ApocaDocuments (8) for the "Recovery" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Recovery scenario and stories]
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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from New York Times:
Freeman Dyson: We Can Fix It, It's Not A Big Deal.
Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus.... Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that "the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn't scare me at all"... A particularly distressed member of that public was Dyson's own wife, Imme, who, after seeing the film in a local theater with Dyson when it was released in 2006, looked at her husband out on the sidewalk and, with visions of drowning polar bears still in her eyes, reproached him: "Everything you told me is wrong!" she cried.
"The polar bears will be fine," he assured her.... Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the carbon may well be salubrious -- a sign that "the climate is actually improving rather than getting worse," because carbon acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. "Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now," he contends, "and substantially richer in carbon dioxide." Dyson calls ocean acidification, which many scientists say is destroying the saltwater food chain, a genuine but probably exaggerated problem. Sea levels, he says, are rising steadily, but why this is and what dangers it might portend "cannot be predicted until we know much more about its causes." ...
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James Lovelock
vs.
Freeman Dyson:
The Cage Match!
ApocaDoc
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Sun, Mar 29, 2009
from Yale Environment 360:
Satellites and Google Earth
...In the past several years, one of the chief uses for satellite imagery has been to accurately quantify the loss of tropical forests from the Amazon, to the Congo, to Indonesia. In Brazil, scientists and state environmental protection officials can now monitor fires and forest clearing almost in real-time and take action to combat the deforestation. But perhaps the most revolutionary advance in using satellites to monitor the planet has been the ever-widening use of remote sensing technology by ordinary citizens. Google Earth has been instrumental in this development and represents a critical point in its evolution, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to attach data to a geographic representation of Earth. Citizens and environmental groups are now using Google Earth to tracks threats to pristine rivers from hydroelectric projects, catalogue endangered species, help indigenous people in the Amazon protect their land, and alert citizens and government officials that boats are illegally fishing off the Canary Islands. ...
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And the geek shall inherit the earth... what's left of it.
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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from AFP:
Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough
Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.... "To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device," added the study's co-author in a statement... Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.... "It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons," he told the Houston Chronicle. ...
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Dang. I hate it when hope's bubble is popped by science.
ApocaDoc
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Sat, Mar 28, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
Australia kicks off Earth Hour climate campaign
The waters of Sydney Harbour plunged into darkness on Saturday night, with the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge killing their lights for an hour in a global call for swift action on climate change.
Chatham Island, the largest of a tiny group of Pacific islands 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of New Zealand, unofficially began Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators at 0645 GMT, or 8:30 pm local time.
The 25-hour energy-saving marathon officially began in Sydney shortly after 0930 GMT with a spectacular switch to darkness for an hour before spreading across the world for more than 80 countries to take part at 8:30 pm local time.... "Even if a billion people turn off their lights this Saturday the entire event will be equivalent to switching off China's emissions for six short seconds," said Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre think-tank. ...
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If only Earth Hour could be Earth Day or Earth Week or...
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Fri, Mar 27, 2009
from Amandala (Belize):
Cherishing Belize's fisheries
Officials of the Environmental Defense Fund, a US-based NGO with an international network, hosted a presentation and discussion Wednesday morning at the training room of the Coastal Zone Management Authority's office in Belize City to talk about a program they are implementing in Belize.
The program involves a concept known as “catch shares,” which the group describes as an incentive-based management of fisheries....
Sustainable management of fisheries works better if the interests of government and fishermen are aligned towards sustainability for both parties, Bonzon said....
She demonstrated (using a PowerPoint presentation) that when catch shares are implemented (1) over-fishing stops, (2) wastage or the taking of unnecessary by-catch declines, and (3) revenues to fishermen increase remarkably by as much as 170 percent in the fifth year of implementation. ...
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This cooperation smacks of socialism. How is it possible that everyone benefits?
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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from The Onion (thanks, Peter):
Report: Majority Of Americans Unprepared For Apocalypse
Over 87 percent of Americans are unprepared to protect themselves from even the most basic world-ending scenarios, according to a study released Monday by the nonpartisan doomsday think-tank The Malthusian Institute.
Despite "more than ample warning" for the most likely means of worldwide destruction, less than one million American households have taken even the simplest precautions against nuclear shockwaves, asteroid impact, or a host of angels bearing swords of fire, the study concluded.... "Almost no one is prepared for a sudden shift in the Earth's polarity or the eating of the Sun and moon by evil wolves Skol and Hati during Ragnarok." ...
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C'mon, America -- we can do better!
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Thu, Mar 26, 2009
from Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences , via EurekAlert:
E-waste reduced by fees at time of purchase, says new study
The large amount of waste that follows the sale of computers and electronics is reduced when states charge consumers a fee at the time of sale, according to [a recent study].... The fast pace of new product introduction in the electronics industry imposes high costs on manufacturers and the environment as consumers each year discard millions of tons of obsolete electronics containing toxic materials, by one estimate, more than one million tons of e-waste in the United States alone.... [T]he authors find that fees-upon-sale induce manufacturers to introduce products less frequently and, consequently, the quantity of e-waste decreases dramatically -- and manufacturers' profits may actually increase. In contrast, fees-upon-disposal reduce manufacturers' profits and fail to reduce the quantity of e-waste. ...
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You're saying everyone benefits if we produce and buy less crap?
But what about
consumer culture?
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Wed, Mar 25, 2009
from Times Online (UK):
Mosquito laser gun offers new hope on malaria
American scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.... The laser -- dubbed a weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD) -- has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.... The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito's wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. The research is backed by Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire. ...
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Who needs bats when you have American technology?
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