Mosquitoes are having themselves a summer in the Great Lakes region: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-e...es-are-worse-michigan-summer-and-it-aint-over Spoiler: excerpt Why are mosquitoes so bad right now? The mosquitoes swarming Michigan now are a species called summer floodwater mosquitoes. While male mosquitoes flit from plant to plant sipping nectar, female summer floodwater mosquitoes suck the blood of animals and lay eggs in low lying grassy areas like along roadways, roadside ditches and grassy swales their entire lifespan, which lasts about three weeks. They can lay hundreds of eggs up to possibly six times before they die, Walker said. When water inundates areas where mosquitoes laid eggs, the eggs hatch and mosquitoes emerge as adults a week to 10 days later. But this year Michigan experienced near-drought conditions back in April. Without rainfall, the mosquito eggs built up without hatching – eggs can even survive through winter and hatch in succeeding years, Walker said. That build-up of eggs culminated into the swarm of mosquitoes we see now after rain inundated Michigan at the end of June. ...... Does climate change impact the mosquito population? Elevated temperatures, a result of climate change, increase the risk of mosquito-borne disease, Walker said. More intense rainfall is also projected as a result of climate change. The mosquitoes are worse this year than any I can remember. The bats are having a fucking blast.
I did a tour today looking at how king tides and ocean rise is affecting things down here in South Florida. It seems like certain cities are working towards the future. New code is making it so all sea walls are 5', but FEMA wants it to be 7'. Spoiler: Pic of water that went over sea wall because it's not high enough Spoiler: Pic of Sea Wall broken
What are king tides? A few times a year the tides get higher than normal (~3 feet higher than "high tide"). Typically October is the peak with September/November being in 2nd/3rd place. Here's more info (that has has more and less days of King Tides than I said above).
Big if true Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning. https://apple.news/AA8PfduZQQS6jZUXBqVvgtg
I wouldn’t think so. You’re heating the house from the inside. The exterior paint isn’t going to affect that, IMO.
Yeah but if exterior paint let’s heat in during the summer, wouldn’t it absorb less heat from the sun in the winter, thus making it cooler inside the house?
Winter time you have much less solar energy available so the heat gain during winter would be negligible imo.
Yea, no thank you. I don’t need to hear my paint constantly telling me how Ben Shapiro has a point or that the food I just cooked is ‘too spicy.’
this is interesting but I'm on the team with folks who think walls aren't gonna save us and are a waste of effort, destined to be breached and/or destroyed. You can't fight the ocean like this.
The paint doesn’t let heat in, though. Since the paint is so absent of colors, it reflects almost all the light so no heat is being adsorbed in the summer time, leading to less AC use because your house isn’t being warmed from the sun. However, since the majority of heat production in the winter comes from internal sources, the things in your house like walls and insulation will help keep the warmth in.
Putting it all on the consumer to buy our way out of climate change is a great gift. Also will make little to no difference on the individual level
Had a friend tell me that climate change is my real because what’s happening isn’t new and the earth does this to correct itself every 15000 years, citing the last ice age as an example. I asked what data he had on mass flooding, drought and wildfires before the previous earth correction. No answers. People who think this isn’t real will give you any excuse.
The stupid decisions being made by political leaders that are in turn creating energy crisis in Europe, Asia, and the US is really threatening the momentum of this energy transition. Take Merkel and Germany who decided to close down all their nuclear power plants and rely on wind and solar. But wind and solar is variable not a base load so now Germany is sucking down coal and natural gas imports from Russia and energy prices are surging. Another example is California wanting to close down Diablo nuclear power plant which provides 10% of the states electricity (and is clean) but is already facing an energy crunch and petitioning the EPA for a state of emergency so they can run 5 natural gas plants to operate without pollution restrictions. Democrats or left leaning political parties pushing so hard with just wind and solar are going to fall flat on their face with this energy transition. Peoples opinions on this topic are going to start to change when their power is limited, economic prosperity is limited, and their quality of life starts suffering. I think peoples opinions of nuclear is starting to change but its still early and it needs to continue.
Im not making this a democrats vs republicans thing, its clear what side is making a push towards fixing the problem. But you can push towards a goal in the wrong manner and in the process get rid of the goodwill you have created.
I understand the phrase just not the sentence it was used in. I’m assuming he’s stating he’s fine with Diablo closing.
No, the people of California are dumb when it comes to energy/power plants. They want clean power but not nuclear. After how shitty Rancho Seco was ran and all its associated problems/events, the public lost trust in nuclear power out there. Also natural gas was half the price back in the day.
