Tag: global warming

They say the best way to protect something is to personalize it.  So please, meet the Great Lakes…

The environment of the Great Lakes region is blessed with huge forests and wilderness areas, rich agricultural land, hundreds of tributaries and thousands of smaller lakes, and extensive mineral deposits. The region’s glacial history and the tremendous influence of the lakes themselves create unique conditions that support a wealth of biological diversity, including more than 130 rare species and ecosystems.

The environment supports a world-class fishery and a variety of wildlife, such as white-tailed deer, beaver, muskrat, weasel, fox, black bear, bobcat, moose and other furbearing animals. Bird populations thrive on the various terrains, some migrating south in the winter, others making permanent homes. An estimated 180 species of fish are native to the Great Lakes, including small- and large-mouth bass, muskellunge, northern pike, lake herring, whitefish, walleye and lake trout. Rare species making their home in the Great Lakes region include the world’s last known population of the white catspaw pearly mussel, the copper redhorse fish and the Kirtland’s warbler.

The region’s sand dunes, coastal marshes, rocky shorelines, lakeplain prairies, savannas, forests, fens, wetlands and other landscapes contain features that are either unique or best represented withink the Great Lakes basin. For example, the world’s largest freshwater dunes line the shores of Lake Michigan.

Over the course of history, many types of pollution have inflicted and been reduced in the region, yet significant challenges remain. These range from threats to divert water out of the Great Lakes basin to the introduction of nonindigenous invasive species and airborne toxics into the basin. Protection of water quality and sustainable development remain long-term goals.  Link

Unless otherwise specified, all pictures are courtesy of: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/FSFC, and GeoEye

A critical Republican campaign strategy is working when it comes to framing for the November election. Despite actual facts, media reporting increasingly reports that there is no difference of import between John McSame McCain and Barack Obama when it comes to the arenas of energy and Global Warming. Take David Kesterbaum’s NPR report yesterday.

If you are trying to figure out whom to vote for in the upcoming presidential race, the issue of climate change may not be much help. This is one area where both leading candidates for president do not have a lot to disagree about.

Shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is about the most polite way to describe Kestenbaum’s report which focuses solely on selected sound-bytes rather than the substance of the two candidates’ positions.

There are fundamental differences between McSame’s and Obama’s positions and fundamental differences about the prospects for the future between President McSame and President Obama.  Differences that Kesterbaum reporting will leave you ignorant about.

`When _I_ use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master – – that’s all.’

(From Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass)

Yeah, this is a diary about abrupt climate change.  Crossposted at Big Orange.

Today it was revealed that EPA administrator Stephen Johnson told Bush last December that there is “compelling and robust” evidence that our recent temperature increases are caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions which endanger the American people.  Bush did not open the email with this dire warning contained in a 38-page document because the US Supreme Court ruled that if the EPA finds that greenhouse gases endanger the public, then the government must regulate them.

Undaunted by Bush’s cover-up, last week, the EPA issued a refreshingly honest, detailed 283-page report which details how global warming endangers Americans.

Two days ago, the EPA Inspector General issued another report that Bush’s voluntary programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industries is a flop.

How many warnings must Bush’s own EPA issue before Americans stop ranking global warming on the bottom of the list of important issues?

After having read so many articles on the environment and global warming and as spring was approaching, I kept asking myself, “what more can I do?”   That is, apart from the ordinary efforts, such as  recycling all household garbage, even washing out plastic bags used for vegetables and reusing them again,  going to the farmer’s market for many years, isn’t there something more I could or should be doing?

With the onset of spring, the first thing most of us think about is our lawns, you know, fertilizing, weed killer, etc.  I decided I was going to have a totally organic lawn, free of chemicals.  I never used much other than fertilizer or weed killer.  

For starters, I had heard about and read a little about the benefits of “corn gluten meal” as a weed killer.  I began reading about it on the web at various websites, learning about its properties, how it works and what it actually does.  It is a perfectly natural “pre-emergent” weed killer.  That is to say, that the use of it at the proper time of the year can get the roots of pre-emerging weeds, but cannot kill the already existent weeds.   Most of the organic websites wanted quite a bit of money for this “corn gluten meal.”

I went to a feed store not too far away.  Interesting store, which I had only visited maybe once before a very long time ago. I asked the owner, “Sir, do you have any corn gluten meal?  I am going to go organic with my lawn.”   “No, I don’t have any here, but I can order you some.”  “O.K., how much does it cost and how long will it take, it must be applied at the time the crocuses are blooming.”   He went to look it up, “It will cost you about $22.00 for 36 pounds (that is about $20.00 or more dollars cheaper than organic stores sell it for and it is exactly the same thing), and I can have it here by Monday.”  “O.K., please order it for me.  Now, what about fertilizer – do you have any organic fertilizer?”   “Yes, we have Milorganite – it’s totally organic.”  “What is it?”  “It’s waste, a waste treatment product – I’ve used it on my lawn and my neighbors want to know why my lawn is so green.”  “O.K., I’ll take a bag of it.”  Would you believe that a 40-pound bag costs less than $10.00?  

Of course, I came home and just had to look up Milorganite.   If you’re interested at all, here is more on the product

But, more importantly, it’s what the chemical fertilizers are doing to our earth, our waters, our nature.  

cross posted from The Dream Antilles with a special h/t to Mishima for including it in Thursday’s DD Times

Salicornia

Salicornia, believe it or not, is a plant that can grow in inhospitable, desert soils and can be watered with, of all things, ocean salt water.  Never heard of this?  Neither have I.  I’ve sat on the beach and wondered what it would take to remove the salt from sea water to grow things in sand, but I never thought about reversing the process,  leaving the salt in the water and finding something that would grow in it.  In today’s LA Times I found an “ah hah” moment.

Please join me below.

Cross posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

We’ve reached the tipping point:

On the eve the annual G8 Summit where NASA’s Dr. James Hansen will announce that we’ve passed safe C02 levels (safe being maximum 350 ppm; we’re now at 385 ppm), Hansen has penned a comprehensive letter (PDF) to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, host of the G8 Summit, requesting his leadership in addressing his findings.



From Dr. Hansen’s letter (Reprinted with his permission on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST)

Dear Prime Minister [Yasuo Fukuda],

Your leadership, and continued leadership by Japan, is needed on the matter of climate change, a matter with ramifications for life on our planet, including all species. Prospects for today’s children, and especially the world’s poor, hinge upon success in stabilizing climate. ~snip~

Japan has been a strong supporter of actions to mitigate dangerous climate change, including the Kyoto Protocol. It is not Japan’s fault that international action has failed so far to slow emission of dangerous gases. But as the host for the upcoming G8 meeting, you can initiate discussion of an approach that could meet the challenge humanity faces.

The past approach, and extensions now under discussion, are fatally flawed and would doom our children and grandchildren to an increasingly impoverished life on a more desolate planet. Clear thinking and bold leadership of the international community are essential in the next 1-2 years to change the course of human history.

More below the fold…