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Warning!!! Global Warming Causes Kitten Overpopulation!!!

   After all these years of posting on global warming stories, I still get surprised every once in a while with a headline from a major newspaper.
 
 
Chicago Sun-Times
       Global warming may boost kitten population
By ALYSE KNORR | SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
 
"The brain receives instructions to produce a hormone that basically initiates the heat cycle in a cat," said Nancy Peterson, feral cat program manager of the Humane Society of the United States, "and those instructions are affected by the length of day and usually the rising temperatures of spring."
   All of that may be true, and we just may have a population explosion of baby kittens and the humane society will have a kitten crises to deal with. But, all I want to know is...WHO CARES!!!
 
 
 
 
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The DNC's Not So Green Denver

   The big plan for the Democratic National Convention this year was to go green and offset all their carbon by using green power and buying carbon offsets. Well it mostly working with only a few glitch's. This was in the Rocky Mountain News just the other day.
 
The Wray wind turbine, a mile south of downtown Wray, is one of four projects that will benefit from carbon offsets purchased by DNC delegates. The turbine generates 20 percent of Wray's electric power.
The Wray wind turbine, a mile south of downtown Wray, is one of four projects that will benefit from carbon offsets purchased by DNC delegates. The turbine generates 20 percent of Wray's electric power.
 
But then, in today's paper, we find a different story.
   
   Face the State, a Web site that follows politics in Colorado, reported this week that a wind turbine in Wray has not been able to produce electricity since it was erected in February because of a faulty converter .
 
Whoops!
 
Then to add to their troubles and Denver's, we find that the DNC has been getting tax free gas from the state.
They quickly pulled the plug on that deal once it became known to the city council.
 
The government...got to watch'em all the time!
 
 
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Al Gores Challange To America Speech

   Last week our buddy Al Gore gave a speech in Washington DC. Here are just a few quotes of doom and gloom from his speech.
 
   1) I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure.
 
   2)The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse - much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland's largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.
 
   3)Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.
 
   4)Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an "energy tsunami" that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.
 
   5)And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn't it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.
 
   Did you notice that I just copied the first five paragraphs of his speech? What as downer!
 
And here is his solution...
 
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
 
Why didn't I think of that? It all makes sense! Stop using carbon based fuels and Jesus won't need to return to establish peace on Earth!
 
   Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.
 
   What can you say, other than his idea is just plain stupid. That is really all that has to be said...right?  Even if every citizen in the entire U.S. agreed that we should do that, the other environmentalists would prevent it because some half extinct gray-bearded prarie squirrel would be harmed. Al Gore couldn't convince those lunatics to give up on the squirrel.
   How about our 9% approval rated congress? Do you think they could even get something like this out of commitee in ten years? Who in the democratic party is going to push this through when they are beholden to the  prarie squirrel-loving enviromentalists.
   Here is another one. Concerning all this wind that could be harnessed in the midwest to produce energy...is the government going to condemn citizens property so they can set up the millions of wind turbines that would have to be placed on that land to make that power? How much is that going to cost? How long will cases be in court with citizens sueing the government to stop the land grab? Where exactly do we grow our wheat and corn after you use all the land to mount turbunes? I could go on and on and on...
 
   I think it is pretty clear that Al Gore is dreaming. To the average amercian citizen living in the real world, his idea sounds more like a nightmare.
 
 
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Truckers Not Happy With California Port Air Quality Ruling

   I posted on this story the other day, and it has the trucking industry bent out of shape. Unfortunantly for the American Trucking Association, the Port Authority simply does not care; and as a matter of fact, it is the trucks that are to blame.
 
"Truck pollution is a serious threat to public health, including the health of truck drivers," said Richard D. Steinke, executive director of the Port of Long Beach. "We need to move forward without delay."
 
Better be careful how they (port authority) address this issue...no trucks no products...period.
Delivering Economic Value: Trucking is the driving force behind the nation's economy moving 11 billion tons of freight each year.  Trucks deliver 100 percent of all consumer products and 70 percent of all freight tonnage; 80 percent of U.S. communities receive their goods exclusively by truck.
   That is everything you buy, eat, or otherwise need to survive in this world.
 

 
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Hurricane Dolly Saves Gulf 'Dead Zone' From Record

   Heavy rains and flooding this year in the upper midwest was going to push the Gulf of Mexico's 'dead zone' to record levels this year.
But fortunantly, hurricane Dolly seems to have saved the day. Hurricanes are made out to be these horrible devastating things, it is easy to forget they actual help.
 
   They 'dead zone' is an large area of the gulf that is oxygen depleted because of nitrogen run-off from farmers feilds and the simple mixing of fresh water from the Mississippi river into the salt waters of the gulf.
 
