Category: Environment

Next ice age?

Uh, thought the great issue was global warming!

So just a day after the 2011 Summer Solstice, the sun is again a topic on this Blog.

Last Saturday’s issue of The Economist had amongst it’s leaders, a piece with the headline of Several lines of evidence suggest that the sun is about to go quiet.

Coincidentally I had seen, just a few hours previously, a similar story on the UK website The Register.  Let me quote a little from that item.

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

Physicists say sunspot cycle is ‘going into hibernation’

By Lewis Page • Posted in Science, 14th June 2011 17:00 GMT

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.

The announcement made on 14 June (18:00 UK time) comes from scientists at the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) and US Air Force Research Laboratory. Three different analyses of the Sun’s recent behaviour all indicate that a period of unusually low solar activity may be about to begin.

It was a moment’s effort to go to the US National Solar Observatory website (great website, by the way) and read that recent press release.  The press release link is here and it really is a ‘must read’ item.  Here’s just a flavour of what was written,

WHAT’S DOWN WITH THE SUN?
MAJOR DROP IN SOLAR ACTIVITY PREDICTED

A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, independent studies of the solar interior, visible surface, and the corona indicate that the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.

“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network, said of the results. “But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”

Spot numbers and other solar activity rise and fall about every 11 years, which is half of the Sun’s 22-year magnetic interval since the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse with each cycle. An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots during 1645-1715.

Hill is the lead author on one of three papers on these results being presented this week. Using data from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) of six observing stations around the world, the team translates surface pulsations caused by sound reverberating through the Sun into models of the internal structure. One of their discoveries is an east-west zonal wind flow inside the Sun, called the torsional oscillation, which starts at mid-latitudes and migrates towards the equator. The latitude of this wind stream matches the new spot formation in each cycle, and successfully predicted the late onset of the current Cycle 24.

“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now,” Hill explained, “but we see no sign of it. This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”

As I said, the item is essential reading and the full release may be read here.  Another benefit of going to that NSO press release is that you will find another link to the full text and pictures.  The pictures are just stunning.  Here’s one of them.

The Sun viewed in visible light, at minimum phase (2006) and maximum phase (2001)

Seriously, if you are interested in learning more about our Sun and the nature of solar cycles, this strikes me as an excellent place to start.

However, let me close this article by returning to the final paragraphs of that NSO Press Release.  Here they are,

All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.

“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

In response to news inquiries and stories, Dr. Frank Hill issued a follow-up statement:

“We are NOT predicting a mini-ice age. We are predicting the behavior of the solar cycle. In my opinion, it is a huge leap from that to an abrupt global cooling, since the connections between solar activity and climate are still very poorly understood. My understanding is that current calculations suggest only a 0.3 degree C decrease from a Maunder-like minimum, too small for an ice age. It is unfortunate that the global warming/cooling studies have become so politically polarizing.”

Just take that last quotation from Dr. Frank Hill and ponder, “It is unfortunate that the global warming/cooling studies have become so politically polarizing.” [my italics].

That statement from Dr. Hill combined with my friend Dan’s posting of the 16th are food for thought.  More about this on Learning from Dogs soon.

Crazy, dangerous and very, very beautiful

I love taking photographs but this takes the cake!

(Note: there’s an option in WordPress to insert a ‘read more‘ link, the effect of which is to limit what you, dear reader, can see when you first come to a Blog article.  I prefer normally not to insert that link.  But for reasons that will soon be very obvious, it has to be used in this Post.)

Just watch this.

OK, more about this amazing man follows,

Continue reading “Crazy, dangerous and very, very beautiful” →

More from Lester Brown

The president of Earth Policy Institute presents his thesis on how best to save mankind.

Before turning to the theme of this Post, just a personal message.  I arrived back home in Payson, Arizona yesterday and, as much as I love the huge number of readers that now regularly visit Learning from Dogs, I love my dear wife rather more 😉  So for the next few days, please understand why this Blog will be tending to ‘republish’ the fine works of others, to lessen the creative load on yours truly.

Here’s the Lester Brown article that was recently published on the Earth Policy Institute website.

