Archive for October, 2007
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
Germany is leading the world in a renewable energy surge. It truly believes that the world needs to turn around by 2020 and is aiming at a 100% green future. We have to remember that close to 40% of Germany’s energy is nuclear though. Some consider it a renewable energy source, so Germany may reach its goal easily. After all, Iceland plans to be totally hydrogen powered in the near future.
Germany has a lot of faith in wind and solar power. A double row of solar panels lines the Autoban Hwy. outside of Munich. And the government offers cash incentives to anyone that installs expensive solar panels. There is a price guarantee and they get the equivalent of 50 cents for every KW that goes back to the grid. People slapped panels up everywhere. Germany also got its farmers involved. They use part of their land for either solar panels or wind towers. Loans are easy to get because of price guarantees on renewable energy. Germany leads the world in wind power. 7.3% of all German electricity comes from it.
With the incentives, it looks like Germany may make the 30% mark by 2020. And switching to this economy created 170,000 new jobs. That’s a lot of jobs. It doesn’t look like it’s all that efficient a source of power yet, but with practice… The price of solar panels will drop with new innovation and better efficiency. Wind towers will come along that are quiet and not a risk to birds.
Perhaps when Germany becomes a model for other countries the U.S. will finally get in gear. We already have the innovation, we just need to set it free. Germany had virtually no alternative energy use 10 years ago, and now it leads the world. It can be done. Oh, and the first hydrogen powered Beemer is out already. Need hydrogen stations on the to do list!
Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Birds, CO2 Emissions, Coalburners, Energy Costs, Energy Infrastructure, Environment and Jobs, Environmental Capital, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, Int'l Environmental Competition, Methods for Lowering Energy Costs, Michigan Energy Legislation, Michigan Environmental Policy, Pollution, Solar Energy, Wind Power | 3 Comments »
Monday, October 29th, 2007
I was watching “Nova” last night on PBS. The theme was solar energy. It was stated that the green movement is progressing through big business. Whole Foods has teamed up with Sun Edison. Sun Edison pays for the installation of solar panels on the flat rooftops of Whole Foods stores. Whole Foods in turn has a contract to buy their energy solely from Sun. This link of capital markets with retailers will be a big thrust for the solar movement. There is also a big movement by small governments to advance into a green future out of frustration with our federal government for not moving forward environmentally.
When you figure all the government owned rooftops available, there are a lot of flat rooftops on which to put solar panels like public school buildings, and municipal buildings, along with retailers that want to join in. There are also some states that offer incentives to homeowners to put up solar panels like paying for a percentage of the cost. All homeowners can deduct solar panels on the income tax. Right now solar panels are still pretty expensive, and they do not conduct enough energy. But like the program “Eco Tech” on the Science Channel showed, there are some pretty extraordinary inventions already happening, like the battery made from viruses. There is also someone who is working on creating solar paint for a houses.
The program also highlighted Kramer Junction in Boron, California. It’s the name of nine solar power-generating plants in the Mojave Desert. The plant utilizes parallel rows of concave mirrors. Much more efficient at collecting and reflecting sunlight for energy, it powers 150,000 homes in the outer LA area. What’s odd about Kramer Junction is that it was created in the 70’s when we had another oil crunch. The only thing about then as compared to now is that the federal government acted quickly back then. Speed limits across America went from 70 mph to 55 mph. There were ethanol pumps at gas stations. Ford already had ethanol cars. People were asked to reduce use of lights around the home. There were virtually no Christmas tree lights for a few years.
Someone on “Nova” remembered that era as a small kid. As an adult, he now has solar panels on his house. He said the same thing that I’ve often thought. If we would have kept to the straight and narrow as far as limiting our energy consumption since the 70’s, maybe we would be in a very different environmental state of affairs now. Imagine all of the inventions that would have come along. And quite possibly we would never have known terrorism. Oil wealth brings power. Besides that, our world would be breathing a whole lot better.
Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Bush Administration, Eco Tech, Energy Costs, Energy Infrastructure, Environment and Jobs, Environmental Capital, Environmentalism, Extreme Weather in U.S., Federal Government, Funding for Green Business, Global Warming, Green Retailers, Methods for Lowering Energy Costs, Nova, PBS, Science, Solar Energy, Sun Edison, The Science Channel | 4 Comments »
Friday, October 26th, 2007
Today the news stated that all primates are in jeopardy for extinction due to Africans and Asians, either eating them as in the bushmeat trade, or for really stupid reasons, like killing an entire gorilla for their hands. Someone thinks it’s nifty to have a pair of gorilla hands around? I have to add that the U.S. military is no better using great apes for experiments, and our use of monkeys in research is sickening.
