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POPSAn Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society Studies of a variety of natural processes, including ocean cycles and solar variability, indicate that they can account for variations in the Earth’s climate on the time scale of decades and centuries. Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project future climate. The APS supports an objective scientific effort to understand the effects of all processes – natural and human --on the Earth’s climate and the biosphere’s response to climate change, and promotes technological options for meeting challenges of future climate changes, regardless of cause. List of 160 signers of the APS petition available
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POPSIndia says Global Warming is Hogwash The Indians and Chinese are not fools. Their societies are geared on growth, where our liberals are geared on self evisceration. I know of a nice cliff where I invite all liberals to do us all a favor and step off, thus returning their carbon to the biosphere.
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POPSwhy we should...(shouldn't) go to space it started: the creation of a cosmic diaspora is just one argument for putting humans in space- a bad one. But, now, as human-made climate change has thrust us into the role of stewards of the global biosphere, new reasons, good ones, have emerged. Indeed, keeping our space ambitions relatively local--within our own solar system- can help us find solutions for the climate crisis.
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POPSGaia's evil twin: Is life its own worst enemy? Here is a wrenching change of perspective! Life keeps upsetting its own apple cart, the Medean trap. We humans are just part of this self-destructive life force, yet we are aware of it. Like everything else, planets live and die.
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POPSGaia's evil twin: Is life its own worst enemy? Recent interesting research shows that life on earth may have distinct suicidal inclinations. Human destruction of the environment is but the most recent episode. If true it has interesting implication on forming of exobiological theories, and the evolution of civilizations outside our precious planet.
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POPSHo Chi Minh City Tour
One of the region's top attractions is the Cat Tien National Park, a 70,000-hectare Unesco-rated biosphere boasting a startling variety of flora and fauna. Visitors can go bird-watching, take to hiking trails, overnight in a crocodile swamp and look for signs of Vietnam's rarest wildlife. The Con Dao Islands, a 40-minute flight from the city, offer an equally attractive getaway, albeit of a tropical island flavour. A former prison colony under the French and US regimes, Con Dao today boasts largely undiscovered beaches, empty coastal roads and a healthy ecosystem complete with coral reefs and colonies of green sea turtles - one of Vietnam's best places to see them in the wild. Other fine beaches stretch just east of the gruff oilman's town of Vung Tau. Although lacking the popularity of Mui Ne and Nha Trang further up the coast, there are some sparkling gems here - particularly Long Hai and Ho Tram - for those seeking a quiet beach holiday far from the madding crowd.
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POPSGlobal Biosphere Images Reveal Changes in Plant Growth Scientists use the global biosphere measurements to study the planet's net primary productivity – the amount of carbon that plants use to grow. As carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, scientists can study how much is offset by the global biosphere. The NASA images were created using ocean chlorophyll data collected by NOAA satellites through the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project, as well as vegetation data from the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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POPS Happy Poison Piven Day Maybe it's simply a sign of how I was raised, but pretty much every day is Earth Day. We cut off the lights when we leave a room. With the exception of the baby, we take showers instead of baths. We grow some of our own vegetables and spices, and hand weed and use organic remedies to minimize pests instead of using chemicals. Given more time, I'd even provide more "green" meat for my family, hunting and fishing to harvest those other meaty emitters of greenhouse gasses and biowaste for the children! But Earth Day isn't about protecting the Earth for many of those involved. It's about regulating and controlling people, especially people that they find objectionable. Thanks, but I'll pass. What Might've Caused Jeremy Piven's 'Mercury Poisoning'? http://gawker.com/5113415/what-mightve-caused-jeremy-pivens-mercury-poisoning
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POPSSave the Holocene! "I get the utility of using the idea of the Anthropocene to provoke recognition of the mind-bending reality that we are transforming the very planet on which we walk. (emphasis mine) Where the Anthropocene as a concept breaks down, it seems to me, is in the implications it raises, particularly among certain crowds who seem to be saying with increasing frequency, "well, dude, we're in the Anthropocene, anything goes." A worthwhile and important read
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POPSGreen Updater This is very similar to the concept of natural algae pools instead of chlorinated pools. The idea is that within a biosphere, each part balances out the next. This is very interesting and useful idea when designing your home for ventilation and air freshness. Of course, avoiding 'Sick Building" syndrome.
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POPSDoes Earth harbour a 'shadow biosphere' of alien life? "Our search for life based on our assumptions of life as we know it. Weird life and normal life could be intermingled, and filtering out the things we understand about life as we know it from the things we don't understand is tricky." The tools and experiments researchers use to look for new forms of life - such as those on missions to Mars - would not detect biochemistries different from our own, making it easy for scientists to miss alien life, even if was under their noses.
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POPSMoore's Moment Futurists such as Vernor Vinge, Bruce Sterling, and Ray Kurzweil believe that the exponential improvement described by Moore's law will ultimately lead to a technological singularity: a period where progress in technology occurs almost instantly.
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POPSWhy I Am a Socialist The corporation is designed to make money without regard to human life, the social good or impact on the environment. Corporate laws impose a legal duty on corporate executives to make as much money as possible for shareholders, although many have moved on to fleece shareholders as well. In the 2003 documentary film “The Corporation” the management guru Peter Drucker says: “If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibilities, fire him. Fast.”
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