Pacific Spirit Marine Institute

21st century explorers return with unique data from Indian Ocean

2010-03-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

Source: IUNC.org

A team of the world’s leading marine experts, paired with scientists from the Indian Ocean region, have just returned from a six-week research expedition above seamounts in the high seas of the Indian Ocean with a whole new understanding of seamount ecosystems. They gathered a very rich collection of data and specimens, including some strange-looking marine creatures.

The scientific survey was organized by IUCN and its partners to improve knowledge of seamounts across the southwest Indian Ocean ridge. Seamounts, underwater mountains of volcanic and tectonic origin, are known to be hotpots of biodiversity and attract a range of oceanic predators, including seabirds, whales and sharks. They also attract deepwater fisheries, as they host many species of commercial interest, most of which are very vulnerable to over-exploitation. The results of the research do not only have a scientific interest, but will help improve conservation and management of Indian Ocean marine resources.

“I am extremely pleased with the data that we have collected and the number of species that we have encountered”, says Dr Alex David Rogers, Chief Scientist of the Cruise and Senior Research Fellow at the Zoological Society of London. “The diversity of species that we sampled is higher than what I would have expected. Some species have been recorded for the first time in the region, and we hope to have found some species new to science. It was also very interesting to discover that the six seamounts we surveyed are very different from each other, and I believe our findings will certainly improve our global knowledge of seamount ecosystems”.

The Norwegian research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen left on 12 November from Reunion island, and travelled 6,000 miles in 40 days to study five seamounts on the southwest Indian Ocean Ridge, and one seamount further north on Walters Shoal, south of Madagascar, before docking in Port Elisabeth, South Africa, today. All features were located in waters beyond national jurisdictions, at two to three days' sailing from the nearest land. Two of them had been set aside on a voluntary basis as protected areas by the Southern Indian Ocean Deepsea Fishers Association, which would allow comparison between fished and unfished seamounts.

“It is gratifying to know that this work is not an isolated scientific trip, but will directly feed into conservation and management recommendations”, says Sarah Gotheil, Programme Officer with IUCN's Global Marine Programme. “Through our study we hope to confirm the conservation benefits of protecting seamount features on the ridge. This will inform future management of deep-sea ecosystems in the high seas globally”.

In total, nearly 7,000 specimens have been collected and labeled, from two-metre long fish to tiny crustacean larvae. They include an impressive variety of fish, shrimps, squids and gelatinous marine creatures. Many more microscopic species of phytoplankton and zooplankton, representing the base of the food chain in the ocean, have also been collected. The two seabird and marine mammal observers recorded thousands of seabirds from as many as 36 species, and 26 marine mammals. Two of them, majestic humpback whales, even offered the team a wonderful 30-minute show of jumping around at just a few metres from the ship.

A team of the world’s leading marine experts, paired with scientists from the Indian Ocean region, have just returned from a six-week research expedition above seamounts in the high seas of the Indian Ocean with a whole new understanding of seamount ecosystems. They gathered a very rich collection of data and specimens, including some strange-looking marine creatures.

The scientific survey was organized by IUCN and its partners to improve knowledge of seamounts across the southwest Indian Ocean ridge. Seamounts, underwater mountains of volcanic and tectonic origin, are known to be hotpots of biodiversity and attract a range of oceanic predators, including seabirds, whales and sharks. They also attract deepwater fisheries, as they host many species of commercial interest, most of which are very vulnerable to over-exploitation. The results of the research do not only have a scientific interest, but will help improve conservation and management of Indian Ocean marine resources.

“I am extremely pleased with the data that we have collected and the number of species that we have encountered”, says Dr Alex David Rogers, Chief Scientist of the Cruise and Senior Research Fellow at the Zoological Society of London. “The diversity of species that we sampled is higher than what I would have expected. Some species have been recorded for the first time in the region, and we hope to have found some species new to science. It was also very interesting to discover that the six seamounts we surveyed are very different from each other, and I believe our findings will certainly improve our global knowledge of seamount ecosystems”.

The Norwegian research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen left on 12 November from Reunion island, and travelled 6,000 miles in 40 days to study five seamounts on the southwest Indian Ocean Ridge, and one seamount further north on Walters Shoal, south of Madagascar, before docking in Port Elisabeth, South Africa, today. All features were located in waters beyond national jurisdictions, at two to three days' sailing from the nearest land. Two of them had been set aside on a voluntary basis as protected areas by the Southern Indian Ocean Deepsea Fishers Association, which would allow comparison between fished and unfished seamounts.

“It is gratifying to know that this work is not an isolated scientific trip, but will directly feed into conservation and management recommendations”, says Sarah Gotheil, Programme Officer with IUCN's Global Marine Programme. “Through our study we hope to confirm the conservation benefits of protecting seamount features on the ridge. This will inform future management of deep-sea ecosystems in the high seas globally”.

