At Climate Progress, Joe Romm writes:
We’ve known for a while that we are poisoning the oceans and that human emissions of carbon dioxide, left unchecked, would likely have devastating consequences. A 2010 study found that oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.
And we’ve known those impacts might last a long, long time —a 2009 study concluded ocean dead zones "devoid of fish and seafood" are poised to expand and "remain for thousands of years." Worse, a Nature study just found that global warming is already the likely cause of a 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton: "Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic."
Carl Zimmer, a noted science writer and winner of the 2007 NAS Communication Award, reveals some more chilling facts about the path our oceans may be on in this repost from Yale’s Environment 360 online magazine.
As warming intensifies, scientists warn, the oxygen content of oceans across the planet could be more and more diminished, with serious consequences for the future of fish and other sea life. ...
In order to project how global warming will alter oxygen in the oceans, climate scientists are developing a new generation of computer models. The models are still too crude to capture some important features of the real world, such as the way winds can change how deep water rises in upwellings. But the models are good enough to replicate some of the changes in oxygen levels that have already been recorded. And they all predict that the oxygen in the world’s oceans will drop; depending on the model, the next century will see a drop of between 1 and 7 percent. |
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Green diary rescue appears Sundays and Thursdays in this time slot. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it. The rescue begins below and continues in the jump.
matching mole had a wonderful Wednesday, as recounted in 24 Hours of Wonder: Gulf Region Nature: "We had guests and we showed them a couple of the local natural wonders: St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Wakulla Springs and river - both just to the south of Tallahassee in the Florida panhandle. We had an unusually fantastic time and I thought I would share some of what we saw."
Haole in Hawaii posted a couple of more photo diaries from his trip to Botswana and the Okavango. This one, Wildlife of the Okavango and this one, Really Big Pooties: "This was the first male leopard I had seen. They are much bigger and stockier than the females."
Gulf Recovery Series
Project Gulf Impact talked about some of the good things and bad on their travels around Louisiana. "I Thought We Were Supposed To Be Telling The Truth": "One of the pleasures of operating the way we do - on a shoestring budget that barely affords us two meals a day and the gas to get from one interview to the next and not much else - is that we get the opportunity, the privilege, of staying in the homes of Gulf coast residents that we have met along the way. These homes - warm environments where 'home cooking' still means something (especially to the Cajuns!) - make me miss the trips to my grandparent's homes in the midwest and southern Texas more than anything else."
Daily Kos Featured Writer Laurence Lewis discussed how to go about Helping those that need it most: "BP wants everyone to forget and move on. So, apparently, do some government officials. Independent scientists continue to be shut out. And Thompson and Fahrenthold say the response already has begun to downsize. This despite the fact that no one knows what has happened to the oil, and no one knows how badly damaged are the region's ecosystems from both the oil and the toxic dispersants."
Pam LaPier had a big list of specifics on How To Help: "Below the jump you will find a list of organizations that I have been compiling for months. Please consider donating or volunteering to help support these organizations who spend their lives trying to help people, wildlife and even family pets recover from disaster."
"It's [still] the economy, stupid..." was rb137's big-picture take on the situation: "At present, much of the renewable energy sector is in a weak position with respect to Big Energy. This is for a number of reasons, and many are direct consequences of policies put in place by 'conservative reforms' that characterize the previous administration. Most of these policies do not create middle class jobs: they tend to favor large corporations over smaller businesses in terms of tax policy, and their trends toward privatizing scientific research foster anti-competitive trends in the energy playing field."
LaFeminista took A Skeptical Perspective.: "Oh shit, in one three month period we added 205.8 million gallons; that's a 53% increase over and above what happens every year. Take that natural seepage! Just because it is a natural occurrence does not mean it is by definition benign. We do not know what nature can handle we just might be tipping the scales too far. These figures so often used also forget the most insidious spill of all time the Niger Delta which has been spilling around 11 million gallons a year for the last 40 to 50 years, nobody really knows the flow rate it could be substantially higher. So that is 4% of the average yearly total on its own."