 
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Green Blogs Trying To Hold The Line

   Over at Grist, they are trying to keep the pressure on by criticizing the democrats for not staying on message and bowing to the republicans 'drill and burn message'. But here is what caught my attention:
 
   But it's all based on a bluff. It's BS. Dems are getting duped. It's true that the public is concerned about gas prices, and it's true they will support virtually anything that looks like bold action, but it's simply not true that they are attached to drilling specifically. If they are polled in a way that sets drilling against other alternatives, other alternatives win.
 
You can poll it however you like. We as Americans will put up with higher fuel prices...to a point. But now that the public is awake to the fact that we don't drill here anymore and that we are dependant on a bunch middle eastern thug countries for our energy, well, they think that maybe drilling for some oil here is a good idea. This poll from the Pew Research Center  shows what citizens are thinking as the price goes up.
 
Figure
 
The poll clearly shows that the country thinks both are necessary.
 
The fact is we can do both. We must do both. Unless you suggest we keep sending all our money to the Saudi's and pay exhorbanent amounts of money for energy based on technology (wind, solar, etc.) that is neither as cheap or as effecient  as oil and coal is currently, we will never get past this.
 
We must have long term and short term goals in terms of energy stabililty. Long term, we can build solar and wind plants and hopefully improve the technology and drive down the price. But in the short term we need affordable energy today...and that is oil and coal.

 

 

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Sloooow Hurricane Season

   So how is the "busy hurricane season" doing this year?
 
TC Activity
 
Pretty quiet by the looks of things. Hurricane Dolly made some news last week, but nothing too serious.
 
Actually, what we are wondering is... when is this really busy hurricane season is going to start? Just curious!
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Are We Entering A 30 Year Cooling Period?

 
Will people believe the computer's dire prophecy enough to change their lifestyles? While we wait for 50 million lines of code to reveal the supposed future, consider how things look to one very knowledgeable energy analyst, Vinod K. Dar, who runs Dar & Company, a consultant to the energy industry, in Bethesda, Md. What follows is my own gloss on Dar's analysis. Everything he says, however, squares with all that I've seen and learned in the 30 years I've watched energy markets here and abroad.
 
   A number of influential people in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam say the planet is now entering a 30-year cooling period, the second half of a normal cycle driven by cyclical changes in the sun's output and currents in the Pacific Ocean. Their theory leaves true believers in carbon catastrophe livid.
 
He goes on to explain what is happening in the real world and why.
 
In developing countries the political survival of the people at the top depends on providing affordable fuel for kitchens, farms, fertilizer plants, steel mills, highways and power plants. Oil and coal are the only practical fuels at hand.
So what do we do?
 
No serious student of global politics can accept the notion that the world will soon join ranks behind Brussels, Washington and the gloomy computer and its minders. Dar is surely right when he says, "The U.S. and Japan will not tell Asia and Africa to choose poverty, disease, hunger and illiteracy over electricity." Europe might, but nobody will listen. It won't have moral authority until its own citizens are emitting less carbon than Bangladeshis. That won't happen soon.
 
Reality emits greenhouse gases...even when the planet cools.
 
 
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California Regulates Ocean Vessel Emmisions In Ports

   California loves to regulate everything, especially emmisions, and now they will regulate the emissions of ships coming in to the states ports.
 
The California fuel mandate comes amid similar international efforts, but air regulators say the 27 million Californians who breathe polluted air from the state's ports can't wait for those rules, which are being drafted to take effect in 2015.

"The health of our residents is too important to wait for some other international organization to take action," said Jerry Hill, a member of the California Air Resources Board. "The lives saved by the action we took today are significant."

How many lives did they save? Who knows. But they are sure they did! Besides, researchers in California did prove that dirty air can cause cancer in laboratory rats.
 
 
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Energy Price Fixing In Europe

   The six big energy companies in Europe are being accused of price collusion...sort of.
 
   British Gas, npower, Scottish Power, E.ON and SSE, as well as EDF, - are accused of operating in a cosy world of minimal price competition. This created an environment where it was “easy for those players to make informed judgments about the behaviour of their competitors. This alone can distort competition without any actual collusion occurring.”
 
   Sounds exactly like what is happening here. Has not everyone's bill here in the U.S. gone up roughly 75% over the last five years or so?
Xcel Energy, here in Colorado, has asked for an increase in both electricity and gas nearly every year; sometimes twice. I don't think the Colorado Utilities Commision has ever questioned the increases. We just get told that prices will be going up.
 
   Energy seems to be the problem, whether it is supply, demand, price collusion, enviromentalists, global warming, or countries trying to escape the third world designation. We need energy for the human race to function as we do. Without it, we die.
 
   
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California's Green Economy

   This article from SFGate explains how California's global warming legislation passed in 2006 works and some examples of it working.

