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blackwoolncrown · 3 years

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For the past few days, a heatwave has glowered over the Pacific Northwest, forcing temperatures in the region to a record-breaking 118ºF. Few people in the region—neither Americans nor Canadians—have air-conditioning. Stores sold out of new AC units in hours as a panicked public sought a reasonable solution to the emergency. Unfortunately, air-conditioning is part of what’s causing the unusual heatwave in the first place.

We came close to destroying all life on Earth during the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation. But we may have come even closer during the cooling war, when the rising number of Americans with air conditioners—and a refrigerant industry that fought regulation—nearly obliterated the ozone layer. We avoided that environmental catastrophe, but the fundamental problem of air conditioning has never really been resolved.

Mechanical cooling appeared in the early 1900s not for comfort but for business. In manufacturing, the regulation of temperature—“process cooling”—controlled the quality of commodities like cotton, tobacco, and chewing gum. In 1903, Alfred Wolff installed the first cooling system for people at the New York Stock Exchange because comfortable traders yielded considerably higher stock returns. Only in the ’20s did “commercial cooling” appear. On Memorial Day weekend 1925, Willis Carrier debuted the first centrifugal air-conditioning system at the Rivoli Theater in Midtown Manhattan. Previously, theaters had shut down in the summer. With air-conditioning, the Rivoli became “the talk of Broadway” and inaugurated the summer blockbuster.

-another direct tie to capitalism. Everything born out of colonio-capitalism carries its toxic mark. Article totally not under the cut for those who can’t pay for Time. It honestly paints a really clear picture of the situation. Bolding mine.-

“It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.“

Before World War II, almost no one had air-conditioning at home. Besides being financially impractical and culturally odd, it was also dangerous. Chemical refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and methyl chloride filled most fridges and coolers, and leaks could kill a child, poison a hospital floor, even blow up a basement. Everything changed with the invention of Freon in 1928. Non-toxic and non-explosive, Freon was hailed as a “miracle.” It made the modernist skyscraper—with its sealed windows and heat-absorbing materials—possible. It made living in the desert possible. The small, winter resort of Phoenix, Arizona, became a year-round attraction. Architecture could now ignore the local climate. Anywhere could be 65ºF with 55% humidity. Cheap materials made boxy, suburban tract housing affordable to most Americans, but the sealed-up, stifling design of these homes required air-conditioning to keep the heat at bay. Quickly, air-conditioning transitioned from a luxury to a necessity. By 1980, more than half of all U.S. homes were air-conditioned. And despite millions of Black Americans fleeing the violence of Jim Crow, the South saw greater in-migration than out-migration for the first time—a direct result of AC. The American car was similarly transformed. In 1955, only 10 percent of American cars had air-conditioning. Thirty years later, it came standard.

The cooling boom also altered the way we work. Now, Americans could work anywhere at any hour of the day. Early ads for air-conditioning promised not health or comfort but productivity. The workday could proceed no matter the season or the climate. Even in the home, A/C brought comfort as a means to rest up before the next work day.

The use of air-conditioning was as symbolic as it was material. It conveyed class status. Who did and didn’t have air-conditioning often fell starkly along the color line, too, especially in the South. It conquered the weather and, with it, the need to sweat or squirm or lie down in the summer swelter. In that sense, air-conditioning allowed Americans to transcend their physical bodies, that long-sought fantasy of the Puritan settlers: to be in the world but not of it. Miracle, indeed.

But it came with a price. As it turned out, Freon isn’t exactly non-toxic. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which depletes the ozone layer and also acts as a global warming gas. By 1974, the industrialized world was churning out CFCs, chemicals that had never appeared on the planet in any significant quantities, at a rate of one million metric tons a year—the equivalent mass of more than 500,000 cars. That was the year atmospheric chemists Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina first hypothesized that the chlorine molecules in CFCs might be destroying ozone in the stratosphere by bonding to free oxygen atoms and disrupting the atmosphere’s delicate chemistry. By then, CFCs were used not only as refrigerants but also as spray can propellants, manufacturing degreasers, and foam-blowing agents.

The ozone layer absorbs the worst of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Without stratospheric ozone, life as we know it is impossible. A 1 percent decline in the ozone layer’s thickness results in thousands of new cases of skin cancer. Greater depletion would lead to crop failures, the collapse of oceanic food systems, and, eventually, the destruction of all life on Earth.

In the 1980s, geophysicist Joseph Farman confirmed the Rowland-Molina hypothesis when he detected a near-absence of ozone over Antarctica—the “Ozone Hole.” A fierce battle ensued among industry, scientists, environmentalists, and politicians, but in 1987 the U.S signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which ended Freon production.

The Montreal Protocol remains the world’s only successful international environmental treaty with legally binding emissions targets. Annual conferences to re-assess the goals of the treaty make it a living document, which is revised in light of up-to-date scientific data. For instance, the Montreal Protocol set out only to slow production of CFCs, but, by 1997, industrialized countries had stopped production entirely, far sooner than was thought possible. The world was saved through global cooperation.

The trouble is that the refrigerants replacing CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), turned out to be terrible for the planet, too. While they have an ozone-depleting potential of zero, they are potent greenhouse gases. They absorb infrared radiation from the sun and Earth and block heat that normally escapes into outer space. Carbon dioxide and methane do this too, but HFCs trap heat at rates thousands of times higher. Although the number of refrigerant molecules in the atmosphere is far fewer than those of other greenhouse gases, their destructive force, molecule for molecule, is far greater.

In three decades, the production of HFCs grew exponentially. Today, HFCs provide the cooling power to almost any air conditioner in the home, in the office, in the supermarket, or in the car. They cool vaccines, blood for transfusions, and temperature-sensitive medications, as well as the data processors and computer servers that make up the internet—everything from the cloud to blockchains. In 2019, annual global warming emissions from HFCs were the equivalent of 175 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

In May, the EPA signaled it will begin phasing down HFCs and replacing them with more climate-friendly alternatives. Experts agree that a swift end to HFCs could prevent as much as 0.5ºC of warming over the next century—a third of the way to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Yet regardless of the refrigerant used, cooling still requires energy. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, air-conditioning accounts for nearly a fifth of annual U.S. residential electricity use. This is more energy for cooling overall and per capita than in any other nation. Most Americans consider the cost of energy only in terms of their electricity bills. But it’s also costing us the planet. Joe Biden’s announcement to shift toward a renewable energy infrastructure obscures the uncertainty of whether that infrastructure could meet Americans’ outrageously high energy demand—much of it for cooling that doesn’t save lives. Renewable energy infrastructure can take us only so far. The rest of the work is cultural. From Freon to HFCs, we keep replacing chemical refrigerants without taking a hard look at why we’re cooling in the first place.

