Our World and Everything in It

I’ve been interested in investing in “green” business and/or stocks but didn’t know who or where to look for these particular type of stocks and ran into this great website, InvestorIdeas.com, that lists almost 400 “green” stocks in 16 categories. There are a handful of mutuals featured too.

Every company listed is an active link and has a little description and history about the company. I especially liked the categories. Already people have preferences. I know I lean toward hydrogen fuel cell technology and yup it’s a category. There is the basic solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen technologies along with biogas, ethanol, and clean power plants to the companies that supply parts like turbines and flywheels.

So there are a lot of choices out there already. I guess I lean toward hydrogen fuel cells because Daimler-Chrysler was the company that supplied Iceland with their first commercial hydrogen buses back in 2003, and recently GM said that was an avenue they will pursue. Just yesterday I saw the commercial for Honda’s new fuel cell car that emits only “clean water vapor.” Hydrogen is on its way. If you ever get a chance to catch the Eco Tech series on the Science Channel watch for the engineer that invented hydrogen pellets that supply power on demand. He commented that we may be putting pellets in our tanks before long.

While I don’t know about that one, automakers are leaning toward hydrogen. Hopefully we will utilize hydrogen power and clean our water in the process. Now I would like a piece of that!

Check out this informative investment website: http://www.renewableenergystocks.com/Companies/RenewableEnergy/Stock_List.asp.
 

Google announced it would spend millions of dollars annually in search of alternative energy sources like geothermal, solar, and wind power. And no they aren’t doing it for the money, or the power. Google is worth $208 billion and has no debt. Boy I wish I would have caught that wave. Anyway the guys at Google have at least $13 billion in loose change to play with and why not? They earnestly want to slow climate change with alternative sources as cheap as coal within 10 years.

Google also plans to cut or offset its greenhouse gas emission by 2008. Joining Google is Yahoo and News Corp. If this chain reaction keeps occurring, it will really add up. There are many corporations and businesses with a conscience that are really trying to contribute like Google. I’ve run across more and more articles about businesses looking to both cut emissions and find ways to incorporate alternative energy into their daily usage. I already blogged about business pushing the environmental movement. Many are doing so because of the high cost of fuel. It worked for me. A few changes and I lowered my gas and electric bill combined to $114, $115, and finally to $103 this summer. I didn’t suffer for it either.

Meanwhile Silicon Valley is filled with start up companies working on green energy. After watching a week of Eco Tech with batteries made from viruses, and hydrogen on demand pellets, I’m keeping my eye on what comes out of Silicon Valley. Not long ago investing in anything technical was very profitable. Like I said, I wish I caught the Google wave early. Now is a very good time to keep an eye on the stock market for signs of “green.” I can’t find too terribly many things wrong with going green along with the opportunity to watch some really great inventors come forward. It’s exciting to work toward such a noble goal, to slow global climate change. Whenever there is purpose, there is passion and that usually results in amazing innovation. 

I don’t know if many people are aware that mercury vapor lights are being phased out. I went to get a socket extender at an electrical supply company and the notices were on the counter. It’s due to their mercury content. We pretty much have voluntary disposal policy in Michigan as far as batteries, bulbs, and stuff with mercury in them. I guess they don’t trust us from throwing them into landfills that aren’t designated as toxic. What I really want to know is what’s going on in the minds of those that created the new policy about mercury vapor lights? Have they noticed the large amount of coal-fired plants in Michigan?

The Detroit Free Press just had an article about Michigan’s unwillingness to just stop. Stop building more coal-fired plants. We’ve lost population. The idea of needing 7 more coalburners as the article pointed out is absurd. And Detroit is making a new area downtown for technical type business and hopefully green business. I keep asking what green businesses will buy into a state that supports fossil fuel plants? Luke warm “green” isn’t enticing.  

So I ask you: Is this not a ludicrous ruling—no more mercury vapor lights? Awful lot of farmers in Michigan and people like me with a pole barn with a mercury vapor light illuminating the entire yard out of darkness. I have no problem recycling my vapor lights, but how about regulating the coal-fired plants that some studies estimate dump 2591 lbs. of mercury the atmosphere annually in Michigan. People can dispute all they want. But the state of Michigan “has had a statewide fish consumption advisory for inland lakes since 1988. The advisory warns against eating more than one meal a week of rock bass, perch or crappie over nine inches in length, or any size largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, northern pike or muskie from inland lakes. Women of childbearing age and children under age 15 are advised not to eat more than one meal of these fish per month.” While airborne mercury poses no problem, when it hits earth, groundwater, streams, and creeks there is a problem.

