Stephan: Methane is an even bigger problem than CO2 because it is more destructive to a healthy atmosphere. This is one of the consequences of climate change that doesn't get much coverage.
Researchers from Norway and Russia have found significant amount of the greenhouse gas methane is leaking from an area of the Arctic seabed off the northern coast of Siberia.
According to the team’s report in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, the melting of permafrost on the seafloor of the Kara Sea is releasing previously-sequestered methane.
“The thawing of permafrost on the ocean floor is an ongoing process, likely to be exaggerated by the global warming of the world´s oceans,” said study author Alexey Portnov at Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and Environment (CAGE) at The Arctic University of Norway.
Permafrost is considered soil that has been permanently frozen for at least two years and is usually much thicker on land where temperatures can stay far below the freezing point for months on end.
“Bottom water temperature is usually close to or above zero. Theoretically, therefore, we could never have thick permafrost under the sea,” Portnov explained.
He added that 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, the sea level dropped nearly 400 feet.
“It means that today´s shallow shelf area […]
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Wednesday, December 31st, 2014
Damian Carrington, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: The U.K. is an island nation that is beginning to face the reality of sea rise and extreme weather. Here is an initial assessment of what the future holds for them. The same situation will obtain throughout coastal America, but few in government are talking about the impact yet.
Collapsed houses lie on the beach after a storm surge in Hemsby, eastern England, 6 December 2013. Parts of England’s east coast, from Yorkshire to Essex are vulnerable to stronger storms and rising sea levels due to climate change.
Credit: Darren Staples/Reuters
Almost 7,000 homes and buildings will be sacrificed to the rising seas around England and Wales over the next century, according to an unpublished Environment Agency (EA) analysis seen by the Guardian. Over 800 of the properties will be lost to coastal erosion within the next 20 years.
The properties, worth well over £1bn, will be allowed to fall into the sea because the cost of protecting them would be far greater. But there is no compensation scheme for homeowners to enable them to move to a safer location.
In December 2013, […]
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Wednesday, December 31st, 2014
, - Der Spiegel (Germany)
Stephan: Here is what the American Surveillance State looks like (publicly) to Europe. This is a German assessment published in one of Europe's leading publications. I confess I don't like my country being thought of in this way.
The NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland: The US foreign intelligence agency views all encrypted communications as a “threat” to its operations.
When Christmas approaches, the spies of the Five Eyes intelligence services can look forward to a break from the arduous daily work of spying. In addition to their usual job — attempting to crack encryption all around the world — they play a game called the “Kryptos Kristmas Kwiz,” which involves solving challenging numerical and alphabetical puzzles. The proud winners of the competition are awarded “Kryptos” mugs.
Encryption — the use of mathematics to protect communications from spying — is used for electronic transactions of all types, by governments, firms and private users alike. But a look into the archive of whistleblower Edward Snowden shows that not all encryption technologies live up to what they promise.
One example is the encryption featured in Skype, a program used […]
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Tuesday, December 30th, 2014
, - Alliance for Natural Health
Stephan: I have been thinking about this story all day. If one out of two babies born in the U.S. will be autistic by 2025, if the present trend continues, what kind of world can that be? In 2013 the number of live births in the U.S. was 3,952,840. as described this would mean 1,976,420 autistic children. Within a generation the care of these millions would consume the nation. This is completely insane. Say the estimate is 50% off. It would still be 19,764,200 in 20 years. All of this damage in the service of profit. If Stephanie Seneff is correct this is should be the leading public debate. Ebola became an hysterical meme on the strength of less than five people being struck. Why, then, is this almost undiscussed? And every effort should be made to reconfirm her study. This dwarfs the Thalidomide baby catastrophe by orders of magnitude.
Glyphosate spraying
Half of all children will be Autistic by 2025, Warns Senior Research Scientist at MIT. Why? Evidence points to glyphosate toxicity from the overuse of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide on our food.
For over three decades, Stephanie Seneff, PhD, has researched biology and technology, over the years publishing over 170 scholarly peer-reviewed articles [1]. In recent years she has concentrated on the relationship between nutrition and health, tackling such topics as Alzheimer’s, autism, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as the impact of nutritional deficiencies and environmental toxins on human health.
At a conference last Thursday, in a special panel discussion about GMOs, she took the audience by surprise when she declared, “At today’s rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic.” She noted that the side effects of autism closely mimic those of glyphosate toxicity, and presented data showing a remarkably consistent correlation [2] between the use of Roundup on crops (and the creation of Roundup-ready GMO crop seeds) with rising rates of autism. Children with autism have biomarkers indicative of excessive glyphosate, including zinc and […]
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