Comfort cooling began not as a survival strategy but as a business venture. It still carries all those symbolic meanings, though its currency now works globally, cleaving the world into civilized cooling and barbaric heat. Despite what we assume, as a means of weathering a heat wave, individual air-conditioning is terribly ineffective. It works only for those who can afford it. But even then, their use in urban areas only makes the surrounding micro-climate hotter, sometimes by a factor of 10ºF, actively threatening the lives of those who don’t have access to cooling. (The sociologist Eric Klinenberg has brilliantly studied how, in a 1995 Chicago heat wave, about twice as many people died than in a comparable heat wave forty years earlier due to the city’s neglect of certain neighborhoods and social infrastructure.) Ironically, research suggests that exposure to constant air-conditioning can prevent our bodies from acclimatizing to hot weather, so those who subject themselves to “thermal monotony” are, in the end, making themselves more vulnerable to heat-related illness.

And, of course, air-conditioning only works when you have the electricity to power it. During heatwaves, when air-conditioning is needed most, blackouts are frequent. On Sunday, with afternoon temperatures reaching 112ºF around Portland, the power grid failed for more than 6,300 residences under control by Portland General Electrics.

The troubled history of air-conditioning suggests not that we chuck it entirely but that we focus on public cooling, on public comfort, rather than individual cooling, on individual comfort. Ensuring that the most vulnerable among the planet’s human inhabitants can keep cool through better access to public cooling centers, shade-giving trees, safe green spaces, water infrastructure to cool, and smart design will not only enrich our cities overall, it will lower the temperature for everyone. It’s far more efficient this way.

To do so, we’ll have to re-orient ourselves to the meaning of air-conditioning. And to comfort. Privatized air-conditioning survived the ozone crisis, but its power to separate—by class, by race, by nation, by ability—has survived, too. Comfort for some comes at the expense of the life on this planet.

It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.

#ac #climate change #climate crisis #eco #environment #comfort #articles #to read

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lihikainanea · 4 years

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thinking about bill and tiger going on a winter road trip around the rural parts of europe. they take turns driving and eat at awful for you restaurants, go to all the cheesy tourist attractions, and a spontaneous mini golf sesh because tiger made a bet she could beat him. and once they get to their first stop, he goes in for a sweet kiss once they’re settled, but it naturally progresses into something more intimate. soft gasps, little giggles when he accidentally tickles her, and they have sex to the sound of the fireplace cracking.... brb gonna cry for a bit -🧚‍♀️

Ohhhhh bullseye, baby.

I don’t know if it’s just my Canadian side talking--we’re basically just a few chromosomes away from being polar bears--but there is something deeply engrained in me, something that really loves the winter. I am an autumn girl through and through, but something about winter is just...undeniably magical. Yes, sometimes it’s awful--the road conditions, the slippery sidewalks, the -40C, the 8 feet of snow that gets dumped on us weekly. But there’s also such a mysticism to it, a uniqueness, a lovely and serene quality.

There is the way that the bright snow illuminates a dark night--soft blankets just coating everything. It’s the way that it somehow makes everything much more quiet--most who have experienced cold winters can tell you that there is indeed silence that most of us associate with only the winter months, when the snow just seems to insulate everything and block out all echoes. A peacefulness. There’s the bright winter sky that is somehow just impossibly blue, a blue that you only see in January or February, and usually when the temperatures drop to insufferable degrees that no human should live through. The coldest days bring the brightest skies, and it’s a blue I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world. It’s the different kinds of snow that fall--soft and powdery, the type you want to just pelt at each other, or heavy and wet--the perfect kind for making a snowman.

Bill said a few years ago that the winters in Toronto were the coldest he had ever felt, and I felt some weird Canadian pride that we had successfully beaten a Nordic man into wintery submission. To boot--Toronto ain’t even all that cold compared to our prairie brethren. I wonder if he’s ever visited Landon in February.

In any case, despite its tribulations, winter holds a special place in my heart--and winter in Europe? Oh man. The November/December trip I took to Oslo and Copenhagen two years ago was the prettiest thing I had ever seen--Europe does cozy winter right. Everything is warm drinks, big knits, patios outside with heating lamps, blankets on chairs. It’s beautiful.

And maybe this trip is kind of her dream--but listen, for non-Europeans, driving in Europe can be terrifying, you know? I nearly get killed when I just try to cross the street on foot, let alone attempting to drive. But Bill grew up in these countries, traveled all over ‘em, and he’s more than fine with driving. Maybe he doesn’t even tell tiger the plan--he has a rough outline, but he keeps it secret. Tiger just thinks it’s the greatest thing, hitting the road in Europe with her big dude. He drives everywhere, confident and calm, through snowy mountains in a nice car, holding her hand. Maybe they start in France, drive on over to Switzerland. He rents a small room in a beautiful log cabin in the Alps, and it’s all fire place and cheese fondue and huge, fur blankets on the bed. They take a fondue tour. They hop on a beautiful scenic train that takes them around the country in a day. They go ice skating (he won’t let her ski, he’s not falling for that again). They drink mulled wine on their outdoor heated patio when they get back, all red noses and huddled together. They absolutely have sex under a blanket in front of the fire place, and it’s intimate and warm, both of their skin glowing in the soft light of the fire. The bed is huge, a big wooden frame complete with four posts, but they sleep glued to each other. He stuffs her silly, full of melty cheese fondue and raclette.

Maybe they head to Austria from there, he brings her to all the small pastry shops he knows of. He takes her prancing through the famous garden, takes her on a hot chocolate tour, gets enough chocolate snacks for the road. He brings her to Mozart’s house, introduces her to her first Mozartkugel, and he has to forbid her from eating anymore wiener schnitzel because she almost made herself sick. Maybe if it’s around Christmas time, he takes her to a few Christmas markets.

Then they head up to Germany, the whole time locked in an intense debate about glugg versus gluhwein--tiger can’t tell the difference, she just likes both but it’s very important, kid--maybe Bill has to stop along a few roads, let a herd of mountain goats go by. Even the ROADS are pretty in Europe. They stop for snacks in roadside restaurants and shacks, and god even the small motels along the way from country to country are just so beautiful. He takes her to all the German Christmas markets, hosts an elaborate mulled wine tasting (see tiger? glugg is so much better), feeds her bratwursts. Tiger is amazed that Bill can literally down an entire 1L stein of beer in just a few gulps, along with a pretzel the size of his face. In fact, maybe this time it’s tiger that has to intervene--Bill had 4 pretzels in a row and as he went for a fifth, she yanked him the other way. Got him a sausage on a stick instead, because somehow that’s better.

They head up to Scandinavia from there--a quick stop in Denmark, and that is entirely at tiger’s request. Bill’s Swedish side says fuck Denmark. But he takes her shopping on Stroget, tries to get her to properly pronounce stegt flæsk med persillesovs, maybe even takes her for a romantic stroll near Tivoli. Tiger makes the cardinal sin of mentioning that Danish Gløgg is her favourite so far and Bill almost like, smacks the mug out of her hands. They eat aebelskiver, and she laughs when he gets powdered sugar all over his nose. They stay a night or two in a beautiful little inn, before hopping back in the car.

Tiger loves that she’s just not worrying about anything. Bill knows how to gas up in Europe. He knows how the roads work. He knows how to park and read the parking signs. He knows where they can stop and get food, he knows where they can stay--tiger is just in the passenger seat, holding his big hand, and she’s glowing. He gets her a cute winter hat, a warmer pair of mittens when she’s cold. They pick up a few beautiful Christmas ornaments along the way, because the Christmas markets are just too beautiful not to.

They finally end back up in Sweden, but they’re not done yet. Bill drives way north into the countryside, where it’s dark all the time and where you can see the Northern Lights. He knows his way around--he rents a glass igloo for a few nights, gets a ski doo, drives her out to the middle of nowhere and parks it. The Northern Lights light up the entire sky, and tiger swears she’s never seen anything so beautiful in her life. She cries about it--god granny would have loved this. He hugs her and tells her to try to stop--wet tears on cold cheeks is never a good thing.

They sleep that night on their backs, still huddled together, watching the lights dance across the sky. He convinces her to try reindeer the next morning--tiger is a big fan of Christmas and eating reindeer just seems wrong--but it’s a pretty normal thing out there. She hates how much she loves it. And it’s a great way for him to reveal their next destination--none other than Santa Claus’ legit village, in Rovaniemi, Finland. Her squeal is so loud it nearly cracks the glass igloo.

#I love winter #there's no denying it #but also #I was supposed to spend a week in a glass igloo in Rovaniemi this December #it was booked and paid for #and then #obliterated #bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard drabble #BFF!Bill #soft bill

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architectnews · 3 years

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"Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied irony"

Architecture firm Perkins&Will has gone too far with claims that a luxury timber home on a Canadian mountain removes more atmospheric carbon than it emits, argues Fred A Bernstein.

For much of last winter, Perkins&Will, an architecture firm with 25 offices from San Francisco to Singapore to Sao Paulo, used a photo of a wooden house in British Columbia as one of the "hero images" on its website.

The house, which sits alone on a mountaintop overlooking the Soo Valley 90 miles north of Vancouver, is certainly beautiful, but the firm had other reasons for splashing it across its homepage. The 321-square-metre dwelling, known as the SoLo House, is meant to be a model of sustainability.

Entirely off the grid, it is designed to operate with power from 103 solar panels on its south facade, a 96-kilowatt-hour battery pack to store electricity for nights and cloudy days (both of which are frequent in British Columbia), and a hydrogen fuel cell for winter.

With all that equipment, the house may well be able to function without utility hook-ups. But Perkins&Will has made a far more surprising and audacious claim: that the building's structure is "beyond carbon neutral," meaning that it will remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emitted in the first place.

It seemed to be giving its clients permission to build willy-nilly at a time of climate crisis

In a slickly produced video on the firm's website, Perkins&Will architect Alysia Baldwin says the house "proves that buildings can counteract their negative consequences and act as a source of repair."

People listen to Perkins&Will, a firm that has positioned itself as a leader in green building. "For nearly a quarter of a century, we've been at the vanguard of the sustainability movement," its website declares. Journalists have tended to repeat its claims.

But this time it had gone too far. By constructing a showplace of a house on an otherwise pristine mountaintop, and claiming it had helped the environment by doing so, it seemed to be giving its clients permission to build willy-nilly at a time of climate crisis.

Looking at SoLo House, with its cathedral ceilings, its comfortable sectional sofas and its giant picture windows, then listening to Perkins&Will claim that its structure reduces atmospheric carbon, I'm reminded of the old punchline: "Who are you going to believe – me, or your lying eyes?"

Reducing a building's contribution to atmospheric carbon means making it small, keeping it simple, building it near existing infrastructure, avoiding the need for heavy equipment such as batteries and fuel cells and using the lowest-embodied-energy building materials.

Reducing a building's contribution to atmospheric carbon means making it small

Perkins&Will, normally an excellent firm, has done those things on other projects. But with SoLo House, it seems not to have even tried.

According to experts, 40 per cent of atmospheric greenhouse gases come from buildings. Some emissions are attributable to running appliances and systems – so-called operational energy. The rest comes from the power needed to produce the building in the first place, known as embodied energy.

Incredibly, Perkins&Will is claiming there is "no embodied energy" in the house's structure (by which it means the elements that keep the building standing). To its credit, the firm answered requests for information promptly, providing facts, figures and charts prepared by Baldwin and her colleague Cillian Collins, a senior architect.

Here's how Baldwin and Collins arrived at their no-embodied-energy claim: First they estimated the amount of structural wood, steel and concrete in SoLo House. And then they turned to Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings, an app that approximates the amount of energy needed to produce given amounts of each building material and the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as a result of that energy use.

Athena told them that producing the steel and concrete, harvesting the wood and so on in SoLo House released 122 tonnes of CO2 (sometimes called CO2e, for CO2 and its equivalents) into the atmosphere.

That should have been the beginning – not the end – of the process of calculating the building's embodied energy. There are hundreds of other items that needed to be counted. Start with the roof. The walls. The windows (a massive item, given the need for triple glazing). The solar panels, the batteries, the hydrogen fuel cells. The furniture. The appliances. The plumbing. The heating and cooling systems. Lots and lots of insulation.

The list goes on. Each of those items has significant embodied energy. Transporting all of those materials to a remote mountaintop site adds more.

Perkins&Will failed to account for those sources of embodied energy. Baldwin was clear, in a letter to me, that the calculations were limited to the structure. But why would anyone stop there? According to Baldwin, it's because structure "represents the largest contribution to a typical building's embodied carbon impacts."

It may also be because Athena only applies to structure. (Athena is meant primarily for comparing how the choice of a structural material affects a building's embodied energy. An architect might enter plans for the same building, once with a concrete frame and once with a steel frame, and see how the embodied carbon figures differ.)

Of course, there are other ways to estimate the house's total embodied energy; one method is to use an online tool called Tally, which provides information on the embodied energy of numerous building components. Counting everything isn't easy, but other firms have done it.

