by Corinne McLaughlin, Gordon Davidson and Ginger Young
The Center for Visionary Leadership
9/17/08
With a very significant presidential election upcoming in the U.S., and continued conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere, many groups are organizing nation-wide meditations this Fall to invoke the highest good.
As philosopher David Spangler reminds us, no president can bring about the truly essential changes—the changes of mind and heart, consciousness and spirit—that will most deeply heal the problems in our world. Essential healing can only be catalyzed by each of us, as we empower ourselves and activate our own "Inner President." As each of us takes responsibility for change in the world, we alter the spiritual quality of the whole system--just the way a small change in the acid/alkaline balance of our bloodstream promotes health and fights off germs.
President Franklin Roosevelt is famously said to have told someone asking him to support some key legislation that the bill was great, "but now you must go out and force me to sign it"—that is, organize masses of citizens to make it politically popular for him to sign. This is our political task as citizens today, as presidents have limitations on what they can do, upheld by our system of checks and balances.
With hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires raging everywhere around the world today, the issue of global warming is truly in our face. Perhaps we need to read the "Book of Life" more carefully to see what Mother Nature is telling us about why things are so out of balance. Is She trying to wake us up and remind us of our connection to Spirit and to all living beings? Will these crises motivate us to make the personal lifestyle and spiritual changes we each need to—as well as the collective political action that is being called for?
The causal relationship between human thoughts and emotions and weather patterns is not normally visible, unless dramatized by the timing of a physical event. The inner causes of natural crises are often complex, including both human and non-human causes, but it's instructive to consider the karmic dimension of recent natural disasters, highlighted by their timing.
Humanity is the bridging kingdom between the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms and the higher spiritual kingdoms because we contain elements of all the kingdoms within us. The Native Americans and other aboriginal peoples know this and so create sacred ceremonies, such as rain dances, to help heal and balance our mother the earth. Our true role is to channel love and blessing energies to these kingdoms--rather than create imbalances in them through our negative actions and emotions. What prayers and meditations can we do to help bring balance and restoration to the earth?
Many thousands of people are doing this today in their love and caring for nature and animals through the ecological movement. Plants and animals, in turn, absorb human emotions and help heal them. Many scientific studies have shown that plants are affected by human thoughts and emotions. Our tenderness and compassion for plants, animals and other humans will create a more gentle and loving environment, with fewer natural upheavals. May each of us and our world be blessed by truly benevolent and gentle relations with all of life that shares this beautiful planet with us.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
How To Green Your Car
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN on 11.16.06
TH Exclusives (how to green your life)
What’s the Big Deal?
Cars are one of the great mixed bags of our time. They are at once wonders of engineering and a threat to life on Earth. They create convenience and comfort and also snarled traffic and sprawling suburbs. In the US, about 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from cars and light trucks like SUVs, contributing to climate change, air pollution, and disease. If you are truly trying to lighten your environmental footprint, the first thing to do is ask if you do in fact need a car. If the answer is yes, there are many things you can do to make your driving life greener.
Top 10 Tips: Car navigating guide (Green your car)
1. Drive a green car
There are now hybrids to match almost any need: two-door, four-door, SUV, luxury sedan. They get better mileage than their conventional counterparts, have cleaner emissions, and save money on gas. If a hybrid isn’t in your future, try for a car with the best MPG you can find; and remember that hybrids aren’t always the most efficient option, either. Biodiesel can now be found in almost any state in the US. This clean, domestic, veggie-based, carbon-neutral fuel will run in any diesel car or truck with little or no modification to the engine. Straight vegetable oil is an option for the more ambitious green driver and can make fueling up almost free. Another veggie fuel is ethanol, and there are between 5-6 million flex-fuel vehicles already on the road—you may even be driving one and not know it. Also, affordable, practical electric cars and plug-in hybrids aren’t too far off, either. But whether or not you drive a hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicle, there’s lots you can do to green your car right now.
2. Best practices
Driving technique has a lot to do with your fuel economy. Avoid sudden starts and stops and go the speed limit.Not only does speeding and herky-jerky driving kill your MPG, it's dangerous. And even if no one gets hurt in a fender bender, how green is it to get a new bumper or have your car re-painted? As a general rule of thumb, keep your engine speeds between 1,200—3,000 RPMs, and up-shift between 2,000—2500 RPMs. Also, drive wise and minimize unnecessary miles by doing errands in one trip, getting good directions, and calling ahead.
3. Stay in tune
Getting regular tune-ups, maintenance, and having clean air filters will help you burn less gas, pollute less, and prevent car trouble down the line. Pump up: if every American’s tires were properly inflated we could save around 2 billion gallons of gas each year! (Check your manual for optimal pressure). Lastly, get the junk out of the trunk! All that extra weight is sapping your fuel economy.
4. Car minus the carbon
There are many services out there now that can help you calculate your yearly emissions from driving and offset those greenhouse gasses through various means. Check below for a few carbon offset opportunities.
5. Carpool
Of course. Find coworkers, neighbors, and fellow students headed the same direction. Start with one shared trip per week. Also look into car sharing programs like FlexCar and ZipCar.
6. Leave the car at home.
For shorter adventures, walk, take public transit, ride your bike (regular, electric-assisted, or something fancier [http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/bluevelo_velomo.php]), skateboard, rollerblades, or even look into an electric scooter. Carrying groceries or other bulky stuff can still be done on a bike with a backpack or some slick modifications. Check out the Xtracycle, for example.
7. Drive part of the way
If getting where you’re going by bike or public transit alone isn’t going to happen, consider driving part of the way and then jumping on public transit or your bike (a folder would be perfect). A great way to beat traffic!
8. Easy on the AC
Use the windows to help keep the car cool. Or try an electric or solar fan. Parking in the shade and using a reflective windshield shade can keep your car cooler when parked, meaning it takes less to cool it off when you get back in. If you car is new, however, let it air out. That new car smell is not friendly stuff.
9. Telecommuting
Drive less with the wonders of working from home (or internet café, treehouse, Mojave desert, etc.) With instant messaging, video chat, teleconferencing, and other world-flattening technologies, making the rush-hour trek to work and back might not be that necessary. Ask your boss or offer your employees a teleconferencing day once a week. Hey, it works for TreeHuggers and 44 million Americans.
10. Aspire to carlessness
Not everyone is going to be able to do it, at least not cold carkey. It will probably entail a shift in thinking and some time, but living carfree might be more within reach than you think. Living closer to work and school is a big part of it. Walking, biking, public transport, car sharing, car borrowing, and teleconferencing are a strong arsenal of tools to help reduce the need for a car. Give it some thought.
By the Numbers
1. Keeping up on your car’s maintenance, things like regular oil changes, air-filter changes, and spark plug replacements can increase your MPG up to 25%.
2. The production of each car, on average, releases 4 tons of carbon emissions and nearly 700 pounds of other pollutants into the atmosphere.
3. In 2000, the U.S. produced 2 million gallons of biodiesel; in 2005 it produced around 75 million gallons. In September of 2006, sixty-five companies reported having plants currently under construction and thirteen more are planning expansions.
4. The average fuel economy of passenger cars peaked in 1987 when it was 22.1 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks. The EPA estimates that 2006 average fuel economy, despite two decades of improvements in automobile technology, is 21 mpg.
5. Switching from an average car to a 13 mpg SUV would use as much energy as leaving your refrigerator door open for six years. (SC)
6. The average rush-hour commuter spent 62 hours in traffic in 2000.
7. In small urban and rural areas, traffic and congestion is increasing 11% each year, which is twice as fast as in urban areas.
Each Summer, high levels of smog pollution lead to 159,000 trips to the emergency room, 53,000 hospital admissions, and 6 million asthma attacks.
The Sierra Club estimates that the average yearly cost of driving a single-occupant car is between $4,826 and $9,685, while the average cost of a year´s worth of public transportation is between $200 and $2000.
TH Exclusives (how to green your life)
What’s the Big Deal?
Cars are one of the great mixed bags of our time. They are at once wonders of engineering and a threat to life on Earth. They create convenience and comfort and also snarled traffic and sprawling suburbs. In the US, about 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from cars and light trucks like SUVs, contributing to climate change, air pollution, and disease. If you are truly trying to lighten your environmental footprint, the first thing to do is ask if you do in fact need a car. If the answer is yes, there are many things you can do to make your driving life greener.
Top 10 Tips: Car navigating guide (Green your car)
1. Drive a green car
There are now hybrids to match almost any need: two-door, four-door, SUV, luxury sedan. They get better mileage than their conventional counterparts, have cleaner emissions, and save money on gas. If a hybrid isn’t in your future, try for a car with the best MPG you can find; and remember that hybrids aren’t always the most efficient option, either. Biodiesel can now be found in almost any state in the US. This clean, domestic, veggie-based, carbon-neutral fuel will run in any diesel car or truck with little or no modification to the engine. Straight vegetable oil is an option for the more ambitious green driver and can make fueling up almost free. Another veggie fuel is ethanol, and there are between 5-6 million flex-fuel vehicles already on the road—you may even be driving one and not know it. Also, affordable, practical electric cars and plug-in hybrids aren’t too far off, either. But whether or not you drive a hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicle, there’s lots you can do to green your car right now.
2. Best practices
Driving technique has a lot to do with your fuel economy. Avoid sudden starts and stops and go the speed limit.Not only does speeding and herky-jerky driving kill your MPG, it's dangerous. And even if no one gets hurt in a fender bender, how green is it to get a new bumper or have your car re-painted? As a general rule of thumb, keep your engine speeds between 1,200—3,000 RPMs, and up-shift between 2,000—2500 RPMs. Also, drive wise and minimize unnecessary miles by doing errands in one trip, getting good directions, and calling ahead.
3. Stay in tune
Getting regular tune-ups, maintenance, and having clean air filters will help you burn less gas, pollute less, and prevent car trouble down the line. Pump up: if every American’s tires were properly inflated we could save around 2 billion gallons of gas each year! (Check your manual for optimal pressure). Lastly, get the junk out of the trunk! All that extra weight is sapping your fuel economy.
4. Car minus the carbon
There are many services out there now that can help you calculate your yearly emissions from driving and offset those greenhouse gasses through various means. Check below for a few carbon offset opportunities.
5. Carpool
Of course. Find coworkers, neighbors, and fellow students headed the same direction. Start with one shared trip per week. Also look into car sharing programs like FlexCar and ZipCar.
6. Leave the car at home.
For shorter adventures, walk, take public transit, ride your bike (regular, electric-assisted, or something fancier [http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/bluevelo_velomo.php]), skateboard, rollerblades, or even look into an electric scooter. Carrying groceries or other bulky stuff can still be done on a bike with a backpack or some slick modifications. Check out the Xtracycle, for example.
7. Drive part of the way
If getting where you’re going by bike or public transit alone isn’t going to happen, consider driving part of the way and then jumping on public transit or your bike (a folder would be perfect). A great way to beat traffic!
8. Easy on the AC
Use the windows to help keep the car cool. Or try an electric or solar fan. Parking in the shade and using a reflective windshield shade can keep your car cooler when parked, meaning it takes less to cool it off when you get back in. If you car is new, however, let it air out. That new car smell is not friendly stuff.
9. Telecommuting
Drive less with the wonders of working from home (or internet café, treehouse, Mojave desert, etc.) With instant messaging, video chat, teleconferencing, and other world-flattening technologies, making the rush-hour trek to work and back might not be that necessary. Ask your boss or offer your employees a teleconferencing day once a week. Hey, it works for TreeHuggers and 44 million Americans.
10. Aspire to carlessness
Not everyone is going to be able to do it, at least not cold carkey. It will probably entail a shift in thinking and some time, but living carfree might be more within reach than you think. Living closer to work and school is a big part of it. Walking, biking, public transport, car sharing, car borrowing, and teleconferencing are a strong arsenal of tools to help reduce the need for a car. Give it some thought.
By the Numbers
1. Keeping up on your car’s maintenance, things like regular oil changes, air-filter changes, and spark plug replacements can increase your MPG up to 25%.
2. The production of each car, on average, releases 4 tons of carbon emissions and nearly 700 pounds of other pollutants into the atmosphere.
3. In 2000, the U.S. produced 2 million gallons of biodiesel; in 2005 it produced around 75 million gallons. In September of 2006, sixty-five companies reported having plants currently under construction and thirteen more are planning expansions.
4. The average fuel economy of passenger cars peaked in 1987 when it was 22.1 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks. The EPA estimates that 2006 average fuel economy, despite two decades of improvements in automobile technology, is 21 mpg.
5. Switching from an average car to a 13 mpg SUV would use as much energy as leaving your refrigerator door open for six years. (SC)
6. The average rush-hour commuter spent 62 hours in traffic in 2000.
7. In small urban and rural areas, traffic and congestion is increasing 11% each year, which is twice as fast as in urban areas.
Each Summer, high levels of smog pollution lead to 159,000 trips to the emergency room, 53,000 hospital admissions, and 6 million asthma attacks.
The Sierra Club estimates that the average yearly cost of driving a single-occupant car is between $4,826 and $9,685, while the average cost of a year´s worth of public transportation is between $200 and $2000.
Industries And Power Plants Downstream From Atlanta Also Need Water: Not Just For Endangered Species After All
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 10.24.07
Business & Politics, Treehugger.com
When Governor Sonny Perdue of the US State of Georgia filed a legal complaint and then formally asked for the support of the Bush Administration to force the US Army Corps of Engineers to stop releasing water from Atlanta's Lake Lanier, perhaps he did not realize that the Corps had a duty to balance competing water demands far beyond protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 'a handful of mussels and a few sturgeon' in neighboring states. Perhaps, before his voice was trumpeted on broadcast news, blaming the ESA and the USAE for Atlanta's water crisis, the Governor's staff did not have means to discover the several water-consuming, job-producing industries on the Chattahoochee River, downstream from Atlanta. Perhaps he really didn't know about the nuclear power plant either.
We used this thing called "Google" (hoping CNN and the Governor's staff learn to give it a try) and soon discovered that Alabama's Farley Plant, a twin-reactor nuclear generating station, had recently been relicensed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to withdraw from, and discharge water to, the Chattahoochee River, not too far downstream from the Alabama State line. Check out Jasmin's recent post if you want more detail on the twin Farleys.
The re-licensing means that the Farley's have many more years of low-carbon footprint operating to come, unless there is a power outage due to low water. Wondering if the grid fed electricity from Farley makes its way back to Atlanta?
Here's a snippet from the Federal Register announcement to which we refer:
There could be unseen dangers in admitting that the Federal Government has a legitimate role to play in balancing competing water-consuming and resource-protecting interests across state lines. And we all know what those are.
Rather than refer back to the several recent posts TreeHugger has done on drought impact scenarios in the Atlanta Georgia region, we direct your attention to some excellent current reporting via WALB News, "South Georgia surface water also shrinking"
Update: Per the Alabama-based Enterprise Ledger
“Atlanta [Georgia] can’t spend all summer during a drought watering their lawns and flowers and then expect someone else to bail them out. If Atlanta had done what Birmingham [Alabama] did in June, then Atlanta’s problem today would be much less severe,” said Riley.
Image credit::Cryptome, Farley Reactors, Eyballing, (via Google Earth).
Business & Politics, Treehugger.com
When Governor Sonny Perdue of the US State of Georgia filed a legal complaint and then formally asked for the support of the Bush Administration to force the US Army Corps of Engineers to stop releasing water from Atlanta's Lake Lanier, perhaps he did not realize that the Corps had a duty to balance competing water demands far beyond protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 'a handful of mussels and a few sturgeon' in neighboring states. Perhaps, before his voice was trumpeted on broadcast news, blaming the ESA and the USAE for Atlanta's water crisis, the Governor's staff did not have means to discover the several water-consuming, job-producing industries on the Chattahoochee River, downstream from Atlanta. Perhaps he really didn't know about the nuclear power plant either.
We used this thing called "Google" (hoping CNN and the Governor's staff learn to give it a try) and soon discovered that Alabama's Farley Plant, a twin-reactor nuclear generating station, had recently been relicensed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to withdraw from, and discharge water to, the Chattahoochee River, not too far downstream from the Alabama State line. Check out Jasmin's recent post if you want more detail on the twin Farleys.
The re-licensing means that the Farley's have many more years of low-carbon footprint operating to come, unless there is a power outage due to low water. Wondering if the grid fed electricity from Farley makes its way back to Atlanta?
Here's a snippet from the Federal Register announcement to which we refer:
Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has issued Renewed Facility Operating License Nos. NPF-2 and NPF-8 to Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc. (SNC or the licensee), the operator of the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant (FNP), Units 1 and 2. Renewed Facility Operating License No. NPF-2 authorizes operation of FNP, Unit 1, by the licensee at reactor core power levels not in excess of 2775 megawatts thermal in accordance with the provisions of the FNP, Unit 1, renewed license and its technical specifications. Renewed Facility Operating License No. NPF-8 authorizes operation of FNP, Unit 2, by the licensee at reactor core power levels not in excess of 2775 megawatts thermal in accordance with the provisions of the FNP, Unit 2, renewed license and its technical specifications. The FNP units are Westinghouse pressurized-water nuclear reactors located in Houston County, Alabama, on the west bank of the Chattahoochee River.
There could be unseen dangers in admitting that the Federal Government has a legitimate role to play in balancing competing water-consuming and resource-protecting interests across state lines. And we all know what those are.
Rather than refer back to the several recent posts TreeHugger has done on drought impact scenarios in the Atlanta Georgia region, we direct your attention to some excellent current reporting via WALB News, "South Georgia surface water also shrinking"
Update: Per the Alabama-based Enterprise Ledger
“Atlanta [Georgia] can’t spend all summer during a drought watering their lawns and flowers and then expect someone else to bail them out. If Atlanta had done what Birmingham [Alabama] did in June, then Atlanta’s problem today would be much less severe,” said Riley.
Image credit::Cryptome, Farley Reactors, Eyballing, (via Google Earth).
If you've got the time, it's worth the rhyme.
