Down-to-Earth is an India-produced series that is most often worthwhile, and I try to post it here from time to time to draw attention to Climate, science and tech perspectives from the Developing World.
Greening the coal-heavy grid of the world’s most populous (but sunny) country is mission critical for the global energy transition. Close-up here of small scale solar deployment, using net-metering principles that westerners will readily grasp. Now why can’t we do this consistently in every US state?
Washed up among the flotsam and jetsam of my youtube algorithm, came across this 5 year old AP video report, with only 485 views, that turns out to be a pretty spot-on snapshot, and just as relevant today.
Anyone that has followed climate for a while will know that Zeke Hausfather is one of the smartest, most experienced, data driven, and clear voices of the science. When Zeke speaks, you listen, because you’re going to learn something, and probably hear it expressed in the clearest and most unambiguous terms, because Zeke is a rarity, not just a consummate scientist, but a master communicator who chooses his words with great care. Zeke has been a keystone for the well-respected Berkeley Earth temperature data project since its inception. That’s why, when, a week ago, Zeke tweeted (or X-d) that the latest global temperature data was “Gobsmackingly bananas” – it was a post heard around the world. Now he elaborates for the New York Times.
As global temperatures shattered records and reached dangerous new highs over and over the past few months, my climate scientist colleagues and I have just about run out of adjectives to describe what we have seen. Data from Berkeley Earth released on Wednesday shows that September was an astounding 0.5 degree Celsius (almost a full degree Fahrenheit) hotter than the prior record, and July and August were around 0.3 degree Celsius (0.5 degree Fahrenheit) hotter. 2023 is almost certain to be the hottest year since reliable global records began in the mid-1800s and probably for the past 2,000 years (and well before that).
While natural weather patterns, including a growing El Niño event, are playing an important role, the record global temperatures we have experienced this year could not have occurred without the approximately 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming to date from human sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. And while many experts have been cautious about acknowledging it, there is increasing evidence that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years rather than continued at a gradual, steady pace. That acceleration means that the effects of climate change we are already seeing — extreme heat waves, wildfires, rainfall and sea level rise — will only grow more severe in the coming years.
I don’t make this claim lightly. Among my colleagues in climate science, there are sharp divisions on this question, and some aren’t convinced it’s happening. Climate scientists generally focus on longer-term changes over decades rather than year-to-year variability, and some of my peers in the field have expressed concerns about overinterpreting short-term events like the extremes we’ve seen this year. In the past I doubted acceleration was happening, in part because of a long debate about whether global warming had paused from 1998 to 2012. In hindsight, that was clearly not the case. I’m worried that if we don’t pay attention today, we’ll miss what are increasingly clear signals.
Below: Other scientists react to September’s stunning global temperature data:
As I’ve documented repeatedly here, the fossil fuel industry is fighting a holding action against the clean energy transition, in part by mounting a massive, social media based, coordinated campaign of misinformation aimed at aggrieved low-information citizens in rural areas, and mobilizing them as shock troops who harass, intimidate, and threaten farmers and landowners who seek to site clean energy on their land.
The battleground is everywhere, but nowhere more critical than the American midwest, where a huge clean energy resource exists in reasonable proximity to large electricity demand centers. In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has introduced a suite of bills aimed at a 100% carbon free energy by 2035 (or 2040, depending on the version you look at). Part of the push has to include clean energy siting reform, to lift the burden of siting 100 million dollar projects off the shoulders of wholly unprepared township boards, who have been beset by angry mobs, threatened with physical violence, and by recall elections where wealthy conservatives can drop huge campaign donations to win a single township board seat. Yesterday, that bill was debated before the Michigan House Energy Committee. Above, multigenerational farmer Clara Ostrander appealed to the Committee to defend property rights and allow her to save her farm for future generations by harvesting the sun.
“Antis” showed up as well. This is typical. Draw your own conclusions.
A world-first review of hundreds of studies on ecological change in the world’s oceans suggests a global alteration of the marine ecosystem due to increasing CO2 emissions will result in the collapse of the food chain as we know it.
“This ‘simplification’ of our oceans will have profound consequences for our current way of life, particularly for coastal populations and those that rely on oceans for food and trade,” said Ivan Nagelkerken, a marine ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia and co-author of the study.
