Glad to read about all the solar and wind successes worldwide. With 80% of the project off Rhode Island having been completed, it’s madness to shut it down. Thank you for your lifetime of activism, Bill.
10 years in a small boat on the French canals was my husband’s dream retirement. Front seat to climate change. He was a big fan of yours. I read Al Gore’s book of 1990 in 2000 and worked hard for him. Farmer in summer like his father, much admired as a senator by my high school teacher of civics and world history (in Byrd country). Heard you in person the night after Trump was elected (November 2015 in Chicago). Eggs must be rationed and price controlled so everyone can afford them.
All efforts to shut down all offshore wind projects, indeed, madness! One GE Halide X turbine will produce 14 MWh of power every hour! New Jersey, DE, and MD projects are ready to go, were it not for the fossil fuel interest "dark money" telling many lies about offshore wind power. IE, killing whales and birds. ruin of beach real estate values (this one may be true because of climate impacts). Bill, you indeed deserve much credit for informing the public about the benefits of wind and solar!
Bill, your voice in the wilderness has given me hope ever since TEON, even has a citizen of Alberta. The past week’s podcast with Chris Hayes was uplifting as a nice answer to why is this happening — THIS being the steady increases in sustainables despite such hardcore and stupidly short-sighted resistance from ‘leaders’ like tRump and our own Premier here. It can be done, EVEN in Texas, it seems. Here we put in geothermal and solar (to run the heat pumps), despite resistance from the provincial gov’t (thankfully our city and federal gov’ts aren’t knuckle draggers) — and we are laughing even harder than expected all the way to the bank AND way more comfy inside than ever, with a much reduced C footprint. Also, with NO gas use or bills we are breathing easier. It’s gonna happen, but it could be less wasteful … and, of course, will it happen fast enough to save things for our grandchildren and theres?
Ponder this: Reducing CO2 /GHG annual emissions over the next two decades to zero will raise the global average surface temperatures (atmospheric and oceanic) to levels intolerable for land species (humans, creatures, natural flora and crops) and sea life from the bottom to the top of the food chain exacerbated by increased acidity.
The accumulated heat will not decline into heat sinks at the rate it has in the past two centuries. Hence the CO2 / GHG blanket that persists in 2050-2060 is expected to dramatically impact on the overheated areas of the earth with mass migration of some 2 billion people from the stretch across Australia to Africa.*
So, we will also need to find ways to remove from the atmosphere and oceans CO2 / GHG at, say, twice the rate we reduce emissions in order to achieve the goal of reducing CO2 from the current 420+ ppm to less than 350 ppm, which James Hansen suggested nearly two decades ago is what is required.
I’m glad the representatives of humanity’s basest, most craven instincts will not be allowed to cripple the world. Thank you for your enlightened commitment
Sorry to break the news: Bill McKibben and his ilk are now a few days and many $$’s short. From a hard science perspective, NetZero is a pure thermodynamic fantasy. But it still makes for good speaking fees.
Continuing to burn things is a pyromaniac's fantasy.......the Solar Economy is coming...and coming strong. We just have to monitor those AI energy centres and make sure they get net 0 of the clean energy solar is producing, and will produce in the future.
We have the human brains of our young to educate and rely on....we don't need no machines that some brainsteams among us think can think.
If the rest of the world embraces green energy, could that stave off some of the world-wide climate change impact, even if the US govt keeps making ridiculously bad decisions?
Saw your extensive interview with Chris Hayes (if my octogenarian memory serves me correctly) about everything you discussed here….thoroughly enjoyed it. If you haven’t done so already, please put links to it everywhere you can so that even more folks will see it…thanks for being you!!!
Bill, for the benefit of your followers who may not have seen it, I’d like to share two particularly poignant minutes in your August 26 conversation: “Chris Hayes and Bill McKibben on 'The Most Important Good Story Right Now'” beginning at 22:37 here (youtu.be/n9MmJkkv780?t=1355s) and also the minute beginning at 52:31 here (youtu.be/n9MmJkkv780?t=3150s)
I could not agree with you more!
Best,
Doug
Here are those two minutes’ transcripts from the video:
22:37
UH, 40 YEARS FROM NOW, WE'RE GONNA RUN THE PLANET ON SUN AND WIND, BUT IF IT TAKES US ANYTHING LIKE 40 YEARS,
22:43
IT'S GOING TO BE A COMPLETELY BROKEN PLANET THAT WE RUN ON SUN AND WIND. AND BY BROKEN, I MEAN,
22:48
WE'RE NOW, WE'RE NOW WATCHING THE JET STREAM AND THE GULFSTREAM FLICKER AND FALTER IN
22:54
WAYS THAT ARE ALMOST UNIMAGINABLE. THE DEEPEST SYSTEMS OF OUR PLANET ARE NOW
23:00
BEGINNING TO UNRAVEL, AND WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME TO FIX THEM. HENCE THE NEED
23:05
FOR ACTIVISTS TO STAY ACTIVE. SUNDAY IS COMING UP ON SEPTEMBER 21ST,
23:12
UH, AND HOPEFULLY THERE'LL BE EVENTS ALL ACROSS AMERICA WITH PEOPLE TRYING JUST TO DRIVE HOME
23:20
THIS BASIC UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS IS NO LONGER ALTERNATIVE ENERGY. SO I WANT TO TALK ABOUT A FEW OF THE
23:28
UM SORT OF CRITIQUES OF OF WE'RE MOSTLY TALKING ABOUT SOLAR, WIND IS TOO,
23:34
AND OF COURSE YOU MAKE THE POINT IN THE BOOK THAT WIND POWER IS JUST SOLAR POWER BY ANOTHER MEANS, RIGHT, THE SUN UNEVENLY HEATS THE EARTH,
23:41
UM. SO I WANTTO TALK A BIT ABOUT SOME OF THE, THE SORT OF TWO CRITIQUES YOU HEAR.
———————
52:31
UM, I'D SETTLE FOR US TAKING THE STEPS NOW THAT
52:38
KEPT US FROM ACTUALLY DESTROYING THE PLANET ON WHICH WE LIVED, AND THEN LETTING THE NEXT GENERATION OF PEOPLE FIGURE
52:45
OUT ALL THE BEAUTIFUL POSSIBILITIES THAT COME WITH IT. UH, THIS IS A,
52:50
I, I, I THINK IT'S WORTH SAYING THAT THIS COULD BE
52:56
APPROACHED IN THE RIGHT SPIRIT. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL KIND OF GROUP PROJECT THAT WE'VE UNDERTAKEN IN
53:02
THIS COUNTRY AND IN THIS WORLD FOR A VERY LONG TIME. THE LAST TECHNOLOGICAL PROJECT
53:08
OF THIS SCALE, ANYTHING LIKE THIS SCALE ON IN OUR NATION WAS THE MOONSHOT IN THE 60S,
53:15
WHICH ACTUALLY WAS A KIND OF UNIFYING THING AMIDST A VERY DIVISIVE, CHAOTIC, VIOLENT MOMENT
RMI recently posted a white paper how renewables + storage is much MUCH better suited to handle the subtle energy fluctuations inherent in running data centers than either fossil fuels or nuclear.
It isn’t a coincidence that China installed 45 GW of solar in April, which is the energy equivalent of 45 nuclear plans. That was just one month.
Solar is a key competitive advantage in winning the AI race.
"Trump’s found one big taker for his rhetoric—the Canadian province of Alberta has cancelled 10 gigawatts of renewable energy projects, which would have met 90% of its electric demand, even as its premier pushes a referendum on secession from Canada on the grounds that Ottawa has crippled it with “anti-resource policies.”
That's one thing I dislike about Alberta, and I live there. Granted, Alberta is probably going to be one of the exception, because there's an entire social norm here of being exceptionally wasteful (everyone has an SUV and many have enormous souped-up trucks), low taxes offset by oil, huge houses) and living the short-term "good life" by leeching off fossil fuels. We even have an EV tax under the guise that EV's need more "infrastructure". Rather faux-liberal considering that people could still choose to drive them without many chargers outside their home.
I have a feeling that those in charge here have chosen their hill to die on and we need some serious power to dislodge that, which will hopefully happen soon with economic pressures.
I do generally agree that the rest of the world won't be as easy to convince, but there is a more sinister fact: if there are resources, we will find some way of using them up, and that's our human wasteful, Western tendency. So we've got to find a way to change that.
THanks for the good news. We have solar, an EV and induction range, and a heat pump..........they all work impeccably.......in short...........we've had almost 0 maintenance on the lot.
Glad to read about all the solar and wind successes worldwide. With 80% of the project off Rhode Island having been completed, it’s madness to shut it down. Thank you for your lifetime of activism, Bill.
thank you for your kind words, and for being part of the fight!
10 years in a small boat on the French canals was my husband’s dream retirement. Front seat to climate change. He was a big fan of yours. I read Al Gore’s book of 1990 in 2000 and worked hard for him. Farmer in summer like his father, much admired as a senator by my high school teacher of civics and world history (in Byrd country). Heard you in person the night after Trump was elected (November 2015 in Chicago). Eggs must be rationed and price controlled so everyone can afford them.
All efforts to shut down all offshore wind projects, indeed, madness! One GE Halide X turbine will produce 14 MWh of power every hour! New Jersey, DE, and MD projects are ready to go, were it not for the fossil fuel interest "dark money" telling many lies about offshore wind power. IE, killing whales and birds. ruin of beach real estate values (this one may be true because of climate impacts). Bill, you indeed deserve much credit for informing the public about the benefits of wind and solar!
Bill, your voice in the wilderness has given me hope ever since TEON, even has a citizen of Alberta. The past week’s podcast with Chris Hayes was uplifting as a nice answer to why is this happening — THIS being the steady increases in sustainables despite such hardcore and stupidly short-sighted resistance from ‘leaders’ like tRump and our own Premier here. It can be done, EVEN in Texas, it seems. Here we put in geothermal and solar (to run the heat pumps), despite resistance from the provincial gov’t (thankfully our city and federal gov’ts aren’t knuckle draggers) — and we are laughing even harder than expected all the way to the bank AND way more comfy inside than ever, with a much reduced C footprint. Also, with NO gas use or bills we are breathing easier. It’s gonna happen, but it could be less wasteful … and, of course, will it happen fast enough to save things for our grandchildren and theres?
that's the question--can we speed up the pace enough. Hence Sun Day!
Ponder this: Reducing CO2 /GHG annual emissions over the next two decades to zero will raise the global average surface temperatures (atmospheric and oceanic) to levels intolerable for land species (humans, creatures, natural flora and crops) and sea life from the bottom to the top of the food chain exacerbated by increased acidity.
The accumulated heat will not decline into heat sinks at the rate it has in the past two centuries. Hence the CO2 / GHG blanket that persists in 2050-2060 is expected to dramatically impact on the overheated areas of the earth with mass migration of some 2 billion people from the stretch across Australia to Africa.*
So, we will also need to find ways to remove from the atmosphere and oceans CO2 / GHG at, say, twice the rate we reduce emissions in order to achieve the goal of reducing CO2 from the current 420+ ppm to less than 350 ppm, which James Hansen suggested nearly two decades ago is what is required.
*Ref: David Spratt at 18:45 (youtu.be/PH4d6zr2CTI?t=1125s)
And we still help to prolong the war in Ukraine. Would the adoption of local wind and solar energy change these conflict dynamics?
Larry, is your question addressed to John, Bill or me? To me, it’s a non sequitur, but perhaps Bill or John can glean relevance.
This is rhetorical. If Eastern Europe/Russia transitioned into a clean energy economy, could we envision societies that can live together peacefully?
If only there was an ironic emoji 😉🫣🤭🤗
How can it be profitable to burn our future?
Economics will eventually trump Trump and his backers. One would think.
It did in Trump 45.
I’m glad the representatives of humanity’s basest, most craven instincts will not be allowed to cripple the world. Thank you for your enlightened commitment
Sorry to break the news: Bill McKibben and his ilk are now a few days and many $$’s short. From a hard science perspective, NetZero is a pure thermodynamic fantasy. But it still makes for good speaking fees.
Fortunately, that’s incorrect. The earth is not isolated, so the 2nd law of thermodynamics just doesn’t apply.
The sun drops about 15,000 times as much energy on the earth as humans produce. Fossil fuels are a very small resource in comparison.
The truth so obvious we take it for granted......when not dissing it for ideological or monetary reasons.
Every 1/10th of a degree of reduced heating in the atmosphere and the ocean has the potential to save millions of lives.
Continuing to burn things is a pyromaniac's fantasy.......the Solar Economy is coming...and coming strong. We just have to monitor those AI energy centres and make sure they get net 0 of the clean energy solar is producing, and will produce in the future.
We have the human brains of our young to educate and rely on....we don't need no machines that some brainsteams among us think can think.
We do need clean energy.
If the rest of the world embraces green energy, could that stave off some of the world-wide climate change impact, even if the US govt keeps making ridiculously bad decisions?
Saw your extensive interview with Chris Hayes (if my octogenarian memory serves me correctly) about everything you discussed here….thoroughly enjoyed it. If you haven’t done so already, please put links to it everywhere you can so that even more folks will see it…thanks for being you!!!
Bill, for the benefit of your followers who may not have seen it, I’d like to share two particularly poignant minutes in your August 26 conversation: “Chris Hayes and Bill McKibben on 'The Most Important Good Story Right Now'” beginning at 22:37 here (youtu.be/n9MmJkkv780?t=1355s) and also the minute beginning at 52:31 here (youtu.be/n9MmJkkv780?t=3150s)
I could not agree with you more!
Best,
Doug
Here are those two minutes’ transcripts from the video:
22:37
UH, 40 YEARS FROM NOW, WE'RE GONNA RUN THE PLANET ON SUN AND WIND, BUT IF IT TAKES US ANYTHING LIKE 40 YEARS,
22:43
IT'S GOING TO BE A COMPLETELY BROKEN PLANET THAT WE RUN ON SUN AND WIND. AND BY BROKEN, I MEAN,
22:48
WE'RE NOW, WE'RE NOW WATCHING THE JET STREAM AND THE GULFSTREAM FLICKER AND FALTER IN
22:54
WAYS THAT ARE ALMOST UNIMAGINABLE. THE DEEPEST SYSTEMS OF OUR PLANET ARE NOW
23:00
BEGINNING TO UNRAVEL, AND WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME TO FIX THEM. HENCE THE NEED
23:05
FOR ACTIVISTS TO STAY ACTIVE. SUNDAY IS COMING UP ON SEPTEMBER 21ST,
23:12
UH, AND HOPEFULLY THERE'LL BE EVENTS ALL ACROSS AMERICA WITH PEOPLE TRYING JUST TO DRIVE HOME
23:20
THIS BASIC UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS IS NO LONGER ALTERNATIVE ENERGY. SO I WANT TO TALK ABOUT A FEW OF THE
23:28
UM SORT OF CRITIQUES OF OF WE'RE MOSTLY TALKING ABOUT SOLAR, WIND IS TOO,
23:34
AND OF COURSE YOU MAKE THE POINT IN THE BOOK THAT WIND POWER IS JUST SOLAR POWER BY ANOTHER MEANS, RIGHT, THE SUN UNEVENLY HEATS THE EARTH,
23:41
UM. SO I WANTTO TALK A BIT ABOUT SOME OF THE, THE SORT OF TWO CRITIQUES YOU HEAR.
———————
52:31
UM, I'D SETTLE FOR US TAKING THE STEPS NOW THAT
52:38
KEPT US FROM ACTUALLY DESTROYING THE PLANET ON WHICH WE LIVED, AND THEN LETTING THE NEXT GENERATION OF PEOPLE FIGURE
52:45
OUT ALL THE BEAUTIFUL POSSIBILITIES THAT COME WITH IT. UH, THIS IS A,
52:50
I, I, I THINK IT'S WORTH SAYING THAT THIS COULD BE
52:56
APPROACHED IN THE RIGHT SPIRIT. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL KIND OF GROUP PROJECT THAT WE'VE UNDERTAKEN IN
53:02
THIS COUNTRY AND IN THIS WORLD FOR A VERY LONG TIME. THE LAST TECHNOLOGICAL PROJECT
53:08
OF THIS SCALE, ANYTHING LIKE THIS SCALE ON IN OUR NATION WAS THE MOONSHOT IN THE 60S,
53:15
WHICH ACTUALLY WAS A KIND OF UNIFYING THING AMIDST A VERY DIVISIVE, CHAOTIC, VIOLENT MOMENT
Bill this newletter is one really inspiring piece in the choa of our times!!!
thank you!
Another fine and inspiring report, Bill.
Re: the IAM jobs study - lots of opportunities for high schools and colleges.
Go Sun Day!
RMI recently posted a white paper how renewables + storage is much MUCH better suited to handle the subtle energy fluctuations inherent in running data centers than either fossil fuels or nuclear.
It isn’t a coincidence that China installed 45 GW of solar in April, which is the energy equivalent of 45 nuclear plans. That was just one month.
Solar is a key competitive advantage in winning the AI race.
The Administration’s push for fossil (Drill, baby, drill!) is at odds with its ambition to dominate in AI. The laws of physics—and nature—trump all: https://jaginsburg.substack.com/p/power-plays-part-iii
"Trump’s found one big taker for his rhetoric—the Canadian province of Alberta has cancelled 10 gigawatts of renewable energy projects, which would have met 90% of its electric demand, even as its premier pushes a referendum on secession from Canada on the grounds that Ottawa has crippled it with “anti-resource policies.”
That's one thing I dislike about Alberta, and I live there. Granted, Alberta is probably going to be one of the exception, because there's an entire social norm here of being exceptionally wasteful (everyone has an SUV and many have enormous souped-up trucks), low taxes offset by oil, huge houses) and living the short-term "good life" by leeching off fossil fuels. We even have an EV tax under the guise that EV's need more "infrastructure". Rather faux-liberal considering that people could still choose to drive them without many chargers outside their home.
I have a feeling that those in charge here have chosen their hill to die on and we need some serious power to dislodge that, which will hopefully happen soon with economic pressures.
I do generally agree that the rest of the world won't be as easy to convince, but there is a more sinister fact: if there are resources, we will find some way of using them up, and that's our human wasteful, Western tendency. So we've got to find a way to change that.
Creation Care Ministry, Laudato Si
https://open.substack.com/pub/brianbeutler/p/graham-platner-and-the-perils-of?r=1metx&utm_medium=ios
Bill, pretty sure you meant to say export instead of import regarding policy.
Also, when you say Indonesia is the fourth largest country, you need to give a metric.
They are the fourth largest in population. There are many metrics, as you know.
THanks for the good news. We have solar, an EV and induction range, and a heat pump..........they all work impeccably.......in short...........we've had almost 0 maintenance on the lot.