Great blog as always! The news about electric vehicles from China is amazing. I think the US government greatly underestimates China's technological prowess. One scary bit of climate-related news that you didn't mention is a paper in PNAS (vol. 122, #11) from China showing that microplastics are getting into both terrestrial and aquatic plants. These particles cause a reduction in the amount of chlorophyll the plants synthesize, thereby leading to significant reductions in the amount of photosynthesis the affected plants can carry out. The authors project that this will have a noticeable effect on agricultural production of food as well as on primary production levels in all ecosystems where the plants are affected. This is a big deal! The authors don't discuss in detail the issues surrounding the decrease in CO2 uptake that will result from reduced levels of photosynthesis.
Mother Earth says thank you, Bill. And so do some of the rest of us who can focus our attention on what creativity and community can create together ! In this first 90 days of blunt trauma force shock rage campaign, I can’t decide which one i could be more outraged about …is it The demolition derby against NOAA, EPA and the Clean Air and Water protections being redefined to allow polluters to prosper OR is it the new designations of environmental organizers for the planet are ….”eco terrorists” 😳🥶🤯
Thank you for your weekly dose of hope and action ….i love jane Fondas art for sun day but i also appreciate how we can focus our intentional actions on anything that has to do with Sourcing the Sun, Reforesting the Planet and Protecting our Oceans lakes rivers and streams. This looks good too!
How about i Quote you AnD celebrate the new leader of the IOC and our young athletes, go olympics! 🙂🙏
“ 1. Strengthening commitments to swiftly cut carbon emissions;
2. Championing sustainable practices in Host Cities;
3. Setting a standard regarding high polluting sponsorships;
4. Using the IOC’s platform to advocate for broader environmental action
In this ever-more-fractured world, the Olympics, imperfect as they are, remains one of the few forces pulling us together. Such thanks to the young people who see their chance to make a difference!” Yes👍
Paul Krugman had a substack post "America is trapped inside a burning Tesla". It's no joke. My daughter's Model 3 doesn't have manual back door releases and the front door manual releases are hidden.
Anyone with a Tesla should be doing fire drills to know that they can get our of their car, if it catches on fire (death rates in Teslas are double that of the average car). This is a great metaphor for Musk--building a car that catches on fire without having a way to get out if the electricily fails.
We're stuck in a country without any back up plan, if disaster strikes. I'm rather convinced that some of those in the Trump administration are good with killing people to reduce population. The fallacy is that the top 1% of the richest creates as much CO2 as the bottom 60% of the world's population. I have ideas on who should go first if we wish to thin the population. 🤪
Bill, this is an awesome newsletter, as always. It mixes the good (technology) with the bad (climate breakdown). However, may I suggest you not take the Chinese government's word at face value regarding canceling the BYD plant in Mexico? It's offensive to Mexico; Sheinbaum has courageously stood up to Trump and would not allow Musk to steal tech secrets in her country. Even if it is a real concern of China's, I would guess it has as much or more to do with the fact that it's not profitable to build a plant for export to the US market while Trump ramps up his tariff trade war with China and with his two neighbors. There is a market for BYD cars in Mexico and the rest of Latin America but it's probably not large enough yet to offset the costs and lack of access to the US market. My two cents, anyway.
Bill McKibben's postings have always been informative; sometimes they have been terrifying, as it became increasingly clear that the world was NOT going to realize the critical goal of <1.5C increase in global temperatures. Increasingly, though the news is still terrible at times, Bill is confirming for me what I have always believed, and that is that the economics of energy will, inevitably, dictate a renewable future. I do wonder, increasingly, about the intellects of fossil fuel executives, whose incredibly short-term thinking would appear to be leading their corporations to their self-destruction. What about the diversification of investment do they not understand?
I find lots of good news about Climate because I look for it. Then I share it and celebrate it.
I see the fossil fuel industry circling the bowl, as the saying goes. The energy transition is unstoppable because non-fossil energy is cheaper. And, of course better for people and planet. We will achieve climate restoration, defined as CO2 in the atmosphere below 300 ppm, a level both achievable with our help, and proven over millennia to be safe for humans.
That said, this post about Tesla and big oil is the best news about Climate I have seen today.
I call for a round of applause for Bill McKibben. Keeping us informed and inspired yet again.
Thanks, Bill, for this piece and all you do for the environment. However, isn't the real issue Global Heating, not so much WHERE the heat is coming from: eg. solar panels heat-up in the sun and only a fraction of the absorbed heat is converted into electricity, which then drives appliances producing waste heat. I have never seen a direct joule per joule analysis of fossil fuel generated vs solar radiation generated waste heat generation. Remember, our dear polymath Eliot Jacobson calculates that the total heat energy generation between trapped solar and fossil fuel burning is the equivalent of 20 Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTUs. To borrow a Pres. Clinton metaphor: "It's the heat, stupid". The rate of global ice melting is increasing, according to my goto climate science service: C3S, who measure 1.2 trillion tons of global ice melting annually, so 3.3 billion tons per day on average. And, aren't we really talking about the hydrological cycle: ice => water => water vapor, all absorbing heat energy and transporting it ultimately into outer space to cool the planet's surface?
Yes, it's the rising heat – and the resulting cascade of multiple consequences which can't be stopped. But renewables boosters blithely sail past the facts, somehow still believing that solar, wind, EVs & batteries will save the day even as we drive terrestrial & marine ecosystems into collapse. I'm afraid that our Bill is sadly misinformed about the centrality of electricity and the promise of a technological "clean energy future". CO2 concentration is now ~426 ppm, the poles are melting, phytoplankton is disappearing from the Southern Ocean, international conflict over resources is now fully in the open... and so on.
The only way to reduce total emissions is to use LESS energy and the world is not going to do that as FFs are ~80% of total energy. And the only way to slow acceleration of global heating is to pull GHGs back out of the atmosphere & oceans, but we will not be doing that either. As the Saudi oil minister pledged a few years ago, "we will dig up & burn every last molecule of carbon."
The delay in admitting the game is lost further delays shifting serious attention to adaptation, guaranteeing more danger & harm.
EVs, net zero gasoline, renewables, Musk and BIG OIL alone cannot drawdown trillions of tons of accumulated legacy CO2 emissions required to recool Eaarth to Holocene <350ppm
… BUT …
When 20 score people converge in a single room with a single objective … one brilliant gold nugget will emerge, and Easrth will become 1% brighter.
"I’m beginning to think you can imagine a world where the U.S. builds tariff walls around its borders, prevents the easy development and spread of technology like EVs and heat pumps, and manages to become an island of internal combustion on an increasingly electrified world."
I'm inclined to think better options for road transport in the long run will be ubiquitous 2-way charger fitted parking spaces for vehicles not being driven supplemented by embedded in-road charging systems that charge the batteries of vehicles that ARE being driven. The latter does not require all roads everywhere, but much smaller amounts strategically located - primarily on busy approaches and exits to cities and town and on heavily trafficked uphill sections.
We are far better placed to reduce fossil fuel burning than ever before - much better than even the optimists imagined - because of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs making more out solar and wind and batteries and heat pumps than even the optimists imagined. They remade the empty gesture and enough rope funding ('you care so much, you fix it') into the rope ladder used to climb into viability.
An economic cost tipping point has been crossed and nothing will be the same because of that. Unlike the supposed fall back (aka bar-too-high) option - nuclear - making clean primary energy with RE has become cheaper than using fossil fuels.
Whilst nuclear is never expected to achieve cost parity or be cheaper than fossil fuels - therefore presents no long term threat to them (part of why the doubt, deny, delay crowd pretend to prefer it for low emissions) - RE is being taken up in extraordinary amounts, driven primarily by demand for electricity at least cost.
Like fighting a rising tide to stand in the way of that... yet it really can stand in the way of sea level rise.
That's why BYD sales are exploding here in tariff-free Australia, where we're aiming to hit 90% renewable power by the mid-30s, while determinedly ignoring Trump's madness.
It's a strange world when China's Xi is more believeable than the US President, but there it is.
BTW I'm writing this from my solar-powered caravan, as we are travelling full-time this year.
Imagine losing your global tech lead because your billionaires were too busy trolling the world on X. Meanwhile, China quietly engineers five-minute EV charging. This isn’t just a humiliation—it’s a business obituary being written in real-time. America didn’t get outcompeted. It got distracted. And now fossil fuel barons and Twitter warlords are trying to glue the past back together while the rest of the world installs solar panels and drives off into the future.
Great blog as always! The news about electric vehicles from China is amazing. I think the US government greatly underestimates China's technological prowess. One scary bit of climate-related news that you didn't mention is a paper in PNAS (vol. 122, #11) from China showing that microplastics are getting into both terrestrial and aquatic plants. These particles cause a reduction in the amount of chlorophyll the plants synthesize, thereby leading to significant reductions in the amount of photosynthesis the affected plants can carry out. The authors project that this will have a noticeable effect on agricultural production of food as well as on primary production levels in all ecosystems where the plants are affected. This is a big deal! The authors don't discuss in detail the issues surrounding the decrease in CO2 uptake that will result from reduced levels of photosynthesis.
Thanks for all you do. I love your sign. I traded in my Tesla for a Hyundai. Financial it made no sense but it had to be done.
Great column and loved the graphics showing the increased presence of renewables.
Mother Earth says thank you, Bill. And so do some of the rest of us who can focus our attention on what creativity and community can create together ! In this first 90 days of blunt trauma force shock rage campaign, I can’t decide which one i could be more outraged about …is it The demolition derby against NOAA, EPA and the Clean Air and Water protections being redefined to allow polluters to prosper OR is it the new designations of environmental organizers for the planet are ….”eco terrorists” 😳🥶🤯
Thank you for your weekly dose of hope and action ….i love jane Fondas art for sun day but i also appreciate how we can focus our intentional actions on anything that has to do with Sourcing the Sun, Reforesting the Planet and Protecting our Oceans lakes rivers and streams. This looks good too!
How about i Quote you AnD celebrate the new leader of the IOC and our young athletes, go olympics! 🙂🙏
“ 1. Strengthening commitments to swiftly cut carbon emissions;
2. Championing sustainable practices in Host Cities;
3. Setting a standard regarding high polluting sponsorships;
4. Using the IOC’s platform to advocate for broader environmental action
In this ever-more-fractured world, the Olympics, imperfect as they are, remains one of the few forces pulling us together. Such thanks to the young people who see their chance to make a difference!” Yes👍
Paul Krugman had a substack post "America is trapped inside a burning Tesla". It's no joke. My daughter's Model 3 doesn't have manual back door releases and the front door manual releases are hidden.
Anyone with a Tesla should be doing fire drills to know that they can get our of their car, if it catches on fire (death rates in Teslas are double that of the average car). This is a great metaphor for Musk--building a car that catches on fire without having a way to get out if the electricily fails.
We're stuck in a country without any back up plan, if disaster strikes. I'm rather convinced that some of those in the Trump administration are good with killing people to reduce population. The fallacy is that the top 1% of the richest creates as much CO2 as the bottom 60% of the world's population. I have ideas on who should go first if we wish to thin the population. 🤪
Bill, this is an awesome newsletter, as always. It mixes the good (technology) with the bad (climate breakdown). However, may I suggest you not take the Chinese government's word at face value regarding canceling the BYD plant in Mexico? It's offensive to Mexico; Sheinbaum has courageously stood up to Trump and would not allow Musk to steal tech secrets in her country. Even if it is a real concern of China's, I would guess it has as much or more to do with the fact that it's not profitable to build a plant for export to the US market while Trump ramps up his tariff trade war with China and with his two neighbors. There is a market for BYD cars in Mexico and the rest of Latin America but it's probably not large enough yet to offset the costs and lack of access to the US market. My two cents, anyway.
Bill McKibben's postings have always been informative; sometimes they have been terrifying, as it became increasingly clear that the world was NOT going to realize the critical goal of <1.5C increase in global temperatures. Increasingly, though the news is still terrible at times, Bill is confirming for me what I have always believed, and that is that the economics of energy will, inevitably, dictate a renewable future. I do wonder, increasingly, about the intellects of fossil fuel executives, whose incredibly short-term thinking would appear to be leading their corporations to their self-destruction. What about the diversification of investment do they not understand?
I find lots of good news about Climate because I look for it. Then I share it and celebrate it.
I see the fossil fuel industry circling the bowl, as the saying goes. The energy transition is unstoppable because non-fossil energy is cheaper. And, of course better for people and planet. We will achieve climate restoration, defined as CO2 in the atmosphere below 300 ppm, a level both achievable with our help, and proven over millennia to be safe for humans.
That said, this post about Tesla and big oil is the best news about Climate I have seen today.
I call for a round of applause for Bill McKibben. Keeping us informed and inspired yet again.
Aw my improbable leader, thank you For your vigilance and willingness to get the truth out there! TAO says you are such an inspiring voice!!