FWD: New babblings from Dr. Sluice
McElligot's Cesspool
"Young man," laughed the plumber, "you're a dumb-ass fool!You'll never catch fish in McElligot's Cesspool!"
"You might catch some flies or intestinal wormsor a parasitic cluster of bacterial germs,or toilet paper waded in a very tight bunch,or bits of salmonella-laced regurgitated lunch,but it's a plain simple truth, which you plain can't avoid, that you won't catch a fish, but you might catch typhoid."
"Really?" asked Marco,"You think? Think you're right?I'm sort of surprised,now that you're in my sight."
"You seem sort of the sort who can barely form thought,a curse that your inbreeding parents hath brought –but I'll tell you something, now that you've got me started,I'll try to speak clearly, because you're clearly retarded...
"I'm fully aware that this pool's full of crap,and there must be causation for this unhappy mishap,as not-too-long-ago this pool was pristine,and causality suggests that sometime in-betweennot-too-long-ago and this sad current scene, a cause has effected McElligot's Stream -the source, of course, of what pours in this pool,where I fish while a plumber maligns me as 'fool.'
"Now, empirical method suggests logical means -when looking for causes, we'd best look upstream,upstream where McElligot's Stream flows downstream,once clean and pure, now impure and unclean,through McElligot's Forest, once proud and tall, now broken and burned and not standing at all…
"...for McElligot's Forest is now McElligot's Pasture,it's passed into grassland for for-profit venture;the grazing and raising of the Pre-Poll-ed Berferd -a beast so immense that one Berferd's a whole herd.
"The massive Polled Berferd stands twelve million tons,her weight is so great, shakes the earth when she runs,and when time comes to butcher, no sledge will suffice,they instead must employ a small nuclear device. This might seem extreme, but will at least guaranteethat all Berferd is irradiated and completelygerm-free.
"And butchers then butcher the one edible bitof Berferd, one inch below the left armpit,and that one half-once, slightly more, or slightly less,is flown to Los Angeles, via Federal Express,to be eaten at the pleasure and the leisure and the whim of the Richedester of the Richedester (you've heard about them).
"It may seem wasteful, those tasteful eight gramsthat cost two million acres of old forest stands,but markets will bear what money will buywhen markets go piggish and demand a supply.
"And what, you may ask, of McElligot's Stream?How is this relevant and what does this mean?I've pause to mention a subject so unpleasantas there may be ladies or gentlefolk present…
"Well… Polled Berferds crap, and they fart quite a bit,in fact and indeed, they're quite full of shit,and with no forest to filter those mountainous pilesthey spread forth unfiltered for miles and for miles, and pile into the stream where downstream it flowsright here to this pool, and right up in your nose."
The plumber turned pale and puked in his throat,he swallowed it down, but managed to quoteaccidentally, most likely, words from Joseph Conrad,"the horror," he mumbled, as if he had gone mad…
To the plumber, Marco paid no respect and no mindand continued his ranting akin and in kind; "The Berferd is only one part of this mess,others take part, some in more, some in less…"
"If you skip up ahead, just a bit, in this book, you'll find we found answers when we took a look past McElligot's Forest – or what was before,upstream many miles and then many miles morethrough McElligot's Foothills which rise to the base of McElligot's Mountain, an inspiring placewhere McElligot's Waterfalls fall from on high,from up there somewhere between mountain and sky.
"But where McElligot's Falls once fell like a fountain,a drip merely dripped from McElligot's Mountain…
"What freak of nature or nature of freakcould contrive to contort a cascade so to tweakthis barreling torrent to so barely a leak?
"To un-fuddle this muddle and make clear the oblique,to your feet, dear reader, make haste as I speak,for we must climb, and then climb, toward McElligot's Peak…
"Where McElligot's Glacier has stood icy and clearthrough the iciest of ages, for two millions of year,freezing and melting and freezing by season,over and over with rhythmical reason,to ice from snow to rain from steam, and the source, of course, of McElligot's Stream.
"As we summit the summit atop of the topof McElligot's Mountain, our hearts leap and stopand catch in our throats, and break as if clay,for McElligot's Glacier has melted away!Gone! Or replaced, to be more precise, by McElligot's Puddle-With-A-Few-Cubes-Of-Ice.
"No freak of nature, this unnatural change -the melting of glaciers on each mountain range.'What nature of freak?' is the nature of question.So, naturally, we're off to where Congress is in session and that imbecilic hick and insufferable jerk-off, Senator Jimbo O'Okey-O'Dokey O'Inhofesits on the Committee Of Environmental Degradation,committed to degrading each environmental regulation."
"For Jimbo's pockets are lined deep with coal.He's oil and he's coal to the depths of his soul.And when science deduces, as clear as the day,as plain as plain fact, and in ten thousand ways, that the reason our planet is beginning to broil is the carbon released by the burning of oiland the carbon released by the burning of coal,Jimbo is offended to depths of his soul.
"So, for years, Jimbo has sought no solutionto the mounting evidence of Carbon Pollution,and that Jimbo O'Dokey, like all of his ilk,when lost for excuses to swindle or bilk,pulled an ace from his sleeve in attempt to appease us, and rejected science in the name of Sweet Jesus(his personal Jesus, who speaks only to him -they also go bowling and work out at the gym).
"So, Jimbo doesn't believe in Climatology…not Glaciology… or Meteorology…Geophysics, Statistics or plain-old Geology,Oceanography, Hydrology or basic Biology,and so on and so forth for So-Many-ologies - that Jimbo O'Okey O'Dokey O'Inhofe,shot in the foot by shooting his mouth off,is so seemingly mad, and obsessed with Mythology;far too far-gone to be saved by Psychology,Pathology, Neurology or even Proctology - it's so seemingly sad; we'd issue an apologyif it wasn't all a put-on – just a Big Phony-ology -a study in phony-baloney so corruptthat even Sweet Jesus can't cover it up.
"In a republic where public involvement is soughta citizenry could insist (and perhaps it ought),that Big Phony Jimbo and all we electwho deny the existence of the greenhouse effect,fly a fact-finding mission to what lies between us - between us and The Sun - our lovely sister Venus.
"On Venus, the greenhouse effect ran away,and a carbon atmosphere has since held its sway.On the surface, at 750 (Fahrenheit) degrees,Led, Zinc (and Senators) are melted with ease.
"And while Okey O'Dokey has fun in the sun,responsible representatives could get something done,and radically alter our carbon emissionsby imposing and enforcing strict carbon restrictions.
"And then maybe… just maybe… things could improve,cooler heads could prevail, from the brink we could move -from the brink of extinction's bottomless pit,where we're standing right now, standing right before it, pretending it's not there, and wondering why it's hot.Maybe… just maybe… but then again… maybe not."
"Catatonic, the plumber was struck mute and dumb -curled in fetal position, and sucking his thumb.In just speculation, it'd be fair to say,his chance encounter with Marco had ruined his day."
"Now, one last thing, Plumber, should be one thing enough."Marco grumbled in a voice that was a little bit gruff,"You diss me for fishing in this crap-filled pool,presume you know better and assume I'm a fool, but your presumption is false and assumption thus erring -I'm not fishing for a fish – not a perch or a herring…"
"Last weekend while gambling and whoring out west,I put forth a wager to be proven by test -and bet twenty thousand with a wealthy young twit,who told me my fishing pole couldn't catch shit!"
McElligot's Cesspool
"Young man," laughed the plumber, "you're a dumb-ass fool!You'll never catch fish in McElligot's Cesspool!"
"You might catch some flies or intestinal wormsor a parasitic cluster of bacterial germs,or toilet paper waded in a very tight bunch,or bits of salmonella-laced regurgitated lunch,but it's a plain simple truth, which you plain can't avoid, that you won't catch a fish, but you might catch typhoid."
"Really?" asked Marco,"You think? Think you're right?I'm sort of surprised,now that you're in my sight."
"You seem sort of the sort who can barely form thought,a curse that your inbreeding parents hath brought –but I'll tell you something, now that you've got me started,I'll try to speak clearly, because you're clearly retarded...
"I'm fully aware that this pool's full of crap,and there must be causation for this unhappy mishap,as not-too-long-ago this pool was pristine,and causality suggests that sometime in-betweennot-too-long-ago and this sad current scene, a cause has effected McElligot's Stream -the source, of course, of what pours in this pool,where I fish while a plumber maligns me as 'fool.'
"Now, empirical method suggests logical means -when looking for causes, we'd best look upstream,upstream where McElligot's Stream flows downstream,once clean and pure, now impure and unclean,through McElligot's Forest, once proud and tall, now broken and burned and not standing at all…
"...for McElligot's Forest is now McElligot's Pasture,it's passed into grassland for for-profit venture;the grazing and raising of the Pre-Poll-ed Berferd -a beast so immense that one Berferd's a whole herd.
"The massive Polled Berferd stands twelve million tons,her weight is so great, shakes the earth when she runs,and when time comes to butcher, no sledge will suffice,they instead must employ a small nuclear device. This might seem extreme, but will at least guaranteethat all Berferd is irradiated and completelygerm-free.
"And butchers then butcher the one edible bitof Berferd, one inch below the left armpit,and that one half-once, slightly more, or slightly less,is flown to Los Angeles, via Federal Express,to be eaten at the pleasure and the leisure and the whim of the Richedester of the Richedester (you've heard about them).
"It may seem wasteful, those tasteful eight gramsthat cost two million acres of old forest stands,but markets will bear what money will buywhen markets go piggish and demand a supply.
"And what, you may ask, of McElligot's Stream?How is this relevant and what does this mean?I've pause to mention a subject so unpleasantas there may be ladies or gentlefolk present…
"Well… Polled Berferds crap, and they fart quite a bit,in fact and indeed, they're quite full of shit,and with no forest to filter those mountainous pilesthey spread forth unfiltered for miles and for miles, and pile into the stream where downstream it flowsright here to this pool, and right up in your nose."
The plumber turned pale and puked in his throat,he swallowed it down, but managed to quoteaccidentally, most likely, words from Joseph Conrad,"the horror," he mumbled, as if he had gone mad…
To the plumber, Marco paid no respect and no mindand continued his ranting akin and in kind; "The Berferd is only one part of this mess,others take part, some in more, some in less…"
"If you skip up ahead, just a bit, in this book, you'll find we found answers when we took a look past McElligot's Forest – or what was before,upstream many miles and then many miles morethrough McElligot's Foothills which rise to the base of McElligot's Mountain, an inspiring placewhere McElligot's Waterfalls fall from on high,from up there somewhere between mountain and sky.
"But where McElligot's Falls once fell like a fountain,a drip merely dripped from McElligot's Mountain…
"What freak of nature or nature of freakcould contrive to contort a cascade so to tweakthis barreling torrent to so barely a leak?
"To un-fuddle this muddle and make clear the oblique,to your feet, dear reader, make haste as I speak,for we must climb, and then climb, toward McElligot's Peak…
"Where McElligot's Glacier has stood icy and clearthrough the iciest of ages, for two millions of year,freezing and melting and freezing by season,over and over with rhythmical reason,to ice from snow to rain from steam, and the source, of course, of McElligot's Stream.
"As we summit the summit atop of the topof McElligot's Mountain, our hearts leap and stopand catch in our throats, and break as if clay,for McElligot's Glacier has melted away!Gone! Or replaced, to be more precise, by McElligot's Puddle-With-A-Few-Cubes-Of-Ice.
"No freak of nature, this unnatural change -the melting of glaciers on each mountain range.'What nature of freak?' is the nature of question.So, naturally, we're off to where Congress is in session and that imbecilic hick and insufferable jerk-off, Senator Jimbo O'Okey-O'Dokey O'Inhofesits on the Committee Of Environmental Degradation,committed to degrading each environmental regulation."
"For Jimbo's pockets are lined deep with coal.He's oil and he's coal to the depths of his soul.And when science deduces, as clear as the day,as plain as plain fact, and in ten thousand ways, that the reason our planet is beginning to broil is the carbon released by the burning of oiland the carbon released by the burning of coal,Jimbo is offended to depths of his soul.
"So, for years, Jimbo has sought no solutionto the mounting evidence of Carbon Pollution,and that Jimbo O'Dokey, like all of his ilk,when lost for excuses to swindle or bilk,pulled an ace from his sleeve in attempt to appease us, and rejected science in the name of Sweet Jesus(his personal Jesus, who speaks only to him -they also go bowling and work out at the gym).
"So, Jimbo doesn't believe in Climatology…not Glaciology… or Meteorology…Geophysics, Statistics or plain-old Geology,Oceanography, Hydrology or basic Biology,and so on and so forth for So-Many-ologies - that Jimbo O'Okey O'Dokey O'Inhofe,shot in the foot by shooting his mouth off,is so seemingly mad, and obsessed with Mythology;far too far-gone to be saved by Psychology,Pathology, Neurology or even Proctology - it's so seemingly sad; we'd issue an apologyif it wasn't all a put-on – just a Big Phony-ology -a study in phony-baloney so corruptthat even Sweet Jesus can't cover it up.
"In a republic where public involvement is soughta citizenry could insist (and perhaps it ought),that Big Phony Jimbo and all we electwho deny the existence of the greenhouse effect,fly a fact-finding mission to what lies between us - between us and The Sun - our lovely sister Venus.
"On Venus, the greenhouse effect ran away,and a carbon atmosphere has since held its sway.On the surface, at 750 (Fahrenheit) degrees,Led, Zinc (and Senators) are melted with ease.
"And while Okey O'Dokey has fun in the sun,responsible representatives could get something done,and radically alter our carbon emissionsby imposing and enforcing strict carbon restrictions.
"And then maybe… just maybe… things could improve,cooler heads could prevail, from the brink we could move -from the brink of extinction's bottomless pit,where we're standing right now, standing right before it, pretending it's not there, and wondering why it's hot.Maybe… just maybe… but then again… maybe not."
"Catatonic, the plumber was struck mute and dumb -curled in fetal position, and sucking his thumb.In just speculation, it'd be fair to say,his chance encounter with Marco had ruined his day."
"Now, one last thing, Plumber, should be one thing enough."Marco grumbled in a voice that was a little bit gruff,"You diss me for fishing in this crap-filled pool,presume you know better and assume I'm a fool, but your presumption is false and assumption thus erring -I'm not fishing for a fish – not a perch or a herring…"
"Last weekend while gambling and whoring out west,I put forth a wager to be proven by test -and bet twenty thousand with a wealthy young twit,who told me my fishing pole couldn't catch shit!"
World’s first sustainable tuna fishery certified
WWF news release
Mongabay.com
September 9, 2007
The world’s first certified sustainable tuna fishery was announced today, a move that could help save one of the world’s most valuable fish — and the fishing industry that relies on it — from extinction.
The American Albacore Fishing Association (AAFA) based in San Diego, California, has been officially certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, an independent standard-setting organization that ensures fish are caught according to strict methods that avoid overfishing and bycatch (the unintended capture of other fish, seabirds and marine mammals).
WWF sponsored the assessment of the fishery, hailing the move as a hopeful sign for dramatically declining tuna stocks, fishing livelihoods and food security.
(MORE...)
Mongabay.com
September 9, 2007
The world’s first certified sustainable tuna fishery was announced today, a move that could help save one of the world’s most valuable fish — and the fishing industry that relies on it — from extinction.
The American Albacore Fishing Association (AAFA) based in San Diego, California, has been officially certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, an independent standard-setting organization that ensures fish are caught according to strict methods that avoid overfishing and bycatch (the unintended capture of other fish, seabirds and marine mammals).
WWF sponsored the assessment of the fishery, hailing the move as a hopeful sign for dramatically declining tuna stocks, fishing livelihoods and food security.
(MORE...)
Meet the Solar-Powered Trash Can
Businessweek.com
Success Stories
April 13, 2007, 4:32PM EST
Seahorse Power's BigBelly holds four to five times as much garbage as conventional receptacles. And it's cleaning up with local governments
by Jeffrey Gangemi
Back in 1999, during a walk along Boston's bustling Charles Street, Jim Poss decided he wanted to help his city resolve a messy problem he had encountered on almost every street corner: overflowing trash cans. At the time, Poss was working for electric-car company Selectria, so he was comfortable with solar technology and motors. He worked out a makeshift design for a garbage can fitted with a solar-powered trash compactor that he thought could reduce the amount of trash spilling onto streets (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/17/06, "Turning Garbage to Gold").
His brainstorm eventually led to the creation of his 15-employee, Needham (Mass.)-based Seahorse Power, which sold its first solar-powered receptacle in 2005. Now, there are about 500 units, named BigBelly, installed around world. The selling point: Each BigBelly holds between four and five times the amount of a conventional trash can, thereby reducing the amount of trips a municipal government needs to make to collect it. By adopting his technology, Poss says that municipalities save time and money and reduce fuel consumption and wear and tear on city streets.
By improving upon the existing waste disposal management system, Seahorse Power is also attracting attention from major players in the roughly $45 billion waste-hauling industry. "The trash is still there. It's just being compacted. I think a lot of businesses would be interested in using [Seahorse's] technology," says Seahorse advisor Bill Hanley, the vice-president of sales and marketing at 2,800-employee, $550 million waste hauler Casella, which is considering investing in Seahorse.
Trial Run in Vail
Of course, breaking into such an entrenched industry has its share of challenges. Adoption of BigBelly units has been slow, but is increasing exponentially. In 2005, Seahorse had about $275,000 in sales. In its second year, it reached $1 million. "Our primary customers are municipal governments, the U.S. Forest Service, and state parks, so there's a difficulty because they often have annual sales cycles. They try a few and then buy more, and that's guaranteed to take a year," says Poss, adding that most large orders are coming from institutions like the Cincinnati Parks Dept. that have already conducted a limited trial of the BigBelly.
When Poss, 34, started the company, he was focused on making an easily replicable product, and bringing it to market quickly. "A lot of renewable-energy and clean-tech companies are in the tech-development stage, but aren't in the revenue stage. When I started the company, I wanted to do something now," says Poss (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/19/07, "Head Starts for Clean-Tech Startups").
Vail Ski Resort in Colorado was Seahorse's first customer. The resort had trash cans stationed all over a huge mountain, and often would burn six gallons of diesel fuel each way on a two-hour round trip just to empty a few receptacles. Though the first BigBelly cost $10,000 to build, Poss sold three of them to Vail for $5,500 each. Now, a unit costs between $3,600 and $3,900, and the next generation of the BigBelly is already in development, as well as units for commercial sites and for recycling.
Focus on Durability
For municipal governments, the technology is catching on quickly. "Our issue is that we're all over the city and have cans in remote areas that we have to go and pick up every day. Now we can go every four or five days. That's really a no-brainer," says Gerald Checco, superintendent of the Cincinnati Park Board, which manages 800 trash cans in 150 parks throughout the city.
Checco's department bought five BigBellys on Earth Day 2006 and conducted a pilot program in an attempt to eventually reduce the city's trash collection resource consumption by half. Checco says he plans to purchase 200 to 300 more BigBellys in the next year to replace about 500 to 600 traditional cans.
Another key to Seahorse's growth is building a durable product. Last year, the company only had replaced $60 worth of parts on 400 total machines. "The machine is really simple. It has an enclosed motor that runs off a car battery and turns motorcycle chains that bring down a big metal ram. The parts themselves are reliable and overbuilt. If we didn't make a machine that was reliable, we would be in huge trouble," says Poss. "Even if it breaks down once a month, it's a pain in the neck, and nobody's buying more."
More than making his product durable, Poss says his formula for commercial longevity is environmental sustainability, especially in a world that's becoming increasingly aware of global warming (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/2/07, "Court Turns Up the Heat on Global Warming"). "A carbon cap is inevitable, and how do you pick up the trash when the cost of diesel quadruples in a couple years?" asks Poss. He's confident that his company will be around long enough to help answer that question.
Success Stories
April 13, 2007, 4:32PM EST
Seahorse Power's BigBelly holds four to five times as much garbage as conventional receptacles. And it's cleaning up with local governments
by Jeffrey Gangemi
Back in 1999, during a walk along Boston's bustling Charles Street, Jim Poss decided he wanted to help his city resolve a messy problem he had encountered on almost every street corner: overflowing trash cans. At the time, Poss was working for electric-car company Selectria, so he was comfortable with solar technology and motors. He worked out a makeshift design for a garbage can fitted with a solar-powered trash compactor that he thought could reduce the amount of trash spilling onto streets (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/17/06, "Turning Garbage to Gold").
His brainstorm eventually led to the creation of his 15-employee, Needham (Mass.)-based Seahorse Power, which sold its first solar-powered receptacle in 2005. Now, there are about 500 units, named BigBelly, installed around world. The selling point: Each BigBelly holds between four and five times the amount of a conventional trash can, thereby reducing the amount of trips a municipal government needs to make to collect it. By adopting his technology, Poss says that municipalities save time and money and reduce fuel consumption and wear and tear on city streets.
By improving upon the existing waste disposal management system, Seahorse Power is also attracting attention from major players in the roughly $45 billion waste-hauling industry. "The trash is still there. It's just being compacted. I think a lot of businesses would be interested in using [Seahorse's] technology," says Seahorse advisor Bill Hanley, the vice-president of sales and marketing at 2,800-employee, $550 million waste hauler Casella, which is considering investing in Seahorse.
Trial Run in Vail
Of course, breaking into such an entrenched industry has its share of challenges. Adoption of BigBelly units has been slow, but is increasing exponentially. In 2005, Seahorse had about $275,000 in sales. In its second year, it reached $1 million. "Our primary customers are municipal governments, the U.S. Forest Service, and state parks, so there's a difficulty because they often have annual sales cycles. They try a few and then buy more, and that's guaranteed to take a year," says Poss, adding that most large orders are coming from institutions like the Cincinnati Parks Dept. that have already conducted a limited trial of the BigBelly.
When Poss, 34, started the company, he was focused on making an easily replicable product, and bringing it to market quickly. "A lot of renewable-energy and clean-tech companies are in the tech-development stage, but aren't in the revenue stage. When I started the company, I wanted to do something now," says Poss (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/19/07, "Head Starts for Clean-Tech Startups").
Vail Ski Resort in Colorado was Seahorse's first customer. The resort had trash cans stationed all over a huge mountain, and often would burn six gallons of diesel fuel each way on a two-hour round trip just to empty a few receptacles. Though the first BigBelly cost $10,000 to build, Poss sold three of them to Vail for $5,500 each. Now, a unit costs between $3,600 and $3,900, and the next generation of the BigBelly is already in development, as well as units for commercial sites and for recycling.
Focus on Durability
For municipal governments, the technology is catching on quickly. "Our issue is that we're all over the city and have cans in remote areas that we have to go and pick up every day. Now we can go every four or five days. That's really a no-brainer," says Gerald Checco, superintendent of the Cincinnati Park Board, which manages 800 trash cans in 150 parks throughout the city.
Checco's department bought five BigBellys on Earth Day 2006 and conducted a pilot program in an attempt to eventually reduce the city's trash collection resource consumption by half. Checco says he plans to purchase 200 to 300 more BigBellys in the next year to replace about 500 to 600 traditional cans.
Another key to Seahorse's growth is building a durable product. Last year, the company only had replaced $60 worth of parts on 400 total machines. "The machine is really simple. It has an enclosed motor that runs off a car battery and turns motorcycle chains that bring down a big metal ram. The parts themselves are reliable and overbuilt. If we didn't make a machine that was reliable, we would be in huge trouble," says Poss. "Even if it breaks down once a month, it's a pain in the neck, and nobody's buying more."
More than making his product durable, Poss says his formula for commercial longevity is environmental sustainability, especially in a world that's becoming increasingly aware of global warming (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/2/07, "Court Turns Up the Heat on Global Warming"). "A carbon cap is inevitable, and how do you pick up the trash when the cost of diesel quadruples in a couple years?" asks Poss. He's confident that his company will be around long enough to help answer that question.
Michael Jantzen's Solar Wind Pavilion
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.23.07
Design & Architecture, Treehugger.com
Michael Jantzen of the Transformation House and the Wind Shaped Pavilion proposes yet another wind and sun powered structure, this time for the California State University at Fullerton.
A vertical axis turbine and four rings of photovoltaics generate electricity that is stored in batteries, or as Jantzen says "Some of the electrical energy gathered by the wind turbine and the photovoltaic cells can also be stored in the form of hydrogen gas. This gas is formed from the wind and sun energy gathered by the structure and from rainwater that is collected from the canopy roof."
"Aesthetically, the structure was conceived of as a large umbrella that is symbolically shaped by the rotation of the wind turbine. Conceptually, as the turbine rotates and gathers energy from the wind, this energy is sent down into the surrounding campus landscape in the form of concentric rings of energy. These rings can also be thought of symbolically as a magnet that works in reverse to draw people toward it."
Design & Architecture, Treehugger.com
Michael Jantzen of the Transformation House and the Wind Shaped Pavilion proposes yet another wind and sun powered structure, this time for the California State University at Fullerton.
A vertical axis turbine and four rings of photovoltaics generate electricity that is stored in batteries, or as Jantzen says "Some of the electrical energy gathered by the wind turbine and the photovoltaic cells can also be stored in the form of hydrogen gas. This gas is formed from the wind and sun energy gathered by the structure and from rainwater that is collected from the canopy roof."
"Aesthetically, the structure was conceived of as a large umbrella that is symbolically shaped by the rotation of the wind turbine. Conceptually, as the turbine rotates and gathers energy from the wind, this energy is sent down into the surrounding campus landscape in the form of concentric rings of energy. These rings can also be thought of symbolically as a magnet that works in reverse to draw people toward it."
Windspire: 1 kW Wind Turbine for Your Backyard
by Collin Dunn, Seattle on 09. 8.07
Science & Technology (alternative energy)
With its sleek, bladeless design and capacity to produce nearly 2000 kilowatt hours per year, the Windspire might just inspire some YIMBYism -- that's Yes, In My BackYard -- about wind power. At 30 feet tall and 2 feet wide, the propeller-less design is bird-safe, relatively quiet -- it produces about 25 decibels of noise at five feet, roughly equivalent to the average noise of a residential neighborhood at night -- and doesn't take much breeze to get it spinning; it fires up at 8 mph, and is rated to survive 100 mph gusts. It comes with a wireless modem that connects to your computer, so you can sit back and watch the energy in action at any time.
At about $4,000, it ain't exactly cheap -- at 10 cents a kilowatt, it'll take about 20 years to get any return on your investment -- but it sure is cool and sure beats getting your energy from coal-fired power plants, which pretty much suck. Learn more about Windspire -- performance & installation specs, maintenance required (not much), test data, etc. -- over at Mariah Power's website.
(See photos)
Science & Technology (alternative energy)
With its sleek, bladeless design and capacity to produce nearly 2000 kilowatt hours per year, the Windspire might just inspire some YIMBYism -- that's Yes, In My BackYard -- about wind power. At 30 feet tall and 2 feet wide, the propeller-less design is bird-safe, relatively quiet -- it produces about 25 decibels of noise at five feet, roughly equivalent to the average noise of a residential neighborhood at night -- and doesn't take much breeze to get it spinning; it fires up at 8 mph, and is rated to survive 100 mph gusts. It comes with a wireless modem that connects to your computer, so you can sit back and watch the energy in action at any time.
At about $4,000, it ain't exactly cheap -- at 10 cents a kilowatt, it'll take about 20 years to get any return on your investment -- but it sure is cool and sure beats getting your energy from coal-fired power plants, which pretty much suck. Learn more about Windspire -- performance & installation specs, maintenance required (not much), test data, etc. -- over at Mariah Power's website.
(See photos)
New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
Colorado's State Univ.'s panels will cost less than $1 per watt.
Industry Week
Compiled By Adrienne Selko
Sept. 10, 2007 -- Colorado State University's method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.
Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity.
Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies. The cost to the consumer could be as low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of solar panels. In addition, this solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it can be affordably installed and operated in nearly any location.
The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials used in production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use of raw materials since the process converts solar energy into electricity more efficiently. Cadmium telluride solar panels require 100 times less semiconductor material than high-cost crystalline silicon panels.
"This technology offers a significant improvement in capital and labor productivity and overall manufacturing efficiency," said Sampath, director of Colorado State's Materials Engineering Laboratory.
Sampath has spent the past 16 years perfecting the technology. In that time, annual global sales of photovoltaic technology have grown to approximately 2 gigawatts or two billion watts -- roughly a $6 billion industry. Demand has increased nearly 40% a year for each of the past five years -- a trend that analysts and industry experts expect to continue.
By 2010, solar cell manufacturing is expected to be a $25 billion-plus industry.
Industry Week
Compiled By Adrienne Selko
Sept. 10, 2007 -- Colorado State University's method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.
Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity.
Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies. The cost to the consumer could be as low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of solar panels. In addition, this solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it can be affordably installed and operated in nearly any location.
The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials used in production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use of raw materials since the process converts solar energy into electricity more efficiently. Cadmium telluride solar panels require 100 times less semiconductor material than high-cost crystalline silicon panels.
"This technology offers a significant improvement in capital and labor productivity and overall manufacturing efficiency," said Sampath, director of Colorado State's Materials Engineering Laboratory.
Sampath has spent the past 16 years perfecting the technology. In that time, annual global sales of photovoltaic technology have grown to approximately 2 gigawatts or two billion watts -- roughly a $6 billion industry. Demand has increased nearly 40% a year for each of the past five years -- a trend that analysts and industry experts expect to continue.
By 2010, solar cell manufacturing is expected to be a $25 billion-plus industry.
Look, Ma, no batteries: Powering nanoelectronics with light
17/10/2007 17h29
AFP.com
PARIS (AFP) - Scientists have developed solar cells 200 hundred times thinner than a human hair that they believe will power the nanoscale gadgetry of tomorrow, according to a study released Wednesday.
From consumer devices to bioterrorism monitors to in-body diagnostics, this ultra-microscopic technology is poised to take centre stage in less than a decade from now.
But finding the sources to power it has become a headache.
Charles Leiber and colleagues at Harvard University describe silicon nanowire they devised that can convert light into electrical energy.
Virtually invisible to the naked eye, a single strand can crank out up to 200 picowatts.
Two hundred billionths of a watt may not seem much, but at nanoscale it is enough to provide a steady output of electricity to run ultralow power electronics, including some that could be worn on -- or even inside -- the body.
It is also clean, highly efficient and renewable.
"An individual nanoelectonic device will indeed consume very little power, but to do something interesting will require many interconnected devices and thus the power requirement -- even for nanosystems -- can be a challenge," Lieber explained in an email.
Monitoring bioterrorism threats, for example, would require an entire array of nanosensors, nanoprocessors to analyse the signals received, and nanotransmitters to relay information to a centralised facility, he said.
Conventional sources, he added, are "bulky, non-renewable and expensive" by comparison.
The cable itself looks, at first blush, like the cables used to hook up cable television networks: both have a core covered with two layers, according to the study, published in the British journal Nature.
But the similarity stops there. Beside being 100,000 times smaller, the nanowire is not made of metal but of silicon with three different types of conductivity arranged as layered shells.
Incoming light generates electrons in the outer shell, which are then swept into the second layer and the inner core along micropores.
These "holes", as they are called, carry an equal, but opposite, charge as electrons, which means that the two particles move in opposite directions in the presence of an electric field.
"The electrically connected core and cladding" -- a kind of sheath -- "play the same role as the '+' and '-' termini of a battery," Lieber said.
AFP.com
PARIS (AFP) - Scientists have developed solar cells 200 hundred times thinner than a human hair that they believe will power the nanoscale gadgetry of tomorrow, according to a study released Wednesday.
From consumer devices to bioterrorism monitors to in-body diagnostics, this ultra-microscopic technology is poised to take centre stage in less than a decade from now.
But finding the sources to power it has become a headache.
Charles Leiber and colleagues at Harvard University describe silicon nanowire they devised that can convert light into electrical energy.
Virtually invisible to the naked eye, a single strand can crank out up to 200 picowatts.
Two hundred billionths of a watt may not seem much, but at nanoscale it is enough to provide a steady output of electricity to run ultralow power electronics, including some that could be worn on -- or even inside -- the body.
It is also clean, highly efficient and renewable.
"An individual nanoelectonic device will indeed consume very little power, but to do something interesting will require many interconnected devices and thus the power requirement -- even for nanosystems -- can be a challenge," Lieber explained in an email.
Monitoring bioterrorism threats, for example, would require an entire array of nanosensors, nanoprocessors to analyse the signals received, and nanotransmitters to relay information to a centralised facility, he said.
Conventional sources, he added, are "bulky, non-renewable and expensive" by comparison.
The cable itself looks, at first blush, like the cables used to hook up cable television networks: both have a core covered with two layers, according to the study, published in the British journal Nature.
But the similarity stops there. Beside being 100,000 times smaller, the nanowire is not made of metal but of silicon with three different types of conductivity arranged as layered shells.
Incoming light generates electrons in the outer shell, which are then swept into the second layer and the inner core along micropores.
These "holes", as they are called, carry an equal, but opposite, charge as electrons, which means that the two particles move in opposite directions in the presence of an electric field.
"The electrically connected core and cladding" -- a kind of sheath -- "play the same role as the '+' and '-' termini of a battery," Lieber said.
Nanowire generates its own electricity
Microscopic wire has photovoltaic properties
by Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office
Oct. 17, 2007
Harvard chemists have built a new wire out of photosensitive materials that is hundreds of times smaller than a human hair. The wire not only carries electricity to be used in vanishingly small circuits, but generates power as well.
by Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office
Oct. 17, 2007
Harvard chemists have built a new wire out of photosensitive materials that is hundreds of times smaller than a human hair. The wire not only carries electricity to be used in vanishingly small circuits, but generates power as well.
Charles M. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry, and colleagues created the nanowire out of three different kinds of silicon with different electrical properties. The silicon is wrapped in layers to create the wire. When light falls on the outer material, a process begins due to the interaction of the core with the shell layers, leading to the creation of electrical charges.
The work was described in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature.
The idea of creating nanoscale photovoltaics is not new, Lieber said, but prior efforts used organic compounds in combination with semiconductor nanostructures that had lower efficiency and that degraded under concentrated sunlight. Lieber’s materials have several advantages, he said. The materials are more efficient, converting 3.4 percent of the sunlight into electricity; they can withstand concentrated light without deteriorating, gaining efficiency up to about 5 percent; and they’re as cheap to make as other related nanoscale photovoltaic devices.
“The real [question] is whether there’s a new geometry that will lead to better photovoltaic technology,” Lieber said. “We worked on coaxial geometry.”
The most recent development builds on Lieber’s considerable prior work on nanoscale devices. He has developed sensors with potential bioterrorism applications that can detect a single virus or other particle, nanowire arrays that can detect signals in individual neurons, and a cracker-sized detector for cancer.
A cheap nanoscale power source broadens the potential applications of such nanoscale devices. Though the tiny photovoltaic cells can generate enough electricity to power a similarly tiny circuit, Lieber said they’re not yet efficient enough to have applications on the scale of commercial power generation.
Commercial solar cells, he said, have efficiencies around 20 percent, compared with 3.4 percent for his nano-solar cells. One avenue of future research, Lieber said, will be to explore ways to boost efficiency of the nanowire photovoltaics. If they can reach 10 to 15 percent, he said, their lower cost of production — they can be made from relatively inexpensive materials and don’t require clean rooms to produce — may make them useful in larger-scale applications.
“There’s no physical reason it couldn’t be higher,” Lieber said. “I’m pretty optimistic that we’ll be able to track down the efficiency issue.”
Until then, Lieber sees a future for the nanowire photovoltaics in niche applications, such as multiple distributed sensors or durable, flexible devices, possibly sewn into clothing or worn as a patch.
“It will have to be unique to be an economically viable application, some place where you want durability and flexibility, where if it gets destroyed, people don’t care,” Lieber said.
(Barbara) Boxer leads the fight for polar bears.
Rodger Schlickeisen
Defenders of Wildlife
10.25.07
Good news from Washington! The U.S. Senate is getting serious about protecting polar bears and other wildlife threatened by global warming… and California Senator Barbara Boxer is leading the fight.
Last week, Senator Boxer signed on as an original co-sponsor of the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act, a bill introduced by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that calls for a national strategy to safeguard wildlife and habitat impacted by global warming.
Global warming could be devastating for many species. North Carolina’s endangered red wolves could lose vital habitat as climate change causes sea levels to rise, and polar bears could vanish from Alaska by 2050.
And right here in California, global warming threatens habitat for already-endangered chinook salmon and other coldwater fish species. Warmer, drier conditions caused by global warming could also reduce Central Valley wetlands needed by wintering populations of ducks and other waterfowl.
As Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Boxer plays a key role in shaping legislation as it moves through the Senate. Put simply: we’ll need her full support if the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act is going to become law.
Thanks in part to the efforts of activists like you, the House of Representatives passed its own version of the Wildlife Survival Act last month as part of its energy bill. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn to act.
Global warming is a big problem, but I know that -- with your help and the support of lawmakers like Senator Boxer -- we can enact concrete solutions to protect wildlife from the harmful effects of climate change.
Defenders of Wildlife
10.25.07
Good news from Washington! The U.S. Senate is getting serious about protecting polar bears and other wildlife threatened by global warming… and California Senator Barbara Boxer is leading the fight.
Last week, Senator Boxer signed on as an original co-sponsor of the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act, a bill introduced by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that calls for a national strategy to safeguard wildlife and habitat impacted by global warming.
Global warming could be devastating for many species. North Carolina’s endangered red wolves could lose vital habitat as climate change causes sea levels to rise, and polar bears could vanish from Alaska by 2050.
And right here in California, global warming threatens habitat for already-endangered chinook salmon and other coldwater fish species. Warmer, drier conditions caused by global warming could also reduce Central Valley wetlands needed by wintering populations of ducks and other waterfowl.
As Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Boxer plays a key role in shaping legislation as it moves through the Senate. Put simply: we’ll need her full support if the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act is going to become law.
Thanks in part to the efforts of activists like you, the House of Representatives passed its own version of the Wildlife Survival Act last month as part of its energy bill. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn to act.
Global warming is a big problem, but I know that -- with your help and the support of lawmakers like Senator Boxer -- we can enact concrete solutions to protect wildlife from the harmful effects of climate change.
6,000-year-old Arctic ponds drying out
Jul 02, 2007 05:26 PM
Bob Weber
Canadian Press
EDMONTON (CP) – A series of ponds on the Arctic tundra that have formed a crucial component of Ellesmere Island's ecosystem for 6,000 years have largely dried up and blown away in a single generation, says new research that suggests climate change may be affecting the North faster than anyone thought.
Click here to read more...
Bob Weber
Canadian Press
EDMONTON (CP) – A series of ponds on the Arctic tundra that have formed a crucial component of Ellesmere Island's ecosystem for 6,000 years have largely dried up and blown away in a single generation, says new research that suggests climate change may be affecting the North faster than anyone thought.
Click here to read more...
World's First Carbon Management MBA Launched
Sciene Daily
Source: University of East Anglia
Date: July 10, 2007
The University of East Anglia is launching the world's first MBA targeted at leading the business world into the low carbon economy. It will deliver environmentally and competitively sustainable business strategies. more...
Source: University of East Anglia
Date: July 10, 2007
The University of East Anglia is launching the world's first MBA targeted at leading the business world into the low carbon economy. It will deliver environmentally and competitively sustainable business strategies. more...
Snow in Buenos Aires: Was it Global Warming?
by Paula Alvarado, Buenos Aires on 07.16.07
Business & Politics (news)
The last anniversary of Argentine independence, July 9th, came with a surprise: for the first time in almost 90 years, snow fell in Buenos Aires and the city’s suburbs. While mostly everybody was thrilled with the spectacle, we (and few media) wondered about how dangerous the phenomenon could be. Fortunately, local specialists explained this was an isolated phenomenon, but warned about the consequences of a changing climate. Argentine meteorologist Osvaldo Canziani, president of one of the sections in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), explained to Clarin newspaper, “warming can produce cooling, but in this case it is not global warming the cause of this storm”. The specialist continued: “In September 1951 I worked in the international airport and we had a similar problem, of more intensity though it did not snow: a polar air mass from Antarctica invades the South of South America....
“This is an anomaly, as usually cold air comes from the Pacific and not the Antarctica, and in this case, it happened while in Buenos Aires there was enough cloudiness and the floor temperature was cold enough (0 degrees at 3pm) to produce the spectacle”.
According to Canziani, this spectacle is of a winter colder than the usual ones, but not a cyclic phenomenon as “the Antarctica is a closed system that only opens itself sporadically”.
“It does not have to do with climate change, though climate change could have cooperated somehow by increasing humidity”.
Finally, the meteorologist said “we are though in the middle of a changing climate, and we’ll have to see more attention coming from the government to these issues”.
Mario Nuñez, director of the Investigation Center for Sea and Atmosphere of the national university, wrote in a column in the country’s biggest newspaper, “this is already one of the coldest and raw winters of our history. The snow was a product of an Antarctic air mass that did not find resistance in its advance over the continent. That, and the humidity conditions, caused the snow”.
“We can’t attribute the snow to global warming. More than that, we can speak about ‘extreme phenomena’ that happen more often. Some examples are the droughts, flooding or the snow at unusual places that accompany the global warming process”.
Besides that, the scientist did not hesitate also in bringing the theme to the table: “we are registering a climate change process in the planet. Right now we have values that escape the average of the last 30 years”. ::Osvaldo Canziani at Clarin (in Spanish, our quotes are from the radio interview) ::Mario Nuñez column.
Business & Politics (news)
The last anniversary of Argentine independence, July 9th, came with a surprise: for the first time in almost 90 years, snow fell in Buenos Aires and the city’s suburbs. While mostly everybody was thrilled with the spectacle, we (and few media) wondered about how dangerous the phenomenon could be. Fortunately, local specialists explained this was an isolated phenomenon, but warned about the consequences of a changing climate. Argentine meteorologist Osvaldo Canziani, president of one of the sections in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), explained to Clarin newspaper, “warming can produce cooling, but in this case it is not global warming the cause of this storm”. The specialist continued: “In September 1951 I worked in the international airport and we had a similar problem, of more intensity though it did not snow: a polar air mass from Antarctica invades the South of South America....
“This is an anomaly, as usually cold air comes from the Pacific and not the Antarctica, and in this case, it happened while in Buenos Aires there was enough cloudiness and the floor temperature was cold enough (0 degrees at 3pm) to produce the spectacle”.
According to Canziani, this spectacle is of a winter colder than the usual ones, but not a cyclic phenomenon as “the Antarctica is a closed system that only opens itself sporadically”.
“It does not have to do with climate change, though climate change could have cooperated somehow by increasing humidity”.
Finally, the meteorologist said “we are though in the middle of a changing climate, and we’ll have to see more attention coming from the government to these issues”.
Mario Nuñez, director of the Investigation Center for Sea and Atmosphere of the national university, wrote in a column in the country’s biggest newspaper, “this is already one of the coldest and raw winters of our history. The snow was a product of an Antarctic air mass that did not find resistance in its advance over the continent. That, and the humidity conditions, caused the snow”.
“We can’t attribute the snow to global warming. More than that, we can speak about ‘extreme phenomena’ that happen more often. Some examples are the droughts, flooding or the snow at unusual places that accompany the global warming process”.
Besides that, the scientist did not hesitate also in bringing the theme to the table: “we are registering a climate change process in the planet. Right now we have values that escape the average of the last 30 years”. ::Osvaldo Canziani at Clarin (in Spanish, our quotes are from the radio interview) ::Mario Nuñez column.
500 Billion Tons of Prehistoric Organic Matter May Massively Accelerate ‘Global Warming’
Sept. 18, 2007
DailyGalaxy.com
For thousands of years animal waste, and other organic matter left behind on the Arctic tundra, have been sealed off from the environment by permafrost. Now climate change is melting the permafrost and freeing mass quantities of prehistoric “ooze” from its state of suspended animation.
Russian scientist, Sergei Zimov, has been studying climate change in Russia's Arctic for 30 years now. He is worried that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will drastically accelerate global warming predictions even beyond some of the most pessimistic forecasts.
"This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop," he said.
According to Zimov, when the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years will spring back into action. They’ll begin once again to emit carbon dioxide and methane gas as a by-product. Zimov says thought the microbes are tiny, they will start emitting these gases in enormous quantities simply because there will be a lot of them.
Yakutia is a region in the north-eastern corner of Siberia, where a belt of permafrost contains the mammoth-era soil. It covers an area roughly the size of France and Germany combined. There is even more of it elsewhere in Siberia.
"The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves," Zimov said. U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion tons of carbon a year."Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tons of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases," Zimov added. "If you don't stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere ... the Kyoto Protocol (an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions) will seem like childish prattle."
While some dismiss the 52-year-old as an alarmist crank, his theory is steadily gaining credibility in the scientific community. "There's quite a bit of truth in it," Julian Murton, member of the International Permafrost Association, told Reuters. "The methane and carbon dioxide levels will increase as a result of permafrost degradation."
A United Nations report in June said there was at yet no sign of widespread melting of permafrost that could stoke global warming, but noted the potential threat. "Permafrost stores a lot of carbon, with upper permafrost layers estimated to contain more organic carbon than is currently contained in the atmosphere," the report said.
"Permafrost thawing results in the release of this carbon in the form of greenhouse gases which will have a positive feedback effect to global warming."
DailyGalaxy.com
For thousands of years animal waste, and other organic matter left behind on the Arctic tundra, have been sealed off from the environment by permafrost. Now climate change is melting the permafrost and freeing mass quantities of prehistoric “ooze” from its state of suspended animation.
Russian scientist, Sergei Zimov, has been studying climate change in Russia's Arctic for 30 years now. He is worried that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will drastically accelerate global warming predictions even beyond some of the most pessimistic forecasts.
"This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impossible to stop," he said.
According to Zimov, when the organic matter left behind by mammoths and other wildlife is exposed to the air by the thawing permafrost, microbes that have been dormant for thousands of years will spring back into action. They’ll begin once again to emit carbon dioxide and methane gas as a by-product. Zimov says thought the microbes are tiny, they will start emitting these gases in enormous quantities simply because there will be a lot of them.
Yakutia is a region in the north-eastern corner of Siberia, where a belt of permafrost contains the mammoth-era soil. It covers an area roughly the size of France and Germany combined. There is even more of it elsewhere in Siberia.
"The deposits of organic matter in these soils are so gigantic that they dwarf global oil reserves," Zimov said. U.S. government statistics show mankind emits about 7 billion tons of carbon a year."Permafrost areas hold 500 billion tons of carbon, which can fast turn into greenhouse gases," Zimov added. "If you don't stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere ... the Kyoto Protocol (an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions) will seem like childish prattle."
While some dismiss the 52-year-old as an alarmist crank, his theory is steadily gaining credibility in the scientific community. "There's quite a bit of truth in it," Julian Murton, member of the International Permafrost Association, told Reuters. "The methane and carbon dioxide levels will increase as a result of permafrost degradation."
A United Nations report in June said there was at yet no sign of widespread melting of permafrost that could stoke global warming, but noted the potential threat. "Permafrost stores a lot of carbon, with upper permafrost layers estimated to contain more organic carbon than is currently contained in the atmosphere," the report said.
"Permafrost thawing results in the release of this carbon in the form of greenhouse gases which will have a positive feedback effect to global warming."
(Los Angeles) Massive evacuations ordered as onslaught of fires spreads: The number of blazes and their wind-whipped ferocity strain the area's firefi
By Tony Perry, Garrett Therolf and Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 23, 2007
Wind-whipped firestorms destroyed more than 700 homes and businesses in Southern California on Monday, the second day of its onslaught, and more than half a million people in San Diego County were told to evacuate their homes.
The gale-force winds turned hillside canyons into giant blowtorches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Although the worst damage was around San Diego and Lake Arrowhead, dangerous fires also threatened Malibu, parts of Orange and Ventura counties, and the Agua Dulce area near Santa Clarita.
Late Monday night, new blazes were menacing homes near Stevenson Ranch and in Soledad Canyon in northern Los Angeles County. The Soledad Canyon fire burned multiple mobile homes and evacuations were underway, fire officials said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling it "a tragic time for California," declared a state of emergency in seven counties and redeployed California National Guard members from the border to support firefighters. Schwarzenegger stressed how much California officials have learned since the devastating wildfires of October 2003, which raged over much of the same terrain.
But as the day wore on, it became clear that any hard-earned knowledge was no match for natural forces overrunning the ability of firefighters to control them.
"The issue this time is not preparedness," said San Diego City Council President Scott Peters. "It's that the event is so overwhelming."
Pat Helsing, 59, evacuated her home in the Scripps Ranch area, much as she had done four years ago.
"It seems scarier this time," she said. "The fire is everywhere in San Diego now. You don't know where you can go to escape it."
By late Monday, Southern California fires had burned 269,000 acres -- about 420 square miles -- and destroyed at least 892 buildings. Remarkably, only one person was known to have died, although it was possible that more fatalities would be discovered. At least 37 people had been injured, including 17 firefighters.
Near Malibu, where fire Sunday had burned into the center of town, the focus Monday was in the hills, where firefighters on the ground and in the air were trying to prevent flames from marching across Las Flores Canyon and into Topanga Canyon.
"It's trying to move toward Topanga Canyon, parallel to the coastline," said Manhattan Beach Battalion Chief Frank Chiella, near the Rambla Pacifico area. Firefighters were attempting to stay ahead of the fire and funnel it toward the ocean.
"If you let it get wide, that's a lot more homes it could take out," Chiella said. "We're doing what we can to keep it from getting bigger; we've only lost one home today."
Two fires on opposite sides of Lake Arrowhead had burned about 2,000 acres by Monday evening, destroying 138 buildings and prompting the evacuation of hundreds of residents from mountain resort communities.
In northern Los Angeles County, the Buckweed fire had swept through 35,000 acres by Monday evening, destroying 20 homes and two bridges, and causing the evacuation of about 15,000 people. It was burning toward Magic Mountain, but was partially contained.
In Orange County, where a suspected arson fire stretched the resources of local crews, residents along Calle Cabrillo in Foothill Ranch were packing cars and preparing to evacuate.
"We've been through this before," Karen Royer said. "I believe in God, and I know everything will be good."
Minutes later, a plume of dark smoke lifted over a ridgeline.
"Can I revise that?" she said. "Now I'm scared."
The Orange County blaze, called the Santiago fire, was leaping relentlessly in a southeasterly direction, burning ominously close to the Foothill Ranch and Portola Hill communities. About 500 firefighters and two water-carrying helicopters stood between the fire and hundreds of homes, Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion said.
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 23, 2007
Wind-whipped firestorms destroyed more than 700 homes and businesses in Southern California on Monday, the second day of its onslaught, and more than half a million people in San Diego County were told to evacuate their homes.
The gale-force winds turned hillside canyons into giant blowtorches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Although the worst damage was around San Diego and Lake Arrowhead, dangerous fires also threatened Malibu, parts of Orange and Ventura counties, and the Agua Dulce area near Santa Clarita.
Late Monday night, new blazes were menacing homes near Stevenson Ranch and in Soledad Canyon in northern Los Angeles County. The Soledad Canyon fire burned multiple mobile homes and evacuations were underway, fire officials said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling it "a tragic time for California," declared a state of emergency in seven counties and redeployed California National Guard members from the border to support firefighters. Schwarzenegger stressed how much California officials have learned since the devastating wildfires of October 2003, which raged over much of the same terrain.
But as the day wore on, it became clear that any hard-earned knowledge was no match for natural forces overrunning the ability of firefighters to control them.
"The issue this time is not preparedness," said San Diego City Council President Scott Peters. "It's that the event is so overwhelming."
Pat Helsing, 59, evacuated her home in the Scripps Ranch area, much as she had done four years ago.
"It seems scarier this time," she said. "The fire is everywhere in San Diego now. You don't know where you can go to escape it."
By late Monday, Southern California fires had burned 269,000 acres -- about 420 square miles -- and destroyed at least 892 buildings. Remarkably, only one person was known to have died, although it was possible that more fatalities would be discovered. At least 37 people had been injured, including 17 firefighters.
Near Malibu, where fire Sunday had burned into the center of town, the focus Monday was in the hills, where firefighters on the ground and in the air were trying to prevent flames from marching across Las Flores Canyon and into Topanga Canyon.
"It's trying to move toward Topanga Canyon, parallel to the coastline," said Manhattan Beach Battalion Chief Frank Chiella, near the Rambla Pacifico area. Firefighters were attempting to stay ahead of the fire and funnel it toward the ocean.
"If you let it get wide, that's a lot more homes it could take out," Chiella said. "We're doing what we can to keep it from getting bigger; we've only lost one home today."
Two fires on opposite sides of Lake Arrowhead had burned about 2,000 acres by Monday evening, destroying 138 buildings and prompting the evacuation of hundreds of residents from mountain resort communities.
In northern Los Angeles County, the Buckweed fire had swept through 35,000 acres by Monday evening, destroying 20 homes and two bridges, and causing the evacuation of about 15,000 people. It was burning toward Magic Mountain, but was partially contained.
In Orange County, where a suspected arson fire stretched the resources of local crews, residents along Calle Cabrillo in Foothill Ranch were packing cars and preparing to evacuate.
"We've been through this before," Karen Royer said. "I believe in God, and I know everything will be good."
Minutes later, a plume of dark smoke lifted over a ridgeline.
"Can I revise that?" she said. "Now I'm scared."
The Orange County blaze, called the Santiago fire, was leaping relentlessly in a southeasterly direction, burning ominously close to the Foothill Ranch and Portola Hill communities. About 500 firefighters and two water-carrying helicopters stood between the fire and hundreds of homes, Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion said.
Warming could wipe out half of all species
Guardian Unlimited
by Alok Jha, science correspondent
24.10.07
Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the world's species could be wiped out.
