tagged w/ connect the dots
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The ongoing rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is often interpreted as the canary in the mine for anthropogenic climate change. In a new study, scientists have now systematically examined the validity of this claim. They find that neither natural fluctuations nor self-acceleration can explain the observed Arctic sea-ice retreat. Instead, the recent evolution of Arctic sea ice shows a strong, physically plausible correlation with the increasing greenhouse gas concentration. For Antarctic sea ice, no such link is found - for a good reason.
When scientists try to attribute some observed climatic change to a specific forcing, they usually use complex climate models. The scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), however, decided on a different strategy as they set out to identify the main driver for the observed sea-ice loss in the Arctic. Dirk Notz, lead author of the study that was now published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters [1], explains why: "Sea ice is so thin that it reacts very sensitive to the large natural fluctuations of weather and climate that prevail in the Arctic. Because these fluctuations are inherently chaotic, their specific timing cannot be reproduced by standard climate models. Such models therefore aren't necessarily the best tool to examine if natural fluctuations did cause the observed sea-ice loss."
The scientists instead used a historical record that described the natural variations of sea-ice extent between the early 1950s and late 1970s. These natural fluctuations were then compared to the magnitude of fluctuations of the Arctic sea-ice cover as measured from satellites since the late 1970s. From such comparison, the scientists found only a minute chance that the recently observed extreme sea-ice minima simply happened by chance - and they could exclude self acceleration as the main driver for the observed sea-ice retreat. "Whenever we had a strong sea-ice loss from one year to the next, the ice cover always recovered somewhat in the following year," explains Dirk Notz. This would not be the case if the sea-ice retreat were indeed self-accelerating.
Jochem Marotzke, Director at MPI-M and co-author of the study, describes what the scientists did next: "Having excluded natural fluctuations and self acceleration as the main driver for the sea-ice retreat, it was clear to us that some external driver was responsible for the observed sea-ice decline. We therefore set out to find an external driver that showed a physically plausible relationship with the observed sea-ice retreat." The scientists examined, for example, the strength of solar radiation. "Here, a physically plausible link to the observed sea-ice retreat can only be established if solar radiation had increased in recent years." However, solar radiation has slightly decreased in the past decades. Its fluctuations are therefore very unlikely to be the main driver of the observed sea ice loss. The scientists could not find a plausible link to changes in prevailing wind patterns, volcanic eruptions, oceanic heat transport, or cosmic rays, either.
"In the end, only the increase in greenhouse gas concentration showed a physically plausible link with the observed sea-ice retreat.
More at the linkThe ongoing rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is often interpreted as the canary in the... more
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The disappearance of Arctic sea ice has crossed a "tipping point" that could soon make ice-free summers a regular feature across most of the Arctic Ocean, says a British climate scientist who is setting up an early warning system for dangerous climate tipping points.
Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter has carried out a day-by-day assessment of Arctic ice-cover data collected since satellite observation began in 1979. He presented his hotly anticipated findings for the first time at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London on Monday.
Up until 2007, sea ice systematically fluctuated between extensive cover in winter and lower cover in summer. But since then, says Lenton, the difference between winter and summer ice cover has been a million square kilometres greater than it was before, as a result of unprecedented summer melting. These observations are in contrast to what models predict should have happened.
Permanent alteration
Despite fears of runaway sea-ice loss after summer cover hit an all-time low in 2007 – opening the Northwest Passage for the first time in living memory – modelling studies based on our best understanding of ice dynamics indicated the ice cover should fully recover each winter. "They suggest that even if the ice declined a large amount in one year, it should bounce back," says Walt Meier of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Instead, Lenton's research shows a permanent alteration. According to data from the past five years, the Arctic sea ice has not recovered from the 2007 extreme low. "The system has passed a tipping point," he says.
What caused the change is still unclear. Lenton speculates that the exceptional low in 2007 (pictured, above right) might have allowed the ocean to absorb so much heat that a lot of the thicker multiyear ice, which used to persist through the summer, was melted. Alternatively, the loss of ice may have changed air circulation patterns above the Arctic in ways that have similarly "locked in" the change.
More at the linkThe disappearance of Arctic sea ice has crossed a "tipping point" that could... more
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[Last week] Barack Obama wrapped up his first trip to Oklahoma as President. He arrived just after a week of floods, capping off a winter that never came, which followed the hottest and driest summer Oklahoma had seen in thousands of years, perhaps ever.
But he wasn’t in Oklahoma to talk about these climate disasters. He was there to laud his administration’s fast-tracking of the southern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. In his speech today, President Obama didn't connect the dots between fossil fuel extraction, climate change, and the extreme weather that has reshaped so much of the American landscape this past year.
It’s a painful reminder that sometimes we must be leaders ourselves, before we can expect our elected officials to follow. It’s clearly up to us to connect the dots.
Today 350.org is launching a global day of action to call attention to these and other climate disasters, here on the same day as the President’s announcement. Across the planet now we see ever more flooding, ever more drought, ever more storms. People are dying, communities are being wrecked -- the impacts we’re already witnessing from climate change are unlike anything we have seen before.
If we're going to do these communities justice, we need to connect the dots between these disasters and show how all of them are linked to fossil fuels. We're setting aside May 5th for a global day of action to do just that: Connect the Dots between extreme weather and climate change.
Anyone and everyone can participate in this day. Many of us do not live in Oklahoma, the Philippines, or Ethiopia -- places deeply affected by climate impacts. For those of us not in directly-impacted communities, there are countless ways to stand in solidarity with those on the front-lines of the climate crisis: some people will be giving presentations in their communities about how to connect the dots. Others will do projects to demonstrate what sorts of climate impacts we can expect if the crisis is left unchecked. And here in the US, it’s particularly important that we make the connections clear to our elected officials -- beginning with President Obama.
However you choose to participate, your voice is needed in this fight -- and you can sign up to host a local event here: www.climatedots.org/start
350.org has done giant global days of action before (over the last three years we've helped coordinate over 15,000 events in 188 countries) and they're always beautiful moments when our movement stands together. This year we'll use that same captivating tactic to draw attention to the struggles of our friends around the world -- the communities already feeling the harsh impacts of climate change.
These will also be beautiful events, we’re sure. But they will also have an edge. It’s right that we get a little angry at those forces causing this problem. The fossil fuel industry is at fault, and we have to make that clear. Our crew at 350.org will work hard to connect all these dots -- literally -- and weave them together to create a potent call to action, and we will channel that call directly to the people who need to hear it most.
May 5 is coming soon; we need to work rapidly. Because climate change is bearing down on us, and we simply can’t wait. The world needs to understand what’s happening, and you’re the people who can tell them.
Please join us -- we need you to send the most important alarm humanity has ever heard.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben[Last week] Barack Obama wrapped up his first trip to Oklahoma as President. He... more
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Deaths and health problems from floods, drought and other U.S. disasters related to climate change cost an estimated $14 billion over the last decade, researchers said on Monday.
"When extreme weather hits, we hear about the property damage and insurance costs," said Kim Knowlton, a senior scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council and a co-author of the study. "The healthcare costs never end up on the tab."
The study in the journal Health Affairs looked at the cost of human suffering and loss of life due to six disasters from 2000-2009.
"This in no way is going to capture all of the climate-related events that happened in the U.S. over that time period," Knowlton said. "At $14 billion, these numbers are big already."
To put this in context, 14 weather disasters in the United States so far this year have cost at least $14 billion, according to Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground website.
Masters said by email that health costs and deaths are considered in some of the data used to reach this figure.
Scientists and economists from the non-profit NRDC, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-San Francisco estimated the health costs for the following events from 2000 to 2009:
* U.S. ozone air pollution, 2000-2002, $6.5 billion;
* West Nile virus outbreak in Louisiana, 2002, $207 million;
* Southern California wildfires, 2003, $578 million;
* Florida hurricane season, 2004, $1.4 billion;
* California heat wave, 2006, $5.3 billion;
* Red River flooding in North Dakota, 2009, $20 million.
GETTING WORSE AS PLANET WARMS
The study's authors stressed they chose events in the middle of the severity spectrum and left out some notably costly disasters, such as the 2005 hurricane season that included the devastating Hurricane Katrina. In the case of Katrina, the healthcare costs were hard to pinpoint.
The six case studies are examples of events related to climate change that are projected to worsen as the planet warms, the authors said.
