Earl Hamner Jr. Comes Home by [[Mike Boehm]] for the Los Angeles Times

Die Biden-Administration hat die Genehmigung des LNG-Terminals Calcasieu Pass 2 gestoppt, um die Klimawirkung des Projekts zu prüfen. Die Entscheidung gilt als Sieg von Klima-Aktivist:innen. Sie ist ein Signal im Wahlkampf und kann Folgen für 16 ähnliche geplante Projekte haben. Ihr war eine intensive Kampagne vorausgegangen. Auch ohne CO2 werden sich die LNG-Exportkapazitäten der USA in den nächsten Jahren nahezu vervierfachen. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/climate/a-huge-win-for-activists-puts-climate-on-the-2024-agenda.html

ჩემს მიერ შერჩეული ბლოგი დაწერილია ქართველი და შვეიცარიელი სტუდენტების მიერ(ლუკა კაპიტანიო,სიმონე გიორზი და ნათია კეკენაძე) რომლის განხილვის საგანია თემზე დაფუძნებული მთის მმართველობა საქართველოში,სადაც აღწერილია მაღალმთიანი დასახლებების რისკები და მათი გამომწვევი მიზეზები,ასევე განხულილულია მათი სოციალურ-ეკონომიკური მდგომარეობა და მაღალმთიანი რეგიონების მომავალი.საერთაშორისო ორგანიზაციების და საქართველოს მთავრობის მჭიდრო თანამშრომლობის შედეგად შექმნილია ადგილობრივი სამოქმედო ჯგუფები(LAG),რომელთა მიზანი კერძო,საჯარო და სამოქალაქო საზოგადოების ადგილობრივ დონეზე დაკავშირება და მთის განვითარების პრიორიტეტების/საჭიროებების განსაზღვრაა.2020 წლიდან LAG-ები აქტიურად მუშაობენ საქართველოს თითქმის ყველა მუნიციპალიტეტში.მაგალითად ხულოს LAG აქტიურად იყო ჩართული 73-მდე ადგილობრივი განვითარების ინიციატივის დაფინანსებაში.LAG-ის დახმარებით დაფინანსდა ორი სამკერვალო მაღაზია,სადაც 15-მდე ადგილობრივი ქალი დასაქმდა(EU4GEORGIA,2020). "შესაბამისად,უაღრესად მნიშვნელოვანია ისეთი ინსტიტუტების შექმნა,რომლებიც შესაძლებელს გახდის შესანიშნავი კომუნიკაციის საშუალებას ადგილობრივ მთის თემებსა და შესაბამის პოლოტიკურ ინსტიტუტებს შორის,რათა შესაძლებელი გახდეს საუკეთესო მმართველობა". გიორგი ჟამიერაშვილი

Durch das Überfließen eines Gletschersees kamen im indischen Budesstaat Sikkim Anfang September mindestens 14 Menschen ums Leben. Zuvor hatten Überflutungen nach weit überdurchschnittlichen Monsun-Regenfällen im Bundesstaat Himachal Pradesh über 250 Menschen das Leben gekostet. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/india-floods-death-toll-lhonak-lake-injuries-missing-sikkim

Die rohölproduktion in den USA wird in diesem Jahr ein Rekord-Hoch erreichen Etwa 25% der US-Emissionen werden durch Öl und Gas verursacht, das auf Bundesterritorien gefördert wird. Die New York Times zeigt ausgehend von einem Beispiel im Golf von Mexiko, warum es angesichts der Mehrheitsverhältnisse in Repräsentantenhaus und Senat und des konservativen obersten Gerichtshofs für die für die Biden-Administration extrem schwierig ist, die Zusage, dort keine weiteren Bohrungen zuzulassen, umzusetzen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/climate/biden-drilling-leases.html

• for: transition, transition - energy, progress, progress traps
• title: The Energy Transition Is a Technological Revolution — with a Deadline
• subtitle: What historical transitions — from water wheels to semiconductors — can teach us about today’s energy transition.
• authors
  • Yuki Numata
  • Laurens Speelman
• date: Aug 10, 2023
• source: https://rmi.org/the-energy-transition-is-a-technological-revolution-with-a-deadline/

https://stridewise.com/best-waxed-canvas-backpacks/

Not a bad selection of serious waxed canvas backpacks here based on my looking around.

