#The Origins of Global Wind Day

[santoshkukreti04-blog]

वैश्विक पवन दिवस पहली बार 2007 में यूरोपीय पवन ऊर्जा संघ (EWEA) और वैश्विक पवन ऊर्जा परिषद (GWEC) द्वारा स्थापित किया गया था। पहल का उद्देश्य पवन ऊर्जा को बढ़ावा देना और जनता को इसके लाभों के बारे में शिक्षित करना है। तब से, उत्सव ने वैश्विक मान्यता प्राप्त की है और पवन ऊर्जा की क्षमता के बारे में जागरूकता बढ़ाने में एक आवश्यक घटना बन गई है।

[rabbitcruiser]

Global Wind Day

Global Wind Day is celebrated on June 15 every year. It’s an international event to raise awareness regarding the importance of wind energy and the power it holds to change the world, improve energy systems, and decarbonize economies. Investing in wind energy means spending less money on fossil fuel imports, resulting in a smaller carbon footprint and minimized CO2 for cleaner air on our planet. On this day, we learn not just about how wind power leads to a greener planet, but also about job creation and employment opportunities for many people.

History of Global Wind Day

The history of wind energy as a power source traces back thousands of years. As early as 5,000 B.C., Egyptians had already been using wind power to propel their boats on the Nile River. This was improved upon by the Chinese in 200 B.C. as they invented wind-powered water pumps. Furthermore, people from the Middle East and Persia discovered windmills with woven-reed blades to grind grain with more speed and less manpower, which eventually led to more efficient food production.

It wasn’t until the 1st century A.D. that Heron of Alexandria created the windwheel. According to historians, this was the first recorded wind-driven wheel to power a machine. It included a small windmill that powered a piston that forces air through the organ pipes. According to records, it made a sound like that of a flute.

In the Middle Ages, windmills became a popular device in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. They were used to pump water and grind sugarcane, which eventually boosted their grist milling industry. This technology was ultimately brought to Northwestern Europe in 1180 and became a popular tool to grind flour — a system that still exists up to date.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, colonists brought windmills to the United States. Homesteaders and ranchers installed thousands of water pumps and small wind-electric generations in Western America.

The possibilities of wind power were further explored due to oil shortages in the 1970s. This forced everyone to find an alternative source of energy to generate electricity. Due to this scarcity, the U.S. federal government installed thousands of wind turbines in California to encourage the use of renewable energy sources. By 2020, the U.S. share of electricity generation via wind power grew to 8.4% — a huge spike compared to the 1990s 1%.

Global Wind Day timeline

1st Century A.D. The First Wind-Powered Machine

Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria discovers the first wind-driven wheel that powers a machine.

1180s Vertical Windmills

Northwestern Europe uses vertical windmills to grind flour.

1900s 2,500 Windmills Reaches 30 Megawatts

About 2,500 windmills in Denmark produce a combined power of 30 megawatts used to grind grains and pump water.

1970s Global Oil Shortage

The global oil shortage leads people to explore wind energy in a more advanced manner to be an alternative to electricity.

1980s Wind Turbines in California

The U.S. Federal Government installs thousands of wind turbines in California in support of renewable energy sources.

Global Wind Day FAQs

What are the types of wind energy?

The three main types of wind energy are utility-scale wind, offshore wind, and distributed wind.

What are four manufacturers in the world that uses wind turbines?

Vestas (Denmark), Siemens Gamesa (Spain), Goldwind (China), and General Electric (U.S.)

Which country uses the most wind power?

China uses the most wind power, generating approximately 236,402 megawatts in 2019 alone.

How to Observe Global Wind Day

Fly a kite outside

Attend seminars about wind energy

Take it to social media

This may sound like a simple activity, but flying a kite outside is an effective way to explain to your kids how wind energy works. Discuss how wind power propels the kite to stay afloat in the air. It’s also a great bonding activity that’s both fun and educational.

In an era where the climate crisis is peaking, wind energy is the future. Attend seminars on Global Wind Day to learn about the benefits and new technologies of wind energy as an alternative power source. Educating yourself is key.

Raise awareness about wind energy and its benefits on social media. Share scholarly articles or Global Wind Day event pages to your newsfeed. Use the hashtag #GlobalWindEnergy and keep your friends and family in the loop about one of the most pivotal solutions to decarbonizing the planet.

5 Interesting Facts About Wind Energy

The wind industry solves employment problems

The first modern turbine

Commercial turbines are powerful

The largest wind turbine

It doesn’t need water

The wind industry employs 650,000 people in different capacities around the world.

The first modern turbine was built in Vermont, U.S.

One commercial wind turbine can provide power to 600 homes.

The largest wind turbine was created in Hawaii, which stands 20 stories tall and each blade is as long as a football field.

Wind energy is the only power source that doesn’t need water.

Why Global Wind Day is Important

It’s for the good of the planet

It raises awareness

Wind energy is cost-effective

With the rise of global warming and other crises, wind energy is one solution to help lessen pollutants. Its long-term effects are advantageous to the new generation and to the generations that will come after.

People need to be proactive in highlighting the benefits of wind energy so that companies, governments, and other industries will adopt this technology as an alternative power source. The only way to make them proactive is to raise awareness. Education is key.

Global Wind Day helps us support the cost-effectiveness of wind energy. It’s one of the lowest-priced energy sources known today, which could potentially lower federal taxes.

Source

[afeelgoodblog]

Best News of Last Week - December 11

1. Biden administration to forgive $4.8 billion in student loan debt for 80,300 borrowers

The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would forgive an additional $4.8 billion in student loan debt, for 80,300 borrowers.

The relief is a result of the U.S. Department of Education’s fixes to its income-driven repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

2. Detroit on pace to have lowest homicide rate in 60 years this year

A partnership to reduce Detroit crime is being praised with the City on pace for the fewest homicides in 60 years.

"This is the day we’ve been waiting for, for a long time," said Mayor Mike Duggan. The coalition which includes city and county leaders that Detroit Police Chief James White formed in late 2021 to return the criminal justice system in Detroit and Wayne County to pre-Covid operations.

3. Dog that killed 8 coyotes to protect sheep running for Farm Dog of the Year

Over a year ago, Casper was stacked up against a pack of 11 coyotes, and he overcame them all to protect the livestock at his Decatur home. Now he needs your help.

Casper, the Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog, needs the public to vote for him to become the American Farm Bureau's "Farm Dog of the Year: People's Choice Pup" contest.

4. Shimmering golden mole thought extinct photographed and filmed over 80 years after last sighting

De Winton's golden mole, last sighted in 1937, has been found alive swimming through sand dunes in South Africa after an extensive search for the elusive species.

5. About 40% of the world's power generation is now renewable

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have released their first joint report to strengthen understanding of renewable energy resources and their intricate relationship with climate variability and change.

In 2022 alone, 83% of new capacity was renewable, with solar and wind accounting for most additions. Today, some 40% of power generation globally is renewable, due to rapid deployment in the past decade, according to the report.

6. Jonathan the Tortoise: World’s oldest living land animal celebrates 191st birthday

The world’s oldest living land animal - a Seychelles giant tortoise named Jonathan - has just celebrated his 191st birthday. Jonathan’s estimated 1832 birth year predates the invention of the postal stamp, the telephone, and the photograph.

The iconic creature lived through the US civil war, most of the reign of Queen Victoria, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and two world wars.

7. New enzyme allows CRISPR technologies to accurately target almost all human genes

A team of engineers at Duke University have developed a method to broaden the reach of CRISPR technologies. While the original CRISPR system could only target 12.5% of the human genome, the new method expands access to nearly every gene to potentially target and treat a broader range of diseases through genome engineering.

---

That's it for this week :)

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[phoenixcatch7]

Open up

Based on this wonderful art of @puppetmaster13u for the dollhouse au!

It had been a long day, and was destined to be even longer.

The original plan had been bad enough; the league had a media conference planned for three o'clock, one that involved foreign presence and thus required pristine presentation.

Then, as all perfectly good plans that could have been left alone by the universe did, it was derailed by a villain attack or several. He said several because it seemed almost a dozen separate villains had individually had the bright idea of sabotaging the well publicised event. Though they'd failed, the accidental collaboration had done what each alone could not, and now the league was dragging themselves to base to hurriedly patch up the thankfully minor wounds and try and rush to meet the deadline.

Each league member on the list had a formal version of their usual super suit - flash's main change had been a bowtie before it met almost unanimous disapproval, and on the other end of the effort spectrum was Bruce. Not of his own will - he quite envied Flash's staunch faith in the single black bowtie - but he not only had been raised for the fast and critical world of the upper class, but was currently in a metal plated marionette held together by glue and screws and wires, which meant changing attire was more of a debacle than it would ordinarily be.

He flipped open the toolkit with the best approximation of a sigh the doll body could manage. The chest inflated and deflated, which was in fact a rather worrying sign because it wasn't supposed to be able to do that. He grabbed a screwdriver and a pit of tar glue and approached the mirror. He'd just have to go into the globally broadcast meeting stinking of sulphur... Perhaps he could borrow perfume from one of the girls, cologne combined dreadfully.

The chest cavity opened with little tugging, and he held one side in place as he attacked the bent hinges. An odd feeling, for sure. He took a hammer to the dent, imagining it was the penguin's face and praying Clark didn't decide now was the time to approach him on his self soothing metalworking hobby. He'd been entrusted with the override code for the door and Bruce was now quietly regretting that.

The chest cavity doors creaked back into place, which enabled him to finally pull out the costume change for the evening and dump it on the side.

Now for the leg, having been crushed under a tank penguin had smuggled into Gotham. It now bent the wrong way, and hiding it under his cloak had been a pain, but at least it hadn't come off -

There it went. Batman watched, almost despondent, as it toppled free of his body and crashed to the ground. The unhappy static that raced up his spine at the sight was expected - he'd be paying for the lack of care for the Patriarch Doll in nightmares tonight.

Joy.

He tipped into the nearby stool and kicked the lost limb closer with his remaining foot, squinting. Just a cracked screw and torn spring at the knee, thank goodness. He'd have it fully attached again within the hour.

But he was pretty sure he couldn't bend that far over without his jaw falling off, so face it was.

Hood off, wires unlaced under the chin, hidden screws loosened. The gas mask came off. The velcro on top of his head took good old fashioned yanking, but eventually peeled off with reluctant crackling, revealing the unpainted grey metal beneath.

As expected, his jaw was almost entirely loose, unable to close now without the structure of the mask. The nutcracker mouth in the lower jaw fell to tap against his throat, leaving either side of the actual lower jaw to hang in the air. Experimentally, he opened and closed his mouth, and watched all three parts swing and clink like a robot body horror wind-chime.

This was going to need a finer touch, and so he stripped off his gloves to access the sharp points of his talons - capped while with the league to keep the prick of steel rending claws to a mere suggestion.

He felt bared, now, all his top layer removed and abandoned, the door to his room at his back. He feels the paranoia to double check the lock, reassures himself that even if he'd somehow forgotten in his haste to hide away none of the members were mad enough to try and get in. Outside Superman, of course, but he always knocked.

Still, he hurried through repairs, running diagnostics in the back of his mind as he daubed glue into the cracks and set about restructuring his own jaw. Ears swivelled. Neck rolled. Glider snaps curled.

The jaw pieces were setting nicely when there was a noise at the door, and batman whipped around, cloak flaring behind him. The pliers dropped from suddenly weak fingers.

Captain marvel stood in the doorway, eyes wide as he took in the room, face pale as he saw Batman propped up in middle, bare of his many obfuscating layers. Black tar speckled his lap, wires hung free like veins, blank eyes glowed, his jaw gaping, skinless. Glinting claws and spikes in full view, a limb discarded on the floor like garbage. His chest a dark hole, void of organs, of machinery, of anything that could make him run. A decades old terror gripped his heart.

HE SAW!

Both froze. Time stretched interminably.

The captains chest heaved for a scream, and batman was moving before he knew it, grabbing his fallen leg and lunging.

Captain marvel fell with a crack. Batman caught himself on the door. Five seconds before short term memory entered long term, had he reacted in time?

Hm.

He considered the body of the champion of magic laid in front of him, idly rebalancing the eternal tally graph of potential energies the dolls might run on in the back of his head and as always coming up none the wiser. This was a very inconvenient place for a body. Perhaps he could nudge marvel into the hallway to wake up. He glanced up and down the empty corridor, staying out of view of the camera.

Maybe he had overreacted slightly.

Bonus:

Billy and Green Lantern sat in the monitor room, ostensibly on duty but really checking out the watchtower camera feeds of the day before. Lantern was pointing at the screen.

"Here," he said, with a glee Billy didn't honestly appreciate. "Look at that. You go down like a sack of bricks and then -" he clicked forward two frames, "- this silver hand thing appears on the door frame. Look at that, that's a proper horror movie hand curl. The claws! Just missing the glint of a blood covered axe appearing from the shadows."

Billy shuddered, but couldn't help moving closer.

"What do you think it was? Can't have been batman, right?"

"You were there, you tell me." Lantern patted him on the shoulder before he could retort. "I mean, doesn't look much like him. Doesn't really have claws and his are black anyway. Pretty sure his gloves are sewn into his skin at this point."

"I didn't need that mental image," Billy said, because he really didn't.

"Could be another Robin variant? Like that black bat thing?"

"Dunno. I mean, unlikely. Maybe it was batman. Maybe he can shapeshift a little."

"We've had that on the list of possible powers for ages, still nothing firm one way or the other."

"It probably is batman -"

"But the claws -"

They trailed off.

"We'll just add it to the list. I'll save the file, hang on. We can talk about it at the do next week - you're coming right?"

"Yeah, but I've got, uh... A diplomacy thing with the yetis at nine, so I'll have to bail then."

"You always have the weirdest personal missions. Hey, maybe you can ask them about batman, pffft. Maybe he's one of them."

[corvidist]

Alright, Equatorial nomads (They don’t usually get that far south but it’s the Equatorial Desert regardless.)

These groups have been around in various forms since the Yellowstone eruption around 250,000 PA, when large numbers were pushed south when a global cooling effect took hold. As temperatures warmed back up, these groups in many instances either left, or in the case of these ones often began to follow vultures in order to find sources of water, eventually developing into a symbiotic relationship that lasts into the present day. The vultures get protection from ground predators and higher quality food, Directors get water. The cultures started off in the Americas however have become present in Afroeurasia as well.

