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Get ready for another extremely cold winter starting NOW

by Unacoomt Posted on November 5, 2014

Get ready for another extremely cold winter starting NOW

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5 Nov 2014 6:01 PM

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Get ready for another extremely cold winter starting NOW

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If you didn’t experience last year’s polar vortex, let me offer a brief ode to The Great Northern Indiana Winter 2013-14: One morning, I woke up to a thermostat reading 36 degrees INSIDE THE HOUSE. It is because I endured you, Winter of 13-14, that I can consider myself a serious BAMF.

Climate change likely contributed to the cold weather carnage that swept the Midwest and eastern parts of the U.S. last winter. And this year, it looks like we’re not going to get a break. Here’s Slate’s Eric Holthaus with some cold comfort:

Over the last few weeks, seasonal climate models have shifted more and more toward the idea that this winter will be a doozy. Now that we’re within shorter range, the odds of recurring cold snaps — at least for the rest of November — are increasingly certain. Over the last few days, shorter-term weather models have locked on to the growing likelihood that — for the Eastern United States, at least — winter starts now.

Now? As in, now-now? Like, early-November-not-even-Thanksgiving-yet, now? C’mon Holthaus, you’re makin’ us noyvous. But according to meteorologists, there’s a super-typhoon set to hit Bering Sea on Saturday that is expected to hasten winter’s coming on the East Coast — and bring well-below freezing temps to the Midwest. Here’s a map of what you can look forward to next week:

It’s not just the cold that’s getting out of control; the west was hit with unprecedented warmth this year — not to mention California’s continuing drought from hell. We know we’re starting to sound like scratched vinyl here, but climate change exacerbates extreme weather. In fact, according to a Stanford study, climate change makes extreme temperatures at least three times more likely. I, for one, am heating up my rice bags.

Source:
Bundle Up: November Is Going to Be Really Cold in the Eastern United States

, Slate.

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Get ready for another extremely cold winter starting NOW

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British Brewer Still Bitter Over American Revolution

by Unacoomt Posted on July 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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British actor and writer Stephen Merchant, who you can thank in-part for creating the original version of The Office, has a challenge for you this 4th of July: imagine if his people had won the war for independence. He’s tired of acting like he’s not bloody pissed that each year we celebrate beating his little country. He’s so pissed in fact that he’s made the following ad for Newcastle Brown Ale. Watch his plea, as he begs of you to image how “great” Great Brtiain 2 would be. And then, enjoy a hoedown, just to spite him:

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British Brewer Still Bitter Over American Revolution

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"Another Self Portrait" Is Bob Dylan’s Latest Tribute to His Musical Influences

by Unacoomt Posted on September 2, 2013

Mother Jones

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Bob Dylan
Another Self Portrait: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10
Columbia

Bob Dylan’s 1970 double album Self Portrait shocked and dismayed some of the faithful at the time of release, confusing audiences looking for another mind-boggling classic. Dominated by traditional songs and cover versions (“Blue Moon,” Let Be Me,” etc.) performed in a seemingly lackadaisical manner, it came off as a determined attempt to defy expectations and shed the pressure of being a messiah. In retrospect, Self Portrait makes more sense, being Dylan’s salute to music that helped make him who he is (hence the title), while sustaining the down-home vibe of John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, though the cluttered arrangements are still distracting.

The mostly excellent Bootleg Series has allowed Dylan to explain himself more fully, something he never would have deigned to do so directly four decades ago, and the two-disc Another Self Portrait is especially useful in that regard. Drawing on sessions for Nashville Skyline and New Morning, as well as Self Portrait, it offers alternate takes, undubbed versions and revelatory outtakes, depicting a Dylan more interested in revisiting his folk beginnings than trying to exasperate the fans. The previously unheard “Pretty Saro” and “Annie’s Going to Sing Her Song” recall the young Woody Guthrie disciple, while “Belle Isle” and “Little Sadie” improve dramatically in their stripped-down settings.

After 10 editions, The Bootleg Series continues to surprise with fresh perspectives on the greatest songwriter of the rock’n’roll era, which is no mean feat. Completists will opt for the four-disc set, which adds the original Self Portrait and Dylan’s spirited 1969 concert with The Band at the Isle of Wight festival
.

