This is the 619th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the November 16 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
They also unveiled an All Terrain Vehicle which fits in back & plugs in
B12love writes—Tesla introduced an electric pickup called Cyber Truck (with poll): “Elon Musk thinks by first principles, or the most basic order of a thing. When he focused on manufacturing, he said “look, the production rate of a manufacturing facility boils down to volume divided by production density times velocity.” and said that viewed through the lens of actually adding value to the product sold, most factories were only 10% ‘dense’. He said “I think we can get density up to 20 or 30%, easy”, which implies that the production value per cubic foot of facility space doubles or triples. The costs of infrastructure are substantial, so being able to produce the same numbers of units as the competition, but in half the space, would be a competitive advantage. Musk appears to have applied the same kind of thinking to the pickup truck. If you think of the truck as a tool, and want to figure out how to improve utilization-density, you basically have to remove anything that isn’t adding value off the vehicle, or at least stack as much wasted spaces into the same wasted space. Musk viewed the body-on-frame design approach to be a waste of space, and basically eliminated it entirely, replacing those functions with an exoskeleton. This means the vehicle strength and stability is built into the shell. The design pieces are actually structural pieces, so the industrial look is indicative of it’s utility. And it allows everything inside of the to have the design flexibility of the interior of a shipping container; it’s open space, do whatever you want.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Charles Koch’s Climate Conversion As Phony As the Rest, As Gas Again Proves To Be Climate Culprit: “On Tuesday, Niskanen Center’s Jerry Taylor tweeted a link to a podcast where Charles Koch talks about climate change, saying that Koch has apparently ‘moved from a skeptic regarding the case for climate action to a proponent of reducing CO2 emissions.’ Taylor also gave some well-warranted skepticism from Taylor--as it turns out, Koch isn’t exactly embracing the Green New Deal here. Instead he’s using the same plainly false talking points as the natural gas industry and the Trump administration: that gas is a climate solution. One of the first issues to come up on the August podcast with Tim Ferriss (and thankfully quoted by Koch Industries’ PR page) is a question about Koch’s prolific funding of groups that spread misinformation about climate change. Charles laughs off the question about if he funds denial, quipping “I certainly hope not” and claiming to ignore both the most strident deniers and alarmists. After that both-sides dodge, Charles pivoted to the now-standard talking point that gas replacing coal has reduced emissions and is therefore a good climate policy, and that the real problem is China. This is not some big conversion. Koch is a liar who has spent a lifetime building on his father’s fortune, made by selling oil services to the Nazis, casting blame on China while praising a climate-killing product he’s gotten rich selling in the US as it became by far the largest historic emitter of the excess carbon in the atmosphere.”
eddiemauro writes—Making Iowa the National Leader on Climate Solutions: “Iowa can be a national leader on soil health, confronting climate change, and investing in rural communities, and Eddie Mauro is ready to lead that fight. Within his first 100 days in the United States Senate, Eddie will promote legislation that drives swift and significant action to help Iowa lead the charge. By doubling down on infrastructure, building up Iowa’s abundant and profitable soil, supporting conservation and investing in research & development, Iowa not only can be positioned as a leader in the wake of climate change — but on soil conservation and agricultural best practices too.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
CaptBLI writes—This bird is not what I thought it was: “I had this lovely flier land on one of the Large Oaks in my yard last Sunday. I had my camera with me and clicked the photo above. I went back into the house and thumbed through my well worn copy of Peterson’s field guide (1980 edition). I was 80% sure of my identification and posted the results on a current diary I hosted Sunday. I was proud to display my discovery. Well — A kind and thorough discussion ensued. My thanks to OceanDiver and nookular for the input. It was decided that I was incorrect and my research material contributed to the error. Upon further review and much consideration, I now find the bird in question is not a Rough-winged Swallow but indeed is an Eastern Bluebird.”
