The Leonid Meteor shower is an annual occurrence that can be seen when the earth passes through the debris left from the Tuttel-Temple Comet 55/P from hundreds of years ago.It happens in November and has given us some of the best light shows in the night sky of what appear to be falling stars.

Well this November produced one heck of a show for Utah citizens. There was no such thing as missing this year’s shower. According to ABC News, a meteor speculated to be the size of an oven and traveling 80,000 mph made it into Earth’s atmosphere without disintegrating. It hit Utah and lit up entire neighborhoods like it was day.

Watch the videos and accounts from KSL News, Salt Lake, Utah

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8714738.

The article in Science Daily reported: “The researchers estimate that the oceans last year took up a record 2.3 billion tons of CO2 produced from burning of fossil fuels. But with overall emissions growing rapidly, the proportion of fossil-fuel emissions absorbed by the oceans since 2000 may have declined by as much as 10%.” This is the first time scientists have actually measured the change.

The study was pretty extensive. The article said it reconstructed the annual accumulation of industrial carbon from 1765 to 2008. As expected carbon uptake by the world’s oceans rose sharply trying to keep pace in the 50’s. By 2,000 carbon emissions reached “such a pitch that the ocean’s ability to absorb it declined even though the oceans absorb more each year in absolute tonnage. Today, the oceans hold about 150 billion tons of industrial carbon, the researchers estimate–a third more than in the mid-1990s.”

Of all the oceans, the Southern Ocean around Antarctica is most important. Carbon dioxide dissolves more readily in cold, dense seawater than in warmer waters. About 40 percent of carbon emissions enter the oceans through the Southern Ocean. As oceans warm up, and acidify, they become less capable of absorbing carbon dioxide.

Bottom line as stated by the study’s lead author, Samar Khatiwala: “Natural mechanisms cannot be depended upon to mitigate increasing human-produced emissions. “What our ocean study and other recent land studies suggest is that we cannot count on these sinks operating in the future as they have in the past, and keep on subsidizing our ever-growing appetite for fossil fuels.”

Amen, and add to that the world’s overtaxed and disappearing rainforests, and previously frozen Arctic carbon sinks.

Read the article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091118143211.htm.

I’ve written many blogs on the plight of one of native America’s icons, the gray wolf.
And now I’m writing about a really special wolf that was sniped down by rifle in the latest wolf slaughter in Yellowstone. Anyone who has ever owned more than one pet knows that pets are not all the same. We can replace them with look alikes, or the same breed, but seldom do we get that special personality back again. If you’ve ever owned a remarkably smart animal you know what I’m talking about. Somehow they transcend the animal/human experience. They connect and show emotion often so much so we view them as almost human. I truly believe there are exceptional animals in the wild that are the same.

The NRDC recently reported that Wolf 527 was among the wolves gunned down and that she originated from the Druid pack, “one of the best known wolf packs in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, the scene of numerous National Geographic and PBS documentaries.” Biologists and wolf watchers monitored the movements of the Druid pack for years and one of them KNEW 527. When I write that he KNEW the animal, it’s in the same sense I speak of the animals we’ve known that were exceptional and irreplaceable.

527 was a wolf that marched to the beat of a very different drummer. As a yearling, 527 left the Druids to join the Slough pack — where she quickly became the beta (second-in-command) female. Then in 2007, she and a male wolf set off to found their own pack — the Cottonwood Creek pack — where she became the alpha (first-in-command) female.

As a leader of the Cottonwood pack, 527 was known to be a master of survival strategies. While four other packs that inhabited the same area suffered dismal fates, her pack thrived. As her biographer recounts, “She was a genius wolf in her tactics. Strategy was her game and she was a master at it. She would return to feed her pups in the dark of night because she would not take the risk of crossing the road.”

But in the end, despite 527’s “unbelievable survival strategies,” this resilient wolf “was not able to outthink a rifle” and was killed on October 3 when Montana unleashed its first public wolf hunt in modern times.

