METHANE MONSTER ON THE LOOSE

Global warming is about to really pick up speed ... the long-feared methane sinks are starting to release in levels that are shocking scientists, and it only stands to get worse. I knew by 2005 it was too late to slow or stop man-made warming ... now the disaster-planning should start ... when those western glacial sheets of Greenland slough off to the ocean the world will really wake up.

WARMING: SCIENCE SETTLED

In a terrific irony a new study funded in part by the billionaire right-wing Koch brothers (who are behind the climate change debunking movement) has correlated almost entirely with existing data sets that show a clear warming trend. Article here

BAG IT, TAG IT, CASH IT OUT

The global kleptocracy that is the international banking/trade system has made it clear that Earth is just a commodity for them to strip, squeeze, use and suck dry - and that includes its people ... any meaningful move toward real environmental protections for wildlife, oceans, the air and humanity have gone into limbo and most initiatives are stalled or going nowhere fast. The economic realignment the banksters orchestrated is partly in play to weaken and quash environmental regulations besides it main goals of equalizing labor costs globally, reducing the social welfare networks of Western democracies, and to restrict political and information freedoms. The wealthy elites who really control policy in the political arena have made it clear - we don't care if our children or any future people have a livable world.

GREAT RED SPOT

You could fit Earth into it 3 times. It resides between opposing jet streams in Jupiter's southern hemisphere. It is several degrees warmer than its surroundings. It spins counter-clockwise (except for the center, which spins slowly clockwise). It has existed for at least hundreds of years. It's darker red colored center and reason for being are not fully understood. My theory: a manifestation of magnetic energy perhaps related to its magnetic "tether" to the Sun.

SOLAR CYCLE SHIFTING TO MAXIMUM PHASE

119 sunspots as of today ... transition begins to Solar Maximum - with a peak around 2013

GOB-SMACKING RATE OF ICE MELT IN GREENLAND

2nd giant ice island due to melt away much quicker than scientists expected (link has pics and video) - here

MONITORING ANTARCTIC ICE MOVEMENTS

New Antarctic Ice Animation

THE MANY WAYS WE KNOW HUMANS ARE CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING

source

HOT WORLD FOR YOUR CHILDREN

If you have kids 10 or younger you should take them to all the cool and green places that you can before they reach adulthood so they'll have childhood memories to share with their children about a once green/blue world with abundant wildlife. As global warming continues its runaway momentum and the world sees more species die-offs, more severe weather, and overall temperature rise ... the ice will melt, the green places will decrease, deserts will expand, and it will be a more hostile climate in which people live.

TAKING OUR POLLUTION AND WAR TO EARTH ORBIT

Atmospheric flare from a minuteman III ICBM missile from Kanoa on Vimeo.

OCEANS IN SEVERE DECLINE - NEW REPORT

The latest scientific panel to weigh in says the Earth's oceans are in a state of decline far worse than current models predicted, and the pace is much faster than expected. Species die-offs, pollution and methane release are the key dangers for ocean life and for humans. 


Part of the solution is simple: vast tracts of ocean must be put off-limits to all fishing activities for extended periods (1-5 years) and this must be enforced by joint military efforts (or an internationa environmental militia must be assembled to do it). Article here

SONG OF THE SUN

What is the sun singing? All that heat and light and it turns out that sound seems to be the key to understanding the sun. The current solar sunspot cycle seems out-of-whack somehow, baffling scientists. The normal pattern would have the sun continuing to intensify its sunspot cycle to greater density and intensity until around 2013 and then cycle down to a low number and low activity by 2020. But the sound waves that course through the Sun are singing a different tune - they tell scientists that the Sun may actually be peaking early this sunspot cycle and that the spots may come to an abrupt end - for possibly quite a while. Article here

AH HUMANS, DISASTER-REACTIVE

Now that Japan has suffered probably the worst nuclear disaster in history (I'll bet we'll find out ultimately it released as much radiation as Chernobyl) their government has made the wise choice to abandon nuclear power in favor of green renewable energy - article here

ANOTHER PREDICTION

In my 8-5-10 post I noted that sunspot activity shifted and hence warming was kicking into gear as of that day, and I was right. We've gone from 70% spotless days to 17% spotless days to <1% spotless days. The solar sunspot cycle is due to peak in 2013 and it will be a very different world than we've known the past few years. Severe droughts will be beginning or underway in many parts of the world, heatwaves of record proportions will be afflicting major population centers, more species migration will be in evidence and don't be surprised if we've had a major ice shelf collapse in Greenland by then. Also a few very destructive hurricanes/cyclones will have likely hit and forced some environmental refugee migration. Farmers had better plan for a couple of rough years. Asshole greedmeisters who short commodities in the markets will make some money.

