Photo by Mohd Fahmi via Creative Commons

Snakehead fish are large, freshwater predators from the Channidae family that are native to Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia and various locations throughout Asia. These fish are plentiful in their native waters as there are some 28 varieties of snakehead fish.

The snakehead fish is very unique and different from the average fish. While they are similar, in body-type, to muscular eels, some snakehead varieties can grow to at least four feet in length. This fish got its name because of its stereotypically flat, snake-like head and toothed mouth.

What really make the snakehead so unique is its voracious appetite and its ability to breathe air. This fish is so adaptable, in fact, that it can travel short distances across land and live for short stents of time out of the water.

While there have been reports of snakeheads attacking and killing humans, they usually settle for fish, amphibians and small mammals. However, at least one species of snakehead, the Channa micropeltes, has been known to attack people when they approached the snakehead’s nest or their young.

Photo by Brian Gratwiche via Creative Commons

Over the years, these superb predators have found their way into the lakes and rivers of the United States, and this is where the problem of introducing a very adaptable, fierce predator into a new environment begins. The northern snakehead, or Channa argus, have been brought into the United States for two main reasons. There were going to be used as freshwater aquarium fish and as a specialty food.

It is reported that the northern snakeheads found in American waters are either illegally stocked in an effort to establish a local food source or aquarium owners eventually released the fish after they no longer wanted to or could care for them properly. Once introduced into their new homes, these fish tend to flourish.

Photo by marcuspajp via Creative Commons

In fact, there are several species of Channidae that can tolerate a wide range of water temperatures. So, neither the warm waters of the south nor the cold waters of the north would prevent many snakeheads from becoming an established, yet undesirable, new resident.

Once established, these fish can expand their range by swimming to adjoining waterways or can even move short distances over land to nearby sources of water. The adaptability of these fish is not the only thing that makes them such a threat. The northern snakehead also breeds extremely easily.

Combine the northern snakehead’s adaptability, carnivorous appetitive, the ability to move over land and a lack of natural enemies, and you end up with a real and present threat to American waterways and the indigenous species of aquatic life that resides in these waters.

While this might not seem like a very significant environmental threat, the impact of releasing a pet snakehead or a food fish into local waters where that fish is not native is real.

Photo by Ton MJ via Creative Commons

With no natural enemies in U.S. waters, the snakehead’s prolific breeding habits and hardy constitutions create a real potential for snakehead fish to multiply and destroy entire populations of fish and amphibians in the waters in which they are released. Many of these fish and amphibians are already on the endangered species list, and the snakeheads can only make things worse.

Consider this: At all stages of life, the northern snakehead competes with native fish and other aquatic wildlife for food. Native fish and wildlife populations, which already rely upon smaller fish, crustaceans, frogs, snakes, lizards and young waterfowl, will have to compete with these top-predators, and this could put them in great danger.

If snakeheads become established in a specific body of water, they can disrupt the ecosystem’s predator-prey balance. This can be catastrophic for native species.

Additionally, when a new species is introduced to an already established body of water, there is always the potential of the species bringing new diseases and parasites along with it. And, it does not appear that only large populations of snakeheads create environmental problems for American waterways. Even just one snakehead poses a threat because of its voracious feeding behavior.

In 2002, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service added snakeheads to the list of “injurious fish.” This means that snakeheads are prohibited from being imported into the United States.

Many states now even prohibit the possession of live snakeheads. However, these bans have not completely stopped illegal snakehead-activities, which have been recorded in most of the states where bans are in place. It is also reported that snakeheads can still be obtained over the internet.

Photo by Yai&JR via Creative Commons

If snakeheads are found in the wild, the only means of eradicating the population would involve the complete eradication of the fishery with a piscicide, a chemical substance which is poisonous to fish. While this can be effective in small, isolated bodies of water, it does not generally work in large lakes or river systems.

This is what officials in Crofton, Maryland decided to do when northern snakeheads were discovered by anglers in 2002. This first Maryland snakehead was a long, skinny fish about 18 inches from end to end.

Photo by wharman via Creative Commons

Because the fisherman didn’t recognize the strange fish, he took a picture of it and put it back in the pond. Later, he gave the photo to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Sure enough, the fish was identified as a snakehead.

It wasn’t until another angler caught a snakehead in the same pond and netted some babies that officials really became concerned. Their concern was based on the fact that a heavy rain could possibly wash some snakeheads from the pond and into a nearby river, which runs through a National Wildlife Refuge and on to the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North America. Because of this, authorities acted quickly.

To eliminate the snakehead menace, Maryland wildlife officials dumped the piscicide rotenone into Crofton Pond. This succeeded in killing all of its fish. Six adult snakeheads and greater than 1,000 juveniles went belly-up, along with all of the pond’s native fish.. They thought the snakehead problem was solved.

