Jimmy Carter, Green-Energy Visionary

...Carter was correct. Had we embarked on an enormous project of solar research then and there, we could have cut the costs of renewable energy far faster than we did. There was no single technological breakthrough that finally lowered the cost of solar power below that of fossil fuel in the past decade, just a long series of iterative improvements that could have come much faster had we worked with the vigor of, say, the Manhattan Project. Instead, Reagan immediately cut the budget for solar research by eighty-five per cent and did away with the tax credit for solar panels, decimating the infant industry. His national-security adviser, Richard Allen, told Reagan about a book denigrating solar energy, whose author had claimed that it was "little more than a continuation of the political wars of a decade ago by other means. . . . Where salvation was once to be gotten from the Revolution, now it will come from everyone's best friend, that great and simplistic cure of all energy ills, the sun." The culture war against clean energy had begun...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/jimmy-carter-green-energy-visionary

This New Year, Resolve to Green Up Your News Feed

During this year's global election supercycle, as it was called, national elections were held in a record number of countries, accounting for roughly half the world's population. This scenario made the prospects for a climate turnaround, or at least the beginnings of one, seem especially promising. The human race is growing increasingly concerned about climate change, and 2024 was a global opportunity to elect leaders who were serious about addressing the greatest threat we face as a species.

That's not how it worked out.

"It's quite clear that in most advanced economies the big loser of the elections has been climate," Catherine Fieschi, an expert in European politics, told The Guardian last month.

This bitter pill was made more galling by the degree to which environmental issues generally — not just climate but also pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss, etc. — hardly registered in the run-up to our own elections. And yet when the environment was actually on the ballot in the form of initiatives that fostered conservation or climate resilience, it did very well...

Margaret Renkl 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/opinion/climate-change-news-coverage-2025.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

How to Repair the Planet? One Answer Might Be Hiding in Plain Sight.

We tend to look at environmental problems in isolation. A holistic approach would be more effective, a new report says.

Sometimes, human needs can make problems like climate change and biodiversity collapse seem insurmountable. The world still relies on fossil fuels that are dangerously heating the planet. People need to eat, but agriculture is a top driver of biodiversity loss.

But what if we're looking at those problems the wrong way? What if we tackled them as a whole, instead of individually?

A landmark assessment, commissioned by 147 countries and made public on Tuesday, offers the most comprehensive answer to date, examining the sometimes dizzying interconnections among biodiversity, climate change, food, water and health.

"Our current approaches to dealing with these crises have tended to be fragmented or siloed," said Paula Harrison, a co-chair of the assessment and an environmental scientist who focuses on land and water modeling at the UK Center for Ecology & Hydrology, a research organization. "That's led to inefficiencies and has often been counterproductive."
...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/climate/biodiversity-climate-change-interconnections.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iE4.d22K.DrhnJ6y0rYq2&smid=em-share

Sun Queen

Happy Birthday to the "Sun Queen", Mária Telkes, born on December 12, 1900, in Budapest, Hungary. ☀️

A pioneer in the field of solar energy, Telkes designed the world's first house heated solely by the sun among other innovations.

Learn more about the extraordinary life and work of Mária Telkes in THE SUN QUEEN, now streaming on PBS.org and the free @PBS App.

https://to.pbs.org/49wuQZz

How the Climate Movement Is Changing Tactics After Trump’s Win

Faced with a president-elect who has called global warming a "scam," activists are changing their strategies and pushing a message of hope.

With about a month and a half left until the Trump administration takes over the White House, I called Bill McKibben, a journalist, author and activist, to ask where the climate movement goes next.

(I also reported on how youth climate activists are evolving — changing tactics and growing up.)

The outlook for the movement that McKibben has helped lead for more than three decades may seem grim. Donald Trump, who has called global warming a "scam," is likely to reverse many of President Biden's climate policies. Trump is expected to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, dismantle regulations and target Biden's signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act.

For McKibben, who helped start the conversation on climate after the publication of his New Yorker essay "The End of Nature" in 1989, fighting back against Trump's policies remains a primary goal.

