do not apply to the industry. For example, the waste produced by hydrofracking is not categorized as hazardous material under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (R.C.R.A.), the law governing hazardous waste. This series of e-mails, sent between September 2009 and February 2010, concern this point. Industry representatives ask state regulators whether their waste would still be exempt if they distilled it and sold the resulting salts for road application. State and federal regulators confirm that, no matter how it is handled, waste from the oil and gas industry cannot be classified as hazardous material. Asked about this e-mail exchange, a spokesman for the E.P.A. said in an e-mail, "Yes, gas brine road salts are exempt under R.C.R.A., which was passed by Congress in the 1980s. Currently, wastewaters associated from exploration and production of natural gas are exempt from federal hazardous waste regulatory requirements under R.C.R.A. These wastewaters are regulated under state waste management programs. The federal exemption extends to salts derived from these wastewaters." Asked about the R.C.R.A. exemption, Jamie Legenos, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, declined to comment. ...


Just think of the possibilities!

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from Guardian, from DesdemonaDespair:
Scientists flee blaze in Chinese rainforest restoration project
One of the world's most advanced rainforest restoration projects may be going up in smoke in southern China. A short while ago, I received a frantic phone call from Bulang Mountain in Xishuangbanna, where scientists and conservationists are fleeing 30m-high flames that, they said, were consuming trees in seconds. Witnesses said the blaze had reached the edge of the Seeds of Heaven biodiversity development centre, where an ecologically healthy forest had been painstakingly rebuilt over the past four years on the site of a former rubber plantation.... "It's horrific. This model, which is recognised internationally as one of the most advanced of its type in the world, is now going up in flames." The project - which was launched about five years ago by the German biologist Josef Margraf, now deceased, and his wife Minguo - pioneers a "rainforest farming" technique that creates a rich habitat for multiple species, from which a modest income for people can be cultivated from orchids, tea, honey and other products.... The flames appear to have spread from the direction of a neighbouring cow farm. Local officials say the spark was deliberately lit to create a controlled firebreak. Others told the visiting group that the fire may have been part of an effort to clear land for the expansion of a cattle farm. "This is no accident. You just don't do a controlled fire on a windy day like today," said Pavlos Georgiadis, a former student of Margraf, who died of a heart attack last year. "This is the peak of the dry season. We haven't had rain for two months." ...


I bet they didn't even have insurance.

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from The Independent:
Oil spill link suspected as dead dolphins wash ashore
The dead dolphins began appearing in mid-January along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the United States. Although none of the carcasses appeared to show outward signs of oil contamination, all were being examined as possible casualties of the petrochemicals that fouled the sea water and sea bed after BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded last April.... nearly five billion barrels of crude oil before it was capped in July.... The remains of 77 animals - nearly all bottlenose dolphins - have been discovered on islands, in marshes and on beaches along 200 miles of coastline. This figure is more than 10 times the number normally found washed up around this time of year, which is calving season for some 2,000 to 5,000 dolphins in the region.... One of the more disturbing aspects of the deaths is that nearly half - 36 animals so far - have been newborn or stillborn dolphin calves. In January 2009 and 2010, there were no reports of stranded calves, and because this is the first calving season since the BP disaster, scientists are concerned that the spill may be a cause. ...


Maybe it's everything Mom ate.

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from BusinessGreen:
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp goes carbon neutral
A memo from chief executive Rupert Murdoch to employees outlined the financial benefits of the company's four-year initiative to reduce carbon emissions from its facilities and operations. He talked up News Corp's ongoing commitment to becoming more environmentally friendly, tying in the upside for shareholders. "The company's global data center consolidation strategy alone will save approximately $20m per year and reduce data centre emissions by almost 15 per cent when completed later in 2011," said Murdoch in a statement. The company also set out goals for 2015, which included reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent and investing in clean energy equal to 20 per cent of the firm's electricity usage. It is also reaching out to 100 of its largest suppliers to have them make a difference in their environmental impacts. ...


I'm sure it's true. After all, I heard it on FOX.

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Wed, Mar 2, 2011
from London Independent:
Turtles now world's most threatened vertebrates
Turtles and tortoises are now the most endangered group of vertebrate animals, with more than half of their 328 species threatened with extinction, according to a new report. Their populations are being depleted by unsustainable hunting, both for food and for use in traditional Chinese medicine, by large-scale collection for the pet trade, and by the widespread pollution and destruction of their habitats, according to the study Turtles In Trouble, produced by a coalition of turtle conservation groups. The result is that their plight has never been greater, and the world's 25 most endangered tortoises and freshwater turtles will become extinct in a few decades without concerted conservation efforts, the report says. ...


They have vertebrae? I didn't even realize they were amphibians!

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Tue, Mar 1, 2011
from Center for Public Integrity:
Equipment Failure at Refinery Leads to Toxic HF Release
A hydrofluoric acid leak from an oil refinery in Ohio last week sent a worker to the hospital and required the use of a "water cannon" to disperse the poisonous gas, underscoring the potentially perilous nature of a chemical used at 50 refineries across the country. The Marathon Oil Corp. refinery in Canton, Ohio, has estimated in a report to the U.S. Coast Guard's National Response Center that 145 pounds of the acid, known as HF, escaped during the Feb. 23 incident. The company blamed equipment failure. Workers were evacuated....The refining industry is experiencing a rash of fires, explosions and mechanical breakdowns, putting workers at risk. Such incidents may signify weaknesses that could lead to a calamity. Over the last five years, the Ohio refinery has been cited more often than all but three other refineries using HF for failing to manage hazardous processes. ...


The more we deregulate, the more our equipment will magically cease to fail.

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Tue, Mar 1, 2011
from Greenwire:
Regulators Face Deep Cuts as Governors Close Budget Gaps
As they battle record deficits, governors nationwide are digging into state environmental regulatory bodies in budget proposals, many in the name of increasing efficiency and creating states that are "open for business." In some states, environmental groups say budget proposals unfairly target those departments over other state agencies and would set back conservation efforts by years. They also argue that cutting environmental spending will end up costing more jobs than are created by bolstering other state programs.... Industry supporters and budget hawks say environmental agencies have to face the ax like everyone else. ...


I know. Let's let the US have this planet to kill, and the rest of us can go find a new one.

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Tue, Mar 1, 2011
from Center for Public Integrity:
Issa Oversight Committee Staffs Up with Industry Insiders
First as ranking minority member and now as chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, San Diego Republican Darrell Issa has built a team that includes staff members with close connections to industries that could benefit from his investigations. Issa took control of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last month, and asked companies, nonprofits and industry associations for guidance on federal regulations. The committee, which includes 23 Republicans and 17 Democrats, has broad powers to investigate government and industry, and to issue subpoenas. Issa's staff already has released findings sympathetic to industries bent on softening or eliminating certain government regulations. ...


This is what happens when power shifts to the GOP: the environment goes to shit!

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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.
Mon, Feb 28, 2011
from London Daily Mail:
Water demand will 'outstrip supply by 40 percent within 20 years' due to climate change and population growth
Water demand in many countries will exceed supply by 40 per cent within 20 years due to the combined threat of climate change and population growth, scientists have warned. A new way of thinking about water is needed as looming shortages threaten communities, agriculture and industry, experts said. In the next two decades, a third of humanity will have only half the water required to meet basic needs, said researchers. Agriculture, which soaks up 71 per cent of water supplies, is also likely to suffer, affecting food production. ...


That's why I'm sticking with my Diet Coke.

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Mon, Feb 28, 2011
from London Guardian:
Can a group of scientists in California end the war on climate change?
The Berkeley Earth project say they are about to reveal the definitive truth about global warming... The aim is so simple that the complexity and magnitude of the undertaking is easy to miss. Starting from scratch, with new computer tools and more data than has ever been used, they will arrive at an independent assessment of global warming. The team will also make every piece of data it uses -- 1.6bn data points -- freely available on a website. It will post its workings alongside, including full information on how more than 100 years of data from thousands of instruments around the world are stitched together to give a historic record of the planet's temperature. Muller is fed up with the politicised row that all too often engulfs climate science. By laying all its data and workings out in the open, where they can be checked and challenged by anyone, the Berkeley team hopes to achieve something remarkable: a broader consensus on global warming. ...


This hope pre-supposes climate skeptics are willing to change their minds.

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Mon, Feb 28, 2011
from The Bay View Compass:
Female mice disabled by parents'pesticide intake
A white mouse is placed in the center of a maze. She is hungry because she hasn't eaten all night. As soon as the gate is raised she takes off in search of her breakfast, scurrying down the channels. She quickly realizes that turning left at every point in the maze gets her food. A few minutes later, a second mouse is set down in the center of the maze. She looks the same as the first mouse, but when the gate is raised she just sits there and seems afraid to move. Slowly and hesitantly she starts moving and eventually finds a piece of food. She continues slowly down the maze but doesn't seem to have learned or remember that taking left turns leads to food. You might call her a slow learner.... Why is it hard for the second mouse to learn? Three months earlier when she was growing in her mother's womb, her mother was exposed to a pesticide called chlorpyrifos at levels comparable to what humans encounter in the environment. ...


Is this why I can't find my way out of my garage most mornings?

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