Category: risk
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+1 I.A.U.
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Of course, from XKCD. (Click image to see bigger picture. Hat tip to Carl Safina for the joke.)
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Locally generated solar PV will destroy America’s electric utilities: Barclays
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in adaptation, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, compassion, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, dynamical systems, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, ethics, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, microgrids, physics, prediction, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar power, statistics, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbonWe fully expect utilities and regulators to make a good faith effort to preserve the status quo “regulatory compact,” whereby the monopoly utility provides a safe and reliable service and regulators allow it to earn a reasonable low-risk return. However, we also expect them to be playing a constant game of catch-up as solar develops.…
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Leaks in Westwood: Natural Gas — a bridge to nowhere
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in bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, ecology, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, methane, natural gas, open data, pipelines, politics, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, spatial statistics, sustainability, the right to know, zero carbonThese are ongoing leaks of natural gas in the Westwood area. They are reported, as required by law, by Eversource, the local utility, to Massachusetts government authorities, along with an indication of Eversource’s estimate of the severity of the leak. All that’s been done here is to display these locations on a Google map, something…
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Why coastal New England is good for wind
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in Cape Wind, carbon dioxide, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, ecology, economics, EIA, energy, energy utilities, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, MA, meteorology, NCAR, NIMBY, NOAA, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, wind power(Click on image for larger graphic.) By the way, this “sigma.995” says the wind speeds are for where the atmospheric pressure is 0.995 of Sea Level atmospheric pressure. Compare with Texas. And see this chart of installed wind capacity: (Click on image for larger graphic.)
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Your future: Antarctica, in detail
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in Antarctica, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate zombies, disingenuity, ecology, ensembles, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, IPCC, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, LBNL, living shorelines, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, mesh models, meteorology, multivariate statistics, numerical software, optimization, physics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, supercomputers, temporal myopia, the right to know, thermodynamics, time series, University of California Berkeley, WAISClimate and geophysical accuracy demands fine modeling grids, and very large supercomputers. The best and biggest supercomputers have not been available for climate work, until recently. Watch how results differ if fine meshes and big supercomputers are used. Why haven’t they been used? Computers and the people who know how to program and operate them…
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Google shows how it’s done
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in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, COP21, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, destructive economic development, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, environment, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, rationality, risk, science, solar power, sustainability, wind power, zero carbonGoogle’s Project Sunroof. Google Green. Google’s corporate statement on rising to the climate challenge. Google’s negative Carbon footprint. Green power at Google. Simply put, Google shows it can be done, and what can be done, if the problem of climate disruption is really taken seriously and not just pretended at. Good for them!
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What’s Beef?
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in Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, denial, disingenuity, education, exponential growth, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, humanism, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, obfuscating data, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sociology, sustainability, Uncategorized, zero carbon -
“Allocating a 2° C cumulative carbon budget to countries”: Gignac and Matthews
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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 powerAbstract 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 difficult questions, however, about how best to share this carbon budget amongst nations in a…
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Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change (from grist.org)
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in Anthropocene, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, conservation, consumption, corruption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, disingenuity, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, education, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, energy utilities, engineering, environment, ethics, exponential growth, finance, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, mathematics, maths, meteorology, methane, microgrids, natural gas, optimization, physics, pipelines, politics, prediction, public utility commissions, PUCs, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, solar power, statistics, sustainability, taxes, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbon“Utilities are shielded by a force field of tedium.” “Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities.” Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change“, a compact introduction, from grist.org. And there’s an additional article in the series, and yet another suggesting additional reading. An excerpt: There are a…
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Solar installation progress, courtesy of MacSolarIndex.com
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in adaptation, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, microgrids, open data, optimization, physics, politics, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, solar power, sustainability, the right to know, time series, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbonThe MAC Solar Index tracks a set of solar manufacturing and installation companies. It is also the basis for the Guggenheim Investments “TAN” Exchange-Traded Fund (“ETF”, *). They recently published a progress report on global solar installations, which I wanted to share: (Click on image to see a larger version.) There is also a graphic…
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Alice Bell’s “A very short history of climate change research”
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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“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 Antiquity. Studies of glaciers in the mid 18th century got people wondering what had changed…
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SCIENCE OF DOOM takes on assessing zero Carbon power and a zero Carbon grid
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in adaptation, Anthropocene, clean disruption, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, engineering, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, microgrids, open data, optimization, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar power, state-space models, stochastics, sustainability, the right to know, time series, wind power, Wordpress, zero carbonUpdated, 2127 EDT, 10th August 2015 The blog, Science of Doom, has taken on a new thread discussing the technical feasibilities and problems associated with building out zero Carbon energy in the context of an electric grid. As such, it provides a separate, albeit not independent look at some of the problems with such a…
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The United States Clean Power Plan … It’s time.
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in Anthropocene, astrophysics, bifurcations, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, ecology, economics, energy, engineering, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, meteorology, oceanography, physics, politics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, statistics, sustainability, Tamino, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, UNFCCC, UU Humanists, Westwood, wind power, zero carbon“There is such a thing as being too late.”
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Hausfathers “Climate Impacts of Coal and Natural Gas”
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in Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, consumption, COP21, ecology, energy, energy reduction, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, James Hansen, methane, natural gas, physics, pipelines, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, statistics, the right to know, zero carbon(Updated below, 21st June 2018.) Zeke Hausfather published “Climate Impacts of Coal and Natural Gas” on the BEST project site. He makes a close analysis of the relative benefits of coal and natural gas, considering the subtleties and pitfalls of “global warming potential” as a measure, and fully considering various ranges for fugitive methane emissions.…
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“Where most of us live (with apologies to southern-hemisphere readers)” [reblog of Tamino]
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in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, denial, ecology, education, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, mathematics, maths, meteorology, NOAA, open data, physics, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, statistics, Tamino, time series, Uncategorized, WordpressLove the comparison with Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures.
