Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: environment
On plastic bag bans, and the failure to realize economic growth cannot be green
(Updated 2019-01-12.) Despite the surge of interest in plastic bag bans, the environmental sustainability numbers haven’t been run. For example, it makes no sense to trade using paper bags instead of plastic ones, even if the paper is recycled, because … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, development as anti-ecology, E. O. Wilson, environment, evidence, evolution, exponential growth, fragmentation of ecosystems, global warming, greenwashing, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, local self reliance, plastics, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, supply chains, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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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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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
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The Democrats have no plan to address Climate Change (either)
Recall an article from the 15th November 2017 issue of The Atlantic: … [T]he Democratic Party does not have a plan to address climate change. This is true at almost every level of the policy-making process: It does not have … Continue reading
Posted in American Meteorological Association, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, children as political casualties, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, consumption, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, destructive economic development, environment, environmental law, games of chance, global blinding, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Juliana v United States
Tagged #youthvgov
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“All of Monsanto’s problems just landed on Bayer” (by Chris Hughes at Bloomberg)
See Chris Hughes’ article. Monsanto has touted Roundup (also known as Glyphosate but more properly as ) as a safe remedy for weed control, often in the taming of so-called “invasive species”. It’s used on playfields where children are exposed … Continue reading
Posted in agroecology, an uncaring American public, business, corporate responsibility, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, environmental law, epidemiology, evidence, invasive species, open data, Peter del Tredici, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, risk, statistics, sustainability, sustainable landscaping, the right to know, Uncategorized, unreason, Westwood
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“Space, climate change, and the real meaning of theory”
(From The New Yorker, 17th August 2016, by the late former astronaut Dr Piers Sellers) Excerpt from “Space, climate change, and the real meaning of theory”: . . . The facts of climate change are straightforward: there’s been a warming … Continue reading
Leaders (say they) Don’t Know About Lags
Maybe they don’t. Most people don’t. On the other hand, there’s little more to them than understanding skeet, realizing aiming where the clay pigeon is now is a useless tactic for hitting it. Aim where the pigeon will be is … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, atmosphere, attribution, Boston Ethical Society, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cult of Carbon, dynamical systems, environment, ethics, evidence, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, moral leadership, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU, UU Humanists
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This flooding can’t be stopped. What about the rest?
Tamino is writing about this subject, too. That entirely makes complete sense as it is the biggest geophysical and environmental story out there right now. I’ve included an update at this post’s end discussing the possible economic impacts. It’s been … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate justice, coastal communities, coastal investment risks, coasts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, Cult of Carbon, environment, Eric Rignot, flooding, floods, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, investing, investments, John Englander, living shorelines, Massachusetts, New England, real estate values, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, Robert M DeConto, Scituate, sea level rise, seawalls, shorelines, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, wishful environmentalism, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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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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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
“Carbon emissions and climate: Where do we stand, and what can be done if it all goes wrong?”
On Sunday, 11th February 2018, I presented an Abstract of a 3 hour talk on the subject, “Carbon emissions and climate: Where do we stand, and what can be done if it all goes wrong?” at the Needham Lyceum, hosted … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, civilization, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, COP21, Cult of Carbon, differential equations, dynamical systems, ecology, emissions, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, geoengineering, geophysics, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investments, James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, liberal climate deniers, Mark Carney, Michael Bloomberg, Minsky moment, mitigation, nonlinear, nonlinear systems, oceanography, phytoplankton, population biology, population dynamics, precipitation, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, radiative forcing, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, sea level rise, sociology, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, T'kun Olam, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, thermohaline circulation, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU, UU Needham, Wally Broecker, zero carbon
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What Al Gore, Paul Hawken, friends, and company laughingly call “progress”
10 years ago it was 384.26 ppm. That means it is increasing by 1.2 ppm per year.
Our Nisse and his porridge, 24th December 2017
I celebrate a Norwegian custom, honoring the Nisse of the house and land on Christmas eve. (Swedish tomte.) While we don’t have a farm, Claire and I are avid environmentalists, my being such since 1971. So, any being who cares … Continue reading
Posted in Carl Safina, Earle Wilson, environment, environmental law, Henry David Thoreau, natural philosophy, naturalism, Nature, Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Nisse, Norwegian folklore, UU
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‘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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A lesson for Boston
And, from the Harvard Business Review: There was a time a decade or two ago when society could have made a choice to write off our massive investment in a fossil fuel-based economy and begin a policy driven shift towards … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, coasts, Cult of Carbon, Daniel Kahneman, environment, flooding, floods, Florida, global blinding, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, John Englander, living shorelines, Mark Carney, nor'easters, oceanic eddies, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, sea level rise, seawalls, selfishness, shorelines, solar energy, the right to be and act stupid, water
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On the responsibilities of scientists
On 4 September 2017, I added a blog post here titled “On the responsibilities of engineers”. Scientists have responsibilities, too. And I am delighted to say that the National Academies have just demonstrated a proud example of how such responsibilities … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, anti-science, attribution, Boston Ethical Society, chemistry, citizenship, compassion, Donald Trump, dump Trump, ecology, Ecology Action, economics, environment, environmental law, Environmental Protection Agency, ethics, evidence, fossil fuels, justice, land use to fight, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, pollution, rationality, reason, reasonableness, risk, science, science denier, secularism, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon
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‘Nuf said: Ensembles as descriptions of Bayesian space-time posterior densities
(UPDATED, 2017-09-09, 12:38 EDT) Click here to see just the latest update. An exercise in the appreciation of ensemble models. By the way, many of these charts were obtained courtesy of my subscription at Weather Underground. They are, as far … Continue reading
Dr James Hansen is great
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atmosphere, Carbon Tax, climate change, climate disruption, emissions, environment, floods, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, hurricanes, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, nonlinear systems, reasonableness, solar democracy, the tragedy of our present civilization, Unitarian Universalism
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Houston, forward
For the purposes of this post, let’s pretend climate disruption does not exist (!). Let’s pretend Hurricane Harvey had no climate component, and that Hurricane Harvey was just another, big storm afflicting the fortunes of the U.S. Gulf coast. The … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, Daniel Kahneman, destructive economic development, ecology, economics, environment, FEMA, flooding, floods, fossil fuel infrastructure, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, Joseph Schumpeter, living shorelines, reworking infrastructure, Robert Young, shorelines
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`The California way: sunny, with a chance of apocalypse’ (recommended read)
This article at the San Francisco Chronicle is by Jon Christensen. Dystopian scenarios encourage us to act in such a way that the dystopia does not come to be. Professor Christensen has written more recently about this as well. This … Continue reading
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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