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Depleting the Seas of Fish

Stephen Lendman
SteveLendmanBlog
Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
fishing trawler
© Greenpeace
In November 2006, Washington Post writer Juliet Eilperin headlined, " World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn," saying:

International ecologists and economists believe "the world will run out of seafood by 2048" if current fishing rates continue.

A journal Science study "conclude(d) that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species" globally. They're also impeding world oceans' ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients, and resist disease.

Marine biologist Boris Worm warned:
"We really see the end of the line now. It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things."
Researchers studied fish populations, catch records, and ocean ecosystems for four years. By 2003, 29% of all species collapsed. It means they're at least "90% below their historic maximum catch levels."

In recent years, collapse rates accelerated. In 1980, 13.5% of 1,736 fish species collapsed. Today, 7,784 species are harvested.
      Read More...
Camera

Earth, solar wind and fire: Northern lights and molten lava come together in landscape that could be out of this world

Rachel Rickard Straus
Daily Mail
Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:31 UTC
Iceland Aurora
© James Appleton / Barcroft Media
Otherworldly: A volcanic erupts on the Fimmvvrpuhals mountain pass in Iceland as Aurora Borealis lights up the sky in lurid greens and yellows behind
With their vivid colours and alien landscapes, these pictures look like they could be of another world.

They capture two of nature's most spectacular sights - the northern lights and an erupting volcano in Iceland - in a single shot.

Photographer James Appleton from Cambridge braved the mighty flames of the Fimmvvrpuhals volcano and the frozen bite of the harsh Icelandic winter - and was rewarded with these incredibly rare shots.
      Read More...
Snowflake

US: Winter storm dumps snow on South, knocks out power


MSNBC
Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:30 UTC
Crews work to restore electricity to tens of thousands of households. Following highs in the 60s on Saturday, parts of Virginia saw more snow Sunday than all season.

Image
© Eli Van Zoeren
Richmond, Virginia. - A winter storm that dumped several inches of snow across parts of the South, causing power outages, slippery roads and numerous accidents, moved out to sea Monday.

Crews were working to restore power to tens of thousands of households that lost electricity as a result of the storm.

The storm brought as much as 9 inches of snow to some areas on Sunday as it powered its way from Kentucky and Tennessee to West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.

The storm system was expected to push off the coast during Monday morning, with the nation's capital getting only snow flurries, according to the National Weather Service.
      Read More...
Igloo

Cold Winter Kills at Least 40 in Afghanistan

Rahim Faiez
Associated Press
Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:40 UTC
Kabul Snow Storm
© AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq
An Afghan man, his head covered with his scarf, walks down the street during a snowstorm in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012.
Kabul - More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan's coldest winter in years, an Afghan health official said Monday.

The government has recorded 41 deaths from freezing in three provinces - Kabul, Ghor and Badakhshan, said Health Ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar.

All but three or four of those deaths were children, he said. Twenty-four of the deaths were in the capital of Kabul, mostly in camps for people who have fled fighting elsewhere in the country.

Kabul has been experiencing its worst cold snap and heaviest snowfall in 15 years, according to the National Weather Center.
      Read More...
Heart - Black

US: Avalanches Kill 4 at Washington Ski Resorts


San Francisco Chronicle
Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© The Seattle Times/The Associated Press
Feb. 19, 2012: King County Sheriff's officers and other emergency officials work along Highway 2 near Stevens Pass ski resort in Skykomish, Wash., near where four skiers were killed in an avalanche.
Avalanches just minutes apart killed four people at two resorts Sunday - one burying three skiers at Stevens Pass ski resort in the Cascade Mountains and another sweeping a snowboarder off a cliff in Snoqualmie.

All four were in out-of-bounds areas of the resorts.

Just before noon, a snowboarder at Alpental, one of four areas at the Summit at Snoqualmie resort, was with two friends when he triggered an avalanche that caused him to fall about 500 feet over a cliff, authorities said.

Minutes later, 12 skiers in an un-groomed, out-of-bounds area at Stevens Pass resort were caught in an avalanche. Three of them did not respond to CPR and died, said Katie Larson, a spokeswoman with the King County Sheriff's Office.
      Read More...
Snowflake

US: Winter Storm Dumps Snow on Parts of South; Crashes, Power Outages Reported


The Washington Post
Sun, 19 Feb 2012 01:32 UTC
Image
© Richmond Times-Dispatch, Eva Russo / The Associated Press
After a day of teasing, the snow finally starts to accumulate along Broad Street in downtown Richmond, Va., on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012.
A winter storm on Sunday dumped several inches of snow on a band of southern states, triggering accidents on slippery roads and knocking out power to tens of thousands.

The storm brought wet snow to parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

In northern Tennessee, about 20 vehicles were involved in crashes along a three-mile stretch of Interstate 75 near the Kentucky border on Sunday afternoon.

