Satu Blog Satu Pohon

Sebenarnya sudah banyak gerakan yang bertujuan untuk menghijaukan dan Menjaga Bumi ini. Tujuannya jelas, agar Bumi tidak terancam pemanasan global (Global Warming). Pemanasan global memang harus menjadi perhatian kita bersama, karena Bumi ini adalah tempat tinggal kita, kita hidup di sini, ini adalah milik kita bersama, titipan Tuhan, agar kita menjaganya bersama-sama.



Sebagai blogger, tentu kita ingin memberikan kontribusi yang nyata untuk Bumi ini. Ya, salah satunya dengan gerakan ini yaitu: Satu Blog Satu Pohon. Gerakan kecil tapi bila dilakukan bersama-sama akan menjadi besar.

Dari banyaknya blogger di Indonesia, tentu harus diarahkan untuk memberikan sesuatu untuk Bumi ini. Nah, bila Anda memiliki sebuah blog, mari kita tanam satu pohon. Pasang banner di atas sebagai tanda bahwa blog kita berkontribusi untuk Bumi ini. Kodenya bisa Anda dapatkan di sidebar blog ini.

Selamatkan Bumi, Stop Global Warming, kita hanya punya satu Bumi.

Global warming - extreme events and weird weather

After a few days to find complete information about global warming, finally I found the article by Andrew Freedman of the "will of global warming make the weather more extreme. " And this is quite interesting in my opinion, you can read the article below:

I've never been a fan of absolutes. People who espouse rigid beliefs - be they about climate change, religion, or politics (or a mix of all three) - instinctively make me question their evidence. As a reporter, I tend to see things in varying shades of gray, rather than black and white, and I gravitate towards stories that are full of nuance and complexity, where absolutes are rarely, if ever, to be found.

For this reason, the oft-made assertions that "global warming will make the weather more extreme" or that warming "caused" a particular severe weather event to occur, make me cringe.

There are core scientific findings in climate science that most climate researchers, and most science journalists, including myself, no longer consider to be hotly debated, such as the conclusion that most of global warming is very likely due to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.

You can read more this articel here

Public seminar today explores climate change

See how much you can learn about Public seminar today explores climate change when you take a little time to read a well-researched article? Don't miss out on the rest of this great information.

The public is invited to a seminar today about how climate change will change agriculture in this region.

"Climate change and Crop Production, Prospects for the Northern Great Plains" is the topic at the University of Manitoba Wednesday afternoon.

Soil scientist Paul Bullock from the university faculty is delivering the lecture from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Fort Garry campus, the Agriculture Building, #130 Carolyn Sifton Theatre.

The lecture marks the fifth Faculty Seminar Series this winter. Coffee and doughnuts will be served. Everyone is welcome. via

Global warming is our common problems

Global warming is our common problems. This can not go unpunished. Increasing the temperature of the earth and climate change has become evidence of global warming. Clearly, global warming is a clear and present danger. The principle of common but differentiated responsibility, the cornerstone of the Kyoto Protocol, reflects historical reality. However, implementing the principle is near impossible in a world defined by states, which militate against a sense of global responsibility.

In 2010 actually confirms global warming because it was the 34th consecutive year with temperatures above the 20th century global average. One effect is the diminishing of the Arctic sea ice cover. It is at its third smallest since records began in 1979. Another effect is freak weather conditions across the globe. The earth's temperature was higher by 0.62 degrees Celsius on the 20th century average making 2010, along with 2005, the hottest years since US records began in 1880. Last year was also the warmest in India since our records began in 1901. via

Recent facts about Global Warming in Spanish

Global warming still a hot issue for discussion. Recently, Spanish has a lot of facts about global warming. Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is now releasing Spanish versions of our newly created, state specific, global warming fact sheets. Through these translated materials, SACE is continuing its effort to educate the Latino community on the current and future impacts of global warming in the Southeast and the United States as a whole.

For far too long, Hispanics have been marginalized in the political process due to simple language barriers; an astounding fact given that over 15% of our country self-identifies as being of this ethnicity.

Global warming will affect everyone, yet studies show that it will affect some more than others. For example, there are nearly 4 million Hispanics in the state of Florida, comprising almost a quarter of the population.

Furthermore, Hispanics in the state earn on average $7,000 less a year than the average non-Hispanic white person. This disparity in income is important because a recent Oxfam America report highlighted that race and economic status play a key role in how much a person will be impacted by global warming.

The only way we can protect Latinos living in vulnerable areas is through education and encouraging increased participation to demand strong state and federal climate and energy policies from their legislators. via

Global Warming on Bulgaria on Christmas Day

Global warming is increasing. The previous record on Christmas Day in Veliko Tarnovo was recorded in 1956, long before the more recent effects of the global warming started to kick in, and it was only 16.6 degrees Celsius.

There is good reason to reflect for a moment about global warming. Weather forecasts predict that as of Monday, all of Bulgaria will experience much lower temperatures with the still typical winter weather setting in by the end of next week.

Instead of the traditional snowy Christmas, several Bulgarian cities had temperature records on December 25, 2010, Christmas Day. The highest air temperature in Bulgaria on Saturday was recorded in the northern city of Veliko Tarnovo – 20.1 degrees Celsius. via

The dinosaur age may become extinct due to global warming

Extinction of dinosaurs in New Zealand caused by global warming. Several types of extinct reptiles. It has survived ice ages, volcanic eruptions and the intrusion of humans on its South Pacific island home, but New Zealand's last survivor of the dinosaur age may become extinct due to global warming.

Mounted with spiny scales from head to tail and covered by rough, grey skin that disguises them among the trees, the tuatara is one of the world's oldest living creatures.

But the lizard-like reptile is facing increasing risk of extinction from global warming because of its dependency on the surrounding temperature which determines the sexes of unborn young while still in their eggs.

"They've certainly survived the climate changes in the past but most of them (past climate changes) have been at a more slower rate," said Jennifer Moore, a Victoria University researcher investigating the tuatara's sexual behaviour.

"So you wouldn't expect these guys to be able to adapt to a climate that's changing so rapidly."

The sex of a tuatara depends on the temperature of the soil where the eggs are laid. A cooler temperature produces females, while a warmer soil temperature results in male offsprings. [source]

Human activities are warming the planet at a dangerous rate

By Juliet Eilperin

An international panel of climate scientists said yesterday that there is an overwhelming probability that human activities are warming the planet at a dangerous rate, with consequences that could soon take decades or centuries to reverse.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of hundreds of scientists from 113 countries, said that based on new research over the last six years, it is 90 percent certain that human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over the past half-century.

Declaring that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the authors said in their "Summary for Policymakers" that even in the best-case scenario, temperatures are on track to cross a threshold to an unsustainable level. A rise of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels would cause global effects -- such as massive species extinctions and melting of ice sheets -- that could be irreversible within a human lifetime. Under the most conservative IPCC scenario, the increase will be 4.5 degrees by 2100.
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Richard Somerville, a distinguished professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and one of the lead authors, said the world would have to undertake "a really massive reduction in emissions," on the scale of 70 to 80 percent, to avert severe global warming.

The scientists wrote that it is "very likely" that hot days, heat waves and heavy precipitation will become more frequent in the years to come, and "likely" that future tropical hurricanes and typhoons will become more intense. Arctic sea ice will disappear "almost entirely" by the end of the century, they said, and snow cover will contract worldwide.

read more www.washingtonpost.com

Global warming and evolution

You can see that there's practical value in learning more about Global warming and evolution. Can you think of ways to apply what's been covered so far?

The battle over the science of global warming has long been a street fight between mainstream researchers and skeptics. But never have the scientists received such a deep wound as when, in late November, a large trove of e-mails and documents stolen from the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia were released onto the Web.

