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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(2)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(13)
Resource Depletion: (4)
Biology Breach:(7)
Recovery:(10)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
alternative energy  ~ stupid humans  ~ permafrost meltdown  ~ melting glaciers  ~ unintended consequences  ~ smart policy  ~ faster than expected  ~ overfishing  ~ carbon emissions  ~ bioremediation  ~ bisphenol A  



ApocaDocuments (10) for the "Recovery" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Recovery scenario and stories]
Sun, Oct 12, 2008
from London Independent:
A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN
Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a "Green New Deal" to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into their deepest crisis since the Great Depression. The ambitious plan – the start of which will be formally launched in London next week - will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting “financial and housing bubbles” and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy. ...


You mean... we could work for the earth? Betcha the benefits are outstanding.

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Fri, Oct 10, 2008
from Reuters:
Virgin shark got pregnant in Virginia aquarium
Scientists using DNA testing have confirmed the second-known instance of "virgin birth" in a shark -- a female Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit that produced a baby without a male shark. The shark came to the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach not long after being born in the wild and lived there for eight years with no males of the same species, said Beth Firchau, the aquarium's curator of fishes. The 5-foot (1.5-meter) shark died after being removed from the tank for a veterinary examination, and a subsequent necropsy revealed that Tidbit was carrying a fully developed shark pup nearly ready to be born, Firchau said. ...


I was going to make a joke about Saviors coming in any species, but then I read that human intervention killed the Virgin and her unborn pup. Ouch. God can't be happy about that.

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Thu, Oct 9, 2008
from National Geographic News:
Heavy Metal-Eating "Superworms" Unearthed in U.K.
Newly evolved "superworms" that feast on toxic waste could help cleanse polluted industrial land, a new study says. These hardcore heavy metal fans, unearthed at disused mining sites in England and Wales, devour lead, zinc, arsenic, and copper. The earthworms excrete a slightly different version of the metals, making them easier for plants to suck up. Harvesting the plants would leave cleaner soil behind. ...


Plus... think what great bait these superworms will make.

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Thu, Oct 9, 2008
from Sustainable Business:
New Climate Change Bill Unveiled in House
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Energy and Air Quality subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) have released a new 461-page climate change bill that they are calling a "discussion draft." Environmental groups are praising the release of a new bill, but point out that the numbers are off, particularly on short-term targets.... [A Greenpeace spokesman says] "Faced with a four-fold increase in the rate of carbon dioxide pollution since 2000 and emerging evidence of methane emissions from the melting arctic that may accelerate global warming we simply don’t have time anymore for the half-measures and loopholes that riddle this bill." ...


461 pages of a "discussion draft." When will discussion begin?

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Wed, Oct 8, 2008
from ACS, via ScienceDaily:
New Material Could Speed Development Of Hydrogen Powered Vehicles
Researchers in Greece report design of a new material that almost meets the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 2010 goals for hydrogen storage and could help eliminate a key roadblock to practical hydrogen-powered vehicles.... In the new study, the researchers used computer modeling to design a unique hydrogen-storage structure consisting of parallel graphene sheets — layers of carbon just one atom thick —stabilized by vertical columns of [carbon nanotubes]. They also added lithium ions to the material's design to enhance its storage capacity. ...


Nice computer model -- now let's get it working!

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Wed, Oct 8, 2008
from SciDev.net:
Brazil's climate change plan 'ready for public scrutiny'
The recommendations are organised into four lines of action: mitigation; vulnerability, impact and adaptation; research and development; and empowerment and divulgation. Goals include getting 7,000 megawatts of power from renewable energy between 2008 and 2010, increasing production of ethanol from 25.6 billion litres in 2008 to 53.2 billion litres by 2017, and preventing the release 570 million tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2008 and 2017 by using biofuels. Targets will be met by promoting sustainable development in the industrial and agricultural sectors, maintaining a high proportion of renewable energy in the electricity production, encouraging the use of biofuels in the transportation sector, and reducing deforestation. ...


Here's my scrutiny: It's a start. Would that the US were taking a stab at it. Not to mention opening it for "public scrutiny."

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Wed, Oct 8, 2008
from Times Online (UK):
Dutch city kept warm by hot-water mines
Heerlen, in the southern province of Limburg, has created the first geothermal power station in the world using water heated naturally in the deep shafts of old coalmines -- which once provided the southern Netherlands with thousands of jobs but have been dormant since the 1970s. Tapping "free energy" marks a breakthrough in green technology by exploiting the legacy of the coalmines that emitted so much pollution and helped to create the climate change emergency faced by the planet. ...


The Dutch have much to lose with the rising waters of global warming.

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Tue, Oct 7, 2008
from Scientific American:
Cylindrical Solar Cells Give a Whole New Meaning to Sunroof
There are approximately 30 billion square feet (2.8 billion square meters) of expansive, flat roofs in the U.S., an area large enough to collect the sunlight needed to power 16 million American homes, or replace 38 conventional coal-fired power plants. By covering these roofs with large, flat arrays of cylindrical thin-film solar cells (think massive installations of fluorescent tubes, only absorbing light rather than emitting it), Fremont, Calif.–based Solyndra, Inc., hopes to harness that energy....the newly shaped cells have the potential of harnessing solar power at around the same price as electricity from coal-fired power plants, currently the cheapest generation option at around six cents per kilowatt hour. ...


Only the NMR (Not on My Roof) people will take issue with this.

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Tue, Oct 7, 2008
from Media Newswire:
Ecosystem Renovation -- Bring Them On Back
A 'lost' lake in Mali and a Kenyan forest that is the water tower for key rivers and lakes in East Africa are among two country projects aimed at bringing significant degraded and denuded ecosystems back from the brink. The projects are among several being drawn up and spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in cooperation with governments, to demonstrate that re-investing in damaged ecosystems can generate significant economic, environmental and social returns. A further project proposal is being drawn up and staff being hired to restore soils, wetlands, forests and other key ecosystem on the hurricane-vulnerable island of Haiti where environmental degradation has been linked to social unrest. ...


Perhaps a better investment than, say, paying for Wall Street's mismanagement.

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Tue, Oct 7, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
End use of fossil fuels in 20 years, UK warned
Britain must abandon using almost all fossil fuels to produce power in 20 years' time, the government's climate change watchdog will warn today. The independent Climate Change Committee will publish its advice to the government that the UK should set a 2050 target of cutting all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent -- including the emissions from aviation and transport, which were previously excluded.... "We have to almost totally decarbonise the power sector by 2030, well before 2050," he said. ...


Leave the coals in Newcastle.

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