Water Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink
If you cant read this map, it basically shows that people in most of Africa, Much of Asia, and a fair part of South America have very poor access to clean water. Even though most of the Earth is covered with water, hardly any of it is drinkable. With over pumping of aquifers, pollution, and over use for industrial use, it is even harder for many people to find clean water to drink.
This lack of clean water leads to millions of deaths each year from easy to cure water born parasites and bacteria. The man who invented the Segway thinks he might have one answer.
Combined with solar power, or a wind turbine this machine could revolutionize the way much of the world gets water. The obvious problem is that these sort of machines most likely contain complicated parts, parts that can break, parts that cost a lot of money, and parts that are hard to get to places that need them. This doesn’t even take into account the problem of training people how to use them. But I would hope that a country (ours) that can spend more than a trillion dollars on killing people (the Iraq War) could find it in its heart to spend at least a couple billion brining clean drinking water to the world.
More info here.
Of course its not as cool as this.
Wind Power: It’s Baaaack!
We have reported on the beluga sky sail system before, here is a nice video of it in action. More videos and info here. Wind power was good for moving ships around hundreds of years ago, just because we have fossil fuel engines doesn’t mean that it still isn’t a good way to move ships around.
Elephant Picasso
This elephant was probably trained to do this, but the simple fact that it can remember how and that it was able to be trained to do this shows that humans are far from the only species on this planet who are intelligent.
Ching Hai: Supreme Master…Of Hypocrisy
If I’m not here tomorrow, do not weep, I will have been struck down — in my disrespect — by Ching Hai, Supreme Master, and self-styled “God’s Direct Contact”. A mere lightning bolt will not be sufficient: I expect a plague of SUVs.
A few day’s ago I received an e-mail from Shaam Ven, presumably a follower of GDC (well, if the leader of the industrial West is GOP, then why not?) and a believer that any message of concern is a good message:
Hi.
I read about your website. I wanted to email you immediately about Supreme Master Ching Hai’s efforts to halt global warming. Supreme Master Ching Hai is a God-Realized, living, enlightened Master, who initiates Truth Seekers into the Quan Yin meditation. To learn more about Master and the Quan Yin meditation, please go to www.godsdirectcontact.org or www.godsdirectcontact.com.
Master’s message is simple: if we human beings don’t take steps to halt global warming within the next two years, after that, it will be too late and we could see all of life vanish from this planet by the year 2012.
[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]
Heathrow Airport Chaos : Good!
Here is an open letter to anyone involved in the air industry, or anyone in the media reporting the failed opening of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 as bad news. The letter is purposefully short and easy to understand: it seems as though the increasing numbers of people who fly — living in a blinkered, rose-tinted world in which the worst thing that can happen is that you lose your luggage — can’t understand the simplest of messages.
To Whom This May Concern
A welcome side-effect, which ironically had nothing to do with the Flash Mob third runway protesters, is that the 34 cancelled flights at Heathrow yesterday prevented around 2,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. That is the equivalent of the total annual emissions of 2000 people in India, just from one day’s cancellation of a fledgling terminal at one airport.
Despite claims to the contrary by the air industry, I have a Freedom of Information letter in front of me from the Department for Transport, which says that in 2003 aircraft emissions were responsible for 5.4% of the UK’s total emissions. This has since risen considerably and will go on rising.
I have sympathy with those passengers who could not make emergency flights, such as seeing sick or dying relatives. I have no sympathy at all for those who still think that flying is an acceptable form of transport for leisure or business: put side by side with the news of the crumbling West Antarctica ice sheet (which garnered a few columns of coverage in the papers), the cancellation of a few flights is hardly worth mentioning, except in positive terms.
Yours
Keith Farnish
Environmental Campaigner and Writer
Alberta’s Carbon Emissions Still Missing, But Are Officially Rising
As I reported back in February, the Government of Alberta, Canada, have gone to great pains to pretend they are making progress on greenhouse gas emissions they try to demonstrate by using the completely discredited Carbon / Greenhouse Gas Intensity statistic. They still are. A simple analysis showed that Alberta’s emissions were going through the roof, and now this rise has been officially confirmed in an e-mail from Environment Minister, Rob Renner which I reproduce in full here:
Premier Ed Stelmach has forwarded a copy of your recent letter regarding Alberta’s greenhouse gas intensity. I am pleased to respond on behalf of the Government of Alberta (GoA).
Alberta has been using emissions intensity as a standard of measurement for a number of years. Overall emissions in Alberta are rising, partly as a result of increasing development in the oil sands and partly as a result of increasing demand worldwide for petroleum products. Emissions intensity shows that while our economy continues to rise, the emissions per unit of economic output are decreasing. This demonstrates that production is becoming more efficient.
The GoA recognizes that global climate change is real and that progressive, immediate action is required to effectively respond to this important issue. The GoA remains committed to doing our fair share to reduce emissions while at the same time ensuring that our efforts are practical, achievable and allow for continued economic prosperity in the province.
[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]
Oil’s Fuzzy Math: Prices Skyrocket Despite Modest Growth In Demand
The “invisable hand” of the markets like to do a lot of stuff, but one of the main principles of our modern economy is the idea of supply and demand. If something is in high demand and supply is low the price goes up. If demand goes down, or supply goes way up the price goes down. However something fishy seems to be going on with oil prices, people keep talking about the soaring demand in places like India and China causing high oil prices. Oil prices have skyrocketed despite the fact that world oil demand grew just 1 percent in 2007, according to the latest Vital Sign Update from the Worldwatch Institute. Contrary to published reports, the new era of $100-plus oil is not caused by soaring demand for the energy source, but by inadequate global supply.
Oil prices nearly doubled during 2007, from just above $50 a barrel in January to nearly $100 at year’s end. Meanwhile, world crude oil production actually fell from 73.8 million barrels per day in 2005 to 73.2 million barrels per day in the first 10 months of 2007.
“It’s too early to say definitively that oil production has reached its all-time peak,” said Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin. “But it’s clear that the world is having a hard time expanding production to meet even a modest growth in demand.” The oil company just can’t get it up. Supply that is.
The United States remained the world’s largest oil-consuming nation in 2007, using almost one-fourth of the global total at a rate of 20.7 million barrels daily. But rising oil prices discouraged greater demand and left U.S. oil consumption virtually unchanged for the third year in a row. OECD-Europe and Japan consumed 15.4 million barrels and 5 million barrels a day respectively.
Chinese oil consumption increased 5.5 percent in 2007 to 7.7 million barrels per day—accounting for half the growth in global demand for the year. China’s oil use has nearly doubled in the past decade and now accounts for nearly 9 percent of the world total.
Geological and political factors led to a decline in production in some of the world’s largest oil-producing countries in 2007, including Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela. Falling production in Saudi Arabia allowed Russia to become the largest producer, despite slowing production growth.
Crude oil production also increased in several countries, including Angola, Brazil, and Canada (the latter mainly through horrifically devastating tar-sands mining). War-torn Iraq raised oil production to its highest level since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, but production remains below prewar levels.
In March 2008, world oil prices hit $110 per barrel, breaking the inflation-adjusted record set in April 1980. Record prices led to record profits for many oil companies in 2007, including Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. ExxonMobil Corporation reported a net income of $40.6 billion, the single largest annual profit in U.S. corporate history.
“While oil companies are enjoying record profits and increasing their investment in oil exploration, they are struggling to replace their reserves,” said Flavin. “It would be wise for them to invest more of their profits in new energy sources such as solar and geothermal energy—before their oil reserves are further depleted.”
And thats the rub. If Exxon and Shell and BP and the rest became wind turbine magnates and started making billions producing solar energy, I am not sure I would be complaining very much. But they seem to want to squeeze every last drop of profit out of every last drop of oil, the earth be damned. So if the price of oil doubled last year, could it do it again next year? Are you ready for $200 a barrel oil?
The Ethics Of Climate Change
This is a guest post by James Garvey from the Royal Institute of Philosophy This is an introduction to his new book The Ethics of Climate Change.
