[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('outcast', 'A')h yes, Coast to Coast, one of America's leading providers of conspiracy theories and the paranormal. Such an accurate source it isn't.....

[AlexdeLarge]

The show also cover topics that do have validity that the main stream press ignores......... such as peak oil, economic issues as earlier referenced, water crisis, etc. etc.

However, Coast to Coast can get into some wild stuff on occassion. I dont know how Noory keeps a straight face ! LOL

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', 'I') find it unfortunate that this discussion seems to always shift to race and fairness arguments. I guess it's just an emotional issue. One side gets bent out of shape when illegal immigrants start talking about their "rights" - the other side gets bent out of shape when Americans refuse to acknowledge the direct connection between immigration and economic health.

Do we have any "right" to this land? No, I suppose not. We acquired it in an unfair manner, like most land has been acquired through most of history - stole it from Mexico, in fact, after a preemptive war. (I'm thinking of the American southwest, where I live.) Before and after that, our ancestors stole this land from people who had been living here for thousands of years, and who possessed a much more sustainable way of life, destroyed their culture and murdered most of them. The same is true for most of the people who live in the New World. It is not fair for us to self-righteously claim the land for our own and deny others to live here. All acknowledged. But that isn't the problem. This is the problem:


Projections for total U.S. population in 2050 are now up to 438 million, up from 393 million previous estimate (U.S. Census Bureau and 2008 Pew Research Center study). Roy Beck is not a wonderful person but the numbers are pretty legit.

PRB

Do we all agree that the United States, at 300 million souls, is currently living beyond its ecological means? Do we agree that it will be a challenge to lower our consumption of resources enough so that we are living within those means? Finally: how much more difficult will that challenge be if we add another 135 million to our population? More difficult, or less?

[outcast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('outcast', 'A')h yes, Coast to Coast, one of America's leading providers of conspiracy theories and the paranormal. Such an accurate source it isn't.....

[billg]

Surely, somebody here at PO who lives along the coast has noticed this....

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Mysteriously High Tides on East Coast Perplex Scientists
By Alexis Madrigal July 30, 2009

From Maine to Florida, the Atlantic seaboard has experienced higher tides than expected this summer. At their peak in mid-June, the tides at some locations outstripped predictions by two feet.

The change has come too fast to be attributed to melting ice sheets or anything quite that dramatic, and it’s a puzzle for scientists who’ve never seen anything quite like it.

“The ocean is dynamic. It’s not uncommon to have anomalies like this but the breadth and the intensity and duration were unique,” said Mike Szabados, director of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s tide and current program.

The unexpected tidal surge is subsiding, has reduced its reach from the entire coast, and is now concentrated just in the mid-Atlantic states.

NOAA is rushing to study the data in an effort to understand what happened. Szabados’ office is already putting the finishing touches on a report that will be released next month on the wind and current patterns that appear to be correlated with the tidal surge.

Szabados said that two main factors appear to have contributed to the extra high tides. First, there were steady winds out of the northeast throughout this anomaly. Second, the ocean current running from Florida up along the coast weakened. While the associations between these phenomena and the tides are provocactive, it’s too early to tell how fully they explain this unexpected tidal event.

“I’m quite sure that there will be more intensive analysis of this event. By no means will this report be the definitive answer to anything,” Szabados said. “Further assessment of this event should be encouraged to better understand the phenomena.”

One thing is for sure: The tidal rise is strange. Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, looked over June climate data on wind, atmospheric pressure and the ocean. June was — high tides aside — “nothing to write home about” in Trenberth’s estimation.

“It’s a bit of a mystery,” he said.

Szabados’ team was initially puzzled that there were no major wind anomalies accompanying the tides, but his team’s wind expert figured out it wasn’t the magnitude that was anomalous.

“He said there’s no significant anomalies in the magnitude of the wind, it’s the persistence of the winds,” Szabados said.

An even bigger mystery is why such winds would suddenly appear and why the current running up the Atlantic coast would weaken. Was it a freak coincidence, some jitter in the data, or part of a long-term trend or cycle?

John Boon, professor emeritus of oceanography at Virginia Institute for Marine Studies, thinks it could be part of a long-term global trend that’s tied in with the Pacific region’s El Niño weather pattern.

“When I’m comparing these decadal cycles, I see that some of the highs in these decadal cycles coincide with El Niño events,” He said. “It’s not to say that one is caused by another, but the degree of association is somewhat surprising.”

