b. PJM owns NO electricity transmission lines - zero
c. PJM owns not one electric grid asset
d. PJM reports NO revenue and NO profit
e. It is a privately held "non-profit" -<<< Doug chuckles really?
It is a fundamental axiom that the US business model, is anti-long-term-investment. This is why Japan, China, France have superior high speed rail. No businessman today, will take a 20 year ROI. Barely 10yr ROI. When the Profit making Service of Electricity is decoupled from the long term investment - the customer suffers in price and quality. The old regulated monopolies were far superior in technology develoment for things that YOU CAN SWITCH - like - your electric company - you got ONE wire coming. No choice.
So what does PJM Interconnect really do?
It arbitrages Long Term CAPEX Infrastructure companies against each other, to group money.
PJM is a privately held company, managing the public utility service of 65 million electric customers - without ANY real oversight.
Yet - PJM - who owns zero assets, is funding grid modernization - this is good - but --- What is the equitable redistribution methodology? Do WV customers paying thru their electric rates, get the same PJM grid modernization investments as the tony rich areas Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. -
Who thinks little Logan County WV who pays a premium for this service, gets any benefits? - I don't. I think they go to wealthy Northern VA, Nashbille, DC, NJ-- NC
PJM Interconnection has been actively involved in several grid modernization projects to enhance system reliability and accommodate growing electricity demand. Here are some specifics:
Critical Grid Upgrades: Approved by the PJM Board of Managers, these projects aim to expand the regional transmission system to meet electricity demand growth and future capacity needs. The estimated cost of these upgrades is approximately $5 billion. The projects include new substations, transmission lines, and improvements to existing facilities1.
Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP): This plan identifies transmission system additions and improvements needed to keep electricity flowing to millions of people throughout PJM's region. The 2023 RTEP report includes a summary of reliability, market efficiency, and operational performance studies2.
Reliability Resource Initiative: PJM is considering options for fast-track interconnection for shovel-ready projects to meet grid reliability needs. This initiative aims to improve market access and resource adequacy by reforming the process for transferring capacity interconnection rights and using surplus interconnection capacity3.
These projects and initiatives are part of PJM's ongoing efforts to modernize the grid and ensure reliable electricity delivery to its customers.
> No businessman today, will take a 20 year ROI. Barely 10yr ROI.
As a sidebar, how does that get fixed, for projects that need it? I expect it would take some kind of tax incentive (cue the "big corporate tax giveaways" crowd).
What is interesting to note, is to ask the question of "What is basis of competition" for competitive (hmm?) power plant generators, and Transmission line owners.
Answer: Umm - there is zero competitive normal basis of competition for long term investment like a power line. They don't have means for short term productivity. Even long term installation productivity - they use the same wiring, steel towers, transformers they buy like everyone else. So the competion is only on who takes a lower margin. When you take a lower margin, you forego your CAPEX, even recuring engineering and deferred maintainance.
How can a power plant, once built compete? Fuel source, but they buy the same oil, coal, get the same wind and sun. So its mostly, purchasing of these if an expense (coal, oil) or investment spread out - solar plants, wind turbines.
Best explanation of PJM and all other RTOs is in “Shorting the Grid” by Meredith Angwin. They were created by government mandate and completely unaccountable.
This was a stupid Clinton decision. I would agree, that for national security, and for helping balance electric loads and support for blackouts, coordination is good. But there was coordination before this.
Ah! Our usual human nature problem...getting the cart before the horse! We can't just get rid of old energy sources before our "newer better" ones are equal to the task. Of course, one of the big grappling points is what do we do when an old power plant has reached the end of viability? Do we build a newer, more efficient power plant that is also spews less pollutants? Or do we try to make solar and wind defy nature? Once again, we are being told to sort ourselves into an only binary argument, when reality and history tell us otherwise.
