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If there's one thing the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates seem to agree on, it's this: avoid the subject of climate change.
Mitt Romney would rather joke about President Obama's grandiose promise to heal the planet back in 2008. And Barack Obama would rather talk about jobs saved or created in Ohio, Florida and other swing states.
Never mind that this summer saw a record-breaking meltdown of Arctic sea ice, presaging rising sea levels and more extremely weird weather. Or that the U.S. is locked in a historic drought during what will most likely be the warmest year on record for this nation. Or that concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere continue to tick up inexorably. We are basically guaranteeing an even warmer future and much more acidic oceans.
We thank the two presidential candidates for presenting their views on climate change in response to Scientific American's survey this year. However, neither laid out any kind of policy plan for how to deal with global warming.
Let's break the code of silence. Maybe it's time for a moderator or audience member to directly ask a climate policy question during the October debates? Maybe?
-David Biello
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Asteroid Dust Could Fight Climate Change on Earth
To combat global warming, scientists in Scotland now suggest an out-of-this-world solution - a giant dust cloud in space, blasted off an asteroid, which would act like a sunshade for Earth.
The world is warming and the climate is changing. Although many want to prevent these shifts by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat from the sun, some controversially suggest deliberating manipulating the planet's climate with large-scale engineering projects, commonly called geoengineering.
Instead of altering the climate by targeting either the oceans or the atmosphere, some researchers have suggested geoengineering projects that would affect the entire planet from space. For instance, projects that reduced the amount of solar radiation Earth receives by 1.7 percent could offset the effects of a global increase in temperature of 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C). The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted climate models suggest average global temperatures will likely rise by 2 to 11.5 degrees F (1.1 to 6.4 degrees C) by the end of this century.
'A 1.7 percent reduction is very small and will hardly be noticeable on Earth,' said researcher Russell Bewick, a space scientist at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. 'People sometimes get the idea of giant screens blocking the entire sun. This is not the case ... as [the device] is constantly between the sun and the Earth, it acts merely as a very light shade or filter.'
Shading Earth
One proposal to shade the Earth from the sun would place giant mirrors in space. The main problem with this concept is the immense cost and effort needed either to build and launch such reflectors or to construct them in outer space - the current cost to launch an object into low Earth orbit runs into thousands of dollars per pound. Another would use blankets of dust to blot out the sun, just as clouds do for Earth. These offer the virtue of simplicity compared with mirrors, but run the risk of getting dispersed over time by solar radiation and the gravitational pull of the sun, moon and planets. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]
Now instead of having a dust cloud floating by itself in space, researchers suggest an asteroid could essentially gravitationally anchor a dust cloud in space to block sunlight and cool the Earth.
'I would like to make it clear that I would never suggest geoengineering in place of reducing our carbon emissions,' Bewick told LiveScience. Instead, he said, 'We can buy time to find a lasting solution to combat Earth's climate change. The dust cloud is not a permanent cure, but it could offset the effects of climate change for a given time to allow slow-acting measures like carbon capture to take effect.'
The idea would be to place an asteroid at Lagrange point L1, a site where the gravitational pull of the sun and the Earth cancel out. This point is about four times the distance from the Earth to the moon.
The researchers suggest outfitting a near-Earth asteroid with a 'mass driver,' a device consisting of electromagnets that would hurl asteroid-derived matter away from the giant rock. The mass driver could serve both as a rocket to push the asteroid to the L1 point and as an engine to spew out sun-shielding dust. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids]
The researchers calculate that the largest near-Earth asteroid, 1036 Ganymed, could maintain a dust cloud large enough to block out 6.58 percent of the solar radiation that would normally reach Earth, more than enough to combat any current global warming trends. Such a cloud would be about 11 million-billion pounds (5 million-billion kilograms) in mass and about 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) wide.
Ganymed has a mass of about 286 million-billion lbs. (130 million-billion kg). An asteroid of this size might make one think of disaster movies, such as 'Armageddon'; however, 'rather than destroying the Earth, it could be used to help mankind,' Bewick said.
Asteroid dust challenges
The main challenge of this proposal would be pushing an asteroid the size of Ganymed to the sun-Earth L1 point.
'The company Planetary Resources recently announced their intention to mine asteroids,' Bewick said. 'The study that they base their plans on reckons that it will be possible to capture an asteroid with a mass of 500,000 kilograms (1.1 million lbs.) by 2025. Comparing this to the mass of Ganymed makes the task of capturing it seem unfeasible, at least in everything except the very far term. However, smaller asteroids could be moved and clustered at the first Lagrange point.'
Safety is another concern.
'A very large asteroid is a potential threat to Earth, and therefore great care and testing would be required in the implementation of this scenario,' Bewick said. 'Due to this, the political challenges would probably match the scale of the engineering challenge. Even for the capture of much smaller asteroids, there will likely be reservations from all areas of society, though the risks would be much less.'
Also, there's no way to fully test this dust cloud on a large scale to verify its effectiveness before implementing it, 'something that is common to all geoengineering schemes,' Bewick said. 'On the global scale, it is not possible to test because the test would essentially be the real thing, except probably in a diluted form. Climate modeling can be performed, but without some large-scale testing, the results from these models cannot be fully verified.'
Still, if geoengineers did use asteroids to generate clouds, they could drastically reduce how much dust the projects spew out 'should any catastrophic climate response be observed,' Bewick said, 'with the cloud dispersing naturally over time.'
The scientists will detail their findings in the Nov. 12 issue of the journal Advances in Space Research.
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
The world is warming and the climate is changing. Although many want to prevent these shifts by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat from the sun, some controversially suggest deliberating manipulating the planet's climate with large-scale engineering projects, commonly called geoengineering.
Instead of altering the climate by targeting either the oceans or the atmosphere, some researchers have suggested geoengineering projects that would affect the entire planet from space. For instance, projects that reduced the amount of solar radiation Earth receives by 1.7 percent could offset the effects of a global increase in temperature of 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C). The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted climate models suggest average global temperatures will likely rise by 2 to 11.5 degrees F (1.1 to 6.4 degrees C) by the end of this century.
'A 1.7 percent reduction is very small and will hardly be noticeable on Earth,' said researcher Russell Bewick, a space scientist at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. 'People sometimes get the idea of giant screens blocking the entire sun. This is not the case ... as [the device] is constantly between the sun and the Earth, it acts merely as a very light shade or filter.'
Shading Earth
One proposal to shade the Earth from the sun would place giant mirrors in space. The main problem with this concept is the immense cost and effort needed either to build and launch such reflectors or to construct them in outer space - the current cost to launch an object into low Earth orbit runs into thousands of dollars per pound. Another would use blankets of dust to blot out the sun, just as clouds do for Earth. These offer the virtue of simplicity compared with mirrors, but run the risk of getting dispersed over time by solar radiation and the gravitational pull of the sun, moon and planets. [Top 10 Craziest Environmental Ideas]
Now instead of having a dust cloud floating by itself in space, researchers suggest an asteroid could essentially gravitationally anchor a dust cloud in space to block sunlight and cool the Earth.
'I would like to make it clear that I would never suggest geoengineering in place of reducing our carbon emissions,' Bewick told LiveScience. Instead, he said, 'We can buy time to find a lasting solution to combat Earth's climate change. The dust cloud is not a permanent cure, but it could offset the effects of climate change for a given time to allow slow-acting measures like carbon capture to take effect.'
The idea would be to place an asteroid at Lagrange point L1, a site where the gravitational pull of the sun and the Earth cancel out. This point is about four times the distance from the Earth to the moon.
The researchers suggest outfitting a near-Earth asteroid with a 'mass driver,' a device consisting of electromagnets that would hurl asteroid-derived matter away from the giant rock. The mass driver could serve both as a rocket to push the asteroid to the L1 point and as an engine to spew out sun-shielding dust. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids]
The researchers calculate that the largest near-Earth asteroid, 1036 Ganymed, could maintain a dust cloud large enough to block out 6.58 percent of the solar radiation that would normally reach Earth, more than enough to combat any current global warming trends. Such a cloud would be about 11 million-billion pounds (5 million-billion kilograms) in mass and about 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) wide.
Ganymed has a mass of about 286 million-billion lbs. (130 million-billion kg). An asteroid of this size might make one think of disaster movies, such as 'Armageddon'; however, 'rather than destroying the Earth, it could be used to help mankind,' Bewick said.
Asteroid dust challenges
The main challenge of this proposal would be pushing an asteroid the size of Ganymed to the sun-Earth L1 point.
'The company Planetary Resources recently announced their intention to mine asteroids,' Bewick said. 'The study that they base their plans on reckons that it will be possible to capture an asteroid with a mass of 500,000 kilograms (1.1 million lbs.) by 2025. Comparing this to the mass of Ganymed makes the task of capturing it seem unfeasible, at least in everything except the very far term. However, smaller asteroids could be moved and clustered at the first Lagrange point.'
Safety is another concern.
'A very large asteroid is a potential threat to Earth, and therefore great care and testing would be required in the implementation of this scenario,' Bewick said. 'Due to this, the political challenges would probably match the scale of the engineering challenge. Even for the capture of much smaller asteroids, there will likely be reservations from all areas of society, though the risks would be much less.'
Also, there's no way to fully test this dust cloud on a large scale to verify its effectiveness before implementing it, 'something that is common to all geoengineering schemes,' Bewick said. 'On the global scale, it is not possible to test because the test would essentially be the real thing, except probably in a diluted form. Climate modeling can be performed, but without some large-scale testing, the results from these models cannot be fully verified.'
Still, if geoengineers did use asteroids to generate clouds, they could drastically reduce how much dust the projects spew out 'should any catastrophic climate response be observed,' Bewick said, 'with the cloud dispersing naturally over time.'
The scientists will detail their findings in the Nov. 12 issue of the journal Advances in Space Research.
- 50 Interesting Facts About The Earth
- That's Crazy! 5 Wild Weather Control Ideas
- The 7 Strangest Asteroids in Our Solar System
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Scientist who saw drowned polar bears reprimanded
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped galvanize the global warming movement has been reprimanded for improper release of government documents.
An Interior Department official says emails released by Charles Monnett (moh-NAY') were cited by a federal appeals court in decisions to vacate approval of an oil company's Arctic exploration plan.
The official, Walter Cruickshank, says in a memo that an inspector general's investigation contained findings that Monnett had improperly disclosed internal government documents. He also says the investigation made other findings in regards to Monnett's conduct but that he wasn't taking action on those.
Monnett was briefly suspended last year during an inspector general's investigation into a polar bear research contract he managed.
This article is brought to you by FREE DAILY HOROSCOPE.
