What solution is not also a new problem? The question is whether the solution is worse than the problem.
These western deserts are vast and contain few residents. Isn't there plenty of space to go ahead and screw up with seas of solar panels?
From "Scientists confirm long held theory about what inspired Monet" (CNN).
I thought it was going to be cataracts, but, no... air pollution.
"In general, air pollution makes objects appear hazier, makes it harder to identify their edges, and gives the scene a whiter tint, because pollution reflects visible light of all wavelengths" [said Anna Lea Albright, a postdoctoral researcher for Le Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique at Sorbonne University]....
The team looked for these two metrics, edge strength and whiteness, in the paintings — by converting them into mathematical representations based on brightness — and then compared the results with independent estimates of historical air pollution.
Don't you love it when something you thought was a human being's inspiration turns out to be an outside force, something that happened to him? It's especially demoralizing when it's some malady or misfortune.
[A]rt critic Sebastian Smee has lambasted the study, saying that it confuses "internal creative choices with external stimuli." He argued that increased pollution can't be used to explain the artists' stylistic evolution, and that some of their works are "mythological," rather than a picture of objective reality....
Speaking of myth... what about the myth of the artist as a creative, individualistic genius?
From Smee's essay, "Art history, not air pollution, explains changes in Monet’s paintings
Art isn’t science. A new study clouds the facts" (WaPo):
Monet was famous for his desire to depict the world as he saw it, but you cannot read even his work as a straightforward index to external conditions such as pollution levels. Paintings are not like tree rings or geological studies. They are complex products of human imagination, feeling and philosophy....
ADDED: Clicking from the sidebar at the Smee piece, I got to another Smee piece, "How good, really, was Pablo Picasso? The exemplary modern artist died 50 years ago this month, and we’re still trying to clean up his mess":[T]his latest study... is grossly (and trendily) tendentious. And it ignores whole bodies of exhaustively researched and powerfully argued literature, presumably because that literature falls under the category of the “humanities” rather than the “sciences,” and because no one these days can be made to believe anything that doesn’t have metrics attached.
And yet … questioning Picasso’s greatness is part of a venerable critical tradition. Despite the underlying consensus, there have been many productively provocative naysayers.... [including Hannah] Gadsby’s brief, comedic takedown of the artist in her Netflix documentary, “Nanette.”
That had a link to Smee's 2018 essay, "How Hannah Gadsby’s evisceration of Picasso helped her change stand-up comedy," which — I was delighted to see — raised the problem discussed above, explaining an artist's work as the product not of individual genius but some mindless malady:
Gadsby recounts how, after giving a performance in which she mentioned that she took antidepressants, a man came up to her, saying: “You shouldn’t take medication because you’re an artist. It’s important that you feel. If Vincent Van Gogh had taken medication, we wouldn’t have had the sunflowers.”
Gadsby absolutely rips into this idea. And I cheered when she did.
She tells us that Van Gogh was, in fact, being treated with medication, and that this medication — a derivative of the foxglove — has a little-known side effect: it can intensify the user’s perception of the color yellow. So it’s possible, says Gadsby, that “we have the sunflowers precisely because Van Gogh medicated.”
Van Gogh is, of course, the patron saint of all those who romanticize a link between mental illness and creativity. Their thinking is not only erroneous (serious mental illness is more often incapacitating and not at all conducive to high level creativity), it’s pernicious, because it discourages desperate people from seeking relief. Gadsby’s retort is a great way to puncture the myth.
Myth. There's that word again. A myth is what other people believe, according to the human inclination to believe what you want to believe, when you are a person who doesn't want to believe.
Willow would be the largest new oil development in the United States, expected to pump out 600 million barrels of crude over 30 years.... Environmental activists, who have labeled the project a “carbon bomb” have argued that the project would deepen America’s dependence on oil and gas....
Willow was initially approved by the Trump administration and the Biden administration later defended the approval in court. The project was then temporarily blocked by a judge who said that the prior administration’s environmental analysis was not sufficient....
