I remember you

Been a while, eh? Anything happened? Nah, I didn't think so...

That said...sigh...three months can go by so quickly. Anyways, I've got a backlog of things to post, although half of the links have probably been moved.

In any event, I wanted to draw attention to the recent NY Review of Books article, covering several recent books discussing global warming.

The books covered:
1. The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate in Crisis and the Fate of Humanity (James Lovelock)
2. China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development (Kelly Sims Gallagher)
3. Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry (Travis Bradford)
4. WorldChanging:A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Alex Steffen)
5. Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises (edited by Architecture for Humanity)

Among the most interesting points to me:
1. Lovelock's tipping point relies on the same mechanisms as most other climate scientists, but as with most, his prediction of the results varies in both impact and time. Shorter Mr. Lovelock: we're screwed.
2. The Gaia hypothesis is alive and well
3. The science of climate behind climate change is moving faster than any literature can keep up. Apparently already An Inconvenient Truth is outdated.
4. Lovelock doesn't want wind power because it disturbs his beloved countryside.
5. Travis Bradford is an I-banker who believes solar will grow annually 20% to 30% for decades (similar growth rate in the computer chip industry). He discusses at length the success of Japan and Germany in increasing solar investment through government subsidies that are now no longer necessary.
6. "In retrospect, historians are likely to conclude that the biggest environmental failure of the Bush administration was not that it did nothing to reduce the use of fossil fuels in America, but that it did nothing to help or pressure China to transform its own economy at a time when such intervention might have been decisive."
7. Check out World Changing's website. Incredible resource for impacting our environment with simple technology at hand. Tremendous example of "the Wisdom of the Masses".
8. Where the hell is that carbon tax already?