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www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUclH6P_hik
a7rii + Carl Zeiss Pro-Tessar 1:4 f = 115mm (Zeiss Ikon Contaflex)
Waterlow Park, London N19. Monday 12 September.
Log with holes drilled to encourage wildlife to take up residence.
New York Times, July 20, 2021
Extreme Weather and Climate Updates
Excerpt: The West’s punishing summer heat dries out thunderstorms and fuels raging wildfires.
Oregon, where the nation’s largest blaze is burning, faces a ‘long and difficult fire season,’ officials say.
Why is the sun red? Wildfire smoke from a continent away spreads to New York.
The West’s punishing summer heat dries out thunderstorms and fuels raging wildfires.
Another scorching summer heat wave was set to peak across portions of the western United States, with air so dry that rain evaporated before reaching the ground and smoke from wildfires delaying hundreds of flights at one of the region’s largest airports.
Temperatures reached the upper 90s and lower 100s in parts of the Northern Rockies, and forecasters warned of “dry thunderstorms,” which bring lightning that can spark fires, but no rain to quench them.
It was the fourth major heat wave to afflict parts of the West since early June, bringing dangerously hot temperatures and helping fuel the deepening drought and exploding wildfires across the region. An excessive heat warning was also in effect for parts of Montana and Wyoming through Thursday, the National Weather Service said.
Glasgow, a town in northern Montana, hit 110 degrees on Monday, the Weather Service said. By 2:45 p.m. local time, Billings, toward the southern portion of the state, was officially hotter than Death Valley, Calif., at 110.4 degrees. Weather officials in Billings took advantage of the toasty temperatures and baked a batch of cookies on the dashboard of a car. “It may have taken 5 hours but we have fully baked cookies,” they shared on Twitter.
Lander, in central Wyoming, reached a record 100 degrees on Monday, according to the Weather Service. In 130 years, it was only the 21st day in Lander to reach triple digits. Parts of Idaho, including Boise and Twin Falls, saw much needed rain showers.
New York Times Opinion, June 11, 2021
Stop The Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline
By Bill McKibben
The announcement this week from the Canadian company TC Energy that it was pulling the plug on the Keystone XL pipeline project was greeted with jubilation by Indigenous groups, farmers and ranchers, climate scientists and other activists who have spent the last decade fighting its construction.
The question now is whether it will be a one-off victory or a template for action going forward -- as it must, if we’re serious about either climate change or human rights. The next big challenge looms in northern Minnesota, where the Biden administration must soon decide about the Line 3 pipeline being built by the Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc. to replace and expand an aging pipeline.
It’s easy to forget now how unlikely the Keystone fight really was. Indigenous activists and Midwest ranchers along the pipeline route kicked off the opposition. When it went national, 10 years ago this summer, with mass arrests outside the White House, pundits scoffed. More than 90 percent of Capitol Hill “insiders” polled by The National Journal said the company would get its permit.
But the more than 1,200 people who were arrested in that protest helped galvanize a nationwide -- even worldwide -- movement that placed President Barack Obama under unrelenting pressure. Within a few months he’d paused the approval process, and in 2015 he killed the pipeline, deciding that it didn’t meet his climate test.
“America’s now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that’s the biggest risk we face -- not acting.”
And that’s what puts the Biden administration in an impossible place now. Enbridge wants to replace Line 3, which runs from Canada’s tar sands deposits in Alberta across Minnesota to Superior, Wis., with a pipeline that follows a new route and would carry twice as much crude. It would carry almost as much of the same heavy crude oil as planned for the Keystone XL pipeline -- crude that is among the most carbon-heavy petroleum on the planet.
If Keystone failed the climate test, how could Line 3, with an initial capacity of 760,000 barrels a day, possibly pass? It’s as if the oil industry turned in an essay, got a failing grade, ignored every comment and then turned in the same essay again -- except this time it was in ninth grade, not fourth. It’s not like the climate crisis has somehow improved since 2015 -- it’s obviously gotten far worse. At this point, approving Line 3 would be absurd.
The Keystone announcement is no doubt buoying the spirits of the protesters, led by Indigenous campaigners who are currently occupying the headwaters of the Mississippi River where the Line 3 pipeline must go. They’ve pitched tents along a quarter-mile of wooden boardwalk that the pipeline company built to get its drilling rig to the bank of the river, and now there are prayers and ceremonies underway.
The authorities could try to roust them out -- earlier in the week, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter hovered above a group of protesters, throwing up a huge cloud of dust, an action that the federal government says is now under investigation. But it’s not just the climate that’s changed in the last few years; it’s also the political climate. In an era when officials talk constantly about coming to terms with the dark parts of American history, I doubt Mr. Biden actually wants to sic the cops on Native elders as they sit at the headwaters of one of America’s most storied rivers, on land that, as Native leaders are pointing out, by treaty should fall under Native control.
