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Bird Strike

News Feed
Tuesday, February 25, 2025

The woman and her sister had been out jogging by the river when they saw the bird fall from the sky. At first, they mistook it for a falling leaf, but the angle and speed of descent suggested a weightier object. They squatted down like children to inspect the body. A pale-green bird with a cream-colored breast, too delicate for a city bird. They saw nothing above them. No trees or obstructions, just a red fog of diffuse and muddled light.Poor bird. Why would a bird fall out of the sky like that? It was small enough to have balanced on a single blade of straw. They knew almost nothing about the daily lives of birds, save the pigeons who scampered about, pecking at urban detritus. During mating season, the males chased the females up and down the sidewalks, hopping on, hopping off.If they had seen the dead bird in a state of decay, they would have simply sidestepped it. But because they’d witnessed the moment it struck the ground, they felt somehow responsible, as though it were a piece of trash that had blown out of their hands.Shouldn’t we at least put it off to the side, the woman wondered aloud.Don’t do it, her sister warned. You don’t know what it has.They left the body, casting a few backward glances. The brief stop made it more difficult to continue running, so they walked for a stretch. The path along the Hudson River was almost empty at that hour. A flock of seagulls bobbed on the water, penned in by a rhomboid of lamplight. A crow perched mutely on a wire.Before the interruption, she had been telling her sister about the artist. You know, the artist. I profiled him in the magazine several years ago, she reminded her sister, when he was working on the windmill installation? Remember, I shadowed him for a week, and then we took that trip to Montauk? Now he’s back in town to install a new show in Chelsea. Some kind of sculpture—a machine.The woman’s sister was staring at her phone. She frowned at the lit screen, typing rapidly. What is it? the woman asked, waiting. The concentration on her sister’s face made her wonder if everything was all right. What happened? Her sister finally looked up.Oh, we ordered a mattress online and now it’s arrived.The screech of wet bicycle brakes. Water slapping against rock. Her sister was saying, Honestly, it took us forever to decide. Weighing the environmental impact of a new foam mattress versus a used one, cost versus expediency and guilt.A plane roared overhead, lower than normal, heading to LaGuardia, perhaps. The sky was so woolly, she imagined the runway materializing at the last minute, filling up the entire windshield. A plunge of faith before the tires hit tarmac. The pilot must have a way of knowing where the ground is, she thought. Or the plane’s apparatus must know.What were you saying just now? her sister asked. Oh, yeah, the artist. The artist who’s coming to town. What about him? I can’t believe you’re still talking to that creep.In a rare confluence of irregular schedules, the woman and her husband were having dinner together at home, discussing the details of his upcoming birthday party. It was an unremarkable middle-age birthday, and he didn’t want to make a fuss. A small gathering at the German beer hall, he finally decided, and friends could drop in as they wished.So, I’ll tell everyone Wednesday, he said, because Thursday I have class and Friday I’ll be gone.What’s on Friday? The woman looked up.I already told you. I’m going to Connecticut with Miriam.The woman’s phone buzzed on the table. Her sister: I Googled the dead bird.But I can’t Wednesday, the woman said. I told that artist I’d see his installation.Apparently migratory birds get confused by high-rises that emanate light. The storm exacerbated things.Her husband, scraping off the dishes: Come when you’re finished, then. Can’t take that long to—A muffled notification pinged on his phone, and he reflexively put a wet hand to his back pocket.The one we saw could’ve been some kind of warbler. Or vireo?Okay, don’t steal my idea, but listen to this, he said, picking up the spatula again. Office hours, but for dating.Birds navigate by feeling the pull of the Earth’s magnetic field.Why keep up this fake pretense that each date is somehow brand-new, virginal? Line them up. Drop-in model. Thank you, next. He was gesticulating wildly for effect.Are you experiencing such a volume of matches on your app that you’re wishing for a more expedient model of vetting and exploiting people?The 9/11 memorial endangers thousands of birds every year.Very funny.What’s the arrangement you have with Miriam now, after your little incident? I’m not judging; I’m just curious if she requires you to get tested regularly.The birds fly around the light, unable to extricate themselves.We said we wouldn’t talk about details.They waste precious energy and can die of exhaustion.And I wonder how you’ll explain to everyone why you’re spending your birthday weekend with her, not with me.I’ll tell them my wife is very principled; she doesn’t believe in the birthday industrial complex. She believes only in radical transparency, and in emotional blackmail when it suits her.Put homing pigeons in a dark cage, take them out to sea, and spin them around and around until they’re sick. They’ll still find their way home.Why do you insist on going through with this?You were the one who wanted this, not me.I guess if you want something badly enough, you generally find a way. Throat gonorrhea be damned.Her husband threw the dish towel on the counter and went into the other room. The woman watched him leave, and wondered whether memory had once served as a kind of homing mechanism. Pillars of light. Remembering how things used to be.Her mother had told her, over and over, Don’t look at your phone in a dark room. It’s terrible for your eyes. If you have to read, turn on the lights. She looked over now at her husband’s sleeping form, his back turned against her. She dimmed the phone’s brightness to the lowest possible setting. She swiped through various screens but could not retain much of what she saw. Tropical storm, six-foot surge, 150 awaiting rescue. Friend struggling into skinny leather pants in a dressing room. Death toll rising. Waterlogged areas. Urgent closing date upcoming. Dear members of the media—please find attacked the early-preview invitation and other press materials. She stared at the typo. Attacked. She chuckled audibly and took a screenshot. This confrontational language slipped out of people unexpectedly, breaching the surface for oxygen. The other day, a friend wrote to say that she would defiantly be at the café—The restaurant fan on the roof of their building revved to life. The walls shuddered; a coin on their nightstand began vibrating at an irritating frequency.Are you kidding me? her husband said, smothering his own head with a pillow. At this fucking hour.So he hadn’t been asleep.I’m going to throw myself out the window. I swear to fucking God.Ass me! they typed on accident, and the occasional Go tit! never got old. Sometimes, meaning to type Done! with her hands in the wrong home position, she typed Die! instead. She eagerly opened the email with the press materials, but before it could fully load, she suddenly remembered what she had wanted to read.Birds and the Urban Environment: Did you know that the Miracle on the Hudson accident, in which Captain Sully had to perform an emergency landing in the Hudson River, was caused by a bird strike? A bird strike happens when one or many birds collide with a plane. Sometimes birds will be ingested into the jet engine and cause catastrophic engine failure.Another common problem for birds is called fatal light attraction. You might not know this, but the majority of migrating birds travel at night and utilize the moon and stars for navigation. However, these days, migrating at night has become deadly. Light pollution from urban centers can work alongside fog and storms to disorient birds. Imagine being distracted while you’re trying to complete a marathon or an Ironman event! Even worse, birds often crash into reflective windows, perceiving them as a continuation of the sky. This is one reason it will sometimes “rain birds” after a storm.Help us! Have you seen these birds?She’d opened up another article, which mentioned the case of a strange tropical bird, with a flat, “lizard shaped” head, that could not leave Times Square. It was most likely an escaped species from a collector’s menagerie. Otherwise it had blown in from somewhere. Tourists pointed and gawked as it slammed helplessly into glass doors and flapped against the panels of glowing screens.Still up?Hey! Here finally?I’m really looking forward to seeing you.As though on cue, a pink aura—a kind of sparkling rainbow mash—appeared on the borders of her vision. She clicked her screen closed.You don’t find instant connections easily, an elderly man on the bus had once told her, unsolicited.Five or six times in a lifetime, that’s all.The phone glowed again.Will I see you at the gallery tomorrow?Yes, of course.Then nothing. Perhaps he was going through customs, or the reception was weak. She stared at the window expectantly. When the text came through, it was a picture of him with an inflatable travel pillow around his neck.Was a selfie always an invitation for another selfie? Impossible in the dark, here, in bed. She could send a joke in response. Or the screenshot of the gallery’s typo. She opened her sister’s chat window to work out the text draft there, so he wouldn’t see her typing.Who are you talking to? Please. I’m begging you. I have to get to campus early, her husband said.My sister. I’m almost done.We forgot to do the laundry. Tomorrow, okay?She sent her screenshot, clicked off the phone, and shoved it under her pillow. She imagined vibrations against her ear but forced herself not to look.This is a momentary infatuation and it will dissipate soon, she thought. I have nothing to confess.Sweetie, you’re obsessed with being good, her friend had said once, to tease her. Secret feelings aren’t the same as actions.In her daily life, nothing that was felt could be acted upon; what could be acted upon followed routines of inertia or necessity. To be an adult was to feel a thing and walk away from it. To feel anxiety and know its baselessness, to feel jealousy and chalk it up to insecurity. To feel the need to run out of the train, screaming, yet remain completely still, unruffled.Her husband began snoring.She closed her eyes and put her hand into her underwear.Before she fell asleep, she thought about the Mandarin duck that had appeared one day in a pond in Central Park. The duck was dazzling, with high-contrast plumage reminiscent of a Peking-opera mask. Its arrival had felt like a very special occasion, like a visit from a prime minister. Now, according to the articles, the duck paddled around with the common mallards, circling idly for crumbs of bread. Visitors flocked to take its photo. Beautiful things want to be replicated, so philosophers say. Was this visitation beautiful? The unfathomable longing of this wayward bird that wakes one day in a man-made pond, alone among strangers.The woman spent most of the next morning in bed. In the middle of the night, the artist had sent an audio file—no subject, no body, just a recording of himself playing scales on the guitar. Higher, faster, changing keys, breaking off into riffs and climaxes. The file had gone on for 10 minutes. She hadn’t understood his intention, but her gut had kicked so violently that she’d had to take several shits.After she’d listened to the file, she’d dug around online for his past interviews, trying to summon his actual voice. She’d found a short documentary on public television, but the green of his shirt had put her off. Next, she’d scrolled through Google Image search, looking for new pictures, then the tagged photos on his social-media profile, and had found one of him looking at the camera with a dreamy, postcoital expression. She had masturbated to this and now she was late, speed-walking to the gallery.She was sweaty in the unseasonable humidity, and her hair was wilting. She could feel the sting of salt in the fresh wound in the corner of her mouth. Getting ready, she’d picked at a patch of dead skin until it bled.Miriam just picked up the cake! Can’t wait to see you all!She approached the gallery and saw a block of text pasted on the white wall at the entrance. Underneath was his name in big black lettering.APORIA PETER FANG-CAPRAInside, workers on ladders with buckets of black paint were brushing an enormous contraption of pneumatic valves and tubes and elbows. She saw him up there, craning his neck and pointing a finger along a ribbed piece that linked to a mechanical lung. The artist looked the way she’d remembered … perhaps more diminutive.Her voice was lost in the din. Hey, do you guys need some help?He climbed down from the ladder.Look who’s here, at the very end of the day.She stiffened in his embrace.I thought you would show up earlier. Come. We tried to save some of the work so you could see.Gripping her forearm, he led her underneath some scaffolding, and they stood before a maze of freshly oiled pieces, on a blue tarp, that had yet to be lifted into the sculpture. He gestured toward a metal chamber. An organ? The apparatus seemed to follow the logic of utility, but if one looked closely, the structure had no observable function. Where things ended or began was impossible to say. Head, tail, mouth, or anus. She took out her phone to take photos.We’re here by the bathrooms. Got two tables. Taking all bier and wurst orders!By the way, I’m sorry about that file I sent, he said. Please don’t listen to it. I play scales when I’m nervous, and it helps calm me down.Too late. I listened to the whole thing on repeat when I went for a run this morning.I’m so embarrassed.You’re really good at the guitar.Abruptly, he grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned in, his lips brushing her ear.Don’t turn now. My gallerist is walking rapidly toward us with a very determined expression. Pretend we’re invisible. Oh God, she’s looking for me. She’s quite mad. I’ll have to be right back.She watched as he danced off to intercept a tall, finely dressed woman. They retreated into a back office and closed the door behind them.The woman looked again at her phone.dang you dense girl homeboy turning up the charm so you’ll write a good review that simple heard a thing or two about him be careful kk loveAlone, the woman tried to look preoccupied and circled the machine, as though studying its craftmanship. She had long reached the end of her observations. She took out her phone again, scrolled through her email, and opened up the press materials.“Is my death possible?” asks Jacques Derrida in Aporias. How can one experience that which is impossible to experience? In this new sculptural work, Fang-Capra asks whether the future itself is aporetic, a pipe dream or a mirage. Materials of modernity comprise this convoluted structure; discourses of biopolitical and emotional disaster are limned by discarded pipes and sheet metal. What would a machine of the impossible look like? The enfolding tensions of late capitalism are shaped into a coherent yet discomfiting whole.She went outside and walked toward the corner bodega. Once there, she bought a can of seltzer and considered the bodega’s neon display of CBD gummies. An LED sign flashed:HELLO VAPE WORLD MILE HIGH CLUB ITS YOUR YEAR YEAR TO QUITShe bought a pack of regular cigarettes and looked for a socially sanctioned place to smoke.I’m an analog kind of girl too, said a blue-haired woman who was also smoking in the piss-scented alleyway. They exhaled their respective clouds of combustion and pulled their arms more tightly around themselves.She nodded. We evolved around the communal fire; think about that.She didn’t like to inhale too deeply anymore.Hey babe. Ordered u a yummy fleischsalat.She finished her cigarette and went back inside the gallery. Two other writers she recognized had also come to preview the installation. She waved hello and approached them, catching the last fragments of their conversation.Dude must have paid a shit ton to ship all this metal. Wonder how he harvested these car parts.Probably dispatched a crew of interns to a Third World junkyard, then mobilized another crew to receive them in Berlin, where they breathed toxic fumes and shaved off years of their life for vague proximity to art-world fame.That envy talking? I’m feeling a takedown coming.A slammed door.The artist walked out, shouting, Yes, yes, I know. See you at breakfast. Good luck.The two critics congratulated him, patting him amiably. Thank you, thank you, the artist said, shaking his head. All of you are much too kind.Everything okay? She asked.They really need me to get dinner with this Saudi prince. A collector they’re courting.Don’t you have to go? Big payday, no?There are so many princes. Can’t keep track of them all.Hey, you. Aren’t you taking me somewhere? He suddenly prodded her, as though they had been interrupted mid-conversation. Aren’t you taking me out for a drink to talk nuts and bolts and hammered grommets?Her phone lit up in her palm.Cake is about to have a meltdown, lol. When u coming????Only if now’s a good time for you …No no, she protested, typing fast.Honey don’t wait for meShe looked up.Seriously. Do you have somewhere to be?The cab driver turned north onto the West Side Highway. I can’t stand these screens, the artist said, jabbing at the mounted tablet in front of them. What trash. The touch screen was desensitized with a filmy layer of grease, the cumulative tapping of many dirty hands. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. he said, pressing hard. The sound muted, he settled back into his seat and turned toward her. His hands floated up and down his legs.Everyone wants your attention, she said. Royalty, technology. How do you manage?Yes. I do need to get away from it all. He sighed in a melodramatic way. Well, that’s the life of a world-famous artist.Another one of his jokes. She cracked a smile.Don’t I manage to give you my undivided attention?Not really, she said. But I don’t expect it from you.He mimed a punctured heart and smiled that winning smile.It might not appear as such, he said, but I’m an insanely jealous person. I am very aware of this flaw in myself. I don’t like to have any distractions.He pulled her closer.What have you been thinking about? Ever since you arrived, your mind seems elsewhere.He was smiling even more broadly now, and she was smiling, and they were both smiling at each other like two dumb dogs. A wide, shit-eating grin is how someone would have described it. Had her mouth ever stretched this wide. Had she ever felt this turned on. Had anything ever been this real.He licked his lips. She could see a coating of white at the corners of his mouth, the kind of thick saliva that accrues after too many drugs, or too much talking and not enough water. She pulled slightly away but he grabbed her chin and held it fast as he worked his mouth up and down her neck. Eventually he settled on a spot above her collarbone, attaching and sucking, round and full, like a lamprey on aquarium glass.It hurt a bit; her eyes fluttered open. Behind his head, next to the rear window, was a message for her.Where are you?More and more, whenever she sees a flash of blue—a blue sheet of paper, a framed square of sky—she mistakes it for her phone. Electricity jolts through her entire body.This time, the dangling seat-belt buckle had reflected the blue from the Chelsea Piers sign.Yesterday, I was reading about birds, she wanted to say. That’s what I was doing. Have you ever thought about how a bird is like a kind of machine?One clammy hand was already under her shirt, flicking her nipple through her bra. The other hand crawled up her thigh, a thumb pushing against the nub of her clit.Birds are automatons with a repertoire of preprogrammed behavior. They do everything by instinct. Fly, feed, migrate, mate. An osprey will return to nest in the same place even if it happens to be in the middle of a traffic intersection. A guinea fowl accustomed to flat terrain won’t know to fly over a low mesh fence to get to the other side. It may simply keep running into the barrier, over and over again.You’re ready for this, he moaned. You’re so ready.A bird hardly knows what it’s in love with. A baby cuckoo will push the other baby birds out of the nest, and the parents will keep feeding the parasitic chick. Goslings will bond with whatever moving thing they see in their first minutes of life. I once saw a pigeon guard its nest while its dead mate lay nearby.I’ll be there soon.I’ll be late.I’ll be so late I won’t arrive.Let’s have a drink on the roof at your place, she could say. See the tops of the trees in Central Park. Birds congregate there because there’s little other refuge for miles around, to land, to rest …Don’t wait up for me.Imagine the sheer density in that sliver of green.The driver coughed a few times. She opened her eyes and saw, as they idled at a light, a spectacle of starlings feasting on a fried chicken wing from the garbage. She wanted to look away. Their adaptivity made them repulsive. They could use their intelligence for problem-solving. They could eat anything and live anywhere. They could learn new habits of being.Midtown was fading in the rearview mirror, a cloud of light rising above Times Square. Dots of pink and white, flashing, scintillating.Dizzy with desire, she gazed up at the camera flashes, at the neon tickers. She struggled against the car door, her forehead knocking against glass. He was shoving her out of the cab and through the revolving doors of the hotel.Upstairs, the hotel room was rimmed with glass. She felt the whoosh and boom of being orbited on all sides by a monsoon of light. She approached the window.Isn’t it curious how people always want to be high up and have a bird’s-eye view of things? As if we can’t see what we’re doing down there every single day.Looking down, she thought of a woodcock, with its large, depthless eyes that see better behind than ahead. In her mind’s eye, she saw the patch of field by the schoolyard, where pink-and-white clover grew. Decades ago, she had lost herself in them, pinching stems to string into a necklace. She remembered the green grass, the blue sky, the brown mud, her teacher’s face looming suddenly so close to hers, asking, What do you see? She’d pointed. The iridescent blue of a butterfly’s wing. The woodcock lies quietly on the sidewalk, paralyzed, its neck snapped in two. The heels of commuters click busily around it.But I will learn to adapt, the woman thought. I will be a city bird.

