It’s Jam Band Friday..Yippe…Yahoo – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EapcVSB7U4U

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http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/tips/index.html

www.consumerenergycenter.org / tips CONSUMER TIPS to $AVE ENERGY AND MONEY Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency are two sides of the same coin. Most people think they mean the same thing, but they don’t. Energy conservation means reducing the level of energy use by turning down a thermostat, or turning off a light, or turning up the temperature of your refrigerator. Energy efficiency means getting the same job done while using less energy. Efficiency is usually done by replacing an older, less efficient appliance with a new one. In this section, you’ll find both energy conservation and efficiency tips for your home, office, school, car or truck, and other areas. You’ll learn how to get your home ready for summer or winter. You’ll learn how to be prepared in case the power goes out. And you’ll learn some interesting facts about energy. SUMMERTIME TIPS Keeping Yourself and Others Cool – Tips for Saving Lives During High Heat Staying Cool in the Kitchen – Tips & Summertime Recipes Getting Your Home Ready for Summer Summertime Home Energy Tips If the Lights Go Out in Your Home in the Summer Summertime Energy Tips for Office & Small Business Energy Tips In Spanish flexibilidad en su poder Being Prepared for Power Outages in Your Home Portable Electric Generator Safety in Your Home WINTERTIME TIPS Getting Your Home Ready for Winter Winter Time Home Energy Tips If the Lights Go Out in Your Home in the Winter Winter Holiday Home Energy Tips Wintertime Energy Tips for Office & Small Business Being Prepared If the Lights Go Out in Your Business Energy Commission Process Energy Office – Industry, Agriculture and Water TIPS FOR YOUR SCHOOL Energy Tips for Schools TIPS FOR YOUR VEHICLE Energy Tips for Your Vehicle

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More next week.

He is so good- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZzvTQiy4w

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It is jam band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD2zkvE_uQg

Well it has started. The SUN came back on and the nearly 3 year solar “quiet” has ended. The next 11 years could be some of the most fascinating and horrific witnessed since WWII, WWI, or the Civil War here in America. I am not jumping for joy or anything but we are going to get closer to the Sun at the same time and our tip towards the Sun…what we call summer is going to “tip” a little more, so it will probably get hot pretty fast. This isn’t bad for a warm up so to speak…But if you want to close your eyes and pretend it isn’t happening you can’t do better then Kelly Clarkson.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4sJMcgeDe0&feature=related

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http://www.theage.com.au/world/russia-bans-grain-exports-as-drought-consumes-crops-20100806-11ohl.html

Russia bans grain exports as drought consumes crops

ANDREW KRAMER, MOSCOW

August 7, 2010

Heatwave, drought and now the wildfires, like this one in the western region of Ryazan, are the worst in Russia’s modern history. Picture: AFP

RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has banned all exports of grain after millions of hectares of wheat have withered in a severe drought, driving up prices around the world.

Russia is suffering the worst heatwave since record-keeping began here, more than 130 years ago.

”We need to prevent a rise in domestic food prices, we need to preserve the number of cattle and build up reserves for next year,” Mr Putin said in a meeting broadcast on television. ”As the saying goes: reserves don’t make your pocket heavy.”

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Must take music break.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7FWZcwotM:}

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The abrupt ban – earlier this week, a deputy agricultural minister had said no such measure would be taken – shows Mr Putin retains the right to marshal state power in defence of Russian interests.

Russia’s emergencies minister has warned that the wildfires raging in the west of the country could release radioactive particles from land contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Sergei Shoygu said laboratories were monitoring a potential release of contaminants in Bryansk region, on the border with Ukraine. The region was sprayed with caesium-137 and strontium-90 after the Chernobyl explosion in 1986.

”In the event of a fire there, radionuclides could rise together with combustion particles, and a new zone of pollution will appear,” he said.

The wheat export ban is widely seen as a move to address rising resentment over the heatwave and the fires.

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Go to the article to read the rest. I can’t go on. More next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svxP2LjBg_4:}

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Jack Lundee asked if he could do a guest post. I am not fond of algae as a fuel source. Well, I am neutral about it. I think it is counter productive to continue to lust after liquid fuels. Still given the second article I list it is plausible as they say on Myth Busters.

http://everythingleft.wordpress.com/

Fed-Funded Algae Fuel Research making a Strong Comeback

Algae fuel is a biofuel, which is derivative of algae. In 1978, Former President Jimmy Carter pulled the trigger on a 25 million dollar research project into algae fuel production. To make a long story short, the project was somewhat unsuccessful because of the inability of scientists to find a way to make the organisms produce lipids gifted enough to be turned into biofuels, that is, in a high volume, low cost style.

