Posts

Monday Musing #1

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When I started this #SummerOfClimateAction challenge in which I attempt to follow the calls to action as made by How to Save a Planet, I thought I would listen to a few podcasts, email a congressional representative or two, maybe finally commit to composting. You know, stuff like that. Week One: Spark Tank started off with a bang. The topic was electricity storage on the electrical grid and as it happens, my city utility also sent out a communication that related to storage on the electrical grid but left out any mention of climate change (See Climate Change Is Still Worse ). So, yes, I did end up emailing truth to power, calling upon them to "acknowledge the impact of climate change and communicate its relevance in regards to city matters." I'll just say that sending an email through a contact-me box to a representative in far off Washington DC is one thing and emailing your local officials who recognize you in the grocery store is entirely different. Another outcome, I ...
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Climate Change Is Still Worse

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 My city is a municipal utility, which means the city owns the electric utility that provides the electricity to the community. An insert in our recent electric bill caught my attention. Apparently, there is a possibility of controlled energy outages which means under energy emergency conditions we would have to take assigned turns using electricity until demand goes down.  The city's explanation of contributing factors to the need for controlled outages was a deep sigh moment.  For someone who isn't familiar with our national electricity grid (no shame, it's generously described as arcane) this reads as if renewable energy and closure of coal-fueled energy generation were the definitive reasons for the controlled power outages. This is an oversimplification. The more technically precise reason for the controlled power outages is the lack of energy storage capacity on the grid. In other words, we have to store electricity made by renewables when they are producing for tim...
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Take Action Tuesdays

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  Well, that was fast. I no sooner announce that I am going to do 8 weeks of climate action per How to Save a Planet  (or How 2 Planet as I call it) then I find out that Tuesdays are action days. This week's action: learn more about energy storage and create a climate venn diagram to find the place where what brings you joy, what you're good at, and what needs doing intersect. My venn diagram is above. Since my job is in informal education and I am literally paid to do outreach about watersheds and soil health, this is a no-brainer. My climate action is to make the climate connection  to these topics explicit and then teach my little heart out. There is a long standing tension about whether education is action. And in my opinion it is when you are trying to effect systemic change, not because education automatically leads to behavior change or voting in a certain way but because it creates a social norm that people must agree with or resist. This is why the backlash to "C...
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#SummerOfClimateAction

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  The Supreme Court was off the hook last two weeks of June. I'm sure your social media feeds were filled with memes too. Oddly enough, my social media did not have much about West Virginia vs EPA, the SCOTUS ruling which said that the EPA did not have the authority from Congress to regulate cap and trade or generation switching (i.e. requiring power plants to switch to non-fossil fuels). This despite the fact that both the majority opinion and the dissent acknowledge that climate change presents a well known danger 1 . The answer, of course, is to elect a different Congress that would grant the EPA such authority. Right now and for the foreseeable future, I'm a single issue voter. Climate change is an intersectional issue meaning that other issues like voting rights and women's rights also walk over to climate so I'm more nuanced than it first appears but yeah, I'm here for the climate. If you want me to support something, it needs to move the needle, even if indi...
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Fun Runs

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I'm attempting the Runners World Summer Run Streak, running a mile a day between Memorial Day and 4th of July. So far, so good. On yesterday's run I encountered this fine critter, so of course I stopped to take a picture for iNaturalist. Like my reading, I want my running to be enjoyable and that means I stop and photograph the turtle.  
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Read More, Run More Summer

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I have dubbed this summer the Summer of Read More, Run More.  For Read More, my read more goal is to read 5 books by Labor Day. I know for some people that's a Tuesday, but I've been slacking on my reading of late. Reading 5 books is an appropriate level of challenge, I will stretch without overreaching. I want  Read More to be a growing experience, but a fun growing experience and not one where I am grinding through books with a clenched jaw and set brow. If the book I read is particularly enjoyable, I will share it here via what I post on Goodreads . I'm off to a good Read More start: my first entry is below. My Run More goal is to run at least a mile a day from Memorial Day to Independence Day. I'm giving myself permission to skip the days I'm in the Badlands for a class. I know from prior experience that the best laid running plans can be disrupted with proximity to bison. Any days I have to skip, I'll make up by extending the deadline so I complete 35 day...
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Dung beetles

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I got to spend some time on the Standing Butte bison ranch the other day. The ranch mangers don't treat their land or bison with pesticides because the pesticides take out the beneficial bugs along with the not-so-beneficial. This means the ranch has a healthy population of dung beetles (genus Canthon ). I find dung beetle butts as cute as bee butts. Also, that plant in the bottom center is scarlet globemallow, the first wildflower I learned to ID.
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