But the climate movement also plans to spend the next four years hunkering down at the local level. McKibben's newest organization, Third Act, a nonprofit group for climate activists older than 60 that he started about three years ago, is highlighting the push for change at the community and state level. Over the past 18 months, they've begun a new strategy: attending the meetings of obscure state agencies or commissions that hold a lot of power over the energy transition...nyt

Congratulations Kathryn Modine!

 Congratulations on passing your MALA capstone defense with flying colors, Kathryn! Your Interconnected Planet site is wonderful. Carry on!

Heat pumps!

Here's How Much Cleaner Energy Could Save America, in Lives and Money

Widespread adoption of heat pumps could prevent thousands of premature deaths and save billions on energy bills, according to a new analysis.

Electric heat pumps, the most affordable and energy efficient way to heat and cool homes, continue to outsell gas furnaces nationwide. They can also reduce outdoor pollution and, as a result, save lives, according to a report issued on Tuesday.

The study, by Rewiring America, a nonprofit group that promotes electrification, calculated that if every American household got rid of furnaces, hot water heaters and clothes dryers powered by oil or gas and replaced them with heat pumps and electric appliances, annual greenhouse gas emissions could drop by about 400 million metric tons. Fine airborne particulate matter and other air pollutants could decrease by 300,000 tons, the equivalent of taking 40 million cars off the road.

Roughly two-thirds of the country's households burn fossil fuels such as natural gas, propane and fuel oil for heat, hot water and drying clothes, releasing nitrogen oxides and other pollutants into the air.

While a transition to electric appliances could shave $60 billion off people's annual energy bills, it could also deliver important health rewards, researchers found. It could prevent 3,400 fewer premature deaths per year, 1,300 fewer hospital visits and 220,000 fewer asthma attacks, all of which amounted to about $40 billion in benefits, according to the study... nyt

Nobelists vs. rfk jr.

More than 75 Nobel Prize winners signed a letter urging senators not to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. The letter marks the first time in recent memory that Nobel laureates have banded together against a cabinet choice. https://nyti.ms/3ZVGD0t

https://www.threads.net/@nytimes/post/DDYfLHMJfBP?xmt=AQGz_JVaAzyTLs1rr8ONwjp0eyswfDQbK_U4lh0Gh7_Ruw

How to Keep Your Own Soul Safe in the Dark

"… But where preserving biodiversity is concerned, we don't have years. Where stabilizing the climate is concerned, we don't have years. Once a species becomes extinct, it remains extinct forever. Once the climate hits an irreversible tipping point, it will tip. In that context, the Republican takeover of Washington is a catastrophe that is hard to reconcile with a plan to plant more flowers and install more nest boxes.

So I am taking comfort from Wendell Berry, who has lived a life of ceaseless protest against the desecration of the earth and its creatures (most recently in an essay for The Christian Century called "Against Killing Children"). Even at 90, he is not asking himself what the point is..."

—Margaret Renkl 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/opinion/environment-nature-hope.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Learning From ‘Rest as Resistance’

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World is 

"an invitation to question the values that underpin our current exploitative relation to the living world. Why do we tolerate an economy that actively destroys what we love?" --Robin Wall Kimmerer

Final report posting for Fall '24 is now concluded

But everything else remains inconclusive. Keep asking questions, be well, keep in touch. Happy holidays!

 

Farewell

Last words, for now:

WJ's last published essay was inspired by his odd correspondent *Benjamin Paul Blood, who was convinced that nitrous oxide and other "anaesthetic" substances provide a revelatory key to greater depths of reality. That essay concluded:

...Let my last word, then, speaking in the name of intellectual philosophy, be his word.–“There is no conclusion. What has concluded, that we might conclude in regard to it? There are no fortunes to be told, and there is no advice to be given.–Farewell!” --A Pluralistic Mystic

But of course there is advice to be given: Be not afraid, keep asking questions, pay attention, stay healthy, don't worry, be happy, enjoy the journey, don't be a stranger...

And consider taking Bioethics in the Spring, and Philosophy of Happiness in the Fall.

==

*Read about Blood and his improbable family in John Kaag's book American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty That Shaped a Nation

==

Keep reading: 

• Best new climate books https://fivebooks.com/category/environment/new-climate-books/
• 25 Inspiring climate change books https://earth.org/climate-change-books/
• Cli-fi '24 https://medium.com/the-ultimate-cli-fi-book-club-for-sustainability/the-ultimate-cli-fi-book-club-2024-collapse-edition-8d194dbe6466

==

Course evaluations close on 12/12/2024. Look for link delivered to your inbox, embedded in D2L; and/or through D2L notifications.

Reminder: Final report blogpost

Don't just list your sources, link to them (and other relevant external content)-please do not include whole URL addresses in your published text, linking hides them nicely. Embed videos and summarize their contents. Make sure the formatting is correct after you Publish.  Posting will close after Dec.6. If you are unable to post, send your report directly to me - phil.oliver@mtsu.edu - and include footnotes to all terms you intended to link.

OPEN YOUR EMAIL AUTHOR INVITATION, then look for the NEW POST tab in the upper right on our blogsite (do NOT create a new blog, post your final report on our site)... The topic should complement, clarify, and elaborate on some central aspect of your final presentation. Share and defend your own view(s), if you have any. Try to imagine what your best critic would say, and how you'd respond. Address one or more of your discussion questions.... Aim for a minimum of 1,000 words... Include relevant links (at least half a dozen or so) in lieu of footnotes/bibliography, video & textual embeds (a couple), and graphics (one or two): let me know if you need instruction on how to do it... When referencing texts we've read in the course, cite page #s and abbreviations (MacA, McK, GT, etc.)... Make sure your post has formatted correctly. If not, use the Clear Formatting command in the toolbar in the upper right, above, to fix it... You can continue to edit and revise until the final draft is due...

The Spiritual and Medicinal Powers of Nature

    I wanted to expand my discussion on the spiritual importance of nature. I have continued exploring Linda Hogan’s (McKibben Pg. 809-814) art relating to her spiritual connection to nature through her Indigenous and American roots. Additionally, I have expanded my reflection on David Abram’s (McKibben Pg. 815-834) study of the interconnectedness of tribal medicine, ecology, nature, and the environment (“The Ecology of Magic”). Together they both speak of the idea that nature is more than just a resource. It holds spiritual importance, is sacred to many cultures, and holds many healing powers.

    Both authors’ work piqued my interest for different reasons. Linda Hogan’s work speaks to my personal journey of finding a spiritual connection in nature rather than in the traditional sense of organized religion. On the other hand, my interest in ecological balance and sustainable community relationships with the environment is fed by David Abram’s story. Therefore, the following post will be a collection of my thoughts on their work and some of the research I have found on the authors, their work, or related topics.

Figure 1: Photo of poet, storyteller, and activist Linda Hogan

To begin, I will provide a refresher on authors and their excerpts from Bill McKibben’s American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau. Linda Hogan is a member of the Chickasaw Nation and is a highly awarded poet and storyteller. She is also known as an environmental activist, often speaking on environmental protection in addition to her poetry. Hogan’s writing style is described in this poetry magazine as, “the intersection of environmental matters and the historical and ongoing treatment of American Indians, thus linking environmental justice and social justice issues.” Her expert in American Earth, titled “Dwellings” illustrates that all parts of nature are connected and that each individual part holds importance as well as a responsibility. Each and every aspect of nature provides support for another creating this vulnerable and delicate web of reliance. She shares a story that illustrates this concept beautifully, “I found a soft, round nest. It had fallen from one of the bare branches. […] Holding it in my hand in the rosy twilight, I notice that a blue threat was entwined with the other gatherings there. I pulled at the thread a little, and then I recognized it. It was a thread from one of my skirts. […] I liked it, that a threat of my life was in an abandoned nest, one that had held eggs and new life” (pg. 813). She goes on to also find a piece of her daughter’s hair tangled in the bird nest as well.

Another one of my main takeaways from her reading is that we are meant to be in a close give-and-take relationship with the environment around us. We deserve to carve out our own personal dwellings in nature. We all need a place of shelter and safety. It is okay to make a dent. However, while this work by Hogan does not touch on her views on environmental destruction, I believe she would advise a warning against creating too big of a dent. She advocated for a modest gentle living kind of dent, not the crater that modern capitalistic living leaves on the environment.

Figure 2: Poetry book by Linda Hogan that was nominated for a Pulitzer.

This winter I plan to work my way through some of her poetry books including the one above. If you are also interested in reading more of her works you can find a list of her collections on her website.

My other highlighted excerpt from American Earth is David Abram’s “Ecology of Magic.” David Abram is described as a cultural ecologist, geophilosopher, artist, and amateur magician. His work is cited to be “daring” and “revolutionary”. Much like Linda Hogan, his work explores multiple intersections. He has spent many years researching and writing about how ecology, the environment, human activity and culture, the animal world, and psychology interact with one another. Through his examination, he coined the term “the more-than-human world” to describe these interactions and intersections urging readers to consider more than just humans and our impact but also other aspects of the environment and its impact on us as well. While his overall concepts and ideas can sometimes be convoluted, they are nothing but profound (I mean he is a Harvard lecturer what do you expect).

In this video, David helps us understand who he is, what he studies, and what he believes.

In “The Ecology of Magic” Abram narrates his story of conducting research in tribal communities in southeast Asia and the Americas. Funded by research grants to study the practices of shamans, magicians, and sorcerers, he observed how closely related their work is to that of an ecologist or a resource management officer. In this reading, he explains that the outside world assumes that the unseen practices of the village shaman are related to dark magic but in reality, it is more often than not related to upholding the balance between the village and the surrounding environment which provides the precious resources they so greatly depend on. He writes, “the medicine person’s primary allegiance, then, is not to the human community, but to the earthly web of relations in which that community is embedded—it is from this that his or her power to alleviate human illness derives” (Pg. 820). Similar to some of Linda Hagen’s work, he explains that many tribal communities see wildlife as a connection to the divine. They hold animals at great importance observing many of them as spiritual guides and a signal of communication with humans and the rest of the natural world.

His writings are truly thought-provoking. He attempts to open the eyes of the capitalistic, chemical-dependent, resource-careless, technology-crazed Western world. He shares that there are other ways, other options, and better mindsets. To read more about David Abram’s fascinating travels and ideas visit his website to see a list of his works.

This is a TEDx Talk given by an Indigenous man from the Yawanawa tribe in the Amazon Rainforest. It really ties together the two authors’ writings. He touches on tribal shamans’ practices, the effects of deforestation, finding spirits in nature, climate change, and connection through nature.

Discussion question

1.      What does your connection to nature look like? What do you spiritually or mentally gain from it?

My connection with nature is one that I cherish deeply. I immediately resonated with Linda Hagen’s work because in McKibben’s introduction of her chapter, he shared the following quote, “I was one day able to say to the Sunday school teacher, who believed we were in the house of the Lord, that I felt God when I sat under a tree” (pg. 809). I relate greatly to this because when I still identified as a Christian the only part that truly resonated with me was the frequent correlation with nature. The only time I felt a connection with God was when I was in nature. Now, nature is a healing and calming presence in life. Fresh air and big trees around me even in the most difficult times. I am thankful to live in a place with relatively easy access to such beautiful and powerful natural outlets.

Here’s an interesting NPR opinion piece about how a study found that people who live near beautiful natural landmarks are less likely to be religious because they meet their spiritual needs through being in nature.

Methods of Near Earth Object Deterrence | Eli Kersey

             Imagine a day, any day, where you’re going about your daily routine, going everywhere you’d normally go; except, on this random day, a NEO (Near Earth Object) has a trajectory that happened to line up cosmically with the Earth, and is close. While you’re in class, a shockwave strong enough to flatten the building and every other building for hundreds of miles around hits and you die, not knowing it was happening for more than a few minutes at most. 

This is what scientists are trying to prevent when they set out to research asteroid impact avoidance. Humanity doesn’t want to end up like the dinosaurs. Though with this goal comes difficulty. There are a lot of different factors that play into an NEO’s trajectory: things like object size and mass, velocity, or even movement of thermal energy, in the case of the Yorkvosky effect.  To predict the likelihood of an NEO impacting with our planet, scientists use telescopes with a wide-angle lens to identify objects that meet the classifications. They will also use software to assist in picking out these NEO’s from the image data. Luckily, the larger the asteroid, the more it is visible from Earth; Astronomers can detect the objects that pose a greater threat, sooner. However, this poses a dangerous dichotomy, as smaller objects can get much closer to earth without being detected until mere days before impact. This issue has become the focus of efforts to improve the world’s NEO prediction capabilities, due to it leading to the most destruction. Most proposed solutions involve simply establishing more satellites both on Earth and in orbit, but some have proposed satellites orbiting closer to the Sun to give them a wider angle of earth without much of the glare that Earth-based satellites struggle with. 

