Warm winters mean more snow

Anyone with 60 year memory can recollect that the heaviest snowstorms came in relatively warm weather. Looking back through records you can see that many of the most severe storms were in near freezing conditions.

What made the 1996 storm devastating was the way it ended. Warm weather brought rain, floods and huge chunks of ice coming down rivers and streams. I witnessed the ice that came from the ice dams upstream of Collegeville take out the Perkiomen Inn in 1996.

Global warming is upon us, but don’t put away the snow blowers. My advice is; if you use a snow blower or plow keep it running or updated, you will most likely get more use out of it in warmer winters.

The Pennsylvania weather book
By Ben Gelber

http://books.google.com/books?id=34RKv9fMFo4C&pg=PT75&lpg=PT75&dq=Pennsylvania+1956+snowstorm&source=bl&ots=CoQl-QQfQe&sig=ohLb0TSL3hf7LscAyMziwS-ha9Q&hl=en&ei=S9h5S9nFFMyg8QaN5Yj2Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Pennsylvania%201956%20snowstorm&f=false

An amazing, though clearly little-known, scientific fact: We get more snow storms in warm years!
February 15, 2010

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/15/an-amazing-though-clearly-little-known-scientific-fact-we-get-more-snow-storms-in-warm-years/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+climateprogress/lCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

The specter of a “Silent Spring” has not diminished.

We could have only a few decades to go. Understand what the worst case scenario of a “Silent Spring” is: no birds, no bees, and no flowering plants; no grazing animals, no farm animals. The only food available for human consumption may be ferns, molds, algae, bacteria and possibly some form of fish.

Bees are diminishing rapidly the world over. If the bees disappear most of our food will also disappear.

There is something anyone who has a lawn can do for the bees.

“In his book The Creation, the world’s most celebrated biologist, E O Wilson, has spelt out what would happen if the vortex swallowed insects. “People need insects,” he says, “but insects do not need us. If all humankind were to disappear tomorrow, it is unlikely that a single insect species would go extinct, except three forms of human body and head lice… In two or three centuries, with humans gone, the ecosystems of the world would regenerate back to the rich state of near-equilibrium that existed ten thousand or so years ago… But if insects were to vanish, the terrestrial environment would soon collapse into chaos.”

Flowering plants would go first, then herbaceous plants, then insect-pollinated shrubs and trees, then birds and animals and, finally, the soil. Wilson corrects the generally held misapprehension that the principal “turners and renewers” of the soil are worms. That distinction more properly belongs to insects and their larvae. Without them, bacteria and fungi would feast on the decaying plant and animal remains, while — for as long as it was able to support them — the land would be recolonised by a small number of fern and conifer species. The human diet would be wind-pollinated grasses and whatever remained to be harvested from a fished-out sea. It would not be enough. Widespread starvation would shrink the population to a fraction of its former size.

“The wars for control of the dwindling resources, the suffering, and the tumultuous decline to dark-age barbarism would be unprecedented in human history.” Wilson concedes that we might survive quite happily without body lice and malarial mosquitoes. Otherwise, he says: “Do not give thought to diminishing the insect world. It would be a serious mistake to let even one species of the millions on Earth go extinct.”

February 1, 2009
Plight of the humble bee
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5604401.ece

There is something that every homeowner in the USA can do to slow the extinction of the honey bee. The largest agricultural crop in the USA is lawn grass. A contributor to the extinction of honey bees is the excessive use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides.

If most of us will accept a Victorian style lawn with tiny wildflowers, dandelions and clover our honeybees could benefit. Along with it you would save money on lawn chemicals and not endanger small animals and children.

If you mulch cut your lawn and maybe add limestone to make the soil less acid you don’t need to do anything else I have tended my yard this way for decades with good results. And for some reason my yard was not infested by Japanese Beetles during a particularly bad Japanese Beetle year.

At least in my little yard the bees and birds are not going to get any human made chemicals.

Alternatives to burning stuff to power things - it’s about money, not public conscience

While some Republican Congressmen and Senators argue that dinosaurs and people co-existed about 10,000 years ago and global warming is not man made; alternatives to burning stuff to make electric power go forward. Alternative energy has not much if anything to do with a public conscience and a lot to do with money.

California regulators green light space-based solar
By Darren Quick
21:34 December 7, 2009 PST

http://www.gizmag.com/space-solar-project-solaren/13540/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=5f1f13886b-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

INVITATION - 2010 URBAN CENTER REVITALIZATION PLAN UPDATES

Monday November 30 2009 - 2:00PM City Council Chambers - One City Hall Place - Coatesville PA

You are cordially invited to attend a public information meeting specifically relating to the proposed City of Coatesville 2010 URBAN CENTER REVITALIZATION PLAN UPDATES.

The Department of Community Development (DCD) administers the Community Revitalization Program. The Urban Centers Revitalization Planning program is one element of Chester County's Landscapes 21st Century Fund. Urban Centers are required to review update and expand Action Plans within the Urban Center Revitalization Plan (UCRP) and relate to Chester County's initiative to revitalize its urban landscapes. Urban Centers must review and if warranted update and expand the action plans of the UCRP. Urban Centers must identify UCRP accomplishments with particular emphasis on results achieved through Community Revitalization Program funding.

The meeting will focus on revising and expanding high priority actions. Consistency with the UCRP identified set of goals and objectives for the four key topics of economic development housing infrastructure and transportation and public facilities and services will be discussed.

http://dsf.chesco.org/planning/site/default.asp

WESTERN CHESTER COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

The Western Chester County Chamber of Commerce is doing a lot of work with LEED Certified local companies. Many corporations in the Coatesville area are pursuing energy conservation.

This is Aerzen USA a LEED Gold Certified Company in the Coatesville area near the Chester County Airport:
108 Independence Way
Coatesville, PA 19320-1653

http://www.westernchestercounty.com/pdf/EnergySummit-01.pdf

http://www.aerzenusa.com/

Energy Efficiency for Business

http://www.westernchestercounty.com/pdf/EnergySummit-02.pdf

Growing the Energy Conservation Market

http://www.westernchestercounty.com/pdf/EnergySummit-03.pdf


Building Industry Infrastructure in Pennsylvania

http://www.westernchestercounty.com/pdf/EnergySummit-04.pdf

WESTERN CHESTER COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:

http://www.westernchestercounty.com/

EDF

I believe that the Environmental Defense Fund is the premiere conservation organization on earth. Although many conservation organizations do a good job, compared to the EDF many organizations are have a top heavy management structure. The EDF is very efficient and goal oriented. They get it done.

Have a glass of methane

Buried Secrets; Gas Drilling’s Environmental Threat-Pro Pubica