A Little Bit About Me

My most recent CV (January, 2022) is: here. My gambling website is here. My everything else website is here. I received my Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Arizona in 1983. I was a professor of mathematics at Ohio University from 1983 to 1998, getting tenure in 1989.  I was a whistleblower there (very long story) and the university […]

The Age of Aquarius: Thoughts on Freedom and Choice in the Shadow of Doom

Harmony and understanding, Sympathy and trust abounding No more falsehoods or derisions, Golden living dreams of visions Mystic crystal revelation, And the mind’s true liberation Aquarius, Aquarius —Hair (the musical), 1967 I’ve been paying attention to the goings on at COP-26 this week.  “Paying attention” is a weird way to put it, because the conference is extraordinarily fragmented and directionless. […]

Everyone Loses in the Climate Casino

The analogy of a “casino” to describe climate change related catastrophes has gained some recent traction, thanks mostly to Paul Beckwith’s frequent use of this terminology in his blog posts and YouTube videos. At first, the word “casino” seems to be an appropriate metaphor.  “Casino” describes the apparently random way that fires, floods, droughts, heat waves and other climate-related catastrophes […]

Top 40 Impacts of Climate Change

In this post, I list 78 current and future impacts of climate change, along with references for some of the more unexpected items.  That list was compiled scouring the web along with suggestions and comments to a Twitter post I made.  In retrospect, many of these items are redundant or speculative. And so, I refined that list down to 40 […]

Methane 2018-to-Present = Yikes!

For those who like data rather than graphics, in this post I’ve listed the global methane figures from January, 2018 to May, 2021. Along with the raw numbers, I’ve also given the year over year change. What is clear is that over the last three years, the amount of CH4 entering the atmosphere has been accelerating.  Most mitigation models plan […]

It’s the Methane, Stupid!

Assuming an atmospheric half-life of 120 years for CO2 (there is no solid estimate, but most put it over 100 years) and 110 months for CH4 (as stated in IPCC AR5, 2013), it is natural to ask how much CO2 and CH4 must be emitted into the atmosphere each year to account for both this exponential decay and the current […]

The Methane Monster Cometh

The two greenhouse gasses (GHG) that are the primary drivers of climate change are carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4).  This post is about Methane, which is 84 times as powerful a GHG as CO2.  If you are interested in CO2, I refer you to this page on NOAA’s website which does a great job explaining the growth of CO2 […]

California is Running out of Water

With everything going on — floods, hurricanes, fires, droughts, heat waves and a pandemic, we forget that California, in particular, is also having a historic water emergency that stands to become all-out water anarchy if we have another dry La Nina winter, as is expected by the latest NOAA ENSO predictions.

Doomerism 101: The Aerosol Masking Effect

  One of the biggest surprises of the last 20 years to those studying climate change has been the realization that there is a counter-effect of cooling going on that is also caused by anthropogenic pollution.  In simple terms, stuff we burn in industrial processes, agriculture and transportation emits lots of aerosolized crap into the atmosphere that blocks or reflects […]

A Brief History of CO2

The daily measuring of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa began in 1958.  The first documented level was 315.70 parts per million (ppm) in March, 1958.  The maximum that year was 317.51 ppm in May.  The yearly maximum this last May was 419.13 ppm, a rise of 32.8% from the 1958 maximum.  During those 63 years, the awareness of the effects […]

The Great Climate Change Crises Convergence

We face the great climate change crises convergence, when the direct impacts of climate change no longer are single items to be listed, researched and debated. Rather, these expanding impacts now routinely combine into a multi-headed hydra creating localized desolation with global consequences. What follows below is a list some of the consequences of climate change.  This list gives many […]