An Interior Department official says emails released by Charles Monnett (moh-NAY') were cited by a federal appeals court in decisions to vacate approval of an oil company's Arctic exploration plan.
The official, Walter Cruickshank, says in a memo that an inspector general's investigation contained findings that Monnett had improperly disclosed internal government documents. He also says the investigation made other findings in regards to Monnett's conduct but that he wasn't taking action on those.
Monnett was briefly suspended last year during an inspector general's investigation into a polar bear research contract he managed.
This article is brought to you by FREE DAILY HOROSCOPE.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Pray for Rain
The weather forecast could have a big effect on America's economic forecast next year. The more rain, the better.
A brutally persistent drought across the Midwest is exacting a toll on U.S. growth, the Commerce Department confirmed on Thursday. The department revised its estimate of second-quarter growth for this year down to 1.3 percent from 1.7 percent. Half the drop came from plunging farm inventories due to crop loss.
You don't need to parse those stats to see drought effects across the economy now. You just need to shop for groceries. Prices are rising for grains and grain-fed livestock; last month's producer-price index showed a whopping 23 percent jump in the price of eggs.
The longer those effects persist, the worse the outlook for the U.S. economy. When American consumers spend more for food, they spend less on other things, particularly the services that have largely accounted for what passes as a growth engine in the still-weak recovery.
Rising food prices could also hurt exports - cash-strapped consumers abroad won't be able to afford as much of our stuff - but that effect could be mitigated by the Fed's latest round of quantitative easing, which will likely serve to devalue the dollar against other currencies.
A brutally persistent drought across the Midwest is exacting a toll on U.S. growth, the Commerce Department confirmed on Thursday. The department revised its estimate of second-quarter growth for this year down to 1.3 percent from 1.7 percent. Half the drop came from plunging farm inventories due to crop loss.
You don't need to parse those stats to see drought effects across the economy now. You just need to shop for groceries. Prices are rising for grains and grain-fed livestock; last month's producer-price index showed a whopping 23 percent jump in the price of eggs.
The longer those effects persist, the worse the outlook for the U.S. economy. When American consumers spend more for food, they spend less on other things, particularly the services that have largely accounted for what passes as a growth engine in the still-weak recovery.
Rising food prices could also hurt exports - cash-strapped consumers abroad won't be able to afford as much of our stuff - but that effect could be mitigated by the Fed's latest round of quantitative easing, which will likely serve to devalue the dollar against other currencies.
History suggests that falling farm inventories might not be as big of a concern going forward. Barclays pointed out in a research note this month that the last drought-driven drop in farm inventories, in 2002, was followed by a much smaller drop the next quarter.
Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, predicted in a research note Thursday that the drought will continue to hurt growth this year, "but that effect will unwind in 2013, assuming better weather next year."
That's a big assumption. And one every American needs to hope is correct.
This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
Lightning Still Largely a Mystery
Some 44,000 thunderstorms rage worldwide each day, delivering as many as 100 lightning bolts to the ground every second. These dramatic, deafening flashes of electricity recharge the global battery by keeping the ground flush with negative electric charge and maintaining the ionosphere's positive charge. Lightning turns the Earth into an electric circuit, and it may have even delivered the spark that got life started in the primordial soup.
But for all we know, lightning might as well come from Zeus. Counting Ben Franklin's kite-and-key experiment as the starting point, 250 years of scientific investigation have yet to get to grips with how lightning works.
Atmospheric scientists have a basic sketch of the process. Positive electric charges build up at the tops of thunderclouds and negative charges build up at the bottoms (except for perplexing patches of positive charges often detected in the center-bottom). Electrical attraction between these opposite charges, and between the negative charges at the bottom of the cloud and positive charges that accumulate on the ground below, eventually grow strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow.
Like a herd of elephants wading across a river, negative charges venture down from the bottom of the cloud into the sky below and move haltingly toward the ground, forming an invisible, conductive path called a 'step leader.' The charges' path eventually connects to similar 'streamers' of positive charges surging up from the ground, completing an electrical circuit and enabling negative charges to pour from the cloud to the ground along the circuit they have formed. This sudden, enormous electric discharge is the flash of lightning. [Infographic: How Lightning Strikes]
But as for how all that happens - well, it just doesn't make much physical sense. There are three big questions needing answers, said Joe Dwyer, a leading lightning physicist based at the Florida Institute of Technology. 'First, how do you actually charge up a thundercloud?' Dwyer said. A mix of water and ice is needed to provide atoms that can acquire charge, and updrafts are required to move the charged particles around. The rest of the details are hazy.
One theory holds that high-energy cosmic rays from space shoot down through the cloud, stripping off electrons from atoms as they go and dragging these negatively charged particles toward the cloud base, creating a charge imbalance. Dwyer said that although this process may play a role, it doesn't seem sufficient to explain the huge imbalance that scientists observe.
The consensus among scientists, he told Life's Little Mysteries, is that charge separation is mainly achieved in a process called 'non-inductive charging mechanism.'
'You have a mixed phase of ice and water up above 5 kilometers [3 miles] or so, and somehow those interact with each other and you have some kind of precipitation, and you have updrafts blowing up,' he said. 'Somehow the ice and water interact and manage to separate into oppositely charged particles. The lighter particles acquire positive charge and get blown to the top, and the heavier ones are negative and fall down.'
That aforementioned positive patch near the bottom of the cloud remains a head-scratcher. [The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]
The second point of confusion is called the 'lightning initiation problem.' Measurements of the electric fields inside thunderclouds have consistently yielded peak values that are an order of magnitude weaker than is needed to break down the insulating properties of air. Man-made spark plugs require a much bigger electric field, or voltage difference between one electrode and the other in order for a current to tear across the gap. So the question is, 'How do you get a spark going inside a thunderstorm? The electric fields never seem to be big enough inside the storm to generate a spark. So how does that spark get going? This is a very active area of research,' Dwyer said.
And once the spark gets going, the final question is how it keeps going. 'After you get it started, how does lightning propagate for tens of miles through clouds?' Dwyer said. 'That's an amazing thing - how do you turn air from being an insulator into a conductor?'
Lightning confounds much of scientists' understanding of basic physics. But according to Dwyer, progress has recently picked up the pace. 'We have a lot of ways of measuring lightning and storms that weren't available a few years ago. We can look at the radio signals coming out of them. We can trigger lightning, so that we can know where to point our cameras and instruments. Ten years ago we realized that lightning produces X-rays and gamma rays, which was unexpected. This has given us new insight into what's going on. So we're making a lot of progress.'
As of yet, it seems Zeus' wrath has technically not been ruled out.
Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover or Life's Little Mysteries @llmysteries. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
But for all we know, lightning might as well come from Zeus. Counting Ben Franklin's kite-and-key experiment as the starting point, 250 years of scientific investigation have yet to get to grips with how lightning works.
Atmospheric scientists have a basic sketch of the process. Positive electric charges build up at the tops of thunderclouds and negative charges build up at the bottoms (except for perplexing patches of positive charges often detected in the center-bottom). Electrical attraction between these opposite charges, and between the negative charges at the bottom of the cloud and positive charges that accumulate on the ground below, eventually grow strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow.
Like a herd of elephants wading across a river, negative charges venture down from the bottom of the cloud into the sky below and move haltingly toward the ground, forming an invisible, conductive path called a 'step leader.' The charges' path eventually connects to similar 'streamers' of positive charges surging up from the ground, completing an electrical circuit and enabling negative charges to pour from the cloud to the ground along the circuit they have formed. This sudden, enormous electric discharge is the flash of lightning. [Infographic: How Lightning Strikes]
But as for how all that happens - well, it just doesn't make much physical sense. There are three big questions needing answers, said Joe Dwyer, a leading lightning physicist based at the Florida Institute of Technology. 'First, how do you actually charge up a thundercloud?' Dwyer said. A mix of water and ice is needed to provide atoms that can acquire charge, and updrafts are required to move the charged particles around. The rest of the details are hazy.
One theory holds that high-energy cosmic rays from space shoot down through the cloud, stripping off electrons from atoms as they go and dragging these negatively charged particles toward the cloud base, creating a charge imbalance. Dwyer said that although this process may play a role, it doesn't seem sufficient to explain the huge imbalance that scientists observe.
The consensus among scientists, he told Life's Little Mysteries, is that charge separation is mainly achieved in a process called 'non-inductive charging mechanism.'
'You have a mixed phase of ice and water up above 5 kilometers [3 miles] or so, and somehow those interact with each other and you have some kind of precipitation, and you have updrafts blowing up,' he said. 'Somehow the ice and water interact and manage to separate into oppositely charged particles. The lighter particles acquire positive charge and get blown to the top, and the heavier ones are negative and fall down.'
That aforementioned positive patch near the bottom of the cloud remains a head-scratcher. [The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]
The second point of confusion is called the 'lightning initiation problem.' Measurements of the electric fields inside thunderclouds have consistently yielded peak values that are an order of magnitude weaker than is needed to break down the insulating properties of air. Man-made spark plugs require a much bigger electric field, or voltage difference between one electrode and the other in order for a current to tear across the gap. So the question is, 'How do you get a spark going inside a thunderstorm? The electric fields never seem to be big enough inside the storm to generate a spark. So how does that spark get going? This is a very active area of research,' Dwyer said.
And once the spark gets going, the final question is how it keeps going. 'After you get it started, how does lightning propagate for tens of miles through clouds?' Dwyer said. 'That's an amazing thing - how do you turn air from being an insulator into a conductor?'
Lightning confounds much of scientists' understanding of basic physics. But according to Dwyer, progress has recently picked up the pace. 'We have a lot of ways of measuring lightning and storms that weren't available a few years ago. We can look at the radio signals coming out of them. We can trigger lightning, so that we can know where to point our cameras and instruments. Ten years ago we realized that lightning produces X-rays and gamma rays, which was unexpected. This has given us new insight into what's going on. So we're making a lot of progress.'
As of yet, it seems Zeus' wrath has technically not been ruled out.
Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover or Life's Little Mysteries @llmysteries. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- Simple Questions with No Answers
- Electric Earth: Stunning Images of Lightning
- Lightning Strike Survivor Video: Real or Fake?
This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
Sweden's H&M: Q3 profit rose slightly
STOCKHOLM (AP) - Swedish fashion retailer Hennes and Mauritz on Thursday reported a tiny 1 percent rise in third-quarter net profits, saying that although its clothing lines sold well in the beginning of the summer, the European financial crisis and poor weather conditions in August restrained consumption more than expected at the end of the period.
It also said it plans to launch a new fashion brand, & Other Stories, in the first half of next year, which will be located in separate stores. The clothes will focus more on quality and will be higher priced than its normal fashion lines.
