Environment

[Random News] Watching the Earth breathe from space (Measuring CO2 from space) and more…

July 11, 2014 — 1 Comment
  1. Nasa Launches Carbon Dioxide Observer
  2. How Solar Energy Empowered a Nicaraguan Community Once Devastated by War
  3. How El Niño will change the world’s weather in 2014
  4. How Arizona Could Soon Tax Thousands of Residents For Going Solar

Nasa Launches Carbon Dioxide Observer

Image Credit: NASA

Image Credit: NASA

NASA successfully launched its first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric CO2. Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) will be NASA’s first dedicated Earth remote sensing satellite to study atmospheric carbon dioxide from Space. OCO-2 will be collecting space-based global measurements of atmospheric CO2 with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to characterize sources and sinks on regional scales. “Sources and sinks” are the keys words here. As I posted before, when CO2 is added in the atmosphere only a part stays in there (which drives warming). The remained part could be absorbed by the ocean, and land. However, exactly where is highly uncertain. Thus this sensors will help to solve this part of the puzzle. Also OCO-2 will also be able to quantify CO2 variability over the seasonal cycles year after year.

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5 Movies About Genetic Pollution and the Big Business of Genetics

July 6, 2014 — Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I started to watch a documentary about genetic modified crops. I was immersed in the climate change topic and I didn’t really want to watch a documentary about other environmental topic because It could be interesting then I would start search more material about the topic. But I gave a shot anyway and the domino effect began. I started with one documentary, then another one, one more… I knew it.

The big picture is: some big corporations are trying to dominate the food production in a global scale. My first thought was, Ok it sounds like a conspiracy theory. Global dominance? It can’t be done. However after I finished the first movie I was amazed. These guys are really smart. They found a way of doing. I wasn’t happy at all because it is really not fair, but real life is not fair most of the time.

What came into my mind was what happened a long time ago with Microsoft and the antitrust law. Microsoft was accused of monopoly because of its internet browser. Also Microsoft and Windows where consider the beast from the apocalypse (really???? because of Windows????). Then Google was the next target. Privacy issues, misuse of personal information, a company which is too big, and the list goes one. I am not defending Microsoft nor Google but honestly these two companies are nothing compared to the food/genetic companies approach. What I found in the movies was way more scary and profound than anything that I heard about Microsoft and Google together (and trust me I heard a lot about these two companies). They take advantage of farmers misinformation and high expectations of better crops. Continue reading

[Random News] Frozen Underworld Discovered Beneath Greenland Ice Sheet and more…

July 1, 2014 — Leave a comment

Due the lack of time I am not writing long topics anymore, but as soon as I can I’ll return to the normal posts. Meanwhile here are some (late) news of the week.

  1. Frozen underworld discovered beneath Greenland ice sheet
  2. NOAA Deploying New Drones Into Hurricanes
  3. Industry Endangering Forests in Alberta Rockies, Study Says

Frozen Underworld Discovered Beneath Greenland Ice Sheet

Scientists have discovered a frozen underworld beneath the ice sheet covering northern Greenland. The previously unknown landscape, a vast expanse of warped shapes including some as tall as a Manhattan skyscraper, was found using ice-penetrating radar loaded aboard Nasa survey flights.
Well, what does it mean? It means that the findings could deepen understanding of how the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica respond to climate change. There is a brief explanation of how this underworld could influence the melting of the ice sheet in the part three of the documentary I posted here a few weeks ago The climate wars.

Photo credit: Jason Gulley

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Hug a Climate Scientist Day and Others Random Interesting News of the Week

June 20, 2014 — 1 Comment

These are the news of the week:

  1. Hug a Climate Scientist Day
  2. The Brazil World Cup’s Climate Wild Card
  3. Start Your Electric Engines and Welcome to the Formula E!
  4. A Look at the Sustainable Chicago Restaurant That Recycled and Composted Everything for 2 Years

 

Hug a Climate Scientist day

Climate scientists carry the biggest burden of all: they know our planet is going to turn into a reheated chicken nugget and no one has really been listening. Click in the picture and check the cartoon.

 

The Brazil World Cup’s Climate Wild Card

If you are watching World Cup games and predicting which teams will win matches, might I suggest that you take into account the climate where matches are played. Brazil is huge, spanning about 40 degrees of latitude, and includes ten different climates. Continue reading

Can We Really Count on Plants to Slow Down Global Warming?

