Earth Day 101: Baby Steps To Going Green
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We just had the hottest May on record (until next May)
Spring record breakers
We just had the hottest May on record (until next May)
NOAA’s monthly State of the Climate report came out and, spoiler alert, it wasn’t good. It turns out May 2014 was the hottest May on record, which shouldn’t really come as a surprise as four of the five hottest Mays in the recorded history of May came in the last five years. More good news: After a blazing first five months of the year, the impending El Nino could push 2014 to the top of the climate charts as the warmest year in recorded history. Terrell Johnson and Jon Erdman at Weather.com had this to say:
Last month was the hottest May in more than 130 years of recorded weather history, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday in its monthly state of the climate report, as May 2014 surpassed the previous record high for the month set in 2010. The world’s combined land and ocean temperature for May was 1.33°F above the 20th century average of 58.6°F, NOAA reported, adding that four of the five warmest Mays have occurred in the past five years. In the report, NOAA separates out temperature records for the world’s land and ocean areas. On land last month, the world saw its fourth-hottest May on record with a global surface temperature 2.03°F above the 20th century average. The oceans saw their hottest May on record, with a temperature 1.06°F above the 20th century average.
So this was the hottest May, but more frightening is the pattern. We haven’t had a May with a below average temperature since 1976. Gerald Ford was president, parachute pants were still from the distant future, and your grandmother had literally just bought those bicentennial collectors plates you recently found in the attic. It begs the question: How long can temperatures be above average before we have to admit that average has changed?
I’d suggest we all pack our undershorts with ice, but the way things are going, ice could be hard to find.
Source
World’s Hottest May Is Now May 2014: NOAA, Weather.com
Jim Meyer is a Baltimore-based stand-up comedian, actor, retired roller derby announcer, and freelance writer. Follow his exploits at his website and on Twitter.
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Nun Faces up to 30 Years for Breaking Into Weapons Complex, Embarrassing the Feds
Mother Jones
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Nestled behind a forested ridgeline on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee, is the sprawling Y-12 National Security Complex, America’s “Fort Knox” of weapons grade uranium. The complex’s security cameras and machine gun nests are designed to repel an attack by the world’s most feared terrorist organizations, but they were no match for Sister Megan Rice, an 83-year-old Catholic nun armed with nothing more than a hammer and bolt cutters.
In the dark morning hours of July 28, 2012, Rice and two fellow anti-war activists bushwhacked up to the edge of Y-12, cut through three separate security fences, and sprayed peace slogans and human blood (see below) on the wall of a building that is said to hold enough weapons-grade uranium to obliterate human civilization several times over. They remained inside Y-12 for more than an hour before they were detected.
“The security breach,” as the Department of Energy’s Inspector General later described it, exposed “troubling displays of ineptitude” at what is supposed to be “one of the most secure facilities in the United States.” At a February hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, multiple members of Congress thanked Rice for exposing the site’s gaping vulnerabilities. But that didn’t deter federal prosecutors from throwing the book at Rice and her accomplices: Greg Boertje-Obed, a 57-year-old carpenter, and Michael Walli, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran. They now sit in Georgia’s Irwin County Detention Center, awaiting a January 28 sentencing hearing where a federal judge could put them in prison for up to 30 years.
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Nun Faces up to 30 Years for Breaking Into Weapons Complex, Embarrassing the Feds