The Stockholm-headquartered group posted a net profit of 3.6 billion kronor ($549 million) in the three-month period, up slightly from 3.59 billion kronor in the year-ago period. Aside from lower-than-expected sales at the end of the summer, currency fluctuations also hurt its income.
Revenues came to 33.57 billion kronor, up from 31.51 billion kronor, but the gross margin shrank to 58.2 percent from 58.6 percent.
H&M said it will ramp up its expansion rate for the full year 2012, planning to open 300 new stores instead of the previously planned 275.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
It also said it plans to launch a new fashion brand, & Other Stories, in the first half of next year, which will be located in separate stores. The clothes will focus more on quality and will be higher priced than its normal fashion lines.
The Stockholm-headquartered group posted a net profit of 3.6 billion kronor ($549 million) in the three-month period, up slightly from 3.59 billion kronor in the year-ago period. Aside from lower-than-expected sales at the end of the summer, currency fluctuations also hurt its income.
Revenues came to 33.57 billion kronor, up from 31.51 billion kronor, but the gross margin shrank to 58.2 percent from 58.6 percent.
H&M said it will ramp up its expansion rate for the full year 2012, planning to open 300 new stores instead of the previously planned 275.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Weather Channel heads to swing states for election
NEW YORK (AP) - Snowstorms, hurricanes and tornados are what usually put The Weather Channel's news team in motion. This November it will mobilize for the election.
The network, which commissioned a study on how many people might be dissuaded from going to the polls by bad weather, said Wednesday it plans to send some of its meteorologists out into the field on Election Day to monitor the weather's impact on voting.
The study, done in August, found that 25 percent of eligible voters said bad weather would have an impact on their ability or desire to get to the polls on Nov. 6. Among people who said they were undecided between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, 35 percent said weather might make a difference in whether they vote.
Obama's supporters should be hoping for clear skies: Twenty-eight percent of people who said they plan to vote for Obama said weather would have a significant or moderate impact on their decisions to vote, while 19 percent of Romney supporters said it would.
Paul Walsh, vice president of weather analytics for The Weather Channel, said he was surprised at the number of people who suggested rain or shine could be the deciding factor in whether they vote, particularly among the undecided voters.
'In a close election, that becomes daunting,' Walsh said. 'The weather can become a really pivotal thing.'
The Weather Channel will base reporters in swing states on Election Day. It will decide closer to the election whether to pre-empt its regular programming, as is often done during major weather stories, said Jennifer Rigby, the network's multimedia content director.
Icy road conditions will affect potential voters more than any other condition, the survey said.
Different weather in different locales also will make a difference, as populations more accustomed to hazardous weather conditions will better be able to shake them off, Walsh said.
'If it's going to snow an inch in Buffalo, that's like a walk in the park,' Walsh said. 'That's not going to move the needle. But if it snows an inch in New York City, that's going to change a lot of minds.'
Asked which of the two candidates they'd prefer to be stranded with in a snowstorm, 54 percent of respondents answered Obama. A majority of voters also said that Obama would be better at providing aid to a city following a hurricane.
The telephone survey was conducted by global market research company Ipsos between Aug. 21 and 24, with 1,683 registered voters participating. Its margin of error was 3 percentage points.
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
The network, which commissioned a study on how many people might be dissuaded from going to the polls by bad weather, said Wednesday it plans to send some of its meteorologists out into the field on Election Day to monitor the weather's impact on voting.
The study, done in August, found that 25 percent of eligible voters said bad weather would have an impact on their ability or desire to get to the polls on Nov. 6. Among people who said they were undecided between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, 35 percent said weather might make a difference in whether they vote.
Obama's supporters should be hoping for clear skies: Twenty-eight percent of people who said they plan to vote for Obama said weather would have a significant or moderate impact on their decisions to vote, while 19 percent of Romney supporters said it would.
Paul Walsh, vice president of weather analytics for The Weather Channel, said he was surprised at the number of people who suggested rain or shine could be the deciding factor in whether they vote, particularly among the undecided voters.
'In a close election, that becomes daunting,' Walsh said. 'The weather can become a really pivotal thing.'
The Weather Channel will base reporters in swing states on Election Day. It will decide closer to the election whether to pre-empt its regular programming, as is often done during major weather stories, said Jennifer Rigby, the network's multimedia content director.
Icy road conditions will affect potential voters more than any other condition, the survey said.
Different weather in different locales also will make a difference, as populations more accustomed to hazardous weather conditions will better be able to shake them off, Walsh said.
'If it's going to snow an inch in Buffalo, that's like a walk in the park,' Walsh said. 'That's not going to move the needle. But if it snows an inch in New York City, that's going to change a lot of minds.'
Asked which of the two candidates they'd prefer to be stranded with in a snowstorm, 54 percent of respondents answered Obama. A majority of voters also said that Obama would be better at providing aid to a city following a hurricane.
The telephone survey was conducted by global market research company Ipsos between Aug. 21 and 24, with 1,683 registered voters participating. Its margin of error was 3 percentage points.
This news article is brought to you by PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Why Politicians Need to Think Like Scientists
Global warming, counterterrorism efforts that profile Muslims, the shift to electronic voting machines - lawmakers grappling with these issues and others could benefit greatly from some scientific thinking, says a U.S. congressman and physicist.
While electing more scientists would address the problem, it is an unlikely solution, writes U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat who represents a New Jersey district. Instead, he writes nonscientist legislators need to become more comfortable thinking like scientists.
Science & the issues
Scientific thinkers share important traits, such as a realistic understanding of technology, using statistical thinking and an understanding that the path towards good solutions is paved with uncertainty, he writes.
For example, after the disputed presidential election of 2000, lawmakers and election officials embraced a switch to electronic voting machines. But this move alarmed computer scientists because software is prone to subtle errors, oversight is difficult and electronic elections are tempting targets for malevolent hackers, he writes in a commentary published in Thursday's (Sept. 27) issue of the journal Nature. [Quiz Bizarre U.S. Presidential Elections]
Likewise, statistical reasoning demonstrates why the New York City Police Department's counterterrorism practice of conducting surveillance on Muslims was not effective, Holt said.
That's because, he explained, Muslims have made about 50 million flights in the United States since 2001, but terrorists are exceedingly rare. As a result, even a highly accurate detection program at airports would still have falsely accused tens of thousands of innocent people. The result: Billions of dollars wasted and the creation of profound distrust for U.S. authorities among the Muslim community, he writes.
As for global warming, 'a failure to understand ordinary fluctuations in noisy climate data allows some members of Congress to believe that claims of human-induced climate change are a hoax, or that the data are so chaotic that no policy action can be devised,' he writes.
A solution
The need to improve science education for everyone factors into the dearth of scientific thought among politicians, Holt said.
'The scientific thinking I am talking about is not available just to scientists. As long as we have an education program in this country that tells people you are either a scientist or you are not, then we need more trained scientists in public life,' Holt told LiveScience. 'But there is no reason we can't have more ordinary people comfortable dealing with science.' [8 Celebrities Who Promote Science]
To help address the need in Congress, Holt calls for the re-establishment of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which was eliminated in 1995 by budget cuts. The OTA, supervised by a bipartisan panel, responded to questions about science and technology from Congress by conducting in-depth reviews using outside experts as well as in-house staff, he said, adding that when this office was operating, it elevated the level of discussion of these issues.
By itself, the OTA wouldn't make a member of Congress more open-minded, or guarantee that a decision is based on evidence, 'but it certainly helps,' he said.
Scientists among politicians
'Congressman Holt is preaching to the choir,' said Marc Hetherington, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. 'The world is an uncertain place, and politicians are wired to appreciate certainty.'
The ability to work with uncertainty encourages politicians to keep long-term objectives in mind, rather than getting distracted by short-term outcomes, Hetherington said.
Politicians, particularly those in the executive branch dealing with issues like terrorism, live in constant fear of that one mistake, he said. 'They almost certainly are going to be blamed for whatever occurs, and if they didn't do whatever possible, they are going to bear the brunt of that.'
The demographics of American politics has changed over the past couple of generations, and the diversity of politicians' backgrounds, whether they be scientists or farmers, has given way to a scene dominated by business people and lawyers, Hetherington said.
The shift has happened for a number of reasons, including the increasing emphasis on the legal aspect of governance driven by an increase in the size of government, the crucial importance of fundraising and increasing demands for a full-time commitment from elected officials.
On the upside, this shift means an increase in politicians' technical proficiency in governance, 'but what they lack is breadth of perspective,' Hetherington said.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
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While electing more scientists would address the problem, it is an unlikely solution, writes U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat who represents a New Jersey district. Instead, he writes nonscientist legislators need to become more comfortable thinking like scientists.
Science & the issues
Scientific thinkers share important traits, such as a realistic understanding of technology, using statistical thinking and an understanding that the path towards good solutions is paved with uncertainty, he writes.
For example, after the disputed presidential election of 2000, lawmakers and election officials embraced a switch to electronic voting machines. But this move alarmed computer scientists because software is prone to subtle errors, oversight is difficult and electronic elections are tempting targets for malevolent hackers, he writes in a commentary published in Thursday's (Sept. 27) issue of the journal Nature. [Quiz Bizarre U.S. Presidential Elections]
Likewise, statistical reasoning demonstrates why the New York City Police Department's counterterrorism practice of conducting surveillance on Muslims was not effective, Holt said.
That's because, he explained, Muslims have made about 50 million flights in the United States since 2001, but terrorists are exceedingly rare. As a result, even a highly accurate detection program at airports would still have falsely accused tens of thousands of innocent people. The result: Billions of dollars wasted and the creation of profound distrust for U.S. authorities among the Muslim community, he writes.
As for global warming, 'a failure to understand ordinary fluctuations in noisy climate data allows some members of Congress to believe that claims of human-induced climate change are a hoax, or that the data are so chaotic that no policy action can be devised,' he writes.
A solution
The need to improve science education for everyone factors into the dearth of scientific thought among politicians, Holt said.
'The scientific thinking I am talking about is not available just to scientists. As long as we have an education program in this country that tells people you are either a scientist or you are not, then we need more trained scientists in public life,' Holt told LiveScience. 'But there is no reason we can't have more ordinary people comfortable dealing with science.' [8 Celebrities Who Promote Science]
To help address the need in Congress, Holt calls for the re-establishment of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which was eliminated in 1995 by budget cuts. The OTA, supervised by a bipartisan panel, responded to questions about science and technology from Congress by conducting in-depth reviews using outside experts as well as in-house staff, he said, adding that when this office was operating, it elevated the level of discussion of these issues.
By itself, the OTA wouldn't make a member of Congress more open-minded, or guarantee that a decision is based on evidence, 'but it certainly helps,' he said.
