
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION Cathy O’Neil’s WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION,
- Comprehensive Guide to Bayes Rule
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- "The Expert"
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
- BioPython A collection of Python tools for quantitative Biology
- The Plastic Pick-Up: Discovering new sources of marine plastic pollution
- Risk and Well-Being
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- Rasmus Bååth's Research Blog Bayesian statistics and data analysis
- Prediction vs Forecasting: Knaub “Unfortunately, ‘prediction,’ such as used in model-based survey estimation, is a term that is often subsumed under the term ‘forecasting,’ but here we show why it is important not to confuse these two terms.”
- Beautiful Weeds of New York City
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- Charlie Kufs' "Stats With Cats" blog “You took Statistics 101. Now what?”
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- Ted Dunning
- Hermann Scheer Hermann Scheer was a visionary, a major guy, who thought deep thoughts about energy, and its implications for humanity’s relationship with physical reality
- Label Noise
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Professor David Draper
- Thaddeus Stevens quotes As I get older, I admire this guy more and more
- GeoEnergy Math Prof Paul Pukite’s Web site devoted to energy derived from geological and geophysical processes and categorized according to its originating source.
- Subsidies for wind and solar versus subsidies for fossil fuels
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- Giant vertical monopolies for energy have stopped making sense
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- Mike Bloomberg, 2020 He can get progress on climate done, has the means and experts to counter the Trump and Republican digital disinformation machine, and has the experience, knowledge, and depth of experience to achieve and unify.
- American Statistical Association
- Karl Broman
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- Mertonian norms
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- James' Empty Blog
- Simon Wood's must-read paper on dynamic modeling of complex systems I highlighted Professor Wood’s paper in https://hypergeometric.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/struggling-with-problems-already-attacked/
- What If
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Gavin Simpson
- Gabriel's staircase
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
climate change
- Andy Zucker's "Climate Change and Psychology"
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- "Climate science is setttled enough"
- "Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming" By Risbey, Lewandowsky, Hunter, Monselesan: Betting against climate change on durations of 15+ years is no longer a rational proposition.
- Climate Communication Hassol, Somerville, Melillo, and Hussin site communicating climate to the public
- The beach boondoggle Prof Rob Young on how owners of beach property are socializing their risks at costs to all of us, not the least being it seems coastal damage is less than it actually is
- Climate change: Evidence and causes A project of the UK Royal Society: (1) Answers to key questions, (2) evidence and causes, and (3) a short guide to climate science
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- CLIMATE ADAM Previously from the Science news staff at the podcast of Nature (“Nature Podcast”), the journal, now on YouTube, encouraging climate action through climate comedy.
- Earth System Models
- The great Michael Osborne's latest opinions Michael Osborne is a genius operative and champion of solar energy. I have learned never to disregard ANYTHING he says. He is mentor of Karl Ragabo, and the genius instigator of the Texas renewable energy miracle.
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- Climate impacts on retail and supply chains
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Isaac Held's blog In the spirit of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “big ideas come from small models” in his textbook, PRINCIPLES OF PLANETARY CLIMATE, Dr Held presents quantitative essays regarding one feature or another of the Earth’s climate and weather system.
- Mathematics and Climate Research Network The Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN) engages mathematicians to collaborating on the cryosphere, conceptual model validation, data assimilation, the electric grid, food systems, nonsmooth systems, paleoclimate, resilience, tipping points.
- NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index report The annual assessment by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the radiative forcing from constituent atmospheric greenhouse gases
- "When Did Global Warming Stop" Doc Snow’s treatment of the denier claim that there’s been no warming for the most recent N years. (See http://hubpages.com/@doc-snow for more on him.)
- Paul Beckwith Professor Beckwith is, in my book, one of the most insightful and analytical observers on climate I know. I highly recommend his blog, and his other informational products.
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- History of discovering Global Warming From the American Institute of Physics.
- Spectra Energy exposed
- AIP's history of global warming science: impacts The American Institute of Physics has a fine history of the science of climate change. This link summarizes the history of impacts of climate change.
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- “The discovery of global warming'' (American Institute of Physics)
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- HotWhopper: It's excellent. Global warming and climate change. Eavesdropping on the deniosphere, its weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy whoppers.
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- The Keeling Curve The first, and one of the best programs for creating a spatially significant long term time series of atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Started amongst great obstacles by one, smart determined guy, Charles David Keeling.
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- James Hansen and granddaughter Sophie on moving forward with progress on climate
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- `Who to believe on climate change': Simple checks By Bart Verheggen
- Eli on the spectroscopic basis of atmospheric radiation physical chemistry
- Ice and Snow
- "Warming Slowdown?" (part 1 of 2) The idea of a global warming slowdown or hiatus is critically examined, emphasizing the literature, the datasets, and means and methods for telling such. In two parts.
