[The sun keeps pumping out more or less the same amount of energy
day in and day out. It’s what we do down here on earth that will
decide whether it cooks us or saves us.]
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SUNDAY SCIENCE: THE RAYS OF THE SUN  
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Bill McKibben
October 7, 2023
The Crucial Years
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*
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_ The sun keeps pumping out more or less the same amount of energy
day in and day out. It’s what we do down here on earth that will
decide whether it cooks us or saves us. _

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Bill McKibben speaking with
supporters at a student meeting at Southern New Hampshire University
in Hooksett, New Hampshire., Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United
States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0
<[link removed]>, via Wikimedia
Commons

 

Amid the endless interesting details of the climate and energy fight,
I find myself sometimes losing track of the basic outlines of our the
dilemma. So let’s try to oversimplify it for a moment, just to make
sure we’re at a place we can work from. THE KEY, AS ALWAYS, IS THE
SUN.

Right now, thanks to our recklessness, the sun is overheating our
planet. And by right now, I don’t mean in this century. I mean, _in
this month._ The global temperature readings for September should
have been the top story on every newscast in the world, because they
were bonkers. June, July, and August were historically hot—we saw
the hottest days recorded on the planet in 125,000 years. September
wasn’t quite as hot, of course, because it’s fall. BUT IN
RELATIVE TERMS SEPTEMBER WAS EVEN MORE OUTRAGEOUS. It was, the
scientists tell us, the most _anomalous_ month we’ve ever seen,
with temperatures so far beyond historical norms that the charts
don’t even seem to make sense.

For instance, here’s the chart that the estimable Zeke Hausfather
[[link removed]] prepared
using data from the Japanese Meterological Agency.

All those gray lines are the temperature anomalies for many years
back; the black line at the top is this year, and the blue area is
September. As the Washington Post reported
[[link removed]],
“the planet’s average temperature shattered the previous September
record by more than half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit),
which is the largest monthly margin ever observed.”

WE HAVE, IN EFFECT, TURNED SEPTEMBER INTO JULY. That’s not
hyperbole, that’s just data. And in so doing, September smashed
through the 1.5 degree Celsius warming mark that the world set as a
target in Paris just eight years ago. We’ve been talking about it
ever since, and now we’re there.

And there’s no huge mystery about why. Yes, we’re in an El Niño,
though it’s only now kicking in. Yes, reduced air pollution from
ships and Asian cities means less sun reflected. But, basically, _THE
GASES WE’VE POURED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE ARE TURNING THE SUN FROM OUR
GREATEST FRIEND INTO OUR MOST DAUNTING PROBLEM._

AND AT THE EXACT SAME TIME, THE SUN IS OUR GREATEST HOPE FOR GETTING
US OUT OF OUR PREDICAMENT. Again, there are lots of other things we
could talk about: whether we’ll eventually have small nuclear
reactors, or deep geothermal power, or a dozen other possible wonders.
But right now, in the same months that the planet is overheating, our
cheap quick ways out of trouble rely on that same ball of burning gas
orbiting 93 million miles above us. They are solar panels that catch
the sun’s rays directly, and wind turbines that take advantage of
the fact that the sun differentially heats the earth, creating the
breezes that make them turn.

So here’s what good news I’ve got. At the same moment that the
planet is starting to broil, the solar market is starting to cook. I
was walking the streets of Manhattan during Climate Week when Danny
Kennedy—legendary solar entrepreneur—pulled up on his City Bike.
“We’re at a gigawatt a day,” he said with a grin.

“What?” I said.

“THE PLANET IS NOW ADDING A GIGAWATT A DAY OF SOLAR POWER. A NUCLEAR
PLANT’S WORTH EVERY DAY OF SOLAR POWER,” he said. And what do you
know, he was as usual correct
[[link removed]].
About half the total is being added in China, apparently even amidst
their economic trials (and far outdistancing
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increase in their fossil fuel plants). The U.S. is second, followed by
Brazil and India.

Is this enough? Nowhere near.

Is it stable? No—when I talked yesterday with Mary Powell, the CEO
of Sunrun, she said rising interest rates and languishing government
help may mean that American installations actually fall this year.

