Elaine Meinel Supkis
After the Republicans and some Democrats killed the Kyoto Accords, it looked as if Americans would withdraw into a shell of stupid indifference towards the planet. So far, although much of the right wing/religious nut sectors actively hate this planet and hope it is destroyed, increasing numbers of saner citizens are reading news or watching movies like Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. There is hope after all!
Click here to see a very funny 'Futurama' cartoon commercial for the Gore movie.
Click here to visit the official Gore movie website.
I am so happy he made this movie. All the snarling press that hates his guts for being himself snapped at his movie. Gore's daughter works for Futurama and the fact that she would make such a funny cartoon featuring her dad (for his movie website) shows us what we lost when we were denied Gore's obvious victory in 2000.
Maybe the Gores will get the last laugh.
Meanwhile, the West overheats and suffers from droughts while the rain never stops here on the East Coast.
By TIM KORTE, Associated Press Writer Sat Jul 1, 2:56 PM ET
LAS VEGAS, N.M. - The drought in this community is now so severe that water isn't provided with restaurant meals unless a diner requests it, and then it's served in a paper cup. Car washes operate only two days each week.
The hotel pools are empty, and long-term guests must ask if they want linens changed more than once every four days.
"I sleep, eat and drink with worries about how we're going to get through this," said Richard Trujillo, the city's utilities administrator. "When it hasn't snowed or rained, people will want to know, 'What are you doing to solve this?' "
I know this part of New Mexico well. It is not supposed to be as dry as southern Arizona and so when there is a drought it is much worse for the plants aren't as adapted to a super-dry erratic rain cycle. After all, giant saguaros are very efficient water tanks holding many gallons of fluid which can be used for years if needs be. Switft climate change destroys much more than it creates at first. We humans have now reached the limits of exploitation of the natural resources and so we can little afford a total make-over in the climate whether it be for hyper-hot or another major Ice Age episode.
A super hot summer and no upwelling of cold water off the West Coast is causing many problems.
VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - A giant growth of algae in the waters off Canada's west coast, so huge it can be seen from space, may be linked to climate change, say scientists who hope to collect samples Friday for analysis.
The growth, called a bloom, became visible in late June on NASA satellite images, said Jim Gower, a physicist with the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sydney, in British Columbia province.
Aside from that, this algae bloom could be the presage of a big earthquake. The science for this isn't entirely proven and algae blooms don't equal earthquake possibilities but it is something to watch.
Acid rain and greater CO2 in the atmosphere is causing increasing acidity in the oceans.
Truthout.org: The oceans are inexorably becoming corrosive. Unknown to the greater public, this process due to the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will have considerable impact. And well before the end of the century. In barely twenty years, the acidification of vast oceanic regions of the Southern Hemisphere will provoke the disappearance of certain planktonic organisms. This phenomenon is all the more worrying in that the affected flora and fauna constitute the first links in the marine food chain.
*snip*
The increase in CO2 emissions has a perfectly quantifiable impact on the oceans, "more finely understood than its effects on climate," specifies James Orr, a researcher at the Sciences Laboratory of Climate and the Environment. "Out of 70 CO2 molecules that we emit, 20 are absorbed by the terrestrial biosphere, 30 remain in the atmosphere, and 20 dissolve in the oceans," details Paul Tréguer, scientific director for EUR-Océans, a European network for the study of oceanic ecosystems. That dissolution modifies the chemical balance by increasing the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+). Since the beginning of the industrial era, that concentration has increased by 25%, a modification of the same order as that of the atmosphere, ever more overburdened with CO2.
That chemical destabilization causes the oceanic concentration of carbonates to drop. But, Mr. Orr explains, "Carbonate, along with calcium, is one of the two bricks necessary to calcareous formation." Result: The pteropods, coccolithophorids and foraminifers, shelled marine microorganisms that specifically need carbonates to form their aragonite exoskeleton will have disappeared from certain regions of the Pacific and the entire southern hemisphere's oceans as of 2030, according to studies recently published by the journal Nature. A particularly important region since, as Mr. Tréguer explains, "the oceans of the Southern hemisphere are connected to all the others."
I normally worry about copywrite violations when quoting text but in this case, it is good to get this important article spread heavily in varioius search engines so it gets boosted. I know the scientists want it circulated as much as possible since this literally life and death for us all.
Aragonite is an important part of our ecosystems:
Aragonite is technically unstable at normal surface temperatures and pressures. It is stable at higher pressures, but not at higher temperatures such that in order to keep aragonite stable with increasing temperature, the pressure must also increase. If aragonite is heated to 400 degrees C, it will spontaneously convert to calcite if the pressure is not also increased. Since calcite is the more stable mineral, why does aragonite even form? Well under certain conditions of formation, the crystallization of calcite is somehow discouraged and aragonite will form instead. The magnesium and salt content of the crystallizing fluid, the turbidity of the fluid and the time of crystallization are decidedly important factors, but there are perhaps others. Such areas as sabkhas and oolitic shoals tend to allow significant amounts of aragonite to form. Also metamorphism that includes high pressures and low temperatures (relatively) can form aragonite. After burial, given enough time, the aragonite will almost certainly alter to calcite. Sedimentologists are very interested in aragonite and calcite stability fields because the conversion of aragonite to calcite after deposition has a distinct effect on the character of the sedimentary rocks.
Of course, it forms inside of living creatures. The chemical balance of the oceans and the atmosphere have had various equilibrium points where it stablizes for long periods of time but not always with the same mix. Since life forms first started producing oxygen half a billion years ago, the tendency is for them to reorganize and recolonize after chemical disasters which alter the atmospheric mix in ways that kill off these precious single celled organisms.
Many of the oil deposits we exploit today are buried under salt layers because once thriving oceans or landmasses were possively covered by oceans that evaporated a lot for millions of years. The present loss of carbons isn't being made up on land because the world's forests are being decimated too. I know that, seen from afar, our forest here in Berlin looks nice and green but if one tends the trees here like I do, all I see are sick trees struggling to deal with one pest invasion after another, deadly summer days where the leaves that survive get clogged with chemicals as the tree desperately tries to breathe out oxygen for our own benefit. All my great trees are dying and not slowly, either. Rapidly.
One of the greatest catastrophes to hit our living planet was the Permian extinction. Very definitely, the chemical balance of the oceans was very dramatic and the extinction of lifeforms there was more severe than on land, even. Evidently, the oceans became very acidic as well as hot and were marine deserts for a very long time which caused the oxygen level to drop so that many land forms of life died off totally, too. Even so, within less than 50 million years, the planet teemed with life on land as well as in the oceans. This is the great hidden strength of evolution. The rebuilding of the shattered ecosystem began in the oceans with the microscopic creatures. They are not only the base of the food pyramid in the oceans, they are the base for our entire ecosystem. The loss of these nearly invisible creatures (except when they have 'blooms') could mean our own extinction.
This is no joking matter. This alarming information is at the heart of Al Gore's wonderful movie. This is the message we can't ignore. I know that many people delude themselves into thinking, 'Goody! It will be warmer which means more fun in the sun!'
Global warming isn't just killing off coral reefs in super-warm waters, it is killing cold water reefs, too.
Sean Markey for National Geographic News
May 1, 2006
Shortly after the last ice age, pioneering organisms near the Norwegian coast founded a colony that would become, 10,000 years later, the largest of its kind on Earth.
Its members built a stony fortress that still stands today, 115 feet (35 meters) tall and 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) long, despite an environment of ceaseless cold and dark.
These hardy settlers did not spring from Stone Age Viking ancestors. They are cold-water corals whose home, the Sula Ridge Complex, is the largest deepwater reef in the world.
Relatives of sea anemones and jellyfish, cold-water corals thrive in 39° to 54°F (4° to 12°C) waters at depths ranging from 160 feet (50 meters) to 3 miles (5 kilometers).
Only in recent decades have scientists begun to regularly probe these little-known marine ecosystems, which are as rich in species as rain forests.
But recent research suggests the organisms' historic success may not continue.
In the various major extinction events, most coral reefs died. Coral life forms have a mobile stage when they drift around the ocean before settling down to anchor themselves so when the ecosystem collapses, this means the survivors simply skip that stage and revert to life-long mobility until the chemistry of the ocean becomes more reasonable. The fact that we are now seeing another major die-off is another warning bell that should be shrilling in our ears.
We all came from the oceans and all organic celled life forms share oceanic chemistry mixes that are a defining feature of our planet. We carry the salt of the seas within our cells and our bodies are like giant collections of sea life that has been encased within a protective cover so it can move about in non-aqueous conditions.
Zwitterions are salts that contain an anionic center and a cationic center in the same molecule; examples include amino acids, many metabolites, peptides and proteins.
Mixtures of many different ions in solution like in the cytoplasm of cells, in blood, urine, plant saps and mineral waters usually do not form defined salts after evaporation of the water. Therefore, their salt content is given for the respective ions.
Normal salt is salt that does not contain a hydroxide ion (OH−) or a hydrogen ion (H+). Salts that contain a hydroxide ion are basic salts and salts that contain a hydrogen ion are acid salts.
pH is a measure of the activity of hydrogen ions (H+) in a solution and, therefore, its acidity or alkalinity. For dilute solutions, however, it is convenient to substitute the activity of the hydrogen ions with the molarity (mol/L) of the hydrogen ions (however, this is not necessarily accurate at higher concentrations [1] [2]).
In aqueous systems, the hydrogen ion activity is dictated by the dissociation constant of water (Kw = 1.011 × 10−14 M2 at 25 °C) and interactions with other ions in solution. Due to this dissociation constant a neutral solution (hydrogen ion activity equals hydroxide ion activity) has a pH of approximately 7. Aqueous solutions with pH values lower than 7 are considered acidic, while pH values higher than 7 are considered alkaline.
This is the fulcrum of Nature. We get a nice system going when we can keep the chemistry in balance using living creatures as the engine of generation of the proper chemicals and amounts. This balance is often toppled which is why we have different names for different eras as huge swaths of creatures suddenly vanish and are replaced by different ones. Climatic changes due to tectonic plate shiftings or celestial objects impacting with sufficient force or the sun altering its energy output all impact this balancing act and sends it flying off for a fall.
Acid rain occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere, undergo chemical transformations and are absorbed by water droplets in clouds. The droplets then fall to earth as rain, snow, or sleet. This can increase the acidity of the soil, and affect the chemical balance of lakes and streams. [1]. Acid rain is sometimes used more generally to include all forms of acid deposition - both wet deposition, where acidic gases and particles are removed by rain or other precipitation, and dry deposition removal of gases and particles to the Earth's surface in the absence of precipitation.[2]
Acid rain is defined as any type of precipitation with a pH that is unusually low (Brimblecombe, 1996). Dissolved carbon dioxide dissociates to form weak carbonic acid giving a pH of approximately 5.6 at typical atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (Seinfeld and Pandis, 1998).
Acid rain accelerates weathering in carbonate rocks and accelerates building weathering. It also contributes to acidic rivers, streams, and damage to trees at high elevation. Efforts to combat this phenomenon are ongoing.
Actually, efforts at combatting this are barely taking effect and are under continuous challenge by the generation of noxious propaganda and of course, bribing politicians to ignore reality. I am in particular, hard hit by this because it is killing my own forest. My forest is performing a public service: producing oxygen and cleaning noxious chemicals from the atmosphere. So this wanton killing is damaging all of us in the end.
The GOP has been particularily hostile towards forests. It is as if our government is being run by the gypsy moths and cockroaches. All my life, I have loved trees as well as cacti, for that matter. It still puzzles me why so many humans hate these lifeforms. During the Iron Age, Europe began decimating their forests which, during the Age of Chivalry and then the budding Industrial Revolution, trees were decapitated at a huge rate to feed the fires that made steel and energy as well as ships. When the New World was colonized, the trees were hacked down very rapidly so that by 1880, most of upstate New York was a wasteland and the Hudson Valley and all the East Coast were pasturelands. When walking in the woods in the mountains up here, one comes across stone walls deep in the woods, they are all over the place. Not a tree grew anywhere but along property lines!
The forest is back, but not well.
Here is another study confirming the loss of oxygen due to oceanic die-offs was one effect of the ecosystem collapse of the Permian extinction.
A study in the October Geology reveals another piece of the puzzle. Geologists found the green mineral berthierine in soil layers that developed during the largest pulse of extinctions. A rare soil mineral, berthierine only forms in low-oxygen conditions. The authors argue that the presence of the mineral suggests that many land plants went extinct because they ran out of oxygen. And without plants to hold soil in place, huge amounts of sediment would flow into the coastal waters, explains lead author Nathan Sheldon, a graduate student at the University of Oregon. That sediment would cloud the water and lower its oxygen concentration, contributing to the decline of marine species.
Yes, run-offs can occlude water and cause die-offs, too and a storm system of drought/vast floods makes this much, much worse. Of course, if most life forms anchoring the topsoil die, then the run-offs become epic. The muddy waters of some major rivers are due to the lack of sufficient groundcover to hold down soils and the speed of water movement from dense rainstorms. Cutting down the topstory of a tropical forest usually raises the dirt mix in the rivers, for example, because the rain falls directly on the ground at full speed and then rushes off at full speed. In the desert, the rain rushes away at a tremendous speed and the rivers all run dark with mud.
Berthierine is an element in flint rocks and clays.
We report here the first occurrence of berthierine-bearing flint clays, one Ordovician and one Pennsylvanian in age. They are characterized by a berthierine-kaolinite-boehmite (bkb) assemblage. The Pennsylvanian flint clay from northeastern Kentucky is more typical in that it occurs in association with coal measures.
The Ordovician occurrence from northwestern Illinois is the oldest flint clay of which we are aware. Because it is Ordovician, it formed before the evolution of terrestrial vascular plants. All previous reports of flint clays point to a genetic connection between flint-clay formation and the growth and decay of plants (Bohor and Triplehorn, 1993). Except for the high berthierine content and greenish color, the physical properties of this flint clay are similar to those of other kaolinitic flint clays. Some samples of the Ordovician flint clay are nearly pure berthierine.
It is amusing that we are still very attracted to rocks. Human history is alot about rocks and our relationship with rocks. And our distant ancestors discovered that all rocks were not the same and the best rocks for making weapons and tools were these very flints. They knew nothing about why these flints were made or how, they just knew that these were good rocks to use.
We have had millions of years to puzzle out how rocks came to be and how they work. And this knowledge will be totally wasted if we destroy our planet. So I hope everyone gets an opportunity to see Gore's film. Just tell them, Bender sent you.
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