November 2024 – Page 5 – This is Not Cool

The Climate Fight Will Continue

I’ll be talking to students at a nearby University, some of whom, I’m told, are despondent about the results of the election.
I have some early thoughts:
Keywords: Local, Vocal, Do not back down.
I’ll have some action plans to offer them if they’re up for it.

I will continue communicating and cooperating with folks, mostly conservative Republican farmers who I am sure do not vote as I do, but are nevertheless allies.

Jesse Jenkins is an engineer at Princeton with deep knowledge of clean energy and the energy transition.

Jesse Jenkins in Heatmap:

I won’t sugar coat this: The election of Donald Trump to a second term with a likely governing trifecta has dealt a devastating blow to U.S. efforts to cut climate-warming pollution.

I’ve spent the past four years analyzing the progress made under the Biden-Harris Administration as leader of the REPEAT Project, which uses energy systems models to rapidly assess the impact of federal energy and climate policies. In that time, the passage of landmark legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — and finalization of key federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, cars and trucks, and oil and gas supply chains put the U.S. on track to more than double its pace of decarbonization and avoid about 6 billion tons of cumulative emissions through 2035. Though even that progress was not enough: Recent policies would do only about half the work required to bend U.S. emissions onto a net-zero pathway by 2035.

A President Harris would have fought to protect and build on the efforts of the past four years. Now that opportunity is lost. One notable climate scientist even declared a second Trump term “game over for the climate.”

With Trump once again ascendant and seemingly committed to dismantling the historic climate progress made by the United States over the past four years, one can be forgiven for feeling anguish about the opportunities we’ve lost, rage about the very real suffering that will result from further delay, or deep despair about the darker days ahead.

Music Break: Benny Bleu – Big Sciota

Somewhere in Northwest Arkansas, there is an organic farm slowly taking shape, with some profound knowledge of natural systems and soil being applied, along with one bloody fucking hell of a lot of hard work.
The exposed beds actually survived a recent 12 inch rainstorm, while the unprepared ground nearby saw a lot of erosion. Good stress test seemed to prove out the resilience of well structured and properly amended soil.
Actually, not a bad place to go when you’re numb from a world that seems to be rejecting civilization, law, democracy, and even the bare minimum of a livable planet for their own children. Shoveling compost and ripping calendula beds is sweat therapy.
But there are occasionally moments to slow down, appreciate what’s been accomplished, and maybe build strength for the work that needs yet to be done.

One way to chillax is by listening to Benny Bleu’s meditative clawhammer banjo stylings.
I also have a recommendation for an adult beverage that fits the mood.

Hurricane Season Not Over Yet for Florida. Maybe.

Season’s not over yet.
Above, model run for coming week.

CoreLogic estimates $51-81 billion in damage from Helene and Milton and models are increasingly locking on to "Sara" impacting south Florida next Wednesday. This is GFS guidance (ECMWF is farther south). Confidence levels are still very low, but something for Floridians to keep an eye on 👀
— Paul Douglas (@pdouglasweather.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T19:23:02.819Z

Accuweather discussion below.

Climate Denier: Hurricanes Caused by Abortions

Tucker Carlson, who recently reasoned that scratches that showed up on his body after sleeping in a bed with 4 dogs, must logically have come from an attack by a demon – has taken further steps.
My response to the demon attack thing was, OK, grifters gotta grift, and demons sell well with the Christian Nationalist crowd.
But looks like he’s going to keep pushing it.
Stronger hurricanes are obviously coming from women’s desire to have choices in their reproductive health, which he calls “human sacrifice”. (at this link you can view the original X posting, which WordPress is not allowing here for some reason)
I’ve said this for years, climate denier’s ultimate response to obvious onset of disastrous climate change will not be, “Well, damn, I guess the science was right and physics is real”, but rather, “It’s demons, and God’s vengeance for fill-in-the-blank-with-your-sin-of choice”.

Meanwhile, a friend came across this 1987 piece from the New York Times, describing then-current modeling by MIT’s Kerry Emanuel, which predicted stronger hurricanes with a warming planet.

Below, Dr. Emanuel explains in a 2015 interview.

Solar Parking Lots a Good Idea, but Not the Slam Dunk that Some Think

“Why don’t we just put solar on rooftops and parking lots?”
You hear this question a lot – the presumption is usually that if we just covered all available urban space with solar panels, we’d solve our energy problem – and that’s simply wrong, for a lot of reasons.
One flavor of the argument is that we should put solar panels over every parking lot. Great. Let’s do it – but first let’s be aware of the barriers that exist to make it happen.
Simon Mahan is Executive Director, Southern Renewable Energy Association.

Simon Mahan on X:

There’s been a meme running around showing solar carports. Usually, the “take” is we should be installing solar carports instead of using farmland for solar. Here’s the thing: no one is stopping you from installing solar carports. So why don’t we do it more often?

First, parking lots are unusual things. They can be privately owned (a landlord), or publicly owned (city/school/etc.). Public owned lots/garages have to get budget line items through local/state appropriations. Private can go quicker, but still need permits, etc.

Next, regardless of parking lot ownership type, if the lot owner doesn’t have a way to use the solar (like a net meter agreement with a utility), or access to a wholesale market (being able to sell directly into the grid), they won’t recoup their costs.

Net metering policies have been under attack in the U.S. Many states have a cap on the size a project can be, usually well less than 100 kilowatts. That may be enough for maybe 10 houses. That ain’t nothing, but we’re not powering the U.S. economy with that.

Additionally, carports are estimated to cost upwards of $4 per watt. A rooftop system may cost just $2.5 per watt. Meanwhile, a large “farm” based system may only cost $1 watt. Carports must be tall for vehicles, tearing up asphalt is more expensive than dirt. More work and materials.

Memes like this are designed to sway muddle headed greenies who don’t understand farmers, farming, or clean energy

Will Musk Move Trump on Climate?

Elon Musk is in a vulnerable position, as he told Tucker Carlson in a pre-election interview, “If Trump loses, I’m fucked”.
He might be fucked anyway, if in fact he did anything illegal, having a top security clearance while having conversations with Vladimir Putin.
If that’s the case, a President Trump would have considerable leverage over him, with a credible threat of prosecution and jail.

So, how much influence do you think he will have in a new administration?

New York Times:

Elon Musk has described himself as “pro-environment” and “super pro climate.” But he also threw himself wholeheartedly into electing as president someone who has dismissed global warming as a hoax.

Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to enter the White House, one big question is how much sway — if any — Mr. Musk’s views on climate change and clean energy might have in the new administration.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump noticeably softened his rhetoricon electric vehicles as he grew more friendly with Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla. After months of bashing plug-in cars and promising to halt their sales, Mr. Trump backtracked slightly this summer.

“I’m constantly talking about electric vehicles, but I don’t mean I’m against them. I’m totally for them,” he told a crowd in Michigan. “I’ve driven them and they are incredible, but they’re not for everybody.”

Musk Suggests Democracy for”High Status Males” Only

They’re really making it explicit, aren’t they?

Independent:

Elon Musk has used his large platform on X to promote a theory that a free-thinking “Republic” could only exist under the decision-making of “high status males” – and women or “low T men” would not be welcome in it.

On Sunday, Musk re-posted a screenshot of the theory – which appears to have been conceived on 4chan in 2021– on the social media site.

The theory, written by an anonymous user, suggests that the only people able to think freely are “high [testostrone] alpha males” and “aneurotypical people”, and that these “high status males” should run a “Republic” that is “only for those who are free to think.”

“People who can’t defend themselves physically (women and low T men) parse information through a consensus filter as a safety mechanism,” the post reads.

“Only high T alpha males and aneurotypical people (hey autists!) are actually free to parse new information with an objective ‘is this true?’ filter,” it adds. “This is why a Republic of high status males is best for decision making. Democratic, but a democracy only for those who are free to think.”

Science Brings Quicker Tally of Climate Impacts

For decades, TV weather reporters have not done a good job linking the effects of climate change to the specific weather disasters that they are describing for their audience.
That’s starting to change – and the ramifications are not just on the news.

Bloomberg:

The World Weather Attribution (WWA) group began 10 years ago as a rapid-response team showing how the warming planet intensified individual storms, heat waves and droughts. And TV forecasters have relied on the group’s analyses to shift the climate conversation.

“The science is so undeniable,” said CNN meteorologist Elisa Raffa, whose team regularly cites WWA reports. “Meteorologists are talking about it more because it’s a part of the story, it’s right there in front of our faces.”

In 2004, a Nature study was the first to show how climate change increased the odds of a specific extreme weather event (in that case, the deadly 2003 European heat wave). But the international scientists behind WWA wanted to speed up the analysis process — known as attribution science — to communicate climate change’s influence on weather in near-real time when the public is most likely to be paying attention.

The Nature study took more than a year to publish. Relying on similar peer-reviewed techniques, WWA has cut that timeline down to days and published dozens of analyses; the group’s recent report on Hurricane Milton took less than 48 hours. The team commemorated its 10th anniversary last week with an analysisshowing climate change contributed to more than 570,000 deaths across 10 of the deadliest weather events since 2004.

“Many people now understand that climate change is already making life more dangerous,” Friederike Otto, who co-founded the group, said of WWA’s work in a press briefing. “The study is our 90th and underscores the simple fact that burning fossil fuels causes climate change, and climate change causes death and destruction.”

Spain’s Floods Highlight Vulnerable Human Infrastructure

Rains in Valencia, Spain last week were catastrophic for a number of reasons.
More moisture in the air, a hotter Mediterranean, greater development in the affected areas with more impermeable concrete roads, parking lots and structures shedding water.
The pictures are similar to what we saw in Asheville, NC area after Hurricane Helene, looking like some giant with a hydraulic machine simply ran roughshod over whole areas. Cars, buildings, concrete – it doesn’t matter, human constructions simply cannot stand up to the force of massive, moving water.

Bloomberg:

The tragedy has raised questions about whether earlier warningscould have prevented so many deaths, while the widespread damage shows how many cities aren’t adapted to withstand rainfall amplified by climate change.

An extremely hot Mediterranean and warmer air temperatures exacerbated a type of storm system that is becoming more common in the Iberian peninsula due to global warming. Experts who spoke with Bloomberg Green said that a building boom in the region in recent decades may have put people in harm’s way and reduced stormwater drainage.

A Lot Comes Down To This

So much blame to go around, but I keep coming back to then-CBS CEO Les Moonves famous remark of 2016, when US media was milking the Trump circus for clicks, and thereby elevating and normalizing a dangerous criminal.
Future historians, if there are any, will marvel.

New York Times, November 7, 2024:

When Donald J. Trump pulled off a surprise victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016, the news media was a major beneficiary, as viewers stayed glued to cable news and readers signed up for newspaper subscriptions in droves.

Eight years later, Mr. Trump’s definitive White House victory could lead to another spike of audience interest in the news — at least in the short term — numerous experts said.

Cable news ratings, subscriptions to digital news organizations and philanthropic giving will probably increase, as audiences sort through a news-intensive post-election period. But that enthusiasm could wear off in the coming weeks and months as viewers become exhausted by the relentless news cycle.

“Trump 2.0 will likely be a very different administration than we saw before,” said Frank Sesno, a professor at George Washington University and a former Washington bureau chief of CNN. “That will carry immense consequences and news value. It will energize right-wing media, and it will panic the left.”