People enjoying "doom tourism". Pretty sad and disturbing article.
The Woodses are part of a travel trend that Ken Shapiro, the editor in chief of TravelAge West, a magazine for travel agents, calls “the Tourism of Doom.”
“It’s not just about going to an exotic place,” Mr. Shapiro said. “It’s about going someplace they expect will be gone in a generation.”
From the tropics to the ice fields, doom is big business."
Christ.
Link
Too late.
"It is clear that coral reefs as we know them today would be extremely rare."
The arctic is screaming, and the canary, he is dead.
""The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012.
"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."
( Why, yes, that is the 1765 Jean Baptiste Greuze painting A Girl With A Dead Canary. It is indeed.)
Jellyfish love global warming. Salmon don't.
"A jellyfish invasion has wiped out Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing more than 100,000 fish.
A Northern Salmon spokesman said last week's attack could cost more than £1m.
Billions of small jellyfish, known as Mauve Stingers, flooded into the cages about a mile into the Irish Sea, off Glenarm Bay and Cushendun.
The jellyfish covered an area of up to 10 square miles and a depth of 35 feet. Rescuers tried to reach the cages but the density of fish made it impossible.
Managing director John Russell said he had never seen anything like this in 30 years in the business. " Link to jellyfish story (BBC)
A view of the future, courtesy of the IPCC. Why isn't this the ONLY news story?
Greenland ice sheet will virtually completely disappear, raising sea levels by over 30 feet, submerging coastal cities, entire island nations and vast areas of low-lying countries like Bangladesh
Latin America
The Amazon rainforest will become dry savannah as rising temperatures and falling water levels kill the trees, stoke forest fires and kill off wildlife
North America
California and the grain-producing Midwest will dry out as snows in the Rockies decrease, depriving these areas of summer water
Australia
The Great Barrier Reef will die. Species loss will occur by 2020 as corals fail to adapt to warmer waters. On land, drought will reduce harvests
Europe
Winter sports suffer as less snow falls in the Alps and other mountains; up to three-fifths of wildlife dies out. Drought in Mediterranean area hits tourism
Africa
Harvests could be cut by up to half in some countries by 2020, greatly increasing the threat of famine. Between 75 million and 250 million people are expected to be short of water within the next 30 years"
While the American South is praying for rain, the Chinese are controlling it.
"Not content to push the edge in cloning, architecture and geological engineering, China's also leaving the rest of the world behind when it comes to controlling the weather.
When next summer's Olympics roll around, the Beijing Weather Modification Office will be poised to intercept incoming clouds, draining them before they get to the festivities. No fewer than 32,000 people nationwide are employed by the Weather Modification Office -- "some of them farmers, who are paid $100 a month to handle anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers" loaded with cloud-seeding compounds. Some estimate that up to 50 billion tons of artificial rain will be produced by 2010. But Taylor noted that this has resulted in competition between cities to seed clouds first, and bitter acrimony when when region receives water claimed by another. "
LINK
Rule Brittania.
Sky News
Hundreds of people are fleeing their homes ahead of a tidal surge that could trigger disastrous flooding along the east coast.
An expert told Sky News that unless swift action was taken "we could have a significant number of deaths".
The Guardian
"Exceptional tidal surge puts east coast on emergency alert· Cobra meets to prepare for breach in flood defences · 'Extreme danger to life and property' warning
BBC
"A storm in the North Sea has left Britain and the Netherlands, facing the worst flood threat in decades with tidal surges predicted early on Friday.
Flood defences have been put on alert on the entire Dutch coast and flood warnings are in place for the eastern and northern coasts of Britain"
Daily Mail
Norfolk and Suffolk have six severe flood warnings between Winterton, Norfolk and Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The warnings carry an Environment Agency alert stating: "Severe flooding is expected. There is extreme danger to life and property. Act now."
When Britain first,
at heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the a-azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
Rule Britania!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn, to tyrants fall,
Must in ,must in, must in their turn, to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish, shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
(Chorus)
Rule Britannia!
So tragic, and so ignored.
Why isn't this on every station all the time?
Oh, right, because the world stops at the border. I always forget that.
"VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Hungry and dehydrated victims of one of the worst floods in Mexico’s history scrambled for government packages of food and medicine, while at least 20,000 people remained trapped Monday on the rooftops of homes swallowed by water.
Residents were running dangerously short of food and water after nearly a week of floods left 80 percent of the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco underwater and destroyed or damaged the homes of about half a million people. Gov. Andres Granier ordered central streets in the state capital of Villahermosa closed to all but rescue workers to prevent looting." LINK
And California is on fire.
I see a bad moon arising, I see trouble on the way
"World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.
The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel."
LINK
Drying up
Yikes. Long but fantastic and frightening NYT article about water use in the West.
"As one prominent Western water official described the possible future to me, if some of the Southwest’s largest reservoirs empty out, the region would experience an apocalypse, “an Armageddon."
More terrorist insects! Yay!
"One of the cheapest and most destructive weapons available to terrorists today is also one of the most widely ignored: insects. These biological warfare agents are easy to sneak across borders, reproduce quickly, spread disease, and devastate crops in an indefatigable march. Our stores of grain could be ravaged by the khapra beetle, cotton and soybean fields decimated by the Egyptian cottonworm, citrus and cotton crops stripped by the false codling moth, and vegetable fields pummeled by the cabbage moth. The costs could easily escalate into the billions of dollars, and the resulting disruption of our food supply - and our sense of well-being - could be devastating. Yet the government focuses on shoe bombs and anthrax while virtually ignoring insect insurgents.
Indeed, a great strategic lesson of 9/11 has been overlooked. Terrorists need only a little ingenuity, not sophisticated weapons, to cause enormous damage. Armed only with box cutters, terrorists hijacked planes and brought down the towers of the World Trade Center. Insects are the box cutters of biological warfare - cheap, simple, and wickedly effective."
Link to seriously interesting article
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, but they were doomed.
"For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.
...It’s really alarming,” said Janice Terry, co-owner of the Best Foods cafeteria in Siler City. To curtail water use, Best Foods has swapped its dishes for paper plates and foam cups."
LINK
Holy mackerel, this is fishy.
"A private jet which crashed in the vicinity of Cancun on September 24 with a cargo of six tons of cocaine and heroin aboard had been utilized by the CIA in recent months for transferring prisoners to and from the U.S. interrogation camp on Guantánamo. The aircraft, a Grumman Gulf Stream II model, with U.S. registration number N987SA, officially belongs to a company in the south of Florida, which bought it just eight days before the presumed accident, the circumstances of which are murky."
Link to source of quote article
Link to another news story about it
Link to long and interestingly paranoid story about it ;)
Link to Boing Boing's coverage of it
Um, is that bug following me?
Follow the LINK for the full horror.
Feeling pretty damn good, actually!
Winter storm in California? Yeah, that's weird. Possible storm in the Gulf? Not wierd, but scary.
""The storm is pretty unusual. It's pretty much our first winter storm of the season, and it's barely fall," said Oxnard-based meteorologist Edan Lindaman of the National Weather Service." Link to California winter storm
But this- this is not unusual, but it is scary news for, well, look. The GFDL model has it developing into a Category 1 hurricane before landfall.
How to survive a robot rebellion
In this extract from his new book, robotics specialist Daniel Wilson has some tips how to deal with a robot rebellion
Run toward the light
Vision sensors are confused by sudden changes in lighting. Forcing the robot to follow you into the sun may slow down its pursuit.
To save a comrade: first merge, then separate
Run to a comrade, deliver a quick bear-hug, and then dive in a random direction. A vision-based target tracker might temporarily lose track of your identity during the hug, especially if you are wearing similar clothing. You can gain precious seconds while the tracker reacquires its target.
Don't run in a predictable line
If you follow a simple velocity trajectory, it will be easier for a robot to track your progress, even through significant clutter. Zigzag erratically or, when hidden from view, change direction suddenly in order to throw off predictive tracking systems.
LINK
Soldiers in Iraq emotionally attach to their bomb-disposal robots, name them, fish with them.
Ted Bogosh recalls one day in Camp Victory, near Baghdad, when he was a Marine master sergeant running the robot repair shop.
That day, an explosive ordnance disposal technician walked through his door. The EODs, as they are known, are the people who -- with their robots -- are charged with disabling Iraq's most virulent scourge, the roadside improvised explosive device. In this fellow's hands was a small box. It contained the remains of his robot. He had named it Scooby-Doo.
"There wasn't a whole lot left of Scooby," Bogosh says. The biggest piece was its 3-by-3-by-4-inch head, containing its video camera. On the side had been painted "its battle list, its track record. This had been a really great robot."
The veteran explosives technician looming over Bogosh was visibly upset. He insisted he did not want a new robot. He wanted Scooby-Doo back.
Near the Tigris River, operators even have been known to take their bot fishing. They put a fishing rod in its claw and retire back to the shade, leaving the robot in the sun..." LINK to totally heartbreaking and disturbing story.
US Army robots killing people. Does this really feel right to anyone?
A Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle engaged and killed two suspected improvised explosive device emplacers overwatching a major thoroughfare for Coalition Forces during a historic flight near Qayyarah, Iraq, in Nineveh province Sept. 1...
The pilots guided the Hunter operator to the scene where it set up for a strike mission and dropped its precision munition, killing both unknown enemies and marking a first in Army Aviation history....
This accomplishment adds a precise and discriminate means for our Army to successfully engage the enemy in counterinsurgency warfare," said Col. A.T. Ball, commander, 25th CAB." LINK
And then it swallowed my head- gulp.
The quakes are caused by giant chunks of ice breaking off the rock they have been frozen to for hundreds of years, Robert Corell, chairman of the international Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Greenland Friday.
Though small in magnitude, the earthquakes bolster concerns that the entire ice shelf could collapse, causing a catastrophic change in sea levels worldwide.
