An iceberg the size of the European country of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica in an event that could disrupt ocean circulation patterns around the world, scientists warn.
Nearly 3,000 square kilometres of iceberg broke off earlier this month from the tip of the Mertz glacier that juts out into the Southern Ocean from east Antarctica, Australian scientists said on Friday.
Easily one of my favourite segments from last night's opening ceremony was Shane Koyczan's poem, we are more. Found a YouTube of him a few years ago.
And the text:
“We Are More” by Shane Koyczan
When defining Canada
you might list some statistics
you might mention our tallest building
or biggest lake
you might shake a tree in the fall
and call a red leaf Canada
you might rattle off some celebrities
might mention Buffy Sainte-Marie
might even mention the fact that we’ve got a few
Barenaked Ladies
or that we made these crazy things
like zippers
electric cars
and washing machines
when defining Canada
it seems the world’s anthem has been
” been there done that”
and maybe that’s where we used to be at
it’s true
we’ve done and we’ve been
we’ve seen
all the great themes get swallowed up by the machine
and turned into theme parks
but when defining Canada
don’t forget to mention that we have set sparkswe are not just fishing stories
about the one that got away
we do more than sit around and say “eh?”
and yeswe are the home of the Rocket and the Great One
who inspired little number nines
and little number ninety-nines
but we’re more than just hockey and fishing lines
off of the rocky coast of the Maritimes
and some say what defines us
is something as simple as please and thank you
and as for you’re welcome
well we say that too
but we are more
than genteel or civilized
we are an idea in the process
of being realized
we are young
we are cultures strung together
then woven into a tapestry
and the design
is what makes us more
than the sum total of our history
we are an experiment going right for a change
with influences that range from a to zed
and yes we say zed instead of zee
we are the colours of Chinatown and the coffee of Little Italy
we dream so big that there are those
who would call our ambition an industry
because we are more than sticky maple syrup and clean snow
we do more than grow wheat and brew beer
we are vineyards of good year after good year
we reforest what we clear
because we believe in generations beyond our own
knowing now that so many of us
have grown past what used to be
we can stand here today
In celebration of the day, one of my favourite (and the final) passages in Origin:
It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many
plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various
insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth,
and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different
from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner,
have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in
the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is
almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and
direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse: a
Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a
consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and
the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature,
from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of
conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly
follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms
or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according
to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms
most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
While the normally snow-free Washington, DC area is suffering from crippling blizzards, Olympics planners in Vancouver are concerned about a snow drought:
On Tuesday, organizers gave the news media their first look at Cypress Mountain, the site of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events, with hopes of allaying concerns about a lack of snow and unseasonably warm weather endangering the competitions. But officials kept the snowboarding halfpipe off limits, citing safety concerns. The mountain looked as if it were under military siege, not an Olympic site days from competition.
Of course by the “heads I win, tales you lose” accounting that prevails in the climate change debate, unseasonably snowy weather in the mid-Atlantic counts as evidence that we should allow uncontrolled pollution, whereas unseasonably warm and snow-free weather in British Columbia is just ignored. If you turn your moron filter off, though, you’ll see that unusual weather events all around the world are exactly what you would expect from systemic shifts in the global climate. This also illustrates the point that shifts, as such, can be harmful. Most human settlements are reasonably well-adapted to their existing climate. Farmers have suitable land and suitable crops for their local situation. Boston owns lots of snowplows and Atlanta doesn’t. The Winter Olympics are in Vancouver and not DC. Just swapping weather patterns around is incredibly destructive.
Again there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The right way is to raise a cost umbrella over all forms of green energy via, for example, a carbon tax – and then let the technologies battle it out in the marketplace. Let private investors direct capital to its best use. (As I write, I am at a conference in Montana to introduce a very promising new solar technology to venture capital funds.)
hot enough for ya?
WASHINGTON — The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show.
The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.
James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that global temperatures varied because of changes in ocean heating and cooling cycles. “When we average temperature over 5 or 10 years to minimize that variability,” said Dr. Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, “we find global warming is continuing unabated.”
via www.nytimes.com
A few weeks ago in Victoria. How the mighty have fallen.
During my all too brief residence in London as a fishmonger in Selfridges, I recall the strange wonder I experienced at several of my coworkers who had never left the city. I chalked it up to perhaps the incurious nature, or financial circumstances, of my colleagues. How could one city be enough? I thought. 20 years later, finishing Peter Ackroyd's London: A Biography, I am reminded of this. Recognizing that this immense city defies traditional, chronological treatment, Ackroyd's biography (rather than a history) approaches London as an ancient living thing, growing, developing, with a multitude of tissues and characters. Roman tombs under medieval chapels under Victorian tenements. The Saxon roots of cockney dialect. The Theatre of public executions. The Theatre. Food and markets through the centuries. The Thames and the blitz. London and child sacrifice in nursery rhymes. During my brief time there I scarcely saw the surface, let alone scratched it. Through the lens of a biographer of Dickens and Blake, this is a great read.
iBiome 