tired of burning your feet on the sand at the beach? dubai has the solution for you

Developers in Dubai continue to try and one-up each other to create the most outrageous building and/or built environment. The latest and greatest is a 9,000 square foot refrigerated swimming pool and an artificially cooled beach, complete with giant wind machines to create a gentle breeze. I expect the next monstrosity built in Dubai to be along the lines of a small village enclosed in a giant glass bubble, climate controlled and equipped with snow machines to recreate the charm of the Swiss Alps in winter.
 

Chilling developments in Dubai
A refrigerated swimming pool and an artificially cooled beach – Dubai’s latest excesses are enough to make conservationists weep.
Leo Hickman, The Guardian
Thursday 18 December 2008

 

There will surely come a day when Dubai runs the world’s reserves of hyperbole dry. But in the meantime, we continue to draw a sharp intake of breath each time a new construction project is announced. We have had ski domes built in the desert, seen vast artificial islands rise from the sea and watched several structures vying for the title of world’s tallest building. Dubai represents the will, vision and ambition of our species. Yet many believe it shines an unflattering light on our tendency for folly and hubris, too.

This week, it was reported that the Palazzo Versace hotel – the Emirate’s latest offering for those still in the market for exorbitant luxury – will boast, when completed in 2010, a refrigerated 820sq metre swimming pool and a beach with artificially cooled sand to protect its guests from the excesses of a climate that can see summer temperatures exceeding 50C. Wind machines will even be on hand to provide a gentle breeze.

“We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on,” said Soheil Abedian, founder and president of Palazzo Versace, a hotel group with plans for a further 15 luxury hotels around the world to add to the one that already exists on Australia’s Gold Coast. (I’m a Celebrity junkies will know this as the hotel where the celebrities are sent once voted out of the “jungle”.) “This is the kind of luxury that top people want,” he added.

The energy required to run this project can only be guessed at (when questioned, Hyder Consulting, the British company hired by the hotel to build these facilities, said it has signed a confidentiality agreement with Palazzo Versace and therefore couldn’t comment), but it is likely to leave the world’s environmentalists with their heads in their hands. First there is the energy required to power giant wind machines all day long, not to mention the electricity needed to pump coolant around tubes laid under the sand. However, the most energy-intensive element of this plan is likely to be the power needed to refrigerate a whole swimming pool under Dubai’s baking sun.

Of course, in a place like Dubai, this kind of audacious project goes relatively unnoticed, among the many others currently underway. To pick just one other example, 30,000 mature trees are scheduled to be shipped to Dubai to help landscape a new Tiger Woods-designed golf course that will be bordered by “22 palaces and 75 mansions”. Even without the twin threats of climate change and a global economic recession, Dubai’s grandiose plans might seem short-sighted to some. Is it really wise to be building at all, let alone on this scale, in a place that the United Nations describes as one of the most “water-imperilled” environments on the planet, but where per capita water use is three times the global average?

“It’s grotesque that while the world’s poorest people face the loss of their homes and livelihoods, as well as disease and starvation, because of climate change, the world’s richest people think it’s acceptable to waste precious energy so pointlessly on things such as artificially cooled beaches,” says Robin Oakley, head of climate and energy at Greenpeace UK. “While Abu Dhabi, like Barack Obama, is betting on green technology as the engine for growth this century and even building a zero-emissions city, Dubai is apparently still stuck in the 1980s.”

Dubai’s ruling elite insists it now places “sustainability” at the heart of its plans for existing and future projects. Last year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler, spelled out the “Dubai Strategic Plan 2015″ in a speech. He explained that oil now contributes only 3% to Dubai’s GDP and that his plan is to “sustain Dubai’s environment, ensuring that it is safe and clean”. Each new construction project now boasts a paragraph in its brochure about how it will “follow environmental best practice”, but even if these new measures do materialise, Dubai is a place built on the ideology and convenience of cheap, free-flowing oil. Its business model, particularly its ever-expanding tourist sector, is based on the premise that people will always be willing and able to fly long distances to get there. (Some airlines now euphemistically describe Dubai as both a “long short-haul” destination and a “long-haul weekend break destination”.) A new six-runway mega airport is being built to serve a predicted capacity of 120 million passengers a year.

