Clipmarks | BartendingBear's Environment collection

Goat Puts Spiderman To Shame - MUST SEE!

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:19:37 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: "Being on a tightrope is living. Everything else is waiting." -- Karl Wallenda

Clip Source: flickr.com

I never did find out how this Mountain Goat, Oreamnos americanus, managed to get down. I was there for more than an hour and it kept licking away at the mineral in the rock. It was a sheer drop below, there was no apparent way up or sideways. But then other’s did some amazing feats of climbing that the best mountain climbers would be envious of. Goat Lick Overlook, Glacier National Park, MT

Will Intergalactic Cosmic Radiation Get Us All?

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:53:52 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Al Gore won't solve this one.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.

Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere.

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, will be launched from an aircraft on Sunday on a Pegasus rocket into an orbit 150,000 miles above the Earth where it will "listen" for the shock wave that forms as our solar system meets the interstellar radiation.

Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.

If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.

Was The Birth of Evolution Found In Experiments Conducted in 1952?

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 20:26:50 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Re-analysis of results with modern tech points to greater potential to understanding the birth of the evolutionary chain.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Ageing vials of chemicals have been discovered in a Californian lab, surviving samples from the legendary experiments performed by chemist Stanley Miller.

They hold evidence that life may have born violently, in erupting volcanoes in the midst of a thunderstorm.

his analysis of the products in the experiments revealed traces of the building blocks of life, amino acids (which combine to make proteins)

Miller died in May last year, his former student, Jeffrey Bada, inherited his materials; including, it turns out, several boxes containing vials of dried samples from those 1950s experiments, and the accompanying notebooks.

we just went at it, using the state-of-the-art techniques we have today and analysed these samples.

each one of those volcanoes could have been a little, local prebiotic factory. And so all of that went into making the material that we refer to as the prebiotic soup.

The Doorway To Hell is located in Antarctica

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:46:05 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Do you have what it takes to open it?

Clip Source: damncoolpics.blogspot.com

[Video]

The Katrina Myth

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:21:21 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: "If it keeps on rainin, levees goin to break,
If it keeps on rainin, levees goin to break,
When the levee breaks Ill have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,"

Led Zeppelin

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Are Malthus's 1798 Food Shortage Predictions Coming True?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:53:00 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: "Have we beaten Malthus? After two centuries, we still do not really know."

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, and thereby drive living standards back toward subsistence. We were, he argued, condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically.

For 200 years, economists have contended that Malthus overlooked technological advancement, which would allow human beings to keep ahead of the population curve.

The idea that improved know-how and voluntary fertility reduction can sustain a high, indeed rising, level of incomes for the world remains correct, but only if future technology enables us to economize on natural capital rather than finding ever more clever ways to deplete it more cheaply and rapidly.

We will need a new politics to recognize the importance of a sustainable growth strategy and global cooperation to achieve it.

My Polar Brothers Are In BIG Trouble

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:24:57 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: This makes me very sad. Please read clipped source for more details.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Federal wildlife monitors spotted nine polar bears in one day swimming in open ocean off Alaska's northwest coast, and environmental groups say the event is a strong signal that diminished sea ice brought on by warming has put U.S. bears at risk of drowning or dying from effects of fatigue.

In a 2003 photo, a polar bear roams its territory in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The polar bear has been listed as a threatened species, largely because global warming is causing its habitat to deteriorate.

The number spotted Saturday on long-distance swims in the Chukchi Sea was higher than has been seen in similar surveys.

Conditions last weekend, Siegel said, were similar to those that preceded drownings in September 2004. Four polar bear carcasses were spotted in the Beaufort Sea after a storm, and federal scientists extrapolated that others probably died.

The bears ranged from 15 to 65 miles off shore. Many were swimming north

New Greenland Ice Cracks Worry Scientists

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:23:10 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Further south in Greenland, Box's satellite images show that the Jakobshavn glacier, the fastest retreating glacier in the world, set new records for how far it has moved inland.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said Thursday.

This image provided by the Byrd Polar Research Center, Columbus, Ohio, taken July 25, 2008, shows a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a prominent glacier in northern Greenland. The crack, at center, right, is seven miles long and about half a mile wide. It is about half the width of the 500 square mile floating part of the glacier. If the cracking continues, the floating part of the glacier could lose up to one third of its size. (AP Photo/Byrd Polar Research Center)

And that's led the university professor who spotted the wounds in the massive Petermann glacier to predict disintegration of a major portion of the Northern Hemisphere's largest floating glacier within the year

Did You Hear That Alaska Has More Oil Than The Middle East?

