Artur Chilingarov gets around. He’s the same guy that led the dive to plant the Russian flag under the North Pole last year.Now he’s seeing what is at the bottom of Lake Baikal.
Lake Baikal is said to be the deepest body of fresh water on the planet. It also holds 20% of the entire earth’s fresh water. While the Russians are exploring and recording tectonic information and gathering archeological artifacts…yes, they will be doing a little oil and gas prospecting.
The last time the Russians ventured deep into the lake was 1977 when they went down to 4,600 ft. under the surface. This dive went to 5,500 feet.
To say it’s only taken a little more than 30 years to dive an additional 900 feet is probably unfair. After all the last time the U.S. sent a man to the moon was in 1972.
It makes me wonder what everyone has been doing for the last 30 years with their time. They promised us flying cars!
We haven’t been developing new forms of energy. We haven’t developed ways to sustain the oceans food sources. In fact there isn’t enough room to list all the things we haven’t done in the past 30 years.
The first earth day took place in 1970, when “Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity…” yeah, that worked out real well.
In 1973 We were handed the famous oil embargo in the United States. We were told then that the nation would be embarking on a full court press to develope new kinds of energy, clean energy. Cars would have to be built with greater gas miliage.
Instead we moved into the age of the Hummer. Bigger and bigger cars getting less and less gas miliage litter the landscape.
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Nearly 30 years after the Love Canal nightmare, the U.S. Army was busy sinking $100 million dollars into housing being built atop a Weapons Dump in Alaska. This is a site so toxic and dangerous the construction workers even became ill while trying to get it built.
Is this the new home of the future?
I saw the home of the future at Disneyland when I was 6 years old. It was amazing to me. I couldn’t wait to see my mother swishing around the kitchen in her apron and pearls in a house just like that one. The future of things to come. I wanted to see her pilot her flying car to the store. I wanted to see the future as brightly as they promised me it would be.
They say Disney may build a “new” new home of the future. I say, “they may as well not disappoint anymore little girls.”
Things haven’t turned out the way anyone thought they would. what have we been doing for the last 30 years?
Time flies, but not in flying cars.
Photo Thanks: Love Cannal Avenue of Barrels, AEG Environmental Engineering Geologists Disney Families
Conditions in Oklahoma and parts of Texas are surpassing the historic Dust Bowl catastrophy of the 1930’s. Farmland is blowing away, cattle don’t have enough feed and crops are dying in the ground. This is the worst drought in Oklahoma history.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued an agricultural disaster declaration for 9 counties in Oklahoma last week.
Meanwhile…
15 million people in the Horn of Africa are in peril due, in part, to drought.
Horrific disasters like the ones last month in China and Burma have relief agencies buckling under the pressure of what they feel is going to be a “powerful, and quickly growing ‘tsunami’ in the form of an unprecedented global food crisis.”
The U.N. is figuring nearly 800 million people across the world will be in real danger of starvation.
Even after the waters recede it will be impossible to save potato and other root crops. The Potato crops that can be harvested will be unable to store due to moisture content, even on a short-term basis.
Fruit’s in trouble too. The harvest of apricots, peaches and early apples and pears had to be halted because of flooding.
The death toll has already reached 30. More than 50,000 are preparing for evacuation today as water agencies prepare to release thousands of cubic metres per second water to ease mounting pressure on some dams.
Thousands of children have been evacuated from summer resorts near the Dniester and Prut rivers. The sluices at several hydropower plants are currently operating at 6 and 7 times more than their operating capacity.
In the U.S., New Mexico’s Rio Ruidoso surged from it’s seasonal average of 4 feet to 12 feet on Saturday. The flooding there has destroyed 12 bridges in the area. Though these bridges were on secondary and residential streets the cost to replace them is going to be staggaring. Thanks to hurricane Dolly’s remnants. 400 people were evacuated, and 200 campers were cut off by the floods in nearby forest sites.
12,000 people evacuated from flooding in Romania are beginning to return home today. 1,400 bridges, 2,000 homes and more than 20,000 hectares of farmlands were flooded there.
In July flooding has killed at least 350 people in India and over 50,000 homes have been devastated.
The crop losses are still being calculated in the United States from flooding on the Mississippi river in the past weeks.
Bejing has spent at least $17 Billion dollars to clean up only it’s air quality for the 08-08-08 Olympics. They’ve closed down, moved or otherwise quashed every factory, plant or other operation that belched pollution into the air.
One of China’s great hopes was to clear their filthy air so that people could actually see the games.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing the same way, over and over,but expecting somehow, someway, that the outcome will change; the Chinese are definately sane.
They’re bustin’ moves the likes of which haven’t been seen before.
These are unpresedented actions in the quest to clean-up the air and yet the outcome doesn’t change. Bad air and poor visability; company’s coming and the place is a mess.
Ordering more than 1 Million cars off the streets is a huge committment. Still after all of these measures and tossing $17 Billion at the problem it still hasn’t been fixed. In fact levels of microscopic particulates “suspended in the air remain stubbornly high” although some levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide have been reduced.
In some places the sky seems to get a good scouring after a rain leaving the air crisp and clean, but not in Beijing. Guo Hu, director of the Beijing Meteorological Observatory says the rainy weather has reduced visibility in the city.
Believe none of what you read and half of what you see.
Or, believe none of what you see either…Du Shaozhong, Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau says observers should not rely on the visual appearance of the sky.
Du still says, “We can guarantee good air quality during the Games.”
Crazy Eights.
Maybe that guarantee has more to do with astrology and numerology than science. The chinese gave much thought and planning into opening the Games on 08-08-08 at 8:08:08 p.m. China Standard Time in Beijing.
There is a point to all of this…
The monumental actions China has taken to clean-up the air illustrate that, laying on the breaks can’t stop a downward racing locamotive. We should all be sobered by the fact that once we’ve hit the tipping point, no amount of money, time or lucky eights can fix what is broken.
Photo July 27, 2008 James Fallows, link to his amazing smog chronicle as it unfolds in Beijing.
North Atlantic Right whales, named ‘right’ because because whaling crews found them to be the right whale to kill. They moved slowly and stayed close to the surface of the water.
The North Atlantic right whales are getting a break from some hit and run traffic at sea. Last year Canada proposed that the Roseway Bay be designated an ‘Area to Be Avoided”. June 1 through December, ships 300 tons and larger are voluntarily avoiding their regular routes in order to avoid hitting the right whales.
One container ship captain told CNN the ‘Area to Be Avoided’ only has a negligible impact on fuel consumption. It’s estimated the diversion will add less than 10 minutes to a 16-hour voyage.
The idea is voluntary, but it seems like in the first month of the new program many of the ships are bypassing the right whales paths. 52 ships avoided the area, but another 35 still passed through the new ’safe zone’. Maybe this is a good idea that will catch on.
In 2003 the the Bay of Fundy became an ATBA, area to be avoided and it reduced the risk by about 90%.
No one likes to be run over while dinning, or for that matter procreating. Both are important things for the right whale to be doing as it is estimated there are only about 350 North Atlantic right whales left in the whole world.
This is a very good idea.
Fishing rope entanglement is one more reason the North Atlantic right whales are dwindling. In 2005 an estimated 72% of them experienced a run in with fishing net, lines and ropes. This evidenced by the lasting scars. The whales can have the lines embed in them causing infections and death.
The North Atlantic right whale was hunted by New England Whalers as early as the 1600’s. Large amounts of oil from their blubber was used for fuel and they made whips and combs from their jaws. Once killed their carcasses float.
It’s been more than 100 years since they were hunted off the coasts of New England. They never made a comeback.
Photo Thanks: #1 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. #2Wildlife Trust/NOAA fisheries
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The U.S. Coast Guard reports 3 tug boats are holding up the barge that was being towed by the Mel Oliver. The river is coated with oil for 100 miles from the center of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.
There is confirmation that the tugboat was being operated without a properly licensed pilot at the time of the accident.
Photo thanks: Petty Officer 2nd Class Chris Lippert
If you were an Odorrana tormota frog you could just tune that sound out by closing the canals in your ears.
The discovery that the Odorrana tormota species of frogs can close down their Eustachian tubes is being described as “Bizarre” by UofI at Urbana-Champaign researcher Albert Feng.
These little frogs live near a noisy hot springs in central China. They can tune out low frequency background noise of rushing waters to pick up the calls of mates or rivals.
The Odorrana tormota is also known as the concave-eared torrent frog.
Meanwhile…
The oh so much smarter humans go to great lengths to annoy surrounding motorists with their bass beat. They can even let the fathers of their dates know they nearing the house from 8 blocks away, thereby eliminating the need to sit in front of the house and honk!
