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Colorado Hunters And The Climate

   In the Rocky Mountain News today, we have an article about the effects of climate change on Colorado's wildlife.
 

Global warming is real enough to Colorado's anglers and hunters that they have embraced an idea by an environmental group to hold workshops on how to deal with changing and dwindling habitat where they hunt and fish.

"Wildlife at a Crossroads: Conserving Colorado's Wildlife Heritage and Promoting a New Energy Future" is holding workshops today in Denver, Friday in Grand Junction and Oct. 25 in Alamosa.
 
Nothing like tying together a story about hunters and climate change.
 
David Dittloff, regional supervisor for the National Wildlife Federation, echoed that sentiment.
"There is a consensus among sportsmen and bird-watchers that climate is changing and something needs to be done to help fish and wildlife better adapt to a changing climate," he said. "And obviously there is a consensus that oil and gas activity is drastically increasing as well."
 
Obvious consensus that oil and gas activity is increasing as well? And piling solar panels and wind turbines over thousands of acres is going to help wildlife? These work shops are nothing more than an attempt to spread the 'green' news.
 
Then, in the same paper on the same day we have this article. Here is the first sentence:
 
While Colorado hunters and environmentalists are uniting like never before in worrying about the habitat loss that can come with climate change, the signs so far are subtle.
 
They are uniting like crazy, I guess. Talking to a retired game warden, he is noticing the changes.

"It seems like 30 or 40 years ago, the situation was more gradual," Ellenberger said. "We either were going into a drought period and things gradually got drier and drier, or it went in the opposite direction.

"Now, it seems like it is all over the place — there are not patterns, just very erratic."
 
   If everybody is so worried about the climate and colorado's wildlife, take not of this line in the article
 
He noted that elk are very adaptable, moving to lower elevations as houses go up in their traditional habitat.

And he points out that 40 years ago, Colorado's big-game manager predicted that the elk population of 50,000 likely wouldn't get any larger because the animals were being crowded out by development.

Now, there are about 280,000 elk in the state.
Not to mention since they limit hunting in colorado for elk that chronic wasting disease is now running through the park.


 
 
 
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The Fall Colors Are Just Not The Same...Again

   Have you noticed that the fall foilige is just not a 'vivid' as it used to be? A $45,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to a Vermont research center to see if climate change is dulling the color of the leafs.
 
   Here is a post from about the same time last year on a NY Times article regarding the fall colors.
 
The wife and I will be in the Vail/Beaver Creek, Colorado area this weekend enjoying the changing of the season. Looking forward to some R & R.
 
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At Least David Hasselhoff Is Not Driving

   When I saw the Knight Rider was making a comeback, I didn't know wether to laugh or get sick.
Have I ever mentioned that I hate Ford's?
 
Cool car
 
The writers should have promoted a greener alternative to KITT.
 
Guess I shouldn't have talked so soon.
CS: Was there any attempt to make this a "green" car? Is the new KITT a hybrid?

Bartis: The new KITT is incredibly efficient. Yes, it is a hybrid in some new ways. You'll see it incorporate solar energy and technology that we could create because it is a TV show. There are some cool new technologies we have applied; it is a highly efficient vehicle.
 
It simply will not be the same without David...

 
Come on...you know you miss him!
 
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Hybrid Car Tax Credits Pass The Senate

   Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV's) got a shot in the arm today when the U.S. Senate passed a tax credit bill for consumers who purchase one. Here is the great thing:
 
The tax credits allow buyers of PHEVs to receive a credit as high as $7,500 and as low as $2,500 depending on the capacity of the vehicle's battery. Toyota had raised concerns that the bill focused solely on battery capacity, as its currently announced hybrid plans do not include anything that would approach the maximum credit. In fact, the Chevy Volt sits alone as the only product that has enough battery capacity for the top tier.
 
   Basing the tax on battery size that in turn will give an american car company an advantage is a great thing!
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No Indictment On Palin Email Hacker

   Why does this not surprise me. I actually thought justice might be served on this deal. Think his lawmaking father called in some favors?
I guess it is still possible some more charges could come down from the FBI, and if they do, he should be made an example of. What he did is nothing less than someone breaking into your home. And lucky for him he didn't try that, or i am sure he would have found himself looking down the barrel of a 30-06.
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The First Ever Carbon Auction In The U.S.

   Ten northeastern states are getting ready to have the first carbon auction online.

The three-hour auction will be conducted online among previously approved bidders. At the end, bids in the system will be used to determine a clearing price based on supply versus demand. The minimum clearing price is set at $1.86 per ton for the first auction.

The big question is what the clearing price will end up being. In Europe, carbon trading has hit electric ratepayers hard, with carbon allowances selling for as high as $48 a ton at auction. RGGI has put plans in place to prevent the price from rising above $10 a ton.
 
   It's all for the good health of the planet I suppose. Some are not convinced any real good is going to come from it. I wonder if this has anything to do with it:
 
Murrow said RGGI may have already indirectly cut future emissions in the region by making companies hesitate to build any new plants fired by coal, the dirtiest fuel. A new coal plant would likely have to buy emissions permits because the cap gets tougher over time, with a 10 percent reduction in emissions by 2018.

Carbon emissions fell in the Northeast last year as generation rose from nuclear power, which emits virtually no greenhouse pollution, generators burned more cleaner-burning natural gas rather than oil as prices fell, and as economic growth slowed, Environment Northeast said.

 They may have undermined their whole scheme.
 
 
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The Lance Armstrong Effect

   Can Lance get more people into biking to work? Can he make it popular again now that he is back? Time will tell.
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McCain's Voting Record

   According to Crooksandliars.com and the Washington Post, McCain missed every single critical vote on the environment. Kind of strange since he is a big global warming guy.

McCain has won support from many environmentalists … but his absenteeism on important votes this session calls into question his reputation as a maverick who might buck the party line on some energy and environmental issues.

Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.”
 
Actually, I am kind of surprised. I thought he had proposed some legislation on the matter, and he has. So how serious is he?
 
Take Senator McCain, for instance, who used to be opposed to extra energy taxes. He is on record as saying that the reason he became interested in global warming in the first place is because he recognized how much hotter it was getting at his home in Sedona, Ariz. Unfortunately, the data don't back him up on this. If we look at the temperature records from the nearby Childs weather station, we can actually see a downward trend in temperature of slightly over 1° F. since 1986, when McCain was elected to the Senate.
 
Obviously he is not to serious about it. My suggestion would be to run from the issue.
 
News
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Is This What You Want For President?

   I hope people wake up and see the inexperience that is Barack Obama. This is not my usual arena, but I have a hard time thinking that Obama could possibly handle the most important job in America, maybe even the world with what I have seen so far. I have watched him speak, and when scripted for him, he makes you want to believe. I don't know wether it is his voice or what, but take away the prompter and start looking at his voting record and you begin to see though the facade.
 
Potentially the next President of the United States he once again is proving that he has no plan, except those that undermine the countries long hard road in Iraq. In a statement on the current financial situation (I think using the word 'crisis' is an exageration) he simply has no idea what he is doing.
 
Sen. Barack Obama today met with some of his many economic advisors and made an announcement that he was not going to make an announcement about any new plan to plan plans.

Obama did suggest a bipartisan effort to deal with the financial crisis wreaking havoc on Wall Street, always a good idea for any candidate after the primaries because it sounds good and costs nothing.

But Obama did not present any detailed proposal of his own for how to resolve the monetary situation that has roiled world markets in recent days.
 
When John McCain said that the economy was not his strong suit, he may have admitted it, but at least he has detailed a plan to address the issue.
 
Where Obama does have a plan, he is trying to implement it behind closed doors, trying to strike deals with foreign nations as if it is a guarentee that he will be president; and the media is helping him along.
 
   It is all a little disturbing and quite frankly insulting to those of us who expect a LEADER not a showman. I don't believe Barack Obama is a bad man, I just think he is not ready and simply does not know what he is getting into. Being president is not a stage to present your wonderful visions of how the United States and/or the world should be. It is being the managing director of the most powerful country on the planet. This job is not for the weak or for those who have no convictions. Barack Obama voted 'present' on bills he sponsored  in the Illinios senate for goodness sake! He can't even vote for what he helped craft! And do you know why? Because his asperations were always to be president and he simply doesn't want to be pinned down on any given idea. He has been groomed for this day since the democratic leadership found him, and having an opinion, except to disagree with everything the republicans do, is the current M.O. of the Democratic Party.
   And now, in the U.S. Senate he has the most liberal record of all the senators. How does that kind of voting record reflect a reach-across-the-isle mentality that he portraits in his ads for president? It doesn't!
   Regardless, Obama is nothing more than a exciting new mask covering up the same old party politics.
   
   
 
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So, Is There No Hope?

   The bad news never stops when it comes to global warming. By this article, we can't even win!
 
