Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: Humans have a lot to answer for
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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No, Senator Marco Rubio and Larry Kudlow, we know how much humans contribute to climate change, at least precisely enough for Congress and an administration
14th October 2018, quoting Senator Marco Rubio and White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow, the Washington Post reported they each claimed that the recent UN report was an `overestimate`: “I think they overestimate,” Kudlow said of the U.N. report, which … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, anomaly detection, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, bollocks, carbon dioxide, changepoint detection, children as political casualties, climate change, climate data, evidence, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Juliana v United States, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, physics, radiative forcing, science, science denier, tragedy of the horizon, UNFCCC, unreason
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Another reason we need to stop developing: `If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world.’
Much of the focus on reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions is upon reduction and elimination of fossil fuels. Many do not realize that reducing emissions to zero also means offsetting emissions from agriculture, and especially curbing use of cement. Cement production … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, attribution, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, cement production, civilization, climate, climate disruption, climate economics, development as anti-ecology, economic trade, emissions, extended producer responsibility, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, planning, pollution, sustainability, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, unreason, Westwood, zero carbon
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Today, now, and what of the future?
From Aldo Leopold in his A Sand County Almanac: One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, agroecology, Aldo Leopold, American Association for the Advancement of Science, argoecology, being carbon dioxide, biology, Boston Ethical Society, Botany, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Darwin, climate, climate change, David Suzuki, Earle Wilson, Ecological Society of America, Ecology Action, ethics, George Sughihara, Glen Peters, global warming, Grant Foster, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, population biology, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, unreason, UU Humanists
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Love means nothing, without understanding, and action
Can’t get enough of this video. It may be a corporate, Ørsted promotion, but it is beautiful. And I continue to believe, that, as the original sense of the corporation, or benefit society suggested, contrary to (U.S.) popular progressive belief, … Continue reading
Posted in Aldo Leopold, American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, Ørsted, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to somewhere, Canettes Blues Band, climate, climate business, climate economics, corporate citizenship, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporate responsibility, corporate supply chains, corporations, destructive economic development, distributed generation, economics, emergent organization, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, green tech, Green Tech Media, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal climate deniers, reasonableness, Sankey diagram, solar democracy, solar domination, Spaceship Earth, stranded assets, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism
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`On Records`
This is a reblog from Eli Rabett, one of the post “On Records”, with additional comments and material from the author-moderator of this blog, 667-per-cm.net: A distinguishing mark of a new record in a time series is that it exceeds … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, Cult of Carbon, ecology, Eli Rabett, ethics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, liberal climate deniers, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, meteorology, Our Children's Trust, planning, pollution, quantitative ecology, radiative forcing, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, Spaceship Earth, temporal myopia, 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, Victor Brovkin, wishful environmentalism
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“One of the most interesting things about the MIP ensembles is that the mean of all the models generally has higher skill than any individual model.” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all models are created equal, that … Continue reading
National Academies Statement on Harmful Consequences of Separating Families at the U.S. Border
(Updated.) “We urge the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to immediately stop separating migrant children from their families, based on the body of scientific evidence that underscores the potential for lifelong, harmful consequences for these children and based on human … Continue reading
Posted in an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, children as political casualties, compassion, Donald Trump, humanism, Humans have a lot to answer for, immigration, military inferiority, moral leadership, sadism, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, torture, Unitarian Universalism, United States Government
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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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LLNL Sankey diagram of U.S. national energy flows in 2017: What’s possible, what’s not, and who’s responsible
(Updated, 2018-05-02. See below.) I love Sankey diagrams, and have written about them with respect to influence of Big Oil on U.S. climate policy, and in connection with what it takes to power a light bulb, providing a Sankey-based explanation … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, AMETSOC, AMOC, Amory Lovins, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to somewhere, clean disruption, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Cult of Carbon, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, denial, ecological services, energy utilities, environmental law, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, global warming, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Anderson, local generation, local self reliance, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Sonnen community, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power, wishful environmentalism, zero carbon
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“Decoding the Weather Machine”
Hap tip to Tamino:
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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“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.
The Southern California fires, courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory
These images are from the NASA Earth Observatory.
tripleplus ungood: Long run hot climate models are also the most accurate reproducing today and recent past
Patrick Brown and Ken Caldeira dropped a bombshell into the recent (7 Dec 2017) issue of Nature, and the repercussions are echoing around the scientific world. (See, for example, the related article in MIT’s Technology Review.) To be crisp, current … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bifurcations, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate models, critical slowing down, Cult of Carbon, destructive economic development, Global Carbon Project, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Kevin Anderson, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, radiative forcing, Spaceship Earth, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Timothy Lenton, tragedy of the horizon
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Andy Skuce
Source: Andy Skuce Exit, Pursued by a Crab, from Critical Angle.
Defying technology, trends … nay, defying Mathematics!
The creatures from Trumpland are planning an Energy Week in the upcoming, probably to lead up to the Fourth of July celebrations. Our Orange Leader … will tout surging U.S. exports of oil and natural gas during a week of … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, American Solar Energy Society, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, clean disruption, climate business, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corporations, destructive economic development, Donald Trump, economics, electricity markets, energy, energy utilities, evidence, explosive methane, exponential growth, extended supply chains, false advertising, FERC, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, fracking, global blinding, greenhouse gases, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, investments, Joseph Schumpeter, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, military inferiority, Minsky moment, pipelines, politics, pollution, rights of the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, risk, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, the energy of the people, the green century, the problem of evil, the right to be and act stupid, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, United States, utility company death spiral, wind energy, wind power
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I’m afraid, dear progressive friends, Mr Maher is 110% correct
I see nearly every week in the comedy called progressive plans for energy sources in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Progressives, it seems, eschew cooperation with business and attorneys and, as a result, never get anything respectable done. They are, as … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, atheism, Bill Maher, Buckminster Fuller, Canettes Blues Band, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, Daniel Kahneman, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, electricity markets, engineering, environmental law, fossil fuel divestment, free flow of labor, global warming, green tech, greenwashing, Hermann Scheer, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Kevin Anderson, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local self reliance, Michael Osborne, politics, rationality, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon
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Taking advantage of the natural skepticism and integrity of scientists and their co-workers, and their commitment to scientific process
I’ve seen this. One can seldom discuss or debate a science denier, whether at (my) presentations at UUAC Sherborn or in many places online, without their employing moving the goalposts or, when they fail to response to an explanation, trotting … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, bridge to nowhere, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, climate disruption, climate economics, climate zombies, Daniel Kahneman, destructive economic development, engineering, ethics, evidence, force multiplier, George Sughihara, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, military inferiority, Minsky moment, organizational failures, Our Children's Trust, rationality, reasonableness, science, science denier, selfishness, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the stack of lies, the tragedy of our present civilization, United States
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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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`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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Alpha Male Wolves, from Carl Safina
“The wolves of Yellowstone have some surprising lessons on being a man.” By Carl Safina. And about his recent book.
