End Times Progress Report | Week of May 14, 2012

Monsanto-related Developments Under The Radar Should Make You Nervous – Real Nervous

• Monsanto purchases Bee Colony Collapse Research Company
• Monsanto “donates” $250,00o to U of I Ag Research

If the pied piper of Hamlin had first introduced the rats to the town of Hamlin so he could charge the town to get rid of them, you’d have a scenario similar to the corporate hold up currently in progress. Monsanto has caused an agricultural and ecological disaster on a global scale, and now the demon seed and poison company is teaming up with their pals at Dow Chemical to do it to you again. Here’s how it works.

Agricultural authorities are just now beginning to acknowledge what has been called a plague of superweeds threatening North American farmland. It has taken them awhile because Monsanto lawyers have ruined many a scientist’s (and journalist’s) careers. The superweeds have developed a resistance to Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide, which is a key component of the Monsanto school of unsustainable agriculture. These events were all predicted by alarmist scientists over a decade ago.

Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences are petitioning U.S. and Canadian authorities to approve four new varieties of bio-mutated corn and soybean which will be resistant to a couple more toxic herbicides: 2,4D choline and dicamba. Can you guess who manufactures these poisons? The USDA is working hard to greenlight the approval process.

No one pretends to think the cycle won’t escalate into an all out bio-chemical company vs. weed war, but no one has any better ideas at this point.

Yes, it’s really here and it’s really happening. History will show that the vast majority of the U.S.  population had no idea what was going on until the agricultural catastrophe was irreversible.

Because the this genie isn’t going back in the RoundUp bottle.

Did CoalOilGas tell Senators They Weren’t Allowed to Go to the Hearing?

Only One Republican Senator attended a Congressional hearing on the effects of sea levels rising, an event that was rares and invisible to the media. She left well before it was over. The sort of funny thing about this problem is that there isn’t a lot of disputed science involved. The rising seas are observable and provable.

There are a lot of things were don’t pretend to understand here at the Editorial Board, but one of hardest to get is why the climate skeptics on the payroll of CoalOilGas are able to keep selling the notion that any effort to limit carbon and methane emissions is too economically expensive.

What is missing from the equation are the enormous costs climate change is already inflicting on civilization*.  The most obvious is documentable  destruction caused by extreme storms, flood and drought and other extreme weather…ask property insurance companies if they “believe” in climate change. Extreme weather in 2011 caused over $35 billion in insurance payouts in the U.S. alone, a record that reflects a small part of the damage.

Directly next in line after  extreme storms, flood and drought is the effect sea level rise is having on the coasts. Among the problems, coastal infrastructure such as roads, harbors, sea walls and power plants are all in imminent danger of being compromised. Water supplies are threatened with salt water inundation as the ocean moves inland. Florida is already dealing with sewage & drainage problems due to the 8 inches of sea level rise we’ve already seen, posing a major health risk.

In case you doubt it, see the latest report on the Greenland glaciers, which are now accelerating their speed as the rate of melt increases. More water, higher sea levels. Or ask the citizens of the Kirubata Islands.

There is one twistedly beautiful irony entwined in this mess: obvious being the threat of Louisiana’s Route 1, which begins at the permanent boomtown of Port Porchon. Rising seas and subsiding land** is threatening the viability of this key petroleum industry artery, with studies predicting the cost of compromising Rt. 1 in the billions.

In a bonus irony Louisiana wants Federal funds to pay for the raising of the highway. But what about your bigmouth governor and other tea party officials who eschew gument money. We are self-reliant folks who don’t want no handout from the Feds.

Eventually, billions of dollar will be spent saving the highway that carries the addictive substance called oil to civilization, where we will use it to continue to destroy the equilibrium of our home planet.

Purdue Study Shows Strong Indication That Honey Bee Colony Collapse Is Caused By Pesticides.

The presence of clothianidin and thiamethoxam in the bodies of dead honey bees confirms the growing body of research indicating these toxins are at least partially responsible for the global die off of honey bee populations. In a phenomenon know as Honey Bee Colony Collapse, bees leave the hive and are unable to find their way back. The prevailing theory is that the toxins don’t kill the bees outright, but destroy their famous built-in homing GPS. Other research points to GMO crops.

This is more than just a damn shame: it can mean an impending economic and ecological disaster. Bees are responsible for pollinating commercial crops and wild flowers, so crops can’t grown and the countryside will look quite different.

Bayer, the German chemical giant, says it ain’t true. In fact, there statements indicate they are OUTRAGED! at the study. This could really screw up profits.

We can only hope that perhaps Monsanto will be able to genetically engineer bees to make them immune to pesticides. Maybe a little bigger and more productive, too.

Scrubbing the poisons from burning coal keeps it out of the air temporarily, but it doesn’t go away. It comes to people’s neighborhoods. Then they have to leave.

Georgia Power – primary owner of the largest coal–fired plant in the country – is buying up houses in the community around their massive toxic coal sludge impoundment near Lake Julliette, GA. The colassal Plant Scherer coal plant dunps about 1,000 pounds of toxic waste from captured from coal combustion into the unlined pond every day. There is no Sabbath for coal waste. The plant also ranks 20 in the world for total carbon emissions, but that is a different subject.

Georgia Power demolishes and bulldozes the houses, seals up water wells and sometimes fences off the vacated property with barbed wire. No playgrounds here. The people in the houses move somewhere else, except for the ones who have died of cancer. The have already been silenced. The residents who sell their homes sign a non-disclosure document before they get their check and leave town.

The company has spent millions of dollar depopulating the area, but the exact amount is hard to come by. According to Georgia Power’s spokesmodels, the purchases have nothing to do with no cancer. Rather they are proactively responding to neighbors’ wishing to sell out, maybe by a condo on Marco Island. Just folks helping folks.

A lot of people in the neighborhood have cancer, asthma, nosebleeds, kidney disease and chronic sinus ailments they didn’t use to have before the huge waste pond was built, but the people who speak for the power plant don’t know anything about that. The one thing they know for sure is it isn’t their fault. So we assume they are just doing community service where they buy up the houses. And seal the wells. Meanwhile, the brown ash from the pond continues to rain down on the remaining residents.

The old “you knew there was a toxic coal waste sludge impoundment there before you moved in” argument doesn’t work here because the community was here long before the plant. But the plant will undoubtedly outlive the community – some of which dates back to before the civil war – as the power company agents move the residents out one by one. Just another nameless victim of the powers that be.

A coal sludge impoundment, usually called a fly ash pond or some other happier name, is a witch’s brew of toxic materials scrubbed from coal during combustion. This is the stuff that used to spew into the air. Now it goes into the air and water. Georgia Power is quick to tell you they have spent billions installing pollution control systems at Plant Scherer. These systems remove the tons of poisons from the coal exhaust and concentrate them into a waste slurry containing arsenic, mercury, lead, vanadium and chromium and over a dozen other heavy metals. But that doesn’t mean they go away. They just get dumped into larger and larger and more and more toxic ponds. About 1300 of them around the country, containing over 130 million tons of toxic waste. Now we know where it is. Maybe they have a wand that will make it disappear.

The poisons from these impoundments blow, spill, leach and leak into the environment. One of them “leaked” a billion gallons of the stuff into the watershed of Knoxville, TN in late 2008. In fact, there have been dozens of similar incidents over the past decade that we know about. Didn’t hear about that?

These toxins are proven to cause cancer and neurological effects as well as many other negative health impacts:  heart damage, lung disease, kidney disease, reproductive problems, gastrointestinal illness, birth defects, and impaired bone growth in children.

And what is never never mentioned in the fake grass roots Clean Coal commercials you see between contestants on “The Voice” is this: coal combustion waste is also radioactive, more radioactive than the waste from nuclear plants. That’s because the burning process concentrates all of the evil stuff in coal into one big pond of slurry. It’s not the darkest secret of coal as an energy source, but it’s in the top five.

What do the federal state and local governments do about it? Nothing, because somehow this stuff has escaped regulation. Of course we know how that works, because coal is clean, safe, inexpensive and patriotic. That’s how situations like the one around Plant Scherer arise and why their spokesmodels can look right into the camera and say “We are in compliance with all laws.” Monitoring the groundwater around the unlined pond at Plant Scherer is not required by any law.

That big spill in eastern Tennessee 5 years ago caused what is described as “new scrutiny” of these impoundments. Tests were done and contaminates were discovered near plants in 16 states. And intense scrutiny has been continuing ever since, as coal interests line the pockets of the people who were elected to protect citizens.

Just Because It Seems Like A Bad Science Fiction Movie Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t True

We hate to say it* but we’ve been talking about this for years while the corporate press tiptoed around it. Now the problem seems to be breaking through to the DWTS-obsessed public: the superweed infestation scientists warned about is here, there and everywhere.  The predicted superweeds are breaking out all over, including super pigweed and super ragweed.

The latest report to come to our attention is from Australia, where the first reports of glyphosate resistance began in 2007.  Five years later, the problem is an epidemic, especially in New South Wales.

As quote in Australia’s “The Age”, a spokes man for the Department of Agriculture said, “the number of resistant plants will continue to multiply.”

This was verified by a spokemodel for Monsanto Australia, who confimred that weed killer resistance is one of the greatest modern challenges facing farmers and that the threat of resistance to glyphosate-based herbicides is real. It takes a particular kind of brain to generate that statement. What she neglected to mention was that Monsanto had caused the problem

If you don’t what we’re talking about, visit this page on CatastropheMap. If you don’t have time, here a summary: Monsanto is the largest seed company in the world and all of it’s seeds are genetically modified. Monsanto is also the manufacturer of RoundUp, the world’s most “popular’** herbicide. According to the Monsanto theory of agriculture, you sell a package of your seeds and RoundUp to the farmer. They in turn treat the fields with RoundUp and only one thing will grow there: Monsanto brand mutated crop seeds. Not a joke, not even satire. So no weeds and no tilling. Yahoo!

Except that biologists warned that the weeds would mutate and become resistant to RoundUp. It’s the new natural cycle.

After Monsanto ruined the careers off the rogue liberal scientists and browbeat farmers into planting their seeds***, superweeds began to pop up after the first three to five years…as expected. And they are spreading around the world.

So you know what Monsanto is fixing to do? Seriously? They are going to make billions more selling millions of gallons of new, more bad ass pesticides to fight the monster organisms they created. Monsanto officially recommends using multiple week killers to “manage” the problem.

Brilliant!

As professional alarmists, our job is to sort out the situations that only threaten our survival a little from those that threaten our survival a lot. This one is in between – it only concerns the viability of agriculture as we know it, otherwise known as the food supply. And the food supply is in the hands of people that make the oil companies look Captain Kangaroo.

Heartland Institute Runs Billboard Ads Featuring Ted Kaczynski and Other Unsavory Global Warming Types, Such as for instance YOU!

[We know you think this is a CatMap parody, so here's a link to the story in Chicago Tribune]

It’s not that we expect rigorous reasoning or even sane behavior from the dogma for pay rogues at Heartland Institute, but this latest caper is stunning. A billboards posted on the Eisenhower Expressway in west suburban Chicago features a picture of Unibomber Ted Kaczynski. The headline reads “I Still Believe In Global Warning, Do You?” The poster was the first of a planned series that would feature Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden* and other creeps who have also made statements supported climate change.

We speculate that implication of the text is that if you the billboard viewer “believe” in Global Warming you are either 1) a murderer / psychopath / communist or 2) a sympathizer with murderer / psychopath / communist  or 3) your reasoning is as faulty as that of a murderer / psychopath / communist.**

This actually pissed a lot of people off in a town like Chicago (home of Catastrophe Map’s secure editorial bunker and think tank) and the losers at Heartland took the billboard down in one day. The complaints came from Heartland supporters as well as global warming believers and a few mass murderers who are considering a class action suit.***

What we want to know in passing is: when Joseph Bast (who refers to climate change as a ‘fringe” theory) decided to go ahead with this brain fart, did he think people were going to react by saying “hmmm, interesting.”? Was he surprised that he got some pushback?  Or did he intend to take them down as soon as he made a fool of himself.

If you believe it, then leave it up. The only thing worse than a right wing operative is a right wing operative with no balls.

100 Year Deluge Doesn’t Put a Dent in England’s Epic Drought

Groundwater levels as at historic lows and residential hoses are banned as a downpours and flood warnings mark England’s wettest April in a century. But the nature of the flood drought flood cycle means all that water will have little effect on aquifers across southern England.  The island nation remains in the grips of its worst drought since the Druids left town.

While droughts, floods and other extreme weather is nothing new in England or anywhere else on the planet, the severity of the new climate patterns is unprecedented. This means “never happened before” for all you FUX* News viewers.

The professional alarmists here in the climate controlled CatMap Editorial Board bunker are not going to report on every rainstorm and dry spell. However, the global weather patterns of the past decade (along with a few other problems) are astoundingly like the computer models generated by liberal climate scientists (no, we don’t mean Steve Goddard). We are observing cataclysmic record-breaking weather events across the globe every year.  Where would you like to go for a drought right now? Ethiopia? Amazon? Texas? Florida? West Africa? Southern Europe? Somalia? China? Chile? And (believe it or else) Greenland.

Some characterize this situation as the new “normal.” We call it the new “FUBAR.”

The Question Is: Does the Universal Jellyfish Mind like Nuclear Plants Or Hate Them

A huge swarm of salps – a type of jellyfish – has shut down the Unit 2 Reactor at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant by clogging its intake pipes with billions of kamikaze tunicates.  Diablo Canyon is the fifth nuclear plant to be closed by jellyfish onslaughts in the course of a year. The others were located in Israel, Florida and Scotland, so it’s hardly a localized issue.