While the Odorrana tormota would like to be able to hear the chirps of its potential mates, the reportedly more advanced species of humanoid would like to blast his girlfriends hair from her head.
I’ll assume he does this in an effort to make her less attractive to other potential mates. She will also be less attractive to other mates if she is constantly saying, “what?”
Take if from an old rock’n roller kids…turn down the bass. It will be much nicer to hear your sweetheart whisper in your ear, “I love you”, and equally as nice to hear your grandchildren’s first words.
The discovery of how these little creatures control what they hear may help researchers design better hearing aids in the future. There will be a big market for all those destroying their hearing today.
Early reports say the Coast Guard is investigating a report that crew on the tugboat Mel Oliver was unlicensed.
Safety at Sea international is reporting DRD towing tug the Mel Oliver representatives have told the Coast Guard that one crewman aboard had an apprentice mate’s license and that none of the others aboard were licensed at all.
I’ve found some information on tugboat crews.
A typical crew may consist of Deckhands, the number of which depends on the horsepower of the boat and the size of the tow. Deckhand is an entry level position. More experienced deckhands may pickup a tankerman certification.
Engineer. Each boat has a single, assigned engineer who is always certificated as a tnakerman. Engineer is an unlicensed position.
Tankerman. By regulation, the loading and offloading of a tankbarge with a flammable, liquid cargo must be supervised by an individual certificated by the Coast Guard as a tankerman. Some tankermen are contract employees (not a member of the crew) to load and offload a barge.
Pilot. Each boat has one pilot which IS a licensed position. The Pilot shares navigation responsibilities with the Master.
Master. Each boat has one master which IS a licensed position. The Master shares navigation responsibilities with the Pilot and has overall managerial responsibility for the boat.
On the Mississippi River there is the navigable portion of the Upper Mississippi (UMR) the Lower Mississippi (LMR) and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW) which is approximately New Orleans to Galveston.
The maximum size of a tow is determined by the dimensions of lock chambers it must pass through. Locks limit tows, typically, to 6 barges on the Upper Mississippi.
There are no locks on the Lower Mississippi. Tows on the Lower Mississippi could be as many as 40 barges lashed together.
The GICW, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway between New Orleans and Galveston is constricted in many locations and the typical tow does not exceed 3 barges.
It turns out American Commercial lines Inc., that’s the company that owns the barge that is hemorrhaging 420,000 gallons of tar-like No. 6 fuel oil into the Mississippi, is in a ‘distinctly unique position’ to deal with just such an event!
In April 2008 American Lines Inc. acquired the final 70% Summit Contracting, LLC. They already owned 30% of Summit since May 2007.
Diving into a huge helping of irony, It turns out Summit’s expertise happens to be in environmental services.
What kind of ‘environmental services’?
Summit offers emergency response and environmental remediation among other services. When accidents such as this one threaten the environment Summit may have been one of the companies called in to contain, and cleanup the mess.
Environmental remediation will certainly be among the services needed to clean up the accident American Commercial Lines was involved with this day. The Founder of Summit Contracting who had an environmental services and civil engineering background was to stay on and lead Summit as a subsidiary of American Commercial Lines.
In a press statement American Commercial Lines Inc. said the Acquisition of Summit “Uniquely Positions ACL to Serve Chemical and Energy Companies.”
Your results may vary.
‘Forward looking statements’ are based on present expectations and beliefs about future events.
American Commercial Lines Inc., reported approximately $1 Billion as of December 31, 2007.
Forward looking statements are inherently susceptible to risks, uncertainty and changes in circumstance.
This gives new meaning to ‘cleaning up after yourself’.
Did Dolly do it?
Weather conditions this morning at 1:30 a.m., reportedly the time of the accident between the Tintomara and the ACL barge, were a lovely and light 3 to 4 mph, gusting now and again to 7 mph. Weather had nothing to do with this accident. Maybe darkness played a part. The Tintomara can travel at a top speed of 14.2 knots fully ladened.
As the Mississippi snakes it’s way to the Gulf of Mexico from this area, it would be hard to belive that the tanker was traveling at its top speed in the dark in this high traffic area. With Class Det Norske Veritas, +1A1 hull the Tintomara was loaded with both biodiesel and styrene.
Photo Thanks: Peter Langsdale Tintomara Feb. 2008 dry docked Gothenburg.
NOAA predicted the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will grow to be 8,800 square miles this summer. Forecasters think this summers dead zone will be the largest since 1985.
