
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- Risk and Well-Being
- Tim Harford's “More or Less'' Tim Harford explains – and sometimes debunks – the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life
- Logistic curves in market disruption From DollarsPerBBL, about logistic or S-curves as models of product take-up rather than exponentials, with notes on EVs
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Brian McGill's Dynamic Ecology blog Quantitative biology with pithy insights regarding applications of statistical methods
- Professor David Draper
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- Darren Wilkinson's introduction to ABC Darren Wilkinson’s introduction to approximate Bayesian computation (“ABC”). See also his post about summary statistics for ABC https://darrenjw.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/summary-stats-for-abc/
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION Cathy O’Neil’s WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION,
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- James' Empty Blog
- Gavin Simpson
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- Gabriel's staircase
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- All about Sankey diagrams
- Thaddeus Stevens quotes As I get older, I admire this guy more and more
- John Cook's reasons to use Bayesian inference
- Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model Five Thirty Eight’s take on why pandemic modeling is so difficult
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- What If
- The Plastic Pick-Up: Discovering new sources of marine plastic pollution
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- All about models
- "The Expert"
- Busting Myths About Heat Pumps Heat pumps are perhaps the most efficient heating and cooling systems available. Recent literature distributed by utilities hawking natural gas and other sources use performance figures from heat pumps as they were available 15 years ago. See today’s.
- Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- 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.
- Ted Dunning
- Higgs from AIR describing NAO and EA Stephanie Higgs from AIR Worldwide gives a nice description of NAO and EA in the context of discussing “The Geographic Impact of Climate Signals on European Winter Storms”
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- Why "naive Bayes" is not Bayesian Explains why the so-called “naive Bayes” classifier is not Bayesian. The setup is okay, but estimating probabilities by doing relative frequencies instead of using Dirichlet conjugate priors or integration strays from The Path.
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- 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.”
- Lenny Smith's CHAOS: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION This is a PDF version of Lenny Smith’s book of the same title, also available from Amazon.com
- Slice Sampling
- 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
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- "Talking Politics" podcast David Runciman, Helen Thompson
- Number Cruncher Politics
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- Fear and Loathing in Data Science Cory Lesmeister’s savage journey to the heart of Big Data
- Earle Wilson
- Dr James Spall's SPSA
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
climate change
- Climate model projections versus observations
- MIT's Climate Primer
- "Climate science is setttled enough"
- 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.
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- Tamino's Open Mind Open Mind: A statistical look at climate, its science, and at science denial
- "Warming Slowdown?" (part 2 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. The second part.
- Warming slowdown discussion
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- "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.
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- Reanalyses.org
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- Social Cost of Carbon
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- Thriving on Low Carbon
- "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.)
- Rabett Run Incisive analysis of climate science versus deliberate distraction
- Simple models of climate change
- 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
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- All Models Are Wrong Dr Tamsin Edwards blog about uncertainty in science, and climate science
- Skeptical Science
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- US$165/tonne CO2: Sweden Sweden has a Carbon Dioxide tax of US$165 per tonne at present. CO2 tax was imposed in 1991. GDP has grown 60%.
- And Then There's Physics
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- "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.
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- Dessler's 6 minute Greenhouse Effect video
- “Ways to [try to] slow the Solar Century''
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- Risk and Well-Being
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- Équiterre Equiterre helps build a social movement by encouraging individuals, organizations and governments to make ecological and equitable choices, in a spirit of solidarity.
- Grid parity map for Solar PV in United States
- 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.
- Climate Change: A health emergency … New England Journal of Medicine Caren G. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., and Regina C. LaRocque, M.D., M.P.H., January 17, 2019 N Engl J Med 2019; 380:209-211 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1817067
- Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
- World Weather Attribution
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- Climate Change Denying Organizations
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- RealClimate
- Ellenbogen: There is no Such Thing as Wind Turbine Syndrome
- `The unchained goddess' 1958 Bell Telephone Science Hour broadcast regarding, among other things, climate change.
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: history
Mad Unscience (humorous, if it wasn’t so pathetic)
(Hat tip to Tamino‘s posting of this.) This is priceless.
Posted in capricious gods, carbon dioxide, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate zombies, denial, global warming, history, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, obfuscating data, politics, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, Tamino, UU Humanists
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Draft elements of COP21 agreement for Paris
There is a revised text now available which provides elements of a draft for the COP21 agreement in Paris. The context of this document and what it contains is provided by a news story at RTCC (“Responding To Climate Change”), … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate justice, compassion, consumption, COP21, environment, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, history, humanism, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, IPCC, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, UNFCCC, zero carbon
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“Why Using El Nino to Forecast the Winter is Risky” – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal
Why Using El Nino to Forecast the Winter is Risky – Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere.
Science Deniers
A good term, science denier, by Dan Satterfield. And assuredly the WUWT crowd is part of them.
Posted in Bill Nye, Boston Ethical Society, Carl Sagan, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate zombies, disingenuity, education, environment, geophysics, global warming, history, humanism, ignorance, investing, meteorology, natural philosophy, obfuscating data, rationality, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, sociology, temporal myopia, the right to know
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Links explaining climate change Kevin Jones liked
Kevin Jones asked me if I could put the links in a Comment on a post I made at Google+ in a collection or something for reference. I am therefore repeating the Comment with these details below. No one simple … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, astrophysics, bifurcations, biology, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, chance, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, climate zombies, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, history, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, living shorelines, mass extinctions, mass transit, mathematics, maths, meteorology, methane, microgrids, model comparison, NASA, natural gas, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, sociology, solar power, statistics, temporal myopia, the right to know, Tony Seba, WHOI, wind power, zero carbon
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disruption to global electricity production during the next 25 years
I am a huge fan of Tony Seba’s writings and work, primarily because I am an engineer, and I simply cannot accept that the situation with the impending climate catastrophe is hopeless. Engineers are eternal optimists. Not everyone will be … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, dynamical systems, economics, energy, engineering, environment, ethics, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, history, investment in wind and solar energy, mathematics, maths, methane, microgrids, natural gas, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, sociology, solar power, statistics, stochastics, sustainability, taxes, the right to know, Tony Seba, transparency, wind power, zero carbon
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Excellent. With musings on religion and mass extinctions.
And sometimes, just sometimes, I can feel the same way about some religions. Now, it’s not that many aren’t doing good, and many aren’t getting people to realize that we have painted ourselves deeply into a climate corner, but it … Continue reading
Posted in art, atheism, Bill Nye, Boston Ethical Society, bridge to nowhere, Carl Sagan, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate education, climate justice, climate zombies, Darwin Day, denial, ecology, environment, ethics, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, history, humanism, mass extinctions, Neill deGrasse Tyson, physical materialism, politics, population biology, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, sociology, temporal myopia, the right to know, UU Humanists
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‘Weather by Icon’ Is A Bad Way To Get an Accurate Forecast – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere
'Weather by Icon' Is A Bad Way To Get an Accurate Forecast – Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere.
Climate Justice
December 2015 will see the definitive meeting of the UNFCCC COP 21 intended to set targets and commitments under the UN treaty establishing UNFCCC and the IPCC, one approved and ratified by the United States (*). Before then, a good … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, bifurcations, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, compassion, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, dynamical systems, economics, education, energy, energy reduction, environment, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, history, humanism, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, NOAA, oceanography, physics, politics, population biology, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sociology, temporal myopia, Unitarian Universalism, UU Humanists, zero carbon
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Destroying the Most Persistent Scientific Myth In America – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere
Destroying the Most Persistent Scientific Myth In America – Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere.
Posted in Bayesian, biology, carbon dioxide, chance, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, denial, ecology, education, ensembles, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, hiatus, history, IPCC, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, obfuscating data, physics, probability, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, spatial statistics, statistics, temporal myopia, time series
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Brian Swett discusses Boston’s climate future | NOAA Climate.gov
Brian Swett discusses Boston’s climate future | NOAA Climate.gov.
Posted in Boston, climate change, climate disruption, ecology, economics, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, history, investment in wind and solar energy, living shorelines, mass transit, meteorology, NOAA, oceanography, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, public transport, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, sociology, statistics, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, wind power, zero carbon
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The ShoutROC action on the climate rally, Concord, MA, 19th April 2015.
Album available. Y’think this is play stuff? These start slow, but, in the end, they are overwhelming. Go ahead, try to say “No, we’re gonna consume all we want, and what’s left is YOUR problem” to this citizen:
Earth Day, my hope
Posted in carbon dioxide, Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate education, compassion, conservation, Darwin Day, demand-side solutions, ecology, economics, education, efficiency, energy reduction, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, history, humanism, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, mathematics, maths, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, open source scientific software, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, privacy, probit regression, R, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, scientific publishing, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sociology, the right to know, Unitarian Universalism, UU Humanists, WHOI, wind power
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“This planet comes with limits”
Carl Safina elaborates on the limits of exploitation. It’s consistent with what David Suzuki conveys in his succinct presentation, linked below: As Suzuki says, this isn’t politics or opinion, or even biology, it’s just math.
“Where is the horse?” Tony Seba
“Choosing to wait is choosing to be disrupted.”
Posted in citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, economics, energy, engineering, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, history, investment in wind and solar energy, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, wind power
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Retro news: Cronkite’s 1980 global warming alert. — The Daily Climate
Retro news: Cronkite’s 1980 global warming alert. — The Daily Climate. Yes, people have been warning about this for quite a while. This is also why I doubt the delay can be blamed upon energy company misinformation and obfuscation — … Continue reading
“Gray matters [not much, truly]” (Christian Robert)
Gray matters [not much, truly].
