Earth Hour (March 27th 8:30) is an event I look forward to every year. It is the time where everyone huddles together in the dark, looking up in wonder at the sky as absent stars suddenly appear.
An hour of no lights to save energy and promote the environmental movement is really what we need, but wouldn’t it be great if we had a whole day or week when people would actually try to save energy? I realize that people these days have a hard time finding time to reduce their impact on the environment when our society demands so much of us constantly. And, everything gets so muddled when it comes to what one should do to lessen their footprint upon the earth. Conserving energy, waste output, and the general not-mauling-the-environment (anywhere from NOT burning the rainforest to NOT putting fertilizers on your lawn) are habits that should be indulged in, if not all the time, for at least a week. When, I don’t know. Maybe as an extension to earth day or earth hour.
That’s my propostion. In addition, I wish all of those reading a happy earth hour! (March 27th at 8:30 in case you didn’t know.) I won’t be able to join you this year, but I wish all the best!
Annie Leonard has done it again with her follow-up video to “The Story of Stuff” called The Story of Cap and Trade. Even though she is clearly biased against cap and trade, her points are very clear and factual.
In wake of private emails of scientists being illegally released by a hacker, there is much unearthed skepticism of the climate movement. The emails (as dictated here) are thousands upon thousands that represent years of communication between various scientists, snide comments included. If you search a database that big for negative remarks, there are bound to be thousands. For this reason alone, we should disregard the emails unless they are factual evidence.
The Copenhagen climate talks are fast approaching and the world is making last minute preparations. Copenhagen has equipped itself with the best environmental technology including a “Climate Express” train that carried 450 UN related visitors to Copenhagen from Brussels, another effort of the UN to show what they are trying to accomplish in regard to the environment (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121119510). Following the lead of the Maldives, Nepal’s cabinet also met in an exotic place very touched by global warming: Mr. Everest! (http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2830) President Obama shifted his visit of the climate talks to the end, a more crucial point in the conference. Here are some articles that are good preparatory treatments:
I think that the main reasons people are skeptics to climate change are that they are misinformed, or that they don’t see it in their immediate environment. I can definitely identify with the second. I live in East Tennessee and sometimes it seems that the weather has a severe form of ADHD. One day it will be 80 degrees, the next, 30. One place that climate change can be seen in effect is in the Arctic and Antarctic. The only problem with that is not many of us live in the Arctic or can afford to go there, but the Extreme Ice Survey can. Headed by James Balog, it has tracked the movement of glaciers in North America, Greenland, and countless others elsewhere. The images taken are then placed in a time-lapse video. you can watch them on their website. James Balog did a speech for TED (ted.com) earlier this year talking about the project and showing some of the time-lapse video he has collected. http://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html
Another way that we can see climate change without traveling to the far reaches of the earth would be to look at the graphs on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) website. The IPCC is an organization of climate scientists around the world (through the United Nations) who’s mission is to compile their data into graphs and technical papers for the world to see climate change through their work. Their site can be viewed at www.ipcc.ch.
If someone is misinformed of the facts, the only way to re-inform them correctly would be to spread the word in a logical way that is irrefutable. The IPCC reports do this, but they are much too large for one to read in less than a minute. This leaves people that are informed to tell those that are not the core facts of the matter. So, I give you this burning torch so that you may give it to others, the flame undiminished. Good luck.
On a request from Toofan (<-spammer, but even so…), I will elaborate more:
I don’t think I really said anything about what the flaming torch would be. In this case, I think my readers should spread the word that climate change is a very real aspect of the world around us. Humans have been pumping out CO2 into the atmosphere for centuries and we are at the height of our output, at roughly 22,829,463.2 thousand metric tonnes annually (Source: http://ow.ly/1lbjO) and it keeps climbing. China is in the middle of their industrial revolution, planning to build 562 new coal-fired power plants (Source: http://ow.ly/1lbtL).
One might say that CO2 is a weak gas, so therefore it is not doing much damage. Yes, it is a weak greenhouse gas (compared to others like methane, etc.), but the sheer amount being released into the air from fossil fuels that have not been around for tens of thousands of years is not allowing for the earth’s ecosystems to adjust to new amounts of this gas.
So, we, as humans, should invest in clean energy to replace that of coal and oil. In addition, the CO2 already in the atmosphere should be taken out (a very hard thing to do). It is an uphill battle.
The people at iLoveMountians.org proclaim loudly a distress call for people to help stop blasting on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. The blasting is to start strip-mining the land for coal. Since this concerns greenhouse gas (specifically CO2) emissions into the atmosphere, we are just as upset about it. Here is their promotional video: http://www.ilovemountains.org/coalriver/
A $400 billon solar collection project based in the Sahara desert has been started by various European countries to provide solar energy to power Europe. Since it was announced in July of this year, 12 companies have been chosen to erect the solar collectors. The group is led by major German engineering companies calling themselves the Desertec Industrial Initiative, or DDI. They have been accepted openly by many of the countries in Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. The DDI hopes to have their systems running by 2015 and sending out 15% of Europe’s power by the year 2050. The power lines would stretch across the desert and the Mediterranean sea to reach their destination.
The DDI plans to utilize Concentrated Solar Power (or CSP) systems to accomplish their goals. These collection devices use large mirrors to direct the sun’s heat to a central location. There are three types of CSP: linear concentrator, dish/engine, and power tower systems. Linear concentrators use curved mirrors to focus light on tubes of liquid that in turn boils water to turn a steam turbine. Dish/engine systems use a large satellite dish to concentrate the rays onto a thermal reciever that moves a heat engine (usually a Stirling engine) that runs an electrical generator. Power tower systems use sun-tracking mirrors (heliostats) to focus the sun on a reciever located at the top of a central tower. The reciever uses a transfer fluid to boils water and turn a steam turbine.
Title: 350 – International Day of Climate Action Location: Everywhere Link out: Click here Description:
October 24th is the national day of climate action sponsored by 350.org. 350 is an organization formed soley to combate climate change globally. (learn more about them here) Their main way of connecting people is through the internet, and on October 24th, they call on people all over the world to organize something incorporating the number 350 and then upload a photo of it to the 350.org website.
Like many other major environmental entities, 350 encourages all people to cut down on their carbon footprint to reduce the amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Three hundred and fifty parts per million is the “safe limit” for the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. We need to get back to that number and stay there, and 350 helps in accomplishing this by attempting to unite the populations of the world under one banner.
One of the advocated proposals (which many around the world echo) is to gain an international agreement to drastically reduce carbon emissions. One of those they deem promising is the United Nation’s December 2009 meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Title: Global Climate Week! Location: Everywhere Link out: Click here Description: Global Climate Week is planned to coincide with the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Summit on Climate Change on 22 September 2009.
This important week and the lead-up weekend will be marked by synchronized activities in more than 100 cities to urge world leaders to seal a fair and effective climate agreement at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December. (from http://www.sealthedeal2009.org/global-climate-week) Start Date: 2009-09-21 End Date: 2009-09-25
