Fossil Fuels May Have Caused Mass Extinction

Fossil fuels don’t exactly have a good reputation as it is – they’re incredibly environmentally destructive, and bear the brunt of the blame for our current situation with global warming. Now, experts are saying that “a frenzy of hydrocarbon burning” millions of years ago might have caused the most dramatic, devastating mass extinction the Earth has ever seen.

From the New Scientist:

Around 250 million years ago, the so-called “Great Dying” saw 70 per cent of species wiped out on land and 95 per cent in the oceans. A clue to what may have triggered this disaster lies in solidified magma from this time, which is widespread in an area of Siberia where coal is also abundant.

One suggestion is that the heat of the magma could have baked many billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the coal over a geologically brief period of a few thousand years (New Scientist, 8 December 2007, p 42). The ensuing climate change and ocean acidification would account for the extinctions. Now Norman Sleep and Darcy Ogden, both of Stanford University in California, think the trigger for the Great Dying may have been even swifter and more terrifying.

Rather than causing gentle heating, magma encountering oil- and tar-soaked coal underground would melt it, producing a highly combustible material, they say. Crucially, this molten mixture would be light enough to rise quickly to the surface. There it would burn explosively on contact with oxygen in the air, blasting dust and ash into the stratosphere and releasing huge quantities of CO2.

Basically, this resulted in hell on earth – vast areas of fire fountains and smoke columns over a moonscape littered with coal tar and coal fragments. If Sleep and Ogden’s theory is correct, the evidence is hiding in Siberia’s volcanic deposits – but we will probably never know for sure.

Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Bizarre Exoplanet Atmosphere: Pebble Rain, Molten Lava Lakes

It sounds rather hellish: a planet where clouds of pebbles rain down into lakes of molten lava. That’s what scientists think the atmosphere is like on a newly discovered exoplanet called COROT-7b, and it definitely makes even our worst storms here on Earth seem like a piece of cake.

COROT-7b was spotted last February by the COROT space telescope launched by French and European space agencies.

From Washington University News:

The peculiar atmosphere has its own singular weather. “As you go higher the atmosphere gets cooler and eventually you get saturated with different types of ‘rock’ the way you get saturated with water in the atmosphere of Earth,” explains Fegley. “But instead of a water cloud forming and then raining water droplets, you get a ‘rock cloud’ forming and it starts raining out little pebbles of different types of rock.”

Even more strangely, the kind of rock condensing out of the cloud depends on the altitude. The atmosphere works the same way as fractionating columns, the tall knobby columns that make petrochemical plants recognizable from afar. In a fractionating column, crude oil is boiled and its components condense out on a series of trays, with the heaviest one (with the highest boiling point) sulking at the bottom, and the lightest (and most volatile) rising to the top.

COROT-7b has an average density about the same as Earth’s, but it’s certainly nowhere near as hospitable. It’s 23 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun and its star-facing side is hot enough to vaporize rocks.

You don’t even have to be a stoner to have have a “Whoooaaaa, duuuuude!” reaction to stuff like this. It’s sort of mind-blowing to ponder such things from the comfort of our own beautiful planet.

Link [Washington University News]
Photo credit: ESO/L Calcada

How to Live on Earth: Experts Suggest User’s Guide

When it comes to living in harmony with nature, we humans have repeatedly screwed up, big time. But there’s no instruction manual that explains exactly how we should do things so we don’t harm the earth – yet. 28 scientists have suggested nine key areas including freshwater use and chemical pollutants where governments could define limits to ensure a “safe operating space for humanity”.

From Reuters:

“Today we are clearly driving development in the world blindfolded,” Johan Rockstrom, leader of the study and director of the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University, told Reuters of a lack of international guidelines.

“We are not considering the risks that there are deep holes we can drive into,” he told Reuters. The call, for setting “planetary boundaries,” was published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.

Rockstrom said there were signs human activities had already pushed the world into the danger zone because of global warming, a high rate of extinctions of animals and plants and pollution caused by nitrogen, mainly used in fertilizers.

Among limits, they suggested capping the percentage of global land area converted to cropland at 15 percent. At the moment, the percentage is 11.7 percent, they said.

Though conservatives are probably shrieking in terror at the idea of global guidelines for a range of human activities, such a ‘user’s guide’ would be extremely helpful in uniting people around the world with a common goal of keeping this planet a safe and healthy place to live. Imagine if world leaders had concocted such a guide back at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution – the world would probably be a much cleaner, healthier place today.

It would definitely have to be a group effort, however, without giving any one person or organization too much say in how the guidelines were developed. Otherwise, we could end up with another Bible on our hands (and Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, we sure as hell don’t need that.)

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Alan Dean/Woodley Wonderworks

Light Pillars: Amazing Natural Phenomenon

Photo credit: National Geographic

From a distance, it looks like someone spared no expense to put on a spectacular, colorful light show that can be seen from miles away. But these strange columns of light that often confound onlookers are actually caused by the combined forces of light and falling ice crystals.

