Villagers hold the secret to greener world

By ADELE 0'SHEA A couple of months ago I attended a screening of Al Gore's film by an expatriate society and afterwards the organiser of the event took the floor and spoke about how individuals can help save the world. The speaker advocated "a return to a more simple life" as a way to halt global warming. The new lifestyle would include buying a vehicle which gives out less CO2 emissions, choosing the most direct route for air travel and placing all recyclables into the appropriate recycling bins. Perhaps on a global scale, if all the industrialised nations adopted such practices, then global warming would remain constant for the next few years. But adopting such measures as an answer to environmental problems in Bahrain would have little effect, or would more likely be doomed to failure. It is not the prospect of adopting a simple lifestyle that draws expatriates to work in the Gulf; it's the big salaries and all the perks that go with it. Bahrain's current development projects of multi-storey apartments, artificial islands and luxury residential complexes are by no means geared towards those who wish to adopt a more simple lifestyle. The project director of one of the up-and-coming water front luxury tower blocks said that the three most critical components that a tenant looks for are functionality, convenience and comfort. We can imagine that no natural environment will be spared in order to give the clients exactly what they expect from their costly new homes. In contrast, a visit to the last traditional villages in Bahrain would reveal a population which truly practises a harmonious eco-friendly lifestyle, not because the threat of global warming has been preached to them, but because for generations these people have lived simple, fulfilling lives. Perhaps, the first thing that will strike you in these villages is how courteous the people are and how they have time to welcome you; they are not people who live by the philosophy that time is money. Another remarkable fact about the traditional villages in Bahrain is how they make use of the natural resources in their environment in a sustainable manner. Just before the summer, palm trees are trimmed and the palms fronds are left out to dry and from this natural resource a multitude of products are made; baskets and mats are made out of the leaves, while the sturdy inner ribs are used as poles for the 'hadra' fishing nets. Whole palm tree leaves are used for making fences and for roofing. The dates are harvested at summer and none of these go to waste, some are sold fresh, some are boiled and packaged to form a sticky slab of preserved dates and some are preserved in the sun-dried method. The hadra fishing traps harvest a sustainable amount of fish from the sea and donkey carts, which give off no CO2 emissions, are used to collect the fish from the shoreline. The donkeys are fed on locally grown products from the surrounding fields and the local cats are fed the fish which are too small to sell. From a Western point of view, we tend to drive past these villages only noticing the old buildings and pitying the 'poor people' that live in them, but there's more to life than what money can buy. In Richard Leakey's book, The Making of Mankind, he refers to the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, who argued that different societies have different goals and values; with Western society in the pursuit of wealth, property and prestige and traditional societies pursuing something totally different. Sahlins even went so far as to say that the traditional hunting-and-gathering way of life, still practiced by Kung of the Kalahari desert is 'the original affluent society, in which all the people's wants are easily satisfied'. Leakey added that the hunting-and-gathering economy was not an incessant search for food, as many anthropologists have supposed, but a system that allows a good deal more leisure than is possible in either agricultural or industrial society. If we want to do our bit to halt global warming as inhabitants of Bahrain, the choice of car or air travel route won't make a lot of difference and until Bahrain has a large scale recycling facility, the segregation of household waste will not make a huge deal of difference either. But what would be directly beneficial would be to support the preservation of the natural environment in Bahrain and we can do this by buying locally grown fruit and vegetables, locally crafted products and locally harvested fish. Farming and fishing communities are now being forced to justify their existence by their contribution to Bahrain's gross domestic product and with an overall contribution of under one per cent, their position appears to be extremely weak compared to the financial sector, which currently contributes 27.6pc. It is this type of mentality that has sent the planet spiraling into global warming, with the big polluting industrial nations holding sway over countries practising traditional, non-polluting lifestyles. There is an old saying, known as the North American Cree Indian Prophecy, which says: "Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." The answer to rising CO2 emissions in Bahrain is to plant roadside trees to soak up exhaust fumes; a sad existence for the trees, literally denigrated to serve as carbon drains along the highways and there is no way that these lines of trees can replace the majestic palm tree groves along the northern coast line of Bahrain. Enter deep into an old palm tree grove in the heat of a summer's day and you will instantly feel the drop in temperature. The protection and preservation of Bahrain's palm groves would contribute more to the halt of global warming than other schemes and projects cooked up by scientists in the latest regional conference or seminar. Ms O'Shea is an Environment Friends Society member

Alternative Energy from the Ocean

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) was conceived of by the French engineer Jacques D'Arsonval in 1881. However, at the time of this writing the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is home to the only operating experimental OTEC plant on the face of the earth. OTEC is a potential alternative energy source that needs to be funded and explored much more than it presently is. The great hurdle to get over with OTEC implementation on a wide and practically useful level is cost. It is difficult to get the costs down to a reasonable level because of the processes presently utilized to drive OTEC. Ocean thermal energy would be very clean burning and not add pollutants into the air. However, as it presently would need to be set up with our current technologies, OTEC plants would have the capacity for disrupting and perhaps damaging the local environment.

There are three kinds of OTEC.

“Closed Cycle OTEC” uses a low-boiling point liquid such as, for example, propane to act as an intermediate fluid. The OTEC plant pumps the warm sea water into the reaction chamber and boils the intermediate fluid. This results in the intermediate fluid's vapor pushing the turbine of the engine, which thus generates electricity. The vapor is then cooled down by putting in cold sea water.

“Open Cycle OTEC” is not that different from closed cycling, except in the Open Cycle there is no intermediate fluid. The sea water itself is the driver of the turbine engine in this OTEC format. Warm sea water found on the surface of the ocean is turned into a low-pressure vapor under the constraint of a vacuum. The low-pressure vapor is released in a focused area and it has the power to drive the turbine. To cool down the vapor and create desalinated water for human consumption, the deeper ocean's cold waters are added to the vapor after it has generated sufficient electricity.

Please visit Alternative Energy made EZ

Hydroponic gardening

Hydroponics was derived from the Greek word hydro, which means "water" and ponos, which means "labor or water-working". Hydroponics gardening involves growing plants with their roots in other nutrient solutions and without soil.

Hydroponics gardening is as simple as ordinary gardening. Both of them necessitate sufficient light, water, temperature, light, and humidity. But with hydroponics, no soil is used. Instead a soil substitute holds the roots while nutrients are carried by the water. Indoor hydroponic gardening is not that hard and plants respond well to this method of growing.

This is one of the major considerations in hydroponics gardening since it sustains the plants. One has to make sure that this nutrient solution maintains a pH level of 5 to 6 after dilution. In hydroponics gardening, the plants should be watered more than three times a day. this is usually done using a pump and timer.

If your hydroponics garden is located indoors, the most suitable temperature is between 71 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, this temperature may change depending on the different types of plant you are working on, e.g. tropical plants.

Place your plants somewhere they can receive ample amount of light. Otherwise artificial light must be used. High pressure Sodium lights or bulbs are a suitable substitute for natural light.

Humidity is good. When the room’s temperature rises, the air will be able to hold the sufficient amount of moisture your plants will need.

For more information, please visit Easy Gardening

After peak oil: Will America survive?

After peak oil: Will America survive?

Saturday, July 21, 2007 by: Mike Adams

As public awareness about peak oil continues to grow, and even the big oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. are now starting to admit that the future supply of oil looks troublesome (see this Boston Globe article), there's an increasing focus on renewable energy solutions. But most members of the public still don't understand energy very well, and they generally have no idea whether alternative energy sources like solar, wind or CSP (see below) can replace oil. Many people are concerned about a potential collapse of modern society due to the end of cheap oil. So to help answer some of these questions, I've put together a set of uncensored, science-based answers about oil, renewable energy and the future of modern civilization. This is offered in a Q&A format.

Question: Will oil really run out in the near future?

Of course it will. Even the recent conclusions reached by an Exxon Mobil about the future of global oil supplies are wildly optimistic and based on numbers that industry experts speaking off the record say are significant exaggerations of supply made for political reasons. Oil is running out, period, and we may already be past peak oil. From here forward, oil is only going to get increasingly scarce and more expensive. Demand for oil will soon significantly outstrip supply. The growth of China's consumption, combined with America's unprecedented thirst for energy means that from here forward, it's a bidding war over increasingly scarce supplies.

Can alternative forms of energy replace oil?

Yes and no. "Yes" because there's plenty of energy all around us that can replace oil. There's enough solar energy hitting the land in the state of Arizona, for example, to meet the entire energy needs of the United States. Likewise, there's enough wind power in Southern Wyoming to power the whole country, too. But this power is untapped. This is the "No" part of the answer: All the energy in the world is useless to you if you can't harness it. Without wind turbines, the wind in Wyoming is useless to us. Without solar panels, the Arizona desert is likewise useless to us as an energy source. Actually harnessing these alternative, renewable energy sources would require many billions of dollars in infrastructure spending, and right now, nobody in Washington seems to have the foresight to plan for a world without oil. There is currently very little investment in developing renewable energy sources.