Thanks, Bill, for this piece and all you do for the environment. However, isn't the real issue Global Heating, not so much WHERE the heat is coming from: eg. solar panels heat-up in the sun and only a fraction of the absorbed heat is converted into electricity, which then drives appliances producing waste heat. I have never seen a direct joule per joule analysis of fossil fuel generated vs solar radiation generated waste heat generation. Remember, our dear polymath Eliot Jacobson calculates that the total heat energy generation between trapped solar and fossil fuel burning is the equivalent of 20 Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTUs. To borrow a Pres. Clinton metaphor: "It's the heat, stupid". The rate of global ice melting is increasing, according to my goto climate science service: C3S, who measure 1.2 trillion tons of global ice melting annually, so 3.3 billion tons per day on average. And, aren't we really talking about the hydrological cycle: ice => water => water vapor, all absorbing heat energy and transporting it ultimately into outer space to cool the planet's surface?
Yes, it's the rising heat – and the resulting cascade of multiple consequences which can't be stopped. But renewables boosters blithely sail past the facts, somehow still believing that solar, wind, EVs & batteries will save the day even as we drive terrestrial & marine ecosystems into collapse. I'm afraid that our Bill is sadly misinformed about the centrality of electricity and the promise of a technological "clean energy future". CO2 concentration is now ~426 ppm, the poles are melting, phytoplankton is disappearing from the Southern Ocean, international conflict over resources is now fully in the open... and so on.
The only way to reduce total emissions is to use LESS energy and the world is not going to do that as FFs are ~80% of total energy. And the only way to slow acceleration of global heating is to pull GHGs back out of the atmosphere & oceans, but we will not be doing that either. As the Saudi oil minister pledged a few years ago, "we will dig up & burn every last molecule of carbon."
The delay in admitting the game is lost further delays shifting serious attention to adaptation, guaranteeing more danger & harm.
DIsagree. We may have to play catch-up, but as the signals of climate change get stronger, the more we'll get the will to change.
EVs, net zero gasoline, renewables, Musk and BIG OIL alone cannot drawdown trillions of tons of accumulated legacy CO2 emissions required to recool Eaarth to Holocene <350ppm
… BUT …
When 20 score people converge in a single room with a single objective … one brilliant gold nugget will emerge, and Easrth will become 1% brighter.
https://www.onepercentbrighter.com/p/somebody-in-this-room-is-going-to
Another fine issue.
This is elegantly put, likely, and dark:
"I’m beginning to think you can imagine a world where the U.S. builds tariff walls around its borders, prevents the easy development and spread of technology like EVs and heat pumps, and manages to become an island of internal combustion on an increasingly electrified world."
I'm inclined to think better options for road transport in the long run will be ubiquitous 2-way charger fitted parking spaces for vehicles not being driven supplemented by embedded in-road charging systems that charge the batteries of vehicles that ARE being driven. The latter does not require all roads everywhere, but much smaller amounts strategically located - primarily on busy approaches and exits to cities and town and on heavily trafficked uphill sections.
We are far better placed to reduce fossil fuel burning than ever before - much better than even the optimists imagined - because of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs making more out solar and wind and batteries and heat pumps than even the optimists imagined. They remade the empty gesture and enough rope funding ('you care so much, you fix it') into the rope ladder used to climb into viability.
An economic cost tipping point has been crossed and nothing will be the same because of that. Unlike the supposed fall back (aka bar-too-high) option - nuclear - making clean primary energy with RE has become cheaper than using fossil fuels.
Whilst nuclear is never expected to achieve cost parity or be cheaper than fossil fuels - therefore presents no long term threat to them (part of why the doubt, deny, delay crowd pretend to prefer it for low emissions) - RE is being taken up in extraordinary amounts, driven primarily by demand for electricity at least cost.
Like fighting a rising tide to stand in the way of that... yet it really can stand in the way of sea level rise.
I wish we could buy BYD's in America. All I want is an affordable EV, but our government has decided only rich people are allowed to buy EVs.
That's why BYD sales are exploding here in tariff-free Australia, where we're aiming to hit 90% renewable power by the mid-30s, while determinedly ignoring Trump's madness.
It's a strange world when China's Xi is more believeable than the US President, but there it is.
BTW I'm writing this from my solar-powered caravan, as we are travelling full-time this year.
Imagine losing your global tech lead because your billionaires were too busy trolling the world on X. Meanwhile, China quietly engineers five-minute EV charging. This isn’t just a humiliation—it’s a business obituary being written in real-time. America didn’t get outcompeted. It got distracted. And now fossil fuel barons and Twitter warlords are trying to glue the past back together while the rest of the world installs solar panels and drives off into the future.