Earth ChangesS


Cow Skull

Severe Droughts Trigger Disease, Lion Die-Offs

Véronique LaCapra
Voice of America
Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:32 UTC


Image
©Unknown
Located in Northeastern Tanzania, the Serengeti National Park has the greatest concentration of large mammals in the world

Wild lion populations can generally tolerate a certain level of parasites and disease. But new research shows that extreme climate conditions - such as severe droughts - can cause infection rates to skyrocket, resulting in mass die-offs. Véronique LaCapra reports.

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Hourglass

Experts size up probability of a Salt River catastrophe

Gary Nelson
Azcentral.com
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:55 UTC
With Tempe in the grip of a suffocating heat wave, flooding might be the last thing on your mind.

But as recent flooding in the Midwest proves, not only can the worst case happen, sometimes the unthinkable happens.
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Info

Scientists survey Haleakala to measure whether it's showing signs of acting up


Maui News
Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:41 UTC
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geophysicists have been working this week to survey a dozen Global Positioning System sites atop Haleakala as part of a routine check on what is still considered an active volcano.

Haleakala
©Maui News File Photo

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 10,000-foot volcano last erupted about 400 years ago. It was thought that the volcano last spewed lava around 1790, a date based largely on comparisons of maps made during the voyages in the late 18th century by French explorer Jean Francois de Galaup, Compte de La Perouse and British Capt. George Vancouver.

But recent carbon dating of lava flows at Haleakala put the date of the last eruption in the 1600s, according to the USGS.
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Gear

Doomed to a fatal delusion over climate change

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:54 UTC
Psychiatrists have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon".

"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."

(So have Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery, Profit of Doom Al Gore and Sir Richard Brazen, but I digress.)
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Red Flag

Great white shark reported at 'Jaws' filming site


Associated Press
Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:44 UTC
Edgartown, Mass. - The island where "Jaws" was filmed had a real-life shark scare Thursday, when an unconfirmed sighting of a great white forced the closure of two beaches.

South Beach on Martha's Vineyard was closed for a short time, and swimmers were kept out of the water at State Beach in Edgartown, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation said.
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Hourglass

Wild Orangutans Declining More Sharply In Sumatra And Borneo Than Thought


Science Daily
Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:25 UTC
Endangered wild orangutan (Pongo spp.) populations are declining more sharply in Sumatra and Borneo than previously estimated, according to new findings published this month by Great Ape Trust of Iowa scientist Dr. Serge Wich and other orangutan conservation experts in Oryx - The International Journal of Conservation.
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Question

South Africa's Mystery Croc Die Off Continues

Nicolas van der Leek
Ohmy News
Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:12 UTC
Something very strange is happening in a favorite crocodile haunt, the Olifants Gorge, in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Crocodiles are dying en masse, and a local television documentary has showed, recently, the many carcasses floating in the river or lying dead in the sun on the river bank.

In the month of June alone, 30 carcasses were counted in the Olifants River area alone. This figure has subsequently risen to 50.
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Attention

The Lavoisier Group 2007 Workshop 'Rehabilitating Carbon Dioxide'

Ray Evans
The Lavoisier Group
Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:24 UTC
The papers presented at the Lavoisier Group's Workshop Rehabilitating Carbon Dioxide held in Melbourne on 29th and 30th June 2007, covered the two most important scientific issues at the heart of the current debate over global warming and its causes. The first is the influence, if any, of atmospheric carbon dioxide on the earth's climate. The second is the very well documented correlation between sunspot activity and climate changes during the last 1500 years or more.

Comment: The dots are being connected by more and more respectable scientists, yet the Global Warming circus goes on. Qui bono?

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Fish

One-third Of Reef-building Corals Face Extinction


Science Daily
Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:20 UTC
A third of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction, according to the first-ever comprehensive global assessment to determine their conservation status. The study findings were published today by Science Express.

reef-building corals
©Conservation International

Leading coral experts joined forces with the Global Marine Species Assessment (GMSA) -- a joint initiative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International (CI) -- to apply the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria to this important group of marine species.

"The results of this study are very disconcerting," stated Kent Carpenter, lead author of the Science article, GMSA Director, IUCN Species Programme. "When corals die off, so do the other plants and animals that depend on coral reefs for food and shelter, and this can lead to the collapse of entire ecosystems."
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Better Earth

US: Mount St. Helens Officially Slumbers


kptv.com
Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:59 UTC
Cougar, Washington -- The eruption in the crater of Mount St. Helens is officially over, scientists said Thursday, leading the U.S. Geological Survey to lower the alert level for the volcano to "normal."

The eruption started in the fall of 2004 and pushed 125 million cubic yards of lava into the crater.

In the past 28 years, lava has replaced about 7 percent of the mountaintop that was removed in the 1980 blast.
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