Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Overwhelmed by Oil and Toxic Pollutants: The Destruction of an Entire Coastline

Image
"The sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours ...
For this, for everything, we are out of tune."

(William Wordsworth, 1770-1850.)
For the people of the Gulf and the region - watching some of the most toxic pollutants known to man, being sprayed to disperse one of the most toxic pollutants known to man, unleashed as a result of man's fallibility, in a near-global addiction to consumerism - it must be an environmental apocalypse now. One dispersant Corexit 9500, is four times as toxic as oil, and also disrupts the reproductive systems of organisms.

There is magic about those sun-sparkled coasts, translucent, shimmering, sapphire sea, later turning peach, apricot, deep blush, then seeming near blackberry as the sun falls and the dusk, then dark, takes over. Then the great pelicans sit sentry, on remains of old breakwaters, silhouetted against the moon's silvered light.

People

SOTT Focus: All For One and One For All

All for One
© UnknownAll for One and One for All
The issue of methane and outgassing has occupied me to quite some extent for the past few years particularly after writing New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection. I even asked the SOTT.net editors to keep their eyes open for news items about anything that might be related to outgassings. There's quite a collection in the database if you search. And now, with the recent news about the methane involvement in the BP Gusher, and that news getting more dire every day, I started digging around for some data I knew I had written about and, after finding a few things, I thought: how interesting that this "Mother of all Gushers" may give birth to the "Mother of all Storms." You'll understand what I mean in a minute!

First, read this bit that is current on SOTT: The Real Consequences of An Ocean Floor Collapse.

Note that it says:
The two possible scenarios are either a complete collapse of the ocean floor right above the Deepwater Horizon well and surroundings or a partial collapse in the form of a mud slide on one side of the well.
In this article I wrote back in 2007: Fire and Ice The Day After Tomorrow there's a bunch of collected articles which includes one about The Lake Nyos Gas Explosion, Cameroon 1986 where we read:

Bad Guys

The Toxic Truth About Mega-Farms

Mega_Farm1
© SWNS'Mega-farm': Cows by the thousand live on concrete and rarely get to see the sun, they never actually graze and their lives are shortened by round-the-clock milking.
Aside from the times when he worried that his children might never wake up at all, Jeff Brouse remembers the worst nights as the ones when they woke up screaming. Hot nights were the most frightening.

That was when warm air would rise and the gas - hydrogen sulphide, heavier than air - would roll on down the hill to his pretty farmhouse as if heralding the arrival of some demon in a horror movie.

Then the smell would overpower them. The headaches and sickness would begin, the nausea and dizziness.

And, over and over again, Jeff and his wife Lesley would scoop up their little children, Brooklyn, then aged five, and Jackson, four, and, in Jeff's words, get the hell out of there, far enough away as to be able to breathe.

Alarm Clock

Migrating birds' rest stop could be deathtrap

With a massive seasonal migration about to begin, the number of birds falling victim to oil could soon increase.

Over the 10 weeks crude has been gushing into the Gulf, more than 2,000 pelicans, cormorants, gannets and water birds have been plucked from gooey slicks and blackened shorelines -- about 60 percent of them already dead.

Those numbers could soar, starting as early as this weekend. In the coming months, birds begin migrating from as far north as the Arctic into the coastal marshes, estuaries and beaches. For many, the seasonal rest and refueling stop could wind up a deathtrap.

Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.4 - Near The East Coast of Honshu, Japan

Japan Earthquake_04072010
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, July 04, 2010 at 21:55:51 UTC

Monday, July 05, 2010 at 06:55:51 AM at epicenter

Location:
39.705°N, 142.523°E

Depth:
23.7 km (14.7 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Distances:
120 km (75 miles) E of Morioka, Honshu, Japan

125 km (80 miles) SE of Hachinohe, Honshu, Japan

195 km (120 miles) SE of Aomori, Honshu, Japan

510 km (315 miles) NNE of TOKYO, Japan

Magnify

The EU's Response to Global Warming is a Costly Mistake

The Day after Tomorrow1
© EPAAlarmist bells ringing: a scene from The Day after Tomorrow.
European leaders have a lot to deal with. The financial crisis has prompted several national stimulus packages and a joint effort to keep Greece afloat, while the EU is in danger of being outstripped by other economies that are growing faster, producing more efficiently and at lower costs.

One bright spot is that politicians remain committed to responding to global warming. Unfortunately, their plans do not withstand scrutiny. New research shows that the EU's "20/20/20" policy, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 (and ensure 20 per cent renewable energy), will cost hundreds of billions of euros but yield only tiny benefits. The UK alone will be hit to the tune of an annual 35 billion euros (£28 billion).

As a cost-benefit analysis by the climate-change economist Richard Tol shows, any single regional carbon-reduction scheme will have a very small effect on emissions and temperature rises across the globe. That's not an argument against ever implementing one: but it means that it's crucial that the numbers stack up.

Binoculars

"Slippers" Help Crane Chick with Curled Toes Walk

Image
© SWNSThe baby African Crowned Crane is walking tall after being fitted with green slippers
A baby African Crowned Crane is walking tall after carers fitted it with bright green slippers - to straighten its curled toes.

The tiny hand-reared chick was born with a slight defect which meant toes on both feet were not developing as they should.

Keepers at Paradise Park in Hayle, Cornwall, fitted the slippers in a bid to 'straighten things out' - and now the one inch high rare bird is walking tall.

Curator David Woolcock said: ''For the first few days we put small bandages on the chicks toes as they were slightly curled, and this just helped straightened things out.

''The chick is doing very well and is currently off show, although can sometimes be seen on the grass in front of Glanmor House at the centre of the park as keepers take the chick for a walk to help strengthen those legs.''

Attention

Oil Found in Gulf Crabs Raises New Food Chain Fears


University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain - in crab larvae - and one expert warns the effect on fisheries could last "years, probably not a matter of months" and affect many species.

Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster.

"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways - for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish - their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."

Attention

It's Not Just BP's Oil in the Gulf That Threatens World's Oceans


A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.

The report, in Science magazine, brings together dozens of studies that collectively paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health.

"This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report.

Blackbox

Feds Taking the Weekend Off in Oil Fight?

Image
© AP Photo
One local official is voicing his frustration over what he calls a "nine-to-five" attitude by some federal authorities in the face of the oil disaster.

Jefferson Councilman Chris Roberts says the parish has a plan to build rock levees to help keep oil out of inland waterways like Barataria Bay.

Roberts told WWL First News that after they submitted the proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers last week, Corps officials said last Friday that discussion on the plan would have to be put on hold until the following Monday, because the Corps office would be closed for the weekend.

"Whoever reviews permits, and whatever departments and stakeholders and agencies need to give approval for this...should be working around the clock, just like the people are that are trying to get this oil picked up," Roberts said.

According to Roberts, after cooling their heels for the weekend, parish officials are still awaiting an answer. He says, however, he would be very surprised to get a response over the long federal holiday weekend to come.