JUNE 09, 2011
Turning Toward the Sun for Energy

Lester R. Brown

One key component of the Plan B climate stabilization strategy is solar energy. Solar is even more ubiquitous than wind energy and can be harnessed with both solar photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal collectors.

Solar PV—both silicon-based and thin film—converts sunlight directly into electricity. The growth in solar cell production climbed from an annual expansion of 38 percent in 2006 to an off-the-chart 89 percent in 2008, before settling back to 51 percent in 2009. At the end of 2009, there were 23,000 megawatts of PV installations worldwide, which when operating at peak power could match the output of 23 nuclear power plants. Germany, with an installed PV power generating capacity of almost 10,000 megawatts, is far and away the world leader in installations.

On the manufacturing front, the early leaders—the United States, Japan, and Germany—have been overtaken by China, which produces more than twice as many solar cells annually as Japan. World PV production has roughly doubled every two years since 2001 and exceeded 20,000 megawatts in 2010.

Historically, photovoltaic installations were small-scale—mostly residential rooftop installations. Now that is changing as utility-scale PV projects are being launched in several countries. The United States, for example, has under construction and development some 77 utility-scale projects, adding up to 13,200 megawatts of generating capacity. Morocco is now planning five large solar-generating projects, either photovoltaic or solar thermal or both, each ranging from 100 to 500 megawatts.

More and more countries, states, and provinces are setting solar installation goals. Italy’s solar industry group is projecting 15,000 megawatts of installed capacity by 2020. Japan is planning 28,000 megawatts by 2020. The state of California has set a goal of 3,000 megawatts by 2017. Solar-rich Saudi Arabia recently announced that it plans to shift from oil to solar energy to power new desalination plants that supply the country’s residential water. It currently uses 1.5 million barrels of oil per day to operate some 30 desalting plants.

With installations of solar PV climbing, with costs continuing to fall, and with concerns about climate change escalating, cumulative PV installations could reach 1.5 million megawatts (1,500 gigawatts) in 2020. Although this estimate may seem overly ambitious, it could in fact be conservative, because if most of the 1.5 billion people who lack electricity today get it by 2020, it will likely be because they have installed home solar systems. In many cases, it is cheaper to install solar cells for individual homes than it is to build a grid and a central power plant.

The second, very promising way to harness solar energy on a massive scale is a large-scale solar thermal technology, often referred to as concentrating solar power (CSP), that uses reflectors to concentrate sunlight on a liquid, producing steam to drive a turbine and generate electricity. One of the attractions of utility-scale CSP plants is that heat during the day can be stored in molten salt at temperatures above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat can then be used to keep the turbines running for eight or more hours after sunset.

CSP first came on the scene with the construction of a 350-megawatt solar thermal power plant complex in California. Completed in 1991, it was the world’s only utility-scale solar thermal generating facility until the completion of a 64-megawatt power plant in Nevada in 2007.

Although solar thermal power has been slow to get under way, utility-scale plants are being built rapidly now, led by the United States and Spain. The United States has more than 40 solar thermal power plants operating, under construction, and under development that range from 10 to 1,200 megawatts each. Spain has 60 power plants in these same stages of development, most of which are 50 megawatts each. The American Solar Energy Societynotes that solar thermal resources in the U.S. Southwest can satisfy current U.S. electricity needs nearly four times over.

In July 2009, a group of 11 leading European firms and one Algerian firm, led by Munich Re and including Deutsche Bank, Siemens, and ABB, announced that they were going to craft a strategy and funding proposal to develop solar thermal generating capacity in North Africa and the Middle East. Their proposal would meet the needs of the producer countries and supply part of Europe’s electricity via undersea cable.

This initiative, known as the Desertec Industrial Initiative, could develop 300,000 megawatts of solar thermal generating capacity—huge by any standard. Caio Koch-Weser, vice chair of Deutsche Bank, noted that “the Initiative shows in what dimensions and on what scale we must think if we are to master the challenges from climate change.”

Even before this proposal, Algeria—for decades an oil exporter—was planning to build 6,000 megawatts of solar thermal generating capacity for export to Europe via undersea cable. The Algerians note that they have enough harnessable solar energy in their vast desert to power the entire world economy. This is not a mathematical error. The German government was quick to respond to the Algerian initiative. The plan is to build a 1,900-mile high-voltage transmission line from Adrar deep in the Algerian desert to Aachen, a town on Germany’s border with the Netherlands.

