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Sat, Aug 9, 2014
from Guardian:
Sales of shark fin in China drop by up to 70 percent
... The trade in shark fins, a symbol of wealth in China and other parts of Asia, has led to the decline in some shark populations by up to 98 percent in the last 15 years. An estimated 100 million sharks are killed each year with up to 73 million used for their fins.
China became the world's largest market for shark fin due to its rising wealth and desire for luxury goods. However, sales of shark fin have fallen from 50-70 percent, according to a report by WildAid, a US-based organisation focusing on reducing demand for wildlife products.
According to data collected by WildAid, sales of shark fin in Guangzhou, considered to be the centre of the shark fin trade in China, have dropped by 82 percent. The report complied data from a number of different sources including news reports, online surveys, undercover interviews with traders in China and trade statistics from Hong Kong, once considered to be the global hub for trade in shark fin....
“The more people learn about the consequences of eating shark fin soup, the less they want to participate in the trade,” said Knights.
Pressure from conservationists has also influenced big businesses. A number of large hotel chains have stopped serving shark fin soup and more than 20 airlines have agreed not to transport it.
Last year, it was reported that the owners of factories that process sharks in Puqi, a seaside town in Zhejiang province blamed such awareness campaigns for a drop in their business. ...
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That's tantamount to asserting that humans can use knowledge to predictively avoid catastrophe. I mean, come on.
ApocaDoc
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Thu, Aug 7, 2014
from George Monbiot:
The Pricing of Everything
... Problem Two is that you are effectively pushing the natural world even further into the system that is eating it alive. Dieter Helm, the Chairman of the Natural Capital Committee, said the following in the same report I quoted from just a moment ago. "The environment is part of the economy and needs to be properly integrated into it so that growth opportunities will not be missed."(9)
There, ladies and gentlemen, you have what seems to me the Government's real agenda. This is not to protect the natural world from the depredations of the economy. It is to harness the natural world to the economic growth that has been destroying it. All the things which have been so damaging to the living planet are now being sold to us as its salvation; commodification, economic growth, financialisation, abstraction. Now, we are told, these devastating processes will protect it.
(Sorry, did I say the living planet? I keep getting confused about this. I meant asset classes within an ecosystem market.)...
Among the most famous of these was its valuation of mangrove forests. It maintained that if a businessman or businesswoman cuts down a mangrove forest and replaces it with a shrimp farm, that will be worth around $1,200 per hectare per year to that person. If we leave the mangrove forest standing, because it protects the communities who live on the coastline and because it is a wonderful breeding ground for fish and crustaceans, it will be worth $12,000 per hectare per year(12). So when people see the figures they will conclude that it makes sense to save the mangrove forests, and hey presto, we have solved the problem. My left foot!
People have known for centuries the tremendous benefits that mangrove forests deliver. But has that protected them from being turned into shrimp farms or beach resorts? No, it hasn't. And the reason it hasn't is that it might be worth $12,000 to the local impoverished community of fisher folk, but if it's worth $1,200 to a powerful local politician who wants to turn it into shrimp farms, that counts for far more. Putting a price on the forest doesn't in any way change that relationship.
You do not solve the problem this way. You do not solve the problem without confronting power. But what we are doing here is reinforcing power, is strengthening the power of the people with the money, the power of the economic system as a whole against the power of nature....
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George Monbiot may be the worldwide ecosystem's Oscar Wilde, itemizing neoliberalism's price of everything, while showing it values nothing.
ApocaDoc
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Thu, Jun 19, 2014
from Public Radio International:
'Doc Jim Gets Four Minutes on PRI's "The World"
... Poyser is likable and goofy. He's lanky, with a mop of grey hair and a very expressive face. Poyser goes on lots of eco rants. He says he always chats with people in line at the grocery store offering unsolicited eco advice, like, restaurants waste a lot of plastic.
"They bring me a straw automatically because we live in a culture that is default straw," Poyser said. "It drives me crazy."
Poyser is aware that some see him as a preachy nudge, and that's why he keeps things light...
I followed Poyser to a show at a local Indianapolis high school, Gambold Prep, where he read questions. The audience members, high school students, laughed at him excitedly running around the stage and asking questions.
"In terms of educating about climate change, what is Wyoming the first state in the United States to do? Reject the new science standards? Use American sign language in the instruction? Use emoticons in the instruction."
You know the answer. So did the students.
"That is correct! 10 points!" Poyser hollered out. ...
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Default straw is a meme that would never have existed without Jim.
ApocaDoc
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Fri, Apr 4, 2014
from DesdemonaDespair, from DailyMail:
Oxygen stations set up across China to provide relief from air pollution
Numerous fresh air stations have been set up in some of China's most polluted cities.
The stations are stocked with individual air bags which provide users with pollution-free fresh air.
And they have proved to be a big hit with one air station in Zhengzhou city in central China's Henan province which was inundated with visitors.
