Our World and Everything in It

In an unusual Sunday vote called by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Bill 22 moved forward with a vote of 66-12 that would add 200 million more acres of U.S. land under the Wilderness Protection Act. The Associated Press reported that this bill is “the largest expansion of wilderness protection in 25 years. Prior to this, the bill met with opposition from Republicans. The Sunday vote was an effort to bypass their stalling that some say will “derail” the pledged cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in the near future.

In any event, the bill is making its way through to senate approval and according to the same AP article includes California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, Oregon’s Mount Hood, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia for protection under the act.

This is pretty binding stuff once it’s decided. It would take another act of Congress to take the same land away from the Wilderness Protection Act. I wondered what the Wilderness Protection Act actually does. In my mind if a place is already a national park, why does it need further protections? According to Wikipedia, which is a good enough source for explaining things, the basics of the Wilderness Protection Act are:

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  • The lands protected as wilderness are areas of our public lands.
  • Wilderness designation is a protective overlay Congress applies to selected portions of national forests, parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands.
  • Within wilderness areas, we strive to restrain human influences so that ecosystems [the Wilderness Act, however, makes no specific mention of ecosystems] can change over time in their own way, free, as much as possible, from human manipulation. In these areas, as the Wilderness Act puts it, “the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man”—untrammeled meaning the forces of nature operate unrestrained and unaltered.
  • Wilderness areas serve multiple uses. But the law limits uses to those consistent with the Wilderness Act mandate that each wilderness area be administered to preserve the “wilderness character of the area.” For example, these areas protect watersheds and clean-water supplies vital to downstream municipalities and agriculture, as well as habitats supporting diverse wildlife, including endangered species, while logging and oil and gas drilling are prohibited.
  • Along with many other uses and values for the American people, wilderness areas are popular for diverse kinds of outdoor recreation—but without motorized or mechanical vehicles or equipment. Wilderness is the haven of quiet beyond the end of the road, the wild sanctuary we meet on its own terms by leaving the machinery of twenty-first-century life behind. The wild popularity of wilderness recreation shows how hungry Americans are for just such sanctuaries.
  • The Wilderness Act was reinterpreted by the Administration in 1986 to ban bicycles from Wilderness areas, which led to the current vocal opposition from mountain bikers to the opening of new Wilderness areas.

Interesting, because I did see some protesting the fact that this will be 200 million more acres no one can use, unless we decide to see the place the good old fashion way—by hiking. But the whole idea is to protect the wilderness from man so we either walk through it leaving the least amount of impact, or we don’t see it at all. 

There is also the questionable $3 million earmark to Alaska for another road to nowhere through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge there. Maybe they should add that area to the Wilderness Act. No mechanical or motorized vehicles in protected areas, no need for a road. And didn’t Alaska’s governor denounce earmarks anyway?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ja3vNS7u_ovPaeUpzrEKqDzs5TjAD95KSENO0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Act

After eight long years of more hits on the environment and animals than not, president Bush officially designated three different U.S.marine national monuments

Mariana’s Trench Marine National Monument. This trench is five times longer than the Grand Canyon and the deepest area of the earth. It is home to underwater volcanoes and thermal vents. The Marianas are located north of Guam, SE of Japan, and west of the Marshall Islands.

Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument south and west of Hawaii. This monument will help preserve irreplaceable trees, grasses, and birds from near the equator to monk seals, sea turtles, whales and coral reefs. 

Rose Atoll Marine National Monument an island east of American Samoa is home to giant clams, reef sharks, and an abundance of beautiful rose-colored corals—Rose Atoll.

There won’t be any oil drills in these areas at least. No “resource destruction or extraction, waste dumping, or commercial fishing,” will be allowed, according to an Environmental New Service article. The areas will be free passage areas however, and allow research and recreation.

This couldn’t happen at a better time because it was reported this evening on the news that the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia is showing the biggest decline in its coral ecosystem in 400 years!

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2009/2009-01-06-02.asp

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CO2 gas has competition in our atmosphere. Methane gas and nitrogen trifluoride is increasing at an alarming rate. The ice melt in the Artic is releasing an enormous amount of methane from rotting plants. The nitrogen fluoride is used in the manufacture of flat panel monitors.

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According to an article in USA, two Scripps Institute geoscientists have collected cylinders of air samples from around the world and both methane and nitrogen fluoride is building quicker than expected.

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I’ve blogged about the little known methane gas explosions along the coast of Africa: http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/04/mankind-contributes-to-global-warming-through-fish/. They are caused by the same thing�rotting plants on the ocean floor, plants that used to be food for sardines and a rapidly declining fish supply due to overfishing, especially in that area.

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Understand the chain reaction of imbalance now? One thing like overfishing causes excess plankton, which eventually dies and begins to rot on the ocean floor. The rot releases methane gas, which builds under pressure and eventually blows. The caveat to all of this is that the first global warming event 40 million years ago that literally scorched the earth was caused from excess methane gas. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2007/06/world-environment-day/.

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And what about nitrogen trifluoride as evidence man truly is affecting global warming by excessive output of harmful gases that throws the (closed system) atmosphere out of balance? If geoscientists can actually register the growth of toxic nitrogen fluoride, which is not a naturally occurring element but rather a combination of elements used in the silicon industry, than that is proof man is contributing to the toxicity of our atmosphere and an imbalance of what we witness as global warming.

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The more scientists are able to gather air samples worldwide the more our eyes will open to the fact we’re polluting at an awful rate and by doing so promoting the demise of our world and everything in it. I hope we can unite on this conclusion soon enough.

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For those that say this is a normal cyclical happening, did we have excessive nitrogen trifluoride in the air back then too? We certainly didn’t have almost 7 billion people on earth to think about relative to global warming.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27400533/

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http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/06/worse-things-increasing-in-the-air-than-co2/

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http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/05/humans-have-been-affecting-the-earths-atmosphere-for-at-least-2000-years/

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http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/category/environmentalism/global-warming/page/4/

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Professor Rose Ann Cattolico of the University of Washington began her study of algae back when the other fuel crisis hit in 1973. Only unlike those that eventually gave up the search for alternative fuels Cattolico continued on for more than 30 years.

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The results of her tenacity may help the entire world shed their need for crude in a very short period. For the U.S. it may happen within a decade. Her studies are so promising that according to an article on UW News website, “Allied Minds, an investment company that works with universities to commercialize early-stage technology, invested in the University of Washington biology professor’s work, forming a startup company called AXI.”

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What Prof. Cattolico basically did was create an entire database of different types of algae. Different algaes produce lipids, or oil, as a result of photosynthesis. All algaes are different so that one type of algae may produce oil that is perfect for two stroke engines, another for home fuel, and another for jet or car fuel. There are so many forms of algae that genetic engineering is unnecessary.�

Cattolico stated, “Algae grow rapidly and do not require the use of productive farmland. Algae also can use various nutritional sources, including wastewater.” What a boon to be able to use wastewater to feed the algae. If it works in anyway like biodigestion, the effluent and/or any solids leftover are pure fertilizer.

According to Erick Rabins of AXI, “Entire infrastructures, from specialized growing facilities to processing plants, will have to be created. [] The most optimistic assessment that I’ve heard is that it could be six to eight years before there’s something that’s useable, but the tools and techniques to make it possible are being created right now.” he said.

The professor emphasizes what many environmentalists have been saying all along: “What we need is a Manhattan Project for fuel. If we can get a Manhattan Project for fuel, it won’t take 25 years.”

http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=43454.

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This Sunday’s article in the Detroit Free Press about conservation easements was pretty enlightening to me. I thought I’d share it. I don’t think I’m the only one who wishes their property would remain as is into the future. I don’t want anyone cutting down my apple, pear, and cherry trees, or anything else I’ve nurtured to grow. I want the wooded parts to stay wooded, and the animal habitat left alone.

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The couple in the article has acreage on Beaver Island outside of Petoskey where many of the locals see the encroaching development. This couple decided to keep their property as is in the future by getting a conservation easement. This is an agreement that limits development, and protects property forever.

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Hurray. There is something a private property owner can do to keep development to a minimum and protect wildlife habitat forever. I’m thinking about all the wild open fields that use to be near my house that went the way of subdivisions that are only half filled. All that habitat, trees, grass, bushes, and shrubs were mowed down to create those egg frying concrete subdivisions by summer, that really turn bleak and empty in winter. I’m thinking about what a conservation easement might have done. With only half the houses, these same subdivisions might have retained small areas of woods, open grasses, bogs, and huge, ancient trees that can’t possibly be replaced in a hundred years.

