Thursday blues

Water shortages and drought worse than predicted.

Facts about the Zika virus... and did Monsanto have a hand in it?  (Apparently, no.)  But it will cost a lot to fight. And what about sex changes for mosquitoes?

Obama saves more land in California.

4 Commonly Prescribed Drugs That May Not Be Safe

Income inequality and how to fix it.

New California National Monuments.  Thanks, Obama!  Really.  Thank you!

Warnings to all federal employees and law enforcement because of backlash over the Malheur arrests.

Now you know where your missing socks go.

Being colorblind is not the point.

Friday frolics... and an elephant.

baby elephant in tub

‘Frack Gag’ Bans Children From Talking About Fracking, Forever

The Hallowich case shows how drilling companies can use victims’ silence to rewrite their story. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that before their settlement, the Hallowichs complained that drilling caused “burning eyes, sore throats, headaches and earaches, and contaminated their water supply.” But after the family was gagged, gas exploration company Range Resources’ spokesman Matt Pitzarella insisted “they never produced evidence of any health impacts,” and that the family wanted to move because “they had an unusual amount of activity around them.” Public records will show, once again, that fracking did not cause health problems.

When fracking and oil production creates a sink hole, who loses?  BP blames oil spill victims.

The NSA comes clean... or something.

Iran's new leader speaks of moderation and respect.

Marine life moving towards the poles.

Privatization has failed in these places.

Farmers suspicious of new Monsanto crops... I wonder why?

Speaking up against racism.

NASA finds the source of the Magellanic Stream

The Conservative March Toward a Society of Sociopaths

Celebrating sexual choice.

Monday Monday....

Good morning, Monday!

The NRA: dead children are a cost of doing business.

Finally, a good use for dryer lint!

Underwater crop circles.

A good section of Obamacare kicks in.

When you chase all the immigrant workers away, you have to work with prisoners... prisons that are run by corporations who are demanding of states to guarantee a steady stream of prisoners.  What is wrong with this picture?

National Geographic photo competition 2012.

Black holes:  engines of the universe.

Armed volunteers to guard schools.... what on earth could go wrong?

A giant squid in the deepest parts of the ocean.

Oil and gas companies want to stop residents from speaking about local drilling at rule hearing.

Asteroid Apophis is trying to kill us.

One sentence news

It gets better.

Finding a lost church.

Making friends under the sea.

Rachel Carson didn't kill millions of Africans.

Does eating today's type of wheat poison you?

Dumping the 'junk DNA' theory.

The way governments begin to topple.

Republicans can't afford to give women equal pay.

Come back!!  You have my car keys!

Do Democrats really support the privatization of public schools?

Artist of the weird.

Ohio Secretary of State on the mat to explain obstruction to voting.

Sometimes being rude is good.

The perils of plastic pellets

Following the aftermath of Typhoon Vincent this week, the worst typhoon to hit Hong Kong in 15 years, hundreds of 25kg plastic sacks filled with pre-production plastic pellets (aka Nurdles) produced by SINOPEC Petroleum Hainan are now washing up on the beaches of Hong Kong. 

[snip] 

So far we have discovered 250 plus sacks, of which approximately 50% have spilled their deadly contents into the ecosystem. This is the equivalent of a SOLIDIFIED OIL SPILL. Each sack contains approximately 1 million pellets. The 250 sacks were all on our local beach, we have put out a call to action asking ocean lovers all over Hong Kong to visit their local beaches and check them for these "white plastic sacks of death," and if found to report them to Sea Shepherd Hong Kong who are working with local authorities on the cleanup operation. The biggest problem is that this material absorbs toxins and pollutants, turning it a yellowish brown color. The darker the pellet becomes the more toxic it is. Small fish, birds, and even large filter feeding species such as whales, whale sharks, and manta rays eat these pellets, mistaking them for fish eggs. Once eaten, the animals become toxic and often die. Bigger fish eat the small fish and this continues up the food chain, spreading the toxicity into seafood that will end up on our tables for human consumption.

Just finished reading The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. One of the book's chapters addresses the horror of the many plastic gyres in the oceans... and the small toxic glop that is poisoning the marine life. Can we possibly fix this problem before we kill off everything? We can only wait and see.... Update: It is suggested that plastics could be linked to diabetes and obesity.

Yum yum

Eyeless shrimp, fish with oozing sores... enjoy your ocean and your seafood courtesy of BP.

Help! Radioactive kelp!

The fallout from Fukushima is showing up along the Californian Pacific coast in giant kelp.

Radioactive iodine was found in samples collected from beds of kelp in locations along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz about a month after the explosion, according to the study by two marine biologists at Cal State Long Beach. The levels, while most likely not harmful to humans, were significantly higher than measurements prior to the explosion and comparable to those found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington state following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to the study published in March in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Giant kelp, or Macrocystis pyrifera, is a particularly good measure of radioactive material in the environment because it accumulates iodine, researchers said. They wrote that radioactive particles released into the atmosphere, in particular radioactive isotope iodine 131, made its way across the Pacific, then was likely deposited into the ocean during a period of significant rain shortly after the meltdown in Japan. The highest levels were found in Corona del Mar. Researchers wrote that the levels were probably highest there because the kelp is also exposed to urban runoff, which may have increased the amount of rainfall it received. The study’s authors said that while the effect of radioactive material in kelp is not well known, it would have been consumed by organisms that feed on the kelp such as sea urchins or crustaceans. Certain species of fish, including opaleye, halfmoon or senorita may be particularly affected because their endocrine systems contain iodine, according to researchers.

Come to California, where we glow even without the sun!

BP poisoned the Gulf. Life there is still suffering.

A study of 32 dolphins were

underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.

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.

Dolphins!

As the oceans go

So do we....

The report that the ocean is in trouble is no surprise. What is shocking is that it has taken so long for us to make the connection between the state of the ocean and everything we care about – the economy, health, security – and the existence of life itself.

If the ocean is in trouble – and it is – we are in trouble. Charles Clover pointed this out in The End of the Line, and Callum Roberts provided detailed documentation of the collapse of ocean wildlife – and the consequences – in The Unnatural History of the Sea.

Since the middle of the 20th century, more has been learned about the ocean than during all preceding human history; at the same time, more has been lost. Some 90 per cent of many fish, large and small, have been extracted. Some face extinction owing to the ocean's most voracious predator – us.

Paraphrasing from somewhere on the net: We use the ocean as our pantry and our toilet.

And now we are boiling it.

Eating our oceans empty

Fewer big fish in the sea, say scientists

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Fewer big, predatory fish are swimming in the world's oceans because of overfishing by humans, leaving smaller fish to thrive and double in force over the past 100 years, scientists said Friday.

Big fish such as cod, tuna, and groupers have declined worldwide by two-thirds while the number of anchovies, sardines and capelin has surged in their absence, said University of British Columbia researchers.

Meanwhile, people around the world are fishing harder and coming up with the same or fewer numbers in their catch, indicating that humans may have maxed out the ocean's capacity to provide us with food.

The UK Independent has a plan:

Out with tuna, in with sardines – a recipe for saving the seas

For those idiots who are now saying the oil is gone in the Gulf

Do you think we're stupid?

Incoming BP CEO: Time for 'scaleback' in cleanup

Just because we can't see it on the shores doesn't mean it isn't there.

You can't pour MILLIONS and MILLIONS of gallons of poisonous crude and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of horribly toxic dispersant into a sea and have it just 'disappear'. BP thinks if it can get the media to start talking about the amazing fact that the oil seems to be gone, we will forget about the disaster? Demand less money from them? Decide nature will clean it all up? Decide it wasn't that big of a mess?

Are you fucking kidding me?

The Gulf is ruined.

Not in anyone's lifetime today will the Gulf return to what it was before this 'spill'. Gulf sea creatures will have been made extinct. The water has been poisoned. The surviving fish and crustaceans are inedible. People are out of work. Health problems are obvious. Beach real estate prices are plummeting.