Scientists among politicians
'Congressman Holt is preaching to the choir,' said Marc Hetherington, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. 'The world is an uncertain place, and politicians are wired to appreciate certainty.'
The ability to work with uncertainty encourages politicians to keep long-term objectives in mind, rather than getting distracted by short-term outcomes, Hetherington said.
Politicians, particularly those in the executive branch dealing with issues like terrorism, live in constant fear of that one mistake, he said. 'They almost certainly are going to be blamed for whatever occurs, and if they didn't do whatever possible, they are going to bear the brunt of that.'
The demographics of American politics has changed over the past couple of generations, and the diversity of politicians' backgrounds, whether they be scientists or farmers, has given way to a scene dominated by business people and lawyers, Hetherington said.
The shift has happened for a number of reasons, including the increasing emphasis on the legal aspect of governance driven by an increase in the size of government, the crucial importance of fundraising and increasing demands for a full-time commitment from elected officials.
On the upside, this shift means an increase in politicians' technical proficiency in governance, 'but what they lack is breadth of perspective,' Hetherington said.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
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Church of England chooses new leader to weather storms
LONDON (Reuters) - Church of England officials met in secret on Wednesday to choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury, a centuries-old role with the modern task of preventing 80 million Anglicans worldwide from splitting over gay marriage and women bishops.
The new church leader must reconcile modernists and traditionalists, and stem a long-term decline in church attendance, a difficult juggling act that some see as a poisoned chalice.
Outgoing Archbishop Rowan Williams, 62, a self-confessed 'old hairy lefty' who opposed the Iraq war, said his successor as head of the global Anglican Communion will need 'the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros'.
'It'd be hard to find somebody more unifying than Rowan Williams, and yet he hasn't managed to hold it together,' Paul Handley, editor of the Church Times newspaper, told Reuters.
'Under him, there have been two significant changes: one is the growth of secularism ... and the other is greater division in the church over issues like women bishops, women priests and gay weddings.'
The arcane process of selecting the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury is wrapped in layers of protocol perhaps unsurprising for a role with roots going back 1,400 years.
Meeting for three days behind closed doors at a secret location, a 16-member panel of bishops, church members and lay people will pick a preferred candidate and a reserve choice.
They will give the two names to Prime Minister David Cameron who will forward the name of the preferred candidate to the Queen, supreme governor of the Church of England. Once she approves the candidate, Cameron's Downing Street office will make the announcement next week, possibly on Wednesday.
The new archbishop will earn about 74,000 pounds a year and have lodgings in the Old Palace in Canterbury, southeast England, and the historic riverside Lambeth Palace in London. His tenure will last until retirement at 70 or until he decides to move on.
FAVOURITES
The winner will be under pressure to prevent the Anglican world from being torn apart over homosexuality and same-sex unions. Greater tolerance on those issues among some in Britain and the United States has angered conservatives in areas with growing congregations, such as Nigeria.
One of the favourites to replace Williams is the Bishop of Durham Justin Welby, 56, a former oil executive who trained as a priest after the death of his infant daughter in a car crash.
He sits on a panel set up by the government to investigate the fixing of the Libor (interbank) borrowing rate.
Perhaps the best known candidate is the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, 63, a straight-talking traditionalist and the church's second most senior cleric. Born in Uganda, he fled to Britain after being detained and beaten under dictator Idi Amin.
He writes a column for Rupert Murdoch's top-selling Sun tabloid, a newspaper better known for its daily picture of a topless woman on page three.
Other frontrunners include the Bishop of Coventry Christopher Cocksworth, 53, a father of five who is a popular figure among more liberal members of the church.
The main traditionalist candidate is the Bishop of London Richard Chartres, 65, who opposed the blessing in Anglican churches of 'civil partnerships', a formula that gives same-sex couples legal recognition.
The successor to the scholarly Williams will be enthroned in a grand ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral, where St Augustine began England's conversion to Christianity in 597 AD.
The Reverend George Pitcher, who advised Williams on public relations, said the next archbishop should reform the role to make it more manageable.
'The job as it currently stands can't be a job that anybody in their right mind would want to do,' he told the BBC. 'It's probably a debilitating and depressing prospect becoming Archbishop of Canterbury precisely because the job is undoable.'
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
The new church leader must reconcile modernists and traditionalists, and stem a long-term decline in church attendance, a difficult juggling act that some see as a poisoned chalice.
Outgoing Archbishop Rowan Williams, 62, a self-confessed 'old hairy lefty' who opposed the Iraq war, said his successor as head of the global Anglican Communion will need 'the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros'.
'It'd be hard to find somebody more unifying than Rowan Williams, and yet he hasn't managed to hold it together,' Paul Handley, editor of the Church Times newspaper, told Reuters.
'Under him, there have been two significant changes: one is the growth of secularism ... and the other is greater division in the church over issues like women bishops, women priests and gay weddings.'
The arcane process of selecting the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury is wrapped in layers of protocol perhaps unsurprising for a role with roots going back 1,400 years.
Meeting for three days behind closed doors at a secret location, a 16-member panel of bishops, church members and lay people will pick a preferred candidate and a reserve choice.
They will give the two names to Prime Minister David Cameron who will forward the name of the preferred candidate to the Queen, supreme governor of the Church of England. Once she approves the candidate, Cameron's Downing Street office will make the announcement next week, possibly on Wednesday.
The new archbishop will earn about 74,000 pounds a year and have lodgings in the Old Palace in Canterbury, southeast England, and the historic riverside Lambeth Palace in London. His tenure will last until retirement at 70 or until he decides to move on.
FAVOURITES
The winner will be under pressure to prevent the Anglican world from being torn apart over homosexuality and same-sex unions. Greater tolerance on those issues among some in Britain and the United States has angered conservatives in areas with growing congregations, such as Nigeria.
One of the favourites to replace Williams is the Bishop of Durham Justin Welby, 56, a former oil executive who trained as a priest after the death of his infant daughter in a car crash.
He sits on a panel set up by the government to investigate the fixing of the Libor (interbank) borrowing rate.
Perhaps the best known candidate is the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, 63, a straight-talking traditionalist and the church's second most senior cleric. Born in Uganda, he fled to Britain after being detained and beaten under dictator Idi Amin.
He writes a column for Rupert Murdoch's top-selling Sun tabloid, a newspaper better known for its daily picture of a topless woman on page three.
Other frontrunners include the Bishop of Coventry Christopher Cocksworth, 53, a father of five who is a popular figure among more liberal members of the church.
The main traditionalist candidate is the Bishop of London Richard Chartres, 65, who opposed the blessing in Anglican churches of 'civil partnerships', a formula that gives same-sex couples legal recognition.
The successor to the scholarly Williams will be enthroned in a grand ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral, where St Augustine began England's conversion to Christianity in 597 AD.
The Reverend George Pitcher, who advised Williams on public relations, said the next archbishop should reform the role to make it more manageable.
'The job as it currently stands can't be a job that anybody in their right mind would want to do,' he told the BBC. 'It's probably a debilitating and depressing prospect becoming Archbishop of Canterbury precisely because the job is undoable.'
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Key US East Coast Weather Satellite GOES-13 Fails
A major weather satellite monitoring the U.S. East Coast has shut down, prompting officials to activate a spare satellite to take its place.
The GOES-13 satellite failed after days of erratic behavior, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said Monday (Sept. 24). The replacement, GOES-14, has already begun snapping pictures of Earth from space to monitor the U.S. eastern coast along with the continental U.S. and Atlantic basin, they added.
'GOES-14 will remain the primary GOES satellite over the Atlantic basin and Continental U.S. until the imager and sounder data issues on GOES-13 can be fully diagnosed and hopefully fixed,' NOAA officials said in the Monday statement.
The GOES-13 satellite, which is also known as GOES East, launched into space in 2006 and was responsible for tracking weather systems across the eastern United States while another GOES satellite monitored the country's western regions, according to NASA records. GOES-14 launched in 2009 and was placed in a storage orbit to serve as an in-space spare.
'NOAA maintains backup GOES satellites in case unforeseen events occur, providing full redundancy for monitoring severe weather over the U.S. and its territories,' NOAA officials said. GOES-14 will serve as GOES East until the GOES-13 satellite's malfunction can be repaired.
GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The satellites orbit the Earth in geostationary orbits, which allow them to continuously look down on the same part of Earth from a distance of 22,300 miles (35,888 kilometers). The first GOES satellite launched in 1974.
GOES-13 and its later counterparts are part of a newer generation of GOES weather satellites. In addition to tracking weather systems, the satellites are also used to relay distress signals from emergency beacons and can monitor solar activity during sun storms, NASA officials have said.
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This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
The GOES-13 satellite failed after days of erratic behavior, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said Monday (Sept. 24). The replacement, GOES-14, has already begun snapping pictures of Earth from space to monitor the U.S. eastern coast along with the continental U.S. and Atlantic basin, they added.
'GOES-14 will remain the primary GOES satellite over the Atlantic basin and Continental U.S. until the imager and sounder data issues on GOES-13 can be fully diagnosed and hopefully fixed,' NOAA officials said in the Monday statement.
The GOES-13 satellite, which is also known as GOES East, launched into space in 2006 and was responsible for tracking weather systems across the eastern United States while another GOES satellite monitored the country's western regions, according to NASA records. GOES-14 launched in 2009 and was placed in a storage orbit to serve as an in-space spare.
'NOAA maintains backup GOES satellites in case unforeseen events occur, providing full redundancy for monitoring severe weather over the U.S. and its territories,' NOAA officials said. GOES-14 will serve as GOES East until the GOES-13 satellite's malfunction can be repaired.
GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The satellites orbit the Earth in geostationary orbits, which allow them to continuously look down on the same part of Earth from a distance of 22,300 miles (35,888 kilometers). The first GOES satellite launched in 1974.
GOES-13 and its later counterparts are part of a newer generation of GOES weather satellites. In addition to tracking weather systems, the satellites are also used to relay distress signals from emergency beacons and can monitor solar activity during sun storms, NASA officials have said.
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- Earth Pictures From Space: Landsat Satellite Legacy
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This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
Monday, September 24, 2012
East Coast weather satellite fails, spare used
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. weather satellite that tracks the East Coast and Atlantic hurricanes is broken.
Meteorologists are scrambling to fill in lost data for forecasters with a spare satellite and help from a European satellite.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesman Scott Smullen said engineers shut down the East Coast satellite on Sunday because of vibrations. They're still trying to diagnose the problem.
Smullen said there may be a slight decrease in the accuracy of weather forecasts. NOAA is checking to see if it will affect hurricane forecasting.
