Chemically Green
Christmas in July for Alaska This Year
The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say. Not in Georgia, or the lower U.S. states, but Alaska.
Check out this article from the: Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage Alaska, (photo credit: retro traveler)
Right now the so-called summer of ‘08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.
That unhappy record was set in 1970, when the temperature only made it to the 65-degree mark, which many Alaskans consider a nice temperature, 16 days out of 365.
This year, however — with the summer just about over — there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. And that’s with just a few days of potential “balmy” days remaining and the forecast looking gloomy.
The current three-month outlook posted by the national Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., calls for below-normal temperatures for the south coast of Alaska from August through October — turning to above-normal temperatures from October through December.
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Want to Save at the Pump? Try Blending Fuel Pumps
Perhaps a break for consumer fuel prices
Picture Credit: (Cole_H(Old Skool)
Unity Biofuels plans to save consumers money with new blending fuel dispenser:
Clean energy company Unity Biofuels has announced that it is developing self-blending ethanol fuel dispensers, to help blend ethanol with gasoline directly in the pump and thus help consumers to avoid the associated blending fee, according to PetrolWorld.
Fuel subsidy to be passed on to consumer to reduce fuel prices:
According to Mr Jason Egli of Unity Biofuels, “Since the oil companies will not be pre-blending fuel for these pumps, Unity Biofuels will be getting the blenders credit, which will actually go back to the consumers and lower the prices on the E20 and higher blends. The company is seeking to use the credit to ensure that the customer ends up paying lower prices at the pump”.
Check out the rest of the story from Red Orbit.
Destroy Rainforests to Grow Sugar Cane?
One Side of the Story
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Primate scientist Jane Goodall said on Wednesday the race to grow crops for vehicle fuels is damaging rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to the emissions blamed for global warming.
Picture Credit: (Irene Roxanne)
“We’re cutting down forests now to grow sugarcane and palm oil for biofuels and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now,” Goodall said on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative, former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s annual philanthropic meeting.
Palm Oil Pollution
As new oil supplies become harder to find, many countries such as Brazil and Indonesia are racing to grow domestic sources of vehicle fuels, such as ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel from palm.
Rain Forests being sacrificed for Palm Oil and Sugar Cane Production
Goodall said “the problem is especially bad in the Indonesian rain forest where large amounts of palm nut oil is being made. Growers in Uganda — where her nonprofit group works to conserve Great Apes — are also looking to buy large parcels of rain forest and cut them down to grow sugar cane, while in Brazil, forest is cleared to grow sugar cane.”
Gorilla in the Mist. (Picture Credit: P Silver)
Final Comments from Jane Goodall
“Biofuel isn’t the answer to everything; it depends where it comes from,” she said. “All of this means better education on where fuels are coming from are needed.”
Another important point that was not mentioned in this article was with the destruction of forests and deforestation, then the animals that inhabit these forests are loosing ground for survival and possibly extinction.
Deforestation of the Amazon on the Rise?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deforestation of the Amazon has surged in recent months and is likely to rise in 2008 for the first time in four years, a senior Brazilian government scientist said on Wednesday. The rise raises questions over Brazil’s assertion that its environmental policies are effectively protecting the world’s biggest rain forest, whose destruction is a major source of carbon emissions that drive global warming.
Another Side of the Story
Brazilian Officials Defend using the rainforest for growing sugar cane.
From the International Harold Tribune:
BRASILIA, Brazil: Brazilian agricultural officials and biofuel industry representatives defended using already devastated parts of the Amazon rainforest to grow sugarcane for ethanol, denying such cultivation would harm the region.
Brazil’s part of the rainforest, covers 1.6 square miles
Brazil’s extensive use of ethanol and other biofuels has put it at the forefront of global efforts to fight climate change. But the country is also home to most of the Amazon rainforest, which scientists say plays an important role in cooling the Earth Brazil’s share of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, covers an area of about 4.1 million square kilometers (1.6 million square miles); 20 percent of that land has been razed.
Environmentalists say that runoff from sugar mills will pollute the region regardless. And, because it’s cheaper to raze virgin forest than recover already-devastated lands, they warn illegal deforestation will be hard to control once Amazon sugar cane production reaches wide support.
