Below are links to the LAKE video for each item in the agenda, for yesterday morning’s Work Session, followed by a LAKE video playlist.
Tag Archives: Valdosta
Horses to automobiles in NYC: 13 years
This is how fast energy sources can change: from all horses but one automobile in the 1900 New York Easter Parade to all automobiles but one horse in the 1913 Easter Parade.
Source: U.S. National Archives
Videos: Budget, Tax, Sewage Pump Station, Road Abandonment @ LCC 2017-06-27
They unanimously approved everything except the one withdrawn item, and except for the Executive Session, the whole thing took 9 minutes. They meet again 8:30 AM Monday morning 24 July 2017.
Below are links to each LAKE video of the 27 June 2017 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session, with a very few notes, followed by a video playlist. See also the LAKE videos of the previous morning’s Work Session including the Zika Presentation by Ken Lowery; and the agenda.
Air Force lobbyists, appointments to four boards, renaming Val Tech Road @ LCC 2017-07-24
The agenda still says 8:30 AM Monday morning for the Work Session, and they have only half an hour left to change it and still comply with state law.
In case anybody has forgotten Moody AFB is by far the biggest employer in these parts, the county wants to hire for $36,000 a year a pair of lobbyists to the Air Force: Parker and Lucy Greene, “to provide consulting services on behalf of Lowndes County to enhance relationships with the Air Force and Department of Defence regarding Moody AFB.”
Kari L. Sands (R.I.P.), VDT, 22 June 2007, Parker Greene honored with award, Continue reading
The real worst and best cases of climate change
†What do you want? The planet Venus? The current degraded Earth? Or a better world we know how to create?
†Joel Pett, Lexington Herald Leader, 18 March 2012,
The cartoon seen ’round the world
Mostly I post about solar and wind power winning, which is what I think is happening. But sometimes it’s worth a reminder of what could happen if we do nothing about climate change, and I posted on my facebook page a story about that. Which actually didn’t go far enough to the real worst case. Nonetheless, that story has been attacked by numerous parties of all political and scientific and unscientific stripes for being too doom and gloom. Yet none of the attackers bothered to mention a best case beyond “the same world we have now”. I have news for you: the world we have now is an ecological catastrophe, and we can do a lot better. So here’s the real worst case, the current case, which is far from the best of all possible worlds, and the real best case, as I see it. Plus what we can do to head for the best case.
First, the story I posted: David Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine, 9 July 2017, The Uninhabitable Earth: Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think. Notice that word “could”, which a lot of his critics seem to have ignored. He didn’t say “will”, and he clearly labeled what he was presenting as worst case scenarios.
In case anybody thinks he was making any of that stuff up, Wallace-Wells has also linked to an annotated version with footnotes for every substantial assertion. The annotated version notes at the top: Continue reading
Major climate change victory in U.S. House on Bastille Day 2017-07-14
On the anniversary of the French Revolution against a corrupt old regime, the U.S. House of Representatives took a step towards independence from the clammy grip of the fossil fuel companies. This has direct implications on Moody AFB. No more pipelines. Solar power now.
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, 14 July 2017, In Landmark Move, GOP Congress Calls Climate Change ‘Direct Threat’ to Security: Extreme weather and rising seas threaten bases from Virginia to Guam. For the first time, a Republican House has voted to recognize that.,
One study last year found that rising oceans threaten 128 military installations on the coasts, including naval facilities worth around $100 billion.
The Pentagon has been aware for years of Continue reading
Solar-powered wastewater treatment plants in the southeast
Georgia Power is still digging in its heels about solar power even for cities. Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers and Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning: it’s time for you to lead the southeast into the sun, not, like King Canute, to try to hold back the sea-change to solar power.
A closer view of the solar panel array at Mud Creek Wastewater Teratment Plant.
Photo: submitted to VDT, apparently by City of Valdosta.
Terry Dickson, Florida Times Union, 4 July 2017, Southeast Georgia cities turning to solar power to save money on wastewater treatment, Continue reading
Videos: Appointments to Hospital Authority and Parks and Rec + well pump @ LCC 2017-07-10
Nope, there are no LAKE videos of yesterday morning’s Work Session, because, remember, they moved the meeting half an hour earlier so when Gretchen showed up it was already over. The county does not video its Work Sessions, so there is no county video, either. Since the Valdosta Daily Times apparently did not run a story (I don’t even know if they had a reporter there), this means you won’t know what the Commissioners discussed nor who else was there Monday morning before they vote this evening at 5:30 PM.
City of Valdosta PR 2017-07-10:
Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson welcomes new 23d Wing Commander Col. Jennifer Short at the July 10 Change of Command ceremony.
Commissioner Scottie Orenstein asked, on facebook, in response to yesterday’s LAKE blog post about the moved meeting: Continue reading
You missed it: Appointments to Hospital Authority and Parks and Rec + well pump @ LCC 2017-07-10
They moved the meeting half an hour earlier, to 8AM. Gretchen, who is signed up to the county’s alert system yet never got any alert about this time change, got there at the usual time and it was over already. It’s listed in their calendar as “8:00 AM – 8:35 AM” but she got there with the LAKE camera before 8:30 and it was already over.
And on the agenda: two county appointments for the same Hospital Authority that hired a CEO for five years, fired him without cause after two years, and now: Continue reading
Video: Solar panels, heck yeah! –Tom Fanning, CEO, at SO stockholder meeting 2017-05-24
Tom Fanning, our genial CEO host, said some things I’ve never heard him say before like Southern Company is “pivoting towards wind” and SO’s board soon has to decide whether to go forward with Plant Vogtle “or not” probably by August. Fanning gets the first and last word in this blog post, plus a complete transcript of what I asked and Tom Fanning’s response, along with summaries of the other questions and answers.
Please hear me!
I think renewables are exceedingly important in the future.
— Tom Fanning, CEO, Southern Company
In SO’s own meeting video of the 25 May 2017 Stockholder Meeting, you can see much praise about solar power and wind and R&D and a smart grid, along with stockholders wondering: Continue reading