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Weekly spotlight on DK climate and eco-diaries (10/1/23): kids sue over climate; solar desalinator [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Daily Kos Staff Emeritus']

Date: 2023-10-01  

The spotlight is a weekly categorized compilation of links and excerpts from Daily Kos environmentally related posts. Any posts that are 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 ECO-DIARY OF THE WEEK

Ingenious solar distiller makes fresh water from seawater for less than 1¢ a gallon by skralyx. It’s pretty easy to get the salt out of seawater. All you have to do is boil it, freeze it, or just wait for rain! But those things take a lot of energy and/or time that many of us don’t have to spare. So people have been working on low-cost and low-energy-input ways to do it, such as solar desalination. We seem to have hit on a really good one here, thanks to a collaboration between MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). I couldn’t even cram all the benefits of this thing into my diary title. This device breaks the record for rate of fresh water production from seawater by a solar device, and as awesome as that is, it’s actually kind of a charming side note. The bigger breakthrough is that the device can keep running up near this rate for a long time without getting fouled by salt accumulation, and it does this by emulating natural processes that occur in the sea. That cuts costs by about 10x compared to typical solar desalination, making the cost of the fresh water it produces comparable to that of tap water. Oh, and because it doesn’t accumulate salt, it can process water containing up to 20% salt (seawater has only 3.5% salt, and salt-saturated water has about 26%). Other solar desalination devices can’t even operate with water that salty. That means you can use this kind of device to process the wastewater from existing desalination systems, to get even more fresh water.

Device prototype gets tested on the roof of an MIT building

CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS

The plants are mostly serviceberry, also mountain-ash and a few stray thimbleberry plants surrounding this rock formation.

The Daily Bucket - Fall Colors in a Western Conifer Forest by foresterbob. My work area in western Idaho is dominated by green conifers: Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, grand fir, Engelmann spruce, and western larch. The latter species displays bright yellows and golds when shedding its needles, but that happens later in the season. The colors come from the understory vegetation. This diary shows a sampling of the colors displayed over the past few days.

The Daily Bucket -- Early Autumn at Lake Erie Metropark by Clickadee. Lake Erie Metropark is part of southeast Michigan’s Huron-Clinton Metroparks system. It’s located at the mouth of the Detroit River as it flows into northwest Lake Erie. It’s also the main stake out for the Detroit River Hawk Watch. I wrote a Dawn Chorus about a breathtaking Canvasback murmuration I witnessed there last winter. A pretty cool place to birdwatch or just see what nature has to offer — like the fox kit in the title photo. Join me for a short visit from Sunday, September 24th.

Snowy Egret with huge yellow feet

Daily Bucket - Gators roaring at the sky by CaptBli. I sat several hours on a “observation platform” at the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge hoping to film animals (or any nature) that I encountered. The swamp didn’t disappoint me. I didn’t have much time on Sunday, with only a few hours in the late afternoon. I wanted to see which raptors were passing through this major migration route, and get a little walking in as well. I stopped first at an area where I saw lots of shorebirds last fall. However, the landscape had changed with a change in the water level. Last fall, water levels were down. Late winter and spring remained very dry. Thankfully, rains came this summer. According to U.S. Drought Monitor, we went from moderate drought to abnormally dry to currently no drought. Here’s two photos comparing last fall and now: I was filming a family of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks when I heard the roar of gators in the distance. It was a deep rumble that vibrated everything. I tried to record the sound but my equipment would not capture the low frequency. I’ll offer the video below to show how gators make the alarming noise I heard.

Dawn Chorus - Roseate Spoonbills at Wildcat Brake by CaptBLI. I am tired of mumbling that I am a birder. I don’t consider myself one but I aspire to be. I think I am more of a “bird-ginner”. I am fairly new to the discipline but entrenched to bettering my skills. With that stated, here are the results of my recent adventure. I saw my first Flamingos and Roseate Spoonbills in Orlando, Fla. 1979. I saw my next ones in 1990 at Vero Beach, Fla. I loved the rich pinks of both birds and hoped to see more in my life. It wasn’t until this year that I have seen and photographed both. It has been a long wait but well worth it.

Daily Bucket - Playing Hooky at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge by Cal Birdbrain. Drove up to Portland OR to attend a conference and it gave me an opportunity to skip out one morning and do a little birding. So I headed north into Washington to the nearby Ridgefield NWR. The weather was perfect mid 60s with a slight breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Went fairly early so there were only a couple of other vehicles around. Since it was the last day of summer, the ponds were completely dry. But there were a couple of creeks and channels with enough water for the few waterfowl still lingering in the area.

A Mourning Dove rests on a tangle of branches.

Daily Bucket - The Early Migrants are here by Cal Birdbrain. My friend texted me earlier this week confessing a need to hit the road and do a little birding. We decided to check out the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge to see if the ponds were flooded and if any birds have arrived. We were in luck — the White Fronted Geese had arrived but we are still waiting for the snow geese who also winter here. Some of the ponds were partially filled but the majority were still bone dry. The Sacramento NWR has a great auto tour route that winds through a number of artificial ponds that are flooded each fall to accommodate thousands of waterfowl that winter here from the far north. Photo Diary: River Parks, Tulsa OK by Lenny Flank. River Parks consists of several miles of walking/biking trail that run along the Arkansas River. It’s a nice place to spend a day.

CLIMATE CRISIS

Kids as young as 11 in Portugal, are suing the EU and demanding their Climate rights! by Peter Olandt. Physics.org is reporting on the efforts of Portuguese youth and young adults ages 11-24 suing the European Union over their right to have a habitable planet. The suit is against 32 European governments and is taking place in European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The case represents the first time that a climate lawsuit is held at the ECHR. It is also momentous through the sheer number of governments on trialand its plaintiffs' ages, now ranging from 11 to 24. Among the accused are the EU's 27 member states as well as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

Climate Change has put a timer on the ancient question of "who are we as a society?" by Peter Olandt. Why is wealth distribution so tied in with climate change? Because the wealthy rely on an economic system based on perpetual profit in a finite world. We’ve spread across the globe, so the only way to increase profit is to take value from others and to foist the costs on others. So long as releasing CO2 into the air is “free” to the wealthy, we will have a climate crisis. To combat climate change we need an economic system based on sustainability. ANY process that is counted on to increase forever in a finite world will eventually overwhelm us. But a static world in which wealth is forever frozen in the hands of a select few is both unjust and inherently unstable. It forces us to place our trust in a small group of benevolent dictators to continue to treat the rest of us justly and to not squeeze us out in some way. And violence will erupt as the oppressed strike out in small ways and large ones to overturn the unjust system.

Pinning point five collapsed, the sea ice barrier buttressing Thwaites and Pine Island Glacier by Pakalolo. Thwaites Glacier for 20 years finally lifted off due to warming ocean currents.. Iceberg B22a freed itself and tore away in December of 2022 from the Thwaites Glacier's front, leaving the floating tongue (ice stream) vulnerable to wave activity, year-round Pine Island sea ice laden cyclonic gyre, year-round melting and cheeseification of the glacier underbelly, and further fragmentation from relentless storms. No news source reported the finding, and I still haven't seen any since, as far as I know. Six months later, in April, NASA reported the news of Iceberg B22A drifting away but did not discuss what the consequences of its absence may be. Thwaites has only been studied since 2017 and is one of the most formidable places on earth. This is why I often refer to a rhetorical question of mine: Where is the Media? How can we demand action if this news is ignored, buried, or banned? That deglaciation event was a big fucking deal, to borrow from President Biden's glee on the Affordable Care Act passage.With its plug still intact but threatened by warm water upwelling, the Ice Tongue prevents the majority of West Antarctica land and undersea ice from collapse and seabed displacement, respectively. The changes are profound and terrifying. The land-fast ice is gone in front of PIG and Thwaites before the melt season begins. This is not going to end well.

x According to the current state of the Thwaites Glacier tongue & its both flanks (late Sept analysis) we have to place the entire glacial area in the highest emergency level. Partial or even complete shear at the anchor points is very likely (Nov/Dec).#AR7https://t.co/uI4itYMhcY — Kris Van Steenbergen (@KrVaSt) September 26, 2023

Poll: Why don’t you care about the Climate Crisis? by CorpFlunky. There are fewer climate posts these days, especially by anyone who can extrapolate a trend and who spends their own time warning folks here of real specific risks to our sea levels, forests, coastal homes, crops, livable temperatures, wildlife, pets, outdoor activities, etc. So, not to risk the wrath of the admins, I wouldn’t dare inform you about any of the scary facts or obvious trends concerning the end of most species on earth. Instead, I very humbly without any rudeness and in a completely non-elitist way, implore you to educate me as to why the Climate Crisis just isn’t very important to you.

No longer of interest and tossed into the “Dumpster fire” of consumption.

If life isn’t worth fighting for, is it worth living? Gaia won’t rebound until we master our desires by mikeymikey. There are many reasons for the ‘mystifying’ partial paralysis of humanity’s collective response to environmental collapse. Our No 1 biological imperative is survival, but like a solar panel on a cloudy day, it has been overshadowed and disabled by our ‘greater’ imperative of ‘junkie’ consumption. Foremost of these barricades to action, is sheer intractable momentum. Our modern life is like a runaway freight train on a downhill stretch of track, surrounded by a forest we don’t see — too immense and all pervasive to be recognized as we remain focused on the minutia of our petty concerns. More readily obvious, and therefore generally accepted causes, stem from the genocidal rampage of the Fossil Fuel industry, the scorched earth policies of corporations in general and the various methods they all employ to facilitate and mask their crimes. These include a veritable dust storm of lies and misinformation, as well as decades of well ‘funded’ and carefully crafted legislation enabling Gaia’s rape, while shielding her violators.

Overnight News Digest: We did it! Humanity 55% likely to cross 1.5°C of warming this year! by Magnifico. From Nature: Earth is hurtling towards its average temperature rising by 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. One climate model suggests that the likelihood of reaching that threshold in 2023 is now 55%. The 1.5 °C figure was a preferred maximum warming limit set by the United Nations in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. Climate scientists use different models to make predictions. Breaching the Paris limit requires a long-term trend of warming of 1.5 °C or more, but some research groups tracking average annual temperatures in isolation are already predicting 1.5 °C of warming this year. In May, a World Meteorological Organization report said that there was a 66% chance that the average annual temperature would breach 1.5 °C of warming between 2023 and 2027.

Time to Face the Music by Chuck Fair. Can I, one guy or gal, make an impact? We can if we sacrifice the status quo. If we don’t change, what will happen? Life as Americans know it will end: Climate disaster refugees will overwhelm our boarders, coastlines will disappear, floods and fires will destroy croplands and wildlands, disasters will bankrupt governments, and heatwaves will cripple our strength and kill our elderly and infants. Reducing Climate Change seems akin to emptying the ocean with a teacup, so many of us do not see how an individual effort, e.g., trading our low-mileage vehicle in for an environmentally friendly one, can make a difference. The slowing of climate change will happen when our hundred-million teacups dip into the ocean; slowing Climate Change is an effort long past due and must begin now.

British PM Richi Sunak to Climate: "DROP DEAD! We can't afford to save you!" by Beak. British PM Rishi Sunak’s decision against attending the UN General Assembly last week and thereby also missing the simultaneously held climate ambition summit, as he was alledgedly to busy with more important stuff, was called a major setback to international climate goals and a “disgusting betrayal of vulnerable people around the world”. The real reason for skipping the meetings was, that if he had gone, he had risked not being allowed to speak at the climate ambition summit, as UN secretary-general António Guterres would only permit countries, who are able to demonstrate their willingness to implement strikt emissions plans.

Getting People to Act on the Climate Crisis by dougld. At one time I thought it might best be used to educate about the science of climate change but I discovered that most people have a such a poor understanding of science in general, and physics and chemistry specifically, that it was impossible to educate them. Now however, it seems that a majority of people at least believe that climate change is a real issue even if they do not realize its severity. Because of that I think it may be possible to change peoples behavior to some degree as far as what they purchase and how they go about their daily lives. That could have a large impact on reducing greenhouse gases. I have gone to the theater a couple of times in the last year and even there I was presented with what the latest pharmaceutical drug could do for X, Y or Z during the preshow trailer time. Yeah, there’s money in that I guess for the drug companies, but if the government were to provide funds for “war effort” ads regarding the climate crisis, in the trailer time before a movie starts, I think it would be money well spent.

If this isn't Climate Change, then it is the Next Worst Thing by Jamess. From Time magazine: Up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain fell in some areas overnight, and as much as 7 inches (18 centimeters) more was expected throughout the day, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday morning. By midday, although there was a break in the downpour, Mayor Eric Adams urged people to stay put if possible. “It is not over, and I don't want those gaps in heavy rain to give the appearance that it is over,” he said at a news briefing. He and Hochul, both Democrats, declared states of emergency. No storm-related deaths or critical injuries had been reported as of midday, city officials said. But residents struggled to get around the waterlogged metropolis.

WATER & INFRASTRUCTURE

Final environmental impact report for Delta Tunnel project slated for release in 'late 2023' by Dan Bacher. In an announcement, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) said it is “still on track” to issue a Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the proposed Delta Conveyance Project — the Delta Tunnel - in “late 2023.” No exact date for the release of the EIR was mentioned, but I guess that’s how the controversial agency operates. “The Final EIR will describe potential environmental impacts, identify mitigation measures that would help avoid or minimize impacts and provide responses to all substantive comments received on the Draft EIR,” DWR claimed. “More information on the CEQA process for the proposed Delta Conveyance Project and other environmental compliance and permitting processes can be found on the project's permit portal website.” The tunnel is opposed by a broad coalition of recreational and commercial fishing groups, Indian Tribes, environmental justice organizations, conservation groups, the five Delta Counties, family farmers, Delta residents and businesses, elected officials and Southern California ratepayers.

A section of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta

Tribes and Delta Activists Respond to New State Water Board Report on Bay-Delta Plan Update by Dan Bacher. The California State Water Resources Control Board today released its controversial Draft Staff Report for the Phase II Update of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (“Bay-Delta Plan”), including a proposal that a coalition of Tribes and environmental justice groups called an “an illegitimate voluntary agreement program alternative.” The release of the report is part of the process required to update and implement the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. It evaluates environmental and related effects of instream flows and other potential changes to the Sacramento/Delta component of the plan, according to an announcement from the Water Board. “The nearly 6,000-page document, developed as part of the Sacramento/Delta update process that began in 2012 and incorporates input from multiple public workshops and recent tribal consultations and environmental justice listening sessions, examines a proposal based on a 2018 Framework , proposed voluntary agreements, and other alternatives for addressing reasonable protection of water quality and fish and wildlife in the watershed,” the Board stated

ENERGY & TRANSPORTATION

Dental office in southeast Denver. The solar photovoltaic system was installed in 2008.

Ask Solarman: Your Solar Guide by solarman55. Put simplistically, solar cells convert solar radiation into electrons. The cells are wired together on a rigid sheet and into a frame, with a small control board, making a solar panel. How much power they produce depends on the voltage characteristics of the solar cells. The resultant electricity production depends largely on your location, which dictates how much atmosphere sunlight has to go through to reach the solar panels. Clouds, particulates in the air and other atmospheric phenomena occlude sunlight, causing less to reach the surface, or the solar panels one your roof. Some of solar radiation even reaches the Earth at night. I’ve seen a tiny amount of production from a solar system I developed, on the Visitor Center at the Denver Botanic Gardens, from moonlight. Below you’ll find out where that power the solar system produces goes and how it benefits you.

Trump speech at nonunion auto parts company won’t erase his anti-union track record by Laura Clawson. ”Donald Trump is lying about President Biden’s agenda to distract from his failed track record of trickle-down tax cuts, closed factories, and jobs outsourced to China,” a Biden-Harris campaign spokesperson responded to Trump in an emailed statement. “There is no ‘EV mandate.’ Simply put: Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China and if he had his way, the jobs of the future would be going to China. President Biden is delivering where Donald Trump failed by bringing manufacturing back home, and with it, good-paying jobs for the American people.” This isn’t just Trump’s talking point. Other Republicans, like Sen. Josh Hawley, have gotten on board with the claim that the autoworkers are on strike because of Biden’s policies promoting electric vehicles, and that Biden’s climate efforts are sending auto jobs to China. It’s true that the UAW has expressed concerns about protecting jobs and pay in a transition to electric vehicles. But Democrats have been working on that: The Inflation Reduction Act included provisions to support electric vehicle and battery production in this country. Last month, TechCrunch reported, “In 2019, just two battery factories [for EVs] were operating in the United States with another two under construction. Today there are about 30 battery factories either planned, under construction or operational in the country.” The IRA is a major reason for that.

Josh Hawley joins UAW picket line, in support of climate change by Laura Clawson. On Monday, Sen. Josh Hawley became the rare high-profile Republican to visit a United Auto Workers picket line. But don’t rush to give him credit for supporting workers: Hawley used the occasion to slam efforts to fight climate change, pitting American workers against the environment. Hawley, like Donald Trump and some other Republicans, points to China’s big head start in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing to suggest that the U.S. shouldn’t promote electric vehicles, because they’ll just be manufactured in China. Democrats, on the other hand, are fighting—against fierce Republican resistance—to build the domestic supply chain and support U.S. manufacturing. The Inflation Reduction Act included provisions to support electric vehicle and battery production in this country. A shift to electric vehicles could cut jobs, it’s true—but doing it the right way, with policy supports in place, could mean more auto jobs, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis.

Clean electricity by Btemmink. Ontario's electricity system is 90% emissions free and accounts for just 3.4 per cent of the province's total GHG emissions. Ontario has been switching to nuclear energy since 2005. Since then, emissions have dropped by 90%. Nearly 60% of Ontario’s electricity is generated by nuclear energy. Ontario now plans to add small modular reactors to its nuclear energy fleet. I point this date out for three reasons. First that is an impressive change in a relatively short period of time. Second, it has been going on for long enough to allay any fears folks might have about their nuclear energy technology. Third, they obviously are pleased enough with their results to keep moving in this same direction. I was going to write, “We should be so lucky.” That would be wrong. It is not luck. It is a question of will. We need to will ourselves to this level of success.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us by Btemmink. I live in Maryland. This year Maryland passed legislation to create 8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. That is, indeed, a lot of clean energy. Too much, actually. We should probably stop building wind farms as soon as we start building new nuclear energy plants. We should do both as soon as possible. A number of Blue states like Maryland are now passing mammoth renewable energy plans. We now have the power in those states to do so. We should do a little math first. Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves handing our government over to the rising authoritarian movement. The math is simple. I’ll use offshore wind as my example here, because, frankly, it is the most efficient of the popular renewable energy sources. The European Wind Energy Association did some analysis of OSW. Obviously, these folks are big supporters of OSW. They state proudly that their offshore wind production is 41% efficient. Not bad. Not too bad at all. But, not nearly good enough.

Coming in 2026: around the world in 20 days without using fossil fuels - Solar Airship One by xaxnar. There’s an effort underway in France to build an airship for a flight around the world without using fossil fuel. The upper surface of the airship will be covered with solar panels driving electric motors, as the illustration above shows. A fuel cell powered by hydrogen will provide power at night. The engineering details of the design incorporate a number of innovations that will truly advance the state of the art: SOLAR AIRSHIP ONE is a 151-meter-long rigid airship with a helium expansion volume of 53,000 m3. Its envelope is covered with 4,800 m2 of solar film. Electrical generation comes from 2 sources: the sun and hydrogen. The day with solar collectors, the night with fuel cells.

The Biden administration is offering up leases for offshore oil and gas production - Guess why by xaxnar. The article puts this key paragraph almost all the way down the page . While the article focuses on all the controversy for Biden on this from both sides, you’d think starting out with the details of why it’s happening this way would deserve to be right up top. It would also be interesting if The NY Times could quote any environmental groups accepting the trade-off as the only way to currently get that clean energy. Still, the initial framing could have been a lot worse. The real story is that Joe Manchin has forced the U.S. to keep allowing drilling for fossil fuels even as Biden is trying to build out more clean energy. Anyone angry at Biden for this needs to redirect their ire to the real culprit. This was likely one of Manchin’s demands for not blocking the Inflation Reduction Act in the Senate. As it is, Republicans are planning to challenge in court the 5 year plan this is part of, although it may (hopefully) be an uphill fight for them. Gulf Coast environmentalists are not happy either — but this is the only way those wind farms can get built under the law as it is — and this would never happen under a Republican administration.

Renewable Tuesday 9/26: Raising Targets by Mokurai. The first thing about exponential growth is that the rate of increase is proportional to how far along you have gotten. The other thing about exponential growth is that the doubling time is constant. That’s what happens in the first half of the logistic curve to the right, It roughly describes the growth of markets for new technologies, and species growth when introduced to new environments. Old chestnut: Suppose a water plant can double its numbers every day, and thus can take 30 days to cover a lake, growing by a factor of more than a billion in all. How many days does it take to cover half the lake?*

If the doubling time of two years holds, that's 6M on the roads in 2025, 12M in 2027, 24M n 2029, 48M in 2031...

By Request of the Climate: Know who owns your gas utility by Kat Snyder. SoCalGas, which services the southern half of California, is owned by Sempra, a Gas & Oil company with major liquid natural gas reserves in Texas. For this reason, two things are happening: (1) SoCalGas bought expensive gas from Sempra’s Texas branch, making Southern Californians’ gas bills soar this past winter, and (2) they are behind a major astroturf campaign to stop California from lowering its use of “natural” gas in accordance with its environmental goals. The Sacramento Bee uncovered what activists have assumed to be true for years: SoCalGas is paying the California Restaurant Association — and Asian and Latino spokespeople in particular — to convince their elected representatives that there is a major grassroots groundswell against switching from gas to electric appliances. They specifically say that induction woks cannot replace woks on gas stoves without being culturally insensitive.

FOOD, AGRICULTURE & GARDENING

Prairie Spice Pepper

Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 19.39 Peppers Winding Down & Hot Sauce by Downheah Mississippi. 2023 has been a pretty good pepper season, but as you can tell from the title picture, the Pepper Patch has about run out of steam. All the plants are still producing, but the fruit is smaller and ripening quickly; I’ll probably get one more picking in before I call it quits for the season. I made a small batch of Prairie Spice sauce last week and shared it with some folks at work. Everybody seemed to like it, but a couple of folks commented that it wasn’t really very hot. It’s comparable to a jalapeno, about 5-8000 on The Scoville Scale. I call it “sneaky hot”; it’s got a nice, slow building heat … The next batch is Hinkelhatz (Amish for “chicken heart”). At somewhere around 30,000 on the Scoville Scale, this sauce should have a bit more “kick.”

There Are Only Nine Meals Between Humankind and Anarchy by SninkyPoo. We’ve all seen the headlines and the accompanying Twitter hashtags: OMG your beer is in danger! On the WWF site: … as erratic weather and droughts driven by climate change impact crops and freshwater, the world’s favorite fermented beverage could take a hit. Is climate change drastically deteriorating the quality of your wine?! Per the Atlantic headline: Full-Bodied with Notes of Band-Aid and Medicine. Chocolate threatened by climate change?! Noooooooo!!!! According the Green Queen, there are 5 foods to worry about, including potatoes and chocolate: We all love chocolate, don’t we? Sadly, due to climate change, the cacao plant could be completely wiped out by 2050. And so it goes. The catchy internet story forwarded to you by your aunt who bonds with you over wine, or your best friend who owns that “I NEED A HUGE amount of chocolate” t-shirt.

RESOURCES & ACTION

TODAY: Call the White House btwn 11am-3pm EST to tell Pres. Biden: "Declare a Climate Emergency!" by Progressive Democrats of America.

Climate resilience: Building climate resilience by Gardening Toad. Even after our elected officials take action on the climate, we citizens will still have to live through a period of increasing natural disasters including floods, droughts, and various dangerous weather conditions. It will take many years for the climate to stabilize, probably not in our lifetimes, so we need to begin now to build a culture of resilience. This means stopping the creation of deserts in our cities, towns, and countryside. There is so much we can do to restore local ecosystems and make our communities more abundant for humans and other living things. This needs to happen primarily at the household level but from there can move outward into community and business spaces. Here are some resources to help folks get started

Climate resilience: Why take action? by Gardening Toad. Because even after our elected officials take action on the climate, we citizens will still have to live through a period of increasing natural disasters including floods, droughts, and various dangerous weather conditions. It will take many years for the climate to stabilize, probably not in our lifetimes, so we need to begin now to build a culture of resilience. This means stopping the creation of deserts in our cities, towns, and countryside. There is so much we can do to restore local ecosystems and make our communities more abundant for humans and other living things. This needs to happen primarily at the household level but from there can move outward into neighborhood and business spaces. It’s extremely unlikely that politicians will do this work for us. People keep telling me that non-political climate action is useless. I don’t agree.

[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.]

Doing What's Right -- Strike for the Planet week 93 by birches. This week’s letter: Doing What’s Right. Have you noticed our species’ chances of survival are rapidly falling?1, 2, 3 We’ve screwed up so badly we now need a moonshot — a rapid mass of actions and innovations — if we’re going to survive at all. This moonshot cannot be an excuse for the rich to get richer; if it is, we will fail. This time we need to do something different. This time we actually need to do what’s right. Why should we do what’s right? You need to be a big bad bully to survive! Actually, no. Social Darwinism that envisions the relationship between humans as being a zero-sum struggle for resources, bloody in tooth and claw, is a funhouse mirror distortion of what evolutionary biology actually tells us. It turns out selfish traits are not evolutionarily beneficial. The data show again and again that humans who — in societies or as individuals — practice generosity and altruism receive massive benefit from these positive survival strategies. Big, bad bullying is anti-survival in every way. Fine. So we’ll try to do right by other humans. No. Sorry. See, it turns out that life also needs other life to survive, and the greater the amount of biological diversity, the greater the likelihood of any life surviving a changing environment.