We don’t know what this all means, but in the previous several decades of nuclear power generation, no plants were closed by jellyfish. So something is going on, but what?

One possibility is that the Jellyfish are trying to tell us something, like slimy, tentacled versions of RinTinTin. Do they disapprove of nuclear energy? Do they know that the Diablo Canyon nuke is situated 20 miles from the Rinconada Fault, 45 miles from the San Andreas fault and the Hosgri fault a couple miles away. It was built to withstand a 7.5 quake. The Fukiuhima quake was 7.9.

And if they do know it, how do they know it?

As your official Jellyfish Global Headquarters, CatMap will let you know the instance we hear more.

The Effects of The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill May Just Be Beginning

In a fashion similar to George Bush’s premature Mission Accomplished Banner, BP has declared the Deepwater Horizon oil spill all cleaned and the Gulf of Mexico back to normal. But a lot of people, including and especially scientists, aren’t buying it. As a BP engineer is arrested in what is expected to be a long process leading ever higher in the food chain, fishermen and marine scientists are reporting unexplained lesions, open sores and parasitic infections never seen before in such numbers. They are cautious about blaming the oil spill at this stage, but the fishermen say these have never seen this types of affliction. So hmmm. Might be a possibility.

While the researchers aren’t ready to blame to blame the massive oil spill without more evidence, there are some facts that would make inquisitive sorts such as those that make up the staff of the Editorial Board wonder. For example, recent tests results show the presence of oil in bile taken from fish caught last autumn in the Gulf. About the time the happy commercials begn to run. Red snapper and yellow edge grouper carried naphthalene in 125 parts per million. Fish caught in the open ocean have no naphthalene in their systems…at least for now.

Earthquakes Near Maine Border Could Mean the Beginning of the End Times. Or It Could be Something Else

McAdam is a small town in southwest New Brunswick, not far from the U.S. border. Apparently not a lot happens there normally, so the sudden arrival of earthquake swarms has got people talking. The swarm began with a 2.4 tremblor on March 10 and has kept up steadily with 35 total quakes in the five weeks since.

Scientists explain gravely that it’s an “earthquake swarm”, which regular visitors to CatMap already know. We have seen them in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Youngstown, Wisconsin and England. In many instances, the authorities strongly suspect fracking injection wells and have even shut down sites in some states. But they have no explanation for the swarm in McAdam where nothing like this has ever happened before. Stay tuned.

It’s Mojo Nature’s Way of Telling You Something’s Wrong:

Visit Catmap : 25 Postcards From a Pissed Off Planet

Unlike the Book of Revelation, the Real End Times Are Going to Be Mundane. Right now, it’s all about rice.

Vietnamese Officials report that 38% of the Mekong Delta could be inundated** for more than half of each year as climate change continues apace.  According to deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Dao Xuan Hoc, his department has concluded that the rising seas could cover 90% of the delta by 2020, adversely affecting the lives of the roughly 8.5 million people who will no longer live there.

The minister said that high tides threatening Ho Chi Min City and sea level encroachment in southern provinces could result in loss of 70% of the delta and the rice production form 2 million fertile hectares lost to the sea. As it stands, many long time rice farmers are changing over to shrimp farming, another environmentally catastrophic practice. Considering that Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, American’s may be switching to Shrimp Krispies and Shrimp A Roni in the not too distant future.

Even though those picturesque rice paddies are full of water, there are two things that rice plants can’t tolerate. One is being completely submerged and the other is salt water. Gene researcher in the Philippines are hoping to create a new strain of rice that can tolerate weeks under water as well as salt water.  That’s a reasonable response to empirically observable data and we applaud the doomed effort. While at the same time asking: why can’t Republicans see these things?

Vague Reports About a Technical Incident

Total E&P Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of French oil major Total SA, is sort of reporting another gas leak incident in Nigeria. The Obite gas plant has been shut down as the company investigates a oil and gas “resurgence” and attempts to limit environmental damage.  The plant and area around it has been evacuated.

According to Total, the leak was first noticed on April 3 and was undoubtedly caused by a technical incident of March 20. “All necessary means to ensure the protection of nearby communities and personnel and to limit the impact on the environment have been immediately mobilized,” a Total spokesmodel said in a written statement. Good enough for us.

Total is one of a handful of oil companies  that have joined Royal Dutch Shell in destroying the Niger delta.

The French company has flown in Texans to stop a massive gas emissions event at one of its North Sea rigs. That one has been leaking since March 25. The company has issued daily reports about the North Sea disaster. The company has been reticent about the Nigerian disaster. When the technical incidents are fixed, you will be expected to forget they happened.

You forgot about the big Shell North Sea oil spill in August didn’t you? You didn’t even notice the new Gulf of Mexico oil slick between to Shell platforms (fairness note: Shell says it isn’t their spill). You probably still don’t know about the damaged Taylor Energy oil platform, which has been leaking crude into the Gulf since 2004.

Hey, how about that spectacular pipeline explosion in Azerbaijan two days ago.

By now, you should have already forgotten the six 2011 pipeline explosions in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And you probably never hear about KinderMorgan’s endless succession of spills, such as this 100,000 gallon diesel spill in a California marshland.

** The land is subsiding because it has been screwed up by a hundred years of screwing with the Delta, and by sixty years of dredging and otherwise mucking up the wetlands by the highly subsidized oil industry.

**There must be a different word for a poison than popular.

***The farmers don’t own the seeds and they are not allowed to save seeds for next years planting. Just try it and see.

End Times Update | Weekend of May 4, 2012

Hot links: Archbishop ready to bust nuns for doing Jesus work instead of following Vatican dictrine | Federal scientist calls vegetation die off conditions in Texas park “unprecedented in living memory” | Visit CatMap website to view the 27 Postcards from a pissed Off Planet Exhibit  | Wanna See How Big The Pacific Garbage Patch Really Is? | BP Engineer Arrested, Is In Deep Shit Over Deep Water

Further down in this report:

Universal Jelly Fish Mind attacks another nuclear plant • As the collective memory forgets about Deepwater Horizon, marine life is all messed up • New Brunswick Town Latest Location for Earthquake Swarms • Lloyds of London Not Thrilled About Arctic Drilling

Heartland Institute Runs Billboard Ads Featuring Ted Kaczynski and Other Unsavory Global Warming Types, Such as for instance YOU!

[We know you think this is a CatMap parody, so here's a link to the story in Chicago Tribune]

It’s not that we expect rigorous reasoning or even sane behavior from the dogma for pay rogues at Heartland Institute, but this latest caper is stunning. A billboards posted on the Eisenhower Expressway in west suburban Chicago features a picture of Unibomber Ted Kaczynski. The headline reads “I Still Believe In Global Warning, Do You?” The poster was the first of a planned series that would feature Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden* and other creeps who have also made statements supported climate change.

We speculate that implication of the text is that if you the billboard viewer “believe” in Global Warming you are either 1) a murderer / psychopath / communist or 2) a sympathizer with murderer / psychopath / communist  or 3) your reasoning is as faulty as that of a murderer / psychopath / communist.**

This actually pissed a lot of people off in a town like Chicago (home of Catastrophe Map’s secure editorial bunker and think tank) and the losers at Heartland took the billboard down in one day. The complaints came from Heartland supporters as well as global warming believers and a few mass murderers who are considering a class action suit.***

What we want to know in passing is: when Joseph Bast (who refers to climate change as a ‘fringe” theory) decided to go ahead with this brain fart, did he think people were going to react by saying “hmmm, interesting.”? Was he surprised that he got some pushback?  Or did he intend to take them down as soon as he made a fool of himself.

If you believe it, then leave it up. The only thing worse than a right wing operative is a right wing operative with no balls.

100 Year Deluge Doesn’t Put a Dent in England’s Epic Drought

Groundwater levels as at historic lows and residential hoses are banned as a downpours and flood warnings mark England’s wettest April in a century. But the nature of the flood drought flood cycle means all that water will have little effect on aquifers across southern England.  The island nation remains in the grips of its worst drought since the Druids left town.

While droughts, floods and other extreme weather is nothing new in England or anywhere else on the planet, the severity of the new climate patterns is unprecedented. This means “never happened before” for all you FUX* News viewers.

The professional alarmists here in the climate controlled CatMap Editorial Board bunker are not going to report on every rainstorm and dry spell. However, the global weather patterns of the past decade (along with a few other problems) are astoundingly like the computer models generated by liberal climate scientists (no, we don’t mean Steve Goddard). We are observing cataclysmic record-breaking weather events across the globe every year.  Where would you like to go for a drought right now? Ethiopia? Amazon? Texas? Florida? West Africa? Southern Europe? Somalia? China? Chile? And (believe it or else) Greenland.

Some characterize this situation as the new “normal.” We call it the new “FUBAR.”

The Question Is: Does the Universal Jellyfish Mind like Nuclear Plants Or Hate Them

A huge swarm of salps – a type of jellyfish – has shut down the Unit 2 Reactor at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant by clogging its intake pipes with billions of kamikaze tunicates.  Diablo Canyon is the fifth nuclear plant to be closed by jellyfish onslaughts in the course of a year. The others were located in Israel, Florida and Scotland, so it’s hardly a localized issue.

We don’t know what this all means, but in the previous several decades of nuclear power generation, no plants were closed by jellyfish. So something is going on, but what?

One possibility is that the Jellyfish are trying to tell us something, like slimy, tentacled versions of RinTinTin. Do they disapprove of nuclear energy? Do they know that the Diablo Canyon nuke is situated 20 miles from the Rinconada Fault, 45 miles from the San Andreas fault and the Hosgri fault a couple miles away. It was built to withstand a 7.5 quake. The Fukiuhima quake was 7.9.

And if they do know it, how do they know it?

As your official Jellyfish Global Headquarters, CatMap will let you know the instance we hear more.

The Effects of The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill May Just Be Beginning

In a fashion similar to George Bush’s premature Mission Accomplished Banner, BP has declared the Deepwater Horizon oil spill all cleaned and the Gulf of Mexico back to normal. But a lot of people, including and especially scientists, aren’t buying it. As a BP engineer is arrested in what is expected to be a long process leading ever higher in the food chain, fishermen and marine scientists are reporting unexplained lesions, open sores and parasitic infections never seen before in such numbers. They are cautious about blaming the oil spill at this stage, but the fishermen say these have never seen this types of affliction. So hmmm. Might be a possibility.

While the researchers aren’t ready to blame to blame the massive oil spill without more evidence, there are some facts that would make inquisitive sorts such as those that make up the staff of the Editorial Board wonder. For example, recent tests results show the presence of oil in bile taken from fish caught last autumn in the Gulf. About the time the happy commercials begn to run. Red snapper and yellow edge grouper carried naphthalene in 125 parts per million. Fish caught in the open ocean have no naphthalene in their systems…at least for now.

Earthquakes Near Maine Border Could Mean the Beginning of the End Times. Or It Could be Something Else

McAdam is a small town in southwest New Brunswick, not far from the U.S. border. Apparently not a lot happens there normally, so the sudden arrival of earthquake swarms has got people talking. The swarm began with a 2.4 tremblor on March 10 and has kept up steadily with 35 total quakes in the five weeks since.

Scientists explain gravely that it’s an “earthquake swarm”, which regular visitors to CatMap already know. We have seen them in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Youngstown, Wisconsin and England. In many instances, the authorities strongly suspect fracking injection wells and have even shut down sites in some states. But they have no explanation for the swarm in McAdam where nothing like this has ever happened before. Stay tuned.

It’s Mojo Nature’s Way of Telling You Something’s Wrong:

Visit Catmap : 25 Postcards From a Pissed Off Planet

Unlike the Book of Revelation, the Real End Times Are Going to Be Mundane. Right now, it’s all about rice.

Vietnamese Officials report that 38% of the Mekong Delta could be inundated** for more than half of each year as climate change continues apace.  According to deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Dao Xuan Hoc, his department has concluded that the rising seas could cover 90% of the delta by 2020, adversely affecting the lives of the roughly 8.5 million people who will no longer live there.

The minister said that high tides threatening Ho Chi Min City and sea level encroachment in southern provinces could result in loss of 70% of the delta and the rice production form 2 million fertile hectares lost to the sea. As it stands, many long time rice farmers are changing over to shrimp farming, another environmentally catastrophic practice. Considering that Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, American’s may be switching to Shrimp Krispies and Shrimp A Roni in the not too distant future.

Even though those picturesque rice paddies are full of water, there are two things that rice plants can’t tolerate. One is being completely submerged and the other is salt water. Gene researcher in the Philippines are hoping to create a new strain of rice that can tolerate weeks under water as well as salt water.  That’s a reasonable response to empirically observable data and we applaud the doomed effort. While at the same time asking: why can’t Republicans see these things?

Vague Reports About a Technical Incident

Total E&P Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of French oil major Total SA, is sort of reporting another gas leak incident in Nigeria. The Obite gas plant has been shut down as the company investigates a oil and gas “resurgence” and attempts to limit environmental damage.  The plant and area around it has been evacuated.

According to Total, the leak was first noticed on April 3 and was undoubtedly caused by a technical incident of March 20. “All necessary means to ensure the protection of nearby communities and personnel and to limit the impact on the environment have been immediately mobilized,” a Total spokesmodel said in a written statement. Good enough for us.

Total is one of a handful of oil companies  that have joined Royal Dutch Shell in destroying the Niger delta.

The French company has flown in Texans to stop a massive gas emissions event at one of its North Sea rigs. That one has been leaking since March 25. The company has issued daily reports about the North Sea disaster. The company has been reticent about the Nigerian disaster. When the technical incidents are fixed, you will be expected to forget they happened.

