So How Do All The Climate Liars Get To Copenhegan – Is someone paying their way

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

No one bothers to ask themselves, “how does a parellel anti-global warming conference get set up in Copenhagen”? We know how the pro-climate people got there. The world’s environmental organizations sent them. Some of them live there or are close enough to drive. The Government people got there on their countries dime as did the UN people. But how did the aptly named Lord Mockton get there? The answer is easy – The Carbon Industry sent them:

http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial

Assignment 2020, Climate Change, Copenhagen Climate Talks, Corporations, Environment, Top Stories

In 2006, according to the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans saw “solid evidence” for global warming. By this fall, that figure had dropped to 57 percent—and just 36 percent said they believed that humans are to blame. That’s good news for climate change skeptics and deniers, who have spent years trying to perpetuate the illusion that the reality of climate change is up for debate. Never mind that the scientific consensus is firmly on the side of global warming—for anyone seeking an alternate view, there’s an entire parallel universe where junk science and bogus statistics ricochet through an echo chamber of kooky blogs, “nonpartisan” institutes, and fake “green” and “citizen” groups that are often acting on behalf of the oil and coal industry.

With Copenhagen kicking off and the overblown “Climategate” scandal making headlines, the deniers have even more fodder for their campaign to kill serious action to slow climate change.

Here’s a guide to the dozen loudest components of the climate disinformation machine.

This is one of the most comprehensive articles I have seen and I urge everyone to read the whole thing. These pricks think they can BURN us off the planet. I hope they are wrong.

Alice In Greenland – Guest poster Jed Morey has his say

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

I rarely have “guest posters”, mainly because nobody asks but also because I like to run my mouth. I forget how I found Jed’s Column but it makes so much sense in such a short space that I actually ASKED Jed if I could use it. How rare is that? So far that would be 2 people Jed and Dan Piraro soooo without further ado (I always wanted to say that…damn).

http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/12/09/alice-in-greenland/

Alice In Greenland

Written by Jed Morey on Dec 9th, 2009 and filed under Columns, Off The Reservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Want to take a trip down the environmental rabbit hole? Spark a discussion about climate change and watch human warming reach extremes far greater than any place on the globe.

To the right you have the laughable stance adopted by the conservative movement that humans are having no effect on climate and the atmosphere. At the other extreme are non-scientist policy makers and pundits holding “The End Is Near” signs on every street corner claiming that Iowa and Chad will be beachfront property by the end of next year.

Personally, I’m not qualified to discern which side is closer to representing the truth.

What I do know is that the debate should remain in scientific circles because I have yet to meet anyone qualified to entirely explain the variances in global temperatures. While world leaders are dithering in Copenhagen and arguing over hacked e-mails about tree rings versus thermometers, the public needs to close its ears to the noise produced on both sides of the global warming debate and focus on the tangible aspects of industrial pollution.

You don’t need to be an expert on carbon emissions or reference “parts per billion” to understand that we are seriously screwing up the planet. Public health has been compromised by the rise of industry. While there are several factors that contribute to the decline in public health, much of the discussion centers on energy production and sources because it’s the baseline driver of industry. So let’s look at it.

First of all, there is no such thing as clean coal. True, you can clean coal emissions, but the process of scrubbing coal to burn cleaner is just as much of an environmental disaster. There is no such thing as clean nuclear energy either, for that matter. True, the emissions are carbon neutral, but at some point every nuclear facility must dispose of the spent fuel used in production. The spent fuel must be stored somewhere and wherever that place is, it’s no place you want to be near.

Large wind farms in lakes and oceans are unrealistically expensive and remarkably inefficient. The Danes will tell you differently and espouse the virtues of wind power—just look at the marvel that is Copenhagen—but the fact remains that they are the largest manufacturers of wind turbines and have a vested economic interest in, shall we say, massaging the numbers. However, wind, solar and geothermal energy present viable options on a micro level and should be encouraged in every corner and backyard of the world. Individuals and small businesses need affordable access to clean energy solutions, not just municipalities.

Economically, there is no such thing as cheap oil anymore. Whether or not the Saudis or Venezuelans care to admit it, we have hit peak oil in the largest, most accessible oil fields around the world. Period. Are there places on Earth with large reserves of oil and natural gas? Yup. Is it easy to get to? Nope. Expensive to retrieve? Yup. Environmentally secure to extract? Nope.

As far as Cap and Trade is concerned—please. Giving large corporations and polluters the ability to buy their way out of cleaning their emissions is a lousy practice. Lisa Jackson from the EPA is on the right track by simply drawing a line in the sand and taking it out of the hands of Congress. The message from the Obama administration is clear: Clean it up. If Cap and Trade is allowed to continue one can only imagine Goldman Sachs creating a derivatives market that bundles pollution credits in with mortgages on homes with inefficient boilers and selling them to school boards in Greenland. No more government-backed securities bought by large corporations and sold on opaque markets, especially if they contain something as ethereal as carbon credits.

