ApocaDocuments (12) matching "climate impacts" from this week
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Sun, Aug 9, 2009
from Associated Press:
Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat
The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometers) of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap... As of Thursday, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported, the polar ice cap extended over 2.61 million square miles (6.75 million square kilometers) after having shrunk an average 41,000 square miles (106,000 square kilometers) a day in July -- equivalent to one Indiana or three Belgiums daily.
The rate of melt was similar to that of July 2007, the year when the ice cap dwindled to a record low minimum extent of 1.7 million square miles (4.3 million square kilometers) in September. ...
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Can't we take some ice cubes up there?!?
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Sun, Aug 9, 2009
from Environmental Health News:
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria persist in chicken manure
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can persist in chicken manure that is intended for use as a fertilizer on farm fields.
Large piles of aging chicken manure to be used as fertilizer on farm crops can house bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, finds a study from Johns Hopkins University.
The results raise concern that typical storage conditions may fail to keep the microbes from reaching people through contaminated food or drinking water. Poultry manure is not required to be treated before it is applied to farm fields.
Poultry producers commonly use antibiotics to promote growth of the chickens. This can lead to bacteria in the chickens' digestive system becoming resistant to antibiotics. The antibiotic-resistant bacteria are excreted and wind up in the manure – or poultry litter.
The poultry industry in the United States produces an estimated 13 to 26 million metric tons of manure each year. ...
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That's a whole lotta chicken shit!
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Sun, Aug 9, 2009
from New York Times:
Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security
The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say. Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change. ...
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Maybe they should wargame Resource Depletion, Species Collapse, Biology Breach.... naah. Only one thing at a time.
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Thu, Aug 6, 2009
from New Scientist:
Arctic Ocean may be polluted soup by 2070
Within 60 years the Arctic Ocean could be a stagnant, polluted soup. Without drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, the Transpolar Drift, one of the Arctic's most powerful currents and a key disperser of pollutants, is likely to disappear because of global warming.
The Transpolar Drift is a cold surface current that travels right across the Arctic Ocean from central Siberia to Greenland, and eventually out into the Atlantic. It was first discovered in 1893 by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who tried unsuccessfully to use the current to sail to the North Pole. Together with the Beaufort Gyre, the Transpolar Drift keeps Arctic waters well mixed and ensures that pollution never lingers there for long.... In a "business-as-usual" scenario, in which atmospheric carbon dioxide levels double by 2070, Johannessen and his colleagues found that the Transpolar Drift stops and the Beaufort Gyre, Greenland Current and Gulf Stream weaken considerably.... One reason for this sluggish behaviour is a change in wind patterns driven by global warming and rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice.
As a result, pollution takes much longer to disperse in this scenario. Much of this pollution would congregate along the non-European coastlines of the Arctic Ocean, the model suggests. ...
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Maybe the jellyfish and algae would just eat up all the pollution in that Arctic soup.
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Thu, Aug 6, 2009
from London Daily Telegraph:
Adidas, Clarks, Nike and Timberland agree moratorium on illegal Amazon leather
Leading shoemakers, including adidas, Clarks, Nike and Timberland, have demanded suppliers stop sending them leather from illegal ranches in the Amazon, after Greenpeace published a report highlighting the problem. The environmental charity found that shoe companies were unknowingly accepting leather from cattle raised on ranches set up on land that had been illegally cleared.
Greenpeace said leather from cattle raised on legal and illegal ranches was often mixed up by the time it was exported from Brazil, making it impossible to trace a piece's origin. ...
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Swoooooosh!
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Thu, Aug 6, 2009
from London Metro:
Global warming will see 'billions at war'
Billions of people will go to war as they are forced to leave areas made uninhabitable by global warming, climate change expert Lord Stern has warned.
Lord Nicholas Stern said innovative skills in maths, software, communications and business needed to be fully harnessed to find a way towards low carbon growth.
Lord Stern, author of the landmark 2006 Stern Review on the economic implications of climate change, made his prediction as he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Brighton. ...
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Well that's ONE way to reduce population.
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Wed, Aug 5, 2009
from Washington Post:
Florida Bay's ecology on the brink of collapse
Experts fear a collapse of the entire ecosystem, threatening not only some of the nation's most popular tourism destinations - Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys - but a commercial and recreational fishery worth millions of dollars.
Florida Bay is a sprawling estuary at the state's southern tip, covering nearly three times the area of New York City... to the north of the bay, man's unforgiving push to develop South Florida has left the land dissected with roads, dikes and miles of flood control canals to make way for homes and farms, choking off the freshwater flow and slowly killing the bay. ...
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A "collapse" sounds like a great tourist destination to me!
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Tue, Aug 4, 2009
from Toronto Globe and Mail:
Modified corn seeds sow doubts
Next spring, farmers in Canada will be able to sow one of the most complicated genetically engineered plants ever designed, a futuristic type of corn containing eight foreign genes.
With so much crammed into one seed, the modified corn will be able to confer multiple benefits, such as resistance to corn borers and rootworms, two caterpillar-like pests that infest the valuable grain crop, as well as withstanding applications of glyphosate, a weed killer better known by its commercial name, Roundup.
But a controversy has arisen over the new seeds, which were approved for use last month by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Health Canada hasn't assessed their safety.
The health agency said in response to questions from The Globe and Mail that it didn't have to do so, because it is relying on the two companies making the seeds, agriculture giants Monsanto Co. and Dow AgroSciences LLC, to flag any safety concerns. But the companies haven't tested the seeds either, because they say they aren't required to. ...
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Is it just me, or is this the craziest thing you've ever heard?