Perkins&Will had a way of making it vanish, if not from the atmosphere then from the balance sheet

Even so, according to Athena, the house emitted 122 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. That sounds like a lot of carbon, but Perkins&Will had a way of making it vanish, if not from the atmosphere then from the balance sheet.

Much of SoLo House is made of wood. Wood, like all plants, is produced by photosynthesis from ingredients that include carbon dioxide. Thus trees are said to store (or sequester) carbon. They do, but probably not as much as people think, as I learned by studying the question at length.

Here's Perkins&Will's theory: If you cut down a tree and use the wood as a building material, that carbon sequestered in that tree becomes part of the building. Then, if you plant a new tree in place of the one you cut down, the new tree will sequester additional carbon as it grows. Thus the process (cutting down one tree, planting another) results, net-net, in carbon being removed from the atmosphere.

There are so many problems with that theory it's hard to know where to begin. To name a few:

1) You have to be sure a new tree will be planted in place of the one you cut down; will get to be as big as the one you cut down; and will live a long, healthy life. (If a tree burns, or decomposes, as billions of trees do every year, its embodied carbon is released right into the atmosphere.)

2) You can't waste any of the wood. That's a problem because converting a tree into lumber usually turns half the wood into sawdust or chips, which could end up being burnt or allowed to decompose. This problem alone suggests carbon sequestration figures should be cut in half.

3) The wood has to stay in or on the building for a very long time. If the building needs repairs, and lumber is removed, it may be recycled, but it may also be burnt or allowed to decompose. And who'll be watching in 20 or 50 years?

4) Let's be honest: You could have planted the new tree somewhere else, and not cut down the first tree to begin with. For that reason, no number of trees excuses a wasteful building.

5) Even if the new trees do sequester carbon, the process will take decades. Scientists who study global warming warn of tipping points and thresholds, some of which could be reached within the next ten years. If new buildings help push atmospheric carbon levels to a point of no return, the sequestration accomplished by newly planted trees will be too little, too late.

6) It's a logical impossibility. If you really believe SoLo House repairs the atmosphere, all you have to do is build enough SoLo Houses and climate change will go away. Now for our next trick ...

No number of trees excuses a wasteful building

No wonder the theory is highly controversial. A whole lot of things have to happen just right for it to become a reality. As Baldwin wrote in an email: "We acknowledge that not all timber sources perform equally in the realm of embodied carbon reduction."

"Much of the embodied carbon reduction achieved by timber is directly attributed to sustainable forestry management practices that ensure forestry operations are carried out in a way that allows forests to remain healthy and viable for future generations," she added. "These practices include conservation and protection, land use planning, regulation of timber harvesting, establishing practices to ensure forest regrow, and continuous monitoring and reporting to government."

She went on to admit that the tool used to determine the building's sequestered carbon, WoodWorks Carbon Calculator, a product of the Washington-based Wood Products Council, considers "much of this storage to be temporary and therefore [does] not give the building a carbon credit for the carbon dioxide that will eventually be released from this wood some time down the road, through decay or incineration."

But that didn't stop the firm from banking on the theory when it performed its embodied energy calculation. Using the Carbon Calculator, it determined that the amount of lumber in the building would result in the removal – through the planting of new trees – of 145 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. That's a bit more than the 122 tonnes the firm says the building's timber, concrete, and steel released into the atmosphere.

Converting a tree into lumber usually turns half the wood into sawdust or chips

So in this case, reducing E (embodied carbon) by S (sequestered carbon) produces a negative number – minus 22 tonnes, meaning that building the house decreased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. (Indeed, the house's owner, Delta Land Development, refers to it as "climate positive.")

Perkins & Will firm produced a chart to make this clear:

As Baldwin puts it, SoLo House "is able to store more carbon in its structure than was released during the production, manufacturing, and construction of the project."

That's a highly suspect statement. Based on everything I've learned, E (embodied energy) may be much greater than Perkins&Will says it is, and S (sequestered carbon) much lower.

In a letter responding to points in this article prior to publication, Perkins&Will wrote the following (the client, Delta Land Development, did not respond to requests for comment):

"Through careful selection of low embodied carbon and locally sourced materials, the project prioritized a mass timber structure. The design team used industry-accepted LCA [life cycle assessment] tools to quantify the carbon sequestration potential of the structure, and the timber structure is modelled to sequester 145 tonnes of CO2e as biogenic carbon."

Reusing/recycling is always the greenest strategy

"Structural elements typically represent the largest embodied carbon profile of [a] project, and as such, the structure was prioritized from an embodied carbon perspective."

"As designers, we rely on reputable industry tools to estimate the impact of projects. We used the Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings to complete this assessment. Athena uses ongoing research by the Athena Institute and complies with ISO 14040 (environmental management, life cycle assessment, and principles and framework) and ISO 14044 (environmental management, life cycle assessment, and requirements and guidelines)."

"Per our previous correspondence, we shared the Athena Institute's definition of biogenic sequestered carbon, which considers the whole life cycle of the material, including extraction, manufacturing, forms of transportation, installation, repair and maintenance, and end of life (assuming reuse of the wood)."

However, if Perkins and Will had really wanted to reduce embodied carbon, it would have thought about some of these strategies:

1) Putting the house in an easily accessible location, thus cutting out hundreds or thousands of trips by delivery people and construction workers. (Perkins&Will points out "that the wood was sourced from within British Columbia, and the building panels were manufactured in Pemberton, BC, which is located 30 minutes from the site.")

2) Renovating an existing house. Reusing/recycling is always the greenest strategy. Renovation typically generates 50 to 75 per cent less atmospheric carbon than new construction.

3) Choosing a site where there are no trees to cut down. According to Perkins&Will, "A clearing was required for a driveway, solar access, and fire protection. It required harvesting 180m³ of second-growth hemlock timber. This wood was put into the BC forestry chain, becoming useful lumber." Taking credit for sequestration by trees that may have been planted elsewhere, while cutting down enough trees on site to fill a five-meter by six-meter by six-meter container, is a whole lot of embodied irony.

4) Making the house a lot smaller. When it comes to saving energy, less is definitely more.

5) Choosing versions of steel and concrete with the lowest embodied energy (a lot of research is being done on ways of making those materials less "carbon-intensive").

Perkins&Will appears not to have done these things — the actual work required to reduce carbon emissions. The danger is that people will believe its claims.

Fred A Bernstein studied architecture at Princeton and law at NYU and writes about both subjects. He has published articles about embodied energy – a significant component of the climate crisis – in Oculus (a primer), in Architect Magazine (an admonition to architecture critics) and in the Architect's Newspaper (a warning that efforts to make buildings resilient are often detrimental from an embodied energy standpoint).

Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen's carbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is by Taylor van Riper via Unsplash.

The post "Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied irony" appeared first on Dezeen.

#Architecture – Dezeen

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ezatluba · 4 years

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Feral Pigs Roam the South. Now Even Northern States Aren’t Safe.

The swine have established themselves in Canada and are encroaching on border states like Montana and North Dakota.

By Jim Robbins

Dec. 16, 2019

Ranchers and government officials here are keeping watch on an enemy army gathering to the north, along the border with Canada. The invaders are big, testy, tenacious — and they’ll eat absolutely anything.

Feral pigs are widely considered to be the most destructive invasive species in the United States. They can do remarkable damage to the ecosystem, wrecking crops and hunting animals like birds and amphibians to near extinction.

They have wrecked military planes on runways. And although attacks on people are extremely rare, in November feral hogs killed a woman in Texas who was arriving for work in the early morning hours.

“Generally an invasive species is detrimental to one crop, or are introduced into waterways and hurt the fish,” said Dale Nolte, manager of the feral swine program at the Department of Agriculture. “But feral swine are destructive across the board and impact all sectors.”

Wild pigs occupy the “largest global range of any nondomesticated terrestrial mammal on earth,” researchers in Canada recently concluded. They have roamed parts of North America for centuries.

But in recent decades, the pigs have been expanding their range — or more accurately, people have been expanding it for them.

“It’s not natural dispersion,” Dr. Nolte said. “We have every reason to believe they are being moved in the backs of pickup trucks and released to create hunting opportunities.”

In the United States, their stronghold is the South — about half of the nation’s six million feral pigs live in Texas. But in the past 30 years, the hogs have expanded their range to 38 states from 17.

Eurasian boar first arrived in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s, imported as livestock or for hunting. They escaped or were released, and sometimes mated with domestic pigs. Their descendants have become common across the Canadian prairie.

Many experts thought the pigs couldn’t thrive in cold climates. But they burrow into the snow in winter, creating so-called pigloos — a tunnel or cave with a foot or two of snow on top for insulation. Many have developed thick coats of fur.

Now they are poised to invade states along the border, threatening to establish a new beachhead in this country.

“It’s concerning that Canada isn’t doing anything about it,” said Maggie Nutter, one of 80 concerned ranchers and farmers who met recently near Sweet Grass, Mont., to discuss the potential swine invasion. “What do you do to get them to control their wild hog population?”

States and federal agencies are monitoring the border. Should the pigs advance, wildlife officials plan an air assault, hunting the pigs from planes with high-tech equipment like night-vision goggles and thermal-imaging scopes. They’re testing waterways for pig DNA, and turning to more traditional approaches — hunting dogs and shotguns.

Why the worry? The harm caused by snuffling, gobbling wild hogs is the stuff of legend. The damage in the United States is estimated to be $1.5 billion annually, but likely closer to $2.5 billion, Dr. Nolte said.

They are very smart and can be very big — a Georgia pig called Hogzilla is believed to have weighed at least 800 pounds — and populations grow rapidly. Each female is capable of birthing at least two litters a year of six or more piglets.

“Nature’s rototillers,” experts have said. Feral pigs don’t browse the landscape; they dig out plants by the root, and lots of them. Big hogs can chew up acres of crops in a single night, destroying pastures, tearing out fences, digging up irrigation systems, polluting water supplies.

“Pigs will literally eat anything,” said Dr. Ryan Brook, a professor of animal science at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

“They eat ground-nesting birds — eggs and young and adults,” Dr. Brook said. “They eat frogs. They eat salamanders. They are huge on insect larvae. I’ve heard of them taking adult white-tailed deer.”

A recent study found that mammal and bird communities are 26 percent less diverse in forests where feral pigs are present. Sea turtles are an especially egregious example.

“Feral swine dig up nests and eat the eggs or consume the baby turtles,” Dr. Nolte said. “We have taken feral swine and in necropsies shown their entire stomach and intestines are full of baby sea turtles.”

Feral swine have caused extensive damage to cultural and historical sites. The invaders cause $36 million a year in damage to vehicles alone.

“Hitting a two- or three-hundred-pound pig on a highway is not that much different than hitting a two- or three-hundred-pound rock,” Dr. Nolte said. Two F-16 fighter jets have crashed after they hit pigs on the runway.

The swine are also reservoirs for at least 32 diseases, including bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis and leptospirosis. Outbreaks of E. coli in spinach and lettuce have been blamed on feral hogs defecating in farm fields.

There are reports that people have contracted hepatitis and brucellosis from butchering the animals after hunting.

“If an animal disease like African swine fever or hoof-and-mouth gets into these animals, it will be almost impossible to stop,” said Dr. William Karesh, a veterinarian who works for EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that studies animal disease. “It will shut down our livestock industry.”

Many countries are frantically trying to contain a global outbreak of African swine fever, which may necessitate the slaughter of a quarter of the world’s domestic pigs. Denmark has built a pig-proof fence along its border with Germany to keep wild boar from entering and infecting domestic pigs.

In the United States, pig hunting is a popular sport, but biologists caution that it is not always the solution to the nation’s feral pig problem.

In states where populations are not established, hunting creates an incentive for people to distribute feral pigs for sport. Hunting makes the animals warier and scatters sounders, or family groups, which go on to multiply in new family groups.

But where pigs are already well established, hunting can reduce their numbers. Gunning feral pigs from helicopters with semiautomatic weapons is a popular sport in Texas. (There are no hunting seasons for feral swine in the state; the animals, which cause $400 million in crop damage in the state annually, can be shot year round.)

Feral hogs are the descendants of swine brought by European explorers in the 16th century; Hernando De Soto, the Spanish explorer, is credited with introducing them to the New World.

Explorers released pigs as they traveled, and then hunted them for food when they returned to the area. Later, Eurasian wild boar were imported to North America for hunting. In many places the boar and the feral domestic hogs interbred.

This crossbreeding has resulted in a well adapted animal, Dr. Brook said: “It’s created a super pig.”

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cw-as-fieldresearch · 7 years

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Three weeks in - here’s what’s happening at TVC!

Hi everyone!

Well, I make no promises about a consistent blog, but how about periodic updates? The first stretch here was pretty busy – the problem with doing work in the snow is that you never know when it is going to disappear, so there was a lot of rushing to get our snow work done! A few weeks later and it has still barely melted … hence, we have time for things like a big update on what we’ve been up to. Let’s start at the beginning!

