Remember this diary on climate change and Europe's recent cold winters?  Now from France Presse we have this article:  

Scientists have found evidence of a "drastic" shift since the 1970s in north Atlantic Ocean currents that usually influence weather in the northern hemisphere, Swiss researchers said on Tuesday.

The team of biochemists and oceanographers from Switzerland, Canada and the United States detected changes in deep sea Atlantic corals that indicated the declining influence of the cold northern Labrador Current.

They said in the US National Academy of Science journal PNAS that the change "since the early 1970s is largely unique in the context of the last approximately 1,800 years," and raised the prospect of a direct link with global warming.

The Labrador Current interacts with the warmer Gulf Stream from the south.

They in turn have a complex interaction with a climate pattern, the North Atlantic Oscillation, which has a dominant impact on weather in Europe and North America.

Scientists have pointed to a disruption or shifts in the oscillation as an explanation for moist or harsh winters in Europe, or severe summer droughts such as in Russia, in recent years.

"Now the southern current has taken over, it's really a drastic change," Schubert told AFP, pointing to the evidence of the shift towards warmer water in the northwest Atlantic.

 

Crudely put, the cold Labrador Current, which had been responsible for New England's traditional cold winters, is shutting down, allowing the Gulf stream to pool up in the northwest Atlantic instead of carrying warm water over to Europe where it "belongs".  This in turn is creating milder winters in New England and more extreme weather in Europe.  

Or:  

It is not the Gulf Stream that is shutting down--it is the Labrador Current.  However, the effect is indeed what we have been noticing by looking out our windows, without the benefit of climate science.  

Dougr in a comment on The Oil Drum says:  

OK let's get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn't really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what's really happening in the GOM.
As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there...

That is:

there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us.

After something like a half-decade of incisive analysis and lively discussion unlike other any on the internet, the blog Moon of Alabama (MOA) (see blog roll at the right side of the Eurotribune home page) is shutting down.  Bernhard, who has managed the blog for its entire run, cited as reasons for closing it changes in his professional life, changes leaving him with insufficient time to continue running the blog and short of money for his non-internet life--the cost of the blog NOT being the main issue.  At this moment, the blog is still up, and a farewell-thread continues.  

The Oil Drum has a new post up with a link to a talk Matt Simmons, and oil investment banker, gave to the Australia American Chamber of Commerce in Houston on 29 January 2009.  

The sound quality is the worst I have ever encountered on the internet, nevertheless, I believe I was able to pick up a number of interesting points.  The theme of the talk is that oil prices are crazy, and the craziness is having bad effects on the stability of future oil production:  Oil decline could substantually exceed the rate imposed by natural geological constraints.  

(Unmentioned in this talk, the Oil Drum itself has posted articles looking at resource peaks such as Peak Whale Oil in the 1840s, and how price chaos has been the historical sequel to peaking production.)  

Of course you will be wanting me to justify or defend this title.  So perhaps I had better admit at the outset that I cannot.  Nobody knows what the coming age will be, nor what metaphysics it will either accept, or require.  Nonetheless, that is where I would have us turn our minds, for consideration and speculation.  

This is, obviously, a heat-generating topic.  Metaphysics is like religion, indeed, as it is concerned with the fundamental structure and meaning of the world (or of life) it IS religion, where religion exists.  And where religion does not, metaphysics takes on the religious passion.  

But I would have us consider it anyway, because whatever we believe, it is likely to change.  Circumstances alone will see to that.  My goal here is not to seek agreement, but to find possibilities--more important than what is precluded (although some notions will be being shed) is what is allowed.  

[With his permission, I am re-posting Boston Joe's diary of Mon 27 Nov 2006 at Booman Tribune about Dr. Robert Bussard's research on fusion energy.  I think it is worth considering and may be of interest here--Gaianne]

Watching our [US--Gaianne] government in action is very much like observing a sucker at the poker table.  The guy or gal who is always chucking away chips while drawing dead, but never wants to take a rational risk at a worthwhile pot.  

I came across a diary last week by RimJob at Dailykos that makes this case and point.  The diary links to a lecture by Dr. Robert Bussard that explains his efforts towards a revolution in energy production through fusion.