Posts Tagged ‘Planet Earth’
Night shining clouds
Better known as Noctilucent Clouds
(Hoping this link is still available on the BBC web site)
Just watch this and be inspired!
From that BBC link:
Each summer, high in the night skies of the far northern and southern hemispheres a unique phenonmenon occurs – noctilucent clouds. Little is known about them, but now an amateur astronomer from north Wales is trying to predict when they are likely to appear.
Here, John Rowlands, one of four finalists in the BBC’s search for the Amateur Scientist of the Year So You Want To Be A Scientist? – and his mentor, Professor Nick Mitchell from the University of Bath – take a closer look at these mysterious silver and blue waves at the edge of space.
John has his own Facebook page here with plenty more information.
And a quick Google images search found this:
Noctilucent clouds
And there’s still more. This delightful video on YouTube, courtesy of NASA.
Described thus:
The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission will provide the first detailed exploration of Earth’s unique and elusive noctilucent or night shining clouds that are found literally on the “edge of space.” Located near the top of the Earth’s mesosphere (the region just above the stratosphere), very little is known about how these polar mesospheric clouds form or why they vary. They are being seen at lower latitudes than ever before and have been growing brighter and more frequent, leading some scientists to suggest that this recent increase may be the direct result of human-induced climate change. The mission is led by Dr. James Russell of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University.
By Paul Handover
(with thanks to the UK Flyer List for bringing this to my attention.)
Fear and the alternative
“Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid.” — Patricia Alexander, American educational psychologist.
This dropped into my email in-box the other day so I grabbed it to set this Post off on the right theme.
There is much around that can generate fear, touched on in my Post a couple of days ago where I quoted Richard Branson.
Prof. Lovelock
For an example of fear, many will have listened to the recent interview of Professor James Lovelock on the BBC Today programme and wondered just where we are all heading. ( The interview may be listened to here. – it’s 7 minutes long but listen to it!)
Here’s a YouTube video of Lovelock being interviewed in 2009. (Also worthy of watching for the full 13 minutes and note the connection between Lovelock and Branson.)
So if you listened and watched these two interviews then one could argue that there is more than enough to be fearful of our future.
Now go back to the opening quotation: “Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid.”
Being fearful is not the answer – even if no alternative appears to be a rational way of mentally processing something.
Here’s a piece from Wayne Dyer’s book, There’s a Spiritual Solution to every Problem.
We are subjected to many illusions in our daily life. The greatest one is the one that keeps us trapped in giving our energy to what always has been.
The past is behind us. Predicting the future accurately, even by eminent scientists such as James Lovelock, is very, very unreliable. Thus all we have is today. So do not be afraid, be curious.
By Paul Handover
Anniversary message from Jon
On coming of age
It’s been a partly exhilarating and very scary 12 months since the launch of Learning from Dogs. I can’t remember a time when there has been so much change and uncertainty that hits right down to the foundations of everyone.
Twelve months ago these changes were merely hinted at, and then only to a few in the upper strata of the finance world, from my point of view anyway. How everything seems to have changed now!
Where lies ahead?
Warnings abound about our use of our worlds’ resources. Our seeming need to procreate without self imposed limit is leading us to a place that coupled with climate change, we will be unable to sustain the current world’s population, let alone the projected increase within 20 years or so. Water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world and so is food.
For those who are awakening from a media-induced slumber which distorts and bends reality to suit who can apply the greatest financial influence and weighting, the reality of the situation we are facing as a planet, is rapidly catching us up.
We still have choices – all is not lost and they will require a highly integrous group of people and thinkers to guide us through the next hundred years or so. In other words, in our children’s or children’s, children’s lifetimes. People who are not driven by the ego, but to serve the highest good.
So what can we do as individuals? Enjoy what we have, perhaps? I think, work on ourselves through awareness and expose ourselves to everything positive and integrous.
Most of our problems lie within, from that thing called an ego, that would rather drive us to death, rather than admit it might be wrong. The world would be an even more positive place if we worked on ourselves and our awareness rather than looking for all the answers ‘out there’, with somebody or something else.
So, how do we work with that? Well, no surprises there really – by bringing in awareness and coming out of the dream state, or nightmare state, depending on how you see things at the moment, and into the Present or Now, as some writers have called it.
How do we do that? It can simply begin by remembering to breath! So by bringing our awareness to the breath, we come back into our bodies and out of the trance going on in the mind. Approximately 95% of our time is spent in this self-induced trance-like state, by the way.
Think you can’t survive without ‘your mind’ or ‘your thoughts’. There’s no such thing really. By coming out of the mind and back into the body, slowly, with practice and awareness, the noise gently starts to subside and we become aware of spaces of silence or no thought. That is where the answers lie, not in thinking.
The intellect and what we have learned kicks in after the quiet, to allow us to put into action what has come up through the silence.
