2. Resurrection of the Electric Car and old friends
3. Since the great film about the bad car manufacturers and the even more evil oil industry from 2006, it seemed well-known that the electric car, born in the state of California, was violently murdered by the suspects mentioned above.
So in the year 2003 men was facing a future entirely dominated by oil and air pollution. Well, not entirely... Some voices were speaking of a return. Though this prophecy was assumed to occur in remote future, it happens to be... next year.
Needless to mention, there have been lots of electric vehicles on the road. However, in the next two years there will be a huge increase in models of electric or hybrid cars on the market. Manufactured surprisingly by major car makers like Nissan, Ford, Mitsubishi and what a surprise GM itself. So the assumption by the movie the EV would be dead seems rather false or even a lie. Considering that the ZEV amendment in California never ended...
----------------- During an exclusive interview with FOXNews.com, Lisa Drake, Chief Engineer for Ford Global Hybrid and Battery Electric Vehicles told the FOX Car Report LIVE! program that her company’s upcoming electric vehicle will be priced between $50,000 and $70,000 when it goes on sale in 2010.
Oregon is one of eight states in consideration for an electric car manufacturing plant that could employ 900 workers.
The Norway-based company announced in March that it's in discussions with eight states about building a manufacturing plant and technical center for its compact electric car, the Think city.
Prebo said the company will choose a site in the next couple of months in order to meet its goal of starting production by mid-2010.
Portland General Electric Co. earlier this year began installing electric vehicle charging stations throughout its service station. And the state Department of Transportation earlier this week began soliciting bids for electric charging manufacturers, the first solicitation of its kind in the nation.
Car's future is electronic and green - GM boss Wednesday, 9 January 2008 11:03
'The future of the auto is bright and increasingly electronic,' Wagoner said in the first-ever CES speech by a car company executive. 'All the factors point to a convergence of the automotive and electronics industries that is literally transforming the automobile,' he added.
Nissan invited us out to take a spin in its EV-02 electric car prototype. While we were there, Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America, chatted us up about Nissan's plans to bring a zero tailpipe emissions electric vehicle to American roads as early as 2010.
3. A bridge of ice linking two islands in Antarctica recently ruptured. This is just one instance of the progressively more obvious impacts global warming is having on Antarctica. While the result of the failing ice bridge will be initially subtle, affects will snowball over time. It is important to remain up to date on articles relaying this type of information to the public and on the warming situation world-wide.
---------------------- Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic
David Vaughan says the break-up is a 'really strong indication' of warming
An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped. Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence or rapid change in the region. Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s. Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place. Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean. European Space Agency satellite pictures had indicated last week that cracks were starting to appear in the bridge. Newly created icebergs were seen to be floating in the sea on the western side of the peninsula, which juts up from the continent towards South America's southern tip.
Radar images last week showed the bridge on the point of breaking
Professor David Vaughan is a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey who planted a GPS tracker on the ice bridge in January to monitor its movement. He said the breaking of the bridge had been expected for some weeks; and much of the ice shelf behind is likely to follow. "We know that [the Wilkins Ice Shelf] has been completely or very stable since the 1930s and then it started to retreat in the late 1990s; but we suspect that it's been stable for a very much longer period than that," he told BBC News. "The fact that it's retreating and now has lost connection with one of its islands is really a strong indication that the warming on the Antarctic is having an effect on yet another ice shelf."
While the break-up will have no direct impact on sea level because the ice is floating, it heightens concerns over the impact of climate change on this part of Antarctica. Over the past 50 years, the peninsula has been one of the fastest warming places on the planet. Many of its ice shelves have retreated in that time and six of them have collapsed completely (Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf). Separate research shows that when ice shelves are removed, the glaciers and landed ice behind them start to move towards the ocean more rapidly. It is this ice which can raise sea levels, but by how much is a matter of ongoing scientific debate. Such acceleration effects were not included by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when it made its latest projections on likely future sea level rise. Its 2007 assessment said ice dynamics were poorly understood.
