Your Personality, Explained by Your

Annoying Household Habits

Reference: Nast, C. (2022). Your Personality, Explained by Your Annoying Household
Habits. [online] The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-
shouts/your-personality-explained-by-your-annoying-household-habits#intcid=_the-new-yorker-
bottom-recirc_c5d363bf-4c6e-4957-87b7-20c9ec02cd0c_tny-900pubdates-180rundates
[Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

Soaking Dishes in the Sink

Your ability to make life more difficult is unmatchable. If an easy

solution is available—and I mean a mind-numbingly obvious one—you
decide that maybe the fix can’t be so simple and that you’d better let
things marinate for a few days, at which point, yes, they’ve now
become the nasty thing that you imagined, seeped in a rancid
cesspool of indecision and procrastination (and, literally, rotting food).
By the time you get ready to take any form of action, someone has
come along and done the cleanup for you, which is what you wanted
all along.
Letting Unopened Mail Pile Up
Typically, you are one of those people who doesn’t check voice
messages because they make you anxious. You have an extreme fear
of the unknown and are marginally equipped to navigate adult life.
Like the Soaker, you avoid making decisions, but, rather than
acknowledge problems and put off solving them, you delay identifying
the issues altogether until you have no choice—because, well, you’ve
run out of places to eat your breakfast. Besides, if a bill is mailed and
no one is there to open it, does it even exist?
Leaving Kitchen Cabinets Open
You’re made up of equal parts courage and fear. You’re brave enough
to start any old task that pops into your overactive mind but too afraid
to finish one godforsaken project. You balk at the notion that if one
door closes, another one opens, because, afraid of making the wrong
decision and missing opportunities, you leave them all ajar. Your life
is dominated by what-ifs, and you’ll likely never learn to take
definitive action—at least not until you crack the top of your skull on
a cabinet-door edge.
Leaving One Bite or Sip
Greedy glutton? No. Self-absorbed free spirit? No doubt. You leave a
spoonful of banana pudding in the bowl and a swig of orange juice in
the bottle because you’re too busy with your own life to think about
anyone else’s. You’re fun as hell to be around because you live for the
moment, but, when faced with the unfortunate consequences of your
actions, you claim, “It’s not my problem,” when in fact you, my friend,
are everybody’s problem.
“Mopping” with Your Foot and a Clorox Wipe
You’re a visionary who lives by the maxim “There’s got to be a better
way.” And that way is yours. Your unbridled and unfounded
confidence helps you discover new paths, even if they turn out to be
ones that others have abandoned with good reason. To your credit,
you’re willing to risk physical harm executing your creative yet lazy
strategies, because there’s nothing a $12.99 plastic pole can do that
your God-given right leg can’t do better, notwithstanding a soggy sock
and that cramp in your hamstring.
Keeping Leftovers in the Fridge Past the Point of Viability
Let’s not mince moldy garlic—you’ve got severe abandonment issues,
which cause you to hold onto every damn thing. A perpetual people
pleaser, you fear tossing something that may have potential because,
well, it will all be good if you just wait awhile and add a little Lawry’s.
It’s not. Lesson almost learned.
This stunning national park
is set in a dormant volcano
Reference:Travel. (2009). This Stunning National Park Is Set in a Dormant Volcano.
[online] Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/article/crater-
lake-national-park.
With America’s deepest lake, miles of trails, and unmatched
views, Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park is a natural
wonder.

FAST FACTS

Location: Oregon
Established: May 22, 1902
Size: 183,224 acres
Annual Visitors: 704,512
Visitor Centers: Steel, Rim Village
Entrance Fee: Per vehicle and individual; annual passes available

Few forget their first glimpse of Crater Lake on a clear summer’s

day—21 square miles of water so intensely blue it looks like ink,
ringed by cliffs towering up to 2,000 feet above. The mountain
bluebird, Native American legend says, was gray before dipping into
these waters.

The tranquil gem of the Cascade Range is set in a dormant volcano

called Mount Mazama, one in the chain of volcanoes that
includes Mount St. Helens. Mount Mazama’s eruption about 5700
B.C. catapulted volcanic ash miles into the sky and expelled so much
pumice and ash that the summit soon collapsed, creating a huge,
smoldering caldera.

Eventually, rain and snowmelt accumulated in the caldera, forming a

lake more than 1,900 feet deep, the deepest in the United States.
Wildflowers, along with hemlock, fir, and pine, recolonized
surroundings. Black bears, bobcats, deer, marmots, eagles, and
hawks returned.

Lava outcrops jut from the northwest rim of Crater Lake. Visitors can
find several overlooks along Rim Drive, which circles the water.

Scientists have yet to completely understand Crater Lake’s ecology.

In 1988 and 1989, using a manned submarine, they discovered
evidence that proves hydrothermal venting exists on the lake’s
bottom and may play a role in its character.

Crater Lake forms a superb setting for day hikes. Thanks to some of
the cleanest air in the nation, you can see more than a hundred
miles from points along many of the park’s 90 miles of trails. Forests
of mountain hemlock and Shasta red fir predominate near the
caldera rim, where twisted whitebark pines testify to the harshness
of the long winter. Ponderosa pine, the park’s largest tree, and
lodgepole pine are common farther down from the rim.

The road linking two small villages—Mazama and Rim—and service

centers on the south side of the park provides some of the best
scenery away from the lake itself. The seven miles from Mazama to
Rim exposes visitors to the region’s dry pine forest ecology, with
some wonderful wildflower meadows. While in Rim Village, stroll
to Sinnott Memorial Overlook to gaze at the lake’s turquoise waters.

One should spend at least a half day touring the 33-mile Rim Drive,
enjoying its many overlooks and several hiking trails. From the
southeast portion of Rim Drive, take Pinnacles Road about six miles
to see the Pinnacles, an unusual grouping of volcanic pumice spires.
As the sides of Wheeler Canyon eroded away, these graceful fossil
fumaroles emerge, each marking where volcanic gas rose up through
hot ash deposits. There’s an overlook from the parking area, on an
easy half-mile trail.

A volcano inside a volcano, Wizard Island rises 767 feet above the
surface of Crater Lake, in this archival photo from July of 1962.
How Pakistan emerged as a climate
champion?
Reference: The Economist. (n.d.). How Pakistan emerged as a climate champion. [online]
Available at:https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/11/24/how-pakistan-emerged-as-a-climate-
champion [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

A country not known for leadership at home

provides some abroad

Pakistan is not often praised for its leadership. Yet its climate change
minister, Sherry Rehman, was one of the star turns at the un climate talks
held in Sharm el-Sheikh last week. At the helm of the “g77+China”
negotiating group of developing countries, Ms Rehman won plaudits for
shepherding a new deal to channel money from rich countries to poor ones
that have suffered climate-related disasters. It was the annual climate
jamboree’s single main achievement.
Ms Rehman, a former journalist, information minister and ambassador to
America, blends well-heeled glamour and toughness. A rare champion of
Pakistani liberalism, the 61-year-old from Karachi is known for her fights
against honour killings and the country’s cruel blasphemy laws. They have
earned her multiple death threats. She also bears scars from a suicide blast
aimed at her friend Benazir Bhutto (the former prime minister survived that
jihadist attack, but not one weeks later). By comparison, the talks in Sharm
el-Sheikh must have seemed like the holiday camp that the Egyptian town
usually is.
Yet Ms Rehman was also assisted by the fact that the massive floods
Pakistan suffered this year, costing an estimated $30bn in damages, are one
of the biggest climate-related disasters on record. They gave moral authority
to her argument that poor countries should receive “loss and damage” funds
from the rich countries whose emissions have contributed to such calamities.
A study attributes the engorged monsoon floods in part to global warming.
Yet Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of the stock of global emissions.

Pakistani environmental activists, a subset of the country’s embattled liberal

campaigners, hope Ms Rehman’s triumph will stir more climate action back
home. It had been modestly increasing before the floods—with, for example,
a few cases in which activists sued the government for neglecting its
environmental commitments. Yet Pakistan’s climate change ministry is
vastly underfunded. Just $43m were allocated to it this year from a federal
budget of $47bn. A proposed national climate change authority has yet to be
formed, five years after a law was passed to facilitate it. Pakistan, which
experiences some of the hottest temperatures on Earth, has only just begun
serious work on a national adaptation plan.

