Posted by feww on July 3, 2008
Did you know?
It took our entire nuclear fleet to illuminate America in 2001!
The Three Mile Island nuclear generating station, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979. The reactors are in the smaller domes with rounded tops (the large smokestacks are the cooling towers).
Ten Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Your Building:
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In 2001, lighting consumed 756 Billion kWh – America’s 104 nuclear generating units produced 769 billion kWh, while operating at a capacity factor of 89 percent. It took our entire nuclear fleet to illuminate America.
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Buildings now use 72 percent of all electricity and account for 80 percent of all electric expenditures.
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“Internal gains” account for as much as 27 percent of a home’s cooling load.
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There are now 113 million households in the US.
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One-third of all households rent their homes.
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The average new single-family home has increased in size by about 700 square feet since 1980.
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In 2006, 50 percent of all new homes completed were completed in the South. Cooling load management emerges as a priority.
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U.S. buildings carbon dioxide emissions (630 million metric tons of carbon) approximately equal the combined emissions of Japan, France, and the United Kingdom.
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Lighting uses more energy than cooling in the residential sector. This underscores the importance of breakthrough lighting technologies.
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Buildings account for 39% of all US carbon emissions and 9% of global emissions [2005 US Building emissions = 630.3 MMTCE. 2005 US emissions = 1,623 MMTCE. 2004 Global emissions = 7,348 MMTCE]
[MMCTE: Million Metric Tons of Carbon Equivalent]
Source: Hungry Buildings
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Posted in Climate Change, energy, environment, food, Global Warming, health, politics | Tagged: A Shrinking World, apan, carbon dioxide emissions, CO2, Cooling load management, economy, Failing Ecosystems, France, Future in the Making, Future Scenarios, Global emissions, home cooling, Hungry Buildings, illuminate America, lighting technologies, nuclear fleet, Root Cause Matrix, single-family, the United Kingdom, Top Ten Facts, U.S. buildings | 1 Comment »
Posted by feww on June 29, 2008
Unable to speak to “He,”Bush declares emergency for fires in N. California
More than 8,000 lightning strikes and record-low rainfall led to an estimated 1088 fires which charred up to 400,000 acres in 30 counties throughout California. Image Credit: NOAA
California’s Last Chance: Do a U-Turn, or Turn to Desert!
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Posted in Climate Change, energy, environment, food, Global Warming, health, politics, Tourism, Travel | Tagged: "HE", Bush, california, Drought, Drying Aquifers, Failing Ecosystems, fire, First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities, flood, Future Scenarios, Giga Trends, lightning, Mojavefied, rainfall, Root Cause Matrix, Schwarzenegger, The Economy, Tipping Point, Water Emergency | 1 Comment »
Posted by feww on June 10, 2008
Are YOU a Climate Change Crusader?
How Do YOU Fight Climate Change?
Should YOU Crusade Against the Climate Change, or just STOP heating the globe?
A Shrinking World Series
Make No Mistake: Nature Always Has the Last Word!
Midwest Flood Update:
A dam near the Wisconsin Dells resort area broke on Monday, causing mudslides that swept away homes, as torrential rains caused more flooding across the U.S. Midwest.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency in 30 counties in the south of the state. In Iowa, where 33 counties were flooded, and Indiana, where flooding forced hundreds of people to evacuate homes in the central and western parts of the state, similar declarations have been made. Parts of Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota have been affected by flooding.
“This is an area that’s been bombarded with rain over the weekend, anywhere from 5 to 10 inches, and you’re dealing with saturated soils. So any rain that falls becomes run-off,” the National Weather Service’s Pat Slattery said.
OUCH! Too Close to the bank! Like the Kubeniks and the Pekars (see image caption), rivers are “living” creatures; they need room to complete their cycle of life!
The homes of the Kubeniks (R) and the Pekars are damaged after a dam broke at man-made Lake Delton, Wisconsin June 9 2008. REUTERS/Allen Fredrickson. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice.
“Flood damage estimated in the tens of millions of dollars were being added to recent storm damage in Iowa, including a tornado that flattened the town of Parkersburg two weeks ago.” Reuters reported.
In Iowa:
- The water treatment plant in Mason City was swamped by the Winnebago River.
- Three of four bridges in the town of Charles City were swept away by flooding of the Cedar River.
- The town of New Hartford was evacuated.
Corn and soybean fields were submerged under the floodwater in Midwestern states. Iowa and Illinois account for about 35% of U.S. corn and soybeans, usually the world’s largest harvests of those crops. However, the prospects of a bumper crop year were further eroded, following a wet spring that had already delayed planting. (Source)
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The World’s one harvest from starvation!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Biofuel, Cedar River, Charles City, Climate Change, Collapsing Cities, corn, Drying Aquifers, economy, energy, Failing Ecosystems, Floodwaters, Food Security, Future Scenarios, Giga Trends, global heating, harvest, Illinois, Iowa, Kick the CO2 Habit, Mason City, Midwestern states, Nation News, Natural Disaster, New Hartford, Parkersburg, Shrinking World, sinking cities, soybean, starvation, State of the World, The Climate Change Crusades, The Root Cause Matrix, Tipping Point, topsoil, Tornado, Winnebago River, Wisconsin | Leave a Comment »
Posted by feww on May 20, 2008
A Herculean task, significant impact on physical and biological systems globally, worst cases in 800,000 years
One species disappears every 20 minutes, UN Experts
“In my view, climate change and the loss of biodiversity are the most alarming challenges on the global agenda,” Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the opening of a U.N. biodiversity conference on Monday.
Some of the biodiversity of a coral reef. Reproduced under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, ersion 1.2 or any later version. (author: Richard Ling)
“In my view, climate change [Germany is the world’s 6th largest pollutor] and the loss of biodiversity are the most alarming challenges on the global agenda […] It will be a Herculean task to get the world community and each individual country on the right path to sustainability [still talking about ‘Tending Our Goats at the Edge of Apocalypse’] … The truth today is that we are still on the wrong track. If we follow this path we can foresee that we will fail to meet the target … Business as usual is no more an option if humanity is going to survive. Losing biodiversity is not just losing trees and species, it is an economic and security loss. [Thanks for reading our blogs, Mr Gabriel!]” (Source)
Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change
Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents. (Source)
Instrumental Temperature record of the last 150 years. (Author: Robert A. Rohde) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License Version 2.5
Greenhouse gases highest in 800,000 years
Atmospheric greenhouse gases are now at the highest levels in 800,000 years, according to a study of Antarctic ice, which provides additional evidence that human activity is disrupting the climate.
“Shanghai at sunset, as seen from the observation deck of the Jin Mao tower. The sun has not actually dropped below the horizon yet, rather it has reached the smog line.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (Photo: Suicup; via: Wikimedia Commons. )
“We can firmly say that today’s concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are 28 and 124 percent higher respectively than at any time during the last 800,000 years,” said Thomas Stocker, a researcher at the University of Berne. (Source)
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Posted in Climate Change, energy, environment, food, Global Warming, health, politics, Tourism, Travel | Tagged: anthropogenic, Biodiversity, biological impact, Business as usual, China, Climate Change, Collapsing Cities, coral reef, economic loss, Edge of Apocalypse, Failing Ecosystems, Future Scenarios, germany, Giga Trends, greenhouse gases, India, IPCC, Japan, lifestyle, Root Cause Matrix, Russia, security threat, Sigmar Gabriel, sustainability, Tending Our Goats, Thomas Stocker, Tipping Point, top 10 pollutors, UN, US | Leave a Comment »
Fire Earth 