scroll_lock's recent activity
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Comment on These nearly silent wind turbines have owl-inspired ‘feathers’ in ~enviro
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Comment on These nearly silent wind turbines have owl-inspired ‘feathers’ in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: information, summary, brief opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: a little Sarcasm/humor: none NIMBYs often complain that wind turbines are loud as an excuse not to build them. Okay....Comment box
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NIMBYs often complain that wind turbines are loud as an excuse not to build them. Okay. Here is a possible solution:
Noise from wind turbines limits where they can be built. But a design that mimics the shape of owl feathers can make wind farms quieter and help renewable energy grow faster.
Like airplane wings, wind turbine blades are shaped so that air flows faster on one side and slower on the other, creating lift. At the trailing edge of the blade, where the air mixes, there’s noisy turbulence. To help, blades are designed with a serrated edge that helps break up the airflow. But Church, who has also developed other nature-inspired designs for renewable energy, realized that it was possible to go farther.
Owls use a variety of strategies for silence, but Biome’s design is inspired by the shape of the fringe on the trailing edge of some owl feathers. The FeatherEdge’s shape uses the same principles of physics to cut noise. The engineers customize the design for each specific wind turbine, applying the flexible attachments at key locations to control how the air mixes.
The design works. The standard serrations on wind turbine blades cut noise by 1.5 to 2 decibels; in early tests, FeatherEdge reduced noise by an additional 3.4 decibels. (It’s possible that the latest installation, on massive turbines, may show even greater reductions when the results are in.)
A noise reduction of 3.4 + 2 decibels, or even just the reduction of 3.4 decibels to improve turbines that already have serrated designs, is meaningful and probably worthwhile. More so if the large tests mentioned in the article (data TBD) have good results. I'm not sure that is a night-and-day difference, but the article is optimistic:
With the new design in place, it could be possible for projects near communities to run effectively at night, adding more power to the grid. Because the wind turbines would be so much quieter, it also could be possible to put 30% to 50% more turbines on the same plot of land, he says.
Noise pollution is one of my pet peeves. There is not a great reason that the places we live and work need to be particularly loud, and it is true that loud noise negatively affects most wild animals. If these designs can be implemented cost-effectively, without reducing wind turbine performance (maybe even improving it), I'd say it's worthwhile.
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These nearly silent wind turbines have owl-inspired ‘feathers’
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Comment on California high-speed rail project: Here’s where Central Valley construction stands in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )LinkComment box Scope: information, speculation Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none CAHSR Authority technically has enough money on-hand or in the pipeline to remain funded through the...Comment box
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CAHSR Authority technically has enough money on-hand or in the pipeline to remain funded through the incoming administration, but not much beyond that. In any case, there are some grant application deadlines coming up in the next couple of years. If the federal government pans CAHSR (which is likely), it will be left to the state of California to cover the remaining funding gap for the Central Valley segment, which is in the low billions. It can be done -- we spend far more on highways every year -- it just has to be prioritized.
See the CAHSR 2024 Business Plan, page 55. It could be as much as $6.4 billion needed (which would be possible but hard, likely resulting in delays as the state would spread that out over a few years). Any delays mean costs continue to escalate. It is also possible that even a hostile federal government does fund CAHSR a little, just not a lot.
This isn't counting the portions connecting to San Francisco or Los Angeles, which are environmentally approved but not constructed. Some work has been done between SF and San Jose already to support electrification, and there is track from San Jose to Gilroy but it's not electrified. There is no infrastructure done at all between Gilroy and Merced; and none between Bakersfield and Los Angeles or Anaheim. Good luck San Diego/Sacramento, you will have your railroad in 2060.
Lucid Stew covers some nitty-gritty news related to CAHSR, including budget outlays.
This is such a large and important project that I doubt it will be completely canceled. It takes time to build large linear infrastructure, like the interstates, many of which functionally took decades to finish. If nothing else, once the Central Valley gets its trains running, the rest of the state will realize exactly what they're missing and will probably prioritize future funding. Any success of Brightline West will also help CAHSR, at least the extension of infrastructure if not the organization's reputation.
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Comment on US finalizes rule to remove medical bills from credit reports in ~health
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: information, speculation Tone: neutral, moralizing a bit Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none That is what the CFPB implies in their statement, although it seems like it could apply...Comment box
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That is what the CFPB implies in their statement, although it seems like it could apply to any kind of medical device. Other examples might be wheelchairs, vision or hearing aids, canes, oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines, dialysis machines, etc.... gross and inhumane concept to hold such things as collateral.
