Greening the Blue Planet

Panda or polar bear?

2012-01-24T16:06:00.000-05:00

Having to "evolve"?

What's the option?

Winston of Churchill ~ a book review

2012-01-18T08:54:00.000-05:00

Winston of Churchill: One Bear's Battle Against Global Warming ~ by Jean Davies Okimoto, 2007, children's picture book

Winston is worried because the ice of the Hudson Bay is melting sooner each year and he and his fellow polar bears have less time to hunt for food, but he comes up with an idea that will make the tourists who come to see the bears realize what is going on.

Winston wrote a book for the other polar bears. It includes this sentence: "People need to burn less gas, make less garbage, and plant more trees." Some polar bear asked, "But what can we do?" Winston's answer:

"We can't do anything ... We are bears. We don't drive cars or burn coal. We like it cold."

And then came the refrain, repeated often in the book:

"Yes, ice is nice," everyone agreed.

So they must convince people to change, and that's what they proceed to do. Winston has a plan for a polar bear protest. Everyone said yes, except for one bear who said, "No." It was Winston's wife. Notice the bear is named "Winston," and these polar bears live near the town of "Churchill" in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Kids who "read" picture books won't make any connection when they hear Winston and Churchill, but their parents will. The book even quotes Winston Churchill's war rhetoric with the words, "We shall defend our island..." One cub (smart kid) speaks up: "We don't live on an island. We live in Manitoba." Winston tells him it was "just a figure of speech." Uh-huh, Churchill's speech.

(click to enlarge)

Oh, yeah, Winston's wife, says she won't join the protest unless he quits smoking. Just like the man in England, he smokes a cigar. But his wife says,

"That thing in your mouth is an instrument of pollution." Then she adds, "No cigar or I'm not going."

The next morning, the bears marched across the tundra with signs saying, "Solar Power" and "Freeze Please" and "Save our Home." And Winston?

And the fierce, brave bear they were following ... was chewing a twig.

Find yourself a copy and read it to see what happens next, okay? This great story book rates 10 of 10 with me.

Hug a tree ~ or plant one

2010-04-22T00:29:00.001-04:00

I took part in the first Earth Day, back in April 1970. Wow, that's forty years ago! A few years ago I wrote about what happened that day, when I was a university student and went home to three young children.

Have you ever actually hugged a tree? I have had a favorite tree in every place I've ever lived, but hugging hasn't been part of my routine. One day, however, I ran out through a drizzly rain to get my mail and stood inside my garage reading a letter from a friend who had recently moved away. In her letter she asked me to hug the big tree in my yard that was her favorite tree -- and I ran through the drizzle and wrapped my arms around that tree. Her letter said she knew I would do it, and she was right. That would have been 1973, I believe.

On Earth Day in 2000 my seventh grandchild was born. I wrote about Cady's birthday party a few years later. That was a day I spent mostly at the zoo, before attending her party.

Earth Day has usually been a very good day for me, though I don't have anything special planned to celebrate. Maybe I'll hug a tree. How will you spend the day this year?

What if it's a hoax?

2010-02-19T13:55:00.000-05:00

This butterfly has adapted to changes

2009-12-03T17:29:00.001-05:00

"Some biologists point to how nature has handled the changing climate. The rare Adonis blue butterfly of Britain looked as if it was going to disappear because it couldn't fly far and global warming was making its habitat unbearable. To biologists' surprise, it evolved longer thoraxes and wings, allowing it to fly farther to cooler locales." -- from an AP article on global warming

What sparked your interest?

2009-10-15T08:28:00.002-04:00

How did you become interested in global warming, climate change, energy efficiency, alternative energy, renewable energy, and such?

When I was in elementary school, I learned about deforestation. I got the idea that we were losing all the trees in the world, and I love trees! So I decided then and there that I would have a tree of my very own. I'd put a fence around it so nobody could ever cut down "the last tree in the world."

Obviously, I had not yet learned that, without lots of trees, I wouldn't be there to save the last tree. Without trees, the world would be filled with carbon dioxide, lacking the oxygen I would need to breathe, to live. So now that I'm an adult, I want to save not one, but a world-full of trees. (Is "world-full" a word?) We need trees! While we breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, trees take in carbon dioxide and "exhale" oxygen. Pretty good system, huh? Your turn. What sparked your interest?

By the way, this post is part of Blog Action Day. There are more than 8,523 blogs in 148 countries taking part in this today, each posting something about climate change.

Blue-footed boobies

2009-10-15T01:00:00.000-04:00

"Scientists say abrupt and frequent changes in sea temperatures and the death of coral reefs near the islands show that global warming is taking its toll on local sea life."

I was looking for a hook, something to hang today's story on, when I found this article about how global warming is affecting the Galapagos. The first sentence gave me an image that appeals to me:

"Climate change could endanger the unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islands, and scientists are trying to figure out how to protect vulnerable species such as blue-footed boobies and Galapagos Penguins."

Penguins are cute, but I know nothing about blue-footed boobies. So I searched for a photo and found these at Wikipedia. (Click to enlarge photos.) I am fascinated by the blue feet. The blueness of their beaks doesn't show up as well in the picture above, but it's my favorite, maybe because of the ocean in the background. Wikipedia says the feet of these boobies range from a pale turquoise to a deep aquamarine, and the males and younger birds have lighter feet than females do.

What big beautiful wings you have, sir! This fellow is displaying, or in other words, I'd say he's showing off. Actually, he's probably dancing.

"When mating, the female parades and the male points his head and tail high to the sky and his wings are back to show off to the female. The male blue-footed booby also makes a high-piping whistle noise. Males do a dance to attract the females. The dance includes the males lifting their blue feet high and throwing their heads up."

So what's happening in the Galapagos?

Home for these boobies is a volcanic archipelago, about 600 miles west of the Ecuadorean coast. Islands are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and these islands have coral reefs. "The coral reefs create a habitat; they are like a forest, like the Amazon. They are home to scores of species. ... If the corals die we lose thousands of species that are associated to the coral," said German marine biologist Judith Denkinger, who is based in the Galapagos.

Everything is inter-related. Whatever affects one part of the eco-system affects all the other parts as well. I would hate for us to lose the blue-footed boobies. Or the Galapagos Penguins. Or any other species. Ultimately, that could mean us, the five-toed language-speaking species. We aren't above what happens to our world. We're part of it, and demise of a coral reef or two could affect us more than we now realize.

By the way, this post is part of Blog Action Day. There are more than 7,777 blogs in 140 countries taking part in this today, each posting something about climate change.

One more thing

On October 24th ordinary folks like you and me will come together in a series of events designed to bring awareness to an important number -- 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That's the maximum safe level for carbon in the atmosphere, at least if we want to keep living on this planet. Here are three of those events:

On the melting slopes of Mt. Everest, Pemba Dorje Sherpa, who holds the record for the fastest ascent of the world's highest peak, will be spreading banners and signs.

On the dying coral reefs of the Maldives, the government's entire cabinet will don scuba gear and hold an official underwater meeting to pass a 350 resolution to send to the Copenhagen summit.

On the shores of the fast-drying Dead Sea, Israeli activists will form a giant human "3" on their beach, Palestinians a "5" on theirs, and Jordanians a "0" - reminding us we need to unite on this vital issue.

Visit http://350.org to find an event near you.

Large Hadron Collider ~ stopped by the future?

2009-10-14T15:20:00.004-04:00

The folks at CERN are about to try again, a year later. But this time there's a notion floating around "that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

Say what? Check out this NYT article. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson [Holger Bech Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen] said of the theory, "Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God." It is their guess, he went on, "that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them."

Climate change

2009-09-23T16:59:00.000-04:00

Register now at http://www.blogactionday.org.

Then post something about CLIMATE CHANGE on October 15.
One issue, one day, thousands of voices.
Let's do it!

I'm moving

2008-12-16T17:48:00.000-05:00

No, not the blog. My cat and I are moving into a gated community for seniors, and it may take me some time to get settled in. Tomorrow I'll sign the lease and start moving boxes over there each time I go. I really am looking forward to this, so be glad for me, but moving (as most of you probably know) takes time and effort. Kiki, my cat, won't be happy to have to go in the car, but maybe she'll be happy when she realizes the other cat (Sammy is my roommate's cat) won't be living in the same apartment with us. They both grew up as only-cats and resent each other. Sammy and Donna will be moving into a different apartment next week. Here's Kiki among the boxes:

Do you know the difference between a proton and a crouton?

2008-09-08T11:50:00.008-04:00

On Wednesday, CERN will switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a massive underground laboratory that will smash protons together and analyse the sub-atomic debris that results. What's CERN, you ask? It's the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the photo above is where they'll be sending a beam flying in one direction on Wednesday the 10th, then a few days later they'll circulate a beam in the other direction, and about six weeks from now they'll send beams in both directions so they can collide. The first high-energy collisions are to take place on October 21st. Recently the physicists have been cooling down the circular tunnel (pictured above), which is 27 km in circumference and is located 100 metres underground near Geneva, Switzerland.

Believe it or not, the best way for many of us to begin to understand what they are doing is by watching a YouTube video called Large Hadron Rap, which has had 1,256,540 hits in the countdown to this week's startup of the world's greatest atom-smasher. Oh, by the way, some folks think what they're doing may create a black hole that could ... ummm ... suck us all into it. Into the black hole, that is. So how much do YOU know about matter and anti-matter?
__________

Read more:

Scientists start world's largest particle collider
CERN
The U.S. at the LHC
Large Hadron Rap, which has had 1,759,033 hits as of September 10, 2008
Oh, my, the Large Hadron Rap has had 3,979,609 hits as of December 3, 2008!
And on December 13, 2009, the Large Hadron Rap has had 5,492,617 views.
Now it's March 30,2010 and the Large Hadron Rap has been viewed 5,688,524 times.

Shinrin-yoku

2008-09-04T15:51:00.004-04:00

Read more about shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term that June called Forest Air Bathing. I wrote about it in my earlier post entitled Unusual role for trees.

Unusual role for trees

2008-08-12T17:42:00.008-04:00

Have you ever thought of a tree as a chemical factory? That's how Diana Beresford-Kroeger describes a tree. Today's New York Times has an article about this unusual scientist: Advocating an Unusual Role for Trees.

She has a bioplan for reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal, and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions. Black walnut and honey locusts could be planted along roads to absorb pollutants. A recent study by researchers at Columbia found that children in neighborhoods that are tree-lined have asthma rates a quarter less than in neighborhoods without trees. Through something called phytoremediation, trees remove mercury and other pollutants from the ground. And most of us know trees pull carbon dioxide out of the air and provide us with oxygen to breathe, making trees important in our attempt to stem global warming.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist, medical and agricultural researcher, lecturer, and self-defined "renegade scientist" in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry. One of her books is Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest.
_______
NOTE: June mentioned in a comment on this post that she had also posted something about this subject. You really should go read it: Friday Fact - Forest Air Bathing.

Can you hear the trees?

2008-08-08T17:28:00.000-04:00

Blue-green algae

2008-06-30T17:52:00.002-04:00

An outbreak of blue-green algae is seen on the coastline of Qingdao, the host city for sailing events at the 2008 Olympic Games, in eastern China's Shandong province Tuesday June 24, 2008. The Qingdao government has organized 400 boats and 3000 people to help remove the algae after Olympic organizers ordered a cleanup. Experts say the algae is a result of climate change and recent heavy rains in southern China. (AP Photo/EyePress)

Yes, we will have no bananas

2008-06-20T05:19:00.005-04:00

Who knew? This is news to me:

Yes, We Will Have No Bananas
a NYT article by Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.

Here's one paragraph:

That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They’re grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they’re cut off the tree. Apples, in contrast, are typically grown within a few hundred miles of the store and keep for months in a basket out in the garage. Yet apples traditionally have cost at least twice as much per pound as bananas.

And another paragraph:

Once bananas had become widely popular, the companies kept costs low by exercising iron-fisted control over the Latin American countries where the fruit was grown. Workers could not be allowed such basic rights as health care, decent wages or the right to congregate. (In 1929, Colombian troops shot down banana workers and their families who were gathered in a town square after church.) Governments could not be anything but utterly pliable. Over and over, banana companies, aided by the American military, intervened whenever there was a chance that any “banana republic” might end its cooperation. (In 1954, United Fruit helped arrange the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala.) Labor is still cheap in these countries, and growers still resort to heavy-handed tactics.

And a summary:

Perhaps it’s time we recognize bananas for what they are: an exotic fruit that, some day soon, may slip beyond our reach.

You really ought to go read the whole article.
__________

NOTE: The photo shows Cavendish bananas (from Wikipedia), "the only banana we see in our markets," according to this article. There used to be another variety that was tastier, until a fungus called Panama disease wiped it out. And ... it could happen again.

Dubya's denials have cost us

2008-06-04T04:25:00.003-04:00

The Science of Denial (a New York Times editorial published today), says:

The Bush administration has worked overtime to manipulate or conceal scientific evidence — and muzzled at least one prominent scientist — to justify its failure to address climate change.

Its motives were transparent: the less people understood about the causes and consequences of global warming, the less they were likely to demand action from their leaders. And its strategy has been far too successful. Seven years later, Congress is only beginning to confront the challenge of global warming.

The last week has brought further confirmation of the administration’s cynicism. An internal investigation by NASA’s inspector general concluded that political appointees in the agency’s public affairs office had tried to restrict reporters’ access to its leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen. He has warned about climate change for 20 years and has openly criticized the administration’s refusal to tackle the issue head-on.

More broadly, the investigation said that politics played a heavy role in the office and that it had presented information about global warming “in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate-change science made available to the general public.”

Meanwhile, the administration finally agreed, under duress, to release a Congressionally mandated report on the effects of climate change on various regions of the United States. Some of the report’s predictions, like the inevitable loss of coastal areas to rising seas, were not new. Others were, including warnings of a potential increase in various food- and water-borne viruses.

What was most noteworthy about the latter report was that it made it to the light of day. A 1990 law requires the president to give Congress every four years its best assessment of the likely effects of climate change. The last such assessment was undertaken by President Clinton and published in 2000. Mr. Bush not only missed the 2004 deadline but allowed the entire information-gathering process to wither. Only a court order handed down last August in response to a lawsuit by public interest groups forced him to deliver this month.

This administration long ago secured a special place in history for bending science to its political ends. One costly result is that this nation has lost seven years in a struggle in which time is not on anyone’s side.

Lightning displays above erupting volcano

2008-05-30T16:59:00.003-04:00

Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile on May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanoes are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. (Pictures taken May 2, 2008. Carlos Gutierrez/Reuters)

For safety, please insert head in sand

2008-05-18T13:05:00.004-04:00

June at Spatter writes about "ostriches" after discovering over 50% of the people surveyed about global warming are "not very concerned" (11.5%) or "not convinced it's true" (38.9%). Not convinced? Ask the dying polar bears, whose habitat is rapidly melting.

