Dear Students, Congratulations on finishing the class on climate change! I enjoyed teaching you and learned a lot in the process. After correcting the answer papers, there were two common errors, which I though I would address here. What is the most water-friendly form of protein? (Which source of protein takes the least amount of …
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Action on Climate Change – Water – Janicki Bioenergy
Few people are brave enough to sip water from a sewage tank. But the world's richest man did it. A few weeks ago, Bill Gates drank a glass of water that came directly from sewage fed into Janicki Bioenergy's Omniprocessor. "The water tasted as good as any I’ve had out of a bottle. And having …
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Impacts of Climate Change
Imagine 6 kids in a group with a cake to share. The ring leader is older, stronger and eats more of the cake. The others know that equality dictates they should get equal shares, or at least shares depending on their sizes but lack the strength to back up feeble words of protests. Now imagine …
Cities and Climate Change
Coping with climate change - urban edition. More and more people are moving to cities. (www.un.org) They come seeking their fortunes - hoping for better lives - be it better education for their children, higher paying jobs, better healthcare etc. For the first time in history, the world became majority urban. So, its a good …
Daily Reading – 07/10/14
Light reading day. A light way to get to know climate change is to read "eco-fiction" or "cli fi". Some good works on the subject: https://freewordcentre.com/blog/2014/09/12-works-of-climate-fiction-everyone-should-read/ The social and unequal aspects of climate change: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosaly-byrd/climate-change-is-a-socia_b_5939186.html?utm_hp_ref=tw A possible way forward or a "wedge". Developed nations paying poorer countries with forests to not develop those forests: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/climate-trades
Daily Reading – 06/10/14
Taking out an insurance policy The government impact in beginning to cope with climate change is quite low: additional investment in R&D, which, to quote from the article, is "a rounding error", income (that could be selectively ploughed into compensation, research, temporary subsidies) from carbon taxes and different policies. The impact on the players in the private …
Daily Reading: 03/10/2014
Climate Change is a classic case of "Tragedy of the commons". Briefly, when a group of individuals (persons, companies, countries) have shared access to a common resource (think "air"), each person will behave in a manner that maximizes his return at the cost of the groups. In climate change, there's a twist. Developed nations who …
Daily Reading – 30/09/14
Today let's explore what the world thinks of climate change: First, consider who is impacted by climate change: Now, let's look at what they think: In China: broadly believe climate change is ooccurring it is not good and the world as a whole should shoulder the responsibility of mitigation: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/09/30/heard-in-the-hutong-global-warming/ In the US: The richer you …
Daily Reading – 29/09/14
Yes, Yes, Yes: This is THE solution. We are all, in essence, subsidizing the carbon consumption of the heavy users. There is NO incentive to build alternative solutions today. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kitconews/2014/09/22/climate-change-is-single-biggest-risk-to-global-economy-paulson-at-cgi2014/?hootPostID=89606d4377cdfd4842e1fbbfcd24a935 When valuing the worth of most assets today, most of the value lies in something called the "terminal value" - which is the value belonging …
Daily Reading – 28/09/2014
Today: all about clouds. Clouds are some of the most important, yet least understood, parts of the feedback mechanism involved in climate change. Do they increase global warming or not? All over the world or not. The short answer is: it depends. The longer answer(s) will follow soon as this is one the most intense …
Climaction 