Photo credit: Walter Tape

Usually seen only in polar regions, light pillars – as this phenomenon is called – result when natural or artificial light bounces off ice crystals as they waft to the ground. When the light source is close to the ground, the pillars appear above the floating crystals. When the light is coming from the sun or moon, the pillars appear beneath the crystals.

Photo credit: National Geographic

The height and brightness of light pillars depends upon the shape of the ice crystals. Crystals with plate or column shapes produce the most stunning effects. Ice crystals that cause light pillars can be found in ice clouds, ice fogs, blowing snow and what is known as diamond dust – ground-level clouds made up of tiny ice crystals.

Photo credit: ArborSci.com

While light pillars formed by sunlight may only extend a few degrees, in artificial light, they can extend 90 degrees or more depending on your vantage point.

Learn more about the science of light pillars at The Weather Doctor.

Link [National Geographic]

Fire Tornadoes Make Forest Fires Even More Deadly

Photo credit: Josh Lane

Forest fires are already frightening and deadly enough on their own, but when the conditions are right, something hellish happens: fire whirls. Fires sometimes spawn their own winds as the flames consume oxygen, creating tornadoes filed with fire and noxious gases.

From Discover Magazine:

All these wonders start with the plume that is formed as the heated air rises from the fire in a column. Usually a strong prevailing wind quashes such a plume before it can grow. But when the fire is especially hot and the wind is weak, the plume can prevail. “Wind is the most critical weather component for fires,” says Margaret Gross, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Riverside, California. “It determines more than anything else how fast a fire will spread. But when the power of the fire is greater than the wind, these large plumes can rise high into the atmosphere. Those are the fires that usually generate weather.”

Photo credit: Boston.com

Fire whirls develop in a similar manner to dust devils, growing from a heat source close to the ground. When there’s a little instability in the atmosphere, with warm, rising currents, the whirl’shitting a cliff or some other obstacle.

Fire whirls can reach 300 to 400 feet in height, and 20 to 50 feet in width. As they blow over the surface at five to seven miles per hour, they can ignite new fires in unburned areas.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In 1923, the Great Kanto earthquake in Japan spawned a massive fire whirl that killed 38,000 people in just fifteen minutes. Three years later, numerous fire whirls developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California, killing two and producing significant structural damage.

Link [Wikipedia] + [Discover Magazine]

Rare ‘Smiling Rainbow’ Seen Over Sussex, England

Whoever heard of an upside-down rainbow? People in Sussex, England glimpsed an extremely rare phenomenon when “freak atmospheric conditions” created a ribbon of light in the sky shaped like a smile. But what they saw technically wasn’t even a rainbow at all.

From The Daily Mail:

While normal rainbows are formed when light penetrates raindrops and emerges on the other side without changing direction, the smile is formed when sunlight shines through millions of tiny ice crystals in cirrus and cirrus stratus clouds.

Because the crystals are flat and hexagonal, they invert the light and create an upside-down curve called a circumzenithal arc.

The phenomenon relies on the sun being low in the sky, normally less than 32 degrees from the horizon.

The arcs can appear at any time of the year, hovering in the sky only fleetingly because clouds tend to move quickly near the zenith.

The Sussex ‘upside-down rainbow’ was in the sky for about five minutes, onlookers say, and then suddenly it was gone.

Another strange phenomenon in the sky was captured by scientists earlier this year – the “eye of God’ or Helix Nebula, which is actually a dying star that resembles a human eye with a blue pupil, white of the eye and a pink lid created by layers of gas

Link [The Daily Mail]

Species Thought Extinct Was Just Wearing a Mask

A species thought to be extinct for centuries was just wearing a mask all this time. Scientists have long assumed that the Masked Booby was a close cousin of the Tasman Booby, which had presumably been pushed out of its natural habitat by humans.

But the two species are one and the same. Researchers cleared up the confusion through DNA and fossil research.

From The National Geographic, via Treehugger:

The double-naming came about, Steeves said, “because paleontologists and biologists in recent decades did not communicate.” The fossil experts unknowingly compared ancient bones of female Tasman boobies to those of male “masked boobies.” Unaware that Tasman booby females are markedly smaller than males, the paleontologists assumed they were looking at two species.

The Masked/Tasman Booby is a large seabird that breeds on islands in tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic. Not only is it not extinct, it ranks as “least concern” on the IUCN ratings. Considering how many species we lose every day, getting one back (sort of) is just a drop in the bucket, but it’s a hopeful story nonetheless.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Orangutans Make Musical Instrument from Leaves

Wild Bornean orangutans strip leaves off twigs and use them to amplify a sound they make to ward off predators, according to a new study. Scientists say the leaves allow the orangutans to alter the frequency of their ‘kiss squeak call’, making them sound bigger and more threatening.

