Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: denial
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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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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“Azimuth Backup Project (Part 5)”, upcoming presentation by Prof John Carlos Baez
The post. The Project. The Place. The Conference. The Funders. Thanks to everyone, especially to The Team, to Professor Baez, to the Funders, and to University of California, Riverside. I don’t identify the Team because some don’t want to receive … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Azimuth Backup Project, California, citizen data, citizenship, climate data, denial, Donald Trump, Ecology Action, friends and colleagues, global blinding, Hyper Anthropocene, rationality, science denier, scientific publishing, tragedy of the horizon, University of California
What does it really mean for an electrical grid to be resilient?
(Slightly updated 2nd October 2017 to add a link to the Brattle Group’s report on the myth of baseload generation.) Secretary of Energy Rick Perry has recently called for `baseload` coal and nuclear plants which are no longer competitive in … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, corruption, Cult of Carbon, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, denial, disingenuity, disruption, distributed generation, Donald Trump, electricity, energy utilities, engineering, ethics, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, FERC, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, local generation, local self reliance, making money, meteorological models, meteorology, microgrids, public utility commissions, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, regulatory capture, resiliency, science denier, superstition, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, transparency, utility company death spiral
‘Near classified information’ and the militarization of environmental degradation
EPA Anti-Leak Campaign EPA employees are currently receiving instruction in “unauthorized disclosure training,” teaching them not to leak classified or near-classified information. This training is part of a government-wide eradication effort following National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s memo to agency … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, anti-science, Azimuth Backup Project, Bill Nye, Boston Ethical Society, bridge to somewhere, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, citizen data, citizen science, citizenship, climate justice, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, criminal justice, Cult of Carbon, denial, destructive economic development, Donald Trump, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, environmental law, Environmental Protection Agency, Equiterre, fear uncertainty and doubt, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, science, science denier, science education, United States, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
Andy Skuce
Source: Andy Skuce Exit, Pursued by a Crab, from Critical Angle.
Papers of the day
From the Machine Learning and Computational Modeling Lab, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran: A. Ahmadian, K. Fouladi, B. N. Araabi, “Writer identification using a probabilistic model of handwritten digits and Approximate Bayesian Computation,” International … Continue reading
A repost of some Laughin’ Fool Blues.
On engaging with science denial
(Updated, Tuesday, 21st February 2017) I have, over time, engaged with quite a few science deniers, primarily on the issue of abrupt climate change, its human origin, and options for curtailing it. Note I specify abrupt climate change because, while … Continue reading
Zeke Hausfather regarding Baselines and Buoys
Zeke Hausfather at And Then There’s Physics regarding Baselines and Buoys.
The Azimuth Climate Data Backup Project, in association with ClimateMirror
(Updated the afternoon of 31st May 2017.) The Azimuth Climate Data Backup Project, operating in association with ClimateMirror, is being funded via the Kickstarter available at this link. Give what you can. Thanks! See our goal statement. This is all … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, citizen science, civilization, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, Climate Lab Book, cynicism, denial, Donald Trump, education, EIA, ethics, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuels, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, NASA, NOAA, open data, open source scientific software, rationality, reason, reasonableness, risk, science, science denier, science education, smart data, statistics, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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Why smooth?
I’ve encountered a number of blog posts this week which seem not to understand the Bias-Variance Tradeoff in regard to Mean-Squared-Error. These arose in connection with smoothing splines, which I was studying in connection with multivariate adaptive regression splines, that … Continue reading
Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, American Statistical Association, Antarctica, carbon dioxide, climate change, denial, global warming, information theoretic statistics, likelihood-free, multivariate adaptive regression splines, non-parametric model, science denier, smoothing, splines, statistical dependence
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Trump’s supporters cannot change natural reality, even through Trump; we can and should continue to act, in hope
I like his emphasis upon Remember residual damage, and that’s There’s no rewind button. That’s Alex Steffen, who has the most optimistic post-Trump spiel I’ve read. And there’s always the optimism that comes with China’s warning Trump about not taking … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, denial, Donald Trump, Ecology Action, environment, environmental law, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Joseph Schumpeter
On the rise of the Trumpistas …
Just a couple of things to write about The Obvious. I have written a couple of longer thoughts as Comments, here and here, at … And Then There’s Physics. I reiterate that I don’t believe any voter was hoodwinked, that … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atheism, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate zombies, coastal communities, consumption, corporate supply chains, cynicism, Daniel Kahneman, denial, disingenuity, Donald Trump, dynamical systems, Equiterre, exponential growth, extended supply chains, Exxon, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, ignorance, Joseph Schumpeter, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, meteorology, Minsky moment, moral leadership, oceanography, organizational failures, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reason, reasonableness, risk, science, science denier, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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“Hurricanes, Sea Level, and Baloney” (from Tamino)
Originally posted on Open Mind:
WUWT has a post in which Neil Frank proclaims that Hillary Clinton is no hurricane expert but he is. (Frank’s post was originally published on The Daily Caller, but was reprinted on WUWT with permission.)…
Our uncontrolled experiment with Earth as an Astrophysics problem set
Hat tip to And then there’s Physics …: On climate change and Astrobiology , by Adam Frank.
