New Delhi driver grows garden on autorickshaw roof to beat the heat

AFP

       Published May 3, 2022 -

MAHENDER Kumar waters the ‘garden’ on his vehicle’s roof.—AFP

NEW DELHI: Yellow and green autorickshaws are ubiquitous on New Delhi’s roads but Mahendra Kumar’s vehicle stands out — it has a garden on its roof aimed at keeping passengers cool during the searing summer season.

Kumar says the thick patch of green keeps the vehicle cool even when temperatures are touching 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in the Indian capital, enough to melt the tar on roads.

Kumar, 48, has grown over 20 varieties of shrubs, crops and flowers, attracting commuters and passers-by who stop to click selfies and photos of the unique “moving garden”.

Mahender Kumar stands beside his vehicle with a 'garden' on its roof in New Delhi on Monday. AFP

“Around two years ago I had this idea during the peak of the summer season. I thought if I can grow some plants on the roof, it will keep my auto cool and give relief from the heat to my passengers,” Kumar said.

Kumar also installed two mini coolers and fans inside.

“It is now like a natural AC (air conditioner). My passengers are so happy after the ride that they don’t mind paying me an extra 10-20 bucks ($0.13-.26),” said the father of three.

Kumar said he was doing his “own small bit” for the environment by planting lettuce, tomatoes and millets on his autorickshaw.

Preparing the roof for sowing was simple: Kumar first put a mat followed by a thick sack on which he sprinkled some soil.

He got grass from the roadside and seeds from friends and acquaintances and within days, the seeds sprouted into green shoots.

“It does not require much effort at all. I just water the plants using a bottle twice a day,” he said.

Kumar’s initiative is an inspiration for his fellow drivers who have been asking him for tricks and tips.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2022

Record-breaking heat waves show we need to adapt to the climate crisis now

India is just the latest country to face life-threatening temperatures before summer has even started. As extreme heat becomes more frequent around the world, how can affected areas adapt to remain liveable?


Workers use their helmets to pour water to cool themselves off near a construction site on a hot summer day on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India

The effects of India's heatwave, one of dozens just this year, are all-encompassing. Temperatures topping 40°C (104°F) across the country have put millions at risk for heat-related illnesses, decimated wheat crops, intensified a power crisis and interrupted schooling.

India is not alone. Neighboring Pakistan is also battling scorching temperatures before summer has even begun. And earlier this year, central South America was the hottest place on the planet before Western Australia claimed the title.

As the climate crisis exacerbates heat waves around the world and temperatures increasingly soar unseasonably early, countries are faced with the question of how to remain liveable.

It comes down to wealth and preparedness

Ramping up electricity bills with air conditioning, cooling down with fans, working indoors — these options are only available to a privileged few.

"The story of climate change is one of high inequality and we're seeing that playing out already in the poorest and hottest regions of the world," said Tamma Carleton, assistant professor of economics at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management.

Carleton co-authored a 2022 study that distilled a city's ability to minimize deaths during extreme temperatures to two main factors: affluence and the number of hot days it experiences.

Money decides which technologies a city can afford to shield its most vulnerable. And when these adaptation costs aren't covered by the state, the burden falls on individuals to finance their own protection, says Carleton. A situation that leaves the poorest high and dry.

But even wealthy cities can suffer if they are caught off guard without an action plan. That happened in the Pacific Northwest of the US, a wealthy region known for its temperate climate, where more than 100 people were killed in last year's heat wave.

"We tend to see in our projections of climate change into the future that poorer places are going to be facing a really large increase in death risk and wealthier places are going to see an increase in adaptation costs," said Carleton.

 

Outdoor workers are especially vulnerable to heat waves

Spurring into heat action

Just how high this death risk is in developing countries became clear when Ahmedabad, a city in western India's Gujarat state, lost more than 1,344 people as thermometers hit 47°C (116°F) in 2010.

The toll spurred the city into action. In 2013, it rolled out a plan that has prevented about 1,100 heat induced deaths each year since, according to a study.

The first heat action plan in South Asia, it includes an early warning system, community outreach to vulnerable populations and education for health staff about possible signs of heat exposure. It also organizes cooling centers in buildings such as temples and malls as well as reduced or staggered working times for outdoor laborers, among other things.

As India's temperatures consistently surpass the baseline in spring and summer months, the Ahmedabad heat plan has since served as a template for similar models in 23 of the country's 28 states.


