Tuesday, August 07, 2012
It is heating up
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported on Wednesday that July was the hottest month on record since the United States began keeping temperature records in 1895. This hot July also closed out the warmest twelve month period ever recorded in the United States.
Wondering about the practical impact of all this hot weather?
Climatologists at the NOAA noted that by the end of the month, about 63% of the country was experiencing drought conditions. Not surprisingly, corn prices1 have surged up by over 60% in response according to Bloomberg News. And even if the drought eases in America, it may be too little too late after the blazing hot Summer here, and globally dry weather limiting agricultural output in India, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.
It is worth remembering that a global spike in food prices was part of the catalyst of the Arab Spring.2
Notes
1Corn, thanks to a very effective lobby, goes into everything, even gasoline, and equally critically animal feed, threatening food security for millions in the less-developed regions of our world.
2Like so many the Clarion Content had tremendous hopes for the Arab Spring revolutions when they began in Tunisia. Sadly the Obama Administration squandered the opportunity. In Egypt, they treated the Muslim Brotherhood backed President as if Dick Cheney were still running the White House. The direct blowback from that failure, notably under Hillary Clinton's watch as Secretary of State, has pushed Egypt into Iran's arms.
It would not be hard to argue too, that the Obama administration's failure to give decisive early backing to Syrian rebels has contributed to thousands of deaths there. The dithering will produce a new administration which will hate Americans no matter which side wins their civil war.
At least, we are still effectively killing civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere with the Obama administration's favorite technology, (f*ck high speed trains) the pilotless drone.
Wondering about the practical impact of all this hot weather?
Climatologists at the NOAA noted that by the end of the month, about 63% of the country was experiencing drought conditions. Not surprisingly, corn prices1 have surged up by over 60% in response according to Bloomberg News. And even if the drought eases in America, it may be too little too late after the blazing hot Summer here, and globally dry weather limiting agricultural output in India, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.
It is worth remembering that a global spike in food prices was part of the catalyst of the Arab Spring.2
Notes
1Corn, thanks to a very effective lobby, goes into everything, even gasoline, and equally critically animal feed, threatening food security for millions in the less-developed regions of our world.
2Like so many the Clarion Content had tremendous hopes for the Arab Spring revolutions when they began in Tunisia. Sadly the Obama Administration squandered the opportunity. In Egypt, they treated the Muslim Brotherhood backed President as if Dick Cheney were still running the White House. The direct blowback from that failure, notably under Hillary Clinton's watch as Secretary of State, has pushed Egypt into Iran's arms.
It would not be hard to argue too, that the Obama administration's failure to give decisive early backing to Syrian rebels has contributed to thousands of deaths there. The dithering will produce a new administration which will hate Americans no matter which side wins their civil war.
At least, we are still effectively killing civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere with the Obama administration's favorite technology, (f*ck high speed trains) the pilotless drone.
Labels: ecology, Economy, Politics, weather
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
7 Ways to Recreate an Idyllic Childhood Summer
7 Ways to Recreate an Idyllic Childhood Summer
by: Aubrey Menard
courtesy of PolicyMic
One of the most difficult things about transitioning from being a student into a full-fledged adult is the loss of summer.
You no longer have the end of the school year to look forward to—a break from the tedium of everyday life, a chance to hit the reset button on your academic performance, throw away the disorganized trapper-keeper, and forget all the math you spent the year learning.
But more than that, if you’re in a permanent sort of 9-5 (or 9-5+) job, you may miss out on the adventure that the lazy, hazy days of irresponsible summers once held. Below are seven ways to try to recapture a modicum of summer’s former glory and have yourself a great few months.
1. Get your feet unreasonably dirty: Remember coming home from a long summer day of playing outside? Your parents might yell at you to go spray yourself down with the garden hose before you were allowed to enter the house. The cold water would run over your body, making mud on your skin because the layer of dirt was so thick. You would go the entire summer never being able to get your feet truly clean because the dirt was so ground into them.
This summer, play outside, often and barefoot. Play wiffle ball, bocce, volley ball, and red rover. Go for walks and feel the grass beneath your feet. Walk on the pavement and hop around looking for shady spots because the bottom of your feet are burning. Black-bottom feet are the sign of a summer well-lived.
2. Stay inside and feel guilty about it: Summer is glorious, but summer is also mind-numbingly hot. Back when we were kids, before air conditioners were ubiquitous, a summer day often meant lying on the cement floor of the basement with ice packs on your body, trying desperately to cool down. If your parents left you alone while they were at work, maybe it meant breaking the rules and playing hours of Mario Brothers inside instead of finding ways to entertain yourself in the boiling hot sun.
This summer, give yourself a little time inside. Pull all your shades down to block out the heat and watch some Netflix. Be lazy. But don’t do it too often, and feel badly about it when you do, because it’s the summer, and your parents were right, you should be outside.
3. Experience the magic of a summer night: In our younger years, the combination of not having to be up for school in the morning and a delayed sunset meant one very significant thing: a later bedtime. Staying up on summer nights meant being enchanted by fireflies, singing songs by a campfire, and laying in the back yard, looking up at the stars.
These wonders cemented our impression that the best things happen after we normally would have to be in bed.
This summer, stay up late and enjoy the night. Instead of going to the club or bar, spread a blanket out in your yard, on your roof, or in the bed of a pickup truck, and stare up at the night sky. Go on a camping trip and sing songs while roasting marshmallows over a fire. Go to a drive-in movie theater. Pack a picnic and watch the fireworks. Get bitten by mosquitoes and catch lightning bugs in a jar.
4. Don't care about your beach body: Corn on the cob. Hot dogs. Lobsters. ICE CREAM. Need I go on? Summer food is delicious. You used to eat it by the pound without ever thinking about it because you were playing outside so much you needed all those calories!
This summer, let watermelon juice drip down your chin, and get buttery, salty corn on the cob stuck in your teeth. Go for ice cream as often as possible—but ride your bike to go get it, or chase the ice cream truck down the block. If you’re heeding the earlier advice, you’ll be so active that you’ll burn the extra calories and look great when it comes time to go to the beach.
5. Get wet: Water defines the summer. As a kid, you were the coolest cat in the neighborhood if you had a pool in your back yard. No pool access? Well, you could always run through the sprinkler, have a water balloon or super soaker fight.
Maybe you were lucky enough to live near the ocean so you didn’t need to experience the torment of a sunburnt, sandy ride home from the beach in a crowded mini-van. Whatever your summer experience, it undoubtedly included water.
This summer, get soaked. Don’t worry about ruining your makeup, hair, or clothes. Go swimming as often as possible. Get caught in a downpour and dance in the rain. Find a swimming hole and rig a rope swing up to a tree. Grab some friends and go tube down a river.
6. Rock out: When you were twelve, your favorite band was probably Hanson or something similarly awful. But, imagine if your twelve-year-old self got to go see said band live in concert? WOW. You would be so thrilled that you’d listen to nothing else on your disc man than MMMBop on repeat until the day had finally come.
Now that you’re an adult, presumably you like better music. And, you have the self-determination to go see this music live without the benevolence of your parents. So, go! Dedicate a few days to, enjoying your favorite songs and discovering new bands at a music festival. If you don’t have that kind of capacity, at the very least get yourself to an outdoor concert. Don’t be too cool for school!—be enthusiastic about it, listen to your favorite band right up until show time, and memorize all the lyrics. If your twelve-year-old self could see you, s/he would think you’re so rock and roll.
7. Fight the ocean: When you’re living summer to its fullest, you will never want it to come to a close. If your parents sprung for Nickelodeon and you could watch The Adventures of Pete and Pete you may remember the iconic scene of Little Pete and his superhero, Artie, violently punching the ocean, trying to prolong summer just a bit by beating the changing tide into submission. As the older Pete narrates, “They’re not crazy, they’re just angry, angry that the summer has to end […] Every year, it seems the summer is over ten seconds after it started…especially this summer.”
Have the best summer you’ve ever had. Go on adventures and act like a child. Enjoy the beauty of the natural world and the company of your friends. If you’re doing it right, the summer will fly by in what seems like seconds and come Labor Day, you will find yourself wading into the tidal waters, fighting the ocean for just a little more glorious summertime.
by: Aubrey Menard
courtesy of PolicyMic
One of the most difficult things about transitioning from being a student into a full-fledged adult is the loss of summer.
You no longer have the end of the school year to look forward to—a break from the tedium of everyday life, a chance to hit the reset button on your academic performance, throw away the disorganized trapper-keeper, and forget all the math you spent the year learning.
