by gmoke
Sat Sep 24th, 2022 at 02:31:30 AM EST
CREW [Communities Responding to Extreme Weather]
Climate Preparedness Week
Throughout the week of September 24th-30th, CREW will be hosting (or co-hosting) a variety of events that will spotlight the invisible effects of climate change.
More information at https://www.climatecrew.org/climate_prep_week_2022
SATURDAY, SEP 24TH, 1-2:30 PM EST- INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
MONDAY, SEP 26TH, 5-6 PM- PREPARING COMMUNITIES TO RESPOND TO EXTREME HEAT
TUESDAY, SEP 27TH, 5-6 PM- RISING SEA LEVELS: PREPARING FOR BOSTON'S FUTURE
WEDNESDAY, SEP 28TH, 11 AM- 12 PM EST- SUSTAINABLE LIVING LIBRARY
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 28TH, 5:30-7:30 PM EST- GROUND TRUTH: SHAPING NARRATIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 28TH, 6:30-8 PM EST- INTERSECTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS: HOW MASSACHUSETTS CAN STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA
THURSDAY, SEP. 29TH, 4-5 PM EST: THE CHALLENGES OF COMMUNICATING CLIMATE RISK
FRIDAY, SEP 30TH, 5:30-6:45- MENTAL HEALTH IN A CHANGING CLIMATE
by gmoke
Mon Sep 19th, 2022 at 02:52:14 AM EST
Insulate Britain (https:/insulatebritain.com) is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion which demanded that the British government fund insulation for all public housing by 2025, and, by the end of 2021, the government must create a plan to fund retrofitting of insulation of all homes in Britain by 2030. Someone estimated that it would cost £5 billion to insulate all public housing by 2025, which I'm sure was "too much" for conventional wisdom.
Insulate Britain demonstrated for these demands by blocking major highways around the UK, a dozen or more times, starting in September 2021 through February 2022 when the group announced "with a heavy heart" that the series of protests had failed in their aim to force the government into taking action. One poll from October 2021 showed that only 18% supported the protests while 72% of those surveyed opposed the protesters' actions, with 10% that "did not know."
Source: https:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulate_Britain_protests
Energy prices are soaring in the UK and, according to columnist Caitlin Moran, "the present UK Energy Rebate Scheme will cost £9.1 billion for just one year"
Source: https:www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-insulate-britain-conservative-party-energy-g78nbfcx
m
https:twitter.com/CHeinemeyer/status/1569646532013465600
and the Guardian reports that
"UK must insulate homes or face a worse energy crisis in 2023, say experts
Cutting heat loss from houses will be more effective in the long term than subsidising bills, according to analysis"
https:/www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/11/britain-insulate-homes-energy-crisis-2023-heat-loss-ho
uses-subsidising-bills
Looks like Insulate Britain was offering a bargain.
by gmoke
Mon Sep 5th, 2022 at 02:25:01 AM EST
IT has designed a program which maximizes the production of wind farms by operating the wind farm as a system, not individual wind turbines. Reducing downwind turbulence within the whole wind farm can increase energy production by 1.2% to 3%, a result validated by field trials in working wind farms.
Source: https:/news.mit.edu/2022/wind-farm-optimization-energy-flow-0811
https:/www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01085-8
When you think of these things as systems, there are previously hidden benefits that become apparent. When you don't, you have the present situation and BAU forever and ever amen.
Another example, from Edwin Black's book,
Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives
(NY: St Martin's Press, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35907-2), about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system and the advantages thereof:
"Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."
Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old and coming back to the fore, both on railways and with trucks.
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2022/07/playing-with-electric-trains-as-climate.html
Yet, thinking in systems is hard for most of us.
by gmoke
Mon Aug 29th, 2022 at 06:18:14 PM EST
*Index
**Conferences
MIT Conference on Mining, Environment and Society
Wednesday, September 7, 10:00 AM - Friday, September 9, 1:30 PM EDT
EBC 4th Annual New England Climate Change and Resiliency Summit
Tuesday, September 13
Advancing the New European Bauhaus
Thursday, September 15
Reimagining the Role of Business in the Public Square
Thursday, September 15
International Conference on Sustainable Development
Monday, September 19, 2022 - Tuesday, September 20, 2022 (all day)
2022 MIT Sustainability Conference
Tuesday, September 20
NYC AgTech Week 2022
September 26 to October 1
**Lecture Series
Cross-sectoral Climate Change Impacts in Europe: Our Warming Planet: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation
Wednesday, September 7
Redesigning Our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels
Saturday, September 10
Rising to the Global Climate Challenge: Australia's Leadership
Tuesday, September 13
Deploying the Synergies Between Energy Access and Sustainable Development: Digital Zukunftssalon in the "The Forces of Transformation" series
Tuesday, September 13
What Are the Soil Carbon Sequestration Potentials of Biochar and Enhanced Weathering?: Towards a Durable Understanding of Soil Carbon as a Tool for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation
Tuesday, September 13
The Connective Tissue: Transmission in Support of Decarbonization
Friday, September 30
**Events
*
Facing Our Climate Anxiety Health Crisis
Sunday, September 4
Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
Tuesday, September 6
Wole Soyinka in Conversation with Henry Louis Gates
Wednesday, September 7
EBC Energy Resources Webinar: Plugging In - Perspectives on Interconnection and Microgrids
Thursday, September 8
Discussion with Reverend Mariama White-Hammond, Boston's Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space
Thursday, September 8
Inverter Technology: Unlocking the Full Potential of Heat Pumps to Decarbonize the Northeast
Friday, September 9
Mid-Cambridge PLANT SWAP
Saturday September 10
Green Anarchy or Eco-Socialism: a debate on scale and tactics
Monday, September 12
Save Democracy and the Planet
Monday, September 12
California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--and What It Means for America's Power Grid
Tuesday, September 13
Greentown Labs EnergyBar: Climatetech Career Fair
September 13
Confronting Climate Change with Design for Resilience
Tuesday, September 13
Environmental Justice: Past, Present, and Future
Thursday, September 15
The 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony
Thursday, September 15
Funding Climate, Energy & Sustainability Ventures
Thursday, September 15
The State of the European Green Deal: Quo vadis EGD?
