Tuesday, April 28, 2009

New Thinking

"If I can echo Einstein: it is unlikely that Amazonian nations will be able to solve this problem with the same thinking that caused it" (Andrew Mitchell, In search of forestry’s El Dorado, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8020573.stm).

There has been new thinking on the energy problem. For more information on that new thinking, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Whatdya Think?

Check out the site www.campaignforgreen.com, and lemme know what you think.
Thanks!

Friday, April 24, 2009

The Time Is Now

With the administration and lots of other people wanting energy independence, an economic jumpstart, and solutions to high gas prices and global warming, the time is now to look to totally green, totally clean, totally independent alternative energy. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com. We can take care of this, together.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Climate Change and Climate Disasters

"Oxfam warns of climate disasters http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8009412.stm
The number of people hit by climate-related disasters is expected to rise by about 50%, to reach 375m a year by 2015, the UK-based charity Oxfam says.
Current humanitarian systems are barely able to cope, an Oxfam study contends.
It warns agencies are in danger of being overwhelmed by events such as flooding, storms and drought.
*****Oxfam is also calling for a greater focus on helping countries and communities to prevent, and prepare for the suffering that climate change will cause.
*****
Published: 2009/04/21 00:44:32 GMT
© BBC MMIX"
Something can be done now to stave off any more climate change caused by global warming. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Earth, Breath, Trees

"A major Science study published in January found widespread increase in tree mortality rates in the western U.S., thanks in part to regional warming trends and growing water scarcity. Another study published last month, also in Science, found that even the seemingly limitless Amazon rainforest could be highly vulnerable to drought. And since living trees suck up CO2 from the atmosphere, massive tree mortality due to warming could produce a feedback effect, further intensifying climate change. In the end, we might need a bigger Biosphere 2, because we're on track to screw up Biosphere 1 — otherwise known as the Earth" (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1891121,00.html
Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2009,The Dire Fate of Forests in a Warmer World
By Bryan Walsh).

Trees help the earth breathe. We need to do something. And we can. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Black Carbon, Health, and Global Warming

Black carbon, produced by soot from cooking fires, hurts people’s health and is another source of global warming and climate change (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/science/earth/16degrees.html?_r=1&ref=world). A lot of people cook by fires because they can’t afford anything else (ibid). There are new stoves, some of which use less fuel and produce less smoke and others that are solar power (ibid). But it’s possible to generate electricity without using carbon-producing sources or solar power. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Distractions

Let's not get distracted by expense or discoveries of reserves of business-as-usual fuels. Brazil, which has had the reputation of a green economy, is in danger of doing this, as they are opting for the less-difficult-to-approve thermoelectric energy instead of staying with hydroelectricity, using sugar cane for ethanol which makes up only 1% of world ethanol use, and still looking for--and finding--oil (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7976495.stm, Dirty energy threat to green Brazil). People there are encouraging the government to invest in alternative energy, expecially if other countries do so, so they won't fall behind in technological advances (ibid). But it's more than just keeping up with other countries, other people--we need to invest in alternative energy for its inherent benefits, and there's a greener alternative with far-reaching benefits--please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Non-Carbon Sources For Electricity

The British government wants to do something about climate change and their advisors are promoting electricity from non-carbon sources (Black, Richard, "Climate Advisors Take Electric Road,"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7758752.stm). The Committee on Climate Change advises in a 500-page report that the UK should first wean the power providers off fossil fuels, then invest in electricity from emission-free sources in order to reach greenhouse gas emission targets: "by 80% by 2050" (ibid). Eventually they want to provide emission-free electricity for "'road transport and the heating of buildings'" (ibid).

It can be done--in the UK, the US, and everywhere--and much sooner than 2050. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Biomass Limitations and the Alternative

Biomass, which includes buring wood for fuel, has its limits (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7997398.stm). If not done sustainably, we could end up with more greenhouse gas than we have had with fossil fuels: "At its best, biomass could produce as little as 27kg of CO2 (equivalent) per megawatt hour - 98% less than coal, saving around two million tonnes of CO2 every year . . . However, the study also found that in some cases overall emissions could be higher than those of fossil fuels" (ibid). But it could be used in combination with other things (ibid).
Why bother, though, with something so difficult when there's a totally green, totally emissions-free alternative? For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Pollution and Life Expectancy

Pollution influences life expectancy. The BBC reports on a study done in the U.S. finds, unsurprisingly, that the more pollution, the shorter the life expectancy, and that when the air gets cleaner, life expectancy goes up: "It has taken a quarter of a century, but US researchers say their work has finally enabled them to determine to what extent city air pollution impacts on average life" (Hawkley, Humphrey, "City air pollution 'shortens life'" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7946838.stm). The researchers' study, begun in the 1980s, concluded that life expectancy rose two-and-a-half years, and 15% of the improvement is caused by air quality improvement (ibid). But there is much to still be done to improve air quality, especially for people who are in high-pollution areas every day such as around commuter trains and highways that have high diesel truck traffic and who are thus more susceptible to allergies, asthma, cancer, and cardio-vascular trouble (ibid.)
It's good to lower pollution levels, but what if there were not any pollution at all because the energy for power and even transportation came from something other than fossil fuels? For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.org.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Australia -- Just One Example

"http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-climate-change-australia9-2009apr09,0,65585.story?page=3
What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia
April 9 2009
By Julie Cart
April 9, 2009
Reporting from The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia -- Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty boots and slid into a chair, taking his place at the dining room table where most of the critical family issues are hashed out. Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done .
"Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It's devastation," he said, shaking his head. "I've got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men -- big, strong grown men. We're holding on by the skin of our teeth. It's desperate times."
"You'd have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise," Eddy said.
They call Australia the Lucky Country, with good reason. Generations of hardy castoffs tamed the world's driest inhabited continent, created a robust economy and cultivated an image of irresistibly resilient people who can't be held down. Australia exports itself as a place of captivating landscapes, brilliant sunshine, glittering beaches and an enviable lifestyle.
Look again. Climate scientists say Australia -- beset by prolonged drought and deadly bush fires in the south, monsoon flooding and mosquito-borne fevers in the north, widespread wildlife decline, economic collapse in agriculture and killer heat waves -- epitomizes the "accelerated climate crisis" that global warming models have forecast.
With few skeptics among them, Australians appear to be coming to an awakening: Adapt to a rapidly shifting climate, and soon. Scientists here warn that the experience of this island continent is an early cautionary tale for the rest of the world.
"Australia is the harbinger of change," said paleontologist Tim Flannery, Australia's most vocal climate change prophet. "The problems for us are going to be greater. The cost to Australia from climate change is going to be greater than for any developed country. We are already starting to see it. It's tearing apart the life-support system that gives us this world.""

And that's just one example. We've got to do something to end global warming, end the destruction, end the suffering. And we can do something: please see www.campaignforgreen.org.

Progress Doesn't Have To Be That Difficult

"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L881464.htm
U.S. plays down hopes at climate talks 08 Apr 2009 21:13:45 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Gerard Wynn
BONN, Germany, April 8 (Reuters) - U.S. negotiators tried to dampen expectations on Wednesday of rapid progress on climate change after President Barack Obama vowed new U.S. leadership, on the closing day of U.N. talks in Bonn.
The 11-day meeting was the latest in a series meant to help prepare a deal to be sealed in Copenhagen in December to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.
Obama vowed U.S. leadership on climate change on a trip to Europe last week, raising hopes. [ID:nL5180795].
But in Bonn, Germany, the reality was complex negotiations with fewer than nine months left to sign a global deal to curb man-made climate change, and U.S. officials stressed how hard the job was.
"The negotiations are just starting, this is a complicated subject," said the new U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change, Jonathan Pershing.
"The simple headline that temperatures are rising captures the public imagination as it ought, but the difficulties, complexities, the nuance of what you do about it requires a great deal of time, energy and sophistication."
"Finding common ground will take some time.""

Oh, c'mon . . . let's be positive! It doesn't have to be that difficult. There's something that everyone should be on board with, something that won't cause pollution and will jumpstart the green economy for everyone everywhere. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Cap 'n Trade???

