The Second Coming Of The Mahatma ?  

Oil prices are rising again, now well back into an uptrend and breaching US$70 a barrel.

WORLD oil prices soared overnight, breaching $US71 in London, after data showed no increase in US petrol stockpiles last week as the peak driving season in North America begins. Brent North Sea crude for July delivery jumped $US1.14 to $US71.08 per barrel in electronic deals. The contract, which expires at the close, had gained more than a dollar yesterday in the wake of the US inventory data.

Overnight, New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, leapt $US1.34 to $US67.60 per barrel in floor trading. Crude prices had rallied overnight after the US Department of Energy said US inventories of motor fuel were flat at 201.5 million barrels in the week ending June 8, well below the average range for this time of year and ending a five-week streak of gains. ...

The International Energy Agency has meanwhile pressured OPEC to pump more crude in order to help trim rising oil prices.

Geopolitical concerns over key crude producer Iran continued to linger, traders said. UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei overnight called on Iran to declare a moratorium on expanding uranium enrichment work in order to defuse the crisis over fears Tehran seeks atomic weapons. Iran, the world's fourth-biggest producer of crude, has threatened to further reduce cooperation with the UN atomic agency if new sanctions are ordered, and insists that it has mastered uranium enrichment.

The UN Security Council has imposed two sets of sanctions since December in a bid to get Iran to halt uranium enrichment - which can make fuel for reactors or for a bomb - and to cooperate with an IAEA investigation over concerns Iran seeks nuclear weapons. Analysts warn that Iran might decide to disrupt its oil exports if hit with new sanctions.

Renewable Energy Access has an article on another way of harnessing the power of the sun - " Hybrid Solar Lighting Promises 50% Efficiency".

While hybrid solar lighting technology is still in its infancy compared to solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal, the technology is slowly gaining recognition as a legitimate contender in the race to become a commercially viable technology. Set to enter the U.S. market in 2008, the hybrid technology recently earned the Excellence in Technology Transfer Award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer.

The award is presented to federal laboratory employees for outstanding work in the process of transferring a technology to the commercial marketplace. In this case, the award recognized a team of researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

The Oak-Ridge developed hybrid solar lighting (HSL) technology uses a rooftop-mounted 48-inch diameter collector and secondary mirror that tracks the sun throughout the day. The collector system focuses the sunlight into 127 optical fibers connected to special light fixtures equipped with diffusion rods similar to fluorescent light bulbs. The rods spread light in all directions.

One collector currently powers 8 to 10 hybrid light fixtures that can illuminate about 1,000 square feet of space. During times of little or no sunlight, a sensor controls the intensity of fluorescent lamps to maintain a constant level of illumination.

According to ORNL, the system is estimated to save about 6,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year in lighting and another 2,000 kWh in reduced cooling needs for a total savings of 8,000 kWh per year.

"The Hybrid Solar Lighting technology is fundamentally different from PV and solar thermal," said John Morris, president of Sunlight Direct, Inc., which licensed the technology from ORNL. "Our system transmits light in order to reduce the electrical need for lighting within a building. It does not convert sunlight to electricity but rather delivers the natural lighting directly into the building—with 50% efficiency."

If PV panels were used to convert the sunlight to electricity and then to convert the electricity back into lighting, the conversions would result in only about 2%-8% efficiency, Morris added.

Grist looks at decling North American bird populations in "Birds of a Feather Decline Together".

Populations of 20 common American bird species have declined by at least half in the last 40 years, according to a new analysis from the Audubon Society. Hard-hit species include the whippoorwill, meadowlark, common tern, field sparrow, ruffed grouse and -- our favorite to say -- common grackle. Bird declines "reflect other things that are happening in the environment that we should be worried about," says study author Greg Butcher.

Many of the species inhabit open grassland that is being increasingly encroached upon by suburbia and large-scale farming; Audubon also points an accusing talon at climate change and invasive species. Northern bobwhites have been the hardest hit, diminishing by about 83 percent; the boreal chickadee is takin' it from both sides, making not only the Audubon's list, but a recent tally of species affected by the West Nile virus. Other species are thriving, including robins, cardinals, wild turkeys, and go-back-to-Canada geese. Ah, the gobbling and honking of spring!

More links:
Renewable Energy Access - Nissan Installs Solar PV Panels in Barcelona Plant, Thermal to Follow
Grist - The Geopolitics Of Energy Independence
The Age - Green MP switches to the current power play
The Age Europe falling behind in Kyoto carbon targets
The Australian - Warning on power bill subsidies
The Australian - 'Steel Mississippi' rail gets green light
The Age - Costello launches petrol inquiry
Reuters - G8 agreement on climate change a "disgrace": Al Gore
TreeHugger - MTV Tackles Climate Change in a Big Way!
TreeHugger - Floods, Monsoons, Heat Waves, Drought: Climate Change In Asia Now
TreeHugger - Tall Cities = Green Cities?
Physorg - China Starts Three Gorges Dam Generator
SMH - No easy exit from Bush's war
The Age - US disappointed with Iraqi progress. Still haven't handed over the oil.
Smirking Chimp - What Every American Should Know About Iraq
The Tines - Why we must break with the American crazies
Deoxy.org - The Betrayal Of Adam Smith
LA Times - 'Storming the Gates of Paradise' by Rebecca Solnit
Lew Rockwell - Ron Paul, the Mahatma. While I like a lot of Mr Paul's policy stances (particularly on the Iraq war and foreign policy), I'm not sure he is exactly the second coming of Gandhi - and I'm also unsure about support from people like Gary North. I think Reason's take on North and the Reconstructionists ("Invitation to a Stoning") is more in line with what I'd view as libertarian dogma, though the Lew Rockwell column in the first link doesn't even mention religion, let alone theocracy, so he doesn't come off like some crazed Dominionist in this case (I haven't read any of his other writings)....

I was watching Gandhi recently, as I do every year or two. It is inspirational to me. It tells the story of a man who could not possibly win the battles he chose to fight, but did anyway. There is no doubt that it is a propaganda film, funded in part by the Indian government. It scrambles his chronology. But, on the whole, it got the story right. Mohandas K. Gandhi, a lawyer, was able to transform Indian politics. He did this through force of moral character and shrewd tactics that made every official response either "Damned if we do; damned if we don’t." I read "The Gandhi Nobody Knows" when it was published in 1983, a year after the movie was released. I know the strange side of the man. But he mobilized a huge nation without recourse to violence. That was his great legacy.

I also like the movie because it is the story of a failed empire. By 1945, the British Empire had spent itself into near bankruptcy because of two wars. It was a pale shadow of itself. It would soon grow much paler.

There are many scenes in the movie that have long grabbed my imagination, but none so much as the one in which Gandhi is seated at a table with a British military official. The official asks rhetorically, "You don’t really expect us just to march out of India, do you?" Gandhi replies, "Yes, that is exactly what I expect you to do." In 1947, they did.

What has this to do with Ron Paul, who is running for President? At least this much: he also opposes violence, he also opposes empire, and he also believes in the long run that justice will prevail. So, he does what Gandhi did. He keeps telling the story of how a better society can be built, must be built, and will eventually be built when men reduce their commitment to violence as a way of shaping the world. This includes violence committed by the civil government.

They called Gandhi the mahatma: the great self. Ron Paul is the mahatma of self-government.

He gains applause from the anti-war Left, small as it is. He gains applause from free market advocates, who are weary of government interference in their lives. And he drives the muddled middle crazy.

Note: he doesn’t wear a loincloth. ...