School of Rock

Interesting.

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A rock found mostly in Oman can be harnessed to soak up the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide at a rate that could help slow global warming, scientists say.

When carbon dioxide comes in contact with the rock, peridotite, the gas is converted into solid minerals such as calcite.

Geologist Peter Kelemen and geochemist Juerg Matter said the naturally occurring process can be supercharged 1 million times to grow underground minerals that can permanently store 2 billion or more of the 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted by human activity every year.

Their study will appear in the November 11 edition of the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.

Peridotite is the most common rock found in the Earth's mantle, or the layer directly below the crust. It also appears on the surface, particularly in Oman, which is conveniently close to a region that produces substantial amounts of carbon dioxide in the production of fossil fuels.

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They also calculated the costs of mining the rock and bringing it directly to greenhouse gas emitting power plants, but determined it was too expensive.

The scientists, who are both at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, say they could kick-start peridotite's carbon storage process by boring down and injecting it with heated water containing pressurized carbon dioxide. They have a preliminary patent filing for the technique.

They say 4 billion to 5 billion tons a year of the gas could be stored near Oman by using peridotite in parallel with another emerging technique developed by Columbia's Klaus Lackner that uses synthetic "trees" which suck carbon dioxide out of the air.

More research needs to be done before either technology could be used on a commercial scale.

Peridotite also occurs in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea and Caledonia, and along the coast of the Adriatic Sea and in smaller amounts in California.

Big greenhouse gas emitters like the United States, China and India, where abundant surface supplies of the rock are not found, would have to come up with other ways of storing or cutting emissions.

Rock storage would be safer and cheaper than other schemes, Matter said.

Many companies are hoping to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by siphoning off large amounts of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and storing it underground.

That method could require thousands of miles of pipelines and nobody is sure whether the potentially dangerous gas would leak back out into the atmosphere in the future.

My only concern would be that people would treat this as the miracle cure (note that scientists believe it would "slow" global warming, not stop it). Let's not bother to even try to reduce emissions, we've got our magic rock. Kind of like the people who think that switching to Diet Coke means they can eat whatever they want and lose weight.

Where's Wendell?

If you think you see a wallaby on the loose in the Ottawa Valley and can't believe your eyes, be assured that it's not just a kid in a very realistic Hallowe'en suit. It seems we have a young wallaby running (relatively) wild.

From the Ottawa Citizen:

OTTAWA-A panicked wallaby is on the loose in the Ottawa Valley after Tuesday night's windy storm blew over a tree that broke open the kangaroo and wallaby pen at Saunders Country Critters and Garden Centre in Kemptville.

Five kangaroos and wallabies were originally on the run in North Grenville after the tree took down a six-metre panel in the animals' pen. But only Wendell, a three-year-old Bennett's Red Necked Wallaby, remains on the loose, and was last spotted in Athens, Ont. - more than 80 kilometres southwest of Kemptville -by an elderly woman Thursday morning. And as of last night, there had been three more sightings in the area.

"They saw the opening, hopped out and just kept hopping," said Saunders Country Critters co-owner Carla Saunders, who sounded a little panicked and distraught herself early Thursday morning.

"I feel terrible," she said. "We just want Wendell home."

By Thursday afternoon, when Mrs. Saunders had heard of the first sighting in Athens, she was more hopeful for the animal's safe return.

"It's definitely Wendell," she said, adding that her husband and Country Critters co-owner, Gary Saunders, headed to Athens as soon as he heard and he saw Wendell's tracks for himself.

"The last tracks my husband saw were a four-footed hop, which means he's tired," she added.

The animals were reported missing to the Grenville OPP Wednesday afternoon, but three of them didn't venture too far from home and were easily recovered. Rudy, the kangaroo, was spotted later in the day by neighbours about 15 kilometres from the farm on County Road #44 and quickly brought back home.

As for Wendell, Mrs. Saunders is worried about how long he can last in the cold weather.

"He's a little chunky monkey, so he's got some extra meat and potatoes on him. But that's not going to last him for too long," she said.

Friends and staff of the Saunders have been combing the bush day and night with the hope of uncovering their precious little critter. In addition to the foot patrols, they have also been hanging towels - soaked with the urine of the other kangaroos and wallabies - in the trees around the farm, hoping the familiar scent will draw Wendell home.

Mrs. Saunders said the animal has a terrible sense of direction, so they're trying to attract him by other means, but all attempts have been unsuccessful.

