Brazil builds $127 billion “Offshore City” to harvest oil in the deep sea

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Brazil is set to start gathering oil in new places.

Want to get a feel for how crazy the post-peak oil fossil fuels industry is getting? Here’s as good an example as any: Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras is about to embark on an unprecedented oil-gathering mission. It’s about to attempt to extract 30 billion barrels of oil from reserves that are locked in deepwater sub-salt fields at least 60 miles off the coast and up to five miles underwater. In order to get at the incredibly hard-to-get oily good stuff, Brazil is spending an estimated $226 billion — and $127 billion will be spent on exploration and production alone.

The product of that venture is already taking shape: a veritable floating “offshore city” has sprung up over 100 kilometers (62 miles) off the coast of Brazil, and it will lead the effort to drill into the deep sea sub-salt…

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Wikileaks releases thousands more cables Covering China, Taiwan and Libya

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More Wikileaks released!

Wikileaks just dropped thousands more embassy cables today. These centered around China, Taiwan, and Libya.

The first batch to drop were 2170 cables about Taiwan. Some 3004 cables from China followed quickly behind…

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Growth of cities endangers global environment

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Manhattan at sunset.

The explosive growth of cities worldwide over the next two decades poses significant risks to people and the global environment, according to a meta-analysis published August 19 in PLoS ONE.

Researchers from Yale, Arizona State, Texas A&M and Stanford predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by 590,000 square miles — nearly the size of Mongolia — to accommodate the needs of 1.47 billion more people living in urban areas…

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India takes Monsanto to court for biopiracy over development of GM eggplant

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Biopiracy a Sensitive Issue in India.

Agri-giant Monsanto may be forced to take one on the chin in India: The nation’s first genetically modified food crop, a variety of eggplant known at Bt brinjal, has sucked its Big Ag developers into court. Monsanto, Mahyco, and “collaborators” have been accused of biopiracy by the National Biodiversity Authority of India.

NBA says the developers of Bt brinjal (the introduction of which was halted in 2010 by then environment minister Jairam Ramesh on the grounds that more tests were needed to prove its safety) used local varieties of eggplant in developing the GM crop “without prior approval of the competent authorities.”

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July 2011 Heat Records Double Those Of Last Year

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July was REALLY hot in a lot of places.

With July just behind us the National Weather Service confirms what you probably already knew: It was really seriously totally sweatily hot over the majority of the United States. In fact there were 2,676 tied or broken heat records across the nation, doubling last year’s stats. All told about 60 people died from the heat last month…

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The 100+ State Parks facing closure – Is your favorite park on the list?

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The United States is home to 6,624 state parks and has an annual attendance of over 700 million. Yet state parks are being threatened by budget cuts and economic downturn. Here’s a list of all state parks set to get the axe. Does your favorite make the cut?

It is worth noting that designating a single piece of land–especially one rich with resources–was quite radical for the early 1900s. Before the United States introduced its federal- and state-level park system, the concept was far from common. Thanks to Republican Teddy Roosevelt, the U.S. now has 41,725 miles of trail, 207,063 campsites, and 7,161 cabins and lodges across the state park system.

In fact, President Roosevelt couldn’t have said it better when he said “I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the nature resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”

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Anonymous fires back at NATO with FBI hack, releases 400MB of their data

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Anonymous is scared no longer.

Despite the recent spate of arrests on their side, Anon released 400MB of NATO data courtesy of big-time cybersecurity firm ManTech last night. This is their way of making good on a promise and reiterating that they “aren’t scared anymore”.
You’ll recall that NATO officially condemned Anonymous early last month. Well, as part of their long attack on ManTech, you’ll find a bevy of stolen NATO reports from the past several years, financial charts, and pictures of personnel both on duty and at rest. Pretty big, and this is only a portion of the gig of data they say they’re sitting on…

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Technology is the new smoking

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Gotta have a hit of Twitter!

You’re at an outing or a dinner table with friends but itching to check your email or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Google+ or whatever digital hit of serotonin you prefer. Have you ever ‘gone to the bathroom’ in order to check email or come up with a socially appropriate excuse to pull out your smartphone just so you can check your @ replies on Twitter?

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Pour a shot of Tequila-in your gas tank

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Agave can be a fuel?

It fuels your party, your buzz and your hangover the next day, but believe it or not tequila may soon be fueling your car. That’s because the agave plant extract used to make liquor can also be used to make an ethanol like alcohol which can serve as vehicle fuel, won’t interfere with food crops, and can even be grown in the desert…

Someday, our cars may hit the bottle more often than we do, but at least it won’t be hitting our wallets very hard.

Link

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Eek! Mice are evolving an immunity to poison!

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Feisty little buggers.

The rodents of the future will eat poison pellets like candy, according to new research conducted on mice found in a German bakery. The baker called in an exterminator to rid his business of the pests and discovered, to his horror, that the little buggers weren’t even fazed by bromadiolone, which is a very concentrated and deadly version of the common rat poison warfarin…

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