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Codex: Eldar is your comprehensive guide to wielding the deadly warhosts of the Craftworld Eldar upon the battlefields of the 41 st Millennium. This volume details the craftworlds of the Eldar, and the different types of army they field. The Eldar embody excellence in the arts of war, from their psychic might to their deadly aircraft, and their ranks co […]
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Codex: Inquisition – Games Workshop
The Inquisition is the most powerful organisation within the Imperium. Bound by no Imperial law or authority, its agents – Inquisitors – operate in a highly secretive manner and answer only to themselves. Inquisitors use whatever means are necessary in order to safeguard the Imperium from heretics, mutants and aliens. It is not without good reason that Inqui […]
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Codex: Inquisition (eBook Edition) – Games Workshop
The Inquisition is the most powerful organisation within the Imperium. Bound by no Imperial law or authority, its agents – Inquisitors – operate in a highly secretive manner and answer only to themselves. Inquisitors use whatever means are necessary in order to safeguard the Imperium from heretics, mutants and aliens. It is not without good reason that Inqui […]
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Codex: Space Marines (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop
The Space Marines are the chosen warriors of the Emperor, and the greatest fighting force of the Imperium. Each Space Marine is a genetically enhanced super soldier, easily a match for a dozen lesser men, armed with some of the deadliest weapons in the galaxy and encased in formidable power armour. This codex explores the formations and Chapters of the Space […]
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Duct Tape Your Heart Out! – Leisure Arts & Patti Wallenfang
With today’s colorful duct tape and the fun projects in this book, you can craft to your heart’s content! Dress up school stuff and rain gear, make hip headphones and a purse or wallet, give new life to old shoes, bend covered coax cable into wall art words, and create unique jewelry to share with friends. These ideas are irresistible! Step-by-step photos an […]
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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, says, “Yes, […]
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Codex: Adepta Sororitas – Games Workshop
The Adepta Sororitas, also known as the Sisters of Battle, are an elite sisterhood of warriors raised from infancy to adore the Emperor of Mankind. Their fanatical devotion and unwavering purity is a bulwark against corruption, heresy and alien attack, and once battle has been joined they will stop at nothing until their enemies are utterly crushed In this b […]
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Paracord Fusion Ties – Volume 2 – J.D. Lenzen
Paracord Fusion Ties – Volume 2 (PFT-V2) is the second installment in the paracord fusion ties book series and another stunning achievement by author J.D. Lenzen. Like Paracord Fusion Ties – Volume 1, PFT-V2 reveals innovative and stylish ways of storing paracord for later use. So once again you’ll find crisp, clear, full-color photographs (over 1,000 i […]
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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 German shepherds and as t […]
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Warhammer 40,000: The Rules – Games Workshop
There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only WAR. In the nightmare future of the 41st Millennium, Mankind teeters upon the brink of destruction. The galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man is beset on all sides by ravening aliens and threatened from within by Warp-spawned entities and heretical plots. Only the strength of the immortal […]
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In testimony prepared for delivery in court next week, Steven Donziger is as defiant as ever, even as he acknowledges mistakes. Source article: Lawyer Concedes Mistakes in Chevron Case Related Articles A Recharging Industry Rises Electric Cars Give Rise to a Recharging Industry Dot Earth Blog: The Poverty and Population Factors Behind Vast Typhoon Losses
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Joe Whitworth is a freshwater conservation geek. That doesn’t mean he can’t see that eco-activism is a failed business. He’s also committed to massive eco-change. Source article: The state of water in America? It sucks, says activitst Whitworth ; ;Related ArticlesOregon activists push for food instead of grass from farmersConvincing grass seed farmers to grow staple foods insteadChina and the Soybean Challenge ;
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The state of water in America? It sucks, says activitst Whitworth
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It’s hard to comprehend the scale of the disaster in the Philippines, where a massive typhoon may have killed more than 10,000 people. But climate delegates who have gathered today in Warsaw, Poland, for a fresh round of U.N. climate talks will need to do just that.
The Philippines is a densely populated, low-lying archipelago state that sits in warm Pacific Ocean waters — and warm ocean waters tend to produce vicious tropical storms. The country’s geography puts its islands in the path of frequent typhoons (typhoon is the local word — Americans call such storms hurricanes and others refer to them as cyclones). The Philippines’ low and unequally distributed national wealth, meanwhile, leaves its populace highly vulnerable to them.
And in terrible news for Filipinos, climate models show that global warming is making typhoons even more powerful.
Meteorologists have blamed a rise in water temperatures of nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit and other weather conditions last week for stirring up Typhoon Haiyan, which grew to become one of the most damaging storms in world history. Here’s a high-level account of the devastation from Reuters:
“The situation is bad, the devastation has been significant. In some cases the devastation has been total,” Secretary to the Cabinet Rene Almendras told a news conference.