Nutrients from the fields of the Midwest flow into the Mississippi River which then flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The nutrients are what contribute to hypoxia which is low-oxygen content.
Dead zones are triggered by more than agricultural run-off. Sewage, combustion emissions as well as fertilizers contribute to feeding phyto plankton. River flooding is one natural way dead zones can also be produced.
This year the flooding fields along the Mississippi river are going to contribute to this summer’s anticipated increased dead zone in the Gulf. Sediment records match up with historic flooding.
Slapping myself in the forehead…
“Record corn harvests throughout the Midwest are clearly adding to the problem”, says Eugene Turner. Turner is a scientist with LSU. Turner says there’s “an awful lot of corn and soybeans,” being planted.
Corn and soybeans are both being used in the production of biofuels. Soybean biodiesel has been shown to produce 41% less greenhouse gases. Studies have sown that soybean biodiesel, while having less of an impact on the environment also nets a much higher energy benefit than corn grain ethanol. Soybean biodiesel returns 93% more energy than is used to produce it. Corn; not so much. Corn grain ethanol provides only 25% more energy than is used in its production.
So where does this leave the dead zones?
If farmers stopped planting corn and soybeans yesterday it would take years for to inure any benefits as it relates to the Gulf. Nitrogen leaches from the soil for many years.
soybeans require much less nitrogen fertilizer than does corn.
Meanwhile…
Global warming may increase the cases of Kidney Stones! Kidney stone formation increases in warm climates. Sweating removes fluid, which increases salt levels in the urine (which goes to the sewer which may flow into the ocean, adding to the problem of dead zones).
It’s almost like playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Everything is related.
And, much to my surprise there is a “kidney stone Belt” in America. Roughly the same area is also the “stroke belt” of the United States. One more piece of, that renewable resource, irony these areas also mess into the “bible belt” America… Yikes.
Holding what may be a world record for kidney stone production could be one man from Ontario, Canada. The kidney stones this organ passed ranged in size from a grain of sand to a dried pea! The kidney had to be removed but at its peak production it was producing 22 stones in 24 hours.
Photo thanks: KMOX St. Louis Guinness Medical Record Breakers
Russia’s missile cruiser ‘Marshal Ustinov’ is on its way to joining up with the “Severomorsk” which is already in the Svalbard archipelago near Norway.
A Russian Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo says, “We have been talking for a long time about widening our activity in the Arctic.” “There is nothing aggressive in it- it is in the interests of security.”
Protecting Russian fisherman who have been blocked from the seas around the island of Spitsbergen is said to be the aim of the patrols. Norway claims exclusive fishing rights to that area which has a U.N. designated boundary. Russia however does not recognise that boundary.
The Serveromorsk is one of Russia’s Northern Fleet’s submarine destroyer. Russia has said it plans to increase its combat presence in the area.
The seas around Spitzbergen are rich with fish and are claimed by both Norway and Russia. The ships are said to have been sent on requests for protection from Russian fishermen who have been challenged by the Norwegian navy for illegal fishing.
Svalbard was placed under Norwegian sovereignty by a 1920 treaty that Russia does not recognize. Oslo plans to name the archipelago an ‘economic zone which would further bar Russian fishermen from the area.
Spokesman Dygalo categorized the latest patrols in the area as part of “significant expansion of the activities of the Northern Fleet.”
Recognizing some international law but not others?
Dygalo says the movements of the ships will remain “in strict accordance with international law,”
Russian General Vladimir Chamanov has said the training division immediately set out (training) plans for troops that could be engaged in Arctic combat missions. This, following the response from several nations after the flag planting at the North pole.
Arctic Chess anyone?
Chamanov said in an interview with the Russian military daily news Krasnaya Zvezda, “Wars these days are won and lost well before they are launched.”
The U.S. Coast Guard plans over this summer include: The Icebreaker Healy to make as many as 3 scientific research trips into the Arctic with the National Science Foundation.
The Ice breaker Polar Sea returned to Beaufort Sea having been pulled away from the Antarctic.
The Buoy tender Spar will sail from Kodiak to make an accounting of the ’state of Arctic navigation’ assessing needs for lights, buoys and transit separation schemes along with other navigational aids.
C-130 planes will begin flying missions from Nome and Barrow.
The future is now. Rear Adm. Arthur “Gene” Brooks, commander of Coast Guard District 17, which covers Alaska says, the “new Arctic is now; the effects of polar melting are no longer something that could happen in the distant future.”
Who has been listening indeed.
Brooks also says,”I thought when I first got here (Alaska) that this was an issue for 2020,2030 or 2040.” “My first year in Alaska convinced me the new Arctic is already here, that this is an issue for now. I go around in Alaska and talk to people and say, ‘are you seeing the same things?’ and the response I’m getting is ‘we’ve been seeing these things for years, why haven’t you been listening?’”
Knock knock…who’s there?
The wistful visions of the Arctic being a brilliant white and silent land where exotic creatures roam is a delusion. The largest open-pit mine in the world operates in the polar latitudes. The Red Dog mine sees enormous vehicles truck ore to it’s storage facilities in mile-long warehouses.
Enormous bulk cargo ships, displacing 70,000 tons or more sail through the Chukchi Sea to the the ore. They anchor 11 miles offshore and send in huge ferries to move the ore those 11 miles.
A fleet of at least 18 energy exploration ships set to explore this summer looking for anticipated huge reserves of coal and oil.
Far more pollution has been streaming into the atmosphere in the Arctic for far long than most people realize. There is no possible way that the exhaust from all the ‘ventures’, from diamond mines to ore ferries, have not contributed substantially to the degradation of the atmosphere over the Arctic.
No, you don’t have to love Oklahoma, in fact it’s one of my least favorite states.
I judge a state by the tenor of the representatives they elect. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) thinks the EPA has hatched an “economically destructive scheme” which he calls “ironic”. That’s the pot calling the kettle black!
Inhofe also said, “Big Brother is alive and well in the career ranks at the EPA.” Apparently irony is one thing the U.S. isn’t running short on.
Irony is a renewable resource.
This coming from the party that never met a wiretap it didn’t like. Big brother is alive and well, but he isn’t living at the EPA. Warrantless wiretaps, and immunity for those engaged in the massive illegal wiretapping for the past 7 years has all the odor of ‘big brother’.
There are actual scientists working at the EPA. Career scientists. Hard to imagine. Inhofe is a career politician who has been running for some kind of office since 1978.
The economic destruction severed up, in heaping portions, isn’t coming from the EPA’s lunch lady’s ladle either. The next president will inherit, at best, a $400 Billion dollar Bush legacy deficit. This administration had to burn through the huge, $127 Billion dollar surplus the Clinton was kind enough to leave. Now there’s a piece of real irony.
The EPA couldn’t spend enough money to clean-up the amount of trace metals lurking in certain portions of the career politicians anatomy. They certainly wouldn’t have to waste any money looking for brass balls. _____________________________________________________
Meanwhile…
Brad Miller (D-NC) says, “The White House has effectively blocked the EPA from posting new health assessments of hazardous chemicals…” Miller is chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology’s subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight.
The EPA maintains a data base called the IRIS, Integrated Risk Information System. This data base is critical tool for individuals, private companies, local and state authorities to respond quickly to toxic chemicals found in air, water or soil.
The pipe has dried up on the flow of crucial facts that should be flowing into the IRIS. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are not required to disclose details of meetings that take place with industry lobbyists.
What do they lobby for? Pardon me; for what do they lobby?
The OMB ‘reviews’. The OMB prevents agency rules from ‘going final’ before it has approved them.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) will have been waiting for an assessment some 21 years after the EPA began its assessment. Miller is asking if “getting the science right” has less to do with protecting the public health than “a pretext for obstruction…”.
The Government Accountability Office has testified that the new ‘review process’ revealed by the OMB provides for even more secrecy and delay.
Before 2004 there were 10 steps a chemical needed to pass through before it was entered into the IRIS data base. The new review process would take a toxic chemical on a meandering 25 step path before it might be handed off to the EPA to post the final assessment on the IRIS database. Keep in mind, this step follows the OMB giving it’s ‘REVISED ASSESSMENT’
Miller states the obvious, “People will have been exposed to a known toxic substance for decades, for a generation, while the government engages in study after study…”
IRIS is just the first step in protecting the public. The real work begins after a toxin reaches the IRIS. That would be the same point the culprits using, releasing or dumping the toxins on to the environment and the public would have to ‘regroup’.
Who wants to regroup when the old group is so cozy?
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Since it isn’t economically beneficial for anyone to find a cure for cancer and most of us don’t have the training to even attempt, I propose a radical solution.
How about we the people, the piss ants, the captains of common wisdom, cure what is causing cancer?
