Great Lakes Zephyr Archives...

... please note that all of our blog archives have moved along with the main blog, dating all the way back to the GL Zephyr's creation in 2003.

Links to all of the archives can be found near the bottom of the lower-right sidebar.

Thank you for reading!

Dan Stafford
GL Zephyr Publisher / Creator

Great news for the Chicago area

I have some underground info that free city-wide wifi is coming to Chicago and some neighboring suburbs. This is coming in via major league sports operators, not the Fed, as I understand it.

Don't ask me how I know, but infrastructure planning is cooking now, and hardware won't be too long to start in the oven.

Now, if the Fed wants to get more bang for its broadband stimulus bucks...

Whyis free wifi good news for the regional environment?

Up tha telecommute and down that gas pumpin', Baby!

More when I can, & thank you for reading!

Dan

Actively seeking industry interviewees...

The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal seeks industry personnel to be interviewed. I have a standardized list of (11) questions that I would like to ask. The interview can be scheduled and conducted via Skype or text-only.

The questions are:


1. What was it that brought you into environmental work? Was there a particular moment or person that inspired you?

2. What do you feel was the most rewarding moment or action you took in your position within the industry?

3. What agency(ies) or programs in the Great Lakes region do you see as making the largest impact on the environment in the next five to ten years, and why?

4. What is the single thing that you see as something easy for the everyday person to do that would have the largest impact on improving the environment or combating Global Climate Change?

5. How do you feel we're doing in the Great Lakes region on environmental issues overall, and what is our greatest area needing improvement in this regard today?

6. What do you think our chances are of tapping wind energy on the Great Lakes given our current political and business environment?

7. What do you think of the idea of using wind turbines out on the lakes to produce clean energy?

8. What, in your opinion, has been the darkest hour during your tenure for the environment in the Great Lakes, and why?

9. What do you see as our best hope of mitigating the circumstance or event in the last question?

10. Are you hopeful given the change of leadership in Washington on January 20th of this year? If so, why?

11. What is the one thing you would most like to “get across” to the people of the Great Lakes region regarding our treatment of the environment?

Interested parties may answer the questions listed above, and e-mail them with credentials and contact information to: aqmstaffo@mailbag.com.

Interviews will be posted on the GL Zephyr as text transcripts and podcasts. Text-only interviews will be read as a podcast and posted.

Professionals in this industry fulfill an important mission, here's a chance to tell of your part in that mission and your vision for the future.

As always, thank you for reading - and for sharing.

Dan Stafford


http://www.archive.org/download/GreatLakesZephyrPodcast0000001/GL-Zephyr-cast-0000001.mp3

Looks like the Interview with CUB will be...

Looks like the Interview with CUB will be in mid-February. I just heard from Celia @ the Citizen's Utility Board of Illinois, and that's the timing that works best for her.

I like the idea as well, since I just moved this blog to a new domain days ago, we need the time for readership to move over and find our new home.

Speaking of the domain move and site revamp, I'm pretty happy with it overall. I think I'll go plug the GL Zephyr into Google and see if they've picked up the move yet.

Thank you as always for reading.

Dan

Intergarden - hooking people with garden space & no time up with people who have time but no garden space

I thought you might want to check this out - http://intergarden.ning.com

The idea is to have local persons that are unemployed, underemployed, or retired, or who just want to garden (and have no garden space) hook up with people who have garden space but are too busy working or don't know enough about gardening up with each other. (WOW, is that a long sentence.)

The idea is that the two parties would split the produce 50/50 in exchange for using each other's time/space/skills.

This site is BRAND SPANKING NEW, less than a week, and it is completely free to join. I'm doing this strictly as a community service. (Ning.com will probably get advertising revenue from it, but I personally get nothing but a sense of accomplishment.)

I hope to get the word out in a big way BEFORE the growing season starts.

This is great for busy home owners with sunny back yard space because they can eat fresh organic produce and supplement their grocery budget just by sharing - and be as local food as you can get.

This is great for the impoverished and underemployed because it can increase their food security through their own individual effort - and provide good skills.

This is great for expert vegetable gardeners because they can help pass on their knowledge for the future and do a great service to the community.

If there's any way you can help spread the word about Intergarden, please do so. People are going to need to start some seedlings as early as March, and given the economic climate, this could really help a lot of people.

With gratitude and respect,

Dan Stafford
Intergarden concept originator
Co-Chair, Progressive Democrats of Illinois
http://www.illinoisprogressives.org

Good News! I have an interview coming up with...

...Ms. Celia Christensen. The Citizen's Utility Board of Illinois Environmental Outreach Coordinator ( www.citizensutilityboard.org ) has agreed to be interviewed for the G.L. Zephyr in the near future.

I would like to thank Mz. Christensen in advance for her time.

I'll be posting a text transcript, mp3 audio, and possibly video of the interview shortly after it's conducted.

We still have timing to work out yet, so I'll let all of you know when it'll be as soon as I know.

Regards, and thank you for reading the Great Lakes Zephyr.

Dan Stafford

Set up Intergarden yesterday

I'm pretty happy I set up Intergarden yesterday. http://intergarden.ning.com -

Intergarden is a site devoted to hooking up people who have unused garden space but would love some free produce with those who have time but no space and need or want free produce.

Share the garden space and split the produce!

Community garden program run out of plots last year? Join and promote Intergarden!

Have community garden plots go unused last year? Join and promote Intergarden!

Have gardening knowledge you'd like to pass on to others for the future? Join and promote Intergarden! Write your tips in our discussion forums.

Intergarden is free to join. I don't make a dime off of it either, though Ning.com might through a few ads.

For me, it's all about helping people all over the world.

So Join and promote Intergarden. It's for all of you.

http://intergarden.ning.com

Dan Stafford


Words are the mind's bridge - its connection to all the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - its connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.

01/17/2009 Wind, Energy, Hydrogen News...

Popular Science Flying the Coal-Fired Skies Popular Science - New York,NY,USA John MacNeill In the not-so-distant future, cars could run on electricity, power plants on wind and solar energy, and city buses on zero-emission hydrogen ... See all stories on this topic

The Films Are Green, but Is Sundance? New York Times - United States It explained that the energy for the festival’s official screenings comes through Rocky Mountain Power’s Blue Skies program, which provides wind-powered ... See all stories on this topic

Is the ultimate green fuel particle annihilation? Tulsa World - Tulsa,OK,USA The green fuels are geothermal, wind, solar and hydro. Nuclear plants are not totally green. Hydrogen is green, but producing hydrogen must also be green. ... See all stories on this topic

 

The Desert Speaks

http://www.thedesertspeaks.org - a television series about desert dwellers and habitats, rich in culture, history, tradition, and biology. Quite fascinating.

Thank you for reading!

Dan

Enviro-tip:

After you pour that 1st cup of fresh-brewed or perked coffee, pour the remainder into a stainless steel thermos and turn the pot off. Your coffee will stay hot up to 12 hours without using any electricity, and your coffee won't get that "burnt" taste, ever. Plus, the stainless-steel thermos won't leach plastic chemicals into your coffee. (You should use ceramic mugs or stainless steel travel mugs for the same reason.)

Words are the mind's bridge - its connection to all the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - its connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.

Welcome to the NEW Great Lakes Zephyr!

I have finished (for now) the move to blogspot and a new template for the Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal.

I probably still need some tweaks, but here we are, fresh and new but still as we were. I've preserved as many of the features of the old blog on Whizzyrds.com (My personal domain) as is possible.

If you look down at the site meter on the lower right side bar, there's a link back to the old page, but note that I changed the template BEFORE I moved the blog. The old site meter has been imported under the new one, and it will continue to track hits to the old blog as well.

I hope that this change makes things better for you, and for I.

Thank You as always for reading.

Dan Stafford

Feedburner publish test 2

Test 2 for feedburner feed...

Testing feedburner feed update

I just updated my Feedburner feed source URL. This post is a test to make sure it is updating the feed correctly.

Thank you for your patience!

Dan

I am moving this blog!

The new domain should be: http://GL-Zephyr.blogspot.com

This will cause me to lose my hit counts & you'll need to update your links to the new domain, but it will allow me to use the full features of the blog, and claim it properly on Technorati.com.

Please visit the blog at its new location.

Thank You, and thank You for reading!

Dan Stafford

I will be re-vamping this blog soon...

It's long-past time for me to give the Zephyr a new template. I may also need to move it to blogspot for hosting due to technical difficulties with Technorati.com, I'll wait and see on that yet.

I will try to preserve as much of the look and feel of the Zephyr as I can when I move to the new template, and I'll save a copy of the current template script for reference in updates.

The new template should make it easier for publishing and adding features, and make this blog easier to find. It will also allow me to integrate with Feedburner, fix the comments and backlink features, integrate with Twitter, and other things this old template just can't handle.

Please bear with me while I go through this process, and struggle to bring you as much environmental news as I can in one place.

Regards, and thank You for reading -

Dan

Technorati claim post

Technorati Profile

Just me claiming the Zephyr on Technorati & about time.

Dan

01/05/2009 T.O. Enviro-news

The Boston Globe | Wind, Waves, and Watts http://www.truthout.org/010509EA The Boston Globe: "The steady, strong winds over the Atlantic off New England have attracted another developer interested in harnessing them for power generation. A new wrinkle in the proposal by Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Company, of Washington state, is that the supports anchoring each wind turbine platform to the ocean floor would be designed in a way to turn wave action into electricity as well."  Greening the Ghetto http://www.truthout.org/010509LA Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker: "A few months ago, Van Jones, the founder and president of a group called Green for All, went to visit New Bedford, Massachusetts. His first stop of the day was the public library, where someone had assembled an audience of about thirty high-school dropouts. They leaned back in their chairs, hands in the pockets of their oversized sweatshirts. A few appeared to be stoned."

GLIN NEWS: 05 January 2009

GLIN Daily News wrote:

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Support GLIN Daily News: http://www.glin.net/news/sponsor/
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Great Lakes Daily News: 05 January 2009

For links to these stories and more, visit http://www.great-lakes.net/news/


Engineers to inspect 3 state dams for waste ash
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Three Minnesota dikes that hold vast amounts of coal waste ash will be inspected by state engineers in light of the disastrous ash sludge spill last month in Tennessee. Source: Star Tribune (1/5)


Oberlin sets up more ways to show how resources are used
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Oberlin College has secured an $812,000 grant from the Great Lakes Protection Fund for a four-year pilot project to monitor and display personal and community water consumption. Source: The Chronicle-Telegram (1/5)


Canada ready to plug into electric cars: study group
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Plug-in electric cars can make a breakthrough into the North American market within the next decade as the economy emerges from its current slowdown, says the head of an industry-led panel advising the Harper government. Source: The Montreal Gazette (1/4)


Lyme grass, a new plant 'invader,' could take over dunes
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Lyme grass is flourishing at 125 sites in the coastal dunes of Lake Michigan, according to a new report prepared for The Nature Conservancy. The plant concerns botanists because it competes with native marram grass, or dune grass - one of the predominant species in Great Lakes coastal dunes. Source: Muskegon Chronicle (1/4)


Scientists find signs of 13,000-year-old extinction event
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It's well-known that a meteorite colliding with Earth is considered the most likely reason why dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago. Now a team of scientists says it has found new evidence that a comet triggered a similar extinction 13,000 years ago, at a time when humans were around. Source: Chicago Tribune (1/2)


Pipeline company to pay $1.1M for violations in Wis.
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The company that built a 321-mile, $2 billion oil pipeline across Wisconsin has agreed to pay $1.1 million for environmental violations, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Friday. Houston-based Enbridge Energy Co. will pay the money to settle a lawsuit accusing it of violating state permits. Source: Chicago Tribune (1/2)


Dow Chemical in talks for Michigan dioxin cleanup
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More than three decades after Dow Chemical was blamed for some of the worst dioxin contamination in history, federal regulators are meeting with the company yet again about cleaning up polluted waterways in eastern Michigan. Source: Chicago Tribune (1/1)


Waukesha may face radium fines
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The state Department of Justice likely will fine the City of Waukesha, Wis., for failing to completely rid its drinking water of potentially cancer-causing radium, Mayor Larry Nelson said. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (1/1)


Group pushes water-conservation measures
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Investing $10 billion in water-efficiency programs could play an important role in America's "green economy," creating as many as 220,000 jobs while protecting a priceless natural resource says a new report produced by the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes. Source: Muskegon Chronicle (12/31)


Slowing economy has some ships tying up early for winter
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There are still a couple of weeks in the Great Lakes shipping season, and the Army Corps of Engineers will be operating locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., until Jan. 15. But the recession is drying up business, and a number of Great Lakes ships have already called it quits, tying up for winter early. Source: Minnesota Public Radio (12/31)


Cuyahoga County wins Ohio environmental cleanup grant
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Cuyahoga County is receiving a $2.1 million environmental cleanup grant from the state of Ohio to help rehabilitate the Cuyahoga River channel. Source: Crain's Cleveland Business (12/30)


COMMENTARY: Don't expand the landfill
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Additional hazardous waste landfill capacity in New York State is unnecessary. Demand is down and there's no need to encourage it, the state concluded a long time ago. So, why does the proposed expansion of a hazardous waste site in Niagara County remain an issue? Source: The Buffalo News (12/26)


Did you miss a day of Daily News? Remember to use our searchable story archive at http://www.great-lakes.net/news/inthenews.html


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Re: Wind Jobs

Find your perfect wind power job today WindIndustryJobs.com, from Windpower Monthly, provides the latest global job vacancies at all levels, experience and disciplines for people directly or indirectly involved with the sale, supply and operation of wind power technology. Find your next job simply by clicking the region closest to you: Wales London West Midlands Scotland West Midlands East of England Yorkshire and Humberside East of England South East England East Midlands South East England South West England Northern Ireland North East England North West England International     Keep up to date - sign up for email job alerts today and we'll send you all the latest jobs as soon as they are advertised. Post a new job Advertise your Wind Power job now! Click here to find out more Looking to recruit ? Click here to find out more © WindIndustryJobs.com 2009 Sent to you by Wind Industry Jobs

GreenBuzz :: Our Top 10 Stories of 2008, The Year in Greenwashing, and More...

