Global Warming - Burning My Iceland

Living on a tropical island, is quite unique. If you love the natural world, there are many things you could do it. I grew up in a small valley in the hills south of my island and I have known my whole life.

Field trips to a pretty fast pace of the canyon hills hundred meters is all worth it when I have to choose a place near the top only. It is a true blessing to be able to do. It is a wonderful job, too. The tops of steep hills to near the base is covered by savannah grasslands. The very steep slopes and along its base are wooded ravine. More than jungle delirium. If you look in the mountains in the distance, are the golden color of the meadows a great contrast to the dark green jungle hills. It is amazing to know how my mind that a hundred years ago, almost all of these dark hills. Jungles all the way up. Wow. And one reason why not.

Fire was a tool for humans used almost since its discovery. He also has done before. And one of the biggest weapons for hunting deer has become here in the jungles of the south. What they do is a fire. Just set a fire the flame and let it rip. Help if you would have difficulties. For once it's gone and burning in arable soil, a wonderful thing called life happens next. New shoots of grass from the hills and burned black. And the deer is probably a surprise, because they consume these tender buds. The wild hunter waits.

Oh, but all the other things that there was kindled a fire in the hills happened. Surely this is not the arsonist would have thought about it. Let us straight in the direction that things go happen. The fire is determined and set on fire. The atmosphere is the first hit. A powerful greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide), a by-product of combustion of vegetation is directly exposed to the atmosphere. But wait. We do not really feel their effects for a long time. No, not right. Global warming. Exactly. It is not surprising that the collective memory of vegetation in the world is still a significant contribution to global warming? his strike.

While in the flames, a fire are often lost in a jungle. The fire will stop, right? That is true. The last time. But the fire will not die once they walk into the jungle. He has to burn its way into a little "to run into the water and most of the jungle. You know, it will take at least one meter. Do burnout. So how can you burn burn, walking to the size of forests . The more you burn, the less the jungle. Strike two.

Now, the fire died and the hills are bare. When the rain comes, and then the soil to wash away. I have never burned washed flee a hill by the rain. Soil erosion by sedimentation in water. But that does not matter. The ocean is big. Will not hurt. In the grand scheme of the oceans, not too much. For aquatic life in rivers, coral, and the open sea populations that feed and live on these reefs, the damage is absolutely fatal. Strike three.

Add all. We have professionals on the one hand, the shot immediately after a new fire is enticing deer. It would be easier to catch. And only useful for the hunter. We are opposite on the other side, and the list is impressive.

- The air in our atmosphere gets an infusion of a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. We know without doubt that large and persistent global warming has caused and is accelerating, climate change may very well end our day.

- It is the country. Our lower jungle. This quickly leads to loss of habitat for animals. The bright green jungle of our gold and the sea of our savannas are burned from the hills of text and black. All animals, nests or caves caught fire, food, well, that's just their loss. And if it rains, we lose our topsoil. The roots in the city, burned clean. accelerated soil erosion, I despise. .

- It is the sea, rivers are included. Immediately after the soil erosion is the effect of sedimentation. This transported soil spreading. And blankets and suffocates when it finally stabilized. Sedimentation is the bearer of death for microscopic organisms, plants, fish and corals, to say the least. In the aquatic environment, is the destruction of large and extended. Imagine that your air is filled with the ashes of all time. What would be the quality of your life, what then?

He has about 700 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. There is no doubt, no debate. A large percentage comes from the constant reminder of the natural landscape. We have to change the way they do things.

The survival of our race, have to stop global warming. Climate change in progress should be maintained, if not reversed. If we refuse to realize this, it will matter in fifty or a hundred years? Spread the word. Take part. We can still save.

Proof of Evolution and challenges of global warming

The idea of anthropogenic global warming is under fire in recent months. Those who collect and disseminate information, it was discovered the numbers have changed, so that man is warming seems to be done.

Some of these "scientists" are now conceded that the data shows global warming has not happened since 1995.

Thousands of scientists have provided information that the idea of artificial contradiction with global warming. Only recently has this idea confirmed.It-against has been shown that global warming scientists "have falsified data. This is already accepted.

This reveals the fact that politics can affect the results of some scientists. Ie. Scientists are not all looking for a little 'practice.

Our world, of course, seems to be cooling or heating. This site is for thousands of years. However, until now, there is no evidence that humans are the trends van deze case (solar activity seems to be the TE Meest scientific explanation).

It 's amazing how the idea of man and global warming seems to Darwinian evolution made in parallel with each other.

O data and information was collected mainly in universities and government institutions (this is the fox guarding the hen house?).
or Both make use of ad hominem attacks, like the call of the opposition "flat earthers" or other names.
Opponents or are prohibited by most of the original data. I'm just not allowed much of the information used to support the ideas seen.
o The two have strong support from the media, despite the fact that the scientific evidence against two ideas overhelmingly
or Both are strongly encouraged in public schools and universities.

It is easier to transmit data on global warming to find (even if the data were kept secret years) is that Darwinism Because dealing with the evolution of different aspects of science.
The person is interested in digging beneath the surface of normal university or high school during the next hoaxes (or science just terrible) was used to "prove" the theory of evolution.

or Piltdown Man, a creature with characteristics of both humans and monkeys. Used for four decades, the theory of evolution is to take hold "in the United States until someone discovered that the" monkey-man'was formed by mixing of two monkeys and human bones were found with the bones as they age, filed teeth, etc.
Or Nebraska man was a man-ape of high-profile ", used in the test Sccopes (high profile). It 'very instrumental in establishing the idea of man evolving from apes. Following this" monkey man "was shooting with a single tooth of an extinct pig.
or embryos Haeckel was a chart with various vertebrates that "all steps in the evolution" in its infancy (which is also the same phase of Gill). This image is a hoax at the end of 1800. (Although we still found in many textbooks today).