Better city design can lessen carbon footprint? I think we can say yes AND no to that.
This article is interesting because it states city dwellers emit less carbon due to city life structure. The article is based on a study run by IIED that indicates “greater use of public transport and denser housing make urbanites more eco-friendly than their rural counterparts”. According to this research, it all comes down to: "Well-designed and well-governed cities can combine high living standards with much lower greenhouse gas emissions." It doesn’t show much in detail HOW and WHAT sort of specific design features the conclusion is referring to, but it does upturn my belief that city living is always more polluting. It is true that zero emission city plans are being promoted in many countries worldwide; though diversion in city infrastructures such as transportation and housing, new systematic approaches show much can be done. The study, on the other hand, seems to explain nothing. The more you are trying to sustain big cities, the more resource is being drawn into it from outside. Cities, by all means, cannot run by itself. This is also the reason why, in Korea for example, most countryside towns are nearly dead (today there are some activists trying to bring back countryside towns to life by building new towns that are completely self-sustainable). The question I want to ask is this: IS this study really allocating energy use by consumption?
---------------------------------------------
City dwellers have smaller carbon footprints, study finds
Greater use of public transport and denser housing make urbanites more eco-friendly than their rural counterparts
guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 March 2009 13.12 GMT
The image of cities is often traffic-clogged, polluted and energy-guzzling, but a new study has shown that city dwellers have smaller carbon footprints than national averages. The report by London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) looked at 11 major cities on four continents, including London, Tokyo, New York and Rio de Janeiro. It found per capita greenhouse gas emissions for a Londoner in 2004 were the equivalent of 6.2 tonnes of CO2, compared with 11.19 for the UK average.
The rural northeast of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, were singled out for having the highest footprints per capita in the UK. In the US, New Yorkers register footprints of 7.1 tonnes each, less than a third of the US average of 23.92 tonnes. The use of public transport and denser housing are two of the reasons for urbanites' comparatively low carbon footprints, the authors said, adding that the design of cities significantly affects their residents' emissions. "Tokyo has considerably lower emissions per person than either Beijing or Shanghai and this shows clearly that prosperity does not lead inevitably to greater emissions," said report author David Dodman. "Well-designed and well-governed cities can combine high living standards with much lower greenhouse gas emissions." The report coincides with a study published today by the UK's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, which called for more spending on parks and trees in cities to create jobs and cut climate change emissions. The IIED is not the first organisation to suggest city living is greener than living in the countryside: last summer the Brookings Institute said residents in US cities had 14% lower footprints than the US average. The authors of this new report, however, admit that assessing emissions is not an exact science because different countries and cities employ different methodologies for counting CO2 emissions, making a precise like-for-like comparison difficult. Most city dwellers' emissions are also still too high to curb climate change, despite being low compared with national averages. "With the exceptions of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, all of the cities surveyed already exceed the per capita figure" needed to keep CO2 levels below 450 parts per million, warned Dodman.
Global warming is regional. The ice sheet which suddenly let go may just as easily been one of those global warming psy-ops using satellite lasers which, if you can find a pic, will show a razor sharp straight edge of the broken piece. Nothing could be better for the planet and it's food shortage than global warming. In fact, we are heading for an ice age and the people who would benefit the most from an ice age, do not control information. The fact is, Obama is restricting travel to Antarctica, several researchers in that continent have "disappeared" and war mongers like Ratheon have a permanent presence on that ice sheet. James McCanney has indicated that the only way to observe a Planet X incursion into our neighbourhood is from Antarctica. A paper on the coming effects on climate is linked here...
US Navy Physicist warns of possibly 'several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine' By Retired U.S. Navy Physicist and Engineer James A. Marusek __________________ 1 2 Apr 09 – Excerpts: “The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24.
“Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change. It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end.
“(The sun) might (1) revert to the old solar cycles or (2) the sun might go even quieter into a “Dalton Minimum” or a Grand Minima such as the “Maunder Minimum”. It is still a little early to predict which way it will swing. Each of these two possibilities holds a great threat to our nation.
“We are now at a crossroad. Two paths lie before us. Both are marked with a signpost that reads “Danger”! Down one path lies monstrous solar storms. Down the other path lies several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine.”
“Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars.
“Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field wrapped in the solar winds that extends to the edges of our solar system. This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet (minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing high energy cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system.
As I say in Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps, these same cosmic rays can lead to mutations and evolutionary leaps.
“As a result, far greater numbers collide with Earth and penetrate down into the lower atmosphere where they ionize small particles of moisture (humidity) forming them into water droplets that become clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. An increase in Earth's cloud cover produce a global drop in temperature.
“If the sun becomes quieter than the old solar cycles, producing more than 1028 spotless days, then we might slip into a Dalton Minimum or maybe even a Grand Minima such as the Maunder Minimum. This solar state will last for decades. Several solar scientist have predicted this will begin in Solar Cycle 25, about a decade from now. But a few have predicted this will occur now in Solar Cycle 24.
“A quiet sun will cause temperatures globally to take a nose-dive. We will experience temperatures that we have not seen in over 200 years, during the time of the early pioneers.
“Temperatures are already falling. Satellites provide generally the most accurate atmospheric temperature measurements covering the entire globe. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius due to the quiet sun.
“This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide (at Mauna Loa) has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. The main threat from a “Dalton Minimum” or “Maunder Minimum” event is famine and starvation (affecting millions or hundreds of millions worldwide) due to shortened growing seasons and harsher weather. In the past, in addition to great famines, this cold harsh weather has also lead to major epidemics.
See entire great article: http://personals.galaxyinternet.net/tunga/Signpost.pdf http://iceagenow.com/
2. Environment, development and efficiency all in one glance- bureaucratic integration in Costa Rica
3. It was commonly believed that the developing countries lacked both the technology and will to voluntarily impose environment-related policies upon themselves. Costa Rica has shown otherwise - not only through the taxation and other remarkable policies that are not implemented in a lot of developing countries, but the bureaucratic integration of environment and energy seems like a very innovative and effective way to solove the impending problems that all the countries face. Since the issues of development, energy generation and environment protection are not seperated in reality, it is vital for governments to try collaborating the agendas and think about the effects that certain policies will have on all of the following aspects. I only hope that these creative efforts will be utilized and adapted in other countries as well.
4. (No) Drill, Baby, Drill By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: April 11, 2009 -----------------------
Sailing down Costa Rica’s Tempisque River on an eco-tour, I watched a crocodile devour a brown bass with one gulp. It took only a few seconds. The croc’s head emerged from the muddy waters near the bank with the footlong fish writhing in its jaws. He crunched it a couple of times with razor-sharp teeth and then, with just the slightest flip of his snout, swallowed the fish whole. Never saw that before.
These days, visitors can still see amazing biodiversity all over Costa Rica — more than 25 percent of the country is protected area — thanks to a unique system it set up to preserve its cornucopia of plants and animals. Many countries could learn a lot from this system.
More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted. So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river — or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest — this is not honest growth. You have to pay for using nature. It is called “payment for environmental services” — nobody gets to treat climate, water, coral, fish and forests as free anymore.
The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica, which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans, came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity — and that its economic future lay in protecting it. So it did something no country has ever done: It put energy, environment, mines and water all under one minister.
“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.
But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez, now a regional vice president for Conservation International. “The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying: ‘Look, if you want cheap energy, the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy. So let’s not think just about the next six months; let’s think out 25 years.’ ”
As a result, Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power, wind and geo-thermal, and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables. In 1985, it was 50 percent hydro, 50 percent oil. More interesting, Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?
Rodríguez also helped to pioneer the idea that in a country like Costa Rica, dependent on tourism and agriculture, the services provided by ecosystems were important drivers of growth and had to be paid for. Right now, most countries fail to account for the “externalities” of various economic activities. So when a factory, farmer or power plant pollutes the air or the river, destroys a wetland, depletes a fish stock or silts a river — making the water no longer usable — that cost is never added to your electric bill or to the price of your shoes.
Costa Rica took the view that landowners who keep their forests intact and their rivers clean should be paid, because the forests maintained the watersheds and kept the rivers free of silt — and that benefited dam owners, fishermen, farmers and eco-tour companies downstream. The forests also absorbed carbon.
To pay for these environmental services, in 1997 Costa Rica imposed a tax on carbon emissions — 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels — which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them. And the country imposed a water tax whereby major water users — hydro-electric dams, farmers and drinking water providers — had to pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine. “We now have 7,000 beneficiaries of water and carbon taxes,” said Rodríguez. “It has become a major source of income for poor people. It has also enabled Costa Rica to actually reverse deforestation. We now have twice the amount of forest as 20 years ago.”
As we debate a new energy future, we need to remember that nature provides this incredible range of economic services — from carbon-fixation to water filtration to natural beauty for tourism. If government policies don’t recognize those services and pay the people who sustain nature’s ability to provide them, things go haywire. We end up impoverishing both nature and people. Worse, we start racking up a bill in the form of climate-changing greenhouse gases, petro-dictatorships and bio-diversity loss that gets charged on our kids’ Visa cards to be paid by them later. Well, later is over. Later is when it will be too late.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
1. Martin Weiser
ReplyDelete2. Resurrection of the Electric Car and old friends
3. Since the great film about the bad car manufacturers and the even more evil oil industry from 2006, it seemed well-known that the electric car, born in the state of California, was violently murdered by the suspects mentioned above.
So in the year 2003 men was facing a future entirely dominated by oil and air pollution. Well, not entirely... Some voices were speaking of a return. Though this prophecy was assumed to occur in remote future, it happens to be... next year.
Needless to mention, there have been lots of electric vehicles on the road. However, in the next two years there will be a huge increase in models of electric or hybrid cars on the market. Manufactured surprisingly by major car makers like Nissan, Ford, Mitsubishi and what a surprise GM itself. So the assumption by the movie the EV would be dead seems rather false or even a lie. Considering that the ZEV amendment in California never ended...
-----------------
During an exclusive interview with FOXNews.com, Lisa Drake, Chief Engineer for Ford Global Hybrid and Battery Electric Vehicles told the FOX Car Report LIVE! program that her company’s upcoming electric vehicle will be priced between $50,000 and $70,000 when it goes on sale in 2010.
Oregon is one of eight states in consideration for an electric car manufacturing plant that could employ 900 workers.
The Norway-based company announced in March that it's in discussions with eight states about building a manufacturing plant and technical center for its compact electric car, the Think city.
Prebo said the company will choose a site in the next couple of months in order to meet its goal of starting production by mid-2010.
Portland General Electric Co. earlier this year began installing electric vehicle charging stations throughout its service station. And the state Department of Transportation earlier this week began soliciting bids for electric charging manufacturers, the first solicitation of its kind in the nation.
Car's future is electronic and green - GM boss
Wednesday, 9 January 2008 11:03
'The future of the auto is bright and increasingly electronic,' Wagoner said in the first-ever CES speech by a car company executive. 'All the factors point to a convergence of the automotive and electronics industries that is literally transforming the automobile,' he added.
Nissan invited us out to take a spin in its EV-02 electric car prototype. While we were there, Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America, chatted us up about Nissan's plans to bring a zero tailpipe emissions electric vehicle to American roads as early as 2010.
