Comments on: Remembering Alex Farrell, the passionate analyst

By: Jade A.

Jade A. — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:56:33 +0000

Very sad. I live in San Francisco and I have to say that this is really unfortunate. We need all the minds that we can get in this struggle to fight human induced climate change and from what was written about him in this blog, it seems like it’s going to be a great loss.

By: EvilPoet

EvilPoet — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:19:41 +0000

My condolences to friends and family.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:43:32 +0000

My condolences at the loss.

Hard to understand it.

When I was growing up, a neighbor of ours shot himself and he had 6 kids with 2 more on the way. (twins) The widow and mother was left to raise them all herself.

I remember reading about someone after the American Civil war who, in 1865, just couldn’t resolve himself that the confederacy was dead and that the states had to rejoin the Union. He then killed himself. Certainly some of that was pushed by the horror of war, and who really can know what goes on in others minds to know what we are disappointed about and what affects us.

By: Hal Levin

Hal Levin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:17:16 +0000

This is very sad news, indeed. His past and potential future contributions can only be characterized as enormously valuable.

If you haven’t availed yourself of it, the paper by Alex and Adam Brandt, Risks of the Oil Transition in Environmental Research Letters, (Environ. Res. Lett. 1 (2006) 014004 (6pp), available at http://www.iop.org/ EJ/ abstract/ 1748-9326/ 1/ 1/ 014004/ ) is one of the most useful papers in my collection. They show clearly that we will not run out of fossil fuels soon but that we have already run out of atmosphere and that development of remaining sources of fossil fuels present enormous environmental risks..

Figure 1 in that paper elegantly expresses the trade-offs of cost and environmental risk/damage lurking in the remaining massive sources of liquid fuels. Approximately 20 times as much potential liquid fuel is available as has been consumed to date. Extraction, processing and consumption of fuels from these sources - conventional oil, coal, tar sands, shale oil, CTL syn fuels, GTL syn fuels, and oil shale — present likely economic costs that will not by themselves deter use but the environmental costs should.

By: Alaina Goetz Fischer

Alaina Goetz Fischer — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:37:48 +0000

Alex was my roommate in college at SJSU, and I am absolutely shocked and horrified by this news… It makes no sense to me and I cannot imagine he would ever take his own life. I am scared by this news and don’t understand it. I am disturbed by the lack of details and mystery surrounding his death.

The world has lost an amazing man.

By: Juliette

Juliette — Sun, 04 May 2008 11:13:49 +0000

This brilliant scientist was headed to Minnesota to “enlighten” the legislature there about the full life cycle of corn ethanol which makes corn ethanol unacceptable as a fuel source. Needless to say, Minnesota is at the heart of the Renewable Fuel Association and Archer Daniel Midlands which is one of the major beneficiaries of the current Federal Mandate for Ethanol and its accompanying corn subsidies. ADM just experienced an extremely successful earnings quarter. When Alex Farrell did not show up at the appointed time in Minnesota, his ticket had been purchased, he was expected to appear before the legislature there, Minnesota called UC Berkeley. Authorities were sent to his home in San Francisco, and he was found deceased. As someone who had read a number of his excellent papers, and who knows some of his students and colleagues at Berkeley, this “suicide” makes no sense. One would hope that there will be a full investigation, perhaps a Grand Jury looking into this mysterious death.

By: Bob Webster

Bob Webster — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:27:46 +0000

Alex’s loss was indeed a shocking piece of news and the deep impact it has had on his friends and family is obvious. He was one who pursued his beliefs passionately and honorably.

For those who are further depressed by their concern about waging war against human-caused climate change, particularly with respect to carbon dioxide emissions, I highly recommend to you two new books: (1) Howard C. Hayden’s “A Primer on CO2 and Climate” (Hayden is a PhD in Physics and Prof. Emeritus, U. of CT) and (2) Roy W. Spencer’s “Climate Confusion” (Spencer is a PhD in meteorology and was Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA). An objective read of these two books will help you through your concerns about human activity and atmospheric CO2.

By: John Hollenberg

John Hollenberg — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:51:45 +0000

Lest anyone be fooled by the post above, note that Roy Spencer’s satellite research claiming cooling in the lower troposphere was refuted, and that he is associated with organizations that receive funding from ExxonMobil. Details here:

http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1397

“Climate Confusion” is probably an apt description for his denial of global warming. Read the work of an author that isn’t confused.

By: B

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:03:29 +0000

I’ll miss you alex…