At the global level, Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association, and the International Energy Agency’s SolarPACES program have outlined a plan to develop 1.5 million megawatts of solar thermal power plant capacity by 2050. For Earth Policy Institute’sPlan B to save civilization, we suggest a more immediate world goal of 200,000 megawatts by 2020, a goal that may well be exceeded as the economic potential becomes clearer.

The pace of solar energy development is accelerating as the installation of rooftop solar water heaters—solar thermal collectors on a smaller scale—takes off. This technology is sweeping China like wildfire, with an estimated 1.9 billion square feet of rooftop solar thermal collectors installed, enough to supply 120 million Chinese households with hot water. Other developing countries such as India and Brazil may also soon see millions of households turning to this inexpensive water heating technology. Once the initial installment cost of rooftop solar water heaters is paid back, the hot water is essentially free.

In Europe, where energy costs are relatively high, rooftop solar water heaters are also spreading fast. Systems typically pay for themselves in electricity savings within 10 years. In Austria, 15 percent of all households now rely on them for hot water. As in China, in some Austrian villages nearly all homes have rooftop collectors. And some 2 million Germans are now living in homes where water and space are both heated by rooftop solar systems.

The U.S. rooftop solar water heating industry has historically concentrated on a niche market—selling and marketing 100 million square feet of solar water heaters for swimming pools between 1995 and 2005. The industry was poised to mass-market residential solar water and space heating systems when federal tax credits were introduced in 2006. Led by Hawaii, California, and Florida, annual U.S. installation of these systems has more than tripled since 2005. The state of Hawaii requires that all new single-family homes have rooftop solar water heaters. California aims to install 200,000 solar water heaters by 2017, and New York State aims to have 170,000 residential solar water systems in operation by 2020.

With the cost of rooftop heating systems declining, many other countries will likely join Israel, Spain, and Portugal in mandating that all new buildings incorporate rooftop solar water heaters. Worldwide, Plan B calls for a total of 1,100 thermal gigawatts of rooftop solar water and space heating capacity by 2020.

Moving fast to harness the world’s enormous solar potential would bring a clear win for local economies and for the climate.

Adapted from World on the Edge by Lester R. Brown. Full book available online atwww.earth-policy.org/books/wote

There are a couple of videos well worth watching on YouTube, one that’s just under 10 minutes,

and a full-length one of 1 hr 7 minutes,

Always two sides

I am indebted to my life-long friend, Dan Gomez, for this piece.

Background (Personal nostalgia warning!!!)

Dan and I go back too many years; I mean way too many!  He and I met in Spring 1979 when I was addressing a national conference of US Commodore PC dealers in Boston, USA.  I was there to promote a British Word Processing program called Wordcraft, written by Peter Dowson, that I had exclusive rights to.  I was also a Commodore PC dealer in Colchester, Essex, England; indeed I was the 8th dealer appointed in the UK.  The luck in finding Wordcraft is underlined by the fact that between 1970 and 1978 I was a salesman with IBM UK Office Products division and ended up as a word-processing specialist salesman for IBM.

Anyway, in my sales pitch to these US dealers, I used the word ‘fortnight’, a common term in England.  From somewhere out in the audience, this Californian voice shouted out, “Hey Handover, what’s a fortnight?”  Many readers will be aware that Americans don’t use that term.  That Californian voice was Dan!

From that cheeky start came a great relationship including Dan being my West Coast distributor for Wordcraft.  It was Dan’s sister, whom I have also known for countless years, who invited me to her Winter home in San Carlos, Mexico, to spend Christmas 2007 with her and her husband and which was the catalyst of me meeting Jean, who is now by most beautiful wife!

Dan, my Best Man, at the wedding of Jean and me, November 20th 2010

————————ooOOOoo————————

OK, to the theme of this article.

Shortly after the Newsweek ‘Weather Panic‘ article on the 10th, Dan sent me this email,

Paul – Saw your blog vis a vis Newsweek’s recent cover.

