It has been a hot year. The average temperature in Britain for 2006 was higher than at any time since records began in 1659. Globally, it looks set to be the sixth hottest year on record. The signs during the past 12 months have been all around us. Little winter snow in the Alpine ski […]
Month: December 2006
Rome Redux: US to consider recruiting foreign troops
According to an article in the Boston Globe the US military is considering opening recruiting stations abroad as a way to expand the army strength. New recruits would be offered expedited citizenship as an incentive. This is significantly different than what we currently do in offering resident aliens the ability to gain fast-track citizenship — […]
Turtle advocates knit first stitches of tri-national network
A friend I recently joined for supper reminded me of the time she took me to a seafood restaurant to show me that it still served sea turtle soup even though Mexico banned trade in sea turtles and their byproducts in 1990. That also showed me that laws aren’t enough to preserve biodiversity. Awareness is […]
Climate Change Melts Kilimanjaro’s Snows
NARO MORU, Kenya – Rivers of ice at the Equator – foretold in the 2nd century, found in the 19th – are now melting away in this new century, returning to the realm of lore and fading photographs. From mile-high Naro Moru, villagers have watched year by year as the great glaciers of Mount Kenya, […]
Sonar Hearing SF
A good turn out of grassroots activists, important public testimony by experts and just plain sperts, plus 2,900 e-mails helped turn the tide against the US Navy before the California Coastal Commission this morning (Friday, Dec. 15th) in San Francisco. The CCC voted unanimously, much to the Navy’s stated annoyance, to refrain from approving a […]
House Approves Overhaul of Rules for Fisheries
Congress yesterday passed the broadest overhaul of the rules that govern the U.S. fishing industry in a decade, with provisions instructing fishery managers to adhere strictly to scientific advice so as not to deplete the ocean. The final language of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which passed the Senate on Thursday and the House early yesterday, was […]
DFG Arrests 14 Suspects in Targeted Raids on Striped Bass Poaching Operations
Department of Fish and Game (DFG) wardens today arrested 14 suspects during targeted raids on illegal striped bass poaching operations in the Bay-Delta region. Concluding a two-month poaching investigation, wardens served four search warrants in Sacramento and Elk Grove to make the arrests, interviewed 35 other people and seized five sport-fishing vessels. “These cases represent […]
Science Teachers Stoke the Fires of Global Warming
Since the 1990s, when we first started becoming aware of the threat of global warming, the rate at which humans have been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels has more than doubled. And, according to a team of Australian researchers, it’s going up every year. Last year, about 7.85 billion tons […]