Monthly Archives: April 2007

Green Homes in Germany

Seems like Germany is making some pretty good efforts to go green. There’s an article in Business Week right now on the building of energy efficient homes in Germany. There are apartment complexes being built that use far more insulation and much less heating oil than is required there. And of course they’re more efficient than historical buildings, but that’s obvious.

Other builders are including solar panels so that on balance the homes can produce more energy than they use.

This kind of news just delights me. The need to get off oil and use more environmentally friendly means to produce electricity doesn’t have to be solely the domain of environmental activists. It can become something for everyone. As oil prices keep rising, more people will realize that alternative energy has tremendous advantages.

Of course, I don’t live in Germany. I live in Southern California, and I don’t have the budget yet to buy a home, much less add the solar paneling that will be a major goal when I do own. But seeing these things become more practical is a true delight.

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Bee Troubles Getting Worse

I just read over on Tree Hugger that colony collapse disorder, which I posted about the other day, is also being seen in the UK. You just can’t help but think of the terrible potential impact due to this. Much as you don’t generally want too close an encouter with a bee, especially if you’re allergic to their stings, they’re vital to our farmers and therefore to the rest of us.

Unfortunately, this is something that no one has figured out the cause to yet, and without that it will be hard to come up with a solution.

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Here Comes the Drought?

The potential impacts of global warming are becoming more apparent all the time. Obviously, we can hope that the worst won’t come to pass, but it is still a good idea to prepare for them as best we can. These problems will be much harder to cope with when they actually happen if we haven’t given any thought to them in advance.

For example, it appears that Texas and much of the Southwest will face perpetual drought by 2021. That has to be scary for those living in potentially impacted areas.

Of course, these are projections rather than predictions. The thing to think about is that many models have predicted more drought in that area.

Also, drought in that area is a common enough problem that having a plan in place for a serious drought is a good idea. Harder yet to plan for a perpetual drought, but big droughts and little are best planned for. Continue reading →

The Mystery of the Disappearing Bees

This story caught my attention in part because of my son. He’s a very quiet two year old, and we nicknamed him “Dr. Doolittle” because he loves all animals so much and always talks to them.

But the other day he shocked my by coming in from the back yard, just babbling happily away. He had one finger extended to show me what he’d found.

A live bee was sitting quite contentedly on his finger.

As you can imagine, I got rid of the bee quite quickly. He didn’t get stung and I didn’t want to risk him trying to pet the bee or something. You just never know with two year olds.

This just happened a couple weeks ago, and of course came to mind when I read this story on Yahoo News about how bees in the US are disappearing, and no one quite knows why.

It’s being called Colony Collapse Disorder, and research is being done to figure out the cause – pathogen or toxin. Whatever the cause, the potential impact is huge. Just think about it. Continue reading →