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I also think of all the people I know that bought property “up north” in Michigan for the express purpose of being in the boonies. That list of people is growing. As it grows, the wild areas shrink, clearing areas for the homestead.

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The couple in the article said that we as individuals have to protect the land. Well, if you’re someone who wants the view out your window to remain that way, you may want to try for a conservation easement.

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For more info: http://www.smlcland.org/about.php

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I was looking for cures to get rid of all types of weeds in my lawn that have become prevalent in just the last couple of years like Creeping Charlie, Henbit,Violets, Wild Strawberries, etc. I’m not a fan of spraying if I don’t have to and figure I need to know why I’m getting so many of these weeds or I’ll just be dealing with it all over again year after year. Well, it seems I need to fertilize my lawn more to keep Creeping Charlie at bay. So I’ll go the natural fertilizer route or whip up a Jerry Baker concoction. But I was still curious where all these weeds are coming from. I had a pretty nice lawn not long ago.

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It seems America is being inundated with imported invasive species of plants and trees that will have a terrible impact on our own native plants and trees in the near future. I had no idea that the nice maple trees in my yard are probably the invasive type called Norway Maple. As a matter of fact, one website that offered a guide to the imported/invasive plants and trees said: “Many of the plants in this guide are popular, even beloved, landscape plants, but it is now clear that they pose a threat to our environment.” It’s because these plants significantly reduce the number of plant and animal species on any site they invade. The fact that they are in our yards is a sign that over the past 100 years or more they have indeed spread.� http://www.mdflora.org/publications/invasives.htm.

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I couldn’t believe all the new and different weeds popping that I have that are on that list. And the list is for the mid Atlantic region! That says something about climate change. Now I’m not about to cut down my maples and I have a sneaky suspicion they’re Norways because I have too many maples willy-nilly in my yard. But one of them shades the front of my house from the summer sun, and two are on the bank by the dock.

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As for getting rid of these weeds, I found all types of natural ways to combat them on the Internet. For instance, I know enough to weed whip before weeds go to seed,� but it seems there is a magic time you can mow some weeds and they won’t come back. So, depending on the type of weed you are trying to control, you may not need any chemicals at all. Whack them at the right time in their lifecycle and kill them dead for good.

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For my Creeping Charlie problem I could apply a herbicide when it flowers, but it seems this weed is sensitive to borax according to the blogsite Hobby Lawn Care. The website gives the formula to make your own borax concoction. It said: “…dissolve 8 ounces of borax in 4 ounces of water. Then dilute the solution in 2.5 gallons of water.” This is supposed to be sprayed on 1000 sq. ft. of lawn, “no more, no less.” That scares me a little. Too much borax prevents desirable plants–like grass?

http://www.hobbylawncare.com/browse/lawn-pests

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And if all else fails, I can just eat my lawn. That’s right. I found a website with a recipe for Wild Weed Salad and Dressing. I have everything I need except nasturtium. I used to grow nasturtiums, but that was long ago. I think nasturtiums are just watercress. The lawn violets I have aplenty. They add a peppery taste to a salad. Dandelion greens I’ve already eaten before, but I don’t know about the lamb’s quarter. It’s a little too hairy for me. Everything else on the list of ingredients seems fine, but I just can’t imagine the taste of the added mint, with basil, with garlic. I’m thinking peppery/garlicky taste, which would be really good with the honey and apple cider vinegar dressing.

Read the recipe: http://gorhamgarden.blogspot.com/2007/06/weed-of-day-no-2-henbit.html

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Good news for the world’s second largest rainforest as the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced its intention to designate over 50,000 sq. miles of it as protected area. That’s quite a big improvement over the approximate 8500 sq. miles that is currently protected or conserved.

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The Congo Basin in Central Africa is 700,000 sq. miles of tropical forest that extends across six countries. Area wise, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC is the third largest country in Africa and contains the largest part of the Congo Basin forest. The DRC is not only establishing new protected areas but also insuring sustainable use by the inhabitants. This is the amazing part. Some of the indigenous inhabitants are Pygmies. And even though many of the Pygmies cannot read, GPS units designed for non-literate people allow them to participate in mapping the forest. In their travels they locate resources, like edible and medicinal plants, and other significant areas. The Pygmies select an icon to mark an area, and the GPS records the data for resource maps.

