Supplement to Earth Hour

My career goal is to someday make people realize that global warming is basically human action that is speeding up a natural cycle in the earths global average temperatures. An ice age and a warming period will happen with or without us, and the ecosystems can adapt to these natural changes. They always have. However, at the rate we are speeding it up, the ecosystems can NOT adapt, and will die. My goal is to beat sense into those who are trying to convince people otherwise, because its all politics and money for them. What they dont seem to get is that it doesnt matter how much money you have when you and most everything else on the planet is DEAD.
Just realize most people who are trying to convince you that global warming isnt happening are not scientists, never studied meteorology or any earth science, and probably have degrees in econ or political science. Take for example the founder of the weather channel. No meteorology degree. He made a youtube video against global warming, however he didnt not include all the facts, did not cite graphs and data, and to prove his point, he only took bits and pieces of the whole picture. What bugs me is he also said theres no way we can have global warming now because the global average temperature is decreasing, and showed this graph that only covered the past 20 years or so. It is true that the average global temperature is decreasing at this moment. But take a look at this graph that actually includes over 4000 years of temperature patterns, and youll see why we are still in trouble:



Here is a graph compiled by actual climatologists. I believe this is accurate, however I wish I could find one that went back a few million years like the one my teacher showed us in class. It looked like this, so just pretend it goes back farther. :) Notice if you will the gradual, GRADUAL increases and decreases in average global temperature. The sharp increases as you can see are all happening around major volcanic eruptions. HOWEVER take a look at the most current increase. There are no eruptions to cause this. Its happening around the industrial revolution. There is nothing else that could be causing that increase except human industrial activity. If you can think of a different reason that doesn't include human activity please tell me so I may inform my professor and the rest of the scientific community. Say we never went through the industrial revolution. Around 1900 where all of the eruptions stopped, that decrease would have continued into a deeper ice age, then temperature would have gradually increased again.
Now, seeing as how short lived and shallow that last ice age was thanks to our industrialization, how small do you think our next one will be? As you can see on the graph, temperatures are dropping again, as they would in this natural cycle. But at the rate at which the earth is warming, the next cooling period will not last long or be very cool compared to past cooling periods, and the preceding warming period will be even warmer and will come fast, as did the last one. Therefore, we have a rapidly warming earth. The end.

Im done with my rant. If you still don't get it, please, comment back with your arguments and I will prove you wrong with science and facts. I have many reliable resources.

EARTH HOUR TONIGHT

Dont forget to turn off your lights at 830 tonight! This is important.

Click here to see how cool this is.

Little buddy!

My new betta fish!! It was an impulse decision to get him, on the way back home from running I thought itd be cool to have one so I swung by petco. He was the prettiest one there! Cant see it in this pic but hes electric blue with white fins that look like flames. Still deciding on the name. Suggestions?

And I couldn't resist posting this, this is Jun at 7am, ready to start practice!!

Nationals- WI

Just got back today. Ive got mixed feelings about this meet. On one hand, I havent been skating well at all in practice or at the other am cup meets, and that was the best ive skated since before trials. I won the 500m and got 2nd in the 1000 and 1500. Looking at pictures, it looks like my form is better than it has been since the beginning of the season. On the other hand, I know that I can skate better, because I did at desert classic before trials. So even though I know I havent been training at my best or training hard enough so that I could reach my own expectations im still disappointed with the results. Marty talked to me about this middle of the road deal, if your only half in you have to be satisfied with whatever results you get, if you cant accept it then youll be frustrated and unhappy and thats not a good place to be. So all in or all out are the better choices. For next season I would like to be all in, although having full time school on the side doesnt help at all. 13 credit hours plus 6-8hrs of skating a day do not mix. Well see how things go...
Anyway I fell in the 1500m superfinal which lost me the possible 1st place overall. I wouldnt have had to worry about winning the superfinal if I had won the 1000, but I didnt pass up when I should have. Looking back on these races ill say next season ill definitely be paying more attention to strategy.

PS Gabi met a photographer on the plane that wanted to shoot us so her Andrea and me all went over to his studio and got a free photoshoot in our skates! He said hed send us the pics in a couple weeks. Ill post them when they come.

Jerry Search took this, I think its my 500. My first meet not wearing glasses, I look so mean without them, lol.



Annnd the traditional photobooth at the airport pics.

This is the most ridiculous picture ever, mostly because of Morgan, LOL.


Me and Jun as he pretends not to know me.


Gabi and me on the plane.


Morgan.


we couldnt rent any vans so we had to get 2 little cars, we fit 5 of us plus baggage in a honda civic, this is what that looked like. Mikey is buried on the right.





Our pink rejects relay team (all of us that werent on the pink ladies team, which was made up of 4 of the faster girls on our team)





Mikey was our alternate since we didnt have a 4th person...in case you dont know you have to have 4 people on a relay so we really were rejects. (you cant have guys on the team either, his title was just honorary, lol)


my 1500 silver.


This is Jun wherever we go. He sleeps 24/7. If I werent in front of him getting on the plane to prop him up he wouldnt have made it to his seat, LOL.

skiing and ice climbing

I have a bunch of pics to post from the past few weeks but I havent had any free time till now so here it goes. A few weeks ago...ok im not gonna lie it was way more than a few weeks it was back on the 14th, I went skiing with Garrett and a couple of his friends at the bird and took some crazy cool pics. Way too much powder for my GS skis though, the mountain pretty much pwnd me. Twisted my knee pretty bad and couldnt walk for a day but surprisingly it completely healed in only 2 days.





The clouds at the same level as the trail!







Ice Climbing II class in Ouray, CO.

Carpooled with a classmate. The drive was about 6 hours but we had the most interesting and random conversations so it seemed shorter. Went from religion to chocolate to drugs to southpark episodes, lol. Stayed in cool little cabins in town, I bunked up with 2 others. The first morning we climbed it was 11 degrees out. The next day it was a little warmer but not by much. After climbing and dinner at this awesome mexican place with monster nachos we went to the hot springs. Water was about 108 degrees :) Getting in and out was the hard part, it was still in the teens outside. My hair froze on the way back to the cabin, haha. There was a climb I did that day, hardest route ive ever done. It was completely vertical and had a little "cave" near the top that required some navigation to get around. On the way up I fell and dropped an ice pick, so my instructor, being the badass/insane crazy person he is, climbed it back up to me without being attached to a rope half the time, no big deal.
He eventually knotted sketchily onto my rope kindof...but I dont think it would have held him if he fell, haha. Hes a pro.
We were mock lead climbing that day and its good I was still attached to a top rope cuz I ran out of ice screws (the things you put into the ice to keep you from falling to your death if your not attached to a top rope) before the top, that would have sucked, lol. So on the way down I remembered the "cave" below me and the instructor reminded me to stay to the right of it while repelling so I didnt fall into it, and naturally I slipped and fell into it headfirst, haha. But it was basically just an indent in the ice/rock so it was shallow.














Nate the crazy instructor.


See the cave at the top? Thats what I fell into, haha.





Chocolate ice climbing sculptures at Mouses Chocolate.



The very first ice screw ive ever placed!


Ninja garb.


Downtown Ouray




The fire we made one night.

The almost demise of US Speedskating

This is overdue, but the power at the hotel was out. I shall explain:

The American Cup 3 in VA this past weekend was an experience. Mostly because it didnt happen. It was saturday morning and blizzard came in and dumped 2.5 feet of snow, which Virginia is not used to. We were warming up on the ice when we heard a loud noise. (Luckily) after a while someone noticed a support beam holding the roof up was no longer straight. It was brought to the attention of the officials and they put 2 and 2 together and got everyone off the ice and told everyone in the locker rooms to pack and get out because the roof was collapsing.
By this time the beam was twisted and bent at a 90 degree angle. We quickly got our skates off but as we were packing, we could all hear rumbling and creaking noises, part because of the stampede of people trying to get out, partly because of the roof. It was super scary.
Meanwhile, Jun is just sitting there sharpening skates in the corner like nothings happening.
His sister comes in and tries to tell him to get going, hes like ok let me finish.
She leaves, and most of the people in the room are gone. Im like JUN its ok, you can stop sharpening now. We need you alive, ok?? And he finally comes to his senses and packs out, hahaha. Crazy dude. Putting our blades over his life...
So we all leave and meet at the hotel. Only an hour or two later, the building is in ruins. Can you imagine if no one noticed the beam? All of Americas elite speed skaters except the Olympic team (which is in Vancouver now) would be dead or injured. The end of US Speedskating. Crazy to think about.
In case your wondering, the meet was cancelled and I know were lucky to be alive, but we all spent craploads of money for entry fees, airfare, food, gas, and hotel, uuugh. At least it was kind of a vacation...
Till the power in our hotel went out. All the guests except me and some of my teammates left the hotel, so we had it all to ourselves. We made the best of that by sitting in the dark in the hot tub till it got cold, then we played hide n seek in a pitch black empty creepy hotel, scariest thing ive ever done.

In the end we decided that everyone at the meet tied for first place, except Adam who is number 2, so we could all go home happy. The end.

Here are some pics Kelsey Schiel (skater from MI) took after the rink collapsed. So intense.

It started like this...


And ended like this.



This is around where the coaches and judges were standing.





And here are the traditional airport boredom photobooth pics.











Random pics I took:

Heres our favorite kiwi rockin the new look.


The blizzard outside my hotel window.


when your powers combine..i am..CAPTAIN PLANNEEEET!


Mustard sauce anyone? (engrish in VA)