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GREEN SANCTUARY Readings
If you'd like to see what the climate scientists say in their email conversations, check out this "realclimate" website about the warmest years on record. Don't stop there, but scroll on down to the comments about this summer's Arctic sea ice. It's not good news there.
www.realclimate.org/index.php/feed/atom/
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it."
- Rabbi Tarfon, The Talmud
August 2007 - Northwest spending on oil and gas in 2007
How much do you think we spend each day on our energy habit? 5 million? 30 million? More?
>>>>>>>>>WAY MORE
Watch the dollar bills fly out of our region on Sightline's online energy counter:
Let other northwesterners see the costs pile up for themselves.
Forward the energy counter to friends and colleagues
July 2007 - Lester Brown sums up the crisis of aquifer depletion with this terse paragraph:
"Since the overpumping of aquifers is occurring in many countries more or less simultaneously, the depletion of aquifers and the resulting harvest cutbacks could come at roughly the same time. And the accelerating depletion of aquifers means this day may come soon, creating potentially unmanageable food scarcity."
He ticks off the countries that are depleting aquifers and the agricultural trouble it spells for each: China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Yemen - and the United States. He lists the rivers that are over used and whose large dams further deplete the flow: Nile, Indus, Mekong, Hai, Huai, Yellow, Ganges, and the Colorado.
Adapted from Chapter 3, “Emerging Water Shortages,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), available for free downloading and purchase.
You can find his whole article at: http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch03_ss2.htm
National Park climate study grim
In the Everglades, more hurricanes; in Olympic, more floods; in Yosemite, more wildfires; in Glacier Bay, fewer salmon. (07/16/07) Missoulian
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/07/16/news/local/news02.txt
Getting Off Our Nuclear Power Fixation
July 2006 J.A. Savage.
Surprising results from the German Eco-Institute: The greenhouse gases produced getting uranium ready for the reactor - mining, converted, enriched, transported, and manufactured into fuel rods - is more than the gases emitted by a natural-gas power plant producing the same electrical power. (You may have to read that again - I rewrote it about five times.) That, along with the fact that wind energy is already cheaper, and along with the fact that the reactors are nearing the end of a safe life, makes you ask, Why are we pursuing the nuclear option? J.A. Savage writes one of the best "Reactors 101" I've seen. It's on Alternet, and the website URL is http://www.alternet.org/story/38261/
Lester Brown’s colleague Janet Larson unfolds the disaster facing the insurance industry and homeowners who depend on it; see her opening paragraph below. To get the whole story, go to this website:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update58.htm
From there you can get the raw data by clicking the link.
HURRICANE DAMAGES SOAR TO NEW LEVELS_Insurance Companies Abandoning Homeowners in High-Risk Coastal Areas
8/29/06 Janet Larsen
Damage from hurricanes is soaring off the charts, bankrupting insurance companies and depriving property owners of insurance in high-risk areas. During the 1960s, worldwide damage from windstorms with economic losses of $1 billion or more totaled just $4 billion. In the 1970s the figure rose to $7 billion, and in the 1980s it topped $24 billion. Next came the 1990s, when hurricane losses soared to $113 billion. Then during the six years from 2000 to 2005, hurricanes left a staggering bill of $273 billion...
A good place to find which vehicles are E85 compatible is <http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php>. Note that most of these are big-engine (5, 6, even 7L engines) vehicles from US auto makers. And note that even with this list, one needs to confirm the actual vehicle serial number to be sure.
For a good treatment of "green cars" (an admitted oxymoron), see <http://www.greenercars.com/indexplus.html>. Note that all the top ranking cars have engines of 2.5L displacment or less. Size matters.
For a tailpipe performance summary of all vehicles 2000 and later, see <http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/select.htm>
I offer a cautionary note against thinking that burning E85 in a large engine reduces emissions like driving a fuel efficient small engine car.
Unitarian Universalist Church in Eugene, Oregon
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