But is it remarkable? Yes. Think of the work that traditionally goes
into building a new power plant: the years of work and planning and
pouring concrete. We’re building the equivalent of one of those
every day now, and instead of burning coal or gas they’re letting
the sun handle the combustion.

The numbers are going up so fast that they really can’t be denied.
The International Energy Agency—the club of big oil users that Henry
Kissinger cobbled together in the 1970s—puts out an annual report,
and for decades it was notorious for underestimating how fast
renewable energy would grow. But no longer. As Kingsmill Bond and Sam
Butler-Sloss point out in their highly useful gloss
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the new report

The report is a significant change in tone since the 2021 net zero
roadmap.  That report was all about ‘should’ while this report is
all about ‘will’. As the result of the continued rapid growth in
renewable deployment, the IEA has moved from a theoretical exercise in
2021 to embracing the prospect of a net zero future with enthusiasm.

Even without accounting for, you know, the destruction of the earth,
the rapid buildout of renewables is cheaper than business as
usual—it takes a little more capex (capital expenditure) to build
all those solar panels than to keep replacing fossil fuel
infrastructure, but the opex is far lower because…the sun delivers
the power for free, while Saudi Arabia and Exxon charge.

We should go much faster—and we could. Despite the ongoing efforts
of the fossil fuel industry gin up NIMBY opposition, a new survey
finds that Americans are willing to live next to solar and wind farms.

Three-quarters of all Americans say they would be comfortable living
near solar farms while nearly 7 in 10 report feeling the same about
wind turbines. And these attitudes appear to remain largely consistent
regardless of where people live. According to the poll, 69 percent of
residents in rural and suburban areas say they would be comfortable
if wind turbines were constructed in their area, as do 66 percent of
urban residents.

General comfort with green energy infrastructure crosses party lines,
with 66 percent of Republicans saying they are comfortable with a
field of solar panels being built in their community and 59 percent
comfortable with wind turbines. Among Democrats, 87 percent are
comfortable with solar farms and 79 percent with wind farms.

But the race is on. And that’s what it is, a flat-out race to build
as much renewable energy—and to keep in the ground as much fossil
energy—as we possibly can, in the hope that eventually that rising
technological curve will bend that rising temperature curve. _It’s
amazing that they’ve both gone somewhat vertical at precisely the
same moment, but that’s the story of our time on earth._

THE SUN KEEPS PUMPING OUT MORE OR LESS THE SAME AMOUNT OF ENERGY DAY
IN AND DAY OUT. IT’S WHAT WE DO DOWN HERE ON EARTH THAT WILL DECIDE
WHETHER IT COOKS US OR SAVES US.

In other energy and climate news:

+Pope Francis has once again shown he may be the world’s most useful
environmentalist: his new letter on climate change
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though much shorter than the monumental encylical Laudato Si of the
last decade, is wonderfully specific and pointed. He begins with an
efficient and necessary rebuttal of the denier arguments that the
fossil fuel industry has worked so hard to spread:

In recent years, some have chosen to deride these facts. They bring up
allegedly solid scientific data, like the fact that the planet has
always had, and will have, periods of cooling and warming. They forget
to mention another relevant datum: that what we are presently
experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed
that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia
– in order to verify it. The rise in the sea level and the melting
of glaciers can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her
lifetime, and probably in a few years many populations will have to
move their homes because of these facts.

He calls on humans to rethink their ideas on power; this is the
deepest and most philosophical section of the paper, and worth careful
reading. But he also has very practical and pointed things to say
about how government and industry should be moving in the fall of 2023

The United Arab Emirates will host the next Conference of the Parties
(COP28). It is a country of the Persian Gulf known as a great exporter
of fossil fuels, although it has made significant investments in
renewable energy sources. Meanwhile, gas and oil companies are
planning new projects there, with the aim of further increasing their
production. To say that there is nothing to hope for would be
suicidal, for it would mean exposing all humanity, especially the
poorest, to the worst impacts of climate change.

If we are confident in the capacity of human beings to transcend their
petty interests and to think in bigger terms, we can keep hoping that
COP28 will allow for a decisive acceleration of energy transition,
with effective commitments subject to ongoing monitoring. This
Conference can represent a change of direction, showing that
everything done since 1992 was in fact serious and worth the effort,
or else it will be a great disappointment and jeopardize whatever good
has been achieved thus far.

