China Secures Major Foothold in California’s Growing Solar Market. . . . Chinese manufacturers of photovoltaic solar panels have secured an increasing hold in California, the United States’ largest solar market, doubling their market share in the last year alone, according to a new report. In the last three years, China’s share of the market increased from 2 percent to 46 percent, says Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research and consulting firm. The share of U.S. manufacturers in the California market dropped from 43 percent to 16 percent during that same period. “The ascendancy of Chinese manufacturers would be noteworthy regardless of market conditions, but is particularly telling in a time when purse-strings are still tight,” the report said. One Chinese company, Yingli Solar, now claims 27 percent of the California solar market. California accounts for about 40 percent of the U.S.’s total solar power business. The lower manufacturing costs of Chinese companies have given them a strong competitive advantage and have contributed to a sharp drop in solar module prices in the past year. Source

Residential solar leases offer a no-money-down, low-monthly plan that makes solar electricity cheaper than the stuff we get by wire–and you don’t have to buy the panels.

Say hello to the thing that could save our sun-splashed suburban lifestyle: affordable residential solar power that puts roof-top solar panels within reach of the most cash-strapped America consumer. This breakthrough is not a result of technological innovation, but a new financing scheme cooked up on Wall Street called a “residential solar lease,” a no-money-down, low-monthly plan that has made solar electricity cheaper than the stuff we get by wire. It’s an old approach to a new source of energy, and it is taking California by storm.  

Models Predict More Intense Hurricanes in the near future . . . .

In a story from the AAAS/Science journal, it’s reported that fewer but fiercer and more-destructive hurricanes will sweep the Atlantic Basin in the 21st century as climate change continues, which is suggested from a new modeling study by U.S. government researchers.   Category 4 and 5 hurricanes may double in number by the end of the 21st century.

“The models seem to be converging,” says tropical meteorologist James Kossin of the National Climate Data Center’s office at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the work. Plenty of uncertainties remain, Kossin notes, but compared with earlier studies, this one “is more credible; …it’s important.”

According to Science, what makes the new study more realistic is its sharper picture of the atmosphere. . . . . The high-resolution models used by the U.S. National Weather Service to forecast hurricane growth and movement …produce a realistic mix of both weak and strong storms, but those models can’t simulate global warming.

More big blows in the greenhouse. Computer simulation of the most intense hurricanes shows an increase from today (top) to a warmer world at the end of the century (bottom).

From the Science podcast this week, scientist Tom Knutson said, “We’re trying to understand how the most intense hurricanes in the Atlantic might change with climate warming in the 21st century, and we use models to do this. And our modeling results suggest that the frequency of these most intense Atlantic hurricanes—the category four and five hurricanes—will double over the course of the 21st century.”

“The group of scientists involved in the most recent research calculates that although the overall number of hurricanes would decline in a warmer world, they would still cause more damage, according to the modeling. Category 3 to 5 hurricanes have accounted for 86% of all U.S. damage despite constituting only 24% of U.S. landfalls, the group notes. That’s because when storms move up from one category to the next, the potential damage roughly doubles. . . . . The researchers note that the new modeling offers no support for claims that global warming has already noticeably affected hurricane activity. In the real world, the number of Atlantic hurricanes observed during the past 25 years has doubled; in the model, global warming would cause a slight decline in the number over the same period. Given that the mid-resolution model used by the group duplicates the observed rising trend, it may be natural. And the group estimates—very roughly—that so far any effect greenhouse warming has had on hurricane intensity should still be unrecognizable amid natural variations in hurricane activity.”

One scientist says the models themselves, so far, are uncertain that the Atlantic warming is actually caused by the greenhouse effect.  He also explains that the models don’t all predict the same thing due to “computer requirements”.  (Climate modeling takes up enormous computer resources and power.)  The Science podcast with this [...]

Today our Supreme Court decided that corporations have more free speech than the rest of us.  That’s because they have a lot more money than us.  By a 5 to 4 vote, the court lifted long-standing limits on corporate spending in political campaigns, opening the door for private entities to flood the political marketplace with corporate money.  Corporations can now donate unlimited amounts of money to candidates for political office in creative ways;  like attack ads, movies, TV infomercials and “documentaries”, for instance.   Corporate money is now protected “free speech”, so our politicians will now be bought and paid for by fossil fuel companies, among others.

