|
By Janet Evans
Monday, Dec 1 2008, 06:40 AM
 Rafetus swinhoei Photo ATCN
Especially if you are endangered and only one of four Shanghai soft-shell turtles. Beware of flooding, too.
A rare Vietnamese turtle, one of just four believed left in the world, was swept away by a flood, taken hostage by an enterprising fisherman and nearly ended up in a soup pot. Instead, the 150-pound animal returned to its lake Wednesday and conservationists celebrated their deal with the fisherman — the turtle's freedom in exchange for about $200 and two new fishing nets.
Douglas Hendrie and other conservationists had been trying to find the turtle for two weeks after floods washed the animal out of Dong Mo Lake near Hanoi.
Continued HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Monday, Nov 24 2008, 09:11 PM
Siemans, Discovery Network and Educators believe they can. How about you?
"A new environmental science competition for middle schoolers asks teams of 2-3 students, led by a teacher or mentor, to create sustainable, reproducible environmental improvements in their local communities.
Participants in the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge are encouraged to start right away.
Among the prizes for winning teams are $5,000 savings bonds, a "once-in-a-lifetime Discovery Adventure Trip" with a television personality, and an appearance on Discovery's Planet Green network.
Designed with low entry barriers, the Challenge provides the opportunity for students of all backgrounds and experiences to participate. Contest organizers recommend doing the projects over a 9-to-13-week period. Only 16 weeks, including the holiday season, remain before the March 15 deadline, so interested teams should start soon.
Competing teams will use a six-step scientific methodology: identification of issues, researching them, planning a solution, acting together to implement the plan, analyzing what was found, and sharing ways to replicate or expand the effort around the country.
The Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge is sponsored by The Siemens Foundation, Discovery Education, and the National Science Teachers Association."
Who will take the challenge?
|
By Janet Evans
Friday, Nov 21 2008, 09:26 PM
The problem:
Weather Channel lays off staff
The answer
More
Face it...
We pump our own gas, we bag our own groceries, we run our own credit cards through the processors...
We can be our own weather people, too.
It's cold outside.
Wear a coat.
|
By Janet Evans
Thursday, Nov 20 2008, 09:57 PM
Have you changed your driving habits in the past year?
How about in the past six months?
Are you driving less?
Are you carpooling?
Do you take a bus?
Have you bought an economy car?
Do you think before you drive...planning our your day now?
Now that fuel has come down in price, will you go back to your old ways, or will you stay with your change for good?
After all, we haven't solved our energy crisis...this is just temporary, right?
"Americans are driving less despite falling gas prices, reflecting the deepening recession and signaling a shift in lifestyles and driving habits that could outlast the current turmoil.
Drivers logged 10.7 billion fewer miles in September than they did the same month a year earlier — a 4.4% decline, according to data issued Wednesday by the Federal Highway Administration.
FINANCIAL CRISIS: Economic outlook dims
The data reflect the effects of the worsening economy. "With the unemployment rate going up, people are just not driving," says Fred Milch, division planner for the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, in the South Atlantic region that saw the biggest year-to-year driving decline (5.7%). "They just don't have the money to go on leisure trips and don't have money to go shopping. … People get in the habit of not having to drive."
Click to continue
|
By Janet Evans
Thursday, Nov 6 2008, 01:20 PM
Earlier in the year you may have blamed rising prices in restaurants on gas prices...a direct result of shipping costs and products made with petroleum.
Later, you may have blamed them on the economy in general.
Something else to add to the list is Green.
Whenever you go Green, it isn't cheap.
As restaurants, businesses, colleges and maybe even you start replacing paper products used for fast food purposes and convenience, it's going to cost you.
What's interesting is what some of these products are made of.
Did you know that clear to-go and storage containers are now made of corn and sugar?
Eating utensils are made of potato and cornstarch (imported from China...something to think about).
