March 2012
LongNow: Heizer’s Mass Takes the Scenic Route
Theories about the construction of Stonehenge, Easter Island’s Moai, or the Egyptian pyramids range from the mundane to the outrageous, so trying to imagine what people thousands of years from now will make of the above diagram – or the 340-ton boulder relocation project it represents – may be a futile exercise. Regardless, it’s a pretty safe bet that Levitated Mass, the artwork by Michael...
February 2012
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Leap Day Special: My Biggest Mistakes - Joe Romm →
A blogger once said that only the ideologically-driven anti-science disinformers never admit to error, since their job is to make errors on purpose. Okay, that was me, but still.
In truth, most people rarely if ever admit to major errors. So it seemed to me that Leap Day would be a good day to run through my biggest mistakes.
I’m not going focus on the many, many small mistakes that are...
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Nine More Dirty, Aging Coal Plants Set to Close,... →
Today was a big milestone for people who care about public health and a livable climate. Two utilities announced the planned closure of nine coal plants in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, bringing total retirements (executed and planned) since January 2010 past the 100 mark to 106.
Two plants in Chicago owned by Midwest Generation, the Fisk Plant and the Crawford Plant, had been a...
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The Economist Magazine Offers An Illogical,... →
Major Federal regulations have documented vast net benefits to Americans of $90 to over $500 billion a year
by Laurie Johnson, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard
Last week, The Economist published a series of articles on the impact of regulations on the US economy and businesses. For a magazine normally regarded for insightful analysis, the poor quality of these articles is surprising. They...
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Clean Energy Doesn’t Require A Trade-Off, But A... →
We need a 21st century electricity system to enable local clean energy
by John Farrell, reposted from Energy Self-Reliant States
In a New York Times SundayReview piece last week – Drawing the Line at Power Lines – Elisabeth Rosenthal suggested that our desire for clean energy will require significant tradeoffs:
There are pipelines, trains, trucks and high-voltage transmission lines. ...
Footage of Hindenburg Disaster, 1937 - Chris →
http://bit.ly/zByXgD
Source: British Pathe
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This capsule was curated by Ryan Mayer
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Poll: Americans’ Understanding of Climate Change... →
The number of people who believe that the planet is warming is at its highest level since the fall of 2009. According to a survey conducted in December 20111 by the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change, 62% of Americans say they think global warming is happening. That’s up 7% from last spring.
That matches other recent public opinion research Climate Progress has...
Project Syndicate: WOLF: America’s Islamic Blind... →
WOLF: America’s Islamic Blind Spots
As protests against the Koran-burning at the US Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, continue to escalate, and the death toll mounts, Americans’ blindness to the roots of Afghans’ rage needs to be addressed. As Goethe put it: where they burn books, soon they burn people – and that certainly seems true of Bagram.
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Melting Snowe: Another ‘Moderate’ Retires from the... →
In one fell swoop Tuesday afternoon, Olympia Snowe may have not only crushed Mitch McConnell’s dreams of taking over the Senate, she also wrote the epitaph for political moderates in the world’s greatest deliberative body.
Snowe’s stunning retirement announcement — she gave just a few hours’ notice to McConnell and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee...
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Meryl Streep Interview on Environmental Health... →
Interview conducted by Wendy Gordon for OnEarth Magazine
Actress Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Iron Lady “nails the former prime minister’s look, sound, and spirit,” according to a former co-worker of Margaret Thatcher’s. Streep is renowned for her ability to transform herself into a character. But few know about her real-life roles as a transformative environmental health...
Project Syndicate: BHAGWATI: Free Trade Ad Nauseam... →
BHAGWATI: Free Trade Ad Nauseam
So much has been written, by so many, against the muddled ideas that have now overwhelmed good sense on trade policy in the US government that one wonders whether there is anything left to say. Unfortunately, there is.
Project Syndicate: HEALTH: When Technophobia... →
HEALTH: When Technophobia Becomes Toxic
Activists opposed to genetically modified food have succeeded in stopping commercialization of a promising new technology that has no proven risks and many demonstrated benefits, including lower levels of fungal toxins. That is not a public policy that has the public’s interest at heart.
