OK its Earth Day – Now What?

Happy Earth Day, are you wearing your environmentally-friendly hemp t-shirt, while standing on that rug made from recycled tires? Did you go out and hug a tree?

No – I didn’t think so.

You don’t have to do wild, crazy or zany things to celebrate Earth Day – a day marked on the calendar since the 1970’s to promote the environmental movement.

Little simple things make a world of difference.

Just take a stroll through your home to start. Look up at that bright thing – no not the sun, your lights. Are you using low energy florescent bulbs, or the older, more power-hungry incandescent ones? Today would be a great day to change all your old light bulbs to the newer, greener versions – and that won’t cost a whole lot, or take a lot of time.

While passing through your kitchen or bathroom, think about paper. Do you use recycled paper products for such things as toilet paper and paper towel? No? Go out and get some, if you have the non-recycled stuff you can compare the two and see there really isn’t much difference, aside from one being better for the planet and our home, the Earth.

Speaking of towels, what do you use to clean your home? Do you use environmentally-friendly all natural products, or ones courtesy of the chemical industry? Earth Day is a great excuse to change your cleaning ways, by getting all natural cleaning agents (you’d be surprised how much you can clean with a little white vinegar and some baking soda).

And while you are replacing your cleaning agents, you can take away all your hazardous waste to proper hazardous waste recycling facilities – most municipalities have these, allowing you to freely drop-off toxins so they don’t end up in our landfills. They take things like ammonia, paints and paint thinner, old batteries, some even take old and broken computers and other techno-toys which don’t work anymore, but contain heavy metals that could contaminate our world if just tossed in the trash. Contact your local government for information about local hazardous material recycling or reclamation programs today, to celebrate Earth Day.

Good thing Earth Day happens in spring, ‘cause you can do a lot of environmental spring cleaning right from your home. You could even call up a charity or two, and donate all your old clothes that you were going to throw out – lots of fabrics have been treated with dyes and chemicals which contaminate local water tables when thrown out. By donating them, you help others, while keeping your drinking water clean.

Water – it is a fundamental resource for all life to exist, just look at all those water bottles lying around. What a waste. Wouldn’t it be easier – and better for the environment to get a water filtration system, than purchasing water bottles en mass? You can install a water filter on your kitchen and bathroom faucets, or even simpler, buy a water filtration pitcher and just fill it up from the tap. Either way, you’ll have fresh, clean water, and only have to toss out a water filter every couple of months, instead of going through on average about 25 plastic water bottles per person per month.

While we’re in the wet works, take a look at your toilet – is it one of those old clunkers that takes forever to refill after a flush? You can save on your water bills, and help the planet by purchasing a low-flush toilet. Some local municipalities will even give you a rebate on your water bill when you send them a copy of your invoice showing you purchased one, so you’ll not only use less water, but get back some of the initial funds you spent to get the new toilet.

Don’t forget to wash your hands – are you using environmentally-friendly, biodegradable soaps? No?

See – there are lots of little things you can do right at home, to better your world on this Earth Day.

Happy Earth Day!

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Everyday Should Be Earth Day

Only two days to go until Earth Day – the spot on the calendar when the world recognizes the need to be more environmentally-friendly.

First held on April 22, 1970 by a group of hippies hip to the need to generate more interest in our home, planet Earth, it has since been celebrated in over 170 countries across the globe, by billions of people. Some consider Earth Day the birthday of the environmental movement, some use it to begin their own environmentally-friendly resolutions, and some just go on not knowing or caring.

Truth is Earth Day should be every day – well to a degree. While any excuse for a party is often said to be a good excuse, we shouldn’t need to party to think of the Earth.

When our homes are in need of cleaning or repair, we don’t think twice about it, we just do it. That should be the same sort of thought process for being environmentally-friendly – when we do things which affect our home, planet Earth, we shouldn’t need to think about it, we should naturally just do what is best for our home.

As advanced as space travel has come in over four decades, we still have nowhere to live but here on planet Earth. Missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond are still in their infancy – actually American President Barack Obama canceled the mission to the Moon just last week, during his re-tooling of the American Space Program and NASA’s funding.

So finding another planet to live on isn’t in the cards, at least not in our lifetimes, or even the lifetimes of our kid’s kids, and maybe not even then.

Over the course of this week, the media will sing and dance with stories about the environment. There is a story today on CNN.com about a man not only trying to sell electric cars, but trying to create changes in society to put in place the infrastructure to support those fully electric cars (by having charging stations at all work places, and even having robotic battery swapping stations to swap out discharged batteries for fully charged ones.)

