Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.

But David Barber, Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate.

“We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere,” he said in a presentation in Parliament. The little that remains is jammed up against Canada’s Arctic archipelago, far from potential shipping routes.

Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought — and largely failed to find — a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk.

Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called “rotten ice” — 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic … it was very dramatic,” he said.

“From a practical perspective, if you want to ship across the pole, you’re concerned about multiyear sea ice. You’re not concerned about this rotten stuff we were doing 13 knots through. It’s easy to navigate through.”

Scientists have fretted for decades about the pace at which the Arctic ice sheets are shrinking. U.S. data shows the 2009 ice cover was the third-lowest on record, after 2007 and 2008.

An increasing number of experts feel the North Pole will be ice free in summer by 2030 at the latest, for the first time in a million years.

“I would argue that, from a practical perspective, we almost have a seasonally ice-free Arctic now, because multiyear sea ice is the barrier to the use and development of the Arctic,” said Barber.

Fresh first-year ice always forms in the Arctic in the winter, when temperatures plunge far below freezing and the North Pole is not exposed to the sun.

Shipping companies are already looking to benefit from warming waters. This year two German cargo ships successfully navigated from South Korea along Russia’s northern Siberia coast without the help of icebreakers.

Source : Reuters.com

5. Chuquicamata, Chile

Chuquicamata in Chile is a colossus of a mine that has churned up a record total of 29 million tonnes of copper. Despite almost 100 years of intensive exploitation, it remains among the largest known copper resources, and its open pit is one of the biggest at a whopping great 4.3 km long, 3 km wide and over 850 m deep.

Strangely beautiful sight: Chuquicamata Mine from high in the air

Copper has been mined for centuries at Chuquicamata, as shown by the 1898 discovery of a mummy dated around 550 AD found trapped in an ancient mine shaft by a cave-in. A great influx of miners was sucked in by ‘Red Gold Fever’ after the War of the Pacific, when at one stage the area was covered with unruly mining camps where alcohol, gambling, prostitution and even murder were rife. Yee-haw.

4. Escondida, Chile

The Minera Escondida Mining Co. runs twin open pit mines cut into the skin of the copper capital of the world that is Chile. Construction began in 1990, and this sucker recently overtook Chuquicamata as the world’s largest annual copper producer, with its 2007 yield of 1.48 million tonnes worth US$ 10.12 billion – a whole lot of dollar.

Environmental impact aside, Escondida has become a key part of the Chilean economy and employs some 2,951 people directly. A strike in 2006 broke out because workers felt they were not sharing in the super high profits being made on the back of record copper prices. After wrangling for pay demands, the union briefly blockaded the road to the mine. Testy stuff.

3. Udachnaya Diamond Mine, Russia

Like the Sarlacc Pit on Steroids, the Udachnaya Mine in Russia is a gigantic open-pit diamond mine that plunges more than 600 metres into the earth’s crust. Yep, it’s one heck of a hole. Located in Russia’s vast but sparsely populated Sakha Republic, just outside the Arctic circle, it seems that mining for these precious stones demands a good set of thermal undies.

Into the depths: The Udachnanyay Mine from its southern side

The nearby settlement of Udachny was named after the diamond deposit, which was discovered in 1955 just days after the Mir (below). The Udachnaya pipe is controlled by Alrosa, Russia’s largest diamond company, which boasts that it plans to halt open-pit mining in favour of underground mining in 2010. Glad to hear it.

2. Mirny Diamond Mine, Russia

Siberia’s Mir Diamond Mine comes close to taking the cake as numero holie. The largest open diamond mine in the world, this Russian monster has a surface diameter of 1.2 km and is 525 m deep. The size of the hole is such that wind currents inside cause a downdraft that has resulted in helicopters being sucked in and crashing. Good to know the area above it is now a no-fly zone.

Earth vortex: The Mir looks as if it might suck in houses as well as helicopters

After its discovery in 1955, workers at the Mir had to endure incredibly harsh temperatures that froze the ground and everything else in the winter, making car tires and steel shatter. The mine ceased operations in 2001, having produced 10 million carats (2 tonnes) of diamond per year at its peak. Our survey says: ka-bling.

