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<font size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>March</b></i></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b> 15, 2024</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font><br>
<i>[ danger of decrepitude - NPR listen or read ]</i><br>
<b>Old power lines plus climate change mean a growing risk of
utilities starting fires</b><br>
MARCH 12, 20246:23 AM ET<br>
By Julia Simon<br>
A power pole "that appeared to be decayed at the base."<br>
<br>
That's what Texas state investigators now say appears to have fallen
and caused the largest wildfire in the state's history. The electric
utility - Xcel Energy - said in a statement that "its facilities
appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek
fire."<br>
<br>
The U.S. is brimming with aging power infrastructure. Many of the
nation's power lines were built 60 to 70 years ago, says Rob
Gramlich, president of consulting firm Grid Strategies. "Old,
literally rusted assets," he says.<br>
<br>
Many utilities don't have the technology to know when power lines
are overheating or sagging, potentially onto brush or trees, he
says. These things spark fires...<br>
- -<br>
And now those old power lines are coming into contact with the
growing impacts of human-caused global warming. Drier vegetation and
hotter weather caused by climate change can fuel larger, more
intense wildfires.<br>
Climate change has brought fire risk to unexpected places, like
Louisiana's wetlands and Maui, where high winds downing utility
power lines are under investigation for causing catastrophic fires.
Utilities are waking up to the threat of fire in new places and new
times of the year, says Scott Aaronson, senior vice president of
security and preparedness at the Edison Electric Institute, the
leading trade group for investor-owned utilities.<br>
<br>
"This is not normal," Aaronson says. "There's not a single
investor-owned electric company that does not have fire risk on
their list of things that they are concerned about."<br>
<br>
But not all these power companies are prepared, says Michael Wara,
director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Woods
Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He says his
research in the West finds too few utilities are adopting simple
solutions that greatly reduce the chance of igniting a wildfire.<br>
<br>
"There are some utilities that are really leaders and are getting
ahead of the risk," Wara says. "And then there are others that we
look at and think are walking into a catastrophe."<br>
- -<br>
Whether utilities dedicate necessary resources to wildfire
prevention will not just affect Americans' safety, but also the
affordability of electric bills across the country, Wara says. He
notes some utility investors see growing financial risk because of
increased wildfires.<br>
<br>
"We cannot afford – literally, in terms of our pocketbooks – to have
utilities be perceived by their investors as high risk," Wara says.
"There is a set of practices that utilities can take that do not
cost an arm and a leg that can dramatically cut the risk of outcomes
like we saw in Texas."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/12/1237063598/texas-fire-xcel-energy-climate-change-utility-power-lines">https://www.npr.org/2024/03/12/1237063598/texas-fire-xcel-energy-climate-change-utility-power-lines</a><br>
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</p>
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</p>
<i>[ Hellacious Hail Storm - brief video - baseball size ]</i><br>
<b>The worst hailstorm in history brings China to its knees! Natural
disaster</b><br>
Painful Earth Shorts<br>
Mar 14, 2024 КИТАЙ<br>
The worst hailstorm in history brings China to its knees! Natural
disaster<br>
<br>
In Guizhou, China, a storm of incredible intensity accompanied by
massive hailstones wreaked havoc.<br>
The hail, reportedly as large as big apples, shattered 850 houses
and several thousand vehicles, causing chaos among the residents.<br>
Emergency services rushed to the affected areas to assess the damage
and provide assistance to those affected by the calamity.<br>
Residents are grappling with the aftermath, as the storm's ferocity
left streets littered with debris and shattered glass.<br>
Authorities are urging residents to remain cautious as they work to
restore normalcy in the wake of this unprecedented storm event.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czVdIL3MSSM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czVdIL3MSSM</a><br>
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</p>
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<i>[ Hubris humor or Lessons not learned will be repeated. Even for
Massachusetts ]</i><br>
<b>Swept away: $500,000 sand dune built to protect US homes
disappears in days</b><br>
Property owners dumped 15,000 tons of sand in a Massachusetts town
to fend off dangerous tides, but it was swept away in 72 hours<br>
Erum Salam<br>
Wed 13 Mar 2024 <br>
A sand dune that cost homeowners on a Massachusetts beach more than
half a million dollars to construct has washed away after just three
days.<br>
<br>
An affluent group of beachfront property owners in Salisbury,
Massachusetts – a coastal town 35 miles north of Boston – are
mourning the loss of their investment after a safety measure they
took to protect their homes faile<br>
The dune, made of 15,000 tons of sand, was meant to keep dangerous
tides from encroaching on to the shore and damaging beach houses.
The dune had just been completed in February but was gone within 72
hours.<br>
<br>
Salisbury Beach Citizens for Change, the volunteer organization
behind the dune project, said on Facebook that even though the
expensive protection mechanism was destroyed within days, “the
sacrificial dunes did their job”, arguing that much more could have
been destroyed were it not for the presence of the dune.<br>
<br>
As oceans around the world get warmer, sea levels rise due to
thermal expansion and weather patterns get more extreme, boosting
coastal erosion.<br>
<br>
Salisbury has suffered from rising sea levels, stronger winds and
severe storms in recent months, including two in January, that have
battered the area.<br>
<br>
Digital meteorologist Jonathan Belles of the Weather Channel said:
“From nor’easters to hurricanes, Salisbury gets touched by several
large storms each year.”<br>
<br>
“Their proximity to the Atlantic Ocean gives them a source of
moisture and their northern latitude also firmly places them under
the powerful jet stream during much of the year,” Belles said. “The
town is also affected by coastal flooding pushed ashore by storms
out in the Atlantic.”<br>
<br>
Now, the homeowners have asked the state to step in and provide
assistance.<br>
<b>Local news outlet Fox59 reported that the Republican state
senator Bruce Tarr was working to secure $1.5m in state funding to
replenish the sand.</b><br>
<br>
Tarr, noting that a more permanent seawall was not an option because
hard structures like these are not allowed on Massachusetts beaches,
said: “We’re managing a natural resource that protects a lot of
interests.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/13/sand-dune-tide-beach-house-massachusetts">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/13/sand-dune-tide-beach-house-massachusetts</a><br>
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<br>
<i>[ Surprise, surprise! Yikes! ]</i><br>
<b>Time To Get Weird: Bad Ocean News</b><br>
American Resiliency<br>
Mar 14, 2024<br>
Folks, it's time for an earth systems health check, and I don't like
what I see. You know I don't like freaking people out, but it's
important to keep our eyes open, and I think there's stuff worth
looking at as you think about how you want to spend your time.
Particularly as we investigate a viewer question about the North
Pacific Gyre. Have you heard of that? I hadn't. Let's take a
look.<br>
<br>
Observational Tools:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/">https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/">https://zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/</a><br>
<br>
Paper for This Video:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL092911">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021GL092911</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yIEyigxUVw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yIEyigxUVw</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ Oh just accept it. ]</i><br>
<b>The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone</b><br>
As far as humanity is concerned, the transformation of our seas is
“effectively permanent.”<br>
By Marina Koren<br>
Even after nearly three months of winter, the oceans of the Northern
Hemisphere are disturbingly warm. Last summer’s unprecedented
temperatures—remember the “hot tub” waters off the coast of
Florida?—have simmered down to a sea-surface average around 68
degrees Fahrenheit in the North Atlantic, but even that is
unprecedented for this time of year. The alarming trend stretches
around the world: 41 percent of the global ocean experienced heat
waves in January. The temperatures are also part of a decades-long
hot streak in the oceans. “What we used to consider extreme is no
longer an extreme today,” Dillon Amaya, a research scientist at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Physical Sciences
Laboratory, told me...<br>
- --<br>
The idea of that permanence is chilling. Humanity’s tenure on Earth
may be but a blink in our planet’s history, and yet we have made a
certain cosmic choice that will affect the course of the universe.
As I’ve written before, Earth has the only good oceans that we know
of, despite the fact that the cosmos is excellent at forging new
planets around faraway suns. Just this week, scientists released
telescope observations of dozens of stars surrounded by swirling
disks of gas and dust, the stuff that can eventually coalesce into
whole worlds.<br>
<br>
Perhaps there are many other Earths out there, and their inhabitants
have, like us, altered them. Usually, when scientists and writers
imagine such modifications, they envision planet-enveloping Dyson
spheres to harness solar energy, or some other megastructure meant
to support the hum of life—something that signals a more enlightened
and seamless existence. Humans are certainly creating impressive,
life-sustaining technologies. But it seems possible that our most
lasting cosmic mark will instead make things more difficult for our
oceans, the beings within, and ourselves.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/03/ocean-heat-wave-cosmic-choice/677672/">https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/03/ocean-heat-wave-cosmic-choice/677672/</a><br>
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<font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - Inhofe interviewed by
Rachel Maddow - see all three about the Senate's top
propagandist of that era ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>March 15, 2012 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> March 15, 2012: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow
interviews Senator James Inhofe about his bizarre insistence that
climate change is some sort of hoax.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/Nrwem8waEx8">http://youtu.be/Nrwem8waEx8</a> (Part 1)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/TdaZ5zIWB-M">http://youtu.be/TdaZ5zIWB-M</a> (Part 2)<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://youtu.be/9kbxIa4LGUs">http://youtu.be/9kbxIa4LGUs</a> (Part 3)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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