These hoaxes and bad science are not the exception. There are literally dozens of scientific laws, principles and facts that directly contradict the theory of evolution.

Statist regimes (including Nazism), socialism and communism are all based on the Darwinian theory of evolution (in particular to eliminate the idea of Judaism and Christianity). Their posters often include the theory behind their ideas.

Today it seems that the same people behind the artificial global warming is pushing the idea of evolution.

Unless something beneath the surface of typical hand, we remain convinced of information that educators and politicians for decades teaches us that both ideas.

Politics and science do not mix. And if they do not mix together, always knowing that suffers at the expense of politics. Recent discoveries have shown that the "science of man-made global warming is seriously compromised. With all the facts that we discover the trend, it seems that the same happens with it as well.

For some form of evolution is clear evidence to support the theory, Darwinism is more than likely continue on the same track as the man who took the global warming. It could also last for many decades, however, the current serious problems of evolution to the public.

Why does not Al Gore debate on global warming?

As I write this article, the U.S. is a large explosion in the Arctic. E 'was 40 degrees at Miami Orange Bowl, the coldest ever. Beijing, London, Seoul falls and says other parts of the world under the snow important in their history. And Al Gore, there is a need for a debate on planet Earth. I know I would say that this extreme cold is caused by global warming.

To say that the two basic facts about global warming come. One thing is global warming. And two, the warming caused by man. He said that the 3,000 scientists around the world and all disciplines of climate in 100% agreement on these two issues.

It may surprise you, but I agree with these points. What I can not live without debate position. Who is that Al Gore is he? To begin, it is not even a scientist! If nothing else, you could probably learn a challenge, especially if they are scientific. Heck, I think I can learn a thing or two!

I guess that means that the discovery of new evidence or research, contrary to his position, would not be accepted. I wonder if 3000 scientists could find agreement with this statement? Why spend taxpayer money warming of global research, if it did?

Does Al believe that man is 100% the cause of global warming? Here I request the data. I read enough science to know that millions of years the Earth was covered with ice. to melt a massive global warming and that man was not there. Scientists tell us that the main causes of submarine volcanoes and the sun, I think the sun and volcanic eruptions are an important part of global warming? I want to hear the percentage of debate. I wonder if it would do more for the environment and put a sock in the mouth of the volcano to another or in the mouth?

To say that we go to the disaster in the coming decades. I have heard of freshwater and coastal areas, but what about Chicago. I have neighbors who do not just "warm up have been here. Again, I'm not ready to see the disaster in the future and sees his friends. In the U.S., we have seen cooler temperatures of this decade (it is the Convention on growth Copenhagen climate change by the United Nations), but the carbon emissions of more people. What is the science of climate around this? Then these data suggest at least a period of a catastrophe?

All must agree that no study of personal preferences or policies on global warming. He was able to obtain an objective attitude in the treatment of all data completely. We assume that each insured of his advisers, he knew all the possible interpretations of the abuse. There are other models or scenarios that can be accepted. The Admit it, you can not discuss because they would be exposed as a fraudster. Remember, this is the same man who gave us several versions of Al Gore in his presidential race.

To have enough money to support the global warming of his family for generations. No descendant of Al Gore will never work. Instead his mantra of "no more debate, I would like to hear" no more dollars "! What about the commitment of all to all the money he makes of global warming on the poorest countries in Africa to make.

You and the global warming debate

And 'concern is not the proper way to active scientific argument on global warming. This application is based on best practices of science, scientific data and evaluation of evidence. In the short term in a context of science, the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates a greenhouse effect which helps to keep warm. This is acknowledged by all scientists. Global warming scenario arises because we have a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for our activities - such as burning coal. The more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere can lead to abnormally warm temperatures, with potentially devastating consequences. Scientists have spent years trying to find out if this scenario is correct. Environmentalists say that yes, skeptics say no. Among scientists, the majority say 'yes', but a small and vocal minority crying, no! What about this?

The way of working scientists is as follows. We Are Scientists, and I'm one of them, a number of hypotheses, some ideas that we want to control. We make observations and experiments, often supported by calculations. What we are looking for a number of tests, which can, in principle, to show that we are wrong, that we want evidence that potentially can be shown that Our assumption is wrong. It 'important that such evidence exists. If you can get without testing can be done in principle able to demonstrate that your idea is not correct, scientists turn away from you. This may at first seem a bit 'strange, but this is the way we work. What are you doing this to show that neither you nor anyone else can prove that you're so wrong, maybe you're right! Remember, the finding that corresponds to your hypothesis by itself does not prove that your hypothesis is true, because who can say that some other assumptions may not fit the observations?

For example, when they met two competing ideas. A classic example is the Copernican system against the old Ptolemaic system of the Sun and planets. Copernican system, with the sun at the center was not accepted by both scientific and religious op gronden was a time when this vastgesteld Ptolemaic "system works equally well - indeed beter in a way. There was no obvious way to demonstrate whether the system is, at that time.

Another recent example is the problem of the ozone hole in 1980 and 1990. Hypothesis (a) that emissions of chemicals used in refrigerators and hair sprays, etc., can cause destruction of the ozone layer is over the upper atmosphere. Test to prove that the error may be the following. If we take the concentration of ozone in the upper atmosphere for a period of time, and I think it has not fallen, it falsifies the hypothesis That human activity caused the destruction of the ozone layer - because there is nothing to explain. Note that the position in front of the depletion of ozone observation does not prove that human activities are causing the destruction of the ozone layer. Something, but not necessarily of human activity.

