Our World and Everything in It

I know I have a tendency to print only the dire accounts of global warming, and I still don’t think it bodes well for our future, but there are some good points about it while it still hasn’t gotten out of hand. Some mighty fine wine is being produced in places that were not conducive to vineyards before!

U.S. New and World Report reported in an article that Canada is producing pinot noir, Belgium, a chardonnay, and England has a sparkling white wine. In the U.S. The Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest ‘has a great future ahead.’

The article went on to say that climate change has affected areas farther away from the equator with greater warmth. Changing climate makes more areas ideal for vineyards. It takes at least 4 years for a small patch of vines to produce decent grapes. Hopefully we’ll conserve, and the weather won’t become too hot or dry before the grapes make it to bottle.  What a waste.

It’s a good little article that gives some ideas for a few, new and different wines but references the book The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson to really get a current worldwide view of the grape! I looked around on the Internet and found the website below that has world wine maps, probably not as current although it does include the latest Canadian vineyards. There should be enough here to give you an excuse to drink a few bottles—just testing of course, and to make for one very, very happy New Year.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/50-ways-to-improve-your-life/2007/12/20/the-wine-warm-up.html

http://www.kobrandwine.com/maps/index.php
Peace

I’m addicted to the Science Channel. The topic of interest tonight was tsunamis. After the one in Indonesia that killed a quarter million people it should be of interest to everyone who lives on a coast somewhere. There are many shifting plates around the world known for their activity that can cause earthquakes. I had no idea how many there really are. There is a Eurasian-African plate, Indian Australian plate, the Alpine plate, Caribbean plate, a lot of plates for a lot of earthquakes.

Australia is particularly concerned. It seems the most likely place a tsunami will hit as it has before is the East Coast of Australia where sits Sydney. There is a huge public beach there with thousands of beachgoers in the summer season. A simulated video showed how a Tsunami like that in Indonesia would travel up an inlet there and really cause trouble because the coastline is lined with boulders. Imagine a wall of water coming at you full of boulders. If the water doesn’t kill you the debris does.

Australia has suffered two large tsunamis near Sydney and a bunch of small ones in the past. Earthquakes along the Alpine Fault next to New Zealand are to blame. Earthquakes there happen every 500 years and guess what’s overdue? It was stated that just because it hasn’t happened does not mean it’s not going to. It means it will really be big when it does. Sounds like giving birth doesn’t it?

Hawaii has been hit by tsunamis in the past also. But now Hawaii has the NOAA Tsunami Warning Center to give notice as soon as possible. But will it be soon enough? Right now Dr. Stephen Hickman, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Society is involved with drilling down and across the San Andreas Fault off of San Francisco in order to secure seismic meters there in an attempt to have the earliest warning possible of any and all earthquakes. I was reading more about this project on the Southern California Earthquake Center website and the author, part of a film crew, says he was standing on the drilling platform of the SAFOD or San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth project when an earthquake hit. Now that’s reporting firsthand. It was a 6.0 and the comment was that this was probably ‘the most well-recorded earthquake in history.’

It’s an interesting and humorous story, and quite a fluke that the author was actually there on top of the quake shaking violently on the drilling platform. This is quite a new and innovative project, but in the end may save millions of people if it can forecast big and small, upcoming quakes, and broadcast threats of any resulting tsunamis. I wonder how or who is placing those seismic meters in the tunnels? Considering what happened, not a good job to have. Kind of like putting the first construction cone out on the highway.

http://www.scec.org/education/041007parkfield.html
 

Just got an e-mail from Defenders of Wildlife. It appears Bush/Cheney spent their holidays plotting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to just go ahead and start slaughtering hundreds of wolves by helicopters and planes in what should be their sanctuaries, our national parks, particularly Yellowstone.

Wolves haven’t been taken off the federally protected, threatened and endangered list. Threatened by Bush/Cheney that is. Human beings are still the most heartless hunters and some of the decisions out of this administration show lack of empathy for any living thing. What is the difference between a canned hunt, Internet hunting, and the aerial chase and kill that is proposed for wolves especially in Idaho and Wyoming? The animals are trapped. They cannot possibly outrun the planes, helicopters and technology.

We citizens wrote letters, voiced opinion, and literally raised hell over the dog fighting indictment against Michael Vick and we’re going to allow this to happen? Wolves mate for life, raise their young with care, and are not the enemy of man. When are we going to stop listening to the propaganda of this administration?

