Above, Deutshe Welle, the German equivalent of PBS, had a nice report going on the recent, and ongoing, mountain side collapse in Switzerland, with some local interviews and new footage, so no problems on their end. Then they cut to a “Climate Policy Specialist” at Stanford, who gives a clear, deer-in-the-headlights lesson in how to miss opportunities to inform and not respond to the questions being asked.
That question was, “is this a trend in the Alps that we will see more of?” The answer is yes. Some details below.
Marmolade Glacier in the Italian Alps partially collapsed in 2022, killing several hikers.
Italy was enduring a prolonged heat wave before a massive piece of Alpine glacier broke off and killed hikers on Sunday and experts say climate change will make those hot, destabilizing conditions more common.
100 hour consciousness raising live stream on weather, climate science is pretty awesome so far. I’ve heard presentations from some of the leading names in climate science so far tonight, Ben Sander and Kerry Emanuel, as well as young scientists fired, then rehired, then fired, by DOGE – and the impacts that has on US science leadership.
That’s the alluring—if wildly ambitious—vision being presented by New York–based fuels startup Aircela. Earlier this month, the company announced it had created the world’s first functional machine capable of generating real, usable car gasoline “directly from the air.” Aircela’s new device, roughly the size of a commercial refrigerator, combines direct air capture (DAC) with on-site fuel synthesis to create gasoline using just air, water, and renewable energy. No fossil fuels, they say, are required.
The product their device produces can be poured directly into the tank of any standard gas-powered car. Aircela demonstrated the process, making gasoline directly from air, in front of a live audience in New York. Though most would describe this proof of concept as a “prototype,” company co-founder and CEO Eric Dahlgren takes some umbrage with that label.
I posted earlier today about a Swiss Alps glacier collapse that wiped out the village of Blatten. An early evacuation spared many casualties, but this new report points out that the glacier is only a small part of the larger mountain side that has been destabilizing for some time. Video contains some time lapses that are eye-popping and somewhat terrifying. It appears a much larger event is imminent.
A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off on Wednesday afternoon, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to bury part of a mountain village evacuated earlier this month due to the risk of a rockslide, authorities said.
Local authorities describe the situation as “very bad”, and have requested support from the Swiss army’s disaster relief unit. Members of the Swiss government are on their way to the scene.
The village’s 300 inhabitants had to leave their homes on 19 May after geologists monitoring the area warned that the glacier appeared unstable. Now many of them may never be able to return.
Texas renewable energy industry, the most dynamic in the country, has been a constant source of embarrassment for the fossil fuel industry. Texas has its own grid, almost entirely cut off from the rest of North America. The Downside is they can’t sell excess power to other markets, and they can’t call on neighboring states for additional energy in times of stress. The upside is, Texas has the most market oriented grid, maybe in the world – ant that market has overwhelmingly been choosing wind, solar, and battery storage to meet new demand, despite the Texas Legislature’s attempts to jump start and advantage the natural gas sector. Over the last year, gas funded legislators introduced bills that would have hamstrung clean energy – at a moment when demand is rising precipitously. It looks like a combination of urban greens, rural Republicans who value property rights, local officials who appreciate the revenue from renewable projects, and Chamber of Commerce pragmatists, has, once again, fought off the challenge. This is a big deal.
Legislation that would have added several layers of regulation to new wind and solar power facilities – rules opposed by renewable energy producers and environmentalists – missed a key deadline Saturday and is unlikely to pass this year.
Senate Bill 819, authored by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would require new utility-scale wind and solar plants to undergo Public Utility Commission approval and public notice. In addition, new wind turbines would have to be set back from neighboring property lines by twice the height of the turbine and blade unless a waiver was signed, according to the most recent version of the measure.
As a Republican state lawmaker for 16 years, a Texas rancher and a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, John Davis’s conservative credentials are impeccable. But Davis has become horrified at his party’s assault upon an increasingly vital lifeline to many rural, conservative areas of the US – clean energy development.
Davis allowed seven wind turbines to be situated on his ranch, in the rolling hill country near Menard, west of Austin, and has seen the income provide opportunities not only for his family but also his local community in what is one of the poorest counties in Texas.
But a barrage of bills working their way through the Republican-held Texas legislature threaten to reverse the state’s position as the US’s clean energy superpower, even curtailing cherished private property rights by limiting a landowner’s ability to host wind and solar farms.
Current budget legislation being hashed out in the US Senate seems likely to slow US progress on emissions. So this new paper comes as unwelcome piling-on.
Efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world’s ice sheets, according to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
Research led by Durham University, UK, suggests the target should instead be closer to 1°C to avoid significant losses from the polar ice sheets and prevent a further acceleration in sea level rise.
The team reviewed a wealth of evidence to examine the effect that the 1.5°C target would have on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which together store enough ice to raise global sea levels by almost 65 meters.
