Philobiblon

It’s hard to drag your mind away from the latest flood of disasters in the world economy, but it’s worth remembering that the environmental disasters aren’t going away.

* A good piece in the Sunday Times sums up the dangerous state of the British bee: “In the bounteous days of teeming hedgerows and fields of clover, Britain had 25 kinds of bumble, all merrily gathering nectar and pollinating plants and trees. Three of these already have vanished, and seven more are in the government’s official Biodiversity Action Plan (Uk Bap) as priorities for salvation….Losses in the UK [of honeybees] currently are running at 30% a year — up from just 6% in 2003….Lord Rooker [in 2007], declared in the House of Lords that if things went on as they were, the honeybee in the UK would be extinct within 10 years. The situation since then has worsened, so at the best estimate the 10 years have shrunk to eight.”

* While Britain is killing its citizens in large numbers with filthy air: “More than 20 cities and conurbations were found to have dangerous levels of particulate matter between 2005-7.”

* And ocean acidity, particularly in the vital top layers, is swooping ever upward: “‘ocean acidification may render most regions chemically inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050.’ The group said that acidification could be controlled only by limiting future atmospheric levels of the gas. Other strategies, including “fertilizing” the oceans to encourage the growth of tiny marine plants that take up carbon dioxide, may actually make the problem worse in some regions, it said.

* And Australia – per capita a severe climate change criminal – is, in a rare case of natural justice, suffering badly from its early effects: “Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city’s entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals. More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees in Melbourne’s parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at one of the city’s nursing homes have started putting their clothes in the freezer.”

* And for a warning of the inexorable power of natural forces, there’s the news that malaria parasite is showing signs of resistance to the recently much developed, if ancient, “wonder drug” artemisinin.