The Pope Say That Pollution Is A Sin – What shall we call it? Degradation

The Pope made it official, all Catholics must immendiately trade in their SUV’s for Hybrids.

 http://green.yahoo.com/news/nm/20080310/hl_nm/pope_sins_dc.html

Vatican lists “new sins”,

 including pollution

By Philip Pullella Posted Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:00am PDT

A faithful holds the cross during a mass at a Catholic church on the outskirts of Changzhi, Shanxi province December 23, 2007. The Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of ‘new’ sins such as causing environmental blight. (Stringer/Reuters)

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of “new” sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican’s number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

Girotti, in an interview headlined “New Forms of Social Sin,” also listed “ecological” offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively “green.”

It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels

Lamborghini is probably not amused.

http://www.lamborghini.com/

 But when you think about, how important is sinning anyway in the Judao/Christian/Muslim cacophony of what we must do and what we must not do? First their are the 10 COMANDMENTS (Think NRA President Chuck Heston):

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

Text of the Ten Commandments

The lists which are commonly known as the Ten Commandments are given in passages in two books of the Bible: Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. These passages are provided in English below, using the New Revised Standard Version translation and formatting. Various religions and denominations group the commandments differently; see the Division of the commandments section for a detailed accounting.

Exodus 20:2–17 Deuteronomy 5:6–21
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;3 Do not have any other gods before Me.4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.8 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 You shall not murder.

14 You shall not commit adultery.

15 You shall not steal.

16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

17 You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;7 you shall have no other gods before me.8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me,10 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.13 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.

15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

17 You shall not murder.

18 Neither shall you commit adultery.

19 Neither shall you steal.

20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour.

21 Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

OK so its more like 11 depending ON WHO YOU BELIEVE. No it can be…. And then there are the Seven Deadly Sins:

 http://www.deadlysins.com/sins/index.htm

Yes its true, a topic so important it has its own website.

Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

MAN THAT’S A LOT OF WORK…..

MEMO to Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey: You need to remake your own movie. But it would be called Eight. The plot would change slightly. hahahahaha Do you really think Brad would kill Kevin because he cut off the head of Franklin Thomas, the Leading Director of the Board of Directors for Alcoa, Inc. one of the leading polluters of the world.

http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/about_alcoa/corp_gov/directors/Thomas_FA.asp?leadDirect=true

Taylorville Energy Center Is A Really Bad Idea – Deep Well Injection (DWI) is not good in Illinois

First a slight mea culpa. A gentleman from an Advance Gasification Publication emailed me and took me to task for being a “know nothing” blogger. Is that great or what! He pointed out that my description of Gasification was flawed. On each Blog I put up all kinds of site addresses like Wikipedia and others so that people can “click and read” about any subject I Blog about if they wanted to. I do not view myself as a babysitter. Google being what it is (or any other search engine for that matter) I don’t even really have to put up the links. A reader can just type in the subject and get a list sources for their own selves. I do it to make it easy for people to READ about what I am writing about and to show the sources I am using.

If you go to the site below you can see the gentleman in all his indignant fury:

http://gasification-igcc.blogspot.com/

For the record the hydrogen to run the plant come from electrolysis like catalytic effect from steam heated in part by the coal. Also for the record this is a dumb way to generate electricity, almost as dumb using coal to make steam. Solar is more direct and more efficient than this crap ever could be. Also for the record, I try to write for the normal Joes and Jackies in the world. The only thing they care about is that the “lights come on when they flip the switch” and the health of their children. It’s the health and welfare of their children and their grand children where this whole project falls apart.

Back to DWI. Illinois is a real bad place to put a Commercial Toxic Waste Deep Well Injection Site and that is what Tenaska is trying to do. The Energy Portion of the Project is In One Sense is a smokescreen. If they get their financial way and get around regulation of the site By the ICC By declaring it an Independent Power producer AND pass Legislation Mandating the Purchase of the Power by Illinois Utilities then they could make a fortune. More on that later. Trust me much more. But lets say, for the moment that RATE BASING a 2 Billion $$$ Power Plant ain’t happening and that a 2 Billion $$$ Power Plant will be “Too Expensive To Meter” What’s the game here?