Scientists at the University of York and the University of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520m years - almost the entire fossil record - and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earth's temperatures are in a "greenhouse" climate phase, they found that extinctions rates were relatively high. Conversely, during cooler "icehouse" conditions, biodiversity increased.
The results, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that the predictions of a rapid rise in the Earth's temperature due to man-made climate change could have a similar effect on biodiversity.
Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist at the University of York and one of the authors of the research paper, said: "Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming - the magnitude of which is comparable with the long-term fluctuations in Earth climate - they suggest that extinctions will increase."
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could increase by as much as 6C by the end of the century.
Dr Mayhew found that of the five mass extinction events in the Earth's history, four were linked to greenhouse climates where the Earth was covered in heat-trapping carbon dioxide or methane gases. This includes the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago , thought to have been caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the Yucatan peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
The largest ever extinction occurred 251m years ago, when 95% of animal and plant species were killed off.
The most likely cause was floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic region - an event that triggered the opening of the Atlantic ocean.
Tim Benton, of the University of Leeds, said: "The long-term association has not been seen before as previous studies have largely been confined to relatively short geological periods, limited geographical extents and few groups of organisms."
Dr Mayhew said extinction through global warming was expected to occur through mismatches between the climates to which organisms are adapted, and the future distributions of those climates.
by Alok Jha, science correspondent
24.10.07
Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the world's species could be wiped out.
Scientists at the University of York and the University of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520m years - almost the entire fossil record - and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earth's temperatures are in a "greenhouse" climate phase, they found that extinctions rates were relatively high. Conversely, during cooler "icehouse" conditions, biodiversity increased.
The results, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that the predictions of a rapid rise in the Earth's temperature due to man-made climate change could have a similar effect on biodiversity.
Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist at the University of York and one of the authors of the research paper, said: "Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming - the magnitude of which is comparable with the long-term fluctuations in Earth climate - they suggest that extinctions will increase."
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could increase by as much as 6C by the end of the century.
Dr Mayhew found that of the five mass extinction events in the Earth's history, four were linked to greenhouse climates where the Earth was covered in heat-trapping carbon dioxide or methane gases. This includes the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago , thought to have been caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the Yucatan peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
The largest ever extinction occurred 251m years ago, when 95% of animal and plant species were killed off.
The most likely cause was floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic region - an event that triggered the opening of the Atlantic ocean.
Tim Benton, of the University of Leeds, said: "The long-term association has not been seen before as previous studies have largely been confined to relatively short geological periods, limited geographical extents and few groups of organisms."
Dr Mayhew said extinction through global warming was expected to occur through mismatches between the climates to which organisms are adapted, and the future distributions of those climates.
Overpopulation could be people, planet problem
updated 10:22 a.m. EDT, Tue April 8, 2008
By Ann Hoevel
CNN, Planet in Peril
By the year 2050, China will no longer be the most populous country in the world. That distinction will pass to India, where more than 1.8 billion people could be competing for their country's resources, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base.
The 2007 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau and the United Nations Population Division set China's current population at around 1.3 billion people, and India's at around 1.1 billion. If population continues to grow at the estimated rate, such rapid growth in India between now and mid-century could lead to overpopulation and an uncertain future for the environment and the people living there.
And while organizations like the Population Institute and the United Nations Population Fund are working to promote the human rights and environmental consequences of overpopulation, not everyone views the newest population estimates with pessimism.
"Nothing ever continues at its present rate, neither the stock market nor population growth," said Doug Allen, the dean of the school of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an expert in the history of cities and urban design, which he's taught for more than 31 years.
"There is a substantial body of evidence that the world population will flatten out in about 30 years," he said. "Built into that model would be an assumption that more of the world's population will become urban, and as such the population will begin to decline."
Citing historical evidence of falling birthrates in urban populations, Allen looks to Italy as a current example of the phenomenon.
"Italy right now [is] not at a point where it can sustain its current level. And I don't think that's because people in Italy have suddenly become aware of the need to conserve resources. I think it has more to do with decisions that are made by families on the margin not to have as many children."
Consequences of overpopulation
Overpopulation occurs when a population's density exceeds the capacity of the environment to supply the health requirements of an individual, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Environmentalists have long been concerned about the resources threatened by rapidly growing human populations, focusing on phenomenon such as deforestation, desertification, air pollution and global warming. But the worst-case scenario for people experiencing overpopulation, according to Lawrence Smith, president of the Population Institute, is a lack of fresh, clean water.
"If the water goes, the species goes," he said.
"That sounds kind of alarmist," Smith conceded, "considering there's water all around us, but 97 percent plus is saltwater, and the freshwater that we use to sustain ourselves is just native to 3 percent. ... So the accessibility of water, the competition for water, the availability of water is going to be a major, major threat," he said, noting world population growth estimates at more than 9 billion people by 2050.
Nine billion is an exceptional amount of people, considering the world's population only reached 1 billion in 1830, according to the Population Institute, a nonprofit organization that works to fund population and family planning programs around the world.
By 1999, world population reached 6 billion, and in the relatively short time between 2007 and 2050, there could be roughly 2.4 billion more people on Earth needing clean water, space and other natural resources from their environment in order to survive.
Governments facing overpopulation will also struggle to manage waste, said Allen. "Handling your waste and the public health consequences of not handling it well is the biggest problem that will be faced in rapidly growing urban areas in the developing world." When London, England, faced a population boom in the 1850s, for example, its infrastructure was not prepared for the excess waste, which resulted in Cholera outbreaks.
"Huge outbreaks," said Allen. "Fifty-thousand people dying over the summer. That's the kind of thing that in the developed world we no longer have problems with, but in the developing world are very, very real."
Smith said that 97 percent of world population growth between now and 2050 will occur in the developing world, where governments face serious economic and social challenges.
"I would say most of this is in sub-Saharan Africa, where by every other health indicator, they rank at the bottom," Smith said. "This growth rate is taking place despite the high levels of HIV and AIDS and [tuberculosis] and malaria."
Health care -- and the lack of it -- is also a factor in the rising populations in developing countries, according to Stan Bernstein, United Nations Population Fund senior policy adviser.
"We've seen a global trend of people wanting smaller families, but in the poorer settings that's not quite the case yet," Bernstein said. "And it's certainly not the case within countries that the poor [do not] have access to the kinds of services that the wealthy avail themselves of."
Globally, Bernstein said the poorest fifth of people in countries with rapid population growth have twice as many children, on average, as the wealthy people in those same countries.
Birthrates make a difference
The massive growth in developing nations is due in large part to fertility rates, where women during their reproductive years will have an average of five children, said Smith. "That's considerably higher than it is in the developed world."
In addition to the growing demands of developing nations, emerging countries like China and India are rapidly industrializing, said Smith. "Their demands for food alone will have considerable impact on global markets."
China's government has instituted population control methods in order to curb growth. Their controversial "one child" policies have garnered an uneasy reception, especially in rural populations, where people complain of stiff fines or forced sterilizations and abortions as a result of breaking population laws.
Traditionally, rural populations are larger than urban populations, said Smith. This is because rural families need to be larger in order to work and live off the land, and urban populations -- with better education, health care and family planning opportunities -- offer parents the luxury of choosing how many children they will have, he said.
This year is the first year that rural and urban populations are nearly equal, according to the United Nations Population Fund's annual report. This creates a mixed bag of concerns, according to Smith, that include susceptibility of young urban populations in poor countries with weak governments to recruitment for terrorism and conditions of instability.
"We have never in the history of the world experienced urban growth rates or metropolitan growth rates at the same level that we are experiencing now," said Allen.
By Ann Hoevel
CNN, Planet in Peril
By the year 2050, China will no longer be the most populous country in the world. That distinction will pass to India, where more than 1.8 billion people could be competing for their country's resources, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base.
The 2007 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau and the United Nations Population Division set China's current population at around 1.3 billion people, and India's at around 1.1 billion. If population continues to grow at the estimated rate, such rapid growth in India between now and mid-century could lead to overpopulation and an uncertain future for the environment and the people living there.
And while organizations like the Population Institute and the United Nations Population Fund are working to promote the human rights and environmental consequences of overpopulation, not everyone views the newest population estimates with pessimism.
"Nothing ever continues at its present rate, neither the stock market nor population growth," said Doug Allen, the dean of the school of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an expert in the history of cities and urban design, which he's taught for more than 31 years.
"There is a substantial body of evidence that the world population will flatten out in about 30 years," he said. "Built into that model would be an assumption that more of the world's population will become urban, and as such the population will begin to decline."
Citing historical evidence of falling birthrates in urban populations, Allen looks to Italy as a current example of the phenomenon.
"Italy right now [is] not at a point where it can sustain its current level. And I don't think that's because people in Italy have suddenly become aware of the need to conserve resources. I think it has more to do with decisions that are made by families on the margin not to have as many children."
Consequences of overpopulation
Overpopulation occurs when a population's density exceeds the capacity of the environment to supply the health requirements of an individual, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Environmentalists have long been concerned about the resources threatened by rapidly growing human populations, focusing on phenomenon such as deforestation, desertification, air pollution and global warming. But the worst-case scenario for people experiencing overpopulation, according to Lawrence Smith, president of the Population Institute, is a lack of fresh, clean water.
"If the water goes, the species goes," he said.
"That sounds kind of alarmist," Smith conceded, "considering there's water all around us, but 97 percent plus is saltwater, and the freshwater that we use to sustain ourselves is just native to 3 percent. ... So the accessibility of water, the competition for water, the availability of water is going to be a major, major threat," he said, noting world population growth estimates at more than 9 billion people by 2050.
Nine billion is an exceptional amount of people, considering the world's population only reached 1 billion in 1830, according to the Population Institute, a nonprofit organization that works to fund population and family planning programs around the world.
By 1999, world population reached 6 billion, and in the relatively short time between 2007 and 2050, there could be roughly 2.4 billion more people on Earth needing clean water, space and other natural resources from their environment in order to survive.
Governments facing overpopulation will also struggle to manage waste, said Allen. "Handling your waste and the public health consequences of not handling it well is the biggest problem that will be faced in rapidly growing urban areas in the developing world." When London, England, faced a population boom in the 1850s, for example, its infrastructure was not prepared for the excess waste, which resulted in Cholera outbreaks.
"Huge outbreaks," said Allen. "Fifty-thousand people dying over the summer. That's the kind of thing that in the developed world we no longer have problems with, but in the developing world are very, very real."
Smith said that 97 percent of world population growth between now and 2050 will occur in the developing world, where governments face serious economic and social challenges.
"I would say most of this is in sub-Saharan Africa, where by every other health indicator, they rank at the bottom," Smith said. "This growth rate is taking place despite the high levels of HIV and AIDS and [tuberculosis] and malaria."
Health care -- and the lack of it -- is also a factor in the rising populations in developing countries, according to Stan Bernstein, United Nations Population Fund senior policy adviser.
"We've seen a global trend of people wanting smaller families, but in the poorer settings that's not quite the case yet," Bernstein said. "And it's certainly not the case within countries that the poor [do not] have access to the kinds of services that the wealthy avail themselves of."
Globally, Bernstein said the poorest fifth of people in countries with rapid population growth have twice as many children, on average, as the wealthy people in those same countries.
Birthrates make a difference
The massive growth in developing nations is due in large part to fertility rates, where women during their reproductive years will have an average of five children, said Smith. "That's considerably higher than it is in the developed world."
In addition to the growing demands of developing nations, emerging countries like China and India are rapidly industrializing, said Smith. "Their demands for food alone will have considerable impact on global markets."
China's government has instituted population control methods in order to curb growth. Their controversial "one child" policies have garnered an uneasy reception, especially in rural populations, where people complain of stiff fines or forced sterilizations and abortions as a result of breaking population laws.
Traditionally, rural populations are larger than urban populations, said Smith. This is because rural families need to be larger in order to work and live off the land, and urban populations -- with better education, health care and family planning opportunities -- offer parents the luxury of choosing how many children they will have, he said.
This year is the first year that rural and urban populations are nearly equal, according to the United Nations Population Fund's annual report. This creates a mixed bag of concerns, according to Smith, that include susceptibility of young urban populations in poor countries with weak governments to recruitment for terrorism and conditions of instability.
"We have never in the history of the world experienced urban growth rates or metropolitan growth rates at the same level that we are experiencing now," said Allen.
Glaciers melt 'at fastest rate in past 5,000 years'
Juliette Jowit and Robin McKie
The Observer,
Sunday March 16 2008
The world's glaciers are melting faster than at any time since records began, threatening catastrophe for hundreds of millions of people and their eco-systems.
The details are revealed in the latest report from the World Glacier Monitoring Service and will add to growing alarm about the rise in sea levels and increased instances of flooding, avalanches and drought.
Based on historical records and other evidence, the rate at which the glaciers are melting is also thought to be faster that at any time in the past 5,000 years, said Professor Wilfried Haeberli, director of the monitoring service. 'There's no absolute proof, but nevertheless the evidence is strong: this is really extraordinary.'
Experts have been monitoring 30 glaciers around the world for nearly three decades and the most recent figures, for 2006, show the biggest ever 'net loss' of ice. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told The Observer that melting glaciers were now the 'loudest and clearest' warning signal of global warming.
The problem could lead to failing infrastructure, mass migration and even conflict. 'We're talking about something that happens in your and my lifespan. We're not talking about something hypothetical, we're talking about something dramatic in its consequences,' he said
Lester Brown, of the influential US-based Earth Policy Institute, said the problem would have global ramifications, as farmers in China and India struggled to irrigate their crops.
'This is the biggest predictable effect on food security in history as far as I know,' said Brown.
Based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's mid-range prediction that global temperatures will rise 2C above their long-term average, UNEP last year warned of further dramatic declines in glaciers by the end of the century.
The revelation that the world's glaciers are in retreat came as Tony Blair began a series of high-level environmental meetings in Japan, China and India as the leader of a new international team charged with securing a global deal on climate change. In a speech yesterday in Chiba, Japan, Blair said that the world now faced catastrophe.
'We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change,' he said. 'Failure to act now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible. The scale of what is needed is so great that the purpose of any global action is not to ameliorate or to make better our carbon dependence; it is to transform the nature of economies and societies in terms of carbon consumption and emissions.
'If the average person in the US is, say, to emit per capita, one-tenth of what they do today and those in the UK or Japan one-fifth, we're not talking of adjustment, we're talking about a revolution.'
The key to that revolution was a vastly increased use of nuclear power across the world, he added.
Blair is also scheduled to meet Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's Prime Minister, and members of the Indian and Chinese governments.
The Observer,
Sunday March 16 2008
The world's glaciers are melting faster than at any time since records began, threatening catastrophe for hundreds of millions of people and their eco-systems.
The details are revealed in the latest report from the World Glacier Monitoring Service and will add to growing alarm about the rise in sea levels and increased instances of flooding, avalanches and drought.
Based on historical records and other evidence, the rate at which the glaciers are melting is also thought to be faster that at any time in the past 5,000 years, said Professor Wilfried Haeberli, director of the monitoring service. 'There's no absolute proof, but nevertheless the evidence is strong: this is really extraordinary.'
Experts have been monitoring 30 glaciers around the world for nearly three decades and the most recent figures, for 2006, show the biggest ever 'net loss' of ice. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told The Observer that melting glaciers were now the 'loudest and clearest' warning signal of global warming.
The problem could lead to failing infrastructure, mass migration and even conflict. 'We're talking about something that happens in your and my lifespan. We're not talking about something hypothetical, we're talking about something dramatic in its consequences,' he said
Lester Brown, of the influential US-based Earth Policy Institute, said the problem would have global ramifications, as farmers in China and India struggled to irrigate their crops.
'This is the biggest predictable effect on food security in history as far as I know,' said Brown.
Based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's mid-range prediction that global temperatures will rise 2C above their long-term average, UNEP last year warned of further dramatic declines in glaciers by the end of the century.
The revelation that the world's glaciers are in retreat came as Tony Blair began a series of high-level environmental meetings in Japan, China and India as the leader of a new international team charged with securing a global deal on climate change. In a speech yesterday in Chiba, Japan, Blair said that the world now faced catastrophe.
'We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change,' he said. 'Failure to act now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible. The scale of what is needed is so great that the purpose of any global action is not to ameliorate or to make better our carbon dependence; it is to transform the nature of economies and societies in terms of carbon consumption and emissions.
'If the average person in the US is, say, to emit per capita, one-tenth of what they do today and those in the UK or Japan one-fifth, we're not talking of adjustment, we're talking about a revolution.'
The key to that revolution was a vastly increased use of nuclear power across the world, he added.
Blair is also scheduled to meet Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's Prime Minister, and members of the Indian and Chinese governments.
North Pole could be ice-free this summer, scientists say
updated 3:34 a.m. EDT, Fri June 27, 2008
By Alan Duke
CNN
The North Pole may be briefly ice-free by September as global warming melts away Arctic sea ice, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
"We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is 'does the North Pole melt out this summer?' and it may well," said the center's senior research scientist, Mark Serreze.
It's a 50-50 bet that the thin Arctic sea ice, which was frozen in autumn, will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said.
The ice retreated to a record level in September when the Northwest Passage, the sea route through the Arctic Ocean, opened briefly for the first time in recorded history.
"What we've seen through the past few decades is the Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and thinner as the system warms up," Serreze said.
Specific weather patterns will determine whether the North Pole's ice cover melts completely this summer, he said.
"Last year, we had sort of a perfect weather pattern to get rid of ice to open up that Northwest Passage," Serreze said. "This year, a different pattern can set up. so maybe we'll preserve some ice there. We're in a wait-and-see mode right now. We'll see what happens."
The brief lack of ice at the top of the globe will not bring any immediate consequences, he said.
"From the viewpoint of the science, the North Pole is just another point in the globe, but it does have this symbolic meaning," Serreze said. "There's supposed to be ice at the North Pole. The fact that we may not have any by the end of this summer could be quite a symbolic change."
Serreze said it's "just another indicator of the disappearing Arctic sea ice cover" but that it is happening so soon is "just astounding to me."
"Five years ago, to think that we'd even be talking about the possibility of the North Pole melting out in the summer, I would have never thought it," he said.
