Best Earth Day posters

"It isn't easy being green"

Earth Day 2009

It certainly isn't easy being green! A year or so ago when I started separating my trash into glass, numbered plastics, paper, cardboard, tin, etc, I doubled my work load!! and I sing Kermit's "being green" song as I do it.

Also known as
Kermie (by Miss Piggy), Froggy Baby (by Grover), Uncle Kermit (by Robin the Frog), Kermit The Angry Frog (from 3 different News Flash episodes)

Don't doubt Redoubt

Something's brewing in Alaska

and the last time Redoubt Volcano erupted, some 20 years ago, the above pictures were taken. Redoubt is only 100 miles southwest of Anchorage. Here is today's report:

Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismicity levels have remained relatively constant since yesterday afternoon at 3:30 PM AKST, and are still well above background. Clear web camera views currently show a steam plume rising to roughly 10,500 ft asl.

I was just on the webcam site and was very upset that it wasn't downloading...all I had was a black screen and I hoping to see the moment of eruption. Then I realized it was probably night there just like it is here...the eruption, however, is imminent...to watch in real time go here:

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/webcam.php?cam=Redoubt%20-%20Hut

Alaska's volcanoes are not like Hawaii's. "Most of them don't put out the red river of lava," said the observatory's John Power.
Instead, they typically explode and shoot ash 30,000 to 50,000 feet high — more than nine miles — into the jet stream.

The picture below is the jet stream on Feb 1, 2009 and if I am deciphering this thing correctly...get your goggles and air masks ready...the ash snow is coming our way!!!

Get Yourself a Hardhat

Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper 'liberated' a tool bag after a grease gun inside it exploded outside the international space station. The briefcase-size bag, containing two grease guns, a putty knife and cloth mitts, was one of the largest items ever to be lost by a spacewalker.

This is just one of the thousands of items floating in space tonight.

We refer to these floaters as 'Space Junk' and can be anything from nuts and bolts to a lost spacewalkers glove to satellites gone bad.

They may orbit Earth for weeks or centuries but someday they will fall.

Because the Earth is three quarters covered by water, the chances the junk will fall on your head are minimal...kind of like the chances that a black guy can become President. I think it would only be fitting if a piece of junk fell on one if not all three of the corporate jets that landed in D.C. carrying the Big 3 auto company CEOs (with the CEOs on them) to the congressional bailout hearings. That's a whole other story....

Anyway, secure your hardhat cause this is a picture of all the junk floating around in space:

Asteroid Event Tonight

From www.space.com:

A very small asteroid will streak into the skies over Sudan tonight, astronomers announced. It is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, creating a show.
It will not strike Earth.
But astronomers are abuzz over the event, because it is the first time an asteroid "impact" has been predicted with near certainty.
The space rock is only about 6 feet in diameter (3 meters) and poses "no risk to those on the ground," said David Morrison of NASA's Ames Research Center. A similar-sized object during the day would likely go unnoticed, he said.
The fiery entry will appear like a very bright shooting star known as a fireball, or what astronomers call a bolide.

There is no note, however, on exactly when this asteroid was identified...sounds to me like it was just in the last 24 hours...if it was any bigger and had a possible chance of hitting the earth we wouldn't be too worried about the economy, political races or the price of fuel...we'd be running for the nearest fallout shelter.

Warning of Solar Superstorm

A solar superstorm (The October 15 issue of Scientific American noted that ‘‘a connection between the northern lights and forces of electricity and magnetism is now fully established.” ) is pending and my be as bad as the one of 1859:

As night was falling across the Americas on Sunday, August 28, 1859, the phantom shapes of the auroras could already be seen overhead. From Maine to the tip of Florida, vivid curtains of light took the skies. Startled Cubans saw the auroras directly overhead; ships’ logs near the equator described crimson lights reaching halfway to the zenith. Many people thought their cities had caught fire. Scientific instruments around the world, patiently recording minute changes in Earth’s magnetism, suddenly shot off scale, and spurious electric currents surged into the world’s telegraph systems. In Baltimore telegraph operators labored from 8 p.m. until 10 a.m. the next day to transmit a mere 400-word press report. The impact of the 1859 storm was muted only by the infancy of our technological civilization at that time. Were it to happen today, it could severely damage satellites, disable radio communications and cause continent-wide electrical blackouts that would require weeks or longer to recover from. Although a storm of that magnitude is a comfortably rare once-in-500-years event, those with half its intensity hit every 50 years or so. The last one, which occurred on November 13, 1960, led to worldwide geomagnetic disturbances and radio outages. If we make no preparations, by some calculations the direct and indirect costs of another superstorm could equal that of a major hurricane or earthquake.

