Just why are people doing the thing that I said they should do?

Continuing to track the Ukraine war and related events in Europe, I read an article this week about some Eastern European countries returning to the use of land mines, and as an aside they threw this in about border roads: "They also aim to plant trees along important roads to provide camouflage for civilians and soldiers."

Yes, I published something two years ago saying, do that (suprisingly, I guess I never reposted it here). It reminds me a little about the dispatchable hydropower thing also happening. It's weird that they're now doing these things.

My guess is that a few plaintive blog posts about dispatchable hydropower probably had no impact on events, although I guess you never know. I'm slightly more hopeful that I had some marginal effect on defensive rewilding, at least in Europe, which has progressed to the point where it's mentioned casually.

Anyway, last week The American Society of Military Engineers published my co-authored piece on defensive wetlanding, arguing that wetland restoration and creation in the right locations can provide significant military advantages to defenders (as well as helping the environment), and so they should do it. I also said the US Army Corps of Engineers is especially well situated to do this, because their combat responsibilities make them fully aware of how difficult it is to cross wetlands, and their domestic environmental responsibilities under the Clean Water Act make them experts in wetland restoration and creation.

Rabett readers get the exclusive chance to see my original introductory paragraph, which sadly did not survive the editing process:

Few military analysts have noted the similarity between the US Army Corps of Engineers and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Still, those of a certain age might remember the candy’s slogan, “Two great tastes that taste great together.” Peanut butter corresponds to USACE’s domestic responsibilities and expertise under the Clean Water Act to protect, restore, and create wetlands. Chocolate corresponds to its overseas military responsibilities to cross difficult terrain, something that acknowledges the incredible defensive barrier that wetlands impose. USACE can and should put these tastes together through “defensive wetlanding,” actively using its expertise on wetland restoration to help allies enhance defensive terrain through wetland creation and expansion, simultaneously yielding both defensive and environmental benefits. 

The full article is here. Ironically, in recent months (after we submitted) there are at least two other articles that also discuss forms of defensive wetlanding, although our article is still unique.

Hopefully this will also go somewhere, maybe including here in the US. 

Elon believes in half of "Fake It Til You Make It"

Greetings, long-ignored friends! I've been scratching the writing itch elsewhere but felt this is a good place for thoughts occasioned by Musk's ethical decline. It was triggered by finishing Isaacson's biography. (Summary review if you want to skip the rest and return to BlueSky: very interesting and worth reading despite suffering from successful-author's-pagecount-bloat, and also ending in 2023 before Elon did the worst misdeeds of his life.)

Maybe a bit of a 3-part morass, but I'll start here:

1. My normal prior is that enviros don't have to worry or pull punches when advocating for our interests in competition with every other interest out there. One reason is that we provide a public good while economic interests internally benefit from their advocacy, so they're much better funded than we are, and they don't need us to hold back. Of course other social interests are somewhat different: spending on the arts is also a public good. Still, we advocates aren't the decisionmakers, so usually, we should advocate zealously for the environment, arts advocates do the same for their field, and politicians or voters get to decide who gets the attention and budgetary dollar.

Priors can be overcome though. My longstanding concern has been DEI issues in particular are something traditional enviros have to keep in mind. Innovative Elon has created a new concern though: using environmentally-created dollars to do really, really evil things. This puts the environmental advocacy community in a quandary when it comes to Tesla. I don't have answers.

2. I'll contribute my small part in making sure the world doesn't forget what Elon has tried to do to democracy. An illuminating aspect of Musk 2024 was that PACs funded by Musk told pro-Palestinian voters in Michigan that Harris was pro-Israel while telling Pensylvania Jewish voters that she was anti-Israel. This is where the "Fake It" side of Musk's bio kicks in. He has said rabidly false things about Tesla and Space X for so long that I think he concluded it didn't even have to be eventually-true, just as the cynically-contradictory messaging to voters could never be consistent. His companies are now tainted with the same credibility for anything he claims about them. (I suppose he could claim he didn't do the voter-messaging thing, but I'm dubious. It feels like him for what that's worth, and AFAICT he didn't try to stop or denounce it.)

Worse still is his pioneering steps to use money in US politics, already a scourge, and knock us down to Third-World democracy-corrupting levels. The worst of it so far was on the day of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election when Musk PACs offered $50 to voters standing in a polling line who showed the photo of the Republican candidate for the Court:

 

 I've spent time in developing countries, and this is just another version of what the local oligarchs do to corrupt elections. I remember reading in Thailand many years ago that people felt it was ethical to accept the voting bribes from the wealthy but it would be unethical to then vote against the stooge being propped up for office. That's want Musk wants to do to the US. At $50 a person, Musk could spend $5 billion bribing 10m people across seven swing states in 2028 (or 2026), and producing 1 million new MAGA votes in those states could swing national results. Musk could easily afford this, although it's very fortunate that it didn't work in Wisconsin. I hope Musk and Republicans give up on bribery but they could also double down in the next elections, with their minions posted somewhere near polling stations and offering $100 bills on the spot to people who repeat some pro-MAGA mantra.

3. Thoughts about the book. I finally got to that. In no particular order (too long, so I'm putting it below the jump):