Apologies for skipping last week’s Friday wrap up - I know you are all clamoring for the bits and, at least occasionally, the bobs on Fridays! :-)
Some good bobs this week though! And look for news on Monday about topics and perspectives that are emerging for me in this wee newsletter!
A Helpful Rundown of Tax Credits (For Real People!) in the Inflation Reduction Act
Over the next decade, it’s expected that as much as 30% of the reduction in carbon emissions projected in the IRA will come from individual homes and choices. This is empowering news! And the government is providing a raft of individual tax incentives for improving energy efficiency and electrification in 2023 and some upfront rebates in 2024 to accomplish this (helpfully summarized in the Washington Post). Seriously, heat pumps, insulation, renewables, electric vehicles etc are all on the list of ways you might save some $$.
At our (1970s) house, we will definitely be getting a home energy audit this year, and looking for ways to make our home more efficient (and cheaper to run!)
A Collaboration of Agencies
The US Global Change Research Program has been in existence since 1990, when the Global Change Research Act was created, but its membership of thirteen agencies hasn’t increased in at least 20 years. This week though, the Department of Homeland Security joined the program. This is great news, especially since FEMA is housed in DHS. The USGCRP, which is also the office that manages the U.S. National Climate Assessment (and a program I used to work for), is designed to coordinate and support the investment in global change activities across these diverse agencies (from Defense to NASA to Dept of Energy to EPA), and be a gateway for authoritative information on a globally-changing environment.
While it might sound (and is to some extent) an administrative program, efforts like the USGCRP are really important in generating ‘value-added’ information synthesized from across multiple agencies. It also allows us to more easily look ahead to the next decade and identify strategic opportunities and gaps that might not otherwise come to light from inside only single agencies.
EECBG (try saying that three times fast)
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program has been funded again (via the IRA, and hosted by the Department of Energy) for the first time in many years, and local governments, states, and tribes can now access some real money to help reduce energy use, reduce emissions, and improve efficiency.
I think this is super important, especially for smaller towns and counties that have not yet begun their climate work in earnest. The first 30% of so of carbon emissions reductions can usually be achieved through efficiency measures alone, but for smaller communities, it’s hard to know where to begin or what actions will achieve the biggest gains. So this grant can help pay for technical consulting, audits, implementation, (such as retrofits and measurement/verification monitoring), and also help pay for public eduction. It’s very flexible, and I hope many towns and counties hop on this grant to help them move ahead.
It might even be worth writing to your town manager or sustainability director to make them aware of this if they’re not already. I did this too, this week.
Finally, A Different Perspective on ChatGPT
I am fairly fascinated by the idea that AI can write passable essays now and what it means for our work, our research, our art, our approach to learning and knowledge, and our connection to each other through the written word. I think it’s critical we pay attention to how this is evolving because it will change (for the better if we’re prepared, for the worse if we’re not) our relationship to the world in general, including how we (think we) understand the natural world.
This perspective in the New Yorker (no subscription needed) is heartening in a way because among other things, it points out that while bots like ChatGPT do a decent job of synthesizing, this is also their essential flaw: they smooth out all the interesting bits. Curiosity, inquiry and ultimately knowledge aren’t fueled by a neatly-packaged summary, however well-articulated; they’re sparked by the rabbit holes, the discontinuities, the oddities, and side-notes.
There are lots of other aspects of this article that are important too I believe. Worth reading, even the little technical bits in there.
For me, it is genuinely important we don’t try to resist the gains we get from new technology like ChatGPT, but it’s also critical that we DO resist ditching what we value, and what keeps humanity evolving, in the process.
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Have a great weekend y’all. Back Monday with more!