PlanetBye

Plastiki  is made out of – you guessed it – plastic. Plastiki, the plastic bottle version of Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki  , was carried from San Francisco to Sydney on a conveyor belt....and windI remember when water bottles were introduced on the Norwegian market. It was the most stupid idea I had ever heard of and could not imagine how anybody would be willing to loose their money on this bound to fail business project. Obviously I was wrong. Even in a clean country like Norway where fresh water is abundant everywhere there was a market for bottled water. Go figure.

The polar regions are far, far away for most people. Do not count me in among 'most people' though. As a Norwegian I practically live in the Arctic. There are only 8 nations that are (partly) situated in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and USA Several countries claim rights in Antarctica, which is regulated by the Antarctic Treaty . Sometimes we talk about a third pole, namely The Himalayas. Common for all three regions are remoteness and inaccessibility.

On this very date, 18th of May, 30 years ago, Mount St. Helens reawakened with a devastating eruption. If it weren't for the magnificent images taken by the USGS I would have had a hard time  believing just how devastating it was. The unexpected lateral blast killed volcanologist David A  Johnston on his observation post – now called the Johnston ridge – and simply ripped out the trees from the hill sides.

Climategate is being evaluated by several committees. The truth about transparency of climate data and scientific methods is supposed to be revealed after analyses of the hacked emails from University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

When we experience disasters like the earthquake in Haiti January 2010, we naturally ask the questions: Could we have known (early warning)? Could we have been prepared (mitigation plans)?Haiti on the Hispaniola island in the Caribbean. Credit: USGS

When we experience disasters like the earthquake in Haiti January 2010, we naturally ask the  questions: Could we have known (early warning)? Could we have been prepared (mitigation plans)?Haiti on the Hispaniola island in the Caribbean. Credit: USGS

The Haiti Earthquake: Science, Early
warning and mitigation

When we experience disasters like the earthquake in Haiti February
2010, we naturally ask the questions: Could we have known (early
warning)? Could we have been prepared (mitigation plans)?

It is hard to predict, especially the future.There is a saying going something like: Be careful what you wish for. You might get it. I have counted on this saying all my life. And that is the back ground for my predictions for Earth science the next decade. It is more of a wish list than anything else. Well, maybe not entirely.

It is hard to predict, especiallythe future.There is a saying going something like:Be careful what you wish for. You might get it. I have countedon this saying all my life. And that is the back ground for mypredictions for Earth science the next decade. It is more of a wishlist than anything else. Well, maybe not entirely.

Photo: Bente Lilja ByeChristmas at Fishermans Wharf, San Francisco.The American Geophysical Union is said to be the world's largest gathering of geoscientists. Remember that planet Earth is exactly that – a planet. So include a number of astronomers and astrophysicists in this herd of nerds, some 16000 of them actually. This gathering is misleadingly called The American Geophysical Union Fall meeting, when in fact it is more like a Christmas meeting as it takes place the week before Christmas every year in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world.

In December an important climate change meeting will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark: The United Nations Climate Change Meeting or the so-called COP15 climate meeting.