Climate Change

NEW SEARCH ENGINE SEEKS TO BUILD A GREEN FUTURE!

mhaney — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:13:38 -0500

The first Flash Search Engine is an Environmental Search Engine!! http://www.greenplanetsearch.com is now live!

When Mike Haney first presented the idea behind the technology behind

www.greenplanetsearch.com, he was laughed down. Virtually, of course. “Everyone can

dream,: scoffed one, erroneously.

A few people were intrigued. The combination of Haney’s vision of a Flash-driven search

engine, and the plan to create a dazzling environmental education resource, eventually

attracted a loose-knit corps of collaborators, most of whom have never met in person first

among them Andre Roussille, a French computer programmer, and now part owner of the

company.

The upshot from this collaboration, apart from the stunningly beautiful homepage, is the

only people involved in the creation of the search engine, is that the only people involved

in the development devoted environmentalists, who genuinely wish to disseminate good

information to students and educators.

Later, through a similar serendipity, Mr. Haney teamed up with a veteran journalist who

agreed to lend his services to the site, building from scratch a source of environmental

news and policy analysis.

Advertisers will be strictly vetted by the companies shareholders, limited to companies

that are making a meaningful contribution the planet’s health.

The final result, which was launched this week, is the culminating of thousands of

hours of work, and more than a few false starts.

It boasts easily navigable information, experiments, lesson plans, presented in an interactive and graphically enhanced format,

and has an exclusive global climate change resource section for teachers and kids.

If you would like more information about greenplanetsearch.com, or to schedule an

interview with Mike Haney, please call Mike Haney at 305.531.3746 or e-mail info@greenplanetsearch.com.

Global Warming & Change

ecogreenglobe — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:15:52 -0500

When you look out your window or go for a walk outside in nature what do you see? You might see a blue sky with a glowing sun and a flock of birds soaring through the air like feathers, but when your eyes are really open and really focusing on the things that are happening in front of you, you might see something completely different. I am here to tell you that there is something deeper than our existence at work and it is happening right in front of us every second of the sunlit day, and every hour of the moonlit night.

As a society we live our lives selfishly and un aware of what impact we have on our future and resources we take for granted. We turn on our lights without any presence of being needing light. We drive our hungry four wheeled pigs around eating all our hidden back up resources that were suppose to be saved for a rainy day. We work in our offices huge and spaces filled with stacks of papers that will eventually be thrown not away but thrown into our once beautiful land and shoved down our planet's throat like a little kid being forced to drink beer.

The problem is not that our planet needs us, because planet can certainly survive without us and might even live as a better world than we have made it into be. What the problem is, is that we are living our lives in the wrong way. Our society has built a structure of power and consumption. So much so that our way of living has become a disease. We have turned our species into a virus for the planet. We are slowly deteriorating a life of a living thing and in the process slowly killing off ourselves.

Our world has created a power hungry people. We consume way too much way too fast. We are growing way too fast for our planet to support us. Our planet will no longer be called earth, but mars, a desolate barren waste land if we don't change the way we live. We are not only effecting the planet but ourselves. We create our own diseases, our own health problems, our own products that have been made from a dirty source of power and production line.

We need to change the way we think. We need to break down the way we make product, the way we travel from place to place, how we work, how we eat, how we build environments around us to live in sync with the planet and not against the flow of life itself. We need to re design our way of living so that we are living off of the planet's supply of energy and sustainable resources.

Cut the oil and power & Money hungry monsters and start thinking clean, renewable, sustainable energy and use the natural things we already have access too instead of creating a deep wound in the planet's heart. Start thinking solar, wind, and technologies that can be reinvented into ways of living that are healthy for us and our home planet earth.

We have the knowledge and power to change our ways we just need to be aware, see the truth and act on it . Try thinking of life this way. When you think of washing your clothes, what do you think of. You think I need a washer and dryer machine. The problem is we think of the wrong thing when thinking of a process solution. We need to think of the process we need instead of the thing we need to do it"Oh hey, I need to clean my clothes". People have developed ways of washing clothes with less energy and less resources. Why use resources that will run out and cost a bundle when you could do the same process with unlimited resources, huge amounts of power, free, renewable, sustainable, and reusable for everyone on the planet.
I encourage everyone able to see the impact of our actions to stand up and walk. Do not say yes this is bad we need to do something, because that is the reason we fail. We do not act, we dream and soak in the problems of our society and let our future pass us by. If you want change you have to ACT! CHANGE! ACHIEVE! ACCOMPLISH! REACT! These are all action words we need to see in progress right now. As a people we need to think slower and act faster. We take too much time thinking up what should be done and do less of actually doing it. There is no need for us stall any longer. We have our goal now let us all take this goal and make it reality. Be the change we need!

