Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Saturday, October 27, 2007
In light of the fact that the U.S. Emergency Management team, FEMA has demonstrated a fairly woeful response to disasters I thought it was time to have a look at what other countries were doing to ‘manage’ disasters.
It turns out that the ‘world’ has a plan to manage disasters. The 18th Annual World Conference on Disaster Managementis holding their meeting in Toronto, Ontario at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre June 15-18, 2008.
Come and “Network with your peers-there are solutions out there; you may even have the solution to someone [else's] problem.” says their beautiful Website.
The theme of the coming event is going to be: ‘Resiliency-Individual, Community and Business”.
The Resiliency of the individual is something we all need to pay close attention to and pack our own shoots. If we leave our safety in the time of a disaster in the hands of government and business we will be in for a rude awakening.
“This is one conference you can’t afford to miss.” touts the home page of the conference. “This is your chance to participate in a knowledge exchange unlike any other event of its kind.”
We can only hope no one is going to take back the knowledge of the FEMA team, unless it’s the knowledge of what they have learned doesn’t work. FEMA may demonstrate how to hold “fake” news conferences. They may teach “schilling” your own employee’s as actual news reporters. This way you may “field” only the questions you want to answer, and avoid those nasty follow-up questions.
Disaster relief teams from around the world could learn a lot from FEMA. Some things very helpful, and others ‘not so much’.
In 2007, this event ‘attracted more than 1,800 participants from Canada, and the U.S. as well as internationally. They expect this coming year to have even more attendees. So “Take Advantage now!”. “Reserve Space” so that you too may sell your disaster wears both at home and abroad.
Don’t miss the many mixers planned for the event either. You may even have the opportunity to watch the Heimlich Maneuver in action!
Labels: Canada, Censored, Censorship US Government, FEMA, Speak no Evil
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
18th World Conference on Disaster Management, Toronto.Learn how to give fake news conferences just like the pros at FEMA?
Friday, October 26, 2007
But…maybe you can identify this man or woman, spend as much time as you need.
They shoot horses don’t they?
1,400 scientists have concluded humans have punched their dance card for the final time. Humans have danced themselves to the brink of annihilation and done it without taking so much as a break to sleep. However, it seems we have taken more than enough time to have sex and over eat.
Let them eat cake and reproduce into oblivion.
Earth’s population has grown by 34% since 1987.
Each person in the world requires 1/3 more of the earths resources than she is able to now supply. Just try to balance your checking account with that kind of cash flow. It can’t be done. The earth ‘audit’ was done by 400 scientists all experts in their field and then vetted by 1.000 others.
In the face of what seems to be the most dire predictions of doom awaiting the planet we are slapped the cold wet fist of industry:
damage sustained to the environment was of fundamental economic concern, and if left unchecked would affect economic growth
Is there no light at the end of this tunnel? There will be zero commerce when the stores and factories stand empty vanquished of consumers and workers. It seems patently obvious to most of us a symbiotic relationship between profits and consumers must exist. Killing the customer doesn’t make much sense, but that is exactly the monster that has been methodically created.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), said “The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged, and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay.”
On the very same pages these stories are crying doom and extinction are listed a bevy of mind-numbing fluff.
Click here to see rugby legends discuss the topics you raised!
Love Sudoku? Play our brand new interactive game!
Play Fantasy CEO!
Play Fantasy Football!
New suspect in Madeleine McCann disappearance! (he has no face, but look at the sketch anyway)
Find out what was behind Marie Osmond’s Fall on Dancing with the Stars!
Oh please, can we become any more pathetic?
May my finger fall off if I try to click on one more totally irrelevant story designed to detour my mind from the real problems facing me, and the rest of us today!
See how the scientists were chosen
Labels: Environment, Humanity survival, U.N. Climate Change Summit, UNEP, United Nations
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Humanity’s very survival at risk!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Like a rock-n-roll guitar player that stands too close to his amplifier, climate change is now creating a dreaded ‘feedback’ affect.
Loss of ice in the Arctic means less ‘white’ which reflects the sunshine back into space. In the summer we wear white or light colored clothing to reflect the heat of the sun away from us. In the winter we wear dark colors that absorb the heat. The tundra is melting absorbing more heat. The heat is rapidly decomposing plant material and in return releasing methane. Methane is over 20 times more potent than other greenhouse gases.
