Hacking, Porcupines, and Robocalls

Why hacking and invading privacy matters.

Porcupines like salt.  Really like salt.

We're boiling our oceans.  As well as melting all the sea ice.  And killing all the fish.

Jeb Bush is meaner than he looks.  And things are going to get serious.

Since Sandy Hook there have been 72 mass shootings.

Christian pastor stunned by secular Scandinavians.

How to be polite. (It may save the world.)

A petition to sign to end robocalls.

Friday Follies

A good overview of the Steubenville rape trial.

Never forget what we did to Iraq.  Even though Donald Rumsfeld would like you to.

Transgender people speak out.

Steven Colbert about the voting rights act.

Yet another robot thing I will have to beat to death if it gets near me.

Dissolving our sea-shelled creatures.

Luke uses the force of his 9 year old self to fight off big corporations trying to take his city's water.

America's rape culture.

Imagine an ocean with nothing in it...

Ocean acidification may be worst in 300 million years

WASHINGTON — High levels of pollution may be turning the planet’s oceans acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the past 300 million years, with unknown consequences for future sea life, researchers said Thursday. The acidification may be worse than during four major mass extinctions in history when natural pulses of carbon from asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions caused global temperatures to soar, said the study in the journal Science.

Is it too late to stop?

With all that we've done to our oceans and the creatures within them, I'm surprised they haven't packed up and left.....

New study says oceans' chemistry changing rapidly

WASHINGTON – The chemistry of the oceans is changing faster than it has in hundreds of thousands of years because of the carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere, the National Research Council reported Thursday.

Carbon dioxide and other industrial gases have been a concern for several years because of their impact on the air, raising global temperatures in a process called the greenhouse effect.

One factor easing that warmth has been the amount of CO2 taken up by the oceans, but that has also caused scientific concerns because the chemicals make the water more acidic, which can affect sea life.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the pH of ocean water has declined from 8.2 to 8.1 and a further decline of 0.2 to 0.3 units is expected by the end of this century, according to the Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Science.

The current rate of change "exceeds any known change in ocean chemistry for at least 800,000 years," the report said.

Gee... do you think we'll try and stop dumping all our garbage and toxic waste into the oceans and eating all of the fish and stuff? Maybe? Because if we aren't acidifying the water, we're heating it. Which is making a lot of things die.

Including us.

What blows around...

Comes around:

WASHINGTON — A new study further bolsters concerns that pollution blowing across the Pacific Ocean from China and other rapidly developing Asian nations may swamp efforts to clean up the air in the Western United States and make it difficult for states and cities to meet federal standards.
The study, based on 100,000 measurements over 25 years and a computer model tracking air-flow patterns, found that during the spring, ozone from Asia reaches Washington , Oregon , California and other states west of the Rocky Mountains .
For the first time, the study links ozone in the air above the United States with Asian pollution, said Dan Jaffe , a professor of atmospheric and environmental chemistry at the University of Washington-Bothell and one of the study's authors.
"It is possible that emissions from emerging economies like China , with relatively limited emissions controls, are outpacing reductions in the developing countries," the report concludes. It says that the Asian emissions may "hinder the USA's compliance with its own ozone air-quality standard."
Previous studies have detected such pollutants from Asia as mercury, soot and PCBs reaching the United States . A National Academy of Sciences study last year pointed to increasing unease among regulators about a growing problem.

Canada sees our pollution acidifying their lakes. I'm sure we will soon be able to prove that the dust in Turkey came from a dump in the Congo which came from a desert in Colombia which came from a factory in Thailand which came from a ship from India which came from ....

No fish for you

The oceans are acidifying as they heat up, and the fish are disappearing:

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The risk of fisheries collapsing in Peru, the world’s largest fishmeal producer, and developing nations such as Senegal that depend on fish for both food and jobs means economic hardship as climate change threatens fishing grounds.

About 33 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia are “highly vulnerable” to rising ocean temperatures, changes in river flows and less precipitation, said Allison Perry of the World Fish Center, who co-wrote a study that looked at the economic risks to fisheries in countries affected by changing weather.

The world’s poorest countries are less able to adapt to these changes because they lack the financial resources to replace a food source and an industry that contributes more to economic activity than in wealthier nations. “Many of these countries are simply not in a position to adapt and implement measures,” Perry said.

One more thing that global warming is going to cause: starvation.

For those who mock global warming

By pointing to the US's severe winter storm, here's what's happening in Australia:

South-eastern Australia is experiencing its worst heatwave in decades, with temperatures in excess of 43C (109F).

Health officials in South Australia say the searing heat may be to blame for an apparent increase in the number of sudden deaths among the elderly.

In neighbouring Victoria state, bush fires have destroyed at least 10 homes.

Nearly 500,000 people in the state are reported to have lost their power supplies, following severe pressure on the electricity grid.

An explosion was also reported at a substation in Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city.

"It is an extreme week. The system is not made to operate where you've got temperatures in the suburbs of 46C," said the head of Victoria state, John Brumby.

Commuters are facing long delays after the blackouts added to the problems on the rail network. Hundreds of train services were cancelled after the heat buckled tracks.

The phrase global warming is unfortunate as it should really be called climate change. The weather will become more extreme at both ends of the gauge, extreme heat, extreme cold. There will be more droughts, floods, fires. Meanwhile, glaciers are losing their ice and the poles are melting, the oceans are acidifying, creatures are going extinct.





Even if we negated our carbon footprints right now, this shift in climate will still continue for decades. We can thank the Bush administration for eight more years of delay in addressing this.

