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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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Species Collapse:(1)
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climate impacts  ~ health impacts  ~ global warming  ~ contamination  ~ airborne pollutants  ~ deniers  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ alternative energy  ~ stupid humans  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ weather extremes  



ApocaDocuments (12) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Climate Chaos scenario and stories]
Mon, Mar 21, 2011
from Sydney Morning Herald:
Sydney's heavy weather: six weeks' rain in a day
Sydney has switched from its driest start to the year since 1965 to one of its wettest weeks in March after up to 200 millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours this weekend - 1.5 times the monthly average, a meteorologist says.... Persistent rain is showing no sign of letting up, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting rain and thunderstorms throughout the day and further showers on Tuesday.... Mr Dutschke said that, on Saturday and yesterday, 99 millimetres fell on the city - the highest 24-hour total in 3.5 years, with the heaviest downpours of about 150 to 200 millimetres along the beaches and the northern suburbs. "It's been a big turnaround in events, given that Sydney has been one of the parts of the state that has really missed out on La Nina-type rainfall," he said.... ...


These days, when it pours, it deluges.

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Sun, Mar 20, 2011
from EnvironmentalResearchWeb:
Deadly heatwaves will be more frequent in coming decades, say scientists
The heatwave that scorched eastern Europe in 2010, killing thousands of people and devastating crops, was the worst since records began and led to the warmest summer on the continent for at least 500 years, a new scientific analysis has revealed. The research also suggests that "mega-heatwaves", such as the prolonged extreme temperatures that struck western Europe in 2003 will become five to 10 times more likely over the next 40 years, occurring at least once a decade. But the 2010 heatwave was so extreme - 10 deg C above the average for the first week of August between 1970 and 2000 - that similar events are only expected to occur once every 30 years or so.... The findings of the study are consistent with this, said Barriopedro: "Under global warming this kind of event will become more common. Mega-heatwaves are going to be more frequent and more intense in the future." ...


It ain't the heat -- it's the megaheat.

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Sat, Mar 19, 2011
from Nature:
'Wilful ignorance': Nature opinion
At a subcommittee hearing on 14 March, anger and distrust were directed at scientists and respected scientific societies. Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents.... [T]he legislation is fundamentally anti-science, just as the rhetoric that supports it is grounded in wilful ignorance. One lawmaker last week described scientists as "elitist" and "arrogant" creatures who hide behind "discredited" institutions.... [T]o deny that there is reason to be concerned, given the decades of work by countless scientists, is irresponsible. ...


Why should we listen to egghead smarty-pantses? What do they know?

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Fri, Mar 18, 2011
from Greenwire:
Christian Coalition Visits Hill for Energy Discussion
The Christian Coalition of America came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, not to proselytize or discuss issues like abortion or gay marriage, but to talk about the United States' energy policy and the need to end the country's dependence on foreign oil....Announcing the event, the coalition said in a statement, "We believe that there needs to be a conservative discussion on a national energy policy that speaks to the values of energy independence, national security, prosperity, family and stewardship. That is why we are sponsoring this discussion."... Other speakers who addressed the group were C. Boyden Gray...Gray said, "The United States is drowning in substitutes for oil." He said the country must become more reliant on natural gas, which is plentiful in the United States, to become less dependent on oil. ...


That frucker Gray apparently hasn't been reading how frucked fracking is on the environment.

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Thu, Mar 17, 2011
from Scientific American:
House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming
Congress has finally acted on global warming--by denying it exists. It's in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature's 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi. The Republican-led House of Representatives is currently working on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change. In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman had proposed an amendment calling on Congress to at least acknowledge that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," just as abundant scientific evidence confirms. But on Tuesday, March 15, all the committee's Republicans voted down that amendment, as well as two others acknowledging the threat of climate change to public well-being. ...


Rep. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Heat.

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Thu, Mar 17, 2011
from CBC:
Storm surges the new normal, P.E.I. warned
Coastal communities along P.E.I.'s North Shore need to prepare themselves for the impacts from climate change, a watershed management group was told Tuesday night. About two dozen residents gathered at the North Rustico Lions Club to hear a panel of experts discuss how climate change will hit North Shore communities. Flooding from storm surges, a combination of high tides and water driven on shore by strong winds, was a major focus of the meeting. "We're going to see bigger storm surges and they're going to occur more frequently," said Erin Taylor, climate change coordinator for the provincial Department of Environment. Taylor said storm surges like the one the North Shore saw on Dec. 21, in the 3.6-metre range, currently come about once every 20 years. By the 2050s, they are expected to happen once every two years. ...


At least there's order to that magnitude.

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Wed, Mar 16, 2011
from Montreal Gazette:
Could global warming be causing recent earthquakes?
Severe earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and now Japan have experts around the world asking whether the world's tectonic plates are becoming more active -- and what could be causing it. Some scientists theorize that the sudden melting of glaciers due to man-made climate change is lightening the load on the Earth's surface, allowing its mantle to rebound upwards and causing plates to become unstuck....The surface of the Earth is elastic. A heavy load such as a glacier will cause it to sink, pushing aside the liquid rock underneath. ...


Regardless, these earthquakes are good practice for the Apocalypse.

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Tue, Mar 15, 2011
from Alaska Dispatch:
Huge ozone hole spreads over Arctic, scientists say
Extremely cold temperatures in the upper atmosphere over the Arctic have triggered a "massive" loss of ozone in just the past few weeks, a situation that could create the most severe ozone hole yet observed in the Far North, according to Europe's leading Arctic research group....The depletion in the Arctic could migrate southward on air currents, Rex said, and ultimately lead to reduced protection against ultraviolet radiation in more populated areas of Alaska, Canada and Europe later in the season. An international network of more than 30 ozone measuring stations have tracked this sudden reduction in the concentrations of the trace gas that protects life on Earth from dangerous solar radiation, according to a release from the Alfred Wegener Institute. ...


I sense my tan will be luscious this coming season.

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Tue, Mar 15, 2011
from AFP, via Yahoo News:
Fewer Americans worry about climate change: poll
The number of Americans who are worried about global warming has fallen to nearly the historic low reached in 1998, a poll released Monday showed. Just 51 percent of Americans -- or one percentage point more than in 1998 -- said they worry a great deal or fair amount about climate change, Gallup's annual environment poll says. In 2008, a year after former US vice president Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize, two-thirds of Americans were concerned about climate change. The rate of concern among Americans has fallen steadily since then to 60 percent in 2009 and 52 percent last year.... "The reasons for the decline in concern are not obvious, though the economic downturn could be a factor," Gallup analysts say, citing a poll from two years ago that shows that in the minds of Americans, economy takes precedence over environment.... Just over a quarter of Americans believe reports in the press about climate change are generally correct, while nearly three in 10 believe the US media understates the effects of global warming. ...


Looks like our messaging is working!

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Mon, Mar 14, 2011
from Wall Street Journal:
EPA Tangles With New Critic: Labor
The Obama administration's environmental agenda, long a target of American business, is beginning to take fire from some of the Democratic Party's most reliable supporters: Labor unions. Several unions with strong influence in key states are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency soften new regulations aimed at pollution associated with coal-fired power plants. Their contention: Roughly half a dozen rules expected to roll out within the next two years could put thousands of jobs in jeopardy and damage the party's 2012 election prospects. "If the EPA issues regulations that cost jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Republicans will blast the President with it over and over," says Stewart Acuff, chief of staff to the president of the Utility Workers Union of America. "Not just the President. Every Democratic [lawmaker] from those states." ...


Those of you hoping the US will get its shit together... are dreaming!

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Mon, Mar 14, 2011
from Environmental Health News:
Smoke from wood fireplaces, stoves raises new health concerns
Smoke curling from the chimney of the Clair Tappaan Lodge is a welcome sight to chilly snowshoers and cross-country skiers in California's Sierra Nevada. Guests at this landmark Sierra Club hostel relax in the warmth and aroma of the crackling log fire. Those same woodsy scents waft across the wintry north, as millions of fireplaces and wood stoves are lit by people seeking an environmentally friendly heating source. But recent research raises new concerns over the toxic substances borne aloft in wood smoke. Scientists say the tiny airborne specks of pollution carry carcinogenic chemicals deep into lungs and trigger DNA damage and gene changes comparable to the hazards of cigarette smoke and car exhaust. ...


I'll give up my car, my cigarettes, my mass produced appliances and food... but please don't take my fireplace away!

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Mon, Mar 14, 2011
from Yale360:
African Corn Faces Threat From Even Moderate Warming, Study Shows
A review of crop trial data from thousands of sites across Africa shows that a temperature increase of 1 degree C (1.8 F) could cause declines in corn harvests in two-thirds of the continent's maize-growing regions. Drawing on previously unstudied data from 20,000 trials of corn yields across Africa from 1999 to 2007, an international team of researchers found that the longer corn crops are exposed to temperatures above 30 degrees C (86 F), the more yields decline. And under drought conditions, the researchers found that more than 75 percent of corn-growing regions suffered yield declines of at least 20 percent as temperatures rose 1 degree C. Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, reporting in the journal Nature Climate Change, said the results surprised them because maize was assumed to be among the more heat-tolerant crops. The researchers reached their conclusions after gathering data from the 20,000 trial sites and then comparing it with temperature and rainfall data. They said the results show that corn, a staple crop for many Africans, could suffer significant yield declines if, as predicted, higher temperatures and drought impact Africa in the future. ...


So if 2/3 of corn growing regions decrease production at least 20 percent for every 1.8 degrees F, then starvation will increase.... oh, I hate story problems. What's on TV?

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