Category: Environment

Closing thought–27Jan23

Yep more climate information for us to consider…..

Last year shattered all kinds of climatic records, and not in a good way. In parts of western Europe, the Middle East, central Asia, China, and northwest Africa, it was the warmest year on record. Per Axios, that’s a sampling from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which found 2022 to be the fifth warmest year overall; furthermore, taken together, the past eight years were the eight warmest on record. Copernicus researchers called 2022 “a year of climate extremes” and warned that the world is perilously close to reaching temperatures 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a key limit flagged in the 2015 Paris Agreement, per CNN, and a threshold beyond which many climate scientists warn of dire and irreversible consequences.

n its report, Copernicus notes a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, which are now at the highest levels in the satellite record, not to mention the highest in 2 million years for CO2 and 800,000 years for methane. The list goes on: both polar regions saw record high temps, and Antarctic ice conditions hit record lows; Pakistan and northern India endured an extreme heatwave followed by a highly destructive, deadly monsoon; likewise, much of China saw extreme heat and drought. It seems La Nina was one saving grace that might have kept surface temps down a little, but that phenomenon appears to be waning, and El Nino may soon return, bringing the opposite effect.

North and South America are not mentioned in the Copernicus report, but as Time reports, climate-related disasters cost the US $165 billion last year once one adds up the wildfires, floods, mudslides, droughts, and Hurricane Ian, the third costliest storm in US history. The trend may continue in 2023, as Jan. 1 was the single warmest January day since 1940. The New York Times reports what Ukraine and its allies certainly see as one silver lining in the fact that a warm winter may dull one of Vladimir Putin’s most potent weapons: access to Russia’s natural gas supply.

As always it is nothing to worry about…just ignore the info and just shrug it off and be stupid.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Advertisement

Closing Thought–19Oct22

The lack of rain has the rivers around this country running dry…..my river, the Mississippi, is so low that barges are grounding as they try to move around the heart of the nation. There is also some ideas to suck the water out of the Mississippi and send it West…..I informed my readers to this problem…..

Water….Is Not Everywhere

The low level of the Mississippi is revealing some lost history…..

A shipwreck has emerged along the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as water levels threaten to reach record lows in some areas. The ship, which archaeologists believe to be a ferry that sunk in the late 1800s to early 1900s, was spotted by a Baton Rouge resident walking along the shore earlier this month, per the AP. The discovery is the latest to surface from ebbing waters caused by drought. During the summer, receding waters in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada and Arizona revealed several skeletal remains, countless desiccated fish, a graveyard of forgotten boats, and even a sunken World War II-era craft that once surveyed the lake.

“Eventually the river will come back up and (the ship) will go back underwater,” said Chip McGimsey, the Louisiana state archeologist, who has been surveying the wreck during the past two weeks. “That’s part of the reason for making the big effort to document it this time—because she may not be there the next time.” McGimsey believes the ship may be the Brookhill Ferry, which likely carried people and horse-drawn wagons from one side of the river to the other before major bridges spanned the mighty Mississippi. Newspaper archives indicate that the ship sank in 1915 during a major storm. Roughly a third of the 95-foot vessel is visible on the muddy shoreline near downtown Baton Rouge.

 

McGimsey expects more discoveries as water levels continue to fall, having already received calls about two more possible shipwrecks. But the unusually low water level in the lower Mississippi River, where there has been below-normal rainfall since late August, has also led to chaos—causing barges to get stuck in mud and sand, leading to waterway restrictions from the Coast Guard, and disrupting river travel for shippers, recreational boaters, and passengers on a cruise line. In Baton Rouge, the river depth is about 5 feet, its lowest level since 2012, according to the National Weather Service. Water levels are projected to drop even more in the weeks ahead, dampening the region’s economic activity and potentially threatening jobs.

But not to worry….the GOP will protect us from all evils when they are in charge.  (sarcasm)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

California Makes History

This time it is not news of wildfires or mudslides or earthquakes…..nothing as a natural disaster but rather the possibility of an economic disaster (if you believe what the naysayers are on about)……

The state of California has moved to ban gas powered cars….this ought to set the GOP’s hair on fire…..here is what is reported…

California has followed up its move to phase out gas-powered mowers with an even more ambitious goal—phasing out gas-powered cars. The California Air Resources Board voted Thursday in favor of banning the sale of new gas-powered cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs by 2035, the AP reports. After that date, people will still be able to drive older gas-powered vehicles, but the state will only allow the sale of new electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles, plus a limited number of plug-in hybrids. More:

  • Newsom wants to make the tailpipe obsolete. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who first announced the plan in 2020, tells the New York Times that the move is “one of the most significant steps to the elimination of the tailpipe as we know it.” “Our kids are going to act like it’s a rotary phone, or changing the channel on a television,” he says.
  • Other states are likely to follow suit. California is the nation’s biggest buyer of vehicles, and the move will have a big effect on other states. Washington and Massachusetts have already announced plans to follow suit, and another 15 states follow California’s emissions rules, which are tougher than federal rules. “Automakers don’t like making different cars for different states, so California sets the de facto standard for the country and other parts of the world,” Vox notes.
  • Auto industry is on the same page. While there are massive production challenges ahead, including sourcing enough raw materials for batteries and expanding charging networks, major US auto makers and their overseas counterparts are moving in the same direction as California and are spending tens of billions of dollars to expand their electric vehicle offerings, reports the New York Times. Ford wants 40% of its vehicles to be electric by 2030 and Volkswagen plans to phase out gas-powered vehicles in Europe by 2035 at the latest.

Pushback. The California rule, called the CARB Advanced Clean Cars II rule, still requires a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. While the Biden administration has signaled it will be granted, opponents are urging the EPA to reconsider. Reuters reports the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association urged the administration Thursday to reject the “unlawful ban,” saying granting the waiver “would hand over sweeping federal government authority to California regulators, effectively appointing Governor Newsom and CARB as car and truck czars for the entire United States.”

This ought to fire up the fear mongers….more ammo for the naysayers…..

But has anyone stop to think about the draw on electric grid if we all go electric?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Water….Is Not Everywhere

For decades the Colorado River has been tapped for its water supply….and now that resource is running out thanks to the 20 year drought in the American West.

After 22 straight years of drought, the Colorado River’s flow is in increasingly bad shape—and two of the seven states that rely on its water are going to have to make more cuts. Last year, a Tier 1 shortage was declared on the river for the first time, causing mandatory cuts to the use of its water in Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico under a plan the seven states and Mexico signed in 2019, CNN reports. But with the water shortage getting worse, the Department of the Interior announced Tuesday that a Tier 2 shortage will be declared starting in 2023, causing more cuts for Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. Arizona will lose more than a fifth of its yearly allotment.

The cuts are based on water levels at Lake Mead, which are now at historic lows and are expected to fall even further next year, the AP reports. The lake, America’s largest reservoir, is currently just a quarter full, and experts warn that it is getting dangerously close to the level where the Hoover Dam can no longer generate power. Bureau of Reclamation chief Camille Touton warned in June that states need to come up with a plan to cut water usage by next year. But negotiations between states are not going well, and the federal government might have to step in, reports CNN. The states missed the bureau’s August 15 deadline for announcing proposals to cut water use.

Authorities say any cuts made are likely to be in place for a long time as the West becomes hotter and drier. “In order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River System and a future of uncertainty and conflict, water use in the Basin must be reduced,” said Tanya Trujillo, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for water and science, per the Los Angeles Times. Water managers say a long-term plan is needed, but their main priority is coming up with a plan to get through the next three years without the system falling apart.

The Colorado is so bad it can be seen from space……

The full scale of the drought, however, can only be seen from space. NASA satellites have been monitoring waterways in the West for years and documenting how the region is drying up. It’s part of a trend lasting almost two decades, making it the worst drought in 1,200 years. Part of the severity of this “megadrought” has been worsened by climate change.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23308281/colorado-river-western-drought-satellite-hoover-dam-mead-powell

Now there is a proposal to help the struggling Colorado River by sucking water out of the Mississippi River……

Two hundred miles north of New Orleans, in the heart of swampy Cajun Country, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1963 cut a rogue arm of the Mississippi River in half with giant levees to keep the main river intact and flowing to the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Old River Control Structure, as it was dubbed, is also the linchpin of massive but delicate locks and pulsed flows that feed the largest bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands in the United States, outstripping Florida’s better known Okefenokee Swamp. 

Clouds of birds – hundreds of species – live in or travel through Louisiana’s rich Atchafalaya forests each year, said National Audubon Society Delta Conservation Director Erik Johnson. They include gawky pink roseate spoonbills, tiny bright yellow warblers, known as swamp candles because of their bright glow in the humid, green woods, and more. 

This summer, as seven states and Mexico push to meet a Tuesday deadline to agree on plans to shore up the Colorado River and its shriveling reservoirs, retired engineer Don Siefkes of San Leandro, California, wrote a letter to The Desert Sun of the USA TODAY Network with what he said was a solution to the West’s water woes: Build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure to Lake Powell, 1,489 miles west, to refill the Colorado River system with Mississippi River water. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/15/climate-change-west-mississippi-river-pipeline/10332092002/

Seriously?

These people are killing the mighty Colorado and now that it is dying they want to impose their need on a major watery artery to the middle of the country.

I have a problem with this plan.

You?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Climate Change Bill

I know it is Saturday and I try to deviate from the news of the day….but for today this report is too important to push back until Monday.

A large climate change bill is headed to Biden for his signature…..here is what is in it……

The House gave final passage on Friday to the biggest investment ever in the US to fight climate change. The bill heading to President Biden’s desk also includes a hard-fought cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients and a new corporate minimum tax on big businesses. All told, the Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction Act” may not do much to immediately tame inflationary price hikes, but the package will touch countless American lives with longtime party proposals. Republicans deride the 730-page bill as big-government overreach and point particular criticism at its $80 billion investment in the IRS to hire new employees and go after tax scofflaws. Here are key parts of the $740 billion package—made up of $440 billion in new spending and $300 billion toward easing deficits, per the AP:

  • Climate: The bill would infuse nearly $375 billion over the decade in climate change-fighting strategies that Democrats believe could put the country on a path to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030. It represents the single biggest climate investment in US history.
  • EV tax breaks: For consumers, that means tax rebates to buy electric vehicles—$4,000 for used vehicle purchase and up to $7,500 for new ones, eligible to households with incomes of $300,000 or less for couples, or single people with income of $150,000 or less. Not all electric vehicles will fully qualify for the tax credits immediately, thanks to requirements that component parts be manufactured and assembled in the US. And pricier cars costing more than $55,000 and SUVs and trucks priced above $80,000 are excluded.
  • Other tax breaks: There’s also tax breaks for consumers to go green. One is a 10-year consumer tax credit for renewable energy investments in wind and solar. For businesses, the bill has $60 billion for a clean energy manufacturing tax credit and $30 billion for a production tax credit for wind and solar, seen as ways to boost and support the industries that can help curb the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. The bill also gives tax credits for nuclear power and carbon capture technology that oil companies such as Exxon Mobil have invested millions of dollars to advance.
  • Drilling: The bill would impose a new fee on excess methane emissions from oil and gas drilling while giving fossil fuel companies access to more leases on federal lands and waters.
  • Drought: A late addition pushed by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and other Democrats in Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado would designate $4 billion to combat a mega-drought in the West, including conservation efforts in the Colorado River Basin, which nearly 40 million Americans rely on for drinking water.
  • Prescription costs: The bill would allow the Medicare program to negotiate some prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving the federal government some $288 billion over the 10-year budget window. The result is expected to lower costs for older adults on medications, including a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap for older adults buying prescriptions from pharmacies. The revenue raised would also be used to provide free vaccinations for seniors, who now are among the few not guaranteed free access, according to a summary document. Seniors would also have insulin prices capped at $35 a month.
  • Health insurance: The bill would extend the subsidies provided during the COVID-19 pandemic to help some Americans who buy health insurance on their own. Under earlier pandemic relief, the extra help was set to expire this year. But the bill would allow the assistance to keep going for three more years, lowering insurance premiums for some 13 million people who are purchasing their own health care policies through the Affordable Care Act.

This will be great fodder for the 2024 election……..it is a good start but more needs doing.

Diabetes sufferers will get a break with insulin prices which is great for those that have the disease.

Biden needed a win to prop up his approval rating.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That 1972 Environmental Report

As per my usual stuff I just feel that I must inject a little history into the conversation on the Climate.

For the past couple of decades the climate has been the center of the debate on the future of this planet and its people…..but most everything that is happening these days with our climate was reported back in 1972….and no one wanted to hear it….especially our corporate controlled Congress……

For those too damn young to remember this report….I am here to help……

The computer modeling made it plain: If people continued to overextract finite resources, pollute on a massive scale, and balloon the human population in an unsustainable way, civilization could collapse within a century. It sounds like that modeling could have been done last week, what with climate change, water shortages, and microplastics corrupting every corner of the Earth. But in fact it dropped in the 1972 book The Limits to Growth, published by the Club of Rome, an international organization of intellectuals founded in 1968. 

The book sold millions of copies and was translated into at least 30 languages, attracting a storm of controversy. It was, after all, very early computer modeling—completed on a punch-card machine at MIT—and a highly simplified simulation of complex global systems. And it was making rather grand and consequential predictions. (As the old quip goes: All models are wrong, but some are useful.) That model spit out scenarios in which humanity either got more sustainable and equitable, and thus flourished, or continued letting capitalists plunder the planet and our civilization to death.

“What came from the simulations is that most of the cases—but not all, and it’s important to say not all—the evolution of a number of variables like population, production, pollution, was showing that around the mid-21st century, we would have a scenario of collapse of human civilization,” says Carlos Alvarez Pereira, vice president of the Club of Rome and co-editor of the new retrospective book Limits and Beyond: 50 Years on From The Limits to Growth, What Did We Learn and What’s Next? “The whole thing was framed into doomsday prophecy. We didn’t succeed in bringing the message that it was not about that. It was really about: We have the capacity to choose. We have, as humanity, the capacity to decide what kind of future we want.” 

https://www.wired.com/story/the-infamous-1972-report-that-warned-of-civilizations-collapse/

As you can see science has pointed to the position we find our planet in all those years ago……and yet we did nothing.

And we are still doing NOTHING!

I am glad I am old and will not witness the total destruction of the planet by these total douches that answer to no one but the pigs that own them….the corporations.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Mouth Of The South

I am referring to Rep. Taylor-Green……one could dedicate a whole blog to the idiocy that she spreads with daily posts….her moronic dribble flows out of her mouth with ease.

Her latest regurgitation are legendary….

Did you know that climate change is good for us?

Controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Right Side Broadcasting Network host Brian Glenn on Monday that global warming is “actually healthy.”

“We have already warmed 1-degree Celsius and do you know what has happened since then?” Greene told Glenn, apparently confirming she believes in global warming as a trend.

While Greene nailed the degree to which the planet has warmed, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) says the planet has warmed at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880, she then offered a much less conventional take on its impact.

“We have had more food grown since then, which feeds people,” she claimed, arguing that the temperature increase has been a net positive.

“We are producing fossil fuels, that keeps people’s houses warm in the winter. That saves people’s lives, people die in the cold,” she continued.

“This Earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us. It helps us to feed people, it helps keep people alive, the Earth is more green than it was years and years ago and that is because of the Earth warming,” Greene added, without offering evidence.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Believes in Climate Change, Says it is ‘Actually Healthy For Us’: ‘People Die in the Cold’

Her lunacy over climate change was beyond absurd….but she topped it with her thoughts on Tampons….

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spread a baseless, transphobic rumor that blamed the country’s ongoing tampon shortage on trans people. 

“Men have taken over everything. They’re ‘women of the year’ in every category, in women’s categories. And the latest news is, there’s a shortage of tampons, and that’s probably because men are buying tampons,” Greene said on an episode of her podcast, “MTG Live.”

However, the Georgia lawmaker did not provide evidence for her groundless claim concerning tampon shortages in some parts of the country.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mtg-spreads-baseless-transphobic-rumor-about-trans-people-tampon-shortage-2022-6

She constantly lies and lies and yet she will most likely be re-elected…..that makes me think that the people of her district are morons…..how can any intelligent person take her seriously….and yet they do.

She, every time she opens her mouth, proves that you just ‘can’t fix stupid’.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“Fear And Loathing….”

Thursday and I would like to give my readers something to think about….even if it hurts.

Some give us the image of a dead burnt planet if things spiral out of control….while others, including myself, do not see the dire outcome….that all the chest thumping about nukes is just bolstering and bullying as a tool of control.

But while the media and the government has everyone worried about the use and result of nukes a story has been missed….that of the ‘carbon bomb’…..

The world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts, a Guardian investigation shows.

The world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts, a Guardian investigation shows.

The exclusive data shows these firms are in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating. Their huge investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to rapidly slash carbon emissions, which scientists say is vital.

The oil and gas industry is extremely volatile but extraordinarily profitable, particularly when prices are high, as they are at present. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron have made almost $2tn in profits in the past three decades, while recent price rises led BP’s boss to describe the company as a “cash machine”.

The lure of colossal payouts in the years to come appears to be irresistible to the oil companies, despite the world’s climate scientists stating in February that further delay in cutting fossil fuel use would mean missing our last chance “to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”. As the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned world leaders in April: “Our addiction to fossil fuels is killing us.”

Details of the projects being planned are not easily accessible but an investigation published in the Guardian shows:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2022/may/11/fossil-fuel-carbon-bombs-climate-breakdown-oil-gas

May I suggest that we need to worry more about certainties than maybes….

This planet is dying and we worry more about something that will not effect us…..shows just how messed up the world’s mental capabilities truly are.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Do You Recycle?

Well I do.

I recycle everything possible…paper, aluminum and plastic….I guess that makes me a tree hugger…..so be it…..at least I am trying to do something that helps the massive amount of waste I generate.

Since I feel responsible for my planet I do my part.

Since everything buy damn near comes in plastic it is a growing problem and the industry keeps telling me all the good they are doing….is their message possibly manure spread for PR purposes?

Last year, Americans recycled at most 6% of their plastic waste, according to a report released Wednesday by a pair of environmental groups. It’s a number that’s even worse than it used to be. Every American produced an average 218 pounds of plastic waste in 2018, per Reuters, and the recycling rate stood at 8.7% that year, the last for which the EPA published relevant data. As for the decrease, it’s not just that people aren’t using recycling bins; the problem is that plastic isn’t very recyclable, and it never has been.

The report’s authors lay blame on the plastics industry itself. As Judith Enck of Beyond Plastics puts it, “[Plastic recycling] does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that.” Coauthor Jan Dell of the Last Beach Cleanup adds, “There is no circular economy of plastics. Companies co-opted the success of other material recycling and America’s desire to recycle to create the myth that plastic is recyclable.” As EcoWatch reports, the recycling of other materials has been effective; it cites paper recycling rates around 66%, glass around 30%, and cardboard at nearly 90%. Only plastic recycling rates have never cracked 10%.

Indeed, USA Todayreports that, at best, just 9% of plastics ever produced have been recycled, and even that figure is probably exaggerated: The US counts exported plastic waste as “recycled” even though 25% to 75% is “inadequately managed in receiving countries.” Left to its own devices, plastic degrades over time and becomes microplastics that contaminate the environment and human bodies, reports the Washington Post. Research shows every person will consume about 44 pounds of microplastics in their lifetime.

If true it is very disheartening….you try to do the right thing and some corporation decides to crap on the planet….

