Category Archives: The Demon Haunted World

Climate Resilience

Posted on 29 March 2021 by ecoquant
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, children as political casualties, climate disruption, climate nightmares, climate science, climate sensitivity, distributed generation, ecological disruption, ecopragmatism, engineering, First Parish in Needham, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, global weirding, Greta Thunberg, investment in wind and solar energy, Juliana v United States, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, liberal climate deniers, local generation, local self reliance, Mark Jacobson, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, mitigating climate disruption, Nature's Trust, ocean acidification, ocean warming, Our Children's Trust, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, Ray Pierrehumbert, Reverend Catie Scudera, Robert Young, sea level rise, Steven Chu, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the energy of the people, the green century, the right to know, the value of financial assets, tragedy of the horizon, Unitarian Universalism, UU, UU Needham, Wally Broecker, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Natural Gas Companies are Doing Themselves In

Posted on 7 July 2019 by ecoquant

As I wrote before, there will be no Golden Age of Natural Gas. The climate periodical DeSmog Blog now reports on its outright dissolution. But the surprise is that natural gas miners, particularly shale gas miners, are apparently destroying themselves. … Continue reading →

Posted in American Chemical Society, American Petroleum Institute, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, being carbon dioxide, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, children as political casualties, clean disruption, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, Desmog Blog, destructive economic development, ecological disruption, explosive methane, false advertising, fossil fuel infrastructure, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, greenhouse gases, greenwashing, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, natural gas, panic, public welfare, regulatory capture, solar domination, stranded assets, The Demon Haunted World, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, tragedy of the horizon, utility company death spiral | 2 Comments

Happy Earth Day: Doubt climate change? Just be patient and watch

Posted on 17 April 2019 by ecoquant

And know that, because of our collective inaction, even if we were to fix everything immediately, now, because of the built-up momentum in the climate system, things will get steadily worse for two-to-four decades after we stop. Don’t like those … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, climate change, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, science, 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 | 1 Comment

Eli, who offers a clever and consistent consumption-based accounting scheme. Consumption-based Carbon accounting: Does it have a future? Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions

Posted on 18 February 2019 by ecoquant | Leave a comment

On plastic bag bans, and the failure to realize economic growth cannot be green

Posted on 9 January 2019 by ecoquant

(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 | Leave a comment

Dr Glen Peters on “Stylised pathways to `well below 2°C”’, and some solutions from Dr Steven Chu (but it’s late!)

Posted on 14 September 2018 by ecoquant

Stylized pathways to “well below 2°C” Dr Peters has also written about “Can we really limit global warming to `well below’ two degrees centigrade?” An excerpt and abstract: Commentary: Yes, but only in a model. We have essentially emitted too … Continue reading →

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, bridge to somewhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate disruption, climate economics, emissions, Glen Peters, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Kevin Anderson, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, Science magazine, Stephen Chu, sustainability, The Demon Haunted World, the tragedy of our present civilization, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Today, now, and what of the future?

Posted on 7 September 2018 by ecoquant

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 | 2 Comments

“Why we need Jean-Luc Picard in 2018”

Posted on 19 August 2018 by ecoquant

Admiral Picard is returning. See the story, by Daniel W Drezner. On CBS All Access. Yes, “Make it so.”

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Buckminster Fuller, humanism, Jean-Luc Picard, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, open source scientific software, Our Children's Trust, Patrick Stewart, Principles of Planetary Climate, reason, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, Star Trek, Star Trek - The Next Generation, STNG, The Demon Haunted World, the Final Frontier, tragedy of the horizon | Leave a comment

Censorship of Science by the administration of President Donald Trump

Posted on 15 August 2018 by ecoquant

See work by the Columbia Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. … President Trump has directed EPA and DOI to reconsider regulations adopted to control greenhouse gas emissions, despite the wealth of data showing that those emissions are the key … Continue reading →

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, Azimuth Backup Project, citizen data, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, Donald Trump, dump Trump, Ecological Society of America, environmental law, epidemiology, global blinding, Neill deGrasse Tyson, open data, rationality, reason, reasonableness, science, secularism, 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 | Leave a comment

These are ethical “AI Principles” from Google, but they might as well be `technological principles’

Posted on 28 June 2018 by ecoquant

This is entirely adapted from this link, courtesy of Google and Alphabet. Objectives Be socially beneficial. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias. Be built and tested for safety. Be accountable to people. Incorporate privacy design principles. Uphold high standards of … Continue reading →

Posted in American Statistical Association, artificial intelligence, basic research, Bayesian, Boston Ethical Society, complex systems, computation, corporate citizenship, corporate responsibility, deep recurrent neural networks, emergent organization, ethical ideals, ethics, extended producer responsibility, friends and colleagues, Google, Google Pixel 2, humanism, investments, machine learning, mathematics, moral leadership, natural philosophy, politics, risk, science, secularism, technology, The Demon Haunted World, the right to know, Unitarian Universalism, UU, UU Humanists | Leave a comment

On trying to fix Earth without technology and engineering

Posted on 29 November 2017 by ecoquant

(Updated 2017-11-30, 00:12 EST) I had my first serious encounter with the stuff of Joanna Macy tonight, via a certain YouTube video. I must say, it was anything but a pleasant experience, filled with claims which were not justified historically, … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Sagan, David Suzuki, Joanna Macy, The Demon Haunted World, UU, UU Humanists | Leave a comment