Saturday, December 31, 2022

ANS -- Ahead of Major Court Case, E.P.A. Revises Clean-Water Protections

I found this on Facebook, but I believe it's from the New York Times.  It's about some strategic shifting around because the Supreme Court is set to rule on a case that involves the EPA.  I think they are expecting it to be bad for us. 
--Kim


Ahead of Major Court Case, E.P.A. Revises Clean-Water Protections
A new rule revives an older set of protections for rivers, marshes and waterways, setting aside changes in the Obama and Trump administrations that led to years of legal wrangling.

Picture: A river snakes through a green landscape of trees and shrubs toward the horizon.
The E.P.A. is taking the action before a Supreme Court decision that could limit the agency's authority to act in the future. Credit...Tim Gruber for The New York Times
Lisa Friedman
By Lisa Friedman
Dec. 30, 2022
Updated 10:59 a.m. ET
4 MIN READ
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is working to complete a clean water regulation before a Supreme Court ruling that could complicate the government's ability to protect wetlands and other waters.
The Environmental Protection Agency rule, which was finalized on Friday, essentially reverts protections for millions of streams, marshes and other bodies of water to levels that existed before the Obama administration made major changes in 2015, leading to nearly a decade of political and legal disputes.
With the Supreme Court expected to rule next year in a major case that could reduce the government's authority to regulate wetlands, experts called the Biden administration's move strategic. Getting a rule on the books now gives the E.P.A. a greater chance of locking in, at least for a while, a broad definition of which waterways qualify for federal protection under the Clean Water Act.
"If the Supreme Court goes first, then the agency can't finalize a rule that goes beyond it," said Kevin S. Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who served as an E.P.A. counsel in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. By issuing a rule first, he said, the government has "more room to interpret" the court decision when it comes.

Under the new rule, the E.P.A. revived a definition of what constitute "waters of the United States" that had been in place since 1986, describing the definition as "familiar" and foundational to decades of clean-water progress. In a statement, the agency said the changes imposed by the Obama administration, a subsequent reversal by the Trump administration and several legal battles in between, had "harmed communities and our nation's waters."
The Biden Administration's Environmental Agenda
Spending Bill: Congress has proposed $1 billion to help poor countries cope with climate change, a figure that falls far short of President Biden's promise of $11.4 billion annually by 2024.
Climate Adaptation Policy: The Interior Department is giving money to Native American tribes to help them relocate away from areas that are vulnerable to climate change, potentially creating a model for other communities around the country.
Establishing Safeguards: The Biden administration is working to avoid waste and abuse in the delivery of $370 billion in new federal subsidies for electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies.
Mail Trucks: In a win for the Biden administration, the United States Postal Service said it would spend nearly $10 billion to create one of the largest electric truck fleets in the nation.
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The new rule includes some changes, officials said, including provisions that clarify what bodies of water are excluded from regulation, such as certain agricultural lands. The rule also aims to simplify a test to determine whether a stream or wetland is subject to federal jurisdiction based on its distance from a tributary of a larger body of water.
Radhika Fox, the E.P.A.'s assistant administrator in the office of water, said in an interview that the rule being finalized on Friday and would not be followed by extensive further revisions. While the agency may propose "refinements," she said, the administration is not currently planning a major second phase.

Image
Several people standing in front of the colonnaded facade of the Supreme Court building holding hand-drawn signs that read "Agua es vida," "Our nation runs on clean water" and "Protect our waters."
Environmentalists in front of the Supreme Court building at the start of the court's latest term in October. Credit...Michael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock
Ms. Fox said she hoped the new rule would put an end to the battles between environmental groups and farmers, ranchers, fossil fuel developers and real estate agents over the types of waterways that qualify for federal protection under the Clean Water Act.

"I think we have found a middle ground that creates as much clarity as possible," she said. "I am hopeful that this is the one that will stand the test of time." She declined to comment on the Supreme Court case, citing active litigation.
The new rule has also been widely viewed as a test for Michael Regan, the administrator of the E.P.A., who had vowed to develop what he called a "pragmatic" approach to water rules.
The Obama-era rule had come under fire from Republicans as overly restrictive and onerous to business. President Trump repealed it and imposed his own rule, which environmentalists cast as a giveaway to home builders, farmers and ranchers.
In 2021 a federal judge struck down the Trump rule, leaving the regulatory landscape in limbo.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court case has been moving forward. The case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, involves an Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who sought to build a house in the state's panhandle. After they began preparing for construction in 2007, the Sacketts were stopped by the E.P.A., which said the property included a federally protected wetland.
The agency ordered them to stop and return the property to its original state or face fines. The couple instead sued the agency, and a dispute about whether that lawsuit was premature reached the Supreme Court in an earlier appeal. In 2012, the justices ruled that the suit could proceed. The court heard oral arguments this summer and the case has become a rallying cry for property rights advocates and other opponents of environmental regulation.
Damien M. Schiff, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the Sacketts, said he did not believe the E.P.A. rule would affect the outcome of his clients' case. He also noted that if the court ruled in favor of the Sacketts, the E.P.A. would likely have to make revisions in its regulation. "It really is just a stopgap measure," he said of the rule.

