u/swarrenlawrence

Guardian: "Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau," by Melody Schreiber.

"Guinea-Bissau has some of the highest rates of hepatitis B in the world, with ~18% of adults carrying the virus." May be transmitted from mother to child during birth, can also be transmitted from another parent, relatives, siblings or caregivers. "Children who are infected with hepatitis B in the first year of life are significantly more likely to develop severe outcomes, including chronic infection + liver cancer."

"The Bandim Health Project, run by Danish researchers Peter Aaby + Christine Stabell Benn, has operated in Guinea-Bissau for decades and is closely enmeshed in the country’s health system." Kennedy praised the Danish researchers at a recent anti-vaccine conference, calling them “the deities of vaccine research.” Kennedy claimed a prior study they conducted indicated that after vaccination, “you can have mass injuries, + catastrophic injuries, + they’re hiding in plain sight.”

He failed to mention a follow-up study from same researchers which found no effects at all. Classic cherry-picking. Kennedy “wants to make it so we don’t use a birth dose here in this country,” said Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician.

'Danish researchers plan to enroll 14,000 infants in the Guinea-Bissau trial, giving the hepatitis B vaccine to half at birth + withholding it from the rest for the first 6 weeks of life.' An ethics committee at researchers’ home institution University of Southern Denmark voted this week to proceed with the trial, + officials in Guinea-Bissau have also greenlit the project, which the health minister, Quinhin Nantote, initially said was suspended after international uproar earlier this year.

"Stig Børsen Hansen, a founding member who was 1 of 2 reviewers who presented the study to the Danish committee, resigned from the group in protest, citing major ethical issues" Three other members of the committee have also resigned in protest.

Suffice it to say that I would have resigned as well. RFK Jr wants to take us back to the Middle Ages before there were life-saving vaccines. The photo of course is not the neonatal but rather the second dose of vaccine.

AAAS: "Satellite reveals a world of ‘weird rivers’ shaped by humans, " by Paul Voosen.

For nearly 4 yrs in orbit, a radar satellite launched by NASA + CNES has been simultaneously measuring the water levels + breadth of rivers around the world. "They are dammed, braided, frozen, or drained—with behaviors hydrologic models struggle to capture, says Colin Gleason, a hydrologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst." Results were published last month in Geophysical Research Letters, which found that the vast majority of rivers are not simple, idealized channels. 

"Before SWOT’s launch in late 2022, scientists had no way to routinely monitor the planet’s rivers." Gauges measure depth in real time at particular locations, but they are sparse, especially in less developed countries. "Satellites could observe a river’s width or water level, but not both at the same time." To predict whether a river will dry up in a hot summer or flood after a heavy rain, the models make simple assumptions about the shape of its channel + how much water reaches it.

"To fill the gaps, researchers relied on models, increasingly informed by AI trained on these spotty data." The $1.2 B SWOT revisits most spots on Earth at 11-day intervals, mapping rivers + lakes as small as 30 meters wide. It broadcasts radar pulses from its belly, + 2 antennas separated by 10 meters catch the reflections, viewing the same patch of water from slightly different angles. Think of an analogy to our binocular vision. "Its accuracy + resolution have exceeded expectations," says Tamlin Pavelsky, a hydrologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"In the new study, Gleason + his colleagues examined some 68,000 rivers, comparing SWOT data with existing hydrologic models." They found the models struggle to capture the behavior of many rivers, especially in China, the Arctic, + in arid regions. "In some cases, models predicted rising river waters when SWOT in fact saw them falling." They also study "flow waves," long-lived surges that propagate downstream + cause flash floods. In the opposite direction, they document how far tidal water reaches upstream, astonishing in its reach into the Amazon basin.

I will leave it to your imagination how this might change our understanding of the weirding climate.

CanadianBroadcastingCorporation: "Wildfires, permafrost thaw in Canada causing even more climate change, new study shows," by Inayat Singh.

"Now, a new study is detailing how the fires, permafrost thaw + other changes are adding even more GHG into the atmosphere...speeding up climate change at a scale not currently reflected in global estimates." These "feedback loops," where CC triggers more carbon emissions that in turn feed into even more CC, could add 20 to 30% more warming above current estimates for this century, according to a new study by researchers at U.S. institutions, including Stanford + non-profits Environmental Defense Fund + Spark Climate Solutions. 

"Our remaining [allowable] carbon budget is most likely ... much smaller than what we think it is," said Ben Poulter, program director with Spark Climate Solutions + co-author of the paper," published recently in Environmental Research Letters, one of the most comprehensive reviews to date of these warming-induced emissions. 

"Current climate models mostly track emissions from [human] sources—burning of fossil fuels...food production + cattle rearing, decomposing waste + other human activities that release GHG." As a northern country, Canada is already warming faster than the world as a whole. This September, the federal government released its landmark Canada’s Changing Climate assessment, which said the country could be heading to a whopping 5ºC of warming in this century, bringing with it profound changes to people, ecosystems + landscapes. 

"During Canada's worst wildfire season on record in 2023, the flames released one billion tonnes [Gt] of carbon." If they were a country, the wildfires would have been the eighth highest emitter in the world. As seen in the photo, abrupt thawing, also triggered by warming as well as extreme weather like wildfires + rain, causes the land to cave or slump suddenly. Another area of concern is methane emissions from wetlands because a major spike in the growth of methane in the atmosphere starting around 2020...is not fully explained by direct human activities.

Quoting that old Pogo comic strip, "We have met the enemy + he is us."

AAAS: "North Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakes," by Richard Stone.

"Seismic activity around the Punggye-ri test site has increased since a large nuclear explosion in 2017." 

Years later, the crust around the Punggye-ri test site is still restless, according to a study published recently in Science. "Rather than fading away, earthquake [EQ] activity increased over the following years." Even in 2025, small EQ were occurring along 2 suspected faults near Mount Mantap, some as far as 20 to 30 km from the test site.

Finding adds a striking example to a growing catalog of human-induced EQ.  Injecting wastewater from oil + gas operations, mining, filling reservoirs, geothermal energy projects, + subsurface nuclear detonations have all been shown capable of triggering earthquakes, though typically not so persistent.

North Korea conducted six underground nuclear tests at Punggye-ri from 2006 to ’17. The final explosion, estimated to be equivalent to 100 to 250 kilotons of TNT, registered as a magnitude 6.3 seismic event by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). About 8 minutes later, a magnitude 4.1 event was interpreted as the collapse of its underground blast cavity. Apart from an isolated small earthquake soon afterward, there were no immediate aftershocks. 

Sustained activity in the area began about 3 weeks later. The researchers searched through seismic recordings collected in China + South Korea between 2008 + ’25, using the wave forms of known earthquakes as templates to find much fainter events buried in background noise. They identified 1399 earthquakes near the Punggye-ri site + determined precise locations for 955. Most were tiny earthquakes below magnitude 2. 

But instead of fading after 2017, their frequency increased through 2025, as did the total "seismic moment" released by the sequence—the combined size of all the earthquakes.

I have no data—if any exist—on radiation releases following these tests, but the cloud of dust in the photo is impressive, + we do know US testing in Nevada clearly released radionuclides ultimately affecting downwinders. One more good reason not to resume testing as the current administration has clearly signaled it wants to do.

AAAS: "Future Forests," by Katie Langin.

"We can’t just sit on our haunches and wait for nature to take care of itself." says Greg O'Neil, working for British Columbia Ministry of Forests. “We’re living in a completely different climate than when a lot of those trees originally established,” says Marin Chambers, a forest ecologist + self-described tree hugger, talking about a burned over area. 

Colorado was hit by the warmest winter on record this past year, as well as an alarmingly low snowpack. “So, the big question is how those forests are going to recover.” In the western US, researchers have documented little natural regeneration within many severely burned forests, so they are beginning to more forcibly promote 'assisted migration.'

The idea is that as the climate warms, forest managers should plant seedlings sourced from populations already adapted to warmer conditions. The risks are that unintended consequences might arise as trees are shifted around the landscape + exposed to new soils, precipitation patterns, + pests.

In Colorado, after the ash settled on ­Colorado’s devastating 2020 fire season, nonetheless they planted some 11,000 seedlings from seven conifer species at 98 burned sites, ranging from dry foothills in Colorado’s Front Range to subalpine forests a few hundred meters below timberline. "But it will be years before the scientists know which seedlings survived best during their vulnerable first few years." 