Two years later, northern snakeheads reared their heads again, and this time they showed up in the Potomac River. Experts worried that snakeheads in the Potomac, by eating other fish or out-competing them for food, could drive down numbers of more desirable species, such as largemouth bass and shad.

Poison just wasn’t an option this time. You can dump poison in a little, enclosed pond, but you can’t very easily contaminate the entire Potomac in order to kill the snakeheads. It’s a wide, shallow river that originates in West Virginia and runs 380 miles before emptying into the Chesapeake Bay.

The Bay fuels the region’s economy through recreation and fishing. Snakeheads couldn’t survive in the mildly salty water of the Bay, but they could scarf down shad, fish that spawn in the Potomac and other freshwater tributaries. The complete eradication of the snakehead population would be nearly impossible.

To date, northern snakeheads have been found in U.S. waters in several states. One example was a snakehead that was hooked in North Carolina’s Paw Creek. This fish weighed 12.5 pounds and measured about 31 inches.

Because it is illegal to return a live snakehead fish to an American body of water, the fish was turned over to the Wildlife Resources Commission. However, this was not the first, and probably not the last, time a northern snakehead fish was caught in North Carolina.
Snakeheads have been caught in this area in 2002 and 2007. And, Paw Creek is an environmentally-dangerous place to have these fish because it straddles two lakes giving the injurious fish a lot of room to expand and invade.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Fisheries staff also responded to a report by a local angler of an invasive species in Catlin Creek near Ridgebury Lake in the town of Waywayanda.

The DEC recognized the danger of an infestation of northern snakehead fish. Left unchecked this predatory, invasive fish can rapidly expand its population and territory with real and negative economic impacts to the Hudson River watershed fisheries. Not to mention the fact that it can cause potentially irreversible harm to the rare and endangered species in the area.

Because of this threat, the DEC took immediate action in an attempt at containing the snakehead spread by erecting temporary fish barriers in Catlin Creek. DEC determined that swift action to eradicate this species is essential in protecting the native fish and amphibian populations and in preventing any further expansion of Northern Snakeheads beyond the headwaters of Catlin Creek.

It doesn’t appear that there is a quick fix to the Northern Snakehead problem. The key to managing snakeheads is to prevent them from becoming an established species in the first place. This may be difficult since they are already in U.S. waters and there numbers seem to be on the rise.

But, the vast reservoir was built for far more than recreation. In fact, the massive Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1935, provides this desert region and surrounding states with a reliable water supply from the Colorado River as well as an excellent and inexpensive source of electricity.

Covering the state lines of Arizona and Nevada, Lake Mead stores water from the vast Colorado River, which runs through a whopping seven states - Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. So, to say that Lake Mead and the irreplaceable Colorado River are important to the citizens of the western states, would be a huge understatement.

However, for the past decade Lake Mead has been battling the worst 10-year drought in recorded history along the Colorado River, which feeds the 110-mile-long reservoir.

Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 1 percent a year. It is estimated that by 2012, the lake’s surface could fall below the existing pipe that delivers 40 percent of Las Vegas’s water.

In 2000, the water level at Lake Mead was 1,214 feet, close to its all-time high, but it has been dropping ever since. When Lake Mead was built during the 1920s and 1930s, the western United States was experiencing one of the wettest periods of the past 1,200 years.

Even today, our so-called drought is still wetter than the average precipitation for the area averaged over centuries. In other words, for the past 75 years, we’ve had more moisture than we ever realized. And, we definitely took it for granted.

Farmers have been growing rice by flooding arid farmland with water from Lake Mead,  desert community residents have been maintaining lush front lawns, and avid golfers depend on green, healthy courses in areas where temperatures typically exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer.

A combination of a solid demand for Lake Mead’s thirst-quenching water and an ever-changing climate has resulted in a 100 foot drop in Mead’s water level since 2000. While that might not look like a great deal of water loss because it is just 10 percent under the lake’s 1983 high water mark, we have to remember that Lake Mead is like a martini glass.

The vast reservoir is wide at the top but narrow at the bottom. So that 10 percent loss of water actually represents a loss of half of Lake Mead’s water supply. This huge loss happened in just nine years – The lake went form 96 percent capacity to roughly 43 percent.

Amazingly, when full, Lake Mead can hold an astonishing 9.3 trillion gallons of water. This is an amount equal to the water that flows through the Colorado River in a two-year period.

And, this is water that is put to good use. Lake Mead’s life-sustaining water is used for many things. It irrigates a million acres of crops throughout the western United States and Mexico, and the reservoir supplies water to tens of millions of people.