In total, nearly 7,000 specimens have been collected and labeled, from two-metre long fish to tiny crustacean larvae. They include an impressive variety of fish, shrimps, squids and gelatinous marine creatures. Many more microscopic species of phytoplankton and zooplankton, representing the base of the food chain in the ocean, have also been collected. The two seabird and marine mammal observers recorded thousands of seabirds from as many as 36 species, and 26 marine mammals. Two of them, majestic humpback whales, even offered the team a wonderful 30-minute show of jumping around at just a few metres from the ship.

Tangled up and blue. Marine mammals and primates forecasted to be the first victims of mass extinction.

2008-10-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

The International Union for Conservation of Nature updated the "Red List" which may be the world's most respected inventory of biodiversity.

On Monday, at the IUCN's World Conservation Congress in Barcelona many experts agreed that the Earth is undergoing the "first wave of mass extinction since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years go."

Aggressive, commercial fishing techniques have more than tripled the amount of fish being harvested from the worlds oceans. Trawlers and factory ships using radar and sonar have been able to find fish with nearly pin point accuracy as they prowl the oceans stalking their prey. Using nets as large as jumbo jets has led to the extinction of some intended catches, and other unintended catches.

Over the past two decades an 89 percent decline in hammerhead sharks in the Northeast Atlantic have been attributed to bycatch. The Caribbean monk seal was officially, albeit woefully late, extinct in June of this year. Though the last reported sighting of this monk seal was reportedly in 1952.

I hope I'm not dead 56 years before anyone notices I'm gone.

The seals demise is also officially attributed directly to man. Will it be too late to save the last two monk seal species? There are now estimated only 1,200 Hawaiian monk seals, and only 500 Mediterranean Monk seals inhabiting the planet.

The photo was taken May 27, 2007 of two Hawaiian monk seals. One died from drowning after being tangled and trapped in fishing lines. The other followed his friend to shore barking at people for assistance at Makua Beach on Oahu.

The IUCN estimates that 25% of the planet's known Mammals are at risk of disappearing forever and in reality that number could be as high as 36%.

Experts say the window of opportunity to save great apes and monkeys appears to be closing far more quickly than Scientists realised.

Can Mankind be far behind?

Ocean-dwelling mammals are reportedly dying at a rate of 1,000 per DAY, victims of mile-wide fishing nets, vessel strikes, toxic waste and sound pollution.

For many decades man's hubris has increased as the quality of life in the world around him has decreased. If mankind has believed the world was his oyster, the Planet is setting out to prove him wrong.

Photo thanks Gordon Olayvar/ Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources.

Sea level rise already increasing as glaciers melt faster than

2008-08-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Petermann glacier is breaking up. An 11 square mile area of the glacier in northern Greenland broke away after July 10th and before
July 24th. The Petermann Glacier is one of Greenland's largest glaciers.

Petermann has a floating section 10 miles wide and 50 miles long. At 500 square miles it is the longest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.

A 33.5 square mile of the Petermann broke away 2000-2001, but the Byrd Polar Research Center is predicting continued disintegration and more imminent breakup in the coming year.

An already large crack is widening even more while it moves toward the calving front of the glacier. The loss could be as much as an addition 60 square miles of the Massive ice tongue or 1/3rd. "The crack is advancing to a point where a massive breakup seems imminent, in which case, the area of break-up would be 60 square miles.

Greenland's fastest moving glacier, Jakobshavn is suddenly speeding up and has nearly doubled its ice flow from land into the ocean. Its flow has contributed to roughly 4% of the sea level increase of the 20th century.

When every dim-wit at the coffee shop argues that is glass never over-flows when the ice melts in his drink, you can remind him this ice is moving from land into the sea. His glass would overflow if he added ice to it from his refrigerator.

Researchers have found the glacier's speeding up is also coinciding with the very rapid thinning of the ice. It's loosing as much a 49 feet of thickness per year since 1997.

The glaciers ice-tongue, which began to break apart in 2000, had a restraining effect on the ice behind it. As it thins and breaks it opens a path for even yet more ice to pile into the ocean.

Waleed Abdalati, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center says, "...We think there is a dynamic effect in which the glaciers are accelerating due to warming." They believe the thinning of ice is too much to be attributed to melting alone.
Photo Thanks: Waleed Abdalati, GSFC
NASA MODIS
Byrd Polar Research Center

Baby Whale thinks boat is its mother. Outcome looks grim.

2008-08-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there just aren't any words.

Starting Friday, U.S. lettuce and spinach go nuclear.

2008-08-21T12:22:00.001-07:00

The FDA has decided to allow food producers to radiate lettuce and spinach.
Put on your tinfoil hats when you try to figure this one out.
Irradiated meat has been around for years. In February 2000, the U.S.government began allowing food manufactures to irradiate raw meat and meat products. At that time it was doubtful the public would accept meat that had been zapped. Working toward a decade later I'd be hard pressed to find a shopper that knows their meat has been irradiated.

