July 10, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Mostly clear and 75 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. The dew point is 66 degrees. The muggy weather ends Monday around noontime. πŸ˜“ Kind of a warm evening although I’m not sure if its as humid as it claims. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I head upstairs and retire to bed. Very comfy out back next to the fan.

Tonight I went to the Guilderland Town Board meeting to hear a status update on the proposed Rapp Road apartment complex. 🏒 I was surprised to learn that the town is requiring a full environmental impact statement – last year only 200 projects state wide got full EIS last year.🌲Good news for the Pine Bush although there is much to happen. Then I went and got German Chocolate cake and soda at the Capitol Dinner which was very good. 🍰 They’re pricey but good.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌀, with a low of 69 degrees at 4am. Eight degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 66 at 10pm. Light south wind. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 63 degrees. The record low of 48 occurred back in 1986.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon πŸŒ” with 77% illuminated. The moon will set at 1:41 am. The Buck Moon πŸŒ• is on Monday night. The sun will rise at 5:27 am with the first light at 4:53 am, which is 45 seconds later than yesterday. πŸŒ„ Tonight will have 8 hours and 54 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 14 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, then showers and thunderstorms likely after 3pm. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 85 degrees at 4pm. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 68 at 8am. South wind 6 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. It became sticky as the day progressed. The high last year was 83 degrees. The record high of 98 was set in 1936.

Heading over to John Wolcott house to help him with his history project after work tomorrow. πŸ“‚ Down to the the final box of Albany history. Some good stuff in there and a lot of mundane things to. Friday evening I’m working on a research project for Save the Pine BushπŸ€Ό/strong>󜑑t the library mostly digitizing tax maps and other fun stuff. Then Saturday I’m heading out to Schoharie for an overnight.

I was thinking this evening, if I want to camp in Painter Run in Pennsylvania, β›Ί I should reach out to the PA DCNR tomorrow to ensure that I get the permit in a timely fashion and can get it printed up before I head out on vacation. I haven’t been back there in years but I can’t imagine it’s changed much since then.

In four weeks on August 7 the sun will be setting at 8:07 pm,πŸŒ„ which is 26 minutes and 6 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had thunderstorm and temperatures between 89 and 69 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 82 and 61 degrees. The record high of 102 degrees was set back in 1918.

Looking ahead, Teeth Cleaning Day πŸ˜ƒ is in 3 weeks, Altamont Fair Opens 🎑 is in 5 weeks, State Fair Opens 🎑 is in 6 weeks, Back to School Day πŸŽ’ is in 8 weeks, September 11th πŸ‡Έ is in 9 weeks, More Night then Day 🌌 is in 11 weeks and Inauguration Day 2021 πŸ‘΄πŸ» is in 80 weeks.

Cloudy Day at the Potholers

100 percent renewable

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Lately it’s been trendy to talk about going 100 percent renewable energy in 20 or 30 years and going 50 or 70 percent in a decade or so. In some parts of country, especially rural communities with lots of hydroelectric that might be possible but for the rest of us that’s probably an unattainable goal.

I’ve thought a lot about this in my own life when I eventually own land and an off-grid home. I think I can probably get more than 90 percent of my electricity via solar panels and battery storage but there are going to be times in November and December I’ll probably have to occasionally fire up a gasoline generator to produce the rest of my electricity needs and keep my batteries healthy.

But that’s just electricity. I doubt I’ll ever have or want to invest in enough solar panels and batteries to generate all my energy needs on-site. It takes a lot of renewable energy to make up for the energy dense fossil fuels we use every day. Propane will be used for the stove and oven, and as an accessory source of heat to the wood stove, all of which emit carbon. I also imagine my truck and farm tractor would burn diesel and my ATV or side by side would burn gasoline.

Electricity is great if you have many massive generating plants and many electrical consumers to distribute the load to an instantaneous fashion but is impossible to store in mass. Small amounts of electricity can be stored chemically in batteries or mechanically in pump storage but those facilities are costly and difficult to build in an environmentally responsible manner.

Electric cars are technology superior to internal combustion engines and they use energy much more efficiently than their combustion counterparts. But the intense amount of energy required to move a car forward for any distance will stress most on site renewable systems, as cars consume hundreds of kilowatt hours of power to get from place to place. Storage of that quantity of energy is possible on board with modern technology but refueling takes time as batteries have to store the energy mechanically and by no means is that an instant process. No instant refills like gasing up.

I’m not hopeful for an all renewable grid or even fully addressing climate change before its too late. I think people have their heart in the right place but sometimes their heart doesn’t align with math or science.

Massive Forest Restoration Could Greatly Slow Global Warming – Scientific American

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Massive Forest Restoration Could Greatly Slow Global Warming – Scientific American

We have heard for years that planting trees can help save the world from global warming. That mantra was mostly a statement of faith, however. Now the data finally exist to show that if the right species of trees are planted in the right soil types across the planet, the emerging forests could capture 205 gigatons of carbon dioxide in the next 40 to 100 years. That's two thirds of all the CO2 humans have generated since the industrial revolution. "Forest restoration is by far our most powerful planetary solution today," says Tom Crowther, a professor of global ecosystem ecology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and an author of a study published Thursday in Science that generated the eye-opening number.

Managed forests can not just create good jobs, supply industry with wood fibers, but also be a powerful force in reducing climate change. 🌎

Car Crashes Aren’t Always Unavoidable – The Atlantic

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Car Crashes Aren’t Always Unavoidable – The Atlantic

In a country where the laws compel the use of cars, Americans are condemned to lose friends and relatives to traffic violence. My childhood neighbor was a varsity student-athlete, the president of the junior class, and the most popular girl in school. One day in September 1995, a car crash took her life. She had been driving home on the freeway when her car went across the median and collided with one going the opposite direction, killing both drivers. A third vehicle was said to have struck her car moments before, causing her to lose control. The police put out a call for information, apparently without success.

My neighbor’s passing was shocking and heartbreaking. But at the time, it felt like a basically unavoidable tragedy. In our small city in Michigan—like almost everywhere in America—driving is the price of first-class citizenship. We never stopped to ask whether a different bargain was possible. Since her passing, approximately 1 million more Americans have been killed in car crashes. In America, the freedom of movement comes with an asterisk: the obligation to drive. This truism has been echoed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has pronounced car ownership a “virtual necessity.” The Court’s pronouncement is telling. Yes, in a sense, America is car-dependent by choice—but it is also car-dependent by law.