Tag Archives: oceans

Climate change made catastrophic coral bleaching 175 times more likely

by LillianBishop Posted on April 29, 2016

Climate change made catastrophic coral bleaching 175 times more likely

By on Apr 28, 2016

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

Warm ocean waters that sucked the color and vigor from sweeping stretches of the world’s greatest expanse of corals last month were driven by climate change, according to a new analysis by scientists, who are warning of worse impacts ahead.

Climate change made it 175 times more likely that the surface waters of the Coral Sea, which off the Queensland coastline is home to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, would reach the record-breaking temperatures last month that bleached reefs, modeling analysis showed.

The scientists found March Coral Sea temperatures are likely to be 1.8 degrees F (1 degrees C) warmer now than before humans polluted the atmosphere. Temperatures recorded by the Australian government last month were slightly higher than that, in part because of a fierce El Niño.

“We’ve had evidence before” that “human-induced climate change is behind the increase in severity and frequency of bleaching events,” said David Kline, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography coral reef scientist who wasn’t involved with the new analysis. “But this is the smoking gun.”

The new findings suggest similar temperatures will become commonplace by the 2030s, potentially destroying the reef and the tourism and fishing industries that rely on it. The reef’s tourism sector employs 64,000 people.

“There may still be corals, but it’ll look like a very sad reef,” Kline said. “There will probably be a few weedy species that can handle these nasty conditions, but we’ll lose a lot of the biodiversity.”

The warm Coral Sea waters have fueled the worst mass coral bleaching ever recorded on the World Heritage-listed reefs, which are withering from warming and acidifying waters, coral-eating pests, and agricultural pollution.

Climate Central

Bleaching occurs when warm waters cause the colorful algae that provide food for corals to release chemicals that are toxic to their hosts, and they are spat out. Corals, which are rigid animals that shelter rich ecosystems, can recover from bleaching. But persistent high temperatures, overfishing, and other environmental stresses make it more likely they will starve and die.

“As the seas warm because of our effect on the climate, bleaching events in the Great Barrier Reef and other areas within the Coral Sea are likely to become more frequent and more devastating,” the team of Australian university scientists wrote Thursday in The Conversation, announcing the results of the analysis.

Following global average temperature records set in 2014, 2015, January, February, and March, coral reefs from Florida to India have been devastated by the third mass global bleaching event recorded. The first occurred in the late 1990s, leaving one out of six of the world’s corals dead.

Recent surveys showed 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef afflicted by bleaching, with the impacts worst in the reef’s more pristine northern reaches.

Although the surface temperatures in March were unprecedented, they could become normal within 20 years, the scientists discovered.

The researchers ran Earth model simulations in which greenhouse gases were kept at natural levels. They compared those simulated Coral Sea temperatures with those in modeling runs where climate-changing pollution increased at current rapid rates.

“The human effect on the region through climate change is clear and it is strengthening,” the scientists wrote. “Surface temperatures like those in March 2016 would be extremely unlikely to occur in a world without humans.”

The analysis was produced using established modeling techniques but it wasn’t peer-reviewed before the results were announced Thursday on The Conversation, which is a nonprofit news site founded in Australia that frequently publishes articles written by scientists.

“Because this is happening now, we wanted to do this quickly and get it in the public sphere,” said Andrew King, one of two University of Melbourne researchers who worked on the analysis. University of Queensland and University of New South Wales researchers also contributed. “We will write up a paper after this.”

By the 2030s, the modeling showed this year’s coral bleaching temperatures could become average and after that they may start to seem cool.

“These kinds of temperatures in the future will become normal,” King said. “They’re high for the current period, but by the 2030s it’s going to be about average.”

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

View original article:  

Climate change made catastrophic coral bleaching 175 times more likely

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Climate change made catastrophic coral bleaching 175 times more likely

Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

by MinnieBCHogplu Posted on April 23, 2016

in hot water

Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

By on Apr 23, 2016comments

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

We knew coral bleaching was a serious issue in the Great Barrier Reef, but the scope of just how widespread it was has been unclear — until now.

