I’m off to get some gardening done. A few things to put in the ground that will be okay with our still very cool nights. Transplanting the tomato plants to bigger containers while we wait for the threat of frost to pass. Then pray for me, it’s time to give those beasts a bath. Fun times will be had by no one.
Meanwhile, here are a few climate solutions items I ran across this week:
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Peter Byck has started a long-form video/podcast for more in-depth discussions of the benefits they are seeing across the board for regenerative agriculture.
I know I’ve been focusing heavily on this topic, but the data suggests we have all we need to reduce humans’ carbon footprint. It’s a matter of time and perseverance. In Europe and China, more miles are driven by EVs than ICE vehicles. China (among others) has been making huge strides in EV batteries. EVs and their batteries* are lasting 18 years and are expected, as data continues, to last longer. Heat pumps, magnetic cooling systems, efficient, small wind turbines, and on and on, are up-and-coming technologies designed to reduce carbon output.
While there are people/industries/companies who work to stall progress, there are many more people out there determined to solve the climate crisis despite the current political climate.
What stands out, though, is that regardless of how much and how soon we reduce carbon output, we still have to resolve the problem of the excessive carbon in our atmosphere. Sure, there are people researching mechanical ways to do that, and others who want to spray toxins into the atmosphere to block the sun (!) because I’m sure that will end well.
But research is showing that regenerative agriculture is not only healthier for ecosystems, but also captures more carbon than originally expected. Research is ongoing, but so far the results are promising and most importantly, fast. Add to that the water savings and increase in beneficial wildlife, plus the economic benefits to farmers.
Peter’s work focuses on grazing, but I do have other resources on how this is also used in food crop production that I will post when time permits.
***
In a more political vein, David Roberts has a discussion with IL Gov. JB Pritzker. I’ll be listening to it while I garden today, but I thought some of you might be interested. Listen here.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
We were watching “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” list night (had never seen it) and I was wondering how Rachel Ward’s career played out.
Turns out, she’s basically been a farmer in Australia all these years and did a documentary on her family’s efforts at regenerative farming:
https://wordofmouthmendo.com/word-of-mouth-stories/fall-2023/rachels-farm
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jan/26/rachels-farm-review-bbc-two-rachel-ward
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqW5aZArq6o
It’s not on Amazon Prime for streaming but I think is on Apple for streaming.
The Audacity of Krope
Pritzker has been getting more and more recognition lately, soon he’ll be up there with Frederick Douglass.
Another Scott
Thanks for the thread. Indeed, lots of good things are happening.
NewAtlas.com – Incat in Tasmania launches world’s largest battery powered electric ferry.
250 tonnes of batteries!
Best wishes,
Scott.
TaMara
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I have seen that documentary! It’s good.
lowtechcyclist
It may be a little thing, but buying rechargeable AA and AAA batteries saves one from having to buy a shitload of regular AA and AAA batteries over time. I almost never see rechargeables on sale in a store, but they’re easy to order online. If you order Panasonic Eneloop rechargeables, they generally come with a charger.
Kosh III
An informative professional site that I’ve followed for years. Sometimes over my head but colorful graphs and charts help with understanding.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: She was so beautiful.
Bupalos
Thanks for these resources and perspective. It’s of course a little demoralizing here in the states with Trump and Musk determined to move us backwards. But a lot of good is happening even here, and while the politics ultimately has to come in line, taking action with others on these projects – and showing them to be successful – can be a way to change politics. We see it with at least one traditional farmer that came to see our regenerative farm project. He’s probably going to start a trial on part of his acreage. I think ultimately it will help change his politics. It’s exciting to think about the reach even our tiny little 6 acre project could have.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Eneloops are great for video game controllers that need AA batteries. The power draw is usually enough that alkalines are really wasteful in that role, and it doesn’t much matter that the lifetime isn’t what you’d get otherwise because you can just keep a charged set on standby.
Matt McIrvin
The current wave of right-wing political reaction across the world is more than anything else an effort to prop up fossil-fuel interests in the face of potentially declining demand. Most of the worst actors are petrostates or something like it.
In the 2000s, there was a lot of panic about “Peak Oil”–the idea that the end of cheaply available oil supplies would cause a crash of civilization. I think the problem is really more that we have too much fossil fuel: enough to boil ourselves to death, and the industry is mortally afraid of increasing concern about that.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
She now looks her age…and I mean that as a massive compliment.
I say that after seeing Demi Moore “blessing” the cover of some magazine at the grocery store yesterday and wouldn’t have known it was her if the title didn’t scream it.
She’s had the typical massive amount of plastic surgery done which results in that permanent “mouth scowl”. It was hideous. Ward’s 67, Moore’s 62.
