Environment

Arctic Heroes #3 - Robert McClure Robert McClure and his crew were the first people to transit the North West Passage - by ship and sled.  They were also the first to circumnavigate the Americas - by ships and sled. McClure's ship - HMS Investigator - has just been found.  She was abandoned in June 1853 due to a combination of factors: the general poor health of the crew; the uncertainty of escape from the ice; the availability of other vessels to take the crew home. The story of how HMS Investigator came to be where it lies sunk today is a story of heroes trying to find a safe path…

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 wind I 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. Needless to say…

Goldsmiths of Paris, in May offered trees to Mary in the city of Eieffel tower as is written on an inscription kept in Notre Dame reminds me of Indian tradition , Japanese tradition role of plants in many religious ceremonies acorss the world.

Arctic Ice July - Update #4 Once again my focus is on Nares Strait.  This time I want to show how glaciers can be affected indirectly by sea ice. There are two major glaciers in the Nares Strait - Petermann and Humboldt.  Both are primed for calving. Although glaciers are many times thicker than sea ice, sea ice can slow calving of some glaciers.  Ice is very strong in compression, so a sheet of fairly thick and consolidated sea ice can exert a backforce on a glacier sufficient to reduce the calving rate even if by only a small amount.  Sea ice can restrict the expansion…

Roads of city centre in Barcelona or leading to it are having trees on both the sides. A feature that Maharaja of Jaipur laid down when he founded Jaipur. You can still see some trees on some roads of Jaipur within the walled city. However when I saw this on the roads of Barcelona I felt pity that our city of Jaipur could be as beutiful as Barcelona roads are but alas trees are not favourites of Jaipurites though JMC and JDA spend much money and built beutiful gardens out side the walled city but walled city could also have trees on the pattern of Barcelona of Spain. Roads of Barcelona are…

During recent visit to France I encountered my old friend working on biofuels telling me" Jatropha is a means of keeping underdeveloped countries underdeveloped"That was contrary to all the ideas that are developing around the globe. He even told me that its way to grab land in the name of Jatropha cultivation. He persistently asked me what is the yield per ha of Jatropha cultivation. If soils are good why not grow wheat instead of Jatropha. Many a times good instruments fall in wrong hands and Jatropha could be one such example. However our experience of introducing Jatropha as fences for…

It great to see all the roads of Barcelona so green:  Its a natural way of green house gas mitigation and to reduce pollution. 

If you can withstand a two hour wait in the queue (on Sunday the 18th July) to purchase the ticket costing Euro 25 for the Palace and gardens there is no other place as beautiful as the garden of the palace of Versailles, just one hour from Paris .  It has beautiful gardens spread over 5 km sq or more, with fountains running at specific times.   One has to see it to believe that if human activity can destroy the nature it can also create the parks and gardens which will remind you about the glory of God.  

It used to be filled with water.