Finding The Resources -- Strike for the Planet week 92 by birches. This week’s topic: Finding The Resources. We need resources — fast — in order to act, and we need to act — fast — in order to survive. So where do we find the needed resources? First, stop the parasites. Parasites? Yes, parasites: organisms that injure or kill their hosts and reduce host fitness by general or specialized pathology. People getting rich off the destruction of the biosphere are parasites; they are literally, in real time, killing their host by destroying the ability of this planet to support life, injuring everyone not killed directly, and severely reducing our ability to survive. Who are these parasites, these thieves of the Commons? The 10 richest men (and they’re all men) have raked in enough money during the pandemic to pay for vaccines for the entire human race and lift everyone out of poverty without even touching the riches they’d bogarted pre-Covid. It’s not hard to identify the parasites-privateers-thieves. They are the ones squeezing the planet as hard as they can for everything they can get out of it, and getting tons of publicity for doing so.

Get On The Job Or Get Out Of The Way -- Strike for the Planet week 91 by birches. This week’s topic: Get On The Job Or Get Out Of The Way. What’ s the problem here? As everyone who has been looking and listening knows, you can’t fight White Nationalism by humoring the White Nationalists.1 Big problems don’t go away by ignoring them or through cosmetic token actions. In other words, you can’t fight climate chaos by pretending it isn’t happening or by too-small acts of climate “appeasement”.2 We are at the “act big or die” stage here and so far you’re not acting anywhere close to big enough to have any impact at all. So why aren’t you acting like it counts?

Use The Tools You've Got -- Strike for the Planet week 90 by birches. This week’s topic is Use the Tools You’ve Got. That’s what they did in the moonshots — they used what they had, to do the job, and get to the moon. We’re trying to get to a planet that supports life. SF Environment is a tool not being used? Yup. SF voters created this department by a charter amendment in 1995 with a mission to “improve, enhance and preserve the environment and promote San Francisco’s long term environmental sustainability.” This is hard to do when the department isn’t listened to, funded, or allowed to do its job, its expertise is ignored, and it is kept out of the loop of power politics. SF Environment doesn’t even have offices in City Hall and appears to have no teeth or input into the environmental issues that wrack SF, such as the sidestepping of state laws on developing toxic sites, the massive street sewage problem both above and below ground, the Delta Tunnel project that will destroy the bay, and so much more. Their job is literally to keep SF viable but they have less power than Animal Care and Control.

Sister Communities -- Strike for the Planet week 89 by birches. You’re past the obvious solutions now, so it’s time for some moon shots. This one seems easy, especially for politicians, and I can’t believe you haven’t done it yet but you haven’t, so here we go: San Francisco needs Sister Communities inside California. What’s the problem? Our state’s deep economic split gives the haves billions (or trillions) and the have-nots very very little. Combine that with the lack of opportunities in rural areas, the impossible costs of living in CA’s urban areas, a rural school-to-opioid pipeline, and rural anger being funneled into racism and fascism, and you’ve got a toxic stew, easily exploitable by demagogues and Nationalists. Demagogues and Nationalists are not interested in climate change; they “don’t believe in it” in much the same way they don’t believe in Covid-19. But, as has been demonstrated time and time again, beliefs can’t trump reality. So we have to get rural Californians in the game if any of us are to survive. Otherwise we’ll be fighting off attempted coup after civil war after terrorist attack in the midst of climate change and we’ll all lose. How did this happen?

To Protect and Serve -- Strike for the Planet week 88 by birches. This week’s topic: To Protect And Serve. Who do you work for? According to the Preamble to the 1996 Charter, you are supposed to work for the residents of San Francisco. But do you? To find out, let’s look at who has privilege in SF and who doesn’t. We can get a handle on this because a great marker of privilege is to see who the political establishment protects and serves. So, who do you protect and serve? So you work for the 0.1% — why? Why them and not us? They are the smallest group in SF with the most resources at their disposal. They don’t need your constant attention, deference, or for your first thoughts to be of them. We do.

MISCELLANY

Recycling rethink: To pay or not to pay. That is the question by Alan Kandel. When I was a child living in the second home my parents owned, milk by truck used to be delivered to our house. The truck driver would deliver milk in glass bottles and place it in a cooler that was positioned near the home’s front door. The to-be-returned empty bottles would also be placed in the cooler for the driver to empty when delivering more milk. Instead of being discarded, the glass bottles would be collected, presumably sterilized, and then reused. That whole process seemed reasonable, that is, until one day it wasn’t and consumers instead visited their neighborhood grocer to buy milk in either paper or plastic cartons that could then be discarded as trash upon the contents being emptied. That system seemed reasonable, also, until it wasn’t. It was a similar situation for purchasing soda at the grocery store, only a deposit was tacked on to the price of the soda and, when the empty bottles were returned after use, the purchaser got their deposit back. That practice, too, as far as I know fell by the wayside. So, the question on the table is: When it comes to recycling-program participation, what method is best at getting people to participate: The threat of penalty (aka the stick) or the enticement of reward (aka the carrot)? For my money, it’s incentives all the way.