Oh, beautiful for smoggy skies

2008-04-30T02:28:00.003-04:00

Oh beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.
~~~ performed by George Carlin
around 1970, when environmental
issues were becoming
a hot political topic
(Many thanks to Susan for this quote, which I hadn't heard before. Click to enlarge poster.)

Eco-exits

2008-04-21T08:56:00.001-04:00

Green funerals make for eco-exits
A woman looks into a coffin made of willow at a 'green funeral' exhibition in London, Saturday April 19, 2008. It's no longer enough to live a greener life, now people are being encouraged to be environmentally friendly when they leave the Earth too. Cardboard coffins, shell-shaped urns and fireworks that can be packed with people's ashes were met by smiles at the Natural Death Center's Green Funeral Exhibition Saturday in London. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Wear BLUE

2008-04-18T17:31:00.006-04:00

Wear BLUE for Earth Day 2008
to Vote for NO COAL

Want to stop global warming? Wear BLUE for Earth Day 2008! Join millions of people around the world who will be wearing BLUE to signify their vote for NO COAL. Events will be happening April 19th through April 22nd, so...

If you’re attending the Earth Day event on the National Mall in Washington, DC on April 20th, wear BLUE.

If you’re attending another major Earth Day event, wear BLUE.

When you dress in the morning on Earth Day, wear BLUE.

No matter what you’re doing for Earth Day 2008, wear BLUE.

A BLUE shirt, top, sweater or jacket... whatever. Just wear BLUE.

Then, on April 22, make your voice heard. Pick up the phone: Call Congress at 202.224.3121 and ask for an immediate "Moratorium on Coal" -- a halt to the construction of any new conventional coal-fired power plants. Through this Call for Climate event, Earth Day hopes to generate over a million phone calls to Congress!

Your BLUE vote will count. Fifty-nine conventional coal plants were canceled in 2007. That’s over a third of the 151 planned. That happened before millions of people joined together to say No Coal.

BYO Blue for Earth Day 2008. Be the vote that tips the balance.
__________

Help us get the message out:
. . . send this message to everyone you know
. . . attend an Earth Day event wearing BLUE and
. . . on April 22nd, wear BLUE all day - to work, lunch and dinner
. . . make the call to Congress at 202.224.3121, asking for an immediate Moratorium on Coal

The Urbane Environmentalist

2008-04-11T12:12:00.004-04:00

You need to read Jim Hackler's stuff. He writes as The Urbane Environmentalist and has a sense of humor. He's passionate about green and has been a broadcast news journalist, a college instructor, a stand-up comic, and a featured conference speaker. He wants to be somewhere in the middle between boring and unnecessarily alarming. Go read some of what he's written and see for yourself.

Green Short Story

2008-04-07T04:28:00.000-04:00

We are invited to write a GREEN short story of up to 2,000 words in length for Delta-Sky Magazine. It may employ any tone, from funny to apocalyptic, but must deliberately have some aspect of green as a prevailing presence, or even its theme. By "green" they mean the concern for our environment that is motivating people worldwide to take action to reverse its degradation. To waste less, for example, and to care more.

Click here for the official rules. There's only a week left before it's due on April 15th.

Same urgent message

2008-04-04T22:17:00.003-04:00

Old magazine cover, same urgent message

Climate change

2008-03-21T19:29:00.001-04:00

Dear Bonnie,

Global warming is a problem of unprecedented magnitude and that's why we've launched the largest mobilization campaign ever. Actions by individuals like you will be the driving force behind this campaign and our ultimate victory. We're going to succeed, but I need your help today.

More than 825,000 people have already joined us, but if leaders in business and government are going to make stopping climate change a priority, we need you to urge your friends to get involved today.

We need to grow to 1,000,000 members by April so we can send a loud message that we want action now. Ask all your friends to add their voices.

Thank you,

Al Gore
____________________

My response

Climate change is an urgent issue that requires immediate solutions. That's why I've joined with Al Gore and others around the world who want to halt global warming. Let's be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

We need to send a loud message to leaders in business and government that they must make it a priority to stop climate change, now. That's why I'm asking you to get involved today:

http://wecansolveit.org/onemillion

Together, we CAN stop global warming.

Spring is coming sooner

2008-03-19T14:49:00.005-04:00

Global warming rushes timing of spring
by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer
March 19, 2008

The capital's famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom till around April 5.

In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn't be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

"The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year's authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

What's happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring "green-up" is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year begins at 1:48 a.m. EDT Thursday, is based on the tilt of the Earth as it circles the sun. The federal government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is "to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?"

There are winners, losers and lots of unknowns when global warming messes with natural timing. People may appreciate the smaller heating bills from shorter winters, the longer growing season and maybe even better tasting wines from some early grape harvests. But biologists also foresee big problems.

The changes could push some species to extinction. That's because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

The young of tree swallows — which in upstate New York are laying eggs nine days earlier than in the 1960s — often starve in those last gasp cold snaps because insects stop flying in the cold, ornithologists said. University of Maryland biology professor David Inouye noticed an unusually early February robin in his neighborhood this year and noted, "Sometimes the early bird is the one that's killed by the winter storm."

The checkerspot butterfly disappeared from Stanford's Jasper Ridge preserve because shifts in rainfall patterns changed the timing of plants on which it develops. When the plant dries out too early, the caterpillars die, said Notre Dame biology professor Jessica Hellmann.

"It's an early warning sign in that it's an additional onslaught that a lot of our threatened species can't handle," Hellmann said.

It's not easy on some people either. A controlled federal field study shows that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide cause earlier, longer and stronger allergy seasons.

"For wind-pollinated plants, it's probably the strongest signal we have yet of climate change," said University of Massachusetts professor of aerobiology Christine Rogers. "It's a huge health impact. Seventeen percent of the American population is allergic to pollen."

While some plants and animals use the amount of sunlight to figure out when it is spring, others base it on heat building in their tissues, much like a roasting turkey with a pop-up thermometer. Around the world, those internal thermometers are going to "pop" earlier than they once did.

This past winter's weather could send a mixed message. Globally, it was the coolest December through February since 2001 and a year of heavy snowfall. Despite that, it was still warmer than average for the 20th century.

Phenology data go back to the 14th century for harvest of wine grapes in France. There is a change in the timing of fall, but the change is biggest in spring. In the 1980s there was a sudden, big leap forward in spring blooming, scientists noticed. And spring keeps coming earlier at an accelerating rate.

Unlike sea ice in the Arctic, the way climate change is tinkering with the natural timing of day-to-day life is concrete and local. People can experience it with all five senses:

• You can see the trees and bushes blooming earlier. A photo of Lowell Cemetery, in Lowell, Mass., taken May 30, 1868, shows bare limbs. But the same scene photographed May 30, 2005, by Boston University biology professor Richard Primack shows them in full spring greenery.

• You can smell the lilacs and honeysuckle. In the West they are coming out two to four days earlier each decade over more than half a century, according to a 2001 study.

• You can hear it in the birds. Scientists in Gothic, Colo., have watched the first robin of spring arrive earlier each year in that mountain ghost town, marching forward from April 9 in 1981 to March 14 last year. This year, heavy snows may keep the birds away until April.

• You can feel it in your nose from increased allergies. Spring airborne pollen is being released about 20 hours earlier every year, according to a Swiss study that looked at common allergies since 1979.

• You can even taste it in the honey. Bees, which sample many plants, are producing their peak amount of honey weeks earlier. The nectar is coming from different plants now, which means noticeably different honey — at least in Highland, Md., where Wayne Esaias has been monitoring honey production since 1992. Instead of the rich, red, earthy tulip poplar honey that used to be prevalent, bees are producing lighter, fruitier black locust honey. Esaias, a NASA oceanographer as well as beekeeper, says global warming is a factor.

In Washington, seven of the last 20 Cherry Blossom Festivals have started after peak bloom. This year will be close, the National Park Service predicts. Last year, Knoxville's dogwood blooms came and went before the city's dogwood festival started. Boston's Arnold Arboretum permanently rescheduled Lilac Sunday to a May date eight days earlier than it once was.

Even western wildfires have a timing connection to global warming and are coming earlier. An early spring generally means the plants that fuel fires are drier, producing nastier fire seasons, said University of Arizona geology professor Steve Yool. It's such a good correlation that Weltzin, the phenology network director, is talking about using real-time lilac data to predict upcoming fire seasons. Lilacs, which are found in most parts of the country, offer some of the broadest climate overview data going back to the 1950s.

This year, though, it's the early red maple that's creating buzz, as well as sniffles. A New Jersey conservationist posted an urgent message on a biology listserv on Feb. 1 about the early blooming. A 2001 study found that since 1970, that tree is blossoming on average at least 19 days earlier in Washington, D.C.

Such changes have "implications for the animals that are dependent on this plant," Weltzin said, as he stood beneath a blooming red maple in late February. By the time the animals arrive, "the flowers may already be done for the year." The animals may have to find a new food source.

"It's all a part of life," Weltzin said. "Timing is everything."
__________

National Phenology Network:
http://www.usanpn.org/

IPCC report on phenological changes:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter1.pdf

National Park Service on cherry blossoms:
http://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/cherry-blossom-bloom.htm

University of California at Davis butterfly changes:
http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/education/stat2/data

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee lilac data:
http://www.uwm.edu/mds/gcb_2006.html

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

BYOB ~ eco totes

2008-02-28T21:04:00.012-05:00

Paper breaks down in 2-5 months in a landfill, but can you guess how long it takes for a plastic bag? One thousand years. Yes, that's 1,000 years! Those fly-away plastic bags scorned by environmentalists like me will survive long after our grandchildren's great-grandchildren have turned to dust.

Have you considered taking your own bags when you go shopping? It's all the rage now, and I have three green bags that I keep in the car just for shopping. Mine were inexpensive, but I really like the ones pictured here that cost $8 (left, above) or $7 each (right, above) I like the Milano style, with its single 2-inch strap at $7 (left).

A store that opened a couple of years ago near our bookstore charged twenty-five cents each for bags (I think it was). Other stores give back a nickel if you bring your own bag, according to this USA Today article. Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags annually, and that's reason enough to be concerned.

My green bags (like the one at the left) have inserts to keep the bags flat. I have never tried loading one as full as the one below because I don't know the weight limit. What I like about the ones above is their portability; they wouldn't take much space, unlike mine with the big flat inserts. Yeah, I want one of the mesh bags!

One other note: cashiers at my stores are used to filling bags brought by customers, so you won't raise any eyebrows when you show up with yours.
__________

BYOB = bring your own bags

The Wall ~ a book by Marlen Haushofer

2008-02-23T14:25:00.005-05:00

Juliet at Crafty Green Poet yesterday published a review of The Wall by Marlen Haushofer:

"It is a beautifully written book and makes the reader ask lots of questions about our ability to be self sufficient, our relationship with the environment and with animals and the meaning of life."

Here's the publisher's synopsis:

"First published to acclaim in Germany, The Wall chronicles the life of the last surviving human on earth, an ordinary middle-aged woman who awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished. Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal."

I remember a "Twilight Zone" episode on television about the last man on earth. He loved to read and had found the huge public library in New York City. So he was overjoyed. Then he went outside and stumbled (?? or something) ... anyway, he managed to step on (and break) his glasses! Oh, the irony!

Anyway, The Wall sounds like something I should read, so I continued looking for references ... and found a review from Bookends. According to Wikipedia, The Wall is her only novel translated into English. I want to read this book.

Wanna save energy costs?

2008-01-23T03:18:00.000-05:00

Giant newt and tiny frog

2008-01-22T05:22:00.000-05:00

A Gardiner's Seychelles frog rests on a thumb in this undated handout. A giant Chinese salamander that predates Tyrannosaurus rex and the world's smallest frog are among a group of extremely rare amphibians identified by scientists as being in need of urgent help to survive. (Naomi Dook/ZSL/Handout/Reuters)

Giant newt, tiny frog identified as most at risk
by Jeremy Lovell
Mon Jan 21, 5:37 PM ET

A giant Chinese salamander that predates Tyrannosaurus rex and the world's smallest frog are among a group of extremely rare amphibians identified by scientists on Monday as being in need of urgent help to survive.

The Olm, a blind salamander that can survive for 10 years without food, and a purple frog that spends most of its life four meters underground are also among the 10 most endangered amphibians drawn up by the Zoological Society of London.

"These species are the 'canaries in the coalmine' -- they are highly sensitive to factors such as climate change and pollution, which lead to extinction, and are a stark warning of things to come," said EDGE head Jonathan Baillie.

EDGE, which stands for Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered, is a project set up a year ago to identify and start to protect some of nature's most weird and wonderful creatures.

"The EDGE amphibians are amongst the most remarkable and unusual species on the planet and yet an alarming 85 percent of the top 100 are receiving little or no conservation attention," said the project's amphibians chief Helen Meredith.

While last year's launch focused on at risk mammals, this year the focus shifted to neglected amphibians.

"These animals may not be cute and cuddly, but hopefully their weird looks and bizarre behaviors will inspire people to support their conservation," Meredith added.

Not only are the target species unique, the project itself is breaking new ground by using the internet at www.zsl.org/edge to highlight threatened creatures and encourage the public to sponsor conservation.

Global warming and human depredation of habitat are cited as root causes of the problem facing the creatures from the massive to the minute.

The Chinese giant salamander, a distant relative of the newt, can grow up to 1.8 meters in length while the tiny Gardiner's Seychelles frog when full grown is only the size of a drawing pin.

Also on this year's list is the limbless Sagalla caecilian, South African ghost frogs, lungless Mexican salamanders, the Malagasy rainbow frog, Chile's Darwin frog and the Betic midwife toad whose male carries fertilized eggs on its hind legs.

"Tragically, amphibians tend to be the overlooked members of the animal kingdom, even though one in every three amphibian species is currently threatened with extinction, a far higher proportion than that of bird or mammal species," said EDGE's Baillie.

(Editing by Jon Boyle)
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.

Polar bear's shrinking habitat

2008-01-18T01:34:00.000-05:00

The Upwising Begins

2008-01-09T18:40:00.000-05:00

Global warming ~ US (re)action

2008-01-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

