Is Humanity to Blame for the Scarcity of Water?

Posted on August 9, 2013 by mastadonzq

wasting water

 

Although skeptics don’t believe humans are the cause of global warming, or climate change, we may be responsible for the scarcity of our own water supplies. Water does more for our community than simply keep us alive. We use this liquid component in a variety of tasks from flushing waste down to sewers to cleaning toxic chemicals to the excessive use each time we frack for gas. Instead of looking for alternatives and examining how our actions affect communities and the planet, humans are more drawn to the quick and easy way to accomplish goals.

1. Deforestation – Less rainfall in particular areas of the globe can be correlated with the loss of plant life within those areas. The Amazon Rainforest, while being a prime example, isn’t the only area that has seen diminished rainfall from the lack of trees and plants. Deforestation has been greatly impacted by humans because of the need for cattle ranches, paper and other materials that could have been produced using other methods.

2. Cleaning and Waste Removal – Depending on the style of your toilet, you can use 3.5 to seven gallons of water with each flush. In a family environment, more than 100 gallons of water can be flushed down the drain each and every day. The water that fills this receptacle is the same water that we drink. While this is aside from the installation of “low-flow” toilets, showers and baths can consume a great deal of water for the family environment as well. While this depends on the shower head that is installed, a single 10-minute shower can use up 50 gallons of water. In a family environment, more than 350 gallons of water can be consumed just in the bathroom on a daily basis.

3. Fracking – Millions of gallons of water can be used in any particular “fracking” job in order to improve drilling for oil and natural gas. Although some of this waste water is recycled, a large portion of it is lost. Instead of investing in improved ways to drive our automobiles or keep the steam turbine generators spinning for power, we squander the very component life depends on even though droughts run rampant across the plains.

4. Existing Technology – We have existing technology that can help drought-affected areas to support life, if not for the implications of a dollar amount. Large and small scale water condensers are being developed that can essentially pull the water right out of the air. Since it costs so much money to build these units, may don’t see them as a practical way to survive – as drought causes crops to suffer.

5. Lack of Effort – In areas that are affected by floods and where the humidity is so high, why can’t this extra influx of water be piped to areas that are suffering? Because it wouldn’t be cost efficient to do so. It would require effort by local and federal governments in order to provide a viable method to keep the populations alive with the one component that humans cannot survive without.

Climate change on a global scale may be caused by a natural occurrence of the planet, but humans do their part to be as detrimental to their own survival. Instead of being a species that cares for survival, we have become one that depends on the size of the pocket book. If it’s not profitable, it must not be the correct path, right?

 

 

This article is contributed by Madoline Hatter. Madoline is a freelance writer and blog junkie from ChangeOfAddressForm.com. You can reach her at: m.hatter12 @ gmail. com.

 

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Realistic Reasons to Back Solar Power

Posted on July 3, 2013 by mastadonzq

Realistic Reasons to Back Solar Power

To think that humans know everything there is to know about science and the natural evolution of our planet is nothing short of asinine. Technology has been developed to allow us to understand our position in the cosmos better, but should we call ourselves experts? There is still so much to learn about how our planet behaves. Although global warming extremists push the envelope on reasons why we should invest in renewable energies, there is a truth behind all of the rhetoric. Our current methods are grossly antiquated.

1. Renewable Resource – The Sun will continue to produce consumable power to humans for billions of years. As soon as it’s done producing power, we’re going to have more pressing problems than global warming. Even cloudy days are able to produce enough power to maintain a home. It is a resource that everyone can agree that we have in an abundant supply.

2. Oil Wars – Regardless of personal views on the economics of the world, were are riled by those who would dare cut off our oil supply. We are willing to sacrifice lives over dead plants and life-forms. If we were to do away with oil as a whole, would there still be a cause for war? It would no longer be a driving force to have relations with a country we know to be corrupt. The demand would be gone, as would the power these countries have over a large portion of the world.

3. Costs – Even with subsidies and tax credits, one would still have to live in their homes for more than 10 years in order to experience the benefits from solar power thanks to the effects of financing. However, the cost of photovoltaic equipment manufacturing has already began to decrease since 2012. As many locations around the globe are looking more and more at this renewable energy source, more innovative technologies supporting photovoltaic equipment is being produced in order to reduce costs of installation in order to entice sales. Before long, everyone will have one – much like cell phones morphing into smartphones.

4. Less Dangerous – Nuclear power plants are catastrophes waiting to happen. A simple breakdown of a nuclear power plant can render the entire location unlivable by human standards. Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi disasters are prime examples of how little we truly care about human life over the need to power our computers and cash registers. If a solar panel breaks, it could take a matter of a day or two to replace it without having to call in a HAZMAT crew.