Study: Autism, low IQ scores linked to pollution are worse for Black, Latino and poor children by Meteor Blades. It’s no news to most people that air pollution kills. A 2014 World Health Organization study found that global total is about 7 million annually. A 2021 Harvard study put that toll at 8.7 million. But there are less lethal impacts as well. A newly published scientific review of 218 studies in Environmental Health Perspectives found that exposure to toxics like air pollution and lead is linked to autism, lower IQ scores, and worse memory. Those studies, published in 1974 to 2022, scrutinized children’s exposure to toxics including lead, particulate matter, organophosphate pesticides, PBDE flame retardants, PCBs, and phthalates, all known to harm brain development. Said co-lead author Devon C. Payne-Sturges, an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, in a press release: “As a result of discriminatory practices and policies, families with low incomes and families of color are currently and historically disproportionately exposed to chemicals without their knowledge or consent where they live, work, play, pray, and learn. Their neighborhoods are more likely to be located near factories, chemical plants, superfund sites, highways and more vehicle traffic, or by agricultural fields where pesticides are applied.”

Earth Matters: Calif. case against deceptive Big Oil could be definitive; UAW strike could be, too by Meteor Blades. The Golden State was a pioneer decades ago in curbing toxic air pollution from tailpipe emissions. Since then California has been in the lead among the states on a whole range of policies designed to curb greenhouse gas pollution, including a ban on new sales of gasoline-powered cars (by 2035) and locomotives and diesel-powered trucks (by 2036). The state, however, has not been at head of the queue when it comes to taking on oil companies over lying for decades about the damaging impacts of extracting and burning fossil fuels. Some 40 other states have already done so. So has New York City. On Sept. 15, California, the seventh largest oil-producing state, joined them with its own 135-page lawsuit. Some of those previous lawsuits have laid the groundwork for this one. It’s going to be the case where we find out whether we will be allowed to squeeze out some billions of dollars in reparations. Not that anything short of trillions would actually cover the harm. Whatever is decided, the case will be in the courts for years. According to the brief, oil giants ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP have known for more than 60 years that carbon emissions from continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels would cause the planet to warm. But as investigative reporters revealed eight years ago, instead of sounding the alarm, they kept quiet until serious people started seriously talking about doing something serious to curb these emissions. Then, in the words of authors Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes, the oil men became “merchants of doubt,” telling lies and also paying big bucks to propaganda fronts and individuals to do more lying. Also named in the lawsuit is the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry’s lying trade association.

Pick Your Armageddon: Nuclear or Climate. Which Gets Priority in The Finite States of America? by jliccione. Trying to achieve the two victories of reversing climate change and eliminating the risk of nuclear war will be impossible to accomplish in parallel in my estimation. Why? Because solving one, i.e., preventing nuclear war through elimination of all nuclear weapons and materials production, if we listen to the strategy espoused by some of my most progressive Democratic colleagues, will make the other (climate change reversal) much harder to achieve within our and our children’s lifetimes. Why? Because subtracting ALL carbon-zero nuclear power out of the clean energy equation too soon will extend our dependency on carbon fuels...for too long. If there is a way to deliver victory on both objectives at the same time I’m not seeing it in the math or science. At least, not yet. I could be convinced otherwise I suppose and remain open to convincing.

Overnight News Digest, Saturday Science 9/30/2023 - Green New Deal, JWST, Sleep study by Rise above the swamp. From The Guardian: Students at more than 50 high schools across the US are proposing a Green New Deal for Schools, demanding that their districts teach climate justice, create pathways to green jobs after graduation and plan for climate disasters, among other policies. The campaign, coordinated by the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate justice collective, is a reaction to rightwing efforts to ban or suppress climate education and activism at schools. The national effort could include teach-ins and walkouts, as well as targeted petitions to school boards and districts in the coming weeks, organizers with Sunrise told the Guardian, ahead of the Monday launch. “We are prepared to do whatever it takes,” said Adah Crandall, 17, an organiser for the Sunrise Movement based in Portland, Oregon.

Recent Spotlights

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