Extensive aerial surveys and dives have revealed that 93 percent of the world’s largest reef has been devastated by coral bleaching. The culprit has been record-warm water driven by El Niño and climate change that has cooked the life out of corals.

The unprecedented destruction brought leading reef scientist Terry Hughes, who runs the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, to tears.

“We’ve never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once,” Hughes said in a press release.

The Center conducted aerial surveys and dives at 911 sites spanning the full 1,430-mile length of the reef. They show the hardest hit areas are in the northern part of the reefs, which have also endured some of the hottest water temperatures for prolonged periods.

More than 80 percent of reefs surveyed there showed signs of severe bleaching. The southern end of the reef fared better, but overall the bleaching represents a massive blow to biodiversity at the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Great Barrier Reef also faces pressure from ocean acidification and fishing impacts, ramping up concerns over how to protect one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet.

Beyond its beauty, the Great Barrier Reef also has a huge economic benefit on the Australian economy. It generates $4.45 billion in tourism revenue annually and supports nearly 70,000 jobs, according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The damage caused by this round of bleaching will be felt for decades, but it’s not the only reef around the globe to feel the heat of climate change. 2015 marked the third global coral bleaching event ever recorded. This one been the longest of the three as hot ocean temperatures fueled by El Niño and climate change have caused reefs to suffer across every ocean basin.

While every basin has been hit, some reefs and coral species have survived through the event. That has scientists trying to quickly understand why the survivors made it through. That knowledge could be crucial to ensure reefs continue to survive as oceans temperatures continue their inexorable rise and water becomes more acidic due to climate change.

“We can’t afford to sit by and watch climate change drive all the world’s coral reefs to extinctions by the end of the century,” Julia Baum, a reef researcher at the University of Victoria, said.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

View original article:  

Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, organic, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

To Cut Ocean Trash, Adrian Grenier and Dell Enlist Filmmakers and Virtual Reality

by Myrna Posted on March 15, 2016

A push by Dell and Adrian Grenier to raise awareness of ocean problems while trying to find a use for floating plastic trash. Visit link:  To Cut Ocean Trash, Adrian Grenier and Dell Enlist Filmmakers and Virtual Reality ; ; ;

Link: 

To Cut Ocean Trash, Adrian Grenier and Dell Enlist Filmmakers and Virtual Reality

Posted in alternative energy, Citadel, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, Pines, solar, solar power, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on To Cut Ocean Trash, Adrian Grenier and Dell Enlist Filmmakers and Virtual Reality

All those toxic chemicals in the ocean? Birds are pooping them back on shore

by VioletMata Posted on November 30, 2015

All those toxic chemicals in the ocean? Birds are pooping them back on shore

By on 30 Nov 2015commentsShare

You know all that pollution that we’ve been dumping into the oceans for decades? All the plastic, DDT, PCBs, mercury, etc. that we’ve been shamelessly washing away like the memories of too many tequila shots and poor decisions? Well, like those tequila shots the next morning, it looks like it’s all coming back up.

Here’s the rub: When we dump chemicals into the ocean, they get absorbed by microbes, which then get eaten by fish, which then get eaten by bigger fish and other animals until, over time, these chemicals accumulate in those larger animals.

Fulmars — seabirds that live in northern Canada — are one such animal. And according to Mark Mallory, a biologist at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, these fulmars eventually bring our discarded chemicals back on land … in the most disgusting way possible. Here’s more from Smithsonian:

[Mallory’s] studies found that fulmars are like the great cleaners of the ocean, ingesting a lot of plastic as well as chemicals that sometimes adhere to plastic. When the birds get back to Cape Vera, they vomit or defecate onto the cliffs, and the contaminants are then washed down into the freshwater pools beneath.

The nutrients from the fulmar guano bring algae and moss but also attract small midges and other aquatic insects — a tasty snack for snow buntings, largely terrestrial birds that will feed the bugs to their chicks.