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Tue, Aug 4, 2009
from South Coast Today:
Mystery fumes sicken 119 in New Bedford
Exposure to an undetermined chemical at a North End trash disposal facility Monday morning left two people in critical condition, sent 117 more people to area hospitals and left a team of roughly 70 hazardous materials experts to sort out just what made people so sick.
At 9:15 p.m. Monday, about 60 hazardous waste technicians were still on the scene at ABC Disposal's Shawmut Avenue transfer station, and public safety officials said work would continue through the night.
Although the chemical still had not been identified late Monday evening, progress had been made: Technicians had isolated a specific load of waste dumped Monday morning as the likely source of the chemical, said New Bedford Fire Chief Paul Leger during a press conference Monday night. ...
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I'm going to start wearing this .... every day!
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Mon, Aug 3, 2009
from :
From the ApocaDesk
In the intro to the new film Food, Inc., writer Michael Pollan narrates the following: "The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000."
Pollan emphasizes that our food now comes from factories, not farms. Factories where animals -- and the workers -- are being abused.
Section one of Food, Inc. focuses on the work of writer Eric Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation... Food, Inc. begins with fast food, for as Schlosser says, the "industrial food system began with fast food."
And how do you start with fast food, without addressing the primordial fast food: McDonald's -- the largest buyer of ground beef in the country. And since they want their hamburgers to taste exactly the same everywhere you go, you can see a compelling reason why farms are now factories.
To feed the voracious appetite for fast and cheap food, chickens are now raised to slaughter in half the time -- and at twice as size. Says one chicken farmer, "if you can grow a chicken 49 days, why would you want a chicken that takes three months to grow?" A couple reasons explored in the film involve the dangers of the overuse of antibiotics (which are administered to the animals in a "preventative" gesture) as well as the fact that the animals' bone structure can't keep up with the growth of their meat, and so they can't walk -- even if there was room to move in their packed animal enclosures.
By and large, farmers are reluctant to talk about corporate farming, whether they raise animals for slaughter or grow Monsanto crops for harvesting. One farmer does talk and her heartbreaking account -- along with hidden camera footage of heartless chicken wranglers -- is enough to make you wonder why you ever eat meat.
In section two, Pollan riffs from his work, especially Omnivore's Dilemma. "Corn has conquered the world," he states, pointing out that the big fat kernel of starch pretty much finds its way into most of the products you find on the grocery shelves and beyond (disposable diapers, for example).
Evolution designed cows to eat grass -- not corn -- but corn is cheaper (encouraged by government subsidizing). And the conditions are ripe that new strains of E coli will be created -- spread by the manure that cows stand in as they're being slaughtered in the slaughterhouse.
As Food, Inc. begins to follow food safety advocates as they try and communicate issues of concern to their government, the story moves into heart-wrenching territory. One advocate turns out to be a mother -- a mother whose two and half year old son, she tells us, "went from perfectly healthy to dead in 12 days ... from eating [E coli contaminated] meat."
Home movie footage of this now dead child is enough to send you running for the aisles, but fortunately Food, Inc. is also here to create solutions. A good portion of the film is directed toward remedies to our corporate-dominated food world. If you enjoyed Omnivore's Dilemma, you get to see in living color, the irascible and fascinating Joel Salatin, whose Polyface Farms is testimony to how a farmer can create nutritious, pesticide-free food in a balanced ecosystem.
We visit with Gary Hirshberg, the owner of Stoneyfield Farms, whose organic yogurt is another exemplary foodstuff -- and is now being featured on Wal-Mart shelves.
Still, when you learn what happens to these corporately-raised animals, and the stranglehold (by government and corporations) over our farms and farmers, and facts like 1 in 3 children born in the United States after 2000 will develop diabetes ... well, Food, Inc. might just give you heartburn.
As Pollan says toward the end: "I think it's one of the most important battles for consumers to fight: The right to know what's in your food and how it's grown. Not only do they not want you to know what's in it, they've managed to make it against the law to criticize their products."
But criticize we can, three meals a day, by learning what is in the food we're buying, by buying in season, and by buying local. And by saying bye-bye to fast food, period. ...
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Two hungry thumbs up!
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Mon, Aug 3, 2009
from United States Geological Survey via ScienceDaily:
Large Trees Declining In Yosemite National Park, U.S.
Large trees have declined in Yosemite National Park during the 20th century, and warmer climate conditions may play a role. The number of large-diameter trees in the park declined 24 percent between the 1930s and 1990s. U.S. Geological Survey and University of Washington scientists compared the earliest records of large-diameter trees densities from 1932-1936 to the most recent records from 1988-1999.
A decline in large trees means habitat loss and possible reduction in species such as spotted owls, mosses, orchids and fishers (a carnivore related to weasels). Fewer new trees will grow in the landscape because large trees are a seed source for the surrounding landscape. Large-diameter trees generally resist fire more than small-diameter trees, so fewer large trees could also slow forest regeneration after fires. ...
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Say it ain't so, Sam!
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Mon, Aug 3, 2009
from Glasgow Sunday Herald:
The seven terrors of the world
The world is facing a series of interlinked crises which threatens billions of people and could cause the collapse of civilisation, according to an international report out this week.
Climate pollution, food shortages, diseases, wars, disasters, crime and the recession are all conspiring to ravage the globe and threaten the future of humanity, it warns. Democracy, human rights and press freedom are also suffering.
The report, called 2009 State Of The Future, has been compiled by the Millennium Project, an international think-tank based in Washington DC, and involved 2700 experts from 30 countries.
"Half the world appears vulnerable to social instability and violence," the report says. "This is due to rising unemployment and decreasing food, water and energy supplies, coupled with the disruptions caused by global warming and mass migrations." ...
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Let's add an 8th terror: stories like this!
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