‘The Bush administration wants to eliminate federal support for geothermal power just as many U.S. states are looking to cut greenhouse gas emissions and raise renewable power output.
The move has angered scientists who say there is enough hot water underground to meet all U.S. electricity needs without greenhouse gas emissions.
“The Department of Energy has not requested funds for geothermal research in our fiscal-year 2008 budget,” said Christina Kielich, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy. “Geothermal is a mature technology. Our focus is on breakthrough energy research and development.”‘
‘Killer frogs have taken over Golden Gate Park’s otherwise peaceful Lily Pond in San Francisco, causing a big problem.
According to CBS 5 contributor and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Mattier, the city is preparing to do something to stop the African clawed frogs. While they are just 5 inches in length, the frogs are eating everything in sight — including turtles, fish and other frogs.
“They’ve eaten everything they can get their mouths around, and now they’re eating each other,” Eric Mills of the animal rights group Action for Animals, told Matier for his column.
No one knows for sure when this frog species got into the pond or who put them there, but now city officials fear the killer frogs will spread throughout the Bay Area.’
see it here »
‘Scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.
They say the debate on global warming has been “hijacked” by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.’
‘”Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.
“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report. [..]
The hardest-hit continents are likely to be Africa and Asia, with major harm also coming to small islands and some aspects of ecosystems near the poles. North America, Europe and Australia are predicted to suffer the fewest of the harmful effects.’
‘It’s a crisp January afternoon, and Fergus Drennan is picking mushrooms in a field near the Kentish seaside town of Whitstable. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots some black and white feathers poking up from a tuft of grass.
“A bird!” he shouts. “It’s not even been dead that long; you can tell from the rigor mortis. It’s so cute, isn’t it? Come on… come back to life… No. It’s definitely dead. The only question is… why?”
Fergus looks up. Above him run several power cables. The bird must have been electrocuted. This is excellent news: since our feathered friend didn’t have a nasty disease, Fergus says it’s safe to eat.’
‘Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist’s controversial theory.
Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.
In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide “ice caps” near Mars’s south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.’
‘A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday.
“I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation … that could be a way to save our planet,” Paul Hellyer, 83, told the Ottawa Citizen.
Alien spacecrafts would have traveled vast distances to reach Earth, and so must be equipped with advanced propulsion systems or used exceptional fuels, he told the newspaper.
Such alien technologies could offer humanity alternatives to fossil fuels, he said, pointing to the enigmatic 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico — which has become a shrine for UFO believers — as an example of alien contact.’
‘The reason Al Gore’s energy bill is so high is because he and his wife chose to receive “green power,” which costs them $4 more per 150 kilowatt-hours than their utility’s regular plan. Furthermore, Al Gore’s house has 20 rooms due to offices, security, etc.
The Gores choose to raise their bill by over 50 percent in order to minimize carbon pollution.
That’s the real truth… Inconvenient or not.’
Followup to: Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
‘Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).
In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh – more than 20 times the national average.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh – guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.’
‘Spindly orange sea stars, fan-finned ice fish and herds of roving sea cucumbers are among the exotic creatures spied off the Antarctic coast in an area formerly covered by ice, scientists reported Sunday.
This is the first time explorers have been able to catalog wildlife where two mammoth ice shelves used to extend for some 3,900 square miles over the Weddell Sea.
At least 5,000 years old, the ice shelves collapsed in two stages over the last dozen years. One crumbled 12 years ago and the other followed in 2002.’
‘The illegal trade of elephant ivory has reached such unprecedented levels in Africa that the authors of a U.S. report published Monday are urging western nations to provide more aid for better enforcement.
They say the trade has increased despite an international ban on ivory imposed in the late 1980s.
“Poaching right now has reached its worst levels in history,” said Samuel Wasser, one of the report’s authors and director of the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology in Seattle.’
‘Tasmanian devils could be extinct in just 10 years, researchers at a University of Tasmania forum in Hobart said yesterday.
Devil scientists overwhelmingly believed the last wild devil would die in under 20 years without major action.
