It has become necessary for all scientists commenting on the exponentially increasing GHG climate disaster to explain the nature of this phenomenon. They need to climb down from their lofty theoretical world and go back to basics. To science and math that they learned in grade school. Here's a news flash: Politicians and the general public and even some of your colleagues do not understand the basic concept of positive feedback and exponential change. Do not take this understanding for granted. People like Obama and his top advisors who are well educated enough to have heard of this concept still don't apply it to climate change.   more »

That might be what CIA officials could admit were they not stuck with the usual "No comment" on reports that they are successfully winning over Afghan warlords by dispensing Viagra. A side note: How will the "chattel" of these local dictators be effected? More rapes at first, but then more heart attack deaths for tyrants too. As in the HBO series about polygamy though, the monsters of war will find Viagra addicting.   more »

Could you maybe get together with middle eastern leaders, and european leaders, and try to get them to collaborate with our solar and wind industries? Aramco, the Saudi oil giant wants to go solar, maybe ME leaders would like to see the Fertile Crescent become fertile again with wind, wave, and solar powered cloud formation and desalinization technologies. They have the money, we gave them in return for oil, we have the technology.   more »

Is this the first attempt to patent human weather control? This inventor is seeking a patent for seawater spray geo-engineering. "He proposes installing 1,000 or more devices that spray water 20 to 200 feet into the air, depending on conditions, from barren stretches of the West African coast, bluffs on deserted Atlantic Ocean isles, deserts adjoining the African, South American and Mediterranean coasts and other arid or windy sites." Could the Sahara be a new green expanse? Or the ME deserts, could the Fertile Crescent be fertile again? It's feasible. Mass production of the floating energy machines from molded fiber concrete in shipyards everwhere, starting on the US west coast could maybe do it. There's a green job wave.    more »

Are the twin positive feedback effects of methane release and ice melt/solar absorption already making the climate tipping point inevitable? Add in corporatism that fights any manufacturing trend towards GHG mitigation with political corruption, and how could the tipping point not be inevitable? There's another feedback mechanism too. Firestorm related to drought. Geo-engineering may seem megamaniacal, but it maybe the only alternative now. Cloud creating wave/wind powered floating platforms that send a fine mist of seawater up into the astmosphere to increase cloud reflectivity and rain/snowfall seems to be possible and less drastic than other schemes.   more »

Ponzi scheming is in the news again: About 90% of the currency circulating the globe in electronic accounts, seems to be imaginary. So, yes (as Steven Earl Salmony says here) I think... "the global manmade economic colossus {a veritable and proverbial, modern Tower of Babel in all its glory} could crash before the overproduction, over-consumption and overpopulation activities of the human species worldwide collapse the frangible biological systems and finite physical resources of the planet...". If we had a real currency that was based not on imaginary economic theories, or gold and silver as it once was, but on the commodities we depend on day after day, just maybe the labor of honest people could be turned into financial security without global scammers taking a 150% cut.   more »

This is troubling: "Worried about radioactivity? Coal's still your bogeyman. Dr. Chu says a typical coal plant emits 100 times more radiation than a nuclear plant, given the flyash emissions of radioactive particles." Here chu repeats a tired old nuclear industry talking point, and glaring false dilemna fallacy. The choice is not between nuclear contamination and coal radiation, it is between distributed smart grid renewable energy and fossil/nuclear central power grid corporate monopoly.   more »

But really Chrysler, if you are serious please go Fiber Forge carbon fiber body/frame technology too. That might put you in position to buy out GM in a few years. The key to plugin hybrid, is lightweight. Carbon fiber does it while actually increasing crash protection strength and safety. A 1200 pound economy plugin hybrid would beat the world to the punch. make it a Chrysler.   more »

I was at first comically dismayed at the inane response to the first real smart grid thread on Gristmill all about Austin's smart grid project (they own their own grid!). Why complain though, it's another opportunity to repeat myself, yet again, in another fashion. Maybe someone will comprehend something from my techo-bloggerel this time? Hehey. Consider distributed computing, remember Napster anyone? Instead of a central server with computers connected to it, it was made up of computers acting as servers. A smart grid uses distributed generation and storage controlled by distributed computing to adjust demand to match supply.   more »

An excellent Gristmill article on the state of the auto companies' remaining denial. How do their points of view on bail out compare? Ford really gets it. GM has problems with focus, but has the vastly overpowered overpriced Volt. Ford is further behind on plugin but shows promise for 2012. These companies can be saved! How? Force them to upgrade to hypercar, Fiber Forge stamped carbon fiber body/fraime design, or they get no bail out. Mileage would double or triple in every model. Sales would soar.   more »

Descent into the Maelstrom. Deflation is rearing its depressionary head. The tipping point between recession into depression is approaching. A maelstrom of falling prices and profits and layoffs powers itself, one by one industries enter the event horizon and plunge into bankruptcy, the memory of the corporate entity lingers after chapter 11. Individual fortunes are gone for good, thanks to tighter individual bankruptcy laws, lobbied in by credit card companies disguised as banks, too big to fail.   more »

This interview is really great! Tom says: '...it's about national power -- not power so we can stomp all over the rest of the world, but power so we can actually be where we need to be as a country, to lead the world they way we need to lead the world and also to pass on what we need to pass on for the next generation."' My advice, use the force Tom!   more »

A long discussion all about cars finally turns to reality. 40,000 deaths per year and how many serious injuries? Why not bike at 20 mph instead? It really puts the whole car issue in another light, any alien observor would definitely spot the insanity. The Walmart stampede killed one person and it was on the news constantly. The Hadj stampedes in Mecca regularly kill hundreds. 40,000 per year and maybe 200,000 serious injuries? And we go on driving like maniacs? Yow. Collective insanity rules the roads.   more »