But as high temperatures persist, these models undergo regular updates, according to Polash Mukherjee, Lead for Air Pollution and Climate Resilience at the Natural Resources Defense Council's India program. The non-profit helped develop Ahmedabad's heat action plan.

"The focus has shifted significantly in the last couple of years from merely protecting human health and mortality against extreme heat to more proactive measures," said Mukherjee. "These include changing building by-laws so that new constructions are better insulated, and the cool roofs program."

A low-cost solution to reduce indoor temperatures, the cool roofs program primarily targets badly insulated houses in slums where informal workers and other vulnerable groups reside. When a roof is coated with materials like lime-based whitewash or white tarp, it becomes more reflective and absorbs less heat.

Cool pavements and green passages

Ideas like these are budding around the world. The Japanese capital Tokyo has introduced cool pavements, which work with thermal-barrier coating, for example. Medellin in Colombia has planted "green corridors," vegetated passages that offer more shade in public spaces, while the city of Toronto, Canada, offers grants for people to install green or cool roofs.

Some cities have introduced heat officers, whose task it is to coordinate the response to rising temperatures.

Eugenia Kargbo became Africa's first heat officer when she took the post in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A goal of hers is to provide reflective market shade covers that protect women selling produce outdoors. To make the capital more liveable, she has also introduced a tree planting program, in which planters can collect micro-payments on an app.

"This is the future I envision for my children and all the children in Freetown: A safe environment not limited by the risk of extreme heat," she told DW's EcoAfrica.

Focus on the climate crisis

Even as some regions find ways to alleviate some of the effects of scorching heat waves, many scientists emphasize that governments shouldn't forget the root cause of the rising temperatures: the climate crisis.

Aditi Mukherji, who co-authored the water chapter in the IPCC's assessment on "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," says the onus to come up with solutions shouldn't be on the most affected, who historically have emitted the least amount of CO2.

"I feel that when it comes to these kinds of heat extremes, the only solution is that the high emitting countries stop emissions immediately and stop burning fossil fuels," she said.
Edited by: Tamsin Walker

IN PICTURES: INDIA SWELTERS AS SEVERE HEAT WAVE SWEEPS REGION
Skyrocketing temperatures sweep country
A girl uses sunglasses, a mask, a long cloth and an umbrella to protect herself from the sun on her way to school in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. In April, northwest and central India recorded average maximum temperatures of 35.9 and 37.78 Celsius (96.6 and 100 Fahrenheit) respectively, the highest since the Indian Meteorological Department began keeping records 122 years ago.
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Spain says PM targeted by Pegasus spyware


The Israel-based NSO Group, which owns Pegasus, claims the software is only sold to government agencies to target criminals and terrorists 

(AFP/JOEL SAGET)

Christian CHAISE with Rosa SULLEIRO in Barcelona
Mon, May 2, 2022

Spain said Monday that the mobile phones of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles were tapped using Pegasus spyware in an "illicit and external" intervention.

Their phones were infected last year by software owned by the Israeli-based firm NSO, which is the target of numerous investigations worldwide, according to a senior official.

"It is not a supposition, they are facts of enormous gravity," said the minister of the presidency, Felix Bolanos.

"We are absolutely certain that it was an external attack... because in Spain, in a democracy like ours, all such interventions are carried out by official bodies and with judicial authorisation," he said.

"In this case, neither of the two circumstances prevailed, which is why we have no doubt that it was an external intervention. We want the judiciary to investigate," Bolanos said.

He did not say whether the Spanish authorities had any indication yet where the attack originated from or whether another country was behind it.

Bolanos said that Sanchez's phone had been tapped in May 2021 and Robles' in June of the same year.

"A determined amount of data" was extracted from both phones, he added.

"There is no evidence that there was other tapping after those dates."

- Official phones targeted -

The El Pais newspaper said the hackers extracted 2.6 gigabytes of information from Sanchez's phone and nine megabytes from Robles's phone, but the government still does not know "the nature of the stolen information and the degree of sensitivity."

The attack targeted their work phones provided by the state, not their private phones.

Bolanos said experts were checking whether other members of the Spanish government were targets of spying involving Pegasus.

He said the government on Monday filed a complaint with a Spanish high court tasked with significant national and international cases, which have included terrorism in the past, in order to bring the full facts to light.

Pegasus spyware infiltrates mobile phones to extract data or activate a camera or microphone to spy on their owners.

The Israel-based NSO Group, which owns Pegasus, claims the software is only sold to government agencies to target criminals and terrorists, with the green light of Israeli authorities.

