I just got through watching “An Inconvenient Truth” for the first time. If this movie is not a call to action on climate change I don’t know what is. If you have not seen it, do yourself and the world a favor and take 2 hours out of your day to watch it. Once you have here are some good places to go to start doing something about the problem of global warming:
I just got through watching this movie and I am MAD! For those who don’t know, Who Killed the Electric Car is a documentary about why it was that the all electric car was developed and deployed and subsequently destroyed by the major car companies. The short version of the story is that California passed a law mandating a certain percentage of cars sold in California be zero emission at certain dates. The car companies complied and developed these cars, but at the same time they fought the legislation. As soon as they were successful at turning over the ruling, they took back the cars they had produced (and were leasing to customers) and CRUSHED THEM. Watching the callousness in the way the car companies essentially rooted against their own product is astounding. Taking cars off the road that work perfectly and destroying them so that no one would know about them is just about the most heartless, cold thing I have ever seen.
For a better synopsis of the issues than I can give, please check out the Plug in America. I am as big a fan of anyone for developing a hydrogen based economy, but this movie makes the point (and rather well I might add) that electric vehicles can work NOW. A hydrogen based economy needs a massive infrastructure to be built before we can even begin to have one… battery based electric vehicles require NO additional infrastructure and can boost fuel economies to over 100 mpg right now. The movie deals with all this and more and will make you want to go out there and change the world!
According to the BBC a new “skybridge” is opening up on the edge of the grand canyon. It is essentially a loop that sticks out into the canyon about 20 meters (60 feet) and is made mostly of glass. While the skybridge is built on native american land it is unclear from the article who exactly is behind it (Is it one of those cases where most of the profits actually just go to some corporation?). I can’t really decide if this is interesting or a blight on the landscape of the grand canyon. The design does seem pretty minimalist and respectful of the fact that what you are actually there to see is nature…although I’m sure there is a gift shop. What do you think? Does the grand canyon actually need something more to promote people looking at it?
Courtesy of lifehacker i found this great website called Desktopography. It is a collection of wallpapers for your desktop that are all nature themed. Many of them are heavily photo-shopped to achieve some pretty interesting effects. A word of warning, the site is a bit heavy on flash and music, so for those with slower connections it might take a bit to load. I’ve got the picture above on my desktop now and it looks great!
Speaking of desktop backgrounds, does anyone know of a good program to rotate backgrounds like you can on a Mac? I have windows XP and have tried out a few programs that are supposed to do it, but they never seem to work quite right.
On Wednesday March 21st Al Gore will be going in front of both houses of congress to testify to the urgent need for action on global warming. He wants to get as many people to sign a “postcard” to congress to let them know that the people want action. His goal is half a million signatures by Wednesday morning (and it looks like he’ll make it). You can do your part right now and signing his pledge…your note will be sent to your representatives in congress. Global warming effects us all (hence the global part)…do part of your part right now and go sign Al’s letter!