Saw an advertisement the other day for a special Earth Day Brita Water Filtration Pitcher – nothing really different about it other than it is green in color. The ad didn’t specify if the company was donating any of the proceeds of the sales to an environmental cause.

Even locally here, recently there was a story about how the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, was holding his annual city clean-up, where the city supplies garbage bags free to residents volunteering to pick up litter.

All of these are great at getting our minds into the environmental framework – but in order for us to really achieve a liveable city, town, or village, our daily actions need to always be environmentally-friendly.

We need to constantly act in the best interests of ourselves, and our planet.
From simple every day purchases such as light bulbs, batteries, and dish washing soap, to the big ticket purchases such as cars, homes, and appliances, they all need to be products which are environmentally-friendly. Instead of letting the water run, leaving the lights on when no one is around, or even just leaving your battery chargers plugged into the wall when nothing is being charged, even the teeny-tiny things make a world of difference.

Earth Day is a great excuse for a party, so let’s celebrate. But don’t leave behind your environmentally-friendly thinking cap.

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Earth Hour Lights Up Need to Be Green

Tonight, cities and towns around the world will go dim for an hour, in show of support for our planet. I remember last year, I was chilling in front of the television, flipping channels, when I came across The Weathernetwork, which was covering the event live.

Immediately I ran to my balcony – I live on the upper floors of a high rise in Toronto, Canada – and I witnessed an amazing thing.

The usual Toronto skyline, with the CN Tower, bank towers, and other tall structures which light the night’s sky were dark – all except their airplane warning lights. It was an eerie darkness, as all I could see was the occasional flash of red warning lights, where there usually are well lit buildings. If you stared long enough, you could make out the silhouettes of the buildings. In the dim moonlight, my eyes started to get sore from the strain.

I looked down closer to home, and the neighborhoods around me were also quite dim. You could see the bluish flicker of lights emanating from windows, as people were watching television, but all the other lights in their homes were off.

Earth Hour – an event organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – takes place across the globe, from Canada and the United States, to across the pond in Europe and elsewhere.

Although chances are you won’t notice much of a drop in your electricity bill from shutting off your lights for the one hour event, as people across your area shut off their lights, you do see a difference.

Last year it was reminiscent of when I was a kid up at the cottage in Georgian Bay. Sure we had electrical lights, we weren’t that far removed from the benefits of modern life. But when I was a kid, spending much of my summers up north, I could see something you don’t often get to see in the big cities – stars.

I am lucky living in an area where I can still see the stars every so often. But up north, the whole night’s sky is ablaze with stars. Here in the city, generally I see just the brightest stars, such as the Big Dipper cluster, the North Star, and occasionally a handful of others. But up north, you’d swear you were seeing the entire galaxy.

During the Earth Hour event last year, I could see far more stars than I had ever seen in the city before. It was spectacular. Maybe it was our reward for turning off our lights.
Reducing energy by cutting our lights for Earth Hour won’t prevent global warming – but it isn’t a bad way to start.

The whole genesis of Earth Hour, according to the WWF is to show our support for energy reduction in the fight against global warming.

Global warming is just a natural part of our planet’s life. Throughout all of time on this blue-green dot in the Milky Way, the Earth has gone through regular climatic changes. Due to the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, our planet is constantly either warming or cooling.

Our planet’s orbit around the Sun is elliptical, meaning some orbits bring us closer to our gas giant Sun, which causes the Earth to heat and warm, while other orbits take us further away, creating colder periods, often resulting in ice ages.

For the past decade, our orbit has been one of closer proximity to the Sun, which is why we’re experiencing a global warming.

However, we are not completely innocent either – thanks to our love affair with the car, with heated homes in winter and cooled ones in summer, thanks to well lit homes at night, and even thanks to beer fridges for keeping the suds chilled, our use of fossil fuels to heat, cool and power our lives has put more Carbon-based elements into the atmosphere.

Carbon-based elements, such as Carbon Dioxide, acts like a blanket, keeping the heat our planet receives from the Sun around us, which creates a greenhouse effect. A greenhouse traps hot air inside it, keeping the area warm.

This trapped heat is in addition to the increases of heat we receive from our closer orbit to the Sun. The effects are devastating – our polar ice caps at both ends of our globe are melting at an alarming rate. As these ice masses melt, sea levels around the world rise, causing flooding in low lying areas.

Water pressures on the Earth’s crust increase as ocean and sea levels rise. This added pressure builds, until it is too much, and it is released with such force, earthquakes and tsunamis are the result.