The massive and mighty Hoover Dam generates enough electricity to power approximately a half-million homes. But that’s not all. The power from Hoover Dam is also used to transport water up and across the Sierra Nevada Mountains on its way to Southern California.

But, however, the lake continues to shrink. Lake Mead’s water level fell 14 feet last year, and the Bureau of Reclamation has projected the level will drop 14 more feet this summer. That will bring it perilously close to 1,075 feet, the point at which the federal government can step in and declare a drought condition, forcing a reduction of 400,000 acre-feet drawn from Lake Mead per year.

A typical Las Vegas home uses a half acre-foot of water per year, so such a reduction would be equal to turning the tap off for 800,000 households.
Going beyond the implications for residents living in areas supplied by Lake Mead, the water loss has ramifications for the local economy too. It was recently estimated that Lake Mead National Recreation Area, along with affiliated marine operators, were losing some where in the neighborhood of three million dollars for every ten foot of lake lost to this devastating drought.

Currently, Lake Mead’s water level is hanging close to 1095.26 feet above sea level. The end-of-year projection is now predicting that Lake Mead will drop several more feet below its current level. This is a huge loss considering the lake is considered full at 1,219 feet.

The year 2009 started out well as officials projected that Lake Mead could receive an additional one million acre-feet of water based on the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunatly, however, the thaw did not translate into the expected runoff, and Lake Mead and the Colorado River’s water shortage problem marched on.

In 2008, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography issued their “When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?” report. The report said there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead will dry up by the year 2021. If this happens, it could mean no more water, no more pumping and no more electricity for many, many people.

There is, however, some good news. Strong conservation efforts are helping this serious condition. For example, Southern Nevada has significantly reduced its water draw from 325,000 acre-feet a year in 2000 to 265,000 acre-feet in 2009. Even with this reduction, the grand Colorado River still remains over utilized.

This is easy to see when you consider that millions of acre-feet of H20 are rushed to California, Nevada, and Mexico each year. This continually drains and strains both Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell faster than either lake can be replenished.

Some of the conservation solutions and suggestions include “grass buyback” programs to convince residents of the benefits of installing drought-tolerant landscaping, tax incentives for swimming pool-covers as well as the inevitable water rate hikes.

One of the more radical ideas involves pumping water from the eastern United States, where many regions’ rivers have been inundated with extensive flooding, over the Rockies to the western, sweltering states. Another interesting proposal lies beyond the shores of California, where there is a vast, open ocean of water available for desalinization.
While these are possibly viable alternatives, the power and financial requirements for either proposal would be enormous.

Whatever the solution to the Lake Mead water crisis is, it is likely not going to be a simple one. If the drought-like conditions continue, action will likely need to be taken sooner rather than later in order to save the reservoir.

It might be discovered that the money and time it will take to quench the western United States’ thirst are like the water supply. They are all running short.

Photo credit: Hot Raw Sewage by Trey Ratcliff

Of course, steroids have long been in the spotlight as numerous professional athletes admit to using steroids as a shortcut to enhancing their performance and helping them achieve victory over their fellow athletes. The term “steroid,” however, actually encompasses a relatively large class of biological molecules.

These molecules include virtually anything the body makes from the parent molecule, cholesterol. Most happen to be hormones or intermediate chemicals in hormone synthesis and metabolism, or synthetic drugs that imitate hormones or interfere with natural hormone action.

Steroids include such chemicals as the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol (hydrocortisone), which is typically added to medicated skin creams. Synthetic varieties of cortisol are also the active ingredients in organ transplant anti-rejection drugs and asthma inhalers.

Additionally, the primary sex hormones are also considered steroids. Estradiol, the main natural form of active estrogen, and progesterone dominate in women. For men, testosterone, the main natural form of active androgen, dominates. In fact, it is testosterone and other natural and synthetic varieties of androgens that are the main steroids used for muscle enhancement by athletes.

While it has long been known that these male forms of anabolic steroid drugs cause liver cancer, the news has not been spread about the environmental consequences of oral contraceptives (“the Pill”), levonorgestrel (“the morning-after pill”), and mifepristone, or RU-486, (“the abortion pill”). That fact is that all of these synthetic chemicals are also all steroids. These chemicals are actually the same sort of synthetic anabolic steroids that are illegal for professional athletes to take. The difference is that they are anabolic for female tissues, like breast tissue, rather than muscle.

In wasn’t until 2006 that the World Health Organization acknowledged that the estrogen-plus-progestin drugs, which include birth control pills and combination hormone replacement drugs, like Prem-Pro, do have the potential to cause cancers in the breast, cervix and liver.

And, here lies the connection between these synthetic drugs and the part they play as environmental pollutants. It is not common knowledge, but it is fact, that in order for contraceptive steroids to function effectively as pills, they must be non-biodegradable, at least by the human liver. The liver is the first stop for any substance absorbed through the digestive tract before it enters the body’s blood circulation.

In fact, it is one of the liver’s jobs to metabolize, or break down, all substances in order to detoxify them before they can adversely affect the rest of the body. Because of this, these drugs must interfere with the liver’s normal function. While this is true of many oral medications, how many prescription drugs are taken daily for decades by hundreds of millions of women worldwide?

Because of this massive use of synthetic contraceptives, there is a substantial percentage of the worldwide human population who excretes significant quantities of synthetic, carcinogenic and largely non-biodegradable female sex steroid drugs into the environment every day.

photo credit: elbisreverri

This situation is only complicated by the fact that out of all the steroid hormones that act within our bodies, the estrogens are by far the most potent. And, it is important to note that even the monthly highest level of estradiol in a non-pregnant woman’s bloodstream is measured in parts per trillion. Additionally, the most common form of estrogenic steroid drug found in many oral contraceptives, 17-alpha ethinyl estradiol (EE2), is even more potent than estradiol.

For over a decade now, EE2 has actually been showing up in waste water, groundwater and streams that are downstream from major metropolitan areas. There is mounting, creditable research and evidence that documents this contamination. This contamination is beginning to have significant affects on the reproductive function and is feminizing fish and other wildlife.

With this mounting contamination comes a worldwide effort to find ways to remove EE2 and other estrogenic contaminants from our water supplies. Put simply, the chemical inactivation of EE2 is quite simple. In effect, the same types of techniques used to purify our drinking water, such as ozone and ultraviolet light treatment, will work, however most see treating raw sewage by these methods as extremely impractical.

So, while there has been significant research in the area of synthetic contraceptive pollution, much of the research findings are not yet widely know. Even though the World Health Organization has acknowledged the carcinogenicity of synthetic contraceptive steroids, is still hardly mainstream knowledge.

The fact remains, however, that our health and the health of our environment, is being affected by the excreted amounts of these steroids. For years now, reports have also been growing from around the world that the massive amounts of synthetic birth control hormones being pumped into the water systems through sewage outflow is changing the sex of many types of fish.

Going back as far as 2002, the UK Environment Agency issued warnings that fish stocks in several British rivers were showing signs of gender ambiguity as a direct result of high levels of estrogen in the water. A survey of 1,500 fish at 50 river sites found more than a third of males also displayed female characteristics.

photo credit: Joseph Wu

Roughly two years ago, scientists at University of Colorado found that out of 123 fish caught in Boulder Creek, which is downstream from the Boulder sewage treatment plant, 101 were female, 12 were male and 10 had both male and female characteristics.

And, more recently, University of Pittsburgh research scientists investigated fish populations in the Allegheny River near storm sewer outflow pipes and discovered the same types of deformations. This is noteworthy as that region is dependent upon the Allegheny system for clean and safe drinking water.

Dr. Conrad Daniel Volz from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology even warned that this significant rise in steroid hormones in drinking water throughout the Pittsburgh area is a real threat to human health. Numerous studies have now shown a link between contraceptive estrogen and hormone problems and cancers, including testicular and breast cancers.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that other study results have also shown ambiguous gender in as much as 85 percent of the catfish caught on the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers. In fact, chemicals extracted from 25 randomly sampled fish caused the growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells cultured in a laboratory, out of which 11 produced very aggressive cancers.

Of course, scientists and environmental groups alike are very careful to avoid making recommendations for restricting artificial contraceptives.

As we all know, most of us would not take kindly to the suggestion of restricting or banning hormonal contraceptives. In today’s modern world, it has become not just an issue of economic necessity, but also an issue of personal choice and freedom.

However, while estrogenic chemicals are affecting and altering the reproduction and gender of aquatic life, it should be natural to wonder what lasting and long-term affects these popular drugs are having on the future reproductive ability of humans.

It seems a cocktail of dangerous chemicals are leaking into our fresh water supply, and we all need to consider tougher safety margins and practices that will better protect the planet and all who live on it, both the wildlife and humans.

The land of the Somali people, much of it arid and inhospitable, has been close to civilization and international trade for thousands of years.

Situated on the Horn of Africa, jutting out into the India Ocean, Somalia’s harbors are natural ports of call for traders sailing to and from India. Somalia’s coastline is frequented by many foreigners, in particular Arabs and Persians. But, in Somalia’s interior, the Somali are on their own.

Most urban households use charcoal for everyday cooking. It has been estimated that some families use a full sack of charcoal every four days due to their large family size. And, with this exacerbated charcoal use comes a significant amount of environmental fallout.

Because of an insufficient and cheaper alternative to charcoal and a large former refugee population, tree felling and a great dependence on charcoal in the self-declared republic of Somaliland are adversely affecting the environment. A 2007 study by the Academy for Peace and Development reports that greater than 2.5 million trees are felled each year and burned for charcoal in Somaliland. The report further stated that each household in Somaliland consumes an average of 10 trees a month.

Considering this extensive use of trees, the serious affects of deforestation should be noted. Deforestation not only exacerbates soil erosion, it also reduces rainfall availability. In addition, trees are a vital component in carbon fixing, which is the natural process of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Interestingly, the demand for charcoal remains very high, despite charcoal prices going up since 1991 with the resettlement of former refugees. Roughly 10 years ago, one sack of charcoal cost Somalis only about 5,000 Somaliland shillings, or 0.76 US dollars, but now the price is about 30,000 Somaliland shillings, or 5 US dollars. And, this price is only aggravated by rainfall, because when it rains, the trees become wet and the charcoal becomes more expensive.

It is not difficult to see that the ever rising gas prices have helped to encourage charcoal use. In past years, gas was actually cheaper than charcoal, but the price has increased dramatically. Now, one liter of gas costs approximately 4,000 Somaliland shillings or 0.61 US dollars, which is up from 1,500 Somaliland shillings or 0.23 US dollars.

Nowadays, charcoal is even the preferred fuel in hotels, which obviously consume even larger quantities of this valuable and environmentally important commodity. It has been estimated that some hotel chefs even use a full sack of charcoal for a single day’s cooking.

It is no wonder that researchers have determined that one of the main driving forces of African deforestation is the need for fuel.

It is also estimated that in sub-Saharan Africa, only 7.5 percent of the rural population has access to electricity. A 2009 report on the state of the world’s forests reports that “as household incomes and investment in appropriate alternatives remain low, wood is likely to remain an important energy source in Africa in the coming decades.”

Going back as far as forecasts made in 2001, it was suggested that there will be a 34 percent increase in wood fuel consumption from 2000 to 2020. However, as the price for fuel continues to rise, this increase is likely to be even greater. In other words, the share of wood fuel in the total energy supply is likely to decline, while the number of people dependent on wood for fuel and energy is likely to grow.

The report goes on to say that “the forest situation in Africa presents enormous challenges, reflecting the larger constraints of low income, weak policies and inadequately developed institutions.”

With this ever-increasing demand for fuel, many environmentalists are concerned that the trade in charcoal will eventually wipe out some species of trees. For example, one species of trees used for charcoal production is the Acacia bussei tree, which can produce between eight to 10 sacks of charcoal per tree. Researches are worried because the Acacia is the most preferred tree specie for charcoal production, timber and fencing, and its extensive use could force it to the brink of extinction in the Somaliland territories.

Efforts are being made, however, to stop or slow down the felling of Somaliland trees. On April 30, 2009, concerned with the impact of charcoal burning on the environment, Maroodi Jeeh, regional governor of Hargeisa (a city in the northwestern Somaliland region of Somalia), banned trade in charcoal as well as the burning of trees. Other attempts at protecting the environment have included the introduction of gas stoves and solar cookers in the main urban centers of Burou, Las-anod, Gabiley, Wajalea and Borama.

Since January, Somgas Company has been supplying gas to residents. A typical household uses an 11-kilogram cylinder for approximately six weeks. Although initial gas and cylinder prices remain high, an 11-kilogram gas cylinder plus gas costs $44.50 and is recharged at just $19.
This is certainly not expensive compared with the monthly charcoal consumption of about $15 for three 20-kilogram sacks of charcoal per household. (The gas cylinders range from two to 22 kilograms.)

According to Somaliland’s Ministry of Pastoral Development and Environment, there is still great cause for concern, even though charcoal consumption fell in 2008 compared with 2007.

Mohamoud Ibrahim Mohamoud currently heads the forestry section in the ministry. He says he is concerned about environmental degradation caused by the charcoal trade, and is working with several organizations to search for alternatives to charcoal energy. The problem that seems to drive the tree felling and forest burning for charcoal is the poverty throughout the countryside and the high demand for charcoal energy in the urban areas.

Overall, the demand for charcoal appears to be increasing daily and the burning of trees is also increasing. But, many leaders and environmentalists are now trying to encourage awareness and education among the people of Somalia and give them other sources of income, such as helping young people become involved in alternative activities such as bee-keeping.

It is obvious that other sources of income and further education and research are needed if the problem of deforestation and charcoal burning will be successfully addressed and redirected in Somalia.

