Mount Sinabung evacuation

By dfunzy on 8/29/10 8:52am
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A volcano that has been rumbling for several days, but hadn't erupted for four hundred years, has erupted, sending smoke and ash 5,000 feet into the air, and causing thousands of people to flee.

Reuters reports that this morning, Sunday, just after midnight, on the Indonesia island of Sumatra, in the North, on Mount Sinabung, nature released smoke and ash and lava, and man issued a red alert. Sumatra has had its share of earthquakes this past year and now an erupting volcano!

Twelve thousand people were evacuated and face masks were distributed. There were no reports of casualties. So far the airborne ash is not posing a risk to aviation. Of course, video footage of the Mount Sinabung was posted on YouTube. See the video.

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No foolin' -- Dat oil ain't gone.

By dfunzy on 8/20/10 2:15am
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America has scientists for one reason: to get out there with their instruments, their common sense, and to follow the scientific method, which does not allow for politics to intrude, to document, to verify and to report their observations.

Well, scientists went out there, took their instruments with them, and their common sense, and returned, and yesterday, Thursday, these scientists reported the obvious: There ain't no such a thing as Mary Poppins magic, you can't sprinkle a little sugar and hope for the bitterness to go away.

BP, that bunch of truth challenged individuals, and the government, (and we know what politics does to truth speaking), told Mr and Mrs America, and all the little boys and girls that the BP nasty old oil spill was gone, and that we, Americans, have nothing to be concerned about, for the Gulf is safe, the sea food is safe, and everything is just peaches with ice cream.

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Please, No Shrimp For Me.

By dfunzy on 8/16/10 5:29am
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Today, Monday, the commercial shrimp season opens in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast, and -- Blue Monday! The Associate Press reports, " Shrimpers are nervous that they'll find oil in their catch." See the video.

Nervous they should be. The massive BP oil spill still lurks like a horrible monster over the lives of men and women trawling the Louisiana waters for a livelihood. BP and the government say: The danger is over. The spill has been stopped. The oil has been dispersed. The surface water has been swept of oil.The sea food is safe. We've tested it: First by the smell test, then the taste test, then we ran our chemical analysis, and we swear the stuff passed. Believe us, the sea food is not oil-contaminated.

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Judge Tells GMO's to Beet It!

By ecoscott on 8/14/10 10:24am
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A few weekends back the DJ was having some fun with the music, and suddenly I was hearing new takes on old songs, whether it was the sounds of a female voice (I don’t really know who it was…) singing over the top of a Michael Jackson beat, or even a classic Tribe Called Quest song playing with their standard use of samples. It was awesome. They were mash-ups, remixes, hip hop classics at the mercy of, well, the hands of, a talented DJ who knows how to play with the anatomy of a beat. The art form of turning a something that wasn’t what it was originally into something new that sounds just as sweet, or maybe even better. But that’s a different kind of beat…

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CO2 Levels... Drop?

By ecoscott on 8/13/10 9:30pm
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I was part of a 350 day last fall- do you remember that? It was a worldwide effort to bring people together to beg the U.N. to beg the representatives going to Copenhagen to get together, agree on something, and please, please, please get something agreed on and signed so that we can all work together and get on with things. I mean, let’s stop arguing about how best to save the world and just start saving it- isn’t that the oldest of every debate that you’ve ever heard of. It’s a bit idealistic, a bit unrealistic, and bit of exactly what any international politician needs to hear from those of us who are sick and tired of not getting results from the people who are supposed to represent us.

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Extreme Weather Due to Global Warming

By dfunzy on 8/12/10 8:47am
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Well, not heeding the warning of scientists, poo-pooing Al Gore and other prophets of climate change, ignoring climate change science and research, and listening to deniers sowing doubts, is returning a bleak and bitter early harvest.

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Global Warming Coming At You

By dfunzy on 8/10/10 5:30am
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If one doesn't want to believe, one should close ones eyes and not take a peek, put ones fingers in ones ears, and not listen, sing a little nursery song, and maybe that will block out the bad things that may come at one raw. If one opens ones eyes and unstops ones ears, and stops the ditties, and turns off the idiotic noise, one might not have to see a piece of Greenland, one day soon, floating by ones front door.

Last Thursday.a new ice island was born. It is more than four times the sizes of the Island of Manhattan in New York City, broke off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland. If that ain't global warming, kiddo, what is it? Climate change? See the video.

It is predicted that as the glaciers melt more chunks of ice will be breaking free, and some of those chunks of ice will be heading, our way, South.

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Looking for the Oil? NOAA Says It's Mostly Gone

By dfunzy on 8/5/10 4:22am
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Associated Press --"With a startling report some researchers call more spin than science, the government said Wednesday the mess made by the BP oil spill in the Gulf is mostly gone already. Out of sight, though, doesn't mean out of danger." See the video.

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Is Climate Change Making Flooding Worse?

By ecoscott on 8/2/10 7:22pm
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I went to visit some family in the Midwest this weekend, and the talk turned, as it often does with family and beer, to politics. Then it turned to climate change. What I find so fascinating, living in California, is how different the basic assumptions on some issues are, and how regional that tends to be. The things my mother considers rude in her life are pretty standard ways of communicating in the city where I live, and there are topics of conversation in each place that would never come up in the other- this weekend my aunt was talking to me about the true nature of Satan in our everyday lives, and tonight I’m sure my roommate will be telling me about ethical issues around Critical Mass and stopping city traffic with a whole bunch of bicycles.

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Would Serve His Family Gulf Fish?

By dfunzy on 8/2/10 10:27am
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BP's Doug SuttlesBP's Doug SuttlesIn the some people will say anything department to make their point, this item from the Associated Press --"BP's chief operating officer says he would eat fish from the Gulf of Mexico and would let his family eat it, too. Doug Suttles took reporters on a boat tour of beaches and marshes Sunday about 25 miles south of Venice, La."

BP is about to get new management? Sounds like the same old BP to me, trying to mislead the public by talking down the serious problem. He is saying to America: Don't worry about the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil and the tons and tons of toxic chemicals BP spilled and poured into the Gulf, no harm done. The waters of the Gulf are safe to swim and play in. The fish of the Gulf are safe to eat.

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