“Human activity has nothing big enough to affect Earth”
“Human activity has nothing big enough to affect Earth.” That’s disingenuous and, usually, the speaker knows better but is trying to dissuade an audience from thinking human activity does. Or they parrot someone who is trying to do that. But … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, biology, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, consumption, ecology, economics, energy, energy reduction, engineering, environment, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, history, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, meteorology, methane, natural gas, notes, open data, physics, politics, population biology, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, solar power, statistics, the right to know, time series, wind power
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“Merchants of Doubt: What Climate Deniers Learned from Big Tobacco”
Posted in carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate education, ecology, economics, education, environment, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, history, humanism, investing, IPCC, meteorology, new forms of scientific peer review, obfuscating data, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, scientific publishing, sociology
Tagged advertising, doubt is our product
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Christian Robert on Alan Turing
Alan Turing Institute. See Professor Robert’s earlier post on Turing, too.
Posted in Bayes, Bayesian, citizenship, education, ethics, history, humanism, mathematics, maths, politics, rationality, reasonableness, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search, the right to know, Wordpress
Tagged Alan Turing
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“Barking mad”
Today was a big day at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (“NAS”). The Academy released two important climate reports, each dealing with one of two categories of global countermeasures for the effects of dumping unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide … Continue reading
Posted in astrophysics, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, demand-side solutions, diffusion processes, ecology, economics, engineering, environment, ethics, forecasting, games of chance, geoengineering, geophysics, history, humanism, IPCC, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, science education, sea level rise, the right to know
Tagged albedo modification
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It’s the Trend, Stupid
The matter chronicled in Tamino’s post is just more reason why the results of Fyfe, Gillet, and Zwiers at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1972 which I wrote about at https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/warming-slowdown-2/ and https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/warming-slowdown-part-2/ look stranger and stranger. I increasingly think that the caution regarding ensembles … Continue reading
Posted in carbon dioxide, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate education, ecology, energy, environment, forecasting, geophysics, history, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, NOAA, obfuscating data, physics, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, statistics, Uncategorized
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Codium fragile, for Saturday, 17th January 2015
With today’s post, I’m beginning a new tradition at 667 per cm, posting a potpourri of short observations collected during the week, not necessarily having dense citations to work which inspired them. (Although if interested, please do ask and I’ll … Continue reading
Posted in art, arXiv, astronomy, astrophysics, atheism, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, Carbon Tax, Carl Sagan, chemistry, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, ecology, economics, energy, engineering, environment, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geoengineering, history, humanism, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, meteorology, methane, microgrids, NASA, Neill deGrasse Tyson, new forms of scientific peer review, NOAA, notes, nuclear power, oceanography, open data, open source scientific software, physics, politics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, reproducible research, science, science education, scientific publishing, sociology, the right to know
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State governments for sale
A New York Times article, with copies of letters between state attorneys general and energy utilities and companies documenting collusion on matters of energy regulation, and opposing federal EPA emissions constraints, has been posted today. One correspondence is shown below:
Posted in carbon dioxide, citizenship, climate, energy, ethics, history, methane, politics, rationality, reasonableness
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“I very much enjoy taking those people on, but, meanwhile, it breaks my heart”
Amen, brother Bill. I very much know what you mean. It really hurts.
Posted in astrophysics, atheism, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, Carl Sagan, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate education, compassion, ecology, economics, education, engineering, environment, forecasting, geophysics, history, humanism, mathematics, maths, meteorology, methane, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, solar power, wind power
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Superstorm Sandy, in New York City
http://nyti.ms/1ruDF81, at The New York Times.
Yep, that’s about the size of it: “If the science is true, their whole ideological project falls apart”
Part 1 of Democracy Now interview with Naomi Klein. Part 2 of that interview. And Professor Hansen, like Dr Klein, accuses “Big Green” environmental organizations as cooperating with fossil fuel companies rather than opposing them. Democracy Now has a transcript … Continue reading
“Expectations for a new climate agreement” (Jacoby, Chen, MIT, 2014)
Professors Jacoby and Chen have issued a report as part of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change which handicaps the outcomes of the negotiations which, by international agreement, need to take place in 2015 … Continue reading
Posted in carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate education, consumption, demand-side solutions, ecology, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, environment, forecasting, geophysics, history, investing, meteorology, oceanography, physics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, solar power, wind power
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“People are too insignificant to affect climate”
Setting aside outright fabrications (1) such as those promulgated by the Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), laughingly selected as the Chair of the House Committee on Science, a common claim in the Comment sections at The Hill and elsewhere is that … Continue reading

