When the weather changes from warm to cold it can affect many parts of your car, the tires being one of the most important. Tires need to have proper grip to the pavement so that you, as the driver, can control the vehicle. Temperatures that rapidly decrease can cause the air inside of your tires to change which can cause problems with your tire pressure which will then affect your tire performance and your safety.

You should check your tire pressure more often in the winter months. The shorter days, thus less warming sunlight and colder temperature will give you tire pressure issues. For every 10 degrees Fahrenheit change in the outside temperature, the tires’ air pressure will change by about 1 pound per square inch (psi). This falls with colder temperatures and rises with higher temperatures.

The different in temperature between summertime and wintertime is nearly fifty degrees Fahrenheit. As the outside temperature changes it results in a gain or loss of around 5 psi. If the tires are not properly taken care of and air pressure maintained the tires performance will plummet.

This is why you need to check your tires’ air pressure regularly. The tires need to maintain the tire pressures listed in your owner’s manual. The tire pressure recommended in the manual is what is called a cold pressure. This does not mean that it is only for cold weather but the temperature that your tires should have before starting to drive on them for the day. Once you have driven on the tires they are warmed up.

Never purposely under inflate or over inflate your tires. This will not allow better traction as you might believe but most likely mess up your tire tread and give you bad handling. If you have winter tires they are already more prone to irregular wear due to their aggressive tread design. Having a good tire gauge will help when you check the tire pressure. Digital ones are easy to read and reasonable priced.

If you have an attached garage or park in a heated parking garage you can lose tire pressure as you leave this heated area and drive out into the cold temperatures.If this is the case for your living situation you might think about adding an extra pound of air to the tires to compensate for the temperature difference. This little bit of air into the tires can allow the handling of your car to improve in the cold outside weather.

If you live in an area that does not get that cold during the winter months continue to regularly check your tire pressure anyway. If a cold front comes through and drops the temperature for a few days it would be smart to again check your air temperature at this time. The temperatures might rise again but during the days of cooler weather the air, which is a gas, in your tires will have contracted and caused your air pressure to fall.

Many people tend to forget to check their spare tire as well. This is smart to do at the beginning of the winter and periodically throughout the winter season.Also remember to make sure after checking your tire pressure to securely put your valve caps back on. If you forget and leave these off moisture can enter into the valve and cause air to get out thus changing your tire pressure.

As the winter weather approaches your area remember to get your car ready for the changing temperatures. Read through your owner’s manual so that you know what air pressure is correct for your vehicle. Regularly check your tires’ air pressure and add air whenever it is necessary so to keep your tires well maintained and working properly for your car.

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Baby seals stand no chance against club-wielding seal hunters—pups must look on as fellow seals are bludgeoned to death only to then meet the same bloody fate. The commercial seal slaughter is an off-season profit venture for the fishing industry, and it accounts for less than 1 percent of Newfoundland’s economy. The seal slaughter is not a subsistence activity for native peoples—Inuit sealing accounts for only about 3 percent of the annual slaughter.

A few months ago, a vote by the European Union (E.U.) was made to end the sale of seal products. Well, now is the time to do a little victory dance, because the ban has just been finalized! According to the AP, Canada exported about $5 million worth of seal products to the EU last year, so this ban is another big blow to the country’s annual seal massacre.

Since most of Europe has denounced the shameful slaughter of baby seals loud and clear, you’d think that Canada’s government would finally get a clue and take action to end the annual bloodbath, right?

Think again.

Sorry to say, but once again, instead of enacting the ban that good people around the world—including a great many in Canada—are demanding, the Canadian government continues to pour all its efforts into keeping the massacre going. Until the last minute, it was still lobbying the E.U. to change its mind.

Canadian bureaucrats can be pretty thickheaded, but we are determined to keep the pressure on them until they can’t ignore it any longer. That means buying American maple syrup instead of Canadian and spreading the word to get other folks involved too!

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In these uncertain economic times we really need to look at our food costs and start to spend more wisely. Here are a few recipes that will cover your dinners for a week, with some leftovers for your lunch. They are as quick as takeout, as easy as many processed dinners, and more economical and nutritious than both.

Chickpea Curry

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp mustard seed
1 dried chili, or 1/2 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tbsp salt, or to taste
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 ripe tomatoes, diced or 1 cup canned tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tbsp chopped cilantro for garnish (optional)

1. Heat oil in a large pot and add onions and garlic and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.

2. If you are an exacting cook, prepare the chili as above, adding the mustard seeds to the mortar and pestle as well. If you are a lazy cook like me add all the spices to the pot and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

3. Add the chickpeas and tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes. Serve with bread or rice. Add cilantro garnish if using.

Beans with Tomatoes and Swiss Chard

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
6 mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 medium tomato, cubed
1/2 bunch of swiss chard, roughly chopped
1 can navy beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper to taste
grated Parmesan cheese
basil or thyme for garnish

1. Heat oil in pan and add onions, cooking until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until golden, about 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook until softened and golden.

2. Add tomato and cook, stirring occasionally until the pieces are soft and have thrown off some liquid. Add the beans and cook until they are warmed through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with cheese and herbs and serve.

Tex-Mex Chili

2 tbsp olive oil
6 bay leaves
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2-1 tsp crushed dried red chilies
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp vinegar
1 5 1/2 oz can of tomato paste
1 cup canned tomatoes, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 zucchini, chopped
1 cup frozen corn
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 can kidney beans, drained

1. Heat oil in a large pot. Add onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add carrots and celery and sauté for 2 minutes. Add bay leaves, cinnamon, allspice, dried chilies, salt, chili powder, cumin, and oregano. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

2. Stir in vinegar, tomato paste and 3-4 cups of water, depending on how thick you want the chili. Add tomato, green pepper, zucchini and corn and cook, uncovered, for an hour. Add the kidney beans and mushrooms and cook for 1/2 hour longer. If the chili is too think, add a bit more water.

Oriecchiette with Lentils, Onions and Spinach

1/3 cup olive oil
3 large onions (2 lb total), thinly sliced (7 cups)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 Turkish or 1/2California bay leaf
1 cup French green lentils
1 lb orecchiette, fusilli, or penne
2 (5-oz) bags baby spinach
1 1/2 oz finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons)

1. Add oil and increase heat to moderate until hot but not smoking, then stir in onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Reduce heat to moderately low and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until onions are very tender and golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

2. While onions cook, cover lentils with water by 1 inch in a 1 1/2-2-quart saucepan and boil over moderate heat, covered, until lentils are just tender and most of water is absorbed, 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and let stand, covered, until ready to use.

3. Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander and return pasta to pot.

4. Add onions, lentils, and spinach to pasta, then toss with just enough reserved cooking water to wilt spinach and moisten pasta. Add cheese and salt and pepper to taste, tossing to combine.

Dal and Pumpkin Soup

1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
A walnut-sized knob of ginger
225 grams (8 oz.) split red lentils
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground chili
250 grams (9 oz.) pumpkin
small bunch coriander, roughly chopped

For the onion topping:
2 medium onions
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 small hot chillies (I used chili flakes, not having any fresh chilies on hand)
2 cloves garlic

1. Peel the onion and chop it roughly. Peel and crush the garlic and put it with the onion into a medium-sized, heavy saucepan. Peel the ginger, cut it into thin shreds and stir that in too. Add the lentils and pour in 1 1/2 litres (6 cups) of water. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to an enthusiastic simmer. Stir in the ground turmeric and chili, season and leave to simmer, covered, for twenty minutes.

2. While the soup is cooking, bring a medium-size pan of water to the boil. Peel the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and fibre, then cut the flesh into fat chunks. Boil the pumpkin pieces for ten minutes, until they are tender enough to take a skewer without much pressure. Drain them and set aside.

3. To make the onion topping, peel the onions and cut them into thin rings. Cook them in the oil in a shallow pan until they start to colour. Cut the chilies in half, scrape out the seeds and slice the flesh finely. Peel and finely slice the garlic and add it with the chilies to the onions. Continue cooking until the onions are a deep golden brown. Set aside.

4. Remove the lid from the lentils and turn up the heat, boiling hard for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, then add the drained pumpkin. Put the soup through the blender until smooth, then pour it into a bowl. Stir in the roughly chopped coriander and check the seasoning. I find this soup likes a more generous than usual amount of salt.

Mushroom Tofu Stew

1 tbsp peanut or vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into pieces
1 cup vegetable stock or water
1 oz dried mushrooms, plus soaking liquid (optional)
1 1/2 cups white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 dried chili, chopped, plus soaking liquid or 1 fresh chili chopped
1/4- 1/2 soy sauce
1 star anise
1 small stick cinnamon
2 lbs tofu, drained and cut into cubes

1. Heat oil in a large pot. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the potatoes and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until the potatoes are just tender, about 10 minutes.

2. Add the mushrooms, the re-hydrated mushrooms, if using, the chili, star anise, cinnamon and soy sauce. Cook for another 10 minutes or so. Add the tofu and continue to cook, covered for at least a half an hour to allow the flavours to blend. You can make this earlier in the day or the day before serving.

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This doesn’t mean eating at home exempts you from contributing to waste. It is, however, within your control. Here are some tips to manage your waste at home.

It’s no surprise that Americans are the world’s biggest producers of garbage. According to Elizabeth Royte in her book Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, “Since 1960, the nation’s municipal waste stream has nearly tripled, reaching a reported peak of 360 million tons in 2002.” Interestingly, over the course of the same period the number of meals Americans ate in restaurants verses the number of meals they prepared and ate at home has risen nearly that much.

Think about the last time you went out to eat, got an oversized portion, and you decided it wasn’t worth it to take the leftovers home. The Mother Nature Network points out, when food gets wasted, it has more of an environmental impact than just ending up in a landfill. All of the resources used to grow the food, from the water used on the crops to the animal feed, have also been wasted. All of the energy used to transport the food also goes to waste.

According to the Dogwood Alliance, Americans use 15 billion disposable coffee cups a year, not to mention all the extra trimmings that come with it.

From The Art of Eating In:
The molded plastic tray came with a lid that, once popped off, served as the dipping bowl for sauces. The soy sauce and wasabi came in individually wrapped packets, as did the pickled ginger and the pair of disposable wooden chopsticks. On the tray beside the sushi was a small green piece of plastic film that was cut along one edge to resemble spiky grass. Everything came inside a plastic bag, along with a stack of napkins that I used less than half of.

When ordering take out, you’ll often receive way more napkins, ketchup packets, utensils, etc. than you know what to do with. Instead of saying no to these items, it’s commonplace to throw unused products away with the rest of the take-out trash.

According to No Free Refills, the average American eats fast food 150 times a year, and the fast food industry accounts for the majority of our urban litter. What’s more, the industry has played a large role in the deforestation of the U.S.’s Southern forest.

From The Art of Eating In:
Then there are the horrors of modern-day catering. When I was working at the publishing house, I ordered business lunches twice a week for meetings. It blew my mind how much stuff came along with them. I’d order the meal for the group and unload it in the conference room. A basket of paper-wrapped half sandwiches came wrapped in cellophane and decorative ribbons—an actual wicker basket of them. The wraps were wrapped in paper, and each sandwich half was speared with a wooden toothpick. The side dishes came in sturdy plastic serving bowls, with sturdy plastic serving spoons and tongs, some that were extra and never used, and a bowl of salad always came with three or four tubs full of different types of dressing (most barely touched by the end of the meeting). There was a large plastic platter of cookies, brownies, and other desserts, also wrapped in cellophane. Everything was thrown out after the meal—from the baskets to the tongs.

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Nia believes that “all things that have been given life deserve to live life,” and she proves to her fans that she is committed to the cause by posing naked on the subway train with a tagline that reads, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur.”

Nia joins a long list of gorgeous celebrities who have posed for PETA’s iconic anti-fur campaign. She says, “In being a responsible adult and really understanding what happens for one fur coat and how many animals are killed and slaughtered for one fur coat, it just isn’t worth it to me.”

Animals who are raised and killed for their fur endure tremendous suffering. Foxes, minks, coyote, and rabbits—and even cats and dogs—are bludgeoned, electrocuted, and often skinned alive for their fur.

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The Green Shows at New York Fashion Week, naturally. Ecouterre captured the best moments from last week’s fashion shows, where styles were flirty, edgy, and everything in between. They caught up with designers Samantha Pleet, Lizz Wasserman of Popomomo, JoAnn Berman, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart of Vaute Couture, and Melissa Kirgan and Xing-Zhen Chung-Hilyard of Eko-Lab, discussing their individual visions and use of green materials. Each designer has a surprisingly unique approach to fashioning their green fabrics. For some, burying it in mud is the trick; for others, it’s derived from wood pulp. How’s that for one of a kind?

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But for dairyman John Fiscalini, the dung on his farm is renewable gold: He’s converting it into electricity.

At his farm outside Modesto, a torrent of water washes across the barn’s concrete floor several times a day, flushing tons of manure away from his herd of fuzzy-faced Holsteins and into nearby tanks. There, bacteria consume the waste and release methane, which is then burned in a generator capable of producing enough power to run Fiscalini’s 530-acre farm, his cheese factory and 200 additional homes.

Fiscalini’s resourcefulness should be drawing accolades, considering that state mandates are requiring California industries to boost renewable energy use and slash greenhouse gas emissions sharply over the next 10 years.

But efforts to convert cow pies into power have sparked controversy. State air quality control regulators say these “dairy digester” systems can generate pollution themselves and, unless the devices are overhauled, are refusing to issue permits for them.

The standoff underscores how conflicting regulatory mandates are making it hard for California to meet its green-energy goals.

“We didn’t expect this,” said Michael Gallo, chief executive of Joseph Gallo Farms in Atwater, Calif., whose family has spent “a lot of money” to get its dairy digester system compliant.

The idea of turning biological waste — whether manure, trash or grass clippings — into fuel has been around for centuries. Technologies vary, but the idea is to extract methane from decomposing organic material, remove impurities and burn it for heat, light or transport. Interest boomed after the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international treaty on climate change. Methane, considered by many scientists and environmentalists to be as damaging a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, was among the key six pollutants targeted.

Today, the European Union is leading the global charge to turn waste into watts; more than 8,000 biogas operations are up and running in Europe, and thousands more are slated to open in the next decade. The United States, which has not ratified the Kyoto accord, has only about 150 digester projects operating at livestock farms nationwide, said Chris Voell, a manager of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AgStar program, which works with farmers to get such systems up and running.

The concern: NOx.

Air district officials said they’re just doing their jobs. Combating smog, not climate change, is the agency’s mission.

“The board has been clear that when we’re faced with these sorts of trade-offs between reducing greenhouse gases and reducing NOx, we’re going to choose NOx,” said Dave Warner, director of permit services for the San Joaquin Valley air quality district.

The farmers “should have checked in with us first, before buying their equipment,” he added.

Last year, six dairy digesters were shut down because of regulatory or financial problems. One of them is at Ron Koetsier’s dairy in Visalia.

Koetsier shut the system down. Now the equipment is collecting dust.

“They have a point. I want clean air,” Koetsier said. “But it doesn’t make financial sense for me keep doing this. I don’t see how they can turn methane gas into electricity in California, given these rules.”

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Throughout the events, managers and spectators could click into a Venue Energy Tracker for a real-time readout of how much energy was being consumed, compared to how much energy might have been used under typical construction methods.

A mobile phone application allowed spectators to peek at electricity consumption from the stands, should they find themselves suddenly fretting about how much it was costing to chill all that ice.

The report card: an estimated 15.4% reduction in electricity consumption during the second week of events — 24,624 kilowatt-hours, for example, saved at Canada Hockey Place.