Not clear to me how often this actually happened. I'm guessing not so often because I imagine states specifically banned this practice (it's morally reprehensible), but there were probably some uncovered jurisdictions, like states that hadn't thought about it and most likely the offshore territories and maybe DC. The CFPB's rule is a federal blanket requirement, so it might be partially redundant, but that's fine.
Medical equipment repossession has happened before, some veterans have had prosthetic limbs repossessed. And hospital assets have been repossessed because they didn't pay a debt, but I'm not sure if that's technically covered by this rule.
Whether or not it was common, it definitely shouldn't have been possible, and it's good that it will be illegal in 60 days. The unfortunate side effect might be a slight increase in costs for insuring these things, or a decrease in coverage (insurers are already trying to claim prosthetics are "unnecessary" in claims). The market always reacts to regulation. At the end of the day, a better solution would socialize healthcare insurance entirely.
In my opinion the main benefit of this rule is getting debt collectors off the backs of people who HAVE paid their debts, but whose insurers are too incompetent to keep their records accurate. Due to the great incompetence of most corporations, this has unfortunately happened to a lot of people.
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Comment on Japanese railway operator testing perovskite solar panels on noise barriers in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information Tone: neutral, excited Opinion: not really Sarcasm/humor: none Modern solar panels are becoming increasingly cheap, lightweight, and easy to deploy. They...Comment box
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Modern solar panels are becoming increasingly cheap, lightweight, and easy to deploy. They are more efficient than ever, they use fewer physical materials than ever, and they can even be deployed in a variety of geometries: horizontal, vertical, double-sided vertical, curved, etc. Much of this is thanks to perovskite materials in solar cells.
This article describes a new application of solar panels in linear and otherwise mostly non-productive environments, in this case railway sound barriers. This could allow for a meaningful amount of solar generation, although it requires that the panels be able to withstand the vibrations and wind associated with ultra-fast trains whizzing by.
Central Japan Railway, which operates in Japan's Chubu region, has announced plans to test flexible perovskite solar panels on noise barriers.
The first pilot projects will be deployed along the Tokaido Shinkansen line, an area with high solar radiation.
The company said it is using thin, lightweight, flexible film-type perovskite solar cells, which are reportedly more resistant to wind pressure and vibrations from passing trains. This design avoids turning the soundproof wall into a heavy, load-bearing structure.
In late December 2024, Sekisui Chemical said it would invest JPY 90 billion ($570.64 million) in a perovskite solar production line with an initial capacity of 100 MW, set to begin operations in 2027. It also plans to commercialize its flexible perovskite solar panel technology, produced at its existing facilities, in 2025.
This is one of the fastest train in world, which means lots of vibrations. I hope the test succeeds! Either way, I imagine this technology could be applied to all sorts of linear infrastructure, including sound barriers on car highways.
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Japanese railway operator testing perovskite solar panels on noise barriers
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Comment on US finalizes rule to remove medical bills from credit reports in ~health
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information mainly Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent-ish agency whose mission is to...Comment box
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent-ish agency whose mission is to protect consumer rights and privacy in finance according to the will of Congress.
Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule that will remove an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from the credit reports of about 15 million Americans. The CFPB’s action will ban the inclusion of medical bills on credit reports used by lenders and prohibit lenders from using medical information in their lending decisions. The rule will increase privacy protections and prevent debt collectors from using the credit reporting system to coerce people to pay bills they don’t owe. The CFPB has found that medical debts provide little predictive value to lenders about borrowers’ ability to repay other debts, and consumers frequently report receiving inaccurate bills or being asked to pay bills that should have been covered by insurance or financial assistance programs.
The final rule:
- Prohibits lenders from considering medical information: The rule ends the special regulatory carveout that previously allowed creditors to use certain medical information in making lending decisions. This means lenders will also be barred from using information about medical devices, such as prosthetic limbs, that could be used to require that the devices serve as collateral for a loan for the purposes of repossession.
- Bans medical bills on credit reports: The rule bans consumer reporting agencies from including medical debt information on credit reports and credit scores sent to lenders. This will help end the practice of using the credit reporting system to coerce payment of bills regardless of their accuracy. Lenders will continue to be able to consider medical information to verify medical-based forbearances, verify medical expenses that a consumer needs a loan to pay, consider certain benefits as income when underwriting, and other legitimate uses.
This seems like a valuable rule that will meaningfully improve people's quality of life. The rule doesn't solve the problem of expensive healthcare in this country, but it may help ensure that wracking up medical debt doesn't derail other parts of people's lives.
