Archive - 2009 - blog

Most courageous & greatest swimmer, to swim beyond extreme, bearing excruciating pain, not for gold medals but for fragile Nature. "I have chosen to swim. It’s my way of drawing attention to the oceans, & the fragile state of our nature," Lewis Gordon Pugh said, "we’ve lost more than half the Arctic summer sea ice cover decades ahead of predictions, showing climate change has been hugely underestimated. We must insist our leaders take urgent action..sea ice is melting fast.." "I have done very, very cold swims in the North Pole which was so cold that your life is on the line and it took me four months to feel my hands again." "I can’t think of a better way to show that climate change is a reality than by swimming in a place that should be totally frozen over." "This is not just about protecting a pristine environment, it's about saving ourselves."

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Lewis Gordon Pugh is the first swimmer in history to complete a long distance swim in all 5 oceans of the world, a feat which many had considered to be the "holy grail" of swimming. He also became the first person to complete a long distance swim in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.  read more »

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The ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania has continued to retreat rapidly, declining 26 percent since 2000, scientists say in a new report. 85% of the ice cover that was present in 1912 has vanished. It is anticipated to be completely gone in 20 years. Surface melting like that seen in recent years has not occurred over the last 11,700 years.

The impact of these events and the precursor that they offer of the trends to follow e.g. - droughts, intensified storms, floods, sea level increase and famine, are all a result of global warming which, according to an organization (IPCC) of 2,500 scientists from 130 countries is a result of human-caused activities that produce greenhouse gases.

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Photos courtesy of Yann Arthus-Bertrand / HOME, National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) for Tanzania, and Wikipedia  read more »

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A little-reported ceremony took place a few days ago outside a nondescript apartment block in the Paris suburb of Bobigny. An old man unveiled a plaque to mark the birthplace of one of France's greatest cultural heroes: Asterix.

On 29 October 1959, the first adventure of the diminutive warrior Asterix appeared in the comic magazine Pilote. It was the work of the Italian-born artist Albert Uderzo and his script-writer friend René Goscinny.

According to one of their creators, the small, wily Gaul Asterix and his oversized, clumsy friend Obelix were born under the influence of friendship, desperation and a great deal of alcohol. They met at Uderzo's apartment in the Paris suburb of Pantin to dream up a story and some characters for a comic strip to be published in the first edition of the weekly magazine Pilote. At the time, aside from the Belgian strips Tintin and Spirou, French newspapers carried primarily American comics. The founder of Pilote wanted French children to be able to read stories in which their own culture dominated. 'The Gauls,' they thought, 'liked to have a good laugh, to talk big and were bon vivants. I think we've got something there.'  read more »

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The leading cars in this year’s Global Green Challenge solar car race have passed the halfway point in their epic 1,864-mile (3,000-kilometre) race across some of Australia's harshest terrain from Darwin to Adelaide.

The Global Green Challenge - an evolution of the acclaimed World Solar Challenge - is the world's leading, cross-continental showcase of the latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar, low emission, and alternative energy vehicles. The race, which is now in its tenth year, was pioneered by the South Australian Tourism Commission and aims to highlight the latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar and alternative energy vehicles.  read more »

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Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood --
Then it will be -- good night.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.

- Good-Night
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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John Adams
Political Party: Federalist
Political Titles: Vice President, Member of the Continental Congress, Minister to Great Britain, Minister to the Netherlands

Presidential Term:
March 4, 1797 - March 4, 1801
Preceded By: George Washington
Succeeded By: Thomas Jefferson

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Image courtesy onthisday.com

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In a worse-case projection, a Vietnamese government report released last month says that more than one-third of the delta, where 17 million people live and nearly half the country’s rice is grown, could be submerged if sea levels rise by 3 feet in the decades to come. In a more modest projection, it calculates that one-fifth of the delta would be flooded, said Tran Thuc, who leads Vietnam’s National Institute for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Sciences and is the chief author of the report. Storm surges could periodically raise that level, he said, and experts say an intrusion of salt water and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining delta area.

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Photos courtesy of AFP / Getty and EPA

Original Source: NY Times