Fuckers! The dying bees? It's been Bayer. And they knew it.

This is horrendous and makes me want to be violent.

" Bayer CropScience is facing scrutiny because of the effect one of its best-selling pesticides has had on honeybees.

A German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning , Bayer's chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer , the head of Bayer CropScience , after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment.
The investigation was triggered by an Aug. 13 complaint filed by German beekeepers and consumer protection advocates, a Coalition against Bayer Dangers spokesman, Philipp Mimkes, said Monday.
The complaint is part of efforts by groups on both sides of the Atlantic to determine how much Bayer CropScience knows about the part that clothianidin may have played in the death of millions of honeybees.
Bayer CropScience , which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park , said field studies have shown that bees' exposure to the pesticide is minimal or nonexistent if the chemical is used properly.
Clothianidin and related pesticides generated about $1 billion of Bayer CropScience's $8.6 billion in global sales last year. The coalition is demanding that the company withdraw all of the pesticides.
"We're suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants," said Harro Schultze , the coalition's attorney.
"Bayer's ... management has to be called to account, since the risks ... have now been known for more than 10 years."
Under German law, a criminal investigation could lead to a search of Bayer offices, Mimkes said.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Natural Resources Defense Council is pressing for research information on clothianidin.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the pesticide in 2003 under the condition that Bayer submit additional data. A lawsuit, which the environmental group filed Aug. 19 in federal court in Washington , accuses the EPA of hiding the honeybee data." LINK

Fay screwing with Florida, alligators swimming the streets.

"Homeowners in a Tropical Storm Fay-flooded community were being warned of an alligator swimming in their streets and near homes as record-breaking rain continued to fall Thursday.
The National Hurricane Center's projected path of movement for Tropical Storm Fay now includes a fourth Florida landfall as it continues to dump "historic" amounts of rain on parts of Central Florida." LINK

Horrible storms drench Ireland, new highway under 20 feet of water.

"Ireland must accept that extreme torrential rain and flash flooding is going to be part of the climate over the coming days and from now on and must prepare accordingly.

That was the warning from climatologist John Sweeney of NUI Maynooth speaking after a weekend that saw yet more parts of the country submerged in several feet of water.

Some of the worst-hit parts of the country were in the North, including Belfast, where the city’s new multi-million euro Broadway Underpass was submerged under 20 feet of water." LINK to story

Link to photo gallery

Bush want to kill the Endangered Species...Act.

Christ almighty.

"Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct.

The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.
New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.

"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act." LINK

Melty!

"Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013.
Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska's Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic.
As a result, scientists say that the disappearance of sea ice at the North Pole could exceed last year's record loss. More than a million square kilometres melted over the summer of 2007 as global warming tightened its grip on the Arctic. But such destruction could now be matched, or even topped, this year.

What really unsettles scientists, however, is their inability to forecast precisely what is happening in the Arctic, the part of the world most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. 'When we did the first climate change computer models, we thought the Arctic's summer ice cover would last until around 2070,' said Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University. 'It is now clear we did not understand how thin the ice cap had already become - for Arctic ice cover has since been disappearing at ever increasing rates. Every few years we have to revise our estimates downwards. Now the most detailed computer models suggest the Arctic's summer ice is going to last for only a few more years - and given what we have seen happen last week, I think they are probably correct.'" LINK

WTF, huge sudden war? 1,400 civilians dead? And Putin's at the Olympics?

"Russian forces are locked in fierce clashes with Georgia inside its breakaway South Ossetia region, reports say, amid fears of all-out war.
Moscow sent armoured units across the border after Georgia moved against Russian-backed separatists.
Russia says 12 of its soldiers are dead, and separatists estimate that 1,400 civilians have died.
Georgia accuses Russia of waging war, and says it has suffered heavy losses in bombing raids which Russia denies. " LINK

Well, an entirely glorious thing.

"The discovery of a population of some 125,000 lowland gorillas has been hailed by conservationists as "absolutely fantastic news". LINK

WTF, mate? Tornado kills three in Northern France.

"Three people were killed overnight when a small tornado charged through towns in northern France, destroying houses and spewing debris over the area, the local government said.
Roughly 40 houses were hit by the freak meteorological event in the town of Hautmont, near the Belgian border. Three bodies were pulled from wreckage and six people were slightly injured. " LINK

See, this is the kind of thing that makes California seem... worrisome, to me.

"A two-acre patch of land north of Fillmore heated up to 800 degrees Friday, and firefighters and geologists are unsure why.
By Joanna Lin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 5, 2008
A patch of land in Ventura County's Los Padres Forest where the ground heated up to 812 degrees Friday continues to puzzle firefighters and geologists after a month and a half of monitoring."It's a thermal anomaly," said Ron Oatman, spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

...Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres FireWatch, said he had not heard of hot spots in the Sespe Oil Field, but was concerned about their potential effect on the nearby Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the forest's fire-prone nature."It's just a disaster waiting to happen . . . regardless of what the cause is," he said." LINK

Yeah, it is depressing. Primates, headed out?

"A global review of the world's primates says 48% of species face extinction, an outlook described as "depressing" by conservationists.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.
More than 70% of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds. " LINK

Wonder what Edouard will do to gas prices?

"On its projected path, Edouard would hit offshore rigs in the Gulf that produce a 30% of U.S. crude oil and 15% of its natural gas, and possibly the Houston and New Orleans-Lake Charles, La., areas, which combined are home to about 25% of U.S. oil-refining capacity. The Houston refining complex is in the storm's projected path, which has it coming ashore near Galveston.
The Hurricane Center predicted Edouard would move parallel to the coast Sunday night and Monday, then come ashore Tuesday along the Southwestern Louisiana-southeastern Texas coast possibly at hurricane strength, the center reported.
The Hurricane Center said it had issued a tropical storm warning for the Louisiana coast from the mouth of the Mississippi to Cameron, La., and a hurricane watch from Intracoastal City, La., to Port O'Connor, Tex.. ." LINK

The jellyfish are here- a bad sign.

"...while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world’s oceans.

The explosion of jellyfish populations, scientists say, reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators, like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.

...Within the past year, there have been beach closings because of jellyfish swarms on the Côte d’Azur in France, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and at Waikiki and Virginia Beach in the United States. " LINK

Shipping costs bringing some manufacturing back to America.

"Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle.
Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the pursuit of lower wages. Rising concern about global warming, the reaction against lost jobs in rich countries, worries about food safety and security, and the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva last week also signal that political and environmental concerns may make the calculus of globalization far more complex." LINK

A slow, dim, and uncomfortable future. Yay.

"Spain has seen the future and it is slow, dim and uncomfortable. A swinging series of energy-saving measures announced by the Spanish government may be a foretaste of the kind of policies which will be forced upon an energy-hungry industrial world in the coming decades.
To protests from motorists and mockery in parts of the press, the Socialist government plans to cut motorway speed limits to 50mph and town speeds to 25mph. New austerity rules will be imposed on the air conditioning and heating of all public buildings. Street-lighting will be cut by half. " LINK