and now for something completely different

I wrote a story for today's News-Miner about my first caribou hunt last month. It was so good our Web site couldn't handle it, so you have to buy a real paper. The pictures are the best part anyway.
In terms of real news, Sen. Ted Stevens is getting behind carbon sequestration, and wrote this is a news release yesterday, after a hearing before the commerce committee on the technology.

“This technology, while helping to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, can also aid in recovering reserves of petroleum previously thought to be unrecoverable. Doing so will become more and more important as global oil reserves diminish and as petroleum prices rise.”

He added this about testimony from Ron Wolfe, natural resources manager for Sealaska Native Corp.

In addition to providing clean air, trees in Alaska's forests have a tremendous capacity to take up and store carbon, Mr. Wolfe said. During his testimony, he emphasized that carbon regulatory programs should reward actions that increase the ability of forests to absorb carbon and enhance ecological function. Forests can be managed to maximize carbon sequestration and be part of a comprehensive approach to managing greenhouse gas emissions.

“Forest management practices directed to sequester carbon can provide a wide array of economic opportunities important to the public, especially to American Indians and Alaska Natives,” said Ron Wolfe in his written testimony. “Sequestering activities can create new commerce and job opportunities in some of the poorest rural, predominately Native, areas of Southeast Alaska while enhancing the forest's ecological functions.”

Not really sure what to make of that. I guess that if we can capture the stuff, we can keep emitting it. And that there's some big bucks in capturing it.
Then there was this, involving a Yup'ik girl, Lisa Murkowski, and Rush Limbaugh.
If you haven't heard Peter Larsen's talk on dollar impacts of climate change on state infrastructure, he's giving it at next Tuesday's ACCAP teleconference.
And here's just a great lede from an NY Times story.

For photographers lacking training, experience and even the ability to click a shutter button, they produce remarkable pictures. Under the sea, deep in the woods and high in the sky, furry, feathery and leathery-skinned creatures are opening up vistas by taking cameras where no human can go.