You forgot about the big Shell North Sea oil spill in August didn’t you? You didn’t even notice the new Gulf of Mexico oil slick between to Shell platforms (fairness note: Shell says it isn’t their spill). You probably still don’t know about the damaged Taylor Energy oil platform, which has been leaking crude into the Gulf since 2004.

Hey, how about that spectacular pipeline explosion in Azerbaijan two days ago.

By now, you should have already forgotten the six 2011 pipeline explosions in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And you probably never hear about KinderMorgan’s endless succession of spills, such as this 100,000 gallon diesel spill in a California marshland.

Legendary UK Insurance Concern Issues Cautionary Report

As Royal Dutch Shell prepared for exploratory drilling in the fragile Arctice, Lloyds of London has issued a strong warning about the environmental and economic impact of screwing up.  And considering Shell’s track record spilling their oil seed wherever they go, the odds of a screw up are high. Shell had a major spill on one its North Sea rigs in August of 2011 that you might say was under-reported. Over the past 50 years, the company has pretty much laid waste to the Niger delta, ruining the livelihood of tens of thousands and dwarfing the 2010 BP in the Gulf of Mexico.  BP had a major spill in 2008 in the Arctic. There will be disasters in the Arctic when the oil companies move in.

This is an excerpt from the report.

The environmental consequences of disasters in the Arctic have the potential to be worse than in other regions. The resilience of the Arctic’s ecosystems in terms of withstanding risk events is weak, and political sensitivity to a disaster is high. As a result, companies operating in the Arctic face significant reputational risk.

The English concern represents the world’s oldest and largest insurance market and views potential problems strictly through the lense of business.

CatastropheMap has predicted previously that the first true believers in a systematic collapse of the planet will be insurance companies, because they are already paying out record amounts for extreme weather and mitigation damages. In the next stage of collapse, these companies will either 1) attempt to avoid liability or 2) decline coverage of extreme weather-related damage. Once this happens the economic consequences of a dangerous new climate will become a little more obvious.  We assume that the fossil fuel interests and their pimps in Congress will then retroactively announce that they didn’t really mean it was too expensive too to address greenhouse gas emissions. What they meant was that it was too expensive for THEM.

**Mr. Kaczynski had some unfortunately ways of expressing himself, but if you read his manifesto it makes surprising sense. Most of the time. The mail bombs hurt his credibility for sure.

*** The part about the mass murderers isn’t true, but everything else is.

Hot links: Nuts at Heartland Institute Compare Belief In Climate Change to Mass Murder – Story at Des |  Federal scientist calls vegetation die off conditions in Texas park “unprecedented in living memory” | Visit CatMap website to view the 27 Postcards from a pissed Off Planet Exhibit  | Wanna See How Big The Pacific Garbage Patch Really Is? | BP Engineer Arrested, Is In Deep Shit Over Deep Water

Further down in this report:

Universal Jelly Fish Mind attacks another nuclear plant • As the collective memory forgets about Deepwater Horizon, marine life is all messed up • New Brunswick Town Latest Location for Earthquake Swarms • Lloyds of London Not Thrilled About Arctic Drilling • Romney Nearly Injures His Lips Kissing NRA Ass

100 Year Deluge Doesn’t Put a Dent in England’s Epic Drought

Groundwater levels as at historic lows and residential hoses are banned as a downpours and flood warnings mark England’s wettest April in a century. But the nature of the flood drought flood cycle means all that water will have little effect on aquifers across southern England.  The island nation remains in the grips of its worst drought since the Druids left town.

While droughts, floods and other extreme weather is nothing new in England or anywhere else on the planet, the severity of the new climate patterns is unprecedented. This means “never happened before” for all you FUX* News viewers.

The professional alarmists here in the climate controlled CatMap Editorial Board bunker are not going to report on every rainstorm and dry spell. However, the global weather patterns of the past decade (along with a few other problems) are astoundingly like the computer models generated by liberal climate scientists (no, we don’t mean Joseph Bast). We are observing cataclysmic record-breaking weather events across the globe every year.  Where would you like to go for a drought right now? Ethiopia? Amazon? Texas? Florida? West Africa? Southern Europe? Somalia? China? Chile? And (believe it or else) Greenland.

Some characterize this situation as the new “normal.” We call it the new “FUBAR.”

The Question Is: Does the Universal Jellyfish Mind like Nuclear Plants Or Hate Them

A huge swarm of salps – a type of jellyfish – has shut down the Unit 2 Reactor at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant by clogging its intake pipes with billions of kamikaze tunicates.  Diablo Canyon is the fifth nuclear plant to be closed by jellyfish onslaughts in the course of a year. The others were located in Israel, Florida and Scotland, so it’s hardly a localized issue.

We don’t know what this all means, but in the previous several decades of nuclear power generation, no plants were closed by jellyfish. So something is going on, but what?

One possibility is that the Jellyfish are trying to tell us something, like slimy, tentacled versions of RinTinTin. Do they disapprove of nuclear energy? Do they know that the Diablo Canyon nuke is situated 20 miles from the Rinconada Fault, 45 miles from the San Andreas fault and the Hosgri fault a couple miles away. It was built to withstand a 7.5 quake. The Fukiuhima quake was 7.9.

And if they do know it, how do they know it?

As your official Jellyfish Global Headquarters, CatMap will let you know the instance we hear more.

The Effects of The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill May Just Be Beginning

In a fashion similar to George Bush’s premature Mission Accomplished Banner, BP has declared the Deepwater Horizon oil spill all cleaned and the Gulf of Mexico back to normal. But a lot of people, including and especially scientists, aren’t buying it. As a BP engineer is arrested in what is expected to be a long process leading ever higher in the food chain, fishermen and marine scientists are reporting unexplained lesions, open sores and parasitic infections never seen before in such numbers. They are cautious about blaming the oil spill at this stage, but the fishermen say these have never seen this types of affliction. So hmmm. Might be a possibility.

While the researchers aren’t ready to blame to blame the massive oil spill without more evidence, there are some facts that would make inquisitive sorts such as those that make up the staff of the Editorial Board wonder. For example, recent tests results show the presence of oil in bile taken from fish caught last autumn in the Gulf. About the time the happy commercials begn to run. Red snapper and yellow edge grouper carried naphthalene in 125 parts per million. Fish caught in the open ocean have no naphthalene in their systems…at least for now.

Earthquakes Near Maine Border Could Mean the Beginning of the End Times. Or It Could be Something Else

McAdam is a small town in southwest New Brunswick, not far from the U.S. border. Apparently not a lot happens there normally, so the sudden arrival of earthquake swarms has got people talking. The swarm began with a 2.4 tremblor on March 10 and has kept up steadily with 35 total quakes in the five weeks since.

Scientists explain gravely that it’s an “earthquake swarm”, which regular visitors to CatMap already know. We have seen them in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Youngstown, Wisconsin and England. In many instances, the authorities strongly suspect fracking injection wells and have even shut down sites in some states. But they have no explanation for the swarm in McAdam where nothing like this has ever happened before. Stay tuned.

It’s Mojo Nature’s Way of Telling You Something’s Wrong:

Visit Catmap : 25 Postcards From a Pissed Off Planet

Unlike the Book of Revelation, the Real End Times Are Going to Be Mundane. Right now, it’s all about rice.

Vietnamese Officials report that 38% of the Mekong Delta could be inundated** for more than half of each year as climate change continues apace.  According to deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Dao Xuan Hoc, his department has concluded that the rising seas could cover 90% of the delta by 2020, adversely affecting the lives of the roughly 8.5 million people who will no longer live there.

The minister said that high tides threatening Ho Chi Min City and sea level encroachment in southern provinces could result in loss of 70% of the delta and the rice production form 2 million fertile hectares lost to the sea. As it stands, many long time rice farmers are changing over to shrimp farming, another environmentally catastrophic practice. Considering that Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, American’s may be switching to Shrimp Krispies and Shrimp A Roni in the not too distant future.

Even though those picturesque rice paddies are full of water, there are two things that rice plants can’t tolerate. One is being completely submerged and the other is salt water. Gene researcher in the Philippines are hoping to create a new strain of rice that can tolerate weeks under water as well as salt water.  That’s a reasonable response to empirically observable data and we applaud the doomed effort. While at the same time asking: why can’t Republicans see these things?

Vague Reports About a Technical Incident

Total E&P Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of French oil major Total SA, is sort of reporting another gas leak incident in Nigeria. The Obite gas plant has been shut down as the company investigates a oil and gas “resurgence” and attempts to limit environmental damage.  The plant and area around it has been evacuated.

According to Total, the leak was first noticed on April 3 and was undoubtedly caused by a technical incident of March 20. “All necessary means to ensure the protection of nearby communities and personnel and to limit the impact on the environment have been immediately mobilized,” a Total spokesmodel said in a written statement. Good enough for us.

Total is one of a handful of oil companies  that have joined Royal Dutch Shell in destroying the Niger delta.

The French company has flown in Texans to stop a massive gas emissions event at one of its North Sea rigs. That one has been leaking since March 25. The company has issued daily reports about the North Sea disaster. The company has been reticent about the Nigerian disaster. When the technical incidents are fixed, you will be expected to forget they happened.

You forgot about the big Shell North Sea oil spill in August didn’t you? You didn’t even notice the new Gulf of Mexico oil slick between to Shell platforms (fairness note: Shell says it isn’t their spill). You probably still don’t know about the damaged Taylor Energy oil platform, which has been leaking crude into the Gulf since 2004.

Hey, how about that spectacular pipeline explosion in Azerbaijan two days ago.

By now, you should have already forgotten the six 2011 pipeline explosions in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And you probably never hear about KinderMorgan’s endless succession of spills, such as this 100,000 gallon diesel spill in a California marshland.

Legendary UK Insurance Concern Issues Cautionary Report

As Royal Dutch Shell prepared for exploratory drilling in the fragile Arctice, Lloyds of London has issued a strong warning about the environmental and economic impact of screwing up.  And considering Shell’s track record spilling their oil seed wherever they go, the odds of a screw up are high. Shell had a major spill on one its North Sea rigs in August of 2011 that you might say was under-reported. Over the past 50 years, the company has pretty much laid waste to the Niger delta, ruining the livelihood of tens of thousands and dwarfing the 2010 BP in the Gulf of Mexico.  BP had a major spill in 2008 in the Arctic. There will be disasters in the Arctic when the oil companies move in.

This is an excerpt from the report.

The environmental consequences of disasters in the Arctic have the potential to be worse than in other regions. The resilience of the Arctic’s ecosystems in terms of withstanding risk events is weak, and political sensitivity to a disaster is high. As a result, companies operating in the Arctic face significant reputational risk.

The English concern represents the world’s oldest and largest insurance market and views potential problems strictly through the lense of business.

CatastropheMap has predicted previously that the first true believers in a systematic collapse of the planet will be insurance companies, because they are already paying out record amounts for extreme weather and mitigation damages. In the next stage of collapse, these companies will either 1) attempt to avoid liability or 2) decline coverage of extreme weather-related damage. Once this happens the economic consequences of a dangerous new climate will become a little more obvious.  We assume that the fossil fuel interests and their pimps in Congress will then retroactively announce that they didn’t really mean it was too expensive too to address greenhouse gas emissions. What they meant was that it was too expensive for THEM.

Mitt Busters(TM):  Romney Changes His Mind at NRA Lovefest

Former Massachusetts Governor and presumptive Republican presidential cabinet fawned over attendees at the NRA “Celebration of American Values” Leadership Forum, nearly injuring his lips from so much ass kissing. Assuring the attendees that he supported pretty much every thing they do and more, he seemed to forget that as Governor he  supported a ban on assault weapons and a waiting period to buy firearms.

Although Obama has done pretty much nothing about gun control, Romney implied that the President would threaten “the rights of those who will stand up for the rights of those seeking to protect their homes and their families”. He means people like, for example….what’s the name of that guy who is being persecuted in Florida?

Referring to President Obama’s “attempt to browbeat the Supreme Court”, he apparently failed to notice that speech had nothing to do with guns, but rather healthcare, which has to do with saving lives. Guns sales are at an all time high under Barack Obama, although he has never tried to take credit for this achievement.

As The Vermont Legislature Prepares A GMO Food Labeling Law, Monsanto Blocks It

Mitt Romney has observed that “corporations are people too,” and thanks to the hard right Supreme Court justices (Citizens United vs Common Sense) he is technically correct. Which leads us to observe that the corporate individual name of Monsanto is a pretty big asshole. Not content with threatening the world food supply via their mutant weeds and insects, massive increases in pesticide use, and a history of chemical poisoning (dioxin and Agent Orange).

The biotech monstercorp, which dominates the global market for GMO seeds (with decidedly mixed results), has threatened to sue the State of Vermont if it dares to require that genetically modified food be labeled as such (Vermont Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act H. 722).  In spite of the fact that the pending law is backed by tremendous public support, the legislation has been put on hold.

Vermont is the latest state to be intimidated by Monsanto lawyers.

*It’s also threatening the East Coast of the U.S.

** Yes we know flooding a delta seems oxymoronic. What we are primarily talking about here is the change from a fresh water system to a salt water system and a lot more of it as time goes on.

Hot links: Federal scientist calls vegetation die off conditions in Texas park “unprecedented in living memory” • Visit CatMap website to view the 25 Postcards from a pissed Off Planet Exhibit  • Wanna See How Big The Pacific Garbage Patch Really Is? • BP Engineer Arrested, Is In Deep Shit Over Deep Water  • Oh Dear | Oyster Populations Threatened By Increased CO2 In Pacific Ocean

Further down in this report:
New Brunswick Town Latest Location for Earthquake Swarms • Lloyds of London Not Thrilled About Arctic Drilling • Romney Nearly Injures His Lips Kissing NRA Ass • Monsanto Threatens Vermont With a Lawsuit Over Genetically Modified Food Labeling.

