83 F. average high on August 2.
87 F. high on August 2, 2014.
August 3, 1896: Violent hailstorm destroys two thirds of the crops in Swift County.
“…General Mills is committed to doing our part to tackle climate change and we fully support the effective implentation of the Clean Power Plan”, said Jerry Lynch, Chief Sustainability Officer at General Mills. “In particular, we applaud the efforts off our home state of Minnesota for the progress its energy officials are making in building a plan that will work cost-effectively for the families, farmers, municipalities and the business community alike…”
Generation Clean
Today’s official launch of the Clean Power Plan represents the biggest action the USA (or any nation) has ever undertaken; the rough emissions equivalent of taking 150 million cars off the road. It goes beyond addressing climate change; it goes to the health of our children today.
“One in four kids has asthma, autism, ADHD or allergies – linked to how we use fossil fuels and petrochemicals” said Reverend Mitch Hescox, CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network. Full disclosure: I’m on their Board of Directors.
A record 365 companies and investor groups have announced support for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, including General Mills and Aveda. They believe we can find clean, carbon-free ways to power up the economy and keep people working.
There are viable, cost-effective alternatives to “drill baby drill”. We didn’t leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. We exited the Stone Age because we found a better way forward.
Welcome to September. A remarkably persistent northwest wind flow aloft ushers in a taste of mid-September this week with a streak of 70s. The heatwave gripping much of America will remain well south of Minnesota.
We may see a little smoke from western wildfires but Heat Index won’t get much traction here for at least the next 2 weeks.
Non-Polluting Growth. Ceres has more on the Clean Power Plan; here’s an excerpt: “In an unprecedented show of business support for tackling climate change, 365 companies and investors sent letters to more than two-dozen governors across the United States voicing support for the EPA Clean Power Plan for existing power plants and encouraging the states’ “timely finalization” of state implementation plans to meet the new standards…”
Expert Analysis Finds That The Clean Power Plan Is Not A Threat To Midwestern Power Grid Reliability. Here is the intro to a J. Drake Hamilton analysis at Fresh Energy: “Working toward an electricity system that aggressively lowers carbon pollution requires a well-operated regional power grid for success. Today’s interconnected electric power grid is reliable, affordable, and increasingly carries clean electricity. Tomorrow’s integrated electric grid must be cleaner still, as well as reliable and affordable. The emerging modern, efficient power grid must be designed and operated to reduce environmental impacts, including allowing Minnesota and its neighbors to comply with the nation’s first (and long overdue) limits on carbon pollution from our existing coal-burning power plants; these standards, to be finalized this summer, are known as the Clean Power Plan…”
Iran City Hits Suffocating Heat Index of 165 Degrees, Near World Record. Pretty typical…..for the surface of Venus. Meteorologist Jason Samenow has the amazing details at Capital Weather Gang; here’s an excerpt: “…In the city of Bandar Mahshahr (population of about 110,000 as of 2010), the air felt like a searing 165 degrees (74 Celsius) today factoring in the humidity. Although there are no official records of heat indices, this is second highest level we have ever seen reported. To achieve today’s astronomical heat index level of 165, Bandar Mahshahr’s actual air temperature registered 115 degrees (46 Celsius) with an astonishing dew point temperature of 90 (32 Celsius)...”
Graphic credit above: “
Photo credit above: “Firefighters walk under smoke from fires along Morgan Valley Road near Lower Lake, Calif., Friday, July 31, 2015. A series of wildfires were intensified by dry vegetation, triple-digit temperatures and gusting winds.” (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
The Adblocking Revolution is Months Away – With Consequences for Advertisers, Publishers and Google? iOS9 will allow you to block ads on Safari, on mobile and desktop. What will that mean for web sites that depend on advertising? Here’s a snippet of an interesting read at The Overspill: “…Into this comes Apple, which guards the user experience on the iOS platform, its biggest moneymaker, very jealously. Apple’s executives and staff aren’t blind to the things that are going on; they use their phones, and they get the same experiences. User experience is what Apple puts above pretty much everything else, and they’ve decided that they don’t like it the experience available through the ad-supported web, and so they’re going to do something about it. Hence content blockers for Safari (and all web views) on iOS 9, which wasn’t announced onstage at WWDC but was one of those “Whoa!” moments on browsing through the Settings in the first iOS 9 beta...”
Major Flaw In Android Phones Would Let Hackers In With Just a Text. Here’s an excerpt from a story at NPR: “Android is the most popular mobile operating system on Earth: About 80 percent of smartphones run on it. And, according to mobile security experts at the firm Zimperium, there’s a gaping hole in the software — one that would let hackers break into someone’s phone and take over, just by knowing the phone’s number. In this attack, the target would not need to goof up — open an attachment or download a file that’s corrupt…”
TODAY: Blue sky and a stiff wind. Winds: NW 10-20+ High: 79
MONDAY NIGHT: Clear and comfortably cool. Low: 59
TUESDAY: Sunny, less wind. Dew point: 52. High: 77
WEDNESDAY: Fading sun, still comfortable. Wake-up: 58. High: near 80
THURSDAY: Unsettled, passing T-shower possible. Wake-up: 60. High: 76
FRIDAY: Heavy showers & T-storms around. Wake-up: 59. High: 75
SATURDAY: More sun, a fine lukewarm day. Wake-up: 60. High: 80
SUNDAY: Sunny start, PM T-storm risk. Wake-up: 62. High: 81
Climate Stories….
Does Global Warming Actually Increase Antarctic Sea Ice? Here’s an excerpt from a good explanation at Discovery News: “…Here’s that scenario in simpler terms. While sea ice has been increasing, we know from analyzing satellite data that the ice covering the land mass of Antarctica has been melting rapidly. Hansen and colleagues think that as those ice shelves disintegrate, a lot of cold freshwater is draining into the Southern Ocean. That’s creating a cold surface layer that is causing sea ice to form. Underneath that, though, the salty, denser subsurface waters are still warming…”