13 Comments

Thanks for providing a format where you share your knowledge and people can ask questions and share ideas. It's like attending a graduate seminar without being in graduate school! You make climate change science and solutions accessible and understandable in real time.

I share a lot of the same feelings and concerns about the Trump administration. I have dialed back my consumption of news and media sites, especially those that focus on politics. I agree with Zeke that we need to keep the big picture in mind about the finite tenure and impact of the Trump administration. and maybe look for areas where the left and right can agree, e.g., advanced nuclear energy, Gen III+ and Gen IV reactors. I will continue to think globally and act locally and support the efforts of the New Mexico legislators that take climate change seriously.

I agree with Andy about how unbelievable it is that we are still fighting climate change denial and skepticism. What is amazing to me is how many times this past year, I heard reference to 500-year, 1000-year, or 2000-year weather events, e.g., flooding in North Carolina and New Mexico. As Kate Marvel suggests, I am tired of screaming into the void. I appreciate your efforts to moderate and limit the amount of misinformation and disinformation in the comment section.

As for significant climate science achievements in the last year, I would have to include the efforts to create a robust estimate of the earth's GMST over the last 485 million years, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705 . To me, understanding our past and the correlation between GMST and CO2 and timescales involved relative to the rate at which man has increased the level of atmospheric CO2 in 100 - 200 years is key to getting people to appreciate the seriousness and reality of climate change.

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Thanks!

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Thanks to all the team at The Climate Brink for the great work done!

I believe the most important climate news of 2024 is the following:

Although ENSO has swung toward La Niña, the global average temperature has continued to rise, setting a new record.

Even if reaching + 1.6 °C this year does not mean formally breaking the Paris Agreement, in practice it will possibly never go below + 1.5 °C again.

Most importantly, the world continues to do business as usual, as if nothing serious is happening.

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Thanks!

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"Most importantly, the world continues to do business as usual, as if nothing serious is happening."

Speaking for myself, my hopes are pinned on the currently small but rapidly expanding contribution carbon-neutral energy sources are making in meeting (also rapidly expanding) global demand. It's already more than nothing, and AFAICT the energy market is serious about it. I've got maybe 30 years left if I'm lucky. I'm curious to see what happens!

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This was a great “chat” report! I usually don’t have the patience to listen to chats (because I read fast and speech is kind of low-data-rate) but this was good content. You both cite grounds for optimism, despite all, which is great, but as a balance, my pessimistic outlook goes like this: after El Niño events, global temperatures calm down a bit, so just like in 1998 and other post-El-Nino times, the disinformation megaphone will proclaim that global warming has ended. And unfortunately, it’ll get press,TV, and social media amplification.

But as you made clear, despite my pessimist outlook and the most nefarious propaganda of fossil fuel interests, markets drive adoption of clean energy. Just not as fast as might be possible in an evidence-based world.

Keep up your good work, and keep us informed. And Happy New Year!

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Thanks!

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I appreciate your thoughts and optimism. I wish I could be there with you. But so far as I can tell, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that we're going to make a dent in this. IF you could get a majority of the country to agree that they should give up their SUVs, boats, ATVs, travel, meat, imported goods and so on; and IF and we could elect a POTUS and Congress who then appoint a SCOTUS willing to defy the fossil fuel cartel and take serious steps toward cutting emissions; IF we could create a UN with teeth that could enforce GHG regulations globally (yes, we're talking about a global government), then we could TRY the physics part. Can we stop using fossil fuels without triggering a global depression? Not likely. Are there are enough materials to build the solar, wind, and batteries to power a whole world custom crafted for fossil fuel energy? NO. Can we create infrastructure to extract the materials we need in a timeframe that would matter? NO. Do we have the technology to reduce atmospheric carbon back to 280 PPM? NO. Would we be able to stop the glaciers from melting before they slow/stop the AMOC? NO. Will be be able to cool the oceans before they decimate coral reefs and sea life as we know it? NO. Tell me I'm wrong... anyone?

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Hi Andrew--Always appreciate the insightful commentary and information. Unfortunately, some of the news articles you link are behind paywalls, so it's impossible to read them...

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Which ones have pay walls?

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I just wanted to point out that "clean energy" is a misnomer. All energy that can power a civilisation (as opposed to, for example, foraged food energy) is environmentally damaging. Renewable energy is also environmentally damaging, so not really a solution though it is far less damaging, in some ways, than fossil fuel energy.

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Well, yes. Our very existence poses a dilemma! Everyone alive consumes resources and creates wastes. By many measures, our species hasn't been sustainable since the spread of agriculture allowed populations to exceed local carrying capacity for a foraging economy. With global population at an all-time high, the choice is only between more or less environmentally damaging supplemental (non-food) energy.

Let's face it, the "best" solution to the sixth great extinction would be the extinction of one species: ours. And the most environmentally virtuous choice any individual can make is to die, childless.

Happy New Year anyway, my bloggy friends!

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Our Planet: Person or Living Entity?

Lately it’s fashionable to think of this planet we share as having Environmental Personhood and afforded status equal to a living person and entitled to Environmental Justice

It’s time to consider our Earth as a living, breathing being possessing systems that keep it running smoothly and in good health. We now have to face the fact that the temperature of the planet is increasing. and as in other living beings this signals that something is happening out of the “normal functioning range”.

Scientists and 75% of the population call this climate change.

We can also say the earth has a fever, and its not going down.

When we humans have a prolonged fever we see a doctor. We test our fluids, our breathing, our blood pressure and our blood for toxic and nutritional levels.

Our cardiovascular system - heart, arteries, veins and capillaries - supply us with nutrients, circulate oxygen from our lungs, and cleanse our kidneys and liver. In short, this system keeps us alive.

Earth, as a living, breathing being, has a similar cardiovascular system in play - a system that is not functioning within “normal range”.

In the Earth’s cardiovascular system, we can think of the oceans and atmosphere as its heart and lungs, large rivers its arteries, smaller rivers and streams, wetlands and bogs its veins and capillaries sending nutrients to its extremities.

Terrestrial ecosystem provide sustenance: nutrition, oxygen, and a home to living beings. Land is connected to the waterways providing food and life to aquatic species that travel, breed and participate in the lifecycle of the Earth. and those avenues of support are severely clogged, (similar to cardiovascular disease in humans) by large hydroelectric dams: mega-dams.

Mega-dams are creating clots in the world’s circulatory system, not only retaining water for electricity generation, Also prohibiting passage of the nutrients which the marine ecosystem needs to live and thrive.

The damming of rivers is one of mankind’s most significant modifications to the worlds cardiovascular system impacting the flow of water and associated materials from land to sea. Included in these nutrients are nutritional elements like nitrogen and phosphorus, required by all life on Earth, and silicon, which is required by diatoms, the plankton that account for the largest percentage of biological productivity in the oceans.

Diatoms in the oceans sequester more Co2 than all the rainforests of the planet.

All the great energy work: solar, wind, and true renewables will not fix our planets cardiovascular system. It is this system that directly affects every sphere of our planet and until we get serious we'll not resolve the big issues, removing the dirtiest and antiquated older mega hydro electric.

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