The species put to the test live in a variety of climate zones, including Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) + subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), high-elevation specialists. Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) grows at middle elevations. Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), + pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) tend to be found lower down. Ironically, in a high-severity burn area on south-facing slopes snow melts 71% faster relative to nearby unburned areas, according to a 2024 study in Water Resources Research that analyzed data from snow cameras, giving them an earlier start. 

'If only we had more time,' which I suspect is a phrase we will hear a lot in coming years.

ArsTechnica: '“Offensively cheap”: Solar power is looking up,' by Rachel Millard.

"Chinese-made panels on rooftops across the world are changing the facts of life for big utilities." 

In north-central Pakistan, Bestway Cement is transforming plots of dry earth and olive + peach groves into a forest of solar panels. There are 26 megawatts [MW] of photovoltaic cells currently in place, but they will add another 6.34 MW by year's end. 

“Only way we can compete,” says Abdul Waheed, which produces over 3 M tonnes of cement per year. Bestway + its competitors are among millions of businesses + households around the world that have installed solar panels on roofs, in yards, gardens + other land, helped by a flood of cheap components from China. By end-2025, such capacity totaled ~ 1.2 terawatts [TW = 1,000 GW = 1 million MW = 1 billion kW] worldwide, according to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

"While the nature of solar power, dependent on sunlight, means it only produces a fraction of its instantaneous potential, that still equates to roughly 3 times the size of the global nuclear power fleet." The solar revolution made possible by cheap Chinese PV panels—and the rise of small-scale, individual power generation—is transforming energy in the developing + industrialized world alike. Millions of people in poorer countries now have more reliable access to electricity, often by their own endeavors rather than massive installed infrastructure. 

Across the globe, consumers are using cleaner energy + bringing down their bills at a time when the cost of living is a constant concern, not least because of the Iran + Ukraine wars. The UK + nine US states have now approved the sale of the low-cost “plug and play” solar panels already widely available in other parts of Europe.

In the year 2000, solar panels cost $5-$6 per watt of generation capacity. Today, they sell for around 12 cents per watt, a level described as “offensively cheap” by Dave Jones, co-founder of think-tank Ember.

This campaign targets fossil fuels + nuclear. And affordable, fast, scalable solar is winning.

ChinaSpecialReport: "Waning fossil fuels and green exports make China important for all of us," by Bob Haar.

Notoriously, China has been the engine of fossil fuel [FF] demand growth for a full quarter-century. Between 2000 + 2025, it accounted for ~ half of increase in world-wide oil demand + > 90% of growth in coal demand.

However, FF are now starting to wane as renewables drive more generation, in a new phase for the country’s energy transition. Coal generation has stopped growing in 17 of 26 provinces. The clean energy system is expanding while parts of the FF system are starting to shrink. Battery storage is increasingly central in balancing all that clean energy, allowing utilization to double over the past 2 years.

This shift away from FF is diffusing from power plants + vehicles to industrial sectors. In fact, 8 of their industrial sectors are now powered primarily by electricity, no longer dominated by FF.

Second quarter this year—with 75% of Chinese buses already electric & half the taxis, sales of EVs reaching 65%, electric trucks 30%, + vans 50%—1.5 million barrels per day [Mbpd] were displaced. That’s 1.5% of global demand, roughly France’s share. 

Year earlier, the displacement from transport was 750K barrels daily, so the plunge in transportation oil doubled in a single year. Sinopac, China’s biggest oil company, saw demand down 9% Jan-June. 

Traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles saw steep drops month after month, leading to the point where 9 out of the top 10 best-selling cars in China now are plug-in hybrids [PHEV] or battery-electric vehicles [BEV]. Electric heavy trucks, jumping by roughly 90% year-on-year through the first half of 2026, became the fastest-growing source of oil displacement.

China’s green exports are helping many countries access cheap clean energy, which reached a record high of $20 B for August. To fend off repetitious comments, I will again assert that the country is an autocratic hypersurveillance state which mistreats minorities, especially Uyghurs + Tibetans.

NOAA: "Testing the Waters: A Day at the Nation’s Largest Oil Spill Simulation Tank."

"Recently, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) headed to a highly specialized facility to simulate ocean conditions + tackle one of the most complex questions in oil spill response: When + how should chemical dispersants be used?"