This is it folks. We have reached the tipping point. The only option heretofore is conservation.

If you wish to comment on “Off the Reservation,” send your message to jmorey@longislandpress.com.

Can’t say it any better than that. By the way those who know me know I disagree with Jed about renewables, broadly stated, to replace fossil fuels but as he says “Cheap nope, time consuming Yup”. Thanks Jed.

Iceberg Attacks Australia After Destroying New Zealand – Get out the Nukes it is the end of the world

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

It is Jam Band Friday Delbert style – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxNnEEK6uG0

OK now that I have everybody’s attention. The people who do not accept Man Caused Global Atmospheric Destabilization (some people call it Global Warming I don’t) are insane or delusional. They just don’t want people to notice the obvious. They try to draw the arguement so far back into the clouds because if they admit MANKIND is contributing to the mess then the rest of their rhetorical walls begin to tumble. But to ignore this is pretty hard to do.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdXzJaCeHP8 )

Australia shipping alert over massive iceberg

Fri Dec 11, 2:34 am ET

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian authorities Friday issued a shipping alert over a gigantic iceberg that is gradually approaching the country’s southwest coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the once-in-a-century cliff of ice, which dislodged from Antarctica about a decade ago before drifting north, was being monitored using satellites.

“Mariners are advised that at 1200 GMT on December 9, an iceberg approximately 1,700 kilometres (1,054 miles) south-southwest of the West Australian coast was observed,” it said, giving the iceberg’s coordinates.

“The iceberg is 140 square kilometres in area — 19 kilometres long by eight kilometres wide.”

Experts believe the iceberg — known as B17B — is likely to break up as it enters warmer waters nearer Australia, creating hundreds of smaller icebergs in a hazard to passing ships.

“It’s still 1,700 kilometres away, so it’s quite a long way away, it’s not really on our doorstep yet but it’s been heading steadily towards us,” glaciologist Neal Young said Thursday.

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

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/12/11/tech-iceberg-australia.html

This satellite image shows several icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf in 2000. The iceberg B17B on the left has been spotted 1,700 kilometres from Australia. (Australian Antarctic Division/Associated Press)

Scientists say that ice shelf calvings such as the one in 2000 happen about once every 30 years.

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

Wish they would make up there minds…is this a once every 30 years experience or once every 100 year event…but in a way it is so monumental that it is amazing that there is a Climate Summit going on and the deniers have everyone talking about stolen emails and NOT this. Cover your ears and go lalalalalalala.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUgzsdqY1uE&feature=related )

This chap’s post is in the same vein as mine but alas he is a Denier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/dec/11/australia-iceberg-casting-the-news

Casting the news: The Blizzard of Oz, the Australian iceberg disaster movie

This week we need your help producing the big-screen version of the smackdown between one big island and one mammoth iceberg

Strewth! An iceberg passes under Sydney Harbour Bridge. Photograph: Dennis Degnan/Corbis

A crowd of suntanned Australians stand at Sydney harbour. As is traditional, they are having a barbecue. Someone has set up a cricket wicket in the middle of the road. The mood is a happy one. Then, all of a sudden, the light disappears from the sky. Men and women alike turn round to find a 50bn-tonne iceberg where the sun once was. This is B17B, the superberg, and it’s headed right for them, bringing with it a nightmare microclimate: cyclones filled with swirling tinnies, raining wombats and vicious blizzards (to enable the title).

The latest Guardian/film/films production – working title: The Blizzard of Oz – promises to take the disaster movie where it’s never been before. Australia. Inspired by latest events, we plan to tell a tale of ecological disaster that will keep you on the edge of your seat for pushing three hours and guarantees a flying CGI kangaroo every 15 minutes.

To clarify: the latest news seem to suggest that B17B, a 140 sq km block of ice that has broken free from the Antarctic ice shelf, looks set to miss Australia altogether. What’s more, it was heading for the west coast, not the east, so featuring Sydney would be a stretch, too. But this is the movies; rules get bent. Which is how we came to cast Stefan Dennis in the lead role.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qY1e2hGQ2o&feature=related )

After Australia it is probably headed towards India and they are concerned…

http://trak.in/news/iceberg-19-km-by-8-km-drifting-towards-australia/33597/

Iceberg, 19 km by 8 km, drifting towards Australia

2009/12/09Tags: australia news, australian antarctic division, neal young, ross ice shelf

in India News, International

Sydney, Dec 9 (DPA) An iceberg twice the size of Sydney Harbour is heading towards Western Australia, news reports said Wednesday.

They don’t have too much else to say about it. They must emit one hell of a lot of green house gases…do you think?