In the ensuing "Climategate" scandal, scientists were accused of withholding information, suppressing dissent, manipulating data and more. But while the controversy has receded, it may have done lasting damage to science's reputation: Last month, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 40 percent of Americans distrust what scientists say about the environment, a considerable increase from April 2007. Meanwhile, public belief in the science of global warming is in decline.

The central lesson of Climategate is not that climate science is corrupt. The leaked e-mails do nothing to disprove the scientific consensus on global warming. Instead, the controversy highlights that in a world of blogs, cable news and talk radio, scientists are poorly equipped to communicate their knowledge and, especially, to respond when science comes under attack.
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A few scientists answered the Climategate charges almost instantly. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, whose e-mails were among those made public, made a number of television and radio appearances. A blog to which Mann contributes, RealClimate.org, also launched a quick response showing that the e-mails had been taken out of context. But they were largely alone. "I haven't had all that many other scientists helping in that effort," Mann told me recently.

This isn't a new problem. As far back as the late 1990s, before the news cycle hit such a frenetic pace, some science officials were lamenting that scientists had never been trained in how to talk to the public and were therefore hesitant to face the media.

"For 45 years or so, we didn't suggest that it was very important," Neal Lane, a former Clinton administration science adviser and Rice University physicist, told the authors of a landmark 1997 report on the gap between scientists and journalists. ". . . In fact, we said quite the other thing."

The scientist's job description had long been to conduct research and to teach, Lane noted; conveying findings to the public was largely left to science journalists. Unfortunately, despite a few innovations, that broad reality hasn't changed much in the past decade.

read more www.washingtonpost.com

Global warming in a snowstorm

You can see that there's practical value in learning more about Global warming in a snowstorm. Can you think of ways to apply what's been covered so far?

The dead of winter – especially this winter with its massive snow storms in the eastern United States – is not the easiest time to make the case for global warming. Short-term weather events and long-range climate change are not the same thing, of course, but it’s hard to separate them in the public’s mind.

But it’s even harder these days to convincingly argue that climate change is a reality.

“Gloomy unemployment numbers, public frustration with Washington, attacks on climate science, and mobilized opposition to national climate legislation represent a ‘perfect storm’ of events that have lowered public concerns about global warming even among the alarmed,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change.

Yale and George Mason University recently polled on the question. Since 2008, the number of people who don’t believe global warming is happening has more than doubled to 16 percent. At the same time, those “alarmed” at the prospect of climate change has dropped from 18 percent to just 10 percent, and those who say they’re “concerned” has dropped from 33 percent to 29 percent.

As often happens, shifting attitudes change the political dynamic.

At the environment web site Grist, Amanda Little writes, “Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, one of the world’s most vociferous climate skeptics, is practically giddy these days.”

In the wake of recent scandals and heightened criticism of climate scientists, Inhofe is leading the charge against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former Vice President Al Gore.

“There is a crisis of confidence in the IPCC,” Inhofe said in a Senate speech earlier this month. “The challenges to the integrity and credibility of the IPCC merit a closer examination by the US Congress.”

Read more www.csmonitor.com

By Brad Knickerbocker

UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters

By Jonathan Leake, Science and Environment Editor

THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month's Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change minister, has suggested British and overseas floods — such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 — could be linked to global warming. Barack Obama, the US president, said last autumn: "More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent."

Last month Gordon Brown, the prime minister, told the Commons that the financial agreement at Copenhagen "must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by climate change are those that have done least harm".

The latest criticism of the IPCC comes a week after reports in The Sunday Times forced it to retract claims in its benchmark 2007 report that the Himalayan glaciers would be largely melted by 2035. It turned out that the bogus claim had been lifted from a news report published in 1999 by New Scientist magazine.

The new controversy also goes back to the IPCC's 2007 report in which a separate section warned that the world had "suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s".

It suggested a part of this increase was due to global warming and cited the unpublished report, saying: "One study has found that while the dominant signal remains that of the significant increases in the values of exposure at risk, once losses are normalised for exposure, there still remains an underlying rising trend."

The Sunday Times has since found that the scientific paper on which the IPCC based its claim had not been peer reviewed, nor published, at the time the climate body issued its report.

When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

Despite this change the IPCC did not issue a clarification ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit last month. It has also emerged that at least two scientific reviewers who checked drafts of the IPCC report urged greater caution in proposing a link between climate change and disaster impacts — but were ignored.

The claim will now be re-examined and could be withdrawn. Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a climatologist at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, who is vice-chair of the IPCC, said: "We are reassessing the evidence and will publish a report on natural disasters and extreme weather with the latest findings. Despite recent events the IPCC process is still very rigorous and scientific."

The academic paper at the centre of the latest questions was written in 2006 by Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at Risk Management Solutions, a London consultancy, who later became a contributing author to the section of the IPCC's 2007 report dealing with climate change impacts. He is widely respected as an expert on disaster impacts.

Muir-Wood wanted to find out if the 8% year-on-year increase in global losses caused by weather-related disasters since the 1960s was larger than could be explained by the impact of social changes like growth in population and infrastructure.

Such an increase, coinciding with rising temperatures, might suggest that global warming was to blame. If proven this would be highly significant, both politically and scientifically, because it would confirm the many predictions that global warming will increase the frequency and severity of natural hazards.

In the research Muir-Wood looked at a wide range of hazards, including tropical cyclones, thunder and hail storms, and wildfires as well as floods and hurricanes.

He found from 1950 to 2005 there was no increase in the impact of disasters once growth was accounted for. For 1970-2005, however, he found a 2% annual increase which "corresponded with a period of rising global temperatures,"

Muir-Wood was, however, careful to point out that almost all this increase could be accounted for by the exceptionally strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005. There were also other more technical factors that could cause bias, such as exchange rates which meant that disasters hitting the US would appear to cost proportionately more in insurance payouts.

Despite such caveats, the IPCC report used the study in its section on disasters and hazards, but cited only the 1970-2005 results.

The IPCC report said: "Once the data were normalised, a small statistically significant trend was found for an increase in annual catastrophe loss since 1970 of 2% a year." It added: "Once losses are normalised for exposure, there still remains an underlying rising trend."

Muir-Wood's paper was originally commissioned by Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, also an expert on disaster impacts, for a workshop on disaster losses in 2006. The researchers who attended that workshop published a statement agreeing that so far there was no evidence to link global warming with any increase in the severity or frequency of disasters. Pielke has also told the IPCC that citing one section of Muir-Wood's paper in preference to the rest of his work, and all the other peer-reviewed literature, was wrong.

He said: "All the literature published before and since the IPCC report shows that rising disaster losses can be explained entirely by social change. People have looked hard for evidence that global warming plays a part but can't find it. Muir-Wood's study actually confirmed that."

Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the Tyndall Centre, which advises the UK government on global warming, said there was no real evidence that natural disasters were already being made worse by climate change. He said: “A proper analysis shows that these claims are usually superficial”

Such warnings may prove uncomfortable for Miliband whose recent speeches have often linked climate change with disasters such as the floods that recently hit Bangladesh and Cumbria. Last month he said: “We must not let the sceptics pass off political opinion as scientific fact. Events in Cumbria give a foretaste of the kind of weather runaway climate change could bring. Abroad, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the great rivers of South Asia could put hundreds of millions of people at risk of drought. Our security is at stake.”

Muir-Wood himself is more cautious. He said: "The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost partly because of climate change is completely misleading. "We could not tell if it was just an association or cause and effect. Also, our study included 2004 and 2005 which was when there were some major hurricanes. If you took those years away then the significance of climate change vanished."

Some researchers have argued that it is unfair to attack the IPCC too strongly, pointing out that some errors are inevitable in a report as long and technical as the IPCC's round-up of climate science. "Part of the problem could simply be that expectations are too high," said one researcher. "We have been seen as a scientific gold standard and that's hard to live up to."

Professor Christopher Field,director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution in California, who is the new co-chairman of the IPCC working group overseeing the climate impacts report, said the 2007 report had been broadly accurate at the time it was written.

