Whole Travel Blog

Nephelios, a solar-powered blimp, is completing test flights over the next 2 weeks in preparation for a crossing of the English Channel by the end of the summer. This will mark the first manned solar airship ever, proving that carbon-free air travel is possible. Flexible solar panels on the top of the blimp will power a small motor, turning two propellers and moving the blimp forward. The flight across the Channel is expected to take less than an hour, and be an amazingly quiet and serene experience for those onboard. You can read more about it here.

Some people swim the Channel, these guys float across.

The United States Global Change Research Program, a joint venture of 13 federal agencies and the White House, released a study this week confirming that even if the nation takes significant measures to reduce carbon emissions, the impact of global warming is expected to become more severe in upcoming years. Some of the impacts expected are already being seen, including more powerful tropical storms and erosion of ocean coastlines.

Where's my iceberg?

Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stated, “What we would want to have people take away is that climate change is happening now, and it’s actually beginning to affect our lives.” He did continue to say that if we implement controls and measures to reduce our environmental footprint these effects could be significantly smaller.

The study is posted here: http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts. We encourage everyone to give it a browse if you have time - it’s 188 pages but has good summaries of the effects we’re having on our planet.

As reported by the Associated Press a few days ago, the wind seems to be dying down across the United States. The cause of this apparent slowing of our winds is still very speculative, as scientists disagree as to whether it’s even happening on a significant scale. But this study does suggest that average and peak winds have been on the decline since 1973, with some stations in the Midwest reporting >10% drops over the course of a decade.

Wind turbines near Mount Carmel, Iowa, stand still in December 2008.

There are enough questions that even the authors won’t say definitively whether the trend is real or not. But, with wind energy as a potential solution to part of the global warming crisis, it’s concerning that the solution might become useless by the problem.