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Science Has Found a Brilliant New Use for Your Kitchen Scraps

by Myrna Posted on March 9, 2016

Turns out, dumping compost on grasslands can do a surprising amount for the planet. Steve Russell/The Toronto Star/ZUMA When John Wick and his wife, Peggy Rathmann, bought their 540-acre ranch in 1998, it was in bad shape. Located in California’s Marin County, a windswept region northwest of San Francisco Bay, the land had been worn down by overgrazing; the grass was gone and the soil was degraded. Neither Wick nor Rathmann knew how to fix it because the couple didn’t have any ranching experience—Wick worked in construction management, and Rathmann wrote children’s classics like 10 Minutes till Bedtime and Good Night, Gorilla. So Wick consulted his friend Jeffrey Creque, a rangeland ecology expert. Creque helped Wick repair the soil by bringing back some grass—which gave the two an idea: They knew that in addition to enriching the soil, healthy grass, through photosynthesis, could remove carbon from the atmosphere. So was there a way, they wondered, to grow more grass on Wick’s land and slow global warming at the same time? The theory made sense: Carbon that is absorbed by grass can be stored for hundreds of years in the grass’ roots and surrounding soil—a much better spot for it than in the air, where it warms the planet in the form of carbon dioxide. Carbon-enriched soil, in turn, feeds grass so it can grow taller and suck down even more carbon. In rangelands, this cycle takes place on a massive scale: Between the grass and the soil, a third of the world’s carbon is stored in these expanses. But tilling and overgrazing unleash that carbon. These practices also cause topsoil erosion, which compounds the problem by making it hard for grass to grow. To make matters worse, rangelands are often home to cows, and manure releases methane and nitrous oxide gases into the atmosphere. In fact, livestock are responsible for nearly one-fifth of the globe’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. Read the rest at Mother Jones. Originally posted here –  Science Has Found a Brilliant New Use for Your Kitchen Scraps ; ; ;

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Science Has Found a Brilliant New Use for Your Kitchen Scraps

Posted in Citadel, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, OXO, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Science Has Found a Brilliant New Use for Your Kitchen Scraps

We’ll Always Have Paris

by ShelliHollars Posted on March 9, 2016

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Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up Summary – Ant Hive Media

Made for those who find themselves drowning in clutter, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo is a must have. What makes this book special is that it delivers a whole new approach called the KonMari method when decluttering, arranging and storing items at home. Author, Marie Kondo, is a Japanese cleaning […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

This New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant […]

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Spark Joy – Marie Kondo

Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up  has revolutionized homes—and lives—across the world. Now, Kondo presents an illustrated guide to her acclaimed KonMari Method, with step-by-step folding illustrations for everything from shirts to socks, plus drawings of perfectly organized drawers and closets. She also provides advice on frequently asked questions, such as whether to […]

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Marley & Me – John Grogan

The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Now with photos and new material

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Instaread

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo | Key Takeaways, Analysis & Review  Preview : The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (2011) by Marie Kondo helps readers discard unnecessary items, reorganize their possessions, and properly store items in a home. The procedures Kondo developed for organization […]

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White Dwarf Issue 110: 5th March 2016 (Tablet Edition) – White Dwarf

So, here we are – an insidious alien cult has been uncovered, and White Dwarf 110 is here to drag it kicking and screaming out into the light. We’ve got a special feature on the Genestealer Cults – what are they? How does a whole world fall thrall to such terrifying alien monstrosities? – plus […]

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Trident K9 Warriors – Mike Ritland & Gary Brozek

As Seen on “60 Minutes”! As a Navy SEAL during a combat deployment in Iraq, Mike Ritland saw a military working dog in action and instantly knew he'd found his true calling. Ritland started his own company training and supplying dogs for the SEAL teams, U.S. Government, and Department of Defense. He knew that fewer […]

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America's most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog's Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of […]

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White Dwarf Issue 109: 27th February 2016 (Tablet Edition) – White Dwarf

Suffer not the alien to live! White Dwarf 109 arrives with news of a stunning new boxed game – Deathwatch Overkill, pitting the Space Marines of the Deathwatch against – wait for it – the insidious alien threat of a Genestealer Cult! Yes, that’s right, long before the arrival of the hive fleets, the Genestealers […]

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We’ll Always Have Paris

Posted in eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, OXO, Ringer, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We’ll Always Have Paris

