by gmoke
Mon Oct 17th, 2022 at 06:37:52 PM EST
Salmon Wars: The Dark Underbelly of Our Favorite Fishy Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, "a critical look at the commercial salmon farming industry which now provides 90 percent of the salmon consumed by North Americans"
book: https:/us.macmillan.com/books/9781250800305/salmonwars
CSPAN interview: https:www.c-span.org/video?522142-1/qa-douglas-frantz-catherine-collins-commercial-salmon-farming
A tropical garden inside Manaus, Brazil Innovation House provides passive cooling
https:/www.agritecture.com/blog/2022/9/16/laurent-troost-revives-an-abandoned-structure-in-manaus-b
y-inserting-a-tropical-garden-inside
It's Time to Make Cities More Rural
https:www.wired.com/story/why-its-time-to-make-cities-more-rural
hat tip: Gil Friend
NION - sustainable office building in Frankfurt am Main with gardens inside and out
https:/www.unstudio.com/en/page/16495/nion
https:inhabitat.com/nion-to-be-one-of-frankfurts-most-sustainable-office-spaces
Factory in Vietnam with walls of live plants
https:/g8a-architects.com/project/jakob-factory
https:/inhabitat.com/the-jakob-factory-in-vietnam-builds-walls-out-of-live-plants
Mary Mattingly, environmental artist working on urban food systems, among other things
https:/www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/t-magazine/mary-mattingly-art-climate.html(not sure this will get you past the paywall but it's worth a shot)
Edible Cities - turning parks into orchards and gardens where anyone can pick for free
https:wapo.st/3Mkk8tB" (not sure this will get you past the paywall but it's worth a shot)
Here are some of the resources mentioned in the WashPost article:
Edible Town, Andernach, Germany - https:www.andernach-tourismus.de/en/andernach/the-edible-town
Edible Cities Network -https:www.edicitnet.com
Endless Orchard - public access fruit trees around the world - https:endlessorchard.com/map
Urban Food Forest, Atlanta, GA - https:/www.aglanta.org/urban-food-forest-at-browns-mill-1
Food Forests, Philadelphia, PA - https:/www.phillyorchards.org/2020/06/10/philadelphias-food-forests
Beacon Food Forest, Seattle, WA - https:/beaconfoodforest.org
George Washington Carver Edible Park, Asheville, NC - https:www.facebook.com/Dr-George-Washington-Carver-Edible-Park-620672487948577
Bloomington, Ind Community Orchard - https:bloomingtoncommunityorchard.org/site
Hyattsville, MD Food Forests - https:/www.hyattsville.org/902/Food-Forests
Community orchards in the UK help preserve apples
https:www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63160292
This could be called planting for gleaning:
Boston Area Gleaners
https:www.bostonareagleaners.org
Agnès Varda's two documentaries on gleaning:
The Gleaners and I
https:www.criterion.com/films/30368-the-gleaners-and-i
The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later
https:/www.criterion.com/films/30564-the-gleaners-and-i-two-years-later
by gmoke
Sun Oct 16th, 2022 at 03:47:36 AM EST
Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov
Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-86571-606-3
(page 5) Wars take resources; when resources are already scarce, fighting wars over resources becomes a lethal exercise in futility. Those with more resources would be expected to win. I am not arguing that wars over resources will not occur. I am suggesting that they will be futile, and that victory in these conflicts will be barely distinguishable from defeat.
Frontpaged with minor edit - Frank Schnittger
by gmoke
Sat Oct 1st, 2022 at 06:21:21 PM EST
*Conferences
Cambridge Science Festival
Sunday, October 2 - Sunday, October 9
--------
HONK! Festival 2022
Friday, October 7, 3 PM - Sunday, October 9, 6 PM
--------
Winter Is Coming: Europe's Energy Crisis and What It Means for Climate Change
Eighth Annual Columbia Global Energy Summit
Wednesday, October 12
--------
ClimateTech
Wednesday, October 12, 9:00 AM - Thursday, October 13, 5:00 PM EDT
--------
Global Environmental Justice Conference 2022
Thursday, October 13 - Friday, October 14
--------
Love.Earth.Justice.2022
Sunday, October 16
--------
Power of Design
Tuesday, October 18
--------
Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education: The Urgency of Now!