The Court’s decision has made it twice as hard to pass meaningful global warming legislation, unless politicians or think tanks can find a way to maximize profits from something that is basically just the right thing to do.  They can’t even sell corporation-friendly “cap and trade”.   Approaches (other than pleas to do what’s necessary to save life on earth) have been tried to drum up some enthusiasm for renewable energy — some in Washington have tried to push “green energy” as a job provider, for instance.  But support among politicians to stop climate change is vague and it’s not a priority.  Saving life on earth can wait.  Unemployment is still over 10% in the U.S. while people are still talking about these elusive “green jobs”.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a ton of money to be made in wind and solar power,  so there will probably never be big corporate support for it.   Think of getting 20% or more of our energy from wind power and how many jobs it would create if our government could commit to something like that.  If they did, it could stimulate jobs in building transmission lines as well as the actual wind turbines.  But then, corporations would find a way to patent or own the wind so they could profit from it.  And given what happened today, the Supreme Court would probably rule that the wind can indeed be patented by GE, or maybe Shell or Exxon. In America, corporations rule.

From e360:  Wind energy could provide 20 percent of the electricity for the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but only if the nation makes a significant financial investment, according to new government report. About $90 billion would be required to install a network of land- and sea-based wind turbines and about 22,000 miles of new power lines, according to the study published by U.S. Energy Department.

Read the study overview

National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The report said that the government would have to provide a significant portion of that investment through programs such as loan guarantees. “We can bring more wind power online, but if we don’t have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it’s like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,” said David Corbus, project manager for the study. To reach [...]

The 2000s were the warmest decade on record.

The 2000-2009 decade was the warmest on record, easily surpassing the previous hottest decade — the 1990s — researchers said Tuesday in a report providing fresh evidence that the planet may be warming at a potentially disastrous rate.

In 2009, global surface temperatures were 1.01 degree above average, which tied the year for the fifth warmest year on record, the National Climatic Data Center said.  And that helped push the 2000-2009 decade to 0.96 degree above normal, which the agency said “shattered” the 1990s record value of 0.65 degree above normal.

The warmest year on record was 2005 at 1.11 degrees above normal.

The findings follow years of gradually rising global temperatures which atmospheric scientists attribute to the warming effect of gases released into the air by human activities, including burning fossil fuels.

Balance is incredibly important for earth’s ecosystems because they have been found to be extremely sensitive to even the slightest changes.  This super-sensitivity causes both expected and unexpected reactions.  Climate scientist James Hansen has been saying this for years: Our weather is out of balance, the warming climate is out of balance, and life on earth is getting out of balance as a result.

Everyone should be concerned about this from an environmental standpoint; and anyone who cares about the economy and jobs should be very concerned about climate change.  Sudden climate disasters that get the public’s attention, which may occur either before or after tipping points are reached,  could have a devastating effect on world economies.  The situation may require sudden changes in energy sources, which we are not ready for at this point.  Our economy is based in large part on our energy sources, especially fossil fuels.   Ultimately, climate change will affect every aspect of our economy, from consumerism to energy to the insurance industry (especially the insurance industry).

Recently,  businesses and government have noticed that climate change is going to be bad for the economy and bad for business and bad for our national security — and the national security of every country on earth, for that matter.   It’s notable that even major financial publications are worried about climate change.   Business and government know climate change is going to drastically change the world. Why don’t our media and politicians know this and act upon it?  The article below is from a major financial publication, the Financial Times:

World Weather Shifts off Balance

Trains, planes and cars halted by snow and ice. Gas and electricity supplies rationed. Sensitive crops ruined. Boats frozen into waterways. . . .

For weeks, images of the coldest weather for decades have filled the media across Europe, Asia and North America.

But there is an alternative weather story. In much of the Canadian Arctic – and across north Africa and the Middle East – temperatures have been 10°C above the midwinter average. The southern hemisphere is experiencing some extreme [...]

Conceptual view of Nuclear Power Plant-- Esquire

Yucca Mountain Haunts the Obama Administration. By Katherine Ling, Greenwire, “While President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget proposal is expected to sound a death knell for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the administration has so far failed to launch the blue-ribbon commission it promised almost a year ago to decide on a waste-disposal alternative. Hanging in the balance is 60,000 metric tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste. I find it quite disconcerting that a commission with a proper broad charter to look at this problem hasn’t been created, said Arjun Makhijani, president of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research [IEER], a nonprofit opposed to nuclear power. ‘I think the bigger danger is that inaction will simply lead us back to Yucca Mountain,’ Makhijani said, adding, ‘Leaving the problem to fester is not good.’