Consider this, some apes like the famous “Lucy” have been taught to use sign language and could speak with humans, and actually understood what the words meant. And no it wasn’t repetitious behavior, or mimicking Lucy learned. Lucy was a scientific model. From that we should have immediately backed off from abusing these creatures.
My next question is that if Africans are eating apes out of hunger, and they become extinct what’s next,
a return to cannibalism? Our neglect for acknowledging the value of animals is disgusting enough, but eating a primate that is 1˝ DNA genes away from a human being is cannibalism as far as I’m concerned.
For some really thought provoking issues read Carl Sagan’s essay, “The Abstraction of Beasts.” I agree that sometimes we humans are in grave error assuming everything is inferior to us based on language. Animals cannot communicate with us because basically they’ve never had a need to. When given the opportunity to bridge that gap they do indeed communicate with us, and we eat them?
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Bushmeat Trade, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Illegal Use of Animals, Nature, Pollution, Science, Wildlife | 3 Comments »
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
Ann Arbor, Michigan has added one dozen hybrid buses for its midcity service. Plans are to replace all the buses with hybrids. Although the buses cost more, in the next 5 years the hybrid buses will save the city 2 ˝ million dollars in fuel costs. The best part is that the fare remains the same. Go Ann Arbor! It’s a start, but many cities have to run to catch up with the Big Apple.
New York boasts the largest hybrid bus fleet already, and its taxis are switching over. They’re ahead of many major cities for energy consumption because most people use mass transit systems or walk to get around. They’ve also switched their traffic lights and walk signals to light emitting diodes that use 90% less. New York has replaced at least 180,000 old refrigerators in its public housing projects to energy savers. What a nice bonus for poor families. They get new fridges.
Even the Statue of Liberty and all of Ellis Island are efficiently lit by wind power. New York has mandated that all it city government offices use energy efficient A/C, copy machines, cars, and soon computers. New York is a leader that is being noticed by other major cities and could soon be a model of what to do, and how to do it, quickly. Mayor Bloomberg “wants the remaining tax-delinquent housing stock in the city’s hands made available to developers with energy-saving building designs.” It needs to. Even though we’re told energy expenditure is predominantly from auto emissions, in New York City, the biggest energy expenditure comes from its thousands of old buildings.
Taking the lead to change is the Hearst Corporation. The new Hearst Tower is a marvel. Over 90% of its structural steel is recycled material. I watched the details about it on the Science Channel. It’s not only functional but also beautiful. There is a 3-story waterfall inside that both humidifies the air in winter, and cools it in the summer. I have family in New York. The next time I travel there, I want to see this building. To take a virtual tour goto: http://www.hearstcorp.com/tower/facts/. Read more about New York’s biggest changes: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/nyregion/11efficiency.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, CO2 Emissions, Diesel Fuel Pollution, Energy Costs, Environmental Capital, Environmentalism, Funding for Green Business, Global Warming, Hybrids, Methods for Lowering Energy Costs, Michigan Environmental News, Pollution, Urban Sprawl, Wind Power | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
I have to say I did not catch all of last night’s CNN “Planet in Peril.” I was into animal rights before the entire environment needed help too. So I was too squeamish to watch the abuse of beautiful creatures, especially those close to extinction. I’ve seen enough. I belong to all types of animal rights groups and read their mail. I don’t sleep well when I see something too extreme, and I mean for a long, long time. Even years later I can picture something horrid I forgot about. Memory is a funny thing. It doesn’t go away easily.
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Bushmeat Trade, Coffee, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environmental Spin, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Illegal Use of Animals, Landfills, Logging, Marine Life, Morality, Nature, Oil Industry, Pollution, Science, Weather, Wildlife | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
Our Great Lakes are in serious jeopardy. We’re all seeing Atlanta dry up. The water source for millions there will be gone by January. Already this morning folks in a small town in Tennessee turned on their taps to a trickle. The mountain stream that supplied their water dried up. I’ve already brought up the issue of the Southwest in one of my first blogs. We watched as Vegas was touted as the fastest growing region in the country, with New Mexico seeing a boom as well. I warned that it wasn’t very prudent to do so considering 5 states depend on only one water source there, the Colorado River.
