Robert Ferry

@robertferry.bsky.social

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Climate policy, society, and the built environment. Architect, LEED AP BD+C, and Co-founder of Land Art Generator. landartgenerator.org

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I think Raphael Warnock could tell that story. Take Georgia, build a coalition with evangelical Christians, and paint us all—with words—a picture of a better tomorrow.

Which is obviously not future-oriented! But it's a kind of alternate reality future. I do think whatever happens with this period and whether it's Biden or someone else, a vision of what's over the horizon is pretty important and has been a bit absent in this campaign.

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The future of construction will be electric 🧪🔌💡https://electrek.co/2024/06/04/volvo-ce-expands-its-electric-construction-vehicle-line-up/

Volvo CE expands its electric construction vehicle line-up with 3 new modelselectrek.co In a bid to expand its ZEV offerings, Volvo CE has added three new mid-size electric construction machines to its expanding BEV lineup.

The symptoms of a broken democracy. “It is not that my side…is losing in the marketplace of ideas. It is that many of the ideas that I believe in absolutely kill in the marketplace of ideas, and it does not matter…Our electoral politics no longer care about representing the winning ideas.”

Opinion | Whoever the Democratic Candidate Is, Americans Have Already Lostwww.nytimes.com The American Republic feels fragile.

This is true! Building more high speed rail connections between highly trafficked metropolitan areas could put all of Amtrak in the black. www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/ne...

More trains please.

One overriding theme of the Roberts Supreme Court’s jurisprudence is that it invites substantially more litigation. It used to be the case that opinions were strategically drafted to limit ambiguity and prevent unnecessary lawsuits. Now it seems the opposite is true. Complete chaos now reigns.

Shouldn’t kg of CO2 per unit of revenue be going down if data centers are getting more efficient? Somehow tech is burning more carbon for every dollar earned? Is this all because of AI and because AI doesn’t contribute to revenue? Not great all around.

"In 2023, Google’s carbon intensity climbed to 11.4 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per million dollars of revenue. That’s up 101% since 2019, and up nearly 25% since 2022." Microsoft's "increased by 20% since 2022."

Google just released numbers on AI and emissions — and they aren’t good | Latitude Mediawww.latitudemedia.com And as the artificial intelligence arms race wages on, the company expects emissions to keep going up.

I was on a flight to Europe the day Tony Blair won in 1997 (ending 18 years of conservative rule). An old gent handed me a paper and said I would “always remember this day.” That was the peak era of neoliberal triangulation. Hopefully Keir Starmer will have a more respectful legacy.

Live Updates: Labour Party Wins U.K. Election, With Landslide Projectedwww.nytimes.com Keir Starmer will be Britain’s next prime minister, ending 14 years of Conservative government. Rishi Sunak, the outgoing prime minister, apologized for his party’s campaign performance.

Still no use case except self-referential ones. E.g. some micro hydro projects in remote areas can be more easily financed if Bitcoin is mined when electricity demand is low. But that is only true because Bitcoin has a good exchange rate with the dollar. But why is that? No underlying reason.

1.3 gigs of new gas to meet rising demand due to Bitcoin mining Trust me when I say the Bitcoin problem has not only not gone away, but very clearly gotten worse, despite far fewer headlines about it.... www.spglobal.com/marketintell...

When you realize we can measure the biomass of the entire planet and observe changes over time it makes you wonder why we don’t somehow peg the value of our economies to the natural support systems that sustain our lives instead of to the amount of stuff we make to pollute and destroy those systems.

#gis google earth engine is AMAZING. why did i only hear about it this week?! youtu.be/7qj07TRbY10?...

(9/14) Discover NDVI: The Green Detecting Index using Earth Engine in JavaScript |Geo for Good 2023youtu.be 👉 A slide deck containing links to the workshop code repository and workshop resources → https://bit.ly/intro-to-gee-js💻 FULL workshop playlist → https://w...

“[The US President] is bound to [break the letter of the law for a higher purpose] at his own peril, and throw himself on the justice of his country and the rectitude of his motives.” —Thomas Jefferson Clearly there was no intention by the founders to set the presidency above the law.

"The officer who is called to act on this superior ground, does indeed risk himself on the justice of the controlling powers of the Constitution, and his station makes it his duty to incur the risk.” talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thoma...

Thomas Jefferson Disagrees with John Roberts About Presidential Immunitytalkingpointsmemo.com Thomas Jefferson played no direct role in authoring the federal Constitution. He...

Out of MANY, one. On Independence Day let’s celebrate the entirety of the rich and interwoven tapestry of faith traditions AND secular philosophies that informed the Constitution and that have guided the American people through our greatest moments.

Opinion | Your Religious Values Are Not American Valueswww.nytimes.com Christian nationalists aim to impose their beliefs on others.

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first cohort of the American Climate Corps has been sworn in. 9,000 people will be deployed in the coming weeks to restore landscapes, erect solar panels, and work on environmental projects across America. #ShareGoodNewsToo grist.org/solutions/am...

The American Climate Corps officially kicks offgrist.org This month, 9,000 people will be deployed to restore landscapes and erect solar panels, helping guide the country toward a greener future.

Too good to be true? Or a glimpse at the near future for passenger vehicles?

U.K. company says its EV battery can charge in just 5 minutes - Fast Companywww.fastcompany.com Nyobolt's new lithium-ion EV battery reportedly charges in roughly twice the time it takes to fill up a gas-fueled vehicle.

This is an interesting design solution. It sits on your EV’s roof rack, unfolds in one minute, and can offer 30 miles of off-grid range on a sunny day.

Forget Public Charging! Power Your Electric Car with the SUN | GoSunwww.youtube.com A powerful and portable Electric car charger delivers a whopping 1,200 watts of clean solar energy, easily powering your electric vehicle on the go. Whether...

We often talk about there being a failure of imagination in America. The majority opinion on Monday is yet another example. We may need to live through the rise of autocracy in order to imagine it. It may very well be that conservatism has at its very foundation an inability to imagine the future.

A new company founded by an architect in India offers passive cooling solutions with beautiful screen walls and artful objects for public spaces. www.coolant.co

As conservatives like Lehman come to terms with the fact that some sectors may not as as suitable to free markets as others (when consumer choices are not entirely free), will they carry the same logic over to a reexamination of the healthcare, education, electricity, and insurance sectors as well?

The Real Problem With Legal Weedwww.nytimes.com New York is trying to treat an addictive substance just like any other product.

"Given that climate change has been identified as the biggest medium to long-term risk for UK food security, quibbling over less than a percentage of farmland doesn't seem worth it."

No, solar panels won't leave you starving - ET EnergyWorldenergy.economictimes.indiatimes.com In 2023, solar panels provided 6 per cent of the world's electricity, and BloombergNEF expects another 585 gigawatts of new solar capacity to be installed throughout 2024.

Leaving aside the use of “epiphany” when he meant “epitome,” it is tragically ironic to claim “ideocracy” on the part of Biden’s EPA when Judge Cain ideologically refuses to consider climate, environmental, or public health impacts as criteria in his decision. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideocracy

The decision in question said Biden's pause on LNG permitting was "completely without reason or logic and is perhaps the epiphany of ideocracy." [sic], obviously. Fun that weird idiots get to be semi in charge of a 5-billion ton carbon bomb permitting process.

Perhaps as important as the top job on the ballot this November are the contested seats in the House and Senate who will now be even more critical to checking the power of the presidency. Any court reforms would also require support of both houses. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Federal judges are going to be the death of us. The pause did not impact existing projects under construction, only future ones being planned. The country has seven terminals already with another five approved facilities under construction. Before 2016 there were ZERO.

Judge Orders Biden Administration to Resume Permits for Gas Exportswww.nytimes.com President Biden had paused new natural gas export terminals to assess their effects on the climate, economy and national security. A federal judge disagreed.

The dissenting opinions in the immunity case should be taught in every high school civics class. They serve as a perfect summary (and now eulogy) of the founding principles of our nation. Start on pg 68. Don’t stop until you finish Justice Jackson’s dissent on pg 98. static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics...

How are courts now to enforce decisions such as United Stated v. Nixon? In that case Nixon could have simply continued to withhold the tapes after the unanimous decision. Sure he would have been in contempt, but he would be immune from prosecution for contempt.

The American people must rise up and march on the court to demand major reforms—including expansion and term rotation—be enacted before the end of Biden’s administration.

Things are bad but all the more reason for optimism of the will and rejection of doomerism and nihilism. Only way out is through.

Step 5. Call your lawmakers and demand stronger legislative action on renewable energy, electricity transmission infrastructure, residential electrification, environmental protections, methane leak mitigation, and a rapid fossil fuel phaseout.

Dealing with a heatwave? Cool down fast with these quirky tips: 1. Eat spicy food - triggers sweat for evaporative cooling. 2. Douse your wrists - cold water cools blood. 3. Stay hydrated - water-rich fruits beat just H2O. 4. Use peppermint - cools skin apple.news/ARpJR2ckGSVe...

How to cool down quickly: 4 surprising, science-backed ways to cope with a heatwaveapple.news Top tip: focus on cooling your hands, not face. June 26, 2024 Admit it: you’re currently feeling somewhere between uncomfortably warm and on the verge of spontaneously combusting. Not that we’re judgi...

This is a nice summary by Julia Steinberger of the root cause of the environmental crises we face: the persistence of an antidemocratic economic system designed for unchecked wealth accumulation. Neoliberal ideology gives “free-reign over our societies to corporations, not citizens.”

What we are up against "Exposing the secret history of the making of the #climate crisis should change everything about how we act to stop it." by @JKSteinberger link.medium.com/zwzYHszOPKb

link.medium.com

They will hit the market in *Japan* not in the US. All these cool new EV options people can buy in Asia but American consumers are denied access to is a striking example of how the US has lost its edge as a global leader.

The highly anticipated electric Honda N-VAN e will officially hit the market in October. Honda announced its new electric N-Van will start at $15,500 (2,439,800 yen) as it looks to ramp up EV sales. 🔌💡 electrek.co/2024/06/13/h...

Honda is launching its new electric N-VAN e starting at $15,500electrek.co The highly anticipated electric Honda N-VAN e will officially hit the market in October. Honda announced its new electric N-Van...

“A rough comparison between mortality costs and climate benefits shows that under the energy systems operating in most countries today, the cost of extra lives lost from a 700-kg increase in the weight of an electrified truck rivals the climate benefits of avoided greenhouse-gas emissions.”

*the same thing, anyway read our piece www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Make electric vehicles lighter to maximize climate and safety benefitswww.nature.com Tax heavy cars and shrink batteries to consolidate the gains from electrifying transport. Tax heavy cars and shrink batteries to consolidate the gains from electrifying transport.

It seems the primary argument is “academic freedom” but they open by noting Princeton has already successfully dissociated so that seems to undercut the case. Amory Lovins was an SME and I wonder what he thinks of the findings.

After 1.5 years, a Stanford Committee recommends continuing to take fossil fuel money for climate research. In a total own-goal, the report points out similarities btw this decision & Stanford's vote to keep taking tobacco $$ in 2007.

I’m going to start this. Raphael Warnock for president 2024. He is sharp, moral, intelligent, quick witted, and eloquent. Loves dogs. He would appeal to religious conservatives, progressives, moderates, climate activists, and would win Georgia’s electors. Keep Kamala for consistency.