Afternoon Glories

Still going strong at 4pm:

I planted red and blue ones in that pot, and now I have purple ones blooming some days.  The leaves here aren’t looking healthy, but it’s still putting out shoots and buds, so I hope I’ll get plenty of weeks of flowers yet.

Book Talk: Al Gore Looks More Normal In Person

Al Gore gave a talk at GWU tonight about his new book “Our Choice”.  A friend got me an extra ticket to go, because she is rather fabulous.   So, the full report: Gore’s looking pretty trim!  And he signed books too, so somebody’s got a Christmas present coming (I’m going to read it first, of course).  The book signing line was well regimented, with Gore just signing away and not talking too much- the only way to get hundreds of people through, I know, but it was pretty impersonal.  I didn’t really have anything to say, though, (“I’ve been to Tennessee!  You were cool on 30 Rock!  I compost sometimes!”) so no biggie.

The talk itself:  it was scienc-y.  First time I’ve heard a politician  (oh right he’s an activist now) refer to a photon like they could define it if pressed.  He explained the six substances causing climate change, talked a little about a lot of ways to change energy, discussed the shape of the new smart grid… and I think the smart grid is really interesting so I spaced out a bit there to think about that and try to imagine if I could work on that in Planning, but then the speech got stirring!  Gore’s warning of the impacts of climate change in an Inconvenient Truth have become a more coherent call to arms now.  The book itself is a well-illustrated summary of the science behind climate change and a survey of the methods we can use to fix the problem, but it’s main message is that we have the technology to solve the problem, but not the political will.  He (correctly, in my opinion) frames our reactions to climate change as the moral testing ground of our era.

The book just came out, and he was on The Daily Show last night explaining it to Jon Stewart.  He used some of the same phrases, so you’ll get the gist of what I saw in the extended interview at Hulu.

Speaking of political will, the Senate climate bill got through the Environmental etc. committee session yesterday, despite all the Republicans on the committee stalling it with demands to find facts they wouldn’t listen to, and walking out of all the committee sessions on it.  Took a fancy interpretation of the voting rules so of course Repubs are mad their bratty, irrational, obstructionist, and (oh my I should save some adjectives for describing Republicans the next time they pull such childish stunts) unprofessional behavior didn’t work out for them.  But is it really steamrolling the minority opposition if the minority a) aren’t there and b) have stated no coherent opposition besides “no”?  Not that the bill the Senate has is great, or even as good as the House’s. But they have a bill.

Al might approve.  Check out the book, the pictures I saw so far looked pretty good.  I’ll let you know how I like it when I finish it.

Stuff I Really Meant to Tell You

Did you hear the one about the underwater Cabinet meeting?  The President of the Maldives made his Ministers meet underwater in scuba gear earlier this year, which will be good practice for when the rising seas flood their island (projected to be sometime this century).  Opinions on the efficacy of his gimmicky and populist approach are mixed, but you’ve got to give him credit for seeing a problem and diving right in.

BusinessWeek reviews some of the Obama administrations efforts to remake the nation’s electricity grid by installing sensors and smart meters.  Given that technology sure is moving fast, and the part where we have no good idea of the chnages to the grid’s supply and demand in the next few decades (being at the beginning of the renewable revolution and all, and I haven’t had a chance to buy my plug-in car yet), this is literally more difficult than we can imagine.  But the stimulus money provided a $3.4 billion dollar down payment on meters.

Which ties right into the article on Al Gore and his investments today in the New York Times.  We all know Al Gore is an advocate for clean technologies to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and that he has invested millions of dollars in start-ups that provide clean technologies.  One of his investments was in a company that sells smart meters for the grid, and has gotten plenty of money from those billions of stimulus funds.  The article points out a potential conflict of interest between his green technology advocacy and his investments, and gives the “profiteering” and “investing in his personal beliefs” angles.  And while Gore is not a lobbyist, he has testified in favor of clean technologies such as the ones he invests in before Congress.  Are you cool with that?  I am, as long as he’s upfront about having those investments during that testimony.   The article doesn’t mention if he did.  Also other people testify before Congress abotu things they have financial stakes in- the auto company presidents begging for their bailouts, for instance.  Fascinating article, if you like ethical puzzles.  Read it and figure out where you draw the line.

Best for last:  I hope you have heard about this already, but if not check it.  William Kamkwamba, back when he was 14, built a windmill.  By himself, in a village in Malawi, with stuff he found, with an old textbook and being amazing for his guide.  People noticed, and now’s he’s got a foundation started to benefit his village and build more windmills, and he’s given a TED talk, and just wow.  His blog is here, his book (of course he wrote a book about it) is here at BetterWorldBooks, an online bookseller that I like and has free shipping (and you can compare their prices to Amazon right there).  Wow!  This is so cool I want to post about it more.

