As a child, I spent many evenings walking fields with my brothers and sisters collecting jars of fireflies. While less time was spent on this activity with my own kids, we still took time to explore the wonders of the firefly. The difference was, this was a regular form of family entertainment for a country family back in the sixties compared to a family of the seventies and eighties. Today, I may have to look further than my back door for swarms of fireflies since I don’t live next to a farm field, but I can still find them. Do I believe we should stop development because there are less fireflies in my backyard? I have fewer cows near my home than I used to have as a child, too. Save the cows!
Everyone on board rig survived – no news on whether there is a leak.
To be continued…
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Update:
from the Los Angeles Times -
In the wake of the BP catastrophe, this is an extremely disturbing event,” said energy committee chairman Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who has led an investigation into the BP spill. “I call on the administration to immediately redouble safety reviews of all offshore drilling and platform operations in the gulf and take all appropriate action to ensure safety and protection of the environment.”
[...]
We find it ironic that the explosion happened one day after the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s trade association, held a rally in Houston, Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, Texas, to lift the moratorium on deep-water drilling in the gulf,” said United Steelworkers International Vice President Gary Beevers in a statement. “Instead of holding political protests, the API and the industry should be helping the government ensure all the rigs are safe to operate so the moratorium can be removed sooner.”
We almost lost New Orleans. Some say California could fall away from the west coast. What if you suddenly became a (wo)man without a country? What if it just disappeared? Erratic weather that comes in waves every number of years or global warming…no matter what’s to blame, there’s always the possibility of an island country being sucked up into an abyss…and then what?
from the New York Times -
If a country disappears, is it still a country? Does it keep its seat at the United Nations? Who controls its offshore mineral rights? Its shipping lanes? Its fish?
And if entire populations are forced to relocate — as could be the case with citizens of the Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati and other small island states facing extinction — what citizenship, if any, can those displaced people claim?
25 years ago an outbreak of illegal pesticide poisoning from contaminated melons sickened 2000 people and finally the insecticide is banned. Yawn…was anyone snoring?
from Environmental Health News -
Twenty-five years after the worst known outbreak of pesticide poisoning in U.S. history, an agreement is announced that phases out all uses of aldicarb. Manufacturer Bayer CropScience agreed to stop producing the highly toxic insecticide, used to kill pests on cotton and several food crops, by 2015 in all world markets. Use on citrus and potatoes will be prohibited after next year. New EPA documents show that babies and children under 5 can ingest levels of the insecticide through food and drinking water that exceed limits that the agency considers safe. “Aldicarb no longer meets our rigorous food safety standards and may pose unacceptable dietary risks, especially to infants and young children,” the EPA said. At least 2,000 people fell ill from eating California watermelons illegally contaminated with aldicarb on the Fourth of July in 1985. “It is good the revocation is happening; it is a shame it took 20 years,” said Dick Jackson, chair of environmental health sciences at UCLA, who was a top state health official during the outbreak.
(CNN) — Is the record-shattering heatwave that has been blamed for the death of thousands in Russia somehow related to the devastating flooding in Pakistan?
Are these disasters happening more frequently — and are they a result of global warming?
This year we can’t win with our garden. We are being overrun with varmints. We want to send them packing.
Normally one year it will be rabbits or one year it will be chipmunks. This year it’s a combination of everything that is making it unpleasant to garden. I’m sure it’s due to the rain and humidity. The biggest pest is mosquitoes. Not only can we not enjoy our garden, but we can’t even sit outside midday to enjoy our beautiful backyard flowers.
I’ve talked to people who are trying to pick their garden produce by covering head-to-toe in sweat suits with hoods on, and one in another city who wears an official mosquito prevention outfit something like this when she walks her dog. Wow! A neighbor just walking by recommended putting out fans in the back yard.
After watching the following video, mosquitoes remain my number one outdoor enemy…
I’m looking forward to the first frost and hoping for a very long fall.
If the fishermen don’t trust it…I wouldn’t eat it.
from AP -
VENICE, La. — Seafood from some parts of the oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico has been declared safe to eat by the government, based in part on human smell tests. But even some Gulf fishermen are questioning whether the fish and shrimp are OK to feed to their own families.
President Barack Obama and his family hike on Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park in Maine, July 16, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Michelle Obama visited the Florida Panhandle on July 12th -
from the Daily Finance -
[Michelle] Obama told Panama City-area leaders that she came to show the world that not all of the Gulf Coast’s beaches were coated with oil.
“People are looking for things to do with their kids this summer and this is a wonderful place to visit,” Obama told a round-table discussion group of local leaders.
It’s been a long time since I’ve spun a globe (and it spins fast). It sure is pretty! Just look at all of those colors…I know I feel better about climate science now!
Photo: Google
from the Telegraph -
The Google Earth map shows how the world would be affected by a global average temperature increase of 4C in a bid to rebuild public trust in climate science.
It illustrates rising water levels and reduced crop yields in different parts of the world if temperatures are not curbed by cutting greenhouse gases.
