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[stocks]

Disastrous cold snap in Peru
Extreme cold temperatures cause death of 133 children under the age of five

Climate Change, Environment, Health Care - Posted on May, 26 at 1:01 am

Climate change continues to wreck havoc in Peru’s southern Altiplano, where the arrival of freezing temperatures since March — almost three months earlier than usual — have killed more than 133 children.

The extreme cold has claimed the lives of 133 children so far this year, Radio Radio Programas, or RPP, reported on Monday. Most of the deaths were registered in Puno, an important agricultural and livestock region located in southeastern Peru.

According to the Health Ministry, more than 13,000 other children are suffering from pneumonia. Although this number is significant, it is down 17 percent from the same period in 2008 and 3 percent from 2007.

During the months of April and May, temperatures frequently dropped below freezing point in Puno.


http://www.peruviant...he-age-of-five/

Edited by stocks, 22 June 2009 - 11:30 AM.

[OEXCHAOS]

I just received this from the famous gardening supply outfit, White Flower Farms:

Dear Mark Young,

Gardeners talk incessantly about the weather, sometimes as an enemy, sometimes an ally. It has become pretty common for these conversations to be linked in some way with the broader topic of global warming, since current weather almost always seems unique at the time. We will spare you the larger context and simply say that we had temperatures in the 30s on four different nights in the last two weeks of May, and June has been warmer but wet.

The undersigned has been on this property for 34 years and not seen the like of it. If you garden in the Northeast, and think things are moving a little slowly, you are absolutely right. Soil temperatures are still very cool and heat lovers like Tomatoes and Dahlias and annuals will be sulking for a while more...

[stocks]

Climategate: Revolt of the Physicists

This lecture by Jasper Kirkby reviews the recent research that physicists have been conducting into climate change. Physicists have discovered that changes in the rate of cosmic ray inflow cause climate change and that solar activity shields the earth from cosmic rays. They haven't completely worked out the mechanism yet, but they think it has to do with cosmic rays causing cloud formation and clouds reflecting sunlight back into space.

When Kirkby gets to the screen showing Galactic Modulation of Climate over the last 500 million years and the cosmic ray variation that explains it, take a close look at the line that plots CO2 over the same period. Note that that line doesn't correspond at all to the temperature periodicity evident in the temperature data. Also listen when Kirkby points out that CO2 concentrations used to be 10 times higher than they are today.

And don't miss the most chilling (literally) prediction of all based on a careful study of sunspot intensity. This prediction was originally submitted and rejected for publication in 2005 (Sunspots May Vanish by 2015), but has been coming true ever since. The earth appears to be headed toward a period of dramatic cooling, at present, due to reduced solar activity.

Meanwhile, clueless world leaders will be meeting at a UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December 7-18 in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions in order to slow global warming.


http://seekingalpha....-the-physicists

[OEXCHAOS]

I'm not panicking yet, but I'm concerned. The trend in temperatures is down and the sun is quiet. Mark

[stocks]

Will The Global Deep Freeze Now Ravaging North America, Europe And Asia Lead To Massive Food Shortages In 2010?

The agriculture expert quoted by the New York Times was very grim in his assessment....

"Tomatoes were down around $14 for a 25-pound box; now they are up over $20," said Gene McAvoy, an agriculture expert with the University Florida, who predicted $100 million in vegetable losses. "Peppers — just after New Years they were $8 a box; now they’re up around $18."

This all comes at a time when a U.S. government report is revealing that the nation's farmers planted the fewest winter wheat acres in any season since 1913. According to the report from the Department of Agriculture, the total acres of winter wheat planted for 2010 is 37.1 million acres, which is down 14 percent nationwide from last year.


All over the world agriculture is being devastated this winter, and that is going to result in higher food prices all over the globe.

There will even be food shortages in many areas of the world.

http://theemergencyf...ortages-in-2010

[OEXCHAOS]

THIS is the type of thing we ought to be seriously worried about. If sea levels rise a little bit and the frost belt migrates north, mankind will do just fine. If we can't get crops planted or harvested due to cold weather, people are going to starve. MILLIONS of people are going to starve.

