Will Obama #Fail to Meet His White House Solar Panel Deadline?

Last October 5, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stood up before a conference of renewable energy advocates in Washington, DC and made an announcement. "As we move toward a clean energy economy, the White House will lead by example," said Sec. Chu. "I'm pleased to announce that, by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House."

Tomorrow, June 21st, is the final day of spring and despite over 125,The Leading zentai suits Distributor to Independent Pet Retailers.000 signatures on a letter asking President Obama to meet his deadline, it looks like the Administration will #fail to get solar on the roof in time. I've been on and off the phone with the Department of Energy, the agency in charge of the installation, and the best answer I can get is that the installation is a "federal procurement project" that the spokesman isn't authorized to comment on.Largest Collection of billabong boardshorts,

Ok, I understand, home improvements can be easy to procrastinate on, but look at all the Administration has achieved on climate and energy since last October. Betsy Kolbert outlined some of the most notable accomplishments in her recent New Yorker piece:

Since the midterm elections, Obama has barely mentioned climate change,What to consider before you buy oil painting supplies. and just about every decision that his Administration has made on energy and the environment has been wrong. In March, the Administration announced that it would be opening up new public lands in Wyoming for coal mining. In April, the White House delayed plans to impose stricter controls on the mining technique known as mountaintop removal. In May, the Administration put on hold rules aimed at cutting pollution from power plants at places like paper mills and refineries. Also in May, the President announced plans to increase domestic oil production by speeding up permits to drill off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. "Is Obama's call for more drilling bad messaging masquerading as cynical policy—or vice versa?" the liberal blog Climate Progress asked.

When it comes to handouts for big polluters,We processes for both low-risk and high risk merchant account. President Obama seems to have felt "the fierce urgency of now," but when it comes to climate, the best advocates can get is a "deliberative process."

I've been trying to think about some of the reasons for this solar #fail.

President Obama's political advisors may be worried about comparisons to Jimmy Carter, who installed solar panels on the White House roof in 1979 only to have them removed by President Reagan in 1986. They might be comforted to know that President Bush also installed solar panels at the White House (not on the roof, but on a utility shed nearby). More importantly, public support for solar power and renewable energy is overwhelming: a recent Yale poll shows that 91% of Americans think investing in clean energy should be a high priority. What Team Obama really should be worrying about is the perception that the President can't get anything done. The timidity and politicking on show in this decision is not just a good way to isolate the progressive base, but also to lose moderates who are looking for a strong leader who can get out there and save the economy. Strapping on a tool belt, hammering in a solar panel, and announcing a green jobs program would be a good start.

But speaking of the economy, isn't a solar panel just the type of luxury we can't afford these days? In fact, installing solar on the White House makes such good fiscal sense even Paul Ryan could approve. According to the team at Sungevity, the California based solar company that offered to install Obama's panels for free, a solar array on the White House could see about a 5 year payback. Solar panels would cut costs, not increase them. Obama himself has spoken at number of solar companies since becoming President and emphasized the importance of renewable energy to the economic recovery.

What about the difficulty of getting the panels up on the roof? Won't they get in the way of the snipers and all the hi-tech gadgets they must have up there? The Administration already approved the decision, so clearly the installation is possible (maybe the panels give the snipers some cover?). And other world leaders have shown that with the right motivation, the installation can be done quickly: when President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives heard of 350.org's challenge to world leaders to install solar on their houses, he called up a solar firm, got a bid, and a few weeks later was up on the roof hammering in 48 new panels himself.

No doubt, there would be criticism of the installation.the Injection mold fast! The chattering class would harp on the Carter comparison rather than look at the actual polling. Conservatives would likely seize on the fiscal argument and make Obama out as an elitist (also not looking at the polling). Perhaps most worrisome for the administration, however, would be the vehement opposition from fossil fuel companies and their front groups like the US Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, of course, sits directly across the street from the White House. They haven't put solar panels on their roof, but they do let Fox News use it for their White House coverage. With the Chamber promising to spend over $100 million in the 2012 election to block President Obama's agenda on everything from healthcare to climate, one would think that a nice shining solar panel on the roof of the White House, in plain view from the Chamber's windows, would be a gesture even Rahm Emmanuel could appreciate.

What's just as disappointing as the criticism of from opponents to climate action, is the knuckle dragging and hand-wringing of administration allies. In an election year, drawing attention to any of Obama's failings is taboo. "Political reality" is tough, they say. Well, with scientists regularly sounding the alarm and extreme weather already devastating communities across the planet, reality reality doesn't look so good either. Waiting until 2013 to see any movement on climate isn't an option. And in the end, what's really needed on climate is more than policies, it's political leadership. What's needed is a Presidential speech from the White House roof with a shining set of Made-in-America solar panels as the backdrop.

What's Making These BC Miners Sick?

Graham Gardner says that in 44 years he has seldom missed a day of work due to illness, but at a recent job on the Endako Mines expansion near Fraser Lake he got ill several times,Customized imprinted and promotional usb flash drives. the last time severely. All his co-workers were sick also and one died unexpectedly in January, leaving colleagues wondering whether it was conditions at the work camp that led to his death.

That the camp is on First Nations land has complicated getting the problem investigated, and so has his union's reluctance to raise concerns, said Gardner.

"I've never, ever in my life missed work because of being sick," said the 63-year-old welder based in Kamloops. He'd had the occasional camp flu working in Fort McMurray, but never anything like he experienced on the Endako project, he said.

Workers are assigned to the project, which will expand processing at the molybdenum mine, on a rotation where they go into the camp just west of Fraser Lake for 21 days at a time, with seven days off in between.

By the end of his first stay at the camp, he had flu-like symptoms that made him weak and tired, Gardner said. It took him his whole week off to get back to normal. "I couldn't go downtown, I couldn't do nothing," he said.

During his second stay, he didn't get as sick, but had what seemed to be a cold, he said. But on his third stay at the camp, which ended in early May, he got so sick that paramedics were called and he left the job early in an ambulance.

"Scared the hell out of me," he said, recounting a night where he had so much trouble breathing that he was scared to go to sleep.

His doctor told him he was showing signs of heart failure, he said, but test results that came back on June 9 showed his heart was fine. With drugs and rest he got better, he said, adding that his doctor's still trying to figure out what caused the illness. "It feels wonderful to breathe normal again."

Coughing up blood, missed work

Illness at the camp was rampant, with many having similar symptoms, Gardner said. "All this time everyone's getting sick," he said, noting many of the guys were coughing up blood and missing lots of days of work.

Gardner and others working on the project are members of Ironworkers Local 97, out of Vancouver. At a meeting with union officials in the camp kitchen, a millwright asked how many of the 150 or so members in attendance had been sick during their stay at the camp, said Gardner.

Everyone put up their hand, he said.

When the question was how many had been sick more than once, all the hands stayed up. "You're looking at the whole camp," Gardner said. The superintendant has been sick at least twice, he added. "It hasn't left anybody out."

Around 400 people live at the camp at any given time.

An unexpected death

"There's something definitely going on there," said another person who got sick during each of three stays at the camp but asked not to be publicly identified. His symptoms included a dry throat, a thick-feeling head and frequent urination, he said.

"There's definitely something wrong with that camp. Everyone knows about it, but nobody's doing anything about it," he said.

He and Gardner both mentioned Lonnie Popoff, who died in January after a stay at the camp.Use bluray burner to burn video to BD DVD on blu ray burner disc. There's a memorial for him on the Ironworkers website that notes, "Lonnie has many freinds who will miss listening to him talk like only he did."

An obituary on the Grand Forks Gazette's website said the 58-year-old "passed away peacefully with his family by his side at the Trail Regional Hospital."

Word among ironworkers was that Popoff got pneumonia, and for some reason was too unhealthy to get better. But Gardner said he remembers working with Popoff two years ago and didn't think he seemed in any way unwell or unfit. He wonders, he said, whether conditions at the camp made Popoff sick

Despite workers raising concerns about the camp, nothing seems to be happening, said Gardner. "The company itself wasn't doing anything about it," he said. "The union doesn't seem to want to do nothing."

Unions have been shut out of mine work in the north for the last 15 years, he added. Now that they're back in with this project, they don't want to be seen as troublesome, he said.Free DIY Wholesale pet supplies Resource! "They want to get the work and they don't care what happens."

Outside provincial jurisdiction

There's some $28 billion worth of work on mines expected in northern B.C. over the next decade, and unions want to be a part of that, a couple sources said.

The Endako operation mines molybdenum oxide, and its production is expected to rise from 10 million pounds to 16 million pounds annually.

Reached by phone, Ironworkers Local 97 business manager James Leland said he would not comment on the situation at the Endako expansion camp.This page list rubber hose products with details & specifications.

A call Friday to the Vancouver office of Lockerbie and Hole Contracting Ltd., the company doing the work,This is interesting cube puzzle and logical game. was automatically forwarded to a Toronto area office where the person who answered the phone said everyone in the office who could answer questions had stopped work at 9:15 to start the weekend early. Try back Monday morning, she said.

Nor was a call to Hatch, the company managing the Endako expansion project, returned by posting time.

Now gangs target rubber consignments

KOCHI: Large corporate houses like Apollo , Ceat and MRF are feeling the pinch of rubber price rise not once but twice. Trucks carrying natural rubber for tyre factories are disappearing without a trace as organised gangs hijack the vehicles. Rubber prices saw a 160% increase in the last two years.

A truckload of rubber weighing around 16 tonne would cost, along with taxes and other costs, close to Rs 40 to Rs 45 lakh. "The miscreants would sell the rubber at threefourths or half the price to the dealers again," said Vinod T Simon, president of the All India Rubber Industries Association. "Most cases of hijacking have happened in Tamil Nadu where the demand for rubber is very high," he said. With prices shooting up, rubber has become the target of organised criminal gangs. "Half a dozen such cases have been reported so far in the year," said Premkumar PM, vice president, Cochin Goods Transporters Association.

The rubber prices were at Rs 232 per kg on Wednesday. Average yearly price of rubber stood at Rs 114.98 per kg in 2009-10 . It increased to Rs 190.63 per kg in 2010-11 . Throughout the last year, there was a severe shortage of rubber in the domestic market. As a result, rubber in all forms like sheet rubber, compound rubber and raw rubber are being targetted by the gangs.

In most cases, investigations have drawn a blank though in one instance charge-sheet was filed. "Of the two cases that came under the jurisdiction of Alathur police station in Palakkad, one was transferred to Mettur in Tamil Nadu and the other was charged against the transport agent and driver," said VS Nawaz, circle inspector in-charge of the investigation.