Is ‘global warming’ the right term to use?

Why some think global warming is in need of rebranding.

via mothernaturenetwork

Crowd-Sourcing Helps Map Global Emissions

Scientists launched an online “game” to better understand the sources of global warming gases. By engaging “citizen scientists,” the researchers hope to locate all the power plants around the world and quantify their CO2 emissions.

Source: Arizona State Univ.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/videos/2013/05/crowd-sourcing-helps-map-global-emissions

via Lab Equipment and skeptv.

Global Warming effects on the Arctic Ocean

The surface waters of a major portion of the Arctic Ocean are becoming saturated with carbon dioxide sooner than many scientists expected, all but halting the watery region’s ability to sop up more of the greenhouse gas from Earth’s atmosphere, new research finds.

To read the full article, please visit:
http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2013/05/13/agu-video-prospects-dim-for-ice-free-arctic-ocean-helping-slow-global-warming/

via AGU videos and skeptv.

Advanced Alien Civilization Discovers Uninhabitable Planet

CONSTELLATION HYDRA—Dashing the hopes of those among them who believed the faraway world would surely prove habitable, astronomers from the Terxus II star system announced Thursday that a recently discovered planet remarkably like their own is in fact completely hostile to life.

According to scientists from the advanced alien civilization, despite possessing liquid water and a position just the right distance from its central star, the bluish-green terrestrial planet they have named RP-26 cannot sustain life due to its eroding landmasses, rapidly thinning atmosphere, and increasingly harsh climate.

“Theoretically, this place ought to be perfect,” leading Terxus astrobiologist Dr. Srin Xanarth said of the reportedly blighted planet located at the edge of a barred spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy. “When our long-range satellites first picked it up, we honestly thought we’d hit the jackpot. We just assumed it would be a lush, green world filled with abundant natural resources. But unfortunately, its damaged biosphere makes it wholly unsuitable for living creatures of any kind.”

“It’s basically a dead planet,” she added. “We give it another 200 years, tops.”

The alien researchers stated that the dramatically warming atmosphere of RP-26 contains alarming amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, as well as an ozone layer that—for reasons they cannot begin to fathom—has been allowed to develop a gaping hole. They also noted the presence of melting polar icecaps, floods, and enough pollutants to poison “every last drop of the planet’s fresh water, if you can even call it that.”

Given the extreme toxicity of its environment, the Terxus scientists said they did not yet understand how the planet ever came to support single-cell organisms, let alone more complex species and intelligent life.

“Essentially, you have this entire world that’s a deathbed for everything still managing to live there,” said Dr. Xanarth, who estimates that tens of thousands of species on RP-26 go extinct every year. “And for whatever reason, members of its most dominant species choose to live above ground, where they are exposed to deadly ultraviolet rays and weather patterns that grow more and more violent all the time.”

“The majority of them live in crowded, dirty clusters along heavily contaminated bodies of water,” she continued. “It’s really all very sad.”

Alien scientists acknowledged that for all practical purposes, RP-26 is now little more than a giant ball of dirt emitting noxious fumes. But they also shared an artist’s rendering that depicts how the planet might have appeared in its recent past, when it reportedly contained flourishing ecosystems able to sustain an impressive diversity of species, and an atmosphere that was actually hospitable to organisms that breathe oxygen.

The advanced beings said they have concluded that any attempt to colonize or even travel to RP-26 would be a futile endeavor, because by the time they reached the distant planet its coastlines would have washed away, and the remaining landmasses would be plagued by widespread drought and famine.

“Frankly, it would be pretty pointless to explore it any further unless we wanted to study how things die,” Dr. Xanarth said. “It’s basically going to be an ugly, befouled rock covered in a thick soup of deadly chemicals. It would need to be terraformed before we could even walk on its surface, which, let’s face it, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would be willing to do.”

“As for the intelligent life-forms inhabiting that planet right now, God help them, because that whole place is going to hell,” she added. “It’s really a shame, too, because all our data suggests they would have made for really good eating.”

via theonion

Sometimes, you guys, sometimes……

(via thegreenurbanist)

As a speculative and scientific human being, I had a sudden thought today on the ideology behind heaven and hell..

When religions are stripped down to their core origin, they’re all simply methods created to explain the world as each culture/civilization were able to decipher it, providing insight via ‘mystical’ stories behind our existence and serve also as a tool to translate our behavior & decipher our consciousness/introspection.

However, on the conceptualization of heaven/hell & the metaphorical philosophy…

Hell, described as:
+ a state of separation or exclusion from God or the presence of God
+ a place of evil, torment, anguish, suffering, destruction
+ an extremely unpleasant and often inescapable situation

Hell has always been noted to be a place of unrelenting torture, primarily associated with fire & brimstone - which is an obsolete name for sulfur.

Heaven, described as:
+ an eternal state of communion with God; everlasting bliss
+ a condition or place of great happiness, delight or pleasure
+ a state of thought in which sin is absent and the harmony of divine
Mind is manifest

Heaven has always been noted to be a place of purity, enlightenment, evolution, a utopia of sorts.

As much as we all would love for heaven to actually exist in order to have some place of overwhelming joy present in the afterlife…we know nothing of said afterlife and what matters most to our survival and relevance to reality are the laws of nature that have not only been proven, but which are constantly tested, stretched and understood more each day due to the primary tool of science & mathematics, for which we gain true understanding of the world we live on, time/space we move within, the universe we were manifested amongst and the incredible connection we have to every living thing we choose to study and explore with our instinctive curiosity.

But what IF the heaven/hell analogy isn’t/wasn’t that far off?

Venus is our sister planet, visibly plagued by runaway global warming. Sulfuric rain, excessive heat & runaway global warming have plagued this world for billions of years. It’s complex and threatening biosphere is the ‘worst-case scenario’ in relation to our tiny, fragile planet. Venus is, in simple terms - a living hell.

Our home planet, Earth, is a utopia of sorts. From our abundant (albeit “finite”) resources, precise positioning in the habitable zone of this solar system, vast/diverse species of life, and of course - the hu(youu)mans. We haven’t (yet) discovered a similar planet teeming with life, let alone ‘intelligent’ life resembling a species such as ours.

Yet…here we are: A unique species for as far as the eye (or lens) can see. From an outsiders perspective, we are an incomplete species on the path to evolution, enlightenment and symbiosis with all the other residents of our home planet.

We squander away our ability to explore the cosmos and stifle our technological innovation by ignorantly perpetuating an addiction to money, control, self-interest, manipulation, false security, illusions of power and primitive traditions - all of which have pushed us to the brink of our existence in such a short span of time since we came into being in this particular corner of the universe.

The unfortunate reality is: if it weren’t for the human species, it truly would be “heaven” on Earth.

The punishment for our weak stewardship as explorers, scientists & ambassadors to this planet, is ultimately, that which we all fear. Extinction. Ecocide. The opposite of this way of life, effecting all living things.

A living hell.

We haven’t spent enough time on Venus to understand its history and if you will - ‘cosmic timeline’ - in order to understand whether or not there was life present on this planet at some point. And if so, what brought about such a rapid change (if any) to cause the environmental and atmospheric conditions to suffocate its biosphere to the state it resides now?

Point being: when viewing these metaphors (via multiple religions) under this perspective, surely - heaven and hell are very real. They serve as byproducts or “results” of the world we wish to exist in. And because we presently live in solitude from what we currently view in the observable universe….

I’d say that we have a pretty solid ultimatum laid down at our feet for how we must conduct ourselves on this planet, symbiotically, together. Synchronicity within a small blue sphere, orchestrated organically to propel our own evolution and enlightenment, in order to strategically and delicately explore the backyard universe from which all life originated from in the first place.

sagansense.
February 20, 2012.

Stay Curious. Heaven and Hell | Carl Sagan on Global Warming

Major Glacier Calving Captured In Time-lapse Video

Researchers from Swansea University in the United Kingdom working near Greenland’s Helheim Glacier spotted a spectacular calving event on July 12, 2010. They captured the glacier dropping icebergs into the fjord in this time-lapse video.

via skeptv, original post via Live Science Videos.

Humans began contributing to environmental lead pollution as early as 8,000 years ago, according to a Univ. of Pittsburgh research report.

The Pitt research team detected the oldest-discovered remains of human-derived lead pollution in the world in the northernmost region of Michigan, suggesting metal pollution from mining and other human activities appeared far earlier in North America than in Europe, Asia, and South America. Their findings are highlighted on the cover of the latest issue of Environmental Science & Technology.

“Humanity’s environmental legacy spans thousands of years, back to times traditionally associated with hunter-gatherers. Our records indicate that the influence of early Native Americans on the environment can be detected using lake sediments,” says David Pompeani, lead author of the research paper and a PhD candidate in Pitt’s Department of Geology and Planetary Science. “These findings have important implications for interpreting both the archeological record and environmental history of the upper Great Lakes.”

