Viral Mapping
May 2, 2009
Swine flu, aka A (H1N1) and North American influenza.
Timeline
1994 Smithfield Foods Inc. who own half of the Granjas Carroll de Mexico, began operating pig farms in the region By the time of the pandemic in March 2009, they were the major producer in the country, with 907 workers, 500,000 thousand pigs in developing states of Veracruz and Puebla. Their website from their headquarters in Perote, Mexico claimed that they 56,000 sows in 2008 producing 950,000 hogs. They are 12 such mega farms surrounding La Gloria, Mexico, a hillside hamlet of c. 3,000 people in the located in the municipality of Perote, Veracruz. Residents of La Gloria, Mexico have long complained that some of the pits that hold pig waste are not properly lined; they fear their groundwater is contaminated. They’re frustrated and angry, too, about the stench and the swarms of flies that invade their village. Granjas Carroll de Mexico, half-owned by U.S.-based Smithfield Foods Inc., operates dozens of farms around La Gloria.
2009-02 In the end of February in La Gloria, Mexico, a hillside hamlet of c. 3,000 people in the located in the municipality of Perote, Veracruz, many people became ill with symptoms similar to a bad cold.
2009-03-18 Mexican government reported an unusually high level of flu-like illnesses.
2009-03-23 Veracruz health officials arrived in La Gloria, Mexico to take saliva samples. About a third of some 1,300 townspeople who sought medical attention – 450 or so – were diagnosed with acute respiratory infections and given surgical masks and antibiotics. (Washington Post).
Edgar fell ill a bit later; the energetic 5-year-old retreated to his bed with a high fever. Other kids in his school already were sick.
2009-03
2009-04-12 “By early April, the Veracruz government notified Mexican authorities of a possible flu outbreak in La Gloria. This alert happened to come around Holy Week, a time when lots of people in this largely Catholic country travel to visit family. On April 12, Mexican health authorities notified the CDC and the Pan American Health Organization of the unexplained cases of severe respiratory illness. One day later, people started dying (Cohen and Rodriguez 2009-05-01).”
2009-04-13 Adela Maria Gutierrez, a 38-year-old mother of three, was the first to die of H1N1 influenza virus. She had “arrived at a hospital in Oaxaca, in far southern Mexico, gasping for air, her oxygen-starved hands and legs a ghastly shade of blue. Her death was not just tragic, but alarming: Gutierrez had worked door-to-door for Mexico’s tax collection agency, interviewing scores of people. As it turns out, one of her co-workers, a temporary employee, was from Veracruz, the state on the Gulf of Mexico where the first swine case was confirmed. Family members said that woman had a bad cough (Cohen and Rodriguez 2009-05-01).”
2009-04-12 First two cases of A (H1N1) in California BBC 2009 Outbreak Map.
2009-04-25 “A day after seven new cases are confirmed in the US, the World Health Organization declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. From April 17-25 1, 455 cases of suspected A (H1N1) flu investigated. BBC 2009 Outbreak Map.
2009-04-26 Canada had 6 confirmed cases of A (H1N1); US had 20; Mexico had 18 BBC 2009 Outbreak Map.
2009-04-28 Confirmed cases of A (H1N1): UK had 2, Spain had 2, US had 64; New Zealand had 3; Mexico had 20. BBC 2009 Outbreak Map.
2009-04-29 Confirmed cases of A (H1N1): Canada: 13; UK:5 (London, Polmont, Redditch, Paignton); Israel:2; Spain:10; US:91; New Zealand:3; Austria:1; Germany:3; Mexico: 26. Deaths caused by A (H1N1) Mexico: 7; US:1; BBC 2009 Outbreak Map.
2009-05-01 Confirmed cases of A (H1N1): Canada: 35; UK:10; Israel:2; Spain:13; US:109; New Zealand:4; Austria:1; Germany:4; Mexico: 300; Peru:1; Costa Rica:2; Netherlands:1; Switzerland:1; Hong Kong:1. Deaths caused by A (H1N1) Mexico: 12; US:1. The UK, US, Canada, Spain, Germany confirm cases of secondary transmission. BBC 2009 Outbreak Map.
2009-05 “Influenza A(H1N1) – update 8.1. 1 May 2009 — “The situation continues to evolve. As of 23:30 GMT, 1 May 2009, 13 countries have officially reported 367 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection. The United States Government has reported 141 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death. Mexico has reported 156 confirmed human cases of infection, including nine deaths. The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths – Austria (1), Canada (34), China, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region (1), Denmark (1), Germany (4), Israel (2), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (8). Further information on the situation will be available on the WHO website on a regular basis. WHO advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders. It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities. There is also no risk of infection from this virus from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products. Individuals are advised to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water on a regular basis and should seek medical attention if they develop any symptoms of influenza-like illness.”
2009-05-01 “Swine flu has been confirmed in 16 deaths, all from Mexico (one Mexican toddler died in Houston). It has sickened nearly 350 people in Mexico, and about 200 others from New York to New Zealand, including children, teens, adults, students and tourists. It has rattled the world’s financial markets, pushed oil prices down, caused a run on surgical masks and hand sanitizers, closed schools and churches, postponed sporting events, prompted travel bans, rerouted cruise ships(Cohen and Rodriguez 2009-05-01).”
Webliography
BBC. 2009. Outbreak Map.
Cohen, Sharon; Rodriguez, Olga R. 2009-05-01. “How swine flu virus hopscotched the globe.” Washington Post
WHO. 2009-05-01-23:30 GMT. “Influenza A(H1N1) Update 8.1.
CBC Recycles Anti-recycling Arguments
April 14, 2009
Anti-recyclers like the Cato Institute’s Grant Schaumberg, Katherine Doyle (1991), James DeLong of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (1994), Lynn Scarlett (1995) of the Reason Foundation, Jeff Bailey (1995) of the Wall Street Journal, Alan Caruba (2003-01), Daniel K. Benjamin (2003) of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), John Tierney (1996), J. Winston Porter of the Waste Policy Center in Leesburg, Va., Libertarian Michael Mungerar (2007) and La Giorgia (2009-01) argue that “the market” should determine what if anything is recycled. Anti-recycler Tierney claimed that the well-publicized 1000s-of-miles journey of the Mobro 4000, a barge carrying Long Islanders’ trash, trying to unload its cargo, incited a garbage guilt epidemic among Americans. He like other anti-recyclers, also claimed that the garbage crisis that emerged from this image continues today under false pretenses: there is no shortage of environmentally safe landfill sites; curbside recycling rarely pays for itself in direct returns; recycling is not economically efficient. (Tierney 1996-06-30)
Recycling advocates Richard A. Denison and John F. Ruston (1996) of the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, DC argue that the think tanks quoted by the anti-recyclers such as The Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute (both based in Washington DC), the Reason Foundation (based in Santa Monica, CA) and the Waste Policy Center (based in Leesburg, VA) that tend to promote market interests over the state, minimal government intervention in general and government programs of any kind. At least some of these think tanks accept funding from companies involved in “solid waste collection, landfilling and incineration, the manufacturing of products from virgin materials, and the production and sale of packaging and consumer products. Many of the corporations that fund the anti-recyclers have a direct economic stake in maintaining the waste management status quo and in minimizing consumers’ scrutiny of the environmental effects of products and packaging.” (Denison and Ruston 1996-07-18)
Timeline
1960s A political movement to save the environment emerged called the greening of America
1960s Martin Lapierre’s father founded Profix Environnement, an industrial collector of corrugated cardboard based in Laval, Quebec by collecting used boxes and selling them back to manufacturers for reprocessing. Martin, who inherited the business estimated that the cardboard the firm has recycled over the years has saved at least 750,000 trees (”(La Giorgia 2009-04-09).
1970-04-22 20 million people celebrated the first Earth Day in the United States.
1970-04-22 United Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
1972 the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth arguing that the American way of life was not sustainable.
1980 Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana was formed by a group of economists claiming dedication to improving environmental quality through markets and property rights through research and outreach education. Research is at the heart of PERC’s work followed by outreach and education. PERC claims to have pioneered the approach known as free market environmentalism (FME).
1987 A barge named the Mobro 4000 wandered thousands of miles trying to unload its cargo of Long Islanders’ trash, and its journey had a strange effect on America.” Anti-recycler Tierney claimed that the garbage crisis that emerged from this image continues today under false pretenses. He also claimed that there is no shortage of environmentally safe landfill sites. (Tierney 1996-06-30)
1987 America devised a national five-year plan for trash. The Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a “Waste Hierarchy” that ranked trash disposal options: recycling at the top, composting and waste-to-energy incinerators in the middle, landfills at the bottom. The E.P.A.’s five-year goal, to recycle 25 percent of municipal trash, was announced in a speech in early 1988 by J. Winston Porter, an assistant administrator of the agency. Even as Porter was setting the goal, he realized that it was presumptuous for a bureaucrat in Washington to tell everyone in America what to do with their trash. “After all the publicity about the barge,” Porter recalls, “I sat down with some engineers in my office to estimate how much municipal waste could be recycled. At that time, about 10 percent was being recycled. We looked at the components of waste, made a few quick calculations and figured that it was reasonable to reach a level of 25 percent within five years. It wasn’t a highly quantified thing. Some of the staff didn’t even want me to mention a figure. But I thought it would be good to set a target, as long as it was strictly voluntary and didn’t involve a lot of regulations.” Politicians across the country had bigger ideas. State and city officials enacted laws mandating recycling and setting arbitrary goals even higher than the E.P.A.’s. Most states set rigid quotas, typically requiring that at least 40 percent of trash be recycled, often even more-50 percent in New York and California, 60 percent in New Jersey, 70 percent in Rhode Island. Industries were pressured to set their own goals. Municipalities followed the Waste Hierarchy by building waste-to-energy incinerators and starting thousands of curbside recycling programs-all in the belief that it would be cheaper than landfilling. But the incinerators turned out to be disastrously expensive, and the recycling programs produced a glut of paper, glass and plastic that no one wanted to buy.” (Tierney 1996-06-30)
1989 J. Winston Porter left the Environmental Protection Agency and became president of a consulting firm, the Waste Policy Center in Leesburg, Va. By 1996 he was advising cities and states to abandon their unrealistic goals of recycling and he “ridiculed EPA policies he had helped implement saying, “People in New York and other places are tilting at recycling windmills. [...] There aren’t many more materials in garbage that are worth recycling.” (Tierney 1996-06-30)
1991-09 anti-recyclers, Grant Schaumberg and Katherine Doyle, “Wasting Resources to Reduce Waste: Recycling in New Jersey,” Washington DC: Cato Institute,
1994-01-26 James DeLong, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington said, “The solution to the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) non-crisis is to recognize that trash disposal is a commodity, like coal or asparagus, and to treat it accordingly. The government could establish a few rules to avoid externalities and cost shifting, and then let the free market work. Operating within this framework, waste disposal companies, truckers, railroads, municipal officials, recyclers, waste generators and others could all perform their receptive functions. The result would be a complex amalgam of regional landfills, short- and long-haul transportation by truck and rail, incineration, recycling, and source reduction. In a few years people would wonder what all the shouting was about.”
1995 anti-recycler, Jeff Bailey, “Curbside Recycling Comforts the Soul, But Benefits are Scant,” Wall Street Journal,
1995-01-19 anti-recycler Lynn Scarlett (Reason Foundation) “A Consumer’s Guide to Environmental Myths and Realities,” Dallas, TX: National Center for Policy Analysis,
2002 “The continuing dialogue about recycling is well illustrated by the February 2002 response of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC)—one of many groups formed around this issue—to the white paper put out by the EPA. The NRC finds much to approve of in the EPA recommendations but returns to the fundamental issue of sustainability: can we go on producing and consuming and disposing of material goods at an ever-increasing rate?”
2003-09 Daniel K. Benjamin published the report entitled Recycling Rubbish: Eight Great Myths about Waste Disposal with Property and Environment Research Center.
2009-04-09 “From last year’s peak, prices [for recyclable material] have dropped 50 to 90 per cent,” said Mairi Welman of the Recycling Council of British Columbia (RCBC), a group of government and industry members with a stake in recycling ( “(La Giorgia 2009-04-09).
2009-01 Profix Environnement, an industrial collector of corrugated cardboard based in Laval, Quebec was struggling to survive as the price of cardboard dropped to zero (”(La Giorgia 2009-04-09).
2009 Quebec promised $4.8 million in loan guarantees to support its recycling industry, as well as legislation allowing recycling companies and municipalities to renegotiate contracts (”(La Giorgia 2009-04-09).
Webliography and Bibliography
DeLong, James V. 1994-01-26. “Wasting Away; Mismanaging Municipal Solid Waste.” Competitive Enterprise Institute Monograph.
Denison, Richard A.; Ruston, John F. 1996-07-18. “Anti-Recycling Myths Commentary on ‘Recycling is Garbage‘”.
La Giorgia, Giancarlo. 2009-04-09. “No cents in recycling as economy kills demand for material.” CBC News.
Munger, Michael. 2007-07-02. “Think Globally, Act Irrationally: Recycling.” July 2, 2007. Library of Economics and Liberty. Accessed 2009-04-13.
Tierney, John. 1996-06-30. “Recycling is Garbage.” New York Times Magazine.
Benjamin, Daniel K. 2003-09. Recycling Rubbish: Eight Great Myths about Waste Disposal PERC Reports: 21:3.
Caruba, Alan. 2003-01. “The Utter Waste of Recycling.”
1982 Household debt in the U.S. — the money owed as individuals was c. 60% of income in 1982.
1995- 2000 Phil Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee; he was “Washington’s most prominent and outspoken champion of financial deregulation (Time 2009-04-07).”
1998 Powerful lobby groups comprising hedge funds and the banking sector including investment banks defeated Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposal to regulate the burgeoning derivatives market (Kiviat 2008-09-23).
1999 Phil Gramm “played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street (Time 2009-04-07).”
2000 Phil Gramm ”inserted a key provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Credit-default swaps took down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far (Time Special 2009-04-07).”
