Update: BEIJING: Scientific study found Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydro power project, has not contributed to climate change

Climate research exonerates giant dam: "The study, published by the Social Sciences Academic Press under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, focused on climate change and found that the dam's environmental impact was limited to a 20 kilometre radius, the Xinhua article said. ''No direct link has been found between the dam and local severe droughts and floods in recent years, according to the report, which instead laid the blame on extreme weather conditions caused by abnormal atmospheric circulation and air temperature mainly incurred by changes in ocean temperature and snow conditions at the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,'' says the article, published on Friday."

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Tip: When you treat your high blood pressure, you enhance your emotional processing & eventually you stop making people upset

"Dr. Mustafa al'Absi of the University of Minnesota Medical School, who studies the relationship between high blood pressure and decreased pain sensitivity, said this study complements the body of research linking physiology to how the brain organizes emotions. "People with high blood pressure might not detect signals like pain from heart attack, or signals from people around them who may express negative or positive emotions. If you are not able to appreciate people being upset, you may continue your behavior and make them more upset," said al'Absi"

'via Blog this'High Blood Pressure Can Make You Emotion-Blind | Hypertension Linked to Inability to Detect Emotions in Others | My Health News Daily:

Update: ADB emphasizes Expansion of Renewable Energy & Using Focusing on Access to Energy as Priority for Economic Growth

"Asian Development Bank focuses on delivering projects for the Asia and Pacific region that create economic and development impact. The bank had more than $17.5 billion in approved financing in 2010. Its main devices for assistance are loans, grants, technical assistance, equity investments and policy dialogue. To encourage the shift to clean and efficient energy, ADB is expanding the use of renewable energy, facilitating the introduction of new clean energy technologies, identifying and promoting cost-effective energy efficiency improvements, and giving incentives for the public and private sectors to invest in these areas. On the supply side, ADB is emphasizing the expansion of renewable energy and using focusing on access to energy as a priority for economic growth, with a focus on helping the poor and protecting the environment."

'via Blog this'Banks Provide Critical Support for Hydro Project Development: " In February 2011, ADB approved a loan of $57.3 million to Papua New Guinea utility PNG Power Ltd. to fund renewable energy projects, including run-of-river hydro. This loan is part of a broader Town Electrification Investment Program approved by ADB in late 2010 that will improve the power supply in provincial urban centers by replacing diesel generation with renewable energy generation. Total cost of the program is estimated to be $150 million. Projects to be implemented under the first tranche of the program include run-of-river hydro plants in the Northern Province and Autonomous Region of Bougainville, as well as a 66 kV transmission line in West New Britain that will provide access to about 1 MW of spare capacity from the 3 MW Lake Hargy hydro plant.

Sri Lanka is using a $120 million loan from ADB to expand and improve its power network, including support for renewable energy that is to add hydropower to the national grid. ADB approved the loan, along with a technical assistance grant for the Sustainable Power Sector Support Project, in January 2011. The project will help the government reduce imports of fossil fuels by providing a credit line of nearly $1.3 million to private developers for about 19 small hydro facilities and by financing the detailed engineering design of the 30 MW Moragolla hydro plant. The government of Sri Lanka will provide about $42 million, for a total project cost of $162 million. This work supports the government's goal of providing nearly 100% of households in the country with electricity by 2016.

And Himachal Pradesh Power Corp. Ltd. in India is developing four run-of-river hydroelectric projects with a total capacity of 856 MW under the $800 million Multi-Tranche Financing Facility Himachal Clean Power Development program funded by ADB. The objective of the work is to help fulfill local demand, especially energy shortages in the winter months of December to February. Outcomes of the program are to include increased production and use of clean energy in a financially sustainable manner through run-of-river hydro schemes, improved state finances from sales revenue earned from power exports, partial offset of project operation expenses due to potential revenues derived from Clean Development Mechanism carbon credit sales, and improved capacity in HPC for better planning, implementation and management of hydro plants.

One of these four projects is 450 MW Shongtong Karcham on the Satluj River, for which the developer was seeking bids in August to supply electromechanical equipment. The remaining projects are 195 MW Integrated Kashang, 100 MW Sainj and 111 MW Sawra Kuddu.

Tip: Avoid Emotional Eating & Have Healthy Body

"Emotional eating is eating under the influence of the mind and not the needs of the body,” she said. “For example, when we are stressed, the mind wants the quick fix while the body’s messages will center around getting proper rest and nourishment ... Emotional eating occurs when you are out of balance — either too many negative emotions or too few positive emotions. “One of the biggest reasons we eat emotionally is we are trying to numb ourselves from feelings and emotions that are too painful to face,” she said. “And the only way to develop a healthy relationship with food and other aspects of our lives is to be willing to face and process our emotions, no matter how painful. Having been an emotional eater for a good part of my life, I work with clients to process their emotional pain so they can move beyond it and be free and live a thriving life.”"
How to lose weight and get healthy from the inside out:
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Update: The world doesn't lack the technology to tackle the problem of Climate Change — just the political will

"The world is hurtling toward irreversible climate change, the International Energy Agency warns, saying that bold action must be taken in the next five years. The IEA, in its annual World Energy Outlook released Wednesday, said that the world will lose the chance to limit warming if it doesn't act now. The IEA’s members include 28 consuming nations. It was formed in response to the oil crisis in the 1970s, but since then its mandate has expanded beyond energy security to include environmental awareness. The agency prescribed what needs to be done to cap global temperature increases at two degrees above preindustrial levels and predicted the consequences if those steps aren't taken. A two-degree increase is the threshold beyond which some scientists have said catastrophic changes could be triggered. The warning came a day after Canada's Environment Minister Peter Kent acknowledged in a speech in Toronto that his government expects to face international pressure at upcoming climate change talks over its refusal to sign on for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol."

'via Blog this'Time for climate change fix running out, IEA warns - Business - CBC News:

Tip: Lower Your High Blood Pressure & Prevent Miscommunication, Poor Job Performance & Psychosocial Distress

"People with hypertension have reduced pain sensitivity," says James A. McCubbin, a psychology professor at Clemson and one of the authors on the study. It turns out that it isn't just hypertensive patients and it isn't just a limited response to pain, but there may be a link between blood pressure and emotional response as well. "A friend of mine in the Netherlands did a study where they asked hypertensive patients how much stress they were under and they didn't report being under much stress, but if you asked their spouse, the spouse would say that their husband or wife was under a lot of stress," McCubbin says."

'via Blog this'High Blood Pressure May Lead To Missed Emotional Cues: Study:

Update on Climate Change & Alternative Energy: Global leaders re-think energy strategy

"At the B20 Business Summit on the fringes of the G20 summit in Cannes, Dr. Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, disclosed that based on their updated WEO, “$38 trillion of investment is required to meet projected energy demand through 2035.” The breakdown will be: $16.9 trillion for power generation; $10 trillion for oil; $9.5 trillion for natural gas; $1.1 trillion for coal; and $0.3 trillion for biofuels. Dr. Birol albeit warned that “investors in energy projects are facing a multitude of risks.” The defining factors for the energy outlook set sharp focus on: worldwide access to energy; fossil fuel subsidies and investment in energy infrastructure. Although they are jealously guarded by competitors in the technology front, it appears that the role of fossil fuels in the energy mix – primarily “Big Oil” and “King Coal” -- might still be far from over. Experts nonetheless acknowledged that the “high carbon infrastructure lock-in is making the 2-degrees centigrade climate challenge goal more challenging and expensive to meet.”"

'via Blog this'Global leaders re-think energy strategy | The Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online: