Alaska has huge amount of ice-trapped gas

Alaska has huge amount of ice-trapped gas

• Uh huh.
• Tell me, what would it take to sequester the carbon from all that gas?

Attack of the Tiny Particles – be slightly afraid

Attack of the Tiny Particles – be slightly afraid

• On the one hand, I want to say, “Well, okay, this is something the EPA can address in the Obama administration.”
• On the other hand, I have to keep reminding myself that environmental problems have long ceased to be a merely national concern.
• So I guess I’d wish for leadership on a new wave of environmental treaties from the new President.

Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

• So, how much nuclear waste is going to be produced by those 4,000 plants, and where do they propose to put it?
• Let me guess: waste disposal is “somebody else’s problem”.
• If outlawing nuclear power is the only way to protect the commons, then that’s what needs to happen. It would have to be an international treaty, since waste emissions don’t respect national boundaries.

Utilities putting new energy into geothermal sources

Utilities putting new energy into geothermal sources

• Yet another sudden “innovation” that we could have been doing 50 years ago.

Australia plans electric vehicle network

Australia plans electric vehicle network

• Aren’t we all glad that the very difficult technology underlying this effort has *finally* been created? It’s not like we could have been driving nothing but electric cars for the last 40 years or anything.

About 2,500 flee chemical leak in western Pa.

About 2,500 flee chemical leak in western Pa.

• Oleum is not “similar to sulfuric acid” except in the sense that it can be made from sulfuric acid.
• Dripping oleum on a piece of paper causes the paper to ignite. That doesn’t sound like battery acid.
• A leak of battery acid would have been much more preferable to this oleum leak.

Greenland Melting Ice (video)

Greenland Weeps

Greenland Weeps

• Political action on climate change evolves over a catastrophe surface.
• One of the most important barriers on this surface is that the idea that sea level could rise significantly — tens of feet — during the lifetimes of those now living.
• As long as the mindset of political actors and members of the public is allowed to stroll along in a believe that the problem will not be acute until after they’re dead, the problem will be too abstract to suggest immediate action to mitigate the problem.
• I once thought that serious, rational contemplation of reversible but long-term problems would be enough for most people to get on board with early mitigation before the problems become acute.
• But I was wrong. In-your-face meltdown seems to be the only effective motivator.
• People talk about sheep. Now I see why.

Can rubber ducks help track a melting glacier?

Can rubber ducks help track a melting glacier?

• Rubber ducks.
• Part of a sophisticated science experiment.
• Whatever.

Pharmaceuticals are Polluting our Drinking Water

AP IMPACT: Tons of drugs dumped into wastewater

• This is your water.
• This is your water on drugs.