The company has been criticised by global rights groups for violating users' privacy around the world and it faces lawsuits from major tech firms such as Apple and Microsoft.

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said the software has been used to hack up to 50,000 mobile phones worldwide.

Catalan separatists have accused Spain's intelligence services of using spyware to snoop on their mobile phones, reviving tensions with Sanchez's minority leftist government, which relies on their support to pass legislation.

Canada's Citizen Lab group said last month that at least 65 people linked to the Catalan separatist movement had been targets of Pegasus spyware in the wake of a failed independence bid in 2017.

Elected officials, including current and former Catalan regional leaders, were among those targeted by the controversial spyware.

rs-chz/lc/yad

Spain said Monday that the mobile phones of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defence Minister Margarita Robles were tapped using Pegasus spyware in an "illicit and external" intervention. FRANCE 24's Sarah Morris reports from Madrid, Spain.

Tanker strike worsens fuel woes in crisis-hit Sri Lanka


Sri Lanka is in the grip of a pandemic-spurred economic freefall, the worst since independence from Britain in 1948, which has led to food and fuel shortages

 (AFP/Ishara S. KODIKARA) 

Mon, May 2, 2022

A strike by owners of fuel tankers over the weekend renewed Sri Lanka's long queues for diesel and petrol on Monday as pumps ran dry, compounding the island nation's economic and energy crisis.

Sri Lanka is in the grip of a pandemic-spurred economic freefall, the worst since independence from Britain in 1948, which has led to shortages of food and other essentials.

The lack of fuel has been an especially large sticking point for the government, as petrol prices have increased by 90 percent while diesel -- commonly used for public transport -- has gone up by 138 percent.

Fuel woes eased slightly last week as supplies arrived under a $500 million credit line from India.

But the salve proved temporary as fuel tanker operators have been on strike since late Saturday, demanding an increase to their prices to ferry the petrol across the country.

Energy minister Kanchana Wijesekera said Monday he needed at least three more days to restore the supplies of petrol and diesel.

"I appeal to the motorists to bear with us for three more days," he told reporters in Colombo, adding that the government was trying to hire other mobile container owners not affiliated with the protest.

According to Wijesekera, the union representing tanker operators was demanding a 115 percent increase in fees, outstripping an offer of 95 percent more from state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp (CPC).

"We are willing to increase, but not by as much as the tanker operators are demanding," he said.

"If we give in, the CPC will go bankrupt."

But the operators say running costs are up due to diesel prices being raised 138 percent, while insurance, spare parts and wages have spiked due to the sharp depreciation of Sri Lanka's currency.

The rupee has dropped by more than 40 percent against the dollar since March.

Tens of thousands have protested for weeks across the country, with demonstrators also camped daily outside the residence of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa calling for his resignation over alleged corruption and mismanagement of the economy.

Sri Lanka has sought about $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund to overcome the balance-of-payments crisis and boost depleted reserves.

The government has also announced a sovereign default on its huge foreign debt.

aj/dhc/leg

Finnish group scraps nuclear plant deal with Russia's Rosatom

Fennovoima had said last month it expected sanctions to have an effect on the project but stressed it had not been put under pressure to scrap the deal

 (AFP/Vesa Moilanen)

Elias HUUHTANEN
Mon, May 2, 2022, 

Finnish-led consortium Fennovoima said on Monday it has terminated a contract with Russian group Rosatom to build Finland's third nuclear power plant, citing risks linked to the Ukraine war.

"The contract has been cancelled due to delays and the inability to deliver, and we have seen that the war has increased these risks," Fennovoima chairman of the board Esa Harmala told reporters at a press conference.

Rosatom said it was surprised by the announcement.

"The reasons for such a decision are completely incomprehensible," the group said in a statement, adding that the project had been "progressing" and Fennovoima's management had not discussed the termination of the contract with shareholders.

Rosatom said it might take the matter to court.

"We reserve the right to defend our interests in accordance with the current contracts and current law", the firm stated.

The proposed 1,200-megawatt Russian-designed reactor was to be built in Pyhajoki, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the port of Oulu in northern Finland.

The Hanhikivi 1 project, in which Rosatom owns a 34-percent stake with the remainder held by a Finnish consortium, had been delayed several times and the construction permit had not yet been granted.

Construction was to have begun in 2023 and electricity production in 2029.