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:46:42 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Read the full article to appreciate why that is a myth.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Petroleum may be in short supply these days, but the United States does have a related surplus: myths of oil abundance.

an array of books, Internet forums and YouTube videos constitute a subterranean layer of storytelling, creating a narrative of perpetually cheap domestic oil being denied to us

there's another side to them: They reveal our inability to accept that the United States is not always a land of plenty.

"In America, we're a frontier nation, and so the idea is that just beyond the next ridge is the perfect farmland, a giant oil field or an abundant supply of timber,"

"People don't like the idea that the frontier is now closed and we've got to live within limits."

These narratives also require spectacularly limited scientific literacy about oil: what it is, how we find it, how much remains.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

The sooner people realize that and stop dreaming about energy independence or one huge undiscovered field that's going to solve all our problems, the better off we'll be.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:41:23 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Change the world.

Clip Source: www.bfi.org

[Video]

Bucky had it right. “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

More Honey Bee News

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:48:08 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: The entomologists are working hard to solve this important issue.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Scientists are one step closer to understanding the recent demise of billions of honey bees after making an important discovery about the transmission of a common bee virus. Deformed wing virus (DWV) is passed between adult bees and to their developing brood by a parasitic mite called Varroa destructor when it feeds.

However, research published in the July issue of the Journal of General Virology suggests that the virus does not replicate in Varroa, highlighting the need for further investigation.

Deformed wing virus has been linked to the collapse of honey bee colonies in Britain. In recent years the prevalence of the virus has increased globally in colonies infested with Varroa. It is widely accepted that the virus replicates in the mite and is then transmitted to bees when it bites. However, researchers at Rothamsted Research and the University of Nottingham have found that the virus does not replicate in the mite, suggesting an alternative means of transmission.

The Great Lakes Are At Great Peril

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:35:17 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: This is a crisis. We simply cannot afford to lose this battle.

Clip Source: www.jsonline.com

What price would you put on our Great Lakes - the sand beaches and rocky shores; the salmon, perch and rainbow trout; the smell of a freshwater breeze? Should we give it all up so that international shippers can save about $55 million a year? What if we already have?

Toll of a Calamity

Lake Michigan's prey fish population has dropped 93% since invasive mussels were discovered

Recreational fishing in Michigan towns on Lake Huron has plummeted 77% since 2003

65% of new species invasions since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened have been traced to overseas ships

$300 MILLION: Estimated annual economic loss from the 57 exotic species known to have been delivered to the lake by overseas vessels.

$1.5 BILLION: Estimated cost to industry and government since 1988 to keep water intake pipes free of mussel and algae buildup.

SIX MONTHS: Average time between each discovery of a new invasive species in the Great Lakes.

Nim Chimpsky - The Chimp Who Thought He Was A Boy

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:27:17 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: A very heartbreaking story even if you aren't a PETA supporter.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Before he was a year old, the chimp known as Nim Chimpsky was living with a New York family and could ask for food, play practical jokes and even say sorry. But was he a human child or a primate? Unfortunately, nobody involved in this pioneering experiment could decide.

Saying Goodbye To Air Travel

Sat, 17 May 2008 16:16:18 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Stop for a moment and think how dramatically and quickly the world will change with less air travel because of fuel prices.

Clip Source: globalpublicmedia.com

The airline industry has no future. The same is true for airfreight. No air carrier has a viable plan to make a profit with oil at current prices—much less in years to come as the petroleum available to world markets dwindles rapidly.

That’s not to say that jetliners will disappear overnight, but rather that the cheap flights we’ve seen in the past will soon be fading memories. In a few years jet service will be available only to the wealthy, or to the government and military.

Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic says he wants to use biofuels to power his fleet of 747’s and Airbuses. There are still some bugs to be worked out in terms of basic chemistry, but it might be possible in principle—if only we could make enough biodiesel or ethanol without further driving up food prices and wrecking the soil. Even then it would be very costly fuel.

Our species’ historically brief fling with flight has been fun, educational, and enriching

Saying goodbye will be difficult.

Creating A Government By The People

Sat, 03 May 2008 13:11:36 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: The National Initiative For Democracy

Clip Source: www.ni4d.us

[Video]

“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.”

-- George Washington, 1787

The National Initiative for Democracy is a proposed law developed by The Democracy Foundation, over the past decade, along with a plan to get it enacted by the people (not by the government) creating, for the first time, a government "by you, the people."

The National Initiative includes a constitutional amendment and a federal statute that equips the people with the central power of government, lawmaking. As lawmakers, the people in every government jurisdiction of the United States become a new Check in our system of Checks and Balances designed to control the abuses of government. Representative government remains unaltered except for the partnership established between the people and their elected legislators.