Early 2000s Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, brought in “super-low interest rates”. His assertive insistence on deregulation along with the easy access to credit are now considered to be leading causes of the mortgage crisis (Time Special 2009-04-07).
2005 Christopher Cox became chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under his direction the SEC did not insist on greater disclosure of big investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.
2006 Hank Paulson left the top job at Goldman Sachs to become Treasury Secretary. In 2008 during the last year of the Bush Administration, he single-handedly ran the country’s economic policy. Time argued that he was late in battling the financial crisis; he let Lehman Brothers fail; he pushed the big bailout bill through Congress (Time Special 2009-04-07).
2007 Household debt in the U.S. increased to more than 130% of income in 2007. Time magazine special report on the financial crisis lays blame on American consumer enjoyed living beyond their means and becoming dependent on credit.
2008-10 Alan Greenspan admitted in a US “congressional hearing that he had “made a mistake in presuming” that financial firms could regulate themselves (Time Special 2009-04-07).”
For more see “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis” Time Magazine.
Kiviat, Barbara. 2008-09-23. “How Much is the SEC’s Cox to Blame?” Time Magazine.
Mapping Ice Melting
April 6, 2009
This post on mapping ice melting, which is part of an ongoing mapping memory project by a bricoleuse, is updated beyond its first publication date, April 6, 2009, as new satellite images become available from the European Space Agency, British Antarctic Survey, Arctic Council etc. The post includes a time line of melting ice, a customized Google Map and a webliography. Effort is made to use the semantic web to its fullest through attentive folksonomy.
University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, explained (2008-11-26),
“Ice thickness, its spatial extent, and the fraction of open water within the ice pack can vary rapidly and profoundly in response to weather and climate. Sea ice typically covers about 14 to 16 million square kilometers in late winter in the Arctic and 17 to 20 million square kilometers in the Antarctic Southern Ocean. On average, the seasonal decrease is much larger in the Antarctic, with only about three to four million square kilometers remaining at summer’s end, compared to approximately seven million square kilometers in the Arctic. Over the past several years, Arctic minima have been only four to six million square kilometers. [
Maps of late winter and late summer ice cover in the the Arctic and Antarctica] … The interaction between sea ice loss and ice shelf retreat merits careful study because many ice shelves are fed by glaciers. When an ice shelf disintegrates, the glacier feeding it often accelerates. Because glacier acceleration introduces a new ice mass into the ocean, it can raise ocean level. So while sea ice melt does not directly lead to sea level rise, it could contribute to other processes that do, both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Glacier acceleration has already been observed on the Antarctic Peninsula, although the accelerating glaciers in that region have so far had a negligible effect on ocean level NASA. 2009-04-21). .”
Scientists commonly divide the sea ice pack around Antarctica into five sectors: the Weddell Sea, the Indian Ocean, the western Pacific Ocean, the Ross Sea, and the Bellingshausen/Amundsen seas. In some sectors, it is common for nearly all the sea ice to melt in the summer… [U]nlike the Arctic, where the downward trend is consistent in all sectors, in all months, and in all seasons, the Antarctic picture is more complex. Based on data from 1979-2006, the annual trend for four of the five individual sectors was a very small positive one, but only in the Ross Sea was the increase statistically significant (greater than the natural year-to-year variability). On the other hand, ice extent decreased in the Bellingshausen/Amundsen Sea sector during the same period NASA. 2009-04-21).“
The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a plate of floating ice on the western Antarctic Peninsula connecting to two islands, Charcot and Latady was very stable since the 1930s but began retreating in the 1990s. Since the late 1950s average temperatures have risen by half a degree Celsius a decade (ESA 2007) making the continent one of the fastest warming places on earth. Six of its ice shelves already completely collapsed: Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf (BBC 2009-04-05).
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is monitored by the European Space Agency and the British Antarctic Survey. In 2008 a c. 400 km² broke off from the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The bridge between Charcot and Latady islands was narrowed down by May, 2008 to just 2.7 km.
See also
In early April 2009 the thin ice bridge, which served to protect thousands of kilometres of Wilkins Ice Shelf from further break-up, snapped.
See NASA April 7, 2009 images and description
2009-04-07 “The Obama administration on Monday called for enhanced protection of the Earth’s polar regions, proposing mandatory limits on Antarctic tourism and urging increased research in Antarctica and in the Arctic. Opening a conference of parties to the Antarctic Treaty, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the recent collapse of an Antarctic ice bridge was a stark reminder that the poles were gravely threatened by climate change and human activity. She said the treaty, which also bans military use of the continent, could be a model for improved cooperation and coordination in the Arctic, which is not governed by a similar pact (AP 2009-04-07).”
View Larger Map |
The Wilkins Ice Shelf may be on the brink of breaking away as an ice bridge between Charcot and Latady Islands has just ruptured. |
Professor David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey said the breaking of the bridge had been anticipated for awhile and the collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf is likely to follow. “The fact that it’s retreating and now has lost connection with one of its islands is really a strong indication that the warming on the Antarctic is having an effect on yet another ice shelf.” more | (BBC 2009-04-05)
Timeline of melting ice
1956-1993 The Müller Ice Shelf was 80 sq km in 1956 and 49 sq km by 1993 (Ward 1995).
1970sRothera Research Station was opened 67° 34’ S, 68 ° 08’ W, Rothera Point, Adelaide Island, Antartica.
1970s The Jones Ice Shelf was 25 sq km in 1947 and had disappeared by 2003. “In recent decades, several ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have diminished in size as a result of climate warming. Using aerial photographic, satellite and survey data we document a similar retreat of Jones Ice Shelf, which was another small ice shelf on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. This ice shelf was roughly stable between 1947 and 1969, but in the early 1970s it began to retreat and had completely disappeared by early 2003. Jones Ice Shelf has two ice fronts only a few kilometres apart and its retreat provides a unique opportunity to examine how different ice fronts retreat when subjected to similar climate forcing. We mapped the retreat of both the east and west ice fronts of Jones Ice Shelf and found that, although individual episodes of retreat may be related to particularly warm summers, the overall progress of retreat of the two ice fronts has been rather different. This suggests that in this case the course of retreat is controlled by the geometry of the embayment and location of pinning points as well as climatic events (Fox and Vaughan 2005).”
1995 Larsen A broke off in 1995.
2002 A piece of ice that was sheered away from Larsen B roughly the size of Luxembourg represented the biggest for 10,000 years since the Ice Age. [...] “In March 2002, scientists announced the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula had entered a phase of rapid break-up with more than 50 billion tons of ice spilling into the Weddell Sea to form thousands of massive icebergs. It had been known for many years that the ice shelf was thinning and in retreat but the speed of its final collapse astonished scientists. It took just 35 days for the Larsen B ice shelf to fall away completely after a Nasa satellite detected the first ruptures in the 1,255 square miles of ice at the end of January 2002.”(Connor 2005-08-04)
2008-03-28 The European Space Agency captured these images of the break up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf:

ESA 2009-04-03 Wilkins Ice Shelf
2009-04-03

European Space Agency 2008-03-28 Wilkins Ice Shelf
2009-04-28 European Space Agency satellite images of the shelf show that in the third week in April 2009 alone, 370 sq km of the northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf shattered into its first mass of icebergs released into the ocean,” Angelika Humbert, glaciologist at the University of Muenster in Germany, reported to Reuters that “about 700 sq km of ice – bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York – has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs. [This is the most recent in a series of about 10 ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula to retreat in a trend linked by the UN Climate Panel to global warming. The new icebergs added to 330 sq kms of ice that broke up earlier this month with the shattering of an ice bridge apparently pinning the Wilkins in place between Charcot island and the Antarctic Peninsula. Nine other shelves - ice floating on the sea and linked to the coast - have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002. [Humbert had previously warned that once the ice bridge between Charcot and Latady islands off the Antarctic Peninsula collapsed (which happened earlier in April 2009) the Wilkins Ice Shelf could lose a total of 800 to 3,000 sq kms of area]. The Wilkins shelf has already shrunk by about a third from its original 16,000 sq kms when first spotted decades ago. [Because of the thickness of the ice on the Wilkens Ice Shelf it was estimated that it took at least hundreds of years to form.] (Reuters 2009-04-28) (Reuters 2009-04-28).”
Key words: polar regions ; Antarctica ; Atmosphere cryosphere interaction ; Glacier retreat ; Dynamical climatology ; Space remote sensing ; Antarctic Peninsula ; warming ; climate modification ; imagery ; Landsat satellite ; Satellite observation ; aerial photography ; Aerial survey ; monitoring ; Glacier variation ; Ice shelf ; ice caps ; Polar Cap ; Antarctica, climate change, global sea level, global warming, ice flow, Larsen Ice Shelf, melting, South Pole

wikipedia map antarctica
Webliography and Bibliography
AP. 2009. “U.S. Seeks Protection of Polar Areas.” New York Times.
BBC. 2009-04-05. “Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic
Connor, Steve. 2005-08-04. “Ice shelf collapse was biggest for 10,000 years since Ice Age.” The London Independent.
European Space Agency. 2007-03-02. “Earth from Space: Larsen-B Ice Shelf on thin ice.”
European Space Agency. 2008-03-28. “Earth from Space: Further break-up of Antarctic ice shelf“
European Space Agency. 2008-06-13. “Even the Antarctic winter cannot protect Wilkins Ice Shelf.”
