ApocaDocuments (6) for the "Resource Depletion" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Resource Depletion scenario and stories]
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Sun, Mar 1, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
American taste for soft toilet paper 'worse than driving Hummers'
The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.
"This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.... More than 98 percent of the toilet roll sold in America comes from virgin forests, said Hershkowitz. In Europe and Latin America, up to 40 percent of toilet paper comes from recycled products. Greenpeace this week launched a cut-out-and-keep ecological ranking of toilet paper products.... Those brands, which put quilting and pockets of air between several layers of paper, are especially damaging to the environment. ...
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Here I sit / scarcely trying / while the earth / is busy frying.
ApocaDoc
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Sun, Mar 1, 2009
from Associated Press:
Part of Lone Star State now driest region in the nation
LUBBOCK -- Central Texas cattle raiser Gerry Shudde remembers Texas' drought of record in the 1950s when his family's ranch sometimes got a couple of 4-inch rainfalls a year.
But the drought ongoing now is far different.
"This is just cut off completely," the 74-year-old rancher said. "In a lot of ways, it's worse."
Across the nation's No. 2 agricultural state, drought conditions are evaporating stock tanks, keeping many crop farmers from planting into long-parched soil, forcing cattle producers to cull their herds, and dropping water levels in state lakes.
Despite hurricanes Dolly, Gustav and Ike soaking Texas in 2008, almost every part of the state -- nearly 97 percent -- is experiencing some drought, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor map, released Feb. 26. ...
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Can I still wash my car?
ApocaDoc
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Thu, Feb 26, 2009
from Mongabay:
'Ecstasy Oil' Threatens Cambodian Rainforests
Authorities, working with conservationists, have raided and closed several 'ecstasy oil' distilleries in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains. The distilleries posed a threat to the region's rich biological diversity, reports Fauna and Flora International (FFI), the conservation group involved in the operation.
"The factories had been set up to distill 'sassafras oil'; produced by boiling the roots and the trunk of the exceptionally rare Mreah Prew Phnom trees and exported to neighbouring countries," said FFI. "The oil is used in the production of cosmetics, but can also be used as a precursor chemical in the altogether more sinister process of producing MDMA -- more commonly known as ecstasy. The distillation process not only threatens Mreah Prew Phnom trees, but damages the surrounding forest ecosystem. Producing sassafras oil is illegal in Cambodia."
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More collateral damage from the War on Drugs.
ApocaDoc
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from AAAS:
Dwindling Resources of Soil, Water and Air Require 'CDC for Planet Earth'
In her plenary address to the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting, Kieffer called for the creation of a "CDC for Planet Earth"--an organization that could respond to planetary threats such climate change with the same kind of coordination the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed during the SARS and bird flu outbreaks of the late 1990s.... Ocean acidification, spreading deserts, dry aquifers and degraded soils are stealth disasters, altering the planet in ways that "will undermine our survival and evolution into the civilized global society that we might become," warned Kieffer.... And for the first time in history, "societies of the whole planet are so interconnected that Planet Earth is essentially one island," where the stealth disasters of one region can become a crisis for the whole globe, she suggested. ...
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It doesn't take a genius to figure this stuff out -- heck, we did!
ApocaDoc
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from SciDev.net:
China's water deficit 'will create food shortage'
A leading climate change expert has warned that water shortage is the greatest threat to China's agricultural sector this century, amid a drought across the country.
As demand for water continues to rise and less is available for agriculture, "China will see a food shortfall of 5-10 per cent -- a disastrous outcome in a country of 1.3 billion people -- unless effective and timely measures are taken," said Lin Erda, one of China's top climate change experts and leader of a joint China-UK project, 'Impacts of Climate Change on Chinese Agriculture'.... When the current episode of drought reached its peak in early February it was affecting 1.6 million hectares of farmland in at least 12 provinces in northern China -- considered the country's breadbasket. Thanks to snow and rainfall last week the affected area has dropped to 497,000 hectares across eight provinces. ...
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Oh good... the breadbasket's only 1/3 empty.
ApocaDoc
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Mon, Feb 23, 2009
from Reuters:
U.S. renewable energy faces weak economy, old grid
People in the industries say the stimulus will help speed the process, but it still may not be fast enough to meet the Obama administration's goal of ramping up renewable energy production and related investments to revive the economy.
The stimulus extends tax breaks for generating electricity from renewable sources. The government also will provide incentives for homeowners and businesses to buy solar power equipment, and will help fund other energy-saving measures.... Even if demand for renewable energy surges, moving those power supplies will pose problems. The electricity grid is little changed from the one that powered the radios that carried President Roosevelt's fireside chats in the 1930s. ...
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Good evening, friends [crackle] -- we must [crackle] remake our energy infrastructure if [crackle] we are to remake our nation.
ApocaDoc
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