However you feel about shock tactics, it can’t be denied that public awareness ads are pretty effective, at least at sticking in your mind. That is their ultimate purpose: to make you remember the message as a first step to making a change.

Here are 10 powerful, striking public awareness ads about the environment.

1. WWF Marine Protection Campaign: Fan Corals

More than 70 percent of all plastic ends up in the ocean. Not only is this an alarming figure, but it is even more shocking when you think about the properties of plastic – mainly, that it doesn’t actively break down, with experts estimating that it takes 1,000 years to decompose.

Even that may be a conservative estimate, as not enough time has passed since its creation to know for sure. Now just imagine that sitting in the ocean, slowly releasing chemicals as it degrades from the plastic and, occasionally, being swallowed by sea creatures – not good.

2. Ondazul: Toilet

At first glance, this one might appear a little funny. After all, it is a man throwing a toilet over the side of a harbor. But if you look a little closer you see a chain attached to the man’s ankle, showing that he is seconds away from being pulled in and drowned. The message? Such actions have consequences, and eventually, you will have to face them.

3. WWF River Pollution: Dissolvent

Think that what products you use have no true impact? This is sure to change your mind. A single can of dissolvent, which is automatically filtered back into bodies of water when it drains from your appliances, can pollute millions of gallons of water.

Just think about that for a second: millions. This is in a world where much of the world is dying because they don’t have enough clean water. With this kind of behavior, that will eventually be us.

4. WWF: Lungs

A complex image is created by two green lungs made of vegetation. One is partially uprooted, the trees gone. The message: We have to protect Mother Earth and “let her breathe” before it is too late – a simple meaning behind a really intense image.

5. WWF Desertification: Leopard

One of the biggest threats to various species in the world today is desertification. This is the degradation of dry land caused mostly by the presence of humans who exploit the area as well as the increase in global temperature. This ad shows a cheetah that is facing death, breaking apart into dry sand, much like the land where he lives.

6. Bund: Brown Bear

According to this ad, every 60 seconds a species dies out. That is a horrible thing to think about, and the advertisement used a very striking visual representation of an already alarming fact. It shows a bear caught in the hands of a clock, about to be crushed to death by the passing minute. That brings us to the text on the ad: “Every minute counts.”

7. WWF: Crocodile

There is a whole series of these ads, and each one is pretty amazing. They show different animals that have been intricately painted with huge amounts of detail. This one shows an alligator, each scale carefully crafted and a lot of texture making it appear realistic. The text above says: “Give a hand to wildlife.” The same campaign released an elephant, a toucan and several others.

8. Surfrider Foundation Australia: Oil Spill

Probably the most upsetting ad on this list, it shows how shocking imagery can be used to great effect to catch people’s attention. The picture shows a young mother laying on the beach, apparently unconscious and covered in oil, possibly dead.

Next to her is her crying child, also covered in oil and watching the form of her unmoving parent. The message is that it isn’t only the oceans that suffer for things like oil spills and other manmade disasters. Haunting and hard to swallow, this is one image that will stick with you.

9. WWF: Tarzan

Tarzan was in for a surprise with this ad. It shows the jungle hero swinging from a vine, but instead of finding another tree he finds thin air. According to the ad, 15 square kilometers of rainforest, home to both people and animals, disappear every minute.

10. WWF: Blood

Another disturbing ad, this one shows an attractive young woman walking through an empty airport terminal, wheeling her luggage behind her. From her suitcase comes a large trail of bright red blood.

According to the ad, she bought exotic animal souvenirs, items in countries where the laws on animal treatment, poaching and hunting might be a bit ambiguous or even supportive of such items. Every year, a number of people buy these products while abroad.

Conclusion

Many of these ads are emotional, and some incredibly upsetting. But they send a message in a way that seems to punch you in the gut. What are some of your favorite (or most moving) examples of public awareness ads? Let us know in the comments.

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While in the United Kingdom, Photographer, Dylan Winter caught this amazing flock of Starling’s in their yearly migration which is referred to as murmuration. This amazing sight can contain thousands of Starlings and the patterns they help create flawlessly in the sky is truly awe inspiring!

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Almost every country in the world has at least 2 percent of energy that is solar energy; however, there are several facts about solar energy that not everyone is aware of.

1. Germany Uses the Most Solar Energy

Many people think that the United States uses the most solar energy out of all the countries in the world. This is mainly due to the fact that solar energy development increased more in the United States during the year 2008 than in any other country. Of course, this created the impression that United States would continue to develop solar energy and eventually become the country that used it the most.

However, contrary to popular belief, it is actually Germany that has grown to be the world’s leader when it comes to solar energy. Almost 50 percent of Germany’s energy is solar energy, and it is aiming to have 100 percent solar power by 2050.

2. Einstein Was Involved in Solar Energy

You probably know that Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921, but not a lot of people know that the reason he won it was related to the installation of solar energy. Einstein explained the photoelectric effect and wrote a thesis about it in 1905 – years before he won the Nobel Prize.

The photoelectric effect is the principle behind what produces solar power. While Einstein’s theory became popular, it wasn’t proven until 1915, 10 years later. Albert Einstein conducted several important experiments with some of the earliest solar panels.

3. Solar Energy Will Eventually Be Free

Although solar energy systems are expensive to buy at first, after a few years, you will be getting free energy all the time. It is estimated that solar energy systems pay for themselves in five years, which means after that, all the electricity you receive will be free.

If you get a lot of sunshine to your home and you have the liberty to install a solar panel, it’s highly recommended that you do. Not only will it save money in the long term, but it’s also much better for the environment.

4. Use Solar Energy Where There’s Not Much Sunshine

It’s a common misconception that solar energy can only be used where there’s a lot of sunshine. However, this is not entirely true. The solar energy systems that you can purchase today can be used even in places where there’s not much sunshine.

When the sun is shining, the solar panel will store the excess energy that it doesn’t need at that particular moment. Of course, this means that when the sun isn’t shining, there’s stored energy that can be used.

5. It’s Good for the Economy

Believe it or not, solar energy is good for the economy. Well, it’s not solar energy directly that’s so good for the economy; it’s the effects it has on society that boosts the economy. Owing to the increasing demand worldwide for solar energy panels, businesses are requiring employees to help install these panels on homes, factories and various other buildings.

The demand for solar energy employees is mainly in the United States, where solar power is rapidly increasing. However, the problem that the country is faced with is the fact that there are not enough qualified people to fill the jobs available.

6. Get Paid for Your Solar Energy!

Not only can you save money by installing a solar energy system, but you can also earn money from it! Net metering is the process whereby electric companies buy solar energy from you. If you get a system that stores the excess energy that is procured from the sun, you can sell this to electric companies and easily make enough money to get back the cost of the solar energy system. Instead of paying the electric companies thousands of dollars each year, they’ll be paying you!

Conclusion

Solar energy has lots of benefits, and the obvious one for most people is how much money you can save and make by using it. Of course, there aren’t so many things that people don’t even know about solar energy! If you’ve studied solar energy or make money from it, leave your stories in the comments for others to read.

Image Credit: 1.

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Fortunately, that all happened in slower speeds. However, a few weeks ago in West Virgina, this incident below happened on an interstate with much higher speeds and true zero visibility. In this case, the results for the driver of the camera fortunately were good, but not for the guy trying to stop right next to him:

Keep in mind, this was during just a brief snow squall. Those things can be exceptionally dangerous in that they are so brief and it usually clears up quickly after they pass.

But folks, this winter has been a bit on the unusual side when it comes to snowfall, especially in the Eastern Part Of The Unites States. The winter is NOT over yet! Please be careful out there!

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Or this tornado that Andy Gabrielson got on August 8, 2010 near Breckenridge, Minnesota that produced EF4 damage. This photogenic tornado broke Andy’s front and back windows, left glass in his back, but he still managed to record this incredible twister and check in on the people who lived there. Fortunately, the elderly couple that lived there were not in the house but only 1 mile away from their house that was totally destroyed:

Andy Gabrielson was out in the field once again on November 7, 2011 near Tipton, Oklahoma. Once again, a large tornado producing EF4 damage was but a short distance away from Andy and several other chasers (Including Reed Timmer from Storm Chasers On Discovery Channel). Storm chasers Aaron Brodie And Chad Cowan got this amazing footage of this tornado close up only to also get on video a vehicle that was flipped on its side. Amazingly, Andy was in that vehicle and what at first was thought to be caused by the tornado was actually caused by a driving error on a very narrow road. Fortunately, Andy was okay:

Incidentally, the closest I have ever been to a tornado was on June 5, 2010 near Limestone, IL when this tornado producing EF1 damage was only 4 miles away from me:

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However in storm chasing circles, the one thing that has been talked about recording on video is of a tornado near a Wind Farm. With the large amount of wind farms in the plains, the possibility of being seen is fairly high but never really had been recorded on video. On November 7, 2011, when a supercell produced several tornadoes (One rated EF4 in Intensity near Tipton, OK) one landed near a Wind Farm in this video. In fact, one of the twisters, went right over several of the windmills and even totally wrapped it up in its circulation. Amazingly, the windmills came out undamaged!

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However the chemical fire in this video showed us some truly unique aspects that one may not expect to see. In this large chemical fire in Wacahachie, TX on 10/03/11, the fire was so intense along with its powerful explosions that it literally created micro scale weather events happen at the site of the fire! The first one you will see is what is known as a Firenado. This small, tornado-like whirlwind forms when you have rapidly rising air above a large fire. In this video, the fire is so intense that it literally gets wrapped up into the circulation with incredible speed!

What’s even more unusual in this video is that the rising hot air actually rolls the air horizontally into the updraft/plume of the hot rising air to the point where the horizontal roll actually rotates into the updraft and tightens enough to form a landspout funnel cloud aloft!

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That was the case here with this Tornadic Supercell Near Eau Claire, WI on April 10, 2011. Storm Chaser Andy Gabrielson and company were chasing this particular storm while there still was snow on the ground. And in some cases almost TWO FEET OF IT! The wild state of the atmosphere being totally out of balance led to a day that saw many large, destructive tornadoes in the state of Wisconsin for so very early in the year (Wisconsin’s peak tornado season isn’t usually until late spring/Early Summer):

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The system can generate power just by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes, respectively, the company said at the press conference, which took place June 12, 2008, at the Osaka Assembly Hall.

The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of a normal fuel cell, which uses hydrogen as a fuel. According to Genepax, the main feature of the new system is that it uses the company’s membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which contains a material capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.

Though the company did not reveal the details, it “succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA,” said Hirasawa Kiyoshi, the company’s president. This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time, the company said.

With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems, Genepax said.

But before we all get too excited, Popular Mechanics has described Genepax’s claims as “Rubbish.” The company says it “cannot [reveal] the core part of this invention,” yet, but it has disclosed that the system uses an onboard energy generator (a “membrane electrode assembly”) to extract the hydrogen using a “mechanism which is similar to the method in which hydrogen is produced by a reaction of metal hydride and water”.

The hydrogen is then used to generate energy to run the car. This has led to speculation that the metal hydride is consumed in the process and is the ultimate source of the car’s energy, making the car a hydride-fuelled “hydrogen on demand” vehicle, rather than water-fuelled as claimed.

Still, here is the vehicle driving around. Let’s hope that they know something that the rest of us don’t and pretty soon we’ll put fossil fuels to rest.

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Yep. It didn’t rain very hard, or very long, but it just so happened that I was walking about a mile or so through the city back to my hotel during the light rain. I could have caught a cab, but instead I ducked into a Walgreen’s and got a baseball hat and kept walking.

I know what you’re thinking. But no, I didn’t catch a cold!

I was taking my time, even stopping to snap photos of skyscrapers in the rain, when about halfway back to the hotel I started having difficulty catching my breath. Now I don’t have asthma, and I can generally out walk anyone I know, so it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on. I was having an allergic reaction to something.

Pollution Ruins the Day

By the time I got to my hotel room my throat was already starting to burn, my nose was running, and my breathing was constricted. I took a drug cocktail consisting of Zyrtec-D, Flonase and Advair (for the first time in weeks) and went to sleep.

When I awoke on Wednesday after a restless night of sleep, I discovered that my throat was on fire, I was still having trouble breathing, and I’d almost completely lost my voice. Oh, and this was right before I had to deliver my Cloud Computing lecture at HostingCon. So, I dosed up on meds again, and started out my day.

To cut a long story short, I was sick for days and I’m 100% certain that it was caused by the rain stirring up the pollution all over the city. My evidence, in addition to personally being a walking allergic test subject, was the fact that three other people who had been out and about with me at the same time experienced similar symptoms! And none of them even have allergies!

Too Many Coincidences

So, on Thursday I’m on the airplane heading for home and I’m reading the July/August issue of Dwell magazine in which they are explaining that concrete production accounts for 8% of the CO2 emissions on the planet. They also go on to dedicate much of the issue to methods of “green” architecture, and to call for designers to incorporate every manner of technology into projects to be Earth friendly.

On Friday, while I’m laid up in bed, I pull out the May Men’s Health magazine (which I’ve had for months but haven’t had time to read) and I catch an article called “Where the Bugs Are” that points out all the places to expect nasty contaminants in public places which will make you sick.

Then, when I get around to checking my e-mail later in the day there is a message from Cathy Zoi of The We Campaign offering me to take a little environmental quiz to see how much I know about how bad we’re wrecking our planet. Oh, and pointing out that Exxon just broke the all time record for quarterly profits.

After the quiz I stopped to watch Al Gore’s highlights reel from a speech he gave a little while back about his recent “challenge” for America to convert to 100% clean electricity production in 10 years. I hadn’t really bothered watching till now, because I figure we could never pull this off anyway, but I have to admit that every time I watch him speak Gore impresses me.

So, What’s The Point?

Well, the point of all this is that I was thinking… it’s not just that the oil producing countries have the rest of us by the family jewels, the fact that we are digging up every fossil fuel resource we can find and burning it to create energy pumps so much crap into the air that it literally makes us sick! My experience in Chicago last week was a brutal example of the effects of this pollution.

So, my question is, why the hell don’t we actually take this challenge of Gore’s? I just don’t see any serious drawbacks! But I can think of a few potential benefits:

• Clean up our air! Frankly, I don’t care about saving money. I’ve got plenty of that. And I don’t have kids to worry about leaving anything to. But I do place a premium on breathing.
• Make a boatload of cash! If American’s build clean air technologies, the rest of the world will buy them from us! After WWII we got rich selling technology to the rest of the world that no longer had it. This is the same thing, but without all the mess associated with blood, guts and war.
• Simplify our world! Electric powered machinery is far simpler, quieter and cleaner. Even electric cars have 1/4 the parts in them. So we can be more efficient with resources while reaping the benefits of a quieter environment.

If there is one thing I agree with VP Gore about it’s this: we simply lack the political will to do it. It’s not a technological problem, we’ve already got that. It’s a determination problem. And you know what? Until everyone begins to experience breathing problems like me, we’re never going to fix it. There is just not enough pain… yet.

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The New York Times reported today that Exxon’s Second Quarter Earnings Set a Record:

HOUSTON — Exxon Mobil reported the best quarterly profit ever for a corporation on Thursday, beating its own record, but investors sold off shares as oil and natural gas prices resumed their recent decline.

Record earnings for Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, have become routine as the surge of oil prices in recent years has filled its coffers. The company’s income for the second quarter rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, compared to the same period a year ago. That beat the previous record of $11.66 billion set by Exxon in the last three months of 2007.

Exxon’s profits were nearly $90,000 a minute over the quarter, but it was less than Wall Street had expected. Exxon’s shares fell 4.6 percent, to close at $80.43. (The company calculates that it pays $274,000 a minute in taxes and spends $884,000 a minute to run the business.)

Of course, as the oil companies would point out, their profit margins are actually pretty slim as a percentage of revenue, the absurd profits are merely a result of volume. Still, I’m going to have a really hard time feeling sympathy for them.

Seems to me that they could be spending a more significant portion of profits to develop higher margin, clean energy alternatives to help us actually try and clean up our planet. If they were, perhaps the shareholders wouldn’t be handing them a 5% beating for actually having the highest profit margins of all time.

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I’m making the presumption that the two candidates who are going to actually be running for President are Barack Obama, and John McCain. So, below I’ve taken the liberty of narrowing down all the data to these two guys. What you need to do is line up as many of your political ideal matches and then you can rationally choose who you are voting for.

Here are the candidates views on a variety of issues:

Issue	Barack Obama	John McCain
Abortion is a woman’s right	Strongly Favors	Opposes
Require hiring more women & minorities	Strongly Favors	Favors
Same-sex domestic partnership benefits	Strongly Favors	Favors
Teacher-led prayer in public schools	Opposes	Favors
Death Penalty	Opposes	Strongly Favors
Mandatory Three Strikes sentencing laws	Opposes	Strongly Favors
Absolute right to gun ownership	Strongly Opposes	Strongly Favors
More federal funding for health coverage	Favors	Favors
Privatize Social Security	Strongly Opposes	Strongly Favors
Parents choose schools via vouchers	No opinion	Strongly Favors
Replace coal & oil with alternatives	Strongly Favors	Favors
Drug use is immoral: enforce laws against it	Opposes	Strongly Favors
Allow churches to provide welfare services	Favors	Strongly Favors
Repeal tax cuts on wealthy	Strongly Favors	Opposes
Illegal immigrants earn citizenship	Strongly Favors	Favors
Support & expand free trade	Opposes	Strongly Favors
Expand the armed forces	Favors	Favors
Stricter limits on political campaign funds	Strongly Favors	Strongly Favors
The Patriot Act harms civil liberties	Strongly Favors	Strongly Opposes
US out of Iraq	Favors	Strongly Opposes

There are independent organizations that rate the candidates based upon their voting records. The candidates have to have enough votes in a particular area to actually get rated, but here are the ones I’m aware of:

Ratings	Barack Obama	John McCain
HRC rating (Gay Rights)	89%	33%
ACLU rating (Civil Rights)		0%
NAACP Rating (Affirmative Action)	100%	7%
NCJA rating (Criminal Justice)	75%	85%
NEA rating (Public Education)		45%
CAF rating (Energy Independence)	100%	17%
LCV rating (Environment)		53%
Christian Coalition rating (Pro-family)		83%
APHA rating (Health Care)		25%
USBC rating (Close Borders)	8%	18%
AU record (Church-State Separation)	100%	33%
CTJ rating (Progressive Taxation)	100%	50%

Barack Obama is a Hard-Core Liberal.

John McCain is a Populist-Leaning Conservative.

All of the data here has come from a direct comparison of records as reported by OnTheIssues.org. Here is John McCain’s page, and Barack Obama’s.

They also have a VoteMatch quiz you can take which tells you which candidate you most closely match up with philosophically. Interestingly, I had a 48% match with Obama and a 30% match with McCain.

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Here are a few stats:

• This sucker weighs a whopping 462 lbs (Holy bloat Batman)! That is as much as my old 160 MPH Sprint ST!
• The electric motor produces 48 lb ft. of torque (65 nm) and 27 horsepower (20.2 kw)
• Accelerating the big scooter to 50 mph takes 6.8 seconds.
• Top speed is 62 MPH, with a max range of 68 miles at 25 MPH. (Range decreases with higher speeds.)
• The battery pack has a rated battery capacity of 3.7Kwh and is designed for up to 1,700 full charging cycles.
• The 1.5 kW on-board charger plugs into a standard outlet and provides an 80% charge in just over 2 hours.
• Effective cost of operation should be 10% of the equivalent cost of gasoline.

Here is a short 30 second promo clip designed to whet your appetite:

Here’s the company spin using plenty of “Green” fear, uncertainty and doubt:

Here is a longer promo clip:

Here is a really cool time-lapse video of the complete construction of a Vectrix in their plant in Poland.

If you live in California they’ll bring the vehicle to you and give you a brief introduction to how it works:

This last one is a little hard to hear, but it’s a short interview about the Vectrix at a trade show:

I think this is a really cool concept, and I applaud the effort, but I just can’t believe the weight of this machine. Seriously, it needs to lose 150-200 pounds! If it did, it would likely double the range and probably hit closer to 80-90 mph on the top end I imagine. Then it would be really ready for prime time.

The good news is that you know the next generations are going to make huge leaps and within a few years we’ll be seeing 5 times the performance. Until then, I guess I’d try one of these machines out if they wanted me to review it, but I don’t imagine I’d fork over the money to own one yet. Plus, I have no idea what they actually cost.