But long-term tidal patterns can be hard to spot, Boon said.

“It’s such a long time scale that’s working in this process that we don’t sense it going on like we sense a hurricane coming and going,” he said. “A subtle but persistent pattern that affects the whole North Atlantic ocean: It’s acting without giving any immediate clues that it’s going on until we see, ‘Whoops, the sea levels are higher than normal.’”

Boon and a team of other researchers are crunching data now on the phenomenon and hope to put out a paper later this year. Szabados wouldn’t rule out the strange tide as an indication of a larger trend, but he wasn’t ready to make that leap just yet.

“Is this part of a long decadal variation? Potentially, yes,” Szabados said. “But it’s premature to make that linkage.”

[flapjax]

Interesting find. I guess the web bot project was right-on with this one.

http://globalrumblings.blogspot.com/200 ... tions.html
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')�� The bigger things are in modelspace, the more lead time we get
• Collapse of the dollar has been in modelspace for 2 ½ years
or so. Even longer has been Global Coastal event.
• Global Coast Event likely in early to mid 2009
• Permanent loss of low lying territory globally but one continent in particular get hit badly. We don’t know which one, but we hope it’s like a Greenland or some not heavily populated area. (*working on this now, but it’s at the limit of our software)
• Places to avoid: anything at sea level (Bangladesh/Florida/ etc).

[billg]

A few more details:

http://www.canetalk.com/2009/07/1248899064.shtml

[billg]

Anomalous high tide in New Zealand reported on July 24, 2009...
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/66692 ... rode-dunes

200 homes in Papua New Guinea destroyed recently by king tide...
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=18265

According to Wikipedia, king tides (aka spring tides) are normally 20% higher than the average high tide.

[Graeme]

Wind energy can power much of East Coast, study says

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')The report by the conservation advocacy group Oceana argues that offshore wind could generate 30 percent more electricity on the East Coast than could be generated by the region's untapped oil and gas. It predicts that wind from the ocean could be cost competitive with nuclear power and natural gas to produce electricity.

The study appears just as new developments are starting to push U.S. efforts to catch up with Europe and China on tapping the energy in offshore wind. Great Britain last week opened the world's largest wind farm, and China built its first pilot offshore wind farm in 2008, using turbines from the nation's largest wind turbine producer, Sinovel.

The Department of Energy earlier this month issued a draft plan for creating a U.S. offshore wind energy program.

"Offshore wind energy can help the nation reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, diversify its energy supply, provide cost-competitive electricity to key coastal regions, and stimulate economic revitalization of key sectors of the economy," the study says.

[Expatriot]

Typical outright fraudulent headline.

This sort of silliness keeps all the science ninnies thinking that Peak Oil will be no big deal.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Well, it's nice that (if they're right) this theoretically could happen.

Given that we're bankrupt as a country, that the cost/KW cited is unrealistic with current technology, and that they blithely ignore all sorts of problems like people not wanting any wind turbines in THEIR waters -- practicality is another whole kettle of fish.

This misleading type of sales pitch reminds me of how the left passed health care reform (and wonders why people are mad now that the truth is leaking out).

A little realism in the plans/assessments might be nice for a change.

[Graeme]

Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Praise, and Backing

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')oogle and a New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard that could ultimately transform the region’s electrical map.

The 350-mile underwater spine, which could remove some critical obstacles to wind power development, has stirred excitement among investors, government officials and environmentalists who have been briefed on it.

Google and Good Energies, an investment firm specializing in renewable energy, have each agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project. They are likely to bring in additional investors, which would reduce their stakes.

If they hold on to their stakes, that would come to an initial investment of about $200 million apiece in the first phase of construction alone, said Robert L. Mitchell, the chief executive of Trans-Elect, the Maryland-based transmission-line company that proposed the venture.

Marubeni, a Japanese trading company, has taken a 15 percent stake. Trans-Elect said it hoped to begin construction in 2013.

[Plantagenet]

Obama just opened the US east coast to offshore oil exploration.

obama-opens-east-coast-oil-search

This is the second time Obama has moved to open the east coast to offshore oil drilling. He tried to do it in 2010, but the BP oil spill happened soon after white house announced he would allow drilling, and the east coast was quickly shut down again.


Drill baby drill!