Tennessee Highway Patrol Sgt. Stacy Heatherly said the crashes were reported shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday in near "white-out" conditions caused by heavy snowfall and fog. Police said a juvenile was seriously injured. All lanes of Interstate 75 had reopened by early evening.

Dozens of wrecks were also reported in North Carolina as snow, sleet and rain fell with little accumulation, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.
      Read More...
No Entry

Update: Philippines: Public Warned: Don't Go Near Sinkhole Site

Candeze R. Mongaya
Inquirer News
Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
sinkhole
© Aldo Nelbert Banyanal
Residents of Barangay Cambuang, Dumanjug gather near a sinkhole in a farm few meters from the national road. They said the sinkhole is growing and has already swallowed an electric post and a small mango tree.
People should stay away from the new sinkhole in a farm in Dumanjug town because the soil may "cave in" anytime.

Geologist Maria Elena Lupo gave this warning yesterday as curious onlookers gathered at the site in barangay Cambuang.

"There's no way of knowing how big it will grow and when it will stop. It could suddenly collapse into an unexpected gap," said Lupo, senior geologist of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Mines and Geosciences Bureau in Central Visayas (DENR-MGB-7).

When Cebu Daily News visited the area yesterday, the ground continued to move.

Lupo, however, said the agency lacks the equipment to check the extent of "cavities" formed underground.

She said these empty gaps on the subsurfaceof the land are often found in volcanic or limestone areas.
      Read More...
Arrow Down

Philippines: Sinkhole Stirs Village Still Nervous on Quake

Carmel Matus and Jhunnex Napallacan
Inquirer News
Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
sinkhole
© Aldo Nelbert Banyanal
Residents of Barangay Cambuang, Dumanjug gather near a sinkhole in a farm few meters from the national road. They said the sinkhole is growing and has already swallowed an electric post and a small mango tree.
Residents of a village here expressed alarm over a sinkhole that formed after an explosion, reviving tension in a community that is still nervous following an intensity 6.9 earthquake recently.

The hole was first discovered by a farm caretaker in Barangay Cambuang on Friday. It was initially the size of a frying pan, said Walter Pesablon, 36, who was watching over a 3-hectare farm in the village.

Pesablon said he didn't pay much attention to the hole at first, but when he returned to look at it after having breakfast, he noticed the soil moving and cracks forming around the hole.

An hour later, an explosion shattered the early morning silence of the village.

Pesablon said he checked again and saw a hole with a diameter of about 10 meters. By noon, it grew to 12 meters, the farm caretaker said. The next day, the hole had grown to about 20 meters in diameter and it appeared to be further increasing in size.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Auroras Over the USA


SpaceWeather
Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:33 UTC
A solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field during the waning hours of Saturday, Feb. 18th. Although the stream was expected, the bright auroras it produced were not. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into several US states including Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, and Minnesota:

Auroras
© Travis Novitsky
Image Taken: Feb. 18, 2012
Location: Grand Portage, MN, USA
Travis Novitsky took this picture from Grand Portage, MN. "Last night, my girlfriend and I were just settling in to watch a movie when the auroras made a surprise appearance," he says. "A quick look out the back door of my house revealed that, yes indeed, the lights were out! We jumped in the truck and drove a few miles inland from Lake Superior. For the next hour and a half we were treated to a green glow peppered with dancing curtains of green, purple and red. It was a spectacular night."

In Fairbanks, Alaska, "the auroras were so bright they drew a crowd on my street," reports Brandon Lovett. At the Poker Flats Research Range outside of Fairbanks, researchers launched a suborbital rocket to investigate how auroras affect GPS systems. Lovett could see the rocket soaring into the heavens from more than 20 miles away.
      Read More...
Attention

UK: Incurable Virus Killing Thousands Of Lambs


Sky News, UK
Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:16 UTC
Baby Lambs
© MySparrowNest Blogspot
A new virus is causing lambs to be born with deformities so severe that they die within seconds.

It is thought midges brought the Schmallenberg virus to Britain from continental Europe last autumn.

The foetuses of newly-pregnant ewes bitten by the insects often fail to develop properly.

At Mayfield Farm near Mildenhall in Suffolk, 75 of the 1,700 lambs born so far this year were affected.

"In a ewe that was carrying twins, she would have a job lambing it. You would have to pull it out," said farmer Clive Sleightholme.

"The legs were fused together and tucked underneath, its head was angular, not formed properly.

"They had undershot jaws and they weren't fleshed out properly but nearly every one was alive when it was pulled out but only lived seconds up to a minute."

The Schmallenberg virus, which is not thought to cause risk to humans, was first identified in Germany in November. There have also been cases in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
      Read More...
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