Earthquakes and tsunamis change the global landscape literally – look at the devastation from the recent earthquakes in Hati. Plants and animals are displaced when their natural habitats are uprooted. People die in buildings that collapse, and lives are disrupted when homes, workplaces, schools and other buildings are destroyed.

Turning off the lights for one hour won’t make much of a difference – but if we take the time to practice energy efficient practices year-round, we can all make a big difference.

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High Rises and Bird Crashes

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a . . . WATCH OUT FOR THA . . .

As our cities grow larger and land is gobbled up so fast the only way to build is up, office towers, condos and apartment complexes are getting higher every year.

Not a problem, thanks to those magic metal boxes whipping us up and down these buildings. Problem is, migratory birds don’t take elevators – and because their visual acuity differs from how our human eyes work, when we humans design these buildings, often we just don’t take their point of view.

Today, two environmental groups launched legal action against a property management firm in Canada’s largest city claiming the buildings in the lawsuit are migratory bird killing complexes.

Ontario Nature and Ecojustice initiated legal proceedings against Menkes, claiming that over 800 birds have died after flying into three of its Menkes’ office towers. The environmental groups have filed the lawsuit under the Environmental Protection Act and the OSCPA Cruelty to Animals Act, claiming the buildings at 100, 200 and 300 Consilium Place have the most reflective glass windows in the entire city, leading to the high numbers of bird deaths.

At first thought, this story might appear to be just a media stunt, to coincide with this month’s Earth Hour event. Organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Earth Hour is an annual event where businesses and residents around the world are encouraged to turn off all their lights for one entire hour, to show their support for climate change. In the past, cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and others have all participated.

In Toronto last year, all the skyscrapers and even the world famous CN Tower turned off all but their hallway and airplane warning lights, creating an eerie dark silence rarely seen in the city.

This may be a media stunt leading up to Earth Hour – which takes place in Toronto on March 27 – but birds do die from crashing into buildings.

Migratory birds – birds which migrate through cities en route to their mating sites in the spring, winter homes in the fall – aren’t as adaptable to city living as local birds which call our cities home. Birds that don’t migrate, but live in our cities year-round seem to have grown accustom to our high rise buildings of concrete, glass and steel.

Migratory birds on the other hand, get easily confused by the lights, shiny and reflective surfaces, and will often crash into these buildings mistaking a reflection of a tree or a cloud in one of these buildings as the real thing, and heading straight for it.

Clear glass presents the greatest risk to birds, as birds can’t perceive it until they are already too close to slow down or get out of its way.

The City of Toronto does have a program in place to encourage property managers, residents and business owners living and working in high rises to be bird friendly – called Light’s Out Toronto.

Whether or not the property management firm named in the lawsuit is following the Light’s Out Toronto guidelines for making new and existing buildings more bird friendly remains to be seen – if the matter makes it to the courts this will be one of the issues raised.

There are a number of things in the city’s guidelines which can be done to new and existing buildings to make them more bird friendly – such as glass treatments to reduce reflections, night lighting schemes, and other building management and operations practices.

The real issue here – as with anything related to our environment – is learning to live with nature, rather than isolated from it.

As our cities continue to expand skywards, buildings have to be designed to be bird friendly – using less reflective glass, having distinguishable patterns throughout the exterior of the building so birds see it as a solid object, and using less lights at night to avoid confusing birds are just some of the answers.

Although the environmental groups initiating a law suit against a property management firm raises awareness of these issues, that’s about all it does.

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Canadian Politico Denies Global Warming, Says it is Nothing More than Alarmism

A former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister in one brief open letter to a Quebec-based newspaper has publicly discounted the entire environmental movement, saying it is nothing more than being politically correct, leading to alarmism.

Conservative federal Member of Parliament Maxime Bernier made the comments in a letter published in La Presse newspaper last Wednesday, arguing that there is no scientific consensus on global warming, and thanking his former boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper for not rushing into policies to cut greenhouse gases.

"The debate over climate change, stifled for years by political correctness, has finally broken out in the media," he wrote in his letter. "The numerous recent revelations on errors by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have supplemented the alternative theories put forward for many years.

"We can now see that it's possible to be a 'skeptic,' or in any case to keep an open mind, on just about all the main aspects of warming theory."

Bernier was dropped from the Prime Minister’s cabinet in 2008 after he admitted he had forgotten secret documents at a girlfriend’s house with links to criminal bikers. Since his dismissal from cabinet, he’s been considered a radical, outspoken backbencher.

