dangerousmeta!, the original new mexican miscellany, offering eclectic linkage since 1999.

SciAm: 400 PPM— Can Artificial Trees Help Pull CO2 from the Air?

Pretty neat.

LRB: Climate Change Book Reviews, by Thomas Jones.

“Perhaps the best we can hope for is that somehow – using some of the technologies and policies I’ve discussed here, and some of the many I’ve overlooked – we’ll muddle through. But only if we slow climate change to a rate that we, like other organisms that evolved when the world was mild, can adapt to. If we don’t, we may indeed be doomed. And Pyrococcus furiosus, which needs us a lot less than we may need it, will inherit the earth.”

CELDF.org: First County in U.S. Bans Fracking and all Hydrocarbon Extraction.

Good for you, Mora County. Now batten down the hatches and get ready for the legal challenges.

GreatFallsTribune: Feds—Budget cuts to make wildfire season tougher.

“Jewell spent the past two days touring the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, the government’s national wildfire nerve center. She was joined by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who said the U.S. Forest Service alone will hire 500 fewer firefighters and deploy 50 fewer engines this season.” This sequester fallout will cost more money than it saves. Plain and simple.

BBC: ‘Dramatic decline’ warning for plants and animals.

“The good news is that our research provides new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2C rather than 4 degrees.””

SF New Mexican: Utility to test plan to pump water underground for use in dry times.

“If we’re able to store the water when we have it, then we’ll be able to use it when we don’t.”

SF New Mexican: Drought worsens in New Mexico; no relief in sight.

What alarms me most is, when I drove up to the Ski Basin the other day location scouting for a friend’s project … the snow-fed freshets were nonexistent. All the usual gushing creeks are trickling. The only one showing some life is the one that cuts through the center of the Ski Basin parking lot! This is terrible news. The Forest Service will have to shut the forests down before July 4, latest. Can’t take a chance on careless picnickers with fireworks and barbecue grills.

I keep saying to everyone in the area - if you want to hike our mountains, do it now. Don’t wait for warmer weather.

SciAm: Forest Service Adds 7 Air Tankers ahead of Fire Season.

Good, but they need more. If I had cash backers, I’d start a company and purchase those outstanding Russian tankers.

FT: Protests mount on use of BP Gulf spill funds.

Give money to the states, see them pad the pork barrels.

Guardian.UK: On yer bike! New York Nimbys saddle up to fight cycle-share scheme.

What a shame. It’s a wonderfully bikeable place. Just carry a frame-pump (or some other large, heavy object) to whack cabbies with.

Guardian.UK: US rejects EU claim of insecticide as sole reason for bee colony collapse.

Well, now time will tell if they’re right.

The Atlantic: How Oil Made Working Class North Dakota a Whole Lot Richer.

This, in the current economy, is why it’s terribly hard to push an environmental agenda (or even a clear public health agenda).

Later: Speaking of public health …

Naked Capitalism: The Climate Crisis in Three Easy Charts.

“If the Koch Bros keep getting rich, we move backward. If Barack “Hope & Change” Obama approves Keystone, we move backward. If the U.S. develops “domestic oil” resources, we move backward. For every new car (‘carbon-delivery system’) sold, we move backward. People need to know this and think like this. We can stop the crisis, but only if we stop carbon. It’s that simple; and that stark.”

Later: Not everyone agrees with the above.

Phys.org: High-fructose corn syrup may be tied to worldwide collapse of bee colonies.

Not in the way you might think: “The researchers aren’t suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is itself toxic to bees, instead, they say their findings indicate that by eating the replacement food instead of honey, the bees are not being exposed to other chemicals that help the bees fight off toxins, such as those found in pesticides.”

Guardian.UK: Grand Canyon uranium mining set to go ahead despite ban from Obama.

“On the Navajo Indian reservation alone there are over 500 abandoned mines, the focus of a five-year clean-up effort by the federal government that ended last year and which many complain was flawed and ineffective.” It is not clean, it has not been remediated. Just … don’t.

SciAm: Air Gun Blasts Shatter Undersea Tranquility.

9,000 250dB bursts a day? Good grief.

Guardian.UK: Fracking firms should offer sweeteners to locals, say MPs.

What the industry usually tries first is getting communities reliant on cash to children’s issues … schools, transportation, etc. Nobody votes against kids, right? The only thing that might even be more effective would be supporting shelter kittens and pound puppies …

Salon: Fracking’s coming boom.

“Members of Congress are not energy experts so they are easily confused.” Reminds me of a snippet of conversation I overheard at the hardware store the other day:

“… armor-plated jeans.”
“Yep. Choo got that right.”
“That’s all they do in Washin’ton. Cover their butts.”

Guardian.UK: Canadian oil minister Joe Oliver condemns climatologist James Hansen.

Hmmmm. Mr Oliver’s statements are on OpenParliament.CA.

The Nation: How the Climate Reform Effort Was Poisoned From the Inside.

“New disclosures not only show that Clean Energy Works and its affiliates spent about $37 million on advertising and less than $900,000 on grassroots organizing, but that the firm at the helm of the effort, then called Blue Line Strategic Communications, was in bed with the coal industry.”

Guardian.UK: Weetabix supplies hit by dismal harvest.

“Society will crumble!”

The Taos News: Chevron sues U.S. on Questa mine cleanup.

This is why all extraction outfits need thorough vetting before you let them onto the land. How many times do we taxpayers have to float the cleanup costs before we learn?

KRQE: Forest sites trashed as USFS cuts back.

“… without the facilities, people are doing whatever they want with their trash and going to the bathroom all over the site.” Most of these sites in the Pecos are very close to the river; this waste could cause significant problems for the town of Pecos and other water-users to the south.

KRQE.com: Residents flee approaching wildfire.

Alas, it has begun. Fasten your seatbelts.

National Geographic: Trees Call for Help—And Now Scientists Can Understand

“According to Ponomarenko, the findings could lead to the design of a handheld device that allows people to diagnose stressed trees using only microphones.” Could have used it in ‘03, when our piñons died off en masse. Not that we had enough water to do much, but I could have saved a couple of large trees on my property.