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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(7)
Plague/Virus:()
Climate Chaos:(14)
Resource Depletion: (4)
Biology Breach:(13)
Recovery:(4)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
ecosystem interrelationships  ~ contamination  ~ global warming  ~ capitalist greed  ~ climate impacts  ~ carbon emissions  ~ stupid humans  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ toxic buildup  ~ rising sea level  ~ governmental corruption  



ApocaDocuments (11) matching "ecosystem interrelationships" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "ecosystem interrelationships"]
Sun, Jan 24, 2010
from Agence France-Presse:
Indians keep faith with Ganges despite pollution
For India's devout Hindus, the sacred River Ganges is always clean and always pure -- even if its waters are a toxic stew of human sewage, discarded garbage and factory waste. The belief that the Ganges washes away sin entices millions of Hindus into the river each year, and huge crowds of pilgrims are currently passing through the town of Haridwar for the three-month Kumbh Mela bathing festival. But concern over pollution along the length of the 2,500 kilometre (1,500 mile) river is growing, and the city of Kanpur -- 800 kilometres downstream of Haridwar -- is the site of one of the worst stretches of all... Worshippers like Ram Sharma, who regularly wades in the water for an early morning bath with only a cloth tied around his waist, are proof that for many Indians faith outweighs science. "How can you call this water dirty?" asked Sharma incredulously. "For us it is holy water," he said as he dipped his cupped hands in the river and took a slurp. ...


Just like me in Indiana, breathing its sacred, coal-plant polluted air... every day.

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Sun, Jan 24, 2010
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Despite downpour, drought still with us
It might seem odd to talk about a drought after a weeklong series of thundering storms drenched the Bay Area and heaped snow on the Sierra, but California's water lords know the state's lingering thirst cannot be quenched by one showy display of wet weather. The recent downpours have temporarily brought the state back from the dusty brink, but officials with the California Department of Water Resources claim much more rain and snow will have to fall if the Golden State is going to pull out of its drought... Regardless of how things go this winter, water districts across Central and Northern California will not be resting easy. If not the vagaries of the weather or climate change, they have to worry about crumbling infrastructure and environmental disputes limiting water pumping through the critical Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. ...


Downpours are the new drought.

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Sat, Jan 23, 2010
from Lake County Record-Bee:
Growing concerns: Advisory board broaches the issue of pot on public land
The unregulated land use practice of marijuana grows on public property creates a host of environmental problems. Greg Guisti, Lake County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee chair compares the task of tackling the subject with "wrestling an octopus." Lake County is one of the leading counties in the state in regard to illegal growing of marijuana on public lands. That was brought home to approximately 30 area citizens who attended a meeting of the Lake County Fish and Wildlife Advisory meeting on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Guisti said that these are the first public meetings he has heard that address the growing of cannabis on public lands. U.S. Forest Service Chief Ranger Lee Johnson told the crowd that illegal marijuana gardens in the Mendocino National Forest are a major problem because they decimate fish, wildlife and the environment. ...


Like "wrestling an octopus"? He musta been high when he thought of that.

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Sat, Jan 23, 2010
from BBC (UK):
Governments 'must tackle' roots of nature crisis
Governments must tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity loss if they are to stem the rate at which ecosystems and species are disappearing. That was one of the conclusions of an inter-governmental workshop in London held in preparation for October's UN biodiversity summit in Nagoya, Japan. Delegates agreed that protecting nature would bring economic benefits to nations and their citizens.... "We have a chance of a much tougher target for 2020 than we had for 2010, which would be about having no net biodiversity loss," he said. "I think the key thing is whether we'll see over the next few years concerted action on the drivers of biodiversity loss -- if we don't see that in the next few years, then we certainly won't see good results by 2020." ...


I think we call those "Noneday drivers."

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Sat, Jan 23, 2010
from Fast Company:
Walmart's Sustainability Consortium Developing Green Label for Electronics
Last year, Walmart announced that it was developing a Sustainability Index for every product on its shelves. At the same time, the retailer revealed that it was providing seed funding to the Sustainability Consortium, a group of NGOs, government organizations, retailers, and suppliers to help develop the lifecycle database for its products. And now the consortium has embarked on its first big project: a green standard for electronics. Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, Energy Star, and the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) label are all decent starting points for determining the sustainability of different gadgets, but the consortium wants to make an all-encompassing green label that takes into account everything from labor conditions to end-of-life disposal. The label will also take into account criteria used by other standards, including EPEAT and Energy Star. The Sustainability Consortium is working quickly with partners including Best Buy, HP, Walmart, and Dell to research and publish lifecycle assessments for all types of electronics, starting with computers and monitors. Data from the first round of research will be released later this year. ...


If the label could only say how quickly obsolete this crap will be.

