Many observers have been heartened by the increase in natural gas production, which has contributed to significant significant declines in US greenhouse gas emissions. It is not actually the most important factor reducing emissions in the first half of 2012, as my friends at CO2 Scorecard and I showed earlier
Read moreOn October 1, 2012, the Brattle Group published an update to its 2010 numbers on coal-fired power plant retirements, and it “finds that 59,000 to 77,000 MW of coal plant capacity are likely to retire over the next five years, which is approximately 25,000 MW more than
Read moreI had great fun at Google on September 12th, 2012 talking about the implications of computing efficiency trends for mobile sensors, controls, and computing more generally. This version contains my latest thinking and is my most polished version to date. You can watch it below (or by clicking here). My
Read moreKCRW in Santa Monica, CA had a discussion show this morning (“To the Point”) about electricity used by data centers, prompted by the NY Times article by Jim Glanz. Jim led off the show in discussions with the host (Warren Olney), and then I, Andrew Blum of Wired, and Andy
Read moreKatie Fehrenbacher over at GigaOm did a service for those of us interested in data centers by compiling some of the issues with the recent New York Times article. She summarizes her conclusions (with which I agree) here: I feel the same way about the NYT’s series that I
Read moreJim Glanz, writing in the New York Times this past Sunday, described existing inefficiencies in Internet infrastructure, but omitted important context that can help interested readers really understand the problem. The article, in which I’m quoted, is Glanz, James. 2012. “Power, Pollution, and the Internet.” New York Times. New
Read moreWriting in Environmental Research Web yesterday, Evan Mills of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reviewed Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs. Here are the first couple of paragraphs: Entrepreneurs and investors alike will profit from Jonathan Koomey’s new book on how to cool the climate while garnering
Read moreThe folks at PARC have posted online a 2002 talk on climate change by the late Stephen H. Schneider. For those who didn’t know Steve, he was a genius unlike any other, and a very interesting speaker. I heartily recommend that you check it out.
Read moreI teamed up with the folks at CO2 scorecard to analyze the causes of Q1 2012’s record low carbon emissions for the US, and you can read the full research note here. The summary findings follow below: In this research note we show that the mild winter of 2012
Read moreThis two-pager gives the CBO’s latest estimates of what caused the increase in deficits in the past 11 years (for a bit of high-level discussion of the results, go here). For those interested in causality (i.e., which actions are responsible for changes in the deficit and national debt)
Read moreThe Data Warehousing Institute newsletter dated August 21, 2012 contained an interview with me by Linda Briggs titled “Make your data tell a story”. Here’s the first question and answer. For the complete interview, go here. Question: With more tools at our disposal for analyzing, charting, and displaying data,
Read moreI had great fun talking about Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs with Moira Gunn of TechNation in June, and the interview is now posted here. The interview focused on how we know climate is a problem, why uncertainty can make communicating the implications of the science
Read moreThe Arctic Sea-ice Monitor tracks the extent of sea ice over the Arctic, and has for a long time posted a wonderful graph that shows sea ice extent over each month in a given year. In the new graph now appearing on their site (reposted below) they show the monthly
Read moreJim Hansen just published a terrific summary of the past few decades of temperature measurements, and it shows the stark reality: increasing the average temperature even a modest amount substantially increases the chances of extreme temperature events. I showed this result conceptually in Figure 2-17 of Cold Cash, Cool Climate
Read moreUnless you’ve been asleep for years, it’s impossible to miss the data explosion. In 1998, for example, the first Google page index counted 26 million unique web pages. By 2008 that number had grown to 1 trillion, which means the number of web pages doubled every 8 months
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