The spotlight is a weekly, categorized compilation of links and excerpts from environmentally related posts at Daily Kos. Any posts included in the collection do not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of them. Because of the interconnectedness of the subject matter, some of these posts could be placed in more than one category.
NOTE: The spotlight will not appear on November 19 and 26. It will return on December 3.
OUTSTANDING DIARY OF THE WEEK
3 examples of Electric Vehicle misinformation by CorpFlunky. BBC has an article out now titled ‘Three big reasons Americans haven’t rapidly adopted EVs’. All three reasons included false and misleading information. The article asserts that “the average price of an EV is going up, not down”. This is misleading. Of Tesla’s 10 models & variants, 7 are priced lower now than at the end of 2021, two are the same and only one is higher. What’s happened is that larger, more expensive EVs have entered the market, pulling up average prices, even though the most commonly bought EVs have become cheaper, lowering median prices. (The researcher from Harvard knows the difference between average and median). As more used EVs and post rental EVs come on the market, and as traditional automakers finally start to compete in the profitable market they ignored for decades, expect the prices to continue to drop. I see over 300 used EVs in LA for sale between $3,000 and $20,000. The article also asserts that “the fluctuating cost of electricity means it's not always cheaper to fuel an EV, either.” This is false.
CLIMATE CRISIS
We’ve Known About Climate Change Threats for Decades by Alan Singer. Testimony by Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, June 23, 1988: “I would like to draw three main conclusions. Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect. And number three, our computer climate simulations indicate that the greenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to affect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves . . . The present temperature is the highest in the period of record. The rate of warming in the past 25 years . . . is the highest on record. The four warmest years . . . have all been in the 1980s. And 1988 so far is so much warmer than 1987, that barring a remarkable and improbable cooling, 1988 will be the warmest year on the record.”
Doctor's Orders: Calling Out Fossil-Fueled Opposition Makes Climate and Health Messaging Better by ClimateDenierRoundup. We know it's fun to trash-talk climate deniers and otherwise point out how fossil fuel bosses and their political lackeys are holding back climate action. But is it good messaging? Yes! At least, coming from healthcare professionals, anyway. According to a new study published in The Lancet's Planetary Health journal, messages about the health dangers from climate change that included a mention of the fossil fuel CEOs, lobbyists, and politicians who oppose climate action performed best. So while doctors and other healthcare professionals may be worried that talking about the parties responsible for the climate crisis may be polarizing or even backfire, the opposite is actually true! After conducting a survey experiment involving 2,201 people, the researchers concluded that identifying opponents to climate action can be advantageous to building support for such action, reducing political issue polarization and fostering greater trust in health professionals as climate messengers." Messages that included the culprits increased support for reducing emissions and intentions to advocate for solutions.
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is one of the world’s largest deltas, and it stands as a remarkable example of how water and ice can shape the land. These images show the delta’s northern lobe, where the Yukon River spills into the Bering Sea along the west coast of Alaska
The Arctic has warmed three Celsius since 1979; NASA detects new methane burn scar feedback by Pakalolo. A new study by a team of NASA scientists researching large-scale climate change in Alaska and Canada, a project of NASA's Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), found significant methane hotspots over the burn scars from wildfires in Alaska’s tundra. The region studied is the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, one of Earth's largest deltas, where the rivers flow into the Bering Sea on Alaska’s west coast. In Alaska’s largest river delta, tundra that carbon-heavy peat and bog-frozen soils that have burned by wildfire emit, long after the fires were extinguished, contained more methane than surrounding tundra that has not burned by twenty-nine percent. That correlation triples “in areas where a fire burned to the edge of a lake, stream, or other standing-water body. The highest ratio of hot spots occurred in recently burned wetlands.” The phenomenon alters the carbon emissions in the Arctic. NASA Jet Propulsion library writes: Roughly 2 million hot spots – defined as areas showing an excess of 3,000 parts per million of methane between the aircraft and the ground – were detected across some 11,583 square miles (30,000 square kilometers) of the Arctic landscape. Regionally, the number of hot spot detections in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta were anomalously high in 2018 surveys, but scientists didn’t know what was driving their formation.
No hyperbole; 2023 will be the warmest year on record in the instrument data set per Copernicus by Pakalolo. It’s official after finding that October was the hottest on record, guaranteeing 2023 is the hottest year. The only remaining suspense is whether the annual 1.5 C delta temperature anomaly threshold target of concern set by the Paris Climate Accords is breached for the first time. From Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service: El Niño impacts on global temperature typically play out in the year after its development, in this case in 2024. But as a result of record high land and sea-surface temperatures since June, the year 2023 is now on track to be the warmest year on record. Next year may be even warmer. This is clearly and unequivocally due to the contribution of the increasing concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas. [...] The previous warmest year on record was 2016 due to a “double whammy” of an exceptionally strong El Niño and climate change.
Nearly 280,000 people in #Somalia were affected by flooding in October. Humanitarian partners are supporting people living in displacement sites who are at risk due to forecasted heavy rains, but critical gaps in the response persist.
If the media ignores widespread climatic disasters in East Africa, did they ever even happen? by Pakalolo. Since late October and continuing in November, heavy rain has caused significant flooding across Somalia, parts of Ethiopia, and Kenya. Floodlist has reported widespread loss and damage to crops, hundreds of livestock lives lost, uncountable wildlife lives lost, and at least forty human deaths reported so far. Disease looms. The situation is not expected to improve anytime soon. El Niño has impacted the region since June, and heavy rainfall will not likely improve in Kenya until at least February 2024, according to Relief Org. [...] Though misery and death are expected to be severe, the rainfall may also affect easing the three-year-long drought in the Horn of Africa region. [...] The World Economic Forum reported on what the changing climate will do in the region. Some believed the region would get wetter and ease starvation. But a referenced 2015 study from Science Advances dismissed that outcome.
CRITTERS & THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Daily Bucket - Birds on the flood plain of the Waterfowl Wildlife Refuge by CaptBLI. I captured shore birds foraging on the discharge of a flood plain. The mudflats and water covering them encompass about 60 acres. You will see from the video below that this area is part of Sardis Lake and is usually under water when the lake is at capacity. There will be more after the page break. I have another diary planned to show details of this great birding site. Until then, you may notice there is nothing to hide behind when birding. Sure makes it hard to get photos when most birds flee when they see anything coming.
Daily Bucket, Friday Sequence - Sun Rise by CaptBLI. My morning began with splendor and even the routine events of an abandoned October lake bed were spectacular. Flocks of White-fronted Geese dropped in to join the Canada geese plowing the fresh grass off the mud flats as a Bald Eagle observed. Here is a 1 minute video of the calm action.
Daily Bucket feature - Back Yard Bird Race, October results by CaptBLI. I hope everyone had a good October of birding and will share their results with us today. I had another great month by increasing my life list by 4 and “first of year” list by 2. Here are my additions. First my Lifers: Oct. 10th—Nashville Warbler. Oct. 10th—American Pipit. Oct. 15th—Eurasian Collared-Dove. Oct. 20th—Western Sandpiper.All of my birds were found at patches I frequent. I saw all but one at Hurricane Landing, Sardis Lake.
Dawn Chorus - Variations within a species by CaptBLI. I encounter certain species where variations show up together during migration. A small group of Savannah Sparrows offered that chance to see (and photograph) two of the 5 sub-sets of this species. The rip-rap surrounding the parking lot at Hurricane Landing traps floating logs and debris when the lake is at it’s normal level. During the winter, that rocky section also creates a niche for seeding plants that many birds use as a temporary home and diner. That is where I found the Sparrows.
My pictures were taken near the picnic table emblem at the south end of the lake.
The Daily Bucket - October in Glacier National Park (Bonus Cat Pictures) by foresterbob. In early October, I began the long trek from the site of my forestry project in New Meadows, Idaho, back to Georgia. By no means was my route direct. Along the way, I visited an old classmate who lives in far northern Montana near the Canadian border. The next night, kitty Narvik and I were hosted by Ojibwa and his wife. From there, the eastbound trek led directly to Glacier National Park. My time in the park was limited because of all the driving that lay ahead of me. With all the zigs and zags, the trip home took 12 days. I could have easily spent double or triple that time, but at some point I had to get back to the house I hadn’t seen since June! With that in mind, I intended to drive to the lodge at the north end of Lake McDonald, and backtrack towards the West Glacier entrance. However, the entire route beyond Apgar was being repaved. Every pulloff was blocked, and there were numerous waits for construction. I gave up, turned around, and spent some time at Apgar.
