PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – There comes a time of the year when the rain slows down and the water takes a back seat to the summer parched ground… That time doesn’t appear to be here just yet.
The KOIN 6 Weather team is tracking apotentialstrong atmospheric river (AR) near the end of the week. Just like all AR events, the rain totals are expected to be high, but the exact location is in flux. An AR is essentially the gauge of horizontal water vapor transportation that can vary from situation to situation. Some conveyor belts of moisture are weaker than others, due to the strength of wind and the amount of water vapor.
What does this mean for Portland and our surrounding communities? Rainy moments are once again possible for…
The untold story about “green energy” is that it can’t possibly be scaled up to provide anywhere near the energy to replace fossil fuels. (Unless we are headed back to the stone ages, which is what some of the “de-growth” advocates favor).
Right now, the United States gets about 70% of its energy from fossil fuels. To go to zero over the next 20 years would be economically catastrophic and cost tens of millions of jobs. With gas prices at nearly double their price back from when Donald Trump left office and inflation up from 1.5% to 8% in just 15 months, we are already experiencing the economic damage from the green energy crusaders.
But we also have to ask whether green energy is even good for the environment. Some environmentalists are pointing to a little-noticed study by the World Bank showing that moving toward 100% solar, wind and electric battery energy would be just as destructive to the planet as fossil fuels. This was precisely the conclusion of a story in Foreign Policy magazine, hardly a right-wing publication.
According to the Foreign Policy analysis, moving to a “carbon-free” energy future “requires massive amounts of energy, not to mention the extraction of minerals and metals at great environmental and social costs.”
Here are some of the numbers. Going all-in on batteries, solar and wind would require:
Those tens of millions of windmills, solar panels and electric batteries for cars and trucks aren’t exactly biodegradable. So, we will have the most prominent energy graveyard with toxic pollutants that will be 100 times larger than any nuclear waste storage. And yet, the Left is worried about plastic straws!
I’m all for mining for America’s bountiful natural resources of copper, lead, magnesium and precious metals. But ironically, it’s the greens that want to shut down mines, which is like saying you want food, but you oppose farming. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
Then, the land space is needed for the windmills and solar panels. Bloomberg reports that getting to zero carbon by 2050 would require a land area equal to five South Dakotas “to develop enough clean power to run all the electric vehicles, factories, and more.”
In other words, the liberals are calling for a full-scale industrialization of America’s wilderness and landscape.
Now, even many of the most liberal areas of the country are shouting “no” to green energy in their own backyard. Vermonters are rebelling against unsightly solar panels spoiling their views. According to the Bennington Banner, “Vermont’s utility regulator has rejected permits for two 2 MW solar farms proposed in Bennington, pointing to aesthetic concerns and current land conservation measures in the town plan.”
Meanwhile, a town in Wisconsin is suing state regulators to “stop construction” of what would be “the state’s largest solar project,” according to the Wisconsin Journal.
Even blue Massachusetts residents are fighting green energy projects. Off-shore wind farms are delayed off the coast of Cape Cod, where per capita income is nearly the highest in the country, because they don’t want their ocean views spoiled from their beachfront villas.
In other words, real nature lovers are finally starting to awaken to the reality that wind and solar aren’t so green after all. A nuclear plant takes up at most 1 square mile of land. Wind and solar farms require hundreds of thousands of acres. So, to provide enough electric power to keep Manhattan lit up at night would require paving over nearly the whole state of Connecticut with windmills and solar farms.
The public is starting to ask: How is any of this green? The Green New Deal strategy makes especially no sense given that by increasing our use of clean-burning and reliable natural gas, we are reducing energy prices AND cutting carbon emissions. Add nuclear power to the mix, and we wouldn’t need to start building wind and solar farms in our forests, deserts and national parks.
The ladder trap appeared to have been set up for the sole purpose of catching crows.
Crows that enter the trap through the ladder at the top will be unable to leave owing to the sloped shape of the trap’s roof and the carefully spaced ladder rungs.
Man removed crows calmly, methodically
Throughout the duration of the video, the man could be seen moving in a measured way as he appeared not to want to startle the birds.
He then proceeded to methodically remove the crows from the cage one by one after using his net to corner and trap each bird.
The birds he removed were placed inside a pet carrier.