That would spell the end for marsupials like bettongs and eastern-barred bandicoots.
“There was very strong consensus that if we don’t do something, extinction will happen on mainland Tasmania,” said Professor of Wildlife Research Hamish McCallum, senior scientist with the Devil Facial Tumour Disease program.’
‘The naughty prints are only “kind of” sponsored by Greenpeace because Exit3a copywriter Tom Mullen admits to AdCritic they haven’t told the organization about the print series yet. “It’s probably not legal, but there’s too much paperwork, meetings and phone calls involved to get the campaign approved in time for Earth Day,” he explains. “I figure Greenpeace is too busy getting sued by conglomerates to bother suing a few people who are trying to promote the cause. They can always officially deny the vulgarity.”
If fortune favours the brave, perhaps that grace extends to those disinclined to ask permission for slapping mom-fucking ads out into the open and signing it Greenpeace.’
‘An Australian company has announced ambitious plans to prove that potentially planet-saving hot rocks are not just a load of hot air.
Geodynamics Limited says it has secured a $32 million drilling rig from Texas and is on track to spud Australia’s first commercial-scale hot rock well by the middle of this year.
The well, to be sunk four kilometres underground in South Australia’s Cooper Basin, could be in commercial production by 2010 if all goes according to plan, the company says.’
‘The humble incadescent light bulb is about to become history as Australia dumps it in favour of more energy efficient technology.
Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the standard incandescent light bulb, which has been around for 125 years, will be phased out by 2009.
It will be replaced by the compact fluorescent bulb, which costs $5 more but is around 80 per cent more energy efficient.
Mr Turnbull said new standards will be in place by 2009.’
‘It sounds as if someone just dropped a tricycle into a meat grinder. I’m sitting inside a narrow conference room at a research facility in Bristol, Connecticut, chatting with Joseph Longo, the founder and CEO of Startech Environmental Corporation. As we munch on takeout Subway sandwiches, a plate-glass window is the only thing separating us from the adjacent lab, which contains a glowing caldera of “plasma” three times as hot as the surface of the sun. Every few minutes there’s a horrific clanking noise—grinding followed by a thunderous voomp, like the sound a gas barbecue makes when it first ignites.
“Is it supposed to do that?” I ask Longo nervously. “Yup,” he says. “That’s normal.”’
‘Drawn by a Brazilian math teacher’s Web site descriptions of miners scooping up thousands of dollars in gold, between 3,000 and 10,000 people have poured in since December, cutting down huge trees, diverting streams and digging ever-deeper wildcat mines, in an area that only months ago was pristine rain forest. [..]
“This is even better than Serra Pelada. I’ve been mining all around the Amazon since 1978 and this is the best I’ve ever seen,” said Joao Leandro de Azedo, 70, overlooking his stake from a hammock.
Azedo said he has panned some 70 ounces of gold worth a total of $19,000 since arriving 17 days ago, including 17 ounces in a single day.’
‘Indonesia will drop hundreds of concrete balls into a mud volcano in a bid to brake the flow of hot liquid that has displaced more than 10,000 people and inundated entire villages in Java, an official said on Friday.
The torrent of hot mud has been flowing since an oil drilling accident in May in Sidoarjo, an industrial suburb of East Java’s Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city.
Numerous attempts to cap or curb the flow since it started have failed.
But now the government plans to try concrete balls linked by metal chains.’
Followup to Poisonous mud wreaks havoc on Java.
‘Immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will not halt the continuing damage to Australia’s environment, a Federal Government researcher warns.
The CSIRO expects Sydney’s maximum temperatures to rise 1.6 degrees by 2030 and 4.8 degrees by 2070.
Average rainfall will decrease by 40 per cent and water evaporation rates will jump 24 per cent by 2040 under the scorching conditions.
By 2050, annual heat-related deaths of people over 65 will increase almost eight times from 176 to 1312.’
‘Prime Minister Stephen Harper once called the Kyoto accord a “socialist scheme” designed to suck money out of rich countries, according to a letter leaked Tuesday by the Liberals.
The letter, posted on the federal Liberal party website, was apparently written by Harper in 2002, when he was leader of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance party. [..]
“We’re gearing up now for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership,” Harper’s letter says.
“I’m talking about the ‘battle of Kyoto’ — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord.”‘
`An Australian state plans to introduce recycled sewage to its drinking water as a record drought threatens water supplies around the nation, a state leader said Monday.
Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie said falling dam levels have left his government with no choice but to introduce recycled water next year in the state’s southeast — one of Australia’s fastest growing urban areas.
“We’re not getting rain; we’ve got no choice,” Beattie, who said his government had scrapped a referendum planned for March on the issue, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.’
‘The US wants the world’s scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.
It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be “important insurance” against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday.’
`Smithfield Foods actually faces a more difficult task than transmogrifying the populations of America’s thirty-two largest cities into edible packages of meat. Hogs produce three times more excrement than human beings do. The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield’s total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four Yankee Stadiums. Even when divided among the many small pig production units that surround the company’s slaughterhouses, that is not a containable amount.’
Long article, but interesting. I didn’t realise pig shit turned ponds pink. 🙂
`This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert “An Inconvenient Truth.” [..]
“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.” [..]
“From what I’ve seen (of the movie) and what my husband has expressed to me, if (the movie) is going to take the approach of ‘bad America, bad America,’ I don’t think it should be shown at all,” Gayle Hardison said. “If you’re going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don’t think the video should be shown.”‘
`You are looking at pictures of our family home in Wales. It was built by myself and my father in law with help from passers by and visiting friends. 4 months after starting we were moved in and cosy. I estimate 1000-1500 man hours and 3000 put in to this point. Not really so much in house buying terms (roughly 60/sq m excluding labour).
The house was built with maximum regard for the environment and by reciprocation gives us a unique opportunity to live close to nature. Being your own (have a go) architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land rather than, at worst, a mass produced box designed for maximum profit and convenience of the construction industry. Building from natural materials does away with producers profits and the cocktail of carcinogenic poisons that fill most modern buildings.’
`This threat is being compounded by the loss of permafrost which has kept river banks from eroding too quickly.
The waves are larger because there is no sea ice to diminish their intensity, slamming against the west and northern shores of Alaska, causing severe storm driven coastal erosion.
It has become so serious that several coastal villages are now actively trying to figure out where to move entire communities.’
`Canada’s wind power business could face a tough year in 2007, with increasing doubts about this green energy source promising to buffet the industry. [..]
There are two main controversies that have popped up to trouble the wind power business: local opposition to turbines from people who live nearby, and concerns over the reliability and efficiency of the electricity produced by wind farms. Increasingly, the two issues are being linked.’
`ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.
The report by the science-based nonprofit advocacy group mirrors similar claims by Britain’s leading scientific academy. Last September, The Royal Society wrote the oil company asking it to halt support for groups that “misrepresented the science of climate change.”
ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the scientific advocacy group’s report.’
`A new report by scientists studying Louisianas sinking coast says the land here is not just sinking, its sliding ever so slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.
The new findings may add a kink to plans being drawn up to build bigger and better levees to protect this historic city and Cajun bayou culture. [..]
Researchers have known for years that the swampy land under south Louisiana is sinking (potholed streets and wobbly porches and floors are visible evidence of that) but a lateral movement of the land into the Gulf enters largely unstudied terrain.’
`2. The part of the brain that regulates reasoning, impulse control and judgment is still under construction during puberty and doesn’t shift into autopilot until about age 25. [..]
6. Cheese consumption in the United States is expected to grow by 50 percent between now and 2013. [..]
8. The U.S. government has paid about $1.5 billion in benefits to thousands of sick nuclear-weapons workers since 2001. [..]
13. Ancient humans from Asia may have entered the Americas following an ocean highway made of dense kelp. [..]
50. Researchers from the University of Manchester managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens – activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million years.’
