Environment: Mercury deposition increasing in West and Midwest

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China is starting to cut back on coal expansion, but India is still building new plants. Both are burning massive quantities.

Bob Berwyn's avatarSummit County Citizens Voice

asf Mercury emissions from power plants are a global issue.

Asia’s power plants affect U.S. environment

Staff Report

Mercury levels in precipitation are increasing in the central U.S. but steadily dropping along the East Coast, scientists reported in a new study.

The findings suggest that mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants in Asia are on the rise, while they are decreasing in North America, according to Peter Weiss-Penzias, an environmental toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz who was the lead author of the study.

Mercury is a toxic element released into the environment through a variety of human activities, including the burning of coal, as well as by natural processes. Rainfall washes mercury out of the atmosphere and into soils and surface waters. Bacteria convert elemental mercury into a more toxic form, methyl mercury, which becomes increasingly concentrated in organisms higher up the food chain. Mercury concentrations in some predatory fish are…

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Welcome to the Renewable Energy Renaissance — Fight to End Fossil Fuel Burning is Now On

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“Nevada Monopoly Fossil Fuels vs Solar Fight Goes National

“An example of this struggle in microcosm took place during December through January of 2015 in Nevada. Emboldened by similar decisions in Arizona, monopoly utilities moved to protect their carbon-polluting infrastructures by pushing the state government (made up of a majority of republicans to include the governor — Sandoval) to impose restrictive fees on solar energy use throughout the state. Targeting rooftop solar energy systems, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUCN — also made up entirely of republicans) voted to, across the board, increase costs for rooftop solar users by both slashing incentives and imposing draconian fees. The decision negatively impacted 12,000 current solar customers using rooftop power to include families, schools and even public libraries.”  From: robertscribbler.com

GR:  In this war, powerless individuals are facing powerful business-backed governments. Our avaricious nature has brought us to this pass, but now that we’re here, we’re probably going to have to change our habits and take action.  In this post, Robert Scribbler, provides some strategic insight.

Making Friends With Crows

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GR:  Here’s an excellent DIY post for all you biophiliacs.  We have ravens (also corvids) around Coldwater Farm, but they will probably respond just as the crows do.

Feeding and watching wildlife can be worthwhile, but can lead to problems. Here are two links to the laws and advice concerning wildlife in Arizona:  FAQ (covers laws),   Living With Wildlife (covers individual species).

Crow“It’s a lot of fun to feel like you have wild friends, and feeding birds is a great way to connect with nature.  I’ve been asked many times how to make friends with local corvids, crows in particular.  While this post is mostly aimed at American crows in North America, it’s applicable to most corvids.  However, please be aware of local laws regarding feeding birds.

“The best way to get on a crow’s good side is through their stomach.  Unsalted peanuts in-shell work wonders (i.e. crow crack).  The best thing you can do is put out peanuts consistently and don’t look directly at the birds when you do so (at least initially).  Be conspicuous about you being the one to drop the food, but do not throw the food toward the crows or look at them initially, but do make sure they are in the area.  Then, go back inside.  It may take them no time at all to come to your food, or it may take them a while before they trust it.  Crows are very neophobic and suspicious, and even if it’s a food they love, they will be careful simply because it came from a human.  (I suspect if you live in an area with high traffic or restaurants nearby, they will take less time to come to your offering than if you live in a quiet, low-traffic suburban area.)”  From:  The Corvid Blog By Jennifer Campbell-Smith

Homes and companies should be built on flood plains despite risks, says panel

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Homes and businesses should continue to be built on flood plains across the UK, despite the increasing risks this would involve for future residents, according to the government’s advisors on climate change.  From: enjeuxenergies.wordpress.com

GR:  In the UK, flood damage insurance is paid for by the government.  Encouraging building in floodplains might not appeal to you if you live in an upland area since you will be paying for damage to homes built in the floodplains.

However, building in floodplains is a bad idea mainly because the richest, most diverse, wildlife habitats are found there. In the midst of the great global wildlife extinction being caused by people, it seems sensible to preserve, not develop floodplains.

