tingilinde

expelled from expelled

Ben Stein's Expelled is a movie that pushes the silly idea of "intelligent design" ... something curious happened

(here is the link to the video on the Harvard site mentioned in the film)

the sony brand

you have to love this company

Do these guys even care about their brand?

google sky in your browser

Not as nice as the sky portion of Google Earth, but now you can look at the sky from your browser. There are some interface bugs (try zooming in to fix appearance - counter intuitive, but it sometimes works), but it might be fun.

I tried it on the iPhone - it works, but you *need* a wifi link for this one.

black pots and kettles

Roger points out that countries like China and India aren't even close to first world carbon dioxide emissions per capita as this graph shows.

Very true. Energy use and carbon dioxide emissions closely track GNP (within a band) - as countries get richer they use more energy and pump more carbon into the atmosphere. China and India are pumping disproportionate amounts of carbon per amount of energy used as they have chosen the coal path. Their populations and growth are high enough that they are the primary threat.

That doesn't mean that the rest of us are of the hook. People in the US need to cut carbon emissions by large amounts. Politicians and companies are only discussing laughably small contributions. We need to push for much larger changes - nearly everywhere. It may be than Mali can pollute more in order to bring their standard of living up, but China and India are sophisticated enough that they need to leapfrog the antiquated energy technologies they are using.

We are a consumption based economy. Changing our consumption patterns is one of the few tools the average citizen has available. This isn't easy as solid information that consumers can understand is hard to come by and few consumers care at this point.

It is sometimes very difficult to be optimistic.

But you can try things yourself. As an exercise figure out your carbon footprint and shrink it honestly (without buying carbon offsets). Calculations tend not to be terribly accurate (the calculators I've used vary by a factor of three), but they give you a number from which you can create a target. So pick a calculator or two and see if you can drop your footprint by 20%. Try to imagine what it would mean to drop it by 90%, which may be what is necessary.

nuclear disarmament

The history of the peace symbol (oddly enough I knew the N D part)

atlas at the lhc

A beautiful "vr" photo of the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

thanks Petr!

china and turning up the heat

China is currently bringing on a new coal fired power plant online every seven to ten days. On average, each of these plants is large enough to supply power to all of the residences of San Diego and they produce about twice as much carbon dioxide per unit of power as natural gas. The lifetime of these plants is in the fifty year range, so we have to deal with them for a long time.

We are at a point where the developing world is pumping as much carbon dioxide into the air as the developed world. The rate of growth in many of the emerging countries is staggering. If we could magically drop carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent in the developed world, that gain would be erased in under four years by emerging economic powers.

This is very serious stuff. When you buy products from reckless countries like China, you are supporting an increase in global warming. The developed world has problems of its own, but economic and political pressure needs to be brought on places like China and India (as well as Brazil and Indonesia).

Check the country of origin when you buy a product. Get in touch with companies who import products and let them know.

A brand cannot be considered "green" if it supports these economies. We have to start somewhere and consumer boycotts can be effective.

Consider Apple Computer. They have been very sensitive about their green image - and their image in general. Many (most?) of their hardware products are assembled in China. For this to be acceptable the plants have to show responsible carbon stewardship. If you want to be sticky about it the same goes for the employees.

Consider WalMart. They are making a few "green" changes (highly publicized by the way) in the US, but a high percentage of the product line is made in China and buying from them is supporting black rather than green practices.

Conventional carbon offsets are lame and should be a non-starter here - something more significant needs to take place.

Look at the label, do a bit of research, contact companies and spend accordingly.

___

I doubt the US will do much - the Chinese pwn (sic) us

voting machine problems in new jersey

From Ed Felton's blog

Not agreeing with yourself strikes me as a serious problem.

sea++

(sorry about that)

There are a variety of likely consequences of global warming that might be much worse than increasing sea levels. The rapid change of climate along with CO₂ levels can play havoc with the ecosystem.

For some time a major worry has been the pH of the ocean. Recent work suggests we may have a very different planet in a few decades.

exercise for the indoor dog

looking into the sausage making process

Ed Felton confirmed that the state of New Jersey has asked him to look at the Sequoia voting machine.

Sequoia doesn't seem amused, so one wonders what they have to hide. Since the accuracy and security of voting is core to our democracy, it seems reasonable to allow groups (more than one!) to examine the processes at the deepest level. Any company that refuses should be excluded from participation in bids.

Our district uses Sequoia machines - I have an interest in this one.

the 17th of ireland

I have a lot of Irish in me, so this is ok:

thanks for the link Jim

dirty energy in india

India has very little oil and high oil prices have triggered an enormous coal to oil project - this is effectively gives oil with a even higher CO₂ per unit energy than regular crude oil and is a big step backwards.

And China is adding a large coal fired plant every week to ten days at this point - these are plants large enough to provide power for residential San Diego.

not good

An economist friend suggests the best news for the planet ecologically would be severe depressions in India and China --- and as soon as possible.

when society says jump, we say pass the salt

There is some TV so bad that it is good. The Tick had incredibly strange lines and a barely B-grade movie plot. The sort of thing you watch with corn chips and Dr Pepper.

Sukie notes it exists on Hulu

Roof pig! Most unexpected.

You know, when a tomato grows out of your forehead, it gets you thinking. What do we know about anything? Life is just a big, wild, crazy tossed salad. But you don't eat it, no sir, you LIVE it. Isn't it great?! Isn't it GREAT?!

daydream material

little tree house in the rain forest... and the website

OK - it doesn't scale to many people and there are probably lots of problems, but it is good for a few minutes of dreaming.

goose repellent

I mostly like geese. They are fun to watch and amazing in flight, but in large numbers they can be - let's be charitable - a bit on the messy side.

A small pond near our place has been home from anywhere from 100 to 150 geese. Some are permanent, remaining through the Winter, but most seem to migrate.

This year several two dimensional black plywood dogs were installed. At first it seemed to be for the amusement of the geese who largely ignored the new objects. Last week red and white bandanas started appearing on the dogs. Now we are down to about a dozen geese. Probably the hard core crew.

You have to wonder what goes through the mind of a goose -

• tacky dogs don't know how to dress

• they must be hungry - look at their napkins!

• my gosh! someone has spiked those poor dogs to the ground!

If this scheme works, the manufacturer seems to have stumbled on a protection racket.

But war is war and the geese may strike back! (thanks for the link Roger)