Environmental Stewardship News Round-Up (cont.)
The following items are the continuation of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation Newsletter, June 21, 2007:
23. We all use solar energy
by Greg Rummo, New Jersey Sunday Herald, June 3, 2007 (PDF)
. . . Life on this planet as we know it would be impossible without our sun. Earth would be a frozen wasteland with a temperature only slightly above absolute zero. Its oceans and atmosphere would be solid. One day, the sun’s finite reserves of hydrogen will be used up and it will wink out — cosmically speaking. None of us will be around to witness the event. We are and always have been dependent on solar energy. But not just the energy that streams into our atmosphere and falls on our continents and oceans in real time.
This process has been going on for a few years. And over these millennia, the sun’s energy has been captured, utilized for some very complex biochemistry and the end products stored for a rainy day in the earth’s future.
Put in very simple terms: when a photon of sunlight falls on a molecule of chlorophyll in the cell wall of a green plant, biochemistry happens. The earth’s forests, prairies and algae-dotted oceans act like huge sponges soaking up atmospheric carbon dioxide. Inside the plant’s cell walls, the sun’s energy is harnessed to disassemble atmospheric carbon dioxide and combine it with water to produce sugar and molecular oxygen which plants release back into the atmosphere for you and me to breathe.
When you look at a forest, you are really seeing hundreds of years of solar energy, stored in wooden structures. You can cut down a tree and burn it or send it to a mill and cut it up into lumber for the housing industry. A tree is in reality, a sink of solar radiation that can be used either for the production of heat and light by burning (a process chemists call oxidation) or as a building material to insulate man from the elements—to keep him warm in other words.
But the story even gets better if we extrapolate further back in time.
Earth scientists tell us that long ago, the climate on our planet was mostly tropical. This rain forest-like climate covering our planet was very conducive to the growth of green plants. ExtremeScience.com explains that during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods a “profusion of plant and animal life left behind generous organic materials from their decay…(which) built up over millions of years undisturbed. They were eventually covered by younger, overlying sediment and compressed, giving us fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas.”
The reality is this: All of us are using solar energy, not just the techno-geeks with the flat panels on the roofs of their homes. Every time you flip a switch in your home or depress the accelerator in your car, you are using solar energy. Just because you weren’t there to witness the biochemistry and the geology behind its creation doesn’t negate the fact.
24. “Earth Mother getting angry,” say native American climate activists
Associated Press
From New Hampshire to California, American Indian leaders are speaking out more forcefully about the danger of climate change.
Members of six tribes recently gathered near the Baker River in the White Mountains for a sacred ceremony honoring “Earth Mother.” Talking Hawk, a Mohawk Indian who asked to be identified by his Indian name, pointed to the river’s tea-colored water as proof that the overwhelming amount of pollution humans have produced has caused changes around the globe.
“It’s August color. It’s not normal,” he said.
“Earth Mother is fighting back - not only from the four winds, but also from underneath,” he said. “Scientists call it global warming. We call it Earth Mother getting angry.” . . .
Read the whole article here.
[How reassuring to see the great commitment to scientific objectivity on the part of global warming alarmists!--ECB]
25. Green group’s ad likens five House Republicans to ostriches
by Greg Giroux, Congressional Quarterly, June 15, 2007
The political affiliate of a national conservation group is airing radio advertisements in the districts of five House Republicans from the West, who are described by the group as having their “heads in the sand” on legislative efforts to call attention to and curb global warming.
Three of the GOP members targeted by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund — John T. Doolittle of California, Dean Heller of Nevada and Rick Renzi of Arizona — had highly competitive races in 2006 and are expected to again be targeted by Democrats in 2008. The other two, who had easier House races last year, were Steve Pearce of New Mexico and Ken Calvert of California. . . .
Read the whole article here.
[Comment: No doubt Defenders of Wildlife won’t mention that the policies they promote, however friendly they might be to wildlife, will be very unfriendly to people as they drive up energy prices and so slow economic growth in poor countries, condemning them to additional generations of abject poverty and the high rates of death and disease that come with it.--ECB]
26. Forget warming - beware the new ice age
by Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, Friday, June 15, 2007
In the 1970s, leading scientists claimed that the world was threatened by an era of global cooling.
