Month: September 2024

Here’s an example of some of the best kind of climate reporting, especially in that it relates to impacts that will directly affect the audience.

WFLA in Tampa conducted a study in collaboration with the Department of Energy, analyzing trends in hurricane strength, and projecting hurricane activity in to the future.
The results are sobering.

One of the predictions is for hurricanes with 20 percent stronger maximum winds. As Jeff Berardelli explains below, that 20 percent is actually much, much worse than it sounds.

Once again, accounts of unprecedented flooding events and expensive damages, with no mention of climate change.
As one woman interviewed here says, “I saw flooding that I’ve never seen before in this neighborhood, because this is a non-flood zone.”
Even on WFLA, which does a pretty good job of integrating climate context into their weather reporting, viewers not being well-served by zero context reporting on increasing extreme precipitation.

Dr. Peter Hotez – “..a new normal for us during this time of climate change.”

Wall Street Journal:

Beach season may be over, but mosquito season isn’t.

Peak time for mosquito-transmitted diseases is typically late August and early September. Warmer temperatures into the fall keep the pests around for longer before the first hard frost kills them off, usually around Halloween in the Northeast. The heat can also make mosquitoes more infectious.

This year’s crop of worries includes West Nile virus and the potentially deadly eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE, along with dengue spreading from Puerto Rico to Southern states.

So far in the U.S. this year, 26 people have died from West Nile and at least one from EEE, according to preliminary data through early September from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Public-health officials and experts note that serious health complications and deaths from either virus are rare; most people have no symptoms or mild ones. Steps you can take to protect yourself include staying inside at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are especially active, and wearing insect repellent.

Vector-borne diseases—those transmitted by blood-feeding creatures like mosquitoes and ticks—are “among the fastest-growing group of diseases right now on the planet,” says Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of CDC’s division of vector-borne diseases.

Climate change and rising temperatures are one reason, says Petersen. And it isn’t just because the first frost might come later. “When the temperature is warmer, the virus multiplies faster in a mosquito and it multiplies in higher numbers,” he says. “So mosquitoes become infectious faster—and more infectious.”

Continue reading “Warmer Climate Means Longer Mosquito Season”

Your one stop disaster update from Yellow Dot Studio.

Case in point, Ameresco Inc.

And that’s unlikely to change, no matter how the election turns out.

Ameresco.com:

Ameresco, Inc. (NYSE:AMRC) is a leading cleantech integrator and renewable energy asset developer, owner and operator. From implementing energy efficiency and infrastructure upgrades to developing, constructing, and operating distributed energy resources – we are a trusted sustainability partner with over $14 billion in energy solutions delivered since 2000. Technical independence coupled with our advanced technology portfolio allows us to integrate best-in-class solutions for the unique needs of each customer, paired with practical financial solutions.

Drawing from more than 20 years of experience, Ameresco has successfully completed energy saving, environmentally responsible projects with Federal, state and local governments, utilities, healthcare and educational institutions, housing authorities, and commercial and industrial customers. We provide local expertise across the US, Canada, UK and Europe.

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Even in the case of the (gag..God Help us) Trump victory, the clean energy transition has momentum, especially, in fact, in Red states and Red Congressional Districts.

The Hill:

This month, 18 House Republicans submitted a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) urging him not to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits if Republicans maintain or expand their House majority in this year’s election. They emphasized that these “energy tax credits have spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in…many districts represented by members of our conference.”  

These Republicans are likely reacting to a repeated talking point by former President Donald Trump and many Republican candidates on this year’s campaign trail: grand declarations that if elected into office, the Inflation Reduction Act and its associated tax credits will be on the chopping block.    

Continue reading “Help Wanted: Clean Energy is Hiring”

WFLA Tampa reporting that the lingering aftermath from Hurricane Debby’s flooding is adding to risks from a new viral threat.

Now we’ll have to learn how to spell Oropouche.

CDC:

• Oropouche virus is spread to people primarily by the bite of infected biting midges. Some mosquitoes can also spread the virus.
• Oropouche virus has been reported in parts of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
• Common symptoms include fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, and joint pains.
• There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat Oropouche.
• The best way to protect yourself from Oropouche is to prevent bug bites.

Meanwhile, “Triple E” or Eastern Equine Encephalitis, also spread by mosquitoes, is showing up in several states – with an Ebola-level fatality rate of 30 percent.

No surprise that Russian disinformation is in the news, certainly related to the upcoming election. What is less well known is Russia’s role in disinforming about clean energy.
It makes total sense when you understand that Russia’s national budget is more than 35 percent dependent on oil/gas revenues.

Jess Ralston in Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit:

“Kremlin-backed actors have been found to be pushing climate change denialism across the Alliance, all while actively attempting to derail climate change mitigation policies and renewable energy investments”

“It’s clearly in Putin’s interest to keep Europe hooked on gas which means that efforts to transition away, using renewables and electric heat pumps that replace gas boilers, are a threat to him.

“That NATO has found evidence of propaganda campaigns against the green energy transition in Europe highlights the worrying influence of foreign actors on debates of national importance in democratic countries. There is an unfortunate alignment with what an energy minister in the last government said were UK-based ‘campaigns of misinformation’ around clean technology in the UK.

“Plans to accelerate renewables deployment diminish Putin’s sway over us via the gas market. More drilling in the North Sea would not insulate us from volatile market prices and would make at best marginal gains for domestic energy production compared to the much more significant role wind and solar can play in reducing foreign energy dependence. A debate on the UK’s energy security that centres on North Sea oil and gas is almost entirely missing the point.

“With North Sea oil and gas output set to decline irrespective of more drilling, unless renewables are rapidly deployed the UK becomes more dependent on foreign energy. Unless we transition from gas boilers to electric heat pumps, we become ever more reliant on foreign powers to heat our homes. That is the simple truth.”

“Efforts by some to point to the cost of ‘green levies’ instead of the volatile gas price that has actually been driving up energy bills since the Russian invasion of Ukraine would likely have been helpful to the Kremlin-backed narrative, refocusing attention away from the actual problem and so the real solutions. Insulating homes, building out British renewables and switching to electric heat pumps together mean as a country we are less dependent on gas and so less vulnerable to foreign regimes.”

Continue reading “Not Just Elections: Russian Disinformation Pumps Anti Clean Energy Messaging”

Birthplace of the coal-driven industrial revolution is about to go coal-free.

Gas is next.

Financial Times (paywall):

Home to the world’s first coal-fired power station, opened in London in 1882, the UK is set to be the first G7 country to stop using coal to generate electricity, one year earlier than first set out by the previous Conservative government in 2015. Germany plans to do so by 2038, Canada by 2030, and Italy from the end of 2025, excluding the island of Sardinia.

The date was brought forward in 2021 by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as he sought to show the UK’s climate leadership ahead of the UN annual climate change summit in Glasgow that year.  However, several plants that were due to close in autumn 2022 were asked by the government to stay online after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February triggered fears about a gas crisis. 

French-owned energy company EDF and other groups closed their last remaining coal-power stations in 2023, leaving Ratcliffe — built in the 1960s and able to power about 2mn homes — the last man standing.

Coal supplied 80 per cent of the UK’s electricity in 1990 — but only 1 per cent last year, when 34.7 per cent came from gas, 32.8 per cent from wind and solar, 11.6 per cent from bioenergy, and 13.8 per cent from nuclear. 

Continue reading “UK Leaving Coal Behind”