Since the public hunts began, 156 wolves in the Northern Rockies have met 527’s fate. And over the next year, more than 500 wolves could be shot to death by hunters and government agents … reducing the region’s wolf population by a staggering 40 percent!

Wolf 527’s death has stirred a lot of dissent. If you go to NRDC’s website via the link at the bottom, the picture there of 527 is of a beautiful black wolf that could be any of those in the above video. Since this obituary went out to NRDC members thousands have written to Sec’y of the Interior Salazar to stop the Yellowstone wolf hunt. If you ever owned a special animal think of 527 and write to Salazar to stop the wolf hunts and return their protection.

When we read here that 500 gray wolves comprise almost 40% of all of the Yellowstone wolves being hunted then we know that collectively there weren’t even 1500 gray wolves in Yellowstone Park. Yellowstone Park is predominantly in Wyoming and only extends into Idaho and Montana. Yellowstone Park is 3,468 sq. miles and 2,219,789 acres. What is wrong with this picture when the western half of Michigan is nowhere near that vast an area but boasts over 4,000 gray wolves roaming freely? So far they haven’t eaten all the deer in Michigan. Deer are so prevalent they show up in the middle of towns. And Michigan has its fair share of farms with little to no altercations with wolves???

So it’s pretty evident there is no science behind the decision to hunt the gray wolves of Yellowstone. The fate of this beautiful animal has always been decided by the whim of man. We shipped them here not long ago, nurtured them, and allowed them the freedom to run and procreate. As visitors to the park we delighted in watching the wolf transplants. And Yellowstone Park rangers documented the benefit the wolves brought to the park. Many species of trees, plants, shrubs, and grasses that disappeared from overgrazing by elk and deer were thriving again. Wolves actually helped to alter the landscape of Yellowstone for the good not to mention the ability to relocate and disperse herds of elk and deer around the park so that they are better able to survive winters. Then during a presidency that had little regard for natural resources that weren’t oil, coal, or natural gas the tide turned for the wolf again and man decided to slaughter what it nurtured. We’re as dangerous as we are fickle.

The wolf hunts are a travesty for America. We hunted them to extinction before and didn’t learn our lesson. What’s happening right now belongs to the mentality of the 1800’s not the 21st century. I have to wonder where Salazar’s head is—oh that’s right it’s under a cowboy RANCHER’s hat. Salazar’s is an example of the conflict of interest we see too many times in public office as he neglects thousands of emails, phone calls, and petitions to stop the wolf hunt.

Tell Salazar to stop the wolf hunts: https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1643&autologin=true.

While the U.S. is still talking industry friendly carbon offsets and emissions trading, a growing portion of the rest of the undeveloped world has something completely different in mind. In a nutshell, they resent us and blame the U.S. and other industrialized countries for the climate change problems they are ALREADY experiencing. Undeveloped countries will be presenting the concept of “climate debt” at the summit. They want “rich countries to pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis.” This is a radical departure from where the U.S. is right now. Heck, I’m still arguing with TEFLON COATED DENIERS that mankind is indeed producing too much pollution causing accelerated climate change. Deniers simply will not admit that maybe 7 billion people and their consumption habits like millions of food animals, and industrial pollution, plus deforestation due to population increase just might be over-polluting a closed environment no longer equipped to clean up effectively.

The article explained that the U.S. thinks of climate change as a “we” problem, but a growing number of countries view climate change as a problem created predominantly by the “few.” The coalition of Latin American and African governments stress big differences between who caused the crisis and those who suffer it the most right now.
The chief economist for the World Bank says the equation amounts to “75 to 80% of developing countries suffering the most even though they contribute collectively only about 1/3 of greenhouse gases.” The article further reported, “Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of the world’s population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that is now destabilizing the climate.” Yes science has a way of measuring pollution output now, where it came from, and what it costs in real money. This in and of itself should put a crimp in the deniers argument that mankind isn’t the culprit, it’s just nature. But…

So as the article stated, “Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill.” It went on to explain:

The grass-roots movement behind the proposal argues that all the costs associated with adapting to a more hostile ecology — everything from building stronger sea walls to switching to cleaner, more expensive technologies — are the responsibility of the countries that created the crisis. ‘What we need is not something we should be begging for but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of our making,’ says Lidy Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote climate reparations. ‘Climate debt is not a matter of charity.’

