Artist has discovered new island and wants to sail it to England for Olympics

A British artist, Alex Hartley, discovered a new island off the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, during the 2004 Cape Farewell expedition. The island had been revealed as melting ice caused a glacier to recede from the island.

Now, in a project named NOWHEREISLAND, Hartley plans to transport a part of the island to England. The island is about the size of a football field and is made up mostly of morain and rubble covering a small amount of bedrock. The island is named Nymark Island and is officially recognized by the Norwegian Arctic Survey.

Another part of the plan includes applying for "micronation" status while the island is enroute to England. There is already a "call" out for citizens and Hartley hopes his micronation will surpass several others in terms of population. This reminds me of the Principality of Sealand, a "country" that was set up in 1967 on a deserted concrete gun fixture that had been built during WW2 just outside of British territorial waters.

16-km wide floe of Arctic ice disintegrates in 5 minutes

Canadian scientists on an icebreaker working in the Beaufort Sea went looking for multiyear Arctic ice - something that used to cover the Arctic at depths up to 80 meters thick.

They have reported back and the news is not good. To make a long story short, they didn't find much at all. They just found hundreds of kilometers of "rotten ice", and seas that an icebreaker can plow through at 13 knots. This ice is made from bits and pieces of ice left over from previous years covered by jsut a thin layer of one-year ice.

David Barber, the Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said that the ice is melting extraordinarily fast. "I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic ... it was very dramatic," he said.

One ice floe they did find was 6-8 meters thick and about 16 kilometers wide. This small island of thicker ice disintegrated in 5 minutes after being buffeted by some waves.

New battery technology to be manufactured near Montreal

French billionaire Vincent Bollore announced today that his company, the Bollore Groupe, will invest $120 million in a battery factory in Boucherville, according to an article in Yahoo News Canada. They will be the first in the world producing the innovative lithium-metal-polymer battery technology that was developed in parallel by Quebec's Avestor, absorbed by Bollore Groupe in 2007, and BatScap, another Bollore subsidiary.

The interesting thing is that, at the time of the takeover of Avestor, Bollore had applied to build the new manufacturing facility in Brittany, France. For some reason they have decided to add to the existing Avestor facilities in Canada.

Maybe this was faster, easier to get approved, or perhaps a question of cheaper electricity, or, perhaps they hit up the QC gov't for tax concessions - who knows? No reasons given. Or maybe they will build in Brittany later.

This battery has an electric car project ready to go, in collaboration with the Italian Pininfarina Group. The fully electric "Bluecar" has already been shown at trade fairs in Europe and there is apparently a prototype of it set up in the Avestor building in Boucherville, Quebec. It has a top speed of 130 km/h and range of 250 km on a charge.

"Climate Cover-Up" exposes grow op of "astro-turf" grass roots science

There's a new book out that cuts to the most crucial issue of the whole global warming discussion.

The book is Climate Cover-Up,

The Crusade to Deny Global Warming

by James Hoggan with Richard Littlemore

As described in detail on the link above, the book gets into the nuts and bolts of how the truth about climate change has been deliberately shrouded in misinformation led by none other than the Masters of Misinformation, Phillip Morris. LOL

Rather than me go on about it, I could share the words of Leonardo Dicaprio on the subject:

“This book explains how the propaganda generated by self-interest groups has purposely created confusion about climate change. It’s an imperative read for a successful future.”

or David Suzuki:

“Climate Cover-Up documents one of the most disgusting stories ever hidden about corporate disinformation. What you’ll discover in this book amounts to proof of an intergenerational crime.”

James Hoggan is the leading figure behind the DeSmogBlog, one of the more authoritative sources of information on climate change.

Map shows effect of rising sea level from 1 - 14 m.

Here's a link to a cool map that gives an approximation of what would happen if the sea level rises by varying amounts from 1 to 14 meters.

Arctic Ocean Acidity an Imminent Wildlife Disaster

There have been several reports detailing the growing problem with ocean acidity due to absorption of carbon dioxide from the air.

Now it is becoming clear that there is imminent danger to the ecosystem and the food chain, specifically in the Arctic, where increasing acidity in the water could dissolve the shells of shellfish within 10 years. This is according to an article in the Telegraph.

It says acidity in the oceans is rising faster than ever before in the past 65,000 years. Doesn't sound good at all.

New glacier painting marks the precarious situation in the Himalayas

Tatiana Iliina's new abstract painting, Gangotri Glacier, is named after the glacier that is the main source of the Ganga River, also known as the Ganges.

The Ganges is India's holy river. As described by Jawaharlala Nehru in his 1946 book, Discovery of India,

"The Ganges, above all is the river of India, which has held India's heart captive and drawn uncounted millions to her banks since the dawn of history. The story of the Ganges, from her source to the sea, from old times to new, is the story of India's civilization and culture, of the rise and fall of empires, of great and proud cities, of adventures of man…"

The Ganga flows for 2,500 km through India, Nepal and Bangladesh and provides water for something like half a billion people before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

Considering that the Gangotri glacier is responsible for up to 70% of the water in the river during the dry summer months and that this glacier is receding twice as fast as in recent years, the future for the River Ganga is by no means clear. Some scientists estimate that the glacier may be gone by 2030. If that is the case, drastic measures will be required to keep the the river from drying up completely.