Don’t forget to publish the other side of this perennial story without all the sensationalism of selling newspapers and proselytizing to the unwashed masses or you could end up drinking your own cool-aid.  The science of weather cycles, sun activity, ocean currents, high-altitude jet streams, colliding warm/cool fronts have been at work long before any creature walked the earth, let alone man. The facts demonstrate this time and time again. Good science is skeptical science and needs to be viewed carefully by way of verifiable and constant testing of hypotheses.

The below article, although not at all sexy, has a different view, in general, as to the vagaries of weather extremes.  There are many like this and represent unbiased, and to some, unpopular scientific reasoning at work.

Just food for thought.

–DG

He then included this.

Recent Weather Extremes: Global Warming Fingerprint Not

by Chip Knappenberger
March 21, 2011

On occasion, I have the opportunity to assist Dr. Patrick J. Michaels (Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute) in reviewing the latest scientific research on climate change. When we happen upon findings in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that may not have received the media attention that they deserved, or have been misinterpreted in the popular press, Pat sometimes covers them over at the “Current Wisdom” section of the Cato@Liberty blog site.

His latest posting there highlights research findings that show that extreme weather events during last summer and the previous two winters can be fully explained by natural climate variability—and that “global warming” need not (and should not) be invoked.

This topic—whether or not weather extremes (or at least some portion of them) can be attributed to anthropogenic global warming (or, as Dr. Pielke Sr., prefers, anthropogenic climate change)—has been garnering a lot of attention as of late. It was a major reason for holding the House Subcommittee hearing last week, is a hot topic of discussion in the press, and is the subject of an in-progress major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

As such, I wanted to highlight some of the findings that Pat reported on. I encourage a visit to the full article “Overplaying the Human Contribution to Recent Weather Extremes” over at Cato@Liberty.

The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010

A new paper by Randall Dole and colleagues from the Physical Sciences Division (PSD) of the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) examined the events leading up to and causing the big heat wave in Russia last summer (which was also part of an atmospheric pattern that was connected to the floods in Pakistan). Here is what they found:

“Our analysis points to a primarily natural cause for the Russian heat wave. This event appears to be mainly due to internal atmospheric dynamical processes that produced and maintained an intense and long-lived blocking event. Results from prior studies suggest that it is likely that the intensity of the heat wave was further increased by regional land surface feedbacks. The absence of long-term trends in regional mean temperatures and variability together with the [climate] model results indicate that it is very unlikely that warming attributable to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations contributed substantially to the magnitude of this heat wave.”

As Pat commented, “Can’t be much clearer than that.”

Recent Winter Severity

From Pat’s article:

Another soon-to-be released paper to appear in Geophysical Research Lettersdescribes the results of using the seasonal weather prediction model from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) to help untangle the causes of the unusual atmospheric circulation patterns that gave rise to the harsh winter of 2009-2010 on both sides of the Atlantic. A team of ECMWF scientists led by Thomas Jung went back and did experiments changing initial conditions that were fed into the ECMWF model and then assessed how well the model simulated the known weather patterns of the winter of 2009-2010. The different set of initial conditions was selected so as to test all the pet theories behind the origins of the harsh winter. Jung et al. describe their investigations this way: “Here, the origin and predictability of the unusual winter of 2009/10 are explored through numerical experimentation with the ECMWF Monthly forecasting system. More specifically, the role of anomalies in sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice, the tropical atmospheric circulation, the stratospheric polar vortex, solar insolation and near surface temperature (proxy for snow cover) are examined.”

In a nutshell, here is what Jung et al. found:

“The results of this study, therefore, increase the likelihood that both the development and persistence of negative NAO phase [an atmospheric circulation pattern that was largely behind the harsh winter conditions] resulted from internal atmospheric dynamical processes.”

Or, as Pat put it “Translation: Random variability.”

Pat also examined a third study by Roseanne D’Arrigo and colleagues who found an historical analog of the conditions responsible for the harsh winter of 2009-2010 way back in 1783-1784. The winter of 1783-1784 was a historically extreme one on both sides of the Atlantic and has long been associated with a large volcanic eruption that occurred in Iceland during the summer of 1783. Even Benjamin Franklin connected the winter conditions to the volcano. But D’Arrigo and colleagues now suggest a different mechanism. According to Pat:

But in their new study, Roseanne D’Arrigo and colleagues conclude that the harshness of that winter primarily was the result of anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns that closely resembled those observed during the winter of 2009-10, and that the previous summer’s volcanic eruption played a far less prominent role:

“Our results suggest that Franklin and others may have been mistaken in attributing winter conditions in 1783-4 mainly to Laki or another eruption, rather than unforced variability.

