Apocadocuments, for the week of

[About the Project]
[About the ApocaDocs]
[About Equal Share]
[TwitterFollow: apocadocs]

Explore:

Play:

It's weekly, funny, and free!

Play:

Click for paper-free fun!

	Ads for potentially microfunding this site:

What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from

View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:	(7)
Plague/Virus:	(1)
Climate Chaos:	(8)
Resource Depletion:	(4)
Biology Breach:	(12)
Recovery:	(10)

This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
climate impacts ~ global warming ~ contamination ~ water issues ~ unintended consequences ~ faster than expected ~ ecosystem interrelationships ~ arctic meltdown ~ stupid humans ~ renewable energy ~ overfishing

ApocaDocuments (42) gathered this week:
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from New Scientist: Burp of Arctic laughing gas is no joke It seems the Arctic['s melting permafrost] is belching out nitrous oxide -- commonly known as laughing gas. Unfortunately, the punchline is that it is a powerful greenhouse gas. Previously, emissions of N2O were thought to enter the atmosphere mainly from tropical forests and intensively managed farmland, with only a negligible amount from northerly environments.... Although this means N2O remains a small contributor to the greenhouse effect, compared with methane and carbon dioxide, the gas persists unaltered in the atmosphere for over 110 years, compared with around 10 years for methane -- which is also periodically released by the tundra. ...	Yo! Permafrost! We're doing the punchlines around here! ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from Stanford University, via EurekAlert: When fish farms are built along the coast, where does the waste go? All those fish penned up together consume massive amounts of commercial feed, some of which drifts off uneaten in the currents. And the crowded fish, naturally, defecate and urinate by the tens of thousands, creating yet another unpleasant waste stream. The wastes can carry disease, causing damage directly. Or the phosphate and nitrates in the mix may feed an algae bloom that sucks the oxygen from the water, leaving it uninhabitable, a phenomenon long associated with fertilizer runoff. It has been widely assumed that the effluent from pens would be benignly diluted by the sea if the pens were kept a reasonable distance from shore, said Jeffrey Koseff, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-director of Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. But early results from a new Stanford computer simulation based on sophisticated fluid dynamics show that the icky stuff from the pens will travel farther, and in higher concentrations, than had been generally assumed, Koseff said. ...	"It has been widely assumed" that such assumptions are asstupid. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: 'Crazy ideas' to fight global warming revealed by scientists The science known as "geo-engineering" is considered dangerous by some for interfering with the world's delicate ecosystems, however advocates claim that it could "save the world" from catastrophic global warming.... However Robin Webster of Friends of the Earth said it was dangerous to rely on untested science. "We cannot afford to close our eyes to new ideas but the fear is politicians see geo-engineering as the magic bullet that will get us out of trouble and take attention away from making difficult choices to cut carbon emissions now. We need to look at tried and tested technologies like renewables that work and can start reducing the threat climate change now." ...	"Wrapping" Greenland? Space-based "sun shield"? In the movies, "these are so crazy they just might work!" In reality, there's this thing called "the law of unintended consequences..." ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from BBC (UK): Global warming 'underestimated' The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned. Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted. Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had underestimated the rate of change. He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.... "We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously in climate policy," he said. ...	Underestimated?! Even by the ApocaDocs? ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from Washington University, via Eurek: Biologist discusses sacred nature of sustainability Like all religious traditions, religious naturalism is anchored in a cosmological narrative, a set of stories accounting how the earth and its inhabitants came to be. While conventional religions are generally based on older cosmological narratives such as those found in the Old and New Testaments, religious naturalism is based on a much more recent narrative.... She explains, "In more and more mainstream religions, you're seeing an increased emphasis on the earth and its creatures as sacred." This paradigm shift is due, at least in part, to a growing awareness that the old stories might not be sufficient to frame an ethic that alters the environment's current trajectory. She suggests that the new story offers a basis for understanding what a sustainable trajectory might look like. ...	Sustainability by any other name ["Creation Care," "ecomorality," "common sense"] still smells like sweet survival. ApocaDoc permalink