A seemingly feel-good story showed up this week on the nation's front pages and newscasts: The oil that befouled the Gulf of Mexico for 86 days is vanishing from the surface, leaving workers with little to clean.

But scientists warn the oil's ecological impacts are shifting, not ebbing, thanks to massive volumes of dispersants that have kept the crude beneath the waves.

"This is a management decision, to use dispersants," College of William and Mary marine science professor Robert Diaz said yesterday. "It doesn't make the oil go away, it just puts it from one part of the ecosystem to another."

That dispersed oil now hovers, diluted in the water column, posing a challenge for scientists to track and measure the subsea plumes. Mapping the long-term effects of the nearly 2 million gallons of dispersant used by BP PLC may well be equally difficult, given the array of unanswered questions that surround the products' rapid breakdown of oil droplets and their chronic toxicity.

In other words, while dispersants may have helped spare the Gulf's birds, the chemicals are likely shifting dangers to other species lower in the food chain. The National Research Council described dispersant use in 2005 as "a conscious decision" to direct hydrocarbons to one part of the marine ecosystem, "decreasing the risk to water surface and shoreline habitats while increasing the potential risk to organisms in the water column and on the seafloor."

Update: 7/31: McClatchy gets it right: When will oil spill be cleaned up? Maybe never

Update: Firedoglake.

Update: Nasa photo of Gulf on July 24th.

Keeping count

Of the dead in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP stands for Bastards Profiteering?

Fishermen Report Illness From BP Chemicals
Toxicologist Says Chemicals Harmful, Can Lead To Death

So, BP does what?

BP continues to use toxic dispersant

And is BP afraid of the decades of pending lawsuits? Not if you look at the history of the Exxon Valdez spill and: Since 1990, oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates and parties, with 75% of the money going to Republicans.

What the Gulf of Mexico's shorelines are going to look like for decades to come.

And many have realized what this will mean for the sea creatures that live in the Gulf of Mexico:

Obama urged to save marine life from oil
Campaigners warn bluefin tuna and other rare species could be facing extinction

Well?

Very modest disaster my ass.

Death comes ashore

As if it's not killing everything ....EVERYTHING... underneath the surface as it slowly fans out in its slow suffocating toxic inky cloud.

Via Eschaton, read Digby and CNN.

What will the hurricane season be like?

Update: Gulf of Cheney.

Messing with the food chain.

Update 5/19: Via Bryan of Why Now? another cartoon.

Will we be able to eat Gulf shrimp ever again? Use the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch list.

Mini blog sprinkles

I KNEW it! Explains why some of us really do act like thuggish cavemen!

Take care not to be bitten by a coral snake.

Via Steve Bates, Al Gore does NOT say,"I told you so."

Bart Stupak is really stupid. Really.

Google earth 3D is really cool.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part one trailer.

The picture of religious oppression.

A rare 'king of herrings' giant oar fish is found in Swedish waters, first time since 1879. Dead, of course.

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.

Alien hitches a ride on a submarine

Demands to be taken to our leader...

Ol' Bart attached itself to a submarine that was exploring the ocean floor. When the sub surfaced, people got an unexpected look at the slithery stowaway. The creature is a pinkish in color, two and a half feet long, and wouldn't be out of place in an Ed Wood movie (no offense, Bart).

The story was originally posted on Reddit by a guy who works for the submarine company. It quickly went viral from there. Once news of the creature's existence hit, Web searches immediately soared. Online lookups for "sea creature found," "giant isopod," and (our personal favorite) "terrifying sea creature" all roared.

It's worth noting that the existence of the Bathynomus giganteus isn't, in and of itself, a surprise. Scientists have long been aware of them. The shock came from seeing one up close in all its cockroach-like glory.

Looks like an overgrown sowbug if you ask me...

OMG! Sowbugs are the alien minions of Ol'Bart!!11! We've already been overtaken! Aaaaahhh....

The most important question to ask though.... is it good to eat?