The Effects of The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill May Just Be Beginning

In a fashion similar to George Bush’s premature Mission Accomplished Banner, BP has declared the Deepwater Horizon oil spill all cleaned and the Gulf of Mexico back to normal. But a lot of people, including and especially scientists, aren’t buying it. As a BP engineer is arrested in what is expected to be a long process leading ever higher in the food chain, fishermen and marine scientists are reporting unexplained lesions, open sores and parasitic infections never seen before in such numbers. They are cautious about blaming the oil spill at this stage, but the fishermen say these have never seen this types of affliction. So hmmm. Might be a possibility.

While the researchers aren’t ready to blame to blame the massive oil spill without more evidence, there are some facts that would make inquisitive sorts such as those that make up the staff of the Editorial Board wonder. For example, recent tests results show the presence of oil in bile taken from fish caught last autumn in the Gulf. About the time the happy commercials begn to run. Red snapper and yellow edge grouper carried naphthalene in 125 parts per million. Fish caught in the open ocean have no naphthalene in their systems…at least for now.

Earthquakes Near Maine Border Could Mean the Beginning of the End Times. Or It Could be Something Else

McAdam is a small town in southwest New Brunswick, not far from the U.S. border. Apparently not a lot happens there normally, so the sudden arrival of earthquake swarms has got people talking. The swarm began with a 2.4 tremblor on March 10 and has kept up steadily with 35 total quakes in the five weeks since.

Scientists explain gravely that it’s an “earthquake swarm”, which regular visitors to CatMap already know. We have seen them in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Youngstown, Wisconsin and England. In many instances, the authorities strongly suspect fracking injection wells and have even shut down sites in some states. But they have no explanation for the swarm in McAdam where nothing like this has ever happened before. Stay tuned.

It’s Mojo Nature’s Way of Telling You Something’s Wrong:

Visit Catmap : 25 Postcards From a Pissed Off Planet

Unlike the Book of Revelation, the Real End Times Are Going to Be Mundane. Right now, it’s all about rice.

Vietnamese Officials report that 38% of the Mekong Delta could be inundated** for more than half of each year as climate change continues apace.  According to deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Dao Xuan Hoc, his department has concluded that the rising seas could cover 90% of the delta by 2020, adversely affecting the lives of the roughly 8.5 million people who will no longer live there.

The minister said that high tides threatening Ho Chi Min City and sea level encroachment in southern provinces could result in loss of 70% of the delta and the rice production form 2 million fertile hectares lost to the sea. As it stands, many long time rice farmers are changing over to shrimp farming, another environmentally catastrophic practice. Considering that Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, American’s may be switching to Shrimp Krispies and Shrimp A Roni in the not too distant future.

Even though those picturesque rice paddies are full of water, there are two things that rice plants can’t tolerate. One is being completely submerged and the other is salt water. Gene researcher in the Philippines are hoping to create a new strain of rice that can tolerate weeks under water as well as salt water.  That’s a reasonable response to empirically observable data and we applaud the doomed effort. While at the same time asking: why can’t Republicans see these things?

Vague Reports About a Technical Incident

Total E&P Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of French oil major Total SA, is sort of reporting another gas leak incident in Nigeria. The Obite gas plant has been shut down as the company investigates a oil and gas “resurgence” and attempts to limit environmental damage.  The plant and area around it has been evacuated.

According to Total, the leak was first noticed on April 3 and was undoubtedly caused by a technical incident of March 20. “All necessary means to ensure the protection of nearby communities and personnel and to limit the impact on the environment have been immediately mobilized,” a Total spokesmodel said in a written statement. Good enough for us.

Total is one of a handful of oil companies  that have joined Royal Dutch Shell in destroying the Niger delta.

The French company has flown in Texans to stop a massive gas emissions event at one of its North Sea rigs. That one has been leaking since March 25. The company has issued daily reports about the North Sea disaster. The company has been reticent about the Nigerian disaster. When the technical incidents are fixed, you will be expected to forget they happened.

You forgot about the big Shell North Sea oil spill in August didn’t you? You didn’t even notice the new Gulf of Mexico oil slick between to Shell platforms (fairness note: Shell says it isn’t their spill). You probably still don’t know about the damaged Taylor Energy oil platform, which has been leaking crude into the Gulf since 2004.

Hey, how about that spectacular pipeline explosion in Azerbaijan two days ago.

By now, you should have already forgotten the six 2011 pipeline explosions in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And you probably never hear about KinderMorgan’s endless succession of spills, such as this 100,000 gallon diesel spill in a California marshland.

Legendary UK Insurance Concern Issues Cautionary Report

As Royal Dutch Shell prepared for exploratory drilling in the fragile Arctice, Lloyds of London has issued a strong warning about the environmental and economic impact of screwing up.  And considering Shell’s track record spilling their oil seed wherever they go, the odds of a screw up are high. Shell had a major spill on one its North Sea rigs in August of 2011 that you might say was under-reported. Over the past 50 years, the company has pretty much laid waste to the Niger delta, ruining the livelihood of tens of thousands and dwarfing the 2010 BP in the Gulf of Mexico.  BP had a major spill in 2008 in the Arctic. There will be disasters in the Arctic when the oil companies move in.

This is an excerpt from the report.

The environmental consequences of disasters in the Arctic have the potential to be worse than in other regions. The resilience of the Arctic’s ecosystems in terms of withstanding risk events is weak, and political sensitivity to a disaster is high. As a result, companies operating in the Arctic face significant reputational risk.

The English concern represents the world’s oldest and largest insurance market and views potential problems strictly through the lense of business.

CatastropheMap has predicted previously that the first true believers in a systematic collapse of the planet will be insurance companies, because they are already paying out record amounts for extreme weather and mitigation damages. In the next stage of collapse, these companies will either 1) attempt to avoid liability or 2) decline coverage of extreme weather-related damage. Once this happens the economic consequences of a dangerous new climate will become a little more obvious.  We assume that the fossil fuel interests and their pimps in Congress will then retroactively announce that they didn’t really mean it was too expensive too to address greenhouse gas emissions. What they meant was that it was too expensive for THEM.

Mitt Busters(TM):  Romney Changes His Mind at NRA Lovefest

Former Massachusetts Governor and presumptive Republican presidential cabinet fawned over attendees at the NRA “Celebration of American Values” Leadership Forum, nearly injuring his lips from so much ass kissing. Assuring the attendees that he supported pretty much every thing they do and more, he seemed to forget that as Governor he  supported a ban on assault weapons and a waiting period to buy firearms.

Although Obama has done pretty much nothing about gun control, Romney implied that the President would threaten “the rights of those who will stand up for the rights of those seeking to protect their homes and their families”. He means people like, for example….what’s the name of that guy who is being persecuted in Florida?

Referring to President Obama’s “attempt to browbeat the Supreme Court”, he apparently failed to notice that speech had nothing to do with guns, but rather healthcare, which has to do with saving lives. Guns sales are at an all time high under Barack Obama, although he has never tried to take credit for this achievement.

As The Vermont Legislature Prepares A GMO Food Labeling Law, Monsanto Blocks It

Mitt Romney has observed that “corporations are people too,” and thanks to the hard right Supreme Court justices (Citizens United vs Common Sense) he is technically correct. Which leads us to observe that the corporate individual name of Monsanto is a pretty big asshole. Not content with threatening the world food supply via their mutant weeds and insects, massive increases in pesticide use, and a history of chemical poisoning (dioxin and Agent Orange).

The biotech monstercorp, which dominates the global market for GMO seeds (with decidedly mixed results), has threatened to sue the State of Vermont if it dares to require that genetically modified food be labeled as such (Vermont Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act H. 722).  In spite of the fact that the pending law is backed by tremendous public support, the legislation has been put on hold.

Vermont is the latest state to be intimidated by Monsanto lawyers.

** Yes we know flooding a delta seems oxymoronic. What we are primarily talking about here is the change from a fresh water system to a salt water system and a lot more of it as time goes on.

End Times Weekly Update News | Week of April 22, 2012

Hot links: • Visit CatMap website to view the 25 Postcards from a pissed Off Planet Exhibit  • Wanna See How Big The Pacific Garbage Patch Really Is? • BP Engineer Arrested, Is In Deep Shit Over Deep Water  • Oh Dear | Oyster Populations Threatened By Increased CO2 In Pacific Ocean

Further down in this report:
Lloyds of London Not Thrilled About Arctic Drilling • Romney Nearly Injures His Lips Kissing NRA Ass • Monsanto Threatens Vermont With a Lawsuit Over Genetically Modified Food Labeling.

Earthquakes Near Maine Border Could Mean the Beginning of the End Times. Or It Could be Something Else

McAdam is a small town in southwest New Brunswick, not far from the U.S. border. Apparently not a lot happens there normally, so the sudden arrival of earthquake swarms has got people talking. The swarm began with a 2.4 tremblor on March 10 and has kept up steadily with 35 total quakes in the five weeks since.

Scientists explain gravely that it’s an “earthquake swarm”, which regular visitors to CatMap already know. We have seen them in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Youngstown, Wisconsin and England. In many instances, the authorities strongly suspect fracking injection wells and have even shut down sites in some states. But they have no explanation for the swarm in McAdam where nothing like this has ever happened before. Stay tuned.

It’s Mojo Nature’s Way of Telling You Something’s Wrong:

Visit Catmap : 25 Postcards From a Pissed Off Planet

Unlike the Book of Revelation, the Real End Times Are Going to Be Mundane. Right now, it’s all about rice.

Vietnamese Officials report that 38% of the Mekong Delta could be inundated** for more than half of each year as climate change continues apace.  According to deputy Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Dao Xuan Hoc, his department has concluded that the rising seas could cover 90% of the delta by 2020, adversely affecting the lives of the roughly 8.5 million people who will no longer live there.

The minister said that high tides threatening Ho Chi Min City and sea level encroachment in southern provinces could result in loss of 70% of the delta and the rice production form 2 million fertile hectares lost to the sea. As it stands, many long time rice farmers are changing over to shrimp farming, another environmentally catastrophic practice. Considering that Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter, American’s may be switching to Shrimp Krispies and Shrimp A Roni in the not too distant future.

Even though those picturesque rice paddies are full of water, there are two things that rice plants can’t tolerate. One is being completely submerged and the other is salt water. Gene researcher in the Philippines are hoping to create a new strain of rice that can tolerate weeks under water as well as salt water.  That’s a reasonable response to empirically observable data and we applaud the doomed effort. While at the same time asking: why can’t Republicans see these things?

Vague Reports About a Technical Incident

Total E&P Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of French oil major Total SA, is sort of reporting another gas leak incident in Nigeria. The Obite gas plant has been shut down as the company investigates a oil and gas “resurgence” and attempts to limit environmental damage.  The plant and area around it has been evacuated.

According to Total, the leak was first noticed on April 3 and was undoubtedly caused by a technical incident of March 20. “All necessary means to ensure the protection of nearby communities and personnel and to limit the impact on the environment have been immediately mobilized,” a Total spokesmodel said in a written statement. Good enough for us.

Total is one of a handful of oil companies  that have joined Royal Dutch Shell in destroying the Niger delta.

The French company has flown in Texans to stop a massive gas emissions event at one of its North Sea rigs. That one has been leaking since March 25. The company has issued daily reports about the North Sea disaster. The company has been reticent about the Nigerian disaster. When the technical incidents are fixed, you will be expected to forget they happened.

You forgot about the big Shell North Sea oil spill in August didn’t you? You didn’t even notice the new Gulf of Mexico oil slick between to Shell platforms (fairness note: Shell says it isn’t their spill). You probably still don’t know about the damaged Taylor Energy oil platform, which has been leaking crude into the Gulf since 2004.

Hey, how about that spectacular pipeline explosion in Azerbaijan two days ago.

By now, you should have already forgotten the six 2011 pipeline explosions in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And you probably never hear about KinderMorgan’s endless succession of spills, such as this 100,000 gallon diesel spill in a California marshland.

Legendary UK Insurance Concern Issues Cautionary Report

As Royal Dutch Shell prepared for exploratory drilling in the fragile Arctice, Lloyds of London has issued a strong warning about the environmental and economic impact of screwing up.  And considering Shell’s track record spilling their oil seed wherever they go, the odds of a screw up are high. Shell had a major spill on one its North Sea rigs in August of 2011 that you might say was under-reported. Over the past 50 years, the company has pretty much laid waste to the Niger delta, ruining the livelihood of tens of thousands and dwarfing the 2010 BP in the Gulf of Mexico.  BP had a major spill in 2008 in the Arctic. There will be disasters in the Arctic when the oil companies move in.

This is an excerpt from the report.

The environmental consequences of disasters in the Arctic have the potential to be worse than in other regions. The resilience of the Arctic’s ecosystems in terms of withstanding risk events is weak, and political sensitivity to a disaster is high. As a result, companies operating in the Arctic face significant reputational risk.

The English concern represents the world’s oldest and largest insurance market and views potential problems strictly through the lense of business.

CatastropheMap has predicted previously that the first true believers in a systematic collapse of the planet will be insurance companies, because they are already paying out record amounts for extreme weather and mitigation damages. In the next stage of collapse, these companies will either 1) attempt to avoid liability or 2) decline coverage of extreme weather-related damage. Once this happens the economic consequences of a dangerous new climate will become a little more obvious.  We assume that the fossil fuel interests and their pimps in Congress will then retroactively announce that they didn’t really mean it was too expensive too to address greenhouse gas emissions. What they meant was that it was too expensive for THEM.

