I know a lot of you out there may have been worried about climate change, sometimes called global warming, and the large amount of greenhouse pollutants in the atmosphere. But worry no longer as the chief science adviser to the White House has a solution to the problem. As it turns out, all that needed to be done was to put more pollution in the atmosphere, but not greenhouse gases, opposite pollution.
It sounds like a joke but most unfortunately it is not. This idea has actually been suggested to the President and is being debated in scientific circles. It seems as if these people have not heard the phrase, ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. And it appears to me that this would be a very short sighted solution to a real problem, and could lead to unknown ramifications.
I also have a problem with the current administration endorsing ‘cap and trade’ but then debating extreme solutions, here’s an extreme solution; enforce emission standards for real! Cap and trade is hogwash. I wrote a post about cap and trade a few weeks ago that I’ll link to here; Uncle Chan wants you to buy him a dam!
Global real estate is in a state of decline, that is except for on the coasts of South Africa where there is a construction boom. The houses are currently only going for $40 USD but they will one-day pay much larger dividends.
What I’m talking about is the financing and construction of artificial penguins nests now taking place on the beaches of Cape Town and Dyer Island.
African penguins are facing an increasingly dire situation which has seen their numbers plummet in recent years. Some colonies have witnessed declines of up to 50% since 2005. Experts fear that the entire species could die out within ten years.
The main culprit has been the mismanagement of fishing resources which has caused the supply of the penguins’ diet to dwindle. Climate change threatens to add to the damage by way of scorching days and warming of the ocean leading to an alteration in fish migratory patterns. But one of the most immediate problems is that a history of guano scraping has left the penguins without the material required to burrow, and instead are left to make their nests on the surface.
This is where the artificial penguin nests come into play. They’re intended to provide the penguins with shelter from the heat, and protection for their eggs from predatory gulls. They’ve proven popular with the penguins, boasting an 80% occupancy rate where they’ve been installed.
It’s one of the last lines of defence for the species, so if you have any money to send for your penguin brethren, please do so. I’ve already contributed what I can.
See the polar bears do what they do in Churchill, Manitoba
In the far north of Canada, on the western shores of the Hudson Bay lies the world’s largest Polar bear denning area. Visitors to the region take tundra buggies over the frozen ice for the chance to view polar bears in their natural habitat. Many mothers, some with young cubs, can often be seen in close proximity to the vehicles. In addition to the polar bears, Churchill is one of Canada’s best place to observe the Northern Lights.
Fall is the time to visit as it’s when the bears are returning to the ice after the summer, and it’s also the best time to observe the lights. VIA Rail (Canada’s national rail line) provides train service to Churchill from Winnipeg on a regular basis.
Polar bears around the world currently face enormous threats to their habitats. These threats come from a variety of sources not limited to but including climate change. Now whether you believe in climate change as a man made event, or even at all. There is no denying that polar bears are a species on the brink.
There are dozens of organizations working to protect the species and its habitat. The WWF comes to mind as one who uses a multi-faceted approach to conservation and is surely working tirelessly to achieve some protection for the polar bear. They also organize eco-tours to Churchill.
According to Prince Charles that is how long we have to save the world from irreversible damage due to climate change.
Fresh off the high of being named the world’s best dressed man by Esquire magazine, Prince Charles has now set off on a new more important quest to once again bring the environment to the forefront of political discussion. The Prince will be touring South America all week and delivering a keynote speech on the environment in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday.
I can’t say I know a lot about Prince Charles’ personal values, but he is a vegetarian and that alone gives him immeasurably more credibility than Al Gore on all things related to the environment. Also I think it’s great that someone from the British Royal Family is doing something other than making Pakistanis feel bad about themselves.
(This is news from a few days ago, so bear with me.) NASA’s much touted ‘Orbiting Carbon Observatory’ recently failed to achieve orbit and instead crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a major setback for the space agency and a costly one at $280 Million US Dollars.
If the launch had been successful it would have provided scientists studying climate change with new tools to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. Instead it invariably added carbon to the earth’s atmosphere. Irony…
The climate does however seem to favour Republican talk radio. The United States’ largest ever protest on climate change is expected to take place later today and initial reports had speculated it might be met with a snowstorm. Naturally this led to right-wing media outlets declaring global warming a fallacy.
Thankfully the prospects of a snowstorm have been averted and the current forecast is for sunny skies. Global warming is officially back on.
Elsewhere around the nation Governor Schwarzenegger’s declaration of California’s drought as a ’state of emergency’ earlier this week has since been discredited by rain in Sacramento.
A lot of you have heard of the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’. Excuse me, let me rephrase. None of you have heard of the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’. It’s the UN sponsored carbon credit trading system in which governments from first-world nations invest in green friendly projects that will reduce the carbon emissions from a third world country. And by doing so they’re giving themselves licence to pollute with a clear conscious, perfect right? Not quite. It seems something so noble as rich countries buying their way out of personal responsibility has been tainted by those third-world tricksters!
The People’s Republic has had a long standing fascination with hydro power. China has been building hydro-electric plants for a long time now, often forcibly displacing those who live in the region. But now they’re not doing it with their own money, they’re doing it with European money. That’s smart business for China, but it’s not actually reducing any carbon emissions because these were plants whose construction would have gone ahead with or without CDM money.
Now I agree in principle that rich nations should spend money to help less privileged nations meet carbon emission standards. But this is not the ideal system.
Professor Chris Field, an author of the 2007 landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has spoken out saying that the previous report seriously underestimated the amount of warming to expect in the coming century.
The difference between now and two years ago is a better understanding of greenhouse emissions since the turn of the century. From the year 2000 to 2007 greenhouse emissions worldwide have increased 3.5 percent per annum, or four times the average increase during the nineties. The culprit of course being the increase in coal based electric production in China and India as their economies start to mature.
Do you understand what I’m saying, but just need a little credibility to go along with it? Well I’ve got you’ve covered, just click on the following link to hear the same things I’ve said but with a British accent. Ya heard me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06aWhSVY8
The video points out that not all people believe in global warming. Which I get because everyone likes some good old fashioned absolution. But I don’t really understand exactly what the debate is all about.
Are people really doubting whether greenhouse gases heat the earth? Because there is absolutely no scientific debate on that, it’s a fact. The catalyst that moves the earth between normalcy and glacial periods is the release or lack thereof of greenhouse gases. Humans are also unquestionably producing greenhouse gases and releasing them into the atmosphere.
Some of these gases are released naturally, and when it comes to carbon dioxide human activity only accounts for 5% of the total annual production. But believe it or not, that 5% is the difference between accumulation in the atmosphere and natural absorption.
Another gas is methane, which also has natural sources but in this case human activity is accountable for the majority of the 500 million annual tonnes. Also there is nitrous oxide of which humans account for 40% of annual emissions.
Or at least it will be soon. When asking Congress for federal aid the automakers pledged to shut down or sell their under-performing divisions, one of which is the Hummer brand. If GM can’t find a buyer (and it’s not looking likely) the company will most likely be eliminated this year.
Of course had the Hummer brand been raking in cash, Congress would have had no problem with the H2 truck’s 9 MPG. While GM doesn’t release the fuel economy information for the engines Hummers use, 9MPG is believed to be a significant improvement over previous models.
So fellow Hummer haters, put your eggs away and please look deep within yourselves to understand the irony of throwing the unborn embryos of animals at inanimate objects in order to champion the environment.
I miss Bush already. That dude was hilarious! State sanctioned torture equals good times. Have you ever seen someone waterboarded? Well I have (on Always Sunny) and it was quite funny.
