By Daryl on
4/29/2008 5:48 AM
We all have been reading the back and forth on bio-fuels and how they are and alternatively not affecting food prices and supply. The common advocate argument is simple, corn and wheat cannot possibly be affecting the price the rice so there must be something else to blame. Well the problem is one of interdependencies in the food supply and it something that everyone is missing in the debate. I will walk you through how wheat and corn being turned into fuel actually does raise the price of rice.
The Formula is Simple
The easiest way to show how wheat and corn demands for bio-fuels are responsible for the pressure on rice supply is with some math and a basic understanding of commodities and agriculture. The formula can be described as a simple one of total demand less the availability of wheat of corn. I use this ver ...
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By Daryl on
4/25/2008 12:48 PM
I've just read an article on MSN / Sympatico called "The cheapest way to save the Earth", which actually made sense to me - and it is about lifestyle changes!
Now a caveat: I don't actually agree with it all, but I do agree with the main premise - that going green is not about buying all the latest and greatest eco-alternatives that come along. Something I have been saying for years: you cannot consume your way out of catastrophic man made global warming (if you are so inclined to believe in it) to arrive at a better place.
The point that resonates the most with me, and which I have always consider ...
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By Daryl on
4/16/2008 7:47 AM
I swear this is true, for the last three years I have had a running joke with colleagues and family about investing in what I termed "Beaker Meat", or the cultured muscles of livestock animals grown in a laboratory and sold as a consumable food product. I read about the technology in a magazine, Scientific American I think, on a flight to Europe, I was very intrigued with the science and possible uses for it as a food source, everyone I explained it to seemed to find my notion quite ridiculous and I started a running joke about the virtues of "Beaker Meat" and how this investment was the future of food. Now Andrew Revkin the King of Climate Change at The New York Times, has published this gem of an article, "Can People Have M ...
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By Daryl on
4/11/2008 10:06 AM
I was reading the press about, as well as, the new study itself by Sloan and Wolfendale regarding the theory of cosmic rays and cloud formation in regards to global warming. Apparently their research shows no link between cosmic rays and clouds. This theory was advanced in the book by Svenmark called "The Chilling Stars" and is a theory that has been repeatedly attacked by the AGW and cited by the "deniers". The main point of this paper is summed up in the abstrac ...
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By Daryl on
4/3/2008 2:05 PM
I just read a news article and saw confirmation on CBC that Al Gore is coming to Montreal, Canada this weekend April 4-6, 2008 to indoctrinate a new legion of climate faithful, some 200 people will join the coveted environmental "World According to Gore" rolls. First Al Gore is not a teacher, he is a preacher, he is training people to give a science based presentation without any real understanding of the science as clearly pointed out by the alarming numbers of errors in his movie, and task them with "finding any available venue" from which to "spread the word". I seem to remember similar organizations based on the teaching of a single point of truth that participated in this sort of indoctrination of the chosen into the ranks of the faithful, then sent them out into the world to convert as many as they could. They gave rise to the almost as ridiculous business of rescuing and deprogramming people at the behest ...
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By Daryl on
3/31/2008 12:24 PM
I was just sitting here having a overwhelming feeling of nostalgia for the good old days, you remember those right? That was the time when the environmental movement was the fringe element, when going green was a tolerable background noise in society's media and marketing system. This was before governments fell under the spell of Anthropogenic Global Warming and succumbed to the pressures of the environmental special interest lobby. The world before carbon taxes, innovation fund levies, congestion charges and rising food and energy costs. I remember when advertising was geared around extolling the advantages of a product, not it's greenness and eco-friendly impacts, never mind the product is rubbish as long as it has a number of green endorsements making it superior to competitors. Those good old days when friends and neighbours did not argue about trees shading someone's solar panels, the solar panel owner taking his neighbour to cour ...
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By Daryl on
3/26/2008 1:24 PM
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh go the wind turbines that are popping up slowly across the world's wind corridors, with demand growing for them new production facilities are being created, with all the green jobs that environmental lobbyists promised. The transition into the new green economy has began and the promise that we will all be stronger for it especially economically. So lets look at where the wind turbines are currently being constructed now , how long they have been operating, and where expansion plans are for the major European and North American players. For several years I have been hearing from environmental groups, policy think tanks and politicians that a green economy will be a stronger economy and the employment opportunities will skyrocket as a result. It has been seven years since I started researching this topic and I seem to be still waiting for all the green economy benefits, especially as I watch the world's biggest economy fall into recession and drag ...
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By Daryl on
3/20/2008 8:31 PM
We have had a long cold winter here in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere and that has got me to thinking, what if the world cools off and returns to the temperatures of our great grandfathers or even worse we start sliding even lower? Just as a hypothetical exercise, I am not saying there is any basis for this other than my own curiosity as to the effects. I just could not help thinking what would happen if the temperatures start trending lower and we move into a prolonged cooling period. We are still going to have a changed climate, just not the changes we expected. So I am wondering how that would impact us and what does it would mean to our society.
If the entire underlying motive for all the actions taken to date in the arena of global warming mitigation vanishes over the next five years we will be confronted with a whole set of legacy problems to deal with. What will the main effects be, given the current state of the situation in regards to mitigation to stop global warm ...
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By Daryl on
3/20/2008 8:28 PM
My home province of Beautiful British Columbia just, on February 19, 2008, made history in North America by implementing the first Carbon Tax on fossil fuels this week. This tax is on all fossil fuels, gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, propane and diesel. This budget has been met with great enthusiasm by environmental groups, been rejected on the Federal level and sparked outrage in northern communities. So lets take a look at the budget and see what this is really all about and what we can expect in the coming years as the budget runs until 2012.
First lets take a look at the reasoning behind the tax. Carole Taylor, the Finance Minister said "The principle is simple, Tax carbon-emitting fuels to discourage their use, and give the money back to people, back to businesses, so they have control. They can make their own choices about how the tax affects them."
I am not really sure that this is as simple ...
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By Daryl on
3/19/2008 11:21 AM
A group of three environmental groups has launched a frivolous and money draining lawsuit against the United States Government about the missing of deadlines to place the Polar Bear (Ursus Martimus) on the endangered species list. The plaintiffs; the National Resources Defence Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace. The basis for the claim that polar bears are endangered supported by their own "scientific research" ...
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