Jeff Spencer

Putting solar panels over irrigation canals seemed like a win-win idea: we get electricity while reducing evaporation. It turns out it’s a win-win-win idea. Canals in California that have done this have generated electricity, reduced evaporation by a stunning 50% to 70%, and saved irrigation districts bunches of money by causing algae and aquatic weed growth to drop by 85%. https://www.ecoportal.net/en/solar-panels-built-working-irrigation-canals/33890/

Step 1: VOTE!

Good news you might have missed: Researchers in South Korea have developed a new eco-friendly recycling process that recovers more than 95 percent of nickel and cobalt from old EV batteries with almost perfect purity. https://interestingengineering.com/energy/recycling-nickel-cobalt-ev-batteries

Blueberries, it seems, think that solar power is sweet! Blueberries grown under solar panels in Massachusetts are sweeter, new research finds. https://www.ecoportal.net/en/in-massachusetts-solar-farm-was-raised/30599/

I’m thinking about a whistleblower’s warnings that there are “potentially catastrophic problems in the development of the United States Postal Service’s … new system for handling federal election ballot mail.” The whistleblower says, “The administration has hidden the high likelihood that the new ballot mail verification processes will result in major disruptions in mail ballots ever getting delivered to voters.” The issue here is not about the Postal Service returning filled-in ballots to election officials. This issue is that the blank ballots may not be delivered to voters in the first place. With the whistleblower I wonder “whether catastrophic failure would be a feature rather than a bug.” And I wonder what we in California should do if we never receive a ballot. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more in the next six weeks, and I’ll post about it when I hear something reliable. 1/2

We’ve been warned.

“Tooth decay” was not on my “Impacts of Climate Change” bingo card. It turns out it should be. https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/Extreme-heat-is-rapidly-decaying-teeth-in-pakistan

Dr. Heather Cox Richardson writes that, according to NBC News, “the “internal Pentagon estimate of the cost [of the war in Iran] is about $100 billion … [and] that when economists at Moody’s added higher gas prices to the cost of the war, they estimated that it has cost U.S. households about $1,100 each.” https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-23-2026 Since the war in Iran is illegal (Congress has neither declared war nor authorized the use of US armed forces), can I withhold that $1,100 from my federal taxes?

It turns out that Roman Catholic nuns are much more environmentally engaged than are Roman Catholic priests, bishops, etc. I’m not surprised by this. It’s just that as a Protestant, I never thought to ask if that true and, if so, why. Well, Sabrina Danielson and Ellie Simmons at the National Catholic Reporter did ask, and here is what they found: “Research shows that the top U.S. Catholic leaders, U.S. bishops, have largely approached climate change with ambivalence and denialism, and have largely avoided engaging in significant climate action, despite their power to do so within their local dioceses. This is likely due to their ties to Republican individuals and organizations. “In contrast, Catholic sisters, who have little formal power within the U.S. Catholic Church, are leading on environmental issues at many levels of society and within the Catholic Church.” You can read all about it for yourself (and check out their sources). https://www.globalsistersreport.org/opinion/environment/why-are-sisters-more-engaged-environmental-activism-other-church-leaders