The Fishbowl Earth Project

  In addition to the horrific loss of life and property, human and animal displacement, and obvious impacts to the environment caused by the massive wildfires up and down the West Coast, there are many untold costs that pale in comparison.  One of those inconveniences is being forced to stay inside the house, not just because of COVID-19, but because the air has been rated as hazardous to breathe. In the last several years, this has become an end-of-summer event; dreaded, but expected.  This year, however, was the worst. The Inlander reported that Spokane, WA and the vicinity experienced record hazardous air quality in September, maxing out the top of the AQI (Air Quality Index) range for the better part of a day, which shattered the previous record.  Alaska Airlines suspended all of its flights from Portland and Spokane on September 15, due to the massive amount of smoke from the wildfires, according to USA Today.  Large numbers of schools in Oregon announced...

Back in the old-timey days, near the beginning of the industrial revolution that is apparently doing us all in, cars didn't have computers yet.  In fact, that's been a fairly recent addition in the driving experience.  Most of the cars we've driven had lights on the dashboard to tell the driver what was going on with the engine.  Too hot?  Not all cars had one, but an overheat lamp was standard on many.  Low oil?  You got a big red light for that one.  Low voltage?  Yep, another light.  Out of gas?  That was when the needle pointed to "E" and you got to walk to the gas station and borrow the petrol tank of shame. But that last one was an indicator, not an "idiot light."   The term itself comes from frustration with the motor industry for replacing indicators that could tell the driver what was happening as it happened (for example, my car is gradually over-heating) with "fault signals" that just turned on when the car reached th...

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. ...

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...