He said: “The 2007 study should be seen as “a snapshot of what was known then. Science is progressive. If something turns out to be wrong we can fix it next time around.” However he confirmed he would be introducing rigorous new review procedures for future reports to ensure errors were kept to a minimum.

source www.timesonline.co.uk

Center For American Progress: Snowstorm Doesn't Disprove Global Warming!

by Chris Good -- staff editor at TheAtlantic.com

Irked by the suggestion of climate change doubters that the East Coast snowstorm is proof that global warming doesn't exist, the liberal Center for American Progress pulled together a conference call today to tell reporters not only that that's not the case, but, basically, to stop being a mouthpiece for people who doubt the science.

Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground, got on the call to remind everyone that snowfall does not equal a drop in temperature--that as long as it's cold enough for snow, precipitation means a snowstorm.

More precipitation--including heavy snowstorms--is a sign of global warming, he said, as atmospheric moisture levels have increased with warmer temperatures, meaning more storms with heavy snow or rain.


"We still will have snowstorms, and the signs of record snowstorms being evidence against global warming is just not true," Masters said. "In the future we shouldn't be surprised to find heavier precipitation events."

Center for American Progress climate change fellow Joseph Romm criticized John M. Broder's New York Times story, in which Romm was quoted, which noted the uptick of global warming debate during the snowstorm. A chorus of Republicans have mocked Al Gore since the snowstorm hit. The family of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the leading climate change skeptic in the nation (and, by extension, perhaps the world) built an igloo on Capitol Hill bearing a sign that read "Al Gore's New Home." This is not new; cold weather often sparks criticisms of climate change, and of Gore.

"We're not in a deep freeze," Romm said of the NY Times headline, "Climate-Change Debate Is Heating Up in Deep Freeze."

"This actualy is, according to the satellite record, it's the warmest winter on record," Romm said. "The scientific literature predicts that you will see more intense winter storms because of global warming."

Romm pointed to warm temperatures (in the upper 40s) and likely rain during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

"I realize that this can be a complicated matter to report," Romm said. "The challenge for the media is gonna be how do you report about this statistical increase in extreme weather and not let those who don't understand the science obfuscate it."

Indonesia Earthhour

change the world in one hour. Switch off the lights Saturday, 27 March 2010 at 20:30 to 21:30. You can see all information about Indonesia Earthhour at www.earthhour.wwf.or.id

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

Youth Climate Movement

The Youth Climate Movement is an international coalition of youth organisations. The coalitions aims to inspire, empower and mobilise a generational movement of young people across the world to take action on climate change. The movement itself is supported by the charity UNICEF.

History



In 2001, United States youth attending the preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development formed SustainUS, whose members began to attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In June 2004, the Energy Action Coalition of America was formed, with 30 coalition partners, including SustainUS. Similar to the other Youth Climate Movements, the organisation has the objective of working together to leverage their collective power and create change for a clean, efficient, just and renewable energy future.

A year later from November 28 to December 9, 2005, the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Convention (COP 11 or COP/MOP 1) took place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. Youth delegations from member nations, including the United States and Australia, attended, to advocate on behalf of young people. As a result, the concept of the Global Youth Climate Movement was first coined.

Following on from this in September 2006, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition was launched, consisting of 48 youth organisations. This was soon followed by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition in November, which itself was a coalition of 27 youth organisations from across Australia.

In March 2008, the Indian Youth Climate Network joined the Global Youth Climate Movement whilst in June 2008, the United Kingdom ambassadors to the WWF's Voyage for the Future programme, Emma Biermann and Casper ter Kuile, created the UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC), after returning from the Arctic to witness the impact of climate change. More recently, coalitions in Africa, China, Japan and South Asia have been formed with the same mission statement as the global movement.

Campaigns

Since 2005, the each country that participates in the Youth Climate Movement sends a youth delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference to represent young people in their respective country. Throughout the year, there are other opportunities for the members of the International Youth Climate Movement to convene. For example, at the International Youth Summit on Energy and Climate Change in Beijing, China and the Conference of Youth, which this year will take place from the 4-6 December 2009.

At the same time, each coalition organises their own events on climate change.
Main article: Power Shift

Power Shift is the name of an annual youth summit which has been held in Australia and the United States. The United Kingdom's version of the conference is scheduled for October 9 to October 12 at the Institute of Education in London. Power Shift Conferences are also being organised by other members of the International Youth Climate Movement including Canada, Japan and India. The focus of the events is on global warming and climate change policy.

Members

National members of the Youth Climate Movement include: the AYLCF Climate Action Network (France); Australian Youth Climate Coalition; Canadian Youth Climate Coalition; China Youth Climate Action Network; Energy Action Coalition (America); Ghana National Youth Coalition on Climate Change; Hong Kong Climate Change Coalition; Indian Youth Climate Network; Japan Youth Ecology League; Nature and Youth Denmark; Nigerian Youth Green Coalition on Climate Change; Russian Youth Climate Movement, SustainUS, and the UK Youth Climate Coalition. Each of these national organisations affiliate to other national organisations. For example, the UK Youth Climate Coalition includes the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom, the Otesha Project UK and You, Me & The Climate (YOMAC). Similarly, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition has over 27 members.

Each Climate Coalition or Climate Network is affiliated to a regional or continental movement such as the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change; Caribbean Youth Environmental Network; European Youth Climate Movement; Nordic Youth Climate Action Movement; North East Asia Youth Environmental Network; the South American Youth Climate Coalition and the South Asia Youth Environment Network.

Consequently, these local, national and continental organisations come together to form the International Youth Climate Movement.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

World Wide Views on Global Warming

World Wide Views on Global Warming is a global project initiated by The Danish Board of Technology on the occasion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) held in Copenhagen December 2009.

World Wide Views on Global Warming (or just WWViews) is an international citizens involvement project based on methods developed by The Danish Board of Technology for the purpose of involving citizens in the political decision-making processes.

The WWViews Method

The World Wide Views project meetings are carried through on September 26 in 2009 at the same time in all the participating countries and on this day the citizens are going to debate the same topics issued at the actual Climate Change Conference in December the same year. On the basis of an informed and structured dialogue and expert presentations the citizens – 100 in each country – are thus going to make up their minds about a range of questions and dilemmas concerning different aspects of the climate debate. The results will be uploaded throughout the day and are publicly available almost in real time. Some answers will be quantifiable, permitting statistical comparison, but contrary to regular surveys the methods used for WWViews also give participants the option of discussing questions externally and further qualifying the answers.

World Wide Views on Global Warming gives citizens across the globe the possibility to influence political decisions in regard to the planet’s climate, because the meetings present citizens with the opportunity to express how far they are willing to let politicians go in the struggle to reduce CO2 emission.

The WWViews Partners

34 partners from 28 countries across the world have joined the World Wide Views on Global Warming and the number of project partners continues to expand.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

Western Fuels Association

The Western Fuels Association is a not-for profit cooperative that supplies coal and transportation services to consumer-owned electric utility in the Great Plains, Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions. It is based in Westminster, Colorado.

Controversy

The Western Fuels Association has played a controversial role in the debate over global warming. Their 2005 Annual report refers only to 'environmental and regulatory uncertainty', but they have been more outspoken in past annual reports. They have established groups such as the Greening Earth Society which promote various forms of climate change skepticism and have funded individual skeptics, such as Patrick Michaels, Craig D. Idso and Sherwood Idso. Groups established by industry bodies like the Western Fuels Association have been criticized as Astroturf organizations, since they appear superficially to be grassroots initiatives.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

West Antarctic Ice Sheet

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the segment of the continental ice sheet that covers West (or Lesser) Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica west of the Transantarctic Mountains. The WAIS is classified as a marine-based ice sheet, meaning that its bed lies well below sea level and its edges flow into floating ice shelves. The WAIS is bounded by the Ross Ice Shelf, the Ronne Ice Shelf, and outlet glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea.

