It's So Over/We're So Back: In Kingston, NY
I’m writing this newsletter for the first time since moving back to Kingston, New York in April – and fair warning, this is more of a life update! It’s my newsletter, so I get to do what I want. However, if you want to skip to the environmental update, I’ve left some dividers in to make that easy.
It’s been a busy month, from the actual move (Saint Louis to Kingston), to buying furniture, to starting a garden and joining an art class. It feels, somehow, that I’ve been here for more than the month and a half that I have – but after all, it was only a year and a half ago that I moved from New York to Saint Louis. I’m still settling back in, trying to figure out new habits and new structures to keep myself busy.
The house that my roommate, David, found for us is beautiful – we have the first floor, which includes two living rooms, a spacious kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and an office. Neo, my cat, is still adjusting, but I’ve hung a birdfeeder outside his favorite window for him to watch birds from, and he and David get along quite well.
After hunting through Facebook marketplace, I found a gorgeous and dusty old 1950s Admiral record cabinet for the living room, and when the cartridge on that failed, hunted down the manual online to identify a replacement needle cartridge (that I purchased but have yet to install). When it started skipping, I bought a modern Victrola record player (with Bluetooth, cassette, and CD capabilities too) for $40 to last till we can fix the older cabinet. David and I went thrifting for records – he has since found a substantial number from those trips and from raiding his parents’ collection. Given that my music tastes are more modern (and less extensive) than his, I was not quite so lucky – but have found a few records since and plan to slowly grow my collection.
The backyard is half covered in ferns – the other half I dug up and out so I could plant. Our landlord said that next year he would build us some garden beds, but for now I have staked out some planting areas and direct sown corn, tomatoes, basil, scallions, cucumbers, and carrots, all heirloom or local varieties from the Hudson Valley Seed Company. I have no idea what will grow, besides the stubbornly resistant ferns that keep returning despite my best efforts – but I love being in the dirt, planting and weeding and basking in the sun, so I’ll keep trying. The tomatoes, especially, should have been given some time indoors before being sown – but we’ll see what grows.
We’ll get around to painting sometime within the next month - the room with the blue two-seater and the yellow corduroy section will be blue, and the room with the record player will be a somewhat audacious pink that should liven things up. Nearly every wall hosts a painting or a poster, most of which were politely pilfered from David’s grandparents extensive collection of posters. My slowly growing collection of pieces from local artists (local being wherever I live) doesn’t take up too much space, but adds some dimension to the kitchen walls. And one wall holds a triptych of oil pastel pieces that I created in 2022-2023 that I plan to steadily reframe new works in, and paste the older ones into a large art journal of sorts.
All in all, I’m happy to be back in New York State. While I work from home, there’s plenty going on in Kingston to keep me entertained, and it’s an easy 20 minute walk from my house to Rough Drafts, the coffeeshop/bookstore where I sit writing this newsletter update. Kingston is beautiful, walkable, calm and full of art. There’s no Forest Park, but I plan to learn the good hiking spots in Ulster County and spend time outdoors in the far wilder nature of the Hudson Valley. So here we are! Please forgive my newsletter absence during the move.
Here's a quick roundup of some big announcements in regards to U.S. climate, environmental, and energy policy:
1) The EPA imposed strong limits on coal and gas-fired power plants: These limits apply only to coal plants and gas plants that run upwards of 20% of the time (not peaker plants), and reflect the urgency of the climate crisis. They are very likely to be challenged in court.
2) The EPA made announcements of the awardees of the $20 billion dollar Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund National Clean Investment Accelerator and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, which will put in place multiple national green banks and provide technical assistance to local lenders on how to finance clean energy. Awards were also announced for the $7 billion Solar for All competition. Taken together, this new set of financing mechanisms, if it lasts past the next election, could catalyze three times the initial $27 billion in investment.
3) The U.S. has spent twenty years with relatively flat electricity demand. Due largely to electrification and the growth of data centers and artificial intelligence, that’s changing quickly. Energy Innovation released a great report on Meeting Growing Electricity Demand Without Gas, which is quite readable. The thing to emphasize – natural gas plants are not the only answer to grid reliability, despite utilities’ continued reliance on them in their grid planning and forecasts. As electricity demand grows, it can be met with renewables, battery storage, resource efficiency, demand response, improved transmission, and improved interregional coordination on resource adequacy.
We’ll be back to regularly scheduled environmental newsletter writing in the next edition! As always, let me know what you want to hear about.