Mitt Busters(TM):  Romney Changes His Mind at NRA Lovefest

Former Massachusetts Governor and presumptive Republican presidential cabinet fawned over attendees at the NRA “Celebration of American Values” Leadership Forum, nearly injuring his lips from so much ass kissing. Assuring the attendees that he supported pretty much every thing they do and more, he seemed to forget that as Governor he  supported a ban on assault weapons and a waiting period to buy firearms.

Although Obama has done pretty much nothing about gun control, Romney implied that the President would threaten “the rights of those who will stand up for the rights of those seeking to protect their homes and their families”. He means people like, for example….what’s the name of that guy who is being persecuted in Florida?

Referring to President Obama’s “attempt to browbeat the Supreme Court”, he apparently failed to notice that speech had nothing to do with guns, but rather healthcare, which has to do with saving lives. Guns sales are at an all time high under Barack Obama, although he has never tried to take credit for this achievement.

As The Vermont Legislature Prepares A GMO Food Labeling Law, Monsanto Blocks It

Mitt Romney has observed that “corporations are people too,” and thanks to the hard right Supreme Court justices (Citizens United vs Common Sense) he is technically correct. Which leads us to observe that the corporate individual name of Monsanto is a pretty big asshole. Not content with threatening the world food supply via their mutant weeds and insects, massive increases in pesticide use, and a history of chemical poisoning (dioxin and Agent Orange), the

The biotech monstercorp, which dominates the global market for GMO seeds (with decidedly mixed results), has threatened to sue the State of Vermont if it dares to require that genetically modified food be labeled as such (Vermont Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act H. 722).  In spite of the fact that the pending law is backed by tremendous public support, the legislation has been put on hold.

Vermont is the latest state to be intimidated by Monsanto lawyers.

** Yes we know flooding a delta seems oxymoronic. What we are primarily talking about here is the change from a fresh water system to a salt water system and a lot more of it as time goes on.

End Times Weekend News | Week of April 9, 2012 Hot links: • The Indian Government Prosecutes Monsanto (Maybe the US Will Figure It Out Eventually  •  Notoriously Liberal Navy Seals Responds to Climate Change (story over at Desdemona Despair) • 855 stung by Jellyfish in Nicaragua

Further down in this report:
• Monsanto Threatens Vermont With a Lawsuit Over Genetically Modified Food Labeling.

Former Massachusetts Governor and presumptive Republican presidential cabinet fawned over attendees at the NRA “Celebration of American Values” Leadership Forum, nearly injuring his lips from so much ass kissing. Assuring the attendees that he supported pretty much every thing they do and more, he seemed to forget that as Governor he  supported a ban on assault weapons and a waiting period to buy firearms.

Although Obama has done pretty much nothing about gun control, Romney implied that the President would threaten “the rights of those who will stand up for the rights of those seeking to protect their homes and their families”. He means people like, for example….what’s the name of that guy who is being persecuted in Florida?

Referring to President Obama’s “attempt to browbeat the Supreme Court”, he apparently failed to notice that speech had nothing to do with guns, but rather healthcare, which has to do with saving lives. Guns sales are at an all time high under Barack Obama, although he has never tried to take credit for this achievement.

As The Vermont Legislature Prepares A GMO Food Labeling Law, Monsanto Blocks It

Mitt Romney has observed that “corporations are people too,” and thanks to the hard right Supreme Court justices (Citizens United vs Common Sense) he is technically correct. Which leads us to observe that the corporate individual name of Monsanto is a pretty big asshole. Not content with threatening the world food supply via their mutant weeds and insects, massive increases in pesticide use, and a history of chemical poisoning (dioxin and Agent Orange), the

The biotech monstercorp, which dominates the global market for GMO seeds (with decidedly mixed results), has threatened to sue the State of Vermont if it dares to require that genetically modified food be labeled as such (Vermont Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act H. 722).  In spite of the fact that the pending law is backed by tremendous public support, the legislation has been put on hold.

Vermont is the latest state to be intimidated by Monsanto lawyers.

End Times Update | Week of April 9, 2012 Hot links: Climate Change Denier Inhofe’s State Sets a Hottest Ever Record for March • Land Typhoon in Japan Strongest In 50 Years  •  Notoriously Liberal Navy Seals Responds to Climate Change (story over at Desdemona Despair) • 855 stung by Jellyfish in Nicaragua

Further down in this report:
Total Methane Spill Continues to Pump Millions of Cubic Feet Into the Atmosphere • Killer Shrimp Devour Everything In Their Path With A Permanent Impact on Marine Ecosystems • Semi Trailers Fly As Extreme Weather Continues to Plaque Texas • 615 More Dolphins Are Beached In Peru As Record Breaking Kill Continues

As The Vermont Legislature Prepares A GMO Food Labeling Law, Monsanto Blocks It

Mitt Romney has observed that “corporations are people too,” and thanks to the hard right Supreme Court justices (Citizens United vs Common Sense) he is technically correct. Which leads us to observe that the corporate individual name of Monsanto is a pretty big asshole. Not content with threatening the world food supply via their mutant weeds and insects, massive increases in pesticide use, and a history of chemical poisoning (dioxin and Agent Orange), the

The biotech monstercorp, which dominates the global market for GMO seeds (with decidedly mixed results), has threatened to sue the State of Vermont if it dares to require that genetically modified food be labeled as such (Vermont Right To Know Genetically Engineered Food Act H. 722).  In spite of the fact that the pending law is backed by tremendous public support, the legislation has been put on hold.

Vermont is the latest state to be intimidated by Monsanto lawyers.

This is far from the first time Monsanto has gone after government, media and individuals in an effort to prevent transparency in agricultural policy. The trappings of democracy are rapidly for show only as corporations at every level consolidate control over the government.

Methane Spill Yields No Slick, No Drama, Therefore  No Reason For the Media to Report It

A French oil company gas rig in the North Sea went out of control on March 25th and has been spewing around 7 million cu. ft. of natural gas every day since into the atmosphere. The company has brought in some Texans to plug up the well, which will happen after while, y’all.

The thing about safe, clean, all-American* cheap natural gas is that it burns more cleanly than coal** – when it burns. But when it doesn’t burn, well it’s way worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas – about 25 times worse – and that’s what’s pumping a millions of cubic feet into the atmosphere right now.

For a few days there in March, a flare was burning on the rig as the gas leaked nearby. If the wind had shifted, the whole thing would have gone up and the headlines would have been international. But the flare went out, leaving the invisible fossil fuel to contaminate the area without interference from the news media. And that’s the way the oil companies like it.

Crusty Crustaceans Devour Everything In Their Path With A Permanent Impact on Marine Ecosystems

If, as George Carlin noted, the term Giant Shrimp is a contradiction in terms, then Killer Shrimp Can’t be far behind it. But the crustaceans currently eating their way through England’s are not known for killing humans, but rather anything and everything else in a marine waterway.  First discovered in 2010, the non-native species joins lion fish, asian carp and zebra mussels as a major game changing menace to English and Welsh fisheries and the marine ecosystem in general.

One for Dallas, One For Fort Worth As Extreme Weather Continues to Plague Texas

Nineteen tornadoes ripped through Dallas and Ft. Worth, including a pair of half mile wide spouts that through tractor trailers and semis through the air like matchsticks. The storm included baseball sized hail and follows on the longest drought in history. Extreme weather is costing climate change denier Rick Perry’s state billions in lost revenues.

615 More Dolphins Are Beached In Peru As Record Breaking Kill Continues

While no one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what is causing the massive dolphin kill off the coast of Peru, the oil and gas exploration authorities know for sure it wasn’t them. They know this by virtue of the fact that no one can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and if it were true it would cost them a lot of money. Therefore it isn’t true.

Meanwhile, the death toll of dolphins continues to climb into the thousands since the first bodies began washing ashore in January. The leader of a local fisherman’s association said he believed the total kill was nearer 3,000, the largest ever recorded. Many or most most observers blame offshore sonic testing for oil as the cause of internal bleeding, loss of equilibrium and disorientation.

In other unhappy dolphin news, the endangered pink dolphins of the Amazon are getting more and more endangered as oil companies, illegal loggers and other human activities wipe them out.

In Denmark’s Faroe Islands, they have a whale slaughter every year to prove their manhood. Even though the whales don’t have a chance.

Finally, let’s make sure to give some publicity to the idiots in the Faroe Islands who round up close to a thousand pilot whales every year and kill them on the beach, pretty much for the fun of it. Check out these assholes.

End Times Update | Week of April 2, 2012 Hot links: Climate Changer Denier Inhofe’s State Sets a Hottest Ever Record for March • Land Typhoon in Japan Strongest In 50 Years • Well, Somebody’s Lyin’ About that Gasoline Slick On That Total Rig On the North Sea That You Haven’t Heard About  •  Notoriously Liberal Navy Seals Responds to Climate Change (story over at Desdemona Despair)

Further down in this report:
615 More Dolphins Are Beached In Peru As Record Breaking Kill Continues  • No one Complains About A Few Earthquakes as Money Flows Into Southeast Oklahoma • Rising Seas Imperil U.S. Naval Defense • Rick Santorum Describes Climate Change As A Pseudo Religion • God Tells Paraguaran Mennonites How to Profit From Burning Down Wilderness

One for Dallas, One For Fort Worth As Extreme Weather Continues to Plaque Texas

Nineteen tornadoes ripped through Dallas and Ft. Worth, including a pair of half mile wide spouts that through tractor trailers and semis through the air like matchsticks. The storm included baseball sized hail and follows on the longest drought in history. Extreme weather is costing climate change denier Rick Perry’s state billions in lost revenues.

615 More Dolphins Are Beached In Peru As Record Breaking Kill Continues

While no one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what is causing the massive dolphin kill off the coast of Peru, the oil and gas exploration authorities know for sure it wasn’t them. They know this by virtue of the fact that no one can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and if it were true it would cost them a lot of money. Therefore it isn’t true.

Meanwhile, the death toll of dolphins continues to climb into the thousands since the first bodies began washing ashore in January. The leader of a local fisherman’s association said he believed the total kill was nearer 3,000, the largest ever recorded. Many or most most observers blame offshore sonic testing for oil as the cause of internal bleeding, loss of equilibrium and disorientation.

In other unhappy dolphin news, the endangered pink dolphins of the Amazon are getting more and more endangered as oil companies, illegal loggers and other human activities wipe them out.

In Denmark’s Faroe Islands, they have a whale slaughter every year to prove their manhood. Even though the whales don’t have a chance.

Finally, let’s make sure to give some publicity to the idiots in the Faroe Islands who round up close to a thousand pilot whales every year and kill them on the beach, pretty much for the fun of it. Check out these assholes.

Noone Complains About A Few Earthquakes as Money Flows Into Southeast Oklahoma

A 4.0 earthquake centered about 16 miles from McAlester, Oklahoma is the latest major seismic activity in the area since last years earthquake swarms. Although it wasn’t a huge quake, it could be felt as far away as Tulsa. Some locals say it rocked their houses.  But the locals don’t mind because everyone is getting rich as the fracking boom brings big money into the area. At least for now.

Some Nervous Nellies are concerned that the fracking activity is now occurring at the very doorstep of a facility known as the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant. But be serious. You don’t you think the U.S. Army and the gas drilling industry would knowingly cause earthquakes near a munitions plant if they thought it was dangerous do you?

Unusual Fishkill in the Maldives Worries Fisheries Ministry

Having achieved international fame due its precipitous submergence into the Indian Ocean, this resort archipelago believes it has less than a decade to initiate a plan to deal movement of people off some and eventually all of the 1400 islands. The troubled island nation also has a problem with emerging radical Islam and a massive drug problem. This week, another peculiar event added to the anxiety of the Maldivians: a massive fish kill in and around the northern islands. Although most carcasses are red tooth trigger fish, the major die off also includes other species – an indication that the cause is environmental. According to the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, such events used to be rare but are occurring more often in the past decade*.  Marine biologists have reported red tides in the surrounding lagoons, which are linked to algae blooms such as trichodesmium. As far as the submersion goes, 14 of the 2oo inhabited islands are unliveable due to coastal erosion, while 70 islands now use desalinated drinking water. Seawater incursion into the aquifers has made them unusable.  Most of the Maldivian land mass is less than one meter about sea level, and the sea level is rising.

Sure, there have been a few problems with rising oceans, but those are in places like Kirabati and Bangladesh that don’t really matter. But a report from big American defense contractor Northrop Grumman has issued a white paper in which it anticipates billions of dollars in damage to coastal defense building facilities. The company’s Atmospheric Sciences and Engineering Department includes Seven Ph.D’s in the atmospheric, climate and physical sciences of which 75% have advanced degrees. The department has a 30 year history in Applied Meteorology. Do these guys sound like pals of Al Gore?

The warnings also include coastline loss in Louisiana and Virginia, site of Newport News Shipyards. According to the report, sea level rise is “uncertain only in magnitude.” Forget flooding, drought and starvation: when it starts affecting aircraft carrier production, it’s time to take climate change serious.

No Amount of Political Wishful Thinking Can Change Reality, Mr. Santorum

The last time a presidential candidate named Rick made an idiot of himself regarding the weather involved a prayer weekend to end the Texas drought. Now Rick Santorum has reiterated his belief that climate change is a “pseudo religion”** perpetrated upon us by liberals and atheists. Unfortunately for Rick, the process of rising sea levels has already begun and not just in the Kilibati, Maldives Islands and Bangaldesh, but along the coasts important places such as the United States of America. From York, Maine to the bayous of Louisiana, the incursjon of the ocean is clearly observable to anyone interested in observing, even Rick. The causes of the sea level rise are twofold: increase in ocean temperature causes water to expand in volume and the rapid melting of Arctic and glacier ice is releasing new water into the seas. It remains bizarre to us that anyone can deny what is provable and observable, while believing fanatically in Bronze age deities who haven’t been heard from for 2000 years.