Description



It is estimated that the volume of the Antarctic ice sheet is about 25.4 million km3, and the WAIS contains just under 10% of this, or 2.2 million km3. The weight of the ice has caused the underlying rock to sink by between 0.5 and 1 kilometres in a process known as isostatic depression.

Under the force of its own weight, the ice sheet deforms and flows. The interior ice flows slowly over rough bedrock. In some circumstances, ice can flow faster in ice streams, separated by slow-flowing ice ridges. The inter-stream ridges are frozen to the bed while the bed beneath the ice streams consists of water-saturated sediments. Many of these sediments were deposited before the ice sheet occupied the region, when much of West Antarctica was covered by the ocean. The rapid ice-stream flow is a non-linear process still not fully understood; streams can start and stop for unclear reasons.

When ice reaches the coast, it will continue to flow outward onto the water. The result is a large, floating shelf of ice affixed to the continent.

Potential collapse

Large parts of the WAIS sit on a reverse-sloping bed below sea level. The reverse slope, and the low isostatic head, means that the ice sheet is theoretically unstable: a small retreat could in theory destabilize the entire WAIS leading to rapid disintegration. Current computer models do not include the physics necessary to simulate this process, and observations do not provide guidance, so predictions as to its rate of retreat remain uncertain. This has been known for decades.

In January 2006, in a UK government-commissioned report, the head of the British Antarctic Survey, Chris Rapley, warned that this huge west Antarctic ice sheet may be starting to disintegrate. It has been hypothesised that this disintegration could raise sea levels by approximately 3.3 metres (10 ft). Although if the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet was to melt this would contribute 4.8 m to global sea level. Rapley said a previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report playing down worries about the ice sheet's stability should be revised. "The last IPCC report characterized Antarctica as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change," he wrote. "I would say it is now an awakened giant. There is real concern." Note that the IPCC report did not use the words "slumbering giant".

Rapley said, "Parts of the Antarctic ice sheet that rest on bedrock below sea level have begun to discharge ice fast enough to make a significant contribution to sea level rise. Understanding the reason for this change is urgent in order to be able to predict how much ice may ultimately be discharged and over what timescale. Current computer models do not include the effect of liquid water on ice sheet sliding and flow, and so provide only conservative estimates of future behaviour."

James Hansen, a senior NASA scientist who is a leading climate adviser to the US government, said the results were deeply worrying. "Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid," he said.

Indications that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass at an increasing rate come from the Amundsen Sea sector, and three glaciers in particular: the Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith Glaciers. Data reveal they are losing more ice than is being replaced by snowfall. According to a preliminary analysis, the difference between the mass lost and mass replaced is about 60%. The melting of these three glaciers alone is contributing an estimated 0.24 millimetres per year to the rise in the worldwide sea level. There is growing evidence that this trend is accelerating: there has been a 75% increase in Antarctic ice mass loss in the ten years 1996-2006, with glacier acceleration a primary cause.

Polar ice experts from the U.S. and U.K. met at the University of Texas at Austin in March, 2007 for the West Antarctic Links to Sea-Level Estimation (WALSE) Workshop. The experts discussed a new hypothesis that explains the observed increased melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. They proposed that changes in air circulation patterns have led to increased upwelling of warm, deep ocean water along the coast of Antarctica and that this warm water has increased melting of floating ice shelves at the edge of the ice sheet. An ocean model has shown how changes in winds can help channel the water along deep troughs on the sea floor, toward the ice shleves of outlet glaciers. The exact cause of the changes in circulation patterns is not known and they may be due to natural variability. However, this connection between the atmosphere and upwelling of deep ocean water provides a mechanism by which human induced climate changes could cause an accelerated loss of ice from WAIS. Recently published data collected from satellites support this hypothesis, suggesting that the west Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to show signs of instability.

Warming

The West Antarctic ice sheet has warmed by more than 0.1 °C/decade in the last 50 years, and is strongest in winter and spring. Although this is partly offset by fall cooling in East Antarctica, this effect is restricted to the 1980s and 1990s. The continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive and significant at >0.05°C/decade since 1957. This warming of WAIS is strongest in the Antarctic Peninsula.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

The Weather Makers

The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change (2005) is a book by Tim Flannery.

The book received critical acclaim, and won the major prize at the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.

Description

The book includes 36 short essays predicting the consequences of global warming. The book reviews evidence of historical climate change and attempts to compare this with the current era. The book argues that if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase at current rates, the resulting climate change will cause mass species extinctions. The book also asserts that global temperatures have already risen enough to cause the annual monsoon rains in the Sahel region of Africa to diminish, causing droughts and desertification. This in turn, according to Flannery, has caused the conflict in the Darfur region through competition for disappearing resources. Further consequences, argued in the book, include increasing hurricane intensity, and decline in the health of coral reefs.

The final third of the book discusses proposed solutions. Flannery advocates individual action as well as international and governmental actions. He argues that a few industries such as the coal industry, currently responsible for 40% of the energy consumed in the U.S., remain opponents of needed action. The book retraces the evidence that the administration, motivated by coal-industry donations to the Republican party, undermines political action by omitting mention of climate change from government documents. The book cites evidence against the argument that conservation is bad for economies.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

Waterworld

Waterworld is a 1995 post-apocalyptic science fiction film. The film was directed by Kevin Reynolds, co-written by Peter Rader and David Twohy based on Rader's original 1986 screenplay and stars Kevin Costner, who also produced it. It was distributed by Universal Pictures.

The film release was accompanied by a tie-in novel and video game, and also two popular themed attractions at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Japan based on the film, called Waterworld: A Live Sea War Spectacular, which are both still running as of 2009.

Factions within the film

After the doomsday event of flooding caused by global warming melting the ice caps and end of civilization, the ramshackle remnants of the human race who survived the deluge now live in large floating constructs made up of various rusty junk and grimy debris found floating on the ocean; these watery settlements are called atolls after the similar type of island which no longer exist. The dwellers of atolls are a nautical society, albeit a gritty, primitive and superstitious one, with a patriarchal structure.

The atollers refer to anybody outside their atoll as "outwaters", and are very suspicious of them. On occasion, however, drifters are permitted entry in to the atolls, but only temporarily, and only if they can show the guards and/or enforcers they have something of value to trade with, such as food, plants, seeds, cigarettes, paper, dirt, and "hydro" (fresh water).

Due to the extreme limitation of living space in the settlements, and also the sparse resources, the atoll elders limit the number of citizens to a steady and constant number, thus avoiding the issue of overpopulation. Since there is no ground to bury the dead in, the dead are placed in a yellow brine pool, whereupon they are "recycled". Occasionally, drifters are asked to mate with the women of the atolls to expand on the shallow gene pool of the inhabitants, in an attempt to avoid inbreeding and also a population bottleneck situation, meaning they are an exogamous society. However, the only time women are permitted to try for a child is when a citizen of the atoll dies, thus keeping the population number steady.

Drifters

Drifters ply the water in boats, yachts, catamarans, and trimarans. They have a rule whereby whenever two drifters come across each other, something "must be traded" between them, although as seen in the film many are driven by desperation to try and steal from each other. Drifters are almost always loners. As seen in the film, some drifters are driven insane by their long and seemingly endless solitude on the waves.

As well as speaking English as a common tongue, Drifters also speak in Hindi. Another language used on Waterworld is "Portu-Greek," which is an apparent amalgamation of Portuguese and Greek used at some outlying trading posts.

Aquatic human mutants

Some humans have spent so long in aquatic environments that they developed or were genetically engineered to have genetic mutations to their environment; they have webbed feet, which enable them to swim at inhumanly high speeds, and gills located behind the ears, which enable them to breathe underwater.

Mutants are able to keep ordinary humans from drowning underwater by transferring the oxygen to them via kiss of life. In the film, Old Gregor (Michael Jeter) refers to these gills as "isotropic gills", and functional as opposed to vestigial. They also have excellent vision underwater, and in addition to their speed and stealth, they are also very strong. They also have the sense of electroreception either above or below the water, being able to tell when it is about to rain, or when a storm is approaching. Their bodies are apparently very tough, being able to resist the intense water pressure at the ocean floor, and having explored much of the previous drowned civilization.

Old Gregor refers to these genetic mutants as Ichthyus Sapiens (Latin for "wise fish"), although it is unclear as to whether this is an established term for the mutants or one that Gregor simply made up. The other less educated atollers refer to them as "mut-o".

The protagonist and antihero of the film, the nameless Mariner (portrayed by Kevin Costner), is such a mutant, although no more mutants are seen in the film. However, from certain lines of dialogue in the film, it is clear there are more of his kind. The leader of the smokers, the Deacon (portrayed by Dennis Hopper), refers to the protagonist as a "guppy freak", and, in line with his quasi-religious nature, believes that no such "abominations" could exist in nature. It is stated that Ichthyus Sapiens do not need to eat for days on end.

Smokers

Pirates are known commonly as "smokers" because of the smoke from oil-power machines, such as personal water craft and aeroplanes, which they make use of. They also apply great cultural significance to the smoking of cigarettes, even to the point of giving their children cigarettes, and trade in a brand of cigarettes referred to as "Black Death".

The smokers obtain many of their wares as marauders and by raiding the settlements of the featureless surface of Waterworld. Many smokers appear to be quite sadistic and revel in murder and carnage; often their reputation precedes them.

The base of the smokers is the rusted old carcass of an oil tanker, referred to as the Deez, which is revealed to be the Exxon Valdez in a brief shot. Although the tanker no longer has any functional engines, the smokers still have a large supply of crude oil aboard the tanker, and apparently a small oil refinery, as they are able to refine the crude oil into gasoline to power the jet skis and planes they make use of. The Deacon also mentions refining but states that they are running out of "the black stuff" and the "go-juice" rapidly, and that they only have "two lunars" (or months) left of it. The smokers have also hoarded large quantities of firearms, heavy artillery, ammunition, spam, paper, tobacco, cigarettes and whiskey aboard the tanker. The smokers move the tanker by use of dozens of oars that stick out of the foam-encrusted hull.

The captain of the tanker and also the leader of the smokers is looked up to as a messianic figure, as he has promised to lead the smokers to the mythical "dry land", and in line with this quasi-religious nature, he is referred to as "Deacon". The Deacon, or "Deac", has an intense hatred for anything of the old world, especially sails, instead preferring the mechanical machines, and believes that his aim to raid atolls is a "crusade". He teaches his men a philosophy of "take and ye shall receive." The smokers also worship a former historical captain of the tanker, Joseph Hazelwood, as "Saint Joe".

The Deacon's inner circle is well organized and includes a man with medical knowledge, and a man who follows the Deacon around with a ledger and a top hat who records everything which happens for posterity, and also informs the Deacon of various statistics he needs to know. The Deacon's lieutenant or second-in-command is a large and imposing man of Scandinavian descent, referred to as "the Nord", who is reminiscent of a viking. The Nord likes to be in the thick of the action and delights in murder, leading the raids on atolls and also posing as a spy for reconnaissance. Smokers refer to each other as "cousins".

The primary goal of the smokers in the film is to find an orphan girl named Enola (Tina Majorino), who as myth states came from the legendary "dry land", and has directions to it on a tattoo placed on her back. What the Deacon plans to do with "dry land" is unclear though. In the extended cut, the Deacon claims he wishes to create a "church of eternal growth" for the smokers.

Slavers

Although not seen in the film, slave traders are talked about and mentioned throughout. This would suggest that there is an active slave trade in Waterworld, although in the theatrical cut of the film this slave trade is little elaborated on, nor do we see what form this slave trade takes. In the extended cut of the film, it makes clear that the ruthless Mariner's initial intentions are to sell Helen and Enola to slave traders, but relents as he grows to know them.

Border outposts

Although there is no longer any land, certain areas of Waterworld are set out as clear territories for the various factions and groups who dwell on the water's surface. The borders of these territories are defined by the outposts on the outskirts of the territories. It appears they also act as trading outposts, repair shops and lighthouses. The outpost keepers speak in "Portu-Greek". Only one such outpost is seen in the film, in which the outpost keepers have been killed by the smokers who attempt to lay a trap for the Mariner at the outpost.

Plot summary

The setting of the film is the distant future, although no exact date is given. (Suggested as 2500.) The polar ice caps have completely melted, and the sea level has risen many thousands of feet, covering all the land. An antihero known only as "the Mariner" (Kevin Costner), is a drifter who sails the Earth in his trimaran. He comes into an atoll seeking to trade his dirt, which is now a precious commodity. There, it is revealed that he is a mutant with webbed feet and gills, a new step in evolution to accommodate the changes in climate. The atollers, fearful of him, vote to "recycle" him by drowning him in a yellow sludge-like brine pool. At this moment, pirates known as "smokers" arrive in a raid on the atoll, as they have been tipped off by a smoker spy posing as a trader (Gerard Murphy), known as "the Nord".

The smokers are searching for an orphan girl living there named Enola, who has what appears to be directions to dry land tattooed on her back. Her caretaker is Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn), the atoll's shopkeeper, and they plan to escape with Gregor (Michael Jeter), the atoll's expert on hydroelectric power and resident astrologer and inventor, in the hopes of finding dry land. Unfortunately, Gregor's escape method, a hot air balloon made of old rags, launches too early with him on it, leaving Helen and Enola stranded. Instead, they escape with the Mariner, who agrees to take them with him as they saved his life, but seems ill-pleased with their company as he prefers solitude. Chasing them is "the Deacon" (Dennis Hopper), who is the captain of a derelict oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez, and the leader of the smokers. He also wants to get to dry land, and has a number of skirmishes with the Mariner in his attempts to get Enola back.

Helen, convinced that dry land exists, demands to know where the Mariner finds his dirt. The Mariner, who can breathe underwater, puts her in a diving bell, and swims down to a sunken city on the ocean floor and grabs a handful of earth. While they are beneath the ocean's surface, the Deacon and his smokers board the boat. The Mariner and Helen escape as the Deacon burns it and captures Enola. Since Helen cannot breathe underwater, the Mariner breathes for the both of them, resulting in a prolonged underwater kiss of life. They are later rescued by Gregor and he takes them to a new makeshift atoll where the survivors of the first atoll attack have regrouped.

Using a jetski, the Mariner chases down the Exxon Valdez and boards it. There, the Deacon is having a great celebration, during which he tosses gifts of cigarettes and spam to the crew of the tanker, proclaiming they have found the map to dry land. After they have all gone below the ship to row, the Mariner walks out onto the deck and threatens to drop a flare into the oil reserves unless the Deacon releases Enola. The Deacon, believing that the Mariner is bluffing, refuses. The Mariner drops the flare down into the oil reserves.

The ship explodes, and the Mariner escapes with Enola rescued by climbing a rope dropped by Gregor from his balloon. The Deacon, still alive, grabs the rope and tries to pull Enola. The Deacon loses his grip and falls into the water. Still alive, he pulls out his pistol and shoots at the balloon, hitting one of the lines, causing Enola to fall back into the sea. The Deacon and two other Smokers, all on jet skis, converge on Enola. The Mariner ties a rope around his ankle and bungee jumps down to grab Enola, pulling her out of the water as the three jet skis collide and explode.

