Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
Potato growers in California’s Central Valley this summer will plug into a grid of their own. Tasteful Selections is a vertically integrated, farmer-owned company that grows, packs and ships bite-size potatoes. In late March, the group broke ground at its processing plant in Arvin on an intelligent microgrid that builder Concentric Power hailed as the … Read more
There is ample and compelling – and a growing body of – evidence that supports the premise that all across the world average temperature at Earth’s surface has risen, is rising and, barring a full-on-and-throughly-effective mitigating response, will continue to do so. It also is agreed upon by a cadre of scientists and climatological or … Read more
(Please see Part One of this series which, due to an editing error, appeared prior to this, Part 2.) There is this maxim and it goes like this: In order to know where you’re going, you must first know where you are and where you’ve been. Installment 1 dove into climate change’s and global warming’s … Read more
In California in July 2021 when outside temperatures rose to levels far above normal, issued were what is called “Flex Alerts.” A “Flex Alert,” in effect, is an advisory issued to warn the interested population of the possibility of electrical blackouts, that is, absent individual conservation efforts being taken. This could apply both to the … Read more
Like the Summer Olympics of 2021 (originally scheduled for summer 2020) the 26th Conference of the Parties (the world climate-change forum held in late autumn each year – this year scheduled to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, beginning in November) as well in 2020 due to the pandemic, had to be postponed. What happens this … Read more
As drought conditions worsen in the western U.S., it is there that water is becoming more and more scarce. As for that which is at the surface and below, you know, the subsurface supply, is everything being done that can be done to get the most out of this extremely valuable resource? In California’s San … Read more
July 11, 2021 begins a new era in space flight as the United Kingdom’s Sir Richard Branson via an exciting and revolutionary rocketing system, rode into sub-orbital space, that’d be 65 miles up. The entire flight lasted all of an hour and the elevation reached was high enough for the flight crew in question to … Read more
Vital signs – Temperature check: Never before did I even think that this planet of ours would be affected by the three simultaneous threats of global warming, air pollution and COVID-19, any one of these having the potential to be totally devastating. In my lifetime the world has warmed – no question. How much hotter? … Read more
The seven days beginning June 27, 2021 will, hopefully, long be remembered as the week the American West suffered some of the worst heat and heat-related affects. Scores of high-temperature-related deaths not the least among them. Under seemingly unrelenting high-pressure domes, in major metropolitan centers like Portland in Oregon and Seattle and Spokane in Washington, … Read more
At its most utilized point in 1916, route-miles of common-carrier railroad track numbered 254,000. Today, that figure has been whittled away quite a bit – 140,000 or a reduction of 44.88 percent. Imagine what it would be like in the current operating environment for railroads to move the same amount of tonnage they did 105 … Read more