Can the water footprint for solar and wind start a war?

Water Shortages Are a Major Problem for Future Energy Projects

The Thirsty Triangle: The Water Footprint of Energy Trade Between China, Canada, and the United States

Every country depends on a sustainable supply of water and energy and these two resources are inextricably linked.  The production of all energy sources uses water but coal, oil sands, biofuels, and shale gas have particularly large water footprints. Absent tight regulations these sources of energy can also create serious water pollution.  Conversely, water treatment and distribution require considerable energy—for example the state of California uses nearly 20% of its energy to clean and transfer water. China, Canada, and the United States face significant obstacles in their efforts to provide clean, affordable energy. China is heavily dependent on coal, which according to research by the Wilson Center and Circle of Blue, accounts for 20 percent of the country’s water use, exacerbating pressure on the country’s already vulnerable water resources. In the United States thermal power plants use 40% of freshwater resources for once-through cooling, making them vulnerable in times of drought. Oil sands development in Canada demands a water intensive extraction and refining process, and makes up a large and growing portion of US oil imports from Canada.

The climate suffers from unethical lawyers

If You Can’t Beat Them, Try to Silence Them with Lawyers

"Weyerhaeuser, Plum Creek and many others have spent tens of millions of dollars creating and funding the SFI program to label the paper and wood they sell from destroyed forests as sustainable".

The ruptured tar sands oil pipeline that spilled at least 12,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands oil in Mayflower, Arkansas, on March 29

More Spills Shine Spotlight on Keystone

Earlier that same week, a train carrying Canadian tar sands oil derailed and spilled 15,000 gallons of oil in Minnesota. - See more at: http://www.emagazine.com/daily-news/more-spills-shine-spotlight-on-keystone/#sthash.ouU6AWsr.dpuf

Don't Let the EPA Withdraw Two Proposed Chemical Safety Rules Quietly

EPA Quietly Withdraws Two Proposed Chemical Safety Rules

Let's not let them poison us quietly!!

Australia slaps Mother Earth

Conservatives sweep to Australia election victory

 Australia's conservative opposition swept to power Saturday, ending six years of Labor Party rule and winning over a disenchanted public by promising to end a hated tax on carbon emissions, boost a flagging economy and bring about political stability after years of Labor infighting.

Climate doomsday clock at 5 minutes to midnight

Climate doomsday clock at 5 minutes to midnight

Republicans propose to cut food stamp spending by 5%

Food Stamp Cuts Would Deny Benefits To At Least 4 Million: CBPP

Open your eyes to the danger of climate change.

You're Getting Warmer …

 A report from the United Nations' blue-ribbon international panel of climatologists declared global warming an "unequivocal" fact, "very likely" caused by human activity. 

We are dying quicker than you think (there goes the food chain)

Fukushima Tank Leaks 300 Tons Of 'Highly Radioactive' Water At Nuclear Plant

Military Madness: Has our Species become Insane?

There are many reasons for the belief that much of our behaviour has become insane. Here are some of them. 

Helen Caldicott is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and a world renowned campaigner against nuclear weapons. She says that our species is ‘mentally sick…
The whole society is sick’1. We are in the grip of a death wish. She points out that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths with ‘no moral conscience’ and these are the people who rise to the top; who are in charge.

Evil, thy name is Koch

The Scariest Man in America

How to Save the Earth

What to Make of Change on an Overheating Planet

The cause couldn’t be more compelling.  There’s never been a clearer threat to survival, or to justice, than the rapid rise in the planet’s temperature caused by and for the profit of a microscopic percentage of its citizens. Conversely, there can be no real answer to our climate woes that doesn’t address the insane inequalities and concentrations of power that are helping to drive us toward this disaster.

What will the world look like in 50 years?

There are more pipelines in the works. Stop them all.

Coming to a neighborhood near you...Dirty oil

These are the organizations that are killing your children and here is how they are doing it. They will do anything for a dollar.

These organizations play a key role in the fossil fuel industry's "disinformation playbook," a strategy designed to confuse the public about global warming and delay action on climate change. Why? Because the fossil fuel industry wants to sell more coal, oil, and gas — even though the science clearly shows that the resulting carbon emissions threaten our planet.

Ronald Prinn, the co-director of the Joint Program and director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, said, it is important “to base our opinions and policies on the peer-reviewed science…. There’s no way the world can or should take these risks.” Duh!

An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces

"The single biggest failure of messaging by climate scientists (until very recently) has been the failure to explain to the public, opinion makers, and the media that business-as-usual warming results in simultaneous, ever-worsening impacts that, individually, are each beyond catastrophic, but combined are unimaginablly horrific. For these impacts, terms like “global warming” and “climate change” are essentially euphemisms. That is why I have preferred the term “Hell and High Water.”."

Three of the best recent analyses of what we are headed towards can be found here:

• M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F
• Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path
• Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year — and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual!

Please pass this climate change article to your "Uncle Bob".

"So I just don’t get it. Do you really think it’s wise to bet the future of our planet on the hope that 97 percent of climate scientists are wrong? Why not seek solutions while we can?"   

Soapbox: An open letter to Uncle Bob regarding climate change 

Todd Mitchell is a Fort Collins resident.

We all know an "Uncle Bob/Aunt Bobbie" and he or she needs to understand what is happening now. As a species we have managed to survive calamity beyond my imagination. Some of those disasters were natural, most were caused by humankind's constant want of more. Now nature itself is changing because of our unquenchable thirst.

However you look at it, God or no, we have only this one Earth. By chance or divine intervention, here we are on this perfect planet, and it came with all these resources. They looked unlimited when all we could do was stand on a hill. Now we understand how small and isolated Earth is.

We all must start making conscious decisions about our future, our children's future, humanity's future. You had better start now. It will only be getting worse. We can no longer prevent the "Hot Generation". We twiddled our thumbs to the facts and chose to believe the lies. "Someone else will take care of it." we thought. Now all we can do is try to prevent the "last generation".

So, as my father used to say (His name was Bob, a different kind of Bob) "Get up off your dead asses and do something!" You have seen the children suffering famine with their eyes hopelessly pleading? They are looking at you. The mother holding her dead child mouthing the word "Why?". She is asking you. And if you don't DEMAND CHANGE, imagine those images from the news when you look in the mirror.

What is disaster on Earth looks beautiful to the Universe. We are small and we have no place to go.

Gorgeous Glimpses of Calamity

Do you have family born after June 23, 1988? Generation Hot includes hardship, disaster, disease and death.

In fact, every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 belongs to what I call Generation Hot. This generation includes some two billion young people, all of whom have grown up under global warming and are fated to spend the rest of their lives confronting its mounting impacts.

CT flood home insurance rates increase and you are paying for them.

Is your flood insurance raising in CT?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's new "flood" maps are slowly being rolled out to communities across the state. The changes, which take effect Oct. 1, could mean significant premiums to some property owners.

And you Pay!