Hurricane Melissa Is the First AI Generated Fake Video Disaster

A screenshot of a fake AI-generated view of Hurricane
Melissa from above. Hurricanes don't even look like
this in real life. Hurricane Melissa inspired a 
lot of fake AI videos, confusing and in some
cases endangering the public. 

 A lot of the dramatic videos you saw of Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean were probably AI fakes. 

True, there are many, many, videos that show the true tragedy of what happened on Jamaica in that terrible storm. Those videos shock us, upset us, make us want to help. And they get ton of views. 

There's also a lot of fake AI Hurricane Melissa videos going around. Some of them really look like the real thing. 

But if you look closely, they were generated by whatever AI service the maker used. The motivation? Make a pile of money out of somebody else's tragedy. 

 Though AI videos have exploited disasters and other big events  for awhile now, Melissa
a is arguably the first calamity to get the full AI treatment on social media. 

Per PBS News:

"Experts noted that Melissa is the first big natural disaster since OpenAI launched the latest version of its video generation tool Sora last month. 

'Now, with the rise of easily accessible and powerful tools like Sora, it has become even easier for bad actors to create and distribute highly convincing synthetic videos,' said Sofia Rubinson, a senior editor at NewsGuard, which analyzes online misinformation. 

I supposed the AI videos of Melissa are less harmful than political deep fakes, ones that make leaders really appear to be something they're not, to sway the public based on big lies, to create a political environment detrimental to everyone except a cadre of billionaires and their brown nosing fans.  

Disaster AI videos are just clickbait. Sure, they're scammy. But they're easy and cheap to produce, and if whoever makes any of these gets lucky, they can get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. A really lucky strike with a fake disaster AI video can rake in a few thousand dollars.  

These fake AI videos can spread heartache, and interfere with storm recovery.  

As CNET reports;

"In times of crisis, like a dangerous and imminent natural disaster these fake videos can create confusion panic and distraction at a time when accuracy can be life-saving."

One of the AI videos going round depicted the main airport in the Jamaican capitol of Kingston completely destroyed. If taken at face value, that video could have affected or delayed relief supplies.

In fact, the airport in Kingston was only lightly damaged. It opened for both relief and commercial flights last Thursday, October 30, just a couple days after the hurricane. 

"I am in so many WhatsApp groups and I see all of these videos coming. Many them are fake....And so we urge you to please listen to the official channels" said Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica's Education Minister. 

AI videos can also falsely minimize the severity of a disaster. As Forbes noted, one widely circulated Melissa AI video shows Jamaicans partying, boating and swimming, which made the hurricane appear much less dangerous than it really was.  

It's trickier when you're in a disaster zone and trying to find solid information to keep  you safe. Often people in the middle of a disaster look to social media for guidance. An AI video made by someone who is unfamiliar with the area affected and how to respond to disasters can easily lead storm victims into danger, rather than helping them.  

The AI videos are confusing the public so much that people are writing off legitimate videos as AI. One video shows the dramatic views inside the eye of Hurricane Melissa taken from aboard a hurricane hunter plane. The video is legit, but it's so incredible, people tried to flag it as AI.

But yet another video purportedly taken above the eye of Melissa portrays it as sort of a wormhole, with clouds swirling around the eye, and pouring into the "hole."  If you understand meteorology, you would catch the problem right away. 

A hurricane's eye is the storm's "chimney," and the clouds around it are rising, not sinking. 

Though it's still pretty possible to distinguish a real video from AI nonsense, it's getting harder.  

Per PBS News:

"In the past, people could often identify fakes through telltale signs like unnatural motion, distorted text, or missing fingers. But as these systems improve, many of those flaws are disappearing, making it increasingly difficult for the average viewer to distinguish AI-generated content from authentic footage.'"

It's kind of annoying that nowadays, you have to look at everything with a super critical eye to distinguish fact from fantasy. 

But it's still possible. With AI video, as always, check as best you can to determine whether the video is from a reliable source. Check the account's history on social media. If the past is pretty clickbait-y, you are probably looking at more AI clickbait in the video you're watching. 