with many thanks to Tom Toles for this chart ... and the time frame mentioned at the bottom:
"What's the time frame on this chart?"
"1980's till the end of the world."

Four gas-buying tips

2007-12-06T18:12:00.000-05:00

EARLY MORNING
Buy in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. The colder the ground the denser the gasoline.

FILL SLOWLY
Do NOT squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. The trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less for your money.

WHEN IT'S HALF EMPTY
Fill up when your gas tank is half empty. The more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine.

AVOID GAS DELIVERY
If there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up -- most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

The God Who Can't Be Tamed

2007-11-16T14:52:00.000-05:00

The God Who Can't Be Tamed
Could we be losing more than the land when we destroy it?
by Philip Yancey

In what she later called "the most transporting pleasure of my life on the farm," Isak Dinesen went flying across the unspoiled plains of Africa with her friend Denys Finch-Hatton. In the film version of Out of Africa, the character playing Denys first invited her by saying, "I want to show you the world as God sees it." Indeed, the next few minutes of cinematography come close to presenting exactly that. As the frail Moth airplane soars beyond the escarpment that marks the beginning of the Rift Valley in Kenya, the ground falls abruptly away and the zoom lens captures a glimpse of Eden in the grasslands just below.

Great herds of zebras scatter at the sound of the motor, each group wheeling in unison, as if a single mind controlled the bits of modern art dashing across the plain. Huge giraffes — they seemed so gangly and awkward when standing still—gallop away with exquisite gracefulness. Bounding gazelles, outrunning the larger animals, fill in the edge of the scene.

The world as God sees it — does that phrase merely express some foamy romantic notion, or does it contain truth? The Bible gives intriguing hints. Proverbs tells of the act of Creation, when Wisdom "was the craftsman at his [God's] side … filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presences, rejoicing in his whole world." The seraphs in Isaiah's vision who declared "the whole earth is full of his glory" could hardly have been referring to human beings — not if the rest of the Book of Isaiah is to be believed. At least God had the glory of Nature then, during that very dark time when Israel faced extinction and Judah slid toward idolatry.

God makes plain how he feels about the animal kingdom in his longest single speech, a magnificent address found at the end of Job. Look closely and you will notice a common thread in the specimens he holds up for Job's edification:

A lioness hunting her prey
A mountain goat giving birth in the wilds
A rogue donkey roaming the salt flats
An ostrich flapping her useless wings with joy
A stallion leaping high to paw the air
A hawk, an eagle, and a raven building their nests on the rocky crags

That's a mere warm up — Zoology 101 in Job's education. From there God advances to the behemoth, a hippo-like creature no one can tame, and the mighty, dragonish leviathan. "Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls?" God asks with a touch of scorn. "The mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me?"

Wildness is God's underlying message to Job, the one trait his menagerie all hold in common. God is celebrating those members of his created world that will never be domesticated by human beings. Wild animals bring us down a notch, reminding us of something we'd prefer to forget: our creatureliness. And they also announce to our senses the splendor of an invisible, untamable God.

Several times a week, I run among such wild animals, unmolested, for I run through Lincoln Park Zoo near downtown Chicago. I have gotten to know them well, as charming neighbors, but I always try mentally to project the animals into their natural states.

Three rock-hopper penguins neurotically pace back and forth on a piece of concrete that has been sprayed to look like ice. I envision them free, hopping from ice floe to ice floe in Antarctica among thousands of their comic-faced cousins.

An ancient elephant stands against a wall, keeping time three ways: his body sways from side to side to one beat, his tail marks a different rhythm entirely, and his trunk moves up and down to yet a third. I struggle to imagine this sluggish giant inspiring terror in an African forest.

And the paunchy cheetah lounging on a rock shelf — could this animal belong to the species that can, on a short course, out accelerate a Porsche?

It requires a huge mental leap for me to place the penguin, the elephant, and the cheetah all back where they belong, in "the world as God sees it." Somehow, God's lesson on wildness evaporates among the moats and plastic educational placards of the zoo.

Yet, I am fortunate to live near the zoo. Otherwise, Chicago would offer up only squirrels, pigeons, cockroaches, rats, and a stray songbird. Is this what God meant when he granted Adam dominion?

It is hard to avoid a sermonic tone when writing about wild animals, for our sins against them are great indeed. The elephant population alone has decreased by 800,000 in the last two decades, mostly due to poachers and rambunctious soldiers with machine guns. And every year, we destroy an area of rain forest — and all its animal residents — equal in size to the state of California.

Most wildlife writing focuses on the vanishing animals themselves, but I find myself wondering about the ultimate impact on us. What else, besides that innate appreciation for wildness, have we lost? Could distaste for authority, even a resistance to the concept of God as Lord, derive in part from an atrophied sense? God's mere mention of the animals struck a chord of awe in Job; what about us, who grow up feeding peanuts across the moat to the behemoths and leviathans?

Naturalist John Muir, who never had a vision for "the world as God sees it," reluctantly concluded, "it is a great comfort … that vast multitude of creatures, great and small and infinite in number, lived and had a good time of God's love before man was created."

The heavens declare the glory of God, and so do breaching whales and bouncing springboks. Fortunately, in some corners of the world, vast multitudes of creatures can still live and have a time in God's love. The least we can do is make room for them — for our sakes as well as theirs.
__________

"The God Who Can't Be Tamed," by Philip Yancey, Christianity Today, October 1987

Give Our Leaders the Finger...

2007-10-16T17:13:00.000-04:00

...index fingers only, please!

What are you voting to protect?

Why are you committed to stopping global warming?

What do you really care about in this world?

Watch this video and consider doing this yourself:

What would you write on YOUR palm, below your green finger?

I think I'll write "OUR BLUE PLANET."

November 3rd, 2007
is the
National Day of Climate Action

Think GREEN today

2007-10-15T01:22:00.000-04:00

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. The idea is to get everyone talking towards a better future. Follow this link and take a look.

Today I plan to WEAR GREEN and offer this source of great TIPS that Neco (Anne) left in a comment on the post below this one:

Ideal Bite offers daily TIPS ON BEING GREEN.

Are You One in a Million?

2007-10-11T22:35:00.000-04:00

Diane of Big Green Purse has a challenge:
"One in a Million" Campaign is urging a million women to shift $1,000 of money they'd spend in a year anyway to green products and services that can help protect the environment. It's important because:

Manufacturing to meet consumer demand drives pollution and climate change.
Pollution and climate change affect our health and safety.
If we use our consumer clout to improve manufacturing, we protect ourselves and the planet, too.

Because women spend $.85 of every dollar in the marketplace, we have the clout to make a difference. Hybrid cars? Organic food? Safe cosmetics? Green shopping has already had an impact.

Women are finding all kinds of ways to swap out "brown" products for "green."

Erin, a Green Purse Alerts! subscriber, joined the One in a Million Campaign at the beginning of this year. She recently sent the balance sheet she downloaded from the Big Green Purse website to help her track her eco purchases and report back on her pledge. It only took her six months to become "One in a Million." Her secret? She bought two water saving toilets for a total of almost $600, then made up the difference in organic groceries, safe cleansers, and organic potting soil.

For ideas on how you can swap your current purchases for green ones that would make a difference, visit the One in a Million campaign web page.

Some of the most important options (and ones that should be readily available in your neighborhood as well as on-line) include:

____ Organic, locally grown food (reduce pesticides)

____ Energy-efficient appliances (stop global warming)

____ Phthalate-free cosmetics (protect your health)

____ Fuel-efficient car (save energy, clear the air)

____ Fair trade, shade grown coffee (protect rainforests)

____ Non-toxic cleansers (protect your health, reduce toxins)

Northwest passage

2007-09-16T02:33:00.000-04:00

An iceberg melts off Ammassalik Island in Eastern Greenland in this July 19, 2007 file photo. Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane. The European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos taken together in Sept. 2007 showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, and ice retreating to its lowest level since such images were first taken in 1978. (AP Photo/John McConnico)

Arctic ice melt opens Northwest Passage
By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, September 16, 2007

Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane.

The European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos this month taken together showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, and ice retreating to its lowest level since such images were first taken in 1978.

The waters are exposing unexplored resources, and vessels could trim thousands of miles from Europe to Asia by bypassing the Panama Canal. The seasonal ebb and flow of ice levels has already opened up a slim summer window for ships.

Leif Toudal Pedersen, of the Danish National Space Center, said that Arctic ice has shrunk to some 1 million square miles. The previous low was 1.5 million square miles, in 2005.

"The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice (in summer) may disappear much sooner than expected," Pedersen said in an ESA statement posted on its Web site Friday.

Pedersen said the extreme retreat this year suggested the passage could fully open sooner than expected — but ESA did not say when that might be. Efforts to contact ESA officials in Paris and Noordwik, the Netherlands, were unsuccessful Saturday.

A U.N. panel on climate change has predicted that polar regions could be virtually free of ice by the summer of 2070 because of rising temperatures and sea ice decline, ESA noted.

Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States are among countries in a race to secure rights to the Arctic that heated up last month when Russia sent two small submarines to plant its national flag under the North Pole. A U.S. study has suggested as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden in the area.

Environmentalists fear increased maritime traffic and efforts to tap natural resources in the area could one day lead to oil spills and harm regional wildlife.

Until now, the passage has been expected to remain closed even during reduced ice cover by multiyear ice pack — sea ice that remains through one or more summers, ESA said.

Researcher Claes Ragner of Norway's Fridtjof Nansen Institute, which works on Arctic environmental and political issues, said for now, the new opening has only symbolic meaning for the future of sea transport.

"Routes between Scandinavia and Japan could be almost halved, and a stable and reliable route would mean a lot to certain regions," he said by phone. But even if the passage is opening up and polar ice continues to melt, it will take years for such routes to be regular, he said.

"It won't be ice-free all year around and it won't be a stable route all year," Ragner said. "The greatest wish for sea transportation is streamlined and stable routes."

"Shorter transport routes means less pollution if you can ship products from A to B on the shortest route," he said, "but the fact that the polar ice is melting away is not good for the world in that we're losing the Arctic and the animal life there."

The opening observed this week was not the most direct waterway, ESA said. That would be through northern Canada along the coast of Siberia, which remains partially blocked.
___

Associated Press Writer Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this report.
___

On the Net:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMYTC13J6F_index_1.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070916/ap_on_sc/northwest_passage_13;_ylt=ArsEsCDeMJk8sBgSb.mZQngE1vAI

Moving Beyond Kyoto

2007-07-02T13:46:00.000-04:00

July 1, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times
Moving Beyond Kyoto
By AL GORE
Nashville
WE — the human species — have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us.

Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide into the thin shell of air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between Earth and the Sun. If we don’t stop doing this pretty quickly, the average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the favorable climate balance on which our civilization depends.

In the last 150 years, in an accelerating frenzy, we have been removing increasing quantities of carbon from the ground — mainly in the form of coal and oil — and burning it in ways that dump 70 million tons of CO2 every 24 hours into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The concentrations of CO2 — having never risen above 300 parts per million for at least a million years — have been driven from 280 parts per million at the beginning of the coal boom to 383 parts per million this year.

As a direct result, many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several “tipping points” that could — within 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet’s habitability for human civilization.

Just in the last few months, new studies have shown that the north polar ice cap — which helps the planet cool itself — is melting nearly three times faster than the most pessimistic computer models predicted. Unless we take action, summer ice could be completely gone in as little as 35 years. Similarly, at the other end of the planet, near the South Pole, scientists have found new evidence of snow melting in West Antarctica across an area as large as California.

This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours.

On Sept. 21, 1987, President Ronald Reagan said, “In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”

We — all of us — now face a universal threat. Though it is not from outside this world, it is nevertheless cosmic in scale.

Consider this tale of two planets. Earth and Venus are almost exactly the same size, and have almost exactly the same amount of carbon. The difference is that most of the carbon on Earth is in the ground — having been deposited there by various forms of life over the last 600 million years — and most of the carbon on Venus is in the atmosphere.

As a result, while the average temperature on Earth is a pleasant 59 degrees, the average temperature on Venus is 867 degrees. True, Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, but the fault is not in our star; Venus is three times hotter on average than Mercury, which is right next to the Sun. It’s the carbon dioxide.

This threat also requires us, in Reagan’s phrase, to unite in recognition of our common bond.

Next Saturday, on all seven continents, the Live Earth concert will ask for the attention of humankind to begin a three-year campaign to make everyone on our planet aware of how we can solve the climate crisis in time to avoid catastrophe. Individuals must be a part of the solution. In the words of Buckminster Fuller, “If the success or failure of this planet, and of human beings, depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be? What would I do?”

Live Earth will offer an answer to this question by asking everyone who attends or listens to the concerts to sign a personal pledge to take specific steps to combat climate change. (More details about the pledge are available at algore.com.)

But individual action will also have to shape and drive government action. Here Americans have a special responsibility. Throughout most of our short history, the United States and the American people have provided moral leadership for the world. Establishing the Bill of Rights, framing democracy in the Constitution, defeating fascism in World War II, toppling Communism and landing on the moon — all were the result of American leadership.

Once again, Americans must come together and direct our government to take on a global challenge. American leadership is a precondition for success.

To this end, we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth.

This treaty would mark a new effort. I am proud of my role during the Clinton administration in negotiating the Kyoto protocol. But I believe that the protocol has been so demonized in the United States that it probably cannot be ratified here — much in the way the Carter administration was prevented from winning ratification of an expanded strategic arms limitation treaty in 1979. Moreover, the negotiations will soon begin on a tougher climate treaty.

Therefore, just as President Reagan renamed and modified the SALT agreement (calling it Start), after belatedly recognizing the need for it, our next president must immediately focus on quickly concluding a new and even tougher climate change pact. We should aim to complete this global treaty by the end of 2009 — and not wait until 2012 as currently planned.

If by the beginning of 2009, the United States already has in place a domestic regime to reduce global warming pollution, I have no doubt that when we give industry a goal and the tools and flexibility to sharply reduce carbon emissions, we can complete and ratify a new treaty quickly. It is, after all, a planetary emergency.

A new treaty will still have differentiated commitments, of course; countries will be asked to meet different requirements based upon their historical share or contribution to the problem and their relative ability to carry the burden of change. This precedent is well established in international law, and there is no other way to do it.

There are some who will try to pervert this precedent and use xenophobia or nativist arguments to say that every country should be held to the same standard. But should countries with one-fifth our gross domestic product — countries that contributed almost nothing in the past to the creation of this crisis — really carry the same load as the United States? Are we so scared of this challenge that we cannot lead?

Our children have a right to hold us to a higher standard when their future — indeed, the future of all human civilization — is hanging in the balance. They deserve better than a government that censors the best scientific evidence and harasses honest scientists who try to warn us about looming catastrophe. They deserve better than politicians who sit on their hands and do nothing to confront the greatest challenge that humankind has ever faced — even as the danger bears down on us.

We should focus instead on the opportunities that are part of this challenge. Certainly, there will be new jobs and new profits as corporations move aggressively to capture the enormous economic opportunities offered by a clean energy future.

But there’s something even more precious to be gained if we do the right thing. The climate crisis offers us the chance to experience what few generations in history have had the privilege of experiencing: a generational mission; a compelling moral purpose; a shared cause; and the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict of politics and to embrace a genuine moral and spiritual challenge.
_____
Al Gore, vice president from 1993 to 2001, is the chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection. He is the author, most recently, of “The Assault on Reason.”

Yuppie chow?

2007-06-12T14:26:00.000-04:00

Big Organics in Little, Eco-Unfriendly Packages
Not all organics are equal: Look beyond the label and at the packaging
—By Natalie Hudson, Utne.com
June 7, 2007 Issue

The organic bandwagon has become derailed as behemoths like Cargill, Kraft, ConAgra, and Coca-Cola all climb aboard. Critics of corporate organics have bristled that the meaning of organic agriculture -- with its focus on smaller farms and land stewardship -- is lost in a market currently saturated with mass-produced organic foods. And activists are warning that Big Organic's individually wrapped fare shipped around the world is compromising the organic movement's environmental credentials as well. But as long as food contains an organic label, consumers are eating it up.

At the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held last week at the University of Saskatchewan, food activist Irena Knezevic presented her paper, "In Labels We Trust: A Critical Look at Consumer Need for Food Labeling." As reported by the Globe and Mail, Knezevic's research describes a consumer-driven trend of "status food" -- or "yuppie chow" -- for those concerned with "health and body image." Corporate organics target those with disposable income while ignoring the social and environmental issues at "the heart of organic agriculture." As an example of the corporate organic's bad environmental record, Knezevic cites the fact that much of Canada's organic food has to make the long, fossil-fueled trek from California. When factoring in the many miles that the often individually wrapped packages travel, the "environmental consequences" are "comparable to those of conventional food production."

Covering the same conference, Saskatoon's StarPhoenix, underlines Knezevic's warning to consumers to not be fooled by organic labels that give "the impression that all organic foods are equally good choices." Consumers, says Knezevic, should have access to information about whether their food was locally produced and whether farmers got a fair price for it, the Globe and Mail reports.

To help navigate the dubious web of organic labels, check out several diagrams created by Dr. Philip H. Howard, an assistant professor at Michigan State University. His diagrams outline the structure of the organic industry and give new meaning to the phrase "buyers beware," which should perhaps be amended to: conscious consumers beware.

Go there >> Has Big Business Turned Organics into "Yuppy Chow"?

Go there, too >> Corporations Jump on Organic Wagon

Liquid coal

2007-06-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

The idea of turning coal into liquid to fill our gas tanks should just be a bad joke. But because the coal industry pours millions into lobbying Congress every year, this joke could turn into a real nightmare.

The senate is about to vote on a big bill dealing with energy and the climate crisis. Massive subsidies for coal were defeated in committee. But we're not out of the woods yet, since one of the coal-friendly senators could sneak them back in again as an amendment just before the final vote.

Liquid coal is a giant step backward in our fight against global warming—it produces twice as many greenhouse gases as conventional gasoline. Proposals to capture that pollution before it adds to global warming are still a pipe dream.

We have to reduce the greenhouse gases already in our air to stave off the worst effects of climate change—disease, drought, rising seas—so you'd think a giant program to make liquid coal a cornerstone of our economy would be too outrageous to consider. But continued pressure from the coal industry means key legislators introduce it over and over again.

Even the Roanoke Times, in the heart of coal country, condemned government promotion of liquid coal:

Coal-to-liquid technology is expensive, harmful to the environment and inefficient. The federal government should take no part in subsidizing it ... Liquefying coal is not the answer to either energy independence or a cleaner environment.
Some senators are standing strong against this false promise—Jon Tester from coal-rich Montana has said there should be no liquid coal without proven ways to capture the greenhouse gases.

But others are risking our future with dirty energy bills instead of supporting clean and affordable alternatives—like solar and wind.

Read more about it:
"Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process," New York Times, May 29, 2007

"Wrong path toward energy independence," Denver Post, June 9, 2007

"Billion Dollar Boondoggle," Roanoke Times, June 5 2007

"Tester: Offer incentives for carbon capture," Missoulian, June 2, 2007

Where’s EuroArnold?

2007-06-07T06:28:00.000-04:00

As long as President Bush does not give German Chancellor Angela Merkel another one of those surprise neck rubs, the Group of 8 meetings should settle into cautious choreography on how to bring down the planet’s fever and reduce global inequities. But one other leader from the world’s major industrial powers should have been invited to this week’s summit at Heiligendamm — the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.

While Mr. Bush angered his fellow world leaders this week with yet another foot-dragging proposal on climate change, the governor has been working his own brand of international diplomacy on the issue and leading by example. ... Only a handful of states use less energy, per capita, than California. No state has committed to such a broad change in lifestyle and environment. And no state has tried so consistently — even having to defy the federal government — to get to where the world wants to be on slowing climate change. California is what the rest of the nation could have been had not Vice President Cheney disparaged conservation as a wimp issue for the virtuous, choosing to perforate more public land in a last-gasp stumble for fossil fuels.

Not all of this is Arnold’s doing. An audacious plan to reduce auto emissions was enacted a year before he won the governor’s race in 2003. But despite enormous pressure from automakers, the governor has fully backed the measure and threatened to sue the federal government for the exemption California needs to move ahead. He went a step further when he signed a law committing California to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. And last week he was in Canada, making climate goal agreements with two provinces while blasting his own government for failing to show any leadership.

Home to one in eight Americans, with an economy bigger than Canada, California has global swagger — and the governor is starting to use it. The state is further along than any other country on this issue. “The power influence we have is the equivalent of a nation, or even a continent,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said last week in British Columbia. ... Check into any college lab in California, from the gilded interiors of Stanford to the mobile-home campuses in Riverside County, and you find a frenzy of experiments on how to light, heat, cool and transport ourselves without wrecking the globe. ... But to some fellow Republicans, he is a traitor ... Rush Limbaugh called him “a sellout.” But it took a former Mr. Universe to do what no significant Republican had yet to do: he said Mr. Limbaugh was “irrelevant.”

Mr. Schwarzenegger, the policeman’s son from a small town in Austria, has morphed into his logical political fit: EuroArnold, at home in the pragmatic politics of Tony Blair or Mrs. Merkel. It would have been intriguing to have him in Germany this week, showing the rest of the world that not all Americans are in the last century on the big issues of the day. And, of course, he’s one of the few Americans who’s used to wearing a Speedo without blushing.

"Where's EuroArnold" is excerpted from a New York Times article by Timothy Egan, a former Seattle correspondent for the NYT and author of “The Worst Hard Time.”

PEACE

2007-06-06T02:27:00.001-04:00

Two green stories

2007-06-02T08:35:00.000-04:00

Two green stories: The title on the first story is enough to make me laugh. And I'm not the only one who thinks it's ridiculous.

Bush Calls for Global Emissions Goals
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
May 31, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush, seeking to blunt international criticism of the U.S. record on climate change, on Thursday urged 15 major nations to agree by the end of next year on a global emissions goal for reducing greenhouse gases.

Bush called for the first in a series of meetings to begin this fall, bringing together countries identified as major emitters of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. The list would include the United States, China, India and major European countries.

The president outlined his proposal in a speech ahead of next week's summit in Germany of leading industrialized nations, where global warming is to be a major topic and Bush will be on the spot.

The United States has refused to ratify the landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2012. Developing countries, including China and India, were exempted from that first round of cuts. Bush rejected the Kyoto approach, as well as the latest German proposal for what happens after 2012.

"The United States takes this issue seriously," Bush said. "The new initiative I'm outlining today will contribute to the important dialogue that will take place in Germany next week."

Along with his call for a global emissions goal, Bush urged other nations to eliminate tariffs on clean energy technologies.

Germany, which holds the European Union and Group of Eight presidencies, is proposing a so-called "2-degree" target, whereby global temperatures would be allowed to increase no more than 2 degrees Celsius _ the equivalent of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit _ before being brought back down. Practically, experts have said that means a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Instead, Bush called for nations to hold a series of meetings, beginning this fall, to set a global emissions goal. Each nation then would have to decide on how to achieve the goal, White House officials said.

"The United States will work with other nations to establish a new framework for greenhouse gas emissions for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012," the president said.

"So my proposal is this: By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases. To develop this goal, the United States will convene a series of meetings of nations that produce the most greenhouse gasses, including nations with rapidly growing economies like India and China.

"Each country would establish midterm management targets and programs that reflect their own mix of energy sources and future energy needs," he said. "In the course of the next 18 months, our nations will bring together industry leaders from different sectors of our economies, such as power generation, and alternative fuels and transportation."

Bush's critics were quick to respond, even before the president's speech had concluded.

Daniel J. Weiss, climate strategy director for the liberal Center for American Progress, said the Bush administration has a "do-nothing" policy on global warming despite U.S. allies' best efforts to spur U.S. reductions.

"Our allies' pleas for action add to the voices of many big corporations such as Dow, Shell, General Electric, and General Motors," Weiss said. "These and other Fortune 500 companies endorsed a 60 percent to 80 percent reduction in global warming pollution by 2050, the level scientists indicate that we must reach to stave off the worst impacts. Unfortunately, these appeals from his foreign and corporate allies continue to fall on President Bush's deaf ears."

The U.S. last year actually experienced a drop in emissions of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas most blamed for global warming. The 1.3 percent decline from 2005, the first drop in 11 years, was due to a mild winter followed by a cool summer.

Carbon dioxide is produced from burning fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal, which are used widely to produce electricity to heat homes in winter and run air conditioners in summer.

While Bush announced his new proposal, the administration registered its opposition to a number of approaches to combat global warming. Specifically, the White House said it does not support a global carbon-trading program allowing countries to buy and sell carbon credits to meet limits on carbon dioxide levels. The White House also expressed opposition to energy efficiency targets advocated by the EU, arguing that a standard applicable in one country does not fit another.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

“The president is warming up to throw his opening pitch while business, states and the rest of the world are already at the top of the ninth inning,” said NRDC Climate Center Policy Director and former climate treaty negotiator David Doniger. “It is nothing less than embarrassing that three of the worlds biggest oil companies are calling for tougher measure than the White House.” The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an environmental advocacy group.

Greenhouse-gas limits gain steam in states
By Eric Kelderman, Stateline.org Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The White House and Congress are miles apart over proposals to stop global warming, but the debate is over in many states that are moving aggressively to curb greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

Nearly half of the states are pursuing at least one of three main strategies to curb the burning of fossil fuels, a chief source of gases linked to global warming: cleaning up smokestacks, reducing auto exhaust or reaping more power from the sun and wind.

Last month, the Washington Legislature passed a measure similar to a landmark 2006 California law to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants and other industries to 1990 levels by 2020. Minnesota and New Hampshire this year set the highest goals for producing environment-friendly electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy — 25 percent by 2025. And Maryland just became the 12th state to mandate California’s stringent auto emissions standards.

Governors and state legislators are driven not just by green goals but also by a large dose of pragmatism. What’s good for the environment also can be good for a state’s economy, such as championing alternative energy to create jobs, protecting natural resources that would be harmed by global warming and keeping a lid on rising fuel prices that hit consumers and businesses alike.

"I don't just want wind farms. I want companies that build turbines. I want hybrid-vehicle companies to consult us on conservation strategies. I want companies that design solar panels,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) told the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor and renewable-energy advocates promoting clean power as an economic engine.

Julia Bovey, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental advocacy group, said states clearly are leading the federal government on the issue of global warming. But the scope of the problem requires a national federal policy not a patchwork of varying state laws, she said.

The chief challenge is how to curb carbon dioxide, the same gas exhaled by humans but released into the atmosphere in huge amounts with the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gasoline. Scientists have concluded that steep increases in fossil-fuel burning have warmed the Earth’s atmosphere, in what is called a greenhouse effect, with the potential to change the planet’s climate.

California is at the cutting edge with its requirement to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants and other industrial sources 25 percent over the next 13 years. The California law also has implications beyond its borders because utilities will be required to purchase power from out-of-state plants that meet the emissions goals. Washington state is poised to follow suit with a bill passed in April.

On both coasts, states also are joining in regional “cap-and-trade” agreements that cap the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants can produce and allow polluters to buy and sell credits earned through extra reductions, creating economic incentives to cut emissions.

On the East Coast, Massachusetts and Rhode Island this year joined eight other states in a plan to cut carbon-dioxide emissions 10 percent by 2019.

In February, Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon agreed to join California and Washington state in a "cap-and-trade" system that will develop its emissions goals by August 2007.

Fears of global warming also have rejuvenated interest in renewable energy requirements that states began imposing more a decade ago to cut dependence on imported oil and gas and to reduce polluting coal-plant emissions. Citing global warming, Minnesota and New Hampshire this year joined 20 states in requiring utilities to get a percentage of their electricity from environment-friendly sources such as wind and solar power. Colorado and New Mexico this year have doubled previous requirements of clean electricity to 20 percent by 2020.

Nationwide, the renewable requirements will reduce carbon-dioxide emissions an estimated 108 million metric tons by 2020 — equivalent to removing nearly 18 million cars from the nation's roads, according to the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit environmental think-tank.

California in 2002 was the first to go after auto emissions to curtail greenhouses gases. Now 11 other states have agreed to copy the Golden State’s requirement that cars curb carbon-dioxide emissions 30 percent by the 2016 model year.

While a group of automakers is challenging California's standards in three federal district courts, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on April 3 that the Environmental Protection Agency was wrong to refuse to regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant. That decision improves chances that the EPA will approve the law in California, the only state allowed to write stricter car-emission standards than the federal government.

Governors are aiming to improve the business climate in their states as well as the earth's atmosphere, said Michael Fedor, a spokesman for an alliance of wind and solar advocates as well as ranching, farming and forestry associations. Fedor's organization, the "25 X 25" group, is promoting the goal that 25 percent of the nation’s energy needs will be met by renewable energy by 2025.

In fact, there are big bucks to be made in the new energy economy. Wind energy companies spent $4 billion in 2006 as the nation's installed wind-generation capacity grew 27 percent, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Next year, wind energy is expected to grow 26 percent, according to the association.

State actions now are building pressure on the new Democratic majority in Congress to take action against global warming. At least six bills for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions have been introduced in the U.S. Senate this year, and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman, U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D) of Michigan, has held a dozen hearings on the prospect of climate-change legislation.

While President Bush has acknowledged the "serious problem of global-climate change,” he has questioned how much human activity has contributed to the earth's rising temperature and so far has rejected government mandates to cut carbon dioxide.

Several governors, on the other hand, including some of Bush's fellow Republicans, not only acknowledge the potential catastrophic effects of global warming but also are leading advocates for government intervention. At least 16 governors this year proposed efforts to stanch climate change in their state of the state addresses, according to the National Governors Association.

That includes California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who banked his successful 2006 re-election in part on his actions to curb carbon-dioxide emissions. Even South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), a Southern conservative, launched a task force in February to determine not whether global warming exists, but how it how will impact the state and what steps could be taken to mitigate the problem. More than a dozen other states, from Alaska to Florida, have similar advisory groups.

I give you a green thumb

2007-05-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

Click on this FLOWER and keep clicking to grow as many flowers as you want.

Why bees are disappearing

2007-05-14T09:51:00.000-04:00

May 18, 2005
BEE MITES SUPPRESS BEE IMMUNITY,
OPEN DOOR FOR VIRUSES AND BACTERIA

Science Daily — A non-native bee mite is causing the dramatic and sudden collapse of bee colonies across the country, but Penn State researchers believe they have found the combination of factors that triggers colony deaths which includes suppression of the bee immune system by the mites.

The Varroa destructor mite is a honey bee parasite that feeds much like a tick on the body of a bee. The mites are about the size of a pin head, dark brown in color and visible on close inspection.

This bee mite probably arose in the Eastern or Chinese Honey Bee population and hopped over to the United States in 1987. They quickly infested western or European honey bees. One sign of infection is the presence of bees with deformed wings. Also, sometimes seemingly healthy colonies become ill and the complete hive collapses in about two weeks.

"The native Chinese bees do not have the same problems," says Dr. Xiaolong Yang, post doctoral researcher in entomology and plant pathology, who raised bees in China. "I do not recall seeing deformed wing bees in the Chinese bee. Chinese honey bees have grooming behavior which can remove the mites from the bees. They get rid of the mites."

While researchers know that the Varroa mite is behind the death of bee colonies, the mechanism causing the deaths is still unknown. Yang and Dr. Diana L. Cox-Foster, Penn State professor of entomology, now believe that a combination of bee mites, deformed wing virus and bacteria is causing the problems occurring in hives across the country.

"Once one mite begins to feed on a developing bee, all the subsequent mites will use the same feeding location," says Cox-Foster "Yang has seen as many as 11 adult mites feeding off of one bee. Other researchers have shown that both harmful and harmless bacteria may infect the feeding location."

Deformed wing virus is endemic among honey bees in the U.S., although when the European bees became historically infested with this virus, is unknown. However, simply having deformed wing virus does not cause bees to emerge from the pupa state with deformed wings, nor does it cause colony deaths.

"A group of Japanese researchers found that a virus that is 99 percent the same as deformed wing, appears in in the brains of aggressive guard bees," says Cox-Foster. "Guard bees that are aggressive better protect the hive, so there may be some positive effect in this virus that allows it to persist in a colony."

The combination of bee mite infestation and deformed wing virus does cause deformed wings in about a quarter of the emerging bees. This, however, does not lead to sudden hive collapse. Something else is involved that makes bee mites so harmful to bee colonies.

The Penn State researchers report their findings in today's (May 17) online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Yang and Cox-Foster looked at how bee mites affect the bee immune system. They injected heat-killed E. coli bacteria into virus-infected bees that were either infested with bee mites or mite free. The dead bacteria was used to trigger an immune response in the bees in the same way human vaccines cause our bodies to produce an immune response. They checked the bees for production of chemicals that disinfect the honey and for other immunity related chemicals.

They also measured the amount of virus in each bee. Surprisingly, they found that the virus in mite-infested bees rapidly increased to extremely high levels when the bee was exposed to the bacteria. The virus levels in mite-free bees did not change when the bee was injected with bacteria.

One chemical, GOX or glucose oxidase, is put into the honey by worker bees and sterilizes the honey and all their food. If bees have mites, their production of GOX decreases.

"As mites build up, we suspect that not as much GOX is found in the honey and the honey has more bacteria," says Cox-Foster. "It is likely that the combination of increased mite infestation, virus infection and bacteria is the cause of the two-week death collapse of hives."

The mites suppressed other immune responses in the bees, leaving the bees and the colonies more vulnerable to infection. The bee mites transfer from adult bees to late stage larva. The virus can be transferred through many different pathways.

"This system is important not only because of what the mites are doing to honey bee populations in the U.S., but because it can be used as a model system for exploring what happens to viruses in animal or human populations," says Cox-Foster. "If we view the colony as a city, then we have a variety of infection modes -- queen to eggs, workers to food supply, bee to bee, and parasite to bee."
__________
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture supported this work.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Penn State.

Laundry on the line

2007-05-11T15:13:00.000-04:00

April 19th was National Hanging Out Day, a day which was created to demonstrate how it is possible to save money and energy by using a clothesline. I missed the day, but learned about it from Susan's Patchwork Reflection blog.

When I was a girl, I hung clothes out to dry because my red-haired mother's fair skin would burn in even a few minutes of sun. That excuse didn't work in the winter when it was so cold my fingers felt frozen by the wet clothes.

"Air-drying our clothes would reduce our dependence on environmentally and culturally costly energy sources," according to Project Laundry List. So why don't we do it anymore? I remember the frozen fingers, but I also live in an apartment. There's no way I could dry a load of wash on my postage-stamp-sized patio. Some places forbid clotheslines, but would it be worthwhile to make changes so more of us could hang out clothes? Or is it just too easy to throw the clothes from the washer into the dryer?

Read more about this at Project Laundry List.

Living off the grid

2007-05-01T00:06:00.000-04:00

DON'S SOLAR SCOOTER
Don Dunklee offers a set of plans for a street legal, affordable, and dependable solar-powered scooter. The PV panels fold in for driving and out for charging. Don rides his scooter five miles to work each day and folds out the panels for charging the battery while the scooter is parked at work. And he has now been doing this for 2-3 years and has traveled thousands of miles using solar power. What will they think of next!!!??? See another photo and read about it here: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/PV/pvscooter.htm

GERTIE THE GAS GUZZLER
Andy Baird took up full-time RVing and converted Gertie the Gas Hog, which once got 8mpg, into a solar-powered home on wheels. He spends less on gas and electricity than he did when he drove to and from work in a Honda. And now he leisurely meanders north in the spring and south in the fall. All because he solar-paneled Gertie. Check it out here: http://www.andybaird.com/travels/saving-the-earth.htm

NANO-TOWER DESIGN
Better design, better results, right? Not yet. The Georgia Tech Research Institute unveiled a new solar panel in April with a different design. The solar panels I've seen are flat, but the new design has "an array of nano-towers" that are like microscopic blades of grass. That adds surface area and thus traps more sunlight, resulting in a big jump in current generated, about 60 times more than traditional solar cells. Wow, I'm impressed. But now comes the part that confuses me: to generate electricity, a cell has to churn out voltage as well as current. And this invention falls short because of "too much resistance within the cell to produce the type of electricity that's needed." Surely, if these folks keep working on this new design, they'll find a way to make it work better. Read the full aticle: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20070411/techbit-better-solar-panel.htm

Canada's Climate Plan

2007-04-29T20:16:00.000-04:00

Canada announced an initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020. That sounds good, except the Conservative government acknowledged it would not meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which requires cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to 5% below 1990 levels by 2012. Canada's emissions are currently 30% above 1990 levels.

Former Vice President Al Gore said, "In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud ... designed to mislead the Canadian people." The focus is on reducing the intensity of emissions rather than on tough, overall curbs. According to Gore the phrase "intensity reduction," which allows industries to increase their greenhouse gas outputs as they raise production, was developed by think tanks financed by Exxon Mobil and other large polluters. He acknowledged that, as an American, he had "no right to interfere" in Canadian decisions, but that the rest of the world looks to Canada for moral leadership.

Canada's Environment Minister John Baird rejected Gore's criticisms. "The fact is our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former vice president was a member," he said, inviting Gore to discuss climate change and the Conservatives' environmental policies. On the other hand, Canadian opposition Liberal leader Stephane Dion agrees with Gore. "Mr. Baird is embarrassing Canada around the world. The world expects Canada will do its share -- more than that, that Canada will be a leader -- and we are failing the world. We are failing Canadians."

We need trees

2007-04-27T18:21:00.000-04:00

When I was in elementary school, I learned about deforestation. I got the idea that we were losing all the trees in the world, and I love trees! So I decided then and there that I would have a tree of my very own. I'd put a fence around it so nobody could ever cut down "the last tree in the world."

Obviously, I had not yet learned that, without lots of trees, I wouldn't be there to save the last tree. Without trees, the world would be filled with carbon dioxide, lacking the oxygen I would need to breathe, to live. So now that I'm an adult, I want to save not one, but a world-full of trees. (Is "world-full" a word?) We need trees! While we breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, trees take in carbon dioxide and "exhale" oxygen. Pretty good system, huh?

So once again, class, why do we need trees? To absorb carbon dioxide and to provide oxygen, for one thing. Let's all do what we can to reduce deforestation. Plant more trees!

Cool Climate

2007-04-23T07:35:00.000-04:00

On Saturday Margreet posted something in Dutch on her Margreet's Musings blog, with an explanation "FOR MY ENGLISH SPEAKING READERS: This is a Dutch initiative, supported by politicians and other wellknown persons."

I posted a comment on her blog, saying, "Okay, Margreet, I see some words I recognize and can figure out what you are talking about:

CoolClimate, of course, is obvious
de klimaatcrisis ~ and we're in a crisis.
auto ~ part of the problem?
windmolenparken ~ wind power?
groene ~ is this "green"?

I'd say this has to do with global warming and what the Netherlands hopes to do about it. If you'll give me a summary or a translation, I'll post something about it on my Greening the Blue Planet blog." And on Sunday she did share an English version of her post.

Bonnie, and everyone, here's the translation of the article I posted yesterday:

What does Cool Climate want?

Cool Climate asks for action from the politicians, now! Together we ask The Hague to counter global warming. The Netherlands should become a champion in the battle against the climate crisis. We know what to do: plans and techniques are available. Now is the time to use them. We want to make clean cars cheaper and polluting cars more expensive. We want big windmill parks for green electricity. We want to reward 'green' companies and we want better and faster public transport.

