Tag Archives: alo

15 Spring Cleaning Tips for a Healthy House

by jaxonmkh94712 Posted on March 20, 2019

It?s the most refreshing time of the year. Yes, spring cleaning season has rolled around again. And even if you have no intention of making an official spring cleaning to-do list, there are still certain parts of your home that probably could use a serious cleanse. Here are 15 spring cleaning tips that can help make your house a healthier place to live.

1. Get some fresh air

Credit: KatarzynaBialasiewicz/Getty Images

Many of us can?t wait to throw open our windows in the spring. (Sorry to those with spring allergies.) And your house might desperately need that ventilation to reduce indoor air toxins that built up during the winter months. Natural ventilation has the ability to reduce lung-related illnesses by up to 20 percent, according to the World Health Organization. It also helps with moisture control, which hinders mold growth. If you can?t open windows, some other ways to improve indoor air quality are to bring in some houseplants, invest in an air purifier, limit the products you buy that contain VOCs and simply remove your shoes at the door.

2. Declutter

Decluttering isn?t just for Marie Kondo fans. Getting rid of unnecessary possessions can do wonders for anyone?s health and wellbeing. According to Mayo Clinic, a tidy house can decrease stress, improve energy, spark creativity and leave you feeling happier and more accomplished. Plus, that organization can trickle into other areas of your life. For instance, you might be inspired to adhere to a healthier diet or a more structured workout plan. So jump on the decluttering bandwagon this spring, and start tidying up.

3. Check expiration dates

As you declutter, make a point to look at expiration dates on any products that have them. Spend a day taking inventory of everything in your fridge and pantry. Get rid of food that?s past its prime, and plan to use anything that will expire soon. Plus, check the expiration dates on medications and first-aid items, household products and even any fire extinguishers you have in the house. It should bring you some peace of mind knowing everything is in working order.

4. Be picky about cleaning products

Credit: svehlik/Getty Images

Before you really get down to spring cleaning, take inventory of your cleaning products to be sure you have the tools you need for a healthy house. Consumer Reports recommends closely reading the labels of any store-bought products and adhering to their instructions. ?A label with the words ?poison? or ?danger? indicates that some ingredients are toxic if ingested; one with the words ?warning? or ?caution? means there are ingredients that could be dangerous if swallowed,? Consumer Reports says. Even better, learn to make your own natural cleaning products that are better for your health and often your wallet, as well. You might already have many of the items you need right in your kitchen.

5. Dust often-overlooked spots

Let?s be honest: There are parts of our homes we often skip with the dust cloth, as they can be tedious or difficult to clean. But a dusty house can have several consequences for our health. So as the season changes, prioritize dusting all those overlooked spots ? blinds, baseboards, the tops of doors and cabinets, shelving, fan blades, etc. ?You can fit a pillowcase around the fan blade, and use it as a dust rag,? HGTV recommends. ?Any dust that falls will land into the pillowcase rather than on the floor or furniture below.?

6. Deep-clean rugs and upholstery

It?s also ideal to give your rugs and upholstery a good cleaning to remove dirt, dust and other allergens that have settled in them. If you?re able, move your furniture, so you can reach all of your flooring to clean. HGTV even suggests making this the time of year when you invest in steam cleaning your carpets. ?An annual steam clean helps to lift stains and refresh the fibers in high-traffic areas,? HGTV says.

7. Thoroughly wash windows

Credit: Natali_Mis/Getty Images

Before you throw open those windows for the spring season, make sure they shine. Wash the insides and outsides, getting between screens and the glass. If you?re feeling especially ambitious, head to the exterior side to knock down any debris and cobwebs around your windows, so they aren?t trapping pollen and other contaminants near your open windows. Plus, freshen up your screens for the season, especially if they?ve been sitting idle (and dusty) all winter. ?To quickly clean screens, use a scrap of carpeting,? HGTV says. ?It makes a powerful brush that removes all the dirt.?

8. Disinfect trash cans

If you?ve never cleaned your trash cans, well, it?s probably time. It?s not a pleasant chore, but it will ensure that your cans are odorless and bacteria-free. The Kitchn recommends using a clean toilet brush and your preferred disinfecting spray to scrub down the inside of a trash can. Then, rinse, tip it upside down and allow it to dry thoroughly before you use it again.

9. Detox the refrigerator

A clean fridge is a healthy fridge. Besides killing any mold and bacteria, detoxing your fridge also removes spoiled food from the equation that could get you sick. Simply use your favorite natural disinfectant on the interior (and exterior). HGTV suggests working one shelf at a time, so you don?t have to remove the entire contents of your fridge all at once. ?Every time you go to the store, make it a goal to clean a single shelf before you pile in new groceries,? HGTV says.

10. Degrease the stove and oven

Credit: ThamKC/Getty Images

Cleaning grime off stoves and ovens can take a bit of elbow grease. But the good news is you don?t have to resort to any toxic cleaners or even your oven?s potentially dangerous self-cleaning function. Simply create a paste of baking soda and water, and coat the dirty areas, The Kitchn says. Let it sit preferably overnight, and then wipe up the paste. Finally, spritz a little vinegar on any leftover baking soda, which will bubble, and wipe it away.

11. Make faucets shine again

Hopefully, sanitizing faucets is part of your regular cleaning routine, as they?re a prime spot for germs to live. But there are some parts of faucets that tend to accumulate buildup over time. For lime buildup, HGTV recommends placing a vinegar-soaked towel over the spot and allowing it to sit for about an hour. That should make the deposits easier to wipe off. Likewise, check your showerhead for any mineral deposits, which can affect its performance. ?Keep the jets in the nozzle clear and clean by misting the showerhead with a mixture of 50 percent white vinegar and 50 percent water,? according to HGTV. ?Allow it to sit and drip for a few minutes and then wipe it clean with a dry cloth.?

12. Cleanse the bathroom

Use spring cleaning as a reason to finally tackle any mold and mildew lurking in your bathroom. Try a spray bottle filled with white distilled vinegar, which is highly effective on its own in killing mold. For a more pleasant smell, you can add a few drops of essential oils ? or even some tea tree oil, which is an antifungal itself. And if you have a shower curtain (and liner), simply throw it in the wash with a cup of vinegar to kill mold and mildew.

13. Refresh the bed

Credit: KatarzynaBialasiewicz/Getty Images

A spring refresh might be just what your bed needs, especially if you have allergies. You should wash your sheets and pillowcases at least weekly, according to The Spruce. Pillows should be washed about every one to four months, depending on whether you use a pillow protector. And if you use a duvet cover, the duvet itself probably only needs to be washed a couple times a year, so spring cleaning can be one of those times. Plus, throw your mattress cover in the wash (ideally do this monthly), and give your mattress a good vacuuming to remove dust and dirt. Then, relax and breathe a little easier in your sleep.

14. Hunt for home repairs

The spring cleaning season is a prime time to spot any potential repairs your home might need. So as you move about your cleaning tasks, keep an eye out for damage. ?Investigate all doors and windows for leaks and drafts, particularly near the corners,? HGTV recommends. ?Look for peeling and chipping paint, which can signal water intrusion.? Try to take care of any issues as soon as possible before those spring showers and hot weather complicate matters.

15. Pace yourself

Just because it?s called spring cleaning, it doesn?t mean you have to get everything done before the flowers fully bloom. Divide and conquer your to-do list, while being mindful that some of these jobs can be pretty physically taxing. Do what you can. Pace yourself. Check off the tasks that are most pressing. And remember to stop and smell that fresh spring air.

Main image credit: AlexRaths/Getty Images

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Original link – 

15 Spring Cleaning Tips for a Healthy House

Posted in alo, bigo, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 15 Spring Cleaning Tips for a Healthy House

Electrifying news: Solar and wind power has quintupled in a decade

by VallieEdmondson Posted on March 19, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

Across the United States, workers are covering fields with solar panels, and big rigs are hauling massive turbine blades to wind-scoured ridgelines. This is what it looks like when renewable energy expands exponentially.

The amount of renewable electricity generated in the United States has doubled in the last 10 years, according to number-crunching out Tuesday from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And as impressive as doubling in a decade is, it understates the case. That’s because about 90 percent of that growth came from wind and solar: 57 million megawatt hours in 2008, and 301 million megawatt hours in 2018 — increasing more than fivefold in a decade.

So where do we stand after accounting for all that growth? Well, some 17.6 percent of the country’s power now comes from renewables.

It’s mainly electricity generated by hydroelectric dams (6.9 percent). Even after all that massive growth, wind only provides 6.5 percent and solar 2.3 percent of our electricity. Renewables like biomass and geothermal generate the last 1.9 percent.

Nuclear plants (not considered renewable but, hey, no greenhouse gases!) provided 19 percent of U.S. electricity in 2018. The remaining 63.4 percent came from fossil fuels.

That’s just electricity. If we zoom out to include all energy (petroleum for cars, natural gas for furnaces and water heaters) it’s a different picture: Renewables account for around 11 percent.

So we still have a long way to go. But consider this: If renewables sustain this rate of growth, the United States would be roughly on track to get all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050. The question, of course, is whether that exponential growth can continue. The size of the job is staggering. Those solar-panel covered fields will have to be five times as big in 10 years, and 25 times as big in 20, and 125 times as large by 2050. Crazier things have happened.

Read article here:

Electrifying news: Solar and wind power has quintupled in a decade

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Electrifying news: Solar and wind power has quintupled in a decade

Record-breaking flooding in Nebraska is visible from space

by MarthaMunson Posted on March 18, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

Governor Pete Ricketts has declared more than half of Nebraska’s 93 counties a disaster area as record-breaking spring floods have swollen into a catastrophe. “This really is the most devastating flooding we’ve probably ever had in our state’s history, from the standpoint of how widespread it is,” Ricketts told CNN on Monday. Even the National Weather Service in Omaha was forced to abandon their office due to flooding.

Here’s how it happened: Last week, a hurricane-strength storm system unleashed torrential rainfall over the deep Nebraska snowpack, flash-melting huge quantities of water and overwhelming dams and levees. Unusually warm temperatures have remained in place since the storm’s passage, worsening the runoff. The resulting flooding has been visible from space.

USGS Landsat Program

Spring flooding happens nearly every year in the upper Midwest, but current flooding has far surpassed previous all-time records on Nebraska’s major waterways. Climate change means springtime temperatures are arriving earlier with more intense early-season rains, worsening the risk of damaging floods. In one location, the Missouri River broke its previous record by nearly four feet.

The most spectacular flooding resulted from the failure of the 90-year-old Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River in north-central Nebraska when it unleashed an 11-foot wall of water on Thursday. Before the flood gauge on the river failed, “it looked like something incredible was happening that we couldn’t believe,” Jason Lambrecht, a Nebraska-based hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey told the Lincoln Journal-Star. “And suddenly, everything went dark.”

The flash flood destroyed roads, homes, and bridges before emptying into the Missouri River and joining with meltwater from South Dakota and Iowa. On Saturday, two levees breached on the Platte River, cutting off the town of Fremont, Nebraska — the state’s sixth-largest city. A volunteer airlift has been supplying the city over the weekend and performing rescues.

As of Monday, water levels have crested in most of the state, though major flooding will continue for several days. Offutt Air Force base near Omaha — the home of U.S. Strategic Command — remains inundated, a poignant sign of climate change as a national security risk. There are dozens of road closures across the area.

Eastern Nebraska is just the worst-hit region: Major flooding is currently underway in parts of seven states in the upper Midwest, with near-record flooding expected to spread northward into Minnesota and North Dakota in the coming weeks. In Minnesota, officials expect a greater than 95 percent chance of major flooding, possibly rivaling all-time records.

View original post here:

Record-breaking flooding in Nebraska is visible from space

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, Jason, LG, ONA, OXO, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Record-breaking flooding in Nebraska is visible from space

‘Monumental step backwards’: The $1 billion gas pipeline project dividing New York

by DHVBrooke05 Posted on March 18, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A battle is erupting over a proposed gas pipeline on the doorstep of New York City, with environmental groups claiming the project is unnecessary and would lock in planet-warming emissions for decades to come.

Energy company Williams, based in Oklahoma, plans to build a 23-mile-long underwater pipeline through New York’s lower bay to bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New York. The $1 billion project would link existing infrastructure in New Jersey to the Rockaways in the New York borough of Queens.

Pipeline proponents argue the project is needed to allow thousands more New Yorkers to switch from oil to gas for their heating, but environmental groups are marshaling a growing protest movement to pressure Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor, to block the development.

“This pipeline would incentivize reliance on gas, which is way more carbon-intensive than renewables,” said Robert Wood, a campaigner at 350.org, a climate advocacy group. “It would be a nightmare happening, not in a rural area, but right here in New York City.”

A draft of a study commissioned by 350.org disputes many of the assertions made by Williams and National Grid, the utility that will be the sole customer for the gas. According to the analysis, New York is already well on its way to eliminating the dirtiest types of oil, a carbon-heavy fuel, for heating, and the state’s power operators are forecasting a drop in electricity use due to efficiency improvements.

Measures such as installing heat pumps, replacing old boilers, expansion of renewable energy, and planned improvements to building energy efficiency should be “ramped up before considering construction of costly and potentially risky infrastructure like a massive pipeline in the New York harbor,” concluded the analysis, conducted by Suzanne Mattei, a consultant and former regional director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Environmentalists also fret that the pipeline’s construction could stir up toxins from the harbor’s seabed and potentially harm vulnerable marine life such as humpback whales, which have made a comeback to the New York area in recent years.

Wood said a decision on the pipeline will be a “major test” of Cuomo’s green credentials. The Democratic governor previously banned fracking in New York and has set climate change goals that would cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

The building of the pipeline would be a “a monumental step backwards” in meeting this target, according to Scott Stringer, comptroller of New York City. Stringer, along with a host of other local elected officials and green groups, contends that while gas has a lower carbon content than oil or coal, methane leaks from gas drilling and transportation can make it a nefarious fossil fuel.

However, National Grid said it has experienced “significant growth” in the need for natural gas in New York City and Long Island, with demand expected to grow by more than 10 percent over the next decade as households make a city-mandated switch away from oil to gas for heating.

“A clean energy transition is good for our customers and the economy, and the right thing to do,” said a statement from National Grid that estimated the so-called Northeast Supply Enhancement Project (NESE) would displace 900,000 barrels of oil a year, the equivalent of removing 500,000 cars from the road.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has been holding public hearings into the pipeline in the wake of its approval by the federal regulator. Williams has said it could start construction within a year.

The battle over the pipeline is a microcosm of the struggles within the Democratic party over whether to follow a more incremental approach to climate change or heed the warnings of scientists and conduct a rapid shift away from fossil fuels.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman from New York, has spearheaded the more energetic approach as outlined by the Green New Deal, while Cuomo is seen as more of a moderate on the issue.

While environmental groups are planning a series of protests to sway Cuomo, labor unions, another key part of the governor’s base, have said they support the Williams project because of the promise of thousands of construction jobs.

Meanwhile, it emerged last year that Cuomo hired a Williams lobbyist to run his re-election campaign.

Comment was sought from the offices of Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City, but neither would answer whether they supported the Williams project.

Read More: 

‘Monumental step backwards’: The $1 billion gas pipeline project dividing New York

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, Radius, Ringer, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Monumental step backwards’: The $1 billion gas pipeline project dividing New York

The Dancing Wu Li Masters – Gary Zukav

by Myrna Posted on March 18, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Dancing Wu Li Masters

An Overview of the New Physics

Gary Zukav

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: October 6, 2009

Publisher: HarperOne

Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS


“The most exciting intellectual adventure I've been on since reading Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance .” — Times Gary Zukav’s timeless, humorous, New York Times bestselling masterpiece, The Dancing Wu Li Masters , is arguably the most widely acclaimed introduction to quantum physics ever written. Scientific American raves: “Zukav is such a skilled expositor, with such an amiable style, that it is hard to imagine a layman who would not find his book enjoyable and informative.” Accessible, edifying, and endlessly entertaining, The Dancing Wu Li Masters is back in a beautiful new edition—and the doors to the fascinating, dazzling, remarkable world of quantum physics are opened to all once again, no previous mathematical or technical expertise required.

Link:  

The Dancing Wu Li Masters – Gary Zukav

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Dancing Wu Li Masters – Gary Zukav

It’s time for climate change communicators to listen to social science

by FrancisHaber Posted on March 17, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

This story was originally published by Undark and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

David Wallace-Wells’ recent climate change essay in the New York Times, published as part of the publicity for his new book “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming,” is, sadly, like a lot of writing on climate change these days: It’s right about the risk, but wrong about how it tries to accomplish the critical goal of raising public concern. Like other essays that have sounded the alarms on global warming — pieces by Bill McKibben, James Hansen, and George Monbiot come to mind — Wallace-Wells’ offers a simple message: I’m scared. People should be scared. Here are the facts. You should be scared too.

To be sure, Wallace-Wells and these other writers are thoughtful, intelligent, and well-informed people. And that is precisely how they try to raise concern: with thought, intelligence, and information, couched in the most dramatic terms at the grandest possible scale. Wallace-Wells invokes sweeping concepts like “planet-warming,” “human history,” and global emissions; remote places like the Arctic; broad geographical and geopolitical terms like “coral reefs,” “ice sheet,” and “climate refugees;” and distant timeframes like 2030, 2050, and 2100.

It’s a common approach to communicating risk issues, known as the deficit model. Proceeding from the assumption that your audience lacks facts —that is, that they have a deficit —all you need to do it give them the facts, in clear and eloquent and dramatic enough terms, and you can make them feel like you want them to feel, how they ought to feel, how you feel. But research on the practice of risk communication has found that this approach usually fails, and often backfires. The deficit model may work fine in physics class, but it’s an ineffective way to try to change people’s attitudes. That’s because it appeals to reason, and reason is not what drives human behavior.

For more than 50 years, the cognitive sciences have amassed a mountainous body of insight into why we think and choose and act as we do. And what they have found is that facts alone are literally meaningless. We interpret every bit of cold objective information through a thick set of affective filters that determine how those facts feel — and how they feel is what determines what those facts mean and how we behave. As 17th century French mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal observed, “We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.”

Yet a large segment of the climate change commentariat dismisses these social science findings. In his piece for the New York Times, Wallace-Wells mentions a few cognitive biases that fall under the rubric of behavioral economics, including optimism bias (things will go better for me than the next guy) and status quo bias (it’s easier just to keep things as they are). But he describes them in language that drips with condescension and frustration:

How can we be this deluded? One answer comes from behavioral economics. The scroll of cognitive biases identified by psychologists and fellow travelers over the past half-century can seem, like a social media feed, bottomless. And they distort and distend our perception of a changing climate. These optimistic prejudices, prophylactic biases, and emotional reflexes form an entire library of climate delusion.

Moreover, behavioral economics is only one part of what shapes how we feel about risk. Another component of our cognition that has gotten far too little attention, but plays a more important part in how we feel about climate change, is the psychology of risk perception. Pioneering research by Paul Slovic, Baruch Fischhoff, Sarah Lichtenstein, and many others has identified more than a dozen discrete psychological characteristics that cause us to worry more than we need to about some threats and less than we need to about others, like climate change.

For example, we don’t worry as much about risks that don’t feel personally threatening. Surveys suggest that even people who are alarmed about climate change aren’t particularly alarmed about the threat to themselves. The most recent poll by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that while 70 percent of Americans believe climate change is happening, only around 40 percent think “it will harm me personally.”

We also worry more about risks that threaten us soon than risks that threaten us later. Evolution has endowed us with a risk-alert system designed to get us to tomorrow first — and only then, maybe, do we worry about what comes later. So even those who think climate change is already happening believe, accurately, that the worst is yet to come. Risk communication that talks about the havoc that climate change will wreak in 2030, in 2050, or “during this century” contributes to that “we don’t really have to worry about it now” feeling.

Risk perception research also suggests that we worry less about risky behaviors if those behaviors also carry tangible benefits. So far, that’s been the case for climate change: For many people living in the developed world, the harms of climate change are more than offset by the modern comforts of a carbon-intensive lifestyle. Even those who put solar panels on their roofs or make lifestyle changes in the name of reducing their carbon footprint often continue with other bad behaviors: shopping and buying unsustainably, flying, having their regular hamburger.

Interestingly Wallace-Wells admits this is even true for him:

I know the science is true, I know the threat is all-encompassing, and I know its effects, should emissions continue unabated, will be terrifying. And yet, when I imagine my life three decades from now, or the life of my daughter five decades from now, I have to admit that I am not imagining a world on fire but one similar to the one we have now.

Yet he writes that “the age of climate panic is here,” and he expects that delivering all the facts and evidence in alarmist language will somehow move others to see things differently. This is perhaps Wallace-Wells’ biggest failure: By dramatizing the facts and suggesting that people who don’t share his level of concern are irrational and delusional, he is far more likely to offend readers than to convince them. Adopting the attitude that “my feelings are right and yours are wrong” — that “I can see the problem and something’s wrong with you if you can’t” — is a surefire way to turn a reader off, not on, to what you want them to believe.

Always free, always fresh.

Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy

Contrast all this deficit-model climate punditry with the effective messaging of the rising youth revolt against climate change. Last August, 16-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg skipped school and held a one-person protest outside her country’s parliament to demand action on climate change. In the six months since, there have been nationwide #FridaysforFuture school walkouts in at least nine countries, and more are planned.

Thunberg has spoken to the United Nations and the World Economic Forum in Davos, with an in-your-face and from-the-heart message that’s about not just facts but her very real and personal fear:

Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope… I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

By speaking to our hearts and not just our heads — and by framing the issue in terms of personal and immediate fear of a future that promises more harm than benefit — Thunberg has started an international protest movement.

The lesson is clear. Wallace-Wells’ New York Times essay will get lots of attention among the intelligentsia, but he is not likely to arouse serious new support for action against climate change. Risk communication that acknowledges and respects the emotions and psychology of the people it tries to reach is likely to have far greater impact — and that’s exactly what the effort to combat climate change needs right now.

Excerpt from:

It’s time for climate change communicators to listen to social science

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Brita, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on It’s time for climate change communicators to listen to social science

The Joy of Birding – Kate Rowinski

by Myrna Posted on March 17, 2019

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Joy of Birding
A Beginner’s Guide
Kate Rowinski

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: February 8, 2011

Publisher: Skyhorse

Seller: SIMON AND SCHUSTER DIGITAL SALES INC


More than 50 million birders can’t be wrong. No matter where you live, you have the joy of hearing and seeing birds. This easy-to-use, full-color guide will provide you with the answers. Here you’ll learn how to identify different bird species by observing their body-parts, understand birds’ behavior and habits, get to know the birds around the home or a vacation spot, attract and make a good home for these new feathered friends, and much more! Designed especially for the home birdwatcher, but with information on destination vacations, this book teaches, “If you’re prepared to see them, they will come!”

Source:  

The Joy of Birding – Kate Rowinski

Posted in alo, Anchor, ATTRA, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, PUR, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Joy of Birding – Kate Rowinski

Mozambique braces for ‘extremely dangerous’ Cyclone Idai

by GabrielBJQ Posted on March 14, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

A major port city on the coast of southeast Africa is bracing for a direct hit from a powerful tropical cyclone — in a situation the World Meteorological Organization has called a “potential worst case scenario.”

Cyclone Idai is targeting Beira, Mozambique, a booming city of about 500,000 people. The storm packs sustained winds of 115 mph and threatens a month’s worth of rainfall for an already waterlogged region — the makings of a looming humanitarian catastrophe. Meteorologists have called the conditions “extremely dangerous.” So far, blurry social media videos during landfall convey eerie sounds of wind and rain and crashing metal.

In Mozambique and neighboring Malawi, 122 people have died in cyclone-related rains according to a U.N. briefing issued on Thursday, making Idai the deadliest extreme weather event on Earth so far in 2019. More than a million people have already been directly affected by the disaster.

U.N. officials have spent much of the week preparing communities for the worst, which may still be ahead. Government authorities in Mozambique have ordered a coastal evacuation and raised the national alert level to “institutional code red,” its highest state of emergency.

Idai is the strongest tropical cyclone — the generic meteorological term for a hurricane or typhoon — to approach Mozambique since 2000, and the strongest to affect Beira in at least 56 years.

In Beira, residents have been working for years to prepare for a storm like Idai, building retention ponds for floodwaters and trying to focus the city’s growth on higher elevation neighborhoods. But Mozambique is one of the most disaster-prone countries in Africa, and climate change is increasing the severity of flooding events there — as it is nearly everywhere.

That, in combination with the fact that 40 percent of the city lies just three feet or less above sea level, means that Idai could be a huge disaster. In the days before landfall, meteorologists predicted Idai’s storm surge could be as high as 26 feet.

View article: 

Mozambique braces for ‘extremely dangerous’ Cyclone Idai

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Mozambique braces for ‘extremely dangerous’ Cyclone Idai

‘We won’t stop striking’: The New York 13-year-old taking a stand over climate change

by TobyTheodore Posted on March 13, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Alexandria Villasenor looks a slightly incongruous figure to stage a lengthy protest over the perils of catastrophic global warming. The 13-year-old, wrapped in a coat and a woolen hat, has spent every Friday since December seated on a frigid bench outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City with signs warning of climate change’s dire consequences.

Most passersby, probably hardened to confronting New York street scenes, scurry past, eyes diverted downwards. But some mutter words of support, while the odd passing driver rolls down their window to offer a thumbs up.

There is media interest, too. On a recent Friday protest stint, a microphone was being pinned to a shivering Villasenor by an NBC crew. “I stayed out there for four hours and I lost circulation in my toes for the first time,” she said afterwards.

Cold weather in winter is routinely used by President Donald Trump to disparage climate science — in January, the president tweeted: “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!” — but Villasenor has experienced enough in her nascent years to grasp the scale of the threat.

Her concern has driven her to help organize the first nationwide strikes by U.S. school students over climate change, on March 15. More than 100,000 young people are expected to skip school on the day and attend rallies demanding radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Villasenor was born and raised in Davis, California, in the teeth of the state’s fiercest drought in at least 1,200 years. She recalls seeing the dead and dying fish on the shores of nearby Folsom Lake as it dried up. In November, Davis was shrouded in a pall of smoke from record wildfires that obliterated the town of Paradise, 100 miles to the north.

“I have asthma so it was a very scary experience for me, I couldn’t leave my house at all,” Villasenor said. “Just walking to the car would make my eyes sting. We rolled up towels and put them under the windows. A lot of my friends were going out in the smog and I was texting them to see if they were OK, as I’m the mom of the group.”

