A couple of quick hits. As you may know, I listen to CBS Sunday morning while doing all those Sunday chores. These two stories had me going back to actually watch:
I thought some of you could use some optimism while sweltering. I should probably be writing more on resources and the latest in climate solutions, but at the moment, my desire to be online and/or write is much like a combustion engine running on fumes and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. But I did think the barrage of weather-related doom could use a bit of context.
“There are some bad actors who would happily fan the flames of doomism, because it takes those who would be the most engaged, those who would be on the front lines, and it puts them on the sidelines…
And so, what I call the inactivists, the forces of inaction — polluters, and those who promote their agenda— they’ve turned to these other tactics, and one of them, ironically, is doomism. There are some bad actors who would happily fan the flames of doomism, because it takes those who would be the most engaged, those who would be on the front lines, and it puts them on the sidelines. That is something I’ve really been fighting against.
Look, the reality is, if the science told me that we are f’ed, and there’s nothing we can do about it, I would have to be truthful about that. But the fact is, we can very much do something about it. You’ve got on the one hand, all these people saying it’s too late, we can’t stop the meltdown, we have to plan for the end of human civilization.
So I’ve curated a few articles and one video to reflect some facts on doomerism. (This is a quick hit of things I had bookmarked already)
And as I also said last night on the thread, there are actually a lot of practical and immediate solutions that are being developed, researched, and implemented. We are not in some hopeless situation without the tools to solve it. But it will take action – and being all doom and gloom leaves us feeling defeated and less likely to take that action. Let’s not do that, okay?
The warming of the planet – including the most up-to-date data for 2023 – is entirely consistent with what climate modelers warned decades ago
The climate crisis – and yes, it is now a crisis – is endangering us now, where we live. Whether it’s the recurrent episodes of hazardous air quality in the east coast cities some of us call home from windblown Canadian wildfire smoke or the toll sadly now being measured in human lives from deadly nearby floods, we are witnessing the devastating and dangerous consequences of unabated human-caused warming. That is a fact.
Indeed, as you “doomscroll” on whatever social media platform you prefer these days, you might see selective images and graphs that would lead you to think Earth’s climate is spinning out of control, in a runaway feedback loop of irreversible tipping points leading us down an inescapable planetary death spiral.
The average warming of the planet – including the most up-to-date measurements for 2023 – is entirely consistent with what climate modelers warned decades ago would happen if we continued with the business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels. Yes, there are alarming data coming in, from record-shattering loss of winter sea ice in the southern hemisphere to off-the-charts warmth in the North Atlantic with hot tub-grade waters off the Florida coast. We’ve also seen the hottest week on record for the planet as a whole this month. We can attribute blame to a combination of ongoing human-caused warming, an incipient major El Niño event and the vagaries of natural variability….
…Yes, we have failed to prevent dangerous climate change. It is here. What remains to be seen is just how bad we’re willing to let it get. A window of opportunity remains for averting a catastrophic 1.5C/2.7F warming of the planet, beyond which we’ll see far worse consequences than anything we’ve seen so far. But that window is closing and we’re not making enough progress.
We cannot afford to give in to despair. Better to channel our energy into action, as there’s so much work to be done to prevent this crisis from escalating into a catastrophe. If the extremes of this summer fill you with fears of imminent and inevitable climate collapse, remember, it’s not game over. It’s game on. Read the article in its entirety here.
By Mark Hertsgaard, Saleemul Huq andMichael E. Mann
(note: this is the original full version of our recent Washington Post op-ed, based on a recent press briefing involving the authors, sponsored by Scientific American and Covering Climate Now)
One of the biggest obstacles to avoiding global climate breakdown is that so many people think there’s nothing we can do about it.
They point out that record-breaking heat waves, fires, and storms are already devastating communities and economies throughout the world. And they’ve long been told that temperatures will keep rising for decades to come, no matter how many solar panels replace oil derricks or how many meat-eaters go vegetarian. No wonder they think we’re doomed.
But climate science actually doesn’t say this. On the contrary, the best climate science you’ve probably never heard of suggests that humanity can still limit the damage to a fraction of the worst projections if—and, we admit, this is a big if—governments, businesses, and all of us take strong action starting now.
The science we’re referencing is included in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report, issued last August. But first, some context.
For many years, the scientific rule of thumb was that a sizable amount of temperature rise was indeed locked into the earth’s climate system. Scientists believed—and told policymakers and journalists, who told the public—that even if humanity hypothetically halted all heat trapping emissions overnight, carbon dioxide’s long lifetime in the atmosphere combined with the sluggish thermal properties of the oceans would nevertheless keep global surface temperatures rising for 30 to 40 more years. Since shifting to a zero-carbon global economy would take at least a decade or two, temperatures were bound to keep rising for at least another half century.
But guided by subsequent research, scientists dramatically revised that lag time estimate down to as little as 3 to 5 years. The updated finding is included in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group I, that made headlines last August. Indeed, it underlies the widely-now used concept of a “carbon budget”. It allows us to specify (with some uncertainty range) the maximum amount of carbon that we can still burn if we are to keep global surface warming below the critical level of 1.5C (3F).
Most importantly, it tells us that if humanity slashes emissions to zero, global temperatures will stop rising almost immediately.
To its credit, Scientific Americandid discuss this updated science in a short article last October. But why isn’t this reason for cautious optimism more widely known?
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Two of the co-authors of this article are climate scientists, while the other is a veteran journalist.We can collectively attest that scientists aren’t always the best natural communicators, journalists and scientists typically don’t speak the same language, and much gets lost in translation. Add to that the concerted headwind of a fossil fuel industry-funded disinformation campaign, and you have the makings of a substantial breakdown in communication.
That’s a shame, because this revised timeline implies a paradigm shift in how humanity can respond the to the climate emergency. The implications fall into three categories—the three P’s of psychology, politics, and policies.
Psychology is arguably the most important, for it makes possible the rest. Knowing that global temperature rise can be stopped almost immediately means that humanity is not doomed after all. We can still save our civilization, at least most of it, if we take rapid, forceful action. This knowledge can banish the sense of inevitability that paralyzes people and instead inspire them towards greater resolve and activity.
This psychological shift can in turn transform the politics of climate change, for it can entice more people to join the fight—or to stay in the fight rather than succumbing to despair… Continue reading here
We environmentalists spend our lives thinking about ways the world will end. There’s nowhere that I see doomer culture more vocal than on my home turf.
With leading activists like Roger Hallam, co-founder of the popular climate protest movement Extinction Rebellion, telling young people that they “face annihilation,” it’s no surprise so many of them feel terrified. In a large recent international survey on youth attitudes toward climate change, more than half said that “humanity is doomed” and three-quarters said the future is frightening. Young people have good reasons to worry about our ability to tackle climate change, but this level of despair should be alarming to anyone who cares about the well-being of future generations — which is, after all, what the climate movement is all about.
As the lead researcher for Our World in Data, an organization that aims to make data on the world’s biggest problems accessible and understandable, I’ve written extensively on the reasons to be optimistic about the future. The prices of solar and wind power, as well as of batteries for storing low-carbon energy, have all plunged. Global deforestation peaked decades ago and has been slowly declining. Sales of new gas and diesel cars are now falling. Coal is starting to die in many countries. Government commitments are getting closer to limiting global warming to 2°C. Deaths from natural disasters — despite what news about climate change-related fires and hurricanes might appear to suggest — are a fraction of what they used to be. The list goes on.
But here, I don’t want to talk about whether pessimism is accurate. I want to focus on whether it’s useful. People might defend doomsday scenarios as the wake-up call that society needs. If they’re exaggerated, so what? They might be the crucial catalyst that gets us to act on climate change. Continue reading here….
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Okay, doomer. Leaving hopelessness behind, young climate activists are flipping the script on climate doom-and-gloom. They not only believe we can still win the fight, they’re working to convince others of the same. Speakers: Allegra Kirkland (moderator), Isaias Hernandez, Kristy Drutman, Alaina Wood This is a conversation from Aspen Ideas: Climate in Miami Beach, Florida. Now in its second year, Aspen Ideas: Climate is co-organized by the Aspen Institute and the City of Miami Beach. In addition to plenary sessions, breakout discussions, announcements, and private roundtables, the event features a tech expo and career fair, a climate solutions showcase, a public arts program, and excursions. Aspen Ideas: Climate takes place March 6–9, 2023. #AspenIdeasClimate
I attended a training on the Inflation Reduction Act incentives. I’ll share what I took from it over the course of a few posts. One thing that I didn’t realize but was pleased to see is that many of the incentives are geared toward environmental justice:
Advancing Environmental Justice
Through the Inflation Reduction Act, EPA will improve the lives of millions of Americans by reducing pollution in neighborhoods where people live, work, play, and go to school; accelerating environmental justice efforts in communities overburdened by pollution for far too long; and tackling our biggest climate challenges while creating jobs and delivering energy security.
