Western governors target global warming; others seek clean energy
WASHINGTON (AP) — Five Western governors are taking aim at global warming.
The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state have agreed to develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a market-based program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.
WASHINGTON Five Western governors are taking aim at global warming.The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state have agreed to develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a market-based program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat seeking his party's presidential nomination, says the five-state agreement should spur other states ahead. He says "You're going to see a domino e...
WASHINGTON - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, assuming the mantle of potential kingmaker instead of mere political curiosity, scolded national leaders of both parties on Monday for "divide and conquer" politics.
On a trip east that included a Sunday news-show appearance and undisputed star status at a national governors conference, he used a sold-out speech to the National Press Club to urge the Bush administration and Congress to adopt his centrist, "post-partisan" approach to get things done on immigration, health care and global warming.
He quoted Edmund Burke and John F. Kennedy on the art of compromise, and with wife Maria Shriver and mother-in-law Eunice Shriver looking on, recalled long dinners with the Shrivers and Kennedys, prominent Democratic families, where people from both parties could hash over issues.
WASHINGTON - One of the world's top scientists on global warming called for the United States to stop building coal-fired power plants and eventually bulldoze older generators that don't capture and bury greenhouse gases.
But 159 coal-fired power plants are scheduled to be built in the next decade or so, generating enough power for about 96 million homes, according to a study last month by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Burning coal is one of the major sources of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas causing global warming.
WASHINGTON -- Fed up with federal inaction and convinced of the dangers from global warming, five governors from Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.
"Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025. "Governors, members of Congress and others are now scrambling to be bold."
WASHINGTON (AP) Fed up with federal inaction and convinced of the dangers from global warming, five governors from Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.
"Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025. "Governors, members of Congress and others are now scrambling to be bold."
WASHINGTON Scientists hope to get the public excited about the International Polar Year that starts on Thursday. It's a huge, world wide effort that has more than 50-thousand scientists from 63 countries working on projects to study everything from the polar atmosphere to the exotic marine life swimming under Antarctic ice.The International Polar Year is the largest international research program in 50 years and brings together 228 research projects under a single umbrella, with the goal of moni...
The buyout of TXU by two private equity firms that have agreed to kill eight of the company's 11 proposed coal-burning power plants cools off the biggest environmental battle in Texas and could reposition the state in the national debate over how to curb global warming.
But it doesn't resolve the fundamental environmental problems that made the huge fleet of proposed coal plants so controversial across the state and the nation. Solving those would require a longer effort to make basic changes in how Texas deals with energy and the environment.
Even if TXU's new owners keep their pledge to embrace caps on carbon dioxide emissions and to join a nationwide group of companies advocating action to protect the climate, Texas will remain the nation's biggest and the world's seventh-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
WASHINGTON — Fed up with federal inaction and convinced of the dangers from global warming, five governors from Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their promise to target global warming was the latest of a rush of new ideas shared this week as states push ahead on climate change and clean or alternative energy.
“Thankfully the country has reached a tipping point on this issue. I wish we had done it 20 years ago,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who last week signed into law a requirement that utilities generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun by 2025.
Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes.
The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.
The Oscars didn't actually go to Gore. Best documentary was won by "Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim and producers Lawrence Bender, Laurie David, Lesley Chilcott and Scott Z. Burns.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - European light bulb makers are close to an agreement in principle to work together on phasing out energy-wasting incandescent bulbs for the consumer market, the chief executive of Royal Philips Electronics NV's lighting division said Monday.
Philips is the largest lighting maker globally, followed by Siemens AG, known for the Osram-Sylvania brands. General Electric Co., whose founder Thomas Edison patented the incandescent bulb in 1880, is biggest in the United States.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Theo van Deursen said ``the tipping point is very close, to be frank, for the (European) lighting industry'' to agree on a phase-out of incandescent bulbs in the home. He said an announcement from a group of major producers could come as early as this week.
A day after a film about his efforts to combat global warming won an Oscar, former Vice President Al Gore was called a hypocrite by a Tennessee group that said his Belle Meade home is consuming too much energy.The home's average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200, according to bills that The Tennessean acquired from Nashville Electric Service.
"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk (the) walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," said Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, identified as a free-market think tank.Gore's power bill shows, however, that the former vice president may be doing just that.Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.That's a total of $...
LONDON (AP) ? More than 50,000 scientists from 63 nations turned their attention to the world's poles Monday to measure the effects of climate change, using icebreakers, satellites and submarines to study everything from the effect of solar radiation on the polar atmosphere to the exotic marine life swimming beneath the Antarctic ice.
The International Polar Year unifies 228 research projects under a single umbrella with the aim of monitoring the health of the Earth's polar regions and gauging the impact of global warming. The largest international research program in 50 years, the project officially begins March 1 and ends in 2009 ? to allow each pole to run through a full summer and winter.
"Global warming is the most challenging problem that our civilization has faced," Britain's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, said in a video played before the event's launch. He called the melting of polar ice "the canary in the coal mine for global warming."
WASHINGTON- The role environmentalists were asked to play in a $32 billion private-equity buyout of a large Texas coal burner could serve as a model for takeovers in other polluting industries, experts said Monday.
Dealing with the concerns of environmentalists "in a responsible way, up front, can save many years of litigation," said Stephen J. Humes, an energy and environmental lawyer with McCarter & English LLP in Hartford, Conn.
And such collaboration makes economic sense for mergers and acquisitions beyond the energy sector _ in particular, for potential deals involving chemicals and auto makers, said Paul Portney, dean of the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management.
LOS ANGELES - The Warner Bros. film "The Departed" could see a financial boost as soon as Monday morning from its Sunday-night win as best picture at the 79th annual Academy Awards.
The film was released on DVD just two weeks ago, the third of the best-picture nominees to hit retail shelves, and its Oscar buzz is likely to lead to increased sales.
"Little Miss Sunshine," from Fox Searchlight, a News Corp. company, and "Babel" from Paramount Vantage, a division of Viacom Inc., have also been released on DVD.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes.
The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.
Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate.
LOS ANGELES - Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes.
The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song.
Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate.
LOS ANGELES - It was a celebrity mash-up backstage at the Academy Awards as A-list presenters and winners met and mingled in the crowded wings, stage right.
When the show ended, the hallway was jammed with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including best-director winner Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Jack Nicholson, a star of Scorsese's "The Departed," which also won for best picture.
Reese Witherspoon teased the newly bald Nicholson, who shaved his head for a role.
DALLAS — TXU Corp. will announce Monday that it has agreed to be sold to a pair of private-equity firms who hope to complete the largest private buyout in U.S. corporate history partly by scaling back TXU's controversial plan to build new coal-fired power plants, according to people close to the situation.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group were offering about $32 billion plus the assumption of more than $12 billion in debt for TXU, the largest electricity producer in Texas.
In an unusual twist, the buyers agreed to abandon plans to build eight new coal-fired power plants if they take over the company. Environmentalists and civic leaders in Texas oppose the plants, which would produce tons of new greenhouse gas emissions.
LOS ANGELES - "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary that turned former vice president Al Gore's power-point presentation on global warming into an engaging and entertaining film, won the Oscar Sunday night.
The best-documentary win was a triumph for Gore, who has kept a sense of humor about his loss in the 2000 election that was decided in George W. Bush's favor by a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
"I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States of America," Gore says in the film, repeating a line he has used often.
AP Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren arrive for the 79th Academy Awards. Also Online
Partial list of winners
Gary's pick: Best actor
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes. The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song. Gore also teased a bit Sunday night about his plans to possibly make another presidential run, although backstage, he said he was not a candidate. The win was a triumph f...
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Warner Bros. film "The Departed" could see a financial boost as soon as Monday morning from its Sunday-night win as best picture at the 79th annual Academy Awards. The film was released on DVD just two weeks ago, the third of the best-picture nominees to hit retail shelves, and its Oscar buzz is likely to lead to increased sales. "Little Miss Sunshine," from Fox Searchlight, a News Corp. company, and "Babel" from Paramount Vantage, a division of Viacom Inc., have also...
WASHINGTON - Governors from five Western states agreed Monday to work together to reduce greenhouse gases, saying their region has suffered some of the worst of global warming with recent droughts and bad fire seasons.
The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state agreed that they would develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.
"In the absence of meaningful federal action, it is up to the states to take action to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. "Western states are being particularly hard-hit by the effects of climate change."
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It was a celebrity mash-up backstage at the Academy Awards as A-list presenters and winners met and mingled in the crowded wings, stage right. When the show ended, the hallway was jammed with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including best-director winner Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Jack Nicholson, a star of Scorsese's "The Departed," which also won for best picture. Reese Witherspoon teased the newly bald Nicholson, who shaved his head for a role. "I lik...
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In a year of unparalleled diversity and international muscle at Hollywood's film honors, the Academy Awards finished as a love fest for a long-overlooked American - Martin Scorsese.
After Scorsese's five previous losses in the direction category, he won for mob epic "The Departed," which also won best picture.
Awards watchers had viewed Scorsese as a lock to win at last, and while he clearly coveted an Oscar, the director said he had not counted on anything.
LOS ANGELES - Martin Scorsese's mob epic "The Departed" won best picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday and earned the filmmaker the directing prize that had eluded him throughout his illustrious career.
"Could you double-check the envelope?" said Scorsese, who had been the greatest living American filmmaker without an Oscar. He also had never delivered a best-picture winner before, despite crafting such modern masterpieces as "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas."
Scorsese received his Oscar from three contemporaries and friends, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. "So many people over the years have been wishing this for me," Scorsese said.
DALLAS - TXU Corp., Texas' largest electricity producer, is expected to announce Monday that it has agreed to be sold to a pair of private-equity firms in the largest private buyout in U.S. corporate history, according to people close to the deal.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group sought support for the buyout by agreeing to deep cuts in TXU's controversial $10 billion plan to build 11 new coal-fired power plants. Environmentalists and some Texas civic leaders oppose the plants, which would produce tons of new greenhouse gas emissions.
The two firms were offering about $32 billion plus the assumption of more than $12 billion in debt for TXU. Such a deal would eclipse the previous record private buyout, the $25.1 billion purchase of RJR Nabisco Inc. by KKR in 1988.
DALLAS - Private-equity firms trying to buy TXU Corp. have agreed to drop plans for most of the utility's proposed new coal-fired power plants in Texas if the deal goes through, according to people familiar with the situation.
The new buyers would also support a mandatory national program to cap emissions of greenhouse gases and pledge not to build coal-fired plants outside Texas, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the sale was not final.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group were in advanced talks Sunday to buy TXU for about $32 billion, or about $70 per share, plus the assumption of TXU debt. It would be the largest private-equity acquisition ever.
NASHUA, N.H. - Health care was the topic of the day Saturday, but Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards made sure New Hampshire voters gave him another chance to say he was wrong as a senator to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
Edwards' visit to New Hampshire was billed as a series of house meetings to promote his health care plan and his presidential bid. But less than five minutes after walking into the day's first house party, the 2004 vice presidential nominee turned to the subject that has consumed the Democratic contenders: Iraq.
"Honestly, if you don't bring up Iraq, I'll bring it up," the former North Carolina senator told about 150 people gathered in a state senator's living room and kitchen.
Under a proposed $45 billion buyout by a team of private equity firms, the TXU Corporation, a Texas utility that has long been the bane of environmental groups, will abandon plans to build 8 of 11 coal plants and commit to a broad menu of environmental measures, according to people involved in the negotiations.
The roster of commitments came through an unusual process in which the equity firms asked two prominent environmental groups what measures could be taken to win their support. The result is an about-face from the company?s earlier approach to climate-change issues, and includes a goal of returning the carbon-dioxide emissions by TXU to 1990 levels by 2020.
Environmental groups said yesterday that they had never known of a financial deal with such an ambitious built-in environmental component.
Public policy is all about trade-offs. Economists understand this better than politicians because voters want to have their cake and eat it too, and politicians think whatever is popular must also be true.
Economists understand that if we put a chicken in every pot, it might cost us an aircraft carrier or a hospital. We can build a hospital, but it might come at the expense of a little patch of forest. We can protect a wetland, but that will make a new school more expensive.
You get it already. But in the history of trade-offs, never has there been a better one than trading a tiny amount of global warming for a massive amount of global prosperity. Earth got about 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer in the 20th century while it increased its GDP by 1,800 percent, by one estimate. How much of that 0.7 degrees can be laid at the feet of that 1,800 percent is unknowable, but let's stipulate that all of the warming was the result of our prosperity and that this warming is in fact indisputably bad (which is hardly obvious).
It seems to me that most everybody has heard the old saying about how every dark cloud has a silver lining, but, you know, sometimes we might want to take a closer look at that silver lining. One of the current dark clouds on our horizon is the way our country depends on oil, both domestically produced and imported. This cloud is big enough to include concern about the emission of "greenhouse" gases, particularly carbon dioxide, from petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline. The silver lining is the increasing emphasis on ethanol -- but about that silver lining... .
First of all, let's look at ethanol itself. It is essentially an alcohol type product that comes from fermenting vegetation such as corn or sugar cane. (We primarily use corn while Brazil, the largest user of ethanol, uses sugar cane, however, other types of vegetation can be used.) Ethanol, from whatever source, can be mixed with gasoline to provide fuel for internal combustion engines, but ethanol doesn't produce as much energy per gallon as gasoline does -- only about six-tenths as much. To p...
