Friday Linkage 8/19/2022

This is what the other side of the climate change debate is doing right now.  Yes, they are giving away books written by official sounding organzitions that are really just fronts for the industries that profit from the continued emission of carbon dioxide primarily due to burning fossil fuels.

https://www.thegazette.com/higher-education/regent-gave-iowa-state-books-denying-human-induced-climate-change/

I am actually surprised it was not a picture book.

On to the links…

Cigarette Butts: How the No 1 Most Littered Objects are Choking our Coasts—My dad used to say that if people were going to smoke they should smoke unfiltered cigarettes.  That way we did not have to put up with the remainder of their nasty habit.

Renewables To Equal 22% Of U.S. Electricity Generation In 2022 — U.S. EIA Forecast—Number pretty much speak for themselves.

How the Western Drought is Pushing the Power Grid to the Brink—The drought in the western U.S. is bad.  Now it is getting so bad we are forced to face assumptions about things that do not seem related to water.

Texas Cattle Industry Faces Existential Crisis from Historic Drought—Maybe we should stop trying to raise cattle on drought prone scrub land.

22% Of New Car Sales Now Electric In The Netherlands!—Every month seems to bring a new record for countries in terms of EVs as a portion of total sales.

U.S. Grant Awards $1.66 Billion for Low-Emissions Buses—Given how much we spend on so many other things—cough, cough, defense—it seems like such small potatoes.  However, it will make a big difference and jump start the market in the U.S.

The IRA Gives USPS Billions to Buy Electric Vehicles—Seems like a no-brainer use case for EVs.

Massachusetts Passes Historic Bill To Advance Clean Energy, Transportation—The federal government has finally passed legislation that will make a meaningful difference in cutting emissions.  Now states can go even further.

Fight Climate Change. End Fossilflation. Here’s How.—The dramatic swings in oil prices are not good for the economy.

Wind Blows Away Australian Records—It’s amazing.  Get a government in place that does not actively stand in the way of renewables and the market takes off.

Foxconn To Build Electric Tractors At Former Lordstown Motors Factory—It seems like just about everybody has been looking to build something in Lordstown, Ohio.  I have my doubts about Foxconn doing anything after watching their deal in Wisconsin crash and burn.

Bio-Recycling gets Fashionable with Enzymes that Will Eat Your Shoes—Somewhere Michael Crichton had a manuscript about an enzyme that could eat your shoe escaping a lab.

Life Hacks From India on How to Stay Cool (Without an Air Conditioner)—This is pretty much our future now.

Goats and Sheep Deploy Their Appetites to Save Barcelona from Wildfires—Goats!

Why Do So Many Recipes Call for So Little Garlic?—The answer to how much garlic is almost always…more!

Friday Linkage 7/8/2022

This is the future of the United States under the Republican Party.

Social Security?  Forget it if you are not already retired because the Republican Party does not care about anyone except its current voter base.

Contraception?  Hah.  With the recent Supreme Court decision essentially overturning Roe vs. Wade the Republican Party needs a new object of ire for its most fervent culture warriors.

Guns?  More.  It’s always more when it comes to guns.  More places to carry, more people carrying, and more…just more.
On to the links…

US Supreme Court Rules Against EPA and Hobbles Government Power to Limit Harmful Emissions—I cannot wait until the no talent ass clowns on the Supreme Court tie themselves into knots trying to delineate what exactly defines a “major question” in their interpretation when it comes to something they like to regulate.  Do they know it when they see it?

Texas Law Leads to Proposal to Replace the Term ‘Slavery’ with ‘Involuntary Relocation’—Does it count as being Orwellian if it is just plain ridiculous?  What about a slave who was born on the same plantation where they were kept in bondage?  This slave was not relocated anywhere, involuntary or otherwise.  Just asking for a friend.

Minnesota Just Legalized Edibles After a Republican Didn’t Read the Bill—Republicans…don’t even read the bills anymore.  Seriously, is this not why you have legislative aides who are good at reading proposed legislation?  Oh wait, the staff is probably partisan hacks angling for jobs on cable news.

Rhode Island Passes Soonest 100% Renewable Electricity Commitment In USA—Little Rhode Island wants to be first to the post.

Electricity Grids Aren’t Making the Most of Wind Power—You have to love a “free market” that allows the producer to tell the consumer what they are going to get and the consumer just has to eat it.