“Obama dramatically cut funding for the Nevada repository in his fiscal 2010 budget request and announced his intention to form a commission to chart an alternative waste-management solution. Energy Secretary Steven Chu quickly followed up, telling Congress last March that the commission would be formed ‘ideally’ within a month and would craft recommendations by the end of 2009. Last week, Chu responded to questions about the commission by saying the Energy Department is ‘working as hard and fast as we can on that.’ The lawmaker who has led opposition to the Yucca project, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), is confident that the administration’s delay won’t translate into a revival of the Nevada project… But despite agreements between Reid and the administration, Yucca Mountain remains — by law — the disposal site for U.S. nuclear waste. The DOE repository license has not been withdrawn, nor has the department moved to do so, according to an industry source. Meanwhile, Reid is facing a tough re-election battle this year. Moreover, some say that disagreement over whether the blue-ribbon panel should consider Yucca Mountain as a potential waste management solution is one reason the administration has taken so long to get the commission going. Qualified candidates, several sources say, do not agree Yucca should be taken off the table.”

I thought Yucca Mountain was off the table, but apparently it’s still being considered. Some people are still arguing for its use as a nuclear waste repository.  (They are mostly Republicans who are against Obama’s energy policy in general).  According to others, on-site nuclear waste storage is just fine for now until a better national site is found.  (Some people whose land is used for this would disagree).  Stewart Brand feels that the threat from nuclear waste pales in comparison to the threat from the continued use of coal. (e360 interview) and he has said that we can figure out where to put the nuclear waste later on,  in another interview heard in the Climate Files podcast.

More nuclear news compiled by the Climate Crisis Coalition:

Browner Emphasizes Obama Support for Nuclear Power. By Jeff Mason, Reuters, January 11, 2010.

“The [...]

Rapid Sea Ice Breakup along the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf - January 13 2010

Ice Chunk Larger than Rhode Island Breaks Away From Antarctica. Live Science, January 17, 2010.

“In less than a day, the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, which is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, broke away from Antarctica and shattered into many pieces last week. NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites captured the event, at the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, in a series of photo-like images on Jan. 12-13. The long, narrow tongue of ice is a bridge of sea ice linking the A-23A iceberg to the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf in West Antarctica. The ice bridge is fast ice, or sea ice that does not move because it is anchored to the shore. Compared to an ice shelf, the sea ice is a thin shell of ice over the ocean. The difference in thickness is visible in the images. The taller, thicker Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf casts a visible shadow on the ice bridge made of sea ice. This particular ice bridge breaks up and reforms regularly. Even though the images show a routine event, they provide a spectacular view of the sometimes dramatic arrival of summer in the Polar South.”

This should reassure the skeptics that the latest ice age is not coming after all.  It’s not cold everywhere — like in the southern hemisphere, where summer has arrived and the Antarctic ice bridges are melting.  Should this melting worry people?  Not this particular ice bridge, which breaks up routinely, according to NASA.  What’s interesting about this thin ice is that the breakup, which comes with summer, was captured in photos.  See the original images here.  From NASA:

Within a 24-hour space, an area of sea ice larger than the state of Rhode Island broke away from the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf and shattered into many smaller pieces. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites captured this event in this series of photo-like images from January 12 and January 13, 2010.

The long, narrow tongue of ice is a bridge of sea ice linking the A-23A iceberg to the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf in West Antarctica. The ice bridge is fast ice, or sea ice that does not move because it is anchored to the shore. Compared to an ice shelf, the sea ice is a thin shell of ice over the ocean. The difference in thickness is visible in the images. The taller, thicker Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf casts a visible shadow on the ice bridge made of sea ice. This particular ice bridge breaks up and reforms regularly. Even though the images show a routine event, they provide a spectacular view of the sometimes dramatic arrival of summer in the Polar South.

Other recent melting in the Antarctic is something to be much more concerned about.  “The East Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass for the last three years, according to an analysis of data from a gravity-measuring satellite mission.”  Read more here.

REGINA. Futurismo, arte concreta e oltre

January 16 – April 9, 2010
Fondazione Ambrosetti (Brescia)
Catalog

Delle 140 opere molte sono prestate dal “Museo Regina” che ha sede al Castello Sangiuliani, in piazza della Repubblica a Mede. Nel nuovo allestimento realizzato da Alberto Ghinzani, ospita 400 opere opere di Regina donate dal marito, Luigi Bracchi, alla città natale dell’artista.

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First of all, Stephen Colbert from last evening: a discussion of mountaintop removal with one of the authors of a recent journal Science article on the subject, scientist Dr. Margaret Palmer. The article, “Mountaintop Mining Consequences”, was discussed here and it recommended the end of MTR.  Kudos to the Colbert Report for having her on to discuss MTR.  Unfortunately she also recommended the continued use of coal,  which was really mystifying. Coal plants should be shut down as soon as possible. She even said coal jobs are important jobs, which I disagree with completely. Coal jobs might pay the bills but they are also killing men in their 30s and 40s from black lung disease and other diseases. Coal is not worth the price.

The Colbert Report
Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Apparently, the article below was published and reprinted all over the place a couple of weeks ago. Somehow, I missed it and in case you missed it too I’m including it here. Most of my comments are after the article.  The topic:  Will there be panic over fast climate change or a fast response to fast climate change. It sounds unlikely to most people, but think about it for a minute. If we reach a tipping point, and those feedbacks kick in and sea levels rise quickly, we could very well have a need for a sudden response by the government.   There could then be a lot of fear and anger over what the government might do.  Imagine, for instance, if the government deploys something to mimic a volcano to quickly lower the global temperature. The skies could get darker or remain hazy for a long time, and that in itself could cause a panic. Very serious politicians and scientists are talking about geoengineering and mimicking the “Pinatubo effect” right now.  Imagine the start of more wars for oil or other resources.  What could happen to get a violent or panicked response from regular people?

The coming climate panic?

One morning in the not too distant future, you might wake up and walk to your mailbox. The newspaper is in there and it’s covered with shocking headlines: Coal Plants Shut Down! Airline Travel Down 50 Percent! New Federal Carbon Restrictions in Place! Governor Kicked Out of Office for Climate Indolence!

Sometimes change is abrupt and unsettling. History shows that societies in crisis too often leap from calm reaction to outright panic.The only thing your bath-robed, flip-flopped, weed-eating neighbor wants to talk about over the fence isn’t the Yankees, but, of all things … climate change.

Shaking your head, you think: What just happened?

With a non-binding agreement coming out of Copenhagen at the same time that atmospheric CO2 creeps above 390 parts per million, it’s possible that a new feeling might soon gain prevalence in the hearts of people who understand climate science. That feeling is panic. Specifically, climate panic.

In the same way that paleoclimate records show evidence of abrupt climate changes, we think it’s increasingly possible that policy responses to climate change will themselves be abrupt. After years of policy inaction, a public climate backlash is already smoldering. When it blows, it could force radical policy in a short timeframe. It’s the same kind of cultural tipping point, often triggered by dramatic events, that has led to revolutions or wars in the past.

The backlash is brewing in the form of increasingly strident comments from respected and influential people. Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has called government indolence on the issue “treason.” NRDC attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called it “a crime against nature.” Environmental journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert has described “a technologically advanced society choosing to destroy itself,” while James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri, perhaps the world’s leading climate scientists, have said inaction in the next several [...]

Over the next few weeks, leading nations will be deciding the fate of the Copenhagen Accord, the three-page climate change agreement recognized at last month’s international summit but never [formally]  adopted.

If they embrace it, they’ll also be embracing a process that sidestepped one the highest procedural hurdles of the UN system, unanimous consent.

On Jan. 31, the first deadline of the Copenhagen Accord arrives. It isn’t mandatory — the accord was recognized by the Conference of Parties at last month’s summit but never adopted because six countries objected — however, Annex I countries that formally associate themselves with the accord agree to declare their 2020 emissions reduction targets by the Jan. 31 deadline.

Many groups and individuals are now saying that the UN is probably the wrong place to depend on to solve the climate change crisis with a world-wide agreement that will never happen.  Unanimous consent is not something that should be required for a climate change agreement; a majority agreement should be enough.  Too many countries were involved in COP15 with too many disparate agendas and arguments ensued that weren’t even about climate change.  Mostly, it was an economics summit — it became more about economic justice than climate change. Climate change is a crisis all its own. Do we fix it or does everything have to be determined right now on the basis of who pays what?  It’s more important to get started.   It’s frustrating to see every conference on climate change break down into squabbles about money.  There have to be better ways to think about how best to stop climate change and it’s obvious that better ideas are needed.

350.org is one of the best and most persistent organizations working to solve climate change by including everyone and every idea they can. They are responsible for setting the original target of 350 ppm (of CO2 in the atmosphere) as the upper target for what the climate can endure and support life as we know it, based on the recommendation of scientist Jim Hansen.  As you can see from the black icon on the  left, the climate is currently over 387 ppm so we need to get that number down or all life on earth is endangered.  CO2 is the main driver of global warming and climate change.  Bill McKibben is the leader of 350.org and it was his 350.org movement which got 350 as the CO2 target at Copenhagen’s recent climate summit, and as the target goal in the mind of the public.

So much of the public awareness of the dangers of CO2 can be credited to Bill McKibben.  Now after the lack of a binding treaty at the COP15 Copenhagen summit, McKibben is back with another plan:  gathering ideas from everyone possible to form a new way to combat climate change.  Essentially he agrees with me that the world needs to stop depending so much on the UN and regular chaotic meetings of nations to solve the problem.  He feels we  [...]

Heat is on its way.

Your friendly Futurism Now writer is not a scientist so I’m not qualified to fully interpret the latest paper from James Hansen, but maybe you are. He is asking for comments on the following, If It’s That Warm, How Come It’s So Damned Cold?, which you can download in full from his Columbia University web site here.   He says,  “Criticisms are welcome.  This is a draft essay that I wanted to get out because we are releasing our December and annual surface temperature analysis on the GISS web site.  We will prepare a write-up on 2009 temperatures for the GISS web site next week.”   Some of the findings include:  The warmest recent year was 2005, not 1998!  And he also kills a few other wrong conclusions of the skeptics, such as that there has been a decade-long cooling trend, which most certainly is not the case.  One thing is clear: James Hansen (or someone he knows) surfs the internet for comments on climate change. Here’s a bit of an excerpt:

“Why are some people so readily convinced of a false conclusion, that the world is really experiencing a cooling trend? That gullibility probably has a lot to do with regional short?term temperature fluctuations, which are an order of magnitude larger than global average annual anomalies. Yet many lay people do understand the distinction between regional short?term anomalies and global trends. For example, here is comment posted by “frogbandit” at 8:38 p.m. 1/6/2010 on City Bright blog:

“I wonder about the people who use cold weather to say that the globe is cooling. It forgets that global warming has a global component and that its a trend, not an everyday thing. I hear people down in the lower 48 say its really cold this winter. That ain’t true so far up here in Alaska. Bethel, Alaska, had a brown Christmas. Here in Anchorage, the temperature today is 31. I can’t say based on the fact Anchorage and Bethel are warm so far this winter that we have global warming. That would be a really dumb argument to think my weather pattern is being experienced even in the rest of the United States, much less globally.”

I wonder about those people too.  It’s the usual USA-centric viewpoint of Americans though — what we think and experience is universal, or at least, the desired norm and if not, you’re weird. Of course, that’s not true.  There’s a big world out there that isn’t like us, and doesn’t experience our cold snaps from Canada or the Arctic.

Hansen is not the only person fighting the perception of the Cold Snap versus Global Warming. One thing global warming skeptics don’t seem to get is the difference between winter and a global warming trend (which lasts longer than two months). In fact, where I live we had a very cold December and January, but it wasn’t record-setting cold by a long shot, as it wasn’t in [...]

Not exactly a passenger jet -- FlyH2 Concept Aircraft Powered by Hydrogen and Electric Batteries

A new report lays out the challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the airplane and boat transportation sectors. Those sectors make up about 3% of all global greenhouse gas emissions right now*, but their contribution could increase by 10 times by 2050.   Recent moves by the airline industry to study biofuels and even hydrogen-powered airplanes might mitigate carbon pollution, however. From Science Insider:

“. . . . projections spelled out in a new report reviewing the issue by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change suggests that by 2050 the total amount of carbon pollution from these sources could increase tenfold, depending on population, economics, and technology trends. Were that to happen, emissions would be as high as the entire transportation sector, which takes up 14% of global greenhouse emissions, currently dominated by pollution from cars and trucks. “It’s startling what the potential for growth in this field is,” says report co-author David Greene of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.”

A number of trends suggest that the industry may be able to forge a more sustainable future. When Greene began analyzing emissions from the aviation sector in the 1980s, “the consensus was there really wasn’t a role for biofuels in aircraft—let alone hydrogen,” he says. But as the report lays out, the industry has begun looking into both alternatives to jet fuel. “They see the way that the industry is moving.” Last October, the International Air Transport Association set up a target of improving its fuel efficiency by 1.5% a year through 2020, which is a “fairly aggressive” goal, Greene says.”

There are experimental hydrogen planes being developed in South Africa.  One is pictured above and more info is on their website, FlyH2 Aerospace.  There is a slideshow link there and notice who is making the hydrogen fuel cells — Horizon Fuel Cells of China.

The early hydrogen cells don’t look very sophisticated, to say the least.  It’s hard to picture a fuel cell powering a passenger jet with more than 50 people aboard, but it’s early in their development.   A fuel cell plane first flew in July 2009 in Hamburg and Boeing was testing hydrogen fuel cell planes in 2008 but it’s not clear if they are still testing these planes.