These six events resulted in an estimated 1,689 premature deaths, 8,992 hospitalizations, 21,113 emergency room visits and 734,398 outpatient visits, according to the study.
More at the linkDeaths and health problems from floods, drought and other U.S. disasters related to... more
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Massive floods have left 500 people dead across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, officials said Monday, as authorities stepped up efforts to reach victims of the unusually heavy monsoon rains.
In Thailand, where the death toll from the country's worst floods in decades rose to 269, thousands of soldiers fanned out across affected areas as part of a huge aid operation.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who has described the situation as a "serious crisis," said the kingdom had two days before the arrival of the next tropical depression, but insisted the situation was under control.
"It is not necessary to announce disaster zones because we still can handle it," she told reporters, a day after postponing official visits to Singapore and Malaysia to stay and monitor the authorities' response.
She said new flood defences would be built in several locations in the north and east of the capital.
In neighbouring Cambodia, the toll from the country's worst floods in over a decade reached 207, including 83 children, a disaster official there said. Vietnam has reported 24 deaths from flooding in the Mekong Delta.
Vast swathes of rice paddy have been damaged or destroyed in Southeast Asia as a result of the floods.
In Thailand the floods have damaged the homes or livelihoods of millions of people, particularly farmers, across about three quarters of the country's provinces.
Huge efforts are now under way to stop the waters from reaching low-lying Bangkok, home to 12 million people, with prevention measures including sandbags along the Chao Phraya river.
More at the linkMassive floods have left 500 people dead across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam,... more
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Cambodia's worst floods in over a decade have killed 167 people, a disaster official said Wednesday, as efforts intensified to provide aid to tens of thousands of families.
Sixty-eight children were among those who died in nearly two months of flooding caused by heavy rainfall that has also seen the Mekong River overflow, said Keo Vy, spokesman for the National Committee for Disaster Management.
Some 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of rice paddies have been inundated and more than 23,000 families had to be evacuated to higher ground in provinces across the country, he added.
"The government and the Red Cross are giving the necessary help to those affected," Keo Vy said, adding that aid, including food deliveries, had so far reached 40,000 families.
He estimated that nearly 230,000 families across the impoverished nation had been affected by the unusually severe floods but he indicated the situation was under control.
"As Prime Minister Hun Sen has said, we are not appealing for aid but we welcome any assistance," he said.
International relief organisation Oxfam, which has started handing out hygiene kits in some areas, has urged all relevant agencies in Cambodia "to urgently deliver food, clean water, sanitation supplies and shelters".
In neighbouring Thailand, the worst monsoon floods in decades have left more than 220 people dead.Cambodia's worst floods in over a decade have killed 167 people, a disaster... more
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Philippine authorities warned that at least a million people living in flooded villages and farmland were set to be pounded by more devastating rain from a second typhoon.
Typhoon Nesat pummelled the Philippines' main island of Luzon on Tuesday, killing at least 43 people and leaving 30 others missing as it dumped the biggest single-day volume of rain on the disaster-weary country this year.
Large areas of Luzon remain flooded with some villages enduring water nearly two storeys high, and the government said another typhoon was expected to dump just as much rain as Nesat over the same areas this weekend.
"You must help us warn these people to move to higher ground," National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management chief Benito Ramos told AFP on Friday.
"The problem is, the floodwaters from Nesat have not ebbed. Water-soaked soil is prone to landslides and flash floods."
The second typhoon, named Nalgae, was due to hit Luzon, home to 48 million people, on Saturday night with peak winds of 130 kilometres (80 miles) an hour, the state weather service said.
Ramos said churches, schools and gymnasiums were being prepared for people to seek refuge.
About 160,000 flood victims were already in state-run evacuation camps due to Nesat, with at least one million people across Luzon affected, according to government data.
Many of those affected have remained in the flooded areas, choosing a soaked existence in their homes with the support of their families and friends over crowded, poorly equipped evacuation centres.
The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 major storms a year and those living in the flat, farming plains of Luzon are used to dealing with floods each year as torrents of waters run down from mountains to the north.
But Dondon Meneses, a 23-year-old duck egg vendor, living in Candaba, a farming town in central Luzon about two hours' drive north of Manila, said Nesat's rains had been the heaviest in his lifetime.