One of the biggest concerns during early research was the fact that burning this algae fuel still released CO2 into the air. Nonetheless, the burning varies much so in that it doesn’t produce any new CO2 emissions like that of fossil fuels. This was a minor concern however, as the fuel was never really able to be inexpensively mass produced.

Now, there are definite signs of hope in the field of algae-based biofuels, as a number of firms and fortune 500 companies are delving into the research, investing billions of dollars. Alternative energy and carbon emission reduction efforts are widespread, funded by large collaborate organizations like the Clinton Global Initiative.  Fathered by ex-President Bill Clinton and Doug Band ( http://politicalinsider.blogs.heraldtribune.com/10498/clinton-heaps-praise-on-band-family/ ),  the CGI ( http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/ )  has made large strides in the San Francisco Bay area, reducing fleet emissions in large numbers. Even more recently, Google made an astounding investment of $38 million dollars into wind farm production.

Ultimately, Exxon Mobile has been one of the largest cooperators/investors into algae-based biofuels, setting aside nearly $600 million dollars as of 2009. In their quest for alternative energy, they joined with Synthetic Genomics Inc., to research and develop next-generation biofuels produced from sunlight.[ http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/14/14greenwire-exxon-sinks-600m-into-algae-based-biofuels-in-33562.html ]

But why algae? Here are some major reasons why algae would be a great substitute:

• Grows in a wide range of climates
• Lower water intensity than corn or cellulosic ethanols
• Ability to potentially mitigate CO2
• Liquid fuels formed are the only one of their byproducts
• Byproducts are potentially the most valuable

All in all, the 40 percent lipid yield of some species (according to some studies) can produce up to 10,000 gallons of oil per annum (1 acre). This is far more productive than Soy or cellulosic ethanol, which range between 50 to 2700 gallons. [ http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html ]

As in any study, there are drawbacks, and for most companies, it’s the failure to indentify the right strains of algae for high lipid concentration. Also, there are elements like contamination or predation, and dealing with the complicatedness of de-watering and oil withdrawal; all processes which have yet to be perfected.

On July 1, the department of energy (DOE) announced the investment of $24 million for approximately 3 different research groups. Their mission is to target all these obstacles in the mass production of algae-based biofuels. Sustainable Algal Biofuels Consortium, Consortium for Algal Biofuels Commercialization and Cellana LLC Consortium will all perform separate tasks in hopes of igniting an algae fuel based society.

Jack Lundee – Follower of all things green and progressive.

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http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/08/03/converting-algae-into-fuel.html

By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation

The algae that keep salmon and shrimp a bright pink might keep jet airplanes and automobiles running someday.

It’s no secret that government, scientists and industry are devoting considerable resources and talent to developing renewable, cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly energy sources, the path to energy independence and to reducing the harmful effects of burning fossil fuels.

One solution could come from the fatty acids produced by certain species of salt water algae.

“All photosynthetic plants take water, sunlight and carbon dioxide and make either sugar or fatty acids,” said Dr. William L. Roberts, a professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. “We want the ones that produce a lot of fatty acids.”

He and his colleagues, four biologists and three engineers, are working on ways to produce and extract these fats from Dunaliella, a microscopic species of algae, and convert them into fuel on a large scale, much larger than is possible today. Their research is funded by $1.99 million over four years from the National Science Foundation as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The North Carolina State University project is one of several teams in the nation studying the potential of algae as an energy source, and with great promise. This year the Department of Energy has awarded more than $100 million for bio-fuels research, an investment that includes a recently announced $24 million to specifically address the challenges in the commercialization of algae-based fuels.

“This is going to be one of the most important and dominant industries of the future because we will run out of fossil fuel,” Roberts said.

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More tomorrow

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Everybody wants to be green but nobody wants tell you what that means exactly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset

Carbon offset

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wind turbines near Aalborg, Denmark. Renewable energy projects are the most common source of carbon offsets.

A carbon offset is a financial instrument aimed at a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO₂e) and may represent six primary categories of greenhouse gases.^[1] One carbon offset represents the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

There are two markets for carbon offsets. In the larger, compliance market, companies, governments, or other entities buy carbon offsets in order to comply with caps on the total amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. In 2006, about $5.5 billion of carbon offsets were purchased in the compliance market, representing about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO₂e reductions.^[2]

In the much smaller, voluntary market, individuals, companies, or governments purchase carbon offsets to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, electricity use, and other sources. For example, an individual might purchase carbon offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by personal air travel. Many companies (see list^[3]) offer carbon offsets as an up-sell during the sales process so that customers can mitigate the emissions related with their product or service purchase (such as offsetting emissions related to a vacation flight, car rental, hotel stay, consumer good, etc.). In 2008, about $705 million of carbon offsets were purchased in the voluntary market, representing about 123.4 million metric tons of CO₂e reductions.^[4]

Offsets are typically achieved through financial support of projects that reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in the short- or long-term. The most common project type is renewable energy, such as wind farms, biomass energy, or hydroelectric dams. Others include energy efficiency projects, the destruction of industrial pollutants or agricultural byproducts, destruction of landfill methane, and forestry projects.^[5] Some of the most popular carbon offset projects from a corporate perspective are energy efficiency and wind turbine projects.^[6]

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http://ezinearticles.com/?Carbon-Neutral—What-Does-It-Mean?&id=339090

Recently, there have been a lot of environmental buzzwords floating around. It can be difficult to find a clear definition. I’ll explain what the term “carbon neutral” means, and why it’s important.

You might think that carbon neutral simply means that something does not release any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is true to an extent, however it is too simple a definition. It is possible to release CO2 into the atmosphere and still be carbon neutral, so long it is balanced by a CO2 reduction elsewhere.

Biofuels are carbon neutral, even though burning them releases CO2. How can this be? Well, the carbon in the biofuel comes from photosynthesis, where CO2 is captured from the atmosphere by a plant and turned into glucose. The glucose can then be turned into more complicated molecules such as sugars, starches, oils and proteins. Sugars and starches can easily be converted into bioethanol, while oils can be converted into biodiesel. Carbon is removed from the atmosphere, stored in plants for a few months, then released when the biofuel is burned. For every gram of CO2 released by burning a biofuel, there was a gram removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis just a few months ago. This perfect balance is why biofuels are carbon neutral.

Alternatively, the term carbon neutral can be used to describe energy that does not cause the release of any CO2 at all. For instance, solar cells, wind turbines and hydroelectric turbines generate electricity without releasing CO2. Nuclear power does not release CO2 during the generation process either.

There is a problem with this, however. Currently, virtually all forms of carbon neutral energy actually involve the burning of fossil fuels. The crops for biofuels are harvested using machinery that burns fossil diesel. This is because fossil fuels are a great deal cheaper than biofuels. Some ways of producing biofuels are controversial because so much fossil fuel has to be used in the production process. Some sources of bioethanol are in this grey area. Solar cells, wind and hydroelectric turbines are all produced and transported using fossil fuels to some extent. The technology exists to make these things truly carbon neutral, but it is hopelessly uneconomic at this time. Nuclear power involves the burning of fossil fuels in the mining and transport of uranium, the building of power stations, and the disposal of waste. When uranium becomes scarce, mining it will consume even more fossil fuels:}

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http://www.leonardo-energy.org/meaning-zero

‘Zero energy building’ and similar terms

Picture by Ian Britton on FreeFoto.com

You would think that no word has a more unambiguous meaning than ‘zero’: nothing is nothing. Not so in today’s world of green building. Labels like ‘zero energy building’, ‘nearly zero energy building’, and ‘zero carbon building’ are frequently used, but lack any standardised or official definition. The same can be said of the expression ‘bâtiment à énergie positive’ that is used in France.

‘Zero energy’ might play well commercially, but it is a clumsy label from a scientific point of view. No house or building can be built and maintained without energy. Strictly speaking, even manpower should be considered energy, and it brings along carbon emissions via food production and by the simple act of breathing. This illustrates that the meaning of ‘zero’ depends entirely upon where you draw the system’s boundaries.

The most narrow and also the most deceptive definition is to take only the electricity consumption of the building into account. The annual electricity production of the PV cells on the roof equals the annual electricity consumption of the building, and hey presto, you have a zero energy building. Who cares about the natural gas boiler in the basement?

Nearly zero energy

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Nearly zero..ha..haha…more tomorrow.

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http://www.2people.org/pub/page/show/article/10596

The British government has recently opened the comment period on a major plan to revise the building code. The revisions phase in regulations ensuring that all new homes are built carbon-neutral by 2016. Other elements of the plan include:

• Code for Sustainable Homes: national standard to inform home buyers about the environmental performance of homes offered for sale.
• Energy Performance Certificates: national standard to inform home buyers about the energy efficiency and running costs of homes offered for sale.
• Urban planning policy to support lower carbon emissions and resiliency in the face of climate change.
• Water Efficiency standards
• Review of Existing Buildings: While the new regulations cover new construction, the government looking at ways to upgrade existing homes and buildings.