Here’s One Issue Ted Cruz Actually Gets Right

by RMZRachele Posted on February 1, 2016

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And the Democrats get it wrong. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) navigate through an Iowa corn field during a 2013 hunt. Nati Harnik/AP With the Iowa caucuses just a week away, Ted Cruz is duking it out with Donald Trump. But Cruz is also taking a beating from a less well-known opponent: the biofuel industry. Apparently the ethanol folks don’t like Ted Cruz… pic.twitter.com/3OEYBUrOmY — David Biello (@dbiello) January 21, 2016 The problem is Cruz’s stance on the Renewable Fuel Standard, a federal mandate that requires fuels made from corn, sugarcane, and other biological sources to be mixed into the nation’s gasoline supply. The most prominent of these fuels is ethanol made from corn. Cruz wants to abolish the RFS (along with all government mandates and subsidies for energy, including for fossil fuels and renewables). Last week in New Hampshire he described the RFS as yet another way in which the government is “picking winners and losers.” That position sets him apart from the other Iowa front-runners, Republican and Democrat alike. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have both expressed support for the RFS. Trump recently said he wants to increase the mandate. Cruz’s opposition to ethanol mandates puts him in a place you’d never expect to find him: on the right side of a debate about climate change. Cruz’s position could be a major liability in Iowa, where the RFS has become one of the most important corn-related federal programs and is a major fixture in the state’s politics. Iowa produces by far the most corn-based ethanol and thus arguably benefits more than any other state from the RFS. Last week, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) called for Cruz’s defeat in the caucuses, specifically citing Cruz’s “anti-renewable fuel stand.” (Branstad’s son works for the ethanol trade group America’s Renewable Future, the organization in the Twitter photo above.) Last week, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R), a longtime proponent of the RFS, said he agreed with Branstad’s criticism of Cruz. Of course, Iowa Republicans aren’t all single-issue voters, and it remains to be seen how much ethanol will matter to caucus-goers. Still, Cruz’s opposition to ethanol mandates puts him in a place you would never expect to find him: on the right side of a debate about climate change. Throughout the campaign, the Texas senator has been second only to Trump in his outspoken denial of mainstream global warming science. He has repeatedly used his Senate position to espouse blatantly misleading data that purportedly shows global warming stopped two decades ago. In August, he accused climate scientists of “cooking the books” and later told Glenn Beck that at this point climate change activists resemble a “religion.” But on ethanol, Cruz is on the right track. To understand why, let’s back up a bit. At the global climate talks in Paris in December, the United States committed to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. That goal mainly hinges on slashing pollution from coal-fired power plants. But the president’s plan also calls for filling the tanks of the nation’s cars and trucks with ever more fuel made from plants. The same day the Paris talks got underway, the Obama administration increased the requirements of the RFS. The new rules guarantee a growing market for corn-based ethanol, as well as for cutting-edge biofuels made of everything from grass to algae. Only about 5 percent of the country’s transportation fuel currently comes from biofuels (another 3 percent comes from natural gas, and the rest from petroleum). But that small number masks a rapid upward trend: Biofuel’s share has grown fourfold in just the last decade. Roughly 80 percent of that supply comes in the form of corn-based ethanol, production of which has skyrocketed 320 percent over that period. Today, one of every three bushels of corn grown in the United States ends up as ethanol. The remaining volume of biofuels comes largely from imported Brazilian sugarcane ethanol and soy-based biodiesel. A tiny splash comes from so-called “cellulosic” biofuels made from grass, cornhusks, and other nonfood sources (the term refers to lignocellulose, the material that comprises much of the mass of plants). The nation’s love affair with biofuels dates back to the final years of the George W. Bush administration, when Congress passed the current version of the RFS. That law set ambitious long-term targets for biofuels and tasked the Environmental Protection Agency with keeping the industry on pace—hence the new requirements announced in November. When corn ethanol started to take off in the mid-2000s, it was supposed to be an easy climate win, projected to have 20 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions per gallon than petroleum. But real-life experience