The Nature Conservancy talks about coral reefs, and their delicate environmental needs. Many have been bleached due to human human causes, and there is the issue of how global warming is also increasing the temperature of the oceans out there, causing corals to die. They represent a huge amount of biodiversity on this planet, and we would be wise to protect and nurture them.

• Climate Change and Coral Reefs

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Or, I should say, NASA’s, human mission to mars, since I hope women will be involved. But wow, what a very long way off! I mean, we could do this by 2020, so why wait all the way until 2031? I guess we have lots of problems these days, but we certainly sat on our laurels for the past, oh, thirty years or so, while the sailing was smooth. I recommend, if you are a serious reader interested in what it would take to get to, and survive on Mars, to pick up a copy of Robert Zubrin’s ‘The Case for Mars‘. It goes into lots of technical detail, and yet, he provides a way for lighter readers to skip to the important bits. While you’re reading that, a little fictional Mars adventure might get the old enthusiasm going, and so I recommend the three-volume set, ‘Red Mars‘, ‘Green Mars‘, ‘Blue Mars‘, by Kim Stanley Robinson. It tells a multi-generational, and multi-ethnic tale of the colonization and terraforming of Mars. After that, I say, ‘Get Your Ass to Mars!’!

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The Earth Observatory data, combined with models, has shown that, just as most politics is local, so is most pollution.

• Local Pollution

In keeping up with that idea, here is an article showing that trees are important sinks, and ultimately when they die, sources of
carbon dioxide. Which means, of course, that we have to replant the trees that are lost through storms or through harvesting. It also means that we have to plant the kind of trees that can properly survive in such an environment, such as cypress-tupelo. We also really need to listen to the scientists that have been telling us how important it is to allow the Mississippi to move around again, a process that deposited silt, which in turn created a protective solid and biological barrier to the the destructive forces and tidal surges of the gulf during storms.

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Trains were once the transportation backbone for people and goods in the United States, until the car and truck came along. Of course, the car gave individuals great freedom of movement in time and place, and that is why they are so difficult to leave behind. This car dependence has had a dramatic effect on the development of land in the U.S., with a tremendous amount of sprawl that has tracked the increase in car ownership. There are those of a certain generation, and older, that remember what it used to be like to be able to go for a leisurely drive, with hardly a car in sight on a country road. That was a very nice time, but, I’m afraid it has come to an end, and what about the experience of those who live in large metropolitan areas? Los Angeles has been a traffic nightmare since the late sixties, and pretty much anyone traveling the interstates in the eastern half of the U.S. knows that it is chock-a-block with traffic most days of the week, especially with semi-trailers, and you can forget about holidays altogether!

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Readers now have access to 1.5 million books online through ‘The Million Book Project, which is currently the world’s largest’. So, if between The Million Book Project, Google, and The Internet Archive, you can’t find anything to read, you are one picky person!

• The Million Book Project

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Old MacDonald had a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Julie MacDonald, subject of an earlier Zeitgeistland blog, resigned as deputy assistant secretary from the agency in May, and it has taken until now for damage control to start reversing her political influence over endangered species decisions. I am glad to see that the Bush administration wasn’t allowed to permanently run rough shod over the agency, but I am also sorry to see how easily politicized things can become, in such a short period of time. I’m sure I am not alone on this issue. I thought there might enough of a balance in the government, and enough historical momentum to ensure that decisions were made on the basis of science, most of the time at least.

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Ok, this stuff is pretty far out there, but, why not think about it? And of course, a good handful of scientists do. This article relates, and very well I might add, the details of a paper concerning the observation of dark energy and its possible effect on cosmology, the fate of the Universe. The authors apparently try to extend the concept of power-law metastable quantum states, proven to be correct over exponential ones in the 1950s, to quantum field theory. The paper isn’t peer-reviewed, but a copy can be found on the following link

• arXiv.org

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I love garlic. I cook with it on a daily basis, but apparently I still have a few things to learn about the stuff. I’ve heard that it was supposed to be good for you, but I don’t think the scientific reasons have been definitively understood. Well, here is another study to add to the list. It claims that garlic boosts our body’s natural supply of hydrogen sulfide, which acts as an antioxidant and helps to relax blood vessels and therefore enhance blood flow. The study involved amounts of garlic that, if translated to your diet, would equal about two cloves. For me, that is the bare minimum for lots of my dishes. And actually, if cooked (say, with onions), before added to dishes, it greatly reduces or eliminates the heartburn that can occur when the garlic is raw. I don’t suffer any gastronomic challenges from garlic. Interestingly, in countries such as Italy, China and Korea, consumption can be as high as 12 cloves per individual. Wee. One more thing that I learned from this article was that, in order to enhance the benefits of garlic, it should be cut at room temperature and allowed to sit for about 15 minutes or so, in order for the enzymatic reactions to occur which produce the health-inducing compounds.

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The EPA has released a tool that shows pollution emissions using Google Maps. You can trace sources and amounts of carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide in your area. Examples of point sources that can be identified through the EPA maps are:

* Cement Facilities
* Chemical Manufacturing
* Electric Generating Units
* Natural Gas Pipelines
* Oil and Gas Production
* Petroleum Refineries
* Pulp & Paper Industries

Go and seek out your pollution nemeses.

• EPA Google Earth Emissions Tool

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I’m going to make a little departure here, for Zeitgeistland. I’ve been following the whole Alabama/Siegelman/Canary/Rove scandal for a while now. I don’t have access to the documentation that Congress has right now, so it would be folly to go too far in a statement
condemning the justice system in Alabama. However, it looks very, very bad right now. There is also a rather questionable outcome in litigation involving the state of Alabama and ExxonMobil. I must say, if the state of Alabama can’t get its basic business done fighting against a behemoth like ExxonMobil, what hope do environmental causes have against them? Food for thought.

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