October 18, October 26, and November 3
--------
MIT D-Lab 20th Anniversary Events
Friday, October 21
--------
EBC Fourth Annual New England Energy Leadership Conference
Tuesday, October 25
--------
Yale Clean Energy Conference
Thursday, November 3 -- Friday, November 4
--------
**Lecture Series
People and Primates Recasting the Anthropocene Dynamic
Tuesday, October 4
--------
Federal Funding Learning Series #4 - How Unprecedented Incentives and Funding in the Inflation Reduction Act Can Advance Local Climate Action
Description
Tuesday, October 4
--------
The Amazon Forest and Climate Change: A Sustainable Pathway to Avoid a Tipping Point
Wednesday, October 5
--------
Environmental Justice in Albaydha: The Story of a Rural Desert Community
Wednesday, October 5
--------
Starr Forum: An Update on Russia's War Against Ukraine
Friday, October 7
--------
China and Japan in the Global Politics of Climate Change
Monday, October 17
--------
Seeing the forest beneath the trees: Mycorrhizal fungi as trait integrators of ecosystem processes
Thursday, October 20
--------
The Ocean's Natural Way to Stop Climate Change
Thursday, October 20
--------
Getting to Net-Zero: A Canadian Perspective
Monday, October 24
--------
Environmental Justice in an Age of Upheaval
Thursday, October 27
--------
Planning Transformational Coastal Adaptation with a Climate Justice Lens
Monday, October 31
--------
**Events
*
African Perspectives on Climate and Climate Adaptation in Eygpt
Monday, October 3
--------
Rural Renaissance: Revitalizing America's Hometowns through Clean Power
Wednesday, October 5
--------
Deploying the Synergies Between Energy Access and Sustainable Development
Thursday, October 6
--------
Global Refugee Crisis: What can scientists and engineers do to ease the suffering and protect the vulnerable?
Thursday, October 6
--------
Wholehearted Regeneration: Boosting Communal and Climate Resilience One Pocket Forest at a Time
Thursday, October 6
--------
Governing the 'China Boom' in the Amazon Basin: Social and Environmental Regulation Amid A Commodity Supercycle
Tuesday, October 11
--------
Research and development for the public good: Strengthening societal innovation
Tuesday, October 11
--------
Pedagogy of the Rainforest: An Indigenous Yanomami Perspective
Wednesday, October 12
--------
Great Decisions | Outer Space
Wednesday, October 12
--------
Disinformation and free speech: perspectives on the future of information
Thursday, October 13
--------
Brain, Body + Breath
Saturday, October 15
--------
Nouriel Roubini: Megathreats
Tuesday, October 18
--------
A Pale Blue Dot under Pressure: Climate Change, Justice, and Resilience in Our Rapidly Warming World
Friday, October 21
--------
MIT Energy Night 2022
Friday, October 21
--------
Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Career Fair
October 24
--------
Trauma to Transformation: A Set of Existential Opportunities to Address Environmental Justice and the Climate Crisis
Tuesday, October 25
--------
Energy Seminar: Lauren Culver, Senior Energy Specialist, The World Bank
Monday, October 31
--------
Wet + Dry: Landscapes of Resilience and Material Exploration
Thursday, November 3
--------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
by gmoke
Sat Sep 24th, 2022 at 02:31:30 AM EST
CREW [Communities Responding to Extreme Weather]
Climate Preparedness Week
Throughout the week of September 24th-30th, CREW will be hosting (or co-hosting) a variety of events that will spotlight the invisible effects of climate change.
More information at https://www.climatecrew.org/climate_prep_week_2022
SATURDAY, SEP 24TH, 1-2:30 PM EST- INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
MONDAY, SEP 26TH, 5-6 PM- PREPARING COMMUNITIES TO RESPOND TO EXTREME HEAT
TUESDAY, SEP 27TH, 5-6 PM- RISING SEA LEVELS: PREPARING FOR BOSTON'S FUTURE
WEDNESDAY, SEP 28TH, 11 AM- 12 PM EST- SUSTAINABLE LIVING LIBRARY
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 28TH, 5:30-7:30 PM EST- GROUND TRUTH: SHAPING NARRATIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 28TH, 6:30-8 PM EST- INTERSECTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS: HOW MASSACHUSETTS CAN STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA
THURSDAY, SEP. 29TH, 4-5 PM EST: THE CHALLENGES OF COMMUNICATING CLIMATE RISK
FRIDAY, SEP 30TH, 5:30-6:45- MENTAL HEALTH IN A CHANGING CLIMATE
by gmoke
Mon Sep 19th, 2022 at 02:52:14 AM EST
Insulate Britain (https:/insulatebritain.com) is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion which demanded that the British government fund insulation for all public housing by 2025, and, by the end of 2021, the government must create a plan to fund retrofitting of insulation of all homes in Britain by 2030. Someone estimated that it would cost £5 billion to insulate all public housing by 2025, which I'm sure was "too much" for conventional wisdom.