Unfortunately for those adorable little snow buntings, their tasty snacks are also filled with chemicals, and thus, the game of pass-the-pollutant continues.

“We may think of the Arctic as this remote, pristine region, but it’s not,” adds Jennifer Provencher, a graduate student in eco-toxicology at Carleton University in Canada who frequently collaborates with Mallory. Provencher has found plastic and chemicals in the stomachs and livers of the thick-billed murres that live on the cliffs of Coats Island in the north of Hudson Bay. She has also found that great skuas can ingest plastic from preying on northern fulmars.

The winged predators aren’t the only things with an appetite for small birds. Provencher says that the Inuit in northern communities also eat murres. … That means the junk we dump into the oceans could be coming back to affect human health.

Veronica Padula, a researcher who studies seabirds off the Alaskan coast, told Smithsonian that she’s found significant concentrations of phthalates — chemicals used to make plastics flexible and harder to break — in kittiwakes, horned puffins, and red-faced cormorants. She says that these chemicals ultimately get into the birds’ reproductive tissue and perhaps even into their eggs, which could then infect egg-eaters like eagles and foxes.

And in case you’re still not convinced that our pollution is coming back to haunt us, a recent study found that three species of Canadian water fowl that humans hunt for food contained plastics and metals in their stomachs.

“It’s actually quite scary, especially when you start looking at what these chemicals do,” Padula told Smithsonian. “You kind of want to find a bunker and hide.”

You probably also wanted to find a bunker and hide the morning after that alcohol-soaked rager. But deep down, you knew that you were getting exactly what you deserved. That wasn’t your first rodeo, and, still, you downed those shots like a freshman at welcome week.

Likewise, bird shit laced with toxic chemicals is exactly what we deserve now — we had our rocky initiation at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and here we are again. So what say we cut back on the pollution, buy some fancy beers and play this drinking game to Planet Earth like grownups?

Source:

Seabirds Are Dumping Pollution-Laden Poop Back on Land

, Smithsonian.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.
A Grist Special Series The Paris climate talks: Yes oui can!

Get Grist in your inbox

Advertisement

See original:  

All those toxic chemicals in the ocean? Birds are pooping them back on shore

Posted in Anchor, ATTRA, FF, GE, Landmark, LG, ONA, oven, Radius, Smith's, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on All those toxic chemicals in the ocean? Birds are pooping them back on shore

This GOP Presidential Candidate Actually Believes in Climate Change. But He Doesn’t Want to Fix It.

by NoeliaDrury Posted on July 21, 2015

green4us

Ohio Gov. John Kasich doesn’t “want to overreact” to global warming. John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, is announcing his bid for the presidency Tuesday. Unlike most of his GOP opponents, Kasich actually believes that climate change is real. “I happen to believe there is a problem with climate change,” he told the Hill 2012. “I don’t want to overreact to it, I can’t measure it all, but I respect the creation that the Lord has given us and I want to make sure we protect it.” He made a similar statement in the video above, taken at a conference last month, but he added that the environment shouldn’t be “worshipped,” because that would be “pantheism.” Despite his comparatively reasonable views on climate science, Kasich has been pretty noncommittal about actually addressing global warming. And over the last few months, he has stepped up his opposition to President Barack Obama’s climate agenda. He’s rolled back Ohio’s clean energy goals and has joined a legal challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency. “Gov. Kasich seems less extreme than some other presidential candidates because he couches his views on climate change with uncertainty, rather than disagreement,” said Dan Weiss, a senior vice president at the League of Conservation Voters. Still, Weiss said, Kasich’s record tells a different story. It’s no surprise that climate change would be on Kasich’s radar. His state is a leading producer and user of coal, which is the country’s top source of carbon dioxide pollution. Kasich has said he is “not going to apologize” for burning coal. He’s also been a proponent of so-called “clean coal” technology, which aims to capture carbon emissions and store or repurpose them. (So far there’s only one commercial-scale CCS project in the country, at an astronomically expensive coal plant in Mississippi.) In the video above, Kasich claimed that his state “reduced emissions by 30 percent over the last 10 years.” According to federal data, total carbon emissions in Ohio fell only about half that amount between 2002 and 2012. (Rob Nichols, Gov. Kasich’s spokesperson, did not return multiple requests for comment about this statement and the governor’s overall climate record.) Either way, Ohio’s energy sector is among the nation’s dirtiest. It ranks fifth nationwide for total carbon emissions and has one of the nation’s highest rates of carbon emissions per unit of energy produced, a measurement that experts refer to as “carbon intensity.” That’s because of the state’s heavy reliance on coal, which provides 63 percent of its electricity (as opposed to just 2 percent from renewables). And Ohio is home to American Electric Power, one of the country’s biggest power companies and the number-two producer of electricity-related carbon emissions. The upshot of those statistics is that if the United States is going to “protect” the Earth, as Kasich claims to want to do, Ohio clearly has an important role to play. And yet, Kasich’s administration has been a leading opponent of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a slate of regulations for power-related emissions that aims to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint 30 percent by 2030 and that forms the backbone of the president’s climate agenda. The rules, which set a different targets for each state, treat Ohio relatively lightly—according to a Bloomberg analysis, Ohio would be required to reduce its carbon intensity, but its overall carbon emissions could remain more or less unchanged. Last year, the Ohio EPA called the proposed rules “flawed” and said the federal EPA had “radically underestimated” their cost. Meanwhile, Ohio Attorney General Michael DeWine joined with a dozen other states in asking a federal court to block the EPA from implementing the plan. The court ultimately declined to hear that challenge, as the rules haven’t yet been finalized. Ohio may have a difficult time meeting the EPA target anyway, thanks to a law Kasich signed last year that effectively shelves the state’s own clean energy targets. The measure, which was backed by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, puts a two-year freeze on requirements for power companies in the state to procure more of their electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar, and to reduce energy demand overall. Clean energy targets like that would have helped the state meet the EPA mandate in a cost-effective manner; without them, the state may have to rely more heavily on curbing its coal use, according to one clean energy industry group in the state. So while Kasich might seem like a moderate on climate, undermining climate-friendly policies is hardly better than opposing the science outright. The quest for a climate-savvy GOP candidate continues.

Source article: 

This GOP Presidential Candidate Actually Believes in Climate Change. But He Doesn’t Want to Fix It.

Related Posts

Obama Just Vetoed the GOP’s Keystone Bill
Watch a US Senator Cite the Bible to Prove That Humans Aren’t Causing Global Warming
Obama’s Budget Calls for Billions in Climate Funding
We Finally Found a GOP Congressman Who Believes in Science. Too Bad He’s a Felon.
Obama Campaign Launches Plan to Shame Climate Sceptics in Congress
Republicans Portray Obama Climate Push As A Distraction

Share this:






See the original post:

This GOP Presidential Candidate Actually Believes in Climate Change. But He Doesn’t Want to Fix It.

Posted in alo, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, growing marijuana, horticulture, LAI, Monterey, ONA, OXO, PUR, solar, solar power, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This GOP Presidential Candidate Actually Believes in Climate Change. But He Doesn’t Want to Fix It.

These ocean trash shoes aren’t even ugly!

by KandiMRYfxeypn Posted on June 30, 2015

These ocean trash shoes aren’t even ugly! | Grist

Adidas

literal garbage

These ocean trash shoes aren’t even ugly!

By on 30 Jun 2015commentsShare

They are knitted from enormous plastic gill nets left drifting at the bottom of the ocean … and they aren’t completely hideous! See? Not bad for a trash shoe, Adidas — not bad at all.

Source:
Adidas Knit These Sneakers Entirely From Ocean Plastic Trash

, Fast Co.Exist.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Editors’ Picks

Is there a beanbag chair I can rest easy on?

Lego wants to remake its famous bricks with sustainable plastic

What environmentalists can take from a week of progressive winsAdvertisement

Recent Posts

loading more stories…

Is there a beanbag chair I can rest easy on?

Are there better choices than little white plastic pellets to fill that blobby comfy chair? Of course! Umbra investigates.

Food

Watch us explain how to feed the world and end poverty at the same time

All the complex and amazing truth about getting the whole world onto a better-for-the-planet diet, boiled down to this one little video.

In California, people of color are dangerously close to oil train disasters

A new report finds that minority and low-income residents are more likely to live in California’s oil train “blast zone.”

The little cacti that could

Move over corn. Cacti can power cars, too

Cacti and other plants that thrive in arid landscapes could be the future of biofuels, according to new research.

deep sea chive

So now we have beautiful underwater greenhouses. Why? Why not!

They’re already producing strawberries, basil, and lettuce — all at 20 feet below sea level.

Food

Happy Canada Day! There are needles in my potato

Who could be planting needles in Canadian potatoes? Those goddamn, water-loving environmentalists are suspected!

EVERYTHING *IS* AWESOME

Lego wants to remake its famous bricks with sustainable plastic

The toy company wants to lighten its carbon footprint by making those stray Legos more eco-friendly. Our actual feet, however, will never be safe.

Politics

What environmentalists can take from a week of progressive wins

I’m gay, I’m green, and for the first time in a while, I’m excited.

Business & Technology

Who protects electronic workers from toxic chemicals?

Inside the story of the hundreds of lawsuits filed against IBM in the late 1990s on behalf of cancer-stricken workers.

]]>

© 1999-2015 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Grist is powered by WordPress.com VIP.

Credit – 

These ocean trash shoes aren’t even ugly!

Posted in Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on These ocean trash shoes aren’t even ugly!

Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

by CalvinRemer Posted on February 18, 2015

Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

By on 18 Feb 2015commentsShare

We have a new way to measure ocean acidification … from space! Just as it did for the rotary phone and the which-way-is-my-weathervane-pointing meteorology, satellite technology will give a big boost to the tech available to monitor ocean chemistry, according to new research. Scientists previously relied on a patchy network of buoys, ships, and lab tests to monitor acidification. By combining satellite measurements of salinity and other ocean variables, scientists can now paint a near-instantaneous picture of the ocean’s acid baseline at any one time.

And, bonus points: It turns out that five years of changing ocean chemistry is pretty mesmerizing:

Here’s more from Climate Central:

The new monitoring techniques can help monitor hot spots such as the Bay of Bengal, the Arctic Ocean, and the Caribbean, three places where ocean acidification could have major economic impacts but where little research has been done.

New monitoring efforts may come in particularly useful in the coming months, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is a risk of major coral bleaching in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans through May, an event that may rival severe bleaching that occurred in 1998 and 2010. Some island nations in the tropical Pacific including Kiribati, Nauru and the Solomon Islands are already seeing ocean conditions that can cause bleaching.

Source:
Ocean Acidification, Now Watchable in Real Time

, Climate Central.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Continue reading – 

Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Mop, Nespresso, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

by ElmerGrasser Posted on February 4, 2015

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

By on 4 Feb 2015commentsShare

Here’s a thing you may not have considered before: Climate change could make fish more mobile, upwardly and otherwise. Most marine species in the North Atlantic and North Pacific have been traversing the same ocean highways and byways for a while now (ahem, 2.6 million years), largely because the northern passage between the two is just too darn cold. But according to a study published Jan. 26 in Nature Climate Change, by the end of this century some fish in these formerly frigid climes may be able to swim in the Arctic, and beyond. Which can only mean one thing: Global fish mixer!

Led by Loïc Pellissier of the University of Fribourg, the team of Swiss scientists looked at how 515 fish species in the northern oceans were likely to react to climate change over the next hundred years. They found up to 41 species likely to move into the Pacific, and 44 into the Atlantic, by 2100.