He ends with a few pointed words for Americans (whose bishops have too
often been in league with the climate-denying GOP)

If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are
about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and
about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries,
we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle
connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term
impact. As a result, along with indispensable political decisions, we
would be making progress along the way to genuine care for one
another.

+Dengue fever—the quintessential disease of global warming—is
now spreading
[[link removed]] fast
in southern Europe and threatening to become a fact of life in the
southern U.S. as the mosquito that carries it relaxes into the warm,
wet world we’ve built for it. More tragically, dengue—long a
scourge in Asia and Latin America—is now spreading into Africa.
Having had dengue in Bangladesh—where record numbers of deaths are
being reported this year—I can testify to the sadness of this story:
it is a terrible disease.

+Rebecca Leber reports
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Vox on how the fossil fuel industry is attempting to derail the drive
towards electric school buses, hoping they can convince school boards
to buy propane models instead.

To make school buses better for the climate and for kids’ health,
the federal government and states are pushing to electrify their
fleets. Virtually all of the nation’s 500,000 school buses are
expected to turn over in the next 15 to 20 years, but EV buses are
still in their infancy: There are nearly 6,000 electric buses on the
road today or planned soon, making up just 1 percent of the auto total
sector, according to World Resources Institute,
[[link removed]] a
nonprofit research organization. With new incentives, federal
regulations, and zero-emissions state targets, that portion of EV
school buses is projected to grow 20 percent
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Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone devotes $5 billion
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the next five years to cleaning up school bus pollution.

But even with federal subsidies, this shift to EV buses will be
expensive, especially for public school districts, and the propane
industry sees an opportunity to seize a share of the auto sector. Its
representatives are working hard to convince public officials to
switch to propane-fueled school buses, which they claim are
“near-zero emissions” vehicles that are better for kids and the
climate.

Except — that’s not true. Propane is still a polluting fuel: While
it is refined differently than diesel and natural gas
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engines, it still has a measurable impact on air quality
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the climate. If PERC’s deceptive marketing to children, parents, and
school administrators is successful, the propane industry threatens to
lock in fossil fuels and their polluting emissions for another
generation of schoolchildren.

+Australian police are demanding
[[link removed]] that
television journalists turn over raw footage so that they can identify
peaceful activists

Police have applied through the courts for all footage shot in the
preparation of a program about climate protesters. The program,
titled Escalation [[link removed]] and
due to air on Monday, investigates the battle between climate
activists, the government and energy companies over the massive gas
project on the Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara.

+Scientists are rallying
[[link removed]*1oi0l5w*_gcl_au*MTU0OTIxNzM4LjE2OTI3MjcxODU.] to
oppose plans to dump carbon dioxide from various capture schemes in
national forests

In June the Forest Service announced
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would issue a rule
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early as this month giving “perpetual right of use” for carbon
waste injection in national forests. Today’s petition, signed by
people and groups across the country, says a leak at a carbon waste
site could suffocate or even kill people and wildlife.

“This proposal is nothing short of ludicrous,” said Laura Haight,
U.S. policy director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity. “Our
national forests are already home to the most viable carbon capture
and storage technology on Earth — they’re called trees.”

Carbon dioxide waste injection would require building massive amounts
of infrastructure, including pipelines, injection wells and well pads.
Road building, construction and logging would cause additional harm to
forest ecosystems and recreation.

“Turning our national forests into industrial dumping grounds is
outrageous and completely wrongheaded,” said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda,
an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity
[[link removed]]’s Climate Law Institute
[[link removed]].
“There’s no place in our national forests for carbon capture scams
that only benefit polluting industries. The administration should
scrap this rule and enact one that protects mature and old-growth
forests and trees.”

+A useful new paper
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to refute “dangerous narratives” about climate and migration

“Climate refugee” is not a legal category. Formal pathways for
climate migration are severely underdeveloped. Unlike for refugees,
there is no specialised body of law regulating the treatment of
migrants who are forced to flee due to climate-related impacts, nor
are there dedicated international institutions.

Climate communicators may want to use the term “climate refugee”
as a way to push for legal recognition within the 1951 Refugee
Convention or, more commonly, just as a shorthand term that captures
people’s attention/understanding. But refugee advocates are, among
other things, nervous that renegotiating that treaty will almost
definitely result in weaker protections for everyone.

