The Sustainability Mantra

Greta vs the Fossil Fuel Industry

2019-12-25T16:11:00.001-08:00

"You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before"

-- Greta

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

2019-04-24T02:57:00.002-07:00

My daily struggle is to understand what is important, to my situation, in the constant barrage of information on the Internet.

What can and should be ignored?

Is my purpose to seek distraction, novelty and entertainment?

Or is the goal and purpose to my Net Surfing to gain valuable knowledge?

What do I hope to accomplish?

“There are things that attract human attention, and there is often a huge gap between what is important and what is attractive and interesting."

- Yuval Noah Harari

And Donald Trump has not helped make being informed easy with all his mixed messages.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Snow

2017-03-03T03:02:00.001-08:00

‏@EstherHawdon

"Within

A light snow

Three thousand Realms

Within those realms

Light snow falls"

Ryokan Taigu (image: Hasui Kawase)

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside awakes. ~ Carl Jung

We have art so as not to die of the truth. Friedrich Nietzsche

"Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget they're just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy." TNH

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I never change, I simply become more myself." Joyce Carol Oates

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. ~ Plato

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us. ~Voltaire

Living with a sense of purpose in life

2016-11-22T04:49:00.001-08:00

Conclusion:

A sense of purpose in life also gives you this considerable advantage:

"People with a sense of purpose in life have a lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease."

The conclusions come from over 136,000 people who took part in 10 different studies.

Participants in the studies were mostly from the US and Japan.

The US studies asked people:

how useful they felt to others,
about their sense of purpose, and
the meaning they got out of life.

The Japanese studies asked people about ‘ikigai’ or whether their life was worth living.
The participants, whose average age was 67, were tracked for around 7 years.

During that time almost 20,000 died.
But, amongst those with a strong sense of purpose or high ‘ikigai’, the risk of death was one-fifth lower.

Despite the link between sense of purpose and health being so intuitive, scientists are not sure of the mechanism.

Sense of purpose is likely to improve health by strengthening the body against stress.

It is also likely to be linked to healthier behaviours.

Dr. Alan Rozanski, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Of note, having a strong sense of life purpose has long been postulated to be an important dimension of life, providing people with a sense of vitality motivation and resilience.

Nevertheless, the medical implications of living with a high or low sense of life purpose have only recently caught the attention of investigators.

The current findings are important because they may open up new potential interventions for helping people to promote their health and sense of well-being.”

This research on links between sense of purpose in life and longevity is getting stronger all the time:

“A 2009 study of 1,238 elderly people found that those with a sense of purpose lived longer.

A 2010 study of 900 older adults found that those with a greater sense of purpose were much less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Survey data often links a sense of purpose in life with increased happiness.

No matter what your age, then, it’s worth thinking about what gives your life meaning.”

Read More:

Find out what kinds of things people say give their lives meaning.

Here’s an exercise for increasing meaningfulness

And a study finding that feeling you belong increases the sense of meaning.

The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Cohen et al., 2015).

A sense of purpose in life
Link: http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/12/here-is-why-a-sense-of-purpose-in-life-is-important-for-health

Future Solar Panels Will Generate Energy From Raindrops

2016-05-05T18:52:00.001-07:00

April 9, 2016

A new solar cell prototype developed by a team of scientists in Qingdao, China may change the way we use solar panels in the not so distant future.

Solar panel technology has changed the way many people bring energy into their homes, but this type of technology has always posed one concern: panels cannot output optimal power without ideal weather conditions. When you have rainy days or a lot of cloud cover, there is only so much energy that panels can store for later use. While engineers and material scientists have been able to make their efficiency far better over the years, with solar panels that store decent amounts of energy to be used when sun is not readily available, there has never quite been a development like the one discovered this year.

Chinese scientists are now able to create electricity with the assistance of raindrops. This is thanks to a thin layer of graphene they use to coat their solar cells during testing. Graphene is known for its conductivity, among many other benefits. All it takes is a mere one-atom thick graphene layer for an excessive amount of electrons to move as they wish across the surface. In situations where water is present, graphene binds its electrons with positively charged ions. Some of you may know this process to be called as the Lewis acid-base interaction.

These new solar cells can be stimulated by incident light on sunny days and raindrops when it’s raining, yielding an optimal energy conversion efficiency of 6.53 % under 1.5 atmosphere thickness irradiation and current over µA, along with a voltage of hundreds of mV by simulated raindrops.

The salt contained in rain separates into ions (ammonium, calcium and sodium), making graphene and natural water a great combination for creating energy. The water actually clings to the graphene, forming a dual layer (AKA pseudocapacitor) with the graphene electrons. The energy difference between these layers is so strong that it generates electricity.

These new all-weather solar cells are discussed in depth in the Angewandte Chemie journal.

Link: http://sciencenewsjournal.com/future-solar-panels-will-generate-energy-raindrops/

Was Jane Jacobs right?

2016-05-04T00:38:00.001-07:00

Lloyd Alter (@lloydalter)
Design / Urban Design
May3, 2016

May 4 would have been Jane Jacobs' 100th birthday. We look at her impact.

Was Jane Jacobs right?

In Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs took on New York's Master Builder and transformed the American City, Anthony Flint summarizes her philosophy about how cities work best:

Jacobs made four basic recommendations for successful neighborhoods: a street or district must serve several primary functions; blocks should be short to make the pedestrian feel comfortable; buildings must vary in age, condition, and use; and population must be dense. Hudson Street—unplanned in contrast to the grand housing developments of urban renewal—was a perfect example of diversity and strength in numbers, what Jacobs referred to as “eyes on the street.” Whether neighbors or strangers, people are safer in dense areas because they are almost never alone.

Jane also became a touchstone for architectural preservationists; again Flint, writing about the Penn Station battle:

Jacobs was leery of the idea of trying to freeze a neighborhood in time and put it under a kind of museum glass, but she did object to the wanton demolition of historic buildings. ...But the demolition was a turning point, as it forced many New Yorkers to recognize what Jacobs was saying: that new was not necessarily better, and that there was value—human and cultural capital—in the built environment that already existed around them.

Jane also became a touchstone for architectural preservationists; again Flint, writing about the Penn Station battle:

Jacobs was leery of the idea of trying to freeze a neighborhood in time and put it under a kind of museum glass, but she did object to the wanton demolition of historic buildings. ...But the demolition was a turning point, as it forced many New Yorkers to recognize what Jacobs was saying: that new was not necessarily better, and that there was value—human and cultural capital—in the built environment that already existed around them.

But her words are an anathema to many in the so-called market urbanist school, who see all of this preservation of older buildings as an impediment to development; as Steve Waldman explains, these market urbanists...

...argue that cities should eliminate restrictive zoning and other regulatory barriers to development, then let the free-market create housing supply. In a competitive marketplace, high prices are supposed to be their own cure. Zoning restrictions, urban permitting, and the de facto capacity of existing residents to veto new development are barriers to entry that prevent the magic of competition from taking hold and solving the problem.

Which is where we are today, with economists like Ed Glaeser, Ryan Avent and writers like Matt Yglesias and Alex Steffen persuading many that Jane Jacobs was wrong, and Felix Salmon defending crappy towers filled with rich people by saying "Better we have a living city with a couple of less-than-perfect buildings, than a stifled one governed by nostalgists and Nimbys." Glaeser has written that "An absolute victory for Jacobs means a city frozen in concrete with prices that are too high and buildings that are too low."
Nothing but banks and chain stores to be seen on this street/ Google street view/Screen capture
In fact, in Toronto, the city where Jane Jacobs lived the last 37 years of her life, you can see what happens if you let this happen. Yes, there is a boom in housing, with lots of relatively affordable small units that are full of a monoculture of childless young people, with the ground floor plane filled with a monoculture of chain restaurants, banks and drugstores. Because as Jane wrote in the Death and Life of Great American Cities,

[Businesses] that support the cost of new construction must be capable of paying a relatively high overhead. If you look about, you will see that only operations that are well established, high-turnover, standardized or heavily subsidized can afford, commonly, to carry the costs of new construction. Chain stores, chain restaurants and banks go into new construction. But neighborhood bars, foreign restaurants and pawn shops go into older buildings. Supermarkets and shoe stores often go into new buildings; good bookstores and antique dealers seldom do.