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Thinking about the moral dimension of climate change matters a lot. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has this to say about the role of science in our thinking about what to do about our warming world:
‘Natural, technical, and social sciences can provide essential information and evidence needed for decisions on what constitutes “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. At the same time, such decisions are value judgments determined through socio-political processes, taking into account considerations such as development, equity, and sustainability, as well as uncertainties and risk.’ (IPCC (2001) TAR, http://www.ipcc.ch.)
Science can give us a grip on the facts, but we need more than that if we want to act on the basis of those facts. The something more which is needed involves values. Climatologists can tell us what is happening to the planet and why it is happening, they can even say with some confidence what will happen in the years to come. What we do about all of this, though, depends on what we think is right, what we value, what matters to us. You cannot find that sort of stuff in an ice core. You have to think your way through it.
The Ethics of Climate Change is a start on those sorts of thoughts. It is neither exhaustive nor comprehensive, not the last word but a few first words. It is an introduction, in plain language, to the ethics of climate change, to where the moral weight falls on our changing planet and how that weight ought to translate into action. It has something to do with the conviction that our societies and our lives have to change, and the role of value in the changes ahead.
In the end, I suppose, I’ve left a lot of the reflection to you. Applied philosophy, as it is sometimes called, concerns itself with practical moral problems. Such things as abortion, euthanasia, genetic modification, health care, cloning, and on and on raise philosophical questions which might be of interest to just about anyone. However, you can, all the while, be a little thankful that the problems are way over there, off at a safe distance. No one is about to clone you. With luck, you’ll never be faced with problems having to do with abortion or euthanasia or the rest. However, you are lumped with the problem of climate change. It’s a moral problem for you, right now. You have some decisions to make about how to live, some choices which concern your everyday life. There is some moral pressure on every one of us to come to some conclusions. The Ethics of Climate Change recognizes that pressure and makes a start on dealing with the moral demands associated with the fact of climate change.
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I will be reviewing his book later, but his intro raises a very interesting question. There are many very real ethical and philosophical questions that are raised by climate change. Do we try and keep developing nations from developing because they will destroy the planet? Even though we did the same before? Do we have a moral obligation to reduce green house emissions? What about stewardship of the earth for future generation? What do you think. I would like to use this thread as a discussion. What ethical and philosophical questions do you see being raised by global warming and climate change?
Sarcasm: We Has It
What If…The Lights Went Out?
Industrial society is built around technology, and that technology needs a constant supply of energy. This article takes a look at what would happen if that electricity supply stopped.
A darkened room, its walkways dimly illuminated by emergency lighting and the displays of monitoring equipment, rumbles with the vibrations of cooling systems injecting chilled air towards hot processors and spinning disks. The shrill sounds of thousands of data storage devices fill the air, alongside the cooling systems; the relentless blinking and trilling of green lights goes on as data is sent and received through miles of copper and glass fibre. Clunk. Warning sounds – alarming cries from dumb systems that only know that something has failed. In a wink the UPS takes up the load, drawing power not from the high voltage mains, but from deep tanks of diesel embedded in the lower levels of this data centre. Management is notified and the call goes out for emergency supplies of liquid fuel: the contract says there is to be no interruption, and the fuel suppliers are on standby 24 hours a day. The fuel suppliers are receiving further calls, from a standing start they experience a tide of demand as throughout the city the power fails: data centres, hospitals, offices, government buildings, military installations – who gets the fuel first? Who gets the last reserves?
As Anne takes her first steps towards the bathroom, she understands something is amiss. Her clock is blank; no light seeps in through the blinds from the street; her fumbled attempts to switch on the bedside lamp were to no avail. The blackness is total – even the moon won’t come out to play with the darkened surface of the world. Sirens broadcast their Doppler cries in distant parts of the town as Anne moves her left foot onto the next step down, and misses her footing…thump, thump, thump, down the stairs and into the wall; a sickening rip as her ankle bends askew. She pulls her way down the remaining steps and picks up the telephone, her breath is short – there is a tone, the telephone company keeps the system running through its own generators. She dials 9…the keypad is soundless. She hangs up then brings the receiver to her ear – nothing; the gentle burr has gone as the last diesel dries up at her local exchange.
[Read the entire article at The Earth Blog]
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