Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Friday, June 27, 2008
The oceans are currently uptaking 22 million tons of CO 2 daily which is making a significant and exponential change in the ocean’s chemistry.
In 2004, it was projected that the pH balance of the oceans would be lower in the middle of this century than they had been for more than 20 MILLION years.
There was a spike in methane release last year from the thawing Arctic permafrost too. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and the permafrost thaws a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise will add to the reverberating feedback cycle…In April Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab said, “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”
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That was just 2 short months ago. Now the grim news is that for the first time in human history the ice at the North Pole will disappear entirely if it continues its current rate it will be gone by summer’s end. Science is placing the odds at 50:50. About 70% of the sea ice this spring was new ice formed over last winter. New ice melts faster than the old ice.
Inuit natives, near Baffin Bay, are reporting the sea ice is breaking up much earlier than normal this year. They have also seen wide cracks appearing where the ice normally remains stable.
The rate of Arctic land warming is 3.5 times greater than the average 21st century
warming rates predicted in climate models; more feedback cycles. So much so that
Science News is reporting over the past century the leading edges of conifer forests
have crawled from 20-60 meters of the mountains and have begun to overrun the tundra.
There are now conifers growing where no living tree has grown in the last 1,000 years. The greening of the Arctic is something we don’t want. The albedo, or the extent of which light from the sun can be reflected will be decreased more and more as the ‘green’ of the plant material continues to advance toward the Arctic.
The cycle continues to compound as the tundra thaws and releases methane. Scientists think between 1/3 and 1/2 the CO 2 that has been produced by humans since
the industrial revolution is now in the ocean. Water that is upwelling today is water that was exposed to 1958 CO 2 concentrations. 50 years from now the water being upwelled will be that exposed to the methane and carbon dioxide levels of today…
So, the last thing the Bush Administration wants getting out is a 250 page report by the EPA giving detailed alternative approaches of how to regulate greenhouse gases!
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Did you ever hit that nasty ’send’ button on an email, and wish you could bring it back?
You aren’t alone. It generally happens to me after I’ve had a little too much wine. I’m not suggesting that’s the problem at the White House, but if the cork fits…
The White House demanded that an email the EPA had ’sent’ be ‘recalled’. If, however, the pesky ’send’ button has already been hit, then the White House has its own simple and fairly elegant solution to news it just doesn’t want to see. Just don’t open the email.
That won’t work either.
The EPA apparently had 250 pages of ‘detailed alternative approaches’ to regulate greenhouse gases from fuels, cars and some industry. But, no; the White House doesn’t want anything to do with solving problems. It appears, as is widely speculated, this administration is all about creating problems. Speculated is a generous term in this case. The time for speculation, in regard to the intentions of this administration, has long past.
The Supreme Court had already tried to set the White House straight when it ruled carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, and the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the power to start mandating that new vehicles to reduce their pollutants.
If we do have the technology and the money to regulate greenhouse gases it seems apparent those in power don’t want us to know about them.
Photo Thanks: NOAA
Labels: Acid Ocean, Arctic, Arctic Ice, Baffin, CO2, EPA, Methane, NOAA, North Pole, Ocean, Speak no Evil, Tundra, carbon dioxide, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Learn To Take Your Drinks ‘neat’; We’re running out of ice, among other things.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Des Moines County sheriffs shot them dead. The story says 10 to 16 pigs were shot and left dead atop the sandbags holding back the flood waters. Left dead and rotting in the sun, presumably, as a grim warning to other pigs trying to save their own lives. “Attention! Deadly Force Used On All Cloven Hoofed Trespassers! No Exceptions! These 10 to 16 little piggy’s won’t be headed to market; they couldn’t stay home or they would have drowned. No little piggy had roast beef for its last meal. I didn’t hear if they were given a last meal, I think they had ‘none’. No, no little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home. Their home had been flooded.
The 10 to 16 pigs were the few sacrificed for the many. Spook would have been please. “They did not want to take a chance on losing a city due to a few hogs” said Louisa County Sheriff Curt Braby when he heard about the ‘pig incident’.
We understand completely that the lives and property of the town was more important than the lives of the little piggys. Still it’s very sad really, when thinking about how these 10 to 16 pigs missed being evacuated somehow with 36,000 other pigs in the Oakville area.
Maybe these pigs were some kind of free thinking renegades.
Maybe they saw a chance to avoid ‘going to market’ and decided to take their chances swimming to a better life. Alas that just wasn’t in the cards for these little porkers. But, you have to love em for trying to survive. That’s what we all do; isn’t it?
The chairman of the county emergency management commission said the state veterinarian and other agencies were consulted and after that the 10 to 16 animals were killed.
Still I’m left with one burning question. Why do they not know how many pigs they killed? Surely if they were simply left where they died someone could have taken at least an accurate count. Why does my heart feel a little sad for the little piggys, trying to escape death only to be killed for their efforts. I guess I need to figure out why the count of 10 to 16 bothers me too. Is it because 16 is only 4 less than 20 and 20 pigs would be double? It just feels like if a person or persons were going to kill a number of animals they ought to know what that number was.
Labels: Uncategorized
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
They Died Trying! They didn’t want to go to market…
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Russian pilots accidentally dropped an un-pulverized chunk of cement into a house while trying to assure a dry holiday. Yet another attempt to ‘fool mother nature’.
Let’s have a look at what is commonly found in cement shall we? Calcium oxide which is corrosive to human tissue. Crystaline silica which can cause damage to lungs, and is abrasive to the skin. Toss in a trace amount of chromium and voila! allergic reactions.
Silver oxide, another cloud seeding favorite, is said to be non-toxic to humans yet it is known to have severe detrimental affects on fish. Salt, popular also, is being widely used to change the weather too. Salt lessens the ability of soil to transfer nutrients to plants…there are few enough nutrients left in the food we eat as it is.
Pony up Paul McCartney! In 2004 Mc Cartney’s team reportedly spent 55,000.00 to have 3 jets spray clouds over the Palace Square in St. Petersburg, Russia to stave off rain.The former Beatle needed to spread his former corrupting influence in a rain free environment, so he influenced the weather by spreading, not corruption but, dry ice so that his 50,000 fans there could stay dry. (The former Soviet regime had banned Beatle music as a ‘corrupting influence.)
China has guaranteed rainless medal ceremonies for the Olympics. A quick google search brings up more countries in the world and more state agencies ‘practicing weather modification’ than any sane person would hope to find. It’s absolutely daunting and the reasons, in some cases, are beyond belief.
The United States, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Australia,China, Russia…You name it. It seems if a nation or a state has two nickles to rub together they are going to get into the weather modification game. Beyond a playful picnic, or drought busting, I think it would be a mistake not to at least consider many nations are eyeballing weaponization of the weather…Operation Popeye is just one, now public, example.
No wonder our weather is so screwed up!
The world would do well to remember “The slightest change in the initial conditions of a chaotic system can accumulate in the long run into an enormous effect.” Edward
Lorenz.
I personally think the world has gone ‘fractal’.
Photo Cloud seeding 1957 near Sydney naa.gov.au
Labels: China, Climate Change, Cloud seeding, Credence Clearwater Revival, Russia, weather modification
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Credence Clearwater Revival Finally Get’s An Answer! Who’ll Stop the Rain? Anyone that can afford to; that’s who.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
It’s amazing to find out that Apes plan ahead, but is it an earth shattering discovery?
Scientists in Sweden are detailing the results of studies they have been doing on chimpanzees and an orangutan. Apparently they offered up instructions on how to extract fruit ’soup’ from a tube and the primates caught right on and figured that was a pretty sweet tool.
The apes were offered this tube, after they were taught how to use it, along side other items such as a broken wrist watch. The apes decided to reject the wrist watch in favor of the tube. The apes apparently realized the tube would give them something tasty later. They were also offered plastic cars and teddy bears, still they opted for the tube.
The researchers therefore deduced the primates were planning for the future rather than seeking the immediate gratification of the a discarded wrist watch, a blue plastic car and a small teddy bear.
My dog buries his bones in anticipation of saving it for later. Squirrels hide their nuts knowing winter will be coming someday. Is that a cognitive decision or simply instinct maybe it’s just the will to survive.
It looks like the apes are not only able to plan for the future but, they are also smarter than humans. Rejecting the discarded wrist watch makes perfect sense. After all it would only make them late for their future appointments and with gas prices soaring who would want the added responsibility of a blue car, plastic or not. I’m sure they realized they wouldn’t be granted a drivers permit anyway.
