Tuesday, May 24, 2016

To Eat or Knot to eat Knot Weed - WSJ

Pittsburgh Tries to Eat Its Way Through a Savage Weed - WSJ:

What do you do, with Kudzu?

Invasives like kudzu and Japanese Knotweed, can take over square miles. They really go wild in strip mines and disturbed areas, and completely take over. Once started, the weed pushes out anything and everything in the surrounding areas -- an ugly mono-culture that disrupts entire ecosystems much like Melaleuca has done in Southern Florida.

Melaleuca trees transplanted to Florida to attempt to dry up the Everglades is not the same type that is found in herbs, incense  and oils. Ours tree apparently burn toxic, so firewood is out. One of the best uses of it is to make mulch... A rather cool business model where there's an endless supply, and land owners will typically pay you to take it. Getting paid twice for the same job, land owners and customers, while doing a good turn for the environment and society, has got to feel both good and green.

One of the best uses of kudzu, that invasive vine that has taken over the South (all the way down through Georgia), is to feed it to goats. Goats will eat anything. Once they eat all the kudzu in a field, they simply have to rest a while while it grows back.

Eating Knotweed is an interesting idea. It tastes a little like chicken, oops, no, that's an invasive animal. It apparently tastes somewhat like rhubarb. There is a limit to how much garnish people are willing to eat, however. I'm not sure that we could get everyone in the US to eat a couple helpings of rhubarb each day. Knotweed might require three helpings a day.

Unfortunately, knotweed often grows in disturbed soils like river banks and spent strip mines where the quality of the soil is not only poor, but often semi-polluted. Metals and heavy metals from coal dust/mines will make many knotweed harvests non-nutritious, at best. Modestly toxic at worst.

One of the best uses of knotweed would probably be biomass uses that go directly to incinerate, or are processed into ethanol. But, yet another kick in the pants: transporting knotweed  to the refinery/incinerator when in bloom, will spread the seed of invasion into fresh new virgin territories.

The weed is easily propagated from "cuttings" so 4-wheelers or trucks can readily spread the weed to places where it is not.

As with most (all?) invasives, this is a gift that keeps on giving.

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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

A Song Of Fire And No Ice: We Just Had Our Fourth Record-Breaking Hottest Month In A Row This Year | ThinkProgress

A Song Of Fire And No Ice: We Just Had Our Fourth Record-Breaking Hottest Month In A Row This Year | ThinkProgress:

Oh poop, crap, scat!.

Each month of 2016 has been a record hot month. (Even though 2015 was wicked record hot with 10 months matching or exceeding record highs!)

April blew past the last record in 2015 by a mile or two (+0.28 C or +0.43 F). [See NASA summary data here. Note that you have to go back to 1992 to find the first negative monthly number (-1) below average, and much further to the 1970s to find a year with a good spattering of negative numbers (below the mean).]

If the first quarter holds true in predicting the full year, 2016 will take us to about +1.3 d C, almost three-forths of the way to that magical +2 d Centigrade that so many scientist warn we need to stay away from.

Good news, we'll be able to navigate the north pole by boat & barge form months this year. China's gonna love that, avoiding the Panama Canal.

The early thaw and dry conditions results in ugly fire conditions as demonstrated by the Alberta fires.

Ironically, the fires caused by global warming, aggravate and accentuate the very factors that cause -- you guessed it, global warming.

And, in a double irony, the oil sands have a very heavy carbon footprint and environmental footprint. (Do a Google search on Alberta "Oil Sands before and after".)  Visit Canadian TV News to look at McMurray fires.

Fire and no ice!.

Hot. Sad, True.

Poop!:-(

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The Volusia County Water Summit – Stetson Today

The Volusia County Water Summit – Stetson Today:

The water summit discussed here, turned out to be a rather big event. Really good information & analysis. The right people thinking about the right issues.

It seems that everyone agreed to do something about improving water management and water quality in the county. Although this is a non-binding agreement among the players, it is a really big step forward.

Once everyone realizes those few areas where most of the efforts should be focused, it really helps get a concerted effort from all of the players, private, public and individuals.

When we have these wicked algae blooms, that demonstrates a massive overshoot of what our waterways can handle. Such blooms cause problems all the way out to the reefs, accelerating the reef kill-off that has already been accelerating from record warm temperatures and increase acidification.

The quality of life as we know it, is being eroded by the quality of our water and waterways.

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Friday, May 6, 2016

A single round (1 round) Delphi study. Conundrum of HR – Scenario Plans

A single round (1 round) Delphi study. How can that be? – Scenario Plans (:

Give a look at the two blogs related to Scenario plans and Delphi studies related to the 2007 research by Dr. Cheryl Lentz. Notice how Delphi-type research can be used for all kinds of studies.

These are two blog posts. One on the actual Delphi research doing two things that make it a modified Delphi: 1 round, and quantitative.

The second post is
We love Delphi for scenario planning and a mechanism for innovation. But scenario planning is absolutely critical for sustainability planning. 

See what you think?

Keywords: Scenario Plans, Horizon Planning, innovation, Delphi, Future, innovation, perpetual innovation, 

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