Also shows: when the big one comes, a solid 20 percent of people will be filming it instead of running https://t.co/hSpCyL3Ys5
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) July 18, 2022
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Too Busy for SummerPost + Comments (96)
Climate Change Open Thread: The Texas Power Grid
I learned a lot of things about air conditioning that didn't make it into my recent Foreign Policy piece. I've put them into this Substack post.
These factoids include….https://t.co/bEvsGMEacp
— Faine Greenwood (@faineg) January 27, 2022
Been hanging on to this since January, waiting for the right time. From Greenwood’s excellent Foreign Policy article, “Climate Change Demands More Air Conditioning“:
… [M]uch of the United States and Europe views air conditioning as a luxury, not a necessity.
In this worldview, heating saves lives, while cooling merely keeps people comfortable. Our failure to take extremely hot temperatures seriously is now on a direct collision course with accelerating climate change and ever more frequent deadly heat waves in places that were historically far cooler. And it’s mixed with a preachy, puritanical attitude toward personal decisions that sees air conditioning as an unnecessary luxury that contributes to the disaster, not as a necessity for surviving it…
… At least 600 people die each year in the United States from extreme heat events: That’s more deaths than from storms, floods, and lightning combined, according to climate researcher Kelly Sanders. That figure is probably a major underestimate, because the U.S. medical system still struggles to attribute deaths to heat or track how many such deaths take place. Heat injuries and deaths also cost money. A 2012 case study covering data from 11 U.S. states in found that the costs from heat-related injuries and deaths totaled over $10 billion. These costs are expected to rise as the country heats up…
Many people assume that air conditioning is worse for the environment than heating is. After all, why do we hear about it so much more? The truth is that heating a home uses considerably more energy than cooling one does. A 2020 study found that homes located in the coldest parts of the United States used considerably more energy and largely emitted more greenhouse gases than those in the warmest parts of the country did. A 2013 study concluded that living in colder climates in the United States demands more overall energy than living in warmer climates does: Climate control in Minneapolis uses about three and a half times more energy than it does in Miami…
How can we protect people from heat while protecting the planet? Perhaps the first step is acknowledging that the existence of air conditioning isn’t the problem: It’s that we use it and distribute it so unequally, with gigantic luxury office buildings and fancy condos using far too much of it, while sweltering, old apartment buildings populated by the poor often go without. In this light, we should pass laws that ensure that people who need access to air conditioning are able to access it and are (equally importantly) able to pay for it. These laws will also need to be written in such a way that ensures the cost of air conditioning isn’t simply passed on from landlord to tenant. On the flip side, we should examine regulatory means of discouraging big-time air conditioner users from using excessive amounts of energy to keep their buildings jacket-weather chilly during the height of summer…
(Her Substack post is very good, too!)
Climate Change Open Thread: The Texas Power GridPost + Comments (44)
TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Still Busy
>> Saturday @VP to speak at @essencefest, per @AprilDRyan: https://t.co/x8oWmOUZPH
— Herbie Ziskend (@HerbieZiskend46) June 30, 2022
… Harris’ appearance will resemble that of former First Lady Michelle Obama, who attended the Essence Festival in 2019 for an intimate conversation moderated by news anchor Gayle King about her New York Times best-selling memoir, “Becoming.” The celebrity conducting the interview with the vice president has not yet been announced.
Sources close to Harris told theGrio that she personally requested to attend the largest annual gathering of Black America with a focus on Black women. The timing of the request is, in part, due to her understanding of this moment of uncertainty on various levels that impact Black women and the community.
Some of those issues of uncertainty have placed Vice order President Harris at the forefront of the administration’s fight. Harris has become the face of the White House’s battle for legal reproductive care after last week’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — which the Biden White House has said is a top priority for the administration.
As a U.S. senator and now vice president, Harris has also led on the issue of Black maternal health and has emphasized the alarming data that shows Black women are three times more likely to die during pregnancy.