Then there is those ‘microplastics’.

Please check on your area and see if they are truly recycling or just a station to bundle and dump.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Saturday’s News Round-Up

The weekend begins and as my usual tact I will give news that did not make the MSM for various reasons.

First, the climate change (that issue that does not exist in some minds)…..

When Chris Rogers returned to the NSW Central Coast after a stint living overseas, he was eager to embrace the quintessential Australian lifestyle — a home where his kids could swim in the ocean whenever they liked and he could walk along the beach he loves every day. 

But more than a year after powerful swells battered Wamberal Beach, causing massive erosion beneath the waterfront properties, he’s been left fearing his home could be washed away in the next storm surge.

“We’ve worked our whole life, this is our family home, and to look at your kids and not be able to comfort them is scary,” Rogers says.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-17/will-climate-change-put-an-end-to-coastal-living/100504100

Next is a subject that would make an interesting scifi movie……

Earth formed 4.5 billion years or so ago. Ever since then, it’s been slowly cooling on the inside.

While the surface and atmosphere temperatures fluctuate over the eons (and yes, those external temperatures are currently warming), the molten interior – the beating heart of our planet – has been cooling this entire time.

That’s not a glib metaphor. The rotating, convecting dynamo deep inside Earth is what generates its vast magnetic field, an invisible structure that scientists believe protects our world and allows life to thrive. In addition, mantle convection, tectonic activity and volcanism are thought to help sustain life through the stabilization of global temperatures and the carbon cycle.

Because Earth’s interior is still cooling, and will continue to do so, this means that eventually the interior will solidify, and the geological activity will cease, possibly turning Earth into a barren rock, akin to Mars or Mercury. New research has revealed that may happen sooner than previously thought.

https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-insides-are-cooling-faster-than-we-thought-and-it-will-mess-things-up

Not good news…but what the Hell, right?

Finally more idiot news.

These days the younger generation cannot exist without their energy drinks for whatever reason…..everything needs to be flavored now the biggest insult….Coke with coffee…..

Coke with Coffee is a soda that yells at you with sugar. It writes flavor emails in ALL CAPS. It has zero chill — and double the caffeine of normal Coca-Cola.

The newest spinoff from Coca-Cola has mistakenly been called coffee in a can. That’s not really the case. This is very much still soda, just with some coffee vibes. With that said, it’s still potential nightmare fuel if it somehow ends up in the hands of a child.

Let’s use a beer analogy. If Coca-Cola is the normal flagship IPA from a big brewery, Coke with Coffee is the wacky, heavy double IPA that comes out as more of an over-the-top gimmick made with crazy ingredients.

https://www.masslive.com/food/2021/01/coke-with-coffee-review-i-drank-all-3-flavors-so-you-dont-have-to.html

AS a consumer of coffee….I do not want to dick it up….black no sugar is my choice…..I want it to taste like coffee….nothing else.

Now for the most useless news…..and it involves a toilet….

Back in 2003, somebody flushed a toilet in the middle of the night in Italy and the couple in the neighboring apartment thought, boy that was loud. Nineteen years later, that couple near La Spezia has finally won their legal case against the neighbors for too-loud flushing at night, reports the Times of London. The case reached the nation’s highest court, which cited principles laid out by the European Court of Human Rights in deciding for the couple, notes the Washington Post. The toilet was not only loud, it was reportedly used often—”aggravated by frequent night use,” is how the court put it.

The judges ruled that the flushing compromised the couple’s quality of life by disrupting their sleep and jeopardizing their health. As the case inched its way through the Italian legal system over the years, the full story emerged. Four brothers owned the apartment with the loud toilet, and they installed the water tank in a shared wall that happened to be the couple’s bedroom wall. Italy’s supreme court ordered the brothers to move the tank and pay the couple 500 euros (or about $565) for every year it was in place, reports the Guardian. That will amount to about $10,700 for the couple.

I feel so much better now that justice has been served.

Have a great day, my friends.

Be Well and Be Safe

“lego ergo scribo”