The Univ. of Pittsburgh research team — which included, from Pitt’s Department of Geology and Planetary Science, Mark Abbott, associate professor of paleoclimatology, and Daniel Bain, assistant professor of catchment science, along with Pitt alumnus Byron Steinman (A&S ’11G) — examined Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula because it is the largest source of pure native copper in North America. Early surveys of the region in the 1800s identified prehistoric human mining activity in the form of such tools as hammerstones, ladders and pit mines.

The team from the Department of Geology and Planetary Science investigated the timing, location, and magnitude of ancient copper mining pollution. Sediments were collected in June 2010 from three lakes located near ancient mine pits. They analyzed the concentration of lead, titanium, magnesium, iron, and organic matter in the collected sediment cores — finding distinct decade- to century-scale increases in lead pollution preserved from thousands of years ago.

“These data suggest that measurable levels of lead were emitted by preagricultural societies mining copper on Keweenaw Peninsula starting as early as 8,000 years ago,” says Pompeani. “Collectively, these records have confirmed, for the first time, that prehistoric pollution from the Michigan Copper Districts can be detected in the sediments found in nearby lakes.”

By contrast, reconstructions of metal pollution from other parts of the world, such as Asia, Europe, and South America, only provide evidence for lead pollution during the last 3,000 years, says Pompeani.

“We’re hopeful that our work can be used in the future to better understand past environmental changes,” says Abbott.

The team is currently investigating places near other prehistoric copper mines surrounding Lake Superior.

Carl Sagan: A Message To Humanity

A wonderful video compilation of some of Carl’s most powerful and chillingly [still] relevant words. Introduce someone to Carl Sagan today and utilize this video. These are prophetic words from a human being who truly “spoke for Earth”.

Stay Curious. Watch and share the Sagan Series by Reid Gower; change someone’s life today.

What is beneath the world’s largest ice sheet? Compiled by the British Antarctic Survey and made from “millions of new measurements, including substantial data sets from NASA’s ICESat satellite and an airborne mission called Operation IceBridge,” this animated map of the changing Antarctic Ice Sheet reveals the bedrock terrain below with a level of detail never seen before.

Read more about decades of data: Peeling Back the Ice of Antarctica by Wired’s Adam Mann.

via thekidshouldseethis

At the heart of the White House’s new Arctic strategy is an elementary but devastating contradiction between what President Obama, in the document’s preamble, describes as seeking “to make the most of the emerging economic opportunities in the region” due to the rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice, and recognising “the need to protect and conserve this unique, valuable, and changing environment.”

Despite repeated references to “preservation” and “conservation”, the strategy fails to outline any specific steps that would be explored to mitigate or prevent the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice due to intensifying global warming. Instead, the document from the outset aims to:

“… position the United States to respond effectively to challenges and emerging opportunities arising from significant increases in Arctic activity due to the diminishment of sea ice and the emergence of a new Arctic environment.”

In other words, far from being designed to prevent catastrophe, the success of the new strategy is premised precisely on the disappearance of the Arctic summer sea ice.

No comment.

via climateadaptation

[x]

Time to Wake Up: GOP Opposition to Climate Science

In his weekly climate speech, Senator Whitehouse slammed the Republican Party for their opposition to taking action on climate change, and for siding with the pollutors over the the scientists.

Jellyfish surge in Mediterranean threatens environment – and tourists: A project is tracking the phenomenon as global warming and overfishing boost numbers of the venomous sea creature @ Guardian

via saveplanetearth

Global warming is expected to have far-reaching, long-lasting and, in many cases, devastating consequences for planet Earth. For some years, global warming — the gradual heating of Earth’s surface, oceans and atmosphere — was a topic of heated debate in the scientific community.

But the overwhelming consensus of researchers today is that global warming is real and is caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels that pump carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Additionally, global warming is having a measurable effect on the planet right now. [ Increase in average temperatures, extreme weather events, shift in climate patterns, snow and ice, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, plant and animal impacts, social impacts] …

(Source: science-junkie)

Saving the Last Coral Wilderness on Earth

With his jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, oceanographer David Gallo strikes us with wonder and exposes how little we know about what lies below the surface of the ocean. The ocean is the planet’s largest habitat, covering more than three-quarters of its surface, yet most of this environment is unexplored. We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the seafloor of our own planet.