Dispersants are an alternative treatment technology, approved for use under special circumstances to enhance natural dispersion by breaking oil slicks into smaller droplets. "These smaller droplets are dispersed into the water column, removing some of the oil from the surface where the greatest harm may occur + lessening the amount of oil that reaches sensitive habitats such as coastal wetlands. Dispersed oil is more rapidly biodegraded by “oil-eating” microbes found throughout the ocean, which have adapted over time to use most of the chemicals in oil as “food.”

Deciding to apply chemical dispersants requires a careful, deliberate “tradeoff analysis” aimed at preventing the greatest overall harm. "The choice weighs the severe, concentrated impacts on surface-dwelling animals like seabirds + marine mammals, + the high risk of oil washing into sensitive nearshore or onshore habitats against dispersing the oil into the water column."

"To ensure decision-makers are armed with the best possible science, OR&R recently supported a hands-on workshop, hosted by the American Petroleum Institute [API], alongside government, industry, + academic experts at Ohmsett, the National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy Test Facility in Leonardo, New Jersey." Managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Ohmsett features a massive, 2.6-million-gallon outdoor saltwater wave tank that simulates real-world ocean conditions.

I am immediately suspicious about hosting by the API, main mouthpiece of the oil industry, but I would love to drop in a surf board + check out the ride. Without the oil of course.

AAAS: "To prevent forest fires, Trump wants to end a road-building ban. Scientists are skeptical," by Warren Cornwall.

Administration claims decades-old “roadless rule” prevents efforts to improve forest health. 

"It’s infuriating that the potential for reducing fire risk is even used as a justification for putting more roads into our national forests," says Jennifer Balch, a UC Boulder fire scientist. Balch’s work has shown that humans start 84% of all wildfires nationwide, + that roads are a major way people bring in matches, fireworks, + other spark-producing tools. 

'The roadless area conservation rule banned road construction on more than 175,000 sq. km of roadless areas, nearly 1/4 of all national forest land. "Since then, it has been embroiled in a near-constant legal + political tug-of-war."

"In 2020, the first Trump administration rescinded the rule in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, opening it to loggers." In 2021, Biden administration reversed that change. In 2026, the second Trump administration is going further + proposing to eliminate the rule nationwide. Public comments on the proposed change will be accepted through 21 September on a draft environmental impact statement, which spells out the science underpinning the proposed repeal. 

USFS notes that > 29,000 sq. km of land lie within forests designated as high priority “firesheds”—places posing elevated wildfire risk to infrastructure + communities. In 2020, USFS ecologist Sean Healey published a paper in Environmental Research Letters reporting that from 1985 to 2016, national forest acreage burned at approximately same rate regardless of whether it was shielded from road construction.

"Alexandra Syphard, a wildfire scientist, began circulating a letter last month critiquing USFS’s environmental impact analysis." Some 30 prominent wildfire scientists added their names to the letter within days. 

Scientists have also voiced concerns about the detrimental ecosystem impacts of roads, as conduits for invasive plants such as grasses—which raise fire risks—and that their construction can unleash more sediment pollution into nearby creeks and rivers. Areas subject to the roadless rule contain > 130,000 km of river + help protect watersheds supplying water to at least 25 M people, scientists reported this year in PLOS Water.

CanaryMedia: "Virginia to cut rooftop solar costs with nation-first bulk-buy program," by Elizabeth Ouzts.

"Last month, Virginia became the first state...to launch a bulk-purchasing campaign for rooftop solar—a move that promises to bring down the cost of installing panels for households across Old Dominion." Idea behind the program, called Switch Together, is simple: Solar panels come cheaper by the dozen, like that old Disney movie. "Trusted [+ vetted] solar installers can pool demand to purchase equipment in bulk + pass the discounts on to participants." Solar United Neighbors [SUN], the nonprofit running the initiative, is expanding statewide in Virginia at the urging of the office of Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, who is looking for ways to lower energy bills as utilities jack up rates in the world’s data center capital. 

"If more people go solar, that’s less strain on the grid, and there’s less need to build costly infrastructure that the entire rate base would actually pay for," said Brandon Praileau, SUN’s Virginia program director, who joined the group in 2023 after rooftop solar helped his church in Norfolk cut utility bills by a quarter. "The state is not providing any funding for Switch Together, though its partnership promises to amplify the reach of the bulk-purchasing effort, which is focused on solar but also offers residents access to cheaper home batteries, EV chargers, and, in some locations, heat pumps." 

By the time this year's bulk-purchasing drive is over, Praileau expects those figures will swell to 5,000 requests for info and about 500 signed contracts. "We’re talking about a utility-scale amount of solar with those numbers...almost 4 megawatts [MW].” The rooftop panels are expected to cut $2,200 off the average annual utility bill. 

Exactly how much households save on installation varies across the state, but it ranges from 20% to 30% off—vital discounts after Trump + Republicans in Congress killed the 30% federal tax credit for households investing in renewable energy. 

"Rooftop solar both slashes power costs for homes that install it and can drive down expenses for utility customers at large." We should help the Sun shine in.

Guardian: "China’s falling emissions amid Iran war spark hope of decarbonisation watershed," by Jonathan Watts.

"China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1% after the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, thanks to a sharp reduction in oil consumption + a steady rise in EVs + public transport, analysis shows." Report reinforces hopes that the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter may be nearing a turning point in decarbonising its economy.

"China was able to increase overall transportation...despite cutting oil imports by 32%, according to Q2 energy data reported by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics + analysed for Carbon Brief by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air." The reduction—equivalent to about a million barrels a day—from world’s biggest petro-customer helped to stabilise global oil prices, which nevertheless surged by about 60% in weeks + months after first US airstrikes in late February "

About 2/3 of the fall in imports came from running down, rather than building up, strategic oil stockpiles." Remaining 1/3 was largely covered by a reduction in demand. "The country’s use of oil fell by 9% overall + for transport by 16%." While large numbers of petrol + diesel vehicles stayed off the roads, there was a surge in journeys by electric cars, buses, trains + trucks. 

“In a qualitative sense, there’s no question that the transport sector decarbonisation has been accelerated," said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. "It’s a validation of the energy security strategy China has in place...clear that electrification is the winning strategy to insure against these kinds of shocks."

Impressively, Myllyvirta noted this was the first time China’s overall emissions had fallen due to a reduction in oil use rather than in coal consumption. 

In fact, coal generation rose during the quarter due to shifting economic incentives + delays in adapting the country’s grid, which caused considerable curtailment or wasting of wind + solar power.

Delay in adapting power gird to the new realities—does that sound like any great power you recognize?

Ember: "Supply: solar is now the less capital-intensive option."

"Solar now requires less upfront investment (capital intensity) than fossil power plants; financing for solar projects (cost of capital) is cheaper than for fossil fuels; batteries are more affordable than extending electricity grids to remote areas; and the price of electric end-use technologies has fallen by up to 95%." What's not to like? 

"Conventional wisdom [held] that renewables carry a higher upfront cost than fossil fuels, and that in emerging markets, where borrowing costs are high, solar + wind faced a double disadvantage; they [required] more capital + more expensive financing than fossil power." Both assumptions have now been inverted.

A decade ago, a solar plant could require up to 5 times the upfront investment of a comparable coal or gas plant per megawatt-hr [MWh] delivered. Solar then could still be competitive over its full lifetime through avoided fuel costs; but where capital is scarce, lifetime economics rarely determine investment decisions. Upfront costs do, and on that measure solar used to lose. But—drum roll please.

"Solar alone is now competitive with fossil power on a pure capital expenditure (capex) basis, + solar-plus-storage is expected to follow by around 2030." By 2035, both will be cheaper to build than new fossil alternatives. 

"It is now fossil fuels, not solar, that carry the burden of [upfront] capital intensity."

And once built, solar has no fuel costs: it beats fossil alternatives from day one and widens its advantage with every year of operation. 

Like I said, what's not to like? Unless you are perchance invested in more expensive + more polluting fossil fuels. Or haven't started your own personal transition to the electrostate, which would be smart because it's affordable more + more as time goes by.

AAAS: "Oh, swell: Scientists identify a new way for your car to corrode," by Adrian Cho.

"Corrosion constantly destroys the integrity of metal objects ranging from bridges to cars, driving a global market for anti-corrosion coatings," which protect the metal from water, especially corrosive if it contains salt or acid. 

