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Category Archives: gaia

Russia Farts in Ukraine’s Face – This is what happens when a “gas station” goes to war

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The predictions were: “Russia will be in Kyiv in hours”, “Putin will replace Ukrainian President with puppet”,  “Russia’s Air Force will crush Ukraine”, “Attacked on 4 sides Ukraine will surrender”.  To that Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians said  NYET! With just 78 planes in the air and Tanks running out of fuel the Russian attack appears uncoordinated and without passion. There are even rumors of Russian Units laying down their guns. In part here is why. Think about Brazil attacking Spain.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-economy-basically-big-gas-station-harvard-economist-2022-2

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Harvard economist and former Obama advisor says Russia is ‘basically a big gas station’ and is otherwise ‘incredibly unimportant’ in the global economy

Matthew Loh
Feb 21, 2022, 9:57 PM

Russia’s economy is “incredibly unimportant in the global economy except for oil and gas,” Jason Furman, a Harvard economist and former advisor to President Barack Obama, told The New York Times.

“It’s basically a big gas station,” he said.

His comments come as the West prepares heavy sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine. While they have the potential to throw the Russian economy into chaos, these measures could also reverberate to further damage the US, Europe, and the rest of the world as they battle inflation and rising energy prices — a ripple effect that the West hopes to mitigate.

On Monday, Moscow declared the independence of two breakaway regions of Ukraine and sent troops there — escalating the prospect of a major war. President Joe Biden has already ordered sanctions on the separatist regions — Donetsk and Luhansk — prohibiting US citizens from engaging in any exports, imports, or new investments in these areas.

Despite Russia’s size and wealth in raw materials, its economy is more on par with Brazil than with nations like Germany, France, and the UK, according to the latest nominal GDP data from the World Bank. According to the World Bank, Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s and South Korea’s, two nations with less than half of Russia’s population.

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Go there and read. More next week when gas prices will be above $4.

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Home Solar Power Is Cheap And Effective – Go for it now

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First off. This piece claims to be all you need to know about Home Solar Electric. It is not. But when you do all the things they TELL you to and THEN put them together. Then you are nearly there. BUT they do not include all the research you have to do on equipment manufacturers, convertors and batteries. Sigh. But they get A’s for optimism.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-you-need-to-know-about-converting-your-home-to-solar?utm_source=pocket-newtab

What You Need to Know About Converting Your Home to Solar

Let us be your guiding light.

Popular Science

  • Whitson Gordon

 

If you live in an area with abundant sunlight—hello, fellow southern Californians—you’ve probably thought about installing solar panels on your roof to save on your electric bill. But with so much information, it can be hard to know where to start.

Look no further—start here

Between the different types of panels, financing, inverters, and other jargon, researching solar energy can feel overwhelming at first. That’s why I recommend starting at a solar quote comparison site like EnergySage, Solar-Estimate, or SolarReviews (the latter two are run by the same people).

Both EnergySage and Solar-Estimate act as educational resources and comparison shopping tools to help you field bids. I’ve been using EnergySage, which is chock-full of articles explaining the technology involved. You can also watch videos, look at their buyer’s guide, or start getting quotes. Their Solar 101 series of articles will help you understand the basics, and when you’re done, scroll through the site’s “Learn About Solar” sidebar to read even more articles that’ll give you a feel for the process.

To understand what your home requires, though, you’ll need to look up how much electricity you use. If your bill tells you the average amount of electricity you use each month, make a note of that, or calculate a quick and dirty average yourself. The more information you have on your usage, the more accurate an estimate you can get from installers.

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Go there and read so much. More next week.

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The Cheeto Burrito Seeks To Destroy Tsongass National Forest – Destruction is his legacy

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(please note that i use tsongas and tongass interchangeably)

Destroy, Destroy, Destroy. That is what this President does because he has bought the general idea of “Disruption and Replacement” coming from Silicon Valley as a good thing for society. He doesn’t not understand that Disruption with out planning is BAD for society in general and only makes a few men (and women) rich. Or maybe, he actually does understand and just doesn’t care. One makes him evil by nature and the other makes him evil by nurture. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. One thing for sure is that his whole Presidency has been a disaster for the environment and the Earth, and that will be his lasting legacy.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/10/28/tongass-national-forest-alaska-exempt-roadless-rule-usda/6065610002/

USA Today

Feds end road, logging restrictions in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, one of the world’s largest temperate rainforests

Becky Bohrer
The Associated Press
Published 11:00 pm Oct 28, 2020

JUNEAU, Alaska — The federal government announced plans Wednesday to lift restrictions on logging and building roads in the country’s largest national forest, a pristine rainforest in Alaska that provides habitat for wolves, bears and salmon.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it has decided to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the so-called roadless rule, which bans road construction and timber harvests with limited exceptions. It applies to nearly one-quarter of all U.S. Forest Service lands.

