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According to Lazard, the most cost-effective options to reduce carbon emissions are wind and utility-scale solar. Rooftop solar might fit there, except that Lazard found that the cost of installing rooftop solar in the U.S. runs twice that of the rest of the world.

It’s a truism perhaps most prevalent in the music scene: today’s alternative is tomorrow’s mainstream.

I remember when a new Irish band called U2 first came to the United States. Their first show was at a Washington club called The Bayou, where my band frequently played. U2 was opening for some good friends of mine, the locally-hot Slickee Boys. Afterwards, the Irish kids went off on their American tour in support of their just-released first album, Boy. I Will Follow from the album became a monster hit on alternative radio (mainstream rock radio at the time wouldn’t touch it). But the buzz in the indy media…

The deadline for comment to the US NRC on the 100 mSv per year exposure proposal, also known as one or more cancers for everyone, is November 19th at 11.59 pm Eastern Time. http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=NRC-2015-0057 However, complaint to government officials and education should continue after this date.

Whether through millions of years of evolution and/or because God made everything and it was good, radiation induced mutations are likely to have either damaging effects or no impact.

Dr. Timothy Mousseau explains that the idea that radiation is good for you (hormesis) is flawed from a basic biological and evolutionary point of view: “From an evolutionary point of view, from a fundamental genetics point of view, it [hormesis] makes no sense… Our genetic systems have been refined and optimized… the truth is most mutations that occur in all organisms either have no effect because of the redundancy in the basic genetic…

World:

¶ A report by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, distributed just days before the crucial climate talks in Paris, is directed at policymakers. It shows how keeping global warming to less than 2° C from pre-industrial levels is not only feasible, but also urgently needed and economically viable. [The Climate Group]

Where did it go? McCarty Glacier, in Alaska. These images are in the public domain. For more information, go to Wikimedia Commons.

¶ The Philippines will soon have over 600 renewable energy projects operational, as it significantly expands its clean energy infrastructure. As of 31 October, 2015, the Philippine Department of Energy had approved 616 renewable energy projects with a total capacity for all renewable energy technologies over 12 GW. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Inox Wind, an Indian wind turbine maker, announced that it expanded its turbine manufacturing facility in Madhya Pradesh…

I’ve been spending the last few months warning of the fact that the energy policy of the new Tory government was completely unworkable and at odds with proposed action on climate change. It would almost certainly lead to the UK missing its green energy targets and create a strong chilling effect that would imperil investment in the UK’s ageing electricity network. The Energy minister assured anyone who dared to ask, that this wasn’t the case, that she was confident that the UK would meet its commitments.

Well a recently leaked letter reveals a very different story. It suggests that while Amber Rudd been presenting a brave face in public, letters have been exchanged between ministers all but admitting that the UK will now miss its green targets. Worse still, this will trigger billions of pounds in fines from the EU (as these targets are part of legally binding cuts…

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.  From: climate.nasa.gov

GR:  Here’s a good summary of climate change effects.  It’s a bit conservative, but it does cover the main systems that will change.

Globally, India is the third largest carbon-emitting country—though its per capita emissions are only one third of the international average—according to the World Resources Institute.

In its action plan for the Paris COP21 meet, India pledges to reduce its carbon intensity—a measure of a country’s emissions relative to its economic output—by 35% by 2030.  From: phys.org

GR:  Taking a long view of developments in India, one can see that from a bright beginning in 1950, the country has descended through failure after failure. Population control has failed, living standards (health and wealth) are extremely imbalanced, and wildlife and its habitats are disappearing. As climate change adds to the other human impacts, farming will fall farther and farther behind the needs of the swelling population. By 2040 or so when emigration becomes necessary, Europe, Russia, and China will have become fortresses. Where will the people go?  And we have to ask…