One does not stop climate change alone. Climate change touches everybody. That is why we ask as many people as possible to join Cool Climate. Together we will ask the cabinet (government) to take clear steps against global warming. Support our demands to the government and join Cool Climate.

The Netherlands is a small country, compared to the United States. Why aren't we clamoring for our politicians to do something?

What a beautiful Earth Day!

2007-04-22T22:44:00.001-04:00

Today is Earth Day, which I spent with friends and family. In the early afternoon I went to the Zoo with my friend Emily, where our town was having a party for the earth. Children made bird houses, planted flowers along the walking paths, looked shy as they approached animals in the petting zoo, and generally had a great time. When we got to the pen with camels, one scruffy-looking male came over and gave me the eye, as he chewed and swiveled his lower jaw. I gave HIM a look and said, "Don't bother to spit in my eye; I'm wearing glasses." He didn't.

Where my friends were "manning" the tables, I signed a petition to restore weekly curbside recycling in the City of Chattanooga, picked up literature on climate change and global warming, and found a great pendant that said, "I saw the truth -- An Inconvenient Truth." I asked how much, wanting to buy it, so someone went to ask. "Oh, no, it isn't for sale!" the owner said. "Al Gore gave it to me." To forestall anyone else trying to buy it, she slipped it around her neck. I'm gonna see if I can't find one for myself.

After the zoo, Emily and I went to Home Depot, expecting to hunt down the free compact fluorescent blubs they would be giving away. But there was a table outside the door. We parked, we signed our names and zip codes, and the young woman handed each of us a bulb. Ha, it looks exactly like the one I googled Friday and posted (below). And I finished off the day's adventures by going to another party, for my youngest grandchild, who turned SEVEN today. Everything was GREEN at the Zoo, but everything was PINK at her party. When I got home, my neighbors were celebrating Earth Day by planting flowers. The sun was shining, and the temperature here got up to about 82F (that would be about 28C). It's been a very good day, and now I'm tired and ready to sleep.

Free Light Bulbs This Sunday

2007-04-20T23:11:00.000-04:00

... a big "green" help for EARTH DAY, April 22.
Diane MacEachern of Big Green Purse has alerted her readers about a "green" bargain: Home Depot will celebrate Earth Day this Sunday by giving away a million free compact fluorescents. These bulbs normally cost $7.99. On the other hand, they could save you $20-$30 on your electricity bill over the life of the bulb. Where do the benefits come from?

Compact fluorescents last ten times as long and use 75% LESS energy than a regular incandescent.

They help improve air quality and reduce asthma rates, since utilities need to burn less energy (think coal-fired power plants) to power the light.

They save time. You can install a CFL and not have to worry about changing that light bulb again for years.

Because they use so little energy, they're a great way to reduce global warming.

WHERE NOT TO USE CFLs:

outside when temperatures are cold
in dimmer switches
on timers

HOW TO DISPOSE OF CFLs:

Compact fluorescents contain minuscule amounts of mercury (5 mlg, compared to the 500 mlg in a home thermometer). Check with your local waste management agency for recycling options and disposal guidelines in your community. Some recommend the bulb be disposed with hazardous waste. Others want it sealed in a plastic baggie and thrown in the regular trash. Best option: Recycle the bulb with www.lamprecycle.org. Some IKEA stores take back used CFLs, too.

WHAT TO DO IF A CFL BREAKS:

The Environmental Protection Agency recommends sweeping up (not vacuuming) the broken glass and loose material; mopping up the remnants with a damp paper cloth that you can dispose of in a sealed plastic bag; and ventilating the room.

P.S. This has not been a paid promotion.

Ethanol: A Tragic Diversion

2007-04-14T15:35:00.000-04:00

"Ethanol will not be our clean, green savior!" So said an article by Murray Dobbin this week. He pointed out that we citizens in industrialized societies will continue to cling to our extravagant lifestyles and massive over-consumption. Why? Because "global climate change is still seen by most people -- even those who have no doubt of its human origins -- as something that can be fixed by legislation, tougher rules and punitive penalties on big polluters -- and that allegedly clean and green quick fix, ethanol. Yes, we can all keep our individual chunks of steel, rubber and glass, those symbols of 20th century excess and irrationality, so long as we shift to burning alcohol."

Dobbin called this a "mass delusion" which was "madness enough to inspire the still-ailing Fidel Castro out of his bed to write the first editorial he has written for the country's principal newspaper, Granma, since last falling ill last July. It's not as if there is a lack of issues for the grand old commander-in-chief to comment on. But this one he deemed the most important. Why? To quote Castro himself:

"More than three billion people in the world are being condemned to a premature death from hunger and thirst.... The sinister idea of turning foodstuffs into fuel was definitely established as the economic strategy of the U.S. foreign policy on Monday, March 26th last."

That was the very day President Bush met with the Big Three auto CEOs and "declared ethanol to be the next strategic fuel for the empire -- and a partial answer to its failed Middle East policies," says Dobbin. Let me quote the rest of the article:

Castro was talking about corn but this is not the only grain that the ethanol pushers are talking about -- wheat, sunflower seeds, canola and other foodstuffs are already being used and targeted by, amongst others, the big oil companies. The demand for ethanol will be so enormous that only the largest and best capitalized corporations in the U.S. will be able to take advantage -- driving smaller producers out by driving up the price of corn.

Bush proclaimed coming out the meeting with the Big Three that he is aiming at reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years -- a staggering number if it is to be taken seriously, requiring 35 billion gallons of ethanol. Of course Bush and his corporate allies talked about using wood chips and switchgrass, too, but corn is the key. To produce that much ethanol would take 320 million tons of corn. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO) says that U.S. corn production in 2005 reached 280 million tons and the U.S. produces 40 percent of the world's corn, controlling the market price. It doesn't take complicated math to see that just to meet U.S. ethanol demands within 10 years will take up 46 percent of the world's corn supply.

This is an obscenity. Because most of these billions of tons of corn are now eaten by the world's people -- most of them poor -- or fed to their livestock. Ultimately, it means that the world will have to produce more and more grain just to stand still and at the same time that the demand for ethanol increases the price of corn. The FAO says the competition between grain for fuel and grain for food is already happening and was the principal explanation for the decline in world grain stocks during the first half of 2006.

As Castro pointed out in his Granma article, not only will corn be priced out of reach for millions, "What is worse, let the poor countries receive some financing to produce ethanol from corn or any other foodstuff and very soon not a single tree will be left standing to protect humanity from climate change." He also pointed out, demonstrating that his grasp of world events is as acute as ever, that the increased demand for grain for energy will also greatly exacerbate the already critical water shortage facing two thirds of humanity.

Discouraging numbers

Despite this catastrophic scenario there are still those who will argue that the trade-off has to be considered, that global climate change due to carbon emissions must be tackled. But recently two Canadian studies raised serious doubts about what we actually get in this morally questionable trade. The U.S. may well get a strategic replacement for oil but there are serious doubts the world's climate will benefit. One study was done by the Library of Parliament's Frédéric Forge working in its science and technology division. Forge says the benefit of the massive effort required to use 10 percent ethanol in all vehicles will be minor: "In fact, if 10 percent of the fuel used were corn-based ethanol [in other words, if it were used in all vehicles], Canada's greenhouse gas emissions would drop by approximately one percent."

But an unpublished study by Environment Canada says even this estimate is questionable. A recent CBC report -- it came and went with no one else touching it and was not repeated -- revealed that scientists at Environment Canada studied four vehicles of recent makes, comparing normal emissions with a 10 percent ethanol blend and using a range of driving conditions. The study revealed that there was virtually no statistically significant difference in greenhouse gas tail pipe emissions. Some of the hydrocarbon gas emissions actually increased under some conditions.

The delusional thinking that tells us we can maintain our current lifestyles and save the planet will, sooner or later, be relegated to history's dustbin. The sooner we dispose of that part of the delusion embodied by "salvation by ethanol" the better.

Wind hole

2007-04-14T15:12:00.000-04:00

Wind power, yes. I have long known about windmills providing power, but this concept is something new, or at least newer. In this scheme it's the air pressure that does the work.

This week I learned from a Stateline.org article that a consortium of Iowa power companies is planning to fill a big underground hole with pressurized air which would then be released to generate electricity. The graphic below shows how it would work. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Obviously, it isn't a brand-new concept, as two other air-storage caverns already exist, one in Alabama and one in Germany. But the "Iowa wind hole" (as the writer called it) would be "the only one to use wind power to pump air under the earth."

Wind-powered turbines would pump air into a porous rock formation roughly 3,000 feet below the earth, and that compressed air would later be released, spinning turbines that would generate electricity. "Air also could be pumped underground using conventionally generated power at times of non-peak demand for electricity, such as at night, and released to generate power when electric rates are high. That’s how the air storage sites in Alabama and Germany operate."

You can read the whole article by clicking here: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=188977

Iowa's governor is also pushing to develop the state's renewable energy industry, now based largely on producing ethanol from corn. Ethanol is perceived by some to be the next way we power our cars, but ... take a look at my post above this one.

"We have met the enemy..."

2007-04-14T08:52:00.000-04:00

This famous Earth Day poster from 1971 seems appropriate today as 1420 Step-It-Up groups gather today to encourage the Senate to push through legislation lowering carbon emissions 80% by 2050.

Thinking Blogger Award

2007-04-08T17:01:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to Stephanie for nominating me for this Thinking Blogger Award. I have already found a spot to put it for now. See it over there at the top of the sidebar? Now I am required to nominate five others and link this post back to the award's originator HERE. I have thought for two days, trying to decide whom to tap. My decision has been made the more difficult because most of those I read regularly have already received the award, making me a Thinking Reader, as well.

My choices, should they decide to accept the award, are these excellent bloggers who give me a lot to think about:

Margreet of Margreet's Musings
Ursi of Ursi's Blog
Isabella of Magnificent Octopus
Sharon of Bibliobibuli
Matthew and friends of Chattanooga Energy Hub

You, my friends, shall receive either a gold or a silver award, your choice. The award, which has been traversing the blogsphere, comes with a challenge. Those who have been awarded are asked to name five others they would pass along the “thinking blogger” torch to. I read other people’s blogs for many reasons: good writing, a sense of humor, a glimpse into a lifestyle unlike my own, or the blogger’s unique personality. I read to learn, to be inspired, and to enjoy good pictures. Now it's your turn to choose five. Go for it!

Earth Day 2007

2007-04-07T00:24:00.000-04:00

Earth Day is April 22. I took part in the FIRST Earth Day in 1970 and brought home some literature and at least a couple of buttons I can remember. One button showed a balance on an upside-down V, and the other said "Stop at 2." My son David was interested, so I showed him that the balance had a stick person on one side and a tree on the other, meaning we should balance our human needs with the needs of the planet. The "Stop at 2" button was about population growth and the overpopulation of some parts of the earth. If two parents have only two children, they would not make population growth any worse. After giving it some thought, David said he agreed with the idea. I said, "David, think about it." Suddenly his 6-year-old eyes widened as he realized the personal implications for himself, the third child. Just for the record, I never wore that button.

New Global Warming Warning from U.N.

2007-04-06T18:01:00.000-04:00

Scientists See Hunger, Disease, Extinction

WASHINGTON – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of alarming threats to the planet in a new report on global warming. The United Nations organization detailed dangers ranging from hunger and disease to species extinction in the report based on voluminous scientific data collected in the last five years.

“Time is wasting,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. “There no longer is any debate among serious scientists that our planet is in grave danger unless we undo the man-made damage to our environment from carbon dioxide pollution and from other greenhouse gases,” added the lead sponsor of the most sweeping Senate legislation to counter the effects of global warming.

Sanders also called it “disappointing and embarrassing” that the United States, according to reports from Brussels, joined representatives of China and Saudi Arabia in raising objections to the report and trying to water down the more serious warnings.

The same U.N. panel in February issued a report that concluded with virtual certainty that humans have been the main cause of warming in the past half century. The latest report examined the impact on animals, water supplies, ice sheets and regional climate conditions.

The report is available online at http://www.ipcc.ch/. It said that up to 30 percent of the Earth's species face an increased risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average in the 1980s and '90s. Dry areas will become even more parched while other places on the planet will become more vulnerable to flooding, severe storms, and coastal erosion.

Sanders (I-Vt.) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, are sponsors of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, which calls for a reduction of emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The bill is cosponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and by Sens. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Frank R. Lautenberg, (D-N.J.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). Former Vice President Al Gore, a leading figure in the fight against global warming, has called the Sanders-Boxer bill is “an excellent piece of legislation.”

Sanders also said it is imperative that the United States devote significant resources to greatly increase the use of solar power, wind turbines, geothermal energy and other forms of sustainable and renewable energy. “The United States is lagging far behind other countries in this area and we’ve got to turn our policies around.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 6, 2007
1:36 PM

The Secret Life of Lobsters

2007-03-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean

Prologue: Setting Out, 2001
Lobsters are fewer than in previous years. Bruce Fernald's boat in 2001 is the Double Trouble, and Jacob Pickering is his sternman. Jack Merrill has the Bottom Dollar. Bob steneck, a scientist, is on the R/V Connecticut, with the ROV Phantom.

Part One: Trapping

1. A Haul of Heritage
In 1973, after 4 years in the Navy, Bruce goes out with his father Warren in the Mother Ann. Bruce's great-great-great-grandfather Henry Fernald settled on Great Cranberry when lobster traps were "newfangled technology." Jack's family lived in suburban Massachusetts, and he spent his summers on Little Cranberry Island because his father's ancestors had come from Maine. Jack learned lobstering from Warren Fernald.

2. Honey Holes
Bruce's boat was Pa's Pride, which he bought from his brother Mark, who had bought it from Warren. Their brother Dan bought a fiberglass boat in 1974. Lee Hamm "has a knack for planting his traps in the depressions in the seafloor, where lobsters liked to hide and hunt. He called these spots his honey holes" (p. 33).

Part Two: Mating

3. Scent of a Woman
Jelle Atema, who came to America from the Netherlands, studied lobsters at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, starting in 1970. He first hypothesized that a sex pheromone from female lobsters attracted the males.

4. The Man Show
Jelle Atema had huge new lobster tanks and was surprised to find the females going to the dominant male in the tank, who "simply waited at home" (p. 62). When the first female left, another female came calling at the home of the dominant male. Meanwhile, the human males of Little Cranberry Island were also looking for mates.

5. Sex, Size, and Videotape

Diane Cowan began watching lobsters in the tank. She discovered the non-dominant male (of two in a tank with five females) did NOT get to mate because females waited their turn with the dominant male. Later, Diane snipped antennules, so the lobsters couldn't smell, and one experiment got ugly. "Cutting the antennules off males had left them pugnacious and inept, but the females had still managed to cajole the noseless males into a standard courtship routine. Cutting the antennules off females, by contrast, had nullified the routine and caused chaos" (p. 81). The females' ability to smell was key to successful mating.

Part Three: Fighting
6. Eviction Notice
When Bob Steneck, marine ecologist at the University of Maine, tried to sneak up to observe lobsters, they were alerted by pressure waves emitted by the bubbles in his scuba regulator and turned to face him with claws raised (p. 88). So he set up lobster "neighborhoods" of PVC-pipe homes and watched them from a boat using a miniature ROV that didn't bother the lobsters (p. 91). I loved the lobster eviction process, with the larger lobster knocking on a claw (like on a door), the smaller one coming out and stepping aside, and the big guy moving in (p. 97). I wanted to see a big lobster "at home" in his cubbyhole. Enlarge the photo by clicking on it, and you'll see this one up close and personal.

7. Battle Lines
One of the lobstermen told Bob that if he wanted to do research in their territory, all he had to do was ask. Because he was keen to observe ever better neighborhoods, it wasn't long before Bob had talked Arnie and his colleagues into removing their traps from a section of their best fishing ground so he could census the local population of lobsters. It was a feat unequaled in the history of lobster science, and it signaled a new era of collaborative research. (p. 112)

8. The War of the Eggs
The government argued that the minimum size of lobsters needed to be raised to increase egg production (p. 122). Jack Merrill used the same report to argue that: "The V-notching program holds substantial promise as a means of protecting the brood stock. If we assume for the sake of comparison that one out of every four un-notched egged females that is caught gets V-notched every year, then total egg production will be more than doubled for only a slight decline in catch" (p. 123).

9. Claw Lock

Lobsters have an interesting fight method, with one giving up before his shell shatters. The real battle reported in this chapter, though, is between Maine's lobstermen and the government scientists. The government calls into question the scientific expertise of Bob Steneck, who is on the side of the lobstermen. Bob had shown the large lobsters easily fight off the small ones, but when presented with a whole crowd on contenders, the big ones would rather walk away than fight constantly. But the government ruled that "Dr. Steneck's work ... does not provide sufficient scientific evidence to advise terminating the gauge increases" (p. 135).

Part Four: Surviving

10. The Superlobsters

11. Attack of the Killer Fish

12. Kindergarten Cops

Part Five: Sensing

13. See No Evil

14. Against the Wind

Part Six: Brooding

15. Gathering the Flock

16. Victory Dance

17. Fickle Seas

Epilogue: Hauling In, 2001

Gore testifies before Senate committee

2007-03-21T23:20:00.000-04:00

I tuned in to the webcast of all two-and-a-half hours of Al Gore's appearance before the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee today.

"Now, with a starring role in an Oscar-winning documentary under his belt, a best-selling book and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, the former vice-president and longtime legislator was greeted like a conquering hero when he wasn't being challenged by global warming skeptics.
"Gore, who held the first hearings in Congress on the issue 20 years ago, urged legislators to respond to a 'true planetary emergency' by passing legislation cutting greenhouse gas emissions." [This is from Canada.com, which I use because it is from beyond our politically-polarized counrty.]

Yet the way Gore was treated by Senator Inhofe, the ranking member of the minority, was appalling. Rather than ask questions, Inhofe would make a statement and then refuse to allow Gore to speak. And tonight on the minority page there is this press release:

GORE REFUSES TO TAKE PERSONAL ENERGY ETHICS PLEDGE – Former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a “Personal Energy Ethics Pledge” today to consume no more energy than the average American household.
The pledge was presented to Gore by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, during today’s global warming hearing. Senator Inhofe showed Gore a film frame from “An Inconvenient Truth” where it asks viewers: “Are you ready to change the way you live?”
Gore has been criticized for excessive home energy usage at his residence in Tennessee. His electricity usage is reportedly 20 times higher than the average American household.

Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the committee, intervened to allow former vice president Gore to answer. Gore said his family is using renewable engery and is adding solar panels to their house. He has, in effect, already changed his family's way of living. It was obvious to me that Inhofe was trying to shift the focus from industry's excessive greenhouse gas emissions to Gore personally, attacking HIM instead of the problem. Also from Canada.com was this part of the exchange:

Republican Joe Barton of Texas said the science is still uneven and was critical of Gore's solutions, saying they "fail the common sense test" and "provide little benefit at a huge cost."
"One scientist said it's a stronger consensus than on anything except perhaps gravity," an incredulous Gore responded.
"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says: 'You have to intervene here,' you don't say: 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.'
"If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

I was impressed with Gore's calm and measured responses and his ability to bring the focus back to the real emergency. To read more about what was said today, read both sides of the issue at this link to the Senate committee: http://epw.senate.gov/public/

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-03-19T14:43:00.000-04:00

: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It

"Almost all of the mountain glaciers in the world are now melting, many of them quite rapidly. There is a message in this" (pp. 48-49).

I could fill this post with nothing but quotes from the book.

"The science textbooks had to be rewritten in 2004. They used to say, 'It's impossible to have hurricanes in the South Atlantic.' But that year, for the first time ever, a hurricane hit Brazil" (pp. 84-85).

Here's more about the polar bears that I mentioned in an earlier post:

"The melting of the [Arctic] ice represents bad news for creatures like polar bears. A new scientific study shows that, for the first time, polar bears have been drowning in significant numbers. Such deaths have been rare in the past. But now, these bears find they have to swim much longer distances from floe to floe. In some places, the edge of the ice is 30 to 40 miles from the shore" (pp. 146-147).

Global warming is disrupting delicately balanced ecological relationships among species, like this example:

"A study from the Netherlands ... shows that 25 years ago, the peak arrival date for the migratory birds was April 25. Their chicks hatched almost six weeks later, peaking on June 3, just in time for the height of the caterpillar season. Now, two decades of warming later, the birds still arrive in late April, but the caterpillars are peaking two weeks earlier, leaving the mother birds without their traditional source of food for the chicks. The peak hatching date has moved slightly forward, but cannot move by much. As a result, the chicks are in trouble" (pp. 152-153).

Trees are also affected by climate change:

"This picture shows a portion of 14 million acres of spruce trees in Alaska and British Columbia that have been killed by bark beetles, whose rapid spread was once slowed by colder and longer winters" (pp. 156-157).

Greenland's ice is also melting. In 2004 Sir David King, U.K. Science Advisor said, "The maps of the world will have to be redrawn."

"If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea -- or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet" (pp. 196-197).

The next page shows us what would happen to Florida. The coastal areas would be covered by the rising ocean and Okefenokee Swamp would be connected to open ocean. Much of the Netherlands would also be covered by the rising water, and they have already launched a competition among architects to design floating homes, some pictured on page 203. The double-page photos are National Geographic quality showing these disasters and more.

"This image shows the largest ice shelf in the Arctic -- the Ward Hunt shelf. Three years ago [in 2002] it cracked in half, to the astonishment of scientists. This had never happened before" (pp.128-129).

If more people would read this book or watch Gore's Oscar Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth," maybe there would be a chance to save the world from the dire effects of global warming. Yes, I know that sounds extreme, but we are already in an "emergency" (as the subtitle says) and, at least in this country, refuse to make needed changes if doing so would in any way disrupt profits for major corporations. I don't understand why those who believe in God are unwilling to use their God-given minds to see the disaster rushing toward us.

National Day of Climate Action

2007-03-16T20:10:00.000-04:00

April 14th. Mark that day on your calendar. It will be a National Day of Climate Action with tens of thousands of Americans gathering all across the country to call for action on climate change. What we want is for congress to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050.

The new congress seems to have put climate change and energy as top priorities. Let's speak up and say that we won't settle for anything less than strong climate legislation.

People in all 50 states have planned, at last count, 935 "Step It Up 2007" events for April 14th. My concern is that the nearest one to Chattanooga is in Sewanee. Make that two, as the students at the university there have set up two events.

Visit http://www.stepitup2007.org/ and volunteer to lead an event in Chattanooga, or in YOUR town.

[NOTE added on Wednesday, March 21: This climate action post was published as a letter to the editor in today's Chattanooga Times Free Press. Now let's hope someone steps up to get an event set up here.]

March 19 update: The count is 954.
March 21 update: The count is 1000.
March 26 update: The count is 1048.
March 28 update: The count is 1092.
April 3 update: 1178.
April 6 update: 1294.
April 9 update: 1312. And still no event is scheduled for Chattanooga.
April 10 update: 1333, and maybe we are about to have an event!
April 14 update: 1420. Yes, Chattanooga DID have an event, a virtual event, by sending emails to Congress.

FAQs

Why are we asking for 80% carbon cuts by 2050?
How can we cut carbon 80% by 2050?
Are there any carbon-cutting bills currently being discussed in Congress?

Links for learning more

Environmental Law and Policy Center
Co-op America
Union of Concerned Scientists
Apollo Alliance
Energize America
Sustainable Energy Blueprint

Climate change

2007-03-09T18:31:00.000-05:00

Today leaders of the EU (European Union) have challenged the world to join them in fighting global warming. The EU has called for energy-saving lighting to be required in homes, offices and streets by the end of this decade and a binding target for 20% renewable sources of energy in use by 2020.

Here's part of the challenge: The leaders are now committed to a target of reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, but they will make that 30% if major nations such as the United States, Russia, China, and India will follow suit.

I don't believe the United States will do much, if anything, as long as the current administration is in office. Somehow we need to educate the American people on this issue. The problem is that our news sources seem more interested in keeping us up-to-date on scandals and the sex lives of the stars rather than REAL NEWS.

What's wrong with this picture? Do we not think it is important to protect the very air we breathe? Do we not understand that if we ruin this earth we don't have anywhere else to go?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said, just an hour ago, "The Bush administration is ordering federal wildlife officials headed for international meetings on polar bears not to talk about how climate change and melting ice are affecting the imperiled animals. It is the latest in a string of cases in which the administration has carefully controlled or even banned government employees' public speech about global warming."

Yet the polar bear's habitat is threatened by the melting Arctic sea ice. No, this administration won't take the EU challenge. I hope other countries do.

The Creation

2007-02-11T17:58:00.000-05:00

The Creation ... is the greatest heritage, other than the reasoning mind itself, ever provided to humanity (page 61).

Sections of the book:

I. The Creation
A call for help and an invitation to visit the embattled natural world in the company of a biologist.

II. Decline and Redemption
Blinded by ignorance and self-absorption, humanity is destroying the creation. There is still time to assume the stewardship of the natural world that we owe to future human generations.

III. What Science Has Learned
Arguments for saving the rest of life are drawn from both religion and science. The relevant principles of biology, the key science in this discourse, are explained here.

IV. Teaching the Creation
The only way to save the diversity of life and come to peace with nature is through a widely shared knowledge of biology and what the findings of that science imply for the human condition.

V. Reaching Across
Science and religion are the two most powerful forces of society. Together they can save the creation.

Last Child in the Woods

2007-02-03T04:46:00.000-05:00

: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

"A sense of wonder and joy in nature should be at the very center of ecological literacy." -- page 221

The first part of this book asks, Why? Then Louv wants us to decide, How?

1. Why?

Why do we need nature?

.....for health, creativity, stress-relief, spirituality, finding future stewards of nature

Why are children not outside more?

.....time constraints, fear, changes in education, criminalization of nature

2. How?

How do we reunite children with nature?

.....nature as teacher, camp revival, decriminalizing natural play

How do we build a movement?

.....think green, believe in seeds, help good works take root, create a zoopolis

========================================

Questions:

1. What direct experiences with nature did you have as a child?

2. Have the places for these experiences disappeared?

3. Are our children and grandchildren spending less time outdoors? Why?

4. Why is direct experience with the natural world so important for children?

5. What would be a good way to get children back to nature?

6. Do you have any ideas for fostering awareness of the human need for nature?

7. What hopeful things do you see happening in your own town or neighborhood?

8. How does direct experience with nature provide spirituality and promote sustainability?

========================================

Blue Planet = http://pods.zaadz.com/blue_planet = used my idea,too

Greening the Blue Planet

Panda or polar bear?

Winston of Churchill ~ a book review

Hug a tree ~ or plant one

What if it's a hoax?

This butterfly has adapted to changes

What sparked your interest?

Blue-footed boobies

Large Hadron Collider ~ stopped by the future?

Climate change

I'm moving

Do you know the difference between a proton and a crouton?

Shinrin-yoku

Unusual role for trees

Can you hear the trees?

Blue-green algae

Yes, we will have no bananas

Dubya's denials have cost us

Lightning displays above erupting volcano

For safety, please insert head in sand

Oh, beautiful for smoggy skies

Eco-exits

Wear BLUE

The Urbane Environmentalist

Green Short Story

Same urgent message

Climate change

Spring is coming sooner

BYOB ~ eco totes

The Wall ~ a book by Marlen Haushofer

Wanna save energy costs?

Giant newt and tiny frog

Polar bear's shrinking habitat

The Upwising Begins

Global warming ~ US (re)action

Four gas-buying tips

The God Who Can't Be Tamed

Give Our Leaders the Finger...

Think GREEN today

Are You One in a Million?

Northwest passage

Moving Beyond Kyoto

Yuppie chow?

Liquid coal

Where’s EuroArnold?

*P*E*A*C*E*

Two green stories

I give you a green thumb

Why bees are disappearing

Laundry on the line

Living off the grid

Canada's Climate Plan

We need trees

Cool Climate

What a beautiful Earth Day!

Free Light Bulbs This Sunday

Ethanol: A Tragic Diversion

Wind hole

"We have met the enemy..."

Thinking Blogger Award

Earth Day 2007

New Global Warming Warning from U.N.

The Secret Life of Lobsters

Gore testifies before Senate committee

An Inconvenient Truth

National Day of Climate Action

Climate change

The Creation

Last Child in the Woods

PEACE