Caesars Palace To Host 3-Day Climate Denier Conference Casino giant Caesars Entertainment, a self-proclaimed industry leader on climate, is slated to welcome Heartland Institute’s annual confab of climate denial and misinformation. By Chris D’Angelo and Alexander C. Kaufman Ashley Cooper via Getty Images Caesers Palace on Las Vegas Boulevard at dusk, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Caesars Entertainment, one of the world’s largest casino-resort operators, is set to host the Super Bowl of climate change denial this month at its iconic Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. On Oct. 15, the Illinois-based Heartland Institute is scheduled to convene its three-day “International Conference on Climate Change,” an annual confab at which the right-wing think tank that cut its teeth shilling for the tobacco industry in the 1990s parades its stable of pundits and contrarians who reject climate science. This year’s event, dubbed “The Great Reset: Climate Realism Vs. Climate Socialism,” will dive headfirst into the conspiracy that world governments are simply using climate change to control people’s lives. “The global climate agenda, as promoted by the United Nations, is to overhaul the entire global economy, usher in socialism, and forever transform society as one in which individual liberty and economic freedom are crushed,” reads a description of the event. The list of keynote speakers is a who’s who of the denial movement, including William Happer, the retired Princeton University physics professor who served as an adviser to President Donald Trump and has declared Earth is in the midst of a “CO2 famine”; Myron Ebell, director of the right-wing Competitive Enterprise Institute who led the Trump EPA transition team and was a key figure in Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the historic Paris climate agreement; and Steve Milloy, a former cigarette and coal lobbyist who also served on the Trump EPA transition team. Like most casinos, Caesars Entertainment hosts all kinds of events. The company itself donates to candidates across the ideological spectrum, but, since 2012, has generally contributed more to Democratic campaigns each election cycle. But the Heartland event runs counter to the $25 billion casino giant’s own corporate pledges on climate change, which includes “using the methodology prescribed by” United Nations scientists to design plans to eliminate planet-heating emissions throughout its supply chain. The company’s website features an entire page on climate change and its “commitment to science-based goals.” On it, the company touts its “climate leadership” and says it is “committed to developing science-based” climate targets and “dedicated to collaborating with other organizations to advance industry-wide and overall corporate climate leadership.” The firm, which owns Caesars Palace and dozens of other casino resorts, did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment Monday. But less than two months ago, the company pulled the plug on a conference it was set to host in Las Vegas on behalf of a group that espouses the fringe conspiracy known as QAnon. The Heartland Institute’s conference was initially christened the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change,” or NIPCC. The name was an unsubtle attempt at branding Heartland’s modest gathering of fringe scientists and political cranks as a legitimate alternative to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the premiere global climate science body made up of top researchers from more than 100 countries. Heartland’s hard-line climate denial may have filled its coffers throughout the early 2000s as oil and coal companies pumped money into its campaigns to harass scientists and confuse the public over what accumulated carbon does to the atmosphere. But by the early 2010s, even Exxon Mobil Corp., one of the fiercest opponents of climate science, stopped giving Heartland money. Far-right megadonors stepped in to fill the void. Hedge fund billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer began giving the nonprofit millions. The donations helped prop up the institution, giving Heartland newfound influence in Washington when former President Donald Trump, a fellow recipient of Mercer money, took office and began a damaging but quixotic quest to blind the federal government to the long-understood realities of fossil-fuel-induced warming. Still, it didn’t take long for the group to wither under fresh scrutiny. In 2017, while goading the new Environmental Protection Agency leadership to host a public debate over climate science, Heartland proposed as one of its debaters a convicted child sex offender. Within months, HuffPost revealed that one of Heartland’s top officials had defended the nonprofit’s former marketing chief against charges that he stalked and harassed a young female employee. In 2019, the once-ascendant think tank retreated back into its ideological fortress, denying HuffPost and other major news outlets press credentials to cover that year’s conference, held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. “HuffPost won’t be getting any credentials for this conference,” Heartland’s Jim Lakely wrote at the time. “You can watch the live-stream if you want to cover it.” By 2020, Heartland’s brand of outright climate denial had begun to lose sway as mounting disasters made tangible what scientists had warned for decades would come of unchecked emissions. It attempted to win back relevance by plucking from obscurity a German teenager who, with her blond hair and serious tone, superficially offered deniers their own version of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen whose climate protests inspired a global movement. But Naomi Seibt, the so-called anti-Greta, quickly drew more negative attention once the teen’s links to neo-Nazis and white nationalist agitators surfaced. Seibt is also slated to speak at Heartland’s conference in Las Vegas. By the end of winter 2020, Heartland laid off at least 10 staffers amid worsening financial woes. “Heartland is broke,” one long-time staffer said in a text message HuffPost obtained at the time. Tickets for Heartland’s event at Caesars Palace go for $250 per head.
