President Obama, We Are Watching!

President Obama's speech to Congress showed that he gets it in regard to the environment and the economy: solving global warming is not not only critical for our environment, but also to help dig ourselves out of the economic hole that we have dug ourselves into.

The University of Massachusetts research shows that investment in clean energy creates 3-4 times more jobs than coal or oil. More importantly, the impacts of global warming, including more destructive wildfires and hurricanes as well as more severe water shortages, are already causing a significant drag on our economy that will only get worse if global warming pollution continues unchecked.

I urge President Obama to fully rise to the challenge of global warming by leading the effort to cut global warming pollution to science-based levels. Given the latest science and the assessments of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to minimize the risk of global warming the U.S. must cut domestic emissions from fossil fuel combustion by at least 20-25% by 2020.

For our environment and our economy, I urge President Obama to continue to provide the leadership America needs to solve global warming.

Bobby Jindal Response Panned By Pundits, Republicans And Democrats Alike

Governor Jindal's speech was inappropriate and common. Typical for what we have seen from the Republican party. It seems lately that every time there is an opportunity for the spotlight the GOP clammers for their 15 mintues.

It seems that it is all about them...not about the country. Tell me something that I haven't heard for the past 20 plus years from the GOP. Jindal is said to be a stand out amongst the GOP. To be honest, he seems to be following the GOP's book of rhetoric. It's getting old.


They need to learn that what they are doing is not working. You don't always have something to say, some times you just need to sit back and watch.
About Bobby Jindal
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

5 Things You Can Do To Save The Earth

#1: Stop using plastic bags.
#2: Turn light bulbs off every so often.
#3: Recycle.
#4: Drive less.
#5: Feel content in the knowledge of a job well done.

Great. Job done. Now the climate will calm down, there will be plenty of energy for everyone and, why not, even the recession will be but a bad dream.

Argh. Now, I'm not saying that doing the above things is bad, in fact I do encourage you all to do them. That said, we do need to maintain just a tiny little bit of perspective, here.

We, as Humans, are special. As far as I am aware, we are the only species on the Earth who are not content with mere survival. We do not seek merely to exist; we seek to grow, to be comfortable and happy. These desires, these drives and this ability to think beyond the immediate is what separates us from all other life.

We seek ever improving quality in our standard of living, and while it is debatable if we are actually achieving this, it is true that energy is inextricably linked with our modern day high standards. Hot water on demand? Light during the night? What madness is this? 100 years ago we would have been considered hedonistic to crave even the basics of what we have today.

So, we as a race are not going to be giving this up, and neither should we. What I have listed above are the kind of "green tips" I read often in magazines and hear on the radio. I have even seen a book with the title something along the lines of "How you can stop climate change".

What? Excuse me? Unless I run a multinational corporation with huge resources at my disposal, there is pretty much nothing I personally can do to "stop climate change". To be honest, I am one of those people who would like to run said multinational corporation and actually have the power to change the world, but that may have to wait a while. What is the regular person supposed to do, or even think? I plan to dedicate my life to this field, but most are not in that position.

You are told to install energy efficient light bulbs. You MUST drive a hybrid car, and drive less. If you choose not to, the "green police" will come and get you. Why? You should be able to drive as much as you want, surely? If you want to have all the lights in your home on while you go off on holiday, why not? Granted, you will have a massive electricity bill, but go for it. Energy has become a right, not a privilege, and the structure of our society should reflect this. Energy must be as cheap and abundant as the everything else we now consider "essential". You want food but you want to buy it from a...shop? What about your farm? Oh you think food is a right? Of course it is; now, anyway.

Why must we have cheap access to abundant energy? Our society is now so dependent on energy that the loss of it would cause our society to crumble from beneath our feet. We don't want that. Neither, however, do we want to see a world where energy is accessible only by the rich few. Therefore, out of necessity, we must change our sources of energy.

So far we have enjoyed very cheap and abundant energy supplies. The problem is that this era of cheap fuels is coming to an end: we've already seen one fuel utopia come and go. Our society has developed around fossil fuels. Eep, hang on, they are running out. Oh, and we also failed to notice that they are poisoning us (even disregarding climate change). We have to stop burning them. But wait! That goes completely against my argument that energy should be cheap and abundant, no?

No! Fossil fuels are the very thing standing in the way of cheap and abundant energy. We are currently reliant on them, and our society is structured such that fossil fuels, in abundance, are immensely cheap, because that is the basic right and demand of the consumer. Unfortunately, the same reliance that made them cheap in abundance will make them extortionately expensive in scarcity.

