Bill, thank you for dedication to that bleeding edge of possibility. I tell my 17 year old grandson, about you and your work to help keep his spirits up. This next generation needs to know that you and others are helping find a way forward. I'm grateful beyond measure, Bill, you give me hope as well. In gratitude, China Galland
Bill, China said it better than I would. For my grandchildren...heck, for ALL of the children, thank you. Your leadership keeps us going.. Also in graditude, Linda Walsh from Third Act NH.
Bill -- You were my early warning when you spoke to Donuts decades ago, but capitalism doesn't support people dealing with climate change. You need people to change for our system to change. If we came from a humanitarian perspective and not an economic one we would create the world we want. Now What?, my Substack, focusses on that. We are so against the wall that we are ripe for system change. How to encourage the wake-up in consciousness that people need is what we should be talking about.
Thank you for posting these summaries, and for the research and time spent doing so. So important even if too many of us fail to grasp the enormity of the crisis we have created. Feel crushing sadness and also energizing motivation. Bless you.
Always important information here. But I remain concerned that even the basics of climate change aren’t getting to the general population. It’s appalling that climate change is rarely a top issue among voters. And mass media is abdicating its responsibilities. If we had just one climate/environment story for every celebrity puff piece, an educated public might be motivated to take constructive action.
Maybe if we all publicize and politicize the horrendous carbon emissions generated by the uber rich flying around in private jets we could move the mass media meaningfully?
Mass media is owned by corporations that benefit from the status quo. MSM is not what it was even 20 years ago. It does not benefit MSM’s owners to communicate the reality of our situation, and there seems to be a concerted effort to keep the general public constantly distracted and always stressed. Not to mention the fact that so many of us are barely hanging on financially (despite the jobs report and profits on Wall Street, neither of which seems to have trickled down into the average person’s reality since wages are not keeping up, and housing is now a huge profit center for corporations along with our so-called health insurance). Average people are struggling, and the truth about so much is obscured and hard to find.
I am stationed just below Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) these days. My own climate work began with IYCN and 350.org in New Delhi back in 2011. We were aware of what’s to come but none of the warnings come close to the reality of what’s going on. I have been observing the rising heat and the negative push back from the Himalayan region for the past few years. Where I am currently is right in the middle of a positive and negative feedback loop and it’s extreme to say the least. One minute there is intense heatwave, enough for the organs to begin malfunctioning and for infections to heal extremely slowly. Another minute short, fast monster clouds producing lightning and thunder. Last year the negative feedback caused flash floods and broken highways. I barely escaped with my family from Manali right before the record breaking floods. This was my self care call after months of warning the authorities. Still no proper public warnings or adaptation measures. Individuals like me who write on platforms like Substack still don’t reach enough people. It’s a sense of helplessness, knowing fully well what all needs to be done and yet not being heard.
It wasn't until my teeth hit grit on my left pinky that I became aware I had been biting my nails through your article. As in literally--- this piece was a nail biter for me.
If you are 60 or older, please join us at the organization Bill McKibben co-founded https://thirdact.org/ as work on preserving the climate and our democracy. Share this with elders in your family and beyond. We are not giving up!
Thanks so much for all this Bill. Amazing snapshot. Here in Maine a few of us have been crunching numbers today to figure out how to get our state to the 50% reduction in the construction industry by 2030 (existing housing stock as well as new housing). It seems we can’t “renewable only” our way out of the housing challenges going forward— conservation needs to play a role. Smaller spaces. Hanging onto the heat (or cool) we do create. Like the example of a better wire that doesn’t sag. That’s not rocket science! We can do this…learn to live like a normal animal.
> Now the job is to make the decline so steep that we build enough momentum to begin catching up with the physics of global warming.
Has anyone done any calculations to determine how much of a reduction of fossil fuels we would need in order to reach some targets? Reductions that also factor in realistic things like reduced fossil fuel prices due to the decrease in demand? I would love to read a serious analysis of this. In other words, how much work is really required?
Bill -- You have the answer to this -- but you won't publish it.
