Earth Hour Saturday March 28th

11:24 AM Posted In , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
"Starting in New Zealand's remote Chatham Islands, thousands of cities, towns, and landmarks around the world will start to go dark for Earth Hour on Saturday evening.
Up to a billion people worldwide are expected to participate in this global voluntary blackout by switching off their lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.
The movement, sponsored by the conservation nonprofit WWF, is designed as a symbolic gesture in support of action against global warming."
Although China is much more subdued about Earth Hour because they want to celebrate the exile of the Dalai Lama and their repression of Tibet in the ironically named "Serf Liberation Day."

Why bike?

9:40 AM Posted In , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
Last night was D'n'D night, and the DM's house is about a mile away from mine, two at the most. I pulled on three sweaters, gloves, scarf, bag full of gaming gear, and a headlamp and hopped on my bike.
Now the Green Machine had been sitting in a barn for a year, not through any choice of my own, but she seemed ok. The light kit I picked up the other day didn't work. Going to pick up yet another set of new batteries to see if the ones I used were bad right out of the packaging since they were a couple of years old. About halfway there I noticed the front tire was going flat. Add a bicycle pump to my shopping list, and perhaps a fix-a-flat or even a new tire. The kickstand was loose, and I had no tools immediately available to fix it. The front handlebars squeaked horribly every time they moved. No idea how to fix/oil that. I think the chain was having issues, will have to ride some more to determine if there is a problem.
Everyone at game asked if my car was ok. A perfectly understandable question as she was recently incapacitated, but no, Lilith is fine. The next question was: Why did you bike?
A: It's cheaper.
B: It's better for the environment.
C: It's healthier for me.
All the technical problems didn't even occur to me at the time. But if you think about it, it's really not so different from a car. Check the pressure in the tires. Check the fluids, refill or change as necessary. Fuel. Burnt out lights. Brake checks.

Save Coal River Mountain

11:21 AM Posted In , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
"Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is a beautiful forested area surrounded by communities with long experience with coal mining as been practiced for decades. How long have these folks been settled around the mountain? Many are descendants of those who moved to the area on land grants given soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Now the mountain itself is threatened by coal mining as it's been practiced under the Bush administration -- mountaintop removal."
Article and petition here.

Nuclear Energy is not Clean Energy

10:19 AM Posted In , , , Edit This 1 Comment »
The biggest problem with the mini nuclear reactors is the nuclear waste. The units would require refueling every 7-10 years, indicating that waste would be produced. Considering our current method of disposal is encasing it in cement and burying it and pray that in the next 1,000 years it doesn't leak or accidentally become unearthed, the mass sales estimated by Hyperion would produce large amounts of radioactive waste which we would simply bury.
Bronn said that our technology tends to develop only once a need arises (a.k.a. "necessity is the mother of all invention"), and we would come up with a better method. It is dumb and irresponsible to create radioactive waste on these levels before having a viable solution for dealing with the waste.
And no, we can't shoot it into space either for a number of reasons.

Your own personal, NUCLEAR REACTOR

11:52 AM Posted In , , , , Edit This 3 Comments »
"Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.
The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground."
Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? Thanks to Bronn, who told me about this.
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