Just Plain Weird

Bull Run Risks Contamination by Portland Water Bureau Worker

A Portland Water Bureau worker accidentally drove his truck into Bull Run. Officials say it happened in a part of the reservoir that would not contaminant the drinking water source.

Alligator Spotted in Salmon Creek

An actual alligator was photographed in Vancouver, Washington's Salmon Creek. No one knows how it got there.

Steripen

A portable UV water purifier? MmmK.

5min Carbon, Water, Sulphur Cycles

King salmon vanishing in Alaska: Human Caused or Nature?

Yukon King Salmon, a staple food of the Alaska natives, are failing to return to their ancestral rivers and streams leaving many without food and without income. Biologists speculate that "the mostly likely cause was a shift in Pacific Ocean currents, but food availability, changing river conditions and predator-prey relationships could be affecting the fish."

But the people know different. Pollock fishing has taken priority over preserving natural habitat and has been killing off King Salmon despite efforts to put caps on bycatch. All those King Salmon caught up in the Pollock fishing trawlers are dying instead of swimming upstream to spawn and perpetuate their lifecycle.

The people are angry. Alaska government officials are not so quick to blame human intervention for the loss. Other possible reasons for the severe decline in King Salmon in the Yukon are: changing ocean currents, plankton blooms and even the carnivorous nature of salmon. River conditions could be changing, too.

Vannishing King Salmon

Hydrosphere: Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat

Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat

Standing on the shore of the Arctic ocean 1500 miles north of Seattle in Canada, the ice level has receded twice as far out as it was 40 years ago. It used to be 40 miles out from land, now the ice is 80 miles off shore and still shrinking.

"Global average temperatures rose 1 degree over the past century but twice as much over the Arctic as elsewhere, most likely attributable to manmade greenhouse gases researchers say.

The United Nations Work on Global Climate Change has the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon in the Arctic Rim to see for himself the melting ice. He hopes to use this information to spur a world wide accord this December in the Copenhagen, Denmark to get a petition signed by major countries that would commit to limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

UN Global Climate change

Fat Boy Slim Evolution Video

Fat Boy Slim: Right Here, Right Now

A very cool geological time scale video all the way from the coalescing of the quantum vacuum to were mankind is today. Amazing graphics and cool song. just 3 minutes of your life!

Managing Carbon Emissions

Should we tamper with nature specifically to alter carbon emissions?

There is some thought that we could decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean if we add iron to parts of the ocean to cause an increase in phytoplankton. Phytoplankton in the ocean are responsible for recycling half of the carbon dioxide on earth via photosynthesis.

Iron Hypothesis

NASA new carbon emissions tracking satellite plummets into the pacific ocean near antartica.

NASA Satellite Crashes

Should humans manipulate forests for maximum tree growth? Canada is taking seeds from trees that grow normally in the United States and replanting them higher north to see if they will fare better in the cooler climate as an experiment in forest management in the face of global warming. Some see playing God with nature as potentially disrupting balance as an unintended consequence.

HOT ISSUE: Should we deliberately move species?

Life As We Know It?

Why should we care about global climate change? Are we trying to preserve life as we know it, or lifestyle as we know it?

Greening the Grave

We learn a lot about sustainable living and not leaving too big of a carbon footprint, but here is a place in Oregon that will help you choose a biodegradable casket!

Pale Blue Dot: This Precious Earth

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994 (Source: www.planetary.org)

Global Climate Change

IPCC

The world authority on environment control.

Environmental Protection Agency: Global Climate Change

The obvious source of US informtion about the environment.

Department of Energy: Biological and Environmental Research

The not-so-obvious source of US information about the environment--kinda scary section on the use of "human subjects" for research...

NOAA Climate Watch

From the surface of the earth to the stratosphere, they are on it.

Earthtrends:World Resources Institute

An international non-governmental organization promoting responsible environmentalism.