The scientists believe the apes consciously chose the new tool, which was the hose, over useless pieces of distracting junk. They must be smarter than humans.
Labels: Uncategorized
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Apes Are Smarter Than Humans After All! Science now has proof.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
It is still a mystery why the dolphins stranded in southwestern England near Cornwall on Monday. Some scientists say the deaths look like a “mass suicide”.
Those examining some of the dead dolphins found they had swallowed and inhaled big chunks of mud from the estuary. Vic Simpson, founder of the Wildlife Veterinary Investigation Centre in Truro says, “Their lungs and stomachs were full of it. That is very bizarre indeed.”
Sometimes dolphins will chase a shoal and become stranded when the tide goes out. That theory has been eliminated in this case because their stomachs weren’t filled with fish.
Don’t blame the Royal Navy although they have admitted to using sonar in the area just 14 miles from where the dolphins stranded themselves. The Royal Navy said in a statement it was considered “extremely unlikely”that the operation had affected the mammals. 14 miles from where the dolphins came ashore is not very far considering the common dolphin has been clocked at 23.6 mph at an underwater speed.
In 1996 twelve Cuvier’s beaked whales stranded themselves along the coast of Greece. NATO was testing active sonar in the area. In 2002 acute gas-bubble lesions, indicating decompression sickness, was found in whales that beached after the start of military exercises off the Canary Islands. 17 whales beached as a result of a sonar trial by the U.S. Navy near the Bahamas in 2000, the dead whales were found to have acoustically-induced hemorrhages and bleeding in their ears and eyes. These are only a few examples.
Last year 152 dolphins washed up on the coast of Iran. Of course there were no navy vessels from any nation in the waters off Iran…none that would admit to it anyway. Iran blamed the U.S. for the deaths of the dolphins. Maybe these dolphins were caught trying to defect from the Iranian navy. Check out this interesting story about Russian trained killer dolphins being sold to Iran.
In any case it is highly unlikely the use of sonar in the area did not cause these dolphins to strand. More than 40 of them came ashore in 4 separate locations at about the same time in the morning. Some swam up the Percuil River.
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Madagascar has found themselves with at least 55 dead dolphins washing ashore and more than 100 stranding, around the same time as the ones in the U.K.
In several reports Herilala Randriamahazo, from the Wildlife Conservation Society has said,”This is the first time that Madagascar has seen such sea animals.” Someone from the environment ministry said the dolphins had created a stir.
Foko-madagascar.org’s Harinjaka says, “the Malagasy population have a special bond with Dolphins.” “We don’t hunt or eat dolphins because our traditions tell stories of dolphins saving fishermen from drowning at seas.”
The dead melon-headed whales, a species of dolphins were first spotted at sea last month. Then, for some reason they beached last week.
An Exxon-Mobil ship is said to have been conducting seismic surveys in the area, and left Antsohihy port on June, 2nd on June 4th as many as 40 dead dolphins were seen stranded in the mangroves about 600 km from the capital. 100 or more dolphins have been stranded in the Northwest region of Madagascar last week.
Photograph: BarryBatchelor/PA
Photograph #2: Harinjaka
Labels: Dolphin, England, ExxonMobil, Killer dolphins, Madagascar, Royal Navy, Sonar, U.K., stranded
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
26 Dead Dolphins; More Than 40 Stranded In U.K. 55 More Dead Dolphins In Madagascar.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Maricopa County in Arizona has one of the highest home foreclosure rates in the U.S., which is presenting a potential West Nile crisis.
There are tens of thousands of swimming pools in the county left unattended and without maintenance. The pools, in the yards of homes now vacant, are a breeding ground for millions of mosquitoes. 17,214 homes in the county were offered at foreclosures sales in the first three months of this year alone, and there are countless numbers of homes where the owners have simply walked away.
Maricopa’s solution to the growing number of stagnant ‘pool swamps’, left behind in the aftermath of the deepening mortgage crisis, is to release minnows into these pools. Gambusia minnows can eat up to 300 mosquito larvae per day. Public health workers are breeding thousands of the little fish to make available to residents and local governments across the county.
What could possibly go wrong?
Conventional pool maintenance is out of the question. “Chlorine is not an effective answer because it is burned off by the sun in a couple of days” says Daniel Anderson a Chandler city official as he released a shoal of minnows into an abandoned backyard pool.
