Author: greenman3610

Climate is a theme among many, although they don’t bash you over the head with it.
It is in any case, absolutely brilliant, riveting, and cathartic.
Bring tissue.

Review here from 2019, “Living on Earth”:

BASCOMB: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Bobby Bascomb.

According to ancient Greek myth, Hades, ruler of the underworld, kidnaps the Goddess Persephone and brings about the first winter on earth. For writer Anaïs Mitchell, that sudden change in the climate is the perfect backdrop for the story of her Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Hadestown”. The show infuses the theme of climate change with New Orleans jazz, folk, and pop music. Here to tell us more is the director of “Hadestown”, Rachel Chavkin. Rachel, welcome to Living on Earth.

CHAVKIN: Thanks very much.

BASCOMB: So for someone that hasn’t seen the show or listened to the music yet, can you give me a quick summary of what it’s about?

CHAVKIN: Yeah. So “Hadestown” is a retelling of an ancient story, for those who know their Greek mythology, which is the Orpheus and Eurydice story, as it intersects with the myth of Hades and Persephone. Eurydice says — I think these lyrics are no longer exactly in it, but — “flood will get you if the fire don’t”. So there’s a sense that the above world is a dangerous place. But you hear about this mythic place, which is Hadestown, and Hadestown is a land of plenty and a land where you sort of aren’t ever worried about where your next meal is going to come from. And so during Act One Eurydice chooses to go down to Hadestown, and the audience along with Eurydice discover that Hadestown is actually basically this proto-fascist state. And you hear about a wall that is getting built, and the wall will never be done. And Orpheus comes down to Hadestown to try to get the love of his life back.

BASCOMB: So here at Living on Earth, we tend to look at everything through the lens of the environment. But it seems pretty clear to me that there’s some clear allusions to climate change. Can you tell me about that?

CHAVKIN: Yeah. So the image of the climate being out of whack has been a core one for Anaïs since she started writing the show. And so as we thought more and more about shaping the world that Eurydice and Orpheus are living in, a world caused by, in Greek mythological terms, the decay of this ancient marriage between Hades and Persephone, a world that is out of balance, where it is either freezing or it’s blazing hot, and that food becomes a really, you know, a scarcer substance and the idea of stability becomes harder to imagine, and that Eurydice is, is a character who has spent her life running. All of those are things that kind of crystallized while we were making the show.

BASCOMB: Well, let’s play a song from the show. I want to play a clip of “Any Way the Wind Blows”. But before we do, can you set it up for me? What’s happening at this point in the storyline?

CHAVKIN: Yeah, so “Any Way the Wind Blows” is really right at the top of the story. It’s really where you hear her, this kind of tough chick who is this survivor, walk into this bar, that is Hermes’ bar where she will eventually, right after this song, meet Orpheus, the love of her life. And she talks about how screwed up the weather is.

Continue reading “If You Have Not Seen Hadestown, Get the Hell out to This Film Version”

Made me laugh.

The suffering of animals is immense, and climate change is making it much, much worse.

Good reporting from Deutsche Welle here on the water constraints that are cutting output at nuclear and hydro plants around Europe. Starts with a summary of the situation in Romania and Hungary that has already been described on this page.

Interview with an expert from Ember, the go-to experts on Europe’s energy transition. Clearly, more solar and batteries would go a long way to mitigating this crunch.

Key takeaways:
“Only solar power performs relatively well in these conditions.”
“The Interconnectedness of Europe is one of its key strengths when it comes to energy.”
“It’s not just nuclear and hydropower that have trouble in this kind of heat.”

This is pretty striking. Not something you see often, I would say.
Romania blowing river channels in desperate attempt to keep cooling water flowing to Nuclear plant, as the Danube shrinks from climate enhanced drought.

UK Channel 4 report – Description:

As the mighty Danube dries up in the heatwave, there are desperate measures to keep some goods flowing and enough water to cool power plants including nuclear ones.

Water levels for the river which flows through ten countries from Germany to the Black Sea have dropped to just 23 centimetres in Budapest as severe drought grips central Europe.
Hungary is preparing to completely shut down its only nuclear power plant later this week as the river becomes too shallow to supply water for cooling. The record low levels have also triggered a state of emergency in Romania, where energy conservation measures have led to two car-makers halting production.

Replaces wood for paper products. Grows in arid zones. Result of a “moonshot” research program.
Implications for forestry, carbon sinks, and maybe, wildfires?

Wall Street Journal:

For two decades, Kimberly-Clark has scoured the Earth for a material that could replace wood fiber. The maker of Scott paper towels, Cottonelle toilet paper and Huggies diapers now says it has made a breakthrough.

Paper-based products of the future, the company says, could be made with hesperaloe, a plant with long, pointy leaves that grows in arid climates. 

Fiber from the plant can be used to make paper towels, toilet paper and other products that are both stronger and softer than wood-based equivalents, executives from Kimberly-Clark said. If production reaches scale, it could also be cheaper and less environmentally damaging than cutting down trees, they say.