'Zhongyuan Ni + Hans-Jürgen Butt, interfacial physicists, now report that static electricity can breech such barriers. Polytetrafluoroethylene [PTFE]—commonly know as Teflon™—contains fluorine, carbon + hydrogen. "PTFE is inert to virtually all chemicals + considered the most slippery material in existence, making it one of the most valuable, versatile technologies invented." 

The physicists let droplets of slightly salty water fall from a syringe onto a copper surface coated with 60 nanometers [nm] of PTFE. Falling directly onto the surface, they rolled off harmlessly. But first running down a tilted insulating surface, the coated copper became pitted after a few thousand drops. 

"A trip down a few cm of window glass, a plastic building material, even a leaf from a potted plant was enough to make the droplets corrosive." Atomic force microscopy showed that some pits reached into the copper. "Fluorescence microscopy revealed that the copper exposed by the pits was reacting with the water." 

Electrodes revealed that neutral droplets gained up to 2 nanocoulombs before reaching the sample. When the droplets came within 10 micrometers of the surface, the tiny charge produced an electric field strong enough to cause PTFE to break down. "Engineers...may have missed the effect because they usually use coatings about 100 nm thick, too thick to be thus damaged." Coatings often include conductive layers, meant to prevent the buildup of static electricity + dust; those layers would short-circuit the corrosive effect.

Junwoo Park, a physical chemist at Sogang University, says “industry has effectively been operating in the safe zone without knowing it,” adding that the trend is to make coatings thinner. When coatings fail, experts typically blame pinholes, abrasion, or moisture ingress.

This new mechanism is death by a thousand cuts, as it were.

Substack: "Less than 300 million barrels left: the engineering limits threatening the American Strategic Petroleum Reserve," by Siddharth Misra.

"The oil market is not being stabilized by fresh supply growth but by aggressive depletion of emergency inventories, a strategy that only buys time rather than solving the imbalance." 

As crude inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve [SPR] drain toward their operational limits, America is left supplied with just 300 M barrels. "This dwindling buffer forces the nation into a high-stakes standoff against the uncompromising laws of fluid dynamics, immense geological forces, strict federal statutes, + relentless geopolitical pressure."

The SPR is a subsurface engineering marvel. "Spanning 60 massive underground salt caverns across four storage sites in Texas + Louisiana, the system holds a combined authorized capacity of 714 million barrels."

"These solution-mined cavities are gigantic, often 300 feet wide + 2,000 feet tall, large enough to stack the Empire State Building inside." Because these caverns operate entirely on a liquid displacement system, they can never be left empty, for if the fluids were removed without replacement, the immense geological weight of the overlying earth would cause the salt domes to [irreparably] collapse inward like a crushed shield.

"The crude oil volume currently stands at approximately 293 M barrels." The remainder is entirely heavy salt brine used to push the oil out. "Operating below this 300-million-barrel threshold pushes the aging infrastructure into uncharted and hazardous territory."

"According to the Department of Energy, the absolute physical minimum crude oil inventory is approximately 70 million barrels." This cushion is required at the very top of the caverns to keep the extraction pipes safely submerged in oil rather than the underlying water. "But while 70 M barrels is the structural floor where the salt rock might physically hold together, the practical operational floor is much higher, around 250 M barrels."

My math suggests the SPR is only 43 M barrels from rock bottom. The tanks at Cushing are in the same depleted state. You should be glad I'm driving an EV.

APNews: "Wave energy testing site opens off Oregon, a green energy milestone in the Trump administration," by Jennifer McDermott.

"The first large site in the continental U.S. for testing technologies that generate electricity from ocean waves is now open after securing a key green-energy approval from the Trump administration." Federal approval is notable because Trump has created massive hurdles for clean energy, particularly offshore wind. 

"[He] has implemented policies that slow energy permitting + development, canceled billions in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects + spent nearly $4 B to buy back leases to stop offshore wind projects."

But Trump officials see promise in harnessing the power of the ocean’s waves. "Companies can now bring wave energy [designs] off the coast of Oregon to PacWave South to test their ability to generate power in the open + and deliver it to the local grid."

The complex developed by Oregon State University is open to all comers. PacWave had to pass a “go/no-go” review at the Energy Department to open. "But the facility has yet to generate any electricity because no wave energy devices have arrived, [as they faced] delays in federal funding." 