I have given you all a link to my eco website so that you may see all the the eco / green sites I have come across in my research. These links will help you live a green eco friendly life. I also recommend watching Planet Green network- a 24/7 environmental channel.
http://www.ecogreenglobe.com/

my previous blog Titled "My Eco Goals"- shows what I have done to tackle change and live green, I've also wrote some of me long term goals I want to accomplish.

'GET REAL' TEST

JohnnyBB — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:42:21 -0500

The Earths temperature is like watching paint dry. It has changed by 0.6 degrees in 100 years if you believe the normally inaccurate UN IPCC or by 0.2 to 0.4 degrees if you believe others.

Que.1. Can I ask the 'experts' here how that equals "scorched Earth" and "the Planet has a fever" please?

CO2 levels have always followed temperature change (well for the past 700,000yrs anyway!). The lag is 400 to 1,400yrs behind previous warmings.

Que.2. Could the current high CO2 levels be related to our warming since the mini ice age 800yrs ago?

CO2 levels have increased by 30% in the past 10 years but temperature has changed by 0.00 degrees in those past 10 years.

Que.3. Has CO2 gone on holiday or is this very clear proof CO2 is not a temperature driver?

The worlds CO2 cycle is dominated by natural, not man made, cycles. The oceans absorb CO2 (scribs from the atmosphere) in polar oceans and expels the CO2 back into the atmosphere in warmer oceans.

Que.4. Has anyone here, an expert, heard of the 'Solubility Pump' and the solubility of CO2 in liquid?

If man can change the Earths temperature as the greens and politicians claim can:

Que.5. Would it be better to have a temperature 2 degrees warmer than today or 2 degress colder - please detail why it benefits

a). man - it would be better to be 2 degrees hotter/colder (delete one) because....

b). plants - it would be better to be 2 degrees hotter/colder (delete one) because....

c). animals - it would be better to be 2 degrees hotter/colder (delete one) because....

The IPCC and greens claim man is 'responsiible' for high CO2 levels. Please detail the quantities of CO2 from

i). Man - Output = ???tons per year

2). Plants - Output = ???tons per year Sink - ???tones per year

3). Oceans - Output = ???tones per year Sink = ???tones per year

4). Other (ie. volcanos) Output = ???tons per year

5). The primary source for the increase in CO2 is due to man/natural sources (delete one)

Eight reasons to end the scam

myob — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:11:27 -0500

Concern over “global warming” is overblown and misdirected. What follows are eight reasons why we should pull the plug on this scam before it destroys billions of dollars of wealth and millions of jobs.

1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate. More than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” (Go to
http://www.oism.org
for the complete petition and names of signers.) Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.

2. Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming trend. Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01ºC, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe, are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, and are subject to human error and what is now recognised as the heat island effect.

3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models, not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”

4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate: “The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”

5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization. Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 800 to 1200 AD), which allowed the Vikings to settle presently inhospitable Greenland, were higher than even the worst-case scenario reported by the IPCC. The period from about 5000-3000 BC, known as the “climatic optimum,” was even warmer and marked “a time when mankind began to build its first civilizations,” observe James Plummer and Frances B. Smith in a study for Consumer Alert. “There is good reason to believe that a warmer climate would have a similar effect on the health and welfare of our own far more advanced and adaptable civilization today.”

6. Efforts to quickly reduce human greenhouse gas emissions would be costly and would not stop Earth’s climate from changing. Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990’s levels by the year 2012--the target set by the Kyoto Protocol--would require higher energy taxes and regulations causing the nation to lose 2.4 million jobs and $300 billion in annual economic output. Average household income nationwide would fall by $2,700, and state tax revenues would decline by $93.1 billion due to less taxable earned income and sales, and lower property values. Full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol by all participating nations would reduce global temperature in the year 2100 by a mere 0.14 degrees Celsius.

