After Gutenberg

Each place has its own advantages - heaven for the climate, and hell for the society.

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in any country.

In order to catch spider monkeys, hunters in South America simply walk through the jungle and drop heavy containers on the ground. These containers have a very narrow top and a wider bottom. Inside the containers the hunters drop a special kind of nut which is particularly attractive to the monkeys. Sometime later, the spider monkeys come down from the tops of the trees, smell the nut, but the tops of the containers are so narrow they have a tight squeeze to get their hands inside. Once they grab the nut at the bottom, their fist is too large to remove if through the opening. And the containter is too heavy for them to carry.

So instead of letting go of the nut, the monkeys just sit there until the hunters come back, pick them up, and throw them in a bag.

The spider monkeys are not prepared to let go of a small nut in order to gain their freedom.

You don't muzzle scientists, you keep them busy working on yet another five year study.

Little ICE -- Big Electric

Whereas some optimists think we still may be able to change the course of events, others say that it is too late. The consequence of the Industrial Age and its exponential growth of Greenhouse Gases emissions, has set us on an irrevocable path to mass extinction along with destruction of our host, the Planet Earth.

Don't think, think about not thinking.

Affording vehicles the ability to plug into the Grid is a critical step toward greater energy security and a cleaner environment. While such capability is avoided, Exxon Mobil is making $1200 each second.

More Coal? More Nuclear? What about Less? How about less pollution and more solutions.

You mean that delivery people would leave their vehicles running when they stopped to make a delivery?

Not only that, but long distance carriers would leave their engines running all the time.

No way, get out of town!

Dear Dad,

I trust that we will disagree on this subject, just as I believe that you saw people sacrifice their lives when fighting for democracy during WWII. I am sorry that my generation has failed to honor such sacrifice and that of the people who first sacrificed to forge such a democracy.

Sincerely,

your son

I took umbrage at the Global Warming moniker. As someone else observed, warming is too benign a description. I am a Global Heating Alarmist, barefoot, in Upstate New York, in mid-December.

Gosh! Maybe protecting business means protecting the Planet.

In Sweden and much of Europe, the way North Americans dispose of their garbage would be illegal.

An abundance of information yields a poverty of attention.

Ok, this will be pretty interesting, as long as nothing unexpected happens, like for example, our universe starting to drain out through the wormhole they are making, that would suck!

Most of the quotes here are from there.

You can't "energy-efficiency" your way out of global warming, you need low- or zero-carbon supply, too.

I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.

Consider this rant to be advice from a friend, a friend who can't stand to see any more people this summer walking around in clown footwear.

As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order.

l'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll... Say isn't that one of those new Strawjet houses? What's your R factor and load bearing rating of those walls, Pig?

Even temporary, stopgap measure of making internal combustion engines with greater efficiency and putting them in lighter weight vehicles is being resisted, much less heeding the call for a Manhattan Project approach to alternatives.

Be the change you want to see.

Even drawing power from existing plants, plug-in cars have the potential to reduce greenhouse gases from cars by two-thirds.

I credit the EV1 with opening my eyes to how much our civilization is based on fossil fuels and how precarious that is.

When honeybees swarm from the hive they do not fly far at first. They may gather in a tree or on a branch only a few meters from the hive. There, they cluster about the queen and send scout bees out to find a final location.

If the site that an individual scout finds is excellent, the resultant waggle dance is exuberant. On the other hand, if the site is only acceptable, the waggle dance is more muted. The competition for having found the best site does not result in deception: given that the objective is the overall welfare of the swarm, the scouts are scrupulous about being honest in their assessments.

No matter the 'genset', diesel-hybrid, fuel cell - hybrid, or gasoline hybrid, on board and life cycle energy consumption is reduced by the addition of electric drive.

Slime mold remote control, what will those wacky roboticists think of next?

Nixon's enemies list was small potatoes. These people have way too much power, and they're way too eager to misuse it.

Maritime commerce between Harappan coastal settlements and cultures in the Oman and the Persian Gulf region show the strong connection between the origins of written language and commerce.

..Um..Something strange happened to me this morning.

Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of Sun God robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?

..No.

Why am I the only person that has that dream?

Kindness in words creates confidence
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

Our struggle is against violence, intolerance, inequality, injustice. Our struggle is about creating sustainable lives and attainable dreams....about creating violence-free families.... violence-free streets, violence-free borders. Our call is to stop nuclear pollution.... to build real democracies not hypocracies... to nurture and strengthen all families...to build communities. Our call is to scale the Great Wall around women everywhere.

I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love . . . will soon become objects of contempt. . . I wish to show that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex.

Things are as they are when they end, not when they are.

At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.

You never know what question you've asked until you hear the answer.

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography.

Computers make it easy to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do, don't need to be done

Describing efforts by the White House Office of Management and Budget to quantify the cost of enhanced security and lessened liberties. "As long as they're going to deal with monetary evaluations, I told them they should start asking about the cost of destroying democracy.

From the light we come to the light we return
it is only this vessel that shadows surround

America consumes a quarter of the world's oil supply but has just 3% of global oil reserves. We are thus forced to import over 60% of the oil we need, and this dependency is growing. Which is why more people are coming to believe that now is the time to plug in.

A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.

Pimentel offers a simple test for whether ethanol producers really believe their own hype. If ethanol offers such a magnificent energy gain, then why don't ethanol plants run on ethanol instead of coal and natural gas?

It seems to me, from my largely uninformed lazy and anecdotal near passive filter feeding of the informational environment, that all of us are surrounded by processes which involve expensive disposal costs. We are expensively soiling ourselves and expensively cleaning ourselves all the time just to live "normally".

Bill Moore notes that President Bush proclaiming the nation needs to "invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants" to wean itself off foreign oil was puzzling "because oil isn't used much to make power and no one has yet developed a way to burn coal that produces no emissions."

Let me see if I can clear up some of this confusion: Zero Emissions Vehicles produce emissions, clean coal isn't, and George Bush is leading the country.

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other mens labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.

Hmmm. By looking at that list, one would assume that I am a lazy, obnoxious, food-obsessed, money-wasting lush whose hobbies are sleeping, sex and engaging in juvenile pastimes.

Well, yeah.

Robert Paterson wrote a review of The Science of Love; and, he printed a copy of the review for his partner, a love note from a nerd.

This was after she had given a very romantic card that quoted Frederick Engel, "To be in love is to know great torments of delight."

Her response to the two page printout:

"Well, it was passionate, in an intellectual sort of way."

Hey, come on, the personal cover note was in red ink!

Of course, it won't be totally soulless until fully automated.

Whenever I wonder about random things like "Why are commercial toilets shaped differently than residential ones?" I can usually think through an answer on my own ("Probably so they're easier to clean") or I can Google up some answers fairly quickly. Just once, I wish the actual answer were something like "This was a decision made by a secret cabal consisting of Freemasons and a murky consortium of international financiers, designed to advance their nefarious goals through control of the world's toilet bowls." But that's never the answer.

