Category: Environment
Today is a good day to read.
I subscribe to a good number of newsletters. Most are freely available, even if you don’t subscribe to the parent publication
One such newsletter is Landline, from High Country News. I subscribe to the Landline because it has excellent coverage of what’s happening with clean air and water, the Endangered Species Act, the Interior, and climate change.
From the Landline: Is Biden waging a war on energy? Or on the climate?
Biden is twixt and tween on climate change and we’re going to end up with a really bad President if we don’t recognize this. Yes, we wish he could have done more for the environment and fighting climate change. Given. However, if you keep up with court cases, you realize he has done what he could given the current state of our court systems—not to mention the current state of Congress.
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Another newsletter is from The 74, a media site dedicated to all things educational. You don’t have to be a teacher—or a parent—to have an interest in education. After all, what happens in schools impacts on what type of citizens kids become in the future. And even us older childfree couples have to live with these citizens.
From The 74, a story about one of the largest school districts in the country in Virginia, and the impact of its mistaken release of private and confidential data from 35,000 students.
From The 74: Alleged Rape Victim Presses Virginia’s Fairfax Schools for Answers on Records Disclosure
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The Climate Coach is one of Washington Post’s free newsletters. You don’t have to be a subscriber to the Post to get the newsletter. Today’s Climate Coach is about our need to stop buying so much crap…and to consider getting rid of the crap we have.
Article has had the paywall removed.
From the Climate Coach: The Swedes know the secret to happiness: You are not your stuff
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Speaking of newsletters, I suspect most of us are signed up for one or more newletters from authors who publish on Substack. I subscribe to several, though I can’t afford to be a paying client of all of them.
You might have heard recently about a neo-Nazi account on Substack, and the company’s response when asked about it. Linked below are some of the replies from people I follow on Substack.
As for me? If someone moves from Substack, I’ll do my best to find and follow them. But I won’t unsubscribe from someone who wants to stay on Substack. I’ve had an online site long enough to know that no matter where you go, bad people follow. I lease my server space from Linode, which is now a part of Akamai. I would not be surprised if Akamai is hosting a neo-Nazi web site. Or two. And if I find this out, I’m not going to pull my server and go elsewhere, because wherever I go, the bad people will follow. If not immediately, someday.
If you want to silence bad people, you drown them out with the good. So, don’t link to the bad people, don’t talk to the bad people, and don’t give the bad people attention. Only echo the good.
So, I’m linking to the good.
Kevin Kruse: Moving Forward
Ken White: Substack Has A Nazi Opportunity
Thomas Zimmer: On Substack’s Nazi Problem, and Ours
The Endangered Species Act turns 50. There’s good news, and bad, about the law.
The good news is, it works. The bad news is, Republicans and some industries such as the fossil fuel, timber, mineral extraction, and cattle industries, don’t like that it’s working. And you can toss in a few states among those who have declared themselves just peachy keen to let species go extinct.
High Country New: The epic history of the Endangered Species Act
Sierra Club: Two Stoneflies Lead the Way for Conserving Other Uncharismatic Species
Vox: The ridiculously stupid reason the US is letting animals spiral toward oblivion
PBS: Architects of the Endangered Species Act reflect on 50th anniversary of groundbreaking measure
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Our country has completely recovered from the COVID slowdown, inflation is under control, unemployment is down, and wages have risen—this despite a desperate effort by US corporations to milk the people of this country for as many profits as possible.
Yet, nary a peep from the media giving Biden any kudos for, at a minimum, staying out of the way and letting federal agencies do their job to control a post-COVID economy.
Public Notice: Biden doesn’t get enough credit for his economic record
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I’ve been following the antics of Texas governor and legislature in court documents for some time. Without firing a shot, the state has unilaterally declared itself independent of the United States.
(Well, except when it holds its hand out for federal funds.)
The Texas government has triggered acrimony between the US and Mexico at a time when we need Mexico’s help to handle mass migrations. It undermines the federal effort to control migration, and then turns around and tells the press the southern border is ‘wide open’. And Texas creates havoc and hardship for citizen and migrant alike by shipping poor migrants to northern cities, without giving the cities a heads up, and without the migrants even having the clothing they would need to survive.
Worse, other than independent publications like the Texas Tribune, the media has done an appallingly bad job documenting the damage Texas is causing. Instead it plays into the Republican talking points of “Oh, Biden is in trouble! Migration at the border is out of control!”
I’ll have more on the Texas efforts, migration, and the legal cases associated with the efforts, in separate posts. As for the media, all I can do with it is focus on sharing stores from decent media sources, like the Texas Tribune.
Texas Tribune: U.S. Department of Justice says it’ll sue if Texas enforces new law punishing illegal border crossing
My friend Simon St. Laurent posted a video on Facebook that goes into the mechanics—and efficiencies—of a heat pump.
Homes in Savannah are primarily cooled and heated by heat pumps. The house we bought had a 2.5 ton unit, with the interior portion in the attic. Being new to HVAC systems installed in the attics, we weren’t familiar with the important rule to these units:
You have to treat your condensate pipes at least 4 times a year for them to remain unclogged at all times.
It wasn’t until we saw water dripping down the wall from the air intake vent that we realized we had a problem. Water had been collecting in the plenum (that’s the piece that holds the HVAC in a vertical system and provides duct attachment) and badly rusted it. The cost to replace the plenum was enough, and the system only a few years shy of replacement, so we decided to replace the system with a new one.
For the size of the unit, I performed my own analysis using the extremely difficult to use Manual J calculations and determined we really needed a 2.7 ton heat pump. Because of the smaller size, our unit was running for longer periods of time, but it also wasn’t short cycling—the unit wasn’t turning on and off too frequently. Short cycling is the death of an HVAC unit, which is why HVAC companies typically recommend a smaller unit if your home needs fall between unit sizes. Still, constant running isn’t highly efficient, either.
When we bought our new unit, we went with a 3-ton unit, which normally would be a little too large for our smallish house. However, we also bought a multi-stage rather than a single-stage heat pump. Specifically, we bought a 5-stage heat pump from Carrier.
A multi-stage heat pump doesn’t just run on and off, it also runs at lower capacities, with matching lower speed fan. The unit runs longer, but uses less energy because it’s running at a lower speed compression. You also don’t get sudden blasts of high heat or freezing cold that you would with a single stage heat pump. And you rarely hear our unit because, for the most part, it runs at stage 1 or stage 2.
We could have gone with a full ‘infinity’ stage unit, with an infinite number of stages, but our small home and smaller unit size doesn’t justify the additional expense. We could have also gone with a two stage unit—a very popular option—but I liked the idea of the unit being able to run at even lower speeds than what you normally get with a two-stage. Our system can run as low as 25% capacity versus the typical 70% capacity you get with a two-stage.
Unlike single-stage heat pumps, you don’t set cooling temps uncomfortably high and heating temps uncomfortably low in order to save on energy use. The real key is find your comfortable temperatures, but when you vary them throughout the day, do so gradually. When you change the temperature by one degree, the unit is able to power down but still meet the new temperature demand. With the smart thermostat we bought, the unit actually anticipates the temperature change and begins to gradually cool or heat to meet it.
We’ve had the unit for one year and I did an analysis of *energy use for the year. I found we used 17% less energy than the previous year. This doesn’t seem like much until you consider that we’ve set the house for more comfortable temperatures, especially in the hotter summer. In addition, we had a hotter summer in 2022 over 2021, as well as a freakish period of below 20 degree weather this winter. (We used a base heater in the garage during the subzero weather to keep garage pipes unfrozen. Without this demand, our energy use would have been 19% less for the year.)
I estimate the new unit will pay for itself in energy savings within 5 to 7 years. The savings will pay for the higher cost of a multi-stage system within two years.
Heat pumps aren’t for everyone. But unless you live in the frigid north, keep them in mind the next time you replace your HVAC. And if you get a heat pump, get a multi-stage unit.
*Only compare energy use, because electrical companies tend to screw with costs throughout the year.
Today’s the day when the second Sackett v EPA case is heard in the Supreme Court. The consequences of today’s imbalanced Supreme Court could be devastating to the quality of the waters in our country.
I’ll be writing about this case after the oral arguments. In the meantime, I’m putting together a page (Sackett v EPA Documents and articles) with links to documents I’ve collected over the years. All of the court documents aren’t fully linked, but the key set of material is the EPA Administrative Record. This set of documents contains the reports and photos that form the background for the EPA case.
The Sacketts contend that they needed no CWA permit because their land was separated from Priest Lake by a road, and therefore, there is no contiguous connection between the wetlands on their land and the lake. The EPA contends that a manmade structure, such as a berm, dike, or in this case, road, does not alter the fact that the wetland does, indeed, have a significant impact on the lake.
These arguments directly relate to the question that this hearing is supposed to address. But the Sackett lawyer, the infamous Pacific Legal Foundation, decided to blow the case up by challenging what constitutes a ‘tributary’ in the Clean Water Act—a challenge that could have disastrous impact on our waters in the country.
The courts should not address the latter challenge—it’s not included in the question related to the case—but as we discovered last year, this Supreme Court plays by a different set of rules now.
You can listen to the oral arguments at this link.