What the heck is all this =/= stuff lately? An= not enough, or is this something new to the discussion.

Leftie 'fuzzy math'

If we raise texes it will make it all better. If only musicians ran the gubmint, we could all retire on free goods and services provided by people stupid enough to work to pay for the government freebies.

Nasty drawers and fingernails!

Crow calls for limit on loo paper


Singer Sheryl Crow has said a ban on using too much toilet paper should be introduced to help the environment.


Here <---

Crow has suggested using "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required".


Nasty drawers and fingernails!

Will the loo monitors be a 'gubmit' job?

just borrow billions of dollars worth and send the bill to later generations

I thought this was a joke when I first read it. Since Google news pulled up 468 articles on the subject, it appears to be real.

This would be an easy one to accomplish.

1. Ban all toilet paper from being sold on the open market.
2. Guvmint becomes the lone distributor of toilet paper.
3. Ration 21 squares per person per week.
4. Cost $100/wk per person with a large majority of the cost going towards taxes to save the planet.
5. Additional toilet paper could be purchased with Al Gore's carbon credits.

I am starting to think that I might see the day when I will be able to walk down the 'Yellow Brick Road' in the land of OZ!

What exactly 'appears to be real'? That some singer proposed something? Who gives a flying fark?

All you all will focus in on the most ridiculous, least likely to happen options or proposals and pounce on them with gusto. Allows you to write 'guvmint' once again, in case you've forgotten how to.

What exactly 'appears to be real'? That some singer proposed something? Who gives a flying fark?

If 'your kind' would stop making such idiotic proposals.....I wouldn't have anything to 'pounce on'!

I thought this was a joke when I first read it. Since Google news pulled up 468 articles on the subject, it appears to be real.

This would be an easy one to accomplish.

1. Ban all toilet paper from being sold on the open market.
2. Guvmint becomes the lone distributor of toilet paper.
3. Ration 21 squares per person per week.
4. Cost $100/wk per person with a large majority of the cost going towards taxes to save the planet.
5. Additional toilet paper could be purchased with Al Gore's carbon credits.

I am starting to think that I might see the day when I will be able to walk down the 'Yellow Brick Road' in the land of OZ!

All you all will focus in on the most ridiculous, least likely to happen options or proposals and pounce on them with gusto.

Uh oh! Cheryl Crowe has a run in with rove and now the reich wing smear machine swings into action.

Nobody cares if you use toilet paper or not.

Rosie to Sheryl Crow: "Have You Seen My Ass?"
Posted Apr 23rd 2007 1:07PM by TMZ Staff
Filed under: TV, The View



The answer, presumably, is no -- but Rosie made her point, pooh-poohing Sheryl Crow for suggesting that we all use just one square of toilet paper per trip to the loo.

Crow made her comments on her blog last week, and Rosie took a moment on this morning's "The View" to express her incredulity at the supposedly enviro-friendly suggestion. "Have you seen my ass?!" bellowed Rosie, and Barbara Walters was good enough to warn viewers not to use their sleeves, another of Crow's helpful suggestions.

That's just about enough scatology and wipe-tech for one morning on that zany kaffeeklatsch.

My 'kind'? What, are you five-years old?

Nobody cares if you use toilet paper or not.

Eliminate toilet paper and the need to use water to flush a turd down the toilet all in the name
of saving the planet!

BEIJING - Premier Wen Jiabao pledged Friday to help clean China's air and water and combat global warming by phasing out tax breaks and discounts on land and electricity for highly polluting industries.

"More work on energy conservation and emissions reduction is urgently required to deal with global climate change," Wen said. "Our country is a major coal producer and consumer, and reducing polluting emissions is a responsibility we should bear."

China accounted for 15 percent of the world's greenhouse gases in 2000, second only to the United States' 21 percent, but the fast-growing Chinese economy is expected to surpass the U.S. in emissions in the next couple of years.

"It's not great to be the biggest polluter in two years," Fusaro said. "That's not going to help them attract business."

