If we hear nothing else all year, let's hear this"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q

April 1, 2008

April 1st is "Energy Wasting Day"

A Great Idea, and A Great Video...

http://www.energywastingday.com/

It seems like many people, especially in the big media, are obsessed with whether or not that hybrid/plug in hybrid/electric car/etc will "pay for itself" with fuel savings. The latest example is the (misleading) "The payoff for plug-in hybrids: 95 years?".

Coal Power's Deja-Meltdown

By Denis Du Bois

03/12/08

The government's futuristic "clean coal" power project has joined the long list of scuttled coal plants. The death spiral of coal energy is reminiscent of the 1980s popular blockade of nuclear plant construction. Investors and even the Bush administration are backing out.

A group of influential green professionals are pushing for activism to go viral. Keeping themselves deliberately incognito and going by the name of The Alarmists they are proposing to make some serious noise about Global Warming. Not just at one event, but at 11 am on the 11th of every month for one minute. They say, "This is a state of global emergency. According to the IPCC, we must cut emissions within eight years, to avoid catastrophic global warming. There is nowhere near enough action yet to make that happen. We need to set off the world's alarms. Join in. It could be the alarm on your phone, in your home, in your car. You could gather some friends to make some noise. Organise a flash mob. Schedule a company fire drill. Borrow a vintage air raid siren... Be creative. Raise the alarm." :: Alarmism

Thought For Today....

Found in the current issue of Metropolis magazine...

Climate Watchers Place Own Big Bet On Alaska's Thaw
March 7, 2008; Page B1

Every winter since 1917, people in Nenana, a village 55 miles southwest of Fairbanks, have wagered on the exact moment that the ice breaks up on the nearby Tanana River. For the 450 townsfolk, the annual Alaska ice lottery, called the Nenana Ice Classic, is a financial lifeline that offers some their year's only employment. Winners last year shared a jackpot of $303,272.

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Good Video... 

This is a wonderful and insightful report on the current state of mixing "sustainability" with existing businesses. It is one thing to start up a sustainable business, and it is something else entirely to take an existing business and try to re-design/retrofit it to be more sustainable. The problem is akin to the "green" building problem... building a new "green" building is a lot easier than "greening" an existing one.

 ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2008) — A new study sheds light on the relationship between women who smoke while pregnant--or are exposed to second-hand smoke--and an increased risk of SIDS to their babies.

Researchers at McMaster University have found a mechanism that explains why an infant's ability to respond to oxygen deprivation after birth--or a hypoxic episode--is dramatically compromised by exposure to nicotine in the womb, even light to moderate amounts.
"While cigarette smoke contains many different compounds, we found there is a direct impact of one component, nicotine, on the ability of certain cells to detect and respond to oxygen deprivation," says Josef Buttigieg, lead author and a PhD graduate student in the department of Biology. "When a baby is lying face down in bed, for example, it should sense a reduction in oxygen and move its head. But this arousal mechanism doesn't work as it should in babies exposed to nicotine during pregnancy."
The research, which was conducted on laboratory rats in collaboration with Dr. Alison Holloway, explains the critical role that catecholamines--a group of hormones released by the adrenal glands--play in a baby's transition to the outside world.
During birth, the baby is exposed to low oxygen, which signals the adrenal glands to release the catecholamines, which contain adrenaline, or the 'fight or flight' hormone, explains Buttigieg.
It is these catecholamines that signal the baby's lungs to reabsorb fluid, to take its first breath, and help the heart to beat more efficiently. And for some months after birth, the adrenal gland still acts as an oxygen sensor, aiding in the baby's arousal and breathing responses during periods of apnea or asphyxia. But the ability to release catecholamines during these moments--a critical event in the adaptation of life outside the womb--is impaired due to nicotine exposure.
"At birth, the nervous control of the adrenal gland is not active and so a baby relies on these direct oxygen sensing mechanisms to release catecholamines," says Colin Nurse, academic advisor on the study and a professor in the department of Biology. "But nicotine causes premature loss of these mechanisms, which would normally occur later in development after nervous control is established. Thus, the infant becomes much more vulnerable to SIDS."
The findings are published online in the journal Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and will appear in the May 2008 print issue.
The study was funded in part by the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Focus on Stroke.
Adapted from materials provided by McMaster University.

EMF: Richard Box's Graphic Demonstrations

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 02.11.08
It is always a controversial subject here. Are EMFs harmful? Are WiFi routers and cellphones frying our brains? While the scientific consensus in North America suggests we need not worry, the art of Richard Box gives us serious pause.

Rising from stormy seas, the giant turbine towers of an offshore wind farm seem almost miraculous to the untrained eye. But how do you put them there?

Solar and Wind Powered Street Lights In Tokyo

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? Her e is an excerpt from his new book.

"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course"

I was just thinking about the fact that the steel industry here in Cleveland has been declining (okay dying) for decades, well, we do call ourselves a "rust-belt city, don't we....

.....and I was thinking about our possible future in terms of wind tower, turbine, blade, turbine housings, etc. manufacturing.

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.23.08

 

Green-wash (green'wash', -wôsh') – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

By Daniel M. Kammen 12/11/07