Category Archives: For Dummies

Galileo’s New Universe – Stephen P. Maran & Laurence A. Marschall

by Myrna Posted on November 14, 2019

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Galileo’s New Universe

The Revolution in Our Understanding of the Cosmos

Stephen P. Maran & Laurence A. Marschall

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: March 1, 2009

Publisher: BenBella Books

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


The story of how Galileo’s telescope transformed the heavens—and contemporary astrophysics: A “lively history . . . ideal for armchair scientists and stargazers” ( Publishers Weekly ).   In the fall of 1609, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei turned his modified spyglass toward the sky—and greatly expanded the scope of human understanding. The scientific, historical, and social implications of the telescope, as well as its modern-day significance, are brought into startling focus in this fascinating account co-written by NASA scientist Stephen P. Maran and physics professor Laurence A. Marschall.   Galileo could not have fathomed the profound changes his new instrument would bring about for civilization. With it, he made some of the most astonishing discoveries in scientific history: A seemingly flat moon magically transformed into a dynamic, crater-filled orb, and a large, black sky suddenly held millions of galaxies.   Reflecting on how Galileo’s world compares with contemporary society, Galileo’s New Universe deftly moves from the cutting-edge technology available in seventeenth-century Europe to the unbelievable phenomena discovered during the last fifty years, documenting important astronomical advances and the effects they have had over time.

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Galileo’s New Universe – Stephen P. Maran & Laurence A. Marschall

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Evolution – Edward J. Larson

by Myrna Posted on May 4, 2019

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Evolution

The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory

Edward J. Larson

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: August 8, 2006

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


“I often said before starting, that I had no doubt I should frequently repent of the whole undertaking.” So wrote Charles Darwin aboard The Beagle , bound for the Galapagos Islands and what would arguably become the greatest and most controversial discovery in scientific history. But the theory of evolution did not spring full-blown from the head of Darwin. Since the dawn of humanity, priests, philosophers, and scientists have debated the origin and development of life on earth, and with modern science, that debate shifted into high gear. In this lively, deeply erudite work, Pulitzer Prize–winning science historian Edward J. Larson takes us on a guided tour of Darwin’s “dangerous idea,” from its theoretical antecedents in the early nineteenth century to the brilliant breakthroughs of Darwin and Wallace, to Watson and Crick’s stunning discovery of the DNA double helix, and to the triumphant neo-Darwinian synthesis and rising sociobiology today. Along the way, Larson expertly places the scientific upheaval of evolution in cultural perspective: the social and philosophical earthquake that was the French Revolution; the development, in England, of a laissez-faire capitalism in tune with a Darwinian ethos of “survival of the fittest”; the emergence of Social Darwinism and the dark science of eugenics against a backdrop of industrial revolution; the American Christian backlash against evolutionism that culminated in the famous Scopes trial; and on to today’s world, where religious fundamentalists litigate for the right to teach “creation science” alongside evolution in U.S. public schools, even as the theory itself continues to evolve in new and surprising directions. Throughout, Larson trains his spotlight on the lives and careers of the scientists, explorers, and eccentrics whose collaborations and competitions have driven the theory of evolution forward. Here are portraits of Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, Galton, Huxley, Mendel, Morgan, Fisher, Dobzhansky, Watson and Crick, W. D. Hamilton, E. O. Wilson, and many others. Celebrated as one of mankind’s crowning scientific achievements and reviled as a threat to our deepest values, the theory of evolution has utterly transformed our view of life, religion, origins, and the theory itself, and remains controversial, especially in the United States (where 90% of adults do not subscribe to the full Darwinian vision). Replete with fresh material and new insights, Evolution will educate and inform while taking readers on a fascinating journey of discovery.

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Evolution – Edward J. Larson

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A new study says meal kits may be greener than a trip to the store

by haroldclemente3 Posted on April 22, 2019

I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical of meal kits — you know, those cooking-for-dummies-style food bundles sent to your doorstep. Visually framing the cooking process with single-serving mise-en-place ingredients while touting sustainability seemed, to me, the epitome of greenwashing. But according to a new study, meal kits can let you successfully cook up a deliciously climate-conscious meal.

The first-of-its-kind study released Monday by University of Michigan researchers revealed that after accounting for every step in the process — from the farm to the landfill — home-delivered meal kits are more environmentally friendly than picking up the same ingredients at your local grocery store. Of course, there are some important caveats: Meal kits tend to have a bad environmental rap due to their monumental amount of packaging. But from a carbon emissions perspective, it turns out food waste is an even bigger sin.

