Current Environmental News
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The largest grassroots solar event in history
A recent NBC/WSJ poll revealed that runaway energy costs is the #1 issue Americans feel most personally affects them.
Clearly there is a pressing need to let more people know about solar energy -- and how it helps families and businesses save on monthly utility bills.
That's why the American Solar Energy Society is organizing the largest grassroots solar event in history.
It's called the National Solar Tour and it offers you the opportunity to tour homes and buildings to see how neighbors are using solar energy and energy efficiency to combat rising energy costs.
As many as 150,000 people will be participating in 46 states across the U.S.
ASES coordinates the National Solar Tour in partnership with dozens of outstanding organizations. Most tours take place on October 4, though tours vary by location so be sure to check the listings for the latest details.
Last year more than 115,000 attendees visited some 5,000 buildings in 2,900 participating communities. Now in its 13th year, this event will take place in nearly every state in the U.S. so we invite you to get involved.
In addition to learning more about solar energy, an increasing focus of the National Solar Tour is on energy-saving techniques and sustainability through building design, energy efficient appliances, and use of green materials during remodeling. Solar tours also provide helpful, real-world examples of costs and how to save money with federal, state, and local incentives.
Ultimately the National Solar Tour inspires people across the nation to go solar and make sustainable energy choices that help lower costs, support energy independence, and reduce carbon emissions.
From their email.
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Let the sun shine in. A recent NBC/WSJ poll revealed that runaway energy costs is the #1 issue Americans feel most personally affects them. ... more -
Ecuador voters to decide if nature has inalienable rights
This month, Ecuador will hold the world's first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, whether to endow nature with certain unalienable rights. Not only would the new constitution give nature the right to "exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution," but if it is approved, communities, elected officials and even individuals would have legal standing to defend the rights of nature.
It sounds like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council. But Ecuador is engaged in nothing less than an effort to redefine the relationship between human beings and the natural world. And as crazy as it may seem, the movement to give nature legal rights didn't start in Ecuador's Amazon forest or its Galapagos Islands -- it started years ago in the United States, in cities and towns seeking to fight off coal mines, incinerators and factory farms. Aided by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Pennsylvania, about a dozen municipalities have abandoned the old-fashioned way of halting development -- through the appeals process -- and are placing outright bans on environmentally disruptive activities.
For example, in Pennsylvania, Southampton prohibits corporate ownership of farms, and Wayne passed an ordinance that gives the town the power to keep out corporations with criminal histories. The Defense Fund gets much of the credit (or the blame) for these decidedly anti-business, grass-roots efforts. It even offers ready-made ordinances to protect ecosystems. Ecuadorean officials called the group when they were crafting the new constitution, and now it's fielding calls from Australia, Italy, South Africa and Nepal, which is writing its first constitution.
No other country has gone as far as Ecuador in proposing to give trees their day in court, but it certainly is not alone in its recalibration of natural rights. Religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Constantinople, have declared that caring for the environment is a spiritual duty. And earlier this year, the Catholic Church updated its list of deadly sins to include polluting the environment.
Ecuador is codifying this shift in sensibility. In some ways, this makes sense for a country whose cultural identity is almost indistinguishable from its regional geography -- the Galapagos, the Amazon, the Sierra. How this new area of constitutional law will work, however, is another question. We aren't ready to endorse such a step at home, or even abroad. But it's intriguing. We'll be watching Ecuador's example.
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I would vote yes. This month, Ecuador will hold the world's first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, ... more -
Thawing permafrost likely to boost global warming, says study
The thawing of permafrost in northern latitudes, which greatly increases microbial decomposition of carbon compounds in soil, will dominate other effects of warming in the region and could become a major force promoting the release of carbon dioxide and thus further warming, according to a new assessment in the Sept. issue of BioScience.
The study, by an international team of researchers, more than doubles previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored in the permafrost: the new figure is equivalent to twice the total amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The authors conclude that releases of the gas from melting permafrost could amount to roughly half those resulting from global land-use change during this century.
Researchers refine earlier assessments by considering complex processes that mix soil from different depths during melting and freezing of permafrost, which occur to some degree every year.
They judge that over millennia, soil processes have buried and frozen over a trillion metric tons of organic compounds in the world's vast permafrost regions.
The relatively rapid warming now under way is bringing the organic material back into the ecosystem, in part by turning over soil, said the researchers. The thawing of permafrost in northern latitudes, which greatly increases microbial decomposition of carbon compounds in soil, will dom... more -
Climate change refugees look to Australia, New Zealand
With the apparent effects of global warming already being felt among Pacific island nations, Australia and New Zealand are being urged to do more to prepare for climate change refugees.
"In Tuvalu and Kiribas we're already starting to see the effects of king tides and storm surges on the coastline, but in particular, on people's crops," says Damien Lawson, national climate justice coordinator from Friends of the Earth Australia.
"People on the islands are not going to just be affected when the sea rises up and covers their land. They're already affected by sea water encroaching through the ground water and having a big effect on their capacity to grow crops," he says.
Global warming is regarded as one of the major factors causing sea level rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects seas to rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres by the end of the century.
As a result, inhabitants of low-lying Pacific island nations are among the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
A report released in July by Make Poverty History -- a coalition of more than 60 aid, community and faith-based organisations, including Friends of the Earth -- noted that two villages on Kiribati have already been abandoned due to climate change.
Additionally, some 2,000 people on Papua New Guinea's isolated Carteret Islands -- which are disappearing beneath the waves -- are preparing to be evacuated to Bougainville, 86km to the southwest. They are regarded as some of the world's first climate change refugees.
With more pacific islanders expected to be forced to leave their homes over the coming decades as seas rise, calls for Australia and New Zealand to prepare to aid environmental refugees are growing louder.
Prior to the 39th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) -- held on Aug.19-20 in Niue -- representatives of more than 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the region released an open letter addressed to the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, Kevin Rudd and Helen Clark.
"We welcome the past acknowledgement of the problem the Pacific faces and expressions of a willingness to help, but now is the time for action. Therefore we call on the Australian and New Zealand governments to recognise the urgency of climate change and the particular threat it poses to the peoples of the Pacific," wrote the NGOs.
Among the actions demanded by the NGOs -- which also includes a call to reduce carbon emissions -- is that Australia and New Zealand establish a plan to assist climate change refugees.
"The primary focus should be on mitigation, then adaption within the Pacific and then resettlement within the Pacific," says Lawson.
But the NGOs also want the region's two largest nations to develop an extension of their immigration quotas specifically for climate change refugees.
Lawson told IPS that putting a plan in place now to cater for the anticipated increase in refugees from the Pacific who may ultimately require resettlement outside their own homelands can avert problems associated with a rushed implementation of such a scheme in the future.
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Again, regardless of what you may believe is causing climate change which is a moot point at this juncture, there are and will be climate refugees as a result of rising sea levels, melting glaciers, water shortages, and other events such as desertification, drought, wildfires, floods, etc. Is it not time to plan for what will happen in the event of thousands to hundreds of thousands of refugees moving to other areas? Should the Southwest US become a desert in the next half century, where will the people who live there go? Will we be prepared? And what should be the criteria for resettlement in another area? With the apparent effects of global warming already being felt among Pacific island nations, Australia and New Zealand are being urged... more -
Appalachian Voices: Follow the coal money
Want to know how much money your elected representative in Washington, D.C., received from the coal industry? A North Carolina environmental group is pledging to put that information right at your fingertips.
A new Web site tracks and lists the amount of donations that federal politicians receive from coal interests. Follow the Coal Money, at www.followthecoalmoney.org, is the latest salvo in what is turning out to be an increasingly heated battle over the future of coal in the nation's energy policy.
I'm not saying it is a big corporate conspiracy, but what (the money) is being spent for, it is being spent for a good reason, said Matt Wasson, director of programs for Appalachian Voices, which runs the site.
Coal is once again front and center as the nation's top leaders debate energy policy. Both presidential candidates have pledged to take actions to curb global warming, yet at the same time energy use is on the rise, thanks in part to new technology. For example, one Australian study found that a Playstation 3 uses five times the amount of energy as a five-foot high refrigerator.
Coal remains among the cheapest and most abundant energy-producing natural resource. Yet concerns over its environmental impacts have helped stop plans for new coal-burning power plants across the nation.
The coal industry is fighting back by ramping up its public relations efforts. Over the past year it has quadrupled its budget for its primary political campaign, called the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, according to news reports The campaign has run advertisements on TV touting the benefits of coal and maintains its own Web site at www.americaspower.org.
Follow the Coal Money is partly a response to that campaign. Its mission is touted on the front page: As Congress debates how to address two of coal's biggest problems mountaintop removal and global warming you can find out how polluters are influencing lawmakers with their dirty coal money.
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I believe it is simply a given that politicians are too devoid of true moral insight as to understand the amount of damage this form of energy continues to do to the planet and the health and safety of human beings. This is why I have little faith that any sort of comprehensive climate bill will pass in Congress regardless of who sits in the White House. In order for that to happen they would have to have a moral epiphany... or, see that the people have taken it upon themselves to bring the alternate energies we need to sustain ourselves and this planet to market. Solar and wind are booming now, but you won't hear that from the corrupt Congress that continues to collect the money of the coal and nuclear industries while touting how much they are for the environment... even as they work to kill tax incentives for those very alternate energy sources they claim we need.
The site Appalachian Voices put together now allows you to follow the members of Congress who talk out of both sides of their mouths to see how much they are taking from coal and to hold them accountable for it as they are accomplices in the continued erosion of our environment. Hopefully louder voices will be heard on the part of the people knowing they have the power to then tell these representatives that if they continue to side with the destruction of our planet in the form of pollution and it's contribution to climate change that we the people have the power to see to it that they do not serve us any longer. It has to begin with us, because it sure isn't going to begin with them. Want to know how much money your elected representative in Washington, D.C., received from the coal industry? A North Carolina environ... more -
African solar could power all of Europe
Mediterranean Union was launched by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy in concurrence with the European Union. This new international organization will include sixteen non-EU states from around the Mediterranean and all the twenty seven EU countries will be its member too. But why are we discussing political unions in an alternative energy site? Because Mediterranean Union will not only tackle various issues such as regional upheavals, trade, counter terrorism, security immigration pollution etc. but the organization will take up the energy issue too.
As usual people are reacting in skeptical manner saying that Sarkozy wants to trade nuclear power expertise with North African gas reserves. But some are thinking in a positive way too, for instance, the possibilities of solar energy generation. They think that the Union can help a lot in trapping the solar potential of the African nations and transferring that energy to Europe. Scientists from the various European countries are planning for a new supergrid on the sharing basis for member states. The supergrid will use new DC (HVDC- high voltage direct current) lines for the transmissions of power over long distances. Energy losses in DC lines are far less than the AC lines. Denmark and UK can export wind energy and Iceland can export geothermal energy whenever they have surplus energy. But the supergrid’s main function would be to send out renewable solar energy from the Saharan desert to Europe. The scientists want to build a series of huge solar farms in the Saharan desert and connect them to the supergrid.
The grid proposal was seconded by Nicholas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown. This proposal tries to answer the skeptics who claim that renewable power will never be economically viable because the weather is quite unpredictable. This proposal tries to cancel out that element of unpredictability if the wind is not blowing hard enough in the North Sea, it will be blowing somewhere else in Europe, or the sun will be shining on a solar farm somewhere.
Scientists are enthusiastic about harnessing the Sahara solar rays because the sunlight in this area is more intense: solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in northern Africa could generate up to three times the electricity compared with similar panels in northern Europe. The project will take huge investment in terms of time and money. The estimated cost would be €450 billion. By 2050 scientists are thinking of generating 100 GW from the Saharan desert. Much of the money will be used in developing the infrastructure for grid networks. If high voltage cables between North Africa and Italy would be built or existing cables between Spain and Morocco would be used, the infrastructure of these countries too will need restructuring.
August 22nd, 2008 Mediterranean Union was launched by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy in concurrence with the European Union. This new internationa... more -
Homes Cry Out for Quiet
First it was trains, planes and automobiles. Then lawnmowers, leaf blowers and barking dogs. Now it's loud music, big-screen televisions and home theaters.
If we were playing "Jeopardy!", the question would be: "What noise is driving people nuts?"
By James & Morris Carey
Home & Garden
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2008... First it was trains, planes and automobiles. Then lawnmowers, leaf blowers and barking dogs. Now it's loud music, big-screen tele... more -
Loud car stereo ordinance to be enforced Monday
SARASOTA, FL - Sarasota police are starting a new crackdown. They're trying to get people who pump up the volume to turn it down. And the penalty will be tough. SARASOTA, FL - Sarasota police are starting a new crackdown. They're trying to get people who pump up the volume to turn it down... more
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If Animals Rejects It, Shouldn't We Do The Same?
The Animals can teach us something.
What is excessive in our society today?
Do you know how to recognize when some people passed over the limits?
Would you respond if they do? The Animals can teach us something. What is excessive in our society today? ... more -
Fake Plastic Trees to Solve Climate Change
Okay so they're not necessarily plastic (though they could be), and they probably won't "solve" climate change, but according to Klaus Lackner, a geophysicist at Columbia University, the concept would give us time to develop alternative energies and slow the damaging effects of CO2 in our atmosphere. The San Diego Union Tribune reported today that both real and fake trees are being explored as options to fight climate change. Researchers are looking at both options to suck up CO2 out of our atmosphere and it looks like the fake trees might be winning.
The idea would be to make tall, fake "trees" that collect CO2; not in the way a normal tree would gather CO2, but rather, by using filters that stick to CO2 as it passes by. The current prototypes are 1,000 times better than real trees at sucking up CO2 and they are not using energy to photosynthesize anything.
Scientists at the University of Maryland and the University of Griefswald in Germany, on the other hand, are looking to real trees for the answer. They say that if we could manage all of the forests in the world then we technically could offset all of our fossil fuel emissions. Though there are several problems with this strategy A) thats a lot of management B) you would need a system to bury the trees deep underground when they die otherwise you're still releasing CO2 and C) that assumes no growth in fossil fuel emissions.
How Can We Manage Forests To Capture CO2?
The UM professors suggest thinning forests every 5 years and burying the wood. The possibility even exists to have tree farms strictly for growth, capture of CO2 and burial. The catch: the scientists estimate it would take 2.47 billion acres of forest just to capture annual global carbon dioxide emissions. "Its about 1/4 of all the Earth's land surface currently covered by forest." While you can plant trees just about anywhere, location and type of tree also affects carbon capture.
In addition, huge forests of trees can be heat sinks, thus raising the temperatures around them. There are also questions about how increasing trees would affect the landscape around the area.
How do CO2 filter trees work?
The fake trees are in test phase right now in Arizona. After several trials, they have a version that requires very little energy to operate. Basically, they use "tree trunks" that are multiple filters coated in a plastic resin. When air passes over the filter, the CO2 sticks to the resin and creates sodium carbonate (soda ash). When the filters are exposed to moisture the sodium carbonate is released and can then be stored/buried. The filters are then reusable.
What's even better is that they are so effective. A 20 square inch filter piece can take up the annual carbon emissions of one American in one year. One of these "trees" is 55 feet by 65 feet, and captures 90,000 tons of CO2 each year, equal to 15,000 cars. Now we're talking.
What to Do With the Captured Carbon?
Several options include burying it in underground mines or oil fields or even deep in the ocean. Since its denser than water it would be trapped at the bottom. Down the road it may be possible to turn the CO2 "into a stable, inert, harmless solid." Other options include turning it into a marketable product - its already used in fire extinguishers, as "dry ice" and even to promote growth in green houses. An even better idea - a fuel source - if its converted to liquid hydrogen-carbon. At this time it's still too expensive as a fuel source, but who knows what the future will bring. As for costs, estimates are that the trees could capture CO2 at $30 per ton (25 cents per gallon of gas), but they are still in the research phase.
