It strikes me that in so many fields, from power utilities to fossil fuel companies, bottom-line capitalism stands in the way of energy transition with due scale and speed. Same reason banks have been so intractable in continuing fossil fuel investments. It seems we need to nationalize the oil companies and make all utilities public. Otherwise there is just too much money to be made, and too many assets dependent on continuing business as usual. We'll continue to bang our heads against a wall. Buy them out and devote remaining profits to transition.
Congratulations Bill on the birth of your first grandchild.
Grandchildren are wonderful. But it is their existential future that is gravely menaced by global warming/ climate change, largely caused by our continued addiction to fossil fuels. So it is up to all of us, especially the baby boomers generation, to do whatever we can to support and grow clean sources of renewable energy, before it is too late for our grandkids and all future generations.
Congratulations o the birth of your first grandchild, Bill, I hope his future becomes brighter than it is now.
On the climate, Bill, I don't see much on nuclear energy and I'd like to point out that nuclear energy is now, both safer and CHEAPER than ever. At present it still is the least expensive (less expensive in fact than fossil fuels) and also is zero carbon emission. My granddaughter works for a firm that supports and promotes nuclear energy - although it has no part in the production or building of nuclear energy plants. I majored in biology and chemistry so have a good understanding of how it works. The storage of spent fuel rods has been pretty much resolved and in fact the fuel rods are presently recycled until most of the reactivity is very low. The catastrophic "accidents" of the past are better controlled. The most recent one in Japan was caused by the plant having been erroneously built too close to the shore of the ocean. Nuclear energy is widely used in Europe.
I am not negating the use of solar or wind energy. Both are great. The last house I owned before moving to an Independent Senior Living apartment, I had installed both solar voltaic for electrical supply and solar hot water on my home.
I really think our current dependence on fossil fuels has more to do with the excessive greed of the wealthy - they want the biggest returns NOW. Unlike you, they don't give a damn about the future of their grandchildren - it's more I want mine now.
Congratulations on the birth of your grandson. May he grow up in a world filled with love and kindness 💕 Thank you for mentioning that we need a CeaseFireNow in Gaza. We in Third Act need to advocate for a CeaseFireNow and for humanitarian aide to be delivered to Gaza because it is the moral position to take . Also the Biden administration needs to stop supporting Genocide in order to win in November.
Congratulations, Bill!! What a beautiful photo of you and Caleb. I hope he comes to know how special his grandfather is and how many people he inspires to help save the Earth. I hope one day when he's older, Caleb comes across my DAR & Earth Series, written for the younger generations so they know exactly how humans allowed this beautiful Earth to become so compromised. Maybe, he will be inspired to restore its viability in honor of his grandfather! Welcome to the world, Caleb! Love, Athena
Congratulations to all and welcome to Asa, I love that photo of you with him. It is a magical time, enjoy every moment and help your daughter out all you can, she'll appreciate you even more and you'll be the winner!
Welcome to Asa! Grandparenthood is a special position that promotes caring about the newest little humans and their well-being. It started me on more activism. Enjoy, and thanks for your continued efforts Bill!
Bill, I’m happy to see your tiny “bundle of joy” and to have you as a “fellow Grandpa”
❤️💚💛💙
My grandsons recently celebrated their 26th and 23rd birthdays (both take after my son in the towering height department … I was once 6’1” which they all exceed … and I’ve shrunk a few inches!)
You, too, are quite tall for your height 😉 but prepare for the inevitable effects of gravity and spinal disc compression—you and I have both passed that point of no return … it’s relentless and insidious … no apparent tipping point … just yet 🤔 With your genes and good nutrition, Asa may well tower over you by the time you are a septuagenarian like me (76).
I read your opening paragraphs noting the consternation of climate experts over the unexplained quantum jump in global heat with interest and anticipated “now is the time to put all options of temporary emergency cooling intervention on the table for serious deliberation.”
Watching for clues, there it was, like earth rise viewed from Apollo 8 Christmas Eve 1968:
“The first option—going all-in on the energy transition—doesn’t get us where we need to go, and certainly not by 2030. I don’t see any chance that the temperature won’t still be rising then. But done with vigor it keeps possibilities open…”
That resonates with what I’ve learned from weekly zoom meetings with PhD scientists, engineers and other experts from UK, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy to Australia and New Zealand to Silicon Valley and DC areas.
All except “But done with vigor it keeps possibilities open….” That seems to contradict the preceding sentence. 🧐
This further added to my bewilderment of the contradiction:
“… we have the chance to move over the next five years to establish a counter-momentum to the rising temperature. If we do, by 2030 we’ll be in a place to weigh the options going forward …”
At the accelerating rate of heating and with the time needed to thoroughly, responsibly and cautiously research, test and deploy options, time is running out.
And then you pulled me back to thinking you are ready to talk seriously about cooling intervention to save our assets:
“… our job—everyone’s job these next five years—is to arrest the sudden and sickening lurch upwards in temperature, so that there’s somewhere at least a little stable for those young people to stand as they build that new world that must come.”
But that ‘coup de grâce’ annihilated all hope that you’ve seen the light in Jim Hansen et al’s “Pipeline“ paper: Emissions reduction alone (ERA) will not reverse the rising CO2 concentration and temperature. Reducing emissions to zero—either actual or net zero—will merely slow the rate of the rising.
I’d suggest you chat with Jim Hansen about this conclusion. My money says he’ll disagree with this:
“The best proxy for that stability is the number of solar panels and wind turbines and batteries we install between now and the end of the decade.”
Congratulations on the birth of your grandchild! Love the photo of the two of you. "Grandpa" looks great on you, and you'll be a wonderful role model. Blessings to all your family.
Congratulations! He will, no doubt, be one of the many very-much-needed people who can help people, the other animals., and plants in the future climate challenged world. When young people say they don't want to have kids because of their dangerous future, my thought (and belief) is that if someone from our social economic educated background has kids - those kids will be so necessary and important when they grow up and develop careers. By then it will be clear that the most responsible and probably most attractive work will be in education, natural sciences, humanities, and climate justice activism and boots on the ground.
Congratulations, grandpa! Now, you would appreciate reading Christian ethicist Larry Rasmussen’s book, The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing.
It strikes me that in so many fields, from power utilities to fossil fuel companies, bottom-line capitalism stands in the way of energy transition with due scale and speed. Same reason banks have been so intractable in continuing fossil fuel investments. It seems we need to nationalize the oil companies and make all utilities public. Otherwise there is just too much money to be made, and too many assets dependent on continuing business as usual. We'll continue to bang our heads against a wall. Buy them out and devote remaining profits to transition.
What glorious news, Bill, huge congratulations to you and your family.
We must all continue fight harder to make Asa’s world better, safer, greener, more just, more peaceful. Bless you and yours,
Christine D
Warmest congratulations on the birth of your grandchild. Thank you for all your work, and in particular, for speaking up for a ceasefire.
Congratulations, Bill. Your grandson is perfect, and he'll grow up with a model of public service.
Congratulations Bill on the birth of your first grandchild.
Grandchildren are wonderful. But it is their existential future that is gravely menaced by global warming/ climate change, largely caused by our continued addiction to fossil fuels. So it is up to all of us, especially the baby boomers generation, to do whatever we can to support and grow clean sources of renewable energy, before it is too late for our grandkids and all future generations.
Congratulations o the birth of your first grandchild, Bill, I hope his future becomes brighter than it is now.
On the climate, Bill, I don't see much on nuclear energy and I'd like to point out that nuclear energy is now, both safer and CHEAPER than ever. At present it still is the least expensive (less expensive in fact than fossil fuels) and also is zero carbon emission. My granddaughter works for a firm that supports and promotes nuclear energy - although it has no part in the production or building of nuclear energy plants. I majored in biology and chemistry so have a good understanding of how it works. The storage of spent fuel rods has been pretty much resolved and in fact the fuel rods are presently recycled until most of the reactivity is very low. The catastrophic "accidents" of the past are better controlled. The most recent one in Japan was caused by the plant having been erroneously built too close to the shore of the ocean. Nuclear energy is widely used in Europe.
I am not negating the use of solar or wind energy. Both are great. The last house I owned before moving to an Independent Senior Living apartment, I had installed both solar voltaic for electrical supply and solar hot water on my home.
I really think our current dependence on fossil fuels has more to do with the excessive greed of the wealthy - they want the biggest returns NOW. Unlike you, they don't give a damn about the future of their grandchildren - it's more I want mine now.
Congratulations Bill! What a bundle of joy, hope, love for you and the world! Every child is God's blessing for all!
