Crittercam

Todays Washington Post has a big article on an ever more common technology that fascinates the hell out of me called the Critter Cam. I have put radio collars and Satalite collars on grizzly bears. I have followed the progresss of  grizzlies with the use of motion sensor cameras . I learned GIS from scratch, when it was kind of clunky, to determine what grizzlies ate. but I first saw the Critter Cam on Planet Earth, which was fantastic and so was the Critter Cam. I remember when Satalite Telemetry was cost prohibitive, and couldn’t help think Critter Cams are cost prohibitive, but they sure are a neat way to study wildlife that I wish was around when that is what I did.

Matt

Anderson Cooper’s Planit in Peril

This was an excellant show. I had high expectations of Anderson Cooper there were some issues,especially Global Warming, that he was real good on. Jeff Corwin and I have a lot in common. My youngest daughter loves him and the passed away Crocodile Hunter. Corwin and I are from the same profession and so on. So I had high expectations there and he and Steve Amstrup, who I have met many times over the years, and is a real great polar bear biologist, and the sub series on animal parts, an insidious trade,were spot on.

The thing that suprized me the most was how good Dr. Sanja  Gupta was. He took on some of the complex sides of Global Warming.

I thought one of the sponsors,Conoco-Philips,was a true Oxymoron. Cooper should have taken on his CNN bosses because there ploy(Conoco Philips) was pretty obvious to anybody, but my wife was Cooper’s greatest apologist. When I brought it up to my wife as ironic that Conoco-Philipshelped sponsor the Global Warming issue she defended what I view as undefensable. Am I wrong on this?Is my wife more typical of the human behavior on this. What side of the bed did I wake up on (inside joke)? What do you think about this?

Are you tracking the fires in California. I think very much like the Humbolt Conservation Biologist interviewed by CNN on this, but I have never wagged my finger at another area’s tragedy and would help the people of S. California if I could. How about their brave and real leadership. I wish that was the case on Global Warming for our nation.

Matt

Matt

More From the Washington Post On Global Warming

Page A 10, by Doug Struck, is a Global Warming Article more like I think when I get upon the wrong side of the bed. Struck’s article is entitled, At the Poles, Melting Occuring At Alarming Rate.
This article,like many and much of my thinking, says Global Warming is happening at a much faster rate than is predicted by many to take 9 decades. If I am right and Struck and the scientists he cites in his article are right, than the Lomborg’s of the world, and their skepticism, is a distraction for you.
We know Bush and Cheney and their oil chums will do nothing, kind of like Bush on Katrina,” You are doing a heck of a job Brownie.” This crisis is slow but it is occurring and will take a worldwide effort to resolve it if we are around past the Iran saber rattling coming out of the Alien-Neo-Cons. Dont those people ever go away. Even Nixon (I am no fan) was better on many things and Watt was better on many things, and that is really saying something!!!!!!
Then read the policy page of the Washington Post, because, at least on this, Lieberman votes the right way.

More or Less about Bush on Global Warming

In today’s Wahington Post, an article by Juliet Elprin explains what Bush does not do on Global Warming. He gets bad advice also from his non science adviser who he liston’s to on Science.

Bottom line is that his anti-science adviser, John Marburger, said at a press conferance “that the target of  preventing the earth from warming  more than 2 degrees Celsius  is going to be a very difficult one to achieve”  It is a realistic goal and this president needs to try for it, not be told by his wimpy science adviser that the goal is unachievable. The Bushies are all failures on Global Warming. John Marburger is one of the reasons why. Is Marburger for real???

Website

I just wanted to say that I have a new Website for my Ataxia Walk . The official title is Rocky Mountain Ataxia Walk, and Yahoo was very helpful in my publishing it. Look on www.ataxiawalk.com  .

If you have any trouble contacting my site contact me.

Matt                   

Thoughtful Day

I am really steamed about the George Bushes prospective veto of the SCHIP bill for childrens healthcare. I cannot believe some Congressmen are willing to follow Bush over a cliff, like Bison used to follow lead cows over a cliff in the the days of yore. Please inundate your congressman with calls about this one. I will devote one hour a day of time to unelect (hopefully) the people who helped Bush sustain his veto on this one. This impacts my older daughter’s job and my younger daughter and son’s insurance. As a disabled American this means a lot to me personally. Forget that I do not agree with Bush on Global Warming or the war in Iraq.

On a less personal note Gore told a Swedesh TV station that he will not seek the Whitehouse. I was somewhat relieved,though sad. Gore is a lion compared to Hillary (who has been around the block, I liked Bill so there is promise from my perspective ), Barack (who belongs on the Supreme Court) and Edwards, who is a good man.

