In 1980 Texaco was doing exploratory drilling for oil in Lake Peigneur, a shallow man-made lake near New Iberia, LA. Although many of the facts from that day are lost, what we do know is that someone miscalculated and drilled right through the lake and into a salt mine below.

It’s generally accepted that the drill punctured the roof of the third level of the mine. This created an opening in the bottom of the lake, similar to removing the drain plug from a bathtub. The lake then drained into the hole, expanding the size of that hole as the soil and salt were washed into the mine by the rushing water, filling the enormous caverns left by the removal of salt over the years.
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Folks, I keep saying it… You need to see An Inconvenient Truth. As more proof, Al Gore was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. So, come on, what’s it going to take?

The fight for the global climate is a fight for peace, say members of parliament Børge Brende and Heidi Sørensen, and they have nominated former US Vice-president Al Gore for a share of the Nobel Peace Prize.
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On Feb 2, 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is expected to release a new report entitled, “Climate Change 2007″.

According to UK newspaper The Observer, which claims to have received a draft copy of the report, we can expect the following:
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So, after all my talk about Global Warming, including the movie An Inconvenient Truth, wouldn’t you like to know what’s going to happen to your piece of real estate if (and when) global sea levels rise over the coming decades? For example, just look at the image here… if seas rise just 10 feet the Holland tunnel in New York will be under water!

Well, Alex Tingle now brings us the Flood Maps Website which allows you to see a visual representation of what will happen at varying levels of rising sea.
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There is some very, very scary stuff going on with the environment right now. For those of you that have seen the movie An Inconvienent Truth, these stories are almost apocalyptic. For those of you that haven’t yet seen the flick, what are you waiting for?

First piece of news: Enormous Ice Shelf Snaps off in Arctic, published: Dec 28, 2006 (Also the NASA article.)

An ancient ice shelf has cracked off northern Ellesmere Island, creating an enormous, 66- square-kilometre ice island and leaving a trail of icy blocks in its wake….
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December 5, 2006

New World Record Achieved in Solar Cell Technology
New Solar Cell Breaks the “40 Percent Efficient” Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner today announced that with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. This breakthrough may lead to systems with an installation cost of only $3 per watt, producing electricity at a cost of 8-10 cents per kilowatt/hour, making solar electricity a more cost-competitive and integral part of our nation’s energy mix.
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Surprisingly (at least to me) the Christian Science Monitor has a very good article about a guy that cut his electric useage by 2/3rd, so I figure that even if you don’t do everything he did you should be able to cut yours in 1/2!

Personally I’ve already done everything on this list, and then some, and as a result our electric bills are less than people we know whose houses are smaller than half our home’s size. I’m telling you, these tips work!
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The Wollemi pine tree is a rare species that dominated the southern hemisphere for over 100 million years. And when I say “rare” what I really mean is that it was thought to be extinct until 1994 when a hiker found a grove of about 100 of the plants in the middle of a one million acre wilderness area outside Sydney, Australia.

In order to help keep these trees alive, they have discovered a way to sell clippings from the trees which are now available for purchase from National Geographic for $100.
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First of all, if you haven’t seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth you need to do so. I couldn’t possibly give a suitable recap of all the information presented there.

Ok. This can’t be a coincidence…

Every year for the last several years has set new records for wildfires. The Nov. 20 edition of Business Week first brought this to my attention when they reported:
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Junk mail is more than a nuisance: unsolicited mail has a tremendous negative impact on the environment. At least 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail, and 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce the paper.

All of these resources are wasted to produce items many people don’t even look at: about half of all junk mail is thrown out unopened or unread, and the rate of response to junk mail is less than 2 percent. The result is that more than 4 million tons of paper is wasted every year, according to the Native Forest Network (now known as the WildWest Institute).

Junk mail also has a direct negative economic impact as well. An estimated $320 million of local taxes are used to dispose of junk mail annually, and transportation of junk mail costs about $550 million per year, not to mention the air pollution generated during transport.

You can fight back. Read on to learn about effective ways to reduce and even eliminate junk mail in 15 minutes or less!
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Today I went to see Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had heard a lot of positive buzz about the film and the IMDB rating is 8.2, which is off the chart.

The movie is a documentary and is more like sitting through a PowerPoint presentation than actually watching a movie. In fact, the vast majority of the movie is watching Mr. Gore actually giving a presentation to an audience somewhere. Although that might sound a bit boring, the movie grabbed and held my attention from beginning to end.
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I love to eat seafood. But since there are a few billion other people that share that sentiment, many varieties of fish are being taken at an alarming rate. In fact, at a rate that cannot be sustained.

So, the Aquarium in Monterey California has put togetherthis nifty site which is designed to help educate us all regarding which seafood comes from sustainable sources, and which is killing off the species.
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