It doesn't take the proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that the number of miles per gallon of an ethanol/gasoline mix will be less than for gasoline only, and the greater percentage of ethanol in the mix, the lower the number of miles per gallon. Right now the standard mix is 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol so the reduction in miles per gallon is not very great. If we go to the highly touted 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline mix, however, we will have to use a lot more fuel to drive the same number of miles we are currently logging, and the price for the mix is at least that of gasoline alone. Hm.
The few who had managed to make it into The Advocate on Tuesday morning looked up and grinned.
I looked around. Yeah? pretty much empty chairs everywhere.
One of our ad reps glanced up as I walked toward what looked like a completely empty editorial section in the back?
The companies that want to buy TXU Corp. would build only three of the 11 coal-fired power plants TXU has proposed, and would cut retail electricity prices, addressing two issues that fueled public outcry against the power company.
The buyers, Texas Pacific Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Goldman Sachs, signed an unusual agreement with two environmental groups. They promised to scale back the coal plant building program – as well as to cut pollution and greenhouse gas emissions – if TXU accepts their offer of around $45 billion for the company.
Negotiators say the deal is the first of its kind.
The makers of the Oscar-nominated documentary An Inconvenient Truth attribute part of its success to the "perfect storm" of things happening worldwide before the film's release last year.The movie warning of the consequences of global warming became the third highest-grossing in documentary history with a box office take topping $45 million.
A series of events before the documentary's May 2006 release made the public more receptive to and interested in its message, said Lawrence Bender, who produced it with Laurie David and Scott Z. Burns. For instance, America experienced its worst storm season in 2005, Bender said.Hurricane "Katrina was still in the minds of people; it was at our back," Bender said. "Then of course there were those crazy storm systems other than Katrina."The war in Iraq, of course, doesn't have anything to do with...
Slide show basis of film
By Rachel Melcer and Christopher BoyceST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH02/24/2007
Chuck Dietrich, a research scientist at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Creve Couer, checks on trays of Arabidopsis, a plant use for research on how to improve soybean for biofuel.
( Huy Richard Mach /P-D)
Scientists from more than 60 countries are preparing to fan out around the North and South Poles in an ambitious two-year effort to understand the vital, shifting dynamics of ice, oceans and life at the ends of the earth.
With a budget of about $350 million spread over more than 120 projects, researchers will camp on drifting Arctic Ocean sea ice and trek to largely uncharted Antarctic mountains.
They will use gliding underwater robots, giant icebreaking ships, satellites and other technologies to explore polar climate, biology, geology and ocean chemistry, and they will undertake physics and astronomy studies that can be done only at the poles.
DALLAS — Private-equity firms trying to buy TXU Corp. have agreed to drop plans for most of the utility's proposed new coal-fired power plants in Texas if the deal goes through, according to people familiar with the situation.
The new buyers would also support a mandatory national program to cap emissions of greenhouse gases and pledge not to build coal-fired plants outside Texas, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the sale was not final.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group were in advanced talks Sunday to buy TXU for about $32 billion, or about $70 per share, plus the assumption of TXU debt. It would be the largest private-equity acquisition ever.
HAPPISBURGH, England - A 12-bedroom guest house, with beautiful views of the North Sea, a lighthouse and sandy beaches, sounds like prime real estate.
But Cliff House is nearly worthless.
The offshore wooden barrier that once protected the sand and clay cliffs of this stretch of eastern English coast has broken apart, and the government has decided that with the expected rise in sea levels and storm surges that experts attribute to global warming, some vulnerable coastal areas are no longer worth defending.
After years of watching curiously as Al Gore seemed to shout tirelessly into the wind, trying to convince the world of the existence of global warming one wonkish slide show at a time, many people now believe he has been right all along."I take no joy in that part of it," the former vice president said Friday from Los Angeles. "I wish I hadn't been right, believe me. So on one level, if you work hard on an issue, you get some feeling of having worked hard to put the evidence together if it turn...
Gore's three-decade crusade is receiving international attention this weekend as An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary in which his global-warming slide show is the focus, is nominated for two Oscars, including best documentary feature."I think the Oscar nomination was great because for one thing, it helps bring more attention to the message contained in the movie. That is my principal focus, delivering this message to as many people as quickly as possible," said Gore, noting his pleasure in th...