But more than that, if you’re in a permanent sort of 9-5 (or 9-5+) job, you may miss out on the adventure that the lazy, hazy days of irresponsible summers once held. Below are seven ways to try to recapture a modicum of summer’s former glory and have yourself a great few months.
1. Get your feet unreasonably dirty: Remember coming home from a long summer day of playing outside? Your parents might yell at you to go spray yourself down with the garden hose before you were allowed to enter the house. The cold water would run over your body, making mud on your skin because the layer of dirt was so thick. You would go the entire summer never being able to get your feet truly clean because the dirt was so ground into them.
This summer, play outside, often and barefoot. Play wiffle ball, bocce, volley ball, and red rover. Go for walks and feel the grass beneath your feet. Walk on the pavement and hop around looking for shady spots because the bottom of your feet are burning. Black-bottom feet are the sign of a summer well-lived.
2. Stay inside and feel guilty about it: Summer is glorious, but summer is also mind-numbingly hot. Back when we were kids, before air conditioners were ubiquitous, a summer day often meant lying on the cement floor of the basement with ice packs on your body, trying desperately to cool down. If your parents left you alone while they were at work, maybe it meant breaking the rules and playing hours of Mario Brothers inside instead of finding ways to entertain yourself in the boiling hot sun.
This summer, give yourself a little time inside. Pull all your shades down to block out the heat and watch some Netflix. Be lazy. But don’t do it too often, and feel badly about it when you do, because it’s the summer, and your parents were right, you should be outside.
3. Experience the magic of a summer night: In our younger years, the combination of not having to be up for school in the morning and a delayed sunset meant one very significant thing: a later bedtime. Staying up on summer nights meant being enchanted by fireflies, singing songs by a campfire, and laying in the back yard, looking up at the stars.
These wonders cemented our impression that the best things happen after we normally would have to be in bed.
This summer, stay up late and enjoy the night. Instead of going to the club or bar, spread a blanket out in your yard, on your roof, or in the bed of a pickup truck, and stare up at the night sky. Go on a camping trip and sing songs while roasting marshmallows over a fire. Go to a drive-in movie theater. Pack a picnic and watch the fireworks. Get bitten by mosquitoes and catch lightning bugs in a jar.
4. Don't care about your beach body: Corn on the cob. Hot dogs. Lobsters. ICE CREAM. Need I go on? Summer food is delicious. You used to eat it by the pound without ever thinking about it because you were playing outside so much you needed all those calories!
This summer, let watermelon juice drip down your chin, and get buttery, salty corn on the cob stuck in your teeth. Go for ice cream as often as possible—but ride your bike to go get it, or chase the ice cream truck down the block. If you’re heeding the earlier advice, you’ll be so active that you’ll burn the extra calories and look great when it comes time to go to the beach.
5. Get wet: Water defines the summer. As a kid, you were the coolest cat in the neighborhood if you had a pool in your back yard. No pool access? Well, you could always run through the sprinkler, have a water balloon or super soaker fight.
Maybe you were lucky enough to live near the ocean so you didn’t need to experience the torment of a sunburnt, sandy ride home from the beach in a crowded mini-van. Whatever your summer experience, it undoubtedly included water.
This summer, get soaked. Don’t worry about ruining your makeup, hair, or clothes. Go swimming as often as possible. Get caught in a downpour and dance in the rain. Find a swimming hole and rig a rope swing up to a tree. Grab some friends and go tube down a river.
6. Rock out: When you were twelve, your favorite band was probably Hanson or something similarly awful. But, imagine if your twelve-year-old self got to go see said band live in concert? WOW. You would be so thrilled that you’d listen to nothing else on your disc man than MMMBop on repeat until the day had finally come.
Now that you’re an adult, presumably you like better music. And, you have the self-determination to go see this music live without the benevolence of your parents. So, go! Dedicate a few days to, enjoying your favorite songs and discovering new bands at a music festival. If you don’t have that kind of capacity, at the very least get yourself to an outdoor concert. Don’t be too cool for school!—be enthusiastic about it, listen to your favorite band right up until show time, and memorize all the lyrics. If your twelve-year-old self could see you, s/he would think you’re so rock and roll.
7. Fight the ocean: When you’re living summer to its fullest, you will never want it to come to a close. If your parents sprung for Nickelodeon and you could watch The Adventures of Pete and Pete you may remember the iconic scene of Little Pete and his superhero, Artie, violently punching the ocean, trying to prolong summer just a bit by beating the changing tide into submission. As the older Pete narrates, “They’re not crazy, they’re just angry, angry that the summer has to end […] Every year, it seems the summer is over ten seconds after it started…especially this summer.”