Anderson says, “Once these fish are in the pool, we are not concerned about mosquitoes until someone either buys the house or the pool dries up.”
What will be left in the dried up pools?
These little fishes breed at a rate of 25 to 300 offspring every two weeks. The rate at which water evaporates can be calculated, and I’m guessing that water evaporation has been estimated. Variables in temperatures, humidity and cloud cover make the evaporation calculation fairly fluid, but the parched desert climate of Maricopa county is rather consistent…so…
Minnows multiplying at a rate of maybe 600 per month, leaves me with pictures of tiny little fish dying in distress. Rotting in the noon-day sun of the desert, piled atop themselves in a heaving mass of flies and maggots while green pool water evaporates.
The horror (and the stench). The minnows sounded like the perfect idea until I started thinking 4 or 5 months down the road.
Let’s hope I’ve over thought this thing, as I’ve been known to do.
Photo: salmon society.
Labels: Uncategorized
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Home Foreclosures Add To Public Health Crisis. Minnows are eating up the news!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Campus police are requesting that people stay off campus during the nighttime hours so that emergency crews can do their work. Besides dealing with downed power lines and trees as well as flooding, Ward Hall, which houses K-State’s nuclear reactor was severely damaged.
Mo Hosni, head of K-State’s department of mechanical and nuclear engineering said, “There is no danger from the reactor, even if the roof and walls had been damaged. Classes scheduled for today at Kansas State University are cancelled.
The Nuclear Event Report at the NRC website has listed the Emergency Class: ALERT
10 CFR Section:
50.72(a) (1) (i) – EMERGENCY DECLARED
Event Text
The research reactor building at the Kansas State University was damaged due to a tornado onsite. There is extensive damage to the building. The reactor was shutdown properly earlier in the day. There is no damage to the reactor. There is a loss of power onsite however, this type of reactor requires no active cooling. The reactor is shutdown and stable.
The Alert condition at the site has been terminated. Conditions requiring entry into the Alert have been rectified.
Damage at the school from the tornado could exceed $20 million dollars. The damage to the campus was extensive. Tom Rawson, vice president for administration and finance says at the school’s website “The Wind Erosion Lab is gone.”
Kansas State’s nuclear reactor has not experienced a single accident of any type since it began operation in 1962.
Freshman orientation and enrollment continued today!
Image ID: wea00206, NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection
Location: 22 miles southwest of Howard, South Dakota
Photo Date: 1884 August 28
Oldest known photograph of a tornado
Labels: Kansas State University, nuclear, tornado
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Mid-West Tornados Go Nuclear At Kansas State University.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
You’ll need rubber hip boots to wade through the odoriferous methods the White House is using to keep you in the dark.
Steven Johnson, EPA Administrator refused again to answer pointed questions and requests to disclose information about his contacts with the White House to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. With people like Johnson and Libby who needs Controlled Unclassified Information?
Johnson, tossing himself under the bus in Scooter Libby’esque fashion, claims any decisions to reverse various air pollution rules were purely his own. White House intervention on behalf of industry had nothing to do with his decisions. He may find his refusals culminating in subpoenas and contempt of Congress findings. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss the conversations” Johnson said, of conversations he was loath to admit did or did not take place between himself and the White House.
Are you on a ‘need to know’ basis? Apparently not.
The Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) has been ‘refashioned’. Refashioned as in buying a suit and having it tailored for a custom fit. To fit whom? The new tailored IRIS has been ‘refashioned’ to exclude from the public, comments from federal agencies now known as ‘deliberative’. These comments are not allowed to be part of the public record, and they are in fact exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.
John Stephenson, director of natural resources and environment at the General Accounting Office, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee saying the OMB, Office of Management and Budget, ordered EPA to terminate 5 IRIS assessments without giving any reason.
The revised process, besides giving an added cloak of secrecy for the government to hide behind, also holds up risk assessment time for years. Now it takes an average of 7 years to conduct an IRIS assessment. EPA could do a risk assessment in only 1 year.
This affords the government a ‘plausible deniability’ out, as when in 2005 the government provided 120,000 trailers having toxic levels of formaldehyde leching from fiberboard. Formaldehyde was declared a known human carcinogen in 2006. The EPA still has not completed the formaldehyde assessment. EPA had nearly finished an assessment of formaldehyde it had started in 2004 when at the ‘behest of the formaldehyde industry was postponed.