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Fri, Jan 22, 2010
from Chambersburg PublicOpinion:
Bats dying from white nose syndrome; means trouble for farmers
Biologist Jim Hart said a devastated bat population will cost farmers and impact water quality. Bats sometimes eat their own weight in insects in a single day. That's about 2,000 mosquito-sized bugs. "They are worth their weight in gold," said Hart, a mammalogist with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. "They take an enormous toll on agricultural pests. If they all disappear, that's going to be a pretty bad scenario." Birds won't immediately eat all of the extra bugs, according to Hart. Populations of farm pests will increase quickly and farmers will respond by applying more pesticides, some of which will find their way to streams.... Wildlife biologists estimate that the disorder has killed 750,000 bats in the Northeast since it was first discovered in 2006 in New York. An estimated one million bats overwinter in hundreds of hibernacula across Pennsylvania. Science is ill-prepared for the crisis. "In general, we don't know enough about normal bats to know what's different in sick bats," Reeder said.... "The loss of one species is a big deal," Hart said. "The loss of a whole suite of species is a catastrophe. It scares biologists." They joke about taking up a career that has a future, like computer science. ...


Time for me to get a BugDeth™ distributorship!

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Wed, Jan 20, 2010
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Bee numbers in England fell by more than half over the last 20 years
The University of Reading research found there was a 54 per cent decline in managed honey bee populations in England between 1985 and 2005 compared to an average of 20 per cent across Europe. It comes as separate research in France suggested the reason bee numbers are falling is because of intensive agriculture that has led to a fall in the number of wild flowers and plants.... Dr Potts, who will be speaking on the subject in front of MPs this week, blamed the increased use of pesticides, bee disease such as the varroa mite and intensive agriculture. Meanwhile, in a separate study, the National Institute of Agronomic Research in Avignon proved for the first time that a more diverse diet of different kinds of pollen can boost bee immunity. This suggests that the monoculture used in today's intensive farming techniques may be contributing to the decline of the honey bee. ...


I know! Let's spray bee-vitamins to boost their bee-immune systems!

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Mon, Jan 18, 2010
from The Herald Scotland:
Tofu is bad for the environment, finds food study
Vegetarians have claimed for years that their meat-shy ways are helping save the world but a new study has found that tofu may actually be worse for the environment than beef. In a stark report on the environmental impact of the global food industry, WWF has warned that replacing meat with "highly refined" substitutes such as Quorn could increase the area of farmland needed to feed the UK. Instead, the charity has said, a wide range of measures will be required to bring harmful emissions from agriculture down to a safe level. In the new report, released today, researchers said: "A broad-based switch to plant-based products through increasing the intake of cereals and vegetables is more sustainable." ...


Tofu worse than beef? Let's ask the cows!

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Mon, Jan 18, 2010
from London Guardian:
Shell faces shareholder revolt over Canadian tar sands project
Shell chief executive Peter Voser will be forced to defend the company's controversial investment in Canada's tar sands at his first annual general meeting, after calls from shareholders that the project be put under further scrutiny. A coalition of institutional investors has forced a resolution onto the agenda calling for the Anglo-Dutch group's audit committee to undertake a special review of the risks attached to the carbon-heavy oil production at Athabasca in Alberta. Co-operative Asset Management and 141 other institutional and individual shareholders raise "concerns for the long-term success of the company arising from the risks associated with oil sands." ...


Sounds like these shareholders are goin' rogue!

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Mon, Jan 18, 2010
from BBC (UK):
Biodiversity nears 'point of no return'
Much greater concerted effort is needed to stop the plunder of our ecosystems.... Overfishing has reduced blue fin tuna numbers to 18 percent of what they were in the mid-1970s. The burning of Indonesia's peat lands and forests for palm oil plantations generates 1.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, and demand is predicted to double by 2020 compared to 2000. More than seven million hectares are lost worldwide to deforestation every single year. The restoration of our ecosystems must be seen as a sensible and cost-effective investment in this planet's economic survival and growth. ...


Come on -- how many species do we really need, anyway?

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Mon, Jan 18, 2010
from UCSD, via EurekAlert:
Wilder weather exerts a stronger influence on biodiversity than steadily changing conditions
Climate scientists predict more frequent storms, droughts, floods and heat waves as the Earth warms. Although extreme weather would seem to challenge ecosystems, the effect of fluctuating conditions on biodiversity actually could go either way. Species able to tolerate only a narrow range of temperatures, for example, may be eliminated, but instability in the environment can also prevent dominant species from squeezing out competitors.... "It may depend on the predictability of the environment. If you have a lot of violent changes through time, species may not be able to program their life cycles to be active when conditions are right. They need the ability to read the cues, to hatch out at the right time," Shurin said. "If the environment is very unpredictable, that may be bad for diversity, because many species just won't be able to match their lifecycles to that." ...


Can't they just evolve for predictable unpredictability?

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