The original cultures’ use of gliders largely began in response to widespread heat-related death due to exposure to ground temperatures and general idolization of vultures through stories and observation, who seemed to be able to stay in the air almost indefinitely when compared to Directors. Initially, it was believed that families each would collectively reincarnate into vultures. When they allowed Directors to get close enough, much like with corvids in western afroeurasia, groups of Directors would decorate the vultures with a variety of dyes and such. With time, northern desert populations grew, tools became more complex, and flying techniques developed to keep individuals in the air for longer. This led some groups to wonder about the idea of craft that could help them stay aloft for longer, carry tools, and make it easier and safer to move from place to place. 

The first gliders were modeled pretty closely after vultures, essentially being half-dangling, half-gliding knockoff airsleds that individuals would harness to themselves to carry supplies and would regularly go out of control and detach themselves or in some cases bring down the Director as well. Still, techniques improved with time and eventually the idea emerged that much of the issue with the individual sleds resulted from failure to be able to control them directly. Some essentially scaled them up into light surfaces that could (hopefully) be picked up by the wind in the right conditions or after being pulled by Directors, and be controlled afterwards. 

These improved with time, eventually developing into craft that could be lifted up with high winds and the right pitch, kept aloft by the desert’s strong updrafts and controlled by the crew directly manipulating flight controls. The most aerodynamic usually carry a maximum of about a dozen adult directors, with gliders traveling in groups from water source to water source, in many cases using vultures that are found along their path as indicators. When they land, depending on the craft and culture they may take off again using their own power, wait for the wind to pick up, or in later periods use propellers and such to get them in the air. 

These craft have also helped contribute to perhaps some of their most utilitarian and collectivist cultures, as the craft themselves, tools, etc. are made from the carcasses and bones that they come across, from snakes and coyotes to vultures and Directors in their groups, as there simply isn’t much that’s as simultaneously sturdy and lightweight that far in the desert. As such, in some places the gliders are treated as family members, carrying the collective consciousness of the beings that comprise them. These groups regularly will speak to the gliders, decorate them heavily with paints, dyes, and ornaments, purposefully fly over interesting areas as a means of showing them, etc. If a glider crashes, they will be repaired, and if it can't it is considered a major tragedy among the group, and whatever parts that can be salvaged are. Individuals in some of these groups don’t take names, instead opting to be identified by their role in operating the glider, with each role being held in equal value (hence the varied colors of feather dyes in the drawing, also serve the purpose of helping cool them down). Religions, spirituality, and lack of either are present among these cultures as there is an incredible degree of variation among them from family to family. 

It is common for groups that spot one another to merge, following one another to their destination where it is common for a period of celebration (or just general relaxation if it gets long enough) to occur that often lasts until the next time winds are strong enough to pick up the craft by themselves. Groups will exchange food and other gifts, young adults will often engage in courtship, and by the end of it, you typically have some individuals joining one crew or another if things have gone well. These cultures are also known to salvage from crashed airships and abandoned beacons, and to work with both for rescue and recovery. It is not uncommon for stricken airships to be greeted by one group or another to assist in navigation or repairs. It is also common in the present day for beacons to originate in or cease operation and join glider cultures, and many regional Beaconer cultures are heavily influenced by glider cultures.

[mysticstronomy]

HOW FAST DOES THE EARTH SPIN??

Blog#331

Wednesday, September 13th, 2023

Welcome back,

To answer the question of how fast Earth spins, you need to know two things: how long it takes to make a full rotation, and Earth’s circumference. The time it takes Earth to rotate so the sun appears in the same position in the sky, known as a solar day, is 24 hours. However, the time it takes Earth to complete one full rotation on its axis with respect to distant stars is actually 23 hours 56 minutes 4.091 seconds, known as a sidereal day.

With this information, to work out how fast Earth is spinning we need only our planet’s circumference. At the equator, its circumference is roughly 40,075 kilometres, so dividing this by the length of day means that, at the equator, Earth spins at about 1670 kilometres per hour.

However, this speed of rotation isn’t consistent across the planet. As you move north or south, the circumference of Earth gets smaller, so the speed of spin reduces until it reaches its slowest at both poles. And all of this is nothing compared with the 107,000 kilometres per hour at which Earth orbits the sun.

If we are travelling so fast through space, why can’t we feel it?

Simply put, as Earth is spinning at a constant speed, so does everything on it. Travelling at the same speed means we cannot feel the spin. It is like driving a car. Even though you are moving, you aren’t aware of speed because it is constant. Only when you change speeds do you notice you are travelling, like putting your foot on the accelerator or making an emergency stop.

A change in speed has been happening here on Earth, but it is far too slow to notice. Millions of years ago, one Earth day was about 22 hours, and Earth’s speed has been dropping for more than a billion years, with days increasing by around 2 milliseconds every century.

This slow down is caused by friction created by the ocean currents, tides and wind pulling on Earth’s surface. However, global warming may speed things up again. As sea levels rise, this change in mass could result in Earth spinning faster and reducing the length of each day by 0.12 milliseconds, which would have dramatic effects on the calibration of atomic clocks and GPS systems.

What if Earth were to stop spinning?

Without a huge external force, this is impossible. But, if Earth were to stop spinning, the atmosphere would continue to spin at the speed of Earth’s rotation, so anything not fixed to the surface, including trees and buildings, would be swept away by the strong winds.

Each side of the planet would get six months of continuous sunlight and six months of darkness.

Without the centrifugal force of the spin, the oceans would gradually move towards the poles, creating a huge supercontinent across the equator. But we wouldn’t be flung off Earth. Gravity and the centrifugal force of Earth’s spin keep us grounded. In order for us to feel weightless, the centrifugal force would need to be ramped up. At the equator, Earth would need to spin at 28,437 kilometres per hour for us to be lifted off into space.

Originally published on newscientist.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, September 16th, 2023)

"HOW DO WE KNOW THE UNIVERSE IS INFINITE??"

[ncisfranchise-source]

Paramount Global Content Distribution has landed in Cannes with a new NCIS for international buyers, NCIS: Origins. Ahead of the event, Deadline spoke to the team behind it: Mark Harmon, the original Leroy Jethro Gibbs and an exec producer on the new show, along with his son and fellow EP Sean Harmon, and co-showrunner/EPs David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal.

NCIS as a franchise has launched shows set in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaii and Sydney, Australia, and clocked up more than 1,000 episodes of network drama. Its latest variant, NCIS: Origins, provides something different and darker as the show goes back to the source.

“The character of Gibbs has resonated with global audiences because he is a role model and at the same time someone you can relate to,” says Sean Harmon. “The world is used to seeing Gibbs as ‘the boss’, but in NCIS: Origins we are dealing with a much less tempered version of him. Fans can look forward to a more intimate look into what makes Gibbs tick, as well as meeting some of the characters who influenced him along the way.”

The prequel winds the clock back to 1991. It starts on Gibbs’ first day of work as a probationary agent, and flashbacks set up how he ended up at what was then called NIS. “He’s much more raw in a lot of ways, he’s more vocal than the Mark Harmon Gibbs we all watched for so many years,” says North.