1. Bingham Canyon Mine, USA

So here it is, the carbuncle supremo, Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, the world’s biggest manmade pit. This mammoth mine measures 4 km wide and drops a stomach-churning 1.2 km into the ground, the result of extraction begun in 1863. The ore-inspiring fruits of its labour include more than 17 million tonnes of copper and 715 tonnes of gold – a mental load of metal.

The biggest yet: Bingham Canyon Mine laid bare

In the early 1900s, mining camps lined the steep canyon walls, but several of these were swallowed up by the ever-expanding mine. Now it employs 1,400 people and 50,000 tonnes of material are removed from it each day. What’s more, this giant earth scar and National Historic Landmark is growing – and will continue to until at least 2013.

Source : Environmental Graffiti .Com

Blue Bubbles is a two column, right sidebar, blue and black color. This blogger template designed by Ray Creations.

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Blue spiral theme is another free blogger templates design by Ray Creations. Its very beautiful two column theme with right sidebar, valid HTML/CSS, blue, widget-ready and SEO friendly.

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1. Take Advantage of WordPress’s Built-In CMS Capabilities

Over the past few years WordPress has consistently improved the experience and ability to use it as a full-fledged CMS, rather than just a blogging platform. The options of having a static front page and the blog posts on a specific page make it possible to use WordPress for a lot of different purposes. Additionally, options like using different page templates can help to make a site that looks less like a typical blog.

2. Talk to the Client About Upgrades Ahead of Time

Part of working with WordPress and using it as a CMS is the inevitability of the need to upgrade. Upgrades either bring new functionality or features, or they fix security holes, so they’re not a bad thing, but from a client perspective they may bring added maintenance to the site. If the client is not comfortable doing the upgrade themselves they’ll have to hire someone to do it for them (maybe you). Upgrading is not that big of an issue and shouldn’t be a deal breaker, but the client should be aware of the need to upgrade periodically before jumping in to the project.

3. Be Prepared to Train the Client on How to Use WordPress

For those of us that spend a lot of time with WordPress of other CMSs, it may seem pretty simple. However, many clients, especially those who are not very tech-savvy, will have no idea what to do without some instruction. For most sites, it won’t require hours of your time, but you will need to spend some time with most clients walking them through the process of editing and adding content. Be sure to account for this when you’re estimating how long the project will take.

4. Find Out Who is Currently Hosting Their Website

This is probably something you would want to find out up front anyway, but it’s more important when you’re dealing with WordPress. Most major hosting companies by now are offering an easy installation of WordPress (such as through Fantastico), but it’s a good idea to make sure that their web host offers this option. If not, you may want to charge a little more for a manual installation of WordPress, or ask them to move to a new hosting company. One option is to become a reseller of a particular host. Then you could get as many clients as possible to use your own hosting and you would be working in a familiar environment most of the time (plus you could make some extra money on the hosting).

5. Minimize Plugins When Possible

One of the best things about being a WordPress user is the excellent community and all of the resources available, including plugins. However, plugins are a potential source of problems when it comes time to upgrade. I’m not suggesting that you use no plugins, but if a client site isn’t upgraded frequently, excessive plugins can lead to extra work. If you stick to plugins that are actively being updated by developers you should be fine. Additionally, if there are other plugins that can accomplish the same thing, you’ll always have some alternatives if a plugin causes problems following an upgrade.

6. Minimize the Use of Custom Fields

Custom fields are a great feature of WordPress and they open up all kinds of possibilities. But in my opinion, many clients get overwhelmed if they need to use custom fields. In many cases it really comes down to what the client wants and needs. For some things you may not be able to accomplish something specific without the use of custom fields.

7. Consider Purchasing a Developer’s License of Premium Themes

Many premium themes offer developer’s licenses that sell for two or three times the cost of a single license. If you do a lot of client work on WordPress, you may want to consider purchasing some of these. It could save you a little bit of money (you could still charge a client the cost of a single license if you have paid for a developer’s license), plus it will allow you to get very familiar with some specific themes. Editing an existing theme can often be faster and more cost effective than building a theme from scratch, and many premium themes include additional functionality from the dashboard.

