PERKASIE, Pennsylvania - Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop.
Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.
MONTREAL - The era of oil gushing from ground wells is over and can only be replaced by costly and complex refining of deposits such as Canada's oil sands to satisfy rising global energy needs, said a senior oil executive.
Pressed about the high cost of oil sands extraction and attacks by environmentalists worried about its contribution to global warming, Jean-Michel Gires, president of French-based Total's Canadian subsidiary, told AFP he is optimistic specifically about the future of Canada's oil sands development.
A giant mechanical digger gouges out a chunk of topsoil, grass and
tree stumps, extending a neat furrow that stretches into the distance.
Dozens of similar furrows run parallel with the regularity of a
ploughed field.
Yet no crop could grow in the pitch-black surface exposed by the
machine working 1,000ft below our helicopter. This is the edge of a
fast-expanding open-cast mine in the Canadian tar sands, one of the
world's most polluting sources of oil.
We can join Bill McKibben on Oct. 24 in nationwide protests over rising carbon emissions. We can cut our consumption of fossil fuels. We can use less water. We can banish plastic bags. We can install compact fluorescent light bulbs. We can compost in our backyard.
Bowing to pressure from the pro-nuclear lobby, Senators Boxer and
Kerry have included nuclear power into their bill to address climate
change. In their proposed legislation, the Senators claim that "nuclear
energy is the largest provider of clean, low-carbon, electricity...."
Funny we've heard that before. In fact, the bill's nuclear section
reads like it was lifted off the Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI)
website, despite its lack of veracity.
Why is Afghanistan so important?
A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.
Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. (Russia is first.)
A long-term decline in the demand for oil
could undermine the huge investments in Canadian tar sands, which have
been heavily opposed by environmentalists, according to a report
published today.
The report, by Greenpeace,
will make uncomfortable reading for the companies that are investing
tens of billions of pounds to exploit the hard-to-extract oil in the
belief that demand and the price would climb inexorably as countries
such as China and India industrialise.
Inside hulking white tanks near the Oakland foot of the Bay Bridge, some of your pizza crusts, kung pao chicken and orange peels are cleaning the wastewater from 650,000 households in Contra Costa and Alameda counties.
Sort of.
When the jets come, they start out like the shrill distant whine of a
child, or with the deep rumbling sound of thunder in the mountains.
Each jet crescendos into an elephantine wail that fills the sky and
all the spaces below it: kitchens, patios, bathrooms, bedrooms—there’s
no escape. The wail turns to a sudden roar above the house, rattling
the Victorian redwood timbers of mom’s home.
Finally, as the planes pass, their roar fades into a distant rumble….
