East Coast Blizzard Seen From Space

From Betsy Mason, Wired Science blog

NASA’s Aqua satellite took this image centered on Washington, D.C., on Sunday with its MODIS instrument.

The image covers 300 miles lengthwise. The two big rivers near the center are the Susquehanna (to the north) and Potomac rivers, which run into Chesapeake Bay. Washington, D.C., sits alongside the Potomac, just north of the river’s hook-shaped curve. The inlet to the north is Delaware Bay.
Higher-resolution image from NASA

Nopenhagen Protesters Stage Mass Rally

Special thanks to Bridgit Koller

NPR on Ball State

All Things Considered feature on Ball State's campus-wide, 50 building, $80 million effort to displace their daily 130-tons of coal habit.
Link here.

An Affordable Truth

Good Krugman column today (may require sign in) on optimism at start of COP15. Some notable excerpts:

The truth, however, is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is affordable as well as essential. Serious studies say that we can achieve sharp reductions in emissions with only a small impact on the economy’s growth. And the depressed economy is no reason to wait — on the contrary, an agreement in Copenhagen would probably help the economy recover.

and...

Still, should we be starting a project like this when the economy is depressed? Yes, we should — in fact, this is an especially good time to act, because the prospect of climate-change legislation could spur more investment spending.
Consider, for example, the case of investment in office buildings. Right now, with vacancy rates soaring and rents plunging, there’s not much reason to start new buildings. But suppose that a corporation that already owns buildings learns that over the next few years there will be growing incentives to make those buildings more energy-efficient. Then it might well decide to start the retrofitting now, when construction workers are easy to find and material prices are low.