Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

UK should quit ‘climate-wrecking’ energy treaty, say official advisers

Climate Change Committee recommends leaving energy charter treaty, which critics say is ‘weaponised’ by fossil fuel firms

www.theguardian.com

The UK should quit a controversial energy treaty to stop it delaying vital climate action and triggering huge taxpayer payouts to fossil fuel companies, according to the government’s official advisers. The energy charter treaty (ECT) is a system of secret courts that enables companies to sue governments over policies that would cut their future profits. Companies have sued over phasing out coal-fired power stations, ending offshore oil drilling and banning fracking. The UK’s Climate Change Committee said Britain should withdraw from the ECT because recently proposed reforms did not go far enough.

The UK supported recent attempts to reform the ECT. But Rickard said: “The CCC is clear that attempts to patch up the treaty have failed. The proposed reforms would actually keep oil and gas projects protected for at least 10 more years – a decade that is crucial for the climate transition if we are to have a livable future for all.” Global carbon emissions must be reduced by almost half by 2030 to keep global heating below the internationally agreed goal of 1.5C.

 

[ggies07]

Good stuff!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1678454058800267264

Their findings, published in Current Biology, revealed that an estimated 13.12 gigatons of CO2 is transferred from plants to the fungi annually, transforming the soil beneath our feet to a massive carbon pool and the most effective carbon capture storage unit in the world.

The amount of carbon stored equates to roughly 36 per cent of yearly global fossil fuel emissions - more than China emits each year.

HOWEVER:

Soil ecosystems are being destroyed at an alarming rate through agriculture, development and other industry, but the wider impacts of disruption of soil communities are poorly understood. When we disrupt the ancient life support systems in the soil, we sabotage our efforts to limit global heating and undermine the ecosystems on which we depend.


At the current rate, the UN warns that 90 per cent of soils could be degraded by 2050, which could be catastrophic for not only curbing climate change and rising temperatures, but for the productivity of crops and plants too.

 

[eevee-fan]

Good stuff!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1678454058800267264

HOWEVER:

Good to know my athlete's foot is a carbon sink and helping save the world. LOL

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Mind blown, just blown, after reading these three pages of posts.

The planet is burning, positive climate feedback loops will hasten its demise, and we STILL find that the ONLY apparent concern with buying an EV over an ICE is, "Will I save any money?"

I can hear the conversation now:

Sorry kids. We could have left you a livable planet, BUT it would have cost me some $200 or even $300 extra EVERY MONTH!?! No way in Hell I'd spend that sort of money--not going to happen! I'm sure you can move to that spare planet--I'll help you pack.

Perhaps our species doesn't deserve this planet.

It is phonemically scary at the level of overall ignorance on the planetary-scale threat we face from over a century of unchecked GHG dumping. Here are some headlines just from YESTERDAY, along with Ed Hawkin's climate spiral GIF, and the PBS Frontline series that explains how BIG OIL's disinformation campaign has left us with a planet full of ignorants: We'll have to assume that most high schools no longer require courses in Chemistry or Physics, or that many don't even attend high school?

AGAIN, these are JUST from yesterday:

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weat...me-levels-even-for-hottest-part-of-us/1555558


https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2023/07/10/phoenix-historic-heat-wave-record


MSN


MSN

And, because warmer air holds more moisture, we'll see more stories like this one, with more people dying as a result—it’s easy to die when two months of rain lands in two days:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10/weather/northeast-storms-flooding-excessive-rainfall/index.html

And:

Vermont braces for catastrophic flooding - Montpelier dam could fail

Ed Hawkins' GIF remains really impactful. We'll have to assume that few have ever seen it, or just don't give a damn?

Animated spiral of changes in global temperature

And, the best part: how a few seconds worth of one day's profit funds one of the top two most successful misinformation campaigns in human history:

The Power of Big Oil | FRONTLINE

Watch FRONTLINE's three-part documentary examining the fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change.

www.pbs.org

Here's how the math works out for those that are math challenged, which is seemingly everyone: divide $219 Billion by 365 days in a year, that works out to a nice round $600 Million EVERY SINGLE DAY. That is NOT revenue, that's PROFIT, what's left over after covering the corporate jets, Xmas parties, executive bonuses, drilling costs, and paper clips. That's just the top six fossil fuel firms--and there are thousands of companies in the fossil fuel business . . . figure it out. Think, people, THINK!

Big Oil doubles profits in blockbuster 2022

Big Oil more than doubled its profits in 2022 to $219 billion, smashing previous records in a year of volatile energy prices where Russia's invasion of Ukraine reshaped global energy markets and, in some cases, the industry's climate ambitions.

www.reuters.com

p.s. The question should NOT be, "Why is this poster so livid?"

The question should be, "Why isn't EVERYONE livid?"

p.p.s. Also, for the OP: use your own Tesla referral link and get solar on your roof, STAT. EV's and solar panels are like peanut butter and jelly--meant to go together. Also, get rid of the methane meter on the side of your house at the same time. Stop feeding the beasts that will destroy our only planet.

Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want.​

― Anna Lappe

 

[spokey]

Stop feeding the beasts that will destroy our only planet.

Actually the planet won't be destroyed. Your statement smacks of much hubris. We may well destroy ourselves / the ability to sustain ourselves on this planet, but the planet will survive just fine. Mayhaps the cockroaches will find it a better place to live.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Actually the planet won't be destroyed. Your statement smacks of much hubris. We may well destroy ourselves / the ability to sustain ourselves on this planet, but the planet will survive just fine. Mayhaps the cockroaches will find it a better place to live.

Likely being sarcastic, but for this part: "hubris."

With all due respect, given that billions of humans will be very negatively impacted by positive climate feedback loops, some by dying, perhaps less sarcasm and more seriousness is warranted.

Let's all begin by not fearing the expenditure of a few extra dollars to buy EV's . . . even thought the total cost of ownership is actually far less.

 

[mspohr]

After two years of real progress on climate, a European ‘greenlash’ is brewing | Nathalie Tocci

Opposition to the green agenda is growing – and the populist right is latching on to it, says Nathalie Tocci of the Italian Institute of International Affairs

www.theguardian.com

Yet grey (or rather brown) clouds are now massing on the horizon. Across Europe, worrying signs of a green backlash are surfacing, as citizens and businesses start feeling the costs of the energy transition. Dutch farmers are up in arms over stringent limits on nitrogen emissions, arguing that they will make European agriculture financially unviable. The German public is fretting over the phaseout of gas boilers, while the car industry has successfully squeezed in a loophole for synthetic fuels to lengthen the lifespan of conventional combustion engines, which are meant to be phased out across the EU by 2035. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, have both publicly called for a “pause” in the EU’s green legislative agenda, while Poland is fighting for exemptions to sustain its coal subsidies. In the European parliament, conservatives and centre-right MEPs are putting spokes in the wheels of the nature conservation law, the biodiversity part of the EU’s green deal.

Now the hard part – although action is still far too slow and uneven – is actually happening. This change, often referred to as a green “transition”, is revolutionary in its scope, complexity and the speed at which it is meant to be taking place. And revolutions have winners and losers. It is only natural that the “losers” want to make their voices heard – but it is up to politics to channel that dissent, and to find ways of compensating those opposing voices to ensure that their resistance does not derail the journey to net zero. The reality of decarbonisation will surely differ from the original plan, as the social, economic and political repercussions play out and unforeseen technological breakthroughs take place. In short, the “greenlash” proves that the move to net zero is real, not that Europeans are going into reverse on climate action.

They call for an “ecological sovereignty”, which, rather than pressing for decarbonisation, insists on the preservation of landscapes from the supposed visual horrors of wind and solar farms, and on the preservation of traditional food and agriculture from the purported abomination of synthetic meats and alternative sources of proteins, such as insects.

 

[eevee-fan]

Good to know my athlete's foot is a carbon sink and helping save the world. LOL

Oh, even better.

 

[mspohr]

After a Bitter Fight, European Lawmakers Pass a Bill to Repair Nature

The measure would require E.U. countries to restore damaged natural habitats.

www.nytimes.com

European lawmakers, after an unexpectedly bitter political battle, approved a bill on Wednesday that would require European Union countries to restore 20 percent of nature areas within their borders on land and at sea.Environmental experts, community groups and many businesses rejected the claims that the policy would impair food production. More than 6,000 scientists from several European universities, including Oxford, Athens and Zurich, said in an open letter last month that these claims “not only lack scientific evidence, but even contradict it.”