European Space Agency. 2009-04-03. “Collapse of the ice bridge supporting Wilkins Ice Shelf appears imminent.”
Fox, Adrian J.; Vaughan, David G.. 2005. “The retreat of Jones Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula.” Journal of Glaciology. 51 (175). 555-560
NASA. 2009-04-21. Sea Ice Ebbs and Flows.
NASA. 2009-04-21. “Sea Ice Ebbs and Flows: Antarctica.“
Reuters. 2009-04-28. “New York-sized ice shelf collapses off Antarctica.” The Independent.
See also NASA webliography
References
Cavalieri, D. J., and C. L. Parkinson (2008). Antarctic sea ice variability and trends, 1979–2006, Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans. 113, C07004.
Comiso, J.C., Parkinson, C.L., Gersten, R., Stock, L. (2008). Accelerated decline in the Arctic sea ice cover. Geophysical Research Letters. 35, L01703.
de la Mare, W.K. (1997). Abrupt mid-twentieth-century decline in Antarctic sea-ice extent from whaling records. Nature. 389, 57-60.
Goosse, H., Lefebvre, W., de Montety, A., Crespin, E., and Orsi, A.H. (2008). Consistent past half-century trends in the atmosphere, the sea ice and the ocean at high southern latitudes. Climate Dynamics.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Summary for Policymakers. In:Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 7-22.
Mahoney, A.R., Barry, R.G., Smolyanitsky, V., Fetterer, F. (2008). Observed sea ice extent in the Russian Arctic, 1933–2006. Journal of Geophysical Research. 113, C11005.
Meier, W.N., Stroeve, J., Fetterer, F. (2007). Whither Arctic sea ice? A clear signal of decline regionally, seasonally, and extending beyond the satellite record. Annals of Glaciology. 46(1), 428-434.
National Snow and Ice Data Center:
All About Sea Ice. Accessed March 6, 2009.
Arctic Sea Ice Down to Second-Lowest Extent; Likely Record-Low Volume. Accessed March 6, 2009.
Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis. Accessed March 6, 2009.
Frequently Asked Questions about Sea Ice. Accessed February 4, 2009.
State of the Cryosphere. Accessed February 4, 2009.
Overland, J.E., Spillane, M.C., Percival, D.B., Wang, M., Mofjeld, H.O. (2004). Seasonal and regional variation of Pan-Arctic surface air temperature over the instrumental record. American Meteorological Society. 17(17), 3263-3282.
Parkinson, C.L. (1997). Earth from Above. University Science Books. Sausalito, California.
Parkinson, C.L. (2000). Recent trend reversals in arctic sea ice extents: possible connection to the north Atlantic oscillation. Polar Geography. 31(1-2), 3-14.
Parkinson, C.L., Cavalieri, D.J. (2008). Arctic sea ice variability and trends, 1979-2006. Journal of Geophysical Research. 113, C07003.
Raphael, M.N. (2007). The influence of atmospheric zonal wave three on Antarctic sea ice variability. Journal of Geophysical Research. 112, D12112.
Scambos, T.A., Bohlander, J.A., Shuman, C.A., Skvarca, P. (2004). Glacier acceleration and thinning after ice shelf collapse in the Larsen B embayment, Antarctica.Geophysical Research Letters. 31, L18402.
Schiermeier, Q. (2006). A sea change. Nature. 439, 256-260.
Serreze, M.C., Holland, M.K., Stroeve, J. (2007). Perspectives on the Arctic’s shrinking sea-ice cover. Science. 315(5818), 1533-1536.
Steig, E.J., Schneider, D.P., Rutherford, S.D., Mann, M.E., Comiso, J.C., Shindell, D.T. (2009). Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year. Nature. 457, 459-463.
Yuan, X. (2004). ENSO-related impacts on Antarctic sea ice: a synthesis of phenomenon and mechanisms. Antarctic Science. 16(4), 415-425.
Mapping Blue Gold
April 4, 2009
Timeline of events related to water resource management
1954 “Pickens, an AAPG member since 1954, was branded a corporate raider by newspapers, magazines, networks and opposing managements back in the 1980s when his firm, Mesa Petroleum, made hostile takeover bids for companies he felt were undervalued and mismanaged (source).”
1996 “The World Water Council (WWC) was established in 1996 in response to increasing concern from the global community about world water issues. Its mission is to promote awareness, build political commitment and trigger action on critical water issues at all levels, including the highest decision-making level, to facilitate the efficient management and use of water in all its dimensions and on an environmentally sustainable basis. The WWC has been granted special consultative status by UNESCO and ECOSOC.”
1997 The First World Water Forum was held in Morocco.
1999 T. Boone Pickens (who owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more) and a group of more than 100 landowners formed Mesa Water to develop groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer under Roberts County in the far northeastern Texas Panhandle.
2000 The Second World Water Forum was held in The Netherlands.
2000 “In 2000 the Pantanal, which has particular characteristics and species nonextant in other parts of Brazil, was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO). In the same year UNESCO also declared it part of the Natural Patrimony of Mankind. These two titles came at a critical moment, when various factors were jeopardizing the stability of the ecosystem, which contains the planet’s largest flood plain. According to the Ministry of Environment, the selection of world biosphere reserves depends upon their capacity to accommodate the conservation of biodiversity with the economic utilization of their resources on a sustainable development basis.”
2001 “Rules of Capture: In 1997 the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority announced it had purchased 43,000 acres of water rights in the area just south of Pickens’ ranch in Roberts County, Texas, and planned to develop the water field. Then, the city of Amarillo bought 71,000 acres of water adjacent to Pickens’ ranch, with plans to develop the resource in 25 years. “These developments got my attention,” Pickens recently told the EXPLORER. “The CRMWA and Amarillo basically put other landowners on notice they were going to start draining us. I felt we had no choice but to start selling our surplus water or lose it to drainage. “Under the rule of capture we would have no recourse to prevent CRMWA and Amarillo from draining the reservoir under our land.” In Texas all surface water is considered public, but groundwater is privately owned. Under the rule of capture a landowner can pump water without regard for his neighbors. The region of the Texas Panhandle that encompasses Roberts, Lipscomb, Hemphill and Ochiltree counties is one of the last remaining untapped portions of the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in the United States. In other regions — from just south of Lubbock all the way to the South Dakota border — the aquifer has been tapped for over 50 years, primarily for irrigation. This four-county section of the Texas Panhandle, however, is too rough to farm, and the aquifer has remained untouched. Of the total 2.22 million acres in the four counties, only about 100,000 acres have been irrigated. Initially, Pickens approached CRMWA, which provides water to 11 communities in the Texas Panhandle and south plains, and the city of Amarillo, and offered his water rights for sale as well. They declined, however, so Pickens then went to his neighbors to ask if they would join in his efforts to market and sell the water rights under their land. He formed Mesa Water Inc., and currently has about 150,000 acres with 3.3 million acre-feet of usable groundwater under lease — twice as much water as CRMWA and Amarillo. In addition to banning together with neighboring ranchers, Pickens has purchased an agency agreement covering 65,000 acres of land from Quixx, a subsidiary of Southwestern Public Service Company — the same firm that sold 43,000 acres of water rights to CRMWA. Under the agreement Pickens’ group will market water from the Quixx land. (source).”
2003 The Third World Water Forum was held in Japan.
2005-04 The Region C planning group, responsible for water planning for much of North Texas, added the Mesa Water project to its list of alternative supply sources. Mesa Water is also listed as a possible supply source for North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD), Dallas Water Utilities (DWU), Region L and San Antonio Water System (SAWS).
2006 The Fourth World Water Forum was held in Mexico (2006).
2005 “Paraguay and the United States: Improbable allies.” The Economist.
2005 “Since 2005 there have been allegations in the media that the U.S. planned to intervene in Cuidad del Este a Paraguayan city of about 200,000 people located in the tri-border area of Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and/or seeks to control the Guarani Aquifer, a large fresh-water reserve which lies beneath those countries. The United States claimed that its interest in Cuidad del Este is solely to support programs to create jobs in the formal sector there and that the United States has no interest in the Guarani Aquifer, which the U.S. government recognizes as an important resource for the inhabitants of the region (source).” The book and film Blue Gold were criticized by Michael E. Campana in WaterWired for the “Tenuous (really!) connection between possible Bush family land purchases in Paraguay and the taking of ground water from the Guaraní aquifer, the largest fresh ground water source in the world, and arguably the largest fresh unfrozen water body in the world. So how would the Bushes and/or the USA get the water from the aquifer to the USA?”
2005 “In December, 2005, Brazil’s Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, signed an act establishing the Pantanal Biosphere Reserve Management Council, charged with the task of formulating and monitoring an action plan for the reserve. The document was signed at the opening of the 2nd National Environmental Conference, which took place in Brasília, the Brazilian capital.”
2006 Fourth World Water Forum
2006-10-13 “The Prensa Latina paper reported that George W. Bush had purchased 98, 842 acres on the Acuifero Guarani in northern Paraguay, between Bolivia and Brazil. This news was also reported in Asuncion, Paraguay on Oct. 12, and by Upsidedownworld on Oct. 11. earlier George H.W. Bush purchased 173, 000 acres in Paso de Patria, the Chaco area of Paraguay. Jenna Bush has spent time in Paraguay as a representative of UNICEF. (source).”