The $500 million satellite was launched in 2006, but it wasn't used regularly to monitor weather until 2010.
___
Online:
NOAA: http://www.goes.noaa.gov
This news article is brought to you by CELEBRITY MUSIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Meteorologists are scrambling to fill in lost data for forecasters with a spare satellite and help from a European satellite.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesman Scott Smullen said engineers shut down the East Coast satellite on Sunday because of vibrations. They're still trying to diagnose the problem.
Smullen said there may be a slight decrease in the accuracy of weather forecasts. NOAA is checking to see if it will affect hurricane forecasting.
The $500 million satellite was launched in 2006, but it wasn't used regularly to monitor weather until 2010.
___
Online:
NOAA: http://www.goes.noaa.gov
This news article is brought to you by CELEBRITY MUSIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Siri is fouling up weather forecasts for major cities and suffering from intermittent outages
New York iPhone users who ask Siri for a weather forecast this week might be surprised to learn that the Big Apple is expected to register temperatures in the mid-90s for the next several days. Of course, that's not the actual New York weather forecast, but a weather forecast for the town of New York that's located in Texas. MacRumors reports, and BGR has independently confirmed, that Siri is coming up with the wrong results for weather requests in several towns, including the particularly egregious example where Siri pulls up the weather in New York, Texas when asked for weather in New York. BGR also experienced intermittent connectivity issues with Siri on Monday, although it's unknown whether this is related to Siri's weather forecast mistakes.
Read
Balancing food, weather, and population
Cyclical or secular? That's the question economists, historians, climatologists, farmers, consumers - just about anyone with an interest in the future, which is more or less everyone - are trying to answer.
During bad times, the idea of cyclicality is encouraging. We can ride out hardship because prosperity is just around the corner - although we also can't relax when things are looking up because the economy is sure to head south again.
A secular change, on the other hand, means we've entered a new era, which is swell if that era is prosperous and plentiful - the two-decade "great moderation" that started in 1985, for instance. But secular change can also mean we get locked into sluggishness and scarcity as far as the eye can see. That's the worry that has accompanied the Great Recession that began in 2007 and persists in many sectors of the world economy.
The drought that has gripped the agricultural heartland of the United States, Russia, Australia, India, and other food-producing regions of the world in 2012 (see this current Monitor cover story) has a cyclical/secular dimension. If the climate has changed, drought could be the new normal, with big implications for consumers, especially in poor countries. But parched conditions could also just be a bad patch of weather similar to the great droughts of the 1930s, early 1950s, and late 1980s. Tree-ring data indicate droughts even more severe than those in the 1930s occurred in pre-Columbian North America.
If that seems cyclical, there's still a secular dimension. The 21st-century combination of global population and global trade, as Dan Murphy notes in this week's cover story, is unprecedented. Never before have 7 billion people lived on this planet (with 2 billion more on the way by 2050). Never before have far-flung markets been so interconnected.
If droughts merely come and go, feeding the burgeoning world population would be difficult enough. If droughts are a more permanent condition now because the climate is growing warmer, feeding the world will require the best and brightest in agriculture and resource management.
You may not recall the drought of 1988. There was plenty of other news that year - a US presidential election; the start of anticommunist revolutions in Eastern Europe; a devastating earthquake in Armenia; the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. But the '88 drought at one point covered 45 percent of the US, and until hurricane Katrina it was the costliest natural disaster in US history. A study commissioned by Oxfam indicates that if an '88-scale drought recurred in 2030, poorer countries that import corn and wheat would face a shock so severe that famine and social unrest would be the result.
A sharp rise in food prices in 2007-08 roiled populations from Mexico to Sri Lanka and helped set the stage for today's Middle East upheaval. So far, the drought of 2012 has not caused panic, largely because governments from Egypt to India warehoused foodstuffs for just such a contingency.
Prudence is important even if Earth's weather isn't undergoing secular change. Rains come and go. Years of lean follow years of plenty. But feeding 9 billion people by midcentury is more than a cyclical challenge. It will require levels of innovation and co-operation never before seen in human history.
Read this story at csmonitor.com
Become a part of the Monitor community
This news article is brought to you by CELEBRITY MUSIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
During bad times, the idea of cyclicality is encouraging. We can ride out hardship because prosperity is just around the corner - although we also can't relax when things are looking up because the economy is sure to head south again.
A secular change, on the other hand, means we've entered a new era, which is swell if that era is prosperous and plentiful - the two-decade "great moderation" that started in 1985, for instance. But secular change can also mean we get locked into sluggishness and scarcity as far as the eye can see. That's the worry that has accompanied the Great Recession that began in 2007 and persists in many sectors of the world economy.
The drought that has gripped the agricultural heartland of the United States, Russia, Australia, India, and other food-producing regions of the world in 2012 (see this current Monitor cover story) has a cyclical/secular dimension. If the climate has changed, drought could be the new normal, with big implications for consumers, especially in poor countries. But parched conditions could also just be a bad patch of weather similar to the great droughts of the 1930s, early 1950s, and late 1980s. Tree-ring data indicate droughts even more severe than those in the 1930s occurred in pre-Columbian North America.
If that seems cyclical, there's still a secular dimension. The 21st-century combination of global population and global trade, as Dan Murphy notes in this week's cover story, is unprecedented. Never before have 7 billion people lived on this planet (with 2 billion more on the way by 2050). Never before have far-flung markets been so interconnected.
If droughts merely come and go, feeding the burgeoning world population would be difficult enough. If droughts are a more permanent condition now because the climate is growing warmer, feeding the world will require the best and brightest in agriculture and resource management.
You may not recall the drought of 1988. There was plenty of other news that year - a US presidential election; the start of anticommunist revolutions in Eastern Europe; a devastating earthquake in Armenia; the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. But the '88 drought at one point covered 45 percent of the US, and until hurricane Katrina it was the costliest natural disaster in US history. A study commissioned by Oxfam indicates that if an '88-scale drought recurred in 2030, poorer countries that import corn and wheat would face a shock so severe that famine and social unrest would be the result.
A sharp rise in food prices in 2007-08 roiled populations from Mexico to Sri Lanka and helped set the stage for today's Middle East upheaval. So far, the drought of 2012 has not caused panic, largely because governments from Egypt to India warehoused foodstuffs for just such a contingency.
Prudence is important even if Earth's weather isn't undergoing secular change. Rains come and go. Years of lean follow years of plenty. But feeding 9 billion people by midcentury is more than a cyclical challenge. It will require levels of innovation and co-operation never before seen in human history.
Read this story at csmonitor.com
Become a part of the Monitor community
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This news article is brought to you by CELEBRITY MUSIC NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Boost for carbon capture from new non-toxic absorber
LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers have created a new material that could solve some of the problems holding back projects to combat global warming by capturing and burying carbon emitted from power stations.
The material, made from aluminum nitrate salt, cheap organic materials and water, is non-toxic and requires less energy to strip out the carbon when it becomes saturated, the scientists said.
Carbon capture has not yet been proven on a commercial scale and pilot projects have been hindered by concerns that the ammonia-based materials, or amines, used to absorb carbon can themselves produce toxic emissions.
They are also expensive and need large amounts of heat to boil out the carbon so it can be taken away and stored.
The researchers say their new absorber, dubbed NOTT-300, could overcome all these problems.
'I feel this can been viewed as a revolution to a certain degree,' Sihai Yang from Nottingham University, who worked on the project, told Reuters.
'It is non-toxic, and zero heating input is required for the regeneration. There is promising potential to overcome the traditional amine material on both environmental and economic grounds.'
Timmy Ramirez-Cuesta, who worked on the project at the ISIS research center at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, said the new material could simplify carbon capture by using interchangeable filters.
'When the material is saturated, the exhaust gases are diverted to the second container where the process continues,' he said.'The full container is disconnected from the system and the CO2 is removed using a vacuum and collected. The regenerated container can then be reconnected and used repeatedly.'
The team, which also included scientists from the University of Oxford and Peking University in China, say the new material captured close to 100 percent of the carbon dioxide in experiments using a cocktail of gases.
Although the rate could be lower in the 'dynamic conditions' of a real power station, it should still be over 90 percent, which is a key test for the viability of an absorber.
The material can pick up harmful gases, including sulphur dioxide, in a mixture, allowing others like hydrogen, methane, nitrogen and oxygen to pass through.
It does, however, absorb water vapor and the researchers are doing further work to overcome the problem, which could reduce its performance with CO2.
Martin Schroeder at Nottingham, who led the research, said NOTT-300 could also be put to use in gas purification. Natural gas often contains 10 percent of carbon dioxide impurity which needs to be removed before it can be used.
The scientists said they are working with companies in the carbon capture business on commercializing the new material.
The research was published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
(Editing by David Cowell)
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
The material, made from aluminum nitrate salt, cheap organic materials and water, is non-toxic and requires less energy to strip out the carbon when it becomes saturated, the scientists said.
Carbon capture has not yet been proven on a commercial scale and pilot projects have been hindered by concerns that the ammonia-based materials, or amines, used to absorb carbon can themselves produce toxic emissions.
They are also expensive and need large amounts of heat to boil out the carbon so it can be taken away and stored.
The researchers say their new absorber, dubbed NOTT-300, could overcome all these problems.
'I feel this can been viewed as a revolution to a certain degree,' Sihai Yang from Nottingham University, who worked on the project, told Reuters.
'It is non-toxic, and zero heating input is required for the regeneration. There is promising potential to overcome the traditional amine material on both environmental and economic grounds.'
Timmy Ramirez-Cuesta, who worked on the project at the ISIS research center at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, said the new material could simplify carbon capture by using interchangeable filters.
'When the material is saturated, the exhaust gases are diverted to the second container where the process continues,' he said.'The full container is disconnected from the system and the CO2 is removed using a vacuum and collected. The regenerated container can then be reconnected and used repeatedly.'
The team, which also included scientists from the University of Oxford and Peking University in China, say the new material captured close to 100 percent of the carbon dioxide in experiments using a cocktail of gases.
Although the rate could be lower in the 'dynamic conditions' of a real power station, it should still be over 90 percent, which is a key test for the viability of an absorber.
The material can pick up harmful gases, including sulphur dioxide, in a mixture, allowing others like hydrogen, methane, nitrogen and oxygen to pass through.
It does, however, absorb water vapor and the researchers are doing further work to overcome the problem, which could reduce its performance with CO2.
Martin Schroeder at Nottingham, who led the research, said NOTT-300 could also be put to use in gas purification. Natural gas often contains 10 percent of carbon dioxide impurity which needs to be removed before it can be used.
The scientists said they are working with companies in the carbon capture business on commercializing the new material.
