Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: climate change
`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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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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Heat has no hair (from Eli Rabett)
See Eli’s post. Excerpt: We can summarize the data in the figure above adding that ~40 W/m2 go directly from the surface to space as IR radiation of the 398 W/m2 leaving the surface. In and out in the table … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, atmosphere, Blackbody radiation, carbon dioxide, chemistry, climate change, climate education, Eli Rabett, global warming, physics, science
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Blackbody radiation and the greenhouse effect, via plates (from Eli Rabett)
See Eli’s post. Excerpt: Eli can keep on adding plates, Ms. Rabett has gone out to buy some extras. Here is the red plate special. If somebunny works it through they will find that b’=3/4 a, go another plate and, … Continue reading
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
Leaders (say they) Don’t Know About Lags
Maybe they don’t. Most people don’t. On the other hand, there’s little more to them than understanding skeet, realizing aiming where the clay pigeon is now is a useless tactic for hitting it. Aim where the pigeon will be is … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, atmosphere, attribution, Boston Ethical Society, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cult of Carbon, dynamical systems, environment, ethics, evidence, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, moral leadership, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU, UU Humanists
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“The Unchained Goddess”, Bell Science Hour, 1958
A tad nostalgic, for the day where humanity could have stopped a bunch of harm from climate change. Also, although from a STEM perspective, the entire show is worthwhile, only the last seven minutes are pertinent to climate change. Moreover, … Continue reading
Posted in atheism, climate change, Cosmos, global warming
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`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
Professor Tony Seba, of late
I love it. Professor Tony Seba, Stanford, 1 week ago. It means anyone who continues to invest in or support the fossil fuels hegemony will be fundamentally disappointed by the markets. And it serves them right. By efficiency, or momentum, … Continue reading
Posted in American Statistical Association, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Carbon Tax, Carbon Worshipers, causation, central banks, children as political casualties, citizen science, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate business, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate economics, Climate Lab Book, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, coastal communities, coastal investment risks, coasts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, consumption, corporate responsibility, corporations, corruption, critical slowing down, ctDNA, Cult of Carbon, David Archer, David Spiegelhalter, decentralized electric power generation
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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
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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LLNL Sankey diagram of U.S. national energy flows in 2017: What’s possible, what’s not, and who’s responsible
(Updated, 2018-05-02. See below.) I love Sankey diagrams, and have written about them with respect to influence of Big Oil on U.S. climate policy, and in connection with what it takes to power a light bulb, providing a Sankey-based explanation … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, AMETSOC, AMOC, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cult of Carbon, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, ecological services, energy utilities, environmental law, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, global warming, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Anderson, local generation, local self reliance, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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“Decoding the Weather Machine”
Hap tip to Tamino:
forecast for 27th March 2018
Today is the 21st of March, 2018. We are supposed to get our fourth nor’easter tomorrow this late Winter, and the third nor’easter in nearly as many weeks. ECMWF hosted, in this incarnation, at the Meteocentre UQAM in Montreal created … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, atmosphere, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, coastal communities, ensemble methods, ensemble models, fluid dynamics, forecasting, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, meteorological models, meteorology, numerical algorithms, physics, science, science education, spaghetti plots, tragedy of the horizon, water vapor
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and Then There’s Physics does “Talking solutions and motivating action”
And Then There’s Physics does a fine post about scientists “talking about solutions and motivating action”. But I felt the figure from Dr Glen Peters needed to be updated a bit, with a status briefing. So, below: (Click on image … Continue reading
Uh, oh: Loss of control ahead …
In the technical summary from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory based at the California Institute of Technology titled “Far northern permafrost may unleash Carbon within decades”, An excerpt: Permafrost in the coldest northern Arctic — formerly thought to be at … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, civilization, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, Cult of Carbon, destructive economic development, ecological services, environment, fermentation, fossil fuels, geoengineering, global blinding, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, permafrost, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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Boston, and nearby, 2nd March 2018
That’s Atlantic Avenue near the Aquarium. That’s Essex, in Cape Ann. That’s the Sargent’s Wharf parking lot. That’s is where General Electric wants to build their new headquarters (!). That’s Columbus Park, near the Aquarium. That’s Neponset Circle. That’s Plymouth … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, Anthropocene, climate, climate change, climate economics, coastal communities, coasts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, flooding, floods, global blinding, global warming, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorological models, meteorology, sea level rise, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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Certainly not “clean coal”, but is zero emission natural gas combustion a key to a zero Carbon future?
Eli Rabett has a great idea over at Rabett Run. And I particularly like the directions which commentators Russell Seitz and John O’Neill are going with it. Hmmm, Dimethyl ether as a fuel? It’s been proposed. (Click on image for … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, dimethyl ether, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, natural gas
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Will soils hang on to their Carbon?
This is essentially no analysis, simply an index to recent research on the the matter of the soils reservoir for Carbon, and a little reaction. To begin, here’s the part of the Carbon Cycle that’s involved: Should this production increase, … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, argoecology, bacteria, being carbon dioxide, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carl Safina, climate, climate change, climate disruption, Global Carbon Project, global warming, microbiomes, nonlinear, nonlinear systems
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Less evidence for a global warming hiatus, and urging more use of Bayesian model averaging in climate science
(This post has been significantly updated midday 15th February 2018.) I’ve written about the supposed global warming hiatus of 2001-2014 before: “‘Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years’ (Fyfe, Gillett, Zwiers, 2013)”, 28 August 2013 “Warming Slowdown?”, Azimuth, Part … Continue reading
Posted in American Statistical Association, Andrew Parnell, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, Bayesian, Bayesian model averaging, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, climate change, David Spiegelhalter, dependent data, Dublin, GISTEMP, global warming, Grant Foster, HadCRUT4, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, JAGS, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Martyn Plummer, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, MCMC, model-free forecasting, Niamh Cahill, Significance, statistics, Stefan Rahmstorf, Tamino
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Undo your part
From Citizens Climate Lobby. Great slogan. And there’s a Boston Metro West chapter, among others. They principally argue for a Carbon tax or Carbon fee-and-dividend program. There are a couple of things to note, however. (The basic slide above is … Continue reading
“Carbon emissions and climate: Where do we stand, and what can be done if it all goes wrong?”
On Sunday, 11th February 2018, I presented an Abstract of a 3 hour talk on the subject, “Carbon emissions and climate: Where do we stand, and what can be done if it all goes wrong?” at the Needham Lyceum, hosted … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, civilization, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, COP21, Cult of Carbon, differential equations, dynamical systems, ecology, emissions, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, geoengineering, geophysics, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investments, James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, liberal climate deniers, Mark Carney, Michael Bloomberg, Minsky moment, mitigation, nonlinear, nonlinear systems, oceanography, phytoplankton, population biology, population dynamics, precipitation, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, radiative forcing, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, sea level rise, sociology, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, T'kun Olam, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, thermohaline circulation, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU, UU Needham, Wally Broecker, zero carbon
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Quote from Max Planck
(Hat tip to Professor Richard Kleeman of the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences.) “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.” — Max Planck … Continue reading