“Even though it may seem like that pile of cardboard generated from a Blue Apron or Hello Fresh subscription is incredibly bad for the environment, that extra chicken breast bought from the grocery store that gets freezer-burned and finally gets thrown out is much worse,” said Shellie Miller, senior author of the study, in a press release.

Meal kits have been booming ever since the major players — Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated — entered the market in 2012. Dozens of other meal kit companies have cropped up around the country catering to every kind of dietary preference, from vegan to paleo, single serve to family style. Meal kit sales reached $3.1 billion nationwide in 2018 after an annual growth rate of nearly 22 percent, but until now, very little was known about their overall environmental footprint.

According to the study, the average carbon footprint for a meal Blue Apron came to the equivalent of 6.1 kg CO2, about 33 percent lower than the 8.1 kg CO2 footprint for the store-bought version. (Though this shouldn’t be a shocker: Meal kits that either contained red meat or were otherwise associated with large amounts of wasted food were found to have the largest environmental impact.)

“I hadn’t quite realized the amount of environmental impact contributed through the supermarket retail process,” Brent Heard, Ph.D. student and lead study author, told Earther. “That includes foods that become food loss from overstocking or stores culling blemished produce, but also operation of supermarkets.”

Now before you throw out that giant pot of vegetarian chili you made from scratch and look up a meal kit code, keep in mind the study only compared meal kit footprints with grocery store equivalents. Figuring the greenest way to get your grub on is beyond the scope of this particular research paper. But despite their egregious wrapping, it seems that meal kits are doing a better job environment-wise than haters like me initially thought.

So yes — I stand corrected, meal kit companies. Now let’s tackle that wasteful packaging issue, shall we?

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A new study says meal kits may be greener than a trip to the store

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A love letter to Scott Pruitt

by JeannieHeberlin Posted on July 5, 2018

The EPA lost its top grifter Thursday afternoon, as Scott Pruitt tendered his resignation to President Donald Trump. We don’t know, right now, which straw broke the camel’s back — it could’ve been the tens of thousands of dollars he spent on first class flights, the secret calendar he used for private meetings with industry representatives, or maybe he just couldn’t take getting yelled at in a restaurant by a woman and her bemused toddler. (Trump told reporters on Air Force One there was “no final straw.”)

Whatever led to Pruitt quitting, that boy is gone. BOY. BYE.

Scott Pruitt was likely the most scandal-ridden, brown-nosing, oil-loving, climate-denying administrator to ever walk the halls of the EPA. Here’s the thing, though: We’re gonna miss him. Before you get mad and bring your toddlers to Grist HQ, hear us out.

Most of the time, the things that go on in the federal government, however consequential they may be, seem to bore Americans to tears. (Just look at voter turnout stats for midterm elections.) Whether you liked it or not, Scott Pruitt made the public pay attention. Fancy lotions, tactical pants, Chick-Fil-A? That’s drama. Secret phone booths? A 24/7 security detail? That’s intrigue. Getting your aides to pay for your hotel rooms? That’s petty. Pruitt was a veritable scandal-factory of his own making, and the wrongdoings were so juicy we literally couldn’t look away! I mean, the dude spent over 1,500 taxpayer dollars on a dozen fountain pens. Pens!

As time went on, it began to seem like Pruitt didn’t actually care about how many bridges he burned, how many federal investigations were launched, or even whether other members of the GOP were calling for his resignation. But we cared! The scandals were so egregious, so bizarre, so shallow and grasping, that people kept digging and digging to see what else the guy was up to. And each ethical misdeed focused attention on the work he led: dismantling decades of environmental regulations, cutting EPA staffing numbers to below Reagan-era levels, and striking mentions of climate change from the agency’s website.

People got mad! They marched, wrote letters, signed petitions, and sent the EPA multiple copies of Global Warming for Dummies.

No wonder the administration rails against “fake news.” Real journalism was able to take down a Trump loyalist.

Now, someone else wears the tactical pants at the EPA. His name is Andrew Wheeler. He’s been the agency’s deputy administrator since April, and we haven’t heard a peep out of him. Under his leadership, we’re probably in for far less scandal. But you can bet he’ll keep rolling back regulations.

Wheeler is a former coal lobbyist who has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from Murray Energy — a company owned by that guy who sued John Oliver for libel after the comedian called him a “geriatric Dr. Evil” on his HBO show. Wheeler also worked for Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma senator who brought a snowball onto the Senate floor to prove that global warming isn’t real.

The fact of the matter is that the new EPA chief could very well be worse for the environment than Pruitt. And with an administrator who doesn’t have a taste for grifting at the helm, some of those assaults on the environment, coated in propriety and due process, might slide by under the media’s radar.