Instead, the administration should pause construction on Line 3 and re-examine the river-crossing permits granted by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Department of Justice should stop trying to uphold the last administration’s decisions, which were made by people who thought climate change was a hoax. And the Biden administration should issue standards to make sure that new fossil fuel infrastructure has to pass a climate test -- a test that takes into account America’s theoretical commitment to the Paris accords.
That pact commits us to trying to hold the planet’s temperature increase to as close to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit as possible. Climate scientists say emissions must fall 45 percent this decade to meet that goal. That’s why the International Energy Agency said last month that new fossil fuel investment must end this year. But the Biden administration also has to take a hard look at any new infrastructure, from liquefied natural gas export terminals on the Oregon coast to gas compressor stations in suburban Boston.
The headwaters of the Mississippi are also, at least for now, the place where Mr. Biden’s climate commitment will be judged. Yes, Republicans will attack him if he blocks the pipeline, and so will some of the unions whose workers are likely to fill many of the 8,600 jobs that Enbridge says would be created over a two-year period. But the polls make clear that the people who elected Mr. Biden expect action on the climate. He can’t go backward; the climate test of 2015 means that Line 3 in 2021 is an anachronism that must be blocked.
What we’ll find out next is whether Keystone lives up to its name -- whether, with its demise, much of the rest of the elaborate architecture of fossil fuel expansion begins to topple. If so, then it will have been a victory not just for a decade but also for the ages.
New York Times, July 12, 2021
Heat Wave Spread Fire That ‘Erased’ Canadian Town
By Vjosa Isai
Busloads of residents went to tour the charred town of Lytton, British Columbia, this week and found it almost unrecognizable.
TORONTO — Something strange was happening to the acacia trees in Lytton, British Columbia. The small town in Western Canada had seen three days of extreme heat that each broke national temperature records by June 30, rising to 121 degrees. That morning at the Lytton Chinese History Museum, Lorna Fandrich noticed the green leaves dropping off the trees surrounding the building, she said, apparently unable to tolerate the heat. Hours later, Lytton was on fire. A village of fewer than 300 people, nestled among mountain ranges, and prone to hot summers, the town was consumed by flames that destroyed 90 percent of it, killed two and injured several others, the authorities said.
Investigators are probing whether local rail traffic is responsible for starting the fire, which was exacerbated by the heat, amid temperatures that climate researchers say would virtually not be possible without human-caused global warming. On Friday, when a path was finally cleared of downed power lines, bricks and other debris to make way for five buses taking residents to tour the town, the village was almost unrecognizable, the residents said. Mounds of warped metal and disfigured wood poked out of gutted buildings. Whatever brick walls remained were often scarred by black scorch marks.
Matilda and Peter Brown saw that their house has been destroyed, leaving just the skeleton of a traditional Indigenous hut used to air dry salmon. “That was our home,” Ms. Brown said through tears. “That was our sanctuary. Right now we have no place.”
The extreme heat wave that blasted through much of the Pacific Northwest at the end of June spurred widespread wildfires, a drastic spike in heat-related deaths and environmental devastation that wiped out millions of coastal wildlife.
The massive man-made lake, which straddles the border of Arizona and Nevada, is now only at 39 percent of its full capacity, down from 44 percent in April 2020. That’s equivalent to a 10-foot drop in the water level, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Reclamation. Which means mandatory restrictions on the amount of water surrounding states draw from Lake Mead could be triggered in the next few months. Lake Mead’s dropping water levels will affect Arizona’s water supply as soon as next year. Lake Mead’s recent contractions are concerning because the body supplies water to 25 million people across Arizona, Nevada, California, and Mexico. Built in 1936, the Hoover Dam and the attached reservoir have shaped the geography of the West, making life in Las Vegas and Los Angeles possible. (Vox.com, April 21st)
An offshore Ocean Cleanup crew visiting the new device in the ocean. The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization, aims to rid the world's oceans of plastic.
October 25, 2021, Extinction Rebellion:
This morning, 33 activists from Extinction Rebellion NYC and Sunrise NYC were arrested for disrupting rush hour traffic on FDR Drive and West Side Highway. With this action, we demand that President Biden use all the tools at his disposal to ensure the clean electricity provision is included in the Build Back Better Act and we insist that the United States cannot show up empty-handed at the upcoming 26th United Nations climate conference (COP26). This conference is the last best chance for the world to agree on the steps necessary to avoid climate catastrophe.
We vow to cause further disruption until President Biden takes executive action to fulfill his climate pledge to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030. The coming weeks are critical but continued efforts are only possible with financial support - if you are able, please make a donation to fund upcoming actions.
To the commuters who were inconvenienced by these simultaneous disruptions, we're sorry. We believe civil disruption is necessary to force awareness of the urgent need for climate action by the government. This action follows in the footsteps of many historical social-change movements that used non-violent civil disobedience to instigate large-scale political change.
Today's act of civil disobedience was a collaboration between Extinction Rebellion NYC and Sunrise Movement NYC. We stand in solidarity with all of the young people taking action in cities and towns around the country pressuring President Biden at this crucial moment.