The melting, however, has been long seen as inevitable, he said.
"If you talked to me or other scientists just a few years ago, we were saying that we might lose all or most of the summer sea ice cover by anywhere from 2050 to 2100," Serreze said. "Then, recently, we kind of revised those estimates, maybe as early as 2030. Now, there's people out there saying it might be even before that. So, things are happening pretty quick up there."
Serreze said those who suggest that the Arctic meltdown is just part of a historic cycle are wrong.
"It's not cyclical at this point. I think we understand the physics behind this pretty well," he said. "We've known for at least 30 years, from our earliest climate models, that it's the Arctic where we'd see the first signs of global warming.
"It's a situation where we hate to say we told you so, but we told you so," he said.
Serreze said the Arctic sea ice will not be the same for decades.
"If we had a few cold years in a row, we could put sort of a temporary damper on it, but I think at this point going to an ice-free Arctic Ocean is inevitable," he said. "I don't think we can stop that now."
Reduced greenhouse gas emissions could "cool things down a bit," he said.
"It would recover fairly quickly, but it's just not going to happen for a while," he said. "I think we're committed at this point."
There are some positive aspects to the ice melting, he said. Ships could use the Northwest Passage to save time and energy by no longer having to travel through the Panama Canal or around Cape Horn.
"There's also, or course, oil at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean," he said. "Now, the irony of that is kind of clear, but the fact that we are opening up the Arctic Ocean does make it more accessible."
The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center Web site, NSIDC.org, publishes a near-real-time image of the Arctic sea ice cover.
By Alan Duke
CNN
The North Pole may be briefly ice-free by September as global warming melts away Arctic sea ice, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
"We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is 'does the North Pole melt out this summer?' and it may well," said the center's senior research scientist, Mark Serreze.
It's a 50-50 bet that the thin Arctic sea ice, which was frozen in autumn, will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said.
The ice retreated to a record level in September when the Northwest Passage, the sea route through the Arctic Ocean, opened briefly for the first time in recorded history.
"What we've seen through the past few decades is the Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and thinner as the system warms up," Serreze said.
Specific weather patterns will determine whether the North Pole's ice cover melts completely this summer, he said.
"Last year, we had sort of a perfect weather pattern to get rid of ice to open up that Northwest Passage," Serreze said. "This year, a different pattern can set up. so maybe we'll preserve some ice there. We're in a wait-and-see mode right now. We'll see what happens."
The brief lack of ice at the top of the globe will not bring any immediate consequences, he said.
"From the viewpoint of the science, the North Pole is just another point in the globe, but it does have this symbolic meaning," Serreze said. "There's supposed to be ice at the North Pole. The fact that we may not have any by the end of this summer could be quite a symbolic change."
Serreze said it's "just another indicator of the disappearing Arctic sea ice cover" but that it is happening so soon is "just astounding to me."
"Five years ago, to think that we'd even be talking about the possibility of the North Pole melting out in the summer, I would have never thought it," he said.
The melting, however, has been long seen as inevitable, he said.
"If you talked to me or other scientists just a few years ago, we were saying that we might lose all or most of the summer sea ice cover by anywhere from 2050 to 2100," Serreze said. "Then, recently, we kind of revised those estimates, maybe as early as 2030. Now, there's people out there saying it might be even before that. So, things are happening pretty quick up there."
Serreze said those who suggest that the Arctic meltdown is just part of a historic cycle are wrong.
"It's not cyclical at this point. I think we understand the physics behind this pretty well," he said. "We've known for at least 30 years, from our earliest climate models, that it's the Arctic where we'd see the first signs of global warming.
"It's a situation where we hate to say we told you so, but we told you so," he said.
Serreze said the Arctic sea ice will not be the same for decades.
"If we had a few cold years in a row, we could put sort of a temporary damper on it, but I think at this point going to an ice-free Arctic Ocean is inevitable," he said. "I don't think we can stop that now."
Reduced greenhouse gas emissions could "cool things down a bit," he said.
"It would recover fairly quickly, but it's just not going to happen for a while," he said. "I think we're committed at this point."
There are some positive aspects to the ice melting, he said. Ships could use the Northwest Passage to save time and energy by no longer having to travel through the Panama Canal or around Cape Horn.
"There's also, or course, oil at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean," he said. "Now, the irony of that is kind of clear, but the fact that we are opening up the Arctic Ocean does make it more accessible."
The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center Web site, NSIDC.org, publishes a near-real-time image of the Arctic sea ice cover.
Argentine glacier sheds ice in rare winter breakup
Wed Jul 9, 2008 2:51pm EDT
Reuters
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Part of Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier collapsed on Wednesday, the first time large chunks of ice have broken off during the southern hemisphere winter.
Park wardens said global warming might be responsible.
The Patagonian glacier known as the "White Giant" is one of Argentina's biggest attractions. The river of ice 18 miles (30 km) long ends in a sheer wall blocking Lago Argentino where large pieces tumble into the water from time to time.
Tourists and locals visited the site in recent days, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare spectacle, but only a few were on the observation deck when the roof of an ice tunnel caved in early on Wednesday, a National Glaciers Park official said.
"It's the first time the glacier's broken in winter (since records began)," park warden Carlos Corvalan said earlier this week, when the glacier started to crack.
Wednesday's rupture occurred after several days of partial break-ups, according to the provincial government's Perito Moreno Web site, www.lupacorp.com/glaciar/us/.
The glacier sheds ice roughly every four years, and the last time big ice chunks fell off was March 2006.
Argentina's Glaciers Park is home to more than 200 glaciers and is the biggest continental ice extension in the world after Antarctica, according to the park's Web site.
(Reporting by Helen Popper and Walter Bianchi, Editing by Anthony Boadle)
Reuters
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Part of Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier collapsed on Wednesday, the first time large chunks of ice have broken off during the southern hemisphere winter.
Park wardens said global warming might be responsible.
The Patagonian glacier known as the "White Giant" is one of Argentina's biggest attractions. The river of ice 18 miles (30 km) long ends in a sheer wall blocking Lago Argentino where large pieces tumble into the water from time to time.
Tourists and locals visited the site in recent days, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare spectacle, but only a few were on the observation deck when the roof of an ice tunnel caved in early on Wednesday, a National Glaciers Park official said.
"It's the first time the glacier's broken in winter (since records began)," park warden Carlos Corvalan said earlier this week, when the glacier started to crack.
Wednesday's rupture occurred after several days of partial break-ups, according to the provincial government's Perito Moreno Web site, www.lupacorp.com/glaciar/us/.
The glacier sheds ice roughly every four years, and the last time big ice chunks fell off was March 2006.
Argentina's Glaciers Park is home to more than 200 glaciers and is the biggest continental ice extension in the world after Antarctica, according to the park's Web site.
(Reporting by Helen Popper and Walter Bianchi, Editing by Anthony Boadle)
North Pole ice cap melting faster than ever
August 28, 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Arctic ice cap keeps melting under the effects of global warming and in August saw its second largest summer shrinkage since satellite observations began 30 years ago, US scientists said.
Measurements on August 26 showed an ice cap of 5.26 million square kilometers (2.03 million square miles), just below the 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles) observed on 21 September 2005, making it the second biggest summer Arctic ice-cap melt in history, said the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
Since the start of August, the Boulder, Colorado-based center said, the Arctic polar cap shrank by 2.06 million square kilometers (0.8 million square miles).
The melting is so fast and extensive it could shrink the ice cap to below the 4.25 million square kilometers (1.64 million square miles) reached in the summer of 2007, the smallest it has ever been observed by satellites, the center said.
Since the end of the Arctic summer and the start of the freezing autumn is several weeks away, it said, the ice cap could dwindle even more than it did in 2007.
At the end of northern hemisphere summer 2007, the Arctic ice cap was 40 percent smaller than the average 7.23 million square kilometers (2.8 million square miles) observed in 1979-2000, the NSIDC said.
The North Pole melting season begins in mid-June. The ice cap shrinks to its smallest area by mid-September and grows the most in winter by mid-March.
"The bottom line, however, is that the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent characterizing the past decade continues," the Center said in a report.
The North Pole itself could even become free of ice by September for the first time in modern history, setting a new milestone in the effects of global warming on the Arctic ice shelf, NSIDC glaciologist Mark Serreze told AFP in late June.
"We could have no ice at the North Pole at the end of this summer. And the reason here is that the North Pole area right now is covered with very thin ice, and this ice we call 'first-year ice,' the ice that tends to melt out in the summer," he explained.
Serrreze said the possibility the ice cap could vanish stood at 50 percent.
If it does happen in September, he added, "it's possible that ships could sail from Alaska right to the North Pole".
The Arctic has been free of ice in the geologic history of the Earth, but never in modern history, Serreze said.
"Clearly, if you look over what we have seen in the past three years and where we were headed, we are in ... this long-term decline and we may have no ice at all in the Arctic Ocean in summer by 2030 or so," he added.
Not long ago, he said, the summer disappearance of the Arctic ice was predicted to happen between 2050 and 2100.
The NSIDC said the receding North Pole ice sheet was chiefly caused by the melting of ice in the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaskan coast, and the East Siberian Seas, off the coast of eastern Russia.
The Chukchi ice sheet is one of the natural habitats of the polar bear, where it hunts for seals, and its disappearance is a direct threat to the animal's survival.
The vanishing summer polar ice cap, however, also opens up the fabled Northwest Passage that winds through the northern Canadian islands and links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Shipping routes using the Northwest Passage would spare very long detours through the Panama Canal and around South America's Cape Horn.
An ice-free North Pole would also expose untold wealth of natural resources, including oil and natural gas, locked up beneath the Arctic Ocean waters, which Canada and Russia are already eagerly preparing to exploit.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Arctic ice cap keeps melting under the effects of global warming and in August saw its second largest summer shrinkage since satellite observations began 30 years ago, US scientists said.
Measurements on August 26 showed an ice cap of 5.26 million square kilometers (2.03 million square miles), just below the 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles) observed on 21 September 2005, making it the second biggest summer Arctic ice-cap melt in history, said the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
Since the start of August, the Boulder, Colorado-based center said, the Arctic polar cap shrank by 2.06 million square kilometers (0.8 million square miles).
The melting is so fast and extensive it could shrink the ice cap to below the 4.25 million square kilometers (1.64 million square miles) reached in the summer of 2007, the smallest it has ever been observed by satellites, the center said.
Since the end of the Arctic summer and the start of the freezing autumn is several weeks away, it said, the ice cap could dwindle even more than it did in 2007.
At the end of northern hemisphere summer 2007, the Arctic ice cap was 40 percent smaller than the average 7.23 million square kilometers (2.8 million square miles) observed in 1979-2000, the NSIDC said.
The North Pole melting season begins in mid-June. The ice cap shrinks to its smallest area by mid-September and grows the most in winter by mid-March.
"The bottom line, however, is that the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent characterizing the past decade continues," the Center said in a report.
The North Pole itself could even become free of ice by September for the first time in modern history, setting a new milestone in the effects of global warming on the Arctic ice shelf, NSIDC glaciologist Mark Serreze told AFP in late June.
"We could have no ice at the North Pole at the end of this summer. And the reason here is that the North Pole area right now is covered with very thin ice, and this ice we call 'first-year ice,' the ice that tends to melt out in the summer," he explained.
Serrreze said the possibility the ice cap could vanish stood at 50 percent.
If it does happen in September, he added, "it's possible that ships could sail from Alaska right to the North Pole".
The Arctic has been free of ice in the geologic history of the Earth, but never in modern history, Serreze said.
"Clearly, if you look over what we have seen in the past three years and where we were headed, we are in ... this long-term decline and we may have no ice at all in the Arctic Ocean in summer by 2030 or so," he added.
Not long ago, he said, the summer disappearance of the Arctic ice was predicted to happen between 2050 and 2100.
The NSIDC said the receding North Pole ice sheet was chiefly caused by the melting of ice in the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaskan coast, and the East Siberian Seas, off the coast of eastern Russia.
The Chukchi ice sheet is one of the natural habitats of the polar bear, where it hunts for seals, and its disappearance is a direct threat to the animal's survival.
The vanishing summer polar ice cap, however, also opens up the fabled Northwest Passage that winds through the northern Canadian islands and links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Shipping routes using the Northwest Passage would spare very long detours through the Panama Canal and around South America's Cape Horn.
An ice-free North Pole would also expose untold wealth of natural resources, including oil and natural gas, locked up beneath the Arctic Ocean waters, which Canada and Russia are already eagerly preparing to exploit.
Monday, September 15, 2008
99K House Begins Construction
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.20.08
Design & Architecture
It was a neat idea: a competition to design a simple, economical 1400 square foot house that will "use sustainable building practices and materials with a special concern for affordability, longevity, energy savings benefits, and appropriateness for the hot, humid Houston climate" for less than US$99,000. It was sponsored by the Rice Design Alliance and the AIA Houston Chapter. Jurors included TreeHugger faves Rocio Romero and David Lake. And the winners are: Robert Humble, Joel Egan, Brian Spencer, Owen Richards, Tom Mulica and Kate Cudney with Hybrid/ORA of Seattle, Washington.
99khouse axo photo
The winners note on their board: The compact form and core creates a home that easily adapts to the needs of the cocupants and site. The stacked plan accommodates 1 to 4 bedroom and converts easily to two 600 SF duplex unites. The compact envelope reduces first costs and energy consumption.
99khouse exterior photo
The four square plan, screen porch , front to back circulation and horizontal slat siding reflect the vernacular housing of the region, provide shade and allow for natural cross ventilation.
99K house plans photo
::99K House via Designboom; see the other entries at ::Jetson Green
Design & Architecture
It was a neat idea: a competition to design a simple, economical 1400 square foot house that will "use sustainable building practices and materials with a special concern for affordability, longevity, energy savings benefits, and appropriateness for the hot, humid Houston climate" for less than US$99,000. It was sponsored by the Rice Design Alliance and the AIA Houston Chapter. Jurors included TreeHugger faves Rocio Romero and David Lake. And the winners are: Robert Humble, Joel Egan, Brian Spencer, Owen Richards, Tom Mulica and Kate Cudney with Hybrid/ORA of Seattle, Washington.
99khouse axo photo
The winners note on their board: The compact form and core creates a home that easily adapts to the needs of the cocupants and site. The stacked plan accommodates 1 to 4 bedroom and converts easily to two 600 SF duplex unites. The compact envelope reduces first costs and energy consumption.
99khouse exterior photo
The four square plan, screen porch , front to back circulation and horizontal slat siding reflect the vernacular housing of the region, provide shade and allow for natural cross ventilation.
99K house plans photo
::99K House via Designboom; see the other entries at ::Jetson Green
eBook Review: Simple Solar Homesteading (or How to Build a Solar Home For $2000)
by Kristin Underwood, San Diego, CA on 09. 9.08
Science & Technology (solar)
LaMar Alexander, is one eco-friendly-building-machine and he's ready to share a few things he's learned along the way in his new ebook, Simple Solar Homesteading. This book is not for just anybody, as the house is small, the appliances are few and while you can get creative in the interior design and layout, there isn't much room for furnishings. Still, for those of you looking to build a vacation home or who don't need a ton of "house," then this guide is a great start in helping you visualize what it would take to build your off-grid dream home in the woods.
At least 12 different projects are included in the book, complete with pictures, step by step instructions, a resource/materials list and costs. Lamar did each of these projects himself on the cheap and if he can do it, you can do it. DIY'ers beware: while all of these projects sound quaint, there is a lot of work to install them and even more involved in maintenance once they are up and running. Even if you aren't planning on building a new home, the tips on building a rainwater catchment system or a solar oven are helpful and could be constructed without building permits or major construction.
While his house is only 400 sq.ft., the pictures make it look cozy and spacious. It took only two weeks to make and roughly 80 to 100 hours for one person. Clearly if you need more space, you could take his basic plans and modify the concept to create more rooms or a slightly larger structure if you need it. Before you get started you will need land and LaMar offers advice on how to purchase homestead land, including how he's purchased several properties from Ebay.
The Book is Full of DIY Advice
He is very honest throughout the book. He offers tips of when to spring for the more expensive items like windows and doors to keep from losing heat and offers tips of when its fine to purchase used items. Other tips include where/how to get items for free, as well as, how to find the best recycled items and ways you can plan ahead to maximize passive solar to heat and cool your new home. It's probably best that you read the book several times, and consult neighbors for advice before beginning as some of the explanations make sense the second or third time around but are not always obvious the first time you read them.
LaMar also suggests you build the home in stages in order to stay out of debt and build only what you need. Its "easy" to add on additions, especially if you plan ahead. His solar panels system, for example, is fairly small and if you have more appliances that you want to use at the same time, there is no reason you couldn't upgrade and add a few more to your array. When designing your home, one interesting point is to remember that some rooms you only use for a few minutes a day, so don't devote all of your space to your kitchen if you're not much for cooking, etc.
What the Book Left Out
Instructions on solar installation, for example, are a little skimpy and probably not optimal though he does offer good advice to try and live with a smaller system and add on at a later time as you upgrade (or purchase that electric car). Also, for many of the items you will need land and you will need approval from local building and planning offices before you can get started. While you can read the book and fumble your way through it, you will more than likely need someone who at least has a little experience building homes.
Not all of these suggestions are good for everyone, such as the solar composter, which involves carrying your waste across the yard to the composter and is good to know before building as not everyone is going to want to go to this length. LaMar doesn't offer suggestions for what might go wrong, or better yet what to do when it does - in this case you are on your own.
Building Your Own Home Brings You Closer to Nature
One nice thing about almost all of these projects are they force you to get closer to the land by caring for your rooster tractor, watch less tv because it wastes electricity generated by your solar panels, or take shorter showers because you have limited hot water. But, to do all of these projects takes a lot of time and responsibility so definitely best to start with one or two projects and get other family members involved.
What do you Learn from Simple Solar Homesteading?
LaMar teaches you step by step how to build a simple cabin, size a solar system for your house, build a solar composting toilet, make a solar batch water heater, make a rainwater and greywater recycling system. Other projects include a solar air food dehydrator, a solar oven, a garden cart (wheelbarrow), a garden compost tumbler, a portable chicken tractor, a root/storm shelter, and drilling a water well all of which are under $50USD to construct.