Gregor figures out the map, translating the Oriental symbols using an old and tattered China Airlines magazine, and realises they are latitude and longitude coordinates and steers his balloon in that direction. The group indeed finds dry land, which turns out to be a portion of Mt. Everest, which is still above sea level. As Gregor, Enola, Helen and the others land on the island and find past traces of civilization, including the skeletons of Enola's parents, they begin to start civilization anew on the island, but the Mariner decides to leave. Enola, saddened to hear the Mariner leaving, asks why he must go. He explains that he doesn't belong on dry land, and that the ocean, his only home, calls out to him. He finds a new boat near the beach, and sails off. Enola and Helen look out to him drifting away, back to his old life.

Cast

* Kevin Costner – The Mariner
* Jeanne Tripplehorn – Helen
* Tina Majorino – Enola
* Dennis Hopper – The Deacon
* Gerard Murphy - The Nord
* Michael Jeter – Old Gregor
* R.D. Call – Enforcer at the Atoll
* Jack Black - Smoker Plane Pilot
* John Toles-Bey - Ed, Smoker Plane Gunner
* Robert Joy - Ledger Guy
* John Fleck - Smoker Doctor
* Kim Coates – Crazed Drifter
* Sab Shimono – Elder of the Atoll
* Leonardo Cimino - Elder of the Atoll
* Jack Kehler – Banker
* Rick Aviles – Gatesman at the Atoll
* Sean Whalen – Bone
* Lee Arenberg - Djeng
* Robert LaSardo - Smitty
* William Preston - Depth Gauge
* Chris Douridas - Atoller

Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper would co-star 13 years later in the film Swing Vote (2008 film), while Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino would later co-star on the series Big Love.

Production

The film was the follow-up project to the last collaboration between Kevin Costner and Kevin Reynolds, who previously worked together on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991. The film was co-written by David Twohy, who went on to also write G.I. Jane, Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. Twohy cited Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior as a major inspiration, which has the same director of photography as Waterworld, Dean Semler.

Gene Hackman, James Caan and Gary Oldman all turned down the role of the Deacon. Anna Paquin was the first choice to play Enola.

During production, the film became notorious as it was plagued by a series of cost overruns and production setbacks. Universal Pictures initially authorized a budget of $100 million, but ballooning production costs eventually ran to an estimated $175 million, a record sum for a film production at the time. Filming took place in a large artificial sea water enclosure similar to that used in the film Titanic two years later; it was located in the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Hawaii. The final scene was filmed in a valley on the Big Island, Waipio Valley, also referred to as The Valley of Kings. The production was hampered by the collapse of this multi-million dollar set during a hurricane. Additional filming also took place in Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, California, and Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California.

Kevin Costner was on the set 157 days, working 6 days a week. At one point, he nearly died when he got caught up in a squall while tied to the mast of his trimaran. Laird Hamilton, the famous big wave rider was Kevin Costner’s stunt double for many water scenes. Hamilton, who had been commuting to the set via jet-ski, was lost at sea when his jet-ski ran out of fuel between Maui and the Big Island. He drifted for many hours before being spotted by a Coast Guard plane and rescued; when the abandoned jet-ski washed up on shore on the island of Lanai, he went over to fetch it and drove it back home again. Stunt coordinator Norman Howell succumbed to decompression sickness during filming of an underwater scene and was rushed to a hospital in Honolulu by helicopter. He recovered fairly quickly from the potentially life-threatening sickness and returned to the set two days later. Tina Majorino was nicknamed "Jellyfish Candy" by Costner after she was stung three different times by jellyfish during production.

Mark Isham's score was reportedly rejected by Costner because it was "too ethnic and bleak", contrasting the film's futuristic and adventurous tone; James Newton Howard was brought in to write the new score. Joss Whedon flew out to the set to do last minute rewrites on the script and later described it as "seven weeks of hell".

There was one clear winner of the film's production: the state of Hawaii, which had more than $35 million dollars poured into its state economy as a result of the colossal film production.

Rumours abound that, after the filming ran notoriously over-budget, Kevin Costner fired Kevin Reynolds as director and shot the last few scenes himself. Other rumours suggest Reynolds was not fired, but simply walked off set with two weeks of filming left. Their previously acclaimed partnership ended with this film.

Trimaran

Inspired by racing trimarans built by Jeanneau Advanced Technologies' multi-hull division Lagoon; a custom 60 foot (18 m) yacht was designed by Marc Van Peteghem & Vincent Lauriot-Prevost, and built in France by Lagoon. Two versions were built, 1) a relatively standard racing trimaran for distance shots, and 2) a effects-laden transforming trimaran for closeup shots, and the aforementioned transformation. The first trimaran was launched on 2 April 1994, and first surpassed 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) in September of that year.

The transforming version was first seen in the film as a sort of raft with a three-bladed egg-beater windmill. When needed levers could be triggered that would flatten the windmill blades while raising a hidden mast to full racing height. This was followed by revealing a boom previously hidden in the hull, and automated unfurling of the two sails. Once the transformation was complete this version could actually sail, although not as well as the dedicated racer.

The first boat is stored in a lake at Universal Studios Florida, and the second is in private hands in San Diego, California.

Box office and reception

Problems encountered during filming led to massive budget overrun, and it held the dubious distinction of being the most expensive film ever made at the time. Some critics dubbed it "Fishtar" and "Kevin's Gate" (references to the notorious flops Ishtar and Heaven's Gate).

With a budget of $175 million, the film grossed a mere $88 million at the U.S. box office, which seemed to make it the all time box office bomb. Adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2006 dollars (USD), the budget for the movie was $231.6 million, and grossed $116.8 million at the U.S. box office.

The film, however, did much better overseas, with $176 million at the foreign box office (for a total of $264 million), and good VHS and later DVD sales.

Contemporary reviews for the film were mixed, and varied widely. Roger Ebert said of Waterworld: "The cost controversy aside, Waterworld is a decent futuristic action picture with some great sets, some intriguing ideas, and a few images that will stay with me. It could have been more, it could have been better, and it could have made me care about the characters. It's one of those marginal pictures you're not unhappy to have seen, but can't quite recommend."

After bringing some disappointing numbers in the U.S., the film was nominated for 4 Razzie Awards including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Kevin Costner) and Worst Director, with Dennis Hopper winning the award as Worst Supporting Actor.

Novelization

A tie-in novel of the film was released to coincide with the movie's opening, which was written by Max Allan Collins and published by Arrow Books Ltd. The novelization goes into much greater detail regarding the world of the film, and closes many of the apparent plot holes therein.

Comic Books

A sequel comic book four issue mini-series titled Waterworld: Children of Leviathan was released by Acclaim Comics in 1997. Kevin Costner did not permit his likeness to be used for the comics, thus the Mariner looks uniquely original. In the story we learn a little about the Mariner's back-story as he gathers clues about where he came from and why he's different from others.

Extended cut

The initial filmed script ran at over five hours. The original director's cut of the film was trimmed and submitted to the studio at a length of around three hours. But most of it was then trimmed down again by the studio and Kevin Costner against the wishes of director Kevin Reynolds to a running length of 136 minutes, and Costner re-shot or re-edited some major plot points.

It wasn't until 1998 that the ABC network premiered Waterworld as a two-night event with an additional 40 minutes of footage that was never seen during its theatrical run. These additional scenes make for a more solid cohesion of the film and fill some previous plot holes. However, despite being much longer than the theatrical cut, the ABC cut was heavily edited for language, violence, action, some nudity. Some examples of this are:

* the opening shot of the Mariner urinating;
* the shot in which the Mariner shoots the gatesman of the atoll (Rick Aviles) through the foot with a harpoon gun;
* Helen's undressing on the Mariner's triamaran;
* the shot where the gunner of the smoker airplane is speared through the chest by the harpoon gun;
* the shot where the Mariner crushes the smoker referred to as "Smitty" (Robert LaSardo) with a jet-ski.

All of these, and more, were omitted in the ABC cut, as the cut was to be shown on television whereby minors may see it. Swear words are replaced with less offensive words such as "toilet" and "slimeball." The picture quality of the ABC cut was also poorer than the theatrical cut.

