Electro Automotive: Electric Vehicle Technical Training Program™
Stay tuned, jump onbaord: this will help a lot - customizing existing cars into plug-in electrics...
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Solar Living Institute - By Category - Solar Living Institute
Solar Living Institute - By Category - Solar Living Institute
This is where I got my NABCEP solar design / installation certification.
PV EV next -- solar panels and electric vehicles. This is awesome...
http://www.solarliving.org/courses/solar-trainings/488/pv-501-pvev-photovoltaics-and-electric-vehicles/
This is where I got my NABCEP solar design / installation certification.
PV EV next -- solar panels and electric vehicles. This is awesome...
http://www.solarliving.org/courses/solar-trainings/488/pv-501-pvev-photovoltaics-and-electric-vehicles/
Sustainable growth: Earth pop 7 bln/2011, 9 bln/2050
Please read this article: sustainable growth means family planning (contraception, education) for poor countries; soy-based (and other non-animal) protein sources (beef: takes 7 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef), and the awareness that we have to live sustainably, individually and communally. Support family planning programs, eat some soy protein this week, be conscious of this today and help your family live as healthy a life as possible into what will remain the healthiest possible planet in which we can leave them.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110220/ts_afp/scienceuspopulationfood
""More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.
Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.
"For 20 years, there's been very little investment in family planning, but there's a return of interest now, partly because of the environmental factors like global warming and food prices," said Bongaarts.
"We want to minimize population growth, and the only viable way to do that is through more effective family planning," said Casterline.""
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110220/ts_afp/scienceuspopulationfood
""More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.
Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.
"For 20 years, there's been very little investment in family planning, but there's a return of interest now, partly because of the environmental factors like global warming and food prices," said Bongaarts.
"We want to minimize population growth, and the only viable way to do that is through more effective family planning," said Casterline.""
Sunday, February 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/opinion/21mon1.html?_r=1&hp
Pakistan’s Nuclear Folly
Pakistan can’t feed its people, educate its children, or defeat insurgents without billions of dollars in foreign aid. Yet, with China’s help, it is now building a fourth nuclear reactor to produce more weapons fuel.
Even without that reactor, experts say, it has already manufactured enough fuel for 40 to 100 additional weapons. That means Pakistan — which claims to want a minimal credible deterrent — could soon possess the world’s fifth-largest arsenal, behind the United States, Russia, France and China but ahead of Britain and India. Washington and Moscow, with thousands of nuclear weapons each, still have the most weapons by far, but at least they are making serious reductions.
Washington could threaten to suspend billions of dollars of American aid if Islamabad does not restrain its nuclear appetites. But that would hugely complicate efforts in Afghanistan and could destabilize Pakistan.
The truth is there is no easy way to stop the buildup, or that of India and China. Slowing and reversing that arms race is essential for regional and global security. Washington must look for points of leverage and make this one of its strategic priorities.
The ultimate nightmare, of course, is that the extremists will topple Pakistan’s government and get their hands on the nuclear weapons. We also don’t rest easy contemplating the weakness of Pakistan’s civilian leadership, the power of its army and the bitterness of the country’s rivalry with nuclear-armed India.
The army claims to need more nuclear weapons to deter India’s superior conventional arsenal. It seems incapable of understanding that the real threat comes from the Taliban and other extremists.
The biggest game-changer would be for Pakistan and India to normalize diplomatic and economic relations. The two sides recently agreed to resume bilateral talks suspended after the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. There is a long way to go.
India insists that it won’t accept an outside broker. There is a lot the Obama administration can do quietly to press the countries to work to settle differences over Afghanistan and the disputed region of Kashmir. Pakistan must do a lot more to stop insurgents who target India.
Washington also needs to urge the two militaries to start talking, and urge the two governments to begin exploring ways to lessen the danger of an accidental nuclear war — with more effective hotlines and data exchanges — with a long-term goal of arms-control negotiations.
Washington and its allies must also continue to look for ways to get Pakistan to stop blocking negotiations on a global ban on fissile material production.
The world, especially this part of the world, is a dangerous enough place these days. It certainly doesn’t need any more nuclear weapons.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Classical music and the science of the brain | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times
Classical music and the science of the brain | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times
A new series that takes place in Santa Monica this spring will look at some of the big questions that connect classical music to the basics of human life -- emotion, evolution and the brain itself. The series, put on by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, will include music performances and addresses by three scientists intimately familiar with the overlap of music and the mind.
Dr. Peter Whybrow, a UCLA neuroscientist who has spent a lot of time thinking about creativity, will speak about depression and the way it can both provoke and frustrate musical talent. He’s concentrating mostly on composer Robert Schumann, but says that the patterns often recur.
For artists with mood disorders, he says, three things usually drive their work. “One, the ability to generate intelligence, which is tied to intelligence. Two, a prodigious memory to be able to manipulate those ideas, like keeping a score in your head. Third, mood swings turn things in a novel way. Some artists produce these by taking drugs. But it you have an instability of mood, which Schumann had, you have an acceleration of creativity. You feel an exuberance, which allows you to see things in novel ways.”
Schumann, like Van Gogh and many other artists and writers, likely had a combination of depression and a mild kind of mania called hypomania. “When you’re hypomaniac, you’re very willing to talk to anybody. People like to talk to you, and suddenly you ‘re the center of attention, which excites you because you’ve spent the last three years sitting against a wall drinking beer.”
This is a little different than more conventional mania, which sounds unpleasant. “They became sexually promiscuous, spending money they don’t have, running around insulting people. The manic people tend to fall out of favor.”
For more on the LACO’s series on music and the mind in my Arts & Books article, click here.
A new series that takes place in Santa Monica this spring will look at some of the big questions that connect classical music to the basics of human life -- emotion, evolution and the brain itself. The series, put on by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, will include music performances and addresses by three scientists intimately familiar with the overlap of music and the mind.
Dr. Peter Whybrow, a UCLA neuroscientist who has spent a lot of time thinking about creativity, will speak about depression and the way it can both provoke and frustrate musical talent. He’s concentrating mostly on composer Robert Schumann, but says that the patterns often recur.
For artists with mood disorders, he says, three things usually drive their work. “One, the ability to generate intelligence, which is tied to intelligence. Two, a prodigious memory to be able to manipulate those ideas, like keeping a score in your head. Third, mood swings turn things in a novel way. Some artists produce these by taking drugs. But it you have an instability of mood, which Schumann had, you have an acceleration of creativity. You feel an exuberance, which allows you to see things in novel ways.”
Schumann, like Van Gogh and many other artists and writers, likely had a combination of depression and a mild kind of mania called hypomania. “When you’re hypomaniac, you’re very willing to talk to anybody. People like to talk to you, and suddenly you ‘re the center of attention, which excites you because you’ve spent the last three years sitting against a wall drinking beer.”
This is a little different than more conventional mania, which sounds unpleasant. “They became sexually promiscuous, spending money they don’t have, running around insulting people. The manic people tend to fall out of favor.”
For more on the LACO’s series on music and the mind in my Arts & Books article, click here.
-- Scott Timberg
Friday, February 18, 2011
Take Action | Oil Change International
Take Action | Oil Change International
Shift the Subsidies: Money for a Clean Future, Not Big Oil
Every year, billions of our tax dollars are given away to the oil and coal industries. We shouldn’t be giving our tax money to subsidize these corporations that already set record profits while polluting.
It is time to stop funding the problems, and start funding the solutions. We need to fund clean energy and communities, not old and dying industries.
At the G20 meetings last year, President Obama made a historic pledge to end fossil fuel subsidies. But progress on this front has been slow, with Congress dragging its feet. Let's encourage him - and our elected representatives - to make this pledge a reality.
Please send a letter to President Obama and your representatives in Congress to demand that our government stop supporting Big Oil and Coal, and shift that money instead to support clean energy, energy access, and climate-related needs.
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Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012