Whereas Ms. Ward is clearly like the rest of us and it’s so refreshing to see. I guess working the farm doesn’t require a certain “look” that curdles cheese. Although if it were a diary farm, maybe that *would* help. :P
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Gonna go look her up! I love her in Dead Men, A Town Called Alice, and The Thorn Birds.
Still beautiful!
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Demi is on the cover of People’s Beautiful issue. It’s a somewhat interesting interview. The photos are disturbing.
I remember her as a very young actress on General Hospital. I was flat on my back with sciatica one summer. I chose Demi Moore, Meg Ryan (As the World Turns), and Margaret Colin (also As the World Turns) for stardom. Two out of three. And I chose Tom Hanks (Bosom Buddies) for stardom too.
Sorry I got carried away and off-topic.
ETA: To clarify, I didn’t think Moore or Ryan were particularly good actresses, but they had IT
Downpuppy
I was out with a sharp shovel today tending a bumper crop of knotweed.
Thought I’d wiped it out last year. Hah! Came back by the hundreds.
Also a great year for ticks. Wore shorts & winter boots so I could see any hitching a ride. Had a chat with the neighbor to fool her into thinking I was sane.
Will put out the tomatoes this afternoon so the chipmunks will have something to steal.
Gardening is fun!
Kelly
Baby Steller’s Jay on our back porch!!!!
https://bsky.app/profile/northsantiam.bsky.social/post/3lobqxeuzzk2h
karen gail
Way back in the “dark ages” I was good friends with a professor from University of Wisconsin; his specialty was soil, soil regeneration and energy savings. Back then it was a “fringe” area and very few people were interested. He struggled to get a number of farmers to agree to test hemp on soils that had chemical damage. He “preached” that hemp could pull the toxins from the soil and that hemp could be used in products; he was at the time testing a mixture that could be used in place of concrete for buildings. This was the early 1990’s and there were few people willing to listen or explore the uses of hemp. What stuck in my mind was that hemp could pull toxins from the soil, today farmers use tons of chemicals to grow cash crops then tell people that they can’t switch to food crops since the soil has had too many chemicals added.
Though with the EPA and testing going out the window this would give farmers a chance to grow food crops without worrying about high levels of herbicides or pesticides in food. They just couldn’t sell that product outside of US.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
Funny… I actually thought Peter Scolari would be a star (and that Hanks was too goofy and full of himself). Boy, was I wrongo!
Nukular Biskits
I need to post some photos of my “Tomato Jungle”.
TaMara
@Bupalos: I think I may have just yelled, “hell yes!” when I read this!
I’d also love to hear more about your efforts. ❤️
zhena gogolia
@West of the Rockies: You should have asked me!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@zhena gogolia:
Are you going to be able to make the meet up on the 17th?
zhena gogolia
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Where?
LeftCoastYankee
@lowtechcyclist:
I need to go the rechargeable battery route, now that I’ve downsized my gadgets. Thanks for the tip!
karen gail
As a nation we need to change our mindset; people should be ripping out their lawns and putting in gardens. I know that in some areas the climate dictates what crops we can or cannot grow; but for years I had a sunken greenhouse so that I was able to grow crops that wouldn’t normally grow that far north.
A neighbor was hit by high wind shear took out, house and barn along with all out buildings. The barn was old and was sunk down so that the hay mow was at ground level; they turned that old barn into an earthship and the south facing side became a greenhouse that was part of their living room. They managed to grow tomatoes year round along with other vegetables so that they had fresh all year. Someone talked them into a small fish pond and chicken coop after seeing a place in New Mexico; so they added fresh fish and fresh eggs without having to brave zero weather in the winter.
Fair Economist
@karen gail: A greenhouse is a great solution for cold climate issues and yours sounds great. But even without one, a garden is preferable to a yard almost anywhere in the US
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: Peak oil was a bigger concern before hydraulic fracturing (“Fracking”) that allowed people to break into pockets of gas and oil that were previously inaccessible.
I don’t know if hitting the peak of oil drilling is a worry any longer, but the concern used to be that demand would keep rising, but production ability would diminish. Whether and how fracking changes the equations is something I’m not sure about.
trollhattan
@LeftCoastYankee:
Have used NiMH AA and AAAs for awhile and they’re good in most devices and never leak and swell, like alkalines now all seem to. So many gizmos thrown away because of that.
That said NiMH have two issues: they lose charge even when not used (the Eneloops are best in this regard) and they are only 1.2V compared to the standard 1.5V
To the rescue are rechargeable Lithium AA and AAAs, which are 1.5V and have constant storage. You need to hunt those down, as they’re quite new, but worth the bother.
karen gail
Researchers have discovered that hemp grown where toxins are high in soil has the ability to pull those toxins out of the soil; so if you want to turn part of lawn into a vegetable garden and don’t want to spend the money for raised beds you could do small raised bed and grow hemp in another section of yard. (You would have to check to make sure that you can even legally grow hemp.)