While the term may resonate for organisers and for some people who
indeed are forced to move in the face of climate disasters, care must
be used to distinguish the concept of a “climate refugee” from the
legal protections afforded to other refugees and asylum seekers
globally. Focusing on the category of “refugee” may also ignore
the complexity of factors that lead to a person's decision to move
from their home.

+ The always-thoughtful George Monbiot offers an important new essay
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the dangers of romanticizing ‘peasant’ life—as he reminds us, we
need a food system that can deliver enough affordable calories for a
largely urbanized planet without overwhelming ecosystems.

We benefit above all from the marvel of the past 50 years of falling
hunger during a time of rising population, a marvel we in the rich
world scarcely acknowledge, so comfortable has it made us. This
remarkable phenomenon was widely considered, just 60 or 70 years ago,
simply impossible.

There are three things upon which I think we can all agree. First,
that this marvel came at a great environmental cost. It was delivered
through hungry and thirsty new crop varieties, reliant for their
survival on lashings of agrochemicals, unsustainable water use and
practices that can accelerate soil degradation. Second, that it also
involved severe social and political dislocations, including
land-grabbing, enclosures and rising corporate power and
concentration. Third, that it might now be running out of road:
the prevalence of global undernourishment
[[link removed]] rose from 613
million (median estimate) in 2019 to 735 million in 2022.

+The ongoing fight to block the expansion of a private jetport near
Boston got a boost last week when the Globe’s David Abel reported
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it was largely supporting billionaires headed to resorts

The report [[link removed]], released
Monday, analyzed 18 months of flight data from Hanscom starting in
January 2022, and found that some 31,000 flights by 2,915 private
jets produced an estimated 107,000 tons of carbon pollution. About
half the flights were probably for recreational or luxury purposes,
based on their resort destinations and weekend flight dates, the
authors said.

Executives at Suffolk Construction, owned by John Fish, have used the
Boston-based company’s private jet nearly 250 times since last year
to fly from Hanscom Field to destinations such as Aruba and Aspen,
Barcelona and Rome, Martha’s Vineyard and Napa Valley, according to
a new report.

Suffolk’s 19-passenger Gulfstream Aerospace GV-SP 550 flew every two
or so days, its Rolls-Royce Pearl engines pumping out an estimated
2,329 tons of carbon emissions, according to the report, which
catalogued the climate pollution from flights to and from New
England’s largest noncommercial airport.

The Suffolk jet burned more than any other based at Hanscom, and about
230 times more than the average Massachusetts resident produces in a
year, the report found.

+A new report
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the US Treasury warns that climate change could impose “substantial
financial costs” on American consumers, which seems like a
no-brainer. But remember, until recently many prominent economists had
been arguing that a growing economy would outpace any damage. Now
reality is starting to hit home

Flooding and wildfires can damage businesses, forcing employers
to furlough
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lay off staff, the Treasury Department found. This could lead workers
to lose their pay for a period, and potentially their workplace
benefits, including health insurance
[[link removed]] or retirement
plan support
[[link removed].].

Recurring hazards such as wildfires or heat waves could reduce the
available jobs in certain sectors, leading to long periods of
unemployment for people. Workers in the fields of agriculture,
construction, manufacturing and tourism may be especially hard hit.

Meanwhile, “outdoor workers,” as the report describes those who
spend more than two-thirds of their workday outside, comprise about a
fifth of the civilian workforce and are among the most likely to see
their hours and pay disrupted.

+Meanwhile, it’s been taken as gospel that building EVs will require
fewer workers. But Emily Pontcorvo reports
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may not be the case. According to one report,

EV manufacturing required more hours. The conventional powertrains
took 4 to 11 worker hours, while the EV powertrains took 15 to 24.
“A lot of the confusion sits around, what parts are you counting in
this evaluation?” Cotterman told me. “We’re saying that if you
were to produce every single component in an EV in the U.S., that the
total sum of those powertrain components will be higher than the
equivalent ICE components.”

Is Time Travel Possible? [[link removed]]

Sabine Hossenfelder

October 14, 2023

* Science
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* environment
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* physics
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* solar energy
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* Climate Change
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