Mrs. Saunders said Wendell only stands about 75 centimetres tall - she described the Bennett's wallaby breed as "kangaroo wannabes" - and would not be dangerous if approached.

If someone spots Wendell, Mrs. Saunders said they should throw a blanket on top of him, grab him by the tail and drop him into a pillowcase, which would simulate the comfort and protection of a mother wallaby's pouch. She also urges that if anyone spots him to call the farm at 613-258-1108.

Another search group will head out to Athens at 6:30 a.m. Friday.

Wendell was born and raised at the farm, so the Saunders' family feels a particular attachment to him, she said.

"They're like members of your family," she said. "He would always greet me with a big hug in the morning."

Mrs. Saunders has been running the farm, exotic zoo and garden centre with her husband since 1992. She said they have never had an animal leave the property.

"I'm hoping that once he hears our voices, he'll settle down and we'll be able to get him."

Edit: Unfortunately, if you have not heard, Wendell was found dead shortly after I posted that story. Mrs Saunders received a mnumber of calls to the effect that Wendell has been seen somewhere or other, but none led to finding him. She does not believe that any of the calls were intended pranks simply people trying to help but providing incorrect information.

The Story of Lefty

This is a story that caught my eye earlier today in the Ottawa Citizen. Many of the newsletters I subscribe to, of course, tell tales of abused animals so it's good to be reminded that many people (a majority, I like to think) do feel compassion for animals in distress.

Lefty the Canada Goose at Paul Lindsay Park in Ottawa, October 27, 2008.
Photograph by : Photo by Jean Levac, Ottawa Citizen

Graham Hughes, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, October 27, 2008

OTTAWA - A flood of e-mails and phone calls has prompted Carleton-Mississippi Mills MPP Norm Sterling to try to come to the rescue of Lefty, a young goose that was born with one wing.

The youngster, abandoned by its migrating flock, has been seen swimming around the pond behind Amberwood Golf and Country Club in Stittsville, raising fears among area residents that it will freeze or starve to death. They want it caught and taken to the Wild Bird Care Centre.

Mr. Sterling said Lefty's situation has sparked a lot of feedback to his office. On Friday, staff received 40 to 50 calls and "a bunch of e-mails."

"This morning, we got another 20," he said. "It probably would rank in the top three I would receive in a year...We haven't received near that many calls with regard to the most recent (property assessments), where their properties have been valued at an average of 20 per cent more."

It's the second deformed goose to show up at the club in as many years. Last year, in mid-November, the course's superintendent captured a young wingless goose and turned it over to the centre. There, it was deemed sterile and forever flightless.

On Monday, Mr. Sterling made a private member's statement in the legislature describing the goose's plight and explained he is working with the Canadian Wildlife Service to try to help the bird.

"Since migratory birds are the responsibility of the federal government, I have been in contact with the Canadian Wildlife Service, an agency of Environment Canada, and asked that they do something to help Lefty," he said.

"While I appreciate hearing from my constituents regarding Lefty's fate, I suggest concerned citizens also contact Canadian Wildlife Service directly at 1-800-668-6767."

While he was unsure what could be done to help the bird, Mr. Sterling said: "If we could keep the bird somewhere safe over winter and then put it back on the pond for the kids, that would be wonderful."

He conceded there was a bit of irony in a Conservative MPP helping a bird called Lefty.

"I don't very often go to bat for a lefty, but in this case, there were special circumstances. The NDP guys got quite a kick out of it, actually."

Go Green Tube

Are you like me? Are you totally fascinated by Stephane Dion's peculiar accent when he speaks English (or a somewhat reasonably facsimile)?

A strange mix of the lawyer in "The Usual Suspects" and the voodoo chick in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series of movies, it has the effect of an auditory train wreck on me; I simply can not pull myself from listening to it.

Well, thanks to Go Green Tube, I can listen to it to my heart's content (which means, basically, until the end of eternity or until Steph or I die, whichever comes first). And I'll save the planet while doing so, and hopefully get some more green tips.



What is Go Green Tube?! Well I'm glad you asked! It's like youtube but...huh...green. Here's what they say:

We believe good actions deserve to be acknowledged and rewarded, so for every video you as a member watch, we will offset a pound of carbon. The more you watch, and the more friends you bring here, the more difference you make!

Well, all right. In addition to Dion's siren-like voice (and I mean more the ambulance or fire truck type of siren than the half-fish, long-haired, topless chicks kind), I'm going to poke around for some more personal tips that I can apply from THIT World Headquarters. Sign up and take a look around, maybe you'll find something you like.

Happy viewing!