A short story

The woman and her sister had been out jogging by the river when they saw the bird fall from the sky. At first, they mistook it for a falling leaf, but the angle and speed of descent suggested a weightier object. They squatted down like children to inspect the body. A pale-green bird with a cream-colored breast, too delicate for a city bird. They saw nothing above them. No trees or obstructions, just a red fog of diffuse and muddled light.

Poor bird. Why would a bird fall out of the sky like that? It was small enough to have balanced on a single blade of straw. They knew almost nothing about the daily lives of birds, save the pigeons who scampered about, pecking at urban detritus. During mating season, the males chased the females up and down the sidewalks, hopping on, hopping off.

If they had seen the dead bird in a state of decay, they would have simply sidestepped it. But because they’d witnessed the moment it struck the ground, they felt somehow responsible, as though it were a piece of trash that had blown out of their hands.

Shouldn’t we at least put it off to the side, the woman wondered aloud.

Don’t do it, her sister warned. You don’t know what it has.

They left the body, casting a few backward glances. The brief stop made it more difficult to continue running, so they walked for a stretch. The path along the Hudson River was almost empty at that hour. A flock of seagulls bobbed on the water, penned in by a rhomboid of lamplight. A crow perched mutely on a wire.

Before the interruption, she had been telling her sister about the artist. You know, the artist. I profiled him in the magazine several years ago, she reminded her sister, when he was working on the windmill installation? Remember, I shadowed him for a week, and then we took that trip to Montauk? Now he’s back in town to install a new show in Chelsea. Some kind of sculpture—a machine.

The woman’s sister was staring at her phone. She frowned at the lit screen, typing rapidly. What is it? the woman asked, waiting. The concentration on her sister’s face made her wonder if everything was all right. What happened? Her sister finally looked up.

Oh, we ordered a mattress online and now it’s arrived.

The screech of wet bicycle brakes. Water slapping against rock. Her sister was saying, Honestly, it took us forever to decide. Weighing the environmental impact of a new foam mattress versus a used one, cost versus expediency and guilt.

A plane roared overhead, lower than normal, heading to LaGuardia, perhaps. The sky was so woolly, she imagined the runway materializing at the last minute, filling up the entire windshield. A plunge of faith before the tires hit tarmac. The pilot must have a way of knowing where the ground is, she thought. Or the plane’s apparatus must know.

What were you saying just now? her sister asked. Oh, yeah, the artist. The artist who’s coming to town. What about him? I can’t believe you’re still talking to that creep.

In a rare confluence of irregular schedules, the woman and her husband were having dinner together at home, discussing the details of his upcoming birthday party. It was an unremarkable middle-age birthday, and he didn’t want to make a fuss. A small gathering at the German beer hall, he finally decided, and friends could drop in as they wished.

So, I’ll tell everyone Wednesday, he said, because Thursday I have class and Friday I’ll be gone.

What’s on Friday? The woman looked up.

I already told you. I’m going to Connecticut with Miriam.

The woman’s phone buzzed on the table. Her sister: I Googled the dead bird.

But I can’t Wednesday, the woman said. I told that artist I’d see his installation.

Apparently migratory birds get confused by high-rises that emanate light. The storm exacerbated things.

