climate change
illconsidered | October 10, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
October 6, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, WG1-AR5, AR5 Comments, ASEAN, IPSO, Crux, Fergus
Bottom Line, Big Banks, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Extreme Weather, New Weather, GHGs, Carbon Cycle,…
milhayser | October 4, 2013The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released last week, saying that global warming is occurring without a doubt, and human activity is extremely likely to be the cause. Greg Laden shares a number of graphics from the report, summarizing "It is getting hotter. It is getting wetter, or dryer, depending on where you are. And the big ice hat our planet wears is falling off." Peter Gleick collates a number of excerpts related to water on Significant Figures, which say that there are likely more regions getting more rain than less; the frequency of…
illconsidered | October 2, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 59
Table of Contents
Chapter 61
Chapter 60
L1 Roustabouts, February 15, 2058
The L1 crew were not like the moon colonists. They were cowboys. We didn't get up-close and web-personal with them. The corporate imagery around them played up rugged individualism and avoided any mention of colonization. They were all young men, no women, no families. Anytime we saw them they were sparring, jousting and joking with each other in good natured bonhomie. Or acting like boy scouts. It was all completely phony.
Arguably what the L1 astronauts were doing…
illconsidered | October 1, 2013This 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 Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not WisdomSeptember 29, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, IPCC - SPM, IPCC - Reactions, IPCC - Buildup UNGA CE&C, MDGs, Maldives, Potash, Energiewende Bottom Line, Subsidies, World Bank, Pricing Nature, Cook, ShrinkologyFukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, GeopoliticsFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes,…
gregladen | October 1, 2013An interview with Michael Mann on metastable shifts in climate:
Published on Sep 24, 2013
In recognition of climate week, Thom talks with renowned climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann about the dangers of global warming. Dr. Mann in concerned we may be running out of time to rein in global temperatures.
gregladen | September 29, 2013I've been a guest or interviewer on Minnesota Atheist Talk radio a number of times. I never talk about atheism because I'm nothing close to an expert on that or related issues (though I do have a chapter in a book about it, here!). And, of course, I'm very involved, professionally, in certain church-state separation issues (like this and this). But on Atheist Talk Radio I mainly engage in either science (lately climate change science but also evolution) or the afore mentioned church-state separation issues vis-a-vis the evolution-creationism "debate."
Anyway, I've been meaning to finally…
pgleick | September 27, 2013The latest in a long series of science summaries on climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just been released. While the report has a massive amount of information in it, related to a wide range of geophysical implications of climate change, here are some of the key water-related findings for precipitation, evaporation, glaciers, ice mass, and more. While many other findings are reported that have hydrologic implications (such as all the findings related to temperature and warming), I have not usually included them here. Definitions of the confidence of…
illconsidered | September 26, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 58
Table of Contents
Chapter 60
Chapter 59
Asteroid Disaster January 27, 2058
Last week I got a late night call from Rhamaposa. He was stone cold sober and didn't waste time with preliminaries.
"We've lost contact with the Daedalus group."
"What happened?"
"We're not sure. We're waiting for the 24 hour summary."
Because of the distance and the danger involved, UNGETF had insisted on an automated video summary which would be transmitted by the computer every 24 hours. It was basically a compressed stop-frame video record. The algorithm tracked…
illconsidered | September 24, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
Equinox Edition
September 22, 2013
Equinox, COP19+, IPCC, HMNDP, MDG, EDF, Potash, Maldives, Energiewende
Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Cook, Shrinkology
Fukushima: Note, News
Melting Arctic, Megafauna, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
GHGs, Aerosols, Volcanoes,…
illconsidered | September 18, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 57
Table of Contents
Chapter 59
Chapter 58
Ecology 110 - Water Vapour, January 6, 2058
Occasionally I am caught flat-footed by questions from students. It is one of the hidden benefits of teaching --- being kept on your toes. Theories of education differ, but generally I aim for the broad middle band. I know there are some impatient, high percentile types who think my lectures slow and pedantic. Just as there is a segment of determined plodders who get through more by hard work than brainpower. Between them ranges the middle group who will…
illconsidered | September 18, 2013(Featured image from http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-09/14/c_132720300.htm)
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. I am late because I am traveling. Normality should resume before next Monday's posting...
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Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
September 15, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, G20, XPrize, CDP, Germany, Potash
Bottom Line, EBRD, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel,…
illconsidered | September 13, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 56
Table of Contents
Chapter 58
Chapter 57
Moonchild, December 11, 2057
The moon consists primarily of iron, aluminum, silicon and manganese, with some calcium and oxygen. Some areas have concentrations of titanium. That was why the Hipparcus crater had been chosen.
Once the smelter was set up and they had full power, the mining began in earnest. It was all open pit. They used a large wheeled dragger to scoop up the material. They wanted aluminum and titanium. The lack of free oxygen on the moon made steel production problematic, but aluminum…
illconsidered | September 10, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Chronicling a new Age of Consequences
September 8, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Guyana, G20, PIF, A Plan, Hiatus, Maldives, Potash
Bottom Line, A Change?, Big Banks, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, IP Issues, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Weather Machine, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather
Carbon Cycle,…
illconsidered | September 5, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 55
Table of Contents
Chapter 57
Chapter 56
Petrov, October 19, 2057
The Daedalus reached Petrov in late September. On the internet a coterie of space enthusiasts and the climate concerned had followed their reports religiously, but until then there was little coverage in the corporate media. For twenty-four hours they were media stars again. The trip had been uneventful, which in the tech-besotted, bloodless language of the space agencies and corporations meant there were no major accidents and nobody died.
The asteroid was less than a…
esiegel | August 30, 2013"Being told about the effects of climate change is an appeal to our reason and to our desire to bring about change. But to see that Africans are the hardest hit by climate change, even though they generate almost no greenhouse gas, is a glaring injustice, which also triggers anger and outrage over those who seek to ignore it." -Sigmar Gabriel
With all of the scientific issues subject to politicization in this world, there's arguably none that raises such strong emotions as the issue of global warming and climate change. This is the final installment of a three-part series on how one could…
esiegel | August 29, 2013"We make the world we live in and shape our own environment." -Orison Swett Marden
If you had never heard of global warming before, how would you figure out whether it's real or not? And if it is real, how would you figure out what humanity's role in it is? To answer this, I've decided to do a three-part series on how you'd go about figuring this out, putting aside all politics, economics, opinion and any other non-scientific factors. If you missed part 1, you can check it out here; today we're going to build on that and talk about what determines the temperature of a planet with an…
illconsidered | August 28, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 54
Table of Contents
Chapter 56
Chapter 55
Spacemen, September 11, 2057
From my vantage point in UNGETF, I was able to monitor the activities of the various groups. All year, I heard about rocket launches, mostly by the Swiss-German consortium Brahmaputra, but the odd one was by the L1 construction group Carillon. The Group 6 cloudmakers had their first batch of ships sailing for Antarctica. More of the old tankers were being refurbished weekly. The target number of vessels for north and south had been raised to 600. Sometimes when things don…
illconsidered | August 26, 2013This 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 Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not WisdomAugust 25, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Overshoot, AR5, Potash Bottom Line, Thermodynamics, CookFukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Harp Seals, Methane, Geopolitics, AntarcticaFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Weather Machine, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather…
illconsidered | August 22, 2013The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 53
Table of Contents
Chapter 55
Chapter 54
Greenhouse, May 31, 2057
Things were not looking good. At UNGETF, we were all too aware of of the unfolding disasters. The storms and wildfires, the floods and droughts were bad enough, but food production was down again. The methane levels kept rising. Nothing we were doing seemed to have any effect.
I left the meeting with a heavy heart. As I headed for home, it was already hot. This was May. When spring starts in February, the season seems to go on forever. Calling April the cruellest month seemed…
illconsidered | August 19, 2013This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Another Week of Climate Instability News
Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition
August 18, 2013
Chuckles, COP19+, Texas Water, Yasuni, Soot & Methane
Bottom Line, GFIs, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food & Revolution, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New…