The research was published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
(Editing by David Cowell)
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Senate votes to shield U.S. airlines from EU's carbon scheme
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate unanimously passed a bill on Saturday that would shield U.S. airlines from paying for their carbon emissions on European flights, pressuring the European Union to back down from applying its emissions law to foreign carriers.
The European Commission has been enforcing its law since January to make all airlines take part in its Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming, prompting threats of a trade fight.
The Senate approved the bill shortly after midnight, as it scrambled to complete business to recess ahead of the November 6 congressional and presidential elections.
Republican Senator John Thune, a sponsor of the measure, said it sent a 'strong message' to the EU that it cannot impose taxes on the United States.
'The Senate's action today will help ensure that U.S. air carriers and passengers will not be paying down European debt through this illegal tax and can instead be investing in creating jobs and stimulating our own economy,' Thune said in a statement.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, the measure's other chief sponsor, said, 'It's refreshing to see strong, bipartisan support for the commonsense notion that Americans shouldn't be forced to pay a European tax when flying in U.S. airspace.'
The House of Representatives has passed a similar measure, and could either work out differences with the Senate's version or accept the Senate bill when Congress returns for a post-election session.
Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman, said the administration is reviewing the bill. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
So far, nearly all airlines have complied reluctantly with the EU law, but Chinese and Indian carriers missed an interim deadline to submit information required under it.
China earlier this year threatened retaliation - including impounding European aircraft - if the EU punishes Chinese airlines for not complying with its emissions trading scheme.
The dispute between China and the EU froze Airbus purchase deals worth up to $14 billion, though China signed an agreement with Germany for 50 Airbus planes worth over $4 billion during Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing last month.
The Senate bill gives the U.S. transportation secretary authority to stop U.S. airlines from complying with the EU law.
But a new amendment agreed to during negotiations among lawmakers said the secretary could reconsider the prohibition if the EU trading scheme is amended, an international alternative is agreed to, or the United States implements its own program to address aviation emissions.'
The bill increases pressure on the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to devise a global alternative to the EU law.
Connie Hedegaard, the European Climate Commissioner, said on Saturday that while the bill encourages the United States to work within the U.N. organization for a global deal on aviation emissions, she is skeptical that Washington will accept such a deal.
'It's not enough to say you want it, you have to work hard to get it done,' she told Reuters on Saturday. 'That means that the U.S. needs to change its approach in ICAO and show willingness to actually seal a meaningful global deal that will facilitate action.'
Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the bill will pile pressure on the U.N. body, which has been working on a global framework for years.
'Passage of the Thune bill amps up the pressure on ICAO to move swiftly to reach a global agreement on addressing aviation's global warming pollution,' she said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis in Brussels, Lisa Lambert and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Vicki Allen and Jackie Frank)
This news article is brought to you by SPACE AND ASTRONOMY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The European Commission has been enforcing its law since January to make all airlines take part in its Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming, prompting threats of a trade fight.
The Senate approved the bill shortly after midnight, as it scrambled to complete business to recess ahead of the November 6 congressional and presidential elections.
Republican Senator John Thune, a sponsor of the measure, said it sent a 'strong message' to the EU that it cannot impose taxes on the United States.
'The Senate's action today will help ensure that U.S. air carriers and passengers will not be paying down European debt through this illegal tax and can instead be investing in creating jobs and stimulating our own economy,' Thune said in a statement.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, the measure's other chief sponsor, said, 'It's refreshing to see strong, bipartisan support for the commonsense notion that Americans shouldn't be forced to pay a European tax when flying in U.S. airspace.'
The House of Representatives has passed a similar measure, and could either work out differences with the Senate's version or accept the Senate bill when Congress returns for a post-election session.
Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman, said the administration is reviewing the bill. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
So far, nearly all airlines have complied reluctantly with the EU law, but Chinese and Indian carriers missed an interim deadline to submit information required under it.
China earlier this year threatened retaliation - including impounding European aircraft - if the EU punishes Chinese airlines for not complying with its emissions trading scheme.
The dispute between China and the EU froze Airbus purchase deals worth up to $14 billion, though China signed an agreement with Germany for 50 Airbus planes worth over $4 billion during Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing last month.
The Senate bill gives the U.S. transportation secretary authority to stop U.S. airlines from complying with the EU law.
But a new amendment agreed to during negotiations among lawmakers said the secretary could reconsider the prohibition if the EU trading scheme is amended, an international alternative is agreed to, or the United States implements its own program to address aviation emissions.'
The bill increases pressure on the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to devise a global alternative to the EU law.
Connie Hedegaard, the European Climate Commissioner, said on Saturday that while the bill encourages the United States to work within the U.N. organization for a global deal on aviation emissions, she is skeptical that Washington will accept such a deal.
'It's not enough to say you want it, you have to work hard to get it done,' she told Reuters on Saturday. 'That means that the U.S. needs to change its approach in ICAO and show willingness to actually seal a meaningful global deal that will facilitate action.'
Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the bill will pile pressure on the U.N. body, which has been working on a global framework for years.
'Passage of the Thune bill amps up the pressure on ICAO to move swiftly to reach a global agreement on addressing aviation's global warming pollution,' she said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis in Brussels, Lisa Lambert and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Vicki Allen and Jackie Frank)
This news article is brought to you by SPACE AND ASTRONOMY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Senate votes to shield US airlines from EU's carbon scheme
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate unanimously passed a bill on Saturday that would shield U.S. airlines from paying for their carbon emissions on European flights, pressuring the European Union to back down from applying its emissions law to foreign carriers.
The European Commission has been enforcing its law since January to make all airlines take part in its Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming, prompting threats of a trade fight.
The Senate approved the bill shortly after midnight, as it scrambled to complete business to recess ahead of the November 6 congressional and presidential elections.
Republican Senator John Thune, a sponsor of the measure, said it sent a 'strong message' to the EU that it cannot impose taxes on the United States.
'The Senate's action today will help ensure that U.S. air carriers and passengers will not be paying down European debt through this illegal tax and can instead be investing in creating jobs and stimulating our own economy,' Thune said in a statement.
The House of Representatives has passed a similar measure, and could either work out differences with the Senate's version or accept the Senate bill when Congress returns for a post-election session.
So far, nearly all airlines have complied reluctantly with the EU law, but Chinese and Indian carriers missed an interim deadline to submit information required under it.
China earlier this year threatened retaliation - including impounding European aircraft - if the EU punishes Chinese airlines for not complying with its emissions trading scheme.
The dispute between China and the EU froze Airbus purchase deals worth up to $14 billion, though China signed an agreement with Germany for 50 Airbus planes worth over $4 billion during Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing last month.
The Senate bill gives the U.S. transportation secretary authority to stop U.S. airlines from complying with the EU law.
But new amendments agreed to during negotiations among lawmakers said the secretary could only do so if the EU trading scheme is amended, an international alternative is agreed to, or the United States implements its own program to address aviation emissions.
This increases pressure on the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to devise a global alternative to the EU law.
Connie Hedegaard, the European Climate Commissioner, said on Saturday that while the bill encourages the United States to work within the U.N. organization for a global deal on aviation emissions, she is skeptical that Washington will accept such a deal.
'It's not enough to say you want it, you have to work hard to get it done,' she told Reuters on Saturday. 'That means that the U.S. needs to change its approach in ICAO and show willingness to actually seal a meaningful global deal that will facilitate action.'
Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the bill will put pressure on the U.N. body, which has been working on a global framework for years.
'Passage of the Thune bill amps up the pressure on ICAO to move swiftly to reach a global agreement on addressing aviation's global warming pollution,' she said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis in Brussels; Editing by Vicki Allen)
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
The European Commission has been enforcing its law since January to make all airlines take part in its Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming, prompting threats of a trade fight.
The Senate approved the bill shortly after midnight, as it scrambled to complete business to recess ahead of the November 6 congressional and presidential elections.
Republican Senator John Thune, a sponsor of the measure, said it sent a 'strong message' to the EU that it cannot impose taxes on the United States.
'The Senate's action today will help ensure that U.S. air carriers and passengers will not be paying down European debt through this illegal tax and can instead be investing in creating jobs and stimulating our own economy,' Thune said in a statement.
The House of Representatives has passed a similar measure, and could either work out differences with the Senate's version or accept the Senate bill when Congress returns for a post-election session.
So far, nearly all airlines have complied reluctantly with the EU law, but Chinese and Indian carriers missed an interim deadline to submit information required under it.
China earlier this year threatened retaliation - including impounding European aircraft - if the EU punishes Chinese airlines for not complying with its emissions trading scheme.
The dispute between China and the EU froze Airbus purchase deals worth up to $14 billion, though China signed an agreement with Germany for 50 Airbus planes worth over $4 billion during Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing last month.
The Senate bill gives the U.S. transportation secretary authority to stop U.S. airlines from complying with the EU law.
But new amendments agreed to during negotiations among lawmakers said the secretary could only do so if the EU trading scheme is amended, an international alternative is agreed to, or the United States implements its own program to address aviation emissions.
This increases pressure on the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to devise a global alternative to the EU law.
Connie Hedegaard, the European Climate Commissioner, said on Saturday that while the bill encourages the United States to work within the U.N. organization for a global deal on aviation emissions, she is skeptical that Washington will accept such a deal.
'It's not enough to say you want it, you have to work hard to get it done,' she told Reuters on Saturday. 'That means that the U.S. needs to change its approach in ICAO and show willingness to actually seal a meaningful global deal that will facilitate action.'
Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the bill will put pressure on the U.N. body, which has been working on a global framework for years.
'Passage of the Thune bill amps up the pressure on ICAO to move swiftly to reach a global agreement on addressing aviation's global warming pollution,' she said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis in Brussels; Editing by Vicki Allen)
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
STUDY: Human-Influenced Warming Affecting Weather
='en' xmlns:fb='http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml' xmlns:addthis='http://www.addthis.com/help/api-spec' > STUDY: Human-Influenced Warming Affecting Weather « CBS Philly
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Friday, September 21, 2012
9th Circuit Court rules against Kivalina
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A federal appeals court has ruled against the northwest Alaska village of Kivalina, which sued energy companies over claims that greenhouse emissions contributed to global warming that is threatening the community's existence.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a U.S. District Court ruling that Kivalina didn't have standing to sue oil, coal and power companies.
The eroding village sought monetary damages to help with the estimated $400 million to relocate.
The village's attorney didn't return a message. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil, one of the defendants, welcomed the decision and said it speaks for itself.
Judge Sidney Thomas noted the court's conclusion doesn't help Kivalina, which is being 'displaced by the rising sea.' Thomas added a solution to Kivalina's dire problems must rest with the legislative branches.
