Passenger Cars
Food Production Still Depends Too Heavily On Oil
October 6, 2011 | Author tamolaxu
:: The use of oil and petroleum products in food production starts almost before the seed is in the ground and is a major factor in everything from synthetic fertiliser and pesticide production through processing and packaging right to final delivery in the shops.
The industry is one of the biggest users of fossil fuels and therefore is often at the mercy of fluctuations in oil and petrol prices as well as being both energy inefficient and unsustainable as reserves of oil in the world are gradually being depleted.
It is calculated that it takes more than 400 gallons of oil to feed one person for a year in the USA. Approximately a third of this goes to the manufacture of fertilisers, while another fifth is used in farm machinery. Add in the costs of the machinery that processes and packages the food and the transportation costs to the point of sale and these together explain that figure of 400 gallons per person per year.
Put another way, this food production system means that it takes three calories of energy for every single calorie of edible food produced on average. The difference when this calculation is applied to grain-fed beef is an astonishing 35 calories of energy for every one calorie of beef. Both these figures exclude the additional cost of energy input involved in food processing and transportation.
Promoters of sustainable and organic farming point out that it is the industrial system of food production that accounts for what is argued to be such an inefficient use of energy.
The chief culprit, they say, is the amount of energy that goes into producing artificial fertilisers and pesticides, derived from such things as nitrogen or natural gas. It has been suggested that as much as 40% of the energy that goes into the food production system goes into this part of the process.
It is also argued that the need for these products is precisely because of the structure of the food production system, both meat and vegetables, which have become increasingly produced in concentrated and specific areas of many countries.
Over time, such concentrated activity has depleted the nutrition of the soil, damaged ecosystems and polluted water supplies. There have also been increasing concerns about the long-term effects on human health of the residues of such chemicals in food.
Systems such as integrated pest management, organic farming and the use of more natural, low-chemical agricultural products are part of moving to more sustainable farming methods.
Using natural sources for biopesticides, biofungicides and yield enhancers can benefit and protect the land, protect crops and increase farmers’ yields while leaving little or no residue in the food produced and this is the focus of the research and products being developed by biopesticides developers.
Such low-chem agricultural products are gradually replacing the older generation of artificial fertilisers and pesticides which are being withdrawn or phased out by many governments around the world. However, the process of getting this new, healthier generation of products tested, registered and licensed is both costly and lengthy. The process has also not so far been harmonised across the world and the need to do so is becoming increasingly urgent.
Other measures to reduce the energy inefficiency in food production include buying locally and organically produced food as well as reducing the amount of packaging used. While plainly consumers can take action about what they buy for themselves, they can also pressure the bigger food store chains to source more locally as well as to cut back on packaging.
Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/Alison-Withers-7267/Biopesticides-168385.php
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Article Directory – Internet Marketing/Online Business Articles – 26-50 of 23400 Articles
August 27, 2011 | Author tamolaxu
Showing 26-50 of 23400 ,
by Tamara Jacobs Communication is the key to solving most problems and generally getting the things that you want in life and business. Communication means articulating what you’re after, how you plan to achieve it, and what is required from the other party to ensure that all falls into place. The other party might be a boss, a co-worker, a client or your entire customer base.
Published 29Jun2011, viewed 6 times
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by Celene Harrelson Twitter is an excellent way to connect with your community, find new
prospects and get the word out about your business. With more and more
people using the internet as their primary means of keeping their hand
on pulse of news and current events, Twitter is more valuable than ever.
Published 29Jun2011, viewed 58 times
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by Patric Chan Advertising your business, whether it is online or offline is important to ensure its visibility. Here are some super advertising tips you can apply to your business and see a soar in profits.
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 71 times
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by Timothy Capper Twitter is by far the most used social networking application available, and that makes it an incredibly powerful marketing tool. Nevertheless, Twitter is quite difficult to use effectively, and failure here is much more prevalent than in other mediums
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 9 times
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by Brandon Clay The two main types of pay per click (PPC) advertising are flat-rate and bid-based. What is the value of each and which will work best for your website and budget.
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 21 times
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by Brad James Article marketing is a type of promotion wherein businesspeople and / or their personnel generate brief articles in relation to their specific areas and publish these articles to numerous media. This article talks about the benefits of implementing article marketing for your business, as well as how to do it properly.
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 12 times
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by Graham Baylis You want a new web site design, or an upgrade, but you understand that the wrong supplier could literally break your business. So just how do you look for a suitable supplier? Not just a ‘quick fix’ but a true partner who will enhance your online team for years. This article will give you some pointers
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 33 times
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by Jason Drohn Being a productive Internet marketer requires you take care of each and every task on your to do list effectively, without any delay. If you want to reach a six figure income with your Internet marketing business, then you need to know how to get the most out of your time by managing it efficiently. So what exactly should you do to be good at time management?
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 2 times
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by Patricia Strasser Besides getting healthy, numerous women and men wish to have washboard abs while immersing in the summer sun. To do this, do ab crunches every day , keep a well balanced diet plan, exercise every day, train with weights and also think positively.
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 7 times
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by Jeff Schuman Web conferencing is being used by many business owners these days because it provides a number of advantages for any business. There are times that online meetings that are conducted will be missed by important people and this is when web conferencing recording is going to be a big help in many ways.
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 60 times
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by Dan Jacobs Are you tired of getting talked down to by your search engine optimization company? Well there is a new type of S.E.O. firm on the block and they will educate you before you give them one penny. They will tell you what you need to do to get on page one of google for what people are searching for. The best part is they do this free of charge!
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 2 times
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by Jeff Schuman Build it and they will come does not apply to blog marketing. It is a little bit harder than that, but not much!
Published 28Jun2011, viewed 85 times
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by Jeff Schuman It is human nature to tell people about things we like. Whether it’s a good movie, or a product we have saved money on, we like to tell people because by nature we are all helpful creatures. Did you know you can take this simple philosophy and make a lot of money with it as an affiliate marketer?
Published 29Jun2011, viewed 55 times
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by Jeff Schuman Have you been told that you can earn easy money online, but are not sure you believe it? The truth is that anyone can easily achieve this goal if you just understand what you need to do to accomplish it.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 15 times
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by Jeff Schuman When you are looking for internet home business ideas you will be amazed at the results.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 26 times
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by Jeff Schuman Do you have a business of your own that is done from the comfort of your own home and are trying to make money with it? Then you have to learn the most effective ways for advertising a home business you can earn all the income you wish to.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 56 times
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by Cynthia Minnaar Fresh content is still in high demand as the internet continues to grow. As blogging has grown considerably over the past few years I want to offer two ways you can write blog articles and generate online income.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 21 times
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by Andrew Scherer oining a website community is one way to access the various features being offered by the site. In such a case, one is required to share some personal information to these sites to qualify. However, you should not be worried if you have verified the legitimacy of these sites. Popular online website communities that are constantly growing are Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 11 times
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by Jason Drohn Social media marketing is one of the most lucrative ways to get the word out about your product or service, since social media has become such an integral part of the lives of people today. The following article is aimed at helping you make your social media marketing experience much more productive and save on time so that you can see long term results.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 13 times
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by Stewart Wrighter It can be tempting to go the cheap route when hiring a web designer for your business. However, this article will share with you why that may not be the best option for you.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 37 times
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by Jason Drohn Article marketing is the simplest way to start marketing your business online and getting targeted visitors to your site. Even though there are many other online marketing methods out there, nothing really comes close to the efficiency of article marketing when done right.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 5 times
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by Diana Samalot What is an Internet business income opportunity? This is one question that many people ask about when they first learn about working at home through the Internet. The fact is that you can make a good residual income by working at home with an Internet business.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 10 times
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by Jason Drohn Getting targeted traffic through article marketing can be a simple process if you know what you’re doing. The purpose of this article is to give you concrete steps that you can put into action right away and see results with your article marketing efforts.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 5 times
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by Jason Drohn It doesn’t take highly sophisticated skills or knowledge to run a business blog; you just need to have a clear mind and a strong focus on your goals. Once you have the clarity that’s needed, you’ll automatically know the importance of having a business blog and taking the right steps to make it successful. Remember, you can blog anything you want as long as it’s related to your business and offers good value.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 6 times
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by Jason Drohn Outsourcing graphic design work online is not rocket science; in fact it’s one of the recommended things to do when you want to get high quality graphics created at a formidable price. However, the question that comes up here is, how do you increase your chances of success with graphic design outsourcing if you’re just starting out? Let’s look into that in the following article.
Published 27Jun2011, viewed 7 times
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Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/Internet_Marketing/Online_Business/more/25
2008 Audi RS 4 – Feature – Car and Driver
July 17, 2011 | Author tamolaxu
With “only” 420 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque, the Audi A4–based RS 4 is handily outpowered by the ’09 CTS-
V ,
but don’t let the specs fool you: Audi’s direct-injection 4.2-liter V-8 revs fast and high, marked by a very un-A4-like bellow that rises into an impassioned wail as the tachometer’s needle spins toward its dizzying 8000-rpm redline. Meanwhile, its prodigious power is kept from going up in white clouds of smoke with Quattro all-wheel drive—a rarity in this class.
The RS 4’s tastefully flared fenders, unique rear deck, and gorgeous 19-inch wheels make an impression of muscular understatement that’s undeniably attractive, if lacking the Caddy’s visual punch. And in spite of its carbon-fiber trim and long list of standard goodies, the interior feels dated and too snug.
And then there’s the price, which at nearly $70,000 plus options may have been somewhat justifiable when it was introduced for 2007 and it was one of the only games in town, but now it seems utterly ridiculous compared with the CTS-
V ,
BMW M3, or Lexus IS F.
