Saturday, September 22, 2012

Today Is Global Frackdown: Tell The World Why You Want Fracking Banned !

Global Frackdown: Tell The World Why You Want Fracking Banned



Today citizens globally will be letting their voices be heard in banning an unhealhty dangerous practice called hydraulic fracturing. Fracking toxifies water, land and health as well as releasing methane which is a potent greenhouse gas that perpetuates climate change. It has also been shown to be creating earthquakes. And the natural gas industry in America has managed to work out a way where the chemicals they use to inject boreholes to get the gas up can be kept secret and free of regulation.

Thats right, the toxic chemicals used to inject boreholes and bring the gas back up are not subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act thanks to the, "Halliburton Loophole" which was a favor given to Dick Cheney by the EPA. Therefore, you have no idea what is being injected into your land, your water and your air...and this practice is now going global.

This is then a global call for accountability and for the banning of this toxic practice for a false choice. There are cleaner healthier ways to produce energy that will not run out. It is time we stood up globally to demand them. Let your voice be heard. Say no to fracking our health, our water, our land, our air and our children.

*I will be adding videos and information to this throughout the day to support this global action for energy sanity.*

____

Sick From Fracking? Doctors And Patients Seek Answers

People are getting sick near fracking sites but the frackers are saying it isn't from the toxic chemicals they inject into the Earth and water. GREED causes loss of reason honesty and sanity.

_____



The documentary, Gasland by Josh Fox in its entirety.

_____



Thousamds of wells now litter this country. We are killing our water by selling our country off to the highest bidder.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Arctic Melting-Tipping Point That Should Matter To All Of Us



NOAA illustration of Arctic ice melt 2012. This is not normal.

For anyone who lives on planet Earth and hasn't been spending the last decade just watching reality TV it should come as no surprise that what we are seeing taking place in the Arctic is a portent of a world that we should not be taking for granted. And yet, we see nothing of this astonishing melt in the MSM. We do not see it discussed in the US presidential campaigns of any candidate save one (the Green party) and it is basically relegated to backburner status on most websites too enthralled by political soundbites.

Nevertheless that does not in any way diminish the urgency of this news. And it is news that must be shared and explained because millions of people, other species and ecosystems are at risk from its residual feedbacks that are and will now surely come in response to it.

Half The Polar Ice Cap Is Missing

"Extraordinary melting of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has shattered the all-time low sea ice extent record set in September 2007, and sea ice continues to decline far below what has ever been observed. The new sea ice record was set on August 26, a full three weeks before the usual end of the melting season, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Every major scientific institution that tracks Arctic sea ice agrees that new records for low ice area, extent, and volume have been set. These organizations include the University of Washington Polar Science Center (a new record for low ice volume), the Nansen Environmental & Remote Sensing Center in Norway, and the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. A comprehensive collection of sea ice graphs shows the full story. Satellite records of sea ice extent date back to 1979, though a 2011 study by Kinnard et al. shows that the Arctic hasn't seen a melt like this for at least 1,450 years (see a more detailed article on this over at skepticalscience.com.) The latest September 5, 2012 extent of 3.5 million square kilometers is approximately a 50% reduction in the area of Arctic covered by sea ice, compared to the average from 1979 - 2000. The ice continues to melt, and has not reached the low for this year yet."

End of excerpt

The Arctic acts as a mirror to reflect the infrared rays of the sun that infiltate the lower atmosphere from space. In a world where all is working well and is balanced the amount of energy entering the atmosphere is balanced with the amount of energy leaving it leaving us within a comfortable envelope. In the case of this extreme unprecedented melting however which is the result of an increased concentration of greenhouse gases (water vapor being most prevalent due to increases in CO2 (which is the most dominant radiative forcing) due to fossil fuel burning and deforestation and other CO2 releasing behaviors) more energy is being retained in the lower atmosphere than is escaping back to space thus causing more warming melting more ice as the surface of the water then absorbs more rays thus melting more ice even below the surface. This positive feedback loop then results in an excelerating cycle of melting that decreases reflectivity (albedo) affecting the jet stream and our weather.



Evidence is presented in this video showing a physical mechanism connecting Arctic Amplification (enhanced warming in high northern latitudes relative to the northern hemisphere) with the frequency and intensity of several types of extreme weather events in mid-latitudes, such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and cold spells. This directly affects the lives of millions of people who are now seeing the effects of a protracted extreme drought in the lower 48 United States. This is essential knowledge in connecting the dots between our burning of fossil fuels and other land management/ agricultural abuses that culminate in increasing the CO2 that is trapping more heat in the lower atmosphere thus producing more moisture in the atmosphere which then produces more heat which leads to more melting in the Arctic - positive feedbacks - jet stream changes - extreme weather. This has a direct effect on the hydrologic cycle...

Climate Change Has Intensified The Global Hydrologic Cycle.

"Climate scientists have been saying for years that one of the many downsides of a warming planet is that both droughts and torrential rains are both likely to get worse. That’s what climate models predict, and that’s what observers have noted, most recently in the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, released last month. It makes physical sense, too. A warmer atmosphere can absorb more water vapor, and what goes up must come down — and thanks to prevailing winds, it won’t come down in the same place."

End of excerpt.

This is not something far flung that is going to happen in 50 years. This is happening now and it is affecting real people globally. Floods, droughts, glacier melt- all catastrophes that are now heightened in scope, severity and frequency causing hunger, food price spikes, water scarcity, degradation and erosion and already forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their lands in search of a place where climate change has not walked.

So please, if you are reading this pass it on. It is blatantly immoral to see this happening and ignore it. We are changing this planet in ways we are not prepared to deal with. If that isn't front page news I don't know what is!

Monday, September 17, 2012

The Salton Sea: Death And Politics In The Great American Water Wars

The Salton Sea; Death And Politics In The Great American Water Wars.



This is a well written account of where the Salton Sea now stands. It is a story of nitrogen overload, salinity overload, species in crisis, politics apathetic, economy in turmoil and the always relevant discussion on human waste and corporations unwilling to take responsibility for their mistakes and losses.

The Salton Sea did not ask to be born. It was spawned from greed and the diversion of the Colorado River over one hundred years ago of water it so desperately needs today as it no longer flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Salton Sea stands as a monument to human hubris and our failed responsibility to the water and the species and ecosystems struggling to survve there.

Political solutions are as usual scant in size and slow to come as we now once again argue over the best course of action to save it , or to even save it at all as we as usual take no responsibility for its current and future fate.

Excerpt:

"A heinous rotten-egg smell settled into the metropolis, a stench more familiar to residents lining the Salton Sea, some 150 miles to the east. It was this 376-square-mile body of water, created by accident in the middle of the desert over a century ago, that belched up the fetid cloud. And such episodes will continue to plague Southern California as the collapse of the Salton Sea ecosystem accelerates over the coming years.

Considered to be among the world’s most vital avian habitats and — until recently — one of its most productive fisheries, the Salton Sea is in a state of wild flux, the scene of fish and bird die-offs of unfathomable proportions. It was the resulting sea-bottom biomass that a storm churned earlier this week, releasing gases that drifted into Los Angeles.

This is just the latest episode in the Salton Sea’s long, painful history of sickness and health and booms and busts — a stinky side effect of a great American experiment to civilize the western deserts. By economic measurements, this experiment has been an astounding success. By environmental measurements, it’s shaping up to be pure disaster.

These days, in the 115-degree heat of summer the Sea stinks so bad that the reek sticks in your throat like Elmer’s Glue. Chemical-laced dust kicked up from its rapidly receding shoreline contributes to an asthma rate for local children three times higher than the state average. It’s been variously called a natural wonder, a national embarrassment, paradise, and the ecological equivalent of the Chernobyl disaster.

The saga of the Sea is one of tangled government agencies, farmers whose crops cradle its shores, local Native American tribes, legislators, environmentalists, and private water utilities. It’s about politics, ecological frontiers, brutal ironies, and historical wounds still smarting. But more than anything else, it’s about water: those who get it, those who don’t, and those who outright loot it. The Salton Sea is the latest battle in the American water wars, and without drastic action, in a matter of years it will fall — and bring Southern California down with it."

snip

"The rapid retreat of the Salton Sea’s waterline is exposing a lakebed where a century’s worth of agricultural chemicals are pooled. When completely dried, this grit becomes airborne in winds as slow as 5 miles per hour. With the evaporating sea projected to expose 134 square miles of such muck by 2035, it’s not difficult to forecast an unprecedented human health crisis in the Imperial Valley.

But in 2003, under pressure from the federal government to reform Southern California water rights, the Imperial Irrigation District, which divvies up water to the Imperial Valley’s fertile farm lands, reached a deal that effectively guaranteed the Salton Sea’s collapse. The Quantification Settlement Agreement transfers an enormous amount of Colorado River water to San Diego and its equally thirsty northern neighbor, Los Angeles. The deal allots virtually no water for the Salton Sea. The Irrigation District did, however, agree to deliver mitigation water to the Sea until 2017, by which time the state is required to have a large-scale restoration effort ready to go.

All the Sea needs to survive, of course, is more water. But in a state of 37 million people, of agricultural output totaling twice that of any other state, of countless square miles of lawn (including over 1,000 golf courses), the ostensibly dysfunctional sea takes last priority. Now it isn’t even allowed scraps. San Diego recently bankrolled the lining of canals around the Sea to ensure that the Colorado River, instead of seeping into the Sea, makes its way toward the coast."



This video attributes the rotten egg odor to the dying ecosystems. Some however say it is from the San Andreas getting ready to move and still others hypothesize natural gas drilling as the reason... ok, are they really drilling for natural gas near the San Andreas fault?!



This also reminds me of another body of water that is declining due to human waste and exploitation- The Dead Sea. Will we stop in time in our fervor to fulfill our selfish desires to see what we are doing?

Another World Water Day Gone

We see another World Water Day pass us by. The theme, Water For All, signifies that though some progress has been made we are woefully behin...