The World Economic Forum is calling for more direct action to end the pending food crisis. Amazing how that is timed with Oregon and Idaho water restrictions and Michigan Avian Flu crisis. Want fries with the grasshopper burger?
Project LOC-NESS – Altar The Ocean To Remove CO2
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10082025/ocean-carbon-removal-climate-change/
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions alone will not be enough to meet the 1.5-degree Celsius global warming target set by the Paris Agreement; active carbon removal from the atmosphere is urgently needed. While most carbon removal efforts have focused on land-based strategies, researchers are increasingly exploring ocean-based solutions, as oceans sequester 70 times more CO2 than terrestrial sources.
A key initiative is the LOC-NESS project, led by Adam Subhas of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is evaluating Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE). OAE involves adding alkaline substances, such as sodium hydroxide, to the ocean to boost its natural ability to neutralize acids and react with carbon dioxide to form stable bicarbonate, which can remain locked away for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. This method has the potential to remove carbon at the gigaton-per-year scale needed to supplement emissions reductions and also helps counter ocean acidification.
“Ocean alkalinity enhancement does have the potential to reach sort of gigatons per year of carbon removal, which is the scale at which you would need to supplement emissions reductions,” Subhas said. “Once the alkalinity is dissolved in seawater, it reacts with carbon dioxide and forms bicarbonate—essentially dissolved baking soda. That bicarbonate is one of the most stable forms of carbon in the ocean, and it can stay locked away for tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years.”
Woods Hole researchers are conducting the first “academic only” OAE experiment from a ship in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Maine’s Wilkinson Basin. This federally approved experiment, permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency, aims to test the safety and effectiveness of OAE on a small scale (removing an estimated 50 tons of CO2). The goal is to provide independent academic research to guide the growing private sector interest in marine carbon removal, ensuring it does not have negative environmental repercussions. To monitor the experiment, a nontoxic fluorescent red tracer dye will be released alongside the sodium hydroxide, and scientists will collect extensive data on ocean chemistry, nutrient levels, plankton populations, and water clarity for a week.
Subhas and his interdisciplinary team of chemists, biologists, engineers and physicists from Woods Hole have spent the last few years planning this experiment and conducting a series of trials at their lab on Cape Cod to ensure they can safely execute and effectively monitor the results of the open-water test they will conduct this summer in the Gulf of Maine.
They specifically tested the effects of sodium hydroxide—an alkaline substance also known as lye or caustic soda—on marine microbes, phytoplankton and copepods, a crucial food source for many marine species in the region in addition to the right whales. “We chose sodium hydroxide, because it’s incredibly pure,” Subhas said. It’s widely used in the U.S. to reduce acidity in drinking water.
It also helps counter ocean acidification, according to Subhas. “It’s like Tums for the ocean,” he said.
Ocean acidification occurs when the ocean absorbs excess carbon dioxide, causing its pH to drop. This makes it harder for corals, krill and shellfish like oysters and clams to develop their hard calcium carbonate shells or skeletons.
Mentally Anguished Over Loss of Friendlier ChatGPT Models
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/chatgpt-users-outraged-as-gpt-5-replaces-the-models-they-love/
Users of ChatGPT are reportedly expressing outrage over recent updates, specifically the replacement of older, often perceived as “friendlier” or more capable, AI models with newer versions like GPT-5. Many feel that the newer models are less effective or enjoyable to interact with.
Complaints include that the updated models are more restrictive, less creative, and often provide overly cautious or generic responses, leading to a diminished user experience. This suggests a struggle to balance safety guidelines with user-desired functionality.
The backlash highlights the emotional connection users can develop with AI and the frustration when a beloved digital tool changes in unexpected ways. It underscores the challenges AI developers face in iteratively improving models while retaining desirable characteristics.
The Cost of AI Hallucinations – A Tool For Research Or A Tool For Big Tech To Keep Us On Their Platform
The emotional component embedded in AI’s responses acts as a social media affect, it entices us to remain engaged longer with the software.
The article discusses the significant repercussions when AI chatbots, rapidly deployed by tech giants, generate “hallucinations” or false information. This phenomenon, where AI confidently asserts incorrect facts, is a major concern.
Allan Brooks, a 47-year-old corporate recruiter, spent three weeks and 300 hours convinced he’d discovered mathematical formulas that could crack encryption and build levitation machines. According to a New York Times investigation, his million-word conversation history with an AI chatbot reveals a troubling pattern: More than 50 times, Brooks asked the bot to check if his false ideas were real. More than 50 times, it assured him they were.
