Move On McCain

MoveOn.org is cool, because they show you were they get the documentation for this video ad.

The truth is out there.

-Cara

World Without Oil

Today’s game is World Without Oil. I am beyond excited to come up with a plan of what to do in the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis. I don’t know what medium I will use yet, but I love to think and come up with solutions, especially in a virtual world, so bring it.

According to the WWO site, “World Without Oil concluded on June 1, 2007. [They are] no longer publishing links to in-game stories on the WWO site (unless they’re really good). But everyone is welcome to sign up as a Netizen Hero and to participate in “WWO Lives,” [their] ongoing blog about all matters WWO.”

The cool thing is they say they will link to good in-game stories from the WWO Lives blog. That means only the superstar stories will make it on the site, which is a still a competition, and who doesn’t like a little healthy competition.

I’m in.

-Cara

The Beginnings of Solar Power

The history of solar power is of interest to me, because again for some reason I have an innate interest in all things solar. In this entry I wrote about some of the forefathers of the solar power movement and in future entries I will bring us up to the present time.

Humans and the earth have used the sun as some sort of energy source since the beginning of time, but it was not until 1838 that Edmund Becquerel observed and published findings about the nature of certain materials to turn light into energy. This in itself did not really create much commotion, but it did bring the thought of harnessing the sun’s energy source to people’s mind.

Thirty years later between 1860 and 1881, Auguste Mouchout, a mathematics instructor at the Lyce de Tours, became the first man to patent a design for a motor running on solar energy. This invention was born out of his his concerns over his country’s dependence on coal. “It would be prudent and wise not to fall asleep regarding this quasi-security,” he wrote. “Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion. Coal will undoubtedly be used up. What will industry do then?” Well we know what they do, they discover other nonrenewable sources of energy like oil and natural gas to use up, and once that is gone then will we turn to sun and wind for our main source of energy? The issue “they” see with that is they have not figured out a way to turn an obscenely grandiose profit off the sun and air, but I would not worry too much as I am sure General Electric is working on buying the sun as we speak.

Anyway, Mouchout received funds from the French Emperor Napoleon III and with those funds he designed a device that turned solar energy into mechanical steam power and soon operated the first steam engine. He later connected the steam engine to a refrigeration device, illustrating that the sun’s rays can be utilized to make ice, for which he was awarded an awesome French Medal of Super Freshness [I tried to discover, briefly, what medal it was he won, but to no avail, so yes I did invent the French medal of Super Freshness incase you weren’t sure.]!

Unfortunately, his groundbreaking research was cut short. The French renegotiated a cheaper deal with England for the supply of coal and improved their transportation system for the delivery thereof. Mouchout’s work towards finding an alternative source of energy was not considered a priority anymore and he no longer received any funding from the Napoleon V3 [ah, isn’t that the way things go?].

I will end our solar history lesson there for today and hope you have enjoyed it so far, more to follow!

Let the sun shine in.

-Cara

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Reason 80 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:
In the early twentieth century man learned how to extract nitrogen (fertilizer) from the air, cheaply and in large quantities. The discovery ultimately allowed 2 billion more people to inhabit the Earth and has given humans the luxury of feeding crops to livestock. Yet what gives the world abundance has, by way of nutrient runoff and acid rain, poisoned waterways from the Chinese countryside to the Ohio Valley. (Excess nitrogen promotes algae growth, robbing the water of oxygen.) In North America and Europe, lakes and rivers contain 20 times the nitrogen they did before the Industrial Revolution.

Two Passions

I was wondering the other day if there was a film distribution company that dealt with predominantly or only “green” films, as I love films and “green” is a good thing. If this company did existed, what and who defines what a “green” film is? This is how my journey began to find the greatest green film company…

Here’s my fresh find, Green Planet Films. Their mission, according to their site is,

Green Planet Films is a non-profit distributor of nature and environmental DVDs from around the globe. We promote environmental education through film. We seek to preserve and protect our planet by collecting and distributing documentaries that can be used to educate the public about the science, beauty, and fragility of the natural world. Our mission is to grow our web-based DVD library, which provides a channel that connects these films to schools, organizations, businesses, and individuals worldwide.

I, being weary of people calling anything “green”, went to investigate this company and their film selections. First, let me just say that not only am I very impressed with their selections, but I am also impressed with the company and the people who work there. Here’s why, Green Planet Films is a nonprofit organization that caries only environmental and nature films from around the world, which after researching is true. Not only that, but the twelve people that work there are volunteers. That leads me to believe they are doing this out of love more than profit, something I respect.

To give you an idea of what types of films they carry, here is, The End of Suburbia.

Now that I no longer have satellite TV I will invest in a few of these DVDs. I figure I will buy them in support of their organization, watch them, and then pass them on to friends. I will also encourage said friends to pass them on, and on, and on as well. It’s a plan.

See, no TV just keeps getting better everyday.

Start popping the popcorn!!!

-Cara

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Reason 59 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:

Genetic manipulation has created monsters as well as monstrous suffering for farmed animals. Cloning threatens to jack up the misery yet another notch. Its general use is probably a ways off, provided it becomes commercially viable at all. Meanwhile, as the scientists tinker, their cloned creations will suffer from premature deaths and deformities, and the resultant meat and milk are sure to enter the human food supply.