The speed at which Greenland's glaciers flow into the sea has also accelerated. The Ilulissat glacier is dumping ice chunks into the ocean at a rate of 2 meters per hour -- more than three times faster than 10 years ago, the newspaper said.
Given the changes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's current prediction sea levels will rise eight to 24 inches this century may be too low, scientists at the meeting said. Some estimate the seas may rise by more than two meters." LINK
Well, maybe if America would just stop importing everything, things would get a little better?
Enough tainted imports from China have led to serious articles questioning whether China is conducting assymetrical warfare against the US - "These include toxic gluten in pet food, antifreeze in toothpaste, lead paint on toys, toxic levels of formaldehyde on pajamas, the recall of hundreds of thousands Chinese-manufactured tires in the United States for safety concerns … and the list goes on." LINK
But who would have thought our bees were dying because we imported bees? WTF? Does it never freaking strike Americans to, well, buy or breed American? After all the hideous oh-heck-shouldn't-have-done-that horror stories about the Africanized killer bees, why the hell did we continue to import bee strains that *might just might* affect our own domestic bee populations???????????
Looks like our dying bees might have picked up a little bug from Australian bees. Yeah. By importing Aussie bees, we have may have decimated our bees, and so far, the economic losses are at about 14 billion dollars this year.
" A virus found in healthy Australian honey bees may be playing a role in the collapse of honey bee colonies across the United States, researchers reported Thursday.
Colony collapse disorder has killed millions of bees -- up to 90 percent of colonies in some U.S. beekeeping operations -- imperiling the crops largely dependent upon bees for pollination, such as oranges, blueberries, apples and almonds.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says honey bees are responsible for pollinating $15 billion worth of crops each year in the United States. More than 90 fruits and vegetables worldwide depend on them for pollination." LINK
Arctic ice disappearing at an astonishing rate.
2007 has already broken the record for the lowest amount of sea ice ever recorded, say scientists, smashing the old record set in 2005.
Scientists say the rate of melting in 2007 has been unprecedented, and veteran ice researchers worry the Arctic is on track to be completely ice-free much earlier than previous research and climate models have suggested.
"If you had asked me a few years ago about how fast the Arctic would be ice free in summer, I would have said somewhere between about 2070 and the turn of the century," said scientist Mark Serreze, polar ice expert at the NSIDC. "My view has changed. I think that an ice-free Arctic as early as 2030 is not unreasonable." LINK
Faster and worse. Arctic ice heading out. Polar bears heading out.
The ice is retreating much much faster than earlier predictions, and the consequences for the entire world aren't understood, but what is clear is that polar bears aren't going to make it. LINK
A world without them is a much poorer place.
So so sorry. I am so so sorry.
16 dead in Cali heat wave. So sad.
"My cleaning lady recently came down to complain that it was too hot in there to work," Friedman said. "I couldn't force them to turn it on, and their family should have paid if money was an issue. It's just horrible; it could have been prevented."
In Lancaster, the body of Linda Burkhart, 53, was found Sunday in her car by a passerby in the 700 block of West Avenue I, said sheriff's Sgt. Martin Rodriguez.
Burkhart was "in a state of undress" and appeared to be living out of the vehicle, he said. Her body, which was found sitting in a reclined position, was already decomposing."That is not unusual in this heat," Rodriguez said. There was no indication of foul play and an autopsy is pending.
Also Sunday, about 1:10 p.m., the body of Dorothy McGlothan, in her 80s, was found in her apartment on the 900 block of North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, Winter said. The temperature in her apartment was 115 degrees, he said. "
Link
Hurricane Felix- amazing storm.
"This year marks the first time in recorded history that two Category 5 storms (Felix and Dean) have made landfall in the Atlantic basin in the same year. Since reliable record keeping began in 1944, there have been 27 Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic. Eight of these have occurred in the past five years."
LINK to the best weather blog out there. all extra emphasis mine.
Northwest Passage- open.
"The North-West Passage – the sea route running along the Arctic coastline of North America, normally perilously clogged with thick ice – is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began." LINK
Dean
I remember the same thing. The Thursday b4 Katrina, I remember Bob Breck saying that we have absolutely nothing to worry about with Katrina and we could go to be and sleep soundly not having to worry about that storm. I looked at the weather tracking system that he was looking at and I was like, what the hell? I could cleary see that Katrina was aimed at New Orleans or LA. I wondered what was he looking at. Since then I have been very leery when it comes to local meteorologist forecasts. In fact, a few months back when that tornado struck the Westwego area, he did the same thing. The night before he said that we have nothing to worry about. The next morning it seemed like most of Westwego was torn up and so was the Carrollton area. I don't trust those local news guys. They don't know anything. "
this is why I have this blog.
Us.
"Study: Man-Made 'Drain Hole' Slowly Emptying Lake Michigan
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — A "drain hole" in the St. Clair River caused by dredging and other commercial projects is costing Lakes Huron and Michigan a combined 2.5 billion gallons of water each day, according to a Canadian study released Tuesday.
That exceeds the amount diverted from Lake Michigan to provide Chicago's daily water supply.
The drainage hole has caused an overall water level decline of nearly 2 feet since 1970, the study said. The outflow goes into Lake Erie, then east to Lake Ontario and eventually through the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean." LINK
hot hot heat
Drought worsens as much of South sees 10th day of 100-degree weather
The heat wave sweeping through the South has been blamed for at least 33 deaths this month and created potentially ruinous drought conditions.
...Alabama officials were considering alternatives to transporting students to schools on un-air-conditioned buses. The temperature inside one bus registered 122 degrees as it returned from its route Thursday afternoon in Montgomery, where the official high was 102.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that drought conditions had reached an “exceptional” level across Alabama, western Georgia, southern Tennessee and northern Alabama.
Alabama was worst-hit, NBC affiliate WPMI of Huntsville reported. Dusty, dry conditions created by the drought covered more than 73 percent of the state from the Florida to the Tennessee state lines.
NOAA forecast that the drought would persist in northern and central Alabama through November and warned that it could spread as far north as Ohio and as far west as Missouri. "
LINK
scary stuff, for sure.
"Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and website of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank.
Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable. And federal regulators said they weren't alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank.
The mortgage lender said it would further tighten its loan standards and make fewer large mortgages. Those moves could make it harder to get a home loan and further depress the housing market in California and other states.
The rush to withdraw money -- by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company -- came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early '90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names.
In West Los Angeles, a Countrywide supervisor brought in from another office served coffee to more than 25 people waiting calmly for their turn with the one clerk who could help them." LINK
Dean to be a major hurricane
Extra double sweet christ, on the rocks please.
"Global Markets Tumble Amid Mortgage Crisis
By WAYNE ARNOLD
Published: August 16, 2007
SINGAPORE, Aug. 16 — Stocks in Asia continued their downward spiral today amid the widening fallout from the United States’ subprime mortgage crisis. The decline was led by shares in South Korea, as local investors returned from a national holiday there and joined the stampede by foreign investors trying to sell.
Across Europe, markets were also sustaining heavy losses in early trading.
And markets in the United States were expected to open lower again today. Stock index futures fell sharply following the latest sign that the Federal Reserve is reluctant to cut rates in the midst of the markets’ turbulence, Reuters reported. “It’s a kind of a panic among individual investors,” said Cho Hong Rae, head of research at Korea Investment & Securities in Seoul, adding that domestic retail investors had up until today generally been buying shares as they declined." link
Sweet Christ, this is shaping up to be an interesting day
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed down nearly 2 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after falling below the key 16,000-point mark the first time since November. South Korea’s main benchmark fell 6.9 percent to its lowest finish since May, and Hong Kong’s blue chip Hang Seng Index was down 3.9 percent late afternoon." LINK
The plastic bag.
"...The most ubiquitous consumer item on Earth, the lowly plastic bag is an environmental scourge like none other, sapping the life out of our oceans and thwarting our attempts to recycle it."
LINK to article- read it, it's very good, and goes into the paper/plastic thing with all the info you need to smackdown the next fool who claims that plastic bags ger recycled, or claims that they're less damaging than paper bags. Annoyingly, article also mentions those damn "I am not a plastic bag" bags. People got trampled trying to buy those damn things. Dead, for trying to be trendy. Yeah. Argh.
Record shattering July Arctic sea ice loss
Major air pollution episode right now across US
"What may be the most deadly weather event to affect the U.S. this year is underway across large portions of the central and eastern U.S. A large area of high pressure with light winds has settled over the region, bringing unhealthful levels of ozone and fine particulate matter to many major cities. High pressure systems are regions where the air gradually sinks, warming as it approaches the surface. This warming, sinking air creates a layer of air aloft (typically near 3000 feet in altitude) that is warmer than the air beneath it. This "upper air inversion" acts as a lid on the atmosphere, keeping pollutants trapped near the surface. Updrafts carrying surface air into the inversion suddenly encounter air that is warmer and less dense, so the updraft dies and the pollutants that they were trying to carry aloft settle back down towards the surface. If the high pressure region is large, an extensive area of light winds at the surface will exist, keeping the pollutants trapped under the inversion from being blown away horizontally. If the high pressure system stays in place for several days, pollutants will accumulate day by day, reaching levels harmful to human health and triggering a sharp rise in the death rate. "Particulate matter," also known as particle pollution or PM, is the pollutant that causes the largest rise in the death rate. Particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM 2.5) is particularly harmful to the lungs. A double-whammy dose of ozone pollution is also occurring this week, since temperatures are warm enough to drive the chemical reactions that form ozone."
LINK
NYC extreme weather
"Morning rush hour became a quagmire Wednesday as subways, buses and even cabs were slowed by flooding from torrential overnight rains.
The flooding has disrupted service for commuter trains and the metro as well.
"Due to severe flooding throughout the subway system, there are extensive delays on all subway lines," said a statement from the Metro Transit Authority (MTA). "Customers are advised when at all possible to use bus service." LINK
Oh the humanity.
"The United Nations is warning of a massive "health crisis" in southern Asia, where 30 million people have been overwhelmed by the monsoonal rains and flash flooding sweeping across India, Nepal and Bangladesh." LINK
Saddam's dam is doomed, damn it!
