"From Vice, the unsurprising but still infuriating news that Shell’s massive “carbon-capture” plant in Alberta, paid for by hundreds of millions of Canadian tax dollars, is emitting 50% more greenhouse gases than it’s capturing. The difference in annual emissions is the equivalent of 1.2 million cars."
-I'm glad you cited that one. The problem in a nutshell, the minoriity within the minority.
Thanks for this thoughtful piece. You hit the nail on the head by observing that we are both trapped and complicit in these systems. And yet, I’m heartened by theories of change that describe a tipping point. With so many voices in so many places, maybe we’re closer than we think. Whatever happens, climate action is meaningful work that is rather be doing than flying to a private island in a private jet.
Thank you, Julie. Yes, the list of tipping points includes several positive ones. On the tech side, the energy transition is proceeding apace and making dirty energy obsolete. One the social side, in fits and starts, awareness and demand for action is coming along. But the ceiling between that awareness and the private jet folks is still unbroken.
So true. Here’s an (amusing?) anecdote about the so-called energy transition. The AC charger on my 2023 Bolt needs to be replaced. The car’s been at the dealer for 10 days waiting for Chevy national to tell them when they can get the part, which seems to be never (is never good for you?). Meanwhile, they gave me a loaner that’s so enormous I can’t safely drive it. (Electric blue 2024 king cab Silverado pickup) Since my car still accepts DC charge, I’ve elected to take it back while we all wait. While at the dealer to pick it up, the service manager tells me he’s been waiting for nearly a year for a permit from the electric company to install their DC charger that was delivered over a year ago. Welcome to the 21st century. 😢
Yikes. Well, I guess it's called a transition for a reason. Some entities are transitioning faster than others, and everyone is switching faster than the electric companies. The Bolt story touches on the larger bizarre reality of supersized cars and trucks, with very few small reasonable models to pick from. That's an incentive that needs to happen.
As an aside, do you like the Bolt? I hear good things.
Yeah. It’s always refreshing (?) to come face to face with the reality on the ground once in a while. I love the Bolt. It’s well engineered, super reliable and fun to drive.
I'm glad you reshared this one. I've written about tripping over "we" before, too, and still get stuck on it. Haven't found a good answer, but whew do I like the direct way Greta Thunberg put it. Maybe the more of us who write about these discrepancies, the more we (!) will find even better ways to address them.
Nice informative essay about what we means - or doesn't. I feel that Western peoples are just not willing to make any sacrifice their lifestyles - even a little bit to have a lesser carbon footprint. Just suggesting cutting back on meat consumption or turning down thermostats - putting on a sweater, recycling clothing etc. gets a lot folks defensive and uptight. My father (dead now) was a child of th Depression and WW2 - when citizens did make sacrifices for the greater good. Food stuffs were rationed and my father would go around his neighborhood collecting junked metals for the war effort against Nazis and fascism. My father was also an brilliant electrical engineer and understood the approaching green house CO2 emissions caused global warming crisis when only a small handful of smart folks did back int he 1960/70s - when the extreme effects were not yet apparent to the average person. Yet even now when extreme weather events are a daily occurrence - it seems the majority of older citizens just keep their heads stuck in the sand! However, as a HS teacher in NY for 10 years - The good news is the youth do understand and are anxious to fix it ASAP - but still have no power. But this will change as the now very old baby-boomers finally retire from government positions and die off. I pray for divine intervention to allow humans some more time to fix the mess we have created.
Well said, Christopher. One thing I think is happening is the difference between what the culture is telling the average citizen now and what it told people of your father's generation. Not only the commonsense idea of sacrifice in the face of social challenge, but the now decades-long disinformation campaign begun by industry and carried forth by an entirely new media landscape. It's two uphill battles to fight while trying to get people to actively respond to the right information. As you say, the kids are on top of the information battle, but they're still struggling to find the power.
100% #Exxonknew! We the People will Sue them all for the trillions $$$ it will take to make the rapid (10 years) and necessary transition switch to cleaner energies plan happen sooner than later! It's coming here in the USA - 17 states are currently bringing suits against the big oil corporations that are mostly responsible for this global warming and plastic nightmare we are facing. The AGs have 40 years of misinformation proof taken from their (oil corps) own top scientists! We in the US have been here before - decades ago with the powerful lying cigarette companies and more recently the creepy Big Pharma and irresponsible MDs creating the Opioid crisis we are still in the middle of. Both were eventually sued in the courts after millions suffered death and sickness from lies - successfully for billions, but the oil companies need to pay more and will! Global Warming is no longer deniable to any reasonable judge or jury because Mother Nature is freaking out all over the world. Finally - have you ever heard of Clair Patterson? He is one of my scientist heroes with rare integrity that took on the huge lead industry not so long ago when most were reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Here's a link to his story if you're interested. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it
You're right that this will be a big year, with many more to come, in terms of lawsuits against the industry. One more reason to keep the MAGA crowd out of power will be to keep them from messing with the lawsuits, e.g. giving the industry some kind of protection. I very much hope you're right that the industry will be forced to pay, globally and at a scale that matters, for cleaning up this mess. As soon as Wall St abandons them (too much risk, too few profits), we'll be heading in the right direction.
I'd like to thread in to this great essay 'Who is We' via some perspectives Christopher shares here- Agreed that 'We' absolutely means all of us. Each of us are acting as an agent of the planet. Some of us are more self-aware; others see ourselves as victims along for the ride. But we are all authors of the Anthropocene. Christopher says " The good news is the youth do understand and are anxious to fix it ASAP - but still have no power." What if we were to empower them- to de-emphasize our worship of STEM and make room to teach our youth ecological literacy, K through 12, so that they could share a common language, common with the Earth, to engage with the Anthropocene, rather than wait for someone else to fix it. Ecological literacy already exists in curriculum accessible formats, but no nearly as widespread as it will need to become. But everyone who is self aware should take it upon ourselves to be a university in whatever walk of life we are. Sovereignty is powerful medicine and this goodness is contagious. And to the boomers (of which I am one)- we are closer to ancestral knowledge. We should not be afraid to teach it to our hard working middle-aged progeny. We can whither consumerism by recalibrating and throwing off our addiction to frictionless consumption- not just of food but of media, pharmaceuticals, education and any social forms . 'Happiness is desiring what we already have'. Let Gratitude be our measure.
Heather and I think about this all the time, Odessa. And she's doing something about it, getting young students outside and connecting them to the real world. But there needs to be a cultural shift to put general education within the context of the real world - the living world - both in a scientific context and an experiential one. If the next generations saw economies as subsets of ecologies, that would be a good start.
It was fun to listen to you ramble on about food in the Antarctic on Gastropod. Who knew the origin of hoosh? I was glad to learn more about it but glad to not have to eat it.
Thanks, David. Hoosh, like all desperate camping food, is terrible until your stomach decides otherwise. Then it's amazing. Starvation is a good spice.
I hope you haven't been to the point of liking hoosh! Those guys back then did some nutty stuff, surviving in some scary and dire situations. Wow. And, lucky to be on Gastropod. They do a great job.
Well, not hoosh exactly, but you know how camping food is better in situ. I somehow liked hot Tang with Jim Beam while canoeing the Okefenokee, and I remember enjoying taking hits of an abhorrent substance called Squeeze Parkay when I was a few months into a long hike. Nor did I ever eat any seal or penguin during my Antarctic adventures. I was a couple generations late for that.
The Gastropod folks are great. I'm not much of an interview - better on the page than in person - but they're both sharp and fun.
I agree. One hasn't really experienced the amazing breadth of human food tolerances until you're into the fourth week of a thru-hike and you're subsisting on dried oatmeal, coffee powder and Tang skillfully blended with creek water! Tastes great at the time! Too bad resupply is still three days away!
"From Vice, the unsurprising but still infuriating news that Shell’s massive “carbon-capture” plant in Alberta, paid for by hundreds of millions of Canadian tax dollars, is emitting 50% more greenhouse gases than it’s capturing. The difference in annual emissions is the equivalent of 1.2 million cars."
-I'm glad you cited that one. The problem in a nutshell, the minoriity within the minority.
I'm getting a bunny.
Well said, Michael. Enjoy that bunny. (You might want to neuter/spay it...)
Thanks for this thoughtful piece. You hit the nail on the head by observing that we are both trapped and complicit in these systems. And yet, I’m heartened by theories of change that describe a tipping point. With so many voices in so many places, maybe we’re closer than we think. Whatever happens, climate action is meaningful work that is rather be doing than flying to a private island in a private jet.
Thank you, Julie. Yes, the list of tipping points includes several positive ones. On the tech side, the energy transition is proceeding apace and making dirty energy obsolete. One the social side, in fits and starts, awareness and demand for action is coming along. But the ceiling between that awareness and the private jet folks is still unbroken.
So true. Here’s an (amusing?) anecdote about the so-called energy transition. The AC charger on my 2023 Bolt needs to be replaced. The car’s been at the dealer for 10 days waiting for Chevy national to tell them when they can get the part, which seems to be never (is never good for you?). Meanwhile, they gave me a loaner that’s so enormous I can’t safely drive it. (Electric blue 2024 king cab Silverado pickup) Since my car still accepts DC charge, I’ve elected to take it back while we all wait. While at the dealer to pick it up, the service manager tells me he’s been waiting for nearly a year for a permit from the electric company to install their DC charger that was delivered over a year ago. Welcome to the 21st century. 😢
Yikes. Well, I guess it's called a transition for a reason. Some entities are transitioning faster than others, and everyone is switching faster than the electric companies. The Bolt story touches on the larger bizarre reality of supersized cars and trucks, with very few small reasonable models to pick from. That's an incentive that needs to happen.