(Click the link for the rest of the article) Okay so they're not necessarily plastic (though they could be), and they probably won't "solve" climate change, bu... more -
Food riots as Indian floods destroy 250,000 homes
Food riots erupted on Wednesday in eastern India, where more than two million people have been forced from their homes and about 250,000 houses destroyed in what officials say are the worst floods in 50 years.
One person was killed in Madhepura district when angry villagers fought among themselves over limited supplies of food and medicines at overcrowded relief centres.
The Kosi river in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, smashed through mud embankments and changed course last week, unleashing huge walls of water that inundated hundreds of villages and towns.
The floods have since killed nearly 50 people in Bihar.
Torrential rains have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh but also in Nepal and Bangladesh.
Some experts blame the floods on heavier monsoon rains caused by global warming, while others say authorities have failed to take enough preventive measures to improve infrastructure.
Officials said flood victims had looted grains at some places in Bihar. Others ran for miles under helicopters that were dropping food packets. One boy was killed and about 30 people were injured in Supaul district when food packets fell on them.
"We have enough stock of food grains but the problem is that we have limited means of transport to supply them among the villagers," Rajesh Kumar Gupta, a government official in Madhepura, told Reuters by telephone.
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I believe this to be due to a combination of global warming and inferior infrastructure. Again, a foretaste of what is to come for others if we continue to only talk and write about this. This is playing out in exactly the regions the IPCC warned it would. I do not believe we can any longer dismiss global warming/climate change as a reason for it. Food riots erupted on Wednesday in eastern India, where more than two million people have been forced from their homes and about 250,0... more -
Drinking water of 41 million Americans contaminated with pharmaceuticals
An investigation by the Associated Press (AP) has revealed that the drinking water of at least 41 million people in the United States is contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs.
It has long been known that drugs are not wholly absorbed or broken down by the human body. Significant amounts of any medication taken eventually pass out of the body, primarily through the urine.
"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," EPA scientist Christian Daughton said.
While sewage is treated before being released back into the environment, and water from reservoirs or rivers is also treated before being funneled back into the drinking water supply, these treatments are not able to remove all traces of medications. And so far, the EPA has not regulated the presence of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, meaning that there are no laws in existence today that protect consumers from this increasingly dangerous chemical contaminant of the water supply.
Drugs given to animals are also entering the water supply. One study found that 10 percent of the steroids given to cattle pass directly through their bodies, while another study found that steroid concentrations in the water downstream of a Nebraska feedlot were four times as high as the water upstream. Male fish downstream of the feedlot were found to have depressed levels of testosterone and smaller than normal heads, most likely due to the pharmaceutical contamination in their water.
"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected ... might there be a potential problem for humans?" said EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson.
To determine the extent of drinking water contamination, an Associated Press investigative team surveyed the water providers of the 50 largest cities in the United States and 52 smaller communities, analyzed federal databases and scientific reports, and interviewed government and corporate officials.
The investigation found widespread evidence of drinking water contaminated with both over-the-counter and prescription drugs, including painkillers, hormones, antibiotics, anti-convulsants, anti-depressants, and drugs for cancer or heart disease. Of the 28 major cities that tested their water supplies for pharmaceuticals, only two said those tests showed no pharmaceutical contamination. In Philadelphia, 56 different drugs and drug byproducts were found in treated drinking water, and 63 were found in the city's watershed.
Of the 35 watersheds that had been tested, 28 were found to be contaminated. Deep-water aquifers near landfills, feedlots and other contaminant sources in 24 states were also found to contain pharmaceuticals. This means that even in rural areas where people get their water from wells, drinking water might still contain drugs. An investigation by the Associated Press (AP) has revealed that the drinking water of at least 41 million people in the United States ... more -
Don't believe the drilling hype!
Target: U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate
Sponsored by: The Wilderness Society
"Do something about sky-rocketing gas prices!"