Resounding! Discovered a fifth version of The Scream by Edvard Munch, probably the first one realized, which reveals the real cause of the angry terror of the Norwegian painter.
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
to buy this print:
In a video posted on social media on Saturday (May 22), Thunberg said the environmental impact of farming as well as disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, which is believed to have originated from animals, would be reduced by changing how food is produced.
"Our relationship with nature is broken. But relationships can change," Thunberg said in a video marking the International Day of Biological Diversity.
A focus on agriculture and linking the climate crisis to health pandemics is a new angle for Thunberg, who has typically focused her ire on policy-makers and carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
"The climate crisis, ecological crisis and health crisis, they are all interlinked," she added.
75% of new diseases come from other animals, and this spill over to humans is caused by farming, Thunberg said, adding that a move to a plant-based diet could save up to 8 billion tonnes of CO2 each year.
Global Research, July 28, 2021
Forced Vaccination and the Road to “Digital Tyranny”:
Agenda ID2020 Revisited
By Peter Koenig
The directors of the world, the Merkels, Macrons and other compromised world leaders, plus their nameless tiny elite-bosses way above them – are calling for tightening the screws again. To use Madame Merkel’s terminology of what she decided to do with the German people a few months ago. She has hardly loosened the screws since.
The populace has had their summer fun. They have enjoyed their Gladiators.
Now reality sets in again. Preparation for the Fourth Wave. New lockdowns.
Imagine we are only in year 2021, There are another almost ten years left in the UN Agenda 2030 to accomplish the nefarious objectives of the Great Reset – if We, the People, don’t stop it.
The tyrants, first in disguise, then in semi-disguise – and now with the Fourth Wave coming, they show their true face – wide open. No scruples. They have been given their quota of vaxxing by the higher masters, and god-forbid, they may not reach their targets.
The Presidents of Tanzania and Burundi, they did not want to jab their people with poisonous mRNA inoculations. They knew about and had natural remedies to heal. While there is no firm evidence, they died mysterious deaths. Just a few months ago. And nobody dares to investigate them.
The President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse (A right wing president who was the object of mass protests), on 7 July 2021, was assassinated in the middle of the night in his bed, by a well-organized group of 28 mercenaries, they say.
He too, said there was no need to jab Haitians. They were free of masks, and they were free to hug and socialize. No social distancing. And Haiti’s “case numbers” and deaths were very low. Proportionately much lower than the artificially blown out of proportion, fear-inducing “cases”, disease and death numbers of the obedient tyrannical West.
Haiti was the only country in the Western Hemisphere which refused to implement the mRNA vaccine.
www.yahoo.com/news/unprecedented-heat-wave-pacific-northw...
Yahoo News, June 25, 2021
Unprecedented heat wave in Pacific Northwest
starts roasting the region
By Andrew Freedman
The most severe heat wave on record in the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada kicks into high gear Friday and will intensify throughout the weekend and into next week.
Why it matters: Heat waves like this one are significant public health threats, particularly in areas like the Northwest, where many people lack air conditioning.
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Extreme heat tends to be the biggest weather-related killer each year in the U.S., outranking even tornadoes and hurricanes.
Numerous daily, monthly and all-time high temperature records will be shattered.
More than 13 million residents from Northern California through much of Oregon and Washington, and eastward to Idaho are under excessive heat warnings.
The big picture: Extreme heat events are directly tied to human-caused global warming, with studies showing that severe heat events are now on average about 3°F to 5°F hotter than they would be without emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning, deforestation and other activities.
Some recent studies have shown that certain extreme heat events could not have occurred without the added boost from human-caused warming.
What they're saying: NWS forecasters in Seattle said Friday they “have never seen Pacific Northwest data like this.”
The National Weather Service, which is typically cautious in its word choices with the public, is not holding back in its messaging this time around.
The agency's forecast office in Portland, for example, issued a forecast discussion Friday morning stating, "...UNPRECEDENTED HEAT WAVE EXPECTED THIS WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK..."
Agency social media accounts have also been relaying hot weather safety tips and directing people to cooling shelters.
Driving the news: A highly unusual weather pattern is setting up over the Pacific Northwest, with a record-strong high-pressure area aloft — known as a "heat dome" — settling over the region and intensifying through Monday. Such a heat dome, if it reaches the strength that computer models are projecting, would yield temperature departures from average of between 25 and 45°F across multiple states and British Columbia.
Weather balloons launched from NWS offices in the Northwest Friday found the freezing level at or above 18,000 feet in some areas, prompting concerns about meltwater runoff from unusually warm weather affecting mountain snow fields and glaciers.
This heat, combined with a worsening drought, will raise the risk of wildfires across multiple Western states.
It will also cause power demand to spike.
By the numbers: Virtually all of Oregon and Washington, plus portions of California, Idaho and Montana, are under excessive heat watches and warnings. This is the case even in downtown Portland and Seattle.