5. Cumulative – For every household and business that erects a solar array to put power back into the grid, more power is conserved reducing the chances of brownouts. For every kilowatt hour produced by these units, one kilowatt hour can be used at your neighbor’s house. Theoretically, many solar arrays within an area should decrease the electric bills of everyone since less power is being consumed as a whole.

Set aside the views of those who propagate global warming as a scare tactic. There are real life reasons why we should be investing in alternative energy sources, none of which concern the natural evolution of Earth. The planet will be here long after humans have perished. We should be more concerned with saving ourselves.

Author Bio:

This post is contributed by Linda Bailey from housekeeping.org. She is a Texas-based writer who loves to write on the topics of housekeeping, green living, home décor, and more. She welcomes your comments which can be sent to b.lindahousekeeping @ gmail.com.

 

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Electronic Medical Records and Personal Health Records

Posted on March 27, 2013 by mastadonzq

With the ever expanding Internet opening possibilities across various forms of business, we find ourselves in an age where information is readily available at our fingertips. Databases have been built regarding driving records, real estate, education, and more to provide a more efficient and less time consuming practice of data entry. Electronic medical records are no different and could be more important since the information is invaluable. There is a wide scope of possibilities for using electronic medical records.

1. Instant Sharing – In some care facilities, methods exist to share a patient’s information with another facility over the Internet in a different city. This could prove to be vital if the information requested pertains to a life threatening circumstance.

2. Clicks Away – With electronic medical and personal health records, the information is just a few clicks away. Instead of sifting through files and folders to find an individual’s information, it could just be a matter of entering a name search.

3. Billing – Most facilities have implemented some kind of a billing system for patients. Many of these billing applications can be used in conjunction with a medical record for further data analysis later on.

4. Web-Based – Data centers and the Cloud have increased efficiency of sharing patient information with practitioners around the globe. Some of these electronic records are based on the Internet alleviating a facility’s need for a sufficient data server. With the inclusion of images, x-rays, and more a server can get quite crowded with data in a largely populated area.

5. Cross Platform – Electronic medical and personal health records can be accessed across multiple devices. As some are web-based, a web browser on a tablet or phone would suffice. However, some of these EMR developers have made apps for Android and iPad for a more efficient tablet use. These apps connect to the database on the Internet without the need of a browser and all pertinent information can be viewed.

6. Prescriptions – Advancements in technology have allowed some of the EMR applications the ability to send e-prescriptions to participating vendors. Programs such as Practice Fusion incorporate a variety of tools to create greater efficiency in the facility including messaging, reporting, and billing.

7. Quick Entry – Many EMR programs allow a practitioner the ability to simply click on symptoms to build a record reducing the amount of typing. This could also reduce miscommunications and illegible comments about how an individual patient has been treated in the past.

The days of old where we cut down trees to create paper for our records is slowly coming to an end. It was a method that worked, but technology and the need for efficiency are growing ever closer to triumph over archaic methods of communication. With a little ingenuity and innovation, we could very well create a single database that can be used to provide every piece of information about a specific individual.

About the Author:

Ken Myers is an expert adviser on in-home care & related family safety issues to many websites and groups. He is a regular contributor to www.gonannies.com. You can get in touch with him at kmyers.ceo@gmail.com.

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Photovoltaic PV Solar Panels on the rise

Posted on March 24, 2013 by mastadonzq

Lowered costs and increasing efficiency have helped the steady increase in the use of Solar PV panels.
There have been some incredible advances in the methods used to capture solar energy.  Solar paint and thin plastic cells are some of the new technologies but PV panels are still the most efficient way to capture energy from the sun.

The modular nature of solar cells are also being used in more creative and aesthetically pleasing ways. Each cell must have a separate connection because stringing them together has the same effect as Christmas lighting, if one goes out, there all do. Being modular, however, increases the versatility of the panel placement.

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Increased efficiency has also made the technology workable in areas that don’t receive a huge amount of direct sunlight. Solar power is a small thing that most landowners can take advantage of to reduce costs and stabilize energy bills.

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Climate Change Impacts On Wildlife

Posted on March 6, 2013 by mastadonzq

bears

Guest post by Maria Kruk, an author for Species.com

Global awareness of climate change is obvious. The atmosphere is full of greenhouse gases, hurricanes and storms “attack” more regularly, sea level shifts proportionally to ice melting and more species are getting vulnerable and endangered. Specifically, animal world might experience severe damages in the nearest decades and polar bears, which have already recognized the most threatened because of the Arctic Meltdown, might be not the only victims of global warming process.

