The American Geological Union documents a significant rift in the Last Ice Area just north of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian arctic in May of 2020. A hole of open water in sea ice is known as a polynya, and its formation is remarkable because the ice in the area is...
ICE
If you were old enough and curious enough, most of us can remember where we were when tragedy struck. Historically sad events have a way of freezing that point in time like it is suspended in dry ice; only thawed by the heat of another heartbreak. Again, if you are...
Most of us saw or heard the campaign ads for the gubernatorial race for Florida. Ron DeSantis, dressing his infant daughter in MAGA motif pajamas, helping her with border wall building blocks, and reading her a faux bedtime story about the fanciful mind of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the internal xenophobic...
Received this e-mail today from Democracy for America: On March 9th the United States House of Representatives passed H.R.842, Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021, known as the PRO Act. The PRO Act vastly expands labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace....
According to new findings from the University of California San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, primarily in summer, unprecedented quantities of heat from the Pacific are pouring into the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait. This likely explains the rapid decimation of sea ice in the region. The decline has...
Very little is known about rainfall in Antarctica; precipitation falls as snow on the bitter cold ice-covered continent. But during the austral summer of 2013-2014, an Adélie penguin colony near Dumont d’Urville station on coastal Adélie Land experienced “unusual and dramatic rainfall event that occurred on January 1, 2014, and that was...
“We might (and I stress might) have already reached and passed a point where there is really no turning back for Thwaites, no matter what we as humans do to our climate,” Alastair Graham, the University of South Florida and co-author of the study. New data from under the ice stream...
I’m not sure what Matt Gaetz expected. After all, the only exercise Donald Trump ever gets involves golf, languorous coitusTM, and throwing former “friends” under the bus. (Again, Trump has no actual “friends.” He has acquaintances he’s yet to shiv in the liver.) For years, people have filled Gaetz’s head...
Caravan with a drum solo, perhaps Trump will go to the border to help frame what is appearing to be deliberate GOP orchestration of migrant issues at the southern border. As if the Trumpian chaos never existed for four years, with declared emergencies, veiled threats of terrorists, and then that...
The 6th Circuit rules that Shawnee State University violated a professor’s free speech and free expression rights by punishing him for refusing to use a trans student’s preferred pronouns. More lawfare ahead. Apparently a professor’s socratic method (and his religious beliefs) trumps gender expression and public accommodation keeps bigotry in a bathroom...
He’s not the only one, of course. For instance, I’m convinced Matt Gaetz has the largest head-to-brain-size ratio in the animal kingdom and that Louie Gohmert is the lamentable result of a failed attempt to breed a white supremacist lemur with a bowl of beets. Then there’s Lauren Boebert and Marjorie...
Not sure where they took him for ice cream after his (alleged) murder spree, but they sure do seem understanding. I’m all for getting at the root causes of crime, but why do we get the kid gloves out only for white suspects, such as alleged shooter Robert Aaron Long,...
The rift on Antarctica’s Brunt ice shelf has torn itself away from the glacier resulting in a massive iceberg that is known as A74. British Antarctic Survey has been monitoring the glacier for years. The shelf was at its largest extent for over 100 years. The Brits have relocated their research station twice...
Beto O’Rourke (D. TX) had some harsh words yesterday: x “We are nearing a failed state in Texas. And it has nothing to do with God, or natural disasters. It has everything to do with the leadership and those in the positions of public trust who have failed us,” says...
The “Arctic is already under such threat from so many angles, and while production there is expensive, it is also very, very high risk. It requires absolutely the strongest levels of global oversight.” Phoebe Barnard, Professor at Washington’s Conservation Biology Institute Putin’s Russia made history today when the Christophe de Margerie, the enormous...
Yeah, I remember feeling this way after Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. No fucking way can they make another Friday the 13th movie. I mean, that’s ridiculous, right? Twenty years later, after three more sequels and a reboot, I looked like a damn fool. Not as foolish...
A glacial landslide scar, all that remained of a previous piece of ice that had collpased, is believed to have triggered a new landslide that slammed into and triggered part of Nanda Devi glacier to collapse. When the rocky debris slammed into the Himalayan glacier’s much larger remnant, it sent rock and ice down a valley...
Detainees at two different ICE detention centers were threatened by ICE agents that they would be exposed to inmates with COVID unless they submitted to a transfer. The guard made the threat clear, Clovis Fozao, one of the detained men, told The Intercept: If the detained migrants didn’t submit, they...
“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.” ~ Aristotle It is a fact that the biggest threat to our species is not climate change, though it will likely end much of what we experience today, but rather our war on bio-diversity. Bio-diversity is under attack from...
Nobody has reported on this discouraging news as of yet. The last news I saw on Larsen D was from June of 2020, when satellites revealed cracks on the massive ice shelf. Suitland, MD — The Larsen-D Ice Shelf calved two more icebergs which are large enough to be named....
Something strange is going on over undocumented immigrants. President Biden’s acting secretary of Homeland Security, David Pekoske, issued a memo on January 20 halting almost all deportation proceedings for 100 days: Review of and Interim Revision to Civil Immigration Enforcement and Removal Policies and Priorities [PDF] I’ve gone over the...
The losing continues with a 35% decline in revenues for 47 entities as Ahab returns to his white whale. Banks are bailing out on Trump as loans will be coming due. “Trump’s dealings with Seven Springs are the focus of two state-level investigations, by the Manhattan district attorney and the...
Desperate disinformation failed miserably as so many Trumpists were obsessed with selfie declarations of their assault on the Capitol yesterday. Because they wanted trophies and attention-seeking recognition, many familiar “alt-right” white supremacists revealed themselves, as well as some public officials and even at least one police chief. x There is no...
