Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: ecological services
The shelf-break front, fisheries, climate change, and finding things out
From Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Support them. Claire and I do.
Winter composting: How to make friends with microbes and defy weather (podcast, too)
(This blog post is accompanied by an explanatory podcast. See below.) Many people compost. It can be easy or hard, depending upon your tolerance for turning and work, and of the Wild Thing who wants a free meal. I can … Continue reading
Posted in agroecology, argoecology, Botany, Carbon Cycle, composting, ecological services, Ecological Society of America, ecology, engineering, environment, fermentation, First Parish Needham, karma, local self reliance, Nature, science, solid waste management, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, Unitarian Universalism, UU, UU Humanists, UU Needham, water as a resource
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Gov Jerry Brown on Meet the Press, a parting comment on 2018 at Bill Gates’ Notes, and the best climate blog post of 2018
Segment One Outgoing Governor Jerry Brown of California on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning: I’ll miss him there, but I don’t think Gov Jerry is going anywhere soon. Segment Two Bill Gates Notes offered an end of year summary … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association, an ignorant American public, Anthropocene, anti-science, astronomy, atmosphere, attribution, being carbon dioxide, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Bill Gates, Blackbody radiation, bridge to somewhere, California, carbon dioxide, cement production, climate, climate change, climate zombies, development as anti-ecology, ecological services, economics, Eli Rabett, energy flux, environment, evidence, friends and colleagues, global warming, Grant Foster, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Jerry Brown, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, meteorology, nuclear power, oceanography, oceans, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantum mechanics, science, sea level rise, solar democracy, solar energy, solar power, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, University of California, University of California Berkeley, water as a resource, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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Aldo Leopold
We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the twentieth century: our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. … Continue reading
The elephant in the room: a case for producer responsibility
This is a guest post by Claire Galkowski, Executive Director, South Shore Recycling Cooperative. With so much focus on the recycling crisis, we tend to overlook the root cause of the problem: The glut of short lived consumer products and … Continue reading
Posted in affordable mass goods, Anthropocene, chemistry, citizenship, civilization, Claire Galkowski, CleanTechnica, climate economics, consumption, corporate citizenship, corporate responsibility, corporate supply chains, demand-side solutions, design science, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, environment, ethics, extended producer responsibility, extended supply chains, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, local self reliance, materials science, municipal solid waste, rebound effect, resource producitivity, shop, solid waste management, sustainability, temporal myopia, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, wishful environmentalism
Tagged reycling, Sankey diagrams, solid waste management, SSRC, waste minimisation
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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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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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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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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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[reblog] David Suzuki: Consumer society no longer serves our needs
From David Suzuki, who I’ve cited here more and more often, from his blog post, Consumer society no longer serves our needs, of 11th January 2018. An excerpt: But where is the indication of our real status — Earthlings — … Continue reading
Posted in Adam Smith, adaptation, affordable mass goods, Anthropocene, climate economics, climate justice, consumption, David Suzuki, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, ethics, evidence, science, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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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
‘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''
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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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Amory Lovins, 2008: `Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution with Amory Lovins`
An excellent presentation from über successful dropout from Harvard University and Oxford University, Dr Amory Lovins, at University of California at Berkeley:
Posted in Adam Smith, affordable mass goods, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, capitalism, climate economics, destructive economic development, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, economic trade, economics, environment, ILSR, internal inconsistency, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, resource producitivity, solid waste management, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, the green century, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, transparency
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The South Shore Recycling Cooperative can save you money!
Abington, Cohasset, Duxbury, Hanover, Hanson, Hingham, Hull, Kingston, Middleboro, Norwell, Plymouth, Rockland, Scituate, Weymouth, Whitman Join ’em. Ask your town governors on the South Shore to check ’em out. It’s your tax dollars wasted if you don’t. What your town … Continue reading
Posted in Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, argoecology, coastal communities, composting, destructive economic development, ecological services, ecology, economics, environment, environmental law, Equiterre, Hyper Anthropocene, John Farrell, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local self reliance, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, pollution, recycling, Sankey diagram, sociology, South Shore Recycling Cooperative, stranded assets, sustainability, the green century, UU Needham
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“Energy is at the core of all these things”
Energy and water. Update, 2017-07-19: The Solver Elon Musk at the National Governors Association conference last week: It is possible to supply every electron needed to keep America humming by covering just 100 square miles with solar panels. “The batteries … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, climate disruption, climate economics, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, distributed generation, ecological services, Ecology Action, environment, environmental law, fossil fuel infrastructure, global warming, green tech, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local self reliance, methane, natural gas, Spaceship Earth, Stanford University, 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, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, water as a resource
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“You don’t have that option.”
Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think he’s awesome. Marvelous. I saw him in Boston. He and I did not get off well, at the start, because of my being awestruck, and feeling very awkward, and the short time we had … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Bayesian, citizen data, citizen science, Climate Lab Book, Earth Day, ecological services, ecology, environment, Hyper Anthropocene, Neill deGrasse Tyson, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reason, reasonableness, religion, science, science education, Science magazine, scientific publishing, secularism, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, United States, XKCD
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Chesterton’s fence, ecological sensitivity, and the disruption of ecological services
Hat tip to Matt Levine for introducing me to the term Chesteron’s fence: Chesterton’s fence is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. … In the matter of … Continue reading
`Environmental science in a post-truth world’ (Lubchenco and Kammen)
Jane Lubchenco is a Professor at Oregon State University, and was administrator of the U.S. NOAA from 2009 through 2013, the U.S. Science Envoy for the Ocean at the State Department from 2014 to 2016, and the president of the … Continue reading
Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, being carbon dioxide, Buckminster Fuller, climate, climate change, coastal communities, coasts, ecological services, ecology, environment, environmental law, evidence, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, Jane Lubchenco, marine biology, mass extinctions, population biology, population dynamics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, risk, science, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, T'kun Olam, temporal myopia, the tragedy of our present civilization
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You really can’t go home again: An update of “Getting back to 350 ppm CO2 …”
I have made an important update to an earlier post here, Getting back to 350 ppm CO2: You can’t go home again. The message, essentially based upon recent work Tokarska and Zickfield on one hand, and by The Global Carbon … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, Carbon Worshipers, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate business, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate economics, David Archer, diffusion, diffusion processes, ecological services, Eli Rabett, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, games of chance, geoengineering, geophysics, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Principles of Planetary Climate, Ray Pierrehumbert, science, Spaceship Earth, Susan Solomon, Svante Arrhenius, the tragedy of our present civilization, Tokarska and Zickfield, Wordpress, zero carbon
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Okay, Jan, so what’s your view on climate change?
It’s heading towards year’s end, so it’s natural to think about perspective. In a post from last July, Joseph Heath asks semi-rhetorically, “Why are [proposed] carbon taxes so low?” and, then, he and commenters go on and answer that, essentially, … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate change, climate disruption, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, ecological services, energy reduction, energy storage, environment, Equiterre, fossil fuel divestment, Gaylord Nelson, Glen Peters, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, Kevin Anderson, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts, Minsky moment, Neill deGrasse Tyson, Our Children's Trust, population biology, quantitative ecology, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, Walt Disney Company, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Indigenous peoples win a reprieve, and, no matter what comes later, a solid victory
“The Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-to-government relationship, and the statute governing easements … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, ecological services, ecology, Ecology Action, Equiterre, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, indigenous peoples, land use to fight, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Our Children's Trust, pipelines
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Cape Cod National Seashore: Testament to how fragile our collective hold is on any land
(Click on photo to see larger image, and use browser Back Button to return to blog.) About the Cape Cod National Seashore.. How Cape Cod changes. (Click on photo to see larger image, and use browser Back Button to return … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, climate change, coasts, conservation, ecological services, ecology, environment, Equiterre, flooding, Hyper Anthropocene, living shorelines, oceanography, physical materialism, quantitative ecology, science, sea level rise, shorelines, the tragedy of our present civilization, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Getting back to 350 ppm CO2: You can’t go home again
(Update of this piece, included below.) (Major update of this piece included below.) You can’t. It’ll cost much more than 23 times 40 times the Gross World Product to do it. And, in any case, you need to go to … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, atmosphere, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, chemistry, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, David Archer, diffusion, diffusion processes, ecological services, ecology, economics, engineering, environment, environmental law, fossil fuels, geoengineering, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, methane, Our Children's Trust, physics, rationality, reason, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, the right to be and act stupid, Wally Broecker, zero carbon
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Evidence this form of government and Constitution does not know how to address climate disruption
Evidence this form of government and Constitution does not know how to address let alone solve climate disruption … Look at the topsy-turvy plight of Washington State’s Initiative 732 Carbon Fee-and-Dividend bill: Even people who think it’s a good idea … Continue reading
On failing to learn important lessons
As previously posted here, people along coasts and their governments, are failing to learn the lessons of both climate-induced sea level rise, and storms like Extratropical Sandy. Now, it’s startlingly clear how ignorant people are of these necessary lessons. The … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, bollocks, case law, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, coasts, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, ecological services, economics, environment, environmental law, evidence, flooding, forecasting, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, John Englander, liberal climate deniers, living shorelines, meteorological models, meteorology, nor'easters, oceanography, physics, planning, politics, rationality, reason, reasonableness, Robert Young, science, science denier, sea level rise, seawalls, shorelines, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, water, zero carbon
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“Getting past grudging precautions: How the next President should address climate change”
Professor David Titley (see also, and here) writes in the online newsletter DefenseOne: Many observers think climate change deserves more attention. They might be surprised to learn that U.S. military leaders and defense planners agree. The armed forces have been … Continue reading
Posted in American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Arctic, Buckminster Fuller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, coastal communities, Eaarth, ecological services, ecology, environment, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, meteorology, rationality, reason, reasonableness, resiliency, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, WHOI
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