Huh?

If you happen to pick up a package at your local grocery right now, and you see the words, 'cold pasteurized' or 'electronically pasteurized you are holding an irradiated product.

If you are under the age of 40, and you happen to carry a magnifying lens with you, you may just be able to read the fine print. If you're over 40 odds are you wouldn't be able to see it even with a magnifying glass.

In 2007 Consumer Reports found that 71% of consumers didn't want to buy irradiated products.

Don't worry though, the food that's been irradiated hasn't gone radioactive. You won't turn yellow and start glowing, but don't take off your tinfoil hat just yet.

It seems the maximum dose of irradiation on meat is 4.5 kiloGrays. A kiloGray is one unit of irradiation. 4.5 doesn't seem so bad. Not bad until we find out that is the equivalent of about 7 million chestX-rays. That Million with an 'M'.

Once we approach the 5 or 6 million chest X-ray mark, what's another 500,000 plus or minus?
Although our meat isn't glowing, irradiating items with fat in them causes a peculiar 'radiolytic byproduct' specific to irradiation. It changes the fat into 2-ACBs. [2-alkylcyclobutanones] 2-ABCs when put into rats cause tumors to grow in their colons.

There has been a tremendous increase in the U.S. in colon cancers since 1999. We would be led to believe that is due to more people being diagnosed with the disease. Maybe, but what are the odds?

Meanwhile...

How about cleaning up our act? Can we not figure out how to keep fecal matter, animal and human, out of our food supply? Can we really not figure that out?

Really?

Prince Charles says, "Count me out". Just say No to genetically modified foods.

2008-08-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

Prince Charles thinks genetically engineered foods will be the "biggest disaster environmentally of all time."

The Prince also thinks GM [genetically modified] foods are an experiment that's gone seriously wrong, causing untold problem which become expensive and very difficult to undo.

The Times online has promptly published a piece rebuffing what Prince Charles has to say.

Read what 'The Independent Science Panel' has to say about the GM foods at their website.

Prince Charles also says,"...the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future" is relying on gigantic corporations for food that would result in "absolute disaster".

To rely on only a few gigantic corporations for anything could turn into absolute disasters. Antitrust laws were written precisely to avoid the 'absolute' problems that accompany absolute power.

"if they think this is the way to go...we (will) end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness." The Prince is quoted as saying.

I'm no expert, and I'm certainly not the son of the Queen, but I do have a backyard garden. This year that garden is tortured. Many of the plants in my vegetable garden are 'trade marked' plants. Admittedly my story is only anecdotal but none of these plants has born a fruit worth the energy it takes to remove it from the plant. It's horrible.

Scientists claim the attacks on their GM food research are setting them back. I'd be willing to bet my last dollar, the 'scientists' making those claims are working for some of the largest ag corporations on earth.

Insurance company spokespeople have compared GM crops to Thalidomide, Asbestos and Acts of Terrorism.

Read the Canadian canola farmer's, recipient of the Mahatma Gandhi award 2000's disconcerting story.

When asked 'why he would plant Monsanto's GM crops' Percy Schmeiser said, "I think the reason was this. ...Monsanto told farmers that it would be more nutritious, it would be a bigger yield, but most of all, less chemicals..."

"Our land is contaminated. Our water is contaminated. Farmers now realize that we're just killing ourselves and we're killing the environment-our insects (bees?) our birds, and everything else."

Schmeiser goes on to say,"Number one, it was not more nutritious. It was not a bigger yielder." Monsanto never noted anything about quality. Schmeiser says, "...farmers are now using from 6 to 10 times more chemicals."

Imagine that...

Monsanto would like to be the worlds sole food source. Monsanto seeds grow best with Monsanto fertilizers. Monsanto is the seed and fertilizer giant!

If you're looking for some good Karma, an investment in Monsanto may not be the place for you. If you are looking to make a killing...it may be.

Monsanto is increasing the price of its corn seed by $100.00 a bag. On 1,000 acres that an extra $40,000.00. At the U.N. Food Summit in Rome Monsanto announced that it would be saving the world from a food crisis. It pledged to double its yields on soy and cotton over the next 20 years.

Like Nancy Regan used to say..."JUST SAY NO".

Genetic diversity keeps our food system resistant to disease. Let's talk incest. There is a reason you cannot marry your cousin.

GM seeds, are 'akin' to incest. One more anecdotal story please...I once knew a wonderful family seemingly normal in every way. But, the parents were first cousins. All seemed well, until the children (2 of them) grew up and tried to start families of their own. The daughter of this union died while she was pregnant,(keeled down dead while making toast) the son was never able to produce any children. Kind of like the plants in my garden, unable to bring forth fruit.