Fennovoima, which had already poured 600-700 million euros into the project, said issues with the delivery had accumulated "years before" and the contract was not terminated solely because of the war.

It was not immediately known whether the Finnish consortium would completely scrap its plans to build a new reactor, or seek out a new partner to replace Rosatom.

"It is too early to speculate on the future of the project", Harmala told reporters.

"This decision does not have a direct impact on the shareholder agreement between the owners of Fennovoima."

However, Fennovoima chief executive Joachim Specht added it was "too early" to comment on whether Rosatom would stay on as an owner in Fennovoima.

- 'Significant complexities' -

The project, which employed 450 people, had been one of the major industrial projects involving a Russian company in the European Union, though there had been many uncertainties about its future.

Two days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Finnish government had said it was re-evaluating the security risks for the 7.5-billion-euro deal.

Russian nuclear power groups are currently not subjected to European sanctions over the Ukraine war.

Nevertheless, Fennovoima had said in early April it expected the existing sanctions to have an effect on the project.

Harmala stressed on Monday that "we were not pressured in any way".

Fennovoima said the decision to cancel the contract was "not made lightly".

"In a such a large project there are significant complexities and decisions are made only after thorough considerations", it said in a statement.

Finland currently has five nuclear reactors at two plants, both located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, providing about 30 percent of the country's electricity.

The fifth reactor, Olkiluoto 3 built by the French-German consortium Areva-Siemens, went online in March and will provide 15 percent of Finland's electricity when it begins producing at full capacity in September.

ehu/po/cdw

MODI'S MAN IN THE CIA
Indian-origin Man Becomes CIA's First-ever Chief Technology Officer: Who Is Nand Mulchandani?

Nand Mulchandani, an Indian-origin man has become CIA's first-ever chief technology officer (CTO).

Nand Mulchandani Linkedin

 Latest Issue MAHARASHTRA
UPDATED: 02 MAY 2022 

Nand Mulchandani, an Indian-origin man who went to the United States for his college and higher studies, has been appointed by The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as their first ever Central Technology Officer (CTO).

CIA director William J Burns made an announcement through a blog post, shared by the agency on Twitter. "With more than 25 years of experience, Mr. Mulchandani will ensure the Agency is leveraging cutting-edge innovations to further CIA's mission," the CIA said in a tweet.


CIA director William J Burns said, “Since my confirmation, I have prioritized focusing on technology and the new CTO position is a very important part of that effort. I am delighted Nand has joined our team and will bring his extensive experience to this crucial new role” according to media reports.

Nand Mulchandani has over 25 years of expertise working in Silicon Valley according to the CIA. He will report directly to William J Burns, as per reports based on the CIA statement.

What we know about CIA’s first-ever CTO Nand Mulchandani:

Nand Mulchandani studied at Bluebells School International, which is based in Delhi and for his undergraduate, he went to Cornell University and studied Computer Science and Math. For his Master, he went to Stanford to secure a Science degree in Management. He also has a Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard.

Nand Mulchandani most recently served as the CTO and acting director of the US Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center before joining the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was also a CEO of many startup companies like Oblix (acquired by Oracle), Determina (acquired by VMWare), OpenDNS (acquired by Cisco), and ScaleXtreme (acquired by Citrix).

The CIA's newly-appointed CTO, after CIA director Burns's announcement for the coveted position, said, “I am honoured to join CIA in this role and look forward to working with the Agency’s incredible team of technologists and domain experts who already deliver world-class intelligence and capabilities to help build a comprehensive technology strategy that delivers exciting capabilities working closely with industry and partners” according to media reports.

Michelle Goldberg: The awful advent of reactionary chic

MICHELLE GOLDBERG
The New York Times

MAY 1, 2022
10:00 PM

David Brock, the conservative journalistic hit man turned Hillary Clinton acolyte, described how he first became a reactionary in his 2002 book “Blinded by the Right.” He’d arrived at the University of California, Berkeley, at the dawn of the Reagan era as a Bobby Kennedy-worshipping liberal but grew quickly alienated by the campus’s progressive pieties.

“Rather than a liberal bastion of intellectual tolerance and academic freedom, the campus was — though the phrase hadn’t yet been coined — politically correct, sometimes stiflingly so,” he wrote.

A formative experience was seeing a lecture by Ronald Reagan’s U.N. ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, shut down by left-wing protesters. “Wasn’t free speech a liberal value?” he asked. The more Mr. Brock challenged the left, the more he was ostracized, and the more his resentment pushed him rightward.

