This episode I’m joined by writer Dougald Hine to discuss his book At Work in the Ruins.
Book link: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/at-work-in-the-ruins/
Tag: collapse
City of Scottsdale cuts suburb off from water supply
A community outside of Phoenix is furious after being cut off from its municipal water supply. NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard has more on how residents in the Rio Verde Foothills are doing everything to bring water back to their homes as others question why developers continue to build on dry land.
‘If you win the popular imagination, you change the game’: why we need new stories on climate
So much is happening, both wonderful and terrible – and it matters how we tell it. We can’t erase the bad news, but to ignore the good is the route to indifference or despair
LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/12/rebecca-solnit-climate-crisis-popular-imagination-why-we-need-new-storiesLINK: The Savage Reservation
Refusing the Total System
‘Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?’ asked Bernard.
The Savage nodded. ‘I ate civilisation.’
The Machine is like an exotic gemstone unveiled before us, laid out on a cloth of black velvet. At first we gasp, then we wonder. What is this miracle? Where did it come from? Who made it? It glisters in the daylight in ways which our best artists cannot capture. The Machine glisters and it makes promises.
I will save you, it says. And then: I will become you. Entwined, we will go forward together. We have always been together. You need me.
A Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River
I came to this place because the Colorado River system is in a state of collapse. It is a collapse hastened by climate change but also a crisis of management. In 1922, the seven states in the river basin signed a compact splitting the Colorado equally between its upper and lower halves; later, they promised additional water to Mexico, too. Near the middle, they put Lake Powell, a reserve for the northern states, and Lake Mead, a storage node for the south. Over time, as an overheating environment has collided with overuse, the lower half — primarily Arizona and California — has taken its water as if everything were normal, straining both the logic and the legal interpretations of the compact. They have also drawn extra releases from Lake Powell, effectively borrowing straight out of whatever meager reserves the Upper Basin has managed to save there.
LINK: https://www.propublica.org/article/colorado-river-water-uncompahgre-california-arizona
Think the Energy Crisis Is Bad? Wait Until Next Winter
Added from a friend’s recommendation.
Jayanti is an Eastern Europe energy policy expert. She served for ten years as a U.S. diplomat, including as the Energy Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine (2018-2020), and as international energy counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce (2020-2021). She is currently the Managing Director of Eney, a U.S.-Ukrainian decarbonization company.
Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Minutes
Power substations vandalized in Washington state weeks after North Carolina electricity attack and FBI warning
After thousands of customers in Pierce County, Washington, were affected Sunday when burglars vandalized three energy substations, power was then knocked out for even more homes after a suspect or suspects gained access to a fourth substation, vandalizing the equipment and causing a fire, according to an update from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
The damaged equipment cut power to around 14,000 customers, police said, weeks after an attack in North Carolina left thousands in the dark for days amid federal warnings of extremist threats to electricity infrastructure.
The Christmas Day vandalism near Tacoma marked more such incidents in the state, where two November attacks on Puget Sound Energy substations were investigated by the FBI. Vandalism and deliberate damage were reported last month at substations in southern Washington and Oregon.
A Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River
Diminished by climate change and overuse, the river can no longer provide the water states try to take from it.
LINK: https://www.propublica.org/article/colorado-river-water-uncompahgre-california-arizona
String of electrical grid attacks in Pacific Northwest is unsolved
Emails obtained by OPB and KUOW show that at least four electric substations in the region have been attacked, at least two by people with firearms
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
The electrical grid has been physically attacked at least four times in Oregon and Western Washington since late November, causing growing alarm for law enforcement as well as utilities responsible for parts of the region’s critical infrastructure.
According to information obtained by Oregon Public Broadcasting and KUOW Public Radio, at least two of the incidents bear similarities to the attacks on substations in North Carolina on Saturday that left thousands of people without electricity for days.
Portland General Electric, the Bonneville Power Administration and Puget Sound Energy each confirmed Wednesday a total of four separate attacks on electrical substations they manage in Oregon and Washington. Attackers used firearms in at least some of the incidents in both states, and some power customers in Oregon experienced service disruption as a result of an attack.
All three utilities stated they were cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI declined to confirm whether it was investigating.’