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- Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the energy discussion in light of the unfortunate hay which was made from Solyndra's failure, US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu re-iterated that clean energy should not be a political issue -- that it's just common sense. That may be true, but it doesn't mean it will remain apolitical. As Pericles once said... "Just because you do not take an interest in - The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry
A look at the increasingly outsourced world of underground pharma. Domestic black-market chemists handle R&D and distribution, and the actual manufacturing is done in China. Seems that way with everything. - Google Street View for building energy efficiency
Essess is doing drive-by thermal imaging in high density urban areas across the US, hoping to target possible building energy efficiency opportunities. Another company is using urban satellite imagery to choose the best rooftops for solar energy siting. Big Brother may be watching you... but at least occasionally he's got the right idea. - The Neapolitan Mob’s Most Dangerous Family
A character sketch of Paolo di Lauro, one of the Neapolitan Camorra's former leaders. Southern Italy it seems, like some parts of Mexico, operates with more than one quasi-state organization governing in parallel. A tacit negotiation between the official and unofficial systems, which sometimes erupts into violence -- ironically, at those times when the so-called "criminal" organizations have become weak. - Underneath Paris
There's a secret society underneath Paris. Two thousand years worth of tunnels and passageways ready to explore.
- Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Twitterfeed
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 2 days ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 3 days ago
- The tar sands have to stay in the ground. Stop the pipeline… again. And again. And again, if necessary. act.350.org/sign/kxl/ 3 months ago
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 3 months ago
- What I learned about coal industry finances this week: amateurearthling.org/2012/01/13/coa… 4 months ago
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: china
Cradle to Cradle + Renewable Energy = Material Autarky
Somehow, in the course of watching this talk by Orville Schell on China and long term thinking, I was finally struck by the potential consequences of really doing Cradle to Cradle design, and scaling up renewable energy. It would mean … Continue reading
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Tagged china, economics, energy, material, public, renewable, sustainability, trade
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Shared Links for May 24th
Math and the City – The same scaling laws seem to apply to both cities and organisms: infrastructure requirements per capita (or per unit body mass) go down as population (size) go up. Not so surprising, since both cities and … Continue reading
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Tagged africa, agriculture, art, bicycle, biology, china, cities, design, economics, food, gardening, infrastructure, nasa, policy, politics, space, sustainability, system:filetype:pdf, system:media:document, trade, transportation
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Shared Links for Apr 3rd
Stealing Commodities – Our infrastructure is (unwittingly) built around the assumption that the materials it is composed of are, and will remain, cheap, and not worth the trouble of stealing. If this assumption breaks down, copper power lines start disappearing … Continue reading
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Tagged argentina, cars, china, climate, commodities, economics, food, infrastructure, local, money, oregon, policy, politics, privacy, propaganda, science, security, sustainability, taxes, technology, transportation, vmt
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Shared Links for Mar 31st
Privacy and the Fourth Amendment – Our laws, or at least, our interpretations of them, desperately need to be updated to deal with information and privacy in a computer mediated world. What will be the framing cases, and how will … Continue reading
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Tagged bailout, banking, bicycle, china, christianity, crisis, cycling, economics, environment, espionage, finance, fixie, green, imf, internet, law, moyers, nytimes, policy, politics, privacy, religion, security, sustainability, technology, tibet, video
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Shared Links for Mar 9th
Tent City Rapidly Growing in Sacramento – Wow, a tent city forming within Sacramento? What proportion of people ended up living in shantytowns and similar impromptu dwellings and communities during the Great Depression I wonder. Ironic and sad, given the … Continue reading
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Tagged bailout, california, censorship, china, conyers, crisis, depression, economics, economy, fdic, finance, harvard, homeless, HR801, internet, lessig, military, openaccess, pentagon, politics, propaganda, publishing, sacramento, science, security, shanty, technology, transparency, war
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Shared Links for Feb 11th – Feb 12th
These are my links for Feb 11th through Feb 12th
Shared Links for Fri, Feb 6th, 2009 through Sat, Feb 7th, 2009
These are my links for Fri, Feb 6th, 2009 through Sat, Feb 7th, 2009:
- Overcoming Obstacles to U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change – Guidelines from the Brookings Institute for the US and China to cooperatively address climate change and clean energy issues, without being combative. Executive summary sounds good, whole thing is 80 pages long. Given the positive economics for many energy efficiency measures, I thought there should have been a little more focus on the often erroneous assumption that addressing these issues has to be costly. (tagged: energy sustainability china policy climate efficiency brookings )
- Amendment to Eliminate Bike Infrastructure in Stimulus – DeMint (R – SC) and Coburn (R – OK) are trying to kill all bike infrastructure investment in the stimulus package. Call them and your own senators and make sure it doesn't happen! (tagged: politics bicycle infrastructure policy transportation stimulus )
- The Transparent Society – The essay that later became Brin's book of the same name, in which he argues that first, universal surveillance is coming, whether we like it or not, and second, that a world which is transparent – in which surveillance goes both (all) ways, is vastly preferable to one in which the illusion of privacy is maintained, and the powerful are the only ones with access to our information. (tagged: technology privacy transparency surveillance brin wired )
- Make Love Not Porn – Hardcore (esp. internet) porn has unfortunately come (ha!) to substitute for sex-ed in our culture, so says Cindy Gallop. I think she has a point. And so she made this website, to try and point out the flawed generalizations that one might arrive at from being "educated" by online porn. I think it's worth noting also though, that the diversity of pornography on the web has steadily increased over time, and there's a lot of positive and realistic, and non-exploitive depiction of sex out there now, if you want to look for it. In particular Abby Winters, Beautiful Agony, and I Shot Myself come to mind. It's ironic (absurd?) that the site has an "18+ only" clickthrough on the front page. (tagged: porn sex love ted education )
- Dept. of Energy to draft energy efficiency rules… 30 years late. – I can't believe I'd never heard of this. Apparently for the last 30 years, presidents have been refusing to direct the Dept. of Energy to draft enforceable energy efficiency regulations, despite being directed under law to do so by Congress. Finally in 2005, 14 states sued, and won, and Bush still failed to comply in a timely manner. How many other instances of the executive branch (both democrat and republican!) completely ignoring Congress on important issues are there? It's rare enough that Congress gets anything right – that the president should ignore them when they do is unconscionable! (tagged: politics policy energy nytimes green efficiency standards regulation )
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Tagged bicycle, brin, brookings, china, climate, education, efficiency, energy, green, infrastructure, love, nytimes, policy, politics, porn, privacy, regulation, sex, standards, stimulus, surveillance, sustainability, technology, ted, transparency, transportation, wired
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What is the Fed doing?
Trying to keep track of all the shenanigans innovation going on at the Federal Reserve is difficult. Econbrowser and Interfluidity among others have been trying to help… but every time I read about how our money system works, I find … Continue reading
Rearranging vs. Reinventing the Global Economy
The US road to recovery runs through Beijing says Asia Times Online, and Thomas Barnett emphatically agrees. Everyone is talking about how to reorganize the global economy, but mostly the discussion is about how to most efficiently export our recently … Continue reading