#What NOAA Does

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"945 mb low pressure system continues to churn about 300 miles west of the Olympic Peninsula per the coordinated 00z (4 pm PST) surface analysis with @NWSOPC. Heavy rain, gusty winds, & mountain snow will continue across the NW through tomorrow as the system weakens."

NOAA Weather Prediction Center

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 2, 2024 "May 24, 2024 through September 2, 2024 (Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend)

In celebration of national Get Into Your Sanctuary activities, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries holds a photo contest annually from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. We will be accepting submissions in the following categories:"

Celebrate #WorldPhotographyDay by submitting your photos to the Get Into Your Sanctuary #PhotoContest!

Submit your pics: https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/photo-contest.html Get inspired: https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/aug22/amazing-images-national-marine-sanctuaries.html

[asgardian--angels]

Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)

Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.

In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.

We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.

There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).

So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?

I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.

**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **

We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.

You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.

At the national level, please support:

The Nature Conservancy

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)

National Audubon Society

Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)

These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!

THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.

Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...

At the regional level:

These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.

PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS

DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)

PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)

UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)

NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')

WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)

INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)

LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)

INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.

INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)

HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)

OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)

A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.

At the state and local level:

You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!

Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!

Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!

Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society

Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.

Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding

Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)

Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted

MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.

On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:

Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center

Pollinator Pathway

Audubon Native Plant Finder

Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)

National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)

Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)

MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)

Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)

Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)

Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)

There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.

Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).

In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.

Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.

[marzipanandminutiae]

climate change is real and terrifying, and materially altering winter, but also a 60-degree (F) day in December in Boston is not "apocalyptic"

guys

there was not a single December in Boston from 1893-1903 without at least one day in the upper 50s, acording to NOAA data. usually several days. multiple years had December days reaching 60 or above- not always just one, either. December 1895 had more days in the 60s than December 2022 (it also had more days in the 20s, so that's not to say the pattern isn't changing, to be clear!)

(source- there's a dropdown menu at the top for different years)

I recently read a description of the Autumn Grand Prix in Paris c. 1909 that mentioned it being so weirdly warm that the trees started blooming again, and thought I was losing my mind. that NEVER happened in the past, right? but this was an eyewitness account written by a journalist who was there. I think we're all afraid of being labeled anti-science if we acknowledge what any climate scientist would likely tell you: that it's far more complicated than just Winter Is Dead And Every Diversion We Experience From Seasonal Averages Is Completely New Territory

I am not denying climate change. I am gently taking the hand of everyone who's just as (rightly!) scared as I am, just as stressed out by warmer-than-average winter days, and reminding you that climatological history does not begin with your childhood, and that climate change does not mean "every place is going to get hotter at a steady pace forever and there will be no more intense winters." they will change and become less frequent, but they will still be there! we can still act to preserve as many snowy days as possible, now!

we need hope to get through this. and sometimes part of hope can be contextualizing things for ourselves

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I don't understand the chevron law thing, could you explain it like I'm five? Should we be working towards fixing whatever the courts just fucked up?

So, okay, I am condensing like a semester of a class I took in 2017 into a very short explanation, but:

It would be really annoying for Congress to individually pass laws approving every new medicine or listing out every single poison you can't have in tap water, so instead there are agencies created by Congress, via a law, to handle a specific thing. The agencies are created by Congress but overseen by the executive branch (so, the president), which is why we say things like "Reagan's EPA" or "Biden's DOJ" - even though Congress creates them, the president determines how they do the thing Congress wants them to do, by passing regulations like "you can't dump cyanide in the local swimming pool" and "no, you can't dump strychnine, either."

However, sometimes people will oppose these regulations by saying that the agency is going beyond the task they were given by Congress. "The Clean Air Act only bans 'pollutants,' and nowhere in the law does it say that 'pollutants' includes arsenic! You're going beyond your mandate!" To which the experts at the EPA would be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided arsenic is a pollutant." On the flip side, the EPA could be like, "We, the experts at the EPA, have decided that arsenic isn't a pollutant," and people would oppose that regulation by being like, "But the Clean Air Act bans 'pollutants,' and it's insane to say that arsenic isn't a pollutant!" So whose interpretation is correct, the government's or the challengers'?

Chevron deference basically put heavy weight onto how the agency (i.e. the government) interpreted the law, with the assumption that the agency was in the right and needing pretty strong evidence that they were interpreting it wrong (like, blatantly doing the opposite of a clear part of the law or something). If there was any ambiguity in how the law was written, you'd defer to the agency's interpretation, even if that interpretation was different depending on who was president at the time.

(Note: there are other ways of challenging regulations other than this one, like saying that they were promulgated in a way that is "arbitrary and capricious" – basically, not backed by any evidence/reasoning other than "we want it." Lots of Trump-era regulations got smacked with this one, though I think they'd be better at it if Trump gets a second term, since they've now had practice.)

Chevron deference wasn't all good – remember that the sword cuts both ways, including when dickholes are in power – but it was a very standard part of the law. Like, any opposition to a regulation would have some citation to be like "Chevron doesn't apply here" and every defense would be like "Chevron absolutely applies here" and most of the time, the agency would win. Like, it was a fundamental aspect of law since the 80s.

The Supreme Court decision basically tosses that out, and says, "In a situation where the law is ambiguous, the court decides what it means." That's not completely insane – interpreting law is a thing judges normally do – but in a situation where the interpretation may hinge on something very complicated outside of the judge's wheelhouse, you now cannot be like, "Your Honor, I promise you that the experts at NOAA know a lot about the weather and made this decision for a good reason."

The main reason it's a problem is that it allows judges to override agencies' judgements about what you should do about a thing and what things you should be working on in the first place. However, I don't think there's really a way of enshrining that into law, outside of maybe adding something to the Administrative Procedure Act, and that would require a Congress that isn't majority Republican.

I will say that kind of I expected this to happen, just because IIRC Gorsuch in particular hates Chevron deference. IMO it's a classic case of "rules for me but not for thee" – Scalia and other conservatives used to rely on Chevron because they wanted their presidents to hold a ton of unchecked power (except for the EPA), but now that we've had Obama and Biden, now conservatives don't like Chevron because it gives the presidents they don't like unchecked power.

[boinin]

Batten down the hatches: Rin's ego is about to land

The latest chapters show Rin playing with an unfamiliar aura: what looks like swirling rivulets of water.

This represents the refinement of his ego and playstyle since the under-20 match. But what exactly are they going for with the swirling water? Here's my two cents.

Rin is strongly associated with water, specifically the sea. He grew up by the coast; he and Sae shared a love of watching the sunset over the water after training together. Those childhood memories are turbulent now, like dark clouds on the ocean's horizon.

It's here he realises that he can no longer play the puppetmaster football that helped him thrive in Blue Lock. As good as he is, it wasn't authentic... and it's nowhere near where he needs to be to compete with his brother, or even Isagi.

Rin's flow state is the most unique out of any others we've seen. Let's dig into it. All panels are from the official translation, which is important as the translation choices are 1) consistent and 2) likely chosen carefully.

In the dying moments of the match, Rin complains about feeling restrained. Being Itoshi Rin is eating him alive.

Cool, calm and aloof.

A genius. Prodigy. Puppetmaster.

Team player. Team captain.

Isagi Yoichi's partner. Shidou Ryuusei's rival.

Itoshi Sae's little brother.

The prospect of defeat rudely wakes him up. His pretence comes crashing down hard, triggered by his ineffectiveness in spite of the teammates around him. It's one of the best rugpulls in sports manga.

When the power of friendship comes knocking, Itoshi Rin tells it to fuck off and die.

What a glorious moment... and not just because it posits Rin as a Uchiha Sasuke kinnie. I prompt you to examine his eyes in this panel.

They're a swirling vortex of hate and destruction, befitting Blue Lock's angstiest character. The shape reminds me of this:

Satellite images of Hurricane Franklin and Hurricane Idalia, August 2023. Image credit: NOAA Satellites.

Rin's true ego, which he unleashes against Sae, is a storm.

Optional soundtrack for the rest of this post (because Rin 100% listens to this once it comes out in Blue Lock's universe).

Although it isn't portrayed visually as such in the under-20 arc, the metaphor fits Rin's evolving playstyle. What is more destructive, more uncontrollable, more senseless than a hurricane? A violent force of nature that we can predict but never avert?

When a storm approaches, all we can do is rank it, track it, then attempt to mitigate the inevitable damage.

In football terms? Sounds a lot like playing Rin.

It's even alluded to in chapter 250: the graphics for Rin's formation are similar to the satellite images of large storms.

Within the U20 match, there are exchanges that support this theory. Darai calls Rin's evolving playstyle arrogant and avaricious. The latter (meaning extreme greed) is evocative of a force that pursues what it wants without regard for anything in its surroundings. What it can't have, it destroys.

Niou is confident enough in his physicality to try withstand his opponent's attrack. Rin literally flips him into the air. Niou's hubris brings to mind all man-made constructs which are supposedly storm-proof... until a cyclone comes along and proves otherwise.

The contrast between Rin and Sae's egos are interesting. If we accept Rin's is a storm, i.e. a destructive force of nature that cannot be controlled, Sae's is the opposite despite being as impossible to defy. Sae's motif is defined in the manga as "beautiful destruction", plays and passes depicted in graceful data strings. Rather than natural, his playstyle is sleek and controlled, and dominant to the point of appearing pre-ordained by his opponents.

Their attitudes are equally different. While Rin drools and loses composure in the final minutes, Sae does little more than raise his eyebrows throughout the entire game. He's completely emotionless.

It's the extremes of human nature: animalistic rage versus robotic detachment. This time, the latter wins. Will Rin have an opportunity to face his brother again, with a better grasp on his ego? Here's hoping.

My final thoughts on Rin are speculative. How does one beat a storm? Not just endure—but subdue and calm one?

It's beyond human capability. The ability to control the weather exists only in myth and fantasy, and even then it's usually in the hands of powerful entities, not mere heroes or wizards.

Subduing something as powerful as a hurricane would require a god.

Is this Isagi and Rin's endgame?

Time will tell.

[eugenedebs1920]

In their last term, The Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS), mainly the men, but occasionally Barrett showed the American people how little we are worth to them. They made it blatantly obvious that we are nothing more than serfs, subjugated, whose purpose is to pay taxes and STFU.

This was also made apparent with the reversal of Roe. The 2023-24 term had its share of long term dire consequences yet to be felt. The overturning of the Chevron doctrine was a devastating blow to the middle class/working poor. Its reversal will, at one time or another, affect the lives of 98% of Americans (the middle class, upper middle and working poor).

The right wing apparatus will tell you that regulations, protections, and limitations prohibit productivity which leads to less profits and in turn, a cooling of economic prosperity. What they aren’t divulging is the massive amounts of wealth they have amassed over the past 4 decades.

As far back as the Nixon administration, one could go back as far as the New Deal but, it’s a post, not a novel, certain restrictions, limitations, protective measures, and practices have been imposed on major corporations and industries. These regulations range from environmental protection, labor practices, safety standards, hazardous substances, banking practices, equal pay, the list goes on.

These regulatory agencies specialize in the field in which suits their skill set. Some call it the bureaucratic state. These non partisan civil servants work throughout changing administrations in their various fields without being inhibited by the views held by the party in power.

What the overturning of Chevron did is lessen the power that these agencies have. Putting the rules and regulations they enforced in peril. Now regulations created to protect the health and safety of Americans and the environment we live in, as well as the financial institutions and practices in which they can engage in, are put in peril.

The effects of this won’t be immediately noticeable. We are the frog in a warm pot of water, slowly being boiled to death. What does this have to do with Helene and future natural disasters one may ask?

Some of those regulatory agencies impacted by this reversal are, the EPA, FEMA, NOAA, the Department of Labor, OSHA, The FCC, the SEC, and so many more. Pretty much any agency that limits the exploitation these massive conglomerates and giant corporations can impose on Americans and the world they reside in.

We live in a time where the Supreme Court is rogue. With an extreme right wing MAGA majority, dead set on revoking rights as opposed to instilling them. A Supreme Court who, when scandals arose of lavish gifts coming from billionaire benefactors, rather than enforce a code of ethics they simply legalized bribery (Snyder vs the United States). A Supreme Court, so lawless and void of standards, that justices refuse to recuse themselves from constitutional crises cases, where they flew flags in support of the defendant, where the wife of another was in direct contact with the cheif of staff of a man who, while watching from the dining room of the White House, while a mob, led by his incendiary rhetoric ramshacked our capital. All the while chants of “hang Mike Pence, Hang Mike Pence” rang through the the halls of that hallowed ground. When told the mob wanted to hurt the Vice President, the defendant said, “So what”.

I’ve had tacos more supreme than this court! This November 5th, it is not a choice between a vile demented old man and a lifetime protector and prosecutor for the people, it is the direction, the safety, the environment, the lending practices, the food we eat, the wages we make, the lives our children will have that is the choice because. If Trump is elected, Alito as well as Thomas WILL retire, giving the mandarin Mussolini FIVE SCOTUS appointments. This will dictate the next 30 plus years of our lives. So please! Get out and vote! Vote the Harris Walz ticket and blue down ballot. The freedoms of women, LGBTQ rights, labor rights, environmental protections, food and drug safety, fair banking/lending practices, our federal lands, clean water, green energy for the future, so much hangs in the balance and the effects will be felt for a majority of the rest of our lives. We are one nation, indivisible, we stand for liberty and justice for all! ☮️🇺🇸

[sem24]

Who each of the Community cast is voting for in the 2024 election.

Pierce, (if he was still alive) you’d think obvious Trumper. And while he holds many of the same values and agrees with a lot of Trump’s policies. He likes money more and the Trump administration is not good for the LGBTQ+ community. Which if you remember are the main consumers of Hawthorne Wipes.

And Pierce and Trump were actually friends in the 80s, they’d do ❄️ together all the time. But they had some kind of falling out ( no one knows for sure what happened, but there is speculation, Pierce wanted to cameo on the Apprentice and Trump didn’t let him.) So out of pettiness Pierce votes for Kamala.

Shirley, you’d think another obvious Trump voter, and I think in 2016 and 2020 she voted red. But I think after one of her boys comes out she re-evaluates maybe deconstructs a little and votes for Kamala. Plus she is creeped out by J.D. Vance. And because of Trump’s racism.

Annie, Kamala obviously, she is terrified about Project 2025 (she read and annotated the whole thing) Especially the parts about dismantling NOAA and the department of education. And as a Jewish girl, the blatant push for a Christian theocracy scares her. I believe she is heavily involved in politics and actively campaigns for Harris-Walz, and she carefully watches each debate.

Abed, Abed is fascinated by Donald Trump, Abed loves T.V. And Trump is basically a living-breathing T.V. Character, he follows politics just as much as Annie, but he is much quieter about it. He doesn’t campaign only observes. Even though. When he does bring up Trump he won’t stop referring to him as Emperor Palpatine, from Star Wars, and through that lens he is able to recognize the harm Trump will do if elected.

Troy, he doesn’t really follow politics. Ultimately he votes for Kamala cause that’s what Abed is doing. Also Trump’s obvious Racism.

Britta, one of those fake progressives, Who is loudly outspoken about the fact that she is not voting, because the whole election is rigged anyway (not in a Maga way). And “both sides are equally bad.” She is heavily involved in politics like Annie, but does not put in the same leg work to inform herself on the issues, so is often publicly embarrassed. (Don’t take this as a dislike of the character, love Britta, but she is very performative in her activism and I want to be true to her character.) Being loudly wrong is kinda Britta summarized.

Jeff, I think Jeff barely follows politics. He follows it only as a way to try to make himself seem sophisticated. So like Britta he has a tendency to get things wrong. But unlike Britta he can usually talk his way out of humiliation. He is evasive when you ask him who he is voting for and his answer changes depending on who he is talking to.

I think what really tipped the scales is when he finds out that Project 2025 would ban p*rn. (Same with Troy) Jeff also relates to Harris on a Lawyer to Lawyer level.

Also he will vehemently deny this, but seeing Walt on T.V. Brings up his not so hidden Daddy issues.

The Dean, Kamala no question, Trump’s anti-lgbtq+ agenda sees to that.

Chang, the wild card, I think he wasn’t going to vote, and never has before. Chang starts going to Maga rallies, because he sees how gullible the hard core Trumpers are and he wants to scam them.

He goes full method, paints his face orange, wears one of those weird diapers and a Tampon (he stole from one of the girls) Over his ear. He even carries around one of the J.D. Vance Jizz cups.

He doesn’t have much luck cause most Maga ignore him or are openly racist. But he soon starts to get really into it. And what started as a scam becomes genuine. He goes completely Maga.

You can’t tell me Chang isn’t crazy enough that people being openly hostile towards him wouldn’t work like negging. Plus Trump’s insanity and dictatorial posturing would absolutely appeal to Chang.

He would be really hard-core Maga for a few weeks before and after the election, but eventually the next crazy scheme would catch his attention.

[hittuspitchusbear]

Welp, goodbye separation of church and state and other beloved founding values. The Christians got their dream come true. And I'm fucking stuck, so like, zoinks. I ain't pretending to believe anything, if I'm about to get targeted by an anti-American theological campaign, so be it. But quite frankly, the second that wall of separation is demolished, it's the second it stopped really being the US as the founders entailed. The dream is dead, the experiment is set to fail, it was great while it lasted, but of course the big red flags weren't enough to dissuade anyone apparently.

Did we really forget what happened 4 years ago? Are we seriously this blind to our past that we will repeat our mistakes? Ffs this guy ran his campaign on tariffs... Literally the worst tax reform anyone can plan as shown by history. This is literal insanity. We had a chance to fix things. But this? Really? This is the solution we chose? Someone who doesn't even hold a Bible correctly as protestors got trampled by a cavalry that was oddly absent the following Janurary? Someone who has very clearly fed into the desires of the Christian Nationalists with past picks like Betsy Devos for secretary of Education? Someone whose partner quite literally participated in a lengthy worded document detailing the empowering of the executive branch?

Is our constitution not sacred anymore? Does anyone even really care what bold minds like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and the likes stood for or what they envisioned for our nation? My disgust in the current state of affairs is immense, my hope is diminished, wurdah ïtah officially.

On this day, let it be known that America saw the plight of itself, of its own children, of the plight of the children of both Israel and Gaza, that America saw the burning fires of the forests of Colorado and California, saw the relief that international programs like NOAA can bring to Hurricanes like Helene, and even saw the privileges, which really should have been rights, stripped of them by an out of control supreme court...

And America said,

"I don't care."

Makes sense, most of you think some magical disembodied voice will just fix any problem any way with all the arrogance of a puddle that thinks the hole it formed in was made just for it. I'm glad Douglas Adams and Carl Sagan are spared the horror of witnessing one of the world's richest nations taking such a steep turn. We can only hope the damage will be contained but such a hope is a vain one for there is no way America can just exit the world stage without massive ripples on both ends... Wurdah ïtah.

[toasts-httyd-hyperfixation]

Soooooo thinking about riders of berk and uh...... who's gonna tell Hiccup that Thor was in fact angry with toothless?

I mean i guess he felt bad after hitting hiccup in the head with lightning and chilled out but like ya know, he was peeved for a little bit there

Ok so i made this a jokey post originally but i actually want to add in the information

So the episode in question "When Lightning Strikes" the plot is that the gang makes large metal dragon perches, and shortly thereafter, Berk is hit by several lightning storms of noticeably increased intensity

Mildew tries to blame the dragons, but in the end they figure out that it was actually the metal that was causing the lightning storms, and while the vikings all think its just because Thor was angry at the metal, we know its because lightning is attracted to metal, which is what really caused the storms.......

Except

That's NOT TRUE

From the NOAA

From TORRO in the UK

Another

And one more for good measure

So as you can see, while metal is a good conductor of electricity, lightning is NOT attracted to metal.

Lightning is no more likely to hit metal than it is any other material.

Metal does not cause lightning storms, nor will it increase their intensity.

Lightning tends to seek the quickest path to take to the ground, otherwise it wouldn't be hitting trees very often, and every large city would either be unlivable due to the mass amounts of intense lightning storms that occurred, or they would have to construct buildings out of alternative materials.

So the lightning storms on Berk cannot be explained by the presence of the metal structures, it just doesn't work like that.

Now the most likely option is that is was all just a big coincidence, and they made these structures right ahead of a particularly unsettled bit of weather marked by more extreme lightning that they were used to.

Sometimes that just happens, weather is predictable, but never guaranteed.

Now my argument for it genuinely being Thor pissed off at Toothless for whatever reason, is, from my basic understanding of storms and how they form, they should have been experiencing less storms than they had in the past.

____________________

And to be very clear METEOROLOGY IS NOT MY MAJOR.

These are THEORIES based on the class i have been taking, i may not be 100% spot on, in fact i could be 100% wrong.

This is just what i feel it would be based on my understanding of weather. If someone has a degree in this kinda stuff, id love to hear what they think, but like, letting y'all know ahead of time, i am not an authority on this.

Moving on

_____________________

So in order for rain and storms to form they need something called condensation nuclei.

Condensation nuclei is what allows water vapor to take any kind of form. No condensation nuclei, no rain. This is the thought process through which could seeding takes place.

Put more stuff in the clouds for the drops to form on, and the rain will fall! There's really no evidence to support cloud seeding, but that's the idea of it nonetheless.

Now as to what condensation nuclei are.

Book is Meteorology Today by Ahrens and Henson

Condensation nuclei are extremely small particles that float around in the air and give water vapor molecules something to land and condense on.

Many things can be a condensation nuclei - fungi, salt, dust, volcanic ash, and sulfuric and nitric acids.

Now important to this, Smoke is a condensation nuclei.

Smoke, ash, both things that would be extremely common around dragons. And fire, smoke, ash, dust, all that kind of stuff, would be MOST HEAVILY in the atmosphere around Berk DURING the war with the dragons.

Houses constantly being burned down, smoke, dust, flying into the air, falling off anything going up into the sky, whether that's projectiles or the dragons themselves.

So overall Berk should have been experiencing more storms before they were at peace with the dragons, and once they were, there would be less stuff going into the air for the water to condense on.

I cannot say whether there would be a big, noticeable difference, but the difference would be there regardless.

So there being more intense storms after the dragons and vikings are chill with each other doesn't make a ton of sense, if anything, there should be less.

Also, condensation and in cloud precipitation is likely what causes lightning

So taking into consideration that lightning is NOT attracted to metals, and that since the peace with dragons, there should be less clouds and storms, there's no real definitive reason for those intense lightning strikes and ESPECIALLY no explanation for the lightning FOLLOWING Toothless like that.

There's no reason for it to do that!

There's another scene later that show even clearer, i can't find it right now, but it shows where toothless is low to the ground and the lightning is following him.

It WOULD NOT do that!

There is no reason for it to do that unless something was Making it do that!

So, following that logic, it HAD to be Thor (or other god).

Lightning does not behave in that fashion, it would not chase behind a low moving target like that.

There is no other explanation as to why the lightning was behaving like that outside acts of god.

Tragically, Mildew was Correct.

Thor was pissed.

Or maybe he was trying to be helpful!

The village was getting stirred up because of Mildew, maybe Thor knew this would help a lil bit, even though it was also very bad.

And hey, when they put that statue by Mildew's house, the lightning kept hitting him so ya know?

It might have been a misunderstanding!

Either way, not natural how that lightning was behaving, imo, had to be caused by one of the various Norse gods, thank you for you time.

[vintageseawitch]

i urge people to realize that if you don't vote, it literally isn't hurting any candidate. it's hurting other vulnerable citizens. you get on your soap box, making claims like, "it's their fault for giving us a bad candidate" is literally only giving you an ego boost. in your efforts to fight the system you're inadvertently allowing the greater evil to win.

it completely sucks. i hate this timeline. it sucks that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. the elite have made it this way.

i need you to realize that this isn't a normal election. Project 2025 makes it basically existential. if you believe we live in a fascist state now just wait if they're allowed to implement this on a national level. think they'll take us back to the 1950s? nah. think of it as us being stuck in the 1800s but with modern surveillance technology. they'll implement the Comstock Law so anything they deem sexual - abortion drugs, contraception, condoms, sex toys, etc - can't be mailed. they will not allow pregnant women to go through chemo. they want to keep data trackers of periods. they want to keep track of stillbirths, miscarriages, etc. it's beyond what it used to be; it will be worse.

they will consider transgender people, merely existing, as pornography. they want to ban pornography. they want to re-define what pedophilia means & it will conveniently consist of LGBTQIA+ people & they want punishments to be SEVERE. they will also punish anyone - teachers, librarians, authors, etc - for handing out porn (this means any books they don't like).

they want to do mass deportations, the likes of which haven't been seen in this country. they want to remove natural born citizen rights. anyone not white is at risk.

they don't think climate change is "real" & so any good that has happened as a result of this government- NOAA, the EPA - will be gutted. they want to sell National Parks & other natural areas to anyone who wants to destroy them to harvest their resources. the days of Nixon (who started the EPA) are dead. this is very serious especially since climate change is the biggest threat to humanity's survival.

i urge you to re-think that both parties are exactly the same. one will be chosen & will be worse. i'm sorry it comes down to this but you not using your voice at this point us tragic. you will be badly affected as well if trump is re-elected & if you believe that the USA deserves this then welcome to this sinking ship; you're going down with the rest of us.

please never stop talking about Project 2025/Agenda 47. YOUR VOICE DOES MATTER. PLEASE VOTE. check your registration status often. vote early if you can 💙

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

@NWSNashville #Weather101 #WeatherEducation Weather Seminar continues tonight at 7 PM CST. Topic: Radar. Register/Info https://www.weather.gov/ohx/weather101

[thomastheunwise]

Alright, so. A friend linked me a video that seemed like it contained some dubious information, and I went on a deep dive to see if it was legit or not. I don't want to link the original video, because it contains a lot of misleading information, but the topic was on experimental weather control and how it might have contributed to hurricane Helen.

So, the first big red flag in the video is a lack of sources. The creator of the video fails to site any source other than "I asked AI." She also does not provide links to any sources in the video description. That alone should make anyone watching the video view it with a healthy does of skepticism. She does show screenshots of text to occasionally support her claims, but does not say where they come from. Most of them look like the output of ChatGPT. Since AI has famously gotten some things very wrong and fabricated others seemingly from nowhere, I don't think we should rely on AI as a reliable source. Not yet.

I'm honestly not sure what the main point of the video even was, but I THINK it was that some nebulous "they" used weather modification, specifically cloud seeding, to create hurricane Helen for.... Reasons? Something to do with quartz? There was a quartz mine that was pretty thoroughly trashed, so maybe she was saying that the hurricane was deliberately created just do that? That seems like a stretch. There are many, much easier ways to commit industrial sabotage that don't involve nearly as much collateral damage.

Now, weather modification through cloud seeding is a real, experimental technology. The idea being to kick-start the formation of clouds and increase precipitation to alleviate drought. It's typically done by spraying particulate, usually sodium iodine, into a cloud formation. Water and ice crystals attach to the particle, accumulating until the cloud drops them as precipitation. The results of cloud seeding attempts have been mixed, and the efficacy of such efforts is questionable at best. You can read more about it here:

Then there was the infamous NOAA project Stormfury, an attempt to seed clouds in such a way as to weaken hurricanes or even disperse them entirely. It was deemed ineffective and abandoned in 1983.

But to date, no one has had much success with cloud seeding or weather modification in general. Certainly not anything close to producing hurricane level storms or precipitation.

Now, the frequency and intensity of hurricanes IS increasing due to human activity. But NOT from experiments with weather modification. The increase in tropical storm activity is due to anthropogenic climate change. We pump BILLIONS of tons of carbon into the atmosphere annually. Carbon gas acts a blanket, trapping thermal energy in. The ocean, making up most of the surface area of the earth, comes in the most contact with the thermal energy in the atmosphere, and water is an excellent thermal conductor. Thus, our oceans are absorbing about 90% of the excess heat that is trapped in the air due to greenhouse gas emissions. One of the ways all that heat in the oceans gets dispersed by re-aborbing into the atmosphere, providing fuel for bigger and badder storms. So we get storms of ever greater frequency and intensity forming over the oceans and pummeling our coastal regions. This is well understood and documented by NASA and NOAA

Now, back to content of the video and some of the specific claims made there.

She starts by talking about some mysterious "blue jelly balls" that "fell from the sky" and were found in a man's back yard somewhere in Britain. To her credit, the video creator acknowledged that scientists did examine these balls. The conclusion was that they were gel capsules filled with solidum polyacrylate. Sodium polyacrylate is an extremely water absorbent substance used in diapers and in gardening. Cut open the thick part of a diaper and you'll find a bunch of tiny gelatin beads of sodium polyacrylate. A larger version of these beads is sometimes placed at the bottom of flower pots. In both cases, the purpose is the same: Absorb moisture and prevent leakage. This presents a much more likely explanation for the presence of these "blue jelly balls" in a man's garden than that they "fell from the sky." They could have spilled out of some broken plant pottery or been carelessly tossed out by an inconsiderate neighbor. But no, that's not the conclusion that this video creator goes to. Occam's razor? She's never heard of it.

Before I go on, there is another more recent use for sodium polyacrylate. It is being studied for its ability to absorb heat and emit cooling mist. There is some hope that it could be incorporated into building materials or even clothing to replace air conditioning, reduce energy consumption, and thus help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

The video creator seems to have found this information. She also found a video clip of a droplet of liquid being stimulated by a piezoelectric transducer. Piezoelectric materials are materials that can produce an electric current when subjected to physical pressure. Among these materials are ceramics and quartz. Piezoelectrics have a variety of uses. More information on them:

Anyway, the droplet in the video clip she showed was spherical and blue, just like the beads of sodium polyacrylate found in the man's garden. Put a pin that for now.

She claims that piezoelectric transducers seed clouds using ultrasonic sound waves. I did find that piezoelectric devices can be used for generating ultrasound, but I couldn't find a single reliable source saying that ultrasound had ever been used for cloud seeding. I'm not even sure how that would work, since cloud seeding relies on water and ice crystals clinging to some kind of particulate. I'm no physicist, but I don't see how pumping sound into the cloud would help. If I'm missing something here, please point it out to me.

That aside, the "evidence" she presents that ultrasonic sound waves are being used to seed clouds is a video clip of people standing outside in a storm and hearting a very loud, grating sound seemingly coming from the atmosphere. Now, I'm not going to speculate on what that sound actually was. But I can tell you what it wasn't: It wasn't ultrasonic. Ultrasonic, by definition, means sound in a frequency wave too high for a human ear to detect. If ultrasonic sounds were being used to modify the weather, we wouldn't hear them at at all.

So, getting back to the mysterious "blue jelly balls." She took the superficial similarity of a drop of liquid being stimulated by a piezoelectric device to a bead of sodium polyacrylate, the polyacrylate's usefulness for absorbing water and heat, and came to the conclusion that.... These blue beads are piezoelectric weather control devices? Do I have that right? I honestly don't see the connection here. The beads were filled with sodium polyacrylate. Not quartz or any other piezoelectric material. So... Huh?

She also talks about how piezoelectric devices can be used in "energy harvesting." I find it interesting that she uses that term. She talks about the "magical means" by which energy is converted from one for to another and keeps using "energy harvesting" like it's some sinister term. But the thing is? We harvest energy every day. Every time a wind turbine rotates, it's harvesting the kinetic energy of the wind and turning it into electric energy to power homes. Coal plants burn coal and use the heat to boil water which produces steam that then spins a turbine. Potential energy (coal) converted to thermal energy (fire) converted to kinetic energy (steam pushing a turbine) converted to electrical energy (a magnet on the turbine oscillates around a conductive wire, creating electrical current). There's nothing magical or sinister about it. And as for piezoelectric devices being used to harvest energy? Well, sure... In that piezoelectric materials are used in most digital devices today. Which brings us to the last point.

She spends some time at the end of the video sort of demonizing quartz because it is a piezoelectric material, which is apparently bad because they're being used for weather control (they're not). But she then goes on to say that quartz is being used by AI, not to power it directly, but to make the hardware that runs it. And like... No shit? Pure, high quality quartz is a semiconductor. AI runs on computers. Computers use microchips to rapidly perform calculations. Every microchip we have made to date has been composed of transistor gates made of semiconductive materials, including.... You guessed it, quartz!

She ends the video by pointing out the dollar value of quartz. As I said at the beginning, I'm not sure what the point of all this mess actually was. My best guess is that, because Helen took out a quartz mine and that will have an impact on the supply chain for tech products (including AI), some people think that the hurricane was created deliberately? I don't know. I don't really follow the logic. I mostly just wanted to try to debunk the misinformation presented. I hope I managed to do that. If you want to watch the original video and draw your own conclusions, I can provide the link to it.

[nbenvs3000w24]

The Enchanting World of Bioluminescence!

Hi friends!!

Welcome back to another week of blogging… I can’t believe this is the 9th week of blogging! Time really does fly. 

Today I am going to introduce you all to the captivating and mesmorizing world of Bioluminescence! I remember learning about this in a documentary after seeing photos online of bioluminescent beaches and it is one of the most fascinating phenomenons ever! 

To begin, picture this: a moonless night, the ocean gently lapping at the shore, and suddenly, the water bursts into a mesmerizing display of ethereal blue-green light. This is not a scene from a sci-fi movie; it's the magical world of bioluminescence! Bioluminescence is the ability of living organisms to produce light and can be encountered in summer evenings from the flickering lights of fireflies, or in the depths of the ocean from bacteria and sharks (NOAA, 2017). 

What truly sets bioluminescence apart is its sheer beauty and versatility. From attracting mates, luring in prey, communicating with fellow organisms or warding off predators, bioluminescence serves a variety of purposes in the natural world (National Geographic, n.d). For example, the vampire squid uses this as a defensive behaviour as instead of ejecting dark ink to defend against predators, they instead eject sticky bioluminescent mucus which can confuse and delay predators (National Geographic, n.d). Additionally, another really cool theory is that some biologists theorize that some species who are not bioluminescent themselves, take advantage of species that are. For example, a sperm whale might surround itself with bioluminescent plankton in order to eat fish who are the planktons predators as their glowing alerts the whale that fish are nearby (National Geographic, n.d). It is so fascinating to me how the language of light can work in such enticing ways. 

So, the next time you find yourself under the starry night sky or lurking out into the ocean, remember the hidden world of bioluminescense that lies just beyond our sight. It’s a good reminder that even in the darkest corners of the Earth, there is still light to be seen, illuminating the beauty of the world around us.

To end this blog, I wanted to leave you with a question to ponder... in what ways can we draw inspiration from nature's ability to illuminate even the darkest of places within our own lives? What is the hidden symbolism here?

Thanks for reading and looking forward to hearing back!!!

Natalie

Works Cited

NOAA. (2017). What is bioluminescence? National Ocean Service. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/biolum.html

National Geographic. (n.d). Bioluminescence is light emitted by living things through chemical reactions in their bodies. National Geographic Education. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/bioluminescence/

[darkmaga-returns]

Although climate alarmists love to blame fossil fuels for the recent growth in methane emissions seen around the world, a new and very thorough study shows that microbes are the real culprit.

Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas that has made up around one third of the earth's warming since the time of industrialization. The atmosphere may not contain as much methane as it does carbon dioxide, but the key thing to note is that methane can trap around 30 times more heat than CO2 does across a century.

With the concentrations of methane in the air nearly tripling since the 1700s, this is a topic of great interest to climate scientists.

The research was carried out by scientists from University of Colorado Boulder, who analyzed air samples collected by Boulder’s Global Monitoring Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 22 sites around the world roughly every one to two weeks. By isolating different components of the collected air, including methane and carbon dioxide, they can use the carbon isotopes in each sample to identify its source.

NOAA reported the biggest jump in methane in 2020 since it started collecting this data in 1983, and the trend continued in 2021. Study lead author Sylvia Michel also noticed that the carbon-13 isotope in these samples has been dropping over 17 years, so she sought to identify the cause.

“Understanding where the methane is coming from helps us guide effective mitigation strategies. We need to know more about those emissions to understand what kind of climate future to expect,” Michel noted.

Her team modeled various emissions scenarios to find out which one would create the type of isotopic signature that actually took place, and they found that the dramatic rise in atmospheric methane recorded between 2020 and 2022 was actually the result of microbial sources. In fact, microbes have been playing a growing role in methane emissions since 2007; by 2020, they were making up an incredible 90% of these emissions.

[spiritmander13]

An Essay Of The Fact That Project 2025 May Discontinue One Of The Most Interesting Parts Of The Government

Project 2025 is one of the worst proposals towards the potential government, maybe even the worst EVER in the about-250-year history of the United States, aiming to do so many things that you can easily deem as "At the very least immoral, At it's absolute worst unconstitutional". Many notable examples include, but are not limited to:

Taking away gender affirming care for minors

Destroys the Department of Education

Bans NSFW content (which DOES INCLUDE LGBTQ+ CONTENT AS A WHOLE) and abortions

Gives more power to Trump (if he were to win)

Could potentially reverse the 19th Amendment (Women's Right To Vote)

And more recently; disbanding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service for their involvement of the economy relating to climate change alarms. Those organizations help decipher the weather for America, so thank them for telling you it probably won't rain today.

"But Spiritmander, why do you specifically hate the part that says they'll disband the National Weather Service-"

Because of THIS.

I'm sure anybody in America knows WHAT THE HELL THIS SCREEN IS. But for you people who don't, THIS is the Emergency Alert System, a government-mandated system that is supposed to inform up to the whole country about threats. It replaced the Emergency Broadcast System on January 1st, 1997. You can already hear the SAME tones ringing in your ears when you look at this screen.

Yes indeed, there are screeching tones relating to this screen, and they are called SAME tones! SAME tones, or Specific Area Message Encoding tones, are those three tones you hear when this alert first pops up. As the name implies, the point of SAME tones is to decode the alert. Things like location, time, type of alert, and much more can be found in these tones. The other tone is the attention tone, which its entire purpose is in the name: it sounds bad just to get your attention.

Now that you know how the EAS works, I beg you to PLEASE LOOK AT THE HISTORY BEHIND IT. LOOK AT ALL OF THE FALSE ALARMS, THE HACKINGS. The Hawaii Ballistic Missile incident is not the only incident relating to the EAS.

Of course, here's a listing of most of the alerts. Notice something? They mostly come from the National Weather Service. Of course, this is because the site is the official NOAA site, but doesn't that say anything about why I'm worried that we may lose a fairly interesting part of the government due to Project 2025 wanting to disband NOAA and NWS? The EAS' strongest suite is in WEATHER. Flash Floods, Tornadoes, Wildfires, Hurricanes, Blizzards- THIS HAS PRETTY MUCH EVERY POSSIBLE WEATHER IN AMERICA UNDER ITS BELT.

So the next time you see an EAS alert on your TV, or an Amber Alert on your phone, reminder that Project 2025 may as well take a bit more of your safety that way by disbanding the EAS' strongest suite. Do not be scared of the tones radiating from the EAS or anything relating to it; just keep calm and listen to whatever it has to say.

TL;DR: Project 2025 is probably going to decommission the Emergency Alert System by disbanding NOAA and NWS and that means you won't be as safe as you are now perhaps.