#climate 360

[toopeanutcrown]

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[graveyardrabbit]

the view from the geographic center of California

North Fork, CA

[vmantras]

BYD eMAX 7 Premium: The Ultimate Electric MUV

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[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"“Tree planting campaigns are important, but it’s more important that we do it right, planting the right trees in the right places," says ecologist Jake M. Robinson. In a new interview, Robinson explains what it really takes to grow a forest."

[techdriveplay]

2024 Isuzu D-MAX LS-U+ – TDP Review

[syngoniums]

A strange woody mushroom we encountered in south Texas. When I tapped the cap to confirm its texture, it spun around 360 degrees. Pulling it off revealed a black spore mass clinging to the top of the stalk. This is likely Podaxis, probably Podaxis pistillaris, but there is some controversy about how broad and inclusive that species is. In any case, it's a mushroom of arid climates, associated with termites rather than a particular host plant. Tubes constructed by agricultural termites are visible on the ground around this specimen.

[bobcat-pie]

Estimating Twisted Wonderland's Circumference ONCE AND FOR ALL

howdy. In this post, I once attempted to figure out the circumference of Twisted wonderland. Instead, I failed, and just went mad collecting screenshots of random spheres that weren't/might be globes modeling the planet.

that's not important. What IS important is the rant about the map that we DO have that followed. y'see, it looks like this.

Tilted. Cropped. Incomplete. Utterly infuriating. Anyway, we're gonna be working with my SUPERIOR map projection for this theory post.

yeah it's literally just tilted so that North points straight up. There's almost no way to really tell what latitude location is or how large it is compared to the rest of the world... EXCEPT...

...FOR THE CLIMATES.

it's pretty easy to label the middle section as "temperate," since summers are hot, winters are snowy, and every other season is pretty comfortable.

The northern parts of the Coral Sea can be determined as arctic or near-arctic, because Azul and the tweels don't bother being there during the winter due to the ice covering the water's surface. The furthest south that winter sea ice extends on earth is the coast of Hokkaido, Japan, at 43 degrees north.

Last but not least, as Sunset Savanna is based on the setting of the lion king, that makes it a tropical savanna. The most northern tropical savanna on earth is the Terai–Duar savanna at the base of the Himalayas in India, at 27 degrees north.

Therefore, this whole (VERY inexact) area I marked on this map that holds the temperate zone is around 16 degrees of Twisted Wonderland's latitude, possibly more.

Now, we don't exactly have a giant perfect ruler that we can use for reference. but we DO have the next best thing: Sage's Island!

And 16 degrees of Twisted Wonderland's latitude seems to beeee…

22 Sage's Islands long!

So this lil island is about 0.727 degrees long.

Now, I'm none too confident in my island-length-guessing ability. So i gotta say Sage's Island is like... maybe 3 miles long, north to south.

Soooo... 3 miles is 0.727 degrees in Twisted Wonderland.

That means 1 degree is 4.126 miles.

And that means the full 360 degrees of Twisted Wonderland's circumference is... drumroll please...

...

1,485.36 miles/2390.46 kilometers.

Give or take, I mean. I'm not a scientist. I don't even play Twisted Wonderland.

PLEASE understand that is a TINY amount. Earth's circumference is 40,075.017 km. PLUTO has a circumference of 7,231 km. Twisted wonderland is smaller than Pluto.

We were ROBBED of Yuu being capable of jumping 50 feet in the air due to the weaker gravity.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Yale Environment 360:

Across the world’s oceans, an invisible army of tiny organisms has a supersized impact on the planet. Plankton are at the base of the ocean food chain, feeding fish that feed billions of people. They are responsible for half of the world’s oxygen supply and half of our planet’s annual carbon sink. Miniscule but powerful, their presence can help or hinder ecosystems — by soaking up greenhouse gas, for example, or by spewing toxins. Where plankton live, how many there are, when they bloom and which species dominate each play a huge role in this delicate balance. And our changing climate is spurring a sea change in all of it.

“We’re headed into an ocean and, for that matter, a world that we’re not going to recognize because it’s changing so fundamentally,” says David Hutchins, a marine microbiologist at the University of Southern California, who has charted plankton’s future.

Climate change is hitting our oceans hard, making them warmer and more acidic, while radically altering currents. The outlook for plankton is mixed. Some studies report overall plankton numbers dropping, while others show them rising in some major ocean basins. As the planet warms, the diversity of the menagerie in many spots is increasing, says Clare Ostle, a marine biogeochemist at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth. But certain species are losing out, she adds, including big juicy plankton thought to be important for food webs and carbon sequestration. And, in the long term, plankton numbers may plummet as climate change starves them of nutrients.

Scientists are now struggling to work out what the net effect will be. They have some new technologies at their disposal, including a new NASA satellite called PACE — for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem — launched this February. And some old ones, including a decades-old program that painstakingly trawls the ocean with filters to scoop up tiny creatures and count them by hand. Yet scientists say they are shocked by the size of our knowledge gaps. “I always find it surprising how little is known about plankton,” says Ostle.

The Ocean Stewardship Coalition this month released a “plankton manifesto” at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, highlighting how important plankton are alongside how little we know about them. “The planetary importance of plankton remains largely ignored,” the group writes, alongside a plea for more research, education, and discussion in international treaties about plankton’s plight.

[forgottensibiria]

Amphibian Perucetus and giant scissor sharks

In previous posts, we considered Moropiton and Poseideongenia, two groups of animals that migrated to Siberia through the Ural Sea in the Late Carboniferous. Before moving on to the actual descendants of these Seymouries - the Angarians themselves - we can distract ourselves with the creatures that the Moscow settlers could encounter on a vegetable raft.

The Dynasty of marine amphibians

Let's start with a strange speculative kind that shouldn't exist. Ichthyocetus, the "whale fish", is a large animal reaching a size of up to 2.5 meters and is a direct descendant of tetrapods of the Moscow Sea, primarily tulerpeton. The latter is known primarily for its six-toed limbs developed relative to other modern tetropods, as well as for its location. The fact is that the remains of the tulerpiton were located 200 kilometers from the supposed shore: this and the very structure of the body of the tetrapod under discussion suggest that the animal lived in shallow water, breathing atmospheric air (no bones corresponding to the gills were found, and the head was separated from the body - i.e. the tulerpeton could lift its head) and moving forward using the legs, pushing them off the bottom (their strength would not be enough to allow the toolerpeton to move on land). It is possible that some tetrapods could have stayed in this habitat, becoming the main predators of shallow waters, where larger predators like eugeneodonts or placoderms could not move normally.

Tulerpeton, 360 m.y.a. Art by Dmitry Bogdanov

Tulerpeton found fossils

Ichthyocetus is the last representative of this hypothetical clade, whose population was almost completely destroyed by the decline in sea level due to the new peak of the Karoo ice Age. His basic diet is benthos, which he can find in the buried ground: echinoderms, starfish and lilies, as well as, if luck smiles, the corpses of marine animals that the surf brings. He could also purposefully hunt for moropitons if they swam too deep. The bones of ichthyocetus are incredibly dense; this allows it to stay in the water during strong waves. This animal is able to sense the approach of a storm - then it tries to find the shore and crawl out onto it, burrowing into the sand; then they are most vulnerable. If it is impossible to find the shore, then the ichthyocetuses go to depth, swallowing air, where they can stay for 3-4 hours. Sometimes this tetropods go deep in search of new food sources, where they can catch young eugeneodonts or small fish. Surprisingly, ichthyocetuses are not the largest representatives of their clade (let's call it Ichthyocetusae): some species could grow up to 3 meters and lead a more pelagic lifestyle.

They usually appeared during periods of intense glaciation with a reduction in their original habitat. Unfortunately, this time climate change has become insurmountable.

Something about scissor sharks

If the meeting of protoseimurians with their "cousin" was unreliable, then the same cannot be said about eugeneodonts. The largest animals of the sea were the edestus, or protopirates. Although the largest protopirate species, E. vorax, could reach 6 meters (making it the largest predator of its time), the Moscow species were somewhat smaller and reached a maximum of 4 meters. These sizes correspond to the modern white shark and mako shark.

Edestus, 313—307  m.y.a. Art by Dmitry Bogdanov

Comparison of the four species of Edestus. Authors of this illustration is Leif Tapanila and Jesse Pruitt

Both poseideonogenes and moropitons encountered these cartilaginous fish - most likely, they were four-meter E. heinrichi and E. triserratus commensurate with ichthyocetus. Most likely, the edestus hunted numerous nautiloids and other soft-bodied prey and could well attack rafts, mistaking them for a dead cephalopod with a spiral shell. The protoseimuria themselves would not be of interest to the edestus - they are too small. That's what saved them.

[scooperdipoop]

The US Air Force’s F-35 has a helmet that is custom fitted to the pilot and allows said pilot a 360 degree vision through the plane as if it were invisible AND IM SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?

The programs lifetime cost is approximately $1.7 trillion. And yet there’s never enough money for healthcare or education.

It’s fucking bullshit. They are lying. Go to them and tell them to stop lying. Check white pages, with about 15 minutes of research and cross referencing you can find anyone!

For example: I have it in good authority that John P. Backiel, treasurer for The Heritage Foundation, lives somewhere in Cheverly, Maryland. Because his bio on their very own website says so the stupid bastard.

Stop letting them intimidate you.

There’s more of us than them. If the police arrest you just mob the jails like the good old days. Grow a goddamn spine and riot already.