Positive feedback is exhausted and then open the question of natural or human activities. All we can do for some is to falsify the hypothesis that human activity has caused the destruction of the ozone layer. What actually happened was the discovery of the ozone layer over the Antarctic ozone hole's mass, with significant ozone depletion. Combined with a healthy observational data of any kind, for which the Nobel Prize, the ozone hole would swift and decisive action in the international form of the Montreal Protocol. Thus, although initially only to distort the situation, a great weight of evidence can be very convincing in the truth of hypotheses. The risk that we are causing the ozone hole was very large.

The same scientific method is not applicable in the case of debate global warming. In fact, this method can not, in my view, be applied. However, discussions are mainly represented as scientific debate, with political and economic consequences that follow relied on the results of objective scientific discussion. I maintain that no objective scientific debate, simply because the rules of science are not met. Instead, I propose that this discussion assumes the risk. What is the risk of climate skeptics wrong? What is the risk to the environment (if it is) that he would not? Instead of continuing in this dry, I justify my position, telling an imaginary conversation between two physicists, Horace, and Twinkle.

Before you begin, remember, there are two kinds of skeptics of climate skeptics who deny the absolute existence of global warming at all, and skeptics of climate relative who agrees that there is global warming but is not blame our introduction of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is not our fault. Rather, the observed warming is only part of the natural cycle of the earth. Horace is somewhere in between, mostly relatives, but with a touch of absolute.

Enter Horatio and Twinkle, sitting with his coffee in the dining room on the seventh floor of a well-known Department of Physics, who will remain nameless. Dining room overlooking the harbor, and you can change the path to the hills on a day to see clearly how the present. But this is not the position that they are interested. This is an old argument, that focus. Horace is a climate skeptic. Twinkle, his friend, believes that humans cause global warming, and that "something must be done.

"This climate of the Copenhagen meeting began," says Twinkle to get the ball rolling.

"Yes," replies Horatio. "Let's see if a good case for this time to come, rather than simply repeat the catechism faithful defenders of the environment!

And now, "murmurs Twinkle, sipping coffee.

"Well, you know what I mean, says Horace." You can see that these emails from the University of East Anglia say. It 's a bit increased.

"I've read them. I guess I should respond Twinkle. But it is a normal story. Sceptics say that e-mail to change everything, and great people say that nothing will change. You have heard that the Saudi representative to the meeting in Copenhagen. Talk your interests.

"Yes, but you can! Climate change over time, changing a lot. How do we know that, as a result of human activities?

"Look, we know something. Outset weather people tell us that the temperature is rising so fast that it must be unnatural. And all models show that if we have more CO2 in the atmosphere cause temperature rise. We created the CO2 'atmosphere. The temperature is rising. of course!

"Yes, you are basically good. I agree that more or less. I'm not so sure the temperature is increased. But this is not the point.

"What's the point then? Twinkle adds pauses, as Horace with a cup of coffee.

Horace takes her hand.

"You know, like me that the model .....' begins.

"Can I come with you? Socrates, the new professor of Greek, put the tray on the table beside them.

"Yes, yes, of course, says Twinkle." We just talked about the climate in Copenhagen.

"Yes, I'm just saying that climate models are really bad" Horace again. Socrates Horatio nods and continues. 'Biosphere is not bound up, and worst of all, from a physical point of view, the treatment of clouds just totally unrealistic. We simply can not predict the amount of temperature increase due to the presence of a certain amount of CO2' atmosphere.

"These models are really that bad? Socrates asks.

"Clouds are the key, says Horace.

"Then you do not trust any predictions of the model?" Asks Socrates.

"In addition to the overall result of the introduction of CO2 in the atmosphere caused the earth - Horace agree," introduces Twinkle.

"Yes, but like the earth?" Said Horace. "I do not think people came out with figures. There is very little influence. Maybe it does not matter what people Have done. Perhaps the most important changes are very natural. Models proves nothing!

"Oh, God!" Twinkle says. It is unclear whether this is a common expression of anxiety or attention with his friend and colleague of Horace. Three sat in silence a few minutes, drinking coffee. The silence is broken Socrates.

"Can I ask you, Horatio?

"Of course!

'If I ask you, that no evidence would have changed his mind and said it was wrong, what you reply''

"You mean that the observational data?

"If you want answers to Socrates.

"Well, 'says Horace. And then there is a silence, as he reflects on the question." This is an interesting question.

"He wanted to see the growth temperature of 10 degrees, and he knows that he is mistaken," Twinkle introduces cunning.

"I never said that!" Horace said, smiling at his friend.

"Well, we are waiting. What would convince you're wrong? Requests Twinkle.

"Maybe I can ask the same question, Twinkle? Said Socrates. What would convince the skeptics were right all the time?

"The fall of 10 degrees temperature! Horace says, laughing.

There is silence. But this time it's different kinds of silence. Horace and thought Twinkle.

'Well, of course, Twinkle, says over time, "when we went to introduce the current rate of atmospheric CO2 and temperature rise, and then ..... say in the next 50 years .. .. "

"What are you, Horace?" Socrates asked how to stop fading.

I'm not sure that there is one thing to prove to me that people give answers that significant global warming Horace. Maybe a lot of factors, "he adds.

Horace and Twinkle look and frowned. Both know that the theory is a theory, as it is objectionable in principle in an experiment or observation - or at least decent call "thought experiment. Socrates crystallizes their concerns.

