One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to research seen by the BBC.
A study of satellite measurements of Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica reveals the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year.
Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise.
More (and a video) … ➡
You just can’t teach an old petro-dog re-new-able tricks.
The UK’s Guardian reports:
BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving “back to petroleum”.
Sad, but not terribly original or surprising (see “Shell shocker: Once ‘green’ oil company guts renewables effort“).
But Tony Hayward, the group’s chief executive, said BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources and the non-oil division would benefit from the extra focus of being brought back in house….
“It saves money and brings it closer to home … you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business],” he said.
Paging Dr. Cal Lightman!
Seriously, they gut the program and claim it is “reinforcement” of their commitment. Perhaps BP stands for “Beyond Prevarication” or “Beyond Pinocchio.”
In the business world, “money talks, bullsh!t walks” — so let’s follow the money (as it departs the BP clean energy biz):
BP Alternative Energy was given its own headquarters in County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament two years ago and its managing director, Vivienne Cox, oversaw a small division of 80 staff concentrating on wind and solar power.
But the 49-year-old Cox -– BP’s most senior female executive, who previously ran renewables as part of a larger gas and power division now dismantled by Hayward -– is standing down tomorrow.
This comes alongside huge cuts in the alternative energy budget – from $1.4bn (£850m) last year to between $500m and $1bn this year….
More… ➡
– If this isn’t concerning enough, then reflect back on the piece I published back on July 1st about the water shortages coming to India and Pakistan because of the melting glaciers.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
WASHINGTON — Using NASA satellite data, scientists have found that groundwater levels in northern India have been declining by as much as one foot per year over the past decade. Researchers concluded the loss is almost entirely due to human activity.
More than 26 cubic miles of groundwater disappeared from aquifers in areas of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and the nation’s capitol territory of Delhi, between 2002 and 2008. This is enough water to fill Lake Mead, the largest manmade reservoir in the United States, three times.
A team of hydrologists led by Matt Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., found that northern India’s underground water supply is being pumped and consumed by human activities, such as irrigating cropland, and is draining aquifers faster than natural processes can replenish them. The results of this research were published today in Nature.
More… ➡
MONROE MAN RUNS CATHOUSE NOT FAR FROM POLICE STATION
(MONROE, WA) — The Sky Valley Chronicle has discovered a man in Monroe who’s been operating a cathouse for years just minutes from the Monroe Police Department.
He offers no apologies, refuses to hide the facts of what goes on in the house and stands firm in his belief that what he is doing falls within community standards of decency.
Uh, no it is not that type of cathouse. (We’d love to say “gotcha!” at this point but we’re far too sophisticated for that).
The type of cathouse run by Dennis Gallagher is for regular house cats and is designed to provide them a safe, enriching and liberating lifestyle.
More… ➡
– India, oh India. You want so much to be a hi-tech first world nation.  With Bollywood and your high tech business parks – it’s all very impressive.
– Until one looks behind the scenes and realizes how very third-world and primitive you really are in the aggregate.
– Those of you with the brains, connections and opportunities just cannot wait to run away from the ‘real’ India and move into your gated communities and glass and chrome business parks.
– Don’t come talking to me about how wonderful India is – there are a lot of unsightly things hidden in your closets and back streets – just behind the glossy advertisements and nationalistic bragging.
– And with all of the powerful spiritual traditions that have come out of your country, it is deeply amazing to me that more of you cannot find the courage to look at the truth.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = =
CHANDIGARH, India – Jaswant Kaur is one of more than 15,000 ‘holiday wives’ spread across India’s northern Punjab state who, after years of abandonment, still awaits her husband’s return from Britain.
A fortnight after their lavish wedding in the border district of Gurdaspur, Karamjit Singh – considered a prize ‘catch’ for most Punjabi parents wanting their daughters married as he was a non-resident Indian settled abroad – left for London.
He promised his excited 21-year-old bride, who had never left her small town, that he would send her immigration papers within weeks to enable her to join him.
The groom and his family also carried away 700,000 rupees ($21,867.73) in dowry and gold ornaments which the bride’s parents had raised by mortgaging their small plot of land and house.