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http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_first_carbon_neutral_home_hits_the_market/1652

DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home Hits the Market

• January 6, 2010
• 7 Comments

by Mark Wellborn

Back in September, we reported that DC’s first carbon neutral home was being built in Capitol Hill. Yesterday, the much-anticipated property hit the market.

The three-bedroom, 3.5-bath home at 19 4th Street NE (map) was gutted and renovated by GreenSpur, Inc., a DC-based building and design firm that uses sustainability techniques to deliver homes that are energy efficient as well as cost effective.

After overcoming a labyrinth of regulatory hurdles and permitting nightmares given the property’s location four blocks from the Capitol, GreenSpur enlarged the home (from 1,000 to 2,100 square feet), hand dug the basement and, in keeping with their mission statement, made it completely green but priced comparably to other (non-carbon neutral) homes in the area.

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Then there is this. Wiki makes a political statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_neutrality

Carbon neutrality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2010)

Carbon neutrality, or having a net zero carbon footprint, refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset, or buying enough carbon credits to make up the difference. It is used in the context of carbon dioxide releasing processes, associated with transportation, energy production and industrial processes.

The carbon neutral concept may be extended to include other greenhouse gases (GHG) measured in terms of their carbon dioxide equivalence—the impact a GHG has on the atmosphere expressed in the equivalent amount of CO₂. The term climate neutral is used to reflect the fact that it is not just carbon dioxide (CO₂), that is driving climate change, even if it is the most abundant, but also encompasses other greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, namely: methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons (PFC), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆). Both terms are used interchangeably throughout this article.

Best practice for organizations and individuals seeking carbon neutral status entails reducing and/or avoiding carbon emissions first so that only unavoidable emissions are offset. The term has two common uses:

• It can refer to the practice of balancing carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, with renewable energy that creates a similar amount of useful energy, so that the carbon emissions are compensated, or alternatively using only renewable energies that don’t produce any carbon dioxide (this last is called a post-carbon economy).^[1]

• It is also used to describe the practice, criticized by some,^[2] of carbon offsetting, by paying others to remove or sequester 100% of the carbon dioxide emitted from the atmosphere^[3] – for example by planting trees – or by funding ‘carbon projects‘ that should lead to the prevention of future greenhouse gas emissions, or by buying carbon credits to remove (or ‘retire’) them through carbon trading. These practices are often used in parallel, together with energy conservation measures to minimize energy use.

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Climate neutral. Who is zooming who here. Did somebody just make up a phrase to create the new denier strawman. Yah think.

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The Sun is cooling and shrinking. Scientists have predicted that this was going to happen and in addition they predicted that a little ice age might occur. There was much positing that there were longer solar cycles then just the moderately well understood 11 year cycle. The thought was that the Sun waxed and waned every 300 or 400 years. No one was sure. Then an amazing thing happened. As the solar flares died down the Earth heated up. That was when scientists turned to man and the atmosphere to try to get some answers. The answer appeared to be that all of the GASES (not just co2 but every gas we throw off – there are 20 or more) we dump into the air are heating the planet up. This could lead to climate destabilization. Well the Sun is still quiet. For 2 1/2 years the Sun has been quiet. That is unprecedented in the 150 years at least that we have been observing the solar cycles. For much more on this subject please see one of the best articles I have ever read on the subject.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html

What’s wrong with the sun?

• 14 June 2010 by Stuart Clark
• Magazine issue 2764. Subscribe and save
• For similar stories, visit the Solar System and Climate Change Topic Guides

Video: Sun spots

SUNSPOTS come and go, but recently they have mostly gone. For centuries, astronomers have recorded when these dark blemishes on the solar surface emerge, only for them to fade away again after a few days, weeks or months. Thanks to their efforts, we know that sunspot numbers ebb and flow in cycles lasting about 11 years.

But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged for nearly a hundred years, has taken even seasoned sun watchers by surprise. “This is solar behaviour we haven’t seen in living memory,” says David Hathaway, a physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The sun is under scrutiny as never before thanks to an armada of space telescopes. The results they beam back are portraying our nearest star, and its influence on Earth, in a new light. Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun’s magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun. The big question is what?

