Obama's New Bill

President Obama has put a new bill in act that will put money into the generation of wind and tidal power. Wind power is an alternative energy that has recently gotten more attention and has a huge amount of potential. Wave and tidal power is an area that has not recieved as much attention but is another form of energy that could make a large impact on the energy crisis. The tides are something that is constant and reliable and is provide power to costal cities. This is very important since most of our populations are located along the coast. This is an important step for the administration because of the current economy private firms are not as willing to invest there money into new technology. Until the economy turns for the better a majority of the funding is going to need to come from teh government if we really want to move from traditional power sources to renewable ones.

Going Green

The town of Greensburg in Kansas has begun to lead the way in the new green revolution that is in its infant stages of sweeping the nation. This town was destroyed by a tornado and instead of going back to the traditional life that they have always had they have made the decision to make a change. The town of 1400 has gone green make building green houses, using wind, solar and geothermal energy. The town has even built its own community wind farm that will provide power to general buildings throughout the town. The John Deer manufactor in the town has even joined in on the effort. They have built wind turbines to provide electricity and have installed lights that do not use electricity. There is a long tube that collects the light and mirrors deistribute the light. This project is relativly on the small side compared to trying to transofrm cities but it is a start. If more and more small towns start doing this hopefully more people will catch on and start to really push this new green revolution.

The New Crisis

The old saying of water water everywhere and not a drop to drink is becoming more of a reality everyday. Water is rapidly becoming the crisis of the 21st century. Here in the United States we consume about 600 liters of water per day where 50 is really only needed to sustain life. People in Africa would be lucky to consume 50 liters in Africa. It is true that water is a renewable resource and we can reverse pretty much all damage that we may cause to water. Aquifers all over the world are quickly running low and they are not able to recharge themselves. Much of the water that we are using from the aquifer is from the last ice age. For example in the plains of America we are pulling water from the Ogalla aquifer to water our crops. Because we are using so much water land subsidence is becoming prevalent. Adding more fuel to the fire is the fact that we are having droughts all over the world. We can see what can happen to farm land when there is a drought and no water for plant, the Dust Bowl of the thirties is a perfect example. This was before we were able to pull large quantise of water out of the ground then in addition to this was the drought that hit. Now that oil has been exploited companies are looking for new ways to make a profit. The new business is investing in water. Companies all over the world are buying the rights to water. They are "helping" nations with there issues of delivering water to its citizens. They over charge, have poor service and do not have the good of the environment in mind. This is a incredibly profitable business one company cleared $60 billion in one year. Fortunately we can help with the water crisis by fixing leaks, using better technology and making some sacrifices. 14 percent of water that flows through a municipal system is because of leaks, so we are paying for water that we are not even using. So if we can take care of these things and be more conscious about the water we use it can avoid a major problem.

$1000 car

A car company in Indian has developed a car that people are able to buy for $1000. Indian has over a billion poeople and most people are not able to afford a car. The problems that this issue presents is huge. the amount of emissions that would be released into the air is only going to accelerate global warming. On top of the amount of pollution that would be released is the fact that we are running out of oil. If we were to double or even triple the number of cars that are on the road we would really be in the fast lane to run out of oil. We are already behind the eight ball in terms of creating green technology and renewable resources. As nice as it would be to have everyone live as well as we do in the developed world, we can not be adding cars to our already huge problem. One part of this problem is that the company is not looking at the bigger issue of the amount of pollution being released or the fact that we are running out of oil. They need to see the damage they are causing to the enviornment and in turn all of us.