Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Tide of dead seabirds keeps rolling in on Southern England beach

Joanna Davis
Dorset Echo, UK
Sun, 23 Feb 2014 14:42 UTC
Dead Seabird
© Dorset EchoOne of the dead seabirds.
Dead seabirds are continuing to be washed up on Chesil Beach.

A combination of storms and pollution are thought to be to blame because some of the birds are covered in oil.

The weekend saw an overnight tide wash up more dead seabirds on Portland including razorbills, guillemots and gannets and lumps of what is thought to be palm or vegetable oil.

Concerned Wyke Regis resident Peter Minter said: "On Saturday morning people visiting Chesil Cove discovered that a lot of dead seabirds had been washed up.

"There were huge amounts of an oily, sticky white substance which after tests may be confirmed as palm oil also washed ashore early this month.

"The substance emits a pungent, overpowering odour."

The Echo reported last week that Dorset Wildlife Trust officers rescued distressed sea birds that washed up on Chesil Beach following a spell of storms and wild weather. Most birds washed up dead.
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Cloud Precipitation

Government study finds: Roundup weedkiller found in 75% of air and rain samples

Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com
Thu, 20 Feb 2014 13:16 UTC
Image
The GM farming system has made exposure to Roundup herbicide a daily fact of our existence, and according to the latest US Geological Survey study its probably in the air you are breathing...

A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey, accepted for publication online ahead of print in the journal Enviromental Toxicology and Chemistry, titled, "Pesticides in Mississippi air and rain: A comparison between 1995 and 2007,"[i] reveals that Roundup herbicide (aka glyphosate) and its still-toxic degradation byproduct AMPA were found in over 75% of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007.

The researchers evaluated a wide range of pesticides currently being used through weekly composite air and rain sampling collected during the 1995 and 2007 growing seasons in the Mississippi Delta agricultural region.
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Attention

Officials probe death of 30-foot whale in Chesapeake Bay

Ted Shockley
The Daily Times
Sun, 23 Feb 2014 12:23 UTC
Officials are investigating the death of a 30-foot-long whale found in shallow water near a Chesapeake Bay island at the Maryland-Virginia line.

Joan Barnes, a spokeswoman with the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response team, said Sunday morning that experts conducted a rare on-boat necropsy, or animal autopsy, of the animal as its body rested in shallow water.

The whale was unable to be towed to land or taken ashore.

Investigators got as close to the animal "to conduct a necropsy as best they could," Barnes said.

Officials with the Smithsonian Institution and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries also are involved in the investigation.

Part of the challenge, Barnes said, was the inaccessibility of the whale. It could only be approached by a shallow-draft boat and is on a remote island.
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Attention

Michael Mann's legal case caught in a quote fabrication fib

Anthony Watts
What's Up With That
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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Michael Mann
UPDATE: it seems the language was lifted from a "Skeptical Science" web page, see below.

Steve McIntyre had a busy day yesterday. While yesterday there was an incorrect story called "Michael Mann Faces Bankruptcy as his Courtroom Climate Capers Collapse" being pushed by John O'Sullivan at Principia Scientific International (aka PSI and The Slayers) claiming Dr. Tim Ball had defeated Mann's lawsuit, Ball confirms through communications with McIntyre yesterday that while stalled, Mann's lawsuit is still very much on. Also, for those who don't know, we've heard that Dr. Mann's legal bills are being paid by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, where we've been told there are some deep green pockets contributing, so he isn't facing bankruptcy, at least not yet.

I find the name a bit of a misnomer, since AFAIK, no climate skeptic scientists are suing alarmist climate scientists, We have only Dr. Mann's and Dr. Weaver's lawsuit (also against Tim Ball). Perhaps it should be named the Climate Science Legal Offense Fund.

Comment: For some background on Michael Mann read:
Dr. Michael Mann's dishonest political messaging
Climategate: Michael Mann's very unhappy New Year
Climategate Junk Scientist Michael Mann Awarded Half a Million in Stimulus Cash

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Arrow Down

Sinking Britain! Now sinkholes even threaten the dead as they appear in a Kent cemetery

Emily Fox
Daily Express,UK
Fri, 21 Feb 2014 10:25 UTC
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© SWNSThe soil has begun to sink at a cemetary in Kent
Giant sinkholes are not only threatening Britain's homes, roads and parks they are now even disturbing the dead.

Huge chasms have begun to appear in a cemetery in Gravesend exposing unmarked graves and leaving families fearing for the loved ones they have lost.

Cemetery bosses spoke of their shock at seeing the huge number of graves being engulfed by the sodden ground following weeks of wet weather.

A council spokesman told Kent Online: "It is quite common for graves to sink - especially after a period of heavy rain. But none of the staff has seen anything of this scale."

He added that staff were working hard to fill the holes believed to be due to the recent storms and heavy rain experienced across the country.

He continued: "We have been working hard to top up the affected graves using extra staff from other teams and the Team Green. It is a gradual process but it is a priority to deal with them."
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House

Weakened affordability: Weather's chilling impact on real estate


CNBC
Fri, 21 Feb 2014 09:21 UTC
CNBC's Diana Olick takes a look at whether the winter weather is to blame for the slowdown in housing or if it has more to do with weakened affordability.

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Ice Cube

Stunning ice covered Great Lakes seen from space

Megan Gannon
Yahoo! News
Fri, 21 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
frozen great lakes
© NASAThe Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image on Feb. 19, 2014.
A deep freeze has settled in over the Great Lakes this winter and a new image released by NASA shows the astonishing extent of the ice cover as seen from space.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the lakes on the early afternoon of Feb. 19, 2014. At the time, 80.3 percent of the five lakes were covered in ice, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Earlier this month, ice cover over the Great Lakes hit 88 percent for the first time since 1994. Typically at its peak, the average ice cover is just over 50 percent, and it only occasionally passes 80 percent, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
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Roses

Two children killed as huge rock crashes into family ski chalet in France

Kim Willsher
The Guardian
Sun, 23 Feb 2014 08:46 UTC
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The rock fell at around 5am on Sunday morning
Parents manage to climb out of crushed chalet but boys aged seven and 10 are killed in France's Isola 2000 Alpine resort

Two children died when their mountain chalet was crushed by an enormous rock near the Alpine ski resort of Isola 2000 early on Sunday.

The boys, aged seven and 10, were asleep in the building with five adults when the tragedy happened at around 5am.

The massive block of rock measuring 10 metres by 5 metres smashed into a nearby road before plunging down on to the three-storey chalet at the edge of the village where two families were staying.

Jean-Marie Bogini, the local mayor, told French journalists that around 60 paramedics and mountain rescuers with sniffer dogs were at the scene. Three adults pulled themselves out of the collapsed building, while two other adults were rescued and taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. The bodies of the two children, from different families, were discovered two hours later in the ruins.

Comment: See also:

8 February 2014: Car-sized boulder breaks off mountain in French Alps, smashes into first carriage and leaves train dangling over steep embankment - 2 dead, 10 injured

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Windsock

First 'orange' pollution alert as heavy smog rolls into Beijing


Yahoo! News
Fri, 21 Feb 2014 09:14 UTC

China's capital Beijing, under fire to take effective measures against air pollution, raised its four-tiered alert system to "orange" for the first time on Friday, as heavy smog was forecast to roll into the city over the next three days. Related Stories

The orange level, the second highest, advises schools and kindergartens to cancel outside sports classes, but falls short of ordering school to close and keeping government vehicles off the road, provisions which come into force with the "red" level.

The alert was raised after the Beijing government faced criticism from state media and on the Internet for failing to act against high pollution levels last weekend.

State news agency Xinhua said that the city had dispatched inspectors to factories around the capital, warning that those found breaching emission rules would be fined.

The capital was already shrouded in smoky, white smog by Friday afternoon. Data from the U.S. embassy put levels of PM2.5 particles, those measuring less than 2.5 micrometers across and the most noxious form of air pollution, at 378.
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Target

Another huge sinkhole in Philadelphia partially swallows another garbage truck

Queen Muse
nbcphiladelphia.com
Sun, 23 Feb 2014 06:20 UTC
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© NBC10.com/Daralene Jones
The temperature warm-up and snow meltdown may have contributed to a string of water main breaks across the City of Philadelphia on Friday.

The largest of 10 active water main breaks in the city occurred on the 1300 block of N. Wanamaker St. in West Philadelphia, where a sinkhole opened up on a flooded street, nearly swallowing a city garbage truck.

"I could feel the pipes rumbling beneath my feet and the ground shaking," resident Zahir Yancey said as he described the moments before the hole opened up.

"It looks like a cave. I've never seen anything like that in my life, it's absurd," he said.

Gladys Holliday, who also lives on the block, says she saw the entire incident unfold.

Comment: 13 Jan 2014: Sinkhole eats up trash truck in Philadelphia!

16 Dec 2013: Another sinkhole emerges on same Philadelphia street where truck was almost swallowed a week ago

05 Dec 2013: Sinkhole nearly swallows pickup truck in Philadelphia

31 Jul 2013: Another sinkhole opens in Philadelphia, swallows car!

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