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ecology

  dispersant makes oil 52.773 times more toxic than original spill

Bugs like oil. Of course, the Obama government doesn’t tell you that in their war against the UK oil company.

“For microscopic animals living in the Gulf of Mexico, even worse than the toxic oil released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster may be the very oil dispersants used to clean it up, a new study finds.

“More than 2 million gallons (7.5 million liters) of oil dispersants called Corexit 9527A and 9500A were dumped into the gulf in an effort to prevent oil from reaching shore and to help it degrade more quickly.

“However, when oil and Corexit are combined, the mixture becomes up to 52 times more toxic than oil alone, according to a study published online this week in the journal Environmental Pollution.” [Quoted from msnbc.msn.com]

“BP has been temporarily suspended from new contracts with the US government, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said.

“While it is unclear how long the ban will last, it follows BP's record fine earlier this month over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The EPA said it was taking action due to BP's "lack of business integrity" over its handling of the blowout.

“But BP said it had spent $14bn (£8.8bn) on its response to the spill.” [Quoted from bbc.co.uk]

The US government is to pay out $14 billion times 52.773 for pollution damages.

related material
where did all the gulf spill oil go?
fossil fuels are a dirty business
fossil fuel disasters

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anthropogenic-driven climate change

“By the time Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century, inland Maya populations had decreased by 90 percent, and urban centers had been largely abandoned. Farms had become overgrown and cities reclaimed by forest.

“The collapse, though, wasn't exactly all natural. To some extent, the Maya may have designed their own decline.

“ "There were tens of millions of people in the area, and they were building cities and farms at the expense of the forest," climate scientist Benjamin I. Cook said.

“Widespread deforestation reduced the flow of moisture from the ground to the atmosphere, interrupting the natural rain cycle and in turn reducing precipitation, says Cook, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

“According to computer simulations Cook ran for a study published in Geophysical Research Letters this past August, the localized drying decreased atmospheric moisture by 5 to 15 percent annually. Even a 10 percent decrease is considered an environmental catastrophe, he says.”

Thank heaven we have Obama to stop the seas rising.

related material
anthropogenic global warming, and ocean acidity
global warming

international diseases and changing climate threaten uk trees

Evolution never stops.

“The UK's forests are under "unprecedented threat" from foreign pests and diseases, according to the government department responsible for the protection of forests and woodlands. The ash dieback fungus found in East Anglia last week is just the latest invader to pose a serious threat to UK trees, and government ecologists say that more than 3m larch trees as well as thousands of mature oaks and chestnuts have been felled in the past three years to prevent similar fatal plant diseases from spreading out of control.”
—

“Plant experts are particularly concerned about the oak processionary moth, which arrived in west London in 2009 and has now developed two major populations. "It has the potential to spread anywhere there are oak trees. It is extending its range and has become established in the Netherlands and Belgium, possibly as a result of climate change and warmer winters," says the Forestry Commission. Plant pathogens are on the rise globally and Britain is particularly susceptible because of its increasingly warm, wet winters and because it is a centre of world trade. Easy access to plants from around the world has encouraged gardeners to buy millions of exotic plants, many of which can arrive diseased. Some plants can only enter Britain with "passports", but the majority of diseases are only identifiable in laboratories.”

related material
processionary caterpillars
Dendroclimatology

anthropogenic global warming really isn't happening - at a ever faster rate

Can the filthy fossil fuel industry still convince you that they have no effect?

Minimum frozen area of Arctic is 4 million sq km in 2012.
The historical average minimum area is 7 million sq km.

Arctic ice melt - 2012 and historic levels
Image: NOAAVisualizations

Will all the ice melt in 2015?

related material
anthropogenic global warming, and ocean acidity
fossil fuel disasters
global warming

world food prices more than double in 10 years

Some of the causes:

• Rise in petroleum prices
• Increased demand from the biofuels, particularily maize used to make ethanol
• Changes in diet and increased demand for food crops, particularily meat. Meat production takes about 5 kg of cereals to produce 1 kg of meat
• Bad weather
• Low stock levels

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