^{Photo taken from nps.gov}

"Would you like to help Housatonic Valley Association (HVA) collect water samples in the Housatonic watershed once every two weeks, mid-June to mid-September, from about 8:00 – 9:00 AM? HVA will be holding two trainings for volunteers to learn how to do this monitoring. Monitoring sites will primarily be in Monterey, Egremont, Alford, and Dalton." Learn More

"...So what is a flow battery? A key design element is the use of two external tanks that contain electrolyte fluids that get pumped through the battery as it charges and discharges. The duration of the battery, which is how long it can run before recharging, increases based on the size of the tanks. Think of this as the battery equivalent of one of those novelty baseball helmets that hold two cans of soda. If you switch out cans of soda for two-liter bottles, you can drink a lot more. 'For the whole machine, what you need to do is add more liquid rather than adding many, many more batteries,' said Jun Liu, a University of Washington professor and a fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He also is director of the federal government’s Battery500 Consortium, which develops next-generation batteries for electric vehicles. [...] And one of ESS’ selling points to investors and customers is that it doesn’t rely on rare metals like lithium or vanadium at all. The main ingredients of its fluid are iron, salt and water. [...] The system will be able to discharge 3 megawatt-hours before being recharged, which is enough electricity to meet the needs of about 100 houses for one day. It includes six shipping containers that house the batteries, the last four of which are scheduled to arrive this week. Each container has stacks of batteries, with tanks of electrolyte fluid for each battery. [...] The companies are betting that their technologies can meet the need for energy storage that lasts for eight to 12 hours per charge. The underlying idea is that the grid will need a mix of various storage technologies, with various durations, to fill in the gaps left when wind, solar and other resources are not enough to meet customers’ needs. That’s a pretty good bet, according to Adarsh Nagarajan, a group manager for power system research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. 'Flow batteries are here to stay,' he said. But he is careful to specify what flow batteries are not: They are not a replacement for lithium-ion batteries. Instead, flow batteries will serve a part of the market that barely exists today for energy storage that can last for eight hours or more, while lithium-ion batteries will continue to be the leaders in shorter-duration storage, electric vehicles, and consumer electronics. While lithium-ion batteries can be used for durations of eight hours or more, they are better suited for shorter runs of one to four hours." Read More

"You can only see straight ahead, but you can hear in all directions at once. Learning bird songs is a great way to identify birds hidden by dense foliage, faraway birds, birds at night, and birds that look identical to each other. In fact, when biologists count birds in the field, the great majority of species are heard rather than seen. Learning calls and songs helps you in two ways: First, you can do a quick survey of what’s around before you’re even out of the parking lot. And second, when you hear something you don’t recognize, you know where to put your attention. Owls and nightjars are obvious examples of the usefulness of hearing in identification. Another great example are the dozen or so confusing flycatchers in the Empidonax group. These birds look so similar they’re sometimes impossible to identify even in the hands of a bird bander with a precise set of measurement calipers. But all that uncertainty vanishes as soon as they open their mouths. [...] Five Tips for Beginners...How To Listen To A Song...Spectrograms..." Read More

"The temperature in parts of the Antarctic was seventy degrees Fahrenheit above normal in mid-March. Pakistan and India saw their hottest March and April in more than half a century, and the temperature in areas of the subcontinent is above a hundred and twenty degrees this week. Temperatures in Chicago last week topped those in Death Valley. But, on Tuesday, three nonprofit environmental groups jointly released a report containing a different set of numbers that appear to be nearly as scary. They indicate that the world’s biggest companies—and, indeed, any company or individual with cash in the bank—have been inadvertently fuelling the climate crisis. Such cash, left in banks and other financial institutions that lend to the fossil-fuel industry, builds pipelines and funds oil exploration and, in the process, produces truly immense amounts of carbon. The report raises deep questions about the sanity of our financial system, but it also suggests a potential realignment of corporate players that could move decisively to change the balance of power which has so far thwarted rapid climate action. To grasp the implications of the new numbers, consider Google’s parent company, Alphabet. It has worked hard to rein in the emissions from its products. [...] All this was done, Google said, in order to “lower the carbon footprint of manufacturing the enclosure by 35 percent.” It’s the kind of grinding work that goes on day after day at companies that take the climate crisis seriously. But, according to the new report, these efforts have missed perhaps the most important source of corporate emissions: the money that these companies earn and then store in banks, equities, and bonds. The consortium of environmental groups—the Climate Safe Lending Network, the Outdoor Policy Outfit, and BankFWD—examined corporate financial statements to find out how much cash the world’s biggest companies had on hand, and then calculated how much carbon each dollar sitting in the financial system may have generated. According to these calculations, Google’s carbon emissions, in effect, would have risen a hundred and eleven per cent overnight. Meta’s emissions would have increased by a hundred and twelve per cent, and Apple’s by sixty-four per cent. For Microsoft in 2021, the report claims, “the emissions generated by the company’s $130 billion in cash and investments were comparable to the cumulative emissions generated by the manufacturing, transporting, and use of every Microsoft product in the world.” Amazon, too, has worked to cut emissions; it plans to run its delivery fleet on electric trucks, for instance. But in 2020, the report claims, its “$81 billion in cash and financial investments still generated more carbon emissions than emissions generated by the energy Amazon purchased to power all their facilities across the world—its fulfillment centers, data centers, physical stores.” Also according to the report, in 2021, the annual emissions from Netflix’s cash would have been ten times larger than what was produced by everyone in the world streaming their programming—which is to say, Netflix and heat. Though the new report doesn’t list impacts for individuals, its authors say that the implications are fairly clear. By their reckoning, if someone has savings of a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in the big banks, that cash generates as much carbon each year as the average American emits with yearly driving, heating, flying, and cooking. In recent years, people have been organizing grassroots campaigns to pressure the big lenders to trim their fossil-fuel connections. [...] As important as those efforts are, they would work better with leverage provided by the true giants of the corporate system. If Big Tech pushes Big Money to cut off Big Oil, we could see the shifts that have eluded us in the climate fight thus far, and that scientists insist we need to make. It could be a true turning point in the crisis. In recent months, especially around the time of the Glasgow climate summit, last fall, the banks have increasingly been committing themselves to going “net zero by 2050”; forming large alliances of theoretically climate-concerned banks, insurers, and investors; and touting their lending to renewable-energy projects. But none of this has halted their commitments to longtime fossil-fuel clients. They’ve done some dodging, too, by measuring not total emissions but “carbon intensity” per unit of revenue. This means, for instance, that if a bank lends money to an oil company and that company uses the money to increase oil production along with a less polluting energy source, such as wind or natural gas, then the company’s lender can say that the carbon intensity of their energy portfolio has fallen. [...] Salesforce, the San Francisco-based software-and-cloud-computing company, clearly takes climate change seriously. (It markets a product, Net Zero Cloud, that other companies use to track their emissions.) One of its founders, Marc Benioff, recently donated a hundred million dollars from TIME Ventures, an investment firm he founded, to tree-planting efforts, and Salesforce promised another hundred million in grants and technology to “enable volunteers to deliver 2.5 million volunteer hours to nonprofits focused on climate action over the next ten years,” it said in a statement. Instead of buying the naming rights to a football stadium, the company bought the right to christen the transportation hub at the foot of its new office tower, which the (wonderfully named) Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat named as its 2019 Best Tall Building Worldwide, in large part because of its focus on sustainability. The Green Building Council awarded the building its highest status, platinum, and according to the Environmental Protection Agency it outperforms ninety-seven per cent of comparable buildings nationwide in energy efficiency. Salesforce has been charting its emissions since 2012, and has claimed to have reached “net zero emissions across our full value chain.” [...] One way of putting it is that, whereas the fossil-fuel industry has clearly acted immorally on climate change, the banking industry has acted amorally—it has been happy to make money off both clean tech and dirty tech. [...] It’s worth asking if there’s a chance that the big banks will change. At Chase, Jamie Dimon said last year that “abandoning fossil fuels is not an option right now.” But even that declaration leaves a bit of wiggle room. He’s right that the flow of gas and oil cannot stop tomorrow; that would cause chaos. What does have to stop right now, scientists say, is the expansion of the fossil-fuel enterprise. [...] If one were looking for a compromise, then this is where it would have to come—not in the banks’ pledges to cut “carbon intensity” but in a decision to stop all investment in new fossil-fuel infrastructure. And that’s what the banks are not doing. [...] This is where the question of the future direction of capitalism comes in—whether it’s a suicide machine or capable of playing a crucial role in speeding the energy transition." Read More

"The Bumble Bee Flower Finder helps you discover the best native plants for bumble bees from the Eastern United States. Find flowers for wildlife gardening, ecological landscaping, and bee monitoring. [...] The Flower Finder includes native plants for bumble bees indigenous to at least one county of one of 14 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. Widespread plants with surplus floral rewards who also host native pollen specialist bees were prioritized. [...] The Bumble Bee Flower finder can help you: discover the best native plants for your planting; conserve bumble bees and other wildlife; enhance farmland health and ensure crop pollination; determine plant materials needed for landscape designs; and identify flowers for Bombus monitoring. Bumble bee flowers are often keystone species who support ecosystems, regulate detriments, and provide benefits." Learn More 

"On the site of a shuttered and bankrupt coal mine near the headwaters of the Potomac River, the state of West Virginia is building a demonstration plant that researchers say could help spur efforts to clean up thousands of miles of waterways contaminated by coal-mining waste.

After decades when coal states struggled to pay for the costs of cleaning up contaminated rivers and lakes, recent scientific advances and new technology make it far more feasible to recycle the highly acidic and mineral-rich liquid coal waste known as acid mine drainage (AMD), these researchers say. And on the site of what was once the Buffalo Coal Company’s A34 surface mine, there is an additional financial and strategic incentive. When it’s fully operational — in late summer or early fall, according to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection — the Buffalo Coal A34 plant will recover critical metals including cobalt and nickel and the rare earth elements used in cellphones, electric cars and other technology from those toxic waters. The recovery of those elements could help reduce the ongoing cost of mine cleanup and lessen America’s reliance on China for materials critical to the shift to a clean energy economy. [...] Across the country, waste from abandoned and bankrupt coal and metal mines has contaminated more than 12,000 miles of waterways. This legacy pollution — the toxic byproduct from over half a century of mining — threatens drinking water, corrodes infrastructure and devastates aquatic life. However, cleanup costs for acid mine drainage remain prohibitive — requiring the construction of water treatment plants and operating them over years and decades. [...] Although recycling rare earths from mine waste currently is not commercially viable, Eggert said there was still an argument to be made for pursuing those projects. [...] The infrastructure plan President Biden signed into law last year includes over $11 billion in funding to clean up abandoned mines and affected waterways. A report last year from the Ohio River Valley Institute estimated that only about a quarter of coal mines abandoned before federal regulations took effect in 1977 had been reclaimed, and that it would cost more than $20 billion to clean up the remaining sites." Read More

"Accused of misleading the public for decades on the promise of plastic recycling, oil and chemical companies are pushing a new idea: 'advanced recycling'. Environmental advocates, however, say it’s more of the same old greenwash, and litigators hope holding companies accountable for past lies might prevent the spread of a new one. In late April, California attorney general Rob Bonta launched an investigation into ExxonMobil for its role in exacerbating the global plastic pollution crisis. [...] Bonta says his investigation started with ExxonMobil because they’ve been a leader, in the plastics industry and in the messaging around recycling. A report out last year from the Mindaroo Foundation found that just 100 companies produce 90% of the world’s plastic pollution. It pinpointed ExxonMobil as the top producer in the world of single-use plastic. In a statement responding to the investigation, ExxonMobil said it is 'focused on solutions' like building the first 'commercial-scale advanced recycling technology' and that 'meritless allegations like these distract from the important collaborative work that is under way'.But like regular old recycling, 'advanced recycling' has so far shown little to no results. Also known as pyrolysis or chemical recycling, the process entails using various chemical processes to turn plastic into other materials. The most common approach is warming plastic at very high heat to turn it into a low-grade fossil fuel, which can then be used either as fuel or as a feedstock for more plastic. The technology is still in its infancy, but early studies have found that like earlier versions of plastic recycling, the “advanced” method is expensive, and that it’s difficult to collect and effectively recycle a wide variety of plastics. It also delivers few environmental benefits, not just because it’s used to create either fuel or more plastic, but also because the process itself is emissions intensive. One study commissioned by plastic manufacturers themselves found that advanced recycling generated more greenhouse gases than either landfilling plastic or burning it. [...] A new report out this week from the groups Beyond Plastics and The Last Beach Cleanup found that plastic recycling rates have actually fallen in the US since the emergence of 'advanced recycling' in 2018, from its highest ever point of 9% to less than 6% today, compared with a 66% recycling rate for paper. [...] And the plastic pollution crisis isn’t likely to let up. As Bonta noted in his investigation, the fossil fuel industry has spurred the expansion of plastic for years to come. 'It’s their plan B as we reduce the use of fossil fuels in transportation and buildings,' he said. The International Energy Agency has said this as well, predicting that plastic production, which is forecasted to double by 2040, will be the biggest growth market for the oil industry over the next decade. McCoy noted that oil companies like his former employer ExxonMobil were uniquely suited to handle the increased scrutiny on plastics because they could use the same strategy they have deployed on climate change. 'You want to get smart on it, because you know it’s coming,' he said." Read More

"...The extreme physical difficulty of farm work is generally inevitable. Simply put - farming is hard work, and it needs to get done no matter the weather. But the balance of joy and misery also depends on the labor conditions of each farm workplace. Are workers being paid fairly, do they get enough break time, do they have access to bathrooms, is the on-farm housing safe and livable? [...] The basic truth of modern agriculture is that workers form the backbone of nearly all farm businesses —seasonal workers, long-time crew leaders, new apprentices, experienced laborers. [...] Not Our Farm (NOF) is “a project and community of farmers who have chosen farming as a career but do not have their own farm business or land." [...] Participants come from farms across the spectrum—large, small, nonprofit, for profit, urban, rural. Anita Adalja, the founder of Not Our Farm, has worked on farms for twelve seasons. They have always valued growing food but have struggled to find safe spaces to work that were free from racism, sexism, and homophobia. Adalja currently farms in a collective with three other farmers, working to create that safe workspace that didn’t exist for them. [...] One important point the project makes is that unfair working conditions are an issue throughout agriculture. They can—and do—occur on small, family-operated farms as well as larger corporate operations. If we want to improve farm labor, we need to look in our own communities and not pretend that the issues all lie in larger farms outside of our region. [...] Here in Massachusetts, the Fairness for Farmworkers Act is currently in the Committee for Labor and Workforce Development in the House. The proposed bill (H.1979, S.1205) would raise the minimum wage for farmworkers, require that workers be given one day of rest each week, and be able to earn overtime pay. This legislation isn’t going to solve the deeply-rooted issues that surround farm labor, but it would be a step toward lessening exploitation." Read More

"...The root challenge of confronting climate chaos comes down to energy and power. Usually, we think of the two words as synonyms, but in science, there’s a difference. The term energy refers to the ability of someone or something to do work. Power is the rate at which this work can be done. I know from volunteering with my local climate change group that there are a lot of regular people with the energy to do work who are already doing the work. And I can see that the people with the power to do something right now about climate change moving at far too slow a rate. That’s why it’s crucial that we use our energy as regular folks to bring pressure on the power held by corporate, financial, and political leaders. Their timelines are based on long-term earnings reports and election cycles, not on the rapid pace at which our climate is changing. [...] The rest of the story about the climate crisis is that thousands of people across the globe are already doing meaningful work to tackle the problem: They’re doing it collectively, together with others. [...] The oil and gas industry works collectively, too, as they greenwash their products. The banking industry works cooperatively as they fund more oil drilling. World leaders sit down jointly as they make pledges with little intention of keeping them. No single company or government can pull off this massive refusal to address climate change on its own. They’re working in unison to do that. It’s how big things get done—or stopped. We’ve been told for years that if we make individual choices we can 'help' fight global warming, but that’s not true. The way to tackle something that affects us all is by all of us working together." Read More