Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: climate disruption
I am joining up to support the local Green New Deal teams
As anyone who has read my posts here know, I have reservations regarding the Green New Deal, from its lack of specifics, its overly ambitious scope, and its settings of expectations for preventing climate harm which are misleading, because of … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Ørsted, being carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, climate activism, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate grief, Ecology Action, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, Emily Shuckburgh, global warming, Green New Deal, Greta Thunberg, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, solar domination, solar revolution
2 Comments
Bill Nye, properly losing patience
Tamino has been here already. But this is a different view: Update ClimateAdam, who I respect a lot, is critical of Bill Nye’s rant. My views on this are in a comment at his YouTube page.
“Climate Science for Climate Activists”
I am planning to teach a course by this title online using the Zoom platform. I have a half dozen or so expressions of interest, but I wanted to put the outline up and in a place that can be … Continue reading
`Investors’ Guide to the End of the World`
David Snowball, at Mutual Fund Observer: Part 1. Part 2. Thoughts from BlackRock. “I amar prestar aen, the world is changed Han mathon ne nen, I feel it in the water Han mathon ne chae, I feel it in the … Continue reading
A proposal: Challenge for the Green New Deal
There is a climate emergency. There are many ways of looking at this, from the big investments perspective (see also a Fed view), to human harms perspective (see also), to what it might cost to reverse these changes if they … Continue reading
Posted in alternatives to the Green New Deal, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, basic research, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, cement production, Clausius-Clapeyron equation, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate business, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, Climate Lab Book, ClimateAdam, consumption, David Archer, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, ecological disruption, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, electric vehicles, electrical energy storage, electricity, energy storage, environment, flooding, floods, food, food scarcity, geoengineering, geophysics, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, insurance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local self reliance, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Our Children's Trust, planning, policy metrics, politics, population biology, population dynamics, radiative forcing, rationality, real estate values, rhetorical statistics, science, stream flow, sustainability, SVD, the right to know, UU Ministry for Earth, UU Needham, zero carbon, ZigZag
Leave a comment
Hypothetical toxins from plastics? Perhaps actual sources of toxins should be concerns …
… Like ocean heat-induced red tide and blue green algae (cyanobacteria). The problem of things like cyanotoxins is particularly bad in Florida, but Massachusetts Buzzards Bay has seen its share of problems. Quoting: Blue-green algae are laden with microcystins that … Continue reading
Posted in algal blooms, Anthropocene, blue-green algae, BMAA, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, coastal investment risks, coasts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, cyanobacteria, global warming, harmful algae, Hyper Anthropocene, living shorelines, marine biology, marine debris, ocean warming, oceans, pollution, red tide
Leave a comment
CO2 = garbage
CO2 is garbage, not “plant food”. It is recycled by photosynthesis using renewable solar energy. From Eli. And it’s something with which I heartily agree! Plants do not `eat food`. If they did, they wouldn’t be plants. Moreover, any experiment … Continue reading
Greta: `All political movements in their present form have failed’
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate grief, Cult of Carbon, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Greta Thunberg, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investments, panic
Leave a comment
Earth Day 2019: So how do people transition to the new energy economy?
I’ve been pretty hard on the Green New Deal. That’s partly because its proponents don’t seem to see that a transition to a new zero Carbon energy economy is inevitable. It’s opponents don’t see that either. It may not come … Continue reading
Posted in Amory Lovins, an ignorant American public, Ørsted, capitalism, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, compassion, corporate citizenship, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, corporate supply chains, corporations, ecomodernism, electric vehicles, engineering, ethics, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, Gaylord Nelson, global warming, Green New Deal, Hermann Scheer, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, LBNL, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Carney, Mark Jacobson, microgrids, New England, NIMBY, organizational failures, Orsted, percolation theory, planning, public education, public welfare, RevoluSun, Richard Branson, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, SunPower, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, Talk Solar, technology, temporal myopia, Tesla, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, UU, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
Leave a comment
October 2013 retrospective … Karl Ragabo on ‘Talk Solar’ podcast, regarding value of solar generation
In October of 2013, Karl Ragabo was interviewed on the Talk Solar podcast from Beth Bond of Decatur, GA. This was shortly after the first version of the Value of Solar report was issued by IREC. Listen to it below: … Continue reading
Posted in Beth Bond, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, CleanTechnica, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, distributed generation, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Ragabo, microgrids, public utility commissions, regulatory capture, resiliency, RevoluSun, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, Stewart Brand, stranded assets, Talk Solar, the energy of the people, the green century, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral
Leave a comment
Still a climate hawk, and appreciate all my climate friends: To the climate deniers, the greenwashers, the liberal environmental opportunists, and the environmental purists who will never compromise …
“Not ready to make nice” (Dixie Chicks) I stick by my friends in these hard times: Tamino’s community The Azimuth Project Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The American Statistical Association The International Society for Bayesian Analysis Losing Earth: The decade we … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, Anthropocene, Bayesian, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate grief, coastal investment risks, ecological disruption, ecological services, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, engineering, environment, flooding, global warming, Grant Foster, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, mathematics education, personal purity, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, regulatory capture, risk, riverine flooding, sampling without replacement, Scituate, secularism, shorelines, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, statistical dependence, SunPower, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, Unitarian Universalism, unreason, utility company death spiral, UU Needham, Wally Broecker, Walt Disney Company, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
