The Fishbowl Earth Project

With all the news stories lately about global warming, and damage to infrastructure as a result of the hottest temperatures ever recorded , it's easy to get desensitized.  Right?  The Independent's story reports that parts of Germany's Autobahn were reduced to (the equivalent of) 60 mph, due to deteriorating road surfaces. Ooo, shivers.  One more time. Deteriorating road surfaces. And cue R.E.M. Unless you're a certain Doc Brown and you "don't need roads," this could already hint at a time where moving goods about the country (like oh say, food) may become impossible overnight.  Make that over day . And, as hot as the current heat wave is, scientists are saying it's going to get hotter.  Infrastructure that is already breaking down will break down more, faster.  Fixing it will become almost as important as trying to protect the new (and existing) roads, bridges, and especially, das Autobahn . I say break out the gold foil. ...

The Fishbowl Earth Project is a social media campaign to raise awareness about global warming, and what we can do to mitigate this threat to our environment.  It was started in June, 2019.  Although we don't have "financing," or "a budget," we have persisted nonetheless. Let's see where we're at. This blog Got several blog posts up, and spent some money from the nonexistent budget on some stock photos.  So far, absolutely zero activity on cross-linking to other blogs/sites, or doing anything to promote it.  One cool feature of the blog is the the RSS feed for "global warming" news stories, which finds stories we often post to Facebook. Facebook:  Fishbowl Earth Page This page has had regular updates with news articles about global warming, and also stories about scientific efforts to stop it.  Stats on hits, likes, and follows have steadily increased over time.  So far, all the interactions have been with immediate family, w...

As I sit in my climate-controlled home and contemplate the future, while sipping a delicious cup of coffee, the idea of human extinction doesn't seem very real.  I have full protection from the elements, including high winds, torrential downpours, frigid temperatures, and extreme heat.  In fact, if it gets too hot, I can turn my air conditioner. Until the power goes out. According to Wikipedia, scientists estimate that 99% of all the species of life that have existed on Earth have gone extinct.   That's over 5 billion species!  That means a whole lot of life has come and gone before we humans ever made a mark on the planet.  Scientists are concerned, however, about the current high rate of extinction, and some estimate that 50% of the existing plants and animals on the Earth right now may become extinct by the year 2100. Why is this happening?  Why are plants and animals going extinct so quickly?  It's because we humans are cutting down fore...

Back in 2012, I read this article  by John Rennie at ZDNet which literally changed my life.  It describes scientific research that proves (in laboratory research) that mining olivine (a green mineral that is abundant on Earth), crushing it and distributing it in shallow tidal basins in the oceans where there is significant wave action will have two effects: pull carbon dioxide right out of the air, and also de-acidify the oceans at the same time. The authors of the paper claim that if we were to do this at scale, humans would be able to remove the amount of C02 produced in a year.  In other words, it would be like humans just didn't produce any carbon dioxide that year.  If that were to happen, the C02 level would stop rising, and the oceans would stop becoming more acidic.  That, combined with lower carbon dioxide emissions in general, could halt our current climate change trend.  This "enhanced weathering" technique doesn't require olivine ...

Over at NOAA's  climate.gov  site, there is a great explanation of why carbon dioxide matters in our atmosphere.  What is carbon dioxide, anyway?  Why is it a "greenhouse gas," and why are the effects of C02 more profound than other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide?   Greenhouse gasses are capable of storing heat and releasing it over time, just like a greenhouse.   Charles Lucien Bonaparte  gets credit for the modern greenhouse design, which is a structure with a transparent roof and walls that allow light from the sun to come in and warm the contents (earth, plants, etc.) of the greenhouse, which causes the temperature inside the greenhouse to rise. Carbon dioxide lasts the longest  of Earth’s  long-lived greenhouse gases . It absorbs heat and stores it, and then releases it over time, which heats up the Earth.  Normally, that's a good thing: Without C02 in our atmosphere, the average temperature...