January 5, 2009   » The Latest News on Sustainable Business Practices   » Featured News: GreenBiz.com's Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2008   » Expert Insight from the GreenBiz Blog   » GreenBiz Radio: Starting With the End: Designing Products for Reuse Sign Up Now for our FREE Newsletters »Subscribe Here THIS ISSUE'S SPONSOR Taking Care of Business By Joel Makower Happy 2009! I hope you are beginning the new year with a fresh sense of optimism and hope. I certainly am. Admittedly, it's no small feat. The economy is sinking, with little certainty of when we hit bottom, let alone resurface. This is destined to be a year of change, some of it much-needed, some of it painful. We're in uncharted territory now, with barely a working compass. But beyond the inevitable chaos is hope -- and no, not just the campaign slogan type, but real hope, the hope of fresh starts -- that the changes ahead will yield innovative solutions in how business is done, and the environmental and social impacts that result. We'll all be watching. Of course, my team and I will be doing more than watching. We're planning a spate of new features and services to help you find your way, from stories of how your colleagues are faring to nuts-and-bolts survival strategies. We'll track the money flows of the new administration, looking for opportunities to tap into what is expected to be multi-billion-dollar expenditures to foment a green economy. And we'll continue to offer leading-edge research, starting with our 2009 State of Green Business report (and concomitant conference), launching February 2. You'll also be seeing greater focus on the GreenBiz Blog, and the growing cacophony of voices from thought leaders as well as our own editorial team. We'd love to have you participate -- to share your observations from the trenches, your insights into what's working, what's not working, and how you're surviving -- and, I hope, thriving -- in the coming year. If you have ideas, or simply want to review our blogging guidelines, send a note to Leslie Guevarra. For now, enjoy some of the topics we covered over the holidays. But get ready for all that's yet to come. It's going to be an adventure!    The Latest News on Sustainable Business Practices Fiji Water, Clean Coal and Political Parties Make 2008 Greenwash List By GreenBiz Staff Companies and coalitions big and not-so-big have made the ranks of most notorious "green" campaigns in the year-end list from National Public Radio's Greenwash Brigade.... Read More California Gives $20 Million to Recycling Projects U.S. Diners Looking for Greener Restaurants and Healthier Fare in 2009: Survey Sustainable Community Concept Takes Hold in Texas, Georgia, Tennessee Public Buildings in U.K. Emit More CO2 Than All of Kenya Industry Leaders Team Up to Green Food's Supply Chain Pacific Northwest's E-Waste 'Paradigm Shift' Launches Jan. 1 Ohio Launches Advanced Energy Masters Degree Program Harvard Extension School Offers E-Learning Course on Environmental Management    Featured News GreenBiz.com's Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2008 By GreenBiz Staff In a year when the economy was all the business world could talk about, our readers dug in deep to stories about creating change, overhauling the ways business gets done, and yes, how going green can save big money.... Read More           Advertisement The True Value of Rackspace Hosting for your business Minimize your risk by removing large hardware investments and payroll expenses and let us perform as an extension of your IT Department. This includes an experienced team dedicated to your business that provides unlimited, 24x7x365 expert support and industry-leading SLAs. We are here for you. Click here for more information.                                         GreenBiz Radio Starting With the End: Designing Products for Reuse By Sarah Fister Gale Milliken and Co. has long subscribed to the belief that waste and pollution cost money. Sustainability Director Bill Gregory speaks to GreenBiz Radio about how the carpet industry is joining together to improve carpet recycling and the ways in which end-of-life thinking has led to new products.... Listen    Columns and Blogs Joel Makower Behind IBM's Quest for a 'Smarter Planet' > Read more... Ariel Schwartz Hidden Electric Bill Fee Finances New York's Energy Projects > Read more... Robert Pojasek Once is Not Enough: Continual Improvement is Essential to Sustainability > Read more... Cary Krosinsky The Responsibility of Ownership: New Year's Resolution 2009 > Read more...       FEATURED RESOURCES Waste & Opportunity: U.S. Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report, 2008 Twenty-three beverage companies are scored on the based on their reduction of virgin content in containers, use of recycled content, activities related to recovery and recycling legislation and program, and communication of their recycling goals and efforts. Sustainable Aviation CO2 Roadmap This report assesses carbon dioxide emissions from United Kingdom aviation from 2000-2050. BROWSE BY TOPIC » All News » Energy and Climate » Business Operations » Design and Innovation » Resource Efficiency » Marketing » Small Business » Events & Tools FEATURED JOBS Sr Mechanical Engineer Glen Allen, VA Building Energy / Daylight Modeler New York, Boulder or Chicago, CO Executive Director Annapolis, MD » Browse All Jobs FEATURED EVENT State of Green Business Forum 2009 Date: February 2, 2009 - 9:30am Location: San Francisco ,Calif. This exclusive one-day event will be held on February 2, 2009 at the PG&E Auditorium in San Francisco, California. The Forum will coincide with the release of GreenBiz.com’s State of Green Business 2009, our highly-acclaimed annual report on the status of corporate environmental trends and progress. Wanna Write for GreenBiz.com®? GreenBiz.com® is looking for guest and regular columnists and feature writers. We're seeking contributions from business leaders as well as the journalists who write about them. If you're interested, send a brief query to managing editor Matthew Wheeland, at editor@greenbiz.com. Read our editorial guidelines. Become a GreenBiz.com® Sponsor Reach tens of thousands of businesses every month by placing your ad here. Contact us to receive more information. GreenBiz.com® is a registered trademark of Greener World Media, Inc. ©Greener World Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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UW-Madison News Release--Climate Changes and Empire Decline

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12/4/08  PHOTO EDITORS: High-resolution images are available for download at  http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/growthBands.html  CONTACT: Ian Orland, 608-262-8960, orland@geology.wisc.edu; John Valley, 608-263-5659, valley@geology.wisc.edu   CAVE'S CLIMATE CLUES SHOW ANCIENT EMPIRES DECLINED DURING DRY SPELL  MADISON - The decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.  Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.   The researchers, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geology graduate student Ian Orland and professor John Valley, reconstructed the high-resolution climate record based on geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave, located in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve near Jerusalem.   "It looks sort of like tree rings in cross-section. You have many concentric rings and you can analyze across these rings, but instead of looking at the ring widths, we're looking at the geochemical composition of each ring," says Orland.  Using oxygen isotope signatures and impurities - such as organic matter flushed into the cave by surface rain - trapped in the layered mineral deposits, Orland determined annual rainfall levels for the years the stalagmite was growing, from approximately 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D.   While cave formations have previously been used as climate indicators, past analyses have relied on relatively crude sampling tools, typically small dental drills, which required averaging across 10 or even 100 years at a time. The current analysis used an advanced ion microprobe in the Wisconsin Secondary-Ion Mass-Spectrometer (Wisc-SIMS) laboratory to sample spots just one-hundredth of a millimeter across. That represents about 100 times sharper detail than previous methods. With such fine resolution, the scientists were able to discriminate weather patterns from individual years and seasons.   Their detailed climate record shows that the Eastern Mediterranean became drier between 100 A.D. and 700 A.D., a time when Roman and Byzantine power in the region waned, including steep drops in precipitation around 100 A.D. and 400 A.D. "Whether this is what weakened the Byzantines or not isn't known, but it is an interesting correlation," Valley says. "These things were certainly going on at the time that those historic changes occurred."  The team is now applying the same techniques to older samples from the same cave. "One period of interest is the last glacial termination, around 19,000 years ago - the most recent period in Earth's history when the whole globe experienced a warming of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius," Orland says.   Formations from this period of rapid change may help them better understand how weather patterns respond to quickly warming temperatures.  Soreq Cave - at least 185,000 years old and still active - also offers the hope of creating a high-resolution long-term climate change record to parallel those generated from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores.   "No one knows what happened on the continents... At the poles, the climate might have been quite different," says Valley. "This is a record of what was going on in a very different part of the world."  In addition to Valley and Orland, the paper was authored by Miryam Bar-Matthews and Avner Ayalon from the Geological Survey of Israel, Alan Matthews of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Noriko Kita of UW-Madison.  Funding for the project is from the Comer Science and Education Foundation, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Israel Science Foundation, Sigma Xi, and the UW-Madison Department of Geology and Geophysics.  ### - Jill Sakai, 608-262-9772, jasakai@wisc.edu    **************************************************** For questions or comments about UW-Madison's email news release system, please send an email to: releases@news.wisc.edu  For more UW-Madison news, please visit:  http://www.news.wisc.edu/  University Communications University of Wisconsin-Madison 27 Bascom Hall 500 Lincoln Drive Madison, WI 53706  Phone: (608) 262-3571 Fax: (608) 262-2331   

