Climate and Energy

Energy

• Energy Solutions in a Changing Climate – Experts evaluations on climate solutions
• Nuclear Waste: Ideas vs Reality – Why the nuclear waste discussion is bananas.
• Mothers for Nuclear – My Story – How I went from a nuclear-skeptic to a supporter
• Radioactive Reflections – A radiochemist’s take on nuclear power, frog legs, and cigarettes
• At The Source: Where 13 % of Swiss Electricity Is Created – visiting a nuclear power plant in Gösgen, Switzerland.
• Warming My Hands on Nuclear Waste – An enlightening tour of a nuclear waste interim storage facility ZWILAG.
• Radiation and Cancer Risk – What Do We Know?
• Saving Lives Is Not Shameful – Let’s Break the Stigma on Supporting Nuclear Power
• A three-part series on energy accidents, looking at the famous Chernobyl in context:
  • 1 “What About Chernobyl?” World’s Deadliest Energy Accidents in Perspective
  • 2 “What About Radioactive Wastelands?” A Look at Chernobyl’s Effects on Nature
  • 3 World’s Worst Energy Accidents in Environmental Perspective

Energy Economics

• Nuclear Energy Is a Crucial Piece of the Carbon-Free Puzzle – Achieving that goal would be much, much more expensive without nuclear.
• Nuclear Energy Is the Fastest and Lowest-Cost Clean Energy Solution – Nuclear energy is slow and expensive? I used to think so.
• Off the Press: Nuclear Energy Is a Fast and Inexpensive Way to Improve the World – Translation of my piece in the Finnish papers. Handy TL;DR version of the longer blog piece just above.

 

Thoughtscapism @ Bonn COP23

• Thoughtscapism Goes Nuclear at Bonn COP23 – In support of nuclear for decarbonisation.
• Wild Wild Bonn: Anti-nuclear activists get up close & personal, try to get me seized by the police – First hand experience of ineffective communication.
• Backstage, front row experience of the controversial US energy panel at COP23
• The Right Price for Saving the Planet Depends on the Energy Form – The aftermath of the US Panel raised questions on the economics of low-carbon energy
• Conversations with an Anti-Nuclear Protester, Take Two – A repeat attempt at dialogue in the aftermath of the US panel.
• Give Nuclear a Seat at the Table – Action outside UNEP Sustainable Innovation Forum after it banned nuclear energy from its event.

 

Climate and Agricultural Emissions

• Is There a Consensus About Climate Change? – What are the indicators to look for?
• How Does CO₂ Warm the Earth? – How do we know it’s not the sun?
• GMOs and the Environment touches on the effect of biotechnology on CO2 emissions
• Three Ways Science Could Improve the World Through Rice – GMO Rice and Methane
• On Farming, Animals, and the Environment touches on how much green house gas emissions result from different farming methods

 

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I would always start approaching a field (especially one that I am not personally an expert in) by considering review articles and the information from respected science organisations. Here is a piece about the scientific landscape on anthropogenic climate change, as seen through the trends in published scientific papers.

Here are some good sources that usually provides links to peer-reviewed research:

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://climate.nasa.gov/

http://www.noaa.gov/climate.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

http://scienceofdoom.com/

http://tamino.wordpress.com/

On the scientific consensus, compiled by NASA:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

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On the environment, evidence, and environmentalism

Interesting study, Discursive diversity in introductory environmental studies, published in spring 2015, highlights something that has concerned me quite a bit: how identifying one self as an environmentalist relates to critical evaluation of evidence, or rather, the lack thereof.

The study found that two thirds of introductory environmental science courses in the US covered perspectives from one political ideology only, failing neither to contrast these views with other approaches, nor encourage critical thinking in evaluation of their basic premises. 

This is worrisome to say the least. For environment’s sake, lets put the onus on critical thinking and science. There is a promising new movement which aims to redefine environmentalism as an evidence-based practice, avoiding ideologies or preordained conclusions. I rather like that approach. You can read more about the views of the independently founded arm of the Finnish Ecomodernist Association.

Here you can find the original English introduction of the idea: Ecomodernist manifesto.

And I rather like this piece, titled Ecomodernist elevator speech

In addition to treating humans as invasive, traditional environmentalism seems to romanticize a return to nature that may be appealing to those of us in the West who have never depended on nature for survival, but probably isn’t so romantic to a subsistence farmer who has just lost his crop to floods. We can’t expect people in the developing world who fight with nature every single day to be on board with a world vision that doesn’t let them escape that fight. Ecomodernism acknowledges that humans are drawn to the beauty and spirituality of nature and therefore aims to preserve and protect nature by lessening human impact and dependency on it.