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Showing posts from May, 2016

Global Warming Creates Problems For Our Food Supply

It is bad enough that we have to worry about mosquito borne diseases like dengue fever or zika, or brain parasites , we now have to worry about fungus on our food like mycotoxins .  As described by Thinkprogress.org , Now, we can add one more terrible thing to that growing list: climate change could actually make important crops toxic to animals and humans. That’s the conclusion of a new report released this week by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), which warns that warming temperatures could cause crops to accumulate mycotoxins — poisons produced by fungi that can lead to cancer and death — at higher rates. Mycotoxins are already found in crops like wheat, maize, and barley — a 1998 estimate suggested that mycotoxins exist in at least 25 percent of cereal grains worldwide. They’re the toxins that come from mold, and a big reason why we avoid food that’s gone bad. Mycotoxins mainly occur in tropical areas, where warm temperatures encourage fungal growth. Accor

The Biggest Hits

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Quakes II

In a previous post I described how the quakes I've been following on the Pacific Subduction Zone have been occuring mostly on the northern end of Vancouver Island or near Ferndale California at the southern end, leaving most of the Subuction Zone in between rather quiet.  As I explained in the previous post this could be a problem.  The quakes are easing pressure, but they appear to be easing pressure mostly at the northern and southern ends of the Zone.  Well, good news, there was a 4.9 on the Zone west of Bandon Oregon yesterday (May 20).  That contributes to easing pressure on the middle of the Zone. The only problem is that it's just one out of the last 12 quakes over the last year.  And it continues the rate of one a month.

Oil Companies May Be In Trouble

It is interesting that the same organization, the Heartland Institute , hired by the tobacco companies to spread the confusion about cigarettes and lung cancer has been working for the oil and coal companies to spread confusion about global warming.  The efforts of Heartland Institute didn't prevent the tobacco companies from being sued for billions of dollars by the States, and now it appears that their efforts will equally fail for the oil companies. It has been revealed that the oil companies have long known about the consequences of their product on global warming.  And now they may be held accountable .   The notion of holding oil companies responsible for global warming, in the same way tobacco companies had to pay billions of dollars in damages over the health effects of cigarettes, had long been seen as a quixotic quest led by scruffy, oil-hating extremists. But POLITICO’s interviews with dozens of activists, industry officials and lawmakers suggest that support for a

Oil Companies Have Known For 50 Years

The global warming deniers favorite topic is that climate scientists are all part of a cabal addicted to government funding.  This is their main argument against the fact that by far most climate scientists believe in global warming due to human activities. But how about this?  How about the oil company scientists?  Are they part of this government funded cabal?  I don't think so.  In fact, they were the  pioneers . The oil industry's lead ing pollution-control consultants advised the American Petroleum Institute in 1968 that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels deserved as much concern as the smog and soot that had commanded attention for decades. This  paper ,  along with scores of other publications , shows that the risks of climate change were being discussed in the inner circles of the oil industry earlier than previously documented. The records, unearthed from archives by a Washington, D.C. environmental law organization, the  Center for International Envir

Wildfires

Global Warming Causes Wildfires That May Not Stop Speaking to CBS News about the Alberta fire that destroyed Fort McMurray, a geography professor at University of California at Los Angeles named Glen MacDonald said that the Canadian wildfire is ‘just not surprising’ considering the effects of global warming in the country. This is one of the parts of the world that has seen warmer and warmer winters and accelerated springs and drier conditions, which are linked to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gasses and the long-term warming that we’ve seen. It’s just not surprising that you would have an event like this. Global Warming Cited as Wildfires Increase in Fragile Boreal Forest Scientists say the near-destruction of Fort McMurray last week by a wildfire is the latest indication that the vital boreal forest is at risk from climate change. Scientists have been warning for decades that climate change is a threat to the immense tracts of forest that ring the Northern Hemisp

Global Warming Visually

Image
http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-earth-is-warming-at-scary-rates-and-this-gif-proves-it/

The Climate Catastrophe Has Begun

A new study is documenting the beginning of the climate change impact on our planet.  Our r evie w of 10 ,660 observ ations from 2, 230 localities in 137 c ountries sho ws that increases in t emper ature  and changes in seasonalit y and rainf all patterns are widespr ead ( ≈ 7 0% of localities acros s 122 c ountries). Observ ations of  increased temper ature sho w patterns consis tent with simulated tr ends in sur fac e air temper ature tak en from the ensemble  av erag e of CMIP5 models, for the period 1955– 2005. Secondary impacts of climatic chang es on both wild and domesticated  plants and animals are e xtensiv e and threaten the f ood security of subsis tence-oriented c ommunities.  C ollectiv ely , our results  sugges t that climate chang e is having pr ofound disruptiv e effects at local lev els and that local observations can mak e an import ant contribution to under standing the perv asiv eness of climate chang e on ecos y stems and societies. Global warming is already

Bill Gates is Wrong About Carbon Tax

I've written extensively about the carbon tax and the organizations, IMF, World Bank, that feel the need for it is urgent, here , here , here , here  and here . But there are people who feel that a tax is not needed, that in fact, technical advances in the production of green energy will be enough to forestall the worst of it.  One of those people is Bill Gates.  He's a brilliant man, but he's wrong . Significantly, Gates explains, “The supply side is about funding basic government research, and then creating startup companies with that research.” For Gates, carbon prices and clean energy tax credits are “demand side” policies because they increase the demand for clean energy, whereas supply side policies in theory increase the supply of clean energy technologies available. The difficulty here is that the  “Globally, deployment costs will be in the trillions of dollars, while R&D costs might be in the tens of billions.”   There isn't enough money to fully im