By Patrick Cockburn in Mosul
Published: 08 August 2007
As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country, where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul city is in danger of imminent collapse.
"It could go at any minute," says a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam. "The potential for disaster is very great."
If the dam does fail, a wall of water will sweep into Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with a population of 1.7 million, 20 miles to the south. Experts say the flood waters could destroy 70 per cent of Mosul and inflict heavy damage 190 miles downstream along the Tigris."
Wait, what????? Rewind. "As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq..."
World attention?
Not here in Uhmerhika, where we have better things to do with our time than think about some dusty heathens getting shot, bombed, or having their infrastructure fail! Geez, I reckon we might have to be tryin' to figger out how to fix those dad-burned bridges and such back here at home. Why, you might almost think that all our doggone taxes are going somewhere else, like, mebbee, for killin' heathens, for all the guvment keeps talkin' like it's far to pricey to fix up those levees'n'such. Uh'm just not sure, see. Mebbee I'll jest have me a Big Mac and put lil' Billy in front of one of those baby genius video shows.
""We found no association with language acquisition and TV watching -- even adult programming seemed to have no effect," Zimmerman tells WebMD. "But there was one quite large effect -- from baby videos like the Baby Einstein and Baby Genius products. These kids were 17% slower in language development than the kids who didn't watch such videos.""
LINK to story re: 'baby genius' videos decreasing vocabulary for every hour spent watching.
LINK to story re: the failing dam- this is serious, sad shit.
LINK to story re: how kids think everything (even carrots, milk) taste better in a McD wrapper
China threatens to collapse the U.S. economy.
"He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.
"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.
"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily." LINK
Christ almighty.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Extreme weather has plagued the globe this year, a U.N. agency says, causing some of the highest temperatures on record.
The World Meteorological Organization said "global land surface temperatures for January and April will likely be ranked as the warmest since records began in 1880," according to the United Nations.
WMO said temperatures were 1.89 degrees Celsius (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average for January and 1.37 degrees C (2.45 degrees F) higher than average for April.
The agency found that climate warming was unequivocal and most likely "due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels."
Here are some of the extreme instances the United Nations cites:
Four monsoon depressions, double the normal number, caused heavy flooding in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On Monday, floodwaters receded in parts of South Asia, but the death toll rose to 347, officials said.
Millions remain displaced and homeless, and authorities fear waterborne disease could spread. Indian officials say more than 1,200 people have died in their country alone since monsoon season began in June.
England and Wales have experienced their wettest May-to-July period since record-keeping started in 1766. In late July, swollen rivers threatened to burst their banks. At least eight people died during weeks of torrential rain, and thousands were without tap water.
Late last month in Sudan, floods and heavy rain caused 23,000 mud brick homes to collapse, killing at least 62 people. The rainfall was abnormally heavy and early for this time of the year.
In May, swell waves up to 15 feet high swept into 68 islands in the Maldives, causing severe flooding and damage. Also in May, a heat wave swept across Russia.
Southeastern Europe did not escape the unusual weather. The area suffered record-breaking heat in June and July.
An unusual cold southern winter brought wind, blizzards and rare snowfall to various parts of South America, with temperatures reaching as low as 7 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-22 degrees Celsius) in Argentina and 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius) in Chile in July.
In June, South Africa had its first significant snowfall since 1981, as almost 10 inches (25 centimeters) of the white stuff fell in some parts of the country.
And in the United States, temperatures climbed into the triple digits this week in Midwestern states." LINK
Europe on fire
More than 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles) of forest had already burned this year, almost as much as in the whole of 2006, the commission said.
It warned of more fires in the days ahead, with Spain and Portugal, where temperatures are soaring, most at risk.
Most recently, fires in the Canary Islands have forced thousands to flee.
The normal fire season in Europe has only just started but blistering heat and hot dry winds have already fanned wildfires across parts of southern Europe.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Italy have all been affected, as well as countries like the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Turkey." LINK
Welcome to the future- a place with armed robots! Oh, screw this.
After years of development, three "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system" (SWORDS) robots have deployed, armed with M249 machine guns. The 'bots "haven't fired their weapons yet," Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, tells Danger Room. "But that'll be happening soon." LINK
So damn awful. Floods in India.
'What are we going to do tommorow night Brain?' 'The same thing we do every night Pinky, try to take over the world!!'
Interesting development under the North Pole.
"MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russia staked a symbolic claim to the resource-rich Arctic on Thursday when a submersible dived beneath the ice directly under the North Pole and planted a Russian flag on the seabed.
Under international law, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle -- Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark via its control of Greenland -- have a 320 km (200 mile) economic zone around the north of their coastline.
But Russia is claiming a larger slice extending as far as the pole because, Moscow says, the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf." LINK
Crumbling Infrastructure. Tragedy.
"The American Society of Civil Engineers has warned of corroding bridges and other US infrastructure, saying in a 2003 report that 27 per cent of US bridges were structurally deficient or "functionally obsolete" due to outdated designs." LINK
Implanting microchips in people- not scifi anymore. Damn, we just can't wait to be a controlled society, can we?
"CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little attention to itself - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.
To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention - a high-tech helper that could increase security at nuclear plants and military bases, help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer’s patients, allow consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of a chipped hand.
To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a departure from centuries of history and tradition in which people had the right to go and do as they pleased without being tracked, unless they were harming someone else.
Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer’s patients or Army Rangers, but would eventually be suggested for convicts, then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal aliens - until one day, a majority of Americans, falling into one category or another, would find themselves electronically tagged." LINK
And speaking of Orwell, the surveillance society he forsaw is here. Welcome, Big Brother!
Foresight: The cameras crowd George Orwell's former London home
Unbelievable numbers from China's floods.
119.15 million people affected.
452,000 houses destroyed.
7.87 million hectares of crops destroyed.
52.5 billion yuan (6.9 billion U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses.
"The meteorological authorities forecast heavy rains would hit the country's southwest, northwest and northeast regions in the coming days.
China, however, is also being plagued by drought in its northern region including Heilongjiang Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and even parts of its southern region.
The office said that drought has left 5.88 million people and 4.7 million heads of livestock short of drinking water and affected 9.33 million hectares of arable land." LINK
Whistling in the dark
No power in San Francisco (51,000 affected) LINK
No power in Albania (yes, the entire country) as well as "at least 27 heat-related deaths in Romania, four in Italy, and dozens of houses destroyed by forest fires in Macedonia." LINK
On the other hand, in China, "The flood-battered banks of the Huaihe River are at risk of washing away, posing a grave threat to the homes of millions of people, Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
Torrential rains have wrought havoc across large parts of China this summer, most recently in the southwest and the east, killing more than 500 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.
More rain has been forecast. " LINK
The UK flooding: "Britain's flood victims are facing further misery with Government officials warning water levels are still to peak in many areas, while forecasters predict another deluge of heavy rain.
As a massive humanitarian operation to supply fresh water to hundreds of thousands of people gets underway in central and western England, it has also emerged that the worst floods in modern history had claimed their first lives.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, warned last night that the crisis along parts of the river Thames was still expected to worsen.
More rain will stretch the emergency operation even further. The Met Office has predicted rain today, heavier downpours on Thursday and then the threat of persistent heavy rain stretching through the weekend. " LINK
So much doom!
Flooding in China! LINK
Flooding in Texas. LINK
Dead zone growing in the Gulf of Mexico.
"NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles -- its largest in at least 22 years."
Oil and Gas out by 2015.
"The warning – which is being hailed as a "tipping point" on both sides of the Atlantic – marks the first time that the industry has accepted that it may soon no longer be able to meet demand for its products.
And the crunch could come sooner, with oil production becoming "a significant challenge as early as 2015". This chimes with the International Energy Agency's prediction that oil supplies could become "extremely tight" in five years.
The predictions should send a shiver down humanity's collective spine as a shortage of oil and gas has been predicted to cause industrial collapse, market crashes, resource wars and a rise in poverty. Some forecast that fascist regimes will rise out of the chaos." LINK
All is going just as one might expect. To hell in a handbasket, baby, and fast.
Hey, Governor- good timing!
"The governor issued a proclamation calling for a week of prayer for rain, beginning Saturday.
Riley encouraged Alabamians to pray "individually and in their houses of worship."
"Throughout our history, Alabamians have turned in prayer to God to humbly ask for his blessings and to hold us steady during times of difficulty," Riley said. "This drought is without question a time of great difficulty."
"Roger McNeil, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, said a weak summer front will push its way into Alabama from the northwest, triggering scattered showers Saturday and Sunday. But the showers won't be enough to put a dent in the drought, he said."
Praying for rain does not work, however, when has that ever stopped a Republican? And it's definitely a good start to start your praying for rain right when it's well, forecast to rain.
LINK to Alabama story
Is it really eco-friendly shopping?
“We turn toward the consumption part because that’s where the money is,” Mr. Hawken said. “We tend not to look at the ‘less’ part. So you get these anomalies like 10,000-foot ‘green’ homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen. Or ‘green’ fashion shows. Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.”
He added: “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.”
LINK
Crikey, mate.
"Climate change experts tell us that this is the sort of thing we need to expect for the future..."
A 28-year-old man died trying to unblock a drain in Hull despite the efforts of emergency services. In Sheffield, a 13-year-old boy who was swept into a swollen river near a playground was feared dead and a 68-year-old man died while attempting to cross a flooded road..."
No hope, duuude. No hope, duuude.
"Also, it points to the same conclusion as the breeding census: The nation is losing vast numbers of birds - about 432-million among the 20 common declining species - and from every type of habitat.
Northern pintail ducks breed in "America's duck factory, " Butcher said, the small lakes and ponds in Canada and the northern United States.
These have been drained to make room for wheat and corn fields, he said, and the pintail population has dropped 77 percent in the United States and 96 percent in Florida since 1967.
Another duck species in decline, the greater scaup, summers in tundra degraded by global warming. The black skimmer's population has fallen because the birds nest on increasingly crowded Florida beaches.
Pasture species seem especially vulnerable, Butcher said. Pesticides and herbicides have killed the insects and weeds these birds eat. Frequent mowing leaves them without enough time to raise their brood, Butcher said, and "a lot of eastern meadowlark nests get cut down while they are still full of either eggs or young."
About collared doves, an introduced species that is thriving, Butcher says ""They have sort of a mournful, three note call ... What I think of is: 'No hope, duuude. No hope, duuude.' "
LINK
Texans: Unbelievably stupid.
"GALVESTON, TEXAS — Leaders of this fast-eroding barrier island — the scene of the deadliest hurricane in American history — are about to approve nearly 4,000 new homes and two midrise hotels despite geologists' warnings that the massive development would sever a ridge that serves as the island's natural storm shield.
The three geologists who conducted the study cautioned against building along beaches that are likely to be erased by erosion within 20 years. They warned that artificial lakes and boat channels could help surging waters pierce the island during a major hurricane, possibly even splitting it in two.
And above all, they recommended that the city preserve a low-lying ridge hundreds of feet inland, saying that although the rise may look meaningless to untrained eyes, it has helped the island withstand centuries of storms.
During recent public hearings on the new development, called Preserve at West Beach, city planners did not share copies of the hazard maps the geologists had been hired to prepare. But a skeptical planning commissioner superimposed the blueprints with the map on her own. The hotels were in the areas designated at highest risk."
LINK
....And I feel fine....
Civilization- thousands of years of creating, building, storytelling, writing, reading, studying- and what have we got to? A point where the children of the wealthiest nations are simultaneously spoiled and deprived, while the children of the poorest nations are literally left to rot. A world where people still kill each other over primitive fairy tales.
A few days ago, I read a fucking condescending article about a group of pacific islanders who 'worship' Prince Philip as a god. This article couldn't have been written with a shittier tone, a real, 'hey, how about these ignorant native peoples?' way about it. Well, I say, cheers to the native islanders. At least Prince Philip, as loathsome as he may be, can presumably be proved to exist.
Well, anyway, just a little more consensus-building, more of the best research finding the same results, more of the same and the same and the same. I haven't been updating as much as I want to, but make no mistake: DOOMED.
"Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.
They also implicitly criticise the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for underestimating the scale of sea-level rises this century as a result of melting glaciers and polar ice sheets.
Instead of sea levels rising by about 40 centimetres, as the IPCC predicts in one of its computer forecasts, the true rise might be as great as several metres by 2100. That is why, they say, planet Earth today is in "imminent peril".
...
Dramatic flips in the climate have occurred in the past but none has happened since the development of complex human societies and civilisation, which are unlikely to survive the same sort of environmental changes if they occurred now.
"Civilisation developed, and constructed extensive infrastructure, during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end," the scientists warn. Humanity cannot afford to burn the Earth's remaining underground reserves of fossil fuel. "To do so would guarantee dramatic climate change, yielding a different planet from the one on which civilisation developed and for which extensive physical infrastructure has been built," they say."
Link
Hey, lawn daddies, there's a new kudzu in town. Look out for this stuff in the south.
So long, and thanks for all the... wait, where's the fish?
Right, so everyone knows that fish are out around 2050, right? Well, some guy wrote a book about it, ( actually , Charles Clover wrote The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat) which is being roundly ignored, but there are some gems from this Salon interview with him. Check it out.
"I didn't say in my book, "Don't eat fish." I say, "Don't eat certain fish, don't eat endangered fish." If a fish takes 20 years to double its population, that's a long time. If it takes 30 years before it breeds, don't touch it. But if you eat something that's fast reproducing and not overfished, you should be all right. And there's quite a lot of those species out there. You can eat a hell of a lot of shellfish, a huge amount of mussels and oysters, and your deep-water scallops, with a clear conscience. You can have a really nice fish stew, it's not a problem. But why eat endangered fish? And the slow-reproducing ones are probably going to have mercury in them anyway, so it's a win-win.
I think [cutting back on endangered fish] would be enough of a message to the fishermen of the world and the industries. God knows we're eating a lot of them at the moment. If you go to New York, restaurants seem actively to encourage it. "
Fucking New York.
LINK to great interview
Get a few folks together and perform the Rain Dance of Zuni or the Snake Dance in the front lawn.
No rain, no hay, Georgia farmers can't feed their cattle. The drought, coupled with rampant forest fires in south Georgia, has prompted Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to declare the state’s agricultural industry a disaster.
Alabama is suggesting people dance for rain, or pray. Seriously. "Get a few folks together and perform the Rain Dance of Zuni or the Snake Dance in the front lawn. If your neighbors happen to pass by, tell them not to laugh at this sacred ritual and invite them to join in. There is strength in numbers."
North Carolina
N.C. Gov. Mike Easley added state agencies in four western counties today to a list of agencies in 17 counties he's already ordered to halt all nonessential water use, concerned that an ongoing statewide drought is depleting streams and groundwater.
