Midway. The State of the World

"Antibiotic resistance will mean the end of just about everything as we know it"

From Salon.com

In the United States, 2 million people are infected with drug-resistant “superbugs” every year, and at least 23,000 die as a result. Such numbers, journalist Maryn McKenna suggests, will seem trivial if we reach the point when all antibiotics are no longer effective — something that’s on track to become a reality.

Considering the full implications of a post-antibiotic era, McKenna concludes that it wouldn’t be so different from the apocalypse. And to know what we’re facing, we need only look at where we’ve come from:

Before antibiotics, five women died out of every 1,000 who gave birth. One out of nine people who got a skin infection died, even from something as simple as a scrape or an insect bite. Three out of ten people who contracted pneumonia died from it. Ear infections caused deafness; sore throats were followed by heart failure. In a post-antibiotic era, would you mess around with power tools? Let your kid climb a tree? Have another child?

To start with, McKenna writes, the loss of antibiotics will mean the end of modern medicine as we know it, impeding everything from surgery to chemotherapy to the far more prosaic:

At UCLA, [Dr. Brad] Spellberg treated a woman with what appeared to be an everyday urinary-tract infection — except that it was not quelled by the first round of antibiotics, or the second. By the time he saw her, she was in septic shock, and the infection had destroyed the bones in her spine. A last-ditch course of the only remaining antibiotic saved her life, but she lost the use of her legs. “This is what we’re in danger of,” he says. “People who are living normal lives who develop almost untreatable infections.”  ....

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Note: As terrible as it is to have people dying from simple infections, our current medical advantages are not sustainable. Antibiotics are partly responsible for our over-population problem. Various diseases are part of the normal processes that keep people in check. Of course, very few would choose to do without those advantages, if given a choice. Nature taking it's course, is not such a bad thing, however, for life on the planet as a whole.

"Invest, Divest: Renewable Investment To Hit $630 Billion A Year In 2030, Fossil Fuel Stocks At Risk Today"

From Thinkprogress.org

Bloomberg New Energy Finance has a must-read piece for investors on how the smart money is beginning to notice the quicksand on which fossil fuel stock prices are built.

We reported back in April that BNEF said 70 percent of new power generation capacity added between 2012 and 2030 will be from renewable technologies (including large hydro).

Indeed, BNEF founder Michael Liebreich posed a good news, bad news story back then:

“By 2030, the growth in fossil fuel use will almost have stopped,” Liebreich told renewable-energy investors…. “We’re told that it needs to happen by 2020” in order to prevent irreversible climate damage. “That won’t happen. But by 2030, it pretty much will.”

Yes, homo “sapiens” will miss by just 10 years or so the window to avert catastrophic climate change — resulting in possibly hundreds of years of misery for billions and billions of people. The tragic irony is the fossil fuel industry is essentially doomed no matter what — but humanity wouldn’t be, if we were just a tad more “sapiens.”

We reported in August that a Goldman Sachs research paper concluded the “window for profitable investment in coal mining is closing” — same for for coal exports.

Now BNEF points out that much the same is true for oil investments:

Last month 70 investors representing $3 trillion of assets under management sent letters to oil-and-gas companies asking them to disclose plans for adapting to a world that may be edging closer to peak fossil fuels. That’s the point when humans stop increasing their annual burn – either because the environmental danger makes it too costly or because buildings and cars run more efficiently. BNEF says peak demand could happen in 2030.

The risk: Oil and coal companies worth more than $7 trillion may be sinking billions of dollars today into projects that will never make sense to finish.

A key point of this article is that it isn’t just enviros saying the days of fossil fuel are numbered. We have institutional investors, Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg New Energy Finance and many, many others in the financial industry:

In 2013, so-called carbon-asset risk “went from a conceptual possibility to a sort of near-and-present reality,” Nick Robins, head of the Climate Change Center at HSBC Holdings Plc in London, said in a phone interview. He wrote a research note in January valuing the risk of “unburnable reserves”: the oil and coal on companies’ balance sheets that will be too expensive to extract. “There is this undertow of demand destruction going on through technological improvement. That’s certainly not fully priced at the moment.”

