For hundreds of years, ambitious european explorers sought a mythical Northwest Passage thru arctic ice, in the hopes of developing easier trade routes with Asia.
In many cases, frozen bones are all that is left of those thwarted dreams. The most famous of the expeditions, a well equipped British endeavor lead by Sir John Franklin, disappeared in 1846. Wreckage thought to be one of Franklin’s ships has only recently been uncovered by Canadian scientists. Thick ice and bitter weather have, until recently, defeated every European effort to navigate the passage. Norwegian explorer Roald Admundsen finally made it through, after a 3 year ordeal, in 1906.
It’s popular for climate deniers to tell themselves that scientists predictions about global warming have not turned out. Next time you year that, you can point them here.
James Hansen et al, Science, August 28, 1981
For those interested, and well heeled enough to afford the fare, Crystal Cruises will be offering a pleasure cruise to points of interest along the formerly unreachable coast, in 2016.
Case in point: the fabled Northwest Passage, where retreating ice cover is turning a route that’s traditionally been a dream of expedition-style adventurers into a 21st-century luxury-cruise destination. On Aug. 16, 2016, the 1,070-passenger Crystal Serenity will embark on a 32-day cruise from Anchorage to New York, making it the largest and most luxurious ship to ever make the trip.
“As we all know, typically expedition-style ships do this,” said Edie Rodriguez, president of Crystal Cruises. “We’re in a position to give people a different way to experience such a unique itinerary.”
That experience will combine enrichment seminars, guided shore excursions and visits to three communities in the Canadian Arctic with fine dining, spa services and slot machines, not to mention a putting green and driving range. All-inclusive fares start at $19,775 per person. (The cruise is currently fully booked but Rodriguez expects space to open up as previously booked passengers’ plans change.)
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has committed to donating $1 to Conservation International for every unique use of the hashtag #NatureIsSpeaking, up to $1 million.
Should the human race suffer a massive die-off or even extinction, Mother Nature, to hear Julia Roberts tell it, won’t much care.
“I’ve been here for eons,” she says, giving voice to the natural world in a 2-minute video released today. “I’ve fed species greater than you. And I’ve starved greater species than you. My oceans, my soil, my flowing streams, my forests: They all can take you—or leave you… Your actions will determine your fate. Not mine.”
Roberts brief monologue—she’s heard, never seen, as viewers are zoomed over dramatic landscapes and eventually into space—kicks off a series of 10 such short films called “Nature Is Speaking.” They’re being posted on the Web, screened this week (as leads-in to four keynote speeches) at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin, Tex., and are clearly intended for online sharing.
Along with Roberts, an A-list of movie stars donated their time and intonations to the project, which was produced by Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International and co-created with Lee Clow, the ad legend responsible for Apple’s(AAPL) Think Different campaign (“Here’s to the crazy ones.”). In the segments, we hear from various natural elements and sentient beings questioning why humans pay so little attention to the hazards posed by overpopulation, an overheated climate, and other ecological pressures. Harrison Ford holds forth as a deeply exasperated ocean. Kevin Spacey is an unbearably smug rainforest. Ed Norton is soil—with anger issues. Penelope Cruz speaks for fresh water; there is nothing you wouldn’t do for “Agua” when she’s through. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) likes the campaign so much it has committed to donating $1 to CI for every unique use of the hashtag #NatureIsSpeaking, up to $1 million.
Project is here. I’ll be tweeting this using the hashtag #NatureIsSpeaking as suggested.
Above, my interivew with Chris Mooney at the American Geophysical Fall Meeting in 2011. He lays out the thrust of his book “The Republican Brain”.
For years, Mooney has pursued the question of why Science has become an ideological battlefield in US politics.
Mooney has now been hired to blog on science for the Washington Post, and many observers are taking this as an indication of a newly increased seriousness on contentious areas of science, in particular global climate change.
In August, the Washington Post seemed to finally turn a corner on human-caused climate change, launching a series of editorials demanding a change in both dialogue and action.
On Friday, the Post took a major step toward improving its woefully inadequate climate coverage. Greg Schneider, the paper’s national economy and business editor, and David Cho, deputy business editor, announced:
We’re thrilled to announce that Chris Mooney is joining The Post to create a new blog about the environment….
He will start as part of Wonkblog, and build toward the future rollout of a standalone blog that will pull together the excellent work of The Post’s all-star roster of energy and environment writers.
Germany’s transition to renewable energy, the EnergieWende, has been on a breakneck pace for a decade, surprising even its most ardent proponents, and continuing to confound nay-sayers in the fossil fuel sector who have predicted disaster at every turn. Stay alert for a steady drumbeat of Germany bashing, as the fossil fuel industry keeps cranking out misinformation, and encouraging negative reporting of the process.
While fossil fuel dominated political system political system in the US continues to push for more and more climate killing release of CO2 – the Germans keep plugging away, somehow defying the critics. The country maintains low unemployment, a booming fiscal surplus, and now, in recent weeks, has done away with University tuition – a crushing burden to students in the US and elsewhere.
Because solar PV and wind power are weather-dependent, they are often considered unreliable — at best, a feel-good contribution to the energy supply of industrial countries. Critics charge that intermittent power generators such as wind and the sun cannot replace base load capacity — the minimal volume of energy that must be available at all times — even on windy and cloudless days, to keep factories humming and homes warm in the winter. In the past, coal, gas and nuclear provided steady base load energy day in and day out from huge, centralized plants in the vicinity of urban centers and industry.
