Comments disdaniel has made

Useless adenda

Point 2) "Drought and other weird weather, possibly related to climate change. Southern Australia, a major ag-producing region, has been been in a brutal drought for six years, which may or may not be related to climate change."

I'm sorry but "possibly related to climate change" and "may or may not be related to climate change" adds nothing to the point.  You could just as easily, and correctly say "drought possibly related to alien invasion" or "may or may not be related to black holes".

And yes I believe 100% in climate change.  If there is evidence of a strong (or weak) link say so.  I wouldn't mind if you point out: Drought and other weird weather which climate models predict should become more widespread due to global warming.  But what you did say is frankly pointless.On What's causing the sudden run-up in food prices? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 39 Responses

oh the magic of leases!

Interesting business model...how many systems have they installed?

On their website they compare a sample solar lease to system purchase.  After incentives the purchase/out of pocket price for their 4kw system would be $25k to the homeowner, down from $35-$40k because of CA incentives (I assume).  For this analysis the CA incentives are a wash--the homeowner or solarcity get them either way.

SolarCity offers you a 15 yr lease at ~$2,000/yr ($1500 in year one; $2500 in year 15) after charging you $2k down, and an extra $8k to buyout the system at the end of the lease.

Solar City pockets a 30% federal tax credit worth ~$10k (an individual is capped to a $2k federal tax credit). This $10k plus the $2k down covers 50% of their outlay day 1.  Solarcity then charges ~$30k over 15 years of lease, plus the $8k residual ($38k altogether).  

I think that is pretty cool...$30k in lease payments over 15 years takes the asset from ~$13k value down to ~$8k.

I'm sure SolarCity gets some additional accelerated depreciation benefits...but I can sure see why SolarCity would want to sell this to the whole neighborhood.
On Entrepreneur Lyndon Rive wants to solarize your house for a low, low price posted 1 year, 7 months ago 9 Responses

Thank you

I really appreciate your pointing out how our environment of "lazy" media (or simply cost constrained) fails to point out logical connections between paid spokespersons and industry interest lobby groups.On Maddening posted 2 years, 8 months ago 3 Responses

A Burmese problem?

So the wildlife conservation society should only work with countries that meet western standards of conservative democracy?  

This begs the question what are these standards? I myself can no longer say exactly what these standards of western conservative democracy are--minimal human rights and america's own civil rights appear to be the first causualties of the current global war on tactics--eer I mean terror...
Moreover, I hardly think that the wildlife conservation society is singlehandedly propping up the Burmese junta.  And even if they were, the alternative would just be some other interested party (IRAN, RUSSIA, CHINA) that we (meaning people like the TNR staff) likely have even less control/regard for.

Furthermore the group is called the wildlife conservation society (rather than say amnesty international) for a reason...their mission is as you say biodiversity conservation.  

Once you have the leading human rights organizations link up to preserve biodiversity, I believe that it is wholly appropriate to the wildlife group to press agressively for humane treatment of humans.On NGO cozy with human-rights nightmare Burma? posted 3 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses

don't lose hope

Eeek that is pretty grim.  I'm not sure any of those options are good...

Well, it just so happens I've been working on a small scale water treatment technology.  It is still a work in progress...for a sneak peak check out my blog:

http://time-is-energy.blogspot.com/On Water scarcity will cause lots of scary things to happen. posted 3 years, 3 months ago 6 Responses

Alternatives are many...

I'd say solar is a very viable alternative to nuclear.  I just read Solar Revolution by Travis Bradford of the Prometheus Institute.  If you want the clearest analysis of solar prospects that I've seen, this is it.On Nuclear power is complicated, dangerous, and definitely not the answer posted 3 years, 3 months ago 40 Responses

your point?

Point 1) You are saying that exactly because the doom and gloom tactic has worked in the past for the environmental movement (better funding and memberships), that it should not use such tactics in the future...because some day (presumably after global climate change ravages the world) the sky might really actually fall and then what would they say???

{Note: I'm too optimistic by nature to be a doom and gloomer, but hey to each his own.}

Point 2) People just might respond to doom and gloom.

Point 3) Cost-Benefit analysis...very good.  How do you measure costs?  [Hint: the current system is not working.]  How do you calculate benefits?  What happens when one person pays the cost and a million people benefit (or vice versa)?  
What about things we could do today that create net gains (better fuel/energy efficiency & life cycle engineering) by lowering costs and raising benefits?  Is it ok to say that people who are unnecesarily wasteful are bad (or dumb?)?  or is that too close to a moral judgement for you?

Point 4) You don't sound too confident that we (as a planet) can walk and chew gum at the same time.  We are sure as heck gonna have to do both prevention and mitigation at the same time.  Especially if we continue to put off the day we start to consider doing either.

It seems to me that almost everybody (religious minded folk included) has a stake in maintaining a fully functioning planet going forward.  There is a small potent group with a vested interest in continuing with BAU.  I'd guess that about $250 million in campaign contributions (in the right races) would be plenty to bring 2/3 of congress on board to a carbon emissions trading system that could provide the proper market incentives.   On Some inconvenient truths posted 3 years, 4 months ago 24 Responses