GARDENER ON THE ROOF: SINGAPORE’S “SKY GREEN” AGRI-BUSINESS SHOWS THE WAY TO FOOD SELF-SUBSISTENCE FOR A CROWDED CITY.
Being that Singapore is a country of essentially one city of 5 million people, it has depended heavily on food imports from neighboring countries. Sky Green is project hoping to eliminate that situation, with a technology for growing of vegetables in 9-meter cylinders with vegetable troughs atop the city’s buildings, nourished by recycled water powered by very energy-efficient electricity.
(Asia Times)
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CREEPING DISASTER: CURRENT U.S. DROUGHT MAY BE MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN HURRICANE SANDY.
The hurricane has an estimated cost of $108 billion, but that amount may well be surpassed in the continuing devastation of drought in the rest of the country. Nearly 2/3 of the country is now under moderate to severe drought conditions, including much of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, an area only recently afflicted with severe flooding. From one extreme to another.
(Christian Science Monitor)
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BIG WIND IN TEXAS IS IN BIG TROUBLE AS “FISCAL CLIFF” LOOMS.
Texas leads the nation in wind turbine construction, sustained by a federal tax credit enacted in 1992. This credit is expected to expire at the end of this month, as its continuation is caught up with the zeal for any possible tax cuts to avoid fiscal disaster. The tax is politically vulnerable, since it offends powerful state and national lobbies of non-renewable energy producers, who claim unfair competitive advantage of the federal government for the wind power industry. An inconvenient political truth.
(McClatchy)
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SHALE, SHALE, THE GANG’S ALL HERE.
And what do the heck do we care? A major boom in natural gas production by “unconventional” methods like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is creating depressed natural gas prices. Who cares? Well, of course the producers of natural gas, who suffer from the price competition with fracked gas. But, on the other side of “caring,” much of the chemical industry cheers the cost reduction for their operations by their access to cheap gas as fuel for their manufacturing operations.
(Motley Fool)
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CAN THIS HOCKEY SEASON BE SAVED?
This question is being raised urgently as the new year approaches and as 422 games have already been cancelled because of a “lockout” of the players by NHL management. Fitful progress toward a settlement continues, as both sides feel the pressure of a possible season so shortened that it would be meaningless to hockey’s fans.
(Tampa Tribune)
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Quote of the day…
The Turkish step and NATO’s support for it are provocative moves that constitute psychological warfare. But if they think this will affect our determination and work for a decisive victory in this fight against terrorism, they are very wrong.
Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad on decision of NATO to provide Patriot missiles for supposed aggressive intentions of Syria toward Turkey.
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