George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan.

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

Mr Bush, whose second and final term as President ends at the end of the year, then left the meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Hokkaido where the leaders of the world's richest nations had been discussing new targets to cut carbon emissions.

One official who witnessed the extraordinary scene said afterwards: "Everyone was very surprised that he was making a joke about America's record on pollution."

But maybe we can hope:

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore urged President Barack Obama and other world leaders to seal a quick deal to fight global warming despite the pervasive financial crisis.

Gore called Obama "the greenest person in the room" for making environmental funding a big chunk of the $819 billion economic stimulus bill passed by U.S. lawmakers this week.

"I think it's important for the world leaders gathered here to fully appreciate the magnitude of the change in U.S. leadership," Gore said.

The former U.S. vice president and environmental advocate, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, referred to frustration in many countries at the Bush administration's refusal to sign international pacts on reducing emissions of carbon, blamed for global warming.

This is not a load of crap

WASHINGTON — The ocean's delicate acid balance may be getting help from an unexpected source, fish poop. The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not only drives global warming, but also raises the amount of CO2 dissolved in ocean water, tending to make it more acid, potentially a threat to sea life.

Alkaline chemicals like calcium carbonate can help balance this acid. Scientists had thought the main source for this balancing chemical was the shells of marine plankton, but they were puzzled by the higher-than-expected amounts of carbonate in the top levels of the water.

Now researchers led by Rod W. Wilson of the University of Exeter in England report in the journal Science that marine fish contribute between 3 percent and 15 percent of total carbonate.

Stop eating fish, save an ocean?

We are still finding new species

Just in time to watch them go extinct. We don't even know if they taste delicious enough to hunt them into extermination!

The reef community at 2250 m depth in the Tasman Fracture Zone Marine Reserve. The large organism in the foreground is a gorgonian coral, while the smaller organisms attached to the rock around it are gorgonshead corals and deep-sea stalked barnacles. In the background can be seen a glass sponge (the object growing out on a stalk).

"SYDNEY (AFP) – Scientists said Sunday they had uncovered new marine animals in their search of previously unexplored Australian waters, along with a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt and ocean-dwelling spiders.

A joint US-Australian team spent a month in deep waters off the coast of the southern island of Tasmania to "search for life deeper than any previous voyage in Australian waters," lead researcher Ron Thresher said.

What they found were not only species new to science -- including previously undescribed soft corals -- but fresh indications of global warming's threat to the country's unique marine life.

[snip]

"Modern-day deep-water coral reefs were also found, however, there is strong evidence that this reef system is dying, with most reef-forming coral deeper than 1,300 metres newly dead," he said.

Though close analysis of samples was still required, Thresher said modelling suggested ocean acidification could be responsible.

"If our analysis identifies this phenomenon as the cause of the reef system's demise, then the impact we are seeing now below 1,300 metres might extend to the shallower portions of the deep-reefs over the next 50 years, threatening this entire community," he said.

Rising sea temperatures are blamed on global warming caused by the build-up in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide -- which is also blamed for higher acidity in sea water.

A UN report warned in 2007 that Australia's Great Barrier Reef, described as the world's largest living organism, could be killed by climate change within decades.

The World Heritage site and major tourist attraction, stretching over more than 345,000 square kilometres (133,000 square miles) off Australia's east coast, could become "functionally extinct", the report said.

If we'd just stop treating the ocean like it's a dump and respect the sea creatures who inhabit it, the human race just might not go extinct like everything else....

If you're happy and you know it...

Don't read this post.



We haven't found out what's killing our honey bees yet:

WASHINGTON - Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

[snip]

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

"If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation's farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on," said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. "This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore."

Food prices have gone up 83 percent in three years, according to the World Bank.

We're turning our oceans into an acid bath:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) - Like a tooth dipped in a glass of Coca-Cola, coral reefs, lobsters and other marine creatures that build calcified shells around themselves could soon dissolve as climate change turns the oceans increasingly acidic.

The carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by factories, cars and power plants is not just raising temperatures. It is also causing what scientists call "ocean acidification" as around 25 percent of the excess CO2 is absorbed by the seas.

The threat to hard-bodied marine organisms, such as coral reefs already struggling with warming waters, is alarming, and possibly quite imminent, marine scientists gathered this week for a coral reef conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said.

We are running out of rain forests, wood, and land to grow crops:

Demand for land to grow food, fuel crops and wood is set to outstrip supply, leading to the probable destruction of forests, a report warns.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) says only half of the extra land needed by 2030 is available without eating into tropical forested areas.

We're losing the penquins:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday.

And what we're not losing is being made toxic:

The Maine Center for Disease Control said Friday that lobster meat is perfectly safe but that people should not eat the tomalley — a soft green substance found in the body of the lobster.

High levels of toxic algae known as red tide have been recorded along Maine's coast this summer, forcing the state to close many areas to clam and mussel harvesting. Tomalley functions as the lobster's liver by serving as a natural filter for contaminants that are in the water.

And:

WASHINGTON - The tomato scare may be over, but it has taken a toll — it's cost the industry an estimated $100 million and left millions of people with a new wariness about the safety of everyday foods.

I'm reading Jared Diamond's Collapse which talks about societies which become unsustainable yet the people continue to misuse and use up their resources. Overpopulation is one factor. Inability to anticipate and plan for future disasters is another. What is happening now has been repeated several times before.

I just never expected to actually be here when everything broke all at once.

crossposted at SteveAudio