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Quick, while they’re not looking, write a comment about how the planet’s getting colder and loads of scientists think humans aren’t changing the climate. Don’t forget to use quotes from other denial websites, passing them off as scientific papers; and for God’s sake don’t say you work for an oil company - remember, we believe in AGW now.

Look! A response.

La! La! La! We can’t hear you!

It would be funny if it wasn’t so important: global warming denial is alive and well, on a blog, a forum, a chat room and a viral video near you. Now, before you make a comment like the one above, I just want to add that this article is for people who do believe that the activities of humans are changing the climate and all sorts of other natural systems. End of. If you don’t believe it then I really haven’t got time for your whining.

So, without further ado, if someone really is getting on your nerves, banging on about how “the science is uncertain” and “the climate is getting colder” and “the glaciers are growing” (all utter garbage, by the way), be they a corporation, a politician, or just someone you are getting sick of, then here is How To Win Any Argument Against A Global Warming Denier

(Don’t worry, even if they read this, they still won’t be able to do anything about it)

One

Hear them out — it doesn’t matter an awful lot what they say, but it’s polite to listen, even if it’s just to find out how entrenched their position is and therefore, how much effort you’ll have to go to in order to dig them out (it’s for their own good, and ours). Maybe they are just scared: after all, global warming is very, very scary and, just like someone who has been told they have cancer, a certain level of denial is a very common response. Maybe they are just repeating what they have heard verbatim just to say something, or maybe they are trolling (if it’s a web site). But, if they don’t admit any of this (and that’s almost certain) then you have to assume that they are in it to win it.

Two

Here’s the first part of your riposte: The history of global warming denial (or AGW / Athropogenic Global Warming denial, to be precise) is essentially a history of corporate lobbying since the early 1980s. It was the oil companies, the coal mining companies, the car manufacturers, the road constructors, the loggers and all the other corporations who would obviously not be able to carry on business as usual if they were found to be changing the climate, that did it first, and did it big time. The history of AGW denial is deep, dark and sophisticated and it involved some of the finest creative and persuasive minds that have ever graced the corporate and political stages. Corporations were responsible for and funded some of the most successful denial lobbies (think of the Global Climate Coalition, The Heritage Foundation, The Oregon Institute and The Cato Institute for starters) — here’s an excellent primer about their work — and some of the most successful advertising campaigns trying to convince the public that everything is fine and they should carry on doing what they do.

If the denier doesn’t agree with you here, then they are clearly deluded, and you are within your rights to say so. The facts bear this out and no AGW denier can deny this part without making themselves look foolish.

Three

A lot of denial — now that even the most corporate-minded politicians and dirtiest companies at least say humans are causing the climate to change — is now related to the amount of financial benefit it is claimed politicians, “green” companies and (get this) environmentalists will gain from a populace that believes humans are causing the climate to change. I make no bones about the awful behaviour of some companies and politicians that are using climate change as an excuse to sell more stuff, but look at what the oil and car companies and particular are also doing: they are using “green” credentials to try and sell more oil and more cars — the net effect being more global warming, not less. Bear in mind the history of denial being a corporate history, and you can see where this is going.

Now, here’s the crux of your argument: Who has the most to gain from a popular belief in anthropogenic global warming?

Politically, there aren’t any real winners: civilized humanity has screwed up the planet and politicians deservedly look shit because they have helped bring this upon us. Admitting AGW is real makes most of them look stupid and, in the eyes of a free-minded electorate, unelectable.

Corporations don’t win at all, unless they are able to greenwash sufficiently to make us buy more stuff, or do more polluting; but in the end, even the most effective greenwashers will have to admit that if we truly want to prevent climate change, their businesses are screwed. Admitting AGW is real makes corporations scared.

The Global Elites are comprised of corporate heads and leading politicians: all but the most paranoid conspiracy theorist, has to admit that there is no secret cabal formed of all-powerful elites that will benefit from a belief in AGW; we know who runs the cabals, and as I have already shown you, AGW is bad news for them.

