Prokaryotes and others can post links here to interesting news/links. CP will be doing only the barest of news roundups this week.
Thanks to this solar panel, Sara Ruto no longer takes a three-hour taxi ride to a town with electricity to recharge her cellphone. More photos here.
Beyond Fossil Fuels: African Huts Far From the Grid Glow With Renewable Power
KIPTUSURI, Kenya “” For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.
Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.
Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.
That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.
“My main motivation was the phone, but this has changed so many other things,” Ms. Ruto said on a recent evening as she relaxed on a bench in the mud-walled shack she shares with her husband and six children.
As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, these tiny systems are playing an epic, transformative role.
Since Ms. Ruto hooked up the system, her teenagers’ grades have improved because they have light for studying. The toddlers no longer risk burns from the smoky kerosene lamp. And each month, she saves $15 in kerosene and battery costs “” and the $20 she used to spend on travel.
In fact, neighbors now pay her 20 cents to charge their phones, although that business may soon evaporate: 63 families in Kiptusuri have recently installed their own solar power systems.
“You leapfrog over the need for fixed lines,” said Adam Kendall, head of the sub-Saharan Africa power practice for McKinsey & Company, the global consulting firm. “Renewable energy becomes more and more important in less and less developed markets.”
The United Nations estimates that 1.5 billion people across the globe still live without electricity, including 85 percent of Kenyans, and that three billion still cook and heat with primitive fuels like wood or charcoal.
There is no reliable data on the spread of off-grid renewable energy on a small scale, in part because the projects are often installed by individuals or tiny nongovernmental organizations.
But Dana Younger, senior renewable energy adviser at the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group’s private lending arm, said there was no question that the trend was accelerating. “It’s a phenomenon that’s sweeping the world; a huge number of these systems are being installed,” Mr. Younger said.
With the advent of cheap solar panels and high-efficiency LED lights, which can light a room with just 4 watts of power instead of 60, these small solar systems now deliver useful electricity at a price that even the poor can afford, he noted. “You’re seeing herders in Inner Mongolia with solar cells on top of their yurts,” Mr. Younger said.
In Africa, nascent markets for the systems have sprung up in Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi and Ghana as well as in Kenya, said Francis Hillman, an energy entrepreneur who recently shifted his Eritrea-based business, Phaesun Asmara, from large solar projects financed by nongovernmental organizations to a greater emphasis on tiny rooftop systems.
In addition to these small solar projects, renewable energy technologies designed for the poor include simple subterranean biogas chambers that make fuel and electricity from the manure of a few cows, and “mini” hydroelectric dams that can harness the power of a local river for an entire village.
A just-announced decision by Federal regulators – that all parties who benefit from new transmission in the Midwest must share in the cost of building it – may go a long way toward determining the future of renewables.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision defines MultiValue Projects (MVPs) as wires having a regional impact and wide-ranging public benefits. It approves the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) proposal that the cost of building or upgrading MVPs be distributed among all beneficiaries. FERC’s intent is to make more affordable the development of new regional transmission.
The decision is the culmination of a push over much of the last decade by renewables advocates in the Midwest to get utilities and transmission system planners and operators to think more about wind power but is expected to apply where new wires are built to accommodate other renewable energy resources.
“”¦The three buzz words are planning, paying and permitting,” explained Beth Soholt, Executive Director of the Midwest activist group Wind on the Wires. Over the last decade, Midwest renewables advocates did a lot of work on transmission planning for the integration of variable renewables because “the system operators and the transmission planners have had to do a lot of learning about how you do that.”
As more states instituted Renewable Electricity Standards (RESs), transmission professionals realized the renewables advocates were pushing them where they needed to go. “In the Midwest,” Soholt said, “we have about 10,000 megawatts of wind in the ground and spinning. To meet our renewable requirements through 2025, we need an additional 25-to-30,000 megawatts.” And, she added, “we don’t know what’s going to happen with load growth.”
In the late 1990s, California developers had pioneered the idea of including the full array of stakeholders in planning to build wires for its wind-rich regions. Texas formalized the method by establishing stakeholder-approved Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZs) to which developer-enabling lines would be built. Other transmission systems, including the MISO, followed.
With such planning, “we had finally gotten far enough,” Soholt said, and “the next hurdle was: How do you pay for this new transmission?”