Another knotty issue rarely discussed is why we embarked on the crazed attitude that we should always, 365 days out of the year, expect our homes' interior temperature to be 70 or so degrees by virtue of electronic magic (central heating and a/c). We seem to have totally ditched the idea of building structures that ameliorate the weather, keeping us warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
We do have better windows and better insulation, when those are chosen, but we still build houses without roof overhangs, with black roofs in hot climates, with windows that don't have screens or can't be opened, we still allow businesses to build big boxes with no real ventilation and flat roofs.
If we are going to be realistic about climate change we need to address the fact that wild weather patterns are going to disrupt the grid no matter what and consider what we can do to make our homes tolerable during a power outage as well as how our homes can be made to maintain more ideal temperatures passively.
We’re not very forward looking. We have a bird’s eye view of the Sphere in Las Vegas. I can tell you where some of Kamala’s advertising is going. Apparently she’s going to be here on Halloween….boo (pun intended.)
Thanks for this article! Very sad, but believable. I grew up on farm in Missouri. I have memories of the county extension agent, a very kind man, coming out to our farm every month to check on our hog lots and wells. We were not allowed to keep over 300 head and the well which watered the hog lot could not be used for humans. Now, somehow, the same agencies have approved these giant hog operations (I won't call them farms) that have over 6000 animals in less space than my dad's hog lot. Nothing will ever convince me that these CAFO outfits are safe, humane or not ecologically damaging, or that money has not passed hands to endorse them.
Our politicians aren’t paying attention to how we’re going to be impacted by “green energy” now, but they will be. They’ll do it when they start seeing it as a winning issue for them. I don’t know why we always have to go through these painful periods as government thinks it knows best, and manages to make things worse, at least in the short run. Usually it’s people in the private sector who eventually start coming up with better solutions. Meanwhile, I’m interested, but trying not to worry too much. Maybe seeing what’s happening in Cuba will help us?
Per "Climate Arguing".... As a very young person that spent lots of time in the library, I recall reading about all the geological and atmospheric dynamics on our planet that have occurred over the eons and thought to myself..."geez, it happened all the time and it all could happen again".
It's pretty much guided my personal cosmology about pretty much everything with "where and how we grow food" and "where and how we build housing" being primary considerations. Talk about that stuff here and I'm treated to snort laughter and relegated to the furthest fringe. Talk about it in China, and I get a dozen post-grad students extemporizing at length on the topic with extremely relevant insights.
Which reminds me...In 11 days I'll be in Wuhan. Tune into this channel for updates and posts about China and how it differs from the imaginary country our dipshit media has invented.
(Disclaimer...by reading this post you understand and agree in perpetuity that the author is not promoting or demoting one or the other country, just trying to develop a commonly understood reality about what's happening now.)
VPN. "Everyone" has one, but it has to be a good one. All VPN's are not created equal. The firewall...its realities and its non-realities... could be a small dissertation by itself.
You would be surprised at how many young people in China have IG and FB accounts.
Business needs to get out and into the world. The government understands this, and acts accordingly.
What we read about China and the reality on the ground in China are two different stories. If you read the policy papers coming out of China, you would understand that there are a lot of really smart people running things. Big Daddy is the figurehead. Everyone knows this. What's actually being developed and acted upon is different...it's on target, highly intelligent, and executed almost flawlessly. No one here gets to read about that part.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, China’s state media excelled at boosting international support for its political and economic systems. Compared to the placebo group, exposure to Chinese messages tripled the proportion of respondents who preferred the Chinese political model to its U.S. counterpart, from 16% to 54%. The exposure also nearly doubled the preference for the Chinese economic model over the US one, raising it from 30 percent to 58 percent. Head-to-head, global audience preferences still shifted toward China, albeit less dramatically (from 16 to 32 percent in the political domain and from 30 to 40 percent in the economic domain).China’s influence operations possess a distinct edge in molding global attitudes in its favor."
Because the rest of the world isn't dumb. They can see that our policies mostly benefit us, period. We are not offering a vision for the future that benefits them. China is offering them a different vision, and it's not the ideologically encumbered blather that our media uses to "explain" things.