CC BY 2.0 Jane Jacobs/ Wikipedia
May 4 would have been Jane Jacobs' 100th birthday. We look at her impact.
In Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs took on New York's Master Builder and transformed the American City, Anthony Flint summarizes her philosophy about how cities work best:

Jacobs made four basic recommendations for successful neighborhoods: a street or district must serve several primary functions; blocks should be short to make the pedestrian feel comfortable; buildings must vary in age, condition, and use; and population must be dense. Hudson Street—unplanned in contrast to the grand housing developments of urban renewal—was a perfect example of diversity and strength in numbers, what Jacobs referred to as “eyes on the street.” Whether neighbors or strangers, people are safer in dense areas because they are almost never alone.

Jane also became a touchstone for architectural preservationists; again Flint, writing about the Penn Station battle:

Jacobs was leery of the idea of trying to freeze a neighborhood in time and put it under a kind of museum glass, but she did object to the wanton demolition of historic buildings. ...But the demolition was a turning point, as it forced many New Yorkers to recognize what Jacobs was saying: that new was not necessarily better, and that there was value—human and cultural capital—in the built environment that already existed around them.

...argue that cities should eliminate restrictive zoning and other regulatory barriers to development, then let the free-market create housing supply. In a competitive marketplace, high prices are supposed to be their own cure. Zoning restrictions, urban permitting, and the de facto capacity of existing residents to veto new development are barriers to entry that prevent the magic of competition from taking hold and solving the problem.

[Businesses] that support the cost of new construction must be capable of paying a relatively high overhead. If you look about, you will see that only operations that are well established, high-turnover, standardized or heavily subsidized can afford, commonly, to carry the costs of new construction. Chain stores, chain restaurants and banks go into new construction. But neighborhood bars, foreign restaurants and pawn shops go into older buildings. Supermarkets and shoe stores often go into new buildings; good bookstores and antique dealers seldom do.

Lloyd Alter/ market in Florence/CC BY 2.0
Jane Jacobs did her research just by looking around and watching the sidewalk ballet, but others are now using more sophisticated methods to show that she was right. at the University of Trento and his team have examined six cities in Italy to test Jacobs' four conditions of multiple functions, small blocks, mixed age and relatively high density. Instead of eyes on the street, they used big data: Technology Review explains:

De Nadai and co have come up with a much cheaper and quicker alternative using a new generation of city databases and the way people use social media and mobile phones. The new databases include OpenStreetMap, the collaborative mapping tool; census data, which records populations and building use; land use data, which uses satellite images to classify land use according to various categories; Foursquare data, which records geographic details about personal activity; and mobile-phone records showing the number and frequency of calls in an area.

Their conclusions: “Active Italian districts have dense concentrations of office workers, third places at walking distance, small streets, and historical buildings.” Denise Pinto of Jane's Walks in Toronto tells Luke Simcoe of Metro News:

When Jane wrote about her observations of the street, she was working from her own opinions and experiences. We often don’t look at those as rigorous, but we should. The way people experience their cities is important. It comes down to how we all co-exist in this messy system of the city.

Marco De Nadai
It should be noted that one can build new buildings at reasonable density, keeping Jacobs' four conditions in mind. Rome and Milan and other European cities are quite dense without going tall. New buildings don't all have to be sparkly towers but can be midrise, infill, transit oriented development. Who knows, perhaps even the nostalgists and NIMBYs will welcome it.

Tags: Urban Life | Urban Planning

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/was-jane-jacobs-right.html?utm_content=buffer881ba&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Trends shaping the grid of the future

2016-02-13T00:50:00.001-08:00

Trends shaping the grid of the future

A Deloitte study finds 'alternative energy’s shift to the mainstream is largely complete and likely irreversible'

By Herman K. Trabish | February 11, 2016

If there were any lingering doubts about renewable energy's emergence as a mainstream resource on the grid, recent numbers for renewables growth in the U.S. should help dispel that notion.

Nearly three-quarters of major energy deals made in 2015 were for renewables assets, and nearly three-quarters of the new generation capacity built in 2016 will be renewables, according to Marlene Motyka, the Deloitte U.S. Alternative Energy Team Leader. “Renewables are becoming mainstream and a big part of the U.S. energy portfolio.”

A newly released study, "Trends to Watch in Alternative Energy," from the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions outlines 8 key trends driving renewables growth in the U.S. power mix. “Alternative energy’s shift to the mainstream is largely complete and likely irreversible,” the report said.

U.S. clean energy investment hit a record $329 billion in 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). And the long term extensions of federal tax credits for wind and solar just approved by Congress will add an estimated 37 GW of wind and solar capacity to previous expectations over the next five years, 56% more than without the incentives, representing $73 billion in additional investment.

“Utilities need to look at these trends as opportunities and not as disruptions,” Motyka said. “They can grow the utility’s platform and increase its revenue.”

The momentum behind renewables is accelerating. Growth is now regularly bigger than expected and “new sources of support are broad-based,” Deloitte reports.

This, too, was verified in BNEF numbers. Investment in U.S. wind bounced back from a 2014 drop-off to hit $11.6 billion in 2015 and investment in U.S. solar was $30.2 billion, the second biggest buy-in ever.

The Deloitte paper is directed at investors but utilities and system operators still dubious of the potential of renewables might want to take note, too, Motyka said.

Deloitte drew upon on these conversations to identify 8 trends driving renewables growth and shaping the grid of the future.

1. Renewables acquisition

Deloitte’s list of trends came from two sources. The first was ongoing conversations the consultant continues to have with clients that include private equity firms, utilities, independent power producers (IPPs), small developers, and financial institutions.

The second source was feedback Deloitte got at its 2015 Alternative Energy Seminar, Motyka added. “What was brought to our attention in those two ways helped us formulate these trends.”
The first trend, renewables acquisition, is clear: 2015’s 163 deals was up 42% over 2014 and represented a 17% capacity increase to 19.7 GW.

YieldCos boosted acquisition activity by independent power producers (IPP) in the first part of the year. As concerns about the tax credits grew and increased the volatility of stock values in Q3 and Q4, YieldCo values dimininished. But that drove an asset sell-off, with financial institutions and utilities acquiring 7.6 GW of solar and wind capacity.

With the extended tax credits now locked in, this year’s activity should be bigger, Deloitte reported. “Renewables are expected to account for 73% of the new generation that will be added in 2016.”
Utilities, private equity, and infrastructure funds continue to be the players, but the deal-making is no longer centered around natural gas, oil and coal.

“When you look at the asset acquisitions and corporate deals and exclude utility mergers, renewables accounted for 74%,” Motyka said. “Investors now see renewable energy technology as proven and the long term fixed price power purchase agreements they offer reduces risk around fuel volatility.”
With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan and other policy drivers now firmly in place, “utilities will likely continue to demonstrate a strong appetite for solar and wind assets…[that will] propel merger and acquisition activity through 2017,” Deloitte reported.

2. Community solar

There are three reasons for community solar's appeal, the second trend Deloitte identified. First, it makes consumer ownership of solar available to those without suitable roofs for rooftop solar. Second, it allows utilities a way to offer solar to their customers. Third, utilities, financing institutions, and customers can all benefit from economies of scale.

“Each installation typically generates 1 to 2 MW, making them large enough to tap project financing and other efficient sources of capital,” Deloitte reports. "These funding sources can reduce the cost by as much as 50% compared with individual rooftop solar installations.”

Once again, the numbers speak loudly. “In 2010, only two shared solar projects existed,” the paper reports. “By 2015, there were more than 50 projects across 19 states, with a combined capacity of more than 170 MW.”

That could grow to as much as 11 GW by 2020, Deloitte reports from a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study. It depends on how many states work through the policy complexities and add to the 14 supportive regulatory standards now in place.

Some utilities are already seeing a new market opportunity in community solar and some solar developers are already finding a niche in it and both are pushing for better policy support, Motyka said. A new Deloitte profile already in the works will detail best practices in states like Massachusetts and Minnesota where community solar has taken hold, she added.

3. Integration of renewables

A big change in the attitudes of utilities and grid operators is revealed in Deloitte's third trend, grid integration of renewables: System operators are increasingly confident of mechanisms to manage renewables’ variability.

“Five years ago, they were reluctant to allow renewables on the grid to exceed 10% of overall capacity. Now, the level is 20% or more, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory predicts it could exceed 50% by using more supply and demand flexibility options,” Deloitte reported.
Motyka said grid engineers are starting to recognize the system is flexible enough to handle higher penetrations of renewables.

“As penetrations grow, engineers are realizing the system can be pushed,” Motyka said. “But the pushing has not created any major issues and that is something investors should notice.”

Utilities and system operators have more accurate forecasting tools, planning processes, and grid automation that comes with new technologies like smart inverters, sensors, advanced analytics, and electricity storage. This allows new control over the voltage and frequency fluctuations that coincide with relying on variable renewables.

Hawaii and Japan are two places where grid flexibility is being tested. Hawaii lawmakers mandated 100% renewables for the island by 2045 and an assessment of Japan’s system found 100% renewables feasible there by 2030 with improved grid resiliency, Deloitte reported.

Both island grids have significantly higher electricity costs than in the overall U.S. system. That makes a big build-out of variability-smoothing storage more economically viable, the paper added.
“To get to 50% or higher, there may have to be changes to the overall grid and some of the technology behind it,” Motyka said. “Getting the U.S. to 100% renewables in the near term would be a technology challenge.”

An economic challenge could arise because of the huge U.S. fleet of baseload power plants varying in age, she pointed out. While they continue to operate cost-effectively, the sunk costs to shutter them would be prohibitive. “But, in the longer term we could have a much higher percentage of renewables," Motyka added. "It is an evolution.”

4. Leveraging renewables for grid resiliency

The fourth trend, a new role for renewables in grid resiliency, is already adding to utility interest. While grid modernization is the path to reduced outages, renewables can also "speed recovery times after an outage occurs,” Deloitte reports.

Extreme weather propelled policymakers to consider more about resilience. Microgrids incorporating distributed generation and energy storage don’t necessarily go down with the system and consequently can “provide electricity during outages as well as valuable grid services year-round,” Deloitte explained.

Microgrids are already serving small interconnected systems like college campuses, hospitals, and downtown areas and “can separate from the main grid if a disruption occurs,” the paper reported. “This independence improves both grid resilience and local ability to deal with an emergency.”
ABB and other companies have added micro-grids to their business platforms and it is “an emerging investment opportunity,” Motyka said.

The bigger question is whether the U.S. evolves away from centralized generation to distributed infrastructure, she added. “One could imagine that homeowners could become their own little systems, with rooftop solar and net zero efficient homes and backup natural gas generation. But a lot would have to happen to support it, like more cost effective battery storage.”

5. The Clean Power Plan

Under the Clean Power Plan, the power sector must cut 32% of its carbon emissions nationwide by 2030 from 2005 levels. In getting there, “renewables will account for as much as 400 GW of generation by 2040, a projection some analysts in the industry see as conservative,” Deloitte reports, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Under the rule, plans must be submitted by September of this year and enacted by 2022. They will move the utility and energy generation industries “toward renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other low- or no-carbon emission alternatives,” Deloitte predicts.

But how big a role the CPP will play in the future remains to be seen. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court froze implementation of the plan, leaving its fate in limbo until litigation challenging the legality of the regulation is over. While states are mulling their next options, most utilities say it will be business as usual, according to EnergyWire.

The CPP and other policies are already influencing some corporations’ decisions about energy use because it has convinced them “a price on carbon is increasingly inevitable.”

6. Regulatory reforms

Several states are leading the way with regulatory reforms expected to crucially affect utility business models. The most extensive is New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV), Deloitte said.

The REV will overhaul the New York’s grid and regulatory syste in pursuit of “system-wide efficiency, reliability, resiliency, fuel diversity, affordability, carbon reduction, and increased customer choice and value…[and] promote greater use of wind and solar power and reshape the utility business model to deploy more distributed energy resources," according to the report.

State and regional cap-and-trade systems like California’s AB 32 initiatives and the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative are also driving renewables growth.

The third element in state-level policy is increasingly aggressive renewables mandates, Deloitte reporteds. In addition to Hawaii’s 100%-by -045 mandate, California increased its 33% by 2020 mandate to 50% by 2030 last year. Vermont changed its nonbinding 20% by 2017 to 75% by 2032.

And California mandated its Big Three investor-owned utilities to deploy 1.3 GW of electricity storage by 2024.

7. Corporations buying renewables

The seventh trend, corporations buying renewables, is one of the biggest. Last year, Deloitte identified a shift in the private sector to capital-intensive efforts to meet sustainability and renewables targets. The survey found 39% of companies had solar or other distributed generation and 26% had electricity storage.

Apple, Intel, and Kohl’s have committed to 100% renewables by 2035, the paper noted, with Amazon, General Motors, and Facebook also inking major renewables offtake agreements last year. Google just committed to power all its operations with renewables through an 842 MW investment in wind and solar.

“As of November 2015, corporations had signed power purchase agreements for large-scale, off-site renewables covering 2 GW of power, up from 1.2 GW for all of 2014,” Deloitte reported.

Though the trend is toward corporate renewables goals, efforts like Rocky Mountain Institute's Business Renewables Center (BRC) are needed to streamline corporate investment, the report pointed out.

“For every successful corporate deal to source energy from large-scale off-site renewables projects, 5-10 deals fail or experience significant delays."

To facilitate such deals, the BRC-backed Buyers’ Principles have defined what 49 leading corporate signatories want in a renewable energy contract.

8. Finding and training the renewable energy workforce

Finding and training people to sustain renewables growth is Deloitte’s eighth trend. Its Global Human Capital Trends 2015 Report identified the key “people-related issues that keep energy executives up at night: learning and development, organizational structure, culture, performance management, and workforce readiness.”

Working through these issues will reveal ways to support and engage the kind of personnel that meet leadership needs now and in the future, Deloitte suggests.

Looking ahead

A "key pivot point" for growth will be integrating more renewables and distributed generation into the grid, Motyka said. “A lot of people are studying it from a technical perspective but we don’t know yet if it is a deal breaker.”

The thing utility leaders and system operators must understand, she added, is that “it is getting very hard to ignore alternative energy now. There is not a hierarchy among these trends. They form a web of interests woven together by renewables becoming a larger part of the U.S. generation strategy.”

Top Image Credit: Depositphotos

Filed Under:

Generation Solar and Renewables

Solar Deities

2016-01-16T17:48:00.000-08:00

Construction for the first phase of Morocco’s Noor 1 power plant is nearing completion. Once complete in 2020, the solar farm will be the largest of its kind in the world.

But even now, the plant’s half-million solar mirrors are already visible from space.

There’s no question that solar power is the future, an energy trend that’s fueling the development of massive solar farms in such places as California, China, and elsewhere.

And where better to put these plants than in the desert—areas that feature plenty of sunshine and vast expanses of land that are otherwise useless and inhospitable.

Morocco’s up-and-coming Noor 1 CSP plant is a prime example.

The first phase of this concentrated solar power plant, which is being built in the Sahara Desert near the town of Ouarzazate, is almost finished.

In the middle of nowhere: the plant is 10 miles from the closest town.

A view from the ground (Credit: AP)

http://gizmodo.com/watch-a-massive-solar-power-plant-take-shape-in-the-sah-1752261396

Sun Gods and Sun Goddesses

Is it any wonder ancients worshiped the Sun?

In ancient cultures, where you find gods with specialized functions, you'll probably find a sun god or goddess.

Many are humanoid and ride or drive a vessel of sort across the sky. It may be a boat, a chariot, or a cup.

The sun god of the Greeks and Romans rode in a 4-horse (Pyrios, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon) chariot.

There may be more than one god of the sun. The Egyptians differentiated among the aspects of the sun, and had several gods associated with it: Khepri for the rising sun, Atum, the setting, and Ra, at noon, who rode across the sky in a solar bark.

The Greeks and Romans also had more than one sun god.

You may notice that most sun deities are male and act as counterparts to female moon deities, but don't take this as a given. There are goddesses of the sun just as there are male deities of the moon.

Is it any wonder ancients worshiped the Sun?

Name Nationality/Religion God or Goddess or ?

Amaterasu Japan Sun Goddess

Arinna (Hebat) Hittite (Syrian) Sun Goddess

The Iconography of Religion in the Hittite, Luwian, and Aramaean Kingdoms PDF

Apollo Greece and Rome Sun God

Freyr Norse Sun God Not the main Norse sun god, but a fertility god associated with the sun.

Garuda Hindu Bird God

Helios (Helius) Greece Sun God Before Apollo was the Greek sun god, Helios held that position.

Hepa Hittite Sun Goddess The consort of a weather god, she was assimilated with the sun goddess

Arinna.Huitzilopochtli (Uitzilopochtli) Aztec Sun God

Hvar Khshaita Iranian/Persian Sun God Earlier than Mithras.

