Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: Anthropocene
On plastic bag bans, and the failure to realize economic growth cannot be green
(Updated 2019-01-12.) Despite the surge of interest in plastic bag bans, the environmental sustainability numbers haven’t been run. For example, it makes no sense to trade using paper bags instead of plastic ones, even if the paper is recycled, because … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, development as anti-ecology, E. O. Wilson, environment, evidence, evolution, exponential growth, fragmentation of ecosystems, global warming, greenwashing, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, local self reliance, plastics, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, supply chains, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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International climate negotiations, the performance: `Angry and upset’
Climate Adam, who you should follow:
Gov Jerry Brown on Meet the Press, a parting comment on 2018 at Bill Gates’ Notes, and the best climate blog post of 2018
Segment One Outgoing Governor Jerry Brown of California on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning: I’ll miss him there, but I don’t think Gov Jerry is going anywhere soon. Segment Two Bill Gates Notes offered an end of year summary … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association, an ignorant American public, Anthropocene, anti-science, astronomy, atmosphere, attribution, being carbon dioxide, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Bill Gates, Blackbody radiation, bridge to somewhere, California, carbon dioxide, cement production, climate, climate change, climate zombies, development as anti-ecology, ecological services, economics, Eli Rabett, energy flux, environment, evidence, friends and colleagues, global warming, Grant Foster, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Jerry Brown, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, meteorology, nuclear power, oceanography, oceans, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantum mechanics, science, sea level rise, solar democracy, solar energy, solar power, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, University of California, University of California Berkeley, water as a resource, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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Mark Carney is aligned with the geo-biological-physical everything
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney might not be popular on all his pronouncements, but he’s the most comprehensively educated on the matter of climate risk of any in the international discussion groups of the OECD. Some people will be … Continue reading
“Electric Dreams”, from BBC Radio 4’s “Costing the Earth”
I just listened to the podcast from Peter Gibbs of BBC Radio 4‘s program, “Costing the Earth”. He recounts the experience of owning and driving a nominally 200 mile range EV: Is the time finally right to buy an electric … Continue reading
Earth’s energy imbalance: Rise in ocean heat content is accelerating
L. Cheng, K. E. Trenberth, J. Fasullo, T. Boyer, J. Abraham, J. Zhu, “Improved estimates of ocean heat content from 1960 to 2015“, Science Advances, 10 March 2017, 3(3), e1601545. Abstract Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) drives the ongoing global warming … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, climate change, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, oceanography, oceans, science
“You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”
Not much else needs to be said here. Hat tip to WaPo. Thunberg accused leaders of speaking only about “green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular.” “You only talk about moving forward with the same … Continue reading
Remember …
Updated, 2018-12-51, 14:10 ET Remember who it was that told you it would okay, just fine to continue to emit CO2 as we have been, despite over 50 years of science, scientists, from physicists, to chemists, to engineers, and biologists … Continue reading
The Climate Crunch
(with the possibility of rapid 15-20 foot SLR out there) David Suzuki aptly calls the corner we’ve painted ourselves into “the climate crunch”. See his article. Why a “crunch”? Had we heeded early warnings and had political representatives done more … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Petroleum Institute, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, cement production, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, Cult of Carbon, David Suzuki, emissions, geoengineering, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, klaus lackner, Wally Broecker
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Not just having bad ideas, but because of deliberate ignorance despite overwhelming evidence, necessarily bad people
I’m afraid I need to agree with Krugman’s conclusion: While Donald Trump is a prime example of the depravity of climate denial, this is an issue on which his whole party went over to the dark side years ago. Republicans … Continue reading
Prof Nic Lewis, Reason, and a claimed criticism of Resplandy, et al
Updated 2018-11-14: See at bottom Professor Nic Lewis has criticised the Resplandy, Keeling, et al report in Nature which I previously mentioned. A summary of his criticism appears in the somewhat libertarian ezine Reason. I have responded there, but their … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, climate, climate change, global warming, luckwarmers
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Our Children’s Trust
We are going to trial! https://www.youthvgov.org/trial Event hugely successful! 100+ people, media coverage. Photos at bottom Update, 2018-10-19 Youth Climate Case Vs. U.S. Government Will Head to Trial in October. Trump admin again asks Supreme Court to stop youth climate … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, climate change, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene
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Alex Steffen on Climate Defeatism
On 31st July 2018, Alex Steffen wrote (on Twitter) that: Reminder that climate defeatism—arguing that we are already so screwed that there’s no real point in acting to limit climate emissions or ecological damage—is absolutely a form of denialism, and … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, anti-science, attribution, being carbon dioxide, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Bill Maher, Bill Nye, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Buckminster Fuller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, climate business, climate change, climate economics, corporations, denial, engineering, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, James Hansen, John Farrell, Kerry Emanuel, klaus lackner, liberal climate deniers, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, Michael Bloomberg, reason, reasonableness, science denier, secularism, Stewart Brand, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, zero carbon
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No ordinary lawsuit: Levi Draheim, UUMFE Guardian of the Future
No Ordinary Lawsuit Federal climate change lawsuit plaintiff Levi Draheim in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Robin Loznak/Our Children’s Trust) The full story, and in audio from PRI. UU Ministry for Earth description of his award. Levi is a plaintiff in … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, children as political casualties, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, environment, environmental law, First Parish Needham, fossil fuels, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, Juliana v United States, Levi Draheim, New England, Our Children's Trust, Unitarian Universalism, UU, UU Mass Action, UU Ministry for Earth, UU Needham, UUMFE
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Seven degrees, whaddya get, a century older and deeper in Carbon debt …
In an amazing report, the Trump administration forecasts +7F rise in global temperatures by 2100, insisting nothing can be done to prevent it happening. In the associated report, the administration claimed that the deep cuts in emissions needed to prevent … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, capitalism, carbon dioxide, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, corruption, Cult of Carbon, dump Trump, global warming
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`If we don’t protect Nature, we cannot protect ourselves’
Harrison Ford‘s speech, at the Climate Action Summit, below: “… Don’t forget Nature.” “If we don’t stop the destruction of our natural world, nothing else will matter.” “We need to include Nature in every corporate, state, and national climate goal.”
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, corporate responsibility, David Suzuki, ecology, Ecology Action, global warming, Harrison Ford, Hyper Anthropocene, science
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Press conference from Global Climate Action Summit, by the U.S. Climate Alliance
Executive Summary report: FightingForOurFuture–GrowingOurEconomiesAndProtectingOurCommunitiesThroughClimateLeadership–UnitedStatesClimateAlliance2018–ExecutiveSummary Full Report: FightingForOurFuture–GrowingOurEconomiesAndProtectingOurCommunitiesThroughClimateLeadership–UnitedStatesClimateAlliance2018 Precis: Climate-Alliance-FactSheet-June_2018
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, Arnold Schwarzennegger, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, carbon dioxide, climate, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, fossil fuel divestment, Hyper Anthropocene, Jerry Brown, Michael Bloomberg, mitigation, moral leadership
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Another reason we need to stop developing: `If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world.’
Much of the focus on reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions is upon reduction and elimination of fossil fuels. Many do not realize that reducing emissions to zero also means offsetting emissions from agriculture, and especially curbing use of cement. Cement production … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, attribution, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, cement production, civilization, climate, climate disruption, climate economics, development as anti-ecology, economic trade, emissions, extended producer responsibility, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, planning, pollution, sustainability, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, unreason, Westwood, zero carbon
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Dr Glen Peters on “Stylised pathways to `well below 2°C”’, and some solutions from Dr Steven Chu (but it’s late!)
Stylized pathways to “well below 2°C” Dr Peters has also written about “Can we really limit global warming to `well below’ two degrees centigrade?” An excerpt and abstract: Commentary: Yes, but only in a model. We have essentially emitted too … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate disruption, climate economics, emissions, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Kevin Anderson, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, Science magazine, Stephen Chu, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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The Democrats have no plan to address Climate Change (either)
Recall an article from the 15th November 2017 issue of The Atlantic: … [T]he Democratic Party does not have a plan to address climate change. This is true at almost every level of the policy-making process: It does not have … Continue reading
Posted in American Meteorological Association, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, children as political casualties, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, consumption, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, destructive economic development, environment, environmental law, games of chance, global blinding, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Juliana v United States
Tagged #youthvgov
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On lamenting the state of the Internet or Web
From time to time, people complain about the state of the Internet or of the World Wide Web. They are sometimes parts of governments charged with mitigating crime, sometimes privacy advocates, sometimes local governments or retails lamenting loss of tax … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bollocks, Boston Ethical Society, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, capricious gods, Carbon Worshipers, card games, civilization, climate change, consumption, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, Daniel Kahneman, data centers, David Suzuki, denial, design science, ethical ideals, Faster Forward, Hyper Anthropocene, hypertext, ignorance, Internet, Joseph Schumpeter, making money, Mathbabe, networks, organizational failures, superstition, Ted Nelson, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, transclusion, Xanadu, ZigZag
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“Space, climate change, and the real meaning of theory”
(From The New Yorker, 17th August 2016, by the late former astronaut Dr Piers Sellers) Excerpt from “Space, climate change, and the real meaning of theory”: . . . The facts of climate change are straightforward: there’s been a warming … Continue reading
`On Records`
This is a reblog from Eli Rabett, one of the post “On Records”, with additional comments and material from the author-moderator of this blog, 667-per-cm.net: A distinguishing mark of a new record in a time series is that it exceeds … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, Cult of Carbon, ecology, Eli Rabett, ethics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, liberal climate deniers, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, meteorology, Our Children's Trust, planning, pollution, quantitative ecology, radiative forcing, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, Spaceship Earth, temporal myopia, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, Victor Brovkin, wishful environmentalism
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“One of the most interesting things about the MIP ensembles is that the mean of all the models generally has higher skill than any individual model.” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all models are created equal, that … Continue reading
This flooding can’t be stopped. What about the rest?
Tamino is writing about this subject, too. That entirely makes complete sense as it is the biggest geophysical and environmental story out there right now. I’ve included an update at this post’s end discussing the possible economic impacts. It’s been … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, coastal communities, coastal investment risks, coasts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, environment, Eric Rignot, flooding, floods, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, investing, investments, John Englander, living shorelines, Massachusetts, New England, real estate values, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, Robert M DeConto, Scituate, sea level rise, seawalls, shorelines, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, wishful environmentalism, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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“Will climate change bring benefits from reduced cold-related mortality? Insights from the latest epidemiological research”
From RealClimate, and referring to article in Lancet : Guest post by Veronika Huber Climate skeptics sometimes like to claim that although global warming will lead to more deaths from heat, it will overall save lives due to fewer deaths from … Continue reading
The elephant in the room: a case for producer responsibility
This is a guest post by Claire Galkowski, Executive Director, South Shore Recycling Cooperative. With so much focus on the recycling crisis, we tend to overlook the root cause of the problem: The glut of short lived consumer products and … Continue reading
Posted in affordable mass goods, Anthropocene, chemistry, citizenship, civilization, Claire Galkowski, CleanTechnica, climate economics, consumption, corporate citizenship, corporate responsibility, corporate supply chains, demand-side solutions, design science, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, environment, ethics, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, local self reliance, materials science, municipal solid waste, rebound effect, resource producitivity, shop, solid waste management, sustainability, temporal myopia, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, wishful environmentalism
Tagged reycling, Sankey diagrams, solid waste management, SSRC, waste minimisation
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Sidney, NY: The lead example of how the USA will deal with future coastal and riverine flooding?
From Bloomberg, the story of Sidney, NY, not that far from where I used to live in Endicott, NY. More than 400 homes and businesses ended up underwater in Sidney, affecting more than 2,000 people. It was months before Spry … Continue reading
What gives me hope … And it ain’t the small stuff
AS Arman Oganisian of Stable Markets writes “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” That is a fundamentally engineering attitude. It is fundamentally about the economics, and, in particular, the dramatic drop in levelized cost of energy for wind and renewables, … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, biology, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economic trade, economics, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Green Tech Media, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Sankey diagram, smart data, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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