The United Nations said officials in Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the storm on Friday, had reported one mass grave of 300-500 bodies. More than 600,000 people were displaced by the storm across the country and some have no access to food, water, or medicine, the U.N. says. …
Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded, is estimated to have destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of structures in its path.
Officials from the Philippines are blaming climate change for the ferocity of Typhoon Haiyan, and demanding that climate negotiators get serious in Warsaw.
Though climate scientists aren’t ready to attribute the blame quite so directly, there is mounting evidence that climate change is making storms like Haiyan worse. As we’ve explained, the oceans are absorbing much of the extra heat that’s being trapped on Earth by greenhouse gases, which is helping to stoke more powerful tropical storms. Ben Adler recently reported on the results of a study in Indonesia, just south of the Philippines, which found that local ocean waters were warming at a historically unprecedented rate.
“What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness,” said Naderev “Yeb” Saño, lead negotiator for the Philippines at the climate talks. “The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw. Typhoons such as Haiyan and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to procrastinate on climate action.”
Saño told Responding to Climate Change how the storm had affected his family:
[Saño] spent much of Friday and Saturday wondering if his family had survived Typhoon Haiyan …
“The first message I got from my brother was short, to say he was alive,” he says. “The second was that he had been burying dead friends, relatives and strangers. He said with his own two hands he had piled up close to 40 dead people.”
Sano’s family hails from the part of the Philippines eastern seaboard where the typhoon made landfall, smashing into his father’s hometown.
“I really fear that a lot of my relatives may have suffered tremendously, if they survived at all,” he adds.
This is not the first time Saño has warned the world that it must take action to prevent super-storms from devastating his country and so many others. At the 2012 U.N. climate talks in Doha, Qatar, he broke down in tears during his address, linking climate change to Typhoon Bopha, which killed hundreds of people in his country late last year.
“[W]e have never had a typhoon like Bopha, which has wreaked havoc in a part of the country that has never seen a storm like this in half a century. And heartbreaking tragedies like this is not unique to the Philippines, because the whole world, especially developing countries struggling to address poverty and achieve social and human development, confront these same realities. …
I appeal to the whole world, I appeal to the leaders from all over the world, to open our eyes to the stark reality that we face. I appeal to ministers. The outcome of our work is not about what our political masters want. It is about what is demanded of us by 7 billion people.”
We told you on Friday that climate delegates representing poor and developing countries are begging wealthy countries for financial help — not just for help in reducing their carbon emissions, but also for help in dealing with crazy weather that’s already happening. They say they can’t afford to do it alone, and many of them feel that their countries shouldn’t have to, since the rich nations of the world have pumped so much of the excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Rich countries have pledged to provide $100 billion in annual climate assistance starting in 2020 via the Green Climate Fund, but they’ve contributed very little so far. “We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt,” Saño said. And some delegations in Warsaw are seeking more funding still, to compensate developing countries for the damage caused by climate disasters.
If wealthy nations don’t come through with significant funding, hopes of meaningful global climate cooperation could be doomed. And if the world doesn’t cooperate on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions will keep spiraling up, pushing global average temperatures up more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial times. That would not only mean worse typhoons for the developing world — it would mean worse hurricanes, droughts, fires, and floods in the U.S. and across the world.
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: Climate & Energy
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To slow climate change and protect the world’s vulnerable poor from the effects of global warming, the West is going to have to give developing nations a hand. And that hand will need to come in the form of cold, hard cash.
Unfortunately, not a lot of that is on offer right now. That fact will take center stage during international climate talks in Poland over the next two weeks.
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s next Conference of the Parties, commonly known as a COP, begins Monday in Warsaw. Officials representing nearly 200 countries will bicker and beg as they try to move forward in the quest for a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol. That deal was struck way back in 1997. The U.S. never ratified it, Canada ultimately walked away from it, and the agreement expired last year. It’s been sticky-taped together through amendments to extend its life until a new agreement can be reached.
During COP talks in Durban, South Africa, in 2011, delegates struck a deal to strike a deal: They agreed to finalize an agreement by 2015 to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The new agreement would cap warming at 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 Fahrenheit) and begin to take force in 2020 — and that’s under a best-case scenario. Which is also a horrible-case scenario, given that the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise every year.
The issue of equity is always one of the biggest sticking points in U.N. climate talks. How much should rich countries sacrifice and how much should developing countries sacrifice as they try to curb emissions together? It was during the talks in Durban that a solution to this conundrum was concocted: Rich countries would provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to the warming world.
Guess how that’s going.
So far, the Green Climate Fund is nearly as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard: It has received $7.5 million to spread around to the entire developing world. Not only that, but some developed countries are starting to hem and haw about whether they should even contribute to the fund. At a conference held ahead of the Warsaw talks, a British representative suggested that businesses could be more involved and that the agreement could be more of a private-public-partnership type thing, as Responding to Climate Change reports:
“I believe we need a new business partnership to tackle climate change, that does so with its eyes wide open, mindful of the costs and careful to catch the opportunities,” [said Greg Barker, minister of state for energy and climate change in the U.K.].
