Of course the picture on the right is old (just testing your memory, I did post it then:), three weeks old maybe. Now everything out there is covered in snow and the temperatures are ghastly, ice all over the place and on top of the snow the crisp remains of fall preserve themselves until next spring; frigate.
A bit of enthusiasm will bring this "playing for change" to you and your well-being while contemplating arctic air and climate change.
I involuntary watched FOX news today, they are still debating if "global warming" is for real or if it is just a hoax. I believe that we should change this global warming thing, and name it CLIMATE CHANGE instead!
It is not the 0.25% degrees of "warming" in annual rise of temperatures that matters in a pure analytical way, using statistics and other data, it is the negligence of humans to observe shifts in nature which can impact us all. The dabbling discussions about carbon-emissions in Copenhagen stalled, but we shall not! Climate change is all about human deeds and failures, and that is why climate-change is the key phrase - let's forget global warming, that indeed is a hoax.
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11 comments:
"climate change" sounds like soiled shorts. you can wear clean ones tomorrow.
thats the sad thing about this banking depression. who will pay for clean technology and plant retrofits?
just don't buy any beach front property in florida. long term, your investment might be underwater.
aiiii, copenhagen. the danish seem like practical people, but why do they have to swing their clubs at peaceful protesters?
<3
when will we ever learn?
The sad thing about all of this debate on climate change, from my own point of view, is that it's a rather short-term type of thing with short-term type of goals.
I'll get back to that in a minute.
I just came from a project that is one of the ten cleanest coal-burning plants in the nation. 0% particulate emissions. All of that stuff gets recycled somehow.
I was on the condenser crew until Memorial Day, and then I went to engineering staff, where I worked with the slurry system. About half of all the field engineers on that job were from either Germany or Japan, because those are the people that have experience in working with these types of emissions systems.
Carbon capture is already in place. The efficiency isn't exactly what would be desired, but there's people working on that.
As soon as the standards come down, they have something ready to put into place.
A retrofit is something like putting a new muffler on a '57 Chevy. It will run quieter, but it won't get any better mileage.
A retrofit doesn't address the issues of efficiency that new boiler systems and turbine design raise.
That said, I was working a shutdown at an agricultural chemical plant last year where they had this organic sludge that was accumulating in the lines. No one knows where it comes from or how it gets there, but they know they have to clean it out every once in a while. Anything that touches this sludge gets wrapped in plastic and buried on-site. It can't leave the property.
And yet we have an issue like carbon emissions where we know what to do about it, but for whatever reason, we're just not doing it quite yet.
That disturbs me.
But there's something else that disturbs me even more.
Everything I have seen tells me that we will be reliant on coal for energy generation for the 1st part of the 21st century, and nuclear power for the 2nd half.
That's a problem.
Just as the right time to figure out what to do about carbon emissions was 30 years ago, the time to figure out what to do about nuclear waste is now.
But, as people, one of the things about us is that we tend to be easily distracted from the truly important.
I'll leave it at that.
Sera, you crack me up!
"when will we ever learn" sounds like the chorus or refrain of a flower children song from the 60's - Anna-Lys.
...where have all the flowers gone.
then, where have all the young man gone...
Conclusion: Arabia (middle east) and Asia. For what? Beats me!
Unfortunately the ones who REALY would need to learn are never found even close to a battle field.
Will they "ever" learn? I believe not!!!
PS. same goes with Copenhagen's bullshit conference of climate change where basically the US and China are dancing a very badly choreographed version from the movie Grease.
MERCUTIO thanks for visiting my blog! (I managed to visit yours, very interesting all the music stuff and such)
Anyhow, your response needs a bit more thought and attention so I can not just whisk it away with a sly or sarcastic comment (not that I ever do that to anyone).
There was an interview of one of the energy-honchos from France the other day, a politician of course promoting nuclear energy as the golden egg that could make fossil fuels irrelevant. France (if I am not mistaken) receives close to 70% of its energy from nuclear power.No doubt, that is a remarkable achievement by itself. But nobody, I repeat NOBODY addressed the nuclear-waste question, how to deal with that stuff in a proper way, and by that I don't include the option of sending waste to Russia for a good price.....
I don't know if you read an earlier post of mine, where I described a bit of how an island became energy independent. You might want to check it out. There are flaws in the way it is set up (windpower) but I believe it is a step into the right direction.
By the way, Germany now is the world leader in production of kw/hour of electricity through solar means per capita, remarkable for a country who does not enjoy the grace of plentiful sun.
Just think what could be done in Africa!
Hello, Zee.
I found an inlay artist that does exquisite work, and I bought a piece from him. The digital camera is on the fritz, and so I have no photos up as yet.
At any rate, I did see the earlier entry, and I believe, overall, it is a good thing.
In this conversion of fuels that is slowly going on, we're also seeing a movement toward point of use power generation.
It's odd though. You can't hardly find a calculator that isn't solar powered these days, but they haven't done the same with cell phones. Every cell phone has a car charger, but there isn't even a standard among the plug types.
The thing that concerns me about the windmills is the inrush of personnel required to maintain them. We saw pretty much the same thing with asbestos workers in the late 80's - early 90's.
There's going to be a lot of poorly-trained personnel that suffer loss of life over the next 10 to 15 years or so. Most of them are likely to be men in their late 20's. Each one will be a complete tragedy in itself.
The issue with CO2 reminds me so much of the ozone depletion and acid rain that came before it.
Technology created the problem, and technology can solve it.
But to choose between nature and technology is a false dichotomy. The two were meant to co-exist, as much as mankind itself might co-exist with the earth.
Like other environmental catastrophes before it, nuclear waste has a solution, and the earth will heal itself given time. But the time-frame is so much longer that with acid rain, ozone depletion, or CO2 emissions.
I, for one, am not so sure that our species will survive.
If you look at the volume of material we're talking about, it really is that serious.
thanks for the clip, zee. Never heard of "playing for change" before. A happy bunch of people. Enjoyed it.
as i sat on the balcony of a hotel room in kansas city in early NOvember, having had all my papers go missing, and wondering how i was going to get back home to northern canada, a bus pulled right in front of me, with PLAYING FOR CHANGE in huge red letters across the side. i couldn't believe my luck so i went right out and found out where they were playing and got a ticket. most of the people in this clip were on stage. it was a brilliant show. amazing musicians, every one. during intermission, while i was waiting in line to buy a t-shirt for my granddaughter, a fellow handed me 2 passes to the meet and greet after the show, and said they weren't able to stay for that. during the second half of the show, i noticed a young boy, maybe 10 or 12 years old, dancing in the aisle near my seat, with a grin that wrapped around his face twice. he was there with his mum, and they were both groovin'. so after the show, i approached his mum, and offered the meet and greet tickets. i still get a warm glow when i remember the looks on their faces.
Granny Fiddler~
This was a most remarkable story!
Destiny has it's ways of changing your biography at random, or is it the other way 'round?
Thank you for sharing and thank you also for sharing the "back-stage passes". I have a feeling that if I ever got lost in Alberta, shivering and hungry, you would offer me a bowl of hot soup. You really are a jewel on this planet.
You are welcome VZ-nostalgia, there are more of these on their website, the first three are to be recommended.
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