environment: Jacques Cousteau oceanic acidification oceans pollution
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 8: Here’s Hoping My Kid Likes To Eat Jellyfish
The Boston Globe has a good editorial on a terrifying subject. The threatened oceans:
THE WORLD’S oceans provide a crucial environmental safety valve: The blue territory that covers 70 percent of the globe absorbs 80 percent of the heat we are adding to our climate, and about a third of carbon dioxide we are emitting into the atmosphere. A recent report by the International Program on the State of the Ocean, however, has found that the oceans may not be able to sustain these burdens much longer.
The report highlights a combination of factors that put us at high risk for, as the report puts it, “entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.’’ The combined effects of overfishing, marine pollution, and carbon emissions are responsible for this basic fact: Our oceans are degenerating far more quickly than previously predicted. This has consequences not just for marine ecosystems and species, but also for humans.
Sent July 22, gloomily:
Considering that we lived in close interaction with the natural world for countless thousands of years, modern homo sapiens shows a disturbing level of ignorance of the environmental systems of which it is a part. The possibility that the planet’s oceans are entering a death spiral barely seems to be registering on most people’s radar; instead, we are preoccupied with gossip, trivialities, and short-term threats to our comfort. Attention, everyone! A collapse of oceanic ecosystems would not just be a temporary inconvenience, but a world-changing event of a magnitude far beyond our ken! Between oceanic acidification, overfishing, and pollution, we humans have inflicted enormous damage on the seas; if we don’t change our ways voluntarily, we will be forced to change them whether we like it or not. With a civilization struggling in the aftermath of catastrophic ecological implosions, we will have no alternative but to adapt or die.
Warren Senders
environment: Arctic ice melt endangered species
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 7: Water Wings. That’ll Help.
The Long Island Press for July 19 runs an article on polar bears and their increasingly difficult lives:
A new study reports that polar bear cubs have a higher mortality rate as their icy habitat melts. As their habitat melts away at faster rates than before polar bear cubs alongside their mothers are forced to make longer trips swimming across the icy waters, leading to an increase in death rates.
According to Reuters, the new study shows that these long distance swimming trips pose great risks to the survival of polar bear cubs. Polar bears are not aquatic animals. In fact, the majority of their lives are spent on ice or land–where they hunt, feed, and give birth.
I sure am glad I’m not a polar bear, facing eventual extinction. Oh, wait…
Sent July 21:
As the poster children for Arctic ice loss, the world’s polar bears get quite a bit of media attention. No wonder: they’re photogenic, their plight is arresting, and they are sufficiently distant from our day-to-day lives that news about them constitutes a distraction of sorts. But in our sympathy over bear cubs losing their habitats, we should not forget that these charismatic predators are only one of millions of species existing under the very real threat of runaway climate change. All forms of earthly life are vulnerable — environmental shifts can trigger rapid extinctions within a very short time — but some are more vulnerable than others. Our complex and intricate human civilization is no protection against a collapsed food supply. Looking down the road a bit, it’s frighteningly clear that polar bears aren’t the only ones who’ll be facing an uphill struggle to survive. Are humans an endangered species?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies denialists idiots Republicans
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 6: Department of Tribal Ironies
The NYT’s blog “Scientist At Work” reports on a study done in Mongolia which shows that the herders there are very much up to date on how bad things are getting:
Mongolian herders may not know the term “global climate change,” but almost all know that their weather is changing. If asked whether the weather will get better, stay the same or get worse, most of them will say the weather will get worse. Mongolian herders already face difficult seasons with winter temperatures down to minus 40 degrees Celsius and strong, gusty cold spring winds. Summer may not offer much of a respite. The days alternate between cold nights and daytime heat waves or cold, windy, rainy days. Over the last 20 years strong wind gusts have become more frequent and storms arrive with little warning. The herders love their lives, but many are afraid there may be no future in herding for their children.
I sent this as a letter to the Times on July 20, but I’m also sending it as a comment to this blog; I’m a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy, I guess.
It used to be that the phrase “outer Mongolia” was a kind of not-so-clever shorthand for “the back of beyond” — a place utterly removed from the fast-moving news of the day, with a population steeped in ignorance and superstition. How far we’ve come. The herders of Mongolia are fully aware of the vagaries of our fluctuating climate; they may be remote, but they’re not stupid, and their lives and their livings are threatened by the rapid transformation of Earth’s atmosphere. Meanwhile, in our own country, the proudly ignorant citizens of Republicanistan cling to complex and irrational belief systems. Rejecting as irrelevant such modern concepts as evidence, proof, causality and logic, they base their tribal decision-making on magic incantations and the invocation of divine forces. What does it say about our contemporary political environment when Mongolian herders are more sensible about climate issues than over half of the US Congress?