Portland, Oregon, is forecast to reach low triple-digits on Saturday through at least Monday. The city is likely to break its June heat record, its record for most 100-degree days in June, and surpass its all-time high of 107°F, perhaps by a few degrees.
In Seattle, where the average high temperature this time of year is in the low-to-mid 70s, the National Weather Service (NWS) predicts a high of 102°F on Sunday, which would break the record for the city's hottest temperature during the month of June.
Seattle's all-time high temperature record is 103°F, and the city has only seen three 100-degree days in its history.
Medford, Oregon and Spokane, Washington, are also predicted to shatter their all-time high temperature record by a few degrees.
The heat will be most intense in inland areas of Washington and Oregon. There, temperatures are forecast to soar to between 100°F and 115°F on Saturday through Tuesday, and remain extremely hot through much of next week.
Nearly every location along the I-5 corridor from Northern California to Washington is likely to set a monthly or even an all-time high temperature record during this event.
Canada will also see extreme heat, and it's possible the country's all-time high temperature record of 113°F (45°C) will be equaled or eclipsed.
How it works: One of the reasons why the Pacific Northwest will get so hot is that the core of the heat dome will be parked to the north-northeast of the region for several days.
Due to the clockwise flow of air around the high, this will produce surges of air moving from high-to-lower elevation areas in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
When air sinks, such as when it moves out of mountainous regions and into valleys, it compresses, increasing temperatures and getting drier in the process
New York Times, August 13, 2021
What Does It Mean for a Whole Nation to Become Uninhabitable?
By Devi Lockwood
Excerpt: Geir Wing Gabrielsen, a senior research scientist in environmental pollutants at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso, has been researching Arctic animals for nearly four decades. In recent years, his focus has turned to plastic pollution, which, in Arctic waters, has become a symptom of how the warming climate is altering ocean currents and affecting Arctic animals.
In 1987, he started investigating the diet of the fulmar, a bird that can live for more than 40 years in the wild. Of the 40 birds he sliced open, four had plastic in their stomach. When he repeated the study in 2013, 35 did; some had more than 200 pieces of plastic in their stomachs, preventing the uptake of nutrients. In Europe, fulmars have been found on the beaches, starved to death because of the overload of plastic in their stomachs.
Part of the reason there’s so much plastic in the Arctic is that ocean currents are changing because of the warming effect caused by the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This, in turn, pushes more plastic contamination and pollutants into the Arctic from points south.
Plastic is now found not only in Arctic surface waters but also on the ocean floor and in sea ice. Dr. Gabrielsen has witnessed other changes in the ecosystem. Fjords that used to be dominated by polar species now have Atlantic species. Species that used to be farther south, like capelin, herring, mackerel and Atlantic cod, are more prominent than polar cod.
When the Atlantic system drifts northward, pollution also enters the food chain. Fish eat the plankton, the seal eats the fish, the polar bear eats the seal and the toxicity accumulates in the body of the apex predator.
This natural rock formation in Yellowstone National Park reminded me of Edvard Munch's Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). This is located in the Mound Terrace within the Mammoth Hot Springs area. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming USA.
New York Times, August 27, 2021
40 Million People Rely on the Colorado River. It’s Drying Up Fast.
By Abrahm Lustgarten
Excerpt: On a 110-degree day several years ago, surrounded by piles of sand and rock in the desert outside of Las Vegas, I stepped into a yellow cage large enough to fit three standing adults, and was lowered 600 feet through a black hole into the ground. There, at the bottom, amid pooling water and dripping rock, was an enormous machine driving a cone-shaped drill bit into the earth. The machine was carving a cavernous, three-mile tunnel beneath the bottom of the nation’s largest fresh water reservoir, Lake Mead.
Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on the Colorado River, supplying fresh water to Nevada, California, Arizona and Mexico. The reservoir hasn’t been full since 1983. In 2000, it began a steady decline caused by epochal drought. On my visit in 2015, the lake was just about 40 percent full. A chalky ring on the surrounding cliffs marked where the waterline once reached, like the residue on an empty bathtub. The tunnel far below represented Nevada’s latest salvo in a simmering water war: the construction of a $1.4 billion drainage hole to ensure that if the lake ever ran dry, Las Vegas could get the very last drop.
For years, experts in the American West have predicted that, unless the steady overuse of water was brought under control, the Colorado River would no longer be able to support all of the 40 million people who depend on it. Over the past two decades, Western states took incremental steps to save water, signed agreements to share what was left, and then, like Las Vegas, did what they could to protect themselves. But they believed the tipping point was still a long way off.
Like the record-breaking heat waves and the ceaseless mega-fires, the decline of the Colorado River has been faster than expected. This year, even though rainfall and snowpack high up in the Rocky Mountains were at near-normal levels, the parched soils and plants stricken by intense heat absorbed much of the water, and inflows to Lake Powell were around one-fourth of their usual amount. The Colorado’s flow has already declined by nearly 20 percent, on average, from its flow throughout the 1900s, and if the current rate of warming continues, the loss could well be 50 percent by the end of this century.