In the 1920s, farmers succeeded in conquering The Great Prairie Plains of the Midwest. The plains were then transformed into the “amber waves of grain” we know today. However, this transformation came with a heavy price.

In fact, the agricultural triumph over The Plains was the tipping point that changed a typical La Nina-type drought cycle into an enormous environmental disaster that we now know as the Dust Bowl.

Depending on where you are in the world, a drought can have different meanings. According to the United States Weather Bureau, a drought is a period of 21 or more days during which rainfall is no more than 30 percent of the average rainfall for a specific geographical area at a designated time of year. 

The Dust Bowl was an area in the United States that experienced an extended and intense period of drought, which lasted from 1931 until 1939. The states that made up the Dust Bowl were Kansas, southeastern Colorado, northeastern and southeastern New Mexico, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. 

Throughout the Dust Bowl, soil from roughly 150,000 square miles of farmland was blown by the wind into huge dust storms. Immense clouds of dust filled the sky as far east as New York City, New York and Baltimore, Maryland.

While the Dust Bowl occurred during a period of drought, researchers know that the Dust Bowl drought, while much hotter and drier than a typical drought, did not fit the profile of the periodic droughts that generally hit farther to the south. Actually, while regular climate oscillations may have triggered the initial drying, the contribution of human land degradation played a big part in this atypical disaster.

In the absence of modern agricultural techniques, large-scale crop failures at the drought’s onset reduced vegetation cover, which only exacerbated the heat. Then, the resulting dust storms brought on by the badly eroded croplands also affected the atmospheric moisture content enough to further intensify drought conditions.

In 1931, dust from the seriously over-plowed and over-grazed prairie lands began to blow. And, it continued to blow for eight long, dry years.

As the storms blew across the plains, it came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of black from the North. This just wasn’t any wind, this dust-filled wind made even the simplest acts of life difficult. Taking a walk, eating a meal and breathing were no longer easy and they couldn’t be taken for granted.

Most children wore dust masks to and from school, people started hanging damp sheets over windows in feeble attempts at stopping the dirt and farmers could only watch as their valuable crops were blown away. The agricultural devastation that resulted from the Dust Bowl windstorms helped to lengthen The Great Depression, whose effects were already being felt worldwide. 

During the years of normal rainfall, the grasslands in the Dust Bowl states had been deeply plowed and the land had produced bountiful crops of wheat. However, as the drought of the early 1930s worsened, farmers continued plowing and planting, even thought very little could thrive in the parched soil.

The ground cover that once held the soil in place was now gone. The winds had whipped across the fields pulling billowing clouds of dust and dirt into the skies often reducing visibility to just a few feet. The skies would be darkened for days, and it became common for even the most well-sealed homes to have a thick layer of dust on the furniture. In some of the hardest hit areas, dust drifted like snow and covered whatever was in its path, including farmsteads, cars and city streets.

In 1932, there were 14 reported dust storms, also referred to as “black blizzards” or “black rollers.” As conditions worsened, in 1933, the number of black blizzards jumped to 38. These devastating dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area and affected the entire country. The extensive drought that accompanied the dust storms is said to be the worst drought in United States history because it covered over 75 percent of the country and severely affected 27 states.

The Yearbook of Agriculture for 1934 says, Approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production; 100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil; 125 million acres of land now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil.

Because this ecological and human disaster caused millions of acres of farmland to become useless, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. These people became known as “Okies” because so many of them came from Oklahoma. Countless Okies migrated to California and other states in hopes of better living conditions and jobs.

However, what they found were economic conditions little better than those they had left behind in the Dust Bowl. Because they didn’t own land and had no home, many people traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and working in the fields for only starvation wages.

With no rain clouds in sight, the drought continued and so did the Dust Bowl storms. On Sunday, April 14, 1935, the worst black blizzard occurred, causing extensive devastation and turning the day to night.

Shortly after Black Sunday, the United States Congress declared soil erosion “a national menace” and established the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. The SCS developed extensive conservation programs, which helped to retain topsoil and prevent irreparable damage to the land.

Farming techniques, including strip cropping, terracing, contour plowing, crop rotation and cover crops were promoted. Farmers were now paid to practice soil-conserving farming techniques.

The SCS and these new land-friendly farming techniques was a great step in the right direction, but the storm was not over yet. By the end the year, experts estimated that about 850,000,000 tons of topsoil had blown off the Southern Plains during 1935 alone. The fear was that if the drought continued, the total area affected would increase from 4,350,000 acres to 5,350,000 acres by the spring of 1936.

Because the Dust Bowl black blizzards raged on and the drought continued, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Shelterbelt Project in 1937, which called for large-scale planting of trees across The Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas. The goal was to protect and preserve the land from erosion.

Native trees, including green ash and red cedar, were planted along fence rows separating properties, and the farmers were paid by the government to plant and cultivate these trees. Ultimately, the project cost roughly 75 million dollars over 12 years, and had somewhat limited success.

However, as time passed, even thought the drought continued, further land conservation efforts began to make progress. The extensive work re-plowing the land into furrows, planting trees in shelterbelts and other conservation methods had finally resulted in a 65 percent reduction for soil blowing.

In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of drought, the rain finally came. This brought an end to the black blizzards of the Dust Bowl and allowed The Plains to recover and once again become golden with wheat.

In today’s ever-changing world, in areas where vegetation loss often leads to increased wind erosion, it appears that history could repeat itself and we could experience Dust Bowl-type droughts again in the future.

Researchers with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center report that, although it is not possible to predict the exact time, history suggests that another great drought could certainly occur in the future.

The first step for anyone wanting to predict the risk of a future catastrophic climate event is to look at past occurrences. Unfortunately, however, good rainfall records only go back about 100 years, and accurate atmospheric records only exist for the last 50 years.

With that said, historical measurements do suggest that droughts have been a fairly regular event in this country. North America experienced a dry spell during the 1950s and another in the late 1980s. NASA’s research suggests that there was almost a drought in the 1970s, but for some reason it did not happen.

On a much longer timetable, sediment records, tree rings and other alternative evidence of climate change suggest that The Great Plains has actually weathered multiple droughts, which lasted significantly longer than the Dust Bowl.

These severe droughts appear to have happened once or twice a century over the last 400 years. Some evidence even points to droughts lasting over a decade during the late 13th and 16th centuries, which were much more devastating than the droughts of the 20th century.

It seems that history indicates that we can expect much worse than the 1930s Dust Bowl in the future, but knowing when and where remains anyone’s guess.

In this NASA Imagery you can see the ice bridge, in fragments.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf, on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, used to have an ice bridge connecting it to nearby Charcot Island, until that ice bridge collapsed in early April, 2009.

Fred Clark over at Slacktivist had this to say about the mounting documentation of the world’s shifting climate:

My point here is not that this ice bridge is thought to have been the stabilizing factor keeping the entire, massive Wilkins ice shelf in place, and that the ice shelf is, in turn, considered to be the stabilizing factor keeping in place an even larger mass of ice in Antarctic glaciers and thus that the collapse of this ice bridge may therefore be a sign that we’re going to be Even More Screwed by climate change and rising sea levels. That’s all true, but that’s not my point here.

My point here is that these are photographs. Visual evidence. One need only look at those photographs to see that something is happening — to see it happening and thus to have to acknowledge that it is, in fact, happening.

But a great many people seem deeply invested in believing — photographs be damned — that nothing is happening. They insist that nothing is getting warmer, that ice is not melting.

In this ESA image dated April 28, 2009, you can see Charcot Island in the upper left and the Wilkins Ice Shelf in the lower right.

The Associated Press reported this story as “Huge ice chunks break away from Antarctic shelf”

“There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming,” said David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey.

Researchers said the quality and frequency of the ESA satellite images have allowed them to analyze the Wilkins shelf breakup far more effectively than any previous event.

“For the first time, I think, we can really begin to see the processes that have brought about the demise of the ice shelf,” Vaughan said.

Annotations by A. Humbert, Münster University

For the people of the densely populated city of Bhopal, India, December 2 and 3 of 1984 mark a very dark anniversary — a time that left thousands dead and thousands more deathly ill and clinging to life. 

It all started in the late 1970s when Union Carbide India Limited constructed a pesticide plant in Bhopal. Their initial goal was to produce pesticides that would help increase production on local farms. However, the sale of pesticide did not pan out and the plant soon began losing money.

Then in 1979, the factory began producing huge amounts of the highly toxic methyl isocyanate, or MIC, because it was a cheaper way to make a pesticide known as carbaryl. In an attempt to further trim the company’s budget, employee training and factory maintenance were radically cut.

This is when many factory employees began complaining about working in potentially dangerous conditions. Many warned of possible deadly disasters, but management appeared to turn a deaf ear to these warnings.

Late in the evening of December 2, 1984, something began going desperately wrong in storage tank E610. E610 just happened to be the tank that contained some 40 tons of MIC. Water leaked into the tank, which ultimately caused the MIC’s temperature to rise dangerously high.

Some sources report that water actually leaked into the tank during a routine cleaning of a pipe, and the safety valves inside the pipe were faulty. The Union Carbide company claims that a saboteur placed water inside the tank. To date, there is still no proof to back up the company’s claim. It has further been posed that some of the workers may have thrown water on the tank once it began overheating, not realizing they were only making matters worse.

