28 March 2007

not like we didnt know this, now its official

clipped from blog.wired.com
The Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower and watchdog group in DC, released a report (.pdf) today detailing a top-down government campaign to suppress climate change research that deviated from policy positions within the Bush administration.
The GAP report, "Redacting the Science of Climate Change," took a year to assemble and relies on information from dozens of interviews and thousands of FOIA disclosures, internal documents and public records. It illustrates an organized and secretive White House effort beginning in 2001 to restrict scientists' ability to accurately communicate their research results to the media, the public and Congress. Using low-level proxies, the administration altered press releases, muzzled scientists who spoke openly and, frequently, routed requests for information about sensitive research to the White House. In the report, GAP focuses on NOAA but includes information on similar tampering at NASA and the EPA.
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guilty as charged, charges dismissed!

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Rumsfeld torture suit dismissed




Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld apologised for abuse at Abu Ghraib


A US court has dismissed a lawsuit against former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld over claims prisoners were tortured in Iraq and Afghanistan.


The court accepted that the nine men who sued had been tortured - and detailed the torture in its ruling.


But Judge Thomas Hogan ruled the five Iraqis and four Afghans did not have US constitutional rights, and also that Mr Rumsfeld was immune from such suits.

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24 March 2007

More shameful news

John Bolton Admits U.S. Resisted Calls for Ceasefire During Lebanon War
John Bolton, the former top US diplomat, has revealed that the Bush administration deliberately resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire during Israel's invasion of Lebanon last summer because it wanted to give Israel more time to carry out military strikes.
Bolton – who at the time was the US ambassador to the United Nations -- said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working.
Bolton told the BBC he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.
Bolton also said the US was deeply disappointed at Israel's failure to remove the threat from Hezbollah.
More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and 43 Israeli civilians died in the war. Israel also lost 116 soldiers. The total number of Hezbollah fighters killed is unknown.
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21 March 2007

all seabirds go to heaven

Newly discovered West Coast arrhythmias cause

Interplay of climate and currents disrupts marine ecosystems

San Francisco, CA -- Oceanographers, climatologists, and ecologists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting report that unusual ocean conditions and marine die-offs are changing the way scientists think about the future of ocean resources off the US West Coast. The researchers' new synthesis of decades of atmospheric and oceanographic data reveals that increasingly wild fluctuations in winds and currents appear to account for a series of recent anomalous ocean events -- from repeated low oxygen zones larger than the size of Rhode Island to massive die offs of seabirds. The scientists say that the underlying swings in winds and position of the jet stream are consistent with climate change predictions.

"There is no other viable suspect right now, no other obvious explanation," says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University. "We've entered new territory. These arrhythmias in the coastal ocean suggest we're observing a system that is out of kilter."

Understanding the interplay of warming, winds, and storms with ocean currents and biological productivity is a whole new area of study that is proving urgent. In 2002, when scientists first documented low-oxygen zones off the US Pacific Northwest coast, they thought it was a startling, once in a lifetime, event. But these "dead zones," which suffocate crabs, fish, sea stars, and anemones on the ocean floor, have continued, with 2006 now on the books as the largest, most severe and longest lasting dead zone on record for the west coast.

"It was unlike anything that we've measured along the Oregon coast in the past five decades," says Francis Chan of Oregon State University. "We're seeing more and more evidence that changing climate and changing currents can lead to big and surprising changes in something as fundamental as oxygen levels in the sea."

In 2005 and 2006, researchers also found tens of thousands of starving birds washing up on shore at times of the year when the birds should be healthiest. And scientists trying to predict salmon runs have recorded large swings in ocean temperatures at a much higher frequency than the past, a change that signals large shifts in the amount of food available for salmon, birds, and marine mammals. Scientists link the low oxygen zones and animal die offs to changes in the timing and strength of upwelling, a usually reliable and regular wind-driven process that brings cold, nutrient rich waters up from the depths of the ocean and fuels productive coastal ecosystems.

"We are investigating the idea that dead crabs and sea stars at the bottom of the ocean are correlated with changes in coastal winds, which are in turn driven by changes in temperatures on land," says Lubchenco.

Around the globe, areas of coastal upwelling which include the waters off the west coasts of the US, Peru, and Chile, eastern New Zealand, southwest and northwest Africa, and the Arabian Sea, are known for their abundant sea life and account for nearly 50% of the world's fisheries landings. Upwelling on the US west coast typically begins during the spring, triggering growth of phytoplankton and fueling marine food webs from the bottom-up. Many marine animals time their breeding and migrations with this influx of nutrients and growth of prey populations. But in recent years, changes in wind patterns and the position of the jet stream have changed the timing and strength of upwelling, disrupting these long-standing patterns.

"These are not just little blips," says oceanographer Jack Barth of Oregon State University. "Winds in both 2005 and 2006 are outside the envelope of what we've seen in the last twenty to forty years. They are the two most anomalous years in the last two decades -- and they are anomalous in opposite directions."

Starving Salmon

In 2005, relaxed winds delayed upwelling of cold water and nutrients by several months, resulting in water temperatures 6 degrees Celsius above normal and causing the typical boom in small, prey fish populations to occur too late for feeding salmon, seabirds, and whales.

"In 2005 we saw no upwelling in the spring, but then it came on so strong that we saw the same amount of upwelling in two months that we usually see in six," says Bill Peterson of NOAA. "The salmon go out to sea in mid-April to mid-May, that is when they always go out. But in 2005 they found nothing to eat -- by the time upwelling started, they were dead, starved to death."

Then, in 2006, unusually strong winds doubled the typical amount of upwelling, and increased the influx of nutrients to the system, but these strong winds ebbed in the month of May, just when salmon went out to sea. These mismatches in timing of upwelling are critical for many salmon species whose return to spawning grounds has been only 2-4% in recent years, and Peterson predicts that 2007 will be another low year for salmon returns.

Sea-bird Die-offs

In the spring of 2005, the volunteers who work as citizen scientists patrolling beaches found tens of thousands of seabirds washing up dead on beaches in Washington, Oregon and California. Emaciated birds littered the beaches because the normal spring upwelling that fuels food production didn't occur until much later in the season.

"In Oregon, the volunteers would literally wade through 80 dead birds in a mile. They feared no birds would survive," says Julia Parrish of the University of Washington who leads the citizen scientist program. Murres' and cormorants' breeding cycles are timed to coincide with the boost in prey fish in the spring. Tied to coastal breeding colonies, they are not strong enough fliers to travel hundreds of miles to find new food sources.

In 2006, scientists have also documented unusual die-offs of migratory seabirds such as auklets that visit the US West coast during the winter months. "They appear to be starving to death at sea. It's not bird flu, not another disease, not oiling or some other chemical," says Parrish.

Increases in the severity or frequency of storms, a prediction from climate change models, may also be a major factor in the survival of these seabirds. Winter die-offs are linked to stormy weather conditions.

"The total number of wrecks (die-offs) is increasing over time, as is the severity of these events and their duration," says Parrish. "This year we are heading into a mild El Nino and we are sitting on pins and needles to see what happens."

Unprecedented Dead Zones

The supercharged upwelling in 2006 also created thick, green-brown waters off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. When these phytoplankton and zooplankton blooms sank to the sea floor and decayed, they consumed large amounts of oxygen, creating a 3,000 square kilometer "dead zone" that took up nearly two thirds of the water column and squeezed mobile animals like rockfish into shallow habitats and suffocated everything that could not swim away.

"Phytoplankton blooms are normally thought to be a good thing because they ultimately support the food webs that produce the crabs, salmon and tuna," says Bruce Menge or Oregon State University. "But too much of a good thing can be bad."

Two months into the dead zone, the scientists surveyed the sea floor. "We were shocked to see a graveyard," Chan said. "Frame after frame of carcass, carcass, carcass. Dead crabs, dead worms, dead sea stars." Two weeks later the scientists returned to the same place. This once biologically diverse habitat was covered with a white bacterial mass, indicating that the system had turned from low to no oxygen.

"The fact that we saw no fish - alive or dead - suggests that many were able to escape," says Lubchenco. "In previous years, fish that have escaped the low-oxygen area appear to have returned once the oxygen was renewed. This year may be different, however, because unlike earlier years, the living habitat was also suffocated. This year there was no home for them to return to."

Predicting the Unpredictable

"Climate change is upon us, there is no doubt about that, but what we don't know is exactly how it is going to affect upwelling," says Peterson. "What's catching us by surprise is the rate at which warming is hitting us. And, of course, how fast the ocean has changed -- that is what amazes me."

The scientists hope that by better understanding the interplay of warming, winds, and storms with ocean currents and biological productivity, they will be able to help managers and fishermen plan for changing ecosystems. Predicting shifts in ocean ecosystems requires sustained observations. "We are poised to deploy a fleet of underwater robotic sensors to enable better understanding and useful predictions," says Barth. If scientists can predict the impact of dead zones or years of low salmon returns, for example, managers can better adjust fishing quotas or regulations accordingly and fishermen can modify where and when they fish.

Scientists hope to get ahead of the curve on these surprises, but many mysteries remain. Despite intense hypoxic zones, for example, Dungeness crab catches in Oregon have been high in the last few years. In California, scientists are trying to understand why rockfish populations appear to be congregating in the northern and southern ends of their ranges. Future changes in the timing of upwelling may favor particular seabird or salmon species, changing the make up of animals along the coast. And animals that live their adult lives close to shore, like mussels and barnacles, are likely to react differently than fish that live further offshore.

"We need to think differently about using and managing these ecosystems," adds Lubchenco. "We should be expecting more surprises. Climate models predict increasing uncertainty, with wild fluctuations. And this is exactly what we are witnessing."

