Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Let Them Eat Bugs

insect.gifThis is from the “You’ve gotta be kidding me” file. A group of so-called scientists in India wrote a paper addressing the topic of “increasing pressure on land is making meat production from macro-livestock less sustainable than ever before.” Their solution to the so-called problem is for people to stop raising cattle, hogs, etc. and to commence harvesting and eating insects.

Sherwood Idso of the CO2 Science website thinks that global-warming and climate change activists themselves should be leading the charge for entomological cuisine:

Globe-trotting Al Gore, for example, could dine on wasps, bamboo caterpillars, crickets and locusts, which Premalatha et al. tell us “are sold as delicacies in the finest restaurants and food shops in Thailand.” Or he may choose the very special rice-field grasshopper, which they say “is a luxury food item in Japan,” as are canned hornets. And James Hansen: when in Mexico, he could feast on escamoles (the pupae of an ant species) and gusanos (butterfly larvae), which are sold there for half the price he would have to pay in Canada, where they go for almost two U.S. dollars per gram (that’s over $900 per pound!).

Well said, Mr. Idso. Read the entire article at CO2science.org.

30 May 2012 by Environment Global Warming Greenbats

Total Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017

eclipse-2017.jpgWe started planning on viewing the total eclipse even before experiencing the annular eclipse last week. We think that we will observe the total eclipse from Casper, WY, although that could change.

The eclipse is still more than five years in the future and since it will occur on a coast to coast path across the United States, there are a lot of places to view the phenomenon. The greatest eclipse will occur in Western Kentucky – that is when the duration of totality is the longest – two minutes and 40 seconds of totality in this case.

Image: Path of totality across the states. Click to go to the official NASA eclipse site.

Wherever we decide to view the eclipse, I’m sure it will be spectacular. In Wyoming, totality will last about 2 minutes and 24 seconds. That’s plenty of time to see the stars and planets come out and for the surface temperature to drop noticeably.

This is a long time away, but we wanted to make this note about it on the blog. Maybe over the next five years we can organize an expedition of family and friends to enjoy the event. We’ll see . . .

28 May 2012 by Astronomy Environment Retirement

Annular Animation

Using photographs that Damsel took during the eclipse, I threw together a little animation of the main part of the event. To start the animation, click the image below; it will run until maximum annularity. Click again to continue to almost the end of annularity. Click once more to to rewind. Pardon the slight jitter; it was difficult to align each frame perfectly.

I cannot tell you how amazingly spectacular it was to see in person. Damsel and I are already starting to plan for the total eclipse that will occur on August 21, 2017. We are looking at being near Casper, WY, but that could change between now and five years from now.

24 May 2012 by Astronomy Environment Photography

A Desert Bird Nest

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Springtime means more than just flowers, especially for the cholla in our front yard. It has had several flowers like the one I posted a couple of days ago. Today, I discovered that a pair of curve-billed thrashers built a nest in the cactus and there are three eggs in it (see inset in photo above). After the discovery, we went out to the courtyard to photograph one of the parents incubating the nest (since the mom & dad take turns). Click on the image to enlarge.

11 May 2012 by Arizona Critters Environment Photography

Pea Hen Sighting Just Down the Road

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I spotted this pea hen on a neighbor’s roof. Their house is about eight-hundred feet down the road from our house. We have seen peafowl in the downtown area, but never this far out into our semi-rural area.

I looked at peafowl on the internet and think that this is a female Indian peafowl. She was just standing on the roof in the shade of a couple of eucalyptus trees. Click on the image to enlarge.

16 Apr 2012 by Arizona Critters Environment Photography

A Cardinal in a Mesquite Tree

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No, it’s not the first day of Christmas nor spring and neither is this a partridge in a pear tree. However, the red and green complimentary colors make this photo of a cardinal in the mesquite tree look very festive.

We put out the seed bell for the birds a couple of days ago and since they are attracted to it, we get lots of photo ops like this. Click on the image to enlarge.

To all of our Christian friends, Happy Easter and to all of our Jewish friends, Happy Passover.

07 Apr 2012 by Arizona Critters Environment Holidays Photography

A Century of Global Temperature Data Proves – Not Much

I read a recent article at the CO2 Science website entitled “One Hundred Years of Global Temperature Change: 1906-2005.” The article discusses the conclusions of a study made to try and determine if 20th century warming is the result of an anthropomorphic-related temperature increase.

Working with 2249 globally-distributed monthly temperature records covering the period 1906-2005, which they obtained from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the authors evaluated “to what extent the temperature rise in the past 100 years was a trend or a natural fluctuation.”

What was learned:

Ludecke et al. report that “the mean of all stations shows 0.58°C global warming from 1906 to 2005,” but they say that “if we consider only those stations with a population of under 1000 and below 800 meters above sea level, this figure drops to 0.41°C.” In addition, they note that “about a quarter of all records show falling temperatures,” which in itself, in their words, “is an indication that the observed temperature series are predominantly natural fluctuations,” where the word natural means that “we do not have within a defined confidence interval a definitely positive anthropogenic contribution.” And continuing to explore this aspect of their analysis, they evaluated – with a confidence interval of 95% – the probability that the observed global warming from 1906 to 2005 was a natural fluctuation, finding that probability to lie “between 40% and 70%, depending on the station’s characteristics,” while “for the period 1906 to 1955 the probabilities are arranged between 80% and 90% and for 1956 to 2005 between 60% and 70%.”

It’s interesting that this study went to the trouble to factor out the Urban Heat Island effect by removing densely populated areas from the results. Of course, the alarmists try and capitalize on the UHI effect to support their erroneous beliefs.

05 Apr 2012 by Environment Global Warming Science

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