This image that came across Facebook prompted me to do a bit of exploring. Just so you know right away, this graphic is not entirely correct, but close. LOL… one thing I definitely found was depending upon the site the information on energy production, consumption, waste, etc. varies enormously depending upon the website’s affiliation to what power source. I expected some favoritism, but found many creative ways for a website to promote it’s energy source with statistics. Funny how each energy source seems to be the best…. More…
Category Archives: Environmental
Some of the more dramatic photos from Hurricane Sandy 8
I grew up in tornado alley and of course there is quite a bit of difference between the two. One major difference that keeps coming to my mind is the length of time. Tornadoes are “wham bam thank ya ma’am,” whereas Sandy (which is no longer being called a hurricane) is like the Eveready Bunny… just keeps going and going and going…. I’ll take my tornadoes.
Activists Take To The Trees To Stop Keystone XL Pipeline in East Texas 10
Three pickup trucks of TransCanada’s Keystone XL construction workers are arriving on Highway 2088 outside Winnsboro, Texas. Their purpose? Tear down the trees, clear the brush, flatten the land, and erect a portion of the southern section of the Keystone XL pipeline. This pipeline, if completed, will bring the tar sands from Canada down to the Houston area where it will be refined…. then sold to China and other countries. The Canadian Tar Sands is considered to be the most destructive project on Earth.
All the while the corporate leaders and their lobbyists are continually telling the people that the Keystone XL will provide millions of jobs and stock the United States with oil for many decades to come.
Coal Industry Pays Craigslist Hirees $50 to Wear Pro-Coal Shirts at Public Hearing 6
Unable to find real pro-coal activists, the coal industry put out a help-wanted type of ad on Craigslist. A Google search with the words “craigslist chicago $50 to wear tshirt” pulled this search result:
“People needed to attend a public meeting (Tinley Park Chicago)… All you need to do is wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project for two hours… For your time we will pay you $50 cash and provide you lunch once we….”
Photos of Very Rare Pink Katydids 7
What you see in these photos is the very rare and very pink katydid. First discovered back in 1887, the pink katydid is so rare that they occur once out of every 500 individuals. The website Treehugger quips, “You have a better chance of spotting a unicorn in the wild.”
The pink color is the result of a condition called erythrism, similar to the recessive gene that afflicts albino animals. Diet or a genetic mutation are the two causes of the condition. Katydids are large, leaf-shaped and usually green.
Tar Sands Oil Spill in Kalamazoo River in Michigan the Most Expensive Onshore Oil Spill in History 7
In the summer of 2010, most of the media and public’s attention focused on the BP oil spill in July 2010. I honestly, and embarrassingly, was completely unaware of another oil spill that occurred in a creek which leads into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. This leak is now considered to be the most expensive onshore oil spill in history.
Exxon’s CEO “Climate, energy fears are overblown” 15
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Credit: Bazuki Muhammad / Reuters
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson says fears about climate change, drilling, and energy dependence are overblown.
Overblown? Are you serious?
In a speech Wednesday, Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt.
Yes, we will be able to adapt. However, many people’s version of adapting is on the other end of the spectrum from Tillerson’s idea of adapting. Tillerson, in a break with predecessor Lee Raymond, has acknowledged that global temperatures are rising. “Clearly there is going to be an impact,” he said Wednesday. “We have spent our entire existence adapting. We’ll adapt,” he said. “It’s an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution.”
The Parting Shot for May 23, 2012 17
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Natural phenomenon: Glowing blue waters
Glowing blue water washes up on a beach in Vaadhoo, one of the Raa Atoll islands in the Maldives. The result of a chemical reaction called bioluminescence, it occurs when a micro-organism in sea water is disturbed by oxygen.
Click on image to view in full size
Photo credit: Doug Perrine / Barcroft Media
Photo source: Daily Mail
Siku the Polar Bear Cub | LiveCam and International Polar Bear Day 7
89 days old
When Siku the polar bear cub was introduced to the public late last year, he quickly became an Internet sensation, with his own Web and Facebook pages. But with fame often comes responsibility, and officials at Denmark’s Scandinavian Wildlife Park said Siku would have an important burden to shoulder.
“Siku is going to be an ambassador for polar bears, for global warming,” park director Frank Vigh-Larsen said in December.
A Journey to the The Great Pacific Garbage Patch 12
Photo credit: unknown
This video is a very well produced “mockumentary” which follows the journey of a plastic bag from a California city to the ocean with it’s final destination of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” At the bottom of this post are some photos, but I will warn you, some of them are disturbing.
30-story Building Built in 15 days | Time Lapse Video 13
There are many things which we can learn from other countries around the world. Take a look at this building in China, for example. Harnessing manpower like never before, Chinese sustainable building company Broad Group has accomplished the seemingly impossible task of constructing a 30-story hotel in a mere 15 days (360 hours)! The above time-lapse video perfectly illustrates the whirlwind construction that highlights the never-ending possibilities of prefab architecture.
Erin Brockovich Steps in to Help Twelve Teenage Girls with Mystery Tic’s 7
I have been following the story of these twelve teenage girls from upstate New York who all mysteriously developed tic’s which are not unlike Tourette’s syndrome. They have been featured in several news stories for months now. They all have been experiencing sudden verbal outbursts, uncontrollable arm motions and facial tics. It appeared as though there was a toxin or infectious agent involved, but none were to be found.
ExxonMobil Fracking May Have Caused Massive Landslide Dozens Dead Reply
Up to 60 people are feared killed in a massive landslide which hit villages near the ExxonMobil-led LNG project in Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands.