A study done at the University of East Anglia shows that the North Atlantic Ocean is only absorbing half of the C02 it once did, and southern oceans have stopped absorbing it, and are now releasing C02 back into the atmosphere.
The ocean’s ability to absorb C02 is called C02 sink. Merchant ships equipped with instruments to measure carbon dioxide (C02) in the water have been collecting data every month and have generated more than 90,000 measurements in just the past few years.
The North Atlantic Ocean’s ability to absorb C02 abruptly declined, while the Indian Ocean’s absorption ability was making more of a taper.
Emissions of carbon dioxide from the ocean have actually increased by 40% since 1981.
International team leader Dr. Corinne Le Quere, from the University of Eat Anglia and British Antarctic Survey says, “This is serious. All climate models predict that this kind of ‘feedback will continue and intensify during this century.”
See PSMI’s Franken-plankton story in the archive.
Labels: Arctic, Climate Change, Environment, Frankenplankton, Global Warming, Ocean, Phytoplankton, Sea, carbon dioxide, ecosystems, greenhouse gas
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Oceans Losing The Ability to Trap CO2, they may be reaching the saturation point.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Eviscerated is the term being used by on CDC official!
The Associated Press is reporting that CDC director Julie Gerberding’s report delivered to Congress yesterday was cut by 1/2. The report was to address public health effects of climate change. Details of how climate change and global warming will affect the health of Americans and how the government has failed to fully address the potential health risks of climate changes.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wants to know why the administration would edit testimony by “one of the country’s leading voices on public health.
For their part the Bush Administration via Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman says,…”It (the report) wasn’t watered down in terms of the concerns that climate change raises for the public health.”
Those at the CDC can take a number and stand in line behind other agencies that have been muted on climate change and the environment.
Speak no evil, or speak only of the evil we embrace seems to be this administrations motto.
From NASA the Fish and Wildlife Service to The EPA, up to and including censorship of exhibits on Global warming at the Smithsonian Institute, keeping Climate Change and Global Warming on the lowest key possible is the melody.
Links provided are to Pacific Spirit Archived Articles on Censorship. CDC report is a PDF file.
Labels: Artic, Boxer, CDC report, Climate Change, Congress, EPA, Environment, Global Warming
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Bush Administration Altered CDC Report on Climate Change! What else is new?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Alabama Governor Bob Riley has written a 3 page letter to G.W.Bush asking that he deny Georgia’s Governor’s request for presidential emergency actions.
Them’z fightin’ word’z!
Riley paints Perdue as an out and out liar. In his letter to the President he characterizes Perdue’s pleas for Divine presidential intervention as merely being a contest between people versus endangered mussels. Riley says “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Riley paints Perdue as an out and out liar. In his letter to the President he characterizes Perdue’s pleas for Divine presidential intervention as merely being a contest between people versus endangered mussels. Riley says “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
In my book, the thing furthest from the truth would be a lie. A horrible, bald faced lie. And so it begins, as the planet heats up, the turf wars heat up. Yikes!
Suffering a melt down?
Riley is so opposed to Georgia obtaining Federal intervention into it’s drought predicament that he reminds the president such action would not be safe.
If Georgia is allowed to keep it’s water in Lake Lanier there could be a nuclear event. Riley states, “Georgia ignores the fact that the Farley Nuclear Plant sits on the banks of the Chattahoochee River and requires cooling water at the nuclear plant.” Riley goes on, “If Georgia obtained the presidential action it seeks, then there would likely be inadequate cooling water for the nuclear plant.”
“That is obviously something that cannot be allowed to happen.”
Never miss the chance to overstate the obvious?
Riley does make it sound as though there isn’t any way to back off or shut down Farley temporarily and that a slow down of industrial activity along the Chattahoochee River would be tantamount to the end of Alabama.
Wouldn’t saving one of America’s major cities trump some temporary economic hardships that would be taken by industry?
The cloud of hurricane Katrina hangs over questions such as those.
Some people did learn from Katrina. Northeast Georgia Medical Center isn’t going to be caught waiting for the federal government to come and save them in a disaster. Kevin Matson, safety and emergency preparedness coordinator at the Center says a contingency plan will be submitted to the Georgia Division of Public Health. Part of the plan would be to bring in tanks of non potable water for toilet flushing.