Forget all the ideological stuff that our media focuses on. People in developing countries don't give a shit about democracy, socialism, or any other "-ism". They want development. China is a development machine.
"This would seem to be an issue worthy of public debate, rather than something implemented by the administrative state on everyone’s behalf without the average citizen’s input."
Question... Just what in the blue blazin' hell did you spike your coffee with this morning?
What's that? Say again?
Oh. Sarcasm.
Well *okay*, then. Was seriously afraid you weren't.
I'm not superstitious, but I am a little-sticious. Might want to forget the court and throw 'em up on the barn roof for good luck. But ya' need to do that when the moon is just right for maximum effect, of course...
It makes me remember several unpleasant seasons where I helped Devon, son of the neighbor pig farmer, castrate little piglings. I was the "holder" because I couldn't do the other part without puking.
Yeah. I was a "city kid" (small town, actually) but I grew up working on several farms down home, starting at age 11.
Animal husbandry is not for the faint of heart. Had more than a couple of experiences that would have driven a lesser kid (coughs, clears throat) nuts.
Good morning. Another warm fall morning. The mothership is reporting on polls and their reliability, and the ways polling can go wrong. One way is when people (like a certain commenter named CynthiaW) don’t answer their phone for pollsters.
Good article. Sometimes it seems like the “green” environmentalists want our power grid to run on “hopeium”. But the data centers (like one I used to work at) that power on our information economy need reliable power, and supplement that with massive redundant diesel generators and massive redundant battery packs (which power a data center during an outage until the generators can start).
I don't always answer my phone either, because I get fed up with the constant calls about selling my property or inspecting my (relatively new) roof. I'd be less annoyed if the caller didn't sound like someone who spoke English as a third language and mispronounced my name. I also dislike polling calls because all the questions are gotcha questions: Are you voting for the candidate who supports life (liberty, guns, take your pick) or do you not care about those?
But I'm retired, I have a smaller number of offspring and CynthiaW has a lot more frying pans to juggle. Give the woman a break and be grateful she's here!
The BBC's editorial take on it is kind of weird. They say this "disproves" ideas like, "The tropics are where civilizations go to die," or "The Maya lived in isolated villages instead of cities." Such concepts are beyond strawmen: they're like figures cut out of old newspapers.
Civilizations everywhere on earth "die" and are replaced either by new civilizations (city based) or by non-urban cultures, which are then replaced by the next thing. What's different about the tropics is that the ruins, and especially organic artifacts like clothes and written material, are lost more quickly than in a drier, cooler climate. And "we" (modern Western researchers) have known the Maya lived in cities with highly sophisticated technology and social organization for at least 250 years.
A recent assignment in my daughter's World Archeology class required students to read an article from a general publication like the NYT and compare it to the sources it quoted. She found significant distortions, apparently arising from the desire to make the article interesting and accessible to a general audience.
"She found significant distortions, apparently arising from the desire to make the article interesting and accessible to a general audience."
I find that in many publications. When you follow the links to the source, you often find something significantly different from what the "front" publication said. Sometimes you find the sources say so little - but using many words! - that any firm assertion is in itself a "distortion."
That is American media in a nutshell. The "desire to make the article interesting and accessible to a general audience" flavors everything, distorting the story to fit the particular medias narrative.
LIDAR scanning of the Amazon forests has also revealed large cities and complex infrastructure. IOW, there were lots of civilizations. We barely have a clue to them.
They've found really interesting human-built dry land in the Amazon basin. Again, once you realize what you're looking for (or at), it's not difficult to find.
> The research suggests that when Maya civilisations collapsed from 800AD onwards, it was partly because they were so densely populated and could not survive climate problems. <
That would be 700 years before Europeans came around. Seven centuries is a very long time for accurate cultural memory about a defunct civilization to persist.
It highlights your point that the evidence is too scant to support the extrapolations based on modern-day assumptions. But we are story-telling creatures, so we’ll tell stories about the limited clues we have to work with—risk of malinterpretation be damned.