Friday, September 16
XRBoston Stop the Fossil Fuel Industry, Now: September Week of Rebellion
September 17 - September 25
Boston Local Food Festival
Sunday, September 18
Our Veterans, Wounds of War
Monday, September 19
MIT.nano September Seminar: Electronic skins for robotics and wearables
Monday, September 19
Anjali Waikar, Operations Director, Litigation, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Monday, September 19
Aging & the Economy
Tuesday, September 20
Climate Change: A Solutions Approach (webinar)
Wednesday, September 21
Environmental Justice: Case Studies on Policy, Advocacy and Litigation Trends
Wednesday, September 21
How Innovation Districts Can Embrace Risk and Strengthen Community
Wednesday, September 21
Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station (FRRACS)
Wednesday, September 21
Reaching Net-Zero with Credit Transparency
Thursday, September 22
Sustainability Festival
Thursday, September 22
Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics
Thursday, September 22
Responding to a Perfect Storm of Crises in Ukraine and Beyond: A European Perspective
Friday, September 23
13th Annual Dance for World Community Festival
Saturday, September 24
Creating a Climate Action Plan Centered in Justice, Part 1
Tuesday, September 27
Climate Change Impacts: How Massachusetts Can Stand in Solidarity with Cuba
Wednesday, September 28
Cleantech Open Northeast Finals Judging, Awards & Showcase
September 29
Low-Carbon Hydrogen Accelerator Final Showcase
September 29
On Reckonings, Reimagining, and The Third Reconstruction: A Conversation with Historians Joseph Peniel and Ibram X. Kendi
Thursday, September 29
Gutman Library Virtual Book Talk: The Voices of the Trees
Monday, October 3
These kinds of events are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading.
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Solarray renewable energy and systems efficiency - monthly - http://solarray.blogspot.com
Zero Net Energy links list - quarterly listserv - https:/zeronetenrg.blogspot.com
City Agriculture links list - quarterly listserv - http://cityag.blogspot.com
Geometry links list - bimonthly listserv - http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com
Notes on lectures and books - bimonthly - http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com
Articles, ideas, and screeds - weekly - http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history,https://www.eurotrib.com/user/gmoke/diary, and https:bluemassgroup.com
Twitter @gmokery
Facebook https:www.facebook.com/gmokery
LinkedIn https:www.linkedin.com/in/george-mokray-9315933
by gmoke
Tue Aug 23rd, 2022 at 11:56:48 PM EST
the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.
Diane di Prima, "Rant"
On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research (https:/ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910) is a marvelous paper, a study of the peer-reviewed papers on 100% renewable energy systems from 1975 to date, a meta-study. It just might fire some imaginations and help us become realistic enough to demand the impossible, sooner rather than later.
"The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost. As such, we do not need to rely on fossil fuels in the future. In the early 2020s, the consensus has increasingly become that solar PV and wind power will dominate the future energy system and new research increasingly shows that 100% renewable energy systems are not only feasible but also cost effective. This gives us the key to a sustainable civilization and the long-lasting prosperity of humankind."
The history of 100% renewable energy system analysis goes back to 1975 when the first study by Bent Sørensen was published in Science, using Denmark as a case study (https:www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.189.4199.255).
The next year, Amory Lovins published the second article on 100% renewables, for the United States, and became the first scholar to cite Sørensen (https:/www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1976-10-01/energy-strategy-road-not-taken).
by gmoke
Fri Aug 19th, 2022 at 02:41:52 AM EST
Net zero energy city planned for Egypt, with plans to produce more energy AND food than it consumes
https:/urb.ae/projects/nexgensustainablecity
https:/inhabitat.com/first-climate-positive-net-zero-city-in-the-world
Hotels With Net-Zero Ambitions
https:/www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/travel/hotels-sustainability-net-zero.html
Net positive hotel being built in Denver, CO
https:inhabitat.com/first-carbon-positive-hotel-in-the-us-breaks-ground
Critique by James Kunstler: https:/kunstler.com/eyesore-of-the-month/may-2022
Net zero energy renovation at the 2022 International Builder's Show (which is actually net positive energy renovation)
https:/www.rateitgreen.com/green-building-community/discussions/example-of-a-net-zero-energy-renova
tion-ibs-2022-home-tour-saw-horse-design/5804
Solar Exoskeletons - An integrated building system combining solar gain control with structural efficiency
https:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X22003930
Not solar roads but solar sidewalks, bike paths, and driveways
https:cleantechnica.com/2022/06/21/hungarian-company-introduces-improved-solar-modules-for-solar-p
avement
Net zero community center in Toronto
https:/perkinswill.com/project/north-east-scarborough-community-and-child-care-centre
https:/inhabitat.com/take-a-look-at-torontos-first-net-zero-community-center
Seattle Central College attempts "zero-carbon efficiency" in a new eco district
https:/www.mckinstry.com/seattle-central-college-to-decarbonize-with-unique-ecodistrict-development
/
https:inhabitat.com/seattle-college-will-become-a-ecodistrict-of-modern-tech
Sweden's first climate-positive district, Ljusekulla
https:/www.skanska.se/en-us/about-skanska/sustainability/h22/ljusekulla
hat tip: We Don't Have Time https:/app.wedonthavetime.org
Michelle and Barack Obama Sports Complex - one of the first net zero energy complexes in LA
https:/www.spfa.com/work/obama-sports-complex
https:inhabitat.com/michelle-and-barack-obama-net-zero-energy-sports-complex
Ithaca, NY plans to decarbonize the whole city through electrification
https:/www.greenbiz.com/article/electrify-ithaca-public-private-collaborative-approach-city-wide-de
carbonization
VERGE 22 is the leading climate tech event accelerating solutions to the most pressing challenges of our time. Join thousands of leaders -- from business, government, solution providers and startups -- working together to address the climate crisis across six strategic areas: clean energy, sustainable transportation, carbon removal, regenerative food systems, net-zero buildings and the startup ecosystem.
