Soot Layer Accelerating Arctic Warming?

"An international research team is in the land of snow and ice, in search of soot. Though the Arctic is often pictured as a vast white wasteland, scientists believe a thin layer of soot — mostly invisible — is causing it to absorb more heat. They want to find out if that's the main reason for the recent rapid warming of the Arctic, which could have a long-term impact on the world's climate."

Read the article by Randolph Schmid.

Frontline Report on the Health Care Reform Bill

On March 23, 2010, after a bruising year of debate, negotiation and backlash, President Barack Obama finally signed the health reform bill that he had promised more than a year before. But at what cost to his popularity and to the ideals of bipartisanship and open government that he'd campaigned on?

In Obama's Deal, veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Bush's War, Dreams of Obama) takes viewers behind the headlines to reveal the political maneuvering behind Barack Obama's effort to remake the American health system and transform the way Washington works. Through interviews with administration officials, senators and Washington lobbyists, Obama's Deal reveals the dramatic details of how an idealistic president pursued the health care fight -- despite the warnings of many of his closest advisers -- and how he ended up making deals with many of the powerful special interests he had campaigned against.

View the Frontline Report.

Free Energy: The Race to Zero Point

The award-winning documentary, Free Energy—The Race to Zero Point, provides a thorough, professional examination of the leading theories and practical inventions that tap into zero point energy—now acknowledged by quantum physicists to exist in all space as a potential source of infinite and accessible electromagnetic energy. Respected engineers and scientists explain in understandable terms how amazing new energy technologies and inventions can go beyond alternative energy to solve the energy crisis on our planet.

View the video - you won't be disappointed!

‘The End of Growth’ excerpt by Richard Heinberg

This article is an excerpt from Richard’s new book (working title ‘The End of Growth’), which is set for publication in July 2011. Given the urgency and fragility of the global economic crisis, it is being serialized as Richard writes it. This chapter gives the history of events that have lead us to where we are today.

Richard Heinberg is the author of nine books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and the newly released Blackout, and is widely regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. With a wry, unflinching approach based on facts and realism, Richard exposes the tenuousness of our current way of life and offers a vision for a truly sustainable future.

Read the chapter on 'The Sound of Air Escaping' and make sure to visit his Facebook page.

Rural Areas in Developing Nations use Small Roof-top Solar Panels for their Power

The New York Times published an article about how rural areas in developing nations are using small solar panels to generate electricity to power their cell phones and LED lighting since they do not have access to the power grid that the larger cities have. The problem is that there is no effective distribution network.

"With the advent of cheap solar panels and high-efficiency LED lights, which can light a room with just 4 watts of power instead of 60, these small solar systems now deliver useful electricity at a price that even the poor can afford, he noted. “You’re seeing herders in Inner Mongolia with solar cells on top of their yurts,” Mr. Younger said."

Read the article: African Huts Far From the Grid Glow With Renewable Power

300 Years of Fossil Fueled Addiction Video

Watch the video about 300 years of fossil fueled addiction in 5 minutes. It is great!

Macrowikinomics: The Choice Between Atrophy or Renaissance

Don Tapscott has written a new book that is being released today! It is called Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World. If you read Wikinomics then you will really enjoy this book. I haven't read it yet but plan to after reading this blurb about it. This book talks about the state the world is in right now and how we can fix it. The social web and open data is crucial and things are being done now.

Read the blurb.

Inside the BP Oil Spill

ABC news went underwater with Phillippe Cousteau Jr. to see how bad the BP oil leak is. He described what he saw as "one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen underwater."

View the video.

Read the New York Times article by Susan D. Shaw who is a marine toxicologist and the director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, a nonprofit scientific research and educational organization. She describes her dive in the oil and the toxic effects of the oil dispersant, Corexit, BP has been using.

Read the article.

Learn how to have a Smaller Impact on the Environment

Collectively, small lifestyle changes can make a huge impact on the environment–and your life. Looking for happiness and health? What’s good for the environment is also, it turns out, great for you. Visit this website to learn about the No Impact experiment and to get tips on how you can have less impact on the environment.

Visit noimpactproject.org.

