Al Gores grounndbreaking documentary, An Inconvenient Truth , is now available on DVD. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend you ignore everything you may or may not think about Gore and buy the DVD. Watch it with your family and talk about it. Pass a copy on to a teacher, a friend, a co-worker. Everyone needs to see this film and respond to it on their own personal level. While it should be pretty obvious what my stance on climate change is, I’m not going to tell you how to think- just watch the flick, keep an open mind and you may find yourself becoming more than a little alarmed.
In the short time since the theatrical release a lot of what were informed predictions in the film have taken place. Gore covers these changes in the interview included on the DVD.
Last week a major summit on climate change was held in Africa, a continent already experiencing drought and starvation linked to global warming. Virtually nothing was accomplished as enegry-hogging, CO2 spewing nations like the US and China blocked every move to decide on anything.
We don’t have time to spend years debating this subject. As the movie clearly shows, something momentous is happening right now and its accelerating. Watch it, talk about it, share it- it’s your duty as a creature on this planet.

We’re starting to see absolutely amazing innovation driven by the ability to model on a computer and emerging materials technology. This development of a sailing vessel that can sail faster than the speed of the wind, potentialy over 60MPH, is an example.

Computer numerically controlled (CNC) tools, carbon fiber and other exotic technologies are changing the limitations of invention. A sailboat that could sail at twice the speed of the wind could become a viable means of transport- clean, quiet, no energy.

Thanks to Waterlog for this.

If you think speculating about the effects of global warming is something interesting to read on a blog, you probably don’t live on an island. Because, if you do, these effects are the real deal, right now. In this rant, scientist Gerry Connelly, a resident of Bermuda, gives a clear and frightening evaluation of what those island dwellers are looking at right now: the potential loss of the Gulf Stream and its moderating effects, loss of fishing, extreme weather (Katrina) and the possibility that they could be facing evacuation within a few years- extreme but entirely probable.

NASA has developed a way of weighing the mass of the huge Greenland ice sheet. The results are frightening. During the nineties the sheet’s losses during warm months were approximately equal to gains during cold months. Now, with new technology, it has been determined that the sheets are losing almost twice as much water to melting as it is regaining during winter freezes. The numbers are staggering: Each summer the sheet now loses as much water as flows through the Colorado river in six years.