Cattle Ranches Replacing Original Forests At Record Breaking Pace As Indigenous Peoples Get Run Out of Town

A quote from the New York Times article says it all: “Environmentalists complain about deforestation but the world has billions of mouths to feed,” said the mayor of Porto Murtinho, a town bordering on the rapidly disappearing, once vast Chaco forest. Yep, those are the choices. If you’re a Brazilian cattle rancher or a modern Paraguayan Mennonite mega rancher, the rapid razing of Paraguay’s wilderness is a harbinger of big bucks and life in the fast lane (just like Jesus promised). However, if you already live in the forest and are being run out of your homeland by moneyed interests, you are pretty well hosed.  It’s like Tranquilo Favero says: Landless peasants need to be treated like a swindler’s woman, who only obey when beaten with a stick. Mr. Favero controls about 615,000 acres of new ranch land in the former wilderness. He’s a Brazilian and driven by greed, so whatever… Not so, the righteous Mennonites (means “Amish-lite” in Middle German), who are driven by God. “We intend to expand in the Chaco as much as the law allows. Not just physically but by making the land more productive,” said Heinrich Dyck, finance director of the Neuland co-operative of Mennonite farmers. The co-operative is one of Paraguay’s largest meat and milk exporters and owns the country’s biggest slaughterhouse. When he references the law, well, it’s ambiguous at little bit. “Religion is at the heart of everything we do,”says Heinrich. “The Christian faith is fundamental to us. God made it clear in the bible that we should take care of the land and use it as a source of sustainability and production.” You go, God! Much of Paraguay’s forest cover has already been cleared for soya monocultural events and other mammoth agribusiness enterprises, but the Chaco is a new development. This area, about twice the size of the British Isles,  is home to 3,400 plant species, 500 bird species, 150 species of mammal, 120 species of reptiles and 100 species of amphibians. Approximately 10% of the forest has been burned off in 4 years, much of it illegally**. You want to lead us into the future, Rick?

End Times Weekend News | Week of March 31, 2012

And Links To…

• Avian flu in Ireland • Avian flu in Israel • More ominous jellyfish news • Other jellyfish warnings • Sahel drought now affecting millions • Mystery booms are back in Clintonville, WI

No Amount of Political Wishful Thinking Can Change Reality, Mr. Santorum

The last time a presidential candidate named Rick made an idiot of himself regarding the weather involved a prayer weekend to end the Texas drought. Now Rick Santorum has reiterated his belief that climate change is a “pseudo religion”* perpetrated upon us by liberals and atheists.

Unfortunately for Rick, the process of rising sea levels has already begun and not just in the Kilibati, Maldives Islands and Bangaldesh, but along the coasts important places such as the United States of America. From York, Maine to the bayous of Louisiana, the incursjon of the ocean is clearly observable to anyone interested in observing, even Rick.  While generally refusing to discuss the politics of climate change, local and regional authorities around the country are proceeding with plans that include sea level changes that range from manageable to catastrophic. And even notoriously liberal outfits such as defense contractor Northrop Grumman anticipates billions of dollars worth of shoreline damage, threatening the drydock in Newport News and other shipyards where new aircraft carriers will be built. When it starts affecting aircraft carrier production, it’s time to take climate change serious.

The causes of the sea level rise are twofold: increase in ocean temperature causes water to expand in volume and the rapid melting of Arctic and glacier ice is releasing new water into the seas. It remains bizarre to us that anyone can deny what is provable and observable, while believing fanatically in Bronze age deities whom haven’t been heard from for 2000 years.

* This term follows his accusation that president Obama embraces a “phony theology”, which seems to mean he doesn’t believe what Rick believes, whatever that might be. Just as a “cult” is a religion that simply needs some marketing help, a pseudo religion is any belief system that conflicts with Rick’s narrow view of a world driven by magical thinking.

End Times Update | Week of March 26, 2012

Also in this report:• Federal Judge Lets the Monster Spruce #1 MTR Mine Go Forward • Out of Control North Sea Gas Well Ready to Blow?

Cattle Ranches Replacing Original Forests At Record Breaking Pace As Indigenous Peoples Get Run Out of Town

A quote from the New York Times article says it all: “Environmentalists complain about deforestation but the world has billions of mouths to feed,” said the mayor of Porto Murtinho, a town bordering on the rapidly disappearing, once vast Chaco forest. Yep, those are the choices.

If you’re a Brazilian cattle rancher or a modern Paraguayan Mennonite mega rancher, the rapid razing of Paraguay’s wilderness is a harbinger of big bucks and life in the fast lane (just like Jesus promised). However, if you already live in the forest and are being run out of your homeland by moneyed interests, you are pretty well hosed.  It’s like Tranquilo Favero says: Landless peasants need to be treated like a swindler’s woman, who only obey when beaten with a stick. Mr. Favero controls about 615,000 acres of new ranch land in the former wilderness. He’s a Brazilian and driven by greed, so whatever…

Not so, the righteous Mennonites (means “Amish-lite” in Middle German), who are driven by God. “We intend to expand in the Chaco as much as the law allows. Not just physically but by making the land more productive,” said Heinrich Dyck, finance director of the Neuland co-operative of Mennonite farmers. The co-operative is one of Paraguay’s largest meat and milk exporters and owns the country’s biggest slaughterhouse. When he references the law, well, it’s ambiguous at little bit.

“Religion is at the heart of everything we do,”says Heinrich. “The Christian faith is fundamental to us. God made it clear in the bible that we should take care of the land and use it as a source of sustainability and production.” You go, God!

Much of Paraguay’s forest cover has already been cleared for soya monocultural events and other mammoth agribusiness enterprises, but the Chaco is a new development. This area, about twice the size of the British Isles,  is home to 3,400 plant species, 500 bird species, 150 species of mammal, 120 species of reptiles and 100 species of amphibians.

Approximately 10% of the forest has been burned off in 4 years, much of it illegally*.

Jeez. Just When We Thought the PetroPimpernels Had Things Under Control, This Had To Happen

It looks as if another one of those “well control problems” (as the oily boys like to say) is still out of control in the North Sea. Total E&P UK Limited has evacuated hundreds of personnel from a leaking gas well abut 180 miles off the coast of Scotland. Natural gas, a nice way we say “methane” is bubbling up from beneath the sea as the UK Coast Guard enforces and exclusion zone around the well.* That’s because the darn thing has excellent potential to blow sky high, just like the Piper Alpha in 1988.

The origin of the leak is a defunct well called G4, originally drilled in 1197 and shut down about a year ago. The gas sheen on the ocean is about six miles long. Although the cause is unknown at this point, officials at Total say that everything is under control at the out of control well. The best case scenario is getting the leak under control within a few weeks. So the only thing Total knows fer sure is that there is nothing to worry about.

Federal Judge Lets the Largest MTR Mine Yet Go Forward

If you’ve seen Hunger Games, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out that “District 12″ is West Virginia. And if you pay attention to anything at all, it shouldn’t be too hard to see that the Hunger Games scenario is a reasonable expectation of the future, as corporate interests gain more traction at the expense of joe citizen. Take for example….

The latest bad news in the Appalachian coal country is an astounding opinion rendered by a Federal judge reinstating a permit for the largest scale mountaintop removal coal mining project in Appalachian history.** The permit, originally issued by the enlightened Army Corps of Engineers (an organization that never saw a body of water it couldn’t screw up), was reversed due to the massive destruction to the environment.*** More specifically, the Spruce mine will contaminate more waterways with toxic detrius dumped into the valleys and streams. According to the agency, the mine will bury more than seven miles of headwater streams and mess up nearly 3,000 acres of forest.

Amazingly, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson has ruled that Arch Coal can go ahead with the project anyway. She does not say that the project won’t destroy another rapidly disappearing section of the eastern mountains and contaminate yet another major waterway. Judge Amy instead ruled that the EPA doesn’t have the authority to do revoke the permit.****

You can read her exact language if you’d like, but our interpretation is the following:  ”The EPA is being mean to the nice coal company.”*****

Hey Judge Amy, here’s a question. If the EPA doesn’t have the authority to enforce the Clean Water Act passed by Congress, then who the fuck does? The Army Corps of Engineers? Arch Coal?******

Take a look at MTR mining in West Virginia.

** On account of the hundreds of workers who died in the 1988 explosion of a rig known as Piper Alpha. But back then they didn’t have the technical expertise they do now.

***MTR has already taken the tops off 500 mountains in West Virginia.

****It isn’t “just” the aesthetic problem of having mountains blown up and turned into golf courses and Wal-Marts. The process of MTR causes cancer, coal dust pollution in communities and schools, contaminates water supplies permanently and destroys private property.

*****In the legal sense, we believe that Judge Jackson is probably correct, thus exposing the limitations of the law when the system is rigged by the bad guys. Having spent some time with the Federal Register, we are painfully familiar with the confusing language of legislation. In fact, we believe this is not an accident. The real problem with scenarios of this type is that the Army Corps of Engineers should never have issued the permit in the first place.

****** Translation provided by the CatastropheMap Legal Department

*******Arch Coal Inc., the second largest supplier of coal in the United States, agreed to pay a $4 million penalty to settle alleged violations of the Clean Water Act in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky in March 2011.

The mystery booms frightening and rattling the citizens of  Clintonville, WI have been attributed to anything from alien spaceships to hydrofracking and mining. The truth is a little less mysterious and more satisfying. But don’t worry about Scott: after the people of Wisconsin turn him out of office, he can always work for FUX* news.

End Times Update Week of March 19, 2012

Also in this report:

Last Brown Bear in Austria was Named Mortiz • Exxon Has No Idea Where Papua New Guinea Landslide Came From • Coral Die Off Leads Marine Life Die Off Acceleration • Sea Rise Driving Kiribati Islanders From Their Home - Mojo Nature Sends a Message to Honor Senator Inhofe’s New Climate Book • Jellyfish Database Follows Global Swarms

Chevron and Transocean Executives Surrender Their Passports Pending Leak “Investigation”

The Brazilian deep water drilling derby is just getting under way, but the anticipated Big Problems have already begun. Chevron, the U.S. company brought in by Petrobas as foreign fall guys, is already being sued for $20 billion over a November 2011 oil leak off the coast of Rio de Janero.  In that incident, a Brazilian prosecutor is claiming that Chevron actually can’t stop the leak. It sounds similar to the continuing saga of Taylor Oil Company, who is just now being maybe brought to account for a permanently leaking site in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, seventeen executives of Chevron and Transocean – remember Transocean? – are being held in what amounts to house arrest over a new leak in the very deep Frade oil fields. Hope they aren’t suffering in a brutal Brazilian jail*. Chevron says no problem, everything is under control, as it always is with the PetroMiningGas gas boys.

Don’t worry…this was last year’s screw up. The Chevron guys are being detained over this year’s screw up.

However much crude oil currently resides in more and more difficult places -deep underwater, boreal forest or Arctic tundra – it remains finite. In the near term, we will desperately pursue the remaining deposits and wage wars over the last drop, as any opportunity for a less painful changeover to more sustainable energy resources is lost to the greed of the petro pimps and their puppets in places of power.

Brown Bear Extinction One More Component of the Global Decline of Large Mammals.

Brown bears are now officially extinct in Austria, an area conservationists term the Northern Limestone Alps.  The death of the final bear in this region is attributed to poaching, a practice that accounts for the precipitous decline of all large mammals around the globe. Habitat encroachment by humans and changing environmental conditions are also factors.  Large mammal bring this upon themselves by living near agriculture, grazing and residential development.

Bears are critically endangered in France, central Europe and extinct on the British isles. While each extinction event seems a small enough matter in and of itself, the totality of the trend is a large irreversible march to the sixth great extinction, a process that will change every aspect of human lives.

Torrential Rains Triggered the Lethal Mountain Slide, But Exxon’s Massive Quarry Activities Set the Stage

Exxon and the government of Papua New Guinea are teaming up to deny that a gas exploration project had anything to do with a huge landslide that buried 40 village  workers alive.  An independent consulting firm had previously cited the quarry project – a joint venture among Esso, the New Guinea government and other petro types – for cutting corners in an effort to meet impending gas delivery deadlines.

Exxon only knows for sure that they didn’t do it. Maybe somebody else

While heavy rains caused the initial movement of the mountain, locals claim that the quarry is the primary cause because there would have been nowhere for the mountain to slide until the quarry was excavated. “I have never seen this type of landslide before in my life in that area,” said a villager, quoted in a Reuters story.

There will be no investigation, because Exxon knows it is impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what causes a disaster of this nature.

Video of Jellyfish Swarm in Brisbane

If you follow this link, you will see amateur footage of a jellyfish swarm so dense that the skipper of the yacht thought he had run aground.  While this alone does not prove the global jellyfish conspiracy, the incidents of jellyfish incursions appear to be increasing and the locations appear to be changing. For example, this month alone, we see that the j-fish are invading New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay, there was a fisherman stung by a very poisonous irukandii in Australia and Portuguese Men of War are washing up in the  and other East Coast Estuaries.

What does all this mean? As your certified JellyFish Invasion Headquarters, the CatastropheMap Editorial Board would like to address some recent developments.

*About the Jellyfish Database Initiative (JEDI)

Here at the CatMap Editorial Board and Jellyfish Research Institute, we take alarmism very seriously. That’s why we were concerned when a new set of headlines announced that scientists* now say there is no evidence for global Jellyfish proliferation. But all you had to do was read the numerous articles lifted word for word from the original to see that isn’t what the scientists said. They said 1) there wasn’t enough data, 2) that they are now collecting data (that’s where JEDI comes in) and that 3) data is hard to collect due to the uncooperative nature of jellyfish. They did not say there is no evidence.

We submit that no one has ever seen the need to establish a jellyfish database before. So something must be happening.

Furthermore, many of us on the CatMap Editorial studied the lost science of rhetoric, which is based on a different approach to drawing conclusions. Here’s an example of a rhetorical inquiry:

How many times in all the years previous to 2011 have jellyfish swarms closed nuclear plants? Answer: None.

How many nuclear plants were shut down by jellyfish swarms in 2011? Answer: 4

Perhaps this was the result of a local phenomenon reflective of unusual conditions, we might conclude? Where were these reactors located?

Answer: Israel. Scotland. Florida.

If you don’t like rhetoric because it sounds like a subject you are glad your high school discontinued, you can try fuzzy logic instead. Although the name is unfortunate, fuzzy logic is a means of applying algorithms when a large data sample isn’t available, as in the case of jellyfish.

Lucas Brotz, a graduate student in fisheries biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his adviser, Daniel Pauly, used fuzzy logic to conclude that jellyfish populations were increasing in 31 of the 45 ocean regions that they studied since 1950.

To see the video and for an explanation of jellyfish and their very possible planetary proliferation, visit our jellyfish page.

Developer May Sue If Authorities Continue To Plan Based On Science Instead of Wishful Thinking

The story of the Kiribati Island migration notwithstanding (below), an Australian developer says he will sue the local authorities due to their insistence on planning for sea rise in the coming decades.  Property developer wants the local government to let him build his subdivision in areas that are expected to be inundated because ocean levels aren’t rising very fast. Unhappy that the Lake Macquarie Council is restrict construction in lower lying areas, Jeff McCloy is quoted as being unhappy that people are “falling for this unjustified, worldwide idiocy about sea level rises. Mr. McCloy has studied climate change at the same institution as other experts whose financial interests align with climate change denial . The developer brought in climate change skeptics to explain the situation to the locals.

First Forced Human Climate Change Migration to Begin Soon

Although James Inhofe and Rick Santorum have proven that climate change is a hoax, the message has not gotten through to the 113,000 or so residents of Kiribati. The island atoll at the equator is sinking into the Pacific Ocean, or, if you wish to sound like a liberal alarmist, the Pacific Ocean is rising to cover up Kiribati.*****  The president of Kiribati is attempting to purchase land from Fiji to resettle their population.  Tides are already reaching villages and crops.

We know from reading the research of the Heartland Institute that climate change is not rising due to climate change (although it is acidifying quickly). We know that the polar ice caps aren’t really melting, in spite of satellite images that indicate they are (Al Gore is a well known satellite owner). With these obvious causes out of the way, we can only agree with the climate skeptics who point of these things are cyclical.

However, history has no precedent for a human population moving because of rising waters. Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Island, Micronesia and the Solomon Islands are all being impacted by rising seas. And there is no one in Bangladesh who is not a climate change believer.

New Flood Crisis in Queensland As Record Floods Follow On Last Year’s Disasters

Three Southeast Australian states were inundated as new floods and record rainfall took their toll on the citizens of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The floods follow similar catastrophic events in January of 2011.

Australia is emerging from the grip of the most powerful La Nina weather pattern ever seen. The trend has triggered a flood drought flood cycle similar to those afflicting large portions of the globe .

450 elephants Killed and their Tusks Sliced Off In Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park

With some experts predicting the extinction of African elephants in the wild by 2020, the recent discovery o0f 450 dead elephants in Cameroon was particularly disturbing. The elephants are gunned down and their tusks sawed off – sometimes before they are dead – leaving the carcasses to rot. The ivory is necessary to make little carved knick knacks and other key products. Don’t you hate it when criminals have no sense of irony?

The trend toward larger elephant massacres via high-powered weapons and sophisticated logistics suggests that the poachers having every expectation of operating with impunity, even in protected reserves. The most recent estimates show global elephants are declining at the rate of 8% of the population each year, with populations less than half of 20 years ago.

Do the math.

Coral Dying First As The Global Die Off Moves Up the Food Chain
A new report tells us that anthropogenic CO2 generation (blowing more and more crap into the air) is causing the most rapid acidification of the ocean in 300 million years. Combined with pollution and over-fishing, marine life is changing and disappearing at a rate ten times that of the last great die off.

Read more under Climate.

Killer Weather in Ten Central and Southern States

Flying in the face of Oklahoma Senator’s scientific expertise, last year’s extreme weather patterns have manifested themselves early in 2012. Tornadoes and land hurricanes have wreaked havoc in the Midwest and South, killing citizens and destroying towns. The massive system killed at least 37 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Meanwhile, climatological genius Jimmy Inhofe has published a new book: The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Inhofe’s state has been in the grips of a biblical drought for two years, which is appropriate in a biblical way, along with returning dust bowl conditions in the West as the Ogallala aquifer is depleted. Nebraska marked it’s first ever February tornado.

The newspapers and media won’t say it, but at what point will we admit that things are spinning out of control? Massive outbreaks like the ones that have devastated the south and midwest the past two years used to be rare, but now they are the scary new norm. The previous record for the largest March tornado outbreak is 74 tornadoes fin 2006. The past few days have seen 255.

It’s not that there has never been destructive weather on the planet ladies and gentlemen, it’s that there has never been so many droughts, floods tornadoes and extreme storms in such a brief period. In honor of the late Monkey Davy Jones, it is only a matter of time until Mr. Inhofe begins singing “I’m a Believer.” Unless he gets swept away in a twister of his own bluster.

** Foreign jails are always brutal, as compared to our nice ones here in America.

*** This spelling of Senator Inhofe’s name is an unfortunate typo. We regret the proofreading error.

End Times Update Week of March 12, 2012

Also in this report:

• GE Green Initiatives Based On Actual Science • Sea Rise Drives Kiribati Islander From Their Home - Mojo Nature Sends a Message to Honor Senator Inhofe’s New Climate Book • Jellyfish Database Follows Global Swarms

Torrential Rains Triggered the Lethal Mountain Slide, But Exxon’s Massive Quarry Activities Set the Stage

Exxon and the government of Papua New Guinea are teaming up to deny that a gas exploration project had anything to do with a huge landslide that buried 40 village  workers alive.  An independent consulting firm had previously cited the quarry project – a joint venture among Esso, the New Guinea government and other petro types – for cutting corners in an effort to meet impending gas delivery deadlines.

Exxon only knows for sure that they didn’t do it. Maybe somebody else

While heavy rains caused the initial movement of the mountain, locals claim that the quarry is the primary cause because there would have been nowhere for the mountain to slide until the quarry was excavated. “I have never seen this type of landslide before in my life in that area,” said a villager, quoted in a Reuters story.

There will be no investigation, because Exxon knows it is impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what causes a disaster of this nature.

Green Initiatives Generate $100 Billion In Revenue

Being all militant and everything, you’d think the Republicans would approve of companies with “General” in their names. But it seems that General Electric has now joined GM as a successful company that does not meet the rigid requirements of the tea totallers.

The notorious liberals at General Electric have announced that not only do they do not agree with right wing climate denial, they are making a lot of money on Green initiatives. As the sixth largest U.S. firm and fourteenth most profitable, the multinational financial and manufacturing colossus has been onboard with climate change as a reality since a 2005 study. Understanding that there is money in green industry, GE’s Ecoimagintion division is the fastest growing in the company.  The company has also shaved $140 million in expenses from it’s own bottom line by pursuing sustainable initiatives and created tens of thousands of jobs.

Next time you listen to a Republican candidate for president, or a climate scientist like James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) or John Shimkus (R-Illinois), consider that their justification for climate change denial is prophet-based, while General Electric is profit-based.

Video of Jellyfish Swarm in Brisbane

If you follow this link, you will see amateur footage of a jellyfish swarm so dense that the skipper of the yacht thought he had run aground.  While this alone does not prove the global jellyfish conspiracy, the incidents of jellyfish incursions appear to be increasing and the locations appear to be changing. For example, this month alone, we see that the j-fish are invading New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay, there was a fisherman stung by a very poisonous irukandii in Australia and Portuguese Men of War are washing up in the  and other East Coast Estuaries.

What does all this mean? As your certified JellyFish Invasion Headquarters, the CatastropheMap Editorial Board would like to address some recent developments.

*About the Jellyfish Database Initiative (JEDI)

Here at the CatMap Editorial Board and Jellyfish Research Institute, we take alarmism very seriously. That’s why we were concerned when a new set of headlines announced that scientists* now say there is no evidence for global Jellyfish proliferation. But all you had to do was read the numerous articles lifted word for word from the original to see that isn’t what the scientists said. They said 1) there wasn’t enough data, 2) that they are now collecting data (that’s where JEDI comes in) and that 3) data is hard to collect due to the uncooperative nature of jellyfish. They did not say there is no evidence.

We submit that no one has ever seen the need to establish a jellyfish database before. So something must be happening.

Furthermore, many of us on the CatMap Editorial studied the lost science of rhetoric, which is based on a different approach to drawing conclusions. Here’s an example of a rhetorical inquiry:

How many times in all the years previous to 2011 have jellyfish swarms closed nuclear plants? Answer: None.

How many nuclear plants were shut down by jellyfish swarms in 2011? Answer: 4

Perhaps this was the result of a local phenomenon reflective of unusual conditions, we might conclude? Where were these reactors located?

Answer: Israel. Scotland. Florida.

If you don’t like rhetoric because it sounds like a subject you are glad your high school discontinued, you can try fuzzy logic instead. Although the name is unfortunate, fuzzy logic is a means of applying algorithms when a large data sample isn’t available, as in the case of jellyfish.

Lucas Brotz, a graduate student in fisheries biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his adviser, Daniel Pauly, used fuzzy logic to conclude that jellyfish populations were increasing in 31 of the 45 ocean regions that they studied since 1950.

To see the video and for an explanation of jellyfish and their very possible planetary proliferation, visit our jellyfish page.

Developer May Sue If Authorities Continue To Plan Based On Science Instead of Wishful Thinking

The story of the Kiribati Island migration notwithstanding (below), an Australian developer says he will sue the local authorities due to their insistence on planning for sea rise in the coming decades.  Property developer wants the local government to let him build his subdivision in areas that are expected to be inundated because ocean levels aren’t rising very fast. Unhappy that the Lake Macquarie Council is restrict construction in lower lying areas, Jeff McCloy is quoted as being unhappy that people are “falling for this unjustified, worldwide idiocy about sea level rises. Mr. McCloy has studied climate change at the same institution as other experts whose financial interests align with climate change denial . The developer brought in climate change skeptics to explain the situation to the locals.

First Forced Human Climate Change Migration to Begin Soon

Although James Inhofe and Rick Santorum have proven that climate change is a hoax, the message has not gotten through to the 113,000 or so residents of Kiribati. The island atoll at the equator is sinking into the Pacific Ocean, or, if you wish to sound like a liberal alarmist, the Pacific Ocean is rising to cover up Kiribati.*****  The president of Kiribati is attempting to purchase land from Fiji to resettle their population.  Tides are already reaching villages and crops.

We know from reading the research of the Heartland Institute that climate change is not rising due to climate change (although it is acidifying quickly). We know that the polar ice caps aren’t really melting, in spite of satellite images that indicate they are (Al Gore is a well known satellite owner). With these obvious causes out of the way, we can only agree with the climate skeptics who point of these things are cyclical.

However, history has no precedent for a human population moving because of rising waters. Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Island, Micronesia and the Solomon Islands are all being impacted by rising seas. And there is no one in Bangladesh who is not a climate change believer.

New Flood Crisis in Queensland As Record Floods Follow On Last Year’s Disasters

Three Southeast Australian states were inundated as new floods and record rainfall took their toll on the citizens of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The floods follow similar catastrophic events in January of 2011.

Australia is emerging from the grip of the most powerful La Nina weather pattern ever seen. The trend has triggered a flood drought flood cycle similar to those afflicting large portions of the globe .

450 elephants Killed and their Tusks Sliced Off In Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park

With some experts predicting the extinction of African elephants in the wild by 2020, the recent discovery o0f 450 dead elephants in Cameroon was particularly disturbing. The elephants are gunned down and their tusks sawed off – sometimes before they are dead – leaving the carcasses to rot. The ivory is necessary to make little carved knick knacks and other key products. Don’t you hate it when criminals have no sense of irony?

The trend toward larger elephant massacres via high-powered weapons and sophisticated logistics suggests that the poachers having every expectation of operating with impunity, even in protected reserves. The most recent estimates show global elephants are declining at the rate of 8% of the population each year, with populations less than half of 20 years ago.

To the math.

Coral Dying First As The Global Die Off Moves Up the Food Chain
A new report tells us that anthropogenic CO2 generation (blowing more and more crap into the air) is causing the most rapid acidification of the ocean in 300 million years. Combined with pollution and over-fishing, marine life is changing and disappearing at a rate ten times that of the last great die off.

Read more under Climate.