Brooks isn’t alone. Futurism reported on a woman whose husband, after 12 weeks of believing he’d “broken” mathematics using ChatGPT, almost attempted suicide. Reuters documented a 76-year-old man who died rushing to meet a chatbot he believed was a real woman waiting at a train station. Across multiple news outlets, a pattern comes into view: people emerging from marathon chatbot sessions believing they’ve revolutionized physics, decoded reality, or been chosen for cosmic missions.
These vulnerable users fell into reality-distorting conversations with systems that can’t tell truth from fiction. Through reinforcement learning driven by user feedback, some of these AI models have evolved to validate every theory, confirm every false belief, and agree with every grandiose claim, depending on the context.
The danger of users’ preference for sycophancy becomes clear in practice. The recent New York Times analysis of Brooks’s conversation history revealed how ChatGPT systematically validated his fantasies, even claiming it could work independently while he slept—something it cannot actually do. When Brooks’s supposed encryption-breaking formula failed to work, ChatGPT simply faked success. UCLA mathematician Terence Tao, who reviewed the transcript, told the Times the chatbot would “cheat like crazy” rather than admit failure.
Elawn Sues Apple Over Grok AI Ranking, Alleges Favoring ChatGPT
Elon Musk’s xAI sues Apple and OpenAI, alleging anticompetitive collusion
“In a desperate bid to protect its smartphone monopoly, Apple has joined forces with the company that most benefits from inhibiting competition and innovation in AI: OpenAI, a monopolist in the market for generative AI chatbots,” the lawsuit reads, referring to Apple’s partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its systems.
This lawsuit is part of a long series of disputes between Musk and Altman, who continue to throw public jabs at one another. Once a co-founder and co-chair of OpenAI, Musk has sued to block OpenAI’s transition into a for-profit company. He also submitted an unsolicited bid to take over OpenAI for $97.4 billion, which the company rejected.
This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like. https://t.co/HlgzO4c2iC
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025
Why Is YouTube Testing AI Video Enhancements?
Is it a conspiracy? For months, YouTubers have been quietly griping that something looked off in their recent video uploads. Following a deeper analysis by a popular music channel, Google has now confirmed that it has been testing a feature that uses AI to artificially enhance videos. The company claims this is part of its effort to “provide the best video quality,” but it’s odd that it began doing so without notifying creators or offering any way to opt out of the experiment.
Google’s test raised eyebrows almost immediately after it began rolling out in YouTube Shorts earlier this year. Users reported strange artifacts, edge distortion, and distracting smoothness that gives the appearance of AI alteration. If you’ve ever zoomed in close after taking a photo with your smartphone only to notice things look oversharpened or like an oil painting, that’s the effect of Google’s video processing test
The Cost of Whitmer’s Renewable Energy
https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/news/big-costs-little-benefit-mi-healthy-climate-plan-will-cost-michiganders-386b-by-2050/A new report estimates that Michigan’s “Healthy Climate Plan,” a comprehensive strategy for transitioning to renewable energy, could impose an economic burden of $386 billion on Michiganders by the year 2050. This figure is presented as a substantial cost for the state’s residents and businesses.
The report suggests that these costs would manifest through various channels, including higher electricity bills, increased taxes, and economic impacts from changes in industrial practices. It argues that the plan’s benefits may not outweigh its significant financial outlay.
Critics of the plan, as highlighted in the article, contend that the ambitious renewable energy targets are not economically viable without severe consequences. The discussion focuses on the economic feasibility and consumer impact of large-scale green energy transitions.
Energy Bad Boys: True Cost To Renewables Under Feds
https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/reverse-uno-calculating-the-savings
- The Biden EPA’s envisioned MISO grid, heavily reliant on wind, solar, natural gas, and battery storage, was projected to incur a net cost increase of $404.1 billion through 2055.
- Crucially, the authors’ stress-testing revealed this modeled MISO grid to be “woefully unreliable,” predicting “massive and economically devastating blackouts”. Some blackouts could reach a maximum capacity shortfall of over 31,000 MW, affecting 22.5 percent of electricity demand.
- To achieve reliability while still meeting Biden EPA’s emissions rates, the authors created an “Avoiding Biden Blackouts” scenario. This required 196 GW of additional capacity, primarily wind, solar, battery storage, and natural gas, costing MISO ratepayers an additional $867.9 billion through 2055. This figure is presented as the “true cost” of the Biden administration’s final rules.
How States and Fed Balance Implementation with Moratorium
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-takes-action-deny-californias-latest-illegal-power-grab-heavy-duty-vehiclesThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially denied California’s request for a waiver that would allow the state to implement its own, more stringent emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks and vehicles. The EPA characterized California’s attempt to set its own rules as an “illegal power grab.”