The stakes have never been higher. Groups of sunspots forewarn of gigantic solar storms that can unleash a billion times more energy than an atomic bomb. Fears that these giant solar eruptions could create havoc on Earth, and disputes over the sun’s role in climate change, are adding urgency to these studies. When NASA and the European Space Agency launched the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory almost 15 years ago, “understanding the solar cycle was not one of its scientific objectives”, says Bernhard Fleck, the mission’s project scientist. “Now it is one of the key questions.”

Sun behaving badly

Sunspots are windows into the sun’s magnetic soul. They form where giant loops of magnetism, generated deep inside the sun, well up and burst through the surface, leading to a localised drop in temperature which we see as a dark patch. Any changes in sunspot numbers reflect changes inside the sun. “During this transition, the sun is giving us a real glimpse into its interior,” says Hathaway.

When sunspot numbers drop at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all becomes much calmer. This “solar minimum” doesn’t last long. Within a year, the spots and storms begin to build towards a new crescendo, the next solar maximum.

What’s special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. But computer models predicted that when the spots did return, they would do so in force. Hathaway was reported as thinking the next solar cycle would be a “doozy”: more sunspots, more solar storms and more energy blasted into space. Others predicted that it would be the most active solar cycle on record. The trouble was, no one told the sun.

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Please finish the article. It is very long and there is a scholarly debate in the comments section about where the center of the Earth’s gravity is. This is kindofa hoot if you understand it. It is true our jokes are different from other peoples.

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It is Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALU5g6Qqi08?

What – do these people think?  That if BP goes bankrupt that the world would be a better place…please stop and think about it…

doug -

When we started our Boycott BP campaign, we knew we had to get their attention in a language BP understands – profits. Now, we know it’s working:

A chain of Convenience Stores in Philipsburg, Pa decided to debrand three of its BP-branded stations:

“We are debranding BP. We will no longer be associated with BP by the end of the month. We are doing this because of the backlash and bad publicity from the handling of BP’s catastrophe,” Sean Lay, vice president of operations, said in the report. “We don’t want to be associated with them anymore. We’ve had enough.”[Convenience Store News]

Our campaign has been covered by everyone from the New York Times to industry trade newspapers. You can be sure that BP is paying attention. Now, let’s turn up the heat.

Join the Boycott today and we’ll send you a free bumper sticker to help spread the campaign

In spite of these early effects of the boycott, BP corporate headquarters is still playing games with the numbers and continues to escape accountability. Just this morning, the government updated estimates of the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf to be much higher than BP originally stated.

And yet, BP continues to deny the extent of the problem. A report from NPR asks: “BP officials insisted this week they have found no large plumes of oil concentrated underwater, although it begs the question: if the oil isn’t concentrated in the water, where is it?”

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKA3tNoK8zM&feature=related )

And

ALERT: U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican Leader John Boehner want taxpayers to help pick up BP’s tab for environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Tell John Boehner: No BP Bailout!

Douglas –

How is this for outrageous? Republican Leader John Boehner actually suggested that American taxpayers should be hit with the bill to help clean up Big Oil giant BP’s spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And it gets worse…

In making this outrageous suggestion, Boehner was agreeing with one of the Republicans’ biggest shadow groups – a group that has pledged to spend more than $50 million this cycle attacking Democrats and trying to elect other Big Oil protecting Republicans to Congress. But it gets even worse than that…

Boehner’s suggestion of a taxpayer-funded bailout for Big Oil giant BP came after he and other Republicans accepted more than $188 million combined in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. This calls for an immediate response from Grassroots Democrats.

Visit our newly-launched website, BoehnerBPBailout.com to sign our petition denouncing John Boehner’s Taxpayer Funded Bailout for Big Oil giant BP – then help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter.

Now, for all the other happenings from the campaign trail, check out our latest edition of @Stake.

Your Response to Republican Congressman Don Young’s Oil Spill Outrage

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkJWTQpvADU&feature=related )

Then there are the people bragging about defeating a resolution…a resolution mind you.

Dear doug,

Good news! With your help, on Thursday, the Senate voted to reject Senator Murkowski’s “Dirty Air Act” – a proposal that would have destroyed 40 years of progress on clean energy by gutting the Clean Air Act and stripping the EPA of its power to regulate the pollution that causes climate change.

The vote was close – 53 to 47 – but your calls and letters made the difference, putting the pressure on Congress to do the right thing.

Thanks to you, we won this fight – but the oil that continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico daily is a vivid reminder of the continued danger of depending on fossil fuels. With your help, we will continue to push for comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation that will give us greater economic security, reduce pollution and global warming, and transition America to a cleaner energy future.