------
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512423,00.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/03/30/daily53.html
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/05/1n5electric00291-electric-car-owners-plugged-futur/
http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0109/gm.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10210982-48.html?tag=mncol;txt
1. Anne Severe
ReplyDelete2. Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctica
3. A bridge of ice linking two islands in Antarctica recently ruptured. This is just one instance of the progressively more obvious impacts global warming is having on Antarctica. While the result of the failing ice bridge will be initially subtle, affects will snowball over time. It is important to remain up to date on articles relaying this type of information to the public and on the warming situation world-wide.
----------------------
Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic
David Vaughan says the break-up is a 'really strong indication' of warming
An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped.
Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence or rapid change in the region.
Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s.
Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place.
Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean.
European Space Agency satellite pictures had indicated last week that cracks were starting to appear in the bridge. Newly created icebergs were seen to be floating in the sea on the western side of the peninsula, which juts up from the continent towards South America's southern tip.
Radar images last week showed the bridge on the point of breaking
Professor David Vaughan is a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey who planted a GPS tracker on the ice bridge in January to monitor its movement.
He said the breaking of the bridge had been expected for some weeks; and much of the ice shelf behind is likely to follow.
"We know that [the Wilkins Ice Shelf] has been completely or very stable since the 1930s and then it started to retreat in the late 1990s; but we suspect that it's been stable for a very much longer period than that," he told BBC News.
"The fact that it's retreating and now has lost connection with one of its islands is really a strong indication that the warming on the Antarctic is having an effect on yet another ice shelf."
While the break-up will have no direct impact on sea level because the ice is floating, it heightens concerns over the impact of climate change on this part of Antarctica.
Over the past 50 years, the peninsula has been one of the fastest warming places on the planet.
Many of its ice shelves have retreated in that time and six of them have collapsed completely (Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf).
Separate research shows that when ice shelves are removed, the glaciers and landed ice behind them start to move towards the ocean more rapidly. It is this ice which can raise sea levels, but by how much is a matter of ongoing scientific debate.
Such acceleration effects were not included by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when it made its latest projections on likely future sea level rise. Its 2007 assessment said ice dynamics were poorly understood.
---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7984054.stm
Youngone Suh
ReplyDeleteBetter city design can lessen carbon footprint? I think we can say yes AND no to that.
This article is interesting because it states city dwellers emit less carbon due to city life structure. The article is based on a study run by IIED that indicates “greater use of public transport and denser housing make urbanites more eco-friendly than their rural counterparts”. According to this research, it all comes down to: "Well-designed and well-governed cities can combine high living standards with much lower greenhouse gas emissions." It doesn’t show much in detail HOW and WHAT sort of specific design features the conclusion is referring to, but it does upturn my belief that city living is always more polluting. It is true that zero emission city plans are being promoted in many countries worldwide; though diversion in city infrastructures such as transportation and housing, new systematic approaches show much can be done. The study, on the other hand, seems to explain nothing. The more you are trying to sustain big cities, the more resource is being drawn into it from outside. Cities, by all means, cannot run by itself. This is also the reason why, in Korea for example, most countryside towns are nearly dead (today there are some activists trying to bring back countryside towns to life by building new towns that are completely self-sustainable). The question I want to ask is this: IS this study really allocating energy use by consumption?
---------------------------------------------
City dwellers have smaller carbon footprints, study finds
Greater use of public transport and denser housing make urbanites more eco-friendly than their rural counterparts
guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 March 2009 13.12 GMT
The image of cities is often traffic-clogged, polluted and energy-guzzling, but a new study has shown that city dwellers have smaller carbon footprints than national averages.
The report by London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) looked at 11 major cities on four continents, including London, Tokyo, New York and Rio de Janeiro.
It found per capita greenhouse gas emissions for a Londoner in 2004 were the equivalent of 6.2 tonnes of CO2, compared with 11.19 for the UK average.
The rural northeast of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, were singled out for having the highest footprints per capita in the UK.
In the US, New Yorkers register footprints of 7.1 tonnes each, less than a third of the US average of 23.92 tonnes.
