Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Doesn't make for pleasant reading, but the US military recognizes just how bad the climate crisis will get, and already is:

If the US military is facing up to the climate crisis, shouldn't we all?

“Climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water,” the Department of Defense (DoD) told Congress in a 2015 memorandum. “These impacts are already occurring, and the scope, scale, and intensity of these impacts are projected to increase over time.”

In this, and other Pentagon documents, senior officials have identified three main pathways by which climate change is likely to endanger American security: by increasing the level of conflict and chaos abroad; by exposing the homeland to ever more destructive climate effects; and by obstructing the military’s capacity to carry out its assigned missions.

As global temperatures rise, Pentagon officials fear, essential resources will dwindle in many poor and divided countries, provoking conflict among internal factions and threatening the survival of fragile governments. In this chaotic environment, terrorist groups will flourish while dispossessed farmers will migrate in search of jobs—typically encountering hostility wherever they go. All this instability, the generals fear, will result in deadly pandemics, incessant warfare, and a relentless call on the United States to provide humanitarian relief and troop support.

Martyn1981

Just a fun bit. A news article/interview with Jane Fonda, who is getting arrested every Friday for campaigning about the climate crisis.

What I thought was particularly interesting was half way through when the interviewer asked Jane if she knew why climate protesters were getting treated so harshly compared to other protests (such as Vietnam, CND, Apartheid etc). I've wondered the same with countries like the UK, US, Australia etc rolling out all sorts of penalties.

Damn she looks good too, what a star, what an envoy, what a family.


This is why Jane Fonda vows to get arrested every Friday

Coastalwatch

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya, that link seems to have broken. I'll delete this post later to clean up the thread. M.

PS, I love Abundance!

Thanks Mart. I've deleted the original link from Solar Power Portal which didn't seem to want to work so added a link direct to the Abundance website instead.
Hope it's still working.:o
https://www.abundanceinvestment.com/investments/liverpool-community-homes

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Damn she looks good too, what a star, what an envoy, what a family....[/URL]

....what a surgeon.:rotfl:

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Damn she looks good too, what a star, what an envoy, what a family.


This is why Jane Fonda vows to get arrested every Friday

I remember in my youth watching Barbarella
Happy days

Martyn1981

Couple of vids that I thought were interesting.

The first is from Gali on Hyperchange reporting on the many truck loads of Tesla Powerpacks that have been spotted, around 700 powerpacks/inverters. Perhaps another big battery given the astonishing success of the first one. Tesla have said that they will be concentrating a bit more on their storage side from now on, having previously diverted resources to help with the TM3 and TMY cars.

Tesla Expanding Australian Megabattery?


The second vid is Kryten himself with a Fully Charged episode reporting Dundee. It covers solar, storage, BEV's, taxi's, and so on, so could have been posted almost anywhere, but I'd suggest this thread as it appears (to me) to be part of a more holistic approach
to green energy as a whole. It's choc full of all sorts of little tidbits.

Solar, Storage & Electric Taxis; Dundee demonstrates what’s doable | Fully Charged

Martyn1981

I'll try to pack some bad news together, so we can quickly move on back to good news, so we have the UK flooding, whilst Cali and Aus burn, and now it seems that coal mines are not just slapping us in the face, they are also giving us a sneaky knee to the groin at the same time:

Methane emissions from coalmines could stoke climate crisis – study

The global energy watchdog estimates that one tonne of methane is the climate equivalent of 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This would put annual coalmine emissions broadly in line with the international aviation and shipping sectors combined.

The IEA said that methane leakage from coalmines would prove more difficult to tackle than the methane pollution from the oil and gas industry, and added it did not expect the situation to improve before 2040.

Oil producers could end methane leaks at zero cost if companies trap the greenhouse gas and sell it on to manufacturers, the IEA said, but capturing the emissions from coalmines would be technically tricky because the concentration of methane released by the mines is often very low.

The IEA said: “The lower the concentration of methane, the more technically and economically difficult it is to abate.”

Edit - I'll pop this one in here too as it's 'bad news', or is it good news now that we know the truth, or is it still bad news as some still deny this happened, or that it has resulted in any negative impacts, or is it ....... and so on:

The Greatest Scam In History

Energy companies have engaged in a deliberate disinformation campaign that has successfully undermined our scientific knowledge of climate change, writes Naomi Oreskes in her latest book Why Trust Science?

It’s a tale for all time. What might be the greatest scam in history or, at least, the one that threatens to take history down with it. Think of it as the climate-change scam that beat science, big time.

Much focus has been put on ExxonMobil’s history of disseminating disinformation, partly because of the documented discrepancies between what that company said in public about climate change and what its officials said (and funded) in private. Recently, a trial began in New York City accusing the company of misleading its investors, while Massachusetts is prosecuting ExxonMobil for misleading consumers as well.

If only it had just been that one company, but for more than 30 years, the fossil-fuel industry and its allies have denied the truth about anthropogenic global warming. They have systematically misled the American people and so purposely contributed to endless delays in dealing with the issue by, among other things, discounting and disparaging climate science, mispresenting scientific findings, and attempting to discredit climate scientists. These activities are documented in great detail in How Americans Were Deliberately Misled about Climate Change, a report I recently co-authored, as well as in my 2010 book and 2014 film, Merchants of Doubt.

A key aspect of the fossil-fuel industry’s disinformation campaign was the mobilization of “third-party allies”: organizations and groups with which it would collaborate and that, in some cases, it would be responsible for creating.

ExxonMobil loves to accuse me of being “an activist.” I am, in fact, a teacher and a scholar. Most of the time, I’d rather be home working on my next book, but that increasingly seems like less of an option when Big Energy’s climate-change scam is ongoing and our civilization is, quite literally, at stake. When citizens are inactive, democracy fails — and this time, if democracy fails, as burning California shows, so much else could fail as well. Science isn’t enough. The rest of us are needed. And we are needed now.

Personally, and I apologise for preaching, but that last quoted paragraph is why I feel the need to pushback against mis-information, lies and FUD. There is a problem, there are solutions, and the solutions offer a better World and economies, but that's bad news for the wallets/pockets of the FF industry, so they will not go down without a fight.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'll try to pack some bad news together, so we can quickly move on back to good news, so we have the UK flooding, whilst Cali and Aus burn,

Edit - I'll pop this one in here too as it's 'bad news', or is it good news now that we know the truth, or is it still bad news as some still deny this happened, or that it has resulted in any negative impacts, or is it ....... and so on:

The Greatest Scam In History

Personally, and I apologise for preaching, but that last quoted paragraph is why I feel the need to pushback against mis-information, lies and FUD. There is a problem, there are solutions, and the solutions offer a better World and economies, but that's bad news for the wallets/pockets of the FF industry, so they will not go down without a fight.

Groundhog Day again.

An alternative take on California fires.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/04/why-everything-they-say-about-california-fires--including-that-climate-matters-most--is-wrong/

And an alternative take on Ms Oreskes and her pals

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/23/america-being-misled-by-cook-oreskes-lewendowsky-and-maibach/

Martyn1981

In case it isn't clear to anyone, 'alternative take' is code for science denial, something that most people would probably find unethical these days.

Watts Up With That?

Watts Up With That? (WUWT) is a blog[1] promoting climate change denial[7] that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006.[2][3]

The blog predominantly discusses climate issues with a focus on anthropogenic climate change, generally accommodating beliefs that are in opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change. Contributors include Christopher Monckton and Fred Singer as guest authors.[8] In November 2009, the blog was one of the first websites to publish emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit controversy, and a driving force behind its coverage.[8]

In the early months of 2010, it was reported the site might be "the most read climate blog in the world,"[9] and in 2013 Michael E. Mann referred to it as the leading climate change denial blog.[3]

Watts Up With That features material disputing the scientific consensus on climate change, including claims the human role in global warming is insignificant and carbon dioxide is not a driving force of warming.[10] It hosts several contributors, such as Christopher Monckton and Fred Singer, in addition to Watts.[11] It is among the most prominent climate change denial blogs,[5][12][13][14] and is described by climatologist Michael E. Mann as the most popular, having surpassed Climate Audit.[15] Columbia Journalism School writer Curtis Brainard has written that "scientists have repeatedly criticized [Watts] for misleading readers on subjects such as the reliability of the U.S. surface temperature record."[1]

And no, I've no idea why this is happening in 2019 on a G&E thread/board, perhaps as CO2 increases, morality decreases?

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

In case it isn't clear to anyone, 'alternative take' is code for science denial, something that most people would probably find unethical these days.

Watts Up With That?

Ms Oreskes is at one end of the AGW spectrum and Wattsupwiththat are at the other. She is (currently) a climate activist not a climate scientist. Having previously waged war against Big Tobacco she has now turned her attention to Big Oil, and Exxon Mobil in particular with the help of some funding from the Rockefeller family. A bit more publicity will no doubt help her next book sell.

Climate scientist? No. Independent? No. Activist with an agenda? Yes.

If her opinions are going to be aired on here it is reasonable also to publish a critique of some of her work and expose the fact that she has been sponsored to wage war on ExxonMobil by the Rockefeller family.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

And no, I've no idea why this is happening in 2019 on a G&E thread/board, perhaps as CO2 increases, morality decreases?

I don’t see how expressing a point of view on a quote from a climate activist should give rise to any issue about morality. Am I a bad person simply because I disagree with something you post? Nothing I said was offensive.

As far as I am aware I still enjoy the right to free thought and free speech, the right to question the orthodox view. I admit that right might not be around for much longer as we are moving to an age of Liberal Authoritarianism but for now I can enjoy it as can you.