Climate News: Week ending 21 August 2010

by billlaurelMD

This is the next in a series of diaries on the state of Arctic sea ice (and other topics as warranted) in memory of Johnny Rook, who passed away in early 2009. He was the author of the Climaticide Chronicles.

We're heading toward the end of the Arctic sea ice melt season as the sun descends toward the horizon in the polar latitudes. Speaking of polar latitudes, here's a picture from Barrow AK from yesterday morning, annotated with the weather at the time.  Foggy and gloomy, par for the course in August.

Barrow AK web cam photo, 23 August 2010 at 5:36 a.m. Alaska Time

More below the fold.

continued at Daily Kos....

African Wildlife and More - A Photo Diary

by Haole in Hawaii

This is another one of these diaries.  You probably know the drill by now.  No meta or conflict, just some photos of wildlife and some beautiful things.  I have to say that I am in a serious post vacation funk abetted by tons of ugly news and a country that seems to have gone utterly insane. I doubt I am alone in my anger and disgust.  I hope this helps in some small way.

The Mokuluas, Oahu

continued at Daily Kos....

蓝 / 藍 ou xanh dương ou 青 ou bleu earthship

by eKos

Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for 'green' diaries and series. Below the fold: news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup Check out the  eKos Library for previously listed diaries, and remember to follow eKos on Twitter.

Tonight views are those of guest editor boatsie, so they don't necessarily represent those of eKos.

Ergo, welcome aboard the first flight of the blue earthship!

continued at Daily Kos....

Plan Z for climate change

by DarkSyde

New data and reports of a rapidly warming Arctic prompt the Gray Lady to publish a decent op-ed:

Globally, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record. In regions around the world, indications abound that earth’s climate is quickly changing, like the devastating mudslides in China and weeks of searing heat in Russia. But in the world’s capitals, movement on climate policy has nearly stopped.  ... Policy makers need to accept that societies won’t make drastic changes to address climate change until such a crisis hits. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing for them to do in the meantime. When a crisis does occur, the societies with response plans on the shelf will be far better off than those that are blindsided. The task for national and regional leaders, then, is to develop a set of contingency plans for possible climate shocks — what we might call, collectively, Plan Z.

Tiny nit-pick: Plan Z for climate change better include a time machine somewhere. Without some way to affect past, piss-poor decisions, it's hard to make an effective change after the Greenland ice sheet slides into the North Atlantic.  

continued at Daily Kos....

An Apology To My Newborn Son

by Attorney at Arms

My son was born last Saturday at 1:45 p.m. He's perfectly healthy. He has all the right parts in all the right places. He's sleeping in my lap under my keyboard right now. Since about five minutes after he was born, I've been thinking I owe him an apology. You see, he has come into a world that is very difficult to explain to a child. Some of you may share this feeling.

It's not just that I can't explain to him the purpose of life, the problem of good and evil, or why I just love him so much already. It's that I can't explain to him what his future holds because his world is not going in the right direction at the moment, and the most recent moment where we thought we may have corrected that is quickly turning out to be a total illusion.

Some generations build great monuments. Some walk in their ruins, going about their business hardly taking notice of the weeds overgrowing them. Sometimes in history, these generations are next to each other. I think of the generation of the Tannaim in Ancient Judaea. One day, their temple stood. One day, it was destroyed. Or the generation who lived among the hustle and bustle of the Roman empire, and a generation that came shortly after them that lived in mostly empty cities.

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EcoAdvocates: Our Toxic Lives

by Jill Richardson

I've been doing some research on toxic chemicals that Americans are exposed to lately and ... WOW! Turns out that, without any consent from me, I've been exposed to a long list of highly toxic chemicals from things I thought were harmless like my couch. So were you. It could be your socks, or your toothpaste. Or perhaps your washing machine. So why the hell are these chemicals legal?

More below.

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TLC

by A Siegel

TLC ...

Tender, loving, care.

What beautiful words.

We can all use some TLC.

And, looking at peat fires smoking out Moskovites, flooded Pakistanis, overheated Washingtonians, and other climate chaos victims around the world, it has to be clear to all but the anti-science syndrome sufferring haters of a livable economic system that our planet needs some TLC as well.

That TLC is, of course, some Transparency, Long-term, and Certain when it comes to energy and climate policies ...

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"Coldest winter I ever spent"

by LaughingPlanet

Do you really need to be told about the famous quote falsely attributed to Mark Twain?

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco

A funny thing happened to me yesterday on my way to the cold, foggy, town in which I grew up:

I nearly melted.

It was the warmest August date ever in San Francisco, which topped out at 98 degrees, smashing the previous high for Aug. 24 by 9 degrees.

This is my hometown. It is never, EVER boiling hot in the summer. It is cold like the chasm where Dick Cheney's heart would have been.

Thanks to {do not say global warming}, things everywhere are changed. It's a change of a weathery pattern of some kind.

All I know is that the most beautiful city I've ever seen was an ugly, fetid, stinky swamp yesterday, and it sucked. Except for all those homers the Giants hit. w00t!

continued at Daily Kos....

Great Lakes Oil Disaster Waiting To Happen? Again?

by Detroit Mark

Enbridge Energy Partners is the Canadian oil company who stepped up the Gulf Oil Disaster story to ironic comedy status by adding its own version of the oil volcano in the largest Fresh Water region on the planet recently, even as BP and its minions were stumbling over themselves to cover up the damage they had done.

Now, they appear to be on the verge of making it an even more ridiculous commentary on the Oil Industry's inability to control their shit.

continued at Daily Kos....

BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 92

by Gulf Watchers

Please rec the new Mothership #93 here. This one has expired.
The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #334 - More Waiting... - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight/peraspera

Rules of the Road

• We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
• Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.
• Please be kind to fellow kossacks who may have limited bandwidth and refrain from posting images or videos.

PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!

continued at Daily Kos....