The new recruit has endured a terrible personal tragedy months before the point where the series kicks off.  “NCIS: Origins is just after the death of his wife and daughter,” says Mark Harmon. “He is the ‘newbie’ at NIS and learning every day under Special Agent Mike Franks. We will see him develop and grow into the man he becomes, and we will ride with the audience revealing that backstory and history.”

In the new show, Austin Stowell steps into Gibbs’ shoes. “Mark has told him to trust his process and his instincts and is available to him,” North says. “Austin has studied Mark and his mannerisms, but at the same time, it’s a different character and a different period in his life, and he’s brought so much of himself to it.”

North says NCIS fans are in for a surprise. “It’s much more serialized. Gina and I originally sold it and developed it for streaming for Paramount+. It moved over to network [with a 2024-25 season straight-to-series order], but we wanted to do more of a streaming style of show.”

Monreal picks up the thread. “The tone itself is a bit grittier, it’s a bit darker, which we love, because we feel like we’re pushing the envelope as far as what the franchise does, but at the same time, we’re keeping the heart of it,” she says. “What makes NCIS so beloved is this found family

The showrunner pair have written for what they call the ‘OG NCIS’ and want fans to come along for a new kind of NCIS ride.

“We believe we know what that special sauce is, and we think we’ve infused our show with that,” North says. “But we really are going to a deeper place where we’re taking these characters and learning so much. The most special episodes of NCIS are always the ones about our characters. Those are all sprinkled throughout the seasons, and those are the ones that stick with people. Gina and I have sought out to do that every single week on NCIS Origins.”

[cynfuldelights]

what do you mean merlin made catholicism

Again staying awake at night, haunted by the implications of The Original Merlin helping to establish the Catholic Church. And on one hand I feel it's really easy to let this line slip by like a lot of other one-liners talking about long-term history. But this one takes the cake in terms of the sheer magnitude of implication. Like, Jim Butcher probably just thought it was a neat idea to throw in that he would never really expand upon further. BUT I DO. EVERY DAY. BECAUSE I FEEL IT'S SUCH A WASTE TO JUST BE A THROWAWAY LINE.

(Spoilers for Dresden obvs)

Like, if the Original Merlin helped establish the Catholic Church then that means they've been aligned with the White Council since practically its inception and vice versa. We're not sure when exactly this iteration of the White Council was created but regardless if it was created first or second this just cements the weird White/Christian ethnocentrism that exists in the White Council (a title that gets more accurate the more you think about it).

Like here's an obvious question: Were there wizards in The Crusades?

Probably, right? Like, sure, The White Council maybe has actually clung to their doctrine of non-involvement in human politics for thousands of years. But, like, that's kind of rich when OG Merlin was out there helping to create the Catholic Church, an organization that would be used to justify the monarchies of soooo many countries. You're telling me they remained apolitical, a THOUAND years ago when our conceptions of what counted as "political" are completely different? To say nothing of, wow I wonder if the Scottish magic practitioners were cool with the Anglo Christian wizards setting up shop in their ancient magical grounds. Do you think Britain/The Britons stole that too? Or are we to believe they just "handed it over willingly"? Or are we to believe that the Scottish mages got along with their invaders because of "apolitics"?

Another obvious question: Hey why aren't there any other wizard councils?

In some kind of United Nations-y situation, it feels like The White Council is supposed to be a conglomeration of cultures and practices across the world with a unifying board of diverse members who make major decisions. And that's really cool! I really appreciate the idea that there can be a global community for people who don't fit in to connect and learn from one another.

But uhhh. Why does it feel so hegemonic and imperialist?

Like, the Senior Council is diverse, that's true. Some of the members are POC, between Rashid, Listens-With-Winds, Martha Liberty, and Ancient Mai. But as you go through the list you kind of again wonder how any of these different people from different practices and backgrounds were able to cope with Western Euro Imperialism. Like, the most obvious example is Listens-With-Winds, a character who in his lifetime, witnessed genocide after genocide of not only his people but of all of the tribes across the United States. Rashid in his lifetime, likely watched the US turn the Middle East into a oil profit machine backed by US militarism and CIA support. Martha Liberty in her lifetime, watched Black people fight and claw for their basic human rights in a country that was built off the backs of their exploited labor. Ancient Mai, in her likely very long lifetime if the name is any indication, likely watched the exploitation of China and Asia by the Dutch, France, and the other European powers.

Again, are we to expect the White Council is WHOLLY APOLITICAL IN EVERY ONE OF THESE CONFLICTS?

And if they are, is that really being apolitical if it ends up working out in their favor anyways? Again, look at Edinburgh. Look at all the stuff Britain stole.

---

Ultimately I think this is a lesson in setting consideration for urban fantasy writers. Lindsay Ellis' video on Bright talks about this excellently, but to poorly paraphrase, you can't just import the real world without importing all of the baggage and strife that exists within it. You can't flippantly say, "Merlin helped found Catholicism." Without pedants like me going, "Uh. What the fuck do you mean?"

But also totally do that so I can harp on it endlessly this is the shit I love for.

I've got more like this brewing in my head I might put up, im also interested in what other implications people can think of

[who-is-page]

🌃 ThisIsAPlaceholderSoPeopleDon'tThinkIWroteThisPic Follow

~~~

🌇 OkayNowHere'sMySection Follow

(I spent like ten minutes writing a response to this post + some of the reblogs that it had accumulated and then the OP disabled reblogs JUST as I hit post, but by god I am gonna say my bit. I've removed OP's name from the post and they've deleted the body of the post on their main blog, so don't any of you try looking them up to bother them, either.)

I'd also like to add on to this discussion regarding criticism and the points that have been brought up there-- it's true that no one is free from criticism, as OP points out in the original post. But having that sort of hyper-aggressive attitude towards fiction, especially without taking potential authorship into account (or worse, taking it far too much into account to the point where you harass the person who wrote it), can result in unintended harm towards real people. It's how you end up with situations like Isabel Fall de-transitioning and winding in a psychiatric institute under suicide watch because people mistook a transgender author's exploration of a transphobic stereotype as a topic as a story intended to be a transphobic stereotype itself.

The Vox article about Isabel has the quote, "Sometimes, the path to your personal hell is paved with other people’s best intentions" (Source). I think that's a very poignant and relevant perspective, where sometimes people--like OP--may think that they, as global citizens, have a duty to uphold morality and righteousness in their online spaces for the safety of themselves and their communities... but in actuality, their actions end up having negative effects far, far beyond their intentions, and don't end up protecting or saving anyone much at all. It can be a hard pill to swallow to realize that, but the real actions that people do in retaliation to fiction often create far, far more damage that the fiction ever does existing on its own. For another example, just look at the creator JoCat, who left his YouTube career this year because of the harassment he faced due to his 2020 35-second long video game animation and song, "I Like Girls" (a genderbent parody of Lizzo's Boys that he'd verbally improved on the spot during a Twitch stream). In his goodbye post, he wrote:

"[...] Granted, a lot of this has been primarily on twitter, where I could simply log off and ignore the haters, but no small amount has leaked into other parts of my regular day to day that is harder to ignore - private DMs over discord and twitch, suspicious packages being sent to my family - but I’ve always kept quiet about it because speaking out about it publicly, defending myself, any reaction to it would just encourage more, and be presented as my own fault as well. But if that’s the tradeoff to do something like share the things I make that I’m proud of on the internet, seeing as I’m writing this, it’s probably an indicator that I’m just not cut out for it, and the best thing for everyone would be to stop and pursue something else. Despite being very grateful for what this job has done for me and my family, I’m simply not strong enough to keep doing this if it means having to just accept this kind and amount of distress." (Source)

I think there's worthwhile conversations to be had about the necessity of criticism as a tool to critique common issues with genre, tropes, and popular media in fiction. But I feel like what is being spoken about here, in this post and in these examples-- criticism not as a tool of critique, but as a personal and direct attack, an unveiling of what the criticizer interprets to be the secret and impure Self of the artist or author--is another beast entirely, and one that typically shouldn't be brought to the forefront. It's turning real, thinking individuals into monsters in the eyes of audiences ready to devour them for the slightest transgression, and does that actually help anyone? Rarely do artists and authors deserve to be publicly ridiculed en-masse for their work to the point where they walk away from it, and doing so doesn't actually help make positive changes in any way... because the people who you could have those important discussions with, about the things that both you are critical of in certain genres, writings communities, stories, tropes, etc have now packed up their bags and left.

Everyone is familiar with the "You are not immune to propaganda" Garfield meme. And while it may be funny, it's also true. People make mistakes and create things which are unintentionally insulting, either because the author is leaning on offensive stereotypes or tropes without realizing it, or because the author isn't worldly to the baggage that certain subjects carry within them (such as people who reference Lovecraft's work without having the background information that he was a horrible racist, sexist, and xenophobe). But heckling them and telling them that they're secretly terrible people and should never create anything ever again isn't going to inform them about these subjects. It's going to result in them getting defensive, prickly, and running off. There is no net gain to this scenario. The amount of Good in the world has not increased from this interaction.

This all isn't touching on people who intentionally play with stereotypes or tropes in their writing, nor is it touching on the inherent religious bigotry and Christiancentrism wrapped up in the idea of someone's fictional stories or writings being reflective of their innermost desires and morality, because this is getting pretty long. But I wanted to put out my own thoughts on this in addition to what's already been said.

[tundrakatiebean]

This is such bullshit. They’ve decided that there’s too much money going to causes that don’t align with corporate interests so they’re going to only give to things they agree with - including their own disaster relief.

Transcript of the email under the cut

[image transcript:

Dear customer,

In 2013, we launched AmazonSmile to make it easier for customers to support their favorite charities. However, after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.

We are writing to let you know that we plan to wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023. We will continue to pursue and invest in other areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist broad communities impacted by natural disasters.

To help charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program with this transition, we will be providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program, and they will also be able to accrue additional donations until the program officially closes in February. Once AmazonSmile closes, charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists.

As a company, we will continue supporting a wide range of other programs that help thousands of charities and communities across the U.S. For instance:

Housing Equity Fund: We’re investing $2 billion to build and preserve affordable housing in our hometown communities. In just two years, we’ve provided funding to create more than 14,000 affordable homes—and we expect to build at least 6,000 more in the coming months. These units will host more than 18,000 moderate- to low-income families, many of them with children. In one year alone, our investments have been able to increase the affordable housing stock in communities like Bellevue, Washington and Arlington, Virginia by at least 20%.

Amazon Future Engineer: We’ve funded computer science curriculum for more than 600,000 students across over 5,000 schools—all in underserved communities. We have plans to reach an additional 1 million students this year. We’ve also provided immediate assistance to 55,000 students in our hometown communities by giving them warm clothes for the winter, food, and school supplies.

Community Delivery Program: We’ve partnered with food banks in 35 U.S. cities to deliver more than 23 million meals, using our logistics infrastructure to help families in need access healthy food – and we plan to deliver 12 million more meals this year alone. In addition to our delivery services, we’ve also donated 30 million meals in communities across the country.

Amazon Disaster Relief: We’re using our logistics capabilities, inventory, and cloud technology to provide fast aid to communities affected by natural disasters. For example, we’ve created a Disaster Relief Hub in Atlanta with more than 1 million relief items ready for deployment, our Disaster Relief team has responded to more than 95 natural disasters, and we’ve donated more than 20 million relief products to nonprofits assisting communities on the ground.

Community Giving: We support hundreds of local nonprofits doing meaningful work in cities where our employees and their families live. For example, each year we donate hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations working to build stronger communities, from youth sport leagues, to local community colleges, to shelters for families experiencing homelessness.

We’ll continue working to make a difference in many ways, and our long-term commitment to our communities remains the same—we’re determined to do every day better for our customers, our employees, and the world at large.

End transcript]

[best-hohenzollern-ruler]

Bonus Round: Best Chancellor

Otto von Bismarck (1871-1890)

The Iron Chancellor

With a man as talented and powerful as Otto von Bismarck, it is hard to know where to start when outlining his accomplishments. His rule over Prussia and later Germany totaled a combined thirty years, during which he upended the global order and reshaped the map of Europe as we know it today. His title of "The Iron Chancellor" originates from the iron grip he had over both German and international politics, as well as one of his most famous speeches.

Bismarck's greatest accomplishment was no doubt the unification of this great state of Germany, which he accomplished through both shrewd diplomacy and skillful warmaking. His wars against Denmark, Austria, and France propelled Prussia to new heights and allowed for the declaration of the German empire in 1871. As Bismarck had said 9 years prior to that exalted date, "the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches or majority decisions, but by iron and blood"