The CFPB is part of the Federal Reserve, which is independent from the president and Congress. I learned today that it was originally proposed by Elizabeth Warren in 2007 and created by the Dodd–Frank Act in 2010. Apparently the president can now remove the CFPB director for any reason (according to the Supreme Court as of 2020), and apparently the agency gets a lot of flack from the GOP. Perhaps that is unsurprising given that political party's legislative record. However, it seems like a lot of things the CFPB does are pretty popular bipartisan decisions. At the end of the day, consumers like being protected, and all voters are consumers of something in the economy.
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US finalizes rule to remove medical bills from credit reports
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Comment on ‘Worst-case scenario’: when needed most, New Orleans bollards were missing in action in ~design
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: neutral, maybe being uncharitable Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none The beads aren’t new in New Orleans. It is kind of ridiculous that they are...Comment box
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The beads aren’t new in New Orleans. It is kind of ridiculous that they are using bollards that are so easily broken. Preventing large particles from clogging machinery isn’t a new problem either.
It does require money and the right engineering solution, and you’re right that they couldn’t predict the future. Still, they knew this event was happening. It wasn’t an impromptu protest.
But also, it’s strange that this story is getting national attention and yet people ignore the many preventable traffic fatalities that happen on everyday streets due to a lack of physical protection. Parades do feature many pedestrians but so do… all sidewalks.
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Comment on ‘Worst-case scenario’: when needed most, New Orleans bollards were missing in action in ~design
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none There are not rigorous laws requiring comprehensive hardened physical protection on...Comment box
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There are not rigorous laws requiring comprehensive hardened physical protection on pedestrian rights-of-way, unlike how the law requires curbs/sidewalks/crosswalks (eg ADA 1990), if that’s what you’re asking.
Some cities have rules requiring barriers during parades, but they are not that focused on pedestrian safety, just traffic management (and often not laws). Most parade barricades I’ve seen are made of wood and do not stop vehicles at all. Some bigger cities use Jersey barriers and other hardened solutions.
There are certainly bureaucratic prerequisites to install permanent bollards in many places. In my city, the Council has to pass a bill for every such protective barrier along any public right-of-way. It’s routine, and maybe reasonable to require that. But if a member of Council arbitrarily decided they didn’t want a bollard there—for any reason, including quasi-legal ones—it would probably never be installed. Unfortunately this is not a hypothetical as safety infrastructure is regularly stymied by politicians catering to outspoken or well-connected constituents who prefer to, like, park on sidewalks.
As for temporary bollards, getting road closures is part of the permitting/approval process for public events. In my experience this is again focused on traffic management and not protection of VRUs like pedestrians. City officials assume most drivers will see a wooden barrier and not try to drive through it. They also do not want to pay for heavier barriers as they are more annoying/expensive to move.
It seems like the NO team were using heavier barricades, but a good system shouldn’t be defeated by plastic beads on an important night like NYE. You can’t predict every erratic behavior but I don’t think it is difficult to force residents to move parked cars to clear all vehicles from the area, and then set up barriers consistently. You only need like a couple emergency vehicles and they can start within the cordoned off area, and a couple emergency routes with like 1 retractable bollard/gate each. (They should not be left in the “down” position, they can be operated via remote control so there are no delays…..) It’s not that complicated. Or in a big celebration, the pedestrian area could even be made large enough to include a hospital so that few/no retractable bollards are even needed. Then you can just use Jersey barriers or planters. Super simple.
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Comment on The average American spent 2.5 months on their phone in 2024 in ~tech
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: neutral, a little concerned Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I checked my Screen Time on my iPhone and it gave me an average of 2-4 hours per day...Comment box
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I checked my Screen Time on my iPhone and it gave me an average of 2-4 hours per day over the past month. Some days were as high as 6h. The lowest was about 45m.
And I'm someone who actively tries not to use my phone all the time. I have almost all notifications off, and often I leave my phone in a place I can't see it. And somehow it still occupies this much of my time.
If you include teenagers, I think it's absolutely reasonable to see an average of 5+ hours. Perhaps the data is being skewed by people "that use their phone for 16 hours a day"... and perhaps that number of people is way larger than you or I thought. Either way, I doubt that much screen time is good for anyone.
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Comment on Growing pollution in Pakistan’s Punjab province has sickened 1.8M people in a month, officials say in ~enviro
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, feedback, ideas Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Sure! Who exactly is the intended audience of this website? People who experience terrible,...Comment box
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Sure!
The current version of the site gives a sense of doom/defeatism to the viewer, because ultimately it's just telling the user that their lungs are damaged and their lifespan is reduced.
Who exactly is the intended audience of this website?
- People who experience terrible, obviously harmful pollution on a regular basis?
- People who don't experience such pollution on a regular basis or at all?
- People who, despite experiencing terrible pollution, don't believe that pollution hurts their lungs?
- People who believe that air pollution hurts their lungs, but don't understand how?
- People who want to stop pollution, but don't know how?
- People who don't want to stop pollution, or don't care?
- People with enough money to donate to charities and political campaigns?
- People personally causing air pollution, like farmers burning crops?
- etc
Your audience could be one or more of these categories. If you're targeting an audience that already acknowledges the problem, you can focus more on actionable solutions. If you're targeting an audience that doesn't yet understand the problem, you have to focus more on education first. It's totally possible to do both, but it might require multiple pages on your website.
It's valuable to shock people sometimes, but only if you mix in an inspiring message:
- More likely to inspire defeatism: "Your Organs are Damaged / Every breath adds permanent damage. Your lungs can never fully recover from this exposure"
- More likely to inspire action: "Your Organs are Being Damaged / Every breath hurts you more. But there are ways to stop your lungs from getting worse."
You will have to change my wording to something better, but the point is that for the audience I would personally target, almost every negative statement should be paired with a call to action or other inspiring message. You have to lead people to a useful conclusion.
Despite understanding that there is a problem, it's emotionally simpler for people to pretend they can't do anything about it than acknowledge they can do something about but are choosing not to. So you have to remind them that inaction is a choice, and action is a choice. Personally I would also remind them that even small actions can make a big difference. For example, it is a known scientific phenomenon that, say, installing solar panels on your house inspires your neighbors to do the same thing. It's like a cascading waterfall effect.
If your goal is to inspire people to help fix the problem, you have to clearly offer specific actions that get to a solution. Currently, the actions listed on the website are correct but unspecific. People have heard "volunteer with X organization" before, but the might not understand why that's the best action to take. And there are some actions someone could take that aren't mentioned here.
Depending on how political you want to get with this website, there are several categories of actions. Here are some:
Actions directed toward education/awareness:
- Creating public art with an environmental/anti-pollution message, especially art in the real world, but also digital art shared on the internet. This also includes writing fiction books, creating films/TV, and singing songs or making music that's environmental in nature, at least partially. People are very moved by art. I think that targeting at least some of this at young people/children can instill lifelong environmental ideals in them, although you need art targeted toward adults too.
- Engaging with other activists. I see a link to your Telegram group at the bottom. Stuff like that is really valuable to get like-minded people together. Some of the organizations I work with use Discord to coordinate advocacy.
- Establishing new advocacy nonprofits to fill a niche that's missing. For example, a group that focuses on raising awareness in an organized way in a specific municipality. Some of the larger nonprofits miss really low-level stuff like this. Sometimes you need more grassroots organizing to make a difference locally. Establishing a formal or informal advocacy network can help you do all the following suggestions more effectively and in greater numbers.
- Submitting articles to local, regional, and national newspapers explaining what the problem is, and where exactly the pollution comes from. You don't have to work for a newspaper in order to write in one. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get an article in a city's most prominent newspaper, either as a "letter to the editor" or ideally an op-ed. In my opinion, local newspapers are by far the most effective newspapers to target. They are more trusted and perceived to be less political than national newspapers.
- Distributing or mailing physical pamphlets providing information about the problem, similar to newspaper articles but in a different and more portable format. You can hand these out in public, you can mail them to people, etc.
- Organizing public educational sessions with schools, libraries, workplaces, religious institutions, etc. explaining how pollution pertains to them and what they can do about it. In my opinion, getting involved by giving talks at schools is one of the most important things you can do. Young people are the most engaged and most likely to go off and tell literally every person they know what they learned.
- Discreetly posting bills/posters in places people commonly visit so that the causes of and solutions to pollution remain in their minds. This might be considered vandalism, so you would want to put it in... uh, liminal spaces that don't draw too much attention. For example, educational messaging and calls to action posted on the inside of a bathroom stall. People spend a lot of time on public toilets, but no one ever If you can design this poster to fit in with the surrounding environment, people will assume it was put there legally/correctly. If it looks "official," it will remain up. Of course you have to constantly put more posters up because they do get taken down sometimes. And you have to make sure they are physically attached to the surface well. I think subtlety makes a difference here. Just don't do it on private property, and don't advertise a specific nonprofit this way (unless you have their consent).
Actions directed toward the physical source of the pollution (or person literally creating it):
- Personally convincing farmers to use tractors instead of burning stubble. This will make the place they live less polluted. There are also various other benefits to tractors: they reduce all sorts of manual labor and hugely increase productivity/agricultural output. Tractors are expensive, but a good thing to strive for.
