Saturday, April 19, 2008

Power for the Future

Conquering Global Warming

I saw an article yesterday about a Texas billionaire that's going to spend probably billions buying land from Texas north to Nebraska or further then installing several thousand wind turbines on the properties. He's doing this to make money as well as to help with global warming and the constant use of oil as a fuel, even though he's a billionaire because of oil. To me it makes sense that someone who's become rich and powerful such as him to seek new alternative ways to make money, how else would he stay rich? It's too bad that every billionaire like Bill Gates or those hundreds or thousands of others we hear about don't focus more on this huge issue we have confronting us. Yes we also have starving and sick people all over the world that need help but we also have the immediate need of this planet. If we don't stop destroying it, it will eventually kill us all anyway so why not use our resources to fight ourselves?

Let's start with South Dakota. Nothing against the residents it's just that I recently spent several days and nights there and I realized something: IT'S WINDY!

I've done some research and found out that the two cities that I recently stayed overnight in (Mitchell and Rapid City) have higher than average wind speeds all year long (compared to the rest of the United States). Mitchell, South Dakota has a LOW average of 10MPH with a high of 13MPH. Rapid City, South Dakota has a LOW average of 10MPH as well as a high of 13MPH. Mitchell has a low average of 50% sunshine during the winter with 75% during the summer. Rapid City is about the same. Both cities have high averages of sunny days. I don't want to leave out Pierre, Murdo or Sioux Falls with a low average wind speeds similar to both Mitchell and Rapid City and sunshine along the same lines.

Given this data one could ask why there aren't wind turbines and solar panels lining Interstate 90 from Sioux Falls to Spearfish. In fact, let's ask. With South Dakota being 46th in population with about 800,000 people in the state one may say that there isn't the need for carbon free electricity production and we should focus more on New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles or Dallas but why not start where more coal is used for producing electricity. That makes the most sense to me. New York gets power from dams, biomass, solar and wind, according to Consolidated Edison's website. Chicago uses a 352 MW power station (SE Chicago Energy Project) that burns natural gas which is definitely not good; their Mid-Atlantic facility uses hydroelectric plants to produce 1621MW; they are also buying power from a 153MW wind farm in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Los Angeles has started a Green Power program which uses solar, wind and water to produce electricity. While all of these cities, and many more, have started using renewable sources to produce electricity there are still many others that aren't.

Most people know that electricity will be lost on extended runs of power lines. The insulation surrounding the conduit just can't hold it so it leaks out. This is why installing wind farms is a bad idea. More and more people are installing tankless water heaters because they are more efficient. The reason for the efficiency is because they only heat the water when it's needed AND they are generally installed near the common places that hot water is needed. Why set up a wind farm in Oklahoma and send the power to Denver? That doesn't make sense. Set up wind turbines in different areas around the country where it's normally windy but where people live. It's not like they are coal fired power plants that are mostly installed just outside of cities then the wind causes the spoils to blow into the city and cause us all to get sick from the carbon emissions. Don't be scared of the wind turbines. Install them in the middle of the city if your city has enough wind on average to make it worth while. Even if every house and business in any city installed a wind turbine it wouldn't cause any permanent damage to the planet and the amount of wind passing over or through each turbine wouldn't slow down just because 10 others down wind got it first. Yes a turbine on every street corner may look obtrusive but compared to the alternatives I'd rather look at a wind turbine. Every time I did I'd know it was helping to make this planet a cleaner place and be much easier to look at that the thousands of cellular towers I see any time I go anywhere, or look out my office window for that matter.

Back to South Dakota for a minute. While sitting in the passenger seat of my vehicle as my wife drove west on Interstate 90 from Sioux Falls to Mitchell I noticed how much the wind was blowing us around and how bare the land is around us. Yes it was the beginning of spring so there weren't any crops growing but I still noticed the many cellular towers planted in many fields, most likely giving the farmer an extra source of income (the land they are on is usually leased to the cellular companies, if not they should be). Those towers are an eyesore, even though I, like most Americans, use them all the time. Why not use the existing towers as a place to mount an efficient wind turbine? All of those power lines I saw while trying to take pictures outside my window that block the views are also an eyesore. If wind turbines and solar cells were installed close to where the power was needed, say in the middle of where 10 farms are located in remote areas such as some parts of South Dakota, most of those power lines could be removed balancing out the eyesore that a wind turbine may cause to some (idiotic) people.

Why stop with South Dakota. Consider Montana, Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, heck every state - even Alaska. Puerto Rico may be a good place for solar panels while wind turbines in Fairbanks, Alaska may be the best option there.

I've found a company that manufacturers wind turbines that can produce up to 10 kilowatts and have a start up speed as low as 3MPH.

The larger 10akw turbine needs 6MPH to start while the lower 5kw model needs 3MPH. None have a cut off speed like standard turbines do and none of these models need to face the wind since they are vertical which means regardless of the number of times the wind changes direction, the turbine always turns which is more efficient than the larger ones. While these models aren't enough to power even a small city, they can be stacked or can be installed at many locations throughout a city or town. The more you use renewable sources the less coal or natural gas is burned the less carbon is released into the atmosphere the sooner the planet can recover.

I once contacted the utility company where I lived and inquired about solar and wind power and whether or not they were planning or were using either. I was told that the area we lived in didn't have enough wind or sun to produce enough electricity to make it worth while. They said that they would need one turbine for every home they fed in order to produce enough but even then they couldn't do it since the wind wasn't blowing enough of the time. I suggested that they offer the businesses in the area an incentive to install solar panels on their roofs since most large buildings have acres of empty unused space up there, much like the utility company's brains. I argued that if every business had solar panels they could produce enough power to reduce the need for coal fired power, which the power company relied on 100%. Of course not only were my ideas shot down, they were sat on, smothered then dismissed. On top of that, the power company convinced everyone in that area that in order to keep up with demand, they had to build an additional coal fired plant! I've since moved to a more friendly state with the hopes that one day I can buy some property that has no covenants to prevent me from installing 10 wind turbines and a massive solar array so I can provide power to my new neighbors, most likely for free AND be able to get a check every month from the power company because I'm certain I could produce more power than even 10 homes would need so the excess would feed back into the grid reducing some of the strain of the coal fired plants that feed us every second of every day just so we can turn on our computers and spend an hour writing a blog that probably wasted enough power to run a television for a day.

And just so you are aware, I'm going to buy a server so I can turn off my computer when I'm not using it since it will use less energy than my PC but for now it has to stay running but I do turn my monitors off instead of waiting for the power save feature to do it for me. I may run into the door on the way out of here and stub my toe but I will be back to complain about more stuff another time, even if I have to limp in here.

THINK GREEN

DON'T FAX IT - EMAIL IT

IF IT'S YELLOW LET IT MELLOW - IF IT'S BROWN SEND IT DOWN

TURN OFF THE LIGHTS WHEN YOU AREN'T IN THE ROOM

TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND MONITORS WHEN NOT IN USE

USE MOTION SENSOR LIGHTS OUTSIDE & INSIDE YOUR HOME AND BUSINESS

TURN OFF THE SURGE PROTECTOR WHEN YOU DON'T NEED THE EQUIPMENT TO BE ON

INSTALL AN ELECTRONIC THERMOSTAT ON YOUR HVAC SYSTEM AND SET IT TO REDUCE USAGE WHEN YOU AREN'T HOME

INSTALL TANKLESS WATER HEATERS AND RECYCLE YOUR OLD TANK

INSTALL LOW FLOW TOILETS

RECYCLE AND REUSE WHENEVER POSSIBLE

CAPTURE YOUR RAINWATER AND USE IT TO WATER THE LAWN WHEN IT ISN'T RAINING

THE PLANET HAS A COLD. IT'S TURNING INTO PNEUMONIA. DON'T LET IT DIE



Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Spam & Hagz

An open letter to all spammers.

Take your spam and shove it.

You heard me. Shove it. I don't want you spam. I don't need your spam. I don't even want to think about your spam. I have no use for spam. I have no need to even know why you are sending me spam.

Ok why do you think I need a larger 'thing'? Did someone post that picture of me online somewhere again? I should sue. Wait, could it be that I'm part of some plan to take over the world? Didn't think so. What makes you think that I would even consider buying even a piece of thread from anyone that sent me spam? Are you as naive as the people at PayPal? So what if some men want a larger device to use on their girlfriends. Good for them. They can go to the RX and get whatever crap they want without you telling them to buy from some moron in Canada. Sure we 'need' the FDA approval to take medicine but the FDA is as dumb as PayPal AND the spammers put together. You don't need to know why right now, just trust me. So if we need FDA approval but we can buy from those hags in Canada, we have bypassed the FDA, thus bypassed any federal, local or state tax which then helps who? That's right, Canada. Sure they have free health care but their taxes are higher than most places in the US in order to pay for that 'free' health care. See now you got me off track.

Let's experiment: Give me your address and I'll have 10 people show up to try to sell you something that I think you need. After those 10 are done, 20 more will show up selling the same thing. The next day, 100 different people selling the same thing. This will continue until, well, you die or change your address but then I'll find you again and we'll start over. I don't care if you buy something or not. In fact. buy something and I'll send more people since I now know you are gullible and will buy anything. Don't buy and that just means you aren't yet convinced. Better yet, give me your address, phone number, social security number, date of birth and 10 names of people you know and I'll make you all rich! Oh yeah, I'll need $2000 from each of them, including you, first so I can invest it in a pool to make you even more money. Of course I'll deposit the money into my secret account then I'll move and you'll still be getting hundreds of people trying to sell you something at your front door. Would it help if they were all Girl Scouts? I bet I could get you to buy some cookies.

Maybe you now see my point, maybe not. What good does it do for you to pay some idiot to send out thousands of emails that are going to end up in the spam folder anyway and never get read, and most likely deleted bringing you no more customers than you had anyway. No that wasn't a question. Oh my! You are gullible.

Hey I just got a notice from your bank and your account has been suspended. Send me your account information and I'll fix it for you. No charge. Seriously.

I get over 200 spam emails every single day, even on Christmas - that's low. They all end up in my spam folder and I laugh as I scan them over. I know that I'd much rather have them in an email than at my house and I'm sure you would to. Don't be a spammer. Be something meaningful. Try telemarketing.

Oh wait. That's a form of spam too. Hmm. What could someone with your apparently totally awesome skillz do to make a living...

You could work for Stephen Colbert. He needs writers and you are sooo grate at rigting! I'm shure pinmanship dont count neway.

I know: Run for president. I'm sure you'd win.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The Cost of Doing Business Online

I decided that it was time for an upgrade to my old laptop (Dell Insipron 1100) which gave me many good years of use. In addition I had about 200 items from my business that I no longer needed since I quit doing service calls. I figured it was about time to post everything on eBay to get them out of here (they were only taking up space and probably costing me more money in heating bills since I'm certain they were all sucking up the heat in my 2nd floor office which stays cold).

After about 3 weeks or so of going through every single last product I had in countless boxes stuffed into my office closet I finally had a complete list. I created my little spreadsheet file and hoped that by doing it this way it would save me a ton of time, which it may have but who can know for sure. I painstakingly went through each column and row, item by item, to make sure I had adequate descriptions, photos and part numbers so I could easily copy it from there to the eBay auction form. I also had a place for my cost and list price, just in case I needed them.

I also, during that 3 weeks, spent days on making a HTML page that mimicked my website layout to make my eBay auction look more professional only to find out that eBay has a character limit on saved templates so my 3 days of coding had to be modified. Of course during this time I lost the file once so I had to start over from scratch (a 5000 character code file is not fun to redo). Maybe trimming the page was for the best since I'm sure eBay would have an issue with me using links on my auction pages that went directly to my website.

So I finished my code and my spreadsheet and after 3 days of adding auction after auction I finally had everything listed, including my trusty laptop (which I spent 2 days formatting and reinstalling the necessary programs and updating XP). I knew I wouldn't get much for most of the items I was selling since everyone on eBay is looking to buy a bar of gold with a bag of river rock (river rock is small smooth rocks that are generally found in or around rivers for those that don't know). Since the items weren't making me any money by just sitting in the closet, any amount was better than nothing I guess.

Days later I watched as $200 items (what I paid for them) sold for $0.99 each and items I paid $40.00 sold for a mere $1.25. I knew it would happen. I was happy to see my laptop go for over $300, until I get an email from the buyer telling me I sent it to the wrong address and now her daughter wouldn't get the one thing she wanted for Christmas. I sent it to the confirmed PayPal address she had (she used PP to pay so I have to follow their rules) which was a PO Box but she had moved 4 hours away and had forgotten to update her account before completing the transaction. Now she was mad at me for ruining her daughter's Christmas. I can't win.

So the New Year passes and guess what: the post office returned the laptop to me. Only God knows why since she (the buyer) told me she submitted change of address forms so it should have been forwarded but no, they had to make this whole experience much more delightful for me! :P

We finally got the issue resolved, cost me more money, but her daughter got the computer she wanted. She's 12! I didn't have a Sit-n-Spin when I was 6, why should she get a computer at 12... We used lead-lined pencils and asbestos coated lined paper when I was 12 and we were happy to have it. Kids these days...

So now it's January 2, 2008 (not right now but in my story, get with it people) and I finally decided to buy a new notebook (they used to call them laptops back in the day - 2 years ago). After surfing a few sites and looking at countless reviews I decided on a MacBook Pro 17" but then I find out there have been major issues with them so that was out (plus it would cost me about $500 extra to get the programs I must have for work to be able to use them on there). So I then browse the Dell site and find a couple that seem promising, until the grand total exceeds $3000 then I'm thinking 'why not just spend $3000 on an Alienware since they are just about the best?'. I almost got one of those new Dell notebooks that's almost like a portable desktop since they are so big but decided I didn't need that so I found and configured an Alienware - something I've been wanting for about 3 or 4 years. I've heard so many good things about their computers and even though I had used a Dell for a while and knew they weren't too bad I really wanted an Alienware so I contacted PayPal because I had enough balance to pay for an Alienware using it but I've been having issues with my address.

I live in a town of about 1500 people. The postal service doesn't want to spend more money on mail carriers so everyone in town has to use a PO Box. Because of this I can only accept mail at my PO Box and I can only accept other shipments at my house address. Since the postal service doesn't deliver to my house, my address doesn't show up in any database used by UPS or the like so this becomes an issue. I called PayPal because I had a confirmed address - my PO Box. For those that don't use PP or aren't sure why a confirmed address matters, I'll tell you: PayPal has a 'seller protection policy' which protects the seller of any merchandise or services that were paid using a PP account if the seller ships the merchandise to the confirmed address of the buyer. This policy prevents someone from stealing or hacking into someone's PP account, using the confirmed address as the billing address and then putting another address as the shipping address while the actual owner of the account has no idea. As a merchant myself I can completely understand this policy but as a seller it causes me nothing but pain. I called PP to get this fixed before I ordered my new notebook. Their customer service department told me to delete my physical address then add it as a 'gift' address then select that as my shipping address when I used my PP account to buy something. My PP account would never let me confirm my street address and I still don't know why - I should have known this would be an issue.

I did what they said and ordered a new Alienware notebook using my PP account and selecting my 'gift' address to ship to since they ship either UPS or FedEx so it has to be a physical address. 2 days pass and I check my order status : payment confirmed, order is in picking status. I figured it was taken care of and they were building my computer. Then I get an email from them telling me that they canceled my order because of a shipping address problem!

So I call them and they tell me that my shipping address has caused an inconsistency in the order, or something like that and that I needed to contact PP to fix this problem. They were more than happy to take a credit card over the phone to fix this immediately but that was it. Of course I couldn't use my CC for reasons I won't mention (because they're none of your business) so I called PP.

OMG!

Those people are the dumbest customer service people I've ever had to deal with. I had to repeat myself several times and every question I had they had to ask their supervisor - THINK! JUST PUT YOUR SUPERVISOR ON THE PHONE SINCE YOU DON'T KNOW!!!!!!

I finally just asked to speak to the supervisor, who, of course was like 12 years old and told me the same thing the other person did and still couldn't tell me why my PP account wouldn't let me verify my street address. He also couldn't tell me why last week someone else told me to change my address to a gift address instead of trying to confirm it then so I wouldn't have this stupid issue which I knew would happen which is why I called them in the first place.

I can't take it so I'm going to delete every email address I have, close my website, cancel my credit cards and my PP account, unplug my phone, turn off my computer and go hide in one of the nearby national forests so I don't have to deal with idiots anymore.