The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon emissions. And while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis.

Did you notice that China is considered a developing country? The U.S. tends to put China up there as a super power but truth is China still has more underdeveloped rural areas of population than not. And while they may still be building coal fired plants, they are emerging as a world leader in wind and solar, and are in the midst of building the largest smart grid in the world. We gripe about lost jobs in the U.S. The politics that keeps us from moving forward for renewable energy has cost us the jobs shipped to China to produce the parts for our largest wind farm in Texas. It wasn’t just about cheaper labor or materials in this instance. We simply didn’t have the labor in place, or the manufacturing facilities.

What should really make us sit up and take notice is that the idea of “climate debt” is “supported by the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change — ratified by 192 countries, including the United States.” The framework not only asserts that “the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries,” it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be made “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities.” Uh oh. They’ve got us in writing on this.

But Angelica Navarro, the chief climate negotiator for Bolivia, pushed the notion farther at U.N. climate negotiations in June in Bonn, Germany presenting the argument that not only are poorer countries already suffering the effects of climate change but in this new environmental arena they will not be able to enjoy the advantages of cheap fossil fuels in order to grow as the U.S. and other developed countries were able to do. They will bear a much higher cost burden to grow economically. But Navarro just didn’t point fingers. She presented a 3-point solution.Rich countries need to:

• Pay the costs associated with adapting to a changing climate
• Make deep cuts to their own emission levels “to make atmospheric space available” for the developing world
• Pay Third World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go straight to cleaner alternatives.

Third World countries are tired of promises. They see what many of us see that the U.S. is going to stall on climate change along political lines. These countries cannot afford to wait around. And the list is growing with 49 countries taking their demands to Copenhagen in December with at least 240 environmental and development organizations calling for the same. Germany has recently acknowledged the concept of climate debt by paying Ecuador millions over a course of years to leave a huge cache of oil in the ground under Yasuni National Park part of the Amazonian rain forest. Other European countries are interested in following suit.

So we have developed countries already paying Third World countries not to produce more fossil fuel but to preserve environmental assets like forests. Meanwhile, some U.S. citizens and of course our massively wealthy fossil fuel industry look ill prepared to except not only the blame for much of the world’s pollution but even the concept that mankind has indeed caused environmental problems at all.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30841581/climate_rage/3.

New administrator declaring that global warming pollution “endangers” Americans’ health and well being
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/epa-administrator-issues-proposed-ruling-on-global-warming/.

Being ordered by the courts to come up with mercury emission standards in two years.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/02/stricter-mercury-rules-on-the-way/.

Latest air study showed many U.S. cities flunking horribly
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/us-cities-recent-air-quality-reports%e2%80%94not-good/.

Non-existence when it comes to enforcement of the clean water act.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/12/collapse-of-national-clean-water-act-enforcement-program/.

Plus, the largest and longest government report on the affects of global warming on the U.S. was completed and predicted bad consequences.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/07/predictions-from-completed-government-report-on-global-warming/.

Senator Voinovich (R) Ohio and Senator Inhofe (R) Oklahoma put their request for the EPA study in writing, and although Voinovich read this request, Inhofe refused to expound on what his party wanted but reiterated it was in writing and left. The reason for leaving is that there is an (EPW) Environment and Public Works rule that at least two members of the minority have to be present before opening a markup, but it is not necessarily binding.

The funny part came when I actually listened to Senator Voinovich request the EPA do this modeling first so that Republicans can be informed with the latest reports. No wonder Inhofe didn’t want to expound. Voinovich ended up complaining about the EPA that when it did modeling before it used assumptions that were unrealistic. He said the EPA’s modeling is only as good as the assumptions built into it. What? Why would one request the EPA to do all this unnecessary work when one wasn’t satisfied with the EPA’s methodology to begin with? Is this the same type of convoluted request as wanting to be included then not showing up?

I state that the Republican senator’s request is unnecessary work because of the government’s recently completed and extensive global warming study that puts many parts of our country in a precarious position. And this same committee heard 54 witnesses on nine panels relative to climate change just last week. So there is already a large amount of climate change data available for review. Senator Boxer also brought in EPA officials to answer any questions the Republican senators might have. But a lot of good any of this important and recent information is when Republicans aren’t there to hear it.

Stall or no stall, the U.S. going to be surprised at the biggest gathering on climate change to date in Copenhagen this Decemeber because the scheme of things has changed. Cap and trade isn’t going to cut it anymore. There is much more at stake as the rest of the world is focusing on reparations by wealthy nations for the damage done. Stay Tuned.

Watch part of the committee meeting:

Senator Voinovich’s Request for EPA study

It is really apparent that wolves are being singled out, not worthy of attention from the Obama Administration. Look for yourself, Wolves really stick out on that long environmental “to do” list.
http://www.earthjustice.org/library/features/obamas-progress.html?qp_source=homepage.

Why is it wolves have taken a back seat in this administration? Oh that’s right—Ken Salazar, Secy. of Interior and member of the Cattlemen’s Association. It’s a bad deal for the wolf, a Native American icon that our Secy. of Interior once again does not understand fully the good impact wolves have on our environment. There are species of trees, shrubs, and grasses reappearing in Yellowstone that were formerly decimated by grazing herds of wolf prey. Wolves have literally changed the landscape of Yellowstone for the good.

As Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated about our new Secretary of Interior:

As a Colorado rancher, landowner, and member of the Cattlemen’s Association, Secretary Salazar comes from the old school generation, where wolves are only seen as vicious animals that prey on livestock. They are not looked upon as an integral check-and-balance component of the natural world. We need a Secretary of Interior, who can make wildlife decisions based on science, not politics. That was a commitment made by President Obama, which does not translate into Ken Salazar’s premature and reckless de-listing of a species that will soon be targeted for a bloodbath.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5266-Seattle-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m6d7-Wildlife-coalition-will-battle-Salazar-to-save-gray-wolves-from-slaughter.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the Cattlemen’s Association has influenced Salazar far more than science-based facts about wolves. He allowed them to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act prematurely, and therefore exposed them to slaughter again. What was the sense of spending all the time and energy to reintroduce the gray wolf back to the Yellowstone area if their increase was cut short? The science that reintroduced them also produced viable numbers the wolf population needed to reach to be considered stable. Wolf populations never neared these numbers. As a matter of fact wolf populations in the Greater Rockies was down 25% in 2008 due to distemper, mange, and infighting.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/01/yellowstone-national-parks-wolf-population-down-more-25-percent.

Bring back the science when it comes to America’s wildlife not the whims of special interest groups. If you care about what is happening to one of Native America’s greatest icons—the wolf, contact your reps and also support the reintroduced PAW (Protect America’s Wildlife) Act. The PAW Act will stop aerial killing of any animal for good. This Act needs to pass and soon as Alaska is planning yet another aerial killing season of both wolves and bears. Stop aerial hunting before it spreads to other states.

To sign a petition to support the PAW Act goto:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/477616584.

Michigan has a lot of deer! Cars hit them. They enter buildings. I recently watched a video where a deer waltzed through a diner, in the front door and out the back. So why aren’t 4,000 wolves wiping out our deer population?