In the wind-rich Midwest, often called “the Saudi Arabia of wind,” building new transmission is especially complicated because the MISO territory is spread from eastern Montana to northern Ohio, as well as north to Saskatchewan and south to Missouri and Kentucky.
What all proposed transmission to facilitate renewable development shared, Soholt explained, was incorporated into the idea of a regional, 345-kilovolt (or larger) MVP. It would enable public policy objectives, serve local load growth, reliably keep the lights on, and assure the best-priced electricity to ratepayers by reducing transmission congestion.
The MISO submitted to FERC the idea of establishing 100% cost sharing among all stakeholders for such MVPs. “FERC largely found that what MISO had proposed was just and reasonable,” Soholt said. “The job creation, the economic development, the wind farms in lots of different locations and all the associated additional benefits,” Soholt said, flow to electricity consumers in states throughout the region.
“The reason this is so precedential,” Soholt said, is that “until we had an idea of how FERC was going the treat the cost allocation,” none of the transmission planned over the last five years could move forward. “There was too much money at stake that utilities didn’t know how would be allocated or recovered.” But, with this decision, “now we can move into implementation.”
Seventeen projects are listed in the FERC filing. “All of those lines are going to get more scrutiny now,” Soholt said. “What you’ll see next is utilities or other transmission developers stepping up to make the business case.”
Among the projects most likely to be quickly affected, Soholt said, are (1) the Michigan thumb project, (2) the Brookings line to deliver power from South Dakota to Minneapolis-St. Paul, and (3) the La Cross to Madison line enhancing Wisconsin’s ability to access Dakota and Iowa wind.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
The real need is gas to cook and heat with, that would stop habitat destruction that causes climate change, and also the health problems associated with the smoke, and the social issues where a woman’s day is so consumed with collecting more fuel that she could never consider studying or doing other things because she is too busy roaming around looking for wood. Solar panels are fine for charging a cell phone though they can’t do much else.
It was a great Christmas gift to read this front-and-center in the New York Times the other day!
African Huts Far From the Grid Glow With Renewable Power
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/science/earth/25fossil.html
Citizen engagement platforms grow in 2010 (potentially for broad civic engagement toward Net-Zero advances) http://t.co/QtNvsde
Tea party activists seeing red over Delaware’s green initiatives
System discouraging waste and pollution criticized as meddling with subsidized fossil fuels
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20101226/BUSINESS/12260321
Australian commodities hit by Christmas deluge
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Flash floods and heavy rain triggered by a tropical cyclone hit large parts of Australia’s northeast over the Christmas weekend, disrupting agriculture and mining, weather forecasters said on Sunday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101226/wl_nm/us_australia_weather
Crops absorb pharmaceuticals from sewage sludge spread on farmlands
(NaturalNews) Agricultural crops can absorb pharmaceuticals found in the water used to irrigate them or the sewage sludge used to fertilize them, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Toledo-Ohio and published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030841_sewage_sludge_crops.html
Oil of oregano fights harmful bacteria, cancer
Sadhana Ravishankar, a food microbiologist at UofA, discovered that carvacrol, a phenol of oregano oil, exhibits powerful antioxidant and antimicrobial activity, not only when consumed but also when applied to foods.
Ravishankar’s lab at UofA had previously identified oregano oil as a powerful antibacterial in lab testing, but she and her team decided to test the oil on food to see how it fared. They discovered that when applied ground beef, oregano oil actually prevented the formation of up to 78 percent of the cancer-causing molecules that normally come about when meat is cooked at high temperatures.
“The idea that something in a plant can inactivate all this bacteria is very fascinating to me,” Ravishankar told reporters from The Arizona Daily Star.
Published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the findings have immense implications for food safety, as oregano oil could be applied to various food preparations to ward off the formation of dangerous microbes and other contaminants that threaten human health. Rather than resort to irradiation, chemicals or other unnatural interventions, oregano oil just might be a viable, natural alternative.
Oil of oregano is a powerful weapon against intestinal parasites and yeast overgrowth as well. One study found that 77 percent of enteric parasite patients who took oregano oil for six weeks ended up parasite-free. And oil of oregano also helps stave off Candida albicans, a yeast overgrowth that can severely debilitate quality of life
Learn more: http://www.NaturalNews.com/030833_oil_of_Oregano_cancer.html
Oregano Moves Cows Toward Climate Neutral
A dash of oregano does more than make pizza taste delicious: it also can reduce the amount of methane in cow burps, new research shows.
Scientists have been trying to decrease methane from livestock for years; methane is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) as a greenhouse gas, and cows in the U.S. emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year. Scientists have tried vaccines, breeding, antibiotics, and other dietary supplements like garlic or fumaric acid (found in lichens and moss). http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/thegreenguide/2010/09/cows-methane-oregano-global-warming.html
Ice Age in Moscow: Streets turn into skating rink, Domodedovo airport closed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaiFkM4ercU&feature=player_embedded
[JR: It's Moscow!]
Video of Moscow glazed in ice after freezing rain shuts airport, power lines http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5ELxQAda0g&feature=channel
Always exiting in Moscow, in the summer worst fires and smoke in history and winter freezing ice everywhere.
fox news
Over Recycling Harming Companies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcVsAOXOUcc&feature=player_embedded
Man goes to court over gas station explosion
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/12/25/1578857/man-goes-to-court-over-gas-station.html
Gas pipe theft in Mansfield ‘risked explosion’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-12022847
Would not happen with electricity from clean technologies.
Read this like it is about the action to combat climate change.
5 Shocking Facts From The Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours
Here are some of the most shocking truths revealed in the Times’ investigation:
1. Nearly 400 feet long, the Horizon had formidable and redundant defenses against even the worst blowout. It was equipped to divert surging oil and gas safely away from the rig. It had devices to quickly seal off a well blowout or to break free from it. Unfortunately, when the explosion occured, the crew were frozen by the sheer complexity of the Horizon’s defenses, and by the policies that explained when they were to be deployed. One emergency system alone was controlled by 30 buttons.
2. At critical moments, members of the crew hesitated and did not take the decisive steps needed. Communications fell apart, warning signs were missed and crew members in critical areas failed to coordinate a response. For nine long minutes, as the drilling crew battled the blowout and gas alarms eventually sounded on the bridge, no warning was given to the rest of the crew. For many, the first hint of crisis came in the form of a blast wave.
3. The Horizon’s owner, Transocean, the world’s largest operator of offshore oil rigs, had provided the crew with a detailed handbook on how to respond to signs of a blowout. Yet its emergency protocols often urged rapid action while also warning against overreaction. Fred Bartlit, chief counsel for the presidential commission that is looking into the Horizon disaster, said Transocean’s handbook was “a safety expert’s dream,” and yet after reading it cover to cover he struggled to answer a basic question: “How do you know it’s bad enough to act fast?”
4. Heavy drilling fluid, called mud, kept disappearing into formation cracks. Less mud meant less weight bearing down on the oil and gas that were surging up. This set off violent “kicks” of gas and oil that sent the Horizon’s drilling teams scrambling to control the well. March 8 had been especially bad. A nasty kick had left millions of dollars worth of drilling tools jammed in the well. Operations were halted for nine maddening days. There was still so much gas filtering up in the days leading to the April 20 explosion that cookouts were suspended on the deck.
5. As the dangerous job of drilling the deepwater well drew to a close, there was one crucial test remaining before the Horizon could plug the Macondo and move on. To make sure the well was not leaking, the crew would withdraw heavy mud from it and replace it with lighter seawater. Then they would shut in the well to see if pressure built up inside. If it did, that could mean hydrocarbons — oil and gas — were seeping into the well.
http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/5-shocking-facts-about-the-deepwater-horizons-final-hours/
The BP Oil Spill’s Long-Term Threat to Bluefin Tuna
Recently, evidence has emerged to suggest that the oil spill may have an impact far beyond the Gulf, threatening one of the world’s most lucrative fishing species.
The controversy surrounds dispersants, the chemical compounds that BP (BP) used to break up the spilled oil. Basically a form of detergent, dispersants make it possible for oil to interact with water, transforming huge oil slicks into microscopic droplets that could seemingly disappear into the Gulf. In theory, at least, this would make it easier for bacteria and weather to further break down the oil, allowing it to dissolve into the environment.
