Good piece. (The shutdown of the offshore wind project off my home state infuriates me.) But the photo of John McCain with a backyard propane (LPG) grill really seems inappropriate - both because I'll bet a lot of your readers, including progressive ones, still have such grills (not to mention gas stoves). And because McCain, while imperfect, was a champion of climate action, as EDF's Fred Krupp explained in 2018 upon McCain's passing: “Long before other Republican lawmakers, McCain spoke out loudly about the dangers climate pollution posed to America and the world. While his colleagues treated climate change as a political issue, or sought to protect their benefactors, the gentleman from Arizona warned about ‘[the melting of glaciers, the dying of coral reefs, and rising ocean temperatures.’ If McCain’s colleagues had followed his lead, the risks Americans face from climate change today would be far more manageable and less costly. https://www.edf.org/media/sen-john-mccain-was-warrior-climate
Um, the piece uses his words to salutary effect. I wrote a long profile of McCain early on in his climate champion days. Sorry to offend your sensibilities
Sorry, but leading with a photo of Senator McCain with the caption "using fracked gas for the purpose God intended" is hard to interpret as salutary no matter what came in the following text. I'd imagine that would offend many climate champions, including Fred Krupp, Tim Wirth, Gina McCarthy.... And, again, the piece itself is a fine distillation of where Trump and the GOP are taking us. I vote for shifting it to a screen grab of Chris Wright in this video drinking fracking fluid in 2019: https://youtu.be/9jJPbwTdaQE?si=QtSVzX7MexZXGsaH&t=82
Agree, Andy, not sure if the caption “using fracked gas for the purpose God intended” was meant to be facetious, sarcastic or humorous, it’s too nuanced for me to have a clear takeaway.
Yes, greed is driving much of this administration’s energy and infrastructure actions, but it seems important to understand it is more than that. It is not rational. Trump and his sycophants are operating in a post-truth paradigm that is functionally insane, vindictive, and omnicidal. It promotes carbon based energy while waging hybrid warfare against blue states.
The rational blue states need to create multi-state associations to take control of energy using the States Rights mantra. As a region, they can fund the completion of the Revolution project if they act quickly. Western states are banding together to take responsibility for science based vaccination and public health. If red states can control women’s health, blue states can and must tackle that, energy, and basically build back a shadow functioning government to protect their citizens. Don’t wait for elections. NOW.
" Here comes the sun ☀️😎, little 🌻 darling 💋‼️🔥 It's all right 👍 ‼️👋😎🌻🌻💥💪🤑‼️💪😎 " George Harrison 💞💞. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. The sky 💥 is 🍁🌠 falling 🌠... Chicken 🐔🍗 Little was right. That's why he ❌🤞 crossed the 🛣️ road. 👋🤓
A recent article in Nature (9/4/2025) called "A prudent planetary limit for geologic carbon storage" analyzes the storage potential for CO2 captured by CCS. It's less than one might think. The authors find that the planetary limit for storage in sedimentary basins is around 1,460 Gt of CO2. Full use of this storage capacity would create a possible global temperature reduction of around 0.7 degrees Celsius, i. e., not very much. Achieving even this limited amount of reduction would likely prove to be very expensive and disruptive. How much simpler it would be to build more solar panels and wind farms! And less risky too.
If there is any better example of the waste and ignorance ( other than paying our armed forces to police our city streets) of this administration, it is to say no to proceeding with windpower projects and efforts in motion to reduce greenhouse gasses. There are no better reasons, even the tariff fiascos, to get rid of Trump, Vance and all cabinet secretaries and have a general election for the entire administration. ASAP! Why wait until 2026. Impeach the lot of them!
Greed is a big part of this, but another piece is politics. Look at electoral college maps and you will see that causing economic pain in New England and the mid Atlantic states will have no negative impact on MAGA candidates and politicians. Revenge and weakening opponents are both motivations here. Texas will enjoy the low prices that solar brings and New England will suffer the high prices that a delayed wind project will bring.
🐪🐫 Humpty Trumpty sat on a 🧱 Wall 🧱. Humpty Trumpty had a great 🍁🍂 fall. All the 👑 King's 🐎🐴 horses and all the kings men could not put TRUMPTY back 🔙 together again‼️👋😲👑🍁
Bill, every time I read ‘The Crucial Years’ I wonder if the people who need to hear the dire message will.
Today, you raised an issue that has concerned me for quite some time, and it should be delivered to three people in particular who likely will never read today’s blog, let alone this juicy tidbit:
<< +Bad news from the oceans, whose ability to sequester carbon seems to be shrinking.
<<A new study finds that the global ocean absorbed almost one billion tonnes or around ten percent less CO2 than anticipated based on previous years.>>
This undermines the fundamental assumption that underlies the firm belief that atmospheric CO2 concentration and global average temperature will decline within a few years of achieving Net Zero touted by very distinguished personalities including, notably, Michael Mann, Al Gore and Katharine Hayhoe … you know.
If your sources are right and the trusted climate experts are misinformed, delusional or just stubborn, we are on a delusional and deadly trajectory. I believe our mutual friend Jim Hansen would accept an invitation to join you, Mann, Gore and Hayhoe in a zoom summit or a secluded natural retreat to talk strategically what appropriate backup plans might entail.
Good piece. (The shutdown of the offshore wind project off my home state infuriates me.) But the photo of John McCain with a backyard propane (LPG) grill really seems inappropriate - both because I'll bet a lot of your readers, including progressive ones, still have such grills (not to mention gas stoves). And because McCain, while imperfect, was a champion of climate action, as EDF's Fred Krupp explained in 2018 upon McCain's passing: “Long before other Republican lawmakers, McCain spoke out loudly about the dangers climate pollution posed to America and the world. While his colleagues treated climate change as a political issue, or sought to protect their benefactors, the gentleman from Arizona warned about ‘[the melting of glaciers, the dying of coral reefs, and rising ocean temperatures.’ If McCain’s colleagues had followed his lead, the risks Americans face from climate change today would be far more manageable and less costly. https://www.edf.org/media/sen-john-mccain-was-warrior-climate
Um, the piece uses his words to salutary effect. I wrote a long profile of McCain early on in his climate champion days. Sorry to offend your sensibilities
this is also true. but the photo is a bit incongruous with the text, no?
Sorry, but leading with a photo of Senator McCain with the caption "using fracked gas for the purpose God intended" is hard to interpret as salutary no matter what came in the following text. I'd imagine that would offend many climate champions, including Fred Krupp, Tim Wirth, Gina McCarthy.... And, again, the piece itself is a fine distillation of where Trump and the GOP are taking us. I vote for shifting it to a screen grab of Chris Wright in this video drinking fracking fluid in 2019: https://youtu.be/9jJPbwTdaQE?si=QtSVzX7MexZXGsaH&t=82
Original on Liberty Energy's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=417853412359929
agreed- it turns out that McCain was one of the better ones...as was Romney.
Agree, Andy, not sure if the caption “using fracked gas for the purpose God intended” was meant to be facetious, sarcastic or humorous, it’s too nuanced for me to have a clear takeaway.
Thank you for speaking up! https://www.instagram.com/p/DNqfDX_R5UQ/
Yes, greed is driving much of this administration’s energy and infrastructure actions, but it seems important to understand it is more than that. It is not rational. Trump and his sycophants are operating in a post-truth paradigm that is functionally insane, vindictive, and omnicidal. It promotes carbon based energy while waging hybrid warfare against blue states.
The rational blue states need to create multi-state associations to take control of energy using the States Rights mantra. As a region, they can fund the completion of the Revolution project if they act quickly. Western states are banding together to take responsibility for science based vaccination and public health. If red states can control women’s health, blue states can and must tackle that, energy, and basically build back a shadow functioning government to protect their citizens. Don’t wait for elections. NOW.
Omnicidal. Good word. These psychopaths somehow think they're going to survive this.
So frustrating,voting matters ! People that did not vote. Please vote, get off your butts .
