Wind Power Has Cut U.S. soldes coque iphone pas cher Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 4.4 Percent: Report Kate Sheppard WASHINGTON — The growth of wind power in the United States is putting a significant dent in emissions, according to a forthcoming report from the American Wind Energy Association. Wind generation avoided 95.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2013, which is equivalent to taking 16.9 million cars off the road. That’s a 4.4 percent cut to power sector emissions, when compared to the level of emissions that would have been generated if that power had come from fossil fuels. Wind proponents say that’s evidence that the wind industry is playing a major role in meeting U.S. coque iphone 2019 soldes emissions goals. “Every time a megawatt of wind power is generated, something else is not generated,” said Elizabeth Salerno, AWEA’s vice president for industry data and analysis. coque iphone There are now 61,000 megawatts of wind power installed in the U.S., with turbines in 39 states. Another 12,000 megawatts of wind power are currently under construction, and power projects for which contracts are signed but construction has yet to start are expected to produce another 5,200 megawatts. coque iphone 8 AWEA says those additional projects should cut another 1 percent of power sector emissions, putting the country closer to the Obama administration’s goal of cutting total U.S. emissions 17 percent by 2020. The switch to natural gas for power generation, spurred by lower prices in recent years, is usually given most of the credit for reductions in emissions from the power sector over the last nine years. But plants now burning gas could switch back to coal if prices go back up, said Salerno, so “those aren’t fixed, permanent reductions.” With wind, she says, “those reductions are locked in.” The AWEA report also found that the expansion of wind energy has helped reduce water consumption by 36.5 billion gallons, or about 116 gallons of water per U.S. resident. coque iphone x Thermal power plants, which include coal, nuclear and some natural gas-fired units, use the fuel source to boil water, which produces the steam that turns the turbines that generate electricity. Plants also require water for cooling, whereas wind turbines do not. soldes coque iphone Jordan Macknick, an energy and environmental analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, has said that wind is the “clear winner” when comparing the water use of different types of electricity generation. AWEA says two big factors could help boost the continued growth of wind: the extension of the production tax credit, which provides a financial incentive for wind development, and possible changes to the EPA’s emission standards for existing power facilities. Regarding the former, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill Thursday that would extend the credit through the end of 2015. coque iphone pas cher It had lapsed at the end of the 2013. As for the EPA, it’s still not clear what the standards for emissions reductions from existing power plants will look like. The EPA said Friday that it has sent its draft standards to the Office of Management and Budget for interagency review, and expects to release those draft standards in June, per President Barack Obama’s climate action plan. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has said that standards will be crafted in a way that allows states to develop their own feasible emission reduction plans through energy efficiency measures and the increased use of renewable energy. It’s not yet clear, however, how steep the emissions cuts for existing plants will be. It’s also not yet clear how much of a state’s compliance with the standards will be expected to come from changes inside the power plants — such as efficiency or technology upgrades — or from added capacity via renewables. AWEA argues EPA could “set the standard pretty aggressively” for states to use additional generation from wind and other renewables to comply.
