This article about the politics of mandating disclosure of campaign contributions got me thinking about what intellectual honesty means and why it’s important. Someone who is intellectually honest follows the facts where ever they may lead, and does so in spite of discomfort, inconvenience, or self-interest. That means
Read moreInfoWorld and CIO Magazine listed me as one of their “Green 15”, the “2012 Superstars of Sustainable Information Technology”. I was the only individual human who made the list, but I’m in good company, along with familiar IT names like eBay, Google, and Facebook, and some big IT users
Read moreMy friend Alex Zwissler over at the Chabot observatory did a nice post that begins with an experiment you can do at home: This will be really exciting. …Today we’re going to do a real life SCIENCE experiment! … OK, well sort of. For those of you nice enough to
Read moreTMP Muckracker has reported that “Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are circulating a bill which would limit their state agencies’ ability to calculate sea-rise levels, a proposal that one member of the state’s Coastal Resources Commission science panel has termed “bad science.” The bill has not yet been
Read morePhoto credit: Jonathan Koomey I like site visits—there’s nothing like seeing a company’s innovations in person. In the case of Makani Power, I harbored some core misconceptions about their technology, and the visit set me straight. Corwin Hardham, CEO and one of the co-founders of Makani,
Read moreJoe Romm at Climate Progress today reported on a new International Energy Agency report showing that carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record in 2011 or 31.6 billion tons (CO2). The key point that Romm makes is that these emissions increases are consistent with the MIT no-policy case,
Read morehttp://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22?pagenumber=1 http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/federal-deficit-barack-obama-spending-stimulus-budget-historic-trends.php http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/federal-spending-taxes-and-deficits-are-lower-today-than-when-obama-
Read moreCSRwire just posted the first of 11 short essays that I adapted from material in Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs. This essay summarizes the main findings from climate science and explains why I chose to write for entrepreneurs and not the usual policy crowd. The
Read moreRick Piltz of Climate Science Watch today posted a review of Cold Cash, Cool Climate. Here’s his top line summary: Jonathan Koomey’s new book, Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs, offers a concise, compelling analysis of why innovative entrepreneurial approaches are needed in order
Read moreNicholas Kristof wrote a summary article this past Sunday about a series in the Chicago Tribune showing how flame retardants came to be in furniture and other household products. This is yet another example of corporate interests putting their own profits ahead of the public interest, and it’s no
Read moreThe Washington Post today summarizes findings on the decline in global fish stocks from a recent World Wildlife Federation study, a situation that Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia has called “the end of fish”. The report documents declines in many different species on both land and sea,
Read moreCorporate Social Responsibility Wire (CSR Wire) just posted a short synopsis of Cold Cash, Cool Climate in advance of a series of eleven blog posts of mine that will appear there in coming weeks. In those posts I’m boiling down the key lessons from the book in bite-sized
Read moreAs reported in Climate Progress, climatologist James Hansen has done comparisons of fossil fuel reserves from two sources to concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, using a conversion factor of 2.12 GtC per ppm of CO2. For example, see Figure 1 from Hansen’s more detailed writeup: Figure
Read moreAccording to the MIT news, researchers at MIT have created a sensors using carbon nanotubes that can tell grocers just how ripe their fruit is. This is an interesting example of innovative low-power sensor technology that will help enable a revolution in applications of information technology to business (as
Read moreDan Lashof compiles findings from some studies analyzing why the utility industry in the US has shown little recent interest in building new coal plants. The main causes relate to market forces, not EPA’s recently announced new source performance standards (although those will have some effect if natural gas
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