Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: environment
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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The Myth of Baseload Power (Amory Lovins)
Posted in Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Buckminster Fuller, capitalism, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, design science, distributed generation, economics, energy efficiency, energy reduction, environment, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, ILSR, integrative design, John Farrell, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local generation, local self reliance, microgrids, petroleum, reasonableness, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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Disney’s Robert Iger resigns from Trump advisory panel over the Trumpistas’ decision to quit COP
“Protecting our planet and driving economic growth are critical to our future, and they aren’t mutually exclusive,” he said in a statement. “I deeply disagree with the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and, as a matter of principle, … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, citizenship, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, COP21, destructive economic development, Disney, Donald Trump, environment, Florida, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, Robert Iger, Walt Disney Company
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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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Global blinding, or Nature’s revenge against meteorologists who deny climate disruption
Given climate disruption due to radiative forcing from excess atmospheric CO2, which is a premise of this blog, it is only reasonable to wonder about, speculate, hypothesize, and posit that eventually the amount of this forcing and the feedbacks in … Continue reading
Posted in Accuweather, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, climate, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, dynamical systems, Eaarth, environment, evidence, forecasting, games of chance, geophysics, global blinding, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, Kerry Emanuel, meteorological models, meteorology, National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, nonlinear systems, notes, oceanic eddies, oceanography, radiative forcing, Ricky Rood, science, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, theoretical physics
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Is the answer to the democratization of Science doing more Citizen Science?
I have been following, with keen interest, the post and comment thread pertaining to “Democratising science” at the blog I monitor daily, … and Then There’s Physics. I think the core subject being discussed is a little different from my … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, astronomy, astrophysics, biology, citizen data, citizen science, citizenship, data science, ecology, education, environment, evidence, life purpose, local self reliance, marine biology, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, moral leadership, new forms of scientific peer review, open source scientific software, science, science education, statistics, the green century, the right to know
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`Letter to Lamar Smith’
On Ed Hawkins’ blog. The Committee on Science, Space & Technology of the US House of Representatives conducts regular evidence hearings on various science topics. On Wednesday 29th March, there is a hearing on “Climate science: assumptions, policy implications, and … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, anemic data, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, Ben Santer, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, carbon dioxide, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, Climate Lab Book, climate zombies, dependent data, environment, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, meteorology, MIchael Mann, Our Children's Trust, physics, science, smoothing, statistical dependence, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, time series
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Proud to be a member of the American Meteorological Society
(Click image to see a larger figure, and use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) Here is the link to the AMETSOC official statement, cited in the letter. AMETSOC is hardly the only such professional scientific organization to … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, Bill Nye, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, Climate Lab Book, David Archer, Donald Trump, ecology, environment, environmental law, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorological models, meteorology, National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, Ray Pierrehumbert, science, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, The Weather Channel, The Weather Company
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What I’m reading …
C. E. Rasmussen, C. K. I. Williams, Gaussian Processes for Machine Learning, MIT Press, 2006. J. Leskovec, A. Rajaraman, J. D. Ullman, Mining of Massive Datasets, 2nd edition, 2016. J. Schaeffer, Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook, 14th edition, New Society … Continue reading
Greenwashing
Painted signage on the side of a delivery truck parked outside a neighbor’s home deliverying oil made me curious about this, so I checked out their Web site. Here is what I found: (To see larger figure, click on image … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, biofuels, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, clean disruption, CleanTechnica, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, economics, energy, environment, false advertising, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, regulatory capture, rhetoric, sociology, supply chains, the tragedy of our present civilization
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`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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Gas leaks along the pathway of the newly built West Roxbury Lateral transmission line
(This blog post was updated 19th January 2017 with a correction to the interpretation of the leak data. The correction was offered by Professor Phillips. The blog author is responsible for the original misunderstanding. Apologies for any inconvenience.) The West … Continue reading
Posted in anomaly detection, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, energy utilities, environment, ethics, evidence, explosive methane, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, methane, Nathan Phillips, natural gas, networks, pipelines, public utility commissions, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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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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Why scientific measurements need to be adjusted
There is an excellent piece in Ars Technica about why scientific measurements need to be adjusted, and the implications of this for climate data. It is written by Scott K Johnson and is called “Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Canettes Blues Band, citizen data, climate data, data science, environment, evidence, geophysics, GISTEMP, HadCRUT4, mathematics education, meteorological models, obfuscating data, open data, physics, science, spatial statistics, Tamino, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, Variable Variability
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`Moving forward on climate change and sustainability`
From WGBH, and hat tip to Environmental Justice TV, includes Dr Gavin Schmidt speaking, who I was especially interested in, and whose talk begins here: Interesting that Dr Schmidt has some gentle criticism of the PBS program NOVA. Whole talk … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, Ecology Action, environment, Equiterre, fossil fuel divestment, Gavin Schmidt, geophysics, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, moral leadership, NASA, physics, science, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, 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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`Anecdotes don’t make reliable evidence’
From Katharine Hayhoe, who I deeply respect, and from John Cook (*), scientists and the quantitative community have been scolded that the reason they don’t make headway with the public and the science denier community is because their explanations are too … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, astrophysics, bridge to nowhere, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate disruption, disingenuity, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, flooding, floods, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, ignorance, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, meteorology, Minsky moment, Neill deGrasse Tyson, NOAA, oceanography, planning, reason, reasonableness, science, shorelines, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets
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On the recent history of climate science.
NCAR reports on a teleconnection between the Pacific and continental USA
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (“NCAR”) reports on a newly substantiated teleconnection between positive sea surface temperature anomalies (“SSTA”) in the Pacific and the temperatures over the continental United States (“CONUS”) 50 days later. A teleconnection is: A linkage … Continue reading
Posted in American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atmosphere, attribution, climate, climate data, coastal communities, coasts, dynamical systems, environment, fluid dynamics, fluid eddies, food, forecasting, geophysics, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, living shorelines, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, meteorological models, meteorology, National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, NOAA, oceanic eddies, oceanography, open data, Principles of Planetary Climate, sea level rise, U.S. Navy, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Climate Potpourri: Flooding and Solar (both from Ars)
And they who will not be ready, will suffer the economic consequences. Ready for flooding: Boston analyzes how to tackle climate change (That water is a foot deep, previously reported in a post here. Click on image to see larger … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Boston, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, CleanTechnica, climate, climate business, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, environment, flooding, floods, fossil fuels, global warming, green tech, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, investment in wind and solar energy, John Englander, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, living shorelines, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, meteorology, oceanography, resiliency, shorelines, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, T'kun Olam, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets
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Global Carbon Dioxide in 3D
Your CO2, my CO2 doesn’t remain with you or me, but mixes broadly and thoroughly over the planet at large. So, we all share responsibility for the damage. Credit: NASA And brought to you by OCO-2.
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atmosphere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, civilization, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, diffusion, diffusion processes, Donald Trump, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, fluid eddies, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, NASA, NCAR
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David Puttnam, in a moving appeal on climate
David Puttnum (yes, the producer-director) has a very moving appeal on climate: Hat tip to Tamino. President Lyndon Johnson was the first to receive a briefing regarding the looming crisis presented by abrupt climate change. That was in 1965. And … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, Daniel Kahneman, differential equations, environment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, life purpose, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, science, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets
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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
(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 where you need to be 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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“Negative emissions” (from ATTP)
Originally posted on …and Then There's Physics:
I went to some Departmental talks recently and discovered that some of my colleagues are researchering possible carbon sequestration technologies. This could be very important, but appealing to negative emission technologies is…
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, differential equations, environment, fossil fuels, geoengineering, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, land use to fight, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, reason, reasonableness, science, sustainability, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, utility company death spiral, zero carbon
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the Pale Blue Dot, once again
No other perspective matters, however disenfranchised some may feel. For, ignoring that perspective, they will fight Something they cannot beat. Remember, Nature Bats Last.
