I’ve been following this story for a few weeks. A 160 square mile ice shelf has begun collapsing in Antarctica due to warming. It is theorized that warming waters melted floating ice that protected the shelf from large wave action, causing its connection to land to be broken.

No word on its affect on ocean levels but it is probably negligible. The real danger is that this is a harbinger of larger collapses to come.

Here is a video of the collapse. A much larger shelf may be in danger of breaking up as a result of this collapse.

This post by Marc Andreesson, Founder of Netscape and Ning, on an hour and a half conversation with Obama last year is required reading for anyone sitting on the fence between Hillary and Barry.

In today’s Times Frank Rich makes a telling point about race and the Republican Party- they’re all old white guys. They took the South from the Dems in the 70s by playing the race card. Now the hoary immigration fear-mongering is driving their right wing. This is very bad for John McCain, a man I do not disrespect but whom I could never support for President because we need to clean house this time around- a thorough flushing out of the vermin is required.

Here’s McCain’s big problem:

“The authors of the new book “Millennial Makeover,” Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, point out that the so-called millennial generation (dating from 1982) is the largest in American history, boomers included, and that roughly 40 percent of it is African-American, Latino, Asian or racially mixed. One in five millennials has an immigrant parent.”

From Rich’s column. The same millenials are unconcerned about the role of gays in society (there’s nothing weird about being gay to them), nor do they see an issue with women’s rights- they accept them. What they do care deeply about is the future, the environment and the war. Their friends and family are the ones dying in Iraq, they are going to grow up dealing with climate change and its horrific global effects.

So, they’re not a big voting block, right? They’re coming out in droves for Obama. But think about this- they are also talking to their parents who are my generation, a generation that lived without a war (post-Viet Nam, pre-Iraq I) and were the first generation to start to understand environment, energy and population issues. There is a lot of real political discussion going on around this country and that’s not could for the whites guys in suits.

I did a little research to see if the phenomenon of deadly tornadoes during the winter months is normal or related to warming. There are differing opinions but the consensus is that tornado season can start in January in the Southern states and extremely dangerous tornadoes are not uncommon during winter months. Dot Earth has more info and stats on the frequency of dangerous storms that show little definable connection between warming and these weather phenomena.

Here in Rochester (NY) the winter pattern is much different than in the past and it is definitely a warming pattern. However this has not resulted in better weather- it has been different weather. We’ve had a lot of big fluctuations in temperatures. Tuesday it was 55 degrees F, this Sunday we will be lucky to see 10 degrees. Last week in a ten minute period the temps dropped 35 degrees.

The effects of these swings are extreme: very high winds (70 mph gusts during that rapid drop), heavy ice storm-style icing which we seldom saw before the end of March and heavy, wet lake affect snows. Most of us would much rather have a 25 degree dry humidity powder snow day anytime over 35 degree damp slush weather which has been the story most of this winter.