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Daniel B. Botkin

Solving environmental problems by understanding how nature works

  • People & Nature
  • Climate, Energy & Biodiversity
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The Limits of Nuclear Power

February 21, 2009 By Daniel Botkin 1 Comment

John McCain has called for building 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and 100 eventually. Barack Obama's Web site says, "It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table." But to what extent can nuclear power really help achieve energy independence?There's a problem about nuclear energy that gets little attention. … [Read more...]

JoshS asks So…if you wanted to design the most energy efficient home, what shape gives you the best surface to volume ratio?

June 24, 2008 By Daniel Botkin Leave a Comment

The answer is:  ideally the best designed house would be as close to as sphere as possible.  A Buckminster Fuller geodesic Dome is a pretty good approximation.Dan Botkin … [Read more...]

Can Nuclear Energy Solve Our Energy Crisis?

October 21, 2007 By Daniel Botkin 16 Comments

It has come as a shock to me that some of my fellow environmentalists, and one of this country’s leading newspapers, have recently begun arguing in favor of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels and a way to fight global warming. Stewart Brand, according to a recent interview in the New York Times—which calls him one of the originators of environmentalism—is for it … [Read more...]

The Solution to our Energy Problem

April 13, 2007 By Daniel Botkin Leave a Comment

ENERGY FOREVER: A SOLUTION TO OUR ENERGY PROBLEM Daniel B. Botkin Copyright © Daniel B. Botkin 2007The answer to our energy crisis lies in a farm field in Bavaria, Germany. There, sheep graze beneath an unusual crop: an array of black rectangles mounted on long metal tubes that rotate slowly during the day, following the sun like mechanical sunflowers. This is the world’s … [Read more...]

Energy Pros and Cons

March 19, 2007 By Daniel Botkin 12 Comments

Energy is the number one environmental problem today. But we don't want to minimize our use of energy --- abundant energy makes possible civilization, especially our kind of high-technology civilization. So the question is: how can we maintain abundant sources of energy without ruining our environment? Here is some information that can help. This post is under … [Read more...]

Energy and Civilization

March 19, 2007 By Daniel Botkin 6 Comments

Now that it is generally accepted that global warming is happening and is at least in part the result of burning fossil fuels, the question is: what do we do about it? One answer is energy sacrifice — that we try to use as little energy as possible, each of us, everywhere, forever. In my view, that’s unrealistic — consider how unsuccessful we are at depriving ourselves, even … [Read more...]

What is it like to be in a radiation-polluted land?

March 19, 2007 By Daniel Botkin Leave a Comment

A Walk Through an Irradiated Forest  With growing recent advocacy for more nuclear power plants, I have been thinking about a little-known, unique and curious experiment conducted in the 1960s and 1970s at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY: the laboratory radiated an entire forest. Back in those cold-war days the danger of a nuclear war and of other releases of … [Read more...]

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From Daniel B. Botkin, Ph.D

Daniel Botkin
I believe we are mostly on the wrong track in the way we try to deal with the environment. Everything I do, study, learn, and advise about the environment is different from the status quo. Throughout my career, I have tried to understand how nature works and use that understanding to figure out how we can solve our most pressing environmental problems.

My process over the past 45 years has been to look carefully at the facts, make simple calculations from them (sometimes simple computer models) and then tell people what I have learned. It’s surprising how rarely people bother to look at the facts. This has surprised me every time I’ve started a new ecology research project or work on an environmental issue.

In the course of my work and studies, I have learned many things and I want to tell you about them. That is the purpose of this website.

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Books by Dan Botkin

The Moon in the Nautilus Shell  Strange Encounters
Powering the Future  No Man's Garden
See all books by Dan Botkin

Jabowa III Forest Model


Jabowa Forest Model
Jabowa Forest Model for Windows 7.
This forest model, used around the world, was developed first in 1970 by Daniel B. Botkin, James F. Janak and James R. Wallis

JABOWA remains the most completely detailed and well validated forest growth model available, accounting for 95% or more of the variation in real forests where it has been tested.

The book Forest Dynamics: An Ecological Model (available as an eBook) provides a complete description of the model and the rationales behind its development.

Order Online

Sea Ice Study

The Bockstoce and Botkin Historical Sea Ice Data Study has a new home at the University of Alaska website. The data include more than 52,000 daily observations in an unbroken 65 year record from 1849 – 1914.

See related papers

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