Category Archives: Uncategorized

We moved back to California from Austria recently and have been digging through stuff we had in storage in LA. (By weight, books must be the biggest component.) Among the books and papers in a box I used to clear out my old office at UCLA was this issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, from Nov. 5-11,Continue reading “Wayback machine, analog”

Google pushes the weirdest stuff to my phone. I happen to be waiting for some climate model data to process, which my janky R scripting has pushed my computer to the limits of its memory. So I pick up my phone and find this turd from the Hoover Institution. I’m open minded, I think, soContinue reading “I see your bet and I’ll call – it’s just dumb”

This unifies two things dear to my heart: Scotch whiskey and radiocarbon. Also there’s really nothing more authentic than scammery at the centre of a story on whiskey. Historically, the control was from government sponsored monopolies, leading to illicit production and smuggling; now it’s greedy people seeking to corner the market on rare old drams,Continue reading “Radionuclides to the rescue”

Trains across Europe seem romantic to me, never mind the carbon costing. Austrian state trains (ÖBB) does it very well, especially by North American standards — in both Canada and the US, our train services are abysmal. So do the French, with their TGV (très grande vitesse) lines. Last spring, we took a TGV trainContinue reading “How not to fly”

At the Global Forum for Innovation in Marginal Environments, put on by the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai, UAE. I presented on FABLE’s project to distribute, support, and build local capacity for global food and land-use system modelling.

From my morning commute, getting on the U-bahn at Nestroyplatz, Vienna.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/25/the-real-reason-some-scientists-downplay-the-risks-of-climate-change “To scientists, we suggest that you should not view consensus as a goal. Consensus is an emergent property, something that may come forth as the result of scientific work, discussion and debate. When that occurs, it is important to articulate the consensus as clearly and specifically as possible. But where there are substantive differencesContinue reading “The real reason some scientists downplay the risks of climate change”

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/15/im-standing-here-in-the-middle-of-climate-change-how-usda-fails-farmers-043615 It upsets me that this is where we are now. We had time to prepare. But now we’re running out of road, fast. Image: Record-setting rainfall caused widespread agricultural disaster. Record-breaking rainfalls across the country overwhelmed farmers at the height of planting season, causing widespread agricultural disaster and preventing nearly 20 million acres ofContinue reading “‘I’m standing here in the middle of climate change’: How USDA is failing farmers”