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 from Desdemona Despair: Greenland fishing villages abandoned as fish are driven to colder water Coastal fishing villages such as Ikateq used to be home to families who relied on regular catches of Arctic char, a fish closely related to salmon. But warmer ocean temperatures in recent years have forced the char to migrate north to cooler waters, ending a way of life. Traditional villages are now ghost towns, with dogsleds and fish-drying racks lying unused outside abandoned houses. With no way to support themselves, villagers have been forced to move to urban centres the largest city and capital, Nuuk, has a population of about 15,000. Ms Smirk says most of the displaced have no other way to earn a living and rely on social welfare. ...	The folks in Newfoundland learned these lessons after the Atlantic Cod were wiped out by overfishing, twenty years ago. Do we need a Northern Union of Concerned Humans, or something? ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from Wall Street Journal: Shrinking Water Supplies Imperil Farmers The state's water supply has dropped precipitously of late. California is locked in the third year of one of its worst droughts on record, with reservoirs holding as little as 22 percent of capacity.... At the Harris Farms near Coalinga, managers said they plan this year to sideline 9,000 of 11,000 acres they used to plant with tomatoes, onions, broccoli and other vegetables. Harris has been reducing production for two years because of declining water, and now must cut even more than planned. "You feel like a general in a battle," said John Harris, chairman and chief executive of the business. "You're in constant retreat."... In the Modesto metropolitan area, housing prices have declined 55 percent... ...	"Constant retreat" may be the new refrain in the war on nature. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from Contra Costa Times: Newest Delta victims: Killer whales California's thirst is helping drive an endangered population of West Coast killer whales toward extinction, federal biologists have concluded. The southern resident killer whale population, which numbers 83, spends much of its time in Puget Sound but since 2000 many of them have been spotted off the California coast as far south as Monterey Bay. In a draft scientific report, biologists conclude the damage that water operations are doing to California's salmon populations is enough to threaten the orcas' existence because the water mammals depend on salmon for food. Federal officials confirmed the conclusions of the report to MediaNews on Friday; the data have not been released.... The findings, contained in a draft report by the agency's scientists, could elevate public support for environmental protection in the Delta, where the conflict between environmental advocates and water users has centered on Delta smelt, a nondescript fish that grows a couple of inches long and smells like cucumbers. "People have a hard time looking at the Delta smelt for its own sake," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "If it's Shamu, that's a different thing." ...	If only, say, Angelina Jolie was threatened, we could really "elevate public support"! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from Reuters: Sea sponge shows promise as superbug antidote CHICAGO (Reuters) -- A compound from a sea sponge was able to reverse antibiotic resistance in several strains of bacteria, making once-resistant strains succumb to readily available antibiotics, U.S. researchers said on Friday. "We can resensitize these pathogenic bacteria to standard, current-generation antibiotics," said Peter Moeller of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina. Drug-resistant bacteria are a growing problem in hospitals worldwide, marked by the rise of superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA. Such infections kill about 19,000 people a year in the United States. Moeller, who is working with researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and North Carolina State University, said the team noticed a sponge thriving in what was an otherwise dead coral reef. "It begged the question how is it surviving when everything else is dying?" Moeller told reporters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. "This opened up a whole new arena for us." The researchers began chopping the sponge into smaller and smaller bits to isolate the properties that helped the sponge thrive in hostile marine conditions. The team found that these bits of sponge were able to repel bacterial biofilms -- a slimy substance bacteria form to help stick to surfaces. ...	Sponges able to repel...? Now that's deep! ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from The Economist: Drought in northern China ...After 100 days without precipitation in the region, the government has declared a "Level 1" emergency for the worst drought in 50 years, authorising an extra 300m yuan ($44m) in special drought-relief spending. It will finance everything from cloud-seeding rockets to the digging of new wells and tankers to deliver water. This year's winter-wheat harvest is at risk. February 8th saw some rain, but only 5-10 millimetres, compared with 200mm farmers say they need in coming months. The drought comes at a difficult moment. The global downturn has hit China's exporters hard, and millions of rural migrants have lost their jobs in coastal factories and returned to their villages....China's water woes will only worsen, especially for farmers. When supplies tighten, urban and industrial users usually have priority. Ma Jun, a water specialist in Beijing, says that since the 1950s China has been digging ever deeper wells, and building ever more dams, canals, and water diversion projects. But all this has taken a toll. Because of lower water-tables and depleted aquifers, many rivers can no longer replenish themselves in the dry season. ...	My tung is so dry. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from London Independent: Toxic waste blamed for birth defects Families of children born fingerless or with webbed hands and feet are to go to court on Monday to try to secure a multimillion-pound payout for birth defects which they claim were caused by a council's mismanagement of toxic waste dumps. The case is being compared to the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s and 1970s, when parents brought claims arising from their children's severe birth defects caused by having taken the drug for morning sickness. In the new case, mothers allege that during their pregnancies in the 1980s and 1990s they were exposed to contamination from waste sites left over from the clean-up of Northamptonshire's former steel industry based in Corby. Toxicology and medical experts have told the families that the rate of upper and lower-limb abnormality in Corby is 10 times higher than the national average. Des Collins, the solicitor running the case, said he had medical evidence that would prove the children's deformities are linked to the toxic waste dumps left by the former steel industry. He said: "We have now got medical reports that rule out alternative explanations for what caused the limb deformities in these children." ...	The children are our (deformed) future. ApocaDoc permalink
Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from Portland Oregonian: Climate change threatens 'rock rabbits,' environmentalists say The tiny American pika, the "boulder bunny" that chirps at hikers high in the Western mountain ranges, may join the polar bear as a victim of climate change. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide by May whether to protect the pika under the federal Endangered Species Act in a court settlement reached today in San Francisco. Environmentalists say the animal is threatened by habitat loss due to global warming. More than one-third of the pika population has vanished in Oregon, where it lives high in the Cascades and Eastern Oregon mountains. The Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice sued the government in August, saying it was dragging its heels in providing protection for the pika. The polar bear was placed last year on the endangered species list because its habitat is under assault by warming temperatures. ...	Who was the bunny's lawyer, Harvey? ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 from London Times: Penguins in peril as food search turns into marathon Penguins from the largest colony on mainland South America are being forced to swim the equivalent of two marathons farther to find food because of the effects of climate change. The survival of the Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo, on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, is being threatened by the increasing distances the birds must travel to feed themselves and their chicks, research has shown. Dee Boersma, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said that Punta Tombo penguins were now routinely swimming 25 miles farther on their foraging expeditions than they did a decade ago... The longer foraging trips have contributed to the colony's decline: penguin numbers have fallen by more than 20 per cent in the past 22 years, leaving only 200,000 breeding pairs today. ...	Desperate feet ApocaDoc permalink
Want more context? Try reading our book FREE online: Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 from Seattle Post-Intelligencer: State not ready for 'climate refugees' "Climate refugees." It's a term we should get used to, researchers warned on Thursday, predicting a flood of new residents driven north by heat waves, fires and other calamitous effects of global warming. With one speaker raising the specter of a new migration on the scale of the Great Depression, state and county officials admitted they have barely started getting ready. The warnings came at a conference of planners, scientists and government officials drilling into the results of a study released this week examining what Washington faces -- for our food supply, our forests, our drinking-water supplies and public health, among other fronts -- as the globe warms in coming decades. "We're going to have an influx of climate refugees," said Richard Hoskins, an epidemiologist with the Washington Health Department. "This is going to have a tremendous impact on our public health (system). Local public health has a very full plate as it is." ...	Smart states... will start marketing themselves now as environmental refugee destinations. ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 from BBC: Bleak forecast on fishery stocks The world's fish stocks will soon suffer major upheaval due to climate change, scientists have warned. Changing ocean temperatures and currents will force thousands of species to migrate polewards, including cod, herring, plaice and prawns. By 2050, US fishermen may see a 50 percent reduction in Atlantic cod populations.... "The impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and fisheries is going to be huge," said lead author Dr William Cheung, of the University of East Anglia in the UK. "We must act now to adapt our fisheries management and conservation policies to minimise harm to marine life and to our society." ...	The fish have ... gone fishin'... ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 from Forbes: Secondhand Smoke Linked to Dementia People exposed to secondhand smoke may face as much as a 44 percent increased risk of developing dementia, a new study suggests. While previous research has established a connection between smoking and increased risk for dementia and Alzheimer's disease, this new study is the largest review to date showing a link between secondhand smoke and the threat of dementia, the authors said. "There is an association between cognitive function, which is often but not necessarily a precursor of dementia, and exposure to passive smoking," said lead researcher Iain Lang, a research fellow in the Public Health and Epidemiology Group at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, England. What's more, Lang said, the risk of impaired cognitive function increases with the amount of exposure to secondhand smoke, the findings suggest. "For people at the highest levels of exposure, the risk is probably higher," he said. ...	Your cigarette smoke is driving me nuts! ApocaDoc permalink
