I love renewable energy. It fascinates and excites me in all my geekness. But it needs to be competitive. Is the tide turning (get it?)? Science Daily:
Apr. 24, 2013 — Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.
Evidence adds up: three studies of human impact on climate. Three new studies were published today, each looking at a different aspect of the human impact on climate, each carrying a sobering message on the consequences of human activities on our environment. The first says recent warming is unprecedented in 2,000 years. A second reports climate zones are shifting faster due to warming temperatures. The third argues impacts from greenhouse gas emissions are not caused solely by warming temperatures.
Now that Sandy has exacted a steep toll in lives and property, the question is unavoidable: why do so many people in America refuse to take climate science seriously?
Rick Santorum at the RNC, in August 2012: the former presidential candidate has voiced Christian Dominionist ideas. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters
I am not assuming that Sandy was the direct consequence of human-caused climate change. But with this fresh evidence of the impact of climate issues on real people, how is it possible for anyone to think that thousands of scientists around the world are engaged in an elaborate hoax?
The standard reply is that some powerful organizations – above all, in the fossil fuel industry – think that they can benefit from misleading the public, and have funded a successful disinformation campaign. There is a lot of truth to this answer, but it isn’t the whole truth.
Ever heard of the “Committee on Science, Space and Technology” of the United States Congress ? This committee has jurisdiction over: “all energy research, development, and demonstration, and projects therefor, and all federally owned or operated non-military energy laboratories”.
http://science.house.gov/jurisdiction
So… you would expect the members of this committee to be well educated, right ? Or at the very least you would expect them to have at least a rudimentary understanding of science, wouldn´t you ?
So Mitt Romney is in the news right now a little more than he should be. And it seems that people have very short memories with regards to his gaffes and ineptitude. And then he makes people laugh about climate change (that hilarious gag).
Here is high-brow rapper Baba Brinkman’s take on Romney and his climate humour: