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Politics : The Exxon Free Environmental Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (235)	4/7/2007 9:38:48 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49085

This should be at Rat's Nest, but you are here... Energy meeting, film draw big crowd BY CARA MCDONOUGH : The Herald-Sun chh@heraldsun.com Apr 5, 2007 : 10:18 pm ET CARRBORO, NC -- A large group gathered at the Carrboro Century Center on Thursday night to talk about the future of oil, gas prices and the impact on local communities. The public meeting began with a new film by local filmmaker Jim McQuaid. "After the Peak," McQuaid's short, fictional film modeled as a newscast, took a look at how a shortage in oil and high gas prices could affect Orange County. In the movie, skyrocketing gas prices force gas station owners to employ armed guards to ensure customers don't drive off without paying. School systems would only be able to afford to transport 10 percent of students via school buses. After the movie, which received loud applause, three panelists gave presentations and fielded questions from the crowd. Simon Rich, a local businessman who works on the interconnection of energy and agriculture, said he felt the reality of "peak oil" -- the idea that oil production will soon peak and then decline -- could have disastrous consequences. "I think you're going to see social chaos worse than Jim portrayed in this film," he said. Eric Henry, who owns a local textile business, and Patrick McDonough, a board member of The Village Project, a program that promotes "walkable" communities, talked about the ways Orange County is combatting the problem. Henry said he and his partners are working to keep their business, making cotton products, local. They make half of their products in the state. He applauded Carrboro for being a community that "gets it." Providing locally grown food, thus decreasing the distance the product must travel to get to the buyer, makes all the difference, he said. "Carrboro Farmers' Market, Weaver Street Market -- they get it," he said. "The product costs more because they care what happens to their community." McDonough pointed to a UNC study that compared the travel habits of residents in Southern Village, a mixed-use community in Chapel Hill, to residents in Lake Hogan Farms, a residential subdivision in Carrboro. Because Southern Village is a "walkable community" -- residents can walk to schools, restaurants and shops built into the community -- they drive, on average, 17.4 miles less per household per day than the residents of Lake Hogan Farms, said McDonough. "We can begin to think about how we design our communities and how that makes a difference," he said. The number of people who attended the event is a good sign for the future, said Cricket Ellis. Ellis played one of the characters in McQuaid's film and saw the movie for the first time Thursday night. "There are a lot more people here than I thought there would be," she said. Sponsors of Thursday's public meeting included N.C. Cooperative Extension, N.C. Powerdown, SURGE, The Chapel Hill Solar Roofs Committee, The Alliance for Community Economics, The Orange County Economic Development Commission, The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce and The Village Project. heraldsun.com

To: Suma who wrote (235)	4/7/2007 9:47:31 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49085

"got tired battling the disbelievers most of whom were right wingers" Try about 99 and 44/100 %. "Some were very convincing in their arguments as to why what I posted was incorrect." It's all BS. They haven't a clue. "The future belongs to the younger ones here on S.I. and their children and grandchildren... " It belongs to old farts and fartesses like us, too. We both may have 30 years left. And Baby Girl is 19, and my granddaughter is 14 months old. I'm getting rumors the Mall Rat is going to go into climate change/ alt en from my oldest son. I hope he's right. I don't want to put any pressure on her about bowing to my wishes. (I think she may have too much already; when somebody asked her what she was gonna major in, she said Big Bro hadn't told her yet :>)

To: Suma who wrote (235)	4/12/2007 10:49:04 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49085

Global warming turns up political heat in Australia by Lawrence Bartlett Thu Apr 12, 2:31 AM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - Global warming is turning up the political heat in Australia, the only country in the world to have joined the United States in refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. With scientists warning that prized coastal homes are threatened by rising sea levels and rich farmlands are drying up, Prime Minister John Howard has undergone an election-year conversion from sceptic to activist. Just six months after refusing to meet visiting former US vice-president Al Gore, now a campaigner against global warming, Howard has put climate change high on the agenda for a summit with state premiers Friday. "I think we should have an intelligent discussion about climate change because there are roles and responsibilities for both levels of government," Howard said. Among the proposals to be considered is a 300 million dollar (240 million US) project to map the impact of global warming on what is already the world's driest continent, local media reported. The digital map would help pinpoint communities that face being washed away by rising sea levels and predict where rivers will run, possibly pointing to a radical shift of major agriculture from the drying south to the wetter north. The summit comes hard on the heels of the release in Brussels last week of a major report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which highlighted the threats to Australia. The scientists predicted loss of high-value coastal land by 2050 due to rising sea levels and storms, increased droughts and major damage to World Heritage ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef. One of the scientists who provided expert advice to the IPCC said the famous reef off Australia's east coast, treasured as the world's largest living organism, could be dead in 20 years. Warmer, more acidic seas were killing the coral, said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the Australian Research Council. A conference in Sydney this week brought global warming threats even closer to home, with business risk analyst Karl Mallon warning that coastal residents would suffer the impact even before sea levels rise. Mallon said the value of a home would plunge by up to 80 percent if it was assessed as uninsurable because of the dangers posed by severe weather events caused by climate change. An Australian author of the UN report, Nick Harvey, said people wanting to live by the sea may have to pay a levy to fund costly coastal protection measures. Despite softening his stance on climate change as opinion polls show widespread public concern about the issue, Howard still refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He has criticised the agreement on the grounds that it did not commit developing countries to the same greenhouse gas restrictions as those imposed on industrialised nations. Australia is a major exporter of the fossil fuels such as coal which emit the gases and is one of the worst polluters on a per capita basis, but Howard's continued refusal to ratify Kyoto puzzles some critics. "I don't know that there is a logical reason," eminent scientist Tim Flannery, who was named Australian of the Year for 2007, told AFP "I think everyone would agree he has a streak of stubbornness in him but I can't believe he would be so stubborn as to put that before the interests of the country. "I see the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol as being supremely important, because what's happening at the moment is the Chinese are citing our recalcitrance as an excuse for them not to do anything." news.yahoo.com