Tag Archives: Environment

Global Warming, the Blog Epic ~ 02 ~ Greenhouse Effect, Greenhouse Gas

January 14, 2009UncategorizedClimate and weather, Climate Change, Earth Science, Environment, Global WarmingGreg Laden

This is the second in a series of reposts from gregladen.com on global warming.

i-e1372cd57ce206dff3631a4a9438e737-epic-GlobalWarming.jpg Why Greenhouses have nothing to do with the Greenhouse Effect, and more importantly, why CAN’T I microwave toast?

A greenhouse is a glass house that is sealed to keep air in and insulated to keep heat in but at the same time allow sunlight in. This sunlight contributes to the heat in the greenhouse by warming the ground or other material in the greenhouse, and of course the light energy is used by the plants. But the point of a greenhouse is to keep air that is warmed, by the sun and/or heaters that may be required in the greenhouse, from wafting away.

This is not how the so-called “greenhouse” effect works. There is no thing out there keeping warm air from wafting away from the planet. The air just stays there, greenhouse effect or not, moving around and doing the weather thing, and looking blue much of the time.
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Global Warming, the Blog Epic ~ 01 ~ Introduction

January 14, 2009UncategorizedClimate Change, Environment, Global WarmingGreg Laden

The IPCC report is out, “An Inconvenient Truth” has been honored by the academy, a sea change is happening in the way that climate change news is being reported, and you can bet the Right Wing and the Ree-pubs are as we speak working up new Talking Points and Spins to deflate the urgency of the issue. It is an axiom that in reporting science, there are two (not one, not three or four, just two) sides to every issue, and one side is the plank nailed to the Democratic Party Platform, and the other side is the plank nailed to the Ree-pub Party Platform. This is a truth as stable and reliable as the fact that Home Depot will always sell 2″ X 4″ studs and plywood in 4′ X 8′ foot pieces. We are already seeing the dubious dichotomies forming up. For instance, yes, the Antarctic Ice Sheet is sloughing off the continent, but it is opening new and wonderful opportunities for both shrimp and scientists. Yes, global warming is real and is anthropogenic, but the Average American thinks, according to Polls, that it is only the third or fourth most important issue. And so on.
Continue reading Global Warming, the Blog Epic ~ 01 ~ Introduction →

The Fantastic Mystery of the Younger Dryas

January 11, 2009UncategorizedAnthropology, Archaeology, Climate and weather, Climate Change, Cosmos, Earth Science, Environment, Evolution, Evolution of Diet, Extinction, Global Warming, Human Evolution, Origin of Agriculture, PaleontologyGreg Laden

One of the most interesting and exciting stories in science is that of the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas was a climate event that had important effects on human history, and that has been reasonably linked to some of our most important cultural changes, and ultimately some evolutionary changes as well. That is one reason why it is interesting. In addition, the Younger Dryas was a pretty big deal … a climate change or something like a climate change that caused massive changes all around the earth, and fairly recently. But the cause of the Younger Dryas is at present unknown, although a series of explanations have been advanced, each as convincing as the next depending on one’s point of view. The Younger Dryas itself is interesting, and the story of how scientists have studied it and the changing explanations emerging from that research is just as interesting.

The latest science is beginning to suggest that it is all even more interesting and exciting (and scary) than previously thought.

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US Government Says No to Solar

June 30, 2008UncategorizedEnvironmentGreg Laden

I find it hard to believe that the government has ignored the need for solar energy to the extent that it seems surprised that anyone wants to build new solar plants. From the New York Times:

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

NASA’s Got a New Web Site

June 23, 2008UncategorizedClimate and weather, Climate Change, Earth Science, Environment, Global Warming, Nature conservationGreg Laden

NASA’s JPL has a new web site which focuses on surface conditions on one specific planet: The Earth. It has a Sea Level Viewer which is basically a very fancy menu for a number of multi-media presentations, and a list of current or proposed missions. I am not overly impressed with this, but it may be a good resource for the kiddies.Much more interesting, and in fact, quite impressive, is the “Climate Time Machine” … Continue reading NASA’s Got a New Web Site →

Impacts of anthropogenic climate change many, varied

May 18, 2008UncategorizedClimate and weather, Climate Change, Earth Science, Environment, Global Warming, Nature conservationGreg Laden

Impacts from warming are evident in satellite images showing that lakes in Siberia disappearing as the permafrost thaws and lake water drains deeper into the ground. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory A new study led by NASA links anthropogenic climate change to a wide range of effects. The study involved scientists from about a dozen institutions and agencies, and looked at biological impacts arising from global temperature increase since the 1970s. The article is published in Nature. According to lead author Cynthia Rosenweig, “This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and impact … Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the warming is causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now attributable at the global scale and in North America, Europe, and Asia.From the abstract of the paper: Continue reading →

Mark Bittman: What’s wrong with what we eat

May 15, 2008UncategorizedClimate and weather, Earth Science, Environment, Nature conservation, PoliticsGreg Laden

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.