Earlier this month, federal officials declared an emergency water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time. The shortage declaration forces reductions in water deliveries to specific states, beginning with the abrupt cutoff of nearly one-fifth of Arizona’s supply from the river, and modest cuts for Nevada and Mexico, with more negotiations and cuts to follow. But it also sounded an alarm: one of the country’s most important sources of fresh water is in peril, another victim of the accelerating climate crisis.
Americans are about to face all sorts of difficult choices about how and where to live as the climate continues to heat up. States will be forced to choose which coastlines to abandon as sea levels rise, which wildfire-prone suburbs to retreat from, and which small towns cannot afford new infrastructure to protect against floods or heat. What to do in the parts of the country that are losing their essential supply of water may turn out to be the first among those choices.
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ticking-timebomb-siberi...
Smithsonian, August 5, 2021
Permafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking
‘Methane Bomb’ of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn
By David Kindy
In recent years, climate scientists have warned thawing permafrost in Siberia may be a “methane time bomb” detonating slowly. Now, a peer-reviewed study using satellite imagery and a review by an international organization are warning that warming temperatures in the far northern reaches of Russia are releasing massive measures of methane—a potent greenhouse gas with considerably more warming power than carbon dioxide.
“It’s not good news if it’s right,” Robert Max Holmes, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who was not involved in either report, tells Steve Mufson of the Washington Post. “Nobody wants to see more potentially nasty feedbacks and this is potentially one.”
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, the study of satellite photos of a previously unexplored site in Siberia detected large amounts of methane being released from exposed limestone. A heat wave in 2020 was responsible for the emissions along two large strips of rock formations in the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin, located several hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Lead author Nikolaus Froitzheim, a geoscientist at the University of Bonn in Germany, is concerned about his study’s findings. Interpreting this data correctly “may make the difference between catastrophe and apocalypse” as the climate crisis worsens, he tells Tara Yarlagadda of Inverse.
In 2020, temperatures in the basin rose nearly 11 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, causing the limestone to release ancient methane deposits that had been trapped inside. The data caught Fritzheim and other researchers by surprise, who anticipated finding gas in other locations.
“We would have expected elevated methane in areas with wetlands,” he tells the Washington Post. “But these were not over wetlands but on limestone outcrops. There is very little soil in these. It was really a surprising signal from hard rock, not wetlands.”
Another report echoes these anxieties. Published by the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG), it calls for a “global state of emergency” as temperatures continue to climb in Siberia and other Arctic regions. Permafrost covers 65 percent of Russian lands, but it’s melting fast.
“Scientists have been shocked that the warm weather conducive to permafrost thawing is occurring roughly 70 years ahead of model projections,” the CCAG warning states. It also points out that the Arctic could lose 89 percent of its permafrost by 2100, the Moscow Times reports.
The CCAG report cautions that warming temperatures could be pushing the Arctic toward an “irreversible” tipping point, causing the release of methane and other gases, as well as crumbling infrastructure in Siberia, including dams and a nuclear power plant.
“The story is simple,” the report concludes. “Climate change is happening faster than anticipated. One consequence -- the loss of ice in the polar regions -- is also a driver for more rapid global heating and disastrously rapid global sea level rise.”
Science Alert, April 16, 2021
Microplastics Are Now Spiraling Around The Globe in The Air We Breathe
By David Nield
Our plastic pollution problem has become so bad that microplastics are now embedded in the regular cycles of the atmosphere, circulating around the planet like oxygen or water, according to a new study. Plastic particles sent up into the air from ocean spray and road surfaces travel across continents and reaching the most remote spots on Earth, according to a mix of sampling and modeling done by researchers. Much of this plastic appears to have been circulating through our ecosystems for a long time – highlighting just how much of a massive clean up operation we've got on our hands if we're to reverse the plastic tide.
"We found a lot of legacy plastic pollution everywhere we looked," says geological scientist Janice Brahney from Utah State University. "It travels in the atmosphere and it deposits all over the world."
"This plastic is not new from this year. It's from what we've already dumped into the environment over several decades." Between December 2017 and January 2019, researchers collected 313 samples of airborne microplastics from 11 different sites across the western US. They found that 84 percent of the plastic particles came from road dust, 11 percent originated from sea spray, 5 percent came from agricultural soil, and 0.4 percent was put down to population sources. In other words, this is mainly plastic that has been ground down on roads or whipped up from garbage patches in the ocean. Microplastic pollution isn't just concentrated around urban areas – it's getting everywhere, carried on the wind.
www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 12, 2021
Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts
Nature is under siege. In the last 10,000 y the human population has grown from 1 million to 7.8 billion. Much of Earth’s arable lands are already in agriculture (1), millions of acres of tropical forest are cleared each year (2, 3), atmospheric CO2 levels are at their highest concentrations in more than 3 million y (4), and climates are erratically and steadily changing from pole to pole, triggering unprecedented droughts, fires, and floods across continents. Indeed, most biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction event, the first since the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million y ago, when more than 80% of all species, including the nonavian dinosaurs, perished.
Ongoing losses have been clearly demonstrated for better-studied groups of organisms. Terrestrial vertebrate population sizes and ranges have contracted by one-third, and many mammals have experienced range declines of at least 80% over the last century (5). A 2019 assessment suggests that half of all amphibians are imperiled (2.5% of which have recently gone extinct) (6). Bird numbers across North America have fallen by 2.9 billion since 1970 (7). Prospects for the world’s coral reefs, beyond the middle of this century, could scarcely be more dire (8). A 2020 United Nations report estimated that more than a million species are in danger of extinction over the next few decades (9), but also see the more bridled assessments in refs. 10 and 11.
Although a flurry of reports has drawn attention to declines in insect abundance, biomass, species richness, and range sizes (e.g., refs. 12⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–18; for reviews see refs. 19 and 20), whether the rates of declines for insects are on par with or exceed those for other groups remains unknown. There are still too little data to know how the steep insect declines reported for western Europe and California’s Central Valley—areas of high human density and activity—compare to population trends in sparsely populated regions and wildlands. Long-term species-level demographic data are meager from the tropics, where considerably more than half of the world’s insect species occur (21, 22). To consider the state of knowledge about the global status of insects, the Entomological Society of America hosted a symposium at their Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, in November 2019. The Society was motivated to do so by the many inquiries about the validity of claims of rapid insect decline that had been received in the months preceding the annual meeting and by the many discussions taking place among members. The entomological community was in need of a thorough review and the annual meeting provided a timely opportunity for sharing information.
The goal of the symposium was to assemble world experts on insect biodiversity and conservation and ask them to report on the state of knowledge of insect population trends. Speakers were asked to identify major data gaps, call attention to limitations of existing data, and evaluate principal stressors underlying declines, with one goal being to catalyze activities aimed at mitigating well-substantiated declines. All 11 talks were recorded and are available on the Entomological Society of America’s website, www.entsoc.org/insect-decline-anthropocene.
Although conservation efforts have historically focused attention on protecting rare, charismatic, and endangered species, the “insect apocalypse” presents a different challenge. In addition to the loss of rare taxa, many reports mention sweeping declines of formerly abundant insects [e.g., Warren et al. (29)], raising concerns about ecosystem function.
Insects comprise much of the animal biomass linking primary producers and consumers, as well as higher-level consumers in freshwater and terrestrial food webs. Situated at the nexus of many trophic links, many numerically abundant insects provide ecosystem services upon which humans depend: the pollination of fruits, vegetables, and nuts; the biological control of weeds, agricultural pests, disease vectors, and other organisms that compete with humans or threaten their quality of life; and the macrodecomposition of leaves and wood and removal of dung and carrion, which contribute to nutrient cycling, soil formation, and water purification. Clearly, severe insect declines can potentially have global ecological and economic consequences.
Science Alert, April 16, 2021
Microplastics Are Now Spiraling Around The Globe in The Air We Breathe
By David Nield
Our plastic pollution problem has become so bad that microplastics are now embedded in the regular cycles of the atmosphere, circulating around the planet like oxygen or water, according to a new study. Plastic particles sent up into the air from ocean spray and road surfaces travel across continents and reaching the most remote spots on Earth, according to a mix of sampling and modeling done by researchers. Much of this plastic appears to have been circulating through our ecosystems for a long time – highlighting just how much of a massive clean up operation we've got on our hands if we're to reverse the plastic tide.
"We found a lot of legacy plastic pollution everywhere we looked," says geological scientist Janice Brahney from Utah State University. "It travels in the atmosphere and it deposits all over the world."
"This plastic is not new from this year. It's from what we've already dumped into the environment over several decades." Between December 2017 and January 2019, researchers collected 313 samples of airborne microplastics from 11 different sites across the western US. They found that 84 percent of the plastic particles came from road dust, 11 percent originated from sea spray, 5 percent came from agricultural soil, and 0.4 percent was put down to population sources. In other words, this is mainly plastic that has been ground down on roads or whipped up from garbage patches in the ocean. Microplastic pollution isn't just concentrated around urban areas – it's getting everywhere, carried on the wind.
Natural World News, August 3, 2021
Plumes of Smoke From Siberian Wildfires
Has Reached North Pole, Prompting Concerns
By Precious Smith
It is well-known that Siberia is a cold place. But it's been very hot since May due to wildfires. Those wildfires are so serious that they've sent smoke moving to the North Pole, and it is expected that the plume will eventually reach Canada this week. The plumes of smoke emanating from wildfires will also find their way to northern Canada, showing everywhere is unsafe from the climate emergency.
These 2021 wildfires are already exceeding the 2020 record-setting season speaking of the carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Emissions from the wildfires are twice the 2003 to 2020 average, and the fires are still getting to many places and it has increased to the extent that it can't be controlled in an area referred to as the Sakha Republic.
The European Union's Earth Observation Program, Copernicus, predicted that plume was expected to get to the North Pole on Monday, journeying over 3,219 kilometers (2,000 miles) to reach there. NASA's Satellite images verified that forecast, with thick smoke swirling in the middle of the clouds over the top of the world. This notes the first time plumes from Siberian wildfires will have ever gotten to the area. Later this week, it is anticipated that smoke from the Siberian fires will move even further away, getting to northern Canada, it will cloud skies in this region and pollute the air. Portions of Canada are already witnessing the effect because of wildfires blazing across the country from British Columbia to Ontario.
Plumes are a concern for so many reasons. In residential regions of the Arctic, especially those near the wildfires themselves, are causing horrible air quality problems. Any soot that drops out of the plume into the sea and land ice could possibly increase melting in an area already under siege from heat. That's due to the fact that dark soot can make it absorb more heat than less thick snow and ice. Those impacts can be highly destructive for Indigenous communities relying on sea ice to hunt and travel.
These fires are an indication of the climate crisis. Officials have revealed the region on fire in the Sakha Republic is dealing with some of its driest conditions in 150 years, changing forests into a tinderbox. A study published after 2020 record fires reveals the intense heat that assisted in driving them was made 600 times more possible by the climate crisis. Researchers haven't carried out an analysis on the specific role of fossil-fueled planetary warming in this 2021 season, but it's very safe to conclude that when there's an ongoing heat wave, climate change is playing a role. In a dark twist, these fires are worsening the crisis.
Hundreds Blockade Line 3 Pumping Station
in Mass Direction Action to #Stopline3
June 7, 2021
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfYdD2JujTg
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYIwKDPK-NI
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www.republicworld.com/world-news/us-news/police-say-nearl...
Associated Press, June 10, 2021
Police Say Nearly 250 Arrested In Minnesota Pipeline Protest
Nearly 250 people were arrested when protesters attempting to stop the final leg of the reconstruction of an oil pipeline across northwestern Minnesota took over a pump station, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
Hubbard County Sheriff Cory Aukes said that 43 workers at the Enbridge Energy Line 3 pump station were trapped inside the site for some time Monday morning when demonstrators locked them in behind the front gate. Protesters also put up barricades and dug trenches across roads, “presumably in preparation" for a standoff with law enforcement, Aukes said.
Science Alert, April 16, 2021
Microplastics Are Now Spiraling Around The Globe in The Air We Breathe
By David Nield
Excerpt: Our plastic pollution problem has become so bad that microplastics are now embedded in the regular cycles of the atmosphere, circulating around the planet like oxygen or water, according to a new study. Plastic particles sent up into the air from ocean spray and road surfaces travel across continents and reaching the most remote spots on Earth, according to a mix of sampling and modeling done by researchers. Much of this plastic appears to have been circulating through our ecosystems for a long time – highlighting just how much of a massive clean up operation we've got on our hands if we're to reverse the plastic tide.
"We found a lot of legacy plastic pollution everywhere we looked," says geological scientist Janice Brahney from Utah State University. "It travels in the atmosphere and it deposits all over the world."
"This plastic is not new from this year. It's from what we've already dumped into the environment over several decades." Between December 2017 and January 2019, researchers collected 313 samples of airborne microplastics from 11 different sites across the western US. They found that 84 percent of the plastic particles came from road dust, 11 percent originated from sea spray, 5 percent came from agricultural soil, and 0.4 percent was put down to population sources. In other words, this is mainly plastic that has been ground down on roads or whipped up from garbage patches in the ocean. Microplastic pollution isn't just concentrated around urban areas – it's getting everywhere, carried on the wind.
Excerpt: In June 2017, a reindeer herder of the Yamal peninsula in northwest Siberia, Russia, reported a loud blast and smoke rising from the ground. Later, a crater with a diameter of 7 meters (25 ft) and almost 20 meters (65 ft) deep, surrounded by blocks and chunks of ice and soil, was discovered at the supposed explosion site. Another similar, even more powerful explosion had occurred in 2013, when a blast was heard over a distance of 62 miles.
"Mysterious Craters In Siberia Linked To Melting Permafrost," David Bressan, Forbes, Sept. 16, 2020
www.yahoo.com/news/californias-dixie-fire-explodes-size-1...
USA Today, August 6, 2021
California's Dixie Fire explodes in size,
grows into nation's largest wildfire
By Doyle Rice
California's Dixie Fire exploded in size overnight and is now the nation's largest wildfire, officials said Friday. The fire, which obliterated much of the small town of Greenville, California, on Wednesday, grew by 110 square miles overnight and is now 676 square miles in size. That's an area about one-third the size of Rhode Island. It's also now the third-largest wildfire in California history and is only 35% contained. Fortunately, better weather conditions were expected to aid the fight against the blaze on Friday.
As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California on Wednesday and Thursday, the fire raged through Greenville, a Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old. Sheriff Todd Johns, who said he was a lifelong Greenville resident, said more than 100 homes were destroyed in the Greenville and Indian Falls areas.
