Get Energy Smart! NOW!

While I’m writing something more substantive related to this, a note to encourage all to spend a few moments watching this video … and to share it with as many friends as possible.

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The Guardian reports that data about oil production, globally, shows conclusively that the world has past Peak Oil and we are now in the post-Peak Oil era.

 This is based on an Energy Watch Group report scheduled to be released Monday in London.

The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.

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“Things are on more of a hair trigger than we thought.” Ted Scanbos, Univ of Colorado

So ends a Washington Post article for Monday morning, At the Poles, Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate.  This article (the latest in the Post series In the Greenhouse: Confronting a Changing Climate) lays out many reasons for concern about events in the polar regions from fisheries to threats to ocean currents to …

The poles are often referred to as can canaries in the coal mine for our planet’s climate.  These canaries are collapsed, panting with racing hearts … what will it take to prompt serious, effective action globally.

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Have you ever been steaming hot at the beach or at that kid’s soft ball game and wanted to buy a soda (and, well, of course, recycle the soda can) … but there wasn’t one around? Or, there were semi-lukewarm ones available at exorbitant rates? Well, Solar Vending seems to have come up with a solution to the critical global challenge of cold sodas, 24/7, at that beach.

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Actually, many things are going right with Kansas … many.  

And, if you haven’t heard, something very right happened this week.  Kansas has rejected a proposed coal-fired electrical plant due to carbon dioxide pollution.

For any who’ve missed, at Daily Kos, Devilstower has dedicated a 30 day period of diaries to call attention to the Clean Water Protection Act.  

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Shawn Frayne’s Windbelt is generating real excitement and resonance with its award Popular Mechanics’ yearly Breakthrough Conference.   Humdinger Wind, motto “wind energy reinvented” with CEO Shawn Frayne, offers up some interesting ‘coming soon’ developments.  In a very (VERY) brief page, humdinger developer kits, the company (Frayne?) promises:

“your very own Windbelt in a box, for schools, researchers, and independents … Coming soon!”

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Well, this is an invention that I’ve been waiting to have happen … and, sadly, it comes just too late for my recent window replacement.  The KSD Window from Eco-Logical Innovations (the US sister company of ÖKO-LOGIC GmbH in Germany) is “the every season window with the right spin”.  The KSD window  has three panes with high insulative value. 

The innovation … the been waiting for idea … is in that center pane.  It has heat reflective capabilities, in one direction.  Thus, in summer, flipping the window with the green side facing out and there is minimal heat gain, reducing the cooling burden.  In winter, flip it the other way, and it reduces heat loss (while allowing solar heat gain during the day), reducing the heating load. 

For any who’ve missed, Devilstower has dedicated a 30 day period of diaries to call attention to the Clean Water Protection Act. This is Day 4 in Daily Kos’ 30 Days to Save the Mountains.

Devilstower’s third day diary yesterday noted that the cosponsorship moved from 103 to 105 … Did our calls have an impact? Perhaps so … but so will your next call.

This is about stopping Mountain Top Removal (MTR), the literal decapitation of swaths of America in pursuit of ever cheaper coal and ever more carbon dioxide pollution.
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Green Roofs are becoming blase, perhaps, as design moves into living walls.  A number of the Solar Decathlon teams have incorporated some form of living wall, think garden on the walls of the house.  These walls help cool the house in the summer (reducing solar gain), water management (reduced storm water runoff as they take water from the roof), and have the potential for helping feed the residents (think tomatoes, grapes, herbs …). 

Teams with living walls include, among others, “Three Ms”:

• Madrid: 
• Montreal
• Maryland
• 

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As we watch (with dismay, amusement, confusion, disgust) the Republicans striving to be their party’s nominee in 2008, the striving for ever extreme right astounds, seeking to gain the “base” Republican support necessary to emerge victorious through the primaries.

Well, one arena seems to show a reverse trend, an increasing split between the candidates and the “base”, where the leading Republican Presidential candidates seem to be competing to find their ways to sanity.  

As discussed last week by Chris Mooney at DeSmogBlog and today in The New York Times,

While many conservative commentators and editorialists have mocked concerns about climate change, a different reality is emerging among Republican presidential contenders. It is a near-unanimous recognition among the leaders of the threat posed by global warming.

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