###

NOTE: The scientists will discuss their findings at an AAAS News Briefing on Friday, February 16 at 3:00 PM Pacific time, in the Hotel Nikko. Research from a new paper to be published in PNAS will be presented at the press conference (Article #00462: "Delayed upwelling alters nearshore coastal ocean ecosystems in the northern California current"). For more information please contact the PNAS News Office at 202-334-1310 or e-mail PNASnews@nas.edu

The corresponding AAAS session titled, Predicting the Unpredictable: Marine Die-Offs Along the West Coast, is on February 17th at 2:00 p.m. For visuals (video and photographs), please visit the AAAS virtual newsroom on EurekAlert! or contact Jessica at jbrown@seaweb.org or #(831) 331-0507.

Contact Information:

Jane Lubchenco
Oregon State University
lubchenco@oregonstate.edu
Cell: (541) 231-7159

Julia Parrish
University of Washington
jparrish@u.washington.edu
Cell: (206) 276-8665

Francis Chan
Oregon State University
chanft@science.oregonstate.edu
Cell: (541) 510-6685

Jack Barth
Oregon State University
barth@coas.oregonstate.edu
Cell: (541) 231-1703

Bill Peterson
NOAA Northwest Science Center (Newport, OR)
Bill.Peterson@noaa.gov
Office: (541) 867-0201

Bruce Menge
Oregon State University
MengeB@oregonstate.edu
Office: (541) 737-5358

Steve Ralston
NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
(Santa Cruz, CA)
steve.ralston@noaa.gov
office: (831) 420-3949

12 March 2007

snow geese

o run to see beyond the trees
five hundred
or so
snow geese in their
vees -
telling travelers' tales to the
island below.
and here, down here,
a thousand robins sing
their nest-building song -
so soon?

the wind races through
the tops of the trees –
the sky flat grey and
the temperature
is falling
again with the light.
salmonberries beginning to bloom and the
alders' red catkins cast a warm
burnished glow, - the curve
of the grass covered trail –
each perfect thing -
each loving old thing -
can i wear, as a garland or
wreath, boughs of
dougfir
and spent deer bones?
or graft fallen limbs
to the tips of my fingers and
wave my hands through
the night in the warm
storm sky
grazing the snow geese
as they fly?

7 march 2007 6pm

11 March 2007

in this prison

this is an older poem, written in the mojave desert may 2002
i'm posting it now because i've had it on my mind for a few days and dont know why


in this prison there are many birds
in the back yard of romance there are
many birds - gray jays and warblers and
sparrows and ravens - there are doves on
every fence - they grow like fruit on every
fence and the fruit on the trees are birds
too - waiting to drop and spread their skins
and let their seed take wing and climb
up into the sky - above this prison there is
no fence - to climb to the sun - to visit the blue
bottom of the sky - the overturned sea - the spilled
and spilling sea - we sink with ease into the
great sky - the large and boundless bounded sky -
bound it curves and curving comes home to roost and
here it abides in the backyard of romance as birds that
slide down the stream of blue and hang as fruit on every
fence - they fly down the sky as planets fly and flung -
not free - bound to whatever sun as they find - and every
sun is captured in all suns' gravity - and stars and
sea are also bound by love in this prison filled with
birds where every tree bears fruit that flies straight toward
the dirt where wings abound - spread and spreading under ground
and climbing down into the sky and glory there toward the sea and
minerals that walk and breathe and shed their skins and cast their
seed - in this backyard of romance i am the seed and hang
inside every bird on every fence duty bound whose wings are
clenched to their breast and i depend from every fence and dropped
and dropping toward the sky's blue embracing infinity and toward the
nest where i will feed the birds who grace each prison fence or i will fall
from some loose beak and shed my skin and spread and spreading the dirt will take
me to her need - the seed the earth and love's command - stretched or
compressed - there's only time in this backyard of romance - the moon and
sun consimplify - they kiss and bleed and scrape their sides against roughened
space and beauty's need - my own blood's here to testify - i've been below
and been beneath the dirt that grass grows tall to hide in this backyard
of romance where birds descend to complicate the air with voices that
are rarely heard and seed the fence that grows and growing contains
the rest - in this prison where birds are true to the sky's
command and following they swoop to light and flower full
on every fence - in this prison the sky the sea are one
with each and call for birds to take the seed and this
is how the seed may leave and find the earth that's
moist with need -

10 March 2007

skull

right now
watching the old deer's
skull dissolve back
into the forest,
look how much longer
a thought may linger -
how much longer
than i thought.

and this flying insect, at rest
looks like a small bit
of leaf or bark -
long legs, runs
errands in a square
foot of forest floor –
stops at the alder leaf,
the salmon berry twig,
a small piece of moss,
this old thinking skull,
and her vertebrae
in orbit.

08 March 2007

fourthirty pm

the sixth of march -
wind up and clouds
building in from the
southwest -
two juncos and a song
sparrow dig through
the litter beneath
a thicket of
blackberry
i've seen robins
write poems
at the tops of trees
as they
watch the day
become night,
watch
the sky sail past -
watching
what cant be named
ceaselessly move -
we feel
the pattern of the waves
as we see our own mind -
any moment,
whether we are
one, or as one, or
alone, alone -
the mystery of being
in whichever attire -
here
is where the mystery
lives.