" Here comes the sun ☀️😎, little 🌻 darling 💋‼️🔥 It's all right 👍 ‼️👋😎🌻🌻💥💪🤑‼️💪😎 " George Harrison 💞💞. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. The sky 💥 is 🍁🌠 falling 🌠... Chicken 🐔🍗 Little was right. That's why he ❌🤞 crossed the 🛣️ road. 👋🤓
That was food for thought, but it tasted like... chicken 🐔🍗.
Horrifying. Can't states in the northeast take over the project?
I was wondering the same. If they could, I would pressure Healey and my reps.
Or maybe the private sector could step in. Or several nonprofits could take it on, and other similar projects. I would definitely donate.
A recent article in Nature (9/4/2025) called "A prudent planetary limit for geologic carbon storage" analyzes the storage potential for CO2 captured by CCS. It's less than one might think. The authors find that the planetary limit for storage in sedimentary basins is around 1,460 Gt of CO2. Full use of this storage capacity would create a possible global temperature reduction of around 0.7 degrees Celsius, i. e., not very much. Achieving even this limited amount of reduction would likely prove to be very expensive and disruptive. How much simpler it would be to build more solar panels and wind farms! And less risky too.
I hope that states and ? provinces could invest in this vital offshore project ? What do Canadians think?
If there is any better example of the waste and ignorance ( other than paying our armed forces to police our city streets) of this administration, it is to say no to proceeding with windpower projects and efforts in motion to reduce greenhouse gasses. There are no better reasons, even the tariff fiascos, to get rid of Trump, Vance and all cabinet secretaries and have a general election for the entire administration. ASAP! Why wait until 2026. Impeach the lot of them!
Excellent!
Fracking democracy and the biosphere could be this regime's central legacies unless strategic civil resistance stops them.
Greed is a big part of this, but another piece is politics. Look at electoral college maps and you will see that causing economic pain in New England and the mid Atlantic states will have no negative impact on MAGA candidates and politicians. Revenge and weakening opponents are both motivations here. Texas will enjoy the low prices that solar brings and New England will suffer the high prices that a delayed wind project will bring.
maybe if they called it Operation Trump BIG WIND he would go for it.
🐪🐫 Humpty Trumpty sat on a 🧱 Wall 🧱. Humpty Trumpty had a great 🍁🍂 fall. All the 👑 King's 🐎🐴 horses and all the kings men could not put TRUMPTY back 🔙 together again‼️👋😲👑🍁
So 😢 sad to hear about 👑 King 🐪 Humpty TRUMPTY. He was a good 🍳🥚 egg. But now❓❓... He's a broken man. Definitely 🐚 shell 🫨😲 shocked ‼️👋🥵.👋🤔
Hi Mr. McKibben,
I’m hoping to start a campaign “Divest from Healthcare on Wall Street and put your $$$ in Climate Control.
I have heard a while back,if we ‘really’ dealt with Climate control, we could start to turn it around in 20 years. Is this still true?
Do you have ‘master plan” or does anyone else, ? UN?, another country?
Thank you for any help you can offer!
Barbara Commins
Do you have a list socially responsible making, doing something about climate
Bill, every time I read ‘The Crucial Years’ I wonder if the people who need to hear the dire message will.
Today, you raised an issue that has concerned me for quite some time, and it should be delivered to three people in particular who likely will never read today’s blog, let alone this juicy tidbit:
<< +Bad news from the oceans, whose ability to sequester carbon seems to be shrinking.
<<A new study finds that the global ocean absorbed almost one billion tonnes or around ten percent less CO2 than anticipated based on previous years.>>
This undermines the fundamental assumption that underlies the firm belief that atmospheric CO2 concentration and global average temperature will decline within a few years of achieving Net Zero touted by very distinguished personalities including, notably, Michael Mann, Al Gore and Katharine Hayhoe … you know.
If your sources are right and the trusted climate experts are misinformed, delusional or just stubborn, we are on a delusional and deadly trajectory. I believe our mutual friend Jim Hansen would accept an invitation to join you, Mann, Gore and Hayhoe in a zoom summit or a secluded natural retreat to talk strategically what appropriate backup plans might entail.
Best regards,
Doug