Dismissing the entire green movement is certainly being outspoken. And linking that anti-green sediment to the Prime Minister’s lack of action on climate change is just sour grapes stemming from Bernier’s own ineptitude with classified materials – which ultimately cost him his job as a federal minister.

Sour grapes or not, Bernier is right in his observations about a lack of action on the part Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government when climate change, and other environmental initiatives are concerned.

In 2002, Prime Minister Harper referred to the Kyoto Climate Change Accord as “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” He continued his anti-environmental leanings by calling the scientific research supporting climate change as “tentative and contradictory.”

Canada – a country known for its vast hardwood forests, rugged snow-capped Rocky Mountains, and home to the world’s largest sources of fresh water – is being led by a man who in 2006 again expressed his denial of global warming: “We have difficulties in predicting the weather in one week, or even tomorrow. Imagine in a few decades,” said Prime Minister Harper.

Most recently, the Prime Minister has set his government’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, but the Canadian government has not taken any measures to begin that reduction.

Congratulating Prime Minister Harper on his slow environmental approach, Bernier wrote in his letter to La Presse: “It would certainly be irresponsible to spend billions of dollars and impose exaggeratedly severe regulations to solve a problem whose gravity we're still far from discerning."

There are two issues here – one a former employee saying nasty things about his former boss, the other far more serious – the denial by Canadian leaders of the existence of global warming.

Bernier is just a pompous fool using the environment to forward his own personal attacks on the Prime Minister and anyone that supports the Prime Minister.
People that publicly dump their current or past employer will soon find it hard to find work – would you want to hire someone who said something bad about their boss? Just imagine what that person might one day say about you?

Denying global warming on the other hand is a far more serious problem which both Bernier and our Prime Minister unfortunately appear to share.

Yes, there is much debate in the scientific community about global warming – but that’s what scientists do to scientifically prove the existence of anything. The debate is just part of the scientific method – it isn’t a debate as to whether or not global warming is or isn’t occurring.

Anyone denying the increase in our planet’s temperatures must be smoking something pretty strong, because those hard and fast facts have been well documented. Scientists have found that our planet has a history of periods of global warming and global cooling, due in large part to our rotation around the Sun.

The Earth’s orbit around the sun isn’t a perfect circle, it is elliptical. So, there are periods when our orbit brings us closer to the sun, meaning more of the Sun’s light and heat reaches us so our global temperatures increase. Then, the orbit is slightly further away from the Sun, so our planet cools off.

This natural lifecycle of planet Earth continued for millions of years unchanged until the industrial revolution of the 1900’s, when we human beings started burning more and more fossil fuels to power our climate controlled lifestyles and create the creature comforts we enjoy today.

The burning of fossil fuels changed the carbon footprint of our planet, eventually leading to holes in the Ozone Layer which protect us from the Sun’s ultraviolet spectrum, creating thick layers of carbon-based smog, which allow the Sun’s heat to reach us, but like the clouds, trap that heat, warming our planet.

Naturally occurring cloud tops blow away in the winds, or dissipate as precipitation is released. But human-made smog’s chemical composition makes the “clouds” of smog too heavy to just blow away, often lasting days or weeks in a stinky and stagnant layer high above our heads. The rain which falls from these clouds of smog is so acidic, it kills off trees, creates acidic water bodies, and over time combines with the added heat and light from our Sun to artificially warm our planet.

Climate change is not a myth being debated in scientific circles. Climate change is the natural lifecycle of our home, planet Earth. The real debate is just how much of an impact we human beings have had on that natural lifecycle, and how to use human ingenuity to fix the natural lifecycle which we broke – if it isn’t too late.

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Furry Weather Forecasting

Tomorrow we learn from a four-legged furry creature whether or not we’ll have another six-months of winter. That is if you believe in the four-legged furry creature.

February 2 is Groundhog Day, where weather forecasters take a back seat to the noble cousin to the hedgehog – the groundhog – watching to see if it sees its shadow and hobbles back into his hole-in-the-ground-home, signaling another six-months of winter. Though if you’re a sun lover like me, you’re hoping the groundhog doesn’t retreat from fear of it’s own shadow, which means spring is just around the corner.

With all the people huddled around the poor animal’s burrow, it may turn and run away from the flash bulbs, television cameras, and weirdos dressed in tuxedos, winter coats and toques long before it can make its weather prediction.

Every year, the groundhog’s groundskeepers dress-up just for the occasion, only to get smeared with dirt and mud as they reach out and grab their precious four-legged furry creature to pose them for the news media gathered around.

Although the February 2 tradition goes back to the eighteenth century, if someone tried to grab the four-legged furry creature back then, they’d be lucky to be alive. European folk lore claims that a bear was used originally, and later, a badger replaced the bear.

According to the stories passed from generations, the celebration began as a medieval Catholic holiday called Candlemas, where a sacred bear was used to predict either the end or the continuation of winter. Though some historians say it goes back to the Pagan festival of Imbolc, which is the official change of seasons in the Celtic calendar, which just so happens to be February 2 as well.

Whichever historian you believe, Groundhog Day has taken roots in North American society, especially in towns with large Amish populations.

Some communities base their entire towns on this one day, using their groundhog as a community mascot. Gifts hops are adorned with stuffed groundhog toys of all sizes, restaurants name items on their menus after their groundhog, you can even buy groundhog candles in some towns, perfect for seeing your own shadow.

Though the question remains, who to believe? Weather forecasters with satellite, global positioning systems, RADAR tracking of weather patterns, and earth scientists, whose ear is constantly listening to their scientific gadgets and gizmos to generate not just weather forecasts, but also a deeper understanding of our planet, OR a rudely awoken four-legged furry creature that lives underground?

Despite all the mistakes weather forecasters seem to make – sometimes I wonder if they just look out the window to make their predictions – I’m putting my money on them and their informants, the earth and atmospheric scientists.

Besides, with all those bright camera lights beaming down on the furry four-legged creature, it is bound to see its shadow no matter what.

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We're Back!

Welcome to 2010!

Jordan's Daily -- Almost! took a bit of a breather over the holidays. We all need a break, even us nutty newsie muckrackers.

But we are back in full swing, covering hot topics in current affairs from a straight, no bull point of view. We'll keep you in the know about what is really going on around you, in plain English, and with lots of analysis breaking the news into bite-sized pieces for easy digestion.

From the latest in American, European and Canadian politics, to cool high-tech gadgets, gizmos and the wonders of the cosmos, to right here down on planet Earth, we'll give you glimpses into your world just not available in the traditional news media.

Last year, Jordan's Daily -- Almost! grew -- thanks to you, our loyal readers. We added new widgets to apply keywords and related articles automatically to all our posts, giving you even more sources for related information. We redesigned the layout to make this thing easier on your web-soaked eyes. And we were even ranked number one international political blog, and we're constantly in the top 500 of the most active Twitter posters in our hometown of Toronto, Canada.

We'll make more changes, and possibly bring home some more awards in 2010 -- but the main focus of this place isn't to be best in some ranking sites' eyes -- we want to be the best in YOUR eyes. The eyes of our readers.

We'll continue to tackle the issues from an easy-to-understand, no bull perspective. And we'll continue to listen to you, our dedicated readers, for story ideas, opinions, and more, to make this place the best it can be for you.

We always welcome your thoughts, ideas, rants and raves. Email us directly at jordansdaily@columnist.com, join us and debate the issues on our Facebook fan site, and keep current on the latest by following @jordansdaily on Twitter.

To the hundreds of regular readers, to the 25 or so that stop in on a semi-regular basis just to poke around and see what's new, to those newbies that just managed to land here while surfing the net -- t h a n k y o u for reading Jordan's Daily -- Almost!

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The Winter Solstice and Human Nature

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Today is the first official day of winter in the northern hemisphere – though you may be thinking otherwise if you’ve already experienced frosty temperatures.

At 12:47pm EST today, winter arrived – wow.

Actually it is a big “wow” if you go back to the start of human civilizations. Long ago we human beings were one with Mother Nature and her seasons.

Stonehenge in the United Kingdom is estimated to have been built somewhere from around 2500 to 3000 BC specifically for the Winter Solstice. The giant stone monument is an ancient burial ground, which archaeologists have cleverly figured out was used in conjunction with another Woodenhenge which is long since gone.

Locals back then would make the trek by foot from all the villages and towns up a giant path to Stonehenge in winter to honor recent and past deceased family and friends. The stones which compose Stonehenge line up perfectly to allow the final fall sunset to shine right through the giant monument – that’s one of the marvels of the thing, because during its construction, they didn’t have the technology we have now to master such miracles.

Archaeologists have found remains not far from Stonehenge of a similar structure which was once made of wood. They have found remains of celebrations, ancient pots, animal bones with burn marks (indicating they were cooked for food) and ancient chalices and other things. The remains indicate this Woodenhenge was constructed specifically to line up with the very first sunrise of summer.

These clever archaeologists have figured that the same people that built Stonehenge would travel to the Woodenhenge and have a celebration, to welcome and honor the re-birth of the growing season. Everything was tied to nature and the seasons.