I guess that's the cost of doing business online.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Oil Wars

Just a quick note about the war in Iraq:

Like most (sane) people, I support our troops. They signed up to go to college or to get trained in a career, not to spend years in a desert 'protecting' the rights of Iraqis. They agreed to defend our country but they aren't doing that in Iraq. Right now there is no reason those troops need to be there.

In actuality our troops are there protecting the oil that the oil compaines say we need. Our government is forcing oil upon us by regulating the flow of oil from wherever it's drilled out of the ground to the refineries in the US. Our government is full of people that only want one thing: more money in their already fat pockets.

One day the oil well will run dry. One day people will realize that Texans, oil barons, politicians, military generals, car companies & oil companies will die. They will die from suffocating in the oil that they forced upon us.

We don't need oil. We don't need war.

We need our troops home.

Buying a house in Montana

People complain every day. There's always something wrong in their life that they didn't cause. They don't make enough money at their job. They hate their job because of the people they work with or work for. They hate having to drive so far to go to work or go to the store. They won't drive an electric or hybrid car because there's no way they can bling it up. They don't care about the environment because once they're dead, they won't have to deal with it. They live in a quiet community and want it to stay that way yet all these people from everywhere else keep moving in.

I figured something out last night about that last line.

I live in a small town of about 1500 people. In the surrounding communities there is more building of homes, apartments, townhouses, shopping malls, office buildings and more going on every day than there has been in years. The houses, both in the town I live in and those that surround it, are expensive, at least to me. You can't find a house in this area (I'd say about a 20 mile diameter area) for less than $175,000. Those that you do find for that price are small older homes that need a lot of work.

I recently read an article in one of the local papers from a police chief asking voters to approve a bill that would give the police more money for personnel. They are asking for this money because of the increase of population and the additional housing developments that are being constructed and saying that more police are needed to help patrol these new areas and support the growing community. One thing that this police chief said was something to the order of "this extra money will cost homeowners $8.61 a month more on a $120,000 home. A home that would sell for $320,000 is actually worth only $120,000." (again it's not an exact quote).

One thing I've been hearing for a long time around here from those that grew up in this area is that they don't like these Californians moving here because they make the property values go up, they get their friends to elect them to local government and it's more crowded.

If people anywhere, not just here, don't want people moving in and building homes that raise property values of their own homes, why are so many people selling there homes for so much more than they are actually worth? Some say it's not the home that's worth so much, it's the land. If that's the case, don't sell your land to a developer that's going to build a home on every 1/2 or 1/4 acre and sell those homes for $350,000 when they could sell them for $150,000 and still make a profit. Don't sell your land. Period. You want to keep away those that increase the value of your property which raises your property tax yet you make it so easy for them to do so.

If a homeowner in California (since those apparantly are the ones causing this problem) sells their 1200 sq. ft home on 1/4 acre for $500,000, they can buy 20 acres in Montana and still have enough left over to build a $200,000 or more home.

On the other hand if a homeowner, or renter, in almost any other state, moves here, they can only afford a $150,000 home which would mean a home built before 1930 that really needs about $200,000 (or more) in work that has little or no insulation, old wiring that could cause a fire, a heating system that may or may not work, double-hung non-insulated windows with storm windows that have to be removed in the summer and replaced in the fall, a lot that's probably only 1/4 acre and in a part of a community where all of the other houses are falling apart. That's assuming that the person or family has $20,000 for a down payment and $1100 to $1500 a month for the mortgage, $2,000 to $5,000 a year for property taxes, $1,000 or more a year for insurance - plus the cost of water, sewer and gas as well as groceries, clothing, gas for their cars, insurance for their cars, school books for their kids, and so much more.

The middle class has left the building - and apparantly Montana.

If the people of Montana really want to have more rich people living in their beautiful state, fine, otherwise something has to change or the only people left living here are going to be rich people from California (and elsewhere) that cause property values to rise, take over the city government just to get their way with everything and run off those that struggle every day just to be able to live here.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Now it's time for something completely different

Okay so I took the title from Monty Python, so.

This past Sunday was our 15th wedding anniversary.