The tuna, which conservationists claim is on track to become an endangered species, spawns in only two areas: the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
To make things worse, bluefin tuna is already experiencing major problems. Exceedingly popular for sushi, the price of bluefin has skyrocketed over the past few years: In January 2010, a 510-pound bluefin tuna sold in Tokyo’s fish market for $175,000. With prices like that, fishermen are eager to reel in the fish.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/ieVirN
This makes eating tuna so much more enjoyable, how many of this stuff will be just shipped, no matter of contamination levels?
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NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 26 (UPI) — BP will find thousands of boom anchors left in the Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill, but may not remove them, the company says.
The anchors held the boom used to shield parts of the Louisiana from the oil, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reports.
The Coast Guard says BP’s experts will first determine whether the anchors are a hazard and whether removing them might cause more harm than good.
Fishermen say BP’s contractors just cut the boom from the anchors, leaving the hazards in the water. They say the anchors have snagged and torn their nets, and boat propellers have become tangled in the ropes, the newspaper reported. But BP has said its contractors removed all anchors that were not stuck deep in sediment or had not drifted away.
BP will hire contractors “to look at the feasibility of finding these anchors,” said Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Lionel Bryant, who met with the company last week.
But first BP plans to put even more anchors in the water to test the best imaging techniques to locate them.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/12/26/BP-to-locate-boom-anchors-left-in-gulf/UPI-19671293380660/
Looks like in 2010 we had extreme weather in almost every region of the world.
Hansen again nails it, releasing his book titled ……’Storms of my Grandchildren’ this year.
Many of us thought that ment in another generation, but it looks like its here and now. We going over….
Blizopolis….
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/43534/i95-blizzard-from-new-jersey-t-1.asp
The UK Met Office just released a map of temperature anomalies for the period Dec 1st-20th:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/21/article-1340436-0C8D98CF000005DC-966_634x366.jpg
Notice the warm anomalies over Western U.S., Canada, Greenland and cold anomalies over Eastern U.S., Europe and Alaska.
I found this map on the Climate Denial blog:
http://climatecrocks.com/
Climate change leaves Assam tea growers in hot water
Rising temperatures reducing yields and altering distinctive flavour of India’s most popular drink
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/26/climate-change-assam-tea
Why biodiversity loss and climate change are equal threats
Our biggest ally will be lost if we do not protect and enhance biodiversity in forests and other systems
Without protecting and enhancing biodiversity in forests and other systems we are losing our biggest ally. These living systems can lock away carbon at a fraction of the price that technical solutions for carbon storage could only do at huge cost and by expending even more energy.
Fortunately, over 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity involved 1,500 organisations across 90 governments, 388 NGOs and 21 UN agencies to help raise awarenessof the importance of biodiversity. The UN designated 2011-2020 the International Decade of Biodiversity. Among the agreements that came out of the UN’s major biodiversity meeting in Nagoya in October were commitments from 191 nations to increase the amount of the planet set aside for biodiversity protection to 17% of the land surface and 10% of the oceans.
Perhaps more importantly came increasing recognition of the econimic and health cost to humanity of biodiversity loss; not the least being the $3-4bn losses per annum associated with deforestation alone. These are losses which are actually making the World Bank and government finance ministers pick up their ears, they are losses no government can sustain indefinitely.
For the most part, people have seen biodiversity as being about saving endangered species, or setting aside special natural habitats as national parks. However the truth is that biodiversity is an issue of mainstream economic importance, with consequences that are wide-ranging; from helping mitigate floods and droughts to providing a pharmacopeia of future medicines. It is as much about how we as consumers make informed choices about the products we purchase as it is about preserving exotic animals in far away places.
This fresh perspective is at the centre of the new international agreement. All governments are called to report on the condition of their country’s “natural capital assets”, alongside their reports to the UN and World Bank on their economic growth and GDP. The agreement calls on all private sector organisations to look at their activities and similarly report the biodiversity impact of their corporate activities. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/26/biodiversity-loss-climate-change
Colorado Bob #4-saw you over at the moronic inferno of The Guardian’s Comment is Free blog, Bob, fighting the good fight against the legions of the deranged. The Delaware story illustrates a savage reality. The forces of evil will not even leave people alone when they strive to do things themselves. Every tiny step forward will be bitterly contested and rolled back if possible, all, with a refreshing candour usually absent from their ranting, because it costs them money, their God. A system capable of outlawing seed exchange and seed banks, hence deliberately destroying biodiversity, for no higher good than making corporations the controllers of the human food supply, to maximise profit and the possibilities of pressuring entire populations into acquiescence, is way beyond redemption. It’s us or them, and has been for a long time.
Obama is good at getting his way…
Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/politics/26death.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a2
See this NYT Op-Ed:
Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming
Judah Cohen, Dec 25 2010
THE earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside.
How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26cohen.html
The author argues that decreased Arctic sea ice increases moisture in the air and hence greater snow cover in Siberia increasing albedo. Hence a negative feedback lowers winter temps in parts of Eurasia and North America. There is some discussion of this at RealClimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/cold-winter-in-a-world-of-warming/comment-page-6/#comments
———————–
I want make a point about framing. Some deniers are pointing to various attempts to reconcile cold winters with AGW as proof the AGW is not falsifiable; since AGW defenders argue that either cold winters or warm winters confirm AGW, AGW is not falsifiable. This is why they are mistaken.
AGW is falsifiable: it predicts stratospheric cooling and this has been observed; it predicts greater warming at night, and this has been observed; it predict greater warming in winter, and this has been observed on a global scale. Any of these tests could falsify AGW if they had gone the other way. (See John Cook’s http://www.skepticalscience.com/ blog.)
AGW never predicted warming would be uniform spatially or temporally. So cold snaps do not falsify it. But they were not predicted either. A theory is not falsified by new phenomena, but it is challenged to explain them. When a weird fossil is found it does not refute evolution, but evolutionary biologists are challenged to figure out how it fits in. Climatologists are working to understand this new phenomena and others. Competing theories are being put forward and will be tested. Just as creationists use contemporary debates in evolutionary theory to argue the theory is flawed so to climate change deniers will use normal debates about specific climate phenomena to distract the public and policy makers.
Well, my point won’t fit on a bumper sticker. Maybe some else can find a way to make this point more concisely.
Mud-stricken Calif. braces for more rain http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/40808234#40808234
Burst pipes cause flood problems
Fire crews have been dealing with hundreds of flooding incidents after a sudden rise in temperatures led to problems with burst pipes.
Christmas Day saw the mercury rise above freezing in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow for the first time in days. While many people welcomed the milder temperatures, the thaw has caused flood damage to many homes and businesses. Strathclyde Fire and Rescue said it had attended more than 200 call-outs on Saturday alone.
Fire crews have also been forcing their way into empty properties to turn off water and power supplies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12080482
Floods trigger evacuations in NSW
State Emergency Services (SES) spokesman Phil Campbell has told AAP the flooding is not as severe as when the creek last overflowed two weeks ago http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/floods-trigger-evacuations-in-nsw-20101227-1983n.html
Arizona drought prompts unusual water proposal
Give up some water now to avoid cuts later
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/12/26/20101226arizona-drought-colorado-river-water-proposal.html
Drought-Hit Syria Creates Model ‘Water Scarcity’ Park
With its villages emptying due to drought, creating what the United Nations calls the “largest internal displacement in the Middle East in recent years,” Syria needs solutions to its water-scarcity problem, and fast. That’s why it’s so heartening to see that the government has made an effort to show that life can be lived well with less water.
Syrian Vice President Dr. Najah Al-Attar recently presided over the opening of a model park filled with drought-resistant plants in Dummar, a suburb of Damascus, the Middle East environmental blog Green Prophet reported:
Using drip irrigation techniques, the 1,000-square-meter ‘water scarcity park’ will harvest rainwater and also use solar power to generate electricity to pump water for irrigation. Drip irrigation is a technique used to conserve water as draws water directly from it sources and takes it the plants through a network of pipes with small holes so that water waste is minimal…. It is hoped that the park will be used as model for public and private parks and help rationalize the consumption of water and energy.
Per-Capita Water Availability Plummeting
After touring the park, Al-Attar hailed it as an example of better cooperation between the government and environmental organizations, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
With poor water management and lack of rainfall causing an almost 40 percent drop in per-capita water availability between 2002 and 2008 http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/12/drought-hit-syria-creates-model-water-scarcity-park.php
Powerful storm tears apart Valley homes
GLENDALE, AZ – A West Valley community is picking up the pieces after strong overnight storms caused considerable damage.
Powerful winds toppled trees on top of houses and tore off roofs in a community near 45th and Peoria avenues in Glendale.