"Seven centuries is a very long time for accurate cultural memory about a defunct civilization to persist."
True, but it's not too long for evidence to persist of past settlement and agricultural patterns, of food consumption changes, and of rainfall/temperature patterns, once you know what you're looking for.
It's still a long way from "proof," no matter how confident writers like to sound, but there is a lot of evidence indicating that, like Western European civilization during the Climate Optimum of the 9th to 13th centuries, the Classical and Post-Classical Maya expanded dramatically, built up population, began farming more marginal land to support the population, and then couldn't keep it going when a shift in climate occurred.
and they were also working with a more fragile ecosystem with shallow rooted trees and plants. Shallow rooted vegetation have a lower survival rate against both drought and flood.
Yes. Most folks are unaware that Europeans had outposts and developed civilization on Greenland for 400 years until it finally flamed out due to environmental changes, erosion from agricultural practices that decimated the soils and that shallow rooted vegetation.
I had read that, for all their sophistication in things like astronomy, the Mayans were done in by their limited “slash and burn” agriculture, which exhausted agricultural lands.
I think that’s right. The archeological tools and instruments have only improved, enabling better interpretive methodologies. It’s the interpretive in-filling probably reflects much more on our times than it does theirs. Even where there’s an historical record this is the commonly the case.
Good morning. At least, when our electrical grid looks like Cuba's, I don't expect to have a household of 12.
Brenda from the science team was going on about the global warming hysteria in the Current Environmental Issues articles, and how she's going to present alternative perspectives when she teaches CEI. "I'm so upset about this!!!" she said, and I replied, "I'm not, because I'm post-menopausal. It's such a relief." I thought she might hit me.
Brenda is ten years younger than I am. She does not recognize all her symptoms, but I do, and so I have more patience with some of her fits and starts than I otherwise might.
It’s risky, I’d say. If any one group has been consistently targeted for silencing, it’s got to be the eco-skeptic community. It’s been going on for a good chunk of this still-young century. Skepticism about catastrophic climate change can result in social ostracism to some extent. Skeptics tend to keep their mouths shut about it, or comment anonymously.
"Skepticism about catastrophic climate change can result in social ostracism to some extent."
I don't think that will be an issue for our group, as long as she avoids partisan propaganda. I've been reading the articles to Daughter D and pointing out where the authors use hysterical, catastrophizing language instead of simply stating facts, as well as many instances of the question-begging fallacy.
I'm gonna take a different pespective on PJM Interconnect. https://www.pjm.com/about-pjm/who-we-are and https://www.pjm.com/about-pjm/who-we-are/pjm-board
NO SEC 10K.
a. PJM owns NO electricity generation - zero
b. PJM owns NO electricity transmission lines - zero
c. PJM owns not one electric grid asset
d. PJM reports NO revenue and NO profit
e. It is a privately held "non-profit" -<<< Doug chuckles really?
It is a fundamental axiom that the US business model, is anti-long-term-investment. This is why Japan, China, France have superior high speed rail. No businessman today, will take a 20 year ROI. Barely 10yr ROI. When the Profit making Service of Electricity is decoupled from the long term investment - the customer suffers in price and quality. The old regulated monopolies were far superior in technology develoment for things that YOU CAN SWITCH - like - your electric company - you got ONE wire coming. No choice.
So what does PJM Interconnect really do?
It arbitrages Long Term CAPEX Infrastructure companies against each other, to group money.
PJM is a privately held company, managing the public utility service of 65 million electric customers - without ANY real oversight.
Yet - PJM - who owns zero assets, is funding grid modernization - this is good - but --- What is the equitable redistribution methodology? Do WV customers paying thru their electric rates, get the same PJM grid modernization investments as the tony rich areas Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. -
Who thinks little Logan County WV who pays a premium for this service, gets any benefits? - I don't. I think they go to wealthy Northern VA, Nashbille, DC, NJ-- NC
PJM Interconnection has been actively involved in several grid modernization projects to enhance system reliability and accommodate growing electricity demand. Here are some specifics:
Critical Grid Upgrades: Approved by the PJM Board of Managers, these projects aim to expand the regional transmission system to meet electricity demand growth and future capacity needs. The estimated cost of these upgrades is approximately $5 billion. The projects include new substations, transmission lines, and improvements to existing facilities1.
Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP): This plan identifies transmission system additions and improvements needed to keep electricity flowing to millions of people throughout PJM's region. The 2023 RTEP report includes a summary of reliability, market efficiency, and operational performance studies2.
Reliability Resource Initiative: PJM is considering options for fast-track interconnection for shovel-ready projects to meet grid reliability needs. This initiative aims to improve market access and resource adequacy by reforming the process for transferring capacity interconnection rights and using surplus interconnection capacity3.
These projects and initiatives are part of PJM's ongoing efforts to modernize the grid and ensure reliable electricity delivery to its customers.
> No businessman today, will take a 20 year ROI. Barely 10yr ROI.
As a sidebar, how does that get fixed, for projects that need it? I expect it would take some kind of tax incentive (cue the "big corporate tax giveaways" crowd).
What is interesting to note, is to ask the question of "What is basis of competition" for competitive (hmm?) power plant generators, and Transmission line owners.
Answer: Umm - there is zero competitive normal basis of competition for long term investment like a power line. They don't have means for short term productivity. Even long term installation productivity - they use the same wiring, steel towers, transformers they buy like everyone else. So the competion is only on who takes a lower margin. When you take a lower margin, you forego your CAPEX, even recuring engineering and deferred maintainance.
How can a power plant, once built compete? Fuel source, but they buy the same oil, coal, get the same wind and sun. So its mostly, purchasing of these if an expense (coal, oil) or investment spread out - solar plants, wind turbines.
Best explanation of PJM and all other RTOs is in “Shorting the Grid” by Meredith Angwin. They were created by government mandate and completely unaccountable.
This was a stupid Clinton decision. I would agree, that for national security, and for helping balance electric loads and support for blackouts, coordination is good. But there was coordination before this.
Ah! Our usual human nature problem...getting the cart before the horse! We can't just get rid of old energy sources before our "newer better" ones are equal to the task. Of course, one of the big grappling points is what do we do when an old power plant has reached the end of viability? Do we build a newer, more efficient power plant that is also spews less pollutants? Or do we try to make solar and wind defy nature? Once again, we are being told to sort ourselves into an only binary argument, when reality and history tell us otherwise.
Another knotty issue rarely discussed is why we embarked on the crazed attitude that we should always, 365 days out of the year, expect our homes' interior temperature to be 70 or so degrees by virtue of electronic magic (central heating and a/c). We seem to have totally ditched the idea of building structures that ameliorate the weather, keeping us warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
We do have better windows and better insulation, when those are chosen, but we still build houses without roof overhangs, with black roofs in hot climates, with windows that don't have screens or can't be opened, we still allow businesses to build big boxes with no real ventilation and flat roofs.
If we are going to be realistic about climate change we need to address the fact that wild weather patterns are going to disrupt the grid no matter what and consider what we can do to make our homes tolerable during a power outage as well as how our homes can be made to maintain more ideal temperatures passively.
We’re not very forward looking. We have a bird’s eye view of the Sphere in Las Vegas. I can tell you where some of Kamala’s advertising is going. Apparently she’s going to be here on Halloween….boo (pun intended.)
The Sphere... it's pretty cool.
Very cool
Good morning! Things here at early voting are running smoothly.
I found this article and thought I'd share it. I am so grateful for people like this farmer. This is what stubborness is for.
https://www.agweb.com/news/business/farmland/farmer-endures-20-years-usda-regulation-over-half-acre-puddle
Thanks for this article! Very sad, but believable. I grew up on farm in Missouri. I have memories of the county extension agent, a very kind man, coming out to our farm every month to check on our hog lots and wells. We were not allowed to keep over 300 head and the well which watered the hog lot could not be used for humans. Now, somehow, the same agencies have approved these giant hog operations (I won't call them farms) that have over 6000 animals in less space than my dad's hog lot. Nothing will ever convince me that these CAFO outfits are safe, humane or not ecologically damaging, or that money has not passed hands to endorse them.