8. Use Child Themes if Your Customizing Existing Themes for Clients

If you want to make modifications to an existing theme for a client, theme upgrades could be difficult or impossible depending on just how much you change the theme. Child themes can allow you to edit the theme while keeping the upgrade process very simple. Admittedly, this is an area that I need to work on for myself.

A child theme is essentially a CSS-only theme that allows you to modify the look of the theme without hindering the ability to upgrade in the future. If you want to learn more about child themes, see:

• How to Protect Your WordPress Theme Against Upgrades
• Creating WordPress Child Themes
• How I Used a WordPress Child Theme to Redesign My Blog the Smart Way

9. Have a Development Blog

If you do much work at all on WordPress, this is probably something that you already have, but still worth mentioning. You’ll want to install WordPress somewhere that will allow you to work on client themes (and test) without the public being able to find it. With a development blog you can keep multiple themes and switch back and forth whenever you want to work on one.

At the start of a project you may prefer to code it in static HTML and CSS before implementing it into WordPress, but there are sometimes going to be slight changes to how things will appear once it’s in WordPress. For this reason, it’s preferable to get into WordPress earlier rather than later to avoid re-doing things.

10. Keep Your Development Blog Updated with Every New Release of WordPress

Updating WordPress is a good practice in any situation, but especially if you’re developing new themes. If you’re developing a theme for a client that will be using a new installation of WordPress, they’ll be using the latest version. The last thing you’re going to want to find out is that something in the theme doesn’t work quite right on the client’s site because your development blog is not up-to-date.

11. Use Different Page Templates

Page templates can be very useful for a few different reasons. First, they allow you to have pages look and function in different ways, rather than everything using the same blog sidebar for example. Also, and equally important, page templates can allow you to “lock down” certain elements of the design that might otherwise be unintentionally altered by the client. Using the WordPress editor makes it easy for clients to accidentally delete something that might have a significant function in the design. By keeping these items as part of the page template you can ensure that nothing important is deleted or changed.

12. Consider Using PSD to WordPress Services

PSD to HTML services are obviously very popular right now, and they can save you some time in development. There are also some, like WP Coder, that specialize in converting PSDs to WordPress themes. In the right situation, this type of service could make your process easier and free up some of your own time.

13. Set the Client Up with a Database Backup Plugin

Most of your clients won’t think about backing up their database, so it can be helpful if you install a database backup plugin and show them how to use it periodically, it could save tons of headaches later.

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10. Narcissus

These cheerful yellow and white harbingers of spring, aka daffodils and jonquils, are actually mildly toxic if the bulbs are eaten in large quantities (Narcissus pseudonarcissus is shown). Some people confuse them for onions. Daffodil bulb diners tend to experience nausea, vomiting, cramps and diarrhea. A doctor might recommend intravenous hydration and/or drugs to stave off nausea and vomiting if symptoms are severe or the patient is a child.

9. Rhododendron

Rhododendrons and azalea bushes (a variety of rhododendron), with their bell-shaped flowers, look great in the yard come springtime, but the leaves are toxic and so is honey made from the flower nectar. Eating either from these evergreen shrubs makes your mouth burn, and then you’ll probably experienced increased salivation, vomiting, diarrhea and a tingling sensation in the skin. Headaches, weak muscles and dim vision could follow. Your heart rate could slow down or beat strangely, and you might even drop into a coma and undergo fatal convulsions. Before that, doctors will try to replace your fluids and help you breath more easily and administer drugs to bring back your normal heart rhythm.

8. Ficus

Also known as weeping fig, benjamin tree, or small-leaved rubber plants, all ficus have milky sap in their leaves and stems that is toxic. There are about 800 species of ficus trees, shrubs and vines (Ficus benjamina is shown), many of which are cultivated indoors in pots and tubs and outdoors in warm areas where some varieties can grow to up to 75 feet tall. The worst that will happen is your skin will itch and puff up and your doctor will give you something for the allergy or the inflammation.

