Polar Bears Don’t Really Drink Coke

And I’ll bet, if they could talk, they wouldn’t really want be around anything having to do with people - especially if those people were drilling for oil in their backyard. But polar bears and the 45 other species of mammals that reside in the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) seem to be under represented in the US House and Senate. On Wednesday May 4, 2005 the Senate voted 51 to 49 to defeat a measure that would have banned oil exploration and drilling on the 1.5 million acre coastal plain that is the ANWR.

Who lives in the ANWR you may ask? Well, there is the small pygmy shrew and the large bowhead whale. Others mammals include the Dall sheep, caribou, moose, musk oxen, wolves, grizzly bears, and black bears. The waters also abound with life (36 species of fish) and 180 species of birds live in the refuge or pass through it on their migrations. And, of course, there is plant life.

But fear not, ANWR furry, fishy, and feathered residents. The natural inability for politicians to get along may save you yet, because the ban on ANWR drilling hinges on the passage of the budget. Melinda Pierce, a lobbyist on the Arctic issue for the Sierra Club, said controversial items like Medicare cuts may prevent a budget resolution from passing. She further suggested that those opposed to oil drilling could possibly join forces with other opponents of budget cuts to defeat any budget resolution.

So, ANWR animals, the plan is divide, kill the budget, and conquer. I would also like to propose an alternate plan. If we can’t divide the folks in Washington on the budget, maybe we can get them to unite against it. One sure way to get the budget not to pass is to call for salary cuts for all Senators and Representatives. I say we have a planning meeting on this subject. Polar bears-if you agree to come, we won’t ask you to bring the Coke.

P.S. Actually though-I do love the Coke commercials with the polar bears

Out of Balance

SCIENTISTS CONFIRM EARTH'S ENERGY IS OUT OF BALANCE

Scientists have concluded more energy is being absorbed from the
Sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth's energy "out of
balance" and warming the globe.

Scientists from NASA, Columbia University, New York, and Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. used satellites, data from buoys and computer models to study the Earth's oceans. They confirmed the energy imbalance by using precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years.

The study reveals Earth's energy imbalance is large by standards of the
planet's history. The imbalance is 0.85 watts per meter squared. That
will cause an additional warming of 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) by the end of this century.

To understand the difference, think of a one-watt light bulb shining
over an area of one square meter (10.76 square feet). Although it doesn't seem
like much, adding up the number of feet around the world creates a big
effect. To put this number into perspective, an imbalance of one-watt per square
meter, maintained for the past 10,000 years is enough to melt ice equivalent
to one kilometer (.6 mile) of sea level, if there were that much ice.

"The energy imbalance is an expected consequence of increasing
atmospheric pollution, especially carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and black carbon particles. These pollutants block the Earth's heat radiation from escaping to space, and they increase absorption of sunlight," said Jim Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York. He is the lead author of the new study, which is in this week's Science Magazine Science Express.

As the Earth warms it emits more heat. Eventually the Earth will be
back in balance, if the greenhouse gas emissions are kept at the same level of
today. Scientists know it takes the ocean longer to warm than the land.
The lag in the ocean's response has practical consequences. It means there
is an additional global warming of about one degree Fahrenheit that is already in the pipeline. Even if there were no further increase of human-made gases in the air, climate would continue to warm that much over the next century.

Warmer world-wide water temperatures also affect other things. "Warmer waters increase the likelihood of accelerated ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise during this century," Hansen said. Since 1993, sea levels have been measured by satellite altimeters. Data has shown they have risen by approximately 3.1 centimeters or 1.26 inches per decade.

Although 3.1 centimeters is a small change, the rate of increase is twice as large as in the preceding century. There are positive feedbacks that come into play, as the area of ice melt increases. The researchers agree monitoring ice sheets and sea level is necessary to best ensure the system is in balance.

For more information and images about this story on the Internet,
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/earth_energy.html



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