“We call it our Goldilocks discovery,” said Craig Slavtcheff, the company’s top research-and-development officer. The company plans to announce its findings later Monday.

Kimberly-Clark describes its continuing efforts to commercialize the findings as a “moonshot,” and executives caution that there is a long research runway ahead. Still, they expressed hope that hesperaloe could help them reach a previously stated ambition to eventually stop using fibers from natural forests in their products. The company is one of the biggest makers of paper-based products in the world.

Continue reading “Paper Alternative Could Keep more Forests for Carbon Drawdown”

I posted the other day on heat impacts to cattle herds.
More evidence keeps showing up.

One adaptation being explored, solar panels to shade pastures and animals.
Sheep famously are taking advantage of this, Cattle are harder because they’re larger, but a project in Tennessee is exploring different approaches.

Techradar:

This small solar farm in Christiana, Tennessee, looks like many others from a distance – but beneath its black panels lies lush pasture instead of gravel.

The 40-acre facility, owned by Silicon Ranch, allows a small herd of cattle to spend their days munching grass and resting in the shade.

The ranch is testing whether cattle can coexist with power generation without removing farmland from active use, with a setup that introduces a variation of agrivoltaics, which extends beyond crops and sheep into larger livestock systems.

Continue reading “Heat Hammering Herds – Could Solar Serve a Solution?”

If you are reading this post, you are using a Data Center somewhere.
If you are asking people to join your Facebook page, sign up for your Zoom, and contribute to your GoFundMe to oppose Data Centers, you may be unclear on the concept.

If you block a data center in one town, another will be built in another town nearby, or in the next state, or in Tierra del Fuego, or under the Ocean, or in Outer space – because you and billions of people like you, as well as, increasingly, any business that wants to stay competitive, are using and demanding them.

Everyone should be deeply concerned about the uses and misuse of AI technology, and every industrial facility should be held to rigorous economic and environmental standards. But I am disgusted by politicians on all sides who seek to enflame people’s often misinformed and untethered anger toward billionaire oligarchs, and legit fears about the technology, without actually educating them and leading a way forward.
There are bad faith actors out there who seek to equate Data Centers with Clean energy, and are looking for ways to mobilize justified concerns about AI as a cudgel for the fossil fuel industry.
I’ll be pushing back.

Adam Mastroianni in the New York Times:

I empathize with the environmental opposition to data center construction, but the arguments are shakier than they seem. The battle over where A.I. data centers are being built is really a battle over what role A.I. should play in our lives. And that’s a battle that critics can win.

Many people feel that A.I. is being foisted on them by a handful of tech billionaires, in ways that are incorporeal and difficult to resist. Data centers, on the other hand, are physical structures that are subject to zoning regulations. So it makes sense that anger toward and anxiety about A.I. are manifesting as opposition to the buildings that house it. Regular people can’t tell Sam Altman what to do, but they can kick him out of their towns.

Data centers should be held to the same environmental standards as any other project. However, according to the researcher Andy Masley, giving up a lifetime of interacting with large language models would make a negligible difference in emissions compared with avoiding one trans-Atlantic flight or switching to a hybrid car. By his estimates, sending a prompt to ChatGPT is about as carbon-intensive as running a clothes dryer for a single second.

Continue reading “Data Center Panic Often Based on Alternative Facts”

Above, good explainer from Fox Weather.

Below, neighborhoods being erased in Spokane.

Continue reading “Spokane Fire Damage Mounts”

Description:

Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant is facing a possible historic shutdown as record-low water levels on the Danube threaten its cooling system. Prime Minister Peter Magyar said the facility, which supplies nearly half of Hungary’s electricity, could be forced offline if river levels continue to decline. The plant has already reduced output to less than half capacity amid a severe summer heatwave and drought. Magyar also warned of wider energy supply pressures, including fuel disruptions and logistical problems, while accusing former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government of failing to prepare for climate-related challenges. The crisis has intensified debate over Hungary’s energy security, climate resilience and reliance on Russian-linked energy infrastructure.

Reuters:

Hungary ‌will power down its Paks nuclear power plant for the first time in nearly half a century on Sunday, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Saturday, as water levels on the Danube River the plant uses as a coolant have plumbed record lows.

The shutdown comes as large parts of Europe have been hit by prolonged heat and ​drought, driving river levels lower and raising concerns about water supplies, shipping and power generation.

Falls in water levels amid a lack of rain ​have also disrupted shipping and tourism in Hungary and triggered water-use restrictions in more than 100 cities and villages, including ⁠on the outskirts of Budapest, based on government records.

The energy crisis could also hit the wider economy, which grew less than forecast in the second quarter following a ​three-year stretch of stagnation.

“Due to a further decline in the Danube’s water level, the second-to-last generating unit at the Paks nuclear power plant will be ​shut down at 1:30 a.m. (2330 GMT),” Magyar said in a Facebook post.

Continue reading “Power Crisis as Hungary’s Heat Could Shut Giant Nuclear Plant”