The last time Vice President Harris made an appearance at Essence Festival was in 2019 when she was a Democratic presidential candidate. She was one of a number of presidential contenders who understood the magnitude of this audience and worked for a direct connection to the community in exchange for their votes…
TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Still BusyPost + Comments (92)
When Will We Learn
It seems like every single day I read another story like this:
If the Great Salt Lake, which has already shrunk by two-thirds, continues to dry up, here’s what’s in store:
The lake’s flies and brine shrimp would die off — scientists warn it could start as soon as this summer — threatening the 10 million migratory birds that stop at the lake annually to feed on the tiny creatures. Ski conditions at the resorts above Salt Lake City, a vital source of revenue, would deteriorate. The lucrative extraction of magnesium and other minerals from the lake could stop.
Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah’s population.
“We have this potential environmental nuclear bomb that’s going to go off if we don’t take some pretty dramatic action,” said Joel Ferry, a Republican state lawmaker and rancher who lives on the north side of the lake.
Look, I’ve just accepted that we are not going to do anything about climate change. We just aren’t. The shit is going to hit the fan and there is nothing any of us can do about it. But we can do some things to mitigate the harm, although I feel quite as certain we won’t do that, either.
First of which is the population growth in desert climates has just got to stop. We have got to stop subsidizing the growth to regions that do not have the resources to support themselves, and we have got to stop accepting it and pretending it is socially responsible. We also have to stop wrecking communities that COULD survive with the resources they have if big ag and nestle weren’t stealing all of them:
Gary Biggs’ family hasn’t had water coming out of their private well for over a decade, after a multi-year drought and overpumping by agriculture and industry.
Now, the eight-acre farm in West Goshen, California, which Biggs passed down to his son, Ryan, in the 1970s, is parched and fallow. His son and granddaughter carry in water from sources to drink and shower. They go to town to wash their clothes, Biggs says.
In recent years, the family has gone from relying on water from cisterns provided by government programs, which they say tastes terrible, to hauling water containers to and from neighbors’ homes — neighbors who are willing to share what they have left.
Biggs, 72, still remembers when the family property had a thriving orchard. When he was a teenager, he planted pecan and orange trees, while his father grew alfalfa and raised cows and sheep.
“Now, it’s all dirt,” Biggs, a lifelong California resident, told CNN. “Central California is dying. We’re becoming a wasteland. A hot and dry wasteland.”
One of the things we could do that would help is for people to dump their fetishization of grass, which is the worst fucking thing you can have in your yard. It’s utter shit. It is useless. It’s beyond useless, it’s harmful. It causes people to use pesticides to make a certain way, it requires wasting water on it so you can waste gasoline to cut it and emit co2 gasses. It does nothing for wild life, it does nothing as a carbon sink. When there are rains, it doesn’t retain the water like other plants and vegetation would, and runs off into the gutters and gullies carrying all those pesticides into rivers, streams, and wastewater stations.
Personally, I was planning to rip up my back yard and get rid of all the grass this year, but I just do not have the money to do it and get the perennials and rain gardens in. But I might do my front yard. If everyone did this everywhere, it would make a difference, it really would.
But we won’t do anything anyway so I am not sure why I am mentioning. Maybe I’ll challenge a bunch of you to do it with me. I bet we could collectively gain the knowledge to plant the right things for our respective regions- indigenous plants that would help native species, and do it right. Let’s think on that.
Speaking of native species, this slipped through the fence at my parent’s place, and her momma could not get in to retrieve her:
My parent’s neighbor scooped it up and took it out to momma doe:
They headed off to the woods at the edge of town as soon as they were reunited.
The GOP Is Running A Murder Suicide Pact, Climate Edition
GOP officials and dark money MoTUs are trying to make sure the planet burns:
In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk.
In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation.
And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.
Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.
They’re having some success too. Black Rock and its CEO, Larry Fink, have been a target for the GOP campaigners, because Fink has been one of the major public voices to argue that climate change hits both social responsibility and long-term financial notes. That evoked this response from West Virginia’s state treasurer:
And in January, Mr. Moore pulled about $20 million out of a fund managed by BlackRock because the firm has encouraged other companies to reduce emissions. BlackRock still manages several billion for West Virginia’s state retirement system. “We’re divesting from BlackRock because they’re divesting from us,” Mr. Moore said in an interview.
In response:
The company has scrambled to limit the fallout in states like Texas, stressing that it is following the wishes of its clients and investing broadly.
“We are perhaps the world’s largest investor in fossil fuel companies, and, as a long-term investor in these companies, we want to see these companies succeed and prosper,” BlackRock’s head of external affairs, Dalia Blass, wrote in a letter to Texas regulators in January…
…BlackRock also this month said it would support fewer shareholder proposals calling for climate action because “we do not consider them to be consistent with our clients’ long-term financial interests.”
A couple of notes. One: llue states can play this game too, and some are; more should, and likely will. And…
Two: fuck these fucking fuckers. Climate change is real, it’s upon us, and it’s causing harm to non-MoTUs all over the country, very much including those who vote team fascist. Florida has a reasonable chance of enjoying a tropical storm this weekend, seeded by Hurricane Agatha, itself one of the earliest cat. 2 storms on record to strike Mexico. Fire season is about to ramp up, and drought in the southwest has produced stories like this.
Extracting the last few years of profit from bulldozed mountain tops and fracked water tables is more important to those who fund the GOP than anything else. They are literally the enemies of civilization, and this story is one more reminder that we are in fact in the midst of a national and global existential struggle…
well…
…I’ll go all Church Lady on y’all…
with…
EVIL.
Open thread, my fellow jackals.
Image: Raphael, St Michael vanquishing Satan, before 1520.*
*Here’s my problem: I downloaded an image that was 670 x 1107. It showed up on our media page at that size. Imported into the post, it turned itself into its current diminutive size. But it’s still a great painting, and the link takes you to a better reproduction, so I thought it worth posting while I try to get around to asking for professional help…ETA: Watergirl helped out on the above, and I may have learned how to take care of such image matters myself in the future. We’ll see….
The GOP Is Running A Murder Suicide Pact, Climate EditionPost + Comments (56)
Earth Day Open Thread: Revisiting Killing My Lawn, Phase 1
Since it’s Earth Day and we are facing an extreme high fire danger day here on the Front Range of the Rockies, with record heat and drought, I’ve been thinking a lot about my decision to kill 3/4 of my front lawn. Thought it was worth updating you on what will be its second summer. All of my low-water/butterfly/hummingbird plants survived the winter, minus one daisy plant.
As they are all perennials, this summer will probably be one of minimal growth, but still lots of showy flowers. Next year I expect it to quickly become a jungle. Which is why I did minimal planting, in pretty groupings.
Last fall and this spring has been the real payoff – minimal work to maintain. I trimmed up a few plants this spring, I let the leaves from fall just compost right into the mulch and I’ve pulled minimal weeds (damn you bindweed). And now that the plants are established, the weekly watering I did last summer will be reduced to an “as needed” basis.
I will update with photos as soon as things pop – usually mid-June here (I’m still waiting for lilacs, everything has been late this year. Although my pussy-willows were full of bees today, so yay!).
But for now, let’s revisit how I killed my lawn and revitalized my soil in ways I could have never anticipated. (The worms! The worms!)
=================
It began innocently enough with laying out an outline of what might be nice and a promise I’d think about it for a while. Two weeks later, phase 1 is complete.
This was the beginning, outlining with bricks to see how I’d lay out the new yard
My goal was to create an excellent soil base to replace what is now pretty much cement hard clay. The previous owners used a chemical lawn service for at least a decade, that left the soil depleted and hard as a rock. Over the past four years, I’ve been amending it with compost, manure and aeration. A record drought this summer proved that none of those measures were enough to reinvigorate the lawn and the soil was still like granite.
Earth Day Open Thread: Revisiting Killing My Lawn, Phase 1Post + Comments (46)
Friday Morning Open Thread: Earth Day, and Other Good Choices
In the face of grave threats to democracy around the world, the JFK Library Foundation will honor five individuals with the #ProfileInCourage Award.
These honorees have demonstrated acts of extraordinary courage to protect democracy at home and abroad. https://t.co/ut2UNbdkUh pic.twitter.com/GLYBwGkvTD
— JFK Library (@JFKLibrary) April 21, 2022
Biden comes down from the podium and speaks directly to people at a Portland, Ore. fundraiser, about two feet away from them. “We’re gonna go through a tough period,” he says to this friendly crowd. “This is the United States of America. There’s not a damn thing we can’t do.”
— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) April 21, 2022
Friday Morning Open Thread: Earth Day, and Other Good ChoicesPost + Comments (148)