Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Krugman: It's time for solar power
Solar Power has been my pick for the future of alternative, sustainable energy for a while now - years not weeks. China has weighed in on solar by with aggressive trade practices to kill competition, distorting pricing and otherwise upsetting the course of the industry built up around solar power. Its not a walk in the park to see how to invest in this area. Lots of money has been lost already by investors and companies bankrupted....
Solar Power
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES
Updated Monday, November 7, 2011
For decades the story of technology has been dominated, in the popular mind and to a large extent in reality, by computing and the things you can do with it. Moore's Law - in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months - has powered an ever-expanding range of applications, from faxes to Facebook.
Our mastery of the material world, on the other hand, has advanced much more slowly. The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago.
The success story you haven't heard about is Solar Energy
But that may be about to change. We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That's right, solar power.
If that surprises you, if you still think of solar power as some kind of hippie fantasy, blame our fossilized political system, in which fossil fuel producers have both powerful political allies and a powerful propaganda machine that denigrates alternatives.
These days, mention solar power and you'll probably hear cries of "Solyndra!" Republicans have tried to make the failed solar panel company both a symbol of government waste - although claims of a major scandal are nonsense - and a stick with which to beat renewable energy.
But Solyndra's failure was actually caused by technological success: The price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn't keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, "there's now frequent talk of a 'Moore's law' in solar energy," with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.
This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues - and if anything it seems to be accelerating - we're just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.
And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it's likely that we would already have passed that tipping point.
But will our political system delay the energy transformation now within reach?
A large part of our political class, including essentially the entire GOP, is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers' money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar.
So what you need to know is that nothing you hear from these people is true; solar is now cost-effective. Here comes the sun, if we're willing to let it in.
Krugman is a columnist for The New York Times.
Source:
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Krugman-It-s-time-for-solar-power-2257045.php
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Mindful Living Can Help Heal the World
Pay Attention to what is a need and what is a want in your consumer behavior. Reduce your wants and be less of a burden on the limited resources of the Planet. Leave something for the next guy. We consume too much and need to change our behavior.
We need to become more mindful of the effects we are having on the world. The air,oceans, rivers and animals are all suffering the negative effects of human activity.
It is time we change our behavior and learn to live in a more sustainable manner.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Peanut Crop Worst In 30 Years! Peanut Butter Prices Explode to the Upside!!!
- Quick Goober Facts:
- The peanut is otherwise known as a groundnut or "goober nut" from the Congo name "nguba" and is actually a legume.
- The US president Jimmy Carter is one of the world's most famous peanut farmers.
- There are about 50,000 peanut farms in America.
- An American botanist is known to have developed over 300 different uses for the peanut ranging from the dull to the utterly spectacular including shoe polish, shaving cream, toothpaste, grease and ink.
- An Australian inventor is said to have devised a car which runs on peanut butter.
- The famed butter spread based on peanuts was invented by an American doctor back in 1890 to provide a nutritious and easily digestible food for his elderly patients.
- Surveys have revealed that men prefer smooth peanut butter while women prefer crunchy.
- Peanut butter is responsible for over half the consumption of US peanuts.
- The world record for eating 100 peanuts, one at a time is 59.2 seconds.
- Americans consume an average of 12 pounds of peanuts per person per year.
- Peanuts are adaptable and can be used whole, flaked and ground in sweet dishes, cakes and biscuits, whilst nutbutters can be added to soups and stews to thicken them, as well as eaten raw or roasted or made into the famous peanut butter.
- Peanuts contain about 40-50% oil and peanut oil is used in cooking as salad oil, in margarine's and the residue is fed to animals.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Mankind's Report Card
20 ways the world has changed since 1st Earth Summit - Politics - CBC News
The United Nations says humans are more concerned about damage done to the environment than we were 20 years ago — but we're still destroying it faster than we can fix it.
That's part of a snapshot prepared by the United Nations Environment Program in a report called Keeping Track that looks at a wide range of changes that have occurred since the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
The report is designed to be used by legislators at the 2012 Earth Summit in Rio next May.
And far from being a thick report that will just gather dust, Keeping Track is actually a bit of a page-turner, filled with surprising and often encouraging news about our stewardship of the Earth.
The report uses a minimum of text and relies on colourful graphics, charts and satellite pictures to show the major environmental and social changes that have occurred on Earth since the early 1990s, from growing cities in China to the rapidly spreading footprint of Alberta's oil sands.
Changes in the world over the last 20 years.
1. The number of megacities has doubled.
The United Nations says humans are more concerned about damage done to the environment than we were 20 years ago — but we're still destroying it faster than we can fix it.
That's part of a snapshot prepared by the United Nations Environment Program in a report called Keeping Track that looks at a wide range of changes that have occurred since the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
The report is designed to be used by legislators at the 2012 Earth Summit in Rio next May.
And far from being a thick report that will just gather dust, Keeping Track is actually a bit of a page-turner, filled with surprising and often encouraging news about our stewardship of the Earth.
The report uses a minimum of text and relies on colourful graphics, charts and satellite pictures to show the major environmental and social changes that have occurred on Earth since the early 1990s, from growing cities in China to the rapidly spreading footprint of Alberta's oil sands.
Changes in the world over the last 20 years.
1. The number of megacities has doubled.
2. The world is eating 26 per cent more meat.
3. Global temperatures continue to rise, with the last 10 years the warmest on record.
4. World industry is 23 per cent more energy efficient.
5. Plastic consumption has skyrocketed — with annual production reaching a record 265 million tonnes worldwide in 2010.
6. The 1990 Montreal Protocol to limit ozone-destroying chemicals is the world's most successful international agreement, producing a 93 per cent drop in the damaging emissions since 1992.
7. Cement production is the fastest-growing source of C02 emissions.
8. The Mesopotamian Marshlands, the largest in the Middle East, are recovering from deliberate draining by Iraq in the 1990s.
9. Saudi Arabia has transformed from an importer of food to an exporter due to irrigation.
10. Environmentally protected areas have increased worldwide by 42 per cent.
11. Fish stock depletion is now one of the most pressing environmental issues.
.................................................................
Megacities:
Pop. in millions, 2010
1. Tokyo, Japan
36.7
2. Delhi, India
22.2
3. Sao Paulo, Brazil
20.3
4. Mumbai, India
20.0
5. Mexico City, Mexico
19.5
6. New York - Newark, USA
19.4
7. Shanghai, China
16.6
8. Kolkata, India
15.6
9. Dhaka, Bangladesh
14.6
10. Karachi, Pakistan
13.1
.........................................................................
3. Global temperatures continue to rise, with the last 10 years the warmest on record.
4. World industry is 23 per cent more energy efficient.
5. Plastic consumption has skyrocketed — with annual production reaching a record 265 million tonnes worldwide in 2010.
6. The 1990 Montreal Protocol to limit ozone-destroying chemicals is the world's most successful international agreement, producing a 93 per cent drop in the damaging emissions since 1992.
7. Cement production is the fastest-growing source of C02 emissions.
8. The Mesopotamian Marshlands, the largest in the Middle East, are recovering from deliberate draining by Iraq in the 1990s.
9. Saudi Arabia has transformed from an importer of food to an exporter due to irrigation.
10. Environmentally protected areas have increased worldwide by 42 per cent.
11. Fish stock depletion is now one of the most pressing environmental issues.
12. Renewable energy has skyrocketed, with solar energy leading the way — up 30,000 per cent since 1992.
13. Biofuel production — up 300,000 per cent — is converting more land from farming to production of fuel.
14. Organic farming is up 240 per cent since 1999.
15. The Amazon rainforest has been largely destroyed due to drought and farming.
16. Tourism and travel is the world's largest business sector — and ecotourism is the fastest-growing type of tourism, up 20-34 per cent per year.
17. Passenger trips by airplanes have doubled in the past two decades.
18. Clean drinking water access increased to 87 per cent, but widespread sanitation is still slow.
19. 30 per cent more private companies are adopting environmental standards every year.
20. Women's influence is rising with more 60 per cent more seats in national parliaments.
13. Biofuel production — up 300,000 per cent — is converting more land from farming to production of fuel.
14. Organic farming is up 240 per cent since 1999.
15. The Amazon rainforest has been largely destroyed due to drought and farming.
16. Tourism and travel is the world's largest business sector — and ecotourism is the fastest-growing type of tourism, up 20-34 per cent per year.
17. Passenger trips by airplanes have doubled in the past two decades.
18. Clean drinking water access increased to 87 per cent, but widespread sanitation is still slow.
19. 30 per cent more private companies are adopting environmental standards every year.
20. Women's influence is rising with more 60 per cent more seats in national parliaments.
......................................................................................
.................................................................
Megacities:
Pop. in millions, 2010
1. Tokyo, Japan
36.7
2. Delhi, India
22.2
3. Sao Paulo, Brazil
20.3
4. Mumbai, India
20.0
5. Mexico City, Mexico
19.5
6. New York - Newark, USA
19.4
7. Shanghai, China
16.6
8. Kolkata, India
15.6
9. Dhaka, Bangladesh
14.6
10. Karachi, Pakistan
13.1
.........................................................................
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)