We had a beautiful trip up here – an overnight in Vancouver, which was sunny and beautiful and blooming – it almost made me not want to head north to winter again! There we got to catch up with a whole bunch of Cory’s friends at an amazing potluck, and I got my all-time favourite espresso beverage, the Spanish Latte. The next day brought us to one of my favourite cities, Whitehorse. Cory has only had really brief stopovers in the city, so we spent the afternoon wandering around the awesome trails along the Yukon River, and admiring all of the sights of pretty frozen rivers and snow-topped mountains in balmy 8 degree (Celsius) weather. The next day was an early morning start to take the milk run to Inuvik. We jumped aboard the good old reliable Air North Hawker Siddley, and hopped from Inuvik -> Dawson City -> Old Crow -> Inuvik. We lost the spring weather pretty quickly en route – still in the -20 degree (Celsius) range once we landed in Inuvik!

We had a few days in Inuvik to get organized, and on April 19th we hit the trails with a couple ski-doos dragging toboggans full of our gear for a 3 hour trip into camp (midway between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk)! Cory started off with a bang – before we even left the boundaries of town, Cory launched his ski-doo and toboggan over a snow bank and caught at least 4 feet of air, and still managed to stick the landing. Apparently the large bump pushed him into the throttle. A very dramatic start to his snowmobiling career! Things were much less exciting for the remainder of the trip – just a lot of really beautiful sights as we travelled from the north edge of the boreal forest into the tundra!

We’ve been kept well through the worst of the cold and it’s just going to get warmer from here (we hope). Cory and I have been very grateful for our army surplus purchased sleeping bags – so toasty every night, no matter how cold it has been! The first few nights in camp we had some darkness, and with darkness in the north comes auroras! There were some pretty spectacular auroras that only lasted for a maybe a minute one night, but in that minute we saw greens, reds, and purples dancing right across the sky! Not long after that night and complete darkness became a thing of the past – no more dark for the tundra until August.

Science progressed slowly but surely, and the very slow snowmelt worked in our favour. We had three main projects that we wanted to get done before snowmelt:

1) Take a bunch snow cores from shrub patches to count seed in the snow (green alder drops its seed over the winter, so that’s the best place to find its seed)

2) Snow survey (aka measure snow depth and density) across a bunch of shrub patches and Cory’s snow fence that he set up to test aspects of the snow-shrub hypothesis that is a pretty big deal in the tundra shrub world

3) Measure the temperature at the snow-ground interface

As with most science, we had our fair share of hiccups – Cory and I came to hate the snow tube that we use to take snow cores. Sometimes the snow would get stuck in it and we would lose a bunch of time trying to get it out, or the “plug” of soil that it usually grabs would get stuck too and be impossible to get out, or we would just hit a thick layer of “wind slab” in the snow that was almost impenetrable by the corer and took ages to get through. And then there was the first snow pit that we dug to measure the temperature at the snow-ground interface – the darn thing was 160 cm deep! It takes awhile to dig that deep in snow! We aren’t talking light fluffy stuff either, it takes some serious chipping to get through some layers! This insanely dense snow is what makes igloos so much easier to build here than in more southern snow though – we pulled out some pretty awesome snow bricks.

I was really surprised at how different the snow is here from what I’ve seen at Scotty Creek (near Fort Simpson, NWT). There is so much more variability across the landscape on the tundra – some areas are hardly 15 cm deep, and other areas you get several meters! When there’s nothing but hills, low vegetation, and a whole lot of wind over the winter, you get some serious snow movement and drifting. One of the other really neat things is the ice fog – beautiful, shimmering ice fog that leaves the most amazing frosty crystals on everything it touches! I can’t get enough of the intricacy of the crystals. We also have gotten some cool variability in the shape of the snowflakes that fall. Apparently the usual thing for up here are these tiny little snow columns that fall (they look like delicate little sprinkles), but when it got milder we got perfect little traditional snowflakes. Very pretty!

There’s been a little bit of wildlife around camp – we had a fox (“Monty”) who was a bit of a regular around camp, but we spooked it off with a bear banger when it started to get into garbage. He was quite the beautiful fella, and I got some awesome pictures of him. One morning he even posed for me in front of a stunning early morning sun dog! There are a ton of ptarmigans around, ladel-ladel-ladelling through the night, and the usual ravens occasionally flying over. The past week all of the migratory birds have started flocking back in mass though – Canadian geese, snow geese, sandhill cranes, and loons have all started making overhead appearances! I don’t know where they’re all going to go right now considering everything around us is still snow/ice covered, but it’s a welcome sign of “spring” anyway. There was a grizzly bear sighting a few kilometers away from camp, and some big grizzly tracks through the snow in Trail Valley Creek itself, but no major threats to camp.

We went out on a big ice fishing expedition awhile ago to the Husky Lakes – this is the place where I had hiked to last summer (a 3.5 hour hike) and caught lake trout and arctic grayling. The snowmobile trip was soooo much easier of course, but our fishing was not so successful – we only caught tiny little sea monsters (sculpin). It was still a very lovely relaxing day after Cory and I had been putting in some very long days of fieldwork for 10 days non-stop.

Life around camp has been great. There have been some great improvements to camp this year, like incinerating toilets that actually work effectively (thanks Incinolet!) and a stellar little propane stove/oven that has been well used. One of the perks of winter work is actually having meat in camp, so we’ve had meals featuring roast beef, chicken parmesan, steaks, and soooo much bacon for breakfast! We’ve done a fair bit of baking too – cookies, cakes, muffins, biscuits, peach crumble, quiche, and pizza! It’s a pretty awesome place to be all-around.

I think that covers all of the highlights of our fieldwork adventures so far. Now that we have down time while we’re waiting for the snow to melt, Cory and I are going to work on writing some papers that need our attention – much less exciting than playing in the snow, but it’s gotta happen!

Until next time!

-Ana and Cory

#fieldwork #arcticecology #research #north

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skijumpingimagines · 7 years

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RAW AIR Part 3: „RAW AIR will really show who is the best at the end.“

In the last two parts (Part 1 | Part 2) of our series about RAW AIR we gave you an insight in Vibeke Linn’s, Head of Social Media and Walter Hofer’s opinion. You have also got to know what the Czech physiotherapist Veronika Pankova and Killian Peier think. Today we had the chance to talk to Andreas Alamommo, Andraz Pograjc, Joacim Oedegaard Bjoereng, Kevin Bickner and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes about RAW AIR.

Andreas Alamommo – „It is difficult for every athlete because each jump must be good.“

Finnish youngster Andreas Alamommo, who participated for the first time in the Summer Grand Prix this season, thinks that RAW AIR sounds well prepared and that it could get much spectators in the upcoming winter and also during the next years.

About the new scoring system he told us that „it is difficult for every athlete because each jump must be good“ and that „you cannot skip qualification if you want to win the whole tournament.“

The whole tournament with ten days of competition means that there will be little time to regenerate. Alamommo said that there are many competitions in the World Cup and that it is already a long season before the start of RAW AIR. „Some can be tired of travelling and competing during winter but every athlete will give 100% like in every competition. Also in spectacular Planica at the last competitions before the holidays everyone shows their best“, he added.

About the comparison of RAW AIR and the 4-Hills-Tournament Andreas thinks that the legendary 4-Hills-Tournament has been taken place already 64 times and that RAW AIR might not gain this popularity in the first years but that we will have to wait what the next seasons will bring.

Andraz Pograjc – „It will not be just a competition.“

From the Slovenian team we spoke to Andraz Pograjc, who took some time and gave us his opinion about the competition series in Norway: „RAW AIR is a really good idea. It won’t be just a competition. I think it is more interesting for spectators and also for us.“ Furthermore, the 25-years-old said that the new scoring system is a good idea because you have to give your best in each jump and that it will make the competitions more equal for all competitors.

For Pograjc who has already been on top of the podium with his team during the Ski Flying competition in Planica in 2013, more competitions are better than less even though he thinks it is hard to say how ten competitions in a row will affect the health of the athletes. In regard to the planned transportation he is sceptic. „I think that the transportation is not suitable or friendly for us for that kind of competitions series“, he explained to us but also added that everything except this seems to be good.

Like Alamommo, Andraz Pograjc thinks that RAW AIR will not become as important as the 4-Hills-Tournament since the later has a historical tradition and also takes place to celebrate the New Year, which makes it even more special.

Joacim Oedegaard Bjoereng – „RAW AIR will really show who is the best at the end.“

Since RAW AIR is going to take place in Norway the opinion of a Norwegian athlete cannot be ignored. Youngster Joacim Oedegaard Bjoereng who started during the Summer Grand Prix this summer and who also showed some good results in the Continental Cup competitions, talked to us about this tournament.

„I think it is going to be a pretty hard tournament that really wants to show that the best man will win! And of course it is really exciting that it will take place in Norway and I hope it will be super popular here!“, told Bjoereng.

He continues to explain that in his opinion it is going to be taken good care of the athletes during the ten days of competitions. He thinks that „if someone will fall out off the battle for the overall ranking because they are tired and their health, they should have been better prepared because RAW AIR will really show who is the best at the end.“ Joacim said that the time will show if the tournament has been too hard for the athletes after it is over but he also pointed out that the organisers work hard to create something new. „They have worked out something really cool here to hopefully make the sport even more popular and especially to make the Norwegian people to open their eyes more for ski jumping“, explained Bjoereng and added, „I think that is just awesome.“

We also spoke to two athletes of the North American team, American Kevin Bickner and Canadian Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes. Both of them showed outstanding performances this summer so that we are already looking forward to their participation in this event.

Kevin Bickner – „With extreme sports you have to see how far the limits can be pushed.“

Kevin Bickner, who achieved Top 10 results during this year’s Grand Prix in Einsiedeln and Hakuba, is already excited when it comes to RAW AIR. „I think it is a cool new concept. I am excited to see how it will turn out with constant competition. I am always up for switching the traditional schedule around and trying something new,“ Bickner told us.

That he is up for trying new things shows also that he thinks the new scoring system is interesting. He continued that the planned system will take away a little advantage that the Top 10 has with being prequalified. But there are not only advantages he sees: „I am not sure how I feel about the team events counting towards the overall score of the event. Being part of a team that rarely takes place in team events, I feel as though I am at a disadvantage. So unless there was a rule where other athletes could compete but only count towards the RAW AIR standings I think that part is a little unfair and catering towards bigger nations.“ Since team events are not an issue only during RAW AIR we think it might be time to talk with Walter Hofer about the possibility of a North American team, which coach Bine Norcic already mentioned earlier this season.

When it comes to the constant competing and traveling during this series, Kevin Bickner does not think that the lack of regeneration time will be dangerous for the health of the athletes. He sees the risk of athletes burning out nevertheless which makes the event cool in his opinion. „It is an endurance event, something ski jumpers rarely see. I think we will see the performance of some jumpers suffer, and others stand out. There will be some very interesting results near the end at Vikersund“, he explained in addition.

Also in regard to the upcoming ski flying competitions in Planica straight after Vikersund Bickner is positive. He loves the idea that there will be back to back ski flying weekends and told us that a lot of athletes will already be adjusted to flying. That is why he thinks there will be a lot of far jumps in Planica. However Bickner also pointed out that recovery will be something to worry about. As reason he stated: „Most athletes are going to want to train hard for the World Cup final, but they also have to give their bodies enough time to recover from ten straight days of jumping.“

Since the Norwegian TV NRK plays a big role during RAW AIR there is always the risk that it was only created for the media without considering what is best for the athletes. Kevin Bickner thinks that the media is the biggest contributor to the creation of RAW AIR, as well, but that does not bother him. „It is something new and the creators were trying to think outside the box. Ski Jumping is an extreme sport, and sometimes with extreme sports you have to see how far the limits can be pushed.“

With a series of competitions on four hills it is normal to compare RAW AIR with the 4-Hills-Tournament and its success. For Bickner the reason for the importance of the 4-Hills-Tournament is the fact that it is such an old tradition that made it a prestigious event to win. Regarding RAW AIR he thinks that we will have to wait a few years to see what kind of feedback it will get.

Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes – „Many new and interesting competitions keep everyone’s motivation and energy level high.“

We are happy we managed to get some insight from Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes as well. The Canadian has been part of the World Cup since 2009 and showed a strong performance in the summer. He finished sixth in the SGP final in Klingenthal and landed on the podium at the COC in Stams.

„It is exciting for me, and really pretty good to bring attention to the sport in any way possible“, Boyd-Clowes stated and continued, „For the athletes I think as many new and interesting competitions to look forward to throughout the season keeps everyone’s motivation and energy level high.“

The new scoring system will first and foremost make RAW AIR fun to watch while athletes are trying to have a good jump every time. Boyd-Clowes explained that the most added pressure will be on two or three top athlete who are battling for the victory.

Competing during RAW AIR means a lot of days of hard work in a row, but this is also the job of the athletes. „I do not think you will hear any of the athletes complaining about jumping four great hills in Norway with a ski flying double header at the end of the season. It sounds great“, Mackenzie commented on ten days of competition before he added, „mind you, talk to me again in March.“ This we will surely do!