Hope springs eternal if the faucet doesn’t!
Jackie Joseph, president of the Lake Lanier Association, tosses a brighter spin on the drought, “There are some people who are trying to look at the bright side and say, well, the lake has filled up before, it can do it again.” She goes on, “Our leaders didn’t seem to learn much from the last drought in 1999-2002.”
Yep, yep…Things are different this time though.
Governor Sonny Perdue is declaring North Georgia a disaster area and asking President Bush for federal assistance.
FEMA, Bush, Disaster… not a successful combination.
If Atlanta thinks it holds any more importance to the nation than New Orleans held they may want to reconsider that sentiment.
Labels: Alabama, Atlanta, Endangered species act, FEMA, Global Warming, Governor Riley, Lake Lanier, Water, drought
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley Ready to Face Off With Drought Strickened Georgia!
Monday, October 22, 2007
After 4 years, $8.5 Million and 24,000 interviews with commercial and general aviation pilots NASA deems findings would undermine the public’s confidence in commercial air travel. Yikes!
NASA shut down this project a year ago and refused to divulge the results. Obviously an already cash-strapped NASA felt there were good reasons to spend $8.5 Million on an aviation safety study. NASA has been auctioning off their own artifacts. One example includes a multi-million dollar satellite from the 1960’s a collector was lucky enough to snag for $50 which now sits in his barn!
Much more troubling than refusing to divulge the results of the lengthy and expensive survey is that last week NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.
Ya Think?
Thomas S. Luedtke, a senior NASA official acknowledged that the findings of this study could damage the public’s confidence in the airlines adversely affecting airline profits.
For 14 months the Associated Press has tried to obtain the survey data under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. In the end, Luedtke issued a final statement which justified the cover-up. Pilots that participated in the survey might in the end lose their lively hood if the public lost faith in the safety of aviation. The pilots participated in the survey with the promise of anonymity along with the companies for whom they worked.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
Somebody did ask. The U.S. tax payers have spent $8.5 million on this survey. For NASA not to tell what they learned, in order to protect the profits of the airline industry, is reprehensible.
What is that nasty smell?
Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., Congress chairman House Science and Technology investigations and oversight subcommittee said “There is a faint odor about it all”.
A faint odor isn’t exactly what a red herring gives off.
Officials at NASA Ames Research Center in California have said they want publish their own report on the project. I hope they saved the data they ultimately ordered to be disposed of, otherwise their report may contain the usual vague recollection spin that permeates the U.S.’s selective memory.
Labels: Aviation Safety, NASA, Speak no Evil, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
NASA Orders Cover-up of Commercial Aviation Safety!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Where Has All The Water Gone? On A Slow Boat To China?
It may be crazy to think about but consider this for a moment. China now has more than 37,000 peasants working to produce rain. That’s right.
While millions of people are suffering from horrific wide spread drought, China says it has added a staggering 275 Billion..That’s Billion…cubic yards of additional rainfall by using rocket launchers. Rocket launcher are filled with artillery pieces loaded with silver iodide and other chemicals and then blasted into clouds.
China has been testing it’s rainmaking prowess for more than a dozen years now and they think they have a pretty good record. The Gutlan Reservoir in Fujian province is reported to have had a 24% increase since the testing began.
China has the largest rainmaking operation in the world followed by Russia and Israel.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!
I don’t need to tell any of you again that I’m no rocket scientist but, I’m going to fall down on the side of some of China’s Henan province residents. 2 years ago a 5 city squabble broke out with accusations of ‘cloud theft’ broke out. In my mind it only stands on the side of reason that unnaturally bleeding water from clouds in one part of the world would send empty clouds to another part.
Whether or not my theory is true sending chemicals into the sky with rocket launchers has to be a bad idea on so many levels.
Keep your eye on the prize!
Scientists using satellites analyze cloud content from several major cities. When the time look right they put out the call for any number of the 37,000 weather troops to assemble. Each team can assemble in a matter of minutes and begin firing chemicals into promising clouds in their area.
To the victor go the spoils!
Do we not have enough evidence that everything in this world is tied together in an inextricable knot?
China doesn’t just want to produce more rainfall to fill their newly completed $25 Billion dollar Three Gorges Dam which is the largest to date in the world, they want to also stop the rain from falling.
