Pondering 7 Billion

(Maybe too many blogs? Today 12.19.11 I opened here to post a blog about journalism [coming shortly] and realized the below never was posted - still needs to be shared - maybe even more.)

Two years ago I took leave from GLOBIO, the children's education nonprofit I founded and was running (proving I don't hate kids - just kids having kids as well as people having them as some spasmodic knee-jerk reaction to wanting to be an adult.) I took leave to catch my breath, renew my love affair with creating images and rekindle my misplaced passion for writing. That was working I thought, but today I also wonder what it's worth divided by 7 billion.

I haven't looked up much since starting down the new road.

Great Ape Diaries is all consuming - writing, photography, thinking, traveling, and reflecting back and forward.

I'm only at the doorstep of the project, I'm convinced it will become The project of my life, (thus far.) It has every element I search for in a potentially great project, in fact it has them in spades: charismatic animals that look and act like us, orphans, threatened habitats, illegal trafficing, corporate greed, modern technologies, war, refuges, poaching, disease, the list goes on and on.

Journalistically I'm trying to remain open, open-minded, open-opinioned, as to where Great Ape Diaries will venture and what it will discover, and then this news:

U.N. Says 7 Billion Now Share the World

Today, because of that baby 7 Billion, I have been thinking endlessly about what that means for us, but especially about the implication for our other Hominidaes; those consuming my daily Google searches. Implication = resource use and abuse.

My thinking has had a reoccurring visual, a street scene from Goma: a squallered, muddy, human poverty-choked wannabe-town on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border of Rwanda filmed this past summer, and featured in an online video report by VICE, regarding the technology addicted precious mineral coltan. In short Coltan (Columbite-tantalite) is a metallic ore comprising Niobium and Tantalum, found mainly in the U.N. acknowledged semi-lawless eastern frontier region of DRC. In fact, 80% of the world's known reserve resides there - so do most of the eastern lowland (Grauer's) gorillas. The mineral magic happens upon refinement. It's there that coltan is transformed into a heat resistant power which has the unique capacity for storing electrical charge. Exactly the kind of charge every cell phone and similar digital device requires.

(Coltan is one of several minerals being mined legally and illegally in DRC called 'conflict minerals' - more from this NPR radio story and from theWorld.)

Population, over-population actually, isn't about a cute little baby softly wrapped in the fluffy cotton of pink or blue, it's about that scene in Goma. It's about millions of people on the fringe of the wilds where great apes hope to survive; people fighting and killing for their own survival. Most struggle themselves to survive on a dollar-a-day -- seven to ten times less than mining coltan -- so the alternative seems clear. It's about a place where coltan mixes with hopeless dreams, and tattered refugee camps that throb painfully from a savage civil war hang-over, and nearby forests that are being blacked into illegal charcoal for cooking fuel. In not so many months I will be standing on one of those far-away muddy street, filming and interviewing those struggling survivors - I'm going to ask them about coltan and great apes. I'm also going to ask them about baby 7 Billion. Reality is that baby 7B was probably born in a similar village, hut, or back alley; I'll likely hear 7B crying in the dirty distance.

Chances are baby 7B will never know the word coltan. When its wireless day arrives it will communicate on a device future-formed, and coltan will be a historical footnote in the evolution of that device. My fear is so will wild great apes; in DRC that will equal bonobos, chimps and gorillas. On that fact it is difficult to remain journalistic, to remain open-minded.

Pondering baby 7B and her or his impact - specifically on the other Hominids - carries a flood of emotions that I'm certain will flow time and time again over these next few years - I'll work to remain journalistic - please excuse the occasional hint of anger, frustration and even a tear that may creep in.

GeoTracking – Canon’s New EOS 1Dx

Overview from Canon:

“Canon has brought the best of the EOS-1D Series of digital cameras into one phenomenal model: the new flagship of the EOS line, the EOS-1D X*. Its full-frame 18.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor and all-new Dual DIGIC 5+ Image Processors deliver high quality image capture at up to 12 fps (14 fps in Super High Speed Mode) and a powerful ISO range of 100 – 51200 (up to 204800 in H2 mode) provides sharp, low-noise images even in the dimmest low-light conditions. An all-new, 61-Point High-Density Reticular AF and 100,000-pixel RGB Metering Sensor that uses a dedicated DIGIC 4 Image Processor, makes the EOS-1D X reach new levels of focus speed and accuracy delivering advanced tracking even for the most challenging shooting situations. Taken all together, the EOS-1D X’s improved HD video capture, numerous connectivity options, combination of processing power and durable construction, including shutter durability tested to 400,000 cycles, make it the ultimate EOS.”