More at the linkPhilippine authorities warned that at least a million people living in flooded... more
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JR: The disinformers like to say the extreme weather we are seeing today is nothing unusual. They don’t live in Texas, where “No One on the Face of This Earth has Ever Fought Fires in These Extreme Conditions.” Or my hometown area around the Catskill Mountains, where Hurricane Irene was “the most devastating weather event ever to hit the region.” Or around Binghamton, NY, where “An Extreme Rainfall Event Unprecedented in Recorded History Has Hit.”
Rainfall rates observed in southern Fairfax county around 6:00 p.m. on September 8. Some places saw rates between 3 and 4” per hour.
Capital Weather Gang Chief Meteorologist Jason Samenow has the details on one more record-exploding extreme event in this repost.
On Thursday, September 8, Ft. Belvoir received an astounding 7.03” of rain in three hours. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), that amount of rain in that amount of time was an “off the charts above a 1000-year rainfall (based on precip frequency from Quantico).”
Chris Strong, warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS in Sterling, emailed media a note on the frequency of rain return from last week’s event, for locations in Maryland and Virginia. It’s extraordinarily impressive and reproduced in full below…
National Weather Service note:
For our DC and Baltimore media colleagues…Some interesting stats that our hydrologist Jason Elliott passed on to us that you may find useful in your broadcasts/bloggings. Based on precipitation frequency computations, for last week’s rainfall:
Maryland (Wednesday)
* The Bowie IFLOWS gauge recorded 4.57 inches in 3 hours, which is about a 200-year rainfall (based on precip frequency from Glenn Dale).
* For Upper Marlboro and near Ellicott City, Wednesday’s rains were a roughly one in 50-100 year event.
* For Westview (near I-70 and the Baltimore Beltway), Wednesday’s rains were a roughly one in 10-25 year event.
Virginia (Thursday)
* The Kingstowne IFLOWS gauge (near Franconia) in Fairfax County recorded 5.47 inches in 3 hours, which is approximately a 500-year rainfall for that timeframe (based on precip frequency from Vienna & Clarendon).
* The Reston IFLOWS gauge in Fairfax County recorded 6.57 inches in 6 hours, which is also approximately a 500-year rainfall (based on precip frequency from Dulles).
* The Fort Belvoir AWOS (KDAA) reported 7.03 inches in 3 hours, which is off the charts above a 1000-year rainfall (based on precip frequency from Quantico).
For a wide swath in the heavy rain axis thru the DC and Baltimore metro areas, rainfall was at least a one in 10-25 year event.
Of course return period doesn’t mean that we won’t see that kind of rain in those locations for several decades (or centuries). A 1 in 100 year rain means that there is a 1% chance of seeing that amount of rain in any given year. A 0.1% chance is true for a 1 in 1000 year event.
Chris Strong
NWS Baltimore/Washington
More at the linkJR: The disinformers like to say the extreme weather we are seeing today is nothing... more
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Traditionally, nature has served as humanity’s greatest teacher, the place where artists, poets and scientists go for inspiration. The natural world has the ability to draw us in and allow us to experience a sense of wonder.
But what happens when children fail to bond with nature?
Nature deficit disorder isn’t a medical term but a social phenomenon identified by Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.
Nature deficit disorder describes the high cost of separation between nature and children — including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, childhood obesity, higher rates of physical and emotional illness and vitamin D deficiency, to list a few.
“There is very little that children do in their lives that compares with their first experience in nature,” Louv says.
Think back to your own childhood experience of being outside on a quest to discover your surroundings.
Today, instead of hiking, swimming and telling stories around campfires, children are more likely to attend computer or weight-loss camp, or play video games indoors. These activities relegate nature to a non-reality for children.
Louv cites an eye-opening 1991 study of three generations of 9-year-olds. It “found between 1970 and 1990, the radius around the home where children were allowed to roam on their own had shrunk to a ninth of what it had been in 1970.”
As Louv explains, as a child, he’d spent time in nature and felt that he’d gained something important. Then, in the late 1980s, while interviewing people for a book he was writing about the changing realities of family life, he recognized there was a profound change in the ways that people viewed nature, yet no one had a way to describe that condition.
Connecting the Dots
Here are some activities that encourage that connection with nature:
If you can’t come to one of the National Parks, join the WebRangers program, where kids can play interactive games, build a ranger station and other activities.
