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Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

Czech President offers to debate Gore the Global Warmer

Posted by patriot on May 28th, 2008

Bring it on, Al!

Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, as he presented the English version of his latest book that argues environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms. “I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he’s not too much willing to make such a conversation,” Klaus said. “So I’m ready to do it.”

Klaus was speaking a the National Press Building in Washington to present his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, before meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday.

“My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, and our prosperity,” he said.

Ethanol feels squeeze: Amid rising oil and food prices, biofuel industry losing its friends

Posted by Charlie Kilo on May 26th, 2008

Corny:

Not long ago, the fledgling ethanol industry was the darling of investors, farmers, the federal government and a lot of Americans who liked the idea of turning corn into fuel. 

But suddenly, it doesn’t have nearly as many friends. 

Rising worldwide food prices and shortages have spurred calls in Congress to roll back the federal requirement that increases the amount of ethanol and other biofuels blended with the nation’s gasoline supply. Critics say so much corn is being used for ethanol that there’s less available for people and animals to eat, raising prices of everything from tortillas to meat.

What’s more, investors who bought into the industry in good times aren’t seeing the returns they had hoped for as once-record profits began to fall.

Gore Has Personal Stake in Anti-Warming Campaign

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 11th, 2008

My father-in-law recently commented that he thinks five or ten years from now Congress will be holding hearings on all the money Al Gore has made pushing a phony global warming agenda. I think he’s right:

Al Gore, alarmist-in-chief of the anti-global warming campaign, stands to make money from his investments in “green” firms selling various climate change remedies.

Gore spoke in Monterey, California, at a March 1 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, which bills itself as “an invitation-only event where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration.” He admitted to having “a stake” in a number of green “investments” that he recommended attendees put their money into,”according to NewsBusters.

Said Gore: “There are a lot of great investments you can make. If you are investing in tar sands, or shale oil, then you have a portfolio that is crammed with sub-prime carbon assets. And it is based on an old model.

“Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and their legs collapse. Developing tar sands and coal shale is the equivalent. Here are just a few of the investments I personally think make sense - I have a stake in these so I’ll have a disclaimer there - geo-thermal concentrating solar, advanced photovoltaics, efficiency, and conservation.”

Commented NewsBusters Noel Sheppard, “As Gore spoke these words, pictures of hybrid cars, windmills and solar panels appeared in multiple slides on the screen with company names at the bottom such as Amyris (biofuels), Altra (biofuels), Bloom Energy (solid oxide fuel cells), Mascoma (cellulosic biofuels), GreatPoint Energy (catalytic gasification), Miasole (solar cells), Ausra (utility scale solar panels), GEM (battery operated cars), Smart (electric cars), and AltaRock Energy (geothermal power).”

Sheppard noted Gore’s recommendations that people put money in companies in which he has a financial stake is like “an investment advisor or stock broker giving a seminar to prospects and clients. And, as he tours the world demanding nations stop burning fossil fuels, he will financially benefit if they follow his advice and move to technologies that he has already invested in.”

Corn hits record high on tight supply

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 5th, 2008

Corn prices jump to a record $6 a bushel, driving up costs for food, alternative energy:

Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel Thursday, driven up by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans’ growing grocery bill and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers. 

Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers — the world’s biggest corn producers — will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year. “It’s a demand-driven market and we may not be planting enough acres to supply demand, so that adds to the bullishness of corn,” said Elaine Kub, a grains analyst with DTN in Omaha, Neb.

Corn for the most actively traded May contract rose 4.25 cents to settle at $6 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to $6.025 a bushel — a new all-time high.

Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on global supply. And with the U.S. expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008, an 8 percent drop from last year.

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