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Submission + - Hundreds Of Thousands Turn Out For People's Climate March In New York City (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "More than 400,000 people turned out for the People's Climate March in New York City on Sunday, just days before many of the world's leaders are expected to debate environmental action at the United Nations climate summit.

Early reports from event organizers are hailing the turnout as the largest climate march in history, far bigger than the Forward on Climate rally held in Washington, D.C., last year. High-profile environmentalists including Bill McKibben, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jane Goodall and Vandana Shiva marched alongside policymakers such as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former Vice President Al Gore were also there, and more than 550 buses carried in people from around the country."

Big science contingent too: http://www.scientificamerican....

Submission + - Techies for climate justice (peoplesclimate.org)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: On Sunday, September 21, hundreds of thousands of people will march in New York City for a strong, international climate treaty – and techies of all types will be there! Explore the tech hub for information about ways you can get involved, whether you’re coming to NYC or planning a solidarity action where you are.

Hackers, Techies, Geeks, Engineers, Builders, Makers, Unite to Disrupt Climate Change and Build Climate Justice

Here’s all the latest logistical information for the day of the March. Check back here often for updates.
Assembly:

The Technology Contingent – i.e., all of the tech groups together – will assemble on Central Park West around 75th Street on the day of the March. You will be able to enter the CPW from 72nd and 77th Streets only.

        You may enter the block as early as 8:00 am on the day of the March.
        ThoughtWorks and friends will gather at 10:00 for an open-source picnic in Central Park at the statue of Simon Bolivar (just northeast of Sixth Avenue /Avenue of the Americas and Central Park South)

The Technology Contingent will step off from 58th Street to take its place within the march whenever the “We Have Solutions!” theme group reaches Columbus Circle. We’re anticipating this will be sometime between 12:00 and 1:00, but it could be earlier and may very well be later.

According to Science Friday, there will be a gathering of scientists nearby at 79th Street and Central Park West near the Museum of Natural History as well. http://www.sciencefriday.com/s...

Submission + - Three in every four nuclear power builds worldwide are running late (theecologist.org) 1

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: A review of the 66 nuclear reactors 'under construction' worldwide shows that 49 are running behind schedule, including all five in the US and most in China. The long and unpredictable build times of nuclear plants, and the extra costs that ensue, are a compelling reason not to depend on the technology for either power or to mitigate climate change.

As of this month, 49 of 66 reactors under construction around the world are running behind schedule, according to an updated analysis conducted by the authors of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2014.

The study takes into account several delay announcements in recent weeks:

        USA: two reactors, Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station Unit 2 and Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station Unit 3;
        South Korea: two reactors — Shin-Hanul-2 and Shin-Wolsong-2;
        and Finland: Olkiluoto-3.

Little is known about the progress on four nuclear reactors in India. All the other reactor projects have been under way for less than two years, which makes it difficult to identify delays in the absence of full access to information.

The study highlights the two EPR-design reactors currently under construction: Finland's Olkiluoto-3 and France's Flamanville-3. Both are running about $7 billion over their initial budgets and now projected to cost more than $11 billion.

EDF's Flamanville reactor was due to be completed by 2012 at a cost of €3.3 billion, but is now projected for completion in 2016 at a cost of €8.5 billion.

Finland's Olkiluoto-3 reactor, the first EPR construction project, is likely to be a decade behind schedule upon delivery, with a projected completion date of 2018. Construction of the 1.6GW plant began in 2005 and was originally due for completion in 2009.

Submission + - Busy Days Precede a March Focusing on Climate Change (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: In a three-story warehouse in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, hundreds of people are working to turn the People’s Climate March planned for Sunday into a visual spectacle.

There were victims of Hurricane Sandy from the Rockaways toiling with artists on a 30-foot inflatable life preserver, and immigrant artists constructing a papier-mâché tree embedded with axes. Elsewhere, religious leaders were building an ark and scientists were constructing a chalkboard covered with calculations about carbon.

The run-up to what organizers say will be the largest protest about climate change in the history of the United States has transformed New York City into a beehive of planning and creativity, drawing graying local activists and young artists from as far away as Germany.

“This is the final crunch, the product of six months of work to make the People’s March a big, beautiful expression of the climate movement,” said Rachel Schragis, a Brooklyn-based artist and activist who is coordinating the production of floats, banners and signs.

Submission + - Obama Presses Leaders to Speed Ebola Response (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: President Obama on Tuesday challenged world powers to accelerate the global response to the Ebola outbreak that is ravaging West Africa, warning that unless health care workers, medical equipment and treatment centers were swiftly deployed, the disease could take hundreds of thousands of lives.

“This epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better,” Mr. Obama said here at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he met with doctors who had just returned from West Africa. The world, he said, “has the responsibility to act, to step up and to do more. The United States intends to do more.”

Even as the president announced a major American deployment to Liberia and Senegal of medicine, equipment and 3,000 military personnel, global health officials said that time was running out and that they had weeks, not months, to act. They said that although the American contribution was on a scale large enough to make a difference, a coordinated assault in Africa from other Western powers was essential to bringing the virus under control.

Submission + - The Canadians Are Coming (vancouverobserver.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Hundreds of Canadians will join tens of thousands of people in the streets of New York City next weekend for one of the largest climate change mobilizations in history.