Insulate Britain demonstrated for these demands by blocking major highways around the UK, a dozen or more times, starting in September 2021 through February 2022 when the group announced "with a heavy heart" that the series of protests had failed in their aim to force the government into taking action. One poll from October 2021 showed that only 18% supported the protests while 72% of those surveyed opposed the protesters' actions, with 10% that "did not know."
Source: https:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulate_Britain_protests
Energy prices are soaring in the UK and, according to columnist Caitlin Moran, "the present UK Energy Rebate Scheme will cost £9.1 billion for just one year"
Source: https:www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-insulate-britain-conservative-party-energy-g78nbfcx
m
https:twitter.com/CHeinemeyer/status/1569646532013465600
and the Guardian reports that
"UK must insulate homes or face a worse energy crisis in 2023, say experts
Cutting heat loss from houses will be more effective in the long term than subsidising bills, according to analysis"
https:/www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/11/britain-insulate-homes-energy-crisis-2023-heat-loss-ho
uses-subsidising-bills
Looks like Insulate Britain was offering a bargain.
by gmoke
Mon Sep 5th, 2022 at 02:25:01 AM EST
IT has designed a program which maximizes the production of wind farms by operating the wind farm as a system, not individual wind turbines. Reducing downwind turbulence within the whole wind farm can increase energy production by 1.2% to 3%, a result validated by field trials in working wind farms.
Source: https:/news.mit.edu/2022/wind-farm-optimization-energy-flow-0811
https:/www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01085-8
When you think of these things as systems, there are previously hidden benefits that become apparent. When you don't, you have the present situation and BAU forever and ever amen.
Another example, from Edwin Black's book,
Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives
(NY: St Martin's Press, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35907-2), about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system and the advantages thereof:
"Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."
Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old and coming back to the fore, both on railways and with trucks.
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2022/07/playing-with-electric-trains-as-climate.html
Yet, thinking in systems is hard for most of us.
by gmoke
Mon Aug 29th, 2022 at 06:18:14 PM EST
*Index
**Conferences
MIT Conference on Mining, Environment and Society
Wednesday, September 7, 10:00 AM - Friday, September 9, 1:30 PM EDT
EBC 4th Annual New England Climate Change and Resiliency Summit
Tuesday, September 13
Advancing the New European Bauhaus
Thursday, September 15
Reimagining the Role of Business in the Public Square
Thursday, September 15
International Conference on Sustainable Development
Monday, September 19, 2022 - Tuesday, September 20, 2022 (all day)
2022 MIT Sustainability Conference
Tuesday, September 20
NYC AgTech Week 2022
September 26 to October 1
**Lecture Series
Cross-sectoral Climate Change Impacts in Europe: Our Warming Planet: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation
Wednesday, September 7
Redesigning Our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels
Saturday, September 10
Rising to the Global Climate Challenge: Australia's Leadership
Tuesday, September 13
Deploying the Synergies Between Energy Access and Sustainable Development: Digital Zukunftssalon in the "The Forces of Transformation" series
Tuesday, September 13
What Are the Soil Carbon Sequestration Potentials of Biochar and Enhanced Weathering?: Towards a Durable Understanding of Soil Carbon as a Tool for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation
Tuesday, September 13
The Connective Tissue: Transmission in Support of Decarbonization
Friday, September 30
**Events
*
Facing Our Climate Anxiety Health Crisis
Sunday, September 4
Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
Tuesday, September 6
Wole Soyinka in Conversation with Henry Louis Gates
Wednesday, September 7
EBC Energy Resources Webinar: Plugging In - Perspectives on Interconnection and Microgrids
Thursday, September 8
Discussion with Reverend Mariama White-Hammond, Boston's Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space
Thursday, September 8
Inverter Technology: Unlocking the Full Potential of Heat Pumps to Decarbonize the Northeast
Friday, September 9
Mid-Cambridge PLANT SWAP
Saturday September 10
Green Anarchy or Eco-Socialism: a debate on scale and tactics
Monday, September 12
Save Democracy and the Planet
Monday, September 12
California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--and What It Means for America's Power Grid
Tuesday, September 13
Greentown Labs EnergyBar: Climatetech Career Fair
September 13
Confronting Climate Change with Design for Resilience
Tuesday, September 13
Environmental Justice: Past, Present, and Future
Thursday, September 15
The 32nd First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony
Thursday, September 15
Funding Climate, Energy & Sustainability Ventures
Thursday, September 15
The State of the European Green Deal: Quo vadis EGD?
Friday, September 16
XRBoston Stop the Fossil Fuel Industry, Now: September Week of Rebellion
September 17 - September 25
Boston Local Food Festival
Sunday, September 18
Our Veterans, Wounds of War
Monday, September 19
MIT.nano September Seminar: Electronic skins for robotics and wearables
Monday, September 19
Anjali Waikar, Operations Director, Litigation, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Monday, September 19
Aging & the Economy
Tuesday, September 20
Climate Change: A Solutions Approach (webinar)
Wednesday, September 21
Environmental Justice: Case Studies on Policy, Advocacy and Litigation Trends
Wednesday, September 21
How Innovation Districts Can Embrace Risk and Strengthen Community
Wednesday, September 21
Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station (FRRACS)
Wednesday, September 21
Reaching Net-Zero with Credit Transparency
Thursday, September 22
Sustainability Festival
Thursday, September 22
Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics
Thursday, September 22
Responding to a Perfect Storm of Crises in Ukraine and Beyond: A European Perspective
Friday, September 23
13th Annual Dance for World Community Festival
Saturday, September 24
Creating a Climate Action Plan Centered in Justice, Part 1
Tuesday, September 27
Climate Change Impacts: How Massachusetts Can Stand in Solidarity with Cuba
Wednesday, September 28
Cleantech Open Northeast Finals Judging, Awards & Showcase
September 29
Low-Carbon Hydrogen Accelerator Final Showcase
September 29
On Reckonings, Reimagining, and The Third Reconstruction: A Conversation with Historians Joseph Peniel and Ibram X. Kendi
Thursday, September 29
Gutman Library Virtual Book Talk: The Voices of the Trees
Monday, October 3
These kinds of events are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading.
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Solarray renewable energy and systems efficiency - monthly - http://solarray.blogspot.com
Zero Net Energy links list - quarterly listserv - https:/zeronetenrg.blogspot.com
City Agriculture links list - quarterly listserv - http://cityag.blogspot.com
Geometry links list - bimonthly listserv - http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com
Notes on lectures and books - bimonthly - http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com
Articles, ideas, and screeds - weekly - http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history,https://www.eurotrib.com/user/gmoke/diary, and https:bluemassgroup.com
Twitter @gmokery
Facebook https:www.facebook.com/gmokery
LinkedIn https:www.linkedin.com/in/george-mokray-9315933
by gmoke
Tue Aug 23rd, 2022 at 11:56:48 PM EST
the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.
Diane di Prima, "Rant"
On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research (https:/ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910) is a marvelous paper, a study of the peer-reviewed papers on 100% renewable energy systems from 1975 to date, a meta-study. It just might fire some imaginations and help us become realistic enough to demand the impossible, sooner rather than later.
"The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost. As such, we do not need to rely on fossil fuels in the future. In the early 2020s, the consensus has increasingly become that solar PV and wind power will dominate the future energy system and new research increasingly shows that 100% renewable energy systems are not only feasible but also cost effective. This gives us the key to a sustainable civilization and the long-lasting prosperity of humankind."
The history of 100% renewable energy system analysis goes back to 1975 when the first study by Bent Sørensen was published in Science, using Denmark as a case study (https:www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.189.4199.255).