Her husband, scraping off the dishes: Come when you’re finished, then. Can’t take that long to—

A muffled notification pinged on his phone, and he reflexively put a wet hand to his back pocket.

The one we saw could’ve been some kind of warbler. Or vireo?

Okay, don’t steal my idea, but listen to this, he said, picking up the spatula again. Office hours, but for dating.

Birds navigate by feeling the pull of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Why keep up this fake pretense that each date is somehow brand-new, virginal? Line them up. Drop-in model. Thank you, next. He was gesticulating wildly for effect.

Are you experiencing such a volume of matches on your app that you’re wishing for a more expedient model of vetting and exploiting people?

The 9/11 memorial endangers thousands of birds every year.

Very funny.

What’s the arrangement you have with Miriam now, after your little incident? I’m not judging; I’m just curious if she requires you to get tested regularly.

The birds fly around the light, unable to extricate themselves.

We said we wouldn’t talk about details.

They waste precious energy and can die of exhaustion.

And I wonder how you’ll explain to everyone why you’re spending your birthday weekend with her, not with me.

I’ll tell them my wife is very principled; she doesn’t believe in the birthday industrial complex. She believes only in radical transparency, and in emotional blackmail when it suits her.

Put homing pigeons in a dark cage, take them out to sea, and spin them around and around until they’re sick. They’ll still find their way home.

Why do you insist on going through with this?

You were the one who wanted this, not me.

I guess if you want something badly enough, you generally find a way. Throat gonorrhea be damned.

Her husband threw the dish towel on the counter and went into the other room. The woman watched him leave, and wondered whether memory had once served as a kind of homing mechanism. Pillars of light. Remembering how things used to be.

Her mother had told her, over and over, Don’t look at your phone in a dark room. It’s terrible for your eyes. If you have to read, turn on the lights. She looked over now at her husband’s sleeping form, his back turned against her. She dimmed the phone’s brightness to the lowest possible setting. She swiped through various screens but could not retain much of what she saw. Tropical storm, six-foot surge, 150 awaiting rescue. Friend struggling into skinny leather pants in a dressing room. Death toll rising. Waterlogged areas. Urgent closing date upcoming. Dear members of the media—please find attacked the early-preview invitation and other press materials. She stared at the typo. Attacked. She chuckled audibly and took a screenshot. This confrontational language slipped out of people unexpectedly, breaching the surface for oxygen. The other day, a friend wrote to say that she would defiantly be at the café—

The restaurant fan on the roof of their building revved to life. The walls shuddered; a coin on their nightstand began vibrating at an irritating frequency.

Are you kidding me? her husband said, smothering his own head with a pillow. At this fucking hour.

So he hadn’t been asleep.

I’m going to throw myself out the window. I swear to fucking God.

Ass me! they typed on accident, and the occasional Go tit! never got old. Sometimes, meaning to type Done! with her hands in the wrong home position, she typed Die! instead. She eagerly opened the email with the press materials, but before it could fully load, she suddenly remembered what she had wanted to read.

Birds and the Urban Environment: Did you know that the Miracle on the Hudson accident, in which Captain Sully had to perform an emergency landing in the Hudson River, was caused by a bird strike? A bird strike happens when one or many birds collide with a plane. Sometimes birds will be ingested into the jet engine and cause catastrophic engine failure.

Another common problem for birds is called fatal light attraction. You might not know this, but the majority of migrating birds travel at night and utilize the moon and stars for navigation. However, these days, migrating at night has become deadly. Light pollution from urban centers can work alongside fog and storms to disorient birds. Imagine being distracted while you’re trying to complete a marathon or an Ironman event! Even worse, birds often crash into reflective windows, perceiving them as a continuation of the sky. This is one reason it will sometimes “rain birds” after a storm.

Help us! Have you seen these birds?

She’d opened up another article, which mentioned the case of a strange tropical bird, with a flat, “lizard shaped” head, that could not leave Times Square. It was most likely an escaped species from a collector’s menagerie. Otherwise it had blown in from somewhere. Tourists pointed and gawked as it slammed helplessly into glass doors and flapped against the panels of glowing screens.

Still up?

Hey! Here finally?

I’m really looking forward to seeing you.

As though on cue, a pink aura—a kind of sparkling rainbow mash—appeared on the borders of her vision. She clicked her screen closed.

You don’t find instant connections easily, an elderly man on the bus had once told her, unsolicited.

Five or six times in a lifetime, that’s all.

The phone glowed again.

Will I see you at the gallery tomorrow?

Yes, of course.

Then nothing. Perhaps he was going through customs, or the reception was weak. She stared at the window expectantly. When the text came through, it was a picture of him with an inflatable travel pillow around his neck.

Was a selfie always an invitation for another selfie? Impossible in the dark, here, in bed. She could send a joke in response. Or the screenshot of the gallery’s typo. She opened her sister’s chat window to work out the text draft there, so he wouldn’t see her typing.

Who are you talking to? Please. I’m begging you. I have to get to campus early, her husband said.

My sister. I’m almost done.

We forgot to do the laundry. Tomorrow, okay?

She sent her screenshot, clicked off the phone, and shoved it under her pillow. She imagined vibrations against her ear but forced herself not to look.

This is a momentary infatuation and it will dissipate soon, she thought. I have nothing to confess.

Sweetie, you’re obsessed with being good, her friend had said once, to tease her. Secret feelings aren’t the same as actions.

In her daily life, nothing that was felt could be acted upon; what could be acted upon followed routines of inertia or necessity. To be an adult was to feel a thing and walk away from it. To feel anxiety and know its baselessness, to feel jealousy and chalk it up to insecurity. To feel the need to run out of the train, screaming, yet remain completely still, unruffled.

Her husband began snoring.

She closed her eyes and put her hand into her underwear.

Before she fell asleep, she thought about the Mandarin duck that had appeared one day in a pond in Central Park. The duck was dazzling, with high-contrast plumage reminiscent of a Peking-opera mask. Its arrival had felt like a very special occasion, like a visit from a prime minister. Now, according to the articles, the duck paddled around with the common mallards, circling idly for crumbs of bread. Visitors flocked to take its photo. Beautiful things want to be replicated, so philosophers say. Was this visitation beautiful? The unfathomable longing of this wayward bird that wakes one day in a man-made pond, alone among strangers.

The woman spent most of the next morning in bed. In the middle of the night, the artist had sent an audio file—no subject, no body, just a recording of himself playing scales on the guitar. Higher, faster, changing keys, breaking off into riffs and climaxes. The file had gone on for 10 minutes. She hadn’t understood his intention, but her gut had kicked so violently that she’d had to take several shits.

After she’d listened to the file, she’d dug around online for his past interviews, trying to summon his actual voice. She’d found a short documentary on public television, but the green of his shirt had put her off. Next, she’d scrolled through Google Image search, looking for new pictures, then the tagged photos on his social-media profile, and had found one of him looking at the camera with a dreamy, postcoital expression. She had masturbated to this and now she was late, speed-walking to the gallery.

She was sweaty in the unseasonable humidity, and her hair was wilting. She could feel the sting of salt in the fresh wound in the corner of her mouth. Getting ready, she’d picked at a patch of dead skin until it bled.

Miriam just picked up the cake! Can’t wait to see you all!

She approached the gallery and saw a block of text pasted on the white wall at the entrance. Underneath was his name in big black lettering.

APORIA
PETER FANG-CAPRA

Inside, workers on ladders with buckets of black paint were brushing an enormous contraption of pneumatic valves and tubes and elbows. She saw him up there, craning his neck and pointing a finger along a ribbed piece that linked to a mechanical lung. The artist looked the way she’d remembered … perhaps more diminutive.

Her voice was lost in the din. Hey, do you guys need some help?

He climbed down from the ladder.

Look who’s here, at the very end of the day.

She stiffened in his embrace.

I thought you would show up earlier. Come. We tried to save some of the work so you could see.

Gripping her forearm, he led her underneath some scaffolding, and they stood before a maze of freshly oiled pieces, on a blue tarp, that had yet to be lifted into the sculpture. He gestured toward a metal chamber. An organ? The apparatus seemed to follow the logic of utility, but if one looked closely, the structure had no observable function. Where things ended or began was impossible to say. Head, tail, mouth, or anus. She took out her phone to take photos.

We’re here by the bathrooms. Got two tables. Taking all bier and wurst orders!

By the way, I’m sorry about that file I sent, he said. Please don’t listen to it. I play scales when I’m nervous, and it helps calm me down.

Too late. I listened to the whole thing on repeat when I went for a run this morning.

I’m so embarrassed.

You’re really good at the guitar.

Abruptly, he grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned in, his lips brushing her ear.

Don’t turn now. My gallerist is walking rapidly toward us with a very determined expression. Pretend we’re invisible. Oh God, she’s looking for me. She’s quite mad. I’ll have to be right back.

She watched as he danced off to intercept a tall, finely dressed woman. They retreated into a back office and closed the door behind them.

The woman looked again at her phone.

dang you dense girl
homeboy turning up the charm so you’ll write a good review
that simple
heard a thing or two about him
be careful kk love

Alone, the woman tried to look preoccupied and circled the machine, as though studying its craftmanship. She had long reached the end of her observations. She took out her phone again, scrolled through her email, and opened up the press materials.

“Is my death possible?” asks Jacques Derrida in Aporias. How can one experience that which is impossible to experience? In this new sculptural work, Fang-Capra asks whether the future itself is aporetic, a pipe dream or a mirage. Materials of modernity comprise this convoluted structure; discourses of biopolitical and emotional disaster are limned by discarded pipes and sheet metal. What would a machine of the impossible look like? The enfolding tensions of late capitalism are shaped into a coherent yet discomfiting whole.

She went outside and walked toward the corner bodega. Once there, she bought a can of seltzer and considered the bodega’s neon display of CBD gummies. An LED sign flashed:

HELLO VAPE WORLD
MILE HIGH CLUB
ITS YOUR YEAR
YEAR TO QUIT

She bought a pack of regular cigarettes and looked for a socially sanctioned place to smoke.

I’m an analog kind of girl too, said a blue-haired woman who was also smoking in the piss-scented alleyway. They exhaled their respective clouds of combustion and pulled their arms more tightly around themselves.

She nodded. We evolved around the communal fire; think about that.

She didn’t like to inhale too deeply anymore.

Hey babe. Ordered u a yummy fleischsalat.

She finished her cigarette and went back inside the gallery. Two other writers she recognized had also come to preview the installation. She waved hello and approached them, catching the last fragments of their conversation.

Dude must have paid a shit ton to ship all this metal. Wonder how he harvested these car parts.

Probably dispatched a crew of interns to a Third World junkyard, then mobilized another crew to receive them in Berlin, where they breathed toxic fumes and shaved off years of their life for vague proximity to art-world fame.

That envy talking? I’m feeling a takedown coming.

A slammed door.

The artist walked out, shouting, Yes, yes, I know. See you at breakfast. Good luck.

The two critics congratulated him, patting him amiably. Thank you, thank you, the artist said, shaking his head. All of you are much too kind.

Everything okay? She asked.

They really need me to get dinner with this Saudi prince. A collector they’re courting.

Don’t you have to go? Big payday, no?

There are so many princes. Can’t keep track of them all.

Hey, you. Aren’t you taking me somewhere? He suddenly prodded her, as though they had been interrupted mid-conversation. Aren’t you taking me out for a drink to talk nuts and bolts and hammered grommets?

Her phone lit up in her palm.

Cake is about to have a meltdown, lol. When u coming????

Only if now’s a good time for you …

No no, she protested, typing fast.

Honey don’t wait for me

She looked up.

Seriously. Do you have somewhere to be?

The cab driver turned north onto the West Side Highway. I can’t stand these screens, the artist said, jabbing at the mounted tablet in front of them. What trash. The touch screen was desensitized with a filmy layer of grease, the cumulative tapping of many dirty hands. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. he said, pressing hard. The sound muted, he settled back into his seat and turned toward her. His hands floated up and down his legs.

Everyone wants your attention, she said. Royalty, technology. How do you manage?

Yes. I do need to get away from it all. He sighed in a melodramatic way. Well, that’s the life of a world-famous artist.

Another one of his jokes. She cracked a smile.

Don’t I manage to give you my undivided attention?

Not really, she said. But I don’t expect it from you.

He mimed a punctured heart and smiled that winning smile.

It might not appear as such, he said, but I’m an insanely jealous person. I am very aware of this flaw in myself. I don’t like to have any distractions.

He pulled her closer.

What have you been thinking about? Ever since you arrived, your mind seems elsewhere.

He was smiling even more broadly now, and she was smiling, and they were both smiling at each other like two dumb dogs. A wide, shit-eating grin is how someone would have described it. Had her mouth ever stretched this wide. Had she ever felt this turned on. Had anything ever been this real.

He licked his lips. She could see a coating of white at the corners of his mouth, the kind of thick saliva that accrues after too many drugs, or too much talking and not enough water. She pulled slightly away but he grabbed her chin and held it fast as he worked his mouth up and down her neck. Eventually he settled on a spot above her collarbone, attaching and sucking, round and full, like a lamprey on aquarium glass.

It hurt a bit; her eyes fluttered open. Behind his head, next to the rear window, was a message for her.

Where are you?

More and more, whenever she sees a flash of blue—a blue sheet of paper, a framed square of sky—she mistakes it for her phone. Electricity jolts through her entire body.

This time, the dangling seat-belt buckle had reflected the blue from the Chelsea Piers sign.

Yesterday, I was reading about birds, she wanted to say. That’s what I was doing. Have you ever thought about how a bird is like a kind of machine?

One clammy hand was already under her shirt, flicking her nipple through her bra. The other hand crawled up her thigh, a thumb pushing against the nub of her clit.

Birds are automatons with a repertoire of preprogrammed behavior. They do everything by instinct. Fly, feed, migrate, mate. An osprey will return to nest in the same place even if it happens to be in the middle of a traffic intersection. A guinea fowl accustomed to flat terrain won’t know to fly over a low mesh fence to get to the other side. It may simply keep running into the barrier, over and over again.

You’re ready for this, he moaned. You’re so ready.

A bird hardly knows what it’s in love with. A baby cuckoo will push the other baby birds out of the nest, and the parents will keep feeding the parasitic chick. Goslings will bond with whatever moving thing they see in their first minutes of life. I once saw a pigeon guard its nest while its dead mate lay nearby.

I’ll be there soon.

I’ll be late.

I’ll be so late I won’t arrive.

Let’s have a drink on the roof at your place, she could say. See the tops of the trees in Central Park. Birds congregate there because there’s little other refuge for miles around, to land, to rest …

Don’t wait up for me.

Imagine the sheer density in that sliver of green.

The driver coughed a few times. She opened her eyes and saw, as they idled at a light, a spectacle of starlings feasting on a fried chicken wing from the garbage. She wanted to look away. Their adaptivity made them repulsive. They could use their intelligence for problem-solving. They could eat anything and live anywhere. They could learn new habits of being.