Uniformed air hostesses hook up visitors to oxygen masks so they can breathe air sourced from the Laojun Mountain scenic spot in Luanchuan county, which is 80 percent green land, in Henan province.
There was no shortage of takers as locals flooded to enjoy the free fresh air.
User Feng Lin, 75, said: 'The air is really good, but the time is too short. I had to stop too soon but it was really great until then.'
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This stinks. But 'the time is too short.'
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Sep 30, 2013
from Huffington Post:
Eric Holthaus, Meteorologist, Tweets That He Will Never Fly Again
Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist who has covered weather for the Wall Street Journal, tweeted that he will no longer fly on planes after a grim climate-change report left him in tears. Holthaus, who now writes for Quartz, was reacting to findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a well-respected body that includes 195 member countries, which released a report on Friday that found it is "extremely likely" that humans are causing warming trends seen in the last several decades. It also revised upwards its estimates of the increase in sea levels by the end of the 21st century. Holthaus took the news hard, and vowed to reduce his carbon footprint by giving up on air travel. ...
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Someone may be laughing somewhere, but we cry and fly alone.
ApocaDoc
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Wed, Aug 28, 2013
from Xinhua, via DesdemonaDespair:
Floods affect more than 2 million in NE China
Persistent rain has brought chaos to 56 county-level regions of the province, forcing 239,000 people to be evacuated, according to the provincial civil affairs department.
At least 585,000 hectares of crops have been damaged, some 12,000 rooms destroyed, with another 146,000 damaged, leading to direct economic losses of over 10 billion yuan(1.7 billion U.S.dollars).
Rainstorms have also swept Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces, also in northeastern China. As of Tuesday, 85 people were confirmed dead and 105 were missing in the worst floods to hit northeast China in more than a decade. ...
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Can you believe it? China's main news agency! I went to its homepage and could find nothing about Miley or twerking!
ApocaDoc
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Sun, Aug 7, 2011
from Grist:
The new normal: billion-dollar disasters
The National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC) latest "Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters" report finds the U.S. has racked up more mega-expensive natural disasters in 2011 than ever before. So far we've suffered more than five times the huge disasters typical at this time of year. Already damage costs have reached nearly $32 billion. Compare that to the first half of the average year -- prior to the onset of "big" hurricane season -- between 1980 and 2010, where disaster costs typically run $6 billion....
All told, the U.S. has suffered 99 weather-related disasters over the past 31 years, where overall damages and economic costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The normalized losses (that is, the numbers adjusted for the GNP inflation index) add up to more than $725 billion for those 99 disasters. ...
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Ain't much compared to the shareholder value the coal and oil companies have provided to the economy.
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Jul 11, 2011
from George Monbiot, in the Guardian:
Have jellyfish come to rule the waves?
Last year I began to wonder, this year doubt is seeping away, to be replaced with a rising fear. Could it really have happened? Could the fishing industry have achieved the remarkable feat of destroying the last great stock?
Until 2010, mackerel were the one reliable catch in Cardigan Bay in west Wales. Though I took to the water dozens of times, there wasn't a day in 2008 or 2009 when I failed to take 10 or more. Once every three or four trips I would hit a major shoal, and bring in 100 or 200 fish: enough, across the season, to fill the freezer and supply much of our protein for the year....
I pushed my kayak off the beach and felt that delightful sensation of gliding away from land almost effortlessly - I'm so used to fighting the westerlies and the waves they whip up in these shallow seas that on this occasion I seemed almost to be drifting towards the horizon. Far below me I could see the luminous feathers I used as bait tripping over the seabed.
But I could also see something else. Jellyfish. Unimaginable numbers of them. Not the transparent cocktail umbrellas I was used to, but solid, white rubbery creatures the size of footballs. They roiled in the surface or loomed, vast and pale, in the depths. There was scarcely a cubic metre of water without one.
Apart from that - nothing. It wasn't until I reached a buoy three miles from the shore that I felt the urgent tap of a fish, and brought up a single, juvenile mackerel. ...
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In every gaping void there is an opportunity, right? Right?
ApocaDoc
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Thu, Jun 30, 2011
from KPCD:
Drought, wildfires lead to natural disaster declaration by USDA
In all, 213 counties in Texas have lost at least 30 percent of their crops or pasture due to the drought and wildfires, according to the USDA.
By declaring a natural disaster, farmers and ranchers will be able to qualify for emergency loans at lower interest rates. Every county in the South Plains is eligible.
Tuesday we talked to South Plains farmers about the declaration.
"This is a disaster," Scott Harmon continued. "This is a train wreck."
Harmon's family has been farming land just south of Idalou since the 1920's.
"We've never seen anything like this before," Harmon told us. "People are scared, they don't know what to do and what's going to happen to them next." ...
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And we can't even sue the folks that got us here.