Here’s how the Inflation Reduction Act will advance environmental justice. (read here)
Probably the most important talk I listened to was one from Rewiring America.
Guess who is in charge?! This amazing woman:
Stacey Abrams rewires and inspires
“It has to be about people getting their fair share, having a better life, and having appliances that work. We need to be able to tell people why electrification matters to them.”
We could not be more excited to welcome Stacey Abrams to team Rewiring America.
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WASHINGTON, D.C., Tuesday, March 14, 2023 — Political leader, voting rights activist, and bestselling author Stacey Abrams is joining Rewiring America, the leading nonprofit working to electrify our communities. Abrams will take the role of Senior Counsel, helping launch and scale a national awareness campaign and a network of large and small communities working to help Americans go electric. She will also guide the organization as it builds the tools and capacity to connect Americans and their communities to machines, installers, Inflation Reduction Act incentives, and jobs in the clean energy transition.
I refrained from saying “we’re saved.” But I expect she’ll bring her ability to light a fire under folks’ asses to get things done.
There is so much information on this website it’s going to take me months to get through it. I suggest if you have questions, you will probably find the answers here:
My goal over the next couple of months is to get contractors to the house to give me estimates on what it would take to electrify my house – heat pump heat/cooling and electrify the hot water – I already had an electric cooktop. I’d love to move to induction, but that’s down the road. Maybe also see about upgrading to an actual charging outlet in my garage instead of using the 110 outlets.
The reason for getting estimates now is that the rebates and incentives have not quite been hammered out – some tax credits are available now, but most rebates won’t be ready until late 2023. And the thought is they will go fast – so if you’re ready to go when they are finally released, you can be first in line.
In the meantime, what can you do? Educate yourself on electrifying your community and talking with your representatives about how important it is. I’m planning on attending a Coffee with the Council in my town, to see where my council members stand on electrifying schools and public buildings.
Talk with friends and family about what’s available and how it can help them – reducing energy costs, improving health, etc, etc. I find that telling folks how it will save them money is often all they need to know.
More to come…I have so much bookmarked, I’ll try to weed through it and provide you with the bullet points. Until then, you can check out the resources linked in this post.
Obligatory pet photo (I know my audience). Sully is not as ferocious as he looks. He’s just annoyed I’m not petting him with BOTH hands. “Human, you have two hands, use them.”
I’m working on doing – at least monthly, maybe more – Climate Solution posts. I have some ideas of what I would like to begin with:
New battery technology
Innovations in and expectations of solar panels, wind power, geothermal, and heat pumps (those would probably be 2-3 separate posts).
I guess we should really address the gas stove vs. induction vs. electric stovetops topic. I have several good resources on that controversy.
EV, PHEVs – what’s available now, what’s coming down the pike, including what’s new in national network of charging stations capabilities.
With a bit more research, an update on the Inflation Reduction Act and how it’s influencing smarter energy choices
And we may have someone coming on board to outline the hows and whys of climate activism.
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I have three folks I follow pretty closely and feel like they provide solid information: David Roberts’ Volts podcast, Matt Ferrell’s Undecided videos, who is in the process of building a net-zero house, and Ricky “Two-bit Da Vinci” videos, who is retrofitting an old house to be net-zero. I also follow Al Gore and Climate Reality for the latest news. And, I’m taking a workshop in April on climate solution innovations.
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Here’s what I’d like to know from you – what other topics would you be interested in? I don’t promise I have the resources to find answers to every topic, but I will do my best.
Also, do we have any experts out there who want to contribute, either through guest posts, Q&As, or helping find answers to various questions?
And finally, anyone you think I should be following on social media for climate solution information?
Keeping with my vow to limit my political junky tendencies, I find myself reading more and more non-political stories these days, watching more helpful youtube videos and really diving into Climate Change Solutions these days. I’m going to try and post more on Climate Solutions as time permits.
Meanwhile, here are a couple of stories I read this morning I thought I would share before I dive into my day.
At 6 a.m. on a Tuesday last July, Danny Cage was packing for a camping trip with friends when his cellphone rang. The caller ID flashed “Salem.”
He picked up: The governor’s office was on the line. A staffer for Gov. Kate Brown told Cage, 17 at the time, that he had been nominated to serve on a state board, the just-revamped Environmental Justice Council.
