Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones and some good news for budding astronomers who also like to go to bed early. This year’s harvest moon starts tomorrow around sunset, which should give you plenty of time to nourish your soul with its celestial beauty — and also watch the new episode of Slow Horses before passing out on the couch.

If you’re feeling a bit more foot-loose, Panorama Natural Burial is hosting a free harvest moon dusk walk at 7pm on Saturday out near Earlysville.

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt.

🐶 Speaking of pets: Rendezvous! This girl is ready to order Roots and just chill all night. And when you’re out of town, she’s also not afraid of FaceTiming from the double-chin angle because she knows her smile is perfect (mixed breed, 47 lbs, 6 years old).

🐱 Plus Dilly Dally, a mystery cat who loves to pounce.

One of my favorite parts of writing each Hot Bones edition is finding the weekly historic house and cool rental listings, because it gives me an excuse to scroll Zillow and dispense awe and judgment. (803% price jump in 10 years? That’s Belmont, baby.) I’m also just a natural snoop and love the houses where people haven’t put away all their crap before the photos were taken. But the main reason I love the houses of the week section is because I always learn a new bit of real estate word alchemy.

This past week had some good ones. I had just started looking, late at night, and I found a house near Staunton that at first glance seemed promising (just far enough outside Cville to still be cheapish, historic, and available). The text above the house thumbnail made me think I’d struck gold early: “Strong bones.” Nice! Kinda like Hot Bones but maybe even better.

Then I squinted closer to my laptop. Ah, this is an abandoned house. Those are weeds covering the front steps. That’s a broken fence. There are no doors on that side. There’s a ghost in the garage.

But strong bones! Zillow had me for a second.

Another top alchemy moment has been the adorable cottage that’s still for rent near campus. It might continue to be available because while the listing says “quiet residential setting,” it’s also located directly behind UVA’s Greek scene. So I suppose “quiet” is technically true, but only if you visit between 5 and 7 am.

Then there’s the smorgasbord of “unfinished basement” descriptions I see every week that, with a flick of the realtor’s deft wrist, become “hidden gems offering a blank canvas.” Or all those “rustic sheds” that you might assume are for collecting years of broken Christmas lights — but actually, according to realtor word alchemy, these sheds are your new “creative space” to finally start your butcher block tv tray business. Or just as a space to watercolor the many harvest moons in your peaceful future.

Anything that says “unique opportunity” promises to be a good spin up of the truth, and if “historic charm abounds” you know the house will either be on the side of the highway or there will be a toilet in the kitchen. Thank goodness we have Zillow photos to see the marketing BS being delivered.

But if you want to learn how to be brazen with the truth, I highly suggest combing through Cville’s real estate listings from time to time. No other industry can push you to believe a really crummy situation is actually a good thing like a licensed real estate professional.

Except for the fossil fuel industry of course.

There was a recent article in the Guardian about how this year there’ve been a record number of contracts between top advertising firms and fossil fuel companies — this year, the year that the western US had no snow, the year of Europe’s crazy spring and summer heatwaves, the year Canada’s wildfires blew smoke all the way to North Carolina. 1,321 active contracts, according to the global advocacy project Clean Creatives, costing roughly $7 billion annually.

The Guardian article reminded me that really good advertising (and marketing more broadly) is an incredible tool — it can make us feel safe and reassured, even through the people and industries that are destroying our planet the most (half of all global carbon dioxide emissions are caused by just 32 fossil fuel companies). And in my mind, the most unfortunate thing here is that most of the good climate folks aren’t using this tool fully but the bad climate folks certainly are.

Here are three examples of some really sneaky word alchemy devils. Watch out for the tricks here.

💨 The big one: Don’t be fooled by “natural gas”

This is the “English basement” of climate doublespeak. We know it’s still a basement, but now maybe it’s kind of a nice, proper sort of basement.

In reality, natural gas is a high-polluting fossil fuel. If your stove goes “tick tick” and a flame springs to life, odds are it runs on natural gas, especially around Charlottesville.

You may also recognize natural gas by the name methane or methane gas, which is a lot less lovely British, Hugh Grant–sounding.

Natural gas is not a clean energy source — in fact it’s helping rapidly warm our planet — but until I started working in the climate space, I thought it was one of the good ones. It’s got that nice “natural” branding. Sounds clean and healthy, like a Sweetgreen bowl.

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication did an interesting study to see just how effective the word “natural” is here. Turns out, Americans perceive “natural gas” much more favorably (76% favorable) than other fossil fuels like oil or coal. According to the study, “they also believe natural gas is much less harmful to human health than is coal or oil.”

But it’s not! That’s word alchemy for ya.

Naturally, the fossil fuel industry is leaning into the natural gas framing, even if they’re often now positioning it as a “bridge” fuel between things like coal and cleaner, renewable energy like solar and wind.

→ If you want to dig deeper, check out this Grist article about Louisiana’s new law that redefines natural gas as a “clean” energy source, all thanks to a template created by a conservative think tank. (One of the state reps behind the bill also co-owns multiple oil and gas consulting firms. Can’t make this stuff up.)

→ If .gov pdfs are more your thing, here’s 65 pages on Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oils’ Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change, with a whole subsection on methane.

→ And for Cville folks, here’s where our city stands on current natural gas usage and reduction plans.

📈 Niche reading: Remain skeptical of “carbon intensity” phrasing

This is like if you wanted to rent an apartment and they said they were lowering the amenities fee from $500 to $250, while simultaneously raising your monthly base rent by $1,000.

Emily Atkin, who writes the Heated newsletter (great follow), explains it best: When oil companies pledge to lower the carbon intensity of their operations, that doesn’t mean they’re actually lowering overall carbon emissions.

“In fact, you can lower the carbon intensity of your business’s operation while still increasing your overall carbon footprint,” she says.

“It has nothing to do with how much carbon you’re actually reducing. It’s a metric of measuring the emissions per barrel of oil extracted. So I emit 100 metric tons of carbon per barrel of oil extracted and I lower the emissions intensity and now I emit 99 metric tons of carbon per barrel of oil extracted. But if I start extracting more oil, I have higher carbon emissions overall.”

This “intensity” phrasing is fairly niche, but it’s always good to stay vigilant if you see it in the wild.

⛅ On your radar: “Cloud campuses” and other data whimsy might start raining on your parade

This is when you and your spouse are house hunting and they try to convince you that the ultra-modern house with no interior walls and Siri connectivity built into the bathroom mirrors could be a really fun project to “make yours.”

I’m a little surprised data centers haven’t started rebranding in earnest given that, by recent polling, a majority of Americans aren’t comfortable with a data center operating near where they live. But we’re starting to see trickles of alchemy at work (by Big Tech this time, taking a page out of Big Oil’s book).

I’m starting to pick up the vibes with project names, which are no longer defaulting to dull things like Tierpoint Baltimore Data Center and Microsoft Fairwater B1 (MKE03), and instead are starting to name themselves like prestigious sailing vessels. There’s Project Jupiter at work, there’s Wonder Valley, there’s New Era, and there’s a project in nearby Fairfax County seeking approval under the name Vienna Cloud.

It feels like people are really onto the trickery here, but my hunch is that we may start turning proper nouns into common nouns just by talking about them over and over, in the same way we now say “hey pass me a Kleenex” instead of “please hand me a disposable facial tissue.”

So in this case, I suppose my advice is to stay boring to avoid alchemizing in your own conversations. No data centers, please — and definitely no cloud centers, castles, or chateaux.

Okay, so good news and bad news.

Unfortunate news: Mums are a great pop of color for your front stoop, but they’re actually not native plants in North America — meaning they don’t enhance a neighborhood’s biodiversity. And often they get thrown away after they get crispy in November.

But!

Local plants like asters, coneflowers, and goldenrod are great at supporting local pollinators including butterflies. So if you haven’t already stocked up on a whole bunch of mums, places like Fifth Season Gardening off Preston and Ivy Nursery west of town have great native selections as alternatives.

Plus, this weekend is the Piedmont Discovery Center’s annual native plant sale, and this year they’re including Hummingbird Hill (more native plants!) as a vendor.

There is just an absurd amount of stuff happening this weekend, so don’t beat yourself up if you oversleep and can’t get to everything. Enjoy the first days of fall!

🌈 Festival of the week: A bunch of fun gay things all weekend long, because it’s Cville Pride. That includes the Pride 5k on Saturday morning (run or walk the route along the river), the actual festival all afternoon long at Ting, and a late-night disco. Bonus: a Dolly Parton bar crawl tonight.

🧙 Meanwhile, one town over: A bunch of muggles are dressing like the cleverest witch in their class for Staunton’s Mischief and Magic weekend festival.

🦋 And on Sunday, break free of this pupa life: at the Butterfly Festival in Darden Towe Park, to celebrate the monarch butterfly’s fall migration from Central Virginia to Mexico (live music, kid-friendly activities, food trucks, 3 – 7pm).

🏠 Historic house of the week: Ha, wow, forget everything I said about realtor alchemy up top. This is the best house in all of Charlottesville. Second-story screened porch under the eaves, magnolia tree in the back, and a massive stone fireplace (3 beds, 2 baths for $549k in Fry’s Spring). Ignore the water damage in the photos. Strong bones!

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Historic 1847 cottage called the Old Fish Bait House in Lexington, with hardwood floors, renovated bathrooms, and a window under the sink (3 beds, 2 baths for $1,650/month).

🛍️ Shoppy shoppers, heads up: High Tor Gear Exchange is hosting a clearance sale this weekend, with deals up to 70% off.

🎨 Art and a possible bear sighting: what more could you ask for? The Shenandoah National Park Trust is hosting its annual Art in the Park festival at Big Meadows on Friday and Saturday. It’s a great free way to learn from local artists (including the opportunity to make a “splotch monster”).

🔑 Drop your car keys in the nearest sewer grate: Week Without Driving starts on Thursday, October 1, and the good folks at Livable Cville have a lot of great resources for how to participate (and advocate for more inclusive transportation options in our area).

💼 Job of the week: Home Energy Rebate Programs Coordinator for Virginia’s Dep of Energy ($73k – $83k, based in Cville or Richmond).

💾 Remote job: Public Relations and Communications Program Manager at Slate, the customizable EV truck company ($85k – $140k).

👏 And lastly, a big thank you to the volunteers who are building the hype and leading folks around the trails at this year’s Loop de Ville festival (Sunday, all day).

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.

Or better yet, want to share your sustainability story? You can do that here.

Our friends at Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary are throwing a big party next weekend and this ^ is what you may look like afterward. Dinner, live music, open bar, and plenty of cocktail banter with the wildlife ambassadors — all to help support the sanctuary.

There’s also a silent auction where you can already bid on things online, including local art like this birthday bird painting that I love but can’t seem to link to directly.

The Sanctuary Soiree starts at 5:30 pm on Friday, October 2 at Eastwood Winery and you can snag tickets here. (PS Botanical is catering.)