A new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance argues that a decentralized electricity generation scheme – using a variety of renewable resources – is achievable and advantageous. Most states could meet their demand for electricity with renewable energy sources inside their own borders, according to a new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit group in Washington that advocates for local sustainability solutions. The report, called Energy Self-Reliant States, examined the commercial potential for wind, rooftop solar, geothermal and small-scale hydro projects. Thirty-one states, mostly west of the Mississippi, could meet all their electric demand, and all states could generate at least 25 percent of their demand using these in-state resources, the authors of the report suggest. Of the 36 states with current renewable energy goals or mandates, all could meet these goals by relying on in-state renewable fuels, the report found. Roof-top photovoltaic panels on their own could generate 25 percent of electricity needs for more than 40 states. The report advocated strongly for state and local control over these renewable energy assets and a decentralized approach to electricity generation: building small-scale, distributed energy facilities and upgrading the transmission and distribution […]
Billionaire George Soros has picked a Stanford professor to head a $100 million project to address global climate change. Soros, ranked in Forbes magazine as the world’s 29th most wealthy individual, pledged $1.1 billion in total to climate change policy in mid-October. Law Prof. Thomas Heller, who will head the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), said the goal of the CPI in particular will be to improve the effectiveness of governments worldwide in implementing crucial measures. ‘The simple purpose [of the CPI] is to assess what is working and not working in the policy portfolios, and try to understand why you get the gap that exists between intention of policy and performance,’ Heller said. ‘And then work with governments to try and help them to improve the kind of policies they are adapting in key countries around the world.’ According to Heller, who has worked with Soros on other environmental-related issues, the idea of forming the CPI began circulating about a year ago, but really materialized in the last six months. Heller has been doing climate work for almost 20 years. ‘Tom has exceptional experience in the international arena and has been working on climate change issues […]
Greenhouse gas calculations blame carbon dioxide too much for global warming, and methane too little, suggest researchers Thursday. In the journal Science, a team led by Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York finds that chemical interactions between greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide cause more global warming than previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other efforts. ‘The total amount of warming doesn’t change, just the balance of gasses behind it,’ Shindell says. The world’s climate warmed an average about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1906 to 2005, very likely due to industrial greenhouse gases, the IPCC concluded in 2007, adding that carbon dioxide is ‘most important’ greenhouse gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas produced by lanfills, agriculture and some industries. In the study, Shindell and colleagues added chemical interactions between aerosols and greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon monoxide to a century-long model of climate change. They wanted to see the effects on each gas’s ‘Global Warming Potential,’ or individual contribution to global warming. Methane played a bigger role than expected, suggesting that climate treaties such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol need to consider […]
The importance of grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren is underlined in a study published today. But the research showed that it was only granddaughters who were likely to do better with their paternal grandmothers involved in their early lives. In contrast, the presence of paternal grandmothers had a detrimental effect on the survival of their grandsons. The discovery supports the idea that grandmothers have played an important role in human evolution and could explain why human females – alone among the animal kingdom – live well beyond their reproductive age. Molly Fox of Cambridge University and her colleagues tested out the idea by analysing the birth and death records of seven populations in Asia, North America, Europe and Africa who had lived in different periods going back to the 17th century. They looked at infant mortality in the first three years of life and found that it differed depending on whether paternal or maternal grandmothers were present in a grandchild’s early life. ‘The presence of a paternal grandmother in all seven of the populations had a harmful effect on grandsons because her presence was linked with an increase in mortality,’ Ms Fox said. […]
For as long as anyone can remember, McLennan County has been abstinence country. Nestled in the heart of Bible-Belt Texas, it’s the kind of place where the local newspaper prints ‘In God We Trust’ on the front page of every edition. ‘We’re a very conservative community,’ says Jan Hungate, an assistant superintendent for the West Independent School District. So when the McLennan County Collaborative Abstinence Program (MCCAP) came to her a little more than a decade ago, offering an abstinence-only sex education program, she says, ‘It was the answer to our prayers. It was exactly the way we wanted to go.’ For years, each school was responsible for developing their own curriculum. Armed with the federal government’s new abstinence-only grants, MCCAP offered to do the heavy lifting for free. They taught kids proper dating behavior, encouraged female students to think about their wedding days and why their virginity would matter then. In 2006 MCCAP had a $1 million budget, all from government grants, which they used to educate 6,000 to 7,000 students. Today, MCCAP struggles to reach half that number. Its $800,000 Community-Based Abstinence Education grant ran out in 2007 and was not renewed. Then, Obama’s 2010 budget did […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
