The irony in buying metal straws and bamboo forks – Vox

Zero waste: The irony in buying metal straws and bamboo forks – Vox

“I kept seeing post after post after post of people sharing photos and info on ‘look at these zero-waste things I just bought!’” Smith says over email. “It just boiled me long enough that I had to speak up.”

So, after a few weeks of seeing more posts like this than usual — maybe due to more new folks recently joining the subreddit — she made a post urging people to stop buying zero-waste things, arguing that these purchases are part of the problem.

December 4, 2019 Night

Good evening! Cloudy and 29 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind. There are 19 inches of snow on the ground. β˜ƒ Starting to melt away a bit but there is still a lot of snow in places on the sidewalks. Roads are fine, taking the express both ways wasn’t bad but walking 🚶 down to the library I noticed the locals are still running behind schedule due to snow banks slowing traffic in the city. Got home close to the regular time.

This evening was the Crossgates Maul Movie 🎦 Theater expansion variance hearing that some of the Save the Pine Bush members went to but I was tired after the long day of work yesterday and that issue is a little bit out of my wheel house 🎡You got to pick your fights and this one isn’t mine. 🌲🌲🌳🐝Shading is bad but it’s not more development of the preserve. And I try to stay as non political as possible these days with my focus primarily on saving money and making a better tomorrow for myself. Not make waves locally just because I don’t view any future 🔮 in New York beyond making money the next few years.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 27 degrees at 1am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 2nd. West wind 3 to 5 mph. Actually a relatively mild night for a change. In 2018, we had mist in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 39 degrees. The record low of 2 occurred back in 1989.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 67% illuminated. The moon will set at 12:14 am. The Cold Moon 🌕 is next Wednesday. The sun will rise at 7:08 am with the first light at 6:37 am, which is one minute and one second later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 47 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 13 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 35 degrees at 11am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 17th. West wind 7 to 15 mph. A year ago, we had mist. The high last year was 53 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 2001. 9.0 inches of snow fell back in 1902.❄

It looks an another cool down with a few inches of snow come Friday and fairly cold for the weekend. β›„ That said, Monday and Tuesday will be mild and rainy, really eating away at the snow. Then a cold pattern will return and it might be quite cold and snowy the weekend before Christmas. This year seems on track for a White Christmas 🎄 which is actually quite uncommon around these parts but things could still change.

In four weeks on January 1 the sun will be setting at 4:32 pm,🌄 which is 9 minutes and 51 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had cold but sunny weather and temperatures between 11 and -10 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 31 and 16 degrees. The record high of 57 degrees was set back in 1966.

I’ve been working on updating the expired weather records for the blog. 📝 It took me a while to find the necessary reports on the weather service website and I had to update the code for reading the files due to changes in their field names. But hopefully I’ll have that up tomorrow.

One of my colleagues who is very conservative posted another one of those Russian pro government, cop 👮 worshipping articles and I so wanted to respond back on how I don’t worship government employees but I bit my tongue and remained quiet. I really just hate social media these days – not just because of the stupid things I say but how so often it makes me angry πŸ‘Ώ and frustrated 😤. I like my little corner of the internet much better where I’m free of nasty comments.

Looking ahead, Christmas 🎅 is in 3 weeks, New Years Day 2019 🎉 is in 4 weeks, National Bird Day 🐦 is in 6 weeks, 37th Birthday 🎉 is in 8 weeks and Inauguration Day 2021 👴🏻 is in 59 weeks.

Snowy Mountain from Watch Hill

The Plot to Steal the Color White From DuPont

The Plot to Steal the Color White From DuPont

There’s white, and then there’s the immaculate ultrawhite behind the French doors of a new GE Cafe Series refrigerator. There’s white, and then there’s the luminous-from-every-angle white hood of a 50th anniversary Ford Mustang GT. There’s white, and then there’s the how-white-my-shirts-can-be white that’s used to brighten myriad products, from the pages of new Bibles to the hulls of superyachts to the snowy filling inside Oreo cookies.

All this whiteness is the product of a compound known as titanium dioxide, or TiO2. A naturally occurring oxide, TiO2 is generally extracted from ilmenite ore and was first used as a pigment in the 19th century. In the 1940s chemists at DuPont refined the process until they hit on what’s widely considered a superior form of “titanium white,” which has been used in cosmetics and plastics and to whiten the chalked lines on tennis courts. DuPont has built its titanium dioxide into a $2.6 billion business, which it spun off as part of chemicals company Chemours, in Wilmington, Del., last fall.