*Three percent doesn’t seem like enough to me, given the enormous numbers of flights per day just over the U.S  alone.   According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the latest data is from October 2009 and it reported 784,200 scheduled domestic and international flights, which is  down 4.5 percent from the number of flights operated in October 2008! . . . .  The number of domestic flights decreased 4.5 percent in October from a year earlier while international flights were down 4.4 percent.   That’s a lot of jet fuel.

And according to the Pew Center report, the U.S. numbers alone are a [...]

OPERA

The Futurist Manifesto by Thomas Köner

February 27, 2010
CaxiaForum, Barcelona

Artist Thomas Köner has created a digital opera based on Marinetti’s manifesto.

link (in Spanish)

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Pickens Reduces Order for Wind Turbines, Puts Panhandle Wind Farm on Hold . . . . “Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has cut his massive order for wind turbines from GE by more than half. . . . “

You've been Pickened

Who didn’t see this coming?

The T. Boone Pickens Texas wind farm idea in Texas is now on hold and will not be built until the infrastructure of Texas changes.   Instead, he’ll be building smaller wind farms in Canada and Minnesota.

Foreign oil from Canada is no good to Pickens — foreign wind is just fine.

You have to agree that Canada’s dirty oil sands oil (tar sands) are not something we want to use, but the pipeline into Minnesota is already approved and being built.   We wish it wasn’t.

Meanwhile, T. Boone Pickens has cut his massive order for wind turbines from GE by more than half. He says it’s because there are no transmission lines in the Texas Panhandle, the same place there were no transmission lines when Boone Pickens came up with his idea of a giant wind farm there.   Now it’s obvious this entire wind farm idea was to get a grassroots organization to support his natural gas plan and impress the public and lawmakers with his idea.

If he or any other billionaire really wants to “get the U.S. off of foreign oil” as he continually emphasizes (not a bad idea in itself) then he’d be investing in solar panel factories and planning for solar arrays in Texas along with wind farms.   A person like Pickens, with all his money, would make more of an impact by simply investing in the technology of the future.  But he really always wanted all American trucks to run on natural gas instead of gasoline made from “foreign oil” and this was his investment gamble, one which got him invited to a lot of environmental meetings with other corporate types and people from the new Obama administration.  Boone Pickens has never cared about renewable energy other than as a way for himself to make money.  The gullible thousands who signed up for his plans thinking they were supporting green energy now find themselves in the position of supporting one fossil fuel over another. They all emit CO2 when they’re burned and most people would argue that  natural gas is a little better than burning diesel. Is it really better?  Not so much.

“In spite of trade-offs, many still believe that diesel fuel is a viable alternative to natural gas. Why? Because diesel engines are efficient. They operate at high compression ratios and convert a large percentage of the fuel’s available energy into usable work. Diesel engines’ higher fuel efficiency generally lowers the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to the greenhouse effect.

Another central subject for this debate is methane emissions. According to Toy, “methane is approximately 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.” One study suggests [...]

Coal is a killer in so many ways. Not only are the CO2 emissions adding enormously to climate change, but the mercury emissions are poisoning people, fish and the environment, mountaintop removal is decimating forests and mountains in the southeast and toxins in water from mining are causing severe human health hazards.  Recently reported is the fact that coal miners are getting black lung disease at twice the rate they did only a couple of decades ago.

“Black lung disease is the common name for coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. It is caused by breathing coal dust over an extended period of time. As coal dust accumulates in the lungs—the body is capable of neither dissolving nor expelling the coal—lung tissue is destroyed, reducing lung capacity and leading to fibrosis and a greater risk of emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses. There is no cure for this extremely painful and incapacitating disease. As lung tissue hardens, miners become short of breath and suffer excruciating pain each time they breathe.”

The rise in black lung is directly related to the push by coal operators to extract greater profits by extracting more coal in a shorter time with fewer workers.”

Want to see what black lung disease looks like? After the break there are a couple of photos of it. It will make you quit smoking and/or mining coal, if you do either one.

The problem now is that coal miner lung disease is on the rise. In Eastern  Kentucky, “the disease persists — and is far worse than federal health officials anticipated it would be by now.” Coal company owners are trying to get more work out of fewer people, and even with mountaintop removal happening (which takes less workers) coal mining underground continues. Imagine working in a coal mine for 20-30 years, and what your lungs would look like. Is it work it to these people to become incapacitated with lung disease at the ripe old age of 42 or 46, the age at which some of these men have to retire because they are literally dying? I’m sure if they had it to do over again, they’d rather do just about anything but mine for coal!

“More than 10,000 miners have died from black lung in the past 10 years, compared to 400 miners who have died from accidents over the same period. The number of fatalities is expected to rise as more miners become incapacitated by this debilitating disease.

According to figures released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), nearly 9 percent of miners with 25 years or more experience tested positive for black lung in 2005-2006, the latest year for which published data is available. This compares to 4 percent of miners in the late 1990s. The rates also doubled for miners with 20 to 24 years in the mines, many of whom are in their late 30s and 40s.

This is what it looks like.

(Click for larger pictures. Sorry they are so [...]

Cover of the Latest RS

Rolling Stone has two articles on climate change and politics in its latest issue.  “As the World Burns” by Jeff Goodell is about “How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming.”   While some news outlets were busy blaming President Obama for somehow ruining the Copenhagen climate conference, they were ignoring the real devils in the details — the lobbyists for Big Oil and Big Coal who have prevented any serious climate legislation from passing, or even being considered,  so far.   The other article is called “The Climate Killers”  and is about 17 main climate change enemies  (differing  in names from the previous article here on that) including: Warren Buffett, Don Blankenship, Rupert Murdoch, Jack Gerard, Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, the brain-dead Senator Inhofe, the inaccurate George Will, and others.

Sen. Mary Landrieu is a real puzzler because she represents Louisiana, which will lose out big-time when sea levels rise.  (If you thought Katrina was bad for New Orleans, just wait until sea levels rise in the next decades).

The first article is the most interesting because it addresses the money in Washington and the bad influences that control our politics.  It also gives a history of the last year in attempts that have been made by Republican obstructionists, Tea Partiers , the fake-science pushers on the right, the doubt-planters, and the money behind the lobbyists.  We are not influencing our Washington representatives nearly as much as Exxon and Big Coal are.

It seems like climate change will never be seriously addressed in this country until we either go to “war” with it or until all the money influences are removed from Washington D.C.  Lobbyist money is just far too influential in the U.S. Congress,  to the detriment of what needs to be done. Even the weak “climate” legislation they managed to put together is market driven and run by big Wall Street money interests!  Yet that’s not good enough for the lobbyists.  Cap and trade is a capitalist’s dream come true, but our political system is so twisted right now that the Republicans, who love market solutions for everything, can’t even see that.  Since that’s the case, we might as well push for what we really need instead,  a big price put on carbon emissions along with a strong cap, with the revenue returned to the people.

The last paragraph of the article sums up a big part of the problem:

“Despite the near-certainty of a climate catastrophe, there are no crowds marching in the streets to demand action, no prime-time speech from President Obama. Even the most aggressive climate legislation the Senate might pass — something on par with the House bill — will still fall tragically short of what climate scientists tell us needs to be done to avoid the looming chaos and destruction. In that sense — the only one that ultimately matters — the battle over global warming may [...]

Lisa Murskowski in Smog

Did you know the Clean Air Act was in trouble? It is, and from the usual suspects.  There will be many more battles like this to come.

This request to take action is from Friends of the Earth. The threat is coming from a right-wing Senator, Murkowski, from Alaska.  Murkowski’s reasoning to stop the EPA’s regulatory authority is that she is afraid the EPA is going to “regulate” emissions from stationary sources of CO2 other than coal plants and other power plants, such as hospitals, schools and peoples’ homes.  That’s not the intent of the Act whatsoever, and the EPA has no intention of regulating emissions from homes and schools.  Murkowski  knows this of course.  But she continues to spread the fear to score political points for her party, the GOP.  The mission of the GOP is to defeat any and all climate change legislation.   The EPA needs to retain the authority to regulate emissions, so we have to stop her amendment and similar obstructionism to come.  (Read her analysis here.)

The Clean Air Act — the key federal tool that can cut the pollution that causes global warming — is under attack.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, is expected to offer an amendment on January 20 that would stop the Obama administration from using the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Friends of the Earth and a broad coalition of environmental and conservation groups from across the country have sent a letter to senators asking them to oppose the amendment.

Click here to view the letter (pdf).

You can take action to help save the Clean Air Act. If you haven’t yet, click here to send your senators a message asking them to vote against the Murkowski amendment and save the Clean Air Act. 

Please join us in the fight to save the Clean Air Act by sending your Senators a message today. Just enter your zip code here to get started.

Luigi Russolo e la musica futurista
by Giovanni Lista
Edizioni Mudima (Milano), 2009
190 pages, 92 images
ISBN: 9788887684544

Luigi Russolo. Painter, performer and theorist of futurist “rumorismo”, he experimented a new kind of music based on noises and on the largest extension of sound materials. Russolo let the music free, refusing any opposition between sound and noise and therefore affirming the deep unity of acoustic phenomena. His theories and concerts, given by intonarumori and Rumorharmonium, marked the beginning of “concrete music”, “sound poetry” and noises performances’ expressive currents. This book analyzes Russolo’s ideas and approach and collects as well his most important theorical essais, together with documents and statements by such people as Luciano Berio, John Cage, Michel Seuphor or Pierre Schaeffer. The reader can understand the historical importance of futurist “rumorismo” and Russolo’s role of special forerunner of the most revolutionary kinds of modern music.

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Un libro sull’opera di Luigi Russolo è stato appena pubblicato.

Luigi Russolo. Pittore, performer e teorico del “rumorismo” futurista, sperimentò una nuova musica fondata sui rumori e sulla massima estensione della materia sonora. Rifiutando l’opposizione tra suono e rumore, affermando cioè la profonda unità del fenomeno acustico, Russolo ha liberato la musica. Le sue teorie e i suoi concerti, eseguiti con gli intonarumori e il Rumorharmonium, hanno inaugurato la corrente espressiva della “musica concreta”, della “poesia sonora” e della performance rumorista. Questo libro analizza le idee e il percorso di Russolo, raccogliendo anche i suoi più importanti scritti teorici, insieme a documenti e testimonianze, da Luciano Berio a John Cage, da Michel Seuphor a Pierre Schaeffer, sull’importanza storica del rumorismo futurista e sul ruolo di Russolo in quanto illustre precursore delle forme più rivoluzionarie della musica moderna.

Thanks, Giovanni!

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(ANSAR) – ROMA, 3 DIC -’Roma ospitera’ il museo dei futuristi, in un sede ancora da decidere’. Lo annuncia l’assessore alla cultura del comune di Roma, Umberto Croppi. ‘Il museo comprendera’ anche la collezione della fondazione di Giacomo Balla che appartiene a Laura Biagiotti’, aggiunge Croppi, che ha presentato l’arazzo di Balla intitolato ‘Genio Futurista’ e che sara’ esposto nell’Ara Pacis fino al 31 gennaio. Il taglio del nastro e’ stato affidato al presidente della Repubblica Napolitano e al sindaco Alemanno.

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Brrrrrrrr! It's winter. Happens every year.

It’s been every cold in Minnesota, the U.S. as a whole, and Europe this last month.  Meanwhile, human-caused CO2 is still driving climate change.  (Discussing that is a very detailed article in the second half of this article.)

Yes — it’s the coldest part of winter, exactly when we expect the coldest weather.  Remember last winter?  Same thing happened.  That’s because of “seasons” which at least half of Americans experience or are aware of.  The people who don’t are apparently the climate change deniers, who keep forgetting there’s a thing called “winter”.  Winter cold is caused by the less-intense solar power here in the Northern hemisphere, due to the tilt of the earth this time of year as we travel around the Sun.   Funny thing though, in winter we are actually closer to the Sun, as a planet.  So solar activity and proximity does not cause winter.  In addition, much of our cold and warm winter fluctuations depend on occasional el Ninos and La Ninas.  Sometimes they even combine to really screw things up.  Solar variations only have a mild influence on weather and climate.

I’d be worried if it wasn’t very cold in January, like I was worried 4-5 years ago, when it wasn’t.  About five years ago my memory tells me that January was still cold, but not nearly as cold, and for less of an amount of time than in the past.  This seemed to be a trend, which  I noticed all on my own.  But, I realize people have to be careful “recognizing” trends that only last a couple of years because the time period is not long enough to indicate a true trend.  Then last year and this one, the weather seems again to be colder, longer, than during the trend I thought I had observed of a warming January over several years.

Weather is only weather, and trends in climate are only observable over decades and centuries.  Even then, they may not hold true every year because there are fluctuation years.  I learned only recently that the “Little Ice Age” lasted into the 1800s.  Since then, people claim we are still coming out of the Little Ice age, but were were well out of it by the time of my memories of my earliest winters in Minnesota, where the snow came up to the roof of my house every December and it was brutally cold.  So the end of that cold trend did not affect the cold weather years I remember. Memories are also tricky things, especially memories of weather. You always remember the most severe more than the typical.  Even so, I remember winters much colder, that lasted longer, than they are today — even this year.    So while the last few weeks have been painfully cold in my area, they are not unusual or strangely cold at all.

The skeptics and climate change deniers I see spreading their disinformation all over the place online, who maybe don’t even realize [...]