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Apr 4, 2011
from Guardian:
Why the UN can never stop climate change
On Sunday in Thailand diplomats opened another round of formal United Nations talks on global warming. For more than 20 years, the UN has been working on this problem, with little progress. Expectations have never been lower. The December 2009 conference in Copenhagen that was supposed to finalise a new treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto protocol ended in deadlock. Last year's talks in Cancun ended without agreement on most of the important new issues.
Some of the troubles with global warming diplomacy are unavoidable. Stopping climate change is one of the hardest challenges the international community has undertaken. The main cause of climate change, emissions of carbon dioxide, is intrinsic to the burning of fossil fuels that power the world economy. Even in the best of circumstances, getting off carbon will take decades and trillions of dollars. The world economic crisis makes that even harder as few societies choose to spend money on distant problems when they face more immediate challenges such as unemployment and poverty....
More progress will come from shifting efforts on three fronts. First, while the UN talks should not be abandoned, most diplomacy should shift to smaller forums which engage just the largest countries. In fact, 10 countries (treating the EU as one) account for nearly four-fifths of all warming emissions.... Second, talks need to shift focus to what is really achievable.... Third, talks must shift from focusing exclusively on controlling emissions to dealing with the reality that lots of climate change is inevitable.... ...
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So if the UN, US, EU, and others can't, it sorta leaves up to you 'n' me, dunnit?
ApocaDoc
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Fri, Apr 1, 2011
from PhysOrg:
Human-powered drill for clean water in developing nations built by student engineers
Other water-drilling alternatives in the region either can't dig deep enough or cost too much, sometimes upwards of $15,000. But the team's device has the potential to drill a 150- to 250-foot-deep hole in a matter of days--all for about $2,000.
The drill was created for a year-long engineering capstone project that has students solving real engineering problems with real clients. The team created the drill for WHOLives.org, a nonprofit dedicated to providing clean water, better health and more opportunities to people living in impoverished communities. The organization is currently focusing its drilling efforts on Tanzania, but it has plans to expand its operations to other countries....
The BYU team also had to operate within a number of strict parameters set by WHOlives.org so that the final product can be easily built and maintained in developing countries. The drill uses no gears or customized parts, and it can easily be taken apart, transported in the bed of a truck and reassembled within an hour.
The drill can be operated by four people. Three spin the wheel that turns the bit, and the fourth lifts the bit up and down when necessary to punch through tough spots. A water pump system removes the dirt from the six-inch-wide hole.
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Don't they realize that capitalism wants to treat clean water as a commodity??
ApocaDoc
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Thu, Mar 31, 2011
from NRDC:
Disease Clusters Spotlight the Need to Protect People from Toxic Chemicals
An unusually large number of people sickened by a disease in a certain place and time is known as a 'disease cluster'. Clusters of cancer, birth defects, and other chronic illnesses have sometimes been linked to chemicals or other toxic pollutants in local communities, although these links can be controversial. There is a need for better documentation and investigation of disease clusters to identify and address possible causes. Meanwhile, toxic chemicals should be identified and controlled through reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), so these chemicals don't pollute communities and sicken people.
Due to a lack of resources, the limited statistical power in doing investigations of small communities or rare diseases, and a lack of knowledge about exposures, it has been difficult for state and federal agencies to shed light on most disease clusters and their causes. There is a need for better documentation and investigation of disease clusters and their causes....
Thirteen states -- Texas, California, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas -- were chosen for analysis based on the occurrence of known clusters in the state, geographic diversity, or community concerns about a disease cluster in their area.
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I just trust industry self-regulation, since they have more lawyers than I do.
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Mar 7, 2011
from DesdemonaDespair:
Depression, anxiety, despair flow in wake of BP Gulf oil spill: Study finds widespread trauma
According to Scott Coffey, PhD, professor and director of the Division of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Mississippi, Jackson, there is a clear upswing in stress.
"The oil spill occurred in a population that was already struggling with the effects of Katrina. They were severely impacted. Add to that the negative economy that is stressing everyone, the national issues, the global issues, and these folks are getting hit hard."...
Very little of the money that BP is said to have paid out to help people affected by the spill is actually reaching those who really need it. Or so it seems to the people whose claims have been denied....
"They make it such a maze that it gets to be an impossible task to follow through. We serve some people who maybe have filed a claim or they want to file a claim, but they're being told they have to do additional paper work and it has to be filed online and they don't have a computer. So they go to the library, where there's only 1 computer. Or the librarian has to show them how to fill out the forms." ...
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Poor people's misery is only about three-fifths as important as mine.
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!
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Tue, Nov 30, 2010
from TreeHugger:
How Climate Change Threatens the American Farmer
Called An Almanac of Extreme Weather, it's an op-ed for the New York Times written by Jack Hedin, a Minnesotan farmer whose family has been in the business since his great-grandfather homesteaded the land in the late 1800s. He describes the increasingly extreme weather that fits the projections made by climate models, and details the hardship he, his family, and his peers will face as heavy floods become more powerful and more frequent.