In 2010, a more substantial, more powerful, and, we hope, cheaper RS 4 will appear, based on the excellent all-new A4. But for 2008, only one year after Audi brought it to the U.S., the RS 4 suddenly finds itself on the verge of irrelevance.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/08q1/competitors_in_the_crosshairs_2009_cadillac_cts-v-feature/2008_audi_rs_4_page_3
2005 Bentley Arnage – First Drive Review – Auto Reviews – Car and Driver
July 10, 2011 | Author tamolaxu
In this era of frightful change, when even the word
mother winds up as one-half of a vulgar slur heard incessantly in the rhythmic chanting of what passes for music these days, it is comforting to know that a few things continue to resist change with the resolute fervor of, say, Andy Rooney’s refusal to trim the screwball squiggly hairs of his 85-year-old eyebrows.
So rest assured that even with its newest owners—those work-driven Germans from Volkswagen—the assembly line in England that bears the grand Bentley sedans and limos still moves to a different drummer, at a calming rate of exactly six inches a minute. And it won’t move at all unless someone orders one.
Indeed, the Arnage, first introduced in 1998, the year VW acquired Bentley, still gets its 6000 spot welds, fired methodically as from a gun one at a time. Its 520 separate panels must be bound carefully together for eternity by several feet of MIG welds and copious quantities of glue, and the wood veneer, as delicate as strips of puff pastry—oak from faraway California, the burled walnut and the blond bird’s-eye maple presumably from secret forests known only to the Rockefellers—must be layered with five coats of clear lacquer and then cured no fewer than 72 hours. And here the assault of change encroaches: That task is now performed by one of only two robots in the greatly refurbished plant, and only because humans are imperfect and cannot apply the coating uniformly.
The other robot is close by, carefully shaping the sheetmetal edges of the hoods. If you’d like one of these servants as a conversation piece for your pad, it costs $540,000 and turns out a finished hood every hour and 20 minutes. Speaking of time, it takes somewhere between 390 and 450 hours, depending on which factory tour guide you believe, to produce an Arnage. That’s damned near 12 weeks on the outside. The week we were there, a dozen Arnages were built.
What comes out the end of the factory at Crewe—Rolls-Royces were also once painstakingly produced here—is 5700 pounds of stupefying refinement wearing one, possibly two, colors from a choice of more than 40, a four-door sedan that is almost 18 feet long and smells, inside, like a field of wildflowers. It is powered by an immense pushrod V-8 of 412 cubic inches whose architecture dates back to 1955, bolstered by a pair of Garrett T4 turbochargers. In the sportier Arnage T model, this engine makes 450 horsepower and 646 pound-feet of torque. The more sedate R model is detuned to 400 horses. And please do not ask one of the commissioning agents, "How much for one with a manual?"
That torque number is deceiving. Floor this big gentleman, and you won’t need a chiropractor tonight—it’s fatter than Henry VIII. The
(October 2002), same engine, same weight, whooshed to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds, turned the quarter in 14.1 at 102 with a governor-limited top speed of 168. The Arnage
goes,
and it’s entertaining to drive. The Germans have improved the steering: not a hint of slop, and although it’s slightly numb, it has a truly linear feel. The beckoned engine sends up a great drumming groan, a marvelous unearthly sound.
What’s new for 2005 is the car’s face. In the previous models, wayward deer were confronted with six headlamps, four of them housed behind windows. Gone. Now there are just four lamps, each set deep into the sheetmetal and surrounded by bright chrome bezels. Two of them are now xenon low-beams. The bumpers are new, and the hoodline is deeper, making two-tone paint jobs a more appealing notion.
The critical Arnage experience goes on in the back seat. The seat bottoms, which are exquisitely tailored in one of 27 "hide options," move forward electrically for that luxurious slouch after a hard day selling off your inflated stock options. For the spineless, there’s a button that will turn the lower seatback as hard as oak. Both rear passengers get pretty wood trays that pop out of the front seatbacks. Legroom is great but short of stretch-out in first-class on a 747. For that you need one of three Arnage limos—the standard RL, another stretched about 18 inches, and a third almost 29 inches, the prices of which seem known only to the Saudi royal family (only seven of the 29-inch stretchers were sold last year).
Everywhere are gobs of (in our case) bird’s-eye maple and dark oak, and gleaming chrome switches. The beautiful gauges are yellowish ivory, in an art deco vein. On the sidewalks, people gawk. Valet attendants come anxiously forward, only to get an evil eye from your chauffeur.
Oh,
tsk-tsk , it’s time to talk vulgar money. The R goes for $219,985 and the T for $241,985. Then you can drop by the Arnage haberdashery, Bentley Mulliner, and get a $341 "jewel" gas cap. Or a package that includes a cute cocktail cabinet, a stowage compartment, a one-bottle fridge, chrome sill plates, front wing badges, more wood trim, a trick steering wheel, and a phone setup—for $15,148. But not to worry—the chrome gas cap is included. (At 10 mpg city, 14 highway, your man deserves a nice one, as he will be seeing a lot of it.)
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/04q3/2005_bentley_arnage-first_drive_review