All I have to say is, if you are eating outside at a picnic and it starts to rain....get under cover, or you'll end up with food all over your hands and in your lap.
"On July 1, Microsoft replaced the plastic and Styrofoam in its cafeterias and kitchenettes with compostable knives, forks, spoons, cups, bowls, plates and clamshell carryout containers.
That switch is one of several the company is making to reduce the amount of waste generated by the 24,000 meals served daily at its corporate-headquarters campus, where roughly 40,000 full-time employees and vendors work."
Read about Microsoft converting it's cafeteria HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Sunday, Oct 26 2008, 08:27 PM
Well, it sounds like the game Clue, doesn’t it?
It may as well be.
Last week I started hearing people using the term “green” regarding software while at work. I also received an email that had a trailer at the bottom that said, “Think Green…please don't print this email unless absolutely necessary.”
Okay, I thought, what ‘s going on now. I have enough junk on my desk, and I’m not about to print an email when I don’t need to, thank you very much. Although I do know some people who print and file everything.
Inquisitive person that I am, I had to check this out. Email has a carbon footprint? What? I dug deeper. I never thought about this. I know people who keep hundreds of old emails. I’m speaking of hundreds of employees, keeping hundreds of old emails. These are all being stored on servers. These servers are, of course, using energy. Multiply that by all of the offices and establishments in the word storing emails and other data on their servers and consuming energy and, well, you get the point.
So, we’ve been going paperless, but in essence…have we really been helping the environment? Well, yes, but are we robbing Peter to pay Paul? Some say so.
I just found this of interest to pass along. I’m not ever saying that we don’t have to do our part to conserve energy. But I join the belief of those who take the stance that world leaders need to come together to do something to put pressure on Brazil and other countries to control their deforestation of the rainforests. That is the main contributor to the downfall of the environment.
That said, regarding email and carbon footprinting…
“Email is a great application to try and measure the carbon footprint of, because it is universal and there are billions being sent everyday,” said Richard Barrington, head of sustainability and public policy at Sun in the UK. “It is not an easy task but we are looking at the mail servers, the different software applications used, the network devices and trying to extrapolate the energy used back to the email itself.”
Continue article HERE
and ....
“Data retained means storage space used, and storage space used means energy consumed. The more tech savvy reader is probably shaking her head right now, amazed at how it can take this long to realise such things, but the fact remains that many of us still see digital files as existing in some kind of limbo – if they are not using up paper, or taking up storage space in our filing cabinets, what kind of impact can they have?
Continue article HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Monday, Oct 20 2008, 06:50 AM
This week is National Forest Products Week. We do have beautiful forest in our country. Definitely worth preserving and using wisely. I had to smile when reading the end of the Proclamation where it says to “observe the week with appropriate ceremonies and celebrations.” I can’t think of any celebrations off hand for forest products week. I mean, are we honoring the products or the forests? Should we do some toilet papering? Or should we plant a tree?
The greatest observation we can make is that we realize that we need to preserve our forests at all costs. After taking care of our own forests, we need to watch closely Brazil and other countries participating heavily in deforestation of the rain forests . What they are doing has extreme consequences on the entire world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 16, 2008
National Forest Products Week, 2008
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America
During National Forest Products Week, we highlight our country's commitment to protect and wisely use America's forests for our Nation's prosperity and well-being.
Across our country, citizens rely on forest products to meet their daily needs. Our forests enable us to produce goods such as paper and furniture, provide raw materials such as lumber for homes and buildings, and offer job opportunities that bring economic security for many Americans.
My Administration is steadfast in its commitment to protect our forests from both manmade and natural harm. It is vital that we continue to make progress in conserving our natural resources and using them responsibly. Since 2002, we have worked to restore our forests and protected them against catastrophic fires as part of the Healthy Forests Initiative. Americans take great pride in our country's natural splendor, and by working together to be good stewards of the environment, we can leave our children and grandchildren a healthy and flourishing land.
Recognizing the importance of our forests in ensuring our Nation's well-being, the Congress, by Public Law 86-753 (36 U.S.C. 123), as amended, has designated the week beginning on the third Sunday in October of each year as "National Forest Products Week" and has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this week.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 19 through October 25, 2008, as National Forest Products Week. I call upon all Americans to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.
GEORGE W. BUSH
|
By Janet Evans
Friday, Oct 17 2008, 07:10 AM
 Personification of Autumn
(Currier & Ives Lithograph, 1871).
My dad, who lives in Vermont, says the tourists who come up there to seek out autumn beauty are called “Fall Peepers.”
The turning of the leaves, like a beautiful painting, is something to behold.
Christian Science Monitor has a wonderful presentation of fall photos, sent in by readers from across the country.
Take a look!
HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Oct 15 2008, 06:50 AM
"Parts of California See Coldest Temps since 1893"
"Cold Temps in Oregon Break 118 year Old Record"
Those are the headlines today, and it's only mid-October!
Brrrr is going to be the term this winter.
Only 67 more days!
California
"Temperatures dropped to 31 degrees in the Ukiah Valley on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, the coldest Oct. 12 morning since record keeping began in Ukiah in 1893, said Troy Nicolini, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Eureka. The previous record was 34 degrees in 1916."
Read the article HERE
Oregon
"Cold temperatures set several new record lows this weekend, including a low of 22 Saturday in downtown Pendleton that broke a 118 year-old record of 24.
Record lows started falling Thursday with a new low of 20 for Meacham, four degrees cooler than the previous record from 2006, according to information from the Web site for the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Pendleton."
Read the article HERE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The predictions are usually correct…. I’m speaking of the Farmers' Almanac. Actually, I think when I first put my blog up I had a link to Farmers' Almanac. Farmers' Almanac 2009 goes on sale in August and they have some nasty predictions for winter in our area. They start with the letter “F.” That would be FRIGID. They end with the letter “B.” That would be BRRRR. It’s going to be cold this winter. Read about it HEREYou can check out the online version HERE or the original New Hampshire-based Old Farmers' Almanac (1792) : Old Farmers' Almanac
|
By Janet Evans
Sunday, Oct 12 2008, 09:21 PM
 Farmer John Magill in southeastern Australia inspects a dried up dam on his farm. Over half of
Australia's farmland is in drought. The drought has also seen a rise is farmer suicides in rural Australia,
with the suicide rate among farm workers being double that of the regular population.
(Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)10/06
Australian farmers are drowning---in drought. Their land has been drying up year after year, to the point that they actually trade water. Have you ever heard of that before? Trading water is a national market in Australia.
As always with supply and demand, there is money to be concerned about. So we have farmers, with land, the driest continent on the planet, no water, high prices, high stress…
For farmer Malcolm Holm, water now is just like a new shovel or tractor — he has to buy it.The amount of water he is allowed to take from nearby Murrumbidgee River has dwindled to nothing for the past three years because of Australia's crippling drought. And so, except for rain he can catch and store himself, he needs to buy water for his 1,000 acres at Finley in New South Wales state, where he grows crops to feed his 600 dairy cows."It's no different to buying a ton of grain or a ton of fertilizer," Holm said. "It's just another commodity."
[...]
"In essence, what the water trade does is make irrigators really focus on the economic value of their water and using it more efficiently," Holm said. "If you can't produce a good crop for the cost of the water, you're better off selling it to someone who can. If the figures add up, you buy it."Holm is anxious. The price right now is too high for him and he is watching his pastures die while he waits for a turn in the market or a drop of rain.
Read the complete article on MSNBC HERE
Also, Farmers Suicide Rates Double National Average
|
By Janet Evans
Thursday, Sep 25 2008, 06:40 AM
Can you say 340 trillion, trillion, trillion?
That's how many addresses the new system for web addresses will have when it is implemented.
You see, the current system is about ready to run out of addresses. Who would have thought the Internet Highway would run out of addresses? Why, the mighty inventor of the internet should have created enough in the first place, don't you think? And we all know who that is...
Oh no..I thought it was Al Gore!
He said he created the internet.
I guess it was really Vint Cerf the "father of the internet."
The world is about to run out of the internet addresses that allow computers to identify each other and communicate, the man who invented the system has told The Times.
Vint Cerf, the “father of the internet” and one of the world’s leading computer scientists, said that businesses and consumers needed to act now to switch to the next generation of net addresses. Unless preparations were made now, he said, some computers might not be able to go online and the connectivity of the internet might be damaged.
Mr Cerf said that internet service providers in particular needed to prepare and that time was running out for a smooth transition.
Every computer and online device is assigned a unique IP address, but the pool of unallocated numbers is about to dry up.
“This is like the internet running out of telephone numbers and with no new numbers, you can’t have more subscribers,” he said.
When Mr Cerf and others founded the internet system in 1977, he set in place "internet protocol version four" (IPv4) which provided 4.2 billion addresses. With the number of internet-enabled devices, particularly mobile phones, soaring, less than 14 per cent of those addresses remain vacant.
It is estimated that IPv4 addresses, each of which is a series of 32 binary digits, will run out in 2010 and possibly as early as next year. A new system, called IPv6, has been ready for implementation for more than a decade.
Continued HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Sep 24 2008, 11:49 AM
Bette Midler at the premiere of the Rose
After over forty years in show business, the glitzy Bette Midler isn’t going to call it quits, but she is going to stay put. It’s all about being green. I guess I’ll say she is sincere. In doing some background checks, I found Bette has been working on beautifying parks in New York since 1995. I suppose when you ‘ve been trashing the environment with exhaust and waste from the entourage that she had all of these years, staying in one place will help out quite a bit. Way to go Bette!
The 62-year-old says she feels that the fleet of 14 lorries she uses to ship her show from city to city causes too much pollution.So instead she's decided to pitch up in Las Vegas and do a $13m residency instead.
"Over the years, the number of trucks that I have behind me has grown exponentially and I don't really like that, I don't like wasting the gas," she told me on a promotional trip to London.
"Fourteen trucks, that's a lot of gas. So I decided I'd stay put for a while," she added.Surely moving equipment in trucks is unavoidable for a touring show, I ask her?
"I can avoid it," she says, shaking her head, and going on to provide an impressive list of her green credentials that would put most celebrities to shame.
"I don't drive much, I have a Smart car, I have a hybrid, I drive a [Toyota] Prius," she says.
Continued HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Saturday, Sep 13 2008, 11:15 AM
Guy Reynolds, MCT HURRICANE IKE
Bill Murphy, second from right, waits with three rescuers for a boat to pull them to safety after Murphy's
wife Barbara and two others were rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter in High Island, Texas, Friday,
September 12, 2008, as Hurricane Ike moves toward Texas.
With Hurricane Ike hitting hard today, and land and sea being pummeled once again storm, after storm…it’s interesting to note that this date, twenty years ago, another hurricane hit the area...in the Caribbean, and ended up in Texas. It devastated the Bahamas and Mexico and is considered one of the 12 deadliest hurricanes.
"Hurricane Gilbert had the lowest pressure ever recorded in the history of the Western Hemisphere today, making Gilbert the strongest recorded hurricane in that part of the globe until it was surpassed by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. "By almost any measure, Hurricane Gilbert is already the most intense hurricane on record, and it is still gaining force," explained The Post Standard on September 14, 1988. "Low barometric pressure at the center gives a hurricane its strength. Gilbert's pressure dropped to 26 13 late Tuesday the lowest ever recorded.”
