Earth Nerds

It's like Jindal said, "Let's see ... what can turn Mary into a Ranty McRantypants?" So he tried that one line, and it worked:
http://geographile.blogspot.com/20…

Conservative grassroots group Grassfire.org wants people to waste as much energy as possible on June 12 by "hosting a barbecue, going for a drive, watching television, leaving a few lights on, or even smoking a few cigars."
The point: the group wants to "help Americans break free from the 'carbon footprint guilt' being imposed by Climate Alarmists."

Sometimes I think I need an icon that's just me opening my mouth then shutting it because it feels like something must be said, but there's nothing to say.

Oh my word.

Inexplicable tears:

And it's easy to see why as you walk away from the clamor into an oasis where slanting beams of sunlight caress rugged red trunks that have stood for hundreds of years.
It almost didn't happen. There was a time when these trees came close to feeling the bite of loggers' saws. But stout efforts by early preservationists turned the area into a national monument in 1908.

Thank you, William Kent.

Keep in mind that the Chinese government(s) has envisioned the dam for a full century, it was just a matter of waiting for technology to catch up:

The first sign was just a crack in the terraced earth, about four inches wide and 35 feet long, villagers said. But engineers found that the crevasse betrayed the danger of a massive landslide. They judged the risk so great that most of Miaohe's 250 farmers were temporarily evacuated. Fearing the hillside would never be safe again, the government started constructing a replacement village on a nearby plateau, blasted out of rock for increased stability.

"This is going to be good," said Han Qinbi, 60, a grizzled peasant who pointed at the spacious new house he and his family will be moving into next summer.

But what Han saw as good fortune was a bad omen for the Chinese government. In the 18 months since the Three Gorges Dam was completed, increasingly clear signs of environmental degradation have started to accumulate along the Yangtze, just as activists had warned. Among the most troubling have been incidents of geological instability in the soaring gorges that now embrace a reservoir stretching behind the dam across a good portion of Hubei province 600 miles southwest of Beijing.

Pretty Planet!

Also, it's geography awareness week! What are you doing to celebrate?

National Geographic:

Oil-covered birds are among the first victims of this week's oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. Scientists say damage to wildlife could last years.

This is where I live. :/ These are the beaches my dogs play on, and the birds I spend time with.

Jon Carroll, on water:

It seems evident we should meet the reality of falling supply with concerted efforts to create falling demand.

He's fun when he's trying to be funny, but every so often he just sits down and tells it, and tells it well.

I stumbled across this really nifty-looking geography and earth-science material on geology.com:

Designing and Creating Earth Science Lessons with Google Earth^TM

I could just wallow in this for hours.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england…

Any thoughts on this? Is it really about global warming or is there a metanarative going on here?

altfriday5 has a water use theme this month:( Read more...Collapse )