Most of us have such a huge investment in ‘our thoughts’ or ‘our ideas’. If we could just make the time to sit still, in peace and quiet, so much more would be revealed to us.
So in this brave, new world going forward, to badly quote Einstein, we must aspire to move onto a higher level than the one that triggered this road we are relentlessly pursuing. We need to start becoming aware of the interconnectedness of all beings and focus on activities that are for the highest good, that benefit everyone, rather for the benefit of the few, to the detriment of the many.
By Jon Lavin
Anniversary message from Paul
Learning from Dogs has been running for one year.
On July 15th, 2009 a post called Parenting lessons from Dogs started what has now become a bit of a ‘habit’. But more reflections tomorrow.
Reach for the Skies
Today I want to voice something that has been running around my mind for some time. It is whether we give in to the mounting doom and gloom at so many levels in our societies (and it can be a very compelling draw) or whether we see this as a painful but necessary period where slowly but surely the desires of ordinary people; for a fairer, more truthful, more integrous world are gaining power.
And I’m going to use Richard Branson to voice it for me!
(Now this is an unusually long Post so I’ve inserted the Read More divider to prevent the Post visually swamping your browser.)
Incentive to apply for retirement!
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
A quick Google search shows that this is a well-documented story that has been doing the rounds since 2009. But I hadn’t come across it before so was very grateful for a friend in England, Richard Howell, including me on a recent email circulation. I shall reproduce Richard’s email just as it was received.
OK… so… you’re the pilot of a plane…
It’s on auto-pilot and you’re catching up on People magazine and having a cup of coffee.
Suddenly the loudest sound you will ever hear goes off just behind your left ear.
You’re blinded by the flash and can’t hear.
All you can feel is something warm running down your leg.
You immediately consider retirement.
This is an Atlantic Southeast Airlines/Delta Connection aircraft… soon after it suffered a lightning strike.
Yep… time to RETIRE!
Thanks Richard,
By Paul Handover
Gulf Oil Spill – that feeling of déjà vu!
Rachel Maddow on how we have been here before.
Rachel M
(Thanks to Peter Nauman for this tip.)
Well done the Rachel Maddow on MSNBC-TV.
Watch this YouTube video of a recent show and run out of words!
By Paul Handover
That oil spill
Visualisation of data
I can’t recall how but I came across a web site that focuses on ‘translating’ data into pictures. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. The web site is called Information is Beautiful.
Anyhow, they have attempted to graphically portray the scale of the BP oil spill. (A thumbnail is below but please click on the link, or here, to see this as it was meant to be shown.)
Ouch!
But this image is an update of an earlier one here that is really powerful. Because it attempts to put the scale of the oil spill into context with global oil consumption.
If the Purdue University estimate of the oil spill is correct at 48,500 barrels a day (a barrel is approximately the equivalent of two car tankfuls of gas/petrol) and the spill is contained in 90 days then the total oil spilled will be:
90 x 48,500 = 4,365,000 barrels
That is an enormous quantity.
But have a guess as to how much that would represent in terms of hourly global oil consumption?
Any idea?
Well global oil consumption is 3,500,000 barrels an hour.
So 90 days at 48,500 barrels a day represents just 1 hour 15 minutes worth of global consumption!
If there was ever an argument for the world to wean itself off oil then this would appear to be it.
What has happened so far is tragic – tragic beyond measure. But if it turns out to be a ‘tipping point’ for nations to reconsider how we find and use energy then, perhaps, it will have been a horrible lesson that we all had to take.
And if the USA puts all it’s collective back into leading the world out of our addiction to oil then the damage and hardship will not have been in vain.
By Paul Handover
Watch, and learn, Part Three
Growth is good? Good for what?
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101″? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are here , Part Three and Four here and Parts Five and Six in this post. The concluding two parts are tomorrow.
Part Five
Part Six
By Paul Handover
Watch, and learn, Part Two
Growth is good? Good for what?
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101″? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are here with Part Three and Four in this post. The remaining four parts over the next two days.
Part Three
Part Four
By Paul Handover
Watch, and learn about growth!
Growth is good? Good for what?
We live on a finite Earth. But really understanding what that means is difficult. I guess because most of us think that in our own little way we can’t really be doing any harm to the planet – I mean what’s another few grams of CO2?
Al Bartlet, University of Colorado
Well here’s Dr Albert Bartlett of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado chatting about arithmetic! And if you go to his website, you will come across this quote on the home page:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Want to sit in on his famous lecture, “Arithmetic, Population and Energy: Sustainability 101″? Well you can.
The lecture is broken down into 8 10-minute videos, each of them on YouTube. The first two instalments are in this post with each of the following three days having the next two.
Part One
Part Two
By Paul Handover
Paul Handover