The next year, Amory Lovins published the second article on 100% renewables, for the United States, and became the first scholar to cite Sørensen (https:/www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1976-10-01/energy-strategy-road-not-taken).
by gmoke
Fri Aug 19th, 2022 at 02:41:52 AM EST
Net zero energy city planned for Egypt, with plans to produce more energy AND food than it consumes
https:/urb.ae/projects/nexgensustainablecity
https:/inhabitat.com/first-climate-positive-net-zero-city-in-the-world
Hotels With Net-Zero Ambitions
https:/www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/travel/hotels-sustainability-net-zero.html
Net positive hotel being built in Denver, CO
https:inhabitat.com/first-carbon-positive-hotel-in-the-us-breaks-ground
Critique by James Kunstler: https:/kunstler.com/eyesore-of-the-month/may-2022
Net zero energy renovation at the 2022 International Builder's Show (which is actually net positive energy renovation)
https:/www.rateitgreen.com/green-building-community/discussions/example-of-a-net-zero-energy-renova
tion-ibs-2022-home-tour-saw-horse-design/5804
Solar Exoskeletons - An integrated building system combining solar gain control with structural efficiency
https:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X22003930
Not solar roads but solar sidewalks, bike paths, and driveways
https:cleantechnica.com/2022/06/21/hungarian-company-introduces-improved-solar-modules-for-solar-p
avement
Net zero community center in Toronto
https:/perkinswill.com/project/north-east-scarborough-community-and-child-care-centre
https:/inhabitat.com/take-a-look-at-torontos-first-net-zero-community-center
Seattle Central College attempts "zero-carbon efficiency" in a new eco district
https:/www.mckinstry.com/seattle-central-college-to-decarbonize-with-unique-ecodistrict-development
/
https:inhabitat.com/seattle-college-will-become-a-ecodistrict-of-modern-tech
Sweden's first climate-positive district, Ljusekulla
https:/www.skanska.se/en-us/about-skanska/sustainability/h22/ljusekulla
hat tip: We Don't Have Time https:/app.wedonthavetime.org
Michelle and Barack Obama Sports Complex - one of the first net zero energy complexes in LA
https:/www.spfa.com/work/obama-sports-complex
https:inhabitat.com/michelle-and-barack-obama-net-zero-energy-sports-complex
Ithaca, NY plans to decarbonize the whole city through electrification
https:/www.greenbiz.com/article/electrify-ithaca-public-private-collaborative-approach-city-wide-de
carbonization
VERGE 22 is the leading climate tech event accelerating solutions to the most pressing challenges of our time. Join thousands of leaders -- from business, government, solution providers and startups -- working together to address the climate crisis across six strategic areas: clean energy, sustainable transportation, carbon removal, regenerative food systems, net-zero buildings and the startup ecosystem.
https:/events.greenbiz.com/events/verge/2022
OCT 25 - 27, 2022 SAN JOSE CONVENTION CENTER, SAN JOSE, CA
Cost: $50 - $1,975
by gmoke
Sun Aug 14th, 2022 at 07:15:01 PM EST
I make it a practice to post only positive news about the environment and the climate; however, I can't get past this recent news:
"Rainwater everywhere on the planet is unsafe to drink due to levels of toxic chemicals known as PFAS that exceed the latest guidelines, according to a new study by Stockholm University scientists."
Source: https:/phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals.html
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are known as "forever chemicals" as they degrade so slowly in the natural environment. They were made for packaging, shampoo, and makeup. ("Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity" and the least cost alternative to make more profit.) PFAS now are everywhere, so persistent and ubiquitous that they will "never disappear from the planet."
The guidelines for exposure to PFAS have changed as we've discovered more about their level of toxicity. They accumulate in the body over time and can lead to problems with fertility, obesity, developmental delays in children, and prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, among other things. However, "PFAS levels in people have actually dropped `quite significantly in the last 20 years' and `ambient levels (of PFAS in the environment) have been the same for the past 20 years'".
In addition:
"A new [2020] study estimates that more than 1,000 tons of microplastics from the air - equivalent to more than 123 million plastic water bottles - rain down onto protected areas in the western U.S. each year."
Source: https:earthsky.org/earth/microplastic-rain-western-us
What have we done to the rain? What are we doing to ourselves and all the living world?
by gmoke
Sun Jul 31st, 2022 at 12:47:50 AM EST
Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - August 2022
*Index
**Conferences
Decolonizing and Regrowing Our Food Systems
Friday, August 5 - Sunday, August 7
----
TEDxBoston Traction
Monday August 15
----
**Lecture Series
Flourish Fiction Summer Workshop Series 2022!
Open Feedback Workshop
August 3
End-of-Summer Showcase
August 24
----
How to Cover the Climate Crisis -- and Fight Disinformation
August 8 - September 4
**Events
*
Continued Conversations: Indigenous Land Rights with Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Monday, August 1
------
Project Carbdown: ERW MRV - Dirk Paessler, Carbon Drawdown Initiative
Tuesday, August 2
------
World Sustainability Collective - Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases Remova
l
Tuesday, August 2
------
Informational webinar on Environmental Justice Data Fund Grants
Wednesday, August 3
------
Debating Eco-Socialist Futures
Wednesday, August 3
------
EPA Environmental Justice Outreach Session: General Issues
Wednesday, August 3
------
Bridging the Great American Divide
Wednesday, August 3
------
Engineering Solutions for Earth's Oceans presented by STEMSpark
Thursday, August 4
------
EnergyBar August 2022: Summer Rooftop Networking
Thursday, August 4
------
A Half-Built Garden: Ruthanna Emrys in conversation with Ada Palmer
Thursday, August 4
------
Cool: Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming
Friday, August 5
------
Reclaim Rock City Free Community Fair!
Saturday August 6
------
Deep Dialogue Part 2 on weatherizing and electrifying heating in our residential buildings
Monday, August 8
------
The Rise of Eco-Fascism - Lowell Bliss
Tuesday, August 9
------
Building Business Resilience in the Climate Change Era
Wednesday, August 10
------
A Global Energy Revolution: Blueprint for a Prosperous, Zero-Carbon Future
Thursday, August 11
------
CLF Boston Reuse: Highlighting Circular Materials Innovation
Thursday, August 18
------
Carbofex: Biochar at Scale - Founder and CEO Sampo Tukiainen
Tuesday, August 23
------
Embedding sustainability in governance, structure and culture
Wednesday, August 24
------
Wetlands, mangroves and global warming!
Wednesday, August 24
------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------------
by gmoke
Sun Jul 10th, 2022 at 04:36:04 PM EST
This Brattle Group study (https:/www.brattle.com/insights-events/publications/grid-enhancing-technologies-shown-to-double-reg
ional-renewable-energy-capacity-according-to-study-by-brattle-consultants) found that in Kansas and Oklahoma Grid Enhancing Technologies [GETs] could double renewable energy generation on the grid, paying for themselves in just six months.
Rocky Mountain Institute describes Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) (https:/rmi.org/ferc-could-slash-inflation-and-double-renewables-grid-upgrades) as
"Dynamic Line Ratings
Adjusting the carrying capacity of transmission lines based on real-time measurement of ambient conditions
Transit analogy: real-time adjusted speed limits
"Advanced Power Flow Controls
Hardware solutions that push power away from lines with capacity constraints and pull power to lines with spare capacity
Transit analogy: railroad switching stations that direct trains to free tracks
"Topology Optimization
Software solutions that automatically route power flows around congested areas
Transit analogy: re-uniting drivers around traffic"
As Pogo said, "We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities;"
but then
Pogo also said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
by gmoke
Mon Jul 4th, 2022 at 03:19:02 AM EST
From Edwin Black's book, Internal Combustion, about the Milwaukee Road, an electric rail system:
"Sometimes electrified railways seemed to defy the laws of perpetual motion. For example, when the brakes were applied or the train traveled down a slope, the engine actually returned electricity to the grid. Regenerative braking and similar power returns helped the engines pay for themselves. In some mountain ranges, if timed correctly, a heavy downhill train could actually regenerate enough electricity to the grid to power another train passing it uphill. Thus both trains would travel in a minuet of seemingly energy-free motion. That might have seemed to violate the laws of physics, but not the rules of General Electric's wondrous workhorses, which were designed to observe this maxim: It is better to give than receive when it comes to electrical power. Those engines lasted not for years but for decades. Their endurance was measured in millions of miles. They were monumental vehicles that created economic prosperity and environmental balance everywhere they rolled."