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 from Latin America Press: Farming chemicals cause kidney failure More than 3,000 workers at a sugar plant owned by Nicaragua's most powerful company have died from chronic renal failure since 1990 and a victims' group says another 5,000 workers have since developed the condition for the company's use of agrochemicals. The San Antonio Refinery is owned by the Nicaragua Sugar Estates Limited, a part of Grupo Pellas, which produces Flor de Cana rum as well as ethanol and runs an electricity generator in Chichigalpa in the northern Le�n department... Grupo Pellas denies any wrongdoing, accuses the sick workers of being alcoholics or drug addicts, and says that the illness is provoked by other causes. But a 2006 study by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, cited by Artoni, found that 95 percent of the 26 wells that serve the northwest of the country and close to 96 percent of the small family-only use wells are contaminated with feces, herbicides, bacteria and agrochemicals. According to a recent investigation by the university, there is a possible cause-effect relation between the laborers' work and kidney failure. Dr. Cecilia Torres, an occupational health researcher at the university told the Latin American Regional Office of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations that environmental neurotoxins, such as heavy metals -- arsenic, cadmium and lead -- and agrochemicals such as aldrin, chlorothalonil, maneb, copper sulfate, endrin and Nemagon, are major causes of chronic kidney failure in Nicaragua. ...	Maybe they're "alcoholics and drug addicts" because their kidneys are failing! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 from New York Times: Big Science Role Is Seen in Global Warming Cure WASHINGTON -- Steven Chu, the new secretary of energy, said Wednesday that solving the world�s energy and environment problems would require Nobel-level breakthroughs in three areas: electric batteries, solar power and the development of new crops that can be turned into fuel....Dr. Chu said a "revolution" in science and technology would be required if the world is to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and curb the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. Solar technology, he said, will have to get five times better than it is today, and scientists will need to find new types of plants that require little energy to grow and that can be converted to clean and cheap alternatives to fossil fuels. ...	Big science... hallelujah! ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 from Reuters: U.S. and Russia track satellite crash debris Space officials in Russia and the United States were on Thursday tracking hundreds of pieces of debris that were spewed into space when a U.S. satellite collided with a defunct Russian military satellite. The crash, which Russian officials said took place on Tuesday at about 1700 GMT (12:00 p.m. EST) above northern Siberia, is the first publicly known satellite collision and has raised concerns about the safety of the manned International Space Station. The collision happened in an orbit heavily used by satellites and other spacecraft and the U.S. Strategic Command, the arm of the Pentagon that handles space, said countries might have to maneuver their craft to avoid the debris. "The collision of these two space apparatuses happened by chance and these two apparatuses have been destroyed," Major-General Alexander Yakushin, first deputy commander of Russia's Space Forces, told Reuters. "The fragments pose no danger whatsoever to Russian space objects," he said. When asked if the debris posed a danger to other nations' space craft, he said: "As for foreign ones, it is not for me say as it is not in my competency." ...	Whoa, dude... this is soooooooo totally cosmic. ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 from Christian Science Monitor: On 'Darwin Day,' many Americans beg to differ ...In the US, though, Darwin remains a controversial figure. Two centuries after the famed naturalist's birth, more than 40 percent of Americans believe human beings were created by God in their present form, according to recent polls from Gallup and the Pew Research Center � a view impossible to reconcile with evolution propelled by natural selection. Such creationist beliefs lack scientific merit, educators say, and in classrooms evolution reigns supreme. Opponents have tried an array of challenges over the decades, and the latest tactic recently scored its first major victory. It's a tack that is changing the way the cultural battle over evolution is fought. In June of last year, Louisiana became the first state to pass what has become known as an "academic freedom" law. In the past, fights over evolution took place at the local school board level, but academic freedom proponents specifically target state legislatures. Such laws back away from outright calls for alternative theories to evolution, electing instead to legislate support for teachers who discuss the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of issues such as evolution in the name of protecting the freedom of speech of instructors and students alike. ...	"Academic freedom"... to make shit up? ApocaDoc permalink