Diablo is in my backyard and built on a fault line. They distribute free iodine tablets with local calendars annually out here. I’ve also been told that there are some fairly major issues with its design, you know, in addition to being on top of a fault line. My understanding is that is those are the primary drivers behind the closure, but I will admit to not being well-researched on the subject. Just what I’ve been told by the locals who have lived here far longer than me. Still fondly remember being at a work Christmas party a few years ago when news broke that a fire had broken out at the plant, and we all kinda nervously sat there wondering if we were all going to die.
We're just now getting fall like temperatures here in Central VA, and even still the highs are a bit higher than what you would expect of fall, low to mid 70s.
Lake Tahoe is now terminal thanks to climate change and drought Kokanee salmon normally make their way from Lake Tahoe to Taylor Creek this time of year to spawn. Thanks to climate change, the fish will have to find another route instead. A combination of climate change and an ongoing drought have led to Lake Tahoe’s waters receding below the natural rim of 6,223 feet and continuing to plummet. This has stranded the lake so that its waters no longer flow to the Truckee River. Lake Tahoe is now considered “terminal” because it no longer has an outlet. Spoiler Conditions have impacted nearby waterways like Fallen Leaf Lake, which is connected to Lake Tahoe by Taylor Creek. Normally during salmon spawning season, the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit boosts the flow of water from Fallen Leaf Lake to Taylor Creek, encouraging salmon to spawn there. Low water levels have rendered this nearly impossible and forced the Forest Service to cancel its annual Fall Fish Festival, which usually ushers in the spawning season. “The Kokanee have been known to find other creeks to swim up and spawn in and are known to return to Taylor Creek the following year when conditions allow,” the Forest Service noted in a press release. Long-term forecast predictions don’t look encouraging, however. “It’s putting us on warning that things could get a lot worse,” UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center Director Geoffrey Schladow told the Los Angeles Times. UC Davis has been monitoring Lake Tahoe since 1958 and annually releases a “State of the Lake” report highlighting its conditions. This year’s report sounds the alarm on the damage climate change will continue to do to Lake Tahoe. Predictive models show an increase in air temperature, decrease in snowfall, and more intense droughts when they do happen. Precipitation will present itself more as rainfall than snowfall, leading to more dramatic swings in water levels. Lake Tahoe is presently on a downswing in water levels and, according to Schladow, that’s the way it’s mostly been since last year. Even if Lake Tahoe gets a bump from rainfall and snowfall, it faces contamination threats from debris from the nearby Caldor Fire, which is still smoldering and will continue to do so for weeks to come. Smoke and ash have already floated into the lake because of this year’s intense wildfire season. If conditions stay dry, many of the 63 streams flowing into Lake Tahoe could become blocked by sandbars. This presents yet another roadblock for salmon to spawn. Though Kokanee salmon were introduced to Lake Tahoe by humans in 1944, the fish are a vital part of the region’s economy, drawing tourists and sports fishermen alike. This may all sound bleak, and it is! But we can make a difference if we put our all into investing in the very necessary infrastructure we need to combat climate change. Start here by urging Congress to pass the Build Back Better Act.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/18/business/coal-power-climate-crisis/index.html Since there’s a natural gas shortage coal plants are being asked to make up the drop in power on the grid. For instance our plants have been load following since 2014, but this year we have been baseloaded and rarely come off 100% power due to lack of gas/ higher costs of natural gas. RTO’s are choosing the cheapest resources available to keep costs down to the consumers. Large issues of congestion on the grid when the wind is blowing is keeping all available wind power from being used. Nobody likes those big transmission lines in their backyards. Also from what I’ve read theres is 700 megawatt wind farm that cant tie into the grid because they failed to do an adequate environmental impact study. An endangered beetle species habitat is right where their right of way is to tie an existing interconnection point they spent millions upgrading. They’ve tried to go tie into another spot but they've been relegated to the back of the interconnection que and have to wait about 5 years before that wind farm can come online. They have filed lawsuits but the goverNment has rules against them for cutting corners on those lack of environmental studies they did.