Very often, when we think about ‘Il canto di Ulisse’, we tend to recall only the most famous pages in which Levi tries to remember Dante’s canto. The depth and sense of urgency of the Ulyssean passages are so overwhelming and passionate that they may distract us from other elements in the chapter. However, if we go back to the text and read it closely, we cannot avoid noticing that, after a brief opening in which Levi introduces Pikolo and narrates how he came to be Pikolo’s ‘fortunate’ chaperone to collect the soup for the day, ‘Il canto di Ulisse’ also dwells quite significantly on a moment of domestic memories. While going to the kitchens, Levi writes: ‘Si vedevano i Carpazi coperti di neve. Respirai l’aria fresca, mi sentivo insolitamente leggero’. This is the first moment in the chapter in which Levi refers to the mountains as something that revitalises him and makes him feel fresh and light, both physically and mentally.

This moment foreshadows another, also in this chapter, when Levi goes back to his mountains, those close to Turin, and compares them to the mountain that the protagonist of Dante’s canto, Ulysses, encounters just before his shipwreck with his companions:

... Quando mi apparve una montagna, bruna

Per la distanza, e parvemi alta tanto

Che mai veduta non ne avevo alcuna.

Sì, sì, ‘alta tanto’, non ‘molto alta’, proposizione consecutiva. E le montagne, quando si vedono di lontano... le montagne... oh Pikolo, Pikolo, di’ qualcosa, parla, non lasciarmi pensare alle mie montagne, che comparivano nel bruno della sera quando tornavo in treno da Milano a Torino! Basta, bisogna proseguire, queste sono cose che si pensano ma non si dicono. Pikolo attende e mi guarda. Darei la zuppa di oggi per saper saldare ‘non ne avevo alcuna’ col finale.

The significance of the mountains in Levi’s narration is confirmed in this passage. For him, the mountains represent his experience of belonging, his youthful years, and his work as a chemist – the job he was doing when he commuted by train from Turin to Milan. At the same time, Levi’s own memories of the mountains intertwine and overlap with another mountain, Dante’s Mount Purgatory. Here, a deep and perhaps not fully conscious intertextual game starts to emerge and to characterise Levi’s writing. The lines that Levi does not remember are these:

Noi ci allegrammo, e tosto tornò in pianto,

ché de la nova terra un turbo nacque,

e percosse del legno il primo canto.

For Dante’s Ulysses, Mount Purgatory signifies the final moment of his adventure and his desire for knowledge. The marvel and enthusiasm that Ulysses and his company feel when they see the mountain is suddenly transformed into its contrary. From the mountain, a storm originates that will destroy the ship and swallow its crew: ‘Tre volte il fe’ girar con tutte l’acque, | Alla quarta levar la poppa in suso | E la prora ire in giù, come altrui piacque’. Dante’s Mount Purgatory, so majestic and spectacular, represents the end of any desire for knowledge that aims to find new answers to and interpretations of human existence in the world without God’s word.

Going back to Levi’s text, we find that, instead, in a kind of reverse overlapping between his image and that of Ulysses, the image of the mountain of Purgatory suggests to Levi a very different set of thoughts that, although seemingly and similarly overwhelming, opens up new interpretations: ‘altro ancora, qualcosa di gigantesco che io stesso ho visto ora soltanto, nell’intuizione di un attimo, forse il perché del nostro destino, del nostro essere oggi qui’. For a moment, it is almost as if Levi, a new Dantean Ulysses in a new Inferno, stands in front of Mount Purgatory and forgets the terzine and the shipwreck. Maybe Levi cannot or does not want to remember those terzine because the mountain in Purgatory represents something very different for him than for Dante’s Ulysses. Levi’s view of the mountain does not lead to a moment of recognition of sin, as it does in Dante’s Ulysses. For him, the mountain, like his mountain range, is the gateway to knowledge, enrichment, and illumination and to a world that lies beyond the imposed limits of traditional, constricting, and distorted views and that awaits discovery (‘qualcosa di gigantesco che io stesso ho visto ora soltanto’). Something about and beyond the Lager.

