By Andrew Crane-Droesch – Washington Post – 10/21/19 … Out of the blue, in August 2018, agriculture secretary George “Sonny” Perdue announced that my agency and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture would relocate from Washington, D.C., to some yet-to-be-determined location. He claimed that this would lower costs and bring us closer to “stakeholders.” … [Read more…]
From IEEE Spectrum: New Alternative to Bitcoin Uses Negligible Energy 15 Oct 2019 | 15:00 GMT New Alternative to Bitcoin Uses Negligible Energy Novel algorithms are secure like blockchains, but simpler, faster, and more energy-efficient By Charles Q. Choi A nearly zero-energy alternative to Bitcoin and other blockchain-based cryptocurrencies that promises as much security but … [Read more…]
From Mather Jones, September 26, 2019, Arctic Ice Is Melting Faster Than Expected. These Scientists Have a Radical Idea to Save It. Costly and controversial, yes. But we may be running out of choices. “We’re getting much more attention because of how dire thing are,” says inventor and engineer Leslie Field, founder of Ice911, a … [Read more…]
Guardian, 17 September, 2019: Six whistleblowers and ex-government scientists describe how the Trump administration made them bury climate science – and why they won’t stay quiet by Oliver Milman From weakening vehicle emissions to blocking warnings about how coastal parks could flood or the impact on the Arctic, the Trump administration is accused of muzzling … [Read more…]
From the Guardian, Sept 9th, 2019: “The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it,” Yoshiaki Harada told a news briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday. “The whole of the government will discuss this, but I would like to offer my simple opinion.” … Six years ago during the city’s bid … [Read more…]
To write his new novel, Red Moon, the sci-fi author became an expert on lunar colony tech IEEE Spectrum – By Sally Adee But for Red Moon, which is set so close to the current moment, the underlying “really” is the same thing as the explicit plot—it’s about China taking over the moon. China and … [Read more…]
Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted Ice blocks frozen solid for thousands of years destabilized ‘The climate is now warmer than at any time in last 5,000 years’ Reuters Tue 18 Jun 2019 12.02 EDT Last modified on Tue 18 Jun 2019 12.58 EDT A cemetery sitting on melting permafrost … [Read more…]
The Washington Post published an engaging essay about a nuclear waste depository on the Marshall Islands. Some good background and discussion of the meeting of two critical issues, climate change and nuclear waste. Beyond the comments from a shill or two from the pro-nuclear camp, the concerns of us common folk is quite clear in … [Read more…]
Plant owner Exelon said the reactor would shut down by September 30. from Ars Technica by Megan Geuss, 05/09/2019.
The Uninhabitable Earth, Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells: Page 42: This (environmental warmth) is among the things cosmologists mean when they talk about the utter improbability of anything as advanced as human intelligence evolving anywhere in a universe as inhospitable to life as this one; every uninhabitable planet out there is a reminder of … [Read more…]