Climate and energy policies must balance the risks and benefits of a changing climate against growing demand for reliable, affordable, and clean energy. To strike that balance, policymakers must consider society’s values and priorities, its tolerance for risk, equities among generations and geographies, and efficacies, costs, and collateral impacts. This paper reviews the scientific, technoeconomic, and societal facts that should inform policy decisions and draws some straightforward conclusions from them.

Mount Susitna (aka Sleeping Lady)
The Hilton Hotel roof provides this view of one of the more famous Anchorage landmarks. Mount Susitna is about 40 air miles west of Anchorage across the Cook Inlet and rises to an elevation of 4,396 feet above sea level. This mountain sits between the Chugach Range to the south of Anchorage and the Alaska Range to the north. We used a 4X telephoto lens to get you up close. Visible in the foreground is the Small Boat Dock and the Cook Inlet.

Mount Susitna is also known to most Anchorage residents as The Sleeping Lady because it looks like a sleeping maiden with her arms folded across her chest.

Alert and Alarmed
7 hours ago edited
Martians land on the White House Lawn. They say they have been studying our broadcasts and speak our language. They ask for a televised interview with our world leaders. The Pope takes his turn saying "Honored guests, the most important question I have is: Do you know Jesus?
Martians: Yes we know Jesus, the Son of God. He comes to see us every year.
Pope (visibly shaken): What? Every year? Well we have been waiting two thousand years for His Second Coming.
Martians: Maybe He didn't like your chocolates.
Pope (even more rattled and hardly able to speak): Chocolates? What do chocolates have to do with anything?
Martians: When He came to see us, we gave Him a giant box of our best chocolates. What did you do when He came to see you?

While Harris was playing politics and trying to garner headlines by going after DeSantis, just a few hours later, Biden responded by saying he spoke to DeSantis and everything was great. //

She laid the groundwork for a narrative that DeSantis rebuffed federal help and was putting politics above the safety of Floridians, and no sooner than she did, Biden showed up to say the opposite. He could have easily played along and he didn't.

Is that just another coincidence? I can't say for sure, but man, does it feel like he's taking little shots at Harris throughout the campaign. In the last month alone, Biden has contradicted the vice president multiple times regarding her attempt to separate herself from the administration.

You play an Uplink Agent who makes a living by performing jobs for major corporations. Your tasks involve hacking into rival computer systems, stealing research data, sabotaging other companies, laundering money, erasing evidence, or framing innocent people.

You use the money you earn to upgrade your computer systems and to buy new software and tools. As your experience level increases, more dangerous and profitable missions become available. You can speculate on a fully working stock market (and even influence its outcome). You can modify people’s academic or criminal records. You can divert money from bank transfers into your own accounts. You can even take part in the construction of the most deadly computer virus ever designed--or lead the fight against it!

• Very unique gameplay - you play as a hacker, breaking firewalls and cracking bank accounts. All this in Hollywood style!

Be A Man

Nick Freitas
Playlist
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9 videos
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• What They Don’t Tell Fathers About Raising Sons
• Three Things I Learned Raising Daughters
• Why Dads Should Be Dangerous
• Should You Get Married Young?
• What Every Son Needs To Hear From His Father

Browse All Science Gifts

Florida State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis on Tuesday said there have been 16 fires during and after Hurricane Helene attributed to lithium-ion batteries used in Tesla and other electric vehicles, golf carts and other vehicles and devices. //

For cultists worried about climate change, a roaring fire hitting 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit will change the local climate quickly and disastrously.

Typically, an EV fire burns at roughly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 Celsius), while a gasoline-powered vehicle on fire burns at 1,500 F (815 C). It takes about 2,000 gallons of water to extinguish a burning gasoline-powered vehicle; putting out an EV fire can take 10 times more. //

A tractor-trailer carrying large lithium-ion batteries overturned and caught on fire on a highway near the Port of Los Angeles on Thursday, snarling traffic and leading to road closures and the shuttering of several terminals at the port.

The Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement Thursday night that the fire was expected to burn for at least another 24 to 48 hours and that a roughly seven-mile stretch of California State Route 47, from the Vincent Thomas Bridge to Long Beach, would be closed in that period.

The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest port in the Western Hemisphere, said that several terminals would be closed on Friday.

…The explosion caused the batteries to ignite, causing a “thermal runaway,” a chain reaction in which heat develops extremely quickly, Capt. Adam Van Gerpen of the Los Angeles Fire Department told reporters.

Float switches are a reliable and inexpensive solution for the direct control of pumps and regulate liquid levels in tanks, basins and the like. 

Gorilla annoys sibling during a heavy rain shower.

Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Congress last month that it had $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, officials also warned that the fund could have a shortfall of $6 billion by year’s end, a situation FEMA says could deteriorate in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.

An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA “estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.”

Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.

Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs “within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),” according to the IG report. Those projects now represent “billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the [Disaster Relief Fund].”

These “unliquidated obligations” reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn’t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency’s ability to respond to immediate disasters.