Wolves are an important part of the entire ecosystem of this country that is systematically being destroyed by a handful of people in power and that power is out of control. Thousands of people have protested the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska for years. It never stops and is spreading? It’s evident no one in this administration has any regard for the opinion of its people. We are such a poor example to the rest of the world as far as the environment and wildlife, that to ask Japan to quit heartlessly killing dolphins and whales will fall on deaf ears. And our neighbors to the North will keep clubbing innocent baby seals to death as long as we keep setting stellar examples like this.

Between canned hunts, internet hunting, aerial hunting and every other kind of extremely non-sporting and bloodthirsty hunts that have come up since you know who is in office, why do we put up with it? Our world and everything in it, and our reputation as a nation of moral, decent citizens is in jeopardy over whom we’ve elected. While Christians everywhere were given a message to embrace environmentalism over the holidays, a very amoral group in Washington plotted to eradicate an entire species of animal in at least two states without ever taking them off the protected and endangered list.

According to Defenders, “Just last week, Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), George Miller (D-CA), Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and Norm Dicks (D-WA) warned in a letter to Secretary Kempthorne that de-listing wolves in the Northern Rockies now is a mistake.”

Evidently, this administration doesn’t listen to the elected officials that represent us either. I say if they would do this to an innocent animal, they would do as much to us without batting an eye. So much for trust hey? And Bush made the most admired list in a recent gallop poll? If that’s the truth than America’s average IQ of 98 just dropped a notch.

Email Dirk Kempthorne Secy. of Interior formerly governor of Idaho that helped get grizzlies and wolves under jurisdiction of the individual states and in a position for slaughter. Looks like he’s been plotting for quite awhile—almost 2 terms as governor and only a year in this position and he’s on his way. Let him know what you think of his bloodthirsty, unsporting proposal: webteam@ios.doi.gov

I just got through reading some current worldwide environmental news and have to say, we don’t seem to have a clear-cut view of anything. What we profess, what we say, and what we actually do is all contrary.  First, I saw the Pope give his blessing and speak on behalf of peace and the environment over the Christmas season to over one billion Catholics. And the World Council of Churches that represents 560 million Christians worldwide is calling concerns over global warming a matter of faith. The WCC has had a program about climate change since 1992 and books about ecotheology (I’m interested).  Dr. Samuel Kobia the Secy. General of the WCC stipulates that Christians are well aware that dominion over all living things was given to us. He said that meant, “We were entrusted with the care of the rest of God’s creation.” The emphasis is on the word “CARE” here.

Care doesn’t come under savagely taking a machete to an orangutan trying to defend it’s young, or hooking a live dolphin in the side and sending it to be stripped of skin before it’s even dead, while the resulting meat is basically poison from ingesting too many pollutants, or shooting 6 elephants dead for stepping into a coffee field that is supposed to be their sanctuary. We should actively try to get this stopped, but our demands for things like lumber and coffee encourage it.  Oh and don’t forget about native animals and the latest Internet hunting websites that have yet to be banned in over 20 states.

There was the news about a zoo tiger that got loose and killed one man, and maimed two others before it was shot dead. The media wanted to know and put this question out to the public if it is wise to keep caged and wild animals? 145,000,000 people visit zoos every year without incident. If we didn’t have zoos the likelihood of seeing a live polar bear, tiger, elephant, orangutan, gorilla, condor, panda…etc., would more than likely be nil. I have to wonder about the media here. Do they operate with any type of perspective about things, or just pounce on a bit of fantastic news with so much fervor it gets skewed out of proportion and normalcy? People are maimed in cars every day and no one says: “Gee, should we really be driving?”

 

We’ve heard about individual states taking their own course of action for the environment with many implementing their own environmental laws especially since the Supreme Court decided that the EPA is supposed to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases according to the Clean Air Act but has not done so. So what do I read? The Bush administration: “Thursday announced that it will block efforts by California, Maryland, and 15 other states to cut emissions of global warming gases from cars and trucks.” Now that is an example of talking out of two sides of one’s mouth isn’t it? Aren’t we supposed to be forging ahead with alternative energy anyway?

 

This administration got elected based on a big moral majority. Do we or do we not celebrate animals? I hope we  understand the world is in our care. We simply can’t keep spreading and demanding, taking up room where other things live. We end up killing the very same animals we ooh and ah over at the zoo. We love cartoon movies with animals, little talking pigs, Flipper, the Lion King. We are supposed to teach our children to be kinds to animals. But when animals act out in their normal manner we talk about dispensing with them right away, like the zoo issue. We sacrifice living breathing creatures in our own species chain over things we need for our big houses or our big lifestyle. And we elect our president/vice president based on morality when this latest threat to block states trying to do right by the environment proves the opposite. So where do we stand between what we believe, what we say, and what we actually do about our world and everything in it because I can’t tell?