Thus, the United States may find itself energy starved in the near future even though it is surrounded by abundant (unharnessed) energy!

What's the most promising alternative energy technology?

Few people know about this one, but based on my research, it's the most promising: Concentrated Solar Power, which requires no solar panels at all. It works by concentrating sunlight onto a small pipe using cheap parabolic reflectors. The pipe contains a liquid that's heated to very high temperatures by the sun and drives a steam boiler that rotates a turbine to generate electricity (much like nuclear power plants, but without the nuclear waste). It's cheap, low-tech, and far more affordable than solar power. Plus, it can be built in practically any desert, so it doesn't take up valuable land. As another bonus, when CSP operations are built near the ocean, they can desalinate ocean water as a side effect, providing fresh water for irrigation to grow food. This is the only renewable energy technology I know of that can produce cheap energy, fresh water and crop irrigation all at the same time. Plus, it has no emissions, no toxic chemicals, no nuclear waste and very little environmental impact.

CSP is, in my opinion, the single most promising technology for renewable energy. Isn't it interesting that almost nobody is talking about it? The best solutions, as usual, are routinely ignored.

What happens when the oil runs out?

That depends on whether the nation is prepared to operate without combustion engines. If the people have mostly switched over to electric vehicles, then operating an economy without oil isn't difficult. Sure, other forms of transportation still need oil, but the greatest consumption of oil is found in automobiles.

If the end of oil catches a nation unprepared, then things become quite chaotic. No oil means no more transportation and farming, and that's really all you need to know. No farming (or greatly diminished farming capacity) means no food. The United States, I submit, is about three meals away from mass social unrest. When the average American finds himself without food for three meals in a row, the ensuing chaos (riots, etc.) will make the United States a rather inhospitable place to be. Martial Law will immediately be declared, and the country will become a police state starvation camp. This can all be avoided, by the way, by shifting America away from an oil-based economy. If transportation is based on electricity rather than oil, none of these dire predictions need come true.

Why aren't our national leaders doing anything about this?

Because they are either idiots or crooks. I'm not sure whether they're clever enough to be considered crooks, so I'm sticking with idiots. The utter lack of vision and leadership found in the White House and Congress has been nothing short of astonishing. As far as the current president goes, Bush seems more interested in destroying other nations than saving America.

Can't we be saved by growing ethanol as a replacement for oil?

Put bluntly, the idea of growing ethanol to replace oil is one of the most short-sighted, politically-motivated and outright stupid ideas that has ever been proposed. This is true for two simple reasons: 1) The more corn you grow for fuel, the less corn you have for food, which means that growing enough corn to replace the oil we presently import would result in mass starvation, and 2) It takes almost as much oil energy to grow corn than you get from the resulting ethanol.

In other words, if you want to base your combustion-engine economy on ethanol, what you have to do is take over mass acreage of corn croplands, power all the farm equipment with oil, convert petroleum to the fertilizers and pesticides needed for use on the corn, then spend even more energy on processing, transportation and delivery of the ethanol. So you end up with a nation in a food shortage (corn is the based food ingredient in the vast majority of food products) that's still dependant on fossil fuel oil. So you'd still end up with an oil crisis, but with starvation as an added side effect. There's no faster way to destroy the food supply than to promote the widespread growing of corn for ethanol.

Ethanol, it could be said, is a highly inefficient way to convert oil and sunlight into fuel. You'd be far better off with CSP, which converts sunlight into electricity at much greater efficiency (about 40%).

But what about the massive tar sands in Canada? Can't we get oil from there?

Sure we can, at great expense and with enormous environmental destruction. Extracting oil from tar sands is a very expensive process. It takes sifting through two tons of sand to get one barrel of oil, and it costs about 300% more to refine tar sand oil than the light crude oil coming out of the ground in Saudi Arabia. As stated by Richard Heinberg in The End of the Oil Age:

"Oil sands are likewise reputed to be potential substitutes for conventional oil. The Athabasca oil sands in northern Alberta contain an estimated 870 billion to 1.3 trillion barrels of oil -- an amount equal to or greater than all of the conventional oil extracted to date. Currently, Syncrude (a consortium of companies) and Suncor (a division of Sun Oil Company) operate oil sands plants in Alberta. Syncrude now produces over 200,000 barrels of oil a day. The extraction process involves using hot-water flotation to remove a thin coating of oil from grains of sand, then adding naphtha to the resulting tar-like material to thin it so that it can be pumped. Currently, two tons of sand must be mined in order to yield one barrel of oil. As with oil shale, the net-energy figures for oil sands are discouraging. Geologist Walter Youngquist notes "it takes the equivalent of two out of each three barrels of oil recovered to pay for all the energy and other costs involved in getting the oil from the oil sands.

"The primary method used to process oil sands yields an oily wastewater. For each barrel of oil recovered, 2.5 barrels of liquid waste are pumped into huge ponds. In the Syncrude pond, 14 miles in circumference, 20 feet of murky water floats on a 130-foot-thick slurry of sand, silt, clay, and unrecovered oil. Residents of northern Alberta have engaged in activist campaigns to close down the oil sands plants because of devastating environmental problems, including displacement of native people, destruction of boreal forests, livestock deaths, and an increase in miscarriages.

"Replacing conventional crude with oil sands to meet the world's energy appetite would require about 700 additional plants the size of the existing Syncrude plant. Together, they would generate a waste pond the size of Lake Ontario. While oil sands represent a potential energy asset for Canada, they cannot make up for the inevitable decline in the global production of conventional oil."

This who promote the "heavy oil" tar sands as some sort of magic-bullet solution to the world's oil shortage are not thinking clearly. Sure, it might contribute several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day to the supply right now, and it could even be ramped up to perhaps a couple of million barrels per day, but this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the 88 million barrels per day in global oil demand expected by 2008. The tar sands cannot replace Saudi oil, and Saudi oil is starting to run dry.

If this oil problem is so bad, why didn't anybody see this coming?

Plenty of people DID see it coming. M. King Hubbert predicted the peak oil phenomenon in 1974. He was widely ridiculed and laughed out of the oil industry. The thinking at the time was that oil would never run out. Curiously, this thinking continues even today.

See Peak Oil at Wikipedia.

Now, as then, no politician wants to hear the truth that cheap, abundant oil may be coming to an end. It's just like politicians not wanting to face the truth about the national debt, or the bubble real estate market. They simply would prefer to pretend that bad news doesn't exist. The preferred response today seems to be burying their heads in the sand (or the tar sand, as it were), and declaring the future looks bright even as they're staring into a dark pit of desperation.

What can I do to prepare for the post-oil era?

The most popular course of consensus action is to simply do nothing and wait to see what happens. This is what 99% of Americans will choose to do. They will continue to buy their gas-guzzling vehicles, live energy-hungry lifestyles and pretend that America will simply take over the oil supplies it needs in the future by military force. (Which may actually be the plan at the Pentagon, by the way...)

The smarter folks out there have already figured out that the war on Iraq is all about controlling oil supplies. So is the cozy relationship with the Saudis. If there's a revolution in Saudi Arabia, and someone takes over the country and decides to stop selling oil to America, the U.S. would stage a military invasion within days. The real mission would be to protect the oil and ensure future shipments to the U.S., but the public explanation for the invasion would be whatever fiction the national leadership thinks the public would swallow (most likely something related to "terrorists").

If you're genuinely interested in surviving the post-oil era with anything resembling quality of life, it requires modifying your lifestyle so that you do not depend on long, highly-complex supply lines for your food, water, energy and basic needs. That means moving out of extreme climates (where you have to heat your house all winter, for example), pursuing your own home garden food production (meaning you'll need good soil and water sources), and learning to live in a more self-reliant manner (or being part of a small community that can operate in a self-sustaining way).

Most Americans, flatly stated, have no interest in giving up the luxuries provided by an oil-powered economy and pursuing some sort of simple, sustainable lifestyle. Americans tend to believe that's the way people live in third-world nations, but not here in wealthy America. That imagined wealth, of course, will largely evaporate when oil becomes scarce. Even the cheap goods at Wal-Mart are shipped here from China using oil.

$10 a gallon for gasoline? Only a matter of time...

To really get a clear picture of what's coming, I invite you to think hard about what happens when gasoline hits $10 per gallon. It's coming. It's only a matter of time.

$10 a gallon for gas means all your milk, bread, beef and other processed food items will double, triple or quadruple in price thanks to the oil-powered miles necessary to transport those items to your local grocery store. $10 a gallon means triple or quadruple the price for an airplane ticket. The cost of building supplies would skyrocket, diminishing home construction. The entire economy would nosedive into a deep depression, and all the financial bubbles we now pretend don't exist (the debt bubble, sub-prime lending bubble, real estate bubble, etc.) would come crashing down.

$10 a gallon means massive layoffs and job loss. It means a huge recalibration of the economy, and it transforms "easy times" into "hard times." Oil is really that important to life as we know it today in first world nations.

I've attempted to explain this to a few individuals, but no one gets it. Generally speaking, people cannot believe that the future would be any different than the present. They believe that things will always be as they are now, even when discussing the worldwide consumption of a resource that exists in a finite supply.

There is very little rational thought being applied to the issue of peak oil today. Most individuals believe there will be no negative consequences of oil running out simply because they cannot imagine any negative consequences. They have no concept of life being anything other than what they experience as a daily routine right now. The mental flexibility required to even consider our modern world without oil greatly exceeds the safe, comfortable thought zones inhabited by the majority of people today.

Now, maybe all this is irrelevant. Perhaps someone will event a free energy machine that creates electricity out of Zero Point Energy. An Irish company called Steorn says they already did invent such a machine, but can't quite make it work in public demonstrations. The free energy, it seems, only appears to work when no one is watching.

I'm not betting my future on the invention of some new, radical free energy machine. Neither does it appear that hot fusion is poised for any major energy breakthroughs for at least the next fifty years. Cold fusion, as I've reported in previous articles, actually does work about 30 percent of the time, but it's not a technology that seems consistently reproducible, nor does it produce massive amounts of excess energy even when it does work (it simply heats a pool of water few degrees).

There are no magic bullet replacements for oil. If we want to have an energy source in the post-oil era, we're going to have to build the infrastructure starting right now.

The oil economy will soon be history

The era of cheap, easy oil is ending. The future can either be abundant and clean, or devastating and chaotic. It all depends on whether society will wake up and get serious about making a transition away from oil and towards clean, renewable energy sources. Constructing a couple thousand wind turbines isn't enough. Slapping some solar panels on the roof of your corporate headquarters building doesn't cut it (although it's great for corporate publicity and P.R.). We either pursue a massive switch to renewable energy using an Apollo space mission kind of national priority, or we are going to be stuck poor, broke and starving when the oil stops flowing.

If Bush had any brains left at all, he'd announce a JFK-like challenge to America to build a new, renewable energy infrastructure in the next decade. But alas, the man is too steeped in oil to seriously pursue alternatives.

The truth is that if our next president does not put this nation on a radical, accelerated shift towards renewable energy, it will soon be too late to save America from economic collapse. Never underestimate the enormous impact that cheap energy has made on America today. Our economy, our cities, our population and even our military strength are all totally dependant on oil. Take away the oil, and America collapses under its own weight.

How to better prepare yourself and your family against climate change, natural disasters and the post-oil economy (opinion)

How to better prepare yourself and your family against climate change, natural disasters and the post-oil economy (opinion)

Friday, July 20, 2007 by: Mike Adams
I've been a proponent of personal preparedness for many years. "Preparedness" simply means having some backup supplies on hand to help you get through unexpected events or hard times, and over the last decade, we've seen numerous examples of why preparedness is so important: Hurricane Katrina, power grid blackouts, ice storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, riots, nuclear accidents, terrorist events and freak weather patterns.

In every case, those individuals who were prepared fared much better than the unprepared masses. People who had stored some water, food, heat, blankets, flashlights, fuel, radios and cash were in a far better position to get through the events than everyone else.

In terms of preparedness for coming events, including dwindling oil supplies, climate change and freak weather patterns, there are two things every person must carefully consider right now:

1) The frequency and severity of such emergency events is increasing each year. (Things are getting worse...)

2) Most people will not prepare in advance, meaning that they will truly find themselves in an emergency during the next unpredictable event.

Keep reading to learn how to avoid becoming an unprepared victim. Below, I've also listed some recommended sources and a tremendous discount (50% off for NewsTarget readers) on some essential preparedness items that you may want to consider acquiring before the next difficult event appears.

Essentials of preparedness

Every family and household should cover basic preparedness needs. The primary areas to consider are:

WATER: You must have water to survive even a couple of days. Low-cost preparedness options involve filling empty soda bottles with water and storing them around your house or apartment. You can also fill your bath tub with water if you have advanced warning of an approaching emergency.

A medium-cost solution is to purchase water storage containers and fill those in advance. You can add a few drops of plain clorox bleach to each container to discourage the growth of bacteria (for long-term storage). You'll find affordable water storage containers at www.BePrepared.com

It's also a good idea to have a hand-pump water filter on hand. I recommend an affordable water filter bottle made by Katadyn (a water filter company I've used and recommended for years). You can find other water filters at any camping store or outdoors equipment supplier such as www.REI.com

FOOD: Having extra food on hand is easy. Just buy some extra dried or canned goods at your local store. Raw, fresh nuts are good to store, as well as dried foods in #10 cans. Avoid salty, sugary foods because they dehydrate you and suppress immune function. Stick to bland foods that provide nutrition, not entertainment. They key here is to store your food before the emergency hits and make sure you have enough water to rehydrate dried foods.

A source I recommend is www.BePrepared.com but avoid their pre-made food recipes. Stick with their freeze-dried fruits, vegetables and meats in #10 cans. And remember, none of it is organic. (That's too bad. I still cannot locate an organic freeze dried storable food manufacturer that doesn' use hidden MSG.)

LIGHT: You'd be amazed how difficult life gets when you're fumbling around in the dark trying to find something to eat or drink. Don't be caught in such a situation: Get some reliable light!

But what works best in emergencies? Candles are a terrible choice because people fall asleep and burn down their homes with candles. (No kidding.) Flashlights that need batteries are also a terrible choice because few people bother to check the batteries, and they always seem to be dead right when you need them.

The best choice is a dynamo-powered LED flashlight that allows you to generate light by simply turning the handle. One minute of winding the dynamo handle can provide up to 30 minutes of light with the LED flashlights we offer through www.BetterLifeGoods.com and we've put together an amazing 50% off discount package on dynamo LED lights, radios and combo tools (see below for discount link).

HEAT and SHELTER: In every emergency, you'll need heat and shelter. (Or, if you're in the desert, you'll need shade and water.) Heat is easy to conserve with a well-made low-temperature sleeping bag. A wood-burning stove is also a fantastic solution and far better than any fireplace (which loses most of the heat it generates). Don't try heating your house with a propane heater or outdoor cooking stove, either: The carbon dioxide emissions will fill your house and cause you to never wake up again. So prepare with ample clothing and a good sleeping bag for each person in your home. Again, you can find quality sleeping bags at www.REI.com (get yourself some lightweight, hi-tech fiber sleeping bags that are easy to carry, yet still very warm).

COMMUNICATIONS: In emergencies, keeping in touch with emergency broadcasts is crucial. That's why a radio is one of the most important tools you can have. But guess what? Most people don't have a radio that actually works when the electricity is out!

This is why a dynamo-powered radio is the best solution for emergency preparedness. By turning the dynamo handle for one minute, you can generate up to 30 minutes of radio listening time. No batteries are required, and the units are so small and portable that you can slip them into your pocket or store them in the glove box of your car.

The best dynamo devices can also charge your cell phone. This lets you make outbound emergency calls when needed, even if your batteries are empty. When the electricity is out, it's crucial to have a reliable way to make a cell phone call. (In many cases, cell phone towers are still working even when the electricity is out in a particular region.)

The Better Life Goods preparedness bundle

To help NewsTarget readers enhance their preparedness, we've put together an incredible deal on four preparedness products to help protect you at home and when traveling -- or even during any major emergency like a freak storm, act of terrorism or natural disaster. (Please note, I am the founder of Better Life Goods, and I do have a stake in the sale of these products. However, given what it costs to have them manufactured using eco-friendly materials, plus the 50% off pricing you'll see here, I feel this offer is more of a service to our readers than a profit endeavor. No other retailers would dare offer these products as such a low price because there's hardly any margin in doing so...)

Dynamo Emergency Tool with Radio, LED Flashlight and Cell Phone Charger
This dynamo-powered device is designed as an emergency preparedness tool for your car. In addition to the LED light, AM/FM radio and cell phone charger functions, it has a glass break, audible siren, and doubles as a makeshift self defense device, too. Plus, you can shine the endless LED light and listen to AM/FM radio anytime by simply winding the dynamo handle for a minute or two. Comes with five connectors for various cell phone manufacturers.

The retail on this device is normally $39.99 (but you can get it for half that, see below...)

Dynamo LED Flashlight with Cell Phone Charger and AM/FM Radio (ECL-802)
This pocket-sized device combines all the essential preparedness functions in a handheld unit with a clever, built-in dynamo winding handle. The LED lights are extremely bright, and the rubber grip helps you hold on to even if rain makes things slippery. Comes with one cell phone connector (Nokia), which plugs into various cell phone charging adapters you can find at Radio Shack or other electronics supply stores.

Retail price is $29.95 (but again, you can get it for half that...)