Midtown was fading in the rearview mirror, a cloud of light rising above Times Square. Dots of pink and white, flashing, scintillating.

Dizzy with desire, she gazed up at the camera flashes, at the neon tickers. She struggled against the car door, her forehead knocking against glass. He was shoving her out of the cab and through the revolving doors of the hotel.

Upstairs, the hotel room was rimmed with glass. She felt the whoosh and boom of being orbited on all sides by a monsoon of light. She approached the window.

Isn’t it curious how people always want to be high up and have a bird’s-eye view of things? As if we can’t see what we’re doing down there every single day.

Looking down, she thought of a woodcock, with its large, depthless eyes that see better behind than ahead. In her mind’s eye, she saw the patch of field by the schoolyard, where pink-and-white clover grew. Decades ago, she had lost herself in them, pinching stems to string into a necklace. She remembered the green grass, the blue sky, the brown mud, her teacher’s face looming suddenly so close to hers, asking, What do you see? She’d pointed. The iridescent blue of a butterfly’s wing. The woodcock lies quietly on the sidewalk, paralyzed, its neck snapped in two. The heels of commuters click busily around it.

But I will learn to adapt, the woman thought. I will be a city bird.

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Trump's Department of Energy targets California and other blue states for budget cuts, according to internal documents

A major national effort to develop clean hydrogen energy is facing funding cuts — but only in Democratic states.

The Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle environmental protections and roll back nationwide progress toward clean energy disproportionately target California and other blue states, internal documents show.As early as this week, the Department of Energy may pull funding from hundreds of projects — many of which were bolstered by President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law and are geared toward climate-friendly initiatives such as solar power, heat pumps, battery storage and renewable fuels, according to a leaked list reviewed by The Times. The cuts could include as many as 262 projects in the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, of which roughly 80% are based in states that did not go for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Also on the chopping block are nearly two dozen projects in the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, including a major national effort known as the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs) Program, which aims to accelerate the development of hydrogen projects that can replace planet-warming fossil fuels. Those cuts, too, are not applied equally: Of the seven states and regions selected to participate in the $7-billion federal hydrogen project, the four set to be gutted are in primarily Democratic areas. The hydrogen incubators on the cut list include a hub in California; a Mid-Atlantic hub in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey; a Pacific Northwest hub in Oregon, Washington and Montana; and a Midwest hub in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. Meanwhile, the hydrogen hubs in red states and regions are safe, the list shows, including a large hub in Texas; a “heartland” hub in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota; and an Appalachia hub in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Officials with the Department of Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. California was among 33 applicants for the competitive initiative, which launched in 2021 and ultimately selected seven “hubs” to develop and test various sources of hydrogen. The California hub — known as ARCHES, or the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems — was awarded $1.2 billion in federal funds, with plans to bring in an additional $11.2 billion from private investors. But it now faces cuts from Trump’s DOE despite the fact that the hub was the highest-scoring applicant among those considered for the federal award, according to sources familiar with the matter. Democratic staff members with the House Science Committee who agreed to speak on background said the findings indicate that the cuts are partisan and ideological in nature — a trend in keeping with other actions from the Trump administration, which has repeatedly targeted environmental programs in California and other Democratic areas in recent weeks. Indeed, cost alone does not appear to be a factor, given that Texas’s hydrogen hub received the same amount of federal funding — $1.2 billion — as California’s, yet the former was not on the cut list. The two states’ projects were the costliest of the hubs, which range from roughly $750 million to $1.2 billion.The total cuts from the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy amount to more than $905 million, with about $735 million coming from blue states and $169 million from red states, according to a Times analysis. Insiders said the proportions do not reflect overall clean energy investments by red and blue states, with Republican states such as Texas — a clean energy juggernaut — facing far fewer cuts from that office. According to documents reviewed by The Times, only eight Texas projects are on the chopping block compared with 53 in California. House Science Committee staffers cautioned that the leaked lists represent a snapshot in time and that the administration could change its plans before making any official announcements. Already, they said, some Republican representatives and private industry leaders have been successful in stopping certain projects from being canceled. So far, none of their Democratic counterparts have been able to do the same, they said.The cuts could have considerable implications for the nation’s energy future. The seven hydrogen hubs were collectively expected to produce 3 million metric tons of hydrogen each year — reducing 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or roughly the amount of 5.5 million gas-powered cars. Each of the seven hubs was experimenting with different sources of hydrogen, with California focused on producing hydrogen exclusively from renewable energy and biomass while other hubs worked with natural gas, nuclear power and renewable sources such as wind and solar.Officials with ARCHES said it could be weeks before they have more clarity on the situation. “ARCHES remains committed to working with our partners to establish a secure, reliable and competitive hydrogen ecosystem, creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs and delivering substantial health and economic benefits for Californians,” Chief Executive Angelina Galiteva said in a statement. “We have nothing more to share at this time.”Hydrogen is also not without controversy. Critics have expressed concern that producing hydrogen is water- and energy-intensive, potentially dangerous to transport and expensive. Supporters say it fills in a key gap that electrification alone cannot cover, particularly for heavy industries such as manufacturing and transportation.ARCHES planned to fund at least 37 smaller projects in and around California, including efforts to decarbonize the Port of Los Angeles, as well as plans to install more than 60 hydrogen fueling stations around the state.The status of those projects remains unclear.The president — who received record donations from fossil fuel companies during his campaign — has taken aim at what he describes as “environmental extremists, lunatics, radicals and thugs” in recent weeks, vowing instead to ramp up the production of coal, increase oil drilling and block California’s efforts to transition to electric vehicles, among other actions.

‘Playing gods with the cradle of life’: French Polynesia’s president issues warning over deep-sea mining

Exclusive: Moetai Brotherson fears environmental risks of controversial practice and says independence from France must not be ‘rushed’Read more Pacific leaders: in their wordsFrench Polynesia’s president has issued a stark warning over the risks of deep-sea mining, saying it will be allowed in his territory “over my dead body” as he argues the potential for environmental damage outweighs any benefits.Moetai Brotherson’s comments to the Guardian come as countries in the Pacific and elsewhere grapple with whether to extract minerals from the sea floor. Deep-sea mining has not yet begun, but some companies and countries are exploring the practice, which could start in the coming years. Continue reading...

