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reasonsforhope · 15 hours

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"When a severe water shortage hit the Indian city of Kozhikode in the state of Kerala, a group of engineers turned to science fiction to keep the taps running.

Like everyone else in the city, engineering student Swapnil Shrivastav received a ration of two buckets of water a day collected from India’s arsenal of small water towers.

It was a ‘watershed’ moment for Shrivastav, who according to the BBC had won a student competition four years earlier on the subject of tackling water scarcity, and armed with a hypothetical template from the original Star Wars films, Shrivastav and two partners set to work harvesting water from the humid air.

“One element of inspiration was from Star Wars where there’s an air-to-water device. I thought why don’t we give it a try? It was more of a curiosity project,” he told the BBC.

According to ‘Wookiepedia’ a ‘moisture vaporator’ is a device used on moisture farms to capture water from a dry planet’s atmosphere, like Tatooine, where protagonist Luke Skywalker grew up.

This fictional device functions according to Star Wars lore by coaxing moisture from the air by means of refrigerated condensers, which generate low-energy ionization fields. Captured water is then pumped or gravity-directed into a storage cistern that adjusts its pH levels. Vaporators are capable of collecting 1.5 liters of water per day.

Pictured: Moisture vaporators on the largely abandoned Star Wars film set of Mos Espa, in Tunisia

If science fiction authors could come up with the particulars of such a device, Shrivastav must have felt his had a good chance of succeeding. He and colleagues Govinda Balaji and Venkatesh Raja founded Uravu Labs, a Bangalore-based startup in 2019.

Their initial offering is a machine that converts air to water using a liquid desiccant. Absorbing moisture from the air, sunlight or renewable energy heats the desiccant to around 100°F which releases the captured moisture into a chamber where it’s condensed into drinking water.

The whole process takes 12 hours but can produce a staggering 2,000 liters, or about 500 gallons of drinking-quality water per day. [Note: that IS staggering! That's huge!!] Uravu has since had to adjust course due to the cost of manufacturing and running the machines—it’s just too high for civic use with current materials technology.

“We had to shift to commercial consumption applications as they were ready to pay us and it’s a sustainability driver for them,” Shrivastav explained. This pivot has so far been enough to keep the start-up afloat, and they produce water for 40 different hospitality clients.

Looking ahead, Shrivastav, Raja, and Balaji are planning to investigate whether the desiccant can be made more efficient; can it work at a lower temperature to reduce running costs, or is there another material altogether that might prove more cost-effective?

They’re also looking at running their device attached to data centers in a pilot project that would see them utilize the waste heat coming off the centers to heat the desiccant."

-via Good News Network, May 30, 2024

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batboyblog · 2 days

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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #20

May 24-31 2024

The EPA awards $900 million to school districts across the country to replace diesel fueled school buses with cleaner alternatives. The money will go to 530 school districts across nearly every state, DC, tribal community, and US territory. The funds will help replace 3,400 buses with cleaner alternatives, 92% of the new buses will be 100% green electric. This adds to the $3 billion the Biden administration has already spent to replace 8,500 school buses across 1,000 school districts in the last 2 years.

For the first time the federal government released guidelines for Voluntary Carbon Markets. Voluntary Carbon Markets are a system by which companies off set their carbon emissions by funding project to fight climate change like investing in wind or solar power. Critics have changed that companies are using them just for PR and their funding often goes to projects that would happen any ways thus not offsetting emissions. The new guidelines seek to insure integrity in the Carbon Markets and make sure they make a meaningful impact. It also pushes companies to address emissions first and use offsets only as a last resort.

The IRS announced it'll take its direct file program nationwide in 2025. In 2024 140,000 tax payers in 12 states used the direct file pilot program and the IRS now plans to bring it to all Americans next tax season. Right now the program is only for simple W-2 returns with no side income but the IRS has plans to expand it to more complex filings in the future. This is one of the many projects at the IRS being funded through President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.

The White House announced steps to boost nuclear energy in America. Nuclear power in the single largest green energy source in the country accounting for 19% of America's total energy. Boosting Nuclear energy is a key part of the Biden administration's strategy to reach a carbon free electricity sector by 2035. The administration has invested in bring the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan back on-line, and extending the life of Diablo Canyon in California. In addition the Military will be deploying new small modular nuclear reactors and microreactors to power its installations. The Administration is setting up a task force to help combat the delays and cost overruns that have often derailed new nuclear projects and the Administration is supporting two Gen III+ SMR demonstration projects to highlight the safety and efficiency of the next generation of nuclear power.

The Department of Agriculture announced $824 million in new funding to protect livestock health and combat H5N1. The funding will go toward early detection, vaccine research, and supporting farmers impacted. The USDA is also launching a nation wide Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program, hopefully this program will give us a live look at the health of America's dairy herd and help with early detection. The Biden Administration has reacted quickly and proactively to the early cases of H5N1 to make sure it doesn't spread to the human population and become another pandemic situation.

The White House announced a partnership with 21 states to help supercharge America's aging energy grid. Years of little to no investment in America's Infrastructure has left our energy grid lagging behind the 21st century tech. This partnership aims to squeeze all the energy we can out of our current system while we rush to update and modernize. Last month the administration announced a plan to lay 100,000 miles of new transmission lines over the next five years. The 21 states all with Democratic governors are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Department of Transportation announced $343 million to update 8 of America's oldest and busiest transportation stations for disability accessibility. These include the MBTA's the Green Line's light-rail B and C branches in Boston, Cleveland's Blue Line, New Orleans' St. Charles Streetcar route, and projects in San Francisco and New York City and other locations

The Department of interior announced two projects for water in Western states. $179 million for drought resilience projects in California and Utah and $242 million for expanding water access in California, Colorado and Washington. The projects should help support drinking water for 6.4 million people every year.

HUD announced $150 million for affordable housing for tribal communities. This adds to the over $1 billion dollars for tribal housing announced earlier in the month. Neil Whitegull of the Ho-Chunk Nation said at the announcement "I know a lot of times as Native Americans we've been here and we've seen people that have said, ‘Oh yeah, we'd like to help Indians.’ And they take a picture and they go away. We never see it, But there's been a commitment here, with the increase in funding, grants, and this administration that is bringing their folks out. And there's a real commitment, I think, to Native American tribes that we've never seen before."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged $135 million to help Moldavia. Since the outbreak of Russia's war against neighboring Ukraine the US has given $774 million in aid to tiny Moldavia. Moldavia has long been dependent on Russian energy but thanks to US investment in the countries energy security Moldavia is breaking away from Russia and moving forward with EU membership.

The US and Guatemala launched the "Youth With Purpose” initiative. The initiative will be run through the Central America Service Corps, launched in 2022 by Vice President Harris the CASC is part of the Biden Administration's efforts to improve life in Central America. The Youth With Purpose program will train 25,000 young Guatemalans and connect with with service projects throughout the country.

Bonus: Today, May 31st 2024, is the last day of the Affordable Connectivity Program. The program helped 23 million Americans connect to the internet while saving them $30 to $75 dollars every month. Despite repeated calls from President Biden Republicans in Congress have refused to act to renew the program. The White House has worked with private companies to get them to agree to extend the savings to the end of 2024. The Biden Administration has invested $90 Billion high-speed internet investments. Such as $42.45 billion for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, $1 billion for the The Middle Mile program laying 12,000 miles of regional fiber networks, and distributed nearly 30,000 connected devices to students and communities, including more than 3,600 through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program

#Thanks Biden #joe biden #us politics #politics #American politics #climate change #climate action #nuclear power #h5n1 #accessibility #tribal communities #Moldavia #Guatemala #water #internet

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mindblowingscience · 1 day

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On May 20th, 2024, an iceberg measuring 380 square kilometers (~147 mi2) broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. This event (A-83) is this region's third significant iceberg calving in the past four years. The first came in 2021, when A-74 broke off the ice sheet, while an even larger berg named A-81 followed in 2023.

#antarctica #Iceberg #science #climate change #stem

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reality-detective · 2 days

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An EV’s Self Explosion, a Usual Street Scene in Modern China 🤔

#pay attention #educate yourselves #educate yourself #knowledge is power #reeducate yourself #reeducate yourselves #think about it #think for yourselves #think for yourself #do your homework #do some research #do your own research #ask yourself questions #question everything #electric vehicles #self destruction #climate change #green new deal #news

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simple-reflect-way · 5 hours

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#gency #arsenal #girlblogging #derealization #leopika #conan gray #climate change #boho #Brittany Snow #puerto rico

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when-born-which · 2 days

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#ivf #sacred geometry #mini dress #hot pics #spun family #permanent denial #cuddle #deidara #derealization #conan gray #climate change

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probablyasocialecologist · 2 days

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#fossil fuels #climate change #cars #suv

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acti-veg · 3 days

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If you are promoting any variation of the ‘carnivore diet,’ you are advocating for people to make their diets more environmentally destructive. No ifs, no buts - you just are.

It is hard to imagine a diet that would not be made far less sustainable by swapping common plant-based staples for more meat and fish. I don’t care what influencers have convinced it will do for your body or your workouts; your health is your business.

However, I do care that high-meat diets require far more water, more crops, more land, more animal deaths, and produce significantly higher emissions in a world that cannot support the amount of meat and dairy we are already consuming.

#vegan #carnivore diet #carnivore #atkins diet #environment #climate crisis #climate change #diet #original

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anarchywoofwoof · 2 days

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from Licypriya Kangujam on twitter:

This is how climate crisis looks like in Delhi, India 🇮🇳 today! 📷 When the water tanker arrives in the area.

there are over 30 million people in the Delhi region alone. India has 18% of the worlds population but only 4% of the worlds water sources and are in the midst of an absolutely brutal and deadly heatwave with temperatures reaching up to 56C / 132F in parts of the country.

#heatwave #delhi #india #climate change #climate crisis #world news #global warming #weather

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socialjusticeinamerica · 2 days

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121.8

#climate change #climate crisis #heatwave #environmentalism #climate action #record high temperatures #Delhi #India #coming soon to a southern red state near you

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dailyanarchistposts · 3 days

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Solidarity begins at home

I don’t need to be empowered by adults; I need them to stop having power over me.

—Lilah Joy Bergman, age 9

While friendship is made vapid by Empire, coupledom and the nuclear family become the container for all other forms of intimacy. As anti-racist, Indigenous, and autonomist feminists have shown, the nuclear family—where one generation of parents lives with one generation of children, separated from everyone else—is a recent invention of Empire.[62] It was (and is) a crucial institution for the privatization and enclosure of life. It is also central to the maintenance of a culture of authoritarianism, abuse, and neglect that underpins heteropatriarchy and white supremacy. It evolved as a way of reproducing wage-laboring men through the unpaid labor of women. Violence against women and children within the family was condoned as part of a civilizing process, and it became a conduit for intergenerational violence, and for the accumulation of white wealth and property through inheritance.

Through feminist struggle, some of the most brutal, state-sanctioned violences of the nuclear family (such as legalized rape and abuse) have been challenged, but it remains a site of isolation and violence, for children in particular. One of its most brutal effects is that it makes other forms of intimacy difficult or unthinkable for many of us. Through suburbs and apartments designed for a privatized existence, the nuclear family is even coded into the built environment.

At the same time, people are constantly inventing and recovering other kinds of belonging and intimacy. They are creatively collectivizing and communalizing life, sharing income, food, and housing in ways that break down privatization and segregation. As Silvia Federici writes,

We also have a return to more extended types of families, built not on blood ties but on friendship relations. This, I think, is a model to follow. We are obviously in a period of transition and a great deal of experimentation, but opening up the family – hetero or gay – to a broader community, breaking down the walls that increasingly isolated it and prevented it from confronting its problems in a collective way is the path we must take not to be suffocated by it, and instead strengthen our resistance to exploitation. The denuclearisation of the family is the path to the construction of communities of resistance.[63]

Many Indigenous people, people of color, and queer folks have never been invited into the structure of the nuclear family, and they have always made kin in other ways. Queer chosen families have created intimate, intergenerational webs of support, and these radical ties remain alive in spite of new forms of homonormative capture. As Dean Spade writes,

In the queer communities I’m in valuing friendship is a really big deal, often coming out of the fact that lots of us don’t have family support, and build deep supportive structures with other queers. We are interested in resisting the heteronormative family structure in which people are expected to form a dyad, marry, have kids, and get all their needs met within that family structure. A lot of us see that as unhealthy, as a new technology of post-industrial late capitalism that is connected to alienating people from community and training them to think in terms of individuality, to value the smaller unit of the nuclear family rather than the extended family.[64]

Similarly, bell hooks points to traditions of informal adoption in Black communities, in which people adopted and cared for children in ways that were communally recognized but never sanctioned by the state:

Let’s say you didn’t have any children and your neighbor had eight kids. You might negotiate with her to adopt a child, who would then come live with you, but there would never be any kind of formal adoption, yet everybody would recognize her as your “play daughter.” My community was unusual in that gay black men were also able to informally adopt children. And in this case there was a kinship structure in the community where people would go home and visit their folks if they wanted to, stay with them (or what have you), but they would also be able to stay with the person who was loving and parenting them.[65]

Leanne Simpson, writing on Indigenous nationhood, notes how resurgence entails displacing settler colonialism and the nuclear family with “big, beautiful, diverse, extended multiracial families of relatives and friends that care very deeply for each other.”[66] In many ways, these kinds of relationships make possible and sustain the creation of intergenerational forms of organizing that include kids and elders, and break down divides between public and private. Simpson spoke to the importance of this when we interviewed her:

How change happens matters to me, which is why I don’t spend much time lobbying the state. I believe in creating the change on the ground, and creating and living the alternatives. In my nation, children and Elders are critical, and it means we organize differently. You can’t invite kids to a twelve-hour, boring meeting and then get frustrated because they are bored or frustrated because they won’t stay with the childcare worker they’ve never met. You can’t invite the Elders to welcome people to the territory and then not speak to the issues. I think we actually need to do less organizing and more movement building. Right now, we have activists, not leaders. We have actions, not community. My kids are also fundamentally not interested in “the movement.” They are, however, fundamentally interested in doing things.[67]

These kinds of non-nuclear kinship networks have been sustained in the face of state terrorism and incarceration, residential and boarding schools, and Empire’s ongoing attempts to privatize and destroy non-nuclear kinship networks, extended families, and webs of relationships that include non-human kin. Nourishing and sustaining these communal forms of life throws into question some of the dominant ideas about what counts as political work, about separation of activism or organizing from everyday life. They challenge the segregation of kids from the rest of the world (and from organizing and politics in particular) and the ways that elders are isolated and intergenerational connections are lost.

Creating intergenerational webs of intimacy and support is a radical act in a world that has privatized child-rearing, housing, subsistence and decision-making. Challenging the nuclear family is not about a puritanical rejection of anything that resembles it; it is about creating alternatives to its hegemony, to the dismembering of social relations, to the spatial division of people through suburbanization, incarceration, schooling, dispossession, and displacement. This entails the proliferation of relationships that may or may not be based on blood but are built on care and love. The Latin American political theorist Raúl Zibechi argues that non-nuclear family and kinship networks are at the heart of Latin America’s most transformative and militant movements, including those of Indigenous peoples, peasant farmers, landless and homeless movements, piqueteros, and women’s and youth movements.[68] These collective forms of life are based in new forms of dwelling, subsistence, and resistance. At the same time, Zibechi is clear that these are “only tendencies, aspirations, or attempts in the midst of social struggles.”[69] Relationships of mutual support are not a destination but a continual process of struggle.

As people renew intergenerational relationships and bring their whole lives into struggle, new forms of politics emerge. In this context, Silvia Federici argues,

This is why the idea of creating “self-reproducing” movements has been so powerful. It means creating a certain social fabric and forms of co-operative reproduction that can give continuity and strength to our struggles, and a more solid base to our solidarity. We need to create forms of life in which political activism is not separated from the task of our daily reproduction, so that relations of trust and commitment can develop that today remain on the horizon. We need to put our lives in common with the lives of other people to have movements that are solid and do not rise up and then dissipate. Sharing reproduction, this is what began to happen within the Occupy Movement and what usually happens when a struggle reaches a moment of almost insurrectional power. For example, when a strike goes on for several months, people begin to put their lives in common because they have to mobilise all their resources not to be defeated.[70]

Federici here gets at the way in which care is not only a means of maintaining struggles, but a transformative part of struggle itself. While Empire works to privatize and individualize our daily lives, many movements are reproducing themselves more autonomously by collectivizing care: from cooking to cohabitation to learning to just being present with each other.

Friendship, kinship, and communalization have also been at the heart of working across the hierarchical divides of heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, colonization, ableism, ecocide, and other systems that have taught us to enact violence on each other and internalize oppressive ways of relating. To make kin across these divisions is a precarious and radical act. Everyone knows how difficult this can be, and how people fuck up, hurt each other, and blame each other. Those conscripted into oppressive roles can always fall back into old habits. In some cases, people are able to talk about all this in ways that are subtle, gentle, and more attuned to each other’s tendencies, triggers, and gifts, and genuine relations of support emerge. In the context of queer, anti-racist disability justice, Mia Mingus speaks to the centrality of strong relationships for undoing oppression:

Any kind of systematic change we want to make will require us to work together to do it. And we have to have relationships strong enough to hold us as we go up against something as powerful as the state, the medical industrial complex, the prison system, the gender binary system, the church, immigration system, the war machine, global capitalism. Because we’re going to mess up. Of that I am sure. We cannot, on the one hand have sharp analysis about how pervasive systems of oppression and violence are and then on the other hand, expect people to act like that’s not the world we exist in. Of course there are times we are going to do and say oppressive things, of course we are going to hurt each other, of course we are going to be violent, collude in violence or accept violence as normal. We must roll up our sleeves and start doing the hard work of learning how to work through conflict, pain and hurt as if our lives depended on it—because they do.[71]

Between the authors of this book, friendship has required us to negotiate divisions ingrained in our bodies by ageism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ableism. Sometimes these divisions get in the way of our capacity to connect in ways that are enabling and transformative. Patriarchy has socialized Nick, as a man, to be self-assured, (over)confident, rational, and individualistic. carla has been socialized to be submissive, caring, diffident, and to put others before herself. Even as we worked against some of these tendencies, carla ended up doing more emotional and caring labor for this project and Nick ended up doing more labor when it came to writing and editing. We have also been learning to challenge these divisions, always partially and inconsistently, through processes of mutual growth, support, and (un)learning. In part because of our very different life experiences, skill sets, and perspectives, our collaborative process has enabled us to produce something new together and made us both more capable in new ways. Neither of us could have written this book, or anything like it, alone.

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