Ron Paul is the only Republican who makes sense but he is a “Tempest in the proverbial teapot” for a Liberal voter. Richardson is deservedly moving upwards in the polls and like Bill Clinton said, Huckabee is a darkhorse for the conservatives.

As a disabled American I do not have time for the political shenanigans of the candidates, I just no that after 6 years of Bush and Cheney we need a dramatic change in the good old USA and it aint on the Republican side for sure (I do not see it, Do you?); Inhoff types, SCHIP veto types, against children political bullies, war mongers. All make me ill enough, I do not want to be sicker.

On another note I just finished my website on my proposed Ataxia (which is forcing me to hang up my cleats but not without a battle) Walk in Montana. I will link it to this and put it up some time next week. Wish me luck!!!!!

Lomborg Polar Bear Stir

Juliet Jowet writes an article for the Observer. I am not sure where that is from or where the article is placed in the Observer, but it can be accessed under Carnivore Conservation News under the section Ursid (bear).

Lomborg does agree that Global Warming is occuring, and that is where the action should happen.

I think for many reasons we should weane ourselves (USA) of fossil fuels, not the least are its prospective and probable impacts on the issue of Global Warming and the plausability of fossil fuel Impacts on the polar bear.

On that I think Lomborg is quite wrong, well out of his league, and I would rather be safe than sorry on this.

My view of Lomborg is that he has gotten too much comfort out of being a skeptical gadfly for Global Warming and polar bears. I can literally see the Testosterone flying in any room he spouts his views in.

I have been down many roads with the Lomborg’s of the world and if they are wrong the consequances are huge. So there is a skepticisim following these types, that has irretrievable consequances. Gore’s view is overeaction, and for that matter so is mine, if we prove to be wrong on Global Warming.

Lomborg has some points but they are hard to see when literally his strongest allies are backed against a wall of his making.

He is to busy trying to sell a point of view and his latest book. We do not have to sell it for him. I think the judge for the BBC is skeptical enough, and I think his disagreements with Inconvieniant Truth are where much of the public is on Global Warming.

I am tired of debating this. People like Gore have done it for over 20 years… how do they put up with the Lomborg’s of the world while earth is whittling away and all of the reasons I can give to land softer in spite of Global Warming and who is right on the polar bear debate?

Gore Wins Nobel for Global Warming Advocacy

Gore won the Nobel and that is great. For many years Gore was the lone political voice on this issue. I first heard of Greenhouse Gases from Doctor Sheridan, at the University of Montana in the class Plant Ecology in the mid-nineteen seventies. Gore first heard of Greenhouse Gases when I was blissfally a child in the nineteen fifties.

Gore quixiotically was having congressional hearings on Global Warming in the nineteen eighties when I was busy trying to save Grizzly Bear Habitat in the US Rockies.

It makes my heart sing that Global Warming is now part of this earth’s lexicon. We can thank Gore for that!!!

 For mainstreaming the issue of Global Warming Gore deserves much of the credit. Now let scientist duke out the BBC judges nine points that Gore’s movie may of may have gotten wrong or cannot prove, and we can all do something positive about Global Warming in the meantime. Non-Profits against  Global Warming are essential here because our current administration is not.

 Kyoto has its problems, but it is a start. The cost is the largest blues line that is sung by skeptics and that is certainly not my expertise, but those who think cost drives Global Warming and advocates, think again. 

Cost per benifit of the Kyoto Treaty drives part of the process. Are we going to let the  affected Corporations drive such an important process solution, or partial solution? Their first concern is making money for their shareholders, not solving global warming.

We need the Gore’s in the process because they can keep the Corporations honest and to their role in beating back Global Warming, and people like Gore were visionary on Global Warming when vision was very much a requirement.

Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize for His Work on Global Warming

Congratulations to GORE!!!!!

Worldchanging News

Saving the Polar Bear may Save the Arctic Ice in an article by Emily Gerts. In her article she states that at current rates 2/3 of the polar bears will be gone by 2050.

The entire gist of her article is that if the polar bear is listed under the ESA we are required to change USA emissions of biofuels to levels that will sustain polar bears and thus arctic ice caps.

Gerts scenario is optomistic and I would like to see it happen but I do not think it will. We will lose 2/3 of our polar bears in 30 years at current levels and we will not change our Carbon Emmissions until we as a species have our backs against the wall. By then it will be too late for polar bears. How hard will we fall? Good question. The generation before us would sacrafice. will we?