“We can only decarbonise the economy if business comes with us, as an active participant, and at least cost for consumers.”
But others expressed doubt that this system was an adequate response to the urgency of climate change, and urged the UN to push for a more top-down approach in order to mobilise the level of action needed.
The Green Climate Fund is a really big deal for the developing world. If it slumps, so too could hopes of worldwide cooperation on climate change.
($100 billion a year sounds like a lot of money, but compare that with the $500 billion a year that the world’s richest countries are spending on fossil fuel subsidies every year.)
India is a developing country that recently overtook Russia to become the world’s fourth-largest climate polluter — after China, the U.S., and the European Union. Just ask that country how cooperative it will be in curbing emissions from its fast-growing economy if the climate fund remains unfunded. Of course, you can’t ask an entire nation a question — let alone one that is home to 1.2 billion people speaking a cacophony of languages. But The Hindu newspaper found the right Indian to ask. Here’s what the country’s environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, hopes to see at the Warsaw meetings:
The most important milestone would be climate finance and capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which has not happened at all. Developed countries that made a commitment earlier have now started talking of alternative sources of funding. Whereas in our view these are commitments of the parties to the COP. While others and alternate sources need not be excluded, I think the fundamental commitment is the provision of finance.
In other words, “show us the money.” It’s a call that many developing countries are making as we head into next week’s talks.
Thomson Reuters Foundation reports on another financial issue that will be front and center at the conference:
Developing countries and climate experts are calling for U.N. climate talks, which begin in Warsaw on Monday, to set up an international mechanism to deal with losses and damage linked to climate change, which a new report says are already harming vulnerable people.
The question of whether to establish a new global body was controversial at last year’s negotiations in Doha, with richer nations fearing it could be used to make them pay compensation for the consequences of their planet-warming emissions to poorer countries suffering the worst impacts of more extreme weather and rising seas.
After fierce last-minute wrangling, it was agreed the upcoming 2013 climate conference in Poland would “establish … institutional arrangements, such as an international mechanism … to address loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”.
Quamrul Chowdhury, a lead negotiator for the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), told Thomson Reuters Foundation creating a mechanism is of “paramount importance” at the Nov. 11-22 Warsaw talks.
The world’s poor countries couldn’t be more clear: Rich countries started this problem, they say, and rich countries can best afford to fix it. It’s time to cough up the money. The next two weeks should provide a hint as to whether that is ever likely to happen.
Source
Warsaw climate talks expected to deliver loss and damage mechanism, Thomson Reuters Foundation
‘India is not a nay-sayer on climate change’, The Hindu
UN climate chief underlines Green Climate Fund concerns, Responding to Climate Change
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.
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An afternoon searching recent US patents pulls up some curious climate solutions. Forget YouTube as your go-to 3:00 pm internet distraction. For me, it’s the US patent office website. There is some seriously wild stuff being invented by your fellow citizens, not least in the area of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Here are a few of my favorite climate-related patents issued recently by the office. (I’ve added a little color to the design sketches): Golf courses are hardly known for being paragons of environmentally friendly land use. They use a massive amount of water and have been found to be net carbon emitters, mainly due to land-clearing. But—phew!—there could soon be a way to shuck that green guilt and keep on swinging. These carbon dioxide-absorbing golf balls, invented by the golf team at Nike, are intended to “reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to aid in alleviating global warming,” by enabling the ”golf ball itself to play a role in the fight against global warming.” (You can’t make this stuff up). Additionally, the Nike inventors claim this is the first time a golf ball itself has attempted to off-set carbon consumed during its manufacture. Here’s how it works: When you hit the ball, little bits of its surface layer deform and set off a chemical chain reaction that absorbs carbon dioxide as the ball flies through the air. The more times you swing, the greater the surface area exposed to the internal reactions. So, if you’re anything like me, and you need to hit the ball an embarrassing number of times, comfort yourself with the knowledge you’re doing more to save the world more than your pro golf buddies (except all my balls end up in the water). At the end of the game, according to the patent, you’ll be able to see how much carbon you’ve sequestered using a visual indicator on the side of the ball. Golfing sure beats hammering out a broad international agreement to reduce carbon. But sorry to spike your high: The inventors admit the golf ball could “at best be only carbon neutral, and is not capable of reducing the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” Damn. Really? (After several attempts to organize an interview with the Portland-based inventor Chia-Chyi Cheng, Nike told me the company doesn’t talk to the media about their numerous inventions or patents). Verdict: Cool science! But