Reading archive 2023-02-07

Heat pumps boom in Maine, despite frigid cold and oil industry pushback: Fossil fuel industry groups say the technology isn’t ideal for the state’s climate. Mainers aren’t buying it. - "'Oh, hell no,' Casagranda said, when asked recently if she missed her propane furnace. As part of the experiment, the agency promised residents they could have their fossil fuel-burning systems back if they didn’t like the results. So far, none of the homeowners have wanted to go back, according to agency officials, and Casagranda said she is more than satisfied. ...

"'It’s a simple fact that a high-efficiency cold-climate heat pump saves carbon relative to utility gas (methane), fuel oil, or [liquefied petroleum] gas, in virtually every electric market in the U.S., and certainly in all of the Northeast,' Bruce Harley, a veteran energy consultant based in Vermont, said in an email."

BP dials back climate pledge amid soaring oil profits: The energy giant is aiming for a 20 to 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions, backing off of an earlier goal of 35 to 40 percent

On routine house call, pest control finds 700 pounds of acorns in the walls

Obesity in the age of Ozempic: Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are changing how patients view their own weight struggles. Will society follow?

What data on 3,000 murderers and 10,000 victims tells us about serial killers

A federal judge mocks the Supreme Court on abortion: A Democratic federal judge suggests that banning abortion violates the 13th Amendment’s prohibition on “involuntary servitude.” - "The argument that the Thirteenth Amendment protects a right to abortion is fairly straightforward. In Bailey v. Alabama (1911), the Supreme Court held that this amendment sought to abolish 'that control by which the personal service of one [person] is disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit, which is the essence of involuntary servitude.'

"As Koppelman writes, 'forced pregnancy and childbirth' by its very nature, operates 'by compelling the woman to serve the fetus.' ... 

"... [I]n a better world, judges would behave as servants of the law — rather than trying to stretch that law to serve their particular agenda. 

"But here in the actual world, lower courts do not always operate as loyal followers of the Supreme Court’s precedent. They often act as think tanks for new legal ideas that haven’t gained support on the Supreme Court, but that could at some point in the future. The Fifth Circuit more or less operates as a generator and legitimizer of right-wing ideas that are often, but not always, rejected by this Supreme Court. So do several federal trial judges that have become favorites among right-wing advocates seeking to move the law hard to the right."