The floods helped publicise such shortcomings. Pakistan’s few climate

experts were suddenly hot property on the country’s news channels. But will
that focus be maintained? As the government scrambles to provide flood
relief, it is giving little thought to climate-proofing against future disasters.
Before the floods, Ms Rehman was pushing a $11bn-17bn initiative to
regenerate the Indus river that supports the livelihoods, indirectly or directly,
of over 200m people. But funds that might have been earmarked for the
programme are now going on flood relief.

The heightened global attention she has brought to Pakistan’s flood losses
could attract a lot more money and relevant expertise. That could make the
country a poster child not only for loss-and-damage activism but, more
usefully, for long-term planning and climate resilience. There is a precedent
for this. After a devastating cyclone in 1970 Bangladesh built one of the
world’s best disaster preparedness schemes. A tragic, likelier scenario would
see the momentum generated by Pakistan’s calamity and Ms Rehman’s
astute diplomacy lost in a protracted relief effort and Pakistan’s usual
obsessions with politics and scandal. At least, until the floodwaters rise
again.
Can hydropower help ease Europe’s energy
crisis?
Reference:The Economist. (n.d.). Can hydropower help ease Europe’s energy
crisis? [online] Available at: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-
explains/2022/12/05/can-hydropower-help-ease-europes-energy-crisis [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

After a parching summer, reservoirs were depleted—but

the outlook for 2023 is more promising.

The loire, France’s longest river, was an apocalyptic sight this summer.
Parts of the river network had dried up completely by mid-August; the
rest was reduced to a trickle. It had happened before but this year the
timing was particularly bad. Energy prices had soared in the wake of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear-power production in France was
hampered by maintenance, repairs and low water levels in rivers used
for cooling. And in mid-August hydro plants powered by France’s
rivers generated just half the electricity they would normally produce
in August (based on an average of the three years before). That pattern
played out across much of the continent. In 2023 gas prices will
almost certainly stay high and Europe’s energy crisis will continue.
Could hydro-power ease the problem next year?

There are three types of hydro-power plants. Run-of-river plants use

the flow of water to drive generators. They normally provide a constant
flow of energy but because they do not store water for long periods
they can only provide power broadly in line with the flow of the river.
The other two types of hydro-power plant are more flexible. Reservoirs
tucked into hillsides provide storage that can be drawn upon when
needed. And pumped-storage plants are reservoirs that act as
rechargeable water batteries: they push water up to a reservoir when
power is cheap, usually during the night, and let it down when
demand is high. Reservoirs and pumped storage can thus help to
reduce peak prices by replacing gas-fired power plants when the need
arises.

Europe’s hydro plants generated 712TWh in 2021, roughly 16% of

total electricity generation (see first chart). But so far in 2022, hydro-
power generation has fallen short by more than 112TWh to date,
compared with the same period last year, as droughts hit the
continent. Over the past 12 months rainfall has been low in large
parts of France, Spain, Italy and southern Norway. In Italy the
shortfall has been particularly severe. Run-of-river plants did not have
much water to play with, and reservoirs were not filled to their usual
levels (see second and third charts).

But it is not just the weather that has restricted power generation in
2022. Reservoirs began the year with lower levels than usual. When
deciding how much water to release, storage hydro-power plants take
current and future electricity prices into account. In the second half of
2021, electricity prices started to rise sharply across the continent as
gas prices spiked. That may have prompted plant operators to
generate more electricity to make a profit, draining reservoirs and
leaving less potential to generate power over the course of 2022.

Thankfully, the outlook for 2023 is better. The last couple of weeks
have been uncomfortably wet. That has helped to refill reservoirs in
most countries, although Italy, Spain and Portugal still have some
way to go. The three-month forecast for Europe predicts a slightly
warmer and only slightly drier winter than usual. That should help
too. And policymakers have also responded. Switzerland for example
has bought parts of the water in reservoirs so that it has a backup
power source in case gas is in short supply over winter. Portugal
ordered 15 dams to suspend electricity production to refill reservoirs;
recent rains have allowed some of them to restart. Even the Loire and
its tributaries are slowly regaining their typical water levels, to help
generate as much electricity as possible in 2023.