“Similarly, conditions during the 2009-10 winter likely resulted from natural [atmospheric] variability, not tied to greenhouse gas forcing… Evidence thus suggests that these winters were linked to the rare but natural occurrence of negative NAO and El Niño events.”

Bottom Line

The take home message of Pat’s post is worth repeating:

The point is that natural variability can and does produce extreme events on every time scale, from days (e.g., individual storms), weeks (e.g., the Russian heat wave), months (e.g., the winter of 2009-10), decades (e.g., the lack of global warming since 1998), centuries (e.g., the Little Ice Age), millennia (e.g., the cycle of major Ice Ages), and eons (e.g., snowball earth).

Folks would do well to keep this in mind next time global warming is being posited for the weather disaster du jour. Almost assuredly, it is all hype and little might.

Be sure to check out Pat’s full article which includes much more in depth coverage of these three soon-to-be-released scientific studies.

————————ooOOOoo————————

I need to mull over this when I am back home with more time.  In the meantime, comments from readers most welcomed.

Earth’s climate

Where’s it going?

Last Friday (10th) I wrote about a recent article that appeared in the Newsweek magazine of June 6th and mused about there seeming to be a growing awareness of the changing of the Planet Earth.

I just wanted to add a few other important elements (pardon the pun) of the current awareness.

First, at the time of writing this (June 2nd) the website that shows the monthly level of CO2 in the atmosphere was still showing the figure for April.  Here it is,

CO2 in the atmosphere

Go here and check out what it is for May 2011.  We all know that it won’t be below 393.18, which is already over 12% above the maximum safe level that scientists have determined.

UPDATE (June 7th): The figures for May are now on the website CO2 Now and they are 394.35 up, as predicted, from the figure of 393.18 for April, 2011.

Then go and watch this, from Bill McKibben,

Then go to the CO2 Now website and read, and ponder and think about what is becoming increasingly obvious to us all.

Finally, read a article that Bill McKibben has recently written that seems to have been widely published.  Here it is on the TomDispatch website.  It starts thus,

Three Strikes and You’re Hot
Time for Obama to Say No to the Fossil Fuel Wish List 
By Bill McKibben

In our globalized world, old-fashioned geography is not supposed to count for much: mountain ranges, deep-water ports, railroad grades — those seem so nineteenth century. The earth is flat, or so I remember somebody saying.

But those nostalgic for an earlier day, take heart. The Obama administration is making its biggest decisions yet on our energy future and those decisions are intimately tied to this continent’s geography. Remember those old maps from your high-school textbooks that showed each state and province’s prime economic activities? A sheaf of wheat for farm country? A little steel mill for manufacturing? These days in North America what you want to look for are the pickaxes that mean mining, and the derricks that stand for oil.

Yes, it all seems ‘doom and gloom’ around us at present but then consider that the only way we, as in mankind, can change to a truly sustainable relationship with this Planet is through better understanding and a global realisation that the time for change is now!  That is a very positive message!

That very special relationship

No, not the one between the USA and the UK but between dogs and man.

Great thanks to Peter N. a loyal Learning from Dogs reader, who passed this item to me just a few days before I left for England, where I am until the 16th.  The story comes from the website Life With Dogs, not a website that I had previously come across, where it appeared on June 2nd. It is reproduced in full below.

'Puppy' Bear

A Piedmont, OK man says his devoted dog tried to save his wife’s life during last week’s tornado.

Leanne Sneed was at home when the deadly tornado struck. Her husband Gary said she took cover as the twister began to rip the house apart around her, laying down and covering her head as debris fell.

What happened next can only be explained as an act of love. Bear used his considerable frame to protect Leanne. He laid down on top of her, completely covering her body with his. He did not move, keeping her pinned under him until the storm had passed. Miraculously, despite the complete destruction that surrounded them, neither Bear nor Leanne suffered any injuries.

