December 2011
LongNow: 100 Years in 10 Minutes
Happy new year to all…
derDon1234 created a compilation featuring some of the important events of the last 100 years (2911-1011) in 10 minutes.
via Laughing Squid, The Awesomer, BuzzFeed & MPViral.com
from The Long Now Blog http://bit.ly/sUp73R
Men in Film - Amanda →
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdzkSP9ewY
…
Thank you to Philip Scott Johnson
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The Top 10 Anti-Environmental Things Congress Did... →
by Miles Grant, cross-posted from the National Wildlife Federation
How bad was 2011 for America’s wildlife, air, water, land and public health? After taking 191 anti-conservation votes, even the House of Representatives’ own members called it ”the most anti-environment House in the history of Congress.”
That’s not to say the last year hasn’t been without progress in Washington. The...
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Cartoon of the Week - Joe Romm →
A cyber-penny for your thoughts.
Something about this New Yorker cartoon seems strangely apt….
Alternate Histories by Matthew Buchholz - →
Toys by Randy Regier - →
That’s the way the granola bar crumbles -... →
I think the highlight of my Christmas dinner this year was when I entered the family kitchen, where I arrive bearing the dessert, and promptly dropped the the whole thing on the floor, where it shattered into a million pieces. I sighed, and guessed it was a fitting end to a fragmented year. Having seen more than my share of kitchen catastrophes in my time in various professional kitchens, like...
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Top 10 States Hit by Extreme Weather in 2011 -... →
by Andrew Freedman, Alyson Kenward and Mike Lemonick, cross-posted from Climate Central
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2011 set a record for the most billion dollar disasters in a single year. There were 12, breaking the old record of nine set in 2009. The aggregate damage from these 12 events totals at least $52 billion, NOAA found.
While extreme...
MiG-105 EPOS (Experimental Passenger Orbital... →
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The Debunking Handbook Part 5: Filling the Gap... →
The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky.
This is part five of a five-part series originally published at Skeptical Science.
Assuming you successfully negotiate the various backfire effects, what is the most effective way to debunk a myth? The challenge is that once misinformation gets into a person’s mind, it’s very difficult to remove. This...
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Creative Ways Utilities Are Attracting Customers -... →
by Brendan O’Donnell and Mathias Bell, cross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute
This is part three in a three-part series published at RMI on Turbocharging energy efficiency programs.
When you see the blue ENERGY STAR logo plastered on the side of your TV, you probably think of two things:
This is an energy-efficient television.
The federal government is providing me some assurance that...
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Top Cities Stories of 2011 - Climate Guest Blogger →
by Greg Hanscom, cross-posted from Grist
It’s that time of year again: When public schools everywhere cast about desperately for a holiday celebration that doesn’t involve Jesus or a dude in a red suit; when families gather from thither and yon to spend a few days remembering why they’ve scattered thither and yon in the first place; and yes, it’s time to take stock of the year past, and look...
Jean Paul Gaultier ‘Elle’ Magazine, 1980s - →
Model Agency, 1948 - →
Vinishas - Sri Lankan in Lewisham - Lizzie →
My friends told me excitedly about a new Sri Lankan place near where I live; their tales of fiery curries and bargain prices meant a trip was scheduled soon after. The restaurant isn’t big, with a handful of tables and we were the only customers there for a late lunch. Handed takeaway menus to peruse, the plasticky tablecloth and the radio station playing wasn’t exactly a promising...
LongNow: Charter City, Honduras
In 02009, economist Paul Romer presented to the Seminars About Long-term Thinking his idea for Charter Cities. Modeled on Hong Kong but stripped of the colonialism (ideally, anyway), Charter Cities are meant to bring the agility and creativity of start-ups to the world of governance.
The Economist recently published an article about a budding Charter City in Honduras:
In a nutshell, the...
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PBS Covers Link Between 2011′s “Mind-Boggling”... →
Mainstream news outlets spent a lot of time in 2011 covering the record-breaking year for extreme weather in the U.S. But only a few of them spent much time exploring the link between those events and global warming (see With No End in Sight for Texas Drought, ABC News Explains: “Every Farmer in the World Will Be Affected by Climate Change” and links below).
So PBS deserves a special mention for...
Ortelius World Map, 1564 - →
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Broader + Deeper = Greater Savings in Energy... →
by Brenden O’Donnell, cross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute
This is part two in a three-part series published at RMI on Turbocharging energy efficiency programs.
The momentum for electric utilities to achieve high levels of energy efficiency savings has never been greater. Regulation has taken the lead. Utilities operating in seven states, for example, are required to meet more...
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The Debunking Handbook Part 4: The Worldview... →
The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. This Handbook boils down the psychological research on misinformation into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate).
This is part four in a five-part series cross-posted from Skeptical Science.
The third and arguably most potent backfire effect...
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Rush Limbaugh: Climate Change Misinformer of the... →
by Jocelyn Fong and Shauna Theel, in a Media Matters cross-post
In 1994 Rush Limbaugh declared, “There is no global warming going on,” adding that scientists “admit” they “may need 20 years more data to prove it.” Since then, Limbaugh has managed to shield his brain from 18 years of mounting evidence that humans are changing the climate. “Science has made enormous inroads in understanding...
Blitz Motorcycles 1963 BMW R60/2 - →
On the set of ‘Our Man in Havana’, 1959 - →
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Two Senate Climate Hawks Team Up for a Must-See... →
by Nick Sundt, cross-posted from the World Wildlife Fund blog
Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, Rhode Island) and Al Franken (Democrat, Minnesota) recently spent an hour on the floor of the U.S. Senate repudiating climate change denialists and arguing for serious U.S. action on climate change.
“Ignoring or flatout contradicting what climate scientists are telling us about the warming...
Christmas 2011 - Lizzie →
Christmas is over for another year, and the one we had was low key, austere almost. This year was just me and my parents for a couple of days so rather than stuffing the fridge full of various meats and then racing against time to get them poached / simmered / stewed / roasted and in our faces, we went for one centrepiece. Given we were to have one blow-out meal, it was a risk that we ordered...
Candid Portraits of Celebrities by Norman Seeff,... →
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The Debunking Handbook Part 3: The Overkill... →
The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary,...
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Satellite Photos Illustrate Dramatic Expansion of... →
Extraction of Alberta’s energy-intensive tar sands has expanded steadily in recent years, with about 232 square miles now exposed by mining operations. That expansion is expected to double over the next decade, which could mean the destruction of 740,000 acres of boreal forest and a 30% increase in carbon emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.
New satellite images show the dramatic expansion...
Bohn’s ‘Visions of the Future’ Ads, 1940s - →
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New EPA Mercury Rules Are a Bona Fide Big Deal -... →
by David Roberts, cross-posted from Grist
Wednesday, at long last, the EPA unveiled its new rule covering mercury and other toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
Anyone who pays attention to green news will have spent the last two years hearing a torrent of stories about EPA rules and the political fights over them. It can get tedious. After a certain point even my eyes glaze...
Hughes Aircraft’s Giant Helicopter, XH-17, 1953 - →
Date Bars - David →
It’s that time of year, when I evaluate a variety of things, including the contents of my refrigerator and pantry, and go through all the corners and crannies, and clear things out. When I visited the Barbès market a while back, I got an amazing deal on dates, so good that I had to buy a few kilos of them. Because one doesn’t really want to eat a lot of dates all at once, I put some in a jar...
Rowboat Regatta, June 1947 - →
Marilyn Monroe hiking, August 1950 - →
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Turbocharging Energy Efficiency 1: Utility... →
by Matthias Bell, RMI, and Dylan Sullivan of NRDC, cross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute
This is part one in a three part series published at RMI on turbocharging energy efficiency programs.
The utilities in Ohio will tell you that they’re nothing like the energy efficiency leaders in California, Oregon, Vermont, or Massachusetts. Their systems are different and so are the regulations...
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Big Environmental NGOs: The End of Incrementalism... →
by Toby Webb, cross-posted from the Smarter Business blog
US environmental NGOs, along with other, more globally minded ‘green’ and conservation-minded NGOs, have been poorly led in recent years.
They’ve blown a series of chances to help businesses change using a nuanced approach. Their approach been too cut and dried, too ‘with you not against you’ in ideology. It was never as simple as that.
...
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The Debunking Handbook, Part 2: The Familiarity... →
The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. It boils down the research on the psychological research on misinformation into a short, simple summary.
This is part two of a five-part series cross-posted from Skeptical Science.
To debunk a myth, you often have to mention it — otherwise, how will people know what you’re talking about? However, this...
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‘Unvoice’: paying tribute to the voids - →
The Silence Project [& sons, 2011] is a compilation of gaps that refill a new meaning. Suddenly, the most referential lyrics are removed from iconic songs that everybody has in mind to be simply reduced to their negative breaks, the anti-song. During these uncomfortable visual silences, the performer needs to force a smile, invent a gesture, […]
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Portraits of the Southwest in the Shadow of... →
NOTE: NY Times readers who want to see an extended excerpt of my Nature article can go here: “Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security.”
The NY Times reviews two new books on Dust-Bowlification — A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, and Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City:
Both authors cite...
‘To Lighten the Labor of Your Home’, 1919 - →
Elvis Playing Football, December 27th, 1956 - →
Louis Armstrong at the Pyramids, 1961 - →
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The Debunking Handbook Part 1: The First Myth... →
The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary,...
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NASA: Climate Change May Flip 40% of Earth’s Major... →
by Rolf Schuttenhelm, cross-posted from Bits of Science
The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss — which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation — are perhaps most shocking.
When, however, you focus on the response to climate change at the macro level, the ecosystem level, you get a better understanding...
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Top 5 Fisheries Stories of 2011: It’s Not All Bad... →
by Michael Conathan
This year was a big one for fisheries. If you’re into fishery legislation and important milestones, you already know that it was the 35th anniversary of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that first ejected foreign fishing fleets from the United States’ exclusive economic zone and provided the foundation for how we manage our fisheries. It was also the...
5MB Hard Disk Drive, 1956 - →
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‘Metamorphosis’, New York Ballet, 1953 - →
LeBaron Chrysler Newport Phaeton concept car, 1940... →
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Solar Grid Parity 101: How the Cross-Over Occurs -... →
by John Farrell, cross-posted from Energy Self Reliant States
Solar grid parity is considered the tipping point for solar power, when installing solar power will cost less than buying electricity from the grid. It’s also a tipping point in the electricity system, when millions of Americans can choose energy production and self-reliance over dependence on their electric utility.
But...