LaMar's located in Utah so he does have the issue of cold winters and takes this into account when instructing on what to watch out for with batteries and water heaters, for example. Its good to know that a home you build for less than $2000 can withstand cold Utah winters. For the DIY enthusiasts, this guide requires and harnesses a willingness to get creative, reuse materials and live with an "imperfect" house.
Cost of the book: $5USD. Cost of a simple, solar homestead: $2000 USD. Cost of saving the planet: priceless.
Take that $99K House!
More on Home Construction
99K House Begins Construction
Home Grown Home: A Straw Bale Off-Grid Double Wide
How to Green Your House Hunting
A Picture is Worth...Construction of a Straw Bale House, Part 1
Science & Technology (solar)
LaMar Alexander, is one eco-friendly-building-machine and he's ready to share a few things he's learned along the way in his new ebook, Simple Solar Homesteading. This book is not for just anybody, as the house is small, the appliances are few and while you can get creative in the interior design and layout, there isn't much room for furnishings. Still, for those of you looking to build a vacation home or who don't need a ton of "house," then this guide is a great start in helping you visualize what it would take to build your off-grid dream home in the woods.
At least 12 different projects are included in the book, complete with pictures, step by step instructions, a resource/materials list and costs. Lamar did each of these projects himself on the cheap and if he can do it, you can do it. DIY'ers beware: while all of these projects sound quaint, there is a lot of work to install them and even more involved in maintenance once they are up and running. Even if you aren't planning on building a new home, the tips on building a rainwater catchment system or a solar oven are helpful and could be constructed without building permits or major construction.
While his house is only 400 sq.ft., the pictures make it look cozy and spacious. It took only two weeks to make and roughly 80 to 100 hours for one person. Clearly if you need more space, you could take his basic plans and modify the concept to create more rooms or a slightly larger structure if you need it. Before you get started you will need land and LaMar offers advice on how to purchase homestead land, including how he's purchased several properties from Ebay.
The Book is Full of DIY Advice
He is very honest throughout the book. He offers tips of when to spring for the more expensive items like windows and doors to keep from losing heat and offers tips of when its fine to purchase used items. Other tips include where/how to get items for free, as well as, how to find the best recycled items and ways you can plan ahead to maximize passive solar to heat and cool your new home. It's probably best that you read the book several times, and consult neighbors for advice before beginning as some of the explanations make sense the second or third time around but are not always obvious the first time you read them.
LaMar also suggests you build the home in stages in order to stay out of debt and build only what you need. Its "easy" to add on additions, especially if you plan ahead. His solar panels system, for example, is fairly small and if you have more appliances that you want to use at the same time, there is no reason you couldn't upgrade and add a few more to your array. When designing your home, one interesting point is to remember that some rooms you only use for a few minutes a day, so don't devote all of your space to your kitchen if you're not much for cooking, etc.
What the Book Left Out
Instructions on solar installation, for example, are a little skimpy and probably not optimal though he does offer good advice to try and live with a smaller system and add on at a later time as you upgrade (or purchase that electric car). Also, for many of the items you will need land and you will need approval from local building and planning offices before you can get started. While you can read the book and fumble your way through it, you will more than likely need someone who at least has a little experience building homes.
Not all of these suggestions are good for everyone, such as the solar composter, which involves carrying your waste across the yard to the composter and is good to know before building as not everyone is going to want to go to this length. LaMar doesn't offer suggestions for what might go wrong, or better yet what to do when it does - in this case you are on your own.
Building Your Own Home Brings You Closer to Nature
One nice thing about almost all of these projects are they force you to get closer to the land by caring for your rooster tractor, watch less tv because it wastes electricity generated by your solar panels, or take shorter showers because you have limited hot water. But, to do all of these projects takes a lot of time and responsibility so definitely best to start with one or two projects and get other family members involved.
What do you Learn from Simple Solar Homesteading?
LaMar teaches you step by step how to build a simple cabin, size a solar system for your house, build a solar composting toilet, make a solar batch water heater, make a rainwater and greywater recycling system. Other projects include a solar air food dehydrator, a solar oven, a garden cart (wheelbarrow), a garden compost tumbler, a portable chicken tractor, a root/storm shelter, and drilling a water well all of which are under $50USD to construct.
LaMar's located in Utah so he does have the issue of cold winters and takes this into account when instructing on what to watch out for with batteries and water heaters, for example. Its good to know that a home you build for less than $2000 can withstand cold Utah winters. For the DIY enthusiasts, this guide requires and harnesses a willingness to get creative, reuse materials and live with an "imperfect" house.
Cost of the book: $5USD. Cost of a simple, solar homestead: $2000 USD. Cost of saving the planet: priceless.
Take that $99K House!
More on Home Construction
99K House Begins Construction
Home Grown Home: A Straw Bale Off-Grid Double Wide
How to Green Your House Hunting
A Picture is Worth...Construction of a Straw Bale House, Part 1
To slow global warming, install white roofs
Such roofs and reflective pavement in the world's 100 largest cities would have a massive cooling effect, according to data released at California's annual Climate Change Research Conference.
By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2008
Builders have known for decades that white roofs reflect the sun's rays and lower the cost of air conditioning. But now scientists say they have quantified a new benefit: slowing global warming.
If the 100 biggest cities in the world installed white roofs and changed their pavement to more reflective materials -- say, concrete instead of asphalt-based material -- the global cooling effect would be massive, according to data released Tuesday at California's annual Climate Change Research Conference in Sacramento.
Since 2005, the Golden State has required that flat commercial structures have white roofs. Next year, new and retrofitted residential and commercial buildings, with both flat and sloped roofs, will have to install heat-reflecting roofing, as part of an energy-efficient building code.
But the state has yet to pass any rules to encourage cooler pavement on its roads, which are largely coated with heat-absorbing asphalt, a cheap byproduct of oil refining.
According to Hashem Akbari, a physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a 1,000-square-foot roof -- the average size on an American home -- offsets 10 metric tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere if dark-colored shingles or coatings are replaced with white material.
Globally, roofs account for 25% of the surface of most cities, and pavement accounts for about 35%. If all were switched to reflective material in 100 major urban areas, it would offset 44 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases, which have been trapping heat in the atmosphere and altering the climate on a potentially dangerous scale.
That is more than all the countries on Earth emit in a single year. And, with global climate negotiators focused on limiting a rapid increase in emissions, installing cool roofs and pavements would offset more than 10 years of emissions growth, even without slashing industrial pollution.
Akbari's paper, "Global Cooling: Increasing Worldwide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2," to be published in the journal Climatic Change, was written with his colleague Surabi Menon and UC Berkeley physicist Arthur Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy Commission. All three have been associated with the laboratory's Heat Island Group, which has published extensive research on how roofs and pavement raise urban temperatures.
Akbari and Rosenfeld said they will mount an effort to persuade the United Nations to organize major cities to alter their roofing and pavement.
"I call it win-win-win," Akbari said. "First, a cooler environment not only saves energy but improves comfort. Second, cooling a city by a few degrees dramatically reduces smog. And the third win is offsetting global warming."
By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2008
Builders have known for decades that white roofs reflect the sun's rays and lower the cost of air conditioning. But now scientists say they have quantified a new benefit: slowing global warming.
If the 100 biggest cities in the world installed white roofs and changed their pavement to more reflective materials -- say, concrete instead of asphalt-based material -- the global cooling effect would be massive, according to data released Tuesday at California's annual Climate Change Research Conference in Sacramento.
Since 2005, the Golden State has required that flat commercial structures have white roofs. Next year, new and retrofitted residential and commercial buildings, with both flat and sloped roofs, will have to install heat-reflecting roofing, as part of an energy-efficient building code.
But the state has yet to pass any rules to encourage cooler pavement on its roads, which are largely coated with heat-absorbing asphalt, a cheap byproduct of oil refining.
According to Hashem Akbari, a physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a 1,000-square-foot roof -- the average size on an American home -- offsets 10 metric tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere if dark-colored shingles or coatings are replaced with white material.
Globally, roofs account for 25% of the surface of most cities, and pavement accounts for about 35%. If all were switched to reflective material in 100 major urban areas, it would offset 44 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases, which have been trapping heat in the atmosphere and altering the climate on a potentially dangerous scale.
That is more than all the countries on Earth emit in a single year. And, with global climate negotiators focused on limiting a rapid increase in emissions, installing cool roofs and pavements would offset more than 10 years of emissions growth, even without slashing industrial pollution.
Akbari's paper, "Global Cooling: Increasing Worldwide Urban Albedos to Offset CO2," to be published in the journal Climatic Change, was written with his colleague Surabi Menon and UC Berkeley physicist Arthur Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy Commission. All three have been associated with the laboratory's Heat Island Group, which has published extensive research on how roofs and pavement raise urban temperatures.
Akbari and Rosenfeld said they will mount an effort to persuade the United Nations to organize major cities to alter their roofing and pavement.
"I call it win-win-win," Akbari said. "First, a cooler environment not only saves energy but improves comfort. Second, cooling a city by a few degrees dramatically reduces smog. And the third win is offsetting global warming."
Political Action to Government
Think Global, Act Local
What is your local council doing to make your suburb ecologically sustainable? A pipe dream? Check out Mosman Council and then go and get your local Council on board.
Join other Voices
* Environment Victoria organises campaigns to help you get your voice heard
* Sign the Channel 7 Sunrise Petition to support Solar Subsidy Rebates
* Join the Climatez campaign to share your thoughts with your politicians.
Think of others such as Talkback radio and letters to the newspapers.
For political and legislative decisions
These are among the most important aspects of a viable national greenhouse strategy.
* Establish a carbon price to support immediate emission reductions.
* Supplant coal with gas, solar, wind, geothermal, agricultural biomass and ocean tides.
* Encourage local manufacture of electricity to reduce transmission costs.
* Cut subsidies for dirty and uneconomic energy use.
* Tax environmentally irresponsible behaviour .
* End logging of old-growth forests and wood chipping, and rationalise the industry.
* Encourage the invention, manufacture and use of efficient technologies .
* School education that supports ecological awareness and environmental efficiency.
* Mandate best performance standards for buildings, vehicles and appliances.
* Encourage recycling and reduce packaging.
* Retro-fit efficient motors into household and commercial appliances.
* Disconnect stand-by equipment in homes and offices.
* Eliminate wastage in commercial power use and air conditioning.
* Encourage people to work from home or from suburban commercial modules.
* Reduce road construction and replace vehicular traffic with public transport.
* Support hybrid cars and trucks for local as well as long-distance driving.
* Campaign for consumer awareness and changing attitudes.
* Develop a national resilience to the adverse affects of a changing climate.
Though it may take some time to put into place many of these goals could be implemented at once. It is the will of the people armed by the urgency of the situation that will overcome the inevitable resistance.
Scientists and industry groups (including insurance companies and major banks) have been urging the Federal and State Governments to plan for climate change. Labor governments in the Australian States have made some small moves. The Federal Liberal government remains adamant that little needs to be done.
Though the Kyoto agreement has been producing results - by committing 34 countries to reduce greenhouse emissions by 5.2% - this is only delaying the inevitable. Sadly, it is a compromise game to keep the peace - not a solution.
Kyoto is not enough, not by any means.
We have to cut emissions very rapidly by 80% over the next ten to fifteen years!
and even then there will be consequences.
Heat-trapping emissions take time to build up their full effect as the cooler oceans are slow to catch up with the atmosphere. The vertical lines in the graph show the difference between earth temperatures and sea. The best estimate is that there is a 25- to 30-year time lag between greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere and their full heat-trapping potential taking effect. That wipes out any feeling of comfort. It means that most of the increase of 0.8˚C during the last century is not caused by current level of carbon dioxide but by what was in the atmosphere at the end of the 1970s.
Worse, in the last three decades the rate of emissions have increased dramatically with the largest increase in industrial activity, vehicular traffic and mass destruction of rainforests in history. So - on top of the extra heat we are already experiencing there is another 30 years of ever-accelerating warming built into the climate system.
This is why action is now so urgent.
Only governments - Municipal, State and Federal - can take the actions that are required. Only you and I will compel them to do so. Here is how to contact politicians.
The GOOD news is that we can make a difference if we do so NOW.
The BAD news is that we have only a few years to do so.
Lets look at what can be done. In a report to a number of Australia’s leading Companies in 2003 the Allen Consulting Group concluded in Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts for Australia that by early action there would be no loss in GDP with the creation of over 3½ million jobs, and that within 40 years Australia would be about three times wealthier than it is today.
This assumed that within a few years government would encourage business - through subsidies, incentives and penalties - to invest in a wide range of low and zero emission technologies, that would lead to reduced running costs and use of electricity.
Were we to delay for even ten years and then try to reach the same target the economy would be disrupted as electricity prices would have to rise three times to meet the demands of a more urgent situation.
We are now at the moment of greatest "unstable equilibrium" at the top of the curve. Business as usual (the lower blue line) shows how quickly we destroy ourselves. The Current Kyoto strategy leads to the same place, only a little less quickly.
If we act NOW by reducing emissions by 90% over 5 years with draconian legislation we could follow the survival pathway, level off our emissions and the begin to gradually reduce them. Acting now we could reduce emissions while retaining a strong economy.
Each country that can mobilise its politicians should cut emissions to its uttermost. At least then that country will remain prepared and more able to deal with the worst even if the rest sink and fight themselves out of existence.
Before we list the major recommendations prepared from studies in many countries look at Australia's enormous natural advantages. Australia has more natural sources for renewable power than any other country on earth - and most are virtually zero carbon emitters.
Compare electricity costs
* The highest solar radiation.
* the sugar industry could provide 5% of our energy needs. Farming waste could treble that.
* Geothermal sources could supply 800 years of current power use.
* Our extensive coastline is ideal for wave and tidal power.
* Exceptional wind resources.
* Salt-ridden lands can grow plants to regenerate the soil while being used for bio fuels.
Source: Powering Australia’s Future by Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
The ABCSE strategy for a soft landing with deep cuts in carbon emissions is available here. It and the rest of their report may be downloaded from their site. All we have to do is get the Federal Government to implement these ideas. What is surprising is that a sensible program that is being supported by leaders in banking, insurance and industry is opposed only by those making gross profits at this time, being principally the coal, oil and aluminium producers. Do we have to pay them off to get them on side??
Dealing with the short-term problems coming from global warming must be addressed immediately. These cannot wait. Long-term there are a myriad of issues including hunger, poverty, restoration of the lands, water and so on. For the moment saving the planet takes precedence over all of these.
We can do this, and we MUST, if only for the sake of our children.
Click here for what we can do in our personal lives.
Compare electricity costs
Clean coal is far more costly than dirty coal. Wind is also twice the cost. But when we factor in green-house costs from black coal the differences disappear. It is more instructive to examine the previous graph that compares cost of generation against greenhouse emissions for black coal (left) to renewable's (olive) and nuclear (right).
What is your local council doing to make your suburb ecologically sustainable? A pipe dream? Check out Mosman Council and then go and get your local Council on board.
Join other Voices
* Environment Victoria organises campaigns to help you get your voice heard
* Sign the Channel 7 Sunrise Petition to support Solar Subsidy Rebates
* Join the Climatez campaign to share your thoughts with your politicians.
Think of others such as Talkback radio and letters to the newspapers.
For political and legislative decisions
These are among the most important aspects of a viable national greenhouse strategy.
* Establish a carbon price to support immediate emission reductions.
* Supplant coal with gas, solar, wind, geothermal, agricultural biomass and ocean tides.
* Encourage local manufacture of electricity to reduce transmission costs.
* Cut subsidies for dirty and uneconomic energy use.
* Tax environmentally irresponsible behaviour .
* End logging of old-growth forests and wood chipping, and rationalise the industry.
* Encourage the invention, manufacture and use of efficient technologies .
* School education that supports ecological awareness and environmental efficiency.
* Mandate best performance standards for buildings, vehicles and appliances.
* Encourage recycling and reduce packaging.
* Retro-fit efficient motors into household and commercial appliances.
* Disconnect stand-by equipment in homes and offices.
* Eliminate wastage in commercial power use and air conditioning.
* Encourage people to work from home or from suburban commercial modules.
* Reduce road construction and replace vehicular traffic with public transport.
* Support hybrid cars and trucks for local as well as long-distance driving.
* Campaign for consumer awareness and changing attitudes.
* Develop a national resilience to the adverse affects of a changing climate.
Though it may take some time to put into place many of these goals could be implemented at once. It is the will of the people armed by the urgency of the situation that will overcome the inevitable resistance.
Scientists and industry groups (including insurance companies and major banks) have been urging the Federal and State Governments to plan for climate change. Labor governments in the Australian States have made some small moves. The Federal Liberal government remains adamant that little needs to be done.
Though the Kyoto agreement has been producing results - by committing 34 countries to reduce greenhouse emissions by 5.2% - this is only delaying the inevitable. Sadly, it is a compromise game to keep the peace - not a solution.
Kyoto is not enough, not by any means.
We have to cut emissions very rapidly by 80% over the next ten to fifteen years!
and even then there will be consequences.
Heat-trapping emissions take time to build up their full effect as the cooler oceans are slow to catch up with the atmosphere. The vertical lines in the graph show the difference between earth temperatures and sea. The best estimate is that there is a 25- to 30-year time lag between greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere and their full heat-trapping potential taking effect. That wipes out any feeling of comfort. It means that most of the increase of 0.8˚C during the last century is not caused by current level of carbon dioxide but by what was in the atmosphere at the end of the 1970s.
Worse, in the last three decades the rate of emissions have increased dramatically with the largest increase in industrial activity, vehicular traffic and mass destruction of rainforests in history. So - on top of the extra heat we are already experiencing there is another 30 years of ever-accelerating warming built into the climate system.
This is why action is now so urgent.
Only governments - Municipal, State and Federal - can take the actions that are required. Only you and I will compel them to do so. Here is how to contact politicians.
The GOOD news is that we can make a difference if we do so NOW.
