
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Healthy Home Healthy Planet
- Pat's blog While it is described as “The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher”, this is false humility, as it chronicles the present and past life and times of mathematicians in their context. Recommended.
- Tim Harford's “More or Less'' Tim Harford explains – and sometimes debunks – the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life
- Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard on how businesses can help our collective environmental mess Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard set the standard for how a business can mitigate the ravages of capitalism on earth’s environment. At 81 years old, he’s just getting started.
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- Karl Broman
- Slice Sampling
- NCAR AtmosNews
- Dollars per BBL: Energy in Transition
- All about models
- Brendon Brewer on Overfitting Important and insightful presentation by Brendon Brewer on overfitting
- Hermann Scheer Hermann Scheer was a visionary, a major guy, who thought deep thoughts about energy, and its implications for humanity’s relationship with physical reality
- All about Sankey diagrams
- Gabriel's staircase
- Awkward Botany
- Logistic curves in market disruption From DollarsPerBBL, about logistic or S-curves as models of product take-up rather than exponentials, with notes on EVs
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- "Perpetual Ocean" from NASA GSFC
- Thaddeus Stevens quotes As I get older, I admire this guy more and more
- distributed solar and matching location to need
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Musings on Quantitative Paleoecology Quantitative methods and palaeoenvironments.
- Nadler Strategy, LLC, on sustainability Thinking about business, efficient and effective management, and business value
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- Mike Bloomberg, 2020 He can get progress on climate done, has the means and experts to counter the Trump and Republican digital disinformation machine, and has the experience, knowledge, and depth of experience to achieve and unify.
- The Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard
- Mrooijer's Numbers R 4Us
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Higgs from AIR describing NAO and EA Stephanie Higgs from AIR Worldwide gives a nice description of NAO and EA in the context of discussing “The Geographic Impact of Climate Signals on European Winter Storms”
- "The Expert"
- Prediction vs Forecasting: Knaub “Unfortunately, ‘prediction,’ such as used in model-based survey estimation, is a term that is often subsumed under the term ‘forecasting,’ but here we show why it is important not to confuse these two terms.”
- What If
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- Label Noise
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
- Comprehensive Guide to Bayes Rule
- Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation
- Earth Family Beta MIchael Osborne’s blog on Science and the like
- Ted Dunning
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- London Review of Books
- American Statistical Association
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model Five Thirty Eight’s take on why pandemic modeling is so difficult
- Number Cruncher Politics
- Mark Berliner's video lecture "Bayesian mechanistic-statistical modeling with examples in geophysical settings"
- Mertonian norms
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
climate change
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- Climate Change: A health emergency … New England Journal of Medicine Caren G. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., and Regina C. LaRocque, M.D., M.P.H., January 17, 2019 N Engl J Med 2019; 380:209-211 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1817067
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- Interview with Wally Broecker Interview with Wally Broecker
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- Nick Bower's "Scared Scientists"
- Klaus Lackner (ASU), Silicon Kingdom Holdings (SKH) Capturing CO2 from air at scale
- Non-linear feedbacks in climate (discussion of Bloch-Johnson, Pierrehumbert, Abbot paper) Discussion of http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/2015GL064240/abstract
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- US$165/tonne CO2: Sweden Sweden has a Carbon Dioxide tax of US$165 per tonne at present. CO2 tax was imposed in 1991. GDP has grown 60%.
- "Lessons of the Little Ice Age" (Farber) From Dan Farber, at LEGAL PLANET
- "Warming Slowdown?" (part 1 of 2) The idea of a global warming slowdown or hiatus is critically examined, emphasizing the literature, the datasets, and means and methods for telling such. In two parts.
- David Appell's early climate science
- Ice and Snow
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Grid parity map for Solar PV in United States
- The beach boondoggle Prof Rob Young on how owners of beach property are socializing their risks at costs to all of us, not the least being it seems coastal damage is less than it actually is
- Isaac Held's blog In the spirit of Ray Pierrehumbert’s “big ideas come from small models” in his textbook, PRINCIPLES OF PLANETARY CLIMATE, Dr Held presents quantitative essays regarding one feature or another of the Earth’s climate and weather system.
- "When Did Global Warming Stop" Doc Snow’s treatment of the denier claim that there’s been no warming for the most recent N years. (See http://hubpages.com/@doc-snow for more on him.)
- `Who to believe on climate change': Simple checks By Bart Verheggen
- Earth System Models
- Sea Change Boston
- Tamino's Open Mind Open Mind: A statistical look at climate, its science, and at science denial
- Climate impacts on retail and supply chains
- Ellenbogen: There is no Such Thing as Wind Turbine Syndrome
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- Climate change: Evidence and causes A project of the UK Royal Society: (1) Answers to key questions, (2) evidence and causes, and (3) a short guide to climate science
- Risk and Well-Being
- ATTP summarizes all that stuff about Committed Warming from AND THEN THERE’S PHYSICS
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- Paul Beckwith Professor Beckwith is, in my book, one of the most insightful and analytical observers on climate I know. I highly recommend his blog, and his other informational products.
- The great Michael Osborne's latest opinions Michael Osborne is a genius operative and champion of solar energy. I have learned never to disregard ANYTHING he says. He is mentor of Karl Ragabo, and the genius instigator of the Texas renewable energy miracle.
- Simple box models and climate forcing IMO one of Tamino’s best posts illustrating climate forcing using simple box models
- Ray Pierrehumbert's site related to "Principles of Planetary Climate" THE book on climate science
- Climate Communication Hassol, Somerville, Melillo, and Hussin site communicating climate to the public
- Documenting the Climate Deniarati at work
- Exxon-Mobil statement on UNFCCC COP21
- Warming slowdown discussion
- weather blocking patterns
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- The Sunlight Economy
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- Updating the Climate Science: What path is the real world following? From Professors Makiko Sato & James Hansen of Columbia University
- World Weather Attribution
- And Then There's Physics
- "Mighty Microgrids" Webinar This is a Webinar on YouTube about Microgrids from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), featuring New York State and Minnesota
- NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index report The annual assessment by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the radiative forcing from constituent atmospheric greenhouse gases
Archives
Jan Galkowski
from Canada PM Mark Carney
Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, said in Davos this year that the longtime U.S.-led, rules-based system was rupturing, and that middle powers like Canada had to diversify their partnerships if they hoped to survive. “The old order is not coming back,” he stated. “We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
From the New York Times.
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thanks DT for making the case for solar and EVs and NOT oil
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Go EVs!
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2026 March 14 [J 073.87] “Pi Day”



Geographic coordinates N42.227, W71.230, Westwood, MA, USA
Rare and hard to find 1937-1938
https://667-per-cm.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ChronicaBryophyta-1938.pdf is a PDF of 1938 paper ‘A YEAR-BOOK Devoted to the Study), of Mosses and Hepatics</a> by Fr. VERDOORN, Volume X, 1937, published by the Chronica Botanica Company, Leiden.



Posted in bryophyte, zero carbon
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EPA official actions on their “endangerment finding”
Posted in climate, greenhouse gases, zero carbon
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Could this be why DT wants Greenland?
“Camp Century”, a former U.S. military base, is buried in the ice in Greenland. Apparently it contains lots of radioactive and toxic stuff.
Maybe they don’t want the USA retroactively embarrassed? This also would not be a problem if climate change were not real, but it is, despite what DT and cronies say and think.
Posted in climate change, climate denial, radioactivity
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AI and GPT don’t manufacture results from nothing
If the AI and GPT result reported in Nature is other than superstition,there must be a statistical model justifying it.
I’d like to know what it is and how it compares to existing well known prediction schemes and algorithms. Right now, can’t tell.
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16th September 2025, Westwood, MA
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Posted in zero carbon
Tagged Atrichum, macrophotography, mosses, New England garden, Polytrichum
Comments Off on 16th September 2025, Westwood, MA
Pohlia lescuriana
Posted in ABLS, blog, Botany, bryology, bryophyte, bryophytes, mosses, New England Botanical Society
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Mckibben vs Nordhous
There’s a review of McKibben’s new book in The New Atlantis at https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-bill-mckibben-lost-the-plot
I think people should read in full the Wikipedia article about Nordhaus before buying into this, even much at all I’d say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nordhaus
Welcome comments here.
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NOAA climate assessment which has been taken off the federal site
… By You Know Who …
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Fast-Track Review of Latest Evidence for Whether Greenhouse Gas Emissions Endanger Public Health and Welfare
On 7 August 2025, the United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine initiated a new study to “review the latest scientific evidence on whether greenhouse gas emissions are reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare in the U.S.” (press release). Summarizing its purpose:
“The committee conducting the study will focus on evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009 — when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first declared greenhouse gas emissions a danger to public health. Any conclusions in the committee’s report will describe supporting evidence, the level of confidence in a conclusion, and areas of disagreement or unknowns.
The EPA recently announced that it intends to rescind its “endangerment finding,” a statement issued by the agency in 2009 that found that greenhouse gas emissions do pose risks to public health and welfare. The National Academies study will be completed and publicly released in September, in time to inform EPA’s decision process.
“It is critical that federal policymaking is informed by the best available scientific evidence,” said Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences. “Decades of climate research and data have yielded expanded understanding of how greenhouse gases affect the climate. We are undertaking this fresh examination of the latest climate science in order to provide the most up-to-date assessment to policymakers and the public.”
The committee will be led by Shirley Tilghman, professor of molecular biology and public affairs, emeritus, and former president, Princeton University. The committee will also include experts in public health, extreme weather, climate modeling, agriculture, infrastructure, and other areas.
The committee has issued a request for information to the public and scientific community. The study is being self-funded by the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.”
Some recent NAS papers related to this subject:
- “The intensification of the strongest nor’easters.”
- “Human and climate impacts on the alpine Critical Zone over the past 10,000 y.”
- “Barystatic sea level change observed by satellite gravimetry: 1993–2022.”
- “Abrupt shift of El Niño periodicity under CO2 mitigation.”
- “Human influence on climate detectable in the late 19th century.”
- “Fossil fuel methane emissions likely underestimated in a model based on atmospheric δ13C trends.”
- “Observation-based estimate of Earth’s effective radiative forcing.”
- “Increasing boreal fires reduce future global warming and sea ice loss.”
There are of course many more.
RFI.
P.S. 8 August 2025: Another report related to this “Outrage over Trump team’s climate report spurs researchers to fight back”. See article in Nature.
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A New Phase in Trump’s War on Data

“RIGGED”
Nothing new …
Censorship of Science by the administration of President Donald Trump
“Azimuth Backup Project (Part 5)”, upcoming presentation by Prof John Carlos Baez
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Biofluorescent marsupial

(from Nature)
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25mm compact lens equivalent to 50mm
Versatile yet simple, the black M.Zuiko Digital 25mm f/1.8 II Lens from OM System is an IPX1-rated 50mm equivalent prime for Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras. Its normal field of view is complemented by a fast f/1.8 maximum aperture for controlling depth of field and producing selective focus effects, and it also benefits working in difficult lighting conditions. Two aspherical elements with ZERO coating are used in the optical design to help reduce spherical aberrations in order to achieve a high degree of sharpness, and these elements also help to reduce the overall size and weight of the lens. Additionally, a Movie & Still Compatible (MSC) autofocus system is employed to deliver quick, quiet, and precise focusing performance to suit both video and photo applications.
Sample photos:





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“Macro Treasures”
Flower photography by Thomas Stirr. Part of his Web site Small Sensor Photography.
Flickr Account
I also have a collection of photos, mostly of bryophytes, on Flickr.
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2025 April 19 J109 some close-ups of Polytrichum



































OM Systems OM5 camera with OM System M.Zuiko 90mm macro and non-macro 1:3.5 digital lens. Also used M.Zuiko 40mm-150mm 1:4 zoom macro, and Mitakon Zhongyi 20mm f/2 4.5x Super Macro Lens for Micro Four Thirds.
Most of these are also stored in the author’s Flickr photostream.
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A New Lens
A new lens for macrophotography, an OM Systems M.Zuiko ED40-150mm F4.0 PRO.
































































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