Shingles, broken glass, and tree branches litter the neighborhoods.
The National Weather Service has not confirmed if a microburst hit the area, but neighbors are convinced that’s what it was. One neighbor says the wind speeds were more than 100 miles per hour at his house.
Microbursts are extremely powerful downward gusts of wind that focus on a small area and have been clocked at speeds of up to 150 miles an hour.
“Last night it sounded like a hurricane hit my house,” neighbor Mari Anne Zahm said. “It scared me so much I ran into my living room.”
“I came out and the fence was all blown over,” next-door neighbor John Hazard said. “[The wind] had to be at least 100 miles an hour, because [the storm] was here, and then ‘bam!’ It was gone.” Parts of Hazard’s house and even his grandchildren’s playground ended up in other neighbor’s yards. Bill Andresen’s house was one of the worst hit. A tin shed in his backyard was blown away by the storm.
“It’s gone, completely gone. I have no idea where it is. I drove around looking for it and I can’t find it,” Andresen said. “There’s probably another $25,000 to $30,000 damage done to this house.”
Repairs on her house finished just days ago from the last big storm. This is the second natural disaster the community has had to deal with in the past several months. Many homeowners had just completed the final repairs of the damage from October’s incredible hail storm
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_west_valley/glendale/powerful-storm-tears-apart-valley-homes
Chaotic Climate Oscillation…can we model this?
Freezing weather set to return across the country
freezing-weather-set-to-return
Insurance companies aren’t going to be happy paying over and over for storm-related damages. Maybe these storms are “Acts of God” and therefore not covered by insurance?
Sen. Tom Coburn says the president needs to lead the way in cutting the federal budget
“If we [don't] take some pain now, we’re going to experience apocalyptic pain. And it’s going to be out of control. The idea should be [that] we should control it,” Coburn told Wallace. “We’re not taking seriously the very real and urgent threat that will undermine the standard of living in this country.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46810.html
Talking about cutting fossil subsidies …
Cave-in forces over 800 to evacuate in E China
A land cave-in had prompted the evacuation of more than 800 villagers by Saturday evening in Zhoutian, local authorities said. With a diameter of 50 meters and a maximum depth of 5 meters, the cave-in occurred 8:40 p.m. Thursday in Zhoutian Township, said a local government spokesman. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90783/91300/7242830.html
Road closed over subsidence fear in Norwich http://www.liverpoolwired.co.uk/news.php/118174-Road-closed-over-subsidence-fear-in-Norwich
The Weather Service issued the “yellow alert” for the heat in Buenos Aires http://momento24.com/en/2010/12/22/the-weather-service-issued-the-yellow-alert-for-the-heat-in-buenos-aires/
Argentine city sees rush-hour riot
Dozens of passengers angered by a seven-hour train service suspension in Buenos Aires began rioting, causing serious damage to the city’s main station and injuring a dozen people, one seriously.Images broadcast on several television stations showed the rush-hour passengers throwing bottles and rocks and setting fire to the entrance doors of the Constitution station, where trains depart for suburbs south of the capital.
Police fired water cannons and tear gas at the mob to disperse it.A police official said the passengers were reacting to a blockage of one of the lines by about 20 ex-employees fighting to get their jobs http://story.argentinastar.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/d9ed072d737073b4/id/41511979/ht/Argentine-city-sees-rush-hour-riot/
Blizzard Warning Issued For New York: Snow, Everywhere! http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/snow.html?imw=Y&f=most-viewed-24h5
Broadway @ 46th St
http://www.trafficland.com/city/NYC/camera/2303/index.html
re #7 Interesting about the methane link and oregano.
For the past couple of years I’ve been cutting fresh oregano and putting it into a homemade salt solution to keep in the fridge when I need an antibiotic/antiseptic, – it’s very successful in treating cuts, gargling for a sore throat etc. It’s saved hundreds of dollars that otherwise would have been spent on veterinary fees :)
Oregano tastes great in meat sauces and gravies as well.
Much of Eastern Colorado now in moderate to severe drought
KUSA – While the Colorado mountains have received some very large snowfalls this season, the Front Range and Eastern Plains have remained very dry.
The National Weather Service says much of the eastern half of Colorado, including Denver, is in a moderate drought. They say portions of Southeastern Colorado are in a severe drought.