Today, most of the world’s ocean is in serious decline, especially coral reefs, which are overfished and dying due to coastal development, erosion and runoff, pollution, and global warming. Back in 2000 I dove for the first time among the corals surrounding the Phoenix Islands in the South Pacific. They were the most pristine ever found. Virtually uninhabited, the islands had been protected by their remoteness, seeming to exist outside of time, and their reefs had been spared the overfishing and destruction that had ravaged neighboring reefs in the Pacific and elsewhere.

We must take care of our ocean. The fact that only about 1 percent of the ocean is protected (compared with 12 percent of the landmasses) should be a clarion call for ocean conservation. We need to ramp up our protection of the ocean and create more large marine protected areas like the Phoenix Islands Portected Area (PIPA), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, to name a few. There has never been a more important time than the present to do so.

Pacific nations have taken a leadership position in global marine conservation. In 2009 President Anote Tong of Kiribati presented a concept to fellow member nations of the Pacific Islands Forum, proposing a “Pacific Oceanscape” initiative to protect the world’s largest ocean. In 2010 the fifteen-member nations’ leaders, including President Tong, met in Vanuatu and endorsed the Pacific Oceanscape Framework. Covering nearly 25 million square miles (40 million km2) of ocean and island ecosystems — the size of Canada, the United States, and Mexico combined — the Pacific Oceanscape unites Pacific island states in a survival campaign for ocean conservation and management in the twenty-first century.

To design the Pacific Oceanscape, stakeholders were recruited from fisheries, universities, conservation organizations, regional agencies, and governments to create a framework for the long-term, sustainable management of the ocean region that the Pacific island nations depend on for their survival and treasure as their natural and cultural heritage. This innovative and ambitious initiative is remarkable not only for its scale, but also for the united Pacific voice it brings to issues of sustainable development and ocean conservation.

The Future of the Phoenix Islands

It all started in 2001, when I flew to Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati, with two of my friends and marine biology researchers David Obura and Sangeeta Mangubhai to meet with government officials after our first expedition to explore the corals and sea life surrounding the Poenix Islands. The three of us presented a slide show and science report to the ministers of Fisheries and Environment, showing them the magical underwater scenes of hundreds of sharks, lavish, colorful corals, dense clouds of reef fish, and countless bird nesting on the islands.

“Turning conversations into action requires each of us to commit ourselves anew.” - Greg Stone

They were as amazed as we had been at the untouched, museum-like quality of the Phoenix Islands reefs, in sharp contrast to the reefs closer to their population centers, which were all overfished and degraded by coastal development. I could tell that seeing these thriving reefs meant a great deal to the Kiribati people in the room because of their society’s ancient connection to the sea. They informed us that we were the first foreign scientists who had ever bothered to come to Tarawa to explain in person what we had done and what we learned while conducting research in Kiribati waters.

The conversation that began in Tarawa marked the beginning of a remarkable partnership. The story of the Phoenix Islands shows how a single small action by a few individuals can grow to enlist the expertise, energy, and passion of people around the world, from ordinary citizens to professionals to policymakers at the highest levels of government.

Turning conversations into action requires each of us to commit ourselves anew, dedicating our time, energy, financial resources, and political will to the problems of climate change, overpopulation, and the other forces that affect our beleaguered water planet. It demands that we engage in free and honest dialogue across disciplines, cultures, and oceans. Our children, and their children, can inherit this blue planet only if we make the urgent mission to save the ocean our own and raise our voices along with our hopes.

Greg Stone is the Chief Ocean Scientist and Executive Vice President of The Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science and Oceans at Conservation International. He is co-author of ‘Underwater Eden.’

Stay Curious! Read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TED Talk above.

This time, I worked with up and coming AccuWeather journalist Samantha-Rae Tuthill. She asked tough questions and dug deep for this piece. She was really great and I had a lot of fun. She also picked out some good zingers (I bet long-time readers will recognize my pessimism). Check it out if you can!

Whether they call it global warming, climate change or even global cooling, more and more Americans are taking a stand on one side or the other of this hotly debated issue.

According to a survey published last year by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, 66 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, with 42 percent concerned that it will harm people in the United States between now and the next 10 years. Forty-five percent of Americans believe the country will be harmed by global warming in the next 50 years, with only 16 percent saying that global warming will never harm the U.S.

The arguments on either side of the issue can be broken into three main categories. Those who do not believe in climate change, or at least in man-made climate change, are considered “climate skeptics.” Groups concerned about climate change are primarily split between two camps; those who want to prevent further change and those who want to adapt to changes that do occur.

(Source: climateadaptation)