Hedin notes that even his great grandfather, who recorded in his memoirs the damage dealt by the tornadoes and droughts of the Dust Bowl in the 30s, would be taken aback by the weather his great-grandson's family is coping with today. He mentions that the state's climatologist has said that there have already been three "thousand-year rains" in the past seven years in his part of the state -- and that the trend is expected to continue.... "Climate change, I believe, may eventually pose an existential threat to my way of life. A family farm like ours may simply not be able to adjust quickly enough to such unendingly volatile weather. We can't charge enough for our crops in good years to cover losses in the ever-more-frequent bad ones. We can't continue to move to better, drier ground. No new field drainage scheme will help us as atmospheric carbon concentrations edge up to 400 parts per million; hardware and technology alone can't solve problems of this magnitude." ...
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Dear God: is there somebody we can bribe to get out of this mess?
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Nov 29, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Research highlights the 'human face' of climate change
Barry Smit is the Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Change, and since 2005 he's studied how Arctic communities have tried to adapt to the rising temperatures caused by major shifts in global weather patterns.
The human dimension of climate change has long been understudied, says Smit, who is taking part this week in a panel discussion on the environment and economy at the first ever Canada Research Chairs conference in Toronto.
Over the course of two research projects - one with ArcticNet and another with the International Polar Year project - Smit has seen first-hand how Canada's Inuit have dealt with changing ice levels, wind speed, migration routes, and so on.... Some communities are seeing their dietary patterns evolve because the animals they've traditionally hunted have shifted their migratory patterns, says Smit. That shift has caused those communities to rely on grocery stores for their food - and since the groceries found in Canada's arctic are often no better than "what we in the south would generally characterize as junk food," that's led to teeth problems and higher rates of diabetes, says Smit.... "The ice is their highway. And one of the thing they've noticed is that their highway is collapsing in places it's never collapsed before," he says. ...
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Accidental microcosmic phrases can make me weep.
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Tue, Nov 23, 2010
from TreeHugger:
$3k Website Connects Farms to Restaurants, Creating Virtual Coop
From beekeepers using the internet to fight colony collapse disorder, through crop mob and other new agrarians organizing online, to wireless soil sensors optimizing farm resources, a return to sustainable farming does not mean a rejection of what technology has to offer. Inspired by the death of his granddaughter, one retired telecommunications analyst has set about using the power of the internet to promote social justice, reverse the decline in small farming, and create a vibrant food economy for his community.... Knowing that despite the high levels of poverty, some 6000 families owned between 5 and 20 acres of land in his community, and knowing that chefs in nearby Charlotte were itching to buy high-quality, sustainable local produce, Tim figured it was pretty much a case of connecting the dots. So Will created a $3000 website called Farmers Fresh Market where farmers could market produce direct to restaurants, and he created sustainable agriculture and computing courses to help farmers figure out what to grow and how to sell it. ...
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Hey! Stop that! Only the big guys get to use technology!
ApocaDoc
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Sat, Nov 20, 2010
from Guardian:
Severe weather warning: Peru as canary
For the indigenous Quechua people like Flores Choque, who have farmed Peru's highlands since the 15th century, the warning signs are already very real. Their farming calendar, dictated by the weather, has traditionally given their lives a steady rhythm. But in the last few years uncharacteristic and unpredictable weather - flooding, frosts, hail, intense heat and drought - has bombarded it. Crops have continually failed and Save the Children research reports production in some areas has fallen as much as 44 percent since 2007, with animal mortality rising from 20 percent to 48 percent. Water supply has diminished and the health and livelihoods of thousands been jeopardised.... "The people are becoming poorer and malnutrition is increasing," Apaza Maita stresses. "Children don't have defences and their health is suffering. They've always had respiratory problems but now they're much worse. For the first time we have cases of bronchitis."... Kallpa is also encouraging farmers to use natural fertilisers rather than chemicals. Hardy native potatoes are being planted again instead of the white potatoes previously grown for export, as well as crops such as tarwi, a bean that, though tasteless, bursts with nutrition.... "It's all connected with the weather and melting glaciers. Four years ago a small river near here ran at eight litres per second. This year it's four litres per second. Now there isn't enough water for the community." ...
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It ain't just the heat, it's the extremity.
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Wed, Nov 10, 2010
from Al Jazeera:
BP blamed for symptoms of toxic overload in Gulf denizens
Increasing numbers of people across the Gulf Coast are suffering from symptoms that doctors and toxicologists are linking to chemicals from the BP oil disaster that began last summer when the blowout of the Macondo well gushed at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
BP responded by using at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic dispersant to sink the oil.... Just speaking of air exposure, and there are scientific papers on this, if you release one molecule of toluene, at three metres above the ground, into a six kilometre wind, that molecule, uninterrupted, will travel 34 kilometres."
