Interesting stuff

[Ken L]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291071,00.html
Makes sense to me.

[Ken L]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291071,00.html
Makes sense to me.

[LunaSea]

It all leads back to too many people. Those who choose to have more babies than it takes to replace themselves (that would be 2) should be taxed at a higher rate than those who have chosen to have 2 or fewer children. The whole concept of giving tax BREAKS for those with too many children is seriously flawed. The more babies you have the more food stamps you receive? http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/cookoo.gif http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/hammer.gif http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/cookoo.gif Those of us who have chosen to have NO children http://kfs.infopop.cc/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif should be the ones getting the big tax breaks for not using as much energy and not over-populating our planet. http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/thumbsup.gif

I have dogs...they ruin your rug and not your life! http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/rofl.gif

[dduffe]

It will be doubly hard to make an impact with renewables unless it becomes either forced or market driven where EVERY entity wants to use it because it becomes cheaper. New conventional coal plants coming online easily undo what progress is being made.

Just when we thought we were making a difference…


Home Depot has funded the planting of 300,000 trees in cities across the US. Each tree will absorb and store about one-third of a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime. In addition to the coal plants that already exist, there are now 151 new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today. The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized (500 MW) coal-fired power plant, in just 10 days of operation, would negate the Home Depot’s entire effort.

Wal-Mart, the largest “private” purchaser of electricity in the world is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their existing buildings by 20% over the next 7 years. "As one of the largest companies in the world, with an expanding global presence, environmental problems are our problems," said CEO Lee Scott. The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just one month of operation each year, would negate Wal-Mart’s entire effort.

California, which makes up over 10% of the country’s new vehicle market, passed legislation to cut GHG emissions in new cars by 25% and in SUVs by 18%, starting in 2009. If every car and SUV sold in California in 2009 met this standard, the CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just eight months of operation each year, would negate California’s 2009 effort.

In the US, approximately 5 billion square feet of residential, commercial and government buildings are renovated in a year. The US Conference of Mayors, American Institute of Architects, US Green Building Council and numerous states, counties and cities have adopted The 2030 Challenge to reduce the energy consumption of all renovated buildings by 50% (see www.architecture2030.org) (http://www.architecture2030.org)). The CO2 emissions from just one 750 MW coal-fired power plant each year would negate this entire 2030 Challenge effort.

If every household in the U.S. changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a compact fluorescent, the CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort.
The Campus Climate Challenge (CCC), a growing student movement in the US, states that global warming “is our problem, and it’s up to us to solve it, starting right here on campus, right now.” The challenge calls for all high school and college campuses in the US to go carbon neutral (reduce global warming pollution to zero). If the challenge were met, the CO2 emissions from just four medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate the CCC’s entire effort.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a ‘cap and trade’ cooperative effort by eleven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states (ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA, NJ, DL, MD) to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2014. The CO2 emissions from just 13 medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate the entire RGGI effort.

Many climate change bills have been introduced in Congress this year to cap and begin reducing US greenhouse gas emissions, so any new coal-fired power plants work to negate these efforts.

For a more positive outlook about significant changes there's this interview with Amory Lovins on the occassion of the 25th anniversary of RMI: Grist Interview (http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/news/maindish/2007/07/26/lovins/index.html)

Regarding China and renewable energy: The richest man in China is a solar engineer. and owns it's largest solar company, Li Ka-shing, who owns SolarTech. Did he get rich by believing in junk science? We'll see.

[CPP]

We in the US might have the will to green up and work at renewables, but how do you get a country like China to.
For example: To prepare for the next Olympics, China closed all of its factorys for 2 weeks to get the air clean enough so the committe could review the sites. Some pople had not seen the sun in years due to some of the worst air pollution in the world. Of course the factorys cranked up after the committe departed.

The data showed that out of 47 major cities along China's eastern coast, not one city's atmospheric pollution met the Level 1 standard and more than 60% of the cities failed to meet the state Level 2 standards. Of the 338 cities monitored, only 112 cities reached the Level 2 standard and 137 exceeded the Level 3 standard, meaning they are severely polluted.

Their drinking water is shipped in and just think the production of food products use their natural water, yuk. Of the 640 major cities in China, more than 300 face water shortages, with 100 facing severe scarcities. Each year, large amounts of pollutants are dumped into China's water bodies from municipal, industrial, and agricultural sources. China is the world's largest consumer of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. As a result of these activities, pollution is widespread in China's rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Except for some inland rivers and large reservoirs, water pollution trends in China have worsened in recent years, with the pollution adjacent to industrially developed cities and towns being particularly severe. 360m people in China don't have safe drinking water, wow.

Soon or later, something has to be done, and their population is still huge as compared to other world countries. And the US continues by providing dollar for China production of goods back to our own country. (ex: Goodyear) who continue to pour US money to build plants because it is cheaper labor.

Of course the goverment in China see the problems and work to make their land green by closing down illegal coal fired plants but the US dollars due to cheap labor built new legal ones and those exports China produces are required to allow them to go green.

[LunaSea]

CPP listed many of the reasons why I never shop at Wal-Mart. I'd much prefer to pay $10 for an item at a mom & pop store than 50 cents for the same item at Wal-Mart. I'm surprised they don't use cheap Chinese labor to build their stors...or maybe they DO! http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/hammer.gif

The only good news is that China curbed their birthrate to 1 child per family. http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/thumbsup.gif

[Ken L]

The pollution in China's coastal cities is causing seious health problems. They are and will clean things up as it becomes cheaper than that of the othewise attendant healthcare costs. This says nothing about CO2 however. They are building nuclear powerplants though. Cleaver people these Chinese.
DdI'm not sure if you're examples are inclusive of carbon sequestration or not but no matter. Thee is no way we can produce anything close to what we need with renewables. The only viable answer is nuclear. If people would calm down and those of them who can understand the issues would take the trouble to learn them we could be on our way. For instance, we no longer need to build huge powerplants. We can build smaller ones that are not subject to melt down or attractive terrorist targets. We can locate them nearer to the need and largely eliminate transmission lines and losses. We've been operating small nuclear powerplants in submarines for fifty years. We have a huge testing facilty in Idaho. The technology is well advanced beyond Three Mile Island but the media fueled paranoia is as bad as ever.