Enroll the family in nature clubs around the country that provide opportunities for families to get outside in the natural world.
Children and Nature Network resources and activities at
www.childrenandnature.org/research.
The National Wildlife Federation produces the GreenHour.org, an online resource providing parents with inspiration and the tools to make the outdoors a part of daily life.
Take a road trip to the Rachel Carson Homestead to foster a sense of wonder.
Step out your front door and track global climate change or the pigeons in your own neighborhood. Share your findings with real scientists. In so doing become part of a citizen science effort. Learn to do that and more in Eco-Tracking: On the trail of Habitat Change. This book by Daniel Shaw, in the UNM Press Barbara Guth Worlds of Wonder Science Series for Young Readers, tells the stories of how real young people are connecting with and caring for both their local environments and the world at large.
Over the next 12 to 15 years, researchers identified a growing gap between children and nature.
“Science now shows huge benefits to kids’ health when spending time outdoors,” Louv says. “The University of Illinois found that kids with ADD symptoms get better with just a little contact with nature. Research on childhood obesity suggests the more trees, grass and gardens in a neighborhood, the less obesity.”
As John McKinney suggested in a 2009 Miller-McCune article, the sworn enemy of nature deficit disorder might be “active living research” — which, while it specifically focuses on inactivity, inevitably means pushing people outdoors.
In Louv’s latest book, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End Of Nature-Deficit Disorder, the author makes a convincing case that through a nature-balanced existence, the human race can thrive.
“We humans are essentially hunter-gatherer genotypes. Cognitive development is supposed to happen the way it does in hunting and gathering societies,” says David Sobel, a senior faculty member at Antioch University New England and author of Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors.
“What we want for our children is a sense of interdependency with the natural world, so their roots are organic instead of mechanistic, like computers and technology,” Sobel says. “Children are supposed to be outside as their language develops better. Kids develop a greater array of movement patterns while engaged in outdoor activities.”
More at the link
http://www.miller-mccune.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/mmw-nature-children.jpgTraditionally, nature has served as humanity’s greatest teacher, the place where... more
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This group is for documentation of the extreme climate/weather events that have taken place around the globe and that continue to affect our water, agriculture, ecosystems, economy and way of life. Connecting the dots on this is essential to preparation, adaptation and survival of the human and all other species.
If ever there was a time when we need to look beyond the politics and propaganda this is it. If you care to help in connecting these dots and in bringing awareness of this reality in order to prepare and adapt and hold those who need to be leading on this with us accountable, then please join our group.
Thanks.This group is for documentation of the extreme climate/weather events that have taken... more
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My next installment of relevant Earth News that reports about the environmental issues most important to the health of our planet and each other.
In this issue, heatwaves, extreme climate events, deniers and their backers, the Keystone XL pipeline and community news on fracking.
Thanks for supporting this endeavor!
More to come.
I moved the introduction out and the report here now as it was getting buried.
Thanks for the comments.My next installment of relevant Earth News that reports about the environmental issues... more
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Welcome to my first installment of Biorhythms on Current Earth Care. I hope to do more to bring conversation, awareness and news on the environment that we don't see on MSM and items that help us see our connection to Earth. There is much more to come so don't be fooled by my mild manner this time. I'm just getting started.;-)
Thanks to everyone for their support. It most certainly is a labor of love.
Also, credit goes to my wonderful son Justin who is my cameraman ;-) and Mother Nature who provided the scenery.Welcome to my first installment of Biorhythms on Current Earth Care. I hope to do more... more
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Last month, 350.org founder Bill McKibben published a must-read op-ed about the failure of the media and others to connect any dots between recent extreme weather events and climate change. Stephen Thomson of Plomomedia has combined McKibben’s words with striking images.
Underscoring McKibben’s point is an uber-lame New York Times story today, “As Arizona Fire Rages, Officials Seek Its Cause,” which, you guessed it, is dot free. Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters wrote Friday, “The return of critical fire conditions this weekend means that the Wallow fire will likely become Arizona’s largest wildfire in history.”
Before taking on the NYT piece, let’s look at the video:
McKibben’s piece is a nice work of rhetoric. After April saw records set for most tornadoes in a month and in 24 hours, I examined the climate-tornado link in great detail here, looking at the data, the literature, and expert analysis. That piece concluded:
1.When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.
