In March 2020, I switched to renewable electricity, and I'm sticking with it. Specifically, my electricity is powered by wind energy.
​
Per capita, I added (not to confuse with used) more than 2,400 kWh (2,480) to the grid in that time. According to my supplier's annual review, that's the equivalent of:

• More than 3,750 pounds of carbon pollution (3,753) diverted.
• 28 trees planted.
• And 0.4 cars removed from the road.

So, there you have it:

The world is mine.

What surprised me was my year-on-year use of electric power in January, the month of highest use. It was almost 40 percent less kWh (39) in January 2021 than in January 2020.

In Pennsylvania, you can choose what company supplies your electricity. Unless you choose otherwise, your utility company is your supplier as well. However, you can shop around for a better rate on natural gas (Read/Read/Read the fine print), or switch to renewable energy (solar, wind, blended, etc.). Your utility company doesn't change, so your bill comes from your utility company. That's because the supplier uses the utility company's pipes and other infrastructure to distribute its natural gas or renewable energy.

Think of your utility company as a Walmart, Target, or regional superstore. The superstore (utility company) doesn't change because it stocks different brands of hand sanitizer (supplies/suppliers). Nor does it stop selling its store brand of hand sanitizer (natural gas).

It took five months (after my info request in Nov. 2019) before I decided to deal with a supplier, and therefore the switch to wind energy. Fortunately, my supplier has flexible terms -- namely, no contract and no termination fee.

If you're in Pennsylvania and you're interested in electricity from renewable energy, visit oca.state.pa.us or papowerswitch.com for suppliers.

Or send me a message via the contact page if you want to know what supplier I use.

Note: Figures updated with March 31 report.

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find her writings and commentaries, including "How to Switch to Renewable Energy in Pennsylvania," at landturn.com/blog.

Related: How to Switch to Renewable Energy in Pennsylvania, II (2021)
Related: Nord Stream 2 overlooked by Rikin in "The Green New Deal" (2019)
Related: Environmental Committee: Harrisburg Fire Department (Sept. 2021)
Related: Environmental Committee: Renewable Energy Suppliers in Pa. (Nov. 2021)
Related: Environmental Committee: Black History Month - Former EPA Whistleblower  (Feb. 2022)
Related: How Walmart can save shopping malls (2019)

Jacinda Arden is quite the celebrity, but her stardom is a little more terrestrial than her political peers.
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The prime minister is "aware of this and very honored," said her office, in response to a new bug named after her. 
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And by the way: 

"A beetle and a lichen, along with an ant in Saudi Arabia, have also been named after her," said her spokesman. 

The Hemiandrus jacinda is a reported new species of wētā, a cricket native to New Zealand. It was named (and described) for the prime minister by Steven Trewick, a professor of evolutionary ecology at Massey University.

"Taxonomy lies at the heart of species conservation and many large New Zealand orthopterans [order of insects] remain to be described," said Assoc. Professor Morgan-Richards, Trewick's colleague, in 2016.

In the last six months, I thought about naming one of Jupiter's unexplored moons after myself. (Seriously, who's gonna care but me?)

Apparently, naming opportunities are plentiful in the insect world. If only the sight of a large creepy crawlee didn't send me hugging my knees in a corner.​

A comment on "Reflects Her Traits': Giant Insect Named After New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern" (S. Chaegodeva)

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find her writings and commentaries, including the one on "'Reflects Her Traits': Giant Insect Named After New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern," at landturn.com/blogs.

Related: Spotted Lanternfly in Harrisburg (2021)
Related: "Flight of the Butterflies" (2022)
Related: Toni Morrison (2020)
Related: Audubon Society (2020)
Related: "Where the Crawdads Sing" (2020)
Related: "La Chica Salvaje" (2020)

Note: The following is a copy of the email I sent to the state NAACP on behalf of my local branch.

<Redacted>, 

As a reminder, I nominated myself as chair of the Environmental Committee during the branch's February meeting. Here is my proposal for the inaugural committee: 

Objective: Preventing the year-on-year increase of preventable, nonarson [sic] house fires on the South Side in years one and two of the Environmental Committee. 

Reports of house fires recur almost weekly during the fall and winter months in Dauphin County, especially Harrisburg. It's reasonable to assume a greater incidence of non-arson house fires if residents combine households to weather the economic fallout from job losses, overdue utility bills, evictions, and foreclosures. I'd like to focus my outreach first on the South Side. There exists some of the city's high-density of aging housing stock, rowhomes, rooming houses, and other multifamily residences susceptible to multi-household displacement, and multi-structure fire and smoke damage.
 
As chair of the Environmental Committee, I'll script and produce an educational cartoon on Youtube for fire prevention in Harrisburg. In so doing, I'll consult with Harrisburg Fire to identify high-risk residential structures and resident actions; as well as Harrisburg University or HACC for geospatial mapping of fires in the city. The cartoon will be available as an educational tool for students and families by Harrisburg Fire, the Red Cross - Central Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg School District, and the like. It should take no longer than six months of my approval as Environmental Chair to complete. 

My projected budget will include:

• A month-to-month or one-year subscription to the cartoon-producing software;
• Two hours of hired voiceover talent; and
• Any fees incurred for assistance with GIS services.

Thank you for your consideration,

Jubalyn ExWilliams

XXX-XXX-XXXX
<Redacted>
Environmental Chair
Nominee

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find her writings and commentaries, including "Environmental Committee: Proposal on Harrisburg Fire Safety, Prevention," at landturn.com/blog.

Related: Environmental Committee: Harrisburg Fire Department, II (Dec. 2021)
Related: Environmental Committee: Renewable Energy Suppliers in Pa. (Nov. 2021)
Related: Environmental Committee: Harrisburg Fire Department (Sept. 2021)
Related: Environmental Committee: Fire Safety Cartoon, II (Jun. 2022)
Related: Ways to provide more beds for the homeless (2020)
Related: 200 economists say no to corporate bailout under CARES Act (2020)
Related: How region factors into my observation of non-arson, non-climatic house fires (2022)

Please join the #CheyneyChallenge, a monthly donation campaign for America's first HBCU. I made my most recent donation of $18.37 today.

Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
cheyney.edu
Est. 1837
​
The Cheyney Challenge is an initiative of alumnus Mr. Bright. I committed to it in 2015, and began donating the following year.

Related: February Cheyney Challenge (2021)
Related: March Cheyney Challenge (2020)
​Related: March Cheyney Challenge (2022)
Related: March Cheyney Challenge (2023)

Washington's airstrike in Syria on Feb. 25 was lawful by international standards had Syria attacked the United States.

It hadn't.

"The United Nations Charter makes absolutely clear that the use of military force on ... a foreign sovereign state is lawful only in response to an armed attack on the defending state for which the target state is responsible. None of those elements is met in the Syria strike."

-- Mary Ellen O'Connell, professor of international law at Notre Dame

Ten days earlier, a rocket attack in Iraqi Kurdistan killed an American contractor and wounded coalition partners. Yet Washington didn't know who was responsible before retaliating.

"Right now, we're not able to give you certain attribution as to who was behind these attacks... Let's let the investigations complete and conclude and then when we have more to say, we will."

-- John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman

The airstrike wasn't on Iraq, the country of the rocket attack. Nor had Iraq concluded its investigation into the attack on its soil. It was on Syria, a whole other country.

Syria was only a proxy target, however. Washington's airstrike had Iran in mind, another "whole other" country.

Guardians of Blood Brigade (Saraya Awleeya aD-Dam) claimed responsibility for the attack in Iraq. However, Iran claims it has no affiliation to the little-known group.

Let's say Iran was responsible for the rocket attack in Iraq. Why then would the U.S. conduct illegal airstrikes on Syria and not legal airstrikes on Iran? 

Instead, the U.S. hit Syria for an attack in Iraq that it thinks Iran is behind.

The airstrike in Syria was the first U.S. attack under the Biden Administration, and it was sloppy as hell.

A comment on "U.S. bombs facilities in Syria used by Iran-backed militia" (L.C. Baldor and R. Burns)​

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find her writings and commentaries, including the one on Baldor's and Burn's "U.S. bombs facilities in Syria used by Iran-backed militia," at landturn.com/blog.

Related: Is new U.S. Space Force another reason to ratify Outer Space Treaty? (2020) 
Related: Why I question Iran's nuclear program after claim to develop medicines  (2021)
Related: Electoral Politics, II (2020)
Related: Howie Hawkins campaign for president: my statement (2020)
Related: "This Life or the Next" (2019)
Related: Green candidate for senate on special prosecutors, student loan debt (2022)

Condolences to Travolta. I wasn't familiar with his wife or her movies, but terminal illness is -- to me -- one of the most grueling ways to die.

In regard to their home for sale, imagine one the size of a hotel with all the amenities of a resort in its confine. I can't. And it's secluded in a wintry, mostly rural state. Whoa.

​The decor though. It's a patchwork quilt of prints; furnishing; texture; and colors that makes each room into an arboretum. The designer, Christopher Boshears, was on a whole other level; he did his thing.

On another note: How the hell you keep 20,000 square feet from freezing over during a winter in Maine? ... with all those damn windows.

The 20-bedroom home is listed currently at $5 million.​

A comment on "John Travolta's colorful 20-bedroom mansion hits market for $5 million. Take a look" (TJ Macias)

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find her writings and commentaries, including the one on "John Travolta's colorful 20-bedroom mansion hits market for $5 million. Take a look," at landturn.com/blog.

Related: Real estate firm pays commission to homebuyers (2019)
Related: Could more low-income, Black homeownership slow gentrification? (2019)
Related: "Race for Profit" (2020)
Related: How Walmart can save shopping malls (2019)

I've received no mail at my residential address in two weeks, despite regular notifications of its expected delivery. For several of those days, the mailbox at one side of mine had a message indicating it was full. As of yesterday, the mailbox on the other side of mine has a note for the carrier to hand-deliver the tenant's oversized mail. Of the several tenants who remain, I'm not aware of anyone who isn't receiving his or her mail.

Last year I placed a credit freeze or fraud alert on my credit file after the theft of federal mail. Fortunately, I've noticed no fraudulent accounts or unauthorized transactions since then. Not yet anyway. However, the thief or thieves now have piecemeal banking; tax; address; account; and other info of mine and my husband.

Because of the near-daily theft from a secured mailbox in a half-occupied building, I'll receive most of my mail at a P.O. box.

An investigation is ongoing, but I remain wary of any fraud; identity theft; mail theft; or its trend in the area.

Related: Alert, II (2020)
Related: Living under new management (2021)
Related: "Cybersecurity and Cyberwar" (2020)
Related: Raising my eyebrows @ recent U.S. unemployment claims post-2009 (2020)
Related: The circumstance among "millennials" I think gave rise to the "sharing economy" (2019)