Month: November 2024

Virtual Power Plants, enabled with Bi-directional charging, could upend the grid as we know it. China, of course, is a pioneer.

Vehicle to Grid tech has challenges, but that’s what engineers are for.

Happy Day before Black Friday.

This is stochastic Terror – and a preview of coming disasters.

Stochastic Terror
noun

1. the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted:
   The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.
   ——

Elon Musk is enacting the program outlined above by Project 2025 author Russel Vought, now the nominee for Office of Management and Budget.

CNN:

When President-elect Donald Trump said Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would recommend major cuts to the federal government in his administration, many public employees knew that their jobs could be on the line.

Now they have a new fear: becoming the personal targets of the world’s richest man – and his legions of followers.

Last week, in the midst of the flurry of his daily missives, Musk reposted two X posts that revealed the names and titles of people holding four relatively obscure climate-related government positions. Each post has been viewed tens of millions of times, and the individuals named have been subjected to a barrage of negative attention. At least one of the four women named has deleted her social media accounts.

Although the information he posted on those government positions is available through public online databases, these posts target otherwise unknown government employees in roles that do not deal directly with the public.

Continue reading “Now Musk Resorts to Climate Terror”

But we knew that.

Great Lakes tracking extremely warm, relatively speaking, perfect setup for a Lake Effect Storm that may shut some areas down.

The op-ed excerpted below more or less correctly cites MAGA “Suspicious of experts and elites” as the driver behind the gobsmacking selection of brainworm-addled RFK jr to the Health and Human Services director.
What’s missing is recognition that the class of techno-billionaires, represented by Elon Musk’s literal physical presence inside the Trump transition, know that a powerful and professional scientific, technical, legal, and environmental bureaucracy is the only institution strong enough to curb their drive for absolute power.
The myth of “the Deep State” is a Putinist construction useful for autocrats and oligarchs who chafe against the constrictions of laws and constitutions.
Likewise, the idea that objective science or physics can be a source of fact and truth above the pronunciations of the Great Leader, is seen by oligarchs as a dangerous, if not treasonous, obstacle to be overcome.
Climate denial, often framed by MAGA as a reaction against “globalists” and “elitist” scientists, dovetails perfectly with Moscow’s complete reliance on fossil fuel extraction to power its creaking economy.
Project 2025 is specifically targeted against the modernist, scientific ethos, which, which has through lines from Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton, through Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and Enlightenment inspired curbs on Ecclesiastically backed Imperial power.

Anthony Mills in the New York Times:

In retrospect, the science policy of Donald Trump’s first administration was remarkably conventional, at least until Covid struck. He filled many science policy posts with figures highly regarded in the scientific community, even retaining Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health.

There were controversies surrounding environmental policy, including the administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. But those were familiar Republican fare, reminiscent of disputes during the Reagan and Bush eras. When it came to health agencies, many of Mr. Trump’s picks — Scott Gottlieb for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Alex Azar for secretary of health and human services — had impeccable reputations in the Republican establishment. The criticism from the left was mostly the tired refrain that they were too cozy with the pharmaceutical industry.

Continue reading “MAGA and Putin’s Attack on Western Scientific Leadership”

We are seeing tornadoes at times of year when we usually don’t expect them.
Historically tornadoes can happen any time of year, but this current November has been at record levels in Oklahoma – which is saying something.

A year or so before he became the nominee for one of the most important cabinet posts, RFK Jr was, on his podcast, entertaining and platforming one of the most insane and persistent conspiracy theories.

I don’t know folks. Decades into this fact checking and science defending enterprise, the Brain Worms seem to be winning.

Washington Post:

Republican state lawmakers are going after a new threat they say could cause harm to the environment — and playing into a baseless claim at the same time.

In a Tennessee bill passed by the state Senate last week, lawmakers targeted geoengineering, an experimental — and controversial — practice not yet in use that could help cool the planet amid climate change.

Continue reading “Not Just AntiVax: RFK Boosted ChemTrail/GeoEngineering Conspiracies”

A North Carolina non-profit warns of an uptick in Human trafficking in the chaos of post Helene North Carolina.
Just one bit of the massive example of the unforeseen collateral that climate change portends.

More retrospective on the flood’s mind bending stats below.

Continue reading “In Devastated North Carolina, Uptick in Human Trafficking”

CBS News:

Climate scientists say this will be the hottest year on record, for a second year in a row. It will also exceed a worldwide pledge to keep global warming under 34.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

A recent poll found that 74% of Minnesotans want schools to teach about the causes of climate change, its consequences and potential solutions. Just this year, Minnesota started requiring high school students to learn about climate change.

Inside Megan Hall’s AP Environmental Science Course at Open World Learning in St. Paul, students are getting a hands-on look at climate change.

“So we’re going to be looking at ecosystems through data analysis today,” said Hall to her class. “And we’re going to work on introduction now that all this climate shift species stuff is fresh in your mind.” 

Students are writing reports after field trips to nearby Crosby Farm Regional Park, then Gooseberry Falls State Park.

Continue reading “Minnesota Students Now Have Climate Change Curriculum”