William W. Buzbee, an environmental and constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said that the new rule, because it returns to a broadly understood set of approaches, helped clear up the past several years of legal confusion. But he said that wouldn't end disputes over what constitutes a federally protected waterway.
"This statute applies down at the level of people's efforts to build buildings and do big real estate developments," Mr. Buzbee said. "It's inherently an area where there is a vast amount of money at stake. Probably no matter what there will still be conflicts."

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Thursday, December 29, 2022

ANS -- 'Toxic masculinity' may be caused by an actual, infectious, brain-altering parasite

This was linked to on FB by Sara.  It's a very interesting hypothesis.  The parasite in question is toxoplasmosis -- the one you get from cats -- and women get the opposite effect. 



--Kim


'Toxic masculinity' may be caused by an actual, infectious, brain-altering parasite

Mark Sumner for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Monday December 26, 2022 · 8:00 AM PST
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When you look around America these days, it's hard to feel like there hasn't been some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers event. So many people seem not just anxious, but genuinely militant in their desire to bend back the arc of history. So many seem to be willing to work against their own best interests only because it brings other people pain. 

People have looked for explanations, from prolonged exposure to Fox News to frustration over the slow decline of rural America, to a whole swath of isms: racism, sexism, etc. Watching people frothing at a Donald Trump rally, or beating police on the steps of the Capitol, or carrying an assault rifle to the grocery store, or screaming at their local school board, it all seems so … irrational. And, has long been noted, no amount of facts or reasoning seems to work in getting someone back once they have boarded the Q-train or decided that vaccines are the work of interstellar lizard people.

But what if the problem behind these seemingly irrational actions isn't just caused by listening to AM radio and feeling resentful about that girl who turn you down in high school? What if it's a disease caused by a genuine brain-eating parasite?

In November, Communications Biology included a paper from researchers looking at the behavior of grey wolves in Yellowstone National Park. They identified a series of "risk-taking" behaviors in these wolves, including leaving their pack, fighting to achieve dominance in the pack, and approaching people or cars. These behaviors all came with the risk of increased death, either at the teeth of other wolves or from the vehicles and guns of humans in and around the park.

What they found was simply amazing.

While male wolves who were infected with a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii were no more likely to approach humans than uninfected wolves, they were 3.5 times more likely to leave their pack than uninfected wolves, and an absolutely astounding 46 times more likely to become pack leaders than uninfected wolves. In general, these wolves were more dominant, more aggressive, and less predictable.

At the conclusion of the study the researchers noted that T. gondii infections are possible in almost all mammals, and: "Infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii has been linked to increased risk-taking in rodents, chimpanzees, hyenas, and now gray wolves."

That leads directly to the question … what about people?

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes, toxoplasmosis is common in the United States and is "considered to be a leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness." However, the relative number of those considered to show serious effects of T. gondii is quite low, generally less than 200 in any given year. According to the CDC, that's because even though large numbers are infected with the parasite, "very few have symptoms because the immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness."

But does it? Just because it doesn't get reported as generating symptoms, that doesn't mean the parasite isn't having some effect. In fact, back in 2007, the National Institutes of Health published a paper compiling several studies looking into how toxoplasmosis affects human behavior.

Until recently, latent infections in humans were assumed to be asymptomatic. Results of animal studies and recent studies of personality profiles, behavior, and psychomotor performance, however, have led to a reconsideration of this assumption.

As in other mammals, the effects of infection by T. gondii are very different between males and females. But here's what happens to men infected by this tiny, single-celled organism:

… the personality of infected men showed lower superego strength and higher vigilance. Thus, the men were more likely to disregard rules and were more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic. 

Suspicious. Jealous. Quicker to make an immediate judgment. Less willing to listen to others. Guys who were ready to break the rules if it helped them personally. Sound familiar? Other factors, such as self-control and even "clothes tidiness" were found to be decreased by infection. Here's another one: Infected men scored significantly lower than uninfected men when it came to establishing relationships with women. 

It is very hard not to draw a line between these results and guys like Nick Fuentes screaming about "replacement theory" and fretting over declining sperm counts while claiming that relationships between men and women "are gay."

If you think this behavior only manifests at the polls, or in the desire to throw on a white hood, think again. One study showed that "Toxoplasma-infected subjects have a 2.65 times higher risk of traffic accidents than Toxoplasma-free subjects." It would be extremely interesting to have results of these tests on people involved in mass shootings. While they're at it, they could test corporate CEOs.

What did T. gondii infection do to women? Almost the opposite.

The personality of infected women, by contrast, showed higher warmth and higher superego strength, suggesting that they were more warm hearted, outgoing, conscientious, persistent, and moralistic.

The "gender gap" in recent elections has been fairly extreme, but in trying to test against the current voting season, it's difficult to disentangle gender-related results from concern over immediate issues, such as access to abortion. However, here are a few few polls from Civiqs on more general topics. When asked about Black Lives Matter, 53% of men were opposed compared to 36% of women. When asked about how the United States should deal with immigrants living in the country without documentation, 47% of men wanted those immigrants deported, while only 33% of women agreed. When asked about whether the government should do more to protect the environment, 46% of men said no. Only 32% of women agreed.

Sadly, both men and women infected by T. gondii showed decreased levels of curiosity and "low levels of novelty seeking." So the disease could make everyone effected just … duller than they might otherwise have been. And while it's easy to read the effects listed for women and conclude they're mostly positive, that doesn't mean they have a welcome or beneficial effect on their lives.

Unlike many diseases, toxoplasmosis isn't spread person to person. Instead, it comes from consuming food infected by the parasite—generally undercooked meat—or from contact with animal waste. In this case, animal waste translates almost entirely into "cat poop." The threat of miscarriage represented by toxoplasmosis is why women are advised to not clean the litter box while pregnant. Cats get this disease by eating infected rodents and birds. If your cat is an outdoor cat, infection is almost certain (infection of the cat, not necessarily the people). A cat that stays indoors is much less likely to be infected. People can also be infected by other means, such working in a garden and failing to wash infected dirt from their hands before eating.

Toxoplasmosis can be treated, but except for those regarded as at high risk from the more visible effects of the disease—chiefly pregnant women, newborns, and those with damaged immune systems—prescribed treatment is rare.

Is "toxic masculinity" really "toxo masculinity?" Without more testing and treatment, it's difficult to tell. Certainly all these traits seem to exist in uninfected men. It's just the infection simply makes things worse.



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ANS -- What happened to Southwest Airlines?

I found this story about what really happened with Southwest Airlines.  It was posted on Facebook.  
This was the comment I added below the story:
        Just think what it could have been if it were a worked owned, democratically run business! all those employees         who kept saying we have to fix it would have had the power to fix it!
--Kim


Larry Lonero
  · 
What happened to Southwest Airlines?
I've been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I've given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.
Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow motion train wreck for sometime. And we've been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.
Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day to day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy in. Everything that was needed to run a first class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.
Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn't engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn't get out in the trenches the neither do the lower levels of leadership.
Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day to day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.
They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary's first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.
But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?
We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.
A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010's. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990's technology. We didn't have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.
Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline's technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.
But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990's operating system.
The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.
We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.
The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.
I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.
It's been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.
Herb once said the the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.

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Sunday, December 18, 2022

ANS -- Have We Got Solar Power All Wrong?

Here is an article about the advantages of floating solar panels on fresh water bodies.  Sounds good.  I thought the title was a bit much, but the article is okay.  

 

--Kim


Oct 5

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6 min read
·
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Photo by Nuno Marques on Unsplash

Have We Got Solar Power All Wrong?

We are using solar power arse-about-face; there is a much better way to use this planet-saving technology.

We are in a desperate race to change our ways and save this beautiful planet from our self-made apocalypse. The only issue being, there's no silver bullet that can single-handedly solve climate change. Take solar power, for example. It is one of the cheapest and lowest carbon forms of energy we have, but it also causes rampant habitat loss by using up vital land areas. In its current form, we can't power ourselves using this revolutionary energy source because it could cause an entirely different environmental problem. But what if I told you that a simple change could make solar power more efficient, decrease its carbon footprint, have a negligible impact on ecosystems, and even directly reduce global warming? Sounds too good to be true? Well, welcome to the fantastic world of floating solar power.

Before we go diving into floating solar, let's first explain the shortcomings of current solar power systems.

When I say solar power causes habitat loss, I don't always mean directly. Sure, you might demolish a bit of forest to build a solar farm, which would cause habitat loss, but for the most part, solar farms are built on farmland, which reduces a country's farmable land area. This means that either that country's farmland needs to expand or food imports need to increase. Either way, the solar farm causes humans to use far more land, negatively impacting wildlife and the overall environment.