-- New vehicles sold in the state to emit 30 percent less greenhouse gas on average by 2016 and implementation of the governor's Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce carbon intensity of fuels by at least 10 percent.

Plug-in hybrids, running mostly on electricity and a little bit of gasoline, clean fuels and zero-emission electric vehicles offer us the near-term opportunity to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions and chronic air pollution. Two dozen Silicon Valley CEOs and residents will own plug-in hybrids by the end of the year, through a program led by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Tesla Motors, a leading maker of electric cars that just announced a production facility for the Bay Area, has already sold out its entire first year of production. And Amyris, a Bay Area leader in clean-fuel technology, recently joined with a leading Brazilian sugar producer to produce a renewable diesel that reduces emissions by 80 percent.

-- The average energy efficiency of the state's buildings to improve by 25 percent through stricter rules on new construction and through new efforts to retrofit existing structures.

Lighting is a major energy consumer. LED lights, which use one-sixth the energy of incandescent bulbs, are leading the lighting technologies that have attracted at least $100 million in venture capital.

-- A cap-and-trade market, beginning in 2012, that would assign a price on the right to produce greenhouse gases. The right could be sold, allowing the market to find the most cost-efficient reductions in emission.

The goals of the global warming act and an executive order from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are clear: By 2020, we must reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels. By 2050, we must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels, a goal that will require a per capita reduction closer to 90 percent and the virtual removal of carbon emissions from sectors such as transportation.

   People in California bought hybrids because, besides a tax incentive, the first 85,000 got stickers to travel free in the express lanes. The consequences if that drove the price of a hybrid well above the list price to the point that only the well to do could afford one.
 
   And yes, Tesla Motors is a company that makes electric cars. But this simply not a car for the average consumer. It's a sports car that will cost you $10,000 just to prove your interested in purchasing one. The final price on a 2009 model is $109,000! Guess what...only the wealthy can afford that.
 
   Next we have low carbon fuel standards. Basically, California is requiring oil companies, refineries, etc. that all fuel produced must meet a new lower standard of carbon emmisions produced by the burning of fossil fuel. Ethanol seems to be the product of choice. And as we are now experiencing, food prices have sky-rocketed becuase of the heavy subsidies the government is giving farmers to grow corn instead of anything else (never mind the nutty farm bill that passed last month). Ethanol based fuel also burns less effecient, while E85 flex fuel has been proven too burns 29% less effecient then regular gasoline. Flex fuel costs less per gallon, but if you have to by 30% more of it, how is that helping?
 
   LED lighting is actually the one good idea in the article, the only problem being is the funny color of the light it emits. Engineering will eventually fix that problem.
 
   So, what does all of this mean? The average citizen in California will be forced to buy cars that cost more to purchase and fill up. Solar and wind energy are not yet cost effecient, but the citizens of California will have to pay for that energy.
 
   Then of course there is cap and trade. We already know it doesn't work. The EU has been at it for years and it has only breed corruptiion, made the trading companies wealthy, and done nothing for the environment.
   
      These are ambitious goals - yet achievable with the right policies. Through technology, visionary public policy and human commitment, California can lead the way in a carbon-constrained world.
 
 
   The human commitment is high, that is for sure, at least for the citizens of California.
 
 
 
 
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Obama's Global Warming Facts Via Germany

   Obama's speech in Berlin yesterday was quite liberal with global warming facts according to TigerHawk. (Via Instapundit)
 
Facts don't stop the green groups from endorsing Obama for president though. The League of Conservation Voters have thrown their support behind Barack.
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While On The Subject Of Al Gore...

   Last year, Mr. Gore got busted for consuming nearly 20 times the energy a normal family does in their home. So he sets off to renovate the energy system in his home with solar power and other environmentally friendly sources to make good on his blunder. Guess what? It's not working!
 
   In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

OUCH!!!
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While Al Gore Was Speaking Thursday...

   ...his Lincoln Towncar was idling out front for twenty minutes with the A/C on. Ooops! 
Do what he says, not what he does.
 
Town Car - Headlamps
 
Does that come in green?
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Al Gore Is Back!!!

   
 
   Just when you thought Al was starting to fade away, he comes back with a new, bold and aggresive plan to stop global warming. He insists that we abandon fossil fuels over the next ten years and replace it with energy from the sun and wind. Not only is neccesary to save the planet but it is imperative for other reasons.
 
   “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The future of human civilization is at stake."
 
   “This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said in his remarks at the conference. “It represents a challenge to all Americans, in every walk of life — to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”
 
Achievable? Probably. You can always tax your way into building just about anything. Affordable? Not a chance. Niether one of those things are the real problem though. Environmentalism can be its own worst enemy.
 
 
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