Solar car finishes first round-the-world trip

Vehicle, developed by scientists at Swiss universities, known as 'solar taxi'

POZNAN, Poland - The first solar-powered car to travel around the world ended its journey at the U.N. climate talks Thursday, arriving with the message that clean technologies are available now to stop global warming.

The small two-seater, hauling a trailer of solar cells and carrying chief U.N. climate official Yvo de Boer, glided up to a building in Poznan, Poland, where delegates from some 190 nations are working toward a new treaty to control climate change.

"This is the first time in history that a solar-powered car has traveled all the way around the world without using a single drop of petrol," said Louis Palmer, the 36-year-old Swiss schoolteacher and adventurer who made the trip.

"These new technologies are ready," he said. "It's ecological, it's economical, it is absolutely reliable. We can stop global warning."

Palmer's appearance at the conference marked the end of a 32,000-mile journey that began 17 months ago in Lucerne, Switzerland, and took him through 38 countries.

'Runs like a Swiss clock'
The car, which runs noiselessly, can travel up to 55 mph and covers 185 miles on a fully charged battery.

Palmer said he lost only two days to breakdowns during the journey.

"This car runs like a Swiss clock," he said.

He calls his vehicle, which was developed by scientists at Swiss universities, a "solar taxi" because he has given rides to about 1,000 people — officials and regular folk alike — to convince them of the technology's viability.

Passengers have included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Delegates in Poznan are seeking an ambitious new climate treaty that would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and has required that 37 countries slash emissions of heat-trapping gases by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels.

The goal is for the new treaty to be finalized at the next U.N. climate meeting in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"Here at the conference, we are talking about reducing emissions by 10 or 20 percent," Palmer said. "I want to show that we can reduce emissions by 100 percent — and that's what we need for the future."

Talk about Water pollution

Water is typically referred to as polluted when it is impaired by anthropogenic contaminants and either does not support a human use, like serving as drinking water, or undergoes a marked shift in its ability to support its constituent biotic communities, such as fish. Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms, and earthquakes also cause major changes in water quality and the ecological status of water. Water pollution has many causes and characteristics.

Water pollution categories

Surface water and groundwater have often been studied and managed as separate resources, although they are interrelated.[1] Sources of surface water pollution are generally grouped into two categories based on their origin.


Point source pollution
Point source pollution refers to contaminants that enter a waterway through a discrete conveyance, such as a pipe or ditch. Examples of sources in this category include discharges from a sewage treatment plant or a factory, or a leaking underground storage tank. The U.S. Clean Water Act (CWA) defines point source for regulatory enforcement purposes.


Non-point source pollution
Non-point source (NPS) pollution refers to diffuse contamination that does not originate from a single discrete source. NPS pollution is often a cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area. Nutrient runoff in stormwater from "sheet flow" over an agricultural field, or metals and hydrocarbons from an area with highly impervious surfaces and vehicular traffic are sometimes cited as examples of NPS pollution.

The primary focus of legislation and efforts to curb water pollution for the past several decades was first aimed at point sources. As point sources have been effectively regulated, greater attention has been placed on NPS contributions, especially in rapidly urbanizing or developing areas.


Groundwater pollution
Interactions between groundwater and surface water are complex. Consequently, groundwater pollution, sometimes referred to as groundwater contamination, is not as easily classified as surface water pollution.[1] By its very nature, groundwater aquifers are susceptible to contamination from sources that may not directly affect surface water bodies, and the distinction of point vs. nonpoint source may be irrelevant. A spill of a chemical contaminant on soil, located away from a surface water body, may not necessarily create point source or non-point source pollution, but nonetheless may contaminate the aquifer below. Analysis of groundwater contamination may focus on soil characteristics and hydrology, as well as the nature of the contaminant itself.

Stop Using Plastic Now

For several months this fall and winter, a tall pine tree in my yard was plagued with a plastic grocery store bag that was tangled in its topmost branches. It was quite unsightly. But my 8 foot ladder wouldn't help me get it down and for those many weeks, the wind and rain didn't help either. I asked one the rogue yard squirrels to climb the tree and bring it down but it wouldn't comply. Finally, about two weeks ago, I noticed it was gone. Perhaps the wind finally worked its magic and the bag is off to 'decorate' someone else's tree.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who is bothered by the excess of plastic bags that take up space in landfills, and escape proper storage to clutter up the landscape. Consider this:

* There's an entire blog dedicated to eliminating the excessive use of plastic bags. Check it out!

* Plastic bags can an entangle and harm marine life and other animals. According to the World Wildlife Fund, "more than 100,000 whales, seals, turtles, and birds die every year as a result of plastic bags." The Australian government reports that "on 24 August 2000, a Bryde's whale died in Trinity Bay, 2 km from central Cairns. An autopsy found that the whale's stomach was tightly packed with plastic, including supermarket bags, food packages, bait bags, three large sheets of plastic, and fragments of garbage bags. There was no food in its stomach."

* San Francisco government is reviewing a proposed law that would levy a 17 cent tax on each grocery store plastic bag. Many countries including Malta, Papua New Guinea and other are taking similar measures. They're serious about getting rid of these bags!

* The small state of Rhode Island spends about one million dollars each year to pick up "these bags that blow all over the place from trash being delivered to the Central Landfill." Imagine how much larger states must spend. And if they don't, their landscapes must be a mess. It seems a shame to have to spend all that money just to pick up plastic bags.

* Plastic takes an extremely long time to degrade. We can burn it, but that pollutes the air. Getting rid of plastic is a no win situation. We need some plastics, but should monitor how much we use since it's so costly to dispose of.

"So what can I do?"

* Most everyone I know has a drawer or shelf full of plastic grocery store bags. If you are not using them, recycle them. Publix and Wal-Mart both have plastic bag recycling centers outside their stores. Please leave a comment if you know of other stores that offer plastic bag recycling.

* Ask the person who bags your groceries to use just one bag instead of two for lighter items. I always compliment the baggers that single bag my groceries, and some of them are beginning to know that I don't need "all those extra bags."

* Bring your own reusable cloth bags to the store to carry home your groceries. If you're like me, you have lots of cloth bags at home that mostly sit around unused.

Chana earthquake is a signal ...

CHENGDU, China (CNN) -- Rainy weather and poor logistics thwarted efforts by relief troops who walked for hours over rock, debris and mud on Tuesday in hopes of reaching the worst-hit area of an earthquake that killed nearly 10,000 in central China, state-run media reported.
Setting out from Maerkang in Sichuan Province at 8 p.m. Monday, the 100 or so troops had to travel 200 kilometers (124 miles) to go before reaching Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake, also in the province, Xinhua reported. After seven hours, they still had 70 kilometers (43 miles) to go.
"I have seen many collapsed civilian houses, and the rocks dropped from mountains on the roadside are everywhere," the head of the unit, Li Zaiyuan, told Xinhua.
Added CNN Correspondent John Vause: "The roads here are terrible in the best of times ... right now they're down right atrocious. They've resorted to going in one man at a time on foot."
Nearly all the confirmed deaths were in Sichuan Province, but rescuers were hindered because roads linking it to the provincial capital, Chengdu, were damaged, Xinhua reported.
Local radio quoted disaster relief officials as saying a third of the buildings in Wenchuan collapsed from the quake and another third were seriously damaged.
The earthquake was powerful enough to be felt throughout most of China. Many children were buried under the rubble of their schools.
The Chinese government said the death toll was sure to rise.
Don't MissEyewitness: 'Floor was moving underneath me' iReport: Your photos, videos iReport.com: Send us your pictures, stories Impact your world: How you can help An expert told CNN the 7.9-magnitude quake at about 2:28 p.m. Monday (6:28 a.m. GMT) was the largest the region has seen "for over a generation."
Residents as far as Chongqing -- about 200 miles from the epicenter in Sichuan Province -- spent the night outdoors, too afraid of aftershocks to sleep indoors.
Local radio in Sichuan quoted disaster relief officials as saying a third of the buildings in Wenchuan collapsed from the quake and another third were seriously damaged. Watch as the death toll rises »
The state-run Zhongxin news agency reported that a survivor who escaped Beichuan county in Sichuan Province described the province as having been "razed to the ground."
The Red Cross Society of China, coordinating some of the international aid efforts, encouraged financial donations because of the difficulty of getting supplies to those most in need.
At least six schools collapsed to some extent in the quake or aftershocks that followed, Xinhua reported. See a report on rescue operations at the school »
At one school, almost 900 students -- all eighth-graders and ninth-graders, according to a local villager -- were believed to be buried. See workers in Chengdu hiding under their desks during the quake »
At least 50 bodies were pulled from the rubble by Monday night at Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province, Xinhua reported.
"Some buried teenagers were struggling to free themselves from the ruins while others were calling for help. Eight excavators were working at the site. Devastated parents watched as five cranes worked at the site and an ambulance waited," Xinhua reported.
"A tearful mother said her son, ninth-grader Zhang Chengwei, was buried in the ruins."
Meanwhile, 2,300 people were buried in two collapsed chemical plants in Sichuan's Shifang city, and 80 tons of ammonia leaked out, Xinhua reported. Six hundred people died there. The plants were among a series of buildings that collapsed, including private homes, schools and factories.
The local government has evacuated 6,000 civilians from the area and was dispatching firefighters to help at the scene, Xinhua reported.
Much of the nation's transportation system shut down. Xinhua reported there were "multiple landslides and collapses along railway lines" near Chengdu. Quake victims have been sleeping outside in Chengdu »
Sichuan Province sits in the Sichuan basin and is surrounded by the Himalayas to the west. The Yangtze River flows through the province and the Three Gorges Dam in the nearby Hubei Province controls flooding to the Sichuan -- though there were no reports of damage to the world's largest dam.
Monday's quake was caused by the Tibetan plateau colliding with the Sichuan basin, Zhigang Peng, an earthquake expert at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, told CNN.
"Earthquakes in this part of China are infrequent but not uncommon," he said.
The last major earthquake in the region occurred in the northwestern margin of the Sichuan basin when a 7.5-magnitude quake killed more than 9,300 people on August 25, 1933.
President Hu Jintao ordered an all-out effort to help those affected, and Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to the region to direct the rescue work, Xinhua reported.
"My fellow Chinese, facing such a severe disaster, we need calm, confidence, courage and efficient organization," Wen was quoted as saying.
"I believe we can certainly overcome the disaster with the public and the military working together under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the government."
Peter Sammonds, professor of geophysics at University College London, called the earthquake "tremendous."
"Particularly in the more remote, the more mountainous part where this has taken place, a lot of the buildings are built on sediments that are quite unstable. They're probably liquifying, causing the buildings to collapse. You might expect landslides to occur, which could actually stop the relief efforts going through on the roads, so this could be very grim in the remoter, more mountainous parts of this province."
While many of the most immediate efforts were focused on Sichuan Province, Xinhua also reported dead and injured in Gansu, Chongqing and Yunnan provinces.
A provincial government spokesman said they feared more dead and injured in collapsed houses in Dujiangyan City in Wenchuan County.
A driver for the seismological bureau said he saw "rows of houses collapsed" in Dujiangyan, Xinhua reported.
Bonnie Thie, the country director of the Peace Corps, told CNN she was on a university campus in Chengdu about 60 miles from the epicenter, in the eastern part of China's Sichuan province, when the first quake hit.
"You could see the ground shaking," Thie told CNN.
The shaking "went on for what seemed like a very long time," she said.
Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said this quake could cause major damage because of its strength and proximity to major population centers. Also, it was relatively shallow, and those kinds of quakes tend to do more damage near the epicenter than deeper ones, Presgrave said.
An earthquake with 7.5 magnitude in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan killed 255,000 people in 1976 -- the greatest death toll from an earthquake in the last four centuries and the second greatest in recorded history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tangshan is roughly 995 miles (1,600 km) from Chengdu, the nearest major city to the epicenter of Monday's quake. Read an explanation about earthquakes »
After the quake struck Monday, the ground shook as far away as Beijing, which is 950 miles (1,528 km) from the epicenter. Residents of the Chinese capital, which hosts this year's Olympic Games in August, felt a quiet, rolling sensation for about a minute. See CNN's interview with an American in Chengdu »
Thousands of people were evacuated from Beijing buildings immediately after the earthquake.
At least seven more earthquakes -- measuring between 4.0 and 6.0 magnitudes -- happened nearby over the four hours after the initial quake at at 2:28 p.m. local time, the USGS reported.