Humanity in general. Hmm, now we’re on to something. If we truly believe that humans are causing the climate to change, and that we have to fundamentally change our behaviour, without the meddling of corporations and politicians, and that we do manage to avert catastrophic climate change then, yes, humanity as a whole will benefit, as will virtually every ecosystem on Earth.

So who’s pulling the strings to show, more so as time goes on, that humans are changing the climate?

Just a lot of climate scientists, concerned environmentalists, humanitarianists and other ordinary human beings who just want to find out the truth. People who have nothing to gain but their future on this little blue-green planet.

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I present to you Keith Loutit who uses amazing tilt shift stop motion photography to create wonderful movies. The way the focus is makes everyone look like little dolls. Some more of his amazing work below the fold. If you are interested that was Greenpeace trying to stop whaling by making big sand whales on the beach. More info about that here.

What I like so much about this is just how small it makes everyone look. In a very real way we are very small, and very fragile, we are not saving this planet for the whales, or the birds, or the trees, we are saving it for us. If the whales birds and trees go away, we will not be far behind.

The North Wind Blew South from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

People often think I might have a few screws loose when I tell them that I ride my bike everywhere, everyday. They ask about how I get food, how I get my laundry done, but mostly they ask what I do when it is cold. My answer, I bundle up and keep riding! Here are some fun pictures from the last couple of days here in Boston. The salt trucks are working overtime, and as such I come home a bit dirty…but boy is it fun!

The latest article on The Earth Blog is something that flies in the face of the, largely manufactured, panicked frenzy surrounding the global economic situation: in short, we need the economy to shrink if we are to stand any chance of having a safe future on this planet…

Credit crunch; economic crisis; financial meltdown…2008 became the year of monetary superlatives – and for good reason because, as far as most objective economic observers can tell, this is one event that is going to stretch well into the future, leaving no national or regional economy untouched. The Western capitalist economy is in meltdown – its financial rivers running drier by the month, it’s consumers having to climb higher and higher to harvest the fruits of their labours. Banks are swallowed, smothered or die. Chain stores cry out for customers. Politicians urge us to spend not save; to keep the wheels greased and the sputtering engine charged with just a little fuel. The media shouts as LOUD as it can: we are in CRISIS! Times are BAD!!

We concur.

Meanwhile, in the Amazon rainforest, close to the Brazilian / Bolivian border, an undiscovered tribe of semi-mobile hunter-gatherers feel no pain from the downturn; sense nothing of the slump; are blissfully ignorant of the financial despair beyond their sensory horizon. Their world (rapidly being approached on all sides by the tide of “progress”) has only one economy that matters: the economy that mattered long before money was ever exchanged, saved, spent and lost; long before interest, tax and inflation were ever conceived; and long before “resources” were extracted (stolen) and transported from far away to create the illusion we call growth. Their economy is simply the ability to manage what they need to live from day to day: no money, no interest, no tax, no imports and exports.

But for now we will, as we should, leave them alone and ponder the unreal economy, the Economy that was capitalised in the Industrial Revolution and has danced for the entertainment of the privileged few ever since.

It’s no surprise at all to find that the Amazonian tribal economy is totally sustainable, while the profit and growth driven industrial Economy always, by chance or design, leads to environmental degradation; and the bigger the economy gets, the worse the environmental damage…period.

Don’t believe me. Read the full article, and if you disagree (or even if you agree) then let me know — I’m yet to hear a sound defence of the Culture of Maximum Harm.

The future of the nanotechnology field depends on our ability to reliably and reproducibly assemble nanoparticles into 3D structures we can use to develop new technologies. According to Hao Yan and Yan Liu at Arizona State University, the greatest challenges in this burgeoning field include control over nanoscale 3D structure and imaging these tiny materials.

The design of the DNA scaffold system permits formation of a variety of tubular structures carrying 5 nm AuNPs (gold particles). Researchers observed formation of tubes displaying patterns of AuNPs in stacked rings, single spirals, double spirals, and nested spiral tubes. This TEM image shows all four of these conformations.

“The ability to build predicted structures and provide experimental feedback to current theories is critical to the nanotechnology field,” said Yan.

One approach to production of nanoscale architecture is creation of nanoparticles that assemble themselves into the desired structure. DNA molecules are an elegant biological example of small particles that self-assemble to form higher order 3D structures.

Inspired by this prototype, Yan and colleagues looked to Mother Nature to solve their nano-sized problem. They attached gold nanoparticles to DNA, taking advantage of its self-assembling biochemical properties to engineer nanotubes that form a number of different 3D structures. The researchers manipulated nanotube size and shape by changing the size of the gold particles attached to the DNA or the DNA structure itself. Anchi Cheng at the Scripps Research Institute contributed to the project by imaging the 3D conformations of nanotube structures using cryo-Electron Tomography

This cartoon depicts a single nanotube formed from DNA tile arrays with gold particles attached.

Yan is hopeful this groundbreaking work will serve as the foundation on which emerging fields and new technologies may be built. “Now that we have methods to alter the periodicity, diameter and chirality of nanotube formation, we can use what we have learned to control hierarchical assembly of these building blocks to create more complex 3D structures,” he said. You can check out a cool video of this process here.

In the future, use of nanotubes may reduce the size of cell phones and other electronic devices even further. Scientists also envision using nanotubes for a number of biological applications including gene and drug delivery. Drugs or other treatments specifically delivered using nanotubes would target only affected tissues, potentially eliminating toxic side effects. I personally would like to see this technology used to create more and better solar panels. If we can interact with the materials on a small enough scale we may be able to more efficiently trap light and convert it to energy.

It’s no secret that I have a crush on science. It’s just so much fun! I also love stories about hard working scientists busting their rears to get the very best and most up to date data so that they can do some seriously good science with it. Thats why I thought it was cool that The National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Office of Polar Programs (OPP) announced several days ago the signing of cooperative agreements, one with a university collaboration comprising Dartmouth College, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the other with the University of Wisconsin-Madison alone, that together create two new entities to support, advise and conduct ice coring and drilling used in polar research.

Effective ice-core drilling is vital to NSF’s polar research. Through the Office of Polar Programs, NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, which coordinates all U.S. research on the southernmost continent; NSF also has a robust research program in the Arctic. NSF’s director serves as the chair of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC). Not only is this work vital, but it is done in the some of the most brutal conditions on earth. Imagine if you had to deal with -80 degree weather on your job site, and that might be a warm day.

The cooperative agreement will create an Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO) at Dartmouth College coordinated by Mary Albert, visiting professor of engineering at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, with collaborations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of New Hampshire. The IDPO will provide scientific leadership and oversight of ice coring and drilling activities funded by NSF. Officials said the new collaboration will encourage innovation in ice-core drilling technologies while better serving the glaciological community’s evolving needs. At the University of New Hampshire, Mark Twickler will serve as IDPO’s communications director providing information and input from established community research groups to the IDPO office, and establishing a Web site that will provide information to the community and to the general public.

The IDPO will also oversee the second entity, the Ice Drilling Design and Operations Group (IDDOG), led by Charles Bentley, emeritus professor of geophysics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as it works to provide engineering design and construction support for new drilling systems. IDDOG will also support the operation and maintenance of existing drilling systems.

The two new entities will replace the existing operation run by the Ice Coring and Drilling Services (ICDS) group at the University of Wisconsin as the principle supplier of ice drilling and coring support and expertise to NSF-funded research, and will interact with other research agencies and international partners as well. (ps. I apologize about the amount of acronyms but I am not going to type out all those names over and over)

Ice coring and drilling are critical components of scientific research in both polar regions and on high mountain glaciers, but they are not simple tasks. At high altitude, cold sites, the snow never melts, it just piles up year upon year, burying in the older snow clues to the climate at the time that snow fell on the surface. So by collecting vertical cores from ice sheets, evidence of the past can be obtained. Designers and engineers must create heavy-duty equipment that can work in some of the most remote places on the planet in punishing conditions of extreme cold, wind, precipitation and high altitude. “Ice drills come in a surprisingly large variety of sizes, types and purposes,” Bentley says, “to satisfy the myriad needs of glaciological researchers.”

The payoffs are high-quality ice core samples that provide scientists a better understanding of past climate conditions, levels of pollution and even clues into the origins of the universe as well as boreholes that give scientists access to the insides of ice sheets and glaciers. “Ice coring science has led to many important discoveries,” Albert said last month, “including the realization that climate can change dramatically in less than ten years.”

The intricate and painstaking work of extracting climate information from evidence of accumulation rate, chemistry, isotopes and gases in the ice relies on the efforts of many scientists. For example, the gas samples from the cores allow scientists to compare levels of past atmospheric composition with levels in the atmosphere today; in fact, ice coring science led to the discovery that “greenhouses gases” such as carbon dioxide have correlated with temperature trends over many hundreds of thousands of years.

While the cores provide most of the information about the ancient environment, the hole left behind provides access to the interiors of the glaciers and ice sheets for measurements of present-day temperatures, deformation rates and basal conditions that allow researchers to better understand ice dynamics. Such research is crucial for studying how melting and faster outflowing ice at the poles may impact sea levels in response to climate change.

Because the science guiding these activities is constantly changing and adapting to new discoveries and conditions, everyone in IDPO and IDDOG will continually interact with researchers to help provide and develop the right tools for the job. NSF officials also believe that the new entities will be able to work closely with the community to incorporate the best ideas and techniques in ice coring and drilling.

So in what is now the third (previous 06 and 07) year we have come to the 2008 year in review. Every year around this time I like to review the year, and make prediction in my crystal ball about the future.

So lets look back to last year and what I predicted. (this is the part where the picture goes wavy and the “going back in time” music plays).

My predictions were:

1. Look for 2008 to be the year that world governments start to pass serious carbon laws. Look for cap and trade, carbon taxation, and global treaties dealing with emissions reduction.
2. A Democrat will win the presidency.
3. Feedback loops and continued warming will make 2008 the worst year for arctic and antarctic melting on record.
4. Continued droughts and water shortages will bring dramatic lifestyle changes to people in the south west and south east.
5. At least one major car company will produce an electric or plug-in hybrid model.
6. Look for oil to top 120 dollars a barrel at least once in 2008.
7. 2008 will be the year of the green consumer, look for a flood of eco-friendly products and services to take over the market. The second part of this prediction is that we will see massive greenwashing campaigns by companies hoping to cash in on this trend without really doing much in the way of making their products greener.
8. I am going to once again predict that renewable energy will explode in 2008, look for 30-50% growth in the solar and wind industry world wide.
9. Cape Wind will be approved and perhaps even start construction in 2008.

So how did I do?

1. I am sad to say but I got this one pretty wrong. The world government’s saw the economy fall apart and basically threw climate change under the bus. There is however some hope that these sort of carbon reduction treaties will get passed once the biggest road block to them (the stupid American president and his short sighted administration) are out of office.

2. Got this one 100% right! Hurray for my mad predictive skillz!

3. Sadly I got this one right as well. The arctic and antarctic got hammered this year. With dire predictions for the year to come. (see here here here here and here)

4. Sadly this turned out to be true as well this year, as the strange climate changed the south east and southwest of America suffered some serious drought this year. Luckily near the end of this year they got a little rain, but not nearly enough to make up for the severe lack. This is what global warming looks like. (see here and here)

5. Well for all the talk of the Chevy Volt, and the “new” Prius, I got this one pretty wrong. There was a couple of electric cars made this year, but they didn’t get rolled out the way I had hopped. I am going to go with 30% right on this one…which is another way of saying I got it wrong.