In their analysis, Ramanathan and co-author Yan Feng, a Scripps postdoctoral research fellow, assumed a highly optimistic scenario that greenhouse gas concentrations would remain constant at 2005 levels for the next century. For the concentrations to remain at 2005 levels, the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide must decrease drastically within the next decade. Economic expansion, however, is expected to see emissions increase. The researchers then analyzed expected future warming by assuming that the cooling effect of man-made aerosol pollution will be eliminated during the 21st Century. Currently, particulate air pollution caused by fossil fuel combustion, forest fires and smoke from cooking and agricultural waste burning serves to mask global warming caused by greenhouse gases. The smog does so chiefly by creating a dimming effect at Earth's surface.
 
Ramanathan and Feng estimated that the increase in greenhouse gases from pre-industrial era levels has already committed Earth to a warming range of 1.4° C to 4.3° C (2.5° F to 7.7° F).
 
   Where screwed man, where screeeewed!!!
 
 
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New Climate Change Magazine

Got the sneak peak of the first cover...
 
 
Sorry, couldn't help it...
Click here if you want to see the parrallel universe were Al Gore won the election.
 
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More Hydrogen Advancements

   About a month back I posted a story on a new process that can split the oxygen molecule and the hydrogen molecule from water with common inexpensive materials. Now chemist Dan Nocera from MIT is claiming within five years he can make this thing a household product.
   Nocera's innovation, reported in July this year, is a simple catalyst that can produce oxygen from water under benign conditions1. Nocera is one of scores of chemists worldwide racing to find ways to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using cheap materials, in a process ultimately powered by sunlight2. Such a system could boost solar power's contribution to the future mix of energy technologies, as the gases are produced using light during daytime and combined using a fuel cell to produce clean energy after dark.
 
   By adding solar power to the mix, and we have a green revolution on our hands.

At the moment, the electricity powering the system comes from a battery, but that could easily be replaced by a sun-powered photovoltaic cell, of which many cheap versions are in development. "This catalyst doesn't care where it's getting its electrons from," says Nocera. Another part of the system that needs work is the hydrogen-evolving catalyst that will ultimately be so important — at the moment, Nocera uses platinum.

   I guess we will see in five years, huh?
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Global Warming Creating Business Venture

   A business man in the UK has come up with a water proof suit that will help people who need to move around on the ice in the arctic, and with global warming, melting ice has become a problem which means sometimes you have to swim.
 
Graham Ogle testing a suit
 
   If you are looking for a business opportunity in the hot market of global warming, try going here, or here.
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Lehman Bros. Enviro-Connection

   Here is a bit of interesting information about failed Lehman Bros. you probably didn't know.
 

Theodore Roosevelt IV
Managing Director, Lehman Brothers
Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change

Theodore Roosevelt IV is Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and a member of the Firm’s senior client coverage group, which oversees the Firms client and customer relationships. Mr. Roosevelt is an active conservationist. He is Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Vice Chair of the Wilderness Society, and a Trustee for the American Museum of Natural History, The World Resources Institute, the Institute for Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, and a Trustee of Trout Unlimited.
 
Neat, huh? The article isn't implying anything, yet you look at how Lehman failed (leveraged monies; money that is not real), and add a similar market like carbon trading schemes (trading monies on something that has no value) and you will have more risky ventures in paper money.
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GreenPeace Is Hatin'

   It is pretty clear by this article that GreenPeace is no fan of the nuclear industry.
In the UK they are using a machine that will help clean a pond attached to a nuclear power plant called Metal Mickey, which GreePeace has a problem with.
 
And what about these poor robots? Will they become radioactive in turn? Will we need another army of robots to clean up the army of robots? Will we then need an army of robots to clean up the army of robots who cleaned up the army of robots? This is potentially never-ending…
 
I agree somewhat with them, nuclear power creates a lot of radioactive waste. Speaking of which, it seems that Yucca Mountain is back in the news again. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to have it open in four years.
 
The NRC is allowed a statutory three years, with a likely one-year extension, to complete its safety analysis and public hearings, but NRC has already warned that meeting the deadline is contingent on its receiving sufficient resources from Congress.
 
   Well, you can kiss that goodbye, being this whole thing has been delayed the past few years by the democrats, lead by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
 
Senate leader Harry Reid said a Senate bill to revive plans for opening a national radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain has no chance of passage.
“It is going nowhere,” Reid said Thursday of the measure introduced by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and backed by six other Republican senators.
As majority leader, Reid, D-Nev., has had the last word on nuclear waste bills.
   That was in January, and I doubt his position has changed much. The scary part is al the waste that is still being generated by existing nuclear power plants is being stored outside those plants in concrete boxes. That is a great idea...
 
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