When it comes to many projects, endeavors, and merchandise touted as “green” these days, I find myself becoming more and more skeptical.
“Green” – for whatever reason – has come to symbolize environmentalism, likely through the association of green color with nature, health, and growth, and “green” energy generally refers to renewable and alternative production and use of energy.
Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we’ll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, “green” energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes — and subsidies — in it, let’s take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what “green” means.
5 Myths:
Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.
Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.
A green American economy will create green American jobs.
Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.
The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.
There are 3 children missing and a television reporter was killed by a “blizzard of rocks and debris” in the current eruption of Guatemala’s Pacaya volcano near the capitol, Guatemala City. At least 65 people have been injured.
In this video of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, shock waves can be seen emanating with each explosive pulse of lava, clearly causing displacement of the cloud of smoke, ash, and steam.
The eruption is between between two glaciers, Eyjafjallajoekull and Myrdalsjoekull, and 3,600 feet above sea level. Since it’s not directly affecting either glacier there is little likelihood of flooding as long as the erupting fissure did not extend beneath the glacier. The area, called Fimmvorduhals, lies on a popular walking path over a mountain pass.
The videos are raw, unedited footage — but absolutely awesome!
I’ve been fascinated with volcanoes for a long time and, whenever, there’s a new eruption somewhere, I start looking for images and news on it. The newest eruption, located in Iceland, has fortunately not posed a significant danger. There have been some interesting raw footage available online. Here is the most recent that I’ve found:
The eruption is between between two glaciers, Eyjafjallajoekull and Myrdalsjoekull, and 3,600 feet above sea level. Since it’s not directly affecting either glacier there is little likelihood of flooding as long as the erupting fissure did not extend beneath the glacier. The area, called Fimmvorduhals, lies on a popular walking path over a mountain pass.
Financial woes of another state budget could result in more park closures. An Associated Press report in Business Week says funding proposed in Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s budget recommendations could prevent a new state park from opening as scheduled and force the closing of other parks.
"We’re going to have to make some tough decisions because we don’t want to thin the soup any more," Johnson said. "It will mean shutting down the parks that don’t have as high visitation so we have the resources to maintain those parks that have higher visitation."
Johnson said the cut would mean the state parks won’t be able to hire maintenance workers, rangers, workers for fee collection stations and other employees needed to run all the parks. Johnson said his office would look at park closures and more limited hours, but he said it was too early to say which parks would be shuttered.
In today’s hard economic times, closing state parks seems to be a remedy that many states have used or are considering. A Las Vegas Sun article says Nevada legislators are considering closing all of the state parks in Nevada.
The Nevada Legislature is thinking of closing state parks as it considers how to patch an estimated $900 million budget gap, a move that would save a few million dollars while killing the economies of rural towns and stunting tourism efforts across the state, opponents of the idea say.
Gov. Jim Gibbons has suggested a 10 percent budget reduction for a number of agencies, including the State Parks Division. But the Interim Finance Committee could take that a step further. At its meeting in Las Vegas on Thursday, the committee is expected to consider following the lead of cash-strapped states such as California and Arizona, that have closed some or all of their state parks.
In Nevada, the proposal is the brainchild of Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, who says he is considering shutting down all state parks to save money.
A report in Newsweek, Iceberg Ahead, looks at the current state of climate science and politics… and how things got to this point.
What went wrong? Part of the blame lies, of course, with those who obstructed the efforts of the IPCC and the individual scientists, including bloggers who tried to sandbag scientists with spurious FOIA requests, and the perpetrators (as yet unknown) of the hack at the Climatic Research Unit. Part of the blame also falls on the climate scientists themselves. Many of them—including perhaps Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC head—may have stepped too far over the line from science to advocacy, undermining their own credibility. Some scientists, as a result, are now calling for a change in tone from antagonism to reconciliation. Climate science, they say, needs to open its books and be more tolerant of scrutiny from the outside. Its institutions—notably the IPCC—need to go about their business with greater transparency. "The circle-the-wagons mentality has backfired," says Judith Curry, head of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
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