Climate Collaboratorium

I have started volunteering for the Climate Collaboratorium, which is a project by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. It takes data from climate models and economic models and allows users to put together policies and debate about them. They are presenting the site this week at a conference, where they hope to get some more user activity, and I'm going to help moderate. I haven't gotten involved with the discussions yet, but I will soon.

Climate Policy and Economics Talk

John Sterman is giving a talk at MIT about climate change and economic implications.

BES International Policy and Economics: What is the Road from Copenhagen?

It's a MIT Club of Boston event.

Greenspan 70-30

Recently Greenspan testified in front of congress that he was right 70% of the time and wrong 30%, which is what Mao said about himself!!! I wonder if Greenspan even knows that. Does it mean that he was wrong a greater percentage because Mao was wrong a greater percentage? Probably. Perhaps he was wrong a greater percentage than Mao, though, because Mao at least was right during combat in WWII and the Revolution.

NYT article by Frank Rich No One is to Blame for Anything

High Speed Rail From China

NYT article about China licensing high speed rail technology to help build high speed rail lines in California. Germany, Italy, and Japan are also competing for California's business.

G.E. estimates that the United States will spend $13 billion in the next five years on high-speed rail routes. China, with a much more ambitious infrastructure program, will spend $300 billion in the next three years on overall expansion of its rail routes, mainly high-speed routes, according to G.E.

...
A high-speed rail link for passengers from Beijing to Shanghai will be finished by the end of 2011 or early 2012, and cut the journey to four hours, from 10 hours now, Mr. Zheng said.

New York to Atlanta or Chicago is a similar distance, and takes 18 to 19 hours on Amtrak, which must share tracks with 12,000-ton freight trains and many commuter trains.

I wonder if rail is safer or more dangerous than airplanes. It seems like it should be safer.

Economics and Finance on the Radio

two recent cool NPR pieces.

Focusing on Wall Street’s Future

and

Markopolos: ‘No One Would Listen’

Life Cycle Analysis

This NPR piece, Sizing Up Your Green Footprint, is about how to buy consumer products with smaller carbon footprints. The example they use is reading books on an Ipad rather than buying actual books. It may seem better to use an Ipad, but when factoring in all the costs of actually making the Ipad, you'd have to read a lot of e-books before you come out ahead.

I liked this comment, though.

When comparing the costs of books and Ipad, I’m curious if Daniel has factored in the cost of building, insuring, heating, cooling, carpeting, etc… of all the space needed for books and libraries over a period of the life of each book. I’m also curious if he has factored in the transportation of books now, and the several other instances they will change hands in the future? Also, the Ipad isn’t just a book, it also does what many computers do, but with less weight, and I’m guessing, with less energy. A better comparison would probably be with a digital reader using digital paper.

Posted by Heath, on April 7th, 2010 at 11:22 AM

Another thing is that it's hard to compare unlike things. When calculating ecological impact of products we try to put a number on things, whether it be carbon or dollars. However, it may be that cutting down trees for virgin pulp causes more damage than just the carbon sequestration lost. A major challenge is doing analysis with different units.

Window Farms

Alicia sent me this cool site about urban gardening. Honestly I can't see myself doing this for the next year or two but I probably will do it eventually. I would be really excited about having a garden with fish.

Ok To Fail

article on Simon Johnson, economist at MIT who just put out a new book 13 Bankers. His coauthor James Kwak has a blog http://baselinescenario.com/ which looks interesting.

Electric Power Systems Modeling

Another interesting class at MIT ESD.940 Electric Power System Modelling for a low-carbon economy. It's an IAP class, actually, and materials are only available to people who are in the class.

Music By Friends

Shauna has a band, and her band has a website, Me Like You. I like it.