Congratulations on the birth of your grandson. May he grow up in a world filled with love and kindness 💕 Thank you for mentioning that we need a CeaseFireNow in Gaza. We in Third Act need to advocate for a CeaseFireNow and for humanitarian aide to be delivered to Gaza because it is the moral position to take . Also the Biden administration needs to stop supporting Genocide in order to win in November.
Congratulations, Bill!! What a beautiful photo of you and Caleb. I hope he comes to know how special his grandfather is and how many people he inspires to help save the Earth. I hope one day when he's older, Caleb comes across my DAR & Earth Series, written for the younger generations so they know exactly how humans allowed this beautiful Earth to become so compromised. Maybe, he will be inspired to restore its viability in honor of his grandfather! Welcome to the world, Caleb! Love, Athena
Congratulations to all and welcome to Asa, I love that photo of you with him. It is a magical time, enjoy every moment and help your daughter out all you can, she'll appreciate you even more and you'll be the winner!
Congratulations Grandpa! So happy for you and for Asa!
Welcome to Asa! Grandparenthood is a special position that promotes caring about the newest little humans and their well-being. It started me on more activism. Enjoy, and thanks for your continued efforts Bill!
Bill, I’m happy to see your tiny “bundle of joy” and to have you as a “fellow Grandpa”
❤️💚💛💙
My grandsons recently celebrated their 26th and 23rd birthdays (both take after my son in the towering height department … I was once 6’1” which they all exceed … and I’ve shrunk a few inches!)
You, too, are quite tall for your height 😉 but prepare for the inevitable effects of gravity and spinal disc compression—you and I have both passed that point of no return … it’s relentless and insidious … no apparent tipping point … just yet 🤔 With your genes and good nutrition, Asa may well tower over you by the time you are a septuagenarian like me (76).
I read your opening paragraphs noting the consternation of climate experts over the unexplained quantum jump in global heat with interest and anticipated “now is the time to put all options of temporary emergency cooling intervention on the table for serious deliberation.”
Watching for clues, there it was, like earth rise viewed from Apollo 8 Christmas Eve 1968:
“The first option—going all-in on the energy transition—doesn’t get us where we need to go, and certainly not by 2030. I don’t see any chance that the temperature won’t still be rising then. But done with vigor it keeps possibilities open…”
That resonates with what I’ve learned from weekly zoom meetings with PhD scientists, engineers and other experts from UK, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy to Australia and New Zealand to Silicon Valley and DC areas.
All except “But done with vigor it keeps possibilities open….” That seems to contradict the preceding sentence. 🧐
This further added to my bewilderment of the contradiction:
“… we have the chance to move over the next five years to establish a counter-momentum to the rising temperature. If we do, by 2030 we’ll be in a place to weigh the options going forward …”
At the accelerating rate of heating and with the time needed to thoroughly, responsibly and cautiously research, test and deploy options, time is running out.
And then you pulled me back to thinking you are ready to talk seriously about cooling intervention to save our assets:
“… our job—everyone’s job these next five years—is to arrest the sudden and sickening lurch upwards in temperature, so that there’s somewhere at least a little stable for those young people to stand as they build that new world that must come.”
But that ‘coup de grâce’ annihilated all hope that you’ve seen the light in Jim Hansen et al’s “Pipeline“ paper: Emissions reduction alone (ERA) will not reverse the rising CO2 concentration and temperature. Reducing emissions to zero—either actual or net zero—will merely slow the rate of the rising.
I’d suggest you chat with Jim Hansen about this conclusion. My money says he’ll disagree with this:
“The best proxy for that stability is the number of solar panels and wind turbines and batteries we install between now and the end of the decade.”
. . . . SRSLY! . . .
Speak out now
. Respectfully .
. . Seriously . .
. . . . Loudly . . .
. . . . . You! . . . .
. . . . . ♥️ . . . . .
Doug
Putney (close enough for a beer 🍺)
Congratulations on the birth of your grandchild! Love the photo of the two of you. "Grandpa" looks great on you, and you'll be a wonderful role model. Blessings to all your family.
Congratulations! He will, no doubt, be one of the many very-much-needed people who can help people, the other animals., and plants in the future climate challenged world. When young people say they don't want to have kids because of their dangerous future, my thought (and belief) is that if someone from our social economic educated background has kids - those kids will be so necessary and important when they grow up and develop careers. By then it will be clear that the most responsible and probably most attractive work will be in education, natural sciences, humanities, and climate justice activism and boots on the ground.
Congratulations, grandpa! Now, you would appreciate reading Christian ethicist Larry Rasmussen’s book, The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing.