Change?

A group of scientists visited the garbage patch in the Pacific that is the size of Texas, some say it is larger. The patch mainly consists of plastic products but many other products are there, entangling sea life in a floating garbage grave. This link has a video to watch and the highlight in the video is the phrase "benign by design" which is a call to manufacturers to create products that have the full life cycle of a product in mind. Products become trash, instead they should be an input into a natural system, like forks created from biodegradable material. Along with biodegradable products a residential food-waste pick-up system is needed.


The Economist holds debates on its website, this session the debated claim is: tackling climate change means leaving fossil fuels behind. On this link are links to articles relating to this debate. 60% of respondents say yes, fossil fuels should be left behind (The debate is sponsored by Dow Chemical). From my glance at this what is missing is the broader conversation that climate change is just one part of the equation when it comes to pollutants that relate to climate change; we have species die-off, contamination of water used for human consumption, toxic-chemical contamination of humans, top-soil degradation, and more to worry about. We should switch from a fossil-fuel economy for more then the reason of Climate Change.


A study claims that a greater return on investment for reducing carbon emission is experienced when money is spent on contraception in the unindustrialized world than on green technology. Most of the growth in population (3 billion more people) in the next 40 years will be in the unindustrialized world, but the industrialized world pollutes so much more than the rest of the world so a focus on reducing the wealthy peoples' consumption will actual do the most for combating environmental degradation.


In an article by MotherJones Obama is criticized for his lack of dedication to tackling Climate Change during the recent UN meetings. Is Obama not doing enough, or is there a lack of popular support for him doing a lot followed by a political climate focused on economic recovery of large corporations that will only make small changes in the next decade to mitigate climate change? Blame Obama, or blame the business and political system? Remember that ExxonMobile just finished a costly advertisement campaign against climate change science, and we just had 8 years of an executive administration that denied climate change is anthropogenic. Non-scientists are being required to make scientific judgments and thus far many of them are confused and unprepared for the task.


And some news about the melting of the ever-so-important Greenland ice-shelf.

Water, Oil & UN Climate Change Summit

Scientific American asks the question: How much does fossil fuels get in subsidies from the American Government? The answer is $72 billion between 2002 and 2007.


The Economist has a go at explaining the challenges facing the global automobile industry. People no longer want gas-guzzlers that are over-sized and have a short life-time, and the industry will be reeling from this. USA and Europe propped up their automobile companies during this last year of recession, but these companies have not made very large changes yet. When they sell cars that we should have due to our environmental challenges they will probably return to making large sums of money. Smaller, more efficient, alternative fuels, alternative materials- this is want we need.


The Environmental Defense Fund makes a concise case for a Climate Bill in 2009. Obama wants one passed before the UN Climate meeting. A lot is expected from this UN meeting and while China and the US have not been dedicated to change before China is picking up the slack. China may eclipse the US in promises and effort, but ears and eyes are still on the US.


Water has been cheap in the USA and people are using this resource as the market predicts; liberally. Some Californians use their water with few conservation efforts. The times will change, will people's water use change proactively?


Globally, this summer was not as hot as other recent summers, this means ice in the Arctic has had its life extended, but it will melt away in the next couple of decades.


Environmental Justice for the Ivory Coast concludes; a company dumped 500 tons of sludge from refining oil in 2006 and automatically people died and became sick. The settlement arrives but the company still denies responsibility for the incident.


People can now off-set the carbon emissions from their plane flights, this article tells you how, another organization that supplies this service is www.carbonfund.org.

The State of Oil

Oil prices have been in the $70s region, slowly rising with the recovery of the economy, they fell recently to $71.82 a barrel and this low price has multiple implications. The lower the price the less incentive there is to invest away from using oil, and the higher the price the more incentive there is to explore for more oil using more costly sources; this means that where ever the price of oil goes we will produce a lot of it. People living next to the tar sands in Alberta, Canada (containing 178 billion barrels of usable oil) are hoping for low future prices to make the extraction operation there unprofitable due to the cancerous effect it is having on the citizens. And in the Gulf of Mexico oil is found under deep water, putting 3 billion more barrels into the global oil reserve.

Electric Cars are the most likely proposed alternative to the combustion engine, The Economist assesses the situation and comments on what governments need to do to assist the creation of this new market.

Have a lesson on water use and availability on Planet Earth.

One study on climate trends supports the idea that our recent warming stands in the face of the cooling of the past couple thousand years, we could be delaying an ice age.