Economy, Planet in
Trouble: Green Energy to the Rescue?
Green Energy News
With a tipping point in climate change maybe a few years out,
perhaps triggered by the soon completely melted summertime Arctic
ice cap, we’re probably well past the point where a
semi-market-based-only approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions,
like cap-and-trade, will do any good. Government needs to step in.
Among the measures that can be done now is to continue to build
emission free renewables while dramatically cutting back on power
consumption, so that new fossil power plants don’t need to be built
until carbon sequestration technology can be implemented. There
needs to be some political leadership to put direction in the
climate saving effort.
Fortunately, globally, renewables as well as efficient energy have
built up a considerable head of steam. Concerns over oil supplies,
concerns over global warming, and in many places government mandate
and government assistance for green energy have been driving the
industry forward, gaining traction and momentum for a number of
years now. The green energy sector has been hot, creating jobs, new
business opportunities, new wealth, improved technologies and new
inventions all while helping to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But, a global recession could throw the whole industry off track...
Click
here for the rest of the story.
Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell: Area 51 Gets Airport Identifier
by Alton K. Marsh, AOPA
Pilots avert your eyes! The airport identifier and location of
Nevada’s Groom Lake—you know, where they keep the space aliens at
Area 51—has been appearing in flight-planning software and on
handheld GPS receivers for most of the past year as KXTA (standing
for what, extraterrestrial?).
“We already know and it doesn’t matter,” said a public affairs
official at Nellis Air Force Base.
The Jeppesen FliteStar flight-planning program and AOPA's Real-Time
Flight Planner even identify it as Homey Airport and add, “Private,
VFR, No Fee, Customs Info Unavailable.” Well, there’s a fee. The
airport is deep within heavily restricted airspace, guarded by
fighter jets. First come the legal fees, the probable confiscation
of your aircraft, and a personal fee in the form of jail time.
AOPA editors found KXTA clearly marked on a handheld GPS map drawn
from an outdated August 2007 database. Runways are described as
Runway 12-30, 5,420 feet by 120 feet, and Runway 14-32, 12,000 feet
by 200 feet. That’s not quite true. One end of 14-32 continues
across a dry lakebed for another 11,000 feet, but that portion is
closed and partially covered with blowing sand. And there are four
additional runways marked in the sand of the dry lakebed...
Click
here for the rest of the story.
Did a Tsunami Wipe
Out a Cradle of Western Civilization?
by Evan Hadingham, Discover
Magazine
The effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 are only
too well known: It knocked the hell out of Aceh Province on the
Indonesian island of Sumatra, leveling buildings, scattering palm
trees, and wiping out entire villages. It killed more than 160,000
people in Aceh alone and displaced millions more. Similar scenes of
destruction were repeated along the coasts of Southeast Asia, India,
and as far west as Africa. The magnitude of the disaster shocked the
world.
What the world did not know was that the 2004 tsunami—seemingly so
unprecedented in scale—would yield specific clues to one of the
great mysteries of archaeology: What or who brought down the
Minoans, the remarkable Bronze Age civilization that played a
central role in the development of Western culture?
Europe’s first great culture sprang up on the island of Crete, in
the Aegean Sea, and rose to prominence some 4,000 years ago,
flourishing for at least five centuries. It was a civilization of
sophisticated art and architecture, with vast trading routes that
spread Minoan goods—and culture—to the neighboring Greek islands.
But then, around 1500 B.C., the Minoan world went into a tailspin,
and no one knows why...
Click
here for the rest of the story.
Advanced Russian Civilization Found
Times of India
MOSCOW: Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a
2500-year-old advanced civilization at the bottom of Lake Issyk Kul
in the Kyrgyz Mountains in Russia.
According to a report in RIA Novosti, the team
consisted of Kyrgyz historians, led by Vladimir Ploskikh, vice
president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, and other Russian
colleagues, like historian Svetlana Lukashova.
The expedition resulted in sensational finds, including the
discovery of major settlements, presently buried underwater.
The data and artifacts obtained, which are currently under study,
apply the finishing touches to the many years of exploration in the
lake, made by seven previous expeditions.
The discovery consisted of formidable walls,
some stretching for 500 meters-traces of a large city with an area
of several square kilometers...
Click
here for the rest of the story.
Cotton-picking Children
A report by the Environmental Justice Foundation
(EJF) reveals shocking conditions endured by more than one
million children - some as young as five - in the world's
largest cotton producing countries.
These include working 12 hour days in extremes of hot and cold
weather, physical, verbal and sexual abuse, and being used to
spray pesticides which pose serious health risks.
China, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil and Turkey have all
been reported. EJF is urging retailers and manufacturers to
excamine their supply chains in the £20bn a year industry.
Download
the report from the EJF website. |