To better understand how the mountains are central in ‘Il canto di Ulisse’, we have to remember that Levi’s view of the mountains strongly depends on his anti-Fascism, which he expressed particularly vigorously in two moments of his life: during his months in the Resistance, just before he was captured and sent to Fossoli, and, even more intensely, during the adventures of his youth, when he was a free young man who enjoyed climbing the mountains surrounding Turin. As Alberto Papuzzi has suggested, ‘le radici del suo rapporto con la montagna sono ben piantate in quella stagione più lontana: radici intellettuali di cittadino che cercava sulla montagna, nella montagna, suggestioni e risposte che non trovava nella vita, o meglio nell’atmosfera ispessita di quella vita torinese, senza passato e senza futuro’ (OC III, 426-27). Indeed, reports Papuzzi, Levi confirms that:

Avevo anche provato a quel tempo a scrivere un racconto di montagna […]. C’era tutta l’epica della montagna, e la metafisica dell’alpinismo. La montagna come chiave di tutto. Volevo rappresentare la sensazione che si prova quando si sale avendo di fronte la linea della montagna che chiude l’orizzonte: tu sali, non vedi che questa linea, non vedi altro, poi improvvisamente la valichi, ti trovi dall’altra parte, e in pochi secondi vedi un mondo nuovo, sei in un mondo nuovo. Ecco, avevo cercato di esprimere questo: il valico.

The heart of that epic story made its way into the chapter ‘Ferro’ in Il sistema periodico. The discovery of this (brave) new world, ‘mondo nuovo’, is an integral part and a direct achievement of Levi’s experience in the mountains. The mountains open a new understanding and a new perspective on the world.

Something that escapes common understanding is revealed through the experience of the mountains, both in Levi’s memories of his youth and in his literary recounting of Auschwitz. Reciting Dante in ‘Il canto di Ulisse’ is therefore not only an intertextual exercise for Levi. Only by inserting Levi’s literary references in the complexity of his own experience – before, during, and after Auschwitz – can we fully capture the depth of his reflections. Levi mentally and metaphorically brought to Auschwitz not only Dante but also his ‘metafisica dell’alpinismo’. Together, they contributed to his attempt to come to terms with that reality.

VG

Đie New York Times berichtet über die Folgen des gerade abgeschlossenen Deals zur Schuldenobergrenze für die Dekarbonisierung. Vieles spricht dafür, dass zwar der Bau der Bau der neuen Mountain Valley Pipeline für Erdgas beschleunigt wird Investitionen in die Netzinfrastruktur, die entscheidend dafür sind, ob die Energiewende in den USA gelingt, aber weiter aufgeschoben werden können.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/climate/permitting-reform-debt-ceiling.html

Vernon Blake, in a posthumous article in the CTC Gazette from July 1930, wrote a description of a bicycle with balloon tires and small gears, which is now considered the first mountain bike.

Yesterday, I found some books in the stacks at the University of the Fraser Valley Library to research the evolution of design from physical artifacts to living systems.

• The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design by Lance Hosey
• The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, 1917-1946 by Victor Margolin
• Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism by Julia Watson
• Architecture of Thought by Andrzej Piotrowski
• Exiles and Emigrés by Stephanie Barron
• Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art, Edited by Vincent Katz
• Modernism: Designing a New World, Edited by Christopher Wilk

Irwin Consulting Services Review - How to ensure a safe mountain climbing this winter

This holiday season, many people are taking advantage of the cold weather to do some extreme activities like mountain climbing. But with this kind of activity, you are very much required to gather all the necessary items and be well-informed in advance in making sure of your survival and safety. If you are with your close friends, family members and colleagues, you are also responsible for their wellbeing, thus you are really needed to be equipped with proper safety equipment and survival skills.

As one of the groups that are committed to public safety, Irwin Consulting Services would like you to be committed to your own safety and to the people you held close to your heart as well, whether you are inside or outside your home, always bear in mind of that responsibility.

The appearance of snowy mountains can be a lovely and calming sight because of its pure whiteness. And different kinds of activities await you in such mountains where you can choose between snowshoeing, skiing or other related activities. But no matter how beautiful those mountains look like, they can still bring danger to you and other people around you, so protect your safety by having all the crucial equipment and learning all the required survival skills.

Determine the final list of activities you wanted to perform on the mountain and then know if each can be conducted at the place safely. You must also ensure that your planned venture suits your fitness level. With this kind of activity, you must never leave home without informing the people close to your heart about your plan. We can’t erase the possibility of it being dangerous, so tell them about the location of the mountain, the date of your return, and other situations where they really need to call the authorities for help in finding you.

When it comes to climbing a mountain, the local authorities will surely suggest or require you to join a group or form a group composed of two or more people to guarantee the safety of everyone concerned. When a person gets injured, the other group members can take care of him or her. But if you really wanted to be alone and face the challenges by yourself, Irwin Consulting Services reminds you that this involves some risks so better be equipped with every item or product necessary for your survival. Before going to the place, spend an hour or two in front of your laptop or computer learning about the important information about the mountain.

If you’re only planning to stay when there’s still sunlight, you might not bother to carry some light sources with you. But we don’t know the exact things that could happen to you throughout the day where a situation might surface that requires you to camp for the night, thus include this on the scenarios that may occur on your trip and bring light sources with you.

In case of an unfortunate event and you were lost in the woods, never panic and don’t put your mind in disarray. It would be best to collect your thoughts and stay calm and warm. Ensure that you were visible from the sky once you called for help so that rescuers on a helicopter could see you quickly. If ever you needed an urgent help, never hesitate to call the authorities right away so that they could find you before it gets dark.

Majority of countries around the world has their own emergency hotline number that is similar to 9-1-1 of the United States where you can contact for help even without any signal on your phone because such can activate any cell tower. Before you leave your home to begin your adventure, make sure that your phone is fully charged and bring some spare batteries with you or good power banks as well. If you can avail a satellite phone, then have one to get help even in no-cell-service places.

Be prepared with avalanche safety equipment too. Avalanche can be the biggest threat of a serene snowy mountain, so it would be best to be equipped with the proper equipment such as a transceiver, probe, and shovel. You must also have good knowledge about those items to survive this kind of emergency situation. Learn how to navigate through the terrain to help you mitigate an avalanche exposure.

Irwin Consulting Services has been a part of different efforts in the United States in improving public safety, and because of its many years of endeavor in this field, the group had seen many cases proving that accidents were inevitable and sometimes unprecedented, so always be prepared in case of unwanted events and situations to protect yourself and other people.

[] (https://www.facebook.com/DarkMountainProject/)

"The Dark Mountain Project and a plan to save the planet through writing"

[] (https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/08/dark-mountain-project-and-plan-save-planet-through-writing)

The Pointed Mountain Pipeline is a 34.2-mile long natural gas pipeline that connects a dehydration plant at Beaver River in British Columbia, with another plant at Pointed Mountain in the Northwest Territories (Landeen, Brandt). The pipeline extends across British Columbia, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The pipeline crosses the Kotaneelee and La Biche Rivers. Construction on the pipeline began January 24, 1972 and the pipeline was completed in March of 1972, but was not in operation. Throughout the construction of the pipeline, scientists worried about the environmental factors of the pipeline, such as permafrost melting, bank instability, and siltation of rivers. The pipeline was built through a permafrost region. Because the natural gas has the ability to melt the permafrost, weights were attached to the pipe to prevent it from surfacing. Scientists were concerned about bank instability due to erosion when the pipeline crossed the Kotaneelee River. Sandbags supported the pipeline in order to increase stability. Drainage pipes were also added to prevent erosion. Scientists were also concerned about the high water levels in the rivers during spring thaw. The pipes were placed in a deep trench, surrounded by concrete to prevent rising of the pipes during flooding. The trench then fills in with water to prevent river overflow. A map showing the installation of the pipeline can be found below:

Landeen, B. A., and W. C. Brandt. "Impressions on the construction of the Pointed Mountain Gas Pipeline." Environment Canada Fisheries and Marine Service, November 1975. Accessed April 06, 2017. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/15011.pdf