Somehow, none of the news stories about this or other drought disasters make the connection that this will inevitably happen in US cities as well. What will happen when Phoenix gets cut off? Or Los Angeles? Fantasies about magical solutions are so far taking the place of thoughtful planning for a drier future.
Or the Bay Area. Berkeley gets all (ALL) of its water from the Sierra. Suppose it doesn't snow for three years and the reservoirs that store our water from melted snow are empty? We have low flow faucets, showers, and toilets mandated by the city for 40 years now. Many people have replaced lawns with native gardens, requiring no watering. I have no idea what people would do. Our water district keeps a close watch on water use, and they're great but I don't know if they've discussed it. They are replacing our water pipes to prevent breakage during an earthquake and are in very pro-active, but if there's no water...
Drought in Tehran and other major cities around the world makes us Michiganders more than a bit nervous! Somewhere around 20% of the world's supply of fresh water rests in these 5 (actually, 4) bodies of water. We can take as many long showers as we like here.
Oddly enough (and a metaphor for the foolishness of the human race), Michigan continues to have a net loss of population year by year, while places like Florida and Arizona have huge increases. Weird, huh?
Thank you for this, Bill. Indeed Julie Rehmeyer's sense of urgency is appropriate - too many experts seem to think there's plenty of time for actions. There isn't. And that last bit - S.Korea's beautiful and economically brilliant ‘Sunlight Pension’ Wow!
The Epstein cabal feels entwined with lack of action on climate. Or, at least, it has daylighted the absolute power the monied elite have over life (or lack thereof) on this planet. The corrupted elite, who show no regard for humanity, get rich on the continued production of fossil fuels. That is the only thing that matters. That's it. If ever there were a time to try to finally break through this monied, greedy fortress, we should be plotting this now. As a society, we are slowly (re)learning how to organize in ways we have not in many decades: boycotts, bridge brigades, street protests, ubiquitous reporting on the topic. We are distracted by the authoritarian takeover at present and attentions are focused on that crisis. But the public's outrage over the fossil fuel/financing industry needs to ramp up in parallel with the ugly stories that will be daylighted about the twisted Epstein network. Because the Epstein story is about two things: rape and sex trafficking of girls AND the monied elite's impunity, greed, callousness, and self absorption. This feels like a confluence, convergence of some sort. Bill McKibben has known this truth for decades re: the greed of the elite, and has been one of the few bright voices--voices that have often, sadly, just blown away in the wind. However, the timing feels right to build a strategy that coalesces around one of mankind's worst periods (Epsteinism) and daylights that it is this exact elite class/network that has been willing to completely destroy life on Earth in exchange for obscene wealth.
Thanks very much Bill, for the update on Iran. I can see is happening in the American west. Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico. We have already ravaged the Colorado River. And over 50% of our population has been deliberately under educated for years. Keep posting this sort of information as often as you can. We must ALL be aware.
Why is it that instead of focusing on what we here in the states need to fix most commentaries focus on China as always being infront of the curve in implementing rules/laws/policies to stay ahead of foreseen catastrophic events while here in the states we seem to have our collect heads up arse as regarding fixing these foreseeable problems.
Is it our leaders or us or both that can't grasp the reality.
"In a larger sense, I’ve been reading accounts for months now of how climate is dead as a political issue. I think this move makes clear that isn’t true; in fact, I’d wager that as energy affordability takes center stage in next year’s midterms, the transition off fossil fuels will be a key issue for progressives to seize.
They will need to do so quickly. As events in Tehran make clear, time is now moving fast. The physics of global warming are implacable: run out of water and you have to move your city. We’ll have to make politicians move fast to have any hope of getting ahead of the curve."
that climate change, perhaps, as a term may have run its course, given how toxic the notion is to some that, like the culture wars of the '80s, when people often could not communicate due to entranched positions on various topics. In the same way that global warming as a term has faded in some ways due to political perspectives, it seems short of directly experiencing a drought, forest fire burning your home, or losing everything to a hurricane, that an increasingly unruly (at least to human language) planet may want to be known by another term that can help bring conversations together.
Years ago now, Noam Chomsky said that climate change wouldn't wipe out the human species, but he was not so sanguine about organized society. Looks like he was right.
Bill. I wonder if you’d be interested in commenting on this push for rural/industrial large solar arrays in upstate New York, and many other states, as well. A Substacker named Alexandra Fasulo has been leading a campaign to push back against the state’s industrial overreach and fast tracking of these large arrays, without any local input, and often without even sufficient electrical infrastructure to utilize the power that’s generated. She is focusing on a 500+ acre field, due to be built directly on top of a protected wetland and a protected grassland habitat. I urge you to check out her work. She has done her research, is a solar power advocate, for the most part, and is a good writer and speaker regarding this subject.
