Ripple Warming

The “ripple effect” is not a biological phenomenon confined just to isolated food webs (if there is such a thing). Global warming is having the exact same effect on the entire world as we speak. In many ways we see the consequences of a universal warming trend playing out on our environment. Like what?

So, the temperature rises a little bit. Ok, that, after all, is global warming. Well, that temperature shift causes the evaporation of bodies of water, such as Lake Chad, a vital water source for Nigerians. The lake is no longer a lake. It is a large, dusty, depression in the earth.

Now we have dehydrated Nigerians, who were not well off to begin with. Bad. Very bad.

What else, say you?

Well, all this dust gets kicked up by wind, as you can probably imagine, if you’ve ever been on a baseball field during some wind or otherwise encountered a current of air acting on small particles. This dust does not simply roll a few yards, or a few hundred yards. Nay, sir, it is carried about to surronding islands.

So, dusty islands are the result of global warming?

Wrong again. The inahbitants inhale the particulate matter. This makes the kids get asthma and other lung problems. The dust that doesn’t make it to a pair of lungs? It lands in the ocean, clouding it significantly. Photosynthesis becomes near impossible, and this interrupts the ocean food web. And we all know about the ripple effect in a food web.  Once again, we see the fragility of nature. This is just one of the many existing examples and possibilites thatshow global warming’s potential for disaster.

Air power!

Viva la France! French engineer Guy Nègre has been working on the concept of an air-powered car for the past 15 years. Thanks to a new contract with India’s main car manufacturer, Tata Motors, Nègre’s technology is about to reap the benefits of a major corporate backer; not to mention access to a massive, growing market. Geeks Are Sexy lays out the details on the tech,“The principle that makes this car work is very simple. Instead of using gas to create an explosion and make the pistons move, the vehicle’s engine is powered via three compressed air tanks located under its chassis. Environmentally speaking, this means all that goes out the exhaust pipe is cold, pure air, which can even be used as an air-conditioning source on a hot summer day.”

Put it all together and you get a vehicle with a top speed of 110 kilometers per hour, and a range of around 300 kilometers! All that’s needed for a refuel is a compressed air station — or in case of emergencies — an outlet. An on-board air-compressor will refill the tank in about 3 hours once plugged in.

Whether this tech will ever make it to North America (whose futures seem firmly tied up in electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles) is debatable. Either way, with environmental concerns over India’s fast-growing vehicle population (especially in light of the newly announced $2,500 car), any alternative-energy technology with impact potential would be welcomed.

source: groovygreen.com

see also: http://www.plentymag.com/features/2008/01/driving_on_air.php

Mmm…shiny

Worried about climate change? Well worry no longer because a University of California-Irvine team has come up with a solution: shiny crops.

The idea is just one of many recent ideas proposed by geoengineering, the science of modifying Earth’s environment on a large scale. In the last couple years, geoengineers have proposed several unique solutions to the global warming problem including stationing mirrors in space, dumping large amounts of iron into the ocean and creating artificial volcanoes. They propose to use these methods to solve global warming if greenhouse gas emissions are not controlled and the predicted consequences of global warming begin to materialize.

The shiny plants idea is part of the larger group of climate change solutions that involve making the Earth’s surface more reflective. Other suggestions in this vein include planting more leafy trees instead of conifers and painting roads, roofs, and other skyward facing surfaces white. The concept is based on the fact that more reflective surfaces, such as the white polar ice caps, reflect more sunlight, and therefore heat, than darker and less reflective surfaces.

UC-Irvine team leader Chris Doughty told a special session of the American Geophysical Union: “Slowing or reversal of regional warming trends may be achieved by manipulation of land surface albedo [the amount of sunlight reflected by land]. This approach is most feasible in agricultural and forestry areas, where the land surface is already under significant human influence.”

Luckily for those who favor the shiny plant solution, plant breeders have already created a more reflective crop for widespread planting. A super-hairy variety of the soya bean originally designed to fight insect pests has the added bonus of reflecting about 5% more sunlight than normal plants. Replacing normal soya with the extra hairy variety could have a major effect, as the plant is farmed on over 1 million square kilometers of farmland throughout the world.

source: environmentalgraffiti.com

Sounds feasible, sort of… but most of the light reflected off crops in, say, the midwest, is just going to reflect back down to Earth off GHG molecules… kind of solving the wrong problem here.

That big glowy thing? Yeah, it’s pretty warm…

Scientific American has the latest in what amounts to a uniquely powerful, detailed, must-read case for a solar energy future in America.

In a nutshell: For about $10 billion a year for 40 years, the US can become energy independent and reduce its carbon emissions 62 percent with solar power as its prime source.

It’s a bargain, if you consider the $400 billion already down the tubes after only five years of war in Iraq — with $200 billion more budgeted and no end in sight. For that price, we could phase out dirty coal and build an entirely new clean energy economy, and then some. And the best part? We have the technology to do it today.

The article starts out with a stark wake-up call. The truth about solar:

Solar energy’s potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year. The U.S. is lucky to be endowed with a vast resource; at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants, and that land receives more than 4,500 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of solar radiation a year. Converting only 2.5 percent of that radiation into electricity would match the nation’s total energy consumption in 2006.

Scientific American goes on to detail its “solar grand plan” that would provide 69 percent of America’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy (which includes transportation) with solar by 2050.

Here’s what we need to do:

• Devote huge tracts of land to photovoltaic panels and solar heating troughs.
• Erect a direct-current (DC) transmission backbone to send solar energy efficiently across the nation.
• Invest $10 billion a year of federal funds over the next 40 years — $400 billion in all — to complete the 2050 plan.

Here’s the good news:

• The technology is ready.
• Solar plants consume little or no fuel, saving billions of dollars year after year.
• The infrastructure would displace 300 large coal-fired power plants and
  300 more large natural gas plants and all the fuels they consume.
• The plan would effectively eliminate all imported oil.
• The plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants
  by 1.7 billion tons a year
• Another 1.9 billion tons of emissions from vehicles would be displaced by plug-in hybrids refueled by the solar
  power grid.
• In 2050, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would be 62 percent below 2005 levels.

Here’s the bad news:

Without subsidies, the solar grand plan is impossible.

And we saw what happened to the energy bill that the President just signed. Support for solar energy — stripped out. Subsidies for the oil industry — put back in.

Read the article anyway, and forget political realities! It’s a powerful piece of analysis that shows, yet again, how economical and practical a clean energy future could be. One of the article’s authors, Ken Zweibel, gets to have the last word:

In the end, the most important thing the article may contribute to is lifting the veil on alternatives to conventional energy. Are we really constrained to existing options? Is there really so little choice?

We think not.

source: solveclimate.org

This article really confirms what we’eve been talking about: the technology is ready, are we? sort of a thing. Imagine a significant portion of our money not going to war or corporation, for once. We’re almost there, we just need that extra push. It’s really important that everyone realize how feasible alternative energies are and wake up and smell the lobbyists running our lives.

World’s Largest Turbine: One Powers 5000 Homes 

Written by Hank Green

Sunday, 03 February 2008

It was almost a year ago that we told you about Enercon’s previous absolutely-massive, largest-in-the-world wind turbine, the E-112. Well now Enercon’s outdone itself once again with a 126 meter diameter wind turbine called (of course) the E-126. digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/environment/World_s_Largest_Turbine_One_Powers_5000_Homes_5_pics’; Holy frikkin’ crap! Not only is it larger than the E-112, it contains a slew of innovations that increase the efficiency of the conversion from motion to electrical energy. As a result, the turbine might produce as much as seven megawatts of electricity. Yes, that is a whole megawatt larger than the E-112. And, yes, it’s enough power to fuel more than 5,000 European homes. Two of the massive turbines were recently installed in Emden, Germany, and are officially being listed as prototypes. As of yet, no full farms are using the turbine, but with a power rating like that, they can’t be far off. The advantages of the E-126 over the E-112 include easier transportation and installation due to modular design and light-weight materials. New complex blade designs that decrease resistance of the tower and increase capture of wind energy and an extra 11 meters in height, that push it just that much further into the faster, more constant higher winds. You can read more about it in Enercon’s yearly report (PDF.) I’ve also searched far and wide for the best and finest pictures of this rather impressive feat, and you can find those after the jump. Spotted at MetaEfficient Yes…there are little tiny men in there…if you look close enough, you can see them. source:http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1341/

War on Water

The patriarch of Venice is urging Catholics in the Italian city to give up bottled water for the Christian fasting season of Lent. Angelo Cardinal Scola wants them to donate the money saved to a water pipeline project in Thailand.

He is being backed by the mayor, who says he drinks only tap water and calls bottled water an unnecessary luxury.

Some 100,000 families can now expect to get a carafe from a local water firm to keep their tap water fridge-fresh.

Nearly all Italians drink bottled water rather than the piped stuff.

The industry is worth an estimated 3.2bn euros (£2.38bn) a year to the Italian economy.

Environmentalists do not like bottled water – partly because of the impact of discarded plastic bottles, but also because of the quantity of greenhouse gases produced in its preparation.

The Venice campaign echoes that of New York’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Last summer he urged city residents to rely on tap water rather than expensive bottled varieties.

source: bbc.com

USA to ban incandescents

The USA recently passed its energy bill for 2008. The new energy bill has a section where it’s states that incandescent light bulbs will be banned for traditional use. The ban will begin in 2012 and, as planned, be fully in power by 2014.The energy wasting light bulbs will be replaced with either CFLs or LEDs.

According to the US congress the incandescent light bulb ban will save around $40 billion and USA would need about 14 fewer coal firer power plants, thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 million tons.

Fighting interweb ignorance

Whats everybody doing during the day, when there’s nothing to be done except lie about? Why, on Facebook, of course. Even I’ve given it a try. This weekend, a wee political blurb caught my attention – some generic political question about wiretapping or some such thing. I click around, take a position (something that would piss David off, can’t remember what), and glance down at the “discussion board.” You can probably imagine what happens when you let a large group of people go off on their own individual soapboxes… (“Liberals are gay” “Republicans are stupid!”)

I couldn’t help myself.

I entered into a discussion (again, not sure what about) and at some point made the point that global warming was a real occurence. Lo and behold, some genius from Boston takes up the Hudson Institute flag…

“Who told you global warming was real? Your daddy?” was his cunning opening statement. I was already gripped in his sweet, syrupy words.

He then proceeded to reference alot of acronyms and computer science terms in what was a poor attempt to confuse me; the argument turned out to be against the computer prediction software scientists are using to confirm our findings.  Clearly outside my realm of comfort.

I said, “Good sir, this may be, and it is something I intend to look into further. However, all current research is supporting global warming and is saying we need to act to stop this downward fall.”

I was obviously dealing with someone of superior intelligence, as the next reply was a windfall of “morons” and “idiots.”

Well, I have a rather short temper, especially ignorant right wingers (ignorant left wingers are at least socially acceptable). So I decided I’d play the Rush Limbaugh/Bill O’Reilly/Ann Coulter game!

the conversation that followed:

“Shut up. Stop talking.”

-”Yeah, that was mature…”

“Don’t even respond to this. Just stop talking. Go ride a bike. Or take a lap. Just shut up.”

-”You liberals are all the same!”

“…shut up!”

And then he did! That means… I WIN!! That’s the name of the game, right? Do whatever it takes, just so it looks like you won and you’re right and you’re better than everyone else. See how these people operate? They actually only appreciate prepubescent mudslinging as a form of argument! It’s amazing how amazing I am at debunking the purported amazing qualities of stupid people.

At the end of the day, these people just aren’t worth the time. Point them to some quality sources and leave it be. They won’t listen to you anyways, so you might as well spend it watching some quality mainstream programming to learn some real information.

…

…you can laugh now.

Metal Behemoths

Gojira is a French progressive metal band. They’re becoming a new force on the scene, and more power to them- they’re excellent musicians and one of my favorite bands at the moment.

Although they’re known for their sonically dense sound and technical precision on their instruments, they’re also known as the most environmentally conscious metal band at this time. On stage, there’s alot of venting about environmental injustice and corporate takeover of the world. On CD, they work to get the message across.

“ A world is down
And none can rebuild it
Disabled lands are evolving
My eyes are shut, a vision is dying
My head explodes
And I fall in disgrace “

– “Global Warming” by Gojira

These lyrics are there to show the sense of frustration a lot of environmentally conscious people feel at the disregard of these values by mainstream America and corporations all over the world. And what better way to get rid of that anger and frustration than with some good ol’ fashioned French death metal??

Here’s hoping they get the message across.