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climate change

Showertime is Fun Time!

I’ve been away at a medical conference and on a badly needed vacation the past two weeks, but fear not, this blog is back in action! We’ll start with something just for fun, a really fun and informative video from Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, from Texas Tech, who asks ‘What if climate change is real?” Followed by a demo of my new bluetooth controlled, multicolored LED light I just installed over my shower. And of course, that dern post about climate change and your allergies is still coming your way… Enjoy! Dr. Kathrine Hayhoe asks an important questions (and gives great… Read More »Showertime is Fun Time!

The shocking truth about LEDs

The shocking truth about LED lights!

We recently learned that one LED light can save you money and cut your CO2 emissions. Question is… what happens if we replace ALL the lights in our house with LED lights?  Glad you asked.  I calculated a few numbers for you and put the results into some handy tables and graphs.  But first, a little bit of background info is required. According to an interesting blog post by a lighting company in Florida, the average house has 47 light bulbs.  So we’ll look at numbers for three different sized houses: a small house or apartment (24 bulbs), a typical family home (47 bulbs),… Read More »The shocking truth about LED lights!

man installing solar panel on roof

Debunking Climate Change Denial Myths

Climate change denial is shifting from denying that it’s real, to saying why the fixes can’t work. Four common denial myths are debunked here. I was reading an interesting article on the Discovery Magazine website about the almost non-existent snowpack in the Pacific Northwest this spring after a really warm winter.  I was surprised by the ignorance of the comments left there by readers who are supposedly drawn to a magazine website about science. Among the steady stream of ridiculous rants, one caught my eye.  A gentleman there had managed to string together one false statement after another.  He seems pretty… Read More »Debunking Climate Change Denial Myths

How to Save a LOT of Money While Saving the Environment (Hint: Use LED lights!)

  I remember responding to a reader comment left in an article about the phasing out of compact fluorescent lights (CFL) due to their mercury content.  The commenter was saying how the government shouldn’t regulate the market and tell him that he can’t use CFL bulbs.  He likes the light from his CFLs and thinks they’re just fine. I don’t entirely disagree, but I think the irony was lost on him because incandescent bulb production was phased out in 2014 by — you guessed it — “the government”.  Maybe he was a youngster, not old and grizzled  like the Doc.  Anyhow, it struck me as… Read More »How to Save a LOT of Money While Saving the Environment (Hint: Use LED lights!)

Oklahoma farmer's son, Dust Bowl era, 1930s

Climate change, drought and the future of America

Climate change will likely lead to drought in the Southwest that make the historic Dust Bowl of the 1930’s look like good times.  A bunch of scientific studies assessing the risk of drought were recently covered in various media outlets, including Forbes, National Geographic, Scientific American and elsewhere. Several of these media reports are based on an excellent paper, published in Science Advances, called “Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains.”  Their findings were not encouraging. In this paper, scientists from NASA, Columbia and Cornell Universities used historical tree ring data and something called the Palmer Drought Severity Index… Read More »Climate change, drought and the future of America