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Recently, New York City was disturbed and mystified by the strong odor of hydrogen sulfide. No serious effort was made to identify its source and the media dropped the story in a day. We identified the smell as possibly coming from a release of the methane which is stored on the ocean floor?a major sign of global warming. Now there are signs that this is happening in Canada too.

The odor in New York could have come from hydrogen sulfide being outgassed along with methane from the walls of the Hudson Canyon, a massive underwater geologic feature off the coast of New York. The walls of the canyon are filled with methane hydrates which will become gas if water temperatures get high enough.
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The January 27 issue of New Scientist reports on a study by Swedish researcher Fredrik Nystrom, in which he had 18 volunteers eat the same type of fast food diet that Matthew Spurlock ate for his film “Supersize Me.” Unlike Spurlock, who ate all his meals at McDonald’s for a month (which caused him to gain weight and even have liver trouble), some of Nystrom’s study subjects stayed thin. A few of them even ended up with LOWER levels of “bad” cholesterol! What’s going on here?

There may be genetic reasons that some of us struggle with our weight. One of them is a set of receptors that react enthusiastically to high carb, high fat food (as well as to marijuana). Another is a special kind of bacteria in your intestines.
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At least fourteen people were killed in Florida last nightas powerful storms swept across the center of the stateafter midnight. Officials provided as much as fifteenminutes of warning, but many of the affected areas arerural, and residents could not hear sirens, or there were nolocal warning systems in place. At the same time, theIntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change issued a report in Paris yesterdaystating that there is a 90% certainty that human generated greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for global warming.

Witnesses are describing destruction “beyond words” andsaying that the devastated area is much more severly damaged than during the successive hurricanes that hit the state in 2004.
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UPDATE – February 2nd is Groundhog Day, when Punxsutawney Phil either emerges from his hole for good (meaning spring is on the way) or comes out, sees his shadow, then runs back inside (meaning winter isn’t yet over). UPDATE: Phil did NOT see his shadow today, meaning we will have an early spring, but that’s not necessarily good news, either for us or for Phil. Phil has been ahead of the curve when it comes to predicting global warming, because he hasn’t been seeing his shadow as often in recent years.
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