Leave a comment
Result of our own fiddling: Bob Watson and climate risk
https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/746045 Professor Bob Watson, University of East Anglia, presents the summary risk, climate change: The question is not whether the Earth’s climate will change in response to human activities, but when, where and by how much. Human activities are changing … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, attribution, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, catastrophe modeling, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, climate grief, climate justice, ecological disruption, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, global blinding, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, meteorology, National Center for Atmospheric Research, non-parametric model, Principles of Planetary Climate, radiative forcing, reasonableness, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Solpad, Sonnen community, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, water, wind energy, wind power
Leave a comment
One of the happiest two hours I’ve spent in months: A Professor Tony Seba update
From end of 2018: from alianza FiiDEMAC. And, indeed, it was one of the most uplifting two hours I’ve recently spent. I have long been an admirer of Professor Tony Seba. I have read his books. This was an update … Continue reading
Posted in an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, corporations, Cult of Carbon, decentralized energy, distributed generation, ecomodernism, economics, ecopragmatism, ecopragmatist, electricity, entrpreneurs, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, Exxon, global warming, Green New Deal, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, Juliana v United States, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Jacobson, Neill deGrasse Tyson, politics, science, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, supply chains, sustainability, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, trading, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
2 Comments
One possible way to do small, modular nuclear power
Featured in Science Magazine today, NuScale Power, a spinout from Oregon State University, is planning simpler, smaller, safer gang-lashable nuclear reactors, with a trial in the early 2020s. A schematic is shown below. As I’ve noted here elsewhere, the reason … Continue reading
Professor Kevin Anderson: “Climate’s holy trinity”
24th January 2019, Oxford, England, UK Appalling failure: Who is responsible: Yeah, it’s us.
“Renewables are set to penetrate the global energy system more quickly than any fuel in history” (BP, 2019 Energy Outlook)
Selections from BP Energy Outlook: 2019 edition: In the ET scenario, the costs of wind and solar power continue to decline significantly, broadly in line with their past learning curves. To give a sense of the importance of technology gains … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, BP, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Tax, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate change, climate disruption, corporate citizenship, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecomodernism, economic trade, ecopragmatist, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, local generation, local self reliance, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
1 Comment
“Is the Green New Deal’s ambition smart policy?”
Ann Carlson is the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law and the co-Faculty Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law. Writing at Legal Planet, she takes on assessing the Green New … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism, bollocks, bridge to somewhere, cement production, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, global warming, Green New Deal, greenhouse gases, negative emissions, zero carbon
1 Comment
The shelf-break front, fisheries, climate change, and finding things out
From Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Support them. Claire and I do.
Wake up, Massachusetts! Especially, Green Massachusetts!
I’ve been looking over the set of bills proposed for the current Massachusetts legislative session. There are more of them, all dealing with aspects of greening energy supply and transport. And Governor Baker’s S.10 is very welcome. (By the way, … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, Cape Wind, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, decentralized energy, electric vehicles, electrical energy storage, electricity markets, emissions, fossil fuels, global warming, Governor Charlie Baker, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, sea level rise, seawalls, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, the value of financial assets, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
Leave a comment
What if Juliana v United States fails?
This is a replica of a comment I made at another site. As of 23:55 EST on 21st January, it hasn’t been release from moderation. Perhaps the moderator is busy. I do not know. I am proceeding as if it … Continue reading
Posted in an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Boston Ethical Society, carbon dioxide capture, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, corporations, ecological disruption, ecomodernism, economics, ecopragmatism, environment, environmental law, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, First Parish Needham, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Juliana v United States, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mary C Wood, optimization, Our Children's Trust, pollution, population biology, population dynamics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, radiative forcing, rationality, reasonableness, sea level rise, sustainability, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, United States Constitution, United States Government, UU, UU Needham, zero carbon
Leave a comment
Love your home. The place we call home needs love. But love means nothing, without action.
Posted in Ørsted, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, climate disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecological disruption, electricity, green tech, Green Tech Media, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
Leave a comment
“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
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
Leave a comment
Comment on “How Much Does Climate Science Matter In A World Run By Politics?” (from FiveThirtyEight.com)
It’s odd that 538 only accepts comments from people with Facebook accounts, despite being associated with ABCNews, which has its own user accounting system. I’m commenting here instead #fivethirtyeight. Anyway, per this post, a recent article and podcast at 538 … Continue reading
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
Watch!
(Update 2018 November 25) There’s a slew of bad news which has hit the scientific journals, the most notable being L. Resplandy, R. F. Keeling, Y. Eddebbar, M. K. Brooks, R. Wang, L. Bopp, M. C. Long, J. P. Dunne, … Continue reading
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
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment
`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
Leave a comment
