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Entries from January 2018

The Climate of Climate in the 2018 election

January 29th, 2018 · Comments Off on The Climate of Climate in the 2018 election

For many election cycles, those aware of the serious nature of climate change (and the opportunities acting to mitigate it will create) have advocated for greater political discussion of climate change. In the 2008 presidential election, in part due to a dedicated effort to ask questions of candidates in key primaries, ‘climate’ seemed — at […]

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Tags: 2018 Election · climate change · politics

When it comes to renewable energy forecasting, Japan’s forecasting follows world lead

January 19th, 2018 · 1 Comment

While many reasons exist for this, a simple reality: every single major forecasting institution (both public and private) has consistently, since roughly the turn of the century, under forecast future progress in solar and wind energy. (See after fold for a sampling of the literature on this.) Forecasts have consistently (and often quite significantly) projected […]

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Tags: analysis · economics · Energy · Energy Forecasting · energy information administration · solar

“Renewable Energy: the closer you look, the better the news gets!

January 17th, 2018 · 3 Comments

For decades, those advocating for a clean-energy revolution had to advocate for better analysis and calculations to demonstrate that going clean (solar, wind, efficiency) was the better, smarter choice.  Traditional financial structures and analysis favors dirty solutions: emphasizing upfront (rather than life-cycle costs), discounting heavily future benefits, stove-piping analysis without considering systems implications, discounting (typically […]

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Tags: analysis · economics

How will you handle Trump’s #SOTU? Here is a #climate leaders’ approach

January 16th, 2018 · Comments Off on How will you handle Trump’s #SOTU? Here is a #climate leaders’ approach

On 31 January, Trump will mouth a State of the Union speech. Expect — if he doesn’t go off script too much — that much of the traditional media (The Village) will gush about how he stayed on message, that maybe this is a new Trump, that … Bluntly, it is revolting to consider that a man […]

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Tags: Energy

See, hear, say no evil: #Climate #science disappearing from USG websites

January 11th, 2018 · 3 Comments

Within seconds of the outrageous nightmare scenario being announced as reality, scientists around the world started to mobilize to capture key science information and data from US government websites to maintain knowledge in what some suspected would be a Dark Ages period. Some thought this is absurd, that the Trump-istas just wouldn’t go there. They’ve […]

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Tags: Energy

Sharing: one objective to drive transforming transportation

January 11th, 2018 · Comments Off on Sharing: one objective to drive transforming transportation

Ongoing at the World Bank is the joint World Resources Institute and World Bank annual Transforming Transportation conference.  When it comes to Transportation, Sustainable Mobility for All has four core objectives: Universal Access Efficiency Green Mobility Safety Robin Chase, founder of Zip Car and author of Peers Inc, expressed an ‘epiphany’ during the first panel. Rather […]

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Tags: Energy

Global Warming is a hoax: I froze on the soccer field in record cold temperatures

January 8th, 2018 · Comments Off on Global Warming is a hoax: I froze on the soccer field in record cold temperatures

Refereeing youth soccer: a way to clear my mind, get some exercise, interact with people, contribute to society, and to get yelled at by people who don’t have a clue about actual rules and regulations but who, because their child is on the field, is the world’s leading expert. In early November, refereeing a tournament […]

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Tags: Energy

Climate Change & Security: 2018 Iranian edition

January 3rd, 2018 · 3 Comments

Iran is in turmoil. People are protesting in the streets — calling for more openness and, even more strongly, policies to boost economic performance. As to the latter, for example, calls to end Iran’s major support for various militant and military forces (Syria, Hamas, otherwise ..>) and use that money at home. The protests are […]

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Tags: Energy

Romping through RCPs: powerful CliFi from Tobias Buckell

January 2nd, 2018 · 1 Comment

Tobias Buckell is a prolific and thought-provoking science fiction writer with a number of CliFi (climate fiction) books and short stories. For example, the Arctic Rising series‘ first book is described thusly: Global warming has transformed the Earth, and it’s about to get even hotter. The Arctic Ice Cap has all but melted, and the international […]

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Tags: climate change · climate disruption · Global Warming