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.
OUTSTANDING DIARY OF THE WEEK
The Daily Bucket - freeway wildlife crossings in the Cascades by OceanDiver. On the final leg of our recent ten-day road trip, we were cruising westbound across the Cascade mountain range of Washington state on interstate 90 and came upon the structure you see above. It was unlike any other overpass we’d seen and I wondered at the time whether perhaps it was some marker of the crest at Snoqualmie Pass. Turns out it was far more interesting and valuable: the new wildlife crossing constructed by the state Department of Transportation under guidance of an array of agencies and NGOs with expertise in wildlife and the environment. This is the Keechelus Lake Wildlife Overcrossing, 150 feet wide, planned since the early 1990s, constructed 2015-2019, and now used by thousands of animals who would otherwise be trapped on one side of the freeway, or killed by speeding vehicles when they try to cross. Vehicle collision accounts for a staggering number of wildlife deaths, more so every year as human population and development increases. The crest of the Cascades, largely national forest and national parkland, is a refuge for wildlife, but the construction of I-90 effectively bisected the state, isolating populations. Animals need to wander for food, to find mates, for dispersal, to find seasonal habitat, to escape the effects of wildfire and other dangers. Isolated populations lose genetic diversity and resiliency, threatening their survival as a species.
Elk use both under and over crossings
CRITTERS & THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Why Taxonomy and Biodiversity Research is Important by Desert Scientist. To some scientists, for example James Watson, taxonomy and biodiversity studies were a waste of time and money. The only real sciences are at the molecular and atomic levels; everything else is “stamp collecting.” E. O. Wilson saved field biology at Harvard against the attacks of Watson and for that I honor Wilson. I do disagree with him on other issues, but he was, without a doubt, one of the greatest biologists of the last century and an expert on ants beyond compare. Robb Dunn, another ant specialist, published in 2009, a book, Every Living Thing: Man’s Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys, that very eloquently argues the case for taxonomy and biodiversity studies much better than I ever could, but I can give a perspective from the point of view of a taxonomist and field biologist who worked on biocontrol for nearly 35 years and published his first taxonomic paper over 50 years ago. I presented some of these arguments in a diary on natural history museums (See: www.dailykos.com/...)
With all of the rain this year, the falls are still flowing nicely in late October, though much reduced from the incredible volume in June. In most years, they’d be down to a trickle at this point.
Dawn Chorus: Foresta by lineatus. I’ll go to Beethoven’s Ninth any time it comes around. You may never have listened to the whole thing (though I hope you have!) but you likely know many of the high points and big moments. But amid all that wonderful drama, there’s an oasis of calm: the third movement. It’s a chance to slow down, to reflect, to catch your breath before plunging into the fourth movement in all its choral glory.Yosemite and the Ninth are inextricably linked for me*. If the falls, cliffs and expansive valley views provide the drama and excitement, Foresta is the perfect third movement. Last weekend, I reveled in the quieter wonders of this seldom visited corner of the park. For years, I have said that if Foresta Falls was anyplace other than Yosemite, it would be the centerpiece of a park. It’s a lovely cascade, with a wooden bridge just downstream that allows you to take in the views while being cooled by the spray. On a hot day, it’s a welcome respite.
Daily Bucket - Yolo Bypass in Fall Transition by cal birdbrain. October is a transitional month for the wildlife refuges. The ponds that went dry in the summer are slowly filled to accommodate the incoming ducks, geese and other shorebirds. As I drove along the the Yolo Bypass refuge’s auto route, I found the early birds are hanging around the few available water sources. There were a surprising number of birds despite the lack of water.
Red-tailed hawk
The Daily Bucket. First photos with my new camera by funningforrest. My new Nikon P1000 arrived today (Oct. 31, 2023), just before noon. First stop was Dellinger’s Pond, because I was pretty sure that even though it was the middle of the day I’d probably be able to see some Mallards, at least, and maybe even the Belted Kingfisher that was there yesterday. Yes, on the Mallards, no on the BEKI.There wasn’t anything more happening at Dellinger’s Pond, so I turned eastward and rode out Quincy Junction Road — “Hawk Alley” as I like to call it, because it has certainly earned that nickname many times over the years and the dozens upon dozens of rides I’ve now made out that way. And whaddya know? First-of-season Ferruginous Hawk, but drat the heat shimmer. Lots and lots of future opportunities in the weeks and months ahead, as this hawk is a winter-only visitor to American Valley.
The Daily Bucket - a few pines of the West by OceanDiver. On our recent road trip from Washington to California we weren’t seeking out particular sights, more just letting the ambience wash over us, so I wasn’t specifically seeking out trees along the way. Certainly not all 29 species of pines that are native to California alone. But a few caught my eye, some of which which I’ll share below, focusing on pines. Take note of the range maps, the location where each of these species currently thrives. Near Eureka there were quite a few Monterey pines (Pinus radiata), well outside their native range (three isolated sites along the central California shoreline and two islands off Baja Calif). It seems that while Monterey pines are threatened with extirpation in their native range by a fungal disease imported from the Southeastern US, they are grown extensively elsewhere, mostly for lumber in Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Spain, and also in sites all up and down the California coastline. That’s the case in the Arcata Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, a nicely constructed set of fresh and saltwater wetlands that are part of the local wastewater biological treatment facility. The pines appear to have been planted on the berms surrounding the wetlands, and there were signs some revision was going on: some trees and branches were being taken down. Even if not native to this locale it was good to see Monterey pines since we did not go far enough south to see them in Monterey.
Ponderosa pines frame Mt. Shasta
CLIMATE CRISIS
Combating the Climate Crisis, One Issue at a Time: Your Halloween Pumpkin by elenacarlena. As I’ve been repeating for a while, we do have many climate crisis solutions and one of the BIG ones is to stop wasting food! Stopping food waste would make a big improvement in the climate crisis, costs nothing but some forethought, and even saves you money. Win-win! So with those thoughts in mind, I went for a walk and saw all those jack-o-lanterns out there made from real pumpkins and thought “Pretty, but surely wasteful!” Welp, sure enough, pumpkins contribute pretty heftily to food waste. According to Forbes (of all places!): Around 900,000 tons of pumpkins are produced in the U.S. every year. Of these, a whopping 500,000 tons (approx.) are thrown away uneaten—contributing to nearly 40 million tons of annual food waste in the country. That's more than $218 billion worth of edibles. Many of these are leftover gourds that are tossed in the trash post-Halloween once they have served their purpose as the infamous jack-o-lantern. SO GOOGLE TO THE RESCUE!! There are answers all over the Internet on what you can do with your pumpkin besides just a jack-o-lantern. So we tackle this subject.
Climate Scientist’s Frightening Warning by Alan Singer. Dr. Zeke Hausfather is a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that analyzes environmental data. His recent op-ed essay in The New York Times was a frightening warning. Hausfather has master’s degrees in environmental science from Yale University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a PhD in climate science from the University of California, Berkeley. He opened the essay describing the latest climate data as “Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” This is what Hausfather, the climate scientist, reported in the New York Times essay: “September was an astounding 0.5 degree Celsius (almost a full degree Fahrenheit) hotter than the prior record, and July and August were around 0.3 degree Celsius (0.5 degree Fahrenheit) hotter. 2023 is almost certain to be the hottest year since reliable global records began in the mid-1800s and probably for the past 2,000 years.” Hausfather also should have added “shit” to the words he used to describe climate change, although I am not sure if Times’ guidelines would have approved. I just think “shit” is probably more apropos than staggering, unnerving, mind-boggling, gobsmackingly, and bananas.”
Preparing the insurance industry for climate change, Susan Crawford's warning by agoldnyc. Until recently, Harvard professor Susan Crawford was concerned about the effect of telecom monopolies on our internet lives (see her books) but recently she has pivoted to climate change. For those who don’t believe in climate justice or doing the right thing for its own sake, she has a pragmatic, economic argument that should be persuasive: what if the next economic crisis hits the banks with the costs of climate change? What if the next economic crisis is caused by climate change flooding? For proactive nations such as New Zealand, the answer is to reduce flood insurance in areas and risk and move people out of the way of the coming floods.
Pine Island Glacier calved three new icebergs by Pakalolo. "Again and again, ... research has confirmed how Antarctica evolves in the future will depend on human greenhouse gas emissions." Twila Moon at the NSIDC. Worrisome imagery in the Arctic Sea Ice Forum reveals three calving events in mid-October at Pine Island Glacier South Western Tributary was posted in the Arctic Sea Ice Forum. West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier ( P.I.G.) is one of the fastest-flowing ice streams in Antarctica. It is the neighboring glacier to Thwaites, a/k/a the Doomsday Glacier (due to the likely possibility that the glacier collapse would take the entirety of the West Antarctic with it). Thwaites holds two feet of sea level rise if it were to melt completely. PIG has one and a half feet. Both glaciers are in the Amundsen Sea Embayment of the highly vulnerable West Antarctic, which holds a whopping ten feet of sea level rise.
Wondering If It's An Ad Or Op-Ed? Just Read The Byline First! (Or Expect Op-Ads At Disinfo Sites) by ClimateDenierRoundup. A few weeks ago we pointed out for the umpteenth time that RealClearEnergy original “pieces” are basically just industry ads masquerading as op-eds. While that remains the case, they're hardly alone. Here's three other disinfo outlets running extended ads as op-eds: First, the Daily Caller on Monday published a piece criticizing the Federal Reserve's climate-related risk guidance for banks. The crucial information is actually the author's bio: "David Waugh is a business development and communications specialist at Coinbits. He previously served as the managing editor at the American Institute For Economic Research." Why would anyone care about someone who still pushes the bitcoin scam, because he's got an obvious financial stake in it? And then, of course, who also worked at a Koch-ed up Covid-conspiracy-peddling group? Waugh's two claims to fame are both big red flags that scream "financially invested in stopping regulations," but for a disinfo outlet like the Daily Caller, that's all the qualification that's needed.
Paul Marshall
Climate Disinfo Outlet GB News Backed By Fossil-Fueled Hedge Fund, DeSmog Reveals by ClimateDenierRoundup. Earlier this year, DeSmog revealed that a third of hosts on GB News spread climate denial, which you have probably seen on social media. If you haven't, think of Fox News, but with an aristocratic British accent and an even greater focus on anti-climate fossil fuel industry propaganda. It turns out that GB News’ constant stream of climate denial is probably not a coincidence. This week, Sam Bright and Joey Grostern at DeSmog revealed that "one of the owners of GB News runs a hedge fund that has a major financial stake in more than 100 oil and gas firms." Paul Marshall is a "lead investor" in GB News, "holding a 45 percent stake" and having "reportedly invested £10 million in GB News when it first launched two years ago." Marshall got that money from his role as "the chairman and chief investment officer of Marshall Wace, a London-based hedge fund that he co-founded in 1997," and that now "owns shares worth $2.2 billion (£1.8 billion) in fossil fuel firms." That includes $213 million in Chevron shares as well as shares in "Shell, Equinor, and 109 other fossil fuel companies."
Oklahoma Retirees Facing Millions In Losses If Anti-ESG Dorks Are Appeased by ClimateDenierRoundup. Ever since Republicans started figuring out there's a cost to their racist and baseless attacks on incorporating Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in financial risk and value estimations and other fiduciary concerns, they've struggled to find messaging that lands. For example, M. Scott Carter at the Oklahoman reported this week that the state's boycott of banks with ESG policies comes with a huge price tag—and buys them exactly nothing. Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector and pension board member Cindy Byrd told Carter she considered it "political manipulation with our tax dollars" when banks are too environmentally conscious and (supposedly) defunding fossil fuels, or are anti-racist by having diversity-encouraging hiring practices, or that engage in trainings on “ever-changing and confusing gender and race ideologies." According to Byrd, “Their goal is to make us money not dictate our policies.” Oh? Is it really? If it's making money and not "political manipulation" then why the boycott? Because it turns out, that's been expensive! "The city of Stillwater complained in May," Carter reported, "that the state's investment firm blacklist, which barred using Bank of America for an infrastructure bond issue, would cost it more than $1 million in higher interest."
Ben Shapiro
Happy Halloween! Here Are Some Fun Things Scaring Deniers This Season by ClimateDenierRoundup. For all their bluster about climate alarmism supposedly scaring the public into a communist complacency, and their mockery of supposedly easily-triggered Gen-Z snowflakes, right-wing disinfo outlets rely heavily on scaring their audience about the perceived perils of public policies to address market failures like pollution. So in honor of Halloween, here's three fun examples of things that scare the biggest snowflakes in the world: conservative pundits. We'll start with the Daily Wire. The outlet is generally a fracker-backed social media click-factory; it usually focuses on letting Ben Shapiro live out his failed dreams of Hollywood stardom versus coverage of the environment, but they still carry plenty of propaganda presented as news. For example, this week, it ran coverage of a Milwaukee County resolution granting "Rights of Nature". Oh no! Not providing legal protections to nonhuman entities like animals, plants, and rivers to enable their protection from exploitation and pollution! Terrifying!
Overnight News Digest: Warming accelerating, just 5 years until +1.5°C climate heating baked-in by Magnifico. ‘We are afraid:’ Earth’s vital signs are now in ‘uncharted territory,’ climate scientists warn. The East Bay Times: This year has presented stark evidence that Earth is already in “uncharted territory” with climate change, scientists say, to the point that unless major progress is made to reduce greenhouse emissions, parts of the world that are home to one-third to one-half of the global population could face extreme heat, food shortages and water shortages by the end of this century. That’s the conclusion of a new study from researchers at Oregon State University and other institutions around the world, that has been drawing growing attention since its publication last week. “As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms,” the researchers wrote. “The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.”
Winter Citizen Science. You can help track climate change impact at Street Prophets by Aashirs nani. Project Feederwatch has begun. It’s a way to contribute to the understanding of effects of climate change on bird populations and distribution. As the climate warms, for instance, the range of the red-bellied woodpecker has moved significantly northward. Personally, I’ve seen my counts of goldfinches go from 60+ at a time to 2 or 3. The bits of data collected by people like you and me are part of the permanent record of climate and birds. I’ve counted birds for Cornell University’s ornithology lab for a very long time. You don’t have to be a birding expert to participate. You need paper and pen, or another way to record your counts. You need a way to enter data on the website, although if you’re truly old-school (and how are you reading this?) you can send it in by snail mail. Inexpensive binoculars are helpful. So is a bird guide, if you get birds you don’t recognize. But—for the yearly sign-up fee of $18, you can receive a poster of common feeder birds in your area, and a bird-themed calendar. I’ve opted out of both, to save paper and because I already have a good bird guide and I get more calendars in the mail than one person (or ten people) can possibly use.
EXTREME WEATHER
The relentless summer heat in Texas has "clobbered" the state's economy by Pakalolo. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: Analyses drawing on data from 2000–22 indicate Texas is especially vulnerable to hotter summers. For every 1-degree increase in average summer temperature, Texas annual nominal GDP growth slows 0.4 percentage points. With this year's summer temperatures 2.5 degrees above the post-2000 average, estimates for Texas suggest, all else equal, the summer heat could have reduced annual nominal GDP growth by 1 percentage point for 2023, or about $24 billion. Other calculations suggest a somewhat lesser impact of nearly $10 billion in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP, about 0.5 percent of annual output. The impact of an increase in summer temperatures on Texas GDP growth is twice as pronounced as the change in the rest of the U.S. because summers are generally hotter relative to the rest of the country. At the same time, the effect of rising summer temperatures on job growth is more subtle, though the effects vary widely across sectors. As climate change’s effects intensify over the next decade, heat waves will become more commonplace and severe, and Texans will need to adapt
Storm Ciarán wreaks havoc in parts of Europe, likely tied to climate change and the start of El Niño by Pakalolo. Yet another climate-enhanced natural disaster that American media ignores is unfolding across parts of Europe, bringing high ocean waves and heavy rainfall with significant urban flooding. It is another example that the world’s infrastructure is not built for a changing climate. The media and governments had best get to work. We are caught with our pants down after having raised worldwide temperatures by the burning of fossil fuels aggravating rainfall distribution patterns across Earth. The atmosphere holds more water in the atmosphere when temperatures rise and combine with what is expected to be a super El Nino 2023 and 2024 will be interesting indeed. A new study has found that strong El Nino has caused a significant reduction in water availability in the Southern Hemisphere. London dodged a bullet, but Ireland and other areas of the UK, France, and Italy did not, and the storm now covers most of Europe. Powerful winds knocked out windows and toppled trees, which brought down power lines. Deaths have been reported.
Foam in the street of Pen marc, western France, on November 2, 2023, as storm Ciarán hits the region.
Fall: A Time We Forget Just How Hot Last Summer Was by spicey. Notice that the media is full of news about Trump and Co. But really, we should not lose sight of how hot last Summer was — and how hot it will continue to become unless we take drastic measures to shift things. We have to get better at staying focused or we are going to burn to a crisp. My 2 cents is that we should be doing everything we can to lessen the number of humans on this planet. At every turn we should be providing free and easily accessible birth control; sex-ed for every age group and make maternal healthcare available. Education and economic opportunities for women and girls have also been shown to lessen our numbers. There are hundreds of changes we could be making in this arena — providing funding to the UNFPA — doubling or tripling what we spend now. But the main thing is to not lose focus when the temperatures fall because they will be back with a vengeance very soon. Less Trump and more Climate change coverage, please!
ENERGY, TRANSPORTATION & EMISSIONS
Renewable Tuesday 10/31: More, Faster, Better, Cheaper by Mokurai. I am delighted to tell you again that there is no way to keep up with all of the good news in renewable energy, electric vehicles, green manufacturing, and the rest. It just keeps pouring in, more, faster, better, cheaper all the time. I just have to swing a bucket through the fire hose. For example, This SEIA projection of 500 GW of solar to be installed in the next decade is for the US alone. Solar Industry Growing at a Record Pace. Solar energy in the United States is booming. Along with our partners at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and The Solar Foundation, SEIA tracks trends and trajectories in the solar industry that demonstrate the diverse and sustained growth of solar across the country.
UAW wins for workers and the environment—and knocks down a favorite Trump talking point by Laura Clawson. “Record profits mean record contracts” sounded like an aspirational slogan as the United Auto Workers went on strike against the Big Three automakers. But it’s what the union made happen over a six-week strike that now ends thanks to a tentative agreement with General Motors. Ford and Stellantis had agreed to tentative deals in recent days. Workers still need to ratify those contracts, but workers are back on the job at Ford and Stellantis and will be heading back to work at GM. The union made big gains on pay and ending the two-tier system that left newer workers making much less than their longer-tenured coworkers. But that’s not all: The agreements offer both hope for a more just clean energy transition and a rebuttal to the top Republican talking point about the strike. ”For workers and further ensuring a just transition to clean energy, these tentative contracts are truly historic,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in an emailed statement. “The transformation of the auto sector—and the economy more broadly—to meet U.S. climate commitments represents a generational opportunity to build an economy that works for everyone.”
Pennsylvania Sen. Gene Yaw.
Stupid? I’ll tell you what’s stupid by Karen Feridun. Senator Gene Yaw (R-23), the chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, reacted to a hearing on a House bill by issuing a statement that concluded, “It is often said that we cannot legislate against stupidity. That is true but we can stop stupid legislation from becoming law. Should House Bill 170 or any similar legislation pass the House of Representatives, it will not be considered in the Senate.” The “stupid” legislation would establish setbacks from natural gas wells of up to 5,000 feet. Nowhere in his statement did Yaw acknowledge the real world adverse impacts to health and safety that led a Grand Jury to recommend the setbacks that Representative Danielle Friel Otten (D-155) introduced for consideration by the legislature. It’s stupid that the chair of Pennsylvania’s Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee thinks legislation intended to protect the natural and human environment is not worthy of consideration.
Big Oil spent $22 million in effort to kill CA climate bills in first three quarters of 2023 by Dan Bacher. It looks like 2023 could already be a record year for oil and gas spending on lobbying in California even without the fourth quarter expenses in yet. The total oil and gas money spent on lobbying for the first three quarters of 2023 is $21,973,138, according to data posted on the California Secretary of State’s website: cal-access.sos.ca.gov/… This figure already surpasses the total oil and gas industry lobbying expenses for 2023 — $18 million. The results for the fourth quarter and the total for 2023 won’t become available until January 31, 2024. The top three lobbying spenders — Chevron, the Western States Petroleum Association, and Aera Energy – far outspent all others in the oil and gas industry. – “Their filings depict opposition to a number of key pieces of climate and energy related legislation, including SBX 1-2 implementation, AB 1167, SB 252, SB 253, SB 261, as well as numerous other bills,” the Center reported. “These bills would all hold the oil industry accountable in various ways – either through transparency, financially, or both – and in the case of SB 252 would have called on the state’s public pension funds to divest from fossil fuels. Among them, only SB 252 failed to pass,” according to the Climate Center.
Banks still pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into 'carbon bomb' projects around the planet by Meteor Blades. A new report in The Guardian reveals that in 2022 alone, banks financed $150 billion in new fossil fuel projects. Last year, the newspaper and its partners identified “carbon bombs” in an academic database, finding that these are the single biggest sources of fossil fuels. Two French non-profits, Good and Éclaircies, as well as European media have now used this data to map out the companies that operate the carbon bombs and the banks that finance them: The carbon bombs—425 extraction projects that can each pump more than one gigaton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—cumulatively hold enough coal, oil and gas to burn through the rapidly dwindling carbon budget four times over. Between 2016 and 2022, banks mainly in the US, China and Europe gave $1.8tn in financing to the companies running them, new research shows. [...] Between 2016 and 2022, the research shows, banks in the US alone were responsible for more than half a trillion dollars of finance to companies planning or operating carbon bombs. The single biggest financier was JPMorgan Chase, providing more than $141bn, followed by Citi, with $119bn, and Bank of America, with $92bn. Wells Fargo was the seventh-biggest financier, with $62bn. Also in the top 10 were three Chinese banks – ICBC, Bank of China and Industrial Bank (China) – and three European ones – BNP Paribas, HSBC and Barclays.
World’s largest white hydrogen deposit found in France by lupin. When members of the Laboratoire GeoRessources of the University of Lorraine and of France’s National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) probed the subsoil in Lorraine, in Southeastern France, they hit a potential deposit of naturally occurring, or white hydrogen. In the sub-soil of this region, still badly hit by deindustrialisation, could be hidden nothing less than the world’s biggest known supply of the gas to date.
FOOD, AGRICULTURE & GARDENING
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging - Vol.19.44: a plant that doesn't need water or light for 50 yrs! by Missys Brother. As regulars here know, I rescue up to three or four amaryllis bulbs each year from thrift shops. So it’s not unusual for me to also rescue other types of plants including some water lilies this past summer. I was recently in a Goodwill thrift shop and spotted this odd box pleading for me to take it home. RESURRECTION PLANT — EVERLASTING EVERGREEN THAT KEEPS COMING BACK TO LIFE! ETERNAL SYMBOL OF HOPE AND REBIRTH! BRING HOME A LIVING PIECE OF HISTORY! Resurrection Plant. This ancient plant will actually spring to life in less than one day. Throughout history, these highly adaptive plants would dry up and blow in the wind until they came upon water. Then, they would rapidly open and drink the water until it was gone. I quickly googled Resurrection Plant to see if this was true or some type of joke. I was surprised to learn that it was true and they can live up to 200 to 250 years! Its botanical name is Selaginella Lepidophylla, also called false Rose of Jericho, a species of desert plant in the spikemoss family. To learn more, here is the Wikipedia link. I had never heard of this plant but for only $2, how could I refuse!
Climate Crisis: Regenerative life challenge! by Gardening Toad. This year I’m challenging myself to transition as rapidly as I can to a regenerative way of life. We all have, I think, an idea of what a sustainable life is; a regenerative life takes that further. Rather than just finding a point of sustainability, where we can keep doing the same thing indefinitely while causing the same level of damage, a regenerative life is one which gives back more, produces more life and more abundance for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our communities. This year I started out at a pretty low level. I replaced my 20+ year old gasoline car with a used Chevy Bolt EV. This way I could reduce my GHG emissions somewhat while running errands and going to my part-time job. My big goal continues to be to grow most of my own food. As the growing season commenced I repurposed my old vegetable garden to become a syntropic system for growing staple crops like corn, squash, and potatoes, as well as eventually some tree fruit. Struggling through the brutal summer with months of above 100F highs during the day, I improved the soil of my kitchen garden with many wheelbarrow loads of leaves and grass clippings mulch. I didn’t get much production except a pretty good crop of winter squash, a surprisingly good crop of yellow potatoes, and steady production of bunching onions. As the weather cooled with the Fall the garden has begun to produce all the green vegetables we need as well as some summer squash.
Ireland has the worst potato harvest in recent memory and is now considered a 'salvage operation' by Pakalolo. The Irish Farmers' Association ( IFA) has called the 2023 potato harvest the worst in recent memory and is now a salvage operation. The culprit is heavy rainfall, an increasingly common phenomenon due to the disruption of global rainfall patterns due to climate change. Sean Ryan, the chair of the IFA, reported that flooding had put the drills underwater following recent flooding. A drill is the mounds in rows of potatoes (see cover image). Ryan stated that 60 percent of the potatoes grown in Ireland have yet to be harvested. Sizable fields of the crucial food tuber have already been lost. With the extratropical storm Ciarna and the rapidly approaching Diogenes on its tail, the outlook for the remaining crop is grim. Potatoes are grown in Europe and likely will affected by the same storm systems. The crop is also grown internationally in such countries as China and Australia.
Lawn Care Goes Electric: Why it’s time to switch to a new generation of clean, quiet lawn equipment by spicey. Environment America, U.S. PIRG, and Frontier Group released a report: Lawn Care Goes Electric: Why it’s time to switch to a new generation of clean, quiet electric lawn equipment. You may have seen news of the release of this report — just today it’s peppered my news feed. This report has tons of data, even specifics county by county. It’s a fabulous resource. Some states had press conferences on Monday, announcing the release of the report. Environment Oregon had ours in a local park. QCPDX teammate & ElectrifyNow founder Brian Stewart was one of the speakers. Click here for the Environment Oregon press release. Here’s the gist: “It’s absurd that we have been tolerating so much harmful pollution and noise just to cut grass and maintain landscapes,” said Celeste Meiffren-Swango, state director with Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center. “The good news is, for those who chose to not use a rake or other manual tool, cleaner, quieter electric-powered lawn equipment is capable, affordable, and readily available.”
Got a lawn tractor? Maybe not a big deal, but it's not looking good if you need a new one...by xaxnar. Nobody is building lawn tractors any more — they’re all getting out of the business At least that was the word I got from the guy who sold me my lawn tractor. To make a long story short, there’s been a lot of mergers and buy outs over the years. A lot of brands ended up being owned by fewer and fewer companies. The Troy Bilt lawn tractor in the picture up above? The company — based in Troy, NY for decades — went bankrupt years ago. (I took a factory tour years ago — they were loved locally.) They made fabulous rototillers and other products, but the minimal Wikipedia entry mention sums up what has been happening in the industry. The name and a few products live on but the company is gone.
WATER & INFRASTRUCTURE
Before and after the dam.
Work on Copco No. 2 Dam Removal Comes to a Close on the Klamath River by Dan Bacher. Hornbrook, CA – As a journalist who has been covering the movement by the Klamath River Tribes, fishermen and conservationists to remove the dams on the Klamath River for over 20 years, it is very gratifying to see the progress made on the removal of the four PacifiCorp dams this year. In a major step in the dam removal process, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation reported that crews have “put the final touches” on the removal of the Copco No. 2 Dam and its diversion infrastructure on the Klamath River this week. This historic dam removal, when completed, will open the river above the dams to hundreds of miles of habitat for fall-run Chinook salmon, spring-run Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey. It is the largest and most significant dam removal project in U.S. history. “Removal of the dam structure was completed in September, and crews spent the last month removing the remaining diversion infrastructure, grading the river channel, and performing erosion control,” according to the KRRC in a statement. “This work prepares the river canyon for consistent river flows, likely commencing within 30 days, which the canyon hasn’t seen in 98 years. Currently, flows in the canyon are fluctuating due to work being done to prepare Copco No. 1 for drawdown.”
ACTION
Kitchen Table Kibitzing: Green New Deal Begins US Tour by boatsie. IPCC Climate Scientist Tom Wigley discusses Net-Zero Does Not Mean What You Think It Does, suggesting “While we may not need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions all the way to zero to meet the Paris Agreement targets, the required reduction in CO2 emissions is huge and rapid. It is an enormous and daunting challenge.” Since the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, the term ‘net-zero emissions’ has become a much-used phrase and a buzzword for an aspirational policy target. But the term is frequently misused. Neither net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, nor net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions mean that carbon dioxide emissions need to drop to zero. Emissions scenarios are the foundation for making projections of future climate change. They are typically divided into two types, ‘reference scenarios’1 and ‘policy scenarios’
Pay to Play -- Strike for the Planet week 123 by birches. This week’s topic is: PAY TO PLAY. Pay-to-Play is the American way The rich pay almost nothing in taxes, get better medical care, have cleaner environments, buy their way out of most problems, live longer, carve up the planet as they see fit, lie and cheat and steal and are not stopped or punished, and literally get away with murder. But this is corruption! How do they not get caught? They don’t “get caught” because the rich own the government; they won at Monopoly and own you all. Want access? You have to buy it. Want a business opened? You better pay off the right people. Want power? You better find rich sponsors. San Francisco is a pay-to-play city, and it’s only gotten worse. This is the status quo. And the status quo is killing the planet. The system described above, this oligarchy of the rich and ruthless not only degrades, sickens, traumatizes, trivializes, and brutalizes everything and everyone it can, this system is the cause of climate chaos and is plunging us into a mass extinction event. Who’s really paying for the playing you’re doing? Not the rich. They aren’t using their own money, they’re stealing from the future. The future of mammals, amphibians, forests, the cryosphere, humans, the ocean — you name it, it’s in danger. The future of all life on this planet is up in the air because you’re doing the bidding of the rich who are paying you in the blood of the children. Unfortunately, repayment with interest has come due.
Climate Cowardice -- Strike for the Planet week 122 by birches.This week: CLIMATE COWARDICEClearly you are more averse to acting than to people dying from your inaction. Because you continue not to act even though it’s abundantly clear that climate change kills. No matter how much information I provide or how thoroughly I illustrate the need for action, no matter the legislative and legal information or the contacts for places doing the exact actions needed I produce for you, no matter how much I do the initial research and groundwork you should have been doing long ago, you’re still not going to act. You are not going to act. The status quo is killing the city and the planet, but you represent the status quo so you’re not going to act. You are not leaders, you are followers of money and power and what was done in the past. What was done in the past is destroying the planet, and you know it, and you don’t care. And we know you don’t care because you don’t act. So if you won’t act because it’s the right thing to do, what can make you act? Shame. If enough voters know you don’t want to do the right thing for SF, that you don’t care about the people of SF, and start asking you why, you’ll have to at least give lip service to acting on climate change.
Work The Problem -- Strike for the Planet week 121 by birches. This week’s topic: To survive we have to work the problem. “Science? Why?” Science depends on reproducability, full disclosure of all information and data, extensive peer review, actively looking for faults in explanations and procedures, and extensive testing of hypotheses before they are provisionally accepted. This way mistakes get found, ideas are built upon, insights feed other insights, global collaborations are common, and major efforts can be brought into focus to produce large-scale results. A great example of this are the IPCC Reports.1 Other examples abound, from the space programs to the endangered species successes (though those gains now appear to have been temporary2) to the cleaning of rivers (though they are now dying from different pollutants3), and more. This process is how the periodic table was created, how the Covid vaccines were made, how we got planes to fly. This is how we will survive, if we are going to survive.
IPCC -- Strike for the Planet week 120 by birches. This week’s topic: The IPCC Report. In case you need a reminder, IPCC stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN organization charged with collecting, evaluating, and presenting the science on climate change to the UN and to governments of all levels all over the world. The IPCC just issued their Sixth Assessment Report.1 They wrote it for you; you need to understand what it says.
Water, Again -- Strike for the Planet week 119 by birches. This week’s topic is Water, Again. Energy and water are fundamental to our survival. With only those two things in place, we have a chance of a dystopian future, which is still a future nonetheless.1 Without them, it’s game over for SF, sooner and not later.2 This isn’t news and, at long long last, you’re starting to take the energy part of things seriously by getting the PUC involved.3 Good. It’s about time. However…Local energy is relatively easy in SF. SF is awash in energy — solar, wind, wave and tide, heat differentials and more; it’s just a matter of funding and building the local infrastructure to tap into these. The technologies already exist and are dropping in price across the board, the personnel are available locally to design, build, and maintain all of these systems, and funds are increasingly available from both public and private sources at all levels to do this. The expertise is all out there.4 So yay! Get to it! But water is much harder.