At the start of the Winter Solstice, these ancient people would pray for their dead, and for the fall harvest. Then when summer returned, they would celebrate and thank their God or Gods for giving them the ability to plant crops once again.

Christian experts even link Christmas to the Winter Solstice, as they aren’t exactly sure of when Jesus Christ was born. But many believe the first Christmas happened on the last day of winter.

These days, with our incredible advances in technology, we know the seasons are caused by the Earth’s rotation around the sun. When the side of the planet you call home is furthest away, your part of the world gets colder and darker, and experiences winter, while the other side is hotter and brighter, and experiences summer.

Although knowing the science behind the seasons shows just how far we’ve come as species, we’ve lost that oneness with Mother Nature, and our world has suffered immensely from that loss.

Back before science told us how the world worked, we humans were in complete balance with all living things across the globe. We didn’t over-harvest our food or animal crops, and we didn’t overpopulate the planet with our kind either.

Back then, according to the experts, we lived in the harmonious cycles of nature with all other living things. The summer celebrations at Woodenhenge marked the start of the growing season, for crops, animals and even people – it was the mating season for us just as it was for deer, rabbits, the birds and the bees. Fall would be the harvest, when crops would be ripe for the picking, and most babies were born. Winter would be the dead season, literally as it reminded us of the power of nature. Spring would signal the start of life and lead us back to summer again.

Although it is good to know the reality of nature, it has put us over the top, out of whack and totally out of balance with nature.

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Philippine Volcano on the War Path

Experts Expect Mayon Volcano to Erupt In Next Couple of Days or Weeks

Image via Wikipedia

The Ring of Fire may unleash its fiery wrath in the Philippines, as the Mayon Volcano rumbles and roars.

About 50,000 locals were evacuated around the island nation’s most active volcano today, as it sent orange and red molten lava cascading down its sides, while off-white – but burning hot – clouds of ash and molten ambers fell from the sky.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology – which has kept a watchful eye on Mayon for years – warned residents they expect the volcano to erupt within the month. They detected 83 volcanic quakes, mostly tremors due to falling rocks.

Rockslides are not uncommon on mountainous terrain, however where volcanoes are the focal point, they are signs of much more troubling geological disturbances deep within the Earth’s crust.

Volcanoes – such as Mayon – are formed much as glaciers are, by platonic movements of the planet’s land masses. All of our continents are actually floating on the surface of the Earth on giant “plates” of land, which float on the Earth’s mantle made of liquid lava.

As these plates move across the Earth, they collide into one another. When two plates brush up against one another, enormous pressure builds, until the force is so great, one of the plates literally explodes out, and either slips underneath the obstructing plate, slides up and over the obstructing plate, or slides alongside the obstructing plate.

Any form of movement displaces the land mass on both plates, creating a shockwave which ripples up and out great distances. The area where the pressure is released, causing the slip or the slide is called the epicenter of the shockwave – the shockwave itself is felt as an earthquake.

Not all platonic movements result in earthquakes. All land on our planet is constantly moving – so slowly it is barely noticeable. We’re talking literally millimeters a day – but even this small amount of force is enough to cause dramatic changes to the landscape over time.

Over thousands of years, flat sprawling lands may turn into hilly valleys. Thousands of years later, these hills are now mountain ranges – in the northern regions they are capped with snow and ice, but along the Ring of Fire, they are capped with lava domes.

The Ring of Fire is a horseshow-shaped area circling the Pacific Basin spanning some 40,000 KM. This ring is bound by tectonic plates, which is why it is home to over 75 percent of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes – 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes happen within this region too. At last count, there were 452 volcanoes in the Ring of Fire.

As the tectonic plates crash and collide, they build mountains, and the pressure from deep within the Earth’s molten crust is forced up into these mountains. As the molten lava bubbles up to the surface, some is released along the base and sides of these.

At the top of the mountain, bubbling lava cools and hardens at the very top, creating a rock-hard lava dome.

The pressure continues to build throughout the mountain, as the tectonic plates move the Earth around the mountain, constantly forcing more and more pressurized lava up and into the mountain.

Occasionally, if the pressure is too great, weaker areas of the mountain will explode, venting ash, rock and some lava. But over time, these natural vents may clog, cool and harden back into solid rock.

This creates pressure back down the volcano, which collides with the pressurized tectonic plate movements. When the pressure becomes too much, a plate may slip or slide, causing an earthquake. This is why earthquakes near volcanoes are a good sign the volcano is about to erupt – they are an indicator of the forces within the large mountain.

