Without efforts to control human-caused global warming, we should consider the current extremes a preview of coming attractions. While the mega drought continues in the west and southwest: Although the 2021 summer monsoon was good – well above average in some places – it was not enough to counter the cumulative shortfalls of the preceding years. The cumulative precipitation for the 20-month period was the lowest on record, dating back to...
Read More »Our relationship with water
The Western U.S. and northern Mexico are experiencing their driest period in at least 1,200 years, according to the new study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The last comparable — though not as severe — multidecade megadrought occurred in the 1500s, when the West was still largely inhabited by Native American tribes. NPR reminds us that there is still a significant drought happening in large parts of the US in its reporting on...
Read More »Now
History is the study of the past. We can not undo the past; but we can make use of knowledge of the past to help us understand what is going on now so as to make the right choices, to take the right actions for issues of the present now; and to better our odds for survival into the future. ——-past—————————————————–|now|———future——- Now is the present time interval (one of definable duration) between the past and the future that moves forward...
Read More »A Tale of Two Freezes, One Year On
A quick note on the current state of affairs within the current Texas freeze, and the years worth of political nonsense that is the Texas Legislature. The fine folks over at Space City Weather, do a great job of keeping the Houston metro area informed of weather conditions, but their two leads, Eric and Matt also look at the broad perspective and encompass weather related knock ons, such as the electric grid, or our beloved ERCOT. The Texas...
Read More »Digging out
With two feet of snow and 40-50 mph gusts of wind yesterday and wind chill temps of -15 degrees F.,, it was quite a day this Jan. 29. I am steadily working on digging out of the snow this night and into Sunday but did not lose power nor heat so feel fortunate. I think Dan is busy today too. Maybe an update later??? ...
Read More »OPEC’s January Oil Market Report
RJS: Focus on Fracking December global oil shortage was 1,240,000 barrels per day as OPEC output was 625,000 barrels per day short of quota; global oil shortage for 2021 was 1,446,300 barrels of oil per day. Tuesday of this week saw the release of OPEC’s January Oil Market Report, which includes OPEC & global oil data for December, and hence it gives us a picture of the global oil supply & demand situation for the fifth month after...
Read More »Farm in a Square, Harvest in a Circle
All throughout the Midwest, Plains, pretty much anywhere that doesn’t get adequate rain you can look on Google maps and see square fields with bright green circles in the middle. These are pivot fields that are irrigated from aquifers below. The corners of those fields are usually left barren. No, these are not the corners I am referring to. The square fields of corners I am referring to go back to biblical days. Some years back I was having...
Read More »Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment
Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment Incoming GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has just announced his choice for Secretary of Natural Resources, Andrew Wheeler, a longtime coal lobbyist, who served as Trump’s EPA director in the latter part of his term. He has an utterly abysmal environmental record, so bad I cannot think of a single thing he did that I can applaud or even just vaguely approve of. It was just...
Read More »One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm
One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm, Michael Smith, Agricultural Economist and Farmer In my search to find sustainable sources of organic material to turn into viable soil modification vectors, I had been struggling to source material to add to the Padina sands that are in abundance in our lands. See, in late 2020 we had five tons of compost brought in all at once and we scattered it here and there. Before that we had brought...
Read More »Oil Prices Up 55% and Natural Gas Prices Up 47%
Oil prices rose 55% in 2021, the most since 2009, while natural gas prices rose 47%, the most since 2016, Focus on Fracking, RJS Oil prices rose for a second week after the initial Omicron selloff, as oil traders and most everyone else have become convinced that Omicron poses little risk to oil demand . . . after rising 4.3% to $73.79 a barrel last week on trouble in Libya, a big drawdown on US crude supplies, and on a refinery explosion in...
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