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Climate change is affecting the growth of fish, with those living in warmer, shallow waters growing faster and species in cooling deep ocean waters growing slower, according to an Australian study.

"These observations suggest that global climate change has enhanced some elements of productivity of shallow-water stocks but at the same time reduced the productivity and possibly the resilience of deep-water stocks," said the CSIRO's Ron Thresher.

Populations of large marine species are subject to two major stress factors, commercial fishing and climate change, and the heavy exploitation increases the sensitivity of species to environmental effects, said Thresher.

LONDON (Reuters) - This month is set to be the warmest April in Britain since records began nearly 350 years ago and all over Europe tourists are slapping on the sun cream several weeks ahead of schedule.

Britain's Met Office said the average temperature in central England from April 1-25 was 11.1 degrees Celsius, 3.4 degrees above the norm and the highest since records began in 1659.

The office added there was a big chance of a repeat of the European heat wave of 2003 which killed some 35,000 people and which scientists attributed to global warming.

In the Netherlands, the KNMI weather institute said this month had already broken records as the warmest, driest and sunniest April and noted global warming was one of the reasons.

The Netherlands has not had rain since March 22 and April is set to be the driest in at least 100 years. Farmers have started pumping water from canals and rivers to irrigate their crops.

Germany has also recorded the highest April average temperature at 12 degrees, and the most hours of sunshine at more than 276, since records began in 1901, according to preliminary estimates by the German Weather Service (DWD).

The lack of rainfall prompted several German states to issue warnings about the risk of forest fires which have hit neighbors Switzerland and Austria.

Drought has hit Hungary's key grain regions and may severely reduce grain and oilseed crops, leading trading firm Agrograin said. "In mid-April the average temperature was 5-6 degrees Celsius higher than usual," said meteorologist Gyorgy Gyuro.

Italy's river Po, which waters the region accounting for one-third of the country's agricultural production, fell on Sunday to 6.53 meters (21 ft 5 in) below its normal level at one control point, having fallen 80 centimeters in a week.

NEW YORK - Growing concern surrounds a new national security threat, an insidious trend that could foster terrorism worldwide and draw our armed forces into messy regional conflicts in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

No, it isn't nuclear proliferation. Nor is it a new brand of religious fundamentalism.

It's global warming.

"Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world," the former military leaders warned in a report released this month by the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit research consultant to the federal government. "The increasing risks from climate change should be addressed now because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay."

Droughts, crop failures and tropical disease epidemics caused by global warming could destabilize already fragile governments in Asia, Latin America and especially Africa, creating the kinds of "failed states" that harbor Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Sea-level rise could scatter refugees by the millions from low-lying countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam, putting stress on both them and their neighbors.

Save your cash register receipts and junk mail. Failing that, go to Al Gore's house and scoot around the rug like a dog.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.

This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050.

"Right now ... the Arctic helps keep the Earth cool," Scambos said in a telephone interview. "Without that Arctic ice, or with much less of it, the Earth will warm much faster."

He discounted the notion that the sharp warming trend in the Arctic might be due to natural climate cycles. "There aren't many periods in history that are this dramatic in terms of natural variability," Scambos said.

He said he had no doubt that this was caused in large part by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which he said was the only thing capable of changing Earth on such a large scale over so many latitudes.

"We just barely now, I think, have enough time and enough collective will to be able to get through this century in good shape, but it means we have to start acting now and in a big way."

The idea is to harvest energy from wind and water turbines and send the power back to shore through cables.

The greatest potential for wind energy is beyond three miles off the coast, outside state territorial waters, said John Clark, a spokesman for the state Energy Office.

While some people may not like to see a field of spinning wind turbines offshore, in Europe, such turbines are tourist attractions, Clark said.

Wave energy converters generate power by capturing the constant up-and-down motion of waves. Moored to the sea floor, the converters bob at the surface, resembling a small fleet of fishing boats.

Another way to generate power is with other turbines located beneath the surface, where steady currents spin propellers.

While the energy is free, getting it to customers is the challenge.