Is the Usual El Nino Pacific Storm Track Being Pulled North by Arctic Warming?

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Will El Niño soften the mid-latitude droughts?

GR: Scribbler is suggesting that weakening of the polar high-pressure air mass is drawing the jet stream and El Niño enriched storms farther north away from the U. S. Southwest. Thus, the three-month forecast in the map below, based on past El Niño activity, may be inaccurate.

The 2014 Mule Deer Fawn Twins

The 2014 Mule Deer Fawn Twins Sampling Fallen Seeds From the Bird Feeder.

Three years ago, deer began visiting Coldwater Farm for the first time in 20 years. This might be related to drying springs in the uplands brought on by drought and the water-table-lowering wells of the homes in the foothills. A basalt dyke forces the normally belowground flow of the Agua Fria River above ground as it crosses the farm. Besides continuous year-round flow, there are several spring-fed ponds. For the past few years, homeowners have deepened their wells, and the water level in the ponds has dropped by about 10%. Last year, some precipitation softened the drought, and upland springs are flowing again. Nevertheless, the deer have remained and have increased.

Scribbler and others believe that precipitation events in February should tell us if this El Niño will break the Southwest drought, or a poleward shift of the storms will leave it intact.

seasonal-outlook-noaa Polar Amplification vs a Godzilla El Nino — Is the Pacific Storm Track Being Shoved North by Arctic Warming?

From robertscribbler.com 

“It’s an El Niño year. One of the top three strongest El Ninos on record. The strongest by some NOAA measures. And we are certainly feeling its effects all over the world. From severe droughts in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America, to Flooding in the Central and Eastern US, Southern Brazil, and India, these impacts, this year and last, have been extreme and wide-ranging. During recent days, Peru and Chile saw enormous ocean waves and high tides swamping coastlines. Record flooding and wave height events for some regions. All impacts related to both this powerful El Niño and the overall influence of human-forced warming by more than 1 C above 1880s temperatures on the whole of the hydrological cycle.

“Amped up by a global warming related 7 percent increase in atmospheric water vapor (and a related increase in evaporation and precipitation over the Earth’s surface), many of these El Niño related impacts have followed a roughly expected pattern (you can learn more about typical El Niño patterns and links to climate change related forcings in this excellent video by Dr Kevin Trenberth here). However, so far, some of the predicted kinds of events you’d typically see during a strong El Niño have not yet emerged. A circumstance that may also be related to the ongoing human-forced warming of the globe.”

 

The Arctic Is Melting And Big Business Is Ready To Dig In

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“Standing at a podium before the World Economic Forum, Leonardo DiCaprio briefly smiled as he received an award for his leadership in tackling climate change. Once settled under the spotlight, he quickly moved away from his grateful statements, and began railing on corporate avarice.

“We simply cannot allow the corporate greed of the coal, oil, and gas industries to determine the future of humanity,” said DiCaprio last week while at Davos, Switzerland, where some 2,500 top global business leaders, politicians, and intellectuals gathered to discuss politics, economics, and social issues.

“Fossil fuels must be kept in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change, he continued. “Enough is enough. You know better. The world knows better.”

“But while DiCaprio was cheered Wednesday as he stepped off the stage with his Crystal award, the international business community appears interested in venturing into new areas despite potential ecological costs. In fact, a day after recognizing environmental leadership, a World Economic Forum advisory group launched the Arctic Investment Protocol, and with that came a tacit push for extracting resources from one of the least-developed areas of the world.

“The Arctic Investment Protocol is a voluntary set of guidelines for nations looking to do business where diminished ice coverage from man-made climate change is allowing access to once-unreachable sea routes as well as vast mineral and fossil fuel reservoirs.

“The protocol calls for building resilient societies through economic development, pursuing measures to protect the Arctic environment, and respecting and including local communities, to name a few. The Guggenheim Partners, a major global investment and financial services firm, quickly endorsed the protocol, saying the Arctic represents one of the last great economic frontiers.”  From: thinkprogress.org

GR:  No place on Earth is safe from human avarice. DiCaprio mentions the greed of the coal, oil, and gas industries, but he could also have condemned the greed of the mining, farming, and logging industries. Financial interest will overwhelm the wisdom of switching from development to protection. We’ve stripped away the Arctic’s protective skin of ice and cold. Now we will feed on the carcass.