"I wonder if you could say that global warming is not so much a theory about how you feel?" It gives you an embarrassed chuckle.

"Well, there are things that can prove one way or another. Want me to say that this is far from proven, says Horace.

"Yes." But asked what would be our position to refute! Twinkle Bulb. In addition, all experiments that do not consider the experiments that we are willing to risk to do, right? How can I do nothing and wait 50 years! This is the problem!

Horace pulls a wry face, but are not actively agree.

"We can not refer to the question of perceived risks? Asks Socrates. It stops time." As global warming seems compelling, "he added.

"You say that with great risk? - I was right, and it is not, and vice versa? Requests Twinkle

"Hey, wait, I. ..." Horace said, see the issue.

"Well, it must be admitted, because none of us are acceptable evidence, or Rather, a refutation, is down on the risks, is not it? Interrupt Twinkle.

"You mean the more serious consequences if the skeptics are wrong? Socrates asked Twinkle.

"I must say, Twinkle says," is not it? "

"Look, it's crazy." Horace is a bit 'crazy. "Therefore, nobody could have predicted the end of the world, but because we can not disprove, we need to place ITS head. This is not science, it's anarchy!

"Yes, this is a good philosophy," says Twinkle. " I totally agree with you that if I have a crazy theory, this is for me to try to prove that is not for you to refute. But there are two things. First, we agree that global warming can not be proved or disproved in a way that satisfies us. Secondly, the theory is not crazy .... in reality, not just a theory, Socrates turned to us. But this is a good qualitative basis, although not quantitative, agree. I think, Socrates asked the right question. Comments that convince you that you're wrong? I have no answer. You do not understand. The risk we are talking about, not worthy of rigorous science. The risk of error is worse, Horatio, than risk my mistakes. "

Horace grumble, but retains his world.

What follows from this conclusion? I suspect most people will look at Twinkle. Adverse effects of environmental misconduct, of course, because we are many resources, human and natural, very effective in combating a nonexistent problem to use. Perhaps global economic growth will be slower than usual. However, as Horace wrong, and we do little or nothing in his opinion, no single package of bank's survival, advertisements, chairman of the Federal Reserve System of wisdom from any source, to save us from a series of disasters, the least that can be major problems. Most people, almost all countries at the meeting in Copenhagen, the defender of the "precautionary principle. They are divided on the side of Twinkle. Precautions should be taken.

Parts of the above vision is a bit 'different from the global warming debate. This is a relief, because the way the discussion tends to believe that it is absolutely impossible for a layman to understand that scientists believe, even when the disputes between environmentalists alone. It is said that sea level rise of 3 feet, others say six feet! How to know who is right? You can not make your mind from the effects of global warming, climate scientists to listen to dissent, that the better the general pattern of atmospheric circulation on Earth! In my opinion, the above is that the global warming debate is not based on science, because the correct application of standard scientific arguments are not sufficient. Thus, the non-scientist simply make their own choices based on how they see the danger, not realizing that their lack of experience prevent them from holding opinions.

UFO's On the Record

No one on Earth has had the technology to build UFOs.  It is only in the past year that we have made the discoveries necessary and confirmed necessary possibilities for building them ourselves.  At least now it is possible to establish a targeted program to build the craft with some hope of success.

Those who have followed my posts know also that there is conforming evidence to support the UFOs and their occupants are part of a human space based civilization established around twenty thousand years ago who acted 13,000 years ago to end the northern Ice Age.

Leslie Kean has done us a service by introducing high value authoritative resources to the subject in one book.  This will give the subject weight in the US that it has lacked.

It is noteworthy that a number of countries have thrown their data out on the common pool.  The US needs to do the same, since it is obvious that they are just as clueless and that sitting on the evidence is solving nothing.

UFOs On the Record: debunkers beware

by Billy Cox

August 10th, 2010

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/11096/ufos-on-the-record-debunkers-beware/?pa=all&tc=pgall

In a different culture, maybe, and were this any other issue, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record would be a game-changer. And it still could be. The long-anticipated results of Leslie Kean’s 10-year investigation reach retailers today with the sort of pedigree that makes it the most important book on UFOs in a generation.

From the foreword by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta — who reiterates his longstanding contention that any UFO investigation should be transparent — to endorsements by grounded luminaries such as physicist Michio Kaku, UFOs On the Record avoids New Age hokum and will expose debunkers as willfully uninformed, dishonest and/or 100 percent irrelevant.

Readers who’ve followed Kean’s work will know she draws most heavily from the watershed 2007 press conference she staged with documentary filmmaker James Fox. That’s when an international cast of characters — the impeccably credentialed subjects of the book’s subtitle — convened in Washington to urge the U.S. to reopen its scientific investigation of UFOs.

No reason to revisit those details here; you can check it out at theCoalition for Freedom of Information or at UFOs On the Record.  Ten of those panelists, including two pilots who attacked UFOs in jet fighters, contributed to the the book. As well as the former head of the French equivalent of NASA and Brazil’s chief of Air Force operations.

Given the potential windfall of knowledge embodied by the phenomena, the broader, more dispiriting portrait that emerges is of a nation in an intellectual stupor, conditioned to dismiss the persistent mystery with derision and punchlines. Unable to muster little more than a 40-year-old press release in defense of its inability to secure its own air space, the United States finds itself increasingly isolated amid a bewildered and increasingly vocal global community.

With France leading the way, 13 countries from Uruguay to the United Kingdom have transferred government UFO records into the public domain. But information-sharing overtures by foreign representatives are greeted with silence by Uncle Sam. The temptation is to argue the U.S. has no incentive to participate due to its likely hoarding of UFO stash inside deep-black Special Access Programs, but Kean wisely chooses not to linger at the conspiracy trough.

