Good morning 99percenters!

'Paddle in Seattle' Protesters Welcome Shell Drilling Rig with Two Words: Go Away
Thursday's protest comes ahead of a larger sHell No! demonstration—including mass flotilla and direct action—planned for the weekend

Paddling activists rolled out the un-welcome mat as Shell Oil's hulking 'Polar Pioneer' drilling rig—whose presence is opposed by many local citizens, environmentalists, and city officials—pulled into the Port of Seattle on Thursday afternoon.

About 20 kayakers met the 307-foot-tall, 400-foot-long rig in the waters of Elliott Bay, singing, chanting, linking arms, and bearing a banner that read, "Arctic Drilling = Climate Change." Among the group were members of the Duwamish Tribe, who paddled through the waves in a long wooden canoe and led the group in chanted songs, according to the Seattle Times.

The Times adds:

Law-enforcement officers were on the water and overhead to enforce a 500-yard safety zone while the Polar Pioneer was in motion. Coast Guard officials warned the activists beforehand that any disruption of safe navigation could result in arrests.

But the authorities allowed the activists relatively close to the rig when it briefly stopped, and there were no disturbances of note during the afternoon demonstration.

Giant Antarctica ice shelf about to disintegrate, says NASA

It’s not always gloom and doom around here – Chinese CO2 emissions have stalled, global forest loss has been reversed, and there was even a new species of porcupine discovered in Brazil not long ago! But then, well: gloom, doom.

A new study conducted at NASA finds the last remaining section of Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf, which partially collapsed in 2002, is quickly losing strength and will likely completely disintegrate by 2020.

A research team headed by Ala Khazendar of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, found the remains of Larsen B Ice are flowing faster, becoming increasingly fragmented and developing large cracks.

"These are warning signs that the remnant is disintegrating," Khazendar said. "Although it’s fascinating scientifically to have a front-row seat to watch the ice shelf becoming unstable and breaking up, it’s bad news for our planet. This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, and soon it will be gone."

Mega-Developer Wants to Build Massive Resort, Mall and Housing Complex at Grand Canyon
The Sierra Club says the proposed development would be a "defacement" of the Grand Canyon.

The U.S. Forest Service is accepting public comments for a controversial plan that would pave the way for a foreign developer to build a mega-development at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Opponents of the sprawling development — which includes plans for a dude ranch, five-star hotels, malls, high-end boutiques, restaurants and 2,100 housing units — say it would increase automobile and airplane traffic as well as light and noise pollution, and destroy critical wildlife habitat. The development may tap critical aquifers that could deplete the groundwater and may also reduce the levels of the exclusive source of all water for Havasu Falls, the cultural foundation of the Havasupai tribe.

Even the National Park Service, the U.S. agency that manages the Grand Canyon, considers the mega-development a "significant threat to Grand Canyon because it will require vast quantities of water and could lower the aquifer that feeds seeps, springs and streams that support wildlife and recreation."

Why are so many whales dying on California's shores?
A recent spate of whales washed up on the state’s beaches may be coincidence but ship strikes, fishing lines, sonar and climate change are all taking a toll

Last week, scores of local residents made their way to Sharp State Park in Pacifica, California, a 20-minute drive south of San Francisco, to view the body of a humpback whale that came ashore on 4 May.

When the 32-foot female humpback whale’s body came ashore, after days being tossed by waves, it was only the latest in a string of strandings along northern California’s Pacific coast.

Moe Flannery, a stranded marine mammal responder and manager of the Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences, is quick to dispel a desire to look for conspiracy theories over the whales’ deaths.

“This is not a beaching,” she begins, “it is a stranding,” explaining that a stranding occurs when the animal washes ashore and does not deliberately go on to the beach. This usually happens after the animal is injured.