Thank you again for your activism and support. We will be in touch in the days and weeks to come with more ways of getting involved.

Sincerely,

Michael Town
Campaign Director, SaveOurEnvironment.org
info@saveourenvironment.org

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GdsrywWNQU&feature=related )

And

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Please get out of my mail box.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mskqBz2cZTA&feature=related

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I will try to post more green wash meditations but let us consider how bad things can get here at times. This is an event I was actually unaware of and it’s coolness is pretty high.

Authors: Trudy E. Bell & Dr. Tony Phillips | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/

A Super Solar Flare

May 6, 2008: At 11:18 AM on the cloudless morning of Thursday, September 1, 1859, 33-year-old Richard Carrington—widely acknowledged to be one of England’s foremost solar astronomers—was in his well-appointed private observatory. Just as usual on every sunny day, his telescope was projecting an 11-inch-wide image of the sun on a screen, and Carrington skillfully drew the sunspots he saw.

Right: Sunspots sketched by Richard Carrington on Sept. 1, 1859. Copyright: Royal Astronomical Society: more.

On that morning, he was capturing the likeness of an enormous group of sunspots. Suddenly, before his eyes, two brilliant beads of blinding white light appeared over the sunspots, intensified rapidly, and became kidney-shaped. Realizing that he was witnessing something unprecedented and “being somewhat flurried by the surprise,” Carrington later wrote, “I hastily ran to call someone to witness the exhibition with me. On returning within 60 seconds, I was mortified to find that it was already much changed and enfeebled.” He and his witness watched the white spots contract to mere pinpoints and disappear.

It was 11:23 AM. Only five minutes had passed.

Just before dawn the next day, skies all over planet Earth erupted in red, green, and purple auroras so brilliant that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight. Indeed, stunning auroras pulsated even at near tropical latitudes over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii.

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery

Even more disconcerting, telegraph systems worldwide went haywire. Spark discharges shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted.

“What Carrington saw was a white-light solar flare—a magnetic explosion on the sun,” explains David Hathaway, solar physics team lead at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Now we know that solar flares happen frequently, especially during solar sunspot maximum. Most betray their existence by releasing X-rays (recorded by X-ray telescopes in space) and radio noise (recorded by radio telescopes in space and on Earth). In Carrington’s day, however, there were no X-ray satellites or radio telescopes. No one knew flares existed until that September morning when one super-flare produced enough light to rival the brightness of the sun itself.

“It’s rare that one can actually see the brightening of the solar surface,” says Hathaway. “It takes a lot of energy to heat up the surface of the sun!”

Above: A modern solar flare recorded Dec. 5, 2006, by the X-ray Imager onboard NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite. The flare was so intense, it actually damaged the instrument that took the picture. Researchers believe Carrington’s flare was much more energetic than this one.

The explosion produced not only a surge of visible light but also a mammoth cloud of charged particles and detached magnetic loops—a “CME”—and hurled that cloud directly toward Earth. The next morning when the CME arrived, it crashed into Earth’s magnetic field, causing the global bubble of magnetism that surrounds our planet to shake and quiver. Researchers call this a “geomagnetic storm.” Rapidly moving fields induced enormous electric currents that surged through telegraph lines and disrupted communications.

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Here is a really good article on it. I am posting a chunk of it not covered above.

http://passingstrangeness.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-carrington-flare/

As it happened, a second member of the Royal Astronomical society (another Richard, this one the otherwise-obscure Richard Hodgson in London), also saw the flare and so proved conclusively that there was nothing wrong with Carrington’s equipment. By the time this was realized, though, it was already pretty clear that something truly odd had happened—something rattled the Earth’s atmosphere the next day, as described above.

The connections between light, magnetism, and electricity were still incompletely understood in 1859 (James Clerk Maxwell would not entirely coincidentally publish his tour de force on the subject over the next few years), but Michael Faraday had already discovered the Law of Induction. Shorn of mathematics, it provided for the creation of electricity if a piece of metal cuts across a magnetic field or the field instead cuts over the metal. That was the connection between the strange readings at Kew and the telegraphic events around the world. The enormous auroras were symptomatic of huge fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field, and those fluctuations were playing across the world’s 200,000 kilometers of telegraph wire. By analyzing the directions followed by wires and comparing them to the effects that occurred at their stations, it was even possible to develop a rough idea of how the fluctuations had flowed around the planet.