Good story. I hope he wins.
Our politicians aren’t paying attention to how we’re going to be impacted by “green energy” now, but they will be. They’ll do it when they start seeing it as a winning issue for them. I don’t know why we always have to go through these painful periods as government thinks it knows best, and manages to make things worse, at least in the short run. Usually it’s people in the private sector who eventually start coming up with better solutions. Meanwhile, I’m interested, but trying not to worry too much. Maybe seeing what’s happening in Cuba will help us?
Per "Climate Arguing".... As a very young person that spent lots of time in the library, I recall reading about all the geological and atmospheric dynamics on our planet that have occurred over the eons and thought to myself..."geez, it happened all the time and it all could happen again".
It's pretty much guided my personal cosmology about pretty much everything with "where and how we grow food" and "where and how we build housing" being primary considerations. Talk about that stuff here and I'm treated to snort laughter and relegated to the furthest fringe. Talk about it in China, and I get a dozen post-grad students extemporizing at length on the topic with extremely relevant insights.
Which reminds me...In 11 days I'll be in Wuhan. Tune into this channel for updates and posts about China and how it differs from the imaginary country our dipshit media has invented.
(Disclaimer...by reading this post you understand and agree in perpetuity that the author is not promoting or demoting one or the other country, just trying to develop a commonly understood reality about what's happening now.)
Look forward to hearing from you, Kurt!
How do you deal with the "Great Firewall of China" when you are there? Or do you?
VPN. "Everyone" has one, but it has to be a good one. All VPN's are not created equal. The firewall...its realities and its non-realities... could be a small dissertation by itself.
You would be surprised at how many young people in China have IG and FB accounts.
I would have thought that most of the more common VPNs were blocked.
I find the PRC interesting, in the same way I found the old Soviet Union interesting -- as strategic threats to be studied and understood.
Business needs to get out and into the world. The government understands this, and acts accordingly.
What we read about China and the reality on the ground in China are two different stories. If you read the policy papers coming out of China, you would understand that there are a lot of really smart people running things. Big Daddy is the figurehead. Everyone knows this. What's actually being developed and acted upon is different...it's on target, highly intelligent, and executed almost flawlessly. No one here gets to read about that part.
A little something from The Diplomat....
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, China’s state media excelled at boosting international support for its political and economic systems. Compared to the placebo group, exposure to Chinese messages tripled the proportion of respondents who preferred the Chinese political model to its U.S. counterpart, from 16% to 54%. The exposure also nearly doubled the preference for the Chinese economic model over the US one, raising it from 30 percent to 58 percent. Head-to-head, global audience preferences still shifted toward China, albeit less dramatically (from 16 to 32 percent in the political domain and from 30 to 40 percent in the economic domain).China’s influence operations possess a distinct edge in molding global attitudes in its favor."
Why?
Because the rest of the world isn't dumb. They can see that our policies mostly benefit us, period. We are not offering a vision for the future that benefits them. China is offering them a different vision, and it's not the ideologically encumbered blather that our media uses to "explain" things.
Forget all the ideological stuff that our media focuses on. People in developing countries don't give a shit about democracy, socialism, or any other "-ism". They want development. China is a development machine.
That makes sense, thanks.
"This would seem to be an issue worthy of public debate, rather than something implemented by the administrative state on everyone’s behalf without the average citizen’s input."
Question... Just what in the blue blazin' hell did you spike your coffee with this morning?
What's that? Say again?
Oh. Sarcasm.
Well *okay*, then. Was seriously afraid you weren't.
I won’t be able to stop thinking about self-gelding all day. Thanks a lot.
“Ball’s in your court now.”
I'm not superstitious, but I am a little-sticious. Might want to forget the court and throw 'em up on the barn roof for good luck. But ya' need to do that when the moon is just right for maximum effect, of course...
https://emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/misc/pets/2011/vets_vs_guys.htm
It makes me remember several unpleasant seasons where I helped Devon, son of the neighbor pig farmer, castrate little piglings. I was the "holder" because I couldn't do the other part without puking.
Yeah. I was a "city kid" (small town, actually) but I grew up working on several farms down home, starting at age 11.
Animal husbandry is not for the faint of heart. Had more than a couple of experiences that would have driven a lesser kid (coughs, clears throat) nuts.
good one.
Don't you mean *two*?
posts passing each other in the ether...
WOW -- Out the 🚪 with you NOW!!!
Good morning. Another warm fall morning. The mothership is reporting on polls and their reliability, and the ways polling can go wrong. One way is when people (like a certain commenter named CynthiaW) don’t answer their phone for pollsters.
Good article. Sometimes it seems like the “green” environmentalists want our power grid to run on “hopeium”. But the data centers (like one I used to work at) that power on our information economy need reliable power, and supplement that with massive redundant diesel generators and massive redundant battery packs (which power a data center during an outage until the generators can start).
I don't always answer my phone either, because I get fed up with the constant calls about selling my property or inspecting my (relatively new) roof. I'd be less annoyed if the caller didn't sound like someone who spoke English as a third language and mispronounced my name. I also dislike polling calls because all the questions are gotcha questions: Are you voting for the candidate who supports life (liberty, guns, take your pick) or do you not care about those?
But I'm retired, I have a smaller number of offspring and CynthiaW has a lot more frying pans to juggle. Give the woman a break and be grateful she's here!
I tried to call her to talk to her to ask her about that, but she wouldn't answer the phone for me either.
You know, you should really write about the traditional-fuel-source-versus-green-energy subject more often.
There are only so many hours in the day, days in a week, weeks in a year... I'm sort of surprised he hasn't run out of energy for this yet.
You asked me the other day had I "met him". Have you? Is he pink with a fluffy tail... drum strapped to his chest, maybe?
" I'm sort of surprised he hasn't run out of energy for this yet."..... #MeToo
Either that or a dwarf on crystal meth sitting in a cave.
I could spend a week regaling everyone with my Linux-distro-installation escapades. That’s some true computer geek slapstick for ya! Comedy gold!
😱. Good god, man! At long last have you no decency!
I'm going to write about an interesting animal, just for variety.
That's soothing, at least.
I could write about murder, too.
I didn't think that was a subject you were familiar with. 🙂
Why not?
Because I don't have a particular one in mind right now, but maybe something will occur to me.
Plus, it will kill some time...
Archaeology news mentioned in a brief item at the Free Press. A newly discovered Mayan city:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmznzkly3go
The BBC's editorial take on it is kind of weird. They say this "disproves" ideas like, "The tropics are where civilizations go to die," or "The Maya lived in isolated villages instead of cities." Such concepts are beyond strawmen: they're like figures cut out of old newspapers.
Civilizations everywhere on earth "die" and are replaced either by new civilizations (city based) or by non-urban cultures, which are then replaced by the next thing. What's different about the tropics is that the ruins, and especially organic artifacts like clothes and written material, are lost more quickly than in a drier, cooler climate. And "we" (modern Western researchers) have known the Maya lived in cities with highly sophisticated technology and social organization for at least 250 years.
A recent assignment in my daughter's World Archeology class required students to read an article from a general publication like the NYT and compare it to the sources it quoted. She found significant distortions, apparently arising from the desire to make the article interesting and accessible to a general audience.
Excellent assignment, though.
"She found significant distortions, apparently arising from the desire to make the article interesting and accessible to a general audience."
I find that in many publications. When you follow the links to the source, you often find something significantly different from what the "front" publication said. Sometimes you find the sources say so little - but using many words! - that any firm assertion is in itself a "distortion."