As an aside, do you like the Bolt? I hear good things.
Yeah. It’s always refreshing (?) to come face to face with the reality on the ground once in a while. I love the Bolt. It’s well engineered, super reliable and fun to drive.
I'm glad you reshared this one. I've written about tripping over "we" before, too, and still get stuck on it. Haven't found a good answer, but whew do I like the direct way Greta Thunberg put it. Maybe the more of us who write about these discrepancies, the more we (!) will find even better ways to address them.
Exactly. I guess we talk about "we" until we get better at being us?
What a fantastic way to put it!
Nice informative essay about what we means - or doesn't. I feel that Western peoples are just not willing to make any sacrifice their lifestyles - even a little bit to have a lesser carbon footprint. Just suggesting cutting back on meat consumption or turning down thermostats - putting on a sweater, recycling clothing etc. gets a lot folks defensive and uptight. My father (dead now) was a child of th Depression and WW2 - when citizens did make sacrifices for the greater good. Food stuffs were rationed and my father would go around his neighborhood collecting junked metals for the war effort against Nazis and fascism. My father was also an brilliant electrical engineer and understood the approaching green house CO2 emissions caused global warming crisis when only a small handful of smart folks did back int he 1960/70s - when the extreme effects were not yet apparent to the average person. Yet even now when extreme weather events are a daily occurrence - it seems the majority of older citizens just keep their heads stuck in the sand! However, as a HS teacher in NY for 10 years - The good news is the youth do understand and are anxious to fix it ASAP - but still have no power. But this will change as the now very old baby-boomers finally retire from government positions and die off. I pray for divine intervention to allow humans some more time to fix the mess we have created.
Well said, Christopher. One thing I think is happening is the difference between what the culture is telling the average citizen now and what it told people of your father's generation. Not only the commonsense idea of sacrifice in the face of social challenge, but the now decades-long disinformation campaign begun by industry and carried forth by an entirely new media landscape. It's two uphill battles to fight while trying to get people to actively respond to the right information. As you say, the kids are on top of the information battle, but they're still struggling to find the power.
100% #Exxonknew! We the People will Sue them all for the trillions $$$ it will take to make the rapid (10 years) and necessary transition switch to cleaner energies plan happen sooner than later! It's coming here in the USA - 17 states are currently bringing suits against the big oil corporations that are mostly responsible for this global warming and plastic nightmare we are facing. The AGs have 40 years of misinformation proof taken from their (oil corps) own top scientists! We in the US have been here before - decades ago with the powerful lying cigarette companies and more recently the creepy Big Pharma and irresponsible MDs creating the Opioid crisis we are still in the middle of. Both were eventually sued in the courts after millions suffered death and sickness from lies - successfully for billions, but the oil companies need to pay more and will! Global Warming is no longer deniable to any reasonable judge or jury because Mother Nature is freaking out all over the world. Finally - have you ever heard of Clair Patterson? He is one of my scientist heroes with rare integrity that took on the huge lead industry not so long ago when most were reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Here's a link to his story if you're interested. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it
You're right that this will be a big year, with many more to come, in terms of lawsuits against the industry. One more reason to keep the MAGA crowd out of power will be to keep them from messing with the lawsuits, e.g. giving the industry some kind of protection. I very much hope you're right that the industry will be forced to pay, globally and at a scale that matters, for cleaning up this mess. As soon as Wall St abandons them (too much risk, too few profits), we'll be heading in the right direction.
I'd like to thread in to this great essay 'Who is We' via some perspectives Christopher shares here- Agreed that 'We' absolutely means all of us. Each of us are acting as an agent of the planet. Some of us are more self-aware; others see ourselves as victims along for the ride. But we are all authors of the Anthropocene. Christopher says " The good news is the youth do understand and are anxious to fix it ASAP - but still have no power." What if we were to empower them- to de-emphasize our worship of STEM and make room to teach our youth ecological literacy, K through 12, so that they could share a common language, common with the Earth, to engage with the Anthropocene, rather than wait for someone else to fix it. Ecological literacy already exists in curriculum accessible formats, but no nearly as widespread as it will need to become. But everyone who is self aware should take it upon ourselves to be a university in whatever walk of life we are. Sovereignty is powerful medicine and this goodness is contagious. And to the boomers (of which I am one)- we are closer to ancestral knowledge. We should not be afraid to teach it to our hard working middle-aged progeny. We can whither consumerism by recalibrating and throwing off our addiction to frictionless consumption- not just of food but of media, pharmaceuticals, education and any social forms . 'Happiness is desiring what we already have'. Let Gratitude be our measure.
Heather and I think about this all the time, Odessa. And she's doing something about it, getting young students outside and connecting them to the real world. But there needs to be a cultural shift to put general education within the context of the real world - the living world - both in a scientific context and an experiential one. If the next generations saw economies as subsets of ecologies, that would be a good start.
Agree 100%!
Yeah, trail food is its own unique food form. Salsa and lettuce sandwich...mmmm.
It was fun to listen to you ramble on about food in the Antarctic on Gastropod. Who knew the origin of hoosh? I was glad to learn more about it but glad to not have to eat it.
Thanks, David. Hoosh, like all desperate camping food, is terrible until your stomach decides otherwise. Then it's amazing. Starvation is a good spice.
Earth is cooler with the atmosphere, water vapor, 30% albedo not warmer.
Ubiquitous GHE heat balance graphics use bad math& badder physics.
The kinetic heat transfer modes of the contiguous atmospheric molecules render the “extra” GHE LWIR energy of a BB surface impossible.
Consensus science has a well documented history of being wrong & abusing those who dared to challenge it.
GHE & CAGW are wrong so alarmists resort to fear mongering, lies, lawsuits, censorship & violence.
288 K w GHE – 255 K wo GHE = 33 C cooler, -18 C, Earth.
Just flat wrong.
YouTube: Greenhouse Effect Theory Goes Kerbluey
GHE balance calculated 396 up/333 “back”/2nd net 63 unreal perpetual “extra” energy loop.
Just flat wrong.
YouTube: Atmospheric Heat Balances That Don't
Earth radiating 396 W/m^2 LWIR as a 16 C BB.
Just flat wrong.
Search: “Bruges group kerbluey”
GHE
Just flat wrong.
CAGW
Just flat wrong.
More albedo and the Earth cools.
Less albedo and the Earth warms.
No albedo and the Earth becomes much like the Moon, barren, i.e. no water, 400 K lit side, 100 K dark.
Geoengineers know this, why don’t they also admit it violates the frozen ice ball of GHE theory?
MONEY??!!
“TFK_bams09”
Average solar constant of 1,364 W/m^2 arrives at the top of the atmosphere.
Divide by 4 to average this discular area over a spherical area.
(Sphere of r has 4 times the area as a disc of r. This is Fourier’s model which even Pierrehumbert says is no good.)
1,364/4=341
Apply 30% albedo.
341*.7=238.7 (239)
Deduct 78 absorbed in atmosphere.
Net/net of 161 arrives at surface.
Per LoT 1 161 is ALL!! that can leave.
0.9 ground + 17 sensible + 80 latent + 1st 63 LWIR (by remaining difference) and balance is closed!!!!
(1st 63 LWIR is MIA??? Where did it go?? Did TFK palm it like a magic act??)
Where does this extra 396 upwelling come from??
It is the theoretical LWIR from a S-B BB calculation at 16 C, 289 K, that fills the denominator of the emissivity ratio, i.e. 63/396=0.16.
It is not real, it is “extra”, it violates LoT 1.
The 396 upwelling “measurement”/333 “back” cold to warm/a 2nd 63 LWIR GHE loop violates LoT 1 & 2.
Remove the 396/333/63 GHE loop from the graphic and the balance still holds.
Those who claim to measure 400 +/- W/m^2 upwelling from the surface are applying an incorrect emissivity.
This graphic and all of its clones are trash.
The kinetic heat transfer processes of the contiguous atmospheric molecules render a surface BB impossible.
Energy leaving any thermal system = Conduction + Convection + Advection (wind) + Latent (water condensation and evaporation) + Radiation = 100 %
63/(17+80+63) = 0.16
A BB only exists in a vacuum as I demonstrate by experiment.
There is no GHE and no CO2 driven CAGW.
I hope you haven't been to the point of liking hoosh! Those guys back then did some nutty stuff, surviving in some scary and dire situations. Wow. And, lucky to be on Gastropod. They do a great job.
Well, not hoosh exactly, but you know how camping food is better in situ. I somehow liked hot Tang with Jim Beam while canoeing the Okefenokee, and I remember enjoying taking hits of an abhorrent substance called Squeeze Parkay when I was a few months into a long hike. Nor did I ever eat any seal or penguin during my Antarctic adventures. I was a couple generations late for that.
The Gastropod folks are great. I'm not much of an interview - better on the page than in person - but they're both sharp and fun.
I agree. One hasn't really experienced the amazing breadth of human food tolerances until you're into the fourth week of a thru-hike and you're subsisting on dried oatmeal, coffee powder and Tang skillfully blended with creek water! Tastes great at the time! Too bad resupply is still three days away!