A simple question -- is it more in your interest to keep people stirred up -- or actually give them the one answer we have available right now : that is going to Europe; at the specific request of the EC President -- because substack writers like you won't give your readers the information? -- is makin more money more important to you than helping people?
Do you know how costly it is resting a major power line per mile - some estimate up to a million dollars.
A single POD MOD costs less than $2000 in parts - and can fully power a house with clean "electronically produced electricity - at $0.10 per hour - not per kW/Hr. - per hour.
Mark Z Jacobson from Stanford has been working on the numbers for many years, and says he's calculated ways for every country to go completely carbon neutral on energy very quickly
reckon that it's just not possible nor feasible to obtain the amounts of rare and precious earth materials needed for a "sustainable renewable" transition to a pure electricity-based economy.
They're doubtless correct, and sure-as-neggs know more about the numbers of the situation than me; I just find it to be a startlingly curious correlation that both "used to" work for extractives industries, and, both appear to use their certitude over the *current* state of tech as some sort of rationale for essentially doing nothing at all in response to our predicament.
- To be clear:
the cynical phrase we hear touted so often is about "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"; but that whole line of thinking seems over-engineered to short circuit the idea that it's never too late to finally do the right thing -- in this case to set up energy structures the way they ought to have been decades ago, approximately when Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the West Wing roof, before the pre-Atlas Network backed neo-liberal political takeover started with Regan saw them taken down again) -- and the status quo of trillions in subsidies to fossil fuel industries if redirected to sustainable renewables since Jimmy Carter's days would surely have made a massive difference in the current state of rapidly deteriorating climate breakdown we now see daily... and monthly
- T W E L V E months in a row of record smashing global temperature rises -
but hey, sure, let's not even try to finally get it right; let's not even bother to attempt to leave better structures for any future possible survivors; let's just continue on as if there's no point to any effort at change, right, Art and Simon?
The ICC has issued a warrant for Netenyahu's arrest. How does that allow him to visit the US and address Congress? Are we not a signatory country to the charter for the ICC? If not, why not? Shame on us???
Yes, the rules based order rather than International Law is very convenient- it means the US can do what it likes.
Biden could, of course, stop funding and arming Netanyahu instead of just saying he's fed up with him and pausing one single shipment. Then Israel wouldn't be able to continue the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the indigenous Palestinians.
Missing from your otherwise excellent post is any mention of conservation, which could play a critical role in stabilizing electricity demand. I assume readers of this Substack have already replaced all their incandescent bulbs with warm spectrum LEDs; if not, shame on you! Turn off the lights when you leave the room, set your a/c thermostat to a few degrees higher, and for the sake of nature ditch those outdoor lights!
Aeons ago, when I was a kid my folks set the thermostat to 68 in the summer and 72 in the winter. So: the range 68-72 F was deemed comfortable. As an adult I wonder why this practice is so common, and why we don't simply reverse it. Think about that! Full disclosure: In our household the thermostat is set to 76 days/73 nights in summer and 62 days/60 nights in winter, but we are all in good physical shape and enjoy sticking it to the effing fossil fuel (FFF) industry.
Indeed. As the very blunt and frank Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, has put it, no one even pays attention to the first "R" of the three "R's": reduce, recycle, reuse.
Bill, great reporting of the observations, but I take exception with the following two assertions:
Paragraph #2:
“This newsletter doesn’t describe every hideous consequence of global warming, because there’s not much we can do about it—our job is to try and keep it from getting worse.”
Penultimate paragraph:
“Now the job is to make the decline so steep that we build enough momentum to begin catching up with the physics of global warming.”
What you don’t understand (or are not being forthright about if you do understand) is that simply reducing CO2 emissions to zero or to the abhorrent Net Zero—the assumption that is fundamental to IPCC model scenarios—that requires carbon removal and sequestration has been determined by many non-IPCC scientists not to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations because as the oceans and terra firma heat up they will be unable to absorb as much as in the past.
Jim Hansen and his team, as you know, have determined that substantial removal of atmospheric and oceanic CO2 is the only way to return concentrations and temperatures to Holocene norms, and that various forms of direct cooling are needed quickly on a massive scale to avert extreme heat, weather, food shortages, suffering, death, mass migration and irreversible tipping points—emissions reduction and sequestration cannot be ramped up to scale quickly enough so temporary emergency cooling intervention must be studied, tested and deployed.
To continue to deny this is irresponsible.
ICYMI, TIME’s article “We Need Geoengineering to Stop Out of Control Warming, Warns Climate Scientist James Hansen” explaining Jim et al’s assessment at Bit.ly/TIME2Nov23.
The article opens with this stark summary:
“Today, in a controversial new peer-reviewed paper published in Oxford Open Climate Change, he brings a new warning: Scientists are underestimating how fast the planet is warming. And the crisis will have to be met, in part, with geoengineering.
“According to the report, earth will pass 1.5°C of cumulative warming this decade, and exceed 2°C of warming before 2050. Scientists think that warming in excess of 2°C could unleash more dangerous effects …”
The paper “Global Warming in the Pipeline” is published here for others not familiar with it: Bit.ly/Oxford2Nov23
In a recent interview, Jim stated “1.5°C is deader than a doornail” and “2°C is on its deathbed.” But you already knew that, I am certain.
Bill, why do you continue to ignore the elephant in the room?
Charts and images created by PRAG (Planetary Restoration Action Group) posted at Bit.ly/PRAGfundamentals reflect the work and conclusions of Jim Hansen, whose team have discredited IPCC scenario dictated by UNFCCC and the likes of Mike Mann.
“Moral Hazard” argument is moot as I explained just now to my friend from 1Sky days:
<<Hi, Tama. We must develop strategic global plans for date certain shutting down refineries and legislate enforcement. This is fundamental. But winding down can’t be done quickly enough, nor can carbon removal, so to avoid tipping points, suffering, death, damage, economic collapse and societal chaos, intervention like lifesaving CPR and tourniquets are required. Read Hansens paper and the TIME article. Nobody said choosing EITHER OR … we must do all three legs of the stool>>
There are over FIVE DOZEN measures to test and verify that can plausible cool the Arctic to restore lost albedo and avert Arctic tipping points as well as oceanic and terra firma cooing, e.g., MEER.
We need thought leaders (you!) to advocate in order to shift away from the “conventional wisdom” suicidal trajectory we are on.
Here’s the best unexpected news of the day that will expand our thinking outside the box, so to speak:
I’ll simply repost my Facebook share:
Who would have thought that conserving seaweed forests could be so important … our heating the oceans with our carbon emissions is impeding the natural sequestration of excess carbon in the atmosphere. Planting trees pales compared to restoring lowly kelp. Best news of the day.
<<When we lose seaweed forests, we lose their natural ability to transfer carbon to the deep ocean. But their loss also threatens the other species who rely on them, and the half a trillion dollars of value they provide to us.
<<We should think of conserving seaweed forests in the same way we do forests on land. Scaling up restoration where forests have been lost is vital to ensure these unsung plants can keep supporting us – and help store carbon.>>
Bill, thank you for dedication to that bleeding edge of possibility. I tell my 17 year old grandson, about you and your work to help keep his spirits up. This next generation needs to know that you and others are helping find a way forward. I'm grateful beyond measure, Bill, you give me hope as well. In gratitude, China Galland
Bill, China said it better than I would. For my grandchildren...heck, for ALL of the children, thank you. Your leadership keeps us going.. Also in graditude, Linda Walsh from Third Act NH.
Thank you, China, for speaking for me as well.
Bill -- You were my early warning when you spoke to Donuts decades ago, but capitalism doesn't support people dealing with climate change. You need people to change for our system to change. If we came from a humanitarian perspective and not an economic one we would create the world we want. Now What?, my Substack, focusses on that. We are so against the wall that we are ripe for system change. How to encourage the wake-up in consciousness that people need is what we should be talking about.
Thank you for posting these summaries, and for the research and time spent doing so. So important even if too many of us fail to grasp the enormity of the crisis we have created. Feel crushing sadness and also energizing motivation. Bless you.
The ending hasn't been written yet. Let's hope all of us together can write a happy ending.
Always important information here. But I remain concerned that even the basics of climate change aren’t getting to the general population. It’s appalling that climate change is rarely a top issue among voters. And mass media is abdicating its responsibilities. If we had just one climate/environment story for every celebrity puff piece, an educated public might be motivated to take constructive action.
Maybe if we all publicize and politicize the horrendous carbon emissions generated by the uber rich flying around in private jets we could move the mass media meaningfully?
https://www.stopprivatejetexpansion.org/
The public comment period ends on June 15th.
Mass media is owned by corporations that benefit from the status quo. MSM is not what it was even 20 years ago. It does not benefit MSM’s owners to communicate the reality of our situation, and there seems to be a concerted effort to keep the general public constantly distracted and always stressed. Not to mention the fact that so many of us are barely hanging on financially (despite the jobs report and profits on Wall Street, neither of which seems to have trickled down into the average person’s reality since wages are not keeping up, and housing is now a huge profit center for corporations along with our so-called health insurance). Average people are struggling, and the truth about so much is obscured and hard to find.
I am stationed just below Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) these days. My own climate work began with IYCN and 350.org in New Delhi back in 2011. We were aware of what’s to come but none of the warnings come close to the reality of what’s going on. I have been observing the rising heat and the negative push back from the Himalayan region for the past few years. Where I am currently is right in the middle of a positive and negative feedback loop and it’s extreme to say the least. One minute there is intense heatwave, enough for the organs to begin malfunctioning and for infections to heal extremely slowly. Another minute short, fast monster clouds producing lightning and thunder. Last year the negative feedback caused flash floods and broken highways. I barely escaped with my family from Manali right before the record breaking floods. This was my self care call after months of warning the authorities. Still no proper public warnings or adaptation measures. Individuals like me who write on platforms like Substack still don’t reach enough people. It’s a sense of helplessness, knowing fully well what all needs to be done and yet not being heard.
Decarbonizing academic travel: here's my recent reflection and strategy, https://bryanalexander.org/travel/a-futurist-decarbonizes-his-professional-travel-in-2024-problems-and-options/ .
Thank you for your work. Also, I've caught a typo in:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/images-of-climate-change-that-cannot-be-missed
5th paragraph, 'Word War' should be World War -- though they both seem to be happening right now.
Thank you
I read the Fridays for Future newsletters and here is something you, Bill, know all about but maybe others who get your Substacks do not?
https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/108/517/original/CLIMATE_MATTERS.pdf?
https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/108/519/original/June_2024_FYI.pdf?
There's a petition to sign in the second one also. Thanks so much for all you do, Bill, to keep us informed and energized.
It wasn't until my teeth hit grit on my left pinky that I became aware I had been biting my nails through your article. As in literally--- this piece was a nail biter for me.
If you are 60 or older, please join us at the organization Bill McKibben co-founded https://thirdact.org/ as work on preserving the climate and our democracy. Share this with elders in your family and beyond. We are not giving up!
Thank you!
Thanks so much for all this Bill. Amazing snapshot. Here in Maine a few of us have been crunching numbers today to figure out how to get our state to the 50% reduction in the construction industry by 2030 (existing housing stock as well as new housing). It seems we can’t “renewable only” our way out of the housing challenges going forward— conservation needs to play a role. Smaller spaces. Hanging onto the heat (or cool) we do create. Like the example of a better wire that doesn’t sag. That’s not rocket science! We can do this…learn to live like a normal animal.
Yes and I recently interviewed some great Maine architects on this https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-biden-administrations-plan-to-make-american-homes-more-efficient
> Now the job is to make the decline so steep that we build enough momentum to begin catching up with the physics of global warming.
Has anyone done any calculations to determine how much of a reduction of fossil fuels we would need in order to reach some targets? Reductions that also factor in realistic things like reduced fossil fuel prices due to the decrease in demand? I would love to read a serious analysis of this. In other words, how much work is really required?
Best short term target is roughly 50percent by 2030. With a world war 2 scale effort, on the bleeding edge of possible
Bill -- You have the answer to this -- but you won't publish it.
A simple question -- is it more in your interest to keep people stirred up -- or actually give them the one answer we have available right now : that is going to Europe; at the specific request of the EC President -- because substack writers like you won't give your readers the information? -- is makin more money more important to you than helping people?
Do you know how costly it is resting a major power line per mile - some estimate up to a million dollars.
A single POD MOD costs less than $2000 in parts - and can fully power a house with clean "electronically produced electricity - at $0.10 per hour - not per kW/Hr. - per hour.
Mark Z Jacobson from Stanford has been working on the numbers for many years, and says he's calculated ways for every country to go completely carbon neutral on energy very quickly
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/
... whereas Simon Michaux
https://www.planetcritical.com/p/the-unsustainable-green-transition
and Art Berman
https://www.planetcritical.com/p/energy-wars-art-berman
reckon that it's just not possible nor feasible to obtain the amounts of rare and precious earth materials needed for a "sustainable renewable" transition to a pure electricity-based economy.
They're doubtless correct, and sure-as-neggs know more about the numbers of the situation than me; I just find it to be a startlingly curious correlation that both "used to" work for extractives industries, and, both appear to use their certitude over the *current* state of tech as some sort of rationale for essentially doing nothing at all in response to our predicament.
- To be clear:
the cynical phrase we hear touted so often is about "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic"; but that whole line of thinking seems over-engineered to short circuit the idea that it's never too late to finally do the right thing -- in this case to set up energy structures the way they ought to have been decades ago, approximately when Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the West Wing roof, before the pre-Atlas Network backed neo-liberal political takeover started with Regan saw them taken down again) -- and the status quo of trillions in subsidies to fossil fuel industries if redirected to sustainable renewables since Jimmy Carter's days would surely have made a massive difference in the current state of rapidly deteriorating climate breakdown we now see daily... and monthly
- T W E L V E months in a row of record smashing global temperature rises -
but hey, sure, let's not even try to finally get it right; let's not even bother to attempt to leave better structures for any future possible survivors; let's just continue on as if there's no point to any effort at change, right, Art and Simon?
Or am I mishearing their points?
The ICC has issued a warrant for Netenyahu's arrest. How does that allow him to visit the US and address Congress? Are we not a signatory country to the charter for the ICC? If not, why not? Shame on us???
We are not, unfortunately
Yes, the rules based order rather than International Law is very convenient- it means the US can do what it likes.
Biden could, of course, stop funding and arming Netanyahu instead of just saying he's fed up with him and pausing one single shipment. Then Israel wouldn't be able to continue the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the indigenous Palestinians.
Missing from your otherwise excellent post is any mention of conservation, which could play a critical role in stabilizing electricity demand. I assume readers of this Substack have already replaced all their incandescent bulbs with warm spectrum LEDs; if not, shame on you! Turn off the lights when you leave the room, set your a/c thermostat to a few degrees higher, and for the sake of nature ditch those outdoor lights!
Aeons ago, when I was a kid my folks set the thermostat to 68 in the summer and 72 in the winter. So: the range 68-72 F was deemed comfortable. As an adult I wonder why this practice is so common, and why we don't simply reverse it. Think about that! Full disclosure: In our household the thermostat is set to 76 days/73 nights in summer and 62 days/60 nights in winter, but we are all in good physical shape and enjoy sticking it to the effing fossil fuel (FFF) industry.
Indeed. As the very blunt and frank Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, has put it, no one even pays attention to the first "R" of the three "R's": reduce, recycle, reuse.
(Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/18/magazine/ayana-elizabeth-johnson-interview.html)
While the change to renewables is great, it often comes with the basic assumption that renewables will simply let us keep on keeping on as we do.
good points!
That’s what our family is doing summer: 76 days/73 nights; winter: 62 days/60 nights.
Bill, great reporting of the observations, but I take exception with the following two assertions:
Paragraph #2:
“This newsletter doesn’t describe every hideous consequence of global warming, because there’s not much we can do about it—our job is to try and keep it from getting worse.”
Penultimate paragraph:
“Now the job is to make the decline so steep that we build enough momentum to begin catching up with the physics of global warming.”
What you don’t understand (or are not being forthright about if you do understand) is that simply reducing CO2 emissions to zero or to the abhorrent Net Zero—the assumption that is fundamental to IPCC model scenarios—that requires carbon removal and sequestration has been determined by many non-IPCC scientists not to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations because as the oceans and terra firma heat up they will be unable to absorb as much as in the past.
Jim Hansen and his team, as you know, have determined that substantial removal of atmospheric and oceanic CO2 is the only way to return concentrations and temperatures to Holocene norms, and that various forms of direct cooling are needed quickly on a massive scale to avert extreme heat, weather, food shortages, suffering, death, mass migration and irreversible tipping points—emissions reduction and sequestration cannot be ramped up to scale quickly enough so temporary emergency cooling intervention must be studied, tested and deployed.
To continue to deny this is irresponsible.
ICYMI, TIME’s article “We Need Geoengineering to Stop Out of Control Warming, Warns Climate Scientist James Hansen” explaining Jim et al’s assessment at Bit.ly/TIME2Nov23.
The article opens with this stark summary:
“Today, in a controversial new peer-reviewed paper published in Oxford Open Climate Change, he brings a new warning: Scientists are underestimating how fast the planet is warming. And the crisis will have to be met, in part, with geoengineering.
“According to the report, earth will pass 1.5°C of cumulative warming this decade, and exceed 2°C of warming before 2050. Scientists think that warming in excess of 2°C could unleash more dangerous effects …”
The paper “Global Warming in the Pipeline” is published here for others not familiar with it: Bit.ly/Oxford2Nov23
In a recent interview, Jim stated “1.5°C is deader than a doornail” and “2°C is on its deathbed.” But you already knew that, I am certain.
Bill, why do you continue to ignore the elephant in the room?
Charts and images created by PRAG (Planetary Restoration Action Group) posted at Bit.ly/PRAGfundamentals reflect the work and conclusions of Jim Hansen, whose team have discredited IPCC scenario dictated by UNFCCC and the likes of Mike Mann.
“Moral Hazard” argument is moot as I explained just now to my friend from 1Sky days:
<<Hi, Tama. We must develop strategic global plans for date certain shutting down refineries and legislate enforcement. This is fundamental. But winding down can’t be done quickly enough, nor can carbon removal, so to avoid tipping points, suffering, death, damage, economic collapse and societal chaos, intervention like lifesaving CPR and tourniquets are required. Read Hansens paper and the TIME article. Nobody said choosing EITHER OR … we must do all three legs of the stool>>
There are over FIVE DOZEN measures to test and verify that can plausible cool the Arctic to restore lost albedo and avert Arctic tipping points as well as oceanic and terra firma cooing, e.g., MEER.
We need thought leaders (you!) to advocate in order to shift away from the “conventional wisdom” suicidal trajectory we are on.
Here’s the best unexpected news of the day that will expand our thinking outside the box, so to speak:
I’ll simply repost my Facebook share:
Who would have thought that conserving seaweed forests could be so important … our heating the oceans with our carbon emissions is impeding the natural sequestration of excess carbon in the atmosphere. Planting trees pales compared to restoring lowly kelp. Best news of the day.
https://theconversation.com/buried-kelp-seaweed-carried-to-the-deep-sea-stores-more-carbon-than-we-thought-228888
The concluding paragraphs:
<<When we lose seaweed forests, we lose their natural ability to transfer carbon to the deep ocean. But their loss also threatens the other species who rely on them, and the half a trillion dollars of value they provide to us.
<<We should think of conserving seaweed forests in the same way we do forests on land. Scaling up restoration where forests have been lost is vital to ensure these unsung plants can keep supporting us – and help store carbon.>>