the word flatlander is used as a slur for people who don't have experience living in Vermont, driving in Vermont, or for those who have some superiority complex because they get more snow/have bigger mountains/better pay/bigger cities/whatever.

no Vermonter who skis/rides gives a shit about there being more snow out west.

also, having worked snowmaking at Killington before, they need 4-5 days of cold temps to bury superstar enough to pass FIS inspection. medium range models show a major trough for NE middle/end of next week with 24 hour sub freezing temps at close to sea level. in flatlander speak, it'll be cold enough to wear your Patagonia puffy jacket in Burlington next weekend.

is WC a lock at Killington thanksgiving weekend? nope, but I've seen them pull off bigger miracles than getting one trail prepped for 2 days of racing.

the only way Welch could lose is if Trump endorsed him

changes are coming. in typical US automotive fashion, we're late adopters to new technology

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1135084_us-finally-allows-use-of-modern-matrix-headlights#:~:text=Adaptive%20headlights%2C%20also%20known%20as,motorists%2C%20pedestrians%2C%20or%20cyclists.

for sure. In an all out nuclear war, the F35s at BTV are probably a secondary or tertiary target for ICBMs as it'll take out camp Johnson too. this'll seriously diminish US capacity to intercept bombers and other aircraft coming in from the north and hamper ground response around the region.

sorry - didn't realize I was commenting on your situation too.

since I am now, pursue other avenues of recourse beyond "fuck you" and "give yer balls a tug." The instructions on how to do this are right at the bottom of the rent increase notice.

check this out... https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

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if you detonated the largest nuke "in use" right now in Montreal or Boston, it wouldn't touch most of VT.

really? you're complaining about this? everything is up $20/month or more, including the expenses for the guy who owns the land.

I read in another comment that if a tree falls/water line breaks/sewer backs up that it's your problem. that's what comes with owning a home.

In the grand scheme of things, $20/month lot fee increase is nothing to get in a twist over. you own a home - that costs money and it never gets cheaper.

all wheel/4 wheel drive does not equal all wheel/4 wheel stop. snow tires are crucial if you drive anywhere past your mailbox

you're absolutely right.

someone needs to do a net present value calculation on a trillion dollar investment's return vs 50 years of climate change at 8% (what was considered to be a decent return in the market a couple years ago)

the challenge will be getting consensus on what the cost of climate change is annually, since a good sized chunk of the us population doesn't think it's real.

the tax incentives for renewables is the only thing that makes renewables make financial sense. fortunately the incentives just got extended.

renewables are close to cost parity with expensive fossil fuels like coal, but not natural gas - yet. I can heat my home for $700/ year on the VT gas network, but it'll cost me twice that to use a heat pump.

if I lived outside the gas network and used LP or oil, a heat pump would be far cheaper, even when you factor in needing backup heat on the coldest days.

on utility scale, however we've got a way to go. now if we stopped subsidizing coal and gas, the cost would skyrocket and push us towards a renewable system.

the cost of changing has to be less than the cost of staying the same, and we keep fossil fuels artificially cheap. we are our own worst enemy

95%+ of the problem is economics. energy is so much more expensive in Europe, the shift to renewables and the huge focus on efficiency actually makes economic sense. here in the US, thanks to essentially unrestricted lobbying, we give maybe tax credits to oil companies in the name of jobs and continued unsustainable economic growth.

If we flipped that around and used oil tax credits to incentive the shit out of energy efficiency and renewable projects, we'd have 5-10 years of economic pain but will have turbo charged the shift away from energy sources that are a feedback loop (more fossil fuels equals more CO2 means higher temperatures equals greater energy demand equals more fossil fuels) and be on a path that doesn't end up with waterworld.

EU natural gas prices, before the Ukraine war, were 2-3 times what they are in the US. now they're off the charts. I really hope Putin's greatest accomplishment by starting the war is shifting Europe to renewables completely.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/673333/monthly-prices-for-natural-gas-in-the-united-states-and-europe/

right, but we don't have a grid built for that, and it'll take 30 years to build it

storage is great, but we don't have the tech for utility size storage yet. you can get a battery to cover your house or even a medium sized office building for a night, but not a city. we're decades away from that

we're decades away from new nuke plants too, between permitting and construction. I guess the unfortunate reality is we need to prepare to live with climate change while we try to address it.

I'm Thanos, and I approve this message

Bernie is right on many things. his lack of support for nuclear is not one of them

we need massive increases in grid capacity and resiliency, and matching increases in production to meet decarbonization goals through electrification (the only viable option we have right now). solar and wind are part of it, but won't be good base load till we have storage sorted out and battery storage is horrible in terms of battery production and performance over time

the only existing tech that gets us off fossil fuels in 50 years is nuclear.