Ya, just another camera body you say – but here might be the kicker (I’m hoping to get a system to test ASAP – then will report here as well as our Great Apes Diaries “the making of” blog.) Canon is also introducing the Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E6A and the all-new Canon GPS Receiver GP-E1.

Fire Time-lapse by Michael Durham

Sharing a bit of wonderful Canon DSLR time-lapse work by my friend Michael Durham. He has been doing some amazing short-films for the National Park Service in the process honing some beautiful capture techniques. In his typically understated manner he sends me this email, "Recently While I was up on Mt Hood, I did some time-lapse of the fire up there. It turned out kind of awesome."

more on Michael's site: http://oregonwild.blogspot.com/2011/09/dollar-lake-complex-fire-time-lapse.html

The Poetry of Reality

The Symphony of Science. Or you could call it the symphony of a simple, elegant, wonderful idea. Thank you John Boswell and all those great scientists and others responsible for the collaboration.

There is nothing I take greater pleasure in doing than sharing creativity - yes of course my own, but mine is but like one of four billion insipid flickering lights - and ultimately it takes a collaboration of stars to see a constellation. The Symphony of Science is the creative genius of composer-producer-creative John Boswell seeing constellations while the rest of us see stars.

"There's real poetry in the real world, science is the poetry of reality." Visit the Symphony of Science website and enjoy many, many more constellations.

The price for letting the world look through your eye

Most days are filled with research and preparation on the latest, but in many ways my oldest project, The Great Ape Diaries. One element of that project will be to work with award-winning documentary film-maker Skye Fitzgerald. In our last meeting Skye discussed a film technique he would like to use. One where you, the viewer, will share my perspective as I create images, in the digital diary posts we make. Skye suggested I watch War Photographer, a film by Swiss author, director and producer Christian Frei.

Frei followed photographer James Nachtwey over the course of two years into the wars in Indonesia, Kosovo, Palestine, and Nachtwey's pursuit of poverty and famine, ostensively as a by-products of war. In addition to an exterior perspective on what Nachtwey was experiencing, Frei used special micro-cameras attached to James Nachtwey’s 35mm still cameras. The approach surrenders a feeling of not just being in his shoes, but in his 'other' eye. I shoot this way, with both eyes open, a technique a taught myself years ago--the better to see the world moving in and around the frame. The documentary is a decade old, but the personal "in-sight" point of view or POV remains fresh and refreshing, even in this iPhone Youtube consumed world.

That POV is what Skye is interested in working out with me as we create The Great Ape Diaries - we'll discuss that more over the coming months on this blog. Our advantage of course is a wealth of new small HD video cameras like the Hero Pro. Still the challenge remains creativity and simplicity of communication, and that was the reward in watching Frei's War Photographer.

After some thought about the Academy Awards nominated documentary, I don't think it can be discussed outside Frei's microcam technique, although most online reviews and discussions are determined. Most of the online debate after the film debuted in 2001 were focused there, negatively and positively, on the age old reportage argument regarding war/tragedy: Is the photographer/journalist a cold and cynical chronicler, or should their humanity step forward and intervene in what they are bearing witness to? Or at the least step away from feasting on the pain and suffering of others? Words like vampirism, vulture, scavenger and leech were peppering the comments. Nachtwey's apparent calm translates as callous, his thoughtfulness as heartlessness, these have always been the leading volleys of critics. Unfortunately, to bolster their objections, there is one elongated scene in the German offices of Stern magazine where editors discuss an upcoming layout of Nachtwey's images in terms that translate into the hands of cynics; describing Nachtwey's horrors of war black and whites with adjectives like, "Fantastic" and "Ya, this great, terrific."

The micr0-cam I think does yield more than just a POV on the images Nachtwey creates, but on Nachtwey himself. As Skye has said to me, "I want to get in your head as you're back creating these photos." And any careful observation of the War Photographer I think does that. We, the viewer, have 96 mins of self-determination about what a war-photographer-kind-of-human James Nachtwey is or isn't. That kind of exposure causes me pause going forward on The Great Ape Diaries. A bit of fear. There is a price for letting the world look through your eye.

One of the last comments Nachtwey gives into the camera, and there are remarkably few, is regarding his role as image-maker in such conditions, "It's something I have to reckon with every day because I know that if I ever allowed genuine compassion to be overtaken by personal ambition, I will have sold my soul."

Again, critics may attack in their belief that "genuine compassion" begets involvement beyond the images, and Nachtwey's words are little more than hollow excuses, his soul was sold. But having met the man in an unflattering state, he is paying a price, and the images are a price to know reality. Nachtwey says earlier in the documentary about the genocide in Rwanda, "It was like taking the express elevator to hell." Never be so naive as to think that ride has no price. Having visited the suburbs of hell myself on another scale - no one else can fully judge the price.

*****

Finally this note. The sound track is as subtle and wonderfully done as anything you may never notice, but should. As someone said, "One of the most profound aspect I found in this documentary, is the use of sound. I think it's one of the best, if not most calculated sound editing ever done, since the film [is] supposed to focus on images."

Beauty in the Beast

Technology is a strange beast - most of it is pointless - I mean we do really pointless, self-destructive things with it - the stockmarket, automobiles, weapons, GMOs, plastics, computers, cell phones - the list is seemingly endless; Crap, we justify as critical to our lives. After the emergence of a technology, it's refinement, maybe it's ubiquity, it falls in the hands of artists. Then, and only then, do we discover the beauty in the beast.

It never was just a phone - we just didn't quit talking and texting long enough to see

or go here Splitscreen: A Love Story

The above was shot entirely on a Nokia N8 mobile phone. Winner of the Nokia Shorts competition 2011.

When I'm Not Traveling - I Miss Traveling

Travel - a passion for moving, learning and eating.

My alternate eyes and ears and soul in the world - Jenn - just shared these three short films with me. Damn I'm missing not traveling!!

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

PS - be sure to visit the Vimeo site to see all three films

Searching for gorillas, not gravel roads

I have a friend who I cycle with regularly. His life is working successfully at being paid a handsome sum for a large international tech firm and avoiding anything that resembles work - this is his own admission not my summation - and et in as much cycling as skipping work will allow. On weekends when we make longer cycling days of it, a hundred miles or so, and more climbing than mountain goats do, we invariably end up on a road he thinks is 'good', invariably it is gravel. So we end up on our expensive carbon road bikes pedaling over gravel. Stupid. Why? Making life hard invites disaster - survive disaster it's adventure (which they then make into some cheesy reality show) - which he needs and has none of in the rest of his life. I think he looks at my career and wishes for a bit of that adventure cum disaster and hardship.

Years ago I was doing research for my first trip to document mountain gorillas in the highlands of the Central African Rift, the Virunga Mountains, where Rwanda, Uganda and then Zaire shared a steep, wet, green relationship. I was reading big mammal biologist George Schaller's The Year of the Gorilla in which he writes,

"Adventure implies hardships and accidents, which are usually the result of poor planning... Our expedition accomplished...what we set out to do without much trouble and,...without great effort."

I found myself reading that over and then over out loud. That made sense. Schaller got a heap of work done, work that eventually every mountain gorilla researcher and conservationist since, including Diane Fossey, has relied. The Virungas have enough gravel roads, neither Schaller nor I needed to look for them. In fact, we got over or around them as efficiently as possible, that left more time for discovering gorillas.

Over the years I have been asked repeatedly about the "struggle" and the sacrifice in becoming a photographer (now with success.) I know what they want to hear. They want an edge of horror, of pain, of suffering, something like what I recently read about Pablo Neruda:

At the age of 19, he set out to publish his first book. His family disapproved of his writing, so he chose a pen name: Pablo Neruda. He struggled to find a publisher. Eventually the Chilean Students' Federation agreed to publish the manuscript, but Neruda had to pay all the expenses. He said: "I had setbacks and successes every day, trying to pay for the first printing. I sold the few pieces of furniture I owned. The watch which my father had solemnly given me, on which he had had two little flags enameled, soon went off the pawnbroker's. My black poet's suit followed the watch. The printer was adamant and, in the end, when the edition was all ready and the covers had been pasted on, he said to me, with an evil look: 'No. You are not taking a single copy until you pay me for the whole lot.'"*

Heck, my first book came with a $15K advance, another $10K in corporate support, free airfares and four amazing years living in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

"without much trouble and,...without great effort." That's what I want to tell them. The plan wasn't super detailed, it allowed for adaptation and evolution, years following a twisting road through university bio classes taught me that. But it didn't include gravel roads. Struggle is stupid. Disaster is stupid. They waste time and time is precious if life is successful.

Recently I have begun to reconsider the struggle again, as I return my attention to mountain gorillas. One doesn't struggle traveling if you love traveling. One doesn't struggle writing if you love writing. One doesn't struggle learning a new language if you love learning and languages. Sure everything has a gravel patch, but you don't go looking for gravel roads.

*(His second book, published a year later, was a book of love poems: Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 1974). This book made the 20-year-old poet famous.)

Who holds the copyright to a picture taken by a monkey?

Interesting copyright thoughts in a short article about the macaque monkey picture I posted a few days ago in Always Better Lucky Than Good:

Who holds the copyright to a picture taken by a monkey?

Always Better Lucky Than Good

Crested black macaque smiles for his self-portrait while using the camera belonging to photographer David Slater in an Indonesian national park

Read more:

Sharp Isn't The Point

The more I wade into the deep end of the digital photo pool and the ping-pong pixel rhetoric that consumes folks, I'm mystified by one simple truth about photography - sharp isn't the point - communication is. It reminds me of a conference I attended twenty years ago. The speaker, a very savvy photo agency director/owner launched this question from the podium: "What business are you in?" The stock photo business was under siege from the upstart digital (royalty free) wave that had yet to spawn the tsunamis Getty and Corbis.

The answer - you and your creators (photographers) are in the Communication Business.

The Haiti earthquake disaster, remember that? Doing some global water research I ran across the above image by Emilo for AP appeared on WorldNews.com in a story about cholera in Haiti - is it razor sharp? Who cares. It's sharp enough where it needs to be. Sharp enough, that's the point. What it really does it does exceedingly well. It does all that it is suppose to do - rip your heart out. It reeks of pain and suffering - sharply - and that's all that matters.

LOOM - a brilliant "little" film

Every once in a while you see something that just makes you pause - a little piece of brilliance - such is Loom. Magical film-making. Maybe more magical film-thinking!

As the creators say on their website:

"But it’s the point of view that creates an intense relationship between the hunter and its victim. There is much more to explore, much more to feel if one takes the time to really experience the content of a split second."

Flooding Fiction

Yes, those are rushing Mississippi River flood waters - a torrent pouring virtually harmlessly into Lake Pontchatrain. No, no one is losing their home, business or life in front of them. Officials opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway a few days ago to prevent flooding of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and more importantly (in some folks minds) the endless number of chemical plants and oil refineries that edge the immediate shore behind the Levees between Baton Rouge and The Big Easy.

I'm in Louisiana to document the Mississippi River flood waters for National Audubon Society (more on why it's important to a bird group in a later posting.) Just saw a CNN report this morning from Morgan City, Louisiana - about 85 southwest of New Orleans. The reporter was standing in front of a old house I looked at yesterday, but decided not to photograph because it just wasn't all that dramatic, the flooding around its raised foundation. The owners were working, unrushed and jovial, to jack it up six feet to save it from possible rising waters. They told me they needed to do it anyway, save the place from future river rises (in this case the Atchafalaya River that rolls past waterfront Morgan City.) CNN put their reporter in hip-waders and had him stand in a foot of water with the house behind him reporting - it certainly had the visual feeling of impending doom - yet I know exactly where the camerman was standing - s/he and camera were plenty dry, as was the rest of Morgan City behind them. Good reporting or flooding fiction? Maybe just not the "whole" truth. Actually more the "misleading" truth by not showing the whole story. Oh well - the difference between media and journalism.

What was most frustrating is this is a network (CNN) that has its star anchor/journalist, Anderson Cooper, doing a spot on his nightly AC360 program in which he exposes others for not telling the truth, or "misleading" the truth. A bit hypocritical?

Undoubtedly there are people impacted by the most dramatic flooding of the Mississippi River since the record floods of 1927 (great book about that event - Rising Tide by John M. Barry) which created much of the levee building mess we are in today and altered the life of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, and ultimately the entire Mississippi Delta. And those people do indeed need there stories told. On a larger scale we need to be discussing now, while this is front and center in everyone's sights (thank you media hype) that this river, one of the three greatest river systems in the world, and worth more billions of dollars to this nation (in addition to sculpting much of its history, physically, politically and economically) needs help and attention.

A few peanuts of wisdom

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today; it's already tomorrow

in Australia."

- Charles Schultz

Pictures of the Year: Winning images from 2010

San Francisco to Paris in 2 Minutes

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.

how we got here?

Ever wonder how we got into this mess? Ya know, wars, oil disasters, whirlpool economics, over-population, consumption happiness, well you get my gist. I do. Sometimes I think that it's because I have a habit of wading into it, this mess. I decided several years ago to become a photographer of the mess; thinking by illustrating it I could help make sense of it, and maybe, just maybe, shift the path.

It's hard to explain - how we got here - even harder to illustrate. A few folks at the Post Carbon Institute with the help of a white board and a magic marker (this kind of thing takes magic) thought they would give it a try, and a hope. I think it's worth 300 seconds of your life - to consider your life on Earth - for all life Earth.

Looking for a medical photographer

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for a photographer - medically trained - who has a "body" of work and is interested in creating new work - and would like to collaborate with me on a major project examining the Earth and Human Body.

If you are or know such a person please feel free to email me at gerry@gerryellis.net and put in the subject line - "human body"

Thanks - Gerry

World Press Photo Contest 2011

World Press Photo recently announced the winners of its 2011 photojournalism contest. Top honors went to Jodie Bieber for her image of Bibi Aisha, a disfigured Afghan woman, taken for Time magazine. A non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, World Press Photo supports the development of photojournalism internationally, by holding this annual contest and exhibition, by organizing workshops and classes -- please visit the WPP website to see them all.

Above photo: A man and a boy, displaced by floods, walk through flood waters on August 22, 2010 in the village of Baseera near Muzaffargarh in Punjab, Pakistan. This photograph is part of a series that took the 1st Prize for People In The News Stories of the 2011 World Press Photo Contest.(Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

Macro Kingdom III by Clemento

Perspective is what we see when we stand outside ourselves.

The Courage of Responsibilty

Responsibility for one's actions is at the heart of courage. I was moved as much by the courage of the protester in Cairo cleaning up in Tahrir Square, as by the their non-violent protests the days before.

Volunteers repainted black and white striped street curbs around a monument by the Egyptian Museum, which had been on the front line in street battles between Mubarak's foes and supporters. Police were starting to move barricades and trying to restore vehicle traffic at Tahrir Square, where many protesters vowed to remain, CNN reported.

"We're taking care of the square, and then we'll clean up the whole country," Mohammed El Tayeb said while standing amid the volunteer cleaning crews sweeping up Tahrir Square. "This is a beautiful country. Now it's ours and we're going to take care of it."

Across the crowded square, young men walked with paper signs taped to their chests that read: "Sorry for the disturbance, we're building Egypt." After days of protests that had such names as the "Day of Rage" and "Day of Millions," today's gathering was called the "Day of Cleaning," AOL News said.

Congratulation Egypt!

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

From a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, on June 6, 1966, in his Day of Affirmation Address at Cape Town University

To all my friends in Egypt, the Egyptian people, and all those that imagine another world, achieved through peace - stand up for an ideal, or act to improve the lot of others, or strike out against injustice - keep dreaming.

There are other forces at work in this world,

Frodo: I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to

decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.

.... And that is an encouraging thought.

Weather... or not

I always dreamed of a place with a view of the sea.

"And next up, your Tropical Storm Watch."

"And now more on Hurricane..."

Over the past few weeks I have begun to wonder if the Weather Channel was invented by a bunch of TV weather folks from Louisiana who simply had too much boudin and crackl'n.

Like all weather reports every one on the street, or water, thinks these are hit and miss at best. "These people are never right." But everyone keeps listening.

The marine radio is endlessly broadcasting a stream of concerns, mariners take note, coastal residence pay focused attention, for god sakes their lives could be on the line. That got me thinking, what if we had a global radio or TV network that could do the same, ya know, broadcast climate concern. Like the CCBN - Climate Change Broadcast Network? But would it be profitable? Who would listen? Would there really be an audience?

In 2010 I think we the CCBN would have done well - demographically. Let's see who might have tuned in...

• In January through April we could have counted on over 20 million Pakistanis to kick off the year.
• In April we could have highlighted an oily distraction that would have lasted well into hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico - keeping a couple billion of the planet captivated.
• In June and July the CCBN would have been flooded with broadcast opportunities as three-quarters of China's provinces were hit by flooding and 25 rivers saw record high water levels, causing the worst death toll in a decade, Liu Ning, general secretary of the government's flood prevention agency, told a news conference. Aside from the dead and missing, 645,000 houses were toppled and overall damage totalled 142.2bn yuan (£13.7bn). All the figures, Liu said, were the highest China had seen since 2000.
• In the summer, one weather system caused oppressive heat in Russia, while farther south it caused flooding in Pakistan that inundated 62,000 square miles, about the size of Wisconsin. That single heat-and-storm system killed almost 17,000 people, more people than all the worldwide airplane crashes in the past 15 years combined. We could have counted on over 20 million Pakistanis tuning in.
• September it started showering in SE Australia and by December was flooding most of the entire east coast of the continent - Australia had its wettest September-to-November spring on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. - a good portion of the population, say 20 million - they are still watching.
• In early November I could have reported live from Costa Rica as flooding from the snapped off tail of Hurricane Thomas killed and destroyed - but good ratings, all 4.5 million Ticos tuned in.
• December washed out the old year in Brazil by killing several hundred and drawing over 2 million local viewers

In other news we could have broadcast reruns the global Climate Conference in Copenhagen, where the world's nations gathered to get down to the serious business of addressing the potential possible impact of change in the climate if it actually happens... and is caused by human actions.

Of course, it will be a rerun, the show was previous cancelled due to lack of action. Nations, especially the USA, China and India were looking for a program with more monetary mystery and intrigue. They complained that they need programming that really bites into their economies before it's worth tuning in.

Well its a New Year, 2011, this year we may have something for them. A fresh new show from DownUnder called 'Flood the Market' The show follows the current ruin of a nation due to catastrophic flooding. Lots of action, chaos, death and destruction, AND the economic Apocalypse that should get their rapped attention. Here are a few of the episode recaps:

• The rain may cut the quality of more than 40 percent of the country’s wheat crop, according to estimates by National Australia Bank Ltd. Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third-largest mining company, said today coal mines in central Queensland state had partially resumed operation after rains.
• Macarthur Coal Ltd., Aquila Resources Ltd. and Vale SA said last week they had declared force majeure, while Xstrata Plc shut part of its rail system and said it would use stockpiles to supply customers. Force majeure is a legal clause invoked by companies when they can’t meet obligations because of circumstances beyond their control.
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia cut its estimate of wheat exports to 14 million tons in 2010-2011, from an earlier 16 million tons. “Many in the industry suggest the disruptions to the harvest this year and the implications for grain quality are the worst in a lifetime,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at the bank, said in a report yesterday.
• Queensland Sugar Ltd., which ships more than 90 percent of the country’s sugar, also today cut its export forecast to 2.2 million tons because of weather, compared with an outlook earlier in the year of as much as 3 million tons.

As 2011 flows forward so do the storms and floods, for investors in the new network it looks like the CCBN would financially stay afloat.

• TODAY From Brazil - The region has already seen the largest rainfall since 1967, according to the government’s Inmet meteorology agency. Teresopolis, the largest and hardest-hit city, where at least 228 people died, absorbed 259 millimeters (10.2 inches) of rain in the past 10 days, while the average rainfall for the month of January is 290 millimeters, according to Inmet.
• The floods in Rio are the world’s fourth-worst disaster involving floods and landslides over the past 12 months by the number of deaths, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, or CRED, a Brussels-based independent research institute that collaborates with the World Health Organization.
• TODAY - More than a million people in Sri Lanka are suffering from massive flooding described by the government as the worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami.

Preliminary data show that 18 countries broke their records for the hottest day ever. The killer Russian heat wave — setting a national record of 111 degrees — would happen once every 100,000 years without global climate change. Super Typhoon Megi with winds of more than 200 mph devastated the Philippines and parts of China. Through Nov. 30, nearly 260,000 people died in natural disasters in 2010, according to W.H.O. A list of day-by-day disasters in 2010 compiled by the AP (news service) runs 64 printed pages long!

Weather or not climate change is real it would be nice to have some real scientific evidence to back up this climatic hyperbole.

Bit more cherie climate summary here.

Iceberg Cam - Cool - Polar Cool