jfleck at inkstain

A few thoughts from John Fleck, a writer of journalism and other things, living in New Mexico

Tyler Cowen on Climate Models

Remember both tails: Make of climate models what you may, there is lots of evidence that a) biodiversity is being hammered, and b) climate change will bring desertification, drought, and possibly coastal flooding to many parts of the world, among other dilemmas.  I don’t have a lot of faith in the exact predictive powers of [...]

Free Iris

Free Iris Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. It took about 10 minutes from the time Lissa put up the “free iris” sign this morning until the first neighbor drove up to grab a bag. The iris bed has gotten a little out of control, and Lissa and I skipped our Saturday morning walk to work on [...]

How I Use Twitter

Watching my young friend Kelsey’s feed for the Gustav evacuation order. (So far, so good.) update: evacuation order has been issued.

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere

On DOE’s new “branding” effort.

Clotheslines and Really, Really Big Houses

It’s easy to make fun of the good folks of Southamptom for having a law against clotheslines (messy, you understand). But is it not admirable for them to sacrifice for the greater good, allowing clotheslines for the sake of energy conservation? From Bloomberg: Even amid such affluence, clotheslines are finding fans among residents seeking to [...]

Water Heater Math

I love a good calculation. So does my friend Al Zelicoff, who offers us a doozy of a set in today’s Journal energy tip, providing the back-of-the-very-large-envelope calculation on how much you can save by turning down the thermostat on your water heater: 320 pounds of water X (140 – 60) = 25,600 BTUs or [...]

The Robins

If I was a robin, here’s what I would do on a cool, late summer dawn in Albuquerque, as I was headed south. I’d get my friends and fly up to the highest tree in the neighborhood, that big elm over there, and flutter around a little bit to keep warm as the sun just [...]

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere

On the Colorado Compact Kerfuffle

Drought, Climate, Change

Southwest is Drier Already

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere

Trying to get a better handle on New Mexico’s energy resources, I recently spent a bunch of time learning about coal here. The results, a broad overview story in today’s Journal business section, are an attempt to answer the underlying question of what effect permanently higher energy prices might have on coal mining in a [...]

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