The 411 on Global Warming Article

Source: Sacramento Bee ()

A glimmer of hope for Earth

Re “Climate conference reduces issue to a few simple numbers,” Dec. 17: Finally, a ray of hope for the environment. With the constant fear of global warming looming over the heads of all of Earth’s inhabitants, this article provides comfort in the ecological renaissance that may lie ahead.

The 190 nations that participated in the Bali climate conference walked away with a new goal: to keep the globe’s swelling temperatures and global warming gas emissions at scientist-recommended figures.

Although the numbers that scientists declared must be followed as a strict guideline did not make the Bali conference’s final document, these numbers are making it very clear what we nations must to do in order for Earth to survive.

However, many underdeveloped countries such as China and India cannot vow to abide by the guidelines offered, and even the United States has turned its head because the cost of dropping gas emissions is just too costly for a nation as blinded by capital as the United States.

If a world superpower cannot manage to do its part to create a home for our grandchildren, how can we expect others to as well? While a glimmer of optimism is expressed by the diminutive reductions that we as humanity could make, it is undeniable that money comes first and environment second.

- Dayna M. Brown, Chico

They don’t hate all of us

I’ve been at the United Nations climate conference in Bali, and what I saw made me proud to be a Californian.

I’ve gone to many international meetings over the past 30 years for my work in environmental policy. Disputes are common at such meetings, but rarely expressed at a personal level. In the past few years, however, I’ve had to deal with face-to-face anti-Americanism as never before, due mainly to the Bush administration’s policy, including on climate change.

In that light, my Bali experience was refreshing. My conference badge prominently …

Source: Sun-Sentinel.com ()

Reasons for hurricanes’ intensity can’t be pinned on global warming alone

December 24, 2007

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By David B. Spiegler

I read with interest the article by Ken Kaye on two scientist’s challenge of other scientist’s linking warmer oceans to more intense hurricanes (Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 13).

The consensus belief, as reported by the media and the article, is that “global warming eventually will spawn super-strong storms — the warmer the oceans the more powerful the hurricanes.” Also stated in the article is that “a large segment of the scientific community say a growing number of studies hold that global warming is steadily increasing the intensity, duration, and number of tropical systems.” Those beliefs imply that global warming is the major factor for hurricane intensity and for more, longer lasting storms. To characterize it that way is, at best, overly simplistic. In fact, it is misleading.

There are many complex and interrelated factors that determine the intensity of tropical cyclones (hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin — typhoons in the tropical north Pacific). The recent season had 15 named storms — an above-average season. NOAA predicted an above-average season, based in part on above-average sea temperatures in the tropical waters. It was an above-average season for the number of storms. Six of the 15 storms became hurricanes. However, nine of the 15 existed as a tropical storm or hurricane for only two days and another lasted three days. …

Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune ()

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New York Times Bestsellers List

The numeral at the end of each listing indicates the number of weeks a title has been on the New York Times best-sellers list. An asterisk indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.

FICTION

1. T IS FOR TRESPASS, by Sue Grafton. (Putnam, (Putnam, $26.95.) Kinsey Millhone must contend with a woman who has stolen a nurse’s identity in order to take advantage of Kinsey’s elderly neighbor. (1)

2. THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR, by Dean Koontz. (Bantam, $27.) A woman who rescues golden retrievers and one special dog she takes in are shadowed by an evil stranger. (2)

3. FOR ONE MORE DAY, by Mitch Albom. (Hyperion, $21.95.) A troubled man gets a last chance to reconnect and restore his relationship with his dead mother. (33)

4. DOUBLE CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, a police detective, confront a Washington killer who boasts of his killings on his own Web site, as well as an old adversary who has escaped from prison. (4)

5. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead, $25.95.) A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war. (29)

6. WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett. (Dutton, $35.) Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth.” (9)

7. STONE COLD, by David Baldacci. (Grand Central, $26.99.) Members of Washington’s Camel Club are being murdered to prevent them from uncovering government secrets. THE CHOICE, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.) How a North Carolina man’s choices play out …

Source: PR Web (press release) ()

Technology Futures' Top 19 Technology Trends for 2008

For the fourth year running, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides a list of forward-looking trends for the coming year that will have great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers. Commenting on the list, author David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states, "2005 and 2006 were periods spent building capacity and capabilities. 2007 and 2008 are years of transition. We saw tipping points in 2007 in several technology areas, such as broadband penetration and the death of single core processing chips." He continues, "2008 will be a dynamic year impacted by possible actions such as the potential financial instability including the threat of recession, changes in the geopolitical environment, and further changes to the landscape of business."