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- The Green Plate Effect Eli Rabett’s “The Green Plate Effect”
- Risk and Well-Being
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- Tamino's Open Mind Open Mind: A statistical look at climate, its science, and at science denial
- Bloomberg interactive graph on “What's warming the world''
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Climate Change Denying Organizations
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- SolarLove
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: evidence
Boston, are you ready?
Yeah, how about warming up the seas a bit more by building pipelines, buying into more explosive methane (*), and encouraging fracked gas people to export? What could it hurt? There are many alternatives, most sketched here on this blog. … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bollocks, Boston, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, disingenuity, ecology, evidence, false advertising, floods, Florida, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, global warming, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, MA, Massachusetts, methane, mitigation, natural gas, NOAA, nor'easters, physics, pipelines, prediction, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, utility company death spiral
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This Earth Day: The Data
(Amendments on 25the April 2016.) Sorry, folks, it’s It’s not just El Niño. El Niño’s have gotten bigger over the years. (Click on image for a larger picture. Use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) (Click on image … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, Dan Satterfield, ecology, El Nina, El Nino, ENSO, environment, evidence, Exxon, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, ignorance, James Hansen, John Cook, La Nina, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, organizational failures, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, selfishness, Spaceship Earth, statistics, sustainability, Texaco, the problem of evil, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists, WAIS, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon
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“Number density, not mixing ratio”, from Eli
From this post: There is a cute little number called Loschmidt, the number of molecules in a cubic meter of air at 1 atm and 0° C, 2.6867774(47) x 1025 molecules/m3 … Eli Rabett provides a neat way to see … Continue reading
Posted in astrophysics, Boltzmann, carbon dioxide, chemistry, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, Eli Rabett, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, Loschmidt, meteorology, methane, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, science, theoretical physics, thermodynamics
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“Things going fast”: Summary of a class on climate disruption taught by Professor Ricky Rood
Dr Ricky Rood is a professor at the University of Michigan, both a meteorologist and climate scientist, and a regular contributor to the climate and weather blogs at Weather Underground. In a post from April 6th (titled “No Way to … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Antarctica, Arctic, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, environment, evidence, fossil fuels, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, liberal climate deniers, MA, marine biology, Massachusetts, meteorology, methane, MIchael Mann, natural gas, New England, physics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, Ricky Rood, science, sea level rise, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Gavin Simpson updates his temperature analysis
See the very interesting discussion at his blog, From the bottom of the heap. It would be nice to see some information theoretic measures on these results, though.
Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, astrophysics, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, carbon dioxide, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, ecology, environment, evidence, Gavin Simpson, Generalize Additive Models, geophysics, global warming, HadCRUT4, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, Kalman filter, maths, meteorology, numerical analysis, R, rationality, reasonableness, splines, time series
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“This solar future is inevitable — the key question is how long it will take” (David Roberts, of VOX)
Here it is: solar photovoltaic (PV) power is eventually going to dominate global energy. The question is not if, but when. Maybe it will happen radically faster than anyone expects — say, by 2050. Or maybe it won’t be until … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, citizenship, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, evidence, exponential growth, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, local generation, microgrids, planning, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, solar domination, solar energy, Solar Freakin' Roadways, solar power, SolarPV.tv, the green century, Tony Seba, zero carbon
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On generating close to point of consumption
I’ve written about Sankey diagrams before, and Professor Kevin Anderson appeals to them to promote demand reduction as a powerful pathway to reducing Carbon emissions. But the overheads associated with transmission and distribution affect large scale generation of solar and … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Cape Wind, citizenship, clean disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, efficiency, Egbert van Nes, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, evidence, fossil fuel divestment, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, local generation, maths, microgrids, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, sustainability, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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That two degree limit is closer than it appears
The UNFCCC’s COP21 concluded goals which aimed for limiting global warming to C, and certainly keeping it below C, both measured with respect to pre-industrial temperatures. Bad news. According to the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research (“NCAR”), in … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, chaos, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, complex systems, COP21, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, critical slowing down, differential equations, Eaarth, ecology, environment, evidence, exponential growth, extended supply chains, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geoengineering, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, James Hansen, meteorology, mitigation, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, temporal myopia, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, Wally Broecker, zero carbon
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Techno Utopias
