Weather Report: The howling winds at Panglao Island

The image above does not truly convey, at first glance,  the strong gusts of wind that have been battering Panglao Island.  However, if you study the leaves, they would seem in dire need to detach themselves from the twigs and branches where they cling from.

Bohol remains untouched by ferocious storms and typhoons like Gener which is now wreaking havoc in Luzon and in some parts of the Visayan region. However, during the past few days, there has been a sporadic series of sudden rains in Panglao Island accompanied by formidable howling winds.

In Jagna, Bohol, there was even a twister.  Mayor Fortunato Abrenilla estimates the damage from it at P1.3 million in which 70 houses and 13 pumpboats have been destroyed in four barangays.

Several boat trips in the Visayas were suspended, including trips of passenger boats plying between Iloilo and Guimaras and between Iloilo and Bacolod due to big waves and strong currents.

In Cebu, 22 vessels canceled their trips as of 1 p.m. Monday, according to Commander Rolando Punzalan, commander of the Cebu Coast Guard Station.

Fishing boats and private small seacrafts and inter-island touring/diving boats who cater to the local tourism industry were warned not to venture out to sea.

Moreover, Alona Beach is swamped by seaweeds brought in by the waves.

In general, the weather of the past few days has not been auspicious to Panglao Island's hospitality trade.

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Cloud over the wind farm industry

A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in one location that is used to produce electrical power. There are two main locations of these wind farms; offshore and onshore. Offshore wind farms utilize the sea winds. The Capricorn Ridge Wind Farm has a capacity of 662.5 megawatt that is capable of generating electrical power to more than 200,000 homes in Texas. Another notable wind farm is the Dabancheng Wind Farm in China with 118 turbines and is one of Asia’s biggest wind farms.

They can be a sight to behold, but unfortunately, I have no pictures of wind farms.

A wind turbine is a machine used for converting the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, such as a pump or grinding stones, the machine is usually called a windmill. If the mechanical energy is then converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind generator.

Wind turbines are devices that generate electricity from the wind. 

It converts kinetic energy or energy that is created due to motion, into mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is used in numerous ways every day. One of its most important uses is as electrical energy. This electrical energy in turn allows us to power our light bulbs, refrigerator and television set.

Imagine wind turbines as electric fans, but instead of electricity producing air, it works the opposite. Wind turbines are connected to a generator and in turn convert wind into electricity. There are two groups of wind turbines, the vertical-axis design and the horizontal-axis variety. The horizontal-axis turbines have the main rotor on top of the tower and need to be pointed into the direction of the wind. The vertical-axis turbines on the other hand have the main rotor faced vertically and does not need to be positioned in the wind direction. It is the horizontal-axis that is the most commonly used while it is the vertical-axis that is highly advantageous.

In the Philippines’ Laoag City, three wind power developers were given the green light to build new wind farms last year, reinforcing Ilocos Norte’s bid to become the home of renewable energy (RE) in the country.

Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos, according to a Philippine Inquirer article, said the Lopez family-run Energy Development Corp. (EDC) would operate a $310-million facility in Burgos town. Energy Logics will put up its own plants in Burgos and in neighboring Pasuquin town at the cost of $380 million.

The UPC Renewables, an affiliate of the Italian UPC Group, will also build plants in the villages of Balaoi and Caparispisan in Pagudpud town.

The new wind energy sources were part of the governor’s report in her state of the province address, marking her first year in office.

“Today, we decide to break our dependence on fossil fuel and within the next few years, we must generate 50 percent of the energy used by the province from renewable energies,” Marcos said.

“We were the first [to harness wind power in the Philippines]. We will not stop until we achieve all our dreams.”

Now the bad news

Despite being hailed as a leader in "green" innovation, wind farms might cause a warming effect on local climates, concluded a new study. The newfound revelation casts a shadow over the alleged accomplishments of wind power, and will likely ignite controversy among lawmakers and advocacy groups.

Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany observed satellite data circling areas around wind farms in Texas, where four of the largest farms in the world are stationed. The researchers’ data, published in the Nature Climate Change journal, uncovered a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade — using data from 2003 to 2011 — in regions over the wind farms, compared with nearby areas without farms.

In contrast, scientists report that the Earth’s average temperature has increased by only 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1900.

"We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms," reported the study’s authors, which is likely due to the impact of the energy discharged by farms, as well as the turbulence ignited by turbine rotors. "These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate."

Many experts say wind power complements the generation of solar power, because solar power is only generated during daytime hours, while nighttime hours often experience stronger winds. However, the study’s authors and their colleagues deduced that turbulence behind the farm’s turbine blades force cooler air to the ground at night, and mix in warm air higher in the atmosphere, resulting in an elevated overall temperature.

"Given the present installed capacity and the projected growth in installation of wind farms across the world, I feel that wind farms, if spatially large enough, might have noticeable impacts on local to regional meteorology," Liming Zhou, one of the study’s authors, wrote in an email to Discovery News. "The year-to-year land surface temperature over wind farms shows a persistent upward trend from 2003 to 2011, consistent with the increasing number of operational wind turbines with time."

But John Dabiri, director of the Center for Bioinspired Wind Energy at the California Institute of Technology, warns that jumping to conclusions as to what are the best energy "solutions" — particularly when such action involves government interference — may be imprudent. Zhou and his colleagues’ findings show "that we need to think carefully about the unintended environmental consequences of any large-scale energy development," Dabiri averred, "including green technologies."

The purported research, if validated by future studies, should help reveal the fatuity of doling out massive taxpayer-backed subsidies to so-called green energy "solutions." In an effort to abate climate change, the advocacy of wind energy is possibly adding to climate change (even if the impact is "localized" and minimal). Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of birds die every year from turbine blades.

Globally, wind farms last year had a 21-percent increase (over 2010) in their capacity to produce electricity, and this capacity is expected to rise further as more, and larger, farms are constructed, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. China is reportedly building 36 wind turbines every day, while Texas holds the reign as the number-one producer of wind power in the United States.

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Suggested reads:

Time:  What the wind tells us

New American: Teens Sue Government for Global Warming

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Skywatch

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Homophobic? Are you gay

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times article authored by Richard M. Ryan, professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester and William S. Ryan, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara:

WHY are political and religious figures who campaign against gay rights so often implicated in sexual encounters with same-sex partners?

In recent years, Ted Haggard, an evangelical leader who preached that homosexuality was a sin, resigned after a scandal involving a former male prostitute; Larry Craig, a United States senator who opposed including sexual orientation in hate-crime legislation, was arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct in a men’s bathroom; and Glenn Murphy Jr., a leader of the Young Republican National Convention and an opponent of same-sex marriage, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after being accused of sexually assaulting another man.

One theory is that homosexual urges, when repressed out of shame or fear, can be expressed as homophobia.

Freud famously called this process a “reaction formation” — the angry battle against the outward symbol of feelings that are inwardly being stifled. Even Mr. Haggard seemed to endorse this idea when, apologizing after his scandal for his anti-gay rhetoric, he said, “I think I was partially so vehement because of my own war.”

It’s a compelling theory — and now there is scientific reason to believe it. In this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we and our fellow researchers provide empirical evidence that homophobia can result, at least in part, from the suppression of same-sex desire.

Read more here.

Our diet maybe causing homosexuality

Dr. Edna Lao practices both the conventional and integrative medicine. She has exhibited a high success rate for treating cancer the holistic way.

In one of her talks, she mentioned that excessive sugar in our diet might promote homosexuality.  She attributes it to estradiol, the most potent form of naturally occurring estrogen.  Sugar increases estradiol in men.

Whereas, Andry Lim, the country’s guru of Natural Farming, raises the red flag on eating too much conventionally-raised chickens.  

He claims that chickens are normally grown for 60 days.  However, to sell more, farms grow chickens today in 45 and even 30 days.  To expedite the growth, chickens are fed with antibiotics and injected with at least 7 vaccines in 30 days. 

And to make their flesh tender, they are injected with estrogen.  And Andry Lim asserts this is one of the reasons why there's a higher incidence of homosexuals among our male youths in this generation than in the past, as well as incidences of some girls these days who get their period as early as 8 years old.  

The solution:  Cut down on sugar and consume more native or free range chickens and their eggs.

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Suggested reads:

Rolling Stone: One town's war on gay teens

New American: Anti-Bullying “Gay” Activist Obscenely Bullies Young People

The New York Times:   President Obama officially embraced same-sex marriage

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Gratitude

Daybreak over Cebu Strait

Today, be grateful. Be grateful for your favorite music, for movies that make you feel good, for your phone that connects you with people, for your computer, and for the electricity that lights up your life. Be grateful for air travel that flies you everywhere.

Be grateful for the roads and traffic lights that keep the traffic in order. Be grateful to those who built our bridges. Be grateful for your pet, for your child, for your loved ones, for your eyes that enable you to read this.

Be grateful for your imagination. Be grateful that you can think. Be grateful that you can speak. Be grateful that you can laugh and smile. Be grateful that you can breathe. Be grateful that you are alive! Be grateful that you are You!

Be grateful that there are two words that can change your life.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

                                                                                         May the joy be with you,

                                                                                         Rhonda Byrne
                                                                                         The Secret

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According to Cicero, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues but the parent of all others.” 

Multiple studies have shown the correlation between gratitude and increased wellbeing not only for the individual but for all people involved. The positive psychology movement has embraced these studies and in an effort to increase overall wellbeing, has begun to make an effort to incorporate exercises to increase gratitude into the movement. 

Read more here.

Skywatch

Watery Wednesday

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Stardust

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

High up in the sky the little stars climb

Always reminding me that we're apart

You wander down the lane and far away

Leaving me a song that will not die

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by

"Stardust" is an American popular song composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics added in 1929 by Mitchell Parish. Originally titled "Star Dust", Carmichael first recorded the song at the Gennett Records studio in Richmond, Indiana. The song, "a song about a song about love", played in an idiosyncratic melody in medium tempo, became an American standard, and is considered one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over 1,500 total recordings. 

In 1999, "Stardust" was included in the "NPR 100", a list compiled by National Public Radio of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. 

In 2000, Swedish music reviewers voted it as "the tune of the century", with Kurt Weill's "Mack the Knife" as second.  

In 2004, Carmichael's original 1927 recording of the song was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

Read more here.

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Lead photo taken at Amorita's Cliffside Deck

A Rosie Sweet Home

Saturday Sareenity

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I very much appreciate my articles and photos appearing on fellow bloggers' sites, popular broadsheets, and local broadcast news segments, but I would appreciate even more a request for permission first.

Thank you!

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