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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16049\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16049\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/sierrasnowwater.jpg\" alt=\"Abut a third of California's water comes from snow in the Sierra Nevada. (David McNew/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abut a third of California’s water comes from snow in the Sierra Nevada. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After months of nervous anticipation, the jury is back on the water potential from this winter’s Sierra snowfall. Make no mistake: the flurry of late-season precipitation has helped, but \u003ca title=\"Merc - post\" href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25468885/droughts-not-over-yet-california-storms-improve-sierra\">has not rescued California\u003c/a> from its historic drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a week’s worth of \u003ca title=\"CoCo Times - post\" href=\"http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_25458057/rain-thunderstorms-expected-monday-and-tuesday-bay\">rain and snow \u003c/a>that rounded out March and seemed to be shaping up as an “April miracle” gave the \u003ca title=\"DWR - snowpack\" href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action\">meager snowpack\u003c/a> a significant boost, from about a quarter of the 30-year average to about a third. That’s the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news: it’s still only 32 percent of average. In the northern Sierra, it’s even worse: water content is still only 23 percent of normal. This is an ugly prospect for a state that counts on the “frozen reservoir” for about a third of its water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e327cf882e2a712168b6bf40c866653e”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the five monthly surveys officials do of the Sierra snowpack each winter, April is considered the most important benchmark. This is usually when the snowpack has peaked, the wet season is winding down, things are warming up and the runoff season begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“February and March storms have probably kept us from breaking records for historic drought this year,” Mark Cowin, the head of California’s Department of Water Resources told reporters, “but they certainly haven’t rescued us from that drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cowin said that state and federal water managers will try to harness some of the recent precipitation by temporarily increasing pumping of water to customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As water managers were weighing in the scant water content of Sierra snows, the Association of California Water Agencies \u003ca title=\"ACWA - release\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/news/water-supply-challenges/acwa-calls-statewide-conservation-response-drought\">weighed in\u003c/a> with its 400-plus members, issuing an unusual plea for them to \u003ca title=\"ACWA - Drought map\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">ask more sacrifices\u003c/a> of its urban customers. The Sacramento-based trade group is urging local water managers to “request heightened water conservation from their customers in response to drought conditions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time that ACWA has made such a call to its member agencies. “Reducing water use has been standard practice in California for more than a decade,” noted ACWA President John Coleman in a written statement, “but given the severity of this drought and the impacts starting to be felt across the state’s economy, it is imperative that all residents step up their conservation efforts now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/142610983&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>The latest \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/\">report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u003c/a> focuses on impacts from climate change, both current and looming, and recommendations for how to adapt. It also ratchets up considerably the confidence levels for those predicted impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201404010900\">KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> hosted a segment on the report Tuesday morning. And the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\">New York Times has this story\u003c/a> on the scope of the IPCC’s work, the expected impacts from climate change — hunger, thirst, flooding, violent conflicts, mass migrations — and the political response (or lack thereof):\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceItemEmbedly\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/31/science/earth/31climate/31climate-videoSixteenByNine1050.jpg\" class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\" rel=\"noopener\">Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come\u003c/a>YOKOHAMA, Japan – Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported on Monday, and they warned that the problem was likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float:right\">\u003ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://embed.ly/code?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F01%2Fscience%2Fearth%2Fclimate.html\" title=\"Powered by Embedly\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\" class=\"media-attribution-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap26_FGDall.pdf\">North America\u003c/a> section drills down into some local impacts. Here’s a taste of what the IPCC says we can expect in California. And yes, the report says that some of this is already happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Flooding in the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/ca-delta/\">Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Loss of suitable land for wine growing\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/heat-and-harvest/\">Declines in agricultural productivity\u003c/a> for other crops, though some of that may be softened by irrigation\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A longer \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/can-california-burn-its-way-out-of-its-wildfire-problem/\">wildfire season\u003c/a> and more acreage burned\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earlier spring runoff and declines in the amount of water stored by the mountain snowpack\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/san-francisco-a-test-case-for-coping-with-rising-seas/\">Sea level rise\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The latest \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/\">report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u003c/a> focuses on impacts from climate change, both current and looming, and recommendations for how to adapt. It also ratchets up considerably the confidence levels for those predicted impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201404010900\">KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> hosted a segment on the report Tuesday morning. And the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\">New York Times has this story\u003c/a> on the scope of the IPCC’s work, the expected impacts from climate change — hunger, thirst, flooding, violent conflicts, mass migrations — and the political response (or lack thereof):\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceItemEmbedly\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/31/science/earth/31climate/31climate-videoSixteenByNine1050.jpg\" class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\" rel=\"noopener\">Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come\u003c/a>YOKOHAMA, Japan – Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported on Monday, and they warned that the problem was likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float:right\">\u003ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://embed.ly/code?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F01%2Fscience%2Fearth%2Fclimate.html\" title=\"Powered by Embedly\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\" class=\"media-attribution-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap26_FGDall.pdf\">North America\u003c/a> section drills down into some local impacts. Here’s a taste of what the IPCC says we can expect in California. And yes, the report says that some of this is already happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Flooding in the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/ca-delta/\">Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Loss of suitable land for wine growing\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/heat-and-harvest/\">Declines in agricultural productivity\u003c/a> for other crops, though some of that may be softened by irrigation\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A longer \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/can-california-burn-its-way-out-of-its-wildfire-problem/\">wildfire season\u003c/a> and more acreage burned\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earlier spring runoff and declines in the amount of water stored by the mountain snowpack\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/san-francisco-a-test-case-for-coping-with-rising-seas/\">Sea level rise\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15986\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15986\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/tankcarsrichmond-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More and more crude oil is being transported into California by rail lines, and questions about safety are prompting local governments and environmentalists to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups filed suit yesterday against the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and energy company \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/\">Kinder Morgan\u003c/a>. A \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX investigation\u003c/a> found Kinder Morgan has been unloading trains full of crude in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, the Richmond and Berkeley city councils both passed resolutions opposing crude-by-rail projects. \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/5723\">Richmond’s\u003c/a> was against the Kinder Morgan operations; \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/03_Mar/Documents/2014-03-25_Item_29_Opposition_to_Rail_Transport_of_Hazardous.aspx\">Berkeley’s\u003c/a> against a \u003ca href=\"http://www.phillips66.com/EN/about/our-businesses/refining-marketing/refining/santamaria/Pages/rail-project-information.aspx\">Phillips 66\u003c/a> plan to build a rail terminal at its San Luis Obispo County refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a quick review of what’s going on with crude-by-rail in the Bay Area, and why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oil companies want to transport crude oil by train because it’s cheap and (relatively) local.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area refineries mostly get their oil from pipelines and ships, from \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/crude_oil_receipts.html\">Southern California, Alaska and the Middle East\u003c/a>. But there’s an oil boom right now in the middle part of North America. In North Dakota it’s oil coming from the Bakken formation, and in Alberta it’s from the tar sands. Oil companies want to get all that oil to the coasts, where the refineries and most of their customers are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In defense of the projects, oil companies point out that this oil is either from right here in the U.S. or from our friendly neighbor Canada, rather than from overseas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil imports by rail into California have \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/2013_crude_by_rail.html\">shot up in recent years\u003c/a>, from zero in early 2009, to more than a million barrels in December 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opponents of crude-by-rail are concerned about public safety and environmental impacts.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e32339a5417a6ad21b6a745149deb72f”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands is heavy and high in sulfur. Environmentalists say it’s “dirty,” that it pollutes more to get it out of the ground and to refine it. So that’s the climate change and air pollution side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the safety concerns are mostly about the oil from the Bakken formation. It’s light and sweet, that is, lower in sulfur. But it’s also volatile. The oil trains that have derailed and exploded recently, including the one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, were carrying Bakken crude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It turns out crude-by-rail was already coming into Richmond.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kinder Morgan has been bringing in 100-car trains of crude oil to its \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/products_pipelines/terminals_W_richmond.cfm\">terminal in Richmond\u003c/a>, which is on the BNSF rail line. \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX followed the oil\u003c/a> as it was loaded into a truck and brought to the \u003ca href=\"http://tsocorp.com/refining/martinez-calif/\">Tesoro refinery in Martinez\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team of \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/groups-challenge-crude-by-rail-shipments-to-bay-area-city\">environmental and community groups is suing\u003c/a> the Air District and Kinder Morgan to stop the operation. They say there should have been a full environmental review before bringing in trains full of crude oil. Kinder Morgan was already using the facility to bring in chemicals like ethanol. (The lawsuit is embedded at the bottom of this article.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13016\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13016\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/pittsburgoilprotest.jpg\" alt=\"About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There are more crude-by-rail projects on the table in the Bay Area and Central Coast. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valero wants to build a crude-by-rail terminal at its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/valero-rail-project-fuels-tar-sands-speculation-in-bay-area/\">refinery in Benicia\u003c/a>. The city is working on an \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/index.asp?SEC=%7BC45EA667-8D39-4B30-87EB-9110A2F9CE13%7D\">environmental impact report\u003c/a> on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pittsburg, an energy company called WesPac is trying to open an \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/bay-area-residents-resist-crude-by-rail-as-accidents-rise/\">oil terminal\u003c/a> that would bring crude in by rail, pipeline and ship. The city recently reopened that \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.pittsburg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=700\">environmental impact report\u003c/a>, to do more research on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And on the Central Coast, the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County has applied to build a rail terminal. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/environmental/EnvironmentalNotices/railproject.htm\">comment period\u003c/a> on that project has also just been reopened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There has been some progress on making transporting crude oil by train safer.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Transportation Safety Board \u003ca href=\"https://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/140123.html\">has been asking for safety upgrades\u003c/a> to the tank cars used to transport oil. Those would need to go through the U.S. Department of Transportation; the NTSB can make recommendations, but not regulations. That’s been a slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the Association of American Railroads has announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Press-Releases/Pages/Freight-Railroads-Join-U-S-Transportation-Secretary-Foxx-in-Announcing-Industry-Crude-By-Rail-Safety-Initiative.aspx#.UzYLfYUXJfQ\">voluntary safety improvements\u003c/a> for crude-by-rail, including more inspections on rail lines, decreased speeds in urban areas and updated brake systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto;font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-style: normal;font-variant: normal;font-weight: normal;font-size: 14px;line-height: normal\">\u003ca style=\"text-decoration: underline\" title=\"View Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit on Scribd\" href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/215141448/Crude-By-Rail-Lawsuit\">Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_75730\" src=\"//www.scribd.com/embeds/215141448/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141950402&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15986\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15986\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/tankcarsrichmond-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More and more crude oil is being transported into California by rail lines, and questions about safety are prompting local governments and environmentalists to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups filed suit yesterday against the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and energy company \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/\">Kinder Morgan\u003c/a>. A \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX investigation\u003c/a> found Kinder Morgan has been unloading trains full of crude in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, the Richmond and Berkeley city councils both passed resolutions opposing crude-by-rail projects. \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/5723\">Richmond’s\u003c/a> was against the Kinder Morgan operations; \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/03_Mar/Documents/2014-03-25_Item_29_Opposition_to_Rail_Transport_of_Hazardous.aspx\">Berkeley’s\u003c/a> against a \u003ca href=\"http://www.phillips66.com/EN/about/our-businesses/refining-marketing/refining/santamaria/Pages/rail-project-information.aspx\">Phillips 66\u003c/a> plan to build a rail terminal at its San Luis Obispo County refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a quick review of what’s going on with crude-by-rail in the Bay Area, and why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oil companies want to transport crude oil by train because it’s cheap and (relatively) local.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area refineries mostly get their oil from pipelines and ships, from \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/crude_oil_receipts.html\">Southern California, Alaska and the Middle East\u003c/a>. But there’s an oil boom right now in the middle part of North America. In North Dakota it’s oil coming from the Bakken formation, and in Alberta it’s from the tar sands. Oil companies want to get all that oil to the coasts, where the refineries and most of their customers are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In defense of the projects, oil companies point out that this oil is either from right here in the U.S. or from our friendly neighbor Canada, rather than from overseas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil imports by rail into California have \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/2013_crude_by_rail.html\">shot up in recent years\u003c/a>, from zero in early 2009, to more than a million barrels in December 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opponents of crude-by-rail are concerned about public safety and environmental impacts.