Climate Change Culprits

We Have Met the Enemy

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 ~ It's us.



The growing number, severity and cost of "natural disasters" are what climate change models predict. Will we continue to be reactive, or address the root cause?

Even as GOP presidential front-runner Rick Perry scrambles to address dozens of severe wild fires stemming from record heat and drought, he continues to miss the obvious. The rest of them are equally unhinged. They're wrong on the science. They're wrong on the economics. They behave like J.K. Rowling's Ministry of Magic enabling the Death-Eaters. They're a cult.

Capital Efficiency

Yadda Yadda Yadda

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~ You can't swing a dead cat in a room full of investors these days without whacking at least one person praising the virtues of capital efficiency. Capital efficiency? Say what?

Capital efficiency in the startup investment world refers to a company's ability to make more progress, or advance to stages of lower risk, with fewer investor dollars. It's a laudable objective to be sure; these days who doesn't prize the ability to do more with less? However, the mindless mantra of capital efficiency should merit more scrutiny.

It's swell if you're a software play. Put a couple of wired geeks in a room with a case of Monster, fast rigs and a T-1 and you can birth a beta in mere weeks that will wow the digeratti.

But what if you're a startup in something other than software? Regrettably, you'd be in a position of explaining, not a good place from which to pitch.

At the risk of being a heretic, I'm going to call out the naked emperor: software is boring. And redundant. Too many are piling on with me me-too plays and feckless filigrees on niche plays that mean little. Who cares? There's more to a good investment than a modest need for capital.

Where's It Wednesday—XLVIII

Another easier one. Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

Phytelligence to Present at NWEN FLF

First Look Forum of 12 Startups

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~ Phytelligence, a new biotech spin-out from WSU has been selected as one of 12 companies to present at the upcoming NWEN First Look Forum on October 18. between 150 and 200 people, primarily investors, are expected to attend.

Phytelligence is built on innovative intellectual property developed by WSU Professor Amit Dhingra and a sterling team of researchers to produce better micro-propagated fruit plantlets using tissue culture techniques. The team has successfully and repeatedly propagated many apple, pear, cherry, grape and strawberry cultivars using techniques that can be extended to other plants. Attributes of plantlets using Phytelligence technology that are valuable to growers include greater plant vigor and genetic uniformity. Plantlets also attain maturity more quickly, use less energy to produce, and cost less. Phytelligence is being built on sustainability principles, and has several innovative aspects to its business model.

More details to be announced in October.

Climate Walruses

"I Weep for You"

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After the depressing news of what is happening to oysters, I thought I would repost this from 12/13/09.

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~ Climate change deniers have been in full throat since the breaking of SwiftHack (often poorly and misleadingly named as "Climategate".) This supposed "scandal" is a calculated piece of propaganda, timed for maximum impact on the Copenhagen conference and transmorgified and regurgitated for brazenly craven reasons by the right-wing noise machine.

Their intellectual coherency, the relevancy of what they say... it reminds me of something I heard once...

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Faint Hope

Obama Disappoints, Again

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~ In theory a decision on whether to grant the go-ahead on the Keystone XL pipeline won't be made until the end of the year. However, Hilary Clinton at State has, incredibly, signaled her OK with it by endorsing a final EIS that avers no significant environmental impacts.

It is inconceivable that Obama will not approve it, even as it is inconceivable that such a disastrous approval could be made despite the consequences. NASA scientist Jim Hansen writes that they include:

...irreversible effects on biodiversity, the natural environment, reduced water quality, destruction of fragile pristine Boreal Forest and associated wetlands, aquatic and watershed mismanagement, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disruption to life cycles of endemic wildlife particularly bird and Caribou migration, fish deformities and negative impacts on the human health in downstream communities.

And then there's the carbon emissions from the tar sands themselves, the development of which the pipeline will accelerate. Stabilizing the climate is looking increasingly like a long shot; this pushes it off the plane of possibility over the edge into the abyss of hopelessness.

Yeah, but it creates jobs!

Energy Lies—IV

"As President, I Will Lower Gas Prices"

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~ Michele Bachmann claims she could get gas under $2/gallon if elected President. Could she do it? How much influence does the President have on the price of gasoline?

The short answer: very little. The slightly longer answer: some, but not of a kind that would make much of a (positive) difference.

The price of gasoline is the sum of 6 components: the cost of crude oil, the cost of refining it, distribution, marketing, profits and taxes. It follows that lowering the price of gasoline must involve lowering one or more of these 6 components. So how could the President do that?

Politics Explained

Yoram Bauman: Left Right and Center

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~ The world's only stand-up economist explains all you need to know about politics in 7+ minutes:



On budget deficits (starting about 4:37):

It's almost like the left wing blames the right and the right wing blames the left, but I blame the center. You guys are supposed to be the idiot savants of democracy. When it comes to economic matters it turns out that you're just idiots. We don't have a budget deficit because the left wing believes in mandates or because the right wing believes in markets, we have a budget deficit because the middle believes in magic.

Every time a left-wing politician is like: "Hey I've a great idea for a road or a school or a bridge" swing voters are like: "Yeah, let's do that!" And every time a right-wing politician says we should cut taxes, swing voters are like "Yeah let's do that!" Then it turns out we have a budget deficit and of course you blame the politicians.

This is like going to the doctor's office for your annual check-up and the doctor tells you you've been putting on weight. And the left side of your brain says: "Hey, I guess I better exercise more" and the right side of your brain says "Hey! I guess I better stop eating so many donuts." And the middle part of your brain says: "I guess I better get a new doctor!"

Awkward Alliance

Confounded Elephants

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~ The Keystone XL Pipeline is making strange bedfellows:

While the pachyderms will quickly get over their embarrassment as if it never were, the Obama Administration regrettably feels none at all for their latest groveling. Abandoning all pretense of commitment to a sustainable energy future, they embrace the diametrically opposite choice—the dirtiest fuel in the most environmentally damaging way, threatening a critical aquifer, and condemning us to climate disaster. And politically, they will score no lasting points with Big Oil or the GOP. Everyone loses, except those that stand to profit at our collective expense.

Where's It Wednesday—XLVII

Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

Seeds of Outrage

The Power of Civil Disobedience

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~ Tim DeChristopher, a US political prisoner, writes from jail, a month into his 2-year sentence:

With civil disobedience cases, however, the government puts an extra value on an apology. By its very nature, civil disobedience is an act whose message is that the government and its laws are not the sole voice of moral authority. It is a statement that we the citizens recognize a higher moral code to which the law is no longer aligned, and we invite our fellow citizens to recognize the difference. A government truly of the people, for the people, and by the people is not threatened by citizens issuing such a challenge. But government whose authority depends on an ignorant or apathetic citizenry is threatened by every act of open civil disobedience, no matter how small. To regain that tiny piece of authority, the government either has to respond to the activist’s demands, or get the activist to back down with a public statement of regret. Otherwise, those little challenges to the moral authority of government start to add up.

It is happening again, now, as hundreds are jailed at the White House protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. While not yet approved, the fix appears in. We will seemingly allow the construction of a pipeline from the environmentally disastrous Alberta tar sands to Texas, where refiners will process the devil's excrement into fuels, many of which will then be shipped elsewhere. The oil patch will get richer, the environment dirtier, the air yet fuller with greenhouse gases, but we will not see cheaper energy, more security, or some magical economic recovery due to all the jobs it will supposedly create.

Meanwhile, real solutions go begging.

Stalking Wind

Yet Another Kind of Device

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~ New York design firm Atelier DNA has come up with an interesting new kind of device for harvesting wind energy:

The proposed design calls for 1,203 “stalks,” each 180-feet high with concrete bases that are between about 33- and 66-feet wide. The carbon-fiber stalks, reinforced with resin, are about a foot wide at the base tapering to about 2 inches at the top. Each stalk will contain alternating layers of electrodes and ceramic discs made from piezoelectric material, which generates a current when put under pressure. In the case of the stalks, the discs will compress as they sway in the wind, creating a charge.