One might think that with plausible deniability, deliberative protection and people in the administration willing to toss themselves under the wheels of the bus for their leaders the government wouldn’t need Controlled Unclassified Information.
The CUI policy puts the people on the short list of those who ‘need to know.’ We the people don’t need to know about the lack of inspections, chemical plants located near populated cities that don’t pass inspections, dams, bridges and other infrastructure that isn’t passing inspections, toxins released into the oceans, the air and into our food…
It’s so much easier to spend our economic stimulus checks when we don’t have all that pesky environment poisoning and risk assessment stuff on our minds!
If you’re spending that rebate on food, as so many people are finding necessary to get by, keep this in mind. Private labs aren’t required to inform the FDA when tests indicate imported food is contaminated.
Labels: Controlled Unclassified Information, EPA, FDA, IRIS, Integrated Risk Information System, Speak no Evil, deliberative
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
CUI, Controlled Unclassified Information! You don’t need to know.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tyson is America’s second largest producer of chicken. The company routinely uses gentamicin. Gentamicin is an antibiotic used to treat infections in humans. Tyson hide the use of gentamicin from the USDA, or in a politically correct statement by Amanda Eamich USDA spokeswoman, “The use of this particular antibiotic was not disclosed to us.” Therefore the statement on the labels of Tyson Chicken “raised without antibiotics” could not be considered “truthful and accurate.”
Which came first; the chicken or the egg?
A Tyson Spokesman Gary Mickelson defended the labels by saying gentamicin was administered to eggs one day before hatching, therefore Tyson played by label rules when it says, “raised without antibiotics”. Presumably Tyson falls on the pro side of Roe v. Wade, the life of a chicken apparently doesn’t begin until it’s born, or hatched.
Apparently the routine use of gentamicin did nothing to prevent at least one flock of hens from coming down with the bird flu, H7N3. Tyson began destroying 15,000 hens from a flock in Arkansas yesterday or Friday or as soon as the virus was discovered, but not announced.
Blame Canada!
Jon Fitch, director of Arkansas’s Livestock and Poultry Commission said, “The speculation at this point in time was that a large group of Canadian geese made home on a pond very near this facility.” “Our speculation is someone stepped into some of those droppings and carried it into the poultry house.”
Fitch said state officials decided against announcing the infection to the general public because the birds tested positive for exposure to the H7N3 strain of the virus and not the H5N1 that ravaged the Asian poultry and killed 240 people worldwide. What the heck makes someone part of the general public?
Tyson is killing the chickens by carbon-dioxide gas.
Meanwhile, 40 people in Texas and New Mexico have fallen ill from eating one of summer’s most anticipated crops, fresh juicy tomatoes. At least 17 of those have been hospitalized. 30 more people have become sick with the same Salmonella infection in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, Illinois and Indiana. No word on a Canadian link so far.
In California cases of a rare form of TB, Mycobacterium bovis, are cropping up said to be caused by eating unpasteurized dairy products. Luckily this form of TB isn’t spread through human to human contact but by eating dairy products coming from infected cattle.
The 65% increase in cases is said to be due to smuggled “bathtub cheese” made in home tubs and backyard troughs. We are to believe the cheese is then smuggled to the U.S. and sold by street vendors. Ag officials seized more than 375 pounds of illegal cheese from an open-air market in San Bernardino last year.
Who wants another helping? Save room for dessert!
Labels: Bird Flu, Cheese, Gentamicin, H7N3, Salmonella, TB, Tomatoes, Tyson Chicken, USDA, illegal cheese
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Poison! Unsavory Chicken, Tomatoes and Cheese won’t be on my summer menu.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
No one in the U.S. need worry that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole and suck them into oblivion.
The black hole is alive and well. It lives in Washington D.C.
CNN reporting NASA’s inspector general office says the marginalized, (lies) they dished out and the mischaracterized (lies) they dished up were due to “inappropriate political interference”. (censorship)
When they start burning books at the library, you can be sure they’ll be calling it a “neighborhood watch” meatless BBQ and the public will eat it up. The smoke won’t be getting in anyone’s eyes due to the egg that is dried up on their faces.
Labels: Censorship US Government, Hadron Collider, NASA, Speak no Evil, U.S. Government
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
NASA Sucked Into Giant Black Hole!