And that’s without even considering the possibility of the world coming to its senses on the threat posed by unrestricted carbon pollution in time to avert the worst.

There’s more:

“The end is nigh” for global oil-demand growth, proclaimed a Citigroup report in March. Standard & Poor’s cautioned that a patchwork of policies that cut demand for fuels could lead to outlook revisions and downgrades in smaller oil-and-gas companies as early as next year, with a similar shock to the majors in 2016. Goldman Sachs’s advice to oil companies: “invest only in medium-/high-return projects, spend the rest of their cash on buybacks and focus on per share growth.” Translation: prepare to shrink the business.

Divesting from fossil fuels isn’t risky. Not divesting is.

"Amazing Bird’s Eye View Of Texas Fracking"

Above: For larger image see http://media.commonsensecanadian.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Texas-fracking-aerial_.jpg photo by Amy Youngs.

An aerial photo taken on August 3rd of fracking operations in Texas has caused a rumble online, drawing 20,000 views on the photo sharing site, Flckr.

The photo, posted by Amy Youngs, carries the inscription:

Saw these strange new human-made landscapes on my flight from Sacramento to Houston. Not farming, not subdivisions, but many miles of rectangular patches etched out of the earth, some with pools next to them, all with roads to them. I doubt that people see these when driving on major roads – I never have – but they were very visible from a plane. Welcome to your new landscape!

Modern-day hydraulic fracturing was first developed in Texas’ Barnett Shale. As of 2011, the state led the nation with over 100,00 gas wells – many of which have involved fracking in recent years. The water-intensive process is being questioned as Texas faces drought conditions.

See an interactive image of the above fracking operations in google maps.

http://www.popularresistance.org/amazing-birds-eye-view-of-texas-fracking/

"Jellyfish taking over oceans, experts warn"

(CNN) -- 

"Jellyfish and tourism are not happy bedfellows," says Dr. Lisa-Ann Gershwin, author of the recently published book, "Stung! On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean."

Gershwin says popular beach resorts around the world are seeing huge increases in jellyfish "bloom" activity, a result of overfishing and changing water temperatures.

"The French and Spanish Rivieras, Chesapeake Bay, the Great Barrier Reef, Hawaii ... some of the numbers are staggering," says the American scientist who's now based in Australia.

"In Hawaii there have been times that 800 or 1,000 people have been stung in a day. In Spain or Florida, it's not uncommon in recent years for a half a million people to be stung during an outbreak. These numbers are simply astonishing."

At the beginning of October, a large amount of jellyfish inhabiting a cooling-water intake at a Swedish nuclear plant caused operators to manually shut down production at its largest reactor.

Jellyfish prompt nuclear shutdown

In Ireland, a jellyfish bloom reportedly killed thousands of farmed salmon, according to the Irish Times.

This past summer, southern Europe experienced one of its worst jellyfish infestations ever. Experts there have been reporting a steady increase in the number of jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea for years.

According to a report titled "Review of Jellyfish Blooms in the Mediterranean and Black Sea," written by Fernando Borea for the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean and the United Nations, scientists are catching up to what travelers in the Med have been experiencing for years.

"In the last decade ... the media are reporting on an increasingly high number of gelatinous plankton blooms," reads the report. "The reason for these reports is that thousands of tourists are stung, fisheries are harmed and even impaired by jellyfish."

Although noting that significant jellyfish blooms "have been known since ancient times and are part of the normal functioning of the oceans," the report cites global warming and global overfishing (which removes jellyfish predators) as causes for exploding jellyfish populations in recent years.

The situation in the Mediterranean was dire enough to prompt Britain's foreign office to issue a warning to its citizens vacationing along Europe's southern coast to watch out for jellyfish.

There are more than 2,000 species of jellyfish swimming through the world's waters.

Most stings are completely harmless. Some will leave you in excruciating pain.

Then there are the killers.

Many of the world's deadliest jellyfish are box jellyfish, which refers to the species' cube-shaped meduae.

"There are several species of big box jellyfish that have caused many deaths -- these include chironex fleckeri in Australia, chironex quadrigatus in Japan and related species in Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia," says associate professor Jamie Seymour, a venom biologist at Australia's James Cook University.

Also known as the sea wasp and the northern Australian box jellyfish, the chironex fleckeri is possibly the worlds most venomous animal.

Its tentacles can reach lengths of up to three meters long, while its bell is about the size of a human head. It can be found throughout the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific.

A close cousin and fellow contender for the "world's most venomous" cup is the Irukandji, which is the size of a thimble.

Good luck scanning the waters for that one before you leap in.

"How toxic they are is just phenomenally frightening and equally fascinating," says Gershwin.

"Just the lightest brush -- you don't even feel it -- and then, whammo, you're in more pain than you ever could have imagined, and you are struggling to breathe and you can't move your limbs and you can't stop vomiting and your blood pressure just keeps going up and up.

"It is really surprising how many places they occur around the world -- places you would never expect: Hawaii, Caribbean, Florida, Wales, New Caledonia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, India ... as well as Australia."

Asian giant hornets and other terrifying creatures

Is any place safe?

"More and more, places around the world that are suffering from jellyfish problems with tourists are developing prediction systems so that tourists can know when it is safe," says Gershwin.

The irony, she says, is that tourists who avoid an area because of the known risk may alter their plans to hit a "safe" beach whose officials are merely less up front about the jellyfish situation, putting themselves more at risk.

A common misconception is that places such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are free of dangerous jellyfish.

"Jellyfish occur in all marine waters from pole to pole and at all depths," says Gershwin. "The life threatening ones are found from about 40 degrees north to 40 degrees south latitude.

"Australia is upfront about its jellyfish dangers, and also assertive in safety management, whereas other places have them, but may understand less about them or, in some cases, just don't want to say. I think tourists need to be very aware of local hazards and not expect to necessarily be provided with information."

"Economists Forecast the End of Growth as We Know It..."

From The Guardian / By Nafeez Ahmed

Unlimited GDP growth is over as we enter a new age of resource scarcity - we must transition to a new economy.

The last few weeks has seen bad news for the global economy, with the US and Europe facing growth slowdowns, and even much vaunted economic powerhouses Brazil, Russia, India and China faltering unexpectedly. While mainstream economists continue to predict an ongoing 'recovery', other leading experts point to the end of growth as we know it for the foreseeable future.

Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed its quarterly forecasts for global GDP growth from 3.3% to 3.1%, and revised down growth estimates for other major powers. The US forecast was downgraded from 1.9% to 1.7%, and Europe is expected to contract 0.6% rather than the originally estimated 0.3%. The IMF also downgraded growth forecasts for 2014.

Against this background, evidence has emerged that the era of booming economic growth is over, and that we are entering an age of permanently slow growth - at best.

A new paper in the journal International Productivity Monitor finds that underlying the US recession is a long-term decline in productivity growth, interrupted briefly by the "dot.com revolution" for eight years, followed by a slump "to 1.47 in the past eight years."

Study author US economist Prof Robert J Gordon of Northeastern University concludes:

"... we face a significant possibility that the disposable income growth for the bottom 99% of the income distribution could be as low as 0.5% per year, or perhaps even 0.2%."

This conclusion complements Gordon's previous prediction last year that by 2100, the US economy would return to an annual growth rate of 0.2%. He describes the second industrial revolution as the core driver behind rocketing growth experienced over the last 250 years, noting that the main factor behind the continuing slump since 1970 - escalating over "the last eight years", was a lack of sufficient industrial innovation capable of fundamentally "changing labour productivity or the standard of living."

He argued:

"Future growth in real GDP per capita will be slower than in any extended period since the late 19th century."

The "headwinds" holding growth back include key economic issues such as "rising inequality", the "end of the 'demographic dividend'", the "overhang of consumer and government debt", as well as "the consequences of environmental regulations and taxes that will make growth harder to achieve than a century ago."

While Prof Gordon has his naysayers, his outlook is surprisingly corroborated by other experts. HSBC Group chief economist Stephen D. King's new book, When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence, portends how the age of high economic growth will never return, largely due to the "exhaustion of various one-off productivity gains that boosted growth after World War II" and "a tripling in rates of consumer credit founded on an unsustainable increase in housing prices", among other factors. King disagrees with Gordon's worst-case scenarios, but agrees that the dividends that made high growth possible in the past appear largely "unrepeatable."

Last month, King and HSBC also slashed their global growth forecasts for 2013 from 2.2% to 2.0%, which they explained was due to unexpected slowdowns in emerging markets.

These downgrades are yet another example of the failure of mainstream economic models to keep up with the real nature and pace of global economic deterioration. Indeed, missing from the above analyses is recognition of a central factor: that the productivity gains driving industrial growth were enabled by the abundance of cheap fossil fuelsand other resources.

In his latest newsletter, legendary fund manager Jeremy Grantham - who made billions predicting every major stock market bubble of recent decades - warns that cheap resources are history:

"Our global economy, reckless in its use of all resources and natural systems, shows many of the indicators of potential failure that brought down so many civilisations before ours."

Industrial civilisation is currently "completely dependent on the availability of cheap energy." Therefore, resource depletion combined with "the wild cards of rising temperatures, slowly rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and, above all, destabilised weather for farming" could lead to "a rolling collapse of much of civilisation" - unless the world embarks on a "Manhattan project level of commitment" to transition to an alternative energy and agricultural system.  

However, Grantham now highlights two trends that could facilitate the transition to a more stable economy - declining fertility rates and the rise of renewable energy. Garnering data over the last 40 years, he demonstrates a "remarkable drop in fertility" in the US, Europe, the richer East Asian countries including China, and even South Asia and Africa. According to the more optimistic end of UN projections, if such trends continue global population would peak at 8 million by 2050 before declining to near 6 billion by 2100 - a process which could be sped up with appropriate policy measures.

Simultaneously, Grantham argues we may be on the cusp of "a great technological leap that for the first time is accompanied by less energy use – the technologies of solar, wind power, and other alternatives as well as electric grid efficiencies and improved energy storage." By 2025 to 2030, he observes:

"Both solar and wind power are likely to be cheaper than coal... once the capital is found and the project is built, a wind or solar farm delivers far cheaper energy than a coal-fired utility plant, at around one-third of the marginal cost of coal."

He estimates that "nonrenewable energy" could be completely replaced by renewables "in 30 to 50 years", during which the new technologies will become increasingly cheap and efficient.

But Grantham still concurs that these developments cannot herald a return to the era of high growth, although they might smooth the way toward a new economy that is "less overreaching, less hubristic, a lot humbler about growth and our use of resources, and more determined to live in balance with the natural energy we receive from the sun and the heat, food, and water with which we can sustainably be provided."

" Extreme Jet Stream Bringing U.S. Record Heat, Record Cold, and Flash Flooding"

Here is the Midwest - we are having quite the pleasant summer - unusually so. Relatively cool, low humid, rather rainy - good for the gardens, good for having the windows open.

By Dr. Jeff Masters - From the WeatherUnderground:
"The jet steam is exhibiting unusual behavior over the U.S., a pattern we've seen become increasingly common in summertime over the past decade. There's a sharp trough of low pressure over the Central U.S., and equally sharp ridges of high pressure over the Western U.S. and East Coast. Since the jet acts as the boundary between cool, Canadian air to the north and warm, subtropical air to the south, this means that hot extremes are penetrating unusually far to the north under the ridges of high pressure, and cold extremes are extending unusually far to the south under the trough of low pressure." 


"The ridge over the Western U.S., though slowly weakening, is still exceptionally intense. This ridge, which on Sunday brought Earth its highest temperatures in a century (129°F or 54°C in Death Valley, California), was responsible for more record-breaking heat on Tuesday. July 2. Most notably, Redding, California hit 116°, just 2° short of their all-time record. Death Valley had a low of 104°, the second hottest night on record since 1920 (the hottest was just last summer!) Numerous daily high temperature records were set in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. It was the opposite story in the Central U.S., where the southwards-plunging jet stream allowed record cold air to invade Texas. Waco, Texas, hit 58°F this morning (July 3), the coldest temperature ever measured in July in the city. Numerous airports in Texas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, and Missouri set new daily record low temperatures this morning. And over the Eastern U.S., the northward-pointing branch of the jet stream is creating a potentially dangerous flooding situation, by pulling a moisture-laden flow of tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico over the Florida Panhandle north-northeastward into the Appalachians. Up to five inches of rain is expected over this region over the next few days, and wunderground's severe weather map is showing flash flood warnings for locations in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina."

Heat Records Broken in Alaska

From Climate Central:

A massive dome of high pressure, sometimes referred to as a "heat dome," has set up shop over Alaska, bringing all-time record temperatures just a few weeks after parts of the state had a record cold start to spring. In some cases, towns in Alaska were warmer on Monday and Tuesday than most locations in the lower 48 states.

Forecast temperature anomalies on June 19 from the GFS computer model.
Click image to enlarge. Credit: WeatherBell.com.

For example, Talkeetna set an all-time high temperature record of 96°F on Monday, smashing its previous mark of 91°F set a day earlier, and previously set in June of 1969. In fact, it was warmer in Talkeetna, which is about 110 miles north of Anchorage, than it was in Miami, based on data from the National Weather Service (NWS). (As Weather Underground's Christopher Burt notes, there was an unofficial observation of 98°F on Monday, which would rank among the hottest all-time temperature records for the state.)

In Valdez, which sits along the cool waters of Prince William Sound, the temperature reached a remarkable 90°F Monday, beating the previous all-time mark of 87°F. And in Seward, another coastal port, the temperature hit 88°F, breaking the previous all-time high of 87°F that was set on July 4, 1999.

Extreme heat was also felt across the interior of Alaska, where hot temperatures are expected to continue this week until the large high pressure area, or ridge in the jet stream, weakens and moves away. The heat, combined with low relative humidity and the chance for thunderstorms, is raising the risk of wildfires across parts of Alaska.

A map of the upper level air flow at about 18,000 feet. The bright red area over Alaska corresponds to an unusually strong area of High Pressure bringing warmer-than-average temperatures.
Credit: WeatherBell.com.

Alaska is one of the fastest-warming states in the U.S., largely because the nearby Arctic region is warming rapidly in response to manmade global warming and natural variability. In recent years, Alaska has had to content with large wildfires, melting permafrost, and reduced sea ice, among other climate-related challenges.

"Severe flooding inundates parts of Central Europe"

An aerial view of the flooding in Passau, Germany, 03 June 2013. The floodings in Bavaria continue to worsen. (Peter Kneffel – AP)

From the Washington Post:
The village of Aschau, Bavaria recorded an impressive 405.1 mm of rainfall (15.9 inches) in just four days, of which 6.71” fell in 24 hours

Large areas of central Europe are experiencing their worst flooding in decades after heavy rainfall last week pushed rivers beyond their banks.

At least 21 people have died across Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, and thousands have been forced to evacuate their inundated homes. Preliminary estimates suggest the flooding has caused several billion dollars in damage.

In Passau, Germany – along the confluence of the Danube and Inn rivers – floodwaters rose to their highest levels in over 500 years. The city declared a state of emergency after swollen rivers cut off outside road access. Soldiers from the German army are being sent to flooded areas in southeastern Germany to provide disaster relief.