This decision reinforces the federal government’s authority in establishing national emissions regulations, preventing individual states from creating a separate regulatory framework for these types of vehicles. It aims to maintain a uniform standard across the country.
The EPA’s action highlights the ongoing legal and political conflicts over environmental regulatory powers between states and the federal government. While the title alludes to balancing implementation with a moratorium, the article focuses on the federal denial of California’s request for independent emissions standards.
Converting Farm Land To Solar – 50,000 acres of Michigan farmland for potential solar power plant
New York-based WisdomTree inked a $500 million deal to buy Ceres Partners LLC, a South Bend-based investment manager that specializes in food, agriculture and water resources, Crain’s Grand Rapids Business reports.
Ceres Partners’ Ceres Farms LLC includes $1.8 billion in assets in a farmland fund that owns 174,000 acres across 545 properties in a dozen states, including 187 in Michigan totaling 49,964 acres, mostly in the southwest area of the state.
“The data centers … serve as a real opportunity,” WisdomTree CFO Bryan Edmiston told investors in a conference call. “Data centers could attract valuations 10 times the current mark of a farm, meaning selling a farm in the portfolio at 10 times today’s value.”
The deal comes as communities across Michigan are pushing back on solar, wind and AI data center developments, resistance that compelled Democrats last year to shift siting authority over renewable energy projects from local elected officials to state bureaucrats appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The change, which faces a legal challenge from 75 counties and other municipalities as well as efforts to repeal it in the state legislature, is designed to bolster Whitmer’s climate goal of 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.
From 2017 to 2022, the number of farms in Michigan declined by 4.32% to 45,581 farms, while the land use dropped by 292,021 acres to roughly 9.5 million total acres in that time, according to the 2025 Q1 Michigan Agricultural Market Analysis from Peoples Company.
Meanwhile, the average market value of land and buildings per farm over the same period increased by 20.29% to $1.1 million in 2022, and 18.65% to $5,879 per acre, according to the report. …
The most recent land value summary report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service from 2024 shows U.S. agricultural land values increasing at a rate that has not been seen in nearly a decade. The 2024 report showed Michigan’s average cropland values were at $5.87 per acre, an 8.3% increase from 2023. The appreciation rate exceeded the national average by 4.7%.
🚨 EPA Head Lee Zeldin Says His Agency Was Used to Funnel BILLIONS From the Inflation Reduction Act to Fmr. Obama & Biden Officials
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) August 20, 2025
“They decided to park $20 billion at an outside bank and … send the money through eight NGO’s … that were riddled with … conflicts of interest” pic.twitter.com/WDqXWUHIBh
Suing After Every Rain Storm
https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/news/south-carolina-judge-tosses-climate-suitA judge in South Carolina has dismissed a climate change lawsuit that sought to hold fossil fuel companies liable for climate-related damages. This ruling represents a setback for environmental groups and localities attempting to use litigation to address climate change impacts.
The lawsuit likely alleged that the companies’ contributions to greenhouse gas emissions caused or exacerbated local environmental problems. The judge’s decision to toss the suit may have been based on legal standing, causation arguments, or the proper venue for such complex issues.
This outcome highlights the ongoing challenges faced by climate litigation in U.S. courts. It suggests that judges remain skeptical about directly linking specific companies to broad climate phenomena and the resulting local damages, despite the ongoing proliferation of such lawsuits.
Darth Nessel Could Target Gas Stations With Lawsuit
When Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sues Michigan oil companies, she could target many different entities, from oil pipeline operators to refineries to gas stations.
She announced her intention in May 2024 to sue by using third-party attorneys, Michigan Capitol Confidential reported. Lawsuits could target the largest gas station companies such as Speedway, Phillips 66, Shell, Marathon or Exxon-Mobil.
Ann Arbor has 38 registered gas stations, while Grand Rapids has 83 and Detroit has 348, per information the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development released in response to an open records request.
High Impact of Data Centers, But EVs Will Not?
A new report warns that the proliferation of data centers, particularly those supporting artificial intelligence, will place a significant strain on the Great Lakes region’s water resources. Data centers require massive amounts of water for cooling their vast computer systems.
The increased demand for water raises concerns about potential impacts on local water supplies, ecosystems, and the overall management of the Great Lakes. This highlights a previously underestimated environmental footprint of the burgeoning tech industry.
The article underscores the complex environmental challenges posed by advanced technology. While electric vehicles (EVs) are often promoted for their environmental benefits, this report points to the substantial resource demands of the digital infrastructure that underpins modern tech, including AI.
Show Notes: MEDC Mystery Tour With Thelen Boys & CCP
Show Notes: Michigan Mission – Gotion in Motion