U.S. Snowstorm Seen From Space: Wild Weather Captured By NASA (PHOTOS)

The Earth is beautiful, no matter what. Grandiose. Same as President Obama is the current One to be President, no matter what.
How do we know whether this weather condition is the outcome of natural weather cycle or that of extreme weather condition of global warming?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Earth, Climate, Poverty

(reposting earlier version)

Since the creation of earth, there have been several mass extinctions of living species. Human beings, which came to exist in the very late stage of earth’s evolution, have undergone numerous crises. Among them, an old article of Time magazine asserted that, “Climate Change” is the most dire crisis of human existence since the beginning of human civilization. Climate change is believed to be more dangerous than any wars, natural disasters, and/or epidemics throughout history

Since the late 2008, we have undergone the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s: crisis with health care system and the meltdowns of housing and financial sector. These are tragic social, political problems that we have encountered cyclically but can be solved depending on what kind of politicians voters chose to put in power. But none of these problems are as fundamental as the current challenge posed by “the Crisis of Climate Change.”

Sadly, poor people always seem to be the targets of natural or man-made disasters or any kind of misfortunes. For example, recent political history showed that health care crisis, housing market meltdown, recession and unemployment hit the less privileged, poor people hardest while the rich always seem to find ways to avoid any kind misfortunes. Even “Global Warming” is expected to hit the poorest people in poor or developing countries or those in the United States of America instead of rich people, rich countries.

The future victims of climate change will include not only those poor people in Asia or Africa but also the American poors who live in poor rural areas or disindustrializing US cities and towns. Now they are suffering from job losses and fewer jobs available due to their declining home town industrial bases and growing poverty. Their problems are not only increasing poverty, hunger, and homelessness but also their inability to cope with drastic weather changes including heat waves, droughts, flooding, water shortage, spread of diseases and so on that will drive them to near or actual death.

There have been severe criticism that rich developed and developing countries have caused “Global Warming” in the chorological order of industrial revolutions; the phases of industrialization ofWestern Europe, the United States, China, and India have been directly related to their amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, causing extreme weather changes and general warming of global climate. However, it is most poor people in the most poor countries in the world who have suffered and will suffer from the direst consequences of “Global Warming” without their part of contribution to or awareness of the phenomenon. These people have endured, will endure their small countries to disappear under rising sea levels, their farmlands or pastures to dry out or flooded due to severe frequent droughts or floods, and/or loss of their properties or lives or starvation due to more frequent tornadoes, droughts, floods, hurricanes. In the meantime, the responsible countries of these warming disasters have not taken their share of cleaning up these messes to curb, reverse “the speed of climate warming.”

International, multilateral negotiations of political issues, no matter whether it is about trade or climate issues, have always been slow-moving, often dissolving into endless arguments with few effective agreements. It’s countries’ national policies that can be quickly agreed upon within shorter time into smaller scale action plans while waiting for the progress of multilateral talks. In this regard, I respect people who relentlessly tackle on “Climate Issues” or any kinds of efforts to curb and reverse Climate Change. And it is important to raise future generation that are environmentally smart and natural problem-solvers of environmental problems, unlike their parents’ generations.

History of Earth: Earth in Peril

From outer space, the Earth looks gorgeous. A sparkling blue marble planet stirred with strips of white clouds, snows, and icebergs. Here, the history of earth starts.

The close-up of this blue beauty reveals its hidden scars and destruction that it has been enduring since the beginning of human civilization. According to reports, human civilization/industrialization, rising earth temperature and sea level, cutting rainforests, and frequent droughts and raining have turned the Earth – from Greenland in north, Tibet Plateau, Siberia to Australian Outback, Antarctica – hotter, drier,  and colder, transforming wet/ grasslands into drier lands, deserts, or inhabitable places and increasing the starvation, disappearance or relocation of human and living creatures.

picture source: http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/brutal-harsh-environments-on-earth-0344/1

ye…basketball reminds… ; c. eb.; what with d.s.n.; evening basket severe mass info.

Marry Christmas, Planet Earth Forever.

we wish you to be there all the time, sustainable, healthy, happy. we love you. how can we maintain you to be cool, calm, and not  heat up? it appears that there are three potential deadly crises that the earth may eventually  face: nuclear war, global warming, and strike by meteorite in decades. how can we get over with these challenges, especially global warming? my earth, we wish you to be there all the time, as habitable as possible, until sun dies.

“the chinese are coming to kill us”: China becoming the 2nd world economy. “Surprise?”

Regarding the statement, “the chinese are coming to kill us,”

No, Chinese are not going to kill us. Now, China just became the number two world economic power right after the United State, with full expectation of overpowering the US in next two decades. They are just growing fast as has always been predicted. It’s not even a news. It has been a matter of time. Continuous nature’s slapping on the poor chinese’s faces through flooding and droughts, no, actually artifical-manmade-global warming’s meanist weather changes slapping on that country may even more motivate those chinese to work harder and live better. Just the majority of Americans refused to accept the possibility and have lived on denial. Because in their mind, US being the center of Universe is unchallengable religion. If Republican and Democratic politicians continue their political chaos, it may even speed up China’s takeover of US position of world #1 super power for less than two decades. Keep going.

It seems to be the combined role of large sizes of population and land, cultural support for business and industry, less interference of destructive religion into industrialization process, and low economic and wage levels to spurt fast economic growth,  among others. In a simple analogy, starving young cats have far more growth potential than fat old cats which already went through their development.

Small east asian economic tigers like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapores have strived to become economic power and reached to certain levels of economic development, largely because of dense population and right culture for enterpreneurship despite small land size and lack of natural resources. However, for small countries with just dense population but limited land and resources, their striving for economic prosperity for long-term seems to be limited. It’s like a very short-leged runner trying to outpace a very tall runner with leg length twice or more of that of short-legged runner in marathon. In short-term, the short-legged runner can run twice as fast as the tall runner; but in long-run, the short-legged runner will eventually run out of steam and energy, will not be able to sustain that fast running speed for the whole length of marathon. Being quite is boring. say something.

Alaskan Sen. Murkowski’s Resolution Defeated in Senate in Favor of EPA and Clear Air Act.

Yesterday, there was an announcement of the Senate rejection of Murkowski’s resolution. Earlier, Alaskan Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced a resolution to block the authority of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce global warming emission. The potential impacts of the passage of this resolution is well expressed below:

“Friend – Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, with strong support from the big oil companies, has introduced a resolution that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas pollution — and dismantle the bipartisan Clean Air Act. If her measure becomes law, the effects would be immediate. Nearly every step President Obama has taken to promote clean energy would be repealed. It would wreak havoc on the President’s landmark clean vehicle standards that ensure cars go farther on a gallon of gas, and it would block requirements that force large power plants and factories to use new technology and clean energy to reduce their pollution.” -BarackObama.com-

Along with Ms. Palin’s beloved slogan, “Drill Baby Drill,” Murkowski’s resolution may be the joint façade of Alaskan politicians toward oil and environmental issues. Thankfully, as of yesterday, June 10, 2010, the Senate functioned very well to block the passage of Murkowski’s resolution, clearing the passage of the Clean Air Act.

Let’s be clear. We don’t want to give up, sacrifice our and our kids’ chances for recovering, maintaining clean air, water, stable climate conditions, safe living environments, just to help those short-sighted Alaskan politicians’ self-indulged, personal ambition to maintain their political posts, get campaign money, and get rich by playing special interest politics while tricking public in ambiguous ways with the “What-Happens-After-That?-Who-Knows?”-Attitude. Right? I just wish to take back the old times of relaxed, comfortable living with high school or college diplomas and decent salaries that can easily meet all the living expenses and leave slight extra dollars for savings, combined with the convenience of current fancy gadgets. You don’t want that?

Now, I have to take kids out to The Park.

“The Senate Votes in Favor of Science, Oil Savings and Climate Action.”:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frances-beinecke/the-senate-votes-in-favor_b_608109.html

The Earth, Climate Change, Poor People’s Suffering

(Revision of “Climate-related Death and Clean Energy Climate Bill.”)

The Earth has undergone several mass extinctions of living species since its creation. I remember an old article of Time magazine asserting that, since the beginning of human civilization, “Climate Change” is the most dire crisis of human existence, more dangerous than any wars that human has fought, any natural disasters that human has encountered, or any epidemics that killed many of us throughout history.

Since the late 2008, we have undergone the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s: crisis with health care system and the  meltdowns of housing market and financial sector. These are tragic social, political problems that we have encountered cyclically but can be solved depending on what kind of politicians voters chose to put in power. But none of these problems are as fundamental as the current challenge posed by “the Crisis of Climate Change.”

Sadly, poor people always seem to be the targets of natural or man-made disasters or any kind of misfortunes. For example, recent political history showed that health care crisis, housing market meltdown, recession and unemployment hit the less privileged, poor people hardest while the rich always seem to find ways to avoid any kind misfortunes. Even “Global Warming” is expected to hit the poorest people in poor or developing countries or those in the United States of America instead of rich people, rich countries.

The future victims of climate change will include not only those poor people in Asia or Africa but also the American poors who live in poor rural areas or disindustrializing US cities and towns. Now they are suffering from job losses and fewer jobs available due to their declining home town industrial bases and growing poverty. Their problems are not only increasing poverty, hunger, and homelessness but also their inability to cope with drastic weather changes including heat waves, droughts, flooding, water shortage, spread of diseases and so on that will drive them to near or actual death.

There have been severe criticism that rich developed countries and recent fast developing countries (in the chorological order of industrial revolutions of Western European countries, the United States, China, and India) have caused “Global Warming” as their phases of industrialization have been directly associated with the amount of carbon dioxide emission that they have poured into the atmosphere. However, it is most poor people in the world who have suffered and will suffer from the consequences of “Global Warming” but the countries that have caused “Global Warming” have not taken their share of responsibilities to curb “Global Warming.” International, multilateral negotiations of political issues, no matter whether it is about trade issues or climate issues, have been always slow-moving and often dissolved into few effective agreements. It’s countries’ national policies that can be quickly agreed upon within shorter timeframes and smaller scales and get into effect fast to control emission levels even. In this regard, I respect Senator John Kerry’s or anybody’s tackling on “Climate Issue” and “the American Power Act,” or any kind of efforts to curb and reverse Climate Change.

“Let’s Go, Special Interests Conjure Up New Distortions to Say No.“, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/president-obama-says-lets_b_590869.html?show_comment_id=48508748#comment_48508748

Global Warming: Nuclear Energy Replacing Coal? – Four Reasons to say “Nay, Not a Good Idea !”

There was a Huffington Post blog by Mr. Steve Kirsch that suggests to focus the available financial resources for reducing emission on replacing coal with nuclear energy source, instead of introducing “Cap and Trade” bill or other alternatives. There are several issues that don’t welcome this idea.

First, my scientist husband says that (A) nuclear energy source is not actually cost-efficient at all. Generating electricity with this energy source alone may be cheap. But dealing with the after mess of nuclear wastes after producing electricity is another costly process, which makes this energy source expensive.

Second, we have witnessed the troubles caused by Iran and North Korea. Iraq was attacked by the Bush administration under the false suspicion of this issue. “Nuclear Weapons!” (B) The proliferation of nuclear energy technologies endangers world peace as these technologies can be easily switched to produce nuclear weapons. When President Obama is endeavoring and having hard time to put Iran and North Korea under control and restrict their development of nuclear weapon, “Why On Earth,” anyone wants to take the risk of distributing, delivering the same dangerous technology worldwide?

Considering above (A) and (B), don’t we think (C) safe and endlessly available wind and solar energy would be better? Until these energy sources can be developed to be mature, consumer market competitive pricewise (which takes time),  the government can subsidize the companies of these renewable energies to let them set their market prices low/competitive, or impose higher taxs on other types of energy products. This kind of government subsidy may be more productive for this country’s economy and future than other types of subsidies.

Third, in terms of reducing emission, exploring multiple methods, including cap and trade, to reduce emission would be better than introducing one or a few methods. So, in case one method doesn’t work, still we can resort to others. There’s no such a thing with 100% certainty !

Fourth, (D) malfunctioning US politics. During the first year of Obama administration, we have seen the chaos and the destruction of special interest politics in sabotaging the health care and financial sector reforms. Under this torturously twisted political system of this country, do you believe a reform in energy sector will be smoothly achievable?

UPDATE Two:

It appears that the administration is going to announce loan guarantees to develop nuclear power industry, in continuation of Congress’s approval of $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees in 2005. Please check below wetsites.

Obama Administration To Announce Loans For Nuclear Power

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/29/obama-administration-to-a_n_405948.html

UPDATE One: There were several comments to my above comment at the Huffington Post Blog by Mr. Steve Kirsch. Some are informative, so I present them here with the commenters’ nicknames.

“sethdayal” comment: Husband didn’t read Steve’s article.

All previous generation nuclear waste is fuel for the IFR. The IFR itself produces a tiny amount of waste so low level that is it really the same as high grade uranium ore. Put it back in the mine.