We have tried for 14 years to move back to Montana and we finally did it! Soon after the move was our anniversary so we decided to celebrate by going to a local restaurant/grill for dinner. Everyone has told us that they have the best steaks in Montana (Sir Scott's Oasis) and from other sites we looked at even people from other countries specifically travel here just to eat at this place. It's been in business for many years and surprisingly it sits in the middle of a very small town (population about 1400 - compared to the city of 150,000 + that we just moved away from). For a business in a small town to be open as long as this one, something must be worth it.

We arrived on time, couldn't be late, it's about a 4 minute walk from our house and I can see the place from my 2nd floor office. The greeter was on the phone taking a reservation (you need a reservation at this place because it's so popular). She finally got off the phone with one person only to answer another call. I was patient, I could tell she was busy and everyone else in the place that worked there apparently wasn't responsible for seating customers. I told her we had a reservation, she looked at her sheet, grabbed 2 menus and said follow me, then seated us in one of those 2 people only tables (I hate those). She wasn't very nice. Just the way she spoke to us and her body language wasn't what I'd expect from such a popular place.

Keep in mind that this place doesn't have a dress code (cowboy hats, spurs, shorts, flip-flops, boots or tuxes, they don't care - whatever you want to wear).

It wasn't that busy, yet, when we arrived at 6PM. A lady came over and took our drink order (I got my usual - Dr. Pepper - as did my wife). It kind of surprised me when she came back with two glasses of ice and two cans of Dr. Pepper. I guess they can't afford to spring for the soda dispensing machines that most other places have. Whatever...

A few minutes later another lady shows up to take our order. Now I've read that refusing the soup of the day is a mistake so I wasn't sure if there was going to be a brawl or if the owner was going to kick me out but I didn't want ground beef soup or whatever it was - sounded weired. Good news, she didn't flinch, didn't care. I was then concerned about ordering my steak well done...

For those that like their steak rare, medium or anywhere in between just keep in mind that the less you cook meat, the more it's like a LIVE animal. Are we still beasts and can't have the smarts to fully cook our food first? Try getting a chicken cooked medium rare and see how long it takes you to get to the hospital. I know some people that like sushi but they always seem to get sick afterwards, and still go back for more. Get real people, figure out that your body doesn't like it and stop ordering food that should only be eaten by bears, lions and other wild animals that actually have fangs that are designed for that sort of dining experience.

So anyway I ordered well and got, you guessed it, medium well. They seared the steak so it had those great grill juices, those that come from years of using the grill which seasons it beyond perfection. In fact, one side of the steak (NY strip, 16oz) was so done it was too hard to chew. I guess they didn't oil the grill first, who knows. I didn't fuss over it, in fact I expected it to me medium well. Most of the time the cooks, anywhere, don't know how to cook a steak well done without burning the outside so I'm used to medium well. I guess it's good that way, more flavor. Besides, this place prides themselves on 'on site aging' so I'd hate to waste all that time on burning the flavor out.

Don't forget that the dinners include a cracker basket with butter, veggie plate, soup and salad. The crackers are pre-packaged like TownHouse and all those others that I don't prefer. The veggies were cold which was nice. The butter was mostly fat, I think, but it was pretty good on my baked potato. The salad dressing (blue cheese) seemed more like buttermilk or Ranch than it should have and the salad was a bit small but I guess some places prefer to fill you up on crackers, veggies and the main course.

My 16oz steak was about 1-1/2" thick (my wife had the prime rib - with a bone which she found strange but I guess it was good). I guess about 4oz of mine was fat - I'm not used to a NY Strip having fat, nonetheless being so thick.

The biggest problems I had with this place was the following:
1. Service was a bit lacking. They did okay when they showed up but since they weren't that busy they should have been by our table more;
2. It was a bit warm in there;
3. The flies in the dining area are a nuisance;
4. The door to the kitchen should remain closed to keep the noise down;
5. A well done steak should be free of pink color - completely, and a place that advertises the bests steaks should know better;
6. Soda from a can in a restaurant? Come on!
7. Get a door closer for the outside door so people don't have to manually close it because they won't which allows the flies to come in;
8. Have you had a health inspection lately or are there any at all? Where I come from your business would be closed for a week for too many violations;
9. $44.00 for 2 meals in a hot restaurant with flies about, soda from a can and an undercooked steak with employees that seem to care more about the end of the rush than the current customers - you must be crazy!

But that's just my opinion.

Even though I seem to not like it, I think I'd go back. Everything deserves a second chance.

