Saving Planet Earth

My new business cards arrived last week - the ones which have "Tipping Point, A Robert Spire Thriller," printed on them. I put a few in my wallet, thinking, you never know, they might come in handy.

Coming to the end of another weekend in the middle of July, i'm looking out of the window and i ask myself, where is our summer? It's the middle of July, but the weather is lousy. Mind you, in the UK it's supposed to be a scorching 27 degrees Celsius today...wow! Not bad for the middle of summer. Mid-summers day was like mid-winter. So what's going on?

Are we just having another bad summer? Have we already had our summer? The weather in April and May was fantastic. Or, is something more sinister going on? Could it be the dreaded G.W word, I'm talking about global warming, you know, climate change.

I recall years ago...I'm thinking back to the 1970s and early 1980s when we used to have long hot summers and cold, snowy winters here in the UK, but no more. Summer is usually wet, what we have of it usually appears in April and May, and at Christmas time, well now you can wear a T-shirt and not catch a chill!

Not only that, but there's not a day that goes by without a story in the news about global warming causing melting ice caps, rising sea levels, Arctic methane release, melting the Arctic, ocean acidification, increasing co2 levels - yes they measure these from Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii and deforestation. These are just some of the consequences.

The planet appears to be doomed. Not only that, but today i find out that an NEO or Near Earth Object, an asteroid in this case will pass within 7500 miles of the Earth on Monday 27th June! This thing was only discovered recently, and will pass within Earth's geosynchronous satellite population before accelerating back out to space, pretty close eh? And that's not the only one. These things are zipping by all the time. What about all the others that haven't been discovered yet?

So, with this all in mind, I decided i needed a drink. I went out to a local bar and was enjoying a few drinks when an attractive red-head came up to me. She asked, "Have you got a light please?"

I looked into her green eyes and thought, damn, would have been a good time to have a pack of cigarettes, or at least a lighter with me, even though i don't smoke. I said, "sorry, no," but quickly remembered an old booklet of matches i had in my pocket. "Actually, i have," i said, handing her the booklet. "But you shouldn't smoke you know, its bad for you, and bad for the planet."

"What do you mean?" She asked, looking amused.

"Global warming," I joked.

"I used to think that was rubbish," she said, "but now i really do think something is going on, i mean look at the weather, middle of summer and its terrible!"

I couldn't help joining her for a cigarette, wanting to chat more about the topic, so followed her outside. After two cigarettes - which i felt extremely guilty about - and a depressing chat about saving planet Earth from the perils of global warming and asteroid collision, she said to me;

"So, if the is Earth doomed, who can save us, the X-Men, The Green Lantern, Transformers?"

I said, "They are all comic book heroes, but Robert Spire would certainly have a go."

"Robert Spire?" She said. "Who's he?"

I pulled out my wallet and handed her my card.

Arctic Sea Ice Loss Accelerates

Scientists who spent an entire winter in the high Arctic on board a research vessel are now concerned that the Arctic could become ice free in the summer by 2013-2030, much sooner than previous climate models suggested.

Methane Release Fears

Scientists discover - stronger than previously thought - methane release seeping from Arctic seaboard. Molecule for molecule methane is 20 times stronger than CO2 as far as its global warming potential is concerned.

Arctic's Baffin Island Starts to Melt!

Baffin Island, the largest island in the Arctic Canadian Archipelago, reveals from it's sediment that it is undergoing a major warming trend, probably as a result of global warming.

As part of a 21,000-year cycle, ( Milankovitch Cycles ),the Arctic has been receiving less summertime energy from the Sun over the last 8,000 years because of a well-established "wobble" in the Earth's solar rotation – the Earth is now 0.6 million miles further away from the Sun during the Arctic summer than it some 2000 years ago. Despite this, the area is warming up, as proven from the sediment cores taken from the bottom of the lake. Further proof, that warming is in fact taking place at an unprecedented level.

Arctic Summer Ice Gone in a Decade?

Latest Arctic surveys suggest Arctic summer ice could be gone in a decade, certainly within twenty years as global warming caused by higher levels of greenhouse gases melts the sea ice. This will allow possible commercial shipping routes to open up along the fabled Northwest passage and the plunder of the Arctic's riches... eventually leading to more warming perhaps.

Slowdown in Arctic ice melt

2009 reveals a slowdown in Arctic ice melt over previous two years, but is this just a temporary blip...?

Latest Arctic Sea loss data

The latest Artic Sea loss figures show that Artic Sea ice is at it's third lowest on record, but still some 900,000 km2 more than the lowest, set in August 2007...

Melting Arctic

Click the link to NSIDC for the latest information on the Arctic as it approaches the 2009 melt season....

Arctic melting

Arctic could be ice free during the summer within 11 years, say clmate scientists. The end of this years Arctic summer melt, in or around September will determine whether matters are in fact getting worse or not...