proved murkier. By 2011, the EPA’s own estimates showed that corn ethanol production resulted in emissions that were anywhere from 6 percent to 66 percent higher than petroleum, depending on the kind of power source used to convert it from a cob into fuel. The original promise of biofuels was based on a basic accounting error, explains Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University and the World Resources Institute. Burning biofuels still produces tailpipe emissions; the climate benefit was supposed to come from the carbon dioxide emissions sucked out of the air as the corn grew. But the EPA’s early estimates assumed that the corn diverted to biofuel wouldn’t be replaced in the food supply. In other words, Searchinger explains, “the offset is that people and livestock eat less.” Instead, the opposite happened: As ethanol boomed and corn prices climbed, farmers in Iowa and elsewhere planted millions of new corn acres, sometimes at the expense of grasslands and forests that did a better job of capturing carbon than rows of corn do. “If you have any amount of land use change to replace the crops, that wipes out the [climate] gain,” Searchinger says. A similar problem arose with soy-based fuels, as soy diverted from cooking oil to biodiesel was largely replaced with palm oil from Southeast Asia. Deforestation to produce palm oil is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Still, some energy analysts remain hopeful about the climate benefits of more advanced, cellulosic biofuels. “Definitely there are lots of environmental problems with corn ethanol, but turning back to oil isn’t the solution either,” says Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Advanced biofuels are an important part of a multipart strategy to cut emissions from the transportation sector.” Today, cellulosic biofuels are still a bit player, though they’re growing quickly; production is expected to double this year. But they’re still lagging far behind the production levels Congress first envisioned when it created the RFS. In 2015, production of cellulosic biofuels was 96 percent below the original target. Behind that delay is a complex blend of factors. The technology needed to produce cellulosic biofuels at an industrial scale took longer to develop than originally anticipated, in part because the EPA was so far behind schedule on its RFS planning that the 2014 requirement wasn’t even announced until 2015. Delays like that have spooked investors, who were left wondering what the future market for cellulosic biofuels would look like. Meanwhile, the 2008 recession led to an across-the-board dip in gasoline consumption, further reducing market opportunities. Cellulosic biofuels have also been crowded out by corn ethanol. Gasoline refiners are only required to mix their product with about 10 percent biofuels (the so-called “blend wall”), and they have fought vigorously against an increase in that requirement, claiming that most car engines aren’t equipped to handle anything more. Ethanol has taken up most of that share, leaving cellulosic biofuels with nowhere to go; new flex-fuel cars that can run on much higher volumes of biofuel are still a small market. “It’s challenging to market biofuels beyond 10 percent at the moment,” Martin said. “That probably more than anything caused the difficulty with how to proceed. Without a solution to the blend wall, that’s a real problem for the cellulosic plants.” One of the most promising developments for cellulosic biofuels is underway just outside Ames, Iowa, where Sarah Palin delivered her rambling endorsement of Trump last week. Here, one of the country’s first commercial cellulosic biofuel plants opened in October with much fanfare, including appearances by Gov. Branstad and Sen. Grassley. The plant, operated by chemical giant DuPont, aims to convert corn “stover” (husks and other nonedible byproducts left in the field) into a fuel that the company claims will have up to 90 percent lower emissions than petroleum. Jan Koninckx, director of biofuels at DuPont, says that after years of false starts his industry is finally poised to deliver, at scale, a biofuel with solid environmental credentials. “This is really the only realistic way in the foreseeable future to substantially decarbonize transportation,” he says. Of course, one of the most promising options for climate-friendly cars might not rely on liquid fuel at all. The market for electric vehicles is growing by leaps and bounds. And according to Searchinger’s research, an acre of solar panels can produce up to 300 times more energy for vehicles than the same acre planted with corn. Using electricity instead of gasoline could drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce America’s dependence on oil imports—without the concerns about land use. “Things that are slightly better than fossil fuels aren’t the solution,” Searchinger says. “You need things that are 100 percent better than fossil fuels.” Right, Senator Cruz?

