California Eye » Global Warming

Melting Arctic Polar Ice

Featheriver — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:56:25 +0000

Melting of the Arctic sea ice due to global warming is diluting surface waters and this is endangering some species of shellfish which need minerals in the water to form their shells and skeletons, scientists have found.

In a paper published in Science, they warned that this has serious implications for ecosystems in the Arctic.

Source: Reuters

Arctic Polar Cap

U.S. Chamber of Commerce is losing members

Featheriver — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:15:26 +0000

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has lost two of its members: Exelon and New Mexico’s Public Service Company and Pacific Gas and Electric.

Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power generator, says “inaction on climate is not an option.”

They quit the Chamber citing the Chamber’s stance on climate change legislation.

The Chamber doesn’t like doing anything about climate change. [Huffington Post]

It boils down to money—again. Anything to protect profits of business. Profits aren’t going to matter if we destroy the planet in the process.

World’s glaciers are melting at a rapid and alarming rate

Featheriver — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 08:51:36 +0000

Glaciers worldwide are melting faster than anyone had predicted they would just a few years ago. It offers a clear indication of an accelerating climate change and warming earth, according to the authors. [CNN]

These changes are taking place in Washington State and Alaska in three different climate regimes,” said Edward Josberger, the lead researcher on the study with the USGS Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma, Washington. “So we feel it’s definitely something going on, probably on a global scale, and of course, if you look at other such measurements around the world and put it all together, yes, glaciers are retreating and retreating rapidly.”

Your chance to support a Clean Energy Plan

Featheriver — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:02:08 +0000

Show your support for a Clean Energy Plan

Let our elected officials know we need green jobs.

Host: Nevada State Democratic Party

Type: Meetings – Informational Meeting

Date: Monday, August 10, 2009

Time: 8:30am – 10:00am

Location: Steps of the Cox Pavilion of the UNLV campus

Street: UNLV campus at Tropicana and Swenson

City/Town: Las Vegas, NV

View Map

Email: kirsten@nvgreenvote.org

Description

Friends,

Last year, Americans voted overwhelmingly for change, including an energy policy for the 21st Century.

Members of Congress are working to jumpstart our economy and create new, green jobs in Nevada by passing a historic Clean Energy Plan. Unfortunately, big oil and gas companies are using scare tactics to stall this work and are organizing a protest Monday against any sensible reform to our nation’s outdated energy policy.

PLEASE JOIN US — Monday, August 10, at 8:30 a.m. on the steps of the Cox Pavilion of the UNLV campus — to let our elected officials know we need green jobs and a Clean Energy Plan now! It’s important that we show our support for a Clean Energy Plan.

Join other Nevadans to send a public “thank you” to Sen. Harry Reid for the work he is doing to support a Clean Energy Plan in Congress and call on other senators to vote in favor of jobs that can’t be exported overseas. Sen. Reid recognizes that we must harness Nevada’s vast solar, wind and geothermal energy potential to stabilize our energy costs and create much-needed jobs!

Free parking is available in the Cox Pavilion parking lot on the UNLV campus at Swenson and Tropicana. For more information, please go to www.rebuildnevada.org. To RSVP, please email kirsten@nvgreenvote.org.

Anyone think that perhaps the Nye County Democratic Party ought to hold a Rally in Pahrump? After all Nye County is a perfect spot for “green jobs” rooted in alternative energy sources of wind, solar and geothermic. Why not ask your Nye County Democratic Central Committee to put on a rally here in Pahrump.

Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning

Featheriver — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:50:43 +0000

NASA reports:

Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thin seasonal ice replacing thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record. The new results, based on data from a NASA Earth-orbiting spacecraft, provide further evidence for the rapid, ongoing transformation of the Arctic’s ice cover. [NASA]

Take a look at the NASA pictures.

Heller and Cap and Trade

Featheriver — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:39:53 +0000

Republicans in Congress will spend the Memorial Day recess attacking Democrats for pushing a cap-and-trade bill that could raise Americans’ transportation and energy costs wrote The Hill on May 23, 2009.

“Democrats and the Obama administration have said that putting a price on carbon emissions is the best way to wean the country off of foreign oil and stem global warming while also creating new jobs.”

“The attacks on the Democratic energy proposals is part of a larger GOP effort to paint the Democrat-led Congress as big spenders who backed a $787 billion stimulus plan and are now pushing an energy tax and a “government takeover of healthcare,” according to House GOP talking points.”

Not much new about any of this. Republicans just naturally call anything the Democrats do as too expensive, socialistic, and an expansion of government. All the same things the Republicans did while they controlled the White House and Congress.

One of those Republicans who took off during the Memorial Day recess to attack the “cap-and-trade bill” was our own Republican Congressman for Nevada’s District 2, Dean Heller.

He went to Elko to deliver the Republican Talking Points on the subject of “cap and trade.”

He said “his constituents are overwhelmingly against President Obama’s ‘cap and trade’ proposal, which he said would cost the average family of four about $3,200 more a year on their electric bills.”

Heller said at one of his teleconferences 400 people polled were opposed to the cap and trade proposal and 32 supported it, indicating that from other polls there was quadruple that number.