These latest plans for an artificially cooled beach may be causing ripples around the world, but why isn’t there more vocal opposition by environmentalists within Dubai? The simple answer is there are no environmentalists in Dubai; not in the sense of a campaigning, placard-bearing activist that you might find elsewhere. NGOs are barely tolerated within the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part. When I visited Dubai two years ago to investigate the environmental and social impacts of its tourism industry for a book I was writing, no one was willing to talk to me on the record, such was their fear of speaking out against the ruling class. The few environmental groups that do exist in Dubai rarely stray from a brief that seems largely limited to educating school-children about the importance of recycling.

The one place where dissent does seem to be allowed – or is harder to police – is the internet, where people can hide behind their anonymity. Discussion forums are a popular way to vent criticism about the direction Dubai is taking, as are blogs such as Secret Dubai Diary. One recent controversy is that over Sammy the Shark, a young whale shark that was caught in the Arabian Gulf and then transferred to the aquarium at the Atlantis Hotel, which opened last month with a £20m party and firework display. More than 16,000 people joined a Facebook group calling for its release, and one local newspaper started a campaign urging that the shark be returned to the sea. A local radio DJ has even been playing a “Free Sammy” interpretation of Michael Jackson’s Heal the World.

But while Dubai’s citizens fight for Sammy to be freed, its leaders refuse to be diverted from realising their vision. At the United Nations climate talks, held in Poland earlier this month, Dr Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahad, the UAE’s minister of environment and water, gave a speech in which he spoke of the need for his country to consider using nuclear power to desalinate its fresh water. Well, how else are they going to keep those swimming pools filled and chilled?

Link.

is the yellowstone supervolcano waking up?

Batten down the hatches, the Yellowstone Caldera might bring in the new year with its own fireworks display. “Scientists are monitoring a cluster of earthquakes that have rattled Yellowstone National Park over the past few days amid concerns that a larger earthquake could be brewing.”
 
 
Yellowstone Park shaken by hundreds of earthquakes
Last Updated: 1:52PM GMT 31 Dec 2008
 
More than 250 tremors have been recorded since Friday including nine greater than magnitude 3.0 on the Richter scale, according to the University of Utah. The largest, a magnitude 3.9, struck on Saturday and the area was shaken by a 3.3 tremor just after midday on Monday.

While earthquakes are common in the giant park, which covers parts of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana and experiences about 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year, the intense burst of seismic activity lasting several days has been described as unusual.

“They’re certainly not normal,” said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. “We haven’t had earthquakes of this energy or extent in many years.”

Mr Smith, director of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which operates seismic stations around the park, said the earthquakes have ranged in strength from barely detectable to Saturday’s 3.9. A magnitude 4 earthquake is capable of producing moderate damage.

“This is an active volcanic and tectonic area, and these are the kinds of things we have to pay attention to,” he said. “We might be seeing something precursory.

“Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity? We don’t know. That’s what we’re there to do, to monitor it for public safety.”

So far, all the quakes have been centred beneath the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake. No damage has been reported and a park spokeswoman said there did not appear to be cause for alarm.

Yellowstone is situated on a giant, geologically active feature known as a supervolcano and boasts some 75 per cent of the world’s geysers. Much of the park sits in a caldera, or crater, which was formed when the massive volcano erupted 70,000 years ago.

Last year a report in the journal Science found the park’s central region was rising up at a rate of up to 7cm a year due to the movement of a pool of magma several miles below the surface.

Mr Smith said it was difficult to say what might be causing the current tremors. He added that the park’s famous geysers and hot springs were a reminder of the magma underground.

“That’s just the surface manifestation of the enormous amount of heat that’s being released through the system,” he said.

In 1959, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake near Hebgen Lake just west of Yellowstone National Park triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.
Link.

males soon to be on the endangered list?

Doctors and scientist fear common chemicals that are ubiquitous in our world are causing a drop off in the production of males. But good luck finding much more on this story because, as this article points out, it is not well publicized. Even the documentary has been pulled from CBC’s website.
 
The disappearing male: Studies show rise in birth defects, infertility among men

Sonja Puzic, Windsor Star
Thursday, November 06, 2008

Are males becoming an endangered species?

That’s the question scientists and researchers have been pondering since alarming trends in male fertility rates, birth defects and disorders began emerging around the world.

More and more boys are being born with genital defects and are suffering from learning disabilities, autism and Tourette’s syndrome, among other disorders.

Male infertility rates are on the rise and the quality of an average man’s sperm is declining, according to some studies.

But perhaps the most disconcerting of all trends is the growing gender imbalance in many parts of heavily industrialized nations, where the births of baby boys have been declining for many years.

What many scientists are calling the most important — and least publicized — issue surrounding the future of the human race will be highlighted in a CBC documentary that features two Windsor researchers who’ve studied the phenomenon.

Titled The Disappearing Male and premiering tonight at 9 on CBC-TV, the documentary includes interviews with Jim Brophy and Margaret Keith, adjunct sociology professors at the University of Windsor.

They have been studying the decline in the birth of male children in the Aamjiwnaang First Nation community located next to the infamous Chemical Valley, Canada’s largest concentration of petrochemical plants, near Sarnia.

A paper co-authored by Keith and published three years ago in the U.S. journal Environmental Health Perspectives suggests that exposure to various chemicals produced by industrial plants surrounding the Aamjiwnaang reserve land may be skewing the community’s sex ratio.

The researchers looked at the community’s birth records since 1984 and saw “a dramatic drop in the number of boys being born in the last 10 years, particularly in the five-year period between 1998 and 2003,” Brophy said.

Of 132 Aamjiwnaang babies born between 1999 and 2003, only 46 were boys. Typically, about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls in Canada.

High miscarriage rates and a unusually high number of children suffering from asthma were also noted by researchers.

Although the link between pollutants and human reproduction has not been firmly established, there is growing evidence that the birth sex ratio can be altered by exposure to certain chemicals, such as dioxin, PCBs and pesticides. Brophy said studies done in the United States, Japan and Europe seem to support the theory that the so-called endocrine disrupting chemicals have a particular effect on males.

Some of these chemicals are found in commonly used products such as baby bottles and cosmetics. They can also cause miscarriages and a “whole host” of disorders in a male child, Brophy said.

Brophy said soil and water contamination in and around the Aamjiwnaang reserve had been documented before, including in a University of Windsor study that found high levels of PCBs, lead, mercury and various chemicals in the area in the late 1990s. Accidental chemical spills in the area have not been uncommon.

GLOBAL AWARENESS

But it wasn’t until the Aamjiwnaang birth ratio study was published that the global science community really took notice.

“It triggered … calls from scientists and researchers from around the world who had been looking at this issue in Europe and the United States,” Brophy said. “Aamjiwnaang became almost the poster child.”

While Brophy has not seen The Disappearing Male documentary yet, he believes the story of the Aamjiwnaang community will be “the focal point.”

He said the documentary also includes interviews with “some of the foremost experts in the world” on environmental effects on reproductive health.

Brophy and Keith have also studied other occupational and environmental exposures to pollutants, including the link between breast cancer and certain types of jobs in the Windsor-Essex region.

© The Windsor Star 2008

Link.

climate change picking up steam

More bad news on the environmental front. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) issued a report that climate change is happening faster than previously predicted.
 
Climate changing ‘faster, stronger, sooner’
By Matthew Knight
October 20, 2008

LONDON, England (CNN) — Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted according to a new World Wildlife Fund report.

Bringing together some of the most recent scientific reports and data, “Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner” reveals that global warming is accelerating more rapidly than the predictions made in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007.

One of the most concerning aspects of recent data is evidence that, in some places, the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice 30 years ahead of current IPCC predictions.

Summer sea ice is now forecasted to completely disappear in the summer months sometime between 2013 and 2040 — something which hasn’t happened for over a million years.

The report’s author, geoscientist Dr Tina Tin told CNN: “Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than everybody had been expecting. Why? Well, maybe it’s because the positive feedback mechanisms have kicked in much quicker than we have been able to quantify.”

Positive feedback mechanisms amplify changes occurring in the climate. In the case of the Arctic region there is a sort of vicious circle of warming occurring. White ice sheets perform an important function in moderating global temperature by reflecting heat from the sun back into space. But they have begun to melt as the earth has warmed. The result is more dark sea water which absorbs heat, which in turn warms the earth more and encourages further melting.

Globally, sea levels are now expected to rise more than double the IPCC’s most recent forecast of 0.59 meters before the end of the century. This will put millions of people in coastal regions at risk.

World food production is also feeling the heat as yields of wheat, maize and barley had dwindled in recent months.

In Europe, ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are believed to be experiencing their warmest temperatures since records began. And the Mediterranean is likely to experience an increased frequency of droughts.

The WWF report also highlights a 2007 study conducted by the British Antarctic Survey. “Widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula” concluded that floating tide-water glaciers on the peninsula are losing ice faster and making a greater contribution to global sea level rise than was previously thought.

Earlier this month, the WWF highlighted the impact that global warming is likely to have on Antarctic penguin colonies.

According to Dr Tin, more Antarctic data is due to be published next year when the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research publish their findings.

