Running out of time!

How many times can we say it? were running out of time, and on more than one front, you name it and were running out of time.

so here's yet another article, this time from NASA

the gist in case your not interested in reading is that we don't have time to set long term goals like 2050, cause with current warming trends of 0.2 degrees Celsius per year that means in 5 years we will have gained another full 1 degree Celsius and according to the article ....

"That means that further global warming of 1 degree Celsius defines a critical level. If warming is kept less than that, effects of global warming may be relatively manageable. During the warmest interglacial periods the Earth was reasonably similar to today. But if further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today."

....... in case you want me to do some more math 3 degrees Celsius at current warming trends gives 15 years before a whole lot of people living on the coasts are actually living in the ocean.

Why doesn't this stuff bother us more..... maybe the church should start adding Boat to the list of emergency preparedness items.

Bottled Water

see here for San Francisco Banning the Bottle

This makes me happy.... I have issues with bottled water and the people that drink them... sorry if your one of them but that's the problem with opinions. every ones got a different one.

I still remember in High School when people started drinking bottled water, it was the cool kids who started this ridiculous trend and low and behold 10 years later, look around almost everyone has a bottle of water to drink from, and man the claims of being better for you, or a better choice then pop, anything to rationalize what should be considered a wasteful un-economical disregard for a natural resource. sure we do worse things with it like go number 1 and 2 in our drinking water, but that is a technological and design hurdle we must overcome, drinking bottled water is a choice made when the tap containing almost the exact liquid is several feet away.

or see here... if NZ water is so good, why don't they drink it?

How about his quote off the sietch - In industrial countries with highly regulated water supplies, tap water has been proven to be just as safe, or safer, than its commercial counterpart. In the United States, regulations concerning bottled water are generally the same as for tap water, but are weaker for some microbial contaminants. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates bottled water at the federal level, permits the product to contain certain levels of fecal matter, whereas the Environmental Protection Agency does not allow any human waste in city tap water. Bottled water violations are not always reported to the public, and in most cases the products may be recalled up to 15 months after the problematic water was produced, distributed, and sold.

mmmm Fecal Matter....

Last week I read a bunch of articles showing that we pay more for bottled water than gasoline...I don't know about you but I don't intend on paying more for my water than my gasoline. especially not water containing fecal matter.

enjoy your water! :-)

We all knew it would happen

When a particular Design holds monopoly on the market for a long time they are reluctant to change said design because if it works don't change it right? well with global warming stirring things up and spurring new design, it's like out of no where someone realizes oh hey you know that thing we been doing for a hundred years that was really inefficient but there was no other option, well, I just out of no where realized how to make it a hundred times better, weird eh!.....

Although I encourage R&D, and competition in all products, I feel like there should be some type of ramification for the R&D that these companies knowingly held back on, or even went so far as to buy someone out, and then bury that design to never be seen again..... until now. Its very frustrating...... however.... bring it on, we need the best designs for efficiency that are out there and if those happen to be in a locked box, that someones forgotten the combo to, crack er open... lets go!

Anyhow here's the latest in light bulbs, with greater efficiency then CFL's and lasting decades this one is quite the leap in technology.

MATH

Yesterday was the Diploma for Math 30 Pure, The morning seemed rather simple, it scared me it was so simple, cause you always know you totally screwed it up when it was that easy. However the second half was basically filled with questions on stuff I have trouble with normally, so lets hope I'm a good guesser.... I'm not normally so why should I be this time?

Saving Grace however, I did have an in class mark in the 90's Not sure the exact mark, no one has given that to me, but I got over 90 on each unit so its a fair guess. That being said My Class mark at 50% weight is over 45% so as long as i got more then 20% on the diploma I should be alright, But that grade doesn't come back till the 3rd week in July.

Now what.... well were still finding a place to live, applying for student loans, basically figuring out how were gonna get there and where were gonna stay when we do...... nothing major ......

More Electric Cars!

I Love the electric car, and this one (see here) is using the in-wheel motors which I really like the idea of, eliminating even more of the reasons I hate the standard car... moving parts = servicing, breakdown, replacement.....Blech!

And of course more competition means better prices for us consumers, and more research by more and more companies trying to grab there share of the market...... I like it.

However I do prefer the design of the Tesla Roadster to this Stingray looking car, not that I could afford to buy either anyway.

.... Since I'm on the subject of cars right now, the Big auto makers of America were complaining again to the US Congress again about how efficiency is expensive (see here). I don't understand why it's the USA's problem to make sure that these guys businesses succeed..... I mean if my products aren't selling and the products that do sell are just to expensive for me to pay for in order to sell - because they will- then is the gov responsible to help me afford those more expensive products...... screw these self righteous jerks, they think that without them somehow the world will end, well guess what there are plenty of people willing to take your spot as a large car manufacturer, and supply jobs to the exact same people. So take away there money/subsidies and if they choose to lay down and die causing some sort of economical disaster then I say sue them for not abiding by the laws of the incorporation which say that they must do everything they can to succeed, they've been using that law to there advantage, I say we use it back at them.

Even if there is more to take into consideration here, I know that if I just keep giving my whiny child something, instead of making him do it on his own, he will keep coming back for the handout and never do it himself, and yes I do liken the auto makers to little whiny children, cause if I liken them to grown adults, the expression changes to something I shouldn't type.

Vertical Farm

Vertical Farm Ideas see here

Saw one a while ago and since then a couple more popping out of the wood work. It seems that the idea of building a Vertical Farm in the downtown core is the new thing to do.

I can see the advantages to local business's getting fresh fruit and vegetables, even eggs and chicken.... "Fresh Produce Picked This Morning". The localness of it all would change a lot of things, since the produce wouldn't be shipped or stored in transit, we eliminate all that Carbon footprint from the produce, probably wouldn't see to much price change, if anything I could see it going up since the price of the building itself would need to be recovered over some period of time.

I really see this idea taking hold, there's just so much potential from this sort of closed system of Farming.


Advantages of Vertical Farming taken from here
-Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
-No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
-All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
-VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
-VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
-VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
-VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of evapotranspiration
-VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals
-VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
-VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
-VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
-VF creates new employment opportunities
We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on earth
-VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
-VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical LDCs. If this should prove to be the case, then VF may be a catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for sustainable food production.
-VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water and land for agriculture

MYT (Massive Yet Tiny)

this sounds cool found the article on Celsias here

This sort of thing will probably be vaporware(meaning we hear about it but never see it come to fruition)

I would love to put one of those puppies in my Smart.... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Lets hope that at least the technology behind this engine is taken hold of and used to our advantage, if the car manufacturers don't want to yield to the Electric car then at least give us this. and toss out the inefficient Combustion Engine of old..

Gas Prices

I was just thinking about what gas prices were in London and then here comes this graphic with gas prices from around the globe..London 6.65 , Tehran 0.33 cents, so if its cheaper where there's a lot of oil, why do we pay so much in Alberta? just a question.

It's actually kinda weird where gas is expensive and where it's cheap, I thought this was actually pretty interesting.

House Switch

see here

I don't know if this has ever crossed your mind, I know I have wanted one of these for a long time, wondering why they don't come as default with new home construction, as with so many other things that don't cost a lot to install when you do it at new construction phase.

I sometimes know there is a light on upstairs or down and just don't want to give the effort to go turn it off, so it stays on longer then it should, and not only this whole house switch but I would love an Intelligent system with a central control for monitoring the entire houses electrical system, whats on, whats not, how much the stove/oven and fridge are using, daily hourly and real time stats for consumption, oh and if I'm wishin' here make it voice activated throughout the entire house so I can just speak like on star trek and the computer will hear me.......drooooool...... Oh and of course this is all in my Earthship on the side of a south facing hill with an average size year round stream running down the hill not to far away, Solar Panels, Wind Generator, and Micro Hydro system also tied into my monitoring system with stats like production , usage and battery capacities,

Just thinking here but how about Water as well, the manual water meter already tells us the numbers but why not incorporate it digitally as well, tell me how much water was used during different time periods, so we could tell how much was used for a bath or shower, washing clothes, dishes, watering the lawn, washing the car. everyone loves stats don't they?

That was quite the tangent off of a whole house switch. I wonder what sort of electrical nightmare it would take to retrofit one? anyone?

Thinking of putting some Solar panels up?

Looks like the time is on the horizon for affordable Solar Panels, 3 more years is actually not to bad of a time frame, and any go getter companies will probably try to jump that prediction and catch the first wave of affordable solar PV Panels, So if your in a rush to get your self some PV panels, you may want to wait a couple years before becoming part of the distributed network of power generation.

And if you live in Alberta, Some Utils are still holding back on allowing Grid connection. and if they do it's no walk in the park to get permission anyway. It will take some figuring out but going with at least a small set of batteries instead of a full grid tied system would be your smarter setup since if the grid goes black, you still got nothing, but having those batteries at least gives you some power to keep the food cold or lights on, of course having the lights on may just be the beacon in the darkness, and have all your neighbours on the way over, whether you want them or not.

articles on subject via Treehugger via Worldwatch

Toooooo RICH $$$$

There's Big Homes, and then there's THIS, feel free to Google residence Antilia in mumbai for more.

Can you really be too rich, exactly how much does something like this cost, and I don't mean just money but in materials and Carbon footprint, this is the epitome of whats wrong, the $Rich$ being gluttonous pigs and the poor taking it up the you know where. And don't try to give me the whole rich doing wonderful things with there money, because they do it out of necessity, and not wanting to fork over billions to the government in taxes. This place (245 Metres) is 55 Meters taller then the Calgary tower (190 meters).

I don't care how "green" they figure this place is, they should refuse to give him any kind of rating for an Eco building, be it LEED or otherwise.

I have to admit a part of me would love to see a place like this, but we just can't allow for this type of abuse to continue, earth deserves a better respect for it's resources, which are not limitless.