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Thursday, August 25, 2011

25

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"There's Justice In The Universe"
All too rarely do newspapers include material that give us meaningful and pertinent information about mankind’s past.  Normally, the media outlets for such is educational television and the internet. However, in Saturday’s Statesman (A-7), we’re told about the comet that hit the far North about 13000 years ago.  Those of us who watch educational programming already know about this --- but it’s always encouraging when black-and-white hardcopy gives us something better than the usual drab fare.

Read Article:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/01/03/0103diamonds.html

Read How This Triggered The 'Younger Dryas' & Extinctions:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
In looking to the future, we are dependent upon what we know and understand about the past.  Here’s what I accept about past temperatures on Earth. [Note: I try to avoid that from the global warming ‘naysayers’ and ‘doomsayers’. Though they can‘t both be wrong about everything they say.]

500,000,000+ Years Before Present:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png

400,0000+ Years Before Present:
http://blog.topicaltopics.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/vostok_long1.gif

160,000 Years Before Present:
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/vostok.gif

12,000 Years Before Present:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

Past 140 Years & 1,000 Years:
http://www.yhub.org.uk/resources/Climate%20Change%20Micro%20Site/Figure%201%20-%20global%20temperature%20change%20over%20the%20past%201000%20years.jpg

What I think the most likely best case scenario to follow is ‘noticeable’ elevating temperatures for the next two decades with dramatic fluctuations (unfortunately, this will further fuel the debate between global warming ‘naysayers’ and ‘doomsayers’).  Temperature fluctuations will then intensify (caused by a shift in climate patterns) with  significant temperature increases that will last for a generation.  During this entire time, ice mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica will continue to increase & methane releases from continuing melting tundra and oceanic hydrate gasification will increase. 

The only reason that we won’t see radical temperature increases in the near future is that we’re entering a brief naturally occurring moderating cycle.  It’ll be just long enough to weaken the building of a lasting consensus to control population growth and fossil fuel use in the world.  SO, by the time the another moderating period is due in two generations (after another warming cycle), they should better be able to determine the likelihood of ‘runaway global warming’.

Since, regarding greenhouse gases, I’d rather err on the side of caution (and remembering that it’s “not nice to fool Mother Nature”), I favor a very strong push for renewable energy sources.  Not only does it appeal to my common sense (economically), it’s also a great way to minimize escalating environmental pollution that has made cancer the number one killer in developed nations [Hint: that’s us].  Of course, I could be wrong / after all, a worldwide series of epidemics could solve the overpopulation problem that’s fueling other related problems.  A conflagration in the Middle East could easily be the catalyst triggering a domino effect making this a reality.

But, what the heck -- after all, it’d be good for the Spotted Owl.  And we knew that we’d have to either evolve into something better or go extinct anyway.  Right?
If you find yourself needing to get some interior painting done, you might find that low VOC paint is now an easily affordable option at Home Depot.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/interior-paints1.htm
http://www.jetsongreen.com/2008/04/home-depots-new.html
A 'biblical creationist' with credentials as a climate scientist, Dr. John Christy is heralded by global warming naysayers as the 'voice of reason'.  They mostly view Al Gore as a secular doomsayer.  Unfortunately, vilifying Gore while deifying 'Christ'y only distracts from paying attention to observable phenomena such as rapidly increasing ice mass loss, countless plumes of methane gas now rising from the ocean floor in the Arctic, northward migration of plant and animal species, etcetera.

Temperature records of the past 6000+ years show that we'd been in a long term cooling trend. There were, of course, fluctuations (climate changes) in the temperature records because of natural geological and astronomical variances.  What's disconcerting is the distinctive spike in mean temperature recorded since the Industrial Revolution when fossil fuels began to be more heavily utilized. 