Scheduled for release in spring 2009 the “Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment” is expected to reveal more evidence of damaging climate effects on the continent.

While Dr Tin says that it is true that parts of the Antarctic are not warming or perhaps even cooling, the Western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced some of the most rapid increases in warming.

“Over the past 50 years, it has warmed more than four times faster than the average rate of Earth’s overall warming,” Dr Tin said.

But Dr Tin remains unsure whether this most recent climate data represents the beginning of a tipping point. “We think there are possibly tipping points ahead and some scientists, in terms of the Arctic sea ice, think we have probably gone past the tipping point. But it’s very difficult to get a strong handle on,” she said.

Nevertheless, she describes her report as a “sobering overview” which “comes at a critical time during the political negotiations of the European Union’s climate and energy package”.

Newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC and climate scientist, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele endorsed the WWF publication. “It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious,” van Ypersele said.

Link.

the fed sees the light and ends solar power moratorium

U.S. Lifts Moratorium on New Solar Projects
By DAN FROSCH
July 3, 2008
 
DENVER — Under increasing public pressure over its decision to temporarily halt all new solar development on public land, the Bureau of Land Management said Wednesday that it was lifting the freeze, barely a month after it was put into effect.

The bureau had announced on May 29 that it was no longer processing new applications to build solar power plants on land it oversees in six Western states after federal officials said they needed first to study the environmental effects of solar energy, a process that would take two years.

But amid concerns from the solar power industry, members of Congress and the general public that the freeze would stymie solar development during a particularly critical time for energy policy, the bureau abruptly reconsidered.

“We heard the concerns expressed during the scoping period about waiting to consider new applications, and we are taking action,” the bureau’s director, James Caswell, said in a statement. “By continuing to accept and process new applications for solar energy projects, we will aggressively help meet growing interest in renewable energy sources, while ensuring environmental protections.”

In the meantime, the bureau will continue with its plans to conduct a sweeping study on the environmental impacts of large-scale solar development on public land in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, said a spokeswoman, Celia Boddington.

Since 2005, the bureau has received more than 130 applications from private companies to build plants in those states, where large amounts of sun-scorched land make for prime solar real estate. Those proposals cover more than a million acres and have the potential to power 20 million homes.

The bureau will process all of the applications it received before the freeze, and now, as a result of Wednesday’s decision, will continue to accept new ones, studying the environmental effects of each proposed plant individually, Ms. Boddington said.

Solar energy advocates, who had lobbied against the freeze at public meetings that are being held by the bureau throughout the West, were pleased with the decision.

“We’re encouraged that the B.L.M. lifted their moratorium, but we’re only halfway there,” said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “We now need to get them to expedite the permitting of the solar projects on public land.”

Mr. Resch said the decision was important given that while the bureau managed to approve a considerable number of oil and gas leases on public land, it “had yet to lease a single acre of land to the solar industry.”

Political opposition to the freeze was also a factor in the turnaround, and Ms. Boddington noted that there was “significant Congressional interest in the issue.”

On Tuesday, Representative Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, urging the government to continue processing new applications.

In response to the bureau’s change of course, Mr. Udall said in a statement, “This decision sends the right message to the renewable-energy industry that we are committed to working with them to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and increase our energy independence in an environmentally sound way.”
 
Link.

Five Ways You’re Killing the Planet
The everyday actions that are wrecking the environment, and how you can quit
By Jason Daley Posted 6.11.08 at 1:43 pm
 

Leaving Your Computer On
Standby power, also known as vampire power, the juice used by all those DVD player clocks, coffeepot LEDs and cellphone chargers—accounts for more than 5 percent of all residential electricity use in the U.S., a tab that costs us an estimated $4 billion per year and pumps millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Solution? Turn off your computer at night, unplug your iPod when it’s done charging, or put those gadgets on a power strip for one-touch turn-off.
 
Jetting to Grandma’s House
The worst thing about your next flight won’t be getting stuck in the middle seat; it’s the carbon emissions your kerosene-guzzling jet will be producing. Aviation currently accounts for about 1 percent of carbon emissions in the world, but over the next 50 years—with China and India getting into the global-tourism game—flying will jump to 4 percent or more, and further contribute to ozone depletion and noise pollution. The solution for now? Try to keep your flights to a minimum.
 