2007 “Pickens was reported to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for allegedly destroying wetlands and taking water from the Canadian River through Mesa Vista Ranch’ water features including seven miles of water works that include small lakes and manmade streams. The case was dismissed. The first experimental creek was a PVC waterline buried in an area where experience had shown quail hunting to be sporadic. The year after the waterline was created, quail hunting in that area was consistently good. These days, Mesa Vista’s manmade “creeks” consist of 38 miles of underground PVC pipe that feed small waterholes spaced every 1,000 feet or so (source).”
2007 “A political shopping spree may have accelerated the efforts of Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens to hijack sweeping government powers of eminent domain. The tycoon wants these extraordinary powers to benefit his private utility companies: Mesa Water and Mesa Power. The $1.8 million that Pickens spent on Texas’ last two elections made him the state’s No. 5 individual donor—up from No. 12 in 2002. Pickens wants condemnation powers to lay 320 miles of utility lines from suburban Dallas to the Texas Panhandle—with or without the approval of the owners of the private land that he would excavate (Texans for Public Justice).” T is for ‘Taking’: Did Texas Sell T. Boone Pickens Powers of Eminent Domain?
2008-06-12 “T. Boone Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium; it’s all a matter of supply and demand. “(Berfield 2008).” Business Week
2009-02-04 – Brazilian radio and TV launch a campaign on the public utility “Aplauso” which aims to demonstrate to society the importance of water in people’s lives and the need to take care of this natural resource.
2/4/2009 – Seminário Edital evaluate capacitação of resource managers in water
2/4/2009 – Reporting to the list of participants selected for or II Course Monitoramento da Qualidade da Água
26/3/2009 – Paulo Varella as director takes posse da ANA
26/3/2009 – New director takes posse da ANA Nesta fifth-feira
25/3/2009 – NAA launches new on relatório situação da água e gestão two water resources in Brazil
25/3/2009 – Conselho National Water Resource Plan discusses water-da Bacia do Araguaia Tocantins produced pela ANA
23/3/2009 – Events marking the beginning gives elaborate document of norteador Ações na Bacia do Rio Verde Grande
23/3/2009 – Diretor da ANA participates chat da Fundação Bunge
2009-03-15 20,000 people were expected at the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul.
2009-03-19 ANA (Agência Nacional de Águas) made two presentations at the The 5th World Water Forum: Bridging Divides for Water
18/3/2009 – Brazil e da CPLP countries discutem water policy and cooperação mútua
18/3/2009 – Stand Coordenação do Brazil to discuss and prepare projetos Apresentações no Fórum Mundial da Água
18/3/2009 – Machado: “As public policy setoriais da questão devem include água em suas patterns “
18/3/2009 – Comitê do Rio Doce já tem novos membros eleitos
17/3/2009 – Mais uma edição do hotsite Águas de Março é haul
16/3/2009 – Machado apresenta da América do Sul demands no Fórum Mundial da V Água
AFP. 2009. “Water forum seeks way through worsening crisis.” 2009-03-15. Istanbul.
2009-03-29 – Paulo Varella was named as Director of ANA (Agência Nacional de Águas) the Brazilian, National Water Agency that implements and coordinates the management of shared and integrated water resources and regulates access to water, promoting sustainable use for the benefit of current and future generations.
Key words: Aqüífero Guarani, Guarani Aqüifer,
Webliography and Bibliography
2005. “Paraguay and the United States: Improbable allies.” The Economist.
AFP. 2009. “Water forum seeks way through worsening crisis.” 2009-03-15. Istanbul.
Barlow, Maude and Tony Clarke. 2002. “Who Owns Water?” The Nation.
Barlow, Maude and Tony Clarke. 2002. Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water. New York: New Press.
Berfield, Susan. 2008. “There Will Be Water.” Business Week.
Bozzo, Sam. 2008. Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water.
Lohan, Tara. 2009. “Blue Gold: Have the Next Resource Wars Begun?” The Nation. .
Marra, Ana Paula. 2006. “Brazil Drafts Conservation Plan for Pantanal, a Mankind’s Patrimony.” Brazil Magazine. 2006-01-06.
Texans for Public Justice. 2007. ” T is for ‘Taking’: Did Texas Sell T. Boone Pickens Powers of Eminent Domain?
Paul Otlet – The design behind the design
February 18, 2009
“Everything in the universe, and everything of man, would be registered at a distance as it was produced. In this way a moving image of the world will be established, a true mirror of his memory. From a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen.” – Monde, 1935
82% US job loss hit men, women bear burden as breadwinners
February 7, 2009
iht.com Higher-income, male-dominated sectors like construction and manufacturing hit hardest. Female-dominated, lower income sectors like education and health still holding up in deepening recession. More… (Business & Finance)
Victory in a fishbowl
January 19, 2009
In praise of small things . . .
HMS Victory, fishbowl, reflections, reflexivity, micro, miniature,
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