Columnist Dennis Myers takes issue with Heller. See the Pahrump Valley Times when today’s issue goes online. He under took to check Heller’s assertion out. In Carson City, Heller’s hometown, of 30 people asked by Myer, “Not one of them was familiar with the term” cap and trade. Myers wondered how Heller could find 400 people in one conference call that recognized the term? Myers was told by Republican friend of his “that those who participate are screened to be ‘like minded’ (to Heller).” In short it wasn’t a valid poll. Myers’ friend said “poll questions are asked in language that seems designed to elicit certain responses.”

Myers’ asked Heller’s office for the wording of the “cap and trade” question, but got no response.

How about you. Can you explain just what “cap and trade” means and what it is about? Neither can I. [Wikipedia] Nor, I daresay, does Dean Heller. Try reading the Wikipedia coverage of cap and trade and tell me you understand it.

Studies: Sea-level might rise 25 inches or more

Featheriver — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:49:05 +0000

David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post writes:

Three studies this year, including one out last month, have made newly worrisome forecasts about life along the Atlantic over the next century. While the rest of the world might see seven to 23 inches of sea-level rise by 2100, the studies show this region might get that and more — 17 to 25 inches more — for a total increase that would submerge a beach chair.

Of course these studies say might not will. The studies arise from computer models.

Researchers say rising seas are one of the most tangible consequences of a changing climate. They rise because they are warming, expanding in volume like a highway bridge on a summer day. And they rise because they are filling up, fed by melting ice.

“It doesn’t matter who’s causing global warming. Sea-level rise is something we can measure,” said Rob Young, a geosciences professor at Western Carolina University. “You can’t argue that sea level isn’t rising.”

Young certainly has a point. The argument over whether global warming is caused by man or nature may be irrelevant. Either way man has to do something. No one can control nature. But man can be controlled. To the extent the rising oceans can be at least slowed down by man, he’d best be getting with it.

But it isn’t just rising oceans one must be concerned about.

Another study last month found a threat from a Texas-size ice sheet in Antarctica. If it broke off and melted, the shift of mass from pole to ocean would change both Earth’s gravitational field and its rotation.

So far no one is predicting that Pahrump or Las Vegas will be underwater. But if the Earth starts rotating the opposite direction, look out!

Solar Power coming to Amargosa Valley by 2013

Featheriver — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:59:00 +0000

Here is some good news for a change:

NV Energy, Las Vegas, has teamed up with two companies, Solar Millennium, LLC, and MAN Ferrostaal Inc., to develop a solar facility in Nye County. [Pahrump Mirror, Thursday, March 5, 2009, page 3]

It will be a 250-megawatt “solar trough technology plant” somewhere in Nye County, expected to be within the Amargosa Valley.

It will include a thermal storage capability which will enable it to generate energy beyond daylight hours during the summer months.

It is hoped construction can begin no later than 2010 and completed by 2013-2014.

The Public Utilities Commission must approve the project first.

“The 250-megawatt output will generate enough electricity to service between 150,000 and 250,000 homes, depending on seasonal variations in weather conditions.

The project should give a significant boost to Nye County, including Pahrump. Keep your fingers crossed.

Pickens Plan: Dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue

Featheriver — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:34:00 +0000

What do you think would happen if the foreign countries, upon who we now depend for oil, were to cut the United State’s supply of their oil? We would disintegrate as a nation. This recession were are in would be a minor blimp in comparison. Las Vegas would become a ghost town, so would Pahrump. The interstate highways would become vacant and return weeded cow paths. Virtually all jobs would disappear.

And it wouldn’t take long for that to happen either.

Last weekend I watched a big name meeting in Washington on C-Span. President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, a half dozen members of Obama’s Cabinet were in attendance. T. Boone Pickens, a number of other prominent private sector people and scientists were there. They were talking about how to build an alternative energy network across the nation.

I’m no fan of meetings but that meeting was no ordinary meeting. Those people around that large table knew what they were talking about. You wouldn’t have to be an energy genius to recognize they were knowledgeable and versed in alternative energy. They were wrestling with the problem of how to implement a national grid to carry the energy to every corner of the United States.

That video you see on this post makes a point. That is that our dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue. It is a serious security issue. It is a simple matter. If foreign countries stopped selling us oil the United States would cease to exist, without firing a shot. All the guns in the world wouldn’t stop it.

So, why don’t you join up in the Pickens Army? I’m in it, so is Carolene Endersby. We’re both part of the Pickens Plan District. Once you join up with the Pickens Army join into your Pickens Plan District. You, too, can help free American from oil control by foreign countries.

T. Boone Pickens and alternative fuel

Featheriver — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:36:00 +0000

Americans are currently enjoying lower gasoline prices as oil hovers below $40 a barrel. But Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens says it would be foolish to think that oil prices will remain low. The outspoken billionaire was on Capitol Hill Tuesday to renew his push for the development of alternative energy sources. In a CNBC interview, he said oil could rise to $75 a barrel if the crisis in the Middle East continues.

Now that George Bush and Dick Cheney are out of the picture perhaps the move to alternative energy sources can move forward more expeditiously in the President Obama administration.

Nye County, Nevada is a prime spot to become a producer of alternative energy.