Author Archives: AbbieBenes

Hurricane season 2019 is almost here. Here’s a preview.

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The official start to hurricane season is still two months away, but forecasters released their first previews of the season this week.

Both forecasts, from Colorado State University and AccuWeather, anticipate roughly near-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin. Although that might sound good, it’s actually a bit of a surprise given the building El Niño, which typically dampens hurricane formation off the coastline of the eastern United States.

“A near normal season can be devastating,” CSU meteorologist Philip Klotzbach said in an interview with Grist. “Even a below normal season like 1992 can cause huge problems.”

That year, Category 5 Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida. At the time, Andrew was the most damaging hurricane in U.S. history. Since then, five hurricanes have topped it, including three since 2017 — Harvey, Maria, and Irma. Last year, Hurricanes Florence and Michael both caused billions of dollars of damage in the Carolinas and Florida, respectively.

This year, forecasters expect 12 to 14 named storms, of which five to seven will become hurricanes, and two or three will grow into major hurricanes with sustained wind speeds exceeding 110 mph. That’s roughly in-line with long-term averages, though scientists think climate change is generally making stronger hurricanes more common.

Should El Niño strengthen more than currently forecast, wind patterns in the upper atmosphere might become increasingly unfavorable for stronger hurricanes, which could provide a much-needed break to regions that are still recovering from the last two disastrous hurricane seasons.

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Hurricane season 2019 is almost here. Here’s a preview.

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Big oil just got a pass on methane reporting.

In some parts of the country, the season just breezed in three weeks ahead of schedule. Balmy weather may seem like more good news after an already unseasonably warm winter, but pause a beat before you reach for your flip-flops.

According to the “spring index,” a long-term data set which tracks the start of the season from year-to-year, spring is showing up earlier and earlier across the United States.

The culprit behind the trend? Climate change. And it’s bringing a batch of nasty consequences. Early warmth means early pests, like ticks and mosquitoes, and a longer, rougher allergy season. Agriculture and tourism can be thrown off, too. Washington D.C.’s cherry blossoms usually draw crowds in April, for instance, but they’re projected to peak three weeks early this year.

Spring isn’t shifting smoothly, either. It’s changing in fits and starts. Eggs are hatching and trees are losing their leaves, but temperatures could easily plunge again, with disastrous consequences for new baby animals and plants.

Play this out another 80 years, and it’s easy to imagine a world out of sync. Sure, your picnic in December sounds nice. But bees could lose their wildflowers, and groundhogs may never see their shadows again.

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Big oil just got a pass on methane reporting.

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Larry King Dupes Donald Trump Into Interview on Russian TV

Mother Jones

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Today we learn just how easy it is to trick Donald Trump. Yesterday he was interviewed by Larry King on RT, a TV network funded by the Russian government. That’s probably not a good look, especially for a candidate already viewed as alarmingly cozy with Vladimir Putin. So what happened?

Poor Donald. He used to be so sharp. Probably suffering from dysphasia or something.

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Larry King Dupes Donald Trump Into Interview on Russian TV

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The windmill could get a snazzy green facelift, thanks to Dutch architects

Reinventing the wheel

The windmill could get a snazzy green facelift, thanks to Dutch architects

By on 24 Feb 2015commentsShare

The Netherlands just keeps one-upping the rest of the world. Recently, a Dutch construction firm installed a solar panel bike lane and then engineers went ahead and made another bike path glow-in-the-dark. Not that we’re keeping score or anything.

Now, the Dutch Windwheel Corporation has plans to build a 570-foot structure in Rotterdam that would be equal parts architectural marvel and green-tech wünderkind. Basically, the project would turn the nation’s iconic windmill into a high-tech real-estate development.

Here’s Smithsonian with the science:

The Wind Wheel’s design, made of two massive rings and an underwater foundation, plans to incorporate other green technologies, including solar panels, rainwater capture and biogas creation. The biogas will be created from the collected waste of residents of the 72 apartments and 160 hotel rooms that are planned for the inner ring.

The outer ring is set to house 40 cabins that move along a rail like a roller coaster, giving tourists a view of the city and the surrounding countryside, much like the London Eye or Las Vegas’ High Roller, which became the world’s tallest observation wheel when it opened in 2014. The cabins have glass “smart walls” that project information — the current weather, for example, and the heights and architects of buildings — onto the panorama. A restaurant and shops are also planned within the proposed structure.

Another plus: The wind wheel would also be a hub for new green technology businesses and an opportunity to create more jobs in the country.

Sounds sweet, right?

Well, here’s the catch: The technology needed to complete the project is still in the works. More from Smithsonian:

While aspects of the Wind Wheel’s design seem futuristic, the technology will have several years to advance before final construction gets underway. Duzan Boepel, the project’s principal architect, says that the Wind Wheel is still in its beginning phases. … He says if they prove that the wheel’s bladeless turbine tech can be scaled up for use in the Wind Wheel, the building may be finished by 2025.

Yeah, we will all be dreaming about this for the next decade. And yes, the Netherlands could win another batch of green points.

Source:
This Dutch Wind Wheel Is Part Green Tech Showcase, Part Architectural Attraction

, Smithsonian.

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The windmill could get a snazzy green facelift, thanks to Dutch architects

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Don’t Believe the Doom Mongering About Obama’s New Carbon Regs

Mother Jones

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For deep coverage of President Obama’s decision to roll out new limits on CO2 emissions from power plants, I commend to you the fine folks who cover the environment for us. Their real-time reporting on today’s events is here.

For now, I’ll just make a couple of points. First, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy sure is right about this:

McCarthy said critics who warn of severe economic consequences of the rules have historically decried all environmental protections. She described them as “ special interests” who “cried wolf to protect their own agenda. And time after time, we followed the science, protected the American people, and the doomsday predictions never came true. Now, climate change is calling our number. And right on cue, those same critics once again will flaunt manufactured facts and scare tactics.”

Before the rules came out, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would cost the economy $50 billion annually and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, from the coal-heavy state of Kentucky, called it “a dagger in the heart of the American middle class.”

You should basically ignore cries of doom from conservatives and business interests. They’ll be producing reams of data showing that the new EPA regs will cost untold billions of dollars, millions of jobs, and thousands of plant closures. This is what they’ve done with every environmental regulation ever proposed. In virtually every case, they’ve been wrong. The cost of compliance turns out to be a lot lower than we expect, as does the impact on jobs and energy prices. Roughly speaking, this is because capitalism really does work, something these fans of capitalism always forget whenever it becomes inconvenient. But work it does: we invent new ways of compliance and new ways of generating energy, and it all turns out far better than the doom-mongers expect.

But you probably knew that already. So here’s something else to ponder: What is Obama’s real goal in announcing these new regulations? The reason I ask is that today’s announcement is just the first step. We now have to go through the normal drafting and public comment phase, and this is a lengthy process—even if the courts don’t get involved, something I wouldn’t bet on. Obama may have directed the EPA to issue the final rule by June 2015, but that seems hopelessly optimistic to me. At a minimum, for a complex and powerful regulation like this one, I’d expect a minimum of two or three years.

In other words, it probably won’t go into effect during Obama’s presidency. And that makes me wonder if it’s as much a bargaining chip as anything else. Back in 2010, when cap-and-trade was being considered in the Senate, Obama warned that if it didn’t pass, he’d take executive action on his own. That wasn’t enough to scare Republicans into supporting the bill, but now he’s actually doing it, which means there’s a concrete regulation to compare alternatives to. And I wonder if that isn’t the main point: Produce something specific enough that it’s possible to get some Republican support for an alternative. Even now, I suspect that Obama would be much happier with congressional legislation than with an executive action.

I’m just noodling here, and I might be entirely off base. God knows Obama has no reason to think that anything short of Armageddon will provoke any serious compromising from Republicans in Congress. Still, the timing certainly seems a bit peculiar. It’s been four years since cap-and-trade failed. Why did it take this long to produce the EPA regs that he had threatened as the price of failure?

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Don’t Believe the Doom Mongering About Obama’s New Carbon Regs

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When the Landscape Is Quiet Again: North Dakota’s Oil Boom

Mother Jones

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North Dakota native Sarah Christianson has made a career out of photographing her home as only a local can—with a keen eye to subtleties and nuances in the landscape that make a place like the plains so beautiful. Christianson’s past work focused very close to home. In her first book, By Friday Morning, Christianson said goodbye to her grandfather by documenting the mile-long drive between her grandparents’ farm and the cemetery where he was buried. Last year’s highly praised Homeplace (Daylight, 2013) documents the 1,200-acre farm on which she was raised. Her parents are the fourth and last consecutive generation to farm the land. The plaintive black and white photos frankly, but lovingly, convey the no-nonsense plains farmers’ lifestyle. It’s a world away from the splashy wild west atmosphere of the boom towns that’ve sprung up around drilling sites.

Still focusing on her home state, Christianson’s newest body of work examines the current oil and gas boom in North Dakota, along with the remnants of booms past. In addition to stepping away from photographing more personal spaces, When the Landscape Is Quiet Again is the first project Christianson has shot in color.

And while the color palette and subjects have broadened, Christianson’s photos still have a strong, careful, quiet presence to them. A lot of the beauty in a place like the Plains is exceptionally subtle. These photos capture that stillness that just washes over you and juxtaposes it with the scarring interruption of drilling operations.

New well pad carved out of bluffs near the Badlands.

Natural gas flare from oil well adjacent to cattle pasture, White Earth River Valley.

Drilling rig near Little Missouri National Grasslands, near Charbonneau.

Vertical well abandoned in 1983, south of Williston.

Pipeline constructed on land seized by eminent domain, White Earth River Valley.

Saltwater pipeline spill, near Antler.

When the Landscape Is Quiet Again will be shown for the first time at SF Camerawork in downtown San Francisco, from February 12 to April 19, 2014, with an opening reception on February 13.

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When the Landscape Is Quiet Again: North Dakota’s Oil Boom

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