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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(3)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(14)
Resource Depletion: (3)
Biology Breach:(4)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
anthropogenic change  ~ contamination  ~ carbon emissions  ~ climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ deniers  ~ efficiency increase  ~ hunting to extinction  ~ algal bloom  ~ falling fertility  



ApocaDocuments (14) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Climate Chaos scenario and stories]
Sun, Nov 21, 2010
from AP, via PhysOrg:
That 'other' climate problem
Gas locked inside Siberia's frozen soil and under its lakes has been seeping out since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. But in the past few decades, as the Earth has warmed, the icy ground has begun thawing more rapidly, accelerating the release of methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - at a perilous rate. Some scientists believe the thawing of permafrost could become the epicenter of climate change. They say 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, locked inside icebound earth since the age of mammoths, is a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.... Yet awareness of methane leaks from permafrost is so new that it was not even mentioned in the seminal 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned of rising sea levels inundating coastal cities, dramatic shifts in rainfall disrupting agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.... As the Earth warms, the summer thaw bites a bit deeper, awakening ice-age microbes that attack organic matter - vegetation and animal remains - buried where oxygen cannot reach, producing methane that gurgles to the surface and into the air. The newly released methane adds to the greenhouse effect, trapping yet more heat which deepens the next thaw, in a spiraling cycle of increasing warmth. ...


Apocaiku: The ice-age microbes / reawaken. Can we wake / all the sleepwalkers?

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Sun, Nov 21, 2010
from Guardian:
Global emissions of carbon dioxide drop 1.3 percent, say international scientists
Global emissions of carbon dioxide dropped by 1.3 percent in 2009 compared with the previous year, largely due to the effects of the economic crisis and an overall fall in GDP, according to an international team of scientists. The drop is smaller than the 2.8 percent fall predicted by many experts for 2009, however, because the reductions in carbon emissions per unit of GDP - a measure of efficiency called the carbon intensity - was smaller than expected in many emerging economies.... Despite the 1.3 percent overall drop, the 2009 global fossil fuel emissions - 30.8bn tons of CO2 - were the second highest in human history, just below the all-time high of 2008. The small overall decrease in global emissions masks some big regional shifts, according to the report published today in Nature Geoscience. Because the global financial crisis has mainly affected developed nations, this is where emissions dropped by the largest amounts: in the US by 6.9 percent, the UK by 8.6 percent, Germany by 7 percent, Japan by 11.8 percent, Russia by 8.4 percent and Australia by 0.4 percent. In the emerging markets, however, there were big increases: China rose by 8 percent, India by 6.2 percent and South Korea by 1.4 percent. ...


Big sale! 1.3 percent off $30 billion dollars!

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Sat, Nov 20, 2010
from Guardian:
Severe weather warning: Peru as canary
For the indigenous Quechua people like Flores Choque, who have farmed Peru's highlands since the 15th century, the warning signs are already very real. Their farming calendar, dictated by the weather, has traditionally given their lives a steady rhythm. But in the last few years uncharacteristic and unpredictable weather - flooding, frosts, hail, intense heat and drought - has bombarded it. Crops have continually failed and Save the Children research reports production in some areas has fallen as much as 44 percent since 2007, with animal mortality rising from 20 percent to 48 percent. Water supply has diminished and the health and livelihoods of thousands been jeopardised.... "The people are becoming poorer and malnutrition is increasing," Apaza Maita stresses. "Children don't have defences and their health is suffering. They've always had respiratory problems but now they're much worse. For the first time we have cases of bronchitis."... Kallpa is also encouraging farmers to use natural fertilisers rather than chemicals. Hardy native potatoes are being planted again instead of the white potatoes previously grown for export, as well as crops such as tarwi, a bean that, though tasteless, bursts with nutrition.... "It's all connected with the weather and melting glaciers. Four years ago a small river near here ran at eight litres per second. This year it's four litres per second. Now there isn't enough water for the community." ...


It ain't just the heat, it's the extremity.