[Rogerdodger]

'Millions' of dead fish floating in Florida waters after record cold snap...

Cold inflicted major toll on fish in Florida
A deep freeze in the shallow waters of Florida Bay and Everglades took a heavy toll on snook and other native fish.
Everywhere he steered his skiff last week, Pete Frezza saw dead fish.

From Ponce de Leon Bay on the Southwest Coast down across Florida Bay to Lower Matecumbe in the Florida Keys -- day after day, dead fish. Floating in the marina at Flamingo in Everglades National Park alone he counted more than 400 snook and 400 tarpon.

``I was so shook up, I couldn't sleep,'' said Frezza, an ecologist for Audubon of Florida and an expert flats fisherman. ``Millions and millions of pilchards, threadfin herring, mullet. Ladyfish took it really bad. Whitewater Bay is just a graveyard.''

Fish in every part of the state were hammered by this month's record-setting cold snap. The toll in South Florida, a haven for warm-water species, was particularly extensive, too large to even venture a guess at numbers. And despite the subsequent warm-up, scientists warn that the big bad chill of 2010 will continue to claim victims for weeks.

``Based on what I saw in 1977 and 1989, there is a good chance we'll have a second wave,'' said William Loftus, a longtime aquatic ecologist for Everglades National Park.

During those last two major cold fronts, weakened survivors succumbed to infections from common bacteria, such as aeromonas, that they would normally ward off, he said.
``It's a nasty-looking thing,'' he said. ``It's a tissue eater. It creates open ulcers on the side of the fish.''

In response, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Friday ordered an emergency statewide closure of the snook fishery until at least September, and imposed temporary closures for bonefish and tarpon until April. Catch-and-release is still allowed for all three species.

Veteran Everglades fishing guide Benny Blanco believes the die-off was so severe -- particularly for snook, a prized game and eating fish particularly sensitive to cold -- that he would support taking them off the dinner table for years.

``I haven't see a swimming snook in 10 days,'' Blanco said Monday, after returning from a charter trip to the Glades. ``All I have seen is floating snook.''

Judging by the floating carcasses, the most widespread kills were in Florida Bay and Whitewater Bay in the park. Water temperatures in the bay hovered in the low 50s for days and, according to the National Weather Service, dipped to a record 47.8 degrees at their lowest.

DEEPER WATERS

But even denizens of the deeper, warmer waters of Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean didn't escape the cold, said Jerry Ault, professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School, who oversees annual counts of bonefish and reef fish.

His research staff collected about 200 bonefish from the Florida Keys, he said. ``It wasn't just bonefish. It was grunt, snapper, pilchards, moray eel. When the water temperature drops below 50 degrees, that's reasonably lethal for most of these species.''

The duration of the cold and high winds worsened things, Ault said, pushing colder, heavier waters off shallow flats into deeper channels where fish typically seek warm refuge. ``Even the channels became a tomb,'' he said.

[stocks]

The beginnings of a recantation?

It is a fact, however, that volcanic ejecta has radically changed our environment in the past. The Laki and Asama eruptions of 1783 were followed by an unusually cold year. The Tambora eruption in 1815 was followed in 1816 by a "year without a summer." A marked decrease in solar radiation in 1884-85 followed the Krakatoa eruption. Today's flight delays are just a whiff of the possible disruption Katla could cause. The costs of a major eruption today would be catastrophic.

We appear, therefore, to have the beginnings on a recantation from the mighty Huff. It is, though, almost the human condition – that we should be chasing after miasma, while ignoring the real perils on our doorsteps. A catastrophic volcano eruption has always been on the cards – and in fact is overdue. The consequences, however, are manageable, with an element of intelligent planning.

But, as we have so often pointed out before, governments are frittering away our money and intellectual capital on global warming, preparing for something that is unlikely to happen, while ignoring that which most likely will happen.

That is the true cost of the global warming obsession. When in a few years time we are freezing and starving, we will be cursing those fools who were responsible. By then, of course, it will be too late

http://eureferendum....ecantation.html