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Here’s One Issue Ted Cruz Actually Gets Right

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Here’s One Issue Ted Cruz Actually Gets Right

Posted in alo, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, Hagen, LAI, LG, Monterey, ONA, Oster, OXO, PUR, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s One Issue Ted Cruz Actually Gets Right

Explained in 90 Seconds: Why 1.5 Degrees Matters

by BrittneyMyrick6 Posted on December 10, 2015

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Negotiators are pursuing a far more ambitious limit on global warming. But can that really be achieved? Update—December 10, 2015, 4:50 pm ET: Delegates in Paris appear to have agreed on Thursday to “pursue efforts” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)—a target that US negotiators had been pushing for. That’s substantially less warming than the 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) limit that was agreed to in Copenhagen in 2009. Here’s the latest text from Thursday evening’s draft agreement: However, the document also “notes with concern” that the actual actions that countries have so far agreed to take to reduce their emissions fall well short of both the 1.5 degrees C target and the 2 degrees C limit. Original story: The international climate summit in Paris may be getting too ambitious for its own good. There are a lot of numbers flying around at Le Bourget, the modified airport in the northern Paris suburbs where diplomats from around the world are racing toward an unprecedented international agreement to limit climate change. Many of the most important are dollar figures: the need for wealthy countries to raise $100 billion annually to help vulnerable countries deal with climate impacts; promises by the US to double spending on clean energy research and climate adaptation grants for developing countries. But right at the top of the draft agreement is another number that, in the big picture, could be the most important. That’s the overall limit on global temperature increase that the accord is designed to achieve. At the last major climate summit, in 2009 in Copenhagen, world leaders agreed to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, based largely on findings from scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that anything above that level would be totally catastrophic for billions of people around the world, from small island nations to coastal cities such as New York. All the other moving pieces in the agreement, which officials here hope to conclude by late Friday or Saturday, are more or less aimed at achieving that target. It’s the number that is really driving the sense of urgency here, since earlier this year the world crossed the halfway point toward it. In other words, time is running out to keep climate change in check. As the negotiations push into their final hours, something unexpected is unfolding: That target might get actually get even more ambitious. There’s a very good chance, analysts and diplomats say, that the final agreement will call for a limit of 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F)—a crucial half-degree less global warming. Here’s the relevant section of the text; negotiators need to pick one of these options: The US delegation is supporting Option 2, according to an official in the office of Christiana Figueres, the head of the UN agency overseeing the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak to the press about the negotiations. That aligns with the announcement, made yesterday by Secretary of State John Kerry, that the US will join the European Union and dozens of developing countries in the so-called “High Ambition Coalition,” a negotiating bloc that has emerged to push for the strongest outcome on several key points, including the temperature limit. Negotiators in that bloc have realized, the official said, that “if they move the long-term goal further out, it will move politics in the short term closer to where they need to be.” If the 1.5 degrees C target makes it into the final agreement, that would be a massive win for climate activists and delegates from many of the most vulnerable nations, especially the small island nations. Since the 2 degrees C goal was set in Copenhagen, the leaders of low-lying countries like the Marshall Islands and the Maldives have increasingly protested that even that level of warming would essentially guarantee the destruction of their islands. The fact that the US is now backing a more ambitious target is a sign that President Barack Obama is hearing that message, said Mohamed Adow, a Kenyan climate activist with Christian Aid. “Paris is meant to indicate the direction of travel, and the US giving in on this point demonstrates their solidarity,” he said. “You’re talking about a level of warming that we can actually adapt to.” But here’s where things get problematic. There’s a huge difference between including the 1.5 degrees C limit in the agreement, and ensuring that it could actually be met. That’s because other key pieces of the agreement, that could actually make that level of ambition possible, are still far from clear. The biggest obstacle could be the hotly debated “ratchet mechanism,” which would require countries to boost their targets for greenhouse gas reductions over time, and which the US delegation appears to be resisting. The current draft of the text includes language directing countries to provide an update of their progress every five years or so, which would be compiled into a global “stock-take,” a kind of collated update, sometime after 2020. But the enforcement stops there; there’s nothing in the agreement to penalize countries that lag behind or to compel them to boost their ambitions. Yesterday, Kerry offered a confusing take on that problem when he said that in the agreement, “there’s no punishment, no penalty, but there has to be oversight.” Everyone here seems to agree that Paris is only a starting place: Without an incremental ramping-up of climate goals, 2 degrees C—not to mention 1.5—will remain out of reach. The current set of global greenhouse gas reduction targets only limit global warming to roughly 2.7 degrees C (4.9 degrees F). That’s a big gap. “It’s not looking good,” Adow said. “If the US means business, are true to their support, they need to agree to an annual review starting in 2018.” Instead, it seems that the US could be trading a concession on the 1.5 degrees C target for steadfast resistance to increasing its funding for climate adaptation in developing countries. The US is also standing in the way of a “loss and damage” component, which would require heavily polluting countries to compensate countries that have been wracked by climate impacts. Without extra money on the table to invest in clean energy, developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere won’t be able to contribute to the 1.5 degrees C target, said Victor Menotti, executive director of the International Forum on Globalization, a San Francisco-based activist group. “The US is pretty clear they want 1.5,” he said. “The question is what’s going to accompany it, and at what price. They’ll be able to claim climate leadership, but without any means of implementation.” The upshot is that the whole Paris accord risks losing credibility if it comes up with a really ambitious target and no way to reach it. All of these pieces are essential, because even with the best possible outcome in Paris, 1.5 degrees C is going to be really hard to meet, said Guido Schmidt-Traub, executive director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. In a recent report, Schmidt-Traub found that meeting the 2 degrees C limit means ceasing all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2070. And because most coal- and natural gas-fired power plants have multi-decade lifespans, that means we need to start planning to cease building them as soon as possible. “The bottom line is that 2C requires all countries to decarbonize their economy at a very rapid rate, but in our analysis there is some wiggle room,” he said. “If you go to 1.5C, it becomes very hard to have any wiggle room left. This is a very fundamental point that is not being discussed at all in the negotiations.” Master image: A climate activist at the Paris conference calls for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Michel Euler/AP