UW-Madison News Release--Climate Impact Predates Industrial Age

UW-Madison news wrote:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12/16/08  CONTACT: Steve Vavrus, 608-265-5279, sjvavrus@wisc.edu; John Kutzbach, 608-262-2839, jek@wisc.edu  STUDY: DID EARLY CLIMATE IMPACT DIVERT A NEW GLACIAL AGE?  SAN FRANCISCO - The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate.  But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world's most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe.  What's more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years.  "This challenges the paradigm that things began changing with the Industrial Revolution," says Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Climatic Research and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "If you think about even a small rate of increase over a long period of time, it becomes important."  Addressing scientists here on Wednesday (Dec. 17) at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Vavrus and colleagues John Kutzbach and Gwenaëlle Philippon will provide detailed evidence in support of a controversial idea first put forward by climatologist William F. Ruddiman of the University of Virginia. That idea, debated for the past several years by climate scientists, holds that the introduction of large-scale rice agriculture in Asia, coupled with extensive deforestation in Europe began to alter world climate by pumping significant amounts of greenhouse gases - methane from terraced rice paddies and carbon dioxide from burning forests - into the atmosphere. In turn, a warmer atmosphere heated the oceans making them much less efficient storehouses of carbon dioxide and reinforcing global warming.  That one-two punch, say Kutzbach and Vavrus, was enough to set human-induced climate change in motion.   "No one disputes the large rate of increase in greenhouse gases with the Industrial Revolution," Kutzbach notes. "The large-scale burning of coal for industry has swamped everything else" in the record.  But looking farther back in time, using climatic archives such as 850,000-year-old ice core records from Antarctica, scientists are teasing out evidence of past greenhouse gases in the form of fossil air trapped in the ice. That ancient air, say Vavrus and Kutzbach, contains the unmistakable signature of increased levels of atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide beginning thousands of years before the industrial age.  "Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods," explains Kutzbach. Indeed, Ruddiman has shown that during the latter stages of six previous interglacials, greenhouse gases trended downward, not upward. Thus, the accumulation of greenhouse gases over the past few thousands of years, the Wisconsin-Virginia team argue, is very likely forestalling the onset of a new glacial cycle, such as have occurred at regular 100,000-year intervals during the last million years. Each glacial period has been paced by regular and predictable changes in the orbit of the Earth known as Milankovitch cycles, a mechanism thought to kick start glacial cycles.   "We're at a very favorable state right now for increased glaciation," says Kutzbach. "Nature is favoring it at this time in orbital cycles, and if humans weren't in the picture it would probably be happening today."  Importantly, the new research underscores the key role of greenhouse gases in influencing Earth's climate. Whereas decreasing greenhouse gases in the past helped initiate glaciations, the early agricultural and recent industrial increases in greenhouse gases may be forestalling them, say Kutzbach and Vavrus.   Using three different climate models and removing the amount of greenhouse gases humans have injected into the atmosphere during the past 5,000 to 8,000 years, Vavrus and Kutzbach observed more permanent snow and ice cover in regions of Canada, Siberia, Greenland and the Rocky Mountains, all known to be seed regions for glaciers from previous ice ages. Vavrus notes: "With every feedback we've included, it seems to support the hypothesis (of a forestalled ice age) even more. We keep getting the same answer." ### - Terry Devitt, 608-262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu    **************************************************** For questions or comments about UW-Madison's email news release system, please send an email to: releases@news.wisc.edu  For more UW-Madison news, please visit:  http://www.news.wisc.edu/  University Communications University of Wisconsin-Madison 27 Bascom Hall 500 Lincoln Drive Madison, WI 53706  Phone: (608) 262-3571 Fax: (608) 262-2331   

Re: Windpower Monthly Wind.Alert December 2008

vh@windpower-monthly.com wrote:

Windpower Monthly Wind.Alert December 2008   As you requested, here is a taste of the top news stories and  special opinion pieces just published by Windpower Monthly.  The text-bites below are quick summaries of a small selection  of articles in the latest print issue of Windpower Monthly and  on our web site.  You signed up for this newsletter at  http://www.windpower-monthly.com/alert; see below for  unsubscribe or address change information. For the full list  of our extensive news coverage, see: http://www.windpower-monthly.com/current  SELECTED NEWS STORY SUMMARIES  Out of 91 news and feature articles in the print magazine this  month, we have written summaries of 8 stories for the benefit of visitors to our web site.  *  Huge volume of Spanish wind unplugged: Weekend storms trigger controversial wind generation shutdown by grid operator  *   Turnaround by French government: Environment minister now favours large and not small wind farms for France  *  Danish bid for total energy independence:Global warming fears behind Prime Minister's new goal for fossil fuel phase out  *  Wind to replace coal in Finland: Government launches plan for renewables dominated power system  *  Groundwork for a wind powered future: Europe kicks off electricity infrastructure revolution with offshore grid proposal  *  Preventing bat and bird deaths: Major wind project developer in United States applies wildlife friendly practices countrywide  *  Chinese market drivers stronger than ever: Political support and fiscal policy help wind industry through downturn  *  Still uphill for offshore wind in America: Draft regulations apply resource depletion penalties to inexhaustible wind   For summaries of these selected stories, see: http://www.windpower-monthly.com/currentabstracts  If you want an edge on this fast-growing global industry,  there is no better source of authoritative news, views and  analysis than Windpower Monthly. For delivery of the  magazine to your desk 12 times a year, subscribe now at: http://www.windpower-monthly.com/subs  Interested in a corporate subscription for your company?  Contact our customer services manager Anne-Marie Howe at  sales@windpower-monthly.com   COMMENT COLUMN  *  A questionable outlook  When an organisation as conservative as the International Energy Agency issues an annual report calling for a "major transformation of the energy system" to encourage "large-scale investment in low-carbon technology development and deployment," political and business leaders the world over sit up and take notice. They may even take action. But there is a hitch. ... ... More     For an abstract of this comment column, see: http://www.windpower-monthly.com/currentabstracts  FOCUS COLUMN -- ONLINE-ONLY  *  A limited world outlook  The International Energy Agency is calling for a big reduction in the use of fossil fuel and far greater use of renewable energy. It believes its recently released World Energy Outlook 2008 "will provide a solid basis for all countries seeking to negotiate a new global climate deal." That is just what is worrying environmental organisations and the wind power industry ...  More  For free access to the rest of our online focus column, go to: http://www.windpower-monthly.com/currentfocus  For the full picture, including access to the extensive online  article archive from 1994, subscribe now at: http://www.windpower-monthly.com/subs  Advertise to a quality audience via Wind.Alert or Windpower  Monthly. For more information, contact  advertising@windpower-monthly.com  For wind power technology facts and figures check out  WindStats: http://www.windstats.com  ------------------------------------------------------------  Subscribe to this free service at  http://windpower-monthly.com/alert  All contents (c) Windpower Monthly 1985-2008  ============================================ Windpower Monthly News Magazine subscription@windpower-monthly.com http://www.windpower-monthly.com     

LINK fall Edition

Wayne Duke wrote:

The LINK fall edition has been posted at http://www.glrppr.org/newsletter/08/LINK-fall08.pdf. Thanks to all who contributed articles. It takes your participation to make LINK a success!

 

 

Wayne Duke

Publications and Events Coordinator

Illinois Sustainable Technology Center

Division of The Institute of Natural Resource Sustainablity

One Hazelwood Drive, MC-676

Champaign IL 61820-7465

217-333-5793

217-333-8944 (fax)

w-duke@illinois.edu

www.istc.illinois.edu

 

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