Professor Kevin Anderson on Techno Utopias. The Paris “COP21” agreement is/was not only expecting miracles, it was counting on them. Y’think climate disruption causes ecosystem disruption: Try geoengineering. Well the answer was simple. If we choose to continue our love … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, complex systems, consumption, COP21, corporate supply chains, denial, disingenuity, economics, environment, ethics, evidence, exponential growth, extended supply chains, FEMA, finance, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, glaciers, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, icesheets, ignorance, IPCC, James Hansen, Kevin Anderson, Lenny Smith, liberal climate deniers, living shorelines, MA, meteorology, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, physics, planning, population biology, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, regime shifts, Sankey diagram, science, sea level rise, selfishness, silly tech devices, Techno Utopias, the right to know, the value of financial assets
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K-Nearest Neighbors: dangerously simple
Yeah, Mathbabe’s got it right: People who use kNN often don’t think about these things. For those who aren’t familiar with this technique, here’s a description from Zhi-Hua Zhou in Ensemble Methods: Foundations and Algorithms (section 1.2.5): “The -nearest neighbor … Continue reading
Posted in big data, data science, evidence, machine learning
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Life cycle analysis of emissions from various forms of energy converted to electricity
There was a recent discussion regarding the life cycle analysis of various forms of energy, principally to be converted to electricity. Given that everything I know about sustainability and life cycle analysis suggests is it is a very complicated business, … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, anemic data, Anthropocene, biofuels, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, complex systems, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, evidence, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, Life Cycle Assessment, Mark Jacobson, methane, natural gas, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, pipelines, Sankey diagram, solar energy, solar power, SolarPV.tv, Tea Party, transparency, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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On friction and the duplicity
(Hat tip to Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the Week.) Has Senator Cruz called Dr Carl Mears (video) of Remote Sensing Systems, the maker and interpreter of the sensor Senator Cruz used for his Spencer-Christy-Curry carnival? No. Of … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, anemic data, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, confirmation bias, corruption, denial, disingenuity, ecology, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, meteorology, model comparison, NCAR, NOAA, obfuscating data, oceanography, physics, rationality, reasonableness, statistics, time series
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Hottest Year on Record
Reposting from Tamino’s blog. And there still are intelligent people out there, including statistician colleagues, who don’t buy the facts of warming. Generally speaking, they have a look at a few time series and get quickly skeptical, failing to realize … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Berkeley, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, BLUE, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate zombies, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, kriging, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, Richard Muller, Robert Rohde, science, science education, Tamino, the right to know, time series, University of California Berkeley
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Not too shabby: “What’s warming the world” (Bloomberg Business), and “The siege of Miami” (The New Yorker)
What’s warming the world Infographic allowing the visitor to overlay time series of candidate causes for global warming, and thereby permitting them to draw their own conclusions. And Elizabeth Kolbert’s piece in The New Yorker, brings home the contradictions and … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, business, climate change, climate data, climate zombies, complex systems, critical slowing down, denial, disingenuity, economics, environment, evidence, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, mitigation, model comparison, time series
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About that “hide the decline” thing …
(Hat tip to Climate Denial Crock of the Week) It’s amazing what you can do when you take words out of context. Watch The Daily Show some time. But that’s entertainment, not governance. Hide the decline? The email doesn’t say … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, climate, climate data, climate disruption, denial, environment, ethics, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, meteorology, oceanography, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, science, temporal myopia
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Climate Conclusions: The American Petroleum Institute (1980)
The following are excerpted from a memorandum quoted by the Inside Climate News team, documenting the minutes of a 29th February 1980 of a task force on climate change at the American Petroleum Institute. Hat tip to Climate Denial Crock … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Petroleum Institute, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, denial, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, evidence, Exxon, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorology, natural gas, open data, physics, pipelines, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, selfishness, Standard Oil of California, sustainability, Texaco, the right to know, the value of financial assets
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climate impacts upon corporate supply chains
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/advisory/consulting/risk/resilience/publications/business-not-as-usual.html https://www.aig.com/Chartis/internet/US/en/TheVulnerabilityofGlobalSupplyChains_tcm3171-663222.pdf http://phys.org/news/2014-02-quantifying-global-chain-due-climate.html http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/06/27/address-climate-risks-supply-chain
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, chance, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, compassion, COP21, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate supply chains, economics, evidence, forecasting, games of chance, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, meteorology, optimization, planning, risk, Sankey diagram, science, sustainability
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reblog: “Tiny Data, Approximate Bayesian Computation and the Socks of Karl Broman”
It’s Rasmus Bååth, in a post and video of which I am very fond: http://www.sumsar.net/blog/2014/10/tiny-data-and-the-socks-of-karl-broman/.
On infrared radiation and Earth temperature
Good to review the basics once again. Professors Dave Archer and Ray Pierrehumbert do, in my opinion, some of the best introductions: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature.
Posted in astrophysics, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate models, David Archer, differential equations, diffusion, diffusion processes, environment, evidence, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, meteorology, methane, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, Svante Arrhenius
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Courage in Congress
When someone cannot argue on the basis of evidence and logic, a tempting ploy is to discredit their opponent by tarnishing their character. This is, of course, an invalid argument, since it is entirely possible that even one of tarnished … Continue reading