Marine energy refers to power generated from tides, currents or waves. "Bringing PacWave South online will help streamline the testing and permitting process that has held back marine energy such as point absorbers, oscillating water columns + attenuators for decades." Federal estimates are that these technologies have the potential to power a whopping 57% of U.S. electrical needs.

PacWave South is “pre-permitted,” which means developers can bring several types of wave energy converters there without having to acquire permits on their own for testing, saving them time + money. 

Ever been in a stadium as the wave circled around the stands? That's the potential for all coastal nations.

EnergyCentral: "Norway Says No—The Barents decision, the end of the green battery, and what Europe misread," by Attila I. Menyhart. 

On August 24th, Norway made 2 announcements, the first about European climate policy. Oslo has decided to develop Barents Sea oil + gas regardless of what Brussels decides about an Arctic moratorium. Terje Aasland, Minister of Energy since 2022, framed it as a sovereign right: Norway would develop the areas, and it would then be for the Union to decide whether it wanted a moratorium on buying the output.

In the map you can see that the Barents Sea lies north of Norway + Russia, with the area of petroleum development circled. Arctic gas can be liquefied at Equinor’s Melkøya plant near Hammerfest + shipped anywhere. 

Aasland claims the moratorium constrains European purchasing, not Norwegian production. Norwegian gas output was near record levels in 2025 + oil reached its highest since 2009. 

"Official forecasts show production falling sharply after 2030 unless new fields are found + developed." Almost two-thirds of remaining resources sit north of the Arctic Circle. "There is no version of maintaining Norwegian output to 2035 that does not involve the Barents Sea." 

Contrariwise, there is no way to halt the climate deterioration if any new fossil fuel development takes place anyplace in the world. 'How does the most electrified society on Earth justify this?' 

Norway generates 98% of its electricity from renewables, 89% hydro + around 10% wind. "Electric vehicles were 95.9% of new car sales in 2025...roughly a third of the entire car fleet is now electric." Around two-thirds of homes have a heat pump, in the country with Europe’s coldest winters. On any metric Norway is accomplishing the most advanced [domestic only] energy transition on Earth."

"This second announcement is a retreat from deeper integration with the European electricity system, and it is the more consequential of the two." With my father having half-Norwegian ancestry, I feel that one of my home countries is being irresponsible in meeting our climate challenge as well as protecting the Arctic.

AAAS: "Previously collected fossils prove a treasure trove for understanding the origin of insects," by Elizabeth Pennissi.

A team of paleontologists challenge the concept that all insects have 6 legs after re-examining 4 enigmatic fossils found in Illinois, Texas, + Scotland. "Insects are the most successful + diverse land animals, with millions of species." The finds, reported in Nature, "suggest many-legged critters represent missing links between modern winged insects and their predecessors."

“But we know almost nothing about where they came from,” says Erik Tihelka, a paleontologist at the University of Cambridge. “Their ancestors were seagoing crustaceans such as shrimp and krill.” But what crawled onto land was a mystery because there are so few fossils of early insects. 

Tihelka examined an unusual fossil in the San Diego Natural History Museum more closely using polarized light. “[He] and his colleagues realized the critter was part insect, part crustacean.” It had a 3-part midsection with 3 pairs of walking legs, a rear end with 11 segments, a long tail filament, an egg-laying tube, + a pair of unbranched antennae. "Collectively, those traits are associated with things you’d see in modern-day insects, not crustaceans, but it also had multiple pairs of legs on its [hindquarters], a decidedly crustacean trait."

"Because in the Navajo creation story, Earth’s first inhabitants were insectlike beings, Tihelka and his team named the fossil Chosha praecursor, from the Navajo word for insect, opting for something more poetic than a Latin moniker." 

"Next, they looked at 3 other puzzling fossils that similarly had legs or leglike stubs on their bellies. "The Scottish specimen, which had been named Leverhulmia and was originally thought to be a relative of millipedes, lived 405 M years ago." The 2 from Illinois lived about 100 M years later.

Intriguingly, "they [all] retained some traits that would have allowed them to flit between life on land and in the sea." For example, Chosha’s hind belly legs broadened into “paddles” at their ends, which might have helped them move in water—or possibly served as gills.

Paleontology continues to amaze me.

AAAS: "Medieval Europe was battered with 16 catastrophic floods in just 2 years," by Julia Vaz.

"The intense deluges, never before documented, represent the highest number of back-to-back extreme weather events in the past 700 years." 

“It’s kind of bad luck to be alive in the 1340s,” says medieval historian Martin Bauch of the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe. Published this month in Nature, scientists saw evidence of ~16 cascading floods that wreaked havoc between late 1341 + 1343—the largest number of back-to-back flooding events documented in the past 700 years."

Flood after flood would have been particularly devastating for medieval Europe. "Many towns + villages relied heavily on rivers for transportation, trade, + water-powered mills. "Deluges would have drowned thousands, while many more perished from resulting food shortages + diseases."

'These events were closely followed by the arrival of the Black Death [Yersinia pestis, causing bubonic plague], that killed millions in Europe.' As a result, geographer + medieval historian Andrea Kiss of the Vienna University of Technology, spent “immeasurable hours” in medieval archives looking for any mention of flooding. "Patchworking > 1000 sources, it became clear to her the accounts didn’t point to a singular flood occurring in 1342."

"Kiss’s work first started in Hungary, where more detailed administrative records painted a picture of multiple floods in a short period of time." Authorities moved from providing only religious services to also building inland levees and floodways.

Work helps shed light on a period of climatic transition that brought about the start of the "Little Ice Age", marked by extreme weather with an increase in high-intensity cyclones, volcanic eruptions, + changes in Arctic sea ice.

Modern Europe’s flood risk is expected to increase as the climate warms. 'A better picture of past deluges could help improve...future climate modeling + mitigate flood risk.'

For all those who long for the good life in the old days, perhaps a reconsideration is in order. For one thing, no vaccinations yet existed.

Guardian: "The week around the world in 20 pictures," by Jim Powell. The photo was taken by Oleksandr Ratushniak for Reuters.

I have been a supporter of the Guardian for yrs, but had forgotten until now that they had a weekly photo essay. The title of this single piece is simply "Kyiv,Ukraine."

The description simply states 'charred books after a fire at the country’s biggest book market, caused by a Russian missile attack,' which is simply desolation. 

Another example of how warfare releases huge carbon emissions.

"The Ukrainian Book Institute has called on the international publishing community to support Ukrainian publishers after Russian attacks in July and early August destroyed about 10 M books and a significant share of the country’s book production capacity." 

I don't commonly address politicized reports already extensively covered in the mainstream press, but as a writer + book lover myself, this is one of the more poignant pictures from Kyiv that I have ever seen. 

Which is why I found it impossible to resist. If you go to the website, you can peruse all 20 great photographs from around the world. Outside our shop, we have both the Stars and Strips + Ukrainian flags flying proudly.

This is a companion piece to what I posted yesterday, Commenters in general sounds pretty serious when they claim that we can't afford solar + wind + storage 'because they make power less affordable.' This graph of all 50 states + D.C. + US territories plots residential retail electricity price against the fraction of electricity generation from renewable or sustainable power.

The red line is the average price per kWh for the twelve months up through the end of March this year, though actually at the moment the price is 18.44¢ per kWh, up 6.2% year-over-year. This is represented by the horizontal red line—flat as a pancake. 

States such as Virginia + Louisiana + Kentucky on the left lie near the basement in terms of proportion of renewables on their grid.

Conversely, Montana + South Dakota on the right annually produce something l 120% of their demand, obviously exporting a lot of electricity to neighboring states. The blue line shows the inverse correlation between cost of electricity + higher fraction of renewables.

In 1932, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in an opinion used the phrase "states are the laboratories of democracy", which means individual state governments can try out + test new laws and social policies. With the data from yesterday + today we can see how these electrical laboratory experiments are playing out. Therefore, what we now know is 2 things.

First—while there are multitudinous influences on the grid—states that successfully experimented with renewables have lower electricity costs in 2026.

Second—solar + wind + storage in the grid of 2050 will take up less space than fossil fuels do right now.

I would like to argue that the data from yesterday + today should lay to rest at least some of the misinformation about solar + wind. Call me unrealistic, but I think of myself as rationally optimistic. Always.