French Polynesia’s president has issued a stark warning over the risks of deep-sea mining, saying it will be allowed in his territory “over my dead body” as he argues the potential for environmental damage outweighs any benefits.Moetai Brotherson’s comments to the Guardian come as countries in the Pacific and elsewhere grapple with whether to extract minerals from the sea floor. Deep-sea mining has not yet begun, but some companies and countries are exploring the practice, which could start in the coming years.“We’re playing gods with the cradle of life – and that’s way too dangerous,” Brotherson said from his office in Papeete.Asked if he would consider deep-sea mining in the future, Brotherson said: “Over my dead body.”French Polynesia is located in the South Pacific Ocean about halfway between Australia and South America. It consists of more than 100 islands, including Tahiti and Bora Bora. Although technically still under French sovereignty, the islands are largely autonomous, with their own government, currency and local laws.French Polynesian president Moetai Brotherson says deep-sea mining is a ‘lure’ for Pacific Island countries. Photograph: Atea Lee Chip Sao/The GuardianUnder French Polynesia’s statute of autonomy, France has ultimate jurisdiction over what it deems “strategic materials”, which includes the minerals found in the seabed. Brotherson’s administration is attempting to get the statute modified.Brotherson was elected in 2023 as a member of the pro-independence Tāvini Huiraʻatira party. He said deep-sea mining was a “lure” for Pacific Island countries, which might see the practice as a “shortcut to a better social and economic situation”.Deep-sea mining involves extracting minerals and metals such as nickel, cobalt and copper from the deep seabed, at depths greater than 200m. These minerals are used in a range of products including batteries, electronics and renewable energies.Proponents say mining the deep sea will support the green energy transition and aid the development of Pacific Island economies. Others argue the practice could have a devastating impact on the seabed, and the long-term consequences for the environment and ocean ecosystems are uncertain.Deep-sea mining has divided Pacific island governments. While some, including French Polynesia and Micronesia, are against the idea, others such as the Cook Islands and Nauru have been actively pursuing partnerships with mining companies as a way to diversify their economies.In February, the Cook Islands signed a strategic partnership deal with China which included cooperation to explore deep-sea mining in the Cook Islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In March, Kiribati announced it would also be exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China. Other large states including Russia and South Korea hold exploration contracts, and companies are pushing to begin mining the deep sea.French Polynesia’s presidential palace in the capital, Papeete. Photograph: Atea Lee Chip Sao/The GuardianWhile Brotherson supports the right of the Cook Islands to exploit its deep-sea resources, he doesn’t agree with it.“From our perspective, it’s very disturbing because it sets a precedent and also ignores the fact that undersea pollution doesn’t have boundaries,” said Brotherson, who noted that pollution from mining in the Cook Islands could end up in French Polynesian waters.Dr Lorenz Gonschor, an expert on Pacific regionalism and governance at the University of the South Pacific, said exploration of deep ocean resources was likely to happen in the future.He said as “large ocean nations” the emerging practice gave Pacific islands “tremendous importance in the sense that they will now potentially have huge economic resources”.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, currently supports a ban on deep-sea mining but Brotherson worries that could change with the election of a new president in France.France has complicated relationships with its Pacific Island colonies, which also includes New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna. New Caledonia saw violent unrest and protests last year sparked by voting reforms proposed by the French parliament.Brotherson has stated publicly that he would consider holding a referendum on independence from France in the next 10 to 15 years.France, however, has shown no indication of moving towards decolonisation for French Polynesia, rejecting calls for independence at the 2023 UN special committee on decolonisation and continuing to maintain an active military presence in the islands. Macron, during his last visit to French Polynesia in 2021, emphasised strengthening the existing relationship.Gonschor acknowledged that independence for French Polynesia would be a “big challenge”, particularly because of its history of economic subsidies and “superficial development” from France. Still, he believed there was a chance of seeing independence in our lifetimes.“From a geopolitical standpoint, it’s unavoidable. In the long run, France won’t be able to afford to keep these overseas colonies.”Brotherson is willing to take a slow path to secure independence “the right way” and start by building French Polynesia’s “economic self-resilience”, which includes a sustainable tourism and energy transition, as well as a move to boost the local agricultural sector and prioritise the digital economy.“I’d rather not see independence in my time if it’s being rushed and done wrong … It would be great if I could see it, but it’s not about me,” Brotherson said. “It’s about the people in the country.”

Brisbane city council blocks plans for fridge-sized community batteries due to loss of green space

Local councillor says federal Labor should not be ‘plonking giant batteries in public parks’ though no other council has refused development applications in the stateElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignInteractive guide to electorates in the Australian electionGina: the billionaire who wants to make Australia greatSee all our Australian election 2025 coverageGet ourbreaking news email,free app ordaily news podcastThe Brisbane city council has stymied a federal government renewable energy scheme by denying three development applications for community batteries the size of a fridge due to loss of green space.The PowerShaper XL batteries, which range in capacity between 90kW and 180kWh, are about the size of an NBN or traffic signal box – or a fridge. Continue reading...

The Brisbane city council has stymied a federal government renewable energy scheme by denying three development applications for community batteries the size of a fridge due to loss of green space.The PowerShaper XL batteries, which range in capacity between 90kW and 180kWh, are about the size of an NBN or traffic signal box – or a fridge.But development applications for three sites, at an old Scouts Hall in Nundah, a substation in Newmarket and the Penley Street end of Woodbine Street in the Gap, were denied by Brisbane city council. All up, the trio would cost about $2.24m.The batteries were funded through the commonwealth’s $200m communities batteries for household solar program.Energy Queensland won federal grant funding for batteries in 12 communities, including other Brisbane suburbs. It has approval to install them in Coorparoo and Moorooka.The civic cabinet chair for environment, parks and sustainability, Tracy Davis, a former LNP MP, said the council does not support “plonking giant batteries in public parks”.“These bogus claims about community batteries are just a desperate attempt for relevance from a clueless Labor candidate,” she said.“With the election now called, the federal Labor government has been caught out failing to deliver on its own commitment about community batteries and is now trying to blame local councils.”Brisbane’s lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, was one of the loudest backers of a plan to convert part of one the city’s largest parks into a stadium for the Olympics, despite claims it would significantly reduce one of the city’s biggest green spaces.The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, said three rejected batteries would help “nearly 1,000 households” power their homes with locally created green energy.In a letter to Schrinner, the federal government asked the city council to either reconsider their opposition or identify alternative sites within the same suburbs that they would support.“The batteries will store solar energy for later use and sharing, support further solar installations in these suburbs, as well [as] contribute to lowering emissions, put downward pressure on household electricity costs and provide network benefits,” Bowen said in a letter to the mayor.Sources have told the Guardian that no other local government body has refused a development application in Queensland and in other states councils had offered alternatives when objecting.Rebecca Hack, the Labor candidate for Ryan – which includes the outer north-west suburb the Gap – said the council’s decision flew in the face of claimed green credentials.“The LNP lord mayor is constantly trying to tell ratepayers how much he cares for the environment,” she said. “Well, he can start right now by putting aside his personal politics and getting these batteries approved, so they can be built as soon as possible.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionEnergy Queensland was contacted for comment.The Queensland Conservation Council’s director, David Copeman, said he would be concerned if the council had adopted a “not in my back yard approach”.“If there was a particular tree which was seen as a character tree or protected under council rules, then obviously you’d relocate, and that’s what we’d expect from appropriate planning, but that should be something that the council and Energy Queensland can work out,” he said.He said planning rules should take into account not just the environmental costs of a project, but its benefits – particularly if the counterfactual means using more coal for longer.Copeman said he is “concerned that the council is delaying the rollout of this important infrastructure”.“Brisbane city council, which has made a lot out of its commitment to net zero … for it to backslide on rolling out renewable energy infrastructure would be very concerning.”Davis said the federal government had known “for months” that the council did not support the sites.“Instead of petty political games, Labor must ensure Brisbane finally gets its fair share of federal road and transport funding and stop funnelling billions of dollars in additional investment into Sydney and Melbourne,” she said.The PowerShaper XL is about 700 x 900 x 2,000mm and weighs 600kg.

