Prepare for Change

  https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/frackers-can-use-dangerous-chemicals-without-disclosure-due-to-haliburton-loophole/   For almost 20 years, US public-health advocates have worried that toxic chemicals are getting into ground water and harming human health because of an exemption to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act that allows operators of oil and gas fracking operations to use chemicals that would be regulated if used for any other purpose. The so-called Halliburton Loophole, named after the oil and gas services company once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, means that the industry can use fracking fluid containing chemicals linked to negative health effects including kidney and liver disease, fertility impairment, and reduced sperm counts without being subject to regulation under the act. * * * * * So... what's the use of the EPA if the largest fracking company on earth can skirt rules?  

  https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/05/business/single-family-zoning-laws/index.html   More than a century after the first single-family zoning laws were passed, roughly 75% of land that is zoned for housing in American cities is for private, single-family homes, only. In some suburbs, zoning laws make it illegal to build apartments in nearly all residential areas. Municipalities have also made minimum lot sizes bigger and added height requirements. This has had the effect of encouraging ever-larger single-family homes and limiting housing options, like smaller houses. “Zoning has gotten more complicated and more restrictive,” said Jenny Schuetz, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro who studies urban economics and housing policy. “It’s getting harder to build stuff, particularly in high-income areas that want to have a lot of control over development.”  Policymakers and advocates are making several changes to increase the housing stock: eliminating s...

  A Baby Boomer's Lament by Jeff Jacobsen I was born in the US in1955, ten years after World War II, but smack in the middle of the Cold War. I lived near an air force base that had B-52 bombers flying around non-stop, ready to drop nukes on the Soviet Union should we be attacked first. We didn't practice hiding under our desks at grade school, but I'm sure that's just because everybody knew if the time came we were all screwed anyway. Us Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) lived through technological change never before seen. Looking back, things seem so old. On my grandparents' farm on the other side of the state was a phone on a community line. The other farmers in the neighborhood were on the same line, so if you heard the phone ring (certain rings for certain customers), you could surreptitiously listen in on any phone call. Black and white TV had 3 channels available. Drinking water was hauled in from the artesian well. When it got hot, there...

  https://www.wired.com/story/the-microplastic-crisis-is-getting-exponentially-worse/   Overall, the team found that microplastic levels have been doubling in Arctic Ocean sediments every 23 years. That mirrors a previous study of ocean sediments off the coast of Southern California, which found concentrations to be doubling every 15 years. Other researchers have found an exponential rise in contamination in urban lake sediments .  The problem is likely to keep getting worse, lead author Seung-Kyu Kim, a marine scientist at Incheon National University, told WIRED by email. “The input of microplastics into the Arctic has increased exponentially over the past decades, with an annual increase rate of 3 percent,” Kim writes. “The mass production of plastic at an 8.4 percent annual increase—coupled with inefficient waste management systems—is projected to further increase loads of plastic entering the ocean for the next several decades, and thus plastic entering th...

      " Millions of tons of sargassum wash up on beaches across North America every year. Exposure can lead to breathing problems, and it costs millions to clean it up. Now, one Mexican entrepreneur is building houses out of bricks made from the invasive species."

  https://digg.com/digg-vids/link/guy-succinctly-explains-why-all-billionaires-are-evil-GSG72n6kBe?utm_source=digg   We see now that Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, not as an investment, but as a toy. We see now from the time of the pandemic who really are the "essential workers" and it's not billionaires. We see now that billionaires are hoarders who simply keep money like Smaug because they are addicted to it, not because they do anything incredible with it.

  https://digg.com/data-viz/link/public-transit-national-usa-decline-data-lockdown-graph-vMCJsvimdx?utm_source=digg   "Before the initial pandemic lockdowns of early 2020, average ridership for these transit systems was around 100 million daily. That plummeted to less than 25 million after March 2020's lockdowns. After staggered openings since mid-2020, ridership has slowly started to rise, but is still nowhere close to pre-2020 levels." * * * * * Mass transit is the best way to fight global warming.  It's cheaper than owning a car.  It helps take cities back from the cars to the people.