What is the solution? For one thing, we cannot be reliant on a single source of energy. There are many clean, renewable options, which could provide a vast amount of energy, given time. We also have other options (like nuclear power, but keep it quiet) that could be implemented to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Now I'm going to commit "green" blasphemy: I do not believe we will ever stop using fossil fuels, at least not until the day when the world becomes bone dry of them. Fossil fuels do have their place, but as long as they are used sparingly and we are not dependent on them as a primary fuel source, then all will be well.

What would I like to see? I would like to see a world where energy flows cheaply into every home in the world. We will be comfortable that however much we use, there will be more and using it is not causing harm or damaging our little planet in any way. We will not live in fear that there will be power cuts, high prices, and even wars over who gets what little energy there is left.

Why did I list those things at the top? Well, it was to demonstrate who has the power to make a difference. There is a lot of truth in the argument that market forces drive innovation and change, but the people who buy the products, drive the cars and so forth do not want change. They are the ones who have the energy and the myriad of products which consume it. The people who think that using fewer plastic bags will matter in any way yet drive a mile to get to the shop are also those who will suffer the most when it all goes wrong.

Politicians, businesses, governments, charities, NGOs and the like must have the foresight to do something. Stop blaming the people for living their lives the best way they know how in difficult times. Instead of chastising people for driving cars with poor fuel economies which emit masses of pollutants, provide the people will decent alternatives. People should not have to feel guilty about using energy.

Cheap, abundant energy = a high quality of living = eliminating poverty = stopping climate change = stopping wars = frankly, a huge step forward to a more civilised civilisation. This should be our ultimate goal.

Thanks for reading.

Coal is dirty! It's time to tell our Government to come clean!.

In just over a week, Americans will come together to stand up to the grim lies that the coal industries have been telling us for decades. Our Government needs to wake up to the realization that coal will never be clean. It's time to start demanding that they live up to the promise that change has come to Washington. Tell your congressman to look out the windows of their offices in D.C. and realize that they are a part of the largest contributor of Global Warming. If anything is "shameful", that is.

-snilon

Nuclear submarines collide in the Atlantic Ocean

LONDON — Nuclear-armed submarines from Britain and France collided in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month, authorities acknowledged Monday — touching off new concerns about the safety of the world's deep sea missile fleets.

This is just a grim reminder that human error can undo all the safety that we put into place.

The Right of Nuclear Power

In an email exchange with Marcel, we were debating the significant impact on the environment between Wind Turbines and Nuclear Power Plant. I thought you might like reading his response:

Marcel F. Williams

The good thing about nuclear power plants is that they produce lots of power on relatively little land area. Wind and solar farms are at least 100 to 1000 times more land intensive than nuclear power plants.

But more importantly, if we don't start a massive investment in nuclear power for electricity and carbon neutral synfuel and industrial chemical production, there might not be a Florida 100 or 200 years from now. There also may not be a New York, London, Tokyo, or Boston anymore either. All of these cities could be underwater if the ice caps end up melting completely.

The US hasn't ordered a new nuclear reactor in a few decades but that hasn't stopped some nations from attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Middle East nations like Iraq and Iran wanted nuclear weapons because they believe Israel has nuclear weapons.

But it really doesn't make much economic or military sense for nuclear energy nations like the US, France, Japan, China, Russia to promote nuclear power expansion in third world countries when all of these nations actually need a lot more nuclear reactors in their own countries. So ironically, hostility towards building new reactors in the US has pushed the nuclear industry to promote building more US reactors overseas instead of in the US.

Westinghouse for example ended up being bought by Toshiba of Japan. Toshiba wanted to build more reactors in China using US Westinghouse technology. China said yes, but the Japanese had to turn over all of the US blueprints for making the latest generation of US nuclear reactors to the Chinese government. This is something that the Chinese demand of all companies building reactors in their country so that they will be able to build clones of these reactors.

By the way, if you want to know how hydroelectric or nuclear power plants can manufacture gasoline, you should read my article: gasoline from air and water at The New Papyrus

Hey, Merrill Lynch - Give It Back!

It's not often that I deviate from the environment when it comes to this blog, but sometimes I feel that I need to say something, no matter what the topic.

I just read that the executives from Merrill Lynch got to enjoy our beautiful sun and fun in the wonderful world of Orlando. That's after they received the big bail out and after they paid themselves a very big bonus for such a job well done. I mean after all, it takes a lot of hard work to screw people over on such an enormous scale. Why not reward yourselves with a little time off to relax and forget about things. I mean after all, you deserve it. And so do we! We deserve to sit by and watch the banks piss our money away like that, because we do nothing but bend over and say "why don't you ever tell me you love me??"

How many times does it take for the co-dependency of America to continually take it on the chin before we say "enough"? I watched the news this morning, scenes from the "grilling" that the bankers got before our congress. I felt bad for them as they had to sit there and endure the finger shaking and the "tisk, tisk" that they received from members of congress. But like any co-dependent, congress still ended up saying, "as long as you promise not to do it again, we will give you the money."

I just have one question: "Why didn't anyone ask for the money back????" Is there any reason that we cannot demand that the bonuses be taken back? Do you think that they spent them already? What did they do, purchase another plane, or a fleet of cars? Come on people, ASK FOR IT BACK! Tell them that our anger goes beyond finger waving and demand that the money be returned. They were given out as bonuses. It's free money. They can give it back. Unless there is another reason that our congress doesn't ask for it back.

I have two family members that spent over 30 years working for Merrill Lynch. They retired from that company on the money that they saved from their hard work and dedication to that company. Like many, many others, they got to watch their retirement tank in front of their eyes. Now, in their 60's, they are wondering how they will be able to keep things going.

I have watched, over the years, the public let the leaders of this country handle the problems of this country. I hear a lot of blaming and I see a lot of finger pointing when it comes to things that go wrong, but I never see anyone stand up and do something about it themselves. Why isn't there more of a public outcry over the debacle of the first bailout? I want more than our President to put a cap on CEO's salaries. I want that money back that were given out as bonuses. Take that money and put it towards all of the programs that our illustrious congress cut out of the newest bailout. Give it to the states so they can feed their poor and offer them medial insurance. Then they can keep the fireman and the police on staff, and not have to lay off teachers. Because if you think cutting out the states from the bailout will help reduce the deficit, think again. Those people that will be laid off will go on unemployment and have to use Medicaid for their medical needs. More people will go into foreclosure, the housing market will never get better. The children who will not get the help they need in school will also be dependent on state programs that are not there and the cycle will continue.

I want to hear the words, "GIVE IT BACK", not "shame on you." I want all of the executives and any other recipients of company bonuses for the past two years to get out their check books and write that check so they can GIVE IT BACK.

Teach Me Something I Don't Know About Nuclear Power

I mentioned in another post, Senators Put Their Arms Around Nuclear Power, that nuclear facilities are targets for terrorism. I quickly received a rebuttal claiming that "the death toll incurred by a nuclear plant being hit would be nothing compared with the death toll associated with a skyscraper collapsing". I understand that nuclear power plants have improved throughout the years, but what about the storage and transportation of nuclear waste? What about the radio active waste that is created at these nuclear facilities?

Why is it that any time someone gets on the band wagon about nuclear power, they never include the dangers and the problems surrounding nuclear waste in their flag waving? From the pulpit of John McCain's Presidential Run 2008, where he proclaimed that we have being riding safely on Nuclear Subs for decades, to the countless others who say that it is the most economical way to generate electricity - Why is there never a pause for the most obvious drawback to nuclear energy? Like an albatross that looms over us;We have no real solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste!

For decades we have tossed around ideas about what to do with the nuclear waste that is stored in facilities across the country without ever coming up with a real solution. There are over 121 facilities across the country where nuclear waste is stored. As we have seen with the waste produced by the coal industry, tons of radioactive waste are ending up in landfills because of political loopholes.

The standard disposal of nuclear waste is housing them in containers that have a shelf life of up to 20 years. Some of those containers have been dumped out at sea and some are housed at storage facilities. Many containers are long past their prime and are leaking into the earth. And yet we are still debating about what we are going to do about them...let alone about producing more of them.

As a result of the cold war between Russia and the United States, theHanford Energy Site in Washington State, houses "some 525 million gallons of radioactive waste that were generated by Hanford between 1944 and 1988 according to a Government Accountability Office report, and at least 56 million gallons of the stuff remains on site in leaky tanks. Already a million gallons of it has seeped into the ground and contaminated the Columbia River."

In our most recent history, the Yucca Mountain in the Nevada Desert has been the central focus as a place to house a central repository for nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste. Plans to store the majority of our nation’s spent at a central repository underneath Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert 80 miles from Las Vegas were first hatched in the mid-1980s. But the project has languished primarily due to opposition from Nevadans who don’t want to import such dangerous materials into their backyard. Critics of the plan also point out that various natural forces such as erosion and earthquakes could render the site unstable and thus unsuitable to store nuclear isotopes that can remain hazardous to humans for hundreds of thousands of years to come.

So for all of the experts who hail the wonders of Nuclear Energy and the economical solutions that it brings to the woes of our economy and the environment, why don't you include in your offerings a real plan for the disposal of radioactive waste. If you can solve that problem and tell me what we should do with the billions of gallons of waste already causing environmental disaster, then you will have something to tell me.

Cited: Plenty.mag
Hanford Energy
Scientific American

Looking for a Florida State Senator to offer Bi-partisan Support - Any Takers??

Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota, has drafted a bill that proposes a statewide feed-in tariff to encourage production of renewable energy. It's another step towards helping Florida become a leader in renewable energy movement. This is following Governor Crist's renewable energy standards that mandates a percentage of a utilities' energy come from renewable sources.

Fitzgerald's bill will encourage companies to produce renewable energy - wind, solar, biomass - by obligating utility companies to purchase electricity from these producers at above-market rates. Cost to customers is capped at about $1.5 million a year, which boils down to a 1.5 percent increase in base electricity rates. The economic development gained by such a measure would be a nice shot in the arm for our unemployed and give a boost to our economic development.

Ft. Meyers, Florida has ten percent unemployment rate. 10% of the people who live in Ft. Meyers area are unemployed. And that's not counting all of the business owners who have closed their business and do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Florida’s jobless rate has grown to 8.1 percent, the highest in 16 years, according to December unemployment figures released this morning by the state’s Agency for Workforce Innovation. These figures are staggering. It would seem to me that encouraging companies to grow a sustainable industry right here where the sun is a plenty would mean a higher return on our efforts. Not only can we do good for the Florida environment (Have you seen the smog looming over Orlando these days?), but we can create an industry that would have a positive effect on our economy.

Now I am not an owner of a large company that can employ thousands, but I can do my part. I, for one, will be building a "green" house and I will hope to be able to not only offset the costs by tax credits, but also have the ability to sell my surplus energy back to the utility company. I will also hire "green" builders and purchase "green" products. Now that's stimulus!

Fitzgerald is now looking from a senator who will offer him bi-partisan support. The question remains, "Is bi-partisan support possible?" From what we have seen lately from our nation's congress - childish behavior suited only for a kindergarten class, it leaves me to wonder if we will see the same at a state level. When do the people become important? When will our representatives stop playing politics and start behaving like they care about the people of their state?

If anyone wants to step up to the plate and put the people first, you will have my support and my gratitude. And when things are in place, I'll even have you over for dinner...to see my new home!



Cited: Simply Hired
The Gainesville Sun
New Press

The Dirty Little Secret of the Coal Industry

With the coal ash spill of Harriman, Tennessee on December 12th, 2008, anyone who was watching the news for that brief second that day was alerted the the greatest environmental disaster of our history. Shock followed by sympathy was felt by anyone who saw the pictures of the devastation. "What a shame that those poor people have to suffer from someone else's mistakes. Gee, someone needs to do something about it! I hope the problem gets corrected." Seems to be that the attention span of anyone watching is short lived by the underlining feeling of "How does this effect me?"

What most people don't realize is that in many ways the actions of the coal industries effect everyone. It's not just Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee that bear the brunt of the of the cost of living amongst the coal industry. States like Utah, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington DC and Wisconsin are also directly affected by how the coal industry operates.

And what does the industry do beside provide jobs and power to the people of their state and beyond? Well, we know about the air pollution and the deaths that occur when a mine collapses. And now we are aware of the environmental disasters of coal ash leakage. But is the public aware of the coal industry's dirty little secret?

It is common practice for the coal industry to dump coal combustion waste that contains toxic metals such as arsenic, chromium, lead, thallium and toxic chemicals including PCBs and dioxin along with other industrial byproducts such as shredded cars, oil combustion waste, railroad ties, plastics and tires into unlined ponds and landfills like the one that collapsed in Tennessee.

Dumping the material into mines is even more dangerous, as it puts toxins into direct contact with groundwater. Earthjustice estimates that about 25 million tons of coal combustion waste -- 20 percent of all such waste generated -- is dumped into mines each year. The practice is occurring throughout the U.S. coalfields, including West Virginia and Texas, and presents a serious threat to public health. This presents a serious threat to the public. This practice is barely regulated and "in fact, the only state that has in place regulations for coal ash mine-filling recommended by the National Academy of Sciences is Kentucky."

What is the EPA doing about it? Very little. What are the congressman of those states doing about it? Well, just keep in mind where our Senators get the power for the Capitol Bldg in Washington, DC - The Capitol Power Plant which burned 17,108 tons of coal in 2006, producing about 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Cited:
The Institute For Southern Studies
Earth Justice

Biggest Ever Civil Disobedience on Climate at Congressional Power Plant

We look to our chosen leaders to actually "walk the walk" when it comes to their campaign promises. We also look to them to be aware of the changing climate (no pun intended) when it comes to knowing what the public is expecting of them. Senator Byrd and Senator McConnell have been in office for a very long time. I question how in touch they are with the world around them. The coal ash spill of Harriman, Tennesse should have been enough of a wake up call for them. And if not for them, then what about the rest of Congress? They should be ashamed to support the Capitol Power Plant. It has become a mockery of everything that science and our history has shown us.

Their efforts to continue to fight the change that we, the American people, need is an example of why we need to take another look at who we keep putting in office.
About Climate change
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost