While I was reading…. December 30, 2010
While this is in no way to plagarise work…this definitely needed to be passed on to the world….
image courtesy of Daniel Tagihoff
by Bill Georgevich
The fossil fuel economy is literally a dinosaur that should have ended soon after World War II. My stories will center around Big Oil and Gas and their massively successful global hegemony over this planet’s energy. More than world domination in the marketplace, the Oil and Gas industry has succeeded in convincing mankind that fossil fuel is still the cheapest, most viable source of energy. This has simply not been true since the mid 1970′s.
Here are some surprising facts:
| 1. | The first hydrogen powered fuel cell battery was invented before the Civil War. |
| 2. | Electric cars were the preferred method of transportation for the very rich in the U.S. until 1925. |
| 3. | After making 1200 all-electric cars to comply with a California zero-emissions mandate, General Motors repossessed those cars from their owners and crushed them, even though movie stars offered the car maker millions of dollars not to. |
| 4. | There can be no ‘energy crisis’ in a universe where the most plentiful element is hydrogen, the preferred fuel for NASA spacecraft. |
| 5. | There is a enough sunlight in the U.S. Southwest to provide electricity for one half of the country. |
| 6. | Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hydrogen car initiative includes hydrogen fueling stations, whose hydrogen is made and provided by Shell Oil — despite the fact that hydrogen can be made at home with ordinary tap water. |
| 7. | The first hydrogen fuel cell passenger car is not the (unavailable) 2008 Chevy Equinox, but was a 1966 van that GM secretly and successfully tested. |
| 8. | The Oil and Gas industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year in public relations efforts to convince the public and law makers they should remain unregulated, while at the same time encouraging consumer conservation so that less and less gasoline can be sold for more and more money. |
| 9. | Major car makers the world over don’t want you to own an electric or hydrogen fuel cell car as there is virtually no mechanical maintenance compared to an internal combustion engine, eliminating tremendous profits from the sale of parts and services. |
| 10. | Every U.S. president for the last 100 years has been an “Oil President” as there has been no major government initiative to remove us from the fossil fuel economy — unlike France, which has been 85% fossil fuel independent since 1985. |
Born to be wild June 20, 2010
It been a long long time since my last blog post, but this one has a purpose and hence I blog. For anyone who has every travelled along the western ghats at MUM-PUNE or even more familiar MUM-GOA during the monsoon here’s a spot of news. The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel under the supervison of the ministry of environment and forestry now have a functional and interactive new web site.
www.westernghatsindia.org not only allows you to visit and read about various types of plants and animals typically found in the region but also provides tons of regular updates on various conservation drives.
What might be of particular interest to all you click-happy shutter bugs out there is that the website encourages interaction by hosting a discussion forum as well as
asking people to send in related files to the following e-mail address: support@westernghatsindia.org, info@westernghatsindia.org
Kudos to the Western ghats Ecology Panel for starting something that is much needed and will go a long way in growing the knowledge base on the ecology in this bio diverse region.
Paper bag victory:) February 2, 2010
Was at the station today doing some spiral binding and saw a pleasant sight… the guys were using envelopes and bags made from newsprint instead of plastic. Maybe not unique in idea but … baby steps ….
In keeping with this little positive sighting that left me feeling a wee bit happier all day I thought I’d update you on how to make a plastic bag out of used newsprint.
YAAAYYY…:)