Cage had never heard of the council. The Grant High School student had never even been to Salem.
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Cage, now a senior at Grant, became the state’s youngest environmental justice commissioner – and a fresh voice on a group that advises the governor and the state’s natural resource agencies how to identify and help communities around the state that experience disproportionate environmental harms from such things as wildfires, diesel pollution and nitrate-laced drinking water.
“I was sitting in a room with people who have been the directors of an agency or of a nonprofit, who have their master’s or doctorate degrees, when I’m an 18-year-old high school student who has none of that professional experience,” said Cage. “But I also knew that my voice matters, just as much, if not more, because of my personal experience.”
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His awakening to the climate crisis came gradually. Since he was a child, Cage had heard talk of a warming planet but initially dismissed climate activists as “vegans and hippies,” he said.
That impression changed during his freshman year when he watched Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg’s short film, which began: “This is not a drill … We are living in the beginning of a mass extinction. Our climate is breaking down. Children like me are giving up their education to protest. But we can still fix this. You can still fix this.”
Colorado Springs rock hunter went out looking for geodes but found a dinosaur’s tibia instead
Kate Johnson, a volunteer with the Western Interior Paleontological Society, cleans mud from a tibia bone of a sauropod dinosaur on Jan. 27 in Cañon City. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
His quest for a geode took Chad McCarty into the hills of Fremont County a mere five months after he moved to Colorado.
He was drawn to the state from his native Florida because the geological diversity would allow him to better pursue his passion of rockhounding.
But on this October day something else caught his attention — something that looked like bone. He dug around it a bit, enough to determine that it was a bone. And a large one at that.
“Then I covered it up and continued to look for geodes, because that’s what I was focused on that day,” said McCarty, a 31-year-old Colorado Springs bartender who is working toward pursuing his metal sculpture art full time.
He returned three times to dig around the bone.
“It was a bonding experience,” he said with a wide smile. “Part of me wanted to keep it. It would look great on my mantle. But my conscience wouldn’t let me do that.”
He called the Bureau of Land Management and reported his discovery.
They worked to keep the dino bones in the county where they were found and it’s been a boon for the small museum and the area:
Acouple dozen children crowded along the roping that held the public about 3 feet from the new lab bench, their eyes laser focused as the technicians cut through the plaster to reveal the bones.
McCarty had been introduced to a loud round of applause, and he was assisting Broussard with the fibula. WIPS volunteers worked on the tibia. When the plaster came off, the wide-eyed youngsters grinned and applauded — along with the hundreds of adults in the room.
For the next few hours the crowd filed between the roping and table, taking photos and asking questions. More people arrived at the museum to take a look. No one rushed and the volunteers were eager to talk about how dinosaur bones are prepared. How to tell the dirt from bone. How to harden the cracks to keep the bone from falling apart.
Brazil’s democratic institutions have long been under siege by President Jair Bolsonaro. As a result, millions of citizens have now questioned the credibility of Brazil’s elections. You’re not alone if you see a pattern closer to home. Bolsonaro is referred to as the “Tropical Trump” for various reasons, this being just one of them.
One of the reasons the world has been missing Brazil is the destruction of the Amazon, the world’s lungs. Lula and Bolsonaro envisioned opposite fates for the Amazon at a crucial moment. If deforestation continues at current rates, as favored by Bolsonaro, the Amazon will pass an irreversible threshold in just a decade or two. Scientists warn that it would transform the rainforest into a savanna that would release billions of greenhouse gases.
As president, Lula demonstrated great success in drastically reducing Amazon rainforest deforestation. Sadly, Bolsonaro has openly supported clear-cutting and burning in the Amazon for agriculture, reversing this trend. Additionally, he undermined current environmental safeguards and legalized unlawful activity. In protected regions and Indigenous territory, illegal mining and logging grew during his watch, leading to pollution, destruction, and violence. READ the entire article here.His newsletter is good weekly read.
Lula the Leftist, Lula the trade unionist, Lula the people's leader. It's Lula da Silva who defeated fascist Bolsonaro with 50.9% votes and becomes the new President of Brazil. It's the people only the people who creates history. Fascism won't speaks last.#LulaPresidente2022pic.twitter.com/y1Y4r7JjVJ
Kate Johnson, a volunteer with the Western Interior Paleontological Society, cleans mud from a tibia bone of a sauropod dinosaur on Jan. 27 in Cañon City. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