2.Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.
The NY Times has been doing some very good science reporting recently (see NY Times Bombshell: “The latest scientific research suggests” climate change is “helping to destabilize the food system”). But their overall reporting team is not connecting the dots (see, for instance, my May piece “New York Times blows the Dust Bowl story“).
The NYT had promised two years ago to do more coherent reporting, as the Columbia Journalism Review noted at the time:
Environmental S.W.A.T. Team
On Thursday, The New York Times will launch a new, crack environmental reporting unit that will pull in eight specialized reporters from the Science, National, Metro, Foreign, and Business desks in a bid for richer, more prominent coverage.
Not.
The more prominent coverage simply never happened, as I detailed in the second half of my January piece, Silence of the Lambs: Media herd’s coverage of climate change “fell off the map” in 2010, which shows that in all of 2010 none of “the largest lead headlines” in the paper dealt with climate. As professor Robert Brulle, an expert on environmental communications, wrote me at the time:
Apparently, the editorial board of the NY Times has yet to fully grasp the importance of global climate change to our collective survival. As the science becomes stronger and more dire, the editors of the NY Times bury their head deeper into the sand.
Today’s Arizona story is a case in point. Now I don’t necessarily think that every single story written on the record Arizona wildfires must focus on or even mention climate change. But the NYT story is quite specifically on the “cause” of the fires. Worse, the newspaper has no difficulty repeating dubious right-wing myths as to the cause of the fires
Many wildfires are caused by humans — and investigators say this one may have been started by two unattended campfires — distinguishing them from hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes….
Residents heaped plenty of blame on Mother Nature as harsh winds spread the flames and low humidity left the forest full of fuel. But residents and experts also pointed their fingers at a variety of policies that they said had contributed to wildfires that seem to have grown in intensity over the years.
Some complained that it was environmentalists who had caused the forests to become tinderboxes by preventing the thinning of trees as they sought to protect wildlife. Others, like William Wallace Covington, a forestry expert at Northern Arizona University, countered that the leading factor was the grazing of forest grass for generations. The government’s longstanding practice of quickly extinguishing forest fires was also seen as adding to the thick clusters of highly combustible trees.
Seriously.
You would never know from the NYT that this standard right-wing talking point has actually been examined in the scientific literature and found wanting. Back in 2006, Science magazine published a major article analyzing whether the recent soaring wildfire trend was due to a change in forest management practices or to climate change. The study, led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, concluded:
Robust statistical associations between wildfire and hydroclimate in western forests indicate that increased wildfire activity over recent decades reflects sub-regional responses to changes in climate. Historical wildfire observations exhibit an abrupt transition in the mid-1980s from a regime of infrequent large wildfires of short (average of 1 week) duration to one with much more frequent and longer burning (5 weeks) fires. This transition was marked by a shift toward unusually warm springs, longer summer dry seasons, drier vegetation (which provoked more and longer burning large wildfires), and longer fire seasons. Reduced winter precipitation and an early spring snowmelt played a role in this shift.
That 2006 study noted global warming (from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide) will further accelerate all of these trends during this century.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhCY-3XnqS0&feature=player_embedded
continuedLast month, 350.org founder Bill McKibben published a must-read op-ed about the... more
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Governor Daugaard Calls for Residents of Dakota Dunes to Begin Planning for Evacuation on Thursday
http://disasterrecovery.sd.gov
PIERRE, S.D. – Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today that, based on projections by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, all residents of Dakota Dunes should immediately begin making plans to evacuate later this week, due to Missouri River flooding.
Residents should have their possessions moved, homes secured and be out of those homes by late Thursday, June 2. They should expect to be away from their homes for as much as two months because elevated releases of water from the mainstem dams will continue for several weeks.
"State and local officials are coordinating to respond to this flooding, and we are considering all possible protective measures," Gov. Daugaard said. "Every property owner in Dakota Dunes should assume the worst – that protective measures will be impossible or will fail – and should act now to remove their possessions and secure their homes."
The Corps of Engineers now projects that, once water releases reach a maximum flow of 150,000 cubic feet per second (CFS), water levels in Dakota Dunes will reach 1,098 feet above sea level. That means protective measures should be built to 1,100 feet above sea level.
When will this begin and for how long will it last?
According to Corps' plans, water releases from Gavins Point Dam Dam will increase gradually beginning today and continue through the end of this week. Beginning next week, water releases will increase more rapidly and will reach a maximum of 150,000 CFS by mid-June.
Explanation of the cause:
Over the past several days, the Corps of Engineers dramatically increased its calculation of water releases required from the mainstem dams on the Missouri River. The Corps believes that this increased water release is necessary to avoid overtopping of the spillways.
Huge rainfalls in Wyoming, Montana, and western North Dakota and South Dakota over the past month have exceeded rainfall in a normal year. This has used capacity of the reservoir system that had been reserved to accommodate the annual snowmelt. In addition, mountain snowpack is 135 percent to 140 percent of normal, and it is melting at a later time. As a result, all the moisture will require the Corps to increase water flows to unprecedented levels.Governor Daugaard Calls for Residents of Dakota Dunes to Begin Planning for Evacuation... more
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So do I. Matter of fact, I think it may be part of what is causing so much of the severe weather events we are seeing in this country. Did enough methane escape to tip the climate scale? They won't tell you!So do I. Matter of fact, I think it may be part of what is causing so much of the... more
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It's been predicted for years, and now it's happening. Deep in the Arctic Ocean, water warmed by climate change is forcing the release of methane from beneath the sea floor.
Over 250 plumes of gas have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor to the west of the Svalbard archipelago, which lies north of Norway. The bubbles are mostly methane, which is a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide.
The methane is probably coming from reserves of methane hydrate beneath the sea bed. These hydrates, also known as clathrates, are water ice with methane molecules embedded in them.
The methane plumes were discovered by an expedition aboard the research ship James Clark Ross, led by Graham Westbrook of the University of Birmingham and Tim Minshull of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, both in the UK.
Warm gas
The region where the team found the plumes is being warmed by the West Spitsbergen current, which has warmed by 1 °C over the past 30 years.
"Hydrates are stable only within a particular range of temperatures," says Minshull. "So if the ocean warms, some of the hydrates will break down and release their methane."
None of the plumes the team saw reached the surface, so the methane was not escaping into the atmosphere and thus contributing to climate change – not in that area, at least. "Bigger bubbles of methane make it all the way to the top, but smaller ones dissolve," says Minshull.
Just because it fails to reach the surface doesn't mean the methane is harmless, though, as some of it gets converted to carbon dioxide. The CO2 then dissolves in seawater and makes the oceans more acidic.
And it is possible that other, more vigorous plumes are releasing methane into the atmosphere. The team studied only one group of plumes, which were in a small area and were erratic.
"Almost none of the Arctic has been surveyed in a way that might detect a gas release like this," Minshull says.
end of excerptIt's been predicted for years, and now it's happening. Deep in the Arctic... more
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Water restrictions, higher prices, and wildfires that are more ferocious brought on by climate change are changing the landscape of California and the lives of those who have farmed there for decades. Is California another Australia in the making? The only section of California that is not currently in drought is the very Northern tip. Much of the area now experiencing these wildfires and fiercer winds as last year is experiencing moderate to severe drought.
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_state.htm?CA,WWater restrictions, higher prices, and wildfires that are more ferocious brought on by... more
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Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) is pushing to get a provision into the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008 that would give the FDA the power to issue mandatory recalls of contaminated food. Oh, dear. We need to not give any more power to that agency to do squat.
Let's take a moment for a little background. The FDA is essentially run by Big Pharma, including Monsanto, and not for our benefit. click here
The FDA is in the process of eliminating YOUR vitamin companies, the foundation of a critical alternative health movement.
http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-more-vitamins-or-their-companies.html
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=117225
http://www.naturalnews.com/022499.html
Why? Because they are true competition to the pharmaceutical industry. Supplements are cheap and and worse - non-proprietary. That is, they can't be patented though corporations have certainly tried - including to get hold of turmeric as it is proving to be a major defense against and treatment for cancers. Vitamin C is so multi-valuable and inexpensive and looking to be just what Linus Pauling said it was decades ago - a non-toxic chemotherapy - that there is now a bill in Canada to criminalize it.
The point is, if they can't solely own supplements which can treat all kinds of diseases naturally and cheaply and non-brutally, they are seeking to cut off access to them, treating them as dangerous. That is exactly what is happening Canada with the bill to criminalize vitamin C - being pushed, incidentally by the FDA, USDA, WTO and FAO, all influenced by Monsanto et al. click here
The FDA (run at the time by Michael Taylor, a Monsanto lawyer) is responsible for introducing rBGH - a genetically engineering Monsanto product, and one which Monsanto is trying, state to state, even as of today, to keep unlabeled, and without a peep of objection from the FDA. click here rBGH is still on the market despite citizens petitions to the FDA and scientific conferences indicating it increases the risk of breast cancer 7 fold and of prostate cancer 4 fold and of colon cancer. click here
"Monsanto and the FDA refuse to acknowledge recent research directly linking elevated levels of IGF-1 to increased risk of breast and prostate cancer. Monsanto and the FDA colluded in 1993 and '94 to block labeling requirements for rBGH milk. Consequently, the average dairy consumer has no idea if they're increasing their own risk of getting cancer.
Since 1994, every industrialized country in the world except the U.S. -- including Canada, Japan, and all fifteen nations of the European Union -- has banned rBGH milk. The United Nations Food Standards Body refuses to certify that rBGH is safe. Even the WTO, or more specifically its food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius, has refused to endorse Monsanto's claim that rBGH is safe for use in the dairy supply. In the face of facts and the majority opinion of the global political and scientific community, Monsanto and the [FDA] continue to endorse rBGH milk for general consumption, at the same time scratching their heads about increases in breast cancer deaths and the continually declining age of puberty for girls. ..."
Given what the FDA really is, why do any progressives blindly trust it to handle disease outbreaks and to do recalls (which can easily be used to destroy farmers)?
The FDA is not our friend or a neutral scientific agency meant to help the public, but just another agency in the grip of multinational corporations which are rapidly taking control of food and medicinal sources internationally and now making draconian moves to limit access to the natural medicinals.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) is pushing to get a provision into the Food and Drug... more
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Would you start by talking about some general issues surrounding globalization.
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Well those of use who are concerned about the globalization that has been contrived and yet made to look as if it is a natural evolutionary step, we are concerned about the injustice and undemocratic system on which it is based.
And everything we said, fifteen years ago, when these rules were being put in place, very artificially, under GAT and then became the WTO rules, or on the financial side as the instrumentalities and conditionalities of the World Bank and IMF, what we said fifteen years ago turns out not to have been an exaggeration but an underestimation of the devastation of both nature, society and economies.
I had talked about the WTO agreement on agriculture as the death knell for Indian farmers. Every year 16,000 farmers are being killed. They are taking their lives, but I don¹t think they are taking their lives. It is that they are being pushed to the edge of survival - through the indebtedness that is an inevitable result of turning them into a market for Monsanto seed, and, on the other hand disposable items, when Cargill and ConAgra have to dump subsidized grain through a liberalized agreement.
When I started to fight intellectual property rights in the WTO, I was concerned about patents on life. And seed patents now we can see what they are doing.
American farmers are being harassed, fined for three million dollars, and the crime is seed saving?
What could be a worse situation for humanity? To turn something as valuable as saving seeds for the future into a criminal activity.
Similar laws have just been passed in India, two weeks ago.
I think anyone who doesn't resist this kind of globalization is not being fully human, is not exercising their duties.
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More of this interview at the link. And what an opportune moment for the World Bank president to come out to say that food prices will he high until 2012 as if he really knows that. I have also read that pressure is being put on Europe to adopt GM foods. If I didn't know any better I would think this has all been planned to get a desired result for all of the world organizations working in tandem including The World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, and governments of this world intent on keeping poor people down by controlling their food and water. Strangely, the song "Everybody Wants To Rule The World " is in my head now.
Thankfully there are people like Dr. Vandana Shiva and others speaking truth on this. We have to do so as well. We cannot allow this to be the future for our children. So if you have an organization that deals in organic seeds or seeds free of chemicals post it here. Let's really give some information to people to show them they have options and that we do not have to be enslaved to corporate BS any longer.
It is a threat to our health, other species, our environment, and our planet. Those who control the seeds and the water control YOU. I say, no more, and I will be relentless about it here.
Would you start by talking about some general issues surrounding globalization.
Dr.... more
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