Based on what we’ve learned this decade, says George Kukla, those scientists - and he was among them -- had it right. The world is about to enter another Ice Age. . . .
Read the whole article here.
27. Gas at $6 per gallon? Get ready.
by Jim Wooten, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 21, 2007
Get ready for Congress to solve the energy problem just as it has previously solved the illegal immigration problem. A bill being debated in the Senate this week is described by some of its supporters as “far from perfect” but “a good start.”
A good start, yes, to higher gas and food prices, to new taxes and to forcing consumers to pay for high-cost “renewable” energy sources — solar and wind, for example — that are to energy independence what bicycle trails are to traffic-congestion relief. . . .
Read the whole article here.
28. Briefly Noted
Cap cow dung instead of carbon?
Coal-to-Liquid--upsetting the energy-independence element of the campaign against gasoline use
More Dissent on Global Warming
How Corn Will Save (and Cover) the World
NASA Chief Silenced After Questioning GW Dogma
[Anyone who values open public discourse and scientific debate should find this chilling.--ECB]
Green-Red Agenda: Wealth Transfer from US to China
[By the same David Roberts who called for Nuremberg-style trials for those who deny catastrophic manmade global warming.--ECB]
Climate change behind Darfur killing says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
[Various philosophies of history have attributed human choices to a variety of causes. Some have embraced environmental determinism (northern, colder regions produce freedom; tropic regions produce sloth and slavery), economic determinism (Marxists say the economic condition of your time determines your choices). Now we have environmental determinism redux: global climate change forced the genocide in Darfur. Right. Anything but taking responsibility for human choices.--ECB]
Europe’s emissions trading scam: energy companies reap 20 billion euro windfall
Animal group blames cat influx on global warming
Coral reveals increased hurricanes may be a return to normal
The end of the Kyoto Protocol
The new math on global warming
Global warming and its evil twin ‘climate change’ predictions wrong on both counts
23. We all use solar energy
by Greg Rummo, New Jersey Sunday Herald, June 3, 2007 (PDF)
. . . Life on this planet as we know it would be impossible without our sun. Earth would be a frozen wasteland with a temperature only slightly above absolute zero. Its oceans and atmosphere would be solid. One day, the sun’s finite reserves of hydrogen will be used up and it will wink out — cosmically speaking. None of us will be around to witness the event. We are and always have been dependent on solar energy. But not just the energy that streams into our atmosphere and falls on our continents and oceans in real time.
This process has been going on for a few years. And over these millennia, the sun’s energy has been captured, utilized for some very complex biochemistry and the end products stored for a rainy day in the earth’s future.
Put in very simple terms: when a photon of sunlight falls on a molecule of chlorophyll in the cell wall of a green plant, biochemistry happens. The earth’s forests, prairies and algae-dotted oceans act like huge sponges soaking up atmospheric carbon dioxide. Inside the plant’s cell walls, the sun’s energy is harnessed to disassemble atmospheric carbon dioxide and combine it with water to produce sugar and molecular oxygen which plants release back into the atmosphere for you and me to breathe.
When you look at a forest, you are really seeing hundreds of years of solar energy, stored in wooden structures. You can cut down a tree and burn it or send it to a mill and cut it up into lumber for the housing industry. A tree is in reality, a sink of solar radiation that can be used either for the production of heat and light by burning (a process chemists call oxidation) or as a building material to insulate man from the elements—to keep him warm in other words.
But the story even gets better if we extrapolate further back in time.
Earth scientists tell us that long ago, the climate on our planet was mostly tropical. This rain forest-like climate covering our planet was very conducive to the growth of green plants. ExtremeScience.com explains that during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods a “profusion of plant and animal life left behind generous organic materials from their decay…(which) built up over millions of years undisturbed. They were eventually covered by younger, overlying sediment and compressed, giving us fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas.”