Don’t rain on my parade!
Zhang Qiang, a ‘weather modifier’ at the Beijing Meteorological Bureau will try to stop the rain from ruining the Olympics. Zhang will try to intercept the rain clouds by calling out his troops to divert them.
Microwaves aren’t just for popping corn.
One way scientists are scheming to stop hurricanes is by dumping black soot on to the top of a hurricane. They are thinking that the dark color will draw the sun’s heat and warm the icy clouds at the top causing it to loose it’s power.
If the soot isn’t black enough how about shredding tires and dropping black them across the top?
Maybe the beaming of microwaves from space to the tops of the hurricanes thereby changing their airflow is a better idea.
I’m in agreement that we have to start finding ways to adapt to our changing environment, but there are light years between the word adapt, and the word control.
Man has apparently learned nothing from his quest to maintain dominance on the planet.
Is this going to be the key that unlocks the trap we have set for ourselves, or will this be just one more nail in the coffin?
Labels: China, Climate Change, Cloud seeding, Environment, Water, drought
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
China Wages War with Clouds! Cloud Seeding and the Environment
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Plastic doesn’t pollute, people pollute?
It’s no surprise that a member of the American Plastics Council was quoted in 2004 saying the reason plastic is everywhere is because it’s such a good material that does so much so well.
Plastic does do so many things so well. One of the things we are finding out it does so well is cause Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome (TDS) which has been increasing daily. Plastics that contain Phthalates can migrate into the foods they come into contact with and be ingested and absorbed into our systems.
The chemical BPA, Bisphenol A, which has been used in the manufacturing of some plastics since the 1950’s is now being shown to cause ‘gender confusion’.
BPA has been found to actually pass from generation to generation in utero. This is a topic of conversation best left to other forums, but cosider the fact that there may be less gender confusion in underdeveloped countries where less plastic has been used customarily in every aspect of life for generations.
We have now been exposed to so much plastic that we are urinating the stuff!
Why would anyone be surprised to find there is a bundle of trash, estimated to weigh 3.5 MILLION tons of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean. 80% of this heap, larger than twice the size of Texas, is made up from plastic debris. Debris that is blown washed and flooded out to sea.
Tons of plastic that doesn’t find its way into land fills finds it way to the coastlines and is carried out to see into a giant vortex of currents.
Shame on you, shame on me. Shame on all of us.
We are being told at this point cleaning this mess up isn’t an option. Continuing to live as though there is no tomorrow, and letting the petroleum and plastics industry continue to dictate our futures isn’t an option.
Not anymore.
Labels: BPA, Bisphenol, Ocean, Ocean Habitat, Phthalates, Plastic, Trash, Urine, ecosystems
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
3.5 MILLION tons of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean!
Friday, October 19, 2007
City-states and climate change aren’t two terms being used in public but, they most certainly are being used behind closed doors when government and science collide over global warming.
Atlanta, Georgia has found itself on the brink of a disaster. Two days ago the estimated water reserve in Lake Lanier was enough to last only 81 more days.
Given the fact that Atlanta should receive nearly 14 more inches of rain per year than Seattle, Washington a drought in Atlanta seems out of the realm of possibilities, and yet it has happened.
The Army Corps of Engineers is mandated to release millions of gallons of water that flow downstream to Florida and Alabama. In spite of the fact that Atlanta is suffering the largest drought in their history. Much of the water released is part of an attempt to save the endangered Mussel. Freshwater mussels are among the most endangered organisms in North America from Canada all the way down to Florida.
The Governor of Georgia demanded the Corp stop releasing vital water, but the Corps has it’s orders. Florida’s Environmental Chief sent a warning to the Corps staying that reducing the flow of water from Georgia “would severely impact Florida’s natural resources.” Florida has already complained that Georgia is not sending enough water downstream as it is.
You can’t get blood from a turnip!
The Governor of Alabama is crying to the Corps for more water from Georgia. Alabama is also trying to cope with shortages. Georgia’s Governor says he is prepared to file suit to stop the release of his State’s water causing further tensions between the three states.
The National Weather Service expects this coming winter to also be one of the driest on record so it doesn’t look like there will be any relief insight for the near future.
Those of us paying attention to these kinds of things know that situations just like this one are only the tip of the iceberg. The States downstream can cry all they want about the lack of water being sent to them, but if there is no excess water to send what happens?
Last night the state held a public hearing in Rome, Georgia which drew a lively crowd of protesters. The County Commission Chairman was quoted as saying “I’d rather not characterize it as a fight…as competing interests that we need to find some solutions to.”
Bad moon rising!
Officials may, rather these types of issues not be characterized as fights, but what they have on their hands whether they’d rather or not, is a festering boil on the rump of civility.
If the best they can do is ask their constituents to ‘pray for rain’, they have more problems on their hands than they realize. Atlanta’s problem isn’t just affecting other states it’s having an impact on other cities in Georgia. State versus state will seem like a cake walk if neighboring cities start feuding.
If officials are paying attention to the chatter on local Internet forums, and I hope they are, they will see that the locals are quickly becoming restless.
A few quotes from the local forums:
“Couldn’t the Army in Iraq use a few more soldiers? The Corps is Army, ship them off…”
“…Keep our water where it belongs: In Lake Lanier for all the wealthy boaters to enjoy…”
“Before you argue that endangered species stuff, just remember this: the mussels would eat you given the chance.”
“Endangered species…Boo! Species come. Species go. We have the ability to save ourselves over the mussels so we should. If a species is unable to continue existence for whatever reason then that’s the way it is, get over it and move on.”
“Disease, blight, famine, economical devastation and death are what will come with this idiotic attitude…”
Tossing the baby out with the bath water!
Today Georgia Law makers are trying to move legislation in Congress, that will waive the requirements of the “Endangered Species Act,”
As more and more people become pushed by the detrimental affects of Global Warming, environmental issues will be shoved out the window.
The sad thing is; man’s innate desire to survive happens to be predicated on the survival of the environment, it’s not the other way around.
Photo: 11Alive News. Protester wearing mussel shaped hat speaking at last nights meeting in Rome Georgia.
Labels: Army Corps of Engineers, Atlanta, Climate Change, Endangered species act, Global Warming, drought
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Global Warming Will Lead To Civil Unrest and The Use of Funny Hats
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Mangrove ecosystems are used as habitat for a wide and strange group of aquatic and terrestrial species. There are about 110 species of vegetation identified as Mangal, and each one share a unique ability to overcome problems inherent to their habitat.
As if the the Mangrove plants aren’t interesting enough on their own, having the ability to grown in high salt content waters, low oxygen supplies and tidal flooding the mangrove forests are home to killifish.
The Killifish has always been known as a strange creature because it is actually able to produce its own eggs like a female and then as if by magic fertilize those same eggs like a male.
Now it has been discovered that the Killifish doesn’t just have the attributes of two sexes, but it also can live under the waters that the Mangroves live in but, they can live in the branches of those trees above water too.
The Killifish is able to live inside rotten branches and trunks of the Mangroves. apparently the killifish can turn itself into an air breathing machine. This makes the killifish one of the oddest fish known to man.
What seems even more odd than the ability to reproduce without a mate added to the killifish’s newly discovered ability to breath air is the fact that this trait is only now being discovered.
Biologists wading in the swamps that are home to the Mangroves discovered hundreds of killifish hiding outside of the water in tree branches. It’s suspected that the fish had flung themselves into the branches of the trees when the pools of muddy water they are normally found in began to dry up.
The fish were lined up end to end along grooves that had been previously carved out by insects munching away at the trees. These fish are said to be normally very territorial, adding even more paradox to this amazing creatures resume.
The Killifish has both male and female attributes, territorial and group traits and it can adapt its gills to utilize water or air to breath. There are other fish that are adapted to use both air and water such as South-east Asia’s walking catfish, and the climbing perch of India. But, the strangest fish award this week has to be given to the Killifish.
We are finding out daily that there is so much more we don’t know about the earth around us, than what we do know. Tragically we are loosing species daily that have yet to be discovered let alone studied.
Have these killifish always been flinging themselves into tree branches and hanging out, or are we in the midst of witnessing an evolutionary leap?
Labels: Killifish, Mangrove, aquatic, ecosystems, habitat
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Diminishing Habitat Investigation Nets Revelation: Mangrove Killifish Neither Fish nor Foul?