Now who's got me a steak? This is making my mouth water for more!

Friday, July 6, 2007

2008 Elections/Global Warming

Former Vice-President Al Gore said on Larry King recently that he was no longer interested in politics. I guess that's a good thing since he seems to be the only one that is or was in politics that cared about our environment.

Today in Montana there were quite a few high temperature records broken. The last record for this day (July 6h) was 97 degrees Fahrenheit set many years ago. Today the high at the local airport was 106. Come on, we're in Montana, it's supposed to be cold, or at least cooler here than in most places. Of course Montana does have a few temperature-related records (greatest temperature drop in 24 hours; greatest temperature rise in 24 hours; most snowfall in 24 hours - I think...) but high heat at 4000+ feet elevation is just rediculous. The average is around 87 for this time of year. My neighbors say this heat is abnormal. Well yeeha! Maybe next year around July 6th it will be 40.

My theory is that Al Gore is right: global warming is affecting all of us RIGHT NOW! Don't wait until 2060 (when, according to Issac Newton, the world will end) to change the way we do things on this planet to save it for use by our offspring - START NOW! If Al Gore doesn't want to be our President, let's get someone else that we can trust to step in and start making real changes starting January 20, 2009 instead of all the other current canidates that, as usual, just are making promises they have no intention of keeping. Maybe we should all join Unity08.com and fight for our right to vote for a team we can count on. Then again, voting for someone we can count on AND them being a politician is kind of an oxymoron, unless you're Al Gore.

Last week in Chile (it's in South America for those that failed geography) scientist reported that a very, very old glacier is retreating at an alarming rate.

"The Patagonia Icefields of Chile and Argentina, the largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere, are thinning at an accelerating pace and now account for nearly 10 percent of global sea-level change from mountain glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile's Centro de Estudios Cientificos.

Results of the study, published in the journal Science, conclude that the Patagonia Icefields lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.04 millimeters (0.0016 inches) per year during the period 1975 through 2000. This is equal to nine percent of the total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers, according to the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Scientific Assessment.


From 1995 through 2000, however, that rate of ice loss from the icefields more than doubled, to an equivalent sea level rise of 0.1 millimeters (0.004 inches) per year."

This disturbs me, as too you should be disturbed. We should be concerned that not only are the temperatures rising on the planet which causes us to be irritable toward others as well as completely miserable during high heat but it's causing the glaciers to receed and melt away which rises sea levels around the globe which will keep rising when another part of a glacier falls away, melts or evaporates then, eventually, every coastal town of the US and countries like Guam, Puerto Rico, Phillipines and more will be nothing more than a sliver of land above the ocean. Where will those people that lived there go? We can't create more land, unless you're Japanese (they created a new island for their new airport facility several years ago) so what should we do?

Stop running your air conditioner at 65 degrees. Run it when the outside temps reach 80 but don't turn it off and open your windows at night! That just lets in more humidity and makes the unit work harder when you turn it back on the next morning. If you don't have an attic fan, install one and learn how to use it properly. Plant trees in your yard that provide more shade. Water your yard with effecient sprinklers but only during the morning. Watering during the day will only help the water evaporate quicker and could burn your grass. Install window film on the windows of your house that face south to keep out the hot day sun rays. If you have the means, install solar panels to power your house as well as a wind turbine, or just use one. Using solar energy consumes zero resources of the sun since the sun has already exhausted the energy before it reached this planet. Of course the solar panels and/or turbines used natural resources to create and install as well as the batteries required to store that energy, but using those resources yourself reduces the amount of power that the coal fired power plants need to produce since they don't store any energy. Coal fired power plants only burn coal when power is needed. If the demand drops, so will their use of coal therefore the emissions will drop. Buy a hybrid car and stop driving to the corner store for a pack of smokes or a soda - WALK! Better yet, sell every gasoline-powered engine you own, buy a bike, lose the weight you gained by drinking too much soda and smoking too much and driving everywhere and help us all to feel better and save our planet.

Now that I've wasted 20 minutes of coal-fired power (actually they use nuclear power where I live - I think), I'm going to turn off my computer as you should too. Leaving it on only wastes power and I'm tired of being hot.

That's why I left Misery, better known as Missouri.