Movie review: “Home”

October 17, 2009 at 1:50 am | Posted in Environment, Health, Movies, Problems, Wheater | Leave a comment
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“The average temperature of the last 15 years has been the highest since records began”

“The ice cap has lost 40% of its thickness in 40 years”

“There could be 200 million climate refuges by 2050”

“20% of the world’s population consumes 80% of the planet resources”

Should we be surprised by those sentences? Not really, actually… I think they have been outhere outside to be also inside, there in our mind. Even if we forget them the most of the time. But thanks to movies – better let’s say like this as the word “documentary” seems to scare people – like “Home”, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the evidence can no longer be hidden.

An aerial camera takes us to the most breathtaking places all over the world. In a combination of beauty and horror, we see everything, from the most amazing landscape to the most destructed one, cleverly remembering us that it is up to us to chose the one we would like to live in. Meanwhile, the movie explains to us, since the beginning of life in the Earth why we have arrived to the current situation.

The movie spends some time explaining the situation for the Arctic environment, some of the more affected by the global warming and, at the same time, one of the most important one for the Earth’s future. The ice on the poles, one of the most important reserves of water in the world, is now melting, and the consequences, such as increasing of the sea level or changing of the temperature of the air, are as dangerous as unpredictable in a long term time.

But after the dark side of the movie, it comes the light. As it says, “It’s too late to be a pessimistic, I know that a single human can knock down every wall”. All of us are a single human, and humanity is just all of us. So you and me have in (y)our hands the power to change our way to walk, the path we are tracing and the print we are leaving on the Earth, Home. The decision is up to us, so go and watch the movie, and if after doing that you think you agree with its ideas, move!

Get the movie and find more information in the Official Site.

The NASA Climate Time Machine

September 8, 2008 at 8:39 am | Posted in Wheater | Leave a comment
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Thanks to a friend I received this website, with a name as cool as its desing: the Clime Time Machine. In this site, created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, you can track the changes in our planet through the decades, in four different aspects:

Clime Time Machine

Ice melting:this visualization shows the annual Arctic sea ice minimum from 1979 to 2007. At the end of each summer, the sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent, leaving what is called the perennial ice cover. The area of the perennial ice has been steadily decreasing since the satellite record began in 1979. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio).

Sea level: recent satellite observations have dete

cted a thinning of parts of the Greenland ice sheet at lower elevations. A partial melting of this ice sheet would cause a 1-meter (3-foot) rise. If melted completely, the Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to raise sea level by 5-7 meters (16-23 feet). This visualization shows the effect on coastal regions for each meter of sea level rise, up to 6 meters (19.7 feet). Land that would be covered in water is shaded red.

Carbone dioxide emissions: this visualization shows the amount of annual carbon dioxide emissions produced by the top 12 nations or regions from 1980-2004. Units are given in thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel consumption.

Average Glogal Temperature:This color-coded map shows a progression of changing global surface temperatures from 1885 to 2007. Dark blue indicates areas cooler than average. Dark red indicates areas warmer than average.

You have to drag the handle over the years to see the which is quite alarming. Of this four point, specially two are affecting polar regions: the ice melting and the rising of temperature. But, of course, everything is linked. Global warming seems to be finally on the agenda of politicians – or at least they are pretending to – but there is still much more to do. How you or your country is reacting to global warming and its side effects?

How catching cold mountain air could save Europe’s glaciers

August 20, 2008 at 6:43 pm | Posted in Wheater | 1 Comment
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Another frozen new from The Independent. It is not strictly related with the topics of the blog, but it is quite interesting anyway. And is related with the global warming issue, which truly affects indigenous arctic peoples… and non-arctic!

How catching cold mountain air could save Europe’s glaciers

By Tony Paterson in Berlin
Wednesday, 20 August 2008

A German geography professor has developed a controversial system of mountain “wind-catching” screens which he claims could slow or even halt the dramatic rate at which Europe’s glaciers are melting.

Glaciers across the globe are shrinking fast as a consequence of global warming. In Europe alone, some researchers have predicted that all its glaciers will have vanished by 2100.

However, Professor Hans-Joachim Fuchs from Germany’s Mainz University claims to have found at least a partial answer to the problem. His technique involves capturing the power of cold mountain – so-called kabatic – air streams with wind-catching screens installed on melting glaciers.

The screens are designed to harness the dense kabatic air streams which flow downhill and deflect them directly on to the surface of the glaciers, thereby cooling them enough, it is hoped, to counteract the effects of global warming.

In early August, Professor Fuchs and a team of 27 student researchers from Mainz university travelled to the Rhône glacier in Switzerland. There they installed a 15 metre-long, 10 metre-high wind catching screen at an altitude of 2,280 metres on the glacier in the country’s Valais region.

Monitoring has shown that the Rhône glacier is shrinking seven metres a year. However, Professor Fuchs insists that his wind- catcher will help to combat this. “We hope that our installations will bring about a net cooling of the area,” he said in a statement. “If the meltdown is not stopped, we hope that it will at least be slowed down,” he added.

[Read more…]

Hands off the Arctic

April 6, 2008 at 1:24 pm | Posted in Environment | Leave a comment
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Greenpeace is running a campaign trying to protect the poles, specially the North pole. I know I am not being original saying that politicians suck, but I feel like saying it. Apart of that, here you have the info about the campaign:

Global warming is melting the Arctic at an alarming pace. As a result, a host of countries are seeking to drill for the oil and gas once protected by ice. The more oil and gas we burn, the faster the Arctic melts and the closer our planet comes to catastrophic climate change.

It’s a sad irony. In attempting to secure “rights” to Arctic fisheries, new transport routes, oil, gas and mineral resources, countries gain a vested interest in the continued melting of the Arctic.

And as the political and military jockeying for control of the far north continues, the ice melts away. Researchers are now saying we could have ice-free summers in the Arctic by 2040.

World Park Arctic can be a reality. The precedent is already established. Thanks to public pressure, Antarctica already has the same kind of protection the Arctic needs.

Now let’s make some noise to make it happen.

And, if you want to support it, sign here!

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