Nations that claim power on the world stage by way of military might or economic excellence still kneel before Germany when it comes to care for their citizenry. Under Bismarck, Germany passed groundbreaking laws providing aid for injured or sick workers who could not earn a living for their families. Later, those benefits were expanded to aging or disabled citizens, creating the first social welfare program in Europe. It is my hope that countries with prospering upper classes may take a page from Germany's playbook and allow the government to care for those workers which have ensured its economic success. (Real subtle - T)

Leo von Caprivi (1890-1894)

A moment's pity for the poor man who must stand in the footholds of giants. How can one hope to compare to the eminence of Otto von Bismarck? Caprivi gave his answer by ripping to shreds one of Bismarck's foreign policy achievements, our former Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. This was a treaty that protected Germany from her greatest fear: a two (or three or perhaps even four!) front war, the Gallic rooster to our West and the Russian bear to our east. Why, then, would he not reinsure this treaty? Perhaps Russian reproachment with France was already a foregone conclusion; maybe he placed more value on Austria-Hungary and Italy than Russia; one scholar I've become familiar with has proposed that maybe his brain was "riddled with the worms of idiocy." The histrionics of the critics has never moved me. War will not come between Germany and Russia. A piece of paper changes nothing.

Caprivi realized that Germany would maintain her pre-eminence in Europe through either war or trade. For the first time, we chose industry. Commercial treaties were forged with an assortment of European nations including Austria-Hungary, Italy, Belgium, and Spain. He even ended a trade war with Russia, giving Germans access to cheaper Russian agriculture products. (What? Were the Merkel jokes too easy? -L)

Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1894-1900)

Perhaps the greatest thing to say about Hohenlohe is that he was nobody's first pick for the job. Other names had been floated, but those picks proved too controversial. Hohenlohe, albeit aged, was a safe choice and caused the Kaiser no scandal. He served inconspicuously, which is to say without distinction. His cabinet was shuffled and reshuffled without his input and he found the winds of change blowing past him faster than he could react. A chancellor in name only, disempowered to enact any sorts of policies in the vein of predecessor. The most he achieved were reforms to the Prussian Military Law and the Law of Associations. In 1900, Hohenlohe took himself out of his misery and retired. Like his reactions to cooling relations with Russia and Britain, it came too little, too late. He died a year later.

Bernhard von Bülow (1900-1909)

The position of the Chancellor in the early 20th century increasingly seems like an ornate title for the caregiver of the Kaiser. After Wilhelm II inflamed tensions between Germany and France during the Morocco Crisis, it fell upon von Bülow to clean up the debacle. He represented the Kaiser at the Algeciras Conference, a meeting meant to defuse the tensions of the aforementioned crisis. Germany was humiliated, her terms discarded and the alliance between Britian and France was strengthened. When von Bülow defended his work at the conference, he became so overwhelmed that he collapsed.

Much like the first of his office, von Bülow's career came to an end in a conflict with Kaiser Wilhelm II. In a conversation published by the Daily Telegraph, the Kaiser attempted to court the affection of Britain and her king. Perhaps Herr Freud could say something in regards to His Majesty's love for his mother's country. (Note: Please never imply something like this ever again - T). Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. The British public was appalled at the Kaiser's words, which read more as the ramblings of a madman than as the diplomatic forays of an emperor. Perhaps the outcry could have been prevented had von Bülow properly reviewed the text before it was published, however, he did not. The Kaiser viewed this as a betrayal and forced him to resign.

[jonathantaylorthomas]

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is headed for a couple of important benchmarks that have a “B” attached, according to a report in Pollstar. As the global trek moves on from America and proceeds to Europe in 2024, it will assuredly become the first tour in the history of the business to gross a billion dollars. It won’t stop there, though; Pollstar is estimating that the final gross will wind up around $1.4 billion.

The live music trade publication concedes that it is doing a fair amount of estimating on current and future grosses, but says its “crack numbers team” believes the tour will cross the historic $1 billion mark at some point during Swift’s shows in Singapore, which will take place during the March 2-9, 2024 window.

But the tour still has a long way to go after that before it wraps up (barring extensions) at Wembley Stadium in London on Aug. 17, 2024. By that point, Pollstar writes, the Eras Tour will have grossed $1.4B — a figure the publication pegs as being on the “conservative” side.

Pollstar may actually have to revise its numbers upwards, already; since the trade’s report was published earlier this week, a number of dates have been added to the European tour routing. For instance, Pollstar’s story mentions a three-night stand in Singapore, whereas just within the last few days she added three more shows there to arrive at a total of six. (She even just added one last show in the U.S., a sixth night at L.A.’s SoFi Stadium, this week.)

Bear in mind that the “conservative” $1.4 estimate is just counting the face value of the tickets as they originally sold out. The actual amount of money being spent on the Swift tour by consumers is far, far higher, with nearly all resold tickets going on the secondary market for several times their original value. Pollstar’s figures cover only the face value of the tickets, which topped out under $500. The Swift camp is not the recipient of the jacked-up prices that have seen virtually all tickets now on the market in the U.S. selling into the four figures. Without any hoopla about it, Swift turned off the “platinum pricing” option on Ticketmaster that proved so controversial on the Bruce Springsteen tour, wherein artists’ camps benefit from escalating face value.

The average face value for Swift’s nightly concert tickets in the U.S., according to Pollstar, has been $253.56 — a fraction of their IRL value, as it has turned out. Needless to say, though, being in line to become music’s biggest grosser on a single tour, Swift probably isn’t spending much time lamenting her decision to forego dynamic pricing.

[rabbitcruiser]

National I Love Horses Day

This National I Love Horses Day on July 15, we are not going to tell you to hold your horses because today is about going all out for horses. Horses are one of the most beloved and adored animals in the world. In fact, horses are in fourth place on the list of the world’s most popular animals. Horses have been very important for humankind for a while now, having been domesticated since ancient times. Due to their versatility, horses are used in a variety of fields, from agriculture and transportation to entertainment. Horse racing and show jumping also see horses showing off in front of cheering crowds.

History of National I Love Horses Day

National I Love Horses Day was created to highlight the importance of the animal in human history and development. Horses have been around for around 50 million years and they were domesticated by nomads in 4000 B.C. The animal is believed to have originated from North America, with increased traveling and globalization taking it to other parts of the world. These early horse breeds later became extinct on the American continent. According to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, today, there are many other horse breeds but all of them are believed to have descended from Equus caballus, including the populations of feral horses in the wild. Horses have 350-degree vision and are extremely social. They roam around with their own species as well as other animals. Furthermore, their aptitude in socializing makes them easy animals to breed.

In the old days, horses were domesticated and farmed for their meat and milk. The animal was an important source of sustenance in the central Asian steppes, where, to date, horses are bred for consumption. In some cultures, a mare’s milk was also fermented and enjoyed as an alcoholic drink. As human populations increased and commercialization started taking over, horses began being used to cultivate the land and other general agricultural settings. Because of the strength and endurance they displayed, horses were also being used for the transportation of goods and people over long and short distances. Over the years, horse racing and show-jumping contests also gained the attention of the public.

National I Love Horses Day timeline

4000 B.C. Earliest Recorded Instance of Horse Domestication

The earliest records of horse domestication are found, particularly in areas of Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

1992 Przewalski Reintroduced in the Wild

After believing the species to be extinct for over 20 years, the Przewalski's horse breed is reintroduced into the wild through conservation efforts.

1993 American Secretary Appointed for Wild Horses

President Clinton nominates the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, to oversee the care for wild horses in America.

2005 Legislation for Unadopted Horses

Legislation is passed in order to allow unadopted horses to be taken to slaughterhouses after an allotted period of time.

National I Love Horses Day FAQs

What day is National Horse Day?

National Horse Day is on December 13.

What is a Hippophile?

A hippophile is a person who loves horses.

Can horses love humans?

The love you feel for your horse may not be exactly reciprocated. But a horse can certainly feel — and give — affection.

How To Celebrate National I Love Horses Day

Show some love

Ride a horse

Spend a day with horses

Horses and humans go way back. Show some love to these amazing animals that have been our companions in many fields. They have helped feed us, travel through familiar and unfamiliar terrains, and entertained us endlessly on the racing fields and stage.

If you’ve never ridden a horse before, this is your chance to grab the opportunity. Book yourself a spot on a horse riding tour, and then just sit back and enjoy. Feel the wind in your hair. Riding a horse is an experience you must try at least once.

Find horse farms in your area and go and spend a day with horses. You help feed them, brush them, and take them for a trot or a light canter. Horses are friendly creatures and spending time with them can be very therapeutic.

5 Facts About Domestication That Will Blow Your Mind

One of the earliest domesticated animals

Pigs/cattle for more settled communities

Age-old eggs

Changes in genes for easier domestication

Darwinian documentation for behavior patterns

Starting in around 7000 B.C., dogs were one of the earliest domesticated animals, for reasons related to protection from other humans and animals.

Historians trace the domestication of pigs and cattle back to around the same time goats and sheep were domesticated, but the former are believed to have been domesticated in communities that were already settled.

Microfossil embryos of chickens found in China are believed to be 60 million years old.

Changes to the gene markers of an animal’s endocrine system can help them be less fearful of humans.

Charles Darwin documented different behavioral patterns in domesticated animals compared to their non-domesticated relatives.

Why We Love National I Love Horses Day

It’s a celebration of horses

It’s a celebration of companionship

It’s a celebration of history

While we do not need to introduce you to the incredible qualities of the animal, here are some of their most beloved attributes: Horses, much like dogs, are loyal animals. They also have amazing stamina, strength, and speed that enable them to endure long distances without breaking a sweat.

Horses are social creatures with a great ability to read and remember the people around them. While they have helped humans in a number of areas, they have also made great friends. Horses can understand when you are stressed, angry, or happy, and they can comfort you when needed.

If you want to trace the history of human civilization, researching horses is a good start. This animal has been an active participant in agriculture/farming, travel, transportation, entertainment, and warfare. People have been domesticating and employing horses for generations.

Source

[female-malice]

Late on Saturday, as members of Congress scrambled to strike a deal for legislation that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling, they agreed to a total non sequitur in the text they would release the next day. After a series of late-in-the-game interventions by lobbyists and energy executives, the draft bill declared the construction and operation of a natural gas pipeline to be “required in the national interest.” It wasn’t really germane to the debt ceiling, at least not in the literal sense. But then again, it wasn’t any ordinary pipeline.

Building the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile conduit to deliver fracked gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia, has been a top priority for Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia since the project was announced in 2014. The problem, for him and the project’s other supporters, is that it has been fiercely opposed by grass-roots groups and landowners living in the project’s path for just as long. Construction on the project was recently stalled after federal judges found that regulatory agencies had repeatedly failed to comply with environmental laws.

By forcing through this pipeline, the Biden administration rounded out the ransom sought by Republicans holding the global economy hostage and paid off a debt of its own to Mr. Manchin for his crucial vote last year for the Inflation Reduction Act.

But if the Senate passes the bill the House passed on Wednesday, an insidious piece of misinformation will be enshrined in federal law: the claim that the pumping, piping and burning of more fossil fuels is — despite all scientific evidence and common sense to the contrary — a climate solution.

Natural gas is predominantly made up of methane, a climate-warming superpollutant that is responsible for about a third of the warming the world has experienced to date. If completed, the M.V.P. will be a very large and long-lived methane delivery device. At the wells that feed it and along the way, some of that methane will inevitably leak into the atmosphere, where each molecule will exert 86 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide over 20 years. At the end of the line, the methane will be burned in power plants and furnaces, producing carbon dioxide. Taken together, by one estimate, the M.V.P. would generate yearly emissions equivalent to what’s produced by 26 coal plants.

And yet the bill’s text asserts — in a brazen stroke of climate gaslighting — that the pipeline will “reduce carbon emissions and facilitate the energy transition.”

Businesses and governments have long claimed gas was a bridge to a clean energy future, a transition fuel that would tide us over until renewables were ready for prime time. But now that wind, solar and battery storage are indeed quite ready and, in many places, cheaper than gas, the jig is up. That makes the M.V.P. a project in search of a rationale: There are cheaper sources of gas available via existing pipelines, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that demand for gas in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions will continue to drop off in the years and decades ahead.

Though the assertions that the pipeline is necessary and good for the climate defy logic, the political calculus is clear enough. Congressional Democrats and President Biden want to reward Mr. Manchin, who is weighing whether to run in what is sure to be a tough re-election fight in 2024.

Mr. Manchin was also a supporter of another large gas pipeline that would have originated in his state: the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which I have been reporting on since 2019. The two pipelines were twins, announced on the same day in 2014 and approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the same day in 2017. They would have crossed similarly steep and landslide-prone Appalachian terrain. But the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled in 2020 after years of tenacious grass-roots resistance and legal challenges.

Mr. Manchin seems determined to rescue the M.V.P. from this fate. And with it, his gas industry and power utility donors — whose lobbyists helped him in the final hours of debt ceiling deal making — will be able to further strengthen their hold on the energy system.

White House officials have said that the project would probably have secured the remaining federal permits regardless. But the provision authorizes all necessary permits and bars further judicial review of any of them — thus neutering an essential tool for ensuring that infrastructure projects comply with existing laws and regulations. It’s the legislative equivalent of overturning the Scrabble board in a fit of pique when you’re losing a game fair and square.

For many of those living in the project’s path, who watched as its construction has so far triggered over 500 recorded violations of water quality and other regulations, it’s a terrible betrayal. But it also sets a dangerous precedent. It is safe to assume this won’t be the last time this tactic is pursued to shield fossil fuel projects from judicial review or scientific scrutiny if they happen to be deemed by their developers and political allies to be in the national interest.

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia has cited this risk in explaining his opposition to the M.V.P. provision. When Mr. Manchin succeeded in getting a similar carve-out attached to the continuing budget resolution to fund the government last September, Mr. Kaine refused to vote for it. “If the M.V.P. owners are unhappy with a court ruling, they should do what other litigants do and appeal,” he said. “Allowing them to fundamentally change federal law to achieve their goal would surely encourage other wealthy people and companies to try the same. I won’t participate in opening that door to abuse and even corruption.”

Mr. Kaine, along with other Democratic members of the Virginia congressional delegation, remains opposed; this week he said he’s against any debt-ceiling bill that exempts the M.V.P. from judicial review. Meanwhile one of the lead Republican negotiators told reporters this week the pipeline provision is a “huge win” for his party because it puts “Democrats on record supporting a conventional energy project that removes or ties the hands of the judiciary.”

Democratic leaders will surely bristle at the suggestion that they are helping the gas industry obstruct the transition to clean energy. After all, they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history, and protected its raft of clean energy incentives from cuts in the debt ceiling deal. It’s clear that the deal makers regard themselves as the grown-ups in the room, making the tough trade-offs needed to avert financial catastrophe. But when the stakes are this large, one need not grant them that deference.

There’s always a political “crisis” gathering on the near horizon that will supersede concerns about the climate — that will cause us to look away from the dizzying rise of methane concentrations, currently spiking to levels not seen in over 800,000 years, a trend tracking with the worst-case climate scenarios.

This is what it looks like to shuffle along toward climate chaos, one misguided compromise at a time.

[animehouse-moe]

Observations on Environmentalism And Humanity In Early Animanga

It's very weird, at least in the anecdotal sense, that the themes of environmentalism and other somewhat adjacent concepts like the negative effects of globalization are far more apparent in Japanese media from its earlier days than it is in our modern setting. When you think of the most popular and profound pieces of media from the mid 2000s onwards there's not really many stories, let alone popular ones, that speak to humanity's connection with nature a great deal.

We continue to look further inwards on ourselves as a species and existence, but peering into the deepest, darkest parts we begin to lose sight of the threads that attach us to reality. We look closer at human connection, about emotion and values, about what reality constitutes. But very few relate that introspection to nature. Of course, not everything requires that connection, such as something like Serial Experiments Lain (slight recency bias because of previous post) being about technology as opposed to nature. And on the other side of the coin we do have standouts such as Witches by Daisuke Igarashi that takes that look at humanity through nature. Though the former appeared at the end of the 90s, and the latter being originally published from 2003-2005.

Regardless, the point remains that the amount or, even arguably existence, of nature in modern animanga is in somewhat of a drought. If you dig deep enough you will find it, as such is the nature of the breadth of the industry, but its popularity and availability is an entirely different discussion. You look back to early Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki, and you see incredible standouts like Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind, or Princess Mononoke, or even single volume stories like Shuna's Journey. You can even trace the theme back to series like Osamu Tezuka's Kimba The White Lion (which many believe to be where The Lion King has borrowed much from).

Maybe it's because we've passed through the twilight hours of concerns of globalization or deforestation or any manner of negative effects, and moved onto a new topic in the discussion of our reality. Maybe it's because it no longer sells well to publish media that aims to elicit emotion and deeper thought on a subject in its consumers. Maybe people just don't think it's interesting so they don't write about it anymore.

At the end of the day I'm neither expert nor historian, so I can only offer my own opinion on the matter, but I find it... mildly depressing, how narrow popular media is these days. There's more breadth than ever in the content we can consume, but it still feels like large, empty voids remain in places like these, or the cyberpunk genre, or intergalactic sci-fi, or any other number of themes or genres. It makes you reminisce about eras that have passed and may not see another golden age.

[mightyflamethrower]

“Net Zero” is the hot thing among Climate Change zealots and has been for quite a while.

The idea is simple: if excessive emissions of CO2 are changing the atmosphere sufficiently to cause undesirable changes in the climate, then we have to quit emitting excessive levels of CO2. The “net” part of Net Zero is finding a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in the same quantity with which we increase it through the use of machines.

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Simple enough. It’s a bad policy, but the reasoning is simple enough to understand.

More than 140 countries, including the biggest polluters – China, the United States, India and the European Union – have set a net-zero target, covering about 88% of global emissions. More than 9,000 companies, over 1000 cities, more than 1000 educational institutions, and over 600 financial institutions have joined the Race to Zero, pledging to take rigorous, immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030.

This policy goal is truly insane, and everybody promoting it is as well. And, as the Telegraph reports, they are incredibly careless as well, playing with human lives and prosperity without thinking anything they do through to their logical conclusions. Their obsession with Net Zero overrides the most basic level of prudence one would expect from world leaders.

Two of the primary strategies for achieving Net Zero are, as you know, electrifying everything while simultaneously abandoning the use of fossil fuels to produce electricity. And, since nuclear power is controversial, time-consuming to construct, and requires a substantial up-front investment, countries are placing almost all their eggs in the “renewable” generation basket.

If renewables were reliable and affordable, it would be a great idea. Who wouldn’t prefer a cheap method for reliably generating a lot of electricity without depleting resources we could use for other things, or stretch out for a longer period? If it is all upside and no downside, why not?

Yeah, well, but…None of that is true, so the advocates get sloppy, deceptive, and push ridiculous propaganda out to obscure the basic facts.

Britain’s climate watchdog has privately admitted that a number of its key net zero recommendations may have relied on insufficient data, it has been claimed. Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, who led a recent Royal Society study on future energy supply, said that the Climate Change Committee only “looked at a single year” of data showing the number of windy days in a year when it made pronouncements on the extent to which the UK could rely on wind and solar farms to meet net zero. “They have conceded privately that that was a mistake,” Sir Chris said in a presentation seen by this newspaper. In contrast, the Royal Society review examined 37 years worth of weather data. Last week Sir Chris, an emeritus professor and former director of energy research at Oxford University, said that the remarks to which he was referring were made by Chris Stark, the Climate Change Committee’s chief executive. He said: “Might be best to say that Chris Stark conceded that my comment that the CCC relied on modelling that only uses a single year of weather data … is ‘an entirely valid criticism’.” The CCC said that Sir Chris’s comments, in a presentation given in a personal capacity in October, following the publication of his review, related solely to a particular report it published last year on how to deliver “a reliable decarbonised power system”.

Here’s a simple question for you: would you completely upend a system that was working and that undergirded your civilization based on such a limited amount of data?

If the answer is “Yes,” step aside and let the adults make policy because you are a buffoon.  Unsurprisingly reality has not matched the fantasy of the Nut Zeros.

But, in response to further questions from this newspaper, the body admitted that its original recommendations in 2019 about the feasibility of meeting the 2050 net zero target, were also based on just one year’s worth of weather data. The recommendations were heavily relied on by ministers when Theresa May enshrined the 2050 target into law. A CCC spokesman said: “We stand by the analysis.” In October 2021 The Sunday Telegraph revealed that assumptions underpinning the committee’s 2019 advice to ministers included a projection that in 2050 there would be just seven days on which wind turbines would produce less than 10 per cent of their potential electricity output. That compared to 30 such days in 2020, 33 in 2019 and 56 in 2018, according to analysis by Net Zero Watch, a campaign group.

It is not accidental or, bad enough, negligence that led to this rather error-prone way of estimating energy needs. Instead this is the sort of strategy used all the time in getting government to do remarkably stupid things: mislead about what the actual costs and benefits of achieving a goal would be.

In my earlier life as an activist, I saw this strategy used all the time: project an unrealistically low cost, claim unreasonably high benefits, and use the sunk cost fallacy to keep the money flowing. Projects in government can escalate in cost by as much as a factor of 20 or more and produce few actual benefits, but once the first dollars flow in the project has a life of its own.

Think high-speed rail in California. Costs have escalated out of control; hardly anything has been built; and a project that was supposed to be already running will likely never get finished. But the gravy train for the people getting the money continues for years or decades. The project got off the ground in…1996 and has consumed untold billions of dollars without much of anything having been built. The project got the green light in 2008, and costs have ballooned with little progress having been made.

The costs for the California high-speed rail project, which voters approved $10 billion in 2008, have risen sharply and the authority has not identified key funding needed for the project that has faced numerous delays. The full San Francisco to Los Angeles project was initially estimated to cost around $40 billion but has now jumped to between $88 billion and $128 billion. The rail authority estimated costs for an initial 171-mile segment connecting Merced to Bakersfield rose from $25.7 billion to at least $32 billion and is hoping initial service will begin in 2030.

Just to let you know, the Merced to Bakersfield portion is all in central California, where few people actually live. In other words, there will be a segment of high speed rail from nowhere to nowhere. Not to offend the good folks of Merced and Bakersfield, but nobody would have approved a $32 billion train from one to the other. It would have been the subject of very unkind jokes.

Now, it is reality, or rather, it might be late in this decade. That is how government scams work.

Nut Zero is using that model. Overpromise, underdeliver, skim a ton of money off the taxpayers and create a disaster.

Nobody involved with Net Zero has your interests in mind, and only the childish believe it is possible or desirable in the foreseeable future. Trillions will be made by scammers, bureaucrats and the transnational elite will gain more control over you, and the average person will be immiserated.

That is the reality of Nut Zero. It is a scam and a power grab. Nothing more. Trust nothing its advocates say.