ApocaDocuments (4) for the "Resource Depletion" scenario from this week
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Wed, Aug 11, 2010
from Guardian:
Peak oil is the villain governments need
Could peak oil lever politicians out from between the rock of the electorate and the hard place that is climate change mitigation?... Climate change is a stealthy foe, hard to feel, see or identify. Unlike peak oil. So here's another question: did western administrations know that the International Energy Agency (IEA) had been consistently concealing the imminence of peak oil? One might hope our leaders would know about something as serious as this. But if they did, why is it that renewable energy replacements haven't been far higher on the agenda, for much longer and addressed with rather more conviction?... One statement by professor Paul Stevens in particular caught my eye: "A supply crunch appears likely around 2013 ... given recent price experience, a spike in excess of $200 per barrel is not infeasible".
What effect would a barrel price of $200 have on industrial economies, should that spike be sustained for any length of time? We would witness endemic global market disruption, reductions in agricultural yield, increased transport costs for both finished goods and raw materials (true pessimists would add an oil war or two for good measure). The shockwaves would be felt everywhere, although as ever, the poor will take the brunt of it.
And yet when the price of oil shoots up, we use less - meaning we output less CO2. So let me rephrase my question: what effect would a barrel price of $200 have on the CO2 output of nations? ...
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The Alberta Tar Sands contingent would love this.
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Wed, Aug 11, 2010
from Chicago Tribune:
Poised on History's Doorstep: Super Salmon or Frankenfish?
...With global population pressing against food supplies and vast areas of the ocean already swept clean of fish, tiny AquaBounty Technologies of Waltham, Mass., has developed a variety of salmon that reaches market weight in half the time of other salmon. What's more, AquaBounty not only promises to slash the ready-for-market time - and production costs -- on a hugely popular, nutritious fish that currently commands near-record prices, it plans to avoid the pollution, disease and other problems associated with today's salt-water fish farms by having its salmon raised inland. But there's a catch: AquaBounty's salmon is genetically engineered. Indeed, it aspires to be the nation's first genetically-modified food animal of any kind. That means the Food and Drug Administration must approve it. It also means the company and its salmon must withstand vociferous opposition from environmental and other advocacy groups, win over skeptical producers and -- possibly most difficult of all - overcome potential consumer resistance to genetic tinkering with food.
...
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Long as it tastes like chicken I'm good with it!
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Tue, Aug 10, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Scientists find Gulf of Mexico dead zone only 'fifth largest on record'
NOAA-supported scientists have found this year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone to be the fifth largest on record at 7,722 square miles - an area the size of New Jersey, near the upper limit of their projections, but tropical storm activity in the Gulf of Mexico caused the zone to be a patchwork rather than a continuous band. This year's dead zone is nearly double that of 2009's, which was smaller than average. A series of storms and high wind and wave conditions in the shallower waters to the west of the Atchafalaya River delta mixed oxygen into the traditional dead zone area before last year's survey cruise. Last year's dead zone measured approximately 3,000 square miles.... The eastern portion of the dead zone does overlap with the region significantly impacted by the Deep Water Horizon oil spill, however, scientists conducting the cruise think that it is unlikely that the oil spill had a significant impact on the size of the zone.... The average size of the dead zone over the past five years has been 6,653 square miles, much larger than 1,900 square miles which is the target goal set by the Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi River Watershed Nutrient Task Force. ...
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Since when did "average" and "traditional" and "target" come to be associated with a state-sized "dead zone"?
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Mon, Aug 9, 2010
from Yale360:
A Looming Oxygen Crisis and Its Impact on World's Oceans
As serious as these dead zones are, however, they may be just a foreshadowing of a much more severe crisis to come. Agricultural runoff can only strip oxygen from the ocean around the mouths of fertilizer-rich rivers. But global warming has the potential to reduce the ocean's oxygen content across the entire planet. Combined with acidification -- another global impact of our carbon emissions -- the loss of oxygen could have a major impact on marine life.
Scientists point to two reasons to expect a worldwide drop in ocean oxygen. One is the simple fact that as water gets warmer, it can hold less dissolved oxygen. The other reason is subtler. The entire ocean gets its oxygen from the surface -- either from the atmosphere, or from photosynthesizing algae floating at the top of the sea. The oxygen then spreads to the deep ocean as the surface waters slowly sink.
Global warming is expected to reduce the mixing of the ocean by making surface seawater lighter.... more of the oxygen will linger near the surface, where it will be used up by oxygen-breathing organisms. ...
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First it's CO2. Now it's O2. C'mon, science, make up your mind.
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