For coastal-dwelling humans, this could mean an expanded menu at the crab shack, since ten of the species predicted to take advantage of the move also happen to be fish-and-chip favorites, according to Science News:

They include Atlantic cod, American plaice (a type of flounder) and yellowfin sole. Fishing opportunities have already opened up off of Greenland because of climate change, and more could develop as the Arctic region warms.

While an abundance of tasty new species opens up the danger of exploitation and overfishing, the bigger dark side of this delicious twist is the disaster it could spell for ecosystems. Species migrations can sometimes create major shifts in ecosystems:

… The arrival of apex predator species, such as Atlantic cod and lingcod, could have particularly large effects, as their meal choices ripple through the food web. The researchers say that predicting those effects is “the next modeling challenge,” but there may be effects similar to what’s been seen when invasive species enter ecosystems. Invaders often upend food webs, causing some species to decline and even become extinct.

But, y’know, if you’re a fish, warmer temperatures could mean greener pastures, bigger adventures, and new exotic friends! Just, other than the whole “getting snarfed by giant apex predators” thing — you’re gonna have to learn some stream-smarts if you want to make it the other side of the ocean tracks, little fishes.

Source:
Warming Arctic will let Atlantic and Pacific fish mix

, Science News.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

See more here: 

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, mixer, Mop, ONA, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

Climate change could put gross worms in your clams

by LannyFtflnztr Posted on January 15, 2015

global worming

Climate change could put gross worms in your clams

By on 15 Jan 2015 6:46 amcommentsShare

You know what’s delicious? Shellfish. You know what’s definitely not? Parasitic worms. Unfortunately, that’s a pair that climate change might start bringing together more and more often.

Researchers at the University of Missouri looked at the fossilized remains of ancient clams around the Pearl River delta in China, and found that as sea level rose, infestations of parasitic worms called trematodes increased. It’s hard to say exactly what causes the population boom, except that it’s not related merely to an increase in the population of clams or an increase in salinity.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month, bolsters similar findings from the Adriatic Sea, leading scientists to believe it might well be a more general effect of sea level rise everywhere. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

“What we can say is there’s a strong relationship between the first 300 years of rise in sea level and prevalence,” [lead researcher John] Huntley said in an interview.

The fossil record could hold lessons as humans work to adapt to rising sea levels caused by climate change, Huntley said. If another significant flatworm uptick happens, it could affect fisheries and disrupt food systems or lead to higher infection rates among humans.

Here in the present day, I’m sorry to report, trematodes are alive and well. They still get into freshwater mollusks like clams and snails, which are then eaten by birds and other animals, including the very self-interested Homo sapiens. Just so you know, trematode infections are not fun: “Symptoms of infection in humans range from liver and gall bladder inflammation to chest pain, fever, and brain inflammation.”

So if you want to avoid a nasty case of worms AND keep snarfing tasty gastropods, maybe try a little harder on this whole don’t-ruin-the-planet-or-my-plate-of-clams thing?

Source:
Ancient Fossils Reveal Potential Risk of Rise in Parasitic Infections Due to Climate Change

, MU News.

Another reason to fear climate change: You may get worms

, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

sponsored post

In 2015, make a New Year’s resolution that will actually change the world

How the power of positive energy turns you into a climate superhero.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Read More:  

Climate change could put gross worms in your clams

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Climate change could put gross worms in your clams

We Finally Found a GOP Congressman Who Believes in Science. Too Bad He’s a Felon.

by Myrna Posted on January 6, 2015

Michael Grimm pleaded guilty to tax evasion. As the new Congress is sworn in today, New York’s 11th district, comprising Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, has been left without a lawmaker in the House of Representatives. The missing member: Republican Michael Grimm. The disgraced politician announced his resignation last month after pleading guilty to tax evasion—a federal felony. He officially left Congress yesterday and will be sentenced in June. If New York’s tabloid headline writers are anything to go by (“Good Riddance!” said the Daily News), the city won’t muster much sympathy for a man who cheated on his taxes when he ran a restaurant (before running for Congress). Nor will it miss his aggressive style: “I’ll break you in half. Like a boy,” he once told a television reporter. Oh yeah, and there was that time he allegedly waved a gun around at a nightclub in Queens when he was an F.B.I. agent. (Grimm has denied doing this.) But there is one lesser known fact about Michael Grimm worth taking a moment to mourn as he leaves office: He was one of a precious few Republican politicians who actually accepted the science of climate change. That wasn’t always the case. During a campaign debate in 2010, Grimm told the audience that “the jury is obviously still out on it. We see nothing but conflicting reports from across the globe.” He added, “I’m not sure, I’m not a scientist”—that now-familiar line deployed by a number of Republican politicians. But then Grimm had his come-to-science moment, which was documented in last year’s award-winning Showtime docu-series, Years of Living Dangerously. In a segment exploring the impacts of Superstorm Sandy on Grimm’s New York district (you can watch part of it above), the congressman recounted how his thinking had changed. Here’s a transcript (via The Huffington Post), featuring interviewer Chris Hayes, from MSNBC: HAYES: Last time you and I spoke, you said the jury was still out on climate science. Do you still feel that way? GRIMM: After speaking with Bob Inglis, it made me do some of my own research, you know, I looked at some of the stuff that he sent over, my staff looked at it. But the vast majority of respected scientists say that it’s conclusive, the evidence is clear. So I don’t think the jury is out. HAYES: The basic story of—we’re putting carbon in the atmosphere, the planet’s getting warmer, that’s gonna make the sea levels rise—like, the basic story of that, you pretty much agree with, right? GRIMM: Sure, I mean there’s no question that, um, you know, the oceans have risen, right? And the climate change part is, is a real part of it. The problem that we’re gonna have right now—there’s no oxygen left in the room in Washington for another big debate, that’s the reality. It’s an otherwise pretty depressing interview, in which Grimm says that science is “irrelevant” when it comes to politics on the Hill. In a separate segment below, Grimm elaborated on the intractable political divides that prevent lawmakers from discussing climate change. He’s speaking here to former GOP Rep. Bob Inglis, who experienced first-hand the negative impact that believing in science can have on a Republican’s career: Inglis lost his seat in South Carolina after a tea party revolt in 2010, in part because he wouldn’t publicly deny that humans were causing the globe to warm. This exchange is representative of what Years of Living Dangerously did so well in this episode. It revealed something that you or I rarely see: a frank discussion between politicians about the risk on taking on the establishment: Republicans now control both houses of Congress for the first time since 2007, and incoming GOP lawmakers largely fall into the climate skeptic camp, as my Climate Desk colleague Tim McDonnell recently illustrated. James Inhofe, the party’s climate denial standard barer from Oklahoma, will likely be the chair of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee, for example. In the House, there are a few Republicans who provide a modicum of hope, including Chris Gibson (R-NY), who assumed office in 2013, and who said last month that he plans to introduce a resolution to rally Congress to “recognize the reality” of climate change. But for the moment, what Grimm tells Inglis in the clip above seems to be the rule among Republicans on Capitol Hill: “Let’s say that they did agree with the science, and they were bold enough, and had the political courage…and then they lose?” he said. “They’re not all lemmings. Okay? They’re not just going to go right off that cliff. So the political constraints I think are a lot bigger than most people would understand, and they’re very real.” Source: We Finally Found a GOP Congressman Who Believes in Science. Too Bad He’s a Felon. ; ; ;

Original post:

We Finally Found a GOP Congressman Who Believes in Science. Too Bad He’s a Felon.

Posted in alo, eco-friendly, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, oven, OXO, solar, solar power, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We Finally Found a GOP Congressman Who Believes in Science. Too Bad He’s a Felon.