 

By the way, a current gallop poll has President Bush as the number one pick among the most admired men and women of 2007. Is that not the icing on the cookie for contradictions as far as you’ve read them here?
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2007/2007-12-24-01.asp.

      

  

 On Christmas Eve I think it’s important to remember where the Christ Child was born, AMONG THE ANIMALS in a manger. Every nativity scene is one with animals. A manger in those days was: “a feed trough found in a stable. In Bible times mangers were made from clay mixed with straw or from stones held together with mud; sometimes they were carved in natural outcroppings of rock,” http://www.padfield.com/1999/manger.html. There is an actual picture taken of a manger at Megiddo used in the stables of King Ahab on the linked website.

So the King of Kings was placed in the feed trough of the animals of a stable. This is a quite a statement about the beasts of the earth, that they were worthy of such an event. This Christmas take the time to reflect not only on mankind, but peace for the earth and all of the living things that are in jeopardy of extinction. The “beasts” as in animals of the earth are written about in the old and new testament over 200 times. Their importance is undeniable. We weren’t meant to live in a world without animals, especially those that have been here for centuries that are now in danger.

PEACE

I think virtual reality got a littel too real. Every heard of Internat hunting? Someone can sit in their house or wherever, in front of their pc and with the click of a mouse–shoot a real animal dead somewhere. How sporting? A web cam is situated in front of a target spot. A LOADED rifle fires at whatever is on that target.

The Humane Society Legislative Fund went into action the moment “Live Shot” was introduced in 2005. Do you believe it? A website where someone can act like they’re virtually shooting something but it’s real. The “Live Shot” website is now defunct and 35 states have laws banning the practice but 25 states still do not, and more websites for Internet hunting are popping up.

I don’t know about anyone else but when I first read about Internet hunting my mind skipped like lightening to human prey. Not only the fact that someone has the freedom and the time to hunt for a spot to sight in a rifle at a target and rig it to a web cam so that whoever can shoot with the click of a tab whatever crosses that target while watching it on their screen, but the idea someone should go through the trouble to do something like this is an unnerving statement about our society. Hunting is one thing, this is somehow too cold, too strange, too covert and REMOTE to be OK.

What’s to stop someone from hunting humans, or an army set up like this? See what I mean about instant imagination. I was off and running real quick with this one. Anyway, too many states have yet to pass any laws to stop it. Both the House and Senate have introduced legislation prohibiting interstate Internet hunting, and H.R. 2711, the Computer Assisted Remote Hunting Act, will ban the practice across the country and prevent this type of website.

Urge your reps to support and co-sponsor House Bill 2711 and its companion bill. an animal is guided to the target to feed and some low-life at home literally clicks it to death for kicks from their computer. That is sick enough for us to know it could get a whole lot worse. Let them know that you want computer assisted killing stopped completely.

Call your Senators @ 202-224-3121 or goto: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

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I run into a lot of people who apply basic logic to the idea of global warming. I too apply basic logic to most things so I understand when some people don’t get upset that many large glaciers are melting. They know that the amount of water released by a melting glacier will not make sea level rise anymore than the displacement from the original frozen mass. An example of displacement is watching to see how much the pool water rises when good old fat uncle Charlie and aunt Rose get into the pool, or why we always want the largest person to do a cannonball.

But there is this phenomenon called Thermal Expansion that really compounds the rise in sea level. Since 1993 thermal expansion accounts for 57% of the sum total of rising water. So more than half of the increased rise in sea level is due to thermal expansion. Not to talk down to anyone but I found a grade 6-8 school project to do that demonstrates the thermal expansion of water. http://www.usc.edu/org/cosee-west/glaciers/ThermalExpansionActivity.pdf. It’s a pretty neat project that explains much I think.

According to a Nova article on science.org: “In its 2001 assessment of global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that global mean sea level is expected to rise between 9 and 88 centimeters by 2100, with a ‘best estimate’ of 50 centimeters.” This is around 20 inches. So thermal expansion accounts for 11.4 of those inches? That’s a little scary. Only 8.6 inches of extra water is actually present, but turns into 20 with heat. Siberia is melting at a rate right now that is gorging 3 rivers that lead to the seas and the Arctic Ocean. The Gulf Stream around the British Isles is slowing for what is speculated to be from lesser salt concentration because of dilution off of Siberia. Salt concentration has a huge bearing on our gulf streams, and the air masses above them.  

