by Beth Gray

While most of us are lucky to travel to another country in our lifetime, there are some who are taking the concept of a vacation to an unprecedented level.  For those with enough money (approximately $20 to $30 million dollars) and a need for adventure, space tourism offers a once-in-a-lifetime vacation opportunity.  Beginning in 2001 with American Dennis Tito, space tourism company Space Adventures began marketing this amazing opportunity.  To date, the company has provided the opportunity for seven individuals to spend up to 15 days traveling to and from the International Space Station. 

A recent study in Geophysical Research Letters has many questioning the practice of space tourism.  The authors of the study assumed “using current business models” that “by 2020 there will be 1,000 suborbital space tourist flights every year.”  Just last month, the world saw the first spaceport established in New Mexico.  Richard Branson has been one of the most stalwart advocates of space tourism and his company, Virgin, funded the New Mexico spaceport.

Because combustion from rockets is a large contributor of black carbon emissions in the atmosphere, many have begun to question the value of space travel in general, and space tourism specifically.  While most would agree that there is value in exploring and understanding space, critics of space tourism see little to no value in allowing individual private citizens to take a space vacation – even for $20 or $30 million. 

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by Beth Gray

Photo taken from Discovery Magazine article: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/055

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explains that “the Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine.”    This environmentally sensitive area of the globe has been in danger for decades but recent images provide visual proof of just how dire the situation is.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado provides a daily update on the declining volume and size of Arctic sea ice.  The daily images show where the sea ice boundary currently is with an orange line showing where it was in 1979.  The NSIDC reports that as of August 16, “Arctic ice extent was 5.95 million square kilometers.”  This may seem like a massive amount of ice but as NSIDC notes, this represents a decrease of some 1.68 million square kilometers below the 1979 to 2000 average for the season. 

Though Arctic sea ice does melt during the Arctic summer (a time when the region experiences 24 hours of sunshine), this season’s melt has been dramatic.  A recent Washington Post article explains that “After going into the melt season with more ice over a larger area than recent years, sea ice extent plummeted by a daily rate of 26,000 square miles per day during May, which was the highest rate of loss ever observed for the month since satellite records of sea ice began in 1979.”  On his blog, Nick Sundt, Director of Communications, Climate Change Program at the World Wildlife Fund, put this figure into perspective writing, “That is an area roughly half the size of the entire United States (including Alaska)…”  As if the analyses from satellite images was not startling enough, however, researchers studying the region are finding that the situation is worse than even the satellite images are showing.  In a Time Magazine article earlier this year, David Barber, an Arctic climatologist at the University of Manitoba, describes his experience in visiting the area:  “Some of what satellites identified as thick, melt-resistant multiyear ice turned out to be…’full of holes, like Swiss cheese.  We haven’t seen this sort of thing before.’”

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by Beth Gray

This past December, more than 120 Heads of State and Government traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15).  The Conference, lasting for close to two weeks, was intended to be the launching point for a comprehensive worldwide agreement on how to most effectively combat climate change.  Even with the best of intentions, however, few who attended the Conference have expressed much satisfaction with the progress made and eventual outcome of the meeting.

The proceedings were plagued with administrative and logistical difficulties and contentious moments between some of the world’s biggest carbon emitters.  For example, as estimated by one attendee, some 45,000 people attended the Conference – great turn out except that Copenhagen’s Bella Center where the event was held can only accommodate 15,000.  Aside from the obviously cramped quarters into which Heads of state, their delegates, journalists, representatives from NGOs, and others were overcrowded, even greater difficulties hindered the progress of the discussions.  Read the rest of this entry »