Recently, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico made comments about the Northern tier of states sharing water with the south. Others have alluded to the same scenario. And we’re back to the whole issue of moral decisions just like Al Gore has been trying to explain. Sure we have 8 governors in states around the Great Lakes signing compacts to include 2 provinces in Canada that seek to keep our water here, but that is stalled in Wisconsin. Besides, it must make it through out U.S. legislature and probably will not. We haven’t been able to stop a war that a majority want stopped.
The biggest scare, however, is the fact that one of our nation’s largest underground aquafiers, the Ogallala aquifier, that provides 1/3 of all water used in the heartland, the supplier of 35% of our food crops, is drying up. New Mexico and Kansas will have no irrigation for crops by 2010. The leadership in those states knew the aquafier was drying up, ignored it, did not let farmers know ahead to drill for deeper wells. Instead they allowed the flow of people and industry to those states, even encouraged it, knowing full well the consequences..
So, while we continue to argue about whether global warming is man-made, take partisan stands on just about everything, and even speculate global warming is a U.N. conspiracy, parts of the world are literally drying up and dying, something we will be seeing here in the very near future. There is a Great Lakes pact between 8 governors, and 2 provinces of Canada to preserve our water and keep it here that has stalled in Wisconsin. All 8 states must ratify it, including Canada’s provinces, and then it has to make it through our U.S. legislature. It’s not likely to happen. Even if it did, when fellow Americans have no water, it becomes a very moral issue. I wrote a blog about this a year ago, move over Michigan. What are you going to do, let fellow Americans perish?
I think for starters, if other states want our water, the citizens must move here. Clean industry for jobs to sustain the new transplants should be invited as well. Michigan has plenty of low priced, lovely homes. It’s only fair. Michigan’s economy is dying and everyone wants to take our water too? That’s not fair. If you want our water, move here to get it for starters. After that, we’re in deep, deep trouble as human beings. I happen to think the earth is on the path to right itself of its problem–humans. Nothing we’re going to do is going to stop it.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=668794.
Posted in Drought, Environmentalism, Extreme Weather in U.S., Global Warming, Great Lakes, Great Lakes Water, Michigan Clean Water, Michigan Environmental News, Soaring Temperatures, U.S. Weather Patterns, Water Shortage | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
This should be pretty good. I watched the one on the Science Channel. It answered quite a few of the questions I’ve heard floating around and showcased some of America’s most energy efficient cities like New York. I will be blogging about that soon.
CNN appears to be more accessible to the general public than the Science Channel but I still think that every major network should keep the environment in our faces until we realize duh, it sustains us, we should take better care of it than stripping it bare of everything and leaving a trail of pollution.
Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, CO2 Emissions, Coal Mining, Coalburners, Diesel Fuel Pollution, Environmental Spin, Environmentalism, Extreme Weather in U.S., Floods, Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, Global Warming Reports, Great Lakes Pollution, Jet Fuel Pollution, NASA, Nature, Oil Drilling, Oil Lobby, Pest Populations and Global Warming, Polar Ice Melt, Pollution, Protesting Pollution, Refineries, Science, Soaring Temperatures, The Denial Machine, U.S. Weather Patterns, Weather, Wildlife | 5 Comments »
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
As a quarter million people flee the fires of the Santa Ana winds in southern California, Atlanta’s water supply dwindles and without relief will be gone by January, and floods and tornadoes have steadily pummeled the middle of our country. It’s a little obvious something’s up. Is it global warming and how worse can it get? A lot.
In light of all that’s happening, I searched global warming on the internet and there was a whole new cache of naysayers. Something set them off and I’m thinking it was Al Gore getting the Nobel Prize. I was a little surprised. I checked again today and the opposition has leveled off. Looks to me like the fossil fuel industry turned up the heat against going green. For a few days their bloggers put out a surge of propaganda like: Global warming is a U.N. conspiracy. Watching the news about California tonight, I don’t think so, and when are we going to start thinking about the other guys, especially other Americans?
Global warming affects the entire population of the world and everything in it. Isn’t it wiser to err on the side of caution if things aren’t certain? Besides what’s wrong with cleaning up after ourselves, the outcome of which would be:
The oil money that feeds terrorism will literally dry up.
We get away from fossil fuels for good. No more of the landscape will be destroyed with incessant stripping and drilling.
We could get agriculture involved. Instead of subsidizing them for loss, part of their land will be set aside for wind and solar farms bringing in alternative income.
A new economy gives everyone a chance at new jobs. New investments can be made in the stock market. New people will be able to offer new innovation to sustain us for years to come, creating more jobs.
Disease will dwindle. Clean up the air, earth, and water and possibly ease someone’s suffering.
