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<font size="+2"><i><b>October 17, 2021</b></i></font><br>
<br>
[ inventive idea - integration ] <br>
<b>Growing Crops Under Solar Panels? Now There’s a Bright Idea</b><br>
In the new scientific (and literal) field of agrivoltaics,
researchers are showing how panels can increase yields and reduce
water use on a warming planet.<br>
- -<br>
This kind of setup also cools the solar panels in two ways: Water
evaporating from the soil rises up towards the panels, and plants
release their own water. This is dandy for the panels’ efficiency,
because they actually perform worse when they get too hot. They
generate an electric current when the sun’s photons knock electrons
out of atoms, but if they overheat, the electrons get overexcited
and don’t generate as much electricity when they’re dislodged...<br>
--<br>
Barron-Gafford also points out that agrivoltaics need not be limited
to the kinds of crops people eat. A farmer might let native grasses
grow wild under the panels, providing food for livestock, which
would also benefit from the shade. Or they might promote the growth
of plants for native pollinators like bees. With the right
management, that land could pull double duty as a synthetic
forest—just because it’s shaded, doesn’t mean life can’t flourish
underneath. <br>
<br>
“I think everything likes a little bit of shade,” says Kominek.
“There's quite a variety of crops that enjoy it. And when it's 100
degrees outside, I enjoy the shade.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wired.com/story/growing-crops-under-solar-panels-now-theres-a-bright-idea">https://www.wired.com/story/growing-crops-under-solar-panels-now-theres-a-bright-idea</a>
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<i>[ Yale Insights - hey, I live in Seattle ]</i><br>
<b>Is Seattle Prepared for Climate Change?</b><br>
Seattle is already seeing the impacts of climate change, including
record-breaking heat and smoke from West Coast wildfires; in the
coming decades, parts of the city will be periodically inundated
with floodwaters. Ann Grodnik-Nagle ’06, climate policy advisor for
Seattle Public Utilities, says that Seattle is focusing on both
mitigation—the city is committed to reach carbon neutrality by
2050—and adaptation, prioritizing vulnerable communities of color.<br>
<br>
<b>Q: Is Seattle prepared for climate change?</b><br>
Seattle is preparing. It’s a process. There are some areas where we
are very strong and others we’re still trying to figure out. We’re
making a lot of investments in reducing our carbon footprint
city-wide. We’re working to cut emissions from large buildings.
We’re investing in electrical vehicles for the city and charging
infrastructure.<br>
<br>
The City of Seattle, King County, and the Port of Seattle have
overlapping jurisdictions. Everyone has their own roles and
priorities, but there’s a lot of really good coordination and
alignment. Still, it’s challenging to come up with an orchestrated
strategy for climate adaptation and preparedness.<br>
- -<br>
We’re very strong in terms of investing in green infrastructure and
natural assets. We have an extensive green storm water
infrastructure system and have plans for even more. The approach
reduces greenhouse gas emissions, provides cooling impacts for
neighborhoods, and absorbs precipitation. It’s a multi-benefit
solution that combines mitigation and adaptation. That’s wonderful.<br>
<br>
Even within that strength, we have challenges. Creating open green
space that’s also floodable can have unintended consequences such as
making places that are already expensive even more expensive. To
deal with that, we’re trying to tie climate adaptation together with
anti-displacement work.<br>
<br>
In the Duwamish Valley, the tidally influenced river is already
over-topping its banks, impacting lower-lying neighborhoods that are
communities of color. That will become more and more frequent as sea
levels rise. Another layer of challenge is that the river itself is
a Superfund site. There are substantial historical and existing
health inequities in this area. The residential communities are
bearing the burden of pollution being put out by the adjacent
industrial areas.<br>
<br>
“We’re trying now to establish policies that will allow us to do
development differently so that as we invest in sea level rise
adaptation, we’re also investing in community wealth building and
community stabilization.”<br>
We’re working on development of a resilience district around two
neighborhoods that are particularly exposed to inundation. We’re
trying now to establish policies that will allow us to do
development differently so that as we invest in sea level rise
adaptation, we’re also investing in community wealth building and
community stabilization. The goal is for the benefits of
improvements due to public investment to accrue to the incumbent
communities. We want to avoid further displacement and making the
neighborhoods less affordable in a city that has so few affordable
options remaining.<br>
<br>
The resilience district is extremely exciting. We’re able to do this
project because we’ve received grant funding first from the Center
for Community Investment and then from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation through a program that supports climate health and equity
in cities throughout the world. The philanthropic funding has
enabled us to partner in ways that we wouldn’t have been able to had
we just been relying on municipal funding and Seattle Public
Utilities’ budget.<br>
<br>
<b>Q: What are the barriers to making sure Seattle is as prepared as
possible?</b><br>
There’s so much attention on the need for reducing emissions that it
can obscure the importance of preparedness and adaptation. It all
needs to happen. Preparedness and adaptation typically has a much
longer timeline, especially when it involves big, complicated
infrastructure. The projects are expensive; they require
orchestration among different agencies and impacted communities. It
gets tricky. It goes beyond electoral cycles and can span beyond the
tenure of leaders of different city departments. And funding is
always a challenge.<br>
<br>
Along those lines, the federal government is taking great steps in
the right direction with increased funding for some FEMA flooding
mitigation programs and building resilient infrastructure.<br>
<br>
As that money funnels down to cities and utilities and we start
making investments, a success in San Francisco, New York, or Boston
is a success for the whole sector because there’s a lot of
collaboration happening among peer cities and peer utilities,
especially coastal cities which face a lot of the same impacts. No
one has done this before, so we need to learn from each other.<br>
<br>
<b>Q: What would it be like to do this work in a part of the country
where there isn’t the same willingness to address climate change?</b><br>
The tenor of our approach might be different, but you can’t ignore
repetitive losses to property. You can’t ignore the loss of life
that we’re seeing. Climate impacts are affecting people. They’re
affecting children; they’re affecting vulnerable communities.<br>
<br>
When I look around the country, I’m more hopeful than you might
expect because even in areas where the political momentum isn’t
there around climate action, there are things happening anyway,
among students, among communities that are bearing the brunt of
climate impacts. I think that’s powerful.<br>
<br>
I’ve seen awesome community-based work in Texas after the major
freeze and resulting infrastructure failure, on the Gulf Coast in
the resilience work following all the storms, and all along the East
Coast in the rebuilding from storms. It’s super inspiring.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/is-seattle-prepared-for-climate-change">https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/is-seattle-prepared-for-climate-change</a><br>
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<i>[ The Four Ways From Univ of California] </i><br>
<b>4 ways to avoid future megafires</b><br>
Thursday, October 14, 2021<br>
Fuels reduction projects include thinning out trees, burning off
woody debris and reducing “ladder fuels” like small trees and brush
that can allow fire to reach the tree canopy. They create more open
forests that are less likely to fuel severe megafires. They also
create strategic areas where firefighters can more easily fight
future blazes. And, because fires burn less intensely in thinned
forests, they leave more intact forest after a fire for regenerating
new trees and sequestering carbon. Prescribed fires and managed
ignitions paid huge dividends for containing the Dixie and Caldor
fires.<br>
- -<br>
To manage fires in an era of climate change, where drier, hotter
weather creates ideal conditions for burning, experts estimate that
the area treated for fuels reduction needs to increase by at least
an order of magnitude. We believe government needs to accomplish
these four things to succeed:<br>
<blockquote><b>1. Drastically increase funding and staff for
agencies’ fuels reduction projects,</b> as well as outreach,
cost-sharing and technical assistance for private forestland
owners. Although the Biden administration’s proposal for a
Civilian Climate Corps proposes funding to bring in more young and
unskilled workers, funding more federal and state agency positions
would recruit more natural resource professionals, provide
career-track opportunities and better add forest restoration
capacity for the long term.<br>
<b>2. Reduce regulations on forest and fuels management </b>efforts
for both public and private land. While California and the federal
government have made recent strides to streamline regulations,
land management agencies need to acknowledge the biggest risk in
frequent fire forests is doing nothing, and time is running out.
Agencies need to drastically cut the time needed to plan and
implement fuels reduction projects.<br>
<b>3. Invest in communities’ capacity to carry out local forest
restoration</b> work by providing long-term support to local
organizations that provide outreach, technical assistance and
project coordination services. Funding restoration through
competitive grants makes development of long-term community
capacity challenging at best.<br>
<b>4. Provide funds and financial incentives for at risk
communities </b>to retrofit homes to withstand wildfires and
reduce fuels around homes, communities and infrastructure.<br>
Under a changing climate, we will have to learn to coexist with
wildfires in the U.S. West, but this will require concerted action
and a cultural shift in how we view and manage our forests and
communities to be resilient.<br>
</blockquote>
This article was written by Susan Kocher and Ryan E. Tompkins, both
cooperative extension forester and natural resources advisers at the
University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural
Resources. This article is republished from The Conversation under a
Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/4-ways-avoid-future-megafires">https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/4-ways-avoid-future-megafires</a><br>
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<p>[ Acting wisely, US military that is... ] <br>
<b>Troops to Get 'Climate Literacy' Education Under Pentagon's New
Climate Change Plan</b><br>
A military of "climate literate" troops and bases powered by
microgrids, that's the future envisioned by the Pentagon.<br>
<br>
Its new climate change plan, ordered by President Joe Biden and
released Thursday, would affect every level of command. It seeks
to counter the damaging effects of a warming world by educating
troops on the potential peril and hardening installations.<br>
Rising sea levels, extreme heat, more severe hurricanes and
wildfires are all hitting the military, either by threatening
bases and hampering training or by fueling global instability.<br>
<br>
"It's real, and no one in the department denies it, particularly
the new people, the younger folks," Richard Kidd, deputy assistant
secretary of defense for environment and energy resilience, said
during a press conference Friday. "This is part of their life, and
they're driving it. They're a force for change."<br>
<br>
The Pentagon has factored the weather changes into strategic
planning for years. But the new public fervor is part of the
administration's wider push on climate change, and the DoD's plan
was submitted this week, along with proposals from 22 other
federal agencies following an executive order...<br>
The new DoD Climate Adaptation Plan will broaden its efforts.<br>
<br>
"We intend to adapt the entire department -- our decision-making
processes, our training, our equipment, our supply chain, and our
partnerships with others," Kidd said at the event hosted by George
Washington University's Project for Media and National Security.<br>
Troops will be educated to improve their "climate literacy,"
according to the report. The topic should be taught to all during
professional development training and at advanced courses, it
said.<br>
<br>
"In order to properly respond, we need to have the knowledge, the
tools and the ability to make climate-informed decisions at all
echelons," Kidd said.<br>
<br>
Climate change has been a political lightning rod in Washington,
D.C., for decades. The Trump administration and other Republican
administrations have largely ignored or downplayed the problem,
arguing that increases seen in global temperatures are the result
of a naturally occurring cycle.<br>
<br>
But Biden, a Democrat, has made it a top priority for his
administration. The Pentagon has experienced the likely
consequences of climate change firsthand in recent years.<br>
<br>
Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was hit by unprecedented
flooding in 2019, and Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida suffered
$3 billion in hurricane damage in 2018. California military bases
face an increasing threat from wildfires.<br>
<br>
The DoD's plan aims to defend installations against such
devastation, partly by making them energy self-sufficient.<br>
<br>
"We will be building and fielding microgrids with onsite power
management, energy generation onsite and power storage," Kidd
said. "Our intent over time is to reduce the fossil fuel
component, and get to the point that we can operate independently
off the grid for 14 days."<br>
<br>
He said there also may come a time to "ask some hard questions"
and consider whether some military installations are no longer
viable for training or operations.<br>
<br>
The Defense Department consumes roughly 80% of the federal
government's energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration, and is a significant global contributor to
greenhouse gas emissions.<br>
<br>
But the report does not include specifics on reductions. Those
targets will be set by a forthcoming White House executive order,
Kidd said. A separate plan and report will follow that will spell
out the department's proposals for slashing its own emissions.<br>
<br>
"The science is very clear: We have to reduce our greenhouse gas
emissions to zero, and we have to do it before 2050 if we want to
avoid the most pronounced effects of climate change," he said.<br>
<br>
-- Patricia Kime can be reached at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Patricia.Kime@military.com">Patricia.Kime@military.com</a>.
Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/10/09/troops-get-climate-literacy-education-under-pentagons-new-climate-change-plan.html">https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/10/09/troops-get-climate-literacy-education-under-pentagons-new-climate-change-plan.html</a><br>
</p>
<p>- -</p>
[related]<br>
<b>Climate Change Could Make 'Military Equipment Useless,' Experts
Warn</b><br>
10 Sep 2021<br>
Stars and Stripes | By David Choi<br>
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea -- Leaders from defense institutes
across the world converged in Seoul this week to raise the alarm on
military threats posed by "irreversible and abrupt climate change."<br>
- -<br>
Tom Middendorp, Netherlands' former chief of defense and chairman of
the International Military Council on Climate and Security, warned
Wednesday that nations had "a responsibility to prepare" for the
implications of climate change.<br>
"I cannot remember any other conflict in my military experience
where we had this level of scientific foresight," he said during the
virtual portion of the seminar. "We know what's coming to us."<br>
<br>
The Netherlands, according to Middendorp, appropriates a significant
amount of its defense budget for "protection against the sea,"
because much of its population lives below sea level.<br>
- - <br>
Climate change's biggest impact on national defense is the way it
"undermines and destabilizes societies," said Sharon Burke, a former
U.S. assistant secretary of defense for operational energy. She told
the panel that while the military is unable to fight climate change
through conventional means, it "may well result in military
missions" ranging from humanitarian, disaster relief and combat.<br>
<br>
"If the nations of this world are unable to cut greenhouse gas
emissions ... if we fail, then militaries should be planning for
profound insecurity and more military missions later in this
century, or possibly sooner, if we hit certain tipping points,"
Burke said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/09/10/climate-change-could-make-military-equipment-useless-experts-warn.html">https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/09/10/climate-change-could-make-military-equipment-useless-experts-warn.html</a>
<br>
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<i>[ come on Wired. Why is the individual charged with this task?
Shouldn't government do this?] </i><br>
<b>Actions You Can Take to Tackle Climate Change</b><br>
These apps and resources can help you manage your eco-anxiety—and
take steps to tread more lightly on the planet.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wired.com/story/actions-you-can-take-to-tackle-climate-change/">https://www.wired.com/story/actions-you-can-take-to-tackle-climate-change/</a><br>
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<br>
<i>[The news archive - looking back]</i><br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming
October 17, 2000</b></font><br>
In the third presidential debate, Vice President Al Gore declares:<br>
<br>
"I spend a good deal of time talking to young people, and in my
standard speech out there on the stump, I usually end my speech by
saying, 'I want to ask you for something, and I want to direct it
especially to the young people in the audience,' and I want to tell
you what I tell them. Sometimes people who are very idealistic and
have great dreams, as young people do, are apt to stay at arm's
length from the political process, because they think their good
hearts might be brittle, and if they invest their hopes and allow
themselves to believe, then they're going to be let down and
disappointed. But thank goodness, we've always had enough people who
have been willing in every generation to push past the fear of a
broken heart and become deeply involved in forming a more perfect
union. We're America, and -- and we believe in our future, and we
know we have the ability to shape our future.<br>
<br>
"Now, we've got to address one of the biggest threats to our
democracy, and that is the current campaign financing system. And I
know they say it doesn't rank anywhere on the polls. I don't believe
-- I don't believe that's a fair measure. I'm telling you, I will
make it -- I will make the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform
bill the very first measure that I send to the Congress as
president. Governor Bush opposes it. I wish that he would consider
changing his mind on that, because I think that the special
interests have too much power and we need to give our democracy back
to the American people.<br>
<br>
"Let me tell you why. Those issues you mentioned, Social Security,
prescription drugs--the big drug companies are against the
prescription drug proposal that I've made. The HMOs are against the
patients' rights bill, the Dingell-Norwood bill, that I support and
that Governor Bush does not support. The big oil companies are
against the measures to get more energy independence and renewable
fuels. They ought to have their voices heard, but they shouldn't
have a big megaphone that drowns out the American people. We need
campaign finance reform, and we need to shoot straight with young
and old alike and tell them what the real choices are. And we can
renew and rekindle the American spirit and make our future what our
founders dreamed it could be. We can."<br>
<br>
(64:40--67:22)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PresidentialCandidatesDebate">http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PresidentialCandidatesDebate</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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