ApocaDocuments (9) for the "Resource Depletion" scenario from this week
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Fri, Dec 12, 2008
from CNN:
Drought parches much of the U.S., may get worse
...At least 36 states expect to face water shortages within the next five years, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, several regions in particular have been hit hard: the Southeast, Southwest and the West. Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have suffered the worst droughts this year, the agency said.
Yet most people don't need a federal agency to tell them there's a water shortage. Plenty of cities have implemented water bans while state squabbles over water usage are common in some regions. What may surprise people, though, are the causes for the recent drought. It's not global warming, some climatologists say. The droughts are caused by rapid population growth and unwise agricultural choices.
John R. Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says the last three years have been drier than usual in many parts of the United States, but overall there's been no shortage of rainfall. He says the U.S. mainland experienced worse droughts in the 12th and 16th centuries. ...
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It doesn't just make me thirsty -- it's everything around me!
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Fri, Dec 12, 2008
from Greenpeace, via Mongabay:
Computer hackers are helping illegal loggers destroy the Amazon rainforest
Computer hackers are helping illegal loggers destroy the Amazon rainforest by breaking into the Brazilian government's timber tracking system and altering the records so as to increase logging allocations, reports Greenpeace.... "By hacking into the permit system, these companies have made their timber shipments appear legal and compliant with the forest management plans. But in reality, they're trading illegal timber which is making the problem of deforestation worse, and a lack of control and policing in the areas they're logging means they think they can get away with it."
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Something tells me a backdoor was left open on this system.
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Fri, Dec 12, 2008
from WWF:
Another fisheries commission throws the science overboard
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) today over-rode the advice of its science committee and rejected the recommendations of its chair in choosing only minor reductions in catch for bigeye and yellowfin tuna and watering down or deferring most measures for achieving reduced catches.... Measures adopted by the WCPFC will see a catch reduction of less than seven per cent for 2009 on WWF estimations, well down on a recommendation of a 30 percent cut which it was conceded would still not have eliminated overfishing. Among the discarded, delayed or reduced measures were high seas fishing closures, restrictions on gear types, and important initiatives to better record and verify catches and crack down on rampant illegal fishing. ...
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Why use predictive information when business interests are involved?
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Thu, Dec 11, 2008
from Guardian (UK):
At Poznan, no one is listening to Peak Oil
The community of nations have been talking for more than 18 years now about how to stop humanity's remorseless effort to cook its own home. These gabfests have largely been action-free zones. I have attended too many of them, but this year it was time to risk my blood-pressure on another.... One of my missions was an effort to raise the peak oil issue. I suspect that most of the 9,000-plus attendees -- diplomats, lobbyists and journalists -- may have little idea how strong the evidence is that a global energy crisis lurks just a few years in the future, and that it will have massive implications for climate change policymaking.... This year, for the first time, the IEA has conducted an oilfield-by-oilfield study of the world's existing oil reserves. It shows that the fields currently in production are running out alarmingly fast. The average depletion rate of 580 of the world's largest fields, all past their peak of production, is fully 6.7 percen per annum. ...
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Lalalala. Thank God there's only one crisis to be considered.
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Wed, Dec 10, 2008
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Fisherman land 30 per cent increase in North Sea cod quotas
Scottish fishermen have won a 30 per cent increase in the amount of cod they are allowed to land next year in return for signing up to tough new regulations.... Previously any fish under a certain size had to be discarded in a bid to preserve stocks, but under the new deal it will be prohibited to throw back any fish that is "marketable".
Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, warned the new regulations could be burdensome, depending on the small print. ...
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Talk to the Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders about their former cod, you freakin' idiots -- and here's some small print for you: YOU'RE FISHING UNSUSTAINABLY!
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Wed, Dec 10, 2008
from New Scientist:
Darfur crisis is stripping the environment
Tree cover has become so sparse in some areas that Darfuris often have to travel more than 75 kilometres from their camps to find enough wood to sell or use for fuel, the report added.
"We're now seeing extreme stress on the environment around many of the camps and the major towns in Darfur," said UNEP's Sudan country director Clive Bates in a statement. "We need to plant millions of trees and introduce new technologies for construction and energy as quickly as humanly possible."... Nyala's famous Kunduwa hardwood forest had been destroyed by extensive logging from 2005 to 2007 said the report, adding "its destruction is regarded by many as a tragedy that could have been avoided".
The report called for development organisations to launch environmental awareness campaigns in the region, and to pilot the use of alternative fuel sources and building materials. ...
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Please let this not be a harbinger of our own desperate future.
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Wed, Dec 10, 2008
from New York Times:
Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up
The economic downturn has decimated the market for recycled materials like cardboard, plastic, newspaper and metals. Across the country, this junk is accumulating by the ton in the yards and warehouses of recycling contractors, which are unable to find buyers or are unwilling to sell at rock-bottom prices.
Ordinarily the material would be turned into products like car parts, book covers and boxes for electronics. But with the slump in the scrap market, a trickle is starting to head for landfills instead of a second life. "It's awful," said Briana Sternberg, education and outreach coordinator for Sedona Recycles, a nonprofit group in Arizona that recently stopped taking certain types of cardboard...
"Either it goes to landfill or it begins to cost us money," Ms. Sternberg said. ...
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There's a futures market here that is not paying attention.
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Mon, Dec 8, 2008
from Science Daily (US):
California's Deep Sea Secrets: New Species Found, Human Impact Revealed
Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego returning from research expeditions in Mexico have captured unprecedented details of vibrant sea life and ecosystems in the Gulf of California, including documentations of new species and marine animals previously never seen alive. Yet the expeditions, which included surveys at unexplored depths, have revealed disturbing declines in sea-life populations and evidence that human impacts have stretched down deeply in the gulf.... Large schools of fish documented in earlier expeditions at locations such as El Bajo seamount have vanished.... "We have lots of evidence of ghost nets with trapped animals at many depths, along with pollution, including beer cans, in each deep location we studied." ...
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Ghost nets drink beer and pollution?
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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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