Isaac Asimov

The White House's Clean Power Plan

    The White House is releasing the new Clean Power Plan for the USA today. It is a revised version of the plan released last year with changes to the plan that addresses concerns raised by opponents of the plan as well as the Supreme Court ruling from this past June. It is a huge step towards showing the rest of the world that America will lead when the Climate Conference in Paris this December takes place.

   
     Watch the video above to learn more. There are better and cleaner alternatives to coal, oil and natural gas, alternatives that greatly reduce pollution in many of its forms. A clean energy future is possible and vital for the future. Back the President and the White House and push for a Clean Energy Future!

Renewables At It Again

     Germany the other day made 78% of its energy using renewables. Wind turbines were spinning like mad in the North Sea earlier this week, setting a new mark for renewable energy production. Germany is now producing more than 25% of its daily energy with renewables, and that number keeps growing. Say what you want about Wind and Solar...you can't deny that they make enough energy to power an industrialized nation with 80 million people.

     Just imagine what would happen if put more wind and solar in the USA? And I'm not talking about lower profits for the Koch Brothers.

Happy Earth Day

     "Now I know why I am here. Not for a closer look at the Moon, but to look back at our home, the Earth."        
                                                                                                     - Alfred Worden, Apollo Astronaut

     "Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust in a sunbeam."
                                                                                                      - Astronomer Carl Sagan

LOCAL Comes in June!

     I found a new organization called LOCAL on Twitter. LOCAL is a new video and social media channel that launches this June. They are dedicated to sharing stories of people from all over that are changing their communities with projects that involve renewable energy, urban food sources and things like that. LOCAL wants to provide a platform for crowdsourcing for others who want to do the same in their neighborhoods. You can find out more about LOCAL here.

Sea Grass planting at my neighborhood marina, 2013

     Did you help turn an eyesore in your neighborhood into a garden? Or a green space? LOCAL wants to hear your story! Check out the LOCAL website and share!

Milk Bones for People?

     My dog Mona is more than a handful. If she were a bra, she would be size EEE. Seriously. We found poor Mona at the Anne Arundel ASPCA in December of 2013 on Christmas Eve. A pure bred, chocolate lab with the shiniest coat I have ever seen, of course we jumped at the chance to own her. The angels above sent us a dog with very little discipline and no training, so to say she has been a pain in the ass is an understatement. But, like most rescues, she has been well worth it.

     While Mona is difficult, she is also very trainable. It did not take us long to get her on a schedule, nor did it take long to teach her to sit, lay, shake, speak and stay (sometimes). What has been the real mother is breaking her of her old habits. She has incredible focus. But when she attempts to charge down the street and tackle some kid on a bike while out for a walk because she thinks thats how you are supposed to play with kids, that focus is a monster. Getting her to train that focus on me or my wife has been a struggle, but it has been paying dividends. Small, incremental dividends. At a snail's pace. An excruciatingly painful and slow snail's pace. Like if the snail was frozen and crawling across the surface of Pluto...in the winter...at night...billions of years from now after the Sun has burned all of its fuel and disappeared from the sky. And the Universe has grown cold and quiet.

     With progress there are growing pains. Mona knows

Funny

Stephen Hawking is Pretty Smart

Correction from February 10th

Correction: 

     Apparently, Wind Turbine Syndrome IS a real thing. I did not coin the phrase. So I wanted to clear that up. You can read up on a recent study about whether Wind Turbines affect health or not at this link from Phy.org

     Click the link to read the original post Vaccines, Wind Turbine Syndrome and the War on Science

Vaccines, Wind Turbine Syndrome and the War on Science

     There is a large group of people in the US that believe vaccinating your kids can cause autism. While the majority (I don't know the exact number, but its a very BIG majority) don't believe this--because the science says its safe--and vaccinate their kids, many refuse because of a very small sample of studies that link vaccines and autism. Those studies have been debunked and there is no proof that vaccines can cause autism in any child. Yet, since Jenny McCarthy says vaccinating causes autism, people listen.

     The part that really pisses me off with this is that ignorant people who don't even understand what a vaccine is are putting other people's kids in danger. (I still don't know what to say about the smart people who don't vaccinate their kids.) Kids can die from things like diphtheria, rubella and

It's Official...Sorta

     If you rely on the political section of your newspaper for whats new in science, then you are way behind. The US Senate has voted and the results are in. The Senate the other day determined that Climate Change is real, overwhelmingly, according to the Los Angeles Times. At this rate, I'm sure the vote to determine if the Earth orbits the Sun will take place in the Fall. I suppose the vote to settle the whole "we need oxygen to breathe" debate will have to wait until next year.

     But alas, this story does not have a happy ending. While the Senate voted 98-1 that climate change is real, they failed to pass the follow up resolution, which would have acknowledged accepted that humans are having an impact on the Climate and it could prove disastrous. Senator Inhofe, who voted to accept that Climate Change was real, had this to say after the brief glimmer of hope:

     "Climate is changing. The hoax is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think they are so powerful they can change climate. Man can't change climate."

     The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

     I know I get all preachy and climb on my soapbox, but these are the people who we chose to lead. These types of actions paint our nation's leaders as out of touch, worried more about getting re-elected and pork barrel riders than doing the jobs they were put into position to do. Thank God we don't have to rely on them to "vote" on scientific discoveries every time there is one. We still live in the Dark Ages.

      Thanks US Senate! Proving once again that you are behind the times and too busy posturing to listen to the experts. Guess what, the majority of us already know that Anthropogenic Global Warming and Climate Change are real. Now its time to acknowledge how we are affecting it and, we want to know is what are you going to do about it?

Ohio Takes a Step Back

     Ohio governor John Kasich just signed a bill passed by the Ohio State Legislature that rolls back renewable energy standards. In short, customers will no longer get discounts or credits for producing renewable energy, the utilities are no longer required to produce a certain amount of energy with Solar, Wind or other renewables. And utilities are no longer encouraged to find energy efficient solution for their customers. You can read the article here.

     What the fuck? Katich ran for office on a campaign that promised voters he would create jobs and was all for clean technology and renewable energy. Signing the bill shows he is yet another lying politician who is in bed with the oil and coal industries. And he will say whatever he has to in order to get elected. It is common nowadays to just toss around that today's politicians are being paid by the fossil fuel industry. When things like this happen, can you blame us? What other logical reason is there to NOT start switching over to renewables? If there ever was a perfect set up for Wind Energy in the US, than its along the shores of Lake Erie in a state decimated by pollution and with a large amount of people living near the poverty line.

     All of these steps back from renewable energy and environmental regulations has my head spinning. Is it really all about money? I mean, renewable energy poses a grand opportunity to put America back on top, to clean up the air and water and land, to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and update the nations power grid. The last one is important for National Security reasons. The potential for growth and innovation in the renewable energy sector far exceed those which could come about by staying married to fossil fuels. So, why the huge push for fossil fuel energy? Are our government officials really in the pockets of the Oil and Coal giants?

     I can't wrap my head around this stuff sometimes. More often lately, in fact, I feel like my head is going to explode, which might be good. Maybe my brain remnants will spread some common sense and enlightened thinking around to the masses.

The Vote on Global Warming

     The US Senate will once again...that's right...AGAIN...vote on whether or not there is really such a thing as Anthropogenic Global Warming. They did this before, and I guess they didn't like the outcome. As often as they bring Man-made Climate Change up for a vote, maybe they got mixed up and think they are actually repealing Obamacare.

     Hey Senate! Can't you do something more constructive, like pass legislation to upgrade the national highways and power grid? Or keep the crooks on Wall Street from making bad investments with taxpayer dollars? Let the qualified people with Physics and Chemistry and Meteorological degrees handle the Science stuff. You need to govern.

Starting 2015 Off Right

     Welcome to 2015 dear reader. As you know, last year was a watershed year for Climate Guy. Not only did I post more every week than ever before, I had more new visitors to the site than ever before! (There must be a lot of bored people out there.) Now that I have my legs under me, I look forward to pushing forward into the New Year with renewed focus to attract and reach a wider audience. If you have bored friends, tell them about the site! I guarantee to it to almost as entertaining as those Grumpy Cat memes...almost.

     More to come this week, but it being Monday after the long holiday, I wanted to start things off with the proper attitude. Over the weekend, I stumbled across a headline that stuck in my mind. It basically told Baby Boomers to butt out of the Climate Conversation because Generation X and Y and the Millennials were the ones that were going to have to deal with it. It made me think of Congressman Boehner, Senator Inhofe, Ruppert Murdoch and Senator Mitch McConnell.

     Seriously, you old farts, butt out! We young people will be dealing with this long after you are gone. Make the smart investment and start backing renewable energy. It is what will keep your respirators working when they put you in a nursing home. It will keep you warm and the lights on while the nurses are spoon feeding you mashed bananas. Worry about what God thinks then, not now. He's got better things to do, like clean up the mess you all have made on this planet.

Happy New Year!

     I want to send out a heartfelt and humungous thank you to all of my readers out there. I had reserved expectations for this site when I threw myself into it last July and have been overwhelmed by number of readers that have showed up. December looks like it will end with almost 3500 page views, which would be the most viewed month ever! (November was higher, but due to some of my own site maintenance, that months numbers are a bit skewed.)

    So, before the New Year begins and I hit the keyboard with renewed vigor next Monday, January 5th, I want to thank you all for stopping in. I hope you learned something, had a laugh, nodded your head in understanding or went out and tried to learn something new about the Climate Crisis and the world changing work we could achieve if we try.

     To you and yours, Happy New Year! Let's make 2015 the year we turned a corner and started really making the world a better place.

Climate Guy
(John)

I Think It's About Time...

Let's Put Things Into Perspective...

     A lot of people out there are against Wind Farms. They complain about the number of birds that are killed each year by spinning wind turbines, which to them is an enemy of nature. Being a bird lover and an environmentalist, naturally this concerns me. Is it true? Do Wind Farms (either off-shore or on the sides of mountains) kill that many birds? Are some of those birds on the Endangered Species List? Are wind farms going to cause any birds species to become extinct?

     Well, the truth is that birds are killed by Wind Farms. Some of the birds killed each year are indeed on the Endangered Species list. But how many are just killed by wind farms vs other killers of birds? Estimates vary depending on where you find your information and there are more than a few unknowns.

     Let's do a quick and unscientific comparison. Just to get the mind working.

     While wind turbines do kill birds, there are other technologies out there that kill far more birds than all the wind farms combined. For example: buildings, cars, buses, trucks, airplanes, helicopters, boats, highways, pipelines, power lines and canals. Just to name a few. Human activities that also kill birds? Habitat destruction caused by coal mining, oil drilling, deforestation, the filling in of wetlands, oil spills, toxic run-off from refineries, chemical spills and air pollution. Just to scratch the surface. So, when you look at it like that and see the bigger picture...what do you think kills more birds? Wind Farms or all of the things associated with oil and chemical industries?

     Eagles and other birds of prey are the most at risk since they fly with eyes to the ground, searching for prey. If they would only look up! Wind Power companies are working on bird warning systems to prevent birds from flying into wind turbines. So we should see a decline in bird deaths due to wind generated energy. As the industry grows and more turbines are installed, the industry will be able to locate wind farms away from the migratory patterns of birds and help reduce the impact.

     What have the other industries done to reduce their number of bird kills? Have those that say they are against wind energy so they can save the birds stopped driving their cars? Have they stopped flying in planes? Have they divested from companies that pollute the oceans, fill in the wetlands and cut down the forests? Because, that kills birds too.