Austin, TX (PRWEB) December 22, 2007 — For the fourth year running, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides a list of forward-looking trends for the coming year that will have significant impact on companies that use technology for competitive advantage. These predictions differ from our normal activities where TFI traditionally looks further out into the future. Commenting on the list, author David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states, "2005 and 2006 were periods spent building capacity and capabilities. 2007 and 2008 are years of transition. We saw tipping points in 2007 in several technology areas, such as broadband penetration and the death of single core processing chips." He continues, "2008 will be a dynamic year impacted by possible actions such as the potential financial instability including the threat of recession, changes in the geopolitical environment, further changes to the landscape of business."

The list below provides more information on these …

Source: BloggingStocks ()

For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.
“My more speculative favorite for 2008 is Market Vectors Nuclear Energy (ASE: NLR),” says scientist and technology stock expert Josh Wolfe, editor of the Forbes Wolfe Emerging Tech Report.
“The Market Vectors Nuclear Energy exchange traded fund is one of the first dedicated nuclear energy ETFs, with exposure to both domestic and international companies. It began trading in August 2007.
“I’m a nuclear bull for a few reasons. As fears of global warming rise, fears of nuclear recede — even environmentalists are getting on board. A month ago for the first time in US history, a coal plant was denied in Kansas on environmental grounds.
“I’ve called this the ‘Kansas Syndrome’ — like the ‘China Syndrome’ that crippled growth of nuclear power for three decades — coal’s future may soon be in doubt. “With solar, wind and other alternatives fashionable, they can’t meet our baseload power requirements for electricity. Natural gas is volatile. I predict a resurgence of nuclear.
“And if you doubt America is ready — the rest of the world sure is. Many ETFs will likely follow, but this one captures various parts of the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium players to services. This is another long-term secular theme and requires patience. Consider this ETF as only part of a broader portfolio.”

Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune ()

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PROGRESS REPORT FROM BALI
Two modest gains on climate

There were two areas of modest progress out of the United Nations’ just concluded conference on climate change.

The conferees assigned responsibility, without going into specifics, to developing nations for controlling their greenhouse gas emissions in “a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner.”

This goes at least part way toward meeting a justifiable objection to the Kyoto Protocol — that developing nations were exempted from the 5 percent cut over five years required of developing countries.

The term “developing” applied not only to struggling Third World nations but to fast-growing economic powerhouses China and India, which many observers see surpassing the United States in the not terribly distant future.

In truth, any attempt to deal with greenhouse gases globally that omits China and India is doomed to failure. The annual growth in U.S. emissions over the period 2004-2030 is estimated at 1.1 percent. This is outstripped by China at 3.4 percent and India at 2.6 percent.

The other area of progress involves the Bush administration, a late convert to the proposition that the world is getting warmer and that humankind has something to do with it. The administration remains opposed to any action that would curb economic growth, but is at least willing to talk about a successor treaty to Kyoto.

The Bush administration is opposed to Kyoto, and it couldn’t get it through the Senate in any case, but Kyoto expires in 2012. Given the glacial pace of U.N. negotiations and the need get 190 or so nations aboard, talks will have to start soon.

The other delegates actually applauded …

Source: The Age ()

Leaving Getaway hasn’t stopped Sorrel Wilby from finding
extraordinary places. By Bridget McManus.
SORREL WILBY’S lust for adventure was never going to be
satisfied on Channel Nine’s cheery travelogue Getaway. The
writer, photographer and artist was the first female Westerner to
trek 3000 kilometres solo across Tibet. With her husband, cameraman
Chris Ciantar, she crossed the Himalayas. She has cycled 17,000
kilometres through Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and Thailand. Most
recently, she scaled Africa’s highest peaks for Australian
production company Beyond International.
So Wilby, 46, doesn’t begrudge that three years ago “someone (at
Nine) looked in the fridge and noticed my use-by date was up”. She
left Getaway “without a whimper” and wrote travel articles,
children’s books, presented ABC’s Painting Australia, and
wrote, produced and presented a series of travel documentaries for
Australian Geographic, Best of Australia.
“(Nine) did me a great favour because I went off and made
programs that I really wanted to make,” Wilby says from Norfolk
Island, where she and Ciantar, who run the television station
together, live with their two small children. “I came from that
documentary background and then had all of that amazing experience
on Getaway, which put more of a commercial head on my
shoulders. Now when I’m making my own programs, I’ve almost created
a new genre in that I’ve joined those two things together. Whereas
travel shows tell you where you should stay and which is the best
cocktail at the bar and all that sort of stuff, I don’t even go
there in these films. The science and the natural history and the
culture are layered into the whole experience.”
In the first of five episodes of Best of Australia to
screen on Nine over summer, Wilby dives with manta rays (the sting
ray’s benign relation), helps catch crocodiles and flies an
plane over Broome. She pauses between stunts for
conversations with locals — rangers, conservationists, and
traditional …

Source: Huffington Post ()

For many the “holidays” is just a reason to spend. For evangelicals the season has special meaning: It’s time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, who apparently told us to destroy our planet.

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, on what we call “Black Friday” (the day the big retail stores start to turn a profit, “in the black̶ millions of Americans do what President Bush told us to do after 9/11: line up in the dark before the store opens for super savings and SHOP! It’s an unhappy spectacle: tens of millions of humans manipulated to horde, spend and gorge.

We are vulnerable to being manipulated because of a 100,000-year-old leftover, and now useless, evolutionary quirk that makes us want to horde more, more and more! (It’s the same sort of quirk that makes our bodies store fat when we eat too much, so we won’t die in the lean months of winter that, of course, in the modern world, never arrive, so we just get fatter.) But it isn’t an extra bit of dried deer meat or a few more berries that we horde these days, it’s globe-destroying stuff that we don’t need and that next year, when we replace it all again, will prove that all that stuff we bought last year–flat screen TVs, SUVs, trips to Mexico–never made us happy.

Many people who claim to have a spiritual moral base are worse than anyone when it comes to contributing to the mound of trash burying us and the carbon accumulating that threatens life on earth. In America this group has dominated our politics for the last 30 years. When it comes to helping or harming our planet, many evangelicals believe that there is a conflict between environmentalism and their religious beliefs. They want to know why they should bother with restoring our beleaguered planet. How does that “fit” their religious agenda?

There are plenty of evangelicals who feel positively threatened by even a discussion topics like global warming. They see it as a distraction from evangelism. They have bought into …

Source: Financial Times ()

It is a deal that, for all its flaws and limitations, just six months ago few had thought would come. For the next two years, government officials from 187 countries will meet regularly to hammer out an agreement intended to slash greenhouse gas emissions and curb global warming.

That pact would replace the current Kyoto protocol, which scientists say goes only a small way to produce the emission reductions needed to avert disastrous changes to the climate. Rich and poor countries are to work together to make the political, economic and technological changes needed to wean their economies from a dependence on fossil fuels. But if the United Nations-convened talks that ended in at the weekend are anything to go by, the next two years will be fraught, fractious – and possibly fruitless.

Source: Portsmouth Herald News ()

A way to open up the state’s logjam in building renewable energy projects could come out of a proposed 10-state regional greenhouse initiative. According to the Public Utilities Commission, the North Country needs a power line upgrade in the $200-million range to help developers build hundreds of megawatts of future wind farms and biomass electricity plants. Those could meet most of the state’s goal of producing 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Until they win approval or drop out, those projects at the head of the line are blocking plans for a 600-megawatt gas-fired plant somewhere in Rockingham County. The would-be developer is unidentified on the Web site of the ISO-New England electric grid. The federal approval process accepts applicants on a first-come, first served basis.

The existing Public Service lines in Coos County have fewer than 100 megawatts of extra carrying capacity, not quite enough for the first project in the queue. That’s Noble Energy’s plan for a 100-megawatt wind farm on a series of ridge lines. That company and some of its competitors say they might work together to buy their power lines, but none could build the whole upgrade.

Revenue stream

A proposed House bill by Nadia Kaen, D-Lee, would let the state sell 8.6 million carbon emission allowances into a regional auction. Policymakers hope for proceeds in the $15 million to $25 million range, and maybe more, assuming an average price between $2 and $3. The state would use that money to spur energy conservation programs and the production of renewable power.

The New Hampshire quota corresponds to the 8.6 million tons of carbon dioxide per year released by Public Service, the Con-Edison gas-fired plant in Newington, and one like it in Londonderry. Public Service accounts for 5.4 million tons per year of the CO2 in global warming because it traps atmospheric heat.

Those three fossil-fuel burners would have to buy allowances …