“Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and ‘we expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,’ the Hadley Centre group writes…. Researchers … agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer.”
– Richard Kerr, Science (2009)
That’s Richard A. Kerr, the longtime, award-winning climate-change scribe for Science magazine, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The article, “What Happened to Global Warming? Scientists Say Just Wait a Bit,” was published October 1, 2009.
The article is important in the history of climate thought because it captures neatly the (over)confidence of the scientists who turn to models to justify their faith that past overestimation will soon be reversed. Judith Curry’s recent discovery of F.…
Continue Reading“The government support — which includes loan guarantees, cash grants and contracts that require electric customers to pay higher rates — largely eliminated the risk to the private investors and almost guaranteed them large profits for years to come. The beneficiaries include financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, conglomerates like General Electric, utilities like Exelon and NRG — even Google.”
– Eric Lipton and Clifford Krauss, “A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search,” New York Times, November 11, 2011.
A recent article by Pete Danko, “Solar Power Hitting New Records in California” (Earthechling.com) documents the dramatic growth of solar energy generation facilities in California. Three large-scale solar PV installations recently on-line or underway are: California Valley Solar Ranch; Antelope Valley Solar 1, and Topaz Solar Farm, together representing a nameplate capacity of over 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt).…
Continue ReadingTo: Abraham Lincoln
From: Sherman Johnson, National Bovine Resources Defense Council; Harris Rutherford, Cowpeace International; William Oaks, Prairie Defense Fund
Dear Mr. President:
Of late, you have been asked to promote the construction of a massive transportation project connecting the East Coast to the Pacific and rumor has it that you are planning to embrace the technology of “railroads” which rely on steel rails and coal-fired steam engines. We urge you to reconsider this in favor of an approach which has many benefits: ox-cart transportation, or OCT, and implement a BTC or bovine transportation credit.
The advantages of ox-cart transportation include:
Sustainability: Railroads rely on steel and coal, both of which are finite, meaning that a peak in their production is inevitable. OCT uses only products (oxen, wood, oats) which are renewable.…
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