If you think Christmas is about crass comercialism than go here:
http://www.merry-christmas.com/
But if you think Christmas is about lowering your use of fossil fuels, and other scare resources, please try here:
(:=}
I will date these posts as I post them. This is Highly unusual but we assumed that the server we use was backed up every day or every week. Not so. The Server is only backed up every 2 weeks. So this could get confusing. The NEW daily posts will not be dated. CES bloggers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7766249.stm
‘Solar taxi’ goes round the world
A solar-powered car has arrived at the UN climate change talks in the Polish city of Poznan after a round-the-world trip covering almost 40 countries.
At the wheel of the “solar taxi” was Swiss teacher Louis Palmer who made the 52,000km (32,000 mile) 17-month trip.
He said the feat proved solar power was a viable alternative to oil-based fuels and could help fight global warming.
But he said the prototype would need serious modification before it could be mass produced.
The small blue-and-white three-wheeler tows a trailer packed with batteries charged by the sun. It can travel for 300km on a single charge and reach speeds of 90km/h (55mph).
“People love this idea of a solar car,” Mr Palmer said outside the venue of the UN climate talks. “I hope that the car industry hears…and makes electric cars in future.”
Mr Palmer, 36, said the car ran “like a Swiss clock,” breaking down only twice during the gruelling trip through 38 nations starting in Lucerne in July 2007.
Unfortunately when I went back to the Monterey County Weekly where I swear I stole (borrowed) the article and IT WASN’T There. The 5th way was environmental cleanup. It even had a picture of a little girl picking up trash from a scenic California beach. So these articles will have to due do.
;]
Boys in Blue Won’t Go Green
The Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council is interested in replacing old police cars with hybrids, but city cops prefer to stick with the tried-and-true.
The advantages of hybrid police cars are obvious, Sgt. Paul Tomasi told the City Council on Nov. 4. They emit fewer greenhouse gases, save up to $800 per year on fuel, are quieter and earn bonus points with the public.
But the drawbacks, he said, are prohibitive. Hybrids are lighter and more likely to tip over. They’re expensive to buy and equip. The California Highway Patrol doesn’t think the tech is up to patrol standards yet, and even the agencies that have hybrids won’t use them for emergency purposes.
Zan Henson Survives Plan Crash
Carmel Valley attorney Alexander “Zan” Henson crashed a single-engine plane into the Monterey Pines Golf Course northwest of the Monterey Peninsula Airport around 6pm on Tuesday night, Nov. 25.
Henson was taken to the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula. His passenger, Santa Cruz attorney Jim Rummins, was airlifted to a hospital in San Jose. The two men, both in their 60s, reportedly sustained injuries that are not life threatening.
Henson’s wife, Holly Henson, told The Monterey County Herald she expected her husband to be released from the hospital Nov. 26. Rummins reportedly was still being treated for back, head and lung injuries.
For years, the Weekly has reported on Henson’s battles for “slow-growth” development, a voter-owned desalination plant and other environmental causes. He directed the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District board from 1981-1982 and 1999-2003 and was founding director of the Monterey chapter of Surfrider Foundation.
;]
Once we kill off the Oceans of the Earth, what shall we do next?
;]
Posted November 13, 2008 12:00 AM
Liquidity Crisis
A cold, salty wind blows from the west. The gray Pacific Ocean – incubator of slimy life, cycler of nutrients, composer of storms – doesn’t seem like itself lately.
The bully they call El Niño seems to be coming around more often, screwing with every fishery he touches. Niño plays games with the world’s weather, flooding dry Peruvian coastal towns while parching lush Indonesia.
Expanding offshore twilight zones of low oxygen turn fish into refugees and kill whatever can’t swim away. Oregon fishermen pull up buckets of dead crabs while jumbo squid pulse poleward, happier than clams in the suffocating layer. Other warm-water species are hanging out in places that used to be too cool for them. Tropical storms are getting meaner; jellyfish are swarming.
Meanwhile, the mad chemist known as pH is tinkering with the ocean’s ions, making California’s coast more acidic than the psychedelic ’60s. Dolphins file noise complaints, the shells of microscopic snails dissolve, and light-reflecting plankton retreat.
