Weather looks good

June 9, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Eco

Weather for about the next 15,000 years should be warm and stable -- barring human interference -- according to scientists.
They have drilled three km (1.8 miles) into the Antarctic ice to produce the oldest-ever continuous climate record, from an ice core dating back 740,000 years.
It shows eight ice ages, or glacials, followed by shorter interglacial periods and changing concentrations of gases and particles in the atmosphere.
The period that corresponds most to the present interglacial period, which started 12,000 years ago, was about 400,000 years ago and lasted roughly 28,000 years.
"Our data say we won't go into another ice age. We have 15,000 years before that is coming," Dr Eric Wolff, of the British Antarctic Survey, told a news conference on Wednesday.
But concentrations of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) today are the highest seen in the last 440,000 years.

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Climate change movie not exactly rocket science

April 27, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Eco

Next month, a nifty little movie called The Day After Tomorrow will arrive in theatres. It looks like your standard Hollywood action-adventure fare, but at least the premise is interesting. It follows what could happen if the Earth's climate abruptly shifted, causing chaos worldwide.
While the movie is based on a real phenomenon - abrupt climate change - it is very much a work of fiction. It's a disaster film, and has no more grounding in reality than the director's last big movie, Independence Day, in which aliens invaded the earth.
The theory behind abrupt climate change goes like this: if the North Atlantic portion of the world's great ocean current slowed down or stopped, warm water from the tropics might not make it up to Europe. And since that warm current is largely responsible for mild temperatures in Western Europe, its loss could cause temperatures in the region to plunge, along with a host of other altered weather patterns around the world, such as droughts in North America.

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Mommy Kills Animals

March 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Eco

A PETA comic (of course).
Kids will see the bloody truth behind their moms. pretentious pelts. Accompanied by graphic photographs of skinned carcasses and animals languishing on fur farms, children will read: "Lots of wonderful foxes, raccoons, and other animals are kept by mean farmers who squish them into cages so small that they can hardly move. They never get to play or swim or have fun. All they can do is cry-just so your greedy mommy can have that fur coat to show off in when she walks the streets."
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Ask Google Why They Canceled Oceana’s Ads

February 26, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Eco

Oceana recently bought two ads with Google for its Web sites oceana.org and StopCruisePollution.com. Only two days after the ads started running, Google shut them down.
Why? They tell us that they will not run any ad containing or linking to a Web site with "language critical of Royal Caribbean" or "the cruise industry"!
Never mind that none of their written policies include such a rule, and only one of the two canceled ads even mentions Royal Caribbean in the first place.
Why did Google stop our ads from running? Send an e-mail to them asking them why saving the oceans is too hot of an issue for Google to handle!
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Big-Ass Grow operation in Canada

January 13, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Eco

Cutting-edge technology was used at Canada's largest indoor marijuana factory to avoid detection and to grow thousands of illicit plants inside a former Molson brewery, police say.
An estimated 30,000 plants . estimated to be worth $30 million . in various stages of production were discovered by police in the raid at the landmark for southern Ontario commuters. Many of the plants were blossoming inside 25 beer vats that had been converted for incubation.
The operators used an "extremely sophisticated" and professional growing system that turned the giant vats into hot houses filled with hundreds of hydroponic plants, police said.
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Pacific Domes

December 18, 2003 D. H. McKee
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Eco

Ideal family dwelling, guest house, workshop, or yoga studio. Architecturally engineered steel frame handles heavy snow and hurricane winds.
[pacific_domes.jpg]
The power of the world always works in circles, the sky is round, and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down in a circle, the moon does the same. And both always come back to where they were. The life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood. And so it is in everything where power moves.

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The Mushroom House

December 18, 2003 D. H. McKee
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Eco

The Mushroom House, located in Whistler, Canada was first devised in the late 1970s. Zube, the artist/creator, has spent 22 years developing, creating and re-creating this haven and work of art.
The Mushroom House is now fully grown. We invite you in, to explore and to enjoy. Take your time.
The interior design is based on the anatomy of a tree. All aspects of the d�cor reflect this motif, from the womblike hues of the Jacuzzi room in the 'roots' to the vivid leaf greens on the walls in the 'canopy'.
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Isabel’s Being Bitchy

September 18, 2003 D. H. McKee
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Eco

The centre of Hurricane Isabel is moving closer to the coast of North Carolina and is expected to make landfall early this afternoon. Hurricane conditions are already beginning to spread over a large area of the coast well ahead of the centre. Wind gusts to hurricane-force could also extend inland up to 240 kilometres along the path of Isabel.
"It's really cranking. All of a sudden winds easily gusted to 65 miles an hour here. This is definitely one of those pushes of winds coming in. Very heavy rain too. That has been one of the things that has not let up at all this morning, and that's going to continue to be a problem," said The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore in North Carolina this morning.
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Super squid surfaces in Antarctic

April 2, 2003 D. H. McKee
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Eco

A colossal squid has been caught in Antarctic waters, the first example of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni retrieved virtually intact from the surface of the ocean.
There have only ever been six specimens of this squid recovered: five have come from the stomachs of sperm whales and the sixth was caught in a trawl net at a depth of 2,000 to 2,200 metres.

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Save the Tree Octopus

February 25, 2003 D. H. McKee
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Eco, Humour

The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopi are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestrial [sic] aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.
[Tree Octopus]

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