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Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real

Posted by admin on December 2nd, 2011

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Climate scientist sparks protest

Posted by admin on December 1st, 2011

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MINNEAPOLIS — The annual meeting of the Geological Society of America isn’t the type of affair one might associate with outrage among the citizenry — or anyone, really.

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At the recent four-day meeting, scientists of all ages, nationalities and sartorial sensibilities sat in darkened conference rooms, laughed at bewildering jokes, presented research and bonded in the permanent, interminable line at the single place in the airport-sized convention center that sold coffee.

Save for some particularly nerdy jokes shouted at a local pub, the people of Minneapolis might never have noticed the 6,000 or so scientists suddenly in their midst.

Yet on the final day of the conference, a knot of protestors gathered outside the convention center, chanting and pumping signs in the air. Only nine protestors, but still — what had sparked their ire? [ 10 Historically Significant Political Protests ]

One man. In fact, one Michael E. Mann, the protestors said, as a cool afternoon drizzle wilted signs that read, “Erik the Red and thousands of Vikings can’t be wrong,” and “What happened to the medieval warming period?”

Warming history
The signs were taped to hockey sticks — mostly child-sized hockey sticks — a symbol of grand significance among those who dispute that anthropogenic climate change is real, and one that, given the locale, is likely plentiful.

The signs referenced a time about 800 to 1,000 years ago when, scientific research indicates, a combination of natural forces appear to have brought on a period of planetary warmth comparable to the toasty mid-20th century, but cooler than global temperatures today. Evidence of the warm period has become a rallying point for those who don’t think human activity is affecting the global climate.

“We heard he was coming, and we are interested in scientific integrity,” said Kim Crockett, an elegantly dressed woman with a silvery bob hairstyle who was in charge of the protest. “We feel he has not practiced that with his hockey stick graph.”

What is now known as the hockey stick graph was published in a 1999 paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and represents temperature in the Northern Hemisphere between the years 1000 and 2000 A.D. The line is vaguely flat until the early 20th century, when it begins a precipitous climb, similar to the shape of a hockey stick.

Mann, a climate researcher and director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, was one of the lead authors of that paper. The overall findings — that the rapidly increasing temperatures glimpsed in the latter half of the 20th century are anomalous and historically significant — have been backed up again and again by subsequent research.

Mann was also one of the scientists involved in the now infamous “Climategate” incident, which involved stolen emails that allegedly, according to some climate change skeptics, revealed a degree of data fiddling. Several independent investigations found no scientific malfeasance was afoot.

Science in public
While the protestors walked in a tight circle on a traffic median, Mann was inside the convention center delivering a talk entitled, “Climate Scientists in the Public Arena: Who’s Got Our Backs?”

Several hours earlier, long before the protestors appeared, Mann sat down with a cup of coffee in the sundrenched lobby of a nearby hotel to offer a brief preview of his talk. Mann said he’d been giving some version of it for the last couple of years.

“I’ve been asked to, and frankly, I think it’s incumbent upon me to speak out — first of all about the strength of the underlying science, and the efforts to attack the messenger because the message is inconvenient,” Mann said. [Read: Climate Change Debunked? Not So Fast ]

When asked why he thinks the attacks have persisted, and if there was a precedent for the present embattled position of climate scientists, Mann looked to the not-so-distant past.

“I think we’re seeing in the area of climate change what we saw with tobacco, with pharmaceuticals, any area of science where there are powerful, vested interests who may feel threatened by the findings of science,” Mann said. “And in the past we have seen those special interests do all they can to manufacture false controversy and to try to distort the public discourse — to confuse the public about the reality of these problems.”

Mann said the reality of the problem is clear.

In fact, just recently a physicist and skeptic of global warming, Richard Muller, reportedly now agrees the phenomenon is real. His conclusion comes after two years of study to figure out if climate scientists were wrong, according to an Associated Press article.

“To debate whether or not humans are warming the planet is, frankly, silly,” he said. “No serious scientist will try to argue that with a straight face in front of fellow scientists. To argue how much future warming we might expect, depending on future fossil fuel burning, there are some uncertainties there,” Mann said.

Some of the biggest uncertainties that climate scientists have uncovered in recent years, Mann said, are in the polar regions, where the speed and magnitude of the changes have been unprecedented.

Arctic sea ice has disappeared faster than many models predicted; the ice sheets, glaciers and ice shelves in Antarctica and Greenland appear to be at the mercy of forces scientists don’t entirely understand.

“There’s reason to believe there are processes that are not represented in the models that have caused us to be overly conservative in the projections we’ve made,” Mann said.

In the end, he said, how global climate change will manifest itself isn’t well defined. There’s a wide spread of possible outcomes, including more extreme weather in some areas.

“It may be that the upper-end models are right, and it may be that the lower-end models are right. We typically go with the middle,” Mann said, referring to a spectrum of warming scenarios predicted from computer models. “But what if one of these extremes is right?”

Mann said that means it’s important for humans to take decisive action to control the forces that drive climate change, as a kind of insurance policy for the planet against future catastrophe.

“The worst-case scenarios may be unlikely, but they’re not negligibly unlikely, and we have to take measures to hedge against the possibility that the changes will be at the upper end of the distribution,” Mann said. “So we could be having that worthy discussion about real uncertainty, and how it translates into risk assessment and vulnerability, but instead we’re still stuck — at least in the public discourse — in this silly debate about the reality of the problem.”

Signs of the time
That afternoon, back at the convention center, as Mann delivered his talk, scientists milled around in the main entryway, while the protestors marched in a circle.

One young scientist in a T-shirt stopped short, looking confused, and asked, in heavily accented English, “What is this about? Are they against us?”

Scientists took pictures of the protestors, while the protestors took pictures of themselves.

Mostly everyone smiled puzzled smiles, or shook their heads, and some stopped to talk to the marchers, who happily obliged.

“The main objection is that Michael Mann created the hockey stick chart, which is kind of the basis for the global warming theory,” said a mustachioed and bearded protestor.”We don’t believe in the theory of global warming, in general — anthropogenic global warming,” he said.

Protest leader Crockett spoke up.

“Even if you grant the theory of anthropogenic global warming, I reject the so-called solutions that people are proposing, because I think that they are immoral,” she said. “If you took the money that people are talking about, and applied it to other significant human suffering throughout the world, it would be much, much better spent — things like mosquito nets to stop malaria.”

She also pointed to programs in Minnesota designed to make roads more user-friendly for pedestrians, cyclists, the elderly, and public transportation (called Complete Streets), and legislation that requires 25 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by the year 2025 (Renewable Portfolio Standards), both of which were signed into law by former governor Tim Pawlenty. “They’re a very bad idea,” she said.

As for Mann — they’d come out just for him?

“It’s a great opportunity to just welcome him to Minnesota, and say, ‘We’re paying attention,’” she said.

Added the bearded protestor, “We’re not all drinking the Kool-Aid.”

You can follow staff writer Andrea Mustain on Twitter:https://twitter.com/#!/AndreaMustain. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter@livescienceand on Facebook.

More ships take shortcut via less icy Arctic

Posted by admin on December 1st, 2011

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COPENHAGEN?— Danish shipping company Nordic Bulk Carriers said it has saved a third of the cost and nearly half the time in shipping goods to China by taking advantage of receding Arctic ice to sail north of Russia instead of via the Suez Canal.

As the climate warms up and ice melts, many shipping companies are eyeing the Northern Sea Route as a way to cut voyage times and costs in the future.

“We see great potential in this,” Nordic Bulk Carriers Director Christian Bonfils told Reuters. “When we save 22 days on transportation, it is very, very good business for us.”

The company plans to make four to five such trips next summer, he said.

On Aug. 30, its Sanko Odyssey, the world’s biggest ice-classed bulk carrier, set out from the Russian port of Murmansk along the Northern Sea Route to arrive in China on Sept. 23 after 23 days at sea, which according to Bonfils is 22 days less than sailing through the Suez Canal.

It was the second voyage by a commercial bulk carrier through the icy sea lane.

Depending on the particular ports of a route, the distance to China is roughly 30 percent shorter. Another Nordic Bulk Carriers ship made the trip in the summer of 2010.

The ship was carrying 70,000 tons of iron ore concentrate and was escorted by a Russian icebreaker through the Arctic. It arrived at the Chinese port of Jingtang.

“It is a good alternative to the Suez — especially for goods leaving countries like Norway, Finland, northern Russia or the Baltic countries,” said Bonfils.

Even if the Arctic summer route does become a feasible alternative, however, it is unlikely to get heavy traffic.

“This route will never be the Suez. It would be like having a Suez that was only open four months a year, and you didn’t know which months those were because it depended on the weather,” Bonfils said.

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Those drawbacks are offset by the time and fuel saved, Bonfils said. In the latest voyage, its Japanese-built vessel saved 1,000 tons of fuel by taking the northern route.

The biggest obstacle in sailing the remote icy waters is not ice, but Russian bureaucracy, Bonfils said. Permission from the Russian authorities and at least one Russian atomic icebreaker as an escort are required to use the route.

“The biggest bottleneck is that tariffs, rules and regulations that need to be settled on the Russian side,” he said.

Still, negotiations for the 2011 trip were markedly easier than for the 2010 voyage, Bonfils said.

“Now we know the decision-making process — it just has to be sped up and simplified,” he said, adding that Russia has promised to simplify the system.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week predicted Arctic shipping routes along Russia’s northern coast would soon rival the Suez Canal as a quicker trade link from Europe to Asia.

Officials at the Arctic Forum in the White Sea port city of Arkhangelsk said Russia must develop infrastructure to guard against oil spills, revamp ports and build more icebreakers to realize Putin’s vision of shipping year-round.

“The shortest route between Europe’s largest markets and the Asia-Pacific region lie across the Arctic. This route is almost a third shorter than the traditional southern one,” Putin told participants, who included Iceland President Olafur Grimsson.

“I want to stress the importance of the Northern Sea Route as an international transport artery that will rival traditional trade lanes in service fees, security and quality,” Putin said. “States and private companies who chose the Arctic trade routes will undoubtedly reap economic advantages.”

With scientists across the globe predicting a thaw linked to climate change could deliver ice-free Arctic summers within a decade, Russia’s Sovkomflot cargo line and others have increased test shipments via the polar region.

The Arctic was crossed in a record eight days last month by the STI Heritage tanker, owned by Scorpio Tankers Inc., powering from the United States to Thailand.

In August, Sovkomflot’s supertanker, the Vladimir Tikhonov, ferrying 120,000 tons of natural gas condensate, became the largest vessel of its kind to forge the passage.

Russia’s Novatek, which is eyeing the short-cut as part of an ambitious project to ship liquefied natural gas from the Yamal peninsula, estimates the route will slash 10-15 percent off shipping costs.

In another marker of rising interest, Rosatomflot, which sends one of its 10 atomic-powered icebreakers to smash through ice as thick as six feet, received 15 requests to escort Arctic voyages in 2011, against four in 2010.

To meet demand, Putin said Russia will spend $1.2 billion through 2014 on adding to its atomic icebreaker fleet and plans to build three more by 2020.

One of the chief lures of the Arctic transport corridor is as a means of avoiding pirates in the waters off East Africa, Sovkomflot’s deputy chief Evegeny Ambrosov told forum guests.

Worried over tanker traffic in the Arctic’s pristine waters, in addition to oil and gas drilling, environmentalists warn it could be far harder to stem any oil leaks, for instance, than in the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s catastrophic spill in 2010.

“Each company that produces risks in the Arctic — from oil production to transportation — should … donate a certain amount per barrel to a fund that would secure rehabilitation and capacity for urgent action,” said the World Wildlife Fund’s Evgeny Schwartz.

Canada’s Arctic ice shelves breaking up fast

Posted by admin on December 1st, 2011

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TORONTO?— Canada in just six years has lost nearly 50 percent of the massive ice shelf area that holds back glacial ice from melting into the ocean, scientists report.

Two of Canada’s biggest ice shelves diminished significantly this summer, one nearly disappearing altogether. The two are among six that make up Canada’s biggest shelves, all located on Ellesmere Island.

The loss is important as a marker of global warming, returning the Canadian Arctic to conditions that date back thousands of years, scientists say.

Floating icebergs that have broken free as a result pose a risk to offshore oil facilities and potentially to shipping lanes. The breaking apart of the ice shelves also reduces the environment that supports microbial life and changes the look of Canada’s coastline.

Luke Copland, an associate geography professor at the University of Ottawa, said the Serson Ice Shelf shrank from 79 square miles to two remnant sections three years ago, and was further diminished this past summer.

Serson went from a 16-square-mile floating glacier tongue to 10 square miles, and the second section from 13 square miles to 2 square miles.

In addition, Ward Hunt Ice Shelf’s central area disintegrated into drifting ice masses last summer, leaving two separate ice shelves measuring 88 and 29 square miles respectively, reduced from 132 square miles the previous year.

“It has dramatically broken apart in two separate areas and there’s nothing in between now but water,” said Copland.

Copland said those two losses are significant, especially since the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has always been the biggest, the farthest north and the one scientists thought might have been the most stable.

“Since the end of July, pieces equaling one and a half times the size of Manhattan Island have broken off,” Copland said in a statement. Copland uses satellite imagery and has conducted field work in the Arctic every May for the past five years.

Co-researcher Derek Mueller, an assistant professor at Carleton University, said the loss this past summer equals up to three billion tons of ice.

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“This is our coastline changing,” Mueller stated. “These unique and massive geographical features that we consider to be part of the map of Canada are disappearing and they won’t come back.”

“Recent (ice shelf) loss has been very rapid, and goes hand-in-hand with the rapid sea ice decline we have seen in this decade and the increasing warmth and extensive melt in the Arctic regions,” said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, remarking on the research.

Copland said their findings have not yet been peer reviewed since the research is new, but a number of scientists contacted by The Associated Press reviewed the findings, agreeing the loss in volume of ice shelves is significant.

Scambos said the loss of the Arctic shelves is significant because they are old and their rapid loss underscores the severity of the warming trend scientists see now relative to past fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period.

Ice shelves are much thicker than sea ice, which is typically less than a few feet thick and survives up to several years.

Canada has the most extensive ice shelves in the Arctic along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. They thickened over time via snow and sea ice accumulation, along with glacier inflow in certain places.

The northern coast of Ellesmere Island contains the last remaining ice shelves in Canada, with an estimated area of 217 square miles, said Mueller, down from 402 square miles six years ago.

Between 1906 and 1982, there has been a 90 percent reduction in the areal extent of ice shelves along the entire coastline, according to data published by W.F. Vincent at Quebec’s Laval University. The former extensive “Ellesmere Island Ice Sheet” was reduced to six smaller, separate ice shelves: Serson, Petersen, Milne, Ayles, Ward Hunt and Markham.

In 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf whittled almost completely away, as did the Markham Ice Shelf in 2008 and the Serson this year.

“The impact is significant and yet only a piece of the ongoing and accelerating response to warming of the Arctic,” said Robert Bindschadler, emeritus scientist at the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Bindschadler said the loss is an indication of another threshold being passed, as well as the likely acceleration of buttressed glaciers able to flow faster into the ocean, which accelerates their contribution to global sea level.

Copland said mean winter temperatures have risen by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade for the past five to six decades on northern Ellesmere Island.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NYC-sized iceberg being born on Antarctica

Posted by admin on December 1st, 2011

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Scientists on an aerial survey of Antarctica have come across an 18-mile-long break in an ice shelf — a sign that the sensitive area is giving birth to an iceberg that will be larger than New York City.

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“We are actually now witnessing how it happens,” Michael Studinger, project scientist with NASA’s IceBridge survey, said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s part of a natural process but it’s pretty exciting to be here and actually observe it while it happens.”

The scientists were aboard a NASA jet on Oct. 14, making measurements of Pine Island Glacier and its ice shelf, when they came across the crack.

Glaciers naturally give birth to icebergs, but scientists are concerned that warming temperatures might be destabilizing those in Antarctica and Greenland by eroding the ice shelves floating on water that hold them back up against the mainland.

Without the ice shelves, those glaciers could flow much faster into the ocean, raising sea levels.

Scientists call Pine Island Glacier “the largest source of uncertainty in global sea level rise projections,” NASA noted in its statement.

Story: More weather disasters ahead, climate experts report

“It is likely that once the iceberg floats away, the leading edge of the ice shelf will have receded farther than at any time since its location was first recorded in the 1940s,” NASA noted.

The team estimated the ice might finally break away from the shelf “in the coming months” now that the Southern Hemisphere is entering its summer.

Pine Island Glacier last calved a large iceberg in 2001.

The NASA team measured the rift at about 820 feet apart at its widest, and about 260 feet wide along most of the crack.

The deepest points were nearly 200 feet.

The ice shelf around the rift is about 1,640 feet thick, the team estimated.

“When the iceberg breaks free it will cover about 340 square miles of surface area,” NASA stated. By contrast, New York City comes in at 302 square miles.

As far as icebergs go, however, 340 square miles isn’t anywhere near a record. A few have topped several thousand square miles and the record is a 12,000-square-mile behemoth spotted in 1956.

? 2011 msnbc.com Reprints

Fall colors arrive later? Warming studied as factor

Posted by admin on December 1st, 2011

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PORTLAND, Maine?— Clocks may not be the only thing falling back: That signature autumn change in leaf colors may be drifting further down the calendar.

Scientists don’t quite know if global warming is changing the signs of fall like it already has with an earlier-arriving spring. They’re turning their attention to fall foliage in hopes of determining whether climate change is leading to a later arrival of autumn’s golden, orange and red hues.

Studies in Europe and in Japan already indicate leaves are changing color and dropping later, so it stands to reason that it’s happening here as well, said Richard Primack, professor of biology at Boston University.

“The fall foliage is going to get pushed back,” Primack warned.

Down the road, scientists say there could be implications not just for ecology but for the economy if duller or delayed colors discourage leaf-peeping tourists.

Phenology is the study of timing in nature, whether it’s crocuses emerging in the spring, leaves falling from trees, or Canada geese heading south for the winter.

And it’s tricky business for fall foliage.

The budding of plants each spring is tied almost exclusively to warming temperatures, while fall’s changing colors are linked to cooling temperatures, decreasing sunlight and soil moisture.

The brilliant colors associated with fall happen when production of chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants that’s crucial to photosynthesis, slows down as the days get shorter and the nights grow longer. That exposes leaves’ yellow, red and orange pigments that are normally hidden from view.

How and when that happens depends on temperatures and moisture levels. In some years, the colors are more vibrant than others. Further complicating matters: A tree that’s stressed may simply drop its leaves, with no color change, or brown leaves.

“Fall is still an enigma,” said Jake Weltzin, executive director of the National Phenology Network in Arizona and an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Scientists caution that heavy rain, drought-like conditions or temperature extremes can cause dramatic year-to-year fluctuations that don’t establish a long-term trend. For example, heavy rainfall in New England this spring, followed by a deluge caused by Irene, is causing fungal growth that’s causing some trees’ leaves to turn brown and drop earlier than normal.

William Ostrofsky, forest pathologist with the Maine Forest Service, is skeptical about whether there’s a proven link between fall foliage and climate change.

“I just don’t know that there’s any evidence to indicate there’s a trend one way or the other,” said Ostrofsky, who points out that year-to-year fluctuations make it difficult to discern long-term trends. “I really don’t think we’ve seen any long-term trend, as far as I can tell.”

While there’s no definitive study in the U.S., some data points toward later leaf drop:

Researchers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and at Seoul National University in South Korea used satellites to show the end of the growing season was delayed by 6 1/2 days from 1982 to 2008 in the Northern Hemisphere.In Massachusetts, the leaves are changing about three days later than they were two decades ago at the Harvard Forest 65 miles west of Boston, according to data collected by John O’Keefe, a retired Harvard professor and museum coordinator who’s continuing to collect data.In New Hampshire, data collected at the federal Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in Woodstock suggests sugar maples are going dormant two to five days later than they were two decades ago.In Vermont, state foresters studying sugar maples at the Proctor Maple Research Center in Underhill found that the growing season ended later than the statistical average in seven out of the last 10 years.

And then there are regular folks like 83-year-old Nancy Aldrich at Polly’s Pancake Parlor in New Hampshire, who has been keeping her own records since 1975. Her numbers show that color change is a moving target, and she’s not willing to go out on a limb in terms of making any declarations.

“I’m know I’m vague about it, but so is nature,” Aldrich said from the restaurant in Sugar Hill, in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Scientists are getting serious, and in Maine they’re enlisting gardeners, 4-H programs, teachers, students and families in their efforts to collect data.

“There are signs everywhere that things are changing — how is the question. Some species are being affected while others are not,” said Esperanza Stancioff of the University of Maine cooperative extension and Maine Sea Grant, who has trained 195 citizen scientists to enter data online in her “Signs of the Season” phenology project.

To assist both backyard observers and researchers alike, the National Phenology Network has spent the last four years coming up with standards to be used by observers in reporting foliage color changes. Final tweaks on the uniform reporting standards should be completed in a few weeks, Weltzin said.

Another part of the effort to study climate change through the lens of fall foliage is being conducted from space by the U.S. Geological Survey utilizing satellites from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Right now, the effort is focused on Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, where scientists are attempting to understand the factors that go into the metrics to ensure proper analysis of the photos taken from above, said John W. Jones, a research geographer with the USGS outside of Washington, D.C.

For now, there’s no reason to fear drastic changes.

In the short term, people may have to adjust the timing of their foliage-viewing vacations, and long-term implications for climate change could alter the schedule altogether, Primack said.

Foliage aficionados insist there’s been nothing — not even felled trees or record August rainfall caused by Irene — this year to prevent the nation’s leaf peepers from getting their full-colored fix this fall. “Tourists are coming, regardless of the weather. Many of our properties are filled to capacity,” said David West, vice president of marketing for the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau in Stroudsburg, Pa.

The bigger concern is whether tourists can afford to get out and enjoy the sights. “The economy, I think, has a bigger impact on what people do and their travel plans,” said Lisa Marshall of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

Go the F**k to Sleep

Posted by admin on November 20th, 2011

Review “* ‘Total genius.’ – Jonathan Lethem, father of two, author of MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN * ‘A children’s book for grown-ups! I really did laugh out loud-hilarious!’ – David Byrne, father of one, musician, artist * ‘This is the most honest children’s book ever written. And it’s f*cking hilarious.’ – A.J. Jacobs, father of three, author of THE YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY * ‘I wish this book had been around during my daughter’s overly protracted sleep rituals! Finally, someone tells it like it really is. This is no-guilt funny and a godsend!’ – Cristina Garcia, mother of one, author of THE LADY MATADOR’S HOTEL * ‘Go the Fuck to Sleep is the secret anthem of tired parents everywhere. Adam Mansbach’s homage to the tropes of bedtime stories is pitch perfect, and Ricardo Cortes’s stunning illustrations will keep grown-ups and kids alike returning to these pages again and again!’ – Bliss Boyard, author of ONE DROP: MY FATHER’S HIDDEN LIFE” –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

“Total genius.”
–Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn, father of two

“A children’s book for grown-ups! I really did laugh out loud–hilarious!”
–David Byrne, musician, father of one

“I wish this book had been around during my daughter’s overly protracted sleep rituals! Finally, someone tells it like it really is. This is no-guilt funny and a godsend!”
–Cristina Garcia, author of The Lady Matador’s Hotel, mother of one

“This is the most honest children’s book ever written. And it’s f*cking hilarious.”
–A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically, father of three

“Go the Fuck to Sleep is the secret anthem of tired parents everywhere. Adam Mansbach’s homage to the tropes of bedtime stories is pitch perfect, and Ricardo Cortes’s stunning illustrations will keep grown-ups and kids alike returning to these pages again and again!”
–Bliss Broyard, author of One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life

Go the Fuck to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s verses perfectly capture the familiar–and unspoken–tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, they open up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations, and laugh at their absurdity.

With illustrations by Ricardo Cortes, Go the Fuck to Sleep is beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny–a book for parents new, old, and expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.

Sons and Princes

Posted by admin on November 13th, 2011

Review “Thrilling read for all crime and mystery lovers!” –Crystal Book Reviews

“James LePore really knows his stuff. I found myself really pulling for Chris as he struggled with his dilemma, and hoping that he would find the best way to protect his family. I was also pulling for Michele, trusting that she could overcome the life that led her to lose her daughter. If you are into a good thrilling read, then you should definitely check out Sons and Princes by James LePore. You will NOT be disappointed!” –Confessions of a Real Librarian

“LePore is a wonderful storyteller, captivating the reader through his prose…. As the twists and turns develop and the story begins to solidify, you will be shocked by the choices and actions that take place within the novel.” –Books: The Cheapest Vacation You Can Buy

“Lepore had me hooked from the very first line, which is not hard to do when you’re asked to envision body parts showing up in a suitcase…. An absolute must-read!” –The Celebrity Cafe

Product Description Chris Massi has been running from his world his entire life. The son of a Mafia assassin and the former son-in-law of a mob kingpin, Massi has tried to stay on the right side of the law, building a prestigious career as an attorney, and insulating his children as much as possible. But now a series of tragedies have left him without a law license and without several of his loved ones. And at the same time, his teenaged son is beginning to gravitate toward the gangster world Chris has tried so hard to protect him from.

Michele Mathias has been running away from her life for more than a decade. Once a promising young woman with a future, she’s now a drug addicted street player living with the knowledge that her daughter – the only bright thing in her life – was taken away from her. When her roommate is murdered in a mob-related hit, her life intersects with Chris’s life – and their worlds change forever.

For Chris, a showdown is coming. The only way for him to save his son and regain his future is to face – and maybe even embrace – the demon he’s always avoided. For Michele, her last chance at redemption has arrived. How their journeys collide with the dark New York underworld is the stuff of the kind of suspenseful, passionate drama we’ve come to expect from James LePore.

That CO2 warming the world: Lock it in a rock

Posted by admin on October 29th, 2011

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More ships take shortcut via less icy Arctic

Posted by admin on October 20th, 2011