June 15, 2014 — 4 Comments

The idea is simple. Fact 1:Plants reduce CO2 in the atmosphere trough photosynthesis. Fact 2: Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere stimulates plants growth. Thus fact 1 + fact 2 is the perfect scenario. If there is more CO2 in the atmosphere and plants are growing more because of that, the solution to global warming is to plant more trees right? Well not really. There is a missing piece called Carbon cycle.

Image credit: http://www.greenpeace.org

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Random Interesting News of the week

June 13, 2014 — 2 Comments

Sometimes I am surfing on the internet and I find something interesting. I like to discuss more the topic but due lack of time I can not. So for now on, I’ll try to write a short post (probably on Fridays) with some interesting environmental random news like these:

Calgary Billboard: “The Sun is the Main Driver of Climate Change. Not You. Not CO2.”

A new billboard in Calgary claims: “The sun is the main driver of climate change. Not you. Not CO2.”  Well I am Ok if someone says that we don’t really know if humans are causing the global warming, but blaming the sun? That is not cool. The best part is the name of the organization: http://friendsofscience.org/

 

 

Climate Fact: Weather and Climate Trends in Brazil

Brazil is the host country of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. As thousands of tourists are arriving and the country is preparing for one of the world’s major sporting events, drought is affecting Brazil’s water availability and electricity generation in the Northeast and Southeast regions. Continue reading

The Climate Wars

May 26, 2014 — 5 Comments

Eric Pooley’s Book.

 

In 2008 the BBC released a documentary called Earth – The Climate Wars. In this 3 part television documentary the Scottish geologist Dr. Iain Stewart covers some aspects of the theory about global warming, the battle between the scientists who believe that climate change is caused by humans and the sceptics scientists, and challenge of predict the effects of global warming. It is a really good documentary. 

In the first episode Dr Iain Stewart traces the history of climate change from its very beginning and examines just how the scientific community managed to get it so very wrong back in the Seventies. Along the way he uncovers some of the great unsung heroes of climate change science, as for example the secret organisation of American government scientists, known as Jason, who wrote the first official report on global warming as far back as 1979. He shows how – by the late 1980s – global warming had already become a serious political issue. It looked as if the world was uniting to take action. But it turned out to be a false dawn. Because in the 1990s global warming would be transformed into one of the biggest scientific controversies of our age.
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Waiting for Climate Change

May 18, 2014 — Leave a comment

Really cool idea!

Chantal Bilodeau's avatarArtists & Climate Change

Isaac Cordal, waiting, climate change, Belgium Galician street artist Isaac Cordal has nailed it. Perfectly, precisely, poetically, politically: Passivity .

We, the collective we, seem to be waiting passively for someone else to “do something” about climate change. Someone else to think. Someone else to act. Someone else to lead. Not me. Not now. No way.

“Waiting for climate change” is Cordal’s 2012 masterpiece. Described as a “Lilliputian army which attests to the end of an era” by David Moinard, Cordal’s miniature clay figurines – no larger than 25 cm – stand passively on Flemish beaches, some up to their necks in sand, as if waiting for the inevitable rising seas to swallow them whole.

Isaac Cordal, climate change, Belgium, waitingIn addition, Cordal perched 10 small figurines atop wooden pedestals, wearing scuba goggles or flotation devices, gazing impassively at the horizon. Still others occupy empty rooms in a dilapidated 1930’s-era beachfront villa.

Painted in drab business suits, most of Cordal’s anonymous clay figurines…

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A picture is worth a thousand words

May 11, 2014 — 1 Comment

The Albian Sands Tailings Pond near Fort McMurray, Canada, shows a lot of polluted water, as well as an effigy of a peregrine falcon designed to keep migrating birds from landing in the toxic pond. Read more from this story on Canadian Oil Sands. Photo: Peter Essick

If a picture is worth a thousand words how about a couple of pictures? Millions? Thus, here are some images that will make you think of how beautiful the world is and also the reality where we live.   Continue reading

The Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not waste”

May 4, 2014 — 2 Comments

Picture credit: http://www.amherstma.gov/index.aspx?NID=553

I was wondering if  the eleventh Commandment would “Thou shalt not waste”. I don’t like to talk about religion but at least part of the global population would try to follow that. We developed a waste culture which is really hard to change. It is bigger than environmental conscience or doing the right or wrong thing. It is our culture. To have an idea how hard the change is, one can use as example three different cultures. In Japan is normal to kill dolphins, in Uruguay and Argentina is normal to kill cows and have a big barbecue and in India the same cows are sacred. Which one is right? Or wrong? Each of these cultures think they are right and the others cultures are maybe not doing the right thing. But what do they have in common? All cultures are going toward the western approach: Continue reading