Charter plane pilots who have conducted Gulf over-flights have reported having to wipe an oily, orange film from their plane afterwards. Following this, the skin on their hands peeled off. "The oil and dispersants are in the air and in the rain and are making people sick," Ott said. "These Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are there, and at dangerous levels."
Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin and eye contact. Health impacts include headaches, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitisation, hypertension, central nervous system (CNS) depression, neurotoxic effects, cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage. The chemicals are also teratogenic, mutagenic and carcinogenic. ...
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OMG, the invisible hand of the marketplace stands revealed!!
ApocaDoc
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Thu, Sep 16, 2010
from Guardian:
'We will have no water and that will be the end of the world for us'
He lives in a small village called Pampa Corral, at 4,020m (nearly 13,000ft) in the Cusco region, and he grows a staggering 215 varieties of potatoes - red ones, black ones, translucent ones, shapes and sizes you cannot imagine....
But the point is, folk like Julio and their extraordinary diversity of crops are critically endangered by the massive changes they observe taking place in the High Andes. When Julio was a boy, (he's now in his 50s) a glacier was just two minutes walk from his door. Now it is a nine-hour hike away.
"The seasons used to be very clear, we knew when to plant. Now we have less water. We used to get the water from the glacier. Now we have twice as many mosquitoes. We have no light from the glacier I don't understand what is going on. We feel very disoriented," he said. "I think that I will have no water and that will be the end of the world for us."
Peru is said to be the 56th richest country in the world, with 28 of the world's 35 climates and more than 70 percent of the tropical glaciers on earth. Most are in rapid retreat, leaving behind devastated farmers and communities short of water. ...
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I guess Julio will just have to get a real job.
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Aug 30, 2010
from Discovery:
9 Essential Clothing Repair Skills - Make Your Clothes Last Longer!
One of the best ways to buy less stuff is to buy fewer, but higher quality items, and to keep them in good repair. This is very true for clothing, and by learning a few simple skills, you can keep your clothes looking and fitting great, longer. These skills are also important to learn if you have kids -- the things they manage to do to clothes are just amazing sometimes. Save money, save your clothes -- here are nine simple skills to learn. ...
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I thought clothes had no user-serviceable parts!
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Mon, Aug 2, 2010
from The Economist:
Cod, phytoplankton, and shifting baselines
As another biologist, Ted Ames, subsequently established, the memories of fishermen in their 80s and 90s weren't just tall tales: 100 years ago, cod thrived close to New England's shores in sizes and numbers that beggar the imagination of today's commercial and sport fishermen. Mr Pauly's insight was that the memory of this abundance has disappeared generation by generation. "This is not nostalgia on the part of the old or lack of empathy on the part of the young," Mr Greenberg writes. "It is almost a willful forgetting--the means by which our species, generation by generation, finds reasonableness amid the destruction of the greatest natural food system on earth."... Just as the global economy would probably largely adjust to global warming, abandoning desertified or flooded zones like Arizona and Florida, giving up on snow-skiing in favor of water-skiing, and so forth, future populations would probably adjust psychologically to the extinction of bluefin tuna, coral, killer whales, sea turtles, and hundreds of other species, and would be reasonably happy on a seafood diet of catfish and mussels. You don't miss what you never had. ...
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That's even sadder than "you don't know what you got till it's gone."
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Sun, Jun 27, 2010
from WJHG, Florida:
Oil Leak Creating Massive Social Impacts On Small Towns
The small coastal town of Apalachicola is bustling with people. The water is still clear and the seafood is still delicious. But the people living here know all that could change just as quickly as the currents. And the thought of toxic goo destroying their slice of paradise and way of life is almost too much to bear.
"These are lives and people's kids that have been raised doing this. And there's nothing else that they know to do. So it's heart wrenching. It makes you want to cry." Walter Ward, a shrimper, says business was just starting to really pick up, but now with oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico the seafood industry is at stake.... "Here we don't know when the end is. And that creates a high level and I think that fear rolls into the possibilities of drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, and it can even go so far as suicide."
But right now folks like Ward are trying to stay positive and are thankful they haven't seen the black sludge yet. "We've been really fortunate that we haven't seen lots of oil, but I'm sure we're bound to see it." ...
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Don't get depressed. Get active!
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Sat, Jun 26, 2010
from Guardian:
China: the next superconsumer
Liu is a member of the fastest-growing consumer class: single women - or xiaobailing (white-collar princesses). They have high levels of disposable income and a craving for designer labels. For marketing moguls, they are the future face of consumer power. State planners forecast that half the population will be middle class by 2020.
Until recently, China was living within the planet's means. If everyone in the world consumed what the average Mr or Mrs Wang did in 2007, we'd just about stay within the sustainable resources of our planet. Humanity would have a balanced ecological budget. But, understandably, Mr and Mrs Wang wanted to keep up with Mr and Mrs Jones on the other side of the Pacific. That was human nature. It was also bad news for the environment, because if we all ate, shopped and travelled like those average Americans, we'd need 4.5 Earths.... At her first sale, she blew a third of her salary on Fendi sunglasses. "It is like a fever," she says. "The price is so low, you cannot refuse." ...