"To the folks that have lost residences and businesses," Johns said, "their life is now forever changed. And all I can tell you is I’m sorry."
'Catastrophically destroyed': Dixie Fire wipes out California gold rush town of Greenville
Dan Kearns, a volunteer firefighter, said the winds came up strong Wednesday afternoon and blew the Dixie Fire into town under the type of deadly conditions that have in recent years caused widespread damage in California communities, including Paradise, Redding and Shasta County.
"I'm not going to say total (destruction) because not every structure is gone. But the town is catastrophically destroyed," Kearns said.
Science Magazine, May 5, 2021
‘It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit.’ Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl
By Richard Stone
Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall. “It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit,” says Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield. Now, Ukrainian scientists are scrambling to determine whether the reactions will wink out on their own—or require extraordinary interventions to avert another accident.
Sensors are tracking a rising number of neutrons, a signal of fission, streaming from one inaccessible room, Anatolii Doroshenko of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Kyiv, Ukraine, reported last week during discussions about dismantling the reactor. “There are many uncertainties,” says ISPNPP’s Maxim Saveliev. “But we can’t rule out the possibility of [an] accident.” The neutron counts are rising slowly, Saveliev says, suggesting managers still have a few years to figure out how to stifle the threat. Any remedy he and his colleagues come up with will be of keen interest to Japan, which is coping with the aftermath of its own nuclear disaster 10 years ago at Fukushima, Hyatt notes. “It’s a similar magnitude of hazard.”
The specter of self-sustaining fission, or criticality, in the nuclear ruins has long haunted Chernobyl. When part of the Unit Four reactor’s core melted down on 26 April 1986, uranium fuel rods, their zirconium cladding, graphite control rods, and sand dumped on the core to try to extinguish the fire melted together into a lava. It flowed into the reactor hall’s basement rooms and hardened into formations called fuel-containing materials (FCMs), which are laden with about 170 tons of irradiated uranium—95% of the original fuel.
AP photo: Blazes broke out across several provinces in Turkey last week, fanned by strong winds and scorching temperatures
(Thanks to Natt D for the correction.)
April 5th - New York Liberty Coalition speaking out against mandatory vaccine passports at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where no one was allowed in to see the basketball game without proof of vaccination. For more info contact: nyslibertycoalition@gmail.com
www.yahoo.com/news/hottest-temperatures-pacific-northwest...
Yahoo News, June 23, 2021
Hottest temperatures the Pacific Northwest
has ever recorded are likely this weekend
By Andrew Freedman
A "historic" and potentially deadly heat wave is on tap for the Pacific Northwest into southwestern Canada this weekend into early next week, with never-before-seen temperatures possible in cities like Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash.
Why it matters: The heat wave will affect a region where many people lack central air conditioning, raising the likelihood for public health impacts. In addition, power demand is likely to spike at a time when hydropower resources are running relatively low due to drier than average conditions.
The background: This heat wave is related to the same weather pattern that brought record heat to the Southwest last week, and is proving to be remarkably persistent.
As in the Southwest, the heat will raise the risk of wildfires, too, in Oregon, Washington, northern California, and British Columbia, among other areas.
Driving the news: Computer models are unanimous in showing a highly unusual weather pattern moving into place over the Pacific Northwest beginning this weekend, with an extraordinarily strong high pressure area aloft, colloquially known as a "heat dome," anchored over the region.
Yahoo News, June 16, 2021
Southwest heat wave intensifies, 40 million likely to see 100-degree temperatures
By Andrew Freedman
A punishing and long-enduring heat wave is intensifying in parts of the West and Southwest, with heat warnings and advisories in effect across seven states Wednesday. The heat will not relent until late in the weekend. Threat level: In the coming days, 40 million are likely to see temperatures reach or exceed 100 degrees.
Why it matters: The extreme heat is unusually intense for June, and is aggravating already dire drought conditions that could lead to another devastating wildfire season.
The details: Overnight minimum temperatures in Las Vegas barely slipped below 90°F early Wednesday, and daytime highs are anticipated to approach the city’s all-time record of 117°F today through Saturday. In Phoenix, the low temperature Tuesday night into Wednesday warming was a stifling 91°F. The heat wave is the result of a sprawling area of high pressure at the surface and aloft, also known as a heat dome. It's deepening the already extreme drought across the West, and adding to the significant wildfire danger across the region. Wildfire risks are especially heightened from Arizona to California, northeastward into Montana. In Arizona and New Mexico, lightning from scattered thunderstorms could trigger new wildfires beginning Wednesday, as they mainly bring dry lightning and dust to a parched region.
April 5th - New York Liberty Coalition speaking out against mandatory vaccine passports at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where no one was allowed in to see the basketball game without proof of vaccination. For more info contact: nyslibertycoalition@gmail.com
April 5th - New York Liberty Coalition speaking out against mandatory vaccine passports at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where no one was allowed in to see the basketball game without proof of vaccination. For more info contact: nyslibertycoalition@gmail.com