March 2011
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PopTech Ecomaterials Lab: Mapping our way out of a... →
The guys and gals at PopTech get it right. Disposable economy has to stop. Value your stuff, hand it down, save money - and resources - for future generations.
poptech:
As a society, we use too much…stuff. Stuff that is manufactured in increasingly dangerous ways. When we’re done with these (mostly) unneeded and toxic items, we throw them in landfills or they end up in our oceans. Not exactly...
February 2011
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NASA/NOAA Study: Nuclear War Could Reverse Global...
exogenerian:
Even a regional nuclear war could spark “unprecedented” global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models.
Widespread famine and disease would likely follow.
Source National Geographic.
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Obama bids to end oil subsides... Debate...a tango... →
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British Panel Clears Climate Scientists in...
Scientists are officially cleared in 100% of reviews (6 reviews, total) Climate deniers’ claims remain crumbled. See also, here, and here.
A British panel on Wednesday exonerated the scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate of charges that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming.
Read the rest, here.
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A must read piece on Fracking in today's NYTimes
(W)astewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.
...
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Climate change halves Peru glacier: official
Half? They’ll have to build a dam to create a reservoir to store and pipe the water.
Rawstory Climate Change Halves Peru Glacier
LIMA – A glacier on Peru’s Huaytapallana Moutain shed half its surface ice in just 23 years, officials said Wednesday, reinforcing concerns of climate change’s growing threat to fresh water resources.
“Recent scientific studies indicate...
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Awesome conference! "Imagining the Worst:...
Oh man! I want to go to there. This looks like one of the strongest conferences I’ve seen in a years. It deals with both the ethics of extreme climate change scenarios, and how governments should deal with climate science:
You are Invited to Attend
”Imagining the Worst: Foresight, Ethics, and Extreme Climate Scenarios” organized...
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GOP inquiry finds no evidence that ‘climategate’...
Money quote: “We did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data,” the inspector general concluded in a recent report. It also cleared Lucbhenco for testifying before Congress that the e-mails did not weaken the science of climate change.
The probe was requested by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the environment committee, who has called...
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Public relations and climate change impacts:...
Strong paper on climate relations, HERE (PDF).
Global climate change effects pose problems both for community development professionals concerned with strengthening communities and for public relations practitioners confronting communication challenges. This paper suggests that each discipline has something to offer the other in dealing with communities facing climate change impacts....
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Ohio Braces for Oil Shale Boom
“A Godsend…”
Ohio is bracing for an oil boom as companies, led by Chesapeake, gobble up leases covering millions of acres in the eastern half of the state. While no one’s yet proven the commercial potential of the Utica formation, an oil-rich layer of rock that underlies this area, some believe it will yield crude on par with the largest shale reservoirs in the U.S....
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abcsoupdot asked: Oh, I have a question I think you might be the perfect person to ask Michael. I was once told by a gentleman who was anti-wind power because he claimed that the energy output from one turbine over its lifespan would not offset the materials and energy spent on manufacturing it. This sounds potentially true but I'm not really sure where to find the type of information for this type of...
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BP Halts Oil Operations in Libya
UK oil giant joins Norway’s Statoil, Australia’s OMV, and Germany’s RWE Dea in full or partial stops. France, Russia, Italy, and Spain remain pumping.
Although Libya produces only 2% of the world’s oil, it holds Africa’s largest oil reserves. Libya is also an important member of OPEC. Libya exports about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day, mostly to Europe and China....
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WatchDan Ariely is AWESOME.
poptech:
Adaptation is the basic idea that we get used to stuff and interpret signals. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores how these types of signals relate to pain and social adaptation. How does our previous exposure to pain alter how we experience it now? How is it that we all appreciate the pinnacle of beauty in the same way, but we’re drawn to partners with a...
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Reports: Moammar Gadhafi will blow up oil fields... →
theweekmagazine:
An unnamed source with connections to Libya’s strongman says Gadhafi knows he can’t retake the country with the 5,000 troops that are still loyal to him. So, to make his point and punish disloyal Libyans, he’s apparently ordered those soldiers to torch Libya’s oil fields and blow up pipelines to Mediterranean ports.
More here.
Note that the US consumes 20 million barrels...
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E.P.A. Scales Back Emissions Rules
More Obamian appeasement.
Responding to a changed political climate and a court-ordered deadline, the Obama administration issued significantly revised new air pollution rules on Wednesday that will make it easier for operators of thousands of industrial boilers and incinerators to meet federal air quality standards.
Read the rest, here.
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Metal bottles vs Plastic bottles - a false debate.
Triggered by a post from an excellent enviro-tumblr that I follow, I can’t help tip-toe into the metal bottles vs plastic bottles “debate.” I think metal is the absolute worst of the two choices. Here’s why:
Manufacturing. The above horrifying graphic illustrates a real mining project. And it represents a process quite common around the world. It’s used to dump...
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“Climate change is not only a massive threat to the global environment, it is...”
– UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, 2010 (via thegeographical)
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Call for Papers: Climate Economics and Law...
Call for Papers
The NCCR Climate invites scientists to the Climate Economics and Law Conference that will take place on 16 and 17 June 2011 in Bern, Switzerland. Key issues covered by the conference are:
Mitigation, adaptation and technological change
Trade regulations and unilateral climate policies
Each topic includes two keynote plenary lectures and numerous parallel sessions.
The...
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TVNZ liveblog of Christchurch Earthquake News →
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North Korea is begging foreign governments for... →
There will be more countries asking for bailouts from rough winters and hot summers. What’s the end-point? Geographic crises will vary in size from regional to multi-country. Can the world constantly support struggling countries?
theweekmagazine:
But opinion-makers wonder if we should give aid to a nuclear-armed rogue state
In a highly unusual move, North Korea has instructed its...
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Drill baby drill? Price of Oil skyrocketing....
Price of oil rising steadily on Middle East protests. A must watch during the Obama recovery. Keep an eye on those chokepoints. Also watch for resurgent calls to “drill baby drill” from the right, and possibly the left. (Buy your bikes now before prices get too expensive!)
Source: http://www.oil-price.net/
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New Zealand quake: Google People Finder
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BREAKING: House votes to defund IPCC in 2am...
Reblog widely: Republicans with (I think) two democrats, voted Saturday at 2am to stop the US from funding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Over 180 countries fund the IPCC, with the US giving around $2 million annually (a clear pittance relative to US debt).
I believe this is the first time Republicans collectively have gone on the record to deny climate change in the public...
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Planet could be 'unrecognizable' by 2050, experts... →
What’s so interesting about this is that we know there will be overpopulation. We know there will be housing, food, and energy resource shortages, but there isn’t a collective effort to stop it. Hard for me to find good news in this.
soupsoup:
The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, “with...
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NOAA's Abandoned Vessel Inventory
The Abandoned Vessel Inventory is a compilation of vessels from many federal, state and local sources. “While the inventory contains more than 2000 records, this catalog is only a subset. Most of these vessels found here have been surveyed by the Program to ground truth and augment data from these other sources. In addition, there are vessels that were not found in any other database. The...
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UN Climate Change Diplomacy: Online Course
An e-learning course on Climate Change Diplomacy has been developed by the Multilateral Diplomacy Programme (MDP) of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). The course aims to provide the necessary training for participation in multilateral negotiations, public sector work, and diplomatic engagement in relation to climate change through an enhanced understanding of its...
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All the Volcano webcams of the World →
These are cool, especially Italy - make sure you know the time zone.
bneaththeearthscrust:
Via CSUF geologist Robert Leeper