Dynamo LED Flashlight Multi-tool with Interchangeable Bits (ECL-600)
This dynamo-powered LED light includes six double-headed interchangeable screwdriver bits that allow you to make simple repairs, even when there's no electricity or light. This handy tool gives you a source of light and a reliable toolset, all in a single device that fits easily in a kitchen drawer.

Retail price is $24.95

Dynamo LED Water Lantern with Emergency Beacon (ECL-900)
This is the world's first device to turn a durable water storage container into an LED lantern that can be recharged by winding the embedded dynamo handle. This gives you light and water storage in one clever device that's perfect for taking with you on the road, in a vehicle or camping in the great outdoors. A switch on the top lets you choose between white LED lights or red LED lights (which won't ruin your night vision). Retail price is $24.95

These four products retail for a total of $119.84. We're making all four available to NewsTarget readers for 50% off retail, or just $59.92 for all four.

This is an unbeatable preparedness deal, and it's only available to NewsTarget readers. You won't find this offer on Amazon.com, eBay or anywhere else. It's by far the least expensive way to help ensure the safety of your car, home and person during difficult times. (And if there's one item you don't need, you can offer it to a friend as a gift. Each of these four comes individually packaged.)

Click here to take advantage of this special NewsTarget 50%-off discount right now.

This offer is only good while inventory lasts. We reserve the right to end this offer at any time.

(Note: These prices are barely above our cost, but we'll still honor our satisfaction guarantee. If you're not completely satisfied with any of these products, you can return them for a full refund, less shipping costs.)

Why BetterLifeGoods preparedness products are better for the environment

By the way, three of the four products mentioned here are RoHS certified, meaning they are made with non-toxic materials. We've also had these specifically manufactured with internal NiMH batteries instead of NiCad batteries, so these products have longer life and are safer for the environment. The battery capacity is higher on these than on any similar product you'll find anywhere.

Most manufacturers just choose the cheapest, most toxic batteries they can find, because consumers usually don't know the difference. But we went out of our way to have these manufactured to be far safer for the environment while offering greatly improved battery life. The result is a line of products that are superior to anything similar you might find in mass marketing retailers.

And at this 50% off price, it's simply the best deal you'll find anywhere on environmentally-friendly preparedness products. (It's the best deal we've ever offered, period!)

We Can Control Gas Prices AND Global Warming. Act Now!

- Did you know that fuel economy standards have not been improved since 1975?

This is outrageous, especially considering the scientific knowledge we have gained in the past 30 years about global warming.

We must improve fuel economy standards NOW! >>

More MPG For New Autos!


- Did you know that fuel economy standards have not been improved since 1975?

This is outrageous, especially considering the scientific knowledge we have gained in the past 30 years about global warming.

We must improve fuel economy standards NOW! >> take action!

Raising fuel economy standards will help fight global warming, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and reduce gas prices. This week AAA published that the average price for a gallon of mid-grade gasoline in Florida was $3.18.

Unbelievable! A meager improvement for fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon would save an average family more than $500 this year.

$3.18 is too much to pay for gasoline - Let's make sure that Congress gives a green light to improved fuel economy standards - For our Earth and our wallets >>

Thank you for making a difference!

Emily L.
Care2 Campaign Team

P.S. If you cannot see the links in this email, please visit: http://go.care2.com/e/sbOn/KYB2/DmWm

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The Times-Tribune - Benefits of trees worth considering

The Times-Tribune - Benefits of trees worth considering

Benefits of trees worth considering

07/14/2007

Whether you are a fan of Al Gore (“Plant trees, lots of trees!”) or Joyce Kilmer’s poem titled “Trees,” planting trees is a good thing to do for yourself, your community and the world.

Trees can provide privacy, screen objectionable views and even function as architectural elements in your home landscape. Just three well-placed trees around your home can lower air conditioning costs by up to 50 percent; windbreaks can reduce heating costs by 20 percent or more.

Although seldom thought about when purchasing a tree, trees alter the environment by moderating climate (ever notice how much cooler it is under a tree on a sunny day?), improve air quality, conserve water and provide habitat for wildlife.

Trees are said to shorten the stay of some hospital patients, according to a Texas A&M study. A Chicago study of public housing residents showed that trees can play a role in reducing urban violence. Government studies show that trees reduce noise pollution by acting as a buffer and absorbing urban noise; and, according to the American Forestry Association, a mature tree can increase your property’s worth by 20 percent.

Need more reasons to plant a tree? Vist the Web sites www.patrees.org or www.treesaregood.com. Or call the Garden Helpline at 963-6842. A copy of the poem can be obtained by calling that number.

What Live Earth Really Meant - TIME

What Live Earth Really Meant - TIME

Wandering the cavernous information hall at Live Earth's Tokyo site on Saturday — munching on a whole-grain, locally made peanut butter muffin and browsing for a 100% hemp towel — I noticed the solar panels. Like the events in Sydney, Shanghai, London, Washington and other cities, Live Earth Tokyo was intended as a rock festival-cum-environmental fair, where concertgoers could learn about the energy-saving benefits of fluorescent lightbulbs while jamming to groups like Genesis, who reformed for the London show. Organizers had stressed that the massive festivals themselves would be as green as could be — the Tokyo show was to be powered by solar energy and biodiesel made from recycled cooking oil. So I wasn't surprised to see an array of solar panels at the center of the information hall, apparently hooked up to a big-screen TV playing the feed from the concert stage next door. Very green, except for the fact that we were indoors, and there was no sun.

From the day the concert series was announced by former Vice-President Al Gore, Live Earth had to battle doubt and disinterest. The public had grown increasingly jaded over all-star charity rock festivals, particularly two years after the even larger Live 8 benefit shows for Africa and global poverty. (Live 8 organizer Sir Bob Geldof dismissed Gore's effort as "just an enormous pop concert.") And while the organizers claimed to be raising awareness, critics scolded that the global public is well aware of the perils of climate change.

Even more pertinent was the criticism that the giant carbon footprint of an event that involved jetting pop stars and their entourages around the globe, and encouraging hundreds of thousands of fans to travel to concert sites, was inherently at odds with Live Earth's energy-conservation message. Around half the carbon footprint in any given show usually comes from the audience traveling to the concert, and though Live Earth promised to offset those emissions, it wasn't yet clear how — not to mention that offsets are inherently dicey. The Tokyo show drew much of its electricity from an existing solar plant on the grid, but that meant that Tokyo homes and businesses normally supplied by solar would have needed to supplement their power from dirtier sources. That's a net loss for the environment. Many rock stars who sat out Live Earth felt the same way. "We're using enough power for ten houses just for lighting," Artic Monkeys' drummer Matt Helder told AFP. "It'd be a bit hypocritical [if we played]."

Even some Live Earth organizers admitted the contradiction. "It's very obvious that any event like this is not environmentally friendly," says Yu Nakajima, who was in charge of greening the Tokyo show. "It's probably better not to have an event at all."

Well, there is the music. Despite worries that some of the acts would play to acres of empty seats, the top shows in London and New Jersey were all but sold out, and more than 400,000 people arrived for a free concert on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach headlined by Lenny Kravitz and Macy Gray — even though a Brazilian judge had only authorized the concert days before. Even the smaller shows seemed well-attended, if a bit schizophrenic: the Tokyo concert segued from the gentle folk of Japanese pop star Cocco, who tearfully sang about manatees threatened by a military base on her home island of Okinawa, to the American rap-metal group Linkin Park, who urged the crowd to "get rowdy."

If Gore was being characteristically hyperbolic when he claimed the concerts could reach up to 2 billion people on the Internet — sure, and so could this story — the sheer size and spread of the events meant that for a day at least, climate change (or, the rock concerts it has prompted) dominated headlines across the world. But would the Earth have been better off if we all stayed home and did nothing, literally? "That's a fair thought," Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson told TIME before his band's Tokyo show. "It's also a cynical one." He's right. It's time to get past the obsession over carbon footprint size and offsets, over who's an eco-hypocrite and who is truly green. We need to use energy far more wisely, both individually and internationally, but with hundreds of millions in the developing world getting richer and producing more carbon every day, the threat of climate change is far, far bigger than our personal conservation habits. It will require technological change and painful political choices such as carbon taxes, gas taxes and mandatory greenhouse gas emissions caps. That means, especially for the young, the un-rock star act of voting.

Live Earth's success will be measured not by the number of trees the initiative plants or the number of energy-efficient light-bulbs sold as a result, but by whether it motivates concertgoers to make climate-change their generation's political priority, and press their leaders to act on it. Al Gore and company deserve credit for putting forth a 7-point pledge for concertgoers that includes a demand that countries join an international treaty mandating a 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That will only happen if voters reward politicians who fight to cut carbon gas emissions, and punish those who don't. "It's not what we do today that matters," says Live Earth Tokyo's Nakajima. "It's what we all do tomorrow, and all the next days after. That's how we'll know how successful Live Earth really is."