From MSNBC:

This new finding marks the first time an animal has been known to use a tool to help it communicate, say the scientists who studied the behavior.

The bigger an orangutan is, the lower the frequency of its unaided kiss squeak, for physiological reasons, said study team member Madeleine Hardus of the University of Utrect in the Netherlands. So when smaller orangutans clasp their hand or a bunch of leaves to their mouth, they’re likely doing it to artificially lower the frequency of their call and make themselves sound bigger.

Merely sounding bigger might do the trick to scare off a predator, because the jungles where the orangutans live are thick, which makes it difficult for the predator to actually see the primate and visually size them up.

For many years, scientists thought that humans were the only species that is able to transmit cultural knowledge, passing new behaviors by social learning. But recent research has proved that this isn’t so – we are continually seeing new examples of animals, particularly primates, developing tools and teaching each other how to use them.

So, those deranged-looking cymbal monkeys that haunt your nightmares weren’t all that far off the mark. Next stop, planet of the apes.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user scragz

Flying Frog, Tiny Deer among 350 New Species Discovered in Himalayas

A flying frog and a tiny deer were among the incredible 350 new species discovered in the eastern Himalayas in the past decade, according to the WWF. And, though we may have just recently found out about them, these species are already threatened by human activities in the region.

From Yahoo News:

In a report released here, it said climate change, deforestation, overgrazing by domestic livestock and illegal poaching and wildlife trading threatened one of the biologically richest areas of the planet.

“In the last half-century, this area of South Asia has faced a wave of pressures as a result of population growth and the increasing demand for commodities,” said the report, “The Eastern Himalayas — Where Worlds Collide.”

“Only 25 percent of the original habitats in the region remain intact. For the unique species of the Eastern Himalayas, this means that today 163 are considered globally threatened,” it said.

The WWF said 353 new species were discovered in the region between 1998 and 2008, among them a red-footed tree frog known as a “flying frog” because its large webbed feet allow it to glide when falling.

The deer, called a miniature muntjac, stands just 25-30 inches tall. Another fascinating discovery was a limbless amphibian that resembles a giant earthworm and lives deep underground.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming all too common to discover new species and find that they are already seriously endangered. A tiny monkey called Mura’s saddleback tamarin that was discovered just last month is in danger of extinction due to the development of the Amazon rainforest.

It just goes to show that there are so many treasures on this earth that we’ve yet to uncover, and we need to do everything we can to preserve them.

Link [Yahoo News]
Photo credit: WWF

Global Warming News from Citizen Journalists at Demotix

The internet has made it easier to access first-person accounts of events around the world – but you wouldn’t know it from most traditional media outlets. The Associated Press and Reuters don’t have a single staffer in 40% of the world’s countries, so what does that say for the freshness and accuracy of international news?

Some newspapers are wising up to that fact, and heading straight to the source – citizen journalists who are in the thick of things as they happen.

Demotix, a citizen journalism website and photo agency, takes user-generated content from freelancers and amateurs – including remarkably high-quality photographs – and markets them to the mainstream media. Recently, photos from the site were featured in a New York Times article about the conflict in Iran. Demotix was also recently awarded a ‘Notable Mention’ in this year’s Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism.

This is especially valuable for anyone interested in learning more about how global warming and other environmental problems are affecting every corner of the earth. In Nepal, the effects are alarmingly clear, as shown by Nepalese contributors to Demotix, who upload photos and firsthand accounts of how climate change is affecting the nation’s glaciers, and causing paddy seedlings to dry out.

Other environmental issues covered on the site include droughts in Kenya and Syria, rescuing elephants in India, the annual ‘Naked Bike Ride’ in London and the effects of non-native wolves in New Jersey.

This is definitely journalism for the 21st century.

Link[Demotix]

Cancer Patient Fined for Cleaning Up Litter

All Paul McCarthy of the Greenfield area of Pittsburgh wanted to do was help his neighborhood live up to its name. The 62-year-old former city electrician began cleaning up litter and overgrowth along a section of town called ‘The Run’, piling it along the sidewalk for Public Works to pick up. Only they didn’t, and those piles have led to legal troubles for McCarthy, who’s currently being treated for cancer.

McCarthy’s efforts have led to fines because, according to the city, he didn’t do enough. While the ill man toiled over trimming weeds along sidewalks and gathering debris, he wasn’t bagging the waste or coordinating his efforts with Public Works. But McCarthy had repeatedly called the city’s help line when he noticed the trash, and got no response.

From the Post-Gazette:

To Rob Kaczorowski, city Public Works Department’s deputy director of operations, fighting litter is all about communication and coordination — something Mr. McCarthy’s vigilante clean-up push lacked.

“We’re all for volunteer efforts, but it has to be coordinated,” Mr. Kaczorowski said. “Some of the stuff he does, I think he does to aggravate us.”

Bill Smith, executive director of the Greenfield Organization, said his group does mass clean-ups with city help, but added that there’s a place for Mr. McCarthy’s approach.

“From my perspective, this is the kind of thing the city wants people to do,” he said. Public works staff “are put out because this is creating a little more work for them.”

McCarthy got citations twice. The Department of Public Works had concluded that it was the only way to stop him, and it worked: McCarthy is no longer bothering to clean anything up. The Post-Gazette reports that new bags and cups have started to accumulate.

A 62-year-old cancer patient wants to help make the city he lives in more beautiful, and gets fined for it. Awesome. Great job, Pittsburgh Public Works.

Link [Post-Gazette]

Radar Could Save Bats from Death by Wind Turbine

In the epic battle of conservationists vs. clean energy advocates, a compromise may have just been reached – at least, in terms of the protection of bats. Scientists have discovered that radar may help keep bats away from wind turbines. Researchers and conservationists have raised concerns in the past about wind turbines inadvertently killing the creatures.

From MSNBC:

For instance, in 2004, over the course of six weeks, roughly 1,764 and 2,900 bats were killed at two wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, respectively. The bats might not be killed by the wind turbine blades directly, but instead by the sudden drop in air pressure the swinging rotors induce, which in turn cause their lungs to over-expand and burst surrounding blood vessels.

A student at the University of Aberdeen first noticed that bats shied away from radar installations while driving past them. He was holding a bat detector out the window to scope out bat activity on the drive back home from out in the field. (Bat detectors are gadgets that scan for ultrasonic bat calls.)

You might think bats wouldn’t be affected by radar because they use sound waves to navigate in the dark, but researchers installed small portable marine radar units at 20 bat foraging sites inScotland and after monitoring bat presence, found that the radar reduced bat activity by 30 to 40 percent. The radar didn’t keep insects away, suggesting that the radar works as a deterrent, not by chasing away bats’ food.

Scientists hope that they’ll be able to design a radar system that would reduce bat activity near wind turbines by 80 to 90 percent. That would certainly be a big victory for both sides of the conservationists vs. clean energy battle.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Britain Gets Caught Dumping Toxic Waste

It’s been going on for decades, and nobody has ever called them out on it. Perhaps that’s what gave British companies the balls to continue dumping toxic hazardous waste in countries like Brazil and Ghana for all these years, despite the fact that it’s clearly harmful to the environment and human health. But two companies have finally been formally accused of dumping, which may help call attention to the problem.

Not that Britain is alone – companies in the United States and other Western countries do it too, and government has looked the other way. Our toxic waste has long been somebody else’s problem – namely, poor people who have no way to protect themselves from the onslaught of chemicals.

From Times Online:

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, ordered an investigation into two British companies linked to 90 shipping containers containing 1,400 tonnes of waste. They included syringes, condoms and nappies. The companies that received the waste — sent from Felixstowe to three Brazilian ports — said that they had been expecting recyclable plastic.

In a separate case, the Ministry of Defence was unable to explain how one of its computers was found by The Times on a notorious dump on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana. Children as young as 5 extract scrap metal from electrical items there and are exposed to potentially lethal chemicals.

Inspectors from Brazil’s environment agency, Ibama, found hospital waste in several containers, reportedly including bags of blood. Another container was full of dirty toys with a note in Portuguese saying they should be washed before being given to “poor Brazilian children”.

Ingrid Oberg, an Ibama official, who opened containers found in the port of Santos on national television news, said: “Whoever put this rubbish into the containers in the UK knew what they were doing and knew where they were going, so it is a criminal act. England needs to assume responsibility.”

Worldwide Biorecyclables Ltd and UK Multiplas Recycling Ltd are the companies being investigated. They’re hardly the only ones that do it, but forcing these companies to take responsibility for their actions may make others think twice before continuing the despicable practice.

Unfortunately, they’ll probably just find sneakier ways to do it. The European Union tightened toxic shipment rules in 2007 and dumping still happens all the time.

PBS Frontline has been conducting an investigation into e-waste dumping in Ghana – check out the video in our recent post, ‘Ghana, an E-Waste Graveyard’.

Link [Times Online]
Photo credit: BBC News

7 (More!) Environmental Problems That Are Worse Than We Thought

How have humans managed to royally screw up the world? Let us count the ways. We already covered mammal extinction, the ocean dead zones, collapsing fish stock, destruction of the rainforest, polar sea ice loss, rising CO2 levels and the fact that there’s way too many of us in the first place. But those certainly aren’t the only pressing environmental problems facing the earth – here are seven more. And yes, most of them are our own damn fault.

Chemical Contamination

(image via: China.org.cn)

Heavy metals. Radioactive waste. Pesticides. Hormones. Pharmaceuticals. Industrial chemicals. The list goes on and on.

These substances – many of them toxic and carcinogenic – are present in our water, our food, our air and our bodies. They come from factories, improperly discarded electronics, ships, hospitals, vehicles and even human waste. They’re causing disease and deformities, creating antibiotic-resistant superbugs and causing fish to spontaneously switch genders. They’re killing animals and forever altering the ecology of the earth.

All of these years of progress are catching up to us. When these substances first came into use, few people questioned whether they might have adverse effects on human health or the environment. But decades later, federal health officials acknowledge that environmental carcinogens account for 55 to 60 percent of all U.S. cancer cases annually.

Despite the fact that scientists are now speaking out about the dangers of accumulating these substances in our bodies over a lifetime, the industries responsible for the contamination have largely gotten off scot-free thanks in large part to extremely persistent lobbying of federal agencies like the EPA.

Air Pollution

(image via: Flickr user Simone Ramella)

In some places, air pollution makes its presence known, billowing from power plants and vehicles and hovering above cities in giant, hazy brown clouds. In others, it’s an unseen enemy, damaging the ozone layer and building up in our lungs with every breath we take.

Some of the major pollutants in the air that are caused by human activity include sulfur oxides from industrial processes, nitrogen oxides from high temperature combustion, carbon monoxide from car exhaust and burning fuel, particulate matter, organic volatile compounds, toxic metals, chlorofluorocarbons, ammonia and radioactive pollutants. Many of these pollutants contribute to global warming and threaten the health of trees, lakes, crops, and animals.

In cities where air pollution is particularly excessive, such as New Delhi, India, there is a low birth rate and high possibility of children developing asthma, pneumonia and other respiratory infections. According to the World Health Organization, 2.4 million people die annually from causes that can be directly attributed to air pollution. In the Los Angeles Basin and San Joaquin Valley of Southern California alone, 3800 people die prematurely each year from exposure to high air pollution levels.

A recent study found that even minor improvements in air quality can tack up to 5 months onto the average person’s life expectancy.

Habitat Loss

(image via: MongaBay)

As our population has expanded, we’ve spread into the countryside, cutting down forests and driving out wildlife at an alarming pace. We’ve built cities, suburbs, highways, power plants, and farms and in the process, we have destroyed over half of the world’s forests. Even now, they’re being removed at a rate of ten times higher than any possible level of regrowth.

As a result, thousands of species have become extinct or endangered. Habitat loss is a main threat to 85% of all species on the IUCN ‘Red List’.

In 1992, “some 1,700 of the world’s leading scientists, including the majority of the Nobel laureates in the sciences”, put forth this dire warning:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about…. WARNING we the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it, is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.

Things have only gotten much, much worse since then.

One quarter of all mammals, one third of amphibians and one eighth or birds are considered threatened or endangered. Recent news stories have noted the dire effects of habitat loss on creatures like butterflies, frogs, songbirds, apes and a variety of plants.

As each species dies, the earth suffers a loss to its rich biodiversity, which is needed for continued ecosystem survival. The complex and delicate tapestry of life within a given ecosystem contributes to nutrients and water cycling, soil formation and retention, pollination of plants, resistance against invasive species, regulation of climate and pest and pollution control. When some links in the chain go missing, the entire ecosystem is drastically affected.

Water Crisis

(image via: Wikimedia Commons)

Water: it’s essential for all life forms, and when there’s not enough of it, the suffering is acute. Crops fail. People die, both of thirst and of the violence that breaks out when there’s not enough to go around. Water wars are already happening in places like India, where people have been killed just trying to secure enough water to survive. It’s a worldwide problem, but it’s worse in third world countries and it’s going to escalate further with climate change.

Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water is readily accessible for human consumption. It’s a commodity, and one that is increasingly overconsumed in rich countries while the rest of the world goes without. A large contributing factor is the disproportionate pollution of drinking water supplies in third world countries where cleanup is too expensive to attempt. But even here in America, we’re slowly learning the value of an element that we’ve long taken for granted as populations in the arid Southwest live the reality of severe drought.

Approximately one in eight people in the world lack access to safe water supplies and at any given time, and 4,500 children die as a result every single day. Half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease like malaria and dysentery.

The rapidly increasing human population will put an even bigger strain on water supplies, forcing us to stretch a finite resource between 40% – 50% more people.

Desertification

(image via: Walrus Magazine)

As we’ve expanded into areas of the world that can barely support a human population, we’ve stretched the land’s ability to provide for us to the breaking point. We have exhausted the soil through overcultivation and shortsighted agricultural methods. We have removed far too many trees, causing severe soil erosion and landslides. We have raised too many livestock animals and allowed them to overgraze on formerly green land that is now stripped and brown.

All of these things cause desertification, which, like many other environmental problems, is exacerbated by climate change. This destruction of the topsoil that we rely on to feed us causes staggering economic losses of more than $40 billion per year, and the starvation of millions of people.

Once arable land is converted to desert, conditions that intensify wildfires are created.  Dust from these dry lands are blown across the world – from Africa to as far away as the United States – causing health problems and boosting death rates. And once desertification occurs, the change is permanent on a human time scale – as far as we’re concerned, that land will never support the same vegetation that it did in the past.

Ocean Acidification

(image via: Inventor Spot)

All around the world, from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to the shallow waters of the Caribbean, something is happening to sea water that’s causing large-scale coral casualties and dramatically altering ocean ecology: acidification.

The world’s oceans absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the water more acidic as the gas dissolves to create carbonic acid. The more CO2 is present in the atmosphere, the more acidic the oceans get. As a result, ocean chemistry is changing 100 times more rapidly than in the 650,000 years that preceded the modern industrial era.

So what exactly does that mean for sea life? Science Daily explains:

This increased acidity can hamper the ability of a wide variety of marine organisms ranging from coral to abalone to form calcium carbonate shells and skeletonal structures. Researchers believe that at crucial stages in the larval and juvenile stages in the lives of many marine invertebrates, ocean acidification inhibits calcification, and also appears to affect reproduction and growth in some organisms.

Scientists are still studying the impacts that acidification is having on ocean ecosystems, but some of the negative effects are already clear. Acidification has made some areas of the ocean unfriendly to many types of fish, but jellyfish still flourish – thus, the huge overpopulation of jellyfish in places like the Sea of Japan. It’s also eroding coral reefs at a disturbingly rapid pace.

“Ocean acidification is happening today and it’s happening on top of global warming, so we are in double trouble,” says Jelle Bijma, chair of the EuroCLIMATE programme Scientific Committee and a biogeochemist at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Bremerhaven.

In February of 2009, more than 150 leading marine scientists from 26 countries called for immediate legislative action to reduce C02 emissions so that we could prevent this problem from getting even worse. Unfortunately, efforts to come to an international agreement about lowering greenhouse gas emissions – including the recent G8 summit in Rome – have thus far been unsuccessful.

Disposable Culture

(image via: Idiocracy/20th Century Fox)

The concept of a one-use item reportedly started back in 1892 when William Painter, founder of the Baltimore Bottle Seal Company, patented the disposable bottle cap. At the time, people thought the idea was strange: you take it off the bottle and throw it in the trash? Really? Surely there’s another use for it.

How times have changed. Now, entire store aisles are devoted to one-use items and even large goods like furniture, vehicles and electronics aren’t made to last. Just try to get your toaster fixed when it goes on the fritz and you’ll find that repair is more expensive and inconvenient than simply buying a new one. Manufacturers like it that way: it means we keep their assembly lines running and their pockets stuffed with cash. Why should they make products that will last a lifetime and beyond if they can give it a three-year lifespan and get paid for it again and again?

Of course, all of those broken and unwanted items are put to the curb never to be seen again, at least by their former owners. And the amount of stuff that we send to landfills every year is staggering. The average American discards seven and a half pounds of trash every day, for a collective total of over 255 million tons of household waste each and every year. Since 1980, total waste generation in the U.S. has more than doubled.

It’s not like this stuff ever goes away. We’re not dumping it into a black hole. We’re piling it up on land that could be used for a far better purpose, or merely throwing it into the ocean. At this rate, it wouldn’t be surprising if we covered the entire planet in trash within a century or two. For some reason, this doesn’t seem to bother most people – they’re content to let other people deal with it, like the poor communities that get saddled with all of our carcinogenic electronic waste, or our great-grandchildren.

And, despite the fact that 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, our actual recycling rate is only about 33%. Not that recycling is the answer to our problems. We’re producing way too much stuff to even be able to use all of it once it was turned into something else, and the process of recycling can be very energy-intensive.

The answer is in changing our mindset. We’ve been duped into selling the health of the planet for a moment’s convenience, convinced that doing things the old fashioned way is archaic and unnecessary. But what’s really unnecessary – and tragic – is our addiction to waste, and the consequences that are yet to come.

That’s not a UFO, it’s a Lenticular Cloud!

Image via UFOblog.com

What’s that round, dense-looking object hovering in the sky? It wouldn’t be too hard for UFO believers to assume, particularly at twilight when they’re backlit, that these strange formations are actually alien aircraft. But, what you’re looking at is a natural phenomenon. Lenticular clouds form at high altitudes, aligned to the wind direction, and often seem to stay in the same place while other clouds move around them.

Image via National Geographic

Image via Nature-blog.com

Lenticular clouds are particularly common over mountains, where strong wind flow pushes moist air upward, causing it to condense. They often look like discs, stacks of pancakes, funnels, or mushrooms. Sometimes, the air is forced in a pattern that resembles waves in the sea.

Image via NASA

Image via piczo

While they appear stationary, that’s actually not the case. The flow of moist air continually resupplies the cloud even as water evaporates, keeping the same shape until the wind or weather changes.

While power pilots try to avoid flying near lenticular clouds because of the turbulence of the rotor systems, sailplane pilots actively seek them out because they enable gliders to soar extremely high and far.

Image via Vinaminh

Check out this time lapse video of lenticular clouds forming over Mount Rainier:

Image via srobertsphoto

Image via icestories.exploratorium.edu

So next time you see what you think might be a UFO, look a little closer. It might just be a mundane – yet spectacular – lenticular cloud formation.

Link [Wikipedia]

Climate Change Already Affecting America: Government Study

Climate change is already being felt across the United States, from the shifting migration pattern of butterflies to heavier downpours in the Midwest and East. At this point, no matter what we do, we’ll still continue to see some worsening effects in the coming years.

That’s the conclusion the United States Global Change Research Program, a joint scientific venture of 13 federal agencies and the White House, has reached after a study on natural and human-caused effects on the environment.

From The New York Times:

Some of the effects being seen today and cited in the report are familiar, like more powerful tropical storms and erosion of ocean coastlines caused by melting Arctic ice. The study also cites an increase in drought in the Southwest and more intense heat waves in the Northeast as a result of growing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases in the atmosphere.

Reduced mountain snowpack means earlier melt-offs and reduced stream volumes across the West and Northwest, affecting residential and agricultural water supplies, habitats for spawning fish and reduced hydroelectric power generation, the study found.

But the speed and severity of these effects in the future are expressed with less certainty in the report and will depend to some extent on how quickly the United States and other nations move to reduce emissions.

Climate change skeptics will be singing a different tune when their own families and homes are being affected. Why is it that so many of us aren’t fired up to act until the damage is clear in our own backyards?

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Tidewater Muse

WWII War Ship Now an Artificial Reef in the Florida Keys

Three minutes was all it took for a 17,000 ton hunk of metal to sink 140 feet to the bottom of the sea seven miles off Florida’s Key West. The 523-foot-long Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, a rusting World War II-era relic that once tracked Soviet missile launches during the Cold War, will now act as a giant artificial reef that local officials hope will help draw in tourists and provide a save haven for marine life.

From MSNBC:

They expected the wreck would be an immediate underwater draw for divers, while at the same time attracting fish, corals and other sea creatures and so relieving the pressure on Key West’s natural reefs caused by diving, boating and fishing.

“Divers like wrecks, fish like wrecks. The Vandenberg will have a great profile underwater,” said Sheri Lohr, a retired dive shop owner involved in the Vandenberg sinking project.

Before it was sunk, the Vandenberg was cleansed of contaminants, such as asbestos, wiring, paint and other potentially toxic substances and debris, to prevent it from damaging the ecology of the ocean floor in its new life.

So it’s not a real shipwreck, but it’ll still be quite a striking sight for divers. If people are going to be disturbing marine life for recreation, it’s better for them to do it at an artificial reef than in the midst of fragile natural ecosystems. It’ll be no time at all before this ship is packed full of a dazzling array of sea creatures, and it’s certainly a better fate than rotting in a shipyard.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: BigShipwrecks.com

9 Incredibly Stupid GOP Statements on Climate Change & the Environment

They’re known for being largely anti-science, and many of their numbers still insist that global warming either isn’t real or isn’t caused by man. Paul Krugman declared the GOP to be “the party of stupid” last August, and they haven’t done much to dissuade the public from agreeing with him since then. From declaring the planet already saved – by Jesus – to comparing kids in the climate movement to the Hitler Youth, Republicans really do say the darndest things.

Image via: Pundit Kitchen

“[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.” – Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, August 12th 2008

Good news, folks! We can all sit back and relax, because the planet has already been saved. What’s that? The bible says absolutely nothing about Jesus saving the planet? Right. Well, kudos anyway to Bachmann for finding such a ridiculous and unique way to take a shot at Nancy Pelosi, the GOP’s favorite punching bag.

Image via: EarthFirst composite

“It’s odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn’t cause cancer, doesn’t cause asthma… there’s nobody that’s ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning.” – Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, May 19th 2009

Brilliant reasoning there, Barton. Because, obviously, if a substance doesn’t taste or smell like anything and isn’t a carcinogen, that means it’s totally harmless! The fact that CO2 is in soda, and that we breathe it out, doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant to global warming. It’s doubtful, however, that Barton even cares whether the words coming out of his mouth make any damn sense at all.

Images via: Flickr user The Searcher & Wikimedia Commons

“The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth, this earth will not be destroyed by a flood.” – Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, on why he believes that climate change is not a threat

Well, you’re right there, Shimkus – man will not destroy this earth. However, we are well on our way to making it uninhabitable for humans and millions of other species. That’s probably good news to you, however, since according to the Bible that would seem to indicate the Second Coming. “In case of the rapture, this congressional seat will be unmanned!” And we will all be the better for it.

Interesting to see that Rep. Shimkus, who believes that the bible is the infallible word of god, also mentioned the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ during this hearing. Last time I checked, the bible doesn’t mention anything about dinosaurs… but that can easily be explained away. They’re Jesus Horses!

Image via cbv.ns.ca & Wikipedia

“We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?’ – Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, questioning the authors of a landmark IPCC report about a period of dramatic climate change that occurred 55 million years ago

Dinosaurs, flatulence and Republicans… the jokes write themselves.

“Kathy Dahlkemper has some wacky ideas. Take energy. She said we should make personal sacrifices such as ‘walking places’ and ‘riding bikes’.” – National Republican Congressional Committee ad for Rep. Phil English, R-Pennsylvania on his Democratic challenger Kathy Dahlkemper

Oh, those wacky Democrats. What will they think of next?

Image via: Current.com

“I’m trying to think where else this has been done – Soviet Russia, Nazi, Germany, Mussolini’s Italy,” Beck said. “In fact, the Nazis took an extra step. Not only did they indoctrinate the kids and tell them you’re probably right, you know but your parents don’t; in fact, here’s the next step: Why don’t you tell us what your parents are telling you. Are we having the new Hitler youth? Is that what this is? The new Hitler youth? I’m sorry, that’s so politically incorrect – the new green guard. Man your station, 12-year-olds, your parents just don’t know.”– Conservative radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck on Al Gore’s ‘indoctrination’ of children

What did Al Gore say to provoke that attack? He had the gall to tell a bunch of school kids, “There are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know.” Gasp! It’s the beginning of a new Hitler Youth! Soon those kids will be recycling and turning the lights off, and if that isn’t a major threat to the poor downtrodden Republican base, I don’t know what is.

This isn’t even the first time Beck, whose Fox News show is designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, has likened the global climate movement to the horrific mass murder of millions of innocent people. He apparently really likes the Holocaust/Nazi analogy, because in 2007 he asserted that Al Gore is using the “same tactic” to fight global warming that Hitler used to vilify Jews in Nazi Germany. Yeah.

Image via: Third Base Politics

“The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know when they do what they do you’ve got more carbon dioxide.” – Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio

You’re totally right, Boehner. The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen is comical.

“So, do you want to put your country first? Then let’s reduce our dependency on foreign sources of oil and promote oil and gas production at home. In other words: Drill, baby, drill! And drill now!” – Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele at the Republican National Convention in 2008

Yes, that’s right, the infamous(ly insipid) “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry that Sarah Palin made famous actually originated with the GOP’s totally fresh hip-hop Michael Steele. Is anyone surprised?

Image via: Current

“There are some monuments where the land is so widespread, they just encompass as much as possible. And the integral part of the–the precious part, so to speak–I guess all land is precious, but the part that the people uniformly would not want to spoil, will not be despoiled. But there are parts of the monument lands where we can explore without affecting the overall environment.”—Former President George W. Bush, media round table, Washington, D.C. March 13, 2001

Bushisms: pretty much the only enjoyable aspect of George W. Bush’s presidency. Even Bush himself didn’t understand what he just said. Irregardless, we will never misunderestimate our former President’s ability to turn what should have been a one-sentence statement into incoherent, misguided rambling.

Targets to Save World’s Forests Won’t be Met by 2010

The world’s forests are shrinking at an alarming rate – some disappearing altogether – and we know we’ve got to do something about it. But, so far, efforts to save forests around the globe simply aren’t enough to meet the targets set under the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD), according to a new analysis.

From Nature.com:

The study is the first attempt to work out how much of the globe’s 20 major types of forest are safeguarded. It shows that only 7.7% are currently protected according to categories established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), headquartered in Gland, Switzerland. The work is based on the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s definition of a forest — that is, an area of land more than 0.5 hectares in size with more than 10% canopy cover.

“According to our analysis, the CBD targets will not be met,” says Neil Burgess, a conservation scientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, and one of the study’s authors.

John Healy, a forest ecologist at the University of Wales, Bangor, says that the study is important because it looks at forest protection in ecoregions and by forest type, rather than just total forest cover. “They have carried out the study in a far more biogeographically and ecologically meaningful way [than previous studies]“, he says.

But, he adds, “The reality is we don’t know whether the protection status is being enforced on the ground.”

The question now is, what can we do to help? There are a variety of charities and nature conservation organizations that work to preserve the world’s forests including the Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, WWF, The Sierra Club and The Heritage Forests Campaign (which focuses on national forests in America).

Donate funds, volunteer your time or help spread the word. Some retail sites also donate a portion of each purchase to forest conservation, like The Rainforest Site Store.

Link [Nature.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user zoutedrop

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