Learn more at: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bracing-for-a-solar-superstorm

www.spaceweather.com is a wonderful source for sunspot activity which is what causes the northern lights and thus solar storm activity.

Ironically, society’s increasing vulnerability to solar storms has coincided with decreasing public awareness. We recently surveyed newspaper coverage of space weather events since the 1840s and discovered that a significant change occurred around 1950. Before this time, magnetic storms, solar flares and their effects often received lavish, front-page stories in newspapers. The Boston Globe carried a two-inch headline “U.S. Hit by Magnetic Storm” on March 24, 1940. Since 1950, though, such stories have been buried on inside pages.

Hubble snaps ancient fireworks

Hubble has captured a close-up of the remnant of a supernova that exploded in the Milky Way on 1 May 1006. The explosion is one of the brightest in recorded history and was visible with the naked eye.
The delicate-looking remnant is actually part of a shock wave from the stellar explosion. The roiling remains are still expanding, moving at a clip of about 10 million kilometres per hour.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14241-hubble-snaps-ghostly-ribbon-of-light.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news2_head_dn14241

so, do you think this is moving towards us or away from us?

Apocalypse Now: Floods, Tornadoes, Locusts

Weather of Biblical Proportions Sets Off Debate Among Theologians and Scientists
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMESJune 12, 2008

'abcnews';

In the beginning, God created heaven and Earth, and he saw that it was good. So begins the Book of Genesis, the dramatic opener of the Old Testament.

Most theologians and scientists do not believe that catastrophic weather means the end of the world is coming. But many scholars do think the world is in for some kind of disaster, be it meteorological, ecological or geopolitical.(AP Photos)
But things went downhill from there.
God's wrath seems at work these days, as the heavens and Earth have unleashed earthquakes in China, a cyclone in Burma, killer tornadoes and record floods across the U.S. and even a plague of locusts (cicadas) in New England.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa today, floodwaters forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 100 city blocks were underwater.
"We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start," Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said this week as record floods hit the Midwest. "We're going to need a lot of prayers and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding."
By the final Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the Earth suffers "Seven Plagues" -- from disease to "intense heat" and drought, then finally a shower of deadly hailstones.
And then comes the Apocalypse, the final judgment of man and destruction of the world by fire.
Biblical imagery is all over the news these days — even including a story last week of a New York baby being enwrapped by a snake in its crib, harking back to evil lurking in the Garden of Eden.

Ark building instructions

For the do-it-yourselfers who have not yet been evacuated:


Build An Ark
An online resource dedicated to Preparedness, Self-sufficiency and Sustainability. On these pages you’ll find articles and videos that will help teach you how to prepare ...
www.buildanark.net

Near-Earth Asteroids on Monday and Friday

from: http://www.spaceweather.com/

Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On June 8, 2008 there were 956 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Two June, 2008 Earth-asteroid encounters:

Asteroid 2008 LB, June 9, 3.3 LD

Asteroid 2008 LG2, June 13, 9.2 LD

Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU.

In the last movie I watched where an asteroid was heading to the Earth, the President was black and the VP was a woman....just thought it was worth mentioning....

Unexplained ground heat burns boy's feet

Bill Folsom
Colorado Springs Published 4 day(s) ago
There was no fire, but the ground was hot enough in a Colorado Springs park to burn through an eight year old boy’s shoes and cause at least second degree burns on his feet. The boy went the hospital. His Crocs style shoes that were left behind have big holes with burned edges.
Firefighters want to know what’s causing the ground to get so hot near Golden Hills Park in the Rockrimmon neighborhood. Battalion Chief, Kent Matthews says, "In my twenty-four years I haven't witnessed this kind of occurrence. So it's unique.”
After the boy was treated and sent to the hospital firefighters took surface readings that showed hard to believe temperatures. According to Chief Matthews, "The highest temperature we got at the surface of the soil with the sun shining on it was 800 degrees, which is pretty darn significant. Radiant heat from the sun will get it up around 150, 160 degrees, but not to that level."
Firefighters have taped off the area and are monitoring it until they can figure out what's causing the ground to get so hot. Tests by hazmat team members show there are no dangerous gases. Crews have cut a fire-line around the area to prevent the heat from potentially starting a wildfire.
Early assessments show the problem area is coal dust. Neighbors say the area has appeared blackened as long as they can remember. What has to be determined is if it was dumped here years ago or if there's something happening underground. Crews from the state geological are on the way to figure out an explanation.

All I want to know is if the animals have left the area. If so, I think the 'big one' is brewing.