Regenerative braking on electric trains is a technology that is over a century old.
Today, Fortescue Williams, a hard rock mining company, operates an "Infinity Train" in Australia that never needs charging using this idea. Eventually, they want to make all 54 of the trains "Infinity Trains."
https:/www.fmgl.com.au/in-the-news/media-releases/2022/03/01/fortescue-williams-(wae)-settlement-po
wers-development-of-world-first-infinity-train
https:cleantechnica.com/2022/05/31/an-electric-train-that-never-needs-charging-its-real
https:/inhabitat.com/mining-company-adopts-electric-trains-that-never-need-recharging
by gmoke
Sat Jul 2nd, 2022 at 02:50:25 AM EST
*Index
**Lecture Series
Announcing our Flourish Fiction Summer Workshop Series 2022!
Prompt Generation Workshop - July 6, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
Infinite Hope: Imagining a Better World - July 20, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
Open Feedback Workshop - August 3, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
End-of-Summer Showcase - August 24, 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT
----
Heat Pump Water Heaters- Builders share their experience
Tuesday, July 12
----
The Storage Opportunity: Customer Demand, Market Reform, and Technology Innovation
Thursday, July 21
**Events
*
Conservative [UK] solutions to air pollution * Webinar and Q&A
Monday, July 4
Boston Climate Tech Social 2.0
Wednesday, July 6
BE+ Building Tech Forum 2022
Thursday, July 7
Circular Economy Boston Kick-Off Meeting
Thursday, July 7
EAP Lab: Floating Wetlands
Saturday, July 9
Energy After War: How Ukraine Affects Us All
Tuesday, July 12
Ecological Protection
Friday, July 15
EPA National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Call
Tuesday, July 19
Extreme Heat Boston
Wednesday, July 20
Patti Poppe: Navigating PG&E through Climate Disruption
Thursday, July 21
Worlds of Gray and Green: Mineral Extraction as Ecological Practice
Wednesday, July 27
UVA's Opening Reception: Inspiring Change for the Climate Crisis
Thursday, July 28
EnergyBar August 2022: Summer Rooftop Networking
Thursday, August 4
----------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------------
by gmoke
Wed Jun 22nd, 2022 at 06:09:51 PM EST
from The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
Mineola, NY: Dover, 1994 [originally published 1899] (ISBN 0-486-28062-4)
(page 49) So, those offices which are by right the proper employment of the leisure class are noble; such as government, fighting, hunting, the care of arms and accoutrements, and the like, - in short, those which may be classed as ostensibly predatory employments.
(123) The leisure class is the conservative class.
... The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion.
(152) Moreover, the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government, which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation.
(153) It is only the high-bred gentleman and the rowdy that normally resort to blows as the universal solvent of differences of opinion.
(157) It is noticeable, for instance, that even very mild-mannered and matter-of-fact men who go out shooting are apt to carry an excess of arms and accoutrements in order to impress upon their own imagination the seriousness of their undertaking. These huntsmen are also prone to histrionic, prancing gait and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions, whether of stealth or on onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit.
... Except where it is adopted as a necessary means of secret communication, the use of a special slang in any employment is probably to be accepted as evidence that the occupation in question is substantially make-believe.
(165) From the evidence already recited it appears that, in sentiment and inclinations, the leisure class is more favourable to a warlike attitude and animus than the industrial classes.
(184) The predatory habit of mind involves an accentuated sense of personal dignity and of the relative standing of individuals. The social structure in which the predatory habit has been the dominant factor in the shaping of institutions is a structure based on status. The pervading norm in the predatory community's scheme of life is the relation of superior and inferiors, noble and base, dominant and subservient persons and classes, master and slave. The anthropomorphic cults have come down from that stage of industrial development and have been shaped by the same scheme of economic differentiation, - a differentiation into consumer and producer, - and they are pervaded by the same dominant principle of mastery and subservience.
