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Get Recession Ready: 11 Lifestyle Choices as a Hedge Against Inflation : TreeHugge...
What with skyrocketing fuel and food costs, the only thing that is keeping inflation from going into orbit is the declining cost of housing and used SUVs. Over at the Simple Dollar, they have eleven suggestions for beating inflation and as so often is the case, they are all green, reducing your carbon footprint as well as saving money. What with skyrocketing fuel and food costs, the only thing that is keeping inflation from going into orbit is the declining cost of ho... more
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2008 1,300 Mile Kayaking Odyssey: Young Wisconsin couple circumnavigating Lake Sup...
(Marquette, Michigan) - It’s a 1,300 mile, two month odyssey - kayaking around the always beautiful and sometimes treacherous Lake Superior
Ashland, Wisconsin residents Alissa Weitz and Brian Castillo are promoting the protection of Lake Superior - the world’s largest freshwater lake.
The twenty somethings departed Bayfield, Wisconsin on July 1 and hope to complete their journey by September.
The kayaking duo left Marquette, Michigan on Tuesday afternoon, July 22, 2008 to continue their journey.
They arrived in Marquette for Lake Superior Day 2008 - this year that was July 20 2008.
Lake Superior Day is sponsored by the Lake Superior Bi-national Forum and is held annually on the third Sunday of July.
Alissa and Brian spent Lake Superior Day hiking with friends and swimming including jumping off the tall cliffs at the city's "black rocks."
A big part of their quest is educating the public about protecting Lake Superior and why the largest of the Great Lakes is so important..
The trek takes them through the Canada and the United States including Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Averaging 25 miles a day - with their longest day was about 40 miles.
They encountered water temperatures as low as 38 degrees, fog outside of Marquette, rough waves outside of Houghton, Michigan that prevent them from rounding the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula - and instead cut through the Keweenaw Waterway.
Thanks to Down Wind Sports in Marquette, Brian picked up a new kayak because of problems with the one used during the first part of their trek.
Weitz is a native of Dubuque, Iowa and Castillo is a native of Madison, Wisconsin.
Alissa is 26 years old and Brian is 23 years old.
Graduates of the Northland College outdoor education program in Ashland, Wisconsin, the couple were competitors working for different kayak guiding companies when they met two years ago and fell in love.
The Kayaker's (Alissa Weitz, Brian Castillo) "Session on Superior" blog about trip around the lake:
http://www.sessiononsuperior.blogspot.com
This video was made in cooperation with the Cedar Tree Institute, the Earth Keeper Initiative, the Earth Healing Initiative and the Turtle Island Project – all northern Michigan-based non-profits seeking to protect Lake Superior.
And special thanks to the Lake Superior Binational Forum for helping make this video possible..
Greg Peterson for Earth Keeper, Earth Healing and Turtle Island TV
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News coverage of Alissa, Brian:
Marquette paper:
http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/513...
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Ashland paper:
Marquette Photo:
http://www.ashlandwi.com/articles/2008/07/24/news/doc48...
Story prior to trip:
http://www.ashlandwi.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/doc48...
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WX Channnel:
http://uservideo.weather.com:80/item/GY56YQ4K0TH0B3CS
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Lake Superior Binational Forum
Lissa Radke, LSFB US Coordinator
715-682-1489
http://www.superiorforum.info
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Northland College in Ashland, WI:
http://www.northland.edu/Northland
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Down Wind Sports:
http://www.downwindsports.com/index.html
Owners: Bill Thompson, Todd King, Jeff Stasser and Arni Ronis
Marquette: 906-226-7112
Houghton: 906-482-2500
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Sea Kayak Specialists:
http://www.seakayakspecialists.com
Sam Crowley, Nancy Uschold
906-250-4238
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EcoSuperior Enviro:
http://www.ecosuperior.com
Environment Canada:
http://www.ec.gc.ca
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Video made in cooperation with:
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Turtle Island Project official website:
http://www.turtleislandproject.org
Earth Healing Initiative official website:
http://www.EarthHealingInitiative.org
Cedar Tree Institute: (Michigan Earth Keepers, Manoomin Project and the 2008 Zaagkii Wings & Seeds project)
http://www.cedartreeinstitute.org
Earth Keeper TV
http://www.youtube.com/yoopernewsman
Turtle Island TV (youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/MunisingWhiteHorse
Earth Healing TV
http://www.youtube.com/user/EarthHealingTV (Marquette, Michigan) - It’s a 1,300 mile, two month odyssey - kayaking around the always beautiful and sometimes treacherous Lake Sup... more -
Mysterious Northern Lights Understood
People have long marveled at the majestic and mysterious northern lights that light up the skies over the polar regions of countries like Canada and in Scandinavia. Scientists have known for years that these undulating auroras are caused by a storm of charged particles high above Earth. And although a sight to behold, the forces triggering these lights can endanger satellites and air travelers near the poles. But researchers were in the dark about just what forces acted on these so-called magnetic substorms to produce the shimmering lightshows that dazzle us—until now.
