Thursday, October 28th, 2010
MIREYA NAVARRO, - The New York Times
Stephan: When I wrote my first book in 1976, I lived in Arizona in Flagstaff, where I co-directed a remote viewing archaeological site, and in Tucson. Through an encounter on a mountain I was given access into the Hopi culture, and through another connection, the Navajo. I learned many things but what particularly impacted me was the realization that when the Green Transition occurred Native Americans would become genuine nations within the United States, sanctioned by ancient treaties. And that this will happen because the resources within their territories, and the territories themselves make them affluent. It started with casinos, which have always seemed to me a voluntary reparations tax. But this will be dwarfed by the income from wind and sun and the rising value of their lands.
This story, I believe is the next step of this evolving process.
BLUE GAP, Ariz. — For decades, coal has been an economic lifeline for the Navajos, even as mining and power plant emissions dulled the blue skies and sullied the waters of their sprawling reservation.
But today there are stirrings of rebellion. Seeking to reverse years of environmental degradation and return to their traditional values, many Navajos are calling for a future built instead on solar farms, ecotourism and microbusinesses.
‘At some point we have to wean ourselves,
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Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
BJORN LOMBORG, - Investors.com
Stephan: Danish author, Bjorn Lomborg rose to prominence for questioning climate change with his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, and became the darling of the climate change deniers. Then he re-evaluated his position, and changed course. This represents his current thinking, and I think he makes some very good points.
The Green Transition can either leave America as a dreadfully reduced nation, or we can innovate and begin manufacturing again, and come out different but strong and robust. The choice will be largely determined by the election on 2 November. If John Boehner becomes speaker I think the outcome will be quite grim.
Global warming may not be the apocalyptic problem that climate Cassandras like Al Gore claim, but it is real and we need to do something about it. The question is what.
For 20 years now, Gore and his acolytes have been campaigning single-mindedly for what has become known as the Kyoto approach to global warming - the idea that the only real way to solve the problem is for governments to either force or bribe their citizens to drastically reduce their use of carbon-emitting fuels.
This effort, which has dominated mainstream thinking about climate policy for most of the last decade, has led to … well, actually very little. Despite grandiose pledges such as the 2008 promise by the Group of Eight industrialized nations to work to cut global carbon emissions in half by 2050, no meaningful international climate agreement has ever been reached and greenhouse-gas levels in the atmosphere are higher than they’ve ever been.
Why so little progress? It’s simple. The Kyoto approach proposes a ‘solution’ that is more expensive than the problem it’s meant to solve - which is to say that it’s no solution at all.
In a 2009 paper for the Copenhagen Consensus Center, climate economist Richard Tol determined […]
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Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
IAN O'NEILL, - Astroengine.com
Stephan:
During the hunt for the predicted ripples in space-time - known as gravitational waves - physicists stumbled across a rather puzzling phenomenon. Last year, I reported about the findings of scientists using the GEO600 experiment in Germany. Although the hi-tech piece of kit hadn’t turned up evidence for the gravitational waves it was seeking, it did turn up a lot of noise.
Before we can understand what this ‘noise
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Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
TRACEY BRYANT, - University of Delaware
Stephan:
As the ice-capped Arctic Ocean warms, ship traffic will increase at the top of the world. And if the sea ice continues to decline, a new route connecting international trading partners may emerge — but not without significant repercussions to climate, according to a U.S. and Canadian research team that includes a University of Delaware scientist.
Growing Arctic ship traffic will bring with it air pollution that has the potential to accelerate climate change in the world’s northern reaches. And it’s more than a greenhouse gas problem — engine exhaust particles could increase warming by some 17-78 percent, the researchers say.
James J. Corbett, professor of marine science and policy at UD, is a lead author of the first geospatial approach to evaluating the potential impacts of shipping on Arctic climate. The study, ‘Arctic Shipping Emissions Inventories and Future Scenarios,
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Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Stephan: This research, like the Monarch butterfly migration, is telling us that we need to rethink our understanding of consciousness and its relationship to neuroanatomy.
Bumblebees can find the solution to a complex mathematical problem which keeps computers busy for days.
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London have discovered that bees learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they discover the flowers in a different order. Bees are effectively solving the ‘Travelling Salesman Problem’, and these are the first animals found to do this.
The Travelling Salesman must find the shortest route that allows him to visit all locations on his route. Computers solve it by comparing the length of all possible routes and choosing the shortest. However, bees solve it without computer assistance using a brain the size of grass seed.
Professor Lars Chittka from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences said: ‘In nature, bees have to link hundreds of flowers in a way that minimises travel distance, and then reliably find their way home – not a trivial feat if you have a brain the size of a pinhead! Indeed such travelling salesmen problems keep supercomputers busy for days. Studying how bee brains solve such challenging tasks might allow us to identify the minimal neural circuitry required for complex problem solving.’
The team used […]
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