It would be extremely difficult and far too expensive to make nuclear weapon from a power reactor so nobody ever has. North Korea will sell you a cheapo Chernobyl type reactor design for a few bucks to make a bomb.

99% of the worlds energy comes from countries who already have nuclear weapons or are unlikely to make them (Canada). The rest can buy their reactor fuel from Canada.

Solar/wind costs 10 to 30 times nuclear and generally produces more greenhouse gases than they save. We are as little as ten years from a civilization ending climate/peak/ air pollution crisis. Only nuclear can save us in time.

Nuclear is 100% certain- been using it for 50 years now. Renewables will never be cost effective except in remote applications. Cap n trade is really just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic – useless.

Republicans love nuclear. Only Democrat politicians like Obama need reeducation.

“The Husband” (my real husband): Show me one IFR that has burned up any nuclear waste yet. There are none. Europe has shipped waste between countries for reprocessing. It created more waste than was there to begin with.

In principle you are right: IFR and other options (Thorium, accelerator driven sub-critical reactors) can solve many of the problems with conventional nuclear energy, including limited fuel, nuclear waste, and to some extent proliferation.

In practice the nuclear monopoly has not delivered, is only interested in maximizing their profits at the expense of public safety and health, and will be the last place I would look for a solution to the climate crisis.

You need to read up on solar, wind, and other renewable energies. Your statements are ridiculously out of date. If you put the same subsidies into renewables that nuclear has enjoyed, they will be cheaper than coal very soon.

Finally, the fact that Republicans love nuclear is a direct consequence of the fact that it is run by a (quasi-)monopoly, not because it helps the climate, which (so far) it does not.

“Sethaday” comment: Actually nuclear waste is burned all the time as MOX in France, the Soviet Union and Canada.

The Idaho IFR burned nuclear waste as part of its thirty years of testing but Clinton shut it down after complaints and campaign donations from Big Oil.

Indian just dropped the dome into place on its version of the IFR.

Any mythical nuclear subsidies have been paid for already, lets enjoy the benefitd.

Lets form a national nuclear public power company and build the plants on the site of existing coal operations. We can save the big profits for ourselves.

Goggle Arcadia solar and Texas wind china and get yourself up to date with the latest real costs of solar and wind power $35B/Gw and $12/Gw respectively + $12/Gw in natural gas plants required to load balance the things. Far more costly than new nuclear.

Wind and solar are already getting hundreds of billions in subsidies wordlwide through massive 2 to 15 times market rate feed in tariffs.

For whatever the reason Republicans love nuclear so if only the much more intelligent Democrats can get educated, a “Nuke the Nation” bill saving the lives of millions of Americans by eliminating coal plants should easily past through congress.

“The Husband” comment: Yes. Twice through is better than once through ‘cycle’. And there are current and former test reactors.
It is all far from being at a scale where it has an impact. (I am not arguing that it is impossible, just saying that clean nuclear technology is not at all widespread whereas dirty nuclear technology is.)

“Lets form a national nuclear public power company and build the plants on the site of existing coal operations. We can save the big profits for ourselves.”
I would like that. But short of a revolution that installs a benevolent dictator, how are we really going to get there?
The Republicans surely will drop their support when you talk about public anything.

I don’t know what your numbers mean for the cost of wind and solar power (installation cost? Operation for a certain number of years? With what assumptions?) It is rather difficult to honestly compare the costs of different technologies. I do think that wind and solar are becoming competitive. The key is to use the right renewable energy for a given purpose in a given area. Not one shoe fits all.

Load balancing is a big deal. But nuclear power can not be ramped up or down quickly either. (Accelerator driven sub-critical systems would be different.)
We have to upgrade the grid to use non-local storage capacity. Pumping water to high lakes, pressurized air in caves, using excess capacity to generate hydrogen for transportation, etc.

“vakibs” comment:

Mikyung Lim, (A) Dealing with nuclear waste is not at all costly. It is only a very tiny fraction of electricity produced by nuclear. Secondly, the kind of nuclear reactors that Steve champions (the Integral Fast Reactor or IFR) produce no long-lived nuclear waste. They eat existing nuclear waste and depleted Uranium to produce power.

(B) Nuclear weapons are proliferating without nuclear power. The newer version of reactors (like the IFR) are more proliferation resistant than the older ones. Secondly, using nuclear power inside the developed countries (which already possess stockpiles of nuclear weapons) is unrelated to the proliferation issue.

(C) Wind and Solar power have serious limitations in the quantity of power they can produce, they are not endless. These limits are dictated by the power-density, and because of the finite amount of land that we possess. They also use a lot more raw material, metals and freshwater than nuclear.

(D) Multiple options should be explored. But cap™ is just a serious delusion with too many loopholes. We need a straight-forward carbon fee÷nd.

“The Husband” comment: (A) The nuclear waste currently in the US is already exceeding the capacity of the only repository that was planned and now has been found to not be feasible. It is eating huge amounts of money and resources.
You are right on the IFR. However, the nuclear power industry is not pushing it. They just want to prolong the profits they make with existing technology.

(B) You are right, but between “more proliferation resistant” (IFR and similar) and “completely unrelated to nuclear technology in any way” (solar, wind, waves, geothermal, etc.) the second category wins.

(C) No, you are wrong here. The solar power input to the earth surface is on average 1000 W per square meter. This is a _huge_ amount. It means: If we would cover just a tiny fraction of the Arizona desert (or, equivalently, suitable roofs in every city), we could easily generate more energy than the entire United States is using. With existing technology, with all the losses and the current level of efficiency.
While some early solar cells were fabricated by using harmful chemicals, there is now a multitude of technologies for both wind and solar using friendly materials and processes. To argue that wind and solar are environmentally harmful is plain silly.

(D) Yes. I agree 100% with the statement that multiple options need to be part of the solution. No single technology has the potential to sufficiently reduce carbon emissions singlehandedly.

Reference: ”The Most Important Investment that We Aren’t Making to Mitigate the Climate Crisis” by

Steve Kirsch, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/the-most-important-invest_b_402685.html

Climate: No Arctic Ice in 30 yrs. – My love, you are disappearing so fast

This blog was posted on mybarackobama website on Apr 3rd, 2009 . Because this issue is unchangeably important, I post it again.

This morning, I read that Arctic sea ice is melting so fast that they wouldn’t be around in the Earth in next 30 years. And the disappearing Arctic ice means that the sunlight-reflecting, Earth-cooling effect of its white surface will disappear and sunlight will be all absorbed through the newly exposed dark ocean, increasing the temperature of Earth further. Disappearing Arctic ice, along with fossil fuels, are the major causes of global warming, according to the report.

All of us, all societies, and all nations have our, their own individual universes with different orders of priorities, what’s the most or least important. In mothers’ universes, what their kids ate this morning, whether they are sick or play with which toys or books, that kind of things are the most important things above anything elses. Anybody who don’t agree with them are strangers. For teenage girls, makeup, clothes, boys, parties, drinking, and going wild come first before anything else in their universes. For business men, drug dealers, or any kind of entrepreneurs, money, profits, promotion come first before anything else at any costs. For hungry people, food comes first. For sick people, medical service comes first. For artists, art comes first. During good times, whether we are richer, thinner, have bigger cars or houses, have more fun and entertainment of life than others come first. During recession, economy comes first. To terrorists’ world, attacking their enemy nations comes before their own lives and peace. For nations, which countries have the strongest military or economic power, or how to put pressure or threaten other countries to get what they want come first before anything else, etc.

While all of our universes are colliding with each other without finding common grounds, consensus, and concessions, the world have become a chaotic, uncontrollable place. In the process, our only common home, the Earth, have taken the backseat all the way, while we have been consciously and/or unconsciously trashing it close to the point of no-return, it increasingly becoming inhabitable for us anymore. But still it doesn’t seem to be important enough to get proper amount of our attention and to do something about it. We are in life-threatening crisis. Just we don’t think so.

Planet Earth: Are We Deserting You?

We live in a crazy world.

Politics has gone mad. People’s lives have gotten out of control. Now, climate is getting out of control.

Many people don’t believe this if they could not see it right now, at this moment. They believe, if it did not happen now, it could not have existed. They take every trivial matters serious, which actresses lost how much weight and wear what kind of dresses at Oscar Award, which athlet got how many mistresses, who gets expensive NY apartment, which vain couple pursued the ultimate vanity of crashing into White House Dinner. But they can not seriously take the fact that this planet is increasinly plunging into becoming an inhabitable place for human race if serious actions are not taken soon. Please read the below quotes from an article  ”56 Papers in 45 Countries Publish Joint Editorial” by Editor & Publisher. How stupid, ignorant are we, or the entire civilization is if we have been the source of our own destruction.

“The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea.“

Full Text: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004051277