Villasenor’s family subsequently moved to New York, the switch hastened by concerns over her health due to the smoke. The young student then swiftly became an activist after reading how warming temperatures are making the western U.S. far more prone to the sort of huge wildfires that menaced her hometown.

After bouncing around a few youth-led climate groups, Villasenor struck up a rapport with fellow students Isra Hirsi, in Minnesota, and Haven Coleman, from Colorado. The trio set about creating Youth Climate Strike U.S., the first major American response to the recent mass school walkouts by European students frustrated by adults’ sluggish response to climate change.

“My generation knows that climate change will be the biggest problem we’ll have to face,” Villasenor said. “It’s upsetting that my generation has to push these leaders to take action. We aren’t going to stop striking until some more laws are passed.”

The American students preparing to join a global wave of school strikes on March 15 have been spurred by the actions of Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swede who started taking every Friday off school to call for more rapid action by her country’s leaders.

In a gently excoriating speech, Thunberg told governments at U.N. climate talks in December that “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”

Those under 20 years old have never known a world where the climate isn’t rapidly heating, ensuring that their lifetimes will be spent in average temperatures never before experienced by humans.

For someone getting their first taste of politics it can be hard to digest that precious little has been done to avert a future of disastrous droughts, floods, and storms since James Hansen, then of NASA, delivered his landmark warning on climate change to Congress 30 years ago.

“It was confusing at first because I expected politicians to be on to this, given what the scientists were saying,” said Chelsea Li, a 17-year-old at Nathan Hale high school in Seattle and local strike organizer. “But I didn’t see any action. We are going to have to do the things the adults are too afraid to do because it’s our futures we are fighting for.”

The American strikers’ challenge appears particularly steep. It’s one thing protesting in the U.K., where carbon dioxide emissions have plummeted to levels not seen since Queen Victoria’s reign, or Germany, where the government has pledged to phase out all coal use within 20 years.

It’s quite another to appeal to Trump, who has called climate science an elaborate Chinese hoax and has overseen the dismantling of Obama-era efforts to reduce emissions from coal plants and vehicles.

Youth-led groups like the Sunrise Movement and Zero Hour have seized the initiative from traditional green groups but have been met with the same unyielding political establishment. In a videoed exchange since parodied on Saturday Night Live, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the veteran Democrat, clasped her hands behind her back and patiently told a group of middle and high schoolers that they weren’t yet able to vote for her and their demands on climate were unrealistic.

There was no way to pay for the Green New Deal, a plan to decarbonize the economy championed by progressives, according to Feinstein. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” she said, an assurance alluding as much to political inertia as political experience.

Always free, always fresh.

Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy

“I think she was trying to dismiss me,” said Isha Clarke, a 16-year-old from Oakland who had confronted Feinstein. “I think she was making excuses for why she didn’t have to listen to us. For older people there’s no urgency, they are used to the system and compromising.”

Clarke said the interaction with Feinstein was disappointing but the backlash was “amazing,” with the California senator releasing and then dropping her own climate plan after it was savaged for being too weak. Feinstein also offered Clarke an internship, which she has yet to accept.

“It’s sort of tricky because you have to play the game to change it but I don’t want it to cover up everything that happened,” Clarke said. “Most young people are very aware of climate change, a lot of them are super passionate about it but they don’t have the resources to make their voices heard. They don’t realize they have the power to create change.”

That voice will be heard on March 15 when students forgo their classes in order to make a plea that they hope won’t be dismissed as indulgent truancy. Parents and teachers may have to brace themselves for future walkouts.

“My parents are very supportive, they understand my beliefs,” said Villasenor, as she repositioned her placards for the cameras. “If we’re not going to have a future, then school won’t matter anymore.”

Credit – 

‘We won’t stop striking’: The New York 13-year-old taking a stand over climate change

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, FF, G & F, GE, Landmark, LG, ONA, Paradise, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘We won’t stop striking’: The New York 13-year-old taking a stand over climate change

In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)

by ClaudeBirchell Posted on March 13, 2019

Subscribe to The Beacon

In a tweet re-upping her support for a Green New Deal, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pointed out that our political leaders have spent too long ignoring the topic of climate change. “Not one climate change question was asked in the 2016 presidential debates,” she wrote on Monday. “We can’t wait any longer to treat this like the urgent, existential threat it is, and to push bold ideas to transform our economy and save our planet.”

A lot can change in three years. Ever since New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey unveiled the targets of a Green New Deal — a national economic strategy to tackle warming and rising inequality — climate change has become a hot topic in Washington, D.C. Regardless of whether Congress ever passes any future Green New Deal legislation, the buzz around the plan has rocketed climate change near the top of the list of priorities for 2020 Democrats, Gillibrand included, and plopped the issue squarely on the national stage.

But not everyone is gung ho about the green utopia AOC and Markey outlined — a future in which workers are protected by unions, employed in high-paying green jobs, and covered by universal health care. Members of the GOP have not held back their disgust for the proposal. There’s already an endless reel of Fox News clips bashing Democrats for supporting a “socialist plot” to ban cows, airplanes, and everything else that sparks joy in the Republican party.

Always free, always fresh.

Ask your climate scientist if Grist is right for you. See our privacy policy

Not to be outdone by social-media savvy progressives, a few moderates and right-wingers have come out with their own alternatives. Anything worth writing home about? Let’s take a look.

Michael Bloomberg

Much like his dream of putting a tax on Big Soda, the former Big Apple mayor’s presidential aspirations didn’t quite work out. He recently announced in an op-ed that he won’t enter the race, citing an overly crowded Democratic field as his main reason. His plan, instead, is to keep shoring up an initiative he started with the Sierra Club in 2016: a campaign to retire America’s coal plants called Beyond Coal. He’s also planning a new project called Beyond Carbon, although details on what exactly that entails are still fizzy, err, fuzzy.

Bloomberg took a minute to appraise the Green New Deal in his op-ed, boldly predicting what many others have already surmised: The current Senate will never pass it. “Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar,”  he wrote, “and neither can we.”

John Kasich

The former governor of Ohio and once-and-maybe future Republican presidential candidate penned an op-ed of his own this week in USA Today. Of the Green New Deal, Kasich wrote, “Many Republicans and even some Democrats fear it would stifle economic growth and kill jobs, set off a massive redistribution of wealth, and dangerously centralize federal government power.”

Kasich makes the case that a more moderate series of market-based approaches will do a better job of tamping down rampant global warming. He calls for reducing methane emissions, continuing subsidies for electric vehicles, incentivizing more natural gas production, and doubling down on cap-and-trade.

Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin

The Alaska Republican and West Virginia Republ … [checks notes] … Democrat collaborated on an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for action on climate change. The senators did not mention the Green New Deal in their call to arms. Instead, they opted to emphasize the importance of bipartisanship in developing climate solutions. “We come from different parties, but we are both avid outdoorsmen and represent states that take great pride in the resources we provide to the nation and to friends and allies around the world,” the duo wrote.

Now, you may be thinking, didn’t Murkowski recently revel in President Trump’s decision to slip a provision into the tax reform bill opening up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling? And hasn’t Joe Manchin voted anti-environment many times in the not-too-distant past? Correct on both fronts. So it’s not particularly surprising that the op-ed doesn’t offer much in the way of substantive climate solutions beyond the idea of “bipartisanship.”

The senators put their reaching-across-the-aisle plan in action by bashing the Green New Deal together at a global energy conference in Houston on Monday. Manchin said it had “no contents at all.” And Murkowski called the deal “distracting.” Instead, the two senators are laser-focused on a … carbon tax? Nope — in reply to a question posed by Axios’ Amy Harder, they each said they’re not ready to support that market-based solution yet, either.

Ernest Moniz and Andy Karsner

By contrast, a CNBC commentary co-written by Moniz, who served as secretary of energy under Obama, and Karsner, who was George W. Bush’s assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, offers a slew of solutions. The authors propose a “Green Real Deal,” which prioritizes innovation, the need for region-specific climate solutions, and low-carbon technologies — including an increased reliance on natural gas and nuclear. (Editor’s note: Andy Karsner is a managing partner at Emerson Collective, one of Grist’s funders.)

“The mission is clear: Action is urgently needed to set and follow high-impact pathways to a low-carbon future,” Moniz and Karsner wrote on Monday. “We must, however, strive for a broader public consensus that respects local differences and allows all citizens equal opportunity to build a prosperous, fair, safe,and secure low-carbon future.”

John Barrasso

The Wyoming senator and chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — who has labeled the Green New Deal “a raw deal” — published an op-ed in USA Today calling for more investment in nuclear and carbon-capture technologies. In it, he quoted an exorbitant price tag for the Green New Deal that, according to Politico, was effectively pulled from thin air by a conservative think tank. Barrasso also called the proposal “a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin, weakening our economy and making us dependent on foreign energy.” Tell us how you really feel, buddy.

Source article:  

In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, Citizen, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)