Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: population biology
Yes, I will be marching for Science in Boston
Like many, including Eli Rabett, I will be marching for Science in April, on Earth Day. My march will be part of the Boston march. Why? Because Science has been and is my life, and it always has been, and … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, astronomy, astrophysics, Carl Sagan, climate, Climate Lab Book, ecology, Eli Rabett, engineering, fluid dynamics, geophysics, hydrology, marine biology, meteorology, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, reason, science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, theoretical physics, thermodynamics, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, XKCD
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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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Okay, Jan, so what’s your view on climate change?
It’s heading towards year’s end, so it’s natural to think about perspective. In a post from last July, Joseph Heath asks semi-rhetorically, “Why are [proposed] carbon taxes so low?” and, then, he and commenters go on and answer that, essentially, … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate change, climate disruption, decentralized electric power generation, distributed generation, ecological services, energy reduction, energy storage, environment, Equiterre, fossil fuel divestment, Gaylord Nelson, Glen Peters, greenhouse gases, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, Kevin Anderson, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts, Minsky moment, Neill deGrasse Tyson, Our Children's Trust, population biology, quantitative ecology, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, Walt Disney Company, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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The Budget
Certain claims regarding contributions of health programs to the United States federal budget in a debate last night made me curious, and so I checked the figures on this from the Office of Management and Budget. Of special importance to … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Buckminster Fuller, citizen data, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate economics, climate justice, conservation, consumption, Daniel Kahneman, David Suzuki, destructive economic development, ecological services, ecology, economics, environment, environmental law, Equiterre, George Monbiot, Hyper Anthropocene, Minsky moment, mitigation, population biology, quantitative ecology, Sankey diagram, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Enough Already
“If you’re in a hole, stop digging.” “The Sky’s Limit: Why the Paris Climate Goals Require a Managed Decline of Fossil Fuel Production”
Posted in Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, climate change, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, games of chance, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, natural gas, population biology, population dynamics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, science, the energy of the people, the green century, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, wind energy, wind power, Yale University Statistics Department, zero carbon
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Carbon Sinks in Crisis — It Looks Like the World’s Largest Rainforest is Starting to Bleed Greenhouse Gasses
Originally posted on robertscribbler:
Back in 2005, and again in 2010, the vast Amazon rainforest, which has been aptly described as the world’s lungs, briefly lost its ability to take in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its drought-stressed trees were not growing…
Posted in bifurcations, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate disruption, disruption, dynamical systems, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, Lévy flights, Lorenz, Minsky moment, model-free forecasting, physics, population biology, population dynamics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, random walk processes, Ray Pierrehumbert, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, risk, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists
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“Holy crap – an actual book!”
Originally posted on mathbabe:
Yo, everyone! The final version of my book now exists, and I have exactly one copy! Here’s my editor, Amanda Cook, holding it yesterday when we met for beers: Here’s my son holding it: He’s offered…
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Buckminster Fuller, business, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, complex systems, confirmation bias, data science, data streams, deep recurrent neural networks, denial, economics, education, engineering, ethics, evidence, Internet, investing, life purpose, machine learning, mathematical publishing, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, moral leadership, multivariate statistics, numerical software, numerics, obfuscating data, organizational failures, politics, population biology, prediction, prediction markets, privacy, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reason, reasonableness, rhetoric, risk, Schnabel census, smart data, sociology, statistical dependence, statistics, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, the value of financial assets, transparency, UU Humanists
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Bayesian blocks via PELT in R
The Bayesian blocks algorithm of Scargle, Jackson, Norris, and Chiang has an enthusiastic user community in astrostatistics, in data mining, and among some in machine learning. It is a dynamic programming algorithm (see VanderPlas referenced below) and, so, exhibits optimality … Continue reading
Posted in American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, anomaly detection, astrophysics, Cauchy distribution, changepoint detection, engineering, geophysics, multivariate statistics, numerical analysis, numerical software, numerics, oceanography, population biology, population dynamics, Python 3, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, R, Scargle, spatial statistics, square wave approximation, statistics, stepwise approximation, time series, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Newt Gingrich and Van Jones. Right on.
It’s the thing. And it addresses how media and people forget about the actual statistics, and focus on the White Hot Bright Light. A study by Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss A study by Freyer A counterpoint to the Freyer study … Continue reading
Posted in American Statistical Association, Bayes, Bayesian, citizen science, criminal justice, Daniel Kahneman, ethics, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, humanism, Lives Matter, logistic regression, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, MCMC, organizational failures, population biology, rationality, reasonableness, risk, statistics, Susan Jacoby, the right to know
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“Catching long tail distribution” (Ted Dunning)
One of the best presentations on what can happen if someone takes a naive approach to network data. It also highlights what is, to my mind, the greatly underappreciated t-distribution, which is typically only used in connection with frequentist Student … Continue reading
Of my favorite things …
(Clarifying language added 4 Apr 2016, 12:26 EDT.) I just watched an episode from the last season of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled “Force of Nature.” As anyone who pays the least attention to this blog knows, opposing human … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, bridge to somewhere, bucket list, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, compassion, data science, Earle Wilson, ecology, Ecology Action, environment, evolution, geophysics, George Sughihara, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, life purpose, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, numerical analysis, optimization, philosophy, physical materialism, physics, population biology, population dynamics, proud dad, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, science, sociology, statistics, stochastic algorithms
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p-values and hypothesis tests: the Bayesian(s) rule
The American Statistical Association of which I am a longtime member issued an important statement today which will hopefully move statistical practice in engineering and especially in the sciences away from the misleading practice of using p-values and hypothesis tests. … Continue reading
Posted in approximate Bayesian computation, arXiv, Bayes, Bayesian, Bayesian inversion, bollocks, Christian Robert, climate, complex systems, data science, Frequentist, information theoretic statistics, likelihood-free, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, MCMC, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, population biology, rationality, reasonableness, science, scientific publishing, statistical dependence, statistics, stochastics, Student t distribution
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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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“Finding Dory”
From the scientific journal Nature, a preview: “Finding Dory”, movie Director: Andrew Stanton Opens 17 June 2016 Digital-animation giant Pixar releases the much-anticipated follow-up to its 2003 “Finding Nemo”, a film so successful that clownfish are now often referred to … Continue reading
Pale Blue Dot
Compassion, yes. Love, no.
Posted in astronomy, astrophysics, atheism, Bill Maher, Bill Nye, bollocks, Boston Ethical Society, Carl Sagan, citizenship, civilization, compassion, ecology, geophysics, humanism, NASA, physical materialism, physics, population biology, Sankey diagram, Spaceship Earth, statistics, stochastics
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Thoughts on “Regime Shift?”
John Baez at The Azimuth Project opened a discussion on the recent paper by Reid, et al Philip C. Reid et al, Global impacts of the 1980s regime shift on the Earth’s climate and systems, Global Change Biology, 2015. I … Continue reading
Southern Oscillation (SOI) correlated with Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR)
To the climate community this is nothing at all new, but I spotted these time series today and thought they would make a nice exhibit on how something people have direct control over, greenhouse gas emissions, affect a “teleconnection mechanism” … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, bifurcations, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, Dan Satterfield, differential equations, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ENSO, environment, forecasting, generalized linear models, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, IPCC, Mathematica, mathematics, maths, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, numerical software, oceanography, open data, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, state-space models, thermodynamics, time series
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“Allocating a 2° C cumulative carbon budget to countries”: Gignac and Matthews
Abstract Recent estimates of the global carbon budget, or allowable cumulative CO2 emissions consistent with a given level of climate warming, have the potential to inform climate mitigation policy discussions aimed at maintaining global temperatures below 2° C. This raises … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, Boston Ethical Society, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, chance, chemistry, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, compassion, conservation, consumption, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, ecology, education, energy, energy reduction, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, humanism, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, meteorology, mitigation, open source scientific software, physical materialism, physics, population biology, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, scientific publishing, sociology, solar power, sustainability, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, UNFCCC, UU Humanists, wind power
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Alice Bell’s “A very short history of climate change research”
“A very short history of climate change research“, by Alice Bell. The story of scientists discovering climate change is longer than many of us tend to imagine. We’ve had a sense that what humans do might effect the climate since … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, astrophysics, biology, carbon dioxide, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, James Hansen, meteorology, Neill deGrasse Tyson, NOAA, oceanography, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, spatial statistics, statistics, sustainability, temporal myopia, UNFCCC, WHOI
Tagged U.S. Clean Power Plan, U.S. Constitution
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It was the year 2000, Elizabeth Houghton had just died, and the plan was to restore the ecosystems about Fowl Meadow
Please remember Elizabeth Houghton as you pass by Routes 128 and 95 in Canton, looking north over her beloved Fowl Meadow and the Neponset River. She can no longer show you her photographs of the watershed under flood conditions and … Continue reading
Posted in biology, citizenship, consumption, destructive economic development, ecology, environment, ethics, exponential growth, floods, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, living shorelines, politics, population biology, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, statistics, the right to know, transparency, University Station, Westwood
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rappin’ the truth
(Hat tip to the Yale Climate Connections project.)
Posted in Bill Nye, biology, Boston, carbon dioxide, chemistry, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, ecology, education, environment, evolution, geophysics, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, Neill deGrasse Tyson, physics, population biology, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education
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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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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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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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“Can we avert the post-antibiotic world?”
(Hat tip to Dan Satterfield.) A TED talk. Bacteria develop resistence so quickly that pharmaceutical companies have decided developing new ones is not in their best interest. From the speaker, Maryn McKenna.
“Time to take out the trash”
Originally posted on Open Mind:
Pope Francis is taking man-made climate change seriously. With a papal encyclical due soon, the trailer is Epic
Posted in carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, compassion, conservation, decentralized energy, denial, ecology, economics, education, energy, environment, ethics, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, humanism, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, living shorelines, meteorology, physics, politics, population biology, public transport, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, sociology, zero carbon
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“Ecological impacts”
I could not get through this video with dry eyes. It is as bad as the (great) Cosmos episode on the Permian mass extinction. This is from a couse I am taking, “Denial 101x: The Science of Climate Denial“, from … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, ecology, environment, forecasting, global warming, mass extinctions, Neill deGrasse Tyson, population biology, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sustainability, UU Humanists
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