There are only 5 Commercial Toxic Waste DWI’s in the nation:

http://www.ehso.com/cssepa/tsdfdeepwells.php

 deepwells.bmp

 

As you can see they all sit atop spent or partially spent rock trapped oil fields. Though there is no evidence that these sites are fool proof they at least have the intellectual possibility of succeeding. Most of the other Non-Commercial Toxic Waste DWI sites that are usually operated to get rid of human waste and wastewater have proved troublesome at best.

http://www.stopthetoxicwells.com/

http://eelink.net/EJ/well.html

 

Their failure rate for something that was supposed, “to solve the waste problems” in the US have not worked out so well.

When you look at Illinois, which has 3 major rivers the Mississippi, the Wabash and the Illinois, and a soft coal-filled  Center:

 

herrin_coal_map.jpg

 

then putting a Commercial Toxic DWI right in its center seems unjustified. But think about this for a moment once it is open who else might dump their Toxic stuff there as well? It is widely rumored in the Environmental and Energy communties that the only reason that Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin signed as a “supporting Governor” is that he believes he could ship some of his States sequestered carbon here. This is what a proper sequestration system in North Dakota looks like:

m-24_weyburn-co2.jpg

www.netl.doe.gov/…/core_rd/mmv/41149.html

 

Build a PIPELINE to the nearest  stone encased oilfield. Hint: It’s not in Illinois.

 

Taylorville Energy Center Is A Very Bad Idea – Pump Poison where they can’t monitor it

FutureGen was a bad idea because it made Deep Well Injection (DWI) look like a possibility in Central Illinois. And get this it cost NOTHING. The Government didn’t spend a dime nor did the Energy Industry. But, it accomplished so much. FutureGen:

1. Got the citizens excited and made the appearance of their acceptance.

2. Got the State of Illinois hooked into something that does not exist…Clean Coal Technology.

3. Produced studies that claim that DWI will work in Central Illinois – its the Sandstone…its the sand stone..its.

4. Glossed over the toxics produced and the huge amounts of water it will consume.

5. Coopted the Energy and Environmental Groups

6. Paved the way for the real threat which is in Decatur and Taylorville in a classic bait and switch move.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS230346+31-Jan-2008+BW20080131

Taylorville Energy Center Receives Final Air Permit, Environmental Appeals Board Denies Sierra Club Appeal
             Project Can Begin Once Illinois Lawmakers Act
TAYLORVILLE, Ill.--(Business Wire)--In a critical milestone for the development of clean coal
technologies, the U.S. Environmental Appeals Board denied the Sierra
Club's appeal of the air permit granted to the Taylorville Energy
Center. The project is now poised to move forward once enabling
legislation is passed by the Illinois General Assembly.
   On June 5, 2007, following a two year application process, the
Illinois EPA granted the first U.S. air quality permit for a
commercially-sized Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power
generating facility to the Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), a $2
billion, 630-megawatt project being developed by Christian County
Generation LLC (CCG).
 
 

In CES’ last blog I covered what was in Coal because gasification uses huge amounts of it. Why? because gasification is only interested in the Hydrogen it can get out of the stuff, plus many of the elements they won’t use are flammable

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

thus they contribute to the BTWs in coal when it is burned. As a result they will need 2 or 3 times the amount of coal to produce the same amount of Electricity. Logically then they are going to produce at least 2 to 3 times the toxics and probably more. In the past, gasification sites just dumped all that nasty stuff on the ground. That has produced a fair amount of Superfund Sites and the irony is that one of them is in Taylorville. The second irony is that that site hasn’t even been cleaned up yet, and Tenaska wants to start another one.

But these people think its just a dandy idea:

http://www.cleancoalillinois.com/tec.html

While these people talk out of both sides of their mouths:

http://www.tenaska.com/newsArchive.aspx

Tenaska Proposes Nation’s First New Conventional Coal-fueled Power Plant to Capture Carbon Dioxide – February 19, 2008

Captured CO2 would be sequestered in the Permian Basin and help recover more than $1 billion of West Texas oil annually.

Tenaska, Inc. is developing a site near Sweetwater, Texas, upon which to construct a technologically advanced coal-fueled electric generating plant able to capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that would otherwise enter the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide would be sold for use in enhancing oil production in the Permian Basin, resulting in geologic storage.    

Did they coopt the Environmental and the Energy Groups who are supposed to stop this stuff? You bet your jammies they did:

   EAB questioned Sierra Club's arguments given the organization's
numerous past statements supportive of IGCC technology:
   For a number of years, Sierra Club has argued that IGCC technology
should be adopted as the best available control technology for
limiting air pollutant emissions from the burning of coal to produce
electrical power.

FutureGen Is A Very Bad Idea – sounds like ideas from the past

How have humans gotten rid of their nasty waste in the past? Well it has always been out of sight out of mind. In the early cities they threw stuff in the river and made piles of it “out in the country side”.

My 2 most favorite modern examples are: 1) the Steel Barrels of Radioactive waste tossed in the ocean off  San Francisco. Barrels that would- get this – never rust.

http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/farallon/radwaste.html

Farallon Island Radioactive Waste Dump

“There is intense public and media interest in this issue, and we need to have the best information available when we respond to inquiries or participate in discussions on the issue of radioactive waste dumped near the Farallones.”–Barbara Boxer; United States Congress (D-California). June, 1990

Issue

More than 47,800 drums and other containers of low-level radioactive waste were dumped onto the ocean floor west of San Francisco between 1946 and 1970; many of these are in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. 

and 2) The “reef” they tried to build out of used rubber automobile tires off the cost of Florida which has created a oceanic desert devoid of any life. It is now being cleaned up by volunteer divers.

Idea of making reef from tires

 backfires

Four decades later, Florida now considers removing up to 2 million tires

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A mile offshore from this city’s high-rise condos and spring-break bars lie as many as 2 million old tires, strewn across the ocean floor — a white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.The tires were unloaded there in 1972 to create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. But decades later, the idea has proved a huge ecological blunder.Little sea life has formed on the tires. Some of the tires that were bundled together with nylon and steel have broken loose and are scouring the ocean floor across a swath the size of 31 football fields. Tires are washing up on beaches. Thousands have wedged up against a nearby natural reef, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life. 

 070216_tirereef_hmed_1p_hmedium.jpg

So what does that have to do with FutureGen?

Thursday, February 7, 2008


THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER


 


 

FutureGen developers

hope to revive plan


 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS____________

MATTOON — Developers hop­ing to build an experimental central Illinois power plant

say they’ll try to work with the White House and the Department of Energy to get

the project back on track.

The power and coal companies known as the FutureGen Alliance also will work with Congress

to get money for the $1.8 billion project, said Paul Thompson, chairman of the developers’

group.‘We always want to keep the door open,” FutureGen chief exec­utive officer Mike Mudd said

Wednesday after two days of al­liance board meetings in Mattoon. “If that does not come to a

fruitful conclusion, we will work with Con­gress.”

Those talks aren’t happening

right now, Mudd and Thompson said. Thompson said he requested early in January to meet

with Ener­gy Secretary Samuel Bodman but has gotten no response.

Bodman, meanwhile, faced ques­tioning from Congress on Wednes­day about the agency’s

decision last week to pull out of the project, tak­ing with it its commitment to fund three-quarters

of the cost.

A DOE spokeswoman said the agency was willing to talk with the FutureGen Alliance about

its plan to restructure FutureGen, which it an­nounced last week. The agency has so far asked

for industry feedback on what it says could be several power plants across the country.

‘While the department continues to maintain open lines of communi­cation on this important

 matter, we believe the decision to restructure

FutureGen is the best path forward to demonstrate and commercialize advanced carbon capture

 and stor­age technology,” spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero said in an e-mail.

She did not address Thompson’s request for a meeting with Bod­man.

FutureGen is intended to prove a power plant can use coal to gener­ate electricity while

capturing the carbon dioxide in the fuel and stor­ing it underground to keep it out of the

atmosphere.

Government and industry, until last week, had worked together, with the DOE covering 74 percent

of the cost and the FutureGen Al­liance covering the other 26 per­cent and building the plant.

The alliance chose Mattoon in December over three other sites — Tuscola, just north of Mattoon,

andtwo sites in Texas. The project would create thousands of jobs dur­ing construction, and 150

once the plant opens.The DOE and the alliance say they talked about the project’s es­calating costs

 much of last year.

When announced by the govern­ment in 2003, FutureGen was billed as a $950 million project,

meaning the Energy Department obligation was $800 million.

The current price tag, the al­liance says, is due to the rising cost of building materials. (emphasis added)

>

>

Well this is the ultimate out of sight out of mind solution. The form of carbon seqestration that they have proposed to use is dangerous. Deep Well Injection (DWI, all pun intended) may work in some instances. The best proof for DWI is when pumping the poisons into an already proven and toxic well like a deep and depleted oil field. Other than that DWI is a total crap shoot.

http://www.pollutionissues.com/Ho-Li/Injection-Well.html

Injection wells use high-pressure pumps to inject liquid wastes into under-ground geologic formations (e.g., sandstone or sedimentary rocks with high porosity). Many geologists believe that wastes may be isolated from drinking water aquifers when injected between impermeable rock strata. However, injection wells are still controversial and many scientists are concerned that leaks from these wells may contaminate groundwater. As of 1994, twenty-two out of 172 deep injection wells contaminated water supplies. 

This applies to the Taylorville Energy Project as well, but more on that later. Shouldn’t we really be asking ourselves why we would be reverting to Gasification, an ancient and obsolete technique, instead of solar, wind, hydro and tidal power. Gasification presents a serious problem. But first what is in coal that makes it obsolete and then why gasification is dangerous.

FutureGen Is A Very Bad Idea – At least as formulated now

As I have said many times, collaboration between Environmentalists and Industry is never a good idea because the Environmentalists have to sacrifice some of their integrity to participate. We have no time for that now. Every little bit of the Earth that is unsullied is now sacred.

www.futuregenalliance.org

www.futuregenforillinois.com

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureGen


How can a project that has 2 of its own web sites and a Wikipedia listing be so wrong? Well let’s see COST?

Officials vow to

 not give up on

FutureGen

Durbin blames politics for decision to scrap plant

By DAVID MERCERTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHAMPAIGN — Officials promised Wednes­day to fight the Department of Energy’s decision to scrap a futuristic, low-pollution power plant planned for central Illinois, but the leader of the state’s congressional delegation seemed resigned to its end.Sen. Dick Durbin said he hopes to fund the $1.8 billion FutureGen power plant through ear­marks in the federal budget, but wasn’t opti­mistic it would work.“If the administration doesn’t support it, we’ve seen that this president is willing to use his veto pen over and over again,” Durbin said. “Without the support of the administration, it’s an uphill struggle.”Durbin spoke not long after Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said publicly what he’d told members of Illinois’ congressional delegation and Illinois economic development officials in a private meeting Tuesday.Rather than spend money on FutureGen, which was to have been built by a consortium of coal and power companies in Mattoon using mainly federal funds, the DOE plans to put its fi­nances into a handful of projects around the country that would demonstrate the capture and burial of carbon dioxide from commercial power plants.“This restructuring … is an all-around better deal for Americans,” Bodman, an Illinois native, said in making the announcement to scuttle the program.The department will now solicit industry ap­plications for participation in the new projects. The idea is for the government to pay for build­ing the carbon capture and storage facilities and industry to build the modern coal-burning power plant. Each project would be designed to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the lead­ing greenhouse gas linked to global warming, of­ficials said.The coal and power companies planning to build the plant, known as the FutureGen Al­liance, issued a statement saying it “remains committed to keeping FutureGen on track” but it was unclear how that would be possible without the federal funding.FutureGen was envisioned as a unique re­search project that would trigger development of a virtually pollution-free coal plant where carbon dioxide emissions would be captured and buried deep beneath the earth.


>
>

For a listing of the last ten AP postings on FutureGen go here.

Click on the Length of Search box and pick Archive, the type in FutureGen in the submit Box and click submit.

The Project escalated in cost from 750,000 million $$$ to 1.8 billion $$$ in a little less than 5 years. That is more than enough to build a “new generation” nuke on the same site. But think about this. What would it actually cost. We all know that typical Utility Construction Projects come in with at least 20% cost over runs and sometime as high as 40% is acceptable. Which means that the real cost would likely hover at just under 3 billion $$$. Can anyone say Too Cheap To Meter???

Acciona Energy Of North America – Causes happiness and sadness

I am very happy and proud that someone from Springfield would be in the forefront of financing nonburning forms of alternative energy. The lady is amazing. I am sad that the project is in Nevada and not Illinois. But the saddest part for me is that the company she works for is based in Spain and they don’t manufature their products in Springfield. When ever will US companies wake up to the fact that we are being left out of the New Economy?

http://www.sj-r.com/business/stories/25745.asp

Published Sunday, February 24, 2008

Springfield native finds energy in projects

A 20-year career in financing of energy projects wasn’t exactly what SUSAN DONATH NICKEY had in mind while attending high school at the former Ursuline Academy in Springfield in the mid-1970s. That career — including her role in a $266 million financing pack­age for the world’s third-largest solar en­ergy plant in Nevada — has landed her on a    couple of nation­al lists in the past year of women executives who have helped lead the way in devel­opment of wind, biofuels and solar energy. Last month, Women’s eNews, an independent online news serv­ice, named Nickey one of “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” on energy issues.

 nickey-3421.jpg

“I’m very optimistic after watch­ing this industry through a lot of stops and starts,” said Nickey, now based in Chicago as chief financial officer for Acciona Energy North America.     The company, based in Spain, world’s largest developers of wind, solar and other alternative energy projects.Nickey has helped arrange a va­riety of private-equity financing for alternative energy projects during four years with the company, but the commercial-scale Nevada Solar One is among the largest and most ambitious.The plant relies on a network of 180,000 solar panels covering the space of approximately 200 foot­ball fields to supply power to 14,000 Nevada homes. It took about a year-and-a-half to com­plete construction.

Nickey said Nevada is among a growing list of states, including Illinois, that have mandated in­creased use of alternative fuels. Traditional utilities in Nevada also were given incentives for long-term contracts for purchases of solar power.

Of course, Nevada has other ad­vantages when it comes to solar energy.

“The sun shines a lot there,” Nickey said.

Nickey, whose father, Robert, still lives in the Springfield neigh­borhood where she grew up, grad­uated from Ursuline Academy in 1978 and the University of Notre Dame in 1983. She soon found herself in banking and energy fi­nancing after obtaining her gradu­ate degree from Georgetown Uni­versity.

“Early on, I had opportunities to work on energy projects, and that made the transition easy when the independent power industry began to develop,” said Nickey, who added that she returns to Spring­field as often as possible.

On March 6, she’ll be among the panelists at the Union League Club of Chicago on ways to “Make Green from Green.” The Charter Financial Analysts of Chicago and the CFA (Cultivating Female Am­bition) advisory group are spon­soring the event.

Long stretches of gloomy weath­er, especially in winter, make the Midwest a tougher sell for solar power. But Nickey said she has been encouraged by the steady progress of wind energy, including in Illinois.

Acciona also is among the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines.

“It’s the states that are driving the growth in renewable energy… they keep adding mandatory (en­ergy) portfolio standards,” Nickey said.

“There’s always been a large group of European lenders active in the business, and they still are years and years ahead of us. Now, there are a lot of equity investors that see that growth her

Tim Landis is the business editor of The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at tim.landis@sj-r.com or 788-1536.

And What Has Susan Financed? Well lets see 300 acres of Solar Panels.

 http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/03/nevada_solar_on.html
nevada_one_aerial.jpg

nevada_solar_one_with_people.jpg
 

Pete Seeger Says It All – We just got one place to live

 We just keep screwing it up. Stop lighting things on fire. Stop burning things up. We don’t need to do that anymore.

http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/

Please see this new publication – as the heat turns up. 

Local News Continued – One and Done

I have been remiss in posting both the State Journal Register and the Associated Press’ web sites were I steal…oh I mean “fair usage” all of these articles.

http://www.sj-r.com/

http://www.ap.org/

And the latest, while America fiddles the world burns.

U.N. Chief: Adaptation to warmer world could cost $20 trillion


 

By JOHN HEILPRIN

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS__________

UNITED NATIONS — Global warming could cost the world up to $20 trillion over

 two decades for cleaner energy sources and do the most harm to people who can

 least afford to adapt, U.N. Secre­tary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in a new report.

Ban’s report provides an overview of U.N. climate efforts to help the 192-nation

 General As­sembly prepare for a key two-day climate debate in mid-February.

That debate is intended to shape overall U.N. policy on climate change, i

ncluding how nations can adapt to a warmer world and ways of supporting the

U.N.-led negotiations toward a new climate treaty by 2009, U.N. officials said

Wednesday. The treaty, replacing the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012,

could shape the course of climate change for decades to come. The Kyoto pact

requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases by a relatively modest

5 per­cent on average.Much of the focus has been on the United States, the only

major industrial nation to reject the treaty, and on fast-developing na­tions such as

China and India.
 

Many are looking to. next year, when a new U.S. president takes the White House.

 The leading contenders in both political par­ties favor doing more than the vol­untary

 approaches and call for new technologies that President Bush espouses.

In his 52-page report, Ban says that global investments of $15 tril­lion to $20 trillion

 over the next 20 to 25 years may be required “to place the world on a markedly

dif­ferent and sustainable energy tra­jectory.” Today, the global energy indus­try

spends about $300 billion a year in new plants, transmission networks and other new

 invest­ment, according to U.N. figures. Srgjan Kerim, a Macedonian diplomat and

economics professor who is president of the U.N. Gen­eral Assembly, told

The Associat­ed Press that cutting greenhouse gases alone will not be enough

to pull island nations, sub-Saharan Africa and other particularly vul­nerable parts

 of the world back from the brink of irreversible harm.

Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the advocacy group Environmental Defense,

said global warming will mostly affect poor people and mi­norities, because

the wealthy can spend more to adapt.

But then again it’s money well spent!

As The Tropics Move North



In Illinois we have a new phenomonon – Lightening and Snow Storms…Pretty creepy.

Study: Winters in Northeast are warming



By MICHAEL HILL

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS___________

ALBANY, N.Y.               Earlier

blooms. Less snow to shovel. Un­seasonable warm spells.

Signs that winters in the North­east are losing their bite have been abundant in recent years and now researchers have nailed down numbers to show just how big the changes have been.

A study of weather station data from across the Northeast from 1965 through 2005 found Decem­ber to March temperatures in­creased by 2.5 degrees. Snowfall totals dropped by an average of 8.8 inches across the region over the same period, and the number of days with at least 1 inch of snow on the ground decreased by nine days on average.

‘Winter is warming greater than any other season,” said Elizabeth Burakowski, who analyzed data from dozens of stations for her master’s thesis in collaboration with Cameron Wake, a professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space.

Burakowski,   who   graduated


from UNH in December, found that the biggest snowfall decreases were in December and February. Stations in New England showed the strongest decreases in winter snowfall, about 3 inches a decade.

There were wide disparities in snowfall over the eight-state re­gion, with average totals ranging from 13.5 inches at Cape May, N.J., to 137.6 inches at Oswego, N.Y. Some stations on the Great Lakes, where lake-effect storms are com­mon, showed an increase.

The reduction in days with at least an inch of snow on the ground was the most pronounced at sta­tions between 42 and 44 degrees latitude — a band that includes most of Massachusetts, a thick slice of upstate’New York and southern sections of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Burakowski cites two likely caus­es for the reduction in so-called snow-covered days: higher maxi­mum temperatures and “snow-albedo feedback,” in which less snow cover to begin with allows more sunshine warmth to be ab­sorbed by the darker ground, mak­ing it less conducive to snow cover.

The research has yet to appear in


a peer-reviewed journal, though meteorologists who have studied long-term climate trends said the observations appear to be in line with other research.

Richard Heim of the National Climatic Data Center looked at trends in snowfall totals nationwide from 1948 to 2006 and found that patterns varied regionally and sea­sonally. For the Northeast in win­ter, he found totals mostly decreas­ing along coastal areas, with an in­creasing trend along the Great Lakes. Art DeGaetano, of the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, said regions around New York state have recorded negative trends in snow­fall since 1970.

DeGaetano cautioned that snow­fall totals can vary a lot from year to year. Last month, for example, snow totals were well above aver­age for December across much of the Northeast.


Ski center operators also have noticed an incremental increase in temperatures over the decades, said Parker Riehle, president of the trade association Ski Vermont, but he echoed DeGaetano’s point that snow totals have gone up and down.

‘We’ve seen some erratic winters in recent years,” Riehle said. “The mood swings of Mother Nature, perhaps, are deeper than they used to be.”

But while ski slopes can fire up snow-making guns to compensate for lack of flurries, snowmobilers and cross-country skiers have com­plained about later starts and fewer trails covered with snow.

Cross-country skiers never even get in the right frame of mind dur­ing some winters, said Mark Boos-ka of the Hudson Valley Ski Club.

“They look out their window and they’re not thinking skiing,” he said.

My Cousin Matthew Nicodemus Helped Found This Teach IN – Focus On The Nation

Dear Friends,

Thirty days left to Focus the Nation ! Still time to engage another 500 schools. Thousands of  high schools in the country have an Earth Club. It’s not too late to get them on board for a showing of The 2% Solution, on-line voting on global warming solutions, and critical engagement with political leaders.  PLEASE, pass this e-mail along to every high school teacher, student and principal that you know. Tell them to sign up. Don’t take no for an answer. Time is short.

Between 1960 and 1964, Americans moved from fatalistic acceptance of racial segregation to a solid determination to end Jim Crow. Between now and the end of 2008,  we can move this country from a fatalistic acceptance of business-as-usual global warming. We can end the paralyzing sense that our children must accept from us an impoverished planet. We can embrace a determination to act, and hold global warming to the manageable low end.

Focus the Nation is now the biggest teach-in in history, with more than ten thousand volunteers building events at over 1200 schools, faith and civic organizations and businesses. In the next 30 days, help us bring hundreds of more schools and other institutions to Focus the Nation. Together, we can make 2008 the year that America woke up, the year that we faced up to this civilizational challenge.

Working with three partners, Focus is bringing resources to youth climate leaders. First out of the gate is Face-It  (sponsored by Architecture 2030): $20,000 in prizes for a one-day design contest held on January 30th. Also– watch for details from us later this month about two other amazing opportunities:

*Project Slingshot. Three $10,000 summer scholarships for college climate leaders, designed to propel into action personal projects for innovative global warming solutions. Sponsored by Clif Bar’s  Mojo, there will be grants for artists, outdoor enthusiasts and innovators.  

 

*Poster Contest for High School and Middle School students. What will your community look like in the year 2050? What will people be doing, driving, wearing? Where will their water, energy and food come from? Design the future , and win an outdoor adventure trip. Sponsored by Re:Vision.

Our organizing calls are now weekly. So join us Wednesday, 1/2—12 noon, eastern. Call in to 1-218-339-7800, passcode 1312008. Please, in these final thirty day, help build a national voice loud enough to change the future. Thanks for the work you are doing.

Eban Goodstein, Project Director

Chungin Chung, Communications Director

*Re:Vision the world! Share your passion for sustainable design. How can local businesses thrive, along with families, neighborhoods and communities? How can we share our gifts and talents to meet our everyday needs? Re:Store is looking for ideas to make transactions as good for the soul as they are for the wallet. How can all trade be fair trade? How can we find healthier ways to make exchanges in urban settings? More than just rethinking how we buy, Re:Store is about rethinking what we’ve bought into about commerce. It’s time that ideas were the true currency. Re:Store is your chance to make change. Learn More!

 

FOCUS PHONE-IN Join us for the next half-an-hour conference call to share information and respond to questions. Wednesday, January 2nd, at noon Eastern, 9 Pacific Time. Calls will be every Wednesday at that time, so mark your calendars! Call in to 1-218-339-7800, passcode 1312008.

Focus News:

*Pre-Focus– $20,000 Design Prize at “Face-it”! One-day competition on 1/30.

*NCSE Global Warming: Science and Solutions. Washington DC, January 16-18.

*HS Teachers—need lesson plans on global warming? Visit ClimateChangeEducation.org.

*Green Mountain Coffee Roaster joins Focus as a Sponsor! We are glad to welcome Green Mountain, a pioneer in producing sustainable, fair trade coffee.

*National Campus Energy Challenge. Join schools across the country and see what you can save in February!

* Forty Percent of Car Trips are within two miles of your home: Take Clif Bar’s Two-Mile Challenge and ride or walk instead! Check it out.

*Donate to Focus—Stop Your Junk Mail! Sign up with 41 Pounds, and a portion of the income is donated directly to us here at Focus the Nation.

*The President’s Climate Commitment: Has your University or College President signed on?

New Books on Fighting Global Warming

On video: Jon Isham and Eban Goodstein talk about their recent books on building the global warming solutions movement–  Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction, and Ignition.  Other recent books of note: Gary Braasch’s Earth Under Fire; Laurie David’s Down to Earth Guide (for elementary school); and  Fight Global Warming Now from Step it Up.

 

Focus Update is the e-bulletin of Focus the Nation. If would prefer not to receive this update, please reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the header.

Eban Goodstein
Project Director
Focus the Nation
info@focusthenation.org
www.focusthenation.org
503-342-6863