Renewable energy advocates of all ages will be gathering as a part of the Tar Sands Free bloc at the march, which will coincide with the UN climate summit in New York.

"While this will be one of the largest climate marches in history, it also isn't just about size. It's about showing that people are standing alongside those impacted most by climate change and extreme extraction," said Eriel Deranger, communications coordinator for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, who will be marching in New York. "People are impacted from the extraction of carbon polluting industries such as the Tar Sands and fracking, as well as the way to the extreme impacts of climate change."

Travelling from Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston and Halifax, among other cities, the Canadian marchers will join communities impacted by climate disasters like Hurricane Sandy, and Indigenous peoples resisting tar sands and other extreme extraction both in Canada and abroad.

Submission + - Decades After Nuclear Test, U.S. Studies Cancer Fallout (wsj.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Nearly 70 years after the U.S. conducted the world's first atomic-bomb test here in the New Mexico desert, federal researchers are slated to visit the state this month to begin studying whether some residents developed cancer due to the blast.

As part of the long anticipated project, set to start Sept. 25, investigators with the National Cancer Institute will interview people who lived in the state around the time of the 1945 Trinity test and assess the effects of consuming food, milk and water that may have been contaminated by the explosion.

For years, residents of the rural, heavily Hispanic villages near the test site have claimed that a mysterious wave of cancer has swept through this dusty stretch of south-central New Mexico, decimating families and prompting calls for the government to determine whether radiation exposure played a role.

Submission + - Leading philanthropic foundations can create climate "tipping point" (rtcc.org)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: In the largest and most international declaration ever published by environmentalists, 160 winners of environmental prizes from 46 countries, have today called on the world’s foundations to use their financial power to fight global warming.

In an appeal published in the International New York Times they call on foundations and philanthropists to dig into their endowments to create a tipping point in climate action – “to trigger a survival reflex in society.”

The world’s philanthropic foundations own endowments worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

They invest those endowments to generate returns from which they can pay out grants or make loans. They use these to fund a multitude of causes, but as things stand only a minority tackle climate change, either as part of their mission or as their major focus.

Yet climate change is the issue that is arguably the single biggest threat to civilization.

Comment Fresh water freezes faster than salt (Score 5, Informative) 635

by mdsolar (#47909839) Attached to: Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Record Levels
"Here we show that accelerated basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves is likely to have contributed significantly to sea-ice expansion. Specifically, we present observations indicating that melt water from Antarctica’s ice shelves accumulates in a cool and fresh surface layer that shields the surface ocean from the warmer deeper waters that are melting the ice shelves. Simulating these processes in a coupled climate model we find that cool and fresh surface water from ice-shelf melt indeed leads to expanding sea ice in austral autumn and winter." http://www.nature.com/ngeo/jou...

Submission + - Over 100 Swarthmore Students To Attend Climate March in NYC Next Weekend (swarthmore.edu)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: It has been reported already in the NYT that students at Pace University (which is in NY) will be marching to urge the UN to get moving on climate change, but students from neighboring states are planning to be there in numbers as well.

"Over 100 Swarthmore students will travel to New York City to attend the People’s Climate March this Sunday, September 21. Swarthmore Mountain Justice has partnered with Earthlust to organize bus transportation for Tri-Co students and other community members who wish to attend the march, which is expected to draw 250,000 people.

Stephen O’Hanlon ‘17, of Swarthmore Mountain Justice, described Swatties’ attendance at the Climate March as a way to “show the power that [the divestment movement] has build through divestment campaignsaround the country.”

Hazlett Henderson ‘17, also a member of Mountain Justice, hopes that the march will renew enthusiasm for climate justice on campus. After the march, she said, “a lot of people are going to be very excited by divestment, because this is such a big gathering of people. It’s going to show how much support and how much energy there is surrounding this issue.”"

Hopefully the UN will listen since these are the people who will suffer if that does not happen.

Comment Re:Steam to extract oil that shouldn't be... (Score 1) 82

by mdsolar (#47907177) Attached to: Solar Powered Technology Enhances Oil Recovery
This kind of thing gives access to much more fossil carbon than is considered in most carbon inventories because there is no need for the process to produce energy from the fossil carbon. It can just be an energy transfer from renewable energy that won't run out, to buried carbon that that is too low quality to be a fuel on its own. If we consider using renewably generated hydrogen to mobilize the remaining carbon in spent source rock, there is more than enough carbon to make the earth's surface uninhabitable for mammals nearly everywhere. http://www.newscientist.com/bl...

Comment EROEI (Score 1) 82

by mdsolar (#47906023) Attached to: Solar Powered Technology Enhances Oil Recovery
This allows the Peak Oil argument that oil won't be extracted if the ratio of energy return on energy invested drops too low (usually below about 3) to be discounted. Values well below one can now be exploited. Additionally, source rock may be injected with renewably sourced hydrogen to get at carbon that normally would be completely immobile. Kharecha and Hansen attempted to look at the effects of Peak Oil on climate. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs... It appears they may have been seriously too optimistic. Exploiting source rock to mobilize all the carbon using renewable energy could lead to three or four doublings of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In essence, renewable energy provides the means to make most of the continents uninhabitable.

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