Whatever the cause, by 12:15 in the morning on December 3, MIC fumes began leaking from E610. There should have been six safety features, which would have either prevented the leak in the first place or, at the very least, contained it. Each of the six safety features failed that night.

The cause of the incident has been extensively researched. As water began causing the exothermal reaction, which released an amount of gas big enough to open the safety valves, the scrubbers failed. Under safe working conditions, the scrubbers would intercept any escaping gas.

Research also shows how factory personnel neglected numerous safety procedures. There were no valves to prevent water from entering the storage tanks in the first place, and the cooling installation of the tanks and the flaring installation that might have burned the escaping gas were also out of order.

In short, compared to its other locations, safety was very low on the priority list for this Union Carbide factory. As is often the case, imperative safety procedures were neglected because of budget cuts.

An estimated 27 tons of MIC gas escaped from E610 and began spreading across the densely populated city of roughly 900,000 people. In an attempt to warn the citizens of Bhopal, a warning siren was turned on; however, it was quickly turned off again to prevent people from panicking.

So as the gas began and continued to leak from E610, most Bhopal residents slept. Many only awoke when they heard other family members coughing and trying to get their breath, or when they found themselves choking on the mysterious, noxious gas.

It is reported that many people felt severe burning in their throats and eyes as they frantically got out of their beds. Some even choked on their own bile, while others fell to the ground in anguish and pain.

As panic ensued, thousands of people ran from their homes, but they did not know where to go for safety and help. Many families were separated in the mass confusion, and numerous people fell to the ground, became unconscious and were then trampled.

It is important to note that estimates of the death toll vary greatly. Most sources, however, report that at least 3,000 people died from immediate exposure to the gas, with higher estimates going up to 8,000. In 14 years following this terrifying and deadly disaster, about 20,000 more people have died from damage caused by the MIC gas.

Yet another 120,000 people are still living every day with the effects and fallout from being exposed to MIC. These people suffer from various ailments, including blindness, extreme shortness of breath, cancers, birth deformities and early onset of menopause.

To date, chemicals from the pesticide plant and from the leak have infiltrated the water system and soil near the old factory. Because of this, people who live near the factory site are still being poisoned.

Just three days after the disaster, the chairman of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, was arrested. When he was released on bail, he fled the country. Although his whereabouts were unknown for many years, he was eventually discovered living in the United States with one home in the Hamptons in New York and another in Florida. Anderson continues to be wanted in India for culpable homicide for his role in the Bhopal disaster.

One of the worst parts of this tragedy is actually what has happened in the years following that fateful night in 1984. Although Union Carbide has paid some restitution to the victims, the company claims they are not liable for any damages because they blame a saboteur for the disaster and claim that the factory was in good working order before the gas leak. The victims of the Bhopal gas leak have received very little money. Many of the victims continue to be in poor health and are unable to work.

Union Carbide was accused of deliberate evasion of regular safety procedures. During legal proceedings, where victims demanded compensation, solid evidence was shown that proved Union Carbide used untested technology in the Bhopal factory on a regular basis. In fact, when the gas leak occurred local physicians were not told anything about the gas. This resulted in a serious delay in getting proper treatment for exposure and developing emergency safety measures.

After long legal proceedings, in February 1989, a settlement was achieved. Union Carbide promised to pay 470 million dollars in compensation, but only a small part of this compensation was ever paid to the survivors.

However, Union Carbide states on its website that it paid the full settlement to the Indian government within 10 days time. In 2004, the Supreme Court forced the Indian government to pay the remaining 330 million dollars compensation to the victims and their families.

Eventually, Union Carbide sold the Indian factory to a battery maker. Then, in 2001, Dow Chemical Company took control of Union Carbide. This takeover led to discussions on who should be responsible for cleaning up the tons of poisonous waste that is still present.

Environmental activists are trying to convince Dow Chemical Company to clean up this massive toxic mess, which could lead to serious nervous system failure, liver and kidney disease, and cancer for many years to come.

December 3, 1984 will likely always be memorable for the city of Bhopal in Madya Pradesh county, India. The day when a cloud containing at least 15 metric tons of methyl isocyanate covered an area of Bhopal of more than 30 square miles.

Approximately 100,000 people still suffer from chronic disease related to gas exposure, and ten more people die from this exposure every year. This event is now known as the worst industrial environmental disaster to ever have occurred.

Today, the location is still polluted with thousands of tons of toxic chemicals, such as hexachlorobenzene and mercury. These chemicals are stored in open barrels. Rainfall causes rinsing out of pollution to local drinking water sources. Research also shows that some wells still contain up to 500 times the legal limit of these toxins.