It's Not Enough To Just Act -- Strike for the Planet week 118 by birches. This week’s topic is: It’s not enough to just act. Let’s agree, one, that not acting is bad. You have 117 prior Strike letters with details on exactly how awful not acting is for San Francisco, but here are even more tidbits of information to add to the already mountainous pile of evidence that you have to act. Tidbit #1: A recent study found that San Francisco is the 5th worst urban heat island in the United States. The calculations by Climate Central looked at albedo, percentage greenery, population density, building height, permeable surfaces, and the average width of streets, among other factors. When compared to neighboring areas, SF bakes, and it’s mostly from heat trapped by tall buildings, impermeable surfaces, and population density. Our urban heat island score was almost identical to the three cities hotter than us — Houston (#4), New York City (#3), and Newark (#2). And, for an added bonus, this isn’t just a heat island issue. Heat islands are positively linked to environmental racism in the U.S. (and in SF — see Strike letter 115 for details and specific neighborhoods.) Tidbit #2: It turns out that failing at Vision Zero (and SF is failing miserably at Vision Zero at the moment) is an environmental racism issue as well because cars disproportionately kill Black people. Not acting it literally killing San Franciscans, and it’s hurting the most vulnerable the most.
MISCELLANY
The untold story of New Mexico's Indigenous people after the nuclear tests and Oppenheimer by SemDem. Eminent domain was used to seize their land for the nuclear test, sometimes at gunpoint, with promises of fair compensation that often went unfulfilled. Those few who did receive money for their property received substantially less than nearby white landowners. The land owned by an Anglo entrepreneur was acquired at a rate of $43 per acre, whereas Hispanic homesteaders received as little as $7 per acre Farms were bulldozed, livestock was shot, and there were even violent confrontations with military police. After forcibly being uprooted from their homes, being given less than 24 hours to leave with what they could carry, and having nowhere to turn, the men displaced by the nuclear test were compelled to work at the very laboratory responsible for their displacement. In this workplace, they were tasked by Oppenheimer to handle beryllium, a critical metal in the development of nuclear reactors and the production of plutonium used in the Trinity Test. Sadly, beryllium is a toxic substance that can lead to debilitating conditions. What makes this even more distressing is the fact that the Hispano men, unlike their white counterparts, were given no protective gear to wear. All of them tragically succumbed to berylliosis. Seventy-five years later, the descendants of those families are still grappling with the devastating consequences of exposure to radioactive fallout. Their stories, long ignored by our government, demand acknowledgment and compensation. Although the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) established an administrative program for claims relating to atmospheric nuclear testing, incredibly, these people were specifically exempted from receiving compensation. There is currently a bill in Congress that would expand to help them, but RECA is due to expire by 2024 (it was extended for a year), and time is running out for the help they deserved decades ago.
Despite Veto Threat, House Passes Spending Bill Terminating CVPIA Environmental Restoration Program by Dan Bacher. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on October 26 passed H.R. 4394, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, that terminates the environmental restoration provisions of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) that made fish and wildlife a purpose of the Central Valley Project for the first time in history. “Within hours of taking up the gavel, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Michael Johnson, brought it down on a bill that would gut California’s fisheries and wipe out a thirty-year old program to repair environmental damage caused by the massive Central Valley Project,” the Hoopa Valley Tribe on the Trinity River wrote in a press statement responding to the bill's passage. The measure was approved by the House with a vote of 210 to 199. The Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies bill provides $56.958 billion in discretionary spending, $2.963 billion below the FY24 President’s Budget Request.
Earth Matters: Deforestation rose 4% in 2022; IEA says 50% of new energy will be renewables by 2030 by Meteor Blades. The latest edition of an annual report was published earlier this month by the Forest Declaration Assessment, which tracks pledges of forest conservation made by countries and private companies. The researchers found that 16.3 million acres of forest were cleared worldwide in 2022—an area the size of New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware combined. That’s a 4% increase over the 2018-2020 baseline. And a big disappointment after a slight decrease in 2021. Calling this trajectory “off-track,” the report said the data makes it unlikely that the 145 nations who agreed at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 to end deforestation across the planet by 2030 will meet that goal. In addition to the overall losses, the report noted that 10.1 million acres of tropical forests were lost, a level 33% higher than what is needed to stop losses by the turn of the decade. Research in 2021 found that tropical deforestation had doubled in two decades, and this is accelerating carbon emissions.
RECENT SPOTLIGHTS