6. Ohh man when I predicted that oil would top $120 in 2007 I though that I was talking crazy…Little did I know it would eventually almost hit $150! The resulting global freak out that ensued was, how to put it mildly, not good. This lead to a massive reduction in miles driven, a huge resurgence in biking, and overall a lot more talk about renewable energy, that is until the economy fell apart, the world oil market crashed and the price of oil dropped like a stone. All of this in the long run indicated we are in a post peak oil scenario that will be characterized by massive volatility and a nightmare for long term planners. (see here here here here and here)

7. Green products, and green washing were the rage in 2008. I would say humbly that I got this one so right it hurts. You can hardly throw a rock now without hitting some locally grown, bamboo, free trade, shade grown, solar powered, carbon neutral, BPA free, biodegradable this or that. No one has chronicled the rise of green washing better than Keith over at The Unsitablog.

8. The renewable energy industry didn’t let me down this year. They once again had amazing growth in the ranges I specified. Hurray for renewable energy. The sad fact is however the Oil companies also had bumper years making more profit in a single year than any companies in all of HUMAN HISTORY. (see here here, here, and here)

9. Oh Cape Wind, how silly is your story. I was so close to getting this right. The Minerals Management people, the ones in charge of giving the thumbs up to Cape Wind, nearly did so this year. But then a bunch of dumb ass NIMBY politicians (I am pointing the finger at you Ted Kennedy!) decided the view from their beach front mansion was more important than fighting global warming.

So there you have it, 6 out of 9, not really that bad. I should start charging for this service.

So what are my predictions for next year?

1. Cape Wind will get approved. Seriously 2009 is the year. They are so damn close I can taste it.

2. The horrible economy will affect the growth of the renewable energy market. Look for a slowdown in wind and solar.

3. The price of oil will rocket right back up in the summer of 09, look for it to once again top $150 dollars a barrel.

4. The pace of global warming will began to accelerate as feedback loops intensify. The arctic will be ice free this summer, or damn close. The northwest passage should once again open next summer.

5. Obama will (hopefully) make renewable energy and efficiency infrastructure projects a major component of his stimulus package.

6. Troops will start to come home from Iraq in large numbers before the end of 2009.

7. The financial turmoil will continue leading to millions of people loosing their jobs, massive downturns in global production, deaths, famines, and increased problems world wide. I predict 2009 to be a very not happy year for a large number of people.

8. Look for major legal action to be taken against prominent Bush administration people. If we are really lucky, Bush or Cheney might even be included in the mess.

9. Look for major breakthroughs in efficiency technology when it comes to lighting and solar panels. Specifically solar panels that produce energy cheaper than coal, oil, or wind. Look for LED technology to slowly start replacing CFL technology.

10. I build my first bicycle.

So there you have it, my hat is in the future prediction arena. I hope all you have a wonderful 08 and that 09 is even better for you. Sadly a lot of my predictions for the future are bad ones. Take good care of your family and friends, and just between you and me, start planning to revamp your life to get ready for some hard times. I am not suggesting you go live in a bunker, but you know, get your financial house in order, start using less energy, ride your bike, get ready for some lean times.

We are all going to have to live on a smaller scale in 09 (and the foreseeable future). This is not a bad thing! Humanity has been living outside it’s means for a long time, and faster we switch over to a 0% growth system the happier and healthier we will all be.

Happy new year everyone!

There is no such thing as clean coal people, NO SUCH THING. Never was, never will be. Even if we can figure out a way to capture and store every single drop of CO2, mercury, lead and other noxious crap that comes from burning it, we will still be blowing the tops off mountains to get it. Even if we can figure out a way to beam it out of the ground using a non-invasive method, there is still only a couple years (maybe 100, maybe 200) of it in the ground…then what? Do you honestly think humanity only have a couple hundred years left? I for one think would have a good shot at being here longer. Wind, solar, geothermal, efficiency, these are out only hopes.

Rocky Mountain ski areas face dramatic changes this century as the climate warms, including best-case scenarios of shortened ski seasons and higher snowlines and worst-case scenarios of bare base areas and winter rains, says a new Colorado study.

The study indicates snowlines — elevations below which seasonal snowpack will not develop — will continue to rise through this century, moving up more than 2,400 feet from the base areas of Colorado’s Aspen Mountain and Utah’s Park City Mountain by 2100, said University of Colorado at Boulder geography Professor Mark Williams. Williams and Brian Lazar of Stratus Consulting Inc. of Boulder combined temperature and precipitation data for Aspen Mountain and Park City Mountain with general climate circulation models for the study.

The pair came up with three scenarios for each of the two ski havens for the years 2030, 2075 and 2100. The low-emissions scenario is based on the presumption that the world begins reducing CO2 emissions, said Williams. The “business-as-usual” scenario assumes the future rate of CO2 increase will be similar to the current rate, while the high-emissions scenario assumes future CO2 emissions will increase over the present rate.

Their forecasts indicate the “business as usual” scenario will cause average temperatures to rise by nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit at Aspen and Park City by 2030 and 8.6 degrees F in Aspen and 10.4 degrees F for Park City by 2100, said Williams. A paper by Williams and Lazar was presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union held Dec. 15-19 in San Francisco.

“Ski industry officials know that warming is real, and that small changes in climate have substantial effects on ski areas” said Williams, also a fellow at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine research. “The bad news is that the past five years of global CO2 emissions have exceeded our high-emissions scenario”

Under each of the emissions scenarios, the length of the ski seasons in Aspen and Park City by 2030 “will be squeezed on each shoulder” with delayed snowpack and earlier melting seasons, he said. Under the high-emissions scenario, Park City will have no snowpack at its base by 2100 and winter precipitation will come in the form of rain.

While the modeling by Williams and Lazar targeted Aspen Mountain and Park City, other ski areas in the Rockies and beyond are likely to be similarly or more drastically affected, said Williams. Many ski areas in California’s Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington, and smaller ski areas in the mid-eastern portion of America like Pennsylvania and West Virginia, for example, could be forced out of business in the coming decades as air temperatures continue to warm, he said.

The key to the survival of the larger ski areas in the Rockies is adaptation, said Williams. Ski resorts must expand operations to higher elevations and more northerly parcels of land. They also must beef up gondola transportation systems to shuttle large loads of skiers efficiently from base areas with scant or no snow to snow-packed facilities located at higher elevations, he said.

At most Rocky Mountain ski areas, snowmaking will have to be stepped up considerably in the coming decades, said Williams. Increases in man-made snow will require the diversion and storage of large amounts of water, a challenging and expensive proposition since water rights are already over-appropriated throughout much of the West, he said.

Aspen Mountain, for example, may have to triple its snowmaking efforts in the coming decades because of warming temperatures, meaning an additional 50 cubic feet per second of water must be obtained per month, said Williams. But since appropriating significant amounts of winter water from streams adjacent to most ski areas would leave insufficient flows to maintain healthy aquatic ecosystems, resort operators are looking further and further afield for available water, he said.

“The bottom line is that in order to survive, these ski areas will need to find the necessary water wherever they can and hold it in storage to satisfy future snowmaking needs” Williams said. “Ski resort operators are really scrambling”

The new study was sponsored by Aspen Mountain and the Park City Mountain Resort said Lazar, who noted that two nonprofits — the Aspen Global Change Institute and the Park City Foundation — are working with the ski areas to better understand environmental climate change. “The results from studies like ours allow ski areas to try and better plan for the future, including how to be proactive on climate change in the community and region” said Lazar.

Williams and Lazar said many U.S. ski areas will likely follow the lead of ski areas in the European Alps by moving water from basin to basin over long distances and storing it at high elevations to satisfy future snowmaking needs. Ski areas could

generate their own hydropower by pumping water into and out of narrow, deep artificial lakes and small dams lined with plastic to minimize evaporation in the summers.

“It would be a win-win situation” Williams said. “The ski areas could recover some of their costs incurred from purchasing expensive water rights, providing some of their own hydropower to help run the resorts”

Snowmaking has been on the increase in the Alps for decades, where air temperatures have increased nearly 4 degrees F in the past 30 years, said Williams. In the Italian Alps, 70 percent of the skiable terrain is covered by artificial snow, and ski areas in the French Alps now make about 30 percent of their snow, he said.

Studies have shown that private jets that fly celebrities and vacationers in and out of Aspen for winter ski jaunts and summer recreation trips are by far the biggest CO2 emitters in the Roaring Fork Valley.

The latest lighting innovations help newly-enlarged Times Square Ball save up to 20 percent more energy than 2007. Philips will once again deliver energy-efficient LED lighting in its role as official lighting partner to the world-renowned New Year’s Eve Times Square Ball. The result of these advancements will mean the Ball, which is twice its previous size, will incorporate more than three times as many Philips Luxeon LEDs as last year’s version and deliver a brighter, greener and more beautiful experience.

To commemorate the Ball’s 100th anniversary in 2007, Philips helped usher in a new era of lighting technology by converting the Ball’s incandescent and halogen lighting to LEDs for the first time in the event’s history. In doing so, New Year’s revelers around the world enjoyed a bright and energy-efficient Ball that delivered 16 million vibrant colors and special effects never before possible.

In 2008, the Ball has been doubled in size to 12 feet in diameter and contains 32,256 LEDs – more than three times as many as last year. This increased volume of LEDs will deliver a significantly brighter but also greener experience on New Year’s Eve, as the LEDs used in this year’s Ball are as much as 20 percent more energy-efficient than in 2007. This year’s LEDs consume about the same amount of energy per hour as it takes to operate just two conventional home ovens.

“The Times Square Ball allows Philips to showcase the power, beauty and energy-efficiency of LEDs as well as the range of benefits LED technology can deliver not only to iconic installations like this but to a broad range of consumer and professional applications,” said Kaj den Daas, Chairman of Philips Lighting North America. “While New Year’s Eve occurs only once a year, the LED technology on display in the Times Square Ball will soon evolve into a very real energy-efficient lighting alternative for consumers around the world, and will help drive a more bright and sustainable future for generations to come”

In addition to lighting the Ball, Philips also is lighting the Times Square Numerals (2-0-0-9) using Philips Halogena Energy Savers – a family of bright and long-lasting halogen bulbs which are 30-47 percent more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps. These are readily available to consumers through national retail outlets.

Quick Facts:

Number of LEDs on Ball: The ball contains 32,256 Philips Luxeon LEDs, more than 3 times the number used in last year’s Ball. Each and every LED can be digitally controlled to create visual effects (Note: not all LEDs will be illuminated at any given time).

Colors: Red, green, blue and white LEDs will create a palette of more than 16 million colors as well as billions of possible lighting effects.

Times Square Ball Lighting: The Times Square Ball lighting system is designed to operate in excess of 30,000 hours based on application factors (compared to previous incandescent and halogen solutions, which were only expected to operate for about 1,000 hours). The long life of the LEDs will be a key benefit to this iconic application, as this year’s Times Square Ball will be perched atop 1 Times Square for year-round enjoyment for the first time ever.

Efficiency of LED Light Source Relative to the Times Square Ball Lit by Previous Incandescent and Halogen Light Sources: Overall, it will take a total of only 22 Watts of power for Philips’ red, green, blue, and white LEDs to produce the equivalent amount of light output generated by 180 Watts of incandescent light bulbs in previous years. This represents a 158-Watt, or 88%, reduction in electricity consumption per four-color series.

As our dollar and debt based economy teeters on the brink of serious trouble - and as our lives teeter with the economy - it seems of great importance to at least understand why the economy has got into such a bind and how we could possibly get out of this. We won't have any change here unless we ourselves understand what's happening. Relying on the economic experts is what got us in trouble in the first place. So here comes an important book that brings some light to the matter.

Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System -- The Sleight of Hand That Has Trapped Us in Debt and How We Can Break Free

Find the book on Amazon

Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been "privatized," or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions -- including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices -- and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

About the Author
Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and "the money trust." She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back.

BP for all the nasty tricks they pulled this year. Congrats BP! Maybe next year you can spend all the money you would have spent on ads putting up wind turbines instead.