That's the message members of Congress are hearing from their constituents - and understandably so. But under pressure to help consumers, many of our elected officials are wrongly giving in to the oil and gas industry's multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to open protected areas to drilling. Target: U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate Sponsored by: The Wilderness Society "Do something about sky-rocketing gas prices!" ... more -
Hurricane Gustav hits Haiti, oil prices rise
Tropical Storm Gustav reached hurricane strength as it swirled through the central Caribbean and bore down on Haiti on Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
A hurricane hunter aircraft reported the storm's top sustained winds were near 80 mph (130 kph) -- above hurricane strength of 74 mph (120 kph) -- as it approached southwest Haiti.
Gustav threatened the impoverished Caribbean nation of 9 million with up to 25 inches of rain in some areas, which could trigger deadly floods and mudslides.
Oil prices rose as Gustav stirred concerns about disruptions to U.S. oil and gas output in the Gulf of Mexico and served as another reminder that this storm season is shaping up to be busier than usual.
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Amazing, just in time for Labor Day weekend. If I didn't know any better I could believe these storms are being steered to exactly where oil companies make the most profit. Just by the National Weather Service stating it "could" veer that way, prices go up. And nevermind the devastation it left behind in Haiti... Gotta protect those oil rigs! Tropical Storm Gustav reached hurricane strength as it swirled through the central Caribbean and bore down on Haiti on Tuesday, the U.... more -
Scarce water in Argentina threatened by Barrick gold mine
Tearing mountains apart, destroying indigenous lands, polluting scarce water sources, for what? A few pieces of shiny metal excavated in a greedy material world where the metal means more than the lives and environment ruined by it.
From the article:
For nearly a year and a half, local residents in the northwestern Argentine province of La Rioja have been blocking the road that climbs up to the Nevados de Famatina mountain to protest a gold mining project that they say will pollute the water in the country’s driest district.
"The mountain is our only source of water, and it regulates the region’s climate," said Marcela Crabbé, a shopkeeper in Chilecito, a city of 45,000 located 30 km from Nevados de Famatina. "One hundred years ago this was a mining zone, but that left the area neither gold nor progress, just a huge environmental debt," she told IPS.
Chilecito and Famatina -- a town of less than 8,000 people located 20 km from the mountain it takes its name from -- are in the northern part of La Rioja, in the foothills of the Andes mountains, some 1,200 km northwest of Buenos Aires.
More than 2,000 people took part in the latest protest against the mine, earlier this month.
Criss-crossed by dry river beds, and with virtually no surface water, La Rioja is Argentina’s most arid province. It obtains its water from wells more than 200 metres deep, and from mountains like the 6,250-metre Nevados de Famatina, which provide water during the thaw period. If this melt water is polluted, the very survival of the two nearby towns would be in danger.
La Rioja Governor Luis Beder Herrera himself acknowledged this month that the province’s biggest problem is the lack of water: "We are the only province which practically has no rivers; water means everything for us." Nevertheless, his administration has promoted mining activity.
"I don't understand people who say we are going to pollute," said the governor. "I don't know of a single case of people who have died of this famous pollution. They are trying to scare people, but we aren't going to bring this to a halt."
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Their only source of water. Tearing mountains apart, destroying indigenous lands, polluting scarce water sources, for what? A few pieces of shiny metal excavated ... more -
New York state says Indian Point nuclear plant killing too many fish
The huge numbers of fish sucked to their death by the cooling system at the Indian Point nuclear plant prove that the system harms the Hudson River environment, a New York state official has ruled.
The finding by J. Jared Snyder, assistant commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, is a victory for plant critics who claim that up to 1.2 billion fish and eggs are killed each year as the plant continuously draws in river water for use as a coolant.
"For decades, Indian Point has maintained that its cooling systems have no impact on Hudson River fish," said Robert Goldstein, general counsel to the environmental group Riverkeeper. "At long last, the DEC has pout an end to this fiction."
Snyder said that even the lowest estimate of fish deaths _ 900,000 annually _ "represents excessive fish kills" and establishes an adverse environmental impact.
The ruling, issued this month, means the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear, may no longer raise the environmental-impact issue as it battles the state's order to build costly towers that recycle cooling water and make big river intakes unnecessary. Entergy had argued that the river's adult fish populations have been stable.
The towers, known as closed-cycle cooling, could cost Entergy more than $1.6 billion.