8 Reasons Wall Street Loses Another 20% in This Decade

You cannot win at Wall Street's "Loser's Game." The past decade proves it. The house always wins in Vegas and on Wall Street. So why bet on the house? Why bet with the Wall Street casino for another decade? Why? You're betting in a rigged casino. Worse, they keep adding powerful new tools, scams and algorithms to their "financial weapons of mass destruction" arsenal, as Warren Buffett calls this mysterious $670 trillion global shadow banking world of derivatives. You cannot win.

Statistically, the odds now predict Wall Street losing another 20% of your money in the next decade. The momentum's headed down. So, what should you do? Sell all your stocks, ETFs, bonds and funds. Get out of commodities and gold. Sell.

Read the article by Paul B. Farrell.

From Ocean to Ozone: Earth's Nine Life-Support Systems

Last year, Johan Rockström, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden, sat down with a team of 28 luminaries from environmental and earth-systems science and came up with nine "planetary life-support systems" that are vital for human survival. They then quantified how far we have pushed them already, and estimated how much further we can go without threatening our own survival. Beyond certain boundaries, they warned, we risk causing "irreversible and abrupt environmental change" that could make the Earth a much less hospitable place (Ecology and Society, vol 14, p 32).

Read the article.

Long-term Ocean Oxygen Depletion in Response to Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil Fuels

A panel of 155 scientists from 26 countries is warning that rising levels of CO2 in the world’s oceans are quickly making waters more acidic and threatening the health of shellfish and coral reefs. “Severe damages are imminent,” said the panel of oceanographers, chemists, and biologists. The problem of ocean acidification has recently drawn scientific attention. But the latest report takes the most comprehensive look at the problem and warns that rising CO2 emissions are fundamentally altering the chemistry of the sea, posing a direct threat to organisms that need calcium to build their shells. The panel said that the acidity of the ocean has increased 30 percent since the 17th century and that scientists already have discovered
decreases in shellfish, shellfish weights, and the ability of corals to grow skeletons. The oceans absorb about 25 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, and in the sea the gas dissolves to form carbonic acid. “Any increase in dead zones from global warming will last for thousands of years. They will be a permanent fixture” of our oceans, said lead researcher Gary Shaffer of
the University of Copenhagen. [Yale Environment 360]

Nature (February 2009, v2 n2, p105 – 109 ) / by Gary Shaffer, Steffen Malskær Olsen and Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen

Read the article (pdf)

H1N1 Vaccine Information

Click on the widget to find out where you can get an H1N1 vaccine and other information.

Status of Global Warming

Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then.

Read the article to see what has been happening since then.

Biomimicry Pioneer, Janine Benyus, PopTech Talk 2004

Champion of the Earth honoree and biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus has transformed the way we think about innovation and design. Benyus challenges us to study nature’s best ideas, then imitate its designs and processes to solve some of our greatest human challenges.

View the video of her PopTech talk.

Architect William McDonough at TED 2005

This is a great talk by William McDonough at TED in 2005. He believes that green design can prevent environmental disaster -- while also driving economic growth. He champions “cradle to cradle” design that considers the full life cycle of a product, from its creation with sustainable materials to a recycled afterlife. In 2002 he co-wrote Cradle to Cradle. (The book itself is printed on recyclable plastic.)

View the talk he gave at TED

Biomimicry For Green Design (A How-To)

This is a great article by Jeremy Faludi explaining how to use biomimicry for design. He describes the biomimetic approach and gives a comprehensive list of priciples. He lists reference material that are must-reads.

Read the article.

When Nouriel Speaks People had better Listen...

Here is an interesting with Nouriel Roubini about the current state of the global economy. He thinks a big crash is coming and that there is another bubble that has formed in commodities.

Index Universe (IU.com) interview with Nouriel Roubini.

Michael Moore's Letter to President Obama Congratulating him on Winning the Nobel Peace Prize

Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.

But...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of our War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet. Let's not let them down.

Climate Change Speeding Toward Irreversible Tipping Points

The speed and scope of global warming is now overtaking even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, finds a new report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme, entitled "Climate Change Science Compendium 2009."

Read this article to see what is happening and what can be done!