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEYuo5jxuzQ&feature=related )

Iceburgs Attack New Zealand – well maybe they kinda drift by but

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.

While the people who don’t want to admit that people are pooping on the planet so much that we are destabilizing the planet by citing bogus statistics or hacking emails that appear to challenge the L shaped curve for global warming over the last hundred years…the real destabilization continues. Which is the real point

.http://www.livescience.com/environment/etc/091123-icebergs-surprise-new-zealand.html

Environment

Icebergs Surprise New Zealand

Submitted by Robert Roy Britt

posted: 23 November 2009 11:50 am ET

An iceberg at Bauer Bay on the west coast of Macquarie Island has drifted from Antarctica. Credit: Brett Quinton / Australian Antarctic Division

At least a hundred icebergs have trekked from Antarctica toward New Zealand, arriving at islands off New Zealand in recent weeks after being set adrift perhaps 9 years ago.”The larger icebergs seen from Macquarie Island are tabular in shape, which indicates they have calved relatively recently, probably from one of the massive icebergs which originally calved from the Ross Ice Shelf nearly 9 years ago,” said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young in a statement released earlier this month.

More than 100 icebergs were seen in just one cluster, AFP reports today. Young says the smaller icebergs likely resulted from the breakup of a larger one.

“Everyone on station has their eyes glued to the horizon trying to spot new icebergs,” said Cyril Munro, acting station leader on Macquarie Island. “The scientists working on the southern tip of the island were astounded to see an iceberg of about 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] in length,” he said.

Here are several maps if you would like to see the icebergs:

http://www.acecrc.org.au/uploaded/117/797697_63nz_iceberg_20091124_200.pdf

http://www.acecrc.org.au/uploaded/117/797697_61nz_iceberg_20091124.pdf

When they get to Tasmania we will be in big trouble.

And then there is this

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsr62jU7bnmBi2Z-iKs_Mbgy-9rQD9C5TPD80

Icebergs head from Antarctica for New Zealand

By RAY LILLEY (AP) – 3 hours ago

dot dot dot

The alert comes three years after cold weather and favorable ocean currents saw dozens of icebergs float close to New Zealand’s southern shores for the first time in 75 years.

New Zealand maritime officials have issued navigation warnings for the area south of the country.

“It’s an alert to shipping to be aware these potential hazards are around and to be on the lookout for them,” Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman Sophie Hazelhurst said.

dot dot dot

Large numbers of icebergs last floated close to New Zealand in 2006, when some were visible from the coastline in the first such sighting since 1931.

It is rare for whole icebergs to drift so far north before melting, but a cold snap around southern New Zealand and favorable ocean currents have again combined to push the towering visitors to the region intact.

dot dot dot

Young said that having the icebergs end up near New Zealand is not necessarily linked to global warming, but said that the rate of icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf in recent years may have increased due to dramatically rising temperatures on the continent over the past 60 years.

hmmm…things are different in the REAL world

The Smirking Monkey Is Going Out Of Business – Please help out

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Here is a web site that suffered from lack of support, has 4 no 3 no 2 days left, and a point to make:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25006

Nuclear promises safe, cheap energy, but the truth is less enticing

Energy Policy

by Pierre Tristam

| November 17, 2009 – 11:04am

Energy independence is the new creationism; nuclear power its deity. As the head glow for nuclear’s new dawn, you can’t do better than Aris Candris. He’s president and CEO of Westinghouse Electric, the company aiming to build 14 of 25 new nuclear reactors planned in the United States. Candris also sums up everything that’s wrong with the nuclear power industry’s orchestrated revival — the deceptions, the manipulated numbers, the false promises and the sheer swindle of taxpayer dollars for a technology with a lethal past and an unproven future. Candris’ Nov. 9 tribute to nuclear in The Wall Street Journal tells the tall tale.

You can read all of those lies here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489702243465472.html

He pretty much says the same thing no matter where he speaks – More Nukes..More Nukes

Nukes Good – Renewables Bad

Aris says: Only nukes can supply the huge electrical demand. My source is bigger than your source.

Pierre says:

Actually, that’s more true of nuclear, far less so of renewable. Not a single nuclear power plant has been approved and built in the United States since the 1970s. The newest one, Watts Bar in Tennessee, began construction in 1973 and went online in 1996 — a 23-year span that multiplied its initial costs, to $7 billion. Candris gives the impression that a slew of plants are about to be built. Not so. A slew of plants applied for licenses, but only because the federal government is offering up to $1 billion in tax credits per new nuclear plant (once electricity production begins), as long as the application was in by the end of 2008.

Aris says: Nukes planned will come in starting in 2016. My source is faster than your source.

Pierre says:

Look for pigs flying around Turkey Point, too, because Westinghouse’s claims are identical to those of Areva, a French company building what was supposed to be a next-generation nuclear plant in Finland — quick, safe, cheap. The plant, Europe’s first in 30 years, was supposed to open last summer. Finns will be lucky if it’s open by 2012. It was to cost $3.5 billion. The cost is now creeping close to $7 billion and counting.

Aris says: Renewables, conservation, efficiency weak. Look at France.

Pierre says:

But French electricity consumption is 7,200 kilowatts per person per year, 44 percent less than the American consumption of 12,900 kilowatts per person. France is a model — of conservation. (Candris is wrong about France’s independence: it imports all of its oil and natural gas.)In the United States between 1995 and 2008, electricity consumption increased by 22 percent, more than the projected increase over the next 21 years. The country coped without gobs of nuclear power — and can cope again as renewables like wind and solar increase their share of electricity generation, from 5 percent today (compared with nuclear’s 20 percent) faster and safer. Imagine if renewables had the kind of obscene tax subsidies the nuclear industry is receiving.

Aris says: ALL those wimpy girlie technologies are expensive and US manly Nukes are cheap.

Pierre says:

In fact, nuclear energy is more expensive than solar or wind energy. Take Florida Power & Light’s plan to build two new nuclear reactors sometime over the next 12 years (it’s not clear when, though the company is already socking it to customers by making them pay for construction today. No other state but Georgia allows that con). The projected cost of the two reactors is $18 billion. It’ll certainly go up well beyond that by the time they’re done, but go with the $18 billion figure. The two reactors will produce 2,234 megawatts of electricity. That comes out to $8 million per megawatt at the opening bell. FPL just started operating a 25-megawatt solar-power plant in DeSoto County. Cost: $152 million, or $6 million per megawatt — $2 million cheaper than the projected cost of the nuclear reactors. With wind, it’s even cheaper. A Chinese-American consortium on Oct. 29 announced plans for a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas. Cost: $1.5 billion, or $2.5 million per megawatt. Cheap nuclear power? Demonstrably not.

Keep in mind that wind and solar farms require zero raw materials to operate, and minimal security. Terrorists aren’t about to crash planes into wind turbines or solar panels. Operating a nuclear plant is said to be cheaper than operating gas- or coal-fired plants — but not when security, liability and potential catastrophes are figured into the equation. And for all the safety advances of the past 30 years, the current fleet of about 100 reactors has a projected Chernobyl- or Three Mile Island-like severe accident rate of one every 100 years. Would you like to live near those odds?

The nuclear power industry can’t even persuade its own investors to bet on it, so it’s going after tax dollars and captive customers to pay for its dreamed-up expansion. Simple solution: If nuclear power can make it on its own, fine. But it’s far too dangerous, too uncertain, too costly and too tempting to terrorists to be subsidized by taxpayers and unwilling customers. So far, the nuclear power industry is betting equally and exclusively on public dollars and gullibility. Don’t let it get away with it.
:}

Pierre is right and Aris is wrong. Please support him.

Simple Method For Beaming Energy From Space – But somebody will get hurt in the process

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

It is Jam Band Friday –

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=you+can%27t+always+get+what+you+want&docid=1345780778117&mid=16E7403197023CEB494316E7403197023CEB4943&FORM=VIVR10

Everyone in this country has been programmed by rampant science fiction to believe that everything for the future comes from outer space. So the Japanese launch a press release about using a satellite to beam microwaves back to Earth.

http://www.physorg.com/news172224356.html

Let’s see, first you have to clean up the 13,000 pieces of space debris…then you got to up our payload capacity and multiple the number of vehicles available by at least 1,000. Just to START such a project. Hell we can barely generate enough capacity to keep the International Space Station running which is 160 volts in DC. Which gets us back to this final meditation on “living off the land”. There are somethings we will have to give up on and the first one is Space Flight. Why? Not because of the money and effort that could spent elsewhere. Not because of the hellishness of the logistics. NASA’s dirty little secret is Cosmic Rays. They would destroy any unshielded human and that is why the International Space Station is not in geosynchronous orbit or higher. Stewardesses and Pilots who regularly fly at high altitudes are exposed to enough Cosmic Rays to have a slightly higher chance of developing some cancers. That is why NASA limits the space station stay for astronauts to under a year. But what is the point of going out there?

GROWTH

If we replaced that with

Quality of Life

As a principle the world would be a much nicer and longer lived place.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=you+can%27t+always+get+what+you+want&docid=1322404807369&mid=9E85A21DF312D9016FDC57CBDDDC180567D96A9A&FORM=VIVR12

For those of you who want what you need and a simpler life there are many resources out there

http://www.livingoffgrid.org/

Tips for Off-Grid Living – How To Live Off The Grid

Off Grid Solar Power Array Welcome to our free online resource for off-grid living.
We are here to help you along in the rewarding challenge of living off of the power grid. Whether you are a veteran off-grider living in an RV or cabin in the woods, a seasoned rural farmer, a third-generation rancher – or someone just looking to get out of the rat race – we have the information you seek.