I have successfully raised vegetables in pots, the neighbor has invested in bags their crops did great until the papermill spewed out dark smelly smoke for a couple of weeks. I lost everything I had growing and so did they.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@zhena gogolia:
Here in Ohio, in Columbus
Here’s the post about it
zhena gogolia
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh, I’m a long way from there! You must be mixing me up with someone else.
Or maybe I posted about my great-grandfather. He was in Ohio.
Josie
I like the idea of regenerative farming, since it seems to lend itself to smaller operations. We need to figure out how to exchange the huge conglomerates for more family or small group farms.
LeftCoastYankee
@trollhattan:
I’ll look for those. I’ve got down to 3 regularly used and 1 occasional use devices that use AA and AAA. It’s worth it to get better ones.
WTFGhost
It really is a shame we can’t make the fascists eat artificial beef-like product, while the rest of us chow down on steaks raised in a greener, more sustainable, way. They are the ones who would reject regenerative farming as part of the “Green New Deal.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@West of the Rockies:
Scolari, as ‘Newhart’ went on and for many years afterwards, had serious substance abuse problems which affected his work and who would hire him.
https://really-famous.com/peter-scolari
He was brilliant in ‘Newhart’.
karen gail
@Josie: As long as farmers can’t make enough money to survive without major outside income we aren’t going to have small farms or big corporate farms being broken up.
In the early 1990’s I lived in Wisconsin and watched as small family farm and farm was sold off and scooped up by bigger farms. One small family farm had been organic for years, ex’s uncle made a good living selling organic. He had to pay out of his pocket to be certified; and he had to jump through so many hoops that it was ridiculous. But what killed his farm was a golf course; one farmer was on edge of town so his tax rate was changed to what it would have been with houses on property and golf course. He couldn’t afford to keep the land that had been in his family for generations. Which put golf course and small housing division next to uncle’s farm; when the golf course sprayed herbicides and pesticides it drifted on to his land and contaminated his crops, then spread to the water table which was high since it was a marshy area. The farm no longer could support itself and generations of hard work were gone in a season.
The story has repeated time after time, until the only farmers left are those who can lease large machinery, put in cash crops and afford crop insurance. The soil has been killed, if a field lays fallow very few if any weeds will spring up; which the hard winds blow the dirt blows away, a heavy rain will wash the dead soil away.
It would take at least a generation to bring back the land to point where it could support healthy crops or small herd of animals.
Reverse tool order
Caution, battery nerd ahead:
I’ve had the most reliable working lifetime from Eneloop brand AA & AAA rechargeables. It’s true they output 1.2 volts for most of it. However, it’s more of a plateau with a final cliff whereas an alkaline’s output runs downhill from beginning to end. So, the NiMH cells have higher voltage than alkalines for most of their discharge. I’m hearing there is new 1.5 V rechargeable chemistry available, it’s not yet proven mainstream tech.
Almost all devices using AA or AAA run fine on NiMH rechargeables, with two exceptions I’ve encountered. Long term, I have used 1.5 volt lithium primaries there (“primary” = single use). A large local hardware store carries the Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA, though I had to look carefully to distinguish from the alkaline packaging.
I really hate having alkalines eventually leak corrosive that damages or ruins a device I care about about as much as the waste and repeated shopping inconvenience of single use. You probably won’t get the idealized 500 to 1,000 recharges in real life but will save on piles of alkalines by taking a little care.
What is “taking care?” Mostly it’s operating in the broad middle of that plateau I mentioned, neither running off the far cliff of near complete run down nor small discharges with frequent recharges. You don’t need backups for every device, maybe only one or two of them at a time that can’t be down for a long recharge.
Avoiding fast recharges extends lifetime. For example, a standard Eneloop AAA has typical Capacity of 800 mAH (milliAmpere Hours, Amps x time) so recharging rate should be under 400 mAH (“< 1/2 C”).
TaMara
@Reverse tool order: ❤️ Thank you!
Reverse tool order
@TaMara: Thank you for saying that. My experience is that every human endeavor is more complex and nuanced than first meets the eye. And, exposure to that notion isn’t necessarily welcomed if not entertaining as well.
Reverse tool order
@TaMara: Thank you for saying so.
My experience is that every human endeavor is more complex than first meets the eye. That notion is not necessarily appreciated though, so it’s nice when it is. I did figure the comment would be read and useful to some without my hearing of that.
Reverse tool order
It seems reply isn’t working. Anyway, thank you TaMara for saying that.
My experience is that every human endeavor is more complex than first meets the eye. Going on about that notion is not always well received.
I did think my comment would be read and useful to some in any case.
Gloria DryGarden
@karen gail: it hurts, this farm situation