Teaser for a longer report tonight.
Month: October 2024
PBS Newshour on Pennsylvania’s Orphaned Wells
This PBS report is really stunning. I’ve seen a number of pieces on this issue, but none quite so powerful as this.
From the transcript:
Miles O’Brien:The forests of Pennsylvania are filled with thousands of orphaned and abandoned oil wells, many of them more than a century-old.History’s first oil rush began not far from here in 1859, when Edwin Drake drilled the first commercially viable well. Pennsylvania estimates there are more than 350,000 orphaned and abandoned wells in the state.
Miles O’Brien:The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection estimates the average cost to plug a conventional well like this is about $100,000, but this can vary depending on the depth, the condition of the well, and its accessibility.The cost creates a perverse incentive to keep wells active long past their prime.
Melissa Ostroff:They know the cost of plugging is really high, so they’re going to try to keep it in that gray area as long as possible, where it’s just producing a trickle.
Continue reading “PBS Newshour on Pennsylvania’s Orphaned Wells”One Month Later: Helene’s Deforestation Around Asheville Massive
From Accuweather – above, drone footage, and below, some context from reporter.
Some perspective on wildlife impacts as well.
How Will Disinformation Affect Future Disasters?
Ryan McBeth is a YouTuber focused on national security and military topics, who I have started to follow, because he seems well informed, grounded, and sensible.
Here he is speaking to the topic of misinformation in a natural disaster, and whether that kind of activity could be weaponized by a foreign power. At this point, unfortunately, Americans are already doing such a good job of it that we are already killing our own, as he points out.
Online discussions are dominated by a surprisingly small, extremely vocal, and non-representative minority. Research on social media has found that, while only 3 % of active accounts are toxic, they produce 33 % of all content [4]. Furthermore, 74 % of all online conflicts are started in just 1 % of communities [5], and 0.1 % of users shared 80 % of fake news [6,7]. Not only does this extreme minority stir discontent, spread misinformation, and spark outrage online, they also bias the meta-perceptions of most users who passively “lurk” online. This can lead to false polarization and pluralistic ignorance, which are linked to a number of problems including drug and alcohol use [8], intergroup hostility [9,10], and support for authoritarian regimes [11]. Furthermore, exposure to extreme content can normalize unhealthy and dangerous behavior. For example, teens exposed to extreme content related to alcohol consumption thought dangerous alcohol consumption was normative.
Continue reading “How Will Disinformation Affect Future Disasters?”Floodshocked Floridians Fleeing
Cut rate real estate available.
Gentrification underway, as buyers will come in with enough resources to repair and then raise existing homes, if not scraping off old homes and rebuilding entirely.
In Arizona: Clean Energy, Utility Rates on Ballot
Kind of important to have AC if you’re living in Arizona. But utility bills, set by a Republican dominated, fossil fuel connected state board, have been skyrocketing.
These positions are elected, and voters could, if they wish, make a change in November.
Newsweek:
The consecutive streak ended on September 18, NWS Phoenix announced. In total, there have been 120 days where temperatures have exceeded 100 degrees, however, this is not the most 100-degree days that Phoenix has ever seen in total during a single year, as 2020 still holds the record at 145 days.
“Overall there has been 120 days so far this year of 100+°F days in Phoenix, which is 8th most in a calendar year. The record is at 145 days set in 2020. Thus, there will need to be 26 more days of 100+°F this year to set a record. The latest 100+°F day is October 27th,” the NWS Phoenix said in a post to X, formerly Twitter.
Wall Street Journal: Musk Talks with Putin Raises Security Concerns
Because, as one of Donald Trump’s senior advisors and funders, and we are told a key member of any future Trump administration, with deep ties to the military and intelligence communities, and a top secret clearance, of course he is.
Privatize the Space program they said. It’ll be more efficient, they said.
Is there anyone on the Trump team who is not talking regularly to Putin?
Attn: Merrick Garland
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.
The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.
