Heat

New York is experiencing record temperatures this weekend. Not only that, but a fire at a sewage plant just up the Hudson River from Columbia resulted in sewage being dumped right into the river for four days. Excellent!

Not that anyone goes swimming in the Hudson. It's one of the largest Superfund (environmental cleanup) sites in the country, and before it was continually polluted by sewage, it was continually polluted by PCBs, courtesy of General Electric.

Also, I hardly have left my apartment since yesterday (just for a few hours today to go to school). My air conditioner works pretty well to cool the entire apartment, and I'm grateful for that.

My presentation analyzing the Solar Industry Development and Jobs Act is Wednesday. I'm waiting at this point for feedback from our advisor. It's pretty nervewracking. Plus, hydrology and toxicology classes started this week, labs are due Monday, and GIS (Geographic Information Systems-- data analysis using map software) class starts Monday. Because, oh yeah, environmental chemistry and climatology are over! I got a B+ in Climatology. I was hoping for an A...

If you would like to know what exact precise things made me happiest this week, they are my very own dear apartment, everything about this music video, and the exterminator who confirmed I do not have bedbugs which I was afraid caused my horrible terrible 2 day allergic itchy rash, which is now all better but of undetermined origin.

I miss you all.

So awesome

I'm researching energy policy. For one course, it's a series of papers in memo form and my topic is the efficiency standard for vehicles in the US. Did you know that until 2007, the standards hadn't increased since the 1980s, due to the fact that Congress placed annual fiscal restrictions on the Highway Traffic Safety Administration, preventing it from addressing the issue? Did you care? Well, efficiency is a good thing, and it decreases our dependence on foreign oil and makes American cars more competitive in a global market.

I'm also working on an analysis of solar photovoltaics- New York is trying to fill in where the market has failed to build demand for solar energy.

Anyway, there is just something so much better about working seven days a week when you feel like you might actually use all these skills and topic knowledge in the future. I haven't been grocery shopping in 10 days, but at least it's for a good reason.

I'm going to dress up and take myself on a date tonight. I am going to the symphony at Lincoln Center. It's Bruckner's Symphony no. 8, and I got prime level seating ticket on Groupon.

Quoting others

Makes blogging much faster.

On the scientific consensus about climate change:

"928 papers [in refereed journals between 1993 and 2003] were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
-Oreskes, N., 2004: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Science, 306, 10.1126/science.1103618

"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations."
-IPCC, SPM, 2007

(anthropogenic means human-made or human-caused)

"The scientific consensus is far stronger today than at any time in the past. Here is the truth: The Earth is round; Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11; Elvis is dead; Obama was born in the United States; and the climate crisis is real. "
- Al Gore, Rolling Stone, June 22nd, 2011

In some ways I hate to use a quote from Al Gore, since I know he's a divisive figure, and much as I tend to immediately discard anything Ann Coulter says, I know some people feel the same about him. He's right though. Below is a slide from this morning's final Climatology lecture, showing the climate models that have the best current knowledge about how climate systems operate. Without accounting for anthropogenic factors, natural factor models (blue) can't even come close to observed temperatures in the last 50 years- you have to account for natural and anthropogenic factors together (orange) to do so.

My professor also published a paper about the "Snowpocalypse" events in recent Northeast winters, showing they were the worst winters in something like 500 years- it has to do with polar fronts and changing circulation strengths...or something...I have studying to do before next Monday's final...anyway I have freezing my butt off to look forward to this winter.

Because for now, it's insanely hot. I had my AC unit installed yesterday after being here for almost 2 months. After being in my room for an hour, walking into the kitchen was like walking into a sauna.

So yes, I think a lot about energy use implications, our living standards, our quality of life, and how temperatures on the planet will increase past 800,000 year records in this century. It's even more overwhelming than my schedule. In two weeks, I present on legislation in NY proposing to build a solar power market. Temperatures and pressures are increasing, in more ways than one.