Happy Earth Day! Then again, I have always thought that we lived on a misnamed planet. The word “earth” is a synonym for dirt while 71% of the planet is covered by water. Perhaps we should be saying Happy Ocean Day!
Whatever you choose to call the planet, it is changing. In the Carteret
Islands of Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, the 1,500 residents are being forced from their homes by rising sea levels. Some believe the islands will be uninhabitable by 2015. The island residents are being referred to as the “world’s first climate change refugees.”
Recently the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a series of landmark reports on the current state of consensus science on climate change. As reported by Eric Holthaus on Slate.com: “In a sentence, here’s what they found: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it—but we can still fix it if we decide to work together.”
So bottom line, if we all cooperate in our common self interest, we may find ways to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. On the other hand, climate change may be just another excuse to slaughter each other.
Are passenger ro-ro ferries inherently unsafe?
Recently the folks at 
Whale sightings in and around New York harbor are getting less and less unusual. Unfortunately, the most recent sighting was of a dead 
The 
On January 9, 2013, 