The environment thread

[NorthSideSox72]

The program is closed circuit. You can't have a business make up thousands of fake addresses to send from like you can for email.

Again, how many businesses are there in this country? Millions perhaps, or at least hundreds of thousands. Even if the security is tight enough to truly limit to 1 box each, that is still an enormous spam potential.

 

There is an easy way to fix this.

 

[StrangeSox]

Again, how many businesses are there in this country? Millions perhaps, or at least hundreds of thousands. Even if the security is tight enough to truly limit to 1 box each, that is still an enormous spam potential.

 

There is an easy way to fix this.

 

It's a little old, but...

 

http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/stateguide/us.html

"The estimated total number of small businesses in the United States in 2003 was 22,659,000. Of the 5,696,600 employer firms in 2003, 99.7 percent or an estimated 5,679,500 were small firms. The estimated number of employer businesses increased by 0.3 percent in 2003. The most recent data available show that non-employer businesses numbered 16,979,498 in 2001. Self-employment increased by 3.7 percent, from 9,926,000 in 2002 to 10,295,000 in 2003."

[BigSqwert]

Tesla Model S: First Official Teaser Photo, $350 Million DoE Loan

 

Model S Electric Car to be Unveiled on March 26th

Here is the first official teaser photo of Tesla's second electric car, the Model S sedan. It's not much, but better than nothing. The Model S will be the first car by Tesla to have a look entirely designed by them (the electric Roadster was part Lotus). The target price is about half of what the Roadster costs, and production should start in late 2011 (if all goes well).

 

 

Department of Energy Funding

Tesla also reports in a newsletter:

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The company also expects to be profitable by mid-2009, in part thanks to cost reductions.

 

LINK

[BigSqwert]

Also got an email update from Tesla saying that a Chicago store will be opening soon. Can't wait to test drive one.

[BigSqwert]

'Miracle Amish Heater' malarkey

[kapkomet]

'Miracle Amish Heater' malarkey

I love it.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Also got an email update from Tesla saying that a Chicago store will be opening soon. Can't wait to test drive one.

Yeah, that's good stuff. I'm glad the new administration is embracing these concept car companies.

 

[Balta1701]

Yeah, that's good stuff. I'm glad the new administration is embracing these concept car companies.

Good graph.

 

[BigSqwert]

World renowned climate expert George Will gets his weekend global warming column debunked.

[Balta1701]

A year ago, there were more than a few silly people, some perhaps posted in the early days of these threads, saying that Global Warming had stopped, because last year's January was significantly colder than the January the year before.

 

Rather than point out again the obvious flaw in that logic, I'm going to embrace it now...and say that according to NASA, the planet warmed .37 degrees C from January 08 to January 09. This is 20 times the average annual temperature increase prior to this year. At that rate, by the time I'm 50, this planet will be like an oven.

 

Panic!

[Balta1701]

World renowned climate expert George Will gets his weekend global warming column debunked.

The Washington Post finally issued a response after days of complaints. It's actually fairly remarkable. If you read their statement and the thing they're linking through, it turns out that Will's statement was accurate...in such a bizarre sense that it's one of the worst deceptions you could ever imagine.

 

It seems that the original statement in some fashion compared sea ice levels in the latter part of summer, 1979, essentially when the sea ice area is at its yearly minimum, to sea ice coverage on or about January 1 of this year. Turns out that summer sea ice levels in '79 are actually fairly similar to winter sea ice levels now, because so much sea ice has been lost.

 

Will took this statement and distorted it to say that clearly no sea ice has been lost since 1979. When in reality, the statement was comparing winter and summer.

 

In the anthropogenic climate change discussion, therefore, one can now conclude that climate change deniers also can't tell the difference between winter and summer.

[southsider2k5]

A year ago, there were more than a few silly people, some perhaps posted in the early days of these threads, saying that Global Warming had stopped, because last year's January was significantly colder than the January the year before.

 

Panic!

 

Come on, I read weather.com... That makes me a meterologist!

[kapkomet]

Come on, I read weather.com... That makes me a meterologist!

Oh the ironies. I think an economy blog makes me an economist.

 

[Balta1701]

Link

The price of solar panels could fall by as much as 40 per cent by the end of the year as huge increases in polysilicon supplies lead to a sizable fall in production costs for solar panel manufacturers.

 

That is the view of industry analyst New Energy Finance, which is predicting solar module prices could fall by between 30 and 40 per cent as a result of recent investments globally to increase production of silicon.