Eco-Thought, Eco-Action & Eco-Justice
Cassiodorus pondered What's the Keynesian eco-plan?: "Some kind of further economic stimulus would be beneficial, to America and to the world, if it ameliorated the plight of the worst-off. But the primary necessity at this point is the humanization of the economy. In this regard I am referring to the idea of a return to local production for local use, to sufficiency in the basic necessities for everyone, and to meaningful work toward a sustainable future. This would be a 'utopian' economy in the good sense, as a goal of our aspirations. If we look at it merely as an economic program, however, I do not see how the Keynesian prescription for the current economic 'Great Recession' can attempt to produce anything besides 'economic growth.'"
Xayabouli Xanadu and the damned dams was ban nock's examination of an situation in China: "I’m not much into environmental conservation, it's a battle that is already lost via a few degrees of temperature. The best we've got is a stay of execution by delaying the destruction of those places that due to history, geography, or in this case war and strife, have retained something of their original selves. Maybe I am a little too much of a cynic, in any case one of those last places is getting wrecked. I better start at the beginning."
Stranded Wind explored The Anthropocene Thermal Maximum: "Due to many interlocking causes and conditions we are now at a massive inflection point. That our empire should fall now to a mix of corruption and resource depletion is surprising only in that we've lasted nearly two and a half centuries with only one serious domestic discontinuity. Humans have faced political, economic, and environmental crisis countless times since our species arose. But the exhumation of carbon which we seem powerless to stop will erect not just the headstone for our empire, but perhaps for our entire species along with the biosphere in which humans evolved.
Round-ups, Wrap-ups & Digests
eKos: Gulf Recovery Earthship: Blogathon Roundup: "Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series. Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup."
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse: Daily Kos to the Climate Change Rescue: "...the GOP relies on its standby that comprehensive climate change legislation is a tax. This ignores the reality that we already are paying a fossil fuel tax based on the corporate welfare paid to fossil fuel industry as we foot the bill for external costs. While not planned beforehand, our Gulf Recovery Blogathon focused on a variety of these costs. I think this might be an effective message to counter the GOP's "cap and tax" that appears to have impacted public support for climate change reform."
Climate Change
billlaurelMD posted an newly expanded version of his weeklyClimate News: "This is the next in a series of diaries on the state of Arctic sea ice (and other topics as warranted) in memory of Johnny Rook, who passed away in early 2009. He was the author of the Climaticide Chronicles."
yuriwho spread his excitement about a New method that uses Sunlight to remove CO2 from Atmosphere: "I have believed (and advocated) for some time now that unless we can actively remove large quantities of CO2 from our atmosphere and oceans safely and efficiently without causing worse problems, we are likely doomed as a species. I'd give us less than a thousand years without these measures. Perhaps a lot less. When I read about this new research, I felt a little bit of weight being lifted from my shoulders. This may not be the magic bullet, but I have hope now."
buhdydharma assessed whether the Climate Crisis Isabout to Topple a Government: "And not just any government, but a nuclear armed government. A government that is at the very crux of our 'National Security.'"
edger had some harsh words on the subject of Pakistan, & Hugely Unequal Global Climate Change Effects: "Never let it be said that the US Government will not provide aid to those 20 million people now homeless due to the flooding in Pakistan. The US Government has given them each almost three dollars, after all. And that on top of the $1.5 billion a year given to Pakistan for military aid. Even in the face of bankers starving on wall street (sic). Of course, much of what is happening is Pakistan now has been expected for a very long time while very few if any preparations have been made for events like this."
From the flood scene itself, Sourmash sent us aDispatch from Pakistan: "I wrote a bit the other night about the response to the floods in Pakistan. I live in Pakistan, and let me tell you, in as short a space as I can, what are the effects. I’m not sure how well people grasp this, but with 20 million people affected and no signs that the crisis is ebbing, I don’t know if people understand exactly what this means; This thing is HUGE. Until you’ve seen a really big flood, it is hard to grasp what it does. It challenges your knowledge of synonyms for destroyed."
noweasels suggested ways to help 6 Million Without Water in Pakistan: "ABC World News Tonight this evening had vivid images of people carrying goats and sheep across their shoulders in shoulder-high water. There were images of people working side-by-side to unload thin cattle from hacked-together barges – onto flooded streets. There were pictures of parents holding dehydrated children and feeding them sips of water in bottle caps -- because that was all the clean water there was."
Rising sea levels were rktect's focus in Godzilla destroying Tokyo as we speak: "With 2010 already the warmest year on record the IPCC is warning that the surprising acceleration in warming may bring rising sea levels much higher than previously projected. ...Imagine that over the next 70 or 80 years, a giant port city — say, Tokyo — found itself engulfed by sea levels rising as much as 4.5m or more."
Mary looked at the evidence for Global Warming in 2010: "Evidently the hoax being perpetrated by the climate scientists to destroy the free market is now fooling Mother Nature. Oh NO!!!!"
RobertConnors asked Can We Avoid Extinction through Science?: "Although few people could name it, the biggest threat to the planet today isn't a wandering comet or nuclear war. It's a substance known as clathrate."
freshrant had a good laugh over the vanishing of Senator Inhofe’s Infernal Igloo Inferno: "Capital police reported having received a frantic 911 call from Senator James Mountain Inhofe (R-OK) complaining of the theft of an igloo his family had made last winter after a heavy snowstorm dubbed by the press as Snowmaggedonicyrapture. In response to Al Gore's stiff, research-laden, Academy Award winning, doomed Earth snuff flick, Inhofe's family had wittily constructed an igloo on the National Mall during the storm as proof that global warming does not exist."
Animals
lineatus was back on duty with theDawn Chorus Birdblog: Back in Black: "There's the pain of loss, both on the personal level and in watching the summer's devastation in the Gulf. But despite that, life really wants to go on. Seeing all of these fledglings discover that they can fly is enough to bring life back to the full spectrum."
Diogenes2008 had a photo diary, too: Take Wing, Take Flight; Step Out Into The Light.
Forests & the Great Outdoors
In Back from the Sleeping Bear, Muskegon Critic wrote: "The Boy and I walked out to the Big Lake overlooking the Manitou Islands on Thursday Night, in the crystal clear night and watched the Persiad meteor showers amidst the juniper berries and the perfumed sent of cedar campfires."
Energy & Transportation
partialobs lamented the lot of the owner of anElectric Bike: "As the proud and nerdy owner of an electric bike for three months now, I can make one statement about e-bikes and e-biking with complete confidence: E-bikers don't get no respect. Depending on demographic, the e-biker is viewed as a wimp (can't hack the pedaling), a poseur (regular bike not complicated/expensive enough), or an object of pity (can't drive, or can't afford a moped/car). If you've never been at the receiving end of the simultaneous sneers of the hippie knapsacker and the Hummer H3-driver, well, here's your chance."
Taking on his signature subject in a more philosophical than practical way this time in his series, Sunday Train, BruceMcF discussed Richard Florida and the End of the Automobile Age: "This week in The New Republic, Richard Florida presented his vision of High Speed Rail as the central strategic point of leverage in an economic 'reset' to get us out of the doldrums resulting from the failure of the 20th century growth model to deliver ongoing, sustained growth any more ... High Speed Rail is a useful part of the mix and, as I have long argued, is the part of the mix that we can get working on right away, given the fact that High Speed Rail has repeatedly shown its ability to generate operating surpluses, even under Automobile Age conditions. That makes HSR a strategic 'leading edge' of the new transport system that we shall require for this new century."
