Home/Posts Tagged ‘United States’
Posts Tagged ‘United States’
Green living, Science & Technology, Oct 17th, 2011,
Despite the well-publicized bankruptcy of California-based solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, solar power is a growth industry in the United States and is set to boom, according to the US National Solar Job Census. The new survey shows that job growth in the United States’ solar energy sector grew by 6.8% over a one-year period ending in August, compared to less than 1% for over-all job growth in the US. The industry believes that solar jobs will grow by another 24% over the next year. A quarter of American jobs in the solar power industry are currently located in the State…
Tags: California, energy, job growth, jobs, power, Solar, Texas, United States, US
Politics, Science & Technology, Sep 27th, 2010,
It may sound illogical to produce biofuels in the Middle East, a region generally associated with oil. It may sound even stranger to ship biofuel all the way from the US to the Afghanistan in order to power the vehicles of the US military. Well this is geopolitics, don’t try to make simple sense of it. Afghanistan, though neighbors with some big oil producers in the Persian Gulf, does not have a fossil fuel industry. It does, however, have a big opium and heroin economy. A recent study proposes that a biofuel industry in Afghanistan, with the US military as…
Tags: Afghanistan, biodiesel, biofuels, fossil fuels, Military, Navy, opium, poppies, poppy, United States, US, war
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Jul 9th, 2010,
Due in part to the popularity of the environmental documentary film Gasland, the practice of natural gas extraction using hydraulic fracturing, alternately known as ‘fracking’ or ‘fracing’, has been the subject of much debate. The process of hydraulic fracturing involves drilling into shale reservoirs and creating fractures by pumping in water. The principle environmental concerns regarding fracking are the contamination of wells and aquifers with chemicals used in the drilling process, air quality issues and the mismanagement of solid waste. The spread of fracking for shale gas in the United States has already partially revolutionized the natural gas industry there…
Tags: environmental, Europe, European, frack, fracking, fracturing, gas, hydraulic, natural, oil, Poland, shale, United States
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Jun 16th, 2010,
The history of oil drilling and oil spilling in the United States is riddled with disasters, political decisions as reactions to those disasters and then subsequent resumptions of drilling. The US has drilled deeper and further offshore as drilling technology has developed. Unfortunately, cleanup technology has not likewise progressed. Proper offshore oil drilling in the US began after the Second World War. Previously, ocean drilling was carried out on wharfs, the longest of which stretched 1,200 ft (400 meters) into the Pacific. By 1949 there were 44 exploratory oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. By the 1950s oil production…
Tags: cleanup, drill, drilling, Gulf, history, Maddow, Mexico, ocean, offshore, oil, Rachel, Santa Barbara, spill, spilling, technology, United States, US
Climate Change, Politics, May 25th, 2010,
The United States and France have a strange rivalry. American revolutionaries were helped by France and in turn inspired French republicans. One hundred years later, France gave the Statue of Liberty to the US as a centennial gift. Things soured after the World Wars and years of hegemonic struggle vis-à-vis Anglo vs. Franco cultural-linguistic dominance. Huh? In other words, to quote the Dandy Warhols: ‘a long time ago, we used to be friends’. Nowadays anything the French do seems to raise hackles on the back of many red-blooded American necks, at the very least for ‘red state’ Americans. On the…
Tags: American, environment, Europe, Exxon, France, French, offshore, oil, spill, turbine, United States, US, Valdez, wind, windmills
Nature, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Mar 12th, 2010,
The 12 day CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) meetings begin on Saturday in the city of Doha, capital of the Arab emirate of Qatar. The talks will attempt to hammer out transnational policies concerning the management and protection of animal and plant species that are threatened with endangerment or extinction due to international commerce. From the CITES website: Annually, international wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars and to include hundreds of millions of plant and animal specimens. The trade is diverse, ranging from live animals and plants…
Tags: African, bluefin, CITES, elephant, endangered, ivory, japan, New York Times, polar bear, species, trade, tuna, United States, US
Climate Change, Nature, Feb 17th, 2010,
The Canadian province of Alberta is home to a particularly dirty kind of oil field: so called ‘Tar Sands’. The world’s largest source of bitumen – a heavy, black form of crude oil extracted by surface mining – is located in the northeastern portion of the province. Most of the oil mined from Canada’s tar sands is destined for refineries in the United States, but with American companies shying away from the oil sands due to environmental pressure and China moving in, things look to be changing. An article in the Guardian explains: China’s growing investment in the tar sands…
Tags: Alberta, Canada, China, emissions, oil, sands, tar, United States
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 6th, 2010,
Longer growing seasons and higher concentrations of CO2 may encourage faster growth rates in trees, according to a 22-year scientific study of mixed hardwoods in the eastern United States. During the study average temperatures increased by 0.3 degrees while the growing season was extended by 7.8 days. Furthermore, the CO2 concentration in the forest air went up 12%. Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and extended growing seasons could be favourable for agriculture in some parts of the world, mainly in the northern hemisphere. The study in Maryland suggests that the extra growth in trees could help to act as a…
Tags: carbon, carbon dioxide, Climate change, co2, forest, global warming, Maryland, study, temperatures, tree, United States, waterfowl, wetlands
Green living, Jan 13th, 2010,
Having already made great strides in renewable energy production in the form of massive wind and photovoltaic solar panel projects, China is now building solar power plants of another type: concentrating solar power. Concentrating solar plants use large numbers of mirrors which generate electricity by capturing heat and producing steam. Europe and the United States have experienced a sudden and marked increase in plans for these types of plants during the last two years and now, according to an article in the ‘Energy and Environment’ section of the New York Times, China is getting in on the game. Popular in…
Tags: China, concentrating solar power, New York Times, power plant, renewable energy, solar power, United States
Nature, Politics, Jan 12th, 2010,
![]( "<!--:en-->Conservation, Native rights and sustainable energy: Cape Wind suffers another")
' src='http://gf3.statico.be/wp-content/themes/greenfudge/thumbnails/4795.jpg' alt='conservation-native-rights-and-sustainable-energy-cape-wind-suffers-another-blow' class='art-teaser' width='95' height='95' /> What would be the United States’ first offshore wind farm project – dubbed Cape Wind – may be in jeopardy due to an announcement by the National Park Service last week. The NPS stated that the site of the proposed wind farm, in Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, should be eligible for protection by being included in the National Register of Historic Places. Two Native American tribes, the Aquinnah and the Mashpee Wampanoag, are opposed to the project due to traditional and spiritual reasons: ‘The turbines would be clearly visible to both Aquinnah and Mashpee people and would degrade their essential view…
Tags: American, Cape Wind, government, Indian, Martha's Vineyard, Mashpee, Massachusetts, Nantucket, native, project, spiritual, sustainable energy, tribes, United States, Wampanoag, wind farm
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Dec 23rd, 2009,
‘We need nation-building at home now’ Rachel Maddow welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to discuss the UN climate change conference which recently took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. ‘Too little trust’ is what Friedman saw at COP15, especially between the United States and China – with neither wanting to give an economic advantage to the other by cutting their emissions. He favors an American ‘Green revolution’ so the United States can be an economic leader in what is poised to eventually be a post fossil fuels world. Friedman also compares the inefficiency of the currently ultra-polarized political…
Tags: America, China, copenhagen, Friedman, Hot Flat and Crowded, Rachel Maddow, Thomas Friedman, United States
Climate Change, Politics, Dec 15th, 2009,
It has been expected from the start of the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen that there would be a clash of interests between the developing world and the wealthy industrialized countries. The rich nations cause most of the pollution and the poor ones suffer the most from its effects. So they would like some recompense or – depending on which nation you ask – at least be able to industrialize and pollute their way into the developed countries club. As actor/comedian/columnist David Mitchell puts it in Sunday’s Observer ‘our long, unaffordable global lunch is coming to an end’, we’ve asked…
Tags: Africa, copenhagen, countries, developing, industrialize, kyoto, Obama, United States
