Climate Change — From A to Z, was a rather good piece of writing from Elizabeth Kolbert in this week’s New Yorker. Part optimism, part lament, it shines some light on emergent areas of hope while also assessing the reality of a status quo bias, and if nothing else, informed me a bit on a topic I rarely sit with.

She does a phenomenal job with the piece. It goes in many directions and covers more than a few things (It is not a short piece). I am not sure if The New Yorker is entirely behind a paywall or if there are a certain number of stories one can freely access per month, but I recommend it. Of note to me, a short section on per capita energy usage (and the comparative analysis by nation to follow) was worth the time alone. Mind boggling stuff. Those two paragraphs of hers are below:

excerpt from Climate Change: A to Z by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Once a month, as I write the check to the electric company, I check the Kilowatt-hours (KWh) billed and look to see how we are doing compared to previous periods and reflect on ways to use less energy/write smaller check amounts in the future. Based on the KWh billing alone, I knew we were on the hook for something like 7,500 to 8,500 KWh annually, but did not (do not) grok the sheer amount of energy flowing through and across the US.

Trying to contemplate the additional 192,000-ish Kilowatt hours (96%) being used out-there-in-the-wild that balances the two of us back to American per capita energy usage kind of does my head in. And meanwhile, I’m still at my desk trying to find a marginal gain to reduce that 4%.*

IF ANYONE IS LOOKING for something great to adorn their walls, Zoe Keller is an artist working in the scientific illustrative tradition that might merit consideration. Her subjects focus on wilderness and biodiversity and her talent is out of sight.

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You should check our her site here.

I LEARNED TODAY that the Chesapeake apparently has a proper swamp nearby. There are no alligators, presumably no pitcher plants, but just the same, I am interested in visiting Zekiah Swamp, Maryland’s largest, next spring.

“Largest” is just kind of thrown in there for kicks; it seems considerably smaller than places like Pinhook or the Okefenokee I’d frequent many moons ago, but just the same, I would like to get a feel for the place and maybe drag a canoe through the place.

ALSO OF INTEREST NEXT SPRING is The Cherry Blossom 10-miler (a more urban affair). The route seems pretty great, there is plenty of time to train up for it, and from what I gather, it is a great time of year to be in the District. Should be a great day, if it happens. There is a lottery involved, but registration starts in December and entrants should know if they’re invited to run by late December as I understand it.

FINALLY, I found the chart below interesting. Trend lines suggest the population using Twitter could be rapidly changing. It is kind of funny to think that if this trend were to continue, ELNO would have bought Twitter (for far too much money) only to turn it into Parler.

currently reading: Simple Chess by Michael Stean.

currently watching: The Peripheral (Prime) and Shantaram (Apple+).

last full listen: Lotta Sea Lice by Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile (2017).