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Explained in 90 Seconds: Why 1.5 Degrees Matters

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Explained in 90 Seconds: Why 1.5 Degrees Matters

Posted in eco-friendly, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, Hagen, LAI, Monterey, ONA, OXO, PUR, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Explained in 90 Seconds: Why 1.5 Degrees Matters

This Map Shows Where the Next Clean Energy Gold Mine Is

by WallaceHartmann Posted on November 11, 2015

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It’s an area half the size of Rhode Island. Shutterstock The desert in Southern California could be in for a climate-friendly makeover, after the Obama administration released its plans to develop more renewable energy projects on federally owned land. On Tuesday the Interior Department released the final version of a plan that would open up about half a million non-contiguous acres—half the size of Rhode Island—for projects such as wind and solar farms in the Mojave Desert and surrounding areas. It would also more than double the amount of land dedicated to protecting delicate desert ecosystems that are home to vulnerable species, including the desert tortoise. The Mojave Desert, which stretches across most of Southern California, is a potential gold mine for clean energy. Earlier this year, the world’s largest solar farm opened there, near Joshua Tree National Park. According to Interior, the desert and the its surrounding area have the sun and wind potential to support 20,000 megawatts of renewable projects, about equal to the amount of solar energy installed nationwide today. In announcing the plan, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said that public lands will “play a key role” in helping the United States meet its goal of procuring 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources (excluding large hydro dams) by 2030—up from about 7 percent now. But over the past few years, efforts to develop all that potential have sparked clashes between clean energy buffs and conservationists who don’t want to see pristine landscapes blanketed by vast arrays of solar panels. One pioneering project, the Ivanpah Lake solar farm, became a pariah after environmental groups said that it encroached on tortoise habitat and that its sunlight-concentrating panels were blasting superheated rays into birds’ flight paths and killing tens of thousands of them. Subsequent estimates put the death toll much lower, but the Ivanpah controversy underscored just how hard it can be for government planners to find common ground between competing environmental interests. The new plan (finalized in October but made public Tuesday) is meant to clear the air by painstakingly analyzing a 2 million-acre swath of Southern California and offering a comprehensive take on where to focus clean energy development. Scientists and planners from a host of agencies stockpiled research on wildlife, water, agriculture, historic and cultural sites, and other features in an effort to find spots that have high renewable energy potential with minimal environmental impact. In the map below, the pink and red areas are where the Bureau of Land Management recommends that private developers focus their efforts. Orange and blue hatching shows areas proposed for conservation: BLM Anyone who wants to build a wind or solar farm in these areas still has to go through the normal permitting process that any development on public land has to clear. But the plan is meant to help developers avoid headaches by showing them the areas that the feds have already decided are either not ecologically sensitive, or that are already too degraded to worry much about building in. That’s a departure from the previous modus operandi, in which federal officials made case-by-case decisions on each proposed project. “It’s a real change from how BLM has approached renewable energy development in the past,” said Erica Brand, California energy program director at the Nature Conservancy. The agency, she added, is “protecting desert landscapes by directing development to areas that are more degraded.” Similar reviews of private and state-owned land will be released over the next year. And you can bet that there will be plenty of interest from renewable energy companies. California has the country’s most favorable investment climate for renewable energy, according to Ernst & Young, and the state recently adopted the country’s most aggressive renewable energy target: 50 percent of its electricity mix by 2030. That’s up from 20 percent now. “The [Mojave] Desert has some of the most intact natural landscapes in the lower 48,” Brand said. “As we transition to cleaner energy sources, and work to meet our climate goals, we also have to keep those natural resources intact.”