Author: admin@wholeuni
Calling All Pagans: Your Mother (Earth) Needs You
Calling All Pagans: Your Mother Earth Needs You by Robert C. Koehler Sadly, writes Koehler, we’re far more prepared to go to war than we are to make peace with the planet. Somewhere between these two quotes lies the future: “And I would like to emphasize that nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.” “The Judeo-Christian worldview is that man is at the center of the universe; nature was therefore created for man. Nature has no intrinsic worth other than man’s appreciation and moral use of it.” The first quote is from Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, summing up the dire and much-discussed findings of its recent report: Human civilization — its technology, its war games, its helpless short-sightedness and addiction to fossil fuels — is wrecking the environment that sustains all life. Time is running out on our ability to make changes; and the world’s, uh, “leadership” — political, corporate — has shown little will to step beyond more of the same, to figure out how we can reduce carbon emissions and live in eco-harmony, with a sense of responsibility for the future. “But maybe we can start learning, at long last, that we are not the masters of the universe and that “dominion” and exploitation are immature expressions of power.” The second quote is from radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, writing recently in the National Review Online. soldes coque iphone He goes on, in his remarkable rant against environmentalism, to point out that “worship of nature was the pagan worldview” and “for the Left, the earth has supplanted patriotism.” Eventually he compares environmentalism to loving wild dogs more than mauled children. Prager’s diatribe isn’t my normal reading matter and I only bring it up here because I think it has relevance to the leadership void I’ve been pondering. The contemptuous dismissal of nature as lacking intrinsic worth — an unworthy competitor with God for human allegiance — may no longer have mainstream credibility, but, like racism, it’s part of the mindset that has shaped Western civilization. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” We’re still caught up in the momentum of dominion. Thus: “. . . for all the alarming warnings generated by the scientific community and confirmed by the IPCC’s comprehensive analysis of that science,” according to a recent Common Dreams article, “world governments and the powerful private sector have done next to nothing to meet the challenge now before humanity.” Indeed, as Elizabeth Kolbert points out in The New Yorker: “Currently, instead of discouraging fossil-fuel use, the U.S. coque iphone pas cher government underwrites it, with tax incentives for producers worth about four billion dollars a year.” We’ve got, as the IPCC report states, “a 15-year window” to start making serious changes in how we structure our world. coque iphone 7 Human society will need, the Common Dreams piece says, to “revolutionize the structures of its economies, food systems, and energy grids.” This is not going to happen — not at current levels of awareness, concern and empowerment. This is the dawning realization I find myself less and less able to live with. Climate change and global weather chaos — droughts and fires, tsunamis and tidal waves, crop failure, undrinkable water, devastating cold, rising oceans, new levels of social turmoil — are the future we are unable to hold off. But maybe we can start learning, at long last, that we are not the masters of the universe and that “dominion” and exploitation are immature expressions of power. My only hope is that, in so learning — as humanity finds itself increasingly entangled with environmental chaos and recognizes its utter vulnerability to nature — we will begin to transcend our isolated sense of entitlement to do with Planet Earth what we will and revolutionize the way we organize every aspect of our social structure, rethinking ten millennia of dominance-motivated social organization. Nobody, after all, no matter how wealthy and fortified, is immune to the impact of a changing climate. We’re all in it together. We’re part of nature, not its master. This concept is the missing foundation stone of contemporary civilization. It was in this state of mind that I read Prager’s essay, wondering if such an awareness change were possible, or whether, as the consequences of unsustainable living intensified, we’d become, instead, increasingly isolated and survivalist in our thinking. “Worship of nature was the pagan worldview,” he wrote, sounding the note of ultimate contempt for any suggestion that environmental sustainability matters and our way of life needs to change profoundly. coque iphone 6 Perhaps the word “pagan” embodies the most deeply embedded prejudice in the Western, civilized mindset — the first and last justification for global dominance. Pagans are the ultimate “other.” We’ve built a moral structure on this prejudice, and as a consequence the U.S. government continues to subsidize rather than tax fossil fuel production. As a consequence, we’re far more prepared to go to war than we are to make peace with the planet. We have to undo this prejudice before it undoes us. coque iphone 8 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is now available. Contact him at [email protected] or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Shaman Heals Insecurity and Addiction
By Kristen McGuiness How a Shaman Helped Me Deal With My Deepest Insecurities and Severe Addiction These methods are unconventional, but they’ve kept me sane and sober. April 4, 2014 The following article first appeared in The Fix. Also on TheFix.com: Brain Restoration: Too Good to be True for Addiction and Disease?; Howard Dean and the Politics of Recovery ; Tap Tap Tap: A Path to Healing and Recovery. Lidia leans over me and shakes her rattle, asking me to breathe in deep to the child I was. I feel the heavy stone as it sits on my belly, the scent of copal and green tea heavy in the room. I have done a lot of things to get sober, but in many ways, this hour with Lidia has kept me there. When I was barely a year sober, I had gotten a traffic ticket, had my wallet stolen, and was dumped by a guy all in the space of one week. My boss found me crying in my office one night, and offered to introduce me to someone. At first, I thought she meant a potential love interest, but she meant Lidia, her therapist. coque iphone 2019 As I quickly found out, Lidia was not only a licensed counselor, but also a Curandera, trained in the Shamanic energy work of the Peruvian and Huichol native peoples. The work that began that day in Chatsworth has carried me through my sobriety, and at the same time is deeply connected to it. Because what Lidia has taught me is that our souls are hardwired to our mental impulses. The belief systems which have been handed down from my Hungarian, Italian and Irish ancestors still live in my actions today and the lies that my forebears told themselves, and their children, in order to survive often echo in my own behaviors. And like the DNA that spirals through my chromosomal identity, those stories create the spine of my resentments, my fears, and how I have learned to love.On my first trip, she had me talk about where I was at in life—describing the frustration of my work life, my love life, and the childhood that had been so key in shaping the choices that led to both. Despite her loose white linen garments, and the hippie decorum of her home (nestled in the middle of suburban Chatsworth), it could have been any therapy session anywhere. But then she pulled down the shades, turned off the lights, pulled out her circle of sacred stones, and we began dipping into the shades of consciousness that pool around that desire to drink something or take something in order feel better. On that first day with Lidia when she had me choose a stone and then laid it on my body before pulling out a rattle and helping me channel the energy passed down by generations and solidified by my own beliefs and perspectives, I saw what I had yet to find anywhere else: the neurosis that lies beneath the addiction. And together Lidia and I began to heal it. At one time, I saw Lidia every month, but today, I only see her three to four times a year. The reason is simple, I have gotten better. But life still comes up. Through my time with Lidia, I left a job I did not love for one I did, I wrote and published my first book, I created a career as a writer, I fell in love and got married, I moved to Paris for a Masters degree, and came home to Los Angeles to new and exciting adventures in my career and in life. Now, as I prepare to embark on the next phase – getting pregnant and starting a family – I turn to Lidia again. We discuss my need for control as I have been trying to time my pregnancy with a Chinese gender predictor chart and the most desired astrological signs. That would be a control issue, I believe. Lidia again challenges me to find why this need for control still pervades my life. She explains to me what I had yet to realize myself, “It sounds like an addictive behavior. You’re compulsively trying to plan for life when you know that life doesn’t work that way.” Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yes, I know that tune. It doesn’t take me long to trace back this addiction. When I was growing up, my father was imprisoned for marijuana smuggling. Nearly every year, he would give me a date for his release – June 4, 1988, November 10, 1990, August 30, 1996. I know these dates like the back of my hand. I would plan for them, dream about them, illustrate them in perfect detail. The day my father would be free, the day my daddy would come home. But then that date would pass, and my father would remain incarcerated, as he had been since I was four. The habit is old. If there is something I want, I will immediately feel the need to design its acquisition. I will formulate dates, I will plan big events, I will want to control what was never, ever in my control in the first place. And l do this all with the mind of an addict: obsessively, compulsively, unable to stop even when I know it’s not good for me, let alone those around me (just ask my husband). Lidia has me get on the floor and choose a stone. It isn’t as strange as it used to be. The process is now comforting, like settling in before a massage. I choose a strangely molded one that looks like a purplish brain. Lidia places it on my belly and we begin to channel the energy that can either hold back or inspire my deepest potential. coque iphone I begin to talk, but its not really a deliberate dialogue, it’s born from that liquid consciousness – the one that speaks in scents and colors and not in language or reason. coque iphone en ligne And in that stream of thought, I recognize the games I play with finance, with my relationship, in my career. My unending need to plan vacations and track dates and calculate numbers and premeditate fantasies and goals and babies in ways that are not necessarily healthy. The time passes quickly. The tears have come and gone and I am breathing deeply on Lidia’s floor when suddenly I feel a ripple of energy run up along the left side of my shoulder and around my neck. It’s a strange experience, one I have never had before while meditating. Lidia shakes the final spell of her rattle, and closes the ceremony. I open my eyes to see her sitting above me, looking down. “The weirdest thing just happened,” she tells me. “As you were laying there at the end, I saw this image of a swan wrap itself around your neck. coque iphone xs max It was so clear, I could see it move up your shoulder and then your two necks intertwined.” She laughs, “I wondered what it was going to do with its little webbed claws.” I gasp. This is why I come here. This is why I continue to come here. Because beneath the addiction, beneath the twelve steps, beneath the recovery and the sobriety, is the magic of being alive. And Lidia and I dance together in that. coque iphone I tell her how I felt the same thing, and I realize what the feeling was, “It was feathers. I could feel feathers moving alongside my body.” Fuck yeah, magic. After we get up, and close with a final prayer, turning the room back into one that could double as any therapist’s office anywhere, she pulls out a book on medicine animals. In it, we read about the swan, “Swan… The power of woman entering Sacred Space, touching future, yet to come, bringing eternal grace.” Kristen McGuiness is a freelance writer and regular contributor to The Fix who wrote previously about old timers in AA and sober travel, among other topics. She is the author of 51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life.