Utah Doctors Sue Third Largest Mining Corp over Polluting the Air 7
Here is the first of it’s kind lawsuit…. Taking inspiration from the Occupy movement, in late December a group of doctors and environmental groups in Salt Lake City, Utah, announced a lawsuit against the third-largest mining corporation in the world, Rio Tinto, for violating the Clean Air Act in Utah. This is likely the first time ever that physicians have sued industry for harming public health.
Air pollution causes between 1,000 and 2,000 premature deaths every year in Utah.
Ralph Hall (R-TX) Speaks Out on Climate Change 8
The chair of the House of Representatives science committee doesn’t think much of the investigations exonerating the scientists involved in the 2009 Climategate e-mail scandal. He also believes that climate scientists are driven by hopes of financial gain in producing reports that provide evidence for global warming.
Representative Ralph Hall (R-TX) doesn’t do many interviews. So it was a coup when the National Journal’s (NJ) Coral Davenport was able to get the 88-year-old legislator to answer several questions about his views on climate change as part of a 1 December story on how congressional Republicans are reluctant to answer even the most basic questions about where they stand on the issue. More…
Fire, Floods, Snow and Ice Strikes the Western US | Video Photos 10
Funny weather forecast. Click to enlarge.
A state of emergency has been declared in Oregon and Washington, where a powerful winter storm brought deadly floods, heavy snows of up to 4 feet, a severe ice storm, and damaging winds Wednesday and Thursday. Heavy rains of 3 – 8 inches have fallen over a wide swath of Western Oregon since Monday, causing major to record flooding on multiple rivers and creeks. In Albany, Oregon, a family of four drove out of a supermarket parking lot and into a flooded Perwinkle Creek Wednesday night, and were swept away. Two people were rescued, but a 20-month-old boy and his mother drowned. The Marys River in Philomath rose to its highest flood on record yesterday, and will remain at major flood stage today before gradually receding tonight. The rains have tapered off over much of the region today, but renewed rains are expected later today and intermittently into early next week.
Top Ten Countries Using Solar Power | Infographic 8
Despite a shaky European economy and the recent prominent failure of a U.S.-based panel manufacturer, the solar market at large has continued its upward trajectory of rapid growth in the last two years. Lower costs, new applications, and plenty of investor interest have helped these 10 countries become the world’s leaders in installed solar. More…
Scientists test sick Alaska seals for radiation 6
According to Reuters, scientists in Alaska are investigating whether local seals are being sickened by radiation from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
Scores of ring seals have washed up on Alaska’s Arctic coastline since July, suffering or killed by a mysterious disease marked by bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes and patchy hair loss on the animals’ fur coats. More…
2011 in Review | Extreme Weather 6
What a year 2011 was when it came to weather. Blizzards, tornadoes, flooding, droughts and hurricanes. Here is a photo journal through the extreme weather of 2011 shown in chronological order. Geologic disasters (tsunami, earthquakes, etc) will be posted in a separate article, as well as the fires in the US Southwest (in which I live.) More…
Two die of brain-eating infection from Louisiana tap water 2
I just read this article, Two die of brain-eating infection from Louisiana tap water, ” and this rather hit close to home for me.
According to the post:
The warning came after a 51-year-old woman in the state died after she was infected with the “brain-eating” amoeba Naegleria fowleri, which enters the body through the nose and sometimes causes devastating meningitis. Apparently, the amoeba lurked in tap water the woman used in her neti pot, a pitcher-like device used to rinse nasal passages.
BBC Nature: ‘Brinicle’ ice finger of death filmed in Antarctic 1
A bizarre underwater “icicle of death” has been filmed by a BBC crew.
With timelapse cameras, specialists recorded salt water being excluded from the sea ice and sinking.
The temperature of this sinking brine, which was well below 0C, caused the water to freeze in an icy sheath around it.
Where the so-called “brinicle” met the sea bed, a web of ice formed that froze everything it touched, including sea urchins and starfish.
The unusual phenomenon was filmed for the first time by cameramen Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson for the BBC One series Frozen Planet. More…
Sierra Club holding rally to encircle the White House today against Keystone XL | infographic #tarsands 1
Today, the Sierra Club is gathering with allies from around the country to encircle the White House with 5,000 people and rally against tar sands. Can’t make it to D.C.? Be one of the 5,000 links in the virtual chain to stop the dirty Keystone XL pipeline!
Sierra Club website: Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline
More about Keystone XL: Are the Koch Bros. Stonewalling Congress on Their Keystone XL Pipeline Interest?
More about Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project on Earth More…
Occupy camps an eye-sore? Let’s compare photos… 1
There are many comments from several “concerned” officials – and citizens – that the Occupy camps are “eyesores” and express concerns over sanitary issues. Many city officials are using these excuses to shut down and remove camps set up within various cities around the world.
Let us take a look and compare these “eyesores” and “unsanitary” camps to other areas around the world which draw in, or have drawn in, grotesque amounts of profit… More…
Crews return to pump oil from New Zealand ship “Rena” 1
The weather in New Zealand has calmed enough to allow salvage crews a third attempt at pumping oil from a stricken ship.
After a three-day break due to bad weather and rough seas, the agency Maritime New Zealand says nine salvage workers reboarded the Rena and resumed pumping oil Thursday afternoon. The ship has been stuck on the Astrolabe reef near Tauranga harbor since Oct. 5 and has spilled about 350 tons of oil into the ocean.
Actress Daryl Hannah arrested during Keystone XL protest Reply
Actress Daryl Hannah has joined the over 500 people who have been arrested since August 20 for a sit-in protest outside the White House.