This article is sponsored by build website.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a U.S. District Court ruling that Kivalina didn't have standing to sue oil, coal and power companies.
The eroding village sought monetary damages to help with the estimated $400 million to relocate.
The village's attorney didn't return a message. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil, one of the defendants, welcomed the decision and said it speaks for itself.
Judge Sidney Thomas noted the court's conclusion doesn't help Kivalina, which is being 'displaced by the rising sea.' Thomas added a solution to Kivalina's dire problems must rest with the legislative branches.
This article is sponsored by build website.
Court rules against village in global warming case
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A federal appeals court has ruled against the northwest Alaska village of Kivalina, which sued energy companies over claims that greenhouse emissions contributed to global warming that is threatening the community's existence.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a U.S. District Court ruling that Kivalina didn't have standing to sue oil, coal and power companies.
The eroding village sought monetary damages to help with the estimated $400 million to relocate.
Calls left with the village's attorney and with two of defendants, BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp., weren't immediately returned.
Judge Sidney Thomas noted the court's conclusion doesn't help Kivalina, which is being 'displaced by the rising sea.' Thomas added a solution to Kivalina's dire problems must rest with the legislative branches.
This article is brought to you by ASTROLOGY.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a U.S. District Court ruling that Kivalina didn't have standing to sue oil, coal and power companies.
The eroding village sought monetary damages to help with the estimated $400 million to relocate.
Calls left with the village's attorney and with two of defendants, BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp., weren't immediately returned.
Judge Sidney Thomas noted the court's conclusion doesn't help Kivalina, which is being 'displaced by the rising sea.' Thomas added a solution to Kivalina's dire problems must rest with the legislative branches.
This article is brought to you by ASTROLOGY.
Have You Been Chickified? Some Alternate Definitions of Chickification
Alert! . (Why we continue to listen to him is unknown to this writer, but he said something and people are upset, so we will discuss it.) Limbaugh mentions a story out of that cites an Italian study determining that "the average size of a penis is roughly 10 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago." The researchers blame air pollution and global warming for this. Charming Rush says, no, clearly, it's due to feminism, feminazis, "the chickification," and "everything else."
RELATED:
Chickification: This is a term he's ; he appears to be the coiner of the phrase, and he loves it, clearly, considering it some sort of powerful way to demean women. But for having made it up, he's still rather unclear about what it means. Something bad, we suppose? And why should we take his word for what chickification is, anyway? He's hardly an expert on the topic. Here are some better definitions.
RELATED:
chick·i·fi·ca·tion noun \ˈchik-(ə-)fə-ˈkā-shən\
RELATED:
Definition of CHICKIFICATION
RELATED:
1 a : the making of baby domestic or the young of any bird, whether naturally or unnaturally or as store-bought or hand-made Peeps, or the using of such products to decorate one's environment. Examples: "Chickification begins on the farm in the spring." "I've purchased my Easter candies. The chickification of my kitchen counter is complete!"
RELATED:
b : To consume too many Peeps (see above). Note: This only works with the traditionally shaped Peeps, the ones that look like, you know, chicks—the bunny ones entail "bunnification." Example: "Holy chickification that's a sugar rush!"
2: To make like a chick, i.e., yellow and fuzzy and adorable, say for Halloween or a costume party. Example: "I've chickified myself to go to Rob's annual dress-up hootenanny!" If dressing up as a full-grown chicken, use chickenification.
3 a : To purchase much chick-lit, with which you adorn your bookcase and home. "Gulliver insisted upon equal parts dudification and chickification of the library, for he enjoyed war novels as much as he did romances."
b : To watch many chick flicks, as above, i.e., "the chickification of one's television."
c : nonstandard: To chew chiclets for fresh breath and "the chicification of one's mouth." (Note alternative spelling.)
4. To make awesome through lady-ness or by being a woman, or by the hands, hearts, minds, and bodies of such. Examples: "That drab old boardroom formerly filled by men has experienced a great chickification through the hiring of various intelligent, powerful, and also quite elegant women." "By having babies, women allow for the chickification of America." "We chickified chickification, which was never Rush Limbaugh's word to own, anyway."
Synonyms: ladyification, womanlimaking, girlified, feminization, simply-the-way-we-live, adorable and cute like a baby chicken or a Peep. See also: Peepsification.
Antonyms: Rush Limbaughing, trolling
Rhymes with CHICKIFICATION: wickification, tickification, gification, staycation, ladyamacation, Mentos-ification, womanization.
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
RELATED:
Chickification: This is a term he's ; he appears to be the coiner of the phrase, and he loves it, clearly, considering it some sort of powerful way to demean women. But for having made it up, he's still rather unclear about what it means. Something bad, we suppose? And why should we take his word for what chickification is, anyway? He's hardly an expert on the topic. Here are some better definitions.
RELATED:
chick·i·fi·ca·tion noun \ˈchik-(ə-)fə-ˈkā-shən\
RELATED:
Definition of CHICKIFICATION
RELATED:
1 a : the making of baby domestic or the young of any bird, whether naturally or unnaturally or as store-bought or hand-made Peeps, or the using of such products to decorate one's environment. Examples: "Chickification begins on the farm in the spring." "I've purchased my Easter candies. The chickification of my kitchen counter is complete!"
RELATED:
b : To consume too many Peeps (see above). Note: This only works with the traditionally shaped Peeps, the ones that look like, you know, chicks—the bunny ones entail "bunnification." Example: "Holy chickification that's a sugar rush!"
2: To make like a chick, i.e., yellow and fuzzy and adorable, say for Halloween or a costume party. Example: "I've chickified myself to go to Rob's annual dress-up hootenanny!" If dressing up as a full-grown chicken, use chickenification.
3 a : To purchase much chick-lit, with which you adorn your bookcase and home. "Gulliver insisted upon equal parts dudification and chickification of the library, for he enjoyed war novels as much as he did romances."
b : To watch many chick flicks, as above, i.e., "the chickification of one's television."
c : nonstandard: To chew chiclets for fresh breath and "the chicification of one's mouth." (Note alternative spelling.)
4. To make awesome through lady-ness or by being a woman, or by the hands, hearts, minds, and bodies of such. Examples: "That drab old boardroom formerly filled by men has experienced a great chickification through the hiring of various intelligent, powerful, and also quite elegant women." "By having babies, women allow for the chickification of America." "We chickified chickification, which was never Rush Limbaugh's word to own, anyway."
Synonyms: ladyification, womanlimaking, girlified, feminization, simply-the-way-we-live, adorable and cute like a baby chicken or a Peep. See also: Peepsification.
Antonyms: Rush Limbaughing, trolling
Rhymes with CHICKIFICATION: wickification, tickification, gification, staycation, ladyamacation, Mentos-ification, womanization.
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
New iPhone apps worth downloading: The Weather Channel MAX update, Cooking Planit, The Room
://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml' xml:lang='en' lang='en'> New iPhone apps worth downloading: The Weather Channel MAX update, Cooking Planit, The Room - iPhone app article - Marty Gabel | Appolicious ™ iPhone and iPad App Directory 
Thursday, September 20, 2012
4 countries discuss climate change in Brazil
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Representatives of Brazil, South Africa, India and China are meeting to define a common position ahead of November's United Nations' climate change conference in Doha.
The four countries form the bloc known as BASIC that acts jointly in international climate change meetings.
Brazilian negotiator Luiz Alberto Figueiredo says one of the main topics being discussed in the meeting that ends on Friday is the future of the 1997 emission- limiting Kyoto Protocol that requires industrialized countries to slash emissions.
He told reporters that the BASIC bloc wants to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire at the end of this year, to 2020.
The protocol is aimed at stemming pollution and global warming that has been opposed by the United States.
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
The four countries form the bloc known as BASIC that acts jointly in international climate change meetings.
Brazilian negotiator Luiz Alberto Figueiredo says one of the main topics being discussed in the meeting that ends on Friday is the future of the 1997 emission- limiting Kyoto Protocol that requires industrialized countries to slash emissions.
He told reporters that the BASIC bloc wants to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire at the end of this year, to 2020.
The protocol is aimed at stemming pollution and global warming that has been opposed by the United States.
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
$800K in RI grants offered for marine life study
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Rhode Island's governor has announced $800,000 in state grants for researchers studying the effects of climate change on marine life.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee said Tuesday the funding is available through a program of the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Preference will be given to projects that use Brown University's and the University of Rhode Island's research facilities in proteomics, genomics and sequencing. Preference will also be given to projects that use the marine life sciences facilities at URI's Bay Campus.
Initial proposals are due Sept. 28.
Since 2007, the program has awarded about $7.7 million to 46 teams of researchers at 44 different institutions.
This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee said Tuesday the funding is available through a program of the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Preference will be given to projects that use Brown University's and the University of Rhode Island's research facilities in proteomics, genomics and sequencing. Preference will also be given to projects that use the marine life sciences facilities at URI's Bay Campus.
Initial proposals are due Sept. 28.
Since 2007, the program has awarded about $7.7 million to 46 teams of researchers at 44 different institutions.
This article is brought to you by DAILY HOROSCOPE.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Arctic sea ice thaw may be accelerated by oil, shipping
OSLO (Reuters) - Local pollution in the Arctic from shipping and oil and gas industries, which have expanded in the region due to a thawing of sea ice caused by global warming, could further accelerate that thaw, experts say.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said there was an urgent need to calculate risks of local pollutants such as soot, or 'black carbon', in the Arctic. Soot darkens ice, making it soak up more of the sun's heat and quickening a melt.
Companies such as Shell, which this week gave up a push to find oil this year in the Chukchi Sea as the winter closed in, Exxon or Statoil say they are using the cleanest available technologies.
But the risks of even small amounts of pollution on the Arctic Ocean, emitted near ice with little dispersal by winds, have not been fully assessed.
'A lot of the concerns need urgent evaluation,' said Nick Nuttall, spokesman of Naibori-based UNEP, referring to issues such as flaring of gas or fuels used by vessels in the Arctic.
'There is a grim irony here that as the ice melts...humanity is going for more of the natural resources fuelling this meltdown,' he said. Large amounts of soot in the Arctic come from more distant sources such as forest fires or industry.
The extent of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean has shrunk this summer to the smallest since satellite records began in the 1970s, eclipsing a 2007 low. The melt is part of a long-term retreat blamed by a U.N. panel on man-made global warming, caused by use of fossil fuels.
'We're working to get a better documentation of the risks of black carbon in the Arctic,' said Lars-Otto Reiersen, head of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), part of the Arctic Council.
An AMAP report last year said that 'regulation of black carbon production from all sources, especially those resulting locally from activities in the Arctic, is required at all scales.'
400 FIELDS
More than 400 oil and gas fields within the Arctic region were developed by 2007, according to AMAP, mostly in West Siberia in Russia and in Alaska. Most of the undiscovered oil and gas is now estimated to be offshore.
Soot is an extra problem for planners, adding to risks such as of an oil blowout or a shipwreck. The U.N.'s International Maritime Organization is trying to work out a new 'Polar Code' that might tighten everything from emissions to hull standards.
Still, for shipping, use of the Arctic route may be less damaging overall in terms of global warming, including soot, since it is a short-cut between some Atlantic and Pacific ports. That means ships burn much less fuel on the route.
'We are working on the net effect of the Arctic route compared to the Suez Canal,' said Jan Fuglestvedt, of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
In 2009, the Bremen-based Beluga Group sailed from South Korea to Rotterdam across the Arctic, cutting 4,000 nautical miles off the route via Suez. This year, for instance, an icebreaker became the first Chinese vessel to cross the ocean.
One study indicated that increased use of the Arctic route might limit carbon dioxide emissions for global shipping by 2.9 million tons a year by 2050, or 0.1 percent, compared to use of the Suez Canal.
'If the Arctic route is really open by then it may reduce carbon emissions a bit on the global scale,' said Leif Ingolf Eide, an author of the study at Norwegian-based risk management group DnV. The study did not assess soot, he said.
In a 2011 report, UNEP estimated that a global crackdown on soot, methane and ozone could slow global warming by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9F). It would also protect human health and promote crop growth.
Almost 200 nations have agreed to limit climate change to below 2 degrees C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, seeing it as a threshold to dangerous changes such as more droughts, floods or rising sea levels.
(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Rosalind Russell)
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said there was an urgent need to calculate risks of local pollutants such as soot, or 'black carbon', in the Arctic. Soot darkens ice, making it soak up more of the sun's heat and quickening a melt.
Companies such as Shell, which this week gave up a push to find oil this year in the Chukchi Sea as the winter closed in, Exxon or Statoil say they are using the cleanest available technologies.
But the risks of even small amounts of pollution on the Arctic Ocean, emitted near ice with little dispersal by winds, have not been fully assessed.
'A lot of the concerns need urgent evaluation,' said Nick Nuttall, spokesman of Naibori-based UNEP, referring to issues such as flaring of gas or fuels used by vessels in the Arctic.
'There is a grim irony here that as the ice melts...humanity is going for more of the natural resources fuelling this meltdown,' he said. Large amounts of soot in the Arctic come from more distant sources such as forest fires or industry.
The extent of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean has shrunk this summer to the smallest since satellite records began in the 1970s, eclipsing a 2007 low. The melt is part of a long-term retreat blamed by a U.N. panel on man-made global warming, caused by use of fossil fuels.
'We're working to get a better documentation of the risks of black carbon in the Arctic,' said Lars-Otto Reiersen, head of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), part of the Arctic Council.
An AMAP report last year said that 'regulation of black carbon production from all sources, especially those resulting locally from activities in the Arctic, is required at all scales.'
400 FIELDS
More than 400 oil and gas fields within the Arctic region were developed by 2007, according to AMAP, mostly in West Siberia in Russia and in Alaska. Most of the undiscovered oil and gas is now estimated to be offshore.
Soot is an extra problem for planners, adding to risks such as of an oil blowout or a shipwreck. The U.N.'s International Maritime Organization is trying to work out a new 'Polar Code' that might tighten everything from emissions to hull standards.
Still, for shipping, use of the Arctic route may be less damaging overall in terms of global warming, including soot, since it is a short-cut between some Atlantic and Pacific ports. That means ships burn much less fuel on the route.
'We are working on the net effect of the Arctic route compared to the Suez Canal,' said Jan Fuglestvedt, of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
In 2009, the Bremen-based Beluga Group sailed from South Korea to Rotterdam across the Arctic, cutting 4,000 nautical miles off the route via Suez. This year, for instance, an icebreaker became the first Chinese vessel to cross the ocean.
One study indicated that increased use of the Arctic route might limit carbon dioxide emissions for global shipping by 2.9 million tons a year by 2050, or 0.1 percent, compared to use of the Suez Canal.
'If the Arctic route is really open by then it may reduce carbon emissions a bit on the global scale,' said Leif Ingolf Eide, an author of the study at Norwegian-based risk management group DnV. The study did not assess soot, he said.
In a 2011 report, UNEP estimated that a global crackdown on soot, methane and ozone could slow global warming by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9F). It would also protect human health and promote crop growth.
Almost 200 nations have agreed to limit climate change to below 2 degrees C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, seeing it as a threshold to dangerous changes such as more droughts, floods or rising sea levels.
(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Rosalind Russell)
This article is brought to you by HOROSCOPE.
Russian Soyuz Rocket Launches New European Weather Satellite
DARMSTADT, Germany - Europe's second polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, Metop-B, was successfully placed into orbit Sept. 17 by a Soyuz rocket operating from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Officials at the European Space Agency's Esoc space operations center here, which has responsibility for Metop-B's postlaunch operations phase, confirmed that ground stations had received a signal that the satellite was healthy in orbit.
The 4,082-kilogram satellite, carrying 11 observing instruments from Europe, the United States, Canada and France, will operate in an 820-kilometer polar low Earth orbit. After six months of in-orbit tests, it will monitor weather conditions in tandem with the nearly identical Metop-A launched in October 2006.
Metop-A continues to operate with all instruments functioning despite having been in service for nearly a year longer than its contractual design life of five years.
Metop-C, a third identical satellite, is being placed into storage and is scheduled for launch between late 2016 and late 2018. [Launch Photos: MetOp-B Satellite Blasts Off]
Metop-B had been removed from storage and prepared for a June launch that was canceled because of a dispute between Russia and Kazakhstan about compensation for rocket debris falling on Kazakh soil during Soyuz liftoffs into polar orbit.
Alain Ratier, director-general of Eumetsat, Europe's 26-nation meteorological satellite organization, said the four-month delay has cost Eumetsat more than 10 million euros ($12.5 million).
During a press briefing at Eumetsat headquarters here, Ratier said Eumetsat and industry are still negotiating who will pay these costs. In commercial launch contracts of this type, it is customary that the launch-service provider, in this case the French-Russian Starsem joint venture, not be held liable for the costs of delays.
The entire Metop program - the three satellites, their launches and the related ground infrastructure - cost 3.2 billion euros when adjusted for inflation at 2011 economic conditions. Eumetsat paid 75 percent of this, in keeping with the organization's long-established relationship with the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA).
ESA finances the design and procurement of the Eumetsat satellites. In the case of Metop, ESA is also paying for the development of three of the satellites' observing instruments. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as part of a joint U.S.-European partnership in polar-orbiting meteorological satellites, is furnishing four instruments. Eutemsat is contributing to NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites in return.
ESA is preparing to ask its member governments in November to approve funding to begin work on the second-generation Metop satellites. ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said in a briefing here before the launch that the agency will seek 800 million euros in Metop Second Generation funding in November.
The first launch would be in 2020. Dordain said that even in a time of economic hardship for many ESA member governments, there is a consensus on the necessity of maintaining the meteorological satellite program.
Ratier said Eumetsat has received authorization to proceed with early work on the Metop Second Generation system despite the fact that it has not received 100 percent of the needed funding. Several cash-strapped Eumetsat members - Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece among them - had been unable to commit to the program until recently.
Ratier said Eumetsat has received 98 percent of what it needs to begin its Metop Second Generation studies following funding commitments from Spain, Ireland and Portugal.
ESA is also asking its governments for 1.6 billion euros over four years to fund experimental Earth observation satellites in ESA's Explorer series. Finding support for this program has proved difficult, and ESA officials are now talking about scaling back the program to secure support for it.
This story was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
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Officials at the European Space Agency's Esoc space operations center here, which has responsibility for Metop-B's postlaunch operations phase, confirmed that ground stations had received a signal that the satellite was healthy in orbit.
The 4,082-kilogram satellite, carrying 11 observing instruments from Europe, the United States, Canada and France, will operate in an 820-kilometer polar low Earth orbit. After six months of in-orbit tests, it will monitor weather conditions in tandem with the nearly identical Metop-A launched in October 2006.
Metop-A continues to operate with all instruments functioning despite having been in service for nearly a year longer than its contractual design life of five years.
Metop-C, a third identical satellite, is being placed into storage and is scheduled for launch between late 2016 and late 2018. [Launch Photos: MetOp-B Satellite Blasts Off]
Metop-B had been removed from storage and prepared for a June launch that was canceled because of a dispute between Russia and Kazakhstan about compensation for rocket debris falling on Kazakh soil during Soyuz liftoffs into polar orbit.
Alain Ratier, director-general of Eumetsat, Europe's 26-nation meteorological satellite organization, said the four-month delay has cost Eumetsat more than 10 million euros ($12.5 million).
During a press briefing at Eumetsat headquarters here, Ratier said Eumetsat and industry are still negotiating who will pay these costs. In commercial launch contracts of this type, it is customary that the launch-service provider, in this case the French-Russian Starsem joint venture, not be held liable for the costs of delays.
The entire Metop program - the three satellites, their launches and the related ground infrastructure - cost 3.2 billion euros when adjusted for inflation at 2011 economic conditions. Eumetsat paid 75 percent of this, in keeping with the organization's long-established relationship with the 19-nation European Space Agency (ESA).
ESA finances the design and procurement of the Eumetsat satellites. In the case of Metop, ESA is also paying for the development of three of the satellites' observing instruments. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as part of a joint U.S.-European partnership in polar-orbiting meteorological satellites, is furnishing four instruments. Eutemsat is contributing to NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites in return.
ESA is preparing to ask its member governments in November to approve funding to begin work on the second-generation Metop satellites. ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said in a briefing here before the launch that the agency will seek 800 million euros in Metop Second Generation funding in November.
The first launch would be in 2020. Dordain said that even in a time of economic hardship for many ESA member governments, there is a consensus on the necessity of maintaining the meteorological satellite program.
Ratier said Eumetsat has received authorization to proceed with early work on the Metop Second Generation system despite the fact that it has not received 100 percent of the needed funding. Several cash-strapped Eumetsat members - Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece among them - had been unable to commit to the program until recently.
Ratier said Eumetsat has received 98 percent of what it needs to begin its Metop Second Generation studies following funding commitments from Spain, Ireland and Portugal.
ESA is also asking its governments for 1.6 billion euros over four years to fund experimental Earth observation satellites in ESA's Explorer series. Finding support for this program has proved difficult, and ESA officials are now talking about scaling back the program to secure support for it.
This story was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
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