Wednesday, April 11, 2012

GOP Governor Acknowledges Climate Change




Well, it looks like it took the warmest American March on record to make it happen, but Ohio Governor Kasich admits there might be some reality in what's been continuously proclaimed by science for 30 years now.

Hopefully the governor's policies will change to care more about the people and their children and grandchildren instead of harming them by protecting the golden fossil fuel calf and postponing its inevitable and imperative decimation, while stonewalling change to better technology, our easiest path to economic growth.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Bob Lutz on Colbert


Bob Lutz, Father of the Chevy Volt, Correcter of the Fox News, and apparently a descendant of the long-lived race of Numenoreans, reps more push-ups than Stephen on last night's Colbert Report.

Friday, April 6, 2012

I Can't Argue

Guardian: Nasa scientist: climate change is a moral issue on a par with slavery

I can't argue with this. We can't pretend we don't know what we're doing. We can't pretend we don't know some simple, honest, direct solutions.

NO. NEW. COAL PLANTS. EVER.

EPA has put in a rule that new power plants must produce more than 1MWh per 1000lbs of CO2 dumped. Coal produces around 1800lbs/MWh.
I never thought about my own drop-in-the-bucket contribution in terms of carbon or CO2 released, because I'd only heard it when discussing smaller units. For instance, burning a gallon of gas releases 5 pounds of carbon (19lb CO2), and a KWh from burning coal produces half a pound of carbon (1.8lb CO2).

But it's shocking to consider my usage from an individual household over more than a moment in time. Consider the numbers taken over a month. Just for me, with a compact car and a smallish house in a temperate month, I released 125lbs of carbon from 25 gallons of gas and 225lbs of carbon from 450kWh of coal electricity.

This month, I've taken 350lbs of carbon that God trapped discretely in the earth aeons ago. Perhaps it was captured at a time when the Sun was cooler, and the earth was hotter, and the seas were higher, and there were no large mammals, and no ecological niche for large mammals to thrive in. Then, I randomly dispersed it into the atmosphere so that it will take some more aeons to be re-captured and re-buried.

And that's for one light month! For the year, multiply by 12 and add more for the hot months and road trips. And I keep doing this year after year!!!

Next house upgrade: solar (10 year payback, then 10% return every year). Next car: Mitsubishi i EV ($22k) or Prius ($15k-$22k used).

Thursday, April 5, 2012

When are subsidies wrong? Are they ever OK?


350's Bill McKibben LA Times Op-Ed: Fossil-fuel subsidies: Helping the richest get richer

"There's just no reason to hand the richest industry on Earth a bonus to help them wreck the planet."

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Consequences of Imminent Arctic Collapse

Arctic Warming is Altering Weather Patterns, Study Shows | Climate Central

"The study shows that by changing the temperature balance between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, rapid Arctic warming is altering the course of the jet stream, which steers weather systems from west to east around the hemisphere. The Arctic has been warming about twice as fast as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, due to a combination of human emissions of greenhouse gases and unique feedbacks built into the Arctic climate system."

Not having a plan to reduce fossil carbon pollution is willful and knowing recklessness!

Impressive Linux Foundation Video

Cool video, but it doesn't mention that Linux's governance is that it's at a much more concrete level than other projects. It's key to the whole endeavor not being torn apart. The license prevents anyone's changes having any more authority than anyone else's changes. Working code contribution is what gives authority in a project, nothing else.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

"Stupid, stupid plant."

Stephen Colbert offers hard but needed criticism to the presidential primary contenders, all of whom are backward looking, fatalistic, slow-change, slow-growth, energy Luddites.