You may view two newspaper articles from 1988 September 13th and 14th of 1988 telling of Hurricane Gilbert's impact on the Bahama's and Mexico:
Hurricane Gilbert pounds Jamaica, Moves Westward.pdf Daily Herald, Sept. 13. 1988
Hurricane Gilbert Targets Mexico.pdf Post-Standard, Sept. 14, 1988
also
Hurricane Gilbert...this Day In History
It’s believed that global warming is causing hurricanes to become more powerful. Does that theory hold water?
"The theory that global warming may be contributing to stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past 30 years is bolstered by a new study led by a Florida State University researcher. The study will be published in the Sept. 4 edition of the journal Nature."
[...]
"As seas warm, the ocean has more energy that can be converted to tropical cyclone wind," Elsner said. "Our results do not prove the heat-engine theory. We just show that the data are quite consistent with it."
Read the article from Environmental news Network HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 12 2008, 08:40 PM
 Cows may have a sixth magnetic sense photo: flickr
If you ever find yourself lost in a field or in the woods…and don’t have a compass, moss on a tree or your new GPS…don’t fear…
Look to the animals to point you in the correct direction...they are able to sense magnetic fields.
This is a pretty cool article…
Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction. Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years. In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals. The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles. Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS. A few studies have shown that some mammals - including bats - also use a "magnetic compass" to help their sense of direction.
Continued HERE
|
By Janet Evans
Sunday, Sep 7 2008, 04:00 PM
Cow plop!
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says we should stop eating meat one day a week. After that, we should even eat it less than that. If he has his way, I suppose we should be come vegetarians.
Anything for the sake of preventing further global warming.
I’m in…how about you?
Rewind…I’m not in.
Sorry…I don’t care how much gas those cows or beef steer are “burping,” or how much people are burping after they eat a huge plate of beef for that matter. I’m going to eat all the red meat I want.
I think Dr. Pachauri is forgetting to tell us to eliminate some other items from our diet…maybe because there would be a huge uproar in the medical world. You see, physicians aren’t going to argue with him about telling us to eliminate red meat…they want us eating turkey or pork or fish anyway (I know, Pachauri says to eliminate "meat"). But there’s something else those belching cows eating grass are producing …it’s called milk.
Got Milk?
If you‘ve got that, then you’ve got strong bones. You don’t want to see a bunch of menopausal women with an increase in broken hips, do you? We don ‘t want to tell people to reduce the amount of yogurt and cottage cheese they re eating, now do we? And it’s been proven that increasing dairy in your diet helps to lose weight, too. I wonder if Dr. Pachauri works for any pharmaceutical companies. Just a thought.
"People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.
His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning.
Pachauri, who was re-elected the panel's chairman for a second six-year term last week, said diet change was important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals. It was relatively easy to change eating habits compared to changing means of transport, he said. "
Enlighten yourself with the entire article HERE
Burpless grass cuts methane gas from cattle
|
By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Sep 3 2008, 05:47 PM
If your ship is traveling in Canada’s northern arctic, that is…
More ice shelf has broken loose.
Global warming.
"A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.
Large pieces of ice are seen drifting off the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf in this July file photo.
Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.
"The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Muller.
Muller also said that two large sections of ice detached from the Serson Ice Shelf, shrinking that ice feature by 47 square miles -- or 60 percent -- and that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has also continued to break up, losing an additional eight square miles."
Continue the article HERE
Information from NASA
|
By Janet Evans
Sunday, Aug 17 2008, 08:12 AM
And with the higher gas prices, and the prices of practically everything going up, it’s tempting to believe those deals that sound too good to be true.
Some of them may have basic scientific fact behind them, like this one…
Run Your Car On Water
and Double Your Gas Mileage…
Water can be used to fuel a car when used as a supplement to gasoline. In fact, very little water is needed! only one quart of water provides over 1800 gallons of HHO gas which can literally last for months and significantly increase your vehicle's fuel efficiently, improve emissions quality, and save you money.