If you are busy buying up any protected seeds as I am, your hopes may be dashed like mine.

While we were sleeping, Monsanto agreed to buy De Ruiter Seeds. The acquisition by MOnsanto will serve, "the protected-culture" vegetable seed market".

Photo: USDA ARS

EcOLinks

2008-08-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

Meet me in St. Louis Louis, Meet me at the fair!cotton Candy goes solar.

If they're going to dump that crap it may as well serve a porpoise!

DuPont make waders that 'breath underwater'. Haven't they done enough already?

Three amigos, three pesticides not friendly to Salmon!

Pass me the rake, I have a little something here I need to bag up!

Cap-and-trade-program. Who is paying for their profits?

Will liquid coal quench our thirst?

I'll buy it from you, then sell it to you...what do you think?

UK should take the lead in research on carbon capture and storage.

2008-08-13T12:29:00.000-07:00

Is there a game afoot!

Some scientists are warning that the world needs to prepare for a 4 degree rise in global temperatures. This is the warning Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued August 7, 2008.

Watson thinks there is little doubt that limiting global surface temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures needs to be the global aim, but without knowing how to limit those temperatures..."we need to be prepared to adapt to 4C." [rise]

Sir David King, the UK's former chief scientific adviser thinks...Even with the best efforts made to keep temperatures at just a 2C rise there is a 20% risk that temperatures will rise by 4 degrees.

Moriarty: This is not danger. It is inevitable destruction...
King said, "My own feeling is that if we get a 4 degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway[temperature] increase."

Prof. Neil Adger, an expert on adaptation to climate change at Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research says, "At 4 degrees we are basically into a different climate regime." "There is no science on how we are going to adapt to 4 degrees warming. It is actually pretty alarming."

The game is afoot.
Watson is the ex-chief scientist at the World Bank. Not odd then that he would recommend that the "Uk should take a lead in research on carbon capture and storage (CSS).

The World's biggest carbon offset market, the CDM, is administered by the World Bank.
Watson figures the UK should launch 10 to 20 CCS pilot projects. Of course he is correct. Carbon needs to be kept from, or at least limited, from the atmosphere. He uses the 1960's effort to put a man on the moon by the U.S. as an analogy of what can be accomplished in a relatively short time when determination prevails. The U.S. had a singularly myopic mind set toward a manned moon mission.

Why isn't the same determination being focused on pulling the world off the engorged CO2 teat?

You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a might organization, the full extent of which, even you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize...
The energy industry stands to make over $21 Billion in the next 5 years. The windfall profits coming from emissions trading.

You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot...
According to David Victor, carbon trading analyst at Stanford University, ..."under the CDM, there will be no global climate benefit because the polluter that buys the offset avoids the obligation to reduce its own emissions.

Analysts estimate that two thirds, 2/3 of the emission reduction obligations may be met through buying offsets rather than by decarbonising...

The CDM scheme will actually increase the net amount of carbon going into the atmosphere. International Rivers report titled 'Failed Mechanism' says that hydro firms will earn millions of dollars by selling 'fake carbon credits to companies and governments which can use those carbon credits to justify an increase in emissions.

Why oh why doesn't it make more sense to turn our intellectual capital towards new sources of power rather than watching the hole planet go to hell in a hand basket?

No one will convince me it is easier to find ways to capture, transport and then store the captured pollution than to figure out how not to generate it in the first place.

The whole cap and trade scheme is just that; a scheme.

Even the language is offensive. Scheme. Long associated with crafty and secret plans. One rarely finds scheme not associated with conniving.

Yes, the game is afoot and to quote Moriarty again: This is not danger, it is inevitable destruction. You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which, even you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize...
You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot...

Photo by T.Scott Williams
Petrified wood in Blue Mesa badlands

Lake Michigan goes Jurassic.

2008-08-12T04:06:00.000-07:00

Lake Michigan is changing faster than researchers are able study it.
Scuba diving researchers are finding what sounds like scenes right out of Jurassic Park. Strange new primitive plant life. Carpets of mussels starving out native species in the lake.

Scientists are saying the ecology of the lakes are being upended.

Fishermen are hauling up stinky E. coli bacteria and botulism spored mats of algae. Algae that stretches from Chicago to the Straits of Mackinac. The expanse can be seen from boat decks and hilltops.

Scientists are afraid this "lake moss", coined by fishermen, is also contributing to the deaths of migratory birds, which are wide spread.

Thousands of migratory birds have died from Type E Botulism poisoning from Lake Michigan, but they didn't get it from eating canned goods.

Scientists are blaming invasive populations of zebra mussels and round gobies.

Zebra mussels are also plaguing Lake Erie. The invasive attack of aquatic mollusks has tripled in the last 3 years and the mussels are adapting to colder and deeper waters.

The great lakes aren't the only place these devils are being found. In the warmer waters of California reservoirs the same zebra mussels are multiplying like rabbits.