Eventually, the pressure all around may be too great for the mountain to contain, and rupture the lava dome at the top, causing a massive and sudden release of pressure – think of the force released from an exploding Champaign bottle – only much larger.

Or, occasionally, the earthquakes caused by all the pressure may be strong enough to actually rupture the lava dome at the top of the volcano, causing the sudden and massive eruption of the mountain.

As the volcano erupts into a fire ball, it shoots burning hot ash hundreds of feet into the air, as searing hot molten lava flows up and out, destroying everything in its path.

The Mayon volcano has killed over 1,200 people in its most violent eruption in 1814 – it’s last eruption occurred in 1993 – but many more could die this time around, as far more people call the neighboring 45 towns and cities circling the dangerous mountain’s base home.

Some of the cities in the “kill zone” for this 2,464 meter (8,077 foot) high massive mass of rocks the size of houses, and oozing hot lava flows include Legazpi, Ligao, Tobaco, Daraga, Camali, Guinobatan, Malililipot and Santo Domingo. The small island nation’s capital of Manila is about 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) from the six kilometer (3.7 mile) kill zone radiating out from the Mayon volcano. Anything within this area – and possibly even further – would be wiped off the planet if the volcano exploded.

The Mayon volcano has erupted 49 times since records of the large active mountain have been kept (since 1616). If it blows it’s lid as scientists are predicting, residents may have little to no warning, as predicting volcanic eruptions is not an exact science, that’s why 47, 285 people are being evacuated over the next 72-hours.

EU Signs Off Valueless Blank Cheque for Climate Change

While European politicians pat themselves on the back, claiming to have successfully agreed to a climate change initiative ahead of the Copenhagen Summit, by ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, others aren’t so sure.

United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the European Union (EU) is leading the way, with bold proposals, after he, and leaders from 27 other European countries signed the treaty.

The Lisbon Treaty, outlines, among other things, a fiscal plan for allocating funds for climate change initiatives, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The treaty budgets 100bn euros a year by 2020. That would an immediate pay out by member countries of about 5bn to 7bn euros, to achieve that 2020 spending goal.

Initially, this alienated many small EU member countries, as they said they could not afford such a high cost. Nine of these poorer countries threatened to block the deal, unless the richer countries paid more.

This is where the waters begin to get murky – no cost targets for individual EU nations were announced. In fact, the initial funding will be completely voluntary, with the details hammered out by working groups later.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the agreement

Image via Wikipedia

was "an important breakthrough that brings new momentum".


What new momentum?

The EU politicians have signed a piece of paper, and that is about all they really have accomplished.

Whenever governments make deals with no definitive plan of action, it is almost a certainty that these deals are just for public relations and have no real merit.

It is like winning the lottery, and being handed one of those enormous cardboard cheques that requires several people to hold. Just as you can’t take one of those giant cardboard cheques to the bank – they use them just for photo ops by the media – when politicians sign something into effect, but leave all the details to “working groups”, it’s all for the media’s benefit.

We live in tough economic times. Millions of people around the world are still feeling the brutal grips of the global credit crisis. Many of these people aren’t working – they don’t have jobs, or income. This has lowered the tax-base and in turn, the tax revenues for most of the industrialized nations on Earth.

Yet, in these tough economic times, governments are often called on more to provide support and training for their citizens, struggling just to survive in this global economic disaster.

So, governments are bringing in fewer revenues, but spending more. Meaning most governments are in debt – big time.

The American national debt is estimated at being in the TRILLIONS of dollars – it is at its highest amount since World War II. Some say, the United States of America owes so much debt, they may never pay it all off.

Which brings this blog posting full circle – EU nations have agreed to support the fiscal plan of the Lisbon Treaty on climate change, without allocating who will be paying for what, and how much.

As many of these governments are in a cash crunch, they will be very unlikely to spend big bucks on treaties which have not specifically dictated how much money is required to support this treaty.

By not forcing specific amounts on each individual EU country participating, the deal was easy for those up in arms about the cost to sign. They might as well be crossing their fingers behind their backs and chiming “na-nah-nah-na,” because they can easily go back on their word for funding support, or just pay the bare minimum they can afford.

But one of the key elements of the Lisbon Treaty is financial forecasting exact monetary amounts required to achieve environmental good.

So the only good that really came out of the signing of the Lisbon Treaty is the free press for the politicians talking about the environment, and just as the plastic cheque – isn’t worth anything at all.

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Is Broadband Internet Access a Legal Right?

Those Europeans are at it again – pioneering the future for the Internet with their whacky ways.