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"Another Self Portrait" Is Bob Dylan’s Latest Tribute to His Musical Influences

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Here Is a Video of One Lobster Eating Another Lobster

by Unacoomt Posted on July 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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Noah Oppenheim’s plan was simple: Rig a young lobster underneath a waterproof, infrared camera; drop the contraption overboard off the coast of Maine; and see who comes along for a bite to eat. The takers, he expected, would be fish: cod, herring, and other “groundfish” found in these waters that are known to love a good lobster dinner. Similar experiments conducted in the 1990s showed that apart from being snatched up in one of the thousands of traps that sprinkle the sea floor here—tools of this region’s signature trade—fish predation was the principle cause of lobster death. Instead, Oppenheim, a marine biology graduate student at the University of Maine, captured footage that looks like it comes straight from the reel of a 1950s B-grade horror movie: rampant lobster cannibalism.

Tim McDonnell

Warming waters can cause lobsters to grow larger and produce more offspring, and the last decade has been the warmest on record in the Gulf of Maine. That, combined with overfishing of lobster predators and an excess of bait left in lobster traps (see info box below), has driven the Maine lobster harvest to thoroughly smash records that stretch back to 1880. One of the side effects of this boom, Oppenheim says, is cannibalism: There are countless lobsters down there with nothing much to eat them and not much for them to eat, besides each other.

Tim McDonnell

Lobsters are known to chomp each other in captivity (those rubber bands you see on their pincers are more for their own protection that the lobstermen’s), but Oppenheim says this is the first time this degree of cannibalism has been documented in the wild (oh, yes, we’ve got the footage; check out the video above). From his remote research station on rocky Hurricane Island, floating in the lobster-grabbing chaos off nearby fog-shrouded Vinalhaven Island (one of Maine’s top lobstering locales), Oppenheim has seen that young lobsters left overnight under his camera are over 90 percent more likely to be eaten by another lobster than by anything else.

Tim McDonnell

While the lobster boom is clearly a terror for the lobsters themselves, it’s no picnic for the people here whose families have made their livings off lobster since before the Revolutionary War. Lobster prices are down to lows not seen since the Great Depression, taking a serious pinch out of profit margins already made slim by high labor and fuel costs. Even more unsettling is the prospect that the boom could go bust: Southern New England saw a similar peak in the late 1990s, followed by a crash that left local lobstermen reeling for years. Maine’s lobster experts worry that their state is next.

A crash here could have devastating results. Starting in the late 1980s, lobsters began to dominate Maine’s seafood catch: In 1987, they made up 8.6 percent of the total haul; by last year, that number had climbed to more than 40 percent. In part, the industry’s dependence is due to the fact that, increasingly, there’s an abundance of lobsters and a deficit of anything else. But at the same time, the state’s fishing permit system favors single-species licenses, so many lobstermen are locked into that product, a change from earlier decades where fishermen changed their prey from season to season.

In order to survive, experts say, Mainers will need to get creative with their tastes. For that, maybe they can take a cue from the lobsters themselves.

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Here Is a Video of One Lobster Eating Another Lobster

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As citrus disease spreads, government cryopreserves tree roots

by Unacoomt Posted on July 23, 2013

As citrus disease spreads, government cryopreserves tree roots

By John Upton

USDA

Cryopreservation in action.

Cryonics may never bring slugger Ted Williams back to life, but federal scientists hope that freezing the tips of tree roots could help save America’s $3.4 billion citrus-growing industry.

Unlike the famous baseball player, who was frozen after he died in 2002 (with his head and body stored in separate containers), the plant tissue that U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists are preserving in subzero temperatures is very much alive.

Citrus trees are increasingly under threat from citrus greening, aka Huanglongbing or “Yellow Dragon Disease,” a bacterial disease spread by insects. It has killed millions of citrus trees in the U.S. since it was first detected in Florida in 2005.

From a USDA press release:

[S]cientists are creating a backup storage site or “genebank” for citrus germplasm in the form of small buds, called shoot tips, which have been cryopreserved—that is, plunged into liquid nitrogen for long-term cold storage. …

Some genebanks maintain living citrus trees in dedicated groves and screenhouses. But in cryopreservation, [plant physiologist Gayle] Volk saw a way to safeguard valuable germplasm without fear of losing it to insect or disease outbreaks, as well as natural disasters such as freezes, droughts and hurricanes. Instead of safeguarding whole plants or trees, her approach involves cutting tiny shoot tips from new growth, called “flush,” and cryopreserving the material for storage inside state-of the-art vaults at the ARS National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) in Fort Collins, Colo.

The center is something of a “Fort Knox” for plant and animal germplasm. In addition to the value of its collections, which are crucial to conducting research and ensuring the food security of future generations, the NCGRP’s storage vaults can withstand tornado-strength winds, floods, and the impact from a 2,500-pound object traveling at 125 miles an hour.

