Yeah, we're still so freaking doomed. Don't take my relative silence lately for an surge of optomism!
"Amphibian populations at Yellowstone - the world's oldest national park - are in steep decline, a major study shows.
The authors link this to the drying out of wetlands where the animals live and breed, which is in turn being driven by long-term climate change.
The results, reported in the journal PNAS, suggest that climate warming has already disrupted one of the best-protected ecosystems on Earth.
..."Snow pack during the winter is decreasing - which other studies have documented - and the regional aquifer is drying up as a result of these large-scale climate changes.
"These ponds are changing, the environment is changing, the landscape is drying up and the amphibians no longer have a place to breed. It's disturbing."
Amphibian populations are in crisis worldwide: pollution, diseases such as chytrid fungus and rana virus, invasive species, UV radiation and habitat destruction all contribute to the problem. " LINK
Oh Christ oh christ oh christ.
This is like the fucking end of days.
Asia is TANKING right now.
This is beyond that 'interesting times' curse bullshit.
This is unreal.
LINK to NYT
This says so much.
"People filing new claims for unemployment benefits by phone face longer wait times due to a spike in call volume.
The average wait to speak with a customer service representative at the state unemployment division on Monday, the center’s busiest day of the week, was 28 minutes, compared with 15 minutes last year, Raymond A. Filippone, assistant director, income support, for the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training said yesterday.
The state’s caseload of unemployment claims, including new and continuing claims, has nearly doubled in the last year, to 21,000 cases, up from about 11,500 during the same time last year, Filippone said. The volume of new unemployment claims, he said, is up 12.2 percent from a year ago.
Rhode Island’s unemployment rate in August jumped to 8.5 percent, the second-highest in the country after Michigan, where the jobless rate was 8.9 percent. Rhode Island’s unemployment rolls in August swelled to 48,800, the highest level on record." LINK
The average wait to speak with a customer service representative at the state unemployment division on Monday, the center’s busiest day of the week, was 28 minutes, compared with 15 minutes last year, Raymond A. Filippone, assistant director, income support, for the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training said yesterday.
The state’s caseload of unemployment claims, including new and continuing claims, has nearly doubled in the last year, to 21,000 cases, up from about 11,500 during the same time last year, Filippone said. The volume of new unemployment claims, he said, is up 12.2 percent from a year ago.
Rhode Island’s unemployment rate in August jumped to 8.5 percent, the second-highest in the country after Michigan, where the jobless rate was 8.9 percent. Rhode Island’s unemployment rolls in August swelled to 48,800, the highest level on record." LINK
And on and on and on and on......
"Asian stocks remained in a sea of red on Wednesday as the sell-off in equities continued unabated for the fifth straight session.
Markets in Tokyo and Hong Kong dipped more than 5 percent, and Jakarta tumbled 9 percent, after another gloomy session on Wall Street that saw the Dow Jones industrial average notch its biggest five-day points fall ever.
The Nikkei 225 average lost 5 percent and the broader Topix tumbled 4.9 percent by mid-day as investors could not shake off fears that the global economy would slide into recession." LINK
Markets in Tokyo and Hong Kong dipped more than 5 percent, and Jakarta tumbled 9 percent, after another gloomy session on Wall Street that saw the Dow Jones industrial average notch its biggest five-day points fall ever.
The Nikkei 225 average lost 5 percent and the broader Topix tumbled 4.9 percent by mid-day as investors could not shake off fears that the global economy would slide into recession." LINK
Amid the horror, more horror.
This has been the kind of day to really depress a girl.
This story is everywhere today, but was mostly buried by the global economic collapse-frenzy.
This is the kind of shit that makes you lose your mind. And meanwhile that block, that stone, that less than senseless thing Palin has been shooting wolves from helicopters. Seriously, can anyone not be freaking out?
Article chosen from the Washington Post, because they are the least dramatic version of this I can find, so no one can say I've posted this for drama- if you want more sources for this, hit here.
"25% of Wild Mammal Species Face Extinction
Global Assessment Paints 'Bleak Picture,' Scientists Say, and Figure of Those at Risk Could Be Higher
At least a quarter of the world's wild mammal species are at risk of extinction, according to a comprehensive global survey released here Monday.
The new assessment -- which took 1,700 experts in 130 countries five years to complete -- paints "a bleak picture," leaders of the project wrote in a paper being published in the journal Science. The overview, made public at the quadrennial World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), covers all 5,487 wild species identified since 1500. It is the most thorough tally of land and marine mammals since 1996.
"Mammals are definitely declining, and the driving factors are habitat destruction and over-harvesting," said Jan Schipper, the paper's lead writer and the IUCN's global mammals assessment coordinator. The researchers concluded that 25 percent of the mammal species for which they had sufficient data are threatened with extinction, but Schipper added that the figure could be as high as 36 percent because information on some species is so scarce.
Land and marine mammals face different threats, the scientists said, and large mammals are more vulnerable than small ones. For land species, habitat loss and hunting represent the greatest danger, while marine mammals are more threatened by unintentional killing by pollution, ship strikes and being caught in fishing nets." LINK
Wow, so freaking screwed, we are.
