human actions, global climate change, global human solutions

POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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SECOND

Thursday, May 11, 2023 2:34 PM

In Norway, the Electric Vehicle Future Has Already Arrived

About 80 percent of new cars sold in Norway are battery-powered. As a result, the air is cleaner, the streets are quieter and the grid hasn’t collapsed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230510155707/https://www.nytimes.com/202
3/05/08/business/energy-environment/norway-electric-vehicles.html

The Times piece tackles other related subjects as well: the reordering of auto dealerships to accommodate EV sales, the increasing demands on Norway’s power grid (no, it has not collapsed), battery recycling, and the expectation that the country will end the sales of internal combustion engine cars by 2025. The piece is a useful preview of what may soon be encountered in the US.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Saturday, May 13, 2023 1:00 AM

Sen. Manchin attacked EPA’s new rules. They could cost him millions.

The West Virginia senator accused the Biden administration of killing coal plants. One, in particular, has helped enrich him.

When Sen. Joe Manchin upbraided EPA on Wednesday for requiring power plants to reduce their carbon emissions, he didn’t mention that the agency’s rules could threaten his personal income.

The West Virginia Democrat vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s EPA nominees because the agency’s rules being proposed Thursday could push coal- and gas-fired power plants “out of existence,” he said.

The risk to one plant, in particular, could jeopardize a lucrative source of money for Manchin. His family business Enersystems Inc. delivers waste coal to the Grant Town power plant, a financially struggling coal facility near Manchin’s hometown that he has spent much of his political career protecting.

The Grant Town plant has repeatedly threatened to shut down. Now, with the release of EPA rules that are expected to push many power plants into installing expensive technology to capture their carbon emissions before the pollution escapes into the sky, the plant faces an increasingly troubled future. Many coal plants might shut down rather than comply with the stringent new climate rules.

“This is going to make it harder for them to stay around. You won’t find written anywhere in the rule that this is supposed to be putting coal plants out of business, but just do the math,” said Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University.

Last year, Manchin earned $537,000 from Enersystems, according to financial disclosure records he filed with the Senate. He has been paid more than $5 million by the company since being elected to the Senate in 2010. The Grant Town plant is the main facility to receive coal from Manchin’s family business. Enersystems is now run by Manchin’s son, Joe Manchin IV.

Spokespeople for Manchin and Grant Town did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/11/manchin-epa-new-rules-biden-0
0096320

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

JAYNEZTOWN

Sunday, May 14, 2023 8:09 PM

Thorium a Future of Nuclear Energy?

https://www.iaea.org/publications/15215/near-term-and-promising-long-t
erm-options-for-the-deployment-of-thorium-based-nuclear-energy

SECOND

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 4:24 PM

Last year, the world built more new solar capacity than every other power source combined.

Solar is now growing much faster than any other energy technology in history. How fast? Fast enough to completely displace fossil fuels from the entire global economy before 2050.

The rise and rise of cheap solar is our best hope for rapidly mitigating climate change.

Total solar capacity tipped over 1 terawatt (1,000 gigawatts) for the first time last year. The sector is growing at around 20% a year. If this continues, we’ll hit 6 terawatts around 2031. In capacity terms, that would be larger than the combined total of coal, gas, nuclear and hydro.

To run our homes, industries and vehicles with electricity, we’ll need to double electricity production. Why not more? Because electricity is usually much more efficient at producing an energy outcome. For example, 85% of the petrol you put into your car is wasted as heat.

In countries with a significant chemical industry, electricity production might need to triple.

If these trends continue, by mid-century we will be in a very different – and better – energy world.

Long term, there are practically no constraints on vast deployment of solar.

The sun will shine for billions more years. Raw materials for solar panels are abundant – silicon from sand and common metals like steel. There are no toxic metals or no critical materials like cobalt in them, and they are highly recyclable. Energy storage is now a solved problem.

More at https://theconversation.com/despairing-about-climate-change-these-4-ch
arts-on-the-unstoppable-growth-of-solar-may-change-your-mind-204901

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Sunday, May 28, 2023 6:48 PM

Drastic climate action is the best course for economic growth, new study finds

For decades, many economists’ analyses seemed to justify inaction on weaning the economy from fossil fuels, saying the astronomical cost of such rapid transformation would strangle economic growth. These experts were heeded over scientists who warned that acting too slowly would court climate catastrophe.

But in recent years, more economists have begun to agree that the short-term costs of aggressive action are not as high as once thought, while the long-term costs of inaction are much steeper.

The learning-by-doing principle accounts for the fact that as many new technologies are increasingly deployed, their costs fall. As companies and workers become more efficient and productive, curbing climate change becomes less costly. This is evident in the rapidly falling costs of solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries. A study published last year found that learning by doing will help determine how quickly humanity succeeds in slowing global warming.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/drastic-climate-action-is-t
he-best-course-for-economic-growth-new-study-finds/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Thursday, June 1, 2023 1:42 PM

Well, DUH!
Making artificial meat make as much sense as making artificial photosynthesizers.

Quote:
Carbon Footprint Of Lab-Grown Beef "Orders Of Magnitude" Worse Than Traditionally Raised: Study

A new study from the University of California, Davis, has found that lab-grown, or "cultivated" meat's environmental impact is likely to be "orders of magnitude" higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

The preprint study, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.21.537778v1.full which has yet to undergo peer review, concludes that the energy needed and greenhouse gasses emitted during all stages of production of lab-grown meat is far greater than traditionally raised beef.

Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product? -UC Davis

"If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential," according to lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, of the US Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. "If this product continues to be produced using the “pharma” approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production."

The scientists considered the 'global warming potential' to be the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced - and found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using these purified media is up to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.

One of the goals of the industry is to eventually create lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures without the use of expensive and energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes.

Under that scenario, researchers found cultured meat is much more environmentally competitive, but with a wide range. Cultured meat’s global warming potential could be between 80% lower to 26% above that of conventional beef production, they calculate. While these results are more promising, the leap from “pharma to food” still represents a significant technical challenge for system scale-up.

“Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef. It’s not a panacea,” said corresponding author Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. “It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media.”

Even the most efficient beef production systems reviewed in the study outperform cultured meat across all scenarios (both food and pharma), suggesting that investments to advance more climate-friendly beef production may yield greater reductions in emissions more quickly than investments in cultured meat.

MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/political/lab-grown-meats-carbon-footprint-l
ikely-orders-magnitude-worse-retail-beef-study

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, June 1, 2023 6:38 PM

The mere idea of "cultured" meat makes me vomit a little in my mouth.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Friday, June 9, 2023 7:05 PM

Wildfire smoke reminded people about climate change. But soon will they forget.

Recent polls have shown that Americans are connecting these dots. The Pew Research Center reported last year that among people who experienced events like heat waves, drought, and wildfires, more than 80 percent said climate change played a role. However, there was a big gap between Republicans and Democrats, with Democrats more likely to report a larger role for climate change.

https://www.vox.com/climate/23754580/wildfire-smoke-air-quality-canada
-new-york-washington-climate-change-opinion

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, June 9, 2023 7:13 PM

LOL

That graph doesn't say what vox is telling you it says.

All that's telling you is where Democrats tend to live vs. where Republicans tend to live.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Friday, June 9, 2023 7:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
LOL

That graph doesn't say what vox is telling you it says.

All that's telling you is where Democrats tend to live vs. where Republicans tend to live.

What it tells you is that 99% of the human race goes through life unconscious of what is going on because their memories are very short. The long-dead inhabitants of Easter Island, for one example, could not remember from one decade to the next how their island was changing as they cut down and burned every tree. Eventually, having wiped out the trees, the leftover humans successfully exterminated themselves, at least on that island. Now humans setting all the fuel they can find on fire and, if they keep going in the same direction, humans will turn the whole Earth into one enormous Easter Island.

Obviously, there is ALWAYS someone to gainsay the story of Easter Island, adding so much irrelevant nuisance that they miss the meaning, just like the original Easter Island inhabitants convinced themselves that they were doing fine, never better, couldn't improve anything, etc., exactly the same as Trumptards, but so slowly dying that they don't realize what they are doing to themselves.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-easter-islands-h
istoric-collapse/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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