No Exit

Kayak to the North Pole

“Each time I return to the Arctic, I am shocked by how much ice has melted and how rapidly it’s happening.”

Lewis Gordon Pugh

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Polar Defense Project

WE CAN!

[We Can Solve It dot Org]

Al Gore's Challenge

Updated 7/18/08 Now with the full speech.

Read the full speech here.

Read what others are saying here.

The WE Campaign.

[Mr. Gore - Please be my President!]

Save the Humans?

Bush Administration Dragging Its Feet on Polar Bear Protection

[click photo]
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Speaking of Dominoes!

[click photo to enlarge]

Link to article at National Geographic

The chunk of coastal ice was some 160 square miles (415 square kilometers) in area—about seven times the size of Manhattan.

The shelf's rapid collapse began on February 28 (see image sequence at top right), sending a giant swath of broken ice into the sea (detail at bottom).

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A Matter of Degrees

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Watch the entire show February 10th 8 PM ET, 9 PM PT

LINK
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Human Causes for Global Warming This is nothing new!

This film clip is from 1958. Why then is Global Warming a "new" topic?
Why wasn't more done sooner?


(I actually remember this from grade school.)

It 's All We Have Stop screwing it up!

Too Hot Not To Handle

Links:

Ice Shelf Collapse ... National Snow and Ice Data Center ... The Conscious Earth ... Earth Portal ... Greenland Ice Melt ... Live Earth ... Greenpeace ... Sierra Club ... Friends of the Earth ... League of Conservation Voters ... Leave No Trace ... National Audubon Society ... The Nature Conservancy ... Rainforest Action Network ... Seacology ... Soil and Water Conservation Society ... Wilderness Society ... World Resource Institute ... At the Lair ... Imagine Peace

Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Former President Jimmy Carter has this to say:

"I'm delighted,this might even encourage him to consider another political event.

I don't think there's any doubt that Al Gore would be the best qualified person to be the president of the United States. He was obviously elected both in Florida and around the country in 2000, and I've always hoped he would be, you know, coming back again sometime."

[click photo]


Will he or won't he?

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Chair of UN climate panel 'stunned' to share Nobel Prize with Gore.

Pachauri, the chairman of the United Nations panel on climate, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Al Gore, said he was "stunned" when he received a phone call informing him of the news.

"I can't believe it, overwhelmed, stunned," he said on learning that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, had been awarded the prize.

The Big Melt

The Warming



The Evidence


The Effects - People


The Effects - Food Chain


The Effects - Polar Bears


The Effects - Seals

The Prediction - Next 40 Years

North Pole Oil

Photo - Andy Armstrong/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The summer of 2007 has seen the lowest extent of sea ice at the North Pole in recorded history. As of September 16th sea ice extent was 1.59 million square miles – 461,000 square miles less than the previous low for the day... which was recorded in 2005.


Sea ice extent is continuing to fall, although this is the end of the melt season and it has slowed drastically. The image above, from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows the extent of the ice cover on September 16th of this year. The magenta line is the median summer time minimum value for the years 1979-2006. It’s easy to see the scope of the problem.

The Natural Resources Defense Council reports:

Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting thinner, melting and rupturing. For example, the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces.

It is widely accepted that this increase in melting is caused by Global Warming. The loss of ice is actually accelerating melting by exposing more open water, which, being darker in color, absorbs significantly more solar energy than the reflective white icecap, further heating the polar sea.

The Natural Resources Defense Council also tells us of the effects the melting is having on the local environment, the people and the animals who live there:

The melting of once-permanent ice is already affecting native people, wildlife and plants. When the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf splintered, the rare freshwater lake it enclosed, along with its unique ecosystem, drained into the ocean. Polar bears, whales, walrus and seals are changing their feeding and migration patterns, making it harder for native people to hunt them. And along Arctic coastlines, entire villages will be uprooted because they're in danger of being swamped. The native people of the Arctic view global warming as a threat to their cultural identity and their very survival.

There is however another threat to their cultural identity and the environment, a threat being exposed by the disappearance of the sea ice.

GAS, OIL, GOLD and DIAMONDS

Beneath the ice shelf lies the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,200 mile long underwater ridge which Russia claims is linked to the Siberian continental shelf. It is estimated that the ridge contains ten billion tons of gas and oil. It is also rich in diamonds, gold and other metals.


This article from the Daily News gives a look at what is at stake:

Under current international law, the countries ringing the Arctic - -Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, and Denmark (which owns Greenland) - are limited to a 200-mile economic zone around their coasts.

…none can claim jurisdiction over the Arctic seabed because the geological structure does not match the surrounding continental shelves.

Predictably, there is now a rush of countries performing research to prove Lomonosov Ridge and other areas of seabed are a part of their landmass in order to lay claim to the riches under the thinning ice cap.