7. Efforts by state governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are even more expensive and threaten to bust state budgets. After raising their spending with reckless abandon during the 1990s, states now face a cumulative projected deficit of more than $90 billion. Incredibly, most states nevertheless persist in backing unnecessary and expensive greenhouse gas reduction programs. New Jersey, for example, collects $358 million a year in utility taxes to fund greenhouse gas reduction programs. Such programs will have no impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. All they do is destroy jobs and waste money.

8. The best strategy to pursue is “no regrets.” The alternative to demands for immediate action to “stop global warming” is not to do nothing. The best strategy is to invest in atmospheric research now and in reducing emissions sometime in the future if the science becomes more compelling. In the meantime, investments should be made to reduce emissions only when such investments make economic sense in their own right.

This strategy is called “no regrets,” and it is roughly what the Bush administration has been doing. The U.S. spends more on global warming research each year than the entire rest of the world combined, and American businesses are leading the way in demonstrating new technologies for reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions.

Time for Common Sense

The global warming scare has enabled environmental advocacy groups to raise billions of dollars in contributions and government grants. It has given politicians (from Al Gore down) opportunities to pose as prophets of doom and slayers of evil corporations. And it has given bureaucrats at all levels of government, from the United Nations to city councils, powers that threaten our jobs and individual liberty.

It is time for common sense to return to the debate over protecting the environment. An excellent first step would be to end the “global warming” scam.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11548

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/globalwarming.html

With record profits being reported during the 1st quarter of this year by oil companies and in the face if these profits the public is spending unprecedented amounts of fuel - for many more than 10% of their annual income which puts them below the poverty line. In a western country this is unacceptable and totally immoral of the government and the oil corporations and the banks for that matter to act this way; putting profit before peoples security and wellbeing.

In effect all you are doing is funding the rich with the means to a lavish lifestyle!

THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW, NOT 20YRS FROM NOW, WE DO NOT HAVE THAT LONG!

Ecochic101 — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:23:20 -0500

By David Adam
The Guardian - UK, May 12, 2008
Straight to the Source

from Common Dreams
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to new figures that renew fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control. Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

Scientists say the shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tons of carbon each year. Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be re-absorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

Martin Parry, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on impacts, said: "Despite all the talk, the situation is getting worse. Levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise in the atmosphere and the rate of that rise is accelerating. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change and the scale of those impacts will also accelerate, until we decide to do something about it."

Act Now: Critical Global Warming Vote

AZ_Sun — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:40:54 -0500

In just a few weeks, the U.S. Senate will have a historic opportunity to pass legislation to combat global warming. Let your senators know we need a strengthened Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to help avert a global climate crisis.

Make your voice heard through the NRDC Action Fund

Please take a moment to read what this act means, and why we need it. The Climate Security Act

Read NRDC President Frances Beinecke's blog The Most Important Fight of My Career: the Lieberman-Warner Bill

“ “ “ “ “ Five Reasons We Need a Senate Climate Vote Now

Prince Charles’s New Eco Town May Be Cooler Than Disneyland

11thhouraction — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:03:08 -0500

“Planners have granted permission to build Sherford, a brand new town for 12,000 people, in South Devon that is billed as Britain’s greenest settlement. Work is expected to begin later this year to transform rolling countryside near Plymouth into the experimental new town with 5,500 homes. In Sherford, cars will be banned from some parts and 390ft wind turbines will loom over a 400-acre car park on the outskirts.”

Half the power needs for the new town will come from renewable sources — with all home sporting solar panels. Additionally, most of the materials to build the town will be sourced from a 50-mile radius! The business section — which will provides jobs for about 7,000 people — will be covered in either green roofs or “covered in a thin layer of rubble to attract insects and birds.” Everything about the town will be organized to encourage walking; not to mention all waste including water and sewage will be recycled to cut CO2 emissions. All of this, and Charles intends to give it a traditional English charm — with the theme being modeled on the Wiltshire market town of Marlborough.