Yes, Virginia

There is an election today.  You should vote in it, too!

Hey, remember that election a year ago?  That was a great election, hey?  This one might not turn out so well, but get to the polls and we will do what we can.

New Goal

Happy November!  About time I got back on the wagon here, but all I can think of is, it’s cold, so I should figure out environmentally friendly ways to stay warm this winter, right?  I’ve had my heat on for a couple weeks already.  I do turn it down to 50 during the day and such, and I always wear a sweater and a blanket-cape and warm socks and furry slippers and such around the house when I’m cold, but it’s still on 68 when I’m home, which I personally, as the daughter of my parents, feel is Too High.

I have some ideas on how to deal with this, so I can turn the heat down- say to 63?  I get cold very easily, and I don’t function well when I’m cold.  But I could get up and do some calisthenics every 30 minutes to keep my sluggish blood flowing (unrealistic, my couch is too soft).  Space heaters are good.  They only work in my bedroom and office, since the other space in my apartment is all joined and too big to heat efficiently with a space heater.  I could spend more time in the bedroom and office.  I could eat more hot soup (tomato soup comes in a box at Whole Foods!  my kind of cooking).  More oatmeal, more tea, etc.  Using the oven warms up the kitchen, too.

Should be enough behavioural changes, but the apartment leaks heat like whoa, so some towels by the windows (single-paned of course) might stop what’s escaping at the edges, at least.  As it’s not my place to convert, I can’t do much beyond that to stop the leaks.  I have up curtains.

Any ideas on what else I can do to stay warm and get that thermostat down even further?

Solar Homes and Coming Home

I did get to the solar decathlon twice- I’ve posted albums of the trips here and here.  Or maybe you saw the sneaky links at the side?  Maybe.  Germany won- understandable, theirs looked pretty cool, but I was a fan of VT’s, personally, and that’s a lot coming from a UVA grad.  You’ll see interiors and exteriors of both in the second (Day 2) album, and more details are on the Solar Decathlon website.

It’s been a bit of a couple months for sure.  I’ve gotten a lot done, though, apps started for grad school,  got the GRE out of the way Monday, midterms are over, and so I’ll be back here more from now on.  Now I’m feeling golden, or at least bored by working all the time.  Planning a trip to New York in a few weeks in part to check out some green buildings up there, but in the meantime there’s lots going on here to tell you about.  Which I will.  Next time.

Lunk’d!

What the what?  Grow meat in a kitchen gadget?  I can’t tell if this sounds more unappetizing or unlikely.

Via The Economist, a study on how greenhouse gas emissions vary across some major cities.  Cities tend to use resources more efficiently than less-densly populated areas, partly because of access to public transit, but they vary widely in how efficient they are.  This study quantifies ghg emissions for some cities and identifies reasons why some might emit so much more than others.

Environmentalists and the Colombian government try to deal with the legacy of Pablo Escobar’s zoo of invasive hippopotamaii.  Poor Pepe.

Solar is sunk without water.

The EPA is pushing ahead on greenhouse gas regulations (woop woop!), but lawmakers are hoping to forestall their efforts by passing a comprehensive bill.  The Senate put out a version of their plan today, too (the hose got to Waxman Markey in June, remember?).  I just want it to get done well, so coming at it from two sides bodes well.  There is speculation that the EPA’s action will goad Congress to a bill more favorable to reducing emissions, faster, but I have great faith in Congress’s ability to disappoint and prevaricate, so I’m expecting this to be almost as painful a show as healthcare.

Party at the Solar Decathalon!  It’s happening again this year, on the Mall- 20ish solar houses from Universities all over the world will be open for tours and other sorts of envir-oogling.  Catch it October 9th-13th and 15th-18th- all the details are here.  I’m so neglecting my homework for this.

A Christmas Nightmare/Miracle

So I was in Target tonight- Friday nights are pretty bumpin’ these days as you see- and they’ve got the Christmas stuff out already.  It’s not even hidden behind the Halloween stuff.  I see no Thanksgiving stuff?  That’s weird, I guess I wasn’t looking.  Anyway I was going to be horrified about rampant consumerism eroding the true meaning of our cherished traditions but then I started looking for adorable penguin cards and forgot about being outraged (only had trees and doves on the recycled content ones, bah).