 

Polysilicon prices hit a peak of $400 per kilogram last summer, but as investments to increase capacity have come online, prices have fallen to between $30 and $40 per kilogram and experts are agreed they are likely to continue dropping.

 

"A massive increase in silicon supplies is coming through at the moment that will lead to a fall in solar module prices," predicted Angus McCrone, chief editor at New Energy Finance. "In one way it's bad news for solar companies because it will put pressure on margins as prices fall, but in another way it will trigger lots more demand from both large solar project developers and consumers as well as from businesses installing rooftop panels."

[Balta1701]

The new Honda Insight hybrid, slated to go on sale in April in the U.S., is already big in Japan.

 

Reuters reported today that Honda has received almost triple the number of orders it expected for the car after it went on sale in its homeland on Feb 6.

 

Honda Insight “The response has been overwhelming,” Honda executive Hiroshi Kobayashi told reporters at a test-drive event in Tokyo. Demand has been such that the automaker intends to expand its production plans for the car, Kobayashi said, although he declined to specify by how much.

 

The Insight, he added, is drawing interest from a broad range of vehicle owners, from mini-vehicles to sedans to minivans. There’s currently a 30-day wait to take delivery of a new Insight.

 

The strong response is occurring even as the Japanese auto market suffers through the same slump that is depressing auto sales around the globe. New vehicle sales were off 20% last month in Japan.

 

The Insight’s popularity could be due to its price — it starts at around 1.89 million yen (just under $20,000 at current exchange rates), almost 20% less than the rival Toyota Prius.

 

In Japan, Honda is also boasting fuel economy of around 61 miles per gallon for the Inisght. Based on U.S. mileage tests, the current-generation Prius gets 46 MPG in combined city/highway driving. The third-generation Prius, due in showrooms in the U.S. and Japan this spring, will get around 50 MPG combined, Toyota has said.

 

You may remember that the original Insight, a futuristic looking two-seat that hit these shores in December 1999 — actually beating the Prius to the U.S. market by more than six months. The Prius made up the lost ground, however, and became the purpose-built hybrid of choice for Americans. The original Insight was R.I.P. by 2006.

 

The new Insight is slated to go on sale in the U.S. in April. Officially unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January, it has been lampooned a bit for looking too much like, well, the Prius. But, as in Japan, it’s expected to cost less than the Toyota hybrid, which should be an important selling point in these economically challenged times.

LAT

[BigSqwert]

'Forward Chicago' Launches: Aims to Make Chicago Greenest US City

 

Today the Climate Group announced their partnership with the city of Chicago and Chicago 2016, titled "Forward Chicago" which aims to not only help Chicago reach its greenhouse gas reduction goals but to make Chicago quite possibly the greenest city. Let us count the ways:

 

The partnership itself will bring together public and private organizations to work together on reducing their fair city's gas problem. Motorola,Scryve Corporate Social Responsibility Rating Exelon, Allstate, Abbott, Baxter International, Inc., ComEd, MWH, Corn Products International, and HSBC-North America, are funding projects around the city, including the "21st Century Green Centers," which areas around where the proposed 2016 Olympic venues will be sited.

 

Exelon will plant trees in Washington Park. Abbott plans to run the "City of Chicago's $800 Challenge" where residents can get $800 for taking 10 easy steps to reduce their carbon emissions. Motorola plans to install solar panels on two city schools. Several of the other companies are supporting environmental programs in area schools and installing raingardens at the schools.

 

Other green projects include planting trees to displace 2 metric tons of greenhouse gases, installing solar panels around the city, and adding raingardens onto the rooftops of many area buildings. Chicago has long been known as the leader in rooftop gardens on their buildings, including the Chicago City Hall.

 

Chicago's Green Climate Action Plans

 

Just this last year Chicago unveiled their Climate Change Action Plan, that commits the city to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Three major environmental challenges that Forward Chicago identified for the city are the heat-island effect, open space, and greening and flooding. Many of the projects proposed around the city will work on improving these issues.

 

To date, Chicago has been actively working on improving its carbon footprint, including planting more than 500,000 trees, adding 200 acres of new parks, and over 4 million square feet of roof space covered in green gardens, saving over $5,000 in energy costs. The city has also installed 2 MW of solar power, purchased 225 hybrid vehicles, reduced fuel consumption in city vehicles and cut bus emissions by 28% through the use of new technologies and ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuels.

[Texsox]

I thought I would share

 

My current electric provider

 

Green Mountain Energy

Pollution Free Plan

14.34 cents/kWh

 

No need to heat or AC this past month, so cheap month. Only $55. Most homes here are 100% electric, no natural gas.

 

I am paying slightly more than I could with a longer commitment or less environmentally friendly production methods.

[Balta1701]

Glacier National Park no longer has to worry about being glacier free in 2030.

 

Now, they have to worry about being glacier-free in 2020.

It's an oft-repeated statistic that the glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park will disappear by the year 2030.

 

But Daniel f**re, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who works at Glacier, says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of schedule, endangering the region's plants and animals.

 

The 2030 date, he said, was based on a 2003 USGS study, along with 1992 temperature predictions by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

 

"Temperature rise in our area was twice as great as what we put into the [1992] model," f**re said. "What we've been saying now is 2020."

 

Edit...wow...the system edited out the guy's name.

[NorthSideSox72]

Glacier National Park no longer has to worry about being glacier free in 2030.

 

Now, they have to worry about being glacier-free in 2020.

 

 

Edit...wow...the system edited out the guy's name.

well, looks like we may need to change up our schedule in completing the Continental Divide Trail. We planned to finish with that northern anchor leg, in Glacier, around 2030-ish. I suppose we'd better do those Glacier segments in the next 10 years if we want to actually see glaciers.

 

[Y2HH]

Good climate change example story from Reuters.

This is the kind of thing we mean when we start talking about how urgent this problem is. Another few decades and a few hundred million people lose their livelihoods and their food source, and it's irreversible once it happens.

 

It's possible the Earth is trying to tell us something through this "urgent problem", since it can't speak and all. Where most see the problem in "global climate change", I see the problem in the vast over population of the Earth itself, which is also accelerating...and even more alarming than rising temperatures as far as I'm concerned.

 

The other problem is we simply don't know enough about this issue and of our contribution (if any) too this issue, but we have two camps claiming they know all the facts, when they clearly do not. And make no mistake, neither side knows enough about this yet so get off the high horses.

 

All science agrees gravity exists. It's prooven, scientific fact.

 

Not all science agrees human created climate change exists. Until this changes, this argument will go on...and on...and there will be no resolution, no matter how badly we'd like to think in our self-important way that we will solve this problem.

 

I'm not sure we were meant to solve this one, either.

Edited March 4, 2009 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

It's possible the Earth is trying to tell us something through this "urgent problem", since it can't speak and all. Where most see the problem in "global climate change", I see the problem in the vast over population of the Earth itself, which is also accelerating...and even more alarming than rising temperatures as far as I'm concerned.

 

The other problem is we simply don't know enough about this issue and of our contribution (if any) too this issue, but we have two camps claiming they know all the facts, when they clearly do not. And make no mistake, neither side knows enough about this yet so get off the high horses.

 

All science agrees gravity exists. It's prooven, scientific fact.

 

Not all science agrees human created climate change exists. Until this changes, this argument will go on...and on...and there will be no resolution, no matter how badly we'd like to think in our self-important way that we will solve this problem.

 

I'm not sure we were meant to solve this one, either.

If there was a very, very well funded group of people who's job it was to convince as many people and especially as many politicians as possible that gravity didn't exist, you'd be saying the same thing about gravity.

 

The population of the earth certainly does play in to the matter, as it is strongly enabled by the consumption of fossil fuels (Fossil Fuels as fertilizers and harvesting agents and powering transportation, preservation, other processing techniques have made the population explosion possible). There are a couple ways to look at it though. If all there was in the world was the Western countries, and the big population centers in Asia and Africa weren't there, we'd still be running in to a problem because of how much carbon we generate per capita. Secondly, it's my opinion that there is easily enough energy coming in to the earth from sources above and below our heads to sustain a much greater population than what we currently have, we just need to focus on harvesting that energy.

[NorthSideSox72]

I don't have the link anymore, but yesterday, Obama reversed one of Bush's midnight executive orders that undercut the Endangered Species Act. Decisions on development as they pertain to endangered species will now be made by the scientists who should be making such decisions, instead of bureaucrats. Bravo.

 

[Y2HH]

If there was a very, very well funded group of people who's job it was to convince as many people and especially as many politicians as possible that gravity didn't exist, you'd be saying the same thing about gravity.

 

The population of the earth certainly does play in to the matter, as it is strongly enabled by the consumption of fossil fuels (Fossil Fuels as fertilizers and harvesting agents and powering transportation, preservation, other processing techniques have made the population explosion possible). There are a couple ways to look at it though. If all there was in the world was the Western countries, and the big population centers in Asia and Africa weren't there, we'd still be running in to a problem because of how much carbon we generate per capita. Secondly, it's my opinion that there is easily enough energy coming in to the earth from sources above and below our heads to sustain a much greater population than what we currently have, we just need to focus on harvesting that energy.

 

I expected this sort of response as this is a very touchy subject that some people are WAY TOO into, to the point they refuse to lend any credence whatsoever to the opposing viewpoint. No, I wouldn't say the same thing about gravity so please refrain from using hysterical examples when trying to make a point. Gravity exists even if a politician wants to fund a study saying it doesn't. We already know it does. I'm not speaking about politicians or cheap party-aligned scientists who sell out for funding and will say anything to get that funding even if it throws logic and reason out the window. I'm speaking of the fact that the science community is divided right now about global warming/climate change and our effect on it. I can care less about the political community, I'm speaking strictly on science, and right now there is as much science debunking it as there is supporting it.

 

The world is overpopulated. Just because it's possible we CAN do something, doesn't necessarily mean we SHOULD. IE, just because the Earth can sustain more human life than it does, doesn't mean we need to "do it and see!"

Edited March 4, 2009 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

I expected this sort of response. No, I wouldn't say the same thing about gravity so please refrain from using hysterical examples when trying to make a point. Gravity exists even if a politician wants to fund a study saying it doesn't. We already know it does. I'm not speaking about politicians or cheap party-aligned scientists who sell out for funding and will say anything to get that funding even if it throws logic and reason out the window. I'm speaking of the fact that the science community is divided right now about global warming/climate change and our effect on it. I can care less about the political community, I'm speaking strictly on science, and right now there is as much science debunking it as there is supporting it.

 

The world is overpopulated. Just because it's possible we CAN do something, doesn't necessarily mean we SHOULD. IE, just because the Earth can sustain more human life than it does, doesn't mean we need to "do it and see!"

Frankly, the divide in the Scientific community at this point is whether the total accumulated warming will be 3-5 degrees C (like the IPCC reports predicted, they tended to take the most conservative approach possible since they were in no small part politically driven) or something significantly sharper than that. The reality is...at virtually every point, the actual effects on the earth and the atmosphere have been beyond the worst case scenario so far presented. The divide you talk about between people who buy in to human-caused climate change and people who don't just doesn't exist. It's only there in the media and in the few people who get directly funded to say that there is a debate.

 

So, what is your suggestion for the overpopulation problem? Given the energy input from the sun, I contend that the Earth can handle a load of humanity actually greater than what the earth is currently holding. You claim it cannot. Is your solution famine/war to cut down on the population?

[NorthSideSox72]

I expected this sort of response as this is a very touchy subject that some people are WAY TOO into, to the point they refuse to lend any credence whatsoever to the opposing viewpoint. No, I wouldn't say the same thing about gravity so please refrain from using hysterical examples when trying to make a point. Gravity exists even if a politician wants to fund a study saying it doesn't. We already know it does. I'm not speaking about politicians or cheap party-aligned scientists who sell out for funding and will say anything to get that funding even if it throws logic and reason out the window. I'm speaking of the fact that the science community is divided right now about global warming/climate change and our effect on it. I can care less about the political community, I'm speaking strictly on science, and right now there is as much science debunking it as there is supporting it.

 

The world is overpopulated. Just because it's possible we CAN do something, doesn't necessarily mean we SHOULD. IE, just because the Earth can sustain more human life than it does, doesn't mean we need to "do it and see!"

There really isn't anything in the vicinity of "as much science debunking it as there is supporting it". Just a few months ago, someone in this very forum posted a super-study looking at peer reviewed scientific pieces. And there were thousands that supported not only the existence of global warming, but specifically at least some degree of human effect on it. The number of those articles saying there was none was some very tiny number, or zero. There is no split of the scientific community on this - it is a unison chorus with one or two hacks interrupting from the gallery.

 

And by the way, you were the one that brought up the hysterical example to begin with.

 

Finally, how is it that you think overpopulation is having a negative effect, but somehow it isn't effecting the atmosphere?