RUSSIA

Russia was the first to stake a claim. In June an expedition using a nuclear powered icebreaker returned, claiming to have geological evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge was indeed part of the Russian continental shelf. This from The Guardian:

According to Russia's media, the geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was linked to Russian Federation territory, boosting Russia's claim over the oil-and-gas rich triangle. The territory contained 10bn tonnes of gas and oil deposits, the scientists said.
Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper celebrated the discovery by printing a large map of the North Pole. It showed the new "addition" to Russia - the size of France, Germany and Italy combined - under a white, blue and red Russian flag.

More recently Russia sent two mini-subs to the sea floor at the North Pole to post a titanium Russian flag and make claim to the territory. The Guardian reports:

Russia symbolically staked its claim to billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic Ocean today when two mini submarines reached the seabed more than two and a half miles beneath the North Pole.
In a record-breaking dive, the two craft planted a one metre-high titanium Russian flag on the underwater Lomonosov ridge, which Moscow claims is directly connected to its continental shelf.

However, other countries are not pleased:

… the dangerous mission prompted ridicule and skepticism among other contenders for the Arctic's energy wealth, with Canada comparing it to a 15th century colonial land grab.
"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say: 'We're claiming this territory'," the Canadian foreign minister, Peter MacKay, told CTV television.
Mr MacKay predicted that the Russian expedition would not bear fruit, adding: "There is no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic ... we're not at all concerned about this mission. Basically it's just a show by Russia."

ENTER CANADA

With the melting of the sea ice the fabled Northwest Passage is now opening in the summer and Canada is laying a sovereign claim to it. This from the Canada’s CBC News:

It used to be, when it came to claims of Arctic sovereignty, that it was the Americans we feared. They, after all, had the multi-hulled icebreakers and nuclear submarines to transit our Northwest Passage virtually at will.
But for a number of years now, Russia has been getting into the hunt as well. And its latest move — a naval manoeuvre currently underway that is designed to plant an actual Russian flag, in a titanium capsule, at the base of the North Pole, 4,200 metres below sea level — raises the international stakes considerably.
Canadians have always tended to regard the northernmost reaches of their land as an integral, if isolated, part of the country. The vast and frozen Arctic archipelago even gets its own reference in the country's national anthem: "The true north strong and free."
But how much of "Canada's North" is Canada's? Just about everyone agrees that the many islands that dot the Arctic to the north of Canada's mainland belong to Canada. But what about the water between them? Who, if anyone, has jurisdiction over the waters separating Somerset Island from Devon Island, or Melville Island from Banks Island?
The Canadian government says the jurisdiction is clear — they're Canadian waters. But the U.S. and some other countries, especially now Russia, don't agree. They see the Northwest Passage as an international strait that any ship should be free to transit. And increasingly, they are seeing the Arctic seabed as a resource to be carved up among certain northern nations.

Not only has the formerly naturally off-limits polar sea floor become an issue, but so also has the once elusive Northwest Passage become a catastrophe-widened super highway for shipping squabbles:

Plainly put, the Arctic ice is thinning at an alarming rate. Because of global warming, there are predictions that the Northwest Passage may be open for large parts of the summer in as little as 15 years.
Critics say that risks turning the Northwest Passage into the commercial sea route that explorers began searching for in the 15th Century. They say the rest of the world is sure to take more notice of a shipping route between Asia and Europe that would be 5,000 kilometres shorter than the current route through the Panama Canal.

DENMARK JOINS THE FRAY

On August 14th of this year a team of forty scientists set out on a Swedish Icebreaker sailing from Svalbard, a remote Norwegian island. The group, ten of them Danish, will also be accompanied by a Russian ice breaker. Their destination is the Lomonosov Ridge.
From the Telegraph:

According to the Danish government, evidence gathered during the trip could clinch ownership of the North Pole for the nation, which has a population of fewer than six million and whose entire mainland lies further south than John O'Groats.
Its claim to the Pole is based on its ownership of Greenland, which has a population of only 57,000 and was awarded to the Danes in 1933 by an international court which rejected Norway's claim to the vast, frozen island.
Helge Sander, Denmark's minister of science, technology and innovation, said: "The preliminary investigations done so far are very promising. There are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the North Pole."
Christian Marcussen of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, the expedition leader, said: "We will be collecting data for a possible [sovereignty] demand.

That however is not the only area of contention for Denmark. They are also involved in an ongoing dispute with Canada.

HANS ISLAND

Very near the North Pole is tiny Hans Island, barren and uninhabited. Only half a square mile in size, it has become the center of a dispute between Canada and Denmark over the territory.
This dispute has been going on since 1984 when Denmark’s Minister for Greenland Affairs flew in by helicopter, raised the Danish flag, buried a bottle of brandy at its base leaving a note saying: “Welcome to the Danish Island”.
Newsweek reports:

Canada and Denmark are engaged in a vigorous cold war of words and gestures over who has claim to Hans Island. In recent years, both have dispatched expeditions to the Godforsaken place and planted their flags; both have sent warships to assert their claims. For the two countries, the island represents much more than a speck on the charts; it's a test case that will help determine the future of the world's last great land grab, a struggle for virgin territory that mixes geology and geopolitics.

