This Is Exactly What The Global Warming Models Predict – It is just 10 years early

While the world has seen a lot of human suffering since we emerged from the tree, this is getting ridiculous. All the deniers and decriers better get ready for a rough ride.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-weather-costs-20111208,0,4813011.story

2011 saw record number of high-cost weather disasters

The U.S. experienced a dozen natural disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages this year.

By Mara Lee, Hartford CourantDecember 8, 2011
Reporting from Hartford, Conn.—

The United States had a dozen weather disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages in 2011, the greatest frequency of severe weather that caused costly losses in more than 30 years of federal government tracking.

However, even with the number of events, the total losses this year from the storms, flooding and droughts is $52 billion, not even close to the most expensive year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina alone cost $145 billion in today’s dollars. It was the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history and, with more than 1,800 deaths, the highest fatality toll since a 1928 hurricane in south Florida.

The disasters in 2011 caused more than 600 deaths, the agency said. The Groundhog Day blizzard, Hurricane Irene, many tornadoes and drought-fueled wildfires in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona crossed the $1-billion threshold.

The increase in losses from hurricanes has more to do with population growth and increased home building near beaches than it does with climate change, scientists from NOAA say.

But, they added, “there is evidence that climate change may affect the frequency of certain extreme weather events. An increase in population and development in flood plains, along with an increase in heavy rain events in the U.S. during the past 50 years, have gradually increased the economic losses due to flooding. If the climate continues to warm, the increase in heavy rain events is likely to continue. There are projections that the incidence of extreme droughts will increase if the climate warms throughout the 21st century.”

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More tomorrow.

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Australia To Help India Walk Away From Nonproliferation – That’s too damn bad

This piece dithers on a bit before getting to the heart of the matter and offers few solutions. But, that may be because there are not any. Russia has sold uranium to India before and probably will again. I do not know whether China has sold uranium to India or not. I know they would in a heart beat.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/can-we-talk-reversal-on-uranium-sales-to-india-opens-up-a-whole-new-world/story-e6frg7ax-1226212701769

Can we talk? Reversal on uranium sales to India opens up a whole new world

WE should be thankful for small mercies. Before delivering a triumph to Julia Gillard on selling uranium to India, Labor’s national conference this weekend is having a debate on the issue.

That will be a change because so far we’ve heard little more than applause for the Prime Minister’s announcement three weeks ago that she would seek to change party policy to allow sales to a country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She says it is time to modernise the party platform. Those who agree present the change as little more than tidying up a diplomatic anomaly.

There is a case for a change in policy, including the contribution nuclear power can make to reducing India’s carbon emissions, the practical reality that other countries are willing to sell uranium to India and that we already sell to countries like China and Russia.

But there is more to it than that.

“I am horrified that the media have not explained the enormity of this proposal,” says Ron Walker, a former diplomat.

As a head of the nuclear division in the Department of Foreign Affairs in the 1990s and chairman of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1993, his views are worth considering.

No anti-nuke activist, he subscribes to the policy first adopted by the Fraser government: that we should use our position as a major uranium supplier to demand strict safeguards against nuclear non-proliferation.

Leaving aside its surreptitious development of the nuclear bomb, India has been presented as the model nuclear citizen. Unlike China, Russia and Pakistan, it has not exported its nuclear weapons technology and expertise, at least on any significant scale.

Therefore, so the argument goes, India deserves to be made the exception to the rule that we do not sell uranium to countries that do not sign the NPT.

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He writes plenty more. Go read it. More next week.

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Humans Are Literally Space Hogs – Living little is a valuable lesson

When I first started talking about living in small spaces, the idea was for the space to be portable. Some houses were built on truck beds, some were built on trailers and some were easily dismantled. The idea at the time was to live where you wanted to live but not be tied down. Some of the attraction was that you could have the amenities of home without the RV costs. The craze caught on and people began to build them into a fixed space in a conventional setting. Now they have moved into the wild. Very cool idea.

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/remodeling-design/blogs/tiny-give-big-to-a-short-film-about-small-houses

NN.COM

MNN BLOGGERS

Matt Hickman

‘TINY’: Give big to a short film about small houses

Now that the season of giving is officially upon us, find out how you can chip in to help make the short documentary, ‘TINY: A Story About Living Small,’ a well-polished reality.

A very happy [insert non-shopping-related descriptor here] Tuesday! Hopefully you aren’t too entirely burnt-out or broke as a result of yesterday’s responsible gift-buying bonanza because a great new Kickstarter fundraising campaign worth showing a little financial love to has recently come to my attention. And the topic of this creative project is a great one: dramatically downsized living.