https:/events.greenbiz.com/events/verge/2022
OCT 25 - 27, 2022 SAN JOSE CONVENTION CENTER, SAN JOSE, CA
Cost: $50 - $1,975
by gmoke
Sun Aug 14th, 2022 at 07:15:01 PM EST
I make it a practice to post only positive news about the environment and the climate; however, I can't get past this recent news:
"Rainwater everywhere on the planet is unsafe to drink due to levels of toxic chemicals known as PFAS that exceed the latest guidelines, according to a new study by Stockholm University scientists."
Source: https:/phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals.html
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are known as "forever chemicals" as they degrade so slowly in the natural environment. They were made for packaging, shampoo, and makeup. ("Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity" and the least cost alternative to make more profit.) PFAS now are everywhere, so persistent and ubiquitous that they will "never disappear from the planet."
The guidelines for exposure to PFAS have changed as we've discovered more about their level of toxicity. They accumulate in the body over time and can lead to problems with fertility, obesity, developmental delays in children, and prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, among other things. However, "PFAS levels in people have actually dropped `quite significantly in the last 20 years' and `ambient levels (of PFAS in the environment) have been the same for the past 20 years'".
In addition:
"A new [2020] study estimates that more than 1,000 tons of microplastics from the air - equivalent to more than 123 million plastic water bottles - rain down onto protected areas in the western U.S. each year."
Source: https:earthsky.org/earth/microplastic-rain-western-us
What have we done to the rain? What are we doing to ourselves and all the living world?
by gmoke
Sun Jul 31st, 2022 at 12:47:50 AM EST
Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - August 2022
*Index
**Conferences
Decolonizing and Regrowing Our Food Systems
Friday, August 5 - Sunday, August 7
----
TEDxBoston Traction
Monday August 15
----
**Lecture Series
Flourish Fiction Summer Workshop Series 2022!
Open Feedback Workshop
August 3
End-of-Summer Showcase
August 24
----
How to Cover the Climate Crisis -- and Fight Disinformation
August 8 - September 4
**Events
*
Continued Conversations: Indigenous Land Rights with Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Monday, August 1
------
Project Carbdown: ERW MRV - Dirk Paessler, Carbon Drawdown Initiative
Tuesday, August 2
------
World Sustainability Collective - Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases Remova
l
Tuesday, August 2
------
Informational webinar on Environmental Justice Data Fund Grants
Wednesday, August 3
------
Debating Eco-Socialist Futures
Wednesday, August 3
------
EPA Environmental Justice Outreach Session: General Issues
Wednesday, August 3
------
Bridging the Great American Divide
Wednesday, August 3
------
Engineering Solutions for Earth's Oceans presented by STEMSpark
Thursday, August 4
------
EnergyBar August 2022: Summer Rooftop Networking
Thursday, August 4
------
A Half-Built Garden: Ruthanna Emrys in conversation with Ada Palmer
Thursday, August 4
------
Cool: Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming
Friday, August 5
------
Reclaim Rock City Free Community Fair!
Saturday August 6
------
Deep Dialogue Part 2 on weatherizing and electrifying heating in our residential buildings
Monday, August 8
------
The Rise of Eco-Fascism - Lowell Bliss
Tuesday, August 9
------
Building Business Resilience in the Climate Change Era
Wednesday, August 10
------
A Global Energy Revolution: Blueprint for a Prosperous, Zero-Carbon Future
Thursday, August 11
------
CLF Boston Reuse: Highlighting Circular Materials Innovation
Thursday, August 18
------
Carbofex: Biochar at Scale - Founder and CEO Sampo Tukiainen
Tuesday, August 23
------
Embedding sustainability in governance, structure and culture
Wednesday, August 24
------
Wetlands, mangroves and global warming!
Wednesday, August 24
------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------------
by gmoke
Sun Jul 10th, 2022 at 04:36:04 PM EST
This Brattle Group study (https:/www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/grid-enhancing-technologies-shown-to-double-reg
ional-renewable-energy-capacity-according-to-study-by-brattle-consultants) found that in Kansas and Oklahoma Grid Enhancing Technologies [GETs] could double renewable energy generation on the grid, paying for themselves in just six months.