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The rainforests in the DRC contain all types of species of plants to animals including chimpanzees, white rhinos, and the famous mountain gorillas. It will take a concentrated effort by many nations to accomplish the task of keeping this vast area protected. As it is now, many of the rangers and people concerned about the forest have disappeared, either killed or driven off from the Second Congo (civil) War from 1998 to 2003. It’s the second deadliest war since WWII. I did not know that.

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The announcement was made in Bonn, Germany, which is host for the Convention on Biological Diversity or CBD. The CBD believes:

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Protected areas are the foundation for safeguarding ecosystems, species and genes in all their

abundance and diversity. Protected areas are the backbone for the stability and functioning of

ecosystemic processes and the provision of ecosystem services such as natural carbon storage,

water cycles, pollination, control of diseases and flood control. Properly designed and

managed protected areas support livelihoods of local communities and strengthen local and

national economies. Protected area networks are our �Safety-Nets for Life on Earth�. Thus the

establishment and long-term maintenance of protected areas is in the interest of humanity and

requires a common effort of the global community. The CBD Programme of Work on

Protected Areas is a global framework for the establishment of comprehensive, representative

and effectively managed national and regional protected area systems. Parties agreed to close

the gaps in the existing systems, enhance management effectiveness and secure adequate

financing.

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The �Life Web Initiative� aims at supporting the implementation of the CBD Programme of

Work on Protected Areas through enhancing partnerships at a global level. The purpose of the

initiative is to match voluntary commitments for the designation of new protected areas and

the improved management of existing areas with commitments for dedicated (co-)financing of these areas.

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The German minister thinks these new protected areas of rainforest in the Congo should become part of “Life Web.” Germany is presently providing the Congo Basin region with over 53 million euro for protection. The concept of Live Web is a good read and may be the wave of the future where industry and nature will exist well together.

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Read more about the Congo rainforest and Live Web Initiative @

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-27-02.asp

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http://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/cop/hls-cop-09/other/hls-cop-09-lifeweb-de-en.pdf

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Yesterday I reported that NASA satellites are studying all types of changes on the earth. One of NASA’s studies whose results were on their website stated that:

Scientists from Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., set out to see what effect reduced sea ice cover would have on the organisms that comprise the base of the Arctic marine food web, the single-celled floating algae called phytoplankton. Because these photosynthetic organisms rely on the sun to meet their energy demands, reduced Arctic sea ice cover means an increase in the amount of open water habitat suitable for algal growth. Thus, their abundance is expected to increase.

Not surprisingly, the scientists found that the growth of phytoplankton has indeed increased markedly in concert with the rapid reduction in sea ice cover over the last five years. However, they were surprised to find that this growth did not take place in the areas of the Arctic where we expected it. The researchers anticipated that areas experiencing the most dramatic loss of sea ice would show the largest increase in algal growth. However this was not the case. Algal growth did indeed rise in newly ice-free areas, but only accounted for about one third of the total Arctic increase. The majority of the increase in algal growth (70 percent) was observed in the shallow waters that ring the Arctic Ocean. In these areas, algal growth rates increased because the sea ice in these areas, algal growth rates increased because the sea ice cover was melting sooner and freezing later in the year giving the algae increasingly more time to grow.

This was nine year study using all types of satellite imagery including and MRI Spectroradiometer to compare ocean color and temperature relative to sea ice melt that was also assessed.

I read a lot of things and certain words like phytoplankton buildup tweaked my curiosity as to the difference between phytoplankton and plankton. Phytoplankton is the autotrophic component of plankton. According to Wikipedia an “autotroph is an organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple inorganic molecules using energy from light or inorganic chemical reactions. Another article I found at:

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002481.html didn’t differentiate between phytoplankton and plankton.

This does not bode well at all in my mind because of the blog I just wrote about explosions of methane gas into the atmosphere that are growing in size to that of meters in the ocean waters off of Namibia. If all of this phytoplankton is rapidly spreading in the shallow waters that ring the Arctic Ocean, and there are not enough fish or marine mammals in that region to eat the excess plankton (phytoplankton), doesn’t it stand to reason that this Arctic phytoplankton will go the way of plankton near Namibia? In other words, it will die and rot, creating hydrogen sulfide pockets. All that is needed is high pressure from a storm on the ocean’s surface to affect the pressure on the ocean bottom in these particularly shallow waters around the Arctic and an eruption might occur. These are the same eruptions happening off of Namibia. I realize that scientists claim these explosions are not likely to take place because of the constant churning of the ocean floor. But then there is Namibia. Explain that?

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/04/24/mankind-contributes-to-global-warming-through-fish/

Scary stuff since the first global warming event 40 million years ago was from methane gas eruptions. The earth was eventually scorched. This just shows how delicately balanced our world really is. We fish too much, or disrupt certain species by changing habitat drastically, and something else is thrown out of kilter like phytoplankton, something so small we don’t really see it except for greenish colored water. It’s something so small, yet it can eventually kill us.

NASA website: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ecosystem_research_briefs.html..

While I was on the NASA website I couldn’t help but click on ” Forests Damaged by Hurricane Katrina Become Major Carbon Source.” That article stated that, “a research team has estimated that Hurricane Katrina killed or severely damaged 320 million large trees in Gulf Coast forests, which weakened the role the forests play in storing carbon from the atmosphere. The damage has led to these forests releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” The satellite pics in the article show the devastation from Katrina. It was quite a wipe out.

The NASA article also stated that “[t]he carbon cycle is intimately linked to just about everything we do, from energy use to food and timber production and consumption. [] As more and more carbon is released to the atmosphere by human activities, the climate warms, triggering an intensification of the global water cycle that produces more powerful storms, leading to destruction of more trees, which then act to amplify climate warming.”

So one event, like a massive hurricane, results in deforestation and decay that cause more CO2 to be released, and more overall warming for more massive hurricanes. Destructive cycle seemed to be formed rather easily. Not good for us.

Read more and check out the web short “In Katrina’s Wake” @ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html.

I just came to the realization this morning that I’m a geek. I doubt anyone but those extremely close to me would ever consider me a geek, because I didn’t. But I’m writing a fiction book that deals with space and as part of the research; I clicked on the NASA channel this morning. Oh, I’ve visited this channel before but it never occurred to me how long I linger there. I actually sit mesmerized by this world of space, science, and math that face it; most of our population knows absolutely nothing about and could care less.

My interest in the NASA channel isn’t the only thing however that qualifies me as a geek. Lately, I’ve become more and more interested in alternative sources of energy, particularly the many experiments with hydrogen. And I actually liked advanced math in college. Huge algebra problems were like puzzles to be worked, and I fanatically worked them. I even took an electricity class at Community College for the fun of it. Now something is clearly wrong here when only five people signed up for the class and after the instructor outlined what everyone would be doing, including algebra, the final class tally turned out to be me and another guy who had to take it. I’m a geek aren’t I?

That’s probably why I was anxious to read the pdf files of the latest findings that were reported from NASA today via telecon by a panel of experts ranging from terrestrial ecology to atmospheric and oceanic sciences relative to:

Changes to Earth’s ecosystems [that] are evident in recent research that employs NASA remote-sensing data. Panelists [discussed] several topics, including the impact of shrinking Arctic sea ice on marine ecosystems, how invasive species alter the biochemistry of local ecosystems, the role of climate change on the length of growing seasons and ecosystems, and seasonal changes in phytoplankton and the consequences on marine ecosystems.

It’s amazing what is seen from satellite devices, and how these global views allow scientists to analyze a situation. As these views are recorded over time changes become evident. Linking all the info from different components of the global warming equation like Arctic ice melt, rainforest changes, results of deforestation and fires, and marine biology is what has been necessary since the whole global warming theory began. Gathering data like that from all types of sources, and then combining it in a productive way to see how one system affects another over the globe is a daunting task, but satellite technology looks to tackle all of that in the future.

Check out the sight and the pdf files of different topics discussed.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ecosystem_research_briefs.html.

Click on News and Features on that page also to get the latest from NASA about polar bears and loss of habitat:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/polar_bears.html