They argued that in the long term, it was climate change and nature degradation that constituted the highest threat, and that the proposed policy would ensure sustainable food production.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

In fact La Nina lasted three years rather than one year. That's why we expect a super 2023 El Nino. But yes this could mean that the world's Climate has entered into a more erratic and dangerous phase.

El Nino 2023 could be a MONSTER!

 

[eevee-fan]

Toad’s endangered listing forces Ormat, Interior to rethink Nevada geothermal project

Let the planet warm and be cooked. Or let the geothermal plant proceed and go extinct.
Looks like the toad had no good option.

 

[EverettRuess]

NY Times article. " A Climate Hawk's Issue With Electric Vehicles"

I have picked out a few points.

Opinion | A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles

Toyota is notoriously skeptical of a rapid transition to all-electric E.V.s. It may have a point.

www.nytimes.com

Right now, though, there’s a good argument to be made that the government, and automakers, are leaning too hard into all-electric and neglecting the virtues of hybrid technology. When I first heard this counterintuitive argument from Toyota, I dismissed it as heel-dragging by a company that lags in electrics, but I’ve come around to the idea that hybrids — at least for now — do have a lot of advantages over all-electric vehicles.
-----
I’ll speed through his points. Electric vehicles consume huge quantities of lithium and other materials because they have huge batteries. And they have huge batteries because customers suffer from “range anxiety” and won’t buy an E.V. unless it can go for hundreds of miles without charging — even though the vast majority of trips are short. The Nissan Leaf gets 149 miles with its standard battery, which seems like enough for most purposes, yet Nissan sold just 12,026 Leafs (Leaves?) last year.

Partly because of ever-bigger batteries, E.V.s are getting more expensive on average, not cheaper as was predicted. They are out of many buyers’ price range. Some people will keep driving old ICE-mobiles (cars with internal combustion engines) because they can’t afford an E.V. And those ICE-mobiles will continue to be major emitters of greenhouse gases.
------
The production of electric vehicles produces more greenhouse gases than the production of cars with combustion engines. So E.V.s have to travel between 28,000 and 68,000 miles before they have an emissions advantage over similarly sized and equipped ICE-mobiles, according to Nunes. That may take 10 years or more if the E.V. isn’t driven much.

 

[EverettRuess]

Toad’s endangered listing forces Ormat, Interior to rethink Nevada geothermal project

Let the planet warm and be cooked. Or let the geothermal plant proceed and go extinct.
Looks like the toad had no good option.

As someone who has been involved in public lands issues in the west for 40 years the problems with the BLM permitting process can be frustrating.

 

[gt2690b]

Likely being sarcastic, but for this part: "hubris."

With all due respect, given that billions of humans will be very negatively impacted by positive climate feedback loops, some by dying, ....

I've got some bad news for you buddy.. everybody dies

 

[winfield100]

NY Times article. " A Climate Hawk's Issue With Electric Vehicles"

I have picked out a few points.

Opinion | A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles

Toyota is notoriously skeptical of a rapid transition to all-electric E.V.s. It may have a point.

www.nytimes.com

Right now, though, there’s a good argument to be made that the government, and automakers, are leaning too hard into all-electric and neglecting the virtues of hybrid technology. When I first heard this counterintuitive argument from Toyota, I dismissed it as heel-dragging by a company that lags in electrics, but I’ve come around to the idea that hybrids — at least for now — do have a lot of advantages over all-electric vehicles.
-----
I’ll speed through his points. Electric vehicles consume huge quantities of lithium and other materials because they have huge batteries. And they have huge batteries because customers suffer from “range anxiety” and won’t buy an E.V. unless it can go for hundreds of miles without charging — even though the vast majority of trips are short. The Nissan Leaf gets 149 miles with its standard battery, which seems like enough for most purposes, yet Nissan sold just 12,026 Leafs (Leaves?) last year.

Partly because of ever-bigger batteries, E.V.s are getting more expensive on average, not cheaper as was predicted. They are out of many buyers’ price range. Some people will keep driving old ICE-mobiles (cars with internal combustion engines) because they can’t afford an E.V. And those ICE-mobiles will continue to be major emitters of greenhouse gases.
------
The production of electric vehicles produces more greenhouse gases than the production of cars with combustion engines. So E.V.s have to travel between 28,000 and 68,000 miles before they have an emissions advantage over similarly sized and equipped ICE-mobiles, according to Nunes. That may take 10 years or more if the E.V. isn’t driven much.

