Trump's energy policy - to the extent he has one - is to radically cut back on EV, solar, wind, geothermal, and battery storage, allowing China to surge even further ahead. In Trump's plan, the US is to boost gasoline & diesel burning cars, and continue extracting and burning as much oil, gas and coal as possible for as long as possible. [Trump will be dead before the very worst climate effects show up, but he's never cared about anyone but himself.]
So we have to get Harris in the White House if humanity is to have any chance at all of surviving in some form other than a new Neolithic Age.
"Time is short. Because we’ve waited so long to act decisively, we now have just a few years left before we’re fully committed to a future hotter than any that has existed on earth since humanity emerged." The time for a tax on net CO2 emissions was the '70's, but better let than never.
<<Our only hope of avoiding utter ruin … is to turn off those volcanoes immediately. And that, of course, requires replacing coal and gas and oil with something else.>>
Today’s volcanoes are nothing compared to the volcanoes then … by orders of magnitude.
A ginormous volcanic eruption the scale of 1991 Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines certainly causesd a lot of damage, anxiety and grief to modern Filipino inhabitants, but nothing long lasting nor nearly on extinction scale.
In fact, the blast of sulfate up into the stratosphere was minuscule in the big picture but sufficient to cause both cooling effects for a couple years (~0.5°C) and purportedly the sequestration of gigatons of CO2 that reduced atmospheric concentration 2.5ppm by presumably fertilizing the phytoplankton and other flora and fauna at the bottom of the ocean food chain.
We are now in a horse race to avert heat induced tipping of the AMOC, Arctic, and Antarctic which are nose-to-nose with runaway power needs of new tech and the giant data centers civilization is becoming irreversibly dependent upon.
It’s time to end the irrational fears of safe research and cautious stepwise responsible deployment of tourniquet-like Mt.Pinatubo-mimicking cooling and refreezing of the poles, which scientists believe can buy us time to wind down the last vestiges of J.D. Rockefeller’s ( July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) greedy folly.
My focus is half way around the world at 2° higher latitude at Tromsø and coastal points easterly … the Sámi are fighting Norwegian and Finnish human rights violations—Google that entire phrase, also Fosen wind farm (just now tagged you in a post).
"The US could essentially double the capacity of its electrical grid overnight by plugging renewables projects into old fossil fuel power plants, University of California Berkeley researchers found, whether they be coal, gas or oil. And projects could be plugged into existing plants, not just ones that are retiring."
Just "retrofit" every coal-fired plant with nuclear generation.
I am so excited that the carbon capture plant is failing now, before they can wast our money on lots more. I look for your comments on rumored better batteries that don't involve lithium mining. And I really appreciate you sharing this for free, because some of us are putting our labor into action instead of making money in the corporate world. Thanks for recognizing that.
We don't know , but as likely as not, we have passed the tipping point for the complete melting of the Arctic and Greenland Ice, which would raise sea level 5 meters possibly by 2100 or so. Thats the case if we did not put a molecule of any greenhouse gas into the atmosphere beginning in 2025. The world is likely already hot enough to complete the melt of both. Surprisingly, further warming would stop rather quickly,but it will be centuries regardless of continued damage to the biosphere, via multiple earth systems that we do not understand well enough to know what they would do in that case. One is the lungs of the planet - Brazilian tropical forests, which could collapse into CO2 producing savannahs soon (before the century is out). Likewise, we don't know what would happen to the 15-20% slowed AMOC - it could already have in place enough heat input from a warmer ocean to continue slowing, with predictable catastrophes around the world as a result. If sentience is a "one -off" - an evolutionary time bomb that is not necessary for a complex biosphere or ecosystem, but an initially evolutionary happenstance that gave mammals an overpowering evolutionary advantage, particularly when that advantage grew for several million years in the Primates, particularly the hominidae, the apes, and finally particularly homo sapiens - perhaps an evolutionary Trojan Horse, so to speak, to steal a metaphor. The growth of the medial prefrontal cortex gave our social species hyper-powers, which we are now using to destroy, not only our species, but many species. if we value, sentience, awareness, affection (likely necessary for us to care for our young), the threat to all those things, even greed and hedonism, might be lost - not until the next slow speciation to a healthy biosphere , nor the next - thoughts and feelings may be lost forever. Its lonely out in space.
But we do know, as I think you mean to say, that we have in fact passed the tipping point for the complete melting of the Arctic and Greenland Ice, and will suffer the consequences of this – and many other already crossed geo-biophysical tipping points.
The Red Light exists - the STOP sign is real. It is 128 degrees Fahrenheit or 53 degrees Centigrade - that is the Heat Barrier at which society collapses and migrates toward the poles. 126 was recorded in Delhi this year. Is Massachusetts next?
I have a question. I am ready to get solar panels, but I'm held back by the extraction of the materials and the ecological as well as humanitarian devastation it can create. Thoughts? (If you've written on this, please advise, I missed it.)
here's a good new report https://rmi.org/insight/the-battery-mineral-loop/. It's on batteries, but generally the same things hold true. The volume of mining for all this stuff is far far less than for fossil fuel--Bloomberg estimated this week that total extraction for the clean energy transition would be less than the volume of coal mining last year.
Crryptocurrancy, so useful if you happen to be in the market for child pornography, drugs, or weapons, is placing its energy-sucking "mining" centers where hydropower or solar power makes energy costs cheap. We need a new campaign--Crypttocurrancy has to pay its share!
Hear! Hear! But acceptance will not be found ...here, where our Bill announces the latest big, big, big scientific evidence for an unsurvivable future, and then suggests that electrifying a small portion of civilization's FF-driven expansion offers "hope". Buy the ticket,take the ride.
Trump's energy policy - to the extent he has one - is to radically cut back on EV, solar, wind, geothermal, and battery storage, allowing China to surge even further ahead. In Trump's plan, the US is to boost gasoline & diesel burning cars, and continue extracting and burning as much oil, gas and coal as possible for as long as possible. [Trump will be dead before the very worst climate effects show up, but he's never cared about anyone but himself.]
So we have to get Harris in the White House if humanity is to have any chance at all of surviving in some form other than a new Neolithic Age.
"Time is short. Because we’ve waited so long to act decisively, we now have just a few years left before we’re fully committed to a future hotter than any that has existed on earth since humanity emerged." The time for a tax on net CO2 emissions was the '70's, but better let than never.
Bill, I question as non-sequitur … this metaphor:
<<Our only hope of avoiding utter ruin … is to turn off those volcanoes immediately. And that, of course, requires replacing coal and gas and oil with something else.>>
Today’s volcanoes are nothing compared to the volcanoes then … by orders of magnitude.
A ginormous volcanic eruption the scale of 1991 Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines certainly causesd a lot of damage, anxiety and grief to modern Filipino inhabitants, but nothing long lasting nor nearly on extinction scale.
In fact, the blast of sulfate up into the stratosphere was minuscule in the big picture but sufficient to cause both cooling effects for a couple years (~0.5°C) and purportedly the sequestration of gigatons of CO2 that reduced atmospheric concentration 2.5ppm by presumably fertilizing the phytoplankton and other flora and fauna at the bottom of the ocean food chain.
We are now in a horse race to avert heat induced tipping of the AMOC, Arctic, and Antarctic which are nose-to-nose with runaway power needs of new tech and the giant data centers civilization is becoming irreversibly dependent upon.
It’s time to end the irrational fears of safe research and cautious stepwise responsible deployment of tourniquet-like Mt.Pinatubo-mimicking cooling and refreezing of the poles, which scientists believe can buy us time to wind down the last vestiges of J.D. Rockefeller’s ( July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) greedy folly.
Doug - fancy meeting you here! Still at it, I see. Thank you.
Shodo♥️ I’ve been at it ever since Cool Walker 😎carried the staff. Now bravely venturing into Arctic indigenous realms.
My focus is half way around the world at 2° higher latitude at Tromsø and coastal points easterly … the Sámi are fighting Norwegian and Finnish human rights violations—Google that entire phrase, also Fosen wind farm (just now tagged you in a post).
Wow, cool! I wonder where you're going. I lived in Kotzebue for a year. Now they have a wind farm, but I don't know what else.
