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My friend couldn’t be more environmentally if she tried! For a start her children wear the most beautiful organic hats when it is cold weather, I am sure that most of their other clothes are organic as well. I know that my friend makes sure that she always recycles everything that she can and will not use plastic bags, she always has plenty of reusable organic cotton bags with her so that she can use those instead of having to take a plastic one.

When she had a party in the summer I was really impressed that she managed to find disposable plates which were made from recycled material and even some biodegradable cups. It was fantastic how she made everything look so beautiful and the organic food was all really delicious, but then she has always been a great cook. I sometimes wonder how she manages to look after her family, keep a job going and look after the environment! I guess it gets easier as you practice more and get to understand more about what you should be doing to care for the environment then it probably becomes habit just to buy environmentally friendly products and recycle and reuse things wherever you can.

A team of astronomers has uncovered new evidence that points to a link between supermassive black holes and galaxy formation.

The astronomers, from Texas and Germany, used a telescope at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, together with the Hubble Space Telescope and many other telescopes around the world to discover that the largest, most massive galaxies in the universe and the gigantic black holes at their hearts grew together over time.

Astronomers know that galaxies, which are vast cities of millions or billions of stars, grow larger through collisions and mergers.

The work of University of Texas at Austin’s John Kormendy, and Ralf Bender of Germany’s Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, involves the biggest galaxies in the universe called “elliptical galaxies” that are shaped roughly like footballs and that can be made of as many as a thousand billion stars.

Virtually, all of these galaxies contain a black hole at their centers, that is, an infinitely dense region that contains the mass of millions or billions of Suns and from which no light can escape.

“Our new observations are a strong and direct link between black holes and galaxy central properties,” Kormendy said. “They are a ‘smoking gun’ that connects black holes with the formation of the surprisingly fluffy centers of giant elliptical galaxies,” he added.

Kormendy and Bender made detailed studies of 11 such galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.

To get a comprehensive overall picture of each galaxy, they used the wide field of view of the Prime Focus Camera on McDonald Observatory’s 0.8-meter Telescope.

They used Hubble Space Telescope to study these same galaxies’ cores in great detail.

Many other telescopes were used to connect the central data from Hubble with the outer data from the McDonald telescope.

Their precision measurements of the brightnesses - that is, the number of stars - at various distances from the centers of elliptical galaxies allowed them to calculate much more accurately than previously the masses of stars that are “missing” in the centers of the biggest ellipticals.

It was found that the missing mass increases in lockstep with the measured masses of the central black holes.

The missing mass also increases in lockstep with another galaxy property that is known to be tied directly to black holes, namely the speeds at which stars move far out in the galaxy where they cannot feel the black hole’s gravity.

According to Bender, “The new observations give us much stronger evidence that black holes control galaxy formation, at least at their centers.”

Isolated towns in southern Brazil appealed for medicine and other supplies on Tuesday as the deaths from landslides rose to 84 and thousands of people remained cut off from aid, clean water and power.Days of heavy rain have devastated areas of Santa Catarina state, the heartland of German and Italian immigrants in Brazil, burying houses and their residents in rivers of mud, collapsing roads and forcing more than 54,000 people out of their homes.

Another 30 people were missing and eight areas remained completely cut off, the civil defense agency said, as medicine, food, and other basic supplies began to arrive from the federal government and neighboring states.

“We had a tsunami of clay, mud and trees,” seamstress Josiane Malmann told Globo TV after being rescued by helicopter with a group of 200 people who were trapped in Ilhota.

“Many people and children died … The hills all fell in an avalanche.”

Five hundred soldiers were sent to Blumenau, famous for its annual Oktoberfest beer festival, where 13 people were killed by landslides and drinking water was expected to be cut off until Friday. Blumenau was the town with the worst death toll so far, of 20.

“Mattresses, food, blankets — these are the main necessities we need to look after our displaced people,” said Joao Paulo Kleinubing, the town mayor.

