Think of yourself as an environmentalist?  If you have a flat screen tv (or computer monitor) you are now part of the problem.

From the Los Angeles Times via the Chicago Tribune:

A synthetic chemical widely used in the manufacture of computers and flat-screen televisions is a potent greenhouse gas, with 17,000 times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide, but its measure in the atmosphere has never been taken, nor is it regulated by international treaty.

The chemical, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), could be considered the “missing greenhouse gas,” atmospheric chemists Michael J. Prather and Juno Hsu of UC Irvine wrote in a paper released June 26 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “With the surge in flat-panel displays, the market for NF3 has exploded.”

The rapid growth in production alarms some climate scientists. In the atmosphere it has a life of 550 years, according to calculations by Prather and Hsu.

When the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international global warming treaty, was negotiated to control the rapid rise of planet-warming gases, NF3 was a niche product used in modest amounts in the semiconductor industry.

[...]

About three-quarters of the chemical is now used to manufacture computer microchips; the rest is used to make liquid crystal display panels on flat-screen televisions, Painter said.

[...]

Overall, world production of NF3 is likely to reach 8,000 tons a year by 2010, Painter said. That is the equivalent of more than 130 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. By comparison, according to the UC Irvine paper, a major coal-fired power plant producing 3,600 megawatts of electricity emits as much as 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.

(the full article)

I wonder- how many of those LEED certified homes have flat screen Tv’s?  I’d bet it is a lot of them.

Continue reading " Your Flat Screen TV is Part of the Global Warming Problem "

Then:

“I think that presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons. Presidents, since the Cold War, have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.”

-Hillary Clinton, August 2007.

And Now:

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

-Hillary Clinton, April 2007.

What a difference 8 months make.

Continue reading " Hillary Clinton- Hypocrite. "