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 from Associated Press: Africanized bees found in Utah for the first time Africanized honey bees have been found for the first time in the Beehive State. The bees, long the subject of lore as "killer bees," were recently discovered in Utah's Washington and Kane counties, the state Department of Agriculture said Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that seven hives � three in the wild and four managed by private beekeepers � contained Africanized bees. The hives have since been destroyed. The bees in Utah do not appear to be widespread and no injuries to people or animals have been reported. State and local officials have been anticipating the bees' arrival since they showed up in Mesquite, Nev., in 1999, just a few miles from the Utah line. ...	Can't you just hear the drums building in the background? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from New Scientist: Eating less meat could cut climate costs Cutting back on beefburgers and bacon could wipe $20 trillion off the cost of fighting climate change. That's the dramatic conclusion of a study that totted up the economic costs of modern meat-heavy diets. The researchers involved say that reducing our intake of beef and pork would lead to the creation of a huge new carbon sink, as vegetation would thrive on unused farmland. The model takes into account farmland that is used to grow extra food to make up for the lost meat, but that requires less area, so some will be abandoned. Millions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, would also be saved every year due to reduced emissions from farms. These impacts would lessen the need for expensive carbon-saving technologies, such as "clean coal" power plants, and so save huge sums, say Elke Stehfest of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and colleagues. ...	Have it your way. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from Reuters: Can algae save the world - again? Can algae save the world again? The microscopic green plants cleaned up the earth's atmosphere millions of years ago and scientists hope they can do it now by helping remove greenhouse gases and create new oil reserves. In the distant past, algae helped turn the earth's then inhospitable atmosphere into one that could support modern life through photosynthesis, which plants use to turn carbon dioxide and sunlight into sugars and oxygen. Some of the algae sank to sea or lake beds and slowly became oil. "All we're doing is turning the clock back," says Steve Skill, a biochemist at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. "Nature has done this many millions of years ago in producing the crude oil we're burning today. So as far as nature is concerned this is nothing new," he said. The race is now on to find economic ways to turn algae, one of the planet's oldest life forms, into vegetable oil that can be made into biodiesel, jet fuel, other fuels and plastic products. ...	...(sigh) yeah they can do it... but they won't be happy about it! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from London Daily Telegraph: Scottish ski industry could disappear due to global warming, warns Met Office The country's five resorts are currently enjoying exceptional conditions after heavy snowfall in the Highlands, but climate change may mean they have less than 50 years of ski-ing left. Alex Hill, chief government advisor with the Met Office, said the amount of snow in the Scottish mountains had been decreasing for the last 40 years and there was no reason for the decline to stop. He added: "Put it this way, I will not be investing in the ski-ing industry. Will there be a ski industry in Scotland in 50 years' time? Very unlikely." ...	Hell, my knees'll be gone by then anyway. ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from New Scientist: New antibiotics would silence bugs, not kill them In future, the most effective antibiotics might be those that don't kill any bacteria. Instead the drugs will simply prevent the bacteria from talking with one another. Drug-resistant bugs are winning the war against standard antibiotics as they evolve resistance to even the most lethal drugs. It happens because a dose of antibiotics strongly selects for resistance by killing the most susceptible bacteria first. If, however, researchers can identify antibiotics that neutralise dangerous bacteria without killing them, the pressure to evolve resistance can be reduced. One way to do that is to target the constant stream of chatter that passes between bacteria as molecular signals.... Individual bacteria monitor the concentration of signalling molecules, and when it reaches a certain level, change their behaviour. That concentration provides a rough indication of when the number of cells in a particular population has reached a certain critical mass - known as a quorum. When a quorum is reached, pathogenic bacteria shift from a benign state and begin attacking the host by secreting toxins. ...	Say what???? ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from Associated Press: Salazar rejects Bush drilling plan WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has rejected a Bush administration plan to open vast waters off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and gas drilling, promising "a new way forward" in offshore energy development including new wind projects. Salazar at a news conference Tuesday criticized "the midnight timetable" for new oil and gas development on the country's Outer Continental Shelf proposed by the Bush administration four days before President Barack Obama took office Jan. 20. The secretary said the previous administration's plan did not take into consideration the views of states and coastal communities, nor a need to better understand what energy resources are at stake, especially off the Atlantic coast where oil and gas estimates are more than three decades old. "We need to ... restore an orderly process to our offshore energy planning program," declared Salazar, criticizing "foot dragging" by the Bush administration in pushing for renewable energy development in coastal waters.Salazar did not rule out expanded offshore drilling, but criticized "the enormous sweep" of the Bush proposal, which envisioned energy development from New England to Alaska including lease sales in areas off California and in the North Atlantic that have been off-limits for a quarter century. ...	Guess we're not gonna drill baby drill after all... ApocaDoc permalink
You're still reading! Good for you! You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy): Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day! Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from Wilmington News Journal: DuPont gets more time to test PFOA DuPont Co. has been given a last-minute pass on a federal deadline to complete testing on products thought to be a source of a controversial chemical in the environment. The Environmental Appeals Board has given the company another three years to finish the testing, the second federal action taken in the waning days of the Bush administration on perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a DuPont-made chemical used in Teflon and other products. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency also set provisional guidelines on drinking-water exposure to PFOA at a level that was more lax than state guidelines in New Jersey and elsewhere. "There's no science supporting either of these decisions. They're purely political gifts from the Bush administration," said Richard Wiles, executive director of Environmental Working Group, one of the first groups to sound the alarm on PFOA. Growing evidence of the chemical's harmful health effects calls for a sharper response from the federal government, Wiles said. ...	We should know by now: Most Acronyms are Bad for You (MABY)! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from Minneapolis Star Tribune: Road salt spreading into our water Rain and melting snow in the Twin Cities have flushed away road salt residue from hundreds of streets and tens of thousands of cars. But that might not be a good thing. Now a University of Minnesota study estimates that 70 percent of the deicing salt used on metro-area roadways does not travel far when it drains off the pavement. It gushes into area wetlands and lakes and seeps into groundwater, and it is making them saltier with each successive year. About 30 percent goes to the Mississippi River. ...	And mixed w/ all the PCBs and pharmaceuticals... what a delightful elixir! ApocaDoc permalink
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from Vietnam.net: Urbanisation threatens food security Since 2001 the area under crops has dropped from more than 4.3 million ha to 4.13 million ha, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. In 2007 alone, the area under rice shrank by 125,000 ha, as authorities tried to restructure crop patterns and develop the services and industrial sectors and urban sprawl overran surrounding areas. Farmlands are forecast to continue shrinking as they are appropriated for non-agricultural purposes. ...	How long can that trend continue? Will farmers become the new dot.commers? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from NPR: Cholera Exhausts Zimbabwean Health Care System In December, the World Health Organization's worst-case scenario for Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak was that 60,000 people might become infected before the end of March. But already, nearly 70,000 cases of cholera have been reported. Despite the fact that cholera is relatively easy to treat and to prevent with basic hygiene and appropriate sanitation, more than 3,300 people have died of the disease since the outbreak began in August 2008, according to the WHO. A simple treatment of oral rehydration can save most lives, but health experts who have visited Zimbabwe recently say those measures simply aren't available because the economy is in meltdown. ...	Let's hope Zimbabwe shall overcome their problems. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from Associated Press: US relies on states for food safety inspections The U.S. government has increasingly relied on food-safety inspections performed by states, where budgets for inspections in many cases have remained stagnant and where overburdened officials are trained less than their federal counterparts and perform skimpier reviews, an Associated Press investigation has found. The thoroughness of inspections performed by states has emerged as a key issue in the investigation of the national salmonella outbreak traced to a peanut processing plant in Blakely, Ga. The outbreak, which has highlighted weaknesses in the nation's food-safety system, is blamed for 600 illnesses and at least eight deaths in 44 states.... State investigators performed more than half the Food and Drug Administration's food inspections in 2007, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. That represents a dramatic rise from a decade ago, when FDA investigators performed three out of four of the federal government's inspections. ...	We call this the New Fooderalism. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from Guardian (UK): Tories propose 'biocredits' to put cash value on damage to habitats and species Under radical new Conservative proposals to stop biodiversity loss in the UK, all would be given a cash value. The scheme is designed to halt the decline of hundreds of habitats and species by assigning a cost to be paid by proposed development schemes that would lead to their destruction. The damage done by a project would be given a cash value and developers asked to compensate for that damage by investing an equivalent amount in projects to protect or improve biodiversity at another location. The plan being put forward by the new Conservative shadow environment secretary, Nick Herbert, is modelled on similar "bio-credits" initiatives, including in the US, Malaysia and Australia, which have created markets in biodiversity worth tens of millions of pounds a year. ...	We need some science going on, to figure out what critters have value. Like, are humans really necessary to biodiversity? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from New York Times: Oil Contaminates Des Plaines River ROCKDALE, Ill. (AP)-- A holding tank at a Caterpillar facility in southwest suburban Chicago broke open early Sunday morning, spilling about 65,000 gallons of oil sludge and contaminating a three-mile section of the Des Plaines River, officials said. "It is being contained, and there is no evidence of a fish kill or harm to water fowl," Maggie Carson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, said by e-mail. ...	I don't see any evidence of harm to anything. ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from Stanford University, via EurekAlert: No joy in discoveries of new mammal species -- only a warning for humanity In the era of global warming, when many scientists say we are experiencing a human-caused mass extinction to rival the one that killed off the dinosaurs, one might think that the discovery of a host of new species would be cause for joy. Not entirely so, says Paul Ehrlich, co-author of an analysis of the 408 new mammalian species discovered since 1993. "What this paper really talks about is how little we actually know about our natural capital and how little we know about the services that flow from it," said Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford. "I think what most people miss is that the human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the economy of nature, which supplies us from our natural capital a steady flow of income that we can't do without," Ehrlich said. "And that income is in the form of what are called 'ecosystem services' -- keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, supplying fresh water, preventing floods, protecting our crops from pests and pollinating many of them, recycling the nutrients that are essential to agriculture and forestry, and on and on." ...	Another of those "we're all interconnected" messages. Didn't we already hear that once before? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from UC Berkeley, via EurekAlert: Scientists document salamander decline in Central America The decline of amphibian populations worldwide has been documented primarily in frogs, but salamander populations also appear to have plummeted, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. By comparing tropical salamander populations in Central America today with results of surveys conducted between 1969 and 1978, UC Berkeley researchers have found that populations of many of the commonest salamanders have steeply declined. On the flanks of the Tajumulco volcano on the west coast of Guatemala, for example, two of the three commonest species 40 years ago have disappeared, while the third was nearly impossible to find.... Frog declines have been attributed to a variety of causes, ranging from habitat destruction, pesticide use and introduced fish predators to the Chytrid fungus, which causes an often fatal disease, chytridiomycosis. These do not appear to be responsible for the decline of Central American salamanders, Wake said. Instead, because the missing salamanders tend to be those living in narrow altitude bands, Wake believes that global warming is pushing these salamanders to higher and less hospitable elevations. ...	Aren't salamanders those critters that can grow a new life, if the old one is bitten off? ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Cedarburg native wants to make it to both poles, Everest in one year Arctic explorer Eric Larsen, a Cedarburg native, intends to be the first person ever to reach the South and North poles and the summit of Mount Everest within one year. The three-legged expedition to what Larsen calls "the top, bottom and roof of the world" is scheduled to begin in November in Antarctica. Travel across the Arctic to the North Pole would come second, beginning in February 2010. The push to Everest's summit - the world's highest at 29,029 feet above sea level - might start in September 2010.... Larsen plans to reach the three destinations in quick succession to draw public attention to the impact of global warming on each of these remote places. The name of the proposed expedition: Save the Poles. ...	Mush, Eric, MUSH! ApocaDoc permalink
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 from Washington Post: Pride of Argentina Falls on Hard Times Argentina is suffering its worst drought in decades and the cattle are dying by the barnload. Since October, the drought has taken down 1.5 million of the animals, according to an estimate by the Argentine Rural Society, in a country that last year sent 13.5 million to slaughter. The cattle for the most part are dying of hunger, as the dry skies have shriveled up their pastures, along with huge swaths of Argentina's important soy, corn and wheat fields. "The drought has affected practically the entire country, the cattle-ranching sector, agriculture. It is the most intense, prolonged and expensive drought in the past 50 years," Hugo Luis Biolcati, the president of the Argentine Rural Society, said in the organization's offices in Buenos Aires. "I think we are facing a very bad year." The cattlemen at the century-old Liniers Market in Buenos Aires, one of the largest cow auctions in the world, with about 40,000 animals passing through each week, tend to agree. In wooden pens, spines and ribs jut out under the many taut hides jostling together. ...	Don't moo for me. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 9, 2009 from Agence France-Presse: Pollution preferable to unemployment for Romanian town COPSA MICA, Romania (AFP)-- For the residents of Copsa Mica, a tiny town in central Romania, the closure of its local smelting plant is a worse catastrophe than having a reputation as the most polluted place in Europe. "I know the plant was a threat to our health, but at least people had a job," said Diana Roman, a 22-year-old woman who sells potatoes and carrots on the market square of Copsa Mica, which has a population of 5,500 and is situated 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Bucharest. Roman's husband is one of the 820 workers being laid off -- out of a total workforce of 1,050 -- at the Sometra smelting plant, Copsa Mica's biggest employer... [Copsa Mica's mayor, Tudor] Mihalache acknowledged the heavy pollution caused by Sometra, making the air "unbreathable", despite investments to curb the emissions of sulphur dioxide and heavy metals such as lead, zinc and cadmium. ...	Maybe it's time to rename this town CORPSE Mica. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 9, 2009 from London Times: MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found. Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients' data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition. The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children's conditions.... Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper's impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92 percent to below 80 percent. ...	As punishment, Dr. Wakefield will be infected with measles, mumps and rubella. ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 9, 2009 from BusinessGreen: Emergency Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen to be held in March Climate change scientists are to hold an emergency summit in Copenhagen next month to collate the latest findings in climate science and step up pressure on the UN negotiating process to ensure any deal agreed later this year is informed by the scientific realities of global warming. The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change will run from 10-12 March and is being organised by the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), including the University of Copenhagen, Yale, UC Berkeley, Tokyo, Oxford and Cambridge. It will feature keynotes from IPCC Chairman Dr. RK Pachauri, Lord Nicholas Stern, and President of the European Commission Jose M. Barroso, as well as a raft of the world's top climate scientists and will address the extent to which a "technological fix" to climate change is now possible, the likely costs of inaction, and the scale of the global security threat climate change presents. In addition, the conference aims to "bridge the four year data gap left by the leading global scientific body on climate change -- the IPCC -- with its latest reports". ...	On the one hand, Great! Informed emergency measures are required. On the other, Gaah! It is that bad! ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 9, 2009 from Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader: As bat deaths rise, mosquito invasion looms Here's a prediction: We will see more mosquitoes this summer. Why? Because something is killing bats. Wiping out entire populations of the insect-eating mammals, and nobody knows why or how to stop it. Considering a single little brown bat can eat more than 2,000 mosquitoes in a night, and factoring in that bats in our area are starting to perish just like bats in New York and New England did, one of our top insect predators might be absent from the evening sky this summer. Last week the Pennsylvania Game Commission discovered dead bats in two mine sites in Lackawanna County.... Something is causing the thousands of bats to use up their winter energy reserves early. As a result, the bats are emerging from hibernation six weeks early and flying out of the mines in search of insects. The problem is there aren't any bugs in February, and the bats are literally starving to death in mid-air. ...	With their high-frequency screams sending out "eek eek eek ek ek ek eek eek eek" ... ApocaDoc permalink
Mon, Feb 9, 2009 from Times Online (UK): Polar ice caps melting faster THE ice caps are melting so fast that the world's oceans are rising more than twice as fast as they were in the 1970s, scientists have found. They have used satellites to track how the oceans are responding as billions of gallons of water reach them from melting ice sheets and glaciers. The effect is compounded by thermal expansion, in which water expands as it warms, according to the study by Anny Cazenave of the National Centre for Space Studies in France. These findings come at the same time as a warning from an American academic whose research suggests Labour's policies to cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050 are doomed. ...	Can't we just turn back the clock? ApocaDoc permalink