  1. Giant pandas are likely to remain without bamboo leaves and, therefore, main food ration. Regardless high speed of bamboo shoots’ growth, this plant species reproduces very slowly and is unlikely to adapt to climate change issues. According to scientific estimations, bamboo areas in Qin Mountains may disappear by the end of this century, so does one of the primary habitats of giant panda bears.
  2. Notwithstanding high speed of reproduction among bats’ species, these winged mammals might suffer from temperature cataclysms, especially in Europe and North America. Warm weather and possible drought lead to evaporation from bats’ wings, which are the only mean to accept moisture for bats. These animals are major agents of fertilization and extinction of some bat species is a potential reason of plants’ reproduction decline. Climate change, in addition, threatens to bats’ dormancy periods and meal search.
  3. Ice melting is an obvious consequence of temperature increase, and walrus species can hereby confirm this. Absence of ice blocks in the Sea of Okhotsk forces these marine animals to come to Alaska shores, in unaccustomed time period for offspring fostering. Previously deserted coasts of Alaska are a shelter for 20 thousand walruses for the fourth year in a row, which come here along with their children. Hence, rapid and wide-scaled meltdown has affected not only Arctic terrestrial species, as it could seem earlier.
  4. It is a fact of common knowledge that animals possess some adherence to biological clocks, which is why they know when it is the period of reproduction, vegetation, dormancy, etc. It is much influenced by the length of photoperiod and, eventually, the local temperature. Climate change might force wildlife and plant species to reload the biological hours in order to adapt to temperature shifts in their habitat. Especially, it is referred to animals dependent on daytime and sunlight, which comprise the most of animal species.
  5. Biological diversity and environmental changes are straight consequences of climate change. According to scientific forecasts, the variety of animal and plant species might decrease on 30-40% that will clearly affect food and metabolism chains and energy exchange. Ice melting in the Arctic is a top issue at present, but what about mountainous areas, reduction of forest zones and shores’ flooding? These natural alterations also lead to animals’ extinction and destruction of their common habitat.

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HUGO CHAVEZ IS DEAD, LET OIL PRICES SOAR!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by mastadonzq

President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez has died of cancer. There is all sorts of conflict over who will succeed him. The constitution says one thing but it is being disputed so we can look forward to some serious instability. This instability, real or perceived, will cause oil prices to rise because Venezuela is the fourth largest oil importer to the United States.

Everyone panic and fill up your gas tanks!

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Why Iran is lost to the West.

Posted on March 5, 2013 by mastadonzq

mossadeq

Sometimes we need to stand back and look at the historical origins of current problems.

In 1953 the CIA and MI6 assassinated the democratically elected president of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh because he intended to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. The coup, among other things, was and is a significant reason for regional war and fossil fuels issues. You may recognize the oil company that initiated the coup, it is now known as British Petroleum (BP).

Empire and Nationhood

  • ISBN-10: 0231108192

The sources used by Mary Ann Heiss in Empire and Nationhood are successful in providing credible background for her statements regarding British and American sentiments during the Iranian Oil dispute. The lack of sources from Iran means that it is a largely a two, instead of three sided account of the events. She creates a detailed picture of the negotiations from a western viewpoint using largely the correspondences of Great Britain and the United States while the viewpoint of the Iranians is pieced together from secondary sources and public announcements. The cultural bias of the western representatives is commented on, so although there is a record of Iranian negotiations, they are biased and often indignant descriptions by diplomats.
The overview of the Anglo-Iranian Oil crisis draws on many secondary works and a few books or articles written by people involved or living in Iran at the time. The secondary works are for the most part written by western historians whose titles do not suggest an evenly balanced perspective. For example the official history of the British Petroleum Company is cited a few times and many of the books are primarily concerned with the cold war. Iran was certainly important in the cold war but focusing on it might tend to show the perspectives of those fighting the war rather than that of Iran, which was a chess piece in the games being played between the US and the USSR.
The sources that contribute to the descriptions of the strained relations leading up to the rise of the nationalization movement and the rise of Mossadeq are a mix of British and American correspondences and books concerning the rise of Mossadeq and the political situation in Iran before him. This chapter, “too little too late” shows the greatest balance between eastern and western sources used. The difference is that the sources from the Middle Eastern perspective are written long after the events took place while correspondence on the part of the western diplomats give a more accurate sense of the feeling at the time. Authors whose names indicate Middle Eastern heritage are significant because they are referenced sparingly once Mossadeq is prime minister. This may have something to do with the secrecy Mossadeq afforded himself once in office. Also, the remainder of the book is largely an account of the negotiations between Mossadeq and representatives of England and the US. This means that presently we can look at the negotiations because there is a record of the internal consultations on the western end but we do not know the full extent of the pressure and constraints put on Mossadeq by political entities and public opinion. A dispatch from the state department to someone involved with debating Mossadeq on a key point shows the reasoning behind the American position while the reasoning behind the Iranian posture can only be guessed at.
Another reason for the one sidedness of the documentation is that for the most part, it was a Prime Minister talking to a diplomat who is already biased against the PM. Mossadeq had the power to make concessions so the political motivations behind his actions have to be derived from the situation in Iran. We have such a good record of the western motivations because American and British agents were constantly conferring with each other and their respective governments. It is unlikely that Mossadeq communicated with his advisors in writing and probably kept the details of his situation secret.
An important factor with regard to documentation that is not discussed in the book is the fact the Tehran at this time was chock full of spies. Channels of communication are never one hundred percent secure so information that was considered sensitive would be unlikely to be sent by telegraph for example. The author demonstrates the general fears of the US with regard to soviet interactions in Iran, but the specific threats, real or perceived, are not revealed. The author mentions documents relating to the MI-6 and CIA inspired coup that are withheld but only touches upon why the US thought the USSR would automatically take power in Iran if the economy were to fail. There is certainly logic behind the containment policy in Iran but because there is little mention of popular Iranian sentiment regarding communism aside from the actions of the Tudeh party, the policy seems to stem mainly from American paranoia.
The only primary sources that voice the position of Iran are the Correspondences between his/her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Persian government, and related documents (concerning the oil Industry in Persia, February 1951 to September 1951) (Concerning the joint Anglo-American proposal for a settlement of the oil dispute, August 1952 to October 1952) The problem with these sources is that they were most likely documents that could be made public and were, if it suited a political aim. Most of the negotiations were done without the public knowledge or proposals were made informally at first with the reaction often eliminating the need to present them formally. What we can see in these formal documents are the last ditch efforts by Briton to save face by standing behind proposals they knew would be rejected.
It is clear that the United States was integral in the dispute between the Iranian Government, the AIOC and the British Government but the records taken from the national Archives verses the ones taken from the Public Record Office show that the available American records are more concise and therefore less accurate. The documents from the Public Record Office in England include minutes, memorandums and other immediate sources. These kinds of sources, if unaltered, are likely to be the most accurate and the most revealing. The record of the Secretary of Defense should in contrast be far less revealing and is certainly not cited as frequently as the Foreign Office correspondence. These American sources are not likely to contain information that could be considered inflammatory. That is to say that the United States would not be likely to make information public that could add to the hatred of the US by Iran.
The author does a satisfactory job of filling in the blanks created by the lack of Iranian primary sources. She gives a reasonable assessment of the political situation in Iran based on western perceptions that were probably fairly accurate because of the strategic concerns in Iran. The memoirs of Mossadeq may have helped to explain some of the pressures he faced in Iran but even a person’s memory of their own actions cannot be trusted as fact. While the author does not attempt to analyze individual Iranian sentiment for lack of material, it would seems possible to find a primary source written by an Iranian who was not Mossadeq or the Shah. She does a good job showing the shift from British to American domination of the Iranian oil as well as their reactions to the nationalist movement.

bp

Review Bibiography

International History Review v. 21 no. 4 (Dec. 1999). Mejcher, Helmut, reviewerhttp://metaquest.bc.edu:4000/sfx_local?sid=HWW:ACIT&genre=article&pid=%3Can%3E199901501686015%3C%2Fan%3E&aulast=Amuzegar&aufirst=Jahangir&issn=0026-3141&title=The+Middle+East+Journal&stitle=Middle+East+J&atitle=Empire+and+nationhood+(Book+Review)&volume=53&issue=1&spage=138&epage=140&date=1999&ssn=winter—There was an error with the Factiva server when I tried to print this review before class but I had read it with the paper.
Diplomatic History v. 23 no. 3 (Summ 1999). Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, reviewer. http://www.blackwellsynergy.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0145-2096&date=1999&volume=23&issue=3&spage=559

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Siemens Performance on Renewable Energy Market

Posted on February 28, 2013 by mastadonzq

Guest post by Maria Kruk, an author for Patentsbase.com

Siemens is one of the companies, which are focused on the innovative fields, as well as on markets with a good potential for expanding. These features are essential for renewable energy industries. In this context, Siemens finds it as an attractive market to invest money and technologies. Production of renewable energy and electricity became one more industry the company works in, along with electronics, IT technologies, medicine and urban infrastructure. Siemens is interested in specific branches of renewable energy sector, related research and innovations, which, by the way, receive nearly 4 billion dollars annually. Energy-saving technologies are of big priority, being the company’s goal all over the world.