Despite these heavy edits, this 177-minute version was praised by fans of the film for the previously-unseen footage it contained and was widely bootlegged, and increased in popularity over the years, as the extended cut was syndicated on stations like Bravo, USA, and AMC. However, most of these stations only included 20 to 30 minutes of the extra footage, and not the full 40 minutes or so of the extended ABC cut. Scenes were still missing, especially excluding the Mount Everest ending in some broadcasts. It wasn't shown in its entirety until the full ABC cut, with commercials, was finally seen on SCI FI. The SCI FI cut remains the most complete cut of the film to date.

After many petitions and pleas from Waterworld fans, Universal reissued it in November 2008 on DVD in a two-disc set. Despite being void of extras, except the theatrical trailer, this contained a new anamorphic widescreen transfer and the extended cut. Fans were disappointed to find that the extended cut, despite being in a widescreen format, was actually a transfer of the ABC cut, which was itself heavily edited for profanity and violence and had a poorer quality of picture, rather than the unedited and major restoration-cut that fans had hoped for.

There remains to be released a major restoration of the film which is not subject to heavy edits.

Additional scenes

The original cut of Waterworld contained many additional character developments, and contributed less confusion to the film. Most of these are included in the first broadcast on ABC and syndicated versions of the extended cut, but some scenes are missing or dropped to fill in a three-hour block with commercials during such broadcasts. This was the version that was syndicated, until the Sci-Fi Channel picked the rights to air the full cut. Here is a detailed highlight of what was added:

* Prior to the Mariner's arrival at the atoll, an elderly drifter with long white hair and beard is shown outside the gates to the city, and wants to barter his hair for a small portion of hydro. The guards do not grant him entrance, as they say they already have enough traders, just as they do at first with the Mariner.

* After the Mariner shows the guards of the atoll his gadgets and jar of dirt and is permitted entry, shots are added of the guards blasting the other drifters at the gates with giant water hoses, or perhaps fire hoses, to prevent them from also entering as the Mariner is let in.

* A slightly longer version of the bank scene, where the Mariner grabs all the chits and leaves an amazed crowd.

* The bar scene is much longer, and it begins with an additional moment of a barfly telling Helen how impressive the Mariner's dirt is. This includes a new shot of the Mariner approaching, and more footage of him buying more hydro. Plus, the Nord has more lines (speaking some lines in Norwegian). It is clearer that the Nord suspects the Mariner of being a mutant. Enola's tattoo is seen more clearly for a few more seconds.

* When a family offers the Mariner their daughter, there is an additional line from an elder explaining that when a member of the atoll dies, they gain the social right to give birth to another family member, making the barter more clear.

* A new scene where a trial on the Mariner is held. At a night meeting, an atoller shows some of the items they confiscated from the Mariner's ship, which are in fact various gadgets from the previous civilization, and gives a negative interpretation for each one, believing the Mariner to be a murderer and a Smoker spy. The atollers believe a yo yo is garotte wire, a ThighMaster to be a torture device, and a clarinet to be spy surveillance equipment. Helen defends the Mariner, knowing that he might know where Dryland is. Helen claims that they need to find Dryland fast, if it does indeed exist, as their atoll is dying, their way of life ending, and many other similar atolls have died out. The Mariner may be the only one capable of leading them to Dryland. But, the council ignores her pleas and decide the Mariner's fate. They also bay for the blood of Enola, as they have heard the rumour that the smokers are looking for her.

* A bunch of kids menace the Mariner and tease him with a fish. However, this backfires, as he scares them off. This cuts into a scene where Gregor calculates the meaning of Enola's tattoo, but finds himself cornered again. Helen shows up, and there is more dialogue between the two, as Helen fears that the atollers may eventually set them all adrift.

* The attack on the Atoll is much longer, with more footage of the Atollers preparing for the assault (including the use of the sharp bills of swordfish as melee weapons), Gregor assembling the flying machine, a woman demanding they give Enola over to the Smokers and her death, and Gregor, trying to mount the flying machine, runs up the stairs and leaps onto it.

* The Deacon arrives at the remains of the atoll, as Smokers are raiding the water supply and cutting down trees with chain saws. His record-keeper reports to him on the spoils of the raid, much to the disappointment of the Deacon, who feels that the previous attacks were more "worthy." When told the atoll contains no cigarettes or ammunition, the Deacon states that they are savages. He also states that his "crusade" is coming to an end, as there are barely any atolls left to plunder.

* An added scene where the Deacon summarizes the origin of the world in a sermon, stating that the world was made as a ball of water by God and how mutations can't be possible as the concept of evolution is false, all whilst interrogating the two prisoners. The smokers say amen at the conclusion of the Deacon's sermon.

* A shot of the Mariner fixing the bullet holes beneath the water line is followed by additional dialogue between him and Helen, and added footage of Enola exploring the lower deck of the Trimaran.

* A scene where the Mariner makes some fresh hydro, and waters his plant. He explains that he doesn't make hydro out of seawater because it is harder on the filters. With some left, he gives it to Enola, after Helen asks for it, who in return thanks the Mariner with a hug. Enola also thanks him for not throwing her and Helen overboard to save his hydro. The Mariner responds by shoving Enola aside, and Helen warns Enola to stay away from him.

* After the airplane assault, there is a much longer version of the Deacon and the Nord plotting to capture the Mariner, which includes more lines from Jack Black's character, the smoker airplane pilot, who is upset over the death of his friend, Ed the airplane gunner. He refers to Helen as "the atoll witch". It is also made clearer that the Deacon wants to capitalize the newfound land and convert it into a resort, and we see a drawing of it. (This scene was split into two parts, with the second half ending the first part of the ABC TV cut.)

* Prior to the bizarre Drifter's arrival, a sequence is added where the Mariner is eating a tomato, with Helen and Enola watching in hunger.

* The scene where the Mariner fishes is presented as a separate scene, where Helen teases him, saying that he "can't fish."

* The scene where Helen and the Mariner talk by moonlight is much longer, with a CD player the Mariner has repaired to working order playing jazz music in the background. Helen explains that she isn't Enola's mother, and how she found Enola in a basket floating on the waves. The basket was also filled with dirt far darker and richer then any she had seen before, and so she believes Enola must have come from "Dryland", along with this dirt. The other atollers wanted to shove Enola back out to sea as they wouldn't allow for another citizen, but in her compassion Helen promised the elders that she would raise Enola as her own and forfeit the right to have her own child instead. The Mariner doesn't understand this, and says that his only ever friend is his boat, which will never lie to him, or cut his throat when he is asleep. Helen says she pities him, so the Mariner looks up the meaning of the word in an issue of National Geographic magazine, where the definition of pity is given as the name of a bushman, leaving the Mariner even more confused.

* After the scene at the border outpost where the Mariner was shot, it is made clear that the place the Mariner was heading was a slaver colony, and that his plan was to sell Helen and Enola to them. Helen realizes this, and tells the Mariner there is nothing human about him, and he should have been killed at birth. The Mariner responds by saying "they tried".

* After finding Enola, the Nord presents the Deacon with the Mariner's National Geographic issues, and they all marvel at the pictures of Dryland.

* The scene where the Deacon talks to Enola is longer, as he explains that the smokers are growing in number and that he needs more land in order to continue his development, with what he calls his "church of eternal growth", and also his desire to make roads and highways. Enola suggests "making" fewer people and limiting the population to a steady number like in the atolls. (This would have caused controversy with various religions, and is possibly why this scene got cut.) The scene also ends with the Deacon ordering Enola chained up, while she screams that the Mariner will come to save her.

* A scene is deleted and moved to a later spot, where the Mariner is looking over the remains of his ship, and finally realizes that Enola may know where Dryland is. Instead, a scene is inserted where Helen claims she can't go any further, but the Mariner won't quit. It then cuts to a shot of Gregor's ship flying in the clouds, following the smoke, and discovering the two, explaining how he found them.

* About 4–5 minutes of footage is restored, where the group joins the New Atoll, and Helen is having a hard time convincing them to save Enola. The Mariner doesn't want to save her, and returns to the Trimaran wreckage. There, he sees Enola's drawings, and compares them to a National Geographic issue. He finally realizes that she does know where Dryland is. He returns to the New Atoll to find two Smokers terrorizing the group. He dispatches them, lights one of the jet-skis on fire, which creates a fire trail leading to the Deez. This explains how he managed to get a jet-ski and locate the Deez in the theatrical cut of the film.

* In the above added footage, it is made clearer that a pole shift has occurred in the planet, turning the world upside down.

* After crashing into the smoker referred to as "Smitty" (Robert LaSardo) with a jet-ski while docking inside the Deez, two Smokers appear and menace the Mariner for a moment. They then change tune and congratulate the Mariner for killing Smitty, seeing how annoyed they were with Smitty, and not realizing the Mariner isn't a smoker like them (this may be because the Mariner is wearing goggles he took off Horse, a smoker he drowned in the water.) One of these smokers, Djeng, celebrates that, due to the fact Smitty is dead, he is now in charge of the lower decks of the Deez. Djeng is played by Lee Arenberg, who later went on to have a large part in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.

* As the Mariner is climbing up the inside of the Deez, there is an added sequence whereby the Mariner notices a loudspeaker playing the Deacon's speech, as the Deacon is talking about settling, building on and capitalizing on "Dryland". The Mariner is startled for a moment, not knowing what the speaker is, and thinking thr Deacon is in close proximity. Realizing the speaker is the source of the voice, the Mariner responds by hacking it to pieces with a machete.

* Before telling the two Smokers to drive into Enola, the Deacon yells, "If I can't have Dryland, no one will!!!"

* After rescuing Enola, Gregor reveals a map he discovered, which he uses to direct the airship to Dryland, also with the use of a sextant.

* There is much more dialogue in the final scene. Before the Mariner leaves, the enforcer shakes the Mariner's hand, saying that is all he has, and the Mariner replies "it is enough". Gregor gives the Mariner dirt, and says don't trade it all at once at another atoll, and then says maybe he should, and then come back for more dirt. Helen pleads with the Mariner to stay, but he refuses, saying he doesn't belong on land. When Helen asks what the Mariner is looking for out at sea, the Mariner says he wants to look for more of his kind, because Gregor said it is likely there are more mutants out at sea. He also says that Helen is responsible for finding Dryland, because she never gave up hope. If he finds any other humans at sea, he will tell them about Helen and her story of courage, and where to find Dryland. Helen's gift to the Mariner is not something he can trade with, which the Mariner states would be the first such free thing in Waterworld. She gives him a name, "Ulysses", because, like the legendary warrior, she hopes he will one days return to them from his wanderings out at sea. The Mariner states that it is a good name.

* In the original ending, while watching the Mariner leave from a hill, Helen and Enola uncover a worn plaque that reveals Dryland to be the summit of Mount Everest. This is the very same plaque laid down by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953, the first time the summit was reached. This ending to Waterworld was only seen once during its 1998 broadcast premiere on ABC. It was cut from other syndicated airings, until the Sci-Fi Channel restored it, when they aired the full cut.

Universal Studios Theme Parks

There is currently a show at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Japan based on the film. It takes place immediately after the movie, where Helen returns to the Atoll with proof of dry land, only to find herself followed by the Deacon, who survived the events of the movie. The Mariner arrives immediately after him, however, and defeats the Deacon and takes Helen back to dry land while the Atoll explodes.

Video game

The Waterworld video game based on the movie was released on Super Nintendo, Virtual Boy and PC. While the Super Nintendo and Virtual Boy version were released by Ocean Software, the PC version was released by Interplay. The game received negative reviews as well as the Virtual Boy Game being marked as the worst Virtual Boy game ever released out of the 22 games in its short life.

Gottlieb Amusements (Premier) release a pinball machine in 1995 that is based on the movie.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Milhouse is playing a Waterworld arcade game costing 40 quarters for one step, mocking the cost overruns of the movie.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/

Waste heat

Waste heat refers to heat produced by machines, electrical equipment and industrial processes for which no useful application is found, and is regarded as a waste by-product. When produced by humans, or by human activities, it is a component of anthropogenic heat, which additionally includes unintentional heat leakage, such as from space heating. Waste heat is thought by some to contribute to the urban heat island effect. The biggest point sources of waste heat originate from machines such as electrical generators or industrial processes, such as steel or glass production. The burning of transport fuels is a major contribution to waste heat.

Conversion of energy

Machines for conversion of energy contained in fuels to mechanical work or electric energy necessarily produce large quantities of the heat as a by-product

Sources

The largest proportions of total waste heat are from power stations and vehicle engines. The largest single sources are power stations and industrial plants such as oil refineries and steelmaking plants.

Power generation

The electrical efficiency of thermal power plants, defined as the ratio between the input and output energy, is typically only 30%.

Industrial processes

Industrial processes, such as oil refining steelmaking or glassmaking are major sources of waste heat.

Electronics

Although small in terms of power, the disposal of waste heat from microchips and other electronic components, represents a significant engineering challenge. This necessitates the use of fans, heatsinks, etc. to dispose of the heat.

Biological

Animals, including humans, create heat as a result of metabolism. In warm conditions, this heat exceeds a level required for homeostasis in warm-blooded animals, and is disposed of by various thermoregulation methods such as sweating and panting. Fiala et al. modelled human thermoregulation.

Disposal

It is often difficult to find useful applications for large quantities of low temperature heat energy, so the heat is qualified as waste heat and rejected to the environment. Economically most convenient is the rejection of such heat to water from a sea, lake or river. If sufficient cooling water is not available, the plant has to be equipped with a cooling tower to reject the waste heat into the atmosphere.

Uses

Cogeneration

Waste of the by-product heat is avoided if a cogeneration system is used, also known as combined heat and power. Limitations to the use of by-product heat arise due to difficulties in heat transport and storage. Applications for waste heat include swimming pool heating, paper mills and cold chain logistics (by the use of Absorption refrigerators).

Electrification of waste heat

The organic Rankine cycle is a electricity generation process where an organic substance is used as working medium instead of water. The benefit is that this process can utilise lower temperatures for the production of electricity than the regular water steam cycle. By help of ORC-modules it is possible to turn this previously wasted energy economically into electricity.

Anthropogenic heat

Anthropogenic heat is heat generated by humans and human activity. The American Meteorological Society defines it as "Heat released to the atmosphere as a result of human activities, often involving combustion of fuels. Sources include industrial plants, space heating and cooling, human metabolism, and vehicle exhausts. In cities this source typically contributes 15–50 W m−2 to the local heat balance, and several hundred W m−2 in the center of large cities in cold climates and industrial areas."

Estimates of anthropogenic heat generation can be made by totaling all the energy used for heating and cooling, running appliances, transportation, and industrial processes, plus that directly emitted by human metabolism.

Environmental impact

AH is a small influence on rural temperatures, and becomes more significant in dense urban areas. It is one contributor to urban heat islands. Other human-caused effects (such as changes to albedo, or loss of evaporative cooling) that might contribute to urban heat islands are not considered to be anthropogenic heat by this definition.

Anthropogenic heat is a much smaller contributor to global warming than are greenhouse gases. In 2005, although anthropogenic waste heat flux was significantly high in certain urban areas (and can be high regionally. For example, waste heat flux was +0.39 and +0.68 W/m2 for the continental United States and western Europe, respectively) globally it accounted for only 1% of the energy flux created by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Global forcing from waste heat was 0.028 W/m2 in 2005. This statistic is predicted to rise as urban areas become more widespread.

Although waste heat has been shown to have influence on regional climates, climate forcing from waste heat is not normally calculated in state-of-the-art global climate simulations.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/