Interesting Links for 13-03-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Installing solar panels in deserts improves soil quality and biodiversity by providing areas of shade and shelter.

(tags:desert solarpower environment viaMyBrotherHugh )

2. Labour are going the wrong way on getting people in to work.

(tags:work welfare uk labour OhForFucksSake )

3. If you want to fix modern society then one of the things you'll need to do is build more homes

(tags:housing society inequality )

4. Edinburgh councillors approve new site for Social Bite Village in Granton

(tags:Edinburgh housing homelessness )

5. How locational, or "zonal" pricing could give Scotland the cheapest power in Europe ... and give everyone else in GB cheaper power too.

(tags:electricity economics UK )

6. Edinburgh's Big Wheel could be in place from July to New Year

(tags:edinburgh tourism )

7. Some interesting researhc going on with plastic recycling

(tags:recycling plastic research )

8. "I Was a U.S. Diplomat. Customs and Border Protection Only Cared That I Was Black."

(tags:racism usa immigration )

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Thank you. #8 - it's just horrible. And I saw with my own eyes how the border patrol treats a black family in a van near the border.

[armiphlage]

For #8, I used to travel regularly to one of our factories in the US. My co-worker Fadi was stopped for random inspection 100% of the time.

Our company policy is for groups traveling together to share a single rental car, so our General Manager had to sit for hours waiting for Fadi to get through US Customs each time, making him late for meetings. I like to think that was one of the reasons he shut down that factory and moved production to Canada.

[movingfinger]

1. The article carefully does not state whether the plants, micro-organisms, etc. that benefit from the solar panels are desert-native life or life from non-desert ecosystems which the panels are enabling to colonize the desert environment (which is fragile and which does have considerable life in it adapted to its specific conditions).

[bens_dad]

Good point.
It is likely that the installers will bring in life from other solar-panel enriched ecosystems, so non-indigenous immigrants that thrive in these conditions are very likely.

One the other hand policy influencers are already trying to green the desert, so this is likely to be popular.