Finally, some goddamn sense

It seems the world is slowly starting to develop the attitude to global warming that I've had since the beginning of this spectacle: it's there but trying to stop it by taxing carbon emissions, shutting down factories and changing lightbulbs will cause much more harm than good.

Writes Pielke et al in Nature: "Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels... The question is, to what degree should policy focus directly on motivating such innovation?"

Writes economist Jeoffry D Schas: “Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy.”

Writes Andrew C Revkin in the New York Times: "What is needed, Mr. Sachs and others say, is the development of radically advanced low-carbon technologies, which they say will only come about with greatly increased spending by determined governments on what has so far been an anemic commitment to research and development. A Manhattan-like Project, so to speak."

What should be the focus of this Manhattan project? Carbon capture and storage, electric cars and airplanes, and solar power are the usual suspects, but what this really translates into is accelerated scientific progress.

iPlant, anyone?

Global warming

April 6th 2008, southern coast of England

Omte back in the lab

Daniel Nocera and Angela Belcher - The Role of New Technologies in a Sustainable Energy Economy (1h32min, iTunes). I found this one particularly interesting because Daniel is both an expert in energy and a provocateur regarding the climate change solutions we usually hear about. For example, everyone would have to adopt the lifestyle of the people of Equatorial New Guinea for worldwide energy expenditure to approach a level that's even remotely manageable in terms of green energy. Which makes the silly Earth Hour seem... well, silly. Daniel's solution is new technology, specifically solar power. I agree. And so did the Londoners.

Christine Peterson - Thinking Longer-Term About Technology (58min, iTunes). A very good talk about if and how we can predict future technologies. Mentions something called prediction markets that have made a business out of this. Christine founded Foresight Nanotech Institute and says she has a blog but I can't find it.

Craig Venter - Joining 3.5 billion years of microbial invention (1h49min, FORA.tv). Man Craig is becoming a rock star. Easy to see why though.

Some night

Arthur C Clark, inventor of the communications satellite, SF demigod, dies in his home in Sri Lanka. He was 90 years old.

Obama, hopefully the next US president, political genius, delivers a monumental speech worthy of King or Malcom (37min). Please do not get assassinated like they did, like Bhutto did. Please.

(Am I posting it again? Yes I'm posting it again, I'm gonna make my whole family watch it tonight)

Demo of the new Android programming language (6min)


State of the art humanoid (3min)


Global warming argument that's got 3.6 million views in a few months (9min). The flaw in his argument, as far as I can see, is that he doesn't take into account the extent to which a slowdown in the economy will reduce our ability to develop new technological solutions to a climate crisis.


Finally, in a scene out of a Stieg Larsson novel, an Indian captive blood donor ring is smashed; the number of freed 'hostages', held for many months, drugged and 'milked' for blood on a daily basis, is at 17 and rising. But how about not ending on that grim note?