Archive for the ‘Earth Friendly’ Category
As 2007 draws to a close it appears that it will be the hottest year on record in the northern hemisphere. U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there. It wasn’t just the temperature. There were other oddball weather events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the tabloid headline: “This ain’t Kansas!” In the Middle East, an equally rare cyclone spun up in June, hitting Oman and Iran. Major U.S. lakes shrank; Atlanta had to worry about its drinking water supply. South Africa got its first significant snowfall in 25 years. And on Reunion Island, 400 miles east of Africa, nearly 155 inches of rain fell in three days ? a world record for the most rain in 72 hours.Thats almost 13 feet of water. Enough to fill most swimming pools to capacity. Worst of all ? at least according to climate scientists ? the Arctic, which serves as the world’s refrigerator, dramatically warmed in 2007, shattering records for the amount of melting ice. 2007 really brought some of the naysayers over to the fact that the earth is heating up and we apparently are the cause of it. Al Gore won an Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth” plus the Noble Peace Prize for his work in trying to get the message out that we need to be doing something about it and real soon, if it is not already too late. Al Gore was vindicated by these awards , now maybe those who poked fun at him with nicknames of “Owl Gore” and others as they were denying there was anything going wrong with our climate. They have for years denied the fact that the earth is getting warmer or said it was a natural phenomenon.
Through the first 10 months, it was the hottest year recorded on land and the third hottest when ocean temperatures are included. Setting new records was all too common, especially in August. At U.S. weather stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for specific August dates. More remarkably that same month, more than 100 all-time temperature records were tied or broken ? regardless of the date ? either for the highest reading or the warmest low temperature at night.
Across Europe this past summer, extreme heat waves killed dozens of people. And it wasn’t just the heat. It was the rain. There was either too little or too much. More than 60 percent of the United States was either abnormally dry or suffering from drought. I know here in the upstate of South Carolina we were begging for rain all summer long as fields and gardens suffered through the near drought conditions. Though I get my water from a well and do not get it from the two pristine lakes that feed Greenville I do know that both of these lakes are low and needing rain to fill them back up. Atlanta‘s main water source, Lake Lanier, shrank to an all-time low. Lake Okeechobee, crucial to south Florida, hit its lowest level in recorded history in May, exposing muck and debris not seen for decades. Lake Superior, the biggest and deepest of the Great Lakes, dropped to its lowest August and September levels in history. Los Angeles hit its driest year on record.
Lakes fed by the Colorado River, which help supply water for more than 20 million Westerners, were only half full. Australia, already a dry continent, suffered its worst drought in a century. On the other extreme, record rains fell in China, England and Wales. Minnesota got the worst of everything: a devastating June and July drought followed by record August rainfall. In one March day, Southern California got torrential downpours, hail, snow and fierce winds. Then in the fall came devastating fires driven by Santa Ana winds.
The time for action is now. We must act to save the world as we know it. The polar ice caps are rapidly melting – something that could raise the sea levels by dozens of feet – something that would put most major sea side ports and cities under Water. Even places like the Whitehouse could become inudated by water.If sea levels were to raise that much the world as we know it would change. I hope that it doesn’t ever come to that and we have managed to slow down the greenhouse gases that are leading this heat wave.
NHK television, quoting unnamed officials said Japan ” has decided to delist humpbacks for now due to the
negative impact it would have with Australian relations”. Japan had planned to harpoon 50 humpback whales in its current expedition to Antarctica. It would have been the first time that Japan would have hunted the beloved humpback whales since the 1960′s. Commercial hunts of humpback whales ? which were nearly harpooned to extinction in the 20th century ? were banned in the Southern Pacific in 1963, and that ban was extended worldwide in 1966.
Japan had earlier denied remarks by the US ambassador, Thomas Schieffer who said Wednesday that “Japan had agreed to stand down from its plan to kill humpbacks” Humpback whales are renowned for their songs and acrobatic displays.The humpback has turned into a major tourist attraction that attracts approximately 1.5 million whale watchers a year to the Australian coasts and coastal waters.
Defying warnings from the Western nations of the US and Australia, Japan’s whaling fleet set sail last
month for Antarctica with a mission to kill 1000 whales. Most of them the small minke whale as well as the
planned 50 humpbacks.
