"An Inconvenient Truth" Keeps Climbing

Congratulations are in order to the makers of "An Inconvenient Truth", for surpassing "Bowling for Columbine" to become the 3rd all-time highest grossing non-musical documentary.

If you haven't seen it yet, see it. It's well worth it.

What? Really?....What?

From the AP:

"Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.

While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world, 95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesday's edition of the newspaper.

But when asked what year, 30 percent could not give a correct answer.

That is incredible. I am even hesitant to believe it. I can not fathom that kind of incredible stupidity. We truly are regressing as a nation. I can not imagine that anyone could possibly be that preposterously stupid...but then again Bush has been "elected" twice. So, what do I know?

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Big Media Starting to Catch the Wave

Finally, the media is starting to link the heat wave to global warming.
This from The Washington Post:

Heat waves like those that have scorched Europe and the United States in recent weeks are becoming more frequent because of global warming, say scientists who have studied decades of weather records and computer models of past, present and future climate.

While it is impossible to attribute any one weather event to climate change, several recent studies suggest that human-generated emissions of heat-trapping gases have produced both higher overall temperatures and greater weather variability, which raise the odds of longer, more intense heat waves.

Of course, they had to ruin the whole story by ending it with the media's famous "balanced" skepticism. I mean, come on guys, even Pat Robertson has come around.

Ceasefire Now

Please take a minute to sign the Israeli-Lebanon ceasefire petition. I know that petitions almost always seem meaningless, but what else are you going to do?

Don't We Deserve Options from our Public Utilities?

Check out this video from Greeanpeace UK on Combined Heat and Power or CHP. It turns out that UK power plants waste 2/3 of their energy before it even gets to the homes of consumers. I would assume that this needless waste of energy is the same, and probably worse, here in the U.S.

The video proposes some very interesting solutions to this problem, as well as offering examples of public untility facilities that are doing away with waste, and harmful carbon output at the same time.

Oh yea, and guess what is also helping utility companies make this decision?
A carbon tax.

This is further evidence that if we wait for the market to make necessary environmental changes, then the proper changes will never occur. Sometimes it takes government to tell the chumps what's what.

Afterall, these are public utilities. Doesn't the public deserve the option of cleaner, more environmentally friendly power? Most of us don't currently have that option from our public utility companies.