human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
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UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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Our Almost-Apocalyptic Climate Future
By shooting for 3 degrees Celsius of warming, the world could slide toward a more cataclysmic 4 degrees.
Peter Brannen | November 23, 2025, 11:15 AM ET
The author of The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything, a 4-billion-year history of carbon dioxide, and of The Ends of the World, about the biggest mass extinctions in Earth’s history.
Download from https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Peter+Brannen
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2025/11/cop-climate-3c-warming/685
036/
This year’s Conference of the Parties, the annual United Nations meeting meant to avert catastrophic climate change, was subject to a ham-fisted metaphor. On Thursday, the Brazilian venue hosting the conference burst into flames from what was likely an electrical fire. In its 30 years, COP has frequently been a ritual in frustration and futility, ending with a set of pledges and promises that have rarely gone as far as scientists say they need to, followed by weeks of postmortem finger-pointing and self-flagellation. And yesterday, once again delegates landed on a heavily compromised text that does little to materially steer the planet off fossil fuels.
Many of the fingers pointed toward an empty chair and the absence of the largest oil-and-gas producer on planet Earth (the United States). Meanwhile, delegates from drowning, subsistence-farming volcanic archipelagos in the South Pacific humbly pleaded with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia to pledge to someday stop pumping their oceans of oil, the most profitable commodity in the world. It didn’t work.
“We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand,” COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago sheepishly told the assembly.
Every year, environmental NGOs, climate scientists, concerned citizens, and government ministers alike register confusion and despair over the fact that after so many cycles of these meetings, industrial civilization erupts more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ever before. This year, it reached a staggering new peak with 38.1 gigatons of the stuff—two orders of magnitude more than is put out by all of the volcanoes on Earth combined each year, and a pace that is virtually unprecedented in all of geological history.
Even if all other emissions from fossil fuels halted tomorrow, CO2 emissions from the global food system alone could eventually push us past 2 degrees Celsius in warming, half a degree higher than the always-aspirational 1.5 degrees Celsius goal set forth in the 2016 Paris Agreement. At this point, reaching that goal would require an impossible slashing of global emissions by a quarter every year for the next four years until they reach zero. As things stand, the UN projects that current policies will result in almost 3 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100. Unfortunately, that 1.5-degree benchmark wasn’t selected at random. As one landmark paper puts it, the “Earth may have left a safe climate state beyond 1°C global warming,” and even 1.5 degrees would possibly invite inexorable ice-sheet collapse, coral-reef die-off, and permafrost thaw.
All of this grim news has given way to a new kind of cynical resignation to this future, and a vision in which the world scales back its climate ambitions and accepts an all but permanent and prominent role for fossil fuels in the global economy. This forfeit, recently championed by Bill Gates, flies under the banner of “climate realism” or, more sunnily, “climate pragmatism.” In this view, the trade-offs between minimizing global warming and pursuing other goals for humanity are too steep, and the consequences of somewhat-checked warming will be manageable. If climate negotiators were naive about the political economy of the energy transition when COP started 30 years ago, though, then the purveyors of this kind of “pragmatism” are downright oblivious to the implications of a 3 degrees–warmer world that they’ve made conceptual peace with.
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If warming the planet b
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How China, not the U.S., became the main climate solution story in 2025
By Julia Simon, Anthony Kuhn | December 8, 2025
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/08/nx-s1-5615257/china-us-renewable-wind-s
olar-climate
The Trump administration is reversing federal support for renewable energy, labeling it risky and unreliable. But across the Pacific Ocean, America's biggest competitor, China, is heading in the opposite direction, says Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society.
China now dominates the global renewables sector. In the first half of this year, China built more solar than the rest of the world combined. China accounts for 74% of all large-scale solar and wind under construction, according to the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor. The U.S. accounts for 5.9%. "It couldn't be a stronger contrast between the two countries," Li says.
China's bet on the green transition is paying off. More than a quarter of China's economic growth in 2024 came from wind, solar and battery technologies, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a nonprofit. Energy experts say it's too early to know the full impact of the Trump administration's anti-renewable policies, but in the first half of 2025, U.S. renewable investment fell by 36%.
By backing away from renewable energy investments, the U.S. federal government is forfeiting a key driver of economic growth, says Jeremy Wallace, professor of China studies at Johns Hopkins University.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How Solar Energy Could Transform Geopolitics
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/21/mckibben-solar-energy-transform-g
eopolitics/
We’re seeing catastrophic results. The hurricane that hit Jamaica a few weeks ago featured the highest winds ever recorded, at 252 miles an hour. That same day, we had possibly the biggest rainstorm ever measured: 5 feet of rain in 24 hours in central Vietnam, the kind of storm you can only get on a globally warmed planet.
So the things that scientists have been worrying about for 40 years are coming true.
But we finally have a scalable and affordable weapon to go after some of this. Energy from the sun and wind, what we used to call alternative energy, is now the straightforward path ahead. Ninety percent of new electric generation around the world last year came from sun and wind and batteries.
This isn’t “alternative” anymore. It’s the most obvious way to proceed. Four or five years ago, we crossed an invisible line; it became cheaper to produce power from the sun and the wind than from burning coal and gas and oil. We live on a planet where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That’s a pretty remarkable moment for a species that’s spent the last 700,000 years making its way by setting stuff on fire.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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700 sinkholes have appeared in parts of Turkey
https://x.com/accuweather/status/1999275509037912158
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
How Solar Energy Could Transform Geopolitics
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/21/mckibben-solar-energy-transform-g
eopolitics/
We’re seeing catastrophic results. The hurricane that hit Jamaica a few weeks ago featured the highest winds ever recorded, at 252 miles an hour. That same day, we had possibly the biggest rainstorm ever measured: 5 feet of rain in 24 hours in central Vietnam, the kind of storm you can only get on a globally warmed planet.
So the things that scientists have been worrying about for 40 years are coming true.
But we finally have a scalable and affordable weapon to go after some of this. Energy from the sun and wind, what we used to call alternative energy, is now the straightforward path ahead. Ninety percent of new electric generation around the world last year came from sun and wind and batteries.
This isn’t “alternative” anymore. It’s the most obvious way to proceed. Four or five years ago, we crossed an invisible line; it became cheaper to produce power from the sun and the wind than from burning coal and gas and oil. We live on a planet where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That’s a pretty remarkable moment for a species that’s spent the last 700,000 years making its way by setting stuff on fire.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Your agenda is dead. Deal with it.
Good luck selling your fleet of Ford F-150 Lightnings on the secondhand market in a market that doesn't exist, stupid.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Carbon capture meets new resistance
Trillion-dollar emerging Texas industry now facing uncertainty
By Rachel Nostrant, Staff Writer | Dec 10, 2025
https://eedition.houstonchronicle.com/infinity/article_popover_share.a
spx?guid=c876f778-193d-456b-845b-510b4bf340d7&share=true
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/houston-oil-e
xxon-climate-carbon-capture-trump-21169874.php
A week after the federal government gave Texas the power to approve permits for a new kind of well that stashes climate-warming carbon dioxide underground, one of the state’s top oil and gas regulators decried it as a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Wayne Christian, one of the three elected leaders of the Texas Railroad Commission, questioned why the commission would spend state funds regulating the practice when the Trump administration believes it is “a scam” and that carbon dioxide “is no longer a threat.”
“I also find myself very disappointed that we make a decision,” he said, referring to the commission’s approval of Occidental Petroleum’s carbon storage project, “at this time that the administration, the world, seems to be realizing that a lot of this extremist environmental agenda has been over the top.”
Christian’s statements highlight the uncertainty surrounding carbon capture and storage — a climate solution that Houston’s oil and gas companies spent billions growing into what they believe can be a trillion-dollar industry.
The Trump administration has gutted regulations of climate-warming gases and cut funding to hundreds of clean energy projects. Climate-focused companies and projects are folding and cutting back. Even Bill Gates, a devoted climate champion for many years, walked back funding for climate initiatives and repositioned some of his philanthropic investments.
These changes highlight the dilemma facing big oil companies and other entrants into the nascent business: Can they launch the carbon removal industry at a time when the importance of addressing climate change is in question?
Peter Findlay, director of CCUS analytics for Wood Mackenzie, said moving forward with carbon capture and storage projects right now feels a bit like Indiana Jones trying to walk across an invisible bridge over a bottomless chasm in an attempt to find the Holy Grail.
“That’s kind of what building some of these projects is, if you don’t have obvious incentives to do so,” Findlay said. “You’re believing there’ll be a value to decarbonization, and all the physics and economics shows that there should be … but that’s very, very difficult for someone to do in a corporate setting.”
Last year, the business case for decarbonization was clear. Lured by global agreements to curb climate-warming emissions and the previous administration’s policies pushing companies to capture and store emissions underground, Houston’s largest oil companies rushed to build up their place in the new industry — an industry in which Texas and the Gulf Coast area offered prime geologic real estate.
Some of the U.S. oil industry’s biggest players threw billions into the prospect. They acquired carbon-focused firms, hired new teams, leased land and engineered facility plans. Exxon Mobil paid $4.9 billion to buy Plano-based Denbury in 2023, largely because of the smaller company’s network of carbon dioxide pipelines and storage facilities along the Gulf Coast.
Occidental Petroleum paid $1.1 billion to acquire Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company with a technology capable of sucking carbon dioxide from the air like a vacuum. Chevron also invested $45 million in Boulder-based Ion Clean Energy, a tech company focused on carbon capture, while Houston-based oil field services company Schlumberger invested $400 million in a joint venture with Norway’s Aker Carbon Capture.
Both Exxon and Chevron leased massive acreage along the Gulf Coast and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico to advance their plans to store carbon dioxide emissions from the region’s chemical plants and refineries underground. In October, Exxon received approval for th
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105.8 to Fahrenheit
Melbourne hits 41C as Australia’s most severe heatwave in six years descends on south-eastern states
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/07/severe-heatwave-hi
ts-southern-australian-states-with-firefighters-warning-many-areas-ready-to-burn
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New Energy Storage Solutions Are Killing Trump’s Coal Power Fantasy
Feb 14, 2026
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/14/new-energy-storage-solutions-are-
killing-trumps-coal-power-fantasy/
“While it might sound like science-fiction, A-CAES simply utilizes long-established principles of thermodynamics, along with components and know-how from the oil & gas and mining industries, and readily available rock, water, and air to store and deliver energy at-scale and on-demand,” Hydrostor notes.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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As reported by "cleantechnica", whose "primary revenue sources are advertising and sponsored content from companies in the clean energy sector, such as ABB and EnelX."
Uh huh.
I recognize the player and the game. Can't fault scam artists for wanting to stay alive.
You lost all your government funding. Every dime of it. Now you've all got at least 3 years to try to survive on your own. Maybe 30.
You'd better hope for your own good that your lies can carry you on donations from stupid until the next Democrat comes in and pisses a bunch of money away on bullshit, but I think a lot of them are not going to have much freed up income for donations.
Good Luck. You'll need it.
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Quote:Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is a long-duration, utility scale technology that uses surplus electricity to compress air, storing it in underground caverns (often salt formations) for release through turbines during high demand. It offers high capacity, long life, and rapid, flexible, grid-balancing capabilities.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
* * * Angry poor white trash ranting * * *
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Be Evil. Be a dick.
https://www.google.com/search?q=A-CAES+energy+storage
Key Aspects of CAES Energy Storage:
• How it Works: During off-peak hours, electricity drives compressors, pushing air into airtight storage, such as depleted mines or salt caverns. When energy is needed, the pressurized air is released, heated, and expanded through a turbine to generate electricity.
• Performance: Conventional (diabatic) systems have a round-trip efficiency of 40%-60%. Advanced adiabatic CAES (A-CAES) designs, which store the heat of compression to be used during expansion, aim for higher efficiency by eliminating the need for natural gas.
• Applications: Ideal for large-scale energy management, storing energy for hours to months.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
• Pros: Very high storage capacity (megawatts to gigawatts), long lifespan, no toxic materials, and potentially lower costs than batteries over a long lifetime.
• Cons: Highly dependent on specific geological locations (unless using expensive above-ground vessels), lower efficiency compared to lithium-ion batteries, and potential greenhouse gas emissions in conventional (diabatic) systems.
Comparison with Other Storage:
• Flywheels: Provide fast-responding, short-term energy (seconds to minutes), whereas CAES is better for long-duration (hours to weeks) storage.
• Battery Cost: While CAES has high initial investment, it offers almost infinite cycles compared to the limited, decreasing lifespan of chemical batteries.
For a detailed look at the compressed air energy storage disadvantages, problems with compressed air energy storage, and compressed air energy storage cost, refer to the details in the search results.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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