About a year ago, PBS had a program examining the most likely “Havens” from climate change in the US. They settled on Northern Vermont.
Turns out, not so much. This summer’s vicious pounding storms left a trail of destruction in that area, and actually showed how vulnerable Vermont’s communities, like Montpelier, hugging a river valley among the mountains, are extremely vulnerable to extreme rain events. Seems like someone might have been able to envision this, given the trends of climate-driven precipitation.
See the earlier “safe haven” prediction video below.
I’ve often argued that climate denial, and frankly, the MAGA mind virus, are symptoms of deep seated childhood trauma, that keeps victims frozen at an early stage of development. The most likely suspect is botched toilet training, but different types of trauma can get you “stuck” at various stages along the way. Alleged US Senator from Oklahoma Markwayne Mullins is this week’s best example.
Completely predictably, this shameful performance got him a gig on Hannity, who took the opportunity to opine that acting like civilized adults in the world’s greatest deliberative body would be hopelessly “woke”.
fellas, is it woke not to get into fistfights with your friends every single day? pic.twitter.com/moUDLKS8G7
The US Climate Assessment is a multiple agency report on climate impacts that is mandated by law. You have to complete one every 5 years. The last one was in 2018, and it’s interesting to remember how the Trump administration buried it with a release on Black Friday after Thanksgiving.
The United States and China, the world’s two largest climate polluters, have agreed to jointly tackle global warming by ramping up wind, solar and other renewable energy with the goal of displacing fossil fuels, the State Department said Tuesday.
The announcement comes as President Biden prepares to meet Wednesday with President Xi Jinping of China for their first face-to-face discussion in a year. The climate agreement could emerge as a bright spot in talks that are likely to focus on sensitive topics including Taiwan, the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas.
The statements of cooperation released separately by the United States and China do not include a promise by China to phase out its heavy use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, or to stop permitting and building new coal plants. That has been a sticking point for the United States in months of discussions with Beijing on climate change.
But both countries agreed to “pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030.” That growth should reach levels high enough “so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation,” the agreement says. Both countries anticipate “meaningful absolute power sector emission reduction” in this decade, it says. That appears to be the first time China has agreed to cut emissions in any part of its economy.
With images of spinning wind turbines behind him, President Biden described how climate change is already impacting communities across the US, and increasing in frequency. He called out Republican climate deniers, ticked off administration initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Chips and Science Act,, and outlined how 6 billion dollars from the IRA will be mobilized specifically to address needs like hardening transmission lines, and funding flood control efforts in local communities.
Climate change harms Americans physically, mentally and financially, often hitting those who have done the least to cause it, including Black people facing floods in the South and minorities enduring searing heat in cities, a federal report said on Tuesday.
More than a dozen U.S. agencies and about 750 scientists produced the National Climate Assessment, meant to crystallize the top science on the problem and communicate it to wide audiences, President Joe Biden said at the White House.
“This assessment shows us in clear scientific terms that climate change is impacting all regions, all sectors of the Untied States,” he said. “It warns that more action is still badly needed. We can’t be complacent.”
This year set a record for extreme weather events that cost over $1 billion, with costly floods, fires and storms occurring roughly every three weeks. In the 1980s, by comparison, the United States experienced a billion-dollar disaster only once every four months.
Climate change is increasingly imposing costs on Americans, as prices rise for weather-related insurance or certain foods. Medical costs are also going up as more people struggle with climate consequences such as extreme heat, the report said.
Biden said he had seen firsthand the devastating toll of climate change when visiting areas hit by historic hurricanes, floods and wildfires, and said it was “foolish” for some Republicans to deny the impacts of climate change.
On the other end of the equation, there is work being done to extract rare earths from existing coal mines, but also, see below, Rice University researchers are looking at the back of the coal fuel cycle, to coal ash, to pull out rare earths.
Twelve years ago, former Wall Street banker Randall Atkins bought an old coal mine outside Sheridan, Wyo., sight unseen, for about $2 million.
He thought the mine might eke out a profit. Instead, Atkins recently learned it could bring a windfall.
Several years after Atkins bought the Brook Mine, government researchers came around asking if they could run some tests to see if the ground contained something called “rare-earth elements.”
When Atkins acquired the mine, he says he “didn’t know the difference between rare earths and rare coins.” When he got the test results, including some as recently as September, he says he was surprised and humbled: His sleepy mine contains what might be the largest so-called unconventional rare-earth deposit in the U.S., according to government researchers.
At current market prices, it could be worth around $37 billion.
Atkins’s company, Ramaco Resources, recently started extracting larger samples for more analysis. If the project proceeds as intended, it would be the first new rare-earths mine in the U.S. since 1952.
The U.S. is racing to catch up on rare-earth supplies with China, among other countries, as the minerals are in ever-greater demand for a variety of uses, including electric vehicles and offshore wind turbines.
Keith Kimbrough is the first to admit that electric school buses were not an easy sell in the tiny, unincorporated town of Martinsville.
In Martinsville, which sits just outside of Nacogdoches in the Piney Woods of East Texas, pickup trucks are the vehicle of choice, and oil field jobs are prevalent.
Diesel exhaust is not top of mind.
And yet the modest school district here has become the first in the state to entirely replace its diesel school bus fleet with no-emission electric buses. Martinsville ISD applied for and received a $1.6 million grant last year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Its Clean School Bus Program — funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 — is investing $5 billion to replace existing school buses with zero-emission and low-emission models across the country, especially in school districts that serve rural areas or low-income students.
–
Kimbrough learned about the federal grant program while shopping for a new school bus last year. He faced some skepticism from residents who questioned whether the grant would fully fund the district, but he managed to get the administration on board by mapping out the possible cost savings of switching to electric buses. Kimbrough calculated that the electricity costs of running the buses would be about 70% less than the diesel fuel costs. He anticipates added savings in maintenance costs.
“What I can save in diesel and maintenance, I can almost hire a teacher, or an instructional aid, or give some other benefit to my teachers,” Kimbraugh said. “The cost savings are going to let me better support my kids.”
The up-front costs of electric buses can be cost prohibitive for many districts. A single electric bus costs $400,000, about three to four times more than a diesel bus. The EPA grant fully funded Martinsville ISD’s four new buses along with the charging infrastructure. An electric bus can travel about 100 miles before it needs to be recharged. Kimbrough said his buses run about 60 miles a day, so he is able to just charge them overnight. The district will continue to use diesel buses for longer field trips and sporting events.
A powerful new electric vehicle recently started roaming the leaf-strewn streets of Portland, Oregon. Between its tires sits a hefty 400-kilowatt-hour battery pack. Inside its body is the daily detritus discarded by residents of downtown Portland.
Rob Meyer’s HeatMap is becoming essential. They have a new piece that follows up and builds on Jesse Jenkin’s twitter thread of last week, pushing back on the CW that “EV Sales are Slowing”.
The best (and only) quantitative evidence presented for the dominant media narrative is data from Cox Automotive, as presented in a recent Wall Street Journal article, showing that dealers are taking more time and resorting to bigger discounts to move EVs off their lots.That’s true, but does it really indicate that EV sales are “slowing”?
First, this data excludes the space’s biggest player by far — Tesla — as well as other EV-only makers like Rivian who don’t use dealer networks, so this is really a story about traditional automakers (Ford, GM, Volkswagen, etc). And with high interest rates making a new car more costly to finance or lease, dealer discounts are trending steadily upwards for all vehicles in recent months, not just electric models, according to the Cox data.
Second, if we take a look at actual sales data, there’s no sign the growth in EVs is flagging. In fact, sales of battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the third quarter of 2023 exhibited the strongest year-on-year growth since the fourth quarter of 2021.
