Blogging the End of the World™
Not only is plastic the ubiquitous bane of modern consumerist lifestyles, it’s also increasingly seen as a potential health hazard. Fact: we now know that hard plastic polycarbonate water bottles, canned food and soda pop linings contain the “genderbender” chemical bisphenol A, which hormonally mimics estrogen. Now German researchers have found another unknown estrogenic […]
From Calculated Risk: Total housing starts were at 583 thousand (SAAR) in February, well off the record low of 477 thousand in January (the lowest level since the Census Bureau began tracking housing starts in 1959). Single-family starts were at 357 thousand in February; just above the record low in January (353 thousand). … Housing […]
Leatherback turtles, the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth, are threatened with extinction themselves, in large part due to the carelessness of humans. A professor addresses the threat of plastics to this endangered species. Since leatherbacks prefer eating jellyfish, it’s widely believed they mistake bags or other plastics for their meals. They survived the […]
It’s interesting that there seems to be a long-term declining trend. And, of course, there’s the cliff we’re falling over currently. From Calculated Risk: The Federal Reserve reported that industrial production fell 1.4% in February, and output in February was 11.2% below February 2008. The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell to 70.9%, matching […]
The combined global land and ocean surface average temperature for February 2009 was the ninth warmest since records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA. The analyses in NCDC’s global reports are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when later reports […]
From Calculated Risk: This graph is based on the Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales report from the Census Bureau. This shows the 3 month change (annualized) in manufacturers’ and trade inventories. The inventory correction was slow to start in this recession, but inventories are now declining sharply. This change in inventories will probably have […]
From Calculated Risk: …This graph shows the loaded inbound and outbound traffic at the port of Los Angeles in TEUs (TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container). Although containers tell us nothing about value, container traffic does give us an idea of the volume of goods being exported and imported. Inbound traffic was 35% […]
by Iain Marlow Toronto’s ash trees could be gone in as little as 10 years, killed by an unstoppable beetle that is spreading rapidly across the province, the city’s forestry czar says. "It’s the elimination of a genus from this part of the continent, which is absolutely staggering," said Richard Ubbens, the city’s director of […]
Liberia has been hit by a second invasion of crop-destroying caterpillars which have wreaked havoc in the west African nation, agriculture ministry officials said Thursday. "We have two weeks maximum to react. We have our teams out on the field preparing to contain the situation," Moses Subah, head of the agriculture ministry’s technical team, said. […]
By Daily Telegraph Reporter WWF, the conservation charity, said that the five countries which are home to the polar bear must commit to action on global warming to save the animal, which is reliant on the sea ice. Recent analysis by the US Geological Survey and World Conservation Union found that two-thirds of the 20,000 […]