While the majority of existing ecological studies looking at the effects of global warming on ocean life tend to focus on individual subject areas, the researchers in this instance took a broader approach, analysing the data of 632 studies covering a wide range of ocean environments, ecosystems, and marine species.
“We know relatively little about how climate change will affect the marine environment. Until now, there has been almost total reliance on qualitative reviews and perspectives of potential global change. Where quantitative assessments exist, they typically focus on single stressors, single ecosystems or single species,” said Sean Connell, a professor in ecology and environmental science and co-author of the paper.
“This analysis combines the results of all these experiments to study the combined effects of multiple stressors on whole communities, including species interactions and different measures of responses to climate change.”
The macro perspective afforded by the researchers’ method doesn’t paint a positive picture for marine life – or those who rely on it. On the whole, the authors find there will be “limited scope” for species to successfully acclimate to warmer waters and increasing acidification of the world’s oceans, leading to large reductions in the diversity and abundance of sea life.
A Northern Michigan environmental organization and climate activist are warning the effects of climate change are already here — and will continue to worsen unless significant changes are made.
Peter Sinclair, a Midland videographer specializing in energy and climate change, headlined the event with the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council, discussing the future of clean energy and climate in Michigan.
Sinclair drew a particular focus on Michigan’s view by many as a “climate haven,” a region of the country with access to abundant freshwater and an ecosystem that may be more resilient to temperature change. But he warned that climate change’s effects are far from remote.
“Our temperatures are rising faster and our impacts are rising faster,” Sinclair said, citingan August article from University of Michigan researchers which identified most states in the Midwest as those most susceptible to rising temperatures in the coming decades.
Sinclair pointed out catastrophic weather suffered in the last year in much of Michigan, where February ice storms knocked out power for nearly half a million residents in southeast Michigan, midsummer wildfire smoke from Canada worsened air quality for weeks and August tornadoes killed five across the Lower Peninsula.
Poor infrastructure also plays a role in Michigan’s climate future, Sinclair said. The state ranks 45th in electricity reliability and significant flooding can lead to waterborne disease outbreaks, he said.
“We’re moving into a new condition in a world where climate has changed, not changing,” he said. “The new normal is no normal. It’s going to continue to change until we stop adding more heat trapping gases to the atmosphere.”
ExxonMobil is buying itsoil and gas rival Pioneer Natural Resources in a $59.5 billion megadeal that is a bet by the energy giant that the transition away from fossil fuels will play out at a much slower pace than the White House plans.
The all-stock deal, which both companies announced Wednesday, is the biggest merger for the oil company since it acquired Mobil in 1999. It comes as other oil companies are also refocusing their strategies on fossil fuel production, while scaling back their plans for moving into cleaner energy.
The latest ExxonMobil deal creates a shale-drilling behemoth in the U.S. Permian Basin, where both it and Pioneer have considerable sway.
“The combined capabilities of our two companies will provide long-term value creation well in excess of what either company is capable of doing on a stand-alone basis,” ExxonMobil chairman and chief executive Darren Woods said in a statement.
The move comes after 18 months of elevated energy prices, leaving oil giants such as Exxon flush with cash. Exxon is committing $64.5 billion to the acquisition when debt is included, making it the company’s biggest deal since it acquired Mobil in 1999 for $75.3 billion. It follows a smaller $4.9 billion tie-up with Denbury, which specializes in carbon capture and enhanced oil recovery.
As oil prices shot up amid easing pandemic restrictions and the energy crunch that followed sanctions on Russian oil, companies such as Exxon have enjoyed record profits. The oil companies have generally moved to invest those windfalls into increased production rather than expanding their portfolios into more climate-friendly energy pursuits.
Shell Oil earlier this year quietly put on the back burner what had been one of the industry’s most aggressive blueprints to reduce greenhouse gases. BP, which markets itself as a pioneer in the transition, substantially rolled back its targets for cutting emissions. The moves are in direct conflict with U.S. and global climate policies, which aim to rapidly phase out the internal combustion engine and shift power grids worldwide to zero emissions energy.
