Switching America to Solar -- How Possible?

This video shows how very possible it could be, that it is, to switch America to solar energy.



Not only is this true, factual, but actually, if we would use our glass skyscrapers, in our cities, to have and use transparent solar cells on them, as well as the roofs of our homes, the land needed to power the nation shrinks yet more and very likely, dramatically.

Face it. We Like Money More

Click on the picture.  Read it.

On Climate Change

A Facebook friend of mine, Steven McCain made this observation:

Climate change is either true or false. We have a 50% chance of being right. That leaves us with only 4 options.

1. It's true and we take action. We leave a better world for our descendants.

2. It's true and we take no action. The world as we know it disappears.

3 It's false and we take action. We leave a better world for our descendants.

4. It's false and we take no action. We leave a more polluted world for our descendants.

It's basically the same as this cartoon:

Think happy thoughts, kids. 

Positive thoughts.

Near 90 Sunday?

You got that right. 87 degrees--nearly 90--forecast by NBC 41 Action News this evening, for Sunday's weather. I'm still dying to hear Mike Thompson climb down off his earlier "There's no such thing as 'global warming' or 'climate change'" stance. As Mr. Thompson himself pointed out this evening, this is the normal forecast temperature for--get this--July 3. Yowza. Enjoy your weekend, y'all.

This is mid-March?

While working Saturday, an ice cream truck came by. Today, the 13th of March--still winter--it is forecast to be 82 degrees. Tomorrow? 86 degrees. (Keep in mind that's nearly 90). Now? The lady next door is running her lawn mower. So I ask you---THIS IS MID-MARCH??

Climate change deniers out there?

For any and all climate change deniers out there, please see the above photo. From the internet last evening: "Ghorama is an island located in West Bengal, India, that is eroding into the ocean due to a dramatic increase in the sea level. The photographer posed locals on disappearing segments of the island. According to the artist, locals who still live on the larger segment of the island expect to be relocated within the next 25 years." (Photo: Daesung Lee/Sipa Press) There's the glaciers and ice caps melting and then there's this. Ignore any- and everything else if you wish, but you can't deny these things. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/snapshots-1320966603-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Fsnapshots-1320966603-slideshow%252Fsnapshots111312-photo-1326482674.html

Missouri and Kansas in "Top 10 States Hit by Extreme Weather in 2011

Missouri is, indeed, number 3 on the list of the "Top 10 States Hit by Extreme Weather" this year. Kansas was number 7. In a way, really, no surprise on Missouri, is it? Joplin was so famously, horribly hit by the tornado May 22. But that's not all on Missouri and extreme weather this year: Tornadoes were just one prong of the deadly onslaught of extreme weather in Missouri, as a combination of heavy spring rains and upstream snowmelt sent the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers surging over their banks. According to NOAA, in an average year the Missouri River channels 24.8 million acre feet of water. This year, it carried 24.3 million acre feet in May and June alone. When the Army Corps of Engineers essentially blew up the levees to save the small town of Cairo, Illinois, floodwaters inundated around 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland. Then there's Kansas: The massive heat wave and drought that devastated Texas and Oklahoma didn’t hit Kansas quite as hard, but it was bad enough to help push the Jayhawk State into the top 10 this year. By midsummer, much of the southwestern part of the state was suffering under “exceptional drought” conditions — it ended up being the ninth driest year ever recorded — and by year’s end, there was still no relief in sight. Wichita had more 100-degree-plus days than any year on record, beating out even the Dust Bowl summer of 1936.

Watch How 2011 Became a 'Mind-Boggling' Year of Extreme Weather on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The number one state for most effected by extreme weather? Texas. They fried. This past year has been described as "weather on steroids." (see last 2 links below) Here's hoping 2012 is better to the planet. Links: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/30/395849/top-10-states-hit-by-extreme-weather-in-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29; http://www.climatecentral.org/news/top-ten-states-hit-hardest-by-2011s-extreme-weather/; http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/30/395914/our-weather-on-steroids-the-mind-boggling-climate-disasters-of-2011/; http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/29/395730/pbs-covers-link-between-2011s-mind-boggling-extreme-weather-and-global-warming-its-like-being-on-steroids/

Glacier melt in our hot, hot Summer and what it might mean

Greenland Ice Sheet Faces 'Tipping Point in 10 Years' Scientists warn that temperature rise of between 2C and 7C would cause ice to melt, resulting in 23ft rise in sea level by Suzanne Goldenberg WASHINSTON - The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress Tuesday. An enormous chunk of ice, roughly 97 square miles in size, has broken off the Petermann Glacier along the northwest coast of Greenland. Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University "Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet. The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish. "What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said. From a different article and source yesterday, too: Since 1970, temperatures have risen more than 4.5 degrees (2.5 degrees C) in much of the Arctic — much faster than the global average. In June the Arctic sea ice cover was at the lowest level for that month since records began in 1979, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Back to me: Two plus two is starting to look like four, folks. Link to original posts: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/11-1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100810/ap_on_sc/eu_ice_island

Russia's disbelief in global warming? What about ours?