War on Error said we should Tax the Carbon Perps: Go Green on Their Dimes: "Oil companies have made record profits, more than many countries' GDP. Let's tax those profits with a Carbon Conversion Tax (CCT). The end users like power companies and consumers can't change their ways until other ways are created. And other ways can't be created without new sources. And new sources won't be up and running fast enough without money."
terryhallinan day-dreamed about Back To The Future With The Mark Twain Mummy Car: "Imagine having the choice to run your car on gasoline one day and 100% pure biodiesel the next. Better yet, imagine having such fuel options for a generator engine like the one used in the Chevy Volt to charge the batteries for extended-range driving. It would be the best of all green and semi-green worlds."
A lot of flak came Jevons's direction over his diary, Decommissioning Wind Power Projects: "The forest of unsightly abandoned wind generators in Southern California are evidence that without comprehensive wind project decommissioning requirements the US may be littered with abandoned wind turbines."
Agriculture, Food & Gardening
NourishingthePlanet had three diaries:
• Sustaining the Momentum in Reforming Factory Farming Practices.
• Interview w/ La Via Campesina: Global Food System Inspires Global Activism: "Interview w/ Dena Hoff, co-coordinator in North America for La Via Campesina, talking about their vision of social change, and how the agricultural challenges faced around the world are not always so different from those faced in the U.S."
• The Birds, the Bees....and Plants: "Unfortunately an FAO survey of plant breeders revealed that most felt plant breeding capacity was declining -for grains, vegetables, fruits, roots and tubers, everything, ironically, except sugar plants. We have all become dependent on a tenuous cadre of plant breeders, the collections of crop diversity with which they work, and good luck. Indeed, investments in plant breeding have languished or even declined, while the number of hungry has climbed over a billion. There’s a connection. As much as we love food, we take its production for granted."
Gulf Gusher
Chris Rodda: Coast Guard Fakes Photos to Make Gulf Beach Look Clean: "At this point, I thought that maybe this Coast Guard photographer might be planning to make his photos somewhat deceptive by deliberately shooting them on the cleanest part of the beach, which would have been bad enough. But I had no idea just how deceptive these photos were really going to be until I found them on the Coast Guard website a few days later and compared them to the photos and videos shot by the Kean students. Actually, deceptive is far to mild a word. What we're talking about here is absolute fraud, brought to you by the United States Coast Guard and the wonders of photoshop."
jamess: It does beg the question ... How many, Where to, Why for?: "Since w[h]e[n] has an 'interdisciplinary team of wildlife experts' organized by the Humane Society of the United States, become a 'National Security' Issue ? Ever since the US Govt decided to cast its lot, with the expediency of BP, I guess."
xxdr zombiexx: BP actually gets a fine for 2005 Texas Refinery Blast (not snark): "I didn'[t think a company as big and influential as BP, especially after 8 years of Bush-GOP interference with regulations and enforcements, would get so much as a slap on the wrist."
War on Error: 12.5 Trillion Reasons to Keep Drilling the GOM: "So, when you fly over the Gulf, picture trillions of dollar signs wafting from the deep into the air. Look out your airplane window and picture your plane engulfed in trillions of dollar signs. Then ask: How many of the trillions of dollars will be used to improve the lives of all Americans? How much will be used to wean us off the use of fossil fuels? How many schools will improve? How much will be spent to improve access to health/dental care for all Americans? How much will be spent on real actions instead of the ever ongoing research projects that never seem to result in action?"
Gulf Watchers: BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 80.
Gulf Watchers: BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 81:.
Gulf Watchers: BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 82.
gchaucer2: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 295 - Drill, BP, Drill - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
Yasuragi :Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #296 - The Well That Wouldn't Die - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
Kairos: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #297 - Perplexity and Relief Wells - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
gulfgal98: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #298 - Waiting on the Relief Wells - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
Lorinda Pike: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #299 - Still Waiting - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
khowell: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #300 - Hopes and Dreams out of BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
Yasuragi: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #301 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
khowell: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #302 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.
Gulf Watchers Overnight: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #303 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe.