Friedman on fossil fuel finesse, boosts Bloom Box buzz

(Why have your own blog if you can't make up your own silly headlines? Five points extra credit to the student blogger on this trip who posts the best, or worst, headline of the trip!)

This blog post from the road, or to be exact, the bus.

Unity students have been reading the NYT columnist Tom Friedman lately. Mitch Thomashow, our fearless college president, has required his book for a few classes.

Here's his latest column.

In it he praises the founders of Bloom Energy and Calera Inc, a couple of smart-grid start-ups that I've been watching too.

But he also has an interesting riff on immigration to the US, a topic that has often been in my head since I got on that first transatlantic airplane all those years ago.

A related topic might be "why go back?" This might also apply as much to Americans of European descent of any generation as it does to first generation immigrants like myself.

Especially when air travel is so GHG-rich. We're going to have to indulge in the modern medieval indulgence of quite a few carbon offsets to put the carbon balance back in the black.

The best answer I have to this question, other than "I have to go back to see my Mum," is to learn. Although America is still probably the most technologically and socially innovative society on planet Earth, you have to give those Euros credit for some of their recent innovations. And older ones, such as public transportation that works.

We expect to examine both the new and the old up close and personal on this trip. Including public transport.

By the way, this bus is very nice. And the WiFi works. Recommended.

Also by the way, what if Kerouac had written On the Bus instead of On the Road as the quintessential American creed of its era?

What difference would that have made?

On my way...

I am leaving earlier than the students. I have a family in Britain, including aging parents, and they need me for a few days. This is somewhat unexpected, and arrangements have been made for the students to be accompanied to the airport themselves in a few day's time.

But I will get to Britain a little earlier.

Which is why I'm sitting in the Concorde Trailways bus station in Augusta, Maine, having been dropped off by Aimee a few minutes ago.

Trains and Planes and Automobiles was the title of a funny movie a few years ago. But it will also be me for the next few hours. Bus to Boston Logan Airport, plane to Toronto, then London Heathrow (having to go west to go east was not my preferred approach, but the only way I could be assured of coming back with the students group).

Having landed at Heathrow there will be a shuttle bus to a rental car company, where I will rent a car, and then drive to my family's place in South Wales.

Once I get there I will take some pictures and make a post or two if I see or hear or read anything interesting or relevant to our topics of climate change and energy ideas, or to the natural history of the British Isles, or indeed anything that is different that an American environmental college student might not have heard of, or be interested in.

Aberystwyth

(Wikimedia photo.)

One place we might go on our day off is the seaside town of Aberystwyth, famous, as is Machynlleth, for its consonants, but also as the site of the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, the National Library of Wales, an ancient castle, a nice beach, and the gentle sweep of Cardigan Bay.

Like most British coastal resorts the town is largely Victorian and Georgian, and very pleasant and walkable. There are some shopping streets, as well as the usual fish and chip shops and pubs.

(I may be willing to give five points extra credit to the student who can still spell both Aberystwyth and Machynlleth at any time after we get back and before the end of the semester.)

British-American dictionary

George Bernard Shaw is supposed to have once described the United States and Britain as “two nations separated by a common language."

This might help.

And then again....

BBC America's British-American Dictionary

Weather holding steady

Looks like we might get lucky.

http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Machynlleth-UKXX1215

Wales in pictures

There are daffodils. Confirmed by one of these pictures. Although some of the others look more like Maine! I expect the warm temperatures have disposed of that by now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8546279.stm

Link to CAT Blog

http://blog.cat.org.uk/