If citrus greening does turn the nation’s citrus crop to pulp, here’s hoping that Volk’s sci-fi-worthy research can help to reconstitute it.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Let Us Now Pledge to Sign Ever More Pledges

by Unacoomt Posted on July 3, 2013

Mother Jones

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The problem with Twitter is that it’s so full of snark and jocular banter that it’s often hard to tell when something is serious. Then again, maybe this is actually a problem with real life, not with Twitter. Maybe real life has gotten so Onion-esque that it’s hard to tell it apart from a Steven Wright standup routine.

To wit: Yesterday I saw a tweet roll across my screen about the Koch brothers insisting that conservatives fight any climate legislation unless it contained an equivalent tax cut. Hah hah. That’s a laff riot.

But no. It’s real. Of course it is. But here’s what I don’t get: what’s the point? The pledge binds signers to “oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.” But every Republican in Congress has already signed Grover Norquist’s pledge that binds them to oppose any legislation at all that includes a net increase in government revenue. So does this mean we’re going to get a flood of sub-pledges from every wingnut group out there? Republicans must now pledge to oppose any legislation relating to abortion that includes a net increase in government revenue. Ditto for gun control legislation. And healthcare legislation. And environmental legislation. And mass transit legislation. And homeland security legislation. And food stamp legislation. Etc.

Well, why not? They don’t have much else to do, do they?

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Let Us Now Pledge to Sign Ever More Pledges

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In win for fish, oil companies allowed to abandon old rigs

by Unacoomt Posted on June 28, 2013

In win for fish, oil companies allowed to abandon old rigs

By John Upton

For all the harm that the oil and gas industry inflicts on wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, it does offer the marine ecosystem at least one big benefit. Offshore oil-drilling rigs serve as artificial reefs, providing shelter for animals and an anchor for plants, coral, and barnacles. Yet once a well is tapped, the federal government has required the drilling company to uproot its rig to help clear clutter that could obstruct shipping.

Following complaints from fishermen and conservationists, however, the Obama administration is easing those rules. It announced this week that it is making it easier for states to designate abandoned drilling infrastructure as special artificial reef sites.

Chris Ledford, © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

A barracuda hanging out at a Texas oil rig.

The move is a win-win. Fish, turtles, and other wildlife get to keep their underwater metropolises — and drilling companies can save on the costs of rig removal. From Fuel Fix:

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has revised the policies to encourage participation in its rigs-to-reefs program, which allows operators to leave non-producing platforms deep in the Gulf as artificial homes for underwater creatures.

So, um, thanks to all the penny-pinching oil companies out there that don’t want to pay to clean up their crap?

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Is Obama About to Get Serious on Climate Change?

by Unacoomt Posted on June 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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Several people have suggested that President Obama will make climate change a key initiative of his second term. I’ve never really believed that, but today the New York Times reports that it might be for real:

President Obama is preparing a major policy push on climate change, including, for the first time, limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants, as well as expanded renewable energy development on public lands and an accelerated effort on energy efficiency in buildings and equipment, senior officials said Wednesday

Heather Zichal, the White House coordinator for energy and climate change … suggested in her remarks that a central part of the administration’s approach to dealing with climate change would be to use the authority given to the Environmental Protection Agency to address climate-altering pollutants from power plants under the Clean Air Act. She said none of the initiatives being considered by the administration required legislative action or new financing from Congress.

The EPA can actually do a fair amount if it decides to. And Republicans know it: it’s one of the reasons they’ve held up the nomination of Gina McCarthy to head up the EPA. This announcement is likely to turn up the heat in that battle another notch or two.

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Is Obama About to Get Serious on Climate Change?

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Heritage Foundation Ignites Conservative Civil War Over Dynamic Scoring

by Unacoomt Posted on May 7, 2013

Mother Jones

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Pass the popcorn! Today the Heritage Foundation, under the leadership of conservative dreamboat (and former senator) Jim DeMint, released a study showing that immigration reform would cost taxpayers a gazillion dollars over the next 50 years. The actual number doesn’t matter much, just the fact that it has a nice, shocking number of zeroes in it. The methodology of the report doesn’t matter much either. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that it’s shoddy, but this isn’t a PhD dissertation. It’s not meant to be accurate, it’s meant to provide cover for any member of Congress who wants to give a speech and have a few handy numbers to quote. (You can read all the gory details of the study’s shoddiness here if you’re feeling especially masochistic today.)