Daily Bucket - More Migrants are Showing Up at the Cosumnes River Preserve by Cal Birdbrain. Another week and visit to a local wildlife preserve - the Cosumnes River Preserve which is situated 20 miles south of Sacramento just off of Interstate 5. The preserve is a joint venture of federal, state, local government agencies, Ducks Unlimited and the Nature Conservancy. It features a visitor center and a number of walking trails. A number of trails are paved and ADA accessible. The preserve has a variety of habitats: open fields, wetlands, vernal pool grasslands, oak forests and riparian woodlands. It also serves as a floodplain for the Cosumnes River and Sacramento River delta. It’s a major stop on the Pacific Flyway.
Overnight News Digest: Hottest in 125k years, Amazon brink of collapse, but fossil fuels scale up by Magnifico. Humanity just lived through the hottest 12 months in at least 125,000 years. CNN: Month after month since June, the world has been abnormally hot. Scientists have compared this year’s climate-change fallout to “a disaster movie” — soaring temperatures, fierce wildfires, powerful storms and devastating floods — and new data is now revealing just how exceptional the global heat has been. Two major reports published this week paint an alarming picture of this unprecedented heat: Humanity has just lived through the hottest 12-month period in at least 125,000 years, according to one, while the other declared that 2023 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year in recorded history, after five consecutive months of record-obliterating temperatures. “We have become all too used to climate records falling like dominoes in recent years,” David Reay, executive director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute at the University of Edinburgh, told CNN. “But 2023 is a whole different ball game in terms of the massive margin by which these records have been broken.”
A track chair helps a visitor traverse the trails at Myre-Big Island State Park in Albert Lea, Minnesota.
States Are Making Parks & Trails More Accessible To Those With Disabilities by FlannelGuy. States across the nation are making tremendous strides in improving accessibility to their state parks and trails. One big leap has been the addition of rugged track chairs, which feature “tank-like treads” to allow those who typically could not make the journey to enjoy the splendor of the outdoors. Perched high on rugged cliffs overlooking Lake Superior, Split Rock Lighthouse dominates the shoreline. Visitors from across the country make the 113-year-old beacon one of the most-photographed lighthouses in the country. [...] “I’ve lived here for 43 of my years and I did not know where all these photographers were getting those things,” said Jenna Udenberg, a disability advocate and accessibility educator who lives in Two Harbors. No longer. Since August, the park has provided an all-terrain chair with tanklike treads to people with disabilities, opening this vista to everyone. It’s part of a multifaceted statewide push to expand access to the outdoors. Minnesota is not alone.
I have often heard people say Moose are cute by coolspring. Here is a link to a story about two moose sparring in a backyard in Homer, Alaska. For those of you who live on other states in the U.S. you already understand why moose are not all that cute. Each year we hear about people being kicked or stomped by moose. Fortunately, bull moose usually like their solitude enough to stay away from people most of the time. Here is a link to the full story. Followed by a video of the two bulls battle….www.yahoo.com/…
ENERGY, EMISSIONS & TRANSPORTATION
A rendering of the small modular nuclear power facility that NuScale had planned to build in Idaho. But last week the company canceled the project, whose costs had soared from an estimated $3 billion five years ago to $9.3 billion now.
U.S. company that planned to build the first small nuclear reactor power plant cancels its project by Meteor Blades. At the turn of 21st Century, the Department of Energy funded research on the development of small, modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) for various uses. Idaho National Environment & Engineering Laboratory led the project with support from Oregon State University (OSU). Scientists at OSU at the time were also looking into developing passive safety systems using natural circulation to cool nuclear plants, a passive design engineers chose to make these plants inherently safer. The DOE and OSU research a quarter-century ago led to the founding of NuScale Power, owned by Fluor. After a six-year process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a NuScale design for an SMR this February. With its Carbon Free Power Project, NuScale planned to build six 77-megawatt reactor modules at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory by 2030, a change from the original 2026 startup date made after running into technical snags and a cost estimate that soared from $3 billion to $6.1 billion. But on Wednesday, even that date was scuttled as NuScale and its partner utility announced the cancelation of the project after estimated costs had risen to $9.3 billion. As a consequence, utilities in towns that would have received its electricity chose not to participate, and NuScale noted in a press release that "it appears unlikely that the project will have enough subscription to continue toward deployment."
Renewable Tuesday 10/7 Unions! EV Chargers! Real Carbon Capture! Tipping Points! by Mokurai. The denialists and obstructionists haven’t been able to grasp what is hitting them, so they continue the greenwashing, gaslighting, and so on. We, too, are having trouble keeping up with it all, but we get to rejoice constantly. Have some more. Here’s how Foundations are bringing solar to low income communities: The rooftop solar industry is booming, but far too few lower-income Americans are benefiting as a result. It’s a “modern version of redlining,” according to Joe Evans of the Kresge Foundation. Now an increasing number of charitable foundations are stepping up to redress that injustice. How the U.S. can decarbonize steel, cement, and chemicals Article with more information.
Climate Crisis and Environmental Disaster: The negative effects of the military and war by LaFeminista. War leaves a toxic legacy that lasts long after the guns go quiet. Can we stop it? The number of armed conflicts currently raging around the world is the greatest since the end of the Second World War. These wars can leave toxic environmental legacies and cause untold damage to human health. One-quarter of the world’s population, or two billion people, live in countries experiencing war. They include Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Sudan, Haiti and the Sahel region in Northern Africa. Violent conflict causes substantial environmental damage – polluting air, water and soil, and damaging human health over the long-term. Chemical weapons and toxins are still being used in current wars. The United Nations last month formally adopted principles to protect the environment in armed conflict. Concrete action is now needed to implement them.
Overnight News Digest - Saturday Science - Wind energy, Alzheimer’s cause, Orcas strike again by Rise above the swamp. From Electrek. China achieves world solar domination with 80% of manufacturing capacity to 2026: China’s astounding solar manufacturing expansion is going to dominate the global solar supply chain – and widen the technology and cost gap. China invested over $130 billion into the solar industry in 2023. As a result, it will hold more than 80% of the world’s polysilicon, wafer, cell, and module manufacturing capacity from 2023 to 2026, according to Wood Mackenzie‘s recent report, “How will China’s expansion affect global solar module supply chains?” China is projected to bring more than 1 terawatt (TW) of wafer, cell, and module capacity online by 2024. That means the country’s capacity is sufficient to meet annual global demand through 2032, based on Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts of annual demand growth.
America has too few rail track-route miles. That must change by Alan Kandel. If there was more railway route mileage available, the potential for allocating more of that to passenger-train service is greater. This could mean a marked improvement in such service, if more steel, concrete and wood were dedicated to this cause or purpose. Perhaps such would result in greater efficiencies and fewer incidents for not only freight and passenger trains, but for motor vehicles operating on roadway pavement surface. There are presently roughly 280,000 registered motor vehicles in the U.S. There are locations all across the country where railroad track that was removed could be reinstalled in an effort to provide passenger trains exclusive use. This not only could allow for increased passenger-train efficiencies, but those affecting freight-train operations as well. I believe this country took a wrong turn when it collectively decided to downsize railroading operations and increase the amount of space devoted to motor vehicle use.
FOOD, AGRICULTURE & GARDENING
The USDA’s original food pyramid, from 1992 to 2005.
Nostalgia and nutrition: The dark forces behind the '90s food pyramid by SemDem. For the later part of the 20th century, obesity rates were clearly on the rise. The U.S. government decided to take action. Unfortunately, the governing force tasked with this mission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, proved to be very susceptible to external pressure. Dr. Luise Light was the original nutritional expert behind the creation of the food pyramid, and she was actually focused on the mission to provide accurate information. However, agribusiness lobbyists had other concerns. They knew the guidance provided would impact everything from diet plans to food labeling to school lunch programs. Not to mention they would play a huge role in determining what Americans would buy. With potentially billions of dollars being at stake, the lobbyists pressured the USDA hard to make many, many “adjustments” to Light’s model. For example, you may see that dairy got its own spot on the pyramid, with cheese, milk, and yogurt being necessary for a balanced diet. This was due to strong pressure from the dairy industry. In his book “Eat to Live,” Joel Fuhrman stated that U.S. taxpayers are forced to contribute $20 billion on subsidies to artificially reduce the price of cattle feed to benefit the dairy, beef, and veal industries, and then have to pay the medical bills for an overweight population.
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 19.45 - Best Diary Ever AnnieJo! - Garden Delights of 2023 by CWalter.Why did I plant over a hundred tomato plants? When one receives cookbook La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangier bene, one cooks Italian food. I grow the food too. The cookbook was written by Pellegrino Artusi, first published 1891. I am so worth it. Where’s the beef? I’ve mastered bolognese (with milk), all manner of ragu and insalate con pomodori. Gardener tested, husband approved. That said, while there were no spoons or gagging involved, my homemade pasta needs some work. Not having a pasta attachment for my mixer, rolling the dough out by hand is a horror version of wax on, wax off. I still have phantom pains in my wrist just thinking about it. Thinner, THINNER! When it comes to rolling out dough, anyone interested in trading places Sometimes the urge to try is simply irresistible, even when I know the task will be a huge pain in the behind. I mean LOOK at these tomatoes. The power of northern Italian cooking compels me! It’s always a thriller.
ACTION
Massive Banner Hung across Bay Bridge Demands APEC Leaders and President Biden 'End Fossil Fuels' by Dan Bacher. Activists with the Oil and Gas Action Network have hung a massive 75-foot banner across the Bay Bridge during peak rush hour in advance of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco next week. The banner is viewable to motorists traveling west-bound from Oakland towards Treasure Island, according to a press statement from the Oil and Gas Action Network. The banner reads “Biden & APEC: End Fossil Fuels” - calling on world leaders to honor their commitments to the Paris climate accord, which makes clear that we must rapidly phase out fossil fuels. The action is part of a wave of protests that will sweep San Francisco next week as the APEC summit brings 21 heads of state, including U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and 1,200 CEOs together to negotiate international trade policy, the group stated.
[Note: The climate strike action began at San Francisco City Hall in 2019. The following entries are excerpts from “letters” that were issued each week of the action. Although the strike was focused on San Francisco, many of the same issues affect countless U.S. cities.]
Too Much Water: The Assault -- Strike for the Planet week 129 by birches. This week’s topic: Too much water - the assault. What do you mean, “too much water”? Aren’t we in a megadrought?! Yes. The planet can do more than one thing at a time, especially things caused by climate change. Okay, what assault?
Water and the Common Good -- Strike for the Planet week 128 by birches. This week’s topic: Water and the Common Good. Why worry about water? Higher temperatures increase dehydration risk (even in environments with high humidity), and dehydration kills. We are in a world where every season is getting shorter except summer high temperatures are much higher for much longer, wet bulb temperatures are rising decades before predicted, and freshwater supplies are vanishing.Locally there’s an ongoing megadrought and depleted water tables; a vanishing snowpack; sea level rising and saltwater intrusion; freshwater endangered by pollution, algal blooms, and increasing salinity; agriculture selling CA water via the exporting of water-hungry crops; corporations and cities stealing from ecosystems; CA increasing environmental racism and treaty breaking; and regulatory capture by the Resnicks et al. All this can be boiled down to: Water is changing and we have to act differently, now.
Transparency -- Strike for the Planet week 127 by birches. The topic this week is Transparency: It’s Not Just For Windows. Do you know San Francisco’s current power generation status and energy sources? What about our water stats, actual recycling numbers, detailed carbon footprint, urban forest health, usable bike lane milage, percent permeable surfaces, nighttime candela change, local biosphere loss, health differences connected to environmental injustice, implementation of the precautionary principle, or lasting impacts of prior city and county environmental decisions? No? That’s because it’s ridiculously, absurdly, and insanely hard to find any of this information for SF.
Elevation -- Strike for the Planet week 126 by birches. The topic this week is Elevation. Why elevation? Because you’re allowing yet another downtown mega-skyscraper to be built in SF. 61-stories, 806-feet: do you truly have no idea why this is a bad decision? It’s bad because: 1. SF is in earthquake country. SF will have major earthquakes. Downtown is mostly landfill and will liquefact in a major quake. . Downtown SF is already sinking due to the piling of megatons of mass on fill. 3. It only takes 4’ (48”, 1.2 meters) to flood downtown. 4. That flood water is coming and SF is nowhere near ready.To put it as simply as possible, big buildings downtown are a bad idea not only because of earthquakes, but because they lower SF’s land levels and because they are being built where it will flood. You are literally building disasters.
A Case Study -- Strike for the Planet week 125 by birches. This week: A CASE STUDY. We can judge the effectiveness of your actions in the fight against climate chaos by looking at the effectiveness of your actions on other life-or-death-but-not-immediate-mass-killer issues.1 Are there other issues like this in SF? Yes, there are. Let’s look at traffic fatalities and injuries. What is Vision Zero? SF eventually responded to our high traffic fatality and injury rate by making Vision Zero official policy in 2014. Vision Zero started in Sweden in 1995 and is based on the core principle that “Life and health can never be exchanged for other benefits within the society.” SF’s Vision Zero focus, though, is on education first, putting the onus for change on individuals instead of changing streets poorly designed without a basic understanding of physics. So how’s SF’s Vision Zero initiative going?
Badly. Here’s the data. TLDR: the numbers are almost the same as before Vision Zero.
You Can't Fight Physics -- Strike for the Planet week 124 by birches. This week: YOU CAN’T FIGHT PHYSICS. “What physics?” you say. All the laws now biting our butts because of our actions: Arrhenius’s rule, the chemistry of carbon sinks, pH, the Stefan-Boltzmann law (absorption, radiation, advection, emission, etc.), bond length and molecular geometry\, and so many more. “I’m not fighting against those. I didn’t even know about most of them!” You’re still allowing and promoting the dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere, thus screwing the oceanic pH and pushing Stefan-Boltzmann with a vengeance, and you are actively destroying carbon sinks. In the battle against climate change, you are still actively fighting for it. Ignorance of the law, when we’re talking the laws of physics and climate change, is inexcusable. “But that’s just how things are done.” “How things are done” is the status quo of rich privateers raping the planet for profit. The status quo is killing the biosphere, destroying the lives and livelihoods of people who live here now, and establishing an apocalyptic future for your children. If the status quo doesn’t work, if it kills people and species, if it spells doom for life and for SF, why do you keep doing it? “Well, what do you want me to do?”
Your job. Protect and preserve SF or get out.
MISCELLANY
NOAA: 25 separate billion-dollar weather/climate disasters so far this year, and counting by xaxnar. Note that the events include both short term phenomenon like fires, hurricanes, floods, and longer term events like drought — and the year is not over yet. Also note that this doesn’t include lesser events that were made worse by climate change, nor does it give us the tally of all the damage that’s occurring around the world. What was not mentioned at the Republican presidential debate the other day? Climate Change. What was promised? More drilling, more exploitation of fossil fuels, bringing gasoline prices down — in short making climate change worse. Also: rolling back Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act climate provisions. (Throw Biden’s Green New Deal in the trash on Day One — Ron DeSantis.)
Mountain Collapse In Switzerland by coolspring. Switzerland at the start of winter has lost 60 foot of mountain due to permafrost loss. Here is what happened. On June 11, the summit of Mt. Fluchthorn, which sits among the tallest group of mountains in Switzerland, collapsed without warning, sending 3.5 million cubic feet of rock tumbling into the valley below. There were no people injured. The mountain collapse was due to the loss of permafrost. This permanent layer of ice and dirt exists on many mountains. Jasper Knight, a geoscientist at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, told Insider: “Permafrost is important because frozen water within the ground holds the ground surface together and prevents it from moving.
Public Lands: Lake Mary Ronan State Park (photo diary) by Ojibwa. Lake Mary Ronan State Park is located just 7miles west of Montana’s Flathead Lake. A dead-end road leads to the lake making it off the beaten path and most frequently a camping destination for locals. Nestled among Douglas fir and western larch, it provides a quiet opportunity for relaxing, camping, and fishing from either a boat or the park’s boat dock. The park has 25 campsites and one group camping area.
Republicans pass the most extreme environmental funding bill in decades, if not ever by JunglelandDan. On Friday, the House of Representatives got around to passing the 2024 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Funding Bill by a 213-203. Every single vote for the bill, except one, were from Republicans. Of all the various appropriations bills (there are 12 of them), this is the bill which most directly impacts environmental policies in this country. And today’s MAGA-infested, sedition-supporting Republican party launched an all-out, sweeping assault on. many of those policies. For years, the Republican Party has enthusiastically supported and promoted a wide a variety of anti-environmental policies, led perhaps by its climate denialism and often couched in the framing of opposition to “heavy-handed, burdensome” regulations. Still, the scope and breadth of the cuts in yesterday’s bill are truly staggering and deeply, deeply offensive (and disturbing) if you care about environmental protection. For example, this bill cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — the federal agency tasked with working to ensure we have clean air, drinkable water, livable land, and leads our fight against climate change (among many other responsibilities.) — by a whopping 39%. That cut would reduce the funding level of the EPA to the lowest level since 1991. That’s just for starters.
Warning of the Washita Flood of 1934 - "River Rising, Owl Hoot in Daytime" by Winter Rabbit. Seventeen lives were lost in the Washita Flood of 1934, that brought about the flood prevention system for the surrounding area. Little known is this flood with its impact and death toll. Less known than that, is the Cheyenne and Arapaho band that escaped that flood and why they survived. Nearly completely unknown is the short conversation my grandfather had with their Chief as he led his people to higher ground. My grandfather had been traveling near the Washita River on foot, when he observed the Cheyenne Chief, who also worked for my grandfather, moving his people to an unknown destination. Curious and bewildered, he asked the Chief, “What are you doing?” Getting straight to the point, the Chief answered, “River rising.” “River rising, what do you mean? There’s not a cloud in the sky.” The Chief simply gave the same answer as before, “River rising.” My grandfather’s curiosity peaked, “River rising, how in the hell do you know that?” “Owl hoot in daytime,” the Chief said (the owl is believed to be a messenger of death by the plains tribes that I’m aware of). “River rising” then meant one of the worst flooding tragedies many might face in their appropriate regions; however, it is now true that enormous amounts of ice are melting, thus making seas and oceans rise. The Chief listened to the owl and heeded its warning. I sure as hell hope that everyone is listening to all of the scientists’ warnings. Seventeen lives were lost in the Washita Flood of 1934, before Climate Change was discovered (In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming). It will be incomprehensibly worse.
C6RP6RATI6NS are the ‘BEAST’ made MANifest. They are parasitic SuperOrganisms consuming Gaia by mikeymikey. In a corporation, responsible leadership (when present) is often muddied by short-term profit considerations and demands imposed from outside, as well as interior hierarchy. As a result, just who is making the ‘gears turn’ can be unclear. Because of this, ultimate responsibility can be defuse enough to allow individuals to evade culpability. The CEO , stockholders, owners and the demands of the market all have a part to play in ‘meal planning’ and ‘preparation’ can vary the choice of key ingredients. During ‘cooking’ these can alter, obscuring individual ‘flavors’ as they become subsumed by the whole. Vital considerations, such as the abstraction of long term survival, when this is an obstacle to immediate success in the pursuit of profits, can get pushed aside by more pressing concerns — and these place restraints on everyone involved full spectrum. The corporation incarnate becomes ‘dear leader’, not the men ‘in charge’. Business, having as its primary goal the acquisition of wealth, is a system in which morals and even ethics have little or no part to play. In fact, such considerations are impediments to the demands of the performance pressures of competition. In the past, when they did factor in, it was because someone in a position of power had either included them in their business model, or imposed them on their business decisions. The powerful influence and pervasiveness of religion also acted as a partial check to this rapaciousness and as the former has waned, the latter has blossomed, like deadly nightshade.
Earth Matters: U.S. wind takes some blows; Mike Johnson thinks the Rapture will solve climate change by Meteor Blades. John Delgado, a former Baton Rouge Metro council member who was critical of [new House Speaker Mike] Johnson when he was still a state representative, said Johnson’s climate skepticism is borne out of evangelical “dispensationalist belief”—the idea that the end times herald the second coming of Christ. “There are people who just want to see the world burn because they are waiting for the next one,” Delgado told Sierra. He explained that those who are eager for the Rapture “want it [the world] to end sooner.... And so they’re not going to care about the environment, they’re not going to care about the coastline, they’re not going to care about rising ocean temperatures.” “When you talk about climate change,” Delgado said, “he [Johnson] truly doesn’t care.” [...]
Swarms of earthquakes in Iceland force evacuation of Grindavík as volcano eruption may be imminent by Pakalolo. A state of emergency has been declared in Iceland as volcanic activity ramps up on the island's peninsula. The eruption could be days away. A magma dike is believed to have formed below the small city of Grindavik. Ruptures are visible now in the region, and residents were evacuated in the middle of the night. Fagradalsfjall volcano had its first eruption in over 800 years in July; a significant one is expected soon. Based on tweets shared this morning, it appears to be happening now, to my untrained eye. The earthquake swarms are near Sundhnjukagigar.
Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck's Blaze Promises Real Story Of Maui Fires, Puts It Behind Paywall by climatedenierroundup. Hey, remember Glenn Beck? The right-wing pundit who spent years pushing racist disinformation attacking President Obama before apologizing, un-apologizing, and then getting right back on his bullshit? Welp, it turns out that the revenue from Beck’s YouTube channels must not be cutting it for him, because the latest release from Beck's disinfo outlet, Blaze Media, is behind a paywall as part of a recent move in response to troubles with ad revenue. That’s too bad. We were really looking forward to finding out the real story behind the Maui wildfires, with the trailer teasing the debunked 'land grab' conspiracy theory.
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