A Hawaii Bill Would Limit Solar Power. Gov Ige Plans to Veto It—Calling a power source “firm” is going to be the new way that coal and natural gas try to shore up their position vis a vis renewables.

Power Line Congestion Leads to Wind Turbine Shutdowns, Denting County Budgets—This is why I am big fan of rooftop solar.  It generates power at the location of consumption.

This ‘Sand’ Battery Stores Renewable Energy as Heat—Thermal batteries are an old school idea.  Regardless, this solution has a part to play in the transition to 100% renewable energy.

Joe Biden’s Bold Bet On Vehicle Charging—Just overbuild the charging infrastructure.

Single-Use Plastic is on its Way Out of National Parks. But Why is the Pace so Glacial?—I wonder if the bottled water lobby is trying to figure out if eliminating single use plastics is a “major question” that can’t be delegated to a regulatory agency?

Otters are Thriving in … Iowa?—I have seen what I assume is a pair of these little guys near the Cedar Valley Nature Trail where there is a creek and some wetlands.

Minneapolis Carbon Offset Program Could be One of the Largest Urban Tree Projects in the Nation—Every city in America needs to be signing up to do this like yesterday.

Public Lands are Americans’ Birthright. It’s Our Duty to Defend Them Against New Landgrabs—Every time I see one of those “Respect Private Property” signs in Iowa on a fence row I want to put up a similar sign that says “Respect Public Property.”

Agriculture Accounts for Most of Colorado’s Water Use. How Much Water Savings is Possible on High-Country Hay Meadows?—When the topic of water shortages in the western U.S. comes up it always leads with images of swimming pools, golf courses, and lawns.  However, agriculture is the primary user of most water in the west.

Scott Pruitt, Trump’s Disgraced Former EPA Chief, Gets Crushed In Senate Primary—Please, thoughts and prayers to Scott Pruitt for being a loser.

Friday Linkage 7/1/2022

Well, the Republican Party’s batshit crazy twins were really at it this week.

First up, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks the solution to school shootings is to train school age children to use firearms.  As anyone who has actually been in a school knows this would be a horrible idea on so many levels, but in the modern day Republican Party the only right that matters is your right to own an assault rifle which you can carry into Chili’s in case of tyranny or some such shit like that.

Not to be outdone, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert has decided that there is no such thing as separation of church and state which is something that the Supreme Court would love to make happen in its current iteration.  The question I have for Boebert is which church?  Considering how bent out of shape right wing television hosts get about sharia law I am pretty sure that Islam would not qualify.  What about Judaism?  Buddhism?  Hinduism?  Shinto?

Enjoy the upcoming holiday weekend if you are in the United States.

On to the links…

Ten Ways Billionaires Avoid Taxes on an Epic Scale—It seems like there should be a political party platform that addresses everyone one of these loopholes.  Who is going to argue against it?  Billionaires?  Cry me a freaking river.

Gas Appliances Could be Leaking Up to 21 Hazardous Pollutants in Your Home—Get the gas stove out of your kitchen.

Colorado’s Drought is Bad. Tree Ring History Shows it Could get a Lot Worse.—I feel like the drought in the southwest is like, “Hold my beer.”  It could get a lot worse and the region is not ready.

How to Rewild a Country: the Story of Argentina—We can be the agents of positive ecological change.

Colorado Ranches are Trying to Survive. The Solution is Selling More than Beef, Preserving Land for More than Cattle.—Reimagining how we utilize the landscape is possible.

11% Of New Car Sales In Europe Electric (19% Plugins)—Europe has breached the 10% market share for new car sales being EVs.

China Electric Car Market — 31% Market Share In May!—Granted, some of these vehicles are glorified golf carts that would not sell in any other country but 31% of the market is amazing.

Electric School Buses are in Colorado’s Future. But Districts Need Help Paying for Them.—Replacing nasty diesel school buses with electric buses seems like a no brainer policy on so many levels.

The Next Phase of Wind Power Growth in Five Charts—Offshore is the future.

We Don’t Need Base Load Power—We need to match demand and supply.  Base load is a way to achieve that balance, but technology will allow for a more precise matching that can more effectively utilize renewables and demand shifting.