The BAD news is that we have only a few years to do so.
Lets look at what can be done. In a report to a number of Australia’s leading Companies in 2003 the Allen Consulting Group concluded in Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts for Australia that by early action there would be no loss in GDP with the creation of over 3½ million jobs, and that within 40 years Australia would be about three times wealthier than it is today.
This assumed that within a few years government would encourage business - through subsidies, incentives and penalties - to invest in a wide range of low and zero emission technologies, that would lead to reduced running costs and use of electricity.
Were we to delay for even ten years and then try to reach the same target the economy would be disrupted as electricity prices would have to rise three times to meet the demands of a more urgent situation.
We are now at the moment of greatest "unstable equilibrium" at the top of the curve. Business as usual (the lower blue line) shows how quickly we destroy ourselves. The Current Kyoto strategy leads to the same place, only a little less quickly.
If we act NOW by reducing emissions by 90% over 5 years with draconian legislation we could follow the survival pathway, level off our emissions and the begin to gradually reduce them. Acting now we could reduce emissions while retaining a strong economy.
Each country that can mobilise its politicians should cut emissions to its uttermost. At least then that country will remain prepared and more able to deal with the worst even if the rest sink and fight themselves out of existence.
Before we list the major recommendations prepared from studies in many countries look at Australia's enormous natural advantages. Australia has more natural sources for renewable power than any other country on earth - and most are virtually zero carbon emitters.
Compare electricity costs
* The highest solar radiation.
* the sugar industry could provide 5% of our energy needs. Farming waste could treble that.
* Geothermal sources could supply 800 years of current power use.
* Our extensive coastline is ideal for wave and tidal power.
* Exceptional wind resources.
* Salt-ridden lands can grow plants to regenerate the soil while being used for bio fuels.
Source: Powering Australia’s Future by Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
The ABCSE strategy for a soft landing with deep cuts in carbon emissions is available here. It and the rest of their report may be downloaded from their site. All we have to do is get the Federal Government to implement these ideas. What is surprising is that a sensible program that is being supported by leaders in banking, insurance and industry is opposed only by those making gross profits at this time, being principally the coal, oil and aluminium producers. Do we have to pay them off to get them on side??
Dealing with the short-term problems coming from global warming must be addressed immediately. These cannot wait. Long-term there are a myriad of issues including hunger, poverty, restoration of the lands, water and so on. For the moment saving the planet takes precedence over all of these.
We can do this, and we MUST, if only for the sake of our children.
Click here for what we can do in our personal lives.
Compare electricity costs
Clean coal is far more costly than dirty coal. Wind is also twice the cost. But when we factor in green-house costs from black coal the differences disappear. It is more instructive to examine the previous graph that compares cost of generation against greenhouse emissions for black coal (left) to renewable's (olive) and nuclear (right).
Personal Actions to stop Global Warming
These are the some of the steps that you CAN take to reduce your personal global warming footprint. They may appear small, but when you share them with your friends and workmates you will, together, make a huge difference. The figures on the left are the approximate kilograms of greenhouse gasses saved per year for each action. Not only will these save tons of pollutants, but you will save also $3,000 a year, minimum!
Below this list we discuss how to get green energy, organisations to join and other actions.
5300
Shift to Green-Power. For answers to questions see below.
3800
Change from your SUV to a hybrid car. Visit the Green Vehicle Guide
2500
Install solar power, and sell your surplus back to the grid. To support rebates.
2000
Replace electric hot water heating with solar, even with electric booster.
1500
Switching off your computer when not in use, especially big ones.
1080
Recycling just half of your household waste
1000
Plant a native tree, long-term potential as it grows. Here is one way to do this.
900
Adjust you winter thermostat down by 2 degrees, and wear a singlet
860
Insulate your roof space and under the floor, minimum 100mm batts`
720
Carpooling for only 2 days a week
700
Walk your kids to school - healthy for both of you.
700
If you have more than one car, drive the one with the smaller engine.
700
Walk, bike and bus or train instead of car. Information at TravelSmart website
700
Use a fan or evaporative coolers in summer, not air conditioning
640
Use a clothesline instead of a dryer, savings less if it is a new dryer.
600
Double-glaze windows.
600
Weather-strip windows and doors to prevent air leaks
600
All machines to be high efficiency, check out the Energy Rating website
500
Wrap an insulation blanket around your water heater, adjust its temperature
500
Turn off the second drinks frig
400
Put fish tank pump on a timer. Experiment and test water result at pool shop
500
Using less hot water by taking 5 minute showers rather than ten minutes.
455
Reduce rubbish 25% (less packaging, reusables, not disposables, recycling)
450
Don’t use your dishwasher at all, wash up by hand.
450
Turn off appliances at the wall so they are not on ‘stand-by’. Check here.
350
Keep the air filter in your car clean – check monthly
300
Turn off 5 lights in hallways and rooms when you’re not in them.
400
Placing air conditioning unit out of the sun and in the shade
450
For ten CFL fluorescent globes instead of incandescent, see more here..
300
Wash clothes in warm or cold water, not hot
160
Regularly clean the air filter in your air conditioner
100
Run your dishwasher or washing machine only with a full load
10
Each appliance left on stand-by, especially TV
10+
Turn off or fix dripping taps - water costs money
8
Recycle a dozen aluminium cans. Alcoa etc use 20% of total Australian power
8
Turn off your mobile phone charger when it isn’t charging
8
Use a reusable bag every time you go shopping
6
Let hot food cool down before putting it into the fridge
3
Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth
These lifestyle decisions would save about 32 tonnes a year for each person.
If every Australian did these things we would (as a country) be
saving 640 million tons each year.
Get Green Energy:
Every one of us CAN actually do something to help stop global warming.
And it’s SO EASY. Here is a real-life account of how one person helped
Flick the Switch to Green – A Personal Account
Over 100,000 Australian households and businesses have already MADE A DIFFERENCE and chosen to switch to Green Energy sources, ie those sources which do not add to greenhouse gas emissions, such as wind, hydro, solar and biomass generated power. YOU CAN too. Here’s how to DO IT…
Check out the types of green energy available in your area.
Pick up the phone and call your Green Energy provider of choice. You can either switch immediately or arrange to receive a quote.
An example of HOW TO SWITCH TO GREEN ENERGY is given for Energy Australia.
Examples of HOW TO OBTAIN A QUOTE FOR GREEN ENERGY: click for Origin Energy and TruEnergy.
Some people have misconceptions: Click below for answers
Does Green power really come from a true green energy source?
Do we have to install solar cells on our roof to apply? - and other misconceptions.
Reduce Transport Emissions:
By choosing a greener vehicle, you can make a real difference.
The Federal government’s Green Vehicle Guide helps you by rating new vehicles based on greenhouse and air pollution emissions.
Can’t get a new car right away? Neutralise Your Carbon Emissions
Sign up with Greenfleet to have the equivalent number of trees planted for the CO2 you emit. Sign your business up, or get your employer to do so.
Change over to LPG that provides about 8% more energy than petrol (as well as lower cost). However, you will attain better fuel consumption only if the engine is optimized for LPG fuel. Reason: LPG has a lower density, intakes less air and thus there is a decrease of power. If all Australians swapped to a hybrid car it would save 76 million tons of CO2 pa.
If everyone keeps idling their cars for 10 minutes a day, it will cost 44,000 kg of carbon.
At the office:
See that lights are turned off when you go home, and ask cleaners to do the same, or install automatic switching to avoid lighting empty spaces for much of the night.
Turn off computers, photocopiers and printers at the wall at the end of the day.
Organisations to Join:
Here follows a list of groups that work across Australia:
Australian Conservation Foundation works towards a society which protects, sustains and restores the environment, and provides healthy air, land, water, and biological diversity; sustainable cities and industries; a nuclear-free Australia; and action to protect the global environment.
The Australian Rainforest Conservation Foundation was founded in 1982, as a national, non-government organisation with headquarters in Brisbane. Its goal, through research, lobbying, public education and grass-roots support, is to protect, repair and restore the rainforests of Australia and to maximise the protection of forest biodiversity.
Bush Heritage is a national, independent, non-profit organisation committed to preserving Australia's biodiversity by protecting the bush. It is Australia's most widely supported national organisation dedicated to protecting species and habitats through the creation of reserves on private land.
Climate Action Network Australia has the aim of globally tackling the planet’s most challenging environmental problems.
Critical Mass organises on the last Friday of every month, in hundreds of cities worldwide, cyclists, bladers and boarders for a rolling celebration of non-motorised transport
Conservation Volunteers Australia involves the community in conservation projects in urban, regional and remote Australia ranging from tree planting; seed collection; endangered species protection; weed control; flora and fauna surveys; walking trail construction; fencing and environmental monitoring.
Earthwatch Australia helps you to go to amazing places while helping scientists understand the effect our behaviour is having on the planet.
Ecosphere aims to provide an affordable, high quality design resource for small business and non-profit organisations. 10% of proceeds go to an environmental organisation of the customer's choice. Ecosphere also offer a substantial discount on website design for environmental organisations.
The Environment Portal provides access to online services and information provided by Australian, State and Local Governments. Information is organised by seven broad environmental themes - Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Coasts and Oceans, Environment Protection, Heritage, Inland Waters, and Land categories.
Environment Online is the initiative of some 20 major environmental advocacy organisations. They are known as the Mittagong Forum enabling communication and information for people with a passion for environmental conservation and sustainability.
Environment Defenders Office in each State and Territory are dedicated to protecting the environment in the public interest. They provide legal representation and advice, take an active role in environmental law reform and policy formulation, and offer a significant education program designed to facilitate public participation.
Environs Australia is the Local Government Environment Network that aims to advance, support and strengthen the participation of Australian Local Governments in the worldwide movement of councils towards local sustainability.
Friends of the Earth is a community-based activist organisation which works towards an ecologically sustainable and socially equitable society.
Global Energy Network works to bring a global strategy for energy production and to aid world peace and sustainable development.
Greenpeace campaigns for national environmental issues.
Native Forest Network is a global, autonomous collective of forest activists, indigenous peoples, conservation biologists, and non-governmental organizations. It functions on a consensus basis and is non-violent, non-hierarchical, and non-patriarchal.
The National River Health Program was established in 1993 to improve the management of Australia's rivers and floodplains for their long-term health and ecological sustainability.
The Wilderness Society is a national, community-based, environmental organisation whose mission is to protect, promote and secure the future of wilderness and other high conservation areas.
Woodchip Boycott is a campaign that relies on the consumer and investment power of ordinary people to take change to the "marketplace".
World Wide Fund for Nature Australia is working with communities, governments, individuals and businesses to conserve the biological diversity of Australia and the Oceania region.
Below this list we discuss how to get green energy, organisations to join and other actions.
5300
Shift to Green-Power. For answers to questions see below.
3800
Change from your SUV to a hybrid car. Visit the Green Vehicle Guide
2500
Install solar power, and sell your surplus back to the grid. To support rebates.
2000
Replace electric hot water heating with solar, even with electric booster.
1500
Switching off your computer when not in use, especially big ones.
1080
Recycling just half of your household waste
1000
Plant a native tree, long-term potential as it grows. Here is one way to do this.
900
Adjust you winter thermostat down by 2 degrees, and wear a singlet
860
Insulate your roof space and under the floor, minimum 100mm batts`
720
Carpooling for only 2 days a week
700
Walk your kids to school - healthy for both of you.
700
If you have more than one car, drive the one with the smaller engine.
700
Walk, bike and bus or train instead of car. Information at TravelSmart website
700
Use a fan or evaporative coolers in summer, not air conditioning
640
Use a clothesline instead of a dryer, savings less if it is a new dryer.
600
Double-glaze windows.
600
Weather-strip windows and doors to prevent air leaks
600
All machines to be high efficiency, check out the Energy Rating website
500
Wrap an insulation blanket around your water heater, adjust its temperature
500
Turn off the second drinks frig
400
Put fish tank pump on a timer. Experiment and test water result at pool shop
500
Using less hot water by taking 5 minute showers rather than ten minutes.
455
Reduce rubbish 25% (less packaging, reusables, not disposables, recycling)
450
Don’t use your dishwasher at all, wash up by hand.
450
Turn off appliances at the wall so they are not on ‘stand-by’. Check here.
350
Keep the air filter in your car clean – check monthly
300
Turn off 5 lights in hallways and rooms when you’re not in them.
400
Placing air conditioning unit out of the sun and in the shade
450
For ten CFL fluorescent globes instead of incandescent, see more here..
300
Wash clothes in warm or cold water, not hot
160
Regularly clean the air filter in your air conditioner
100
Run your dishwasher or washing machine only with a full load
10
Each appliance left on stand-by, especially TV
10+
Turn off or fix dripping taps - water costs money
8
Recycle a dozen aluminium cans. Alcoa etc use 20% of total Australian power
8
Turn off your mobile phone charger when it isn’t charging
8
Use a reusable bag every time you go shopping
6
Let hot food cool down before putting it into the fridge
3
Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth
These lifestyle decisions would save about 32 tonnes a year for each person.
If every Australian did these things we would (as a country) be
saving 640 million tons each year.
Get Green Energy:
Every one of us CAN actually do something to help stop global warming.
And it’s SO EASY. Here is a real-life account of how one person helped
Flick the Switch to Green – A Personal Account
Over 100,000 Australian households and businesses have already MADE A DIFFERENCE and chosen to switch to Green Energy sources, ie those sources which do not add to greenhouse gas emissions, such as wind, hydro, solar and biomass generated power. YOU CAN too. Here’s how to DO IT…
Check out the types of green energy available in your area.
Pick up the phone and call your Green Energy provider of choice. You can either switch immediately or arrange to receive a quote.
An example of HOW TO SWITCH TO GREEN ENERGY is given for Energy Australia.
Examples of HOW TO OBTAIN A QUOTE FOR GREEN ENERGY: click for Origin Energy and TruEnergy.
Some people have misconceptions: Click below for answers
Does Green power really come from a true green energy source?
Do we have to install solar cells on our roof to apply? - and other misconceptions.
Reduce Transport Emissions:
By choosing a greener vehicle, you can make a real difference.
The Federal government’s Green Vehicle Guide helps you by rating new vehicles based on greenhouse and air pollution emissions.
Can’t get a new car right away? Neutralise Your Carbon Emissions
Sign up with Greenfleet to have the equivalent number of trees planted for the CO2 you emit. Sign your business up, or get your employer to do so.
Change over to LPG that provides about 8% more energy than petrol (as well as lower cost). However, you will attain better fuel consumption only if the engine is optimized for LPG fuel. Reason: LPG has a lower density, intakes less air and thus there is a decrease of power. If all Australians swapped to a hybrid car it would save 76 million tons of CO2 pa.
If everyone keeps idling their cars for 10 minutes a day, it will cost 44,000 kg of carbon.
At the office:
See that lights are turned off when you go home, and ask cleaners to do the same, or install automatic switching to avoid lighting empty spaces for much of the night.
Turn off computers, photocopiers and printers at the wall at the end of the day.
Organisations to Join:
Here follows a list of groups that work across Australia:
Australian Conservation Foundation works towards a society which protects, sustains and restores the environment, and provides healthy air, land, water, and biological diversity; sustainable cities and industries; a nuclear-free Australia; and action to protect the global environment.
The Australian Rainforest Conservation Foundation was founded in 1982, as a national, non-government organisation with headquarters in Brisbane. Its goal, through research, lobbying, public education and grass-roots support, is to protect, repair and restore the rainforests of Australia and to maximise the protection of forest biodiversity.
Bush Heritage is a national, independent, non-profit organisation committed to preserving Australia's biodiversity by protecting the bush. It is Australia's most widely supported national organisation dedicated to protecting species and habitats through the creation of reserves on private land.
Climate Action Network Australia has the aim of globally tackling the planet’s most challenging environmental problems.
Critical Mass organises on the last Friday of every month, in hundreds of cities worldwide, cyclists, bladers and boarders for a rolling celebration of non-motorised transport
Conservation Volunteers Australia involves the community in conservation projects in urban, regional and remote Australia ranging from tree planting; seed collection; endangered species protection; weed control; flora and fauna surveys; walking trail construction; fencing and environmental monitoring.
Earthwatch Australia helps you to go to amazing places while helping scientists understand the effect our behaviour is having on the planet.
Ecosphere aims to provide an affordable, high quality design resource for small business and non-profit organisations. 10% of proceeds go to an environmental organisation of the customer's choice. Ecosphere also offer a substantial discount on website design for environmental organisations.
The Environment Portal provides access to online services and information provided by Australian, State and Local Governments. Information is organised by seven broad environmental themes - Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Coasts and Oceans, Environment Protection, Heritage, Inland Waters, and Land categories.
Environment Online is the initiative of some 20 major environmental advocacy organisations. They are known as the Mittagong Forum enabling communication and information for people with a passion for environmental conservation and sustainability.
Environment Defenders Office in each State and Territory are dedicated to protecting the environment in the public interest. They provide legal representation and advice, take an active role in environmental law reform and policy formulation, and offer a significant education program designed to facilitate public participation.
Environs Australia is the Local Government Environment Network that aims to advance, support and strengthen the participation of Australian Local Governments in the worldwide movement of councils towards local sustainability.
Friends of the Earth is a community-based activist organisation which works towards an ecologically sustainable and socially equitable society.
Global Energy Network works to bring a global strategy for energy production and to aid world peace and sustainable development.
Greenpeace campaigns for national environmental issues.
Native Forest Network is a global, autonomous collective of forest activists, indigenous peoples, conservation biologists, and non-governmental organizations. It functions on a consensus basis and is non-violent, non-hierarchical, and non-patriarchal.
The National River Health Program was established in 1993 to improve the management of Australia's rivers and floodplains for their long-term health and ecological sustainability.
The Wilderness Society is a national, community-based, environmental organisation whose mission is to protect, promote and secure the future of wilderness and other high conservation areas.
Woodchip Boycott is a campaign that relies on the consumer and investment power of ordinary people to take change to the "marketplace".
World Wide Fund for Nature Australia is working with communities, governments, individuals and businesses to conserve the biological diversity of Australia and the Oceania region.
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