Killer Weather in Ten Central and Southern States

Flying in the face of Oklahoma Senator’s scientific expertise, last year’s extreme weather patterns have manifested themselves early in 2012. Tornadoes and land hurricanes have wreaked havoc in the Midwest and South, killing citizens and destroying towns. The massive system killed at least 37 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Meanwhile, climatological genius Jimmy Inhofe has published a new book: The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Inhofe’s state has been in the grips of a biblical drought for two years, which is appropriate in a biblical way, along with returning dust bowl conditions in the West as the Ogallala aquifer is depleted. Nebraska marked it’s first ever February tornado.

The newspapers and media won’t say it, but at what point will we admit that things are spinning out of control? Massive outbreaks like the ones that have devastated the south and midwest the past two years used to be rare, but now they are the scary new norm. The previous record for the largest March tornado outbreak is 74 tornadoes fin 2006. The past few days have seen 255.

It’s not that there has never been destructive weather on the planet ladies and gentlemen, it’s that there has never been so many droughts, floods tornadoes and extreme storms in such a brief period. In honor of the late Monkey Davy Jones, it is only a matter of time until Mr. Inhofe begins singing “I’m a Believer.” Unless he gets swept away in a twister of his own bluster.

Upstate New York Towns Win the Right to Home Rule (For Now)

Two Upstate New York towns have seen their bans on hydraulic fracturing upheld in the past week, creating room for hope that the rule of law can still occasionally prevail over the needs of petro pimps. On Feb. 21, State Supreme Court Judge Phillip Rumsey ruled the Tompkins County Town of Dryden’s ban on drilling wasn’t preempted by state law. On February 24, State Supreme Court Judge Donald Cerio Jr settled Cooperstown Holstein Corp. v. Town of Middlefield in favor of the town’s ban on gas drilling.

The Dryden suit was brought by evil billionaire Phillip Anschutz. In bringing the suit, his Anschutz Exploration Corp was communicating: we can plunder your county for the next decade even if the people who have lived their for generations don’t want it. More disturbingly, the Middlefield suit was was filed by a large dairy farm, which had leased the land to a drilling company. As this drama unfolded, opponents of drilling were subjected to unsigned letters and threats that suggested their families were being watched**. And all of this virtually in the shadow of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Even if you have no respect for the environment or quality of life…is there no respect for the national pastime. Or is the national pastime all about greed?

The state of New York, which sits atop the Marcellus Shale geological formation, currently has gas drilling moratorium in place while an “investigation” is conducted. However, the smart money says the state will soon be opened up for drilling as the proper authorities are bought off, so the upholding of the local bans is critical for anyone who doesn’t want to live in gasland. About 20 other towns in the state have also passed gas bans.

Two important points that usually get overlooked in the smoke and mirrors debate paid for by the drilling companies:

1) Even if the concerns about groundwater contamination and earthquakes are overstated, no one can deny the quality of life shattering experience when the big trucks and their goons come to town.

2) Estimates of the reserves in the Shale have been revised sharply downward. The gas reserves of clean, safe all american methane* may be good for seven to ten years.

Then what?

* This spelling of Senator Inhofe’s name is an unfortunate typo. We regret the proofreading error.

** And nothing is more American than methane.
*** The owner of the dairy has also suffered public abuse, but not threats.
****This is an approved CatMap parody
*****This question is something like the Julia Roberts conundrum: is her head getting smaller or are her lips getting bigger?

End Times Update Week of March 5, 2012

Also in this report:

Sea Rise Drives Kiribati Islander From Their Home - Mojo Nature Sends a Message to Honor Senator Inhofe’s New Climate Book • Jellyfish Database Follows Global Swarms  • Don’t miss the latest on the Snooki-Limbaugh love child****

Green Initiatives Generate $100 Billion In Revenue

Being all militant and everything, you’d think the Republicans would approve of companies with “General” in their names. But it seems that General Electric has now joined GM as a successful company that does not meet the rigid requirements of the tea totallers.

The notorious liberals at General Electric have announced that not only do they do not agree with right wing climate denial, they are making a lot of money on Green initiatives. As the sixth largest U.S. firm and fourteenth most profitable, the multinational financial and manufacturing colossus has been onboard with climate change as a reality since a 2005 study. Understanding that there is money in green industry, GE’s Ecoimagintion division is the fastest growing in the company.  The company has also shaved $140 million in expenses from it’s own bottom line by pursuing sustainable initiatives and created tens of thousands of jobs.

Next time you listen to a Republican candidate for president, or a climate scientist like James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) or John Shimkus (R-Illinois), consider that their justification for climate change denial is prophet-based, while General Electric is profit-based.

Video of Jellyfish Swarm in Brisbane

If you follow this link, you will see amateur footage of a jellyfish swarm so dense that the skipper of the yacht thought he had run aground.  While this alone does not prove the global jellyfish conspiracy, the incidents of jellyfish incursions appear to be increasing and the locations appear to be changing. For example, this month alone, we see that the j-fish are invading New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay, there was a fisherman stung by a very poisonous irukandii in Australia and Portuguese Men of War are washing up in the  and other East Coast Estuaries.

What does all this mean? As your certified JellyFish Invasion Headquarters, the CatastropheMap Editorial Board would like to address some recent developments.

*About the Jellyfish Database Initiative (JEDI)

Here at the CatMap Editorial Board and Jellyfish Research Institute, we take alarmism very seriously. That’s why we were concerned when a new set of headlines announced that scientists* now say there is no evidence for global Jellyfish proliferation. But all you had to do was read the numerous articles lifted word for word from the original to see that isn’t what the scientists said. They said 1) there wasn’t enough data, 2) that they are now collecting data (that’s where JEDI comes in) and that 3) data is hard to collect due to the uncooperative nature of jellyfish. They did not say there is no evidence.

We submit that no one has ever seen the need to establish a jellyfish database before. So something must be happening.

Furthermore, many of us on the CatMap Editorial studied the lost science of rhetoric, which is based on a different approach to drawing conclusions. Here’s an example of a rhetorical inquiry:

How many times in all the years previous to 2011 have jellyfish swarms closed nuclear plants? Answer: None.

How many nuclear plants were shut down by jellyfish swarms in 2011? Answer: 4

Perhaps this was the result of a local phenomenon reflective of unusual conditions, we might conclude? Where were these reactors located?

Answer: Israel. Scotland. Florida.

If you don’t like rhetoric because it sounds like a subject you are glad your high school discontinued, you can try fuzzy logic instead. Although the name is unfortunate, fuzzy logic is a means of applying algorithms when a large data sample isn’t available, as in the case of jellyfish.

Lucas Brotz, a graduate student in fisheries biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his adviser, Daniel Pauly, used fuzzy logic to conclude that jellyfish populations were increasing in 31 of the 45 ocean regions that they studied since 1950.

To see the video and for an explanation of jellyfish and their very possible planetary proliferation, visit our jellyfish page.

Developer May Sue If Authorities Continue To Plan Based On Science Instead of Wishful Thinking

The story of the Kiribati Island migration notwithstanding (below), an Australian developer says he will sue the local authorities due to their insistence on planning for sea rise in the coming decades.  Property developer wants the local government to let him build his subdivision in areas that are expected to be inundated because ocean levels aren’t rising very fast. Unhappy that the Lake Macquarie Council is restrict construction in lower lying areas, Jeff McCloy is quoted as being unhappy that people are “falling for this unjustified, worldwide idiocy about sea level rises. Mr. McCloy has studied climate change at the same institution as other experts whose financial interests align with climate change denial . The developer brought in climate change skeptics to explain the situation to the locals.

First Forced Human Climate Change Migration to Begin Soon

Although James Inhofe and Rick Santorum have proven that climate change is a hoax, the message has not gotten through to the 113,000 or so residents of Kiribati. The island atoll at the equator is sinking into the Pacific Ocean, or, if you wish to sound like a liberal alarmist, the Pacific Ocean is rising to cover up Kiribati.*****  The president of Kiribati is attempting to purchase land from Fiji to resettle their population.  Tides are already reaching villages and crops.

We know from reading the research of the Heartland Institute that climate change is not rising due to climate change (although it is acidifying quickly). We know that the polar ice caps aren’t really melting, in spite of satellite images that indicate they are (Al Gore is a well known satellite owner). With these obvious causes out of the way, we can only agree with the climate skeptics who point of these things are cyclical.

However, history has no precedent for a human population moving because of rising waters. Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Island, Micronesia and the Solomon Islands are all being impacted by rising seas. And there is no one in Bangladesh who is not a climate change believer.

New Flood Crisis in Queensland As Record Floods Follow On Last Year’s Disasters

Three Southeast Australian states were inundated as new floods and record rainfall took their toll on the citizens of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The floods follow similar catastrophic events in January of 2011.

Australia is emerging from the grip of the most powerful La Nina weather pattern ever seen. The trend has triggered a flood drought flood cycle similar to those afflicting large portions of the globe .

450 elephants Killed and their Tusks Sliced Off In Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park

With some experts predicting the extinction of African elephants in the wild by 2020, the recent discovery o0f 450 dead elephants in Cameroon was particularly disturbing. The elephants are gunned down and their tusks sawed off – sometimes before they are dead – leaving the carcasses to rot. The ivory is necessary to make little carved knick knacks and other key products. Don’t you hate it when criminals have no sense of irony?

The trend toward larger elephant massacres via high-powered weapons and sophisticated logistics suggests that the poachers having every expectation of operating with impunity, even in protected reserves. The most recent estimates show global elephants are declining at the rate of 8% of the population each year, with populations less than half of 20 years ago.

To the math.

Coral Dying First As The Global Die Off Moves Up the Food Chain
A new report tells us that anthropogenic CO2 generation (blowing more and more crap into the air) is causing the most rapid acidification of the ocean in 300 million years. Combined with pollution and over-fishing, marine life is changing and disappearing at a rate ten times that of the last great die off.

Read more under Climate.

Killer Weather in Ten Central and Southern States

Flying in the face of Oklahoma Senator’s scientific expertise, last year’s extreme weather patterns have manifested themselves early in 2012. Tornadoes and land hurricanes have wreaked havoc in the Midwest and South, killing citizens and destroying towns. The massive system killed at least 37 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Meanwhile, climatological genius Jimmy Inhofe has published a new book: The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Inhofe’s state has been in the grips of a biblical drought for two years, which is appropriate in a biblical way, along with returning dust bowl conditions in the West as the Ogallala aquifer is depleted. Nebraska marked it’s first ever February tornado.

The newspapers and media won’t say it, but at what point will we admit that things are spinning out of control? Massive outbreaks like the ones that have devastated the south and midwest the past two years used to be rare, but now they are the scary new norm. The previous record for the largest March tornado outbreak is 74 tornadoes fin 2006. The past few days have seen 255.

It’s not that there has never been destructive weather on the planet ladies and gentlemen, it’s that there has never been so many droughts, floods tornadoes and extreme storms in such a brief period. In honor of the late Monkey Davy Jones, it is only a matter of time until Mr. Inhofe begins singing “I’m a Believer.” Unless he gets swept away in a twister of his own bluster.

Upstate New York Towns Win the Right to Home Rule (For Now)

Two Upstate New York towns have seen their bans on hydraulic fracturing upheld in the past week, creating room for hope that the rule of law can still occasionally prevail over the needs of petro pimps. On Feb. 21, State Supreme Court Judge Phillip Rumsey ruled the Tompkins County Town of Dryden’s ban on drilling wasn’t preempted by state law. On February 24, State Supreme Court Judge Donald Cerio Jr settled Cooperstown Holstein Corp. v. Town of Middlefield in favor of the town’s ban on gas drilling.

The Dryden suit was brought by evil billionaire Phillip Anschutz. In bringing the suit, his Anschutz Exploration Corp was communicating: we can plunder your county for the next decade even if the people who have lived their for generations don’t want it. More disturbingly, the Middlefield suit was was filed by a large dairy farm, which had leased the land to a drilling company. As this drama unfolded, opponents of drilling were subjected to unsigned letters and threats that suggested their families were being watched**. And all of this virtually in the shadow of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Even if you have no respect for the environment or quality of life…is there no respect for the national pastime. Or is the national pastime all about greed?

The state of New York, which sits atop the Marcellus Shale geological formation, currently has gas drilling moratorium in place while an “investigation” is conducted. However, the smart money says the state will soon be opened up for drilling as the proper authorities are bought off, so the upholding of the local bans is critical for anyone who doesn’t want to live in gasland. About 20 other towns in the state have also passed gas bans.

Two important points that usually get overlooked in the smoke and mirrors debate paid for by the drilling companies:

1) Even if the concerns about groundwater contamination and earthquakes are overstated, no one can deny the quality of life shattering experience when the big trucks and their goons come to town.

2) Estimates of the reserves in the Shale have been revised sharply downward. The gas reserves of clean, safe all american methane* may be good for seven to ten years.

Then what?

Chevron Rig Still Burns Off Nigerian Coast
SkyTruth’s satellite image at one point indicated the fire was at one point 1,340 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 730 degrees Celsius), hot enough to soften steel.

The Nigerian authorities have also pledged to deal with the problem, just as effectively as they have dealt with the plundering and polluting of the Nigerian delta by the petroleum industry over the past 60 years. They are going to investigate the cause, you betcha, and then Chevron better watch out.

One thing that requires little investigation is the number of dead fish that have replaced the live fish the locals used to have for dinner. The ongoing disaster has also fouled the area water supply even further, but as the villagers have pointed out, the water in their local rivers was already too polluted to use.

Chevron doesn’t know how long the fire will burn.

* This spelling of Senator Inhofe’s name is an unfortunate typo. We regret the proofreading error.

** And nothing is more American than methane.
*** The owner of the dairy has also suffered public abuse, but not threats.
****This is an approved CatMap parody
*****This question is something like the Julia Roberts conundrum: is her head getting smaller or are her lips getting bigger?