Filmmaking team Merete Mueller and Christopher Smith have taken to Kickstarter to raise post-production funds for their short documentary: “TINY: A Film About Living Small.” The film (watch a teaser clip below) follows Smith as he attempts, with no previous building experience, to erect a 130-square-foot cabin in the Colorado mountains while also profiling similarly small-minded Americans. Explains Mueller on the project’s Kickstarter page: “Rather than an informational documentary about tiny houses, the film will explore the idea of ‘home’ and what makes us feel comfortable in a particular landscape or building. The film will be a meditation on the relationship of home to environment, of quality and simplicity to a life well lived.”

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Drill Deep Drill Dangerous – When are they ever going to get this right

Let me get this straight. They want drill baby drill in Artic and through shifting salt strata further south in Brazilian waters and yet this is the best they can do. My god are we in trouble.

http://ecopreneurist.com/2011/11/29/profit-over-protection-in-brazil/

Profit Over Protection in Brazil?

November 29, 2011 By

We’ve got another oil spill. This time it’s off the coast of Brazil, and Chevron has already stepped up to take responsibility for the incident, which occurred when the company didn’t correctly assess the pressure of the reservoir they were tapping. The oil leaked through a breach in the drill’s bore hole and has spread through seven nearby fissures in the sea floor.

Up to 110,000 gallons of oil have already been spilled, and up to 4,200 gallons may still be leaking from seabed cracks. The good news is that the sunny beaches of Rio de Janeiro haven’t been affected, so vacationers, vacation on!

In all fairness, it is certainly a positive that the oil hasn’t affected Brazil’s coasts – but it’s a small victory. Chevron has been working around the clock to clean up the spill, and they face millions of dollars in fines.

The Rio de Janeiro state environment minister, Carlos Minc, was quoted in the O Globo newspaper saying that Chevron “can’t come here and create whatever environmental mess they want” and that he “want[s] to see the CEO of Chevron swim in that oil”.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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The Next Annual Climate Summit – Same as the last one

They hold these every year and every year they get nowhere. The worldwide oil, natural gas and coal interests are just to strong for them to come too an agreement. But take heart, they are meeting in South Africa, the leading polluter in Africa bar none. Geographically their proximity to Antarctica is frightening. Not only that but they are the leading proponent of coal gasification. One of the nastiest 19th century practices still in use. Then there are the Canadians and their oil sands.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Durban+Dummies+What+stake+international+climate+change+summit+South/5774871/story.html

Durban for Dummies: What’s at stake at the international climate-change summit in South Africa

By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News November 27, 2011

???OTTAWA – A two-week United Nations climate change summit in the South African coastal city of Durban begins Monday with nations far apart on negotiations to achieve a binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent dangerous changes in the atmosphere.

Governments from around the world have reached a consensus, based on the latest scientific evidence, that global warming is being caused by human activity and that it will lead to a range of consequences such as melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, and more severe storms and weather. But they believe they can reduce the impact of climate change by taking action now.

Here is some background on what’s at stake:

What is the Kyoto Protocol?

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement that updates the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The original convention was signed in 1992 and came into force in 1994. The nations that signed the UN treaty, both developed and developing nations, agreed on the necessity to take measures to prevent human activity from causing dangerous interference with the climate. It also recognized that rich countries produced the emissions in their industrial development which are causing the changes in the atmosphere and must do more than their counterparts in the developing world.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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LLCC Green Center Coming Soon – It should help the area out a lot

Tim Landis is one of the best writers left on the State Journal Registers staff. This Green Center will be a boon to the Springfield community.

http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x1627418028/LLCC-programs-offer-free-training-in-green-industry

LLCC programs offer free training in ‘green’ industry

Posted Nov 17, 2011 @ 11:00 PM
Last update Nov 18, 2011 @ 06:45 AM

Lincoln Land Community College expects to begin training about two dozen students for “green” jobs  early next year through two pilot programs made possible by $600,000 in federal training grants.

The Renewable Energy Academy and the Green Construction Academy will provide intensive training — classes are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday — for jobs in renewable energy and energy-efficient building.

“We are looking at a lot of new skills and jobs that have not been there in the past,” Julie Rourke, LLCC director of workforce development, said Thursday.

The renewable-energy classes are scheduled to begin Jan. 9 and the classes in green construction on Feb. 13. Both continue into mid-June.

Rourke said the school hopes to enroll 15 students in renewable energy and 12 in green construction. There will be no cost to the first group of students, because the federal grants are paying for the expense of setting up the program, including equipment.

But she said the four-days-a-week schedule will take a strong commitment.

“It’s set up that way for a reason. One is the grant period,” said Rourke. “The other is that we expect a lot of non-traditional students who may be transitioning from one career to another, and there’s an urgency to get them back in the work force.”

The grants, $350,000 from the U.S. Department of Education and $250,000 from the U.S. Department of Labor, were awarded through the LLCC HIRE Education program. The goal is to make the classes self-sustaining once the grants expire at the end of 2012.

LLCC Green Center manager Julie Bates said classes will cover a variety of renewable-energy and energy-efficiency skills, including solar, small wind systems, geothermal, green construction, plumbing and heating, landscaping and site planning.

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More tomorrow.

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Morocco’s Bid To Become The New Saudi Arabia – Transmission losses will be killer

While solar projects in general are a good idea, location is everything.  Morocco is close to Europe. Well it is close to Spain and Southern France but the line losses with current technology will be huge. I suppose it would help to electrify Northwest Africa, but I doubt if that is the market.

http://www.evwind.es/noticias.php?id_not=14771

World Bank backs Morocco concentrating solar power megaproject

november 18, 2011

Ouarzazate is only the first part of Morocco’s ambitious plan of developing 2000 megawatts in solar energy capacity by 2020. The first stage is a concentrated solar thermal power design, using parabolic trough mirrors.

World Bank backs Morocco concentrating solar power megaproject

The World Bank today approved $297 million in loans to Morocco to help finance the Ouarzazate Concentrated Solar Power Plant Project, taking a historic step toward realizing one of the first large-scale plants of this kind in North Africa to exploit the region’s vast solar energy resources.

With this approval from the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, Morocco takes the lead with the first project in the low-carbon development plan under the ambitious Middle East and North Africa Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Scale-up Program. A $200 million loan will be provided by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the part of the Bank that lends to developing country governments, and another $97 million loan will come from the Clean Technology Fund.

“The World Bank is proud to provide the financing needed to make this large-scale renewable energy investment possible,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “Ouarzazate demonstrates Morocco’s commitment to low-carbon growth and could demonstrate the enormous potential of solar power in the Middle East and North Africa. During a time of transformation in North Africa, this solar project could advance the potential of the technology, create many new jobs across the region, assist the European Union to meet its low-carbon energy targets, and deepen economic and energy integration in the Mediterranean. That’s a multiple winner.”

The 500 megawatt (MW) Ouarzazate solar complex, as the first power site, will be among the largest CSP plants in the world and is an important step in Morocco’s national plan to deploy 2000 MW of solar power generation capacity by 2020.

The World Bank has supported Morocco’s national Solar Power Plan since it was launched in 2009 and is now making this significant loan to co-finance the development and construction of the Ouarzazate Project Phase 1 parabolic trough plant through a Public Private Partnership between the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) and a private partner. Ouarzazate Phase 1 will involve the first 160 MW and will help Morocco avoid 240,000 tons of CO2 equivalent a year.

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More next week.

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Rossi”s Cold Fusion Process Backed Up – Is the University of Illinois professor legit

This article claims that Professor George Miley’s work backs up everything that Rossi is doing in cold fusion in Italy. I still have huge doubts. At least Miley’s work is open to the public. Go and see both reports.

http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/10516-the-peak-oil-crisis-transitioning-to-cold-fusion.html

The Peak Oil Crisis: Transitioning to Cold Fusion Print E-mail
By Tom Whipple
Wednesday, November 16 2011 02:45:44 PM

dot dot dot as they say

Now so much energy coming from such a small and inexpensive device, in violation of what are thought to be the principles of physics, seems too good to be true. As this phenomenon had not been independently repeated and verified by other laboratories, many pronounced it a fraud, a few the greatest breakthrough of the age, and the rest of us remained agnostic while awaiting further developments.

They were not long in coming. Last week it was learned that George Miley, a Professor Emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois who has been conducting experiments similar to those in Italy for many years, has been observing anomalous amounts of heat emanating from test equipment similar to that being used in Bologna. Miley has been experimenting with palladium-zirconium alloys, but says his experiments are producing so much heat that could only be coming from fusion of atomic nuclei. Unlike the Italian experiments which are aimed at developing a proprietary commercial product, the Illinois experiments are being conducting under the auspices of a state university with details of the experiments being made known as soon as possible. At a university the aim of scientific research is to win a Nobel Prize, or at least academic prestige, not to make money.

While a second report does not adequately confirm that heat-producing, low-energy nuclear reactions are a real phenomenon, it is does seem to reduce the likelihood of fraud on the part of a single man or organization. Furthermore it increases the possibility that we could be witnessing the early stages of what could be one of the greatest scientific discoveries in human history – production of unlimited amounts of cheap, pollution-free energy.

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http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/10/dr-george-miley-replicates-patterson.html

October 22, 2011

Dr. George Miley Replicates Patterson, Names Rossi

Ecat site – Long-time cold fusion researcher Dr. George Miley, affiliate professor at the University of Illinois, has recently released a report documenting his successful replication of the work of cold fusion pioneer James Patterson. Dr. Miley feels that the work of Mr. Patterson and Andrea Rossi have many similarities and has offered a theory that is felt to cover both. Dr. Miley recently spoke at the World Green Energy Synopsium in Philadelphia, PA from October 19-21, 2011. A Microsoft Power Point presentation was released on October 3 documenting his work and experimental results. I have included a slide show of this presentation below. Please note that such presentations usually serve as a guide to an accompanying lecture, of which I do not have access to at the present time. I will post it if and when it becomes available

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More tomorrow.

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Canadian Park’s Service Celibrates 100 Years – Way to go gang

Not much to say here except HOORAY.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/progs/celebrations/index.aspx

Come Celebrate!

Come Celebrate! Come Celebrate!
© Parks Canada

Experience the unforgettable as you join in the celebrations of the centennial of Parks Canada, the world’s first national parks service! Throughout the country and throughout the year, Canada’s historic and natural treasures are hosting special programs and activities put on to celebrate this special anniversary.


Theme Months
November 2011
Partners and supporters

Centennial Events

Centennial Events

Centennial Booklet

Centennial Booklet – Our Story

To keep up with all that’s going on and to not miss anything, follow us on Twitter, “Like” us on Facebook and come back to this site frequently!

Date Modified 2011-11-03

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More tomorrow.

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Cement Kilns Burn Toxic Waste – But are not regulated like toxic burners

I skipped the lead which is about people having mixed feelings about the trade off between providing employment and pollution.  Personally I do not have mixed feelings because pollution controls supply jobs not take them away. But I skipped to the main fact that these kilns burn toxic waste but are much more loosely regulated. Nuff said.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/10/142183546/epa-regulations-give-kilns-permission-to-pollute

Kilns ‘Not Designed To Burn Hazardous Waste’

Regulators have resisted, citing Ash Grove’s compliance with pollution standards. But those standards give cement kilns permission to pollute when they burn toxic junk for fuel.

Kilns are legally allowed to pump more toxins into the air than are hazardous-waste incinerators, which burn many of the same dangerous materials, including industrial solvents, aluminum plant waste and other toxic leftovers from the production of chemicals, oil and pharmaceuticals.

The Ash Grove Cement Kiln, as seen from an aerial photograph, sits on the northern edge of Chanute, Kan. 
Enlarge David Gilkey/NPRThe Ash Grove Cement Kiln, as seen from an aerial photograph, sits on the northern edge of Chanute, Kan. 

“The problem with cement plants that burn hazardous waste is that they’re not designed to burn hazardous waste,” says Jim Pew, a lawyer for the environmental group Earth Justice. “In my view it’s a loophole for the cement industry.”

Kilns like the one in Chanute that were built or rebuilt before 2005 can emit 43 percent more lead and cadmium — close to four times the hydrogen chloride and chlorine gas, and twice the particulates — than actual hazardous waste incinerators. Thirteen cement kilns in six states operate under those standards.

Three newer or upgraded kilns can emit even more toxic pollutants under EPA standards, including 18 times the lead and cadmium and 15 times the mercury.

These elevated levels are not harmful, says the EPA’s Brooks, because federal pollution limits are “set with a margin of public healthy and safety.”

The industry considers the safety margin huge — “far lower than what is necessary to protect human health and the environment,” says Mike Benoit of the Cement Kiln Recycling Coalition. The numbers are deceiving, he adds, and the actual emissions are minuscule.

“We’re talking about nanograms,” Benoit continues. “We’re talking about micrograms. Millionths of a gram — billionths of a gram.”

Mercury Pollution

But tiny measurements can add up, especially when it comes to mercury emissions at Ash Grove.

“In the year 2004, for example, the Chanute plant was the second-largest emitter of mercury in Kansas,” says Craig Volland, an environmental consultant who advises the Kansas Sierra Club on air pollution issues.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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