"It's very expensive," said Laura Varn, a spokeswoman for Santee Cooper.

BANGKOK (AFP) - The European Union on Tuesday reiterated its commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions despite the lack of an agreement between the United States and the region over ways to tackle global warming.

The United States is responsible for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, with only some states like California taking initiatives to reduce pollution.

Coral disease outbreaks have struck the healthiest sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and a new study has conclusively linked disease severity to ocean temperature and climate change for the first time.

“With this study, speculation about the impacts of global warming on the spread of infectious disease among susceptible marine species has been brought to an end,” said Don Rice, director of the National Science Foundation’s Chemical Oceanography Program, which helped fund the research.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.

The greatest potential for wind energy is beyond three miles off the coast, outside state territorial waters, said John Clark, a spokesman for the state Energy Office.

too lazy to click the link?

When it comes to global warming, nature's help is limited.

While the continents and oceans have absorbed much of the carbon dioxide that humanity has pumped into the atmosphere so far, they won't be able to keep up with the expected rise in greenhouse-gas emissions over the next several decades.
What this implies is that policy and technological measures to cope with climate change will become even more important.

"We've been getting a free ride from forests and oceans," says Robert Jackson, a Duke University ecologist who heads the southeastern division of the US Department of Energy's National Institute for Climate Change Research. But "I'm not confident – especially as our fossil-fuel emissions continue to grow – that we can rely on natural systems to bail us out of this."

The latest caution about leaning too heavily on natural processes comes from an international team of researchers who have found that the ocean may be far less efficient at storing CO2 at the bottom for long periods of time than previously believed. As a result, models may be overestimating how much long-term carbon storage the oceans will provide.

The group looked at the ocean's "biological pump" in a layer of ocean dubbed the "twilight zone." In the upper layer of ocean – the most studied region – plankton take up CO2 the ocean absorbs from the atmosphere. But much of the carbon gets converted back to CO2 in that layer and is quickly recycled back into the atmosphere. Only about 10 to 20 percent of the carbon in this layer sinks into the twilight zone, which begins some 500 feet below the surface. Using new measuring techniques, the team led by biogeochemist Ken Buesseler from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that only 20 to 50 percent of that carbon makes it to the ocean's bottom for long-term storage.

The team cautions that it sampled only two sites: one off Hawaii and one in the Northwest Pacific. But if the results were averaged over the entire ocean, annual deep storage could be some 3 billion tons less than current estimates suggest, the team concludes in a paper that appears in the current edition of the journal Science,

The picture is somewhat brighter on land. Changing land-use practices to reduce deforestation, especially in the tropics, and encouraging farmers to convert some farmland to forest cover "represent a bridge to the future," says Brian Murray, director of economic analysis for Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. If done right, such efforts could buy perhaps 20 to 30 years' time as policies take hold to reduce humans' carbon footprint, he says.

Still, if emissions continue to rise at their current rates, several studies involving forests and grasslands suggest that these natural systems could become less-efficient "sinks" over time. In essence, these systems become saturated with CO2. "It's not a permanent solution," he says

A new device placed in say, Iceland, could suck up atmospheric carbon dioxide emitted from vehicles as far away as Tokyo, making it a potentially useful tool in battling ever-rising levels of this greenhouse gas.

Which link is it that you are looking for?

BANGKOK, Thailand - 445 was the hot number at this week's climate change conference in Bangkok.

For the United States, China and India, that number — which represents parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — came to symbolize a cap on emissions that would hurt their economies.

European countries, by contrast, used the figure as a rallying cry to save the planet.

At the current rate, the amount of greenhouse gases in the world's atmosphere is expected to hit 450 parts per million within the next three decades — a threshold scientists warn could lead to the melting of glaciers and subsequent submerging of island nations and much of the U.S. East Coast.

Going beyond 450 parts per million means "there's a good chance that we would be committed to the melt of the Greenland ice sheets. While it might take centuries, that would give us five to six (yards) of sea level rise," Mann said. He said that would mean island nations would be lost and much of the U.S. East Coast, one-third of Florida and all of New Orleans "would be submerged."