Kean contends “the fundamental problem afflicting true understanding of UFOs is ignorance, not secrecy, and that this ignorance is accepted because it serves a political purpose.” That purpose, she continues, is “to maintain the imperative that we must avoid facing the possibility that anyUFOs could be extraterrestrial. For if they were, that would mean that these miraculous craft, vehicles, objects of unknown original — whatever they are — are generated by a more powerful ‘other’ from somewhere else.”

Her reasoning is sharpened by two political science professors, Dr. Alexander Wendt of Ohio State University, and the University of Minnesota’s Dr. Raymond Duvall, who contribute an essay, “Militant Agnosticism and the UFO Taboo.” They make a strong case that “the problem of UFO ignorance is fundamentally political before it is scientific.”

UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record is a tightly-constructed call to arms — a plea, actually, against overwhelming cultural odds — for the renewal of honest scientific inquiry into the most profound challenge of our age. The book belongs on the Science, Current Events, or Political Science sections of the chain-store shelves.

But America is hard-wired for cliches. If precedent holds and it winds up in the Occult or Astrology ghetto next to the tarot cards and the healing crystals, Kean’s research will have strikes against it before it can even step up to the plate. As always, perception, not reality, is the heavy hitter at the front gate.

Chinese Global Exploration

There is ample evidence emerging that the Chinese launched a national effort to map the globe in its entirety during the fifteenth century.  These maps in some form or the other found their way back to Europe and provide a basis for European efforts to do the same.  Thus a lot of information was mapped that could not be explained away through accidental European voyaging.

Here we have more on one of those Chinese maps.

We have evidence that trade and colonies were established on the West Coast of the Americas.  This include with the Maya, California and recently the Charlottes.  Other locales have likely remained hidden.

We know when it all ended.  We do not really know how long the process was undertaken.  The expedition of Zhang He was far too great to be a sudden roll of the dice.  It was more the last throw of possibly centuries of private marine enterprise.  That last expedition was both following known pathways but picking specific locales to study when stepping out.

They also were prepped to establish several colonies along the way.

It is up to archeology now that we have a good working hypothesis.

Nailing their colors to the mast

By Mike Peters (China Daily)

Updated: 2010-07-09 09:35

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2010-07/09/content_10086210.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20100709/0023ae9885da0da0c19911.jpg

World Map in Book 5 - Dr Hendon M Harris, Jr Collection, from The

Asiatic Fathers of America.

The treasure trove of seafaring knowledge amassed by the Chinese over the centuries is at the heart of a debate over the extent of their ancient voyages, Mike Peters reports

A bright-eyed, middle-aged woman from the state of Virginia, United States, sits waiting for her next interview in a Lido-area hotel lobby. She's a retired social worker, a no-nonsense lady who speaks quietly and deliberately. But she is in town to help answer the question: Did medieval Chinese navigators reach the Americas years before Christopher Columbus? Just a few years ago, Charlotte Harris Rees started thinking that her late father might have held the key to one of history's great mysteries.

"Few people expect ever to own documents that could change world history," Harris writes in her 2008 book, Secret Maps of the Ancient World, "and neither did we. Yet for decades, under my brother's bed, lay ancient Asian maps that we, our father's seven children, inherited from him. Some believe that they may contain a secret of the ancient world."

That possibility brought Rees to Asia this month for two weeks of conferences and speeches. Her first stop focused on Zheng He (1371-1435), the 15th-century Chinese admiral who was dispatched by Emperor Zhu Di to "proceed all the way to the end of the Earth".

An international conference this week in Malaka, Malaysia - a seafarer's crossroads for centuries that was an important base for Zheng He - explored questions about Africa. Zheng certainly got there, but exactly where and the extent of his fleet's settlements and activities have engaged curious scholars for centuries.

The question that excites Rees, however, is whether Zheng He - and perhaps his Chinese predecessors - sailed to America as well.

Academics have batted around that idea for centuries, but it wasn't until Gavin Menzies published his bestselling book, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, eight years ago that the debate became an international firestorm. One of the sparks landed on Rees, who read 1421 with amazement and realized that the author was trying to connect the same dots her father had followed in his research.

"When I was a social worker straight out of college, many of my clients in Oklahoma were American Indians who looked very Asian to me," she says today. "But the idea of Chinese coming to America 4,200 years ago in boats sounded pretty far-fetched then."

But her father, Hendon M Harris Jr, a child of Christian missionaries who worked in several regions of China, was fascinated by the possibility. He picked up references to ancient Chinese navigators from several sources, including the ancient classic Shan Hai Jing (Collection of the Mountains and Seas), said to have been written in 2,200 BC and quoted in Chinese history and literature ever since.

The Shan Hai Jing tells of Chinese travel to the four corners of the earth, says Rees, "including a beautiful land to the east of China named Fu Sang."

Then one day in 1972, Harris was browsing in an antique shop in Shouth Korea, looking for gifts to take home to his family in the United States. He was examining the wares on display when the shopkeeper said, "I have a map in the back. Would you like to see that?"

"Father wasn't really into collecting maps - not then! - but he said, 'Yes,'" the daughter says. And when the map was spread out, as he recounted to his children years later, "he had to sit down because he felt himself shaking all over".

What Harris saw was a world map block-printed in an ancient Shang (16th century to 11th century BC) Chinese style, with China at the center and a circular continent looping around the edges of the page. He immediately related this to the Fu Sang of the Shan Hai Jing. In subsequent years Harris found copies of similar maps in the collections of museums and universities.

