Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

2 dead as flash flooding hits parts of Colorado


SunTimes.com
Thu, 12 Sep 2013 09:41 UTC
Lyons - Flash flooding in Colorado has left two people dead and the widespread high waters are keeping search and rescue teams from reaching stranded residents and motorists in Boulder and nearby mountain communities as heavy rains hammered northern Colorado on Thursday.

The National Weather Service warned of an "extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation" throughout the region as the flooding forced people from their homes, canceled classes and led to mudslides and rockslides in some areas.

"Move to higher ground now. Act quickly to protect your life," the Weather Service warned in numerous bulletins that went out throughout the morning.

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Fish

233,000 gallons of molasses spills into Honolulu Harbor causing fish kill

Tannya Joaquin
HawaiiNewsNow
Wed, 11 Sep 2013 19:11 UTC
Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL

Honolulu - A massive molasses spill at Honolulu Harbor that Hawaii News Now first reported on Monday is killing fish and the State has no way to clean up the sticky substance.

The culprit was a faulty pipe that discharged 233 thousand gallons of molasses, or 1400 tons from a 16-hundred ton load meant for a California-bound Matson container ship. 24 hours after the massive spill, dead fish are popping up near Keehi Lagoon.

Boater Lexi Ray told us, "I've already seen tons and tons of the dead fish floating around."

Ray scooped a distressed eel out of the water with the bucket to save it, but the damage was done.

According to Gary Gill of the Department of Health, "There may be thousands of fish that have died from this spill so far."

We first spotted distressed fish near Pier 41 yesterday crowding the shore, gasping for air.
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Bizarro Earth

'Unusual' outbreak hits New Jersey: Four foxes test positive for rabies

Joe Moszczynski
NewJersey.com
Wed, 11 Sep 2013 15:54 UTC
Fox
© Associated PressA fox wearily eyes the camera while out for a walk in this file photo.
Four foxes have tested positive for rabies in Stanhope, an unusual occurrence that has prompted health officials to urge residents to get their pets vaccinated immediately.

The rabies-infected animals were among five foxes that were destroyed by police and tested after they had charged two police officers and people walking their dogs in the vicinity of Lake Musconetcong.

One woman was bitten on both ankles and her dog was also bitten by a fox Wednesday on Musconetcong Road. Her dog was one of two that bitten last week, police said.

"This is unusual, four out of five is unusual. It's an anomaly" Sussex County health administrator Herb Yardley said.

"People need to have their animals vaccinated for rabies. Even pets that don't go outdoors. If they get out just once, they could be exposed," said Yardley, speculating that a single den of foxes could have been exposed in Stanhope after one of its members became rabid.
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Ice Cube

Global warming expedition foiled by ice

John Hinderaker
powerlineblog.com
Sat, 31 Aug 2013 11:46 UTC
Image
If you want to tempt fate, organize an expedition to one of the polar regions to call attention to the perils of global warming. The outcome is foreordained:

Severe weather conditions hindered our early progress and now ice chokes the passage ahead.

Our ice router Victor has been very clear in what lies ahead. He writes, "Just to give you the danger of ice situation at the eastern Arctic, Eef Willems of "Tooluka" (NED) pulled out of the game and returning to Greenland. At many Eastern places of NWP locals have not seen this type ice conditions. Residents of Resolute say 20 years have not seen anything like. It's, ice, ice and more ice. Larsen, Peel, Bellot, Regent and Barrow Strait are all choked. That is the only route to East. Already West Lancaster received -2C temperature expecting -7C on Tuesday with the snow."
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Propaganda

Arctic ice melt IS a problem because Right-wing newspapers smell, explains Guardian climate expert

James Delingpole
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 09 Sep 2013 09:03 UTC
Image
Murdered by the Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday!
At the weekend my old mucker David Rose reported in the Mail On Sunday the shocking news that there is 60 per cent more sea ice at the Arctic than there was this time last year. So too did Hayley Dixon in the Telegraph. The implication of both pieces was that perhaps this global warming thing we've been hearing about ad nauseam this last couple of decades isn't quite the deadly threat the 'scientists' have been telling us it was; that indeed, maybe the more pressing worry ought to be global cooling.

Luckily the Guardian's token Big Oil employee and environmental expert Dana Nuccitelli has stepped in to explain what the problem is. It turns out that both the Mail on Sunday and the Telegraph are utterly rubbish publications, staffed by lying liars whose bottoms smell of ploppy poo, and who just can't be trusted to report on science accurately.
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Bizarro Earth

City investigates fish kill in southeast Austin, Texas


KTBC, Fox7
Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:40 UTC

    • Something strange is going on in a southeast Austin neighborhood. Hundreds of fish went belly up in a local pond. Tuesday, the city and a local business are trying to figure out what happened.

    The city of Austin says more than 200 fish were found dead in a pond near the Onion Creek Golf Club. They're running tests to see what happened. In the meantime, residents there are frustrated by what they see and smell.

    When Jean Tarcz walked outside to the retention pond behind her home near Onion Creek Golf Course Monday she couldn't believe her eyes.

    "I saw all these huge fish out there floating...dead." Tarcz said.

    She says she feels the owner of the retention pond, onion creek club, neglected to care for the pond.

    "If you keep the water this low, the aerators cannot work and they just become clogged," Tarcz said.
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    Question

    Mystery disease killing Ohio dogs

    Marc Lallanilla
    LiveScience
    Tue, 10 Sep 2013 13:29 UTC
    New Virus
    © Ljiljana Jankovic | ShutterstockSeveral dogs in Ohio have been sickened, and four have died, from a disease that may be caused by a newly discovered virus.
    Veterinarians, health officials and dog owners are alarmed by the mysterious recent deaths of four dogs in Ohio. Some experts suspect that the dogs may have died a few days after exposure to a virus that's normally found in pigs.

    Three dogs in the Cincinnati area and a fourth dog near Akron died in August after exhibiting symptoms that included vomiting, bloody diarrhea, weight loss and lethargy, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

    "We feel obligated to make sure pet owners are aware this is happening," Erica Hawkins, communications director for the Ohio Department of Agriculture, told the Dispatch. "Supportive therapies can be helpful if started early enough."

    The three dogs from Cincinnati died last month after staying in the same kennel. The Akron dog that died was one of several in the Akron-Canton area that showed the same symptoms. A stool sample from the Akron dog tested positive for canine circovirus, a recently isolated virus.
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    Cloud Lightning

    Tropical storm Gabrielle fizzles: Why has hurricane season been so calm?

    Pete Spotts
    The Christian Science Monitor
    Fri, 06 Sep 2013 15:08 UTC
    Tropical storm Gabrielle was the seventh Atlantic tropical cyclone this season, but no hurricanes have yet formed, which is unusual. Another 10 hurricane-free days would set a record.

    The weather system that had become tropical storm Gabrielle overnight Wednesday has abruptly lost strength and was demoted to tropical-depression status with sustained winds of only 35 miles per hour at 11 a.m. Thursday.

    Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami have lifted tropical-storm watches and warnings they had issued for Puerto Rico. The government of the Dominican Republic has done likewise for areas along its coast that would have been affected.

    Forecasters note that Gabrielle encountered one of the banes of tropical cyclones: wind shear, a sudden change in wind speed or direction with altitude. The mountains of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic also disrupted the storm, preventing it from becoming more organized.
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    X

    3,000 saiga antelopes die in Kazakhstan


    Tengrinews.kz
    Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:24 UTC
    Image
    © AFP
    Mortality of 3 thousand saiga antelopes has been registered in Akmola and Karaganda oblasts in central Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the press-service of the Ministry of Environment Protection of Kazakhstan.

    About 1.5 thousand carcases of betpakdalinski saiga antelopes were found at southern, western and northern shores of Tengiz Lake. This type of saiga antelopes also inhabits lowlands and steppes.

    All the involved national and local authorities were informed about the animals' die-off. The Ministry's subordinate Committee of Forestry and Hunting in cooperation with the Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems and Veterinary Service of Karaganda Oblast are investigating the die-off site. Measures to find out the scale and causes of the mortality are being taken.
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    Question

    Massive starfish die-off baffles scientists in British Columbia, Canada

    Carrie Arnold
    National Geographic
    Mon, 09 Sep 2013 13:50 UTC
    The waters off British Columbia, Canada, are littered with dead starfish, and researchers have no idea what's causing the deaths.

    Image
    © Jonathan MartinA decomposing P. helianthoides starfish still clinging to a rock.
    At the end of August, marine biologist and scuba enthusiast Jonathan Martin was out on his usual Saturday dive with some friends when he noticed something unusual.

    "We just started noticing dead starfish that looked like they had their arms chopped off," Martin said.

    They were sunflower starfish (Pycnopodia helianthoides), a major marine predator in the area that feeds mostly on sea urchins and snails. Like most starfish, the sunflower starfish can regenerate lost limbs - it can have up to 20 - and can grow to be up to three feet (a meter) across. (Related pictures: "5 Animals That Regrow Body Parts.")

    Since Martin was diving in an area frequented by crabbers, at first he thought the sunflower starfish had gotten caught in some of the crab traps and had lost limbs escaping. But Martin kept seeing large numbers of dead starfish as he and his friends swam to a marine park where such crab fishing is illegal. Martin knew then it wasn't the traps that were causing the starfish deaths.

    After returning from the dive, he visited friends at a local dive shop who were active in marine conservation. Without any definitive answer, he shared photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube - taken at Lion's Bay and Whytecliff Park in Vancouver - to try to get ideas from others about what was going on.

    "It really struck a chord in other divers who were seeing it on Facebook and social media, both locally and as far away as California, who had been seeing similar things," Martin said.
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