Groundbreaking California Rule Transforms How Renewables Connect To The Grid—If you have ever installed a solar array on your home you understand just how convoluted the process for actually connecting to the grid can be.  In my case it took weeks for the electric co-op to merely sign off on flipping the switch.

Colorado Regulators Approve Plan That Phases Out Coal By 2031—I imagine it could have been done sooner, but I will take 2031.

Why Small Cooperatives in Portugal Produce Solar Energy—How do we export this model to more countries?

Leaf Blowers, Lawn Mowers and Fertilizer: How Lawns Contribute to Climate Change—This is not news to anyone who actually opens their eyes.  The average lawn in the United States is a god damned ecological disaster.

Chile Peppers, Coffee, Wine: How the Climate Crisis is Causing Food Shortages—Maybe once people cannot get their morning fix from Starbucks they will start to pay attention to climate change.  Oh wait, these are the same people sitting in a drive thru line in an idling SUV to buy a coffee that is more milk and sugar than coffee.  Never mind.

Fashion Brands Halt Use of “Greenwashing” Sustainability Index—The only green fashion is the item of clothing you do not purchase.

Friday Linkage 6/17/2022

The modern day Republican Party is an amazing thing.  Well, it’s amazing if you are into cognitive dissonance.

See, committing a crime is not really committing a crime when you happen to be Republican, white, and worth a decent amount of money.  If you happen to commit a crime you can always lean into the “I am a rich white person, so you cannot possible put me in jail” defense.  See Simone Gold.

If you happen to be arrested for a crime, which you are not actually arguing you did not commit, you can complain about the nature of your arrest because…well…it’s not like you were trafficking in a deadly drug or something.

Remember children, in Republicans’ minds the law is something to be used against people without money and, usually, against black or brown people.

On to the links…

The 1977 White House Climate Memo that Should Have Changed the World—We basically wasted 45 years arguing over something that was already decided.

How Tesla Is the Fake Meat of Cars—We cannot buy our way to change.  Nor will people like Elon Musk lead us to a better world.

Inflation, Scarcity and the Road to Survival—The energy descent is here.  It is currently manifesting itself as inflation.

A Fracking Boom Made the US the World’s Biggest Oil Producer. Now its End is Pushing Gas Prices Much Higher.—Profits are a hell of a thing and fracking investors are demanding some after years of essentially lighting money on fire.

More than 20 Million Farm Animals Die on Way to Abattoir in US Every Year—As if we needed more proof that our entire animal husbandry economy is messed up.

Colorado has 200,000 Tons of Orphan Greenhouse Gases that No One Claims, Environmental Groups Say—Now we have zombie emissions.

Wind and Solar Power are ‘Bailing Out’ Texas Amid Record Heat and Energy Demand—I wonder how Texas Republicans will spin this?

Australia Commits to Reducing Greenhouse Emissions by 43%–It is amazing what a change in government can do for climate goals.  If we could just get Democrats in America to stop acting like Diet Republicans on so many issues it might be possible to make some progress.

BHP to Close NSW’s Largest Coalmine in 2030 after Failing to Sell It—If you can’t sell a coal mine you might as well shut it down.

Hulking Coal Plants Coming Down Across the Pittsburgh Region, Destined for New Life—There is life after coal.

New Tower in China Brings Us a Step Closer to Space-Based Solar Power—Like space elevators, space based transmission of electricity via microwaves has always seemed like one of those ideas confined to fantastic sci fi novels with hand drawn covers.

Net Zero Could Mean Fewer Cars on Top of Switching to EVs—Taking a car off the road without an equivalent replacement is better than replacing it with an EV.

The High Cost of Speed—I say it all the time: We just need to slow down.

Plastitar: Mix of Tar and Microplastics is New Form of Pollution, Say Scientists—Welcome to the plastic age.

Want to Keep Plastic Out of the Ocean? Burn It Like Coal—It may not be a long term solution, but it could solve some problems in the short term.

Friday Linkage 6/10/2022

This is the modern Republican mind.  Nothing matters more than guns.  Surely not the safety of children because a surprisingly high percentage of Republicans believe we need to accept mass shootings because the right to own an assault rifle trumps everything else.
This is not a surprising development as the Republican party has been trending this way for decades.  Here’s the crazy thing, a majority of Americans support gun law reform.  It just so happens that enough Republicans do not fear a challenge to their own reelection that they can pander to the gun lobby.
On to the links…

Hawaii—Surrounded by Water, Big Water—has Lowest Gun Death Rate in U.S., and Stricter Gun Control—Hawaii shows that gun control works. It does not work on the mainland because no matter how strict one state’s or city’s gun control laws are there is always a state or city just a short drive away where there are almost no rules.

The Ignorance of Wealth—The billionaires and millionaires of the world will not save us.

Climate Change is All About Power. You Have More Than You Think.—We will be the ones to save ourselves.

A 50% Reduction in Emissions by 2030 Can be Achieved. Here’s How—We do not lack the technical ability to make this happen.  We lack the political will to make this happen.

Climate-Friendly Diets Can Make a Huge Difference – Even if You Don’t Go All-Out Vegan—Just stop the mindless consumption of meat. 

A New Forest Takes Root in a Fire-Scarred Landscape in Northern Minnesota—Given all of the acreage in the United States that is burned by fire why is there not a massive federal government program to reforest those acres?

Wrong Turn: America’s Car Culture and the Road Not Taken—We made a mistake by emphasizing the personal automobile as the central actor in our transportation system.  It will take decades to unwind.

Traffic Noise Slows Children’s Memory Development, Study Finds—Our current development model that favors automobiles over everything else is a failure.

Car Tires Produce Vastly More Particle Pollution than Exhausts, Tests Show—So, even if every vehicle on the road was an EV there would still be a problem with pollution.

Solid Power, Backed by Ford and BMW, Begins Pilot Production of Innovative EV Battery with Longer Range and Quicker Recharging—If someone can crack the code to produce an economical solid state battery things are going to get really interesting with EVs.

How a Cheap Component Could Help Kill Off Combustion Cars—No one ever thinks about wiring harnesses unless you are forced to diagnose an electrical gremlin in an older car.

Big Solar Plans Abound for Minnesota — but They Have Hit Economic Snags—Maybe the two year pause on solar panel tariffs will afford these projects the opportunity to move forward.

The Energy in Nuclear Waste Could Power the U.S. for 100 Years, but the Technology was Never Commercialized—Let’s commercialize it now.

GE, Orsted and now Iberdrola: The Competition to Recycle Wind Turbine Blades Heats Up—What will right wingers get all up in arms about when we can recycle wind turbine blades?  I am sure they will make something up.

Two Workers Found Dead after Being Trapped Under 80 Feet of Coal at Pueblo Power Plant—There is nothing good about the Comanche 3 power plant in Pueblo, Co.

Is Nebraska Building a $500 Million ‘Canal to Nowhere’ Just to Own the Libs?—Yes, Nebraska politicians would totally back this idea.  Now imagine what they could do with that money if they got their heads out of their asses for a moment.

Colorado Will Look Like a Different State by 2080—If Colorado ends up looking a lot like Arizona what will Arizona look like in 2080?

The Federal Government is Planning to Phase Out Single-Use Plastics at National Parks—This should have been done years ago, but Donald Trump was probably trying to figure out a way to put a garish casino inside of Yellowstone.

The Hybrid Tree that Conquered the World—The London plane tree is cool.

The Environmental Limits of Eating Local—It was never just an environmental argument.  It was also an economic argument.

Friday Linkage 6/3/2022

When did it get to be June?  Where did spring go?
I do not know if we are living in a COVID-19 pandemic induced time warp, but the passage of time seems to both go really fast and really slow at the same time.  Maybe that is what it was always like, but we slowed down just enough over the past two plus years to actually notice.

On to the links…

Physicists Predict Earth Will Become a Chaotic World, with Dire Consequences—Well, this sucks.

Trump-era Rollbacks Left US Behind Peers in Climate Change Fight: Report—No shit.  Four years of Trump and his sycophants left us behind the rest of the modern world in so many ways.

Low-Carbon Energy Minimizes Racial Disparities in Neighborhoods with Air Pollution—Reducing air pollution will have an outsize impact on these communities because the inverse was also true.  Trust me, if right wingers had to live near a coal fired power plant you better believe it that they would find the renewable energy religion real fast.

The Texas Grid is Designed to Fail—It’s almost like Republicans design systems to fail in order to create chaos to push their agendas even further rightward.  Until voters punish them for their near clinical insanity we are left with states like Texas.

Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work—The only real solution is to use a lot less plastic.

We Never Got Good at Recycling Plastic. Some States are Trying a New Approach—We can try, but I do not have a lot of hope for actual success.

Truck Manufacturers Sue To Continue Polluting—I love these post-Trump lawsuits from whiny industry groups that miss the years when Trump just rolled over so that someone would bring big trucks to the White House and he could play act tough guy.  The political landscape changed.  Deal with it.

Electric Trucks Can Fight Inflation – And Petro-State Dictators Like Putin—Anything that reduces our demand for fossil fuels will increase the pressure on petro state dictators.

Chevy Bolt Gets $6,000 Price Cut, Now Starts at $26,595—Before tax, title, and license fees you can buy a 250+ mile range EV for less than $27K.  That is if you can find one with dealer markups.

USPS Plans to Accelerate its EV Buying Strategy—Having the United States Postal Service buy EV versions of its new vehicle seems like a no-brainer.  Right?  Remember, the person notionally in charge of the USPS is Louis DeJoy who is both economically and philosophically opposed to the existence of the USPS.

Two New Bills Could Help Pump Up a Climate-Friendly System for Heating and Cooling Homes—Heat pumps are kind of amazing.  Replacing any fossil fueled heating device with a heat pump is a major environmental win.  It is more efficient by several orders of magnitude and it destroys demand for fossil fuels.

Converting From Fuel Oil To Heat Pumps Would Save The US 47% Of The Oil We Used To Import From Russia—Every dollar less that we spend on fossil fuels is a dollar that does not go to prop up petro state dictators and politicians from fossil fuel dependent states domestically.

Rethinking Air Conditioning Amid Climate Change—Just turning up the AC makes the problem worse.

This is the Tallest Residential Timber Tower in the World—I just love these “tall timber” buildings.  I wish more communities would embrace the idea.

Wooden Towers To Help Cut The Cost Of Wind Turbines, Even More—Tall wood structures are not just for living and working in anymore.

New Process Yields Super Strong Recycled Wood—Wood is so cool.

Scotty Kilmer Gives Us Some Good Arguments For Right To Repair—If you do not have the ability to repair something on your own terms then you do not really own the item.  Original equipment manufacturers would love to have you captive to their every whim.

Friday Linkage 5/27/2022

I was going to make a pithy comment about Republicans and the various primary story lines, but other events have taken the air out of the room.

How many more times do we need to bury children while Republicans offer nothing more than thoughts and prayers?  How long do we need to keep placating an extremist gun lobby that would like to make the United States an anarchist fever dream where every citizen is armed to the teeth and the pull of a trigger is the first response to an argument?

The problem is that we have too many guns and people who should not have access to guns have no problem getting their hands on such weapons.  No other country has the same problem with mass shooting that we do in the United States and it is nothing short of shameful.

On to the links…

Top Senate Republican Who Voted to Overturn 2020 Election Admits Biden Won Fairly—Amidst all the white supremacist and nationalist rhetoric is a growing chorus of voices actually telling the truth about the 2020 election.  Donald J. Trump is a loser.

Republicans Pledge Allegiance to a Hobbled NRA—Republicans are a party clinging to a declining base and must grab onto any voters who show any enthusiasm.  Guns animate a particular segment of their electorate like no other issue so they will continue to prostrate themselves before the altar of the NRA.

Climate Denial Group Is Masquerading as a Charity, Critics Say—There has to be a special place in hell for the Koch brothers.   One of them may already be roasting in the fires of eternal damnation.

Think Climate Action is Expensive? Inaction Could Cost $178 Trillion.—Doing nothing is not free.

Climate Burns the Right—The worm seems to be turning.  If you are a climate change denier you are on the wrong side of history and voters are taking notice.

EV Surge Likely After Labor Wins In Australia—It looks like Australia is finally throwing off the yoke of conservative government that was delaying its progress.

China Electric Car Market — 29% Market Share In April!—Remember, China is a massive auto market.

Carbon Capture to Receive $3.5 Billion Federal Investment—What if there were nature based solutions proven to suck up and store carbon?  Oh wait, you mean we could use these billions to plant trees or restore wetlands or…you get the idea.

Environmental Toxins are Worsening Obesity Pandemic, Say Scientists—Is there anything in modern life that is not trying to make us fatter?

The Banks Collapsed in 2008 – and Our Food System is About to Do the Same—Just look at the formula crisis in America.  When only a few companies operate a few factories a single hiccup can cause major disruptions.

How “America First” Crippled the Nation’s Solar Industry—Surprise, surprise that a shitty idea of Donald Trump’s is causing problems.  This guy is the gift that keeps on given for shitty news.

The NY Bight Could Write the Book on How We Build Offshore Wind Farms in the Future—The United States has been slow to the offshore wind game, but being a second mover may allow us to really exploit the huge potential of offshore wind.

Bitcoin Could Spark a Cheap Energy Boom—Cryptocurrency is a scam wrapped in a Ponzi scheme.  It is a solution in search of a problem that creates a whole host of problems in the process.

Work Begins to Turn 99,000 Hectares in England into ‘Nature Recovery’ Projects—These projects are great, but imagine if the scale was ten times as large.  Or, imagine if the United States decided to jump in the game.

‘No excuses’: Limited Conservation Efforts Could Save at Least 47 Australian Animals From Extinction—The impact of limited conservation can be dramatic.

The Plant-Based Future of Food Doesn’t Always Taste that Great—The fact that we are even having a discussion about plant-based foods as a mainstream idea is major progress.  Sure, there are bound to be some dogs as more plant-based foods are developed.  Does anyone really lament the Boca burger?

Friday Linkage 5/20/2022

This is the Republican Party in 2022.  The actual text of the Constitution does not matter.  All that matters is finding a judge that agrees with your position and writing a ridiculous law that they will allow to go into effect.  When a member of the Supreme Court writes an opinion striking down 50 years of precedence using legal reasoning from a judge who convicted women of witchcraft this ends up being a task that is much easier than you would imagine.

It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court handles the inevitable legal challenge to Texas’ latest twisted logic.

On to the links…

We Need Optimism – but Disneyfied Climate Predictions are Just Dangerous—The future is scary and we need to be realistic about that fact.

Western US May Be Experiencing Its Worst Dry Spell in 12 Centuries—Yes, the drought in the Western U.S. really is that bad.

Hydropower is 53% of the Renewable Energy Supply in the West. Drought is Slowing Down Production.—The knock on effects of the aforementioned drought are just starting to be felt.  Remember, advanced indigenous civilizations rapidly declined in the face of droughts in this very region.  Who wants to put money on Phoenix surviving for the long haul?

America’s Love Affair With the Lawn is Getting Messy—Tear out as much of your lawn as legally allowed.

Pro-Trump Counties Continue to Suffer Far Higher COVID Death Tolls—Talk about self-inflicted wounds.  These people will take medical advice from a Facebook post, but will not listen to an actual doctor telling them to get a vaccine.

What the Ukraine War Means for Western Lands—You can already hear the drumbeats of opening more lands to oil and gas drilling.  Too bad oil and gas producers have no intention of rushing to bring new lands into production any time soon.

‘Flash Droughts’ are Midwest’s Next Big Climate Threat—Why does the term “flash drought” make me think of a cheesy SyFy movie like Sharknado?

The World Has No Choice but to Care About India’s Heat Wave—Somehow this is all starting to feel like the beginning to Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry of the Future.

The Air Conditioning Paradox—As the planet warms and deadly heat waves become more of a problem it is not as simple as turning on the air conditioning.  The power requirements and refrigerant leaks from air conditioning systems will further drive increases in the very emissions that drive global warming.

Crypto Crash Probably Won’t Ease Crypto’s Massive Energy Suck—Exactly what problem is cryptocurrency trying to solve?  I am beginning to wonder if this is all just a massive Ponzi scheme for tech bros.

The Race to Produce Sustainable Steel—Steel production is one of the hidden carbon monsters in our industrial economy.  Reductions in the emission intensity of steel production will ripple through the economy.

How Does Forest Restoration Affect Water Cycles?—Trees and water are linked in ways we do not totally understand.  The number that kind of blew my mind was that there is ~900 million hectares of land available to be reforested without encroaching on agricultural or urban landscapes. That is over 2 billion acres of land.

Let’s Save Forests to Fight Climate Change—As if this is a controversial idea anymore.

Record Number of Dams Removed from Europe’s Rivers in 2021—Removing useless and dangerous dams to free rivers is just a win from so many perspectives.

When Wheat Never Dies—Moving just a small percentage of our crop acreage to a perennial wheat crop could have major benefits.  Imagine areas near waterways planted with kernza slowing down water and keeping soil in place with that long root system.

More than 3,000 Potentially Harmful Chemicals Found in Food Packaging—As if we needed another reason to avoid the highly processed packaged foods in the middle aisles of the grocery store.

Elon Musk Praises Chinese Workers for ‘burning the 3am oil’ – Here’s What that Really Looks Like—I get that people think Tesla is the future of automobiles, but every Tesla someone buys supports this no talent ass clown’s pocketbook.  Elon Musk is one of the primary reasons I will never own a Tesla.

Friday Linkage 5/13/2022

The reviews of the Ford F-150 Lightning electric vehicle are starting to roll in and the consensus is that this vehicle is a home run.

I am sure that there are Tesla Cybertruck “stans” out there who will declare the EV equivalent of jihad on anyone who dares to speak well of an EV other than one produced by Twitter’s soon to be owner.  However, the F-150 Lightning is a vehicle that is being produced right now, in a form factor that is familiar to millions, and supported by a huge base of both aftermarket accessories and service centers.

It is just too bad that if you are not already a reservation holder it will be several years before an F-150 Lightning is parked in your driveway.

On to the links…

The Smash-and-Grab Economy—Please take the time to read the series of articles that Mother Jones magazine recently published on private equity.  If you want to understand a lot of what is wrong with America today you need to understand private equity’s role in many of the problems.

Biden Administration Cancels Oil and Gas Lease Sales in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico—The fossil fuel industry is sitting on years of leases that are going undeveloped.  There is no need to further increase their backlog of potential drilling sites.

Lessons from New Mexico and Colorado’s Leading Methane Rules—Reducing the emissions from existing oil and gas wells should be a priority in any climate mitigation strategy.

The Massive, Unregulated Source of Plastic Pollution You’ve Probably Never Heard Of—Since plastic is made primarily from oil and gas this is the equivalent of an oil spill.

California Can Reliably Hit 85% Clean Energy By 2030 Without Risking Outages – En Route To A 100% Clean Grid—We have reached a point where individual states are able to get to nearly 100% clean energy without any new technologies being developed.

This is What We Need to Invent to Fight Climate Change—Renewables are already cheaper to install and operate than fossil fuel energy sources.  Every technological development just makes this a better business case for renewables.

More Bad News For Fossil Fuels: Silicon-Lithium EV Batteries Deliver Next-Level Performance—Next generation battery technologies promise to make our current worries about range and charging time a thing of the past.

Recycling Makes Lithium-Ion Batteries The IT Technology—Recycling the raw materials for new batteries from old batteries makes so much sense.  It remains to be seen if our poor record of recycling will also apply to batteries.

Mine E-Waste, Not the Earth, say Scientists—Beyond batteries, we are sitting on a figurative and literal gold mine of rare earth minerals and precious metals in the electronics we have stashed throughout our home.

Germany’s Plugin EV Share Up To 24.3%, Economic Pressures Mounting—The plug in vehicle market shares in Europe’s big automobile markets are approaching the one quarter mark.  The future is now.

Heat Pumps Do Work in the Cold — Americans Just Don’t Know it Yet—Talk to a dozen HVAC professionals in your area and you are likely to get a dozen different opinions on this topic.

Land-Building Marsh Plants are Champions of Carbon Capture—High impact ecosystems like marshlands can help us sequester loads of carbon with a much smaller footprint than other land use types.

A Story of 90,000 Trees: How Kenya’s Kipsigis Brought a Forest Back to Life—We can regenerate and restore the landscape if we do not treat it like private equity treats everything it touches.

If You Care About Humanity, Chill Out on the Steaks—The numbers are super compelling.  A 20% reduction in beef consumption could result in a 50% reduction in deforestation.

This Fermented Meat Alternative Could Help Halve Global Deforestation Rates—Just forego the steak already.

Millions of Tonnes of Dead Animals: The Growing Scandal of Fish Waste—It should be known that industrial fishing is just a giant machine producing so much waste in the pursuit of certain fish.