By the time he got to Washington, where he became an influential conservative journalist, he’d developed what we might now call an “edgelord” sensibility. He traveled to Chile to write a defense of murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet. “I was flippantly engaging in the extremist one-upmanship that characterized not only me, but many young conservatives of the era,” he wrote.

Of course, not just that era. The dynamic Mr. Brock described — extremist one-upmanship meant to scandalize hated left-wing persecutors — is a major driver of right-wing cultural innovation. That’s why stories about the American New Right (also called the dissident right, national conservatism and neo-reaction) seem so familiar, even if the movement’s ideology is a departure from mainstream conservatism.

Last week, Vanity Fair published James Pogue’s fascinating look at the American New Right’s constellation of thinkers, podcasters and politicians, many funded by Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire who once wrote that freedom and democracy are incompatible. It’s hard to summarize the scene’s politics; a milieu that includes both the aggressively anti-cosmopolitan Senate candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio and the louche hipster podcast “Red Scare” doesn’t have a coherent worldview. What it does have is contempt for social liberalism and a desire to épater le bourgeois.

“It is a project to overthrow the thrust of progress, at least such as liberals understand the word,” Mr. Pogue wrote. One of the movement’s leading intellectual lights is Curtis Yarvin, a blogger who sees liberalism as creating a Matrix-like totalitarian system and who wants to replace American democracy with a sort of techno-monarchy.

According to Mr. Pogue, the movement “has become quietly edgy and cool in new tech outposts like Miami and Austin, and in downtown Manhattan, where New Right-ish politics are in, and signifiers like a demure cross necklace have become markers of a transgressive chic.” This might be an overstatement, but it’s pretty clear that there’s cultural energy in the opposition to the progressive norms and taboos that are derisively called “wokeness.”

BuzzFeed News writer Joseph Bernstein captured this energy in a March article about an anti-woke New York film festival funded by Mr. Thiel and headed by a Black queer provocateur named Trevor Bazile. “Call it, if you must, a vibe shift: a new generation of internet-native tastemakers — like many of the people crowded into Mr. Bazile’s party — who find the moralistic gatekeeping of millennials all a bit passé,” wrote Mr. Bernstein.

This vibe shift was predictable; when the left becomes grimly censorious, it incubates its own opposition. The internet makes things worse, giving the whole world a taste of the type of irritating progressive sanctimony Mr. Brock had to go to Berkeley to find. As a result, an alliance with the country’s most repressive forces can appear, to some, as liberating.

I suspect this can last only so long as the right isn’t in power nationally. Eventually, an avant-garde flirtation with reaction will collide with the brutish, philistine reality of conservative rule. (As Brock would discover, being a gay man in a deeply homophobic movement was not cheeky fun.)

In the short term, however, it’s frightening to think that backlash politics could become somehow fashionable, especially given how stagnant the left appears. In New York magazine, Sam Adler-Bell recently wrote about a dispiriting lull in progressive movement-building: “There appears almost no grassroots energy or urgency of any kind on the Democratic side.” The one thing the left could count on in recent years is its cultural capital. What happens if that is squandered?

Michelle Goldberg is a columnist for The New York Times.

First Published May 1, 2022, 10:00pm

E15 is the Wrong Fuel to Drive America's Energy Plan

By Gabriella Hoffman
April 28, 2022

There’s no better way to enjoy warmer weather than road-tripping or some sort of water sport. But an updated biofuel rule permitting the sale of E15 gasoline could derail many summer plans.

The White House recently announced its intention to sell E15 (15% ethanol and 85% gasoline) to offset high prices at the pump — attributing it to the so-called “Putin Price Hike.” In an unprecedented move, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to fall in line and will issue a rare emergency waiver greenlighting the sale between June 1st to September 15th —which was previously forbidden under the Clean Air Act, given air pollution concerns.

But this rule change would be sustainable for neither working families nor the environment.

With rising inflation, increasing production of corn-based fuel will further add to economic woes. Though it’s been lauded as a viable alternative to conventional fuel, E15 has vast shortcomings as a reliable fuel source.

First, its availability is quite scarce, and market demand is low. According to the EPA, E15 is currently sold in 2,300 gas stations across 30 states. Of the 150,000 gas stations nationwide, that’s a paltry 1.5%. Moreover, the reported savings of 10 cents cheaper per gallon at the pump are exaggerated, at best. One conservative estimate only shows a $0.02 reduction in fuel costs. Ethanol’s profitability is also dependent on the price of corn and gasoline. If corn prices rise, farmers won’t be able to meet demand and will, in turn, produce a lower-quality, alcohol-like fuel.

The White House erroneously claims shoring up production of homegrown ethanol-based gasoline bolsters the environment. The evidence, rather, points to the opposite. A February 2022 study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims U.S.- corn-based ethanol is worse for the environment than conventional gasoline, concluding “land to grow corn can negate or even reverse any climate advantages of corn ethanol relative to gasoline.” Worse news for the administration: The findings also concluded ethanol is 24% more carbon-intensive than regular gasoline. The EPA previously experimented with cellulosic ethanol and deemed it a colossal failure.


E15 gas isn’t ubiquitous and can’t adequately fuel most vehicular motors. Why? It’s limited to cars built after 2001-excluding motorcycles, lawn mowers, or boats as the fuel is incompatible with their engines. More troubling for E15 backers in the White House: Flex-fuel cars get 15% to 27% fewer miles compared to cars running on regular gasoline.

With respect to outbound marine motors, E15 isn’t compatible with plastic and rubber components, is highly corrosive, and will lead to engine failure. One boating magazine wrote, “Ethanol also raises the oxygen content of fuel, which can cause a lean condition and cause the engine to run hot and eventually fail due to excessive carbon build-up, over-heated exhaust valves and bearing failure in older two-stroke outboard engines.” A 2011 National Renewable Energy Lab study on ethanol fuel endurance similarly found these motors running on E15 cannot accommodate fuels containing more than 10% ethanol.

Unfortunately, there is a bipartisan addiction to biofuels due to entrenched special interests. In 2019, former President Donald J. Trump authorized the full-year emergency sale of the biofuel under the guise of helping farmers. But a federal court ruled the former president’s actions countered federal law.

This White House has similarly expressed interest in having this rule be applied year-round but not a peep from environmentalists. Talk about a double standard.

Who will benefit from this rule change? Sadly, not America’s working families. The Biden administration will give kickbacks to industry backers and already-subsidized biofuel manufacturers. The Biden administration will allocate $100 million dollars for homegrown biofuels infrastructure, award $700 million in subsidies to biofuel producers, and give another $5.6 million in grants through the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program.

The White House leans on performative environmentalism that’s costly to Americans and won’t bolster the environment. Instead of embracing this unsustainable biofuel standard, it should continue to boost production of cheap, clean oil and gas.

Gabriella Hoffman is a Young Voices Contributor and host of the District of Conservation podcast. Follow her on Twitter at @Gabby_Hoffman.

As Utility-Scale Renewables Expand, Some Midwest Farmers Are Pushing Back

Rural communities are concerned about losing agricultural land in a region long-defined by its farming roots.
by Diana Kruzman / GristApril 28, 2022

An example of a solar farm in Ithaca, New York. As panels spread across the landscape, some farmers in the Midwest worry about the potential loss of farming areas. 

(AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)

This story was originally published by Grist.

In mid-March, about 80 people gathered in the auditorium of a local high school in Licking County, Ohio, a rural area about 40 minutes outside the state capital. The public hearing, set up to discuss a proposed 350-megawatt solar project, lasted more than four hours.

Supporters of the project said it would bring in much-needed tax revenue for local schools and promote energy independence in a state reliant on coal and natural gas. Opponents raised concerns about the loss of 1,880 acres of prime farmland, the impact on property values, and the potential environmental effects of the development.

“It’s becoming like the Hatfields and McCoys,” one resident told the Newark Advocate at the meeting, referring to the infamous feud between two families in Appalachia in the late 1800s. “This is destroying the community. Family members are pitted against each other. Church members are pitted against each other. And it’s neighbor against neighbor.”

The United States is experiencing a boom in utility-scale renewable energy projects, as solar and wind prices continue to fall and the Biden administration pushes for a fossil fuel-free electricity sector by 2035. Throughout the process, developers seeking vast expanses of cheap land for utility-scale facilities have faced pushback from the likes of Massachusetts fishermen, coal plant supporters, and environmental groups concerned about desert tortoises. Now, rural communities around the Midwest are mobilizing to restrict or ban large renewable energy projects. Experts say that some residents have been swayed by misinformation about the health impacts of solar and wind. But for most, the issue is tied to concerns about the loss of agricultural land in a region long-defined by its farming roots.

In March, researchers from Columbia Law School found that 121 local governments in 31 states have developed restrictions on new renewable energy projects, a 17.5 percent increase from just six months ago. About half of those local laws are in the Midwest. A congressman from Wisconsin proposed a nationwide ban on tax incentives that encourage renewable energy development on farmland, while community groups have packed local meetings to oppose solar and wind farms in Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa. One Michigan man filed recall petitions against all five members of his township board, saying they failed to properly regulate wind and solar development or “provide sufficient protections for the health, safety, and welfare” of residents.

Solar energy in particular has taken a lot of the heat, even in states that have long embraced wind. Iowa was the first state to generate more than 30 percent of its electricity from wind turbines, and has more wind energy installed than any other state except Texas. But while farming can take place alongside wind turbines, solar farms typically take agricultural land out of large-scale production. In response, Iowa legislators introduced a bill earlier this year that would have prevented solar farms from being built on land that’s considered particularly good for farming — about two-thirds of the state’s counties.

The bill would also require solar panel fields to be at least 1,250 feet away from the nearest neighboring landowner. Iowa law only requires oil and gas wells, by contrast, to be 330 feet from any nearby property.

Rural residents are far from united in this opposition, said Lindsay Mouw, a clean energy policy associate at the Nebraska-based nonprofit Center for Rural Affairs. Many support renewable energy projects because of the extra income they provide, especially as farming becomes less financially viable and soil becomes increasingly degraded. But while every rural landowner is able to decide for themselves whether or not to sell their land to renewable energy companies, those choices can affect others nearby who may not feel the same way, Mouw added.

Wall Street Breakfast: Woodstock Of Capitalism

May 02, 2022 

Seeking Alpha

Woodstock of Capitalism

Thousands of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) shareholders and other investors flocked to Omaha, Nebraska, this weekend to hear Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger speak at an event known as the "Woodstock of Capitalism." The pandemic forced the conglomerate, which owns and invests in a wide range of businesses from insurance to industrials, to shift to an online format over the last two years, so the return to an in-person gathering garnered some extra attention. "It really feels good to be back," Buffett announced at the beginning of the show, saying it "was a lot better seeing actual shareholders and partners."

Back in action: Berkshire was a huge net buyer of stocks in the first quarter, loading up on $51.1B worth of equities. Those included big holdings in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) and Chevron (CVX), acquiring an 11.4% stake in HP (HPQ) and arbitrage play Activision (ATVI) (as Microsoft (MSFT) acquires the videogame developer). All of the buying shrunk Berkshire's cash hoard to $106B, but echoed Buffett's classic dip-buying he also conducted during the financial crisis. "One thing that won't change is we will always have a lot of cash on hand," added Buffett, who is known to be nimble when mispriced opportunities arise.

Also sitting on the dais were Greg Abel, Buffett's successor and currently head of Berkshire's non-insurance businesses, and Ajit Jain, the head of the company's insurance operations. Assuring some investors, Buffett detailed that when the time comes for Abel to take over, the board will "put some more restrictions" on him, compared to the degree of carte blanche historically granted to Buffett. A proposal that would have stripped Buffett of his dual chair and CEO was also voted down at the meeting, along with other measures like one that would have required Berkshire to publish a yearly assessment of how it's handling issues related to climate change.

Report card: Operating earnings at Berkshire Hathaway rose slightly from a year ago to $7B as manufacturing and retail businesses thrived, though net earnings plunged 53% Y/Y to $5.5B as insurance underwriting declined heavily. "The amount of investment gains (losses) in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules," Berkshire noted, pointing to its recent stock track record: While the S&P 500 has dropped more than 13% YTD, Berkshire's stock is up more than 7%. Will it send a signal to some investors that are running for the exits, or even trigger a shakeout that could help some value investors? (95 comments)

No to crypto

Just a month after Peter Thiel called Warren Buffett the "enemy No. 1" of Bitcoin (BTC-USD), describing him as a "sociopathic grandpa from Omaha," Buffett doubled down on his outlook of the popular crypto at Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A, BRK.B) annual shareholder meeting. "Nobody wants their windpipe stepped on and I don't blame them. I don't like people to step on my windpipe, but I will say this," declared Buffett, who has previously referred to Bitcoin as "probably rat poison squared."

Quote: "If you said... for a 1% interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay our group $25B, I'll write you a check this afternoon. For $25B, I now own 1% of the farmland. If you tell me you own 1% of all the apartment houses in the United States and you want another $25B, I'll write you a check, it's very simple. Now if you told me you own all of the Bitcoin (BTC-USD) in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn't take it because what would I do with it? I'd have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn't going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rental and the farms are going to produce food. That explains the difference between productive assets and something that depends on the next guy paying you more than the last guy got."

"Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there's only one currency that's accepted. You can come up with all kinds of things - we can put up Berkshire coins... but in the end, this is money," he announced, holding up a dollar bill. "Anyone that thinks the United States government is going to change the way they let Berkshire money replace theirs is out of their minds. Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don't know. But the one thing I'm pretty sure of is that it doesn't multiply, it doesn't produce anything. It's got a magic to it and people have attached magic to lots of things."

Munger chimes in: "In my life, I try and avoid things that are stupid, and evil, and make me look bad in comparison to somebody else - and Bitcoin (BTC-USD) does all three. In the first place, it's stupid because it's very likely to go to zero. In the second place, it's evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve system that we desperately need to maintain its integrity and government control... and third, it makes us look foolish compared to the Communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin in China, and with all of our presumed advantages in civilization, we are a lot dumber than the Communist leader in China." (53 comments)

Politics and business

Geoff Morrell appears to be taking the fall at Disney (NYSE:DIS) as the chief corporate affairs officer, who helped architect Disney's public response to Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, decided to resign from the company. Morrell had only been three months into the new job before announcing his departure following prior stints as a spokesperson at BP (BP) and the Pentagon. Kristina Schake, who Disney hired earlier this month, will lead the company's communications efforts going forward, while Disney General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez will pick up government relations and public policy. They will both report directly to CEO Bob Chapek, who has had to navigate the coronavirus pandemic - and a big hole left by longtime CEO Bob Iger - after taking the top spot in February 2020.

Backdrop: According to people who worked with him, Morrell set out to be more transparent than his iron-fisted predecessor, Zenia Mucha, who closely guarded Disney's public image. With regards to "Don't Say Gay," Morrell guided Disney and Chapek to publicly explain why it hadn't taken a stand regarding the legislation that limits some classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. "Corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds," Chapek wrote, but the declaration opened up a can of worms that sparked company-wide protests and walkouts for employees that felt otherwise.

Instead of remaining quiet on the matter with no public position (a similar stance it takes with regards to China's reported human rights abuses), Disney went on to double down on support for the "Don't Say Gay" legislation. "This bill should never have passed and should never have been signed into law," the company declared. "Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that." What followed was an uproar that saw the Florida legislature revoke Disney's special tax district status and a fight over who is liable to pay the $1B bond linked to dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Go deeper: There is much debate in this case if public officials should target private companies, as well as if private corporations should comment on the public sphere. The bottom line is that top business leaders across Corporate America are now on alert for navigating charged topics. "The No. 1 concern CEOs have is, 'When should I speak out on public issues?'" said Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic and current professor at Harvard Business School. "As one CEO said to me, 'I want to speak out on social issues, but I don't want to get involved in politics.' Which I said under my breath, 'That's not possible.'" (32 comments)

'Work from anywhere'

Many tech firms and other companies embraced remote work during the pandemic, only to wean off the model in favor of a hybrid approach or a return to the office once the initial waves of COVID-19 subsided. Not Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB). The home rental provider that changed the way people travel just announced a policy that will allow its employees to live and work from anywhere, calling it the "predominant way companies will work in 10 years from now." The plan:

1. You can work from home or the office - whatever works best for you.

2. You can move anywhere in the country, like from San Francisco to Nashville, and your compensation won't change.

3. You have the flexibility to live and work in 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location.

4. We'll meet up regularly for team gatherings. Most employees will connect in person every quarter for about a week at a time (some more frequently).

5. To pull this off, we'll operate off of a multi-year roadmap with two major product releases a year, which will keep us working in a highly coordinated way.

Quote: "We had the most productive two-year period in our company's history - all while working remotely," explained CEO Brian Chesky. "Two decades ago, Silicon Valley startups popularized open floor plans and on-site perks. Today's startups have embraced flexibility and remote work." Companies will also be at a "significant disadvantage if they limit their talent pool to a commuting radius around their offices. The best people live everywhere."

Human connection? "The most meaningful connections happen in person. Zoom is great for maintaining relationships, but it's not the best way to deepen them. And some creative work is best done in the same room. The right solution should combine the efficiency of Zoom with the meaningful human connection that happens when people come together. Our design attempts to combine the best of both worlds."