9/11 Seattle plastic, hot summer, Spectra pipeline, Arctic ice, crow brain

3rd Hottest Summer on Record

New blog from Salish Sea Communications: "I listened to President Obama carefully last Thursday but it wasn’t until the end of his acceptance speech that I was moved the way I was moved four years ago. I went back to the transcript to find what resonated so strongly..." Mr. President, I Was Listening

How hip is your five-year old kid?

Paper or plastic? Some shoppers in Seattle grocery stores have the choice once again. That's in spite of a citywide ban on plastic bags that went into effect July 1. The new, heavier-gauge plastic bags are now offered when a lot of shoppers have grown accustomed to bringing their own reusable bag or just carrying groceries in their arms. City Councilman Mike O'Brien says it's legal under the ban's rules. Despite city's plastic bag ban, new plastic bags are being sold in some Seattle grocery stores  

"According to the latest statistics from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, the average temperature for the contiguous United States between June and August was over 74° Fahrenheit, which is more than 2° F above the twentieth-century average. Only the summers of 2011 and 1936 have had higher summer temperatures for the Lower 48." NOAA: This summer was third hottest on record    And, according to Cliff Mass: A Miracle Almost Happened

Pipeline operator Spectra Energy is teaming up with British natural gas giant BG Group to build an 850-kilometre natural gas pipeline from northeastern B.C. to Prince Rupert that will be one of the largest in North America. At a cost of $6 billion to $8 billion for the pipeline alone, the Spectra project is the largest such proposal aimed at delivering B.C. energy resources to Asia and breaking Canada’s dependence on the U.S. market. Spectra proposes natural gas pipeline across northern British Columbia

Only a day after Shell Alaska began drilling a landmark offshore oil well in the Arctic, the company was forced Monday to pull off the well in the face of an approaching ice pack. With the ice floe about 10 miles away, the Noble Discoverer drilling rig was disconnecting from its seafloor anchor Monday afternoon in the Chukchi Sea, about 70 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska. Approaching ice floe halts Arctic oil-drilling operation  

Cross a crow and it'll remember you for years. Crows and humans share the ability to recognize faces and associate them with negative, as well as positive, feelings. The way the brain activates during that process is something the two species also appear to share, according to new research being published this week. "The regions of the crow brain that work together are not unlike those that work together in mammals, including humans," said John Marzluff, University of Washington professor of environmental and forest sciences. "These regions were suspected to work in birds but not documented until now." Crows React to Threats in Human-Like Way  

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA- 300 AM PDT TUE SEP 11 2012
TODAY
LIGHT WIND...BECOMING W 5 TO 15 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 2 FT OR LESS. NW SWELL 6 FT AT 10 SECONDS.
TONIGHT
W WIND 5 TO 15 KT...BECOMING NE AFTER MIDNIGHT. WIND WAVES 2 FT OR LESS. NW SWELL 4 FT AT 10 SECONDS.

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