The Fall 2017 House of Bishops meeting is being held in Fairbanks Alaska this year. Held in Fairbanks is sort of a misnomer. We’re spending part of our time in Fairbanks, and the main meeting site is in Fairbanks, but Alaska being Alaska, we’ll be spending time away from the city – far away – too. Some of the bishops are going to be loaded on to mail planes I’m told, to fly out to […]
We have a great tradition of holding classes for parishioners in Lent, but once Easter comes, and Spring springs, we tend to focus on other things. But, what would happen if we tried an Easter class – like a Lent class, but later? Have I got a deal for you: In 2011, the Episcopal Church House of Bishops issued a pastoral letter on the environment. In response, a five-week study course titled A Life of Grace […]
Bill Nye, the Science Guy, is releasing a new book on the science behind Climate Change and the implications – in the short and long term – for all us. When asked about the myths that have come to surround the whole topic he speaks very plainly: The biggest myth is that scientific uncertainty, plus or minus so many percent, is the same as doubt about the whole thing. And that’s wrong; that’s patently wrong. […]
Here’s an interesting idea. Apparently there’s a company in the US that is about to release a small power generating device capable of providing up to 250 megawatts of power in a 500 pound unit small enough to fit in the engine compartment of a car. The device uses Thorium, a relatively common rare-earth element. The US leads the world in thorium reserves. “The key to the system developed by inventor Charles Stevens, CEO and […]
There’s a group that’s been looking at driftwood dispersal as a measure of the historic extent of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere. It’s interesting right now because there’s been a series of claims that we’re close to or have crossed the tipping point where we are about to lose all of the northern ice cap. That would create a huge problem as the oceans suddenly receive a huge supply of cold fresh water […]
Why is the Earth so different than Venus? Both planets are roughly the same size, and both exist within what is known as the “Life Zone” in the solar system. (The Life Zone is the region of solar space where it’s possible for liquid water to be found on the surface of a planet.) I used to ask that question every semester when I got to the section on planetology in an Astronomy course, and […]
The BBC has a report this morning on a growing sentiment in parts of the developing world that the climate change that they are witnessing is not due to the actions of humankind. They are a result of God’s judgement upon us. And as such, there is nothing we can change that will have any effect on the situation other than pray for help. From the end of the article: “Climate change is a global […]
Last week, while most of us here in the states were busy spending time with family and friends, the ongoing scandal of “Climategate” took a couple of new turns. Climategate is the popular term referring to the release by a computer hacker of a large body of private emails written by climate researchers. As people have combed through the emails they’ve found a number of questionable statements regarding the data the researchers have been citing […]
So okay, the headline is a little alarmist. I should probably say “Rising C02 levels” rather than “global warming” and “rising in spite of any efforts to stop them” instead of “no turning back”. But that will hardly make people read about this new study. Tim Garret, a physicist specializing in Atmospheric research, has created a new model predicting the amount of C02 that civilization produces. He models it on some specific and mostly obvious […]
Back when I was in High School and the works of Eric Von Daniken were still new and popular, I was fascinated by the mysterious works of the Nazca people in Peru. Von Daniken claimed that the giant figures that the Nazca people carved into the plateaus of Peru were meant to be seen by alien spaceships. (A bit of a reach perhaps, but if you know Von Daniken’s work, exactly what you’d expect.) But […]