Cap 'n trade? Reduce emissions some places then let other places be polluted and have the pollutants pay and the money be used to fund clean technology? What about all the damage that pollution is doing? Why not right now focus on totally clean energy for every place? It can be done. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Pollution and Birth Weight

"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7988619.stm
Pollution link with birth weight
Exposure to traffic pollution could affect the development of babies in the womb, US researchers have warned.
They found the higher a mother's level of exposure in early and late pregnancy, the more likely it was that the baby would not grow properly.
The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at 336,000 babies born in New Jersey between 1999 and 2003
UK experts said much more detailed research into a link was needed.
Exposure
The researchers, from the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, used information from birth certificates and hospital discharge records.
They recorded details including each mother's ethnicity, marital status, education, whether or not she was a smoker - as well as where she lived when her baby was born.
Daily readings of air pollution from monitoring points around the state of New Jersey were taken from the US Environmental Protection Agency
*******
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7988619.stm
Published: 2009/04/08 23:42:57 GMT"

We need to take care of each other at whatever age--a few weeks along or over 100, and one way to do that is to switch to emissions-free energy. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Rising Sea Levels and Climate Change

Sea levels are rising in the Americas, and other places, and it's down to climate change (Painter, James, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7977263.stm). Ecuador, Mexico, and parts of the Caribbean are in the most danger, as well as New York City and southern Florida (ibid). There's a danger of the rise being between seven inches and a meter even if carbon emissions were lowered (ibid). That might not seem like much, but just think of the damage done when even one inch of water gets in your house during a flood, and think of that inch, plus many more, being flung over seawalls, as when Hurricane Ike hit last September. Yes, buildings are being rebuilt, but a permanent rise in the sea level will change the economy of these places permanently:
"'A rise of one metre will irreversibly change the geography of coastal areas in Latin America," Walter Vergara, the World Bank's lead engineer on climate change in the region, told the BBC. 'For example, a one-metre rise would flood an area in coastal Guyana where 70% of the population and 40% of agricultural land is located. That would imply a major reorganisation of the country's economy'" (ibid).
What's even scarier is that any change that happens is permanent:
"Mr Vergara is not alone in stressing that sea level rises are "climate committed", in the sense that because of existing and projected greenhouse gas emissions, they will continue long into the future.
'The level and direction of change will destabilise extensive coastal areas in Latin America. Once flooded, there is no way back,' he says" (ibid).
But what if there were no emissions to make the sea levels rise? What if economies could be helped instead of hurt? This is possible. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.

Water vs. Oil

In Peru there's a "water versus oil dilemma" (Collyns, Dan, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7951182.stm). The oil companies want to drill in places that provide a lot of water for the country, particularly the poorer regions . . . poorer economically. The San Martin region lies in the oil area:
"The oil concession in question, Block 103, is held by a consortium.
Canadian oil company Talisman Energy is the largest partner with a 40%. Spain's Repsol and the Brazilian state company Petrobras have a 30% share each.
More than 70% of the Peruvian Amazon is divided into oil and gas concessions for exploration or exploitation The Peruvian government says it plans to be self-sufficient in oil and gas by 2011 In 2008 Peru produces nearly 50m barrel of crude oil Official figures says there are around 100 mining companies running more than 600 operations in Peru, in an area which covers 0.56% of national territory" (ibid).
But the area also includes a region that provides much water for the country:
"One-sixth of it belongs to the conservation area of the Cordillera Escalera, the only area the court ruling states cannot be touched.
Environmentalists say apart from the mountain range being home to rare wildlife, such as the spectacled bear, it is also a major source for the rivers in northern San Martin.
Situated on the eastern side of the much larger Andes mountains range, it is the first high ground to be hit by clouds that drift westward across the Amazon basin from the Atlantic Ocean on the other side of the continent.
That means a lot of rain, so the hills soak up the water like a sponge and literally seep water.
Drilling for oil in any part of the Cordillera Escalera could contaminate the entire watershed, say environmentalists.
"It's literally a water bank for the entire population here," says San Martin's regional governor, Cesar Villanueva. "We cannot allow it to be touched" (ibid).

But a conflict like that doesn't have to happen. There is an alternative that does not use oil or any fossil fuels and that will help preserve water and the entire environment. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Climate Change and Environmental Damage

We all know the climate is changing, the globe is warming, seasons are overlapping. Carbon emissions have made the oceans more acidic, threatening ocean life, both animals and plants since oceans have absorbed "up to 50%" of carbons from fossil fuels for the past two hundred years and lessened "the pH value of seawater--the measure of acidity and alkalinity--by O.1 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7936137.stm; Acidic seas fuel extinction fears By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst, BBC News, Published: 2009/03/11 03:00:28 GMT). A bridge of ice between two islands in Antarctica has snapped, making an ice shelf vulnerable, and several more have broken over the past several years (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7984054.stm, Published: 2009/04/05 07:13:59 GMT). Pikas, a hamster-like animal that lives in the mountains, are losing their habitat as the climate warms in the American West; they move upslope but are running out of room (Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved, As West warms, some fear for tiny mountain dweller By MIKE STARK, Associated Press Writer Mike Stark, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 4, 6:47 am ET). Frogs are disappearing as ecosystems decline, and since they "sit right in the middle of the food chain," and "without them, other creatures are disappearing too" (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/frogs-the-thin-green-line/introduction/4763/). And those are just a few examples of what's happening to plants and animals and the environment, aside from all the harm to people's lungs and hearts. Something that's got to be done.
And there's something that can be done: please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

US Pragmatic on Climate Change

US to be 'pragmatic on climate' By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst, Bonn
The US must balance science with what is politically and technologically achievable on climate change, America's lead negotiator has said.
Speaking at UN talks in Bonn, Jonathan Pershing said the US must not offer more than it could deliver by 2020.
Poor countries said the latest science showed rich states should cut emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020.
President Barack Obama's plan merely to stabilise greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2020 is much less ambitious.
Mr Pershing, the US delegation head, previously spent many years promoting clean energy for the International Energy Agency and at the Washington think-tank WRI - World Resources Institute.
'Pragmatic' approach
He told the BBC he was very worried the Earth might already be committed to dangerous climate change.
But he said the US should not make promises for 2020 that it could not keep: "It is not the point in time in 2020 that matters - it is a long-term trajectory against which the science measures cumulative emissions.
"The president has also announced his intent to pursue an 80% reduction by 2050.
"It is clear that the less we do in the near-term, the more we have to do in the long-term. But if we set a target that is un-meetable technically, or we can't pass it politically, then we're in the same position we are in now… where the world looks to us and we are out of the regime.
"We want to be in (the regime), we want to be pragmatic, we want to look at the science. There is a small window of where they overlap. We hope to find it." (Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7980441.stmPublished: 2009/04/03 00:22:29 GMT)

This can happen before 2020. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

More Pain At The Pump

Where I'm at, gasoline prices have gone up to $2.01. That's not as bad as it's been in a while, but still . . . .
Something needs to be done. And something can be done! Please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Air Pollution, Health, and Emissions-Free Energy

"http://www.npca.org/cleanair/agenda/

National Parks Conservation Association

NPCA Press Releases
Court Rejects Air Pollution Rules as Inadequate -- 02/24/09

Protect the Air We Breathe: An Agenda for Clean Air
It’s Time to Act on Air Pollution
Air pollution is among the most serious and wide-ranging problems facing the parks today. Of the 391 parks within the National Park System, 150 are located in parts of the country that fail to meet one or more national healthy air standards. Fine particulate pollution has cut summertime visibility at Blue Ridge Parkway by 80 percent. And Acadia National Park’s estimated natural visibility is 110 miles, but particulate pollution reduces the visibility to about 33 miles.
Air pollution also causes widespread harm to the environment. It threatens the health of plants, animals and visitors, and damages buildings and cultural resources. Outside the parks, millions live in areas where air pollution increases their risk of serious, even life-threatening health effects, including asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes."

Think about how difficult it is when people have respiratory and cardiac problems--it's difficult for them personally and for their families, they lose work time and money, people without insurance have problems, etc. And then think about how things would be if there were no emissions, if we still had the same access to energy but simply with a no-emissions energy source that didn't have unreliability and storage problems like solar and wind energy. It is possible. For more information, please see www. campaignforgreen.com.