What to look for when buying real estate off the grid >>

Though sometimes a challenge, the many benefits of living off grid make it all worthwhile. How can one describe the feeling of running your house or business off of clean energy sources like natural gas and propane, or renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydro? Who could explain the effect being out of the city and suburbs has on your sense of well-being? How many of us would enjoy more fresh produce grown organically on our own property?

This website isn’t just about owning property that happens to not be connected to the big power company’s grid. It is about living closer to the land; Being responsible for the culture, values and environment we leave behind to our children; knowing that life was meant to be enjoyed, rather than working in a tiny cubicle to earn enough to accumulate stuff we didn’t need in the first place.

Well, that’s what it’s about for me at least. But more importantly:
What is living off grid about to you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_vcFUAUXzY

You can even be a Dad and do it:

http://frugaldad.com/2009/04/05/living-off-the-grid/

Living Off The Grid

Ever wish you could just unplug from your current hectic life? Maybe quit your stressful job, move to a farm with several acres, and spend your remaining time living off the grid. Yeah, me too.

The problem is that this type of lifestyle seems so simple, but is terribly difficult to pull off these days. Why? Because we have become slaves to our stuff – myself included. We have our houses, our cars, our expensive hobbies, our electronic gadgets, our new furniture, our designer clothes, etc.

We spend the majority of our lives working to pay for the stuff that keeps us from living a life with more freedom. Along the way we usually manage to accumulate debt buying more stuff than we can afford. So then we spend even more time working to repay the money we borrowed to buy the stuff that we work to pay for in the first place. Whew! It’s a vicious cycle.

farmhouse040509
Photo courtesy of iLoveButter

How To Break The Chains of Stuff?

So how do we break the cycle? How do we join others who are living off the grid? It isn’t easy. I believe the very first step is to stop accumulating stuff. Draw a line in the sand (or on your front porch), and vow not to allow anything else to enter your home unless it is a necessity or improves your quality of life in some way. If something qualifies under those two conditions, you must save for it and pay cash. No more borrowing!

The second step is to take a look around your house, and your budget. Are you paying for things that you could really live without? The $40 gym membership, or the $15 Netflix membership, may not seem like much by themselves, but how much of a nest egg would be required just to cover those expenses? I mentioned the multiply by 25 concept in a previous post. The idea is that you can estimate how much of your nest egg would be required to maintain your current expenses. I used Netflix as an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX1OVXTplos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymLRWZG4u24

The movement is not just limited to the US.

http://www.off-grid.net/

Top govt advisor attacks Big Power

Section:

EVENTS

— by Alexbenady, 30 Oct

Simpson: Local hero

The UK is in the grips of a power cartel, says an insider from the governing UK Labour Party.

That cartel actively hinders the fight against global warming by lobbying for its own narrow commercial interests at the cost of local democracy and the future health of the planet. It’s an argument that off-gridders and anti-capitalist campaigners will be familiar with. It’s not really what you expect to hear from an advisor to Her Majesty’s Government. Yet it is precisely the belief of Alan Simpson, who occupies a place close to the heart of political power in Britain as energy advisor to the Secretary of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband and Member of Parliament for Nottingham South.

>>Keep reading Top govt advisor attacks Big Power Your Comments: 0
Submit this story to: Twitter Digg Del.icio.us StumbleUpon:}

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=you+can%27t+always+get+what+you+want&docid=1346708637036&mid=00EB313253A0B35936F300EB313253A0B35936F3&FORM=VIVR34

Some people even thrive in an “off the grid” living:

http://www.eartheasy.com/blog/2009/06/what-its-like-living-off-grid/

By Greg Seaman Posted Jun 9, 2009

In the summer of 1980, my wife, three-month old son and I moved “off-grid”. We loved living in San Francisco but wanted to live a simpler, more independent lifestyle, and so we bought a small cabin with land on a rural island in the Pacific Northwest. Since there were no services to the island, our home had no electricity. Residents of the island had to create their own electricity or do without.

Now here I sit, almost 30 years later, with the kids grown and their rooms empty, and with some time to reflect on our experience living and raising a family off-grid. But before even considering the challenges and solutions in dealing with our energy needs over the years, one observation seems to leap out: how little things here have changed. We’ve done very little over the years to enhance our energy needs, aside from installing two solar panels last year to power the computer I’m using to write this article. (Alongside my computer on the table here is a kerosene lamp, and a candle for added light.) This lack of change is testament to the feasibility of off-grid living, and my vision for the upcoming years is to keep things pretty much the way they are.