At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.
Musk has emerged this year as a crucial supporter of Donald Trump’s election campaign, and could find a role in a Trump administration should he win. While the U.S. and its allies have isolated Putin in recent years, Musk’s dialogue could signal re-engagement with the Russian leader, and reinforce Trump’s expressed desire to cut a deal over major fault lines such as the war in Ukraine.
At the same time, the contacts also raise potential national-security concerns among some in the current administration, given Putin’s role as one of America’s chief adversaries.
Musk has forged deep business ties with U.S. military and intelligence agencies, giving him unique visibility into some of America’s most sensitive space programs. SpaceX, which operates the Starlink service, won a $1.8 billion classified contract in 2021 and is the primary rocket launcher for the Pentagon and NASA. Musk has a security clearance that allows him access to certain classified information.
The Hurricanes You Didn’t Hear About: Acapulco is Under the Radar
We’ve all seen the devastation from Helene in the Smoky Mountain region, and Milton in Florida, and there is plenty of ongoing coverage of the aftermath in those regions, which I’ll continue to follow.
This morning I saw the only update from a mainstream source that I can find about the hurricanes you didn’t hear about, Otis and John, which clobbered Acapulco, Mexico, almost exactly one year apart. (US media uninterested because, you know, Brown people)
The Reuters report above looks like deleted scenes from a Mad Max movie.
Hurricane Otis, a year ago was the first Category 5 storm to make landfall on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Rapid intensification caused the storm to blow up into a Cat 5 before the models could even catch up.
Weather Channel special report covers this.
The damage was apocalyptic.
Almost exactly one year later, Hurricane John, a slow moving, water saturated beast, came ashore and dropped a meter of rain on the same region.
Continue reading “The Hurricanes You Didn’t Hear About: Acapulco is Under the Radar”Fracking’s Footprint in Pennsylvania Over-Rated
Democrats and VP Kamala Harris have tip-toed around the Fracking issue in Pennsylvania, the Conventional Wisdom being that the practice is an important job creator that is overwhelmingly supported in the all-important battleground state.
The CW is Wrong and wrong.
A dozen or so predominantly rural counties in Appalachian Pennsylvania sit over billions of cubic feet of natural gas locked in the sprawling geological formation known as the Marcellus Shale. Across the region, pollution and disruption caused by drilling pads, processing plants, tanker trucks and pipelines are omnipresent. So, too, are triumphant tales of hardscrabble farmers becoming “shaleionaires” by leasing their mineral rights to petroleum companies.
But only a few families win that fracking lottery, and front-line shale communities that host most of the drilling work—and the employment—collectively contain less than 10% of the state’s population. Most Pennsylvanians, especially residents of cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, have little or no contact with shale gas drilling, yet politicians of both parties cling to the idea that the industry is vital to the state’s overall economy.
Fracking, the story goes, is the golden goose of jobs—whether industry jobs like pipeline welding or jobs said to be generated through the supply chain or spending across other sectors of the economy. In 2020, an ad by a Trump-supporting super PAC claimed that a proposed ban on fracking would “kill up to 600,000 Pennsylvania jobs.” A recent ad by David McCormick, the Republican seeking to unseat U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, claims that 330,000 jobs in Pennsylvania depend on fracking.
Continue reading “Fracking’s Footprint in Pennsylvania Over-Rated”Northeast Drought Has Room to Get Worse
Farmer in Middletown Pa.: “Uncharted territory” going this many days without rain. Concerns about crops next year.
Drought monitor shows eastern Pennsylvania, where the report above was filmed, shows “moderate” to “severe” drought, extending into New Jersey, as well as points north in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine.
Other points in the country are harder hit – hearing from my son in Northwest Arkansas that his pond is lower than he’s ever seen it before.
In Connecticut, a “contained” fire still being watched as wind picks up. No rain in the forecast, with unseasonably warm weather continuing next week.
Continue reading “Northeast Drought Has Room to Get Worse”