Sci-Tech

Climate Change: Fear or Hope?

In July, the “Brattleboro Citizens’ Breakfast” will again take place on the fourth Friday of the month,  Friday, July 25, 2014 at the Gibson Aiken Center, downstairs, hosted by Senior Meals. Doors open at 7:30am.

The Topic for this month will be: Climate Change:  Should we be Fearful? Or Hopeful?  A discussion of some positive trends in energy use..

The presenter will be George Harvey, the General Factotum of the Green Energy Times – http://greenenergytimes.org/

As Brattleboro’s Future’s Committee begins to form, it might be good to look at a few things predicted for the near future. One of them is robots.

The current path with robotics is to replace a majority of human workers wherever and whenever possible with robots. Very soon, they will be cheaper and better skilled than humans in a wide variety of tasks, from farming to surgery. Foxconn, maker of iPhones and such, has announced already plans to buy 10,000 robots to assist in production at a cost of about $25,000 each.

Worldwatch’s latest estimate is that 51% of greenhouse gas emmissions that are dramatically increasing climate change, are the result of meat production, (with a significant part of that coming directly from the methane created by cows.)

The ice at the poles are the highest since measurements, but the warming models predict otherwise! Oh well, it’s good to be wrong unless you ‘re a palm tree salesmen !

Global warming latest:. 

But I wonder how many people really get sucked into clicking the link?

The spelling and grammar alone should be a dead giveaway.

DON’T EVER CLICK ON ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you of today’s efforts to increase privacy and security on the internet.

It’s an interesting campaign, with many ways to participate. The basic goal is to plug up holes that have been exploited by the NSA and nefarious types to illegally access your personal information.

So, check out. You’ll see ways to spread the word, but also be given tools and instructions (a “privacy pack”) for increasing your personal privacy and security. There are freebies to encrypt email, chats, and browsing. They have hints for encrypting your personal computer. They have tips for professionals and suggestions of where to lend coding skills.

Here’s a project to keep an eye on – .

The inventors say the idea came from thinking about the black boxes used by airlines:

The difficulty of simplifying the universe is that the theoretical concepts devised by physicists do not easily lend themselves to most of us undereducated laymen. Yet, from these three interrelated links of spacetime conjectures I have excerpted below, I did find the description of our everyday world to be, as it says, familiar: “In everyday life, there are three familiar dimensions of space (up/down, left/right, and forward/backward), and there is one dimension of time (later/earlier). Thus, in the language of modern physics, one says that spacetime is four-dimensional.”

I found it interesting that four-dimensional spacetime does not contain the defined present. The grand here and now moment that is ubiquitous and perpetual for everyday life.

Municipalities and public agencies across America (and elsewhere) are investing in renewable energy generation to offset some of the costs of purchased energy. A penny saved, is a penny earned, and we’re not talking about pennies! At times, these efforts result in surplus energy, for which there’s always a market. Funds thus generated can significantly defray taxes.

Brattleboro has significant opportunities to benefit from renewable power. In fact, we have already embarked upon this path.

Here’s something people interested in GMOs and Vermont farming might want to take note of – an open source seed intiative.

You might be familiar with free and open source software. Coders give away the program and underlying source code with the stipulation that others using it do the same. The open source seed initiative is similar. They are releasing seeds in such a way to “make sure that the genes in at least some seed can never be locked away from use by intellectual property rights.”

The Navy has apparently succeeded in literally making gasoline from seawater. I know, I know, it sounds like making gold from lead.

 here.

A since the NSA spying revelations. In it, the researchers say that U.S.-based search traffic fell 2.2% for terms perceived as likely to get one in trouble with the government. Internationally, there was a similar drop in terms that might be embarrassing to family or employers.

It doesn’t sound like much, but with the high volume of searches, the number is indeed quite large. (No wonder that tech companies are starting to push back against spying, at least in PR efforts. They see their numbers dropping more clearly than anyone, and that equates to lost profits.)

Not being a mobile phone user, I haven’t felt particularly tied into the metadata flap, although I understand why that data is so useful to the powers that be.  This morning, however, I had a particularly graphic moment with the concept that gave me pause.  It all started when I received an invitation to “connect” with someone on LinkedIn.  

According , the U.N. says that a lag in confronting climate woes will be costly. It suggests that nations have so dragged their feet in battling climate change that the situation has grown critical and the risk of severe economic disruption is rising.

Another 15 years of failure to limit carbon emissions could make the problem virtually impossible to solve with current technologies, the experts found.

But…there’s a solution! (Yay). The article goes on to say:

I know that climate change is a myth, but somebody better tell Green Mountain Power. They have just announced that customers will be assessed a 1 ½% surcharge due to increased frequency of major storms.

I recently read an article about the wasted energy resulting from charging electrical and electronic devices beyond the point where they have fully charged. The article used a play on words to call attention to this waste.

In this age of modern technology, more and more devices rely on electricity to function. Gadgets like cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, tablets and lately, cars, are plugged every day to have their batteries recharged. Most of the time, we allot recharging time whenever we sleep so we can make sure that these batteries are fully charged. But what we don’t always realize is by doing this, we consume much more energy than needed.

The “4 Block” Rocket Stove! – DIY Rocket Stove – (Concrete/Cinder Block Rocket Stove)

– Simple DIY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmDYUrVHPWc

Lotsa lynx here.

NOTES FROM: VY is Closing: Now what?

Presenter: Lissa Weinmann   

Lissa Weinmann, a , has long specialized in US-Cuba relations and international trade laws and has worked on a variety of domestic and international policy initiatives.. She said she thought there would be nothing tougher and more polarized than dealing with US Cuba policy — but that half-century imbroglio pales in comparison to the equally as long-lived and intractable problems surrounding nuclear waste policy.

The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change report is out and .

According to, a child born today could see temperature rises of up to 6.3°C in its lifetime – enough to bring catastrophic impacts to the planet if he or she lives to be in their mid 90’s.

They report that we have major changes to go through, as “humans cannot burn all of the coal, oil and gas reserves that countries and companies possess” without causing significant damage to the habitability of the planet.

When Yankee powers down, it will have to be “decommissioned”. However, that process only applies to those structures and appurtenances that were actually involved in nuclear production or otherwise affected. There are numerous other buildings that can remain. They should be put to useful service.

The spent fuel, of course, must be dealt with in an urgent manner. In reality, nothing useful can be developed there while the fuel remains.

One of the biggest assets at the site is the 345,000 volt transmission line network extending North, South and East. Although not owned by Yankee, it is located there and has been significantly upgraded recently. Any new development needs to take this into consideration.