Gary Sneed said that Bear’s bravery is even more impressive when you consider that he’s still just a puppy. He said the 160-pound dog is incredibly loving, and he fully believes Bear was willing to sacrifice his life for Leanne’s.

The BBC

A remarkably fine institution

Having now been living in Arizona for 18 months, I can say with some degree of certainty that there are few British things that I miss.  One of them is draft English beer, of course, but another one is the BBC.  Luckily modern internet technology means that quite a few of the great BBC television programmes ‘leak’ outside the UK.

The BBC Horizon science series has been one such example of a really well-produced programme.

Recently, a BBC Horizon programme about genetically modified (GM) foods aired by the BBC found its way onto YouTube and thence to the website Top Documentary Films.  Not only is it an interesting programme but it also reveals how the facts of new advances in science are often difficult to understand by us; the general public.

The link to the film on the TDF website is here but if you want to watch it directly from YouTube then here it is.

“Weather panic” courtesy Newsweek

Is it me or does there seem to be a shift in overall awareness of our ‘new world’?

On the 30th May, I mentioned the concept of a new Anthropocene era for the second time, based on The Economist of the 28th May having it as a lead story.  (The first mention was on the 16th May.)

Then a couple of days later, friend John H. here in Payson, drops off his copy of Newsweek for June 6th.  Here’s the cover page.

Newsweek, June 6, 2011

This is how the article runs, written by Sharon Begley,

Are You Ready for More?

In a world of climate change, freak storms are the new normal. Why we’re unprepared for the harrowing future.

Joplin, Mo., was prepared. The tornado warning system gave residents 24 minutes’ notice that a twister was bearing down on them. Doctors and nurses at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, who had practiced tornado drills for years, moved fast, getting patients away from windows, closing blinds, and activating emergency generators. And yet more than 130 people died in Joplin, including four people at St. John’s, where the tornado sucked up the roof and left the building in ruins, like much of the shattered city.

Then just a couple of paragraphs later, this pretty blunt summary,

From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone. Which means you haven’t seen anything yet. And we are not prepared.

Just read that again very carefully, “The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone.”  Do take a few moments off and go here and read the full article.  The last paragraph of which reads,

So what lies behind America’s resistance to action? Economist Sachs points to the lobbying power of industries that resist acknowledgment of climate change’s impact. “The country is two decades behind in taking action because both parties are in thrall to Big Oil and Big Coal,” says Sachs. “The airwaves are filled with corporate-financed climate misinformation.” But the vanguard of action isn’t waiting any longer. This week, representatives from an estimated 100 cities are meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the 2nd World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change. The theme is “Resilient Cities.” As Joplin, Mo., learned in the most tragic way possible, against some impacts of climate change, man’s puny efforts are futile. But time is getting short, and the stakes are high. Says Daniel Sarewitz, a professor of science and society at Arizona State University: “Not to adapt is to consign millions of people to death and disruption.”

It’s a powerful article that can be read in full on the Newsweek website.

So, perhaps one might say at last, the notion that mankind’s impact on the Planet is real and capable of affecting practically all of us living on this beautiful Planet is becoming a ‘mainstream’ accepted idea.

More musings about this next Tuesday, 14th.

Life tough for you? Try this!

An amazing and powerfully positive story from here in Payson, AZ

Big thanks to friends John and Janet Z. here in Payson for passing me a copy of the Payson Roundup from Tuesday, May 24th.  Because I want to include much of this news story I have left it a few days so as not seen too directly as a copyright infringement.

This is how the story unfolds,

Homeless teens triumph against odds

Graduation nears for students who persevered despite chaos and carnage

By Alexis Bechman

May 24, 2011

In the summer after fifth-grade, Payson Herring found himself on the streets, living behind dingy car washes and eating stale food out of dumpsters. With both of his parents in jail and no one to look after him, he barely survived.

When he did show up to school, he was dirty, smelly and his attitude stunk worse than his clothes. Herring didn’t worry about high school graduation, he just wanted to make it through another night.

Yes, young Mr. Herring’s first name is Payson, presumably named after the town.  The article continues,

Meanwhile, for Emerald “Emi” Stacklie, after living through three of her mother’s failed suicide attempts and two of her own, life remains chaotic as a homeless student. She continues to bounce from one friend’s couch to another, and often spends the night in her truck.

