ExtraOrdinary Times - ExtraOrdinary Thoughts! Page 9

he stated that some items required a chemistry expertise that was far beyond his skills. Still, Tesla made plenty of profound statements that may warrant further investigation; and given the challenge of global warming and overdependence on fossil fuels we need it now more than ever!

New More than Ever

As the data rolls in from the Arctic, scientists are stunned by the level of ice melt this year. According to an Associated Press article by Seth Borenstein, the year 2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways:

• 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record.
   
• A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D. C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.
   
• The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. The Northwest Passage was also open to navigation.
   
• Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total.
   
• Alaska's frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, accord- ing to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.
   
• Surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean this summer were the highest in 77 years of record keeping, with some places 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, according to research to be released Wednesday by University of Washington's Michael Steele.

Global warming is a fact! The increase in global warming IS tracking with the increase in CO₂ as has been predicted for two decades now. Although some may still want to quibble over its cause, there is absolutely no doubt that the globe is warming up dramatically. Worse, it is outside of any previous climate models which predicted this degree of melting by 2090 or beyond.

This could be that as the icecaps melt, more heat is retained by the earth, thus accelerating the process set in motion by excessive CO₂ emissions. NASA scientist James Hansen believes that we may soon hit a tipping point in the process from which there is no return. It is imperative that we avail ourselves of every possible opportunity to reduce CO₂ emissions as soon as possible.

Conventional alternatives (solar, wind, geothermal) should be ad- opted as soon as possible. Aging coal fired plants need to be replaced immediately with new plants utilizing state of the art equipment. Consideration should be given to placing them at the site of the mine to eliminate emissions from trans- porting the coal across the nation. Emphasis should be on the development of electric cars that can be rechareged with solar panels.