The use of public transport and denser housing are two of the reasons for urbanites' comparatively low carbon footprints, the authors said, adding that the design of cities significantly affects their residents' emissions.
"Tokyo has considerably lower emissions per person than either Beijing or Shanghai and this shows clearly that prosperity does not lead inevitably to greater emissions," said report author David Dodman. "Well-designed and well-governed cities can combine high living standards with much lower greenhouse gas emissions."
The report coincides with a study published today by the UK's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, which called for more spending on parks and trees in cities to create jobs and cut climate change emissions.
The IIED is not the first organisation to suggest city living is greener than living in the countryside: last summer the Brookings Institute said residents in US cities had 14% lower footprints than the US average.
The authors of this new report, however, admit that assessing emissions is not an exact science because different countries and cities employ different methodologies for counting CO2 emissions, making a precise like-for-like comparison difficult.
Most city dwellers' emissions are also still too high to curb climate change, despite being low compared with national averages. "With the exceptions of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, all of the cities surveyed already exceed the per capita figure" needed to keep CO2 levels below 450 parts per million, warned Dodman.
------------------
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/pictures/2009/03/25/bigsmoke.gif
sorry, i put the wrong url.
ReplyDeletehere's the correct one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwellers-smaller-carbon-footprints?commentpage=1
Global warming is regional. The ice sheet which suddenly let go may just as easily been one of those global warming psy-ops using satellite lasers which, if you can find a pic, will show a razor sharp straight edge of the broken piece. Nothing could be better for the planet and it's food shortage than global warming. In fact, we are heading for an ice age and the people who would benefit the most from an ice age, do not control information. The fact is, Obama is restricting travel to Antarctica, several researchers in that continent have "disappeared" and war mongers like Ratheon have a permanent presence on that ice sheet. James McCanney has indicated that the only way to observe a Planet X incursion into our neighbourhood is from Antarctica. A paper on the coming effects on climate is linked here...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/7118515/Serpent-at-the-End-of-Precession
US Navy Physicist warns of possibly
ReplyDelete'several decades of crushing cold temperatures
and global famine'
By Retired U.S. Navy Physicist and Engineer James A. Marusek
__________________
1
2 Apr 09 – Excerpts: “The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24.
“Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change. It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end.
“(The sun) might (1) revert to the old solar cycles or (2) the sun might go even quieter into a “Dalton Minimum” or a Grand Minima such as the “Maunder Minimum”. It is still a little early to predict which way it will swing. Each of these two possibilities holds a great threat to our nation.
“We are now at a crossroad. Two paths lie before us. Both are marked with a signpost that reads “Danger”! Down one path lies monstrous solar storms. Down the other path lies several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine.”
“Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars.
“Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field wrapped in the solar winds that extends to the edges of our solar system. This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet (minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing high energy cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system.
As I say in Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps, these same
cosmic rays can lead to mutations and evolutionary leaps.
“As a result, far greater numbers collide with Earth and penetrate down into the lower atmosphere where they ionize small particles of moisture (humidity) forming them into water droplets that become clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. An increase in Earth's cloud cover produce a global drop in temperature.
“If the sun becomes quieter than the old solar cycles, producing more than 1028 spotless days, then we might slip into a Dalton Minimum or maybe even a Grand Minima such as the Maunder Minimum. This solar state will last for decades. Several solar scientist have predicted this will begin in Solar Cycle 25, about a decade from now. But a few have predicted this will occur now in Solar Cycle 24.
“A quiet sun will cause temperatures globally to take a nose-dive. We will experience temperatures that we have not seen in over 200 years, during the time of the early pioneers.
“Temperatures are already falling. Satellites provide generally the most accurate atmospheric temperature measurements covering the entire globe. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius due to the quiet sun.
“This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide (at Mauna Loa) has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. The main threat from a “Dalton Minimum” or “Maunder Minimum” event is famine and starvation (affecting millions or hundreds of millions worldwide) due to shortened growing seasons and harsher weather. In the past, in addition to great famines, this cold harsh weather has also lead to major epidemics.