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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
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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, WestwoodPlease 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 remind you that the aquifer under the meadow is 150 feet deep, holds 95 billion…
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WHT’s “Climate Sensitivity and the 33C Discrepancy”
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in astrophysics, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, dynamical systems, ENSO, environment, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, mathematics, maths, meteorology, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, WHTI happened across a blog post (from 2013) by the mysterious blogger known as WHT (*) titled “Climate Sensitivity and the 33C Discrepancy“. If I could, I’d reblog it here, but their blogging site is not WordPress-friendly. WHT is now posting future things at context/Earth and I will follow. WHT produces a lot of interesting…
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BOYCOTT University Station, Westwood, MA
Details here: https://goo.gl/1HleSW. Image below. Additional reasons were given here. And here. Here’s the re-cap: https://www.neponset.org/your-watershed/natural-history/ The Town of Westwood has pushed, encouraged, supported, and, some might say, rushed and railroaded through the development of a major shopping mall on its southern edge, the University Station project. This property, near a former industrial site, is…
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Thank You
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in astrophysics, citizen science, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, differential equations, dynamical systems, ecology, ensembles, forecasting, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, hiatus, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, model comparison, new forms of scientific peer review, open data, open source scientific software, physics, probabilistic programming, probability, rationality, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, spatial statistics, statistics, Tamino, the right to know, time series, transparencyAnd thanks, Tamino!
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Draft elements of COP21 agreement for Paris
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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 carbonThere 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”), a Web channel devoted, as it says, to “global zero Carbon developments”. The have, in…
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Sea Surface Anomalies
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in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, differential equations, diffusion processes, dynamical systems, ecology, ENSO, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, mathematics, MCMC, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, statistics, sustainability, the right to know, time series, transparency(Hat tip to Susan Stone.) The graphic below shows sea surface temperature anomalies relative to the 1971-2000 baseline First data are courtesy of the Climate Reanalyzer, a joint project of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, and the National Science Foundation. They are updated daily. This is from 24th July 2015. Click…
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Tea Party member Debbie Dooley on solar power (from The Guardian)
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in bifurcations, carbon dioxide, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, economics, efficiency, energy, ethics, finance, fossil fuels, global warming, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, maths, microgrids, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar power, statistics, Tea Party, time series, Tony Seba, wind power, zero carbonI support solar energy because of my Tea Party beliefs — not despite them (From Debbie Dooley, in an article at The Guardian, one of the 22 founding members of the Tea Party.) I am a lifelong conservative and, also, a strong advocate for solar energy. As I travel the country advocating for solar using…
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Welcome to the Hyper-Anthropocene
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in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, astrophysics, bifurcations, Boston, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, Cauchy distribution, chance, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, engineering, environment, exponential growth, finance, floods, forecasting, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, investing, IPCC, living shorelines, meteorology, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, seawalls, temporal myopia, the right to knowThe anticipated paper by J. Hansen, M. Sato, P. Hearty, R. Ruedy, M. Kelley, V. Masson-Delmotte, G. Russell, G. Tselioudis, J. Cao, E. Rignot, I. Velicogna, E. Kandiano, K. von Schuckmann, P. Kharecha, A. N. Legrande, M. Bauer, and K.-W. Lo, called “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling,…
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Spectra Energy (and others) Plan to Expand Pipeline to Feed Gas to DownEast LNG (Maine) for Export! – Natural Gas Watch.org
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Spectra Energy (and others) Plan to Expand Pipeline to Feed Gas to DownEast LNG (Maine) for Export! – Natural Gas Watch.org. This would not occur if the natural gas had been assigned a stiff Carbon Tax.
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“Regulating Government”, from Overcoming Bias
Regulating Government. This post is about governments — with the advice of big banks — gaming pension accounts so they appear more solvent than they are.
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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.
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New “NASA and NOAA” global temperature series
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in adaptation, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, denial, ecology, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, hiatus, hurricanes, IPCC, meteorology, NASA, NOAA, nor’easters, oceanography, open data, physics, politics, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, statistics, Tamino, WHOI, WordpressLove the “But I digress” in Tamino‘s post “NASA and NOAA” about new global temperature series from both agencies. Tamino references this lecture by the middle-of-the-road climate scientist and hurricanes expert Professor Kerry Emanuel:
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References Regarding the 450 ppm CO2 Ceiling
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in adaptation, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, arXiv, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, compassion, conservation, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, engineering, environment, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, investment in wind and solar energy, meteorology, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, sea level rise, solar power, statistics, sustainability, the right to know, WAIS, wind power, zero carbonUpdated 23rd July 2015 J. Hansen, M. Sato, P. Hearty, R. Ruedy, M. Kelley, V. Masson-Delmotte, G. Russell, G. Tselioudis, J. Cao, E. Rignot, I. Velicogna, E. Kandiano, K. von Schuckmann, P. Kharecha, A. N. Legrande, M. Bauer, and K.-W. Lo, “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and…
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Science Deniers
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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 knowA good term, science denier, by Dan Satterfield. And assuredly the WUWT crowd is part of them.