Little Country Lost: Monday Morning Coffee: Extreme Earth Makeover

I'm sick of the economy, and Sarah Palin, and the election, and the Bush administration, and the wars.

This week, I gave some thought to Earth.

Australian Solar Tower

That is a picture of the Solar Tower, a 200 MW power station, developed by EnviroMission for $35 million, which will provide power to approximately 200,000 Australian families and prevent over 900,000 tons of pollution from entering the air every year.

The Solar Tower was tested in a smaller scale project in Spain during the 1980's and was proved reliable and effective. The smaller model consistently provided 50kW of emission free power for seven years.

The Australian project is still in development, but they want to build the first one in Victoria, Australia.

Developing the technology for the Solar Tower, I want to repeat, cost $35 million. The construction and maintenance of the Solar Tower will create jobs for residents of Victoria, provide them cheap power, provide them cleaner air and less medical expenses, and will increase tourism to the area (because I, for one, want to see this thing).

Imagine what we could have done with $700 billion.

The Black Ocean of Indonesia

Negligence while drill, baby, drilling caused this:

Regulations at Work

The European Union has fined 10 oil corporations for screwing over the public, labeling the corporations a 'cartel'. They were fined a total of 676 millions Euros, which equals 946 million dollars.

The companies involved in the cartel, dubbed the 'paraffin mafia', exchanged sensitive commercial information and essentially manipulated European markets for paraffin wax between 1992 and 2005, according to the Commission. Meetings were regularly held in top hotels across Europe.

There is probably not a household or company in Europe that has not bought products affected by this 'paraffin mafia' cartel," said EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, referring to a market valued at nearly €500 million per year...

The companies involved and their respective fines are as follows (in millions of euros):

Sasol (Germany) - €318
Total (France) - €128
Shell – fine set at €96 but reduced to €0 for cooperation
ExxonMobil - €83
RWE (Germany) - €37
ENI (Italy) - €29
Hansen & Rosenthal (Germany) - €24
MOL (Hungary) - €23
Repsol (Spain) - €19
Tudapetrol (Germany) - €12

Check out the Wikipedia for 'paraffin' and look at the list of items paraffin is used for. I can think of at least a dozen things in my apartment that likely contain that product.

If European citizens have been swindled by these companies on such a scale, is it possible we have too?

On second thought, is it possible we haven't?

Ocean Oil Rigs ("Offshore Drilling")

A report by the US Energy Information Administration concluded that drilling for oil in the ocean off our shores, if allowed, wouldn't begin until 2017 and wouldn't impact the amount of oil available until 2030. Even then, this is a graphic illustration of that impact:

Nevada/California Water Supply

In May 2007, I went on a camping trip with four friends to Lake Mead, a popular vacationing spot about 45 minutes from Las Vegas, NV. We went to a campground that we read was located on the edge of the lake. In May, even though it is not the peak of summer, we knew the temperature at Lake Mead would be over 100 degrees every day. We weren't concerned though because we were looking forward to drinking beers all day while hanging out in the water. We even found some awesome inner tubes that had a cup holder on one side and a cooler for a six-pack on the other. A very exciting find at Longs.

But we never got to use those floaties. It turned out that the campground was no longer on the lake shore, but the the campground had not moved. The shore had. The lake's edge was now a brisk 15 minute walk away from the campsite because the lake was evaporating.

I assumed this was something that was happening over the course of decades. Turns out the lake was almost full while we were partying because it was 1999.

Now, finally, this has gotten the attention of someone with a video camera and an expense account.

The following is from one of my favorite channels/websites, Current TV:

Thank God we picked out a campsite with shade.

Rooftop Icebergs

If I understand this correctly, and I think I do, one of the big reasons climatologists are so afraid of the polar icecaps melting is because the polar icecaps reflect a lot of sunlight back into space. Without the icecaps, the theory is that more of the sun's heat would stay on Earth because it would be absorbed into the open oceans and it would make the planet heat up much faster than it already is.

That is why I think this bit of information is so fantastic.

Apparently, Spain has so many greenhouses with reflexive roofs that reflexive materials cover over 100 square miles of Spanish land. The area around these shiny greenhouses has seen the average local temperature decrease by 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1983, even though the rest of the country has seen its' temperatures rise.

And that makes sense, right?

If the rooftops are reflecting some of the heat back into the heavens (like the polar icecaps do), less heat is being absorbed into the land around the greenhouses. Less heat = less temperature.

I don't know, but that seems to make sense to me.

If you're with me on this, here's the great news:

According to the LA Times, roofs account for 25 percent of total surface area in most cities, and pavement accounts for around 35 percent. If 100 major cities covered that space with reflective materials, such as those used on the Spanish greenhouses, it could offset as much as 44 metric gigatons of heat-trapping gases. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 44 metric gigatons. "That is more than all the countries on Earth emit in a single year," the Times explained in a report on new climate change research last month. "And, with global climate negotiators focused on limiting a rapid increase in emissions, installing cool roofs and pavements would offset more than 10 years of emissions growth, even without slashing industrial pollution.