Much of the worst damage, including droughts, coastal flooding, hunger and global instability, outlined in a report released by the panel last month don't kick in until after greenhouse gas emissions reach 450 parts per million. The world will hit that level in about three decades at the current rate, maybe earlier, Mann said.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Science had a rare victory over politics at this week's UN climate change conference, after a united call for action emerged despite fierce debate over how to best tackle global warming.

Energy Fun Fact #121:

Since their introduction in 1963, over 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens have been sold; each using a 100 watt lightbulb (sometimes two 60 watt bulbs). The total energy consumed by all those ovens? 1.6 BILLION WATTS (i.e. 1.6 GIGAWATTS)! Given a usage of about 1000 kilowatts per month, it would take the average American household over 133 years to consume that much energy!

WASHINGTON (AFP) - From the Niger delta to weather-blighted Somalia and teeming South Asia, global warming poses daunting risks and a knock-on threat to US national security, retired military brass and US senators warned Wednesday.

Higher global temperatures, melting polar ice and rising sea waters endanger millions of people, and the US armed forces must be ready for a new age when strife in volatile regions is multiplied by environmental catastrophe, they said.

"Climate change poses a serious threat to America's national security," said retired admiral and former US ambassador to China Joseph Prueher, one of eleven retired generals and admirals who compiled a recent report on the issue.

"Climate change will exacerbate many of the causes of instability that exist today -- those instabilities are part of the underpinnings of extremism."

Prueher said the US military should start planning now for the new era of environmentally spawned security threats, in the hope of mitigating some of the worst impact.

"A small sea level rise literally measured in inches could displace millions of people ... as they turn around to walk to higher ground, there are also facing more of the most densely populated places on earth."

The committee's top Republican, Senator Dick Lugar, said climate change dangers were allied to the threat to US security from excessive dependency on foreign oil imports.

The United States consumes around a quarter of the world's energy and causes nearly 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

ESBJERG, Denmark (AFP) - Denmark, a world leader in wind energy production and consumption, has built the world's largest offshore wind park in the North Sea as it aims to generate 75 percent of its electricity needs with wind power by 2025.

BEIJING (AFP) - China this year faces its greatest threat in a decade from typhoons, floods, droughts and other extreme weather caused by climate change, state media reported on Thursday.

"The situation is urgent," Zheng Guoguang, China's top meteorologist, was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.

Zheng told a Beijing conference that China also could expect flooding due to heavy rainfalls in the centre of the country along the Yangtze River, China's longest river and a regular source of floods.

Zheng, who heads the China Meteorological Administration, blamed global climate change for the increased risks, the paper said.

The Yangtze's worst flooding in decades occurred in 1998, when at least 3,000 people are estimated to have died and millions were left homeless.

"Temperatures in most areas will be higher this year than in previous years, and typhoons are expected to arrive in larger numbers than last year."

WASHINGTON - Honda (HMC) says it will put a sleek hydrogen fuel-cell sedan into limited production next year and also will sell a unique mass-market hybrid in the USA within two years, priced less than the $25,000 Civic hybrid.

Only about a dozen states have hydrogen fueling stations, and only California has more than a handful. Even if big oil companies are slow to add hydrogen to their menus, industrial-gas suppliers such as Praxair (PX) and Air Products (APD) could step in.

"A market too small to attract the bigs could be plenty big enough to attract the merchant hydrogen companies," says Robert Rose, executive director of the US Fuel Cell Council.

Honda expects the 2008 model will get the gasoline equivalent of 68 miles per gallon in the federal city-highway combined-driving cycle. Hydrogen with the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline sells for $3 to $6. Because fuel-cell cars are much more efficient, the cost per mile is much less than with gasoline.

The carmaker claims a top speed of 100 miles per hour. Prototypes were easily able to hit 75 miles per hour before running out of room on a test course set up in a parking lot at RFK Memorial Stadium here.

Where are they going to fillerup??