CNN.com – Caribbean coral suffers record die-off – Mar 31, 2006

And Dog bites man, yet again, it’s amazing how they keep doing that. Think of all the money being wasted on re-proving the obvious, this is money not spent in mitigating the effects, money not spent on research, money not spent on encouraging people to use more efficient lighting… It’s a shame.

CNN.com – Study: Earth ‘likely’ hottest in 2,000 years – Jun 22, 2006

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the “hockey-stick” graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick’s long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was “likely” to be true, said John “Mike” Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the ’90s research “are very close to being right” and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth’s temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.

For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on “proxy” evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.

Combining that information gave the panel “a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years,” the academy said.

Read both these stories and go bang your head on a wall repeatedly.

Europe creates attractive clean energy scene – International Herald Tribune

But a commitment by European governments to budding clean-energy entrepreneurs is creating a more welcoming environment than in America, where erratic support and onerous financial rules have given pause to some start-ups and investors.

American ‘Coal Rush’ Hits Some Hurdles

The nation’s demand for electricity is growing, and utilities want to build new power plants to satisfy that appetite. Most of those plants — perhaps as many as 150 — would burn coal.

Well, at least the coal rush is hitting a few hurdles. But even if half those plants don’t come about, that’s still 70+ coal fired power plants, nice!

The interesting part of the IHT story to me was this.

Venture capitalists and private equity investors in North America have been more bullish, providing $3.5 billion to clean-energy developers in 2006, roughly triple the amount raised in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to New Energy Finance, a research firm based in London.

So, if the US had the right incentives, Americans would be investing there, creating jobs there, improving infrastructure there instead of in Europe. I guess those very “patriotic” American lawmakers don’t think that far ahead. Note also that all the tax cuts to wealthy Americans leaves a lot of cash floating around for them to invest in projects in other parts of the world. These are investments the US won’t reap a benefit on as a country, or create jobs for the working proletariat – Nice tax cuts, more patriotism, I guess. Such a poor return on investment on these tax cuts.

Dog bites man news o’ the day!

ScienceDaily: European Union Outpaces United States On Chemical Safety

In the 1970s and ’80s, the United States effectively set many global product standards for consumer and environmental protection. Today, Europe is playing this role, while U.S. government and industry oppose the resulting standards in Europe and in international arenas.

The size of the European market (more than 485 million citizens) will push manufacturers in the United States and Asia to meet European standards and will increase the availability of “green” products globally, contend the authors. Additionally, the new toxic risk information generated by REACH may allow environmental advocates in the United States and elsewhere to focus their efforts with specific, supportable data.

Amen to that, you can either lead, or be forced to follow. EU policies are far from perfect, and as vulnerable to politics, hypocrisy and competing interests as any other “country’s” policies. But, you can never fault them for lack of effort, and they do not seem to have suffered from any consequences to using the precautionary principle.

When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

Not so hard to grasp. But here’s the precautionary principle the US of A uses. I propose calling it the plutocracy-protectionary principle^TM.

When a proposed regulation raises threats of harm to the short term shareholder returns of an industry, precautionary measures to oppose this regulation must be taken even if cause and effect relationships are clearly established, or if scientific research has shown the opposite effect to the industry claim being made.

From the annals of “Make them Laugh”

newsobserver.com | Local & State

North Carolina has spent six years searching for systems to replace hog lagoons — the open air ponds used to treat waste at hog farms. But according a $17.3-million study’s final results, released today, researchers haven’t found workable alternatives. Mike Williams, a N.C. State University professor and the lead researcher, told legislators today that he has found at least five hog waste systems that are dramatically better for the environment. But they are all too expensive for use on existing hog farms.

There better be more to this report that what’s in this article. I need to get my hands on the actual report. But this is ridiculous, those hog factories they very thoughtfully call farms are very lightly regulated. Read here for more information on the hog industry in NC, but  “they are all too expensive for use on existing hog farms” is, well, HOGWASH, and a little bit of a waste of 17 million bucks!

Sometimes, you have to read what you’ve written in order to keep writing. I have not felt like writing at all, except in 140 character snippets. There are lots of people saying lots of things all the time, so who really cares, right? But I came back and read a post or two I had written on this blog, they weren’t half bad.

Consider myself a little more encouraged, I shall write more, soon, no pressure 🙂