R U an oceanographer, botanist or of some other scientific rumblings?
hehe, scientific rumblings maybe a bit. Although I didnt see the reference to 50% plastic by weight in those little sea creatures. I did see this
[=1]“By weight, this swath of sea contains six times as much plastic as it does plankton.”
[=Black][ 2][ 2]Yikes thats no fun.
Energy from waves is being harnessed. Too bad those surfers keep complaining. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/5139778.stm
Just because the mainstream media isn’t focused on the future doesn’t mean others aren’t. It’s all those people associated with science and rumblings. I just read an article about improving the efficiency of making fuels from plant matter.
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It would be great to knw where you got he data...R U an oceanographer, botanist or of some other scientific rumblings?Plastic is defined as any material that is malleable (shapeable by outside forces) whether natural or synthetic.
Like I said, heard it on radio few weeks ago, not my data. I’m not a real doctor, I have a master’s degree…in science. Plastic as you define it is an adjective. As a noun, which is how it was meant:
noun:
-Any of various organic compounds produced by polymerization, capable of being molded, extruded, cast into various shapes and films, or drawn into filaments used as textile fibers.
-Objects made of plastic.
-Informal: A credit card or credit cards: would accept cash or plastic in payment.
Most often made from petrochems though can be and has been made from plant materiel. I think the early ones were from soy (Bakelite?)
Thanks for the link Keen…
I read it and I agree that it is a minor thing to position such an energy gathering device in harmonius places for all concerned. What I don’t get is why we don’t have floating energy gatherers in the North Sea or some other areas that are equally volatile. Think about the energy coming off Niagra or Victoria Falls? There are numerous other places that could turn turbines like a revved up waterwheel.
I really don’t believe that hydro electric or solar or whatever isn’t economically feasible enough to warrant the attention. On the show I mentioned earlier (Beyond 2000), one episode showed a network of huge mirrors out in the Sahara or some other desert…these things were immense mirrors that caught the sun’s rays and were positioned to reflect to one after another until they got near a city for conversion into power. The reflection was like magnifying glasses, intensifying rather than dissipating along the way to their final destination.
Then the thing about plastic…I saw a show this week on some woman that is a high fashion designer…finally made it into the upper echelon of designers showing on the runways of Europe. She said “I finally made it after all these years of hard work and vision, and when I drew critical acclaim from my peers, I felt empty”. She now designs super fashionable clothes from all recyclable materials. She had clothing that was from sources people could never begin to imagine, and some was plastic based, that she said could be recycled an infinite number of times. She had clothes made from kelp, plastic bottles, bark, on and on…stuff that apparently feels and looks like Cashmere but is originated from some thrown off crap that goes into the landfills. She is passionate about what she is now doing, and has plugged into landfills for all her supplies! Patagonia was mentioned in the program as one of the forefathers to this approach. Their goal is to produce their entire line using 100% disposed material.
Dont know about all this stuff…
I do know this…it was GREAT to watch Stewart Copeland ripping da kit.
Today, consumers can take water on the go. But the bottles don’t always get tossed into recycling bins. Only about 23 percent of bottles, including soda, are recycled.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10874230
Ya know, EPAC, your pics often rule–and this is pure magic:
Yeah, hot pic Epac…very Kemp Aaaberg-ish.
Damn. In the 1970’s I read everywhere that what we had to fear was global cooling: the prospect of another, man-induced ice age. In Boston the Blizzard of 1978 was taken as evidence of this trend. NOW they tell me it’s not global cooling but global warming that’s threatening to devastate humankind. I was happy to hear about global warming 'cause I couldn’t imagine surfing in a seven mil wetsuit. Now I have to worry about getting roasted. What to do…?
What I really want to know is how the scientists resopnsible for theories of global warming/cooling can predict what the worldwide weather is going to be like in 2050 but they can’t get the weather right on a daily basis with much accuracy. If you want to get a different take on the whole global cooling thing read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear.” Pay particular attention to the info after the end of the novel.
By the way, France exists at our pleasure. Their social problems are legion (can you say: muslim riots?). They derive MOST of their electricity from Nuclear power plants. Imagine the uproar from the Al Gore camp if we tried to build enough Nuke plants to get MOST of our power from that source. They’d go crazier than Ted Kennedy worrying about the possibility of wind farms destroying the view from his Cape Cod compound. The hypocrisy of the “environmentalists” is incredible, and I do mean you, Al “McMansion” Gore. Walk the walk before you talk the talk. Then, someone might believe you.
I can’t wait till we go back to worrying about global cooling.
Another note: Last year scientists predicted an active hurricane season. Didn’t happen.
HAH! Some of us are still worried about cooling. No one knows its true. It is possible that warming will cause the big circulating ocean currents like Gulf stream that drive weather patterns to stop circulating. If that occurs a sudden mini-ice age could be the result.
Nukes are an interesting problem. They do make cheap(er), “clean” electricity in the short run. But the waste is around for 100’s of thousands of years. One thing you can be absolutely sure of is that no system is absolutely fool proof; there will always be accidents and screw ups. Nuclear waste disposal is no exception. We trade cancer and birth defects and poisoned food and water later for cheap power now. Yeah, hey, we could put it in a rocket and shoot it into the sun. what happens when one of those rockets blows up during launch, in the atmosphere?
That’s a great idea! Shooting things into the sun–
like the corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions that weigh so heavily on the minds of politicians in charge of the public policy around the issue,
the politicians themselves…
the Flat-Earther peanut gallery with no credentials braying about how the entire global scientific community don’t know nothin’ and they bleev the opposite anyways…
and the nihilists who secretly just want to see what happens when we ruin a whole planetary ecosystem, because they’re bored with their lives, and maybe there’s an angle in it somewhere for them…
Al Gore. His mansion. His son’s Prius.
Damn. In the 1970’s I read everywhere that what we had to fear was global cooling: the prospect of another, man-induced ice age. In Boston the Blizzard of 1978 was taken as evidence of this trend. NOW they tell me it’s not global cooling but global warming that’s threatening to devastate humankind. I was happy to hear about global warming 'cause I couldn’t imagine surfing in a seven mil wetsuit. Now I have to worry about getting roasted. What to do…?
What I really want to know is how the scientists resopnsible for theories of global warming/cooling can predict what the worldwide weather is going to be like in 2050 but they can’t get the weather right on a daily basis with much accuracy. If you want to get a different take on the whole global cooling thing read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear.” Pay particular attention to the info after the end of the novel.
By the way, France exists at our pleasure. Their social problems are legion (can you say: muslim riots?). They derive MOST of their electricity from Nuclear power plants. Imagine the uproar from the Al Gore camp if we tried to build enough Nuke plants to get MOST of our power from that source. They’d go crazier than Ted Kennedy worrying about the possibility of wind farms destroying the view from his Cape Cod compound. The hypocrisy of the “environmentalists” is incredible, and I do mean you, Al “McMansion” Gore. Walk the walk before you talk the talk. Then, someone might believe you.
I can’t wait till we go back to worrying about global cooling.
Another note: Last year scientists predicted an active hurricane season. Didn’t happen.
Quote:I guess when you come down to it, life is full of contradictions for all of us. Hence my “DTT”…Duct Tape Theory…not to be confused with the Duck Tape Theory. Historically mankind has accomplished some wonderous and incredible achievements. But when it comes to everyday life, the world is held together with duct tape. The cheap fix is mankind’s mantra; like the auto seat falling apart at the seams. Man grabs a roll of that marvelous gray tape and does a bang up job of DIY instant upholstery…looks pretty damn good if I don’t sa so myself. Hop in the car and wipe that tear away…then a little later the tape starts to separate and what we have is a sticky gooey mess that is a lot harder to clean up then the upholstery job would have been. So out comes the roll of duct tape, except there is a point where it just doesn’t work anymore. As far as whether the planet is cooling or warming or tepid or…I guess we may never see a conclusion because the planet and its people remain eternally divided by religion and political dogma rather than evolutionary brilliance or enlightenment. The trivial reigns over the ideal. We can do wonderous and impressive feats but in the end we are still dis-ease ridden and petty. Keep the people separated and at each other so that we may reign supreme. This is the same principle lawyers use…no wonder Shakespeare wrote “kill all the lawyers”… As far as the French, they sure as h-ll aren’t perfect, but there exists a different set of priorities in France, Italy, Greece and other parts of Europe. I firmly believe they have a better grip on enjoying daily life. Even Mexicans, by their own admission, are “simple, crazy, romantic people” and when called on it,they will admit the many shortcomings that accompany it. Americans, or should I say more correctly: Yankees, or U.S citizens, are some of the most generous and caring people in the world…more often than not we come to the rescue to lesser fortunate nations. However, the well is not a bottomless pit and we are now in major financial debt to China while spending billions upon billions of dollars on, at the very least, a questionable war. Yeah, France has nukes for power, but I doubt they have the nuclear overkill we do. Is America a great place? Ask all the immigrants that continue to flock to the ‘land of opportunity’. Perhaps a better, more truthful tack for us to take is to just fess up and openly practice the claims made against us. Okay then, we ARE imperialistic and WE ARE TAKING your oil. We like driving our SUV’s and we are used to waste so we are taking over your little third world country. Imagine the land boom if we had annexed Mexico and started building Disneylands and Sea Worlds? Why stop there? Hell, annex Russia while we are at it…Reaganomics holds that consumption is good and our GNP could skyrocket with all the new business. Why let the Chinese take over? Besides all those beautiful Russian girls you see on the internet might actually exist. While we are at it, didn’t we pump 3 or 4 billion into Brazil to keep them from collapsing? Argentina got a lotta cash too. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Photo: Albe Falzon