The latest – Finland has become the first country in the world to boldly declare broadband Internet access a legal right. As of July 2010, all telecommunications companies doing business in that country must provide broadband Internet services of at least one-megabit per second or face fines.

Image by freedryk via Flickr

That means all 5.2 million citizens in the northern European nation will have broadband Internet access. Though that won’t be hard for the small country, Finland is one of the most net-friendly places on the planet, with about 95 percent of the population already online.

And that one-megabit per second mandate will grow over time – that’s just to start out and facilitate the transition so that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Finland can expand their high-speed broadband networks to the rural areas that don’t presently have such services.

By 2015, the mandate requiring telecommunications companies to provide broadband access to the Internet will have increased from one-megabit per second up to 100-megabits per second.

Finland’s new law is part of a growing philosophy in Europe where the Internet is considered as vital a part of life as water, food and shelter.

This past June, the highest court in France declared access to the Internet a fundamental human right. This came on the heels of a major campaign by the United Nations (UN) to its member countries, which lays out the new basic essentials of life in a modern society, which include access to the Internet.

Many other studies have been done on our basic needs in this modern world, and if one were to compile a list based on these studies, the new world order requires:

• Healthy food to fuel our bodies
• Safe and secure shelter to protect us from Mother Nature’s wrath
• Clean drinking water to prevent dehydration
• Clothes which protect against the elements of the natural environment
• Electricity to power much needed electronics such as lights to see, fridges to store food, stoves to cook that food and heaters to keep us warm
• Safe and proper waste disposal, to prevent the spread of disease and death
• Banking or monetary services to be able to purchase these basic needs when they run out
• A communications system to keep in touch with the outside world

Most industrialized countries around the world have policies in place to promote high-speed broadband (as opposed to lower speed, narrowband dial-up) access to the international network of networks circling the globe, collectively called the “Internet.”

Canada’s government has mandated that the telecommunications providers wire Canada’s north, bringing broadband Internet to the country’s northern regions – that’s part of the reasoning behind the network access fees ISPs charge (a similar fee is also charged by cell phone and digital television providers, for the same reasons). These fees are supposed to be used to pay for the costs of expanding the digital communications networks by the ISPs, and other carriers.

Years ago, the nation’s largest phone company – Bell Canada – complained loudly about this government initiative, claiming they were being singled out by the Canadian government just because they were so big. However, all providers have since picked up the slack, and are also collecting various fees from their subscribers to maintain and expand their digital broadband networks.

Image via Wikipedia

Ironically, one of the most powerful nations on planet Earth doesn’t have such a plan. The United States of America is the only industrialized nation not to have a formally recognized plan to promote, maintain and expand high-speed broadband Internet access to its citizens, according to a study released this past August by one of the country’s largest organized labor unions, the Communications Workers of America.

However, an American national plan is anticipated in February 2010, when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to submit such a proposal to Congress.

Still, Americans are falling behind the Europeans, as Finland is the first – and only country so far – to legally declare access to broadband Internet a human right. Other European nations are expected to follow Finlands example in the coming years.

Although the Internet is an amazing tool for communications, is it a fundamental human right? Some form of communications should be a fundamental human right. One would have thought that the telephone would win that honor.

Think about it, during an emergency situation, what’s the first thing most of us would do – aside from panic? CALL 9-1-1 (or your local emergency number) using a TELEPHONE.

Most of us have email, some form of instant messaging program, and many even have the ability to place telephone calls over the Internet, using programs like Skype.

But if your house is on fire, are you really going to run to your computer and email the fire department? If you get into a car accident, are you going to tweet for a tow truck on Twitter? If a mugger attempts to rob you as you walk home from a night out with friends, are you going to instant message the police?

The Internet is a great resource for those trying to connect with family and friends during a major traumatic event. It has been used to help coordinate messages of hope, raise funds for victims, even as a way for friends and family to locate loved ones during major catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina in Mexico and the southern U.S., the Asia-Pacific Rim Tsunami, the forest fires off the west coast of North America, even the Red River flooding in Manitoba, Canada and other natural disasters.

But for immediate response with emergency workers, we use the telephone.

Yes, you can do so much more with the Internet than a phone. But playing online games, downloading movies, and poking someone on Facebook aren’t nearly as important as the ability to instantly connect with live-saving resources when they are needed.

Sure, we can conduct important life-changing tasks online, from banking, ordering food, even applying for a new way to earn a living.

But until the police, fire and ambulance services are just a point and click away, the telephone is the communications technology which should be a fundamental human right in the industrialized world.

The Internet is important, but not something our lives really depend upon.

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