But keeping it simple hasn’t always been simple. We had to learn alternate methods of preserving food, how to build things without power tools, how to cook on a wood stove, how to clean diapers without a washing machine, entertain ourselves without TV, and accept that many common tasks can take longer and be more difficult without electricity. Here are the main challenges we encountered in living off-grid, and how we managed with them.

For much more:

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2650

http://www.coyotecottage.com/

http://science.howstuffworks.com/living-off-the-grid.htm

http://www.bringaboutgreen.com/

Oh yah and the people that made the song famous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPCRIFLjfPo

Peak Oil To The Oil And Gas Crowd Is Like Turds In The Punch Bowl

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Yup, they don’t like it much:

http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20091014/OPINION/910139986/1021/NONE&parentprofile=1062

The fallacy of peak oil

By Kelly Sloan
THE RIGHT WORD

The onset of this week in Denver has been witness to a conference hosted by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a collection of hand-wringers, theorists, and computer-modelers (co-founded, incidentally, by none other than Randy Udall, brother of U.S. Senator Mark Udall), who subscribe to the proposition that the world has reached, or will soon reach, the point of maximum oil production. This historic juncture, the theory asserts, will serve to signal the beginning of the end of the fossil-fueled society, as worldwide demand transcends supply, resulting in a steady, irreversible decline in oil production, terminating at the moment when the very last thimbleful of crude is cajoled out of the ground.

Like virtually all successful fallacies, this one incorporates a large measure of truth; as a finite commodity, the world oil supply will, eventually, be exhausted. Insofar as this is the case, the theory is valid — all other factors remaining fixed, there WILL come a point in time where demand outstrips supply, and production thereby enters a terminal decline phase. The question, of course, is WHEN this will occur.

The most strident peak-oilers postulate that the date is imminent; indeed, many say it has already come and gone. The problem with their reasoning is best illustrated through an example from economic history.

In 1803, Thomas Robert Malthus presented the second edition of his “Essay on the Principle of Population.” In it, he laid out his theory that the rate of population growth would outpace the rate of increase in the food supply. He predicted that famine would ravage the earth in short order.

What Malthus forgot to consider was the role of technological advances in the food production industry. The Agricultural revolution spurred by improved tools, seeds and techniques, enabled many more people to be fed by the labor of many fewer people (and on less acreage).

In a similar vein, the proponents of peak oil tend to overlook some key factors: advances in drilling, exploration, production, and conveyance of oil and natural gas have served to make available sources which as little as a decade ago were considered unrecoverable, and hence not included on peak prediction spreadsheets. Horizontal and directional drilling capabilities, breakthroughs in well logging and evaluation technologies, and advances in production techniques serve as a few examples of innovations which have increased accessibility to, and improved recovery of, hitherto unobtainable resources.

Also conveniently ignored in the petro-doomsday scenarios, are the roles played by unconventional sources, such as oil sand, oil shale, and tight gas formations. For instance, Canada’s oil sands, which at last count hold more than 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil located in northern Alberta, were thought, 40 years ago, to be too expensive and technologically prohibitive to produce on a widespread, commercial scale. Today, oil sands production, both through mining, and in situ (in place) production, using modern techniques such as Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, accounts for nearly 10 percent of U.S. oil imports, or half of Canadian oil exports. And conservative estimates place the number of recoverable barrels in our own oil shale at between 500 billion and 1.1 trillion (with a ‘T’). To put that in perspective, consider that the lower number represents roughly triple the proven resources in the Middle East.

I think you get the idea…but apologists for the renewable industry? Wow I never would have guessed that.

This Planet Is About Shot – They argue over climate change cause they do not want you to see the big picture

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

What the Industrialists of the world and their Bankers do not want you to see is that the oceans are depleted, the atmosphere is seriously screwed up (not just with green house gases), and the land has effectively been stripped. Humanity has literally sucked the resources out of this planet, goaded on by religious and political leaders.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20090824001733data_trunc_sys.shtml

24 September 2009
New doomsday map shows planet’s dire state
by Kate Melville

Human activities have already pushed the Earth beyond three of the planet’s biophysical thresholds, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world, conclude 29 European, Australian and U.S. scientists in an article in Nature. This force has given rise to a new era – Anthropocene – in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change.

“On a finite planet, at some point, we will tip the vital resources we rely upon into irreversible decline if our consumption is not balanced with regenerative and sustainable activity,” says report co-author Sander van der Leeuw, of Arizona State University. The report started with a fairly simple question: How much pressure can the Earth system take before it begins to crash? “Until now, the scientific community has not attempted to determine the limits of the Earth system’s stability in so many dimensions and make a proposal such as this. We are sending these ideas out to be vetted by the scientific community at large,” explains van der Leeuw. Nine boundaries were identified in the report, including climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. The study suggests that three of these boundaries -climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere – may already have been transgressed.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, the researchers looked at the data for each of the nine vital processes in the Earth system and identified a critical control variable. Biodiversity loss, for example, is based on species extinction rate, which is expressed in extinctions per million species per year. They then explored how the boundaries interact. Here, loss of biodiversity impacts carbon storage (climate change), freshwater, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, and land systems.