However, opinion is divided over the identity of Fu Sang, many believe it refers to somewhere in America; while others claim it is more likely to be Japan.

A year later, Harris wrote The Asiatic Fathers of America: Chinese Discovery and Colonization of Ancient America. It got some notice in academic circles, but it was never the pop-culture phenomenon of 1421, though its premise was much more controversial.

For while Menzies' book credits the voyages of Zheng He and the admirals under him with the discovery of the world beyond China, Harris argues that Zheng He set sail with maps made from information acquired hundreds, even thousands of years earlier.

Charlotte Harris Rees finds that argument persuasive. Her speech in Malaka this week was titled Zheng He's Inheritance, and she told her audience that "starting a study of Chinese sea travel with Zheng He is like beginning a study of space travel with a trip to Mars".

Chinese seafaring was refined over centuries, she believes. "Zheng He could not have been as successful as he was, without the treasure trove of knowledge and invention amassed by the Chinese over many years of sea travel."

An illustration from the July 2005 issue of National Geographic compares Zheng He's largest ships to European vessels of the same era. The article contends that the Chinese admiral's fleet contained up to 62 baochuan, or treasure ships, that measured 122 m by 52 m.

"You could fit all of Columbus' ships and all of Vasco da Gama's on a single deck of a ship that size," Rees says in awe. Rees talks about her father's research today with the passion of a religious convert. She talks of ancient Chinese shipwrecks off the US Pacific coast. Of maps Columbus and Magellan are said to have used on their voyages. Of DNA testing on Native Americans, with undisputed links to ancient Chinese.

So is she convinced that Chinese adventurers, not Columbus, "discovered America"?

"I don't pretend to know the answers," she says, smiling. "But as we find more and more evidence, I think we have to keep trying to put it together until we do know."

Q: Why are the ideas in your book so controversial?

A: It's not easy to rewrite history. I'm not a PhD, and if I were to pursue a PhD, I'd need university and academic mentors who supported the research. Most experts on the discovery of America have invested their lives and careers documenting a different view, a Eurocentric view.

It wasn't always that way, though. I have seen copies of US history textbooks from around 1905, which say that the Chinese have been in America for at least 1,000 years. So this isn't a new idea. But by around 1910 there were new academic pressures, and then came the Columbus Day national holiday. After that, school kids in the US stopped hearing about Chinese coming to America.

Q: It seems that a lot of Chinese scholars are as reluctant to embrace the idea as US scholars are. Why?

A: There is immense interest here. But it can't be proved, especially with Chinese documents, because, soon after the voyages of Zheng He, there was a tremendous reaction against these outside adventures and the strain such shipbuilding put on the country's economy. Ships, maps, records were all destroyed and China became an inward-looking society for centuries. That's why it's easier to find ancient maps that tell the story in Korea, where they were not destroyed by government order, than it is in China.

Q: The US Library of Congress recently exhibited a famous map made by Matteo Ricci, the Italian Jesuit, which the Library said was the first known map of the Americas with Chinese inscriptions. You challenged that publicly.

A: It was a surprising thing for the Library of Congress to say. Many people doing research in this area have seen older maps of the Americas with Chinese writing. One of them is in the Library of Congress' own collection, though they have yet to validate or disprove its age.

Q. Is this about ethnic bias?

A: Well, it's true that many Western scholars are invested in the history of the European discovery of America. But it may be a matter of money, too. In May 2003, the Library of Congress completed their purchase of the Waldseemuller Map of the world for $10 million. Five million came from Congress and the other $5 million from donors. According to their 2003 press release that map was the "first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them today - Martin Waldseemuller's monumental 1507 map". That indeed is a beautiful map. However, if the Library of Congress now, only seven years later, admits that any other map that shows the American continents predates the Waldseemuller, then perhaps Congress and the donors who helped purchase the Waldseemuller will complain their money was misspent.

Many scholars contend that since the Waldseemuller and other European maps showed the Pacific Coast of the Americas before Europeans had been there, that they had to be copied from earlier maps.

Q: People who read your book, your father's book and Gavin Menzies' book can easily be overwhelmed by all of the evidence you cite. But critics contend most of it is circumstantial. Of everything you've seen and learned about, what has been the most convincing evidence for you?

A: DNA evidence, which is quite recent. We've known for a long time that the "Chinese blue spot", which appears on the buttocks of babies and then disappears, is also seen at birth in many Native American communities. Now we know that five distinct genetic markers match ancient Chinese with modern Native Americans. That's evidence that you can take to court and win.

See Through Solar Panels

This is interesting though I would like to see more detail.  The use of organics asks more questions than it answers.  That it can out perform thin film by an order of magnitude implies converting over a much broader spectrum.  So far so good.  Can it be sustained?

This is a new entrant and the claims are at least promising.  Even if the production is nort particularly impressive, it will still have a market merely to make use of a passive resource.  Recall windows must be specially made to begin with, and it will be no trick at all folding this into the supply chain.

Of course, if they can establish sustainable high yield at a low effective cost base, every office building will soon convert and so will everyone else.  Recall how we all use double pane windows these days.

World's First-of-Its-Kind See-Thru Glass SolarWindow Capable Of Generating Electricity

by Staff Writers

Burtonsville MD (SPX) Jul 27, 2010

http://www.solardaily.com/reports/World_First_of_Its_Kind_See_Thru_Glass_SolarWindow_Capable_Of_Generating_Electricity_999.html

Researchers Apply Coating to Commercial Glass, Demonstrating Transparency of New Energy's SolarWindow Capable of Generating Electricity, Currently Under Development. Source: New Energy Technologies, Inc.

http://www.spacedaily.com/images-lg/new-energy-technologies-solarwindow-pv-lg.jpg

New Energy Technologies is pleased to announce that researchers developing its proprietary SolarWindow technology have achieved major scientific and technical breakthroughs, allowing the Company to unveil a working prototype of the world's first-ever glass window capable of generating electricity in the upcoming weeks.