An aerial view of flood water in the city of Melk, Lower Austria, Austria, 03 June 2013. (Roland Schlager – EPA)

A expansive area of low pressure parked over eastern Europe is to blame for the excessive rainfall. Warm, moist Mediterranean air colliding with colder Atlantic air was lifted over the north side of the Alps. A stationary front then formed, bringing an extended period of unsettled weather.

While this pattern setup is not unusual in the central Alps, the amount of precipitation measured in some locations was historically significant.



Rainfall totals (in millimeters) recorded across Austria and southeastern Germany, May 30 – June 3. (Austrian Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics)

Massive tornado - Moore, Oklahoma

A woman carries a child through a tornado-ravaged neighborhood in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

Massive tornado rips through Moore, Oklahoma

A devastating, mile-wide tornado touched down near Oklahoma City on Monday, killing dozens of people—including children—decimating homes, businesses and a pair of elementary schools in the suburb of Moore.

The tornado left a debris field 20 miles long and several miles wide. According to the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla., the tornado was on the ground for approximately 40 minutes, and a tornado warning was in effect for 16 minutes before the twister developed.

Weather officials estimated the strength of the storm to be an F4 or F5 on the Fujita Scale—the highest rating a tornado can achieve. The National Weather Service said the tornado's preliminary classification was an F4, with winds up to 200 mph.

The devastated area was an estimated 30 square miles.

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24 people killed, 377 injured.

CO2 Concentrations Reach 400 PPM Milestone

May 10, 2013 From NOAA.gov Contact: John Ewald, 240-429-6127 NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory after a snowstorm. Courtesy of Mary Miller, Exploratorium On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958. Independent measurements made by both NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been approaching this level during the past week. It marks an important milestone becauseMauna Loa, as the oldest continuous carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement station in the world, is the primary global benchmark site for monitoring the increase of this potent heat-trapping gas. Carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning and other human activities is the most significant greenhouse gas (GHG) contributing to climate change. Its concentration has increased every year since scientists started making measurements on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano more than five decades ago. The rate of increase has accelerated since the measurements started, from about 0.7 ppm per year in the late 1950s to 2.1 ppm per year during the last 10 years. “That increase is not a surprise to scientists,” said NOAA senior scientist Pieter Tans, with the Global Monitoring Division of NOAA’sEarth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. “The evidence is conclusive that the strong growth of global CO2 emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is driving the acceleration.”  Before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, global average CO2 was about 280 ppm. During the last 800,000 years, CO2 fluctuated between about 180 ppm during ice ages and 280 ppm during interglacial warm periods. Today’s rate of increase is more than 100 times faster than the increase that occurred when the last ice age ended. NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Thursday, levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began in 1958. Pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels were 280 parts per million. Mauna Kea is in the background. NOAA photo. It was researcher Charles David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, who began measuring carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa in 1958, initiating now what is known as the “Keeling Curve.” His son, Ralph Keeling, also a geochemist at Scripps, has continued the Scripps measurement record since his father’s death in 2005. “There’s no stopping CO2 from reaching 400 ppm,” said Ralph Keeling. “That’s now a done deal. But what happens from here on still matters to climate, and it’s still under our control. It mainly comes down to how much we continue to rely on fossil fuels for energy.” NOAA scientists with the Global Monitoring Division have made around-the-clock measurements there since 1974. Having two programs independently measure the greenhouse gas provides confidence that the measurements are correct. Moreover, similar increases of CO2 are seen all over the world by many international scientists. NOAA, for example, which runs a global, cooperative air sampling network, reported last year that all Arctic sites in its network reached 400 ppm for the first time. These high values were a prelude to what is now being observed at Mauna Loa, a site in the subtropics, this year. Sites in the Southern Hemisphere will follow during the next few years. The increase in the Northern Hemisphere is always a little ahead of the Southern Hemisphere because most of the emissions driving the CO2 increase take place in the north. Once emitted, CO2 added to the atmosphere and oceans remains for thousands of years. Thus, climate changes forced by CO2 depend primarily on cumulative emissions, making it progressively more and more difficult to avoid further substantial climate change.