See entire great article:
http://personals.galaxyinternet.net/tunga/Signpost.pdf
http://iceagenow.com/
[ late submission ]
ReplyDelete1. Young Hui Na
2. Environment, development and efficiency all in one glance- bureaucratic integration in Costa Rica
3. It was commonly believed that the developing countries lacked both the technology and will to voluntarily impose environment-related policies upon themselves. Costa Rica has shown otherwise - not only through the taxation and other remarkable policies that are not implemented in a lot of developing countries, but the bureaucratic integration of environment and energy seems like a very innovative and effective way to solove the impending problems that all the countries face. Since the issues of development, energy generation and environment protection are not seperated in reality, it is vital for governments to try collaborating the agendas and think about the effects that certain policies will have on all of the following aspects. I only hope that these creative efforts will be utilized and adapted in other countries as well.
4. (No) Drill, Baby, Drill
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 11, 2009
-----------------------
Sailing down Costa Rica’s Tempisque River on an eco-tour, I watched a crocodile devour a brown bass with one gulp. It took only a few seconds. The croc’s head emerged from the muddy waters near the bank with the footlong fish writhing in its jaws. He crunched it a couple of times with razor-sharp teeth and then, with just the slightest flip of his snout, swallowed the fish whole. Never saw that before.
These days, visitors can still see amazing biodiversity all over Costa Rica — more than 25 percent of the country is protected area — thanks to a unique system it set up to preserve its cornucopia of plants and animals. Many countries could learn a lot from this system.
More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted. So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river — or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest — this is not honest growth. You have to pay for using nature. It is called “payment for environmental services” — nobody gets to treat climate, water, coral, fish and forests as free anymore.
The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica, which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans, came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity — and that its economic future lay in protecting it. So it did something no country has ever done: It put energy, environment, mines and water all under one minister.
“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.
But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez, now a regional vice president for Conservation International. “The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying: ‘Look, if you want cheap energy, the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy. So let’s not think just about the next six months; let’s think out 25 years.’ ”
As a result, Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power, wind and geo-thermal, and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables. In 1985, it was 50 percent hydro, 50 percent oil. More interesting, Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?
Rodríguez also helped to pioneer the idea that in a country like Costa Rica, dependent on tourism and agriculture, the services provided by ecosystems were important drivers of growth and had to be paid for. Right now, most countries fail to account for the “externalities” of various economic activities. So when a factory, farmer or power plant pollutes the air or the river, destroys a wetland, depletes a fish stock or silts a river — making the water no longer usable — that cost is never added to your electric bill or to the price of your shoes.
Costa Rica took the view that landowners who keep their forests intact and their rivers clean should be paid, because the forests maintained the watersheds and kept the rivers free of silt — and that benefited dam owners, fishermen, farmers and eco-tour companies downstream. The forests also absorbed carbon.
To pay for these environmental services, in 1997 Costa Rica imposed a tax on carbon emissions — 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels — which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them. And the country imposed a water tax whereby major water users — hydro-electric dams, farmers and drinking water providers — had to pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine. “We now have 7,000 beneficiaries of water and carbon taxes,” said Rodríguez. “It has become a major source of income for poor people. It has also enabled Costa Rica to actually reverse deforestation. We now have twice the amount of forest as 20 years ago.”
As we debate a new energy future, we need to remember that nature provides this incredible range of economic services — from carbon-fixation to water filtration to natural beauty for tourism. If government policies don’t recognize those services and pay the people who sustain nature’s ability to provide them, things go haywire. We end up impoverishing both nature and people. Worse, we start racking up a bill in the form of climate-changing greenhouse gases, petro-dictatorships and bio-diversity loss that gets charged on our kids’ Visa cards to be paid by them later. Well, later is over. Later is when it will be too late.
-----
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12friedman.html?ref=opinion