Scientists have debated for decades whether local electrical disruptions in Earth's magnetic field or far-flung happenings in the so-called magnetotail (the tapering region of the magnetic field that points away from the sun) lead to the flare-ups of these substorms and their associated auroras.
Researchers say they were able to pinpoint the source by using measurements of magnetic fields recorded by five satellites that were sent into space as part of NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) project, which is designed to track "space weather" events called substorms as they unfold. The answer: these substorms form when Earth's magnetic field lines collapse on each other, showering the upper atmosphere with captured radiation from the sun where it sparks the auroras primarily over Earth's polar regions known as the northern and southern lights (aka the aurora borealis and aurora australis, respectively).
"Charged particles from the sun blow up Earth's magnetic tail like a balloon, and then for some reason the balloon leaks," says study co-author Stephen Mende, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley.
You can read more by clicking the link- it's a multi page story or by visiting the links below
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2...
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2...
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2...
Please join the conversation by commenting below. People have long marveled at the majestic and mysterious northern lights that light up the skies over the polar regions of countries l... more -
Cavers chart unique 'snowy' river of crystals
Hundreds of feet beneath Earth's surface, a few seasoned cave explorers venture where no human has set foot. Their headlamps illuminate mud-covered walls, gypsum crystals and mineral deposits. The real attraction, though, is under their shoes.
A massive formation that resembles a white river spans the cave's floor. A closer examination reveals that the odd formation is an intricate crust of tiny calcite crystals. The explorers have reached Snowy River — thought to be the longest continuous cave formation in the world.
"I think Snowy River is one of the primo places underground in the world and there's still so much left that we haven't discovered. ... We don't even know how big it is," said Jim Goodbar, a cave specialist with the federal Bureau of Land Management.
The survey expedition by members of the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project in early July added several thousand feet to the measurement of the spectacular formation, which is at least four miles long. The explorers who have been following the passage under the rolling hills of southeastern New Mexico say there's still more of Snowy River to be discovered.
The few who have walked on the formation say they've seen nothing else like it. Early studies point to its uniqueness: Already, some three dozen species of microbes previously unknown to science have been uncovered.
New Mexico's two U.S. senators are pushing for Congress to designate Fort Stanton Cave and Snowy River as a national conservation area. The designation would protect the area from such activities as mining that threaten the water flows that created the cave. It also might generate funding for scientific research.
"It's certainly a national treasure and very well worth protecting in its own right, even without Snowy River. With Snowy River, it puts it in the class of world-class caves," said John McLean, a retired hydrologist and member of the cave study group.
"It's a beautiful anomaly," added Penny Boston, a New Mexico Tech professor and associate director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute
Boston says extreme environments such as Snowy River provide scientists an opportunity to explore life on the fringes.
"The idea is that we're practicing to go to Mars, we're practicing to go to Europa (a moon of Jupiter) and all of these other places," she said. "It's very difficult to even prove some of the things we've studied here on this planet are alive. Imagine how much harder that is when you translate that to a robotic mission millions of miles from Earth."
Boston has collected microorganisms that she believes are responsible for the manganese crust that covers much of the walls in the Snowy River passage. Once thought to be ancient and inactive, the microbes are busy in her lab, breaking down materials and producing mineral compounds.
Boston and other scientists plan to take core samples of Snowy River to look for microbes that have been entombed in the calcite layer and for fossil evidence of past microscopic life. Some scientists are looking to the cave to learn more about the region's geology and how water makes its way through the arid environment.
Last summer, explorers were surprised to arrive at Snowy River and find it flowing with water. It had been dry when first discovered in 2001 and during trips in 2003 and 2005. Hundreds of feet beneath Earth's surface, a few seasoned cave explorers venture where no human has set foot. Their headlamps illuminat... more -
Obama's record on coal support
In May 1998, at the urging of the state's coal industry, the Illinois Legislature passed a bill condemning the Kyoto global warming treaty and forbidding state efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.