The answer lies on Michigan’s Isle Royale, a 45-mile long island off the UP (Copper Harbor) in the western part of Lake Superior. According to an article by Heidi Ridgley of Defenders of Wildlife, “Isle Royale is the least visited National Park in the country.” But it is the lab where the longest ongoing wolf study is being conducted by biologists from Michigan Tech. The co-director of the wolf program at Michigan Tech, Rolf Peterson continues the work pioneered by Durward Allen in 1958, as an “uninterrupted study of a predator and its prey.” There is 51 years of expertise here involving the gray wolf and the moose of Isle Royale. This study produced facts that are inconsistent with the reason for hunting the Great Rockies’ wolves. Wolves prey predominantly on old and/or debilitated animals. And when the prey declines the wolf population also declines. It’s nature’s balance.

So if the Great Rockies’ wolves are as prolific as we’re lead to believe than Idaho’s deer and elk populations should be thriving—and are. That’s what I found to be true when I looked at the state stats of deer and elk populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It simply is not true that the wolves threaten deer and elk populations at this point at all. So that leaves the rancher’s losses and we have to wonder about that reporting because it’s the same type of wolves, same ole cattle, just different states reporting very different loss statistics.

In the meantime, the latest wolf hunts will have detrimental affects on the gray wolf farther down the line than just this hunting season. Oh, the wolves will rebound eventually but fractured wolf pack families, and packs that are disjointed from other wolf packs do not survive well. The study on Isle Royale confirms that wolves will interbreed for survival. The biologists in this study have already found spine and hip deformities in the carcasses of dead wolves from interbreeding on Isle Royale where populations of wolves are endangered as global warming has had a horribly detrimental affect on their main prey, the moose.

The biologists have tracked the summer seasons on this island national park. There have been shorter winters almost every year since 1998 and it shows in the decline of moose populations on Isle Royale. In Minnesota where there is a lot of prairie and scattered trees that does not offer enough shade, “moose numbers have dropped from several thousand to 100 in recent years.” Moose need frigid climates. Frigid climates kill fleas and ticks, another horrible parasitic problem plaguing Isle Royale’s moose that I blogged about.

All I know is that the wolf hunts are political in origin. It’s got little to do with the poor wolf. Big hunting lobbyists were anxious for the wolf hunts and the NRA is never far behind them. They won for now. However, as stated in the Los Angeles Times and quoted in an article in discovermagazine.com ‘Judge Donald Molloy also wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service, in continuing to list Wyoming wolves under the Endangered Species Act while delisting them in the two neighboring states, “has distinguished a natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the best available science.’

What I’m concerned with is man’s interference with natural balance. Suppose the wolves do interbreed more and more. Can there, will there eventually be wolves mentally impaired and unpredictable as interbred dogs? It gives a whole new meaning to the “Big Bad Wolf.”

Read the whole story about what’s happening up north in Isle Royale:
http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/fall_2009/royale_challenge.php.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/09/10/wolf-hunt-in-the-rockies-can-continue-judge-rules/comment-page-1/#comment-62547.

The article said, “Mace, [] develops criteria for listing species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and co-ordinating biodiversity inputs to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,” so she should know. Hal Mooney who chairs DIVERSITAS said that biodiversity experts are finally engaging in policy debates, as they should. I think a global panel of biodiversity scientists collecting data worldwide on all species is long overdue and their input badly needed. Much like the IPCC for climate change, there needs to be a unified system for tracking loss of species on this planet. It is after all, loss of life and should be a forewarning.

So it was good to read in the ENS article that scientists are planning “a science-based global biodiversity observing system called GEO-BON to improve coverage and consistency in observations at ground level and via remote sensing.” The GEO-BON head, Prof. Robert Scholes stated: ‘GEO-BON will help give us a comprehensive baseline against which scientists can track biodiversity trends and evaluate the status of everything from genes to ecosystem services.’ Recently in Nairobi, the world’s environment ministers “considered the creation of IPBES-the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services-which would require UN General Assembly Approval.”

