Our World and Everything in It

If you ever had any questions about a anything relating to earth and its functions, how it all happened, how our climate is changing and why, how we know this stuff, and many other things, watch National Geographic’s presentation “Planet Earth.” This is family stuff, enlightening, interesting, and a little bit scary.

Some of the presentations are explosive. It’s a little mind boggling how they are able to present prehistoric earth with video footage of events and places from the present. I watched the one about ice mass, and last night was about earthquakes, ending with volcanic eruptions. There is as much action as the latest Rambo movie. My husband was perturbed we changed channels from the movie “Mash,” but said it was really a great presentation and he wants to see more of it now. You’ll find yourself saying “Wow”  and “I didn’t know that!” more than once.

I know some people don’t get the National Geographic Channel, but the DVD set of “Planet Earth” is available. It’s better than any encyclopedia books I was brought up with. Maybe if they had this type of learning tool back then more of us would have went into science.

“Planet Earth” is on every night this week, beginning at 9:00 pm on the National Geographic Channel. Tune in.

Did you know that a lake could blow up from CO2 gases settled on the bottom? Until 1986 scientists didn’t think so either. I was watching the History Channel. A Professor Riskin hypothesized about methane gas sea explosions causing prehistoric earth to scorch. The scientific community was not convinced about gas exploding out of the ocean until in 1986 Lake Nios in Cameroon, Africa exploded from 1.6 million tons of CO2 gas being released that had settled on the bottom. Over 1700 people were asphyxiated up to 16 miles away along with all their livestock, some 3000 head of cattle.
 
Scientists argued for a while that it was a volcanic eruption and a mix of sulfur that caused the explosion, but sulfur substances weren’t found. The survivors of the explosion claimed they smelled sulfur but there is evidently something called olfactory hallucinations associated with CO2 asphyxiation and one of them is the smell of sulfur.

According to an article on Bnet, it was believed carbon dioxide gas build-up had a volcanic origin and built up slowly in the lake over a long period of time. U.S. researchers didn’t know exactly what triggered the explosion, but it was never believed a volcano or earthquake was responsible. French researchers disagreed. They believed the exploding cloud that dispersed throughout the area traveling at 40 mph was a mix “of steam, carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds that had been building up in a layer of groundwater heated by volcanic rocks far below the lake. These compounds reportedly were injected into the lake when the pressure of the steam eventually cracked the rock that had been holding it down.”

The problem is “U.S.scientists said lake temperatures were not elevated, its bottom did not appear to have been disturbed, there were no volcanic sulfides in the lake and no suspended sediments that might have resulted had steam rushed through bottom sediments.”

Either way we look at it, whether the CO2 was just laying there and blew or was caused by too much pressure from too much CO2 being injected into the rock fissures, it does not bode well for a future with too much CO2 around. So much for the gasification process relative to “clean coal.”

Coal burns filthy. The reason why it’s recently being touted as “clean” is because of a gasification process where the CO2 pollution is trapped, and liquified. The pollution never gets into the air but the liquified CO2 needs some place to go. Just like the spent fuel of a nuke, the best place for the leftover liquid CO2 is to put it in the ground by injection. But do we know how much CO2 is safe to inject? Will we have to worry about CO2 geisers in the future?  If so the future is looking pretty prehistoric. Told ya we’re dinosaurs.

Read more about the Lake Nios’ explosion:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_v131/ai_4645289

I happened to turn on The Weather Channel the other night to check on upcoming weather and I stayed on that station awhile. I ended up watching about an hours worth of fascinating travel, weather, climate, and interesting information about the big island of Hawaii. Did you know that the Big Island sports 10 of the world’s 13 climates?

There was beautiful video coverage of the island, all types of info about the wind currents, the climates, and the terrain. It showed the 13 observatories on top of Moana Kea, the highest place to look at the stars. It is the tallest mountain on earth if you consider the part of it under the ocean.  And up there it is a sub arctic climate on this tropical island.

The program showed the Parker Ranch of about 150,000 acres with 50,000 head of cattle and how they’ve managed to be ecological about furnishing water to their cattle. They have diverted fresh mountain water through 75 miles of pipeline to 650 troughs located around the ranch.

Since then I’ve been trying to catch all that The Weather Channel has to offer. There is a program called “Forecast Earth,” “Weather Ventures” like the one about the Big Island, and “It Could Happen Tomorrow” about disasters waiting to happen that are as good as many presented on the Discovery Channel.

I’m telling you about The Weather Channel because many people no longer have premium channels. I know I’ve had people ask me where I saw many of the latest green business innovations on Eco Tech and when I reported it was on The Science Channel, they simply did not have access to it.

Unfortunately people with growing families are watching their expenses and have cut back to basic subscription channels. They don’t get to see all the latest environmental programs out there on premium channels. This is where The Weather Channel is invaluable. It’s a great place for the whole family to view places all around the country and world with all types of info about the climate, wind, animals, plants, and not to mention great cinematography. When I was done watching about the Big Island I wanted to visit there. We’ve been to many of the islands but not the Big Island and that program was my incentive. It was an informational, environmental, travelogue.

To catch the times and days to view some of the programs I’ve mentioned goto:

http://www.weather.com/aboutus/television/programming/?from=secondarynav.

