Day: September 26, 2020💾

📽️ Videos

California passes first-in-nation plastics recycling law

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California passes first-in-nation plastics recycling law

In a move aimed at reducing huge amounts of plastic litter in the ocean and on land,�California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a first-in-the-nation law requiring plastic beverage containers to contain an increasing amount of recycled material.

Under it, companies that produce everything from sports drinks to soda to bottled water must use 15% recycled plastic in their bottles by 2022, 25% recycled plastic by 2025, and 50% recycled plastic by 2030.

Supporters of the new law say it will help increase demand for recycled plastic, curb litter in waterways and along roads,�and reduce consumption of oil and gas, which are used to manufacture new plastics.

This Land Is No Longer Your Land

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This Land Is No Longer Your Land

Brad Wilson is following a forest trail and scanning the dusky spaces between the fir trees for signs of movement. The black handle of a .44 Magnum juts prominently from his pack. If he stumbles on a startled bear at close range, the retired sheriff’s deputy wants to know the gun is within quick reach, in case something stronger than pepper spray is needed. Wilson isn’t the type who likes to take chances; he’s the type who plans ahead.

Before setting foot on this path, he unfolded a huge U.S. Forest Service map and reviewed the route, Trail 267. He put a finger at the trailhead, which was next to a ranger’s station, then traced its meandering path into the Crazy Mountains, a chain in south-central Montana that’s part of the northern Rockies. Like many of the trails and roads that lead into U.S. Forest Service land, Trail 267 twists in and out of private properties. These sorts of paths have been used as access points for decades, but “No Trespassing” signs are popping up on them with increasing frequency, along with visitors’ logs in which hikers, hunters, and Forest Service workers are instructed to sign their names, tacitly acknowledging that the trail is private and that permission for its use was granted at the private landowners’ discretion.

Vibrant

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That's the best term I can find to describe the deep blue skies and very bright colors today.

Saturday September 26, 2020 — Watch Hill
Thematic Map: Pennsylvania Population Density

Edge

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The lake was low enough that some big boulders along the edge were very visible.

Saturday September 26, 2020 — Watch Hill
Terrain Map: North-South Lake Campground

Is the Law of Conservation of Energy Cancelled?

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Is the Law of Conservation of Energy Cancelled?

Our own expanding universe is a good example of that strangeness. The energy density of matter decreases in inverse proportion to the volume of space. For instance, galaxies move apart, so that there are fewer of them in a given volume, in accordance with energy conservation. But the energy density of starlight and other forms of radiation decreases at a steeper rate. Their energy is lost. It does not go into some other form. This is allowed because an expanding universe is not symmetric in time; its growth differentiates past from future. So, general relativity makes it hard to sustain the view that energy is fundamental stuff from which everything else is made.

That is just the start. Consider the other theory that revolutionized the physics of the 20th century, quantum mechanics. The quantum world is uncertain; attributes such as energy are ill-defined or fuzzy. Worse, the theory has a very serious conceptual flaw, which must be taken into consideration when reviewing the ultimate fate of the conservation of energy.