Global Warming - Burning My Iceland

Living on a tropical island, is quite unique. If you love the natural world, there are many things you could do it. I grew up in a small valley in the hills south of my island and I have known my whole life.

Field trips to a pretty fast pace of the canyon hills hundred meters is all worth it when I have to choose a place near the top only. It is a true blessing to be able to do. It is a wonderful job, too. The tops of steep hills to near the base is covered by savannah grasslands. The very steep slopes and along its base are wooded ravine. More than jungle delirium. If you look in the mountains in the distance, are the golden color of the meadows a great contrast to the dark green jungle hills. It is amazing to know how my mind that a hundred years ago, almost all of these dark hills. Jungles all the way up. Wow. And one reason why not.

Fire was a tool for humans used almost since its discovery. He also has done before. And one of the biggest weapons for hunting deer has become here in the jungles of the south. What they do is a fire. Just set a fire the flame and let it rip. Help if you would have difficulties. For once it's gone and burning in arable soil, a wonderful thing called life happens next. New shoots of grass from the hills and burned black. And the deer is probably a surprise, because they consume these tender buds. The wild hunter waits.

Oh, but all the other things that there was kindled a fire in the hills happened. Surely this is not the arsonist would have thought about it. Let us straight in the direction that things go happen. The fire is determined and set on fire. The atmosphere is the first hit. A powerful greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide), a by-product of combustion of vegetation is directly exposed to the atmosphere. But wait. We do not really feel their effects for a long time. No, not right. Global warming. Exactly. It is not surprising that the collective memory of vegetation in the world is still a significant contribution to global warming? his strike.

While in the flames, a fire are often lost in a jungle. The fire will stop, right? That is true. The last time. But the fire will not die once they walk into the jungle. He has to burn its way into a little "to run into the water and most of the jungle. You know, it will take at least one meter. Do burnout. So how can you burn burn, walking to the size of forests . The more you burn, the less the jungle. Strike two.

Now, the fire died and the hills are bare. When the rain comes, and then the soil to wash away. I have never burned washed flee a hill by the rain. Soil erosion by sedimentation in water. But that does not matter. The ocean is big. Will not hurt. In the grand scheme of the oceans, not too much. For aquatic life in rivers, coral, and the open sea populations that feed and live on these reefs, the damage is absolutely fatal. Strike three.

Add all. We have professionals on the one hand, the shot immediately after a new fire is enticing deer. It would be easier to catch. And only useful for the hunter. We are opposite on the other side, and the list is impressive.

- The air in our atmosphere gets an infusion of a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. We know without doubt that large and persistent global warming has caused and is accelerating, climate change may very well end our day.

- It is the country. Our lower jungle. This quickly leads to loss of habitat for animals. The bright green jungle of our gold and the sea of our savannas are burned from the hills of text and black. All animals, nests or caves caught fire, food, well, that's just their loss. And if it rains, we lose our topsoil. The roots in the city, burned clean. accelerated soil erosion, I despise. .

- It is the sea, rivers are included. Immediately after the soil erosion is the effect of sedimentation. This transported soil spreading. And blankets and suffocates when it finally stabilized. Sedimentation is the bearer of death for microscopic organisms, plants, fish and corals, to say the least. In the aquatic environment, is the destruction of large and extended. Imagine that your air is filled with the ashes of all time. What would be the quality of your life, what then?

He has about 700 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. There is no doubt, no debate. A large percentage comes from the constant reminder of the natural landscape. We have to change the way they do things.

The survival of our race, have to stop global warming. Climate change in progress should be maintained, if not reversed. If we refuse to realize this, it will matter in fifty or a hundred years? Spread the word. Take part. We can still save.

Proof of Evolution and challenges of global warming

The idea of anthropogenic global warming is under fire in recent months. Those who collect and disseminate information, it was discovered the numbers have changed, so that man is warming seems to be done.

Some of these "scientists" are now conceded that the data shows global warming has not happened since 1995.

Thousands of scientists have provided information that the idea of artificial contradiction with global warming. Only recently has this idea confirmed.It-against has been shown that global warming scientists "have falsified data. This is already accepted.

This reveals the fact that politics can affect the results of some scientists. Ie. Scientists are not all looking for a little 'practice.

Our world, of course, seems to be cooling or heating. This site is for thousands of years. However, until now, there is no evidence that humans are the trends van deze case (solar activity seems to be the TE Meest scientific explanation).

It 's amazing how the idea of man and global warming seems to Darwinian evolution made in parallel with each other.

O data and information was collected mainly in universities and government institutions (this is the fox guarding the hen house?).
or Both make use of ad hominem attacks, like the call of the opposition "flat earthers" or other names.
Opponents or are prohibited by most of the original data. I'm just not allowed much of the information used to support the ideas seen.
o The two have strong support from the media, despite the fact that the scientific evidence against two ideas overhelmingly
or Both are strongly encouraged in public schools and universities.

It is easier to transmit data on global warming to find (even if the data were kept secret years) is that Darwinism Because dealing with the evolution of different aspects of science.
The person is interested in digging beneath the surface of normal university or high school during the next hoaxes (or science just terrible) was used to "prove" the theory of evolution.

or Piltdown Man, a creature with characteristics of both humans and monkeys. Used for four decades, the theory of evolution is to take hold "in the United States until someone discovered that the" monkey-man'was formed by mixing of two monkeys and human bones were found with the bones as they age, filed teeth, etc.
Or Nebraska man was a man-ape of high-profile ", used in the test Sccopes (high profile). It 'very instrumental in establishing the idea of man evolving from apes. Following this" monkey man "was shooting with a single tooth of an extinct pig.
or embryos Haeckel was a chart with various vertebrates that "all steps in the evolution" in its infancy (which is also the same phase of Gill). This image is a hoax at the end of 1800. (Although we still found in many textbooks today).

These hoaxes and bad science are not the exception. There are literally dozens of scientific laws, principles and facts that directly contradict the theory of evolution.

Statist regimes (including Nazism), socialism and communism are all based on the Darwinian theory of evolution (in particular to eliminate the idea of Judaism and Christianity). Their posters often include the theory behind their ideas.

Today it seems that the same people behind the artificial global warming is pushing the idea of evolution.

Unless something beneath the surface of typical hand, we remain convinced of information that educators and politicians for decades teaches us that both ideas.

Politics and science do not mix. And if they do not mix together, always knowing that suffers at the expense of politics. Recent discoveries have shown that the "science of man-made global warming is seriously compromised. With all the facts that we discover the trend, it seems that the same happens with it as well.

For some form of evolution is clear evidence to support the theory, Darwinism is more than likely continue on the same track as the man who took the global warming. It could also last for many decades, however, the current serious problems of evolution to the public.

Why does not Al Gore debate on global warming?

As I write this article, the U.S. is a large explosion in the Arctic. E 'was 40 degrees at Miami Orange Bowl, the coldest ever. Beijing, London, Seoul falls and says other parts of the world under the snow important in their history. And Al Gore, there is a need for a debate on planet Earth. I know I would say that this extreme cold is caused by global warming.

To say that the two basic facts about global warming come. One thing is global warming. And two, the warming caused by man. He said that the 3,000 scientists around the world and all disciplines of climate in 100% agreement on these two issues.

It may surprise you, but I agree with these points. What I can not live without debate position. Who is that Al Gore is he? To begin, it is not even a scientist! If nothing else, you could probably learn a challenge, especially if they are scientific. Heck, I think I can learn a thing or two!

I guess that means that the discovery of new evidence or research, contrary to his position, would not be accepted. I wonder if 3000 scientists could find agreement with this statement? Why spend taxpayer money warming of global research, if it did?

Does Al believe that man is 100% the cause of global warming? Here I request the data. I read enough science to know that millions of years the Earth was covered with ice. to melt a massive global warming and that man was not there. Scientists tell us that the main causes of submarine volcanoes and the sun, I think the sun and volcanic eruptions are an important part of global warming? I want to hear the percentage of debate. I wonder if it would do more for the environment and put a sock in the mouth of the volcano to another or in the mouth?

To say that we go to the disaster in the coming decades. I have heard of freshwater and coastal areas, but what about Chicago. I have neighbors who do not just "warm up have been here. Again, I'm not ready to see the disaster in the future and sees his friends. In the U.S., we have seen cooler temperatures of this decade (it is the Convention on growth Copenhagen climate change by the United Nations), but the carbon emissions of more people. What is the science of climate around this? Then these data suggest at least a period of a catastrophe?

All must agree that no study of personal preferences or policies on global warming. He was able to obtain an objective attitude in the treatment of all data completely. We assume that each insured of his advisers, he knew all the possible interpretations of the abuse. There are other models or scenarios that can be accepted. The Admit it, you can not discuss because they would be exposed as a fraudster. Remember, this is the same man who gave us several versions of Al Gore in his presidential race.

To have enough money to support the global warming of his family for generations. No descendant of Al Gore will never work. Instead his mantra of "no more debate, I would like to hear" no more dollars "! What about the commitment of all to all the money he makes of global warming on the poorest countries in Africa to make.

Articles Global Warming About

This is not the time to be complacent and apathetic. We need to act positively and constructively. There is pain and destruction is imminent. We must not shy away from the truth, but "An Inconvenient Truth" can be. It's time to put our shoulders to the wheel and focused with all the concentration. With global warming going to engulf us. And if we spend too much time, we really swallow. Then you walk in the dark. We can provide the biggest disaster that we saw and spoke only to fight in the exciting films remains to be established in fact. If global warming is expanding its tentacles over us, will not continue reading this article. Why humanity will die!

Understanding global warming

Global warming is a phenomenon that occurred for some time. Our blue planet hotter because of the increased volume of carbon dioxide. tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources such as coal, natural gas, gasoline, oil, oil shale, etc. The use of fossil fuels on a large scale began with the 16 th century Industrial Revolution in the early Great Britain and colonies of Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution witnessed the opening of the steam engine that runs on fossil fuels. But for centuries, scientists have found that gradually burning of fossil fuels is associated with high levels of air pollution. Burning of fossil fuels leads to a large percentage of harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen, etc., left in the atmosphere. These toxic gases have a negative impact on the climate and ecology of our planet. They also have a negative impact on our health.

Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen in the water with the formation of corrosive acids, dissolve, damage irreparably damage the graves and palaces of marble.

Sulphur dioxide and water, sulfuric acid (very aggressive)

Nitrogen dioxide and water to nitric acid (strong corrosive acid)

Sustainable

Therefore, when these toxic gases in a mixture of water and form rain water, the inevitable consequence of acid rain, acid rain, such as vulgar. This acid rain can eat the surface of architectural splendor, as mentioned above. Refinery near the Taj Mahal in Agra, India released a deadly gas into the air above the mausoleum. These gases have led to the formation of acid rains, which have a devastating impact on this area was pure white marble Taj Mahal. The destruction was so great that the management of the plant will be developed by the Government of India, and environmental activists. The factory was ordered to reduce their emissions to reduce the high level of production and close some of its activities on a beautiful monument and the tomb of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal (then the name of the monument) to prevent all falls to pieces. The plant has made several attempts to methods for their production, planting trees, through the development of ecological park, which currently is home to many migratory birds and rare birds. protection, and a sincere response from the plant one of the seven wonders of the modern world of decadence, reassured the government and activists. However, environmental defenders could not sleep. We hurt hundreds of companies around the world, environmental laws and regulations in their daily lives. Measures for environmental protection should be done in the long term. environmental projects in the short term and sudden provocation "ecological systems" for the sake of advertising and image quality are desirable, nor useful. Sustainable development and environmental protection are the only weapon we have to deal with global warming.

Greenhouse

The temperature on our planet is increasing because of global warming. The burning of fossil fuels will lead to emissions of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane, some of the greenhouse gases are known. These gases absorb infrared radiation, and to give. Greenhouse gases tend to trap heat and raising temperatures on our planet. Thus, as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, which is our planet is always heated by an enormous size and global warming in this steady rise in temperatures and parameters of the catastrophic consequences for our planet and our lives. The hot air melts the glaciers and snowy peaks of thawing. When the heat intense, ice and snow, most of the mountain ranges around the world will melt very quickly. Melted ice and snow will enter the waters of rivers and eventually into the sea, and the unprecedented rise in sea level. Swell rivers and seas overflow and flood the country. Coste vanish, plunge whole countries. In addition to flooding, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold periods, floods, droughts, hurricanes and other T'ikapapa global warming.

Deforestation

Deforestation is another aspect that global warming, because it causes an abnormal increase in the amount of carbon dioxide. Global warming is already installed on our planet. Nevertheless, if global warming is underway, will eliminate all existing forests of our planet, and cause complete destruction of marine flora and fauna. Thus, global warming, deforestation and global warming, which, in turn, causes the causes blurred woods. What a vicious circle!

Ozone layer

The ozone layer protects the earth from ultraviolet radiation, direct and unapologetic (UV) rays of the sun is exhausted. Some gases better than chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons and CFCs or hydrobromofluorocarbons produced by our industry as we know, the food ozone. Aerosols produced various industries because of the ozone layer wear away. Ata ozone hole or depression in the ozone layer, usually a hole in the ozone layer. As the ozone hole is growing in this area, more UV rays penetrate the Earth's atmosphere as possible. Elevated levels of ultraviolet radiation in the atmosphere make our planet uninhabitable. Excessive exposure to UV radiation leads to the development of skin cancer and cataracts in humans. Excessive exposure to UV radiation also causes irreparable damage to many species of animals and plants. The consequences of this is an incurable problem in the food chain. Ozone depletion is a very contentious issue, as professionals, as well as disadvantages. Irony (w) hole in connection with the fact that ozone is a greenhouse gas. Too much is growing, and global warming is not a sufficient population, complete skin cancer outcome.

Meltdown

This distribution differs from the economic collapse that we have recently experienced. Although we have yet again demonstrated that the feet of decline in the autumn, we, our proven, or someone did not like and does not affect if all caps melting icecaps and glaciers in the world, and if we used these phenomena, and widespread fear of global warming.

We are ready ...?

Unfortunately, I'm not ready to face a catastrophe of this magnitude. We have divided among us, to reduce emissions in countries and to what extent. At various meetings and conferences at the highest level, we only discuss the numbers, levels and prices, and the land is ticking biological clock threatened. There is no unity among all developed countries, developing and underdeveloped countries because of global warming. Everyone agrees that global warming is a threat to universal disaster and spells destruction. But the big question: which country has jurisdiction and that the country should take the initiative to sharply reduce harmful emissions. Blame blame and Buck everywhere, and pointed accusing fingers, increasing the burden of proof, and allegations against the prosecution and it seems that on the agenda, while global warming continues to constantly engulf our planet. Developed countries are always ready to correct the pressure and intimidation in the less developed countries, as well as supporting LDCs to developed countries, the slogan of hoarseness. Mercury does not show signs of weakness. You can shoot at an alarming rate, and the policy is a step ahead of speeches, debates, heated mirrors, power and domination.

Real enemy

What the hell are we all, for all of us? Time is running out. Get up, wake up, all you dream and stop the controversy and strife. We want another disaster like what happened 65 million years, and erased all the dinosaurs on Earth? No, we want to be destroyed. And it keeps us united against a common cause? What prevents us put aside our individual problems? Because in reality we are all made from the same creator. Rather than emphasize that because we have decided to forget and focus on our differences a number of other walls that we built our country into a nation, race, state by state, race, and man by man? There is a big enemy of global warming? Enemy who is in ourselves?

The choice is ours. If we work together and make concerted efforts to avoid global warming, or let the enemy within us, to create several groups with us and beat us all. If we keep the enemy at a distance, for us, we will eventually overcome all of us. And if we, the people of 21 century living in this beautiful, middle and base enough to prefer the power and political interests should be protected, and racism, and not threaten our planet, we must win by heating in general. Because our opponents do not seem to global warming, but ourselves.

Chinese Global Exploration

There is ample evidence emerging that the Chinese launched a national effort to map the globe in its entirety during the fifteenth century.  These maps in some form or the other found their way back to Europe and provide a basis for European efforts to do the same.  Thus a lot of information was mapped that could not be explained away through accidental European voyaging.

Here we have more on one of those Chinese maps.

We have evidence that trade and colonies were established on the West Coast of the Americas.  This include with the Maya, California and recently the Charlottes.  Other locales have likely remained hidden.

