CFL vs LED
Here’s one of the 6 fluorescent fixtures in my kitchen. They each have a 24″, 1200-lumen fluorescent bulb in them, and cost around 50 bucks, I think. 2 of them have begun to buzz loudly enough that spouse and I want to replace them. I’m thinking of replacing them with the next wave of energy-efficient [...]
Painting ourselves into the ‘God corner’
In church today, I was listening to the sermon, offered by Father Fred Heard, who was preaching about faith, as presented in today’s Gospel of the mustard seed. As usual, I was viewing this through my weird faith/science duality (and here): I love faith communities, but don’t believe in a human-like God who [...]
An interesting sky, and an even more interesting morning
Friend, fellow Trinity parishioner Peter Bostock was kind enough to take me to work with him this morning. As mentioned previously, Peter is V.P. at Solaicx, a startup that is perfecting a process for making better, cheaper single-crystal PV cells. Having my own personal physics PhD for a couple of hours was a lot of [...]
A greener gulker.com World HQ
So, after being inspired by Ted Turner’s keynote at the Solar Conference in Long Beach (he swears he runs around his giant ranch house turning off lights that people leave on) I decided to tighten up World HQ.
Previously, I’ve left the kitchen lights on much of the day, knowing they were low-wattage flourescents, but a [...]
New law requires Pentagon to plan for climate change
From GovernmentExecutive.com:
“The Defense authorization bill approved by the Senate this week would require the Pentagon to consider the effects of climate change on military capabilities, facilities and missions.
“The House version of the bill (H.R. 1585) contains similar language, which means the provision likely will become law.
“The measure requires military planners to assess the risks of [...]
GE will speed contraction of incandescent-bulb business
“General Electric Co. will accelerate the shrinking of its 128-year-old incandescent light-bulb business in response to global pressure to switch to energy-efficient lighting.
“GE said it will close seven of the 54 plants and warehouses that serve its incandescent-bulb business by November 2008 and lay off 1,400 workers. Over two years, GE will have eliminated 16% [...]
Climate change a more serious threat than religious fundamentalism
A telephone survey of more than 1,000 people released today showed that 40 percent of Australians thought that global warming was a greater threat to security than Islamic fundamentalism. Only 20 percent thought it was less serious.
“It is very interesting to see how climate change has moved from the environmental field to the security sphere,†[...]
Climate change triggers bloodshed
Discover Magazine Newsletter links to this article about a study conducted by Hong Kong University Earth scientist David Zhang and colleagues. Zhang’s study of more than 900 years of conflict in eastern China has tested the hypothesis that cold spells fuel the social instability that leads to war.
They consulted a multivolume compendium, The Tabulation of [...]
Quick! Everybody read this month’s Wired…
This month’s Wired has a long article about cellulosic ethanol and other alternate technologies, and their likely places in the pantheon of green tech we will need to rapidly embrace to slow the ravages of global warming.
Probably the most important phrase in the article goes something like “It’s the will, not the technology.” We can [...]
Water and Ethanol
The front page of The New York Times has an AFP photo that sums up an intersection of issues and technologies that are going to drive the world’s affairs in the months and years to come, IMHO.
The photo shows Somalis, displaced by fighting that is in part caused by the migration of populations displaced [...]