[O]n Wednesday, Buttigieg’s allies were complaining that he’s taking an unfair pounding over the disaster — all because of his perceived ambitions as a one-time and future presidential hopeful....
Why is it "unfair" to pay extra attention to politicians who have been identified as likely presidential candidates?
Three people in Buttigieg’s orbit admit to being exasperated by the furor, saying nobody asked him about the derailment in any of the 23 media interviews he conducted during the first 10 days after the accident. Then critics lambasted him for not speaking sooner....
Along with wondering about their drinking water, many residents pondered their options as a strong odor of chemicals continued to hang over the town. Some locals said they are considering leaving East Palestine and are frustrated with how little they know about their potential exposure to toxic chemicals....
Ohio state officials on Tuesday focused on reassuring residents that the air in East Palestine remains safe to breathe and that those who evacuated last week can live in their homes.... The plume flowing down the Ohio River is being diluted as it moves and is not expected to taint any drinking water.... In addition, fish are not continuing to die... indicating that new contamination isn’t flowing into the local waters....
When the train derailed, federal investigators and chemical safety experts immediately homed in on a toxic and highly flammable gas being transported in five of the cars: vinyl chloride. Afraid the train cars would explode, sending shrapnel into neighborhoods, authorities decided the better of “two bad options” was to release and burn the vinyl chloride, [Governor Mike] DeWine said Tuesday. The move sent dangerous gases, hydrogen chloride and phosgene, into the air, but averted an explosion that DeWine said he had been told would be “catastrophic.”...
"But when it comes to actual savings, it doesn’t even crack the top 10. Like most conventional wisdom about how to reduce household energy and emissions, much of what we believe about our homes and appliances is wrong."
Writes WaPo's climate advice columnist Michael J. Coren, in "We still use appliances like it’s 1970. There’s a better way."
I formed the habit, back in the 1970s, of turning off lights as I exited any room and only keeping lights on in rooms that were occupied. I grew up in the 50s and 60s, when it was the norm to have the lights on all over the house in the evening. We didn't think about the pros and cons of leaving them on, but I imagine that we'd have thought it would deprive us of a feeling of coziness and optimism if the house were not lit up at night. From the outside, our house and our neighbors' houses looked warm and happy and alive.
Then the environmentalist movement hit, the meaning of light changed, and I aligned myself morally. I have maximized interior darkness for half a century. Is the climate advisor going to tell me my efforts are misdirected?Coren's #1 piece of energy-saving advice is not to rinse off your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Present-day dishwashers don't need that pre-rinse — just scrape — and they're so efficient that you should go ahead and run them even if they're only half full (or less!). It doesn't save energy to switch to washing them by hand.
The second piece of advice is to get rid of your old refrigerator. It's less efficient, so don't succumb to the American tradition of "second refrigerator" (i.e., the soda and beer refrigerator in the garage)(I've blogged the topic of second refrigerators twice, here and here).
Third, Coren recommends a "smart" thermostat, but oddly enough, he doesn't tell us to set it as low as possible in cold whether and as high as possible in hot weather. It seems to me, that's where you can get the biggest savings.
Finally, wash clothes in cold water and replace old appliances. The new appliances are more efficient, so Coren would have you throw out a 15-year-old washing machine. Personally, I'm attached to my 30-year-old washing machine. And my hot baths. Thanks for not telling me I should be taking cold showers instead.
ADDED: In the comments at WaPo, there is a lot of resistance to replacing appliances:
"What is not taken into account is the energy required to manufacture a new appliance and the cost of disposing the old one. Replacing an old working appliance is not as environmentally sound as you might think."
And:
"So my fridge is 25 years old. Never had a problem with it. I plan to replace it when the ice maker stops working. All I hear from friends with Samsungs and LGs is problems after 5 years. It’s the computer chips. Mine is a Maytag, it’s white, it has no computer chips. I’m keeping it."
My refrigerator — should I say "our refrigerator" (Meade has only lived here for 13 years)? — is 32 years old. It would cost over $10,000 to replace it with the same brand, so I'm incapable of thinking of replacing it unless it's irreparable or we redo the entire kitchen.
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