My Photo of the Day

Sadly since returning from Madrid, my blogging activity has dwindled and I am anxious to catch up with at least one post per week and there are several topics going through my head.
I have been busy with many things and projects, not least a Journalism course at Bristol Uni, an Ebay business venture - details sometime soon, and various other things breaking into retirement gradually and getting used to the idea that i don't actually have to get up at 6:15 am every morning! Here goes with an easy photo of Cape Town with Robben Island in the distance. Taken from the top of Table Mountain

Polar Ice Melting

As a lifelong collector and historian of Polar Exploration; I have noticed an item that has popped up today. Much effort was made in the early years of Polar Exploration by many Sailors and adventurers to find a route around the north of Canada and down into the Pacific to China and India.

Finally the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen in the Gjoa took three years to complete the first voyage East to West in 1906 through the ice and Islands of the Northwest Territories in 1928, and the first West East voyage in the little Royal Canadian Mounted Police Vessel St Roch in 1941-1942. (See photo)

There has been record ice melt this year, and the normally ice-blocked channels are free as never before. due to Global warming according to the BBC. Stunning graphics show the retreat of polar ice in the high arctic over the last two decades. BBC Link.

If your home is near sea level

Inconvenient Truth

I have been aware for some time of Ex US Vice President Al Gore's personal wake-up call regarding global warming and its effects. I bought the DVD An Inconvenient Truth some weeks ago but only yesterday found the time to watch it from beginning to end. Immediately some starkly familiar images . The swirl of hurricane Katrina approaching the Gulf Coast in 2005, stranded boats far from the edge of the Aral Sea (See my blog), great calving from the edge of the Greenland Ice cap and many others that I have become familiar with over the last few years, but there were many new and thought provoking topics and Al Gore did a great job of presentation throughout, unafraid of naming and shaming the corporate polluters nor of upsetting the fundamentalists and deniers of evolution. It was certainly worth delving into the DVD extras after the main film to see various updates (as of late 2006) and the Director - Davis Guggenheim's own commentary. Well done Al Gore. If you haven't yet seen the film PLEASE do so soon! Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun wrote:

In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to. I agree with him!