Star's Reach

A Novel of the Deindustrial Future

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~ John Michael Greer is a terrific writer of many books and two superb blogs. One is Star's Reach, a serialized story describing a future where climate change and the world's limited carrying capacity have necessitated a reversion to a neo-feudal society. "Set four centuries after the decline and fall of our civilization, it uses the tools of narrative fiction to explore the future our choices today are shaping for our descendants tomorrow." Unfortunately, he adds a chapter only once a month, but there are now 29 of them, so the story is well along. And well told; I've been following it from the beginning and look forward to each month's installment.

Also worth reading is the weekly Archdruid Report, where Greer provides a closely reasoned set of essays on technology, ecology and the future fate of civilization. Greer is also the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America; his writing is deeply thoughtful and very well worth a read.

Increasing Startup Success

Money Helps

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~ Newsflash: research shows that startup companies that receive funding are more likely to succeed!

No, really. People actually spent time to study this. Researchers from Harvard and MIT, no less, found that startups that raised money from angel investors were

• 20-25% more likely to still be around four years later
• 9-11% more likely to be acquired or have an IPO
• larger, with 16-20 more employees
• 16-18% more likely to have been granted a patent

Putting numbers on these things is interesting, I suppose, but the fact that funded companies do better than ones that don't get funded can easily be placed in the "Duh!" file. Companies that don't get funding can't as easily hire employees, pay for patent filings or do any number of things necessary to execute on the business plan. Thus, fewer succeed to be around years later, much less have a successful exit.

Next time, can researchers study something less obvious? For example, as measured by outcomes:

Oil Shale Regulation

The Need for "Predictable Regulatory Structure"

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~ Is developing oil shale environmentally acceptable?

The Obama Administration is taking another look at the Bush-era decision to allow oil shale development on 2 million acres of federal land. The environmental costs and energy benefits are sketchy, but the industry hungers to begin. Reflexively pro-industry members of Congress are, as usual, in high dudgeon over the possibility of anything but a hands-off regulatory approach.

Scott Tipton, a Colorado Republican put it thus:

The road to viability for the oil shale industry is reliant on a predictable regulatory structure and an environment in which companies can invest in research and development and create jobs.

"A predictable regulatory structure."

Shale Game

Does Anyone Know the Rules?

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~ Shale oil is both being pushed ever-harder, and is under growing scrutiny for its impacts and its evident lack of sustainability. Before posting some current thoughts, I am reposting my earlier overview from the waning months of the Bush Administration.

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Monday the U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized regulations to encourage oil shale development on federal lands. The rules specify royalty rates and lease sizes and are intended to create a regulatory framework to encourage commercial development, primarily in the so-called Green River Formation, a two million acre tract of federal land straddling Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that optimists in the Fossil Industry think may contain perhaps 800 billion barrels of "recoverable" oil.

"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
—Attributed to Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Where's It Wednesday—XLVI

An easier one this week. Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

The Folly of Common Sense

What We Think We Know ... and Don't

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~ Which is more useful, common sense or expertise?

In recent days there's been another typical dust-up between parties who never agree: the unabashedly right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page on the one hand and Nobel economist and unrepentant liberal Paul Krugman on the other. The specifics of the disagreement, while important to a better understanding of the economy, are not nearly as interesting as the subtext of what makes a compelling argument.

Car Runs on Wine and Cheese

Sustainable Wine Touring?

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~ This would be a great way to tour wine country:

[A] new experimental car, called the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel ... is capable of running on an ethanol fuel made from wine that isn't up to drinking grade, or whey, which is also a byproduct of the cheese or chocolate-making process.

One could taste a wine and skip the cuspidor. Just spit into the tank, and on to the next stop.



Update: More here.

Solar Continues to Shine

More Photovoltaic

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~ Solar is becoming more and more feasible compared to other forms of generation. The latest:

In an announcement that underscored the growing shift from concentrating solar power (CSP) technology to photovoltaics, especially in the United States, Solar Millennium announced that it would convert its 500-megawatt (MW) project in Blythe, Calif. to PV.

In a press release Thursday, U.S. subsidiary Solar Trust of America, cited the lower cost of PV modules and more favorable lending conditions for the shift in technology.

Construction has already begun on the first phase of the project. When completed, the two-phase project will be 1,000 MW – far larger than any current operating site.