Article provided By: www.http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Earth Day for Polar Bears: Sign the Petition

AZ_Sun — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:30:57 -0500

By June 30th, the federal government will make one of the most important decisions in conservation history. If it declares the polar bear to be an "endangered" species, the decision will set off an unprecedented worldwide discussion on global warming.

If the government refuses, desperately needed global action will again be delayed by U.S. stubbornness. Short-term corporate profits will continue to control political agendas and threaten life on earth. All of life on earth.

It will all happen -- or not -- by June 30th.

Make it happen. Sign our petition today and pass it on.

We need to generate 70,000 petition signatures in favor of polar bear protection by June 15th.

Together we can generate an unstoppable wave of public support for global warming action. Please sign our petition.

When I wrote the scientific petition to list the polar bear as an endangered species in 2005, I had no idea how important it would become to the battle against global warming. The decline of the polar bear has focused international attention on the real-world effects of catastrophic climate change.

I also didn't know we'd have to file suit -- twice -- just to get the Bush administration to agree to make a decision. But now it's committed to making one by June 30th, and we need your help to pull out all the stops.

Earlier this month, I testified before Congress about the plight of polar bears and what can be done right now to save them. Leaders in Congress are doing their part to pressure the Bush administration to listen to the scientists and do the right thing. You and your friends can add to that pressure by signing the petition.

Sincerely,

Kassie Siegel
Climate, Air and Energy Program Director
Center for Biological Diversity

PS: If you have trouble with the above hyperlinks, please copy and paste this directly into your browser:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/t/5243/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1178

Finally got to see 11th Hour again

Shynney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:33:45 -0500

Finally my copy of the 11th Hour DVD arrived and just have to write and say I was 'blown away' all over again watching it for the third time. It is a very hard hitting film with so many hard facts and bit political in the middle but I do love that ending and the vision of what we could become. That vision has been part of me for all my life even though the reality of life has been so different. But so comforting to know there are other people with that vision, many other people. Still really believe we will get there some day. Think the whole secret of learning to bond with our planet is to trying growing something. A flower, a tree or a vegetable. Just making that contact with the soil and watching that plant or tree grow. Then you really understand what a miraculous planet we live on. Good luck and I just hope one EVERYONE watches the 11th Hour.

Our solar panels are still working well heating our water for free and the wood burner is heating on cloudy days. Our environment is cleaner and we are healthier I think.

I’m Opting Out for Earth Day

AZ_Sun — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:33:47 -0500

Earth Day is an excellent time to reevaluate what you can do to further reduce your human footprint on Planet Earth. This year I noticed all the unsolicited things that enter my home that I do not want or need, and are just a big nuisance and a drain of resources. I realized the three biggest culprits are phone directories, magazines, and credit card offers.

Today, I called and opted out of all the phone directory delivery lists. I receive at least six different phone books a year. When they are delivered we just throw them in our front closet and never use them since we go online if we need a phone number. Unfortunately, for me, it was "out of sight, out of mind.’" Well, no more.

Next, I called and opted out of all unsolicited magazine deliveries. I had our name taken off free community magazines that I never read and just throw in the magazine rack in a bedroom we use for out of town guests. Then I got our names off of real estate related magazines and publications we receive because my husband and I are in real estate. All these publications once again can be read online, so we don’t need a print copy to get the information. The double whammy is that we both receive copies, since we both hold active real estate licenses.

Lastly, I opted out of credit card propositions. It is insane all the credit-card offers we receive in the mail. Well, thank goodness, the credit card bureaus have set up a service to stop these offers called “opting out.” You call 1-888-5-opt-out or visit www.optoutprescreen.com and provide some information. Once you opt out, your name is removed from credit offer lists and the bureaus hide your file from companies that offer pre-approved credit for five years. This is unnecessary junk mail you can have stopped immediately.

The one thing I opted in to do for Earth Day was attend yesterday a talk given by Diane MacEachern, the author of the Big Green Purse. The talk was hosted by the Arizona League of Conservation Voters and was held at the beautiful Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. Diane talked about the importance of shifting money we already spend to environmentally-safe, socially responsible products and services that would help protect the environment. She has started a Be One In a Million campaign. With this campaign if a million women intentionally shift at least $1000 of their existing budget to environmentally-friendly products, we can have a noticeable ONE BILLION DOLLAR IMPACT in the marketplace. I signed up this morning.