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This Map Shows Where the Next Clean Energy Gold Mine Is

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This Map Shows Where the Next Clean Energy Gold Mine Is

Posted in alo, cannabis, eco-friendly, FF, For Dummies, G & F, GE, green energy, growing marijuana, horticulture, LAI, Monterey, ONA, organic, OXO, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Map Shows Where the Next Clean Energy Gold Mine Is

Tour this DIY aquaponics system made from plywood and no pond liner (Video)

by GloryMendenhall Posted on October 16, 2015

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

This New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant […]

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Baking Soda Bonanza – Peter A. Ciullo

Learn how to soothe sunburns, dry-clean your dog, and perform other household miracles with baking soda Want to relieve your stuffy nose? Make your musty old books smell better? Kill roaches without pesticide? You can do it all with baking soda, and this updated edition of Baking Soda Bonanza shows you how! Cheap, ecologically sound, […]

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Codex: Space Marines (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

The Space Marines are the Angels of Death, humanity’s finest warriors. Clad in the greatest armour and armed with awesomely destructive weapons, they defend the Imperium of Mankind from the alien, the traitor and the daemon. Codex: Space Marines is the most comprehensive guide ever to these superlative warriors. It contains all the rules and […]

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How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit (Tablet Edition) – Games Workshop

The XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit is the last word in strategic stealth combat deployment. Towering over its smaller cousin, the XV25 Stealth Battlesuit, the Ghostkeel is an elite weapons platform that couples the Tau’s signature stealth technology with heavy armour, punishing firepower and exceptional manoeuvrability. Piloted by specially selected veteran Stealth Suit pilots, each Ghostkeel is […]

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White Dwarf Issue 89: 10th October 2015 (Tablet Edition) – White Dwarf

White Dwarf 89 drops its stealth fields and blasts into view – and with it, the Tau Empire XV95 Ghostkeel, a new, bigger and even deadlier Tau stealth suit. We’ve got the complete lowdown, including Paint Splatter and full rules for this deadly new alien threat. Not only that, but we’ve also got an exclusive […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis – Instaread

PLEASE NOTE: This is a  summary and analysis  of the book and NOT the original book.  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis   Inside this Instaread: Summary of entire book, Introduction to the important people in the book, Key Takeaways and Analysis of the Key Takeaways. […]

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White Dwarf Issue 88: 03rd October 2015 (Tablet Edition) – White Dwarf

White Dwarf 88 locks on and takes aim with the new Tau Empire KV128 Stormsurge! The latest in Tau battlefield innovation, the Stormsurge is a hulking ballistic suit bigger than anything the nascent Tau Empire has unleashed before. We’ve got a first look, Paint Splatter, Sprues and Glue and full rules – not to mention […]

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America's most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog's Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of […]

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Trident K9 Warriors – Mike Ritland & Gary Brozek

As Seen on “60 Minutes”! As a Navy SEAL during a combat deployment in Iraq, Mike Ritland saw a military working dog in action and instantly knew he'd found his true calling. Ritland started his own company training and supplying dogs for the SEAL teams, U.S. Government, and Department of Defense. He knew that fewer […]

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Tour this DIY aquaponics system made from plywood and no pond liner (Video)

Posted in alo, aquaponics, Citadel, Dolphin, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, hydroponics, Monterey, ONA, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tour this DIY aquaponics system made from plywood and no pond liner (Video)

How Top GOP Donors Got Jeb Bush to Facilitate a Hurricane Katrina Cruise-Ship Boondoggle

by Myrna Posted on August 28, 2015

A quarter billion dollars later, the ships sat half empty. Then Florida Gov. Jeb Bush visits the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center the Friday after Hurricane Katrina passed through in August, 2005. Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post/ZUMA Trailing Donald Trump in the polls by a widening margin, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is trying to use the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday to highlight his successes in crisis response. On Tuesday, his presidential campaign released a two-minute ad promoting Bush’s handling of hurricanes as governor. Bush has been widely praised for his response to Katrina, in contrast with the criticism his brother, George W. Bush, faced as president in addressing the disaster. But one thing Jeb Bush is not likely to mention on the anniversary is how he helped Carnival Cruise Lines—via a major GOP donor—land a quarter-billion-dollar federal contract to house people displaced by the hurricane. The fast-tracked contract sent $236 million to the Florida-based cruise company, but the ships sat half empty for weeks, according to the Associated Press, which wrote in 2006 that the deal “has been criticized by lawmakers of both parties as a prime example of wasted spending in Hurricane Katrina-related contracts.” Read the rest at Mother Jones. Original link –  How Top GOP Donors Got Jeb Bush to Facilitate a Hurricane Katrina Cruise-Ship Boondoggle ; ; ;