CaptBLI writes—The Daily Bucket: A Pause in Delay, Mississippi: “You have to know how to get there and have a reason to go, if you’re looking for Delay, Mississippi. I discovered this community twenty years ago and it is just the sort of place that appeals to my nostalgia. I found remnants, six decades removed, of the cotton gin, general store and stock yard that were abandoned to the Great Depression, while surveying a division of family holdings. I was glad to see young people coming back to this long forgotten rural setting even if it is displaced from it’s former glory. Wandering the road past Angus cattle grazing between pine plantations, I looked for smaller things, simple things, items connected to the past. I found a few insects braving the Fall chill.”
CaptBLI writes—The Daily Bucket: Trees that feed and one late snake: “There are long lost farms along the banks of Sardis Lake that thrived for generations before 1936, when the Corp of Engineers built the dam. These farms were far enough away from communities that they had to be self sufficient. Other items were carried in by wagons, filled with the Sears and Roebuck needs the farmers could not obtain on their own.Wildlife and livestock fed on surrounding flora. The native grasses, fruits and nuts made up most of the diet of man and beast alike. Here are a few of the trees that I happened upon while visiting one forgotten farm. I used a college ruled pad to show dimensions of the things I brought home.”
White Ash seeds and the laden limbs of the tree Fraxinus americana
CaptBLI writes—The Daily Bucket: Potlockney creek, Mississippi: “The air was a bit ripe due to the hides, offal and carcasses of deer thrown off the bridge into Potlockney (pronounced Pot-lock-knee, by the locals) creek. Poachers know when to toss ‘the evidence’ and trust no remains of their crime will survive. The two scavengers shown below (along with others not photographed) were tasked with cleaning up the scene before authorities arrive. In addition, a murder of crows (unrelated to this report) had been seen in the area. It was a conspiratorial situation and flawlessly efficient. I was there to document the aftermath.”
Burrowing owl with a broken wing.
Lenny Flank writes—Photo Diary: Audubon Birds of Prey Center, Maitland FL: “The Audubon Birds of Prey Center in Maitland FL (about 20 miles away from Orlando) does rescue and rehab work for raptors that have been injured. When possible, they are released back to the wild; if they cannot be rehabbed, they are placed in an accredited caregiving institution. The Center currently has about 50 birds of prey in either rehab or permanent residence. The whole center is housed in what used to an ordinary suburban backyard.”
matching mole writes—Dawn Chorus: Sexual selection gone wild in tropical fruit eating birds: “One of the iconic images of the tropics is of brightly colored birds flitting through the vegetation. This is a bit misleading, although there are plenty of brightly colored birds in tropical forests. However, detailed studies have shown that birds in the tropics are not, on average, more prone to bright colors than temperate birds. There are just a lot more species overall in the tropics and thus more colorful ones. Among the colorful species there is variation. In many species such as most parrots including the scarlet macaws above both males and females are similarly brightly colored. This is very common in tropical forests. However, this diary is focused on species where the sexes are very different in appearance. What we are discussing are extreme examples of sexual selection in some tropical forest birds. These birds are justly famous for their extraordinary plumage, calls, and visual displays.”
OceanDiver writes—
The Daily Bucket - fall colors, before the rain: “November 18, 2019, Pacific Northwest.
The fall rains have finally arrived in the PacificNorthwest after an unusually dry October and November. The long dry stretch and stagnant air did mean some pretty skies there for a while, their color resonating with our usual shades of fall in foliage, berries, and wildlife. [...]
The wind and rain have cleared out the pollutant particulates leaving damp clean air behind. Puddles are filling up and ground is getting soggy. We’re deep into fall now.”
Clockwise from top left; sequoia redwood, coastal redwood (with cone), mystery tree, red cedar, ornamental pine, arbor vitae.
6412093 writes —
The Daily Bucket--A Tree for the Redwood Man: “He wakes up at dawn and peeks out the window, looking for the heron feeding at the fishpond in the first light. No heron yet today. He starts the espresso machine, but cannot make coffee fast enough to clear out almost seven decades of fog from his head. He sighs happily as he finally sips the familiar bitterness, which seem to flow directly into his bloodstream. The coffee restores consciousness. He watches out the window into the backyard, where the hummingbirds bicker over access to the feeders.
Almost every morning, he walks and sits throughout the backyard garden, often lingering over a small area. He knows where the tiny fish fry hide under the lily pads. He sees where the tadpoles tread water. He figured out where the grown frogs lay in wait to eat aphids and fruit flies. So how did a 20.5 inch tall redwood tree suddenly appear in his back yard, next to his favorite bench, without him noticing? Folks had called him Redwood man for years. He’d originally gone to Humboldt County to grow pot, but the morning after an LSD trip, he saw a friend sanding a redwood slab, and became enchanted with the tree’s unique grain. Redwood ‘burls’ are twisted growths on the redwood. that provide vivid and beautiful grainy patterns.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—IPA and Marohasy Film a Beige Ree In Failed Attempt to Debunk Climate’s Threat to Coral: “Deniers down under are promoting a new video from the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian denial shop funded by Gina Rinehart, the country’s richest person thanks to her mining company. The 13-minute video, titled ‘Beige Reef,’ depicts Dr. Jennifer Marahosey’s trip to a coral reef in order to let people ‘see for themselves that claims that the Great Barrier Reef is in crisis are not true.’ They describe the video as a rebuttal to a 2016 Nature paper (which is actually published by Nature’s Scientific Reports imprint) that compared the condition of a couple small reefs in 2012 with photos from 1994 and 1890. These reefs, it’s important to note, are on the coast, and is not part of the further-out Great Barrier Reef. That these are small, isolated coastal reefs and not at all part of the GBF ecosystem belies the claim in the very first sentence of IPA’s YouTube description that this video proves the Great Barrier Reef isn’t in crisis. That minor sleight-of-hand aside, does the video actually debunk the paper? It does not.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Daily Caller’s Latest Exclusive Covers Covering Climate Now Like It Was A Secret Conspiracy: “Over the summer, when Michael Bastasch and the Daily Caller parted ways, we wondered who would take up his mantle as the outlet’s resident denier attack dog. Four months later, Bastasch (at least by his Twitter) doesn’t appear to be working anywhere else yet--but it has become increasingly clear that Chris White is filling his old role at the Caller. Though White is technically a ‘tech reporter,’ it looks like only one out of every ten or so of his stories have anything to do with tech. The rest are either garden-variety rightwing stories positively covering Republicans and attacking Democrats, or the sort of anti-environmental hit pieces or EPA-defending stories that Bastasch used to write. But White’s latest is one of the biggest nothingburgers of a story to date, despite the time it spent at the top of the Daily Caller’s home page yesterday. The headline, of course, promises a scoop that White fails to deliver: ‘Exclusive: Inside the media conspiracy to hype Greta Thunberg and the UN climate conference’.”
Pakalolo writes—Just when you thought things could not get any worse in Australia, Sydney might run out of water: “The largest city in Australia, Sydney, is set to run out of water by 2022 warned a CNN affiliate, which was then confirmed by the Water Minister of New South Wales (NSW), Melinda Pavey. It is only Spring in NSW and already the state suffers from a crippling, according to CNN, drought and ferocious bushfires that are terrorizing residents and has ‘... already destroyed three times more land in New South Wales, which is home to nearly 8 million people, than during the entire fire season last year -- even before summer truly begins.’ NSW is not the only state suffering from these natural disasters that have been supercharged by man made climate change. Unfortunately, when summer begins on December 1, conditions will deteriorate even further.”
Pakalolo writes—Puerto Ricans begin to abandon their beaches due to sea level rise clawing into the coastline: “In Puerto Rico, the economy depends on tourist dollars. Tourists and locals alike are drawn to the island’s sun-kissed beaches for fun in the sun. But sea-level rise from thermal expansion and the melting of polar ice caps has begun to erode the beaches. The width of beaches is decreasing, which reduces the buffer ability for the energy of a wave. Sand gets lost to the sea, and that creates the ideal conditions for buildings and infrastructure to collapse into the sea when storm activity occurs. Irina Zhorov writes in PRI: Even before Maria, more than half of Puerto Rico’s beaches were eroding, partly because building on the coast can disrupt natural cycles of sand movement. That’s a problem when nearly everyone lives along the coasts. ‘Most of the economic activity of Puerto Rico occurs also in the coastal areas, mostly in the San Juan metropolitan area,’ said Ernesto Díaz, Director of the Puerto Rico Coastal Zone Management Program. All the electric power stations are located on the coast, along with sanitary infrastructure, power lines and fiber optic cables.”
Climate Army writes—10-year-old Enzo Gilchrist to livestream December Democratic Debates: “10-year-old climate activist Enzo Gilchrist will be livestreaming the December Democratic Debates at twitch.tv/ClimateLive starting at 8:30 EST tonight, with live commentary from a progressive perspective. The 10-year-old has a show called Climate 2020 on weekends from 6:00-7:00 PM EST, where he talks about the week’s politics. The Democratic Debate features a rematch between Warren and Buttigieg, Sanders and Biden, and a possible attack coming Elizabeth Warren’s way from Tulsi Gabbard, which could injure her campaign so severely it will fall apart, just as Sen. Harris’s did.”
Angmar writes—"The climate science is clear: it's now or never to avert catastrophe"-Bill McKibben: “The one thing never to forget about global warming is that it’s a timed test. But the climate crisis doesn’t work like that. If we don’t solve it soon, we will never solve it, because we will pass a series of irrevocable tipping points—and we’re clearly now approaching those deadlines. You can tell because there’s half as much ice in the Arctic, and because forests catch fire with heartbreaking regularity and because we see record deluge. But the deadlines are not just impressionistic—they’re rooted in the latest science. In the aftermath of the Paris climate accords in 2015, for instance, many researchers set 2020 as the date by which carbon emissions would need to peak if we were to have any chance of meeting the accord’s goals. Here’s an example of the math, from Stefan Rahmstorf and Anders Levermann. Under the most plausible scenario, they wrote, ‘even if we peak in 2020 reducing emissions to zero within 20 years will be required,’ and that is an ungodly steep slope. But if we wait past 2020 it’s not a slope at all—it’s just a cliff, and we fall off it. ”
Extreme Weather & Natural Phenomena
ChaoticMnemonic writes—California Residents face Unprecedented Power Outages, Left to Pay Wildfire Bill: “California wildfires have become a staple in news media. It seems like every few weeks, there’s a new headlining flame threatening homes and wildlife in the golden state. So far in 2019, over 250,000 acres have burned, costing taxpayers $163 Million in fire suppression alone, not including the damages to infrastructure or personal property. Even worse, the tragic fires of 2018 burned through nearly 8x as many acres as this year, resulted in over $1.75 Billion of taxpayers’ dollars, with about the same amount attributed to overall damages. And the loss of human life was record-breaking with a grand total of 103. In light of recent investigations, it has been determined that some of the largest state fires, including the Paradise fire of 2018 that claimed the lives of over 40 residents alone, started at the fault of Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), the largest utilities provider in California, serving power to nearly half of the state’s population.”
ECO-ACTION & ECO JUSTICE
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—From Aquaman to Greta Thunberg, No Activist is Safe From False Hypocrisy Charges: “Over the weekend there apparently wasn’t much going on in Australia, so Sky News host Rita Panahi used it as an opportunity to take a cheap shot at Jason Momoa for a speech he gave at the end of September to the UN. In it, he criticizes the lack of climate action as island nations are “drowning.” But according to Panahi, Momoa shouldn’t talk about climate change, because earlier in the year there was a fire on his private jet. And according to her panelists, the response that the point of climate activism is to generate systemic change is just proof that it’s really a front for Marxism. So, obviously, anyone who flies on private jets but talks about climate change is a great big hypocrite. Clearly, then, Momoa shouldn’t be flying (he’s Aquaman, not Superman, after all!) if he wants to be taken seriously. Instead, he should consider, say, taking a boat. But even then, would he be safe from these sorts of attacks? Judging by the response Greta Thunberg got from the deniersphere, it wouldn’t make any difference. Over at the Washington Times, Valerie Richardson cobbled together some tweets and a press release from CFACT for a story criticizing Greta’s return to Europe for daring to use a boat made of plastics. So, apparently, you can’t fly or sail if you’re a climate activist.”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
billofrights writes—I Voted "No" on Maryland's Annual Draft Climate Change Commission Report: Here's Why... “Dear Citizens and Elected Officials, and If It May Please the Court: I had no prior intent, your Honor, in even ‘being there,’ much less voting ‘No’ on the annual draft Maryland Climate Change Commission Report today. I recognize, Sir, that I’ve committed a serious offense against the favored public demeanor of Governor Hogan and his Environmental Secretary, Benjamin Grumbles, if not against the long-standing persona of the Free State: amiable Maryland. We’ll be ‘civil’ to each other here until the waves of Sea Level Rise drown us, starting with the Eastern Shore and all its little manure-generating chickens being raised for well. ... I’d better stop, I’m in enough trouble. Sorry … All I can plead your honor, is that my impatience with the status quo, the slow pace of change, and the alarms sounded in October of 2018, in the UN’s IPCC report, made me do it, with the Maryland Draft itself citing the urgency time and time again. And then not delivering much of anything at all...”
Angmar writes—Add your name-call on the DNC and all the 2020 candidates to make Climate a priority at the debate: “There’s another DNC Democratic Debate happening on Wednesday, and we need to know that climate will be a focus for the candidates and the moderators.
Add your name next to mine to call on the DNC and all the 2020 candidates to make climate change a priority in Wednesday’s debate act.jayinslee.com/...”
eddiemauro writes—Bold Action on Climate, a Green New Deal and Defeating Joni Ernst:
ENERGY
Fossil Fuels & Emissions Controls
Dan Bacher writes—Breaking: Governor Newsom Orders a Scientific Review of New Fracking Permits: “The Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources today announced a moratorium on cyclic high pressure steam injection in oil industry operations and an independent review of new fracking permits. While not an outright ban on fracking and steam injection techniques, the temporary halt to these oil drilling techniques is considered a welcome victory after many years of efforts by opponents of fracking and other extreme oil extraction techniques. The Newsom administration also announced a rule making process related to health impacts in communities living near oil and gas facilities. Three actions were announced today, according to DOGGR: 1. ‘A halt of approvals of new oil extraction wells that use high-pressure steam to break oil formations below the ground, a process linked to recent oil leaks in Kern County. 2. Rules for public health and safety protections near oil and gas extraction facilities will be updated and strengthened. 3. Pending applications to conduct hydraulic fracturing and other well stimulation practices will be independently reviewed’.”
Meteor Blades writes—Scientists say weak EPA particulate rules kill thousands a year, black people disproportionately: “Although some self-interested parties like to downplay the effects, we’ve known for decades that air pollution kills thousands of people in the United States each year, 200,000 premature deaths annually according to the most accepted estimates. However, scientists hadn’t assigned a cause in nearly half those deaths. Now a study of 4.5 million veterans over a 10-year period has determined that fine particulate matter is associated with nine lethal diseases, every year taking the lives of thousands of people before their time, some 9,700 in 2017 alone, as determined by another study team. Meanwhile, the Trump regime is determined to add more tarnish to its rancid environmental record and take some of those deaths off the books by changing the way they are calculated. At the root of the change is its effort to allow more coal plant emissions than would have been allowed under the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The culprit in these thousands of pollution deaths? Scientists label it PM2.5, the number referring to the maximum size of individual bits of particulate matter, calculated in microns. There are about 25,000 microns in an inch. These tiny bits of fossil fuel debris can burrow deep into the lungs.”
Renewables, Efficiency, Energy Storage & Conservation
Mokurai writes—Renewable Friday: Energy and Poverty in the US and the World: “Denialists tell us to despair: solving Global Warming will make dire global poverty worse, because we can't afford enough clean energy to make the poor prosperous. Economist William Nordhaus has said otherwise, and now we have the data. Nobel Prize winner and Yale Professor Nordhaus won the prize for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis. Actually, going over to cheaper renewables, EVs, and so on is one of the best things we can do for the poor. But that does not mean telling them to buy gas guzzling cars, or running diesel buses in their cities, or using oil for heating, as many of the Denialists claim they must. The lying, black-hearted Denialists also claim that we can't ask the rich to cut back on their lifestyles of wretched excess/conspicuous consumption, and more generally that nobody can afford to go over to cheaper renewable energy, sustainable buildings, and electric vehicles and so on. So we should throw up our hands. This New Yorker article took on this virulent form of bogosity earlier this year.”
REGULATIONS AND PROTECTIONS
Dan Bacher writes—Interior Secretary David Bernhardt Continues Stacking Interior with Conflicted Political Appointees: “Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the Westlands Water District and big oil companies, is just one of several officials at the Department of Interior act that have huge big conflicts of interest in their current positions at Interior. A recent report by E&E News revealed that anti-public lands zealot and acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) William Pendley is intent on getting a White House nomination to be the permanent BLM Director. ‘This push by Pendley comes in the wake of two other top Interior political appointees facing contentious Senate confirmation hearings where they were confronted on their conflicts of interest, lack of qualifications, and anti-public lands views,’ according to the project. In a statement, Deputy Director of Western Values Project Jayson O'Neill said, ‘After the Trump administration put former mega-lobbyist David Bernhardt in charge of the Interior Department, we knew America’s public lands, parks, water, and wildlife would be under attack by the special interests this administration is beholden to’.”
Dartagnan writes—Trump's EPA now following tobacco industry's anti-science playbook in making public health policy: “When the pursuit of science is subjected to a political litmus test, the results are usually disastrous. One of the major reasons that the Soviet Union remained such a backward, third-world nation in its economic development during the 20th century was due to the adoption by Josef Stalin of the pseudo-scientific agricultural theories of Trofim Lysenko, a crank scientist whose theories rejected established scientific principles and instead promoted unproven biological, environmental and hereditary concepts that meshed well with the Soviet “collectivization” philosophy of agriculture. Lysenko was promoted high into the Communist Party’s ranks and rejection of his crackpot theories eventually became a criminal offense in the USSR. The result was scientific paralysis and the perpetuation of mass famine in the Soviet Union. In the United States, the elevation of political ideology over science has been a feature of both ends of the political spectrum. For example, science denialism by Democrats and liberals has usually taken the form of inventing dangers where none actually exist, such as the belief that cell phones can cause brain cancer or that vaccines can cause autism. Such denialism by Republicans is typically motivated by pro-business impulses (the theory that global warming is a ‘hoax,’ for example) as well as religion-based objections by that Party’s voting base. But the Republican form of science denial is far more harmful to the public at large.”
Tom Conway writes—Selling Out Safety: “The March 2005 fire and explosions at BP’s Texas City, Texas, oil refinery killed 15 contractors and injured 180 other workers in ways that will haunt them forever. Some lost limbs. Others suffered horrific burns, head injuries or wounds that left them infertile. Still others live with the memory of injured co-workers screaming in agony or dying under heaps of rubble. Since then, dozens of other incidents have killed workers and endangered residents near petrochemical plants. But tragedies like these don’t have to happen. In January 2017, the EPA issued the Chemical Disaster Rule, which provided sweeping new safeguards for workers, first responders and communities where dangerous plants are located. It would have forced operators to address unsafe practices and keep their equipment up to date. However, Donald Trump became president before the new requirements took effect. Corporations that own chemical and petrochemical plants complained about the requirements, and shortly after Trump took office, his business-friendly EPA abruptly decided to sit on them. Now, after delaying implementation of the Chemical Disaster Rule for two years, Trump’s EPA just killed most of it.”
TRANSPORTATION
Mokurai writes—EV Tuesday: Shipping: “Ports of Auckland Buys World-First Electric Tug. Ports of Auckland in New Zealand has signed a contract with Damen Shipyards to buy the world's first full-size, fully electric port tug. The new 24.7-meter tug, a Damen RSD-E Tug 2513, to be delivered in 2021, will have a 70 tonne bollard pull, the same as the port's strongest diesel tug Hauraki, also built by Damen. She will be able to do three to four shipping moves on a full charge, or around three to four hours work. A fast charge will take about two hours. Savings are projected at $2 million over the tug's lifetime.”
OCEANS, WATER, DROUGHT
Dan Bacher writes—Breaking: DWR Releases Draft EIR for long-term operations of State Water Project: “The California Department of Water Resources has just released their draft Environmental Impact Report for the long term operations of the State Water Project (SWP). Here is the announcement from DWR, followed by a press release from the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA). ‘Additionally, the state intends to file litigation against federal agencies to ensure adequate protection of endangered species, shared responsibility of state and federal water project operations to protect those species and to protect the state’s interests,’ according to the CNRA.”
Dan Bacher writes—California intends to sue against Trump water plan, releases EIS for SWP operations: “The Gavin Newsom Administration today announced two separate but related actions that will impact protections for Delta smelt, Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon and other endangered fish species. First, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) issued a draft Environmental Impact Report today on the long term operations of the State Water Project (SWP). Second, the Newsom Administration also also announced that it intends to sue the federal government over the Trump Administration’s recent biological opinion that would increase water flows from federal water projects to corporate agribusiness interests and away from, the San Francisco Bay-Delta imperiling endangered fish like the Delta smelt that are moving closer and closer to extinction.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
DownHeah Mississippi writes—Saturday Morning Garden Blogging, Vol. 15.47: Thanksgiving Open Thread: “Good morning, Gardeners. Y’all might conclude from the title of today’s diary that I really ain’t got much to offer as regards actual “gardening” subject matter; you would be (mostly) correct. The Wife and I have both had serious workplace upheavals lately, so stuff around the yard just hasn’t been done. I did manage to get the 11 pepper pots cleaned out and mulched for the winter, but The Tomato Patch remains an eerily skeletal vision, especially before sunrise on a 20 deg morning [...] The list of all the things that I haven’t done so far this winter is too long to get into here, but one thing I have done is acquire more tomato seeds. Free seed offers are common at Tomatoville, and I decided to take advantage of this one mainly because one of the offered varieties was ‘Girl Girl’s Weird Thing.’ It’s said that the woman who named it did so in honor of her dog, ‘Girl Girl,’ who liked to eat these tomatoes right off the vine… My seed offer also included a ‘bonus’ pack of something called ‘Mar Azul.’ Not sure about this one, as it appears that it may be a commercial hybrid, but it is a stunning tomato. Maybe I can find room for it next season.”
MISCELLANY
Lawrence S Wittner writes—Which Would You Prefer--Nuclear War or Climate Catastrophe? “These scientists―and the deluded people who give them any credence―are much like the critics of nuclear weapons: skeptics, nay-sayers, and traitorously indifferent to national grandeur. By contrast, our rulers understand that any curbing of the use of fossil fuels—or, for that matter, any cutbacks in the sale of the products that make our countries great―would interfere with corporate profits, undermine business growth and expansion, and represent a retreat from the national glory that is their due. Consequently, even if by some remote chance we are entering a period of climate disruption, our rulers will refuse to give way before these unpatriotic attacks. As courageous leaders, they will never retreat before the prospect of your mass death and destruction. We are sure that you, as loyal citizens, are as enthusiastic as we are about this staunch defense of national glory. So, if you notice anyone challenging this approach, please notify your local Homeland Security office. Meanwhile, rest assured, our governments will also be closely monitoring these malcontents and subversives!”
Austin Bailey writes—5 Things: Fire as a tool, Ponies as a tool, FBI as a tool, Rick Perry is a tool, 459 face extinction: “Using feral horses to help rewild national park grasslands in the Czech Republic has had an unanticipated positive result for several threatened butterfly species. These Exmoor ponies are acting as ‘ecological engineers’ by altering the landscape in a way that provides environments are conducive to the needs of these butterflies. In the Czech Republic, horses have become the knights in shining armor. A study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation suggests that returning feral horses to grasslands in Podyjí National Park could help boost the numbers of several threatened butterfly species. It turns out that horses encourage habitats that many butterflies flock to. By trampling and feeding on tall shrubs, young twigs and fruits, horses keep the grasslands short, which some butterfly species prefer. They also don't disturb the land as much as mowing or more intensive livestock grazing would.Konvička said he believes many projects neglect the role of missing ‘ecological engineers’ — sometimes called ‘ecosystem"’engineers — that is, species that serve significant functions through the alteration, maintenance or destruction of habitats. As with the Exmoor ponies in this case, they may not be the original inhabitants, but the aim of rewilding is to get the ecosystem functioning again.”