Plus, solar panels have a low albedo. Albedo is the measure of how much light a surface reflects, and because solar panels are only around 20% efficient, they heat up dramatically in the sunshine. This, in turn, means they emit a lot of infrared radiation, which heats up the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, trapping the heat in the Earth's atmosphere and causing global warming.

In contrast, forests, grasslands, and farmlands have a higher albedo, meaning they don't heat up and instead reflect most of the light in the visible spectrum rather than infrared. Carbon dioxide is transparent to the visible spectrum, so this reflected light doesn't warm it up. In other words, replacing vast swathes of plant-dense land with solar panels can slightly increase global warming.

Now, we can solve this by using rooftop solar instead. Because roofs have a similar albedo to solar panels, this keeps the average albedo of the Earth the same and means solar doesn't cause habitat loss. But because of the complex energy infrastructure and inaccessible nature of rooftop solar, it costs up to 44% more than a regular solar farm!

Thankfully, by using rafts to float solar panels on bodies of fresh water, we can solve all of these issues, keep the costs low, make them more efficient, and have a lower carbon footprint. Let me explain.

Firstly, using this method prevents habitat loss due to the reduced amount of impact on farmland and wild land. Providing the panels don't cover the entirety of the lake, reservoir, canal, or river, the marine ecosystem should also be mostly unaffected. This is because freshwater ecosystems, particularly those in the deeper lakes, have algae at the base of their food web. Unlike plants, algae can move around, meaning that total shade isn't a death sentence as long as they can travel to an area with light. In fact, lowering the amount of algae in freshwater can be very beneficial for the aquatic ecosystem as it prevents harmful algal blooms from killing everything in the water every few years or so.

The water also keeps the solar panels much cooler than they would be on land, and like every other type of electronic, this increases their efficiency by up to 15%. That is a significant leap! But cooler panels also last longer, as they suffer less thermal damage, so floating solar has a longer lifespan too. Not only does this mean a floating solar farm can be far more compact than its land-based kin, but it also means it has a smaller carbon footprint.

You see, the vast majority of the carbon footprint of solar energy comes from manufacturing solar panels. It takes an enormous amount of energy to refine the raw materials and assemble each panel, and then, after that, the emissions are practically zero. So, by increasing the efficiency and extending the life of a solar panel, floating solar can further reduce solar's already tiny carbon footprint.

Water also has a lower albedo than solar panels, so floating solar doesn't add to global warming like terrestrial solar farms — in fact, it actually reduces it. Moreover, still bodies of water act as thermal batteries, storing heat in the depths over the summer and warming the surrounding environment during the winter. This effect is significantly reduced by floating solar panels, as they stop the water from heating up in the warmer months, which helps keep the planet a little cooler.

There is also the fact that floating solar can stop vital drinking reservoirs from drying up by providing shade and reducing surface wind speeds, which stops excessive evaporation. This is the same as the "shade balls" made famous by Veritasium.

We can make floating solar even better when we combine them with hydroelectric reservoirs (the bodies of water made by hydroelectric dams). These locations already have the infrastructure needed to transmit energy to high-demand areas, making the transmission infrastructure very efficient, and as a bonus, the reservoirs are gigantic.

A recent study showed that covering 10% of the world's hydroelectric reservoirs with floating solar would produce up to 10,616 TWh of power per year, which is an astonishing amount of energy. For some context, the world consumes 23,900 TWh of energy per year. This means that covering 22.5% of the world's hydroelectric dams with floating solar panels could power the entire globe!

What's more, thanks to recent innovations in hyper-efficient long-distance energy transmission (such as XLink; read more here), it is actually practical to power the world in this way.

So, by simply changing the location of solar panels, we can make them less ecologically damaging, more efficient, longer-lasting, less polluting, and give us the space we need to build the gigantic solar farms to power our civilisation. Fantastic! So what's the catch?

Well, floating solar costs up to 15% more to build than an equivalent terrestrial solar farm. But this isn't a huge issue.

Firstly, in the right situation, the increased efficiency of the floating solar panels can offset this expense and make the cost per kWh the same as terrestrial-based solar farms. But also, solar farms are the cheapest form of energy ever, with a price as low as $30 per kWh! For some context, nuclear power costs at the very least $131 per kWh, and rooftop solar hovers at just over $44 per kWh. So a 15% increase (about $34.50 per kWh) is still an absolute bargain! Particularly as floating solar seems to be one of the most eco-friendly energy sources we have.

So yes, we have got solar power all wrong. We shouldn't be strapping it to roofs or filling up valuable farmland with panels. Instead, we should use rafts to float them out onto lakes, reservoirs, canals, and rivers. Sure, this technology can't single-handedly save the world from the ravages of climate change. But it can help humanity take a significant step forward in becoming far more ecologically harmonious. The only question is, will we actually use this incredible technology?


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