Future Climate Change - Conversations from Penn State

The Truth About Global Warming, or climate change if you prefer. It is time for the Universities and NSF to finally quit placating Climate Deniers. I applaud Dr Richard Alley for taking the lead and making these things undeniable. We need to do this because even if we let it go there would only be inaction at a time when action is needed more than ever before. In times when the money men are willing to go to the extremes they have don't people see that it is your children that are going to pay for this inaction? Please get on board so we can get together and figure out what to do. This is way past the Tree-Huggers. All of us need to find out what we will do....Jeff Darling

Not Just Polar Bears- Endangered species abound

The day gets closer and closer. Global warming is a reality. Someone told me recently, God said He would not wipe out man with another flood, and that is how we know it is not real. I tell you- Global warming is not about a flood.It is about animals that cannot reproduce, that cannot feed their young, that cannot adapt anywhere near as quickly as we can corrupt. Man is the destroyer: of a million acres a week in each great Rain Forest, of the ice caps at the north an south poles, of the air we breathe. And those who "Forge Her Beauty Into Power" will do anything to keep us in their stranglehold.

The tortoise changes the sex of its offspring if the ambient temperature is 4 degrees over normal. What will they do if they can only produce females? The Salmon, such a wonder of nature(just ask the Bear) is helpless to decline without the cold stream water. Ocean dwellers have a little more chance to move and avoid the excess warmth. What about those who feed on them? The Puffin for example, cannot fly miles further offshore to gather the fish they eat and bring them home to the chicks.

Corals are going faster yet. 10 years ago 2% were endangered now there are 30% of coral endangered as the oceans change faster every year. 

The freak weather associated with the climate changes continue to hold some of our most precious species hostage. Imagine a day without the Monarch Butterfly. Just recently 80% were wiped out by colder than normal storms, and the rain is predicted again this year. It isn't always the big change that causes the most impact. Bighorn Sheep, Pica, Snowy Owls are just some of the animals that need to move higher or further North, but what if they can't even find it? It is past time to act. Act, before it is too late.

The Wilderness Society

Volcanoes: Friend or Foe?- Help for global warming?

Volcanic activity seems to be on the upswing. But then it always is, isn't it? One of the reasons it seems this way is the way these things get reported. What scientists do know ( and of course that means reporters do) is that whenever we see a series of earthquakes, we are going to see a series of eruptions before and afterward.  The report linked below is a study that Oxford did two years ago that confirmed this correlation between earthquakes and volcanoes.


Large Earthquakes Trigger A Surge In Volcanic Eruptions (Science Daily, January 2009)


The graphic below should illustrate the principle fairly well:

Where you see the black lines, these are the Tectonic Plates.They float on top of the layer of the Earth right below the first 50-100 miles of land: the Magma.When these build up a lot of friction things heat up. When they slide to the point where the volcano is over an area of magma, the stage is set for an Eruption.

It looks as though we get eruptions most often when we have earthquakes, because they make the liquid Magma move around and find the path up to the volcano. The volcanoes do a lot of damage, but they really do harm to only a fairly small area. Of course, to the people who live there it doesn't seem so small an area, but in scientific terms it is.

One of the most interesting things scientists are studying about volcanoes is the fact that they put out a lot of very small particles called aerosols. The aerosols can get so thick they make the sun look dimmer. A few years ago, a volcano in the Phillipines, Pinatubo, caused theEarth to cool by two degrees for two years.The good thing about this, if scientists could create it on purpose, is that it could cool down the earth at the same time global Warming is warming it up. This might result in ameliorating the global warming-greenhouse effect.

So, the next time you see something about a volcano, remember, it could be that Mother nature is fighting back against Global Warming and trying to protect us.  Have a good day...Jeff Darling