BIG OIL STILL DICTATING TO OBAMA - DOLPHIN DEATH COVERUP

BP is still dictating to the US federal government ... thwarting scientific investigation into dolphin deaths in the wake of the BP oil spill - article here

Piers Morgan did a pretty good job going after the noxious Ken Feinberg  (BP's "pay czar") ... lambasting him for being so stingy and slow paying Gulf business people and residents who saw their livelihoods destroyed - link here

HUMANS TO GRANT NATURE LEGAL RIGHTS?

Wonderful if it happens. Bolivia is considering legislation to grant legal rights to nature - article here Quick, get this bird a lawyer!

MORE DOLPHINS KILLED BY U.S. MILITARY

Article here

I wrote about this years ago when I was a columnist for Rawstory

AURORAS TIME-LAPSE VIDEO

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

BIOPLASTICS LOGO CONTEST TURNED INTO A JOKE

Only one design remaining deserves to win, that by Ian Bonilla. All the others are not very good or most appropriate for the designated use and can emboss well. Cereplast, who sponsored the contest, came up with a joke of a system to select their 200 finalists (originally 50). They set up a page where you could vote one design against another and urged entrants to get everyone they know to vote for their design. It could take hundreds of clicks before you ever saw a logo you wanted to vote for, and if you signed up and logged in your vote could count double! Of course the public wasn't really voting, it was the entrants themselves driven by self-interest to win the $25,000 at the end of the rainbow, and most were voting down their opposition, you could witness position changes of 500 to 1000 places (out of 1300) in just 20 minutes. On the blog for the contest several entrants suggested that all entries be looked at since some very good designs would likely fall below the 200 threshold (and they did). So a cutesy no dinosaurs, a tornado plastic cup, some hand-drawn spikey finger things, full-blown ads with text, pointy wine-stopper things, and the bp logo (evoke an oil-spill?) are in the running while many brilliant designs are not. Most frustrating was that the contest spelled out rules: one color, 3 designs per submission (general, recycle, compost), and the correct category number (7). Many of the finalists did not follow these rules and were not removed prior to the voting.

NATURE STRIKES BACK? BEE DIE-OFFS NOW GLOBAL

New article shows bee colony die-offs are now global - article here

Nature always seeks balance - did all those poisonous chemicals (like ones that infuse every part of a plant) and gene manipulations of plants (such as those that exude their own created toxins) upset the balance? If the bees keep dying there aren't enough people to hand-pollinate the food crops we need (nor mechanical devices that could do it) - mass starvations will be the result in time. Thank you greedy transnational corporate chemical industry.

MELTING PERMAFROST MEANS HOT WORLD IS COMING

The fossil fuel industry is cashing in on the destruction of our natural habitat - we could have transitioned away from fossil fuels as president Carter started in the 1970s but the oil industry made sure their guys sat in seats of power after that and are squeezing every last dollar they can out of a commodity that is destroying us. Hot World is starting. Permafrost article here

FINALLY: PHONE BOOK OPT-OUT

From Gizmodo, an article on how to opt-out of those dumb phone-books

(US only, this site): www.yellowpagesoptout.com

-put in zip code
-a new page will come up showing you all the phone books you may be "eligible" for
-Register: yes, you have to register in order to get on the opt-out list
-use your backup email (the one that you get junk mail at) if you have one
-check your email to activate the account
-you'll click on a link to take you back to the site
-click on Manage My Directories
-click Opt Out of All at bottom, or individually change the totals to "0"
-click Disclaimer box on next page it shows you (letting you know you may still get one or more if it's within 6 weeks of their normally-scheduled delivery)
DONE

100% RENEWABLE ENERGY DOABLE BY 2030

As I said for the many years I ran the Earth Day Energy Fast (1991 - 2007) you will not see any meaningful penetration into the market for renewables until Shell, Exxon, and the other major fossil fuel energy companies have drained down their oil (and related) products they wish to sell you and they can bring their renewables technology to market. The whole system is rigged, and governments (especially the U.S. government) are pawns and facilitators to the fossil fuel industry's profit motive. We could have moved dramatically to clean energy after Carter started the process in the 1970s, but we did not because of the greed of the fossil fuel industry. This new claim in PhysOrg that we can transition to 100% renewables by 2030 is laughable. It is not a question of if the technology is ready and can be mass-produced in short-order, it is a question of the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry holds over our global political process.

GLOBAL HUMAN HEALTH AND WEALTH

ANIMAL DEATH WAVE

Is it? Animal die-offs occur for various reasons all the time. The news has picked up several stories in just a few days so it seems like a wave - statistics at some point in the future will show whether this is a blip or not, or just part of the background noise of normal die-offs. The religious nuts of course take it as more signs of the Apocalypse, since they are sure hoping for that. Rational people must put up with their stupidity as we try to sort out what are signs of biological change related to human activity we can do something about and what is part of natural cycles.