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This commercial made such an impact in it’s day that it almost single handedly eliminated what, at the time, was a major ecological problem. Younger people today can’t really imagine it, but decades ago people would drive down the street and just throw their trash out the windows. Trash was everywhere, and it was disgusting.

Thankfully we now have a different attitude towards pollution and littering in general, but I think it’s worth looking back and remembering where we started so we never find ourselves repeating past mistakes.

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Sorry, but as a sidebar… I know this person who is a smoker and also a die-hard environmentalist. Can someone please tell me how you can complain about me driving a gas guzzling vehicle when the production of cigarettes is causing massive deforestation along with the production of waste from consumption (including paper and plastic packaging and cigarette butts)? I mean seriously, if you smoke you don’t give a damn.

Globally, tobacco curing requires 11.4 million tons of solid wood annually, according to Geist’s study. Adding insult to injury, tobacco plants may replace the trees cut down and leach large quantities of vital nutrients from the soil.

Worldwide, an estimated 5.5 trillion commercially produced cigarettes were consumed in 1995 (the last year for which statistics are available) and 83% of cigarettes were filter-tipped. Filters and plastic wrap from packages remain in the environment for long periods. Cigarette filters contain cellulose acetate, which persists under normal environmental conditions for 18 months or longer. Moreover, cigarette butts pose a health hazard to children and animals if they eat them.

Anyway, back to the point at hand. I’ve assembled a nice little collection of videos from around the Web that focus on the effects of cigarettes. If you’re a smoker, feel free to go ahead and ignore these. It’s always better not to know whats coming…

This first one uses a couple of water jugs to capture the smoke from just one cigarette. Yummy!

These sound like a collection of British or possibly Australian public service ads. Quite interesting the way they show the effects of smoking.

This is a very good video that someone did as a school project:

Smoking causes actual pain throughout the body due to hardening of the arteries.

Here is something completely disgusting. When you get cancer from smoking this is what they are going to do to try to keep you alive:

Finally, a little comedy to “lighten” things up.

And always remember folks…

Having a smoking area in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.

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Missing from this report are the research project’s findings that high air-pollution levels in Chinese cities is leading to the premature deaths of 350,000-400,000 people each year. A further 300,000 people die prematurely each year from exposure to poor air indoors, according to advisers, but little discussion of this issue survived in the report because it was outside the ambit of the Chinese ministries which sponsored the research.

Another 60,000-odd premature deaths were attributable to poor-quality water, largely in the countryside, from severe diarrhea, and stomach, liver and bladder cancers.

The mortality information was “reluctantly” excised by the World Bank from the published report, according to advisers to the research project.

Sepa and the health ministry declined to comment. The World Bank said that the findings of the report were still being discussed with the government.

Of course, if anyone were to leak this information within China they’d be jailed like the guy who got 10 years just for blogging or like Chen Guang-cheng the blind dissident who sued for women’s rights.

Read the original article here.
Read the actual 128 page report here (PDF).

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I also previously reported that Gore had been Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. This is not just because he made a movie and won an Oscar, it’s because he has devoted his private life to the cause of climate change – and like it or not many, many, many people happen to agree with him and are happy he is carrying out this work.

So, today Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

“for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”

It’s too early to see the announcement on video, but Nobel has a YouTube channel which will no doubt post the video of this announcement shortly. View it here.

Now I will admit, I am a convert. I am a wealthy capitalist pig. I own a big truck that gets 13 MPG, and I use way too much electricity in my house. I also make lots of garbage. But when I saw Gore’s movie with my family – it completely changed the way I look at the world. There have maybe been a total of 5 pieces of literature in my life that have done that.

It has been my experience that the people who don’t give Gore the credit he now deserves have not taken the time to hear what he has to say, or do some independent research to verify whether he is a nut-job, or a visionary.

In addition to An Inconvenient Truth, I also recommend studying the IPCC Report: Global Warming Consequences. These two sources of information may seem one sided, so after you’ve seen them both I encourage you to seek opposing views and then evaluate which one seems to have greater merit. I’ve made my choice.

Other articles to research:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Giving a Damn About Climate Change
• Presidential Candidate Positions on Global Warming
• Simple Things You Can Do To Stop Global Warming

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These are not ordinary moving rocks that tumble down mountainsides in avalanches, are carried along riverbeds by flowing water, or are tossed aside by animals.

These rocks, some as heavy as 700 pounds, are inexplicably transported across a virtually flat desert plain, leaving erratic trails in the hard mud behind them, some hundreds of yards long.

They move by some mysterious force, and in the nine decades since we have known about them, no one has ever seen them move.

Until now that is!

Racetrack Playa is the seasonally dry lake (a playa) located in the northern part of the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park, California, U.S.A. that is famous for ‘sailing stones‘.

One cold winter morning, when the snowmelt covered the playa, the solution to the puzzle was finally caught on film.

That kick ass photo above is by MeLastMohican. I have no idea what his real name is, but he

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The good news however is that they are working on plans for a real production car of which they say:

The X1 production car will be better… much better.

To build it as a prototype, we looked for the best of the best, in today’s technology. We chose the AC Propulsion (www.acpropulsion.com) 3-phase AC induction motor and inverter – the highest power/weight ratio system available; brilliantly engineered, and with about a decade of durability testing to date.

For the chassis, we turned to Ariel, in Somerset. (www.arielmotor.co.uk). Simon Saunders, the designer of the Atom and the founder and CEO of Ariel, has created in our view one of the world’s most beautiful cars, as well as the quickest, lightest chassis on the road. To drive it is a revelation.

Here is the Wrightspeed kicking a Ferrari and a Porsche’s ass!

And here it is crushing a Lamborghini Gallardo and then a NASCAR car on a half mile oval:

Here is a guy filming what it’s like to take a ride in it:

Specifications:

• 3-phase AC induction motor, 236hp at the motor shaft
• 182 ft lbs torque at the motor shaft, from 0 rpm to 6,000 rpm
• 13,300 rpm rev limit
• Weight 1,536 lbs
• No clutch, single gear ratio 8.25:1
• Quaife limited slip differential
• Alcon front calipers, 4 piston
• Dymag Magnesium Alloy wheels
• Inboard Bilstein race dampers, Eibach 2-stage springs
• Steering: rack and pinion, 1.5 turns lock-lock
• 25 kWhr Lithium Ion battery pack

Real-World Performance:

• 0-30 mph: 1.35 sec
• 0-60 mph: 3.07 sec in 117 ft
• 0-100 mph: 6.87 sec
• 0-100-0 mph 11.2 sec
• Lateral g: 1.3
• Braking g: 1.2

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Wikipedia explains hail formation like this:

Hail forms on condensation nuclei such as dust, insects, or ice crystals, when supercooled water freezes on contact. Hailstones are usually from the size of a pea to the size of a golfball.

In clouds containing large numbers of supercooled water droplets, these ice nuclei grow quickly at the expense of the liquid droplets because the saturation vapor pressure over ice is slightly less than the saturation vapor pressure over water.

If the hailstones grow large enough, latent heat released by further freezing may melt the outer shell of the hailstone. The growth that follows, usually called wet growth, is more efficient because the liquid outer shell allows the stone to accrete other smaller hailstones in addition to supercooled droplets. These winds hold the rain and freeze it.

As the process repeats, the hail grows increasingly larger. Once a hailstone becomes too heavy to be supported by the storm’s updraft it falls out of the cloud. When a hailstone is cut in half, a series of concentric rings, like that of an onion, is revealed. These rings reveal the total number of times the hailstone had traveled to the top of the storm before falling to the ground.

And when they hit in Texas they do a LOT of damage. For example, in 2006 a hailstorm caused $100 Million in damage in the San Marcos area, in 2005 a hailstorm caused $100 Million in damage near Austin, and in 1995 Dallas got hit with $1 Billion in damage!

So, a couple of weeks ago we got a little hail that isn’t really even worth mentioning, but it reminded me that in August of 2005 I had captured a few minutes of a hailstorm on video and never shared it. So, here it is now… This hail was up to about 1/2 inch in size, but believe me if it hits you it stings! It can easily break your glasses or put out an eye, and it leaves welts if you are exposed too long.

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