William Gibson Books www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com News of the day & Current Issues Global warming initiatives
www.williamgibsonboard.com www.williamgibsonboard.com News of the day & Current Issues Global warming initiatives|
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by looking at the above table we can get some important ideas. For example corn, which is used to create most biodiesel/ethanol scores 145 litres of oil per acre while algae scores almost 40,000...(theoretically)
the interesting thing about this is that switchgrass and fast growing poplar, which are the WEEDS that grow if you don't bother planting corn, will give MORE carbon fixing per acre. So if you don't spend input on seed, fertilizer, or pesticide, the crop you will get is BETTER. Trees are also low input... which is a huge key to getting past the farce of using corn. |
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I just like the term icehouse. It's the opposite of the greenhouse effect, the icehouse effect.
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hmm three in a row...
ah well it's been a few weeks... thought you guys might like the dirt on carbon offsets.
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From the David Byrne and Thom Yorke interview (Wired) :
_____________________________ Albert's path is a strange and difficult one. |
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Let them find out the hard way.
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. -Albert Einstein |
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Cargo ships using kites as auxilliary power (BBC)
_____________________________ Albert's path is a strange and difficult one. |
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EU should ban sale of cars that do under 35mpg, says ex-chairman of Shell.
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As I mentioned elsewhere, I’m reading “Corporate Warriors†right now, which I found thoroughly depressing. According to Singer, the only barrier to being a major military power these days is money. Anybody with enough money can hire a mercenary force strong enough to deter the army of an industrialized nation and handily defeat the weak nation-states which exist in much of the world. Criminals, corporations, Warren Ellis, anyone can exercise military power that was, twenty years ago, the exclusive province of nation states.
I also read this: Brazil Amazon deforestation soars which was even more depressing. It’s not going to stop, you know. People are going to keep chopping down the rain forest. There is no reason for them not to. The people clear-cutting the Amazon neither know nor care about global warming, and any serious effort to stop the destruction will be dismissed as paternalism; “the first world exploited us, they have no right to tell us what to do with our resources.†Even if we listen to Prince Charles and pay people not to chop the rain forest down, they will still do it. The farmers and loggers will take the money and then turn around and keep doing what they were already doing, with a brand new chainsaw they bought using the payout. It is not as though any attempt at accountability has been successful in the past. But even if we assume that everyone destroying the rain forest could be persuaded to stop, the low hanging fruit of the resources would still be there. More squatters will move in and resume poaching, clear-cutting, and logging. I then I realized I was only seeing problems, not solutions. If Prince Charles is right, this is a war. In a modern war, anyone can afford an army, given enough cash: even Greenpeace. Now, they might have to change their name, but Greenpeace, or someone like them, could very easily hire Armorgroup or Sandline to stop the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. It would be a very simple policy: If we find you logging, (and using satellites and hired recon planes, we will find you,) we shoot you. The survival of the planet is at stake, and I don’t think we can afford to mess around. It’s not like the local timber barons can outbid us either: if we put all the money raised to save the rain forest into creating a “greenkeeping†force and complemented it with donations from governments we could probably afford quite a army. It would be a win-win really. The private military firm(s) would get a stable and lucrative long term contract, and the benefit of being associated with a “good†project. The industrialized world would just have to sign the checks, so the wrangling over troop commitments which cripples most UN peacekeeping operations would be a non-issue. There is a precedent for this sort of thing as well. In 1903 the United States established a telegraph relay on Midway atoll. The station keepers sent reports back to the United States that Japanese poachers were slaughtering the Albatross population for their feathers and eggs. The President at the time was Theodore Roosevelt, who was an ardent conservationist and a man of action. He signed Executive Order 199A, making Midway a territory of the United States. He then declared Midway a bird sanctuary, (enforced by Navy gunboat if necessary,) and sent a detachment of Marines to put an end to poaching on the atoll. (Reference: Presidential Actions on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands) It seems to have worked, as Midway remains one of the world’s foremost Albatross nesting sites, and in 1996 President Clinton transferred jurisdiction of Midway from the Navy to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t some issues to be worked out, nor am I saying that this would in any way absolve the industrialized nations of their responsibility to take the lead in reducing resource consumption and pollution generation. But I'd say it is an idea worth thinking about if you really want to save the rain forest. EDIT: Broken link This message has been edited. Last edited by: BlueShift, |
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Are you saying you find the idea of affordable corporate armies depressing, but we might as well make the best of it?
I don't think they'd succeed. getting bogged down in a war in the Amazo, against natives? it's an interesting update on A Modest Proposal though. But I think the UN would intervene because the countries which the hamburgers go to would be loosing revenue. That would rile Americans, to say nothing of other organizations who would freak over the Greenpeace's audacity to violate a sovereign nation or ten. Eventually the US populous would whine so hard that we'd have funding pulled from GreenWar, then we'd have advisors dowm there telling the natives how to stop GreenWar and get the hamburger fields planted again. Besides which, I doubt Greenpeace has enough money to sustain this sort of thing for long, but if they did, the huge schism in their ranks would bleed off half of it right away when the hypothetical plan to invade the Amazon rainforest came along. None of this addresses the fact that their likely aren't enough infantry troops on the planet to guard the whole Amazon Rainforest. Plus, how many PMC have thier own spy satellites? And even if they do, satellite imagery isn't necessarily actionable. A logging operation to come in quick and get out. A hamburger field would be owned by American's in all likelihood so now they'd be killing US citizens. But if they got past all that they'd need an air force for air strikes to get the deforesters while they were operating, which would destroy less vegetation, but still... Save the rainforest... napalm it!??!?! --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
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Yep. It wouldn't involve a violation of national sovereignty. Brazil is already trying to stop deforestation, they just aren't having much success. Just call 'em up and say, “Governments tried pissing away money funding local armies (see Pakistan,) and it didn't work, so this time a bunch of us donors have picked out some top shelf talent. They're going to help you out.†Brazil has no real reason to say “no.†Oh, Greenpeace was just an example. You’d probably need to set up some sort of umbrella company or fund to manage it. DigitalGlobe and GeoEye can do the kind of imaging work that only intelligence agencies could twenty years ago. AirScan apparently operates its own spy planes. You would use satellites to identify areas where deforestation was occurring, then use surveillance planes to locate the people as they’re engaging in deforestation. No. You’d need jeeps or helicopters to get the soldiers there. Both can be easily bought. Park rangers don't sit around the edges of national parks hoping to catch trespassers. Just find the loggers, and then deal with them. Maybe shooting them is a bit harsh for a first offense, so arrest them instead. The people who own illegal clear cutting operations generally aren’t chopping down trees themselves. Anyway, you wouldn’t have to kill everyone. Just make logging the rain forest enough of a losing proposition that people don’t want to do it. Maybe couple it with some sustainable farming initiatives to further relieve the pressure. |
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No, I mean after they deforested something, the American company would come in and say, hey, you can't stop us from making hamburgers. And the USA would say, hey, they're right, we want our hamburgers.
Not quick enough. Amazon is really, really big.
They'd start a revolution just out of spite of being told what to do by foreigners and a war in the Amazon is untenable. Technology can't fight logging operations in the entire Amazon rainforest. We paid off the Vietnamese, we built them shit and they still went with the VC. Money isn't going to solve the issue by being thrown at it. My bet is the price of burgers would just go up. --- "I knew their tastes were very different and because the french like Dick a lot." -W.G. |
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US climate offer "too little, too late"
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just sitting here in the darwin airport where ther's free wireless and I'm reading scientific american. Holy **** have you read this thing on ice sheets?
I mean Larsen B went down FAST in 2002 and they're not talking a 3 or 5 metre ocean level rise now they're talking 200 feet! yikes |
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I find it interesting that regardless of all what all the Tree Hugging Nut Jobs have been saying, Global warming has actual stalled under the Bush Administration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm I also love how the report has to push the global warming agenda with ....."But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years. " Are these the same Experts that have gotten it wrong for the last 10 years? and are these the same experts that were spouting Global cooling the 10 years before that? Is Algore one of these experts? |
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Do you mean Fulgore?  _________________________________ Peter Kurt Russell Clarke Gable Windows XP |
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Science is a journal for nut jobs. As is scientific american.
yeesh.If you want to see a nut job look in the mirror. |
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Solar Power: New World Record For Solar-to-grid Conversion Efficiency Set
 Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s “Serial #3†solar dish Stirling system at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility. ... Osborn says that SES is working to commercialize the record-performing system and has signed power purchase agreements with two major Southern California utilities (Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric) for up to 1,750 megawatts (MW) of power, representing the world’s two largest solar power contracts. Collectively, these contracts require up to 70,000 solar dish engine units. |
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MIT gets serious about solar power
MANHASSET, N.Y. — The Massachussets Institute of Technology is expanding its solar power research from a "boutique" option to an affordable, mainstream energy solution. To that end, the Chesonis Family Foundation is helping MIT launch the Solar Revolution Project (SRP) with a $10 million gift. The project will explore new materials and systems that could dramatically accelerate the availability of solar energy. SRP will work with other solar projects at MIT, creating one of the largest unversity research efforts dedicated to solar energy. ' The gift will allow MIT to focus on three elements—capture, conversion and storage—that could help make solar power a viable, near-term energy source. "Think 'solar' and think 'now. This is the revolution that is implied in the project name," said Daniel Nocera, a professor of energy and chemistry at MIT, who will direct SRP. "Solar is thought of as an ultimate energy technology off in the distant future. The goal of SRP is to move this timeframe nearer to the present," added MIT professor Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (Mitei). The program is committed to a 10-year timeframe "for establishing the new base of scientific knowledge it will take to draw a market-competitive energy supply from the sun." Mitei has so far attracted more than $100 million from donors to fund energy research. Most solar research focuses on known materials and systems, but many of these approaches cannot be implemented on a large scale. SRP will allow researchers to explore new materials and systems. ' SRP's structure will be flexibile: The gift's unrestricted funding is aimed at creating a "no-holds barred" research environment to promote innovation, officials said. It will initially support 30, five-year energy fellowships for students for projects ranging from new materials for energy conversion and storage to using solar energy to produce hydrogen fuel from water. "By investing in the people at MIT and giving them the freedom to take risks in the lab, we will enable them to be true game-changers—advancing the state of the art to a point where solar power is cheaper and more reliable than electricity from coal," Foundation benefactor Arunas Chesonis said in a statement. |
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OK, I'm not entirely convinced by the global warming thing but I've bought into it as my kids are being force fed at school. My little bits:
- Recycle cardboard, food packaging, newspapers, flyers, junk mail and magazines. - Recycle glass. - Kept the central heating off during the winter nights (12-6). - Started cycling to work when its not too wet, saving myself upto £20 a week on deisel and associated emmissions. - Just coaxed the company to erect a bike shelter for dry storage during the working day. - Paying a monthly direct debit donation to Water Aid. Wish I could do more, like growing my own veg and recycling food waste as compost but our gardens too small and I've hardly enough time. Gonna keep hassling the local council to start tin can and plastic bottle recycling collections. Gonna go fishing more often and stock the freezer up with mackerel in the summer months with a view to eating more fresh fish - sea angling not yet taxed in the UK. I'd love to get solar panels on my garage roof but having looked into the meagre grants available it would most likely take me 10yrs+ to brake even!! |
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