Barack Obama voted "aye."
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee now calls climate change "one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation," and proposes cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2050. But as a state senator, from 1997 to 2004, he usually supported bills sought by coal interests, according to legislative records and interviews.
Obama is not the only politician whose public stance has shifted on global warming, which a scientific consensus says has been caused chiefly by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who now backs limits on carbon emissions, was among 95 U.S. senators who voted in 1997 to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, an emissions reduction scheme that had been negotiated by then-vice president Al Gore.
Still, Obama, who touts his independence from special interests, made a point of embracing the coal industry as part of his quest for statewide office. When he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was flanked by mine workers to proclaim that "there's always going to be a role for coal" in Illinois.
snip
Obama's other votes on coal in the state Senate included:
• In 1997, he voted to divert sales taxes to a fund for grants to help reopening closed coal mines and "incentives to attract new businesses that use coal."
• In 2001, Obama voted for legislation that offered $3.5 billion in loan guarantees to build coal-fired power plants with no ability to control carbon emissions.
• In 2003, he voted to allow $300 million in taxpayer-backed bonds to build or expand coal-fired power plants.
"You know, I am a strong supporter, I think, of downstate coal interests and our need to prop up and improve the outputs downstate," Obama said on the Senate floor before voting on the 2001 bill.
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I expect to see this from a Republican. I expected better from a Democrat. In May 1998, at the urging of the state's coal industry, the Illinois Legislature passed a bill condemning the Kyoto global warming tr... more -
Dubai Goes Green
Starting at the beginning of this year, Dubai instated green building standards and concepts without exception, following in the footsteps of Abu Dhabi which began looking at such initiatives in 2006...
Abu Dhabi sees it’s first carbon-neutral car-free zero waste city called Masdar by architecture great Norman Foster and his firm, Foster + Partners. It is simply an amazing feat for anywhere in the world, and even more so for the highest hydrocarbon-producing nation on Earth! And with the assistance of MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, the UAE once again brings the world together for a great cause, claiming stake as a nation with international eyes with MIT’s help in establishing Masdar Institute, a technology driven cutting-edge research and education engine…go green!
Dubai sees a few things going on as well…first, DubioTech was claimed to possibly be the world’s largest green building/headquarters - Dubai is never to reach low…we all know they love biggest, longest and tallest. Whether or not it in fact is the largest, what we do know is that it helps in putting Dubai on the eco-friendly map with refreshing design concepts in conjunction with addressing strict environmental concerns.
Dubai’s Lighthouse is set to be a prototype for the region as a low-carbon high-rise. By hoping to lower energy consumption by 65% and water consumption by 40%, and employing integrated wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, The Lighthouse will hopefully be the first of many towers of it’s kind…
On a grander note, and more in line with Masdar in Abu Dhabi, HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai announced the newest endeavor, S heikh Mohamed bin Rashid Gardens - set to be the regions lowest density city (within the city) and with a goal to cut water consumption by up to 45%, amongst many other green initiatives.
Starting at the beginning of this year, Dubai instated green building standards and concepts without exception, following in the foots... more -
hunk of space junk
The Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) is a 1400-lb., double-wide refrigerator-sized hunk o junk that was thrown overboard from the International Space Station on July 23, 2007. At the time, the castaway was in a high orbit and barely visible from Earth's surface.
Not anymore: Twelve months later, with its orbit decaying, the EAS has become easy to see. The EAS is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate near the end of 2008 or early 2009.
Until then you can see it, growing brighter as it descends, with your own eyes.
Check out Space Weather's Simple Satellite Tracker:
http://www.spaceweather.com/flybys/index.php?PHPSESSID=...
VIDEO BONUS: On July 15, 2008, Kevin Fetter used a low-light video camera to photograph the EAS orbiting over his home in Brockville, Ontario:
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2008/22jul08/31928.wmv... The Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) is a 1400-lb., double-wide refrigerator-sized hunk o junk that was thrown overboard from the Internat... more -
Monsanto's Sordid History
Monsanto, best known today for its agricultural biotechnology products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and others with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind. From PCBs to Agent Orange to Roundup, we have many reasons to question the motives of this company that claims to be working to reduce environmental destruction and feed the world with its genetically engineered food crops.