According to Boyd-Clowes‘ opinion it does not really matter if RAW AIR was only created for the media or what the intentions were in creating it because it is going to be a lot of fun for the athletes as well as the fans. There will be enough time to rest after the season.

In comparison to the 4-Hills-Tournament RAW AIR is „a fresh, exciting concept and people will be really interested in it.“ But about the 4-Hills-Tournament Mackenzie added: „The 4-Hills-Tournament has been around for over 60 years. So to compete with the prestige of that tournament is almost impossible.“

In only a few days the World Cup season 2016/17 will start in Kuusamo (FIN). With this series of articles we gave you a look behind the scened of RAW AIR which will take place as another highlight of the season beside the World Championships in Lahti in February. We hope you enjoyed it and you will join us this season for more news and insights into the World and Continental Cup!

Pictures: Newsskijumping

Carolin Erbe | Dolores Lazič

#news #raw air

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autolovecraft · 7 years

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This was no region to sleep in.

When Ammi reached his house by neighbors told on his wife consoled the stricken man as best they could not go. French-Canadians have tried it, and attacking silicon compounds with mutual destruction as a result, it was very plain that healthy living things must leave that house.

No use, either, in truth, so Ammi had looked back an instant at the stony messenger from the well water?

No sane wholesome colors were anywhere to be quite useless and unmanageable. It was a monstrous constellation of unnatural light, like the flowers whose hues had been terrible.

It was then that they owned that Thaddeus had been in the college scientists were forced to own that they empty and explore the well immediately, so perhaps there is a kind of madness to the attic and under the red checked tablecloth over what was abroad that night; and when upon heating before the father could get no clear data at all on the morning, and had to recall the speaker from ramblings, piece out scientific points which he knew only by a timid windmill salesman from Bolton who drove by one night in ignorance of the phosphorescence appeared to think of him as the gray November sky with a cloud of soot blowing about in the previous year. Their shapes were monstrous, and what is done in common humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the great shapeless horror had shot into the folklore of a large colored globule are dead. Even the flowers whose hues had been something else—something was fastening itself on 'em—it got strong on 'em, mind and body—Thad and Merwin and Zenas if they survived him. The failure was total; so after a fashion. There are things which cannot be mentioned, and once more he went with them to the country notion that she was harmless to herself and others. He whispered, and Nahum worked hard at his gleaning of the trees would die before the spectroscope both samples gave off an unknown spectrum, was almost impossible to describe; and though the tethered vehicles of the evening. It had a very puzzling aftermath occurred at the frightened man on the dark realm is enough to analyze it. Words could not believe that anything contrary to natural law had occurred. The five cats had left their hives and taken to the open; and had not his home lain outside the bounds of the house. Six times within an hour the farmer saw the aerolite and its influence was so insidious. There was a fearsomely ancient place, and as the light winter snow. But it was very inexplicable, for what live beast of earth. This was no one was surprised when the storm was over nothing remained but a piece of the scene burned itself into his brain. The beaker had gone, and the traveled roads around Arkham. It shrieked and howled, and their trunks were too big for any healthy New England secrets in the crazy vegetation of any kind on that broad expanse, but that they could not, however, ignored the warning, for an odd timidity about the missing Zenas. He was weak, and furtive wild things rustled in the dim alleys between them, when it was much breathless talk of new elements, bizarre optical properties, and entity. It come from that disused well, everyone went indoors and conferred in the usual winter prints of red squirrels, white rabbits, and then Ammi saw nothing of this earth, but shuddered as they paint thick woods whose mystery is as much of the woods and fields, and lambent tricklings of the chimney. There had been. Ammi reached his house by neighbors told on his tales, I feigned a matter of business; told him of my surveying, and his visits were becoming fewer and fewer. There was no glow from the window in horror and nausea. They walked and stumbled home by the law. He knew it the first time this week musta got strong on Zenas he was anxious to be the sap. The entire Gardner family developed the habit of stealthy listening, though the tethered vehicles of the whole farm was shining now, and other realms of infinity beyond all bounds. There were ammonia and caustic soda, alcohol and ether, nauseous carbon disulphide and a second, and he wanted Ammi to look worried. Ammi had difficulty in recalling all these things, but there was a little on the borders of that kind ought never to sprout in a woodchuck before. There was no one could explain. Nahum feared that the meteorite. Conjecture was vain; so that only their grotesque tales of it ever reached the people around, who shunned all Gardners now. Through quickly re-closing vapors they followed the great, overgrown mourning-cloak butterflies behaved in connection with these saxifrages.

No one will ever know what was abroad that night; and they held strange colors, and removed to some place where things ain't as they ought not to do to calm the high ground. The aspect of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. The others looked at it through the fields. No bites of prowling things could have brought the virus, for of all the rest reigned that riot of luminous amorphousness, that of Thaddeus being already known, and which all too clearly had shared the nameless fate of young Thaddeus and the splash in the usual order of use. Five eldritch acres of dusty gray desert remained, nor has anything ever grown over these five acres of gray desolation was terrible enough, but recognized some solvents as I viewed it, but husky and almost identical from every throat. I felt an odd timidity about the moving colors down there—it fed itself and escaped, and like the brittle globule in the woods. For he had found some very black clouds as they crossed the rustic bridge over gaps, where the trees may or may not have told the men who had been a moon, and in the house, but shuddered as they paint thick woods whose mystery is as much of the house. He and Ammi turned away from the stone they smashed it it was very cold.

There was no glow from the lantern he had picked up in the end he could sink the wooden shaft to any depth in the lot near the splotch of grayish dust. But that was not all. No watcher can ever forget that sight, only to sink down again upon the place on the way she made faces at him, of course useless, and the buggy-lamps faint, but it was Ammi, whose head has been a face.

—and the special signs of purpose it was some comfort to have so many others of the soil. He had seen it in the road past Nahum's house in his front yard were moving. That July and August were hot; and had come the runaway in the acid solvents there seemed to sweep down in black, frore gusts from interstellar space. Only the bricks of the Gazette; and Ammi advised his friend to dig another well on higher ground to use till the soil, and at night, and foreigners do not think his tale as a result, it was Ammi, it'll do something, but shadow lurked always there.

As was natural, the screams of the region, and the fruit was coming out gray and brittle.

#H.P. Lovecraft #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains #The Colour out of Space #1927 #The Colour out of Space week

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biofunmy · 4 years

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Feral Pigs Roam the South. Now Even Northern States Aren’t Safe.

HELENA, Mont. — Ranchers and government officials here are keeping watch on an enemy army gathering to the north, along the border with Canada. The invaders are big, testy, tenacious — and they’ll eat absolutely anything.