Amazon Fires Employees at Unionized Warehouse as Its Tactics Come Under Scrutiny—Amazon, like Starbucks, is a very bad actor when it comes to labor relations.  Remember that the next time you order something mindlessly from the everything store.

Friday Linkage 5/6/2022

Let’s not bury the lead story.  Republicans and the Supreme Court they massaged over the past forty years is poised to overturn Roe vs. Wade.  This is not surprising—despite what Susan Collins thinks the current justices said as nominees—but it is not likely to be the end of the rights that these people are coming for in the near future.  Get ready to defend your access to birth control.  These whack jobs are already messaging that any birth control is really just an abortifacient.  Get used to hearing that word a lot.

There is a lot more on the table as well.  Interracial marriage?  You bet and certain Republicans have already said the quiet part out loud when it comes to their beliefs on that issue.  Gay marriage?  I bet they are just salivating.  Gay sex?  If you have no right to privacy you have no right to hide your sexual preference from the government.  It gets all Gilead-like real quick.

The scary thing is that Samuel Alito actually quoted a jurist who convicted women of witchcraft.  Nothing says grasping at straws quite like that little bit of legal reasoning.

On to the links…

Is The Texas Grid Really Running Short Of Capacity In May?—What are things going to look like this summer?

CEO Pay Explodes Again: Why All Attempts To Stop It Have Failed—Tell me again why a single person at any company is worth this amount of money?

Climate Change: Record Tree Losses in 2021 in Northern Regions—Restoration of these ecosystems needs to be a primary concern.

Climate Change May Fuel “Devastating” Disease Outbreaks—COVID-19 is like a precursor to what is coming.

Climate Sceptic Think Tank Received Funding from Fossil Fuel Interests—If someone is arguing against the basic tenants of climate change they are either stupid or being paid by the fossil fuel industry.  Or both.

Solar Energy’s Latest Record Breaker: 5 Takeaways—The U.S. installed a total of 23.6 gigawatts of solar in 2021, which was a record.  The total represents 19% over 2020 and 77% over 2019.

California just shy of 100% powered by renewables for first time—Yes, it was during the day and, yes, it was for a short period of time.  Regardless, the state of California was generating more electricity via renewables than it was using.

In California, 12.5% Of New Light-Duty Vehicle Registrations Were Plug-In Electric Vehicles In 2021—California is leading the way.

Norway’s April EV Market Share At 84%, Fleet Share At 23%–The fleet share number is crazy.  That means 23% of the light duty vehicles on the road in Norway are EVs.  Imagine more than every fifth car you saw on the road being an EV.

France Plugin EV Share 21.1% In April, New Bestseller—While we love talking about Nordic countries EV adoption, France’s large car market at over 21% plug-in vehicle market share is very impressive.

World’s Fastest Electric Car Charger Installed In Norway—We get it Norway, you like EVs.

Texas Plans to Punish Companies That Move Away From Fossil Fuels—Remember this every time one of these right wing nut jobs cries “free markets” or some other nonsense.

Utah Wants to Build an Oil Railway through a Wilderness Area—Nothing like destroying wilderness to cling to fossil fuels.

We Have Way Too Much Corn—Distilling it into ethanol and feeding it to animals to produce meat is only making other problems worse.

California Feeds Us, But It’s in Severe Drought Again. Time for a New Idea.—Step one: Stop growing so much god damned corn.

‘Towns just turned to dust’: How Factory Hog Farms Help Hollow Out Rural Communities—These giant animal feeding operations are not good for the community in which they are located, the health of the people, or the environment.  Why exactly do we let this continue?

‘It’s just more and more lanes’: The Texan Revolt Against Giant New Highways—Texas politicians would build ten lane highways everywhere they could if the people would let them.

Urban Sprawl Defines Unsustainable Cities, but It Can be Undone—I doubt that I will see a major change to urban sprawl patterns in my lifetime.

The US Only Recycled About 5% of Plastic Waste Last Year—At least there is a lot of room for improvement.

Resale is Not Changing Our Relationship with Stuff — Here’s Why—Even when we are buying more used stuff, we are also buying too much new stuff.

You Can’t Buy Your Way to Happiness: How to Avoid the ‘Retail Therapy’ Trap—Just stop the insanity.