As the planet gets hotter, engineers are racing to find ways to store energy on a massive scale, clearing the way for a transition to renewable electricity.
Droughts: The ‘Shrinking’ Of The Colorado River
- “Tier Drops,” by Lisa Owens Viani.
Regulations and apportioning that were set up 100 years ago are under pressure as the Colorado River shrinks. As climate change accelerates and record-breaking drought worsens, cities, tribes, and industries must prepare for a future with less water. (Online August 10)
The Coming Crisis Along the Colorado River
It’s past time to get real about the Southwest’s hardest-working river.
About 40 million people rely on the Colorado River as it flows from Wyoming to Mexico. But overuse and climate change have contributed to its reservoirs drying up at such a rapid rate that the probability of disastrous disruptions to the deliveries of water and hydroelectric power across the Southwest have become increasingly likely. Now the seven states that depend on the river must negotiate major cuts in water use by mid-August or have them imposed by the federal government.
Those cuts are merely the beginning as the region struggles to adapt to an increasingly arid West. The rules for operating the river’s shrinking reservoirs expire in 2026, and those seven states must forge a new agreement on water use for farmers, businesses and cities.
Cover Preview: Nature Magazine – August 4, 2022
Capital gains
An individual’s social network and community — their ‘social capital’ — has been thought to influence outcomes ranging from earnings to health. But measuring social capital is challenging. In two papers in this week’s issue, Raj Chetty and his colleagues use data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook to construct a Social Capital Atlas containing measures of social capital for each ZIP code, high school and college in the United States. The researchers measure three types of social capital: connectedness between different types of people, social cohesion and civic engagement. They find that children who grow up in communities where people of low and high socio-economic status interact more have substantially greater chances of rising out of poverty. The team then examines what might limit social interactions across class lines, finding a roughly equal contribution from lack of exposure — because children in different socio-economic groups go to different schools, for example — and friending bias, the tendency for people to befriend people similar to them.
Headlines: China Live-Fire Military Drills, Politics In Italy, Sri Lanka Economy
China conducts live-fire military drills. Plus: Sri Lanka’s new economic plan, an alliance between Italy’s centre-left and centrists, and Japan’s ‘roll-the-dice train’.
Front Page: Wall Street Journal – August 4, 2022
China Fires Missiles Around Taiwan After Pelosi Visit
The Chinese military launched the live-fire drills after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi angered Beijing by visiting the island.40 min ago5 min read
River Walks: Trosa In Southeastern Sweden (4K)
Trosa, a small town by the Baltic sea that sleeps through the winter. During summer the whole town suddenly wakes up and becomes a bustling meeting point. People arrive in masses; city dwellers come looking for some peace and quiet in their summer cabins in the area, and foreigners visiting the town on their vacation to Sweden.
With the nickname “Världens ände”, translated from Swedish to mean the world’s end, this charming coastal town attracts visitors of the more unknown kind as well as the cultural elite. Don’t be surprised if you run into the Swedish prince Carl Philip or one of the guys from ABBA in the queue at the grocery store. Word has it that they are all very sympathetic people.
Cover: National Wildlife Magazine – Aug/Sep 2022
National Wildlife Magazine – August/September 2022
Burning Up
Heat, drought and wildfires are ravaging western wildlife while conservationists try to help ecosystems adapt
By Brianna Randall – Conservation, Aug 02, 2022
Dead mussels lie along the Pacific shore of Vancouver, British Columbia, during 2021’s summer heat wave. Scientists estimate that the record-breaking heat killed more than 1 billion marine animals off the coasts of British Columbia and Washington state.
(Photo by Christopher Harley/University of British Columbia)
GASPING SALMON WITH INFECTED LESIONS. Emaciated deer searching sagebrush flats for water. Clams and mussels boiled to death in their shells. Last summer, temperatures in the Northwest soared to record highs in the triple digits, killing more than 1 billion marine animals in the Salish Sea and stressing wildlife from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains. Simultaneously, ongoing drought in the Southwest—which began in 2000 and is the region’s driest 22-year period in 1,200 years—is causing plants to wither, springs to dry up and wildfires to engulf entire landscapes.
Summer 2022: New Books
1. If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal by Justin Gregg
Rarely have I heard of a book with a weirder title, but Grant explains this book about how animals think is actually as useful as it is interesting. “A dazzling, delightful read on what animal cognition can teach us about our own mental shortcomings,” he writes. “I tore through his book in one sitting. I dare you to read it without rethinking some of your basic ideas about intelligence.” (It’s out August 9th.)
2. The Neuroscience of You by Chantel Prat
“Move over, outer space–this book is a stunning tour through inner space. This neuroscientist has a rare, remarkable gift for making neurons sing and dendrites dance. She’s written the smartest, clearest, and funniest book I’ve ever read about the brain,” Grant enthuses about The Neuroscience of You. (Out August 2nd.)
3. What We Owe the Future by Will MacAskill
Grant isn’t the only public thinker raving about this book by an Oxford philosopher about our “moral responsibility to do right by our grandchildren’s grandchildren.” “This book will change your sense of how grand the sweep of human history could be, where you fit into it, and how much you could do to change it for the better. It’s as simple, and as ambitious, as that,” says Ezra Klein. (Out August 16th.)
4. Longpath by Ari Wallach
Next on the list is another book about long-term thinking (apparently a preoccupation of Grant’s at the moment). He explains his second pick on the topic this way: “This book is an antidote to nearsightedness. A futurist offers an actionable guide for planning multiple generations in the future.” (Also out August 16th.)
5. Both/And Thinking by Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis
This book by a pair of business school professors is specifically aimed at leaders trying to navigate uncertain times. “Life is full of paradoxes, and too often we ignore them or try to erase them when we should be learning how to manage them. Two top scholars of paradox examine how to embrace tensions and overcome tradeoffs,” says Grant. Fellow business writer Tom Peters is more succinct: “This book is, pure and simple, a masterpiece.” (Out August 9th)
Read more at Inc. Magazine
Walking Tour: Ankara – Capital Of Turkey (2022)
Ankara, Turkey’s cosmopolitan capital, sits in the country’s central Anatolia region. It’s a center for the performing arts, home to the State Opera and Ballet, the Presidential Symphony Orchestra and several national theater companies. Overlooking the city is Anitkabir, the enormous hilltop mausoleum of Kemal Atatürk, modern Turkey’s first president, who declared Ankara the capital in 1923.
Previews: Times Literary Supplement – Aug 5, 2022
This week’s @TheTLS , featuring Marjorie Perloff on Robert Lowell’s Memoirs; A. N. Wilson on Lord Northcliffe; @funesdamemorius on Aleister Crowley; @MarenMeinhardt on Manon Gropius; @JuliaBell on Lillian Fishman; @chrismullinexmp on political lives – and more.
