According to the IPCC, to meet the 1.5 degree C target we need to be doing 6 GtCO2 of carbon dioxide removal per year by 2050.
It would be very difficult to reach that scale with reforestation and afforestation along in the next 27 years.
Plus, if you simply bury wood it will be broken down over time and release methane. No one has yet developed a scalable way to bury large quantities of wood and keep them from decomposing (startups/researchers are starting to work in this area).
That being said, the way you do this isn't specifically with reforestation, rather, this needs to be tree farming with fast growing trees. Perhaps even geneticly engineering trees for this specific purpose.
One reason cooling is used is to protect the Li-ion or lead acid batteries in the uninterruptible power supplies that provide backup power to the servers. Both Li-ion and lead acid lose calendar life and reliability when operated at 40 C. So, you have extra battery replacement costs and reliability concerns at higher temperature.
I also would imagine that you need some type of cooling system even to keep the ambient temperature at 40C. Otherwise the servers are just continuously pumping out heat and the temperature may get high enough to the point where you have equipment issues. It could be the case that the equipment needed to cool to 25C is not that different or more expensive that the equipment needed to maintain a temperature of 40C.
My impression is that these power supplies are usually in separate rooms or even buildings, so you can have different temperatures there.
> *It could be the case that the equipment needed to cool to 25C is not that different or more expensive that the equipment needed to maintain a temperature of 40C. *
From what I've heard, cost difference is quite large.
I could see things starting to really ease up once all children have had a chance to be vaccinated and everyone else has had a chance to get their 6 month booster shot.
Children aren't at risk from Covid at all.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w
In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have died from all causes:
"at all"? What? Tons of children end up with post-acute sequelae. Where are people getting this notion that the only possible negative outcome of viral or bacterial infections is death and that that's the only stat we should look at? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/
Where are people getting this notion that the only possible negative outcome of unnecessary vaccination is death and that that's the only stat we should look at?
A portion of parents are very worried about Covid in their children. These parents have sway with school administrators and local governments. All I am saying is that I doubt we get total easing of Covid restrictions until these kids have had ample chance to be vaccinated. I'm not making any arguments or claims about what you are taking about.
The local pharmacies that administer the vaccines are not validating your eligibility. Those I know who are interested in the 3rd round, and beyond 6 months from their 2nd, have received it.
Sure, but I don't think people getting a booster that may not be qualified are going to prolong the pandemic, quite the opposite. There is more than enough supply.
Yes - which why I doubt we will see full "reopening" everywhere until they open up boosters to everyone and provide time for people who want them to get them.
1) A large increase in evictions will mostly affect the rental market. There would be some single family home rentals affected, but mostly it would affect apartments.
A lot of homeowners who needed help during the start of the pandemic were able to get a forbearance on their mortgage. Thus, there was not a huge increase in foreclosures and instead people just had extra payments tacked onto the end of their mortgage.
3) If anything, wealthy homeowners are getting a tax break. Congress is considering a repeal of the SALT deduction limit, which helps homeowners.
5) The number of people who were fired or quit due to mandates has been very small.
One group of people playing soccer, football, or baseball can take up almost the entire turf space in a small popular park. Think of Dolores Park is SF. On weekends it's packed with people picnicking. If instead 20 people were playing baseball, it would not be safe for anyone to picnic nearby because of the risk for errant baseballs.
On the other extreme end of things, one person hitting golf balls in a park can make the park unsafe for everyone else. At some point, the government institutes regulations to keep the park fun/safe/useful for the largest number of people.
Many of the rapidly growing Phoenix suburbs are projected to find themselves in trouble with regards to water resources in the future. These suburbs have met their 100+ years of water requirement using the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District (CAGRD), an entity created in the 1990s tasked with replacing pumped groundwater by finding renewable water supplies and injecting that water back into the aquifer.
However, the current drought and temperature projections going forward show that it will be increasingly difficult for CAGRD to find water to inject back into the aquifer to meet its obligations. In the end these suburbs will either need to pay super high rates for water to inject into aquifers or will need to slow growth.
Thanks for this -- it's critical to recognize that the supply for the groundwater replenishment upon which much of the "100+ year" assured water contingency rests is provided in part by the Colorado River.
It's similar in California. In the years leading up to the big Santa Cruz mountain fire in 2020, the scientists and forest rangers were aware of the increasing amount of fuel building up in the forest there. They simply weren't able to do the controlled burns they wanted because of a lack of weather windows for controlled burns. That area is also close to silicon valley so there are extra air quality requirements for the burns.
Much of the forest in CA is managed by the US Forest Service, so you can't blame CA officials for everything. Plus, you can only safely do controlled burns in certain weather windows (not super hot, rain likely coming, etc.). Given we are in the middle of a historic drought, the dry fuel levels are likely much too high to safely start controlled burns.
The first several years of the mortgage you are paying mostly interest and not as much towards equity. Plus, you have paid closing costs when you bought, will pay 6% to a realtor when you sell, and have paid property tax and homeowners insurance.
If you sell after 5 years, you are only making money if your home value happened to have gone up. This is by no means a guarantee on a short time frame.
So don't sell. Rent the house, take the income and move on. I'm building house #8 right now and the rent from the other homes (some of which are now paid off) provides an income to my family that would keep them housed and fed should something happen to me.
Of course, you have to consider this when you buy because many homes are terrible investments. If you come in with the view that you're buying what will eventually be an investment property you'll make better buying decisions.
I am a few months in to a 15 year mortgage after recently refinanced at a 2.125%. Here's a rough breakdown of where each dollar of my last mortgage payment went:
Principal: 60%
Interest: 22%
Escrow(Taxes + Insurance): 18%
And of course the percentage going to interest only goes down with each passing month. The conventional wisdom that you are paying mostly interest in the beginning a) really only applies to 30 year mortgages, and b) was way more true when interest rates were higher. We're currently near some of the lowest interest rates in history, so interest eats a lot less than it used to.
I'll add that I pay a good bit less on my mortgage than it takes to rent an equivalent place in my area. But yes, paying 6% to realtors when you sell is huge, so you still need to own the house a few years for buying to make sense.
Yea, you are right about the 2% interest rates changing the breakdown. I was referencing numbers I ran back when rates were 3-4%. That said, most folks still rely on 30 years mortgages!
I got a 30 year fixed at 3% back in march. My first payment had 40.7% going towards principal which is not bad at all in my opinion. Also, I wouldn't count property tax and homeowners insurance as something additional about owning as you are effectively paying that when renting, it is just baked into the rental price. Stupid realtor fees though definitely will bite you in the ass.
Just in case anyone reads the article or comments here and decides they want to try out disc golf, here's a tip... DO NOT go out and buy a high speed driver disc (speed >9) to use as a beginner or intermediate. You almost certainly will not be able to throw it hard enough to fly properly and it will lead to frustration, poor form, and inconsistent results. Stick with a putter, a mid-range, and maybe a fairway driver (speed 6 or 7).
The speed rating on discs can be tricky for beginners. It's intuitive to think that a high speed rating on a disc means it will fly faster and further. However, a high speed rating actually means you need to throw that disc faster in order for it to fly it's proper flight path. If you do not throw a high speed driver hard enough, it will just go 100 feet and curve into the ground. Beginners and intermediates typically will throw lower speed discs farther than they would throw the high speed driver.
To make it even simpler - a beginner could confidently play a course with only a mid-range disc. It's that simple. Don't get caught up looking at players who walk around with 30 disc sets in their bag. It's just simply not necessarily for a beginner.
>Don't get caught up looking at players who walk around with 30 disc sets in their bag
The only caveat here is that it's beneficial to have a few extra discs to replace those that you might lose along the way. I've "donated" a few discs to rivers, swamps, and the like.
The towel snap technique is useful to get an idea of how it should throw. I find I throw different discs for different throws (and one in particular is good for my forehand). But when I started every throw did the same thing no matter the disc. Then I worked through control shots at mid range, and only now is my driving distance increasing.
As someone who has never disk golfed, but skipped rocks last week after not having done it for a decade:
Swinging is really hard on your shoulders. I spent a day surfing, hiking, running and skipping rocks. My pitching shoulder was the one that was most sore (and slightly hurt) the day after.
Just a probable warning for anyone who has shoulder issues. (probably also bad technique)
I've found the best warm up for disc golf is to play catch with a baseball/softball. If I'm solo then I will literally throw rocks (at the course) to get the shoulder moving.
Also used sporting good stores will often have a large selection of used discs which can be an even cheaper way to get in to the game (and makes you feel less bad when you throw it in a river).
They will usually also carry some of the factory defect discs which are cheaper. And the defects are usually small or printing defects that would not be noticed when throwing.
Breaks in much faster (ie becomes understable) which can be a good with lower arm speeds.
The big thing with disc golf, is that you want a consistent flight with whatever you are throwing. If a disc starts to become unpredictable (often times very understable) then it usually gets rotated out, or kept in for specific use cases (big turnovers, rollers, etc).
Some advice I got which I used to build mechanics/power was to not throw any fast (high speed) driver until I could throw a putter ~250 feet consistently. The one exception to this rule is if your local course has a big dog leg (and a short hole) and you need something that really moves that direction quickly.
People who throw really hard probably benefit from the higher speed discs, but there are also very good players that drive 9 speeds. Advanced players will carry a variety of drivers with differing speeds because they will want different flight paths depending on the given hole layout. Also, whether you are throw into a headwind or with a tailwind changes how fast the disc is flying (relative to the air).
In general, most drivers are designed to fly in a "S" shaped flight path. When you get this full flight path, you get the most distance. For a right hand player throwing backhand that means your throw should draw slightly to the right at first, straighten out, and then finish with a fade to the left.
If you throw a disc that is rated at too high a speed for you, it will just quickly fade to the left and go into the ground. You often see beginners chucking their drivers way out to the right in order to compensate for this quick turn to the left. It's just really hard to get distance when you do this because the high speed disc really wants to turn left and dive into the ground.
If you throw a disc that is rated too low a speed for you, it will draw too far to the right and will not straighten out and come back left. In this case, you should either throw a bit less hard or move up to a higher speed disc. For beginners it is better to start here because you can actually get a feel for how throwing speed changes the disc flight path.
The best advice I can offer is that with whatever disc(s) you have - spend time practicing with those discs away from the course. All discs fly differently and it's best to get dedicated practice with your discs.
You usually want to throw as slow a disc as you can get away with. This allows you throw more directly at the target and they don't skip as far when they land on a hard surface (of course sometimes you want that). Another benefit of slower discs is that they tend not to kick as much to the side if they hit a tree.
Fast drivers are best in an open area where accuracy isn't the main goal. They tend to be more forgiving when the throwers form is off which is harmful for someone who's still learning how to throw.
It depends on what you mean by perform better? My faster speed disc (11+) go about 50 ft further, but I loose a lot of accuracy. I usually can hit my shots with a slower speed driver better but at the expense of greater distance.
If you have the power to throw faster speed discs they will go farther.
It would be very difficult to reach that scale with reforestation and afforestation along in the next 27 years.
Plus, if you simply bury wood it will be broken down over time and release methane. No one has yet developed a scalable way to bury large quantities of wood and keep them from decomposing (startups/researchers are starting to work in this area).