Have the best summer you’ve ever had. Go on adventures and act like a child. Enjoy the beauty of the natural world and the company of your friends. If you’re doing it right, the summer will fly by in what seems like seconds and come Labor Day, you will find yourself wading into the tidal waters, fighting the ocean for just a little more glorious summertime.
Labels: Guest columns, Pop Culture, weather
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Devastating Floods
Damage already upriver
Is it one more sign of the turbulent weather that has accompanied global warming? The United States Army Corps of Engineers opened the floodgates on the Morganza spillway, for only the second time since its construction in 1954, releasing pressure on the swollen Mississippi River. The deliberate flooding is supposed to help spare Baton Rouge and New Orleans downstream.
Up to 3,000 square miles may be inundated. Local news stations were reporting that land that was farms just last week was 15 feet underwater less than three hours after the spillway opened. This was after only a single one of the 125 bays on the spillway was opened. For local wildlife, it is an epic disaster. The Associated Press reported that, within 30 minutes, 100 acres of land were under a foot of water. The area where the flood waters will drain is home to some of the best wading bird rookeries in the United States, normally from late February to late July, this part of Louisiana is suffused with little blue herons, barred and great horned owls, night-herons, roseate spoonbills, white ibis, egrets along with plenty of alligators.
One of the reasons engineers have only opened one gate, for now, is to give wildlife more time to flee for higher ground.
The human consequences are expected to be severe as well. The BBC is reporting that 25,000 people and 11,000 buildings could be affected by the roiling waters. Estimates are the damages could top $1 billion. The BBC says that residents of Butte La Rose, LA, a community directly in the path of the water, had been told to pack for a long absence. "They told us to move as though we were moving - period - not coming back, not to so much as leave a toothpick behind," said one woman. Farmers in the region are expecting to lose their entire crops in a year of high prices for farm produce.
Brutal. Times are tough.
The Mississippi River is not supposed to crest in Louisiana until the last week of May.
Labels: ecology, Economy, weather
Monday, October 18, 2010
Facebook, not so private
This is not really news. The Clarion Content has been covering for years now the ways in which Facebook exploits the information it collects about its users. Facebook collects this information with or without the user's consent. This week the Wall Street Journal highlighted another way that Facebook can and does take advantage of users.
Facebook applications like FarmVille, Quiz Maker, Texas Hold'em, and Frontierville, to name but a few, have shared tens of millions of Facebook users' personal information to third-party advertisers without users' consent. The Wall Street Journal reports,
"The information being transmitted is one of Facebook's basic building blocks: the unique 'Facebook ID' number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person's name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with 'everyone,' including age, residence, occupation and photos.Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explained to MSNBC why this is a nightmarish problem,
The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities."
"Apps help advertising companies track users and create a very sensitive dossier of your interests, all with the constant reassurance that your real identity is protected. By handing over Facebook user IDs, apps enable advertisers to tie your real name and identity, so these behavior advertising companies have detailed information about you, and now they have a real name to put to those logs."Facebook is not worried, nor in any hurry to deal with these concerns. After all, selling this kind of data about its users is Facebook's lifeblood. It is how they make their money. A Facebook spokesperson pandered to the Wall Street Journal's points without saying anything substantial about changes it intended to implement, "This is an even more complicated technical challenge than a similar issue we successfully addressed last spring on Facebook.com, but one that we are committed to addressing."
Paraphrased that reads, "Yeah, uh, we will get right on that. Thanks."
Labels: Politics, technology, weather
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Tornadoes in NYC?!?
Tornadoes ripped through New York last month killing thousands of trees. The Clarion Content was shocked at the bare minimum of ripple this caused in the American media. Tornadoes in New York felt to us like just the kind of thing that the global warming alarmists would seize upon to promote their legislative cause.
While the Clarion Content does not believe that global warming has the capacity to wipe out the planet and its ecosystems, it does have the power to radically reorient them, with the possibility of massive species extinctions in the process. Still the scale of time involved is geologic, this is one of the nexuses where we clash with the global warming lobby. If we had not been raised in the era of The Population Bomb, we might be able to be more sympathetic to the warming tribe's claims that the change is reaching a tipping point, that the time scale is exponential not linear, and we are at the really sharp point of the curve.
This debate aside, we can't believe more people are not howling about tornadoes in New York City. Maybe it was because there were no deaths? But to the Clarion Content's way of thinking, one of the single most effective tactics to convince the masses that urgent reorientation of humanity's treatment of the global ecosystem is necessary, is extreme weather. Extreme weather, volatile weather, atypical weather is among the most convincing of events to people who cannot observe ocean rise or conceptualize ice cap melting.
Tornadoes in New York City feels pretty extreme, pretty volatile to us. While in the same year, Los Angeles sets an all-time high in temperature?
Environmental change is self-evidently happening, but it is always happening. Is something epic or cataclysmic in progress? How fast is the train headed down the tracks? ¿Quién sabe?
Labels: ecology, science, thought, weather
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Mid-Atlantic snowstorm
Monday, February 01, 2010
Should we talk about the weather?
Long Beach, CA
The Clarion Content is not a global warming denier. However, there is so much misinformation out there floating around the global warming debate that it frustrates those who recognize the warming of the planet as scientific fact.
Warming is a long term trend. And however detrimental it is to humankind, it is ludicrous hyperbole to suggest that it will wipe us out as a species, let alone destroy the planet. It will make it hard (or even impossible) for humans to continue living in some of our current habitats, but that is a far cry from the cataclysmic disaster that warmings most fervent proselytizers preach about. Make no mistake, our language here is not accidental, the supporters of global warming from actual scientists to the inventor of internet, Al Gore, have taken their fight against global warming to the level of a religious crusade. In the Clarion Content's view this is outrageous and a tactical mistake. Major scientific studies about warming have been discredited and/or undermined by this posturing. To the Clarion Content, it would be much more honest to debate warming's harms and other outcomes on an economic basis. In our view, that is what the debate it about, how much money is responding to the effects of warming ex post facto going to cost, versus how much is attempting to ameliorate and avert warming's harms and other outcomes in advance going to cost.
Either approach is likely to be expensive. They require major changes in societal behavior and habit. It is our belief that like health there are logical, cost effective, preventive steps that can be taken and that there are prohibitively expensive and unnecessary actions that make no sense when the patient is the planet. The Clarion Content puts an American "cap and trade" bill as we have heard it proposed in the second category. One of the better preventive steps we think Americans must consider is taking a long hard look at is the locations where we build and have built. There are frequent reminders of the urgent need to reexamine where we humans live.
The effects of global warming are already being felt. The most commonly perceived is what we might call "weather turbulence" or the increased intensity of storms worldwide. There are a plethora of examples: the worst United States tornado season in 100 years, heavy winter weather in England--after a season of historic flooding, extremely cold temperatures in the American South, stronger and more frequent hurricanes, snow in Jerusalem and on and on. This weather turbulence underlines the urgency to vet more carefully where we, as humans, live. We cannot simply keep rebuilding in the most vulnerable areas and subsidizing it as a part of the public good. Our libertarian sensibilities say both, build where you will, and don't expect the collective to reimburse the foolhardy for the cost of building somewhere especially vulnerable. We might show up as friends and communitarians to help you rebuild your house or business. Elsewhere, perhaps?
The most recent eye popping example of extreme weather wreaking havoc on a highly populated area came from what is normally balmy Southern California. Two weeks ago the National Weather Service recorded at least one tornado and four waterspouts in Orange Country, California. Boats docked in a marina were tossed more than fifty feet in the air. In a matter of minutes chest-high water gushed through the streets of Belmont Heights, CA . The storms ripped the roofs off of buildings and shattered windows. The Los Angeles Times reported scenes of chaos. Our hearts go out to those who have suffered and are suffering.
Be warned warming will inflict far more severe harm on other less affluent communities with fewer resources to cope with severe weather.
Labels: ecology, Economy, Politics, science, weather
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Blanketed
The Clarion Content's editorial board, by-in-large, believes that the Earth should be viewed as a self-correcting, holistic, Gaian entity- part of a larger universe of the same. This shapes our view on global warming, it is part of a process, not something that is going to wipe Earth out. However, that does not imply global warming cannot have environmental impacts which will be deleterious for humankind. Witness the epic sandstorms enveloping Sydney, Australia.
The BBC reports that Sydney has been covered in red dust blown in from the deserts of the Australian outback. It says visibility is so bad that international air flights have been diverted. Aussie emergency services have reported a surge in calls from people suffering with breathing and respiratory problems. Traffic on major roads is snarled. Local landmarks are barely visible beneath the swirling red clouds of dirt picked up by winds sweeping across the drought ravaged state of New South Wales.
Read more here.
See more pictures here.
Labels: ecology, thought, weather
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Duke Gardens in the rain
Splashes of color
Delicate
Photos by: Casey Clark
A view from cover
Water: what we all drink
Labels: Durham, Living things, weather
Friday, March 27, 2009
Fargo, ND facing epic flood
Fargo, North Dakota is facing the highest levels of flood waters on the Red River that it has seen during its recorded history. Water levels have risen to more than one foot greater than they have ever been. The New York Times reports that, "The Red River is expected to crest on Saturday in Fargo, but it is then expected to sit swollen for days." It may get to two feet above normal, and temperatures are icy cold. Ice floes are contributing to the problem. No one knows for sure if the frozen sandbags will hold as well as unfrozen sandbag levees normally do.
It is a desperate situation. The New York Times said that more than 3 million sandbags had been filled in the last three days. The Red River is twenty-six feet above its normal level. The LA Times had this quote on the why, "You've had blizzard conditions across the state, following on the heels of recent rains," said Patrick Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. "The ground is so saturated, nothing else can soak in. There's nowhere for the water to go." President Obama has declared 34 counties and two Native American reservations federal disaster areas.
Photos and video here.
It is a desperate situation. The New York Times said that more than 3 million sandbags had been filled in the last three days. The Red River is twenty-six feet above its normal level. The LA Times had this quote on the why, "You've had blizzard conditions across the state, following on the heels of recent rains," said Patrick Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. "The ground is so saturated, nothing else can soak in. There's nowhere for the water to go." President Obama has declared 34 counties and two Native American reservations federal disaster areas.
Photos and video here.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Getting used to the weather
Sasha and Malia play UNO during the campaign
President Barack Obama and his daughters Sasha and Malia were shocked when school was canceled in the Washington D.C. area yesterday. The President was speaking to reporters and business leaders yesterday when he interjected, "Can I make a comment that is unrelated to the economy, very quickly? My children's school was canceled today because of what, some ice?" He went on, "As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled. In fact, my 7-year-old [Sasha] pointed out that you'd go outside for recess in weather like this. . . . You wouldn't even stay indoors."
In article about the President remarks the Los Angeles Times notes that, "A spokeswoman for the Chicago Public Schools said snow, ice or cold has not shut down the system since Jan. 4-5, 1999, when a storm dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on the city. The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, which the Obama girls attended, has closed only once in the last 30 years because of winter weather, said David Derbes, a longtime faculty member."
Welcome to the South, Mr. President, Sasha, Malia.
Labels: ecology, political quips-n-quotes, Pop Culture, weather
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thoughts on Extinction and Environmental Change
Thoughts on Extinction and Environmental change...
An urge to reiterate this point(made elsewhere) overcame the Clarion after the news broke(no pun intended) that an ice shelf bigger than Manhattan had detached from the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Canada in August 2005.
This ice shelf was one of the six ice shelves(glacier tongues) in the Canadian Artic. Now there are five. The Ayles ice shelf was believed to be at least 3,000 years old.
further reading on Ice melting
There is no doubt that the near infinite array of life-forms demonstrate Earth’s ability to adapt to almost any conditions. The question is not: "Are there life-forms on Earth that will be able to adapt to the massive changes in the environment that humanity is making?" Undoubtedly, some life-forms will be able to adapt. The question, which is made much more profound and pertinent by the five previous mass species extinctions, is rather: “Will humanity be one of the species that can adapt and survive?”
An urge to reiterate this point(made elsewhere) overcame the Clarion after the news broke(no pun intended) that an ice shelf bigger than Manhattan had detached from the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Canada in August 2005.
This ice shelf was one of the six ice shelves(glacier tongues) in the Canadian Artic. Now there are five. The Ayles ice shelf was believed to be at least 3,000 years old.
further reading on Ice melting
There is no doubt that the near infinite array of life-forms demonstrate Earth’s ability to adapt to almost any conditions. The question is not: "Are there life-forms on Earth that will be able to adapt to the massive changes in the environment that humanity is making?" Undoubtedly, some life-forms will be able to adapt. The question, which is made much more profound and pertinent by the five previous mass species extinctions, is rather: “Will humanity be one of the species that can adapt and survive?”
Labels: ecology, thought, weather
