Tag: climate change

We live on a wonderfully complex planet.

Global Plankton Blooms



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

The World contains the systems and feedback cycles to bring things back into balance — given enough time. (like millenniums)

The great plankton blooms of the Oceans is one such cycle, that can potentially capture more carbon than all the forests of the world; while at the same time providing the basis of the food chain, in the world’s greatest food basket.  Plankton, not eaten, are destined to become sediment rock, at the bottom of the sea (taking all that harmful CO2 with them).

Problem is, plankton blooms, have been fading, by as much as 30% due to rising Ocean temperatures. IPCC estimates that “80% of the heat that is being trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean.”

Humans have the know-how to “kick start” those Plankton Blooms back to their previous splendor —

Question is:  Do we dare to use the Earth as a giant Test Tube?

Everywhere we look, it seems, the evidence is there.

Whether the “Birthers” or 10-year olds carrying signs equating Obama with Hitler or anti-choice murderers or “intelligent design” propagandists, an epidemic is breaking out across the United States. An epidemic whose manifestation, now, are screaming masses threatening the very underpinnings of American democracy.  As per blue aardvark,

In a democracy, power comes from the ability to persuade. You win because people like your ideas.

The Republicans are admitting they can’t win a fair fight. They are cowards.

While the attention is focused on the mobs storming Democratic politicians’ town halls and highlighted are the depraved (mal-informed) rages about health care, the reality is that anti-clean energy interests are sponsoring their own variations of outright deception and fostered screaming outrage. To a large extent, one thing shared among the “outraged” voices: a deep (and proud) embrace of know-nothingness.

But this outraged know-nothingness isn’t targeted solely at Democratic Party politicians seeking to communicate with their constituents, also targeted are Republican politicians who show any signs of seeking to link their policy concepts with reality.

 

America’s three “benchmark” glaciers are melting and over the past two decades they have been shrinking at an accelerated rate because of global warming.

The glaciers in Alaska and Washington have undergone a “rapid and sustained” loss of mass since 1989. Scientists at the U.S. Geologic Survey think this “decline could be the result of recent climate changes” overcoming seasonal fluctuations that impact the glaciers’ size.

These findings, “Fifty-Year Record of Glacier Change Reveals Shifting Climate in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, USA“, were released in a report by the USGS on Thursday.

The southern-most glacier in the study, South Cascade Glacier in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, has lost almost half of its volume and a quarter of its mass since the USGS began collecting data in 1957.

This picture sequence shows the retreat of the South Cascade Glacier during the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st century. This glacier is melting at a rate that may cause it to disappear in 50 years.

UK Guardian – The Observer, Sunday 26 July 2009

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide:

Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world’s weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating

Satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 showing the retreating ice during the summer.

View image full size (opens new window)

Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, writes in an opinion piece at the Washington Post that “it is time we were bold again in space.”

Aldrin’s vision, “Time to Boldly Go Once More“, advocates creating an American colony on Mars in 20 years. He believes if the United States space program “avoided the pitfall of aiming solely for the moon, we could be on Mars by the 60th anniversary year of our Apollo 11 flight.”

Aldrin thinks NASA plans to re-explore the moon is a “dead end”. Instead, Aldrin says we should commit our nation to establishing “an American colony” on Mars.

I’ve been thinking about climate refugees for awhile, partly inspired by all those pictures of Dust Bowl refugees from the 1930s.  Floods and famines have forced people to leave their homes for greener pastures throughout recorded history, and presumably before that.  

But nowadays we’ve got a new kind of climate refugee:  Rising sea levels are driving people from their homes in many corners of the planet.  A case in point is the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea, a low lying coral atoll, home to 2500 people.  

Cross-posted from DK GreenRoots/Eco-Week at Daily Kos.

Simulposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    Given this contempt for hard science, I’m almost reluctant to mention the deniers’ dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill’s economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.

    Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?

    Yes, it is – and that’s why it’s unforgivable.

    Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole – but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.

nytimes.com

There is something tangibly rewarding when after have put your hands in warm soil, planting for your own table, to being able to harvest bounty from the soil.  

Along with millions, tens of millions of others, my own gardening experience is reflected in a larger plot and on a much bigger stage as First Lady Michelle Obama pursues organic gardening on the White House lawn with the assistance of many, including students from a DC elementary school.

While there has been some 80 lbs harvested to date, some for White House meals but most for local food kitchens, yesterday The First Lady celebrated the end of the school year with Bancroft Elementary students with harvesting from the garden and eating an organic salad. And, they all literally had the fruits of their labors as “once kids finished their salads, they were rewarded with a cupcake topped with fresh garden berries”.

While it might be fun to get one’s hands dirty, rewarding to see the ‘fruits of one’s labor’ on the plate before you, and tasty to eat this fresh, pesticide-free food, this connects to larger issues.