illconsidered | May 14, 2009Science Blogs has a new special blog on sustainable energy called The Energy Grid. It is a short term project, planned to run a few months, where each of the six contributors posts once per week on a subject introduced on Sunday.
I am flattered to have been asked to contribute and you can read my first contribution posted today, here. It is headlined Sustainability will not come without reductions in consumption and here is a free sample:
Our energy system faces security and environmental challenges because we have created a social and economic paradigm based on over-consumption and a non-…
illconsidered | May 11, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News May 10, 2009 Chuckle, Top Stories:Aus-ETS, Sol, Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Ozone, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Climate Refugees, Desertification, Wacky Weather, Tornadoes, Wildfires, Floods &…
illconsidered | May 8, 2009It seems that the HTTTACS was referred to by a parlimentary member in the Scottish Parliment, so it is now part of the official record!
The link there was to the version on Grist.org, which last I checked is a bit out of date, but no matter...
(Apropos of nothing, I just got a kick out of that... : )
illconsidered | May 4, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Another Week of Climate Disruption News Information overload is pattern recognition May 3, 2009 Chuckle, Top Stories:Major Emitters, IHDP, Central Asian Water, ADB Report, EGU, Tim DeChristopher Melting Arctic, Arctic Council, Geopolitics, Wilkins Disintegration, Climate Crunch, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle,…
illconsidered | May 1, 2009It`s kind of nice to hear an expert in the field making the same observation I often have about the economic arguments that swirl around the climate policy debates.
Specifically, opponents to mitigation policy have no trouble relying on the magic of the market and technology to rescue us from any possible difficulty climate change might visit upon us. This of course includes the loss of huge services nature provides us for free. You know, things like rain and sea food and forests.
Yet, make a suggestion that CO2 emissions need to be forced lower and the Pollyanna`s instantly become the most…
illconsidered | April 28, 2009Ok, so I have to do it, I`m adding Denial Depot to my blogroll in a new section, _The lighter side of catastrophe_.
I know I will probably regret it, but I just can`t help having a little fun while I`m over there.....
illconsidered | April 27, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News April 26, 2009 Chuckle, Top Stories:CARB-LCFS, Indigenous Peoples' Summit, EGU, G8 Meetings, Major Economies Forum, Methane Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica, Weight, Kash4Klunkers, Aerosols, Earth Day, Sol, Abruptness Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Ozone, Paleoclimate, Sea Levels Impacts, Forests, Corals,…
illconsidered | April 25, 2009Okay, so this is way off the general climate topic, but I really got a kick out of this article from Bill Maher published in the LA Times.
If Al Franken can be a senator, why can`t Bill Maher be an LA Times columnist?
Here are a few notable quotables:
The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned…
illconsidered | April 24, 2009Now this is good stuff!
A big thanks to Eli Rabett for finding this site!
Here are a few favorite highlights:
Why are the so-called experts silent about all the snow that is everywhere?
Well it's most likely because they are all shut indoors all day with their climate models. That's right, they are so busy playing Climate Tron that they haven't the foggiest idea what is going on outside anymore. They don't see the REAL world that REAL people like you and me see
When so-called "experts" in their "peer reviewed journals" say one thing, we dare the impossible and find imaginative ways to believe…
illconsidered | April 23, 2009Things Break does a nice job documenting the way Rupert Murdoch uses his media empire to disseminate misinformation.
A recent commenter pointed me to one of the articles in that chain, but I really did not give it much thought, it seemed like such a shrug of a story. Nothing new happening and it still doesn't disprove global warming.
Anyway, it is worth a look at the way these things are actively spread, truth be damned!
illconsidered | April 22, 2009It is of course Earth Day today.
It is an appropriate launch day for a new Science Blog, Guilty Planet. Head on over there for discussions about whether or not humans are a parasitic plague on Mother Earth or not, and how we could choose to live in a sustainable way.
I even saw a link (not an endorsement, BTW) to something called the Voluntary Human Extinction movement...yikes! That seems a tad...um, extreme.
illconsidered | April 21, 2009I was asked recently to write a guest posting for the Reeftank as part of their effort to grow a scientifically minded audience. Not really having any extra time, (newborns will do that to you!) I offered and they accepted a recycling of a previous posting from October last year.
It is called "The other CO2 problem" and they published it here.
The more geoengineering discussions creep into the mainstream dialogue, the more critical it is to remember this issue.
(original posting can be found here)
illconsidered | April 20, 2009I'm sure most of us remember how incoherent Sarah Palin was about climate change (well, okay, about most things), but John Boehner seems to have his sights set on out doing the master!
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos (partial transcript here) his mangling of anything even remotely resembling an intelligent thought is really quite astounding!
His answer to climate change incredibly includes:
we need American-made oil and gas
Because foreign CO2 has such a higher greenhouse potential than good ol' American CO2.
Boehner offers this boner about the recent EPA ruling:
the idea that…
illconsidered | April 20, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News April 19, 2009 Chuckle, Top Stories:Rapid Sea Level Rise, Endangerment Finding, Red River Flooding Melting Arctic, Arctic Geopolitics, Antarctica, Cash4Clunkers, Aerosols, Grumbine, Copenhagen Survey Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Temperatures, ENSO, Sea Levels, Satellites Impacts, Forests, Corals, Climate Refugees, Wildfires…
illconsidered | April 17, 2009This just reported today from the Washington Post:
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposal today finding greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public's health and welfare, a determination that could trigger a series of sweeping regulations affecting everything from vehicles to coal-fired power plants.
In a statement issued at noon, EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson said, "This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations."
She added, "This pollution problem has a solution -- one that will create millions of green jobs…
illconsidered | April 16, 2009Now this is worth checking out!
(for the incurious, it is a bit of fantastic photography of various insects)
The mosquito larvae are my favorite so far.
illconsidered | April 15, 2009Two common assertions: melting sea ice has no effect on global sea level, and alarmists will grasp at every straw in trying to scare us all.
It turns out that they are both wrong.
Robert Grumbine has the details on why melting sea ice does in fact raise sea levels. In a nutshell, what is frozen and what it floats in are not the same. Fresh water is less dense than sea water.
Now the effect is small, but if the scientists who are aware of this are truly just out to scare us out of our research funding, shouldn't they be scrambling to correct this common misconception?
Just wondering...
illconsidered | April 13, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News April 12, 2009 Chuckle, Top Stories:Bonn, Red River Flooding, Ecological Deficits, 2+ Degrees Melting Arctic, Arctic Geopolitics, Antarctica, Polar Conference, Aerosols, Tornado Research, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Ozone Hole, Paleoclimate, ENSO, Glaciers, Sea Levels, Satellites…
illconsidered | April 8, 2009So, George Will and the Washington Post are at it again, head over to Things Break for the details.
These institutions are oblivious to their own impending demise, a demise that articles like George Will's show they fully deserve.
[Update: Grist notes that Will is called out by name by his own paper for making claims contradicted by the facts...and let's call a spade a spade, given that he has been loudly and repeatedly informed of his factually incorrect claims and yet repeats them, he must be stupid or a liar.]
illconsidered | April 6, 2009 Sipping from the internet firehose...
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Another week of Climate Disruption News Information overload is pattern recognition April 5, 2009 Chuckle, Top Stories:Red River, Bonn, G-20, USNA Climate Summit, GLOBE, Tim DeChristopher, Grumbine, Sunspots Melting Arctic, Wang & Overland, Geopolitics, Methane, Antarctica, Wilkins, Wordie, Polar Conference, Late Comments Food Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Food Production Hurricanes, GHGs,…