Though the correlation between sunspots and the fluctuations of Earth’s magnetic field had already been discovered by Edward Sabine, this was the first really solid evidence that the Sun could reach out to the Earth with something other than light or gravity. Conservative by nature, Carrington himself didn’t commit to a connection between his flare and the electromagnetic storm, but now we know that the Sun throws off coronal mass ejections consisting of protons and electrons (the first having been observed in 1971). We even know for sure that the 1859 event was caused by one, despite the more than a century since it occurred; protons and electrons expelled by the Sun move quickly, but not anything like the speed of light, so that accounts for the delay between Carrington seeing his flare and the beginning of the auroras.

The clincher can be found on one of the charts linked to previously. There’s a “fishhook” shape (marked with an arrow labeled “D: Solar Flare Effect”) in the bottom trace. That’s called a magnetic crochet, and it’s the characteristic bump in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by X-rays from the coronal mass ejection ionizing part of our atmosphere. X-rays move at the speed of light, outpacing the charged particles following them—and it takes eight minutes to get from the Sun to the Earth at that speed. As closely as can be told from the relatively crude instrumentation that drew the track (hours are listed at the top of the same chart), the crochet occurred within the same time frame as Carrington’s closely timed 11:18 observation of the flare. So we have both a delayed effect from the slow stream of charged particles and a high-speed effect moving at light speed; a coronal mass ejection fits the bill exactly.

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The Wikki article is kinda lame:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Christopher_Carrington

Richard Christopher Carrington

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Christopher Carrington (26 May 1826 – 27 November 1875) was an English amateur astronomer whose 1859 astronomical observations first corroborated the existence of solar flares as well as their electrical influence upon the Earth and its aurorae; and whose 1863 records of sunspot observations demonstrated differential rotation in the Sun.

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It’s amazing how far we have come…but the Oil Gusher shows how far we have to go..

For updates on the Oil Spew please go to too:

http://www.leanweb.org/

or

http://saveourgulf.org/

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For today however and unless there are dramatic developments we go back to our focus on energy usage and the environment:

http://www.themarknews.com/articles/1494-kicking-the-fossil-fuel-habit

Kicking the Fossil Fuel Habit

Tom Rand

Lead Cleantech Advisor, MaRS Discovery District, Toronto; venture capitalist; author.

First published May 17 2010

We’ll eventually kick our fossil fuel habit. We have no choice. If peak oil doesn’t dictate the terms and timing, then climate change will force our hand. And recent events in the Gulf of Mexico reveal more immediate dangers.

Yet our response to these threats remains tepid, insufficient by any measure. Serious action is aggressively opposed by those who hold out an irrational hope that business-as-usual might continue. We seem content to let nature decide the terms and conditions on which we kick the habit. Why?

I believe there is an assumption, often implicit, that underpins the North American energy debate: clean, renewable energy is just not up to the job. For the lights to stay on, and factories to hum, we need coal and oil. This assumption is why Stephen Harper talks up the tar sands as Canada’s contribution to North American energy security. This assumption is why Canada plays possum on climate change.

But this assumption is flat-out wrong.

Clean energy – mainly solar, geothermal, hydro, wind, and unconventional biofuels – is perfectly capable of powering our economy. It can be made reliable, large-scale, and cost-effective. But that’s true only if we commit to build clean energy infrastructure on a scale comparable to the fossil-fuel apparatus built over the past century. That scale is enormous.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates we need to invest more than $45 trillion in our energy infrastructure over the next 40 years to meet future demand. That’s the kind of money we invest in fossil fuels. It’s only fair then to ask how clean energy might perform with similar levels of capital. What do you get for a trillion dollars?

That’s just the question I’ll ask in a series of 10 articles on The Mark about clean energy over the coming weeks. The answers may surprise you. Some clean technologies scale up, bringing costs down. Others hit supply constraints and can’t substantially displace fossil fuels. But make no mistake – clean energy performs if given a fair shake.

At that scale of investment, giant solar plants produce energy well after the sun goes down, at a lower cost than melting tar. Unconventional bio-fuels grown in the desert replace half the world’s oil supply. By drilling for heat instead of oil, we use enhanced geothermal energy to replace North America’s entire coal infrastructure. Our aging grid is replaced by a new continent-wide energy internet, which connects multiple, distributed energy sources.

We’re kidding ourselves if we think we can escape peak oil or move the needle on carbon emissions for anything less than trillions. Spending that much may sound absurd. But what’s the cost of the war in Iraq? According to economist Joseph Stiglitz, it’s about $3 trillion. The liquidity injected to save North American banks was more than three times that much.