Headquartered near St. Louis, Missouri, the Monsanto Chemical Company was founded in 1901. Monsanto became a leading manufacturer of sulfuric acid and other industrial chemicals in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Monsanto began producing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs, widely used as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, cutting oils, waterproof coatings and liquid sealants, are potent carcinogens and have been implicated in reproductive, developmental and immune system disorders.
The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state. By 1982, nearby Times Beach, Missouri, was found to be so thoroughly contaminated with dioxin, a by-product of PCB manufacturing, that the government ordered it evacuated. Dioxins are endocrine and immune system disruptors, cause congenital birth defects, reproductive and developmental problems, and increase the incidence of cancer, heart disease and diabetes in laboratory animals.
By the 1940s, Monsanto had begun focusing on plastics and synthetic fabrics like polystyrene (still widely used in food packaging and other consumer products), which is ranked fifth in the EPA’s 1980s listing of chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste.
During World War II, Monsanto played a significant role in the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb.
Following the war, Monsanto championed the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture, and began manufacturing the herbicide 2,4,5-T, which contains dioxin. Monsanto has been accused of covering up or failing to report dioxin contamination in a wide range of its products.
The herbicide “Agent Orange,” used by U.S. military forces as a defoliant during the Vietnam War, was a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D and had very high concentrations of dioxin. U.S. Vietnam War veterans have suffered from a host of debilitating symptoms attributable to Agent Orange exposure, and since the end of the war an estimated 500,000 Vietnamese children have been born with deformities.
In the 1970s, Monsanto began manufacturing the herbicide Roundup, which has been marketed as a safe, general-purpose herbicide for widespread commercial and consumer use, even though its key ingredient, glyphosate, is a highly toxic poison for animals and humans. In 1997, The New York State Attorney General took Monsanto to court and Monsanto was subsequently forced to stop claiming that Roundup is “biodegradable” and “environmentally friendly.”
Monsanto has been repeatedly fined and ruled against for, among many things, mislabeling containers of Roundup, failing to report health data to EPA, and chemical spills and improper chemical deposition. In 1995, Monsanto ranked fifth among U.S. corporations in EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, having discharged 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land, water and underground.
Since the inception of Plan Colombia in 2000, the US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in funding aerial sprayings of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides in Colombia. The Roundup is often applied in concentrations 26 times higher than what is recommended for agricultural use. Additionally, it contains at least one surfactant, Cosmo-Flux 411f, whose ingredients are a trade secret, has never been approved for use in the US, and which quadruples the biological action of the herbicide.
cont... Monsanto, best known today for its agricultural biotechnology products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and oth... more -
CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE
CLIMATE CHANGE.
We need to do something about this.
I'm glad that it is cool to be green,I feel we need to stay green as long as possible. Mother Nature is not to be played with!!!!
If we all do our part, we can help preserve this world for future generations.
CLIMATE CHANGE. We need to do something about this. ... more -
Facing The Freshwater Crisis
From Scientific American:
Key points:
Global freshwater resources are threatened by rising demands from many quarters.
Growing populations need ever more water for drinking, hygiene, sanitation, food production and industry.
Climate change, meanwhile, is expected to contribute to droughts.
Policymakers need to figure out how to supply water without degrading the natural ecosystems that provide it.
Existing low-tech approaches can help prevent scarcity, as can ways to boost supplies, such as improved methods to desalinate water.
But governments at all levels need to start setting policies and making investments in infrastructure for water conservation now.
A friend of mine lives in a middle-class neighborhood of New Delhi, one of the richest cities in India. Although the area gets a fair amount of rain every year, he wakes in the morning to the blare of a megaphone announcing that freshwater will be available only for the next hour. He rushes to fill the bathtub and other receptacles to last the day. New Delhi’s endemic shortfalls occur largely because water managers decided some years back to divert large amounts from upstream rivers and reservoirs to irrigate crops.
My son, who lives in arid Phoenix, arises to the low, schussing sounds of sprinklers watering verdant suburban lawns and golf courses. Although Phoenix sits amid the Sonoran Desert, he enjoys a virtually unlimited water supply. Politicians there have allowed irrigation water to be shifted away from farming operations to cities and suburbs, while permitting recycled wastewater to be employed for landscaping and other nonpotable applications.
As in New Delhi and Phoenix, policymakers worldwide wield great power over how water resources are managed. Wise use of such power will become increasingly important as the years go by because the world’s demand for freshwater is currently overtaking its ready supply in many places, and this situation shows no sign of abating. That the problem is well-known makes it no less disturbing: today one out of six people, more than a billion, suffer inadequate access to safe freshwater. By 2025, according to data released by the United Nations, the freshwater resources of more than half the countries across the globe will undergo either stress—for example, when people increasingly demand more water than is available or safe for use—or outright shortages. By midcentury as much as three quarters of the earth’s population could face scarcities of freshwater.
Scientists expect water scarcity to become more common in large part because the world’s population is rising and many people are getting richer (thus expanding demand) and because global climate change is exacerbating aridity and reducing supply in many regions. What is more, many water sources are threatened by faulty waste disposal, releases of industrial pollutants, fertilizer runoff and coastal influxes of saltwater into aquifers as groundwater is depleted. Because lack of access to water can lead to starvation, disease, political instability and even armed conflict, failure to take action can have broad and grave consequences.
end of excerpt.
My comments at the link. From Scientific American: Key points: Global freshwater resources are threatened by rising demands from many quarters. ... more -
Wintertime disintegration of Wilkins ice shelf
On the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins Ice Shelf (roughly 70 degrees south and 75 degrees west) historically extended toward Charcot Island in the northwest and Latady Island in the southwest. By July 2008, the ice shelf’s connection to Charcot Island, which had helped to hold the shelf in place, was nearly gone.
The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite observed the ice shelf between May 30 and July 17, 2008. These ASAR images show the eastern part of the ice shelf on July 17 (top), June 28 (middle), and May 30 (bottom). Not pictured, Charcot Island is in the northwest (upper left).
The image acquired on May 30, 2008, captured the ice shelf at the beginning of a disintegration event. In this image, large slices of the ice shelf appear in the lower left corner. These long, thin blocks have broken off the shelf and are moving away toward the southwest. To the northeast, in the middle of the image, is what glaciologists describe as mélange—a stuck-together mass of ice blocks, snow, and sea ice. This portion of the shelf actually disintegrated in 1998, but the ice remained frozen in place for a decade. Farther to the east, the ice is in larger blocks. To the north is a mixture of very thin sea ice, ice blocks from earlier rifting, and open water.
The image acquired on June 28, 2008, shows several changes. In the southwest, the large slices of ice visible on May 30 have moved away. The portion of the ice shelf connecting to Charcot Island has narrowed, assuming an almost hourglass shape. Immediately northeast of this skinny stretch of shelf, the darker parts of the ice mélange appear to be melting. Farther northeast, the large blocks of ice have begun to drift apart.
The image acquired on July 17, 2008, shows the continued breakup of the ice shelf. The ice mélange is even darker than it was in late June. Large, relatively intact plates of ice drift toward the northeast from the thin piece of shelf that still stretches toward the nearby island. The large blocks of ice in the northeast continue their northward drift, some separated by areas of open water.
These images focus on events in the eastern portion of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, The western portion of the shelf rapidly disintegrated between February 28 and March 6, 2008. That event had occurred during the Southern Hemisphere summer, when summertime warmth and sunshine can drive surface melt processes that lead to disintegration. In contrast, the events occurring from late May to early July 2008 occurred in the Southern Hemisphere winter.
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Look to the glaciers and the oceans for your signs of climate change. Will ten years even be enough time? On the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins Ice Shelf (roughly 70 degrees south and 75 degrees west) historically extended toward Charcot ... more -
Astronomical Comets: Voyagers From Outer Space
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a comet.
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Study shows air pollution doing serious harm to ecosystems
If you are living in the eastern United States, the environment around you is being harmed by air pollution. From Adirondack forests and Shenandoah streams to Appalachian wetlands and the Chesapeake Bay, a new report by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and The Nature Conservancy has found that air pollution is degrading every major ecosystem type in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States.
The report, Threats From Above: Air Pollution Impacts on Ecosystems and Biological Diversity in the Eastern United States, is the first to analyze the large-scale effects that four air pollutants are having across a broad range of habitat types (see inset). The majority of recent studies focus on one individual pollutant. Over 32 experts contributed to the effort; the prognosis is not good.
"Everywhere we looked, we found evidence of air pollution harming natural resources," comments Dr. Gary M. Lovett, an ecologist at the Cary Institute and the lead author of the report. "Decisive action is needed if we plan on preserving functioning ecosystems for future generations."
