The "air quality index" normally tops out at 500.

It's registering 1592 in Beijing right now.

The Gobi Desert is coming.

#YellowDustStorms
These yellow dust storms hammer Beijing in spring, and also reach as Korea and even Japan. They are increasing in frequency and intensity. Deforestation, overgrazing, and unsustainable farming practices have destroyed the natural barriers that once held the Gobi Desert in check. Image
The Gobi Desert is expanding toward Beijing at more than 1 mile (~2 km) per year.

When this map was made 25 years ago, the Gobi was over 175 miles from Beijing. Today it's less than 150 miles away.

Overall China sees 2250 square miles of land transformed into desert every year. Image
China has been undertaking a reforestation effort to hold the Gobi in check, nicknamed the "Great Green Wall." It began in 1978 and is hoping to plant 100 billion trees by 2050. Image
The project has increased forest cover slightly, but has not been super effective.

It counts total trees planted, but many trees do not survive. And under pressure to show results, local officials often planted fast-growing poplars, which are water-hungry and make matters worse. Image

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More from @nick_kapur

15 Mar
This. Very much this.

Professors aren't YouTubers, and university admins degrade their own product and set everyone up for failure by insisting that we make everything asynchronous and divide our "lectures" up into "digestible chunks"

A thread.

timeshighereducation.com/opinion/academ…
It's actually funny how admins assume any of us still give lectures anyway. The best teachers don't give one-way lectures and we never have. Being told to "just record our lectures and put them online" takes a dynamic two-way interaction and turns it into a static presentation.
Even my most traditional "lecture" classes are built around exchanging ideas and constant interaction. We have debates, run simulations, have breakout groups, and try to solve problems. I ask the students at least as many questions as they ask me.
Read 11 tweets
26 Feb
Today marks the 85th anniversary of the "February 26 Incident" (二・二六事件) of 1936, when junior officers in the Japanese army tried to violently overthrow the government and "restore" direct control to the Emperor. 1/
Young officers associated with the Kōdō-ha ("Imperial Way Faction") of the Army believed that "evil advisors" were deceiving the Emperor and sought to liberate him by assassinating the advisors and launching a "Shōwa Restoration" akin to the Meiji Restoration 7 decades prior. 2/
Issuing orders to approximately 1,500 enlisted soldiers under their command, the rebels marched out of their barracks into the snowy streets of Tokyo in the wee morning hours to try to seize control of the Imperial Palace and assassinate 7 senior leaders on their hit list. 3/
Read 34 tweets
21 Feb
Texas's unregulated power market was premised on the notion that allowing power companies to charge a bazillion dollars during power shortages would incentivize them to maintain robust excess capacity, and incentivize customers to reduce usage.

Neither happened. A thread. 1/
It turns out that in the near total absence of rules, companies could not be bothered to maintain extra capacity, or even do basic things like weatherize their infrastructure, even when the same power plants failed again and again in storm after storm. 2/

wfaa.com/article/news/l…
Thus, when the polar vortex struck Texas last week, the basic winterizing found in other states was not in place. Natural gas pipelines froze and shut down, nuclear power plant cooling systems froze over, and windmills lacking heating kits iced over. 3/

forbes.com/sites/thebaker…
Read 16 tweets
28 Jan
This is insane. Robinhood is not merely raising margin requirements, but actually preventing its users from buying Gamestop, AMC, and others.

The system is putting its thumb on the scales to stop ordinary people from hurting the hedge fund shorts.

blog.robinhood.com/news/2021/1/28…
Merrill Lynch is also specifically banning buying $GME and $AMC while still allowing sales. They are even cancelling open orders that were already successfully placed in the past:
Interactive Brokers is also only allowing selling:
Read 6 tweets
7 Jan
The MAGA invasion of the US Capitol recalls similar events in Japan - the 1960 Anpo protests also saw an invasion of the National Diet and one woman killed.

I wrote a whole book on this!

A thread on similarities, differences, and consequences for US society going forward... Image
On June 15, 1960, radical left-wing activists smashed their way into the National Diet compound, precipitating a bloody battle with police that injured hundreds and killed a female Tokyo University student, Kanba Michiko. ImageImageImageImage
At issue was arch-conservative prime minister Kishi Nobusuke ramming through an unpopular renewal of the US-Japan Security Treaty, which is the treaty that to this day allows US troops to be based on Japanese soil.

(pictured: Kishi; Kishi and Eisenhower sign the treaty in 1960) ImageImage
Read 19 tweets
5 Jan
Japanese terms for rude things to do with your chopsticks!

If it's something rude you can do with a pair of chopsticks, Japanese has a special term for it.

A thread... Image
1. Hashiwatashi 箸渡し ("chopstick passing")

Don't pass food directly from your chopsticks to another person's chopsticks. Image
2. Tsukitatebashi 突き立て箸 ("piercing standing chopsticks"), or just tatebashi 立て箸 ("standing chopsticks") for short

Don't stab your chopsticks into your bowl of rice so they stand upright (this is done for Buddhist funerary offerings, so doing it otherwise is very rude). Image
Read 42 tweets

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