Not eat fish more than once a month? That’s a little frightening to me. It tells just how much of that mercury blanketed water. Over a ton of mercury is deposited onto everything in Michigan every year, to me, that means 10 tons of mercury over ten years that doesn’t completely go away. I think we need to step up to plate in Michigan and make the changes that really have an impact on cleaning up our environment and show by example we are in earnest about being a “green” state. And while we’re at it can we please mandate bottle returns on those plastic water bottles?  It drives me nuts knowing they end up in landfills and virtually never break down not in the next few lifetimes anyway.

 If you want to read more about Michigan and mercury this covers just about everything and if it’s not here the people to contact are:http://www.deq.state.mi.us/documents/deq-ess-ECOSMercurySurvey1-10-05final.pdf.     

Imagine fueling your car with a biodiesel that gives off the sweet smell of chocolate and costs around $1.16 per gallon. That is a reality for Andy Pag of London and John Grimshaw of Poole. They are planning a trip from England to Timbuktu in their FORD Ford Iveco Cargo truck. Notice the emphasis on Ford. You know if other people in other places are fueling our cars and buses with different, and this one is different, biodiesels than what’s our hold up? Chocolate of all things. I guess it keeps the engine lubed better too. 

The article in Environmental News said the company, “Ecotec developed a proprietary process for converting waste chocolate from the nearby factory into bioethanol on an industrial scale. Previously this waste was thrown away in landfill sites but now the bioethanol it makes can be used for fuel in petrol-burning cars and in the production of biodiesel.” So there really are chocolate factories.

It said Andy and John would be carrying “2,000 liters of biodiesel produced from 4,000 kilos of chocolate mistakes…” I wonder if it smells faintly like chocolate in its biodiesel state? I could not endure the 4500 mile journey with the constant smell of chocolate. I wonder what this biodiesel tastes like?

Read the story. It’s probably one of the most unusual substances used for biodiesel so far. Who knew bad chocolate is just thrown away and whoever heard of a chocolate mistake of all things?

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2007/2007-11-26-02.asp.

So Al Gore went to the Whitehouse today. Interesting isn’t it? I would love to have been there to observe. President Bush honored the Nobel Prize winners and Al was among them. Considering the Bush administration altered reports of global warming (read my blogs below), and there was that voting outcome back in 2000…things could have been awkward.

Apparently, Al had nothing to say to the press as he left. There is very little coverage about the meeting. I just know it was probably uncomfortable since the president is still punishing NASA who complained about censorship. He cut their funding by a hefty percentage, yet is giving plenty of money to the space station project. Lack of those funds has shelved a state of the art satellite that would allow scientists to accurately measure the amount of direct sunlight that hits the earth at one time. It’s in a warehouse somewhere. The satellite would also allow meteorologists to more accurately predict bad weather a lot sooner. Really sound judgment here–space station and/or trip to Mars trumps an accurate picture of what’s happening on earth regarding solar heat via the new satellite.

A good article that speculates about the meeting today is:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/10/16/101926/97.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8nwMDNrp_DbQkdrAynlv0NN_RYg

My blogs about altered reports of global warming:

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=94.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?m=200611

It’s really funny to me that scientists from around the world declared global warming to be real and that we are the cause of a lot of it, and people–senators, judges in England, all types, argued and some are still arguing the point, but once again capitalism and the old pocketbook is the catalyst for change in America.

Rising oil prices have industry scrambling to invest in energy saving technology. Wind is taking off so fast, GE, one of the biggest producers of wind turbines, are strapped to keep up with demands. Four billion gallons of ethanol were produced last year. We have 100 ethanol plants already, although I don’t like this trend. Wind good, corn NOT.

The MSNBC article I read stated that it’s no wonder. Industry consumes 1/3 of all energy. Without cutbacks, their profits get squeezed. Since there are some government incentives to invest in alternative energy sources, high oil prices are just the catalyst needed to drive industry into conservation ur umm going green, never mind that without massive change we suffer bad, bad consequences. Fires, floods, tornadoes, no matter, the real motive is profit.

I say, whatever works! I’ve read other articles that predicted the retail and industrial market is what will drive environmentalism forward. Those articles speculated that governmental policy in this administration would not likely be the catalyst, duh. The article also said what I blogged about before, there is more and more capital available for going green.

It’s a very encouraging article about how companies are cutting costs, making changes that are driving the market forward. This is good folks. The more interested industry is, the better the innovation gets, and the lower the cost to us.

Read: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12040418/.

I happened to turn on The Weather Channel the other night to check on upcoming weather and I stayed on that station awhile. I ended up watching about an hours worth of fascinating travel, weather, climate, and interesting information about the big island of Hawaii. Did you know that the Big Island sports 10 of the world’s 13 climates?

There was beautiful video coverage of the island, all types of info about the wind currents, the climates, and the terrain. It showed the 13 observatories on top of Moana Kea, the highest place to look at the stars. It is the tallest mountain on earth if you consider the part of it under the ocean.  And up there it is a sub arctic climate on this tropical island.

The program showed the Parker Ranch of about 150,000 acres with 50,000 head of cattle and how they’ve managed to be ecological about furnishing water to their cattle. They have diverted fresh mountain water through 75 miles of pipeline to 650 troughs located around the ranch.

Since then I’ve been trying to catch all that The Weather Channel has to offer. There is a program called “Forecast Earth,” “Weather Ventures” like the one about the Big Island, and “It Could Happen Tomorrow” about disasters waiting to happen that are as good as many presented on the Discovery Channel.

I’m telling you about The Weather Channel because many people no longer have premium channels. I know I’ve had people ask me where I saw many of the latest green business innovations on Eco Tech and when I reported it was on The Science Channel, they simply did not have access to it.

Unfortunately people with growing families are watching their expenses and have cut back to basic subscription channels. They don’t get to see all the latest environmental programs out there on premium channels. This is where The Weather Channel is invaluable. It’s a great place for the whole family to view places all around the country and world with all types of info about the climate, wind, animals, plants, and not to mention great cinematography. When I was done watching about the Big Island I wanted to visit there. We’ve been to many of the islands but not the Big Island and that program was my incentive. It was an informational, environmental, travelogue.

To catch the times and days to view some of the programs I’ve mentioned goto:

http://www.weather.com/aboutus/television/programming/?from=secondarynav.

You won’t be disappointed. I just watched part of the feature tonight about the Grand Canyon. Happy viewing.
 

 I just blogged about Japan’s dolphin hunt, and now I see Japan is setting out to hunt protected hump back whales for the first time in decades? What’s up with that? Well, Japan has permits to kill at least 50 for research.  Let that be a lesson to everyone that just because we read something is endangered or protected doesn’t mean it’s reality. Humans are the biggest predators of everything I think, many under the guise of science.

The  Japanese research project wants the dead whales to open them up to look at their reproductive organs, and how everything works basically. Let’s think of it as post mortem exploratory surgery. What I want to know is what good this is going to do? Don’t we know about the internal workings of whales here so that we can just send it to the Japanese?

Environmentalists think the Japanese are doing this because they want to keep the hunting alive while they keep pressuring the IWC, International Whaling Commission, to lift the commercial whaling moratorium. I have to agree. It’s not about research. The Japanese never explained why cutting open 50 humpbacks is going to benefit anything. It seems one whale would suffice for that. Why not collect an already dead beached whale if they are just going to cut it up to see what’s inside? And what about the over 900 Antarctic Minke whales they plan on harpooning? Of course the meat is sold afterward as the research permits allow. Scientific research whaling—baloney, or should I say whaloney.

Greenpeace already has a large ship tailing another really large Japanese ship the “Nisshin Maru” that has set out to the slaughter. Talk about overkill. This Japanese ship looked military at over 8000 tons. It doesn’t bode well for the friendly humpbacks. These are the critters tourists watch off the coast of Hawaii Jan.-March.  They should remain protected like everything else because quite frankly we’re hurting their environment so much already with pollution; it’s criminal to hunt them too. I think the meat should be tested for mercury poisoning like dolphin meat. Ruin the market for it, and watch how quickly the Japanese don’t want to do any more research. This may be the only deterrent to hunting large marine life like whales, dolphins, or sharks.

But Japan misses its tradition of whaling. Too bad. Japan moves its auto industry into a green future. Japan is progressive about everything including a prototype of a giant green city meant to exist in the Sea of Japan, but wants to hold onto the archaic tradition of whaling? Japan needs to move on.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071117/ap_on_re_as/japan_hunting_humpbacks.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/19/japan.whaling.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest.

http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news;_ylt=A0WTTku7MkJHA4IAsBTQtDMD;_

 ylu=X3oDMTA3Nzc4ZmdoBHNlYwNyZWw-?p=greenpeace+whales&rs=1.

Now we’re finally getting solid documentation that man is indeed having a great impact on the environment. The NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that humans caused nearly ½ of the bad weather we experienced last year. This is not a U.N. conspiracy like some like to call environmentalism. This is that voice on the weather band on your car audio: “This is NOAA weather and hazard” at least that’s what it sounds like. This is our national weather service that did the study spanning 1998 to 2006.

The NOAA ran 42 different tests using data of weather conditions relative to human activity and El Nino’s. The article I read on MSN went into detail how they did it, why it took awhile, and the not so surprising results. At least a growing majority of us are seeing and believing. It’s a pretty good weather page from MSN.

Look at some of the weather reports on there for just this past week:

A cyclone hit the coast of Bangladesh with winds up to 155 mph.  At least 425 people were killed, 1000 fishermen, and hundreds more are unaccounted for. The summer floods there just killed 1000 people.

Vietnam flooded last weekend. 100,000 people have no food. They lost it all, 190,000 houses are submerged. The flooding has been going on for a month with over 250 dead.

A major 7.7 earthquake in Chile “crushed cars, damaged thousands of houses, blocked roads and terrified people for hundreds of miles around Wednesday. Chilean authorities reported at least two deaths and more than 150 injuries.

The quake, which struck at 12:40 p.m., shook the Chilean capital 780 miles to the south of the epicenter, and was felt as far away as the other side of the continent — in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1,400 miles to the east.”

The next day the northern part of Chile was hit with huge aftershocks of 6.2 and 6.8 injuring about 100 people and killing 2.

Atlanta’s out of water.

This is a wake up call. The longer we wait for policy, the more it’s not going to be pretty. On the NOAA weather site they have listed the major catastrophic weather events going back to 1990. I did the same about 2 years ago, and wouldn’t have now that I see how nicely they’ve compiled it!  I went back to 1990 and printed a list of all catastrophic events per page for each year to 2001. 1990 barely filled a quarter of a page. 2001 was 2 ½ pages printed no double spacing. I don’t think I used NOAA, but another International Weather Service that had the events by year but not in a neat little list.

Check out the NOAA website yourself and scan the climate events. There are many recently and as you scan down to 1990 it dwindles to about 2 or 3 events. That’s a scannable eye opener. Every line scanned represents a catastrophe somewhere in the world where someone died.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20481186/wid/18298287/.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/hazards/index.php.
 

Monroe News presented an article this weekend from ABC news and other sites like The Huffington Report below that 36 states will suffer water shortages in the next 5 years. We’re a little slow to move to divert emergencies in this country lately so it’s imperative each community get moving.  Look what the small town of Clary N. Carolina did way back in 2001.

Cary began a reclaimed water system on a small scale in 2001. Reclaimed water has been treated up to a certain stage in the purification process. We can’t drink it, wash, or bathe in it but meets federal standards. What a community can do is recycle it instead of dumping it into lakes, rivers, and streams and reclaim it for irrigation, industrial processing, cooling, etc., leaving us with more clean drinking water.

Reclaimed water needs a separate pipeline from drinking water. This does require money, but it’s good for jobs and is just the beginning of what a green industry could bring. In the long run the system helps the community in times of drought.

The Cary, N.C. Reclaimed Water website states: “The state lets Cary divert a total of about 5 million gallons of treated wastewater a day from the two treatment plants (water reclamation facilities) for reuse rather than discharging into creeks.
        Amounts reused are:
        • Approximately 1 million gallons on peak day
        • Up to 20 million gallons monthly in summer.”

Cary is aiming at a 20% water usage reduction by 2015. Currently, close to 1900 communities across the country are using reclaimed water. The most progressive states include Washington, Florida, California, Arizona and Texas. Cary is a small town of a little over 112,000 that saves almost 1,000,000 gallons of water per day. If the roughly 2000 communities are doing as well as Cary than 2 billions gallons of water is saved per day or more by reclaiming water.

Think about an entire country doing this, the jobs it would create. But I’ve blogged about lack of money to renew water infrastructure in this country. We are in need of much money wasted on war concerns at a time when we should be hunkering down and getting serious about alleviating global warming. We can see our environmental conditions are changing. Preparing for its effects is not unwise. I don’t know about anyone else but the less I have to change drastically the better. If it means starting earlier than so be it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071026/vanishing-water/.

http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pwdept/reclaimhome.htm.
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