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Earthdebt is just a mortgage -- and since the value of our Earth will only rise, let's keep borrowing!
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Fri, Jun 11, 2010
from WREG, Memphis:
Mystery Crop Damage Threatens Hundreds Of Acres
Something is killing crops, trees, even weeds and nobody can explain why.
Farmers are scratching their heads and some are worried their crops may be lost to the mysterious plague. Tiny dots appear to have burned onto leaves of all types of plants, and they appear different depending on the plant.
On corn stalks, the dots seem to turn white in the center.
On other plants, a white dust speckles the leaves and then destroys the green life underneath.
"We found it all in the herbs, in the flowers, in the plum tree, in the weeds," said organic farmer Toni Holt. "It's apparently in everything."
Holt grows organic produce that she sells at area farmers' markets.
As she and other farmers inspect the new growth covered in the perplexing plague, they fear their entire crop may be lost.
Less than ten miles from Holt's crops, the damage could possibly hit hundreds of acres of corn at Wilder Farms.
It appears to have hit everything in its path. ...
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Worst of all, when you connect the leaf dots, they spell out "death to all humans"!
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Mon, May 10, 2010
from ScienceDaily:
Rare 114-Year Record, Kept by Generations, Logs Changing Climate
Every day since Jan. 1, 1896, an observer has hiked to a spot at The Mohonk Preserve, a resort and nature area some 90 miles north of New York City, to record daily temperature and other conditions there. It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years.... Prior to 1980, it was rare for the thermometer to surpass about 89 degrees more than 10 days a year; since then, such events have come to Mohonk on at least 10 days a year -- and often, on more than 20 days. At the same time, the number of freezing days has been decreasing--about a day less every five years over the long term, but since the 1970s, at the accelerated rate of a day every two years. This also matches wide-scale observations in North America and elsewhere.... "The advantage to Mohonk is that we can revisit the record in detail, with minimal corrections. This helps confirm the large-scale trends, and it helps us identify stations with errors that need to be corrected." ...
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Um.... Uh... Yeah, but they weren't scientists!
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Mon, Apr 19, 2010
from BBC:
Bolivian villagers want compensation as glaciers melt
An idea has taken root there - that those who have caused the snow to retreat and the waters to slow should be brought before an international court.... What they want is an international court of environmental justice, an idea that is being pushed by Evo Morales, Bolivia's president.
"We are very worried because we have no water. Half the people of this community have already left. Those who remain are struggling with the lack of water," says Max, an elderly Aymara Indian who chews coca leaves as he speaks in heavily-accented Spanish.... "The weather has drastically changed and it is now two or three times hotter than it was. We cannot water our crops and the sun and the heat are very strong. Our crops are dry now, our animals are dying; we want to cry," Max says, before asking their Andean goddess, Pachamama or Mother Earth, for help. ...
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I completely understand! But please don't tax my consumer habits.
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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.
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Sun, Mar 21, 2010
from New York Times:
California Tribe Hopes to Dance Salmon Home
The unusual journey centers on an apology, to be relayed to the fish on the banks of the Rakaia River through a ceremonial dance that tribal leaders say has not been performed in more than 60 years.... As the Winnemem see it, the tribe's troubles began in early 1940s, with the completion of the Shasta Dam, which blocked the Sacramento River and cut off the lower McCloud River, obstructing seasonal salmon runs, and according to the tribe, breaking a covenant with the fish.
"We're going to atone for allowing them to build that dam," said Mark Franco, the tribe's headman. "We should have fought harder."
As luck would have it, the United States government once bred millions of Chinook eggs from the McCloud and shipped them around the world in hopes of creating new fisheries, including a batch that went to the South Island of New Zealand, where the fish thrived.... The trip to New Zealand is not the first time the Winnemem have turned to ancient methods to try to change policy. In 2004, while fighting a proposed plan to raise the Shasta Dam 18 feet, the tribe staged a war dance, a four-day, round-the-clock ceremony carried out by their dwindling numbers of warriors. "We were exhausted," Mr. Franco said. But in the end, the dam was not raised.
Once in New Zealand, the Winnemem plan to rendezvous with local Maori leaders and stage a four-day ceremony starting March 28 that will culminate with the rare "nur chonas winyupus," or middle water salmon dance.
The Francos say they intend to ask local fish and game officials if they can bring back some of New Zealand's salmon eggs -- once of California stock -- back to the McCloud. "We have to do more than pray," Ms. Sisk-Franco said. "We have to follow through." ...
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Uh-oh. If this works, we'll have a *lot* of apologies to make!