Project Syndicate: FISCHER: Merkel’s Next Crisis -... →
FISCHER: Merkel’s Next Crisis
With Europe bogged down by the financial crisis and its national governments failing or being voted out of office across the continent, Germany has looked like an island of prosperity and stability. But, having kept Europe’s crisis from Germany’s door, Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a new crisis at home.
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What ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ Really Mean on Climate... →
by David Roberts, reposted from Grist
Ezra Klein had an interesting post last week about the arbitrary nature of what gets coded “left” and “right” in today’s policy debates. He mentions cap-and-trade, which was the subject of bipartisan consensus from 2000 to 2008, at which point it abruptly became socialist.
Klein is right that the ideological coding of the climate debate is peculiar, but...
Banh Mi 11 at Berwick Street Market - Lizzie →
The banh mi craze swept London last year and I found my favourite, Panda Panda in Deptford. Theirs were chock full of pickled vegetables, delicious pork and encased in a warm, rice flour baguette - what more could I want? I stopped looking. The one downside is, of course, that I don’t work in Deptford, or anywhere near it. When I heard that Banh Mi 11, usually a fixture on Broadway Market,...
Project Syndicate: DELONG: The Usual Suspect - J.... →
DELONG: The Usual Suspect
Across the Euro-Atlantic world, economic recovery remains sluggish and halting, turning readily curable cyclical unemployment into structural unemployment, and a brief hiccup in capital accumulation into a prolonged investment shortfall. Unless governments spend more now,output could suffer for decades.
Project Syndicate: VELASCO: Brazil, Country of the... →
VELASCO: Brazil, Country of the Future No More?
At first glance, Brazil appears to be an unambiguous success story – democratic, macroeconomically sound, and poised to host the world’s two largest and most prestigious sporting events. But dig a little deeper and a more complex picture emerges.
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February 29 News: Canada Makes Billions From Tar... →
Other stories below: Michael Mann’s counterstrike in the climate wars; Algae biofuels now mocked by Republicans were once supported by them
High Arctic Research Station Forced To Close
Canada’s northernmost research laboratory is shutting down due to lack of funding.
The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Nunavut, which made key measurements last winter...
Muller Bros Car Wash, 1951 - Chris →
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All images by Allan Grant
Source: LIFE Archive
Lalique Automobile Mascots, 1932 - Chris →
Le Renard (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
1. Sirene (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
2. Naiade (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
3. Faucon (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
4. Comette (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
5A. Cinq Chevaux (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
5A. Cinq Chevaux detail (Photo Credit Courtesy of RM Auctions)
6. Coq Nain (Photo...
NG: Don’t Bet Against The (Single-Family) House -... →
Nothing more characterizes the current conventional wisdom than the demise of the single-family house. From pundits like Richard Florida to Wall Street investors, the thinking is that the future of America will be characterized increasingly by renters huddling together in small apartments, living the lifestyle of the hip and cool — just like they do in New York, San Francisco and other...
‘Drawing Water’ - bmilligan →
[Maps from David Hicks Drawing Water Series. Winter, 2011 (top) and Midwest, 2011 (bottom)]
David Wicks MA thesis project, Drawing Water, links USGS national water consumption data with rainfall data compiled by NOAA/NWS in a series of maps. The data are parsed with Python scripts and the prints (above) were generated using software written on top of a cinder framework. Each line in the prints...
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Fakegate: Heartland-Backed ‘Scientist’ Misinforms... →
Bogus climate course “a source of embarrassment to the institution”
– Richard Littlemore, in a DeSmogBlog repost
An energy industry public relations man and lobbyist with no background in climate science has infiltrated Carleton University in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, teaching a course on climate change denial that other Carleton professors describe as “a source of embarrassment to...
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AEI Economist Zycher Makes Head-Exploding Claims... →
Did you know that the landing on the moon was staged? Or that swallowing seeds will cause fruit to grow in your stomach? Or that the cost of solar power has gone up 63% since 2001?
If you are tied to reality, you’d know that all three of these statements are utterly false. And while most people know that the moon landing was real and that seeds don’t grow in your stomach, the last falsity is an...
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Warming Arctic Fuels Cold Surges and Snowy... →
A new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere….
Since the level of Arctic sea ice set a new record low in 2007, significantly above-normal winter snow cover has been seen in large parts of the northern United States, northwestern and central...
Douglas XTB2D Skypirate, 1945 - Chris →
“The Douglas TB2D Skypirate was a torpedo bomber intended for service with the US Navy’s aircraft carriers. Two prototypes were completed, but the dedicated torpedo bomber was becoming an outdated concept and with the end of World War II, the type was no longer needed, resulting in the project’s cancellation.”
- Wikipedia
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Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline: Splitting the... →
by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, reposted from NRDC’s Switchboard
Bullying American landowners and stockpiling pipe for a rejected project show the arrogance of the Canadian pipeline company TransCanada as it tries to reanimate the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
The latest news is that TransCanada is proposing to split the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in two in order to get around the U.S....
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Company Backed By GM And DOE Says Its Lithium Ion... →
by Zachary Rybarczyk
Joint investment between the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors has enabled a breakthrough in lithium-ion cell technologies that could cut the price of electric vehicle batteries in half.
Armed with $7 million from from General Motors’ venture investment arm, G.M. Ventures, and $4 million from the Energy Department’s advanced energy research program, ARPA-E,...
Project Syndicate: KOIKE: Japan’s Rubble Economy -... →
KOIKE: Japan’s Rubble Economy
On March 11, a year will have passed since Japan was struck by the triple tragedy of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. The biggest obstacle to reconstruction has been the authorities’ inability to dispose of the mountains of debris left behind.
JWT: ‘Smart’ packaging opens digital opportunities... →
As noted in our recent trend report on food, packaging can be a gateway to more information and content via QR codes and similar technologies. The idea isn’t new (especially in some markets), but consumers are only gradually taking to it—5% of American adults with a mobile phone scan any kind of 2D barcode, up from 1% in 2010, according to a recent Forrester study—and brands are still testing...
Project Syndicate: PISANI-FERRY: Who Lost Greece?... →
PISANI-FERRY: Who Lost Greece?
The blame game in Europe may be about to begin. An agreement between Greece and its private creditors and public lenders will enable it to meet its next debt repayment deadline of March 20, but then what?
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Climate Scientists Need Your Help: Donate to the... →
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund continues to receive donations and offers of help from various stakeholders. [Click here to donate.]
We are actively working with several organizations in order to make CSLDF a one-stop resource for scientists looking for legal resources and we are currently pursuing several educational and legal initiatives which will be made public in the future.
In the...
Project Syndicate: ROACH: Asia’s Take on Austerity... →
ROACH: Asia’s Take on Austerity
With Europe on the brink of recession and recovery in the US finally getting some traction, the case for fiscal consolidation appears increasingly weak. But the case becomes stronger when one considers Asian countries’ path from crisis in the late 1990’s to astounding growth and prosperity today.
JWT: Mario Batali talks trends on JWT’s... →
In January, JWT launched “Worldmakers,” a talk show hosted by Worldwide CEO Bob Jeffrey on YouTube that highlights people who are making things happen through technological innovation and international imagination. Mario Batali, the chef and restaurateur, touched on two of our Trends for 2012 in a recent segment. “It’s going to take a lot of thought and a lot of innovation to make sure and/or...
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February 28 News: What Will Partial Build of... →
Other stories below: Santorum’s impious denial theology; debunking myths about wind turbines and carbon emissions
Keystone breakthrough may muffle Republican attack on Obama
A Canadian company’s decision on Monday to proceed with part of a U.S. pipeline might end up muffling one of the Republicans’ loudest arguments in this election year: that President Barack Obama has pursued failed...
Project Syndicate: YAO/YU: China’s Growing Growth... →
YAO/YU: China’s Growing Growth Risks
If everything goes right for China, it will surpass the US as the world’s largest economy, at least in current dollar terms, by 2021, and its per capita income will reach that of today’s lower tier of high-income countries. But the Chinese economy faces looming risks in the coming decade.
“A Ride of Death”, 1940s - Chris →
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Source: Gene Gable
Project Syndicate: EVANS: Nuclear Disarmament’s... →
EVANS: Nuclear Disarmament’s Midnight Hour
Last month, the Doomsday Clock’s hands were moved a minute closer to midnight by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which for decades has tracked the risk of nuclear catastrophe. Though few around the world seemed to be listening, the scientists’ argument was sobering, and demands attention.
MAD Magazine Covers, 1952-1955 - Chris →
Source: Doug Gilford’s Mad Cover Site
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Thank you to Doug Gilford
NG: Housing Affordability: St. Louis’ Competitive... →
Things are looking better in St. Louis. For decades, St. Louis has been slowest-growing metropolitan areas of the United States. Its historical core city has lost more than 60 percent of its population since 1950, a greater loss than any other major core municipality in the modern era. Nonetheless, the metropolitan area, including the city, added nearly 50 percent to its population from...
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‘All of the Above’: Obama Names His Failed... →
If we’re going to take control of our energy future and can start avoiding these annual gas price spikes that happen every year — when the economy starts getting better, world demand starts increasing, turmoil in the Middle East or some other parts of the world — if we’re going to avoid being at the mercy of these world events, we’ve got to have a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that...
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Bad Acid Trip: USGS Study Finds Humans Are... →
Call it the reverse Midas touch. Everything homo sapiens touches turns to acid.
A study led by the U.S. Geological Survey finds, “Human use of Earth’s natural resources is making the air, oceans, freshwaters, and soils more acidic.” The USGS news release explains:
This comprehensive review, the first on this topic to date, found the mining and burning of coal, the mining and smelting of metal...
LongNow: Mark Lynas Seminar Primer
“The Nine Planetary Boundaries: Finessing the Anthropocene”
Tuesday March 6, 02012 at the Cowell Theater, San Francisco
Journalist and environmentalist Mark Lynas has a knack for getting deep down into the crux of problems and scraping out the science. Though we shouldn’t ever mistake a clear view for a short distance, this knack is making the terrain between us and a sustainable, thriving...
LongNow: PanLex joins Rosetta at Long Now
PanLex, the newest project under the umbrella of The Long Now Foundation, has an ambitious plan: to create a database of all the words of all of the world’s languages. The plan is not merely to collect and store them, but to link them together so that any word in any language can be translated into a word with the same sense in any other language. Think of it as a multilingual translating...
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James Inhofe Takes the Climate Conspiracy Theory... →
by Chris Mooney, reposted from DeSmogBlog
James Inhofe, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has a new book out. It is entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.
I have not read it yet. So I cannot say much about its contents, but I can say this: The title suggests that Inhofe, like Rick Santorum, is endorsing the global warming conspiracy theory. Indeed,...
Masterpieces of French Cuisine - David →
When I moved to France a number of years ago, the hardest things to part with were my cookbooks. (And San Francisco burritos.) Some I shipped ahead – which, as readers of my Paris book know, I’m still waiting for today. Some got boxed and put in storage, and the rest were sold or given away. One of my favorite books of all time was brought to my attention by a woman who ate in the kitchen at...
Trolley Mission, 10th May 1945 - Chris →
POW camp
“Called Trolley, the purpose of these missions was “to provide all ground (non-rated) personnel with an opportunity of seeing the results of their contribution in the strategic air war against Germany.”
“Perhaps based on lessons learned from the first two missions, 2AD warned that “any violations reported of low flying (below 1000 ft above terrain) will be subject to severe...
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Must-Hear Podcast: John Cook of Skeptical Science... →
How exactly does one break a deeply embedded myth? We often believe that bombarding people with facts and figures is the best way to combat misinformation. But busting myths is not just about providing more data — it’s about presenting the data in a way that people will actually process it.
John Cook, founder of the popular climate website Skeptical Science, likes to think about...
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Researchers Create the Largest See-Through Solar... →
Homeowners associations are notoriously resistant to solar, often banning roof-top installations that conflict with their aesthetic values. But what if you could install an invisible solar system on your home that no one knows is there?
Last week, researchers announced they had produced the largest see-through organic solar module to date — a 170 square centimeter functioning module that is 14...
Project Syndicate: FELDSTEIN: Europe’s Empty... →
FELDSTEIN: Europe’s Empty Fiscal Compact
The EU’s current focus on creating a “fiscal compact,” which would bind member states to supposedly inviolable deficit ceilings, reflects the “European project” of political integration. Unfortunately, the proposed compact subordinates economic reality to political leaders’ desire for bragging rights about progress toward “ever closer union.”