Until now, solar panels have remained opaque, with the prospect of creating a see-thru glass window capable of generating electricity limited by the use of metals and various expensive processes which block visibility and prevent light from passing through glass surfaces.

New Energy's ability to generate electricity on see-thru glass is made possible by making use of the world's smallest working organic solar cells, developed by Dr. Xiaomei Jiang at the University of South Florida. Unlike conventional solar systems, New Energy's solar cells generate electricity from both natural and artificial light sources, outperforming today's commercial solar and thin-film technologies by as much as 10-fold.

New Energy's SolarWindow technology is under development for potential application in the estimated 5 million commercial buildings in America (Energy Information Administration) and more than 80 million single detached homes.

"We're always keen to see innovations in our laboratories turn into meaningful commercial products," stated Valerie McDevitt, Assistant Vice President for Research, Division of Patents and Licensing, University of South Florida. "We very much look forward to the commercial development of New Energy's SolarWindow technology, which, if successful, could literally transform the way in which we view the use of solar energy for our homes, offices, and commercial buildings."

The University of South Florida Research Foundation has licensed Dr. Xiaomei Jiang's groundbreaking discovery and important commercial processes and applications to New Energy Solar Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of New Energy Technologies, Inc.

"It's very exciting to see that our ongoing research has led to several significant breakthroughs with transparency and the production of electricity on see-thru glass," explained Mr. Meetesh V. Patel, President and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. "For the first time ever, these advances have allowed us to develop an early-scale working prototype of the technology, which I very much look forward to unveiling in the upcoming weeks."

Ozone Improves Biofuel Production Efficiency

It is of some interest that direct application of ozone degrades the lignin allowing the carbohydrates to be attacked and converted to sugars.  It will not be easy, but it opens another avenue.

Ozone is a bit tricky to produce and expensive and may well limit this method to the laboratory.

However, a process protocol that starts and ends dry is a rather good beginning and leaves a lot of options open for further treatment and no immediate waste stream.

A friend of mine has been testing ozone on ores to some effect, so this is not too surprising.

New Technique Improves Efficiency Of Biofuel Production

by Staff Writers

Raleigh NC (SPX) Jul 06, 2010

http://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/New_Technique_Improves_Efficiency_Of_Biofuel_Production_999.html

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a more efficient technique for producing biofuels from woody plants that significantly reduces the waste that results from conventional biofuel production techniques. The technique is a significant step toward creating a commercially viable new source of biofuels.

"This technique makes the process more efficient and less expensive," says Dr. Ratna Sharma-Shivappa, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at NC State and co-author of the research. "The technique could open the door to making lignin-rich plant matter a commercially viable feedstock for biofuels, curtailing biofuel's reliance on staple food crops."

Traditionally, to make ethanol, butanol or other biofuels, producers have used corn, beets or other plant matter that is high in starches or simple sugars. However, since those crops are also significant staple foods, biofuels are competing with people for those crops.

However, other forms of biomass - such as switchgrass or inedible corn stalks - can also be used to make biofuels. But these other crops pose their own problem: their energy potential is locked away inside the plant's lignin - the woody, protective material that provides each plant's structural support.

Breaking down that lignin to reach the plant's component carbohydrates is an essential first step toward making biofuels.

At present, researchers exploring how to create biofuels from this so-called "woody" material treat the plant matter with harsh chemicals that break it down into a carbohydrate-rich substance and a liquid waste stream. These carbohydrates are then exposed to enzymes that turn the carbohydrates into sugars that can be fermented to make ethanol or butanol.

This technique often results in a significant portion of the plant's carbohydrates being siphoned off with the liquid waste stream. Researchers must either incorporate additional processes to retrieve those carbohydrates, or lose them altogether.

But now researchers from NC State have developed a new way to free the carbohydrates from the lignin. By exposing the plant matter to gaseous ozone, with very little moisture, they are able to produce a carbohydrate-rich solid with no solid or liquid waste.

"This is more efficient because it degrades the lignin very effectively and there is little or no loss of the plant's carbohydrates," Sharma-Shivappa says. "The solid can then go directly to the enzymes to produce the sugars necessary for biofuel production."

Sharma notes that the process itself is more expensive than using a bath of harsh chemicals to free the carbohydrates, but is ultimately more cost-effective because it makes more efficient use of the plant matter.

The researchers have recently received a grant from the Center for Bioenergy Research and Development to fine-tune the process for use with switchgrass and miscanthus grass. "Our eventual goal is to use this technique for any type of feedstock, to produce any biofuel or biochemical that can use these sugars," Sharma-Shivappa says.

The research, "Effect of ozonolysis on bioconversion of miscanthus to bioethanol," was co-authored by Sharma-Shivappa, NC State Ph.D. student Anushadevi Panneerselvam, Dr. Praveen Kolar, an assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at NC State, Dr. Thomas Ranney, a professor of horticultural science at NC State, and Dr. Steve Peretti, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State.

The research is partially funded by the Biofuels Center of North Carolina and was presented June 23 at the 2010 Annual International Meeting of the American Society for Agricultural and Biological Engineers in Pittsburgh, PA.