That’s impressive and I would say to track biodiversity is probably harder to do than track climate change. While biodiversity scientists are busy trying to ascertain how quickly extinction approaches many of our beloved animal species like primates, whales, dolphins, all big cats and bears, all elephants and rhinos, other scientists are still discovering new species. I just read an article in the Sept. 23^rd edition of Time that over 30 new species of animal were recently discovered in an extinct volcano in Papua, New Guinea. They exist because they were obviously sheltered from man, and the outside world. GEO-BON has its work cut out for it, and none to soon because there is a silent crisis emerging—the collapse of freshwater ecosystems. Collapse is a scary word that should tell us we’re way behind where we should be.

Read the whole article:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2009/2009-10-13-01.asp.

I saw the car on Good Morning America today and was happy to see how quickly algae is being adopted as a viable fuel. I recently wrote about the U.S. military’s testing algae as jet fuel but figured it would be a long while before we saw anything like this. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/08/u-s-navy-jets-to-use-biofuels/.

Many people know about algae, but so many more do not and will be totally surprised by it. I was recently shopping for a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid and asked if the one I was test-driving could use biofuel, which is available for this model. The sales person said no that the biofuel business is pretty much dying out blah, blah, blah. I said corn for sure but what about algae? I got that look from him. Even I wondered why I blurted out that particular and peculiar type of fuel as an example. I hadn’t heard much about it lately except the blog about the military’s interest in it. But then algae as fuel appeared on a segment of Good Morning America today. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/JustOneThing/algaeus-car-fueled-algae/story?id=8666116.

According to GMA’s website, “Josh Tickell is the creator of the Veggie Van Organization and director of “Fuel,” which was honored as best documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.” He also created the “Algaeus,” the Prius that just crossed America on green crude. With very little modification, “he added a nickel metal hydride battery and a plug [],” the Algaeus got 147 miles per gallon in the city, and 52 mpg with a mix of algae and gas. The biggest thing is that the car only refueled 6 times during the 10-day trip. The Algaeus is capable of running on approximately 25 gallons of gas coast to coast.

So where do we get all this algae? Algae growth occurs naturally in bogs and swamps. Uh um, we could be tapping the methane emitted there too. There are also algae farms already in business. Sapphire Farms in New Mexico is one of them. Check out their website: http://www.sapphireenergy.com/. People have asked me about green investments. Look around. If we unleash new technology instead of stifling it there will be plenty of new investment opportunities, more jobs, more avenues to explore, like algae farms. Who knew?

The salt was accumulating too fast to be from diffusion and his group of researchers surmised the salt was there from thermal convection. Dr. Weisbrod explained that this process happens in arid and semi-arid environments like the SW U.S. or about 60-70% of land in the world. The atmosphere cools after sunset but air within a fracture in the earth remains warm as the rock that surrounds it. Cold air is denser and falls while the warm air rises. The cold air quickly replaces the warm and when the warm air within the hole, crevice, or fracture leaves it contains gases. It’s a thermal convection process and depending on the amount of microorganism activity within the fracture or hole, it aids the process of diffusion of gases from the earth’s crust. As Dr. Weisbrod stated: ‘Carbon dioxide is diffused through the Earth’s crust or the Earth-atmosphere interface through diffusion. [] It’s possible that greenhouse gases can be transported through thermal convection in areas where we have fractures, cracks, caves, or warm holes… the same physics works for every hole in the ground.’

All I can think of was Warren Buffet’s comment that drilling for more oil is a finite process and that we’ve already drilled thousands of holes in the earth already. He’s right. I’ve also done blogs on mining and know that in the U.S. alone there are estimates of over 500,000 mines. Add to that the process of extracting natural gas by blasting beneath the earth’s surface, as well as, forcing liquid CO2 left over from “clean coal” beneath the earth’s surface and we may have really tipped the scales on the amount of fractures, fissures, holes, etc. that exist to eventually leak gases into the atmosphere.

Read more about this new discovery: http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/06/23/9872/cracks-earth-global-warming-2/.