Victory! Vermont’s GMO Labeling Laws
Organic Consumers Association Statement on GMO Labeling Law Victory in Vermont • Vermont Lawmakers Pass Country’s First No-Strings-Attached GMO Labeling Law • Organic Consumers Association, April 16, 2014 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2014 FINLAND, MN. – Today, by a vote of 28-2, the Vermont state Senate passed H.112, a bill to require mandatory labeling of foods sold in Vermont that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). coque iphone soldes The bill also makes it illegal to call any food product containing GMOs “natural” or “all natural.” Unlike bills passed last year in Maine and Connecticut, which require four or five other states to pass GMO labeling laws before they can be enacted, Vermont’s law contains no “trigger” clauses, making it the first “clean” GMO labeling law in the country. The bill now goes back to the House which is expected to agree to the Senate’s amendments, then to Gov. coque iphone solde Peter Shumlin who is expected to sign it. Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), issued the following statement: Today’s victory in Vermont has been 20 years in the making. Ever since genetically modified crops and foods entered the U.S. food supply in the early 1990s, without adequate independent pre-market safety testing and without labels, U.S. consumers have fought to require the labeling of foods containing GMOs. Consumer demand for mandatory labeling of GMOs spawned a national grassroots movement that has persevered despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the biotech and food industries to lobby state lawmakers in Vermont, and to fund anti-labeling campaigns in California (2012) and Washington State (2013). coque iphone 8 Today, consumers and a number of principled legislators in Vermont made it clear to Monsanto, Coca-Cola and other opponents of consumers’ right to know: We will not back down. This movement is here to stay. coque iphone x We expect that Monsanto will sue the state of Vermont in order to prevent enactment of H.112. coque iphone We also expect that Monsanto will lose, and the law will go into effect on schedule, on July 1, 2016. We expect that the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a multi-billion lobbying group representing more than 300 food, pesticide and drug makers, will try to pass their “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014,” introduced last week by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), intended to strip Vermont, and all other states, of their right to pass GMO labeling laws. coque iphone 6 And we expect that Congress will not pass this law, dubbed the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, which seeks to deny consumers the right to know if their food has been genetically engineered, and deny states the right to enact laws designed to protect public health. Vermont’s landmark victory today will force food companies to either label GMOs in all states, or reformulate their products to be GMO-free in order to avoid stating “this product was produced using genetic engineering” on their packaging. When Oregon passes a citizens’ ballot initiative to label GMOs in November, as we believe it will, the biotech and food industries will have lost, beyond the shadow of a doubt, their battle to keep consumers in the dark. coque iphone The OCA has worked closely over the past several years with the pro-labeling grassroots movement in Vermont. Today we congratulate Vermont activists for their passionate pursuit of this law, Vermont lawmakers for having the courage to pass the law, and Vermont citizens for being the first in the country to have the benefit of GMO labels on their food. And we reaffirm our commitment to work with Oregon and other states to pass similar laws, and to fight any and all attempts by industry and/or Congress to overturn these laws. For press inquiries, please contact Katherine Paul by phone: 207.653.3090 The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public interest organization campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability.
Video: Food as Medicine at TEDx Village Gate
Food as Medicine: Christa Orechio at TEDxVillageGate Christa Orecchio is a clinical and holistic nutritionist and founder of The Whole Journey, a private nutrition practice and informational website established to help people live healthier, coque iphone xr happier, and more energetic lives through whole food nutrition, quality supplementation, soldes coque iphone 2019 and healthy lifestyle guidance. Christa’s goal is to holistically heal chronic health concerns from the root cause, coque iphone 6 in lieu of addressing individual symptoms. coque iphone She also focuses on elements that nourish other than food, acheter coque iphone en ligne including honest and open relationships, a meaningful spiritual practice, a career or creative outlet that inspires, soldes coque iphone and physical activity that is enjoyable.
Video: Robyn O’Brien At TEDx
Robyn O’Brien At TEDx Austin Robyn shares her personal story and how it inspired her current path as a “Real Food” evangelist. coque iphone 6 Grounded in a successful Wall Street career that was more interested in food as good business than good-for-you, coque iphone 2019 this mother of four was shaken awake by the dangerous allergic reaction of one of her children to a “typical” breakfast. coque iphone 8 Her mission to unearth the cause revealed more about the food industry than she could stomach, coque iphone 2019 and impelled her to share her findings with others. coque iphone Informative and inspiring.
America’s Transformation to Renewable Energy
Stanford Report, February 26, 2014 Stanford scientist unveils 50-state plan to transform U.S. to renewable energy Mark Jacobson and his colleagues have created a 50-state roadmap for replacing coal, oil and natural gas with wind, water and solar energy. coque iphone 7 By Mark Shwartz The Solutions Project Stanford University scientist Mark Jacobson has developed a 50-state roadmap for transforming the United States from dependence on fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. He unveiled the plan at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. “Drastic problems require drastic and immediate solutions,” said Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “Our new roadmap is designed to provide each state a first step toward a renewable future.” The motivation for the 50-state plan, he said, is to address the negative impacts on climate and human health from widespread use of coal, oil and natural gas. Replacing these fossil fuels with clean technologies would significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming and spare the lives of an estimated 59,000 Americans who die from exposure to air pollution annually, he said. In recent years, Jacobson and his colleagues have developed detailed proposals for converting the energy infrastructures of New York, California and Washington states to 100 percent wind, water and solar power by 2050. The new plan includes an online interactive map tailored to maximize the renewable resource potential of each of the 50 states. Hovering a cursor over California, for example, reveals that the Golden State can meet virtually all of its power demands (transportation, electricity, heating, etc.) in 2050 by switching to a clean technology portfolio that is 55 percent solar, 35 percent wind (on- and offshore), 5 percent geothermal and 4 percent hydroelectric. Nuclear power, ethanol and other biofuels are not included in the proposed energy mix for any of the states. “The new map provides all of the basic information, such as how many wind turbines and solar panels would be needed to power each state, how much land area would be required, what would be the cost and cost savings, how many jobs would be created, and how much pollution-related mortality and global-warming emissions would be avoided,” Jacobson said. coque iphone pas cher The 50-state plan is posted on the website of The Solutions Project (http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/), a nonprofit outreach effort led by Jacobson, actor Mark Ruffalo (co-star of The Avengers), film director Josh Fox and others to raise public awareness about switching to clean energy produced by wind, water and sunlight. coque iphone xr To publicize the plan, Ruffalo joined Solutions Project member Leilani Münter, a professional racecar driver, at a Feb. coque iphone 2019 15 Daytona National Speedway racing event that Munter participated in. coque iphone 8 “Global warming, air pollution and energy insecurity are three of the most significant problems facing the world today,” said Jacobson, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. coque iphone “Unfortunately, scientific results are often glossed over. coque iphone The Solutions Project was born with the vision of combining science with business, policy and public outreach through social media and cultural leaders – often artists and entertainers who can get the information out – to study and simultaneously address these global challenges.” Mark Shwartz writes about energy research for the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University.