The researchers stress that their approach does not offer a complete roadmap for sustainable development, but does provide an important element by identifying critical planetary boundaries. They also propose a bold move: a limit for each boundary that would maintain the conditions for a livable world. For biodiversity, that would be less than 10 extinctions per million species per year. The current status is greater than 100 species per million lost per year, whereas the pre-industrial value was 0.1-1.

“Three of the boundaries we identify – 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide, biodiversity extinction rates more than 10 times the background rate, and no more than 35 million tons of nitrogen pollution per year – have already been exceeded with fossil fuel use, land use change, and agricultural pollution, driving us to unsustainable levels that are producing real risks to our survival,” notes report co-author Diana Liverman, of the University of Arizona.

We are in the midst of a very large extinction event that we are essentially causing…

Mass extinctions require 2 events. In other words the Dinosaurs didn’t evolve into birds because of a single event…the comet strike. What happened was they filled every niche, ate themselves out of house and home. Probably started eating themselves, thus the gigantisism movement AND then the comet struck. Humans are heading for the same fate.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/17/mass-extinction-theory.html

Mass Extinctions May Follow One-Two Punch

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

The “Press” | Discovery News Video

Feb. 17, 2009 — As agents of extinction, comet and asteroid impacts may be losing their punch.

According to a new theory about how mass dyings work, cosmic collisions generally aren’t enough to cause a major extinction event. To be truly devastating, they must be accompanied by another event that inflicts long-term suffering, like runaway climate change due to massive volcanic eruptions.

In other words, a comet couldn’t have killed the dinosaurs by itself — unless they were already endangered species.

This kind of one-two punch could explain more than the extinction of dinosaurs, Nan Arens of Hobart and William Smith Colleges said. In a recent paper in the journal Paleobiology, she and colleague Ian West argue that there are two types of events that can cause extinctions — “pulses” (quick, deadly shocks, like comets) and “presses” (drawn-out stresses that push ecosystems to the brink but may not kill outright, like million-year-long volcanic eruptions).

The chances of mass dyings go way up when both happen together, argues Arens.

WATCH VIDEO: What constitutes a mass extinction?

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But are all mass extinctions created equal? Can researchers come up with a “Grand Unified Theory” of ancient apocalypse?West and Arens think so. They combed the last 300 million years of geologic record, noting impact craters, massive eruptions, periods of ancient climate change, and then comparing them to extinctions. The rate at which species die off spiked dramatically, they found, when a “pulse”-type event occurred within a million years or so of a “press.”The theory fits well for the dinosaurs. Around the time of their demise 65 million years ago, a comet slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula and a huge volcano, the Deccan Traps, was erupting in what is today India.

But other extinctions are problematic. The greatest dying in geologic history, the Permian-Triassic extinction, killed 90 percent of all life on Earth, but there is no record of an impact. Instead, all signs point to a 200,000-year-long volcanic eruption in Siberia as the murder weapon.

R 60 In The Attic – When I first started talking about this everyone thought I was crazy

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

I will be the first one to admit, our attic is finished. I had no control over that. The build out and remodel all took place 50 years ago. Does it make it better that we have a metal roof? When I first started saying PACK YOUR ATTIC with all the insulation you can get your hands on. Everyone said, “How can you say that. There is no payback. There is no room. What if you change your mind” That was of course in an R10 or an R13 world. Then everything changed. Guess what it will change again.

That is because we have all been raised in a “pay as you go” energy system. Have been for generations. But if you think of a world where you pay your energy costs “UP FRONT”. Then you quit worrying about Paybacks and “is it worth it”? You start thinking in terms of how much do I need.

Again for the entire class: You can never lose money by CONSERVING energy.

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

Superinsulation is an approach to building design, construction, and retrofitting. A superinsulated house is intended to be heated predominantly by intrinsic heat sources (waste heat generated by appliances and the body heat of the occupants) with very small amounts of backup heat. This has been demonstrated to work in very cold climates but requires close attention to construction details in addition to the insulation.

Superinsulation is one of the ancestors of the passive house approach. A related approach to efficient building design is zero energy building.

There is no set definition of superinsulation, but superinsulated buildings typically include:

Very thick insulation (typically R40 walls and R60 roof)
Detailed insulation where walls meet roofs, foundations, and other walls
Airtight construction, especially around doors and windows
a heat recovery ventilator to provide fresh air
No large windows facing any particular direction
No conventional heating system, just a small backup heater

Nisson & Dutt (1985) suggest that a house might be described as “superinsulated” if the cost of space heating is lower than the cost of water heating.

That last is important because what if you are using free solar. Then your costs are both zero. So one of them has to be a negative number…haha

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/constructionps.htm

On a more serious note, everyone agrees that the standard currently is good for NEW Construction…I say it is good enough for old as well:

http://www.residentialarchitect.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=275&articleID=886806

massachusetts pilot project explores super insulation for old houses

new construction could also benefit from techniques.
Publication date: February 24, 2009

By Nigel F. Maynard

Alex Cheimets and Cynthia Page live in a duplex that used to consume about 1,400 gallons of heating oil a year. But now their building is one of the most energy-efficient in its Arlington, Mass., neighborhood, thanks to a pilot project that retrofitted the structure with almost $100,000 worth of insulation and other products to increase energy efficiency and lower utility costs.

The so-called Massachusetts Super Insulation Project seeks to determine the benefits and cost-effectiveness of retrofitting old energy-wasting houses with insulation upgrades in key areas. Though the cost for the upgrades in the home were substantial, some of the techniques used—among them proper air-sealing and adequate moisture barriers—are easily applied to new construction at a relatively low cost.

Massachusetts officials are keenly interested in the results of the project, because it dovetails nicely with the state’s efforts to become more energy-efficient. “Our governor, the state House and Senate, and the executive branch are aware that the nation’s energy strategy is not acceptable, and a big part of it is the existing housing stock,” says Philip Giudice, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DER).

“Nationally, buildings account for 40 percent of all energy consumption, and one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions,” says Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles, who chairs Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s Zero Net Energy Buildings Task Force. “This superinsulation project in Arlington promises to be a model for the type of innovation in the building industry that the Patrick Administration hopes will soon be widespread across Massachusetts.”

Lighting Things On Fire Fascinates Humans – Burning things is stupid

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

(it’s jam band friday and i saw eva hunter last night so – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i8vaWoIVN4 – )

Everyone who is human has started a fire. It is primal, but now it is deadly. The “off gases” of combustion are changing the planet Earth’s composition to the point that much of the animal world will not be able to live in it.

http://redyak.com/video/BurningThings/BurningThings.htm

(speaking of hot – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOx6QGJaNFA&feature=related -)

While we are hooked on burning things the rest of the world moves on:

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2248232/china-poised-seize-clean-tech

China poised to seize clean tech crown

Report from The Climate Group argues China is set to dominate the global market for low-carbon technologies

James Murray, BusinessGreen, 21 Aug 2009

China’s position as one of the world’s pre-eminent clean tech hubs was underlined yesterday, with the release of a major new report from The Climate Group arguing that the country has already secured a lead over many of its global rivals in the race to develop and implement low-carbon technologies.

The report, which updates a similar study from last year, concluded that despite the onset of the global recession, Chinese clean tech firms are continuing to record impressive growth, aided in no small part by the government’s decision to focus much of its $585bn (£354bn) stimulus package on low-carbon projects.

The study found that while the Chinese government is resisting international calls to set carbon emission targets, it is delivering good progress against domestic targets to improve energy efficiency, having cut the energy intensity of the economy 60 per cent since 1980.

(did i mention seriously talented – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6PJUoNp0tY&feature=related -)

Yet still we must send smoke into the very air we breath and without which we can not survive.

http://www.dgate.org/~brg/death/index2.html

We like to burn things!

So one fine Saturday, recently, (to be exact it was the third of February, 1996), we were kinda bored, and we were messing around with some hard drives, trying to get them to work. One of ’em was completely dead — no spin-up, no blinking light, no nothing. The computer said it was a Micropolis but couldn’t tell us more than that. So we figured, the thing’s toast, right? And we figured, we’re on the third floor, right? Cool. Open da window. (Remember, it was -6 degrees F out that night!) ;-> Well, enough of my ranting, why dontcha look at the pictures! (If you are using a text-only browser, you might as well quit now. We took 87 pictures for this thing, and they *ARE* the good part, OK???)

(did I say beautiful – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ7KDVtxcXA&feature=related -)

We throw so much up in the air, SOX, NOX, Natural gases like methane, butane, and propane, and dangerous particulates like mercury. Yet everyone wants to worry about carbon. I guess that is as good a place as any to start:

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

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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CO₂ emission per capita per year per country

This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources. (September 2008)

This is a list of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita from 1990 through 2006. All data were calculated by the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), mostly based on data collected from country agencies by the United Nations Statistics Division.

Countries are ranked by their metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per capita in 2006.

(great band too – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBnfxOovUVA&feature=related )
They even have a FaceBook page dedicated to it. You too can make your own Flamethrower!