ApocaDocuments (7) matching "ecosystem interrelationships" from this week
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Sun, Sep 12, 2010
from Contra Costa Times:
Delta: A lake in the making
The toxic blue-green algae floating in the scientist's jar is a symptom of a disturbing shift in the West Coast's biggest estuary.
Common in lakes and reservoirs around the world, this kind of algae is less likely to be found in estuaries where rivers and ocean tides tangle in a restless ebb and flow.
But the slime has spread in an increasingly stagnant Delta.
After five years of studies, scientists are coalescing around the idea that diverting fresh water to farms and cities has led to a fundamental change in the Delta by slowing flows for most of the year.
Other factors are also at play, especially the dramatic conversion of a once vast tidal marsh into a network of deep channels and "islands" first built for farming.
In short, the Delta is becoming more like a lake or a lagoon, researchers say.
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Revelations chapter 2, verse 17: "And the deltas shall become like lakes or lagoons."
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Fri, Sep 10, 2010
from Der Spiegel:
Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis
The term "peak oil" is used by energy experts to refer to a point in time when global oil reserves pass their zenith and production gradually begins to decline. This would result in a permanent supply crisis -- and fear of it can trigger turbulence in commodity markets and on stock exchanges.
The issue is so politically explosive that it's remarkable when an institution like the Bundeswehr, the German military, uses the term "peak oil" at all. But a military study currently circulating on the German blogosphere goes even further.
The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military. The team of authors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will, uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises. ...
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Imagine... a think tank that's actually thoughtful!
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Thu, Sep 9, 2010
from EuropeanVoice:
'No extra money' for biodiversity protection
European politicians warn that there will be no additional funding for developing nations.
The European Union looks set to disappoint developing countries by turning down requests for more money to protect biodiversity outside the EU.... "They are asking for more financing. That's normal. But we have a problem, we don't have it," said Joke Schauvliege, the Flemish minister for environment, who is leading discussions with her counterparts from other member states. "We are now in a financial situation where we are not in a position to put more money on the table," she told journalists at a biodiversity conference in Ghent, Belgium.... But the Commission's environment department spies a window of opportunity, with reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy also getting under way - two policies long under fire for failing to prevent habitat loss, pesticide pollution and overfishing.
"Biodiversity is not just about protecting species. It is also about nature's ability to produce the goods and services that we need," Potocnik told delegates. "We have to go beyond lip service and truly integrate biodiversity into our policies." ...
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Worldwide upport for coal production: 334.6 billion. Tax breaks for millionaires: 481.4 billion. A functioning ecosystem: priceless.*
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Tue, Sep 7, 2010
from Sydney Morning Herald, from DesdemonaDespair:
20 years left: mammals plunge into extinction in northern Australia
At dusk, the dry savannah of the Kimberley was once alive with the scuttling and foraging of the burrowing bettong, a marsupial whose ''countless numbers'' were marvelled at by early surveyors.
Along with many species of quolls, bandicoots, possums and marsupial rats, the bettongs had thrived for millions of years in northern Australia, surviving ice ages, surging sea levels and human hunters.
But many of these natives are unlikely to survive another decade or two, according to a new report which reveals an abrupt, stunning plunge towards mass extinction in the past few years. At the 136 sites across northern Australia that have been repeatedly surveyed since 2001, the mammal populations have dropped by an average of 75 per cent. The number of sites classified as ''empty'' of mammal activity rose from 13 per cent in 1996 to 55 per cent in 2009.
''Twenty years ago we would go out and it would be a bonanza of native animals,'' a Charles Darwin University researcher, John Woinarski, said. ''Now we hardly catch anything - it's silent.'' ...
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It's the burrowing bettong's Gallipoli.
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Tue, Sep 7, 2010
from Jakarta Globe:
Feces, Arsenic Pervade Water Supply, Sickening Half a Nation
Water contaminated by feces and harmful chemicals may be responsible for making almost half of all Indonesians sick, health experts say.
World Bank data shows that in 2006, 42 percent of Indonesians suffered from diarrhea caused by waterborne diseases, up from 28 percent in 1996.
A study two years ago by the Ministry of Health showed that in addition to bacteria that cause the more common infectious diseases, many of Indonesia's sources of water also contained unacceptably high levels of toxic chemicals that could lead to more serious illnesses such as cancer and anemia. ...
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Water contaminated by feces that creates diarrhea sounds like a vicious, shitty cycle.
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Mon, Sep 6, 2010
from Miller-McCune:
Viewing Poisons at Our National Parks
America's national parks are heralded as pristine pockets of natural beauty, but that news hasn't stopped airborne pollutants from accumulating at alarmingly high rates in parks in the West.
Eight years ago, spurred by reports of contaminants found in alpine and polar ecosystems far from where the pollutants originated, National Park Service leaders assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers drawn from experts at several universities, government agencies and research groups.... The news wasn't good:
• Of the 100 or more toxic substances tested for, 70 were found...• Many fish in parks have reached or exceeded the threshold level of contaminants for consumption by humans or other animals that eat them. ...
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How do we know they aren't just tourist airborne pollutants?
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Mon, Sep 6, 2010
from via ScienceDaily:
Global Warming's Silver Lining? Northern Countries Will Thrive and Grow, Researcher Predicts
...As worldwide population increases by 40 percent over the next 40 years, sparsely populated Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets, Laurence C. Smith writes in "The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future" (Dutton Books), scheduled for publication Sept. 23....these resources will pour from northern rim countries -- or NORCs, as Smith calls them -- precisely at a time when natural resources elsewhere are becoming critically depleted, making them all the more valuable... Other tantalizing predictions:
* New shipping lanes will open during the summer in the Arctic, allowing Europe to realize its 500-year-old dream of direct trade between the Atlantic and the Far East, and resulting in new access to and economic development in the north.
* Oil resources in Canada will be second only to those in Saudi Arabia, and the country's population will swell by more than 30 percent, a growth rate rivaling India's and six times faster than China's.... ...
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Gee, this sounds soooo sweet, I can't wait!
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