There are a number of methods devised by astronomers and other scientists to deflect NEO’s that have an orbit on-track to collide with earth. One of the most developed of these is using a nuclear explosive device to either split a NEO into smaller parts (disrupting its orbit), or to propel the object off course by using the explosive vaporization of nearby matter as “fuel,” creating  an effect similar to a rocket engine. This theoretical method is popular because nuclear explosives contain the highest energy concentration of all energy sources able to be utilized by humanity, and are relatively easy to deploy. The energy required to match the output of 1 Mt from a 0.5 ton nuclear payload by a standard kinetic impact would be unreachable. Some problems are posed by this solution though, such as the danger of newly radioactive asteroid debris raining down into earth’s atmosphere, if the potential trajectory is not extensively calculated. 

Further methods of payload delivery have been developed, such as a dedicated satellite that would carry the nuclear payload, as well as a kinetic impactor device. This device would create an initial crater on the surface of the asteroid in which the device would be planted, in order to increase the efficacy of the detonation. 

            Object collisions happen naturally in space, and can transfer huge amounts of energy when they do. This can be imitated with man-made objects, designed to collide with NEO’s at a specified angle and velocity to knock them off of a collision course with Earth. This was demonstrated in NASA’s Deep Impact DART probe mission, wherein an unmanned satellite deployed an inert, solid copper impactor weighing 372 kg yet generated a force equivalent to 4.8 tonnes of TNT upon impact at 10.2 km/s. The mission was to discover what was in the center of the comet and not to offset its orbit, but it proved a good demonstration. The kinetic impact method harnesses the immense speeds achievable in orbit to turn relatively inexpensive metal into an incredibly powerful deterrent.  

        

Out of all of the methods discussed, the method of focusing solar energy is likely the most far-fetched, but is theorized to be effective in certain scenarios. A satellite that functions as a giant mirror would be deployed near the NEO, focusing sunlight into a point on the surface. This point would undergo an effect similar to the initial effects of the nuclear detonation method, where solid material is vaporized to create thrust, propelling the NEO away from Earth. Sizes of the reflectors required would vary depending on the size of the NEO and the amount of warning given, but range from half the diameter to roughly equal to it. Unlike its alternatives, this method would function over a span of time, as opposed to an instantaneous point of impact or explosion. This would mean that more lead time would be required than simply the time taken to deploy the satellite; the time would vary based on the size of the NEO and its speed. 

When dealing with the ability of mankind to control the behavior of celestial bodies, a conversation of ethics is needed, as actions taken could potentially spell doom for Earth itself. Any method created by humans could potentially be taken control of and abused by a nefarious political actor, granting a power similar to, if not greater than, nuclear armament. Even barring extremist takeovers, the question of who should be in control of these tools is a complicated one, especially taking into account actions that may affect certain nations more adversely than others. 

Climate change is the largest threat facing life on our planet currently, but the threat of colliding NEO’s is that they could be granted that title at any time. It’s comforting to us that we have strategies to detect these objects quickly, and to potentially defend from them should they pose a danger to us. Starting in the 90s, astronomers started taking the topic seriously enough to fund significant research into planetary defense and Spaceguard, where further research continues. As global politics increase in complexity with each passing year, seeing an international debate on who should have the power to pilot a moon-sized solar powered orbital laser might not be far-fetched. Until then, the scientific community will hopefully strive for a solution that is economically and physically feasible, and that doesn’t give undue power to any group over another.  

  

Links 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance 

https://books.google.com/books?id=xXWZolI9NkUC&pg=PA929#v=onepage&q&f=false 

https://uw.manifoldapp.org/read/avoiding-asteroids/section/c1ae9463-7a3d-4408-8e41-25ec0370e15a 

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-partners-conduct-fifth-asteroid-impact-exercise-release-summary/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Improving_impact_prediction 

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2017_neo_sdt_final_e-version.pdf?emrc=30088f