Japan claims that whaling part of their culture even though Japanese it very little of its red meat, favoring other meats like beef. Coastal communities in Japan have hunted whales for centuries, but whale meat was not eaten widely here until the U.S. occupation officials encouraged it in the poverty stricken years after the Second World War.Despite the commercial hunting ban, Japan is permitted under the IWC rules to kill whales for “scientific research.” The meat is sold under the program and often ends up as pricey items in specialty restaurants. However, its popularity as a staple has plummeted with the availability of beef and other meat varieties.
I tend to agree with Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith who said ?While this is a welcome move, the Australian government strongly believes that there is no credible justification for the hunting of any whales,?
Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura takes another stance and said ?The government has decided to suspend hunts of humpback whales while talks to normalize [relations with] IWC are taking place,? He added that the suspension would last a year or two. ?But there will be no changes to our stance on our research whaling itself.?
Despite the suspension of the humpback hunt, Japan still plans to take as many as 935 minke whales and up to 50 fin whales in the Antarctic in what the Fisheries Agency says is its largest-ever scientific whale hunt. Japan also takes more minkes in the northern Pacific later in the year.
Environmental movement Greenpeace and the militant splinter group Sea Shepard have each sent a ship to try and disrupt Japan’s whaling. The Sea Shepard activists went too far last year when they threw acid onto the Japanese mother ship in an attempt to disrupt the hunt.
??? A provision in the energy bill that was passed by Congress and signed into law by by President Bush is a law that will bar US stores from selling inefficient?incandescent light bulbs. The light bulb as invented by Thomas Edison has made very few changes since the late 1800′s. Now to say that Edison actually invented the light bulb is wrong he figured out how to make it practical.
Anyhow the new law will force everyone to use more efficient forms of lighting. For all intents and purposes though the?incandescent bulb is soon to be a thing of the past. After 2012 the selling of inefficient incandescent light bulbs will be against the law in the United States. The European Union? and Australia have already decided to ditch the inefficient bulbs in the not too distant future. Australia is the worlds first to outlaw incandescent light bulbs in favor of the more “fuel-efficient, compact fluorescent bulb. This is a great step for our US government but still not enough. This will help some as the savings on electricity alone will mean that we burn less coal to make electricity as the average compact fluorescent burns only 20% of what the same rated incandescent bulb does. Replacing all of our lighting with bulbs of this efficiency will reduce the need for new power plants or the ones we have running at peak operations.
We need to?follow Australians example though and commit to reducing greenhouse gases. Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s environment minister says that they intend to “cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by four million metric tonnes a year by 2015.” Citing the “climate changes” the world is facing as a “global challenge,” Turnbell also urged other nations to follow suit in making a difference. What a difference between the Aussies and us in our attitude towards global warming. In the US our very own EPA that is charged with protecting the environment is doing nothing to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases?emitted by our power plants and other industry. Even after a court order they still have not acted. A quick look at their website will show you nothing about reducing greenhouse gases for industry but at least they are working on reducing it from vehicles which comprise the increase of vehicles mileage figures to 35 mpg and the use of renewable fuel up to 36 billion gallons. Actually they did nothing but take claim to be doing something because all of this is covered in the new energy law. Right now it is cheaper for the coal burning power plants to take no action to retrofit their plants with clean coal technologies and wait to see if the EPA decides to fine them or not. In the mean time they are belching tons of carbon dioxide every day. And unfortunately I am afraid this will continue until enough of us vote into office, people who really care about the environment and their constituents who are down wind of the plants in question and have to breath their pollution everyday.
You like our family has probably been hit pretty hard by the gas prices at the pump nowadays. Sadly to say there is no relief in sight and gas prices are expected to go up higher as the price of oil approaches $100 a barrel. The price now is about $80 per barrel but no one expects those prices to go any lower any time soon.
There may not be any relief at the pump but there may be a relief in the cars we drive and their ability to squeeze out every drop of gasoline into our miles per gallon.
Last month California based Apetra let out word of its allegedly super fuel-efficient (and cheap) Typ-1 electric vehicle. A video test drive and gee-whiz specs breakdown at the Popular Mechanics site proves that this thing is for real. The plan is to have a vehicle that goes 120 miles on a single lithium-phosphate pack charge for 2008, with a 300-mpg model to follow by 2009. Aptera is also mentioned in Wired’s new cover story as one of several early front-runners for the Automotive X Prize.”
The vehicle three wheeled with one wheel in the back and two up front. and weighs in at approximately 1480 pounds. This model is a two seater but there are plans in the works to start building a 5 seat car with 4 wheels. The Typ-1 is constructed from advanced composite materials, with steel reinforcements in critical areas. Being able to go 120 miles on a single charge of the vehicles battery or get 300 miles to the gallon is great and is enhanced by the vehicles way cool space age design.
