earth day
cwilcox | April 16, 2009The snows are melting (we hope), the flowers are starting to bloom, and here in FL it's not quite obnoxiously hot out. It's spring, and with it comes one of my favorite yearly holidays - Earth Day!
That's right - April 22nd is Earth Day 2009. Started in the 1970s by a smart senator from Wisconsin as a way to "shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda", Earth Day has been pushing for environmental action for almost 40 years.
Lots of communities have organized fairs, festivals, or clean-ups to celebrate. But even if you don't want to join the masses at…
esiegel | April 23, 2008Since the dawn of time man has yearned to destroy the sun. - C. M. Burns
There's no need to stop at the Sun, though. Since yesterday was Earth day, I thought it was only appropriate to spend today telling you how not only to destroy the Earth, but to effectively destroy the entire Universe. To tell you this story, we have to go all the way back to the beginning, to just before the big bang.
The big bang was when the Universe was hot, dense, full of energy, and expanding very quickly. The Universe was also spatially flat and the same temperature everywhere, and full of both matter and…
grrlscientist | April 22, 2008tags: Earth Day, nature, Discovery Channel, commercial, streaming video
A Discovery Channel commercial for Earth Day .. [1:06].
grrlscientist | April 22, 2008tags: The Sun, Mary Oliver, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me).
The image was kindly provided by my friend, Dave Rintoul, who snapped that picture when we were visiting the Platte River in Nebraska, watching the migrating sandhill cranes.
Sunset over a slough on the Platte River, Nebraska.
Image: Dave Rintoul, March 2008 [larger view].
Today's poem was one I chose for Earth Day, especially for these ending lines;
or…
angrytoxicologist | April 22, 2008What's wrong with Earth Day?
The name, for one. Earth day. Protecting mother earth. Saving the environment. What's wrong with these? They're all about the earth. No humans mentioned. For a day that's supposed to highlight the damage we are doing and to energize some action, it's woefully off the mark. The degredation of the environment is harmful for people, this is what matters. Doubtless, there are those who care about the environment for the environment's sake. You are entitled to your value but let me tell you that the majority of humanity does not share your outlook. They majority may,…
esiegel | April 22, 2008As you may have noticed from yesterday's unusual post, today is Earth Day! I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite pictures from space of it, including the famous photograph from Apollo 8 known as Earthrise:
This combination shot made from NASA’s Terra satellite and NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite:
The known satellites at least 0.1 meters in size in orbit around Earth (there are ~11,000 of them as of April 2005, and another 100,000 between 1 cm and 10 cm in size):
Looking at the Earth and the docked Space Shuttle from the International Space Station:
And…
grrlscientist | April 21, 2008
Image: NOAA [larger view].
What are you doing today to celebrate Earth Day?