Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Whiteout across Britain as Cancun Climate Change Summit Discusses Global Warming!!!

Neil Foster
Sovereign Independent
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:26 UTC
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University of Dundee pic reveals extent of ice-covered UK

Looking out of my window at Musselburgh Harbour, just a few miles outside Edinburgh, I'm greeted by about 9″ of snow on the beach. The news 'programs' on all UK stations are headlining every broadcast with reports of heavy snow and temperatures as low as -26C in Scotland with -10C being the expected temperature in Edinburgh tonight and for the next few days the temperature is not expected to go above freezing, hovering somehwhere around -4C or -5C during the coming days.

NOT ONE news program has uttered the mantra of 'climate change' or 'global warming'. They have also never mentioned the Cancun Climate Change Summit currently taking place in the famous Mexican holiday resort which is advocating food rationing and relocation of vast quantities of people from supposedly self sufficient agricultural regions into already overcrowded cities to end their lives in squalour.
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Bizarro Earth

UK: Weather a huge blow to economy


The Press Association
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:35 UTC
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© Press AssociationThe UK economy suffered a huge blow when millions of people could not get to work because of travel chaos caused by the snow

The UK economy has suffered a huge blow when millions of people could not get to work because of travel chaos caused by the snow, losing firms valuable business in the crucial run-up to Christmas.

An estimated two out of five staff were not able to go to work as train services ground to a halt and roads were impassable, with police in some areas advising people not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary.

A survey of almost 1,000 employers found 38% of workers could not get to their office on Thursday morning and a further 43% were late arriving.

A third of the firms questioned by employment law firm Peninsula said they will send their staff home early on Thursday if the bad weather persists.

Peter Done, managing director of Peninsula, said: "Snowfall was the major issue yesterday, but the big problem for businesses today is the icy conditions left behind. Public transport such as buses and trains have been hit with major cancellations making it almost impossible for some workers to get into work this morning."
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Igloo

UK: Transport Inquiry Launched Amid Winter Chaos


Agence France-Presse
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Agence France-PresseGatwick airport is expected to remain shut until at least 6am on Friday
Travel networks were paralysed on Thursday as severe weather conditions affected roads, railways and airports while an urgent review of the country's transport systems got under way.

Britain's second busiest airport, London Gatwick, was closed for the second consecutive day due to the hostile weather conditions and is expected to remain shut until tomorrow morning.

Edinburgh Airport was also closed again this morning and was expecting to reopen at 4:00 pm this afternoon.

Hundreds of rail commuters spent a freezing night aboard an abandoned train and many other trains were cancelled in southeast England. Southern trains suspended its services today while Southeastern was running an emergency timetable.

About half of Eurostar train services between London and Paris, and London and Brussels, were cancelled today because of bad weather, a spokeswoman said.

On the roads, there were closures on the M20 in Kent due to hazardous driving conditions, while police in Essex, Sussex and Surrey advised people to make only essential or emergency trips.

Yesterday motoring organisation AA attended more than 11,300 incidents.

In Crawley, West Sussex, a motorcyclist was killed in a crash involving a lorry at 5:10 am, and a woman died after falling into a freezing lake at Pontefract racecourse, West Yorkshire.

The government today started an urgent review of how transport systems were performing amid criticism of Britain's preparedness for the icy conditions and a lack of communication to commuters.
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Bizarro Earth

Ecuador Tungurahua volcano re-erupts


Press TV / Reuters
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:41 UTC
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© UnknownThe Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador
The volcano spewed molten rocks and large clouds of gas and ash near Banos, south of Quito, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The Tungurahua's volcanic activity follows last month's eruption, when a column of gas shot up seven kilometers into the sky.

No casualties have been recorded so far, but flight re-direction is being considered.

Tungurahua is located approximately 150 kilometers southeast of Ecuador's capital, Quito.

After a long period of peaceful resting, the volcano erupted in 1999, leading to the evacuation of about 250,000 people.

In 2006, Tungurahua underwent another major eruption, leading to the death of seven villagers. Yet another major eruption took place in 2008, leading to more evacuations. The next eruptions occurred in May and in November 2010.
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Bizarro Earth

World is running out of places to catch wild fish, study finds

Juliet Eilperin
The Washington Post
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:24 UTC
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© Randy Olson/National Geographic Stock
Global fisheries have expanded so rapidly over the past half-century that the world is running out of places to catch wild fish, according to a new study conducted by researchers in Canada, the United States and Australia.

The findings, published Thursday evening in the online journal PLoS ONE, are the first to examine how marine fisheries have expanded geographically over time. Looking at fleets' movements between 1950 and 2005, the five researchers charted how fishing has been expanding southward into less exploited seas at roughly one degree latitude each year in order to compensate for the fact that humans have depleted fish stocks closer to their shores in the Northern Hemisphere.

During that same period the world's fish catch increased fivefold from 19 million metric tons in 1950 to a peak of 90 million in the late 1980s, before declining to 87 million tons in 2005. It was 79.5 million tons in 2008, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Daniel Pauly, a co-author who serves as principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, said the global seafood catch is now dropping "because there's essentially nowhere to go." The fact that fish catches rose for so many decades "looks like sustainability but it is actually expansion driven. That is frightening, because the accounting is coming now."
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Bizarro Earth

Australia: Monster locust swarm from NSW heading for Victoria


The Age
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:09 UTC
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Millions of locusts forming part of the biggest swarm to threaten Victoria in decades is about to enter the state, placing farmers and motorists at risk. The swarm, 25 kilometres wide and at least one kilometre deep, was in the Hay and Conargo region of New South Wales yesterday afternoon and travelling south-west. With Echuca and Swan Hill less than 200 kilometres away it was expected they would start arriving there overnight or this morning.