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antime anybody mentions Global Warming in a supportive way. For a long time I was puzzled by how fast and how consistently the Global Warming nay sayers put comments up on articles or blogs or whatever source and how angry they were. After I read the Reuters article  below it suddenly dawned on me that they are being paid to do it. Such prompt and vicious attacks must be a FULL TIME JOB.

Now before you get all back about it. First, there is a right wing conspiracy. The Koch Bros and Massey to name a few billionaires certainly have staff members dedicated to Climate Deniers. But that could only account for say what 30 or 40 people doing it. That is a lot. But consider another supplemental alternative. Exxon Mobile at best guestamate (and they don’t even know really) employs 90,000 people and BP employs another 85,000. Just those 2 companies employ enough people to account for every man, woman and child in Springfield Il. and the surrounding area. What if they let it be known that for a half-hour a day, or like when you have some downtime, it is OK to use company computers to harass climate scientists, journalist who right articles supportive of Climate Change and environmental organizations? Just in one week they could contribute 90,000 hours of cruising the net time and attacks. Anyway this is part of the article that I found at PEAKOIL:

http://peakoil.com/?p=53923

But came from here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63P00A20100426

Climate debate gets ugly as world moves to curb CO2

A schoolgirl crosses a dry pond on the outskirts of Jammu April 23, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Mukesh Gupta

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Murderer, liar, fraud, traitor.

Science |  Green Business |  COP15

Climate scientists, used to dealing with skeptics, are under siege like never before, targeted by hate emails brimming with abuse and accusations of fabricating global warming data. Some emails contain thinly veiled death threats.

Across the Internet, climate blogs are no less venomous, underscoring the surge in abuse over the past six months triggered by purported evidence that global warming is either a hoax or the threat from a warmer world is grossly overstated.

A major source of the anger is from companies with a vested interest in fighting green legislation that might curtail their activities or make their operations more costly.

“The attacks against climate science represent the most highly coordinated, heavily financed, attack against science that we have ever witnessed,” said climate scientist Michael Mann, from Pennsylvania State University in the United States.

“The evidence for the reality of human-caused climate change gets stronger with each additional year,” Mann told Reuters in emailed responses to questions.

Greenpeace and other groups say that some energy companies are giving millions to groups that oppose climate change science because of concerns about the multi-billion dollar costs associated with carbon trading schemes and clean energy policies.

For example, rich nations including the United States, Japan and Australia, are looking to introduce emissions caps and a regulated market for trading those emissions.

More broadly, the United Nations is trying to seal a tougher climate accord to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation blamed for heating up the planet.

Other opponents are drawn into the debate by deep concerns that governments will trample on freedoms or expand their powers as they try to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and minimize the impacts of higher temperatures.

“There are two kinds of opponents — one is the fossil fuel lobby. So you have a trillion-dollar industry that’s protecting market share,” said Stephen Schneider of Stanford University in California, referring to the oil industry’s long history of funding climate skeptic groups and think tanks.

“And then you have the ideologues who have a deep hatred of government involvement,” said Schneider, a veteran climate scientist and author of the book “Science as a contact sport”.

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“THIS TIME IT’S DIFFERENT”

Scientists and conservationists say some anti-climate change lobbyists are funded by energy giants such as ExxonMobil, which has a long history of donating money to interest groups that challenge climate science.

According to a Greenpeace report released last month, ExxonMobil gave nearly $9 million to entities linked to the climate denialist camp between 2005 and 2008.

The report, using mandatory SEC reporting on charitable contributions, also shows that foundations linked to Kansas-based Koch Industries, a privately owned petrochemical and chemicals giant, gave nearly $25 million.

Koch said the Greenpeace report mischaracterized the company’s efforts. “We’ve strived to encourage an intellectually honest debate on the scientific basis for claims of harm from greenhouse gases,” the company said in a note on its website.

ExxonMobil makes no secret of funding a range of groups, but says it has also discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups.

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“We’ve never experienced this sort of thing before,” he said of the intense challenges to climate science and the level of email and Internet traffic.

All the climate change scientists with whom Reuters spoke said they were determined to continue their research despite the barrage of nasty emails and threats. Some expressed concern the argument could turn violent.

“My wife has made it very clear, if the threats become personalized, I cease to interact with the media. We have kids,” said one scientist who did not want to be identified.

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Please see the entire article. It is amazing in its even handedness but here is the kicker for me. 2 hours later at 9:58 this comment pops up:

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