How to save our earth

26 things we can do to help:

Turn off lights.

Turn off other electric things, like TVs, stereos, and radios when not in use.

Use rechargable batteries.

Do things manually instead of electrically, like open cans by hand.

Use fans instead of air conditioners.

In winter, wear a sweater instead of turning up your thermostat.

Insulate your home so you won't be cold in winter.

Use less hot water.

Whenever possible, use a bus or subway, or ride your bike or walk.

Try to buy organic fruits and vegetables if you're concerned about pesticides. (Organic food is

grown without man-made fertilizers and/or pesticides).

Don't waste products made from forest materials.

Use recycled paper and/or recycle it. Reuse old papers.

Don't buy products that may have been made at the expense of the rainforest.

Support products that are harvested from the rainforest but have not cut down trees to get it.

Plant trees, espessially if you have cut one down.

Get other people to help you in your cause. Make and/or join an organization.

Avoid products that are used once, then thrown away.

Buy products with little or no packaging.

Encourage your grocery store sell environmentally friendly cloth bags for people to use when
they shop, or bring your own.

REDUCE, REUSE, & RECYCLE.

Compost.

Buy recycled products.

Don't buy pets taken from the wild.

If you have a good zoo nearby, (if the animals are healthy and the zoo takes care of them),
support it! Espessially if they help breed endangered animals.

Don't buy products if animals were killed to make it.

Cut up your six-pack rings before throwing them out.

Warnings predicted 15 years ago

The climate can change naturally but Man has in no doubt accelerated and interfered with this natural occurance as the IPCC stated in their Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007. The cynics have to open their eyes as we all know deep down inside that something is fundamentally wrong yet we continue to be swayed by the negative few trying to influence the many, leading to confusion. We are running out of time debating climate change and who's caused what. It is time to act now whether small changes are made by the individual or larger changes by organisations - changes must be made. But one thing is absolute - the rainforests must be saved - act now! This an excerpt from The Report by Ann Walker and White Arrow which was written in 1991 and sent to World Leaders in 1992. "Europe and EnglandPresently, the overwhelming influences on Europe’s climate are the Atlantic Ocean, the cold land-mass of Asia and the warm air mass over the ocean with its warm Gulf stream. The Gulf stream is so effective in elevating temperatures that, mountains apart, where the Atlantic and Saharan influences coincide in southern Spain, winter temperatures presently can be as high as Florida – ten degrees of latitude or 700 miles farther south. England will be an indication of the severity of upcoming changes that Europe will experience, during process. In the year 2012 there will be nationwide crop losses. The temperature, twenty years hence, in England will begin at 120F and constitute the start of the irreversible stage of temperature increase. Throughout England, at this time, there will be widespread flooding, together with a phenomenon of frequent large-scale fires that may be likened to the spontaneous fires which occur in Canada/North America after prolonged arid conditions."Fifteen years ago, Ann Walker and White Arrow warned us what we should expect if the rainforests were not saved. The year 2012 has changed due to continued deforestation and the shift in the Earth's axis, the process had been brought forward five years to 2007! We cannot be complacent. For the past 10 years, climate records have been broken whether its the wettest June, the hottest year, the warmest Winter - these are not one-off occurances. During June/July 2007, the UK has experienced severe thunderstorms and flooding which have hit all parts of England, Wales and Scotland. Homes have been flooded, transport networks have ground to a halt and crop losses have been reported. On 20th July, over one month's rain (100mm) fell in one day in Oxfordshire. The Met Office reports the severe storms that have lashed the UK have been caused by the jetstream that has moved to a lower latitude around the UK which had led to frequent low pressure areas, leaving us with lots of rain and storms - but no-one explains why these weather patterns have changed! Ann's report has been verified by United Nations as being correct in its predictions - we must do something NOW! It is up to us to push for change - our politicians are not interested or they would have acted to prevent catastrophes happening to the very people that elect them!

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