Charts:
http://tinyurl.com/9k2lqz
http://tinyurl.com/a388md

Create your own charts and graphs:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gcag/index.jsp

Enjoy 'AnswersNOAAgov':
http://findanswers.noaa.gov/noaa.answers/consumer/search.asp
Austin's 'Single Stream Recycling' has increased what can be picked up curbside for recycling:
https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/recycling.htm

Other items with recyclable value can be dropped off at a location nearest you:
http://earth911.com/
Note: Sometimes, it can be picked up, as in the case (last month) when I donated windows to "Habitat For Humanity".
Note: Ecology Action is Austin's downtown recycling center. They are located at Ninth Street and IH-35 and open M-F 10-6, S-S 9-5. They will be opening new locations, so if you want one near you, contact:
http://www.ecology-action.org/node/78

Hazardous Household Waste, of course, still goes to the HHW site:
https://wwwr.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/hhw.htm
When I ordered my scrambled eggs at IHOP to be made using cracked eggs (not liquid eggs), it was to avoid additives included in processed foods [Note: The liquid eggs taste better, but that's not the point]. Then I got to wondering about what, specifically, was in the processed foods that we indulge in at fast food places and at home.  Most of us already know about the high sodium and MSG content, but I was a little surprised at some of the other things added.
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/additives/
http://www.naturalnews.com/022194.html

Learn More:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/
"If you are an employer and you want to do the right thing, how can you insure that your prospective hire has a legal right to work in the United States? The simple solution: use E-Verify (formerly Basic Pilot Program) , the Department of Homeland Security's Electronic Employment Verification Program. E-Verify enables employers to quickly and easily verify the work authorization of their newly hired employees. E-Verify does this by providing access to the Verification Information System (VIS) database. This database is a nationally accessible database of immigration status information, including more than 60 million records."

http://www0.numbersusa.com/content/enforcement/workplace-verification.html
Overpopulation is the world's biggest problem. It compounds all of our other problems.  Over-breeding is a primitive survival mechanism that, ironically, puts us all in greater jeopardy.
 
 
A pair of satellites (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment / GRACE) are constantly whipping around the Earth measuring the variations in the Earth's gravity over its entire surface --- revealing hidden concentrations of mass.  Especially interesting to me are two of its discoveries in Antarctica:

1) a crater under the ice that measure an asteroid impact greater than the one that doomed the dinosaurs.
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/06/03/huge-asteroid-crater-in-antarctica/

2) a steady loss of ice mass of 35+ cubic miles annually that is increasing in volume (despite the increase in precipitation that global warming has induced / otherwise the loss of mass would be greater). [Similar data is being recorded for Greenland.]

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/grace-in-space/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/grace-in-space/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/grace-in-space/article_view?b_start:int=2&-C=
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/030602/2gulfstream_2.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070327122328.htm

Of Special Note: About 250 million years ago, an asteroid struck Pangea.  It split into 3 pieces /two smaller ones hit S. Africa and a huge one hit the land mass now contained in Antarctica. Its shock waves both triggered the splitting up of Pangea & long term volcanic activity in the area known as the Siberian Traps. The CO2 released was so much for so long that the extinction known as the Great Dying ocurred. Another famous extinction caused by global warming occurred after sustained volcanic activity in the Indian Deccan Traps. [Other extinctions caused by global warming have occurred & all have been preceded by increasing ocean temperatures.]

Note: In reference to 'global warming', I won't deny that the Earth has been in a gradually & 'naturally caused' long term warming trend.  What I do say is that the increasing levels of CO2 has caused the spiked "hockey stick" graph (made famous by Gore) that indicates that the warming has increased at a much sharper rate than it would have otherwise.

Note: Numerous empirical observations and models of the global climate confirm the hypothesis that global warming 'enhances the global hydrological cycle' (increase in precipitation).  With the beginnings of 'climate change', we're going to see new records for high and low temperatures along with unusual variations in precipitation levels (higher in some regions and lower in others).
"Recent data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that employers eliminated more than 533,000 jobs in November, the highest one-month total in more than 30 years.  With unemployment rising, it is more important than ever that immigration is curtailed as much as possible. How can it make sense to continue to import foreign workers when hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs on a monthly basis?"

Go to Action Buffet at:
www.numbersusa.com