sea ice collapse
For details, see this discussion at Climate Progress
“misplaced hopes for bipartisan bargains”
New work by Theda Skocpol is bound to create controversy. Her 147 page report is damning in its indictment of DC environmental groups. In a nutshell, she claims they significantly misplayed their (political) hand and in the process doomed federal action on climate change.
A post worth reading
There’s been a lot of discussion about Bill McKibbon’s recent post in the Rolling Stone. It’s worth reading.
40,000 heat records broken this year alone
The weather continues to defy imagination. Get your checkbook ready – our cost of insurance is going up! Thank you Republicans!
reduce demand. are you kidding me?
A new report on the rapid growth of utility energy efficiency programs just came out, accompanied by this quote:
""The concept of energy efficiency as a utility resource is really very simple," noted Marty Kushler, ACEEE Senior Fellow and co-author of the report. "To keep an electric system in balance, you can either add supply resources or reduce customer demand. Utilities, regulators, … Read more
Steinberg’s Bill: If you’re last in line, consolation prize: you get online
Darrell Steinberg, Senate pro Tem of the California Senate, is proposing a bill, SB 547, in which online courses could be taken by students as a substitute for over-subscribed campus-based courses. As outlined by Steinberg’s Fact Sheet, the bill would implement the following,
Identify the top 50 courses that are most oversubscribed and necessary for “program completion, fulfilling transfer requirements, or meeting … Read more
New Regs at NSF
I submitted a proposal to NSF in the fall. I just got a call from the program officer, who explained that the proposal was being returned without review. Apparently the NSB decided that new items were to be included in the proposal and the general guidelines were revised. When you report your “Prior NSF Support” – you are now supposed to report not only your … Read more
Harvard to acquire drones
According to the NYT, Harvard, that bastion of free speech, hacked its resident deans’ emails in search the perpetrator who leaked emails to the press during the cheating scandal last year. What’s hilarious is that the Times article quotes numerous faculty arguing over whether ‘resident dean’s are ‘faculty’ (and thus, granted the same privileges, which I assume means your email can’t be hacked … Read more
time to degree
There have been lots of mutterings lately (said to emanate from the Governor) that the UC faculty need to improve productivity. How is it that an institution that has had more than 60% of per-student funds cut over 12 years and still maintained quality isn’t the most entrepreneurial group imaginable? Most faculty work really hard. I mean, come on – you throw a bunch … Read more
Blog journalism: one of the least stressful jobs of 2012
Unless, of course, you are Susan Adams of Forbes. I‘ve gotten a few emails about her recent post of the “Least Stressful Jobs of 2012.” University professors top the list! As she notes,
Unless they teach summer school, they are off between May and September…they don’t spend too many hours in the classroom. For tenure-track professors, there is some pressure to publish books and … Read more
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