- Personally convincing neighbors to cook using electric stoves rather than gas or especially wood. This will make their home and community much less polluted, especially if they get their neighbors to do the same thing. (And more broadly, even if some electricity is generated by coal, some of it is renewable, so an electric stove always produces fewer absolute emissions than a wood or gas stove.)
- Personally convincing neighbors, local business owners, and leaders of community/religious institutions to install solar panels on their homes/businesses. This is becoming much more common in India and Pakistan. Depending on who you're talking to, you can pitch it as a virtuous environmental benefit or as an economic/self-sufficiency benefit to themselves.
- Personally convincing neighbors to purchase cars that run on gas and NOT diesel, which produces way worse exhaust fumes. Even better, try to convince people to buy electric vehicles. I have no clue what the EV charging network is like in India: I'm guessing not great outside the cities, but if people are open to the idea, certainly pursue it.
Actions directed toward the legal mechanisms enabling the pollution:
- Suing polluting organizations for harming health or otherwise violating the law or your right to live or something. IDK very much about India's legal system, but in the US, sometimes these lawsuits are effective. For example, youths suing companies or the government for infringing on their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (or stuff like that, but in legal-ese). I recommend doing this on the regional AND national level. This is possible but extraordinarily difficult and expensive to do by yourself, so I recommend working with a nonprofit to do it. If you via that organization can be the plaintiff against a big polluting energy company (or whatever), and you have a good argument, a judge may force the company to pay a fine specifically to a fund that addresses air pollution.
- Personally contacting every single elected and non-elected official with literally any possible influence over literally anything conceivably related to pollution, and asking them to do something very specific to address the issue. You have to tell them exactly what to do (they don't know anything). For example:
- Ask your local mayor or municipal corporation to proactively seek out partnerships with non-profit groups like A-PAG to address the issue of air pollution. You have to suggest specific organizations. It helps to be even more specific: "Please establish an ongoing partnership with A-PAG to provide more tractors to farmers so that they don't burn stubble. Even though this practice is illegal, it will continue to happen and harm your constituents unless the government provides reasonable alternatives to farmers."
- Individually ask every member of your municipal corporation to allocate ₹ 1 billion+ to create a new public transport line in order to reduce the number of people who have to drive everywhere. Express support for a specific project that has already been proposed, that the city might be able to support.
- Individually ask every member of your municipal corporation/city council to, say, allocate ₹ 25 million INR to installing electrification infrastructure in homes (to enable more electric stoves) or for vehicles (to enable more electric cars).
- Individually ask every elected official in your state legislative assembly to introduce legislation to further enforce existing bans on the burning of crop stubble.
- Individually ask every elected official in your state legislative assembly to introduce legislation for a carbon tax for businesses, including manufacturers.
- The previous points, but also for your representatives in India's parliament. It's harder to hear back from state/national officials, but your input does have an impact. Their staff read everything and the more people contacting them about something, the more likely they are do assign someone to work on the task, and introduce legislation related to it.
- Personally volunteering with non-profits that lobby the government to do all those things. They will have more resources than you would as an individual, especially for state/parliament officials.
- Providing charitable donations to non-profits that lobby the government to do all those things. These nonprofits are more effective if they have more funding. Even a small donation helps.
- Providing charitable donations to non-profits that endorse political officials and/or fund political campaigns. I don't know what the nonprofit legal structure is in India, but in the US there are basically three kinds of government-recognized nonprofits: 501(c)(3) organizations, which are charitable but not political at all; 501(c)(4) organizations, which are charitable and can endorse political candidates, but can't fund campaigns; and PACs (political action committees), which can fund political campaigns. There might be something similar in India. If people want to make a difference, donating to a 501(c)(4) or especially a PAC in the US goes a long way. And I don't just mean national elections, I mean local and regional elections too. Scare politicians into thinking they'll lose their jobs if they don't proactively and aggressively support clean air regulations. Make sure they know what's at stake!
Actions directed toward the economic incentives encouraging the pollution:
- Created a company dedicated to commercializing new technologies that can minimize future air pollution. For example, battery technology, solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear power, etc. But it can also be on a smaller scale, and it doesn't have to be new: your company can simply focus on finding ways to manufacture existing technology in a more cost-effective way, or finding a use-case for a technology thought to be useless, or combining technologies in ways that create use-cases.
- Privately funding research grants to organizations doing research into technologies that can minimize future air pollution.
- Likewise supporting research into technology that reduces existing air pollution (carbon capture). This is not as effective as reducing the pollution to start with, but it still helps, and it's still necessary.
There are more that I didn't mention. And obviously all of those categories are intertwined with each other, for example the government can fund research into clean air tech.
Your website is in the first category, and therefore it can talk about all the other categories. You can group them however you want.
Of course if you want to talk about this sort of thing you have to find a way to present the data. I am not a website designer so I can't give input about the way you should organize all of that information. But I would keep it direct/to-the-point.
You may decide that your current website isn't the place for all of this. Maybe you want to have completely different sites for different audiences, or just different pages for different audiences. That part is up to you. There is no one single best way to do it, but you have to make sure it's easy for people to understand and they need to be "shown" the right/useful/actionable solutions quite clearly.
Similarly, no one believes these non profits to be the solution as ultimately they run on very little money and have very little impact.
Maybe part of your website needs to make it clear that these nonprofits do have an impact.
Looks to me that groups like A-PAG do plenty of impactful work. Just because the problem still exists doesn't mean they aren't making progress toward it.
They could make more impact if they had more support.
Other thoughts:
- I think the section on "myths"/misconceptions is really useful. You may want to expand that to dispel other false notions. Or not, maybe this is the only one worth talking about.
- When AQI is low, the message displays "You are smoking 1 cigarettes today" or sometimes "0 cigarettes." This is accurate but not compelling. How about you set a condition in the code that,
if cigarettes_smoked < 2, you change the metric to "You are smokingcigarettes_smoked * 7cigarettes this week." I imagine that many places in India will not have an AQI this low, but it's still useful to handle the edge case. - I agree with another commenter that the ability to specify an arbitrary location to check its AQI would also be nice.
- Perhaps specify a list/glossary of different pollutants and clearly label each of their causes. I see that PM2.5 and NO2 are described, but presumably there are others.
- Personally I would highlight the causes of pollution higher up. It's important to provide that framing so that people understand how to interpret information about pollution. For example, making it clear that "Your lungs are being damaged due to pollution caused by humans. Since it's caused by humans, we can fix it." And you can go into more depth about that later if you like.
- If this is an open-source project, where can people edit the code? GitHub? Can you provide a link?
Nice work again with this website and I hope you continue to advocate for cleaner air in your community. I really cannot emphasize enough that every voice makes a difference, especially when you're using your skills like this. The more people are proactively talking about this issue and trying to solve it, the faster it will be solved.
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Comment on The average American spent 2.5 months on their phone in 2024 in ~tech
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: skeptical, questioning Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none What makes you say that? How do you know that "most people" are not spending an...Comment box
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If you assume 2.5 months per year is spent blearily swiping through Facebook/TikTok/etc., yeah that's not great, but most people aren't doing that.
What makes you say that? How do you know that "most people" are not spending an inordinate amount of time "blearily swiping" through socials and otherwise wasting time?
If we are being productive/healthy with our devices, like getting a 2FA code or answering a useful text or booking a flight, then surely, since we are doing an optimized task, we will stop doing that task fairly quickly. Obviously folks with ADHD may spend a little longer getting such a task done, but it does not take 5 hours of physically staring at a screen to get a 2FA code, even if it might take an ADHD person some time throughout the day to get around to following up with the code.
So if the 2.5 months per year holds true, the rest of the time is being filled with something.
I would venture a guess that the overwhelming majority of phone time, for the overwhelming majority of people, is a combination of social media/news and some video games. I would venture another guess that social media/news is the greater portion. You can argue that news is useful, but mostly, beyond a couple important things, I think it is sensational and harmful.
socializing remotely while doing other things or with a different social group
Remote socialization is definitely not a healthy replacement for real-world socialization, especially over text. It is not automatically unhealthy to talk on the phone with someone. But it is just not the same as going to an in-person gathering. Human brains are not optimized for textual communication. A lack of in-person interaction is obviously a cause of depression for many people, and this occurs to an extent never before seen.
When I talk to young people they seem to consistently acknowledge addiction to cell phones and specifically social media. "brain rot" is a joke term but there is some awareness that being tuned in all the time is causing them problems.
I also read some articles about private schools that banned cell phones. The kids were happier. When surveyed, they were clear that they didn't actually like social media that much - they were just on it because there was a social pressure to be on it (and because it was addicting). But if no one was on it, they weren't missing much. They had more real social interaction - and that made them more satisfied with their lives.
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Comment on Vatican unveils photovoltaic roof as part of Pope's pledge to move to green energy in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information, opinion Tone: neutral/informative Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none The Vatican has installed some solar panels on the roof of one of its buildings. They...Comment box
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The Vatican has installed some solar panels on the roof of one of its buildings. They have also signed some sort of power delivery agreement from a solar facility they own outside Rome. This will make the city completely powered by renewable energy.
This makes a real and meaningful but also tiny difference to the issue of air pollution. I think the important takeaway here is that the Pope is an inspiring person to over a billion Catholics worldwide, and many non-Catholics. A long time ago when I grew up my town was very Catholic. It is less religious since I moved away but I still saw how the Pope's support of gay marriage changed people's opinions when I went back. It was really influential and gave people trusted guidance about what was considered a confusing and difficult issue.
Where I live now, it seems like most liberal people doing political analysis are comfortable talking about almost every demographic trait except religion, which seems to be downplayed or ignored in most contexts except the Middle East and maybe abortion in a hand-wavy kind of way (even then, I.D.K, it seems like a stand-in for a different demographic they want to analyze). It is too metropolitan where I live for theology and its impacts on culture to be considered within a political framework, and I think that general omission affects people's perception of the world in an unrealistic way.
Many religious leaders hold significant influence over their congregations. They are considered genuinely trusted figures which is why people go to church every week and listen to them. If a trusted person expresses support for something you find disdainful, you might reconsider your opinion. If that trusted person is someone you also believe was appointed by God, or communes with God, or otherwise has more connection to the awesome power of the divine than any other being on Earth, you might even change your opinion. If nothing else, opinions soften. Tribal endorsement is one of the most fundamental aspects of our psychology. Religious endorsement has the additional strength of being at least somewhat didactic and intended to be taken as, well, 'gospel'.
The Pope claims doctrinal authority from Jesus Christ, conferred via the "apostolic succession" of every preceding Pope since St Peter the apostle (first leader of the church and appointed by Christ). The Pope's election is not like a secular election. The Pope is elected by bishops, and in turn bishops are appointed by the Pope. The Catholic church is especially paternalistic and the Pope is its earthly or visible father. Catholics do not democratically elect the Pope like they do the president, because the Pope does not need to be elected by the masses, just by the church (which is much more holy). For at least a thousand years the laity have had highly indirect influence over the election of bishops and far less over the Pope. Catholic belief is based in the institution of the church and not in the authority of the individual, so even the Bible is only particularly authoritative as understood and conveyed by the Pope. This is a compelling ideology and it is one reason why there are so many Catholics. Obviously this is a simplification. But the whole concept of the Pope presumes that he is someone worth listening to.
By "endorsing" solar energy for the explicit purpose of addressing climate change, the Pope has made a political statement in a way that is understood differently than any scientist, newscaster, science communicator, blogger, or politician doing the same thing. The man closest to God (as far as 1 billion people are concerned) has written this "brother sun" letter saying:
“It is necessary to transition to a sustainable development model that reduces greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, aiming for climate neutrality.”
“Humanity possesses the technological means to tackle this environmental transformation and its pernicious ethical, social, economic, and political consequences, with solar energy playing a fundamental role among these solutions.”
He has been talking about climate change since like 2015. I think that every time he writes a new letter about it, it becomes more entrenched in both Catholic theology and culture (politics). Lots of Catholics who, years ago, would have been skeptical about stuff like solar energy have a more trusted figure endorsing it. Now they're that much less likely to make a fuss about a new solar farm in their community, less likely to disbelieve climate change facts, and less likely to prioritize political candidates who are specifically pro-fossil fuels. They're that much more likely to make environmentalism an important part of their political ideology.
Not every Catholic person takes all the Pope's opinions as their own, but there is possibly no one as influential across borders, ages, and political party affiliations as the Pope. I can think of a handful of world leaders who are close, but it's not the same. There are a handful of celebrities who also come close, people like Lebron James or Taylor Swift, but I would say that is American-centric and the Pope is still extra influential globally.
So normally I don't care a whole lot for symbolic statements. But this is symbolic coming from a person whose entire status is symbolic, whose entire fame is based on moral guidance and leadership, and that matters.
Looking forward to another successful day in the energy transition.
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Vatican unveils photovoltaic roof as part of Pope's pledge to move to green energy
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In Norway, 90% of new car registrations are electric. In 2025, that number might be 100%.
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‘The dead zone is real’: why US farmers are embracing wildflowers
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Comment on US rural electric co-ops secure $4.37 billion in clean energy funding in ~enviro
scroll_lock (edited )LinkComment box Scope: summary, information, opinion Tone: neutral/excited Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Continuing their pattern of investing meaningfully into “the everyday community,” president...Comment box
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Continuing their pattern of investing meaningfully into “the everyday community,” president Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture has announced several billion dollars of investment into clean energy projects specifically in rural areas.
The projects amount to about 3.5 GW of new renewable generation nameplate capacity plus something like 350 MW of battery capacity (probably more but the article is vague).
For reference, the United States has a nameplate capacity of about 1300 GW, but as I’ve talked about before, this is a misleading inflated number due to the inherent inefficiencies of fossil fuel generation (“primary energy fallacy”). (We only need to replace about 1/3 of those fossil gigawatts with renewable gigawatts.)
Other sources of fossil fuel emissions, like in transportation, are abstracted from generation because they require electrification first. That’s happening too, though.
So for a better comparison the US has about 455 GW of renewable generation (2023) so these grants increase that by close to 1%. Pretty cool!
I said that this was a pattern. In fact these grants, while extremely valuable, have become super normal. Every few weeks the federal government invests a couple billion more dollars in grants into renewable projects, and states do the same. Because many of them happen in rural/“red” areas, it’s likely that they will continue for the next four years.
Coal/town gas capacity is shrinking as coal plants are being closed. There are no new coal plants opening—none at all. The fact that this is being accomplished is as big a deal as sealing the ozone hole over the Antarctic. Coal is a particularly polluting fossil fuel. It’s simply no longer economically viable.
While “natural” (methane) gas has lots of extraction problems, it burns more cleanly than coal. It still has to be shown the door, and it seems like that’s starting to happen.
From Public Power data presentations we see that natural gas additions made up 33.37% of new generating capacity from 2016 to 2023, with solar and wind lagging slightly behind with another third each. That means renewable capacity has been outpacing methane capacity 2:1 for many years.
Buuuuut, if you look at the data over time, natural gas really started to lose its luster around 2019. Every year since 2020, solar has outpaced natural gas by a large margin. Wind has mostly done the same, though is kind of being cannibalized by solar lately.
In 2023, solar+wind made up 65.32% of new capacity additions. Nuclear added 3.07%, geothermal 0.11%, and hydro 0.07% for a total of 68.57% renewable capacity additions. Natural gas at 31% remained the main alternative. But this is way down from 2018 when natural gas had twice as much growth in absolute units.
In 2024, they project further renewable growth, and it’s VERY RENEWABLE:
- Solar: 77.00% (!!!)
- Wind: 12.49%
- Nuclear: 2.43%
- Hydro: 0.05%
That’s a total of 91.97% renewable electricity capacity! Natural gas—which, with the defeat of coal, is perhaps our greatest environmental foe—makes up a measly 7.73% of new capacity, with various other fossil fuels making up a couple decimal points.
That’s a wild trajectory. It’s reasonable to assume that natural gas will make up only a few percent of generation additions in 2025. Regardless of government pledges, solar is just super economical even in the US (which has more expensive panels than necessary due to tariffs).
I actually didn’t know natural gas was falling off quite this much, or maybe I had been told and didn’t believe it. Bit at this rate, there will be half as many natural gas additions in 2025, maybe just a couple percent. If it continues, less than a percent in 2026. Just about zero in 2027, and probably actually zero after that. I mean, maybe the tail will be longer due to already-financed plants in the pipeline, but we’re talking crumbs here.
Natural gas only makes up 5.97% of proposed capacity additions (for the future), and not all propositions get approved. I imagine some will be canceled as solar becomes increasingly dominant, especially paired with all the new battery energy storage (such as the additions to rural America in this DoA program, but many more).
Solar tech is also still improving—rapidly and along multiple pathways. I’ve got nothing but optimism about this industry and about electrification in general.
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US rural electric co-ops secure $4.37 billion in clean energy funding
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They’re not particularly loud from a distance—perhaps 45 dB from 300m. They can be louder up close. Sometimes, the bigger problem I might be infrasound: vibrations that aren’t heard but are felt, and vibrations can cause louder and more irritating sounds. Imagine a piece of metal in your window rattling as a car goes by; you might not hear the car much, but you could hear the metal.
Anyway, it is usually still pretty minor for humans. That doesn’t stop people from being fussy, especially if turbines are within earshot of homes. It’s mostly an excuse for anti-environmental or generic NIMBY blockage. Technology like this disarms that NIMBY narrative.
The sound of a car is unusually loud for most animal habitats. In general the only environmental thing to make continuous noise in any natural habitat is running water, which has obvious benefits for all animals. Animals make noises too but that communicates something specific and contributes to an ecosystem (even if it’s a threatening sound). The sound of a wind turbine doesn’t really help an ecosystem? From an ecological perspective, it’s probably best for human infrastructure to be dead-silent if possible.