Arctic Heatwave Drives Deadly Asian Cold Snap

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GR: And more storms for Great Britain. The extreme events might soon outpace all (well, the few that care) reporters. Thank you Robert Scribbler.

robertscribbler's avatarrobertscribbler

In the Arctic today, there’s a warm wind howling over Siberia. It’s a wind blowing from the northwest. A wind originating from the Arctic Ocean. Siberia is warming up today because warm air blew in from the direction of the North Pole. This should strike everyone as ridiculously, insanely odd.

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In Okinawa it snowed for the first time on record this weekend. In Taiwan, a cold snap turned deadly killing 85 as tens of thousands more huddled in homes that lacked any form of central heating. In South Korea, 500 flights were grounded due to unseasonable weather. In Hong Kong, the temperature was 3 C — the same temperature as a region near the southwestern coast of Svalbard east of Greenland and above the Arctic Circle.

What the hell is going on? In short, a global warming driven heat-up of the Arctic has punched a hole in the…

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The Human Hothouse Turns Bolivia’s Second Largest Lake into a Withered Wasteland

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“Lake Poopo in Bolivia has dried up. And Climate Change has been named as the top cause of the disaster.

“After decades of drought and depressed rainfall related to a human-forced warming of the globe, the once-massive lake is now gone. Once measuring 90 by 32 kilometers and covering an area of over 1,000 square kilometers this second largest lake in all of Bolivia has turned into a dried out disaster zone. Cracked, baked earth, overturned and abandoned boats, and the desiccated remains of lake life are all that are left as sign to the fact that a giant lake once existed. The flamingos, fish and other wildlife that relied on the lake are now dead or long gone. Yet more lonely casualties of a climate changed radically by an incessant burning of fossil fuels.

(Human-forced climate change is implicated in Bolivia’s loss of Lake Poopo. Video source: TeleSUR English.)

Rainy Season Undone

About a decade ago, the rainy season in this region of the Altiplano Mountains began to dry up. Rainfall became less regular and the great Lake Poopo — important to locals for its supply of fish and wildlife — began to fade away. By 2015, record global temperatures and El Nino conditions had again pushed the rainy season back. By January of 2016, one month into the typical rainy season, no rains had yet fallen and the great lake had dried up completely.  From: robertscribbler.com

GR:  With the ongoing drought, there will be more of these events. In addition to the harm to wildlife, the peace and security of human groups is going to decline.

How ‘Natural Geoengineering’ Can Help Slow Global Warming by Oswald J. Schmitz: Yale Environment 360

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“An overlooked tool in fighting climate change is enhancing biodiversity to maximize the ability of ecosystems to store carbon. Key to that strategy is preserving top predators to control populations of herbivores, whose grazing reduces the amount of CO2 that ecosystems absorb.
by oswald j. schmitz

“As natural wonders go, perhaps the most awe-inspiring is the annual migration of 1.2 million wildebeest flowing across East Africa’s vast Serengeti grassland. It would be a tragedy to lose these animals. But we almost did in the mid-20th century when, decimated by disease and poaching, their numbers crashed to 300,000.

“The consequences of that collapse were profound. Much of the Serengeti ecosystem remained ungrazed. The accumulating dead and dried grass in turn became fuel for massive wildfires, which annually burned up to 80 percent of the area, making the Serengeti an important regional source of carbon dioxide emissions.” e360.yale.edu

GR:  This is a good argument for nature conservation. If we studied, restored, and protected natural ecosystems, the Earth could tolerate and mitigate more human impact. Of course, Earth’s natural systems can’t withstand the growing demands for food and space the massive human population is making. I believe we have to get our population growth reversed if we hope to save natural ecosystems (https://garryrogers.com/2015/10/19/population-2).