But!  They had out the LEDs!  I got some a couple years ago, but every other time I’ve tried to find them at Christmas they’ve already been sold out.  So I stocked up, and now I’ll tell you about it so you can beat the rush.  It’s cool, go ahead, I got the ones I want.

Of note:  Philips and some other companies have a whole bunch of different LED bulb types and colors for about $14.  Nets and Icicles and strands and ropes and stars and everything.  There is an off-brand version now, same amount of lights for only $7-cheapest I’ve ever seen them, plus they’ve got the UL and EnergyStar ratings.  All the brands of LEDs now have white lights in both the bluish color I don’t personally like and a new ‘warm white’ option.  I snagged 4 boxes.  My tree is gonna be so amazing.  Oh and I found a strand of solar LEDs to put on my balcony with the other solar lights.  Those were $15, but that’s a small price to pay to spread Christmas cheer to my parking lot.

Anyhoo, Target, has LEDs, get them while the getting’s good.  Is it seriously still September?  Really, Target? September?  Ah whatever worked for me.

Junk Science: MIT Throws It All Away

Heard a story on NPR about this today- a group at MIT is throwing away garbage.

Oh, right, there’s an interesting part:  they’re putting tags on individual pieces of the trash they toss, and they’re going show you where it goes on the internet.  Can’t find the NPR write-up at the moment, but MITnews has a supportive explanation here.  Check out the project’s website for the real goodies, though:  pictures of where stuff you don’t care about anymore actually ends up (your plastic container of liquid soap might only be 15.5 miles away by now!  Do you need a street address?  They can do that for you).

Inherent humor value of smart people playing in the trash aside, I think this project will generate some important data that could convince people the stuff they toss doesn’t actually go away.

Wonder what the first thing to make it to the Pacific Garbage Patch will be?

Review: Tackle Box, With a Side of Overdue Research

The Wednesday before last I had dinner at the Tackle Box with a visiting Uncle.  Technically a first cousin once-removed by marriage, but let’s leave it at uncle.  He emailed a few days in advance requesting good seafood, and I found out about them through WaPo’s restaurant guide- best-reviewed not-gaspingly-expensive seafood restaurant in DC.

Perspective:  I don’t like fish.  Well, live ones that I have to look at or let be anywhere near me.  Fish are ugly and slimy and might bite me.  In theory, I’m ok with living fish far away from me.   I’m usually happy if they’re fried in chunks without visible fish-resembling portions.  And I just finished reading Taras Grescoe’s Bottomfeeder before I left for NZ, which describes plenty of the incredibly destructive and disgusting ways most seafood is raised and harvested around the world.  More on this later.  In conclusion, eating seafood was daunting before, and now I find it possibly revolting.

Still, I happen to like this Uncle, so seafood it was.  Luckily, the Tackle Box (a less ritzy version of it’s big-sister restaurant Hook) has a big old section of their website devoted to their sustainable fishing practices, with earnest promises that they source local and smaller fishing operations and change their menu based on availability, etc.

I don’t know of any way to make sure it’s true.  That’s one intimidating thing about seafood- oversight from the fisherman to the table is more often than not lax, and fish are often labelled incorrectly.  But their website does sound earnest, and a little googling doesn’t reveal any scandals.  So, tentative trust, Tackle Box?

I had the bluefish with the sweet potato fries and asparagus.  I enjoyed the asparagus- crisp enough, well flavored, and the sweet potato fries could have been less oily, but were pretty good anyway.  Bluefish tasted fine, had some pleasing darker portions of meat.  Again I have no real fish experience with anything but fried slabs of the stuff, so don’t rely on my palate.  Uncle seemed to like it.

Afterwards (tonight), I looked up the species to see about overfishing issues.  I started at Wikipedia, but that was silly of me:  if you want to know more about fish that are safe and sustainable for your eating pleasure, go straight to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch site.  They keep close tabs on this stuff, and they say Bluefish are a “Good Alternative” in their rating system- though they are overfished in the Atlantic and they contain lots of toxins, beign at the higher end of the food chain.  Whoops.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium rates fish choices as Best Choice, Good Alternative, or Avoid- and you can print out their pocket guides here or check out their website on your fancy internet phones.  A better choice at the Tackle Box would have been the tilapia- if it was farmed in the US.  Or the trout, if it were US-farmed Rainbow Trout and not so much the wild-caught lake trout.  The staff seemed very nice and informed- go ahead and ask them.

The more you know, hunh?  I’m printing out a guide for the next time Uncle comes into town.