Health care was the topic of the day Saturday, but Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards made sure New Hampshire voters gave him another chance to say he was wrong as a senator to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
Edwards' visit to New Hampshire was billed as a series of house meetings to promote his health care plan and his presidential bid. But less than five minutes after walking into the day's first house party, the 2004 vice presidential nominee turned to the subject that has consumed the Democratic contenders: Iraq.
"Honestly, if you don't bring up Iraq, I'll bring it up," the former North Carolina senator told about 150 people gathered in a state senator's living room and kitchen.
Two private equity firms are about to offer $40 billion to $45 billion for TXU Corp. in what would be the biggest buyout ever.
Texas Pacific Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. planned to announce their offer for the Dallas power company on Monday, said people with knowledge of the deal. The purchase would take TXU private.
TXU is facing public and political backlash over a plan to build 11 more coal-fired power plants and over high electricity prices.
Private investment companies Texas Pacific Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are close to a deal to buy Texas utilities giant TXU Corp. in what is expected to be the largest leveraged buyout ever, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
The sale, slated to be announced Sunday, will include "not only the acquisition, but some very major announcements related to global warming," one person told The Times.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unidentified sources, said on its website that the buyout firms were expected to pay about $32 billion, or about $70 a share.
The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change makes this claim, and has the numbers to back it up. In fact, the panel says California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to energy reduction. Wow.
The panel concluded that since 1974, California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant while energy use per person across the United States has jumped 50 percent overall. While the average American burns 12,000 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity, the average Californian burns less than 7,000.
Believe it or not, California is cutting its contributions to global warming — carbon dioxide emissions per capita in California have fallen 30 percent since 1975 while the U.S. overall has remained flat. And with a push from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state will further curb automobile pollution, increase the use of solar energy and cap greenhouse gases in the future.
The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change makes this claim, and has the numbers to back it up. In fact, the panel says California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to energy reduction. Wow.
The panel concluded that since 1974 California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant while energy use per person across the United States has jumped 50 percent overall. While the average American burns
12,000 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity, the average Californian burns less than 7,000.
NASHUA, N.H. - Former Sen. John Edwards' visit to New Hampshire Saturday was billed as a series of house meetings to promote his health care plan and his presidential bid.
But less than five minutes after walking into the day's first house party, the 2004 vice presidential nominee turned to the subject that has consumed the Democratic contenders: Iraq.
"Honestly, if you don't bring up Iraq, I'll bring it up," Edwards told about 150 people gathered in a state senator's living room and kitchen.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some of this year's most interesting Oscar battles revolve around what Academy Award voters hear -- rather than see.
Some experts are betting that ``Dreamgirls,'' which was snubbed for best picture, will win best song category with one of its three nominations. Others say ``Dreamgirls'' could face a backlash and that Melissa Etheridge's song on global warming, ''I Need to Wake Up,'' is more likely to take the Oscar.
The experts also say the contest for best score is wide open. Among those vying for best score are modern American composer Philip Glass, who is seeking his first Oscar for his work on ``Notes on a Scandal,'' and Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla for his music for ``Babel.''
WE see so many things wrong with California — health insurance, high cost of housing, deteriorating infrastructure, crime, silly legislation, the Raiders — now comes a report that says this state leads the nation in energy conservation. Could this be true? Have we really learned to conserve energy better than anyone in the country?
The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change makes this claim, and has the numbers to back it up. In fact, the panel says California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to energy reduction. Wow.
The panel concluded that since 1974 California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant while energy use per person across the United States has jumped 50 percent overall. While the average American burns 12,000 kilowatt-hours a year of electricity, the average Californian burns less than 7,000.
The first wave of millennials is now age 26 — at about the same life stage as the oldest boomers were in 1970. Similar to the boomers, the millennials are poised to impact the country at every life stage and in myriad ways — but particularly in politics. The millennials are an unusual generation, not like young people we have seen for a long time. They are not individualistic risk-takers like the boomers or cynical and disengaged like Generation Xers. Signs indicate that millennials ar...
Everyone knows the boomers are a huge generation thats aging and is about to seriously stress our Social Security system. But few realize that the millennials are just as huge at 75 million, which is one-quarter of the current U.S. population of 300 million.
Thats the case partly because many are children of the boomers (the echo boom). The size of the generation is also boosted by the children of the unprecedented numbers of immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s. The millennials are the most diverse generation by far, with roughly 40 percent belonging to minority groups, Hispanics in particular. But generations are more than just numbers; they have personalities that are shaped by many factors, including whats happening in the world when they come of age.