We know when it all ended.  We do not really know how long the process was undertaken.  The expedition of Zhang He was far too great to be a sudden roll of the dice.  It was more the last throw of possibly centuries of private marine enterprise.  That last expedition was both following known pathways but picking specific locales to study when stepping out.

They also were prepped to establish several colonies along the way.

It is up to archeology now that we have a good working hypothesis.

Nailing their colors to the mast

By Mike Peters (China Daily)

Updated: 2010-07-09 09:35

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2010-07/09/content_10086210.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20100709/0023ae9885da0da0c19911.jpg

World Map in Book 5 - Dr Hendon M Harris, Jr Collection, from The

Asiatic Fathers of America.

The treasure trove of seafaring knowledge amassed by the Chinese over the centuries is at the heart of a debate over the extent of their ancient voyages, Mike Peters reports

A bright-eyed, middle-aged woman from the state of Virginia, United States, sits waiting for her next interview in a Lido-area hotel lobby. She's a retired social worker, a no-nonsense lady who speaks quietly and deliberately. But she is in town to help answer the question: Did medieval Chinese navigators reach the Americas years before Christopher Columbus? Just a few years ago, Charlotte Harris Rees started thinking that her late father might have held the key to one of history's great mysteries.

"Few people expect ever to own documents that could change world history," Harris writes in her 2008 book, Secret Maps of the Ancient World, "and neither did we. Yet for decades, under my brother's bed, lay ancient Asian maps that we, our father's seven children, inherited from him. Some believe that they may contain a secret of the ancient world."

That possibility brought Rees to Asia this month for two weeks of conferences and speeches. Her first stop focused on Zheng He (1371-1435), the 15th-century Chinese admiral who was dispatched by Emperor Zhu Di to "proceed all the way to the end of the Earth".

An international conference this week in Malaka, Malaysia - a seafarer's crossroads for centuries that was an important base for Zheng He - explored questions about Africa. Zheng certainly got there, but exactly where and the extent of his fleet's settlements and activities have engaged curious scholars for centuries.

The question that excites Rees, however, is whether Zheng He - and perhaps his Chinese predecessors - sailed to America as well.

Academics have batted around that idea for centuries, but it wasn't until Gavin Menzies published his bestselling book, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, eight years ago that the debate became an international firestorm. One of the sparks landed on Rees, who read 1421 with amazement and realized that the author was trying to connect the same dots her father had followed in his research.

"When I was a social worker straight out of college, many of my clients in Oklahoma were American Indians who looked very Asian to me," she says today. "But the idea of Chinese coming to America 4,200 years ago in boats sounded pretty far-fetched then."

But her father, Hendon M Harris Jr, a child of Christian missionaries who worked in several regions of China, was fascinated by the possibility. He picked up references to ancient Chinese navigators from several sources, including the ancient classic Shan Hai Jing (Collection of the Mountains and Seas), said to have been written in 2,200 BC and quoted in Chinese history and literature ever since.

The Shan Hai Jing tells of Chinese travel to the four corners of the earth, says Rees, "including a beautiful land to the east of China named Fu Sang."

Then one day in 1972, Harris was browsing in an antique shop in Shouth Korea, looking for gifts to take home to his family in the United States. He was examining the wares on display when the shopkeeper said, "I have a map in the back. Would you like to see that?"

"Father wasn't really into collecting maps - not then! - but he said, 'Yes,'" the daughter says. And when the map was spread out, as he recounted to his children years later, "he had to sit down because he felt himself shaking all over".

What Harris saw was a world map block-printed in an ancient Shang (16th century to 11th century BC) Chinese style, with China at the center and a circular continent looping around the edges of the page. He immediately related this to the Fu Sang of the Shan Hai Jing. In subsequent years Harris found copies of similar maps in the collections of museums and universities.

However, opinion is divided over the identity of Fu Sang, many believe it refers to somewhere in America; while others claim it is more likely to be Japan.

A year later, Harris wrote The Asiatic Fathers of America: Chinese Discovery and Colonization of Ancient America. It got some notice in academic circles, but it was never the pop-culture phenomenon of 1421, though its premise was much more controversial.

For while Menzies' book credits the voyages of Zheng He and the admirals under him with the discovery of the world beyond China, Harris argues that Zheng He set sail with maps made from information acquired hundreds, even thousands of years earlier.

Charlotte Harris Rees finds that argument persuasive. Her speech in Malaka this week was titled Zheng He's Inheritance, and she told her audience that "starting a study of Chinese sea travel with Zheng He is like beginning a study of space travel with a trip to Mars".

Chinese seafaring was refined over centuries, she believes. "Zheng He could not have been as successful as he was, without the treasure trove of knowledge and invention amassed by the Chinese over many years of sea travel."

An illustration from the July 2005 issue of National Geographic compares Zheng He's largest ships to European vessels of the same era. The article contends that the Chinese admiral's fleet contained up to 62 baochuan, or treasure ships, that measured 122 m by 52 m.

"You could fit all of Columbus' ships and all of Vasco da Gama's on a single deck of a ship that size," Rees says in awe. Rees talks about her father's research today with the passion of a religious convert. She talks of ancient Chinese shipwrecks off the US Pacific coast. Of maps Columbus and Magellan are said to have used on their voyages. Of DNA testing on Native Americans, with undisputed links to ancient Chinese.

So is she convinced that Chinese adventurers, not Columbus, "discovered America"?

"I don't pretend to know the answers," she says, smiling. "But as we find more and more evidence, I think we have to keep trying to put it together until we do know."

Q: Why are the ideas in your book so controversial?