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Sat, Nov 20, 2010
from TheEnergyCollective:
Oil industry insider exposé: what it took to wake some of them up on climate.
I've just read Challenged by Carbon: The Oil Industry and Climate Change, which was written by Dr. Bryan Lovell, a former senior executive at British Petroleum.... Lovell writes about how it came to be that the senior European oil executives backed Kyoto while Exxon-Mobil continued on with its denial campaign. In the process, he also shows us what he and his European counterparts believe about how dangerous climate change is. I was astonished.... The oil execs understand and believe that the amount of carbon that is being moved into the atmosphere as civilization accelerates its use of fossil fuels is going in at such a rate that the only comparable event in Earth's history is the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum). They believe a recurrence of this event is not only possible but likely. They can't face being held responsible by history. The European senior oil execs, unlike their American counterparts, and perhaps only briefly, lost their nerve about the denial policy, backed Kyoto, and confronted the Americans. The science described by Lovell is why BP started its "Beyond Petroleum" campaign. The science hasn't changed. Obviously, BP has. ...


Hey, you think there'll even be any historians left? Ha! I'm safe.

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Thu, Nov 18, 2010
from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign via ScienceDaily:
As Arctic Temperatures Rise, Tundra Fires Increase
In September, 2007, the Anaktuvuk River Fire burned more than 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska's North Slope, doubling the area burned in that region since record keeping began in 1950. A new analysis of sediment cores from the burned area revealed that this was the most destructive tundra fire at that site for at least 5,000 years. Models built on 60 years of climate and fire data found that even moderate increases in warm-season temperatures in the region dramatically increase the likelihood of such fires. ...


You know you're in trouble when your tundra is on fire!

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Wed, Nov 17, 2010
from Inter Press Service:
Melting glaciers threaten wildlife
Kyrgyzstan's glaciers are receding at what scientists say is an alarming rate, fuelled by global warming. And while experts warn of a subsequent catastrophe for energy and water security for Kyrgyzstan and neighbour states downstream reliant on its water flows, devastation to local ecosystems and the effects on plant and wildlife could be just as severe. "Animals and vegetation will not be unaffected and the risks for some species will be great," Ilia Domashov, deputy head of the BIOM Environmental NGO in Bishkek, said. More than four percent - 8,400 square kilometres - of Kyrgyzstan's territory consists of glaciers. A natural process of water release from summer melting of the glaciers, which freeze again during the winter, feeds many of the country's rivers and lakes. Up to 90 per cent of water in Kyrgyzstan rivers comes from glaciers, local experts claim. ...


So... wildlife and civilizedlife will BOTH be impacted?!?!?

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Wed, Nov 17, 2010
from Viet Nam News:
Doctors see rise in second-birth infertility
The number of women diagnosed with secondary infertility has risen by 15-20 per cent, according to the director of the National Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynecology,Nguyen Viet Tien. Secondary infertility is the inability to conceive after already giving birth and, according to Tien, 50 per cent of couples seeking infertility treatments already have one or more children... about 40 per cent of infertility cases were due to male factors and another 40 per cent to female factors. The remaining cases were either due to factors from both partners or from unknown causes. About 90 per cent of male issues were sperm abnormalities, the remaining 5 per cent were to do with sexual dysfunction, including sexual desire disorders, erectile dysfunction, or dyspareunia, Tien said. Tuong explained that sperm abnormalities occurred because male sperm are highly sensitive to their environment, particularly to temperature and chemicals, and citizens in urban areas suffer from heavy pollution and food poisoning. ...


Somehow I knew our overpopulation problems would magically solve themselves.

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Wed, Nov 17, 2010
from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via ScienceDaily:
Earth's Lower Atmosphere Is Warming, Review of Four Decades of Scientific Literature Concludes
The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming and this warming is broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study that reviews the history of understanding of temperature changes and their causes in this key atmospheric layer.... The paper documents how, since the development of the very first climate models in the early 1960s, the troposphere has been projected to warm along with the Earth's surface because of the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere....This new paper extensively reviews the relevant scientific analyses -- 195 cited papers, model results and atmospheric data sets -- and finds that there is no longer evidence for a fundamental discrepancy and that the troposphere is warming. ...


We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Apocalypse.

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Tue, Nov 16, 2010
from UC Berkeley News:
Dire messages about global warming can backfire, new study shows
Dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively, making people less amenable to reducing their carbon footprint, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. "Our study indicates that the potentially devastating consequences of global warming threaten people's fundamental tendency to see the world as safe, stable and fair. As a result, people may respond by discounting evidence for global warming," said Robb Willer, UC Berkeley social psychologist and coauthor of a study to be published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science. "The scarier the message, the more people who are committed to viewing the world as fundamentally stable and fair are motivated to deny it," agreed Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral student in psychology and coauthor of the study. But if scientists and advocates can communicate their findings in less apocalyptic ways, and present solutions to global warming, Willer said, most people can get past their skepticism. ...


Dog-gone it! The world needs a humor site for global warming!

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Tue, Nov 16, 2010
from Climatewire:
Can Social Scientists Help Ease the Nation's Rift Over Climate Change?
Stop being so skeptical of climate skeptics, says one researcher who believes there's been a failure to understand the mounting cultural doubt around atmospheric warming. The national discussion on climate change is brimming with economic models, scientific findings and wonky plans to fix it. But something is missing: academic explanations of why people flout reams of scientific conclusions, bristle at the notion of cutting carbon and regard climate change as a sneaky liberal plot.... She came away with themes that will sketch an outline of the skeptical movement for future research: Adherents tend to be middle-aged, white males who resent government, are suspicious of scientists and their peer-reviewed protocols, and believe global warming is made up to hit them in the wallet. ...


They'll eventually die off... won't they?

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Tue, Nov 16, 2010
from The Daily Climate:
Feds understate the cost of climate disruption, critics contend
The Obama Administration has ignored wrenching climate impacts such as ocean acidification in its effort to estimate the cost of carbon emissions, making emissions limits disproportionately expensive, economists say... In February an inter-agency workgroup released the administration's best guess of what each ton of carbon dioxide dumped in the atmosphere costs society: $21, plus or minus, or roughly $121 billion worth of damages annually as a result of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions [pdf]... The lower the estimated cost of disruption - known as the "social cost of carbon" - the less action the Obama Administration can justify. And several economists and scientists fear that the Administration has low-balled the figure, handicapping its ability to curb emissions. ...


Somehow it seems like it's the president's job, whoever is in the position, to screw this up.

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Mon, Nov 15, 2010
from Louisiana State University via ScienceDaily:
Oceanography Researchers Discover Toxic Algae in Open Water
Louisiana State University's Sibel Bargu, along with her former graduate student Ana Garcia, from the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences in LSU's School of the Coast & Environment, has discovered toxic algae in vast, remote regions of the open ocean for the first time... Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, are reported as increasing both geographically and in frequency along populated coastlines. Bargu's research shows that the ubiquitous diatom Pseudo-nitzschia -- an alga that produces the neurotoxin, domoic acid, or DA, in coastal regions -- actually also produces DA at many locations in the open Pacific. The presence of these potent toxins in deep water environments is worrisome, given that in coastal waters, where the phenomenon has been studied, DA can enter the food chain, forcing the closure of some fisheries and poisoning marine mammals and birds that feed on the contaminated fish. The main concern, though, is that the adding of iron to ocean waters -- one of the most commonly proposed strategies to reduce global warming -- appears now to likely result in promoting toxic blooms in the ocean. ...


This bloom... could be our doom.

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Mon, Nov 15, 2010
from Agence France-Press:
Hong Kong's first green jail sparks controversy
Hong Kong's first environmentally-friendly prison has stirred up a debate in one of the world's most densely populated cities where many live in dingy and overcrowded high-rise flats. Billed as the jail of the future, the sprawling 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollar (200 million US) facility was built based on a sustainable concept that promotes open space with green and energy-efficient features. Authorities said the Lo Wu prison, the newest of the city's 16 prisons, which opened in August, aims to provide more humane living conditions for some 1,400 female inmates as the city moves to ease prison overcrowding. The prison boasts advanced features such as a "green" roof to lower temperature, rooftop solar panels, a natural lighting system, high-headroom spaces and large dormitory blocks to enhance natural ventilation. ...


The Shawshank Recyclables

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Mon, Nov 15, 2010
from Reuters:
Climate science "under-reported" at 2009 U.N. summit
Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday. Based on analysis of 400 articles written about the December 2009 summit, the authors of the report for Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) called for a re-think of reporting on future such conferences. Author James Painter concluded that "science was under-reported" as the essential backdrop to the drama when about 120 world leaders met in Copenhagen but failed to agree a binding treaty to slow climate change. Much coverage from Copenhagen instead focused on hacked e-mails from a British university that some skeptics took as evidence of efforts by scientists to ignore dissenting views. The scientists involved have since been cleared of wrongdoing. ...


If it ain't sexy or dramatic, it ain't worth reading!

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