I remember back in the 80′s when Mother Earth News headquarters were right outside of Hendersonville North Carolina and visiting their site and viewing the 3 wheeler they made that if I recall correctly was getting about 120 miles to the gallon. They also had a hybrid car they had made themselves from an old Renault I think it was. My biggest question to the big auto makers is if they had done it back then and got those types of mileage figures, Why can’t the big auto makers, and why are we still stuck with mileage figures so low. I don’t know if it is collusion between them and the oil companies or not. Maybe some of the top executives hold oil stock.
Anyway this is great news that someone is finally putting out a vehicle that can get tremendous mileage figures like the Apetra is claiming. The big auto makers don’t sell anything that is remotely close to those figures. Hopefully startups like this will put pressure on them to try harder. Even with the hybrids they are selling the best figure I have seen was about 60 mpg and that is about half of what was obtained by basically garage tinkerers in the 80′s. It is high time they caught up.
? Last month Japans whaling fleet set sail for the south pacific in search of humpback whales. They are intending to slaughter 50 humpbacks.?Commercial hunting of humpbacks has been banned worldwide since 1966 yet Japan is using a loophole meant for science to take a few whales to study and further protect them to keep its whaling fleets afloat and in operation.
The United States along with Australia is pressing hard to get this practice stopped. The American ambassador to Tokyo said Wednesday that an agreement may have been reached. Lets hope so. Australia is dispatching ships and planes to conduct surveillance of Japanese killing whales off of Antarctica. They will collect photographic and video evidence to determine if Australia will launch legal action to try and stop Japans whaling industry.
Japan regularly kills about 1000 whales per year in its “scientific program”. Critics say the program is a shield for Japan to keep its whaling industry alive until it can overturn a 1986 ban on commercial whaling. Japanese coastal communities have a long history of eating whale meat, and it was a major staple in the poverty-stricken years after World War II. The red meat, however, has plummeted in popularity as alternatives such as beef have become widely available in Japan.
There is little we can do as individuals to prevent this but we can vote with our pocketbooks and do not purchase anything from Japan. If enough of us do that it will be felt by them and perhaps they will do something about it. Our whales are a precious few left in the oceans of the world. There is no reason to harvest any of them now.
They just don’t get it. Our so called leaders are more concerned with letting their cronies make millions of dollars while the environment be damned. This year is shaping up to be the eighth warmest year ever in the United States and the fifth over all warmest on the planet or at least since they started keeping records in the 1800′s. In the United States, the months of March and August were the second warmest in more than 100 years. Only February and April were cooler than average. View the report by NOAA. The complete data will not be released until spring.
The past year was particularly rough in the Southeast and West, which experienced serious drought conditions. More than three-quarters of the Southeast was in drought from midsummer into December. I live in the north western corner of South Carolina and it is so dry here. We have had very few rains this year mostly we get a light rain that is quickly evaporated leaving us as dry and dusty as before. It is sad to watch dust coming up from the rain drops and not enough rain falling to stop it entirely. And with the dryness comes wild fires. South Georgia had fires of such intensity that we had the smoke hanging over us for days. And it is not just the east. The Southwest faced its share of drought and wildfires too. I feel for all those that lost homes due to the fires.
We are doing nothing to try and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere and sticking our proverbial heads into the sand isn’t going to help either. The EPA ( Environmental Protection Agency) is charged with protecting our air for us and even after a court order they are dragging their collective feet on this matter. The office of the white house says it needs more study. That it is a natural phenomenon. Any thing to put off us facing responsibility for our waste being put into the air. And for what reason are they doing this? It can’t be for the general good of all the people in this nation or we would already be acting upon it. The reason must be something not necessarily good for all of the people but only some of the people, the few, the cronies of our president and those in his office.
So speak out whenever you can. Watch my blog for updates on legislation that we may need to speak to our legislators about sponsoring or voting for.
?You may remember that a little over a week ago I was posting on the new energy bill up before congress and its merits. Well it passed through the House of Representatives but has met a snag in the Senate. It seems that republican senators are fighting it because of the fact it is dropping the huge tax cuts that the last energy bill donated to the oil companies. They have already gutted the provision that would require that all power companies generate 15% of their power from a renewable source. The mandate had been vigorously opposed by senators from the Southeast and parts of the Midwest where there is less availability of solar and wind resources. They argued it would raise electricity prices in the regions. More than half the states already have some renewable energy mandate for utilities.
Right now there is not enough votes (60) to override a promised filibuster in the senate over these provisions. The tax package would rescind the tax breaks to the five major oil companies. They have enjoyed?$13.5 billion in tax breaks since they were enacted in 2004 and 2005. The oil industry has lobbied hard to protect the $13.5 billion in tax breaks, even as they are setting records for profits. And with ?an oil friendly president even if it does pass there may be a veto coming. This might be a good time to contact your senator, and if passed the office of the president.
An agreement among congressional Democrats – including those from auto industry states – to support a 40 percent increase in vehicle fuel efficiency is likely to be the tonic needed to push energy legislation through Congress before Christmas. Finally a step in the right direction. You would think we would have been working for that years ago. The oil embargo of the 70′s taught us nothing it seems. Many of you know nothing about the long lines for gas, if they even had any to sell. The odd and even day. Your tag number indicated which days you could even buy gasoline, once again if there was any to be bought.
Brazil embarked upon a lofty plan of using excess sugar from their immense crops of sugar cane to create ethanol for fuel in their vehicles and required all stations to carry it. Now they only import about 10 – 15% of their energy needs as oil. Most of it is ethanol raised and manufactured in Brazil. If only we had been so foresighted. But politics in the US is not for the good of the nation but for the good of special interest groups and who donates the most to an election campaign. Sometimes I wonder exactly how much does one vote cost?
This energy bill does not only contain the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) issue but will require non public utilities to produce 15% of their power from renewable energy sources. This is definitely a step in the right direction. We have so many coal fired power plants across the US sending pollution into our airs. And it is cheaper for them to continue to do so and just risk the chance of an EPA fine that may or may not ever come.There is also a provision that says the amount of ethanol required to be used as motor fuel will have a 7 fold increase from todays use up to 36 billion gallons in 2022.
The compromise quickly received the endorsement of senators who have long opposed increased fuel economy legislation. Hopefully this will pass both houses and be signed into law soon. It is not enough but it is surely a step in the right direction. Something that is sorely needed.
I was raised in a family that always hunted and fished and grew up with a love for nature. We always knew that you can not over hunt any animal or you risk losing them forever. Right now this is going on in the skys over Alaska. They are shooting wolves from airplanes. This is in no way sporting at all, more like shooting fish in a barrel. I feel very strongly against killing of wolves, especially like this where they haven’t a chance. Most of the land is federal lands which, as US citizens make the land all of ours. We have a right, no a duty to speak out against this. And the best way to do so is call your congressman. I know you won’t get through to the actual congressman, or woman but they do listen to what constituents have to say. Especially when they take the time to call in to their office. You can always find out the information on how to contact your legislator by going to the House of Representatives web site and place your zip code into the find your representative search box on the upper left corner. If you won’t call then at least visit their web site and send them a message saying you support the PAW Act (Protect America’s Wildlife Act) H.R. 3663. Some things you can not put a monetary value on and the wild call of the wolf is one of those. Please speak up and be a voice for the saving of the wolf. We destroy so much, must it continue? I called my congressman’s local office yesterday afternoon and had a very pleasant talk with his secretary. She said I was the first to call in about this bill. Please call your congressperson too.
Even more endangered is the red wolf. Red wolves once roamed throughout the southeast, but were driven to extinction by predator control and habitat loss. Twenty years ago, these beautiful canines were reintroduced to the wild, but these rare wolves still struggle toward recovery — fewer than 130 red wolves now survive in the wilds of eastern North Carolina. You can help them survive by adopting a red wolf today. Because red wolves are so exceptionally rare, the loss of just one wolf could be devastating to their recovery prospects.
Reading through the news yesterday I found this and thought it was pretty neat.
Scientists have launched a project aimed at solving the mystery of the giant redwood tree: What allows it to grow so tall and live so long?
What they are doing is sending arborists into the trees, 2-3 hundred feet to the lowest branches to use a? cross bow and cut off some new growth so they can clone these trees. Some of which are estimated to be between 2 and 3 thousand years old. The project will take genetic material from the trees to create a “living library” so researchers can study what allows these trees to become the tallest and largest living things on Earth, says David Milarch of the Champion Tree Project, which is working with Bartlett and the Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund on the project.
They hope to plant these cloned trees near universities so scientists can study their genetics without having to climb up older trees. Scientists will also be cross pollinating some of the clones with newer growth trees from the redwood zone on the west coast to possibly create and even stronger and longer living version of these wondrous trees.