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs bhajan genius Marathi bhavgeet
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Miss Gohar of Bijapur (Gauhar Karnataki)
Miss Gohar of Bijapur sings two Marathi devotional songs. Her voice is terrific, her delivery heartfelt, her intonation spot-on, her melismatic technique top-notch. What’s not to like?
Wikipedia notes that:
There were four singing contemporaries of Gauhar Jaan with first names pronounced the same way as hers and sometimes spelled in English in different ways:
– Gauhar Jan of Patiala;
– Miss Gohar, who was associated with Parsi Theatrical Company in Bombay (Mumbai);
– Gohar Mamajiwala, a singer actress who was associated with and mistress of Sardar Chandulal Shah of Ranjit Films (studio), Bombay; and
– Gohar Bai Karnataki of Bijapur.
I believe we are listening to the last-listed of these luminaries.
She was a fairly prominent name in Hindi Films in the ’30s, acting, composing and singing songs, most/all of which were never released on 78s and are probably lost for ever. Her sister
Amirbai’s name is far more famous and many brilliant songs sung by Amirbai are easily available today. Before her most prolific years in the ’40s, Amirbai sometimes sang under the name ‘Amir Jan’. Gauharbai’s name appears as ‘Gauhar of Bijapur’ in the Hindi Film Geet Kosh pages. Gauhar was devoted to Bal Gandharva; BG left his family to live with her. There were whispers around 1950 that Gauhar, whom BG used to call ‘Baba’, had cast an evil spell on Narayanrao Bal Gandharva, whose surname was ‘Rajhans’. The Gauhar
episode in BG’s life has been treated at some length in Ravindra Pinge’s beautiful article on BG, titled ‘Chandraast’ and included in the book ‘TuShaar aaNi Taare’. Whatever manipulations she may have resorted to, even her detractors concede that her devotion to Bal Gandharva’s style of singing was genuine. It is not surprising that many of her 78s are of Marathi songs sung in BG’s style.
Link
Afaghaachi sansaar
Satata vimal bhaj nama
environment: denialists idiots media irresponsibility
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 5: Send In The Clowns
The July 19 Colorodoan (CO) runs an article very properly pointing out that arch-denialist Fred Singer is a buffoon:
Don’t worry, be happy about the changing climate.
And don’t believe newspaper articles like this one – the mainstream media are not to be trusted because reporters have been “brainwashed” to believe the prevailing wisdom of climate science, which suggests climate change is real and caused by people.
Those were the messages Monday evening from Colorado State University emeritus atmospheric science professor William Gray and the “dean” of climate change skeptics, Fred Singer, an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia. Singer and Gray spoke to a sometimes unruly and tense audience in a packed CSU auditorium in attempts to convince them that most climate science is “hokum” and “bunk.”
Fear about climate change, Singer said, is a “psychosis” because global warming is natural and harmless.
Presenting almost no data while being peppered with questions from some of CSU’s other atmospheric scientists and faculty, the pair emphatically denied the climate has warmed significantly in recent decades and said rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have only positive implications for humans.
It’s always good to indulge in a little bit of justified character assassination. Sent July 19:
Fred Singer is a living example of Upton Sinclair’s apothegm, “It is difficult to make a man understand something when his paycheck depends upon his not understanding it.” His denials of oil company funding are Nixonian shadings of the truth; many of the organizations he’s affiliated with rely heavily on the fossil fuel industry for their support. If he examined the evidence for human causes of climate change with the kind of genuine skepticism any good professional scientist employs, he’d be forced to abandon a gratifying and remunerative position. Accorded disproportionate prominence in the media due to his rejection of the worldwide climatological consensus on global warming, Singer’s credibility is summarized neatly in your article’s fifth paragraph. “Presenting almost no data,” is not a phrase appropriate to a credible scientist. Singer’s not a skeptic, but a corporate shill exploiting public confusion and fear for personal gain.
Warren Senders
India music vocalists: 78 rpm discs African music genius
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Swahili Song by Sitti Binti Saad
I was looking through stacks of 78s in Chor Bazaar during a Mumbai visit in the late 1990s when this one showed up under my fingers.
Always on the lookout for anomalies, I was delighted to find this double-sided recording of a Swahili song. Turns out the singer is really terrific; a little bit of searching under her name yields quite a lot of information about someone who was quite an important figure in world music in the first half of the twentieth century.
Sheikh Abdullah Amur Suleiman has more, in a charming biography on the Zanzibar facebook page:
With a characteristic and gifted voice, Siti binti Saad rose to a position of national pride as the songstress of her day. She was the first East African woman to have her voice recorded on discs for the purpose of entertaining and promoting the Swahili language and creating a commercial enterprise out of those records.
Those memorable love songs are still in the hearts of many admirers who pass them on to the next generation. Siti, as she was commonly known, sang in Swahili. She sang at the palace, wedding parties and other public functions.
Siti could also sing in Arabic and Hindustani. When the monsoon dhows from Kuwait, Iraq, Oman and Southern Arabia visited here in those days she used to be fully booked with singing appointments to entertain the captains and crews of the dhows.
Elmughani Shahir Sitti Binti Saad (with Chorus):
“Riala Yashami Haisemi Uwongo”
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs Quawwali
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Ismail Azad Quawal
This disc brings us the third and fourth parts of a lengthier quawwal performance by Ismail Azad Quawal.
I enjoy his fervent delivery and the acrobatic accompaniment.
environment: coastlines erosion oceans scientific consensus
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 4: West Coastin’
The July 18 Monterey Herald (CA) reports on a study of Pacific coastal erosion:
The storms that battered the West Coast during the winter of 2009-10 eroded record chunks of shoreline, and more will likely disappear as the changing climate brings more such powerful storm seasons, scientists warn in a new study.
Pacific waves were 20 percent stronger on average than any year since 1997 and higher-than-usual sea levels drove them further inland, tearing away on average one-third m ore land in California.
The state’s beaches were “eroded to often unprecedented levels,” said Patrick Barnard, a coastal geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who led the research.
“It’s the kind of winter we may experience more frequently” as global temperatures rise, he said.
Nowhere along the West Coast was erosion more pronounced than at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. That winter, the Pacific encroached 184 feet inland, 75 percent more than in a typical season.
Maybe scientists should hold up a big flag when they have something important to say? Sent July 18:
When the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patrick Barnard says, “there’s no indication (of) a light at the end of the tunnel anytime soon, given the current trends that we’re observing,” he’s using language designed for careful and accurate communication. But anyone who understands “science-speak” will recognize the signs: Dr. Barnard is extremely alarmed. While his team’s research on the Pacific coastline’s future in a post-global-warming world has scary enough implications for communities on the ocean’s edge, when you consider that countless regional environments and ecosystems around the planet face similar disturbances, these are frightening findings indeed. Take the changes faced by Ocean Beach and multiply them a hundred thousand times, and you can begin to imagine the disruptions the coming climate chaos will bring. In their precise and unemotional way, the scientists are shouting out a warning: we must act now if we are to mitigate the storms of the coming centuries.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs bhajan
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: M.L. Chowdhry and Sunita Devi
This “Shiv Lila Bhajan” in two parts was part of the collection acquired in Udaipur in 2000.
Enjoy.
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility EPA idiots Republicans
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 3: Hey! I’m-a-talkin’ to YOU!
The July 17 Poughkeepsie Journal runs an interview with their area’s Regional EPA director, prefacing it with some pointed words of criticism:
Nevertheless, it is on that second subject, global warming, that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has been far too tepid in its response. Both the agency and federal elected officials still have to find common ground — and viable solutions.
Judith Enck, the EPA regional administrator, defended the agency’s decision not to press forward more forcibly without congressional support, despite various court rulings that would seem to give the EPA more latitude here.
I think I’m going to start writing to the multinationals directly. Yeah, that’ll work. The Poughkeepsie Journal has a 250-word limit, and I didn’t feel like cutting this one down from 195, so it’s a little longer than the default 150. Sent July 17:
It is irrefutable that the EPA should push harder to limit carbon emissions and give more attention to educating the public on the extremely dangerous future that awaits us if global climate change is not controlled. Sadly, it’s also irrefutable that the current political climate is a dreadful one for progress on environmental issues. With an ideologically constricted Republican party chock-full of anti-science zealots who appear to believe that they can create their own reality if they don’t like this one, meaningful legislative initiatives on what is arguably the most pressing issue of our time are entirely out of the question. Yes, the EPA should do its job more zealously, with special attention to aspects of the environment which transcend national boundaries and affect all the world’s people. But the other side of the equation is that the corporate forces controlling our politics must realize that if their customer base were to experience what biologists delicately call an “evolutionary bottleneck,” it would hurt their future profit margins more than a worldwide shift to renewable energy. Let the world’s multinationals figure this out, and we’ll see Republicans publicly embracing wind turbines and solar panels.
Warren Senders