Eleven years later, Jaswant Kaur still waits for news from her husband.
“We now learn that he already had a wife and two children in London when we were married” Kaur said.
“For him I was nothing but a sexual dalliance and a source of gratification for his greed in the dowry.
“Along with my family, I stand disgraced socially as an abandoned bride. I have no recourse to any redress whatsoever.”
More… ➡
I had my Prostatectomy operation on August 11th and it went fine.  Currently, I’m recovering at home.  On the 19th, I go in for a followup visit to have my catheter removed and to get my prostate biopsy results.  With luck, the cancer will have been confined to the prostate itself and its removal will have ended the problem.  You good wishes that it should turn out this way will be much appreciated.
I’ll post more when I know more.
“Fifty years of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research on glacier change shows recent dramatic shrinkage of glaciers in three climatic regions of the United States. These long periods of record provide clues to the climate shifts that may be driving glacier change.”
Thus begins a report (pdf) released on Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey showing a “dramatic decline” in three “benchmark” glaciers the agency has studied for five decades.
Beginning in 1957, the USGS has taken annual measurements of the South Cascade Glacier in Washington state, and followed shortly thereafter monitoring the Gulkana Glacier on the coast of Alaska and Wolverine Glacier in Alaska’s interior.
All three glaciers have shrunk and thinned, the report says, with the mass loss rapidly accelerating over the past 15 years. The South Cascade Glacier has lost nearly 25% of its weight, and the two Alaskan glaciers about 15%.
Between 1987 and 2004 all three glaciers consistently lost more snow and ice each summer as compared to years prior, the report says. Combined with less snowfall the loss has led to the net decline of the glaceirs.
The three benchmark glaciers tell the story for most of the many thousands of glaciers across the country and worldwide.
More… ➡
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.
Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there’s growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing — that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
More… ➡
– This article is from the NY Times and they insist that folks have an ID and a PW in order to read their stuff. You can get these for free just by signing up. However, a friend of mine suggests the website bugmenot.com 
as an alternative to having to do these annoying sign ups. Check it out. Thx Bruce S. for the tip.
– Nice article over on Dot Earth by Andrew Revkin.  He’s writing about a new 225 page report by a task force of the American Psychological Association in which they are examining what aspects of human psychology are tending to make us, as a species, make bad choices about so many things – like the environment.
– It’s a subject near and dear to my heart.  In fact, my desire to chronicle the gathering Perfect Storm is beginning to be overshadowed by my desire to explore questions like these.  Because certainly the first step towards solving a problem must be to understand where the problem is coming from.
– Everyone can, perhaps, go take a moment now and look in the mirror.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
A task force assembled by the American Psychological Association hopes to spur more research on the role of the human mind in shaping the behaviors resulting in rising greenhouse-gas emissions as well as on traits that can impede an effective response to global warming and similar slow-building environmental risks.
The task force has produced a 225-page report on psychology and climate that is being released to coincide with special sessions on climate at the association’s annual meeting in Toronto. (The link to the report has been balky; I’ll update if a better one is created.)
The group is hoping that the report can also inspire specialists in other fields to collaborate with psychologists. For instance, an effort to shape an initiative for curbing emissions would have a higher chance of success if it considered research showing which messages and incentives cause people to change, or resist change. “We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act,” Janet Swim, a psychology professor at Penn State and the task force leader, said in a statement.
The report reviews research on the behavioral element in every part of the climate problem — from consumer habits to the human tendency to give outsize importance to immediate costs even when confronted with evidence of big long-term risks. In essence, as this report and many previous studies show, the human mind appears to be set up in the worst possible way to grasp and act on global warming, which is one of those problems where the most damaging outcomes are somewhere and someday, not here and now. (My guess is that these tendencies are one reason we need to approach climate change and the energy gap more in the way we treat Medicare insolvency than the traditional environmental problems we grew up with back in the 20th century — sewage in rivers, smog in air — which were literally in your face.)
More… ➡
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has
not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.
I am making such material available in my effort to advance
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this
site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for
purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner.