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Will Warming Lead to a Rise in Hurricanes?
By CORNELIA DEAN, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
When people worry about the effects of global warming, they worry more about hurricanes than anything else. In surveys, almost three-quarters of Americans say there will be more and stronger hurricanes in a warming world. By contrast, fewer than one-quarter worry about increased coastal flooding.
But as far as the scientific consensus is concerned, people have things just about backward.
( Read More )
Observatory: For Babies and Language, Seeing Is Believing, Even Without Hearing
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
As any new parent will attest, babies are amazing. And to the list of remarkable things infants can do, here’s a new one: they can distinguish one language from another just by the sight of a talking face, not sound.
( Read More )
Vital Signs: At Risk: Where Smokers Congregate Outside Bars, a Cloud Hovers
By ERIC NAGOURNEY, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
Now that smokers have been pushed out of many bars and restaurants to mill about the door, is it time to send them packing altogether?
A new study suggests that the haze produced by the crowds of outcasts puffing away may also affect the health of nonsmokers.
( Read More )
The Energy Challenge: Efficiency, Not Just Alternatives, Is Promoted as an Energy Saver
By MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
WATERBURY, Vt. — Green Mountain Coffee Roasters makes a lot of money selling individual servings of ground coffee in white cups that are churned out by the millions from a hissing, clanking production line here. But it recently found a way to generate even greater profits from the operation that will require only a modest investment.
Spending $150 to $200 to install a more efficient blower to cool the laser that carves the date and batch number into each passing cup will cut Green Mountain’s annual electricity bill for each laser by about $200, says Paul Comey, its vice president for environmental affairs. That might not seem like much, except that the company has 40 such lasers, which it plans to upgrade this week.
Green Mountain Coffee was persuaded to undertake such improvements in efficiency through an unusual effort by the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, which is under contract with the state to find thousands of such energy savings.
Opportunities like this abound in the commercial and industrial sectors, requiring no new research or technology. But few places are doing an effective job of finding them, experts say.
Vermont is one that is. Similarly, New York committed itself to pushing its utilities to do the same when Gov. Eliot Spitzer said recently that his goal was to cut electricity demand by 15 percent from what it would otherwise have been in 2015. That implies holding demand almost steady.
Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are getting a lot of attention these days as a way to reduce the impact of energy use on the environment. But even enthusiastic supporters of alternative energy agree that the easiest way to cut carbon emissions and air pollution is to focus more on efficiency, less on pollution-free generation.
( Read More )
(I think I heard somewhere that if everyone in Dane County switched just one bulb in their home to a Compact Fluorescent that we would be able to shut down a coal burning power plant - *sigh*)
By CORNELIA DEAN, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
When people worry about the effects of global warming, they worry more about hurricanes than anything else. In surveys, almost three-quarters of Americans say there will be more and stronger hurricanes in a warming world. By contrast, fewer than one-quarter worry about increased coastal flooding.
But as far as the scientific consensus is concerned, people have things just about backward.
( Read More )
Observatory: For Babies and Language, Seeing Is Believing, Even Without Hearing
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
As any new parent will attest, babies are amazing. And to the list of remarkable things infants can do, here’s a new one: they can distinguish one language from another just by the sight of a talking face, not sound.
( Read More )
Vital Signs: At Risk: Where Smokers Congregate Outside Bars, a Cloud Hovers
By ERIC NAGOURNEY, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
Now that smokers have been pushed out of many bars and restaurants to mill about the door, is it time to send them packing altogether?
A new study suggests that the haze produced by the crowds of outcasts puffing away may also affect the health of nonsmokers.
( Read More )
The Energy Challenge: Efficiency, Not Just Alternatives, Is Promoted as an Energy Saver
By MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, May 29, 2007
WATERBURY, Vt. — Green Mountain Coffee Roasters makes a lot of money selling individual servings of ground coffee in white cups that are churned out by the millions from a hissing, clanking production line here. But it recently found a way to generate even greater profits from the operation that will require only a modest investment.
Spending $150 to $200 to install a more efficient blower to cool the laser that carves the date and batch number into each passing cup will cut Green Mountain’s annual electricity bill for each laser by about $200, says Paul Comey, its vice president for environmental affairs. That might not seem like much, except that the company has 40 such lasers, which it plans to upgrade this week.
Green Mountain Coffee was persuaded to undertake such improvements in efficiency through an unusual effort by the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, which is under contract with the state to find thousands of such energy savings.
Opportunities like this abound in the commercial and industrial sectors, requiring no new research or technology. But few places are doing an effective job of finding them, experts say.
Vermont is one that is. Similarly, New York committed itself to pushing its utilities to do the same when Gov. Eliot Spitzer said recently that his goal was to cut electricity demand by 15 percent from what it would otherwise have been in 2015. That implies holding demand almost steady.
Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are getting a lot of attention these days as a way to reduce the impact of energy use on the environment. But even enthusiastic supporters of alternative energy agree that the easiest way to cut carbon emissions and air pollution is to focus more on efficiency, less on pollution-free generation.
( Read More )
(I think I heard somewhere that if everyone in Dane County switched just one bulb in their home to a Compact Fluorescent that we would be able to shut down a coal burning power plant - *sigh*)