The California Fish and game department doesn't know if they came from Lake Erie or some other affected waterway, but their problems are the same as those in the great lakes as a result of this invasive species.

$1.5 billion in damages have occurred across 23 states. Adding insult to injury these creatures also spew phosphorous which contributes to yet more dead zones and toxic algae.

The population of Quagga mussels, larger than the Zebra mussels are contributing to the crashing populations of small fish like smelt. They are snatching the food right out of their diets. No smelt means no Salmon. The salmon feed on the smaller fish.

The quagga has spread through the Colorado River Aqueduct to several Southern California reservoirs. The measles are known to clog pipes and California can ill afford to have one drop of water cut off worsening its already 'crisis' water situation.

California of course has an education campaign; "don't move a mussel" reminiscent of the 90's j-walking campaign "don't get caught red handed" that was popular in the streets of San Francisco.

The adaptability of these invasive creatures to thrive in deep cold waters as well as warm waters is really disturbing. I keep asking myself what kinds of problems these upstarts have caused in the areas in which they are native.

Cameron Davis, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes says, "The ecological balance of the Great Lakes is at a tipping point."

The Quaggas colonize the sandy bottoms and deeper portions of the Lakes while the well known Zebra mussels like to attach themselves to smoother objects like rocks and man-made structures like water pipes.

These species suck water in and press it out taking nourishment from the tiny little creatures in the water. This constant, ceaseless filtration of the water is making the water so crystal clear that sunlight can penetrate far deeper than ever before. This sunny situation allows a certain type of algae (cladophora) to run rampant. Now it grows in waters twice the depth as it once did just a decade ago.

These species are starving out the bigger fish by eating the plankton and iporeia which are at the bottom of the lakes food chain.

Henry Vanderploeg from NOAA says ..."The mussels are really messing up the food chain." Shakespeare couldn't have said it better himself.

Photo thanks: Ron Dermott, Zebra mussels
Botulism dead bird Michigan DNR

Dead Zones in Chesapeake Bay.

2008-08-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Huge patches of algae are cropping up throughout the Chesapeake Bay.

Oceans aren't the only bodies of water feeling the affects of bad runoff.

Mike Naylor from the state Department of Natural Resources told the Baltimore Sun, "We have a lot of people in these watersheds and very little forest cover left." "So our waters have more nutrients than they should, and they're warmer than they should be, so these things combine to allow algae to thrive."

The Chesapeake Bay is known for it's blue crabs. The crab population already in jeopardy has dropped below last years levels which were already alarmingly low.

Last years harvest of the crabs was the lowest recorded since 1945. NOAA fisheries biologists believe the population cannot be sustained at the past rates of exploitation. Maryland announced it would end the season for catching female crabs about 2 months early.

One local man said the only other time he can remember conditions being this bad were when there was a fertilizer seep from a nearby farm into the cove in which he crabs. The crabs have been dying in the water, suffocated from a lack of oxygen.

Watermen are disputing the NOAA report. They say they are finding more blue crabs this year than in the past 15 years. The watermen say they couldn't be overfishing the crab stocks because more fishermen leave the water every year. They are disputing that the NOAA survey is accurate.

NOAA's surveys are said to be highly accurate in predicting the population of the blue crabs.

Scientists and fisherman are at odds.

NOAA says if strict regulations were not put into place that nearly 7 out of every 10adult crabs would be harvested. The population cannot withstand that kind of pressure. Now the algae blooms.

So which came first?

Are the harvests down because the population of the crabs is down, or are the harvests down because the population of the fishermen is down?

One thing is certain. If the algae blooms had been on the Eastern Shore of the bay instead of in the wealthy Baltimore County area there wouldn't be so much public outcry. This area is littered with expensive homes along the water. When the algae gets thick enough to clogs the boat intakes the phone starts ringing off the hook.

One community resident says he can smell the mildew from the dying algae when he comes into the neighborhood at night.

Meanwhile...

Could runoff from well maintained and fertilized lawns, gardens, and car exhaust could be contributing to the problem?

People aren't the only invasive species troubling the Chesapeake Bay either. Scientists say there are now more than 150 exotic species (not native) in the bay, many of which hitchhike in on ships from Asia and Europe.

Plans to test ultraviolet light, filters and some types of chemicals to see how effective they are at destroying exotic larvae and other creatures are already underway aboard a ship in Baltimore.

Four years ago, the Coast Guard began requiring large ships crossing the oceans to stop 200 miles off American shores and dump their ballast water and replace it with ocean water. The Salt water from the open ocean kills some kinds, but not all, of fresh water organisms that stow away in the ballast waters and travel from port to port.

Photo Thanks: Maryland Department of Natural Resources Aug.8 2008

Planktos out, Climos at bat. Frankenplankton lives.

2008-08-11T04:52:00.000-07:00

Just like Yogi Berra Said, "It's like deja-vu, all over again".

California based Planktos has postponed its ocean "iron-fertilization" plans indefinitely. Planktos failed to find sufficient funding for its efforts.

Batter up.

Climos. Climos has raised $3.5 million in Marchto conduct the same "ocean iron fertilization" plan. Climos, like Planktos was founded in California.

Dan Whaley, a self-taught computer programmer and Richard Whilden,a wildly successful money raiser. Whilden is also very familiar with the banking industry. You'll want to have a look at his experience in that industry.

The Climos website has listed as a co-founder and Chief Science Officer Dr. Margaret Leinen. In addition to being Chief Science Officer, Dr. Leinen is also Dan whaley's mother.

Studies show that the North Atlantic Ocean is only absorbing half of the CO2 it once did and that the Southern Oceans have stopped absorbing it at all, and are now in fact releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere. Emissions of carbon dioxide from the oceans have increased by 40% since 1981.

Enter the catcher.

Emissions trading is being hyped as a $30 billion market already that could grow to $1 trillion within the next 10 years. Where oh where would there be a vault large enough to hold 1 trillion dollars worth of emissions? Maybe the ocean? Maybe that why Dan Whaley, came up with a business plan that involved selling 'carbon offsets'.

Whaley's light bulb moment came after talking to his oceanographer mother about ocean iron fertilization. She had known John Martin, who is apparently the father of the whole ocean iron fertilization concept,known as the "iron hypothesis". Martin said in 1991 "Give me half a tankerload of iron, and I'll give you an Ice Age. He died in 1993. shortly after his death his theory was proven to be correct by Moss Landing Marine Laboratories after they spread an iron solution into the ocean near the Galapagos Islands and algae bloomed.

The Umpire calls, "stee rike".

Never mind that algae blooms are also responsible for 'dead zones' in the oceans. The proliferation of plankton is what depletes oxygen in the waters creating dead zones in which some fish can flee, but many slow moving creatures are less able to escape. Oxygen levels in Dead Zones are too low to support marine life.

Rob Fujita, Environmental Defense Fund marine ecologist thinks Dead Zones are already hard enough to control. "It's not a great time to increase the risk to oceans ecosystems", says Fujita.

Russ George, of the shut down Planktos said, "This isn't rocket science, it's ocean farming." George believed there wasn't any reason a profit couldn't be made while still helping the environment.

Foul ball.

There is a line between fertilization and pollution. Nether side of the line looks to be territory where the iron "ball" should be played as fair.

Whaley says, "Basically, the business model hinges on the price of carbon and the efficacy of sequestration."

Isn't all of this really a means to generate wealth for a wealth generating machine? A New York Times article called carbon trading one of the fastest-growing 'specialties in financial services'. Have we learned nothing from the past 'financial services' hatched from thin air?

CCX, the Chicago Climate Exchange, ECO.L EcoSecurities or how about the EU ETS. The government backed trading program in Europe called European Emission Trading Scheme. I don't happen to like anything with Scheme in its official title and there are plenty.

Game called on account of rain.

Some estimates have fertilizing the entire Southern Ocean with iron for 100 years would only reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by 20-30%. This providing the organism decay isn't released back into at shallow or intermediate depths creating an unnatural decomposing leading to more devastating Dead Zones

Patient: It hurts when I poke my eye.
Doctor: Stop poking your eye.

Will Jellyfish and cockroaches eventually be the only things left on earth?

2008-08-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

Jellyfish are taking over the oceans, or so it would seem. One reason there are so many jellyfish is because so many of their natural predators are dwindling.

There are 200 classified species of jellyfish. Some are as small as a fingernail and other can grow tentacles up to 100 feet long. Some studies suggest jellyfish, which aren't fish at all, account for up to 1/3 of the all the world's marine biomass, and their hungry, really hungry.

In 1989, the Black Sea's population of an invasive jellyfish reached epic proportions they cased a total collapse of anchovies and sardines. The Jellyfish ate not only the fish but they ate the eggs as well.

Yikes!

In 2000 a bloom of Jellyfish in the Gulf of Mexico contained 5.5 MILLION jellyfish living in 57 square miles of the Gulf. Runoff from agriculture, sewage treatment plants and other things that cause 'dead zones' in the waters that kill off other fish are a boon to the Jellyfish that can thrive in oxygen depleted waters.

Rising ocean temperatures only improve the conditions in which the Jellyfish thrive.

Jellyfish are one of the oceans most understudied creatures. Moss Landing in California is one of the world's leading Jellyfish research facilities.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium research Institute at Moss Landing uses a 'remote Vehicle' named The Tiburon to study jellyfish. The recently discovered Erenna Jellyfish lights up to possibly attract small fish to them so that they can dine on them. The Erenna jellyfish poisons it's meal with little harpoons and then draws its meal into its mouth.

Scientists say there are yet more Jellyfish to be discovered.

With so much of the Jellyfish's natural predators disappearing from the oceans, and so many dead zones expanding throughout our oceans it's no wonder our oceans are being overtaken by the Jellyfish.

In a series of documentaries that examines freak occurrences in nature, a film called Nature Shock highlighted what happened to Japanese fishermen in the Tsushima Strait in August 2005.

This article in the Telegraph describes how in an effort to curb a 'box jellyfish' explosion fishermen in Japan unleashed what can only be described as a nightmare of hellish proportions.

The Japanese government commandeered a fleet of fishing boats dragging razor-sharp wire through swarms of Jellyfish. Scientists found trying to kill them only unleashed a breeding explosion. They are genetically programmed to ensure their survival by producing more offspring than normal when they are under attack. Large female box jellyfish that were captured were swollen with million of eggs, far more than they would normally carry. Males were carrying billions of sperm.

Irukandji jellyfish and box jellyfish have killed more people in Australia than great white sharks and crocodiles combined.

Sentinels of the high Arctic are disappearing from their posts.

2008-08-01T11:03:00.001-07:00

It was fairly un-nerving when, a chunk of ice broke loose from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the coast of Ellesmere Island recently, but it had to have been somewhat expected.

The Ward Hunt is near the most northerly point in North America. Located in quttinirpaaq National Park it is the largest of five remnants of a much larger ice shelf discovered by Admiral Peary in 1906.

More than 6 years ago Derek Mueller, then at Universite Laval, Quebec, found the biggest ice shelf in the Arctic was indeed breaking apart.

Canadian RADARSAT images acquired in August 2002 showed a huge crack running North-south down the center of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. Secondary fractures running west had fragmented a large area of the shelf into free-floating ice blocks.

At that time the shelf was home to a fresh water lake. These fresh water lakes are known as ehishelf lakes. That fracturing caused the immediate and catastrophic drainage of an ehishelf lake that had called the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf home. Ehishelf lakes are an important link in the ecology chain. This fresh water 'floats' on the more dense ocean water. Located in Disraeli Fjord this was the largest and best-understood epishelf lake in the Northern Hemisphere.

The epishelf lake suddenly spilled more than 3 billion cubic meters of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean.

Ice-dependant ecosystems are made vulnerable by the shifting climate. Microbial communities of algae, micro-invertebrates, and bacteria that could withstand near-freezing water temperatures, freezing and thawing cycles and organisms that used pigment changes to withstand ultraviolet radiation were suddenly and forever lost in that 2000-2002 crack-up and with them much information, and probably many untold secrets.

This most recent chunk of ice to separate from the Ward Hunt is 18 square kilometers across.

The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is estimated to be around 3,000 years old. Ice core climate data and lake sediments indicate the 'Little Ice Age' ended about 150 years ago and the climate has been warming since then. Only about 10% of the original ice shelf may be remaining.

They say the precise triggering mechanism for these fractures isn't known. Although temperature records from Alert which is 175 km east of the Ward Hunt Ice shelf show a significant increase in the annual mean air temperatures during the last 30 years which parallel the thinning and loss of the epishelf lake.

Derek Mueller, now a Trent University researcher says, "We're in a different climate now." "It's not conducive to regrowing them." [ice sheets] "It's a one-way process.

In 2003 Mueller wrote of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, "...one thing seems clear: it and the other Ellesmere ice shelves are sentinels of high Arctic environmental change..."

Photo Thanks #2 NASA
#1 Canadian Space Agency

Russia goes to new deepths. The U.S. sinks deeper too.

2008-07-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

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.

________________________________________________

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

Water water everywhere; not quite everywhere.

2008-07-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

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.

___________________________________________________

Flooded Ukraine lost up to 50% of harvests.

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.

Tossing money at it won't fix the planet's problems.

2008-07-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

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.

The 'Right Stuff' for the Right Whales.

2008-07-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

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

Ever wish you could crush that car blasting so much bass YOUR chest thumps to the beat?

2008-07-25T05:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Photo thanks: Margaret Kowalczyk

T-boned barge on the Mississippi may have been pushed by an unlicensed apprentice.

2008-07-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

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.

Company Cleaning Oil spill on the Mississippi also owns the barge spilling the oil!

2008-07-23T16:32:00.000-07:00

More of that renewable resource; Irony.

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.

Weather Graphs, Weatherunderground.

Drought and flooding. Corn, kidney stones and 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

2008-07-17T09:04:00.000-07:00

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

Fire and Ice. The Arctic is heating up in more ways than one.

2008-07-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Ice Road Trucks. Photo Credit: Ken Woroner

'Marshal Ustinov' Ship Russia Warefare.Ru

Ya gotta love Oklahoma. There's even a musical.

2008-07-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

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?

______________________________________________

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?

Global warming is making some Republican's hot under the collar.

2008-07-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's all voodoo science until somebody gets an eye put out.

California's Republican Governor Schwarzenegger says the Bush administration failed to counter global warming emissions. As if that were some sort of new revelation. What is new is the rift opening up in the tight knit collars of the Republican party.

Schwarzenegger makes the nefarious actions of the Bush administrations stance on climate change sound like a play ground 'nah ney nah ney'.

I'm not going to do it if Mikey isn't gong to do it too.

Schwarzenegger said the Bush administration didn't believe they should do anything about it (global warming emissions) since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do anything why should we?

Way to lead the free world!

Schwarzenegger also said "We don't wait for other countries to do the same thing. That's what makes America number one..."

Here's a little news; most people on the planet noticed a long time ago The U.S. stopped leading and for the past several decades took up the tedious job of mostly pillaging the free world.

Since the EPA decided not to take further actions to stave-off global warming while the lame-duck finishes his term in office, Schwarzenegger said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos that will be aired July 13th, "Well, to be honest with you, if they would have done something this year, I would have thought it was bogus anyway," (have to love a Republican governor that can use the word 'bogus' correctly in a sentence)

California has been on the front lines of the envirmental issues for decades because if it's unique problems. These problems forced California to take aggressive and costly actions to clean-up the air, water, and agriculture among other problems. For decades the rest of the nation categorized California as tree hugging fruits and nuts, and on the lighter side generally alarmists.

Another one's collar has begun warming...

Answering a question about climate change asked by one reporter on a flight to Australia, Pope Benedict said, "We have to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life." He wants to "wake up consciences".

The Pope said politicians and experts must be "capable of responding to the great ecological challenge and to be up to the task of this challenge." "We have our responsibilities toward Creation".

I am loathed to see politicians and experts used in the same sentence and frankly find 'give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life' a statement that is filled with more than a little irony in light of the past behaviour
of the so many authorities in the Pope's flock, but I digress. If the head of an organization, 1 billion strong, can come up with 'one quotable' that fits all questions...he's worth his weight in gold.

Meanwhile...

California is burning like a wicker cabinet. Raging fires are one of those recurring challenges they've had to deal with for decades.

The lame-duck President plans a visit to survey the damage. The last thing California needs right now is more hot air blowing in, but in light of Schwarzenegger's comments about the Bush administration, the visit might be an icy one which could chill the atmosphere. Fire and ice might too contribute some much needed moisture in the air there.

The White House did not say where Bush would go to get his briefing on Thursday, but it's always nice to kill two birds with one stone...Bush is scheduled to attend a private Republican fundraising event in the Wine Barrel of the state, Napa.

Multitasking, one quote fits all...we should all be able to rest well knowing there are so many wise captains at the helms.

Photo: NASA's Terra Satellite...only a small portion of the California fires are shown.

Stressed out Octopuses get a little recreation!

2008-07-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

It seems stress among octopuses is very high. Who Knew?

25 octopuses throughout Europe are being watched to see if they have a dominant or preferred arm. Maybe they are octidextrous?

The stress of living in captivity is very difficult for the intelligent octopuses. Scientists hope that play time will help the multiarmed creatures chill out and give their caretakers an insight in to the preferences.

A lot of people bite their nails when under stress; just imagine having eight hands to chew on. More than half of their nerves are located in their arms. Chewing on them to releive stress might be painful. It may be that the octopuses do a fair amount of 'thinking' with their arms.

The octopuses will be given toys and food and then observed to see with which arm they most often pick up an item. If they have a preference for one side or another, doing things like feeding them from their prefered side might ease some of their anxiouty.

Octopuses have been observed opening closed containers, that could explain why among those items being droped into the aquariums with the creatures are going to be jam jars. They have also been known to board fishing boats and raid their holds to eat crabs.

They will also be dropping Leggo building blocks. It isn't said whether or not scientists execpt any building to actually take place or if they think the octopuses will be able to 'solve' the Rubik Cube puzzle. But, in perfect 'product placement' the Legos are a shout-out to the opening of Legoland California Resort's Sea-Life Aquarium. The Aquarium is set to open August 11, 2008 in Carlsbad.

In maze and problem-solving experiments the octopus shows both short and long-term memory. Some lab experiments have also shown they can learn by 'observation'. They have been trained in some cases to recognize different shapes and patterns.

Octopuses have been observed playing in their aquariums too. They will toss toys into a circular current and then catch them on the way back around.

Sadly the octopus doesn't have a long live span so the amount of learning its able to do is limited. Depending on the species, life expectancy ranges from 6 months to 5 years. This gives 'a lifetime of learning' rather short shrift.

In the UK the octopus has been granted 'honorary vertebrate status under the Animals (Scientific Procedures Act of 1986. Surgery may not be preformed on them without anesthesia.