Upgrading Your iPhone
What happens when you toss your old cellphone or computer monitor in the Dumpster? First, you’re contributing toxins like mercury, lead and cadmium into the environment. By some estimates, there are 500 million discarded cellphones in the U.S. alone. Second, you’re wasting precious resources: Electronics contain small amounts of precious metals like gold, silver and coltan, all of which can be reclaimed to reduce often environmentally destructive mining operations. What can you do? Plan your electronics purchases wisely—think about a new phone every three or four years, instead of every six months—and always drop your e-waste off at a recycling center.
 
Living in the ‘Burbs
Your little house may be cute, but under its toxic vinyl siding, it’s an environmental monster. Add the average 25-minute daily commute an American suburbanite makes to the emissions from a lawnmower (one hour of pushing is equivalent to 100 miles of driving), the toxic chemicals put on lawns, and the loss of green space and farmland created by sprawl, and your enviro-mojo drops pretty low. Compare that with an urban condo where you can bike to work or take mass transit and skip the lawn care, and downtown begins to seem a little rosier.
 
Buying Plastic Everything
It’s been said that in 1,000 years, when archaeologists dig down to the 20th and 21st centuries, they’ll deem our time the Plastic Age. The ubiquitous petroleum-based material will be our most prominent artifact, mainly because the stuff doesn’t biodegrade. Besides just making a mess that won’t go away, some plastics are known to leak hormone-disrupting chemicals and other toxins. Until bioplastics—made from vegetable starches and cellulose—become viable, opt for glass containers when you can, and take a reusable bag to the grocery store.
 
Link.

moratorium on dangerous solar energy

The administration is pushing for increased drilling and mining on federally owned lands but wants to put a hold on solar facilities for fear of unknown environmental impacts. What? Welcome to bizarro world.
 
 
Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects
By DAN FROSCH
June 27, 2008
 
DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”

Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.

Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies’ desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities.

According to the bureau, the applications, which cover more than one million acres, are for projects that have the potential to power more than 20 million homes.

All involve two types of solar plants, concentrating and photovoltaic. Concentrating solar plants use mirrors to direct sunlight toward a synthetic fluid, which powers a steam turbine that produces electricity. Photovoltaic plants use solar panels to convert sunlight into electric energy.

Much progress has been made in the development of both types of solar technology in the last few years. Photovoltaic solar projects grew by 48 percent in 2007 compared with 2006. Eleven concentrating solar plants are operational in the United States, and 20 are in various stages of planning or permitting, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The manager of the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental impact study, Linda Resseguie, said that many factors must be considered when deciding whether to allow solar projects on the scale being proposed, among them the impact of construction and transmission lines on native vegetation and wildlife. In California, for example, solar developers often hire environmental experts to assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and Mojave ground squirrel.

Water use can be a factor as well, especially in the parched areas where virtually all of the proposed plants would be built. Concentrating solar plants may require water to condense the steam used to power the turbine.

“Reclamation is another big issue,” Ms. Resseguie said. “These plants potentially have a 20- to 30-year life span. How to restore that land is a big question for us.”

Another benefit of the study will be a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process, said the assistant Interior Department secretary for land and minerals management, C. Stephen Allred. The land agency’s manager of energy policy, Ray Brady, said the moratorium on new applications was necessary to “ensure that we are doing an adequate level of analysis of the impacts.”

In the meantime, bureau officials emphasized, they will continue processing the more than 130 applications received before May 29, measuring each one’s environmental impact.

While proponents of solar energy agree on the need for a sweeping environmental study, many believe that the freeze is unwarranted. Some, like Ms. Gordon, whose company has two pending proposals for solar plants on public land, say small solar energy businesses could suffer if they are forced to turn to more expensive private land for development.

The industry is already concerned over the fate of federal solar investment tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress renews them. The moratorium, combined with an end to tax credits, would deal a double blow to an industry that, solar advocates say, has experienced significant growth without major environmental problems.

“The problem is that this is a very young industry, and the majority of us that are involved are young, struggling, hungry companies,” said Lee Wallach of Solel, a solar power company based in California that has filed numerous applications to build on public land and was considering filing more in the next two years. “This is a setback.”

At a public hearing in Golden, Colo., on Monday, one of a series by the Bureau of Land Management across the West, reaction to the moratorium was mixed.

Alex Daue, an outreach coordinator for the Wilderness Society, an environmental conservation group, praised the government for assessing the implications of large-scale solar development.

Others warned the bureau against becoming mired in its own bureaucratic processes on solar energy, while parts of the West are already humming with new oil and gas development.

Craig Cox, the executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a renewable energy trade group, said he worried that the freeze would “throw a monkey wrench” into the solar energy industry at precisely the wrong time.

“I think it’s good to have a plan,” Mr. Cox said, “but I don’t think we need to stop development in its tracks.”
Link.

al needs to take a page from ed

Al Gore’s house averages more than 18,000 kilowatt-hours a month! What the hell is he doing in there? Growing weed for the entire state of Tennessee? Most people don’t use 18,000 kWh a year. Al needs to watch “Living With Ed” and bone up on his environmentalism. If you combine his home electricity usage with the energy he’s burned up flying all around the world talking about “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore has probably done more to promote global warming than prevent global warming.
 
 
Al Gore’s electricity bill goes through the (insulated) roof
By Tom Leonard in New York
19/06/2008

Environment campaigner Al Gore is using more electricity than ever despite pledging to cut consumption more than a year ago, a libertarian research group claims.

According to the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research, the annual electricity usage at the former US Vice President’s large home in Nashville has risen by 10 per cent.

Mr Gore’s environmental activism inspired the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

But the TCPR branded him a “hypocrite” in February 2007 after discovering that his eight-bathroom house in the Tennessee city consumed nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in the previous year – more than 20 times the national average.

Mr Gore responded by saying that he was in the process of giving the house a major energy-efficient makeover, fitting solar panels, low energy lightbulbs, and a geothermal heating and cooling system.

However, the TPCR has got hold of his electricity bill again, this time comparing electricity consumption between the 12 months before June 2007, when it says he installed his new technology, and the year since then.

It says the figures show the Gore residence uses an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations.

By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Drew Johnson, the TCPR’s president, said: “A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home.”

A spokesman for Mr Gore disputed the claims, saying his total utility bills had gone down by 40 per cent since the “green” refit, much of that down to the new heating system.

Explaining the electricity consumption, she said the three-year renovation of the house wasn’t finished until November so it was too early to draw a before-and-after comparison.

She also stressed that the Gores participate in a local “green power switch” programme which allows them to buy electricity from renewable resources such as wind power and methane gas.

Link.

everything is going to be okay… i think

The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, methane emissions from massive factory farms, etc. are causing global warming. As the temperature rises, snow and ice that reflected much of the sun’s energy, melt, revealing land and water that absorb the sun’s energy and raises the Earth’s temperature even more. Another result of the increasing temperatures is the thawing of permafrost, which releases methane, further contributing to global warming. However, as the Earth heats up, massive glaciers all around the world melt, depositing enormous amounts of fresh water into the oceans. Scientists speculate that this influx of fresh water could disrupt the global conveyor belt, which affects climates throughout the world. If this conveyor belt were to slow or shut down, the Earth could plunge into another ice age.
Occurring at the same time, however, is the slowdown of the sun’s solar energy output. When this cyclical event happens, the Earth’s temperature drops considerably. The last time this happened, about 200 years ago, the decades long cold spell caused widespread crop losses, food riots, famine, and disease.
Sounds like we’re in a big mess, right? Maybe not. If the solar slowdown occurs first, dropping global temperature say 4 degrees Fahrenheit, permafrost will stop thawing, no longer releasing methane; the large areas of snow and ice that have been melting under global warming will remain and reflect the sun’s energy; and all of these factors combined will stop the glaciers from melting and pouring fresh water into the ocean, preventing the shutdown of the global conveyor belt and the start of a new ice age. So all we have to do is find a way of speeding up the sun’s solar energy slowdown and we all live happily ever after, if just a little bit colder. No problem, eh? We’ll just send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to the sun to detonate a nuclear warhead and save the world. Oy vey. My head hurts.

listen to what the man said

McCartney urges vegetarianism to fight climate ills
Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:01am EDT

NEW YORK, April 21 (Reuters) – Former Beatle Paul McCartney is urging the world to go vegetarian in a bid to fight global warming and is surprised more green groups don’t promote it.

In an interview with the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), McCartney said the global meat industry was a major contributor to global warming. A transcript of the PETA interview was given to Reuters.

“The biggest change anyone could make in their own lifestyle would be to become vegetarian,” McCartney, a longtime vegetarian and advocate of vegetarianism, said. “I would urge everyone to think about taking this simple step to help our precious environment and save it for the children of the future.”

McCartney says the amount of land and water used to maintain the meat industry makes it a major contributor to climate change and complains that most environmental groups do not list vegetarianism as one of their top priorities.

“It’s very surprising that most major environmental organizations are leaving the option of going vegetarian off their lists of top ways to curtail global warming,” he said.

A 2006 United Nations report found that cattle-rearing generated more greenhouse gases than transportation.

Link.

Click here for the interview.