But a system based on renewables looks different from the old model. Instead of a base-load supply that is pretty much the same from day to day, low-carbon energy systems like Germany’s rely on a patchwork supply that differs every day, even every hour, and differs from region to region, village to village. When the sun is shining in Bavaria but there’s no wind on the North Sea coast, the decentralized smart grid seamlessly distributes electricity where it’s needed — and the other way around when it’s windy but not sunny. Bioenergy and small hydroelectric power plants contribute regularly to the mix and, in the future, so will offshore wind farms.
The smarter the grid is and the better it is connected across regions, countries and international borders, the more smoothly power will be generated and traded, keeping the supply as steady as the old base-load models. German experts say that storage technology that harnesses electricity at times of overproduction is not imminently necessary if a system has a decentralized smart grid — another technology that, far from the stuff of science fiction, is ready and affordable now.
One indisputable piece of evidence on behalf of this new model: Power outages in Germany have decreased (to 15.3 minutes in 2013) as the renewable content of its power supply has increased since 2006; in all of Europe, only Denmark (which has higher renewable content than Germany in its power supply) and Luxembourg have higher supply security.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla., Oct. 3 (Reuters) – Construction crews are wading into chest high pools of muck in a race against time to install pumps Miami Beach officials hope will help control an annual super-high tide threatening to flood south Florida’s popular seaside city next week.
Around Oct. 9, a so-called “King Tide” is expected to push almost an extra foot (30 cm) of water onto streets, going over sea walls and forcing residents to wade through flooded streets, an annual event causing widespread damage.
“It’s been a nightmare,” said Andreas Schreiner, who has seen past high tides bring water up to and even inside his group of neighborhood restaurants, causing tens of thousands of dollars in losses due temporary shut downs and cleanup.
The event, caused by the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth, provides a taste of the potential impact of a longer-term two-foot sea level rise predicted for south Florida by 2060, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The low-lying greater Miami area, with a population of 5.7 million, is one of the world’s most at-risk urban communities, scientists told a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing in April.
The King Tide is expected to rise to almost four feet. With seven miles of coastline, Miami Beach is already seeing more frequent salt-water street flooding at high tide, according to Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales.
To combat such widespread flooding, the city has set aside $300 million to 400 million to install up to 50 pumps in the coming years in what some say is a vain effort to protect an estimated $23 billion of real estate.
Bigger sea walls are not an option as Miami Beach’s flooding is caused largely by water rising underfoot through porous limestone bedrock. Officials concede pumping water back into the ocean is only a short-term solution.
In Colorado, a state with a recent history of severe drought, epic wildfires and historic floods, the Republican candidate for governor is not backing down from his stance denying the role of humans in driving climate change.
In a debate with incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper Tuesday night, GOP nominee Bob Beauprez was asked whether humans are contributing significantly to climate change and whether we can reverse it. No and No, answered Beauprez.
Five years after he characterized those who are concerned about climate change as religious zealots, Beauprez said “powers bigger than us” are in control of Earth’s fate.
“But are we going to end or alter the path that Earth’s evolution is going to take? I don’t think so,” Beauprez said in the debate hosted by the Denver Post. “I think the Earth’s already figured that out and powers bigger than us have figured that out.”
Hickenlooper, for his part, said humans are contributing to climate change that to reverse it will take “a concerted effort, not just on the part of the United States, but worldwide.” Of course, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human activity is driving recent global warming.
To the degree that youtube conspiracy videos reflect a part the global mind’s internal dialogue, you could call this one “Signs of a sea change you may have missed”.
Ventura made an idiot out of himself a few years ago with a widely shared episode of his TRU TV series “Conspiracy Theories”, charging that climate science, and scientists, were all part of some dark, globalist cabal seeking to control our lives. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sent these links as “proof” of the “global conspiracy of AGW”.
He gives a down to earth, insider’s perspective on where the EV industry is heading. I’m working on a new piece that will explore in more depth, and this is some of the raw material I’m working with.
When will lithium-ion battery prices reach the price point of $100 per kWh that so many in the media are calling the “magic number?” According to Winfried Hoffmann, an analyst at the consulting firm ASE, the glad day will dawn sometime around 2030.
Hoffmann, the former CTO of Applied Materials, is a well-known figure in the photovoltaic world. In the early days of the solar energy boom, he made some predictions about the future cost curve of solar modules that have proven to be quite accurate. Hoffman applied similar logic to his predictions about battery costs, which he outlined in detail at a presentation during the recent EU PVSEC meeting in Amsterdam.
In an interview with pv magazine, which covers the solar energy field, Hoffman said he expects lithium-ion batteries to “break the sound barrier” of $100 per kWh around the same time that the world’s total storage capacity reaches one terawatt-hour. That figure currently stands at approximately 7 GWh, so assuming an average annual growth rate of 31%, cumulative capacity of one tWh will be achieved by 2030.
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Hoffman characterized his prediction as an optimistic one, saying, “Experts in their own field are often unable to imagine how fast prices can fall.” However, a recent report that focused on Tesla’s battery technology appeared to reach a similar conclusion, saying, “Our assessment shows that pack pricing for the 2025 time scale could be as low as $167/kWh.” Even that is conservative compared to the vision of Elon Musk, who has said that he would be “disappointed if it took us 10 years to get to a $100/kWh pack.”