NC State's Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering is a joint department of the university's College of Engineering and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Air Strike on Iran Nuclear Assets Possible Now

When I posted two or three weeks ago that an American supported Israeli air strike was possibly eminent because the necessary assets had moved in place, I still lacked the reason as to why just now.  This tells us why it will happen now.  Assume Russia will arrange to be standing by for this one and to also be in the know.  They may be selling a reactor, but they want a nuclear weapon in these fool’s hands no more than we do.  Think of the rich targets for Islam in Russia.

A surgical strike is likely to happen this week.  The purpose will be to smash up the reactor itself.  The only interesting question is how the Iranian air force will be neutralized while the attack goes in, particularly if they wish to have a back up wave.  I assume the US will not be visible.

Iran’s reaction will be of serious interest.  The most damaging thing that they could do in the short term is to suspend oil shipments to the extent that they can.  This could precipitate a jump in oil prices to the $150 mark and generate a sharp decline in stock prices.  That though should be the most effect their actions may have.

In the medium term, regime control of the population will likely spiral out of control because the population will immediately blame the regime for bringing this attack on to themselves.  Discontent is also likely to become visible in the armed forces because of the regime’s reckless behavior and proven futility.  In short, the regime will be destabilized.

Beyond what we have just described, they have no creditable response.

I note from this map that the reactor is on the Persian Gulf itself.    Any attack seems way more difficult and may target the secondary assets instead.  In the event, we have reached a decision point.

John Bolton: Russia's Loading of Nuke Fuel Into Iran Plant Means Aug. 21 Deadline for Israeli Attack

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/John--Bolton--Iran--Nuclear--israel/2010/08/13/id/367449

Friday, 13 Aug 2010 01:41 PM

By: David A. Patten

News that Russia will load nuclear fuel rods into an Iranian reactor has touched off a countdown to a point of no return, a deadline by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran's Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively "immune" to any assault, says former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton. 

Once the fuel rods are loaded, Bolton told Fox News on Friday afternoon, "it makes it essentially immune from attack by Israel. Because once the rods are in the reactor an attack on the reactor risks spreading radiation in the air, and perhaps into the water of the Persian Gulf." 

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared in March that Russia would start the Bushehr reactor this summer. But the announcement from a spokesman for Russia's state atomic agency to Reuters Friday sent international diplomats scrambling to head off a crisis. 

The story immediately became front-page news in Israel, which has laid precise plans to carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities while going along with President Obama's plans to use international sanctions and diplomatic persuasion to convince Iran's clerics not to go nuclear. 

Bolton made it clear that it is widely assumed that any Israeli attack on the Bushehr reactor must take place before the reactor is loaded with fuel rods.

"If they're going to do it that's the window that they have," Bolton declared. "Otherwise as I said before, once the rods are in the reactor, if you attack the reactor you're going to open it up and radiation will escape at least into the atmosphere and possibly into the waters of the Persian Gulf.

"So most people think that neither Israel nor the United States, come to that, would attack the reactor after it's been fueled."

Bolton cited the 1981 Israeli attack on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor outside Baghdad and the September 2007 Israeli attack on a North Korean reactor being built in Syria. Both of those strikes came before fuel rods were loaded into those reactors.

"So if it's going to happen in Bushehr it has to happen before the fuel rods go in," Bolton said. 

The conversation that touched off the de facto deadline for Israeli military action was a telephone conversation with wire services involving Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian Energy State Nuclear Corp. 

Novikov said: "The fuel will be loaded on Aug 21. This is the start of the physical launch” of the reactor.

"From that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy installation," Novikov said, adding that the head of Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, will visit Bushehr Aug. 21 to conduct a ceremony for the event.
According to Bolton, once the reactor is operational, it is only a matter of time before it begins producing plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

"And in the normal operation of this reactor, in just a fairly short period of time, you could get substantial amounts of plutonium to use as nuclear weapons," Bolton told Fox. 

Russia, which is operating under a $1 billion contract with Iran, has spent more than a decade building the reactor. If Russia moves forward with its plan to fuel the reactor, it could be seen as a major setback to the Obama administration's strategy of engaging Russian leaders in order to win their cooperation.

"The U.S. urged them not to send the Iranian's fuel rods," Bolton said. "They did that. The Obama administration has urged them not to insert the fuel rods in the reactors, but as they've just announced that will begin next week. What that does over time is help Iran get another route to nuclear weapons through the plutonium they could reprocess out of the spent fuel rods."

The developments mean Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon may face a stark choice: Attack the Bushehr reactor in the next 8 days, or allow it to become operational despite the certainty it would greatly enhance Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. 

Russian leaders have said the Bushehr reactor project is being closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog group. According to Iran's ISNA news agency, IAEA inspectors will be on hand to observe the fuel-rod loading process that is now scheduled to begin Aug. 21. 

According to Russian officials, Iran has promised in writing to send all spent fuel rods from Bushehr back to Russia for reprocessing, to ensure they cannot be used for nuclear weapons.


Bolton said the reactor has been "a hole" in American foreign policy for over a decade.

The failure to demand it be shut down began in the Bush years, he said, and continues with the Obama administration "under what I believe is the mistaken theory that Iran is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

"I don't think Iran is entitled to that, or I don't think we ought to allow it to happen, because they're manifestly violating any number of obligations under the non-proliferation treaty not to seek nuclear weapons. But this has been a hole in American policy for some number of years, and Iran and Russia are obviously exploiting it," Bolton said.

Russia’s move would put Iran "in a much better position overall," he said, adding, "I think this is a very delicate point, as I say, it closes off to the Israelis one possible target for pre-emptive military action.

U.N. sanctions against Iran, he said, "have not had and will not have any material effect on Iran's push to have deliverable nuclear weapons."