Antarctica researchers have become alarmed by a new finding that shows sub-glacial lakes under the Thwaites glacier are draining a significant amount of water to the bedrock under miles thick with ice. Once the lake water reaches the bedrock, it lubricates the glacier enough to create frictional heat at the bed...
Johnny Virus-seed and his wife, Malaria, have done all they can to spread Christmas cheer and COVID in the past couple of months, and just because we’re about to shove DJT out to sea on an ice floe, that doesn’t mean they can’t keep disseminating freedom phlegm (in lieu of...
Yesterday I rang up my eldest sister Beth but William answered the phone. “Hello Bill” I said “Oh, it’s you” he replied, well at least I rated a cordial you, I don’t think he likes me, heh. “How are you” I cheerfully replied “it has been awhile” “Fine” came the...
The Independent writes on the intensification of melting on the Antarctic peninsula. Last year's melt season was the highest in forty years of satellite records. Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf experienced its highest rate of melting since records began 40 years ago from 2019-2020, a new study has found. The unprecedented melt at...
A young boy goes to the school nurse’s office, complaining of a sore throat. The nurse gives him a cup of ice and sends him back to class. My son is teaching science to a socially distanced class room, but the sick kid was often within 6 feet of him,...
From The Huffington Post: For weeks, the couple had done almost nothing but sell. Loeffler was one of several senators who faced public outrage for unloading millions of dollars in stock before most Americans understood the towering threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Then shortly before the CARES Act, a...
Men argue. Nature acts. Voltaire Climate change does not respect any international borders. Disaster is coming for us all at some point, regardless of the color of our skin. People should insist on the government's actions and not worry about our beautiful minds. It’s not all about you, America. Only wealthy...
There’s something undeniably hilarious about those classic late night talk show segments in which kids are asked to relate the instructions (as they see them) for cooking a turkey. Usually they say things like “cook the turkey for 100 hours at 50 degrees” or “stuff the turkey with potatoes, yams, pumpkin...
In 2019 John Kerry was awarded and accepted the Arctic Circle Prize in a speech to an assembly of climate scientists and other Arctic stakeholders in Reykjavik, Iceland. In his dramatic speech, Kerry, who has been nominated by President-Elect Joe Biden, to be the first ‘Climate Tsar’ in a cabinet-level position, declared a world...
“It’s gotten so out of whack that we are now looking at survival for our children, not survival of our grandchildren.”, Peter Carter, M.D., – reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and founder of the Climate Emergency Institute. Dozens of scientists from Sweden, Russia, China, and seven other countries studied methane emissions...
“It’s gotten so out of whack that we are now looking at survival for our children, not survival of our grandchildren.”, Peter Carter, M.D., – reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and founder of the Climate Emergency Institute. Dozens of scientists from Sweden, Russia, China, and seven other countries studied methane emissions...
The guy who basically invented American crassness and stupidity is calling out Rudy Giuliani for being uncommonly crass and stupid. Geraldo Rivera, who left any credibility he may have once had behind in Al Capone’s vault, thinks Rudy’s eyebrow-raising/sideburn-lowering press conference from earlier today was a shitshow of historic proportions....
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, knows the Trump crime family better than almost anyone. And, needless to say, he’s no longer impressed. After discussing his unlikely friendship with Rosie O’Donnell, who visited him in prison, Cohen told MSNBC’s Ari Melber he believes either Trump or a member of...
The crises facing the country are severe — from a pandemic to an economic recession, climate change to racial injustice — and the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden-Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One. Biden Transition Team As I write...
This is so much more serious but just as annoying. I was sitting outside on the porch tonight when I thought back of the time when my 4 year old could not get his way about something. I don’t quite recall what it was but I think it had to...
Some very good news today out of Maine courtesy of Emerson College’s latest poll: The final Emerson College poll before the November 3rd election in Maine finds the former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 54% to 43%. Three percent (3%) of voters plan to vote for someone...
The war on Xmas continues as Santas aren’t essential workers, but VP Pence is, ignoring the guidelines to quarantine after being exposed to not an insignificant number of staffers infected by COVID19. Elves and Mrs. Claus could still be included in the unemployment figures for vaccine promotion. Despair still must...
Larry Kudlow continues the underlying theme of Trumpian nihilism and its trickle-down contagion of pixie dust and pseudoscience. Trump continues to see his numbers decline as his campaign put him on a superspreader rally schedule, attempting to repeat his 2016 victory of 155,000 votes in swing states while trailing 3 million...
If we lose the Arctic, we lose the whole world. President Niinistö of Finland There is a record open ocean in the Arctic as a delayed freeze in sea ice formation due to record-shattering heat in the Laptev Sea. Siberia has been freakishly hot recently, resulting in the loss of bone-chilling winds...
I like this: Democrats eager to link Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins with President Donald Trump in her reelection race have begun posting campaign-style “Trump/Collins” signs in Maine. They’re similar to the traditional “Trump/Pence” signs touting the Republican presidential ticket of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. In this case,...
Yale Environment 360 notes “just as global warming has propelled the Arctic Ocean past a tipping point which will lead to a largely ice-free Arctic in summer in the coming decades. Wildfire scientists say that rising global temperatures and worsening droughts mean that the world has entered a new era...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
It is no surprise to those who follow the deglaciation process in Antarctica and are aware of the real threat posed by these glacial behemoths to human civilization. Rapid sea-level rise is likely when Pine Island and Thwaites (A/K/A The Doomsday glacier) glaciers collapse and take all of West Antarctica with them....