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December 28, 2006
I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth
Since I received An Inconvenient Truth for Christmas, I watched it, and came away with some useful insights.
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am firmly convinced that climate change is upon us, and that the effects will worsen - probably with increasing speed - over the coming years.
One of Al Gore's points related to the "balance" that the non-scientific press brings to the debate. This balance is truly out of kilter. Gore cites a sampling of nearly 1000 scientific articles (out of a pool of many thousands of articles), noting that not a single one of them suggested that the earth is not undergoing climate change brought about by human activity.
But in the popular press, 53% of a sample noted that the matter remained uncertain.
This "balance" seems much like the free pass the press gave the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq invasion (which persists to this day among some popular press sources).
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2006
Newly discovered IPA
I have been waiting for Troeg's Brewery in Harrisburg to make a new batch of Nugget Nectar, the triple-hopped IPA they released early in 2006. Vainly, so far.
A good choice to fill the gap - and at a similar price of $36 a case -is Two-hearted Ale from Bell's Brewery in Comstock MI. It is said to have scored 100/100 in IPA testing, whatever that is.
http://www.bellsbeer.com/default.asp
It compares well to Nugget Nectar. If you like a hoppy beer, try this one.
Posted by aquacura.com at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2006
Nuclear power
As global consensus regarding the threats of climate change gathers, nuclear power seems to be moving toward a come back. The industry is claiming that reactors will be much safer this time. Really.
Let's just imagine that reactors really are safer, even fail-safe. We still have the little matter of waste disposal. If we insist on setting a cost for everything to facilitate our decisions, how do we set a cost for waste disposal? Perhaps the cost should be the present worth of infinity? Half of infinity?
William McDonough http://www.mcdonough.com/ had a great rejoinder for people who confront him with the false choice of global climate change or embracing nuclear power. He says that he does indeed support nuclear power. He believes that existing fusion technology is just perfect for us, and the reactor is at just the right distance: 93 million miles.
Posted by aquacura.com at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)