The article explained further on: “The reality promises to be a little grimmer. In many places, 50 centimeters would see entire beaches being washed away, together with a significant chunk of the coastline. For people living on low-lying islands such as Tuvalu, Kiribati or the Maldives, where the highest point is only 2-3 meters above current sea levels, an extra 50 centimeters could see significant portions of their islands being washed away by erosion or covered by water. Even if they remain above the sea, many island nations will have their supplies of drinking water reduced because sea water will invade their freshwater aquifers.” Here that Michigan? Here we have emphasis on drinking water again. Read my blog about Kiribati: http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=48.

 For Australia the consequences of even moderate sea level rise is multiplied. The same Nova article, by Australia’s Greenhouse Office states: “Each centimeter of sea-level rise will lead to increasing impacts on low-lying coastal land. Modeling predicts the inundation would cause sandy beaches on the Australian coastline to recede by the order of 100 times the vertical sea-level rise. For example, if the sea level rises by a meter, the coastal beaches could retreat by about 100 meters unless some preventative action is taken. Given that about 85 per cent of Australia’s population lives within an hour’s drive of the coast, this is particularly relevant.” Make note this is based on IPCC’s 2001 assessment. Much has changed. http://www.science.org.au/nova/082/082key.htm. 

Keep up to date with our ever-changing environment. Read the most current reports from the IPCC from December, 2007: http://www.ipcc.ch/.  The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize honor for ‘efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.’ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5383964.html. This panel had a series of four conferences dealing with current global climate change topics and many categories within each topic. Hopefully many answers to most questions are contained in these reports.        

So the energy bill is signed. Cars will have to get 35 mpg by 2020. And we’re supposed to produce and utilize 36 billion gallons of bio-fuel by then also. I think the biggest incentive to do this is to advertise the eventual savings to consumers, and the fact that our overall bills will decline during the trip to 2020. Do you have an idea the amount of products that contain a petroleum or derivative of it? If the cost of petro declines due to less demand then all of those products should in turn become cheaper. According to an article in About.com: “The increase in fuel-economy standards alone is expected to save consumers $22 billion in 2020—up to $1,000 annually in gasoline prices for each American family—and reduce U.S. oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels per day in 2020 – half of what we currently import from the Persian Gulf. The new standards also will cut greenhouse gas emissions as much as taking 28 million of today’s cars off the road.

‘This bill is a huge Christmas present to the hardworking American families suffering under record high energy prices,’ said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. ‘It will offer them over $20 billion in relief at the pump and some $400 billion in additional savings through greener buildings, more efficient appliances, and better light bulbs. It will also help us begin fueling our cars with greener fuels from the Midwest instead of expensive imported oil from the Middle East.’

I know I liked my $103.00 combined gas and electric bill this summer. Just a few changes got me there, and I wasn’t put out at all. Two of my other bills for previous months were $114 and 115 each. I was even happier that I decreased my allotment to my local utility company. And I feel really good that I helped in some way with the environment. It’s pretty much in that order now. I started out thinking about the environment first, but when my energy bill kept going down, I noticed my motivation grow. It’s like losing that first 5 lbs., or being the first to arrive at a 50% off sale. My eyes start glowing, the gears start spinning…how can I get more of this? I went so far as to look into wind turbines. So I can see where the more we get into the “green” in this country and realize the bargain in the deal, the more we will seek out that change. That’s what Germany and a lot of Europe has done. It’s not so inconceivable for the U.S. to eventually follow suit. This energy bill, although watered down from the House’s original bill, is a good start. http://environment.about.com/ 

Ever since I watched the series “Eco Tech” on the Science Channel I’ve been optimistic about going green in America relative to a new economy, one that most of America desperately needs. Along with thousands of other Americans who are embracing a new future, and huge corporations like GE that is having trouble keeping up with wind turbine demands, I see very little drawbacks to forging ahead in the world of green. I’ve listed all the positives before and it appears that others are trying to put all those positives into action.

An Oakland, California based human rights activist named Van Jones is seeing the future in green also. He believes it will be power for the people by the people, that there is a need in the green industry for blue collar workers redubbed “green collar.” Jones says, ‘Polar bears, Priuses, and Ph.D.s aren’t going to do it alone’ according to an article about him in Time magazines Dec. 3rd, 07 issue called “Bring Eco-Power to the People.” Green jobs need to find a way to expand to the rest of the economy.

Jones is a Yale educated lawyer who founded the Ella Baker Ctr. for Human Rights in Oakland. He sees the need to: ‘Give the work that most needs to be done to the people who most need the work.’ This man is figuring that many unemployable workers could easily be retrained for green jobs like installing solar panels, organic gardening, and green construction.