Inti Inca Sun God

Liza West African Sun God

Lugh Celtic Sun God

MithrasIranian/Persian Sun God"Mit(h)ra(s) and the Myths of the Sun" David H. Sick. Numen (2004)

Re (Ra) Egypt Mid-day Sun God An Egyptian god shown with a solar disk. Center of worship was Heliopolis. Later associated with Horus as Re-Horakhty. Also combined with Amun as Amun-Ra, a solar creator god.

Shemesh/Shepesh Ugarit Sun goddess

Female solar deities (Jürg Eggler) PDF

Sol (Sunna)Norse Sun Goddess She rides in a horse-drawn solar chariot.

Sol Invictus Roman Sun God

The unconquered sun. A late Roman sun god. The title was also used of Mithras

Surya Hindu Sun God Rides the sky in a horse-drawn chariot.

Tonatiuh Aztec Sun God

Utu (Shamash) Mesopotamia Sun God

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/sungodsgoddesses/a/070809sungods.htm

Anxiety: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened”. –Michel de Montaigne

Have you seen a happier #elephant before? Meet #Chanchal ! Read more about her here; http://bit.ly/1RvTbmJ

Virus could boost Solar Cell Efficiency

2015-10-16T20:00:00.002-07:00

pic.twitter.com/XDRECTaNiI

Nature World News ‏@NatureWorldNews

Genetically Engineered Virus Could Boost Solar Cell Efficiency, New Study Shows [VIDEO] http://dlvr.it/CSmSlQ

CLEARING THE WAY FOR SOLAR

2015-10-06T21:43:00.001-07:00

2013

TODAY’S STUDY: CLEARING THE WAY FOR SOLAR

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; Encouraging Solar Development through Community Association Policies and Processes

Philip Haddix, June 2013 (The Solar Foundation)

Abstract

Community associations play a vital role in protecting a homeowner’s investment in their residence and property. In the case of solar energy, association covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs) and architectural guidelines can dissuade some owners from pursuing an opportunity to enhance the value of their property while reaping important environmental benefits. Recognizing this, many state legislatures have enacted “solar rights” policies limiting associations’ ability to prohibit or restrict solar energy devices. Often, these state-level provisions are a necessary, but not in themselves sufficient, means of ensuring homeowners have access to solar energy and its benefits. Fortunately, there are a number of relatively simple actions an association can take to encourage solar development without further ceding their authority to impose and enforce rules designed to protect the value and quality of the communities they govern. This guide, written for association boards of directors and architectural review committees, discusses the advantages of solar energy and examines the elements of state solar rights provisions designed to protect homeowner access to these benefits. It then presents a number of recommendations associations can use to help bring solar to their communities, including: (1) improving processes and rules through understanding the technical aspects of solar energy and how restrictions can negatively affect a system’s performance; (2) improving the clarity and specificity of association solar guidelines and making them easily accessible to homeowners, and; (3) convening stakeholder meetings to produce practical guidelines that accurately reflect the needs and values of the community.

I. Introduction

Community associations play a vital role in protecting a homeowner’s investment in their residence and property. Through established rules and guidelines governing whether and how certain activities can take place in the communities they manage, associations work to protect and enhance property values and ensure residents are able to enjoy a high quality of life. In the case of solar energy, however, the covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs) limiting residents’ rights of ownership can have the opposite effect – depriving homeowners of an opportunity to enhance the value of their property, preventing them from fully embracing a clean energy technology that helps protect human health and the environment, and negatively impacting the economic value of their investment in an alternative means of meeting their energy demand. Given this, several states have adopted measures restricting or clarifying the restrictions associations may place on solar energy systems in their communities. On their own, these state laws (or “solar rights provisions”) are often not sufficient for striking the balance between association and homeowner interests required to allow solar energy to flourish in these communities. Fortunately, there are a few relatively simple actions associations can take to help facilitate solar development while allowing them to continue to regulate activities that might threaten the value or enjoyment of the communities they govern. This guide provides communities with straightforward recommendations and resources designed to reduce association-based barriers to solar development. Because state solar rights provisions (where they apply) influence which actions an association is permitted to take, a significant portion of this guide is dedicated to examining, classifying, and understanding these laws. Before delving into these topics, however, it is important to understand the basics of solar energy and the benefits it can bring.

click to enlarge

II. Solar Energy: Basics, Benefits, and Barriers

The Opportunity

Association-governed communities hold immense potential for solar energy development. According to the Community Associations Institute, associations represent over 25 million housing units. Of these, approximately 13 million (52%) are structures most suitable for residential solar installations – such as townhouses and homes in gated communities or subdivisions (i.e., properties governed by homeowners associations as opposed to condominiums or cooperatives).2 If only 5% of these homes were to invest in an average-sized residential solar energy system, it would add 3.3 gigawatts (GW) of clean power capacity to the electric grid – as much solar energy as was added in the entire U.S. in 2012.3 This figure represents an annual reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of over 6 million tons,4or the equivalent of taking over 1.1 million vehicles off the road.5

Photovoltaic (PV) arrays are by far the most common form of residential solar installation. These systems collect photons from the sun and convert the energy they contain into useful solar electricity. The fundamental unit of a PV array is a solar cell, composed primarily of a semiconductor material, where the conversion of light to electricity takes place. As the output of these cells is relatively small they are packaged together into larger units called modules (or panels), which in turn are combined to form PV arrays. Apart from the PV modules, there are a number of “balance of system” components required for the array to function – including inverters, mounting or racking equipment, disconnect switches, combiner boxes, and wires and connectors.i Figure 1 below provides a basic illustration of how these components fit together to form a residential solar electric system.

click to enlarge

The Benefits of Solar Energy

Solar energy, like many renewable energy technologies, is highly regarded for its ability to produce electricity with limited environmental impacts. A national poll, conducted in fall 2012, showed that over 90% of Americans support solar energy development.6 Despite this strong level of support, many may not be fully aware of the broad range of benefits solar energy provides or that residential solar energy is a highly advantageous application of the technology…

Association Motivations to Restrict Solar

Despite the value of these benefits and the availability of the technological means to obtain them, solar energy continues to face significant barriers (both public and private) at the local level. In community and homeowners associations, these barriers typically take the form of CC&Rs and guidelines limiting solar development. It is important to keep in mind, however, that an association is not necessarily acting arbitrarily in developing and enforcing these restrictions. In fact, there are a number of legitimate reasons an association would want to restrict solar energy development in the communities they govern. As later sections of this guide will show, it is possible for a solar-savvy association to develop carefully crafted and clearly worded guidelines that promote solar energy development while protecting other community interests, including:

Community Aesthetics

Planned communities are often designed with a particular aesthetic theme or appeal in mind. Subsequent development or property improvements that are incongruous with established community aesthetics can diminish property values or threaten owners’ ability to use and enjoy their property. Prioritizing aesthetics over solar development often means restricting a solar energy system’s size, placement, tilt, or orientation (or all of these). As discussed in Section IV of this guide, such restrictions can have a negative impact on a solar array’s electricity production, which in turn reduces the economic value of the solar investment.

click to enlarge

Tree Preservation and Planting

Tree coverage can not only contribute to a community’s aesthetic appeal, but can provide important environmental and economic benefits as well. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), a harmful greenhouse gas, and help trap other pollutants that can threaten human health. These and other plants help manage stormwater runoff and reduce soil erosion. Shade produced by trees can increase comfort both inside the home (reducing the amount of sunlight entering through windows – thereby helping to manage cooling demands) and outdoors. Unfortunately, shade from trees can block a solar collector’s access to sunlight and impair its ability to function as designed.

Health and Safety

Associations may also wish to control the placement of solar energy systems in order to ensure residents’ health and safety. Fortunately, industry certifications, product safety standards, and local and national codes governing electrical and structural work have greatly reduced the need for associations to assume this responsibility.

III. Solar Rights Provisions

The economic feasibility of a homeowner’s investment in solar energy hinges on the amount of solar electricity a system is able to produce, which in turn depends upon the amount of solar radiation (i.e., sunlight) the system collects. As noted above, the control some CC&Rs give to associations over whether and how a solar energy system can be installed can negatively impact a system’s access to sunlight and result in a significant reduction in the value of the homeowner’s investment. Recognizing this, many states have chosen to ensure solar access through legislation containing either a provision protecting solar rights –the ability of a homeowner to install a solar energy system on his or her property – or allowing for the creation of solar easements, which are legally binding agreements that protect a system from future obstructions.