You won’t be disappointed. I just watched part of the feature tonight about the Grand Canyon. Happy viewing.
 

One of my blogs was about the forests lost to forest fires and that it was really odd to see the woods of Minnesota burn since the state is noted for its many inland lakes. Then I read that the global warming impact of forest fires in our western states is the equivalent of a more severe hurricane season in the gulf. But hurricanes are over in a few days, forest fires can burn for months. About.com stated: “Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Arizona found four times as many large wildfires occurred in Western forests between 1987 and 2003 compared to the previous 16 years.”

Everything about fires has increased due to global warming. The latest fires burned 6.5 times more land, increased from around 8 days to 37 days in duration, and the whole fire season has expanded 78 more days. Here’s the interesting part. You know there are television personalities like Regis Philbin who make fun of a one degree weather change, but most of the increase in our fires corresponds with a simple 1.5 degree rise in temperature out west during the same time frame of 87 to 2003. The slightly warmer temperatures lead to longer, drier seasons that are ideal for a flash fire.

This is the first study that links global warming and forest fires. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The researchers examined U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service records of every forest fire that burned at least 1,000 acres from 1970 to 2003. They found that of 1,166 fires in that period, four-fifths of them, or about 900, occurred after 1987.” The article went on to say, “Steven Running, a professor in the School of Forestry at the University of Montana who wrote an accompanying article about the report for Science hopes to include Westerling’s findings in a report on the ecological consequences of climate change for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

I don’t doubt that sooner or later science will find a link between all major eruptions on earth such as volcanoes, and earthquakes with the rise in hurricanes, flooding, fires, etc., that are due to man’s impact on this same environment with some form of pollution. We simply haven’t given much thought to our ever increasing world population in ratio to its output of pollution. Imagine if every growing population turned into a capitalist society like ours where demand for everything under the sun in huge amounts is an everyday occurrence. Capitalism to me is more a throw away society than a recycling society right now. It doesn’t have to be that way, however. We’re into supply and demand and haven’t caught on that some of the supply can come from what has already been used. It’s simply not a good thing for the earth to start from scratch every time when there is perfectly good base material out there to be recycled.

This has just given me an idea to blog about what is currently offered in the recycled goods market and for what use. I do know that recycled plastics offer picnic tables, park benches, and even parking curbs out of high density plastic material instead of wood that rots or concrete that eventually cracks. Every Parks and Recreation Commission in all cities should be looking into recycled products like these for all of our recreational areas. It would make all of us feel a little better about all the plastic products we consume and throw away into a trash dump versus the local park or for some future use wouldn’t it? We should see how truly efficient we can be. After all our country should be viewed as a business and isn’t that the essence of business anyway to garner the greatest profit with the least overhead, and the least waste?
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My Christmas message was about God’s emphasis on the earth.  The word “earth” is in the bible almost 700 times. It is IMPORTANT! 

I woke up this morning to news of more horrible weather again. Christmas meant disaster for many people. The message is clear to me that the earth, our environment, is in distress. The distress isn’t some cosmic happening out of our control. We cause the earth’s strain by pollution we’ve failed to control.

We watched as Colorado was hit by the worst storm they’ve had in years. 4000 people were stranded. The fifth busiest airport in the country shut down for 2 days, compliments of El Nino. El Nino’s are more frequent because of global warming.

This morning there was news that 6 tornadoes ripped through Florida. People lost their homes on Christmas due to nature, an El Nino season. No one was injured. There were plenty of warninings. The tornadoes themselves are warnings, don’t you think?

On the other side of the world Taiwan was hit with a 7.2 earthquake that generated a small tsunami. So many more earthquakes are happening, volcanoes too. Volcanoes have recently been associated with global warming. It’s evident that warming air that affects the top layers of water to produce more El Ninos also affects landmasses in adverse ways. Land is affected where it is most vulnerable along fault lines, and volcanic areas. And we already know big events like earthquakes, trigger other horrible events elsewhere. The tsunami from Taiwan’s earthquake is supposed to hit the Philippines soon.

The weather patterns are getting worse, and closer together. These patterns are not a normal course, as some would suggest. Weather patterns are spiking in the extreme. I wanted to see for myself. A couple of years ago, I researched a World Climate Center website for data. I looked for extreme weather events only. I printed out ¼ of a page for 1990. I printed 2 1/2 pages solid by 2001.

We’ve been lucky in Michigan so far. But luck is a gamble and gambling has its place. I don’t think we should gamble our clean air, water, and earth, especially our water. If we lose, we’ll be oh so sorry after the fact. Think green as much as possible. Our current administration  is coming around to recognize global warming and are offering incentives for thinking green at tax return time.

Beginning this year, if you improve your home to be more energy efficient, such as  installing new windows, insulation, new energy star appliances, solar panels, etc., you can deduct as much as $500 from your tax bill.

THE BIGGEST DEDUCTION IS FOR BUYING A HYBRID CAR. Depending on the car, as much as $2600 can be deducted from your tax bill.

Hopefully, 2007 will be a year of increased awareness for the environment by Michigan residents. We’ve been spared bad weather so far. We should give thanks by doing our best to keep it that way.