You can sometimes see a Sora watermark, which shows it is AI.  Apps can get rid of the watermark, but often smudge is left behind where you'd expect a watermark, so that can act as a clue. 

Although scammers are getting better at producing videos, look for strangely shaped objects or blurred commercial signs in the background.  Sometimes one object in the video has odd lighting, is strangely blurred or doesn't seem to have quite the right shape. 

If you still can't tell whether it's real or fake, welcome to the club. I have a good eye for this type of thing and sometimes I'm still not sure whether what I'm seeing is real or AI. In those cases, let's play it safe and don't share the video on social media. 

Credible sources usually end up verifying legit videos. The one you're fascinated with will either be proven true and debunked. Once that happens, then you can share it if you feel safe about it.

Meanwhile our social media feeds are getting more and more clogged with annoying fake AI videos posing a news. 

It's just another example of how we just can't have nice things. 

 

 

New Gizmo That Converts Methane To Harmless Stuff To Help Combat Climate Change

The British tech firm Levidian has figured out a way to 
convert methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas into
two harmless but very useful byproducts. 

Levidian, a British carbon climate tech business, is on a mission to make methane into a hero instead of a villain. 

No, Levidian doesn't love methane. It's a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. Increasing methane emissions are worsening climate change. 

The company has figured out ways to break methane down into two substances that actually can do a world of good. 

 As CBS explains:

"The technology uses microwave energy and a special nozzle system to split methane molecules intl the gas' component parts - hydrogen and carbon - and captures them."

That hydrogen left over from the process is pretty valuable. It can be used to power factories, vehicles, ships and machinery.  When burned, hydrogen provides heat and energy, but the only emission is water vapor.

Water vapor is pretty harmless, and I supposed if you have a big enough operation, you can capture the water emissions for,  I don't know, irrigation or something. But you'd need to break down a LOT of methane. 

The leftover carbon from Levidian's process turns out to be even better. That carbon left over from that technology becomes a solid called graphene. Scientists have only known about this stuff for about two decades but it turns out it's one of the strongest materials in the world. 

It's also a great conductor of heat and electricity.

So Levidian is working on ways to use graphene in everyday products. Putting graphene into tire treads, for instance, makes them stronger and yields a longer-lasting, more fuel-efficient tire.

Adding graphene to concrete makes that material stronger and less likely to crumble. 

Graphene is even flexible enough to include in the manufacture of medical gloves to make them stronger. 

This stuff can also boost the battery life in electric vehicles. And it can be mixed in with plastic to help factories make material that uses less petroleum based material. 

As the BBC reports, most efforts to combat climate change have been to reduce emissions. You know, electric, cars, heat pumps, efficiency improvements. 

Not so many outfits have found ways to remove emissions altogether, so Levidian's efforts are unique and laudable. 

Luckily, Levidian is British, as noted, so we don't have to worry about the mendacious Trump administration from discouraging this or banning public investment. (The UK government is interested in doing some funding for technologies like Levidian's).

We're hoping more companies find ways to innovate our way out of climate change. Anything helps in that global battle, 

 

EV's And Winter: Are They Ready For A Northern Prime Time?

Electric vehicles still don't do super great in winter, but
they're better than you'd expect. 

 We're heading toward an era of electric vehicles, or EVs. Gasoline powered cars and trucks might go the way of the dinosaurs before you'd think. 

California has already passed a law that would ban gas powered vehicles starting in 2035. This is especially important because other states usually follow California's lead when it comes to auto emissions. 

We're headed toward EVs because they are better at preventing the release of greenhouse gases the contribute to climate change. 

But here's an important question for those of us living in the Great White North, since winter hasn't exactly been repealed yet:  How well do they work in the winter?

The short answer is not great, but passable, given the current technology. 

As the Washington Post notes:

"Lithium-ion batteries perform more sluggishly in cold temperatures, cutting into an electric car's range when temperatures drop close to freezing. (For what it's worth, gas powered cars also don't perform perfectly in the cold."

Yeah, but gas powered vehicles at this point do better than EVs. At least in general and until smart people make EVs last a long time without a charge in any weather. un 

There's two major winter problems with EVs.  One is, the lithium-ion batteries perform best at around the same temperature humans do - around 70 degrees. 

The other problem comes into play if you're stuck in a big winter traffic jam in an EV. When it's cold, gas powered vehicles can redirect wasted heat from the engine into the passenger space to keep people warm. 

This is a function of the inefficiency of gas powered cars. They produce all kinds of heat that usually doesn't  do much good.  That's part of the climate problem with traditional vehicles. They emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And they emit more than they should, because of the inefficiency of the internal combustion engine.

However, as WaPo reports, EVs are efficient, which actually could be a problem during a January Arctic cold snap:

"According to the Department of Energy, EVs  use over 75 percent of their energy to propel the car. That means there isn't much waste heat available. Instead, many EVs warm their passengers through electric resistance heating (essentially heating a wire and blowing air over it.

Cabin heating accounts for the lion's share of what drains the EV battery in cold temperatures. According to a 2019 study from AAA that tested five different EVs in 20-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, on average the cars lost 41 percent of their range with the cabin heater on. With the cabin heater off, however, they lost only about 12 percent of their range."

If you're a wimp like me, you don't want to sit in a car on your commute to work freezing your butt off. You also want to get to work without the battery in your EV dying halfway there. 

But then there's a more dangerous aspect to this.

If you're stranded in a blizzard on some highway, you'll get colder much faster in an EV than you would in a gas powered car, assuming you have a full tank of gas.

Plus, if the snow drifts are cleared and you can move on again, but have run out of gas, a good Samaritan with a five gallon jug of gasoline can get you started so you could make it to the next gas station. 

 How do you recharge an EV in the middle of nowhere if it runs out of juice? The news on this is better than you'd expect. 

Here's an example: On January 3, 2021, a quick hitting, intense snowstorm trapped thousands of vehicles on Interstate 95 in Virginia  for more than 24 hours. 

That calamity got people thinking about EVs and winter storm emergencies. As Wapo pointed out: 

"After the Virginia highway debacle, many EV owners, YouTubers and journalists tested their electric cars in freezing temperatures to see what would happen. One journalist for Car and Driver found that, at subfreezing temperatures, his Tesla Model 3 with a resistance heater could keep the cabin warmed to 65 degrees Fahrenheit for a maximum of 45 hours. That number could rise to 50 or 60 hours with a heat pump."

So maybe the winter safety technology with EVs is better than the old fart writing this post realized.  

Here's another factoid: The nation with the highest number of EVs per capita is Norway. It's a lovely country, but not exactly a tropical paradise. Those Norwegians seem to do pretty well with their EVs in the icy dark of a Scandinavian winter.  

Many EVs come equipped with heat pumps. They're more efficient because they move heat to where it's wanted, instead of creating heat that then has to be moved. In cold weather, EVs with heat pumps have nearly double the range of similar vehicles that don't have heat pumps. 

If you live in a usually cold place like Vermont and are considering buying an EV, make sure a heat pump comes standard. 

I guess it's like a lot of things in life. With EVs, you have to plan your range, your trip, and hope that the technology improves while remaining affordable. 

So far, this winter has been kind to Vermonters with Evs. It's been warm, and it hasn't snowed a lot, thanks in part to the climate change brought to us in part by all those gasoline-fired cars and trucks. 

However, climate change isn't nearly enough to cancel winter. we have plenty of subzero days ahead. If not this winter, then in future winters. 

EVs are perfect, even in Vermont, for people who don't need to do a lot of driving, don't have to do a lot of planning and don't need to drive a rugged vehicle. 

I'm absolutely sure EVs are in my future. Due to the nature of one of my jobs, involving unpredictable trips and heavy loads in the bed of my pickup truck, I'm still not sure I'm ready for a winter with an EV.

I'm confident that they're making EV pickup trucks that are getting better and better at withstanding Vermont's rugged winters and roads.   I hope they become good enough soon to satisfy even the people who are toughest on their trucks. 

 

No More Snow Days? Remote Work Has Many Schools Rethinking Winter Days Off

A snowstorm in New York City. The city's school chancellor
has announced there will be no more snow days/school closures 
during winter storms. Instead, they'll switch to remote ]
learning on stormy, cold days. 

 Just a disclaimer here. You will see many mentions in this post that many of you will consider a dirty four letter word that you're not ready for.

Ready? That word is "snow."  So let's get on with it:

The awful pandemic proved that you can get away with working and learning from home via technology. 

Which is prompting some school officials to commit what some kids might consider sacrilege. No more snow days. 

New York City, for one, has announced there will be no more snow days for schools during winter storms. Instead, there will be remote learning. No matter how bad the weather.

New York is joining other towns and cities that are scrapping, or thinking about scrapping winter snow days. 

As early as late autumn, 2020, nearly 40 percent of school districts in a survey were converting snow days to remote learning days, according to, Education Week. Many other school districts were considering it, according to Education Week. 

As David C. Banks, New York's Department of Education chancellor said, "So, sorry kids - no more snow days, but it's going to be good for you!"

I'm not so sure.  

On one hand, it makes sense to change snow days to remote learning days to some extent, but it's still disappointing. It's true that kids need all the education they can get, and by law, they have to be in school for a certain number of days per year. If there's too many snow days, school extends into the summer. 

On the other hand, remote learning isn't as good as in person learning.  That's especially true for families that can't afford decent technology. Or can't obtain or can't afford decent internet access. As we learned in the pandemic, remote learning is also incredibly disruptive to parents who have to work. Do they call in sick to monitor the kids at home? What if their employer doesn't offer sick days? Then they don't get paid. 

I get it that parents also have to watch the kids and miss work if there's a snow day.  I'm not a parent, but I honestly wonder if it's easier to just let the kids play in the snow rather than monitoring them to make sure they're engaged in online earning.  Any parents want to weight in on this for me? I could use the enlightenment. 

One school district in New Jersey told Education Week that they are keeping snow days as it's tradition, a normal rite of passage for kids.  And I agree with that. Even if that means all the kids who had the day off for a snowstorm end up on the sledding hill behind the school. 

I'm in favor of snow days over remote learning. Kids, like all of us, deserve an unexpected break from the routine. Big snowstorms are a nice departure from the usual weekly blah, blah, blah anyway, so why not make winter storms a bit special?

New NASA Satellite To Give A Better Handle On Severe Storms, Wildfires

A rocket launches a new state of the art
weather satellite into space this past
Tuesday. Photo by Kim Shiflett/NASA

You're probably familiar with those satellite maps that show us the cloud patterns over the United States and the rest of the world.  

Those pictures are taken by what are known as "geostationary" satellites, whose orbit keeps them pretty much over the exact same spot above the Earth all the time. 

With increasing risks of severe storms and wildfires, NASA has launched a new satellite that will provide much better information on these disasters, as The Hill reports. 

The satellite, which will be named GOES-18, was successfully launched into space on Tuesday.

It will keep an eye on the western U.S. and Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and a big chunk of the Pacific Ocean.

Once the satellite settled in,  it will park itself 22,300 miles above Earth, and it will have a whiz-bang arsenal of instruments to keep an eye on would-be dangers.

One piece is a lightning mapper, which is the first time one of these has been placed on a geostationary satellite. That will help meteorologists examine patterns in thunderstorms, especially when they're just starting to develop. 

This, in turn would help scientists determine if these nascent storms will unleash dangerous wind, hail or tornadoes, or just become garden variety thunderstorms. 

The satellite will also zero in on wildfires, especially in the western United States. The satellite will be able to closely monitor the intensity and path of these fires. The satellite will also be able to pick out weather factors that would change the trajectory of these fires.

The satellite will even be able to see space weather hazards heading our way. Solar flares can disrupt utilities on Earth, and early warnings can help operators buttress electrical and other systems against these disruptions.

This new satellite will replace an existing satellite called GOES-17 that watches western North America. The old satellite will be retained as a backup in case the new one has a problem or needs maintenance.