Thousands of successful water-conversions around the world are proof that this technology works and will soon catch on! Some industry insiders say its just a matter of time before this water-burning technology will be standard in new automobiles. One expert estimates most cars will be using this technology by 2012, but until the auto manufacturers catch up, you can use this technology for yourself today at a very reasonable set-up cost.
You can go to the ad's website by clicking HERE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course there are several things wrong with this picture...
They want you to convert your car to run with water and gas.
This does sound dangerous for the average person, even though they say it isn't.
And, it doesn't sound like it will work.
The Laws of Thermodynamics
Since you need to use electricity to separate the water into the "Brown's gas," doesn't that defeat the purpose of saving energy/money?
And aren't people too smart to fall for this anyway?
|
By Janet Evans
Saturday, Aug 16 2008, 06:45 PM
For years the German’s have been protecting their highest peak, the Zugspitz, by spreading reflective foil tarps over the ski slopes. They believe this “sun screen” of sorts will fight against “global warming.”
"The cover keeps off the heat and channels away rainwater," said Manfred Haas, who manages a team that grooms the ski area with bulldozers and graders. "Every autumn we make note of where the glacier has melted the most and cover those places the following spring."
Only the ski area on the mountain is covered with tarps
The German’s believe covering up glacial areas can highly reduce melting. But they also know that this is not very practical Now they've come up wih a wind screen.
"Geographer Hans-Joachim Fuchs in the western German city Mainz has another idea. He wants to harness the power of cold mountain winds -- so-called kabatic winds, or streams of cold, dense air that flow downhill -- with windscreens. The screens would keep the cool air on top of the glaciers, perhaps preserving them for a little while longer.
Fuchs has been proposing this idea for years, and this week he's putting it to the test. On Monday, Fuchs and 27 students headed to the Rhone glacier in Switzerland to install a windscreen measuring 15 meters long (50 feet) and 3 meters high at an elevation of 2,300 meters (7,545 feet) on the leading edge of the glacier. He'll be measuring the effectiveness of the screen to see if it's a viable solution."
Click on the picture to see a photo slide show of Fuchs and his students :
Read the full article about Fuchs and what a glaciolgist has to say
HERE
Don't you wish you could have a job like that?
"Windscreen Could Save Glaciers?" Covers over the ski slopes? There's a lot of crazy stuff going on that most of us have never heard about. I'll be waiting to hear the results of this colossal experiment. That's if a giant gust of mountain wind doesn't knock over the screen first.
|
By Janet Evans
Monday, Aug 11 2008, 08:29 PM
I'm really scared...aren't you?
Prepare for extinction....the end of the world as we know it.
It's global warming...again.
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.
The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level risesof 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.
Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned that "if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase". This is a remarkable understatement. The climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane – a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years – captured under melting permafrost is already under way."
Continued HERE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't know...
It's mid-August, and I just got back from Boulder, Colorado.
They had a heat wave of upper 90 degree weather for the last week of July and first week of August. This past week it was in the 80's with the nights in the upper 50's.
Two days ago this picture was taken of me on Mt. Evans next to a lake, standing in snow. Yes, I said snow, in the United States, in mid-August....
Global warming?
Right.
August on Mt. Evans (Colorado) in the snow. Must be that La Niña ...
|
By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Aug 5 2008, 06:40 AM
 Smog returned to Beijing's skies on Monday, despite claims by Chinese officials that drastic
anti-pollution measures had slashed the chances of Olympic events having to be rescheduled.
Well, it looks like it depends what day it is as to whether you need to wear a mask in China to protect yourself from air pollution just to walk the streets. Let's face it...it's just plain ugly. And you hate to think of athletes practicing and then competing in this pollution.
The aerial photo taken on August 2, 2008 shows the Peking University Gymnasium,
in Beijing, China. The table tennis competition of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will
be held there. (Xinhua Photo)
While it looks very bad on August 4th, here is a slideshow of most of the buildings on August 2nd...
Slideshow of Beijiing Olympic Venues
| |