The only stability she found in life came when she met her fiancé a year ago, but like her childhood, that was also ripped away. Five months ago, her fiancé died in a car crash that left Stacklie two weeks in the hospital for her own injuries.

Both Herring and Stacklie continue to face circumstances most teens will never dream of, but despite hardships — that include incarcerated or addicted parents, homelessness, medical conditions and tragedy — both have so far beaten the odds.

From the outside, both teens look normal, with designer-laced clothing and beautiful smiles, but what they have gone through is unbelievable.

Both teens agreed to an interview, hoping other homeless teens will come forward sooner for help. Payson High School has resources, including housing for homeless teens through the Payson Assisting Displaced Students (PADS) program launched last year.

Emi Stacklie and Payson Herring are ready to graduate, after having overcome daunting obstacles.

The rest of the story may be read here. I’m going to cut straight to the closing paragraphs.

With the support of friends and his teammates, Herring has developed a new perspective.

No longer angry with his past, Herring began focusing on the future. He worked hard at football, put more effort into schoolwork and stayed away from drugs and alcohol.

Herring used his past to help shape what he was becoming.

“I am not even mad at my parents,” he said. “There is nothing they can do now about the past. What matters now is what happens in the future and what I do. I am making my future brighter.”

Herring has plans to adopt “at least three kids.” Using his own experiences, Herring said he could handle just about any child. “I want kids to grow up realizing alcohol does bad things,” he said.

Recently, Herring even reconciled with his father.

While Herring and Stacklie still struggle, both are graduating May 26 along with 163 Payson High classmates. Both have plans for their futures — Herring to serve in the military and eventually become a police officer and Stacklie will start work at a hospital as an LPN.

“I am very, very proud,” Oakland said. “We will miss them.”

Herring and Stacklie defied the odds and “bottom-line beat the system,” she added.

These are very tough young people who will see in time that combating these sorts of major hurdles will give them a self-confidence and self-pride that is beyond measure. Well done to you, Payson and Stacklie.

Just amazing dog power!

Watch this video – any chit-chat from me is superfluous.

Smithfield, Alabama

If a tornado picked you up, threw you across the sky, and set you down in an unfamiliar place far away from home, and you broke two legs in the process, could you find your way back? That’s exactly the incredible story of Mason, a terrier mix in Alabama.

Credits.

I first saw the item as a link in the daily digest from Naked Capitalism.  As ever, I am indebted to the fantastic work that Yves and her team does in scouring the world for interesting news items.

The link went to a website that was just loaded with ads but in the article was another link to Fox 6.  There was the story as well, as this extract explains,

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) –

Update**:As of Wednesday night, Mason has been x-rayed and put on an IV. His vets at the Vulcan Park Animal Clinic plan to operate on his two broken legs Friday. They will use plates and maybe pins to help realign his bones. Doctors think it will be a long, but ultimately successful recovery.

Amazing stories of survival from the April 27th tornadoes don’t just include people. There are some amazing 4-legged tales of endurance being told including the story of one dog who just returned home yesterday. He is clearly battered, but alive.

Mason, a terrier mix, now rests inside the Vulcan Park Animal Care Clinic where he’s waiting to find out what kind of surgery he will need to repair 2 badly broken legs. This is only the 2nd night he’s spent under any kind of roof in the last 2 weeks and the story of how he got there is almost too amazing to believe.

On April 27th, Mason was hiding in his garage in North Smithfield when the storm picked him up and blew him away. His owners couldn’t find him and had about given up when they came back Monday to sift through the debris, and found Mason waiting for them on the porch.

Do support the Fox 6 website by reading the story in full.

Finally, the original link, as mentioned above, did contain this great news update,

Because of the generosity of Vulcan Park Animal Care in Birmingham, a center that volunteered their services to help the ailing pup, Mason is now on the mend — and needless to say, being showered with affection. Last Friday, Mason underwent surgery to fix metal plates to both his broken limbs, which will keep them stabilized as they heal. Mason will remain at Vulcan Park for about six more weeks, as his family works to restore some sense of order to their shattered home.

Just another account of how remarkable man’s best friend truly is.

Brave, lucky, sweet Mason