don’t expect President Obama to start arguing his golf days are saving the planet. We learned last month that average summer temperatures in parts of the Arctic during the past 100 years are hotter than they have been for possibly as long as 120,000 years. And the Arctic recently registered the sixth lowest summer sea ice minimum on record. Why don’t we just replace all that melting ice? That’s the idea behind this recently published patent for artificial ice. According to the filing, an ”ice” substrate would be dropped onto the surface of an ocean or a lake and left there to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere using a 3-corner retro reflector surface (the same technology used by street signs). Meanwhile, nutrients sown on the underside would encourage algae to grow for biofuel production. Algae is a proven energy source. In February 2012, President Obama announced the Department of Energy would allocate $14 million in new funding to develop transportation fuels from algae. “It seemed like a two-fer to me,” says inventor and engineer Phillip Langhorst from St. Louis, Missouri. ”In order to solve global warming we’re going to have to do something on an insanely huge scale. And this is the only thing I’ve seen that’s big enough.” A few weeks after putting the ice on the water, a ship would come along, scrape the algae off and reapply the necessary nutrients. “I need help, obviously, to see if this is a viable scheme,” he says, although he admits most companies he approaches balk at the idea. But he argues that facing the realities and costs of big geo-engineering projects like this is becoming increasingly necessary, in lieu of putting a price on carbon: ”Pick your poison, you know,” he says. ”My goal is not so much to patent this and make a billion dollars off of it; it’s to solve the global warming issue so we all don’t have to move to Saskatchewan.” Verdict: Please, can’t we stop the real ice from melting? Imagine this scenario in the not-too-distant future: Your car has iced over in one of the many more extreme storms of a climate-changed world. It takes too long—and too much gas—to de-ice the car. Moreover, the engines in energy-efficient and electric cars mean there is less “waste heat” in the system that’s available for the purpose of traditional defrosting techniques. A new defrosting system may just become the must-have for winter drivers, according to this patent for a “windshield washer fluid heater and system,” which attempts to defrost within seconds, not minutes. It may even, according to the language of the patent, reduce “energy dependence on foreign oil.” That actually isn’t too lofty a claim when you look at the auto industry roaring back to life. Since 2009, car production has nearly doubled; in July, US car and light-truck sales ran at an annualized pace of 15.8 million, up more than a million from the previous year. Any fuel savings count. The invention passes engine heat that already exists through a new heat exchanger. Upon flicking the washer/wiper switch, washer fluid heats in a special new heater in a matter of seconds, and finally sprays out nozzles integrated into the wiper blades of the car, delivering a “continuous on-demand heated fluid deicing and cleaning action to the windshield and wiper blades.” “This is so much more effective in clearing the windshield, because a traditional system needs to warm up 30-40 pounds of windshield glass before it can get to the outside ice,” which requires a lot of energy, says Jere Lansinger, a 74-year-old retired automotive engineer and inventor. A 40-year veteran of the industry in Detroit, Lansinger used to test defrosting systems to ensure they met the federal standard for safe driving: around 30 minutes for a clear windshield. “And 30 minutes is a terribly long time when you want to get moving in the morning.” So for the last 20 years he’s been tinkering on this invention in his garage. Now the defrost time is under a minute, he says. Lansinger has commercial interest already. The invention has been bought by TSM Corporation, Michigan, and is being developed as a product called QuikTherm, which the company says is currently being tested at several North American automotive parts manufacturers. And that’s enormously gratifying for Lansinger. “Frankly it makes me feel better than any big royalties I’ll get.” Verdict: A neat fuel-efficiency measure I’ve never thought about. And nothing’s worse than de-icing your car. This might be my favorite for its simplicity: A portable power station that can be off-loaded from a trailer, unfolded, put up anywhere there’s sun or wind, and switched on. In the picture here, it’s being used to charge a car. But it can power anything it likes. “I was tickled to death,” says Lynn Miller, the inventor from Crossville, Tennessee, about the day he was granted the patent, which he’s been working on for over three years. He’s now spent over $20,000 on the idea and is looking forward to getting a prototype up and running in the new year. For Miller, it’s all about simplicity and reducing costs for the consumer. ”We’d bring it out in the morning, and in the afternoon it’s working. It’s a plug-and play-system,” he says. He also likes the idea that having one of these in the company parking lot, or by the side of the road, gives ultimate green bragging rights: ”It’s very visible, it reminds people day-in, day-out that you’re environmental.” Miller’s plan is to also set up the portable power stations at schools and colleges to demonstrate the benefits of renewable energy. ”It’s not just book knowledge, this can be turned into a classroom.” Verdict: I want one.
Read more:
Carbon-Sucking Golf Balls And Other Crazy Climate Patents
Inside the Military’s Clean-Energy Revolution
Dot Earth Blog: Is the Internet Good for the Climate?
Is the Internet Good for the Climate?
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CHARTS: US Carbon Emissions Are Dropping
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