http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring hunting the paradigm shift Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:44:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/10/174/us-supreme-court-rules-epa-must-regulate-carbon-emissions-next-move-greening-industry/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/10/174/us-supreme-court-rules-epa-must-regulate-carbon-emissions-next-move-greening-industry/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:18:59 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=174 The United States Supreme Court, in the spring of 2007, ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate carbon emissions. That ruling could now be the basis for legislation moving the nation toward a fully combustion-free economy. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/10/174/us-supreme-court-rules-epa-must-regulate-carbon-emissions-next-move-greening-industry/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/10/201/playing-with-light-paris-to-build-shadowless-glass-pyramid-skyscraper/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/10/201/playing-with-light-paris-to-build-shadowless-glass-pyramid-skyscraper/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:01:01 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=201 A revolutionary skyscraper design by Herzog and de Meuron, commonly known as 'the Triangle', aims to break the long-standing Parisian height barrier of 37 meters, while respecting the right of neighbors to the same quantity of sunlight they would have without the new structure. The Guardian has called it a 'shade-less ziggurat', reference both to its irregular stepped-pyramid shape and to its playing a central role in the evolution of the spirit of the times, in design terms, in a city whose emblematic architecture is, somehow, also a sacred essence. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/10/201/playing-with-light-paris-to-build-shadowless-glass-pyramid-skyscraper/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/09/202/us-house-votes-down-bailout-bill-djia-closes-down-77768-points/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/09/202/us-house-votes-down-bailout-bill-djia-closes-down-77768-points/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:05:23 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=202 With the nation facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and voices in private finance calling for a major bailout, with the Republican president, his financial advisers, leaders of both parties in Congress calling for a $700 billion bailout package, the US House has voted down the rescue package. The stock market closed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 777.68 points. Talks of a "done deal" are obviously over, and the administration and Congressional leaders will now be starting over. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/09/202/us-house-votes-down-bailout-bill-djia-closes-down-77768-points/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/198/clean-desert-energy-to-fix-chinas-rampant-pollution-energy-deficit/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/198/clean-desert-energy-to-fix-chinas-rampant-pollution-energy-deficit/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:48:37 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=198 China is choking under a thick covering of contaminants produced from burning carbon-based fuels for industrial production, power-generation, and transport. Environmental degradation is so rampant that much of the northwest of the country is being lost to rapidly expanding deserts. And desertification threatens the already shaky balance between China's available arable land and its skyrocketing demand for cheap food. Policy makers and market theorists in China and abroad should be thinking about whether that desert can produce something to help China escape the mounting environmental and public health cataclysm. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/198/clean-desert-energy-to-fix-chinas-rampant-pollution-energy-deficit/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/195/texas-to-deliver-wind-power-to-millions-of-urban-homes/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/195/texas-to-deliver-wind-power-to-millions-of-urban-homes/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:41:26 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=195 The state of Texas has approved a major new project to build transmission lines for wind power, with funding in the amount of $4.93 billion. Already the national leader with 5,300 megawatts of installed wind-power generating capacity, Texas will, when the infrastructure development is completed in 2013, have more wind-energy capacity than Germany presently does.The project is a major step toward freeing the American economy from high-contaminant power generation. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/195/texas-to-deliver-wind-power-to-millions-of-urban-homes/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/194/high-gas-prices-direct-assault-on-american-commuter-consumer-lifestyle/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/194/high-gas-prices-direct-assault-on-american-commuter-consumer-lifestyle/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:00:21 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=194 As gasoline prices were escalating seemingly without hope of stalling or coming down, due to all-time record oil prices, and in the context of a severely weakened consumer economy, we found ourselves confronted with a major challenge to the basic assumptions of the dynamics of our economy. We have seen, in just one year, our [...]]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/194/high-gas-prices-direct-assault-on-american-commuter-consumer-lifestyle/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/193/physicists-in-japan-plan-to-create-new-universe-in-lab/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/193/physicists-in-japan-plan-to-create-new-universe-in-lab/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:28:42 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=193 A radical new project could permit human beings to create a "baby universe" in a laboratory in Japan. While it sounds like a dangerous undertaking, the physicists involved believe that if the project is successful, the space-time around a tiny point within our universe will be distorted in such a way that it will begin to form a new superfluid space, and eventually break off, separate in all respects from our experience of space and time, causing no harm to the fabric of our universe. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/193/physicists-in-japan-plan-to-create-new-universe-in-lab/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/191/nasa-phoenix-lander-finds-water-on-mars/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/191/nasa-phoenix-lander-finds-water-on-mars/#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:42:05 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=191 NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has found water on the Martian surface, in the form of ice, after just 62 days on the Red Planet. The find is the first confirmed evidence that water exists on the planet, meaning we now know it is technically possible for life as we know it to have existed there in the past or to exist there now. The sample was collected from the Martian soil by the lander's robotic arm, then heated in its Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA), which identifies the chemical signature of vapors. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/08/191/nasa-phoenix-lander-finds-water-on-mars/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/190/nuclear-power-offshore-drilling-may-help-keep-oil-prices-high/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/190/nuclear-power-offshore-drilling-may-help-keep-oil-prices-high/#comments Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:25:18 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=190 With gasoline prices at record highs, and the strain on a weak American economy already at an extreme, Pres. Bush is pushing Congress to hold an "up-or-down vote" on renewed exploration of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) before its August recess. Opponents protest that none of any oil found there would be available for production for 10 to 15 years, and the OCS plan is an attempt to deliver oil firms an otherwise unjustifiable gift, taking advantage of the pressurized situation of exorbitant prices. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/190/nuclear-power-offshore-drilling-may-help-keep-oil-prices-high/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/132/zero-downtime-must-be-a-standard-of-the-open-web/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/132/zero-downtime-must-be-a-standard-of-the-open-web/#comments Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:17:07 +0000 admin http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=132 Freedom of information and the standard of net neutrality —connection providers not controlling content or access to content in any way— require that information posted online not be removed, blocked, or made unavailable to readers, so long as the publisher wishes to include that content. For content publishers and content consumers to shape the web experience they desire, not only do we need an ethical standard of total net neutrality, but we need a technical standard of zero-downtime bandwidth guarantees. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/132/zero-downtime-must-be-a-standard-of-the-open-web/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/189/us-recession-takes-root/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/189/us-recession-takes-root/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:19:47 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=189 CafeSentido.com :: The United States is firmly in the thrall of a banking meltdown, in which the normal structures, the means of measuring performance, and the meaning of debt-holdings, are all out of balance. More than one Wall Street firm or investment bank has written of tens of billions of dollars in uncollectable debt. Financier [...]]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/189/us-recession-takes-root/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/188/food-price-crisis-more-complex-than-first-thought-and-putting-food-beyond-the-reach-of-the-planets-poor/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/188/food-price-crisis-more-complex-than-first-thought-and-putting-food-beyond-the-reach-of-the-planets-poor/#comments Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:25:18 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=188 Food prices are skyrocketing. Initially, many put the blame on the rising demand of biofuels in the transport sector, but bio-ethanol is far from the only thing driving up food prices. New diets, soaring oil prices and climate change are all in the complex soup of explanations behind the recent development putting food beyond the reach of the planet’s poor. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/188/food-price-crisis-more-complex-than-first-thought-and-putting-food-beyond-the-reach-of-the-planets-poor/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/187/gores-push-for-carbon-free-energy-economy-suggests-green-tech-boom/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/187/gores-push-for-carbon-free-energy-economy-suggests-green-tech-boom/#comments Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:52:49 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=187 The former vice president of the United States, Al Gore, yesterday announced an ambitious goal, which he says the nation can meet, of transitioning its entire domestic energy production to clean resources by 2018. The speech marks a major moment in the process of transition to the green technology boom, which will be the next step in the ongoing economic development of the United States and the world. Gore, however, warned that failing to meet the challenge to date means "the United States of America as we know it is at risk". ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/187/gores-push-for-carbon-free-energy-economy-suggests-green-tech-boom/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/186/a-generational-challenge-to-repower-america-text-of-gore-energy-speech-as-prepared/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/186/a-generational-challenge-to-repower-america-text-of-gore-energy-speech-as-prepared/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:59:45 +0000 admin http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=186 Ladies and gentlemen: There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/186/a-generational-challenge-to-repower-america-text-of-gore-energy-speech-as-prepared/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/185/walden-by-henry-david-thoreau/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/185/walden-by-henry-david-thoreau/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:05:14 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=185 When Henry David Thoreau published Walden, a narrative of his experiences and meditations near Walden Pond, in the densely wooded hill country of Massachusetts, it was a breakthrough treatise on the role of human industry and individual will in terms of the natural environment. Thoreau infused an explanation of day to day existence with a transcendental consciousness of the value of the natural world around him, and explored the manner in which human civilization is both habitually divorced from and irrefutably dependent upon that environment. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/185/walden-by-henry-david-thoreau/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/184/al-gore-calls-on-us-to-produce-all-energy-from-renewables-within-10-years/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/184/al-gore-calls-on-us-to-produce-all-energy-from-renewables-within-10-years/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:53:40 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=184 Former US vice-president Al Gore is calling on the nation to marshal its resources and divorce itself from the combustible fuels economy. Gore says the US can produce all its energy requirements from renewable resources within 10 years, if concerted action is taken. The bold initiative is designed to drive debate on the topic and move discussions about how to deal with high fuel prices toward the new opportunity they provide for funding renewable infrastructure development. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/184/al-gore-calls-on-us-to-produce-all-energy-from-renewables-within-10-years/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/182/renewable-energy-consumption-and-electricity-preliminary-2007-statistics/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/182/renewable-energy-consumption-and-electricity-preliminary-2007-statistics/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:31:29 +0000 jr3o http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=182 EIA Report: Renewable energy consumption declined 1 percent between 2006 and 2007 to 6,830 trillion Btu, according to preliminary 2007 data. In contrast, both total energy and non-renewable energy increased 2 percent. There was wide variation in the consumption behavior of individual renewable energy sources. Hydro electricity dropped 14 percent in 2007 due to reduced precipitation in several regions of the country. On the plus side, biomass-based energy grew 7 percent and wind-generated electricity jumped 21 percent. Major increases in consumption of biomass to produce and use biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) were almost entirely responsible for the increase in biomass during 2007.]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/182/renewable-energy-consumption-and-electricity-preliminary-2007-statistics/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/175/pres-bush-lifts-executive-ban-on-offshore-oil-drilling-challenges-environmentally-minded-congress/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/175/pres-bush-lifts-executive-ban-on-offshore-oil-drilling-challenges-environmentally-minded-congress/#comments Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:48:14 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=175 US pres. George W. Bush has lifted the executive ban on offshore oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and has challenged the US Congress to act to open the OCS to new oil exploration, saying the US needs to increase domestic production to reduce its dependence on imported oil. The ban was put in place by his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st US president, for environmental concerns and in part because the oil companies have leases for huge expanses of underwater terrain they have not explored or exploited. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/175/pres-bush-lifts-executive-ban-on-offshore-oil-drilling-challenges-environmentally-minded-congress/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/169/epa-chief-says-us-congress-should-legislate-to-limit-carbon-emissions/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/169/epa-chief-says-us-congress-should-legislate-to-limit-carbon-emissions/#comments Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:35:59 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=169 The chairman of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Stephen Johnson, says the Clean Air Act is "ill-suited" to fighting the greenhouse effect, and that Congress should pass laws mandating the regulation of carbon emissions, with global warming in mind. The move may lead to a more comprehensive regulatory regime, but as the Guardian newspaper notes: "Last year's Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court ruling had found that greenhouse gases can be regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. The decision pressured the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and trucks." ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/169/epa-chief-says-us-congress-should-legislate-to-limit-carbon-emissions/feed/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/173/food-insecurity-failing-states/ http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/173/food-insecurity-failing-states/#comments Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:36:53 +0000 Joseph Eugene Robertson http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/?p=173 During the concluding half of the last century, the world was making steady progress in reducing hunger, but during the transition into the new century, the tide began to turn. In February 2007, James Morris, head of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), announced that 18,000 children are now dying each day from hunger and related causes. For perspective, this loss of young lives in one day is almost five times U.S. combat deaths in Iraq through four years of fighting. Although these huge numbers of dying children may be an abstraction, each represents a young life ended far too soon. ]]> http://www.casavaria.com/hotspring/2008/07/173/food-insecurity-failing-states/feed/