Then two years ago the Canadians stirred up the dispute some more:

The dispute erupted again two years ago when former Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.
Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while Canadians and Danes took out competing Google ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock 680 miles (1,094 kilometers) south of the North Pole.
Some Canadians even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.

CANADA BECOMING DEFENSIVE

This past July, Canadian Prime Minister Stephan Harper announced that between six and eight new warships would be built to patrol the Northwest Passage.

Stephan Harper – “The ongoing discovery of the North’s resource riches – coupled with the potential impact of climate change – has made the region an area of growing interest and concern.
Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic.
We either use it or lose it.
And make no mistake, this Government intends to use it.
Because Canada’s Arctic is central to our identity as a northern nation.
It is part of our history.
And it represents the tremendous potential of our future.
That’s why I’m so pleased to be here today.
To announce our first moves forward to defend and strengthen Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.
The first element of the plan will be the construction and deployment of six to eight new state-of-the-art offshore patrol ships.”

Full Speech

In addition to the new patrol ships the Canadians are also installing a system of listening devices throughout the northern waters to monitor the ship and boat traffic in the area as shown in the following video from CBC News.



WHERE IS THIS ALL HEADED?

Once again from The Guardian:

Russia first made a submission in 2001 to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf, seeking to push Russia's maritime borders beyond the existing 200-mile zone. It was rejected.
But the latest scientific findings are likely to prompt Russia to lodge another confident bid - and will alarm the US, which is mired in a 13-year debate over ratification of a UN treaty governing international maritime rights.
The Law of the Sea Treaty is the world's primary means of settling disputes over exploitation rights and navigational routes in international waters. Russia and 152 other countries have ratified it.
But the US has refused, arguing it gives too much power to the UN. If the US does not ratify it, Russia's bid for the Arctic's energy wealth will go unchallenged, proponents believe.

Given this administration’s bad attitude toward the UN, ratification might have gone the way of Kyoto – leaving us to fight the world in the Arctic – but there are clambering capitalists so eager to start cashing in – even with more environmental protections – they may manage to turn it around in time.

Meanwhile, the polar bears keep drowning.

David Attenborough - Two Questions

Are We Changing Planet Earth?


Can We Save Her?

Science According to Bush

Last September, shortly after moving into the Lair and out of that drafty yurt, we discussed how Bush has, for all intents and purposes, declared himself king.

At the end of that month we discussed how the Bush administration has been bending and censoring science to suit his political wills.

Now we have even more people coming out with tales of how our government is being run. Not for the health and safety of our people, but for their political and financial gain.

In this report yesterday in the New York Times we learn that former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona has testified to Congress regarding the politicizing of the health and human services and the department of health:

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

And to show Bush's unabashed arrogance:

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

But what really exemplifies the True Christian Compassion - that Compassionate Conservatism - is the following:

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedy's have long been deeply involved in it.

Former Surgeon General under the Reagan administration C. Everett Koop, and David Satcher from the Carter administration also testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee which is looking to strengthen the Surgeon General position under the auspices of Representative Henry A. Waxman .

Both Dr. Koop and Dr. Satcher talked of politicization of the position during their tenures but agreed that Dr. Carmona had seen much worse.

The website ClimateScienceWatch gives us an example of how Bush is placing his pals throughout the system to corrupt and otherwise alter the output of our scientific organizations:

Jeffrey Salmon is the Associate Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior to moving to DOE, from 1991-2001 he was Executive Director of the George C. Marshall Institute, a key actor in the global warming disinformation campaign. In 1998 he participated in the development of a now-notorious oil industry-sponsored plan to wage a campaign against the mainstream science community on global warming. Before that, he was senior speechwriter for Dick Cheney, when Cheney was Secretary of Defense. The Office of Science oversees roughly $4 billion a year in DOE-supported research, including a roughly $140 million climate change research budget. What does Salmon do in this position—for example, on matters of climate change research, assessment, and communication?

(Much more on the Jeffrey Salmon matter at the above link)

It's time for this to end. It's time to rid our country of these lying, cheating, thieving traitors.
CALL 202/225-0100 and ask to leave a message for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Join the movement - just call and say, "Hello, my name is Davis Fleetwood, and you have until July 23rd to put impeachment back on the table." and hang up!

Then hopefully we can see this on our morning paper.

OK - Here's What It Is All About

ROBERT KENNEDY Jr. (Audio Version) (Video version HERE)


MELISSA SPELLS IT OUT WITH INCREDIBLE POWER! (PART 1)

(PART 2)


JANE GOODALL SPEAKS OUT
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LIVE EARTH


CHANGING CLIMATE


EARTH TEMPERATURES SINCE 1884


EARTH 2.0


CONSUMPTION


WASTE


CHARCOAL


AMAZON RAIN FOREST DEPLETION


SAD FISH


MERMAID


POLAR BEARS


THINK - CHANGE HABITS


DAVE USES BIODIESEL


HEY YOU - DON'T GIVE UP

LIVE EARTH ON NOW!

It's happening!

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I have chosen to leave the video links up in case they should ever reconsider.

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Al Gore opens the U.S. shows

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China in the Pouring Rain




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