Almost all of the damage to the Hawaiian ecosystems can be traced to two species. Rats and Humans.

New plant varieties can be and are patented REGARDLESS of how they are developed. If you develop a new strain of something with unique characteristics you get a patent on it. This is nothing new for GMO versions.

You mean like where the next IPCC draft has quietly cut the 30-year project of how much the world will warm from 0.4-1.0C (previous draft) to 0.3-0.7C in the final draft, also saying that warming is more likely to be at the lower end of the range over the next 30 years.

Interesting conundrum. The left wing environmentalists want us to scale back on energy use, which effectively means we cannot support as many people on the earth as we have now. The alternative, they claim, is that doing nothing means we'll have problems growing enough food (due to climate change side-effects) to support the number of people we now have on the earth.

So do something that condemns people to die of starvation NOW to prevent the possibility that people will die of starvation in the FUTURE, maybe.

Of course the latter course does mean that attempts at mitigation (of possible side effects) will be successful and nobody will die of starvation after all but that would not fit with their ideas of an ideal world that has far fewer people in it.

No, ONE of the alternatives to Keystone XL is one (or more) pipelines West (to the coast) or East to the (other) coast...

But realistically given the amount of oil in the ground its not a question of which pipeline but how many and on what schedule. Keystone was promoted as an early contender because of the additional oil in the ground in (for example) North Dakota and because of the existing infra-structure in the southern US (refineries and shipping.)

The net result is that Keystone --XL will be built, basically the parts up to North Dakota, because there is and will be close to sufficient need for that anyway. Rail will be used to bridge the 49th parallel until such time as the State Department OK's the crossing. And all of the parts up to the 49th have the required approvals (from the states) to be built. At some point in the future a State Department WILL OK the crossing. Just have to wait.

I had thought they might just implement a short hop. But currently the plan is to use the existing (building in progress) rail terminal in Hardisty Alberta to ship to somewhere in (i think, name escapes me) in Nebraska. This is much longer (close to 2000 km) but utilizes existing infrastructure sooner.

The reason that this is all moving to rail is simple. It is cost effective. It exists. It does not need (new and/or changed) regulatory approval. You just arrange to have your product delivered to one railhead, the railroad will arrange everything else and get it to the destination for you. The cost is higher than rail but still lower than the differential in pricing.

It is called Superstorm because it was not actually a hurricane (based on wind speed) when it landed....

The media needed a new term to convey how bad it was even though it was not a hurricane.

The analogy is there but you have not got it right.

MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) have campaigned for years to reduce the number of deaths from drunk driving with reasonably success. The point is that they number of deaths was in the range of about 20,000 a year.

That still leaves about 30,000 deaths a year from other causes which mostly are due to human drivers. I.e. some number greater than the problem that drunk drivers presented.

Once autonomous vehicles are available the focus will move quickly from Drunk Drivers to simply Drivers. Think MAHD (Mothers Against Human Drivers). And that will move with Internet Social Media speed. It will simply become socially unacceptable to drive yourself (just like driving drunk) within five years at that point.

And the net benefit to society is similar. Probably in excess of 20,000 people a year who won't die.

At some point the tradeoff becomes continue to allow autonomous vehicles with present speed limits or eliminate them and raise speed limits by X %. Since the vast majority of people will benefit they will vote to get rid of human drivers and make their own commutes faster and more efficient.

And like horse riding driving your pet car will be confined to places where other people remain safe while you are doing it.

I.e. anywhere but on public roads.

Ok, how many times do we have to repeat that it was IN RACING..

Please tell us you have been racing your car and not had any injuries ...

We have a local rider who rides at our Velodrome at 84. Its hard to keep up with him on the road as well. [Our track has steep 46 degree corners, you have to maintain a speed over 30km/h simply to stay on the track.]

The elderly and frail get that way by not getting enough exercise. If you don't stress your muscles as you age you lose muscle mass quickly. If you maintain an active life style and stress your muscles you can maintain high level of physical intensity well into your 60's and 70's.

Most people don't simply because it is simply hard work and they don't like to exercise that is hard work. It also takes a fair amount of time and commitment.

Because unless the bike-path IS a bike-path it is more probably multi-use. And pedestrians are far more dangerous than cars.

For commuting, bike-paths are typically not well suited as they don't always go from where you are to where you want to get to. If you have a 20 mile commute you want to do that at 20mph and not have to extend it to 25 miles and lower your speed down to 12mph because of pedestrians.

Bike paths are great for local commuters, kids, tourists etc. They are very rarely suitable for commuting or distance training.

So the Netherlands has made the decision that having people riding bikes is more beneficial than having people driving cars. Less pollution, less wasted resources, people are healthier from the exercise and have more money left in their pockets from not having to pay for a car, gas and insurance. Good for them.

We have covered that already. That was during racing. Not during riding on the road.