Ohio utility retracts energy-efficiency plan despite potential savings

Another proposed energy-saving program is on the chopping block in Ohio. Duke Energy Ohio quietly dropped plans late last year to roll out a broad portfolio of programs that would have boosted energy efficiency and encouraged customers to use less electricity during times of peak demand. The plans, which would have…

Another proposed energy-saving program is on the chopping block in Ohio. Duke Energy Ohio quietly dropped plans late last year to roll out a broad portfolio of programs that would have boosted energy efficiency and encouraged customers to use less electricity during times of peak demand. The plans, which would have saved ratepayers nearly $126 million over three years after deductions for costs, were part of a regulatory filing last April that sought to increase charges on customers’ electric bills. The move came after settlement talks with other stakeholders, including the state’s consumer advocate, which opposes collecting ratepayer money to provide the programs to people who aren’t in low-income groups. State regulators are now weighing whether to approve the settlement with a much smaller efficiency program focused on low-income neighborhoods. The case is the latest chapter in a struggle to restore utility-run programs for energy efficiency after House Bill 6, the 2019 nuclear and coal bailout law that also gutted the state’s renewable energy standards and eliminated requirements for utilities to help customers save energy. Studies show that utility-run energy-efficiency programs are among the cheapest ways to meet growing electricity needs and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Lower demand means fossil-fuel power plants can run less often. Less wasted energy translates into lower bills for customers who take advantage of efficiency programs. Even customers who don’t directly participate benefit because the programs lower peak demand when power costs the most. Energy efficiency can also put downward pressure on capacity prices — amounts paid by grid operators to electricity producers to make sure enough generation will be available for future needs. Due to high projected demand compared to available generation, capacity prices for most of the PJM region, including Ohio, will jump ninefold in June to about $270 per megawatt-day. “At a time when PJM is saying we’re facing capacity shortages, we should be doing everything we can to reduce demand,” said Rob Kelter, a senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center. Since 2019, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has generally rejected utility efforts to offer widely available, ratepayer-funded programs for energy efficiency. Legislative efforts to clarify that such programs are allowed under Ohio law have been introduced but failed to pass. In the current case, Duke Energy Ohio, which serves about 750,000 customers in southwestern Ohio, proposed a portfolio of efficiency offerings that would have cost ratepayers about $75 million over the course of three years but created net savings of nearly $126 million over the same period.

A court ordered Greenpeace to pay a pipeline company $660M. What happens next?

Experts called the verdict “beyond punitive.” The organization plans to appeal and has already filed a countersuit in Europe.

A jury in North Dakota ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in 2019, alleging that it had orchestrated a vast conspiracy against the company by organizing historic protests on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in 2016 and 2017.  In its lawsuit, Energy Transfer Partners accused three Greenpeace entities — two in the U.S. and one based in Amsterdam — of violating North Dakota trespassing and defamation laws, and of coordinating protests aimed to stop the 1,172-mile pipeline from transporting oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to a terminal in Illinois. Greenpeace maintained it played only a minor supporting role in the Indigenous-led movement.  “This was obviously a test case meant to scare others from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest,” said Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “They’re trying to buy silence; that silence is not for sale.” Legal and Indigenous experts said the lawsuit was a“textbook” example of a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” known colloquially as a SLAPP suit, a tactic used by corporations and wealthy individuals to drown their critics in legal fees. They also criticized Energy Transfer for using the lawsuit to undermine tribes’ treaty rights by exaggerating the role of out-of-state agitators. The three Greenpeace entities named in the lawsuit — Greenpeace Inc., a U.S.-based advocacy arm; Greenpeace Funds, which raises money and is also based in the U.S.; and Greenpeace International, based in the Netherlands — are now planning their next moves, including an appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court and a separate countersuit in the European Union.  As part of a previous appeal to move the trial more impartial court, Greenpeace submitted a 33-page document to the state Supreme Court explaining that the jurors in Morton County, North Dakota — where the trial occurred — would likely be biased against the defendants, since they were drawn from the same area where the anti-pipeline protests had taken place and disrupted daily life. The request included results from a 2022 survey of 150 potential jurors in Morton County conducted by the National Jury Project, a litigation consulting company, which found 97 percent of residents said they could not be a fair or impartial juror in the lawsuit. Greenpeace also pointed out that nine of the 20 final jurors had either “direct personal experience” with the protests, or a friend or family member with direct personal experience. Deepa Padmanabha, a Greenpeace staff attorney, outside the Morton County Memorial Courthouse in North Dakota. Stephanie Keith / Greenpeace Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said the chances that the North Dakota Supreme Court will overturn the lower court’s verdict are “probably less than 50 percent.” What may be more likely, he said, is that the Supreme Court will reduce the “outrageous” amount of money charged by the Morton County jury, which includes various penalties that doubled the $300 million in damages that Energy Transfer had originally claimed. “The court does have a lot of discretion in reducing the amount of damages,” he said. He called the Morton County verdict “beyond punitive. This is scorched Earth, what we’re seeing here.” Depending on what happens at the North Dakota Supreme Court, Parenteau also said there’s a basis for appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, based on the First Amendment free speech issues involved. But, he added, the move could be “a really dangerous proposition,” with the court’s conservative supermajority and the precedent such a case could set. A federal decision in favor of Energy Transfer could limit any organizations’ ability to protest nationwide — and not just against pipelines.  Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International, which coordinates 24 independent Greenpeace chapters around the world but is legally separate from them, is also fighting back. It countersued Energy Partners in the Netherlands in February, making use of a new anti-SLAPP directive in the EU that went into effect in May 2024. Greenpeace International is only on the hook for a tiny fraction of the more than $600 million charged against the three Greenpeace bodies by the Morton County jury. Its countersuit in the EU wouldn’t change what has happened in U.S. courts. Instead, it seeks to recover costs incurred by the Amsterdam-based branch during its years-long fights against the Morton County lawsuit and an earlier, federal case in 2017 that was eventually dismissed.  Greenpeace International’s trial will begin in Dutch courts in July and is the first test of the EU’s anti-SLAPP directive. According to Kristen Casper, general counsel for Greenpeace International, the branch in the EU has a strong case because the only action it took in support of the anti-pipeline protests was to sign an open letter — what she described as a clear case of protected public participation. Eric Heinze, a free speech expert and professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary University of London, said the case appeared “black and white.”  “Normally I don’t like to predict,” he said, “but if I had to put money on this I would bet for Greenpeace to win.” While Greenpeace’s various entities may have to pay damages as ordered by U.S. courts, the result of the case in the EU, Casper said a victory would send an international message against “corporate bullying and weaponization of the law.” Padmanabha said that regardless of the damages that the Greenpeace USA incurs, the organization isn’t going away any time soon. “You can’t bankrupt the movement,” she said. “What we work on, our campaigns and our commitments — that is not going to change.” In response to request for comment, Energy Transfer said the Morton County jury’s decision was a victory for the people of Mandan and “for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law. That Greenpeace has been held responsible is a win for all of us.” Nick Estes, a professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota and member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe who wrote a book about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, said the case was about more than just punishing Greenpeace — it was a proxy attack on the water protectors at Standing Rock and the broader environmental justice movement. He said it showed what could happen “if you step outside the path of what they consider as an acceptable form of protest.”“They had to sidestep the actual context of the entire movement, around treaty rights, land rights, water rights, and tribal sovereignty because they couldn’t win that fight,” he said. “They had to go a circuitous route, and find a sympathetic court to attack the environmental movement.” Janet Alkire, the chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a March 3 statement that the Morton County case was “frivolously alleging defamation and seeking money damages, designed to shut down all voices supporting Standing Rock.” She said the company also used propaganda to discredit the tribe during and after the protests.“Part of the attack on our tribe is to attack our allies,” Alkire wrote. “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will not be silenced.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A court ordered Greenpeace to pay a pipeline company $660M. What happens next? on Mar 21, 2025.

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