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Fri, Dec 4, 2009
from Der Spiegel:
How Europe's Discarded Computers Are Poisoning Africa's Kids
People in the West throw away millions of old computers every year. Hundreds of thousands of them end up in Africa, where children try to eke out a living by selling the scrap. But the toxic elements in the waste are slowly poisoning them.... Acrid, black smoke drifts over the huts of the slum. The river, too, is black and thick like used oil, as it carries empty computer cases toward the ocean. Fires are blazing on the bank across the way, fueled by foam and slivers of plastic. Their flames consume the plastic material from cables, plugs and motherboards, leaving behind only metal.
There's a wind today, blowing the smoke from these infernal fires low across the ground. Breathing in too deeply is painful to the lungs, and the people tending the fires are sometimes nothing more than vague, foggy silhouettes.... Fourteen years old but small for his age, Bismarck scours the ground for anything the older boys might have left behind after burning a batch of computers. It might be bits of copper cable, the motor from a hard drive, or leftover pieces of aluminum. The magnets in his speaker also pick up screws or steel plugs.
Bismarck drops everything he finds into his bag. Once the bag is half full, he can sell the metal and buy some rice, maybe a tomato too, or even a chicken drumstick grilled over a refurbished car wheel rim. But today, the boy says, he still hasn't found enough, and he disappears again into the smoke. ...
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I'm posting this important story on my new computer!
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Sat, Sep 12, 2009
from Huffington Post:
No Impact Man: The Movie Everyone Is Talking About
Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year.
It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, buses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.
No problem -- at least for Colin -- but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own. ...
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How can the economy recover without impact?
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Fri, Sep 11, 2009
from IRIN News (UN):
MALAWI: Mayi Chambo, 'We have destroyed a lot in a short period'
Degradation of the environment is reaching alarming levels in Nkaya in southern Malawi, where people have to walk ever greater distances to collect firewood and water. Mayi Chambo, a village head in Nkaya, blamed charcoal makers for the deforestation. This is her story.
"In the 1980s we had lush forests here. The rains used to come in time, the soil was fertile and water was not a problem. It was after 1994 when we started experiencing problems that have to do with the environment. People from other areas began settling here in search for fertile soil and products from our forests.
"Soon the trees started to disappear -- people wanted rafters for their newly built houses. Even the demand for fuel wood increased because the population had also increased. People began to clear forests for new fields.... "They are lured by the money they generate from selling charcoal in the cities, especially in Blantyre [Malawi's second city]. But should we let these people destroy everything because of a bag of charcoal that costs K500 (US$3.57) only? That is not acceptable.... "If we continue to destroy our forests at the pace we are going, we will soon have a desert here. The signs are already showing. We do not get the rains in good time, and when we have the rains they are always associated with flooding. The soil needs a lot of fertilizer for the crops to produce, but how many families can afford fertilizer here? Most of us are poor.
"We have destroyed a lot in a short period of time and we are paying heavily for that."
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Microcosms within microcosms...
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Fri, Jul 24, 2009
from via Guardian (UK):
One (video) Minute to Save the World
A short film competition on climate change, open to the world and for the world to watch. The story of climate change will be told by the people it is affecting -- you. We hope that your shared perspectives and creative responses will help us all understand, adapt and take action in response to a rapidly changing world. We want the world to see your 1 minute film.... We're asking you to use whatever means you have to film your short and use your minute to speak up and make the world listen. It's time to get personal and we need your help! We hope you will feel inspired to add your creative voice to this global climate campaign. ...
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Isn't this perilously close to mobilization?
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Mon, Mar 30, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
The 'revolution' starts here as 35,000 pack the G20 march
They hoped for 10,000, but in the end more than triple that number turned out on London's streets for the biggest demonstration since the beginning of the economic crisis.
The Put People First march yesterday was organised by a collaboration of more than 100 trade unions, church groups and charities including ActionAid, Save the Children and Friends of the Earth. The theme was "jobs, justice and climate" and the message was aimed at the world leaders who will be gathering for the G20 summit here this week....
Updates on the event and messages of support were quickly posted on social networking websites such as Twitter, which organisers encouraged people to use to provide live coverage. One blog dubbed the event as "Protest 2.0". ...
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This is the dawning of the age of Pisces.
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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." ...
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We need to retrain these fishermen for something practical, like credit default swaps and derivative hedging.
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Sat, Mar 21, 2009
from iAfrica:
A terrifying profession
Being a climate scientist these days is not for the faint of heart.
Arguably no other area of research yields a sharper contrast between a steady stream of "eureka!" moments, and the sometimes terrifying implications of those discoveries for the future of the planet.
"Science is exciting when you make such findings," said Konrad Steffen, who heads the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colorado.
"But if you stop and look at the implications of what is coming down the road for humanity, it is rather scary. I have kids in college -- what do they have to look forward to in 50 years?" ...
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Konrad -- we can so relate.