7.Oleander

Every bit of the oleander plant is toxic, unlike the case for other plants where just the flower or sap might be poisonous. Even accidental inhalation of the smoke from burning oleander is a problem. Other trouble comes from using the sticks for weenie or marshmallow roasts or drinking water in which the clusters of red, pink or white flowers have been placed. These evergreen shrubs (Nerium oleander is shown) are common as tub plants or in gardens in the Southwest and California, any locale that approaches the plant’s native Mediterranean climate. Typically the symptoms involve a change in heart rate, be it a slow down or palpitations or high potassium levels. A doctor might prescribe a drug to bring your heartbeat back under control and try to induce vomiting with ipecac, pump your stomach or absorb the toxin with ingested charcoal.

6. Chrysanthemum

Also known as mums, orange and yellow varieties of these showy flowers often turn up in foil-wrapped pots on people’s front steps around Halloween and Thanksgiving. There are 100 to 200 species of Chrysanthemums, and they generally grow low to the ground, but can turn into shrubs. Gardeners plant mums to keep rabbits away. Guess what? The flower heads are somewhat toxic to humans too. But not terribly. Touching them can make you itch and puff up a bit, but probably the doctor will just give you something for the inflammation and allergic reaction.

5. Anthurium

The leaves and stems of these bizarre-looking plants, with dark green, heart-shaped leathery leaves and a scarlet, white or green spike surrounded by a red, pink or white “spathe,” are toxic. Also known as flamingo flowers or pigtail plants, eating tropical Anthuriums could give you a painful burning sensation in the mouth that then swells and blisters. Your voice might also become hoarse and strained and you might have difficulty swallowing. Most of this will fade with time, but cool liquids, pain pills and gluey herbs and foods like licorice or flaxseeds may bring relief.

4. Lily-of-the-valley

These darling droopers, also known as mayflowers, are entirely poisonous, from the tips of their tiny bell-shaped white flowers that coyly fall off like parted hair to the very water in which they might be placed. A little bit of Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) probably won’t hurt much, but if you eat a lot, you’ll probably experience nausea, vomiting, pain in the mouth, abdominal pain, diarrhea and cramps. Your heart rate might also become slow or irregular. A doctor might decide to clean out your stomach by pumping it or feeding you absorbing charcoal, and might give you drugs to bring your heart rate back to normal.

3. Hydrangea

These poofy-flowered bushes (Hydrangea macrophylla) are popular yard ornaments that can grow up to 15 feet tall with rose, deep blue or greenish-white flowers that grow in huge clusters and look as edible as cotton candy or a big bun to an imaginative mind. But those blooms will give you a belly ache that sets in sometimes hours after eaten. Typically, patients also experience itchy skin, vomiting, weakness and sweating. Some reports indicate that patients can even experience coma, convulsions and a breakdown in the body’s blood circulation. Luckily, there is an antidote for hydrangea poisoning, and doctors might also give you drugs to address to ease your symptoms.

2. Foxglove

Foxglove is a magical looking plant that grows to 3 feet tall with drooping purple, pink or white flowers, sometimes dotted inside, along a central stalk. Its Latin name is Digitalis purpurea, which might sound familiar; leaves from the plant are a commercial source of the heart drug digitalis. If you eat any part of these plants in the wild, you too will likely have heart problems after a spell of nausea, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea and pain in the mouth. A doctor might administer charcoal to absorb the toxin or pump your stomach, and might also administer drugs to bring your heart rate back to normal. Other names for this plant include fairy bells, rabbit flower, throatwort and witches’ thimbles.

1. Wisteria

Wisterias form romantic cascades of sweetpea-like flowers that fall in lush blue, pink or white masses from woody vines that grow mainly in the South and Southwest. The entire plant, also known as a kidney bean tree, is toxic, though some say the flowers are not. Better safe than sorry, because most reports are that eating this plant will cause nausea, vomiting, cramps and diarrhea that could require treatments such as intravenous hydration and anti-nausea pills.

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