Sunday Cutdown XXVII (2 June 2024)
Clearing my inbox of stories I want to document
NOTE: I am on vacation this week so I can’t respond to any comms until 3 June.
1) Drones as the new Molotov cocktail
WAPO: As Ukraine runs low on ammo, civilians build troops DIY drones at home
The term Molotov cocktail comes from Finland in its war against the Soviets just prior to WWII’s full blossoming. While Hitler was doing his thing in Europe, Stalin figured that, in the winter of 1939-40, he might just grab Finland for himself. The Finns put up one helluva fight and Stalin ended up with peace treaty for his troubles. Throughout the war and following Cold War, Finland maintained a neutral stance between Russia and the West — until Putin invaded Ukraine. Now, Finland belongs to both NATO (2023) and the EU (1995)
For those who love etymology, here the story from Wikipedia:
The name "Molotov cocktail" was coined by the Finns during the Winter War (Finnish: Molotovin cocktail) in 1939. The name was a pejorative reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was one of the architects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on the eve of World War II.
The name's origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the Winter War, mainly his declaration on Soviet state radio that incendiary bombing missions over Finland were actually "airborne humanitarian food deliveries" for their "starving" neighbours. As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet incendiary cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets" (Finnish: Molotovin leipäkori) in reference to Molotov's propaganda broadcasts. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack and destroy Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with his food parcels.”
If you’ve ever been to Finland (I was there briefly in 1985), you know how much they love their liquor — almost as much as my native Wisconsin. So, for them to just throw it away on Russians tells you …. just how much they hated Russians back then.
However, no group hates Russians more than Ukrainians. There are too many Ukrainian jokes to count on that score.
So, no surprise to hear just how far down into society that desire to repel Russians goes today, per this WAPO story.
Before Russia invaded, Magdalyna, a florist, used a simple desk in her suburban home to assemble bouquets. Now it’s where she builds drones.
Bouquets are heavier but, otherwise, the two products are not so different, she said. Both “make other people happier.”
Magdalyna, 27, is one of a growing number of Ukrainians who are building equipment for the military at home because they fear that Russia is going to advance on the front lines and further destroy their country.
They say the chicken is dedicated to your breakfast, while the pig is committed.
Magdalena strikes me as committed — hence, WAPO citing only her first name.
She has raised more than $200,000 to buy drone parts from China — largely through online donations, although she and her husband, an IT professional, have also spent some of their own money.
Drones were essential to Ukrainian forces when their shell stocks ran low while the US Congress dithered, so it’s hard to overestimate this sort of grass-roots war production.
Honestly, it has such a Soviet/Great Patriotic War feel to it — just going in the other direction.
There’s this old joke in Ukraine about what people would do if simultaneously attacked by the dastardly Russians and the dreaded Germans.
The secondary set-up was: Kill the Russians first.
Why?
The punchline: Pleasure before business.
Yan, 13, also came across the YouTube video [from another Ukrainian about how to build homemade drones]. He grew up playing with Legos and other construction toys and thought building an FPV would not be so hard.
His parents helped him buy the parts, but prefer he does not work on building drones on school nights. So, on Saturdays and Sundays, he spends about five hours a day assembling them. He has worked on four drones so far, and his school has promised to help him make more if he keeps it up.
“I’m angry with the enemy but I’m also happy,” he said. “I’m interested in what I’m doing — it’s a new hobby.”
I admire that, and this:
Each weekend, dozens of volunteers test drones in parks and fields around Kyiv.
On a recent Saturday, Kyrylo, 32, and Denys, 23, sorted through stacks of donated drones and tried flying them one at a time.
The two men are former soldiers who were wounded. Now they do quality-control testing for SocialDrone, running the drones through complicated maneuvers to be sure the devices won’t fall apart.
I am reminded of FDR’s bit on the Japanese in WWII (his 1943 SOTU):
Yes, the Nazis and the Fascists have asked for it--and they are going to get it.
We are definitely on the right side of history here.
2) Too much of a good thing?
REUTERS: As solar capacity grows, some of America's most productive farmland is at risk
We are reaching a tipping point, I imagine, on balancing the need for solar with the need to preserve precious farmland.
I think about this a lot, because my spouse owns acres of farmland in Ohio — some of the best soil in the world for growing. The temptation is always there to dual-purpose the land with wind or solar, but that is a real tradeoff in a world that depends on the Americas to feed the Eastern Hemisphere (i.e., the 85% of humanity that grows plenty of food but consumer plenty more).
Yes, there are ways to coexist — particularly with wind turbines, but the matching of solar with good farmland gets trickier.
Here’s the REUTER’s presentation of the issue:
The solar industry is pushing into the U.S. Midwest, drawn by cheaper land rents, access to electric transmission, and a wealth of federal and state incentives. The region also has what solar needs: wide-open fields.
A renewable energy boom risks damaging some of America's richest soils in key farming states like Indiana, according to a Reuters analysis of federal, state and local data; hundreds of pages of court records; and interviews with more than 100 energy and soil scientists, agricultural economists, farmers and farmland owners, and local, state and federal lawmakers.
Some of Duttlinger's farm, including parts now covered in solar panels, is on land classified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as the most productive for growing crops, according to a Reuters analysis.
For landowners like Duttlinger, the promise of profits is appealing.
But there is a compromise.
Some renewable energy developers said not all leases become solar projects. Some are designing their sites to make it possible to grow crops between panels, while others, like Doral Renewables LLC, said they use livestock to graze around the panels as part of their land management. Developers also argue that in the Midwest, where more than one-third of the U.S. corn crop is used for ethanol production, solar energy is key for powering future electric vehicles.
Still …
Some agricultural economists and agronomists counter that taking even small amounts of the best cropland out of production for solar development and damaging valuable topsoil impacts future crop potential in the United States.
This land, in strategic terms, is too valuable.
Solar development comes amid increasing competition for land: In 2023, there were 76.2 million - or nearly 8% - fewer acres in farms than in 1997, USDA data shows, as farmland is converted for residential, commercial and industrial use.
In response to Reuters' findings, USDA said that urban sprawl and development are currently bigger contributors to farmland loss than solar, citing reports from the Department of Energy and agency-funded research.
So, what type of solar infringement are we talking about?
Reuters found that around 0.02% of all cropland in the continental U.S. intersected in some way with large-scale, ground-based solar panel sites they had identified as of 2021.
When Reuters looked at four counties with high solar use as logical predictors of where this could all end up going, they found that an average of 5-10% of the farmland was — in effect — being disabled for crops.
Jerry Hatfield, former director of USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, said Reuters' findings in the four counties are "concerning."
"It's not the number of acres converting to solar," he said. "It's the quality of the land coming out of production, and what that means for local economies, state economies and the country's future abilities for crop production."
Now, the broad framing:
By 2050, to meet the Biden Administration's decarbonization targets, the U.S. will need up to 1,570 gigawatts of electric energy capacity from solar.
While the land needed for ground-based solar development to achieve this goal won't be even by state, it is not expected to exceed 5% of any state's land area, except the smallest state of Rhode Island, where it could reach 6.5%, by 2050, according to the Energy Department's Solar Futures Study, published in 2021.
Researchers at American Farmland Trust, a non-profit farmland protection organization which champions what it calls Smart Solar, forecast last year that 83% of new solar energy development in the U.S. will be on farm and ranchland, unless current government policies changed. Nearly half would be on the nation's best land for producing food, fiber, and other crops, they warned.
But, in the end, it all comes down to a farmer’s survival in economic terms:
Indiana farmer Norm Welker says he got a better deal leasing 60% of his farmland to Mammoth than he would have growing corn, with prices dipping to three-year lows this year.
"We've got mounds of corn, we're below the cost of production, and right now, if you're renting land to grow corn – you're losing money," Welker said. "This way, my economic circumstances are very good."
This debate is just beginning.
I foresee states and even the Fed passing a lot more laws to preserve farmland as a strategic resource. For example, all 50 states have some form of right-to-farm laws that protect existing farms and agricultural operations from nuisance lawsuits that can force them out of business due to encroaching urban/suburban development.
Helluva reporting job by Reuters here.
3) Which trees make the cut?
PHYS ORG: Reforestation study finds only a few tree species can survive a century of rapid climate change
Europe’s forests have lost a lot of trees to climate change and its encouragement of invasive species (following poleward climate velocity). These forests are naturally heterogeneous in mix and yet, research is showing, that only a few of these trees will do well in a climate-changed future, meaning reforestation will necessarily suffer from a homogenizing effect: where once forests were an incredible mix of trees, in the future they will be dominated by just a few types.
A rather stunning number of existing tree types will be effectively shut out of Europe’s climate future:
The scientists examined the 69 more common of the just over 100 European tree species with regard to the 21st century in Europe. On average, only nine of these 69 species per location are fit for the future in Europe, compared to four in the UK.The scientists examined the 69 more common of the just over 100 European tree species with regard to the 21st century in Europe. On average, only nine of these 69 species per location are fit for the future in Europe, compared to four in the UK.
Noah’s Ark is looking like a pretty tight fit this time around. Book your seats now.
4) Americans teaching Americans
FORBES: Also Migrating From Latin America: A Wave of Urban Innovation
The gist:
Over the last few years, a first-of-its-kind sanctuary neighborhood for migrants opened in a canyon next to the San Diego-Tijuana border wall. The UCSD-Alacrán Community Station, created through a partnership with the University of California San Diego Center on Global Justice, houses around 1,800 people; the three-acre site also features a health care clinic, food hub, school and outdoor plaza. More than an emergency shelter, Alacrán is designed to help those fleeing violence in their countries of origin participate actively in shaping the social, cultural and economic life of the ad-hoc city that they now call home.
UCSD-Alacrán is one of four cross-border community stations — two in Tijuana, two in San Diego — that the Center on Global Justice launched with local nonprofits and school districts. But their inspiration comes from the Colombian cities of Bogotá and Medellín, says Teddy Cruz, the center’s director of urban research. As they emerged from years of drug cartel violence in the 1990s and early 2000s, those cities implemented a variety of experimental social policies to improve urban life, from hiring mimes to direct traffic to building a network of library parks in high-poverty neighborhoods.
The idea, according to Cruz and center founding director Fonna Forman, was to rebuild patterns of trust and social cooperation from the ground up.
These are lessons from a future LATAM beset with overcrowded cities as the land grows too hard to farm due to climate change.
Great piece.
Our tendency in the past has always been to take our urban design cues from those clever Europeans …
But as migration strains city coffers and climate change fuels population shifts, Latin American cities are attracting fresh interest from practitioners and academics seeking solutions to the most pressing urban challenges in the US.
Bingo!
North-South integration starting up.
5) Slouching towards disaster
ABC NEWS: South Carolina's population growth creates climate crisis, says environmental scientist
States love to brag about population increases and the “economic booms” they generate. But, in the face of what climate change is going to do to our Southern states (is already doing), that sort of logic is going to have to be curtailed and redirected.
A scary thought to this strategist:
Even if the loss of habitat and farmland continues at the lower rate of the 2002 to 2017 period, the average destruction of 1,200 square miles per year across the United States would be unsustainable for a country that desires the continued capability of food independence and stewardship of the animal and plant life currently living within its borders.
The answer:
Population stabilization and more efficient land usage.
Southern US states doing everything within their power to attract Northern “snow birds” and the like are going to have to rethink that strategy — plain and simple.
[I know, I know. Then we hear about Ron DeSantis scrubbing all references to climate change in bottom-of-the-list Florida’s state laws and you just wonder how long such willful stupidity and stubbornness can go on.]
Conversely, and thinking long-term, the US either makes staying-at-home a whole helluva lot more attractive across Latin America and the Caribbean, or our population pressures are going to overwhelm us.
6) Now that’s an energy transition
TECH SPOT: Desert land in India to host renewable energy park 5 times bigger than Paris
This is India thinking and acting like a 21st century superpower:
Deep in the scorching salt deserts of western India, a green energy gambit is taking shape that could rewrite the renewable playbook. We're talking mind-boggling scale – a clean power plant so colossal it'll be visible from space and dwarf the land area of Paris five times over.
At the helm of this $20 billion endeavor is Pranav Adani, the 30-year-old executive director of Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL) and nephew of billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani. His namesake Adani Group struck it rich moving coal but is now seemingly moving hard into sustainable energy sources.
Adani knows full well the stakes at hand:
Why such a gargantuan green push? According to Adani in comments to CNN, "There is no choice for India but to start doing things at a previously unimagined size and scale." He's not exaggerating – official estimates predict India's energy appetite could eclipse every other nation over the next 30 years as its economy balloons.
Realize this: India’s energy-use growth rate will be like China’s has long been: such a steep rising curve that it needs to go all-in on every type of energy.
Right now India trails only #2 America and #1 China on CO2 emissions. If India replicated China’s fossil-fuel heavy rise, it would eventually eclipse it, but India seeks to avoid that fate — just like China is now running away from it as fast as its energy transition can carry it.
7) Drone carrier? What took you so long?
NAVAL NEWS: China Builds World’s First Dedicated Drone Carrier
Yes, we will someday soon enough start speaking about the end of the age of traditional carriers.
It will drive the US Navy nuts, but it’s coming alright.
8) A serious externality from warfare in our connected age
FT: How GPS warfare is playing havoc with civilian life
This is a situation just waiting for the right disaster to come along:
Ships that appear to be sailing through landlocked airports. Dating apps that match Israelis with Lebanese, assuming they are in one place. Tourist flights forced to turn around — mid-air — after sudden navigation troubles.
Such is the fallout from a surge in the manipulation of navigation signals — modern GPS warfare — that has played havoc with civilian smartphones, planes and vessels on three continents.
So-called GPS jamming and spoofing have largely been the preserve of militaries over the past two decades, used to defend sensitive sites against drone or missile attacks or mask their own activities.
But systematic interference by armed forces — particularly following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza — has caused widespread issues for civilian populations as well. The footprint of corrupted signals has become vast.
This is what happens when you wage war within the context of everything else: the everything else gets screwed up.
The Pentagon is already on the case:
Alarmed over the potential dangers, the Pentagon has launched a project dubbed “Harmonious Rook” to create a comprehensive “weather map” of interference, which it told the FT is a “significant concern for global users”.
But that just shows how bad it is getting.
Count on this disaster happening many times before some sort of international arrangement is put together.
9) Oh, so that’s why my PITI went up $250!
NYT: The Home Insurance Crunch: See What’s Happening in Your State
GIZMODO: How ‘Kitty Cats’ Are Wrecking the Home Insurance Industry
This is not why my family and I are planning on moving back to Wisconsin next year, but it sure ain’t helping.
The idea that the interior of the US is safe from climate change is dead wrong, according to the insurance industry:
The data show that homeowners insurance was unprofitable in 18 states last year, up from eight in 2013. Most of those states are in the interior of the country, hit by severe storms and hail in the Midwest and Southeast, and wildfires in much of the West. In response to those losses, insurers have raised premiums, narrowed coverage and dropped customers, and even entirely withdrawn from some states.
This matters a whole lot of our collective economic future:
A shaky insurance market threatens the entire economy. Without insurance, banks won’t issue a mortgage; without a mortgage, most people can’t buy a home. With fewer buyers, real estate values are likely to decline, along with property tax revenues, leaving communities with less money for schools, police and other basic services.
But sure, Congress and state legislatures should probably focus on persecuting transgender kids for the next decade or so.
Do the heavy lifting first before getting down into the climate “weeds.”
10) The last thing India needs
NATURE: Severe decline in large farmland trees in India over the past decade
I love a well-written abstract:
Agroforestry practices that include the integration of multifunctional trees within agricultural lands can generate multiple socioecological benefits, in addition to being a natural climate solution due to the associated carbon sequestration potential. Such agroforestry trees represent a vital part of India’s landscapes. However, despite their importance, a current lack of robust monitoring mechanisms has contributed to an insufficient grasp of their distribution in relation to management practices, as well as their vulnerability to climate change and diseases. Here we map 0.6 billion farmland trees, excluding block plantations, in India and track them over the past decade. We show that around 11 ± 2% of the large trees (about 96 m2 crown size) mapped in 2010/2011 had disappeared by 2018. Moreover, during the period 2018–2022, more than 5 million large farmland trees (about 67 m2 crown size) have vanished, due partly to altered cultivation practices, where trees within fields are perceived as detrimental to crop yields. These observations are particularly unsettling given the current emphasis on agroforestry as a pivotal natural climate solution, playing a crucial role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, in addition to being important for supporting agricultural livelihoods and improving biodiversity.
As a rising power, India will naturally seek food security, but there’s no way its domestic production can possibly keep up as its middle class booms and climate change devastates its ag sector.
The temptation to squeeze every little bit of production out of existing farmland will be counterproductive if it denudes the land of trees.
We’ve seen that sort of behavior before in Haiti (forests cut for farming and firewood) and what results is a permanent godawful mess that much more vulnerable to climate change.
11) Marine barracks attack, Beirut Lebanon, 1983
CNN: US military starts delivering aid to Gaza through floating pier. Here’s what we know
I have a very bad feeling about this. This could go down as a disaster for the Biden Administration during an election run-up.
Cue the flashback.
12) Thank you, football gods!
INDEPENDENT: Aaron Rodgers gives bizarre interview to Tucker Carlson talking anti-vax, Biden, and ‘demonic’ UFOs
First time ever the old Milwaukee “gold package” (my package) gets three games (norm is 2 but 3 this year due to 17th game being added) and they’re all divisional games (Vikes, Lions, Bears … oh my!).
The three must-win home games and I get them all!
I am guaranteed the Bears in Lambeau in January! Does it get any better than that?
Yes, it does with a home playoff game one to two weeks later.
Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers and his mouth are somebody else’s problem, thank the Lord above.
I gotta admit: I’m unsure how much of my Rodgers memorabilia collection survives our next move.
To me, he will always be a great man in small things and a small man in great things.