State Controller for Locusts Russell McMurray said vegetables and pasture were most at risk and urged farmers to consult agronomists to ensure the best treatment for their property. But he warned that no treatment offered 100 per cent protection. Up to 2000 locusts can be found in a square metre on the ground and up to 100 in the air, but Mr McMurray said density varied and he estimated this swarm contained ''millions and millions''.

Motorists in the areas have also been warned to add insect-cleaning agent to windscreen washer systems and to consider attaching an insect screen to the external radiator air-inlet.
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Better Earth

White-out UK: Satellite pic shows nation under blanket of snow & ice


ClickGreen
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:39 UTC
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University of Dundee pic reveals extent of ice-covered UK
This striking satellite image shows the extent of the big freeze that is currently paralysing the UK.

The snow and ice almost completely covers the entire nation and the Met Office is warning of worse to come.

The University of Dundee Satellite Receiving Station captured the startling image at 11.45am today from the NASA satellite Terra.

The white-out that is affecting virtually the entire country is clearly visible.

The latest Met Office forecast confirms the snow and icy conditions have continued to cause widespread disruption across many parts of the UK as temperatures fell as low as -21.1 °C at Altnaharra in Scotland.

Met Office severe weather warnings are in force across Scotland, eastern England, East Anglia and the South East, where further snow is likely to fall.
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Igloo

Snow strands hundreds on New York highway


Associated Press
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:46 UTC
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© AP Photo/David DupreyVehicles are stranded on the New York State Thruway during a winter storm in Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010.
Hundreds of cold and hungry motorists were stranded on a western New York highway Thursday after an accident caused a backup and the idling trucks and cars got stuck overnight in heavy snow. Authorities said 16 miles of eastbound lanes along Interstate 90 were shut Thursday in Buffalo's eastern suburbs, along with a 10-mile westbound stretch. Matt Welling was hauling a double tractor-trailer full of groceries when traffic came to a standstill a few miles east of Buffalo.

He spent the night "sitting back, playing a little Solitaire on the computer, taking a nap," the Wegmans driver said at midmorning, 8 1/2 hours into his wait. "I'm pretty chilly, hungry. A nice cup of coffee would do pretty well right now," he said by cell phone. State Trooper Daniel Golinski said the highway was closed shortly before 3 a.m. Thursday after vehicles backed up behind a truck accident were buried in blowing snow. The truck jackknifed around 8 p.m. Wednesday and has been removed, but crews were still working Thursday to free the stranded vehicles, Golinski said. "There's a lot of work to do yet," he said.

The storm buried the southern neighborhoods of Buffalo and the city's southern and eastern suburbs under two feet of snow, but largely spared downtown. "Very, very light flurries are blowing in the air, but streets downtown are pavement. Maybe an inch is on the ground," police spokesman Michael DeGeorge said from headquarters.
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Attention

Mercury Poisoning Makes Male Birds Homosexual

Michael Marshall
New Scientist
Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:01 UTC
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© Roy Toft/Getty ImagesPoisoned partners?
Low levels of mercury in the diet of male white ibises cause the birds to mate with each other rather than with females. As a result many of the females can't breed, and fewer chicks are produced.

It's the first time a pollutant has been found to change an animal's sexual preference. Many chemicals can "feminise" males or reduce fertility, but males affected in these ways still prefer females.

Mercury is extremely toxic, particularly in the form of methylmercury, which reduces breeding in wild birds by disrupting their parenting behaviours. To find out if it also affected mating, Peter Frederick of the University of Florida in Gainesville and Nilmini Jayasena of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, captured 160 young white ibises from south Florida. They gave them food laced with methylmercury and monitored them closely.

The birds were split into four groups. One group ate food with 0.3 parts per million methylmercury, which most US states would regard as too high for human consumption. A second group got 0.1 ppm, and the third 0.05 ppm, a low dose that wild birds would be exposed to frequently. The fourth group received none.
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Igloo

UK: Millions endure second nightmare journey home from work as forecasters predict eight inches of snow tonight


Daily Mail
Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:08 UTC
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© PACrawling along: Motorists edge their way forward in the centre of York today
  • Woman dies after falling into freezing lake in West Yorkshire
  • Body of man in his 50s pulled from stream in Surrey
  • Eight inches of snow forecast tonight for London and South East
  • 900 flights cancelled as Gatwick and Edinburgh airports close
  • Shops running out of basics as lorries struggle to deliver
  • Passengers stranded overnight on freezing trains in South East
  • Police advise people not to go out unless absolutely necessary
  • Temperatures set to fall to -6c, with winds making it feel even colder
Britain's workforce was tonight embroiled in a second night of snow chaos with forecasters warning there is worse to come.

Police in several counties have been urging people to leave work early - with up to eight more inches of snow predicted in London and the South East tonight.

Eurostar said that half of its services would be cancelled today. It advised passengers to only make essential journeys.
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