The article says that a study by the “Cleantech Network, which tracks green investment, found that for every $100 million in green venture capital, 250,000 new jobs could be created.”  Jones along with Majora Carter recently started a campaign called GREEN FOR ALL to secure one billion in government funding to train a quarter-million workers in green fields. Carter says in the article: “We’re looking for an environmental Marshall Plan for the 21st century.” Jones sees this as a way to reunite a very separated left and right. He wholeheartedly believes in bringing together the business, tech, and racial-justice communities. From that there will be no more blue and red division in America. We’ll all be working toward the green.

This is not the only article I’ve read about future green collar jobs. My husband’s skilled trades paper had an article about union trades people volunteering their own time to help learn as they constructed an environmental house with Lawrence Tech students for the Solar Decathlon 2007. The interest in green is there, but as the article stated, global warming must relinquish its narrow focus as just an existential threat and embrace the new look of an “enormous economic opportunity.”

Read my blog on Eco Tech if you haven’t done so. If you ever get a chance to catch the weeklong series again please do. There are green companies and inventions in place and ready to go. An example: Centia which plans on mass producing jet fuel from the thick grease, some 4 billion lbs. of it, discarded annually by restaurants. It is indistinguishable from the real stuff at only $2.23 per gallon, and creates far less pollution while eradicating the greasy, gobby stuff. And like Jones’s idea, another company RWA employs the homeless and unemployable to collect the grease for Centia. I’m waiting for Centia or RWA stock. Another company that is set to purify water from sewage came up with the same figure of 250,000 for new jobs in a green economy just to start.

Going green does not mean doom and gloom for the world’s economy, just ask Germany, the world’s leader in going green and quickly.  It’s a time of great opportunity because it is a time of great need. Every country must utilize their most ingenious, most intelligent citizenry for new invention, but there will still be the need for everyday people to finance, layout, truck, construct, assemble, and create those new ways to power the world.  It is truly “power for the people by the people.”

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=120

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686811,00.html

To hear interviews with green movement leaders goto: time.com/going green also.

A few blogs ago I wrote about setting an example as far as being humane to animals before we point fingers at other countries that dolphin hunt, seal hunt, whale hunt, and kill tigers, elephants, and apes.  Someone retorted about other countries, which was exactly what I made a point about NOT doing. After all, isn’t that one of the first things we teach siblings, not to point fingers elsewhere?

Anyway after the same commenter digressed to this being the best country in the world, the idea of being a good example was kind of lost in conversation. But it is important, and I am resurrecting the notion. Being good examples for all types of humanitarian efforts would give us much better leverage for persuading other governments to give up inhumane hunts like the renewed Japanese whale hunt.

An example of what I am talking about jumped off the “Verbatim” page of Time Magazine’s December 3rd issue. This Japanese whale-meat butcher in the whaling port of Shimonoseki, the home of Japan’s largest whaling expedition in decades, remarked about the inhumanity of it all: ‘”How is eating whale different from eating pigs or cows?”‘ See my point?

We’ll never get anywhere asking other countries not to seal, whale, or dolphin hunt when we slaughter and treat animals inhumanely ourselves. It looks like pollution may halt hunts like these before conscience even comes into play. The Japanese plan on hunting 50 endangered pin whales and 50 threatened humpback whales, along with others, totaling 1000. Trouble is, just like the dolphin meat from the barbaric Japanese dolphin hunt, the whale meat is more than likely poison, tainted by chemical toxins. Many of the larger species of fish and mammals in the ocean are contaminated. A current study by: “Norwegian scientists found that killer whales - or orcas, as they are sometimes known - have overtaken polar bears at the head of the toxic table” according to a BBC article. It said: “No other arctic mammals have ingested such a high concentration of hazardous man-made chemicals.” I was a little amazed at what was found in the blubber, traces of pesticide, flame retardant, and PCB’s. The WWF or World Wildlife Foundation says, “The Arctic has become a chemical sink.”

But are the Japanese worried? Why should they be? An opinion poll done last year by the Nippon Research Centre found that 95% percent of Japanese never or rarely ate whale meat. So why the hunt? Like I stated in another blog, this hunt is being done under the guise of research. The odd thing is another study found that, “65% of Japanese students agreed with the view that scientific research on whales should only use non-lethal methods.”

All the bad international press about this whale hunt embarrasses Japan’s leadership. Japanese don’t eat the meat. A majority of Japanese college students do not advocate the killing of a species in order to study it. And the meat is more than likely poisoned. But the hunt goes on? Sounds like other countries have the same problem as we do where a majority of voices go unheard, and unheeded.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4520104.stm
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/fearing-us-reaction-japanese