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POPSLife after oil: time to get ready James Kunstler's trademark pessimism, which, sadly, is probably right on the money. According to the Dept. of Energy, world energy demand now exceeds supply; get ready for a rough ride down the other side of the peak.
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POPSLarge methane release could cause abrupt climate change “This is a major concern because it’s possible that only a little warming can unleash this trapped methane. Unzippering the methane reservoir could potentially warm the Earth tens of degrees, and the mechanism could be geologically very rapid. Such a violent, zipper-like opening of the clathrates could have triggered a catastrophic climate and biogeochemical reorganization of the ocean and atmosphere around 635 million years ago.”
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POPSA green meat... "Other proposals include everything from persuading consumers to eat less meat to slapping a “sin tax” on pork and beef. Next year, Sweden will start labeling food products so that shoppers can look at how much emission can be attributed to serving steak compared with, say, chicken or turkey. "
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POPS13 Unsolved scientific puzzles http://www.michaelbrooks.org/ Times Archive: Necessity and free will, 1877 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1877-10-26-04-003&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1877-10-26-04 Times Archive: Advertisement: The New Homoeopathy, 1914 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1914-07-23-06-012&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1914-07-23-06
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POPSEuropa's Ocean Has Oxygen, May Support Life Now one has to figure where it comes from on Europa? We know where our oxygen sprang from--minuscule ocean critters (scientific name), and plant life. This planet didn't start off with an oxygen atmosphere....some conclude a chemical reaction took place to release it from the primal waters...can't remember exactly.
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POPSCows With Gas Other institutes, such as the New Delhi-based The Energy Research Institute (TERI), are working on methane capture strategies. One long-running project has been biogas production — cow dung is utilized to make biogas for use in kitchens and even compressed biogas for use in vehicles. "Biogas plants have been very successful," says R.K. Rajeshwari, a fellow at TERI, "Farmers are able to use biogas in their kitchens, to light lamps and to even drive vehicles."
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POPSGlobal Warming Scare Driven by Media "Remember Y2K? Mad cow disease? What about SARS, bird flu, killer bees, or any other ridiculous fear-mongering scheme employed by these powerful groups at the expense of the rest of us?" Dont' forget 2nd hand smoke and heterosexual AIDS. The list goes on.
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POPSThe greener option - burial or cremation.... two new technologies have eco-geeks (not to mention sci-fi fans) excited. The process of alkaline hydrolysis involves liquefying your body in a solution of lye and water, resulting in a pile of bone ash and a bottle of biofluid that you can pour on your houseplants. One of its leading proponents, a Scotland-based company called Resomation Ltd., claims that the procedure has a carbon footprint 18 times smaller than a typical cremator. In the other procedure, called promession, a corpse gets freeze-dried with liquid nitrogen and then shattered into powder, Terminator-style. Neither of these options is commercially available yet, but both the Mayo Clinic and the University of Florida use alkaline hydrolysis to dispose of their teaching cadavers
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POPSNew Record! Too bad this isn't the kind of record that is wanted. Global warming, fish depletion, toxic rain, fast food nation/countries, terrorism, Enron (who's next?), Darfur, tsunamis.............. I'm gonna go have a cocktail and worry about this tomorrow.