Tag: Environment Posts

I read this fairly alarming (although not entirely surprising) article yesterday detailing how prescription drugs are being detected in municipal water sources. A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows. .. • Officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds. Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California. Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and […]

Are you trying to save energy by changing over incandescent light bulbs to CFL bulbs? Well, there may now be a new alternative that uses even less power. Glow in the dark kitties! Yes, you too can own one of these purring light-bulbs! Simple feed them from time to time and all your energy needs are solved! You can read about it here.

Well, yesterday I posted my CFL challenge update. So far, I only have verbal commitments from people to change a few lightbulbs this weekend and contribute some photos. But hopefully they all pull through. As for me — I stopped at London Drugs on the way home and bought 6 CFL lightbulbs. Surprisingly, those 6 allowed me to replace 9 normal ones in my place (since the new CFL ones are way brighter in my bathroom — so bright that I don’t need all the lights I had in there). Here’s a summary of what that did: Power removed from incandescent bulbs: (7x40W + 2x70W) = 420W Power added from new bulbs (4x11W + 2x27W) = 98W Net power savings: 322W Now, if you browse through the internet, you can find find out that 1 kWh of electricity produces 1.6 pounds of carbon dioxide. Assuming I use the bathroom lights […]

Ok guys. I’m tossing the gauntlet down. If you haven’t been following recent events, a few days ago a major report on global warming came out that had some of the strongest language in it to date. The group of climate experts released a 21-page report for policy makers worldwide that indicates with more than a 90 percent accuracy that rising atmospheric temperatures and increased greenhouse gases are linked, and the “most likely” cause of global warming, suggesting that humans have caused the problem. […] The report found that it was “more likely than not” that manmade greenhouse gases have contributed to hotter days and nights, and more of them. Extreme weather patterns like more severe drought, greater than normal rainfall and more intense heat waves and “increased incidence” of extremely high sea levels are the result of man made greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere. If you’ve seen […]