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, astrophysics, bacteria, bollocks, Carl Sagan, civilization, climate, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, cynicism, Daniel Kahneman, David Archer, David Suzuki, denial, destructive economic development, Eaarth, ecology, environment, environmental law, Equiterre, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, mass extinctions, meteorology, NASA, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, random walks, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, Robert Young, science, sustainability
Once more, with feeling: Responding to Kostrzewa in The Providence Journal
It’s making the rounds. Today it’s John Kostrzewa, Assistant Managing Editor of The Providence Journal, arguing the necessity of natural gas and its pipelines with his “Why R.I.’s economy needs a natural-gas pipeline”. And my response, below, which allowed me … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizen science, citizenship, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, disruption, distributed generation, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, evidence, extended supply chains, FERC, fossil fuels, fracking, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, methane, microgrids, natural gas, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, regime shifts, regulatory capture, Rhode Island, risk, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, stranded assets, supply chains, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
“Disrupt climate disruption”
From Science Music Videos … And if you have the time, a 52 minute movie … Power concedes nothing without a demand. “No leader is coming to save us [from climate disruption].”
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bollocks, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, Daniel Kahneman, denial, dynamical systems, Eaarth, ecology, Ecology Action, Gaylord Nelson, George Monbiot, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, moral leadership, Our Children's Trust, regime shifts, science, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon
“Holy crap – an actual book!”
Originally posted on mathbabe:
Yo, everyone! The final version of my book now exists, and I have exactly one copy! Here’s my editor, Amanda Cook, holding it yesterday when we met for beers: Here’s my son holding it: He’s offered…
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Buckminster Fuller, business, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, complex systems, confirmation bias, data science, data streams, deep recurrent neural networks, denial, economics, education, engineering, ethics, evidence, Internet, investing, life purpose, machine learning, mathematical publishing, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, moral leadership, multivariate statistics, numerical software, numerics, obfuscating data, organizational failures, politics, population biology, prediction, prediction markets, privacy, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reason, reasonableness, rhetoric, risk, Schnabel census, smart data, sociology, statistical dependence, statistics, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, transparency, UU Humanists
BOYCOTT natural gas, American or otherwise
It’s one thing to oppose pipelines and continued use of fossil fuels, but there is little as effective as a boycott of the key product. This is certainly not a new idea. (I don’t do Facebook. See this 2001 article … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, atmosphere, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, denial, destructive economic development, distributed generation, ecology, economics, electricity, electricity markets, energy, environment, explosive methane, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, ISO-NE, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, methane, natural gas, New England, politics, public utility commissions, rationality, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, the energy of the people, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
“I need to wake up”
Now, more than ever. (The above was published in September 2015.)
Posted in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, denial, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, environment, evidence, feed-in tariff, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, James Hansen, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, meteorology, oceanography, physics, pipelines, politics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, sea level rise, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Spaceship Earth, Stefan Rahmstorf, Tamino, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, Unitarian Universalism, utility company death spiral, UU Humanists, WAIS, Wally Broecker, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Frum on Trump
Great interview, on On Point.
UnScientific Americans: Congress Aims to Cut Climate Science
Originally posted on Climate Denial Crock of the Week:
These guys are not joking. You wonder how great civilizations turn their back on enlightenment? Here’s how. Scientific American: Congress is considering spending bills that would significantly cut funding for key…
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, atmosphere, carbon dioxide, citizen science, citizenship, climate data, denial, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, ignorance, rationality, reasonableness, science, science denier, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
Absorption of long wave, or thermal radiation by CO2 at 667 per cm
From time to time, I engage with science deniers on the Web, typically in Comment sections, and primarily regarding aspects of climate science or physics. Some think this to be a waste of time, but, as I enjoy debating (have … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, astrophysics, atmosphere, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, chemistry, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, denial, evidence, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, physics, rationality, reasonableness, science, science denier, science education, spectra, SuperCorrector1, Svante Arrhenius
Climate Denial Fails Pepsi Challenge
Originally posted on Climate Denial Crock of the Week:
Stephen Lewandowsky specializes in conducting research that pulls back the curtain climate denial psychology. He’s done it again. Washington Post: Researchers have designed an inventive test suggesting that the arguments commonly used…
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, card draws, card games, chance, climate, climate change, climate data, climate education, confirmation bias, data science, denial, disingenuity, education, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, ignorance, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, obfuscating data, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sociology, the right to know
Why Salem Harbor Power — or any methane-powered electricity — is a big mistake
Dan Dolan of the Massachusetts Power Generators association wrote an op-ed lauding the Salem Harbor Power Station, an explosive methane-powered monstrosity located just 16 feet above sea level, and built with the implicit assumption sea level rise in Salem will … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, methane, natural gas, pipelines, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, regulatory capture, Salem, Sankey diagram, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, stranded assets, the energy of the people, the green century, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, waves, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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George Monbiot: On leaving fossil fuels in the ground
Posted in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, causal diagrams, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, economics, energy, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, George Monbiot, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, perceptions, philosophy, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, supply chains, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon
Kevin Anderson’s latest
Also note Oxfam’s “World’s richest 10% produce half of carbon emissions while poorest 3.5 billion account for just a tenth“. Update, 2016-04-28: And what, exactly, does the Paris agreement (COP21) mean? See this story.
Posted in adaptation, agriculture, Anthropocene, biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, destructive economic development, disruption, distributed generation, ecology, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, environment, ethics, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, greenhouse gases, grid defection, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, liberal climate deniers, local generation, microgrids, natural gas, rationality, reasonableness, science, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Remember 2012?
“Welcome to the rest of our lives …” Peter Sinclair speculates 2016 will be as bad and possibly worse than 2012.
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, denial, environment, Exxon, FEMA, forecasting, forest fires, fossil fuels, fracking, games of chance, geophysics, George Sughihara, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, liberal climate deniers, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, meteorology, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, science, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets