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands is heavy and high in sulfur. Environmentalists say it’s “dirty,” that it pollutes more to get it out of the ground and to refine it. So that’s the climate change and air pollution side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the safety concerns are mostly about the oil from the Bakken formation. It’s light and sweet, that is, lower in sulfur. But it’s also volatile. The oil trains that have derailed and exploded recently, including the one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, were carrying Bakken crude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It turns out crude-by-rail was already coming into Richmond.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kinder Morgan has been bringing in 100-car trains of crude oil to its \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/products_pipelines/terminals_W_richmond.cfm\">terminal in Richmond\u003c/a>, which is on the BNSF rail line. \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX followed the oil\u003c/a> as it was loaded into a truck and brought to the \u003ca href=\"http://tsocorp.com/refining/martinez-calif/\">Tesoro refinery in Martinez\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team of \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/groups-challenge-crude-by-rail-shipments-to-bay-area-city\">environmental and community groups is suing\u003c/a> the Air District and Kinder Morgan to stop the operation. They say there should have been a full environmental review before bringing in trains full of crude oil. Kinder Morgan was already using the facility to bring in chemicals like ethanol. (The lawsuit is embedded at the bottom of this article.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13016\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13016\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/pittsburgoilprotest.jpg\" alt=\"About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There are more crude-by-rail projects on the table in the Bay Area and Central Coast. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valero wants to build a crude-by-rail terminal at its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/valero-rail-project-fuels-tar-sands-speculation-in-bay-area/\">refinery in Benicia\u003c/a>. The city is working on an \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/index.asp?SEC=%7BC45EA667-8D39-4B30-87EB-9110A2F9CE13%7D\">environmental impact report\u003c/a> on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pittsburg, an energy company called WesPac is trying to open an \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/bay-area-residents-resist-crude-by-rail-as-accidents-rise/\">oil terminal\u003c/a> that would bring crude in by rail, pipeline and ship. The city recently reopened that \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.pittsburg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=700\">environmental impact report\u003c/a>, to do more research on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And on the Central Coast, the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County has applied to build a rail terminal. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/environmental/EnvironmentalNotices/railproject.htm\">comment period\u003c/a> on that project has also just been reopened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There has been some progress on making transporting crude oil by train safer.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Transportation Safety Board \u003ca href=\"https://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/140123.html\">has been asking for safety upgrades\u003c/a> to the tank cars used to transport oil. Those would need to go through the U.S. Department of Transportation; the NTSB can make recommendations, but not regulations. That’s been a slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the Association of American Railroads has announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Press-Releases/Pages/Freight-Railroads-Join-U-S-Transportation-Secretary-Foxx-in-Announcing-Industry-Crude-By-Rail-Safety-Initiative.aspx#.UzYLfYUXJfQ\">voluntary safety improvements\u003c/a> for crude-by-rail, including more inspections on rail lines, decreased speeds in urban areas and updated brake systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto;font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-style: normal;font-variant: normal;font-weight: normal;font-size: 14px;line-height: normal\">\u003ca style=\"text-decoration: underline\" title=\"View Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit on Scribd\" href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/215141448/Crude-By-Rail-Lawsuit\">Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_75730\" src=\"//www.scribd.com/embeds/215141448/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141950402&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Woolly Mammoth Fossils Raise Red Flags on the Road to Extinction",
"headTitle": "Woolly Mammoth Fossils Raise Red Flags on the Road to Extinction | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15785\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15785\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\" alt=\"Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. (Charles R. Knight/AMNH)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. Click image to enlarge. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWooly_Mammoths.jpg\">Charles R. Knight/Public Domain\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aside from the days of the dinosaur, few eras capture our imagination like the last ice age. We showed up about 60 million years too late to catch a glimpse of the building-sized \u003ca href=\"http://ix.cs.uoregon.edu/~kent/paleontology/sauropods/Brachiosaurus/index.html\">Brachiosaurus\u003c/a>, but our ancestors were out in full force during the Late Pleistocene, some 10,000 years ago, when the last of the ice age giants vanished from Earth’s continents. Fossils from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.tarpits.org/la-brea-tar-pits\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">La Brea Tar Pits\u003c/a> in Los Angeles and other parts of California suggest that saber-tooth cats, giant sloths, mammoths and the rest of their charismatic contemporaries disappeared from the state long before that. It was our first brush with mass extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What caused the ice age extinctions has sparked controversy ever since Darwin and his colleagues first recognized them in the 19th century. Then as now, climate change and human hunters seemed the most likely suspects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One school of thought holds that a warming planet caused the glaciers to melt, claiming the habitat and food sources the animals needed to survive. But, critics counter, it also cleared a path for early humans to hunt once inaccessible quarry. On this continent, the last of the Pleistocene giants vanished just 1,500 years after the arrival of the first humans, offering \u003ca href=\"http://global.oup.com/academic/product/once-and-future-giants-9780195370126;jsessionid=D258349C4151CC5998D453EDC17519FE?cc=us&lang=en&\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compelling support\u003c/a> for this “\u003ca href=\"http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/Day1/overkill/Bit1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">overkill hypothesis\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades of contentious debate over the primary causes of this mass extinction long hobbled efforts to understand its consequences, says Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist at the University of Maine’s School of Biology & Ecology and the Climate Change Institute. But a new consensus seems to be emerging. It’s clear that climate change influences animals’ diet and behavior and that extinction rarely results from a single factor, Gill says. “But there’s increasing evidence that while animals might have been stressed by the changes we see at the end of the last ice age, in the absence of humans, it becomes really difficult to explain the extinction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Finding Flaws in Fossils\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Paleontologists typically study fossils to identify new species and understand how new traits evolved and different species adapted to changing environments. But in a \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/articles/318\">new study\u003c/a>, Frietson Galis and her Dutch colleagues Jelle Reumer and Clara ten Broek took what they call an evolutionary developmental approach — looking for signs of birth defects in fossils — based on a surprising discovery in Europe’s North Sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the glaciers retreated, the North Sea was a vast tundra teeming with herds of woolly mammoths and their outsized contemporaries. Trawlers often find their bones among the fish jumping in their nets, and dredging projects routinely pull up ancient remains from the sandy seafloor. So when workers dredging the Rotterdam Harbor off the coast of the Netherlands recovered two woolly mammoth neck bones a few years ago, no one was surprised. But when Galis and her colleagues examined the fossils, which had been donated to Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum, they found something they didn’t expect. Two of the neck bones had a skeletal defect — a joint to hold a rib — that usually accompanies life-threatening deformities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost all mammals, from mice to humans and even giraffes, have seven neck bones, or cervical vertebrae, except for \u003ca href=\"http://www.evodevojournal.com/content/2/1/11\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">manatees and sloths\u003c/a>, whose slow-paced lifestyle seems to help them survive skeletal abnormalities. That all mammals have seven, no more or less, suggests that variations on the number or form of these bones compromise fitness, meaning that few survive long enough to reproduce. When neck vertebrae sprout ribs as if they were spinal vertebrae, it’s a sign that something disturbed the intricately coordinated development of the fetus. And when one thing goes wrong, chances are other things do too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Signs of Trouble\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Neck ribs themselves don’t typically cause serious problems, but usually arise with other defects that do. When neck ribs occur in humans, \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.weber.edu/rmeyers/Galis-Selection%20against%20homeotic.pdf\">90 percent of the afflicted\u003c/a> die before adulthood. Knowing that the neck bones retrieved from the North Sea came from one of the last local mammoth populations, Galis and her colleagues wondered if this defect hastened their demise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that changes in highly conserved anatomical traits are usually indicators of medical risks,” Galis says. “Variations of the vertebral column can tell us a lot about the vulnerability of populations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15783\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / \u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettneilson/3206888858/in/photostream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see what stories those variations might tell, Galis and her colleagues looked for the developmental defect in other Late Pleistocene mammoth fossils stored at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Lieden, the Netherlands. Then they compared their fossils (just nine were suitable for analysis) to specimens of African elephants and Asian elephants, the mammoth’s closest living relatives. They found that a third of the mammoth neck vertebrae had ribs but just a tiny fraction — 1 out of 29 —of those from the elephants did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the local populations declined, inbreeding was more likely, Galis says. And both inbreeding and famine or other harsh conditions could disturb early pregnancy. “It seems plausible that both caused cervical ribs and vulnerability in mammoths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The neck ribs could be a sign of inbreeding, much like the Florida panther’s trademark kinked tail. It’s not the tail that worries biologists, but the associated traits, like undescended testicles and susceptibility to parasites, that threaten the big cat’s ability to reproduce. As mammoth populations dwindled, the appearance of these misplaced ribs may have coincided with other genetic defects that made mammoths more vulnerable to stress — shifting climates, overzealous hunters or factors yet to be uncovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary evidence from these vertebrae suggests that these animals were stressed by something in their environment,” says Gill. The stress could have come from a change in their diet because of climate change, in their behavior because or hunting or even in who they were reproducing with because of hunting, she explains. Evidence from kill sites shows that early humans were targeting adult males — like trophy hunters do today — rather than the young as carnivores do, compromising females’ chances of reproductive success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e78550e1fb32c408f5416918dbe3736a”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study generates some interesting ideas to test, Gill adds, and supports the hypothesis that these animals were very stressed out during the final moments before their extinction. “Whether that’s from environmental stressors or humans or the ‘\u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5693/70.full?sid=b8bd569f-901d-4482-9c25-304a1dc6e538\">one-two punch\u003c/a>‘ of climate change plus hunting is where we need to look at other data to complement the fossil evidence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Farke, a dinosaur expert who edited the paper (published in the \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">open access journal PeerJ\u003c/a>), allows that the sample size analyzed was small. But he thinks it’s not just coincidence that so many of the fossils had the defect. And though most of the samples were found from dredging rather than rock layers that can be precisely dated, Farke thinks the evidence is compelling enough to inspire others to explore links between fossil anomalies and potential developmental flaws that might contribute to extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really cool to be able to make this connection between something that might be just a curiosity in a museum collection but a little deeper work shows that there might be something going on with it,” he says. He’d also like to see someone examine older fossils to see if the defect disappears further back in time, when the populations were presumably healthier.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A Tool for Today\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Though scientists may debate the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis for years to come, there’s no doubt that we’re to blame for the catastrophic decline of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mesaxonia/elephantidae.php\">mammoth’s living cousins\u003c/a>. Poaching of African elephants for the ivory in their tusks remains the number one \u003ca href=\"https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/african_elephant_summit_background_document_2013_en.pdf\">threat to their survival.\u003c/a> An unfathomable 62 percent of African forest elephants were killed between 2002 and 2011, a\u003ca href=\"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059469\"> team of researchers reported\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If neck ribs did portend the beginning of the end for the mammoth, might the same defect start to appear more frequently in elephants under intense hunting pressure? Elephants are keenly intelligent animals that \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140221-elephants-poaching-empathy-grief-extinction-science/\">grieve for fallen kin\u003c/a> — a stress that may well affect developing young. Assuming that neck ribs do signal genetic or developmental stress, Farke says, using portable x-rays to screen for the defect could be a good way to gauge the health of not just elephants but any at-risk vertebrate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes more paleontologists will start to study fossils for the developmental pathologies they reveal — not just to understand what happened to the mythic megafauna we lost long ago, but to save those still in our midst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From time to time, the great beasts send us reminders that they once walked the streets of San Francisco, then savannah grasslands, replete with large-mammal menageries now found only in Africa. Just last September, a crane operator at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mammoth-tooth-found-at-Transbay-dig-3861381.php\">Transbay Transit Center\u003c/a> construction site unearthed the tooth of a Columbian mammoth, the species common in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Pleistocene, the large-bodied mammals took the biggest hit. Today, we’re losing species across all classes at an unprecedented rate, and no one disputes that the hand of humans — in climate change and hunting — is driving the crisis. The biggest question now is what we’re going to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A surprising discovery in woolly mammoth fossils recovered from the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands suggests that inbreeding and harsh conditions plagued the ice age giants near the end of their reign on Earth.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15785\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15785\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\" alt=\"Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. (Charles R. Knight/AMNH)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. Click image to enlarge. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWooly_Mammoths.jpg\">Charles R. Knight/Public Domain\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aside from the days of the dinosaur, few eras capture our imagination like the last ice age. We showed up about 60 million years too late to catch a glimpse of the building-sized \u003ca href=\"http://ix.cs.uoregon.edu/~kent/paleontology/sauropods/Brachiosaurus/index.html\">Brachiosaurus\u003c/a>, but our ancestors were out in full force during the Late Pleistocene, some 10,000 years ago, when the last of the ice age giants vanished from Earth’s continents. Fossils from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.tarpits.org/la-brea-tar-pits\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">La Brea Tar Pits\u003c/a> in Los Angeles and other parts of California suggest that saber-tooth cats, giant sloths, mammoths and the rest of their charismatic contemporaries disappeared from the state long before that. It was our first brush with mass extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What caused the ice age extinctions has sparked controversy ever since Darwin and his colleagues first recognized them in the 19th century. Then as now, climate change and human hunters seemed the most likely suspects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One school of thought holds that a warming planet caused the glaciers to melt, claiming the habitat and food sources the animals needed to survive. But, critics counter, it also cleared a path for early humans to hunt once inaccessible quarry. On this continent, the last of the Pleistocene giants vanished just 1,500 years after the arrival of the first humans, offering \u003ca href=\"http://global.oup.com/academic/product/once-and-future-giants-9780195370126;jsessionid=D258349C4151CC5998D453EDC17519FE?cc=us&lang=en&\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compelling support\u003c/a> for this “\u003ca href=\"http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/Day1/overkill/Bit1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">overkill hypothesis\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades of contentious debate over the primary causes of this mass extinction long hobbled efforts to understand its consequences, says Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist at the University of Maine’s School of Biology & Ecology and the Climate Change Institute. But a new consensus seems to be emerging. It’s clear that climate change influences animals’ diet and behavior and that extinction rarely results from a single factor, Gill says. “But there’s increasing evidence that while animals might have been stressed by the changes we see at the end of the last ice age, in the absence of humans, it becomes really difficult to explain the extinction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Finding Flaws in Fossils\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Paleontologists typically study fossils to identify new species and understand how new traits evolved and different species adapted to changing environments. But in a \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/articles/318\">new study\u003c/a>, Frietson Galis and her Dutch colleagues Jelle Reumer and Clara ten Broek took what they call an evolutionary developmental approach — looking for signs of birth defects in fossils — based on a surprising discovery in Europe’s North Sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the glaciers retreated, the North Sea was a vast tundra teeming with herds of woolly mammoths and their outsized contemporaries. Trawlers often find their bones among the fish jumping in their nets, and dredging projects routinely pull up ancient remains from the sandy seafloor. So when workers dredging the Rotterdam Harbor off the coast of the Netherlands recovered two woolly mammoth neck bones a few years ago, no one was surprised. But when Galis and her colleagues examined the fossils, which had been donated to Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum, they found something they didn’t expect. Two of the neck bones had a skeletal defect — a joint to hold a rib — that usually accompanies life-threatening deformities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost all mammals, from mice to humans and even giraffes, have seven neck bones, or cervical vertebrae, except for \u003ca href=\"http://www.evodevojournal.com/content/2/1/11\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">manatees and sloths\u003c/a>, whose slow-paced lifestyle seems to help them survive skeletal abnormalities. That all mammals have seven, no more or less, suggests that variations on the number or form of these bones compromise fitness, meaning that few survive long enough to reproduce. When neck vertebrae sprout ribs as if they were spinal vertebrae, it’s a sign that something disturbed the intricately coordinated development of the fetus. And when one thing goes wrong, chances are other things do too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Signs of Trouble\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Neck ribs themselves don’t typically cause serious problems, but usually arise with other defects that do. When neck ribs occur in humans, \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.weber.edu/rmeyers/Galis-Selection%20against%20homeotic.pdf\">90 percent of the afflicted\u003c/a> die before adulthood. Knowing that the neck bones retrieved from the North Sea came from one of the last local mammoth populations, Galis and her colleagues wondered if this defect hastened their demise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that changes in highly conserved anatomical traits are usually indicators of medical risks,” Galis says. “Variations of the vertebral column can tell us a lot about the vulnerability of populations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15783\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / \u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettneilson/3206888858/in/photostream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see what stories those variations might tell, Galis and her colleagues looked for the developmental defect in other Late Pleistocene mammoth fossils stored at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Lieden, the Netherlands. Then they compared their fossils (just nine were suitable for analysis) to specimens of African elephants and Asian elephants, the mammoth’s closest living relatives. They found that a third of the mammoth neck vertebrae had ribs but just a tiny fraction — 1 out of 29 —of those from the elephants did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the local populations declined, inbreeding was more likely, Galis says. And both inbreeding and famine or other harsh conditions could disturb early pregnancy. “It seems plausible that both caused cervical ribs and vulnerability in mammoths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The neck ribs could be a sign of inbreeding, much like the Florida panther’s trademark kinked tail. It’s not the tail that worries biologists, but the associated traits, like undescended testicles and susceptibility to parasites, that threaten the big cat’s ability to reproduce. As mammoth populations dwindled, the appearance of these misplaced ribs may have coincided with other genetic defects that made mammoths more vulnerable to stress — shifting climates, overzealous hunters or factors yet to be uncovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary evidence from these vertebrae suggests that these animals were stressed by something in their environment,” says Gill. The stress could have come from a change in their diet because of climate change, in their behavior because or hunting or even in who they were reproducing with because of hunting, she explains. Evidence from kill sites shows that early humans were targeting adult males — like trophy hunters do today — rather than the young as carnivores do, compromising females’ chances of reproductive success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study generates some interesting ideas to test, Gill adds, and supports the hypothesis that these animals were very stressed out during the final moments before their extinction. “Whether that’s from environmental stressors or humans or the ‘\u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5693/70.full?sid=b8bd569f-901d-4482-9c25-304a1dc6e538\">one-two punch\u003c/a>‘ of climate change plus hunting is where we need to look at other data to complement the fossil evidence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Farke, a dinosaur expert who edited the paper (published in the \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">open access journal PeerJ\u003c/a>), allows that the sample size analyzed was small. But he thinks it’s not just coincidence that so many of the fossils had the defect. And though most of the samples were found from dredging rather than rock layers that can be precisely dated, Farke thinks the evidence is compelling enough to inspire others to explore links between fossil anomalies and potential developmental flaws that might contribute to extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really cool to be able to make this connection between something that might be just a curiosity in a museum collection but a little deeper work shows that there might be something going on with it,” he says. He’d also like to see someone examine older fossils to see if the defect disappears further back in time, when the populations were presumably healthier.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A Tool for Today\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Though scientists may debate the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis for years to come, there’s no doubt that we’re to blame for the catastrophic decline of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mesaxonia/elephantidae.php\">mammoth’s living cousins\u003c/a>. Poaching of African elephants for the ivory in their tusks remains the number one \u003ca href=\"https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/african_elephant_summit_background_document_2013_en.pdf\">threat to their survival.\u003c/a> An unfathomable 62 percent of African forest elephants were killed between 2002 and 2011, a\u003ca href=\"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059469\"> team of researchers reported\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If neck ribs did portend the beginning of the end for the mammoth, might the same defect start to appear more frequently in elephants under intense hunting pressure? Elephants are keenly intelligent animals that \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140221-elephants-poaching-empathy-grief-extinction-science/\">grieve for fallen kin\u003c/a> — a stress that may well affect developing young. Assuming that neck ribs do signal genetic or developmental stress, Farke says, using portable x-rays to screen for the defect could be a good way to gauge the health of not just elephants but any at-risk vertebrate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes more paleontologists will start to study fossils for the developmental pathologies they reveal — not just to understand what happened to the mythic megafauna we lost long ago, but to save those still in our midst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From time to time, the great beasts send us reminders that they once walked the streets of San Francisco, then savannah grasslands, replete with large-mammal menageries now found only in Africa. Just last September, a crane operator at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mammoth-tooth-found-at-Transbay-dig-3861381.php\">Transbay Transit Center\u003c/a> construction site unearthed the tooth of a Columbian mammoth, the species common in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Pleistocene, the large-bodied mammals took the biggest hit. Today, we’re losing species across all classes at an unprecedented rate, and no one disputes that the hand of humans — in climate change and hunting — is driving the crisis. The biggest question now is what we’re going to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/03/20140317science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15424\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15424\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/pteropod3.gif\" alt=\"In lab tests, acidic waters have dissolved the shells of pteropods when they're still alive. (Woods Hole Oceanic Institution)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In lab tests, acidic waters have dissolved the shells of pteropods when they’re still alive. (Woods Hole Oceanic Institution)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, managers at a hatchery near Vancouver, Canada announced they had \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/02/26/acidic-water-blamed-for-bcs-10-million-scallop-die-off/\">lost three years’ worth of scallops\u003c/a> — 10 million animals — to acidic ocean waters. They laid off staff and shut down a processing plant. This was \u003ca href=\"http://earthfix.kcts9.org/water/article/acid-water-take-toll-on-puget-sound-shellfish/\">not the first time\u003c/a> a West Coast shellfish hatchery lost stock to the phenomenon known as ocean acidification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This has been happening at the hatcheries,” said Richard Feely, a senior scientist at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification\">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u003c/a>. Feely studies the process by which carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere gradually turns ocean waters more acidic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When these corrosive waters get into the hatcheries of our shell-forming shellfish species, for example oyster larvae on the Washington, Oregon coast, they can kill the oyster larvae within two days,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ocean acidification is worse off the West Coast than anywhere else in North America, and threatens animals up and down the food chain. Scientists are now studying how these corrosive waters are already affecting West Coast marine life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15419\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 264px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15419 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/FAirweather_2491_small-897x1024.jpg\" alt=\"The Fairweather is one of the research vessels NOAA uses for ocean acidification studies. (NOAA) \" width=\"264\" height=\"301\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Fairweather is one of the research vessels NOAA uses for ocean acidification studies. (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For instance, corrosive waters also dissolve the shells of tiny marine snails called pteropods, a favorite food of some salmon species. The dissolution in some cases happens when the animal is still alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This matters not just if you happen to be a shellfish, or like to eat them — or if you depend on fisheries for your livelihood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see how this would permeate through the food chain,” said Feely. “From the lowest levels of the food chain up to the highest level. Organisms that mankind really worries about.” Not just salmon and shellfish, he said, but also seals, whales, seabirds and — eventually — us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feely is leading NOAA’s effort to study the effects of ocean acidification, including what’s happening to pteropods. Since 2007, NOAA has periodically sent ships doing ocean acidification research up and down the West Coast. The ships bristle with scientific equipment, and researchers pack on board to conduct various studies. There was a \u003ca href=\"http://oceanacidification.noaa.gov/WhatsNew/CruiseBlog.aspx\">research cruise last summer\u003c/a>; the next one is scheduled for 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Chemistry of Corrosive Water\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what’s going on. Humans release a lot of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. Most of that CO2 goes up into the atmosphere and traps heat. That’s what’s contributing to climate change. The rest, about one-quarter of all anthropogenic CO2, gets absorbed by the ocean instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We can actually identify that this is manmade.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For a while, Feely explained, scientists thought that was a good thing. The thinking went, if the ocean absorbed all that carbon dioxide, then it was keeping climate change from being that much worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They don’t think that any more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re beginning to see that this is a very serious problem,” he said. That’s because when the carbon dioxide goes into the ocean, it reacts with water to form carbonic acid (the stuff that gives mineral water its fizz).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”9cbdccd6169afce40db970551f29bf12″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sets off a chain of chemical reactions. The end result is, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F\">pH of the oceans is changing\u003c/a>, and the supply of calcium carbonate minerals, the stuff that shellfish use to build their shells, is decreasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been able to measure the change in the acidity of the oceans since the Pre-Industrial,” Feely said. “It would be about 26% because of the uptake of carbon dioxide. This is what mankind has done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the Industrial Age began, he said, humans have dumped about 550 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the oceans. “And we can actually identify that this is manmade,” he said, because the carbon atoms have a unique fingerprint that shows they come from burning fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why It’s Worse Here\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason ocean acidification is so bad here on the West Coast is, ironically, also why our coast is so rich with marine life: coastal upwelling.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘You’re asking the organisms to adapt to changes that are in many cases 10 to 100 times faster than anything they’ve seen in the geological past.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In the summer the wind shifts, Feely explained, and it pulls the water at the surface of the ocean away from shore. Then, water from deeper in the ocean rises up to replace it. That deep ocean water is full of stuff that decayed and sank. That means it’s full of nutrients. And it has more carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you have the combined impact of CO2-rich water from the bottom and an additional anthropogenic CO2 from human kind, that combined impact is what has put us over the threshold for these corrosive waters to exist,” said Feely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Past and Future Change\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ocean acidification has happened before in Earth’s history, but Feely said changes on the scale happening now took place over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Not a couple of centuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re asking the organisms to adapt to changes that are in many cases 10 to 100 times faster than anything they’ve seen in the geological past,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some small local solutions. Feely has helped oyster hatcheries monitor and prepare for more corrosive waters. And he says they could consider locating hatcheries near seagrass, which takes up carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the vast oceans, Feely is focused now on monitoring, so he can see the changes as they take place.