Rocky Mountain Institute describes Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) (https:/rmi.org/ferc-could-slash-inflation-and-double-renewables-grid-upgrades) as
"Dynamic Line Ratings
Adjusting the carrying capacity of transmission lines based on real-time measurement of ambient conditions
Transit analogy: real-time adjusted speed limits
"Advanced Power Flow Controls
Hardware solutions that push power away from lines with capacity constraints and pull power to lines with spare capacity
Transit analogy: railroad switching stations that direct trains to free tracks
"Topology Optimization
Software solutions that automatically route power flows around congested areas
Transit analogy: re-uniting drivers around traffic"
As Pogo said, "We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities;"
but then
Pogo also said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
by gmoke
Mon Jul 4th, 2022 at 03:19:02 AM EST
From Edwin Black's book, Internal Combustion, about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system:
"Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."
Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old.
Today, Fortescue Williams, a hard rock mining company, operates an "Infinity Train" in Australia that never needs charging using this idea. Eventually, they want to make all 54 of the trains "Infinity Trains."
https:/www.fmgl.com.au/in-the-news/media-releases/2022/03/01/fortescue-williams-(wae)-settlement-po
wers-development-of-world-first-infinity-train
https:cleantechnica.com/2022/05/31/an-electric-train-that-never-needs-charging-its-real
https:/inhabitat.com/mining-company-adopts-electric-trains-that-never-need-recharging
by gmoke
Sat Jul 2nd, 2022 at 02:50:25 AM EST
*Index
**Lecture Series
Announcing our Flourish Fiction Summer Workshop Series 2022!
Prompt Generation Workshop - July 6, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
Infinite Hope: Imagining a Better World - July 20, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
Open Feedback Workshop - August 3, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
End-of-Summer Showcase - August 24, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
----
Heat Pump Water Heaters- Builders share their experience
Tuesday, July 12
----
The Storage Opportunity: Customer Demand, Market Reform, and Technology Innovation
Thursday, July 21
**Events
*
Conservative [UK] solutions to air pollution * Webinar and Q&A
Monday, July 4
Boston Climate Tech Social 2.0
Wednesday, July 6
BE+ Building Tech Forum 2022
Thursday, July 7
Circular Economy Boston Kick-Off Meeting
Thursday, July 7
EAP Lab: Floating Wetlands
Saturday, July 9
Energy After War: How Ukraine Affects Us All
Tuesday, July 12
Ecological Protection
Friday, July 15
EPA National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Call
Tuesday, July 19
Extreme Heat Boston
Wednesday, July 20
Patti Poppe: Navigating PG&E through Climate Disruption
Thursday, July 21
Worlds of Gray and Green: Mineral Extraction as Ecological Practice
Wednesday, July 27
UVA's Opening Reception: Inspiring Change for the Climate Crisis
Thursday, July 28
EnergyBar August 2022: Summer Rooftop Networking
Thursday, August 4
----------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------------
by gmoke
Wed Jun 22nd, 2022 at 06:09:51 PM EST
from The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
Mineola, NY: Dover, 1994 [originally published 1899] (ISBN 0-486-28062-4)
(page 49) So, those offices which are by right the proper employment of the leisure class are noble; such as government, fighting, hunting, the care of arms and accoutrements, and the like, - in short, those which may be classed as ostensibly predatory employments.
(123) The leisure class is the conservative class.
... The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion.
(152) Moreover, the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government, which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation.
(153) It is only the high-bred gentleman and the rowdy that normally resort to blows as the universal solvent of differences of opinion.
(157) It is noticeable, for instance, that even very mild-mannered and matter-of-fact men who go out shooting are apt to carry an excess of arms and accoutrements in order to impress upon their own imagination the seriousness of their undertaking. These huntsmen are also prone to histrionic, prancing gait and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions, whether of stealth or on onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit.
... Except where it is adopted as a necessary means of secret communication, the use of a special slang in any employment is probably to be accepted as evidence that the occupation in question is substantially make-believe.
(165) From the evidence already recited it appears that, in sentiment and inclinations, the leisure class is more favourable to a warlike attitude and animus than the industrial classes.
(184) The predatory habit of mind involves an accentuated sense of personal dignity and of the relative standing of individuals. The social structure in which the predatory habit has been the dominant factor in the shaping of institutions is a structure based on status. The pervading norm in the predatory community's scheme of life is the relation of superior and inferiors, noble and base, dominant and subservient persons and classes, master and slave. The anthropomorphic cults have come down from that stage of industrial development and have been shaped by the same scheme of economic differentiation, - a differentiation into consumer and producer, - and they are pervaded by the same dominant principle of mastery and subservience.
(234) In point of derivation, the office of government is a predatory function, pertaining integrally to the archaic leisure-class scheme of life. It is an exercise of control and coercion over the population from which the class draws its sustenance.
by gmoke
Wed Jun 1st, 2022 at 04:23:09 PM EST
*Index
**Conferences
Numbers and Nature: Mitchell J. Feigenbaum Symposium
Thursday, June 2 - June 3
MA Solidarity Economy / Worker Co-op Festival & Gathering
Saturday & Sunday, June 4-5
The Pulitzer Center's 2022 Annual Conference
Interconnected: Reporting the Climate Crisis
June 9 - 10
Eurekafest!
Wednesday, June 15
**Lecture Series
Weaning Buildings Off Fossil Gas & Market (Redesign) Pathways to a Decarbonized Grid
Friday, June 10
Portable Heat Pumps - Low Cost Supplemental Heating and Cooling
Wednesday, June 22
**Events
*
Webinar: Get All the 𝚍̶𝚒̶𝚛̶𝚝̶ SOIL on Soil Conservation in Urban Agriculture
Wednesday, June 1
Boston MA Budget Hearings on American Rescue Plan Act Funds
Wednesday, June 1
Countdown: An Evening with Alan Weisman
Wednesday, June 1
Wanjira Mathai on Sustainable Development and the Power of Women
Tuesday, June 7
Commonwealth Kitchen Food Show
Thursday, June 9
Right to a Healthy Environment: Symposium
June 9, 2022
Ukraine and beyond: Lessons in refugee education
A Brookings-Yidan Prize event on key issues in refugee education
Tuesday, June 21
Climate Change, Our Youths, and Mental Health
Monday, June 27
Education meets the metaverse: The promise and the worry
A Brookings-Yidan Prize event on the future of education in the 21st century
Tuesday, June 28
--------------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------------
by gmoke
Sun May 1st, 2022 at 07:49:44 PM EST
------
Index
------
------------
Conferences
------------
Tuesday, May 3
Graduate workshop: Data-driven environmental economics research from the EPA
Thursday, June 2 - June 3
Numbers and Nature: Mitchell J. Feigenbaum Symposium
--------------
Lecture Series
--------------
Tuesday, May
CAN WE RESIST THE HIJACKING OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA & BEYOND?
Cambridge Forum (https:/www.cambridgeforum.org?cat=3)
Friday, May 13
Building Climate Resilience in Transportation Systems
MIT Mobility Forum, (http://mmi.mit.edu/events)
Wednesday, May 11
Networking on the Trails: Mass Audubon's Climate Initiatives
Climate Adaptation Forum (https:/climateadaptationforum.org/events)
Friday, June 10
Market (Redesign) Pathways to a Decarbonized Grid; and Weaning Buildings Off Fossil Gas
NE Restructuring Roundtable (http://www.raabassociates.org/main/roundtable.asp)
------
Events
------
Monday, May 2
Mandating Climate Disclosures: Impacts on Sustainability and Financial Markets
Bazaar of Ideas: Moving Stuff Around
Wednesday, May 4
The Power of Protest: A Film Screening: The Boys Who Said No!
Thursday, May 5
Net Zero MA.: Legislation + Energy Sources for Achieving 2050 Climate Goals
Summit: Inventing the Future of Money
Environment, Ethics and Embodiment: Buddhist Approaches to Climate Change
Friday, May 6
Improving climate models with hybrid AI approaches
Saturday May 7
Fayette Park plant swap
Wake up the Earth Festival
Monday, May 9
Circular Economy for Sustainable Development: The Role of Land, Fuels, and Manufacturing
Tuesday, May 10
American governance: The way forward
Energy Companies and the Energy Transition: Transforming the Organization
Manufacturing the Clerical Predator: How the Catholic Hierarchy Creates and Maintains a Culture of Abuse
Friday, May 13
Carbon Neutral Geothermal Building In the Hudson Valley
Tuesday, May 17
Securing the Future of Agriculture
Wedneday, May 18
NECEC Emerging Trends Series: Deploying Climate Solutions
A Changing Planet Seminar: Seasonal rainfall over Eastern Africa and the Tropics: Trends, Climate Models and Projections
Thursday, May 19
Climate Conversations: Adaptation in Agriculture
The End of the Petrostate - How Electrification will Reshape the World
Friday, May 20
Bringing Together Varied Communities, As in the Covid Pandemic and Climate Change
Wednesday, May 25
MA Attorney General Climate Debate
----------------
These kinds of events are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
by gmoke
Fri Apr 22nd, 2022 at 01:29:53 AM EST
Preface: I originally wrote this a couple of decades ago, based upon my experiences working with a traveling energy show in the 1970s and 1980s and my own experiments with public displays of renewable energy at farmers' markets (https:/www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/8/21/140257-). I rewrote it for a new venture, Flourish Fiction which is trying to fill the need for "more hopeful stories to awaken imagination and help inspire the next generation of climate solutions." It is also published there at https://flourishfiction.substack.com/p/mister-franklins-folks?s=r
This is one way to imagine how to change the climate conversation in one growing season.
_____
Mister Franklin's Folks began when a small group of people decided to bring a solar fountain to the local farmers market. A solar electric panel pumped water up from a tub into a little fountain that would splash and spray. The brighter the sunshine, the higher the water would go. Children loved to turn it on and off with their shadows, jumping into and out of the sunlight, making the water dance and themselves laugh. Older kids asked questions, and so did some of the adults. "What's it for? How does it work? Why are you doing this? So what?"
The exhibit was labeled "Solar Fountain/Wishing Well" and some coins lay at the bottom of the tub. Nearby, there was a table under the shade of an umbrella where one of Franklin's Folk sat with a collection of books, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, and stickers, along with a big can labeled "Donations." The van parked behind them was full of working models and public experiments, product demos, and testing equipment. They shared guides with anyone who wanted them. For a small donation.
Each week, from Memorial Day to the week before Thanksgiving, throughout the farmers' market season, they'd be there. Each week, they'd set up a little solar fountain and present a different example of solar ingenuity and practical power. When they said power to the people, they meant it.
They said, "A south-facing window is already a solar collector and we can show you how to use it. A south-facing porch is even better. It can become a sunspace or greenhouse and you can grow food all year long."
They provided designs and projects that began by caulking and sealing a window and ended with a complete one-room HVAC and electrical system for daily and/or emergency use.
"A few inches of solar panel, a hand or foot powered generator, and a set of rechargeable batteries is a perpetual source of personal electrical power. You can have power as long as the sun keeps shining and can turn the handle or push the pedal when it isn't. You can have power as long as the batteries hold a charge. And when the batteries die, recycle the old ones and buy some new. That is, unless we've changed to capacitors, flywheels, or fuel cells by then."
by gmoke
Fri Apr 15th, 2022 at 01:25:16 AM EST
Boston University organized a talk on how Phoenix, New York, and the State of California are planning for extreme heat the other day.
https:/www.bu.edu/ioc/2022/03/02/bridging-the-research-policy-divide-lessons-from-cities-tackling-e
xtreme-heat
https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0UGVX8bs1I
As NOAA Weather Service reports, "More Americans die from heat every year than from all other extreme weather events combined."
Daphne Lundi, Deputy Director for Social Resiliency of NYC Mayor's Office of Resiliency, spoke. Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call for the city and thus it has developed a long-term heat resiliency plan as part of their overall sustainability efforts. The city's approach is "If we're in the 2080s and we're going to have triple the amount of extreme heat days, what are we doing now in terms of our buildings, in terms of our land use policy to get us to a better place decades from now."
NYC has been developing Cool Neighborhoods since 2017 including ideas like
Shading and tree canopies
White rooms or reflective surfaces like "cool roofs"
Cooling centers
Report available at https:/www1.nyc.gov/assets/orr/pdf/Cool_Neighborhoods_NYC_Report.pdf [pdf alert]
They are constantly leading building preparedness and understanding of heat risk so that people know the tools available before a heat wave happens.
NYC also has building energy standards and the Office of Resiliency works on necessary legislation and regulation. For instance, they are now looking at the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program [LIHEAP] in relation to cooling as well as heating, which is where the bulk of funding goes.
by gmoke
Mon Apr 4th, 2022 at 01:22:36 AM EST
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them. These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows whether such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency
https:/zeronetenrg.blogspot.com - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------
Conferences
------------
Migration Summit
Monday, April 4 - April 29, 2022
Virtual Event
The Migration Summit 2022, organized by the MIT Refugee Action Hub (ReACT), Na'amal, Karam Foundation and the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL), is a month-long global convening designed to build bridges between diverse communities of displaced learners, universities, companies, nonprofits and NGOs, social enterprises, foundations, philanthropists, researchers, policy makers, employers and governments around the key challenges and opportunities for refugee and migrant communities. The Migration Summit in April 2022 will explore this year's theme "Education and Workforce Development in Displacement" through virtual and in-person events hosted by participating partners around the world.
Visit https:react.mit.edu/migrationsummit to register and to read the full event description.
----------------
Living Climate Futures
Friday, April 22 - April 23
MIT Campus, Various Locations
Living Climate Futures culminates in a two-day symposium of events and activities, April 22-23.
Some events are open to the public and require Tim Tickets (see FAQ).
Others are for the MIT community (preference to students) and community partners only.
Full Description: https:/livingclimatefutures.org
Friday, April 22
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Virtual visit with Chicago high school student activists
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Indigenous Earth Day at MIT
Saturday, April 23
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Environmental Justice + Climate Resilience Tours
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Community Partner Panel Discussion + Youth Forum
(all details subject to change - sign up for each event in Eventbrite to get updates)
----------------
TEDxMIT
Saturday, April 23
Stata Center
https:tedxboston.com/upcoming-events
_____
MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference 2022
Friday, April 29
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Building E14 - 6th Floor, Cambridge
Tickets now available: http://newspaceage.org/
Cost: $10 - $175
A student-led event at MIT Sloan.
MIT's Astropreneurship & Space Industry Club is proud to host the seventh annual New Space Age Conference as a platform to advance growth of the private space industry. 2022 speakers will discuss new technologies and services being implemented to close the business case for the emerging space economy. Join students, academics, and industry professionals to learn more !
_
____
2022 Hybrid Interfaith Summit - Together in Climate Chaos; Interfaith Solidarity for Climate Resilient Communities; an Interfaith Summit on How to Respond to Climate Change
May 1
4pm-6pm
zoom and in person
Native American Indian Center of Boston, 105 South Huntington Avenue, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. You have a choice of either attending in-person, or virtually on zoom.
RSVP at https:/us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElc-yqqTgjEtBaSf15bzUUptAuOCnu5Hzw
In the wake of the National Climate Assessment and UN report in 2021 on the projected serious consequences of unchecked climate change, interfaith leaders from the greater Boston area will come together with Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) to host the fourth annual interfaith summit.
This now abbreviated summit will focus on the role of faith communities in helping their community members build resilience, whether from future climate impacts such as floods, extreme heat, and severe storms, or more immediate concerns like a pandemic. We will shall share knowledge on the types of changes we are already seeing and can expect to see in the Northeast, discuss practical ways congregations can prepare themselves and their surrounding community, and discern together how our spiritual practices could help sustain not only our efforts, but also our souls, hearts, and minds, as we engage in this most critical mission.
There will be an optional half-hour of networking from 6:00pm-6:30pm on the same zoom line that participants are encouraged but not mandated to attend.
_____
Lecture Series
--------------
Real Organic Book Club
https:www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-friends
We are pleased to announce the first several dates for our 2022 Real Friends book club:
Paul Hawken, May 5, 6pm EDT
Anne Bikle, June 2, 6pm EDT
David Montgomery, July 7, 6pm EDT
Vandana Shiva, to be announced
Dan Barber, to be announced
Providing you with the opportunity to engage with these prominent Real Organic board members is just one of the ways we would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our work. The book club meetings should be fun and interesting. It will be a chance to talk with these important thinkers about their work.
------
Events
------
PAOC Colloquium: Ecological and evolutionary responses to global change across realms
Monday, April 4
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual Event
https:/mit.zoom.us/j/99605116338#success
Malin Pinsky (Rutgers)
The same ecological and evolutionary processes operate across land and sea, and yet ocean life survives in a dramatically different fluid environment. The ocean is, in effect, a 1.3 sextillion liter water bath with muted thermal variation through time and space, limited oxygen, and intense convective and conductive processes. In this talk, I will trace some of the consequences for evolution, physiology, population dynamics, and conservation at sea, including striking contrasts and similarities to patterns on land. I will present evidence that marine animals live closer to their upper thermal limits than do species on land, that marine species have responded faster to temperature change, and that species can but do not universally evolve in response to rapid environmental change. Finally, I will discuss some of the unique conservation challenges these dynamics create for ocean life and potential solutions through proactive ocean planning and by harnessing evolutionary rescue for climate resilience.
About This Event
The PAOC Colloquium is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm. Contact paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu for more information and Zoom password.
--------------
How Do We Think about Population in the Anthropocene?
Monday, April 4
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
RSVP at https:www.eventbrite.com/e/alison-bashford-how-do-we-think-about-population-in-the-anthropocene-re
gistration-252378048537
Alison Bashford explores first how modern (post c. 1780) population changes have entered discussion on the Anthropocene. Second, she asks how historians specifically, might (not should) begin to answer this question, with attention to both accelerating global net population growth and local population decline. She considers the `Anthropocene' (not, say, `climate change'), since the former is an historical as well as a geological phenomenon, and, it turns out, a familiar one.
Alison Bashford's work traces the fortunes and trends of historical work on global population from the mid-twentieth century into the era when the Anthropocene was named. The catastrophic register of `the population bomb' era, including its connection to ecological sciences and then environmentalist politics, is the immediate antecedent to political responses to the Anthropocene crisis. That much we already know. Here Allison Bashford explores how and why `population' went from center-stage to off-stage. Discussion of population growth and `population control' became highly charged and then became almost unspeakable. For better or worse this was a remarkable success story of and for `critique': of health systems, of political economy, of Cold War geopolitics, variously via feminist studies, race and postcolonial studies, via Marxism and left science studies from the 1970s onwards. After and in the light of that impact, she asks how or whether `population' might productively be considered via a `postcritique' humanities and social sciences, not least bringing historians into that conversation.
Event Speakers
Alison Bashford, Laureate Professor in History at the University of New South Wales
Response by Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University
Chaired by Maureen Raymo, Co-Founding Dean of the Climate School at Columbia University
----------------
Delivering on Net Zero
Tuesday, April 5
11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
RSVP at https:harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LIzv_Hu7Rr2bFiUg3rYJBg
SPEAKER(S) Kwasi Kwarteng, UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
CONTACT INFO mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu
----------------
Getting Off Russian Gas: Implications for Germany and Europe
Tuesday, April 5
5:30 - 6:15pm CEST
RSVP at https:email.gmfus.org/s/4434c98e8e6db288802f00e67ddb3141db242047
Jacob Kirkegaard
Moderator: Sudha David-Wilp
External Speaker: Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm
Before Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine, allies warned Germany of the risks associated with energy dependence on Russia. Now, Germany and other EU member states are hurriedly seeking ways to replace Russian fossil fuels. In his Zeitenwende speech, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a "responsible, forward-looking energy policy," but economic concerns already threaten to thwart his vision. What would be the economic effects for Germany and Europe if they wean themselves off Russian gas sooner rather than later? To discuss this question and more, we will speak with economic experts Veronika Grimm and Jacob Kirkegaard in this month's edition of #TransatlanticTuesdays. Next month, we will cover the military pillar of the Zeitenwende speech.
If you have any questions, please contact Callie Starn at CStarn@gmfus.org.
----------------
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows whether such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency
https:/zeronetenrg.blogspot.com - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------
Conferences
------------
Migration Summit
Monday, April 4 - April 29, 2022
Virtual Event
The Migration Summit 2022, organized by the MIT Refugee Action Hub (ReACT), Na'amal, Karam Foundation and the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL), is a month-long global convening designed to build bridges between diverse communities of displaced learners, universities, companies, nonprofits and NGOs, social enterprises, foundations, philanthropists, researchers, policy makers, employers and governments around the key challenges and opportunities for refugee and migrant communities. The Migration Summit in April 2022 will explore this year's theme "Education and Workforce Development in Displacement" through virtual and in-person events hosted by participating partners around the world.
Visit https:react.mit.edu/migrationsummit to register and to read the full event description.
----------------
Living Climate Futures
Friday, April 22 - April 23
MIT Campus, Various Locations
Living Climate Futures culminates in a two-day symposium of events and activities, April 22-23.
Some events are open to the public and require Tim Tickets (see FAQ).
Others are for the MIT community (preference to students) and community partners only.
Full Description: https:/livingclimatefutures.org
Friday, April 22
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Virtual visit with Chicago high school student activists
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Indigenous Earth Day at MIT
Saturday, April 23
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Environmental Justice + Climate Resilience Tours
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Community Partner Panel Discussion + Youth Forum
(all details subject to change - sign up for each event in Eventbrite to get updates)
----------------
TEDxMIT
Saturday, April 23
Stata Center
https:tedxboston.com/upcoming-events
_____
MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference 2022
Friday, April 29
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Building E14 - 6th Floor, Cambridge
Tickets now available: http://newspaceage.org/
Cost: $10 - $175
A student-led event at MIT Sloan.
MIT's Astropreneurship & Space Industry Club is proud to host the seventh annual New Space Age Conference as a platform to advance growth of the private space industry. 2022 speakers will discuss new technologies and services being implemented to close the business case for the emerging space economy. Join students, academics, and industry professionals to learn more !
_
____
2022 Hybrid Interfaith Summit - Together in Climate Chaos; Interfaith Solidarity for Climate Resilient Communities; an Interfaith Summit on How to Respond to Climate Change
May 1
4pm-6pm
zoom and in person
Native American Indian Center of Boston, 105 South Huntington Avenue, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. You have a choice of either attending in-person, or virtually on zoom.
RSVP at https:/us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElc-yqqTgjEtBaSf15bzUUptAuOCnu5Hzw
In the wake of the National Climate Assessment and UN report in 2021 on the projected serious consequences of unchecked climate change, interfaith leaders from the greater Boston area will come together with Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) to host the fourth annual interfaith summit.
This now abbreviated summit will focus on the role of faith communities in helping their community members build resilience, whether from future climate impacts such as floods, extreme heat, and severe storms, or more immediate concerns like a pandemic. We will shall share knowledge on the types of changes we are already seeing and can expect to see in the Northeast, discuss practical ways congregations can prepare themselves and their surrounding community, and discern together how our spiritual practices could help sustain not only our efforts, but also our souls, hearts, and minds, as we engage in this most critical mission.
There will be an optional half-hour of networking from 6:00pm-6:30pm on the same zoom line that participants are encouraged but not mandated to attend.
_____
Lecture Series
--------------
Real Organic Book Club
https:www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-friends
We are pleased to announce the first several dates for our 2022 Real Friends book club:
Paul Hawken, May 5, 6pm EDT
Anne Bikle, June 2, 6pm EDT
David Montgomery, July 7, 6pm EDT
Vandana Shiva, to be announced
Dan Barber, to be announced
Providing you with the opportunity to engage with these prominent Real Organic board members is just one of the ways we would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our work. The book club meetings should be fun and interesting. It will be a chance to talk with these important thinkers about their work.
------
Events
------
PAOC Colloquium: Ecological and evolutionary responses to global change across realms
Monday, April 4
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual Event
https:/mit.zoom.us/j/99605116338#success
Malin Pinsky (Rutgers)
The same ecological and evolutionary processes operate across land and sea, and yet ocean life survives in a dramatically different fluid environment. The ocean is, in effect, a 1.3 sextillion liter water bath with muted thermal variation through time and space, limited oxygen, and intense convective and conductive processes. In this talk, I will trace some of the consequences for evolution, physiology, population dynamics, and conservation at sea, including striking contrasts and similarities to patterns on land. I will present evidence that marine animals live closer to their upper thermal limits than do species on land, that marine species have responded faster to temperature change, and that species can but do not universally evolve in response to rapid environmental change. Finally, I will discuss some of the unique conservation challenges these dynamics create for ocean life and potential solutions through proactive ocean planning and by harnessing evolutionary rescue for climate resilience.
About This Event
The PAOC Colloquium is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm. Contact paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu for more information and Zoom password.
--------------
How Do We Think about Population in the Anthropocene?
Monday, April 4
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
RSVP at https:www.eventbrite.com/e/alison-bashford-how-do-we-think-about-population-in-the-anthropocene-re
gistration-252378048537
Alison Bashford explores first how modern (post c. 1780) population changes have entered discussion on the Anthropocene. Second, she asks how historians specifically, might (not should) begin to answer this question, with attention to both accelerating global net population growth and local population decline. She considers the `Anthropocene' (not, say, `climate change'), since the former is an historical as well as a geological phenomenon, and, it turns out, a familiar one.
Alison Bashford's work traces the fortunes and trends of historical work on global population from the mid-twentieth century into the era when the Anthropocene was named. The catastrophic register of `the population bomb' era, including its connection to ecological sciences and then environmentalist politics, is the immediate antecedent to political responses to the Anthropocene crisis. That much we already know. Here Allison Bashford explores how and why `population' went from center-stage to off-stage. Discussion of population growth and `population control' became highly charged and then became almost unspeakable. For better or worse this was a remarkable success story of and for `critique': of health systems, of political economy, of Cold War geopolitics, variously via feminist studies, race and postcolonial studies, via Marxism and left science studies from the 1970s onwards. After and in the light of that impact, she asks how or whether `population' might productively be considered via a `postcritique' humanities and social sciences, not least bringing historians into that conversation.
Event Speakers
Alison Bashford, Laureate Professor in History at the University of New South Wales
Response by Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University
Chaired by Maureen Raymo, Co-Founding Dean of the Climate School at Columbia University
----------------
Delivering on Net Zero
Tuesday, April 5
11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
RSVP at https:harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LIzv_Hu7Rr2bFiUg3rYJBg
SPEAKER(S) Kwasi Kwarteng, UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
CONTACT INFO mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu
----------------
Getting Off Russian Gas: Implications for Germany and Europe
Tuesday, April 5
5:30 - 6:15pm CEST
RSVP at https:/email.gmfus.org/s/4434c98e8e6db288802f00e67ddb3141db242047
Jacob Kirkegaard
Moderator: Sudha David-Wilp
External Speaker: Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm
Before Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine, allies warned Germany of the risks associated with energy dependence on Russia. Now, Germany and other EU member states are hurriedly seeking ways to replace Russian fossil fuels. In his Zeitenwende speech, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a "responsible, forward-looking energy policy," but economic concerns already threaten to thwart his vision. What would be the economic effects for Germany and Europe if they wean themselves off Russian gas sooner rather than later? To discuss this question and more, we will speak with economic experts Veronika Grimm and Jacob Kirkegaard in this month's edition of #TransatlanticTuesdays. Next month, we will cover the military pillar of the Zeitenwende speech.
If you have any questions, please contact Callie Starn at CStarn@gmfus.org.
----------------