"The US could essentially double the capacity of its electrical grid overnight by plugging renewables projects into old fossil fuel power plants, University of California Berkeley researchers found, whether they be coal, gas or oil. And projects could be plugged into existing plants, not just ones that are retiring."
Just "retrofit" every coal-fired plant with nuclear generation.
I am so excited that the carbon capture plant is failing now, before they can wast our money on lots more. I look for your comments on rumored better batteries that don't involve lithium mining. And I really appreciate you sharing this for free, because some of us are putting our labor into action instead of making money in the corporate world. Thanks for recognizing that.
Thank you for this amazing update, Bill.
Thank you for your excellent service. Following for guidance on what I can do.
Good read, Bill! Keep up the great work.
Love “it reminds us of all we’re heir to in this tiny brief moment that marks the human time on earth”
We don't know , but as likely as not, we have passed the tipping point for the complete melting of the Arctic and Greenland Ice, which would raise sea level 5 meters possibly by 2100 or so. Thats the case if we did not put a molecule of any greenhouse gas into the atmosphere beginning in 2025. The world is likely already hot enough to complete the melt of both. Surprisingly, further warming would stop rather quickly,but it will be centuries regardless of continued damage to the biosphere, via multiple earth systems that we do not understand well enough to know what they would do in that case. One is the lungs of the planet - Brazilian tropical forests, which could collapse into CO2 producing savannahs soon (before the century is out). Likewise, we don't know what would happen to the 15-20% slowed AMOC - it could already have in place enough heat input from a warmer ocean to continue slowing, with predictable catastrophes around the world as a result. If sentience is a "one -off" - an evolutionary time bomb that is not necessary for a complex biosphere or ecosystem, but an initially evolutionary happenstance that gave mammals an overpowering evolutionary advantage, particularly when that advantage grew for several million years in the Primates, particularly the hominidae, the apes, and finally particularly homo sapiens - perhaps an evolutionary Trojan Horse, so to speak, to steal a metaphor. The growth of the medial prefrontal cortex gave our social species hyper-powers, which we are now using to destroy, not only our species, but many species. if we value, sentience, awareness, affection (likely necessary for us to care for our young), the threat to all those things, even greed and hedonism, might be lost - not until the next slow speciation to a healthy biosphere , nor the next - thoughts and feelings may be lost forever. Its lonely out in space.
But we do know, as I think you mean to say, that we have in fact passed the tipping point for the complete melting of the Arctic and Greenland Ice, and will suffer the consequences of this – and many other already crossed geo-biophysical tipping points.
The Red Light exists - the STOP sign is real. It is 128 degrees Fahrenheit or 53 degrees Centigrade - that is the Heat Barrier at which society collapses and migrates toward the poles. 126 was recorded in Delhi this year. Is Massachusetts next?
Bill, thank you for your tireless work!
I have a question. I am ready to get solar panels, but I'm held back by the extraction of the materials and the ecological as well as humanitarian devastation it can create. Thoughts? (If you've written on this, please advise, I missed it.)
here's a good new report https://rmi.org/insight/the-battery-mineral-loop/. It's on batteries, but generally the same things hold true. The volume of mining for all this stuff is far far less than for fossil fuel--Bloomberg estimated this week that total extraction for the clean energy transition would be less than the volume of coal mining last year.
Crryptocurrancy, so useful if you happen to be in the market for child pornography, drugs, or weapons, is placing its energy-sucking "mining" centers where hydropower or solar power makes energy costs cheap. We need a new campaign--Crypttocurrancy has to pay its share!
"seminars, cocktail parties, and protests" won't save us.
Neither will solar and wind and batteries. Nothing will.
We should move on from the irrationality of bargaining to the reality of acceptance.
Hear! Hear! But acceptance will not be found ...here, where our Bill announces the latest big, big, big scientific evidence for an unsurvivable future, and then suggests that electrifying a small portion of civilization's FF-driven expansion offers "hope". Buy the ticket,take the ride.
Bill, I **LOVED** your Cassandra tale of Ancient Greece! With all our science - what have we learned as humans? Please continue being our Cassandra!
Scary stuff. But good to know, so thank you.