That is American media in a nutshell. The "desire to make the article interesting and accessible to a general audience" flavors everything, distorting the story to fit the particular medias narrative.
LIDAR scanning of the Amazon forests has also revealed large cities and complex infrastructure. IOW, there were lots of civilizations. We barely have a clue to them.
They've found really interesting human-built dry land in the Amazon basin. Again, once you realize what you're looking for (or at), it's not difficult to find.
World famous archeologist Dr. Henry ("Indiana") Jones Jr. could not be reached for comment.
> The research suggests that when Maya civilisations collapsed from 800AD onwards, it was partly because they were so densely populated and could not survive climate problems. <
That would be 700 years before Europeans came around. Seven centuries is a very long time for accurate cultural memory about a defunct civilization to persist.
It highlights your point that the evidence is too scant to support the extrapolations based on modern-day assumptions. But we are story-telling creatures, so we’ll tell stories about the limited clues we have to work with—risk of malinterpretation be damned.
So, you're sayin' those stories Mayanot be true? Disappointed to hear that.
"Seven centuries is a very long time for accurate cultural memory about a defunct civilization to persist."
True, but it's not too long for evidence to persist of past settlement and agricultural patterns, of food consumption changes, and of rainfall/temperature patterns, once you know what you're looking for.
It's still a long way from "proof," no matter how confident writers like to sound, but there is a lot of evidence indicating that, like Western European civilization during the Climate Optimum of the 9th to 13th centuries, the Classical and Post-Classical Maya expanded dramatically, built up population, began farming more marginal land to support the population, and then couldn't keep it going when a shift in climate occurred.
and they were also working with a more fragile ecosystem with shallow rooted trees and plants. Shallow rooted vegetation have a lower survival rate against both drought and flood.
Yes, those rainforest environments are very vulnerable, in the short term, although they come back quickly when the disruption stops.
Yes. Most folks are unaware that Europeans had outposts and developed civilization on Greenland for 400 years until it finally flamed out due to environmental changes, erosion from agricultural practices that decimated the soils and that shallow rooted vegetation.
These conversations are so much nicer and more informative than TD or some of my other subscriptions lately. Thanks.
You're welcome.
"Climate Optimum"
A distant forebear of Original Optimum, maybe?
I had read that, for all their sophistication in things like astronomy, the Mayans were done in by their limited “slash and burn” agriculture, which exhausted agricultural lands.
Their astronomical observations and calculations were extremely complex. Dr. Barnhardt at the Maya Research Center is really into that topic.
I think that’s right. The archeological tools and instruments have only improved, enabling better interpretive methodologies. It’s the interpretive in-filling probably reflects much more on our times than it does theirs. Even where there’s an historical record this is the commonly the case.
Good morning. At least, when our electrical grid looks like Cuba's, I don't expect to have a household of 12.
Brenda from the science team was going on about the global warming hysteria in the Current Environmental Issues articles, and how she's going to present alternative perspectives when she teaches CEI. "I'm so upset about this!!!" she said, and I replied, "I'm not, because I'm post-menopausal. It's such a relief." I thought she might hit me.
😂
At least she knew what post-menopausal meant.
Brenda is ten years younger than I am. She does not recognize all her symptoms, but I do, and so I have more patience with some of her fits and starts than I otherwise might.
It’s risky, I’d say. If any one group has been consistently targeted for silencing, it’s got to be the eco-skeptic community. It’s been going on for a good chunk of this still-young century. Skepticism about catastrophic climate change can result in social ostracism to some extent. Skeptics tend to keep their mouths shut about it, or comment anonymously.
"comment anonymously"
*IncognitoG*...
Just sayin'...
"Skepticism about catastrophic climate change can result in social ostracism to some extent."
I don't think that will be an issue for our group, as long as she avoids partisan propaganda. I've been reading the articles to Daughter D and pointing out where the authors use hysterical, catastrophizing language instead of simply stating facts, as well as many instances of the question-begging fallacy.