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This is the world our younger generation will inherit. They must begin to get serious about working to preserve it and to hold this generation accountable for leaving it sustainable. I have always been baffled at how we humans can know doing something is dangerous and toxic to the future and to the present regarding the quality of our air, water, and land, and yet we continue to do it. We cannot continue on this path. This is one of the most important challenges our younger generation will have to face, and I truly wish there was more of an urgency about it. Pollution is not a 'natural' occurence of nature, we are doing it, and only we can make it right. If you are living in the eastern United States, the environment around you is being harmed by air pollution. From Adirondack forests a... more -
Canto Della Terra/Song of the Earth
Andrea Bocelli uplifts my soul when I am feeling weary of this world and its despair. His voice makes me believe there is hope. This song particularly (along with Sogno) uplifts my spirit and is not only a song of love, but a song to celebrate our Earth. Perhaps a positive vibe will go a bit of the way to truly changing this world. I hope so, because to be honest I have been losing hope in people of late. I hope this song uplifts you as it does me.
And just as a sidenote: We need the mighty sun to save our planet and ourselves.
Translation of the song:
Yes I know
My love, that you and I
Are together briefly
For just a few moments
In silence
As we look out of our windows
And listen
To the sky
And to a world
That's awakening
And the night is already far away
Already, far away
Look at this world
Spinning with us
Even in the dark
Look at this world
Spinning for us
Giving us hope and some
Sun, sun sun
My love, you are you my love
I hear your voice,
And I listen to the sea.
It sounds just like your breathing
And all the love you want to give me
This love
That is there, hidden
Hidden among the waves
All the waves in the world
Just like a boat that....
Look at this world
Spinning with us
Even in the dark
Look at this world
Spinning for us
Giving us hope,
And some sun, sun, sun,
Some sun, sun, sun.
Look at this world
Spinning with us
Giving us some sun,
Mighty sun
Mighty sun
Mighty sun Andrea Bocelli uplifts my soul when I am feeling weary of this world and its despair. His voice makes me believe there is hope. This s... more -
Saharan dust storms sustain life in Atlantic Ocean
Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlantic Ocean Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlant... more
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Global wildlife declines 30% in 30 years
decline of 30 percent in the space of a single generation is unprecedented in human history
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2008 Keanu Reeves in The Day The Earth Stood Still
This movie trailer and website is really awesome.
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Floating cities on Venus
"Some of you may have heard me talk about colonizing Venus. Well, for those who haven't, Universe Today is running story about floating cities on Venus. It's a reasonable alternative for space colonies — after all, the atmosphere of Venus (at about 50 km) is the most Earth-like environment in the solar system (other than Earth, of course). '50 km above the surface, Venus has air pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0C-50C range, a quite comfortable environment for humans. Humans wouldn't require pressurized suits when outside, but it wouldn't quite be a shirtsleeves environment. We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.'"
This link was a sum up, the link to the actual article is on this site. Pretty neato. "Some of you may have heard me talk about colonizing Venus. Well, for those who haven't, Universe Today is running story about floatin... more -
Volcanic eruptions wiped out ocean life 93 million years ago
University of Alberta scientists contend they have the answer to mass extinction of animals and plants 93 million years ago. The answer, research has uncovered, has been found at the bottom of the sea floor where lava fountains erupted, altering the chemistry of the sea and possibly of the atmosphere.
Undersea volcanic activity triggered a mass extinction of marine life and buried a thick mat of organic matter on the sea floor about 93 million years ago, which became a major source of oil, according to a new study.
"It certainly caused an extinction of several species in the marine environment," said University of Alberta Earth and Atmospheric Science researcher Steven Turgeon. "It wasn't as big as what killed off the dinosaurs, but it was what we call an extreme event in the Earth's history, something that doesn't happen very often."
U of A scientists Turgeon and Robert Creaser say the lava fountains that erupted altered the chemistry of the sea and possibly of the atmosphere.
"Of the big five mass extinctions in the Earth's history, most of them were some kind of impact with the planet's surface," said Turgeon. "This one is completely Earth-bound, it's strictly a natural phenomenon."
Turgeon and Creaser found specific isotope levels of the element osmium, an indicator of volcanism in seawater, in black shale-rocks containing high amounts of organic matter-drilled off the coast of South America and in the mountains of central Italy. University of Alberta scientists contend they have the answer to mass extinction of animals and plants 93 million years ago. The answ... more -
Postcards: The View is Here and I Wish You Were Beautiful
Lovely impressions and interesting facts, courtesy of Mother Earth.
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