This from the normally calm Telegraph.
"We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.
...During the past week, we have tipped over the edge, into the middle of the abyss. Systemic collapse is in full train. The Netherlands has just rushed through a second, more sweeping nationalisation of Fortis. Ireland and Greece have had to rescue all their banks. Iceland is facing an Argentine denouement.
The US commercial paper market is closed. It shrank $95bn last week, and has lost $208bn in three weeks. The interbank lending market has seized up. There are almost no bids. It is a ghost market. Healthy companies cannot roll over debt. Some will have to sack staff today to stave off default.
...We are fast approaching the point of no return. The only way out of this calamitous descent is “shock and awe” on a global scale, and even that may not be enough.
Drastic rate cuts would be a good start. Central bankers still paralysed by a misplaced fear of inflation – whether in Europe, Britain, or the US – have become a public menace and should be held to severe account by our democracies. The imminent and massive danger is now self-feeding debt deflation.
The lesson of the 1930s is that any country trying to reflate in isolation will be punished. The crisis will ricochet from one economy to another until every one is crippled. We are seeing it play again in this drama as our leaders fail to rise above their narrow, parochial agendas." LINK
Even more dramatic than Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 's semi-hysterical editorial are the comments left by readers, which are entertaininly insane and also kind of worrisome at the same time.
"Barack Obama brings to the Youth of America Hope and for America and the World, Peace and economic Prosperity. Just believe in Him and follow His teachings. A warning to those who go against Him, you will be cast away. "
"there will be martial law in the usa soon. the illuminati has planned it for years, but the yanks i have been talking to willfight to the death you evil bastards.the nwo will fail bush, cheney etc you have been warned"
"This is the beginning of the End Times. Just wait and see. The "solution" to this problem will be global governance and an end to money as we know it. If you don't take the mark, you will not be able to buy or sell."
Damn, I'm glad my fellow world citizens are so level-headed and reasonable. This should all work out fine.
Um, yeah, we're screwed.
"We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.
...During the past week, we have tipped over the edge, into the middle of the abyss. Systemic collapse is in full train. The Netherlands has just rushed through a second, more sweeping nationalisation of Fortis. Ireland and Greece have had to rescue all their banks. Iceland is facing an Argentine denouement.
The US commercial paper market is closed. It shrank $95bn last week, and has lost $208bn in three weeks. The interbank lending market has seized up. There are almost no bids. It is a ghost market. Healthy companies cannot roll over debt. Some will have to sack staff today to stave off default.
...We are fast approaching the point of no return. The only way out of this calamitous descent is “shock and awe” on a global scale, and even that may not be enough.
Drastic rate cuts would be a good start. Central bankers still paralysed by a misplaced fear of inflation – whether in Europe, Britain, or the US – have become a public menace and should be held to severe account by our democracies. The imminent and massive danger is now self-feeding debt deflation.
The lesson of the 1930s is that any country trying to reflate in isolation will be punished. The crisis will ricochet from one economy to another until every one is crippled. We are seeing it play again in this drama as our leaders fail to rise above their narrow, parochial agendas." LINK
Even more dramatic than Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 's semi-hysterical editorial are the comments left by readers, which are entertaininly insane and also kind of worrisome at the same time.
"Barack Obama brings to the Youth of America Hope and for America and the World, Peace and economic Prosperity. Just believe in Him and follow His teachings. A warning to those who go against Him, you will be cast away. "
"there will be martial law in the usa soon. the illuminati has planned it for years, but the yanks i have been talking to willfight to the death you evil bastards.the nwo will fail bush, cheney etc you have been warned"
"This is the beginning of the End Times. Just wait and see. The "solution" to this problem will be global governance and an end to money as we know it. If you don't take the mark, you will not be able to buy or sell."
Damn, I'm glad my fellow world citizens are so level-headed and reasonable. This should all work out fine.
Um, yeah, we're screwed.
The party at the end of the world.
"This time we will drink extra hard to make sure we forget the economic crisis too,' says Gunnghilder"
I totally want to hang out with Gunnghilder. If Iceland is crashing as hard as this article makes it sound, I might even be able to visit someday- I've wanted to go there for as long as I can remember, but ouch, so expensive. Although at this rate, no one's money will be worth anything soon. Seriously scary stuff.
"'What can we do? Its difficult times but we've spent all day talking about it, watching the news getting worse and worse. We had to go out and be with friends. Maybe it's like the party at the end of the world,' says Egill Tomasson, 32, sitting in the Kaffeebarinn bar.
Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send any more money and supplies of foreign currency are running out.
Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send any more money and supplies of foreign currency are running out.
On Friday the queues at the banks were huge, as people moved savings into the most secure accounts. Yesterday people were buying up supplies of olive oil and pasta after a supermarket spokesman announced on Friday night that they had no means of paying the foreign currency advances needed to import more foodstuffs." LINK
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