We're #47!

All right, so it doesn't have the same ring as being #1, and we're in a tie with...huh...nine other cars, but you can still take some pride in it when it's an improvement!

Mrs THIT and I bought a car recently. Actually, I believe I bought a car. And I don't drive. We...still need to talk.

But we have a new vehicle and I was curious as to where it ranked on the list of Top 100 Green Cars. Now I know.

What I don't know is whether it's an improvement. I assume it is. This is our old car:

(not really)

I would be curious to know by how much, but that may be difficult to find out. I do know that it scored 69 out of a 100, which is a score I would have killed for in college. I also know that it had started to guzzle gas like Lindsay Lohan chugs vodka so surely we've taken one more small step to saving the planet.

Nice thing: We got to send our car to car heaven. I knew the name rang a bell; I posted it about in April of 2007.

Funny, it was $1000 then and we got $750. Well, regardless, it's better than a kick in the gonads since the car absolutely had to be replaced.

Now we're going to be spoiled because we have all kinds of crazy features. Like..get this...a RADIO!

I kid you not.

Go ahead.

Envy us. :-)

That's more like it, Home Depot!

A while back, I posted about how useless Home Depot had been for us when we moved into our new house (over a year ago...man, time flies...). This recent news makes up for a lot though.

The Home Depot Inc. has started a national program to help people recycle compact fluorescent light bulbs at all of its 1,973 U.S. stores.

The Atlanta-based home improvement retailer's Canada division began a similar program in November 2007. The new program in the United States is the first one made widely available by a retailer, Home Depot said.

Customers can bring in any expired, unbroken compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, and give them to a store associate at the returns desk. The bulbs will be turned over to an environmental management company for recycling.

"With more than 75 percent of households located within 10 miles of a Home Depot store, this program is the first national solution to providing Americans with a convenient way to recycle CFLs," said Ron Jarvis, senior vice president of environmental innovation for Home Depot.

In a related move, Home Depot (NYSE: HD) also will switch from incandescent bulbs to CFLs in its light fixture showrooms in U.S. stores by fall 2008. The move will save it $16 million a year in energy costs.

Link

Good news, and I didn't know it already existed in Canada.

We have a CFL here that's burnt out. We were told (though I'm not convinced) that as much as it is said that CFLs can last 15-20 years, they can also last just a few weeks or months. Regardless, we have a CFL that needs doing away with and now know how to go about it. Way to get back on the good side, HD!

Change for Good

Recently, I had the misfortune of having to fly on Air Canada.

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. I made the unfortunate decision to fly with them. I needed to get to Calgary and could have flown with Westjet, but for the same price, Air Canada offered an uninterrupted flight.

Or so I thought. We had to land in Winnipeg to deal with a technical issue in the wings. I don't know much about flying, but I do know this: Wings are very useful.

It was interesting to see people's reactions. Most are so used to this kind of service from Air Canada that it gets shrugged or laughed off.

I would I could say I was inbluded in that group. But at least while using up my entire repertoire of French profanity shortly after the announcement was made (and not the lame France French stuff like "merde". The hardcore French Canadian stuff like...well, you know...), I was reminded of an occurence on a flight that sister-to-THIT took earlier this year. She told me about spare change being collected during the flight and how it was meant to be used. I asked the airline about it and here is the response I received:

Cathay Pacific and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) joined forces in 1991 to launch "Change For Good", an inflight fundraising programme designed to collect unused spare change from passengers to help underprivileged children in over 150 developing countries around the world.

Cathay Pacific is delighted to raise almost HK$10 million through the generosity of its passengers in the 2006/07 fundraising year. Most of the money raised will go to UNICEF to help in its projects to improve the lives of underprivileged children around the world. In addition, HK$700,000 of the Change for Good proceeds will be donated to the Cathay Pacific Wheelchair Bank to help local children with neuromuscular diseases in Hong Kong.

To date, Cathay Pacific has raised more than HK$80 million from the "Change for Good" programme.

Coolness. And they're not the only ones. Maybe Air Canada should join the club, as it were. I've contacted them accordingly and hope they see some value to becoming involved in such a program.

What do you get the girl who has everything?

Well, she probably doesn't have a solar-powered bra.


My first thought when I heard about the solar bra was that it had to be a joke. I heard about it on morning radio, and you know that's like. They're all the same. They do little newsbits then end with an outrageous, pointless story, the validity of which has to be questioned (like the time they told the story of a guy whose swimming pool was stolen. That would take some effort!).