Would that there be a better thought out version of this fast tracking legislation, that focused more on actual urban/industrial areas, where there is a heavy duty electrical grid that can accommodate large scale power generation.
Additionally, much of the power that is generated, is being used by AI centers, and not even available to regular customers. The whole thing, as presented, just reeks of greed and corruption. It looks like a multi billion dollar game of catch, played by multi billionaires.
The Seattle Times reported recently on WA state apple orchards in the drought stricken Yakima valley. Three years of extreme drought have led farmers to recently burn down a portion of their apple trees to try and save the orchard.
A negamatt is a riff on a negawatt, which is a word Amory Lovins uses to describe all the benefits that cascade from energy efficiency. Negawatt, in turn, started life as a typo of “megawatt.”
So negamatts are all the benefits that cascade from using different, cleaner, better materials and processes. It forces people to think in terms of systems and consider upstream, downstream and side-stream implications that often transcend sectors.
It’s a very liberating, big picture way to think about things.
This post was trial balloon for the word. But I think I may title my next post, which will feature two amazing companies, “Negamatts.” If would be deeply gratifying to sneak this idea into the mainstream conversation, which start up companies talking about the negamatt benefits of their products.
So the short answer: a word I needed didn’t exist, so I made one up!
Love the new word--negamatt. Like Laurie I didn't know what it meant until you explained it. Now it makes perfect sense. I look forward to your article on it and may write one myself (susanbinches.substack.com.
A key idea that relates to "small is beautiful," from EF Schumacher, is appropriate technology--in scale and in complexity (i.e., not overly complex). Applying that to the solar fields mentioned in this article, we'd need our own solar panel factories as well as all the electronic equipment, which would be reparable and recyclable. The economic flow to China would be rerouted closer to our own country, I suppose, with this philosophy. Then, you might put up solar institutions in NM, but some of the complication would be managed.
I'm wary of the sense of emergency being used to justify sudden large developments--as Rehmeyer's quote shows. Too much of a hurry and too quick of long-term planning will lead to unforeseen problems.
Somehow, none of the news stories about this or other drought disasters make the connection that this will inevitably happen in US cities as well. What will happen when Phoenix gets cut off? Or Los Angeles? Fantasies about magical solutions are so far taking the place of thoughtful planning for a drier future.
Or the Bay Area. Berkeley gets all (ALL) of its water from the Sierra. Suppose it doesn't snow for three years and the reservoirs that store our water from melted snow are empty? We have low flow faucets, showers, and toilets mandated by the city for 40 years now. Many people have replaced lawns with native gardens, requiring no watering. I have no idea what people would do. Our water district keeps a close watch on water use, and they're great but I don't know if they've discussed it. They are replacing our water pipes to prevent breakage during an earthquake and are in very pro-active, but if there's no water...
Drought in Tehran and other major cities around the world makes us Michiganders more than a bit nervous! Somewhere around 20% of the world's supply of fresh water rests in these 5 (actually, 4) bodies of water. We can take as many long showers as we like here.
Oddly enough (and a metaphor for the foolishness of the human race), Michigan continues to have a net loss of population year by year, while places like Florida and Arizona have huge increases. Weird, huh?
Thank you for this, Bill. Indeed Julie Rehmeyer's sense of urgency is appropriate - too many experts seem to think there's plenty of time for actions. There isn't. And that last bit - S.Korea's beautiful and economically brilliant ‘Sunlight Pension’ Wow!
The Epstein cabal feels entwined with lack of action on climate. Or, at least, it has daylighted the absolute power the monied elite have over life (or lack thereof) on this planet. The corrupted elite, who show no regard for humanity, get rich on the continued production of fossil fuels. That is the only thing that matters. That's it. If ever there were a time to try to finally break through this monied, greedy fortress, we should be plotting this now. As a society, we are slowly (re)learning how to organize in ways we have not in many decades: boycotts, bridge brigades, street protests, ubiquitous reporting on the topic. We are distracted by the authoritarian takeover at present and attentions are focused on that crisis. But the public's outrage over the fossil fuel/financing industry needs to ramp up in parallel with the ugly stories that will be daylighted about the twisted Epstein network. Because the Epstein story is about two things: rape and sex trafficking of girls AND the monied elite's impunity, greed, callousness, and self absorption. This feels like a confluence, convergence of some sort. Bill McKibben has known this truth for decades re: the greed of the elite, and has been one of the few bright voices--voices that have often, sadly, just blown away in the wind. However, the timing feels right to build a strategy that coalesces around one of mankind's worst periods (Epsteinism) and daylights that it is this exact elite class/network that has been willing to completely destroy life on Earth in exchange for obscene wealth.
Thanks very much Bill, for the update on Iran. I can see is happening in the American west. Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico. We have already ravaged the Colorado River. And over 50% of our population has been deliberately under educated for years. Keep posting this sort of information as often as you can. We must ALL be aware.
Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving, Bill!
China China China
Why is it that instead of focusing on what we here in the states need to fix most commentaries focus on China as always being infront of the curve in implementing rules/laws/policies to stay ahead of foreseen catastrophic events while here in the states we seem to have our collect heads up arse as regarding fixing these foreseeable problems.
Is it our leaders or us or both that can't grasp the reality.
Your writing here got me thinking:
"In a larger sense, I’ve been reading accounts for months now of how climate is dead as a political issue. I think this move makes clear that isn’t true; in fact, I’d wager that as energy affordability takes center stage in next year’s midterms, the transition off fossil fuels will be a key issue for progressives to seize.
They will need to do so quickly. As events in Tehran make clear, time is now moving fast. The physics of global warming are implacable: run out of water and you have to move your city. We’ll have to make politicians move fast to have any hope of getting ahead of the curve."
that climate change, perhaps, as a term may have run its course, given how toxic the notion is to some that, like the culture wars of the '80s, when people often could not communicate due to entranched positions on various topics. In the same way that global warming as a term has faded in some ways due to political perspectives, it seems short of directly experiencing a drought, forest fire burning your home, or losing everything to a hurricane, that an increasingly unruly (at least to human language) planet may want to be known by another term that can help bring conversations together.
Yes, I am a hopeful sort...
Thank you for this essential information you so generously provide us.
Years ago now, Noam Chomsky said that climate change wouldn't wipe out the human species, but he was not so sanguine about organized society. Looks like he was right.
If Iran would just definitively renound building nukes, the US woud be happy to sell them the gas needed for their generators.
Bill. I wonder if you’d be interested in commenting on this push for rural/industrial large solar arrays in upstate New York, and many other states, as well. A Substacker named Alexandra Fasulo has been leading a campaign to push back against the state’s industrial overreach and fast tracking of these large arrays, without any local input, and often without even sufficient electrical infrastructure to utilize the power that’s generated. She is focusing on a 500+ acre field, due to be built directly on top of a protected wetland and a protected grassland habitat. I urge you to check out her work. She has done her research, is a solar power advocate, for the most part, and is a good writer and speaker regarding this subject.
Would that there be a better thought out version of this fast tracking legislation, that focused more on actual urban/industrial areas, where there is a heavy duty electrical grid that can accommodate large scale power generation.
Additionally, much of the power that is generated, is being used by AI centers, and not even available to regular customers. The whole thing, as presented, just reeks of greed and corruption. It looks like a multi billion dollar game of catch, played by multi billionaires.
Another interesting decision:
Africa University switches to solar power
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/africa-university-switches-to-solar-power
The Seattle Times reported recently on WA state apple orchards in the drought stricken Yakima valley. Three years of extreme drought have led farmers to recently burn down a portion of their apple trees to try and save the orchard.
what the heck is a negamatt? It shows up at least twice in your otherwise fine article and the internet has no idea what it means! nor do I.
That’s a great question, Laurie! If you my full post, it’s explained. Bill linked to the post, but here’s the link again: https://jaginsburg.substack.com/p/the-materials-transition-everything
A negamatt is a riff on a negawatt, which is a word Amory Lovins uses to describe all the benefits that cascade from energy efficiency. Negawatt, in turn, started life as a typo of “megawatt.”
So negamatts are all the benefits that cascade from using different, cleaner, better materials and processes. It forces people to think in terms of systems and consider upstream, downstream and side-stream implications that often transcend sectors.
It’s a very liberating, big picture way to think about things.
This post was trial balloon for the word. But I think I may title my next post, which will feature two amazing companies, “Negamatts.” If would be deeply gratifying to sneak this idea into the mainstream conversation, which start up companies talking about the negamatt benefits of their products.
So the short answer: a word I needed didn’t exist, so I made one up!
Love the new word--negamatt. Like Laurie I didn't know what it meant until you explained it. Now it makes perfect sense. I look forward to your article on it and may write one myself (susanbinches.substack.com.
Ah, thank you J.A.! I will read your article. Brilliant. Maybe Bill can insert a wee definition in his piece for those who don't go to the link.
A key idea that relates to "small is beautiful," from EF Schumacher, is appropriate technology--in scale and in complexity (i.e., not overly complex). Applying that to the solar fields mentioned in this article, we'd need our own solar panel factories as well as all the electronic equipment, which would be reparable and recyclable. The economic flow to China would be rerouted closer to our own country, I suppose, with this philosophy. Then, you might put up solar institutions in NM, but some of the complication would be managed.
I'm wary of the sense of emergency being used to justify sudden large developments--as Rehmeyer's quote shows. Too much of a hurry and too quick of long-term planning will lead to unforeseen problems.