In Between Times 6-29-2023
Lifetime carbon emissions EVs vs. combustion, Solar energy capacity now twice that of coal in China - but there's a catch, Saving California? What is "approval voting"?
Good cause redux: Take Action!
It's a solid step in the right direction. The discarded bottles and other waste will be recycled and used to package salmon, haddock, cod, and sea bass, removing "500 metric tons" of plastic from the ocean. The packaging will be made 30% from these materials.
Let's congratulate Tesco and encourage them to do more like this.
Click here to sign the petition!
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Life Cycle Emissions: EVs vs. combustion engine vehicles
One very important factor in this equation is the development of solid state batteries for cars which will be much smaller, lighter, and less carbon intensive in production. We should see these relatively soon.
(From Visual Capitalist)
According to the International Energy Agency, the transportation sector is more reliant on fossil fuels than any other sector in the economy. In 2021, it accounted for 37% of all CO2 emissions from end‐use sectors.
To gain insights into how different vehicle types contribute to these emissions, the above graphic visualizes the life cycle emissions of battery electric, hybrid, and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles using Polestar and Rivian’s Pathway Report.
Click here for the article.
China’s solar is now at twice the capacity of its coal power
This is pretty significant as China is far and away the biggest user of coal and far and away the world’s largest emitter of carbon. So even still, China’s solar energy capacity is double that of its coal?
That is a whole lot of solar power.
(From Electrek)
Overall, the installed generation capacity of non-fossil-fuel energy power generation was 1.33 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%, accounting for 50.5% of the total installed capacity, and the proportion increased by 3 percentage points year-on-year.
But.
As Reuters notes, China’s government has “encouraged coal miners to maximize production and coal-fired generators to stockpile fuel.
“Coal mine production increased by +98 million tonnes (+5.4%) to a record 1,912 million tonnes in the first five months of 2023, roughly in line with the rise in thermal generation (+6.6%).”
It appears that China is using coal as a “transition” energy.
For the record US carbon emissions have been going down since the mid-90s.
Whereas, China, even with the massive new solar capacity continues to head in a different direction.
Click here for the article.
Forest carbon offset project in Canada damaged by raging wildfires
Yesterday I walked out of my house and the sun was dimmed again by soot from wildfires raging in The Great White North. It was worse earlier in the month. Then, one could actually smell the smoke. But the sky yesterday was,and now looking out of my office window, is, significantly grayer than it should be for the beginning of mid-summer. Thousands and thousands of acres of forest have been lost in Canada. That also means that lots of carbon has been released into the atmosphere. This has some people questioning whether trees are a good form of carbon sequestration.
(From The Carbon Herald)
The project also offers carbon credits to companies looking for emissions compensation. This is made possible through the initiative’s carbon storage and avoidance services, which rely on independent verification before issuing credits and making them available for purchase.
The managing company stated that about 100 hectares of their 40.000 hectares of forest were affected by the fire, or in other words, 0.25% of the entire project. This leaves uncertainties about the extent of damage to their CO2 removal capacity as well as the amount of carbon released during the fire.
Click here for the article.
Vanity Fair asks: Can anyone save California?
This is the question asked in the excellent and longish piece attached. The thing is, it is written from a Vanity Fair perspective, so though it does mention crime and environmental strain there is little about the fact that it is horribly expensive to start a business in California, that it’s horribly expensive to LIVE in California due to excessive housing regs, zoning, and other factors, that California is essentially a one party state, and that California since about 2014 has been hemorrhaging residents - and this trend is intensifying. There is a sense from the reporter that maybe the question should be asked, but in the end California isn’t THAT bad.
And its not. I love California. My sister was born in Monterey and some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen is in The Golden State. My boyhood sports hero, pretty much my only one, is from Santa Barbara. I grew up rooting for The Raiders. The Bakersfield sound holds a special place in my heart. The Grateful Dead, sons of the Bay Area, have an even more special place.
But California is the only place where I’ve seen homeless encampments on the post-apocalyptic scale. It is the only place where I was once followed into a restaurant by a homeless person who demanded - demanded - that I buy her a piece of pizza. (I didn’t.) I have seen the gnarly sides of Philly, New York, Baltimore, Washington, and many other cities in the US and abroad and I have never had anything like that happen to me in those places.
Longtime California resident and onetime booster Adam Carolla basically argues that Cali has become a semi-developing world state in that California has both immense wealth and immense poverty with a middle class that is under tremendous pressure, similar to some parts of the “rich” developing world.
And it is very much worth nothing that when factoring the cost of living California is the poorest state per capita in the USA, poorer than Mississippi, West Virginia, or Arkansas.
So, something is clearly broken.
One note of hope though. At the end of the article there is mention of the work being done around fusion at Laurence Livermore. If California becomes the cradle of fusion tech, the ultimate renewable energy, that would be pretty special and very California.
(From Vanity Fair)
(Congressman) Khanna also presides over working-class cities to the south, sprawling neighborhoods of immigrants from India, China, and Mexico who service the lifestyles of the billionaires but can’t afford to live anywhere nearby. In Silicon Valley, socioeconomic diversity has evaporated. “There’s something that just seems out of whack,” he says.
There is, in Khanna’s analysis, a growing tension among California Democrats over the path through this squeeze. “On the cost of living, this has been failed policy in California,” he says. Immigrants, especially Latinos, who make up nearly 40 percent of California’s population, have become increasingly conservative when facing the fallout from progressive cities like San Francisco. While I was in the Central Valley, two hours east, I was told that homeless people from San Francisco were already showing up at the exits off Interstate 5. Santa Clara, which Khanna represents, initially resisted the extension of San Francisco’s BART rail system. “Who’s going to come here?” voters asked him.
Click here for the article.
Life in a state legislature’s superminority
What is “Approval Voting”?
And why is it preferable to our current system or “ranked choice voting”?
(From All Sides)
Approval Voting counts every second choice vote, and in doing so empowers Americans to elect new kinds of political parties and candidates that reflect the views of most voters across the political spectrum. Instead of limiting voters to pick only one candidate per election, or having them unwittingly eliminate popular consensus choices by ranking them out, an Approval Voting ballot allows you to vote for as many candidates as you approve of, with each vote counting equally, rather than being ranked. In short, the phrase “pick one” on the ballot is changed to “pick all you like.” The voter places a mark on the ballot next to all candidates they approve of, and the winner is simply the candidate who gets the most total votes in the election. Though each voter privately knows which candidate was their first choice and which were their second choices, the ballot counts them all the same, and that is the key to arriving at a true popular consensus.
Click here for the article.
This college lets students get credit for hiking the Appalachian Trail
This is a fantastic idea and we are proud to say that the college offering the credit is Emory and Henry College in the western part of the Commonwealth of Virginia, your editor’s home.
In fact I used to live 2 miles from the Appalachian Trail and I have hiked much of it over the years. The idea that one can get college credit for doing the trail makes a lot of sense. First, to complete the thing is a monumental achievement. Second, the sheer time in the forest would be deeply valuable, especially for say an environmental studies or forestry major.
More colleges should do this. We are looking at you UVA, JMU, and Virginia Tech. Plus why not do the same thing for the Pacific Crest Trail etc.?
(From Outdoors)
Maybe your college had a great hiking club, like mine did. Maybe it had an outdoor center where you could borrow tents, snowshoes, and other equipment free or on the cheap. Maybe it had a robust outdoor education department where you could take classes on everything from winter camping to skiing. But we’re willing to bet it didn’t go as far to get students to go outside as Virginia’s Emory and Henry College, which will let students hike the Appalachian Trail for credit in 2024.
Students who join the Semester-A-Trail program have the option of hiking either the southernmost 470 miles of the AT from Springer Mountain to Damascus, or shooting for a full thru-hike of the trail by enrolling through the summer.
Click here for the article.
The 10 longest hiking trails in the US
Event
July 5 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm EDT
Premiere: Sister Helen Prejean on getting rid of fear
Location: Online
Former Nobel Peace price nominee, Sister Helen Prejean.
Sister Helen is known for her work for social justice; in this 50 minute interview, she is giving her astutely inspirational thoughts on her own powerful and sucessful experience with bridging communities which started out fearing each other.
Subjects covered:
1. How to deal with racism/ fear.
2. How to listen!
3. How you need to find your own supportive community in order to be a successful social change agent.
4. How and why Sister Helen believes that all humans’ deepest desire is to follow their calling (and how to find that).plus more, including quite a bit of humor.
There will be a 20 minute discussion afterwords for those interested.
This event is hosted by POV International.
The interview with Sister Helen is conducted by journalist and editor Lisbeth Liv Carlsen.
Place: ZOOM
Please enter the event via the zoom link, we look forward to see you for an inspirational and fun hour.