Actually, that's not entirely true. My real first thought was that a woman who needs a "powered" bra of any kind will never starve to death. No doubt Maxim magazine will make her famous.

But my second thought was the above. Actually, I still think it's a joke. I'm all for new ideas and concepts, but this is so dumb-assed that it gives fodder for those who think that environmentalists are all obsessive weirdos.



Can't wash it or wear it in the rain. Sounds ideal! I would think that come a point, washing it is pretty much a necessity, but what do I know?

This post is not about Brett Favre

Not really.

Hey, have you heard? Brett Favre retired, then decided he wanted to keep playing, so he came back, but his team didn't want him, so they traded him to New York and it really sounds like he doesn't want to go there but his only other option is to retire for real this time, I guess.

That run-on sentence finally coming to an end, I want to highlight a sports pet peeve of mine. The frequent claim that pro athletes play "for the love of the game".

Bullshit. How often do you hear of a pro athlete retiring and playing just to play? Like with a local team, for the hell of it, where he makes no money (maybe even pays to play), gets little attention, endorsement deal, perks, etc. I would say quite rarely.

Hey, have you heard? The Olympics are on!

I love the Olympics. If there was a medal for watching the Olympics, I would make my country proud. My e-mail address starts with the grammatically incorrect "teamcanadas" because it was created to receive newsletters from the various sporting organizations (the grammatically correct version was not available).

You want to talk about love of the game? Here you go. There are no guarantees that an athlete will turn an Olympic medal performance into a lucrative career but there they are going through intense preparation for an opportunity to compete.

Get a load of this guy...


...courtesy of Vicky Hall and today's Ottawa Citizen:

Kyle Shewfelt's journey from the seat of a wheelchair to the pinnacle of his sport, the Olympic Games, could very well grace the next installment of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

The Canadian gymnast broke both his legs 11 months ago in training for the world championships in Germany. Today, the reigning Olympic floor exercise champion tumbles back into the spotlight in qualifying action at the National Indoor Stadium.

But talk to Shewfelt and he'll tell you there's an equal -- if not better -- inspirational story on the Canadian men's artistic gymnastics team. His name is Nathan Gafuik. He rooms with Shewfelt on the road.
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Gafuik suffers from a rare condition called Addison's disease, which prohibits the body from producing adrenaline.

As a result, he tires easily. He struggles to recover from injuries -- and gymnasts spend virtually their entire lives with all kinds of aches and pains most of us never encounter.
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"If he gets into a weird place, you can just tell," Shewfelt said. "His eyes glass over. He gets a little shaky and starts talking weird. You have to get on it right away because he can die. Easily."

Earlier this year, Gafuik split his ear open on the parallel bars during a friendly competition against the United States.

The training staff rushed him to Foothills Hospital in Calgary as a precaution.

"For a normal person like you or I, our adrenaline would kick in," Shewfelt said. "But not for Nathan. His body works against him."
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From the tender age of six, Gafuik showed tremendous promise and had the coaches whispering about the future Olympic medallist in their midst. But then Gafuik crashed. At the age of 11, his improvement stopped. And so did his growth.

Other boys turned into men. Gafuik's development was suspended in time. His coach, Tony Smith, couldn't figure out why. No one could, until Gafuik ended up in hospital in 2005 with severe dehydration. The doctors finally came up with an explanation for all the troubles.

The mystery solved, Gafuik could have quit, but he decided to keep chasing his Olympic dream. In 2004, he went to Athens as a reserve gymnast for the Summer Olympics. At one point, his nickname was Alter-Nate, due to his constant role as a spectator for major events. But not now. Along with national champion Adam Wong, Gafuik is considered one of Canada's top all-around gymnasts.

"We've got all his medications at the right level," Smith said. "We downplay the Addison's all time. We try not to use it as a reason for any type of failure."

If Shewfelt ever starts feeling sorry for himself, he looks over at Gafuik and knows he's not the only one who fought daunting adversity to get here.

"What he does with what he has been given in life is pretty phenomenal," Shewfelt said. "He's an inspiration."

Indeed. So how's he doing early on?

The strongest Canadian team ever assembled crashed out of the men's Olympic artistic gymnastics competition Saturday at the qualifying stage. Defending Olympic floor exercise gold medallist Kyle Shewfelt? Done. The team itself? Eliminated.

The only survivors to be found in the debris field were Nathan Gafuik and Adam Wong, who cracked the top 24 on all six apparatus to advance to the all-around final.

You go, boy.

Christian the Lion

No, I didn't get this from friggin' Oprah...