So far, so boring. But here’s what’s really great about this: Heritage is getting raked over the coals today by fellow conservatives for issuing this shoddy study. Why? Not because they happen to disagree about immigration reform, but because Heritage was able to produce its gigantic number only by abandoning the sacred conservative cause of dynamic scoring.

Dynamic scoring is critical to the conservative movement because it’s the way they can claim that tax cuts produce higher tax revenue. The basic idea is that you can’t just look at, say, a 10 percent tax cut and assume that it will reduce tax revenue by 10 percent. That’s fusty old static scoring. Instead you have to take account of the fact that the tax cut will supercharge the economy, which in turn will produce higher incomes and higher tax receipts even though tax rates are lower. The Heritage immigration report, however, doesn’t take into account the fact that undocumented immigrants are all dynamically creating extra wealth and increasing the size of the economy. Jennifer Rubin reports:

Josh Culling of ATR said that while Heritage was a “treasured ally,” its work was a rehash of a flawed 2007 study….Cato’s Alex Nowrasteh was even more outspoken saying “how disappointed” he was that Heritage abandoned conservative dynamic scoring….The prize for candor, though, went to American Action Forum’s Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who stated flatly, “It really misleads.”

….These are longtime allies of Heritage and promoters of free market capitalism who are witnessing the intellectual bastardization of a once great institution….Fiscal, pro-growth conservatives are concerned (as they should be) that the movement may turn reactionary, rejecting not just dynamic scoring but faith in a dynamic economy and society.

….However the debate turns out, one hopes that real scholars at Heritage and its supporters reject the slovenly work in the Heritage report and reaffirm the conservative message that more workers create more wealth, higher incomes and upward mobility. For if they do not, then virtually all their criticism of the Obama administration has been wrong and free markets (for labor and goods) are a cruel farce.

Will the “real scholars” at Heritage speak up? Will Heritage manage to reverse its growing intellectual bastardization? Or will the rest of the conservative movement eventually have to acknowledge that Heritage has always been willing to use whatever methodology happens to produce the results it wants? Stay tuned.1

1Just kidding. Here are the answers: (a) No. (b) No. (c) No. And as long as I have a footnote handy, it’s worth saying that nearly everyone agrees that dynamic scoring is reasonable in small doses. Heritage, however, has always been a champion of truly gargantuan claims for the potency of dynamic scoring. This is what makes their U-turn today so notable.

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Heritage Foundation Ignites Conservative Civil War Over Dynamic Scoring

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World’s energy nearly as dirty today as it was 20 years ago

by Unacoomt Posted on April 22, 2013

World’s energy nearly as dirty today as it was 20 years ago

By John Upton

Shutterstock /

Sergiy Telesh

We’re still burning way too much of this stuff.

Between 1990 and 2010, the perils of climate change became very clear, as did the urgent need for renewable energy, but we still didn’t do much to clean up the world’s fuel supplies.

We produced almost as much greenhouse gas for every unit of energy used in 2010 as we did in 1990, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency [PDF]. While the U.S. and other countries have been making strides in moving away from coal, which is the worst of the climate-changing fuels, India, China, and some European nations have been burning more of the stuff.

From Bloomberg:

The increasing use of coal buoyed by demand from emerging economies such as China and India kept the amount of CO2 output in energy almost static, the IEA said. In 1990, carbon intensity, or the level of CO2 emitted for each energy unit supplied, was 2.39 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of oil equivalent, compared with 2.37 in 2010.

From a press release about the IEA report:

“The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven told the [Clean Energy Ministerial], which brings together ministers representing countries responsible for four-fifths of global greenhouse-gas emissions. “Despite much talk by world leaders, and despite a boom in renewable energy over the last decade, the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago.” …

“As world temperatures creep higher due to ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide — two thirds of which come from the energy sector — the overall lack of progress should serve as a wake-up call,” Ms. Van der Hoeven said. “We cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness. We need a rapid expansion in low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic warming of the planet, but we must also accelerate the shift away from dirtier fossil fuels.”

The report was not all doom and gloom, though. Some things have been improving during the past couple of years. Again, from the press release:

From 2011 to 2012, solar photovoltaic and wind technologies grew by an impressive 42% and 19%, respectively, despite ongoing economic and policy turbulence in the sector. Emerging economies are also stepping up efforts in clean energy. Brazil, China and India were among the countries that enhanced policy support for the renewable electricity sector in 2012, for example. Advanced vehicle technologies also progressed well, with hybrid-electric vehicles breaking the 1 million annual sales mark. Electric vehicle sales also more than doubled to reach 110,000 vehicles.

Now we just need a lot more of that and a lot less filthy coal and oil.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

.

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