How to Find the Right LED Bulb
Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized
Tagged eco-friendly tips, green, Ona, technology
Comments Off on How to Find the Right LED Bulb
Author Archives: LucasHarbin
Obamacare is a Done Deal
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
Ezra Klein gives us a progress report on Obamacare:
A spin through HealthCare.Gov this morning went smoothly. The site loaded quickly. The process progressed easily. There were no error messages or endless hangs….My experience isn’t rare. There are increasing reports that HealthCare.Gov is working better — perhaps much better — for consumers than it was a few short weeks ago. “Consumer advocates say it is becoming easier for people to sign up for coverage,” report Sandhya Somashekhar and Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post.
….Reports from inside the health care bureaucracy are also turning towards optimism. People who knew the Web site was going to be a mess on Oct. 1st are, for the first time, beginning to think HealthCare.Gov might work….The Obama administration is certainly acting like they believe the site has turned the corner. Somashekhar and Goldstein report that they’re “moving on to the outreach phase, which had taken a back seat as they grappled with the faulty Web site.
….It’s clear that HealthCare.Gov is improving — and, at this point, it’s improving reasonably quickly. It won’t work perfectly by the end of November but it might well work tolerably early in December. A political system that’s become overwhelmingly oriented towards pessimism on Obamacare will have to adjust as the system’s technological infrastructure improves.
I think the best translation of that last sentence is, “Republicans will soon have to find something else to gripe about.” But it won’t work. Conservatives have always known that once Obamacare is up and running, it will become a popular program that’s impossible to repeal. That’s one of the reasons they’ve been so frantic to stop it before January 1. And they’ve been right about this. People respond far more passionately to the prospect of losing something than they do to gaining something, and once they have Obamacare they’ll fight to keep it. In a few months, it will be nearly as enshrined in the American social welfare firmament as Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans have run out of time, and they know it. Their fixation on Obamacare already looks sort of balmy—this weekend’s deal with Iran was designed to draw attention away from Obamacare? Seriously?—and it’s only going to look loopier as time goes by. Getting Obamacare to the end zone wasn’t easy, and Obama almost fumbled the ball at the one-yard line, but he’s finally won. There’s nothing left for conservatives to do. Love it or hate it, Obamacare is here to stay.
Continue reading:
Look who’s eating your plastic now: A whole unprecedented ecosystem
Look who’s eating your plastic now: A whole unprecedented ecosystem
Environmental Science and TechnologyYum, plastic.
We already knew that barnacles, lanternfish, and whales have been gobbling up plastic. It turns out that the problem is even bigger than we thought — because it is much, much smaller. Welcome to the “plastisphere,” the tiny plastic-based ecosystem developing within the world’s oceans.
The alien-sounding title is fitting, as scientists have found more than 1,000 species of microbes living there, some of which still have not been identified. The group of organisms supported by the plastic was significantly different from, and much more diverse than, other microbial communities in the ocean, suggesting that the plastic particles are providing a haven for microbes that otherwise might not survive, or even arise in the first place.
The study, done by a team in Woods Hole, Mass., took a high-resolution look at plastic particles between 1 and 5 millimeters in size (I believe the unscientific term is “itty bitty specks”). The critters camped out on them are even tinier, but taken together act as a full-blown ecosystem, not unlike a coral reef. Plant-like microbes cluster at the giving end of the food chain while other, animal-like microbes feed on them, and on each other. There are even decomposers and a few synergistic microbes getting along like Disney woodland creatures.
How big a deal is it to discover a new ecosystem developing in the middle of an old one? (An old one which supports about a billion people, that is.) The answer is that no one knows quite yet. Still, it is pretty likely that this new microbial cocktail (yum!) will alter the ocean ecosystem in some larger way.
One very interesting but very hypothetical possibility proposed by the Woods Hole team is that some of these microbes may actually be cleaning up the plastic for us, since they were found hunkered down in ‘pits’ on the surface of the plastic particles. If these microbes can degrade petroleum-based materials, that could be an explanation for why the level of plastic debris in the ocean has appeared relatively stable for the last 22 years.
Gee, wouldn’t it be great if the alien lifeforms of the plastisphere could just go all-you-can eat on the mess we have made? Unfortunately, the plastic raft of microbes also could also potentially serve as a vector for harmful pathogens, since plastic can travel much farther on ocean currents than other materials. Researchers found one genus of bacteria called Vibrio, a few species of which are associated with fun gastrointestinal diseases like cholera, which normally cannot survive in the open ocean. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if the plastisphere ends up being more like Alien or Wall-E.
Source
The “Plastisphere:” A new marine ecosystem, Smithsonian Ocean Blog
New life discovered growing on plastic waste dubbed the ‘plastisphere’, ABC Environment
Amelia Urry is Grist’s intern.
Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy
This article:
Look who’s eating your plastic now: A whole unprecedented ecosystem
Nebraska is a loser in the wind-energy boom
Nebraska is a loser in the wind-energy boom
It’s hard to find anywhere in America that’s windier than Nebraska, where sweeping flat lands offer little to break up the gusts. So why isn’t the state dotted with turbines?
The AP reports that the Cornhusker State is the nation’s third windiest state, yet it ranks 26th in wind-energy generation. It trails neighboring Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas in producing wind power.
But some state lawmakers and officials are trying to do something about that. From the AP article:
Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha said he’s considering wind-energy legislation next year that would provide a tax credit to wind farms, similar to one offered by the federal government and other states.
“The state still has a considerable way to go to become a truly wind-friendly state,” Mello said. “I’m trying to work now to see what can be done with my existing bill to help make Nebraska more competitive.” …
Earlier this month, the Omaha Public Power District said it would buy 400 megawatts of power from a wind farm being built near O’Neill, in northeast Nebraska. The utility’s board voted to approve a 20-year contract for the electricity, which is enough to supply power to 118,000 customers. The utility currently serves about 350,000 customers in and around Omaha.
Lawmakers approved a bill last year that extended new sales-tax exemptions to wind-energy companies, and shelved another bill that would have made it easier for firms to qualify through an existing state program.
Here’s hoping the talk from Mello and his colleagues amounts to more than just hot air.
Source
Nebraska lawmakers look again at wind energy, Associated Press
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.
Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology
,
Source –
Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, wind energy, wind power
Tagged america, climate & energy, facebook, g & f, kansas, nebraska, power, south, state, wind power
Comments Off on Nebraska is a loser in the wind-energy boom