Solar rights provisions target public and/or private prohibitions or restrictions on the installation of solar energy systems, and are therefore the aspect of solar access law of greatest interest (or concern) to community and homeowners associations. As of the writing of this guide, 22 states have adopted solar rights provisions that expressly limit (to varying degrees) associations’ abilities to exercise control over solar energy installations through their CC&Rs.

Common Elements

Solar rights provisions pertaining to community or homeowners associations vary significantly between states. Some add only a few lines of broad language to existing state statutes, while others are much more specific on which policies or practices are permissible and on the roles and responsibilities of the parties to which the laws apply. Despite this diversity, a review of current solar rights provisions reveals a number of common elements that help protect citizens’ rights to go solar.

click to enlarge

Statement of Legislative Intent…Voiding Prohibitions Against Solar…Allowable Restrictions…Applicability to Structures…Awarding of Attorney’s Fees…Grandfathering Clause…HOA Policy Creation Mandate…No Avoidance or Delay…Provisions for Ground Mounted Systems…

Typology of Solar Rights Provisions…Type I: No Limits on Restrictions…Type II: Undefined “Reasonable” Restrictions…Type III: Qualified “Reasonable” Restrictions…Type IV: Quantified Restrictions…

How Associations Can Facilitate Solar Development…Advance Community Education on Solar Energy…Array Size…Array Orientation...Array Tilt…System Shading…Clearly Define what is Permissible…Community Aesthetics…Tree Preservation and Planting…Health and Safety…

click to enlarge

Coproduce a Lasting Solar Solution

While borrowing or adapting language from existing examples of solar guidelines will suffice for some associations, others may have difficulty in identifying current standards that both conform to applicable solar access laws and reflect the unique values and preferences of the communities they govern. In these cases, associations may wish to convene a meeting of relevant stakeholders in order to coproduce a set of design guidelines for solar. Such gatherings would provide a forum for community members to communicate their values and preferences, forming the basis for standards that are meaningful and uncontroversial. These ideas can then either be tempered or strengthened through the participation of a diverse set of professionals whose expertise will help define the limits of what is technically practical, legally permissible, or most impactful in terms of balancing competing interests and serving the needs of the community.

Though it may be difficult to bring all stakeholders to the table, there are several advantages to taking a coproduction approach. Obtaining the direct participation of a wide variety of stakeholders helps ensure the standards produced by the effort reflect the diverse perspectives of the groups they impact. Such a strategy allows all stakeholders to have access to the same relevant information and can help break down communication barriers between homeowners and association representatives through its encouragement of face-to-face discussions…

Source: http://www.NewEnergyNews.net/

B.C. hunter wants to help save these bears

2015-10-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

‏@wildlifecounts

"I’m ready to start a new chapter + help save these bears" #BC hunter no longer trigger happy http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-man-persuaded-to-give-up-coveted-licence-to-hunt-grizzly-bears/article26646576/ …

Global Warming

2014-10-17T03:30:00.001-07:00

We haven't hit the global warming pause button

Recent articles about a global warming 'pause' miss that the planet as a whole is still rapidly warming

90 percent of global warming heats the oceans. Photograph: Alamy

When you hear the term "global warming," do you think of the warming of air temperatures at the Earth's surface, or the warming of the planet as a whole?

Only about 2 percent of the planet's overall warming heats the atmosphere, so if we focus only on surface air temperatures, we miss 98 percent of the overall warming of the globe. About 90 percent of the warming of the planet is absorbed in heating the oceans. However, until the past few years, our measurements of ocean temperatures (especially of the deep oceans) were somewhat lacking. Our measurements of surface air temperatures were much more accurate, and so when people spoke of "global warming," they tended to focus on air temperatures.

In the 1980s and 1990s when air temperatures were warming in step with the overall warming of the planet, that was fine. However, over the past decade, the warming of surface air temperatures has slowed. At the same time, the overall warming of the planet has continued, and if anything it has accelerated. This has been difficult to reconcile for those who previously focused on surface air temperatures – what do we say about "global warming" now?

The result is a spate of articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, The New Republic, and Der Spiegel, all of which get most of the facts right (including noting the warming of the oceans), but that all begin from the premise that "global warming" has slowed. It would be more accurate to say that global surface air warming has slowed, but the overall warming of the Earth's climate has sped up.

Global heat accumulation from Nuccitelli et al. (2012)

This is the conclusion of several papers published in the past year, including studies led by Sydney Levitus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Magdalena Balmaseda of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast, Virginie Guemasof the Catalán Institute of Climate Science, and myself. When the warming of the Earth's entire climate system is considered, global warming continues to rise at a rate equivalent to about 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations per second, faster over the past 15 years than the prior 15 years.

The small fraction of that warming that's expressed by changes in surface air temperature does appear to have slowed over the past decade. Research by Masahiro Watanabe of the Japanese Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute suggests this is mainly due to more efficient transfer of heat to the deep oceans. Consistent with model simulations led by NOAA's Gerald Meehl, Watanabe finds that we sometimes expect "hiatus decades" to occur, when surface air temperatures don't warm because more heat is transferred to the deep ocean layers.

Research on the causes of slowed surface air warming is of course ongoing. The question remains how much other factors have contributed to the surface warming slowdown. For example, aerosols (particulates released from volcanoes and from burning coal and diesel that cause cooling by reflecting sunlight) and low solar activity over the past decade likely played a role as well. However, Watanabe's research suggests that these factors can't explain most of the slowed surface warming, which his study attributes mainly to a more efficient transfer of heat to the deep oceans.

Unfortunately that isn't a permanent solution for those of us living on the Earth's surface. A post from a political blog for The Economist naively argued that we should just wait a couple of decades to see if surface air warming resumes. The Watanabe, Guemas, Balmaseda, and Meehl research teams all concluded that the faster warming of the oceans is only a temporary effect. Sooner or later the cycle is bound to reverse, at which point we will experience accelerated global surface air warming when the ocean heat comes back to haunt us. We can't escape the physical reality that as long as we continue to increase the greenhouse effect, it will continue to trap more and more heat, and the planet will continue to warm.

Even if the climate is not quite as sensitive to the increased greenhouse effect as current best estimates suggest, we're still not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we want to avoid dangerous and potentially catastrophic climate change. Taking a 'wait and see' approach for another decade or two, as recommended by the Economist political blog, would be a recipe for certain disaster. Fortunately that recommendation is at odds with the approach suggested by The Economist's correspondents, who agree that in any case we're not doing nearly enough to decarbonize the economy if we want to avoid dangerous climate change.

The key take-home point is that we now have better measurements of ocean and global heat accumulation. We no longer have to settle for focusing on the 2 percent of global warming represented by surface air temperatures. Consider the analogy offered by Greg Laden, that the planet is a dog and surface temperatures are his tail. In the past we only had a GPS locator on his tail. It wags around a lot, sometimes accurately representing the movement of the dog, sometimes not. Now we've got a second GPS locator on his body – should we continue focusing on the movement of the tail for old times' sake, or should we shift our focus to the more representative measurements?

Ideally people will begin using the term "global warming" to refer to the planet's overall heat accumulation. Or use the term "global heating" or "climate change" or "climate disruption." Whatever term is chosen, we need to stop misleading people by saying that global warming has "paused." The overall warming of the planet has not and will not pause until we stop increasing the greenhouse effect through our reliance on fossil fuels. Until we hit that 'pause button,' the warming will only continue to grow.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jun/24/global-warming-pause-button

Dana Nuccitelli Monday 24 June 2013 04.09 BSTguardian.co.uk

The World’s Deadliest Drug: Inside a Krokodil Cookhouse

2014-10-17T03:18:00.000-07:00

By Simon Shuster @shustry

Emanuele Satolli—Parallelozero

A stage of krokodil preparation. Pills of codeine are crushed and mixed with iodine, hydrochloric acid and other chemicals.

Emanuele Satolli for TIME

A stage of krokodil's preparation.

Emanuele Satolli for TIME

Alexey injects krokodil. The effect of the drug lasts about 40 minutes.

About a decade ago, Russian doctors began to notice strange wounds on the bodies of some drug addicts—patches of flesh turning dark and scaly, like a crocodile’s—in the hospitals of Siberia and the Russian Far East. It didn’t take them long to discover the cause: the patients had begun injecting a new drug they called, predictably, “krokodil.” (Some accounts suggest the name was derived from one of the drug’s precursor chemicals, alpha-chlorocodide.)

Videos showing the effects of the “flesh-eating” drug—christened desomorphine when it was invented for medical use in 1932—quickly went viral online. There are now alarming stories that the monster could be at large in the U.S.

American drug-enforcement officials say fears of an imminent krokodil epidemic are overblown. But it’s hard not to be frightened of a drug that leaves a reptilian mark on its victims. Especially when it is so easy to make: an addict can cook up krokodil using ingredients and tools bought from the local pharmacy and hardware store.

The active ingredient, codeine, is a mild opiate sold over the counter in many countries. Users mix codeine with a brew of poisons such as paint thinner, hydrochloric acid and red phosphorus scraped from the strike pads on matchboxes. The result—a murky yellow liquid with an acrid stink—mimics the effect of heroin at a fraction of the cost.
In Europe, for example, a dose of krokodil costs just a few dollars, compared with about $20 for a hit of heroin.

But addicts pay dearly for krokodil’s cheap high.
Wherever on the body a user injects the drug, blood vessels burst and surrounding tissue dies, sometimes falling off the bone in chunks.
That side effect has earned krokodil its other nickname: the zombie drug. The typical life span of an addict is just two or three years.

The drug quickly became popular among Russian addicts. In 2005, the country’s counter narcotics agency reported catching only “one-off” instances of the drug; six years later, in the first three months of 2011, the agency confiscated 65 million doses, up 23-fold from two years earlier.
At its peak that year, krokodil use had spread to as many as a million addicts in Russia.

A ban on over-the-counter codeine sales that was introduced on June 1, 2012, has brought numbers down sharply, but Emanuele Satolli, an Italian photographer who has been chronicling a group of Russian addicts, says many now score that key ingredient on the black market.

For the past year, Satolli has focused on the industrial city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, a place notorious in Russia for drug abuse, photographing about a dozen krokodil addicts.

The krokodil epidemic may have peaked in Russia, but the drug’s use has already been reported elsewhere.

In October, a report published online in the American Journal of Medicine confirmed the case of a 30-year-old addict in Richmond Heights, Mo., whose finger “fell off” and whose skin began to rot after he began injecting krokodil.

The monster has crossed the ocean.

Emanuele Satolli is an Italian photojournalist based in Milan.

Simon Shuster is TIME’s Moscow correspondent. Follow him on Twitter @shustry.

Translation by Eugene Reznik.

Link: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/12/05/the-worlds-deadliest-drug-inside-a-krokodil-cookhouse/photo/2/

Wildlife Art

2014-10-17T03:14:00.001-07:00

Curtis Wilson Canadian Native Artist, Campbell River .

www.curtiswilson.ca

2013 Projects | Curtis Wilson Canadian Native Artist, Campbell River ..

Recent Photos The Commons Getty Collection Galleries World Map

Denman Birds More

vancouverislandbirds.com

2013 Projects | Curtis Wilson Canadian Native Artist, Campbell River

www.curtiswilson.ca

Soft Island Above Water" Creamy Lotus Blossoms and Reflection

vancouver island marmot the vancouver island marmot is one of the most ...

www.discovermountwashington...

Story of how the Raven stole the sun and his once white feathers were ... More

www.curtiswilson.ca

Story of how the Raven stole the sun and his once white feathers were ... More

www.curtiswilson.ca

Vancouver Island Bird Photos comox valley birds wildlife estuary ... More

www.roystonhouse.ca

Geoffrey West on COMPLEXITY

2014-10-17T02:41:00.001-07:00

http://fqxi.org

Geoffrey West at the FQXi SETTING TIME ARIGHT conference, an interdisciplinary meeting investigating the nature of time.

Category
- Science & Technology
License
- Standard YouTube License

Link: http://youtu.be/DFFVSvAr7Wc

Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations

2014-10-17T02:23:00.001-07:00

http://www.ted.com Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations.

Link: http://youtu.be/XyCY6mjWOPc

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler

2014-10-16T04:01:00.000-07:00

This article was published in January, 2008 but the issues remain pretty much the same now.

........................

THE WORLD

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler

By MARK BITTMAN

A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil.

It’s meat.

The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.

What can be done? There’s no simple answer. Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the nonprofit International Food Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat.”

Then there’s technology. Israel and Korea are among the countries experimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some of the biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with some success, to turn manure into fuel.

Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of “meat without feet” — meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks.

Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s because grazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do. Still, said Michael Pollan, author of the recent book “In Defense of Food,” “In places where you can’t grow grain, fattening cows on grass is always going to make more sense.”

But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.

Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)

These problems originated here, but are no longer limited to the United States. While the domestic demand for meat has leveled off, the industrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fast as land-based methods, according to the United Nations.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

Real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, perhaps even decreased, for 40 years or more (in part because of grain subsidies), though we’re beginning to see them increase now. But many experts, including Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, say they don’t believe meat prices will rise high enough to affect demand in the United States.

“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees “a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption — one like that around cigarettes — emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”

It wouldn’t surprise Professor Eshel if all of this had a real impact. “The good of people’s bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” made a similar point: “There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled. Both demands are exerted by the same group of people ... the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. ... This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases.”

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in the Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.

From: January 27, 2008

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?_r=0

Solar Power catches on with Mongolia Nomads

2014-10-16T03:18:00.001-07:00

Mongolia's nomads warm to solar power

Portable solar panels are helping the sunny country's nomads - without disrupting their way of life.
Philippa H Stewart
Last updated: 16 Dec 2013

In Mongolia, often known as the land of the blue skies, the sun shines for 250 days on average each year. It beats down on the sparse plains and on the Gobi desert that spans the country's southern border with China.

It shines, even during the frigid winter days, on the hundreds of thousands of nomads who still roam the steppes, herding animals and living in dome-like tents calling gers.

About 800,000 of Mongolia's 2.8 million inhabitants still live the traditional nomadic lifestyle that has remained largely unchanged for generations. Apart from the addition of motorbikes, the occasional petrol generator, and a passing trade from intrepid tourists wanting to stay in a ger for the night, life is almost the same as that of many nomads' grandparents and great-grandparents.

Almost, but not exactly.

Dotted across the steppes, glints of light can be seen as the sun bounces off the solar panels that have been installed on the sides of gers made of felt and yak's wool. At the start of this millennium, Mongolia's herders and nomads had little or no access to modern electric power and its potential benefits.

But as of 2013, thanks to a concerted push by the Mongolian government, almost 70 percent of nomadic people have access to electricity. Bor, a herder who mainly travels around western Mongolia's Arkhangai province, is one of the people whose family benefits from portable solar home systems (SHS).

"We use it for generating the power for lighting in the ger, charging phones, we can also generate a fridge to keep food longer and we can run a television. That is very useful for us because we can get the most recent weather forecast, which is important for our work and keeping our animals safe. Before we had power it was very difficult. Now it is almost like living in the city."

The ability to charge mobile phones is also important for the herders, who often have children staying at boarding schools. "Most countryside children stay in dorms, because their parents are nomads and it is the only way they can get an education," said Bor. "We can call our children who are in the dorms and speak to them. I also have children working in Ulaanbaatar [Mongolia's capital] and I can speak to them as well. The solar panels are a very useful thing in our lives."

Capturing the sun

Access to electricity also allows families to contact emergency health-care and doctors for advice without having to make the often arduous journey to the nearest village or town.

Herder electrification can help ensure that this important community, which connects the country to its rich history, can maintain their way of life without being left behind.

- World Bank report, "Capturing the Sun in the Land of the Blue Sky"

The solar systems were distributed and installed with the help of the World Bank, after the Mongolian government's National 100,000 Solar Ger Electrification Programme ran into difficulties.

A World Bank report, Capturing the Sun in the Land of the Blue Sky, describes the difficulties faced by the Mongolian government on its ambitious project.

By 2005, five years into the plan, 30,000 families had been kitted out with an SHS, but then the programme began to stagnate. "The government of Mongolia recognised that considerably more effort was necessary not only to keep the programme on track, but to scale-up implementation in order to achieve the National 100,000 Solar Ger Electrification Program target," the report said.

In 2006, the World Bank agreed to cover half of the initial outlay costs for each family as well as after-sales maintenance, with 50 centres set up across the country, including at least one in each of its 21 provinces, so that the herders would not have to travel to Ulaanbaatar every time the solar panels needed maintenance.

Migara Jayawardena, a senior energy specialist at the World Bank and lead author of the World Bank report, told Al Jazeera that more than half the nomadic people in rural Mongolia now have access to modern electricity services thanks to the programme - exceeding the original target by 35 percent.

"The overall project structure, including the private dealers and sales and service centres, also remain in operation, and could possibly serve any herders who remain un-electrified, or those who may want to purchase upgraded SHS that can support a larger variety of appliances," he said.

Too expensive?

Despite the financial help, the solar panels can still be prohibitively expensive. The cost depends on where the SHS is produced. The most expensive are from Germany, Japan or China, and can cost from between 150,000-800,000 togrog ($88-467).

Batsaikhan, a nomadic herdsman from Huvsgul province, said cost is a major factor for him. "I would very much like to be able to have the solar panels," he said, "but I cannot because I do not have enough money. It is difficult to save when there are things we need urgently. We see them on sale and one day I want to be able to afford this."

The SHS project also offers environmental benefits to a country where the ratio of carbon dioxide emissions to economic output is ten times higher than the world average, because of the increase in mining over the past decade as the true extent of Mongolia's mineral wealth became apparent.

"SHS is a clean energy source and does not have emissions that would result from using candles, kerosene or diesel," said Jayawardena. "These latter forms of lighting would have local pollution impacts. SHS result in reduced indoor smoke pollution that often leads to respiratory and other illnesses. The utilisation of renewable energy from an early stage of modernising do provide a low emission path from the onset, which can have longer-term implications as the country moves forward."

The solar systems are slowly replacing the diesel generators used by some nomads as a means of generating power, although they are still using stoves for heating, burning wood coal and dung throughout the year.

Jayawardena's paper emphasises the importance of minimising disruption to Mongolian nomads' traditional way of life, which could easily have died out with the onset of globalisation.

Accommodating the nomadic life

"The availability of electricity has, of course, improved the quality of life of the herder communities," he told Al Jazeera. Seventy percent of the herders reported "increased productivity" as a result of access to electricity, with 90 percent using mobile phones (compared with a pre-project level of 0 percent). Seventy percent own a colour TV, which have become the most widely used source of information.

"Of course, since they are nomads, traditional electrification of fixed lines are not compatible with their nomadic ways. They would need to change their lifestyles in order to acquire a typical electricity connection," said Jayawardena.

"However, with the availability of portable SHSs that can be easily assembled and disassembled, the technology is adapting to accommodate the herder's nomadic lifestyle rather than the other way around. This enables those who wish to remain herders to continue their nomadic lifestyle while still acquiring access and the benefits of modern electricity - thereby preserving their traditional lifestyle."

Follow Philippa Stewart on Twitter: @Flip_Stewart

Philippa H Stewart
@Flip_Stewart
Qatar-based reporter, sporadic blogger, Sheffield lass, sword-wielder, has tiny hands, likes hats. Views my own, or stolen from those more intelligent than me.
Qatar
flipthinks.wordpress.com

Honeybees struggling

2014-10-16T03:12:00.001-07:00

Pathogenic plant virus jumps to honeybees

Honeybee. Credit: Adam Siegel

A viral pathogen that typically infects plants has been found in honeybees and could help explain their decline. Researchers working in the U.S. and Beijing, China report their findings in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The routine screening of bees for frequent and rare viruses "resulted in the serendipitous detection of Tobacco Ringspot Virus, or TRSV, and prompted an investigation into whether this plant-infecting virus could also cause systemic infection in the bees," says Yan Ping Chen from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, an author on the study.

"The results of our study provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected and that the infection becomes widespread in their bodies," says lead author Ji Lian Li, at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science in Beijing.

"We already know that honeybees, Apis melllifera, can transmit TRSV when they move from flower to flower, likely spreading the virus from one plant to another," Chen adds.

Notably, about 5% of known plant viruses are pollen-transmitted and thus potential sources of host-jumping viruses. RNA viruses tend to be particularly dangerous because they lack the 3'-5' proofreading function which edits out errors in replicated genomes. As a result, viruses such as TRSV generate a flood of variant copies with differing infective properties.

One consequence of such high replication rates are populations of RNA viruses thought to exist as "quasispecies," clouds of genetically related variants that appear to work together to determine the pathology of their hosts. These sources of genetic diversity, coupled with large population sizes, further facilitate the adaption of RNA viruses to new selective conditions such as those imposed by novel hosts. "Thus, RNA viruses are a likely source of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases," explain these researchers.

Toxic viral cocktails appear to have a strong link with honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a mysterious malady that abruptly wiped out entire hives across the United States and was first reported in 2006. Israel Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV), Chronic Paralysis Virus (CPV), Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV), Deformed Wing Bee Virus (DWV), Black Queen Cell Virus (BQCV) and Sacbrood Virus (SBV) are other known causes of honeybee viral disease.

When these researchers investigated bee colonies classified as "strong" or "weak," TRSV and other viruses were more common in the weak colonies than they were in the strong ones. Bee populations with high levels of multiple viral infections began failing in late fall and perished before February, these researchers report. In contrast, those in colonies with fewer viral assaults survived the entire cold winter months.

TRSV was also detected inside the bodies of Varroa mites, a "vampire" parasite that transmits viruses between bees while feeding on their blood. However, unlike honeybees, the mite-associated TRSV was restricted to their gastric cecum indicating that the mites likely facilitate the horizontal spread of TRSV within the hive without becoming diseased themselves. The fact that infected queens lay infected eggs convinced these scientists that TRSV could also be transmitted vertically from the queen mother to her offspring.

"The increasing prevalence of TRSV in conjunction with other bee viruses is associated with a gradual decline of host populations and supports the view that viral infections have a significant negative impact on colony survival," these researchers conclude. Thus, they call for increased surveillance of potential host-jumping events as an integrated part of insect pollinator management programs.

Explore further: Study suggests common pesticide clothianidin causes immunity problems in bees

Population growth not sustainable

2014-10-16T03:03:00.001-07:00

THE DEGROWTH PARADIGM

2014-09-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

The degrowth movement is a relatively new contender in the economic and political debates that swirl around humanity's future. Degrowthers believe we need a more modest and sane alternative to the constant pressures of expansion that are destroying the ecological basis of our existence. Author and essayist Richard Swift explores the degrowth alternative, in theory and in practice.

IMO, This is one of the many great shows on the CBC radio

CBC IDEAS Schedule for September 29 - October 3

Listen online:

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/listen/

Home Page:

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/

What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

2014-04-01T18:47:00.001-07:00

Grist

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

By SMITH @strangerworks

How do we move beyond vague climate fears?

Risky Business’ Kate Gordon is assembling hard data on what’s at stake for business.

View on web

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Kate Gordon, San Francisco’s Financial District, is managing Risky Business, an ambitious project that aims to quantify the financial risks that climate change poses to the American economy.

The report, which is slated to be released this June, is headed by Tom Steyer, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and features input from an eclectic Risk Committee of former cabinet members and other political heavy-hitters.

Q. The first thing I’m curious about is, what kind of climate change data is out there? What do you have, and what would you like to see more of?

A. The climate risk data just isn’t out there. The reinsurance industry is the big exception. They were doing a lot of work around climate risk because they had to – they were insuring the insurers.

But most of the reinsurers – who have been talking about this since the ’80s – are based in Europe.

The reason we decided to do this project was to have a very U.S.-focused, business-focused, and investor-focused approach to climate risk, which wasn’t really available outside of some private institutions.

The five sectors we’re looking at are:
- agriculture,
- public health,
- energy systems,
- coastal infrastructure, and then
- labor productivity,,,

Of those, the ones that have been most studied from a risk perspective are agriculture and coastal infrastructure, and that’s largely because of private industry.

We have Greg Page on our Risk Committee, who just stepped down as the CEO of Cargill, and is now the executive chair of the board. Cargill positions itself as a risk management company in the agricultural space.

At Next Generation we’re not doing the research; we contract it out.

We’re working very closely with a company called RMS, which is the big risk analyst for the insurance and reinsurance and hedge fund industries.

One of their specialties is coastal risk. Coastal infrastructure is a big issue for insurers – the sea-level rise and the extreme weather events and the capital infrastructure falling apart.

That’s something that private companies are looking into.

Energy systems are becoming a bigger deal. The Department of Energy put out a big study on risks to energy systems from climate change. But honestly, again, that’s been from the perspective of coastal infrastructure: flooding, hurricanes.

The area that we’re looking at that is the least studied is labor productivity.

Q. And what will climate change do to labor productivity?

A. Extreme heat. And precipitation. There are data on that, from extreme heat events in recent years — what happens to the construction industry, for instance.

Q. And then in terms of energy systems – aside from the effects of wind and heat on pre-existing systems, what else would be affected by climate change?

A. With energy, we’re looking less at infrastructure and more at energy supply and demand. If you have extreme heat, what happens to energy demand? People use their air conditioners more. We’re looking at energy load and our lack of energy diversity.

We are not telling people how to react. We’re not dictating solutions. We are doing the work of a risk committee to highlight the catastrophic risks of climate change.

For Mike Bloomberg and for Tom Steyer and for Hank Paulson, this project speaks really to their backgrounds in taking the data and working with the data. They are all data-driven people.

Q. And they’re all finance guys.

A. They’re all finance guys. This project speaks to their desire to see a broadening of climate as an issue for a much larger set of people.

There’s a lot of intersection between this work and the other work that those guys are doing. We’re in conversation with Paulson about China, which is where he’s really focused.

Risky Business is specifically not coordinated with anybody else’s efforts.

... everything we’re doing for this phase of the project is open source, so all the data and all the modeling will be open source. We like to think this will be a platform for a lot of people, not just for us.

We have four different temperature scenarios. We’re running all of the National Climate Assessment Models, which is 39 models, on each of those.

Most of the climate modeling is already online – it’s part of the IPCC process or the National Climate Assessment Process. There are 16 terabytes of data going into this project.

... we are focused on extreme events. This is a catastrophic risk analysis. So we’re going up to pretty high temperatures.

Q. So if this is open source, is it stuff that was open source before? Since you’re not generating all of your own data?

A...about 80 percent of this is existing research and 20 percent is new. The labor productivity stuff is new.

What is less common is, we’re not just saying “Here are the risks.” We’re quantifying it, sector by sector. That’s basically overlaying an economic analysis on top of a scientific analysis. That’s new.

The nuclear industry’s done a ton, because a lot of nuclear plants are on the water. So the nuclear industry is the perfect example of an industry that deals with very low probability, high-risk events and massive amounts of regulation.

And now they’re having to deal with the overlay of climate risk, because what used to be a 100-year flood zone is becoming a 50-year flood zone.

And they’re having to deal with that. They’re in a lot of flood zones. There’s a lot – especially after Fukushima – about dealing with climate risk overlaying overall nuclear regulations.

Q. What if I’m a refinery on the East Coast

A. That’s what the Department of Energy report is about. What they actually find is that the fossil fuel transportation system has huge risks – the grid infrastructure and the actual transportation infrastructure are both at risk, as well as the refineries that are along the coast.

People understand the relationship between climate change and coastal infrastructure pretty well. Sea-level rise is one of those things that everyone’s agreed on in the scientific community.



Q. Is there room for thinking about climate change in a hopeful manner?

A. We’re saying is: “Look. We know from experience — from the health sector, from national security, from the insurance sector – that when we understand the risks, the business community responds.”

...what we’re trying to do here, is bring this to a place where people think they really can act. Particularly in the business community, in this case.

BMW has located their manufacturing plant in Washington state because they want cheap access to green power. They think of it as less volatile than fossil fuel power. That was a business decision. It didn’t have anything to do with carbon being priced.

People are out there the whole time doing smart risk analysis of things that are way lower probability than climate change. Our entire defense department does risk assessments based on the potential for another Arab Spring. Or for mass terrorist attacks.

Some of it is never made public. Shell, for instance, does war games and scenarios all the time based on climate change. We’re never going to see that. It’s all proprietary and internal. But we hear about it.

We did this project outside Washington, and outside the environmental community and the traditional NGO community, because we were basically saying: these are people from business backgrounds and public sector backgrounds who deal with risk.

They have dealt with it in public conversations and private conversations for decades. And we need to bring that level of analysis to this problem.

We need to bring a similarly business-driven conversation about what those risks might be.
Only when you are on the same page about those risks can you talk about a solution.

That’s the long answer. But what I’m really trying to say is: There is hope.

We need to have a conversation first about why this is a problem to people. Why should we even be thinking about this?



I continue to think – that clean energy is a huge economic development driver. If we do commit to transitioning the economy to low-carbon sources, it’s a massive boon for our economy.

And for local economies, in particular.

Economic Development 101 is that you start where people are. If you’re trying to do a plan for a city, you start with what the city’s assets are. If you look at Oakland, you start with the port, the universities. You start with access to San Francisco and Richmond.

You don’t come in flying with a one-size-fits-all plan.

The same is true for any economic opportunity.

You start with what the region is actually dealing with, and what the sector is dealing with.

So everything I’ve done with Apollo, or the Center for American Progress, to here, has been from that theory.

You don’t come to someone and tell them that climate change is the biggest issue they’ll ever have to deal with.

You start with where they already are, and you talk about why this matters from that perspective.

That’s what I did as an organizer, and that’s what I do now.

Risky Business is basically saying,

“Let’s do the analysis and find out what the risk is to your industry.”

Let’s not start with “WHY aren’t you people thinking about climate change?”

Heather Smith (on Twitter, @strangerworks) is interested in the various ways that humans try to save the environment: past, present, and future.

Read more: Business & Technology, Climate & Energy

Link: http://grist.org/climate-energy/risk-game-what-a-warmer-planet-means-to-the-bottom-line/

What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

2014-04-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Grist

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

By SMITH @strangerworks

How do we move beyond vague climate fears?

Risky Business’ Kate Gordon is assembling hard data on what’s at stake for business.

View on web

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Heather Smith (on Twitter, @strangerworks) is interested in the various ways that humans try to save the environment: past, present, and future.

Read more: Business & Technology, Climate & Energy

Link: http://grist.org/climate-energy/risk-game-what-a-warmer-planet-means-to-the-bottom-line/

Fuel Cells improving

2014-03-30T00:21:00.001-07:00

ScienceAlert

The breakthrough brings the commercial production of hydrogen fuel a step closer. When coated with nickel, researchers found silicon electrodes were able to avoid corrosion and split H2O molecules for longer. Hydrogen fuel doesn't release greenhouse gases and, if affordable, could help power more sustainable transport.

Read more: http://ab.co/1by9ets via ABC Science

Industry: ‘Green Army’ could kill oil and gas boom

2014-02-11T00:30:00.002-08:00

The Daily Caller

Industry: ‘Green Army’ could kill oil and gas boom Via @dailycaller

'We are under attack from these people'

View on web

Industry: ‘Green Army’ could kill oil and gas boom http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/10/industry-green-army-could-kill-oil-and-gas-boom/ … via @dailycallerhttp://dailycaller.com/2014/02/10/industry-green-army-could-kill-oil-and-gas-boom/ … via @dailycaller

The Sustainability Mantra

Greta vs the Fossil Fuel Industry

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

Snow

Living with a sense of purpose in life

Future Solar Panels Will Generate Energy From Raindrops

Was Jane Jacobs right?

Was Jane Jacobs right?

Related on TreeHugger.com:

Trends shaping the grid of the future

Trends shaping the grid of the future

A Deloitte study finds 'alternative energy’s shift to the mainstream is largely complete and likely irreversible'

1. Renewables acquisition

2. Community solar

3. Integration of renewables

4. Leveraging renewables for grid resiliency

5. The Clean Power Plan

6. Regulatory reforms

7. Corporations buying renewables

8. Finding and training the renewable energy workforce

Looking ahead

Source: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/8-trends-shaping-the-grid-of-the-future/413441/

Solar Deities

In the middle of nowhere: the plant is 10 miles from the closest town.

Sun Gods and Sun Goddesses

Virus could boost Solar Cell Efficiency

CLEARING THE WAY FOR SOLAR

B.C. hunter wants to help save these bears

Global Warming

The World’s Deadliest Drug: Inside a Krokodil Cookhouse

Wildlife Art

Geoffrey West on COMPLEXITY

Category

License

Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler

Solar Power catches on with Mongolia Nomads

Honeybees struggling

Population growth not sustainable

THE DEGROWTH PARADIGM

What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Risk game: What a warmer planet means to the bottom line

Fuel Cells improving

Industry: ‘Green Army’ could kill oil and gas boom

Industry: ‘Green Army’ could kill oil and gas boom Via @dailycaller