Celebrating Eclipse Mania - Will you participate, and where will you go to see it? 🌞
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I'll be in Northern New Hampshire 🌄
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1908 Steamer Eclipse On The Mississippi River, Postcard
. #Eclipse#Steamboat#Postcard#Vintage#MississippiRiver
"More than 250 years ago, the #Ojibwe people, one of the largest Indigenous populations in North America, received a prophecy to migrate westward until they reached the land where food grows on water.
When the #MilleLacsBand of Ojibwe encountered wild rice in north-central Minnesota, they knew they found their new home. Rice harvesting has been a cornerstone of Ojibwe culture ever since.
"Today, mining exploration company #TalonMetals, also has its sights set on Minnesota. Some of the world’s richest high-grade #nickel and #copper deposits are thousands of feet below the state colloquially known as 'the land of 10,000 lakes.'
"Talon seeks to construct a mine in the rural town of Tamarack, which it says will be integral to building the nation’s domestic supply of materials necessary for a clean energy transition.
"Nickel and copper are key components of rechargeable #lithium ion (#LION) batteries that are widely used for low-emission technologies like electric vehicles (EVs). The company already has an agreement to supply #Tesla with nickel from its proposed mine, potentially bringing hundreds of unionized mining jobs to this rural area.
"The federal government has also recognized nickel and copper as 'essential to national defense,' adding them to the U.S. critical minerals list in 2022 and 2023, respectively. And, this September, the Department of Defense awarded Talon a $20.1 million matching grant to continue searching for deposits throughout the #LakeSuperior region.
"As the U.S. strives to be a leader in clean energy transition, the #TamarackProject encapsulates both the promise and challenges that lie ahead.
"The Dangers of Sulfide Mining
"Kelly Applegate, the commissioner of natural resources for the Mille Lacs Band, was shocked when he first saw deep earth imaging of nickel-copper deposits beneath his tribal land in the late 1990s.
A study from the U.S. Geological Survey suggested that the Lake Superior region could have deposits as lucrative as high-yield mines in Canada and Russia.
'Oh my gosh, look at these mineral deposits that may one day be sought out,' he recalls thinking to himself.
"Two decades later, Talon Metals, a mining company founded by former Canadian venture #capitalists and based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), applied for a permit with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to create the Tamarack Project just over a mile away from the closest Mille Lacs Band community. "
The Midwest US could be a hotspot for deadly ‘moist heat stress’ as global temperatures climb
Large parts of the world, including China and the Midwest US, are on track to become too hot for humans to handle as accelerating global temperatures expose billions to heat and humidity so extreme their bodies will no longer be able to cope, according to a new study.
By Rachel Ramirez, CNN
Published Oct 9, 2023
"At 3 degrees — which the study authors say is the most likely level of warming by 2100 if no action is taken — there is a sharp increase in people exposed to life-threatening heat and humidity. 'It’s really incredibly disturbing,' Huber told CNN.
"Humid #heatwaves will affect swaths of the world not used to such #extreme conditions.
"The #Midwest US will become a 'moist heat stress hotspot' at 3 degrees of warming, according to the report. The Midwest is susceptible to this kind of heat stress in part because its climate walks the line between dry and humid, Huber explained, allowing the region’s heat to push into the danger zone on very humid days.
"Another factor that makes the region vulnerable is its agriculture and the phenomenon called 'corn sweat,' Huber said.
"'The plants that we eat are sweating through evapotranspiration, and that may be adding to the humidity above what would normally be there,' he said.
"So-called 'hot hours' — times where heat and #humidity are especially life-threatening — will be concentrated in the #Missouri and #MississippiRiver valleys but also elsewhere in US including the #GulfOfMexico coast and the #AtlanticSeaboard according to the study.
"At 4 degrees of warming, the study’s worst-case scenario, researchers found that 1.5 billion people around the world would face a month of moist heat stress each year, and roughly 2.7 billion people will experience at least a week of these extreme conditions.
"Parts of #Yemen could experience heat and humidity that exceeds human tolerance for more than 300 days a year, making it virtually uninhabitable."
New Orleans braces for drinking water emergency from drought-stricken Mississippi River.
NBC News reports: "Lingering drought conditions have kept the Mississippi River at abnormally low levels and significantly weakened its flow, allowing salt water to creep in."