There is an article out right now at Time Magazine asking "Will Russia's Heat Wave End Its Global-Warming Doubts? It seems the people over there, too, apparently didn't believe there was any change coming about, in spite of the polar ice caps and the glaciers the world over, melting. So yeah, I have to ask, what with Russia's literally, historically unprecedented and ongoing heat wave over a good deal of the country, their drought (admittedly a possibly if not likely shorter-term indication, however problematic right now), the fires raging out of control, the ice sheet that just broke off Iceland this week that is larger than the island of Manhattan, the glaciers that have been shrinking for the past few decades at least and the ice caps that are doing the same, are people in the US, here at home, going to "wake up and smell the forest fires"? Are we going to collectively face facts and accept that how we all--worldwide--are living is unsustainable and that we have to do things about it? I doubt it. But I hope it. I hope we'll learn and all accept that we have to change. And soon. Link to additional posts: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100810/ap_on_sc/eu_ice_island http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/11-1 http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/09-4

Quote of the day--warm enough for you?

If Russia's current heatwave being the worst in 1000 years and doubling the daily death rate in Moscow wasn't enough, check out this sweaty stat: According to Wunder Blog (via Mongabay), already this summer 17 nations have set or matched their all-time heat records. Not to mention an all-time hottest temperature for Pakistan, and possibly all of Asia. --From the Treehugger blog. At what point do we collectively believe in man-made climate change? Then, at what point do we all start doing something about it? Just asking. Link to original post: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/17-nations-beat-all-time-heat-records-this-year.php

Just focus on the glaciers and ice caps

Forget everything else you hear, read or see on high and low temperatures locally or anywhere on the planet, when it comes to global warming or climate change or however you want to refer to it. Let's focus instead on one thing--or one group, anyway. Let's focus on the ice caps and glaciers of the world, shall we? They're both--all, really--melting. And they're melting at unprecedented rates. Sure, a big swath of Russia is on fire and their food crop is severely affected and they're having to move around their missiles and planes and other weapons and, finally, they're experiencing their highest temperatures in the history of record-keeping but let's ignore all that. We're not Russians, after all, right? and we're not there. But pay attention to the glaciers and ice caps and keep in mind that, again, they're both melting to our peril, and they are melting at unprecedented rates. Check this out, today, from The Huffington Post: A giant ice island has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland. A University of Delaware researcher says the floating ice sheet covers 100 square miles – more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island. (See link below) 100 square miles of ice, folks. Can you even imagine that? I know I can't. And it just broke off the rest of the continent. And it's floating away. And melting. We're getting warmer and it's decidedly not a good thing. The way we live is not sustainable. Look around. We need to change. We need to use less. Keep cool this weekend, folks. (Just not too cool.) Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/07/petermann-glacier-giant-i_n_674326.html

No climate change, eh, Mike?

According to rocket scientist and local meteorologist Mike Thompson, there isn't any such thing as climate change or global warming.

This news comes to us today from a fellow blogger at Bottom Line Communications and Tony at TKC (see links below).

According to Bottom Line: "Veteran WDAF-FOX4 meteorologist Mike Thompson went on the "KCMO Morning Show With Chris Stigall" on KCMO-710 AM (12/2) taking the controversial stance that global warming is not man-made."

Who knows what that's supposed to mean.

Does he mean it's fictitious and made up or does he mean there is such a thing as global warming but it's "man-made"?

Who can say?

All I know, Mike, is that the ice caps and glaciers are melting and, if you'd read the article link below, from CNN, you'd see that people in Alaska are losing ground--literally, they're losing permafrost, earth, and homes, etc.--right out from under them.

"Coastal erosion has been an issue for decades here, but rising global temperatures have started to thaw the permafrost that once helped anchor this village in place. Sea ice that protects Shishmaref's coast from erosion melts earlier in the spring and forms later in the fall. As a result, the increasingly mushy and exposed soil along Shishmaref's shore is falling into the water in snowmobile-sized chunks."

How do you 'splain that, Mike?


Links: http://www.bottomlinecom.com/kcnews/thompsonglobalwarming.html

http://www.tonyskansascity.com/2008/04/mike-thompson-compares-global-warming.html

http://www.tonyskansascity.com/2009/12/kansas-city-weather-newsie-mike.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/12/03/shishmaref.alaska.climate.change/