(234) In point of derivation, the office of government is a predatory function, pertaining integrally to the archaic leisure-class scheme of life. It is an exercise of control and coercion over the population from which the class draws its sustenance.
by gmoke
Wed Jun 1st, 2022 at 04:23:09 PM EST
*Index
**Conferences
Numbers and Nature: Mitchell J. Feigenbaum Symposium
Thursday, June 2 - June 3
MA Solidarity Economy / Worker Co-op Festival & Gathering
Saturday & Sunday, June 4-5
The Pulitzer Center's 2022 Annual Conference
Interconnected: Reporting the Climate Crisis
June 9 - 10
Eurekafest!
Wednesday, June 15
**Lecture Series
Weaning Buildings Off Fossil Gas & Market (Redesign) Pathways to a Decarbonized Grid
Friday, June 10
Portable Heat Pumps - Low Cost Supplemental Heating and Cooling
Wednesday, June 22
**Events
*
Webinar: Get All the 𝚍̶𝚒̶𝚛̶𝚝̶ SOIL on Soil Conservation in Urban Agriculture
Wednesday, June 1
Boston MA Budget Hearings on American Rescue Plan Act Funds
Wednesday, June 1
Countdown: An Evening with Alan Weisman
Wednesday, June 1
Wanjira Mathai on Sustainable Development and the Power of Women
Tuesday, June 7
Commonwealth Kitchen Food Show
Thursday, June 9
Right to a Healthy Environment: Symposium
June 9, 2022
Ukraine and beyond: Lessons in refugee education
A Brookings-Yidan Prize event on key issues in refugee education
Tuesday, June 21
Climate Change, Our Youths, and Mental Health
Monday, June 27
Education meets the metaverse: The promise and the worry
A Brookings-Yidan Prize event on the future of education in the 21st century
Tuesday, June 28
--------------
These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
------------------
by gmoke
Sun May 1st, 2022 at 07:49:44 PM EST
------
Index
------
------------
Conferences
------------
Tuesday, May 3
Graduate workshop: Data-driven environmental economics research from the EPA
Thursday, June 2 - June 3
Numbers and Nature: Mitchell J. Feigenbaum Symposium
--------------
Lecture Series
--------------
Tuesday, May
CAN WE RESIST THE HIJACKING OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA & BEYOND?
Cambridge Forum (https:/www.cambridgeforum.org?cat=3)
Friday, May 13
Building Climate Resilience in Transportation Systems
MIT Mobility Forum, (http://mmi.mit.edu/events)
Wednesday, May 11
Networking on the Trails: Mass Audubon's Climate Initiatives
Climate Adaptation Forum (https:/climateadaptationforum.org/events)
Friday, June 10
Market (Redesign) Pathways to a Decarbonized Grid; and Weaning Buildings Off Fossil Gas
NE Restructuring Roundtable (http://www.raabassociates.org/main/roundtable.asp)
------
Events
------
Monday, May 2
Mandating Climate Disclosures: Impacts on Sustainability and Financial Markets
Bazaar of Ideas: Moving Stuff Around
Wednesday, May 4
The Power of Protest: A Film Screening: The Boys Who Said No!
Thursday, May 5
Net Zero MA.: Legislation + Energy Sources for Achieving 2050 Climate Goals
Summit: Inventing the Future of Money
Environment, Ethics and Embodiment: Buddhist Approaches to Climate Change
Friday, May 6
Improving climate models with hybrid AI approaches
Saturday May 7
Fayette Park plant swap
Wake up the Earth Festival
Monday, May 9
Circular Economy for Sustainable Development: The Role of Land, Fuels, and Manufacturing
Tuesday, May 10
American governance: The way forward
Energy Companies and the Energy Transition: Transforming the Organization
Manufacturing the Clerical Predator: How the Catholic Hierarchy Creates and Maintains a Culture of Abuse
Friday, May 13
Carbon Neutral Geothermal Building In the Hudson Valley
Tuesday, May 17
Securing the Future of Agriculture
Wedneday, May 18
NECEC Emerging Trends Series: Deploying Climate Solutions
A Changing Planet Seminar: Seasonal rainfall over Eastern Africa and the Tropics: Trends, Climate Models and Projections
Thursday, May 19
Climate Conversations: Adaptation in Agriculture
The End of the Petrostate - How Electrification will Reshape the World
Friday, May 20
Bringing Together Varied Communities, As in the Covid Pandemic and Climate Change
Wednesday, May 25
MA Attorney General Climate Debate
----------------
These kinds of events are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https:/theworld.com~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn't already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