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How Top GOP Donors Got Jeb Bush to Facilitate a Hurricane Katrina Cruise-Ship Boondoggle

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Washington Is Finally Getting What It Deserves as It Sinks Into The Sea

by Myrna Posted on July 30, 2015

Mother Nature has a great sense of humor. Orhan Cam/Shutterstock New research indicates that Washington, D.C., is rapidly sinking into the ocean, news that might not make the rest of the country all that sad. The research, from the University of Vermont, the U.S. Geological Survey and several other institutions, projects the land beneath the Washington area will drop 6 or more inches in the next 100 years. That’s in addition to rising sea levels due to climate change, which is melting ice sheets and causing thermal expansion of the oceans. Climate change has already caused 8 inches of sea level rise since 1880, and is expected to raise average global sea levels another 1 to 4 feet by the end of this century. Relative sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay region is happening faster than any other part of the Atlantic coast, according to tidal records, and twice as fast as global averages. Read the rest at The Huffington Post. View this article:   Washington Is Finally Getting What It Deserves as It Sinks Into The Sea ; ; ;

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Washington Is Finally Getting What It Deserves as It Sinks Into The Sea

Posted in eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, OXO, solar, solar power, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Washington Is Finally Getting What It Deserves as It Sinks Into The Sea

Weed Growers Are a Drag on Denver’s Energy Supply

by Myrna Posted on July 9, 2015

The flowering reefer industry is sucking up energy, and the city has no efficiency plans in place to mitigate the problem. Bruce Stanfield/Shutterstock Since states like California, Washington, and Colorado have adopted laws allowing for the legal growth and sale of marijuana, a new reefer madness has taken shape. In some areas, the bud industry has been credited for performing “economic miracles.” In others, it’s to blame for everything from pollution and deforestation to water shortages. And while it has been touted as a possible gateway to reducing racial arrest disparities, that has not been the case so far in Colorado. Charge another social problem to the weed game: It’s getting too high on cities’ energy supply. At least that’s the case in Denver, where the recreational marijuana industry is reportedly sucking up more of the city’s electricity than it may have bargained for. Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational weed use in 2012, and the commercial industry has grown exponentially ever since. But that blooming market has placed a huge burden on the grid that distributes electricity throughout the state, particularly in Denver, where the largest cluster of growing facilities exist. The city’s 354 weed-cultivation facilities sucked up 200 million kilowatts of electricity last year, up from 86 million at 351 facilities in 2012, according to The Denver Post. Read the rest at CityLab. Visit source: Weed Growers Are a Drag on Denver’s Energy Supply

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Weed Growers Are a Drag on Denver’s Energy Supply

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Canada Warns: "Goldfish the Size of Dinner Plates Are Multiplying Like Bunnies"

by Eleanor60D Posted on June 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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A Fish Out of Water was one of my favorite childhood books. A boy buys a goldfish and is warned not to feed him too much. But he does, and the goldfish outgrows his tank. Then he outgrows a flower vase. Then he outgrows the bathtub. Then he outgrows the swimming pool. Finally, the owner of the shop comes to the rescue and gets the fish back to its normal size. The boy promises never to overfeed his fish again. Lesson learned: listen to your elders. The End.

Except….what if this was more than just a charming kids’ book? Could it actually have been a premonition of 21st century ecological disaster? What if there really were gigantic goldfish out there rampaging through our lakes and ponds?

If you have a goldfish, and you are kind of over that goldfish, to the point where you are now wondering whether it might be best to set that goldfish free, please rethink that decision. That’s the request from the Alberta government, which is trying to get Canadians to refrain from dumping out their fish tanks into ponds. Because those ponds are filling up with those discarded goldfish, which are getting really, really big in the wild.

Or, as the CBC notes: “Goldfish the size of dinner plates are multiplying like bunnies.”

If it can happen in Canada, it can happen in America. You have been warned.

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Canada Warns: "Goldfish the Size of Dinner Plates Are Multiplying Like Bunnies"

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