Hawaii Mayor Harry Kim declared a state of emergency because of drought conditions.
huh.
Why? Kathy Warnick, president of a national adoption organization called Pets across America says "Cats are typically warm-weather, spring-time breeders. However, states that typically experience primarily longer and colder winters are now seeing shorter, warmer winters, leading to year-round breeding."
With no "reproductive lull," more kittens are being brought to animal shelters during the winter months. "
LINK
oh, those floods in China? Only affecting 2 million people. Don't worry about it- how do you think Paris Hilton is doing in jail?
More than 1.97 million people have been affected after the floods triggered by continuous heavy rains hit some 40 counties since Wednesday.
According to the local civil affairs bureau, 9,200 houses were knocked down and 75,181 hectares of crops were affected, incurring529 million yuan (about 70 million U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses. "
LINK
No rain, no grain.
In the south-east, usually a lush, humid region, it is the driest few months since records began in 1895. California and Nevada, where burgeoning population centres co-exist with an often harsh, barren landscape, have seen less rain over the past year than at any time since 1924. The Sierra Nevada range, which straddles the two states, received only 27 per cent of its usual snowfall in winter, with immediate knock-on effects on water supplies for the populations of Las Vegas and Los Angeles."
LINK
the bees- wtf? scary stuff
"We were shocked by the huge number of pathogens present in each adult bee," Cox-Foster said at a recent meeting of bee researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The large number of pathogens suggested, she said, that the bees' immune systems had been suppressed, allowing the proliferation of infections.
The idea that a pathogen is involved is supported by recent experiments conducted by VanEngelsdorp and USDA entomologist Jeffrey S. Pettis.One of the unusual features of the disorder is that the predators of abandoned beehives, such as hive beetles and wax moths, refuse to venture into infected hives for weeks or longer.
According to the Apiary Inspectors of America, 24% of 384 beekeeping operations across the country lost more than 50% of their colonies from September to March. Some have lost 90%."
LINK
F*cking Florida
This area is usually under water. Now it is on fire.
Yes, the drought is bad, terrible, very dry, extreme, yadda yadda. But let's look at what people have done to what was once one of the great lakes of the USA.
"decisions to lower the lake last year in anticipation of hurricanes that didn't materialize...to keep about half of the usual water flowing to canals that help restock South Florida's strained water supplies...cane, vegetable and other growers are struggling to get the lake water they need for irrigation..."
Even with this level of fucking devastation, they don't seem to get the point.
"Weldon says decisions to dump lake water last year worsened the drought's effect on his fishing grounds."Where the fish used to feed and eat, it's not there no more," Weldon said. "A lot of people ain't coming back. ... It's a sad situation."
Sadder for the fish, you ignorant turd.
Once more, Florida rapes the land until its dead, and then complains that it's not fun anymore.
Climate change + flower shows = "unprecedented challenges"
A panoply of gardening tricks is having to be employed by growers to hold back the march of nature and keep prize specimens from "going over" before the Royal Horticultural Society's flagship annual event, one of the world's premier gardening festivals. Those tricks range from cold stores and dark tunnels, to constant movement of plants in and out of light and warmth, repeated deadheading - and even individual "straitjackets" for flower buds.
Another problem has been a plague of pests. Jekka McVicar, who is growing organic herbs at Alveston, near Bristol for her Chelsea exhibit, has found so many greenfly on plants such as lettuce and mint that she has had to brush them off with a dry paint brush (not being able to use pesticides as an organic grower). "It's very time-consuming," she said.
Chris Beardshaw, who is recreating an Edwardian country house garden, said that columbines, for example, which had already flowered, were having to be replaced with achilleas. "Normally you would not expect achilleas to flower until late June or even early July," he said." LINK
Great actual headline: Global Swarming
"Climate change is not the wrath of God, but one possible consequence of rising global temperatures may be almost Biblical in nature: a population explosion of bugs. " LINK
The irony- it burns, it burns. Again.
"However, the I'm Not a Plastic Bags are actually even less "green" than customers realised: they were made in China, using cheap labour, from non-fair trade, non-organic cotton - a fabric as environmentally damaging as plastic. Petra Kjell, campaigner with the Environmental Justice Foundation, says: "Cotton accounts for 16 per cent of global insecticide releases - more than any other single crop. Of the $2bn of chemical pesticides used on cotton crops each year, at least $819m are considered toxic enough to be classified as hazardous by the World Health Organisation. Aldicarb is one of the most toxic pesticides applied to cotton, yet it is also the second-most used pesticide in global cotton production. One teaspoonful of aldicarb on the skin would be sufficient to kill an adult."
Sainsbury's issued a statement saying it had "never claimed the bag was fair trade or organic. The point of the bag is that it can be re-used, thereby saving millions of plastic bags from being used in future years. The bag was designed to raise awareness of the issue of the abusive use of disposable plastic bags, a goal which it has achieved internationally, beyond anyone's expectations". However, many shoppers reported that their I'm Not a Plastic Bag purchase was handed to them in... a plastic bag." LINK