Climate Crisis: giant algae bloom off Pacific Coast

An image taken from a weather satellite shows swirling masses of a single-cell phytoplankton called coccolithophore off the west coast of Vancouver Island and Washington state. Scientists have been tracking the massive algae bloom, which is not considered harmful, since it first appeared in Barkley Sound on June 21. Photograph by : NASA

Scientists are worried that global warming might have contributed to creating an algae bloom off the west coast of Vancouver Island that is so big it can be seen from space.

At the Institute of Ocean Sciences in North Saanich, researchers are tracking the swirling mass that runs the length of the Island’s west coast. They believe it consists mainly of coccolithophore, a naturally occurring, single-cell phytoplankton.

It’s the biggest algae bloom institute physicist Jim Gowen has seen.

“The bloom is good in that it means there are lots of nutrients out there for things to grow,” he said. “But what we’re worried about is that if global warming is going to really kick in and start warming everything up, then the prediction has to be that we’ll see more of these things more often. It’s certainly worrying when you see the biggest one, because you think that it’s a sign things are getting worse.”

Zero to eight months in no time at all

Verity turns eight months old in a couple days. How time flies. In the inset she is just a few days old.

MacBook Pro shutdown failure leads to heat danger

Unlike other users who report their MacBook Pros run really hot, mine runs nice and cool. However, I took my MacBook Pro out to work in a coffee shop for a couple hours today. When I arrived at the shop I discovered my laptop had not shut down completely and was frozen in the last screen before shutdown. While in my case, it had become progressively hotter until I could almost not pick it up. This took about 20 minutes. I wonder what would have happened if it had been left longer.

Not cool.

Apple: think different about online ads

I’m cruising around pulling materials for various blog posts and I hit the CNN website to find a transcript. Loading in all of its richness and glory is one of the “I’m a Mac” video ads. A video ad right on the home page of CNN! That has to be pricey.

Thing is, I arrived there via Firefox for Mac OS X, and a simple script could have told the CNN webserver that was the case.

Apple could save a buck or two not preaching to the converted.

Speaking truth to the formerly powerful

You’d think Dick Cheney was an intimidating figure, what with all the warring and the swearing and the Syrianas, etc. Not for firebrand US Senator Joe Biden. Biden is a very direct individual, but he’s also a political survivor and someone I greatly admire. Cheney and Biden were just a few pixels apart on the Wolf Blitzer Show on CNN when this hilarious exchange occurred:

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting, and no matter how you carve it, you can call it anything you want, but basically, it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight.

BLITZER: All right. You want to respond to the vice president, Senator Biden?

BIDEN: No, I don’t want to respond to him. He’s at 20 percent in the polls. No one listens to him. He has no credibility. It’s ridiculous.

Joe Biden, you are my hero. You’ve found another way to say this to the Vice President, and in an entirely polite and factual manner. Cheney is a shell of an evil man, reduced to the Republican talking point bench-warmer circuit, and Biden justifiably left him deeper in the smoking rubble of his career. Hopefully one day he will share a pardon sheet with Scooter Libby.

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