Has Climate Change Hit a New Gear?

NBC News reporting on multiple widespread weather extremes with no climate context

Have we crossed any kind of line this summer where a majority are freaked enough about climate change to actually do something about it?

Adam McKay in Current Affairs:

However, there is one type of rare, gargantuan, towering lie that makes all the other mass lies throughout human history seem like frightened, scurrying, little adorable fibs. 

It is a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventually—as the deception entered mainstream culture—even by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day. It is a constantly growing gourd that even as a baby back in the 1970s was the size of three aircraft carriers. These days it is so massive it is almost easier to refer to what isn’t part of it (Disneyland, a BLT, that green croc by the side of the highway) than what is.

This massive lie can best be summed up as “when it comes to climate change… we have more time.”

To be clear, we are not talking about the kind of total climate denial one would find on the extremist, lunatic fringe inhabited by the likes of Alex Jones or the current U.S. President. And we’re not referring to cartoonish hucksters and “climate skeptics” like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson.

Polling shows only 14.8 percent of Americans deny the basic sixth grade science behind global warming. To put that in perspective, as much as 10 percent of the population still believes the Earth is flat.

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Iran Holds Hormuz Cards, is Standing Pat

Wall Street Journal:

On Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on CNBC to say that a deal could be announced later that day to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The stock market jumped markedly.

Alas, there was no deal. Far from it.

And on Saturday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, laid out the conditions for reopening the Strait. They include the U.S. permanently ending the war, lifting its naval blockade, withdrawing forces, ending all sanctions, freeing Iran’s frozen assets, the payment of war reparations and ending threats and insults, among other things.

“It shows that they believe they have the upper hand, they believe they’re winning, and they are emboldened,” former Defense Secretary Mark Espersaid Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program.

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Trump’s Sleazy Greenland Grift Continues

Arctic Today:

President Donald Trump has told a radio host that a bet on the United States controlling Greenland before the end of his term would be a safe one, the latest sign that his push to acquire the island remains a priority.

Speaking on Real America’s Voice on July 31, Trump was reminded by host Steve Gruber of Gruber’s own earlier on-air prediction that Greenland would be under U.S. operational control before Trump left office. Asked whether the island remained vital to Western defence, Trump replied:

“You’ll be right. Greenland’s important from our standpoint. Not from their standpoint. But from our standpoint.” He added: “You should make that bet, actually.”

The following day, Trump posted an image to Truth Social depicting himself as a giant figure looming over the town of Tasiilaq, on Greenland’s east coast, captioned “Hello, Greenland!” The image is one he has shared several times since May, part of a series of Greenland-related posts dating back to the beginning of his second term.

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Solar Can Make Grazing More Resilient

Wake up Sheeple.
You can graze Cattle under solar panels now, too.

Associated Press:

Silicon Ranch, which owns the 40-acre farm in Christiana, outside of Nashville, believes cattle-grazing is the next frontier in so-called agrivoltaics, which mostly has involved growing crops or grazing sheep beneath the panels.

The solar company debuted the project this week and will spend the next year working to demonstrate to farmers that much larger cattle also can thrive at solar sites. If successful, advocates say, that could jump-start new projects to meet the soaring electricity demand driven by rapidly expanding data centers — without contributing climate-warming carbon emissions — and help cattle producers hold onto their land and livelihoods.

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“Beach Nourishment” is Exhibit A for Climate Gentrification

Star News Online April 18, 2024:

Dr. Martin Smith, an environmental economics professor at Duke University, and McNamara created a new economic model called the Coastal Home Ownership Model (C-HOM) to analyze the long-term evolution of coastal real estate markets.

Smith said government actions to protect and enhance coastal communities from environmental risks, such as sea-level rise and stronger and more frequent hurricanes, helps support and boost property values.

“What it signals to the market is that this is a fine place to further invest,” he said.

Paradoxically, as property values increase and coastal communities become more wealthy, it becomes easier for officials to justify additional and more expensive projects to maintain that economic value in these increasingly vulnerable areas.

“We’re shielding these markets from the underlying risks they face, and hence propping up these markets,” McNamara said. 

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Fires, Smoke, and Drought Still Hammering West

CBS report recaps events in Spokane following last week’s devastating fires, and points out that the last decade has seen a number of communities that formerly felt safe, become cautionary tales of climate enhanced wildfires.

Reuters:

PENTICTON, British Columbia, Aug 8 (Reuters) – British Columbia declared a state of emergency on Saturday after thousands of people in the western Canadian province were ordered to flee ‌a fast-moving wildfire that nearly doubled in size overnight.

The Bald Range wildfire was burning out of control and grew rapidly to about 9,500 hectares (23,500 acres), prompting evacuation orders in Summerland, Peachland and other districts west of Okanagan Lake in the province’s southern interior. The region produces most of B.C.’s wine and is Canada’s second-largest wine-producing area.

