ApocaDocs
Today is November 21, 2024.
On this day (11/21), we posted 12 stories, over the years 2009-2016.


Converging Emergencies: From 2009 to 2016, 'Doc Jim and 'Doc Michael spent 30 to 90 minutes nearly every day, researching, reading, and joking about more than 8,000 news stories about Climate Chaos, Biology Breach, Resource Depletion, and Recovery. (We also captured stories about Species Collapse and Infectious Disease, but in this "greatest hits of the day" instantiation, we're skipping the last two.)
      We shared those stories and japes daily, at apocadocs.com (see our final homepage, upon the election of Trump).
      The site was our way to learn about what humans were doing to our ecosystem, as well our way to try to help wake up the world.
      You could call this new format the "we knew it all back then, but nobody wanted to know we knew it" version. Enjoy these stories and quips from a more hopeful time, when the two ApocaDocs imagined that humanity would come to its senses in time -- so it was just fine to make fun of the upcoming collapse.

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Biology
Breach


November 21, 2011, from Washington Post

Congress kills request for National Climate Service

Welcome to the New Dark Ages.
At first look, the proposal is as dull, bureaucratic and routine as an agency request to Congress can be. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wanted to reshuffle its offices to establish a National Climate Service akin to the agency's National Weather Service. It asked for no new funding to do so. But in a political climate where talk of the earthly kind of climate can be radioactive, the answer in last week's budget deal was "no." Congress barred NOAA from launching what the agency bills as a "one-stop shop" for climate information.


November 21, 2011, from New York Times

New Delhi, Now More Polluted Than Beijing

This charming elixir of dust, exhaust and cow dung smoke is a real tourism draw.
India has recently pulled far ahead of China on one dubious development marker -- air pollution in the country's capital. The air quality in New Delhi on Monday afternoon was significantly worse than the air quality in Beijing, according to real-time air monitors run by the Indian and U.S. governments in both cities. New Delhi, a landlocked, fast-growing metropolis of more than 16 million people, is regularly shrouded by haze and smog (sometimes euphemistically referred to as fog) in winter months, as barometric pressure and cooler air mix with construction dust, smoke from cow dung fires and car exhaust, which then hover over the city for days.


November 21, 2011, from The Epoch Times

Yangtze River Pollution Imperils Hundreds of Millions

I imagine "Yangtze," loosely translated, means Shit.
The banks of China's Yangtze River are crowded with chemical factories, which dump massive amounts of toxic waste water into the river, affecting hundreds of millions of people who rely on the river for drinking water. Nevertheless, a Chinese official recently stated that the Yangtze's water quality "overall is good and can be used safely." According to a recent Economics Information Daily report, latest data from the Yangtze River Water Resources Protection Bureau says that the total polluted water discharged into the Yangtze exceeded 33.9 billion tons this year and is increasing at a rate of 2 percent per year. Data released by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection last December said there are over 400 thousand chemical factories, five major steel manufacturing centers, and seven major oil refineries along the banks of the Yangtze.

Climate
Chaos


November 21, 2012, from Discovery Channel

Greenland Loses 200 Billion Tons Ice Per Year

Where's my bucket?
Glacier-covered Greenland has had an average net loss of 200 billion tons of ice every year since 2003, confirm scientists who are studying the changing mass of the island using satellite data. The latest analysis backs up the previously reported trend without even including the last two summers of record-breaking ice melts. "Greenland is really the place where everyone agrees that (the ice melt) is definitely accelerating with time and there is a big contribution to sea level rise," said researcher Isabella Velicogna of the University of California at Irvine (UCI). Just how much is 200 billion tons of ice? Roughly, it's the amount needed to fill enough railroad coal cars to encircle the Earth 800 times.


November 21, 2011, from London Guardian

Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020

Given the lack of enthusiasm among our leaders, it's time to Occupy Mother Earth.
Governments of the world's richest countries have given up on forging a new treaty on climate change to take effect this decade, with potentially disastrous consequences for the environment through global warming. Ahead of critical talks starting next week, most of the world's leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020. The eight-year delay is the worst contemplated by world governments during 20 years of tortuous negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions, and comes despite intensifying warnings from scientists and economists about the rapidly increasing dangers of putting off prompt action.


November 21, 2009, from PhysOrg.com

Australia issues 'catastrophic' alerts as fires rage

New South Wales may be really new before we know it.
Unseasonably hot and dry weather combined with strong winds to fan scores of blazes in the country's southeastern states, many of which were sparked by overnight lightning strikes. "It has never been this hot, dry or windy in combination in November ever before," said New South Wales (NSW) state premier Nathan Rees.... More than one-third of NSW was under a Code Red or Catastrophic fire alert, in which residents cannot be forcibly evacuated but are strongly advised to abandon their property due to extreme risk of death or injury.


November 21, 2009, from Times Online (UK)

'Rain like this happens once every 1,000 years'

At least that means we won't see weather like this again till 3009!
The full and devastating impact of England's worst recorded day of rain was still emerging last night as tributes were paid to a policeman swept away by floodwaters while trying to save others. PC Bill Barker was helping motorists stranded on a bridge over the Derwent in the Cumbrian town of Workington when it collapsed. His body was discovered hours later on a nearby beach. The Environment Agency said that the flooding across the region was so severe that such an event was likely to happen only once in 1,000 years. The rainfall, on to an already saturated terrain, was the highest level measured in England since records began. Meteorologists recorded 314mm (12in) of rain in 24 hours and flood warnings remained in place across the North West of England, parts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Resource
Depletion


November 21, 2013, from Midwest Energy News

"Saudi Arabia of coal" Study says peak may already be past

Hope has not peaked yet.
It has often been said that the U.S. is the "Saudi Arabia of coal." However, a new report drawing on copious data from government agencies challenges that concept, noting that given global economic and energy trends, the amount of U.S. coal that will be economical to extract is much smaller than previously thought.


November 21, 2009, from AFP

Permafrost thaw threatens Russia oil and gas complex: study

It's so sad when nomenclature leads to a death spiral. Tempofrost would have changed everything.
According to the report by the environmental watchdog, up to 55 billion roubles (1.9 billion dollars) a year is spent on repairs to infrastructure and pipelines damaged by changes in the permafrost in western Siberia. "For Russia, the biggest threat of the permafrost melt is to oil and gas company infrastructure," said Vladimir Chuprov, who heads Greenpeace's energy programme in Russia.... Russia's main raw export industries are spread across the Siberian permafrost, which makes up over 60 percent of its territory and includes 20 cities and several hundred thousand people. The permafrost thaw has accelerated in recent years.... In a complex cycle, permafrost melts at the edges of lakes that previously were iced over year-round, he explained. Organic material -- the remains of rotted plants and long-dead animals -- then melt into the lake from the soil and decompose to form methane. With the thaw, the methane bubbles to the surface and is released into the atmosphere.

Recovery


November 21, 2013, from The Daily Caller

Norwegian army goes vegetarian to fight global warming

If you're planning on attacking this army don't do it on a Monday night.
Norway's military is taking drastic steps to ramp up its war against global warming. The Scandinavian country announced its soldiers would be put on a vegetarian diet once a week to reduce the military's carbon footprint. "Meatless Monday's" has already been introduced at one of Norway's main military bases and will soon be rolled out to others, including overseas bases. It is estimated that the new vegetarian diet will cut meat consumption by 150 tons per year. "It's a step to protect our climate," military spokesman Eystein Kvarving told AFP. "The idea is to serve food that's respectful of the environment."


November 21, 2009, from Genetics Society of America, via EurekAlert

New discovery may lead to heartier, high-yielding plants

Go GMO, or the starving kid dies.
In a research report published in the November 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org), scientists show how a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes) are responsible for production of ethylene. This gas affects many aspects of plant development, and this information lays the foundation for future genetic manipulation that could make plants disease resistant, able to survive and thrive in difficult terrain, increase yields, and other useful agronomical outcomes.... "Ethylene gas is best known for causing fruit to ripen," said Mark Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the journal GENETICS, "but the molecule is critical to development and growth of plants. By revealing how plants regulate the amount of ethylene they produce, this study gives scientists an entirely new genetic approach for developing heartier, more productive crops. This is becoming increasingly important as our planet warms and our population grows."