A: It's not easy to rewrite history. I'm not a PhD, and if I were to pursue a PhD, I'd need university and academic mentors who supported the research. Most experts on the discovery of America have invested their lives and careers documenting a different view, a Eurocentric view.

It wasn't always that way, though. I have seen copies of US history textbooks from around 1905, which say that the Chinese have been in America for at least 1,000 years. So this isn't a new idea. But by around 1910 there were new academic pressures, and then came the Columbus Day national holiday. After that, school kids in the US stopped hearing about Chinese coming to America.

Q: It seems that a lot of Chinese scholars are as reluctant to embrace the idea as US scholars are. Why?

A: There is immense interest here. But it can't be proved, especially with Chinese documents, because, soon after the voyages of Zheng He, there was a tremendous reaction against these outside adventures and the strain such shipbuilding put on the country's economy. Ships, maps, records were all destroyed and China became an inward-looking society for centuries. That's why it's easier to find ancient maps that tell the story in Korea, where they were not destroyed by government order, than it is in China.

Q: The US Library of Congress recently exhibited a famous map made by Matteo Ricci, the Italian Jesuit, which the Library said was the first known map of the Americas with Chinese inscriptions. You challenged that publicly.

A: It was a surprising thing for the Library of Congress to say. Many people doing research in this area have seen older maps of the Americas with Chinese writing. One of them is in the Library of Congress' own collection, though they have yet to validate or disprove its age.

Q. Is this about ethnic bias?

A: Well, it's true that many Western scholars are invested in the history of the European discovery of America. But it may be a matter of money, too. In May 2003, the Library of Congress completed their purchase of the Waldseemuller Map of the world for $10 million. Five million came from Congress and the other $5 million from donors. According to their 2003 press release that map was the "first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them today - Martin Waldseemuller's monumental 1507 map". That indeed is a beautiful map. However, if the Library of Congress now, only seven years later, admits that any other map that shows the American continents predates the Waldseemuller, then perhaps Congress and the donors who helped purchase the Waldseemuller will complain their money was misspent.

Many scholars contend that since the Waldseemuller and other European maps showed the Pacific Coast of the Americas before Europeans had been there, that they had to be copied from earlier maps.

Q: People who read your book, your father's book and Gavin Menzies' book can easily be overwhelmed by all of the evidence you cite. But critics contend most of it is circumstantial. Of everything you've seen and learned about, what has been the most convincing evidence for you?

A: DNA evidence, which is quite recent. We've known for a long time that the "Chinese blue spot", which appears on the buttocks of babies and then disappears, is also seen at birth in many Native American communities. Now we know that five distinct genetic markers match ancient Chinese with modern Native Americans. That's evidence that you can take to court and win.

Ozone Improves Biofuel Production Efficiency

It is of some interest that direct application of ozone degrades the lignin allowing the carbohydrates to be attacked and converted to sugars.  It will not be easy, but it opens another avenue.

Ozone is a bit tricky to produce and expensive and may well limit this method to the laboratory.

However, a process protocol that starts and ends dry is a rather good beginning and leaves a lot of options open for further treatment and no immediate waste stream.

A friend of mine has been testing ozone on ores to some effect, so this is not too surprising.

New Technique Improves Efficiency Of Biofuel Production

by Staff Writers

Raleigh NC (SPX) Jul 06, 2010

http://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/New_Technique_Improves_Efficiency_Of_Biofuel_Production_999.html

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a more efficient technique for producing biofuels from woody plants that significantly reduces the waste that results from conventional biofuel production techniques. The technique is a significant step toward creating a commercially viable new source of biofuels.

"This technique makes the process more efficient and less expensive," says Dr. Ratna Sharma-Shivappa, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at NC State and co-author of the research. "The technique could open the door to making lignin-rich plant matter a commercially viable feedstock for biofuels, curtailing biofuel's reliance on staple food crops."

Traditionally, to make ethanol, butanol or other biofuels, producers have used corn, beets or other plant matter that is high in starches or simple sugars. However, since those crops are also significant staple foods, biofuels are competing with people for those crops.

However, other forms of biomass - such as switchgrass or inedible corn stalks - can also be used to make biofuels. But these other crops pose their own problem: their energy potential is locked away inside the plant's lignin - the woody, protective material that provides each plant's structural support.

Breaking down that lignin to reach the plant's component carbohydrates is an essential first step toward making biofuels.

At present, researchers exploring how to create biofuels from this so-called "woody" material treat the plant matter with harsh chemicals that break it down into a carbohydrate-rich substance and a liquid waste stream. These carbohydrates are then exposed to enzymes that turn the carbohydrates into sugars that can be fermented to make ethanol or butanol.

This technique often results in a significant portion of the plant's carbohydrates being siphoned off with the liquid waste stream. Researchers must either incorporate additional processes to retrieve those carbohydrates, or lose them altogether.

But now researchers from NC State have developed a new way to free the carbohydrates from the lignin. By exposing the plant matter to gaseous ozone, with very little moisture, they are able to produce a carbohydrate-rich solid with no solid or liquid waste.

"This is more efficient because it degrades the lignin very effectively and there is little or no loss of the plant's carbohydrates," Sharma-Shivappa says. "The solid can then go directly to the enzymes to produce the sugars necessary for biofuel production."

Sharma notes that the process itself is more expensive than using a bath of harsh chemicals to free the carbohydrates, but is ultimately more cost-effective because it makes more efficient use of the plant matter.

The researchers have recently received a grant from the Center for Bioenergy Research and Development to fine-tune the process for use with switchgrass and miscanthus grass. "Our eventual goal is to use this technique for any type of feedstock, to produce any biofuel or biochemical that can use these sugars," Sharma-Shivappa says.

The research, "Effect of ozonolysis on bioconversion of miscanthus to bioethanol," was co-authored by Sharma-Shivappa, NC State Ph.D. student Anushadevi Panneerselvam, Dr. Praveen Kolar, an assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at NC State, Dr. Thomas Ranney, a professor of horticultural science at NC State, and Dr. Steve Peretti, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State.

The research is partially funded by the Biofuels Center of North Carolina and was presented June 23 at the 2010 Annual International Meeting of the American Society for Agricultural and Biological Engineers in Pittsburgh, PA.

NC State's Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering is a joint department of the university's College of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Air Strike on Iran Nuclear Assets Possible Now

When I posted two or three weeks ago that an American supported Israeli air strike was possibly eminent because the necessary assets had moved in place, I still lacked the reason as to why just now.  This tells us why it will happen now.  Assume Russia will arrange to be standing by for this one and to also be in the know.  They may be selling a reactor, but they want a nuclear weapon in these fool’s hands no more than we do.  Think of the rich targets for Islam in Russia.

A surgical strike is likely to happen this week.  The purpose will be to smash up the reactor itself.  The only interesting question is how the Iranian air force will be neutralized while the attack goes in, particularly if they wish to have a back up wave.  I assume the US will not be visible.

Iran’s reaction will be of serious interest.  The most damaging thing that they could do in the short term is to suspend oil shipments to the extent that they can.  This could precipitate a jump in oil prices to the $150 mark and generate a sharp decline in stock prices.  That though should be the most effect their actions may have.

In the medium term, regime control of the population will likely spiral out of control because the population will immediately blame the regime for bringing this attack on to themselves.  Discontent is also likely to become visible in the armed forces because of the regime’s reckless behavior and proven futility.  In short, the regime will be destabilized.

Beyond what we have just described, they have no creditable response.

I note from this map that the reactor is on the Persian Gulf itself.    Any attack seems way more difficult and may target the secondary assets instead.  In the event, we have reached a decision point.

John Bolton: Russia's Loading of Nuke Fuel Into Iran Plant Means Aug. 21 Deadline for Israeli Attack

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/John--Bolton--Iran--Nuclear--israel/2010/08/13/id/367449

Friday, 13 Aug 2010 01:41 PM

By: David A. Patten

News that Russia will load nuclear fuel rods into an Iranian reactor has touched off a countdown to a point of no return, a deadline by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran's Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively "immune" to any assault, says former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton. 

Once the fuel rods are loaded, Bolton told Fox News on Friday afternoon, "it makes it essentially immune from attack by Israel. Because once the rods are in the reactor an attack on the reactor risks spreading radiation in the air, and perhaps into the water of the Persian Gulf." 

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared in March that Russia would start the Bushehr reactor this summer. But the announcement from a spokesman for Russia's state atomic agency to Reuters Friday sent international diplomats scrambling to head off a crisis. 

The story immediately became front-page news in Israel, which has laid precise plans to carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities while going along with President Obama's plans to use international sanctions and diplomatic persuasion to convince Iran's clerics not to go nuclear. 

Bolton made it clear that it is widely assumed that any Israeli attack on the Bushehr reactor must take place before the reactor is loaded with fuel rods.

"If they're going to do it that's the window that they have," Bolton declared. "Otherwise as I said before, once the rods are in the reactor, if you attack the reactor you're going to open it up and radiation will escape at least into the atmosphere and possibly into the waters of the Persian Gulf.

"So most people think that neither Israel nor the United States, come to that, would attack the reactor after it's been fueled."

Bolton cited the 1981 Israeli attack on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor outside Baghdad and the September 2007 Israeli attack on a North Korean reactor being built in Syria. Both of those strikes came before fuel rods were loaded into those reactors.

"So if it's going to happen in Bushehr it has to happen before the fuel rods go in," Bolton said. 

The conversation that touched off the de facto deadline for Israeli military action was a telephone conversation with wire services involving Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian Energy State Nuclear Corp. 

Novikov said: "The fuel will be loaded on Aug 21. This is the start of the physical launch” of the reactor.

"From that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy installation," Novikov said, adding that the head of Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, will visit Bushehr Aug. 21 to conduct a ceremony for the event.
According to Bolton, once the reactor is operational, it is only a matter of time before it begins producing plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

"And in the normal operation of this reactor, in just a fairly short period of time, you could get substantial amounts of plutonium to use as nuclear weapons," Bolton told Fox. 

Russia, which is operating under a $1 billion contract with Iran, has spent more than a decade building the reactor. If Russia moves forward with its plan to fuel the reactor, it could be seen as a major setback to the Obama administration's strategy of engaging Russian leaders in order to win their cooperation.

"The U.S. urged them not to send the Iranian's fuel rods," Bolton said. "They did that. The Obama administration has urged them not to insert the fuel rods in the reactors, but as they've just announced that will begin next week. What that does over time is help Iran get another route to nuclear weapons through the plutonium they could reprocess out of the spent fuel rods."

The developments mean Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon may face a stark choice: Attack the Bushehr reactor in the next 8 days, or allow it to become operational despite the certainty it would greatly enhance Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. 

Russian leaders have said the Bushehr reactor project is being closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog group. According to Iran's ISNA news agency, IAEA inspectors will be on hand to observe the fuel-rod loading process that is now scheduled to begin Aug. 21. 

According to Russian officials, Iran has promised in writing to send all spent fuel rods from Bushehr back to Russia for reprocessing, to ensure they cannot be used for nuclear weapons.


Bolton said the reactor has been "a hole" in American foreign policy for over a decade.

The failure to demand it be shut down began in the Bush years, he said, and continues with the Obama administration "under what I believe is the mistaken theory that Iran is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

"I don't think Iran is entitled to that, or I don't think we ought to allow it to happen, because they're manifestly violating any number of obligations under the non-proliferation treaty not to seek nuclear weapons. But this has been a hole in American policy for some number of years, and Iran and Russia are obviously exploiting it," Bolton said.

Russia’s move would put Iran "in a much better position overall," he said, adding, "I think this is a very delicate point, as I say, it closes off to the Israelis one possible target for pre-emptive military action.

U.N. sanctions against Iran, he said, "have not had and will not have any material effect on Iran's push to have deliverable nuclear weapons."

Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System

There is much to agree with and plenty to argue against with here but the view point needs to be read.

1                    The break up of AT&T was not a mistake.  I will take it further, at some point. All super large organizations need to be subdivided on some rational basis.  ATT&T actually did an excellent job in that regard.  Others may well make a hash out of it.

My reasoning is simple.  Cheaper access to more money through size is usually a serious error because it ultimately lowers the real return that management may achieve.  There are exceptions, yet Warren Buffet has found his point of resistance.  It is vastly more profitable to nurture many small companies that are then spun out, as actually happened under ATT&T.

Besides, the digital age was happening and the wall of monopoly barriers needed to be pulled down as fast as possible.  This way it took less than a decade and prevented billions of dollars been diverted to monopoly profits and paychecks.

2          Off shoring is a problem hugely driven by the failure of the US to reform its tax code.  By not imposing a VAT tax, the USA gives every other country an economic advantage. That encourages the transfer of manufacturing offshore.  Solve that and much of the problem will fade as a far leveler playing field will exist.

Right now a company has an equal opportunity to place a factory in the US or India.  Cheap labor is one of a very short list of deciding factors but tax on sales is an immediate claim on cash flow.  It you are in the USA you pay it on all exports now, often before you get paid.  It you are in the rest of the world, you pay it also, but you offset it with tax you pay on costs.  This is a huge and immediate advantage that can not be dodged.

Since most investments are initially deemed as risky, the corporation that plans to export will find it more prudent to build were this drag does not exist.

Otherwise, stop counting their jobs and observe that our incomes have not risen appreciably since 1980, yet our purchasing power from the same dollar bill has leapt ahead, not in specifics but in the expansion of cheaper choices.

3          Yes, greed must be regulated.  Except the pigs have the coin to buy off the politicians who are ill educated economically and are all suckers to begin with.  Tell me how to change that now.

"Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System": The Big Things That Matter And The Little Things That Annoy

By Paul Craig Roberts

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20587

I write about major problems:  the collapsing US economy, wars based on lies and deception, the police state based on “the war on terror” and other fabrications such as those orchestrated by corrupt police and prosecutors, who boost their performance reports by convicting the innocent, and so on.  America is a very distressing place. The fact that so many Americans are taken in by the lies told by “their” government makes America all the more depressing.

Often, however, it is small annoyances that waste Americans’ time and drive up blood pressures. One of the worst things that ever happened to Americans was the breakup of the AT&T telephone monopoly. As Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in 1981, if 150 percent of my time and energy had not been required to cure stagflation in the face of opposition from Wall Street and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, I might have been able to prevent the destruction of the best communications service in the world, and one that was very inexpensive to customers. 

The assistant attorney general in charge of the “anti-trust case” against AT&T called me to ask if Treasury had an interest in how the case was resolved.  I went to Treasury Secretary Don Regan and told him that although my conservative and libertarian friends thought that the breakup of At&T was a great idea, their opinion was based entirely in ideology and that the practical effect would not be good for widows and orphans who had a blue chip stock to see them through life or for communications customers as deregulated communications would give the multiple communications corporations different interests than those of the customers. Under the regulated regime, AT&T was allowed a reasonable rate of return on its investment, and to stay out of trouble with regulators AT&T provided excellent and inexpensive service.

Secretary Regan reminded me of my memo to him detailing that Treasury was going to have a hard time getting President Reagan’s economic program, directed at curing the stagflation that had wrecked President Carter’s presidency, out of the Reagan administration.  The budget director, David Stockman, and his chief economist, Larry Kudlow, had lined up against it following the wishes of Wall Street, and the White House Chief of Staff James Baker and his deputy Richard Darman were representatives of VP George H.W. Bush and did not want s substantial Reagan success that would again threaten the Republican Establishment’s hold over the party. Baker and Darman wanted to be sure that George H. W. Bush, and not Jack Kemp, succeeded Ronald Reagan, and that required a muted Reagan success that they could claim as theirs for moderating an “extremist” program. 

]I told Secretary Regan that if I had another deputy assistant secretary, I could reach a reasonable conclusion whether the breakup of AT&T was sensible. He replied that he was sure that was the case, but that once I had three deputies the headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times, Business Week, Newsweek, and so on, would be: “Supply-sider builds empire at Treasury.”  He said it would sink me and that without me he could not get the President’s economic program out of the President’s administration. “Which do you want to do,” he asked, “save AT&T or cure stagflation?”

Curing stagflation gave America twenty more years. Ironically, the good times started to erode when Reagan’s other goal was accomplished and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1990. “The end of history” resulted in India and China opening their labor markets to American capitalists, who began producing offshore with foreign labor the products that they sold to Americans. The labor costs savings pushed up corporate profits, shareholders’ returns, and managerial bonuses. But it deprived Americans of middle class incomes and wrecked the balance of trade. The US income distribution and the trade deficit worsened.

Many progressives blame the worsening income distribution  on the Reagan tax rate reductions, but the real cause is the offshoring of manufacturing, industrial, and professional service jobs, such as software engineering.

None of us in the Reagan administration foresaw jobs offshoring as the consequence of Soviet collapse. We had no idea that by bringing down the Soviet Union we would be bringing down America. During the Reagan years India was socialist and would not allow foreign corporations, had they been interested, to touch their labor force. China was communist and no foreign capital could enter the country.

However, once the Soviet Union was gone from the earth, the remaining socialist and communist regimes decided to go with the winners. They opened to Western corporations and sucked jobs out of the developed West.

But this is a different story. To get back to deregulation, nothing has worked for the consumer since deregulation. Deregulation permitted corporations to impose their costs of operation on customers without having to send them a bill. For example, corporations use voice recognition technology to keep customers from salaried customer representatives. I remember when a customer with a problem could call a utility company or bank and have the problem immediately corrected.

No more. There was an error in my phone bill today, which I had corrected without result on two previous occasions. As everyone knows by now, it takes 10-15 minutes, usually, to get a live person who can actually fix the problem.  After listening to sales pitches for 12 minutes, I got a live person. Once the problem was understood, it was pronounced to be an upper level problem out of his hands. I waited another 10 minutes while he tried to reach a superior who had the code to fix the problem that the phone company had produced in my account. The entire time I listened to product advertisements. 

How many times has this happened to you?

Whoever invented these artificial voice capabilities is the enemy of mankind. Whomever a customer calls--utilities, credit card companies, banks, whatever, the customer gets a voice machine. Some voice machines never tell the customer how to get a live person who can, on occasion, actually fix the problem.

In my opinion, the strategy behind the endless delays is to cause the customers to give up, slam the telephone down and play the higher incorrect bill as it is cheaper in time and frustration to correcting the problem and being billed in the correct amount. These ripoffs of the customer are produced by Wall Street pressures for higher earnings. 

The frustrations, of course, multiply when one reaches an offshored service somewhere in the Third World. The incentive is to hang up and to pay the excessive bill so that phone, internet, or credit card services are not cut off

Had Don Regan and I known that the high speed Internet was in our future and that American corporations would use it to destroy the jobs traditionally filled by US university graduates, possibly we would have decided to save the regulated telephone monopoly and to deliver the economy over to stagflation.

The reason is that sooner or later something would have been done about stagflation, but nothing whatsoever has been done about offshoring. Saving the economy from offshoring would have been a greater achievement than saving the economy from stagflation. However, in my time stagflation, not offshoring, was the problem.

I regret that I did not have a crystal ball.

Deregulation proponents will say that the breakup of AT&T gave us cell phones and broadband, as if foreign regulated communication companiesand state monopolies do not provide cell phone service or high speed Internet connections. I can remember attending corporate board meetings years ago at which the European members had digital cell phones with which they could call most anywhere on earth, while we Americans with our analogue cell phones could hardly connect down the street.

What deregulation did was to permit Wall Street to push the deregulated industries-- phone service, airlines, trucking, and later Wall Street itself-- to focus on profits and not on service. Profits were increased by curtailing service, by pushing up prices and by  Wall Street creating fraudulent financial instruments, which the banksters used America’s reputation to market to the gullible at home and abroad. 

Consider air travel. Admit it, if you are my age you hate it. The deterioration in service over my lifetime is phenomenal. Studies in favor of airline deregulation focused on short flights between A and B and concluded that small airlines serving high density areas were more efficient because they were not regulated. What was left out of the analysis is that regulated airlines served low density areas and permitted free stopovers. For example, if one was flying from the US to Athens, Greece, the traveler could stopover in London, Paris, and Rome without additional charges. Moreover, passengers were fed hot meals even in tourist class. In those halcyon days, it was even possible to travel more comfortably in tourist class than in first class, because flights were not scheduled in keeping with full capacity. Several rows of seats might be unoccupied. It was possible to push up the arm rests on three or four center aisle seats, lay down and go to sleep.

Perhaps the best benefit of regulated air travel for passengers was that airlines had spare airliners. If one airplane had mechanical problems that could not be fixed within a reasonable time, a standby airliner was rolled out to enable passengers to meet their connections and designations. With deregulation, customer service is not important. The bottom line has eliminated spare airliners.

With deregulated airlines, Wall Street calls the tune. If your flight has a mechanical problem, you are stuck where you are unless you have some sort of privileged status that can bump passengers from later fully booked flights. “Studies” that focus only on discounted ticket price omit major costs of deregulation and thereby wrongly conclude that deregulation has benefited the consumer.

When trucking was regulated, truckers would stop to provide roadside assistant to stranded travelers. Today, with deregulated trucking, every minute counts toward the bottom line. Not only do truckers no longer stop to aid stranded travelers, they travel at excessive speeds that endanger automobile drivers. Trucks have expanded in size, weight and speed. Trucks raise the stress level on interstate highway drivers and destroy, at taxpayers expense, the roads on which they travel.

Conservatives and especially libertarians romanticize “free market unregulated capitalism.” They regard it as the best of all economic orders. However, with deregulated capitalism, every decision is a bottom-line decision that screws everyone except the shareholders and management. 

In America today there is no longer a connection between profits and the welfare of the people. Unregulated greed has destroyed the capitalist system, which now distributes excessive rewards to the few at the expense of the many.

If Marx and Lenin were alive today, the extraordinary greed with which Wall Street has infected capitalism would provide Marx and Lenin with a better case than they had in the 19th and early 20th centuries.