I saw a great movie tonight called "An Inconvenient Truth" starring former Vice President Al Gore. This is a movie that EVERYONE needs to see and brings to light many of the issues that I've been writing about.
This movie is a wake up call and explains just how serious global warming's affect is on our planet explained in a way that everyone can understand. We must all work to stop global warming and we must take action now. See the movie and visit the web site for a list of things you can do now to help reduce global warming. I've already taken steps to reduce my energy usage, how about you?
Friday, June 02, 2006
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Politicians once again blowing in the wrong direction
The Chicago Tribune published an article today about how the federal government has stopped work on more than a dozen wind farms that were planned to be built across the Midwest. The reason? Several politicians complained that a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod Massachusetts would spoil the view for summer homes of the rich. Do you really want to know what will spoil their view? Having their homes and beaches underwater due to rising sea levels caused by the melting of the polar ice caps due to the continued release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels instead of using renewable energy such as wind power.
Once again the people we elected to make the right decisions for us have made the wrong choice. Instead of doing what's right for the people they're doing what's right for themselves and for the wealthy lobbyists who line the politicians pockets with green. And when I say green, I'm not talking about what grows on trees.
If they don't want wind turbines off the coast of Cape Cod, fine, but don't shut down wind farm projects elsewhere in the country. In fact for Cape Cod instead of building a wind farm they could build a system to generate electricity from the movement of the waves. Something like this has already been done in the U.K by a company named Wavegen, why not in the U.S.?
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Hey, who turned up heat?
Despite what the president of the United States and others outside the scientific community say, the Earth is getting warmer and there's scientific proof to back it up. If you think it's not, you're probably one of those that still believes the world is flat.
Everyday around the world stored energy in the form of fossil fuels, gases, oils, and radioactive materials are being used to generate electricity, move our cars, heat and cool our buildings, and power everything else you can imagine. All of these forms of stored energy release heat. Some additionally release carbon dioxide gas and other greenhouse gases that trap heat. All of that heat has to go somewhere.
If you remember back to your school science class you might remember something about the laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The second law of thermodynamics states that in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state. This loss of energy dissipates as heat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
This second law of thermodynamics is the most relevant when we discuss global warming because it means that anytime you transfer energy from one form to another, such as conversion of gas to the motion of your car, some of that energy is lost in the form of heat. Over the years the amount of energy that we have been releasing through the use of more and more cars and more and more machines has led to the release of a vast amount of heat energy.
Lucky for us the earth has it's own air conditioning system. It's called the great ocean conveyor belt and I wrote about it in one of previous blogs. The problem is not that the air conditioner is broken. The problem is it's overwhelmed just like when you leave your shades up during a hot summer day.
So what's the point of all this? The point is global warming is real and getting much worse. We need to come up with solutions now to reduce the amount of our heat emissions and greenhouse gases before it's too late.
Everyday around the world stored energy in the form of fossil fuels, gases, oils, and radioactive materials are being used to generate electricity, move our cars, heat and cool our buildings, and power everything else you can imagine. All of these forms of stored energy release heat. Some additionally release carbon dioxide gas and other greenhouse gases that trap heat. All of that heat has to go somewhere.
If you remember back to your school science class you might remember something about the laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The second law of thermodynamics states that in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state. This loss of energy dissipates as heat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
This second law of thermodynamics is the most relevant when we discuss global warming because it means that anytime you transfer energy from one form to another, such as conversion of gas to the motion of your car, some of that energy is lost in the form of heat. Over the years the amount of energy that we have been releasing through the use of more and more cars and more and more machines has led to the release of a vast amount of heat energy.
Lucky for us the earth has it's own air conditioning system. It's called the great ocean conveyor belt and I wrote about it in one of previous blogs. The problem is not that the air conditioner is broken. The problem is it's overwhelmed just like when you leave your shades up during a hot summer day.
So what's the point of all this? The point is global warming is real and getting much worse. We need to come up with solutions now to reduce the amount of our heat emissions and greenhouse gases before it's too late.