So, yeah. Thanks, Pruitt. Thanks for stepping in it so many times, for sparking more than a dozen ethics investigations, for creating so many distractions you ended up drawing attention to the environment. (Hey, that’s our job!) Thanks for making people get mad. Here’s to hoping they stay mad.

Originally posted here:  

A love letter to Scott Pruitt

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How to trick Scott Pruitt into reading about environmentalism

by ArnoldoOGF Posted on July 3, 2018

Scott Pruitt runs a “factory of bad ideas.” All five feet and eight inches of him are fully submerged in a scandal bog of his own making, he’s cut staffing levels at the EPA to below Reagan-era levels, and the dude thinks climate change could help “humans flourish.”

Evidently, good samaritans have tried to help Pruitt become a better EPA administrator by sending him a few crucial works of environmental literature. In all, the rumor-ridden science-denier has received 11 books from concerned citizens, including: Pope Francis’ 2015 climate encyclical Laudato Si, Rachel Carson’s game-changing Silent Spring, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and two copies of Global Warming for Dummies.

Alas, like that old dude who wouldn’t eat his green eggs and ham, Scott Pruitt won’t read his green literature. At least one of the people who sent in a book reported that it had been returned. But what would happen if Pruitt read up on climate change? And, more importantly, how could we trick him into getting a well-rounded education? Glad you asked! We have a few ideas.

Tactically slip a copy of Silent Spring into his tactical pants. What better book to carry around in the back pocket of your $1,500 sneaky pants than a seminal work about the chemicals silently killing America’s treasured wildlife?
Print excerpts from An Inconvenient Truth on the back of that Ritz-Carlton lotion he loves so much. Yeah, sending your aides all over Washington, D.C., to track down your favorite lotion is inconvenient, but Pruitt could deal with scaly elbows AND the planet’s dry patches at the same time. Talk about convenience!
Add Pope Francis’ Laudato Si to a Chick-Fil-A menu. Is that a new chicken nugget combo? No, Scotty! It’s “On Care for Our Common Home.” You might be trying to get your wife a job at the Home of the Original Chicken Sandwich, but we’re trying to save the planet: Home of the Original Human Race.
Two copies of Climate Change for Dummies? No problem. We’ll put one copy in the front-seat pocket of his seat on a first class flight, and we’ll use the other to tastefully wallpaper the bathroom in the energy lobbyist’s condo he was staying in.

Look, Sam-I-Am got that guy to eat green eggs and ham in the end — he even ate them in a boat and with a goat. We know Scott Pruitt won’t be reading books about climate change in the rain or on a train anytime soon. But if, as he’s lying on his old Trump hotel mattress one night, Little Scotty P does happen to pull a stack of climate change encyclicals out from under his pillow, we say to him:

“YOU DO NOT LIKE THEM. SO YOU SAY. TRY THEM! TRY THEM! AND YOU MAY.”

Taken from – 

How to trick Scott Pruitt into reading about environmentalism

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A Czech nuclear plant staged a bikini contest to hire its next intern.

by PenelopeODonnell Posted on June 27, 2017

The new Museum of Capitalism in Oakland, California, explores “the ideology, history, and legacy of capitalism.” Surprise! One of the most detrimental legacies of capitalism is … climate change.

Bear with us (and the museum’s curators): The fossil fuel production that drives climate change is due to global (read: American) desire for profit and growth.

The museum — funded largely through a grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation — exhibits several works examining how humans despoil the environment in our quest for more things. Some are simple, like a bright blue baseball cap emblazoned with “COAL = JOBS” in white, akin to the ubiquitous MAGA accessory.

“American Domain,” an exhibit curated by Erin Elder (below), explores the ways in which land in the U.S. has been “continually staked and claimed.” Photographs of the Mexican-American border hang alongside images of drilling equipment, suggesting inconsistency in the United States’ attitude toward borders when it comes to fossil fuel access versus immigration.

“American Domain”Brea McAnally/Brea Photography

In another section of the museum, a video by Kota Takeuchi shows a worker undertaking cleanup of the Fukushima disaster. The worker slowly points at the audience through the camera lens, a designation of blame lasting over 20 minutes.

It’s a succinct gesture that gets to the point of the whole museum: We’re all complicit.

Taken from – 

A Czech nuclear plant staged a bikini contest to hire its next intern.

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A top scientist ‘felt bullied’ to downplay facts by EPA chief of staff.

by IDSMoisesjfofrr Posted on June 27, 2017

The new Museum of Capitalism in Oakland, California, explores “the ideology, history, and legacy of capitalism.” Surprise! One of the most detrimental legacies of capitalism is … climate change.

Bear with us (and the museum’s curators): The fossil fuel production that drives climate change is due to global (read: American) desire for profit and growth.

The museum — funded largely through a grant from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation — exhibits several works examining how humans despoil the environment in our quest for more things. Some are simple, like a bright blue baseball cap emblazoned with “COAL = JOBS” in white, akin to the ubiquitous MAGA accessory.

“American Domain,” an exhibit curated by Erin Elder (below), explores the ways in which land in the U.S. has been “continually staked and claimed.” Photographs of the Mexican-American border hang alongside images of drilling equipment, suggesting inconsistency in the United States’ attitude toward borders when it comes to fossil fuel access versus immigration.

“American Domain”Brea McAnally/Brea Photography

In another section of the museum, a video by Kota Takeuchi shows a worker undertaking cleanup of the Fukushima disaster. The worker slowly points at the audience through the camera lens, a designation of blame lasting over 20 minutes.

It’s a succinct gesture that gets to the point of the whole museum: We’re all complicit.

See the original article here – 

A top scientist ‘felt bullied’ to downplay facts by EPA chief of staff.

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It’s ‘Energy Week.’ Here’s how Trump could convince America to care.

by KandyHomer3 Posted on June 26, 2017

On Monday, 38 of the EPA’s research advisers found out that their terms, set to end in August, would not be renewed.

One of them is Elena Craft, a senior health scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund. “It creates a huge void in terms of scientific capacity,” Craft told Grist. “Systematically gutting these committees is essentially cutting off access to some of the greatest science advisers really in the world.”

The purge will leave 11 members on the Board of Scientific Counselors’ subcommittees. The latest move follows sweeping cuts to federal agencies in April. The empty seats on the EPA’s advisory board are expected to be filled with a more industry-friendly bunch.

Craft said that after the announcement, Robert Kavlock, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s research arm, told the advisers in a phone call that he expected the board to pay less attention to climate change.

The board of experts has counseled the EPA on its research programs for two decades. Last year, the board’s subcommittees recommended that the agency work on engaging with communities in its clean-air programs and investigate environmental risks from toxic chemicals. All this advice comes free of charge.

“For an agency that is slated to have its budget cut fairly significantly, cutting out all of the free labor and free help doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense,” Craft said.

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It’s ‘Energy Week.’ Here’s how Trump could convince America to care.

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Why is California building fossil-fuel power plants it doesn’t need?

by NidiaMathews Posted on February 6, 2017

The state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, had vetoed a bill that would require utilities to buy 25 percent of their electricity from wind, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources by 2020, but legislators voted to override his veto.

Now this new, stronger renewable energy standard replaces the previous one, which had called for utilities to be getting 20 percent of their power from clean sources by 2020.

Democrats argued the bill would create jobs, mitigate climate change, and clean up air pollution. Republicans said it would cost too much. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Nonpartisan legislative analysts estimated it might raise residential electricity bills by 48 cents to $1.45 per month.”

It’s easy to focus on the U.S. presidency — that’s the center of the national reality show. But much of the substantive policy in this country is made on the state and local levels, where people are often more practical than ideological — or, you could say, more likely to be tailored for reality, rather than for reality TV.

Originally posted here: 

Why is California building fossil-fuel power plants it doesn’t need?

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A South Dakota education bill has scientists wondering if we’re headed back to the Cretaceous.

by Tatiana48M Posted on February 6, 2017

The state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, had vetoed a bill that would require utilities to buy 25 percent of their electricity from wind, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources by 2020, but legislators voted to override his veto.

Now this new, stronger renewable energy standard replaces the previous one, which had called for utilities to be getting 20 percent of their power from clean sources by 2020.

Democrats argued the bill would create jobs, mitigate climate change, and clean up air pollution. Republicans said it would cost too much. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Nonpartisan legislative analysts estimated it might raise residential electricity bills by 48 cents to $1.45 per month.”

It’s easy to focus on the U.S. presidency — that’s the center of the national reality show. But much of the substantive policy in this country is made on the state and local levels, where people are often more practical than ideological — or, you could say, more likely to be tailored for reality, rather than for reality TV.

Link – 

A South Dakota education bill has scientists wondering if we’re headed back to the Cretaceous.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, For Dummies, G & F, GE, green energy, LAI, ONA, PUR, Ringer, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A South Dakota education bill has scientists wondering if we’re headed back to the Cretaceous.