Premier David Eby told a news ​conference on Saturday that one fire official had likened the fire to “a bomb going off”.

“He described flames on 100-foot tree, flames ​going 200 feet above that, and the fire creating its own weather system, which creates lightning, which then ⁠feeds on itself,” Eby said.

“Homes have been lost, and properties have been destroyed. Some people became trapped as conditions changed very quickly, and ​needed to be rescued,” the premier said, adding it remained a very dynamic and threatening situation.

The Weekend Wonk: Base Power and the Virtual Power Plant Paradigm

Above, Fox Business interviews with Base Power founder Zach Dell, son of Michael Dell of computer fame.
Zach is CEO of Base Power, which is pioneering a Virtual Power Plant model, providing home batteries at much reduced cost, which not only provide back up power and energy security for homeowners, but form the backbone of a networked power plant system that can augment utility scale generation.

Below, Bloomberg interview.
Description:
Rising demand for electricity in the US is fueling investor interest in backing battery startups, such as Base Power, which just closed a $1 billion Series D round at a $13 billion post-money valuation. Base Power CEO and co-founder Zach Dell joins Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech.”

Below, the YouTuber Energy Viking describes the value proposition that Base Power offers homeowners.

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Clean Energy Wreaks Furious Vengeance on Fossil Fuel Shills

It helps that the more vociferous opponents of clean energy are also some of the more obnoxious and corrupt politicians imaginable.

Politico:

An aggressive new political action committee backed by renewable energy supporters claimed its biggest and clearest win yet Thursday by helping unseat conservative Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee despite President Donald Trump’s vocal support.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC spent $2 million opposing Ogles and boosting Republican primary opponent Charlie Hatcher — more than both candidates combined — and the group is now poised to be a force in future contests.

Ogles was the third Republican this year to lose a race after being targeted by the super PAC, launched by solar executives wanting to get back at Republicans who actively work against renewables. 

“[W]e will continue to punish members of either party who want to play politics with American jobs, energy security, and utility prices. The entire map is in play and we will take this fight across the country through November,” Tom Matzzie, CEO of solar company CleanChoice Energy and chair of Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, said in a statement. 

The group’s ads did not mention clean energy, instead targeting conservative voters with advertisements that boosted Hatcher’s right-wing credentialsandchided Ogles for missing votes.

The PAC deployed a similar playbook against Texas Rep. Chip Roy in his unsuccessful attorney general bid and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, who lost his campaign for governor.

Lawmakers like Ogles, Roy and Norman pushed Republican leaders in Congress last year for a quick phaseout of renewable energy incentives in what became the One Big Beautiful Bill act.

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Climate Change is Cancelling Summertime

What is so Rare as a Day in June – James Russell Lowell

And what is so rare as a day in June?
     Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
     And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Guardian:

Once, across much of the the world’s temperate zones, we looked forward to summer as a time of delights, from summer’s bounty of fruits, long days, warmth, school holidays, activities like camping and swimming, travel and adventure. Now many of us dread it.

Summer was the sweet season celebrated in poetry and song, often pictured as a gentle goddess; now it is too often a threat and a misery. All this makes me think of Bill McKibben’s 2011 book Eaarth, a proposal that we can understand climate change as equivalent to moving to a more perilous, unwelcoming planet than the gentle, stable one we evolved over the 12,000 years since the last ice age.

I know that there are parts of the world where summer was already harsh, intense – 20 years ago, my friend Mark Klett, a photographer living near Phoenix, Arizona, joked: “Phoenix has two seasons: summer and hell,” summer being January and February; hell being the rest of the year.

But even in Phoenix, summer is now more intense; there, people get severe burns from falling down on superheated asphalt. It’s changed everywhere.

Yale Climate Connections:

From Little League tournaments to preseason football practices, young athletes often play outside on hot summer days. And as the climate warms, they’re increasingly at risk of heat-related illness.

Jessica Murfree, an assistant professor of exercise and sport science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says kids in some communities are more vulnerable than others.

The dangers are often greatest in cities, because concrete and asphalt absorb heat. 

Murfree: “We can experience much higher temperatures in these areas than others that have more green spaces.”

And she says youth sports teams often lack resources to help keep kids safe, like cold water immersion tubs to use in an emergency or professional athletic trainers who are experts in player safety.

Murfree: “Their presence alone can be such a luxury, and not every child has access to those things.”

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“Ask for More”: Communities Should Demand Benefits from Data Centers

New York, now Texas (!) have tapped the brakes (but not closed the door) on Data Center development, causing a bit of anxiety in the industry.
Above, a Data Center development CEO has a suggestion for community benefits that could include rebuilding electric grids, building schools, buying fire trucks, even zeroing out local property taxes.

Below, former Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, appearing on Jigar Shah’s “Energy Empire” podcast, made the case for Data Centers purchase of batteries for local homes and businesses. These could become the foundation for Virtual Power Plants that offer tremendous benefits for clean energy and grid stability.

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