Notices by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) (susankayequinn@wandering.shop), page 3

Spent the morning with a film crew of three, plus two young women from PennEnvironment, doing a video shoot in support of clean energy, talking about all the things I've done around the house and in the garden. Can't wait to share! It's always so energizing to talk with folks doing the work to build a better world. 🌱💚

#climatechange #climatesolutions #solar #ev #rewilding

@Jon_Kramer the woman who decided that it was okay to upload this person's image and edit it using AI; the organization that approved using AI (or at least didn't explicitly ban it)

The tech company that hired the 5000 people can be held accountable too.

The great gift that AI gives people/companies is obscuring harms such that "no one can be blamed" — it's a fig leaf for harms as a service and it's one of the reasons WHY people use it.

@KathleenC @petrosyan @publictorsten

@Jon_Kramer if you start holding people accountable for using AI and causing harms with it, I guarantee you that will "help"

@KathleenC @petrosyan @publictorsten

@argv_minus_one new tech sails can definitely augment but cargo ships are huge. It’s an argument for smaller ships and less shipping but in the mean time probably green H2 is the answer. Same for planes—small planes can go electric like large trucks, but it’s the weight that kills you (or more specifically energy density of storage)—green H2 has energy density like jet fuel which is what makes air travel possible (only ultralights could work directly on solar). Again: less flying too.

@argv_minus_one Agreed! The drop in price on solar (plus the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits) are superpowering solar adoption (and batteries)! The real limit now is how fast we can make them, and that's going to be a challenge for a long time just because we have so much to build out. But it's coming. (Decarbonizing ships and planes is tougher but we're working on that too)

Renewable distributed power is radical. It would transform the world.

#ClimateChange #power #renewables

@NireBryce

#ClimateChange #Milton #evacuation

@RhinosWorryMe @kim_harding @CelloMomOnCars @gooba42

"Black swan" is unforeseen & unforeseeable, hard to predict & rare.

A catastrophically large storm like Milton hitting a populated city like Tampa is not only predictable (climate change), it is no longer rare (and will be more frequent). It's not "unforeseen"—climate scientists have predicted intensifying storms forever&they've ALSO been predicting/observing the "rapid intensification" factor that makes storms turn into monsters overnight

@dangrsmind @RhinosWorryMe @kim_harding @CelloMomOnCars @gooba42

I think we *can* have climate-related Black Swan events because weather/climate forecasting is by no means perfect or able to predict everything that the climate weirding will throw at us — but we have to be careful not to call "unpredictable!" and "who could have seen this coming??" things that are literally being predicted

The “rapid intensification” of hurricanes is yet another way climate change messes with our expectations of weather in deadly ways.

(It’s not enough to know the climate is changing, we have to start questioning baseline assumptions about how the weather will behave.)

LOL

@inthehands yes, that's when it's most powerful, when we can't even name it. I literally had someone (a friend, a decent person) say "why would she leave her boyfriend for Musk" and MAN rape culture goes deep. I named it for her and she was like... Oh... (Yeah)

If I gave a (free) online class with this title, who would be interested? I'm trial-running this today with a small group, but I'm also thinking of another one focused on solarpunk imagineering (more based on the classes I'm teaching later this month on Governor's Island).

COVID SURGE
Looks like it's not slowing down :(

Get your shot now.

A look back at the data seems like there's a summer surge and a winter surge, and we're still in the summer surge. FDA seems to think updating the vax once a year is sufficient, but I'm planning on getting boosted twice a year, hopefully timed with the surges (would be nice if the FDA didn't delay the new formulations; guess they're just ignoring the summer surges 🙄 )

https://biobot.io/risk-reports/covid-19-influenza-and-rsv-wastewater-monitoring-in-the-u-s-week-of-august-12-2024/

Also: highly recommend (if you can afford it) the Metrix at-home PCR test — accuracy is much higher than the antigen rapid-tests that most people use. Metrix has a reader device and a test kit separate. They're sold out right now because of the surge, but when they come back in stock, that's when to grab one.

https://shop.aptitudemedical.com/products/metrix-reader

If you have to use antigen rapid-tests, then make sure to test 3x, every 2 days, to get that 80% accuracy for a negative test. Positive test accuracy is higher.

Fighting a virus while learning how to fight technofeudalism.

There's a lotta hope running around... I talk today on the pod about the 4 kinds of hope and how knowing the difference can help us understand what's happening in this astonishing political moment... and help build toward a better future.

BONUS: August giveaway still going with hopeful #climatefiction
anthologies, notebooks, and a #solarpunk mug I designed myself!

#ClimateChange #hope #podcast #books

https://brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/ep-18-the-power-of-hope

The future is made of precarity and unpredictability — which is terrifying, but it's why I've been relentlessly focused on how to build system-wide resilience. That's the only thing that gets you through because you *can't* predict the future or rely on "tech will save us" or "institutions will save us" or any of that.

Shit is going to get weird. We have to build resilient systems in order to weather the literal storms (and political and economic ones) that are coming.

#ClimateChange

The next time someone tells you some tech is "inevitable" please laugh directly in their face. And then tell them that's been used as an excuse for exploitation forever, it's a red flag, and if they were smart, they'd avoid it, well, like the plague. But we know how well that's going.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08778

@davidthewid @histoftech