Low utility bills or none at all. Trying to cut back on energy use, my last combined gas and electric bill fell even more. I paid $103.00 last month for my gas and electric. I’m home all day. The PC is going, TV is on, and an air cleaner. I haven’t taken everything off of standby yet…another TV, Roomba, printer, stereo, DVD player, etc. But by changing my light bulbs, unplugging the old fridge in the garage, adding two overhead fans in the house, regulating my window coverings, and hanging my laundry out on a line, what a difference!
Finally, if we do heat up all at once, chances are our power grids won’t hold up. So we’ll be miserable. Wouldn’t it be better to use that which is going to fry us to cool us? Solar energy could run our a/c units, keep the fridge going, and many other things like boil water.
Posted in Al Gore, Alternative Energy Sources, CO2 Emissions, Coal Mining, Energy Costs, Environment and Jobs, Environmental Spin, Environmentalism, Extreme Weather in U.S., Floods, Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, Global Warming Reports, Methods for Lowering Energy Costs, NASA, Oil Drilling, Oil Lobby, Pandemics, Pest Populations and Global Warming, Pollution, Protesting Pollution, Science, Soaring Temperatures, Solar Energy, The Denial Machine, U.S. Weather Patterns, Weather, Wind Power | 3 Comments »
Friday, October 19th, 2007
I’m sick and tired of the underhanded movements of the Bush/Cheney administration’s all out assault on nature. Their latest accomplishment: A proposal introduced in August that would dismantle vital protections for our National Forests and grasslands and eliminate key federal protections for all wildlife in those areas as reported by Defenders of Wildlife.
You must know they intend to enter our national forests to drill for oil and strip mine mountaintops for coal. They lie through their teeth as expected. They’re oilmen and are not in earnest about pushing too much for alternative energy. Bush didn’t sign the Kyoto Treaty because it would hurt whom? Industry. He promised instead to regulate industry emissions ourselves. He has been pushing for self-regulation in industry from the beginning. Self-regulation is the fox watching the henhouse. Let’s see how this administration regulated big business pollution over the past 7 years?
- They removed key sections of the Clean Water and Air Acts. These have always had bipartisan support because they are crucial to our health! Have you noticed the rise in cancers of all types? There as been no progression to test for air pollutants in neighborhoods across the country relative to a rise in illness and disease for the past 7 years.
- They’ve cut the EPA enforcement to its lowest level on record, so they aren’t watching what goes on. There has been a great reduction in fines to huge polluters, nearly a 2/3 reduction and criminal prosecution for offenders has dropped by 1/3. Our Senate in Michigan just some of them tax breaks and want to cut the budget, which will mean our state won’t be watching polluters here either.
- They’ve disabled the Superfund program. Superfund is used for cleaning up millions of pounds of industrial waste in neighborhoods in 48 states. You know the fact that Superfund even exists is an acknowledgement by the opposition that we do indeed produce a huuuuuge amount of industrial waste. Do we really think this stuff will just disappear?
- They’ve totally ignored any pledges to protect native plants and animals from extinction and are the first administration to not add one single species to the list even though we read about 100’s of species that are near extinction right now.
- They’ve reversed the ban on commercial whaling that was in place since 1986 under Reagan.
- Millions of acres of wilderness and our most sensitive public lands have been opened to logging, mining, and oil and gas drilling. One plan allowed 10% of all trees in California’s Giant Sequoia Park to be removed. 200-year-old trees cut down. We’ve had enough fires this past summer destroying forests that this is just like the looting that takes place after a disaster.
- Other national parks have either had land up for sale by public auction or for development like the million acres Grand Canyon-Parashant Monument in Arizona, the 2,000-foot spires at Fisher Towers, Utah. Arches National Park in Utah has 1200 mining claims within 10 miles! Texas might soon auction off part of its Christmas Mountains. The wealthy are buying the country.
I think that anyone who assaults the earth, the air, the water of any nation this way, ultimately assaults its people. Without clean soil we cannot grow food. We need air to breathe, and water to drink. The faster we get away from fossil fuels the quicker we help the world renew itself, and the quicker we disable the stronghold of power shared by industry and government that will do its best to keep us from advancing into a green future, ruining the environment in the process. Crimes against humanity come to mind when I think of our present government. And it continues without opposition! An awful lot of people think the Bush administration will be gone in short time. They do not physically leave office until Jan. 2009. That gives them 15 more months to contribute to the extinction of at least 200 species already threatened. And don’t forget the lovely weather we’re having. It will most assuredly get worse, while this government aids polluters. http://www.defenders.org/index.php.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/5939345/crimes_against_nature/.
Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Bush Administration, Clean Air Act, EPA, Environmentalism, Extreme Weather in U.S., Federal Government, Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, Nature, Oil Lobby, Pollution, Protecting Wetlands, Protesting Pollution, Refineries, Science, Soaring Temperatures, U.S. Dept. of Energy, U.S. Food Supply, U.S. Weather Patterns, Weather, Wetlands, White House Council on Environmental Quality, Wildlife | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 18th, 2007
I watched a really interesting Nova presentation on PBS last night about Epigenetics. It is another reason for us to really nurture and care for the environment we live in. Our code of life seems to be more interactive with our surroundings than we think. All animals and humans have pretty much the same number of genes in our DNA makeup. Because of this, science is stumped by the individuality among humans and animals, especially health.
Watching animal parents (rats) either nurture or ignore their young led to a study of generational DNA makeup relative to psychological environment. We all pretty much know that children of abusive or neglectful parents suffer more depression and psychological problems as adults, but what scientists found was a marker on the DNA of maybe 3 generations of rats down the line denoting the stress from their great, great, great grandparent due to neglect.
Shortly thereafter, another scientist way up in the Northern part of Sweden was studying a town that maintained great records for hundreds of years not just the genealogy of families but also the weather patterns and harvest records. He found a correspondence in disease and illness with environmental stressors such as drought and famine that affected the harvest. Illness from poor health due to lack of nutrition is a no-brainer. But it wasn’t just the generation affected that had illness and disease; he found it ran in the family as far as 3 or 4 generations down the line whether they ate well or had a much improved lifestyle.
Scientists started looking at the DNA markers for disease in people relative to these new findings. It appears these markers are handed down from the paternal side of the family. Memory of environment appears to stamp sperm. If the individual male suffered stress from death, loss of crops, harsh weather, abusive parents, horrible weather, etc., that stress was transmitted to his sperm and it expressed itself in the form of a markers on their children’s DNA. It is not a genetic mutation. Even though the children are stress free, the markers of their father’s environment were there, passed on.
Environmental stress, both physical and psychological, matters for generations to come no matter how well future generations quality of life improves! The specific markers for individual DNA according to ancestry are what turn on and off the receptors for disease and illness, so lifestyle choices are extremely important for children and grandchildren’s health. This says much about the black community. Blacks suffer from many more diseases than whites. Considering their history of slavery, a horrendous stress for a human being, and this recent revelation, it’s no wonder.
The good thing about all of this is that back in the 70’s there was a form of chemotherapy so toxic it was discontinued. However, it had the ability to erase these DNA stress markers. The chemo has been reduced to like 1/20th of the original and dispensed to patients with diseases that had no cure. The patients had no side effects and their disease went into remission. When their DNA was checked, the markers were gone. This is all experimental at this stage, but I have no doubt the findings. I own an African Grey parrot. Bird people know that stressors of any type show up on new feathers as small bars. We all share almost identical DNA, rats to humans. What sets us apart as individuals health-wise, are the stress markers of our ancestors. What are we sending to our children, and their children, and their children after that by living in a polluted, hectic world? It doesn’t look good right now as breast cancer and all other types of disease seem to be on a rise again.
The average person breathes in air that is questionable. We bathe, drink, and cook with water that isn’t the purest, full of chlorine and other chemicals for purity. And the food we eat lived in horrific environments of stress where pigs and cows chew on metals bars of their cages out of frustration from a life of constant confinement, a living hell in a CAFO, before we eat it. These animals give birth in these crates. The babies are ripped from the mothers and they in turn live a life of hell as foodstuff. I don’t think its fit to eat, and the people that perpetrate the business are evil. So our environment is ailing to begin with, and then we smoke, drink, overeat, and are getting more and more sedentary, as we watch the instance of disease rise worldwide. According to Epigenetics the correlation is right on the money. We simply must become more responsible keepers of our personal and world environment for the healthy future of humanity.
For more about the program on PBS called “The Ghost in Your Genes” goto:
http://www.pbs.org/search/search_results.html?q=The+Ghost+of+Our+Genes&neighborhood=none&btnG.x=4&btnG.y=5.
Posted in CAFO's, DNA, Environmentalism, Epigenetics, Food Supply Contamination, Genetic Markers, Global Warming, PBS, Pollution, Science, Stress, U.S. Food Supply, Weather | 2 Comments »