The sea’s weird behavior is a tough nut to crack, but some of the world’s sharpest minds are on the case. Their chief suspect is carbon dioxide, code-named CO2: atmospheric loiterer, weather tweaker, planet heater.
;]
For much more see this article or google “acid ocean” and watch the hits grow.
Let’s see after the last bailout Lee Iaccoca invented minivans and SUVs. Now they want to take the money dedicated to the creation of efficient engines and throw it down a rat hole. We loan 15billion$$ to companies worth 10billion$$ and they will still build cars that suck. Great News.
;]
|
Analysis: Labor-green rift clouds auto aid chances
|
|||
|
WASHINGTON (AP) — Watch out for family fights, Mr. President-elect. Though Democrats will control both the new Congress and White House, the battle over a multibillion-dollar auto industry bailout already is pitting two major party constituencies against each other: big labor and environmentalists. The United Auto Workers, along with Detroit’s Big Three, are pushing for an infusion of emergency loans for the carmakers’ immediate needs – even if that means diverting $25 billion that had been set aside for creating cleaner vehicles. Environmentalists balk at that notion, saying the money is sacrosanct and insisting that any new help be tied to strict requirements for greener cars. The intramural fight helps explain why President-elect Barack Obama has stayed vague on his views on the details of the bailout and Democratic leaders have seemed uncertain about whether to push one through. It’s also at the heart of the disagreement between Democrats and the Bush administration over how to structure any carmaker rescue. After rushing Congress back into session last month to consider an emergency auto aid plan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., abruptly reversed course and called off the debate. They ordered the Big Three to submit elaborate loan applications to Congress before they would even schedule votes on a rescue. The separate blueprints submitted Tuesday by Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. called for up to $34 billion in government aid. |
;]
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
(11-18) 17:46 PST LOS ANGELES — In his first speech on global warming since winning the election, President-elect Barack Obama promised Tuesday to set stringent limits on greenhouse gases, saying the need is too urgent for delay.usiness
Many observers had expected Obama to avoid tackling such a complex, contentious issue early in his administration. But in videotaped comments to the Governors’ Global Climate Summit in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, he called for immediate action.
“Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all,” Obama said. “Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high, the consequences too serious.”
He repeated his campaign promise to create a system that limits carbon dioxide emissions and forces companies to pay for the right to emit the gas. Using the money collected from that system, Obama plans to invest $15 billion each year in alternative energy. That investment – in solar, wind and nuclear power, as well as advanced coal technology – will create jobs at a time of economic turmoil, he said.
;]
He is going to hit the ground running or at least sauntering. For more details PLEASE see the article in its entirety (I have always not wanted to say that).
;]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/19/EDRI147115.DTL&hw=solar+taxes&sn=001&sc=1000
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
California’s regulators are exploring whether or not California should follow the German model to promote rooftop solar power by adopting a “feed-in tariff” for solar energy. This tariff sets a price for any and all electric power that the solar installation feeds into the electric grid, even relatively small amounts. Rooftop photovoltaic installations on both homes and businesses have blossomed in Germany due to the use of this incentive.
So we know that this policy can convince building owners to invest in more solar installations. But it is not the only way to develop solar power – or the best way. In Ontario, Canada, a feed-in tariff that paid four times the normal price for electricity failed to stimulate small-scale projects. The Ontario Power Authority has been unwilling to up the ante, because it would raise electric rates for consumers – the biggest problem with high feed-in tariffs is that they result in higher utility bills, because ratepayers pay top dollar for every single kilowatt produced. Here in California, we are already subsidizing solar through higher utility bills. Thus a high feed-in tariff is unnecessary, and unfair.
PG&E, Edison and SDG&E now pay a homeowner or business full price rather than the wholesale rate other electric generators receive for their solar output up to the amount of electricity they use annually. Solar advocates want utility companies to purchase excess solar output from homeowners and businesses, and want the utility to pay an inflated price per kilowatt hour. But overpaying for rooftop solar would actually buy us less renewable power in the end by spending consumers’ money on the most expensive renewable technology – photovoltaic solar energy – which is more than twice as expensive as solar mirror power, wind, geothermal or biomass.
:}
Please read the article for more details. I am on vacation and being an angel.
:}