1) _anything_ coming from the NYT is highly suspect as long as John Broder is still there as he (may) have an extreme bias against EV's and Tesla since being humiliated back around 2013 when he deliberately hosed a DC to NY run in a tesla, foegeting he was driving a computer data recorder

Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway (Published 2013)

Tesla Motors has opened fast-charging stations between Washington and Boston that would, in theory, allow an E.V. road trip along the East Coast. But a test of that theory in a Model S also involved a tow truck.

www.nytimes.com

The Charges Are Flying Over a Test of Tesla's Charging Network

Some additional thoughts about a troubled test drive of the Tesla Model S along the East Coast.

archive.nytimes.com

That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn't

About three hours into the trip, the reporter placed the first of about a dozen calls to Tesla personnel expressing concern about the car’s declining range.

archive.nytimes.com

a group of 8 Tesla's, 6 S85's and 2 S60's gathered at the old Rockville Tesla service center to recreate the "Broder drive" the following saturday, 1 set up to tweet the cabin temp of the Tesla 85 (a comfy 72 degrees)(Broder complained about the cold)
left Rockville Md, went to the Delaware rest stop to charge to 100% (the S60's waved bye as at that time you need an S85 with full charge due to lack of superchargers)
back then to "Broder an EV" was to not charge enough and complain due to ignorance about range


2) I and many have experience both with PHEV's and EV's and EVs. Many people with PHEV's in the past _never_ charged them ever, too much trouble or whatever frivolous reason conjured up.

3) PHEV's are mostly "compliance cars" built to fulfil regulations with extremely limited range, like 9 miles, or 16-17 miles totally useless for those of us with experience

4) the "EV costs more" is a false analogy at best

Note ranges of 100% EV's
100 - 300+, even the motorcycle

versus electric ranges of PHEV's, 20-40 at best
the BMW i3 is an outlier

https://evadc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/EVInfoSheet-20210907.pdf

 

[JRP3]

The production of electric vehicles produces more greenhouse gases than the production of cars with combustion engines. So E.V.s have to travel between 28,000 and 68,000 miles before they have an emissions advantage over similarly sized and equipped ICE-mobiles, according to Nunes. That may take 10 years or more if the E.V. isn’t driven much.

“The surprising element was how much lower the emissions of electric vehicles were,” says postdoctoral associate Stephanie Weber. “The supply chain for combustion vehicles is just so dirty that electric vehicles can’t surpass them, even when you factor in indirect emissions.”

YSE Study Finds Electric Vehicles Provide Lower Carbon Emissions Through Additional Channels | Yale School of the Environment

A recent YSE-led study published in Nature Communications found that the total indirect emissions from the supply of chain of electric vehicles pale in comparison to the same indirect emissions from fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

environment.yale.edu

 

[mspohr]

NY Times article. " A Climate Hawk's Issue With Electric Vehicles"

I have picked out a few points.

Opinion | A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles

Toyota is notoriously skeptical of a rapid transition to all-electric E.V.s. It may have a point.

www.nytimes.com

Right now, though, there’s a good argument to be made that the government, and automakers, are leaning too hard into all-electric and neglecting the virtues of hybrid technology. When I first heard this counterintuitive argument from Toyota, I dismissed it as heel-dragging by a company that lags in electrics, but I’ve come around to the idea that hybrids — at least for now — do have a lot of advantages over all-electric vehicles.
-----
I’ll speed through his points. Electric vehicles consume huge quantities of lithium and other materials because they have huge batteries. And they have huge batteries because customers suffer from “range anxiety” and won’t buy an E.V. unless it can go for hundreds of miles without charging — even though the vast majority of trips are short. The Nissan Leaf gets 149 miles with its standard battery, which seems like enough for most purposes, yet Nissan sold just 12,026 Leafs (Leaves?) last year.

Partly because of ever-bigger batteries, E.V.s are getting more expensive on average, not cheaper as was predicted. They are out of many buyers’ price range. Some people will keep driving old ICE-mobiles (cars with internal combustion engines) because they can’t afford an E.V. And those ICE-mobiles will continue to be major emitters of greenhouse gases.
------
The production of electric vehicles produces more greenhouse gases than the production of cars with combustion engines. So E.V.s have to travel between 28,000 and 68,000 miles before they have an emissions advantage over similarly sized and equipped ICE-mobiles, according to Nunes. That may take 10 years or more if the E.V. isn’t driven much.

Just the usual NYT. FUD

 

[eevee-fan]

Toad’s endangered listing forces Ormat, Interior to rethink Nevada geothermal project

Let the planet warm and be cooked. Or let the geothermal plant proceed and go extinct.
Looks like the toad had no good option.

And, here's another toad.

Lombardo withdraws Nevada from state-led greenhouse gas reduction coalition – The Nevada Independent

Nevada environment news: Gov. Joe Lombardo has withdrawn Nevada from the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of more than two dozen...

thenevadaindependent.com

 

[EverettRuess]

1) _anything_ coming from the NYT is highly suspect as long as John Broder is still there as he (may) have an extreme bias against EV's and Tesla since being humiliated back around 2013 when he deliberately hosed a DC to NY run in a tesla, foegeting he was driving a computer data recorder

Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway (Published 2013)

Tesla Motors has opened fast-charging stations between Washington and Boston that would, in theory, allow an E.V. road trip along the East Coast. But a test of that theory in a Model S also involved a tow truck.

www.nytimes.com

The Charges Are Flying Over a Test of Tesla's Charging Network

Some additional thoughts about a troubled test drive of the Tesla Model S along the East Coast.

archive.nytimes.com

That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn't

About three hours into the trip, the reporter placed the first of about a dozen calls to Tesla personnel expressing concern about the car’s declining range.

archive.nytimes.com

a group of 8 Tesla's, 6 S85's and 2 S60's gathered at the old Rockville Tesla service center to recreate the "Broder drive" the following saturday, 1 set up to tweet the cabin temp of the Tesla 85 (a comfy 72 degrees)(Broder complained about the cold)
left Rockville Md, went to the Delaware rest stop to charge to 100% (the S60's waved bye as at that time you need an S85 with full charge due to lack of superchargers)
back then to "Broder an EV" was to not charge enough and complain due to ignorance about range


2) I and many have experience both with PHEV's and EV's and EVs. Many people with PHEV's in the past _never_ charged them ever, too much trouble or whatever frivolous reason conjured up.

3) PHEV's are mostly "compliance cars" built to fulfil regulations with extremely limited range, like 9 miles, or 16-17 miles totally useless for those of us with experience

4) the "EV costs more" is a false analogy at best

Note ranges of 100% EV's
100 - 300+, even the motorcycle
View attachment 956455

versus electric ranges of PHEV's, 20-40 at best
the BMW i3 is an outlier
View attachment 956459

https://evadc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/EVInfoSheet-20210907.pdf

So you believe that any article written in the NYT on electric cars is suspect because of Broder?

 

[mspohr]

With our food systems on the verge of collapse, it’s the plutocrats v life on Earth | George Monbiot

Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quo, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

We face an epochal, unthinkable prospect: of perhaps the two greatest existential threats – environmental breakdown and food system failure – converging, as one triggers the other.

So why isn’t this all over the front pages? Why, when governments know we’re facing existential risk, do they fail to act? Why is the Biden administration allowing enough oil and gas drilling to bust the US carbon budget five times over? Why is the UK government scrapping the £11.6bn international climate fund it promised? Why has Labour postponed its £28bn green prosperity fund, while Keir Starmer is reported to have remarked last week “I hate tree huggers” (a pejorative term for environmental campaigners)? Why are the Sun, the Mail, the Telegraph and the Express competing to attack every green solution that might help to prevent climate chaos? Why does everything else seem more important?

The underlying problem isn’t hard to grasp: governments have failed to break what the economist Thomas Piketty calls the patrimonial spiral of wealth accumulation. As a result, the rich have become ever richer, a process that seems to be accelerating. In 2021, for example, the ultra-rich captured almost two-thirds of all the world’s new wealth. Their share of national income in the UK has almost doubled since 1980, while in the US it’s higher than it was in 1820. The richer a fraction of society becomes, the greater its political power, and the more extreme the demands it makes. The problem is summarised in one sentence in the resignation letter of the UK environment minister Zac Goldsmith: instead of attending a crucial environment summit, Rishi Sunak went to Rupert Murdoch’s summer party. We cannot work together to solve our common problems when great power is in the hands of so few.