http://www.apocadocs.com Humoring the Horror Regarding Climate Chaos, Resource Depletion, Plague/Virus, Species Collapse, Biology Breach, Recovery, and more. en-us http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/new-u-n-climate-change-group-is-all-male.html Women at some environmentally conscious nonprofits are indignant that a new group overseeing financing for a United Nations climate change effort has 19 members — none of them women. The group's task is to allocate funds to developing countries to help mitigate the impact of climate change. "It includes equal representation between industrialized countries and developing countries,” Elizabeth Becker, a member of Oxfam America, and Suzanne Ehlers, president of Population Action International, wrote in a joint blog post on Grist. "But what it does not include at all is women.” (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/endangered-listing-eyed-for-us-loggerhead-turtles.html The federal government on Wednesday recommended an endangered-species listing for the loggerhead turtles in U.S. waters, a decision that could lead to tighter restrictions on fishing and other maritime trades. The massive, nomadic sea turtles have been listed since 1978 as threatened, a step below endangered, but federal scientists proposed ratcheting up the designation after reviewing the state of the species. Researchers said primary threats to the loggerheads include injury and death from fishing gear and damage to their nesting areas. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/meeting-on-deforestation-boosts-morale-budget.html A conference bringing together more than 60 nations Thursday added $1 billion to the fight against deforestation and boosted the morale of those hoping to save the world's forests — a key defense against global warming. Three months after a morose ending to climate change talks in Copenhagen, the one-day ministerial meeting in Paris attended by heavily forested countries such as Indonesia and those in the Amazon and Congo basins amounted to a confidence-builder for nations wondering what comes next in the battle against deforestation, many delegates said. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/feds-recall-more-children-jewelry-in-cadmium-probe.html Federal safety regulators recalled a line of Christmas-themed bracelets Thursday, expanding their effort to purge children's jewelry boxes and store shelves of items containing high levels of the toxic metal cadmium. The latest action by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission targeted "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" charm bracelets that released alarmingly high levels of cadmium in government lab tests, suggesting children could be exposed to a carcinogen that also can damage kidneys and bones. The chain-link bracelets were sold at dollar-type stores between 2006 and March 2009 and feature characters from the classic holiday movie, including Rudolph... (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/scavenging-energy-waste-to-turn-water-into-hydrogen-fuel.html Materials scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have designed a way to harvest small amounts of waste energy and harness them to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel. The process is simple, efficient and recycles otherwise-wasted energy into a useable form... The researchers, led by UW-Madison geologist and crystal specialist Huifang Xu, grew nanocrystals of two common crystals, zinc o... (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/exelon-to-pay-million-to-settle-suits-over-leaks-at-power-plants.html Exelon agreed Thursday to pay more than $1 million to settle lawsuits filed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan after the company allowed radioactive tritium to leak outside three of its nuclear power plants... "It is imperative that Illinois' nuclear power plants are operated in a manner that does not endanger public health or the environment," Madigan said in a statement. Tritium, the radioactive form of hydrogen, is found naturally in groundwater but is also one of the byproducts of nuclear energy production. Exposure can increase the risk of cancer, though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers it one of the least dangerous radioactive substances, in part because it leaves the body quickly. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/americans-more-confused-about-climate-than-ever.html How effective has the resurgence of the climate denial machine been? Look no farther than the latest Gallup poll on American attitudes on global warming, which found significant declines in public concern about the topic. Forty-eight percent of Americans now believe that the "seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated," up from 41 percent last year and 31 percent in 1997. "[T]he percentage of Americans who now say reports of global warming are generally exaggerated is by a significant margin the highest such reading in the 13-year history of asking the question," Gallup notes. The majority of Americans still believe that global warming is happening, and 53 percent say the effects of the problem have already begun or will do so in a few years. But the number of people who think climate change is caused by human activity has dropped - from 61 percent in 2003 to 50 percent today. The percentage of people who believe that global warming is "going to affect them or their way of life in their lifetimes" has dropped to 32 percent, down from 40 percent in 2008. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/sea-spray-detected-miles-inland.html Sea spray has been detected in the middle of the United States, some 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) from any ocean, a new study says. Scientists discovered chlorine -- "a key element in sodium chloride, or the type of salt found in seawater -- "in Boulder, Colorado's (see map) mountain air. Boulder's sea spray is too sparse to taste or even smell. But it's still much more abundant than previously thought "and it may be contributing to air pollution, said study team member Joel Thornton, an atmospheric chemist at Seattle's University of Washington. "We discovered chlorine chemistry happening in a region that we didn't expect it to be happening," Thornton said. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/us-coal-town-above-mine-fire-claims-massive-fraud.html Residents of a coal mining town in the state of Pennsylvania have long believed the government's demolition of it was part of a plot to swipe the mineral rights to anthracite coal worth hundreds of millions of dollars - and not, as officials said, the solution to an out-of-control underground mine fire that menaced the town with toxic gases. Centralia was all but wiped off the map as the slow-burning mine fire that began in 1962 at the town dump spread to the network of mines beneath the town, threatening residents with poisonous gases and dangerous sinkholes. A $42 million government relocation program was largely completed by 1993, when officials forced dozens of holdouts to leave. Now, in a last-ditch effort to save their homes from the wrecking ball, the few holdouts who remain in the Pennsylvania town are taking their claims of a conspiracy to court. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/massive-water-crisis-looming-gwynne-dyer-speaks-in-city.html Dyer presented a multitude of "frightening scenarios" which could occur in the next 20-25 years and he did not spare Canada. He said our country could be confronted with a "desperate" United States if the lower states -- vulnerable to severe droughts -- run short of water. "Should we make a (water-supply) deal on our terms before (the U.S. is forced to divert Great Lakes water unilaterally)?" Dyer said... "You could see the methane gas bubbling up through the melt," Dyer said, recalling eye-witness accounts near Yellowknife, N.W.T. "The kids get kitchen matches, find the melt ponds and set them on fire -- they burn all summer."... "They're drawing up scenarios where armed forced have an enormous role in taking on emerging threats," Dyer said, explaining that water shortages will ignite international tensions. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/niger-southern-villages-emptying-as-drought-bites.html "Empty" increasingly describes villages around the southern Niger town of Tanout in Zinder Region: Water wells and pastures, fields and food banks - and slowly - entire villages, are emptying.... Insufficient rains nationwide led to a 31 percent slump in crop production compared to last year - 410,000 tons less - according to the government's latest estimates.... The government has estimated that poor rains have forced some two million people to finish off their food reserves seven months before the next harvest. Another five million may soon follow. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/new-approach-to-farming-could-help-solve-climate-economic-crises.html Discussions of climate change keep running head-long into a barrier: China, India, Brazil and the other countries of the global South need to develop. No leader of an underdeveloped country will ever agree to a climate change proposal that will take away that country's right to develop.... Meanwhile, first-world leaders, mired in economic crisis, can't make the long-run infrastructural investments that would enable them to take the technological lead in a low-carbon transformation -- let alone make the technology transfers or capital grants that are a moral and political imperative. But there's a partial way out of the crisis, or what the New Economics Foundation (NEF) has christened the "triple crunch," the intertwined crisis of climate crisis, systemic economic malaise, and oil depletion. The NEF argues that we need a new Green New Deal, culminating in a "great transition" to a new way of structuring production and consumption so as to re-create an ecology in homeostasis -- a sustainable economy, one that doesn't draw down impossible-to-renew natural resources. Food and agriculture will be central to such a transition... (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/seal-pups-beached-lack-of-sea-ice-off-newfoundland.html An exceptional lack of sea ice on the Gulf of St. Lawrence this winter has left seal mothers with few places to bear their young or to feed their pups. The conditions have led to numerous sightings of fuzzy, days-old critters wallowing on beaches, where many will die. Some of those seals are being born on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula.... But Mike Hammill doesn't believe the added deaths would have a major impact on the Eastern Canada seal populations, which number about seven million in total. An Environment Canada ice forecaster recently said the sea-ice levels recorded in the Gulf this winter are about as low as any readings since the 1960s. Earlier this week, Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said poor ice conditions may cause the cancellation of this year's Gulf of St. Lawrence seal hunt. It usually begins at the end of March. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/world-crude-oil-production-may-peak-a-decade-earlier-than-some-predict.html In a finding that may speed efforts to conserve oil and intensify the search for alternative fuel sources, scientists in Kuwait predict that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014 -- almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. Their study is in ACS' Energy and Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.... The new study describe development of a new version of the Hubbert model that acc... (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/health-and-life-insurers-grapple-with-climate-effects.html Biting bugs are buzzing northward and asthma has spread like a dust cloud, but there are deep divisions about how concerned health and life insurers should be about disease and death caused by climate change. So far, this corner of the massive industry has remained in the background of its climate debate, letting its counterparts who specialize in property losses worry in public forums about potential risks from rising sea levels and more powerful storms. But there can be storms inside the human body, as well, scientists say, pointing to increases in malaria, heat waves, lung illnesses and other diseases spread by insects that are expanding into new territory as temperate climates experience warmer winters (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/quot-famine-marriages-quot-just-one-byproduct-of-climate-change.html The negative fallout from climate change is having a devastatingly lopsided impact on women compared to men, from higher death rates during natural disasters to heavier household and care burdens. In the 1991 cyclone disasters that killed 140,000 in Bangladesh, 90 percent of victims were reportedly women; in the 2004 Asian Tsunami, an estimated 70 to 80 percent of overall deaths were women. And following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the United States, African-American women, who were the poorest population in some of the affected States in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, faced the greatest obstacles to survival, according to the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO)...women are particularly affected by climate change because they are the largest percentage -- accounting for about 70 percent -- of the poor population. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/pcbs-alter-key-brain-chemical-that-stops-nerve-to-nerve-signals.html Certain types of PCBs can affect the way a brain chemical responsible for halting brain signals sends its chemical messages from nerve to nerve, according to research conducted on frog egg cells. These results further tease apart PCBs' complex effects on brain chemicals and better explain how these interactions can result in abnormal brain function. PCBs are known to affect behavior, memory and learning in animals and people. Exactly how they do this still eludes researchers, although the persistent contaminants have been shown to affect several key cell chemical pathways that are essential for normal brain activity. Prior studies have focused on how PCBs interfere with the brain chemicals that allow the brain's nerve cells -- called neurons -- to communicate. Yet, little is known about how PCBs impact the opposing -- yet equally important -- chemical signals that inhibit and stop nerve messages from crossing the gaps -- or synapses -- between nerve endings. This study from the Netherlands finds that some types of PCBs can affect the main inhibitory neurochemical GABA. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/the-rosenfeld-unit-of-savings-named-after-california-s-godfather-of-energy-efficiency.html "In keeping with the tradition among scientists of naming units in honor of the person most responsible for the discovery and widespread adoption of the underlying scientific principle in question," a group of scientists propose today in a refereed article in Environmental Research Letters to define the Rosenfeld as electricity savings of 3 billion kilowatt-hours per year, the amount ... (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/pandemic-architecture-designers-tackle-the-coming-apocalypse.html We live in terrifying times: Pandemics ranging from bird flu to swine flu regularly threaten to kill millions. Can architecture deal with those problems? Today, New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture is opening a new exhibition, "Landscapes of Quarantine," that explores that question -- It's a delicious exercise in paranoia, blending design and Outbreak-style sci-fi. The show, which runs through April 17, is comprised of 11 projects by artists, architects, and writers. Each was created during a two month studio course led by Geoff Manaugh, the editor of BLDGBLOG, and Nicole Twiley, editor of Edible Geography. One project in particular gives you an idea of the scope and ambition of the exhibition: Architect David Garcia create an illustrated "map" of quarantine possibilities that visitors can take with them. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/humans-driving-extinction-faster-than-species-can-evolve-say-experts.html Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change. However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.... "Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable," said Stuart.... Stuart said it was possible that the dramatic predictions of experts like the renowned Harvard biologist E O Wilson, that the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate in two decades, could be correct. "All the evidence is he's right," said Stuart. "Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse. But we haven't measured extinction rates again since 2004 and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change." (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/global-warming-doubts-could-hamper-climate-legislation.html A recent poll suggests that high-profile controversies regarding climate science are weakening public confidence in the validity of global warming, And that could endanger congressional efforts to pass climate legislation. In 2008, 71 percent of respondents said they thought global warming was happening, while 10 percent thought it wasn't. This year, only 57 percent thought global warming was a reality, and the number of doubters increased to 20 percent, according to a poll conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "We've seen some pretty significant changes over the past year," says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change. "We found a very significant drop in the percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening, and a significant drop in those who think humans are responsible. Generally speaking, we've seen a drop in public concern about the issue." (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/world-s-pall-of-black-carbon-can-be-eased-with-new-stoves.html With a single, concerted initiative, says Lakshman Guruswami, the world could save millions of people in poor nations from respiratory ailments and early death, while dealing a big blow to global warming -- and all at a surprisingly small cost. "If we could supply cheap, clean-burning cook stoves to the large portion of the world that burns biomass," says Guruswami, a Sri Lankan-born professor of international law at the University of Colorado, "we could address a significant international public health problem, and at the same stroke cut a major source of warming."...Some scientists now estimate that small, solid particles of black carbon are responsible for about one-fifth of warming globally and, as such, are the second-largest contributor to climate change, after carbon dioxide gas. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/pack-ice-scarce-off-eastern-canada.html A Canadian Coast Guard official said Monday that many parts of the ocean near Newfoundland and Labrador are devoid of pack ice -- a condition that hasn't been seen in at least 40 years. "It's been an unusual year this year, to the point that there is no ice. There have been high temperatures, high winds, and as a result we have very little ice," said Dan Frampton, the Coast Guard's supervisor of ice operations. "By this time of year, pack ice is usually down to the St. John's area." Frampton said icebreakers have been idle because there's no pack ice in the Strait of Belle Isle between Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula and southern Labrador, as well as in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or further north off central Labrador. It could be a problem for harp seals that give birth to pups on the ice. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence their population can swell to a million but with next to no ice this year only 500 seals have been counted so far. "Yes, there's only water around the island. There's no ice at all around the island. There's no ice at all," said veteran mariner Jean-Claude Lapierre. "I'm 69 years old and I never saw that before. I talked to the older people and it's the first time they saw that." (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/growing-low-oxygen-zones-in-oceans-worry-scientists.html In some spots off Washington state and Oregon, the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of potentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions.... "The depletion of oxygen levels in all three oceans is striking," said Gregory Johnson, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. In some spots, such as off the Southern California coast, oxygen levels have dropped roughly 20 percent over the past 25 years. Elsewhere, scientists say, oxygen levels might have declined by one-third over 50 years. "The real surprise is how this has become the new norm," said Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University. "We are seeing it year after year." (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/ge-limit-pcb-contamination-during-hudson-dredging.html General Electric Co. on Monday proposed a halting further dredging of the Hudson River if PCBs churned up by the work spread too much pollution downriver during the second phase of an ongoing cleanup. GE made the proposal as the company and the federal Environmental Protection Agency were set to release separate reports assessing the dredging in 2009 of PCB "hot spots" north of Albany. The EPA had yet to release its report Monday afternoon, but the agency has been much more upbeat in its assessments of the dredging than GE, which is paying for the cleanup.... Crews working the river last summer found contamination of the river bed was deeper than expected and the work took longer. GE said PCBs kicked up into the water during dredging presented a serious problem. So the company proposed setting a "hard cap" on the amount of PCBs that would be allowed to flow downstream during Phase 2. Crews would start by targeting the contaminated areas that otherwise would be most likely to pollute fish downriver. "(T)o send more PCBs downriver than would happen without dredging eliminates the benefits of the remedy identified by EPA," the GE report said.... PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are considered probable carcinogens. GE plants in Fort Edward and neighboring Hudson Falls discharged wastewater containing PCBs for decades before the lubricant and coolant was banned in 1977. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/orcas-have-nd-biggest-brains-of-all-marine-mammals.html Neuroscientist Lori Marino and a team of researchers explored the brain of a dead killer whale with an MRI and found an astounding potential for intelligence.... It's not clear whether they are as well-endowed with memory cells as humans, but scientists have found they are amazingly well-wired for sensing and analyzing their watery, three-dimensional environment. Scientists are trying to better understand how killer whales are able to learn local dialects, teach one another specialized methods of hunting and pass on behaviors that can persist for generations -- longer possibly than seen with any other species except humans.... These researchers have yet to find evidence that an orca in the wild has ever killed a person.... They swim the world's oceans -- they are more widely distributed than any whale, dolphin or porpoise -- in at least three distinct populations. There are fish-eating orcas that stay in one area, flesh-eaters that wander more widely along coasts, and a third group that roams the deep-blue waters. The three groups have starkly different diets, languages, hunting techniques and manners of behaving around other marine life, and they don't seem to interact much with one another.... Hal Whitehead, a biology professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, awakened the world of cetacean research in 2001 when he co-authored a controversial paper that suggested no species other than humans are as "cultural" as orcas. "Culture is about learning from others," Whitehead said. "A cultural species starts behaving differently than a species where everything is determined genetically." (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/ibm-stanford-cite-advance-in-plastic-recycling.html When you recycle a plastic bottle, it doesn't necessarily become another plastic bottle. Because of limitations in recycling technology, a common type of plastic used in water bottles and food containers weakens so much when it's recycled that it can't be used again for the same purpose. Some small amount of the plastic might make it into another bottle, but more often than not, it instead becomes synthetic carpet or clothing and can't easily be recycled a second time. So when those products are used up, they end up in landfills. Researchers from IBM Corp. and Stanford University believe they have developed a way to significantly improve the quality of recycled plastic and strip away those limitations.... The innovation is a new family of catalysts that can reduce polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic to its basic building blocks, while retaining its original properties and making it "ridiculously economical" to build it back up again, said Bob Allen, senior manager of chemistry and functional materials for IBM's Almaden research center in Silicon Valley. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/edinburgh-is-first-uk-city-to-launch-bt-carbon-club-initiative-to-tackle-climate-change.html A network of carbon clubs could be launched across Edinburgh to enlist citizens in the battle to save energy and tackle climate change. The City of Edinburgh Council is the first local authority in the UK to adopt an innovative carbon club scheme pioneered by BT.... BT has created a web site where council employees can form their own clubs and will manage the site during the pilot. Club members can access a library of information and energy savings tips, build their own micro-sites and pledge to undertake actions that will reduce their impact on the environment.... BT's carbon club initiative was launched in June 2007 as a way to bring people together to work on carbon reduction initiatives. The company now has more than 130 clubs in operation and more than 14,000 pledges have been made. The clubs are involved in an array of initiatives, from recycling and saving money through greener living to running a light bulb library and smart meter lending service, working with wildlife and community groups and providing electric scooters for use at one of its larger sites. (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/the-apocadocs-seek-new-title-for-their-book.html In response to a number of complaints, the ApocaDocs may be forced to retitle their short free book Converging Emergencies: 2010-2020. "I was planning for it to be a big downer, but then I found jokes mixed in with the facts," grumped one respondent. Snarled another: "Why didn't you warn me? I spat coffee all over my laptop!" Consequently, 'Docs Jim and Michael are seeking suggestions for "funnifying the title," as a means of warning, by the title alone, that humor lurks within the book. Requirements are a) 'Converging' and/or 'Emergencies' be in the subtitle at least; b) it must be in good taste; c) it must be funny. Please use the "quip-o-matic" device below to make suggestions! (Punchline and user comments available on site) http://www.apocadocs.com/docs/2010/mar/pakistan-wheat-rust-threat-rising.html Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country's highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security problem. "There is a real possibility that winds could move the pathogen directly into southern Pakistan from Yemen or even the Horn of Africa. Realistically, I believe it is only a matter of time before Ug99 or variants appear in Pakistan," said David Hodson of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme. (Punchline and user comments available on site)