Brazilian Official Comments
“Environmentally protected areas must be protected, but there are natural niches and others that man has already exploited that can be used to grow sugarcane,” said Frederico Duraes, head of agro-energy at the government’s agriculture research institute.
Final Comment
Hypocrisy at its best. Has anyone considered the long range effects on the environment, climate change and habitat destruction of complete ecosystems after the magnificent rainforests are destroyed and clear burned to kill all vegetation? It seems Brazil cares more about revenues from biodiesel products, but has little regard for its rainforest and its inhabitants. 20% of Brazil’s portion of the rainforest has already been destroyed. How many more acres of virgin rain forest will be destroyed for the biofuel’s cause. The is not a green movement, but a pitch black movement.
Is California loosing its Grip on Green?
California chemical ban bills are defeated.
An avalanche of lobbying buried two bills in the Assembly on Monday that sought to ban controversial chemicals from fast food containers, microwave popcorn bags and baby bottles.
From Sacbee.com:
The measures, Senate Bill 1713 by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, and Senate Bill 1313, by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, were the targets of large and well-heeled “working groups” of lobbyists employed by chemical companies, manufacturers and trade associations.
Bill to prohibit use of BPA, bisphenol A in children’s baby bottles defeated.
BPA Free (Picture Credit: m_a_ramos)
Migden’s bill would have banned the use of bisphenol A, or BPA, from containers for children less than 3 years of age, such as baby bottles and “sippie” cups.
Corbett’s bill sought to prohibit the use of perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, from food packaging. The compounds, which are used to prevent grease from leaking through bags and wrappers, have already been abandoned by some companies, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called for a voluntary ban by 2015.
Companies are currently replacing the perfluorinated compounds in their packaging even before the voluntary ban goes into effect.
Did California really need to pass these bills?
BPA free bottles are available for sale on regular basis.
The producers of these items had to make BPA free bottles to satisfy consumer demand. People made the difference and when involved in a major issue can and will make a difference
In response to consumer pressure, many manufacturers have stopped using BPA. In April 2008, Canada banned the use of BPA in all baby bottles and baby products, and at least 10 U.S. states have proposed and/or passed legislation that bans the chemical. Several major manufacturers of plastics have pro-actively stopped using BPA in their products. If this is the case, did the California government think about how much money it would cost taxpayers to pass the ban on BPA? Did the manufacturers of BPA free baby products decide to fight the bill because they are making safe bottles? Maybe the manufacturers thought consumers had enough since to read the bottle labels and knew that consumers were the ones that forced them to make a BPA free bottle?
Where was the public outcry from the consumers of California? Did California support these bills or if they did, it wasn’t mentioned in the Sacrobee.com article. Perhaps the people really did not care to support the bills.
European Food Safety Authority and the U.S. FDA say the BPA levels are safe, but they both regulate the use of plastics in baby bottles and other consumer products. In 2007, the European Food Safety Authority increased the level of BPA it deems safe. The FDA says that BPA can be “safely used as components of articles that contact food,” and as recently as April 2008, they stood behind the safety of polycarbonate plastic in baby bottles and other products.
Scource: BabyFit.com
How to Check Your Carbon Footprint
Would you like to measure your carbon footprint? Global Footprint Network has announced a new ecological footprint calculator. Currently there are calculators available for the U.S. and Australia, with more countries being added all the time. To use it, click on click here and then click one of the countries to help see how your living habits relate to your use of the planet’s resources. After you complete the test, you may find that your carbon footprint might be larger than you think.
I know that my shoe size is 12M, but according to the quiz it would need 4 Planet Earths to provide enough resources to support my current lifestyle. What’s yours?
Do We Need Air Conditioning Outdoors at the Summer Olympics?
NBC can talk to their viewers about saving the planet, but it’s the old hypocritical saying: Do what I say, Don’t do like I do.
Due to the warm humid air at the Beijing China Olympics, NBC is using air conditioning to cool off their commentators while conducting their interview outside. WTHR, the NBC affiliate for Indianapolis, reported from Beijing and described the NBC set used for the network’s two highest rated news broadcasts, “NBC Nightly News” and “Today,” as air conditioned – even though it is outdoors in balmy 85 degree weather.
(Picture Credit: Innamoo)
NBC, not so green? Is NBC helping add to pollution in the country of the world’s largest polluter?
Last fall, the network performed a publicity stunt on its November 4 broadcast of its highly rated Sunday Night NFL Football show, “Football Night in
Other media have criticized American over-dependence on air conditioning. According to Joe Klein of Time magazine, air conditioning represents an estimated 4 % of U.S. energy use.
“But that’s still pretty egregious,” Klein wrote for Time on June 25, in a column encouraging people to “kill their air conditioner” for the sake of the environment. “We used an estimated 4 quadrillion British thermal units on air-conditioning in 2006, which is more than the total energy usage of all but 21 countries. And a fair amount of that is peak usage — the sort that sends the electric grid crackling toward brownouts and meltdowns and increases the demand for the construction of more electric power plants.”
(Beijing China, Picture Credit: Addictive Picasso)
Funny, it seems that NBC and Time can preach to the masses about air conditioning and save the planet, but I wonder what their carbon footprint looks like?
Evidently, it is ok to add to the pollution level in the top polluting country in the world, as they speak: Do Like I Say, Don’t Do Like I Do.
Source: Business and Media Institute.
Is the Most Expensive Commodity in America Ignorance?
Americans might be starting to have a change of mind about buying smaller cars as gas and oil prices decline. Car shoppers who panicked in June and July about gas prices are losing interest in small compact cars as fuel prices have declined. Americans are starting to use more gasoline as prices continue to fall, and oil prices have dropped to $112.00 per barrel today (3 month low). Americans are folks who are addicted to their cars and if gasoline prices continue to fall, will the SUV’s or SUV’s hybrid outsell the smaller compact cars?
To Drive or Not to Drive?
Picture Credit: J.R. Trauben
Will Americans revert to their old driving habits and want to buy SUV’s again? Trends in automobile purchasing may be changing.
From USA Today:
As gas prices topped $4 a gallon for about seven weeks this summer, truck and SUV sales plummeted, and small-car sales soared. But Edmunds.com, which attracts about 50% of people using the Internet to research their next car purchase, says research interest in compact crossover SUVs now is on the rise.
“In May, June and July, people were just stunned” by $4 gas, says Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com. Now, “It’s kind of a return to rationality, where the singular fixation on fuel economy is gone. As people think things through clearly and a little more calmly, they’ll make different decisions.”
But the future of compact and smaller cars may not be as bright as some predict. In addition to Edmunds.com’s report, a study by consulting group Acxiom found most buyers won’t look to small cars for their next purchase but may downsize in the class of vehicle they drive. Owners of big SUVs, for instance, would more likely buy a smaller SUV or crossover, not skip to a small car just to save gas.
One important fact to remember: The drop in the price of oil and gasoline has been affected by market conditions not because of our do-nothing government, who is on summer vacation.
Solutions that solve nothing, will they continue in the oil debate, or is America really serious about reducing the use of oil?
Read the rest of the story: USA Today
The New Land Grab: American Foreclosures
Picture Credit: Krakow 81
Will Oil Rich Funds buy Foreclosed American Homes as OPEC Countries post highest profits in 2008?
The Buying of America. Whether you realize it or not: There’s a new land grab starting in America.
Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barney’s New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country. Check out this earlier CG post.
“One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains, The New York Post has learned.
The search, which is being carried out, in part, by Field Check Group mortgage consultant Mark Hanson, who was retained by the broker, Steve Iversen, is concentrating on single- and multi-family REO (real estate owned) homes, or homes that have already been taken over by the mortgagee.”
Sovereign Funds Will Buy The U.S. Homes
Neither Iversen nor Hanson would disclose the name of the client, but sources told The Post “it’s a sovereign fund.”
A Sovereign Fund Has Major Advantages:
A sovereign fund would have two distinct advantages over other investors - the depressed value of the US dollar makes the homes a bargain, and sovereign funds have deeper pockets.
The sovereign fund of Abu Dhabi, for example, has a reported $875 billion in assets, while Norway has $391 billion, Singapore has $303 billion and Kuwait has $264 billion in their sovereign funds, which are funded by proceeds from oil sales.
