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Does somebody actually have an ounce of sympathy for Mark Nelson, the guy who tried to deceive voters into thinking they had voted? How can he have any credibility or integrity after such a brazen attack on voter participation? Crass, cynical, and a perfect argument for the end of paid lobbying, period.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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For small-scale needs, chemical batteries can make sense, but for utility-level storage needs, we already have a great potential battery (energy-storage device): the Columbia River dams.

Other countries (I think it's Sweden) are already experimenting with pumping water uphill - from the base of a dam to the top - as a way of storing energy. In the daytime, when solar and wind generation is peaking, you pump the water uphill; the energy is released as needed when the water flows down across the turbines. The infrastructure is mostly in place (just have to install pumps, etc.) and there is no need to extract heavy metals or manufacture batteries with lots of chemical waste.

Of course, there's no battery company to make a big profit, so you don't hear about this option, but it is simple, lo-tech, and uses water (not cadmium, or lead, or lithium) as the storage medium.

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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The double-majority is quite objectively anti-democratic. There are actually mathematical tools for analyzing fairness and power in elections. Without going into too much detail, the double-majority objectively gives more voting power to voters who oppose a tax measure by giving them the option of not voting to reduce the turnout. That is fundamentally anti-democratic (in other words, some voters have more power than others). In addition, it actively encourages voters to *not vote* as a way of achieving their goals - encouraging a non-participatory system!

There are lots of ways our democratic process comes up short by objective standards (see, for example, the electoral college system of voting) but the double-majority is so absurd from any criteria of fairness that I'm sure it's made fun of around the world. I teach this kind of thing in my math class as an example of how perversely a system can be set up - and my students are usually shocked by how unfair it is.

Duncan Parks

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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Do we know anything about ocean acidity in the geologic past, at times when atmospheric CO2 levels were high as they are today? Did the plankton community undergo any drastic changes in numbers or species composition?

Duncan Parks

posted 4 years, 12 months ago
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One important part of keeping people active outdoors is adapting to the different ways they enjoy nature. A great example is mountain biking; young people are often much more excited about riding through a forest than hiking there (for example, the success of the Black Rock freeride area on state forest land near Falls City). We should be encouraging all kinds of human-powered exploration of our wild areas, in ways that don't degrade those areas (through proper trail design, for example). Getting young people excited about being in the woods is where the future of outdoor exploration and recreation lies!

Duncan Parks

posted 5 years ago
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