human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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Turning Our Back on Clean Energy
Why does MAGA hate the planet?
Paul Krugman
Feb 16, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/turning-our-back-on-clean-energy
Source: Berkeley Earth https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2025/
It has been a brutal winter in much of the United States. Weather is a chaotic system in which extreme events are always happening somewhere. But as I am sure you have noticed, extreme weather events — catastrophic storms and flooding, punishing droughts, and yes, extreme cold snaps — are becoming more common as a result of climate change.
For climate change is not just continuing: it’s accelerating. Multiple estimates find that 2025 was one of the warmest years on record for the planet, exceeded only by 2024 and 2023. Indeed, Berkeley Earth reports that “The warming spike observed in 2023 to 2025 has been extreme and suggests an acceleration in the rate of Earth’s warming.”
In other news, the Trump administration has gone to war against any and all efforts to limit climate change. The administration is also imposing a “blockade” against wind and solar projects, delaying or even revoking permits, whether or not these projects have received federal subsidies.
Now, there isn’t a genuine scientific dispute about the reality of global warming and its causes. There isn’t even a serious dispute about the costs of fighting climate change: the economics of green energy are more favorable than they have ever been.
So what’s going on? The Trump administration hates science and science-based policies in general; look at its war on vaccines, which will end up causing an enormous number of deaths. Its assault on universities threatens the best scientific research centers in the world. Its irrational treatment of immigrants means the best and brightest from the around the world no longer want to come here. But in the case of energy, its destructive policy largely reflects the corrupting influence of big money.
I’ll explain in a minute. First, some background.
Almost 40 years have passed since James Hansen’s landmark Senate testimony warning about global warming. He was right. Climate science has been overwhelmingly vindicated by reality.
However, the economics and politics of climate policy have played out very differently from what almost anyone expected.
As late as the 2010s, many observers — myself included — would have said that the big problem in addressing climate change was who would bear the cost. Policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions, everyone believed, would slow the growth of the economy and of real incomes. True, anti-environmentalists were grossly exaggerating these costs. In 2009 I wrote that
The best available economic analyses suggest that even deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would impose only modest costs on the average family.
But what we knew at the time nonetheless said that there would be significant costs to slowing global warming. And this was problematic, because the costs of limiting emissions would be incurred right away, while the benefits of reduced warming would accrue decades later — and many of them would go to other countries. So action on climate appeared to require (a) international cooperation (b) persuading voters to accept costs now in exchange for a better world many years in the future.
And it was all too easy to be pessimistic about the prospects both for cooperation and for persuading voters to accept even modest future-oriented sacrifices.
Then came the renewable energy revolution. Solar and wind power have become cost-competitive with fossil fuels — they are, in particular, clearly cheaper than coal. Huge progress in batteries has rapidly reduced the problem of intermittency (the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow.) There’s now a clear path for a transit
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Climate change is real.
Jet streams are moving north, looping and stalling, and ocean currents are changing. Some parts will get very cold while other parts fry. But the "solutions" foisted on hs by the elites (eat bugs) are just ways to crush ordinary people. The wealthy, who account for most of the problem, will never give up their Wagyu steaks, private jets, superyachts, and air conditioned McMansions.
Also, wars waste a fuckton of material and fuel.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Ask google: “what percent of CO2 emissions are from war? what percent from the wealthy?”
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Climate change is real.
Jet streams are moving north, looping and stalling, and ocean currents are changing. Some parts will get very cold while other parts fry. But the "solutions" foisted on hs by the elites (eat bugs) are just ways to crush ordinary people. The wealthy, who account for most of the problem, will never give up their Wagyu steaks, private jets, superyachts, and air conditioned McMansions.
Also, wars waste a fuckton of material and fuel.
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+percent+of+CO2+emissions+are+from
+war%253F+what+percent+from+the+wealthy%253F
Global militaries account for approximately 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure on par with the global cement industry. Meanwhile, the world's richest 1% are responsible for 16% of all CO2 emissions, a share equal to the emissions of the poorest two-thirds of humanity.
CO2 Emissions from War and Military
• Total Impact: Recent estimates suggest the global military-industrial complex contributes around 5.5% to 6% of total global emissions.
• Context: If the military were a country, it would be the fourth largest emitter in the world, producing over twice the emissions of global civil aviation.
• Key Drivers: The U.S. Armed Forces are the largest single military emitter, using over 100 million barrels of oil in 2017.
• Post-War Impact: Reconstruction after conflicts, such as in Syria and Ukraine, generates massive, additional emissions.
CO2 Emissions from the Wealthy
The distribution of emissions is highly unequal, with a small percentage of high-income individuals responsible for the majority of global warming.
• The Richest 1%: This group (approximately 77 million people) is responsible for 16% to 17% of global CO2 emissions. Their emissions are more than those of all cars and road transport globally.
• The Richest 10%: The wealthiest 10% of the population accounts for roughly half (50% to 52%) of all global consumption-based emissions. This group is also attributed to two-thirds of global warming between 1990 and 2020.
• Comparison to the Poorest: The richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as the poorest two-thirds of humanity combined (approximately 5 billion people).
• Billionaires and Investments: Beyond personal lifestyle choices like private jets and yachts, a significant portion of billionaire emissions comes from their investments. The average billionaire's investment portfolio produces 1.9 million tonnes of CO2e annually, with roughly 60% of these investments in high-impact sectors like oil and mining.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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TOPCon Solar Cells Are Killing A Key Anti-Solar Talking Point
Feb 15, 2026
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/15/topcon-solar-cells-are-killing-a-
key-anti-solar-talking-point/
The anti-solar organization Citizens for Responsible Solar provides a good example of the “solar pollutes” talking point. CRS has loomed large in the US anti-solar disinformation machine since its launch in 2019 by political operative Susan Ralston, known for her tenure at the White House during the George W. Bush presidency.
CRS styles itself as an apolitical, “grassroots group of concerned citizens.” However, multiple news organizations have drawn attention to the pool of conservative talent populating CRS offices, and alongside the organization’s ability to amplify its easily debunkable talking points among local anti-solar efforts.
On its website, CRS prioritizes five points that everyone “needs to know” about solar, including one titled “Solar Energy is NOT clean or free from CO2 emissions.”
Much more at https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/15/topcon-solar-cells-are-killing-a-
key-anti-solar-talking-point/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The War on Wind Continues
The burn, baby, burn compulsion persists amid a fossil fuel crisis
Paul Krugman
Mar 25, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-war-on-wind-continues
Electricity generation in Texas. Source: Energy Information Agency
We are now in a global fossil fuel crisis. With oil and liquefied natural gas from the Persian Gulf unable to reach international markets due to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, hydrocarbon prices have been soaring around the world and widespread shortages are emerging. Anyone who thought that the U.S. would be insulated from this dire picture thanks to its large domestic oil production has had a rude awakening: the average retail price of gasoline has risen more than $1 per gallon over the past month, while the price of diesel is up $1.60.
But the Trump administration hasn’t allowed these short-run distractions to divert it from its long-run goals: It remains deeply committed to killing renewable energy, especially wind power, and increasing America’s reliance on fossil fuels.
True, some of the administration’s attacks on wind power have failed: Its efforts to throttle offshore wind development by ordering developers to stop work on projects that are already underway have repeatedly been overruled by the courts. But the administration is continuing to block development of onshore wind and solar power by freezing the issuance of federal permits.
And on Monday the Interior Department unveiled a new tactic in its war on wind: It announced that it will pay TotalEnergies, a French energy giant, almost $1 billion to not produce energy — specifically to abandon its plans to build two large wind farms off the East Coast.
To understand the Trump administration’s motives in its campaign to kill renewable energy, one must realize that this campaign is both economically self-destructive and, despite the best efforts of the fossil fuel industry, deeply unpopular.
Fifteen years ago wind and solar power were still relatively marginal energy sources, which those hostile to their development could portray as unproven and uneconomic. Today they are major contributors to energy supply in many nations — and in some U.S. states. Perhaps most notably, as the chart at the top of this post shows, renewables — mostly wind, but with a growing role for solar — now account for more than a third of electricity generation in Texas, America’s largest producer of electricity and not exactly a state run by environmental extremists.
Even more impressively, renewables have dominated the growth in Texas’s electricity generation in recent years:
You almost have to admire the administration’s persistence, its determination to turn back the clock on energy even though renewables are big business, its tenacity in trying to block new, secure energy sources even in the face of a global energy crisis. But what’s this all about?
The administration has argued that offshore wind farms are a threat to national security, supposedly interfering with radar. But that doesn’t explain the efforts to block onshore wind and solar, and the courts have remained unconvinced. In announcing the buyoff of TotalEnergies, the Interior Secretary claimed that wind power is expensive and unreliable; but in that case why is it necessary to pay private companies not to develop it?
Campaign finance is part of the story. At this point, political contributions from fossil fuel companies go almost entirely to the GOP, while alternative energy favors Democrats.
Beyond campaign finance, fossil fuel interests, especially but not only the Koch brothers, have spent man
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US has caused $10tn worth of climate damage since 1990, research finds
US, top carbon emitter in history, has ‘a lot of responsibility’ for causing ‘substantial’ harm globally, scientist says
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/25/us-climate-damage-
research
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Economic Costs From Oil And Gas Burning Today Will Hit Future Harder
By Nick Nuttall | Mar 26, 2026, 04:06am EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/we-dont-have-time/2026/03/25/economic-cos
ts-from-oil-and-gas-burning-today-will-hit-future-harder/
The world’s biggest oil and gas company-- Saudi Aramco—has already locked-in cumulative damages to the global economy of around $64 trillion by 2100 according to a new assessment by researchers at Stanford University.
The bill, based on the pollution already generated by its products since the late 1980s, spotlights how economic losses from climate change will escalate over the coming years and decades without urgent action.
Private oil and gas companies like Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP could, based on the same modelling and time scale, each conservatively and cumulatively will trigger damages of more than $20 trillion by century’s end.
The team from Stanford University also looked at the future economic impact of a private plane or jet journey taken today by well known people like Bill Gates and Taylor Swift.
“We use public data on private jet flights and associated emissions by numerous American celebrities to calculate the future discounted damage of flights these celebrities (or their aircraft) took in 2022,” say the researchers.
"We calculate that emissions from private flights taken by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Floyd Mayweather, Elon Musk, Jay-Z and Taylor Swift in 2022 will each generate more than $1 million in discounted aggregate damages by 2100”
These are just some of the findings from a new study in the leading journal Nature released today by a team at Stanford University led by Marshall Burke of the University’s Doerr School of Sustainability.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10272-6
They have been modelling how past, present and future cumulative carbon pollution triggers rising temperatures that in turn lead to economic losses.
This damage could include impacts such as increasing, extreme weather events, like floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms that can damage global GDP.
It is designed as a contribution to the ongoing discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the Loss and Damage fund agreed three years ago at COP28 in Dubai.
Leonie Wenz is Professor of Environmental Economics at Technical University Berlin and deputy head of the Complexity Science department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
She commented:” The study proposes a framework to connect local climate damages to sources of carbon emissions, aligned with well-established approaches to estimate the Social Cost of Carbon. The general framework is straightforward and convincing”.
“At the heart of this framework is a “damage function”, which describes the relationship between a given level of warming and the economic damages it causes.
This is mainly driven by their underlying assumption of economic growth being permanently stunted from a permanent temperature rise – an assumption that implies compounding damages in the future,” - Professor Leonie Wenz of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Professor Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, said in a video interview today with We Don’t Have Time that he hoped the findings would focus minds at the upcoming first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels being hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in late April.
“I am sure that this will influence that conference and others such as those pursuing litigation cases against specific fossil fuel companies or state actors whose policies have not been strong enough to limit this d
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The High Cost of Canceling Offshore Wind in the United States
By Haley Zaremba - Mar 29, 2026, 10:00 AM CDT
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-High-Cost-of-Canceling-
Offshore-Wind-in-the-United-States.html
“When the Trump administration came to power and began setting U.S. energy policy, we said that we’ll have to reconsider, clearly, these offshore wind project developments,” says Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of TotalEnergies. A $1 billion payout is therefore a pretty good alternative.
“To be clear, we don’t renounce onshore wind,” Pouyanné went on to say. “We continue to invest in onshore solar, onshore wind, batteries [in other countries].”
Last year, Trump tried to order an immediate halt to the construction of five wind projects along the East Coast of the U.S., but judges overturned this ruling across the board. This failure has led to the administration’s current tactic, paying off companies to cancel their wind power projects before they’ve even begun.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Why India is switching to thorium for nuclear energy
https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/science/why-india-is-switching-to-th
orium-for-nuclear-energy/tldr
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Toyota’s new luxury EV in China receives over 3,000 orders in 1 hour after launching for $22,000
By Peter Johnson | Mar 30 2026 - 7:13 am PT
https://electrek.co/2026/03/30/toyotas-new-luxury-ev-china-receives-31
00-orders-in-1-hour/
The flagship EV is available in five variants with prices ranging up to 199,800 yuan ($29,000).
Buyers can choose from two CALB-supplied lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery packs: 71 kWh and 88 kWh, providing a CLTC range of 600 km (372 miles) and 700 km (435 miles), respectively.
It’s also equipped with Momenta’s R6 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), which includes a roof-mounted LiDAR to support nearly 50 safety and convenience features, such as Navigation on Autopilot in cities and highways.
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How is it possible that a 202-in long large sedan with a 373-mile standard range costs much less than America’s cheapest EV, the 2027 Chevy Bolt that starts at just under $29,000? The price includes some subsidies from the Chinese state.
https://www.autoblog.com/news/toyotas-new-electric-sedan-is-huge-high-
tech-and-cheaper-than-a-chevy-bolt
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Chinese Electrotech is the Big Winner in the Iran War
An energy-hungry world is being pushed away by America and into China’s arms
Paul Krugman
Apr 14, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/chinese-electrotech-is-the-big-winn
er
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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