[turndecassette2]

How did get good at writing in English

the swedish school system is pretty good at teaching english imo. also, games don't get localised here since it's such a small market so I had to gain a passive understanding of english at age 7 or so in order to play Pokemon. and I lived in the us for a couple of years. I speak english with foreigners online etc etc. no real method to this.

(I'm taking forever learning spanish, I know w english I was reading shitty old lovecraft stories before I had my first proper conversation with a native english speaker. so I need to get to a 'reading borges' level before I can stop feeling awkward trying to express myself ha ha. rn I'm getting my news from the Jaime Maussan 'tercer milenio 360' news podcast, which usually starts with normal takes on the climate, palestine etc then tops it off with some story about a ufo fighting a dog in a mexican backyard & we have blurry footage from a security camera; I guess that part is there to remind us there is still wonder & magic in the world)

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"We especially want to support a lot of renewable projects through solar and wind, and we want to support agriculture too, because having a robust food system is a form of revenue for local farmers,” says executive director Robyn Jackson. “It also helps with continuing our cultural traditions.”

“We understand that rebuilding watersheds is going to be key to farming into the future,” says a Navajo activist."

[techdriveplay]

Audi Q8 55 e-tron Launch Edition - TDP Review

After sitting in the Audi Q8 55 e-tron Launch Edition for the first time, it becomes immediately clear that this isn’t merely Audi’s foray into electrification—it’s a bold declaration of the future, where luxury and electric propulsion meet. For tech.drive.play (TDP), where the fusion of technology, driving enjoyment, and lifestyle reigns supreme, our expectations were not only met, they were…

[niiwa-angel]

Do you think different characters in Hazbin Hotel have difficulty with vision?

Vox has a very flat face and while he has all his cameras and can probably actually see 360 degrees, without them, I doubt he has very good spacial awareness. He doesn't have very good peripheral vision, his face is very wide, and slightly disproportional to his body.

I think Nifty and Cherri may have bad depth perception because they only have one eye. They've probably adapted after being in hell for so long but it was probably a steep learning curve.

Vaggie obviously has bad depth perception, losing an eye comes with difficulty adapting to new environments, writing can be difficult, she may get frequent headaches, and there may be phantom pain from the trauma of losing her eye. We also see that heaven and hell have very different colour schemes, Vaggie's eyes may not have been built to navigate hell's climate.

Alastor has his monocle, which may be an aesthetic thing but may also have a very real fictional purpose. Somebody on YouTube noticed that his eyes often don't line up properly when he's looking around and speculated that he may have a lazy eye. Deer also don't have very good vision, something he may have inherited.

Angel Dust is a spider and they also don't have great vision. Not to mention, going from two eyes to eight must be a mindfuck, again, he's probably had time to get used to it but it still must have been annoying.

I just think it's an interesting premise and I might explore it more later.

[justsomeguycore]

tagged by @girlbenson 🫡🫡

tagging @kordate @allegrobrillante @worlds-littlest-goldfish @lesbianmarrow @constance-dartagnan @jerrylandis idk who has spotify but whatever the case please go forth and show me ur music. if u want 👍🫡🥰

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Yale Environment 360:

The November 5 election was the worst-case outcome for climate regulation. The return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office and Republican control of the Senate and the House of Representatives will halt federal progress and lead to a reversal of most of the climate initiatives undertaken by the Biden administration.

Such a rollback occurred after Trump first won election in 2016, but this time the stakes are even higher. Trump has promised to halt spending under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate law that dramatically increased federal support for clean energy technology and electric vehicles. And the president-elect has pledged to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, reverse a key regulation aimed at reducing emissions from power plants, and roll back a host of key rules aimed at curbing climate change and air and water pollution.

Signs of light remain, however. Rapid advances in the technology and economics of clean energy have created a momentum that can be slowed but not stopped, with the cost of solar dropping globally by more than half since 2016. States and cities still retain much ability to reduce emissions and to prepare for the worsening physical impacts of climate change. But major progress will be in jeopardy because of the administration’s actions on a host of fronts.

Renewable Energy

A clean energy economy requires the construction of a massive number of new wind and solar farms and the associated electricity storage and transmission infrastructure. Such facilities are needed to replace all the old coal plants and most of the natural gas plants, and to provide the added power needed for electrifying vehicles, building heating systems, powering energy-intensive industries, meeting the demand for data centers for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, and other new loads. In 2022 Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is providing hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks for clean energy. The IRA, coupled with rapidly dropping costs, has spurred a large upsurge in new projects.

The IRA passed Congress without a single Republican vote, and Trump has said he will ask Congress to repeal it. However, most of the IRA money for clean energy is going to districts represented by Republican members of Congress, many of whom oppose full repeal. Thus, Trump’s ability to eliminate the relevant parts of the IRA is in question, though a cap on the multiplicity of tax credits seems likely. However, the Internal Revenue Service under Trump could make it difficult to utilize the tax credits by issuing very restrictive interpretations of the credits or refusing to release the necessary forms.

The fate of the IRA will be an issue next year with the scheduled expiration of parts of the 2017 Trump tax cuts bill. Trump will presumably want to extend those tax cuts. Congress will be looking for ways to pay for this. Slashing IRA subsidies could be part of that.

Another expected Trump target is the fee imposed by the IRA on methane leakage from oil and gas production. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and this fee is the first nationwide carbon tax in the U.S. The industry is pressing for its repeal, and Trump will clearly be sympathetic.

Wind and solar projects located on federal land or waters (which includes all offshore wind) require federal approval. Trump has often expressed antagonism to wind, and federal approvals for new wind projects are likely to stall. Wind and solar projects on private or state-owned land generally do not require federal approvals.

Motor Vehicles

A critical area where the new Trump administration is expected to slash environmental rules is motor vehicles, which are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Federal agencies set emission and fuel economy standards for motor vehicles. Under both Presidents Obama and Biden (with a halt by President Trump in between) both these standards were strengthened, leading to progressively cleaner cars. Regulations adopted late in the Biden administration are even stronger.

Federal law allows California to set its own even more stringent standards if EPA grants a waiver, and if it does, other states may adopt those. States that have traditionally followed the California standards amount to around 40 percent of the market for passenger cars. California has adopted rules that would phase out internal combustion engine cars and require that all new cars starting with the 2035 model year be zero-emission, and EPA has granted the needed waiver. Eight states have adopted plans requiring all new cars to be zero-emission by 2035, but this depends on the California waiver; without it, state laws inconsistent with the federal standards are preempted.

Both the stronger fuel economy standards and the California waiver are being challenged in court. Trump is likely to direct the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to freeze or weaken the standards and to revoke the California waiver, as he did during his first term. These actions, too, will face court challenges.

The automakers are, of course, free to make as many electric cars as they want and are already retooling to increase their output. But whether they are compelled to do so depends on the outcome of these court cases. And importantly, the subsidies for electric vehicles in the Inflation Reduction Act are also at risk, as Trump has said he would consider ending them.

Coal-Fired Power Plants

No one is building new coal-fired power plants in the U.S. any more, but there are about 225 still operating, and they are now the second largest source of greenhouse gases and also major emitters of unhealthy air pollutants such as fine particulates. Democratic administrations have for decades tried to accelerate their cleanup and closure, but the courts have frequently thrown up roadblocks. In 2024 the EPA issued a new rule that requires the eventual closure of these plants unless they install carbon capture and sequestration, a very expensive proposition. This too is being challenged in court and is very likely to be repealed by Trump.

Fossil Fuels

Trump has adopted the “drill baby drill” mantra. He has also promised to cut energy prices in half, mostly by greatly increasing production of oil and natural gas. However, current production levels under President Biden are the highest ever seen in the U.S., and higher than any other country in the world. This is mostly due to fracking, which has become the largest source of primary energy in the U.S. (47 percent in 2023). However, fracking is economical only if the prices of oil and natural gas are high enough; a drastic decline in prices will drive down production. Trump will probably open more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and relax environmental restrictions on them. But whether this will dramatically increase production is open to question.

Last January, Biden announced a temporary pause in the approval of new liquified natural gas export terminals. Trump will end that pause and try to expedite the approvals of these terminals and the associated pipelines.

International Agreements

Under Obama, the U.S. joined the Paris climate agreement; Trump withdrew; Biden rejoined; and Trump will no doubt pull out again. He might also go further and remove the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the Senate ratified in 1992 and is the foundation for the Paris Agreement. Any of this would deny the U.S. a seat at the global climate bargaining tables and cede climate leadership to China.

For more than 30 years at the annual U.N. climate conference, the developing countries have been demanding “loss and damage” — compensation for the injuries they have suffered as a result of climate change. The U.S. has long been a target of these demands. With Trump in the White House and a Republican Congress, any hope of the U.S. providing funds for this purpose appears gone.

State and Local Action

While states cannot impose their own standards on motor vehicles without federal approval, in most other respects states are free to set stronger environmental standards than Washington. States can also adopt energy efficiency standards for appliances that are not subject to federal standards.

States and cities can use their procurement power to require low-emissions production of the cement, steel, and other commodities they buy and can demand clean motor vehicles and appliances. They purchase all of these in large quantities, which impacts manufacturers.

Blue states and cities, together with environmental groups, can be expected to vigorously litigate against Trump’s actions on climate change, as they did during Trump’s first term. The next four years will be rocky, indeed, and will keep lawyers on both sides very busy.