“There is still a risk of landslides if it rains again so we are telling people in risky areas to leave their houses and seek shelter.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has offered all available federal help to the state, one of Brazil’s wealthiest, and sent several ministers to the affected areas to assess their needs on Tuesday.

The civil defense agency said that 14,500 gallons (55,000 liters) of drinking water had been distributed but appealed for more donations of water as the most urgent priority.

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Blumenau was one of five towns to declare a state of emergency in the Itajai valley, the worst affected area in the state whose main river rose 36 feet and swept away its banks.

The state government said the floods and mudslides had affected 1.5 million people, leaving about 150,000 without electricity.

Rescue workers and army troops were using helicopters and motor boats to reach stranded residents, with transport in the state paralyzed as many main roads were cut off.

“Not even tractors can reach these areas because they sink, so access is only possible with aircraft,” said Major Marcio Alves, a coordinator with the Civil Defense agency.Television footage showed hillsides breaking away and sliding into rivers of mud, while another mudslide destroyed a house in seconds. A lane of one main road was shown collapsed after its earth foundations crumbled.

Almost all the deaths were caused by landslides.

“My son is lost, we don’t know whether he’s alive or dead,” one man, identified as Mario, told Globo News before breaking down in sobs.

The floods also shut down a branch of a pipeline carrying natural gas from Bolivia to Brazil on Monday, cutting off supplies to Santa Catarina and neighboring Rio Grande do Sul state, the company that operates the line said.

The first deaths were reported on Saturday after two days of heavy downpours and weeks of steady rain.

The Latin American country is in spring season when rains in the southern part of the country are at their heaviest.

If you are young, have a hectic social life where you drink and party every night, and have applied for a job, chances are you will lose out to someone who is a teetotaler. Yes, you heard right.

A random survey of 375 CEOs in the medium and large-scale private sector industries by ASSOCHAM threw up some startling facts. Almost 55 per cent of the CEOs interviewed said they would choose teetotalers over people who drink.

Why teetotalers? Whether hiring at entry level or mid level, the choice of recruiters has undergone a seachange. In fact, of the 375 CEOs, 206 said that they would recruit only those young boys and girls who observe total abstinence from alcohol.

The common perception among the CEOs questioned is that teetotalers are more productive, efficient and competent. They stick to deadlines and are good at time management.

Harsh Saxena*, operations head of an event management company in Okhla, which implemented the total abstinence rule six months ago, says, “The results are fabulous. Both efficiency and time management have improved”.

Says Sunil Arora*, director of an advertising agency in south Delhi, “Given a choice, I’d any day have a battalion of young people, but they shouldn’t be the regular drunkard types.” All for the better Debunking the myth that “creative types need to be two pegs down to think up marvelous concepts”, Devan Khattar*, art director in a Noida-based ad agency says, “My team members are workaholics and not drinkaholics.

” Sajjan Jindal, chairperson for JSW Steel, says, “I’ve been following the new policy for some time - teetotalers are ambitious, highly productive and specific about their target.” While some of the companies surveyed have already made a change in recruitment policies, other HR departments are keen to make ‘no drinking’ a cast-iron rule.

And if an employee is found to be downing a peg too many? The decision to fire such employees will in all probability come much later, says Koteshwar Prasad Dobhal, director PR, ASSOCHAM. ASSOCHAM secretary general Dr DS Rawat says, “As far as entry-level recruitment is concerned, lifestyle habits are influencing decision-making.” And the teetotalers are winning.

Car makers are not doing enough to meet the European Union’s proposed targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions, with several Japanese car brands facing the biggest challenge to make the grade, a report said on Tuesday.Overall, car makers will have to cut CO2 emissions by 17 percent to reach the proposed goals for 2012, the report by environment group T&E said.

French and Italian car makers are furthest along that road, while Germany’s luxury BMW brand is making the fastest moves to catch up, added the report, based on European Commission sales data from 18 EU countries.

The study comes a week before European lawmakers reconvene after a summer break for a battle over one of the EU’s most hotly-contended pieces of environmental legislation.

“We’re seeing a response to the threat of legislation,” said T&E director Jos Dings, but he added that moves to weaken and slow the legislation could quickly remove that incentive.

As part of its drive to lead the world in fighting climate change, the European Commission has proposed curbing average CO2 emissions from new cars to 130 grams per kilometer by 2012, compared to current levels of around 158g per km.

The move is part of a broader EU effort to cut CO2 emissions by at least one fifth by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, in a bid to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

According to the T&E report, France’s PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Renault and Italy’s Fiat are the best-placed to meet their proposed goals for 2012 and will have to cut CO2 emissions by just 10 percent, 13 percent and 14 percent respectively.

While Toyota and Honda rank fourth and fifth in the table of efficiency, with 15 and 16 percent cuts to be made, Nissan, Mazda and Suzuki are three of the four worst-performing brands and face heavy cuts.

Suzuki has the hardest task of all, and would have to cut emissions by 25 percent by 2012 to make the grade.

Environmentalists say tough rules are needed for cars, one of the biggest sources of pollution in the 27-country zone, and they would also help European consumers by cutting their dependence on imported oil at a time of soaring gasoline prices.

But Europe’s big auto manufacturers have been lobbying hard to have the plans delayed and diluted, saying they put thousands of manufacturing jobs at risk.

Germany in particular is working hard to protect its auto industry, which has traditionally focused on heavy, powerful cars like those of BMW, Mercedes and Audi, with high greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet the report also showed that BMW made the biggest efficiency gains last year, cutting CO2 emissions by 7.3 percent in 2007, compared with a European average of 1.7 percent.

“BMW has shown that even premium car makers can seriously reduce CO2,” said T&E’s Dings. “That said, BMW has not yet closed the gap.”

BMW’s average CO2 emissions from new cars was 170g per km last year, compared with 184g per km in 2006.

Wind turbines would top New York City skyscrapers and bridges and dot the city’s shorelines, while the mighty tides that drive the Hudson and East Rivers would also generate power under a new plan Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented on Tuesday.“I think it would be a thing of beauty if, when Lady Liberty looks out on the horizon, she not only welcomes new immigrants, but lights their way with a torch powered by an ocean windfarm,” Bloomberg said in a copy of a speech he will give in Las Vegas at the 2008 National Clean Energy Summit.

Geothermal plants and rooftop solar panels are also options, said the billionaire mayor, whose second and final term ends in January 2010. He gave companies until September 19 to submit innovative proposals toward the mayor’s broad goal of making the city greener by 2030.

Bloomberg, an independent who has pushed into the national sphere with gun-control and infrastructure plans, faulted politicians for “treating us to a political silly season” and “pandering” to voters instead of solving the energy crisis, which he called the nation’s top issue.

Calling a carbon tax the only measure that will work “corruption free,” he added: “Some want a cap-and-trade system, which is like taking three right turns instead of one left.”

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the black-out that deprived 50 million people in the Northeast and Canada of electricity, Bloomberg noted. The country must play “catch-up” he said, citing estimates that producing 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030 with wind power will require $60 billion of spending on transmission infrastructure.

New York City also will soon push private building owners into conserving electricity. New laws and regulations will require energy users to receive more information about the “real value” of conservation. “And they’ll also require cost-effective retrofits of our existing larger buildings,” he added.

America we as a whole need to all get out and protest and take back our rights. We are loosing everything. Let’s all stop boasting in our stupid pride and work as a one, meaning peoples of all walks of life and color and march for our freedom. I guarantee that if America as a whole did this it would work. We can hold up signs claiming how we feal and signs that say “we’re not going to take it.” We have each other never forget that. If we can do this while respecting the police great. What’s the most they can do shoot a few rubber bullets and arrest us all??? There aren’t enough jails to hold us all!!! Keep rallying for our rights and just do it! Remember it’s not We the government but, We the people.

I used to listen to Alex Jones a lot. I stopped listening because he never really offered solutions to this bigger problem. I really don’t think signs are going to work since it didn’t in the 60’s. We have to be creative, because that is going to trick them the way they have tricked so many Americans. In our household we participate in silent protest. We don’t invest our money in insurance, we don’t eat mcdonalds, taco bell, or any other fast food joint (believe it or not!), we cook all our meals at home, we use environmentally safe detergent, we don’t wear makeup or pay big bucks to “look pretty”, we are not overweight, we are not illness ridden with allergies or other things which encourage this terrible medical system, we are not duped into thinking that working more gets us more, becuase what it really gets us is more stress and more ills. We don’t think about money which is what they want you to preoccupy your time with so that you will get stressed out, take on extra jobs and eventually become sick so that the medical establishment can get you on tons of drugs that you are told you need for the rest of your life. We live close to work so 40 dollars in gas lasts us two weeks…..ouch a serious slap in the face of war and oil mongers and we walk whereever we can to save the earths nrg. When all americans start silent protest then we will have made a statement bigger than any sign or letter to corrupt politicians could get us! I hope you join in the silent fight against a covert enemy. Thank you for being part of the bigger picture. YOu are loved.

I have decided to change the season of my book from mid-July to mid-November since I think that colder, frostier settings in Britain would be more suited to the plot (not that it isn’t eternally cold in July in Britain!).

However, I included the sound of crickets at night in the bordering forest - what could replace crickets since I doubt night in a forest is silent in November?

What wildlife DOESN’T go into hibernation at this time?

Also, what sort of wild flowers would be about in November?

How about owls hooting? (In any case, crickets are an insect of grasslands, not forests).
Badgers, deer, foxes, rabbits and hares are all active during the winter. Very few plants are in flower in November. One old fashioned phrase is “when the gorse is out of flower kissing is out of fashion”, as gorse is never out of flower. By November, you will have berries on lots of trees and bushes, such as hollies and mistletoe not flowers.

I’m using dark curtains right now. Should I switch to light curtains? I’m sure something is wrong with my a.c, and I need to get it looked at…I keep it set on 72, but the temp in my house runs around 78…any help to cool down my house would be great.

You WILL spend money.

If you plan to retire in that home, you can invest in more insulation and a new heat pump. Plant fast growing trees on the south side of the house. Install a Solar Powered Attic fan.

If you are living there only temporarily AND water is cheep, visit a garden dept and purchase a water mist nozzel that puts out one quart per hour. spray this onto your current heat pump. This will increase the efficiency of the air conditioner’s heat/cooling cycle. Shade the heat pump.

Rather than dark curtains, go the automotive store and purchase window tint. The darker the tint, the better the E rating your windows will have, you only have to do this on the sunward side of the house.

If you have an attic, purchase a box fan that will fit the opening. Cut 1/4″ plywood to sit on top the opening. Cut a hole just small enough to mount the fan to it. Turn it on during the evening when the sun has gone down and the outside temp is below 80. Open all the windows on the first floor only two inches. Open the windows upstairs 4 inches. This will cool your house faster than the air conditioner and cheaper. Why the attic? The storage of hot air in the attic will keep the upstairs ceiling hot for the rest of the night. You need to blow the hot air in the attic OUT.

My house has a light switch for an outlet in the attic. I have save five hundred dollars per year by not using AC in late spring and early fall and not using ac in the summer evenings.

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Change the filter in the AC every 6 months. More expensive option: double paned argon insulated windows. Insulate attic and crawl space. Open and close windows for maximum breeze or insulation needs.

I was wondering if there were other alternative fuels out there that requires minimal modifications to the car’s engine outside of biodiesel or hydrogen peroxide?

Someone else asked about hydrogen peroxide on this site and I looked up H2O2 already.

Propane is the most likley canidate at currently 2.85 a gal or so. A conversion can cost about $3,000 with some states offering rebates (Texas gives $2,500 back).
you could make your own bio diesel or a ethonal still but that will take up more of your time than its worth IMA.
I am running a duel fuel Truck runs on propane or gas at a flip of a switch