The reality is this: All of us are using solar energy, not just the techno-geeks with the flat panels on the roofs of their homes. Every time you flip a switch in your home or depress the accelerator in your car, you are using solar energy. Just because you weren’t there to witness the biochemistry and the geology behind its creation doesn’t negate the fact.
24. “Earth Mother getting angry,” say native American climate activists
Associated Press
From New Hampshire to California, American Indian leaders are speaking out more forcefully about the danger of climate change.
Members of six tribes recently gathered near the Baker River in the White Mountains for a sacred ceremony honoring “Earth Mother.” Talking Hawk, a Mohawk Indian who asked to be identified by his Indian name, pointed to the river’s tea-colored water as proof that the overwhelming amount of pollution humans have produced has caused changes around the globe.
“It’s August color. It’s not normal,” he said.
“Earth Mother is fighting back - not only from the four winds, but also from underneath,” he said. “Scientists call it global warming. We call it Earth Mother getting angry.” . . .
Read the whole article here.
[How reassuring to see the great commitment to scientific objectivity on the part of global warming alarmists!--ECB]
25. Green group’s ad likens five House Republicans to ostriches
by Greg Giroux, Congressional Quarterly, June 15, 2007
The political affiliate of a national conservation group is airing radio advertisements in the districts of five House Republicans from the West, who are described by the group as having their “heads in the sand” on legislative efforts to call attention to and curb global warming.
Three of the GOP members targeted by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund — John T. Doolittle of California, Dean Heller of Nevada and Rick Renzi of Arizona — had highly competitive races in 2006 and are expected to again be targeted by Democrats in 2008. The other two, who had easier House races last year, were Steve Pearce of New Mexico and Ken Calvert of California. . . .
Read the whole article here.
[Comment: No doubt Defenders of Wildlife won’t mention that the policies they promote, however friendly they might be to wildlife, will be very unfriendly to people as they drive up energy prices and so slow economic growth in poor countries, condemning them to additional generations of abject poverty and the high rates of death and disease that come with it.--ECB]
26. Forget warming - beware the new ice age
by Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, Friday, June 15, 2007
In the 1970s, leading scientists claimed that the world was threatened by an era of global cooling.
Based on what we’ve learned this decade, says George Kukla, those scientists - and he was among them -- had it right. The world is about to enter another Ice Age. . . .
Read the whole article here.
27. Gas at $6 per gallon? Get ready.
by Jim Wooten, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 21, 2007
Get ready for Congress to solve the energy problem just as it has previously solved the illegal immigration problem. A bill being debated in the Senate this week is described by some of its supporters as “far from perfect” but “a good start.”
A good start, yes, to higher gas and food prices, to new taxes and to forcing consumers to pay for high-cost “renewable” energy sources — solar and wind, for example — that are to energy independence what bicycle trails are to traffic-congestion relief. . . .
Read the whole article here.
28. Briefly Noted
Cap cow dung instead of carbon?
Coal-to-Liquid--upsetting the energy-independence element of the campaign against gasoline use
More Dissent on Global Warming
How Corn Will Save (and Cover) the World
NASA Chief Silenced After Questioning GW Dogma
[Anyone who values open public discourse and scientific debate should find this chilling.--ECB]
Green-Red Agenda: Wealth Transfer from US to China
[By the same David Roberts who called for Nuremberg-style trials for those who deny catastrophic manmade global warming.--ECB]
Climate change behind Darfur killing says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
[Various philosophies of history have attributed human choices to a variety of causes. Some have embraced environmental determinism (northern, colder regions produce freedom; tropic regions produce sloth and slavery), economic determinism (Marxists say the economic condition of your time determines your choices). Now we have environmental determinism redux: global climate change forced the genocide in Darfur. Right. Anything but taking responsibility for human choices.--ECB]
Europe’s emissions trading scam: energy companies reap 20 billion euro windfall
Animal group blames cat influx on global warming
Coral reveals increased hurricanes may be a return to normal
The end of the Kyoto Protocol
The new math on global warming
Global warming and its evil twin ‘climate change’ predictions wrong on both counts
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