[YakontheFly]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by dduffe:
It will be doubly hard to make an impact with renewables unless it becomes either forced or market driven where EVERY entity wants to use it because it becomes cheaper. New conventional coal plants coming online easily undo what progress is being made.

Just when we thought we were making a difference…


Home Depot has funded the planting of 300,000 trees in cities across the US. Each tree will absorb and store about one-third of a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) over its lifetime. In addition to the coal plants that already exist, there are now 151 new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today. The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized (500 MW) coal-fired power plant, in just 10 days of operation, would negate the Home Depot’s entire effort.

Wal-Mart, the largest “private” purchaser of electricity in the world is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their existing buildings by 20% over the next 7 years. "As one of the largest companies in the world, with an expanding global presence, environmental problems are our problems," said CEO Lee Scott. The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just one month of operation each year, would negate Wal-Mart’s entire effort.

California, which makes up over 10% of the country’s new vehicle market, passed legislation to cut GHG emissions in new cars by 25% and in SUVs by 18%, starting in 2009. If every car and SUV sold in California in 2009 met this standard, the CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just eight months of operation each year, would negate California’s 2009 effort.

In the US, approximately 5 billion square feet of residential, commercial and government buildings are renovated in a year. The US Conference of Mayors, American Institute of Architects, US Green Building Council and numerous states, counties and cities have adopted The 2030 Challenge to reduce the energy consumption of all renovated buildings by 50% (see www.architecture2030.org) (http://www.architecture2030.org)). The CO2 emissions from just one 750 MW coal-fired power plant each year would negate this entire 2030 Challenge effort.

If every household in the U.S. changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a compact fluorescent, the CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort.
The Campus Climate Challenge (CCC), a growing student movement in the US, states that global warming “is our problem, and it’s up to us to solve it, starting right here on campus, right now.” The challenge calls for all high school and college campuses in the US to go carbon neutral (reduce global warming pollution to zero). If the challenge were met, the CO2 emissions from just four medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate the CCC’s entire effort.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a ‘cap and trade’ cooperative effort by eleven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states (ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA, NJ, DL, MD) to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2014. The CO2 emissions from just 13 medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate the entire RGGI effort.

Many climate change bills have been introduced in Congress this year to cap and begin reducing US greenhouse gas emissions, so any new coal-fired power plants work to negate these efforts.

For a more positive outlook about significant changes there's this interview with Amory Lovins on the occassion of the 25th anniversary of RMI: Grist Interview (http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/news/maindish/2007/07/26/lovins/index.html)

Regarding China and renewable energy: The richest man in China is a solar engineer. and owns it's largest solar company, Li Ka-shing, who owns SolarTech. Did he get rich by believing in junk science? We'll see. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

DD,
Look at the bright side, If any or all these efforts are implemented, they are better than no efforts. Especially if in replacement for Coal plants, we also switch to Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Garbage Methane and Tidal Power Generation Technologies as they become more viable.

This all depends on if you believe the hype about C02 gasses to begin with.

I agree with Luna, Overpopulation is our #1 problem on this planet. All the steps taken to house, feed, employ and secure for these masses compounds all the other factors afecting the planet, even C02 gases if you choose that sinle topic to be your personal bugaboo....

The planet can only support so much human influence...we surpassed the capacity decades ago.

YotF

[dduffe]

I certainly agree with population being the NUMERO UNO problem.
Any one who thinks about sustainability knows it's way harder to contemplate doing anything to solve our problems with the population continuing to explode.
Way too many people are hitching a ride on board spaceship earth.
I am tempted to want to kick some people off the island.
50% less people would make most of the environmental problems minimal or disappear.
Certainly licensing to breed sounds like a good idea at this point. http://www.kayakfishingstuff.com/images/maps/rofl.gif
Perhaps we could cap and trade carbon life form credits instead of carbon credits.

[WannaSOT]

There are not too many people, just too many localized people. (Concetrated populations for the less educated.) http://kfs.infopop.cc/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Managed growth and de-centraliztion would take care of any environmental issues as well as allow local farming in most instances. Yes, it really is that simple.

[CPP]

One thing for sure and I would say fact, as the population increases, so will the issues with our health and environment. It is almost like a supply and demand situation.

And one day the governments in the larger countries will figure out a way to control the population increases. NOT.

It all rolls into one major problem for all citizens in all countries. With the sense that our environment is in shambles no doubt caused by the increase in the overall population and it's by products ( cutting down forests to build homes and factories), countries abusing the environment ( not green), the building of concrete and black top roads everywhere and the supply and demand for fuels ,who pays. In most cases whether we care or not, the middle income group.

This along with the failing health care systems and their continued higher and higher cost, the middle income group see's itself edging it's way towards the poor income group as they attempt to support family and personal requirements. I call these, "survival requirements", which includes; health care, fuel ( oil, gas), food, clothing and housing.

This middle income group that used to be so confident in building a future to retire, now finds itself working longer than expected. Along with the poor group the middle income group is getting into a position that the savings of money for retirement is not an option en order to meet their survival requirements.

Who, wins the rich or the upper income group, which includes those corperate excutives, law makers that caused us to be in this very mess we are in today. They could have fixed it, years ago.