Life is not worth living if not for the sake of humor. And nothing is quite as funny as humor borne of hardship.

"I hate to think that all my current experiences will someday become stories with no point."

"It is not a good idea generally to annoy a computer cracker, but it is a very bad idea to annoy a group of computer crackers bent on impressing each other"

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes I even have trouble doing it.

There are two important things to remember about surrealism. Frogs, powertools and the Lincoln memorial.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

If we dropped everything into the stream and we provided powerful searching and indexing tools and powerful browsing tools, and we allowed time itself to guide us, we'd have a much better tool than trying to remember, am I looking for letter to John number 15B or am I looking for new new new letter to John prime. Instead I could say I'm looking for the letter to John I wrote last week, and go to last week and browse. It was clear that by keeping our stuff in a time line we could throw away the idea of names, we could throw away the idea of files and folders, we could throw away the desktop. Instead we'd have the stream, which was a virtual object that we could look at using any computer and no longer have to worry whether I put the file at work or at home, or in the laptop or the palm pilot. The stream was a virtual structure and by looking at it, tuning it in, I tuned in my life, and I could tune it in from any computer. It had a future as well, so if I was going to do something next Friday, I'd drop into the future, and next Friday would flow to the present, the present would flow to the past.

We give thanks for places of simplicity and peace. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of nature's truth and freedom, of joy, inspiration and renewal, places where all creatures may find acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places: in the world, in ourselves and in others. Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them and let us create them.

all life is interconnected so live with simplicity
all life is sacred so life with compassion
all life is changing so live with awareness
all life is a teacher so live with humility

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on
the edge, about to jump off. I immediately ran over and said "Stop!
Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"

"Like what?"

"Well ... are you religious or atheist?"

"Religious."

"Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?"

"Christian."

"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

"Protestant."

"Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

"Baptist."

"Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the
Lord?"

"Baptist Church of God."

"Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed
Baptist Church of God?"

"Reformed Baptist Church of God."

"Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of
1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"

"Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"

To which I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

We live in a truly magical time. With the flick of a finger, the power of 10 horses flows from a small wire in the wall of our homes to clean our carpets. We go to the local market under the pull of hundreds of horses and fly across our continent with tens of thousands of them.

When working with people, clarity of service is always important. The minute you start stretching the limits of service, mistrust sets in and cynicism takes hold. If you engage in clear, honest and transparent processes and offers, the people you are talking to you are far more likely to work with you. Transparency is not an option, its a requirement.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.

"The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water...."

"It is cheaper to save energy than to buy it."

For every 10 percent decrease of vehicle weight there is a 5 percent increase in fuel efficiency.

"Only with the complicity of Congress have we become a nation of preemptive war, secret military tribunals, torture, rejection of habeas corpus, warrant-less searches, undue government secrecy, extraordinary renditions, and uncontrollable spying on the American people."

"The energy that reaches Earth from sunlight in one hour is more than that used by all human activities in one year."

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

If it has yet to be done, I am waiting for some cartoonist to show a pair of little green men in the traditional flying saucer. They are passing by a Big Blue Marble on which a sign is posted: "Huge Going Out of Business Sale."

The one is turned to other, "Oh, Dear, let's stop."

It's clear humans have had a devastating impact on our planet's ecological web of life. Because we've waited, because we've turned our backs on nature's warning signs, and because our political and corporate leaders have consistently ignored the overwhelming scientific evidence, the challenges we face are that much more difficult. We are in the environmental age whether we like it or not.

"No civilization can survive the physical destruction of its resource base"

The problem that confronts us is that every living system in the biosphere is in decline and the rate of decline is accelerating. There isn't one peer-reviewed scientific article that's been published in the last 20 years that contradicts that statement. Living systems are coral reefs. They're our climatic stability, forest cover, the oceans themselves, aquifers, water, the conditions of the soil, biodiversity. They go on and on as they get more specific. But the fact is, there isn't one living system that is stable or is improving. And those living systems provide the basis for all life.

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.

That reminds me of the question that Ghandi was once asked about western civilisation, what did he think of it. He said yeah, it would be a good idea.

Journalists and prostitutes face the same challege: competition from amateurs.

Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

Fossil fuels companies have been able to avoid their moral obligation to address sufficiently the damage that they cause to life on Earth, and they continue to attract large subsidies -- in itself a market distortion.

"This is the defining moment," she said, "when we show that we are capable of finding humility, compassion, patience and wisdom to truly find a sustainable path."

"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things."

Methane is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere

DAVID BYRNE: When somebody tells us what this song is about, or what this painting is about, we're kind of stuck because talking about the art, and the art itself, are almost separate areas. The music seems to have straight access to the so-called "reptile brain," and we feel it immediately. But often it's also touching all kinds of other parts of the brain. If it has lyrics, there's language in it. If it has a strong rhythmic element it's touching what you would call the motor parts of the brain and muscle. All kinds of stuff is involved. How do you think this all happens?

DANIEL LEVITIN: My guess is it starts with trying to unite rationality with irrationality.

Being human first requires being "real to power," she said, and women are not. While most states explicitly guarantee women sexual equality, the reality "filtered through cultural norms" is often quite different. Women have status, but not a real place in statehood.

"We aren't going to solve environmental problems unless we actually have a cost to using energy that's commensurate with the damage it does to the planet."

"If the ocean had not removed 118 billion metric tons of anthropogenic carbon between 1800 and 1994, the CO2 level in the atmosphere would be about 55 parts per million greater than currently observed."

"It won't be easy, but it is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war."

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

There is growing consensus among psychologists and educators that children are becoming fearful of climate change and global warming in the same way their parents fretted over the Cold War.

The difference with climate change, however, is that it is not perceived so much as a single, definable issue but as an amorphous, wide-ranging problem where cows, coal and even the kitchen sink can be seen as a threat.

The anxiety many youngsters feel is increased by a sense that they are too young to influence events. Denial, resignation, cynicism, anxiety, hopelessness and even despair can arise from a perception that global problems are overwhelming and complicated.

The Pansy Project finds places where homophobic violence or abuse has occurred and plants a pansy on the site... I can't helping thinking that schools would be bursting with pansies, all over the place. There wouldn't be room enough to sit down.

Never has so much been squandered by so few as the truly stupid that led GM and Ford to their present, technically bankrupt condition.

What if I told you I had invented a vehicle that ran on organic vegetables, got the equivalent of over 900 miles per gallon, was completely carbon neutral, and produced no toxic by products. Would you want one? What if I told you I got the price of this vehicle down to under $500 dollars? Are you reaching for your wallet? What if I told you that using the vehicle would improve your health, reduce your risk of cancer, and make you sexier? If you aren't ready to cut a check, check your pulse!

All the best forms of corruption are legal.

No newcomer to operating green fleets, UPS had a fleet of electric-battery-powered vehicles in the 1930s operating in New York City.

This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying "This Is a Large Crisis." A large crisis requires a large plan. Get me two pencils and a pair of underpants!

Really, it's better if you don't ask, don't tell, and above all else, Don't Panic!

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every 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, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

I can think of three billion reasons why President Bush should agree to take action on climate change at this week’s G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, one for every person in the world living on less than two dollars a day. These people are not responsible for global warming, but they will pay the highest price if wealthy countries refuse to do their fair share.

Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.

The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.

our climate has the potential for large rapid fluctuations. Indeed, the Earth, and the creatures struggling to exist on the planet, have been repeatedly whipsawed between climate states. No doubt this rough ride has driven progression of life via changing stresses, extinctions and species evolution. But civilization developed, and constructed extensive infrastructure, during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end.

Transclusion is the same content knowably in more than one place.

A reduction of as little as 10 to 15 per cent could cripple oil-dependent industrial economies. In the 1970s, a reduction of just 5 per cent caused a price increase of more than 400 per cent.

Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.

Robert Murray, chairman, president and chief executive of Murray Energy Corp., lambasted U.S. lawmakers for proposing caps on emissions blamed for global warming, saying the Democrats were out to destroy America's coal industry.

Hey, Murray, screw you, and screw your corrupt, vicious, law-breaking, public-teat-sucking, mountain-blowing-up, working-poor-killing, planet-destroying dinosaur of an industry. The sooner the world is rid of you the better. Crawl back under your rock.

This threat -- destruction of our home, the Earth, -- requires us, in Reagan’s phrase, to unite in recognition of our common bond.

"You can't say for sure until you are finished.
Till then you only know what doesn't work ..."

The true revolutionary is motivated by love.

the Gaia Hypothesis: we cannot continue to devour our planet forever because it amounts to self-cannibalism.

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you [about your future]. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

A fleet manager reported excellent fuel economy: 6.4 mpg. Of course, this was with diesel engines in Class 8 trucks, i.e., weighing up to 80,000 lbs., the national limit. Think about that. Say your light duty vehicle weighs less that one-tenth of that yet only gets about 12 - 15 mpg. While this has to due also with driving cycles and the energy value of the fuel, imagine, they are hauling 10 times the weight but only using twice the amount of fuel.

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Not only is the Universe stranger than I imagine, it is stranger than I can imagine.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

One of the problems with modern society is that it places more importance on things that have a price than on things that have a value. Breathing clean air, for instance, or having clean water in the rivers, or having legal rights–these are things that don’t have a price but have a huge value. Oil does have a price, but its value is much less. And sometimes we make the mistake.

When we are addicted to drugs, we're supposed to reduce the supply, so when we are addicted to oil, why are we supposed to increase the supply?

Is "This is not a meme" a meme?

"Fine words! I wonder where you stole them."

"Transform a $3 pen into a $200 pen in just seconds."
This is a lot of trouble. I steal all my pens - not from stores, that's shoplifting. I steal them from co-workers. That's sharing.

As more states adopt clean energy standards (renewable energy portfolio standards), PHEVS become better and better for the environment.

"True observation begins when one is devoid of set patterns."

People have radically overestimated the sacrifice and dramatically underestimated the opportunity [to conserve energy].

The current energy industry has quite masterfully succeeded in lulling many Americans to sleep on the dangers of the poisons they sell while portraying renewables as a distant dream.

Researchers say that moose emit 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting. Not only that, they have bacteria in their stomachs that create methane gas, an even worse greenhouse gas. A moose emits as much greenhouse gas in a year as a car driving 13,000 kilometers.

The genius Lily Tomlin once noted how hard it is to be funny these days, when satire can't keep up with the number of people who miss it entirely and use it as a script rather than a warning.

"The conventional design criteria is a tripod: Can we profit from it? the company asks. Will the customer find it attractive? And will it work? Champions of "sustainable development" like to use a "triple bottom line" approach based on the tripod of Ecology, Equity, and Economy. ...

But in practice we find that it often appears to center only on economic considerations, with social or ecologic benefits considered as an afterthought rather than given equal weight at the outset. Businesses calculate their conventional economic profitability and add what they perceive to be the social benefits, with perhaps, some reduction in environmental damage. ...

The real magic results when industry begins with all these questions, addressing them up front as "triple top line" questions rather than turning to them after the fact. ... In fact, often a project that begins with pronounced concerns of Ecology or Equity (How do I create habitat? How do I create jobs?) can turn out to be tremendously productive financially in ways that would never have been imagined if you'd started from a purely economic perspective."

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

I have a lot of friends who share the following problem with me: Our sense of outrage is so saturated that when a new outrage occurs, we have to download some existing outrage into an external hard drive in order to make room for a new outrage.

In 2000 power stations accounted for the greatest percentage of anthropogenic carbon emissions, 29.5%. In the U.S. the amount of carbon dioxide from coal plants has gone up about twenty-seven percent since 1990, and these carbon emissions are continuing to go up.

These ~150 proposed coal plants will emit about 600 million tons of C02 every year. That’s about the same C02 emissions as adding 108 million new cars to our roads. That’s about same as nearly doubling the number of cars on our roads!

That doesn’t even count the 619 existing coal-fired power plants that we should start decommissioning if we are serious about curbing climate change.

There is a big difference -- a rhetorical Grand Canyon -- between supporting coal plants that are 'compatible with' CCS and actually requiring them to do it.

The kettle needs cleaning but there is a shiny new one in the shop and it is white and cheap and to descale it requires effort it requires time and time in an office is something that can’t be spared it is inconvenient and the kettle is new and shiny and cheap what more so I need just something to make coffee it’s for everyone not just me and the advertisement is saying bargain and the lights are bright and I don’t think I just don’t think about the planet there is no planet just my coffee and the office and the noise and the tills and the shiny kettle that looks clean and good and the old kettle is gone it has gone into the void where I don’t know and the new kettle was made in the void and my mind is in the void that doesn’t care because I’ve been told not to worry the supermarket will care for the environment the government will care for the environment out of sight out of mind the sky is big the earth is big the sea is huge and deep and there are so many people so many others and I am just one who just wants one kettle no more not lots just a small piece of white plastic with wires and metal and its so small and time is calling and rushing and I don’t think I just don’t think I don’t need to think because if I had to think then the kettle would not be here it could not be here it must be good it must be legal there is nothing dangerous or it wouldn’t be on the shelf it wouldn’t be cheap if it wasn’t good and fair and just but what do I care I have such a busy life and the worries fly over and miss my head my a mile by a light year and time is ticking and I will be dead before it matters there are millions more people they should care why should I care I am just one and the new kettle is good it is convenient it is cheap and I need to make coffee.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

If we insist on ruining the planet, we must stop calling ourselves the most intelligent species.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

Because water has been plentiful, with that came a certain degree of comfort and complacency. We have to jolt Angelenos out of that kind of mind-set. If things don't turn out favorably, we may return to [drought] protocols.

I have this problem. Whenever I try to explain what's happening in American politics-I mean, what's really happening-I wind up sounding a bit like an unhinged conspiracy theorist.

Is spending up to $40 billion on the ten-years-hence promise of carbon sequestration in order to save the coal industry from obsolescence the best investment we could make to fight global warming?

The market allocates more money in one hour than all of the governments allocate over a year's time. But government's set the rules of the road and determine how markets allocate capital and make decisions. And there should be no mistake that this crisis, the climate crisis, is not going to be solved only by personal action and business action. We need changes in laws; we need changes in policies; we need new leadership and we need a new treaty.

Marketing experts said GM's strategy appears clear: It's not trying to sell the Volt as much as it is trying to sell the image of GM as a technological leader.

At the United Nations' climate change conference this month, experts painted a grim picture for the future of our planet. If humans don't act within the next 5 to 10 years, they warned, not only will we cause the extinction of many of the world's vital species, but in the end, we will be wiped off the earth ourselves.

It's the oldest and most cliched of metaphors, but when it comes to global warming, it's the only one that really works: We're in a desperate race. Politics is chasing reality, and the gap between them isn't closing nearly fast enough.

Studies in several environmental contexts (e.g., home energy conservation, household recycling, hotel conservation efforts) show that (1) energy users severely underestimate the role of social norms in guiding their energy usage, (2) communications that employ social norm-based appeals for pro-environmental behavior are superior to those that employ traditional persuasive appeals, and (3) even though these highly effective social norm-based appeals are nearly costless—requiring no large technological fixes, tax incentives, or regulatory changes—they are rarely (and sometimes mistakenly) delivered.

Climate change will have far-reaching financial implications, creating both enormous risks and opportunities. Potential winners and losers from carbon-reducing regulations are especially hot topics among the financial community.

If the oceans stop taking up CO2, Q.E.D., the atmosphere inevitably will take up more, accelerating global warming.

"Q.E.D., What's that acronym mean?"

We are farked.

Cement is the single, biggest, material source of carbon emissions in the world, and the demand is going up. If demand doubles, and the best we can do is to reduce emissions by 30 percent, then we still are going to see emissions rise very quickly.

Congress Person: "How many garbage trucks in the U.S.?"

Roger Slotkin: "About a quarter of million."

CP: "And, how much would it cost to convert all those dirty diesels to less dirty diesel-electric plug-in hybrids?"

RS: "How much? About the cost of 10 weeks of war in Iraq."

You build an image, not a reputation, on what you are going to do.

At some point you no longer can call it a drought, because it’s about a climate shift to a drier climate. No one says the Sahara is in drought.

Solectria built perhaps a dozen of Solectria Sunrise EVs. Some were crash tested, some were kept by Solectria (James Worden still has one), and some were sold to real customers.

At some point in the early years of the 21st century, there will be a clash of two giant forces: overpopulation and oil depletion. That much has been known for a long time. It is also well known that population must eventually decline in order to match the decline in oil production. A further problem, however, is that it will be impossible to get those two giant forces into equilibrium in any gentle fashion, because of a matter that is rarely considered: that in every year that has gone by — and every year that will arrive — the population of the earth is automatically adjusted so that it is almost exactly equal to its carrying capacity. We are always barely surviving. Population growth is soaring, whereas oil production is plunging. If, at the start of any year, the world’s population is greater than its carrying capacity, only simple arithmetic is needed to see that the difference between the two numbers means that mortality will be above the normal by the end of that year. In fact, over the course of the 21st century there will be about 4 billion deaths (probably about 3.6, to be more precise) above normal.

It now seems clear that the coal and oil industries are not going to allow the United States to curb global warming by making major investments in renewable sources of energy. These fossil fuel corporations simply have too much at stake to allow it.

We are not assured of the existence of things from their being perceived. And we are taught to distinguish their real nature from that which falls under our senses.

No one could make a greater mistake than to do nothing because one only could a little.

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

Six years ago, there wasn't even any such thing as being "wrong on torture," because "torture" wasn't something we debated.

If we lose the tundra, we lose a livable climate

The automakers aren’t simply toying with regulators, as in the emissions example, to forestall regulations. They are, of course, spinning journalists, and thus, the public, to manage expectations and desires. Thus we endure the paradox that the less complex, less expensive, nearer-term useful vehicle (EV/PHEV) is perceived as not yet ready, yet the impossibly costly and complicated and inefficient and useless in the real world car (H2/FCV) gives off the whiff of green perfection and inevitability.

The Long Emergency is a future, when oil is scarce and the American lifestyle collapses.

Despite all our talk of renewables, conservation, and even nuclear, the demand and money is flowing to coal -- a bad sign all around. A three-word summary of his article: we are screwed.

Reducing emissions can be met at moderate cost relative to global GDP, but the window of opportunity for quickly reaching a safer, stable level is closing fast.

"Maybe, as some critics like to say, hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be."

When presented with a clear threat, the "greatest generation", who won World War II, rose in response with an unprecedented devotion of resources, as well as courage and commitment.

As the climate threat becomes just as clear, it is time for us to rise to our generation’s great challenge, reduce global warming pollution, build clean, prosperous economies, and leave a legacy to our children and theirs of a habitable world in which they too can prosper and thrive.

It’s up to us to lay claim to our own generation’s greatness. The time is absolutely now.

“Do gen ka sen to ikan”

Japanese to English: (”Something needs to be done”)

Would it upset you to know that China, the #2 country for military expenditures only spends 6% of its budget on the military? Russia, #3, is the same. Iran, the big boogie man of the Middle East that we are so worried about according to Dick Cheney, is #27 with a whopping $4.9 Billion Dollar budget with 1% of their budget spent on the military. It’s estimated that the United States will spend 52% of its budget, and 481.4 Billion dollars on defense this year, and that’s not counting the money for the war in Iraq which so far we have spent $130 Billion Dollars on this year and another $190 Billion that the President has requested. Isn’t this a little bit of overkill?

As scarce as the truth is, the supply is always greater than the demand.

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

One of the other hurdles to getting people focused on climate and energy is the distinctly human habit of giving outsize consideration to the here and now, even when looming, well-understood hazards pose existential threats.

We have come half-way around the world to represent a generation frustrated with inaction. We need a Bali Breakthrough in order to produce a strong mandate for the post 2012-period when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Resistance is forming, no war, no warming!

I am not a representative of my government, so I am not bound by diplomatic niceties. My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. [Applause.] We all know that.

We have taken it as a God-given fact that we will burn all the fossil fuels. But we simply cannot do that, if we want to keep the planet we now have.

It is morally indefensible and unrealistic to expect the developed world can continue to emit at these levels, with the developing world absorbing the bulk of the climatic impact and being asked to constrain its own growth.

Since 1981 I have spent every summer working on glaciers. I have monitored the same glaciers for 27 years. At first I was just focussed on collecting annual data to understand their behavior. After 15 years some of the glaciers began to disappear. Today of the 47 glaciers I have watched 42 remain. I began to notice this same story playing out in mountains ranges on each continent except Antarctica. The change was profound and global and fast. In this blink of time the volume of glaciers in the Western United States has declined between 20 and 30%. These natural frozen reservoirs have been part of our water resource management system in the western US and now this system is changing from glacier and snowpack changes and summer evaporation. This is what I have seen with my own eyes

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with the speed of scientific advancement.

There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

Right now, we are experiencing what climate modelers call the transient response to CO2 forcing. If CO2 concentrations froze now, global temperatures would continue to rise until the climate reached equilibrium.That equilibrium point lies outside any experience the planet has had in the past 420,000 years, even without any future increase in greenhouse gas concentrations (as the current CO2 level is unprecedented). A further increase places the planet in an even farther outside the envelope of anything in the “recent” geological record, to use a geologists warped definition of the word recent.

As an educator and designer, I believe that the choices we make teach people things. You learn from your microwave, your dishwasher and your ball-point pen.

"Almost nothing that trickles down is fit to consume."

the U.S. economy is very vulnerable to a decreasing EROI for its principle fuels, whether that comes from an increase in expenditures overseas if and as the price of imported oil increases more rapidly than that of the things that we trade for it, or as domestic oil and gas reserves are exhausted and new reservoirs become increasingly difficult to find, or as we turn to lower EROI alternatives such as biodiesel and or photovoltaics. We do not know exactly what all this means, but our straightforward model suggests that a principal effect will be a decline in disposable income and a greater requirement for getting energy, with all the economic impacts that entails.

At the end of the day, you can be 90% confident of something, and all people will hear is that you aren’t certain about what you are saying. This is why the debate is often cast in extremes, rather than an honest consideration of the data. It is really too bad, because an honest consideration of the data is still quite compelling.

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.

To reduce oil dependence, nothing would do more good more quickly than making cars that could connect to the electric grid.

The focus of my testimony will be to outline just how far Administrator Stephen Johnson has departed from law, science, and even basic arithmetic in denying California a waiver. This is an administrator who works for a White House with an unparalleled disregard for law and science.

You know something has gone wrong when after 935 lies Bush evades impeachment, and last time congress only needed 1

“The domination of government by corporate power is the essence of fascism”

Take a box and fill it with air. Shine an infrared lamp at it. Measure how much heat the air absorbs.

Repeat the experiment, but add extra CO2 to the air in the box. The air with extra CO2 absorbs more infrared radiation, and gets hotter.

Voila! You have just proved the underlying principle of global warming. You do not need climate models, supercomputers, correlational data, or statistical analysis. This experiment is completely repeatable, 100% of the time.

Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by Democrats as by Republicans, by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.

Coal is not the best investment for our future. Dozens of states, major Wall Street banks, and now even the federal government, have all now said no to new coal. It’s becoming increasingly clear that energy efficiency and renewables are the way of the future.

We truly are running a first-of-a-kind experiment on the climate.

The reality is that US leadership is sorely needed to reduce our impact on the planet and to help those who are suffering the consequences of our unwillingness to cut our own greenhouse gas emissions. If not, food scarcity will increase, food prices will continue to soar, and nations large and small will suffer the consequences.

I've never seen a hearse with a luggage rack on top.

If I'd written the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

The best solution to both peak oil and global warming is to hawk renewables like they'll save us all by themselves, and alter our lifestyles like renewables won't do a damn thing.

Dubya, "a failed president who delivers nothing but a lousy speech."

"How in the world, when gasoline costs more than" (fill in your exclamation here), "are we still allowing tax breaks for Hummers, Escalades and Navigators, but not for hybrids?"

It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas.

This morning, in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court overturned Washington, DC's ban on handguns! Wooo! Finally, the residents of Washington, DC have the right to defend themselves. From each other, one assumes. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said, "It is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct." He is right. Killing the Constitution is the president's job. The court's job is to overturn elections.

We may win the Presidency, and regain control of the government, but this is still Nixonland, and we still have an administration and a Republican Party that openly breaks the law, and we still have "opposition" leaders unable or unwilling to enforce it. These are the facts on the ground and we had better understand this as we continue to try to take this country back.

Energy efficiency is by far the biggest energy resource that can be tapped. It is far cheaper than the current cost of unsustainable energy, so cheap that it helps pay for other solutions. And, it is by far the fastest to deploy.

Soaring food and fuel prices - and a slowing economy - are just part of the picture. Children are out of school, and away from the subsidized breakfast and lunch programs that help poor families meet nutritional needs during the school year. Unfortunately, local pantries and coalitions report, summer is when donations dry up. Scout troops, other civic-minded groups and religious groups aren't holding as many food drives. The free turkeys passed on from supermarket giveaways during Thanksgiving and Christmas aren't there.

The region's unemployment rate grows, and those with jobs face stagnant salaries. Property taxes go up, even as home values drop. And people still have to feed their families.

In California, bicycle plaintiffs lose two out of three cases that go to trial.

Prince Modupe tells in his autobiography, I Was A Savage, how he had learned to read maps at school, and how he had taken back home to his village a map of a river his father had traveled for years as a trader:

"...my father thought the whole idea was absurd. He refused to identify the stream he had crossed at Bomako, where it is no deeper, he said, than a man is high, with the great widespread waters of the vast Niger delta. Distances as measured in miles had no meaning for him.... Maps are liars, he told me briefly. From his tone of voice I could tell that I had offended him in some way not known to me at the time. The things that hurt one do not show on a map. ... With my big map-talk, I had effaced the magnitude of his cargo-laden, heat-weighted tracks."

"What the GOP realized was that Obama did come across different than the average American, but not so much because he was black as because he was effortless. The very set of supercharged talents and qualities that allowed Obama to levitate past the boundaries of race and class make him different than those who haven't rocketed upward on the strength of their intelligence and charisma and charm... Obama, in other words, is elite. As in 'A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status.' Obama isn't an economic elite, but he is a social and intellectual elite. "The Obama campaign, similarly, has realized that McCain is an elite, and that voters won't believe that a guy who has so many houses that he can't keep track of them will care if they lose the small condo they call home. This election, in other words, is becoming a contest to decide which type of elite voters hate -- or fear, or mistrust -- more: A social elite or an economic elite?"

After bicycling for 152 miles in 6 hours and 23 minutes in Beijing’s smoggy air, the gold medal was determined by a fraction of a second.

None of the “Silver Bullet” scenarios explored by the UC Davis researchers achieve the 80in50 reduction goal, implying that no single technology can successfully meet California’s 80% emission reductions goal; a portfolio approach is necessary.

Our addiction to oil has compromised our morality, our security, our economy.

"The gobsmacking foolishness of our national discourse, the things which now seem to signify, the very person selected to act out these psychodramas on the national stage - these are all far surer signs that the future is deeply, and I mean pants-shittingly, terrifying to many Americans. They’ve read the tea leaves, all right, they’re not in the slightest bit stupid, and they know how things are shaping up. They’ve had their eponymous Century, and it ended seven years ago today; this one’s Injun Country by comparison, no pun intended. So I can only surmise that the question of who to elect looks a whole lot clearer if you’ve once sown the wind and are waiting for the whirlwind to arrive. Sadly, heartbreakingly, “hope” isn’t in it. It takes a people that still believes in the possible, and their place in it, to vote for that."

Compare to the trillion-dollar financial rescue, a climate rescue package would put us on the path to avert catastrophic outcomes, jumpstart the transition to a clean energy economy, while largely paying for itself in energy savings. It would also sharply reduce the $10 to $20 trillion transfer of wealth to the oil exporters that we can expect over the next quarter century alone. Air pollution would drop sharply and millions of jobs would be created.

An Mobile Social Event (MSE) at Interbike is "like a Tupperware party for bike enthusiasts, only without the beehive hairdo or weird cult-like party games."

"If not established in sustainable way, then big disaster for world."

"The urgent global need for clean energy compelled me to dramatically expand my family's business holdings. Our flagship business Suzlon Energy continues to focus on developing wind power solutions, offering wind turbines to the global market. On the other hand, we now commit to developing and owning green power assets through Suzlon Green Power, which will bring energy where it is needed most. Suzlon Green Power's business model will offer us an asset-based long term annuity income while mitigating the twin challenges of global warming and climate change. It also adds greater vertical integration to our holdings, building the value of our businesses in the long-term."

This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth.

A transit agency running a bike transit program, what a concept!

Therefore there will never be a moment when the world runs out of oil because there will always be a price at which the last drop of oil can clear the market. And you can turn anything into oil into if you are willing to pay the financial and environmental price.

“The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate wasn't how unqualified she is - it was what her candidacy says about America.”

As fossil fuel prices rise, as oil insecurity deepens, and as concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging in the United States. The old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced by one powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The transition is moving at a pace and on a scale that we could not have imagined even a year ago.

Knowing what to call something makes me more aware of that thing. For instance, it's not terribly useful for me to know that [the sound of] leaves rustled by the trees is a psithurism. "I don't want to walk down the street with my girlfriend saying: 'Listen, there's a psithurism.' But knowing it means I pay more attention to it." Similarly, knowing that "undisonant" is the adjective to describe the sound of crashing waves and that "apricity" is the warmth of the winter sun brings these things more often to mind

The Arctic is often described as the canary in the coal mine. As one Arctic researcher put it to me this week: the canary is dead. It's time to clear the mine, and run.

American politics today is failing not only the environment but also the American people and the world.

I've noticed a few queries as to my opinion of whether financial stocks will get better or if the worst is behind us. I actually thought I made my viewpoint clear. Obviously not, so let me be a bit more blunt. Things are going to get very ugly, starting this week - and from there it will get even uglier - and after that the bad part will start.

In the typhoon of commentary that's blown around the world a step behind the financial tsunami that's wrecking everything, two little words have been curiously absent: "fraud" and "swindle." But aren't they really at the core of what has happened? Wall Street took the whole world "for a ride" and now a handful of Wall Street's erstwhile princelings have shifted ceremoniously into US Government service to "fix" the problem with a "toolbox" containing a notional two trillion dollars. This strange exercise in financial kabuki theater will shut down sometime between the election and inauguration day, when the inaugurate finds himself president of the Economic Smoking Wreckage of the United States.

In Germany-

They came first for the communists, and I didn't speak out . . .
because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out . . .
because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out . . .
because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out. . .
because I was a Protestant.

And then they came for me, and by that time
no one was left to speak up . . .

Before enlightment--
Chop wood, carry water.

After enlightment--
Chop wood, carry water.

Senator Obama’s election brings hope to millions around the world, especially those working on climate change, given his promise of a clean energy future. He has the ability to change the course of the US response to climate change and to react effectively to our generation’s most serious dilemma. Mr. Obama, seven billion people are counting on you to take the lead and secure the world for future generations.

A bicycle sharing system will:

* Reduce dependency on automobiles, particularly for short trips in the center city, reducing traffic congestion, vehicle emissions, and demand for parking.
* Enhance our existing public transportation system by adding capacity to use a public bicycle to complete the first or last leg of a trip (i.e., from the train station to the workplace) and enable bus and rail commuters to make short trips from the workplace without a car.
* Expand the health and wellness benefits of bicycle transportation beyond traditional enthusiast groups to everyone living or working in the center city.
* Spur the transformation of city streets to become environments where pedestrians and bicyclists feel safe and comfortable.

“If carbon dioxide emissions remain unchecked, in 40 years the oceans will be more acidic than anything experienced in the past 20 million years.”

“Energy transitions” encompass the time that elapses between an introduction of a new primary energy source and its rise to claiming a substantial share of the overall market. There is one thing all energy transitions have in common: they are prolonged affairs that take decades to accomplish, and the greater the scale of prevailing uses and conversions the longer the substitutions will take.

"By joining forces with our partners around the world, we will make the tough decisions to restore our planet's health. There's a lot of work that needs to be done, and we can do it."

It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but
what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes
us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

"Half the people who come in here listen to me. The other half look at the internet and think they know everything."

There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author, if the line is good.

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad.

Is it too late? To say so is to make it true. To suggest that there is nothing that can now be done is to ensure that nothing is done. But even a resolute optimist like me finds hope ever harder to summon. A new summary of the science published since last year’s Intergovernmental Panel report suggests that - almost a century ahead of schedule - the critical climate processes might have begun.

Don't waste a good batch of waffles just because the syrup isn't as sweet as you thought it would be.

A good idea doesn’t mind who has it.

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

Faced with the need to reinvent the material basis of our civilization, we argue paper or plastic.

The degree of change we need to navigate in the developed world is much greater than 18 percent fleet emission reduction by 2015. Everyone who has a car of any type has the option of reducing their own emissions by 18% right now (not waiting for 2015) by driving less via trip-chaining, carpooling, walking, biking, working from home, etc. Such a shift means the auto industry needs to accept an ongoing downsizing (the world already has way more cars than it needs). Retrain auto workers, retrain.

It's only a job if you would rather be doing something else.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

When I feed the poor they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry they call me a communist.

the cultivated person's first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encylopedia

What did the trees learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?

Something's not right, "& that doesn't usually lead to hugs & puppies."

I'm in the Latrobe Valley. There are power stations here. Big, coal-fired, ones. I love the smell of CO2 in the morning.

Having failed at theoretical research, Rob is resorting to metalworking. Yes, he has power tools in his bedroom. But he needs a vise.

In the old days, brands wanted everybody else to pay attention to them. Now brands need to pay attention to everybody else.

"This is the farewell kiss, you dog," he shouted as he threw the first shoe. The crucial line followed the second shoe: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Those who cheer on shameful and despicable acts always want to encourage everyone to forget what they did, and those who commit crimes naturally seek to dismiss demands for investigations and punishment as nothing more than distractions and vendettas pushed by those who want to wallow in the past.

Surprisingly, though, demands that Bush officials be held accountable for their war crimes are becoming more common in mainstream political discourse, not less so. The mountain of conclusive evidence that has recently emerged directly linking top Bush officials to the worst abuses -- combined with Dick Cheney's brazen, defiant acknowledgment of his role in these crimes (which perfectly tracked Bush's equally defiant 2005 acknowledgment of his illegal eavesdropping programs and his brazen vow to continue them) -- is forcing even the reluctant among us to embrace the necessity of such accountability.

It's almost as though everyone's nose is now being rubbed in all of this: now that the culpability of our highest government officials is no longer hidden, but is increasingly all out in the open, who can still defend the notion that they should remain immune from consequences for their patent lawbreaking? As Law Professor Jonathan Turley said several weeks ago on The Rachel Maddow Show: "It's the indictment of all of us if we walk away from a clear war crime."

I sometimes have this nagging feeling I’m forgetting something. Frequently it’s because I have.

Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources, it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it’s inconvenient.

An essential element of our nation’s economic recovery must be investing in a clean energy economy in order to create jobs and spur economic growth and prosperity, while at the same time fighting global warming and addressing national security.

I was raised Atheist in the deep south. It was not a popular religion there!

An average horse can produce only about half a horsepower for any extended period.

The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.

What title you have or position you hold does not define or validate you, what defines you is how well you rise...after you fall. Or, how well you respond when another has fallen.

I'm not saying I can change the world...I'm saying I can spark the mind of the person who will...

We can talk about all of the wonderful gadgets, all of the wonderful prizes and powers, but ultimately the choices that we make around those technologies (what to create, what to deploy, how those deployments manifest, what kinds of capacities we add to the technologies) are political decisions.

The more that we try to divorce technology from politics, the more we try to say that technology is neutral, the more we run the risk of falling into the trap of unintended consequences.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

Love is space and time measured by the heart.

Is poverty only about being cold, hungry, & homeless? No, there is the poverty of being unwanted, unloved, & uncared for. That is the greatest poverty.

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.

We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.

Questions to ponder:

- What would we do if all of our vehicles 'vanished' and we had to restructure our basic needs without the sunk cost of automobiles?

-Would the answers to the above question ONLY be implemented IF all our vehicles 'vanished'? Why or why not?

It is so nice to have an adult as President again.

"It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways - all orchestrated by the United States government."

Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion.

You put your hand on your exhaust manifold and I'll put my hand on my electric motor and let's see whose vehicle is more efficient with regards to heat loss!

The true debate is not between those who say global warming is a serious problem that deserves strong action and those who say it isn’t. The debate is now between those who say global warming is a serious problem that deserves strong action and those who say global warming is the gravest threat to human civilization in history that demands we bear any burden, pay any price, to prevent.

...we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. We also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war.

What's the solution? Our leaders need to stop letting coal and oil steal our clean energy future. Congress need to enact legislation that doubles renewable energy capacity by 2020, cuts carbon pollution by 80 percent by 2050, and ensurer that those who emit carbon pollution pay the bill.

Please reflect for a minute on the disruptive power of the media. A week ago, there was so much hysteria about swine flu that my wife and I were forced into quarantine for two days after we returned from Cancun even though we were never symptomatic. Now, just 7 days later, it is ancient history.

The most damning credible allegation to emerge regarding the Bush administration is arguably that Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials ordered the use of torture to produce false evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

Deep ecologists say that modernism has led to a fundamental male-principle ethic of dominance and conquest played out in various hierarchical, militaristic, capitalist and industrialist forms. It disallows the feminine-principle values of caring and respect so necessary to the nurturing of life and the creation of balance in society.

Every day the world uses, from all energy sources, the equivalent of 245 million barrels of oil. Worldwide, we use 50 percent more energy than we did only 20 years ago. And 20 years from now, demand will have risen by 30 percent or so more.

You get revolution when people are pushed to extremes. We are learning that degradation of the atmosphere is one of the hardest issues to act upon. By the time enough people suffer from the extreme consequences of anthropogenic emissions, it will be far too late. Especially in those countries that need to take the largest steps, much more change must take place than is occurring. So, how can such monumental change occur without revolutionary impetus?

Our mythos would seem to indicate that such revolution becomes possible by messianic means. A world hero appears with a unique ability to communicate what needs to be done, one whose personal struggle exemplifies what is worth saving, one who calls forth from others the integrity, compassion and wisdom needed to change the course of events. The faint of heart should not apply.

Newt Gingrich has said of himself, "I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous!" Indeed? Who then will make sense of such matters? Who will inspire people to think of themselves not only as sharing life with other life upon our planet for this moment, but also for seven generations, or seventy generations, or seven hundred generations? We make weapons of mass destruction that can create dangerous consequences for such periods of time. Can we make of our lives the possibility of positive consequences for the same such time?

I've been in the energy business my entire professional career, and since 1950 I've watched our country go from buying some foreign oil to buying a lot of foreign oil to buying too much foreign oil.

Do you think the U.S. can afford to spend half a trillion dollars on imported oil? I sure don't, particularly with our economy in the shape it is today. Yet that's how much we spent in 2008. And if we keep buying more and more foreign oil, we'll spend an estimated $2 trillion a year by 2020.

Does this make sense to you? It sure doesn't make sense to me, especially when we have so much domestic energy right here that we're not tapping into.

Unless we understand the wider systemic context of low carbon initiatives and the human relationships required to drive innovation forward, we will not achieve a low carbon future.

30,000,000 are losing their homes; 50,000,000 have no health care, yet we have another $100 billion for War?

For a short bit, I allowed myself to believe Obama would reverse the unconstitutional Bush executive orders, audit the Fed, stop domestic spying, exit Iraq, prosecute torturers, and maybe reopen the 9/11 investigation. So, where is HOPE now?

Let’s hope cooler heads prevail, lest we run out of cooler heads.

There is a reason why this is not part of the US discourse on taking action to prevent or mitigate catastrophic anthropogenic global warmin.

A key doctrine of the cult of American Exceptionalism is that the USA has no ethical or moral obligations to anyone else, ever, for any reason.

We are America. The rest of the world has moral obligations to us, simply because we are America, the Greatest Nation In The History Of The World. (The world’s moral obligation to the USA consists principally of giving US corporations free access to their natural resources and cheap labor.)

The USA no more has “moral obligations” to the rest of the world than Rome had “moral obligations” to the European barbarians.

I mean, come on — to this day the USA has not renounced first strike use of nuclear weapons. Barack Obama, like every US president since Truman, is prepared to push a button and incinerate half the world. “Moral obligations”? Give me a break.

The Commander of the Drone Unit in southern Nevada said that next year the Air Force will take delivery of more drones than aircraft--for the first time ever.

On June 23, 2008, twenty years since he first warned Congress that human activity was causing the earth to warm, James Hansen warned that a “wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific communities and what is known by policymakers and the public.”

A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.

Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?

It is clearly time to adopt a view of climate security which puts peace at the center of the discussion, rather than war.

Gaining respect is not a matter of being the boss and has nothing to do with being likeable or sociable; whether you talk, eat or smell right; or any measure that isn't directly related to the work. The amount of respect an IT pro pays someone is a measure of how tolerable that person is when it comes to getting things done, including the elegance and practicality of his solutions and suggestions. IT pros always and without fail, quietly self-organize around those who make the work easier, while shunning those who make the work harder

President Barack Obama wanted... to send a message to school kids at their institutions that it was a good thing for them to study hard and stay in school because their future and the future of the nation depended on it. The uproar that this has caused has also shocked and embarrassed many people who not understand why the President of the United States cannot even deliver such a positive message to children without the hard politicization of the event. This is telling because it again reflects the politicized environment in which he wants to attempt to bring the country together, which poisons not only simple projects like this, but larger ones.

"In a radical free-market culture, when hope is precarious and bound to commodities and a corrupt financial system, young people are longer at risk: they are the risk."

Illinois, home to 76,000 farms and more than 950 food manufacturing companies, is a solidly agricultural state in the heart of America’s bread basket. Fully 80 percent of it is farmland. But, of all the food eaten in Illinois, only four percent is actually grown there.

Vast quantities of food are exported to other states and nations, while similarly vast quantities are brought in to feed Illinois’ citizens.

Never stop puzzling over life. Swim in big ideas. And of course, consult your stomach.

Feynman was pretty good, although not as good as he thought he was. He was too self-absorbed and spent a huge amount of energy generating anecdotes about himself.

Let me get this straight. You're typing on a keyboard made from oil and refined metals, watching the letters come up on a light-emitting screen, in order to use a few grams of silicon etched finer than the eye can see with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of tiny quantum-mechanical devices, in order to send a message that will travel via optical cables (and possibly satellite links), to be read by thousands of people across the whole world, all of whom could reply within a few hours, and you are actually saying, I mean really actually truly making the claim, that *science has no special relation to observed reality*?!?

I give up.

"Sticklebacks show human-like intelligence when searching for food."

"O.K., so what sort of intelligence should humans mimic when they finally decide to address degradation of the atmosphere from human caused pollution?"

What is possible versus impossible depends entirely on what universe you’re living in. Until you understand the universe you’re living in, you cannot know what is possible.

Science is, at least in part, informed worship.

Anyone that insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns into a monster.

Amory Lovins saw a typo — "negawatt" instead of "megawatt" — in a Colorado Public Utilities Commission report. He adopted the term to describe electricity created due to energy efficiency.

When I speak of an improvisational journey I'm not talking about glow sticks and Ecstasy and a long, slow death by musical masturbation -- no -- this is a journey that begins by letting go of our tired, old salad dogma!

Of the 535 members of Congress, over 44% - 237 to be exact - are millionaires. Fifty have net worths of at least $10 million, and seven are worth more than $100 million. By comparison, around 1% of Americans are millionaires. There is no other minority group that is as overrepresented in Congress.

I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it.

A joke is a very serious thing.

Good Better Best Never Let It Rest Until Your Good is Better And Your Better Best.

The most violent element in society is ignorance.

When you can, adjust your sails.

I think of the simple demonstration by Richard P. Feynman to challenge the Morton-Thikol / NASA O-ring mistake in judgment that cost lives. Yes, the special interests are using kitchen sink tactics, and, as Gandhi exhorted, “First they ignore you, then then laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Rather than sophisticated psychological tit-for-tat, you win with clear examples that cut through the male bovine manure.

Copenhagen, which had been co-branded for the talks on billboards with Coke and Siemens as “Hopenhagen,” was looking more like “Nopenhagen.”

I am always suspicious of pseudo-sciences like astrology, economics and fractal adaptivities.

The question is not whether climate will change in response to human activities, but rather how much (magnitude), how fast (the rate of change) and where (regional patterns). It is also clear that climate change will, in many parts of the world, adversely affect socio-economic sectors, including water resources, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and human settlements, ecological systems (particularly forests and coral reefs), and human health (particularly diseases spread by insects), with developing countries being the most vulnerable. The good news is, however, that the majority of experts believe that significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions are technically feasible due to an extensive array of technologies and policy measures in the energy supply, energy demand and agricultural and forestry sectors. In addition, the projected adverse effects of climate change on socio-economic and ecological systems can, to some degree, be reduced through proactive adaptation measures. These are the fundamental conclusions, taken from already approved/accepted IPCC assessments, of a careful and objective analysis of all relevant scientific, technical and economic information by thousands of experts from the appropriate fields of science from academia, governments, industry and environmental organizations from around the world.

Humans, from time to time, walk with their eyes wide open into catastrophe.

What planet are these people living on? (Answer: Planet Limousine.)

In particular, we show that underlying structure of the logistic map is picked out by the self-dissimilarity signature of time series’ produced by that map.

To jump-start nuclear power, wind and solar and the green economy, you've got to price carbon. How you do it is subject to discussion and open debate. But the idea of not pricing carbon, in my view, means you’re not serious about energy independence. The odd thing is you’ll never have energy independence until you clean up the air, and you’ll never clean up the air until you price carbon.

There is no future; it has yet to arrive. There is no past; it already has gone.

To argue for more forgetting is counter-intuitive to those who value information, history and transparency

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

"There's been an epiphany among the developer community saying, 'Look at these millions of users that we've forgotten to speak to for years.' This can only be a good thing for the gaming industry in the end."

"A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice"

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

I'm masochistic, but not that masochistic...

The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change, comparable to Nazism faced by Churchill in the 20th century and slavery faced by Lincoln in the 19th century. Our fossil fuel addiction, if unabated, threatens our children and grandchildren, and most species on the planet.

Remember that energy is a $6 trillion dollars per year sector of our global economy so the stakes are high.

Reflexive emailing is a sure sign of agitation.

Yesterday was a good day for an energy policy reality check. Because we are in a place where the environmentally responsible choice is lighting a giant oil slick on fire.

The South Equatorial Belt (SEB) is missing. The SEB has about 10 times the surface area of the Earth, so this is not a small change. The SEB has previously gone missing in 1973 and 1990. Since no one really knows what makes the Jovian belts, no one knows why they disappear either.

All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.

"I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forest. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom ... I wanted to breathe smoke. I wanted to burn the Louvre. I'd do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my ass with the Mona Lisa.

If our universe is inside a black hole, it could explain dark energy.

"PLUG THAT HOLE, STOP SELLING YOUR SOULS & LOOKING OUT FIRST FOR THOSE WITH BANKROLLS!"

The idea of points of spacetime as being primary objects is artificial.

Then, are we, in fact, in a movie about ourselves that we cannot step outside of?

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.

It’s not a good sign when climate advocates sound like Chicago Cubs fans.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office

The truth is, Anne, if you eat commercial hamburgers, you’ve probably been [pink] slimed.

The gusher in the Gulf has dramatized in gut-wrenching fashion a set of values and outcomes that comprise the underlying foundation of our lives. This is no "reality TV" episode, even though the already-diluted news coverage increasingly makes everything appear that way. No, this is "real reality" - an edgy, in-your-face, unexpurgated reminder of what we have relentlessly wrought on the planet and ourselves.

One of the most effective ways to annoy a monkey is to place it in proximity to a flying squirrel.

They seem to discover the end of space-time every week, it's a wonder it has lasted so long.

I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now.
Let me not defer it, nor neglect it.
For I shall not pass this way again.