Siemens Wind Power is the most advanced alternative energy branch of the company. About 7000 wind power generators are operated globally with total capacity of 6000 MW. The statistics features that such energy production can provide for 7 million households and prevent 8 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Especially, Siemens is focused on European countries, putting its projects into operation in Denmark, Germany, Northern Ireland, etc. Much of attention was paid to company’s innovative project, executed in collaboration with Hydreo, – floating wind power stations that can alter their location in order to get matching air flows. In addition, Siemens is engaged in construction of such wind farms as Teesside (UK), Cape Wind and Block Island (USA), Meerwind Sud/Ost (Germany), Horns Rev II (Denmark) and may others.

Hydro power production is one more industry Siemens is interested in. To provide some details, construction of hydro power stations is more expensive, but energy prime cost is lower. Therefore, energy demand outranges company’s expenses on hydro power projects. Since late 1970s hydroelectric power has become one of the investment items of the company. To be more précised, Siemens AG started to supply generators to the biggest hydro power station in the world – Itapúa, on Brazilian-Paraguayan border. To date, Siemens deals with technological developments for small hydropower plants up to 30 MW, as well as with reconstruction of existing power plants. In fact, in recent years Russian rivers alerted an attention of company’s executives. Depending on the power plant, Siemens offers to equip the turbine with adjustable or fixed blades of all currently available designs. Technologies introduced by the company ensure a high safety margin of small hydroelectric power stations and low operating costs.

Naturally, solar power is a crucial part on renewable energy market, but not for Siemens as once could guess. The key thing is that solar power was much of company’s priority during decades, until the 2012, when Siemens refused to succeed on the solar power market. In particular, the company refused to manufacture solar panels m and to convert solar energy into electricity, mainly because of price pressure on the market. Since then wind and hydro power remain primary renewable energy targets of Siemens, which are promised to provide 30 per cent of energy worldwide by 2030.

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Some Space gifs for fun

Posted on February 26, 2013 by mastadonzq

 

 

 

 

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Cloud computing and the wasteful excesses of data centres

Posted on December 18, 2012 by mastadonzq

data-center

Cloud computing and the wasteful excesses of data centres

 

With the rapid increase in the use of cloud services and the number of cloud service options available, more data centres have popped up all over the globe, bringing with them a higher demand for electricity. Recent reports by the Energy Conservation Bureau suggest that data centres now consume 3% of all electricity generated in the United States. A September New York Times article, “Power, Pollution and the Internet”, reports that data centres waste large amounts of energy, with only 6 – 12% of energy used by data centres going towards computing.

Data centres often consist of rows of servers, computers whose primary purposes are to process data. The heat generated by these servers can melt crucial computer components, risking data loss. As data centres have grown many now spread rows of servers over hundreds of thousands of square feet and utilize industrial cooling systems to combat overheating. Tens of thousands of data centres now exist to support the heavy demands of internet use, with many of the largest internet companies running servers at full capacity regardless of demand, resulting in the excessive wasting of energy.

There are ways to build more energy-efficient data centres. Providers can consider re-evaluating their redundancy, utilizing storage virtualization, consolidating their servers, and upgrading to energy efficient technology. Some data centres utilize their environment to cool their systems, such as a local waterfall or cold Arctic air. If clients outsource data centre management to high quality facilities that follow these practices, they can avoid forming their own poor management habits. Outsourcing can also save clients from having to upscale and downscale their own equipment to match the changing demands on their business.

Though outsourcing offers advantages, if large data centres are not optimally managed, these industry practices only contribute to more energy consumption. A large data centre is not inherently more energy efficient than a small one, and the spreading of load does not guarantee a reduced need for capacity. It stands to reason the cloud service providers need more spare capacity available to serve their clients than if clients operated their own facilities. Some argue that cloud services help to improve the situation, leading to a consolidation and centralization of computing among large, well-operated data centres. This is not necessarily the case.

Powering the internet is a very environmentally unfriendly prospect. Cloud computing presents a path towards improving the situation, but it is not a solution in and of itself.

 

Mac Connolly has worked in the technology industry for the past 25 years, working for various well-known brands. He is currently working with Melbourne Server Hosting as a freelance writer sharing his experience of technology and the advances within green hosting and data centres.

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