While the technology allows Olympics organizers to pat themselves on the back for innovations such as green roofs, waste-to-energy power generation, solar panels and reuse of waste heat, developers say the more important targets are older, drafty buildings that need to tighten up on their power consumption.

“Everyone has been talking about solar and wind and new technology, but there is this mass of existing buildings that will really be here forever,” said David Helliwell, chief executive of Vancouver’s Pulse Energy.

By detailed monitoring of a building’s actual energy usage, Helliwell says, it’s sometimes possible to cut consumption by 40% or more just by figuring out where power is being wasted — too much outside air being drawn in, for example, or air being cooled on one floor, only to be heated up again on another.

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The 918 Spyder concept combines high-tech racing features with electric-mobility to offer a fascinating range of qualities. For example, it is planned to provide an emission level of just 70 grams of CO2 per kilometer on fuel consumption of only three liters/100 kilometers (equal to approximately 78 mpg U.S.), which is truly outstanding, even for an ultra-compact city car. This car, however, is intended to offer the performance of a super sports car with acceleration from a standstill to 100 km/h in just under 3.2 seconds, top speed of 320 km/h (198 mph), and a lap time on the Nordschleife of N ̧rburgring in less than 7:30 minutes, faster than even the Porsche Carrera GT.

Four distinct driving modes are available. E Drive is solely electric power, with a range of up to 16 miles. In Hybrid mode, electric power and gasoline power are used as conditions warrant, in ways designed to maximize economy or performance. In Sport Hybrid mode, in which both drive systems maximize performance, most of the power goes rearward, aided by torque vectoring to help the car’s dynamics. Lastly, there’s Race Hybrid mode for the utmost performance, such as running at the limit on the racetrack. In this mode, there’s even a “push to pass” E-Boost feature that feeds in added electrical power for overtaking… or better lap times.

This open two-seater is powered by a high-revving V8 developing more than 500 horsepower and a maximum engine speed of 9,200 rpm ñ as well as electric motors on the front and rear axle with overall mechanical output of 218 horsepower (160 kW).

The V8 combustion engine is the next step in the evolution of the highly successful 3.4- liter power unit already featured in the RS Spyder racing car and positioned mid-ship, in front of the rear axle, giving the car excellent balance and the right set-up for supreme performance on the race track.

Power is transmitted to the wheels by a seven-speed Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK) transmission that feeds the power of the electric drive system to the rear axle. The front-wheel electric drive powers the wheels through a fixed transmission ratio.

The energy reservoir is a fluid-cooled lithium-ion battery positioned behind the passenger cell. The big advantage of a plug-in hybrid is that the battery can be charged on the regular electrical network. A further point is that the carís kinetic energy is converted into electrical energy fed into the battery when applying the brakes, thus providing additional energy for fast and dynamic acceleration.

Lastly, the 918 Spyder Concept is fitted with a Range Manager. Using the map in the satellite navigation system, the Range Manager displays the remaining range the Spyder is able to cover. And in cities, it will tell you if you can reach your destination on electric power alone. Just the thing to make sure you arrive at the Nürburgring with a full tank.

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The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth’s axis,” NASA officials said in a Monday update.

The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth’s figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).

The Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph).

The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth’s mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth’s north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

Strong earthquakes have altered Earth’s days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth’s days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).

One Earth day is about 24 hours long. Over the course of a year, the length of a day normally changes gradually by one millisecond. It increases in the winter, when the Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer, Gross has said in the past.

The Chile earthquake was much smaller than the Sumatran temblor, but its effects on the Earth are larger because of its location. Its epicenter was located in the Earth’s mid-latitudes rather than near the equator like the Sumatran event.

The fault responsible for the 2010 Chile quake also slices through Earth at a steeper angle than the Sumatran quake’s fault, NASA scientists said.

“This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth’s mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth’s figure axis,” NASA officials said.

Gross said his findings are based on early data available on the Chile earthquake. As more information about its characteristics are revealed, his prediction of its effects will likely change.

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