Conservation groups vowed to fight the decision, describing it as short-sighted and driven by politics.

“The decision to roll back the roadless rule on the Tongass was made in spite of, not in support of, southeast Alaskans and our communities,” said Meredith Trainor, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. “In making this decision, the Trump administration and the sham rulemaking process they undertook in our region ignored economic realities, environmental imperatives, and worst of all, the will of the people who actually live here.”

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The Kids May Save Us – The planet Earth that is

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This such a fun and upbeat story. I know you are saying – Doug doesn’t do upbeat or fun. I do not do exclamation marks, ever. So you will just have to take my word on this. This younger generation and these kids in particular could make the difference between human extinction or not.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/09/9952945/gen-z-climate-change-anxiety?utm_source=digg

Gen Z’s Radical, Virtual Quest To Save The Planet

Molly Longman
Last Updated September 25, 2020, 9:00 AM
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It’s time to wake up. On Global Day of Climate Action, VICE Media Group is solely telling stories about our current climate crisis. Click here to meet young climate leaders from around the globe and learn how you can take action. 
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Many people first started paying attention to the youth climate movement in 2018, when now-17-year-old Greta Thunberg began protesting outside Swedish Parliament in her home country. Her small act of civil disobedience had a ripple effect. Students across the globe began striking by refusing to attend classes, which eventually turned into the “Fridays For Future” movement.
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It may sound like a ploy to get out of chemistry, but it’s not. Gen Z ranks climate change as the most important issue of our time, according to last year’s Amnesty International survey of more than 10,000 members of 18- to 25-year-olds. “Older generations were not out there protesting in the streets on this issue the way Gen Z is,” asserts Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, PhD, who teaches political science and environmental policy at Christopher Newport University. These under-25 activists have formed organizations like Fridays For Future and Zero Hour, a movement that focuses on helping young people take action. Others have sued their state or even the United Nations. They’ve staged hunger strikes. They’ve performed spoken word poetry.
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These kids care. A lot.
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“Younger people see the total mess that Boomers and, to a lesser extent, millennials have left, and they have to figure out how to fix it,” says Jessica Green, PhD, an associate professor focused on climate governance at the University of Toronto.

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Go there and rejoice. Hallelujah Hallelujah  Hallelujah More hopefully next week.

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Attached To An Ice Floe In The Arctic – What a brave way to study Global Warming

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So who are you going to believe? A research vessel attached to Arctic ice or a weasel attached to the Presidency with Leech like suckers.  ie. Trump – it’s a hoax or Science – it’s COMING! Me I trust science. Not Russian science either.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-made-an-alarmingly-easy-trip-to-the-north-po-1844858358?utm_source=digg

Climate change

Scientists Made an Alarmingly Easy Trip to the North Pole

 

dharnanoor
Dharna Noor

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Filed to:ice ice maybe

 

At Earther, we’ve been following the historic extent of ice melt in the Arctic this summer pretty closely. But not as closely as Gunnar Spreen and his research team, who are literally following the ice.

“We’re attached to an ice floe now,” he said on the phone from a research vessel called the Polarstern, which is currently at the latitude 88 degrees north, just under 150 miles (230 kilometers) from the North Pole. “We’re drifting with the ice. Wherever it goes, we go.”

Spreen, a sea ice and remote sensing scientist at the University of Bremen, is taking part in a research expedition known as the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, or MOSAiC. It’s the largest Arctic research campaign in history, with some 500 scientists and staffers rotating on and off of the research vessel for months at a time.

The current cohort boarded the Polarstern on August 12, and in just a week’s time, they made it to the North Pole. To get there, they took an unexpected route, north of Greenland.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Alternative Energy Will Never Work – They said

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The wind doesn’t blow all the time.

The sun only shines during the day.

Geothermal can’t be done everywhere.

Heat Pumps only work in certain temperature ranges.

There will never be enough storage.

Storage will be too expensive.

You can’t power an industrial society like this.

Then there is the big LIE, Nuclear Power is carbon free.

So much CARBON goes into a Nuclear Power Plant the it would never be carbon free…Not in a hundred years.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032118303897?amp=1

The feasibility of 100% renewable electricity systems: A response to critics?

BenEllistonc

Highlights

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Large-scale electricity systems based on 100% renewable energy can meet the key requirements of reliability, security and affordability.

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This is even true where the vast majority of generation comes from variable renewables such as wind and solar PV.

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Thus the principal myths of critics of 100% renewable electricity are refuted.

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Arguments that the transition to 100% renewable electricity will necessarily take as long or longer than historical energy transitions are also refuted.

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The principal barriers to 100% renewable electricity are neither technological nor economic, but instead are primarily political, institutional and cultural.

There is this as well:

100% renewable electricity is viable  

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Go there and read. One is a book. So you may have to check it out of the library. More next week.

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Paradise Coal Plant Closed Down – Is it ok to dance on somebody’s grave

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My answer to that is YES! I know in this time of Covid-19 that we are not supposed to wish people ill. Or in general, in the METOO moment say harsh things about the down and OUT! Trust me, this is more exclamation points then I have used in 10 years. The fact that it happens in McConnell’s state and against The Cheeto Burrito’s wishes is just wonderful to me.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/iconic-plants-end-spells-doom-051246740.html

Iconic plant’s end spells doom for struggling coal industry

DYLAN LOVAN
Associated Press

DRAKESBORO, Ky. (AP) — President Donald Trump tried to stop it from happening. The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, did too.

Despite their best efforts to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to save the beleaguered coal industry, including an eleventh-hour pressure campaign, the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant at Paradise burned its last load of coal last month.

The plant’s closure — in a county that once mined more coal than any other in the nation — is emblematic of the industry’s decadeslong decline due to tougher environmental regulations, a major push toward renewable energy and a rise in the extraction of natural gas. The shuttering of businesses nationwide and a reduced need for energy amid the global coronavirus pandemic threatens to deal coal yet another devastating blow.

“It’s not just one 1,000-megawatt unit closing; they’re going down all over the place,” said John Rogers, a former mine owner who lives in western Kentucky near the Paradise plant, located in Muhlenberg County.

When coal-burning plants close, coal mining loses its best customer. Since 2010, 500 coal-burning units, or boilers, at power plants have been shut down and nearly half the nation’s coal mines have closed. No U.S. energy company, big or small, is building a new coal-burning plant.

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Go there and YIPPEE. More next week.

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Americans Would Not Know Good Design If It Bit Them ON The Ass

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These people have been conserving massive amounts of energy for years. Americans, Russians and Chinese, NOt So MucH. You know – energy exuberance and all that poppycock.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/a-design-concept-is-transforming-the-energy-efficiency-of-buildings.html?utm_source=digg

IOT: Powering the digital economy

How a decades-old design concept is transforming the energy efficiency of buildings

 

Anmar Frangoul
Key Points
  • The buildings we live and work in have to meet a wide range of needs.
  • Could a shift in the way they are designed make them more energy efficient?
H/O - Goldsmith Street Norwich
Goldsmith Street, in the English city of Norwich, won the RIBA Stirling Prize for 2019.
Tim Crocker

The buildings we live and work in have to meet a wide range of needs, whether it’s an office block in the middle of the city or a small house in the suburbs.

Think of a building’s temperature: It can be regulated by radiators, fans and air conditioning systems, while basic actions such as opening and closing a window or door can also be effective. Today, smart technology allows many of these appliances to be controlled remotely using smartphones.

You only need to look at your monthly utility bill to know that living in a building — be it large or small — costs money.

The impact of buildings on the environment is also a concern. According to the IEA, final energy use in buildings hit approximately 3,060 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2018, up from 2,820 Mtoe in 2010.

Fossil fuels’ share in buildings’ energy use was at 36% in 2018, the IEA says, a small drop compared to 38% in 2010.

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Go there and read. Its all you’ve got to do, right? More next week.

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Global Warming Is Speeding Up On Us- Here is part of the problem

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One day I was in Mason City at my parents house, my mom said that “they” are  going to build a wind turbine catercorner from Patty Jackson’s mom’s place. I was really surprised. I said who is “they”. She said I don’t know but they their headquarters are up where the civic center used to be. So I drove out toward rt. 136 but I saw nothing. I got to researching it and here are the two stories I found. Check out the dates.

https://www.pekintimes.com/article/20090415/NEWS/304159939

Mason County plans for wind farms

By Tara Mattimoe

Posted Apr 15, 2009 at 12:01 AM Updated Apr 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM

HAVANA — The Mason County Board took the first step Tuesday toward adopting an ordinance to regulate wind farms in unincorporated Mason County. With several proposed wind farms throughout the county, Mason will soon follow in the footsteps of other central Illinois communities and be host to the wind powered energy sources.

HAVANA — The Mason County Board took the first step Tuesday toward adopting an ordinance to regulate wind farms in unincorporated Mason County. With several proposed wind farms throughout the county, Mason will soon follow in the footsteps of other central Illinois communities and be host to the wind powered energy sources.The board did a first reading of the ordinance Tuesday, said City Clerk Bill Blessman. Adoption of the ordinance will be considered at the county board’s May meeting, he said. The main point in Tuesday’s reading, said Blessman, was to make the proposed ordinance available for public viewing.

The proposed ordinance sets forth various regulations for turbines and wind farms built in Mason County. According to the ordinance, 1,000-foot setbacks are required between towers and any primary structure, and all towers must be placed at least 1.1 times the tower’s height from public roads, transmission lines and communication towers.

https://www.lincolncourier.com/x2011266604/Wind-picks-up-in-Mason-County

Wind picks up in Mason County

By GateHouse News Service

Posted Mar 15, 2011 at 12:01 AM Updated Mar 15, 2011 at 2:11 PM

Two different wind farm corporations have been securing leases in Mason County, according to county officials, who say the tax revenue a wind farm could bring would be welcome.

Two different wind farm corporations have been securing leases in Mason County, according to county officials, who say the tax revenue a wind farm could bring would be welcome.

Mason County Board member James Miller said two wind energy companies have secured leases in Mason County, though the specifics of the companies’ plans are still unclear. The securing of leases is typically the first thing wind companies do before testing and, ultimately, obtaining the permits to erect the turbines. Overall, the process can take a few years.

However, when completed, the wind farms could prove a financial boon for the county which has lost population since the 2000 census — something that affects tax revenue for local governments in the county.

“The county would love to have (the wind farms), and for the school districts this is a big deal,” Miller said. “Some one or two or three of them would benefit.”

Please notice the last article was in 2011. 9 years later it is still “ongoing”/ At this rate they will put up the turbines when the prairie catches on fire.

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Got there and read. More next week.

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Two Weeks Ago I Said Trees Would Beat Global Global Warming

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This week’s articles says – Not Likely. I say the trees are a good start. The point is that some people argue for trees or solar panels in the desert for instance. But the desert is an ecosystem that trees or solar panels would disrupt. Deserts are not “throw away” ecosystems. So we can only deploy so much of each. This is why i think geothermal is the ultimate solution.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/07/10/reforestation-climate-change-plant-trees/#.XS870XtOnct

planting trees
Planting trees, while beneficial to the planet, is not an easy solution to climate change. (Credit: Janelle Lugge/Shutterstock)

Last week, a new study in the journal Science highlighted the role forests could play in tackling climate change. Researchers estimated that by restoring forests to their maximum potential, we could cut down atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by 25 percent — a move that would take us back to levels not seen in over a century. Though the study brings hope in the fight against climate change, other experts warn the solution is not that simple.

The study, led by scientists at ETH-Zürich, Switzerland, determined the planet has 0.9 billion hectares of land available to hold more trees — an area the size of the continental U.S. Converting those areas into forests would be a game-changer for climate change, the authors suggested.

“[The study] is probably the best assessment we have to date of how much land could support tree cover on our planet,” says Robin Chazdon, a forest ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut not involved in the study, But she is quick to point out that restoring forests is not as simple as it sounds.

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Go there and think. More next week.

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