Gardening experts at Tagawa Gardens recommend homeowners water their lawns to prevent damage to their trees, bushes and grasses.
“It’s been painfully dry, and anybody who has any kind of investment in their landscape should be very concerned,” Luan Akin with Tagawa Gardens said. “There’s a way to help your landscape so it doesn’t crash on you next summer.” http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=171868&catid=339
Oil Rise to $100 May Stall as Refiners Curb Tax: Energy Markets
Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) — Oil supplies may come back to the U.S. Gulf Coast in January, sapping crude’s drive toward $100 a barrel, after stockpiles tumbled the most in 30 years this month as refiners sought to avoid year-end tax liabilities.
Supplies in states along the Gulf of Mexico, home to more than half of U.S. stockpiles, have fallen 9.2 percent this month to 167.3 million barrels, data from the Energy Department in Washington show. Oil settled at a two-year high of $91.51 a barrel on Dec. 23, bringing this year’s gain to 15 percent.
“I wouldn’t suspect plus-$90 is sustainable past the middle of January, because I think we’re going to see some stock builds” from Jan. 1, said Ken Medlock, an energy fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston.
Accounting rules allow refiners to take a bigger 2010 tax deduction by cutting stockpiles that have jumped this year as prices increased. Gulf Coast supplies fell in 27 of the past 29 Decembers. They have risen in four of the past five Januaries.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-27/oil-rise-to-100-may-stall-as-refiners-curb-tax-energy-markets.html
IPCC looking for communications manager to tackle crisis situation
Read more: IPCC looking for communications manager to tackle crisis situation – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/developmental-issues/IPCC-looking-for-communications-manager-to-tackle-crisis-situation/articleshow/7172695.cms
December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse
http://vimeo.com/18213768
Planet Eaarth ….
retailers hit by storm
Retail stocks were hit as the major snowstorm on the U.S. East Coast kept many shoppers away from malls just after Christmas, casting a pall on the final act of the holiday season. The weekend’s blizzard conditions, which shut down airports and halted traffic, may also signal an end to shoppers’ appetite in the next few months.
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=129455027117833&id=139434822741700
And all that with only ~0.8 K of global warming so far.
Farm Animals Get 80 Percent of Antibiotics Sold in U.S. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/news-update-farm-animals-get-80-of-antibiotics-sold-in-us
Heaviest December Snows in Six Decades to Further Disrupt New York Commute
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-28/heaviest-december-snows-in-six-decades-to-further-disrupt-new-york-commute.html
The article is all bla-bla, nothing about NAO or climate change precipitation.
Fire, flood devastate Scituate neighborhood
Fire, wind and floodwaters combined to turn Scituate’s Shore Acres into a soggy, storm-battered hell of swirling flames yesterday, forcing firefighters into boats to rescue people from their burning, flooded neighborhood.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1305788&srvc=rss
Broken glass yields clues to climate change
Clues to future climate may be found in the way that an ordinary drinking glass shatters. A study appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that microscopic particles of dust, emitted into the atmosphere when dirt breaks apart, follow similar fragment patterns as broken glass and other brittle objects. The research, by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jasper Kok, suggests there are several times more dust particles in the atmosphere than previously believed, since shattered dirt appears to produce an unexpectedly high number of large dust fragments.
The finding has implications for understanding future climate change because dust plays a significant role in controlling the amount of solar energy in the atmosphere. Depending on their size and other characteristics, some dust particles reflect solar energy and cool the planet, while others trap energy as heat.
“As small as they are, conglomerates of dust particles in soils behave the same way on impact as a glass dropped on a kitchen floor,” Kok says. “Knowing this pattern can help us put together a clearer picture of what our future climate will look like.”
The study may also improve the accuracy of weather forecasting, especially in dust-prone regions. Dust particles affect clouds and precipitation, as well as temperatures.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-broken-glass-yields-clues-climate.html
ENERGY
A Way to Make the Smart Grid Smarter
New solid-state power-management devices will charge cars fast and make the power grid more flexible and efficient.
New semiconductor-based devices for managing power on the grid could make the “smart grid” even smarter. They would allow electric vehicles to be charged fast and let utilities incorporate large amounts of solar and wind power without blackouts or power surges. These devices are being developed by a number of groups, including those that recently received funding from the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) and the National Science Foundation. http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26979/?mod=chfeatured