Houses selling for $1.00: Check this out
Foreclosures continue to rise: Check this out
Lenders that made loans to unqualified buyers during the height of the sub prime market now find themselves the owners of whole neighborhoods of vacant, deteriorating homes.
One dollar can get you a large soda at McDonald’s, a used VHS movie at 7-Eleven or a house in Detroit. The fact that a home on the city’s east side was listed for $1 recently shows how depressed the real estate market has become in one of America’s poorest big cities and it still took 19 days to find a buyer.
What happens after the houses are sold and purchased with foreign sovereign funds?
Picture Credit: Ginger
The foreclosed homes will be purchased by the foreign sovereign funds, when rented or sold, will mean more American dollars going to the rich oil funds. The Selling of America.
Source: New York Post
In Soviet Russia, Oil Pipeline Disputes You!
There are major world-happenings going on as Russian tanks roll into Georgia and the price of oil drops over $4.00 per barrel. Usually, in a crisis like this, the price of oil would be heading up, not down. Is this about the oil pipeline and oil being supplied to the west or is Russia trying to show its authority under their new president?
In probably the most serious regional crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 50 Russian tanks – and possibly many more – rumbled through the Roki tunnel, which cuts through the Caucasus mountains separating South Ossetia from the Russian province of North Ossetia.
Russia sent columns of tanks and reportedly bombed Georgian air bases Friday after Georgia launched a major military offensive to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia, threatening to ignite a boarder conflict. Russia moves into the Georgian province of South Ossetia today, vowing to protect its citizens in a move described by Tbilisi’s pro-Western Government as an act of war.
Russian T-90 Tank Photo Credit: Russian Military
The area is of strategic importance, largely because of the BTC oil pipeline, which runs through central Georgia just south of the breakaway region. The pipeline, which features in the 1999 James Bond film The World is Not Enough, pumps around one percent of global crude supplies from the Caspian to the Turkish port of Ceyhan for export to Western Europe but is already closed because of an attack in Turkey last week by the Kurdish separatist organisation PKK.
The 1,770km (1,100 miles) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which entered service only last year, pumps up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from Baku in Azerbaijan to Yumurtalik, Turkey, where it is loaded on to supertankers for delivery to Europe and the US. Around 249km of the route passes through Georgia, with parts running only 55km from South Ossetia.
Tensions between Georgia and Russia have been rising over the last few months over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Georgia has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership—a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.
Georgia accuses Russia of fermenting trouble in both regions and supporting the separatist governments as a way to put pressure on Georgia and foil its attempts to join Nato. Russia has given out passports to a majority of South Ossetians and Abkhazians.
Source: (Timesonline.co.uk)
More information on this invasion: Read this
Additional Reading: What does the conflict between Georgia and Russia mean to the west? Read this
Additional Reading: Energy pipeline that supplies the west threatened? Read this
Billions Spent on Global Warming? No Way, Mate!
(Australian Map photo credit: Vodkamax)
Another Point of View from an Australian Global Warming Scientist.
“Government is like fire, a handy servant but a dangerous master.” George Washington
From the Australian:
“The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory”,
stated by Dr. David Evans former Scientist, Austrialian Greenhouse office.
This was the Aussie who wrote the carbon accounting model that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.
“I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.”
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. “I’ve been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.”
Dr. David Evans used to be a scientist in the Australian Greenhouse Office. He spent six years with the Australian government building models about the influence of carbon emissions on our atmosphere.
(Koala Bear Photo Credit: Mulsanne)
Dr. Evans Reverses His Position on CO2 and Global Warming
Today, Dr. Evans has revered his position on CO2 causing global warming since he started working in the office in 1999, “new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming.” By the year 2007, the evidence is conclusive: carbon played only a minor role in recent global warming and was not the main cause.
Dr. Evans put together some basic facts for the public and government officials in regards to global warming.
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming.
3. The satellites that measure the world’s temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980).
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
Keeping that last point in mind, Al Gore still preaches in his movie that the ice cores are the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. Dr. Evans says, “In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician’s assertion.”
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
(Milla Milla Falls, Autralia Photo Credit: Emblatame)
What does Dr. Evans think will happen next in Australia?
The Australian economy may be wrecked to reduce carbon emissions. What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? “The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.”
Source: (The Australian News)
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