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Cyclone Nargis: What’s happening and how to donate

May 8, 2008UncategorizedClimate Change, Environment, Global WarmingGreg Laden

In this May 1, 2008, visible image from NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft, Cyclone Nargis is … a Category one hurricane located 370 miles west of Yangon, Myanmar, moving east-northeast at eight knots…. Fishermen are advised not to venture out to sea.

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Cyclone Nargis Death Toll Rises

May 6, 2008UncategorizedClimate and weather, Climate Change, EnvironmentGreg Laden

The Myanmar/Burma death toll is now experiencing the usual effects of poor information, limited reporting, and the outcome of being stuck between sensationalism and horror.Most agencies are reporting 22,000 dead with twice that missing. I do think that these numbers are meaningless at this point, as the Junta government can’t be trusted to be able to deliver this sort of information, and aid agencies are only now arriving on the scene. Continue reading Cyclone Nargis Death Toll Rises →

Cambrian Food Webs

April 28, 2008UncategorizedEarth Science, Environment, Evolution, PaleontologyGreg Laden

Food webs — the network of trophic (eating) interaction among the many species sharing a habitat or biome — is a much studied aspect of ecology. Food web and other similar phenomena such as dispersal syndromes are epiphenomena of evolution, resulting from the negotiation of competitive and cooperative interactions among many individuals. Indeed, the food web is the gross-level movement of energy within the ebb and flow of entropy and life-based energy capture. This flow of energy is fundamental to all life systems.The delicacy or vulnerability of a particular habitat … the potential susceptibility or resistance to perturbation … may depend on the details of this network of interactions. If everything ultimately depends on a basal food type that goes extinct, for example, there could be big trouble.So, just as understanding any aspect of life requires that we examine historically ancient, no longer extant systems, we need to understand ancient food webs. But, a valid study of food webs requires a certain level of detail that is often absent from the data available for ancient systems.Moments ago, a study of Cambrian food webs came out in PLoS Biology. Continue reading Cambrian Food Webs →

Nature and Conservation News

April 28, 2008UncategorizedClimate Change, Earth Science, Environment, Global Warming, Nature conservationGreg Laden

Canadian panel: Climate change is threat to polar bears from PhysOrg.com
(AP) — A scientific committee that advises Canada’s government on endangered species said Friday that climate change is a threat to the survival of the polar bear, but the species does not face extinction.
[…]

Narwhals more at risk to Arctic warming than polar bears from PhysOrg.com
(AP) — The polar bear has become an icon of global warming vulnerability, but a new study found an Arctic mammal that may be even more at risk to climate change: the narwhal.
[…]

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Trends in Inequality of Mortality in the U.S.

April 27, 2008UncategorizedEnvironment, Health, PoliticsGreg Laden

Inequality in mortality is the most poignant reminder of persistent, often multi-generational differences in socioeconomic status (SES). Poor people are more likely to get sick and die than rich people. As a society develops over time, one would hope that this disparity would be reduced, but in fact, it often increases. Recent research published in PLoS Medicine heralds this bad news.This study is fairly unique in that it examines life expectancy across counties, which are the smallest demographic unit for which the appropriate kind of data are collected. The study examines death rates by county in all US states and D.C. from 1961 to 1999. The data are broken down by sex and disease type.The following general patterns were noted: Continue reading Trends in Inequality of Mortality in the U.S. →

Meltdown at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

April 26, 2008UncategorizedEnvironment, PoliticsGreg Laden

The Chernobyl Meltdown happened on this day in 1986.

On 26 April 1986 at 01:23:40 a.m. (UTC+3) reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located in the Soviet Union near Pripyat in Ukraine exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Nearly thirty to forty times more fallout was released than Hiroshima. The plume drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. *

From the UN’s Chernobyl site:

Recent research has shown that people in the Chernobyl region still lack the information they need to lead healthy, productive lives. Information itself is not in short supply; what is missing are creative ways of disseminating information in a way that induces people to change their behavior. Moreover, propagation of healthy lifestyles is at least as important as providing information on living safely with low-dose radiation. To improve the population’s mental health and ease fears, community activists will be mobilized to deliver truthful and reassuring messages to dispel the misconceptions surrounding Chernobyl. *

Chernobyl Legacy (Film) Site Photos by Robert Knoth The Chernobyl Forum Publication (PDF)