Discussions on Reddit centred on the man’s role, as those who commented said he was likely hired to manage the bird population, which is a perennial issue in Singapore that has cropped up from time to time in the media.
The contraption of nets and poles has also been seen in other estates in Singapore.
Background
In the past, some 20 years ago, the management of the crow population in Singapore involved shooting them with shotguns.
The plan then was to cut the crow population from 100,000 to 10,000.
The use of shotguns to cull birds here have presented problems, besides the debate on whether more humane methods could be employed.
In February 2019, an auxiliary police officer tried to cull crows without clearing the area or checking his line-of-sight, and ended up firing multiple pellets into the front door of an HDB flat some 23m away.
His actions were deemed to have put civilians at risk.
Issue of culling
Looking at the issue from a broader perspective, culling has been called out as an ineffective long-term solution to controlling bird populations.
Speaking about the pigeon population in Singapore in particular, Anbarasi Boopal, co-CEO of Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, said in 2019 that culling these birds by poisoning them — which was one method carried out — was a short-term fix that only made the problem worse.
She said culling removes healthy pigeons to give the remaining ones more food and allow them to breed even more.
Moreover, the use of poison could also have unintended consequences, such as poisoning other animals and birds, such as quails and orioles.
Availability of food the cause of population growth
The growth of the crow population in Singapore has been attributed to the availability of food.
This was reiterated by the Ministry of National Development (MND) in February 2021 when it addressed a parliamentary question on methods to manage the crow population.
MND said “food made available by humans is a key driver of crow population growth” and that NParks received 2,750 cases of crow related feedback in 2020 pertaining to “issues such as noise, crow sightings, feeding, and crow attacks”.
MND said NParks would continue to refine their science-based management of the crow population and “develop innovative trap designs” that are both “humane and effective”.
A bull moose stands in Nunavaugaluk Lake, October of 1997. The moose population in the nearby Togiak National Wildlife Refuge has boomed over the past three decades. (Photo by Andy Aderman/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
In southwestern Alaska, where there is a mix of tundra, mountains, forests and river-crossed terrain, there has been a rapid transformation in the wildlife.
In the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge specifically, the moose population has increased a whopping 400-fold since the early 1990s, from just a handful a few decades ago to about 2,000 animals now.
The reason appears clear: climate change. Milder winters and the proliferation of vegetation correlate directly with the moose population boom, according toongoing researchby SebastianZavoico, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The strongest part of the trend seems to be in river-crossed areas on…
This year’s hunting season in Botswana kicked off with giant killing acts: the shooting of two of the biggest elephant bulls, triggering both anger and jubilation from the extreme ends of the wildlife conservation camps.
In April, at the opening of Botswana’s controversial six-monthtrophy huntingseason, two large-tusked African savannah elephant bulls were killed. The two massive bulls, killed in northern Botswana, had tusks that weighed more than 100 pounds (48 kg) and 90 pounds (40 kg) each, respectively – marking them among Africa’s largest elephants.
While some local Batswana communities that directly benefit from these hunts celebrated the killings, not everyone was impressed.
ANGER AND CONDEMNATION
“This was one of the largest, if not the largest, tusker in the country,”
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Two Tampa men are facing charges for allegedly hunting a deer in a residential area in East Lake, authorities said.
The alleged incident occurred around 10:50 p.m. Saturday in the area of Ridgemoor Boulevard and Glenridge Drive, according to an affidavit. In Zone C, where it happened, general deer gun season runs from Nov. 5 through Jan. 22, the report said.
Deputies said they became aware of the situation after a man called 911 and reported hearing what sounded like metal shrapnel hit his fence. He said he saw a deer lying on the road, which he presumed was deceased, and a vehicle circling the area.
“I’m surprised I didn’t hear the gunshots. But yeah, it’s unbelievable. Really unbelievable,” said Bernard Osborne, neighbor.
A boy tries out the interactive T. rex during the media preview March 5, 2019 of “T. Rex: The Ultimate Predator” an at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.(Image credit: Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
Prehistoric giants used to populate theEarth. These behemoths included mighty dinosaurs, airplane-sizepterosaurs, massive crocodiles and snakes, and even armadillos the size of cars. But today, there are just a few big animals on our planet.
What happened? Why aren’t there many giants left anymore?
First of all, there’s plenty of fossil evidence that the ancient past really did have larger animals — beasts that were humongous…
June 08, 2022, 10:37 AM