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Mon, Mar 9, 2009
from Register-Herald (WV):
Global warming forcing shift in migratory pattern
Scientists for the National Audubon Society say "new and powerful" evidence compiled over the last 40 years suggests that nearly 60 percent of the 305 species of birds that winter in North America are shifting their ranges northward due to the impact global warming has on their ecosystems. According to a news release by Audubon officials, their scientists analyzed citizen-gathered data from the past 40 years and concluded the birds have shifted their ranges to the north by an average of 35 miles since 1968.
"Movement was detected among species of every type, including more than 70 percent of highly adaptable forest and feeder birds," the release said.
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Go North, young bird.
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Fri, Feb 20, 2009
from Michigan Technical University, via EurekAlert:
Abandon hope
Do you "hope" that everyone will see the light and start living more sustainably to save the environment? If so, you may be doing more harm than good.... For decades, say Vucetich and Nelson, we have been hammered by the ceaseless thunder of messages predicting imminent environmental cataclysm: global climate change, air and water pollution, destruction of wildlife habitat, holes in the ozone. The response of environmentalists—from Al Gore to Jane Goodall—to this persistent message of hopelessness has focused on the need to remain hopeful.
But hope may actually be counter-productive, Vucetich and Nelson suggest. "I have little reason to live sustainably if the only reason to do so is to hope for a sustainable future, because every other message I receive suggests that disaster is guaranteed," they explain.
People are hearing radically contradictory messages:
- Scientists present evidence that profound environmental disaster is imminent.
- It is urgent to live up to an extremely high standard of sustainable living.
- The reason to live sustainably is that doing so gives hope for averting disaster.
- Yet disaster is inevitable....
"Instead of hope, we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective," they say. "We need to lift up examples of sustainable living motivated by virtue more than by a dubious belief that such actions will avert environmental disaster." ...
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I hope we can abandon hope. At least, I hope I think so. Or think I hope so.
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Mon, Dec 8, 2008
from AP News:
Native Hunters -- Climate is thinning caribou herds
Chief Bill Erasmus of the Dene nation in northern Canada brought a stark warning about the climate crisis: The once abundant herds of caribou are dwindling, rivers are running lower and the ice is too thin to hunt on.
Erasmus raised his concerns in recent days on the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference, seeking to ensure that North America's indigenous peoples are not left out in the cold when it comes to any global warming negotiations.
Erasmus, the 54-year-old elected leader of 30,000 native Americans in Canada, and representatives of other indigenous peoples met with the U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, and have lobbied national delegations to recognize them as an "expert group" that can participate in the talks like other nongovernment organizations.
"We bring our traditional knowledge to the table that other people don't have," he said. ...
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What, listen to those who have experience and ground-level knowledge? What planet is he from?
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Fri, Sep 26, 2008
from SeaCoastOnline (Maine):
Where have all the bats gone?
Sitting outside as the sun set and the yard sank into shadow, I saw the swallows replaced by bats. There were usually at least 10 or 20 bats living in the old carriage house next to my driveway. I could hear their clicking squeaks both during the day as they rested under the shingles and at night while darting overhead after mosquitoes. This summer, the evening sky in my neighborhood has had a marked absence of bats. ... Growing evidence indicates that the fungus isn't the cause of death, but a symptom of something bigger: climate change, an unknown pathogen, or perhaps the increased pesticide use in the Northeast following the upswing in West Nile disease. ...
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"Gone to heaven, every one
when will we ever learn,
when will we ever learn?"
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Sat, Jul 19, 2008
from BBC:
Diary: Colorado River drought
"The south-western US is suffering its eighth consecutive year of drought. There are concerns that the Colorado River, which has sustained life in the area for thousands of years, can no longer meet the needs of the tens of millions of people living in major cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The BBC's Matthew Price is travelling along the river to investigate the scale of the problem and is sending a series of diary items from there." ...
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Dear Diary: Geewillickers, I'm thirsty!
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Tue, Apr 15, 2008
from American Chemical Society:
Ancient Method, Black Gold
"Fifteen hundred years ago, tribes people from the central Amazon basin mixed their soil with charcoal derived from animal bone and tree bark. Today, at the site of this charcoal deposit, scientists have found some of the richest, most fertile soil in the world. Now this ancient, remarkably simple farming technique seems far ahead of the curve, holding promise as a carbon-negative strategy to rein in world hunger as well as greenhouse gases." ...
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We love those tribes people!
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Tue, Feb 26, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
CRAGs: carbon rationing action groups.
"Some have described them as the 21st century's green equivalent of the Co-operative Movement. Others have likened them to the book club craze inspired by chat-show hosts Richard and Judy. Some bloggers have dismissed them as 'green authoritarians'. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the 'crags', or carbon rationing action groups.
Crags are community groups that meet in one another's homes and local pubs and set themselves personal carbon targets for the year. Backsliding members who jet off on too many foreign holidays have to pay their colleagues a nominal fine or do green-style 'community service' to make up for their environmental transgressions. Only 17 of these groups are active globally, but 16 are in the UK." ...
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Time for a new meme:
"gettin' craggy with that"
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