Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Blogroll
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- Number Cruncher Politics
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model Five Thirty Eight’s take on why pandemic modeling is so difficult
- Subsidies for wind and solar versus subsidies for fossil fuels
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Brian McGill's Dynamic Ecology blog Quantitative biology with pithy insights regarding applications of statistical methods
- OOI Data Nuggets OOI Ocean Data Lab: The Data Nuggets
- Pat's blog While it is described as “The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher”, this is false humility, as it chronicles the present and past life and times of mathematicians in their context. Recommended.
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- All about Sankey diagrams
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- Why "naive Bayes" is not Bayesian Explains why the so-called “naive Bayes” classifier is not Bayesian. The setup is okay, but estimating probabilities by doing relative frequencies instead of using Dirichlet conjugate priors or integration strays from The Path.
- Risk and Well-Being
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- Karl Broman
- All about models
- "The Expert"
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- Gavin Simpson
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- Hermann Scheer Hermann Scheer was a visionary, a major guy, who thought deep thoughts about energy, and its implications for humanity’s relationship with physical reality
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
- James' Empty Blog
- Peter Congdon's Bayesian statistical modeling Peter Congdon’s collection of links pertaining to his several books on Bayesian modeling
- Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard on how businesses can help our collective environmental mess Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard set the standard for how a business can mitigate the ravages of capitalism on earth’s environment. At 81 years old, he’s just getting started.
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- Prediction vs Forecasting: Knaub “Unfortunately, ‘prediction,’ such as used in model-based survey estimation, is a term that is often subsumed under the term ‘forecasting,’ but here we show why it is important not to confuse these two terms.”
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- Beautiful Weeds of New York City
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- Tim Harford's “More or Less'' Tim Harford explains – and sometimes debunks – the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- Healthy Home Healthy Planet
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
climate change
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- Steve Easterbrook's excellent climate blog: See his "The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet?" for example Heavy on data and computation, Easterbrook is a CS prof at UToronto, but is clearly familiar with climate science. I like his “The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet” very much.
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- Climate Change: A health emergency … New England Journal of Medicine Caren G. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., and Regina C. LaRocque, M.D., M.P.H., January 17, 2019 N Engl J Med 2019; 380:209-211 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1817067
- Simple models of climate change
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Sea Change Boston
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- The Sunlight Economy
- Tamino's Open Mind Open Mind: A statistical look at climate, its science, and at science denial
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- History of discovering Global Warming From the American Institute of Physics.
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- "Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming" By Risbey, Lewandowsky, Hunter, Monselesan: Betting against climate change on durations of 15+ years is no longer a rational proposition.
- "Getting to the Energy Future We Want," Dr Steven Chu
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- Risk and Well-Being
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- “The discovery of global warming'' (American Institute of Physics)
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- Mrooijer's Global Temperature Explorer
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- RealClimate
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- Grid parity map for Solar PV in United States
- Warming slowdown discussion
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- weather blocking patterns
- The beach boondoggle Prof Rob Young on how owners of beach property are socializing their risks at costs to all of us, not the least being it seems coastal damage is less than it actually is
- Ice and Snow
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
- "When Did Global Warming Stop" Doc Snow’s treatment of the denier claim that there’s been no warming for the most recent N years. (See http://hubpages.com/@doc-snow for more on him.)
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- David Appell's early climate science
- Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
- Isaac Held's blog In the spirit of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “big ideas come from small models” in his textbook, PRINCIPLES OF PLANETARY CLIMATE, Dr Held presents quantitative essays regarding one feature or another of the Earth’s climate and weather system.
- Spectra Energy exposed
- MIT's Climate Primer
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: biology
Dr Des Callaghan’s “Bryophytes around the world”
Dr Callaghan is a superb bryophyte photographer.
Posted in bryophyte, bryophytes, The British Bryological Society, zero carbon
Tagged bryophyte photography
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2026 March 14 [J 073.87] “Pi Day”
Geographic coordinates N42.227, W71.230, Westwood, MA, USA
Rare and hard to find 1937-1938
https://667-per-cm.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ChronicaBryophyta-1938.pdf is a PDF of 1938 paper ‘A YEAR-BOOK Devoted to the Study), of Mosses and Hepatics</a> by Fr. VERDOORN, Volume X, 1937, published by the Chronica Botanica Company, Leiden.
Posted in bryophyte, zero carbon
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Pohlia lescuriana
Posted in ABLS, blog, Botany, bryology, bryophyte, bryophytes, mosses, New England Botanical Society
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2025Feb5J36 post-snow, pre-snow Polytrichum
We’ve just come through a light smattering of snow over the last week, then gone into a couple of days when temperatures ranged from the teens Fahrenheit through the 40s F, with sun during days. And tomorrow, Thursday, through weekend, … Continue reading
Posted in mosses, Polytrichum
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a variety of bryophyte macrophotographs
Posted in ABLS, amateur science, American Bryological and Lichenological Society, biology, Botany, bryology, bryophytes, citizen data, citizen science, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ecology, field biology, Hale Reservation, macrophotography, mosses, National Phenology Network, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, sampling algorithms, statistical ecology
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Biomes are too dynamic and intertwingled to be managed with simple political slogans: The case of Gnetum luofuense
Corners of the Environmentalist Establishment voice shrieks regarding what they call a biodiversity emergency, prompting even skilled journalists to claim the trend poses “as great a risk to humanity as climate change.” We went through the “insect apocalypse” fiasco, which … Continue reading
Posted in Aldo Leopold, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, Apis mellifera, bacteria, being carbon dioxide, Bill McKibben, biology, Botany One, climate disruption, climate emergency, climate policy, complex systems, control theory, Cult of Carbon, Daniel B Botkin, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, Gnetum luofuense, gymnosperms, Steven Vogel
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Discordant harmonies in views of natural systems by The Sierra Club and others
This essay was first publish at the blog of the Green Congregation Committee, First Parish in Needham, on the Parish Realm Web site and communications board. The views obviously are those only of its author, not of First Parish or … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Association to Preserve Cape Cod, biology, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Safina, civilization, coastal communities, conservation, Daniel B Botkin, discordant harmonies, ecological disruption, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, environment, field biology, field science, First Parish in Needham, forest fires, fragmentation of ecosystems, Gaylord Nelson, George Sugihara, invasive species, Lotka-Volterra systems, marine biology, Nature's Trust, Peter del Tredici, philosophy of science, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, riverine flooding, shorelines, stream flow, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, unreason, water, wishful environmentalism
Tagged misunderstandings of ecology
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Moss Evolution
A lecture by Professor Ralf Reski.
Posted in biology, bryology, bryophytes, evolution, mosses
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New Meetup: Massachusetts Mosses and Lichens
I have started a new Meetup group: Massachusetts Mosses and Lichens. I am inviting anyone with an interest in mosses and lichens to join in, particularly if you live in the “greater Massachusetts area”. Because of pandemic, there’ll be no … Continue reading
Posted in ABLS, American Bryological and Lichenological Society, American Statistical Association, biology, Botany, Brent Mishler, bryology, bryophytes, citizen data, citizen science, ecology, field biology, field research, field science, Hale Reservation, Janice Glime, Jerry Jenkins, lichenology, lichens, longitudinal survey of mosses, macrophotography, maths, mesh models, mosses, Nancy G Slack, National Phenology Network, population biology, population dynamics, Ralph Pope, science, spatial statistics, statistical ecology, Sue Williams, the right to know, Westwood
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On storing and logging moss specimens
(Updated 2021-02-21) The standard way of storing moss specimens — at least that’s taught — is to press them, like most botanical specimens, or to store them, dessicated, in folders like these: That’s from Ralph Pope’s (2016) Guide, Pope, Ralph. … Continue reading
Posted in biology, bryology, bryophytes, data collection, field biology, field science
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Reanalysis of business visits from deployments of a mobile phone app
Updated, 20th October 2020 This reports a reanalysis of data from the deployment of a mobile phone app, as reported in: M. Yauck, L.-P. Rivest, G. Rothman, “Capture-recapture methods for data on the activation of applications on mobile phones“, Journal … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian computational methods, biology, capture-mark-recapture, capture-recapture, Christian Robert, count data regression, cumulants, diffusion, diffusion processes, Ecological Society of America, ecology, epidemiology, experimental science, field research, Gibbs Sampling, Internet measurement, Jean-Michel Marin, linear regression, mark-recapture, mathematics, maximum likelihood, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, multilist methods, multivariate statistics, non-mechanistic modeling, non-parametric statistics, numerics, open source scientific software, Pierre-Simon Laplace, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, R, R statistical programming language, sampling, sampling algorithms, segmented package in R, statistical ecology, statistical models, statistical regression, statistical series, statistics, stepwise approximation, stochastic algorithms, surveys, V. M. R. Muggeo
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Review of “No … increase of Carbon sequestration from the greening Earth”
(As promised.) Introduction and Abstract This is a review, re-presentation, and report on the August 2019 article, Y. Zhang, C. Song, L. E. Band, G. Sun, (2019), “No proportional increase of terrestrial gross Carbon sequestration from the greening Earth“, Journal … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, afforestation, agriculture, agroecology, algal blooms, American Statistical Association, argoecology, being carbon dioxide, biology, Botany, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, chemistry, citizen science, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate data, climate disruption, climate economics, climate mitigation, di-nitrogen oxide, ecocapitalism, ecological disruption, Ecological Society of America, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, environment, evidence, food, forests, fossil fuels, geophysics, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, greenhouse gases, James Hansen, John Holdren, p-value, phytoplankton, pollution, population biology, quantitative biology, resource producitivity, scholarship, science education, significance test, statistics, Steven Chu, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, wishful environmentalism
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Weekend break: Theme for Earth Day
By John Williams:
Posted in agroecology, Aldo Leopold, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, an uncaring American public, argoecology, biology, Botany, Buckminster Fuller, climate, David Suzuki, dynamical systems, E. O. Wilson, earth, Earth Day, ecological disruption, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, Ecology Action, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, Eli Rabett, environment, Equiterre, evolution, fragmentation of ecosystems, global warming, green tech, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, invasive species, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lotka-Volterra systems, marine biology, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, microbiomes, NOAA, oceans, Peter del Tredici, Peter Diggle, Pharyngula, physical materialism, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rate of return regulation, scientific publishing, Spaceship Earth, statistical dependence, Stefan Rahmstorf, Tamino
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The shelf-break front, fisheries, climate change, and finding things out
From Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Support them. Claire and I do.
667-per-cm.net, the Podcast: Episode 1.
Commencing today, I’m offering another channel of this blog, a podcast. This will range over the interface between people, their behavior, and the natural world. It’s primarily an opportunity for a less structured and more personal presentation of my experience … Continue reading
Posted in biology, earth, global warming, Nature, podcast, science
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Today, now, and what of the future?
From Aldo Leopold in his A Sand County Almanac: One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, agroecology, Aldo Leopold, American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, being carbon dioxide, biology, Boston Ethical Society, Botany, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Darwin, climate, climate change, David Suzuki, Earle Wilson, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Action, ethics, George Sughihara, Glen Peters, global warming, Grant Foster, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU Humanists
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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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Sustainable Landscaping
Update: 2018-05-26 It’s not about plants, not entirely. But it seems that, in one agricultural area, pollinators (bees) under stress have ceded their pollinating responsibility to a couple of species of exotic (read invasive) flies. See: J. R. Stavert, D. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, biology, Botany, Carl Safina, complex systems, conservation, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, fragmentation of ecosystems, invasive species, land use to fight, living shorelines, New England, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, water as a resource
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The global vegetative biosphere
(Click on figure to see a larger image, and use browser Back Button to return to blog) Data derived in part from SeaWIFS and image is from the NASA Earth Observatory here. Related links: Global Biosphere Global Biosphere over time … Continue reading
on nonlinear dynamics of hordes of people
I spent a bit of last week at a symposium honoring the work of Charney and Lorenz in fluid dynamics. I am no serious student of fluid dynamics. I have a friend, Klaus, an engineer, who is, and makes a … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bifurcations, biology, Carl Safina, causation, complex systems, dynamic generalized linear models, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecological services, ecology, Emily Shuckburgh, finance, Floris Takens, fluid dynamics, fluid eddies, games of chance, Hyper Anthropocene, investments, Lenny Smith, Lorenz, nonlinear, numerical algorithms, numerical analysis, politics, population biology, population dynamics, prediction markets, Principles of Planetary Climate, public transport, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, sampling networks, sustainability, Timothy Lenton, Yale University Statistics Department, zero carbon, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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`How old is today?` (Carl Safina)
How old is today? light comes from everywhere and from nowhere. The ocean, glittering then vanishing in gauzy vapors, handles us more gently than anyone could have hoped. Snow flurries in and hurries out. Mists veil coasts so raw, so … Continue reading
Results of short literature search on impacts of climate change upon ecosystems and bird or animal migration patterns, from the journals of the Ecological Society of America
I decided to do a quick literature search on the impacts of climate change upon ecosystems and migration patterns. I could have kept the list private, but why not make it public? Not all these articles are purely about the … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Statistical Association, Anthropocene, biology, climate change, climate education, climate models, complex systems, differential equations, dynamic generalized linear models, dynamical systems, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, evidence, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, marine biology, mass extinctions, nonlinear systems, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, tragedy of the horizon
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Is the answer to the democratization of Science doing more Citizen Science?
I have been following, with keen interest, the post and comment thread pertaining to “Democratising science” at the blog I monitor daily, … and Then There’s Physics. I think the core subject being discussed is a little different from my … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, astronomy, astrophysics, biology, citizen data, citizen science, citizenship, data science, ecology, education, environment, evidence, life purpose, local self reliance, marine biology, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, moral leadership, new forms of scientific peer review, open source scientific software, science, science education, statistics, the green century, the right to know
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“Finding Dory”
From the scientific journal Nature, a preview: “Finding Dory”, movie Director: Andrew Stanton Opens 17 June 2016 Digital-animation giant Pixar releases the much-anticipated follow-up to its 2003 “Finding Nemo”, a film so successful that clownfish are now often referred to … Continue reading
Alice Bell’s “A very short history of climate change research”
“A very short history of climate change research“, by Alice Bell. The story of scientists discovering climate change is longer than many of us tend to imagine. We’ve had a sense that what humans do might effect the climate since … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, astrophysics, biology, carbon dioxide, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, James Hansen, meteorology, Neill deGrasse Tyson, NOAA, oceanography, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, spatial statistics, statistics, sustainability, temporal myopia, UNFCCC, WHOI
Tagged U.S. Clean Power Plan, U.S. Constitution
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It was the year 2000, Elizabeth Houghton had just died, and the plan was to restore the ecosystems about Fowl Meadow
Please remember Elizabeth Houghton as you pass by Routes 128 and 95 in Canton, looking north over her beloved Fowl Meadow and the Neponset River. She can no longer show you her photographs of the watershed under flood conditions and … Continue reading
Posted in biology, citizenship, consumption, destructive economic development, ecology, environment, ethics, exponential growth, floods, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, living shorelines, politics, population biology, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, statistics, the right to know, transparency, University Station, Westwood
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ecoquant