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But of course, Entergy will fight building the towers. They don't really care about the environment, just profit. Good ruling. The huge numbers of fish sucked to their death by the cooling system at the Indian Point nuclear plant prove that the system harms the... more -
If Animals Rejects It, Imagine What It Is Doing to Us
The Animals can tell us a lot!
Initially this movie was about how to secure the path of a machine. However I end up to pick up something interesting that is related to humans, acoustic issues and excessive noise. The Animals can tell us a lot! ... more -
FDA plots to mislead consumers over irradiated foods: Natural News
"Consumer awareness is considered undesirable by the FDA; an agency that also works hard to censor truthful statements about nutritional supplements and functional foods. Accordingly, the FDA pursues a policy of enforced ignorance of consumers regarding irradiated foods, nutritional supplements, medicinal herbs and all sorts of natural substances. It is currently illegal in the United States to state that cherries help ease arthritis inflammation if you are selling cherries. http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html)
On the food irradiation issue, the FDA is now proposing two things that are nothing short of astonishing in their degree of deceit:
FDA proposal #1: Irradiated foods shouldn't be labeled as irradiated unless consumers can visibly tell they're irradiated.
This ridiculous proposal by the FDA suggests that foods shouldn't be labeled as irradiated unless there is some obvious material damage to the foods (like their leaves are wilting). Thus, foods that don't appear to be irradiated should not have to be labeled as irradiated.
Imagine if this same ridiculous logic were used to regulate heavy metals content in foods: If consumers can't SEE the heavy metals, then they should be declared free of heavy metals!
FDA proposal #2: Irradiated foods should be labeled as "pasteurized," not "irradiated."
This FDA proposal is so bizarre that it makes you wonder whether the people working at the FDA are smoking crystal meth. They literally want irradiated foods to be labeled as "pasteurized."
And why? Because the word "pasteurized" sounds a lot more palatable to consumers, of course. Never mind the fact that it's a lie. Irradiated foods are not pasteurized, and pasteurized foods are not irradiated. These two words mean two different things, which is precisely why they each have their own entries in the dictionary. When you look up "irradiated," it does not say, "See pasteurized."
But the FDA is now playing the game of thought police by manipulating the public with screwy word replacement games that bear a strange resemblance to the kind of language used in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. And it is, indeed, an Orwellian kind of mind game that the FDA wants to play with the food supply: After unleashing Weapons of Mass Destruction (radiation) onto the foods, the FDA wants to label them all as simply being "pasteurized," keeping consumers ignorant and uninformed.
How do I know the FDA wants to do this? The agency said so itself in an April 4, 2007 document filed in the Federal Register (Volume 72, Number 64). As published in the document (2):
FDA is also proposing to allow a firm to petition FDA for use of an alternate term to "irradiation'' (other than "pasteurized''). In addition, FDA is proposing to permit a firm to use the term "pasteurized'' in lieu of "irradiated,'' provided it notifies the agency that the irradiation process being used meets the criteria specified for use of the term "pasteurized'' in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the act) and the agency does not object to the notification."
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This deception is simply so immoral and so absolutely out of the realm of all humanity that I find it hard to wrap my head around it. The FDA, an organization of the US federal government that is supposedly here for our safety, only sees us as guinea pigs. They did it with GM foods, Rbgh, and the countless drugs on the market killing people, and they now do it with radioactive food without our consent. I don't even know what to say anymore. And this is so important because people otherwise will not know of this unless it gets out to the masses, and yet the media will not tell people about this. How many will have to get sick or die before it is considered news? "Consumer awareness is considered undesirable by the FDA; an agency that also works hard to censor truthful statements about nutr... more -
Mass amphibian extinction going on, say scientists
Devastating die-offs of amphibians are a sign that a “mass extinction” is underway on our planet—brought on by us, two scientists say.
“Many scientists argue that we are either entering or in the midst of [Earth’s] sixth great mass extinction,” wrote the researchers in a paper published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species support that claim, they added.
“There’s no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm,” said David Wake, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley and a co-author of the study. “Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn’t. The fact that they’re cutting out now should be a lesson.”
New species arise and old species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species. Extreme cases of this are called mass extinctions. There have been five in our planet’s history before now.
The new one is different—it’s apparently caused by us, Wake said. The study is co-authored by Wake and biologist Vance Vredenburg of the university at Berkeley and San Francisco State University.
When the current extinction started is debatable, Wake said. It may have been 10,000 years ago, when humans first came from Asia to the Americas and hunted many of the large mammals to extinction. It may have started after the Industrial Revolution, when the human population exploded. Or, we might be seeing the start right now, Wake said. But no matter what the start date, extinction rates have undeniably dramatically increased over the last few decades, Wake declared.
The global amphibian extinction is a particularly bleak example, he added. In 2004, researchers found that nearly one-third of amphibian species are threatened, and many of the non-threatened species are on the wane. Wake studies amphibians in the Sierra Nevada in the United States. The picture is as grim there as elsewhere, he said. “We have these great national parks here that are about as close as you can get to absolute preserves, and there have been really startling drops in amphibian populations there, too,” Wake said.
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Global warming and habitat constriction are two other major killers of frogs around the world, Wake said. And the Sierra Nevada amphibians are also susceptible to poisonous winds carrying pesticides from Central Valley croplands. “The frogs have really been hit by a one-two punch,” Wake said, “although it’s more like a one-two-three-four punch.”
The frogs are not the only victims in this mass extinction, Wake added. Scientists studying other organisms have seen similarly dramatic effects. “Our work needs to be seen in the context of all this other work, and the news is very, very grim,” Wake said. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health helped support the study.
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Are we next? Devastating die-offs of amphibians are a sign that a “mass extinction” is underway on our planet—brought on by us, two scie... more -
New rays of hope for solar power's future
From five miles away, the Nevada Solar One power plant seems a mirage, a silver lake amid waves of 110 degree F. desert heat. Driving nearer, the rippling image morphs into a sea of mirrors angled to the sun.
As the first commercial “concentrating solar power” or CSP plant built in 17 years, Nevada Solar One marks the reemergence and updating of a decades-old technology that could play a large new role in US power production, many observers say.
“Concentrating solar is pretty hot right now,” says Mark Mehos, program manager for CSP at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Co. “Costs look pretty good compared to natural gas [power]. Public policy, climate concern, and new technology are driving it, too.”
Spread in military rows across 300 acres of sun-baked earth, Nevada Solar One’s trough-shaped parabolic mirrors are the core of this CSP plant – also called a “solar thermal” plant. The mirrors focus sunlight onto receiver tubes, heating a fluid that, at 735 degrees F., flows through a heat exchanger to a steam generator that supplies 64 megawatts of electricity to 14,000 Las Vegas homes.
Today the United States has 420 megawatts of solar-thermal capacity across three installations – including Nevada Solar One. That’s just a tiny fraction (less than 1 percent) of US grid capacity. But Nevada Solar One could signal the start of a CSP building boom.
Efforts to generate another 4,500 megawatts of solar thermal power are now in development across California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico – all of which have the flat, near-cloudless skies most desirable for solar thermal, the Solar Electric Industries Association reports.
Photovoltaic panels that produce electricity directly from the sun’s rays work well on rooftops, but are still too costly for utility-scale power generation. Solar thermal, however, is nearing the cost of a natural gas-fired turbine power plant – making it a winner with several power companies that have signed long-term contracts to purchase solar-thermal power.
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We all need to demand this now, and we need to tell Congress, especially Senate Republicans who vote down tax incentives for renewable energy that they can no longer get away with continuing to put us at risk for their own profit. Republicans in this country, do you not see what those who claim to support you are doing to the future of your children? This should not be a Democratic or Republican issue, this is a human issue and right now we need new, clean, efficient, safer sources of energy not only to wean us off ALL oil, but to provide a better planet for our children, create jobs, and bring peace. Solar power is our future, and it is wonderful to see these strides taking place now.
The solution comes up every morning. From five miles away, the Nevada Solar One power plant seems a mirage, a silver lake amid waves of 110 degree F. desert heat. Driving ... more
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