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15424\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15424\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/pteropod3.gif\" alt=\"In lab tests, acidic waters have dissolved the shells of pteropods when they're still alive. (Woods Hole Oceanic Institution)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In lab tests, acidic waters have dissolved the shells of pteropods when they’re still alive. (Woods Hole Oceanic Institution)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, managers at a hatchery near Vancouver, Canada announced they had \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/02/26/acidic-water-blamed-for-bcs-10-million-scallop-die-off/\">lost three years’ worth of scallops\u003c/a> — 10 million animals — to acidic ocean waters. They laid off staff and shut down a processing plant. This was \u003ca href=\"http://earthfix.kcts9.org/water/article/acid-water-take-toll-on-puget-sound-shellfish/\">not the first time\u003c/a> a West Coast shellfish hatchery lost stock to the phenomenon known as ocean acidification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This has been happening at the hatcheries,” said Richard Feely, a senior scientist at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification\">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u003c/a>. Feely studies the process by which carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere gradually turns ocean waters more acidic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When these corrosive waters get into the hatcheries of our shell-forming shellfish species, for example oyster larvae on the Washington, Oregon coast, they can kill the oyster larvae within two days,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ocean acidification is worse off the West Coast than anywhere else in North America, and threatens animals up and down the food chain. Scientists are now studying how these corrosive waters are already affecting West Coast marine life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15419\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 264px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15419 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/FAirweather_2491_small-897x1024.jpg\" alt=\"The Fairweather is one of the research vessels NOAA uses for ocean acidification studies. (NOAA) \" width=\"264\" height=\"301\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Fairweather is one of the research vessels NOAA uses for ocean acidification studies. (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For instance, corrosive waters also dissolve the shells of tiny marine snails called pteropods, a favorite food of some salmon species. The dissolution in some cases happens when the animal is still alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This matters not just if you happen to be a shellfish, or like to eat them — or if you depend on fisheries for your livelihood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see how this would permeate through the food chain,” said Feely. “From the lowest levels of the food chain up to the highest level. Organisms that mankind really worries about.” Not just salmon and shellfish, he said, but also seals, whales, seabirds and — eventually — us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feely is leading NOAA’s effort to study the effects of ocean acidification, including what’s happening to pteropods. Since 2007, NOAA has periodically sent ships doing ocean acidification research up and down the West Coast. The ships bristle with scientific equipment, and researchers pack on board to conduct various studies. There was a \u003ca href=\"http://oceanacidification.noaa.gov/WhatsNew/CruiseBlog.aspx\">research cruise last summer\u003c/a>; the next one is scheduled for 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Chemistry of Corrosive Water\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what’s going on. Humans release a lot of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. Most of that CO2 goes up into the atmosphere and traps heat. That’s what’s contributing to climate change. The rest, about one-quarter of all anthropogenic CO2, gets absorbed by the ocean instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We can actually identify that this is manmade.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For a while, Feely explained, scientists thought that was a good thing. The thinking went, if the ocean absorbed all that carbon dioxide, then it was keeping climate change from being that much worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They don’t think that any more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re beginning to see that this is a very serious problem,” he said. That’s because when the carbon dioxide goes into the ocean, it reacts with water to form carbonic acid (the stuff that gives mineral water its fizz).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sets off a chain of chemical reactions. The end result is, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F\">pH of the oceans is changing\u003c/a>, and the supply of calcium carbonate minerals, the stuff that shellfish use to build their shells, is decreasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been able to measure the change in the acidity of the oceans since the Pre-Industrial,” Feely said. “It would be about 26% because of the uptake of carbon dioxide. This is what mankind has done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the Industrial Age began, he said, humans have dumped about 550 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the oceans. “And we can actually identify that this is manmade,” he said, because the carbon atoms have a unique fingerprint that shows they come from burning fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why It’s Worse Here\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason ocean acidification is so bad here on the West Coast is, ironically, also why our coast is so rich with marine life: coastal upwelling.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘You’re asking the organisms to adapt to changes that are in many cases 10 to 100 times faster than anything they’ve seen in the geological past.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In the summer the wind shifts, Feely explained, and it pulls the water at the surface of the ocean away from shore. Then, water from deeper in the ocean rises up to replace it. That deep ocean water is full of stuff that decayed and sank. That means it’s full of nutrients. And it has more carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you have the combined impact of CO2-rich water from the bottom and an additional anthropogenic CO2 from human kind, that combined impact is what has put us over the threshold for these corrosive waters to exist,” said Feely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Past and Future Change\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ocean acidification has happened before in Earth’s history, but Feely said changes on the scale happening now took place over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Not a couple of centuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re asking the organisms to adapt to changes that are in many cases 10 to 100 times faster than anything they’ve seen in the geological past,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some small local solutions. Feely has helped oyster hatcheries monitor and prepare for more corrosive waters. And he says they could consider locating hatcheries near seagrass, which takes up carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the vast oceans, Feely is focused now on monitoring, so he can see the changes as they take place.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "What We Know -- And Don't Know -- About the Sea Star Die-Off",
"headTitle": "What We Know — And Don’t Know — About the Sea Star Die-Off | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15083\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 573px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15083 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/1024px-Expl1080_-_Flickr_-_NOAA_Photo_Library.jpg\" alt=\"orange sunflower starfish\" width=\"573\" height=\"430\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The predatory sunflower starfish, Pycnopodia helianthoides, is one of the species dying from sea star wasting disease. (Ed Bowlby/NOAA, Olympic Coast NMS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since last summer, scientists and tidepoolers \u003ca href=\"http://data.piscoweb.org/marine1/seastardisease.html\">up and down the Pacific Coast\u003c/a> have noticed starfish dying in startling numbers. Some observers have documented sea star bodies turning to mush, others described the creatures disintegrating, while others found stars that lost their limbs and color. The name of this phenomenon: “\u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/\">sea star wasting disease\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists don’t know how many starfish have died so far. Pete Raimondi, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California, Santa Cruz, says it could be in the millions. One particularly hard-hit species, the sunflower starfish, has “pretty much disappeared,” Raimondi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi and Benjamin Miner, professor of marine biology at Western Washington University, spoke on \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201403050930\">Forum\u003c/a> about the latest outbreak of this mysterious disease. While similar die-offs have happened before, scientists are flummoxed about the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The patterns that we’re seeing make it especially perplexing, because we’ve seen major die-offs in regions that are geographically separated.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Why is the wasting disease so difficult to nail down? In short, its pervasiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Raimondi, researchers studying the problem are leaning toward the theory that “it may be a pathogen of some sort that is distributed through ocean currents or other oceanographic forcing.” Still, there is no scientific consensus on that and neither Raimondi nor Miner is willing to stake a claim on a singular theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The patterns that we’re seeing make it especially perplexing because we’ve seen major die-offs in regions that are geographically separated,” Miner said. “For example, Santa Barbara, Monterey, the Seattle area, British Columbia and the Vancouver area. And then some areas in between those appear quite healthy. So the locations, in addition to the fact that it’s affecting many species, some of them rather distantly related among sea stars, makes it really challenging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miner said that, so far, a natural occurrence is the most likely explanation. There is one tantalizing clue. All of the three major starfish die-offs in the past 40 years—the late 1970s, 1983-84 and 1997-98—were \u003cem>associated with\u003c/em> a warm water event. They were not necessarily \u003cem>caused by\u003c/em> a warm water event, however.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”a37a3e7aa97fa0bfe78982b26eaf6597″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It could be that warm water coming up from the south carried a pathogen, Raimondi said. Or “it could have been a local species that went rogue, essentially, during those warm water events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the source of sea star wasting disease unclear it would be easy to dismiss the phenomenon as one huge mystery. But in truth, scientists do know a fair amount about the disease, including what is not causing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong style=\"font-size: 13px\">What Is Not Causing the Die-Off\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In case you’re already pondering some of the following theories, Raimondi suggests you discard them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Plastic pollution: “We’re talking about completely pristine areas to completely degraded areas, and we don’t see any pattern that is suggestive of (plastics).”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Ocean acidification: “What we’ve seen with respect to ocean acidification is that there are local areas which can be affected, but we don’t see any broad pattern of it.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fukushima radiation: “The trajectory that has been proposed with respect to the distribution of any of the debris really doesn’t come very far south. And with respect to the radiation, that wouldn’t have arrived here yet. Also, just the distribution of the disease and apparent lack of the disease in other areas, really doesn’t lend itself to (a Fukushima link).”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Climate Change Connection Can Neither Be Confirmed Nor Ruled Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although climate change is warming the ocean overall, the ocean along the West Coast has been in a cool period, Raimondi said, since the 1997-98 El Niño. “The water’s been cool,” he said. “There may be local warming areas but in general it’s been a cool phase and so it doesn’t appear that this (die-off) is related to any general climate-related warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That doesn’t, however, rule out some sort of climate change connection, he said, for example, ocean currents may be moving in different directions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Miner adds that climate change could, say, be suppressing sea stars’ immune systems and making them more susceptible to a lethal pathogen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/mysterious-epidemic-devastates-starfish-population-pacific-coast/\">PBS NewsHour\u003c/a> had a segment on seastar wasting disease earlier this year, including underwater video of the effects of the disease:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_I_B6U0GtI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There Is Hope\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the species affected by the previous die-offs is extinct and most have recovered, albeit slowly. “I don’t think anyone at this point is thinking that this system is not going to recover as well,” said Raimondi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the reasons for Raimondi’s optimism has to do with the life cycle of sea star larvae. Most of the affected species have long-living larvae that can survive the travel to unaffected sections of the coast, where they can populate new areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And not all species are affected in the same way by the wasting disease. Bat stars, which seem not to be negatively affected by the disease, are actually thriving because they’re able to feast on the bodies of other dead sea stars. Giant sea stars have been relatively resistant to it too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15085\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 614px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Steve-Corey-Flickr.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15085\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15085 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Steve-Corey-Flickr.jpg\" alt=\"bat star\" width=\"614\" height=\"411\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bat star or Patiria miniata feasts on the carcusses of other sea stars that dying from sea star wasting disease. (Steve Corey/\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/22016744@N06/3281278891/in/photolist-5ZXpTZ-a6mvyY-adL8ou-dASYpg-a8i48w-545zdG-2fCxG1-aoWdjj-6fMyed-5YBpqj-8AeGD9-5isrgr-3ccvM2-6fHphM-9cA4xa-8XMHtL-AC49D-aetZNu-tmVUo-aLok2D-8oSPuV-21yrn-s8SyL-a9xtMH-fjxFhU-9AASdo-s8Ss1-a9xuvK-s8TfU-BUyrc-s8TtH-3JGxnb-s8SYa-b52tB-a4ja86-a4n1KG-s8Tay-ah45Wa-5YxbDi-38KRpW-cooZJ7-jcekot-LDGby-PcW7J-s8SEw-s8T6b-9cDqWb-7vzRWv-21ytJ-a9AgqL-ah45GZ\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What We See on Shore Is Only a Small Part of the Problem\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea stars in tidepool systems and subtidal systems (basically, areas that are always under water, even during low tide) are both suffering from the wasting disease. But Raimondi says the subtidal systems are more affected. This makes gathering accurate data difficult because scientists have limited access to underwater locations and most citizen-scientists who may report their observations encounter starfish in tidepools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi and Miner encouraged beach goers, fishermen and divers to share their observations—whether on shore or out in the water at \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">seastarwasting.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Starfish on the West Coast have been dying in startling numbers. Some observers have documented sea star bodies turning to mush, others described the creatures disintegrating. It's \"sea star wasting disease,\" and scientists don't know what causes it. ",
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"description": "Starfish on the West Coast have been dying in startling numbers. Some observers have documented sea star bodies turning to mush, others described the creatures disintegrating. It's "sea star wasting disease," and scientists don't know what causes it. ",
"title": "What We Know -- And Don't Know -- About the Sea Star Die-Off | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15083\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 573px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15083 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/1024px-Expl1080_-_Flickr_-_NOAA_Photo_Library.jpg\" alt=\"orange sunflower starfish\" width=\"573\" height=\"430\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The predatory sunflower starfish, Pycnopodia helianthoides, is one of the species dying from sea star wasting disease. (Ed Bowlby/NOAA, Olympic Coast NMS)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since last summer, scientists and tidepoolers \u003ca href=\"http://data.piscoweb.org/marine1/seastardisease.html\">up and down the Pacific Coast\u003c/a> have noticed starfish dying in startling numbers. Some observers have documented sea star bodies turning to mush, others described the creatures disintegrating, while others found stars that lost their limbs and color. The name of this phenomenon: “\u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/\">sea star wasting disease\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists don’t know how many starfish have died so far. Pete Raimondi, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California, Santa Cruz, says it could be in the millions. One particularly hard-hit species, the sunflower starfish, has “pretty much disappeared,” Raimondi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi and Benjamin Miner, professor of marine biology at Western Washington University, spoke on \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201403050930\">Forum\u003c/a> about the latest outbreak of this mysterious disease. While similar die-offs have happened before, scientists are flummoxed about the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The patterns that we’re seeing make it especially perplexing, because we’ve seen major die-offs in regions that are geographically separated.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Why is the wasting disease so difficult to nail down? In short, its pervasiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Raimondi, researchers studying the problem are leaning toward the theory that “it may be a pathogen of some sort that is distributed through ocean currents or other oceanographic forcing.” Still, there is no scientific consensus on that and neither Raimondi nor Miner is willing to stake a claim on a singular theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The patterns that we’re seeing make it especially perplexing because we’ve seen major die-offs in regions that are geographically separated,” Miner said. “For example, Santa Barbara, Monterey, the Seattle area, British Columbia and the Vancouver area. And then some areas in between those appear quite healthy. So the locations, in addition to the fact that it’s affecting many species, some of them rather distantly related among sea stars, makes it really challenging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miner said that, so far, a natural occurrence is the most likely explanation. There is one tantalizing clue. All of the three major starfish die-offs in the past 40 years—the late 1970s, 1983-84 and 1997-98—were \u003cem>associated with\u003c/em> a warm water event. They were not necessarily \u003cem>caused by\u003c/em> a warm water event, however.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It could be that warm water coming up from the south carried a pathogen, Raimondi said. Or “it could have been a local species that went rogue, essentially, during those warm water events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the source of sea star wasting disease unclear it would be easy to dismiss the phenomenon as one huge mystery. But in truth, scientists do know a fair amount about the disease, including what is not causing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong style=\"font-size: 13px\">What Is Not Causing the Die-Off\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In case you’re already pondering some of the following theories, Raimondi suggests you discard them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Plastic pollution: “We’re talking about completely pristine areas to completely degraded areas, and we don’t see any pattern that is suggestive of (plastics).”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Ocean acidification: “What we’ve seen with respect to ocean acidification is that there are local areas which can be affected, but we don’t see any broad pattern of it.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fukushima radiation: “The trajectory that has been proposed with respect to the distribution of any of the debris really doesn’t come very far south. And with respect to the radiation, that wouldn’t have arrived here yet. Also, just the distribution of the disease and apparent lack of the disease in other areas, really doesn’t lend itself to (a Fukushima link).”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Climate Change Connection Can Neither Be Confirmed Nor Ruled Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although climate change is warming the ocean overall, the ocean along the West Coast has been in a cool period, Raimondi said, since the 1997-98 El Niño. “The water’s been cool,” he said. “There may be local warming areas but in general it’s been a cool phase and so it doesn’t appear that this (die-off) is related to any general climate-related warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That doesn’t, however, rule out some sort of climate change connection, he said, for example, ocean currents may be moving in different directions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Miner adds that climate change could, say, be suppressing sea stars’ immune systems and making them more susceptible to a lethal pathogen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/mysterious-epidemic-devastates-starfish-population-pacific-coast/\">PBS NewsHour\u003c/a> had a segment on seastar wasting disease earlier this year, including underwater video of the effects of the disease:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/2_I_B6U0GtI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/2_I_B6U0GtI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There Is Hope\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the species affected by the previous die-offs is extinct and most have recovered, albeit slowly. “I don’t think anyone at this point is thinking that this system is not going to recover as well,” said Raimondi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the reasons for Raimondi’s optimism has to do with the life cycle of sea star larvae. Most of the affected species have long-living larvae that can survive the travel to unaffected sections of the coast, where they can populate new areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And not all species are affected in the same way by the wasting disease. Bat stars, which seem not to be negatively affected by the disease, are actually thriving because they’re able to feast on the bodies of other dead sea stars. Giant sea stars have been relatively resistant to it too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15085\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 614px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Steve-Corey-Flickr.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15085\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15085 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Steve-Corey-Flickr.jpg\" alt=\"bat star\" width=\"614\" height=\"411\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bat star or Patiria miniata feasts on the carcusses of other sea stars that dying from sea star wasting disease. (Steve Corey/\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/22016744@N06/3281278891/in/photolist-5ZXpTZ-a6mvyY-adL8ou-dASYpg-a8i48w-545zdG-2fCxG1-aoWdjj-6fMyed-5YBpqj-8AeGD9-5isrgr-3ccvM2-6fHphM-9cA4xa-8XMHtL-AC49D-aetZNu-tmVUo-aLok2D-8oSPuV-21yrn-s8SyL-a9xtMH-fjxFhU-9AASdo-s8Ss1-a9xuvK-s8TfU-BUyrc-s8TtH-3JGxnb-s8SYa-b52tB-a4ja86-a4n1KG-s8Tay-ah45Wa-5YxbDi-38KRpW-cooZJ7-jcekot-LDGby-PcW7J-s8SEw-s8T6b-9cDqWb-7vzRWv-21ytJ-a9AgqL-ah45GZ\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What We See on Shore Is Only a Small Part of the Problem\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea stars in tidepool systems and subtidal systems (basically, areas that are always under water, even during low tide) are both suffering from the wasting disease. But Raimondi says the subtidal systems are more affected. This makes gathering accurate data difficult because scientists have limited access to underwater locations and most citizen-scientists who may report their observations encounter starfish in tidepools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi and Miner encouraged beach goers, fishermen and divers to share their observations—whether on shore or out in the water at \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">seastarwasting.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Seven Things to Know About the Sixth Mass Extinction",
"headTitle": "Seven Things to Know About the Sixth Mass Extinction | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/coralreef.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14482\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/coralreef.jpg\" alt=\"Coral Reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Coral reefs are the first major ecosystems that could be wiped out by human impacts. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/\">Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You gotta love an author who manages to turn complex scientific theories and millions of years of history into an easy-to-understand thesis — even if that thesis is that humans are causing mass extinction. Elizabeth Kolbert’s book \u003ca href=\"http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780805092998\">“The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”\u003c/a> centers around two ideas: that humans are witnessing a very high rate of species extinction and that we’re causing much of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kolbert joined \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201402191000\">KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> to discuss her book and the disappearance of everything from the snails of the Hawaiian islands to bats in upstate New York. The topic isn’t a cheery one, but as Kolbert writes in the introduction, “If extinction is a morbid topic, mass extinction is, well, massively so. It’s also a fascinating one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are highlights from the Forum interview, edited for clarity:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. We Don’t Know Yet How Bad This Extinction Will Be\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are clearly at a time of very high extinction rates. Whether we rise to the level of the major – the five major – mass extinctions of the last half billion years certainly remains to be determined. There have also been, somewhat oxymoronically, “minor” mass extinctions in the record. Where this extinction event is going to fit into that is obviously impossible to know when you’re in the midst of it. But increasingly you hear scientists comparing us to the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs and many other groups.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14487\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/trilobites.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14487\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/trilobites.jpg\" alt=\"Trilobites went extinct in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian. (Kevin Walsh/Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trilobites went extinct in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/86624586@N00/513424023/\">Kevin Walsh/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Based on Carbon Emissions, We May Be On Track For the Worst Mass Extinction, Ever\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The worst mass extinction in the history of the planet happened about 250 million years ago at the end of what’s known as the Permian period. And it’s believed that it was caused by this major burst of volcanic activity that emitted a lot of CO2 into the air and warmed the planet very radically and changed the chemistry of the oceans very radically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And very soberingly, scientists have recently tried to figure out at what rate was CO2 being emitted at that point. And the best estimate that they can come up with – this is a pretty recent paper – suggests that we are pouring CO2 into the air faster than was poured into the air in the events leading up to the end of the Permian extinction. So you increasingly hear ‘We cannot rule out that kind of an outcome: the Permian,’ which was the worst mass extinction in history. I find that – even I, who wrote this book, and feel like I couldn’t be surprised by much anymore – find that, just extremely sobering and terrifying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Invasive Species Have Created a “New Pangea”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Invasive species actually are implicated in, some people would say, the majority of extinctions we know about. Invasive species turn out to be really important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Effectively about 250 million years ago all of the continents of the world were smushed together in this supercontinent that has been called Pangea. And then they drifted apart due to plate tectonics and we eventually got the world as we know it, with seven continents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What we’re doing by bringing together all of the flora and fauna of the world just by transporting things around the world, in a biological sense, is erasing those boundaries between the continents and smushing them back together. So a term has been coined: the ‘New Pangea.’ We are creating the New Pangea. We’re bringing everything back together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that can have, it turns out, very devastating consequences. Often it has no consequences — you move something around the world, it can’t make it in a new place so it just disappears, or it establishes itself and it doesn’t do any damage, it just sort of coexists with what was there before. But a certain percentage of the time, and even if it’s a very small percentage – [because] you are doing it over and over again, it obviously adds up – a certain percentage of the time you bring together these evolutionary lineages that have been separated for tens of millions of years and very devastating things happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14485\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/wns28-e1392943860258.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14485\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/wns28-e1392943860258.jpg\" alt=\"Bats hibernating in a cave in New York with fungal growth on their faces. (Nancy Heaslip/NY Department of Environmental Conservation)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bats hibernating in a cave in New York with fungal growth on their faces. (Nancy Heaslip/NY Department of Environmental Conservation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. White-Nose Syndrome, a European Fungus, Is Decimating North American Bats\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The fungus] has been traced back to Europe – it came over quite possibly on someone’s shoe, or in their suitcase. It almost certainly landed somewhere in upstate New York, because that is where we first started to see these huge die-offs. It’s very devastating to bats, it gets on their skin, it irritates their skin. You can \u003ca href=\"http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/white-nose_syndrome/\">see it\u003c/a>. It looks like the bats have been dunked in talcum powder or cocaine, some people have said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What happens is that bats in the North Eastern U.S. hibernate during the winter. So they hang by their toes, their body temperature drops, their immune system shuts down and they really, really need to conserve energy. They are very small little creatures, they need that energy to get through the winter – there’s nothing to eat. And this fungus irritates them, they wake up, they fly around, there’s nothing to eat, they drop dead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Coral Reefs Could Be the First Major Ecosystems to Disappear Because of Humans\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many marine scientists believe that coral reefs will be the first major ecosystem to be done in by human impacts. So there will still be corals, but they will no longer be able to form these fantastic reefs that support a tremendous variety of species anywhere between half a million and something like nine million species spend part of their lives on coral reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Changing water temperatures are really dramatically affecting reefs. Reefs have this interesting symbiosis going on. They have algae inside them, that feed them, that provide carbohydrates for them and that they get a lot of their energy from. And when water temperatures get too high this relationship breaks down, they expel [the algae] and they basically starve to death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html\">Coral bleaching events\u003c/a>, which are happening more and more frequently because water temperatures are going up, those are already really reducing coral cover in a lot of parts of the world. So for example, in the Great Barrier Reef, which is the world’s largest reef, coral cover has declined by something like 50 percent just in the last few decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. The Chemistry of the Oceans Is Changing Radically\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you talk to scientists – certainly if you talk to marine scientists – one thing that really, really worries them that has not gotten the press it deserves is this issue of ocean acidification. That’s the phenomenon where, when you pour CO2 into the air as we are — there’s just no debate about that, we’re pouring about ten billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year just by burning fossil fuels — a lot of it is going to end up in the oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When CO2 dissolves in water it forms a weak acid. It forms carbonic acid … And it’s changing the chemistry of the oceans very radically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. There’s No Saying What Will Survive This Extinction Event\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are actively interested in this question precisely because we seem to be in another mass extinction event. What comes through? What tends to come through these extinction events? And they’ve found very very few rules. It’s very hard to say that there’s a rule. The dinosaurs were the dominate group on Earth for tens of millions of years and they all – every species of non-avian dinosaur dies out. Why is that? No one really knows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can listen to the complete interview below:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/135726672&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Elizabeth Kolbert’s book “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” centers around two premises: that humans are witnessing a very high rate of species extinction and that humans are causing much of it.",
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"description": "Elizabeth Kolbert’s book “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” centers around two premises: that humans are witnessing a very high rate of species extinction and that humans are causing much of it.",
"title": "Seven Things to Know About the Sixth Mass Extinction | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/coralreef.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14482\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/coralreef.jpg\" alt=\"Coral Reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Coral reefs are the first major ecosystems that could be wiped out by human impacts. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/5565696408/\">Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>You gotta love an author who manages to turn complex scientific theories and millions of years of history into an easy-to-understand thesis — even if that thesis is that humans are causing mass extinction. Elizabeth Kolbert’s book \u003ca href=\"http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780805092998\">“The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”\u003c/a> centers around two ideas: that humans are witnessing a very high rate of species extinction and that we’re causing much of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kolbert joined \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201402191000\">KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> to discuss her book and the disappearance of everything from the snails of the Hawaiian islands to bats in upstate New York. The topic isn’t a cheery one, but as Kolbert writes in the introduction, “If extinction is a morbid topic, mass extinction is, well, massively so. It’s also a fascinating one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are highlights from the Forum interview, edited for clarity:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. We Don’t Know Yet How Bad This Extinction Will Be\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are clearly at a time of very high extinction rates. Whether we rise to the level of the major – the five major – mass extinctions of the last half billion years certainly remains to be determined. There have also been, somewhat oxymoronically, “minor” mass extinctions in the record. Where this extinction event is going to fit into that is obviously impossible to know when you’re in the midst of it. But increasingly you hear scientists comparing us to the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs and many other groups.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14487\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/trilobites.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14487\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/trilobites.jpg\" alt=\"Trilobites went extinct in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian. (Kevin Walsh/Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trilobites went extinct in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/86624586@N00/513424023/\">Kevin Walsh/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Based on Carbon Emissions, We May Be On Track For the Worst Mass Extinction, Ever\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The worst mass extinction in the history of the planet happened about 250 million years ago at the end of what’s known as the Permian period. And it’s believed that it was caused by this major burst of volcanic activity that emitted a lot of CO2 into the air and warmed the planet very radically and changed the chemistry of the oceans very radically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And very soberingly, scientists have recently tried to figure out at what rate was CO2 being emitted at that point. And the best estimate that they can come up with – this is a pretty recent paper – suggests that we are pouring CO2 into the air faster than was poured into the air in the events leading up to the end of the Permian extinction. So you increasingly hear ‘We cannot rule out that kind of an outcome: the Permian,’ which was the worst mass extinction in history. I find that – even I, who wrote this book, and feel like I couldn’t be surprised by much anymore – find that, just extremely sobering and terrifying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Invasive Species Have Created a “New Pangea”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Invasive species actually are implicated in, some people would say, the majority of extinctions we know about. Invasive species turn out to be really important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Effectively about 250 million years ago all of the continents of the world were smushed together in this supercontinent that has been called Pangea. And then they drifted apart due to plate tectonics and we eventually got the world as we know it, with seven continents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What we’re doing by bringing together all of the flora and fauna of the world just by transporting things around the world, in a biological sense, is erasing those boundaries between the continents and smushing them back together. So a term has been coined: the ‘New Pangea.’ We are creating the New Pangea. We’re bringing everything back together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that can have, it turns out, very devastating consequences. Often it has no consequences — you move something around the world, it can’t make it in a new place so it just disappears, or it establishes itself and it doesn’t do any damage, it just sort of coexists with what was there before. But a certain percentage of the time, and even if it’s a very small percentage – [because] you are doing it over and over again, it obviously adds up – a certain percentage of the time you bring together these evolutionary lineages that have been separated for tens of millions of years and very devastating things happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14485\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/wns28-e1392943860258.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14485\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/wns28-e1392943860258.jpg\" alt=\"Bats hibernating in a cave in New York with fungal growth on their faces. (Nancy Heaslip/NY Department of Environmental Conservation)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bats hibernating in a cave in New York with fungal growth on their faces. (Nancy Heaslip/NY Department of Environmental Conservation)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. White-Nose Syndrome, a European Fungus, Is Decimating North American Bats\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The fungus] has been traced back to Europe – it came over quite possibly on someone’s shoe, or in their suitcase. It almost certainly landed somewhere in upstate New York, because that is where we first started to see these huge die-offs. It’s very devastating to bats, it gets on their skin, it irritates their skin. You can \u003ca href=\"http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/white-nose_syndrome/\">see it\u003c/a>. It looks like the bats have been dunked in talcum powder or cocaine, some people have said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What happens is that bats in the North Eastern U.S. hibernate during the winter. So they hang by their toes, their body temperature drops, their immune system shuts down and they really, really need to conserve energy. They are very small little creatures, they need that energy to get through the winter – there’s nothing to eat. And this fungus irritates them, they wake up, they fly around, there’s nothing to eat, they drop dead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Coral Reefs Could Be the First Major Ecosystems to Disappear Because of Humans\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many marine scientists believe that coral reefs will be the first major ecosystem to be done in by human impacts. So there will still be corals, but they will no longer be able to form these fantastic reefs that support a tremendous variety of species anywhere between half a million and something like nine million species spend part of their lives on coral reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Changing water temperatures are really dramatically affecting reefs. Reefs have this interesting symbiosis going on. They have algae inside them, that feed them, that provide carbohydrates for them and that they get a lot of their energy from. And when water temperatures get too high this relationship breaks down, they expel [the algae] and they basically starve to death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html\">Coral bleaching events\u003c/a>, which are happening more and more frequently because water temperatures are going up, those are already really reducing coral cover in a lot of parts of the world. So for example, in the Great Barrier Reef, which is the world’s largest reef, coral cover has declined by something like 50 percent just in the last few decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. The Chemistry of the Oceans Is Changing Radically\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you talk to scientists – certainly if you talk to marine scientists – one thing that really, really worries them that has not gotten the press it deserves is this issue of ocean acidification. That’s the phenomenon where, when you pour CO2 into the air as we are — there’s just no debate about that, we’re pouring about ten billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year just by burning fossil fuels — a lot of it is going to end up in the oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When CO2 dissolves in water it forms a weak acid. It forms carbonic acid … And it’s changing the chemistry of the oceans very radically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. There’s No Saying What Will Survive This Extinction Event\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are actively interested in this question precisely because we seem to be in another mass extinction event. What comes through? What tends to come through these extinction events? And they’ve found very very few rules. It’s very hard to say that there’s a rule. The dinosaurs were the dominate group on Earth for tens of millions of years and they all – every species of non-avian dinosaur dies out. Why is that? No one really knows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can listen to the complete interview below:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14505\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/caremissions.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14505\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/caremissions.jpg\" alt=\"Under California climate law, gas prices are likely to rise in 2015. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Under California climate law, gas prices are likely to rise next year. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State Senator Darrell Steinberg is proposing a carbon tax on gasoline that would put a price on the pollution that causes climate change. The plan would also preempt a key piece of California’s existing climate law, due to kick in next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s cap-and-trade program, created by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ab32/ab32.htm\">Global Warming Solutions Act\u003c/a> of 2006, puts a limit on how much companies in California can pollute by pumping out greenhouse gases. Right now, it only applies to factories, refineries and other industrial polluters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year for the first time, transportation fuels will come under the program: oil companies will have to account for the emissions from Californians’ cars and trucks. The cost of buying additional pollution permits is one that companies are almost certain to pass along to consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘For climate policy to work, it has to sting. I am concerned about who we sting.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Steinberg’s \u003ca href=\"http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/news/2014-02-20-steinberg-announces-major-proposal-strengthen-ca-climate-policy\">plan\u003c/a> would make it more direct, as a tax that we pay at the pump. His reasoning is that while drivers will pay more for gas either way, with a tax the increase is more predictable and transparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Under my proposal, the price of carbon fuel is projected to rise gradually and predictably,” Steinberg explained \u003ca href=\"http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/sites/sd06.senate.ca.gov/files/MASTER-Press-Club-2014-Speech.pdf\">in a speech\u003c/a> at the Sacramento Press Club on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sacramento Democrat says his plan would also ensure that low-income Californians aren’t inordinately burdened by higher taxes, by building in an earned income tax credit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Putting a price on carbon fuels is essential to salvaging our environment. For climate policy to work, it has to sting,” he said. “I am concerned about who we sting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What people in California also need is pollution cuts,” said Tim O’Connor, director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.edf.org/climate/california-climate-launch-pad\">Environmental Defense Fund’s California Climate Initiative\u003c/a>. He said that while he supports some of the ideas behind Steinberg’s proposal, he’s concerned it could undermine California’s efforts to charge for the right to pollute, and to reduce greenhouse emissions overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”95fe02a5676e91eab10616cbeecd4297″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cap-and-trade does both, by introducing a cap on emissions and then methodically lowering it, and by allowing companies to buy and trade pollution permits. The program launched in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opting for a tax instead of the market-based program might have been a good idea, said Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at University of California, Berkeley, but at this point, California is too invested in cap-and-trade. “The program is already running,” he said. “The fuels coming in in 2015 is already something that has been very much accounted for and vetted, and it would take a huge change in the program to now take fuels back out of the cap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.wspa.org/\">Western States Petroleum Association\u003c/a>, an industry group, welcomed Steinberg’s proposal in a statement. “By acknowledging that the state’s cap-and-trade regulations for fuels are about to have a significant impact on the cost of fuel for consumers, Sen. Steinberg has proposed a transparent carbon tax as an alternative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steinberg’s bill would need a two-thirds majority to pass.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "State Senator Darrell Steinberg is proposing a carbon tax on gasoline that would put a price on the pollution that causes climate change. The plan would also dismantle a key piece of California's existing climate law.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14505\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/caremissions.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14505\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/caremissions.jpg\" alt=\"Under California climate law, gas prices are likely to rise in 2015. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Under California climate law, gas prices are likely to rise next year. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State Senator Darrell Steinberg is proposing a carbon tax on gasoline that would put a price on the pollution that causes climate change. The plan would also preempt a key piece of California’s existing climate law, due to kick in next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s cap-and-trade program, created by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ab32/ab32.htm\">Global Warming Solutions Act\u003c/a> of 2006, puts a limit on how much companies in California can pollute by pumping out greenhouse gases. Right now, it only applies to factories, refineries and other industrial polluters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year for the first time, transportation fuels will come under the program: oil companies will have to account for the emissions from Californians’ cars and trucks. The cost of buying additional pollution permits is one that companies are almost certain to pass along to consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘For climate policy to work, it has to sting. I am concerned about who we sting.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Steinberg’s \u003ca href=\"http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/news/2014-02-20-steinberg-announces-major-proposal-strengthen-ca-climate-policy\">plan\u003c/a> would make it more direct, as a tax that we pay at the pump. His reasoning is that while drivers will pay more for gas either way, with a tax the increase is more predictable and transparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Under my proposal, the price of carbon fuel is projected to rise gradually and predictably,” Steinberg explained \u003ca href=\"http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/sites/sd06.senate.ca.gov/files/MASTER-Press-Club-2014-Speech.pdf\">in a speech\u003c/a> at the Sacramento Press Club on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sacramento Democrat says his plan would also ensure that low-income Californians aren’t inordinately burdened by higher taxes, by building in an earned income tax credit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Putting a price on carbon fuels is essential to salvaging our environment. For climate policy to work, it has to sting,” he said. “I am concerned about who we sting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What people in California also need is pollution cuts,” said Tim O’Connor, director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.edf.org/climate/california-climate-launch-pad\">Environmental Defense Fund’s California Climate Initiative\u003c/a>. He said that while he supports some of the ideas behind Steinberg’s proposal, he’s concerned it could undermine California’s efforts to charge for the right to pollute, and to reduce greenhouse emissions overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cap-and-trade does both, by introducing a cap on emissions and then methodically lowering it, and by allowing companies to buy and trade pollution permits. The program launched in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opting for a tax instead of the market-based program might have been a good idea, said Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at University of California, Berkeley, but at this point, California is too invested in cap-and-trade. “The program is already running,” he said. “The fuels coming in in 2015 is already something that has been very much accounted for and vetted, and it would take a huge change in the program to now take fuels back out of the cap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.wspa.org/\">Western States Petroleum Association\u003c/a>, an industry group, welcomed Steinberg’s proposal in a statement. “By acknowledging that the state’s cap-and-trade regulations for fuels are about to have a significant impact on the cost of fuel for consumers, Sen. Steinberg has proposed a transparent carbon tax as an alternative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steinberg’s bill would need a two-thirds majority to pass.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2014/02/13/Drought.gif\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>The Cosumnes River, before and after the atmospheric river storm of February 8-9. (Carson Jeffres)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watching the TV news reporters out in their slickers, in front of \u003ca title=\"KTVU - post\" href=\"http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/storm-helps-refill-parched-russian-river/ndJZN/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter\">suddenly raging rivers\u003c/a> last weekend, it was tempting to open the taps and start celebrating the end of California’s Big Dry. But officials and forecasters were \u003ca title=\"SF Gate - post\" href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/California-drought-Storm-a-reprieve-not-a-cure-5222416.php\">quick to point out\u003c/a> that the festivities would be premature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few reasons for this. One is the sheer depth of California’s precipitation deficit. Over a three-day period, some places doubled their total seasonal rainfall totals–and still found themselves at just 30 or 40 percent of average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another was that this atmospheric river pouring in from the Pacific was a rifle, not a shotgun. It “kind of sat in one spot and hosed one part of the state,” explains \u003ca title=\"UC Davis - CWS\" href=\"https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/people/jfmount\">Jeffrey Mount\u003c/a>, a consulting geologist and co-founder of the \u003ca title=\"UC Davis - CWS\" href=\"https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/\">Center for Watershed Sciences\u003c/a> at University of California, Davis. “We’re in a statewide drought, so this did nothing to relieve anything basically south of Sacramento.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the third reason is more elusive. It has to do with how extremely dry conditions were when the storm arrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It rained so hard that it saturated the ground right near the surface,” says Mount, who is a fluvial geomorphologist, which is to say an expert on how rivers change and respond to major weather events. “Once it’s saturated, that water starts running right off the surface. It’s not stored at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hence, rivers that were right in the path of the storm went from nearly bone-dry to running amok in a matter of hours. Carson Jeffres, a colleague of Mount’s at Davis, was up on the Cosumnes River, watching it swell. “The river went from dry to out in the floodplain in about 16 hours,” Jeffres wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2014/02/13/RussianRiver.gif\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>The Russian River seen from Badger Park in Healdsburg, before and after the atmospheric river storm of February 8-9. (Before: Craig Miller. After: Jacob Katz)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But much of that water didn’t stick around long enough to recharge underground aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount says it has to do with “infiltration capacity” of the soils. “Think of your ability to absorb information,” he says. “You have an infiltration capacity. The soils are the same way. Lighter, more prolonged rains don’t tend to overwhelm the ground’s infiltration capacity. “It goes into soil and it actually starts moving downslope below the surface and discharges into the river, which is why you often will see rivers will rise very slowly in gentle storms and then go down very slowly, long after the storm has gone. That’s because the soils just below the surface are feeding water into the rivers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when the water all comes at once, as it did in the early February deluge, “Up comes the river and down goes the river, very quickly,” says Mount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In extremely dry conditions, Mount says the soil can turn “hydrophobic.” That doesn’t mean the dirt has rabies but it does mean it’s “afraid” of water, as he explains it. “The first rain doesn’t penetrate much. It literally bounces right off and runs off. The way water ran off during that storm, one would wonder if that was the case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not that there weren’t winners from the storm. At one point, Mount says \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/10/6143952/long-awaited-soaking-quenches.html\">Folsom Lake\u003c/a>, a lynchpin reservoir for the Sacramento region, was taking in 50,000 acre-feet per day from the suddenly engorged American River. “That’s enough for the City of Folsom to make it through a whole year,” he says. But similar flows on the Russian River, for instance, went straight out the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2014/02/13/Drought.gif\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>The Cosumnes River, before and after the atmospheric river storm of February 8-9. (Carson Jeffres)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watching the TV news reporters out in their slickers, in front of \u003ca title=\"KTVU - post\" href=\"http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/storm-helps-refill-parched-russian-river/ndJZN/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter\">suddenly raging rivers\u003c/a> last weekend, it was tempting to open the taps and start celebrating the end of California’s Big Dry. But officials and forecasters were \u003ca title=\"SF Gate - post\" href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/California-drought-Storm-a-reprieve-not-a-cure-5222416.php\">quick to point out\u003c/a> that the festivities would be premature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few reasons for this. One is the sheer depth of California’s precipitation deficit. Over a three-day period, some places doubled their total seasonal rainfall totals–and still found themselves at just 30 or 40 percent of average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another was that this atmospheric river pouring in from the Pacific was a rifle, not a shotgun. It “kind of sat in one spot and hosed one part of the state,” explains \u003ca title=\"UC Davis - CWS\" href=\"https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/people/jfmount\">Jeffrey Mount\u003c/a>, a consulting geologist and co-founder of the \u003ca title=\"UC Davis - CWS\" href=\"https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/\">Center for Watershed Sciences\u003c/a> at University of California, Davis. “We’re in a statewide drought, so this did nothing to relieve anything basically south of Sacramento.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the third reason is more elusive. It has to do with how extremely dry conditions were when the storm arrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It rained so hard that it saturated the ground right near the surface,” says Mount, who is a fluvial geomorphologist, which is to say an expert on how rivers change and respond to major weather events. “Once it’s saturated, that water starts running right off the surface. It’s not stored at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hence, rivers that were right in the path of the storm went from nearly bone-dry to running amok in a matter of hours. Carson Jeffres, a colleague of Mount’s at Davis, was up on the Cosumnes River, watching it swell. “The river went from dry to out in the floodplain in about 16 hours,” Jeffres wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2014/02/13/RussianRiver.gif\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>The Russian River seen from Badger Park in Healdsburg, before and after the atmospheric river storm of February 8-9. (Before: Craig Miller. After: Jacob Katz)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But much of that water didn’t stick around long enough to recharge underground aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount says it has to do with “infiltration capacity” of the soils. “Think of your ability to absorb information,” he says. “You have an infiltration capacity. The soils are the same way. Lighter, more prolonged rains don’t tend to overwhelm the ground’s infiltration capacity. “It goes into soil and it actually starts moving downslope below the surface and discharges into the river, which is why you often will see rivers will rise very slowly in gentle storms and then go down very slowly, long after the storm has gone. That’s because the soils just below the surface are feeding water into the rivers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when the water all comes at once, as it did in the early February deluge, “Up comes the river and down goes the river, very quickly,” says Mount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In extremely dry conditions, Mount says the soil can turn “hydrophobic.” That doesn’t mean the dirt has rabies but it does mean it’s “afraid” of water, as he explains it. “The first rain doesn’t penetrate much. It literally bounces right off and runs off. The way water ran off during that storm, one would wonder if that was the case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not that there weren’t winners from the storm. At one point, Mount says \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/10/6143952/long-awaited-soaking-quenches.html\">Folsom Lake\u003c/a>, a lynchpin reservoir for the Sacramento region, was taking in 50,000 acre-feet per day from the suddenly engorged American River. “That’s enough for the City of Folsom to make it through a whole year,” he says. But similar flows on the Russian River, for instance, went straight out the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14303\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-14303\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/11441208065_1856cda974_h-1024x545.jpg\" alt=\"The H. F. Lee natural gas plant in Goldsboro, North Carolina. (Photo: Duke Energy)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"545\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The H. F. Lee natural gas plant in Goldsboro, North Carolina. (Photo: Duke Energy)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">America’s vast network of natural gas lines is leaking more than federal environmental officials had previously thought, according to an analysis out today from Stanford University and published in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://news.sciencemag.org/earth/2014/02/natural-gas-coal-good-climate-trade-despite-leaks-researchers-argue?rss=1\">Science\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, 1.5 percent of the natural gas produced in the United States is wasted, thanks to leaky pipes, valves and other parts along the country’s vast transmission system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new study says the actual amount lost is much higher, although lead author Peter Brandt, an assistant professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford, says it wasn’t possible to calculate a new figure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since these leaks are predominantly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, they contribute disproportionately to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news, says Brandt, is that “a large fraction of the leakage can come from a small fraction of the sources.” A few fixes at natural gas plants across the country, he says, would go a long way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brandt cites two obstacles to making those fixes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One, plant operators have not always cooperated with efforts to detect leaks. In one study Brandt reviewed, EPA inspectors asked operators at 30 gas processing plants for permission to come onsite and look for leaks. Only six operators agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another problem: Current technologies for spotting leaks are expensive and labor-intensive. Brandt says researchers at Stanford and elsewhere are busily looking for alternatives. Those might include airplane-mounted methane detectors that could survey large swaths of pipes and plants, and cheap on-site methane sensors– much like smoke detectors — that could be mounted to pipes and sound an alarm when escaped gas is detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s Andy Revkin’s write up on Dot Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\" src=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs_v5/../icons/t_logo_291_black.png\" alt=\"\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/study-sees-path-to-cutting-substantial-american-natural-gas-leaks/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Study Sees Path to Cutting Substantial American Natural Gas Leaks\u003c/a>A policy analysis published in Science today examines 20 years of research on leakage from natural gas production and distribution systems in North America, including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and finds big opportunities to cut the worst leaks and a substantial climate benefit from a coal-to-gas switch, even accounting for higher leak rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly/code?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdotearth.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F02%2F13%2Fstudy-sees-path-to-cutting-substantial-american-natural-gas-leaks%2F%3F_php%3Dtrue%26_type%3Dblogs%26_r%3D0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">via \u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "U.S. could make substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by stopping methane leaks from natural gas pipelines, says a new Stanford study.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14303\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-14303\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/11441208065_1856cda974_h-1024x545.jpg\" alt=\"The H. F. Lee natural gas plant in Goldsboro, North Carolina. (Photo: Duke Energy)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"545\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The H. F. Lee natural gas plant in Goldsboro, North Carolina. (Photo: Duke Energy)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left\">America’s vast network of natural gas lines is leaking more than federal environmental officials had previously thought, according to an analysis out today from Stanford University and published in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://news.sciencemag.org/earth/2014/02/natural-gas-coal-good-climate-trade-despite-leaks-researchers-argue?rss=1\">Science\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, 1.5 percent of the natural gas produced in the United States is wasted, thanks to leaky pipes, valves and other parts along the country’s vast transmission system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new study says the actual amount lost is much higher, although lead author Peter Brandt, an assistant professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford, says it wasn’t possible to calculate a new figure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since these leaks are predominantly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, they contribute disproportionately to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news, says Brandt, is that “a large fraction of the leakage can come from a small fraction of the sources.” A few fixes at natural gas plants across the country, he says, would go a long way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brandt cites two obstacles to making those fixes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One, plant operators have not always cooperated with efforts to detect leaks. In one study Brandt reviewed, EPA inspectors asked operators at 30 gas processing plants for permission to come onsite and look for leaks. Only six operators agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another problem: Current technologies for spotting leaks are expensive and labor-intensive. Brandt says researchers at Stanford and elsewhere are busily looking for alternatives. Those might include airplane-mounted methane detectors that could survey large swaths of pipes and plants, and cheap on-site methane sensors– much like smoke detectors — that could be mounted to pipes and sound an alarm when escaped gas is detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s Andy Revkin’s write up on Dot Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\" src=\"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs_v5/../icons/t_logo_291_black.png\" alt=\"\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" href=\"http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/study-sees-path-to-cutting-substantial-american-natural-gas-leaks/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Study Sees Path to Cutting Substantial American Natural Gas Leaks\u003c/a>A policy analysis published in Science today examines 20 years of research on leakage from natural gas production and distribution systems in North America, including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and finds big opportunities to cut the worst leaks and a substantial climate benefit from a coal-to-gas switch, even accounting for higher leak rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float: right\">\u003ca title=\"Powered by Embedly\" href=\"http://embed.ly/code?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdotearth.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F02%2F13%2Fstudy-sees-path-to-cutting-substantial-american-natural-gas-leaks%2F%3F_php%3Dtrue%26_type%3Dblogs%26_r%3D0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">via \u003ca class=\"media-attribution-link\" href=\"http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Megadroughts: Four Points to Put California's Dry Times in Perspective",
"headTitle": "Megadroughts: Four Points to Put California’s Dry Times in Perspective | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/02/20140210science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14010\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/droughtcar.jpg\" alt=\"A car sits on the exposed bottom of the Almaden Reservoir in San Jose on January 28, 2014. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A car sits on the exposed bottom of the Almaden Reservoir in San Jose on January 28, 2014. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Unprecedented.” It’s a word that we’re hearing a lot these days to describe the \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - Drought Watch\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/california-drought-watch/\">current drought\u003c/a>. And in some ways it is already a record-beater, so far back as we \u003cem> have \u003c/em>records. 2013 was the state’s driest calendar year on record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Governor Jerry Brown has started using the term “megadrought” to express the urgency of the current scarcity of water. But to climate scientists, megadrought means something unlike any living Californian has seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if the evidence provided by nature is accurate, our three years of drought might be just the beginning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Three years is not a megadrought.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see evidence that on a pretty regular basis, we had droughts over a decade long,” says \u003ca title=\"UCB - Ingram\" href=\"http://geography.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=25\">Lynn Ingram\u003c/a>, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Ingram has co-authored an ominous-sounding book, \u003ca title=\"Sci Am - post\" href=\"http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/review-the-west-without-water/\">The West Without Water\u003c/a>, which chronicles her search for clues to the future, from the distant past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14045\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/stump_WalkerR.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14045\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14045\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/stump_WalkerR.jpg\" alt=\"Growth rings in tree stumps, like this one in the Walker River, yield valuable drought data from the past. This one dates from the Medieval Warm Period. (Donald J. DePaolo)\" width=\"300\" height=\"448\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Growth rings in tree stumps like this one in the Walker River, yield valuable drought data from the past. This one dates from the Medieval Warm Period. (Donald J. DePaolo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So how regular were these marathon dry spells?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe every 50 to 90 years,” Ingram says. “And then if you go back, maybe during the \u003ca title=\"NOAA NCDC - MWP\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html\">medieval [warm] period\u003c/a>, between 900 and 1400 AD, there were a couple of droughts that were over a century long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, \u003cem>that’s\u003c/em> a megadrought. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t rain for 100 years, just like the current drought doesn’t mean that it hasn’t rained in three years. But it does mean 100 years of abnormally low levels of precipitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What we think of as normal, isn’t.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003c/em>If you take the \u003cem>really long\u003c/em> view, the last century was unusually damp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you look back over the last 1-or-2,000 years, you can see that that stood out as being a wet century,” Ingram says, adding that the average over the last couple of thousand years might’ve been 15 percent drier than the 20th century. And that’s precisely when most development happened in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 20th century, California’s population grew more than twenty-fold and farmers planted millions of acres of irrigated farmland. The planning and building of California’s vast plumbing system of dams and canals was based on the climate that engineers \u003cem>thought\u003c/em> we had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ingram and her fellow paleoclimatologists glean their information from a variety of clues. They study tree rings that show by their thickness how much water was available for growth in each year. There are also clues buried deep in the sediments of lake beds and marshes, like the one in Benicia where Ingram’s co-author, Frances Malamud-Roam, took core samples to see what sort of plant life prevailed hundreds or thousands of years ago. Ingram studied sediment cores from San Francisco Bay, which reveal that the Bay got saltier for hundreds of years at a time. That suggests a lack of freshwater runoff from the mountains, which, in turn, suggests a lack of rain and snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Don’t underestimate this drought.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘If it continues the way it is, it could be one of the driest years in the past 500 years.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Megadroughts — some that dragged on for decades — were actually pretty common in California’s past. What’s \u003cem>not\u003c/em> so common is a single so-called rainy season as dry as the one we’re having right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it continues the way it is, it could be one of the driest years in the past 500 years,” says Ingram.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1580, to be more precise. That’s the year that Sir Francis Drake returned to Plymouth, England after circumnavigating the globe. And Captain John Smith? Legendary leader of the Jamestown Colony? Charmed Pocahontas? Mapped the Chesapeake Bay? He was barely conceived. Ingram says we haven’t had a single year that dry, since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s from the tree ring record, including the giant sequoia tree ring records that showed either no growth, so you literally had no growth that year, or an extremely narrow ring, in 1580,” Ingram adds, with surprising equanimity. “This year is sort of on track for potentially being that dry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On track” doesn’t mean it will happen but even the recent substantial rains are a drop in the bucket toward ending the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>In California, warmer has generally meant drier.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changing climate doesn’t bode well for abundant water in our future. This year’s visitation from the polar vortex notwithstanding, the long-term trend is that the planet is warming. And these same physical records from long ago reveal that when it got warmer, it got drier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we’ve seen in the past records during the warm periods, like in the Medieval Warm Period—and if we go further back in time to the \u003ca title=\"NOAA NCDC - Mid Holocene\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html\">Middle Holocene\u003c/a> climate optimum, which was about 5,000 years ago—it was drier,” Ingram observes. “So we see this very strong correlation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But whether California is trending toward a new normal that’s consistently drier, is something we just have to wait and see. It turns out that science, as it stands today, has a much better lens for looking backward, than forward.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California has had its share of \"megadroughts.\" This isn't one of them...yet.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14010\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/droughtcar.jpg\" alt=\"A car sits on the exposed bottom of the Almaden Reservoir in San Jose on January 28, 2014. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A car sits on the exposed bottom of the Almaden Reservoir in San Jose on January 28, 2014. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Unprecedented.” It’s a word that we’re hearing a lot these days to describe the \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - Drought Watch\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/california-drought-watch/\">current drought\u003c/a>. And in some ways it is already a record-beater, so far back as we \u003cem> have \u003c/em>records. 2013 was the state’s driest calendar year on record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Governor Jerry Brown has started using the term “megadrought” to express the urgency of the current scarcity of water. But to climate scientists, megadrought means something unlike any living Californian has seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if the evidence provided by nature is accurate, our three years of drought might be just the beginning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Three years is not a megadrought.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see evidence that on a pretty regular basis, we had droughts over a decade long,” says \u003ca title=\"UCB - Ingram\" href=\"http://geography.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=25\">Lynn Ingram\u003c/a>, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Ingram has co-authored an ominous-sounding book, \u003ca title=\"Sci Am - post\" href=\"http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/review-the-west-without-water/\">The West Without Water\u003c/a>, which chronicles her search for clues to the future, from the distant past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_14045\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/stump_WalkerR.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14045\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14045\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/02/stump_WalkerR.jpg\" alt=\"Growth rings in tree stumps, like this one in the Walker River, yield valuable drought data from the past. This one dates from the Medieval Warm Period. (Donald J. DePaolo)\" width=\"300\" height=\"448\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Growth rings in tree stumps like this one in the Walker River, yield valuable drought data from the past. This one dates from the Medieval Warm Period. (Donald J. DePaolo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So how regular were these marathon dry spells?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe every 50 to 90 years,” Ingram says. “And then if you go back, maybe during the \u003ca title=\"NOAA NCDC - MWP\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html\">medieval [warm] period\u003c/a>, between 900 and 1400 AD, there were a couple of droughts that were over a century long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, \u003cem>that’s\u003c/em> a megadrought. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t rain for 100 years, just like the current drought doesn’t mean that it hasn’t rained in three years. But it does mean 100 years of abnormally low levels of precipitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What we think of as normal, isn’t.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003c/em>If you take the \u003cem>really long\u003c/em> view, the last century was unusually damp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you look back over the last 1-or-2,000 years, you can see that that stood out as being a wet century,” Ingram says, adding that the average over the last couple of thousand years might’ve been 15 percent drier than the 20th century. And that’s precisely when most development happened in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 20th century, California’s population grew more than twenty-fold and farmers planted millions of acres of irrigated farmland. The planning and building of California’s vast plumbing system of dams and canals was based on the climate that engineers \u003cem>thought\u003c/em> we had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ingram and her fellow paleoclimatologists glean their information from a variety of clues. They study tree rings that show by their thickness how much water was available for growth in each year. There are also clues buried deep in the sediments of lake beds and marshes, like the one in Benicia where Ingram’s co-author, Frances Malamud-Roam, took core samples to see what sort of plant life prevailed hundreds or thousands of years ago. Ingram studied sediment cores from San Francisco Bay, which reveal that the Bay got saltier for hundreds of years at a time. That suggests a lack of freshwater runoff from the mountains, which, in turn, suggests a lack of rain and snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Don’t underestimate this drought.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘If it continues the way it is, it could be one of the driest years in the past 500 years.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Megadroughts — some that dragged on for decades — were actually pretty common in California’s past. What’s \u003cem>not\u003c/em> so common is a single so-called rainy season as dry as the one we’re having right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it continues the way it is, it could be one of the driest years in the past 500 years,” says Ingram.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1580, to be more precise. That’s the year that Sir Francis Drake returned to Plymouth, England after circumnavigating the globe. And Captain John Smith? Legendary leader of the Jamestown Colony? Charmed Pocahontas? Mapped the Chesapeake Bay? He was barely conceived. Ingram says we haven’t had a single year that dry, since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s from the tree ring record, including the giant sequoia tree ring records that showed either no growth, so you literally had no growth that year, or an extremely narrow ring, in 1580,” Ingram adds, with surprising equanimity. “This year is sort of on track for potentially being that dry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On track” doesn’t mean it will happen but even the recent substantial rains are a drop in the bucket toward ending the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>In California, warmer has generally meant drier.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changing climate doesn’t bode well for abundant water in our future. This year’s visitation from the polar vortex notwithstanding, the long-term trend is that the planet is warming. And these same physical records from long ago reveal that when it got warmer, it got drier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we’ve seen in the past records during the warm periods, like in the Medieval Warm Period—and if we go further back in time to the \u003ca title=\"NOAA NCDC - Mid Holocene\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html\">Middle Holocene\u003c/a> climate optimum, which was about 5,000 years ago—it was drier,” Ingram observes. “So we see this very strong correlation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But whether California is trending toward a new normal that’s consistently drier, is something we just have to wait and see. It turns out that science, as it stands today, has a much better lens for looking backward, than forward.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Sierra Snow Survey Offers Little Hope as Drought Lingers",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13766\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13766\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/snowytahoe.jpg\" alt=\"Snow is accumulating at lake level in South Lake Tahoe. (Jim Siler)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Accumulations in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday provided mostly window dressing for the monthly snow survey. (Jim Siler)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Snow finally came to the Sierra on Thursday but the flurries were too little, too late, to plump up the closely-watched Sierra snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About six inches of heavy, wet snow blanketed areas near Lake Tahoe, just as state water managers were scrounging for some good news for the \u003ca title=\"CDEC - Snowpack\" href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action\">monthly Sierra snow survey\u003c/a>. They didn’t find much to celebrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e17969dcba3a0cd128270772da553a21″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water managers keep a close eye on two measures. First: where the snowpack stands compared to the average for this date. Answer: just 12 percent of normal, statewide. That shatters the previous mark for this point in the winter of 21 percent, which had stood for more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second number is even more sobering: Thursday’s measurements put the water content of Sierra snows at just 7 percent of the average for April 1st, when accumulation is typically at its peak and the runoff season is about to start. With just two months to go, that’s a lot of precipitation to make up, considering that California counts on the mountain snowpack for about a third of its water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>National Weather Service forecasters in Sacramento called the current unsettled conditions, “the first significant weather system to affect the region in almost two months.” And it’s the end of January. That means two of the three months most counted on for Northern California’s annual precipitation have gone by the boards with barely a whimper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A mix of snow and rain showers could linger into the weekend but hope of another wave of precipitation next week has largely evaporated, and \u003ca title=\"NWS - map\" href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/\">longer-range forecasts remain stubbornly dry\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governor Jerry Brown has begun \u003ca title=\"SF Gate - post\" href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Meager-snowpack-sets-new-5190495.php\">using the term, “megadrought”\u003c/a> to describe current conditions. Earlier this week, state health officials \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/01/29/california-drought-17-communities-on-the-critical-list/\">identified 17 communities\u003c/a> that could exhaust their water supplies sometime in the next one to four months, including several parts of Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Meanwhile, the state Department of Fish & Wildlife \u003ca title=\"Lake County Times - post\" href=\"http://www.lakeconews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35175:cdfw-puts-closures-in-effect-on-some-rivers-recommends-more-changes-to-the-fish-and-game-commission&catid=44:recreation&Itemid=176\">closed off significant stretches\u003c/a> of northern California rivers to fishing, until river conditions improve. Officials say water levels were so low in some places that fish were being trapped in small, isolated pools.The closures included portions of the Russian and American Rivers, in effect through April.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13766\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13766\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/snowytahoe.jpg\" alt=\"Snow is accumulating at lake level in South Lake Tahoe. (Jim Siler)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Accumulations in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday provided mostly window dressing for the monthly snow survey. (Jim Siler)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Snow finally came to the Sierra on Thursday but the flurries were too little, too late, to plump up the closely-watched Sierra snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About six inches of heavy, wet snow blanketed areas near Lake Tahoe, just as state water managers were scrounging for some good news for the \u003ca title=\"CDEC - Snowpack\" href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action\">monthly Sierra snow survey\u003c/a>. They didn’t find much to celebrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water managers keep a close eye on two measures. First: where the snowpack stands compared to the average for this date. Answer: just 12 percent of normal, statewide. That shatters the previous mark for this point in the winter of 21 percent, which had stood for more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second number is even more sobering: Thursday’s measurements put the water content of Sierra snows at just 7 percent of the average for April 1st, when accumulation is typically at its peak and the runoff season is about to start. With just two months to go, that’s a lot of precipitation to make up, considering that California counts on the mountain snowpack for about a third of its water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
"airtime": "SUN 9pm-10pm",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.commonwealthclub.org/podcasts",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"id": "here-and-now",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/hiddenbrain.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
"subscribe": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Hidden-Brain-p787503/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510308/podcast.xml"
}
},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
"imageAlt": "KQED Hyphenación",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/xtTd",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Political Breakdown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"subscribe": {
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/572155894/political-breakdown",
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