Climate Problems, Climate Solutions
- "We have to identify the problem, then act in many ways to solve the problem. Global warming is the threat of our times."
- "We’re going to need to use every tool in the toolbox if we’re going to solve this problem."
- Climate Change, a Global Crisis, a Global Challenge
- Bookmark Climate Policy @GreenPolicy360
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Climate Change - NASA
- https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ | Vital Signs
Climate Change - MIT
- https://climateprimer.mit.edu/ | Climate Science, a Primer
Climate Change - Metrics
- https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/climate-change-data-green/ | Bloomberg Green Climate Data-Dashboard Intel
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2022
August 2022
Climate Problems, Climate Solutions
A Green New Deal by Another Name
- Three Legislative Actions Add Up to a New Version of a Green New Deal
- Infrastructure, CHIPS, IRA...
GreenPoliyc360: Let's look more closely at three huge advances as the US acts to deal with climate...
A Renamed and Restructured Green New Deal
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Five Decades in the Making: Why It Took the US Congress So Long to Act on Climate
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It's Not Too Late to Make a Positive Difference
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More on the historic August Congressional vote
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/12/us-house-passes-climate-bill-inflation-reduction-act
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The U.S. action could spur other nations to do more — especially China and India, the two largest carbon emitters along with the U.S. That in turn could lower prices for renewable energy globally...
Investments work better at fostering clean energy than regulations, said Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The climate bill is likely to spur billions in private investment, she said: “That’s what’s going to be so transformative.”
Sweeping climate bill pushes American energy to go green
Associated Press / August 12, 2022
By SETH BORENSTEIN, MATTHEW DALY and MICHAEL PHILLIS
WASHINGTON (AP) — After decades of inaction in the face of escalating natural disasters and sustained global warming, Congress hopes to make clean energy so cheap in all aspects of life that it’s nearly irresistible. The House is poised to pass a transformative bill Friday that would provide the most spending to fight climate change by any one nation ever in a single push...
The crux of the long-delayed bill, singularly pushed by Democrats in a closely divided Congress, is to use incentives to spur investors to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, speeding the transition away from the oil, coal and gas that largely cause climate change.
The United States has put the most heat-trapping gases into the air, burning more inexpensive dirty fuels than any other country. But the nearly $375 billion in climate incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act are designed to make the already plummeting costs of renewable energy substantially lower at home, on the highways and in the factory. Together these could help shrink U.S. carbon emissions by about two-fifths by 2030 and should chop emissions from electricity by as much as 80%.
“This legislation is a true game-changer. It will create jobs, lower costs, increase U.S. competitiveness, reduce air pollution,” said former Vice President Al Gore, who held his first global warming hearing 40 years ago. “The momentum that will come out of this legislation, cannot be underestimated.”
The U.S. action could spur other nations to do more — especially China and India, the two largest carbon emitters along with the U.S. That in turn could lower prices for renewable energy globally, experts said.
Because of the specific legislative process in which this compromise was formed, which limits it to budget-related actions, the bill does not regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but deals mainly in spending, most of it through tax credits as well as rebates to industry, consumers and utilities.
Investments work better at fostering clean energy than regulations, said Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The climate bill is likely to spur billions in private investment, she said: “That’s what’s going to be so transformative.”
The bill promotes vital technologies such as battery storage. Clean energy manufacturing gets a big boost. It will be cheaper for consumers to make climate-friendly purchasing decisions. There are tax credits to make electric cars more affordable, help for low-income people making energy-efficiency upgrades and incentives for rooftop solar and heat pumps.
There are also incentives for nuclear power and projects that aim to capture and remove carbon from the atmosphere...
The Rhodium Group research firm estimates the bill would dramatically change the arc of future U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, cutting them by 31% to 44% in 2030, compared to what had been shaping up to be 24% to 35% by 2005 without the bill, said Rhodium partner John Larsen. Clean power on the grid, an upcoming Rhodium report says, would jump from under 40% now to between 60% and 81% by 2030, he said.
“It’s not as big as I want, but it’s also bigger than anything we’ve ever done,″ said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat who leads the Senate climate caucus. “A 40% emissions reduction is nothing the U.S. has ever come close to before.″
As decisive a change as it is for U.S. policy and emissions, it still does not reach the official U.S. goal of cutting carbon pollution roughly in half by 2030 to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across the economy by 2050.
Republicans, who unanimously opposed the bill in the Senate, say it would add to consumers’ energy costs, with House GOP Whip Steve Scalise claiming it “wastes billions of dollars in Green New Deal slush funds.”
“It’s a mark of shame that it took this long for our political system to react,” said Bill McKibben, a long-time climate activist, adding that it leaves the fossil fuel industry with too much power. “But this will help catalyze action elsewhere in the world; it’s a declaration that hydrocarbons are finally in decline and clean energy ascendant, and that the climate movement is finally at least something of a match for Big Oil.”
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Steve Schmidt / Founder, GreenPolicy360: It took 45+ yrs to pass real climate action called for in the 1970s with the first National Climate Act. Our #GreenPolicy360 network thanks Rep George E. Brown, a main mover at the beginning, who'd be smiling now if he were here ...
Congressman Brown Out in Front of Climate Action
At the Beginning of U.S. Science on Global Warming, Strategies & Planning
1978, the First Climate Actions
National Climate Program Act, Public Law 95-367
In 1979 came the first follow-on National Science Academy Climate report. This study and report of national scientists was prescient and accurate in its global warming predictions.
First National Climate Act, Historic Work, 1978
GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJS: The beginnings of modern environmental and climate science can be traced to the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences played a key role in laying a foundation of scientific reports and data.
Energy and Climate Report, 1977, National Academy of Sciences / 175 pp. / PDF via GreenPolicy360
Rep. George Brown took the findings of the 1977 Energy and Climate Report from the Academy of Sciences and made the science actionable. In a historic moment, he proposed and drafted the legislation of the first U.S. National Climate Program and shepherded its passage in 1978.
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Bookmark Climate Policy @GreenPolicy360
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- Read and Learn, Focus on the Data and Science of the #ClimateCrisis
Now Is the Time for Planet Citizen Action to Solve the #ClimateCrisis
Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists
Map, Measure & Manage
- OKRs - Objectives & Key Results
To Get to Net Zero, This City Is Making a Map
Ithaca, New York, has committed to fully decarbonizing by 2030. To achieve that goal, the city is creating a “digital twin” that can model energy use, building by building
Via CityLab / June 2022
In 2019, lawmakers in Ithaca, New York, resolved to eliminate or offset all carbon emissions by 2030, becoming the first city in the US to set such an ambitious global-warming benchmark.
Then it launched a $100 million plan to fund a massive municipal climate-proofing effort...
When the Ithaca Green New Deal plan was launched, two architecture professors at nearby Cornell University, Felix Heisel and Timur Dogan, realized they had a tool that could help — a map created using machine learning that estimates the costs of retrofitting, and future electricity grid loads, on a building-by-building level across the city.
Dogan, who runs Cornell’s Environmental Systems Lab, had for years been developing software that allowed architects to quantify the energy consumption and carbon footprint of buildings. Heisel, who leads the Circular Construction Lab, was working to understand what carbon neutrality really means when you account for material stock and embodied carbon. The pair of academics reached out to the city and offered their technology as a way to translate Ithaca’s bold goal into action. The map will be crucial as Ithaca determines its electrification priorities and funding allocations; if successful, the technology could be expanded to help all types of cities tackle building decarbonization at scale.
“Which buildings [do you] renovate first? Which buildings consume the most energy? Which ones would be the lowest hanging fruit to renovate?” said Dogan, describing the questions he hoped his software could answer.
Existing tech can do this fairly easily — but only one building at a time. That misses a big opportunity, Dogan says. “When you’re working at these scales, there are potentially synergies. Like, if you group buildings in a certain way, or if building owners team up to share investment costs of something like geothermal boreholes.”
That’s where Dogan and Heisel’s new energy modeling map — a “digital twin” of the city — comes into play.
Digital 'Twinning' in Orlando, Florida
How Cities Are Using Digital Twins Like a SimCity for Policymakers
The technology could help officials cut operating costs and carbon emissions of new construction, and avoid costly modifications after a project is completed. Amid an ever-looming climate crisis facing urban areas, it could enable cities to test the effectiveness of various measures against rising sea levels and urban heat. By one estimate, digital twins could save cities some $280 billion by 2030.
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Climate Matters in the Newsroom
Climate Reporting
Free, online program designed to help journalists and meteorologists up their game in incorporating climate change into 'every news beat' -- local/metro, state/national and global journalism ... data, graphics, story ideas, cooperative ventures, education and training
Get going, get the word out -- be on top of the science and the story of our era, #ClimateCrisis
Climate Desk
Environmental Journalism @ClimateDesk
Climate Desk is a multi-media journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate. The partners are: The Atlantic, Atlas Obscura, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, CityLab, Grist, The Guardian, High Country News, HuffPost, Medium, Mother Jones, National Observer, Newsweek, Reveal, Slate, The Weather Channel, Undark, Wired and Yale Environment 360.
* https://www.climatedesk.org/about-us/
* https://www.theatlantic.com/
* https://www.atlasobscura.com/
* https://www.bloomberg.com/citylab
* https://www.theguardian.com/us
* https://www.motherjones.com/
* https://www.nationalobserver.com/
* https://www.newsweek.com/topic/climate-change
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Climate Matters in the Classroom and Online
The Critical Importance of Science & Facts
STEM areas of study - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, including Computer Science
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Climate Solutions 101
Presented by Project Drawdown
Videos & graphics you can use... conversations with leading experts... solutions to climate change
- videos & graphics you can use) and conversations with leading experts, and gets right to the *solutions* to climate change
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- U.S. National Climate Assessments: A Critical Task
- Earth System Observatory
- Earth Science Missions
Climate Problems, Climate Solutions
Time to act to make a difference
Intro/GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: For some 40+ years your GreenPolicy360 siterunner has worked in many varied ways to get the word out on the crucial importance of environmental security. From the first Earth Day to the first warning from the new committee of science with the push from Congressman George E. Brown, through various career incarnations I have attempted to 'work the message', gathering (curating as it's now called) the best science and writing up and sharing key strategies and goals even against the odds. The risks we have identified and shared have now turned into a crisis.
Perhaps it is human nature to be overwhelmed, or what my teacher Hannah Arendt described in the 'Human Condition' as the realms of labor, work, and action. Many choose to go along to get along, and not act when the threats grow extreme, even existential. But to those who take the chance to make a difference and stand up and do your best to make changes that change the world for the better, I salute you for your bravery.
Now comes another warning from the international science community. This warning is dire. The latest news looms to such an extent as to be overwhelming, depressing and potentially driving us toward resignation and inaction, but it should not prevent us from action as Michael E. Mann's latest book, 'The Fight to Take Back Our Planet' argues persuasively.
Act with hope and not fear. Earth is in our hands. Take in the news, consider the science, then in your own way, act to make a positive difference.
Focus on solutions to identified problems. Don't give up, never give up.
Devastating News: Climate Change Impacts to Hit Sooner than Predicted
Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN's climate science advisors obtained by AFP.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas—these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st century unfolds, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in a draft report seen exclusively by AFP.
But dangerous thresholds are closer than once thought, and dire consequences stemming from decades of unbridled carbon pollution are unavoidable in the short term.
"The worst is yet to come, affecting our children's and grandchildren's lives much more than our own."
Crushing Climate Impacts: Draft UN report
PARIS (AFP) / June 23, 2021 - Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN's climate science advisers obtained by Agence France-Presse.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas - these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st century unfolds, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in a draft report seen exclusively by AFP...
"The worst is yet to come, affecting our children's and grandchildren's lives much more than our own," the report says.
By far the most comprehensive catalogue ever assembled of how climate change is upending our world, the report reads like a 4,000-page indictment of humanity's stewardship of the planet.
But the document, designed to influence critical policy decisions, is not scheduled for release until February 2022 - too late for crunch UN summits this year on climate, biodiversity and food systems...
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Big Picture
Systemic Change
Measure and Monitor the Energy Production/Usage/Source data and Changes as Climate Energy Policies Are Implemented
Define the Units of Measurement
Joules and Exajoules - https://www.convertunits.com/info/exajoule
Units defined exactly in terms of the joule include:
- - 1 thermochemical calorie = 4.184 J[22]
- - 1 International Table calorie = 4.1868 J[23]
- - 1 W⋅h = 3600 J (or 3.6 kJ)
- - 1 kW⋅h = 3.6×106 J (or 3.6 MJ)
- - 1 W⋅s = 1 J
- - 1 ton TNT = 4.184 GJ
Gigajoule - The gigajoule (GJ) is equal to one billion (109) joules. 6 GJ is about the chemical energy of combusting 1 barrel (159 l) of petroleum.[17] 2 GJ is about the Planck energy unit.
Exajoule / The exajoule (EJ) is equal to one quintillion (1018) joules. The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan had 1.41 EJ of energy according to its rating of 9.0 on the moment magnitude scale. Yearly U.S. energy consumption amounts to roughly 94 EJ. - Wiki citations
Terawatts - https://www.electricrate.com/what-is-a-terawatt/
Megatonne Of Oil Equivalent (Mtoe) - https://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/energy/mtoe/mtoe-to-megajoule.html
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* Measuring Full Costs
* Implementin True Cost - True-price Initiatives
* Dealing with Damage to 'The Commons'
SJS/GreenPolicy360 -- We/GreenPolicy360 recommend a new descriptor for emissions-externalities-carbon pricing -- Not a tax, it's a price based on full-cost accounting, +EC
- Climate Change Costs, Environmental Impact Costs, Social Costs, Health Costs, War Costs of Oil/Gas
- Add in the full costs, the true costs of Fossil Fuels
- The real-world costs of Oil/Gas add up
Planet citizens, planet scientists, capturing, measuring, monitoring vital signs, intervening and maintaining environmental sustainability
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The yearly use of fossil fuels on the planet (circa 2020) is about/~ 450 exajoules. To roll back the 450 exajoules by 2050, every year the planet would have to reduce use of about 15 exajoules of fossil fuels. That is the equivalent of about 100 billion gallons of diesel fuel every year.
-WaPo Comment
Global Energy Statistical Yearbook (2020)
World energy consumption (2012) -- beyond 500 exajoules
Terajoules of energy used - The annual global energy consumption is estimated to 580 million terajoules. That’s 580 million trillion joules or about 13865 million tons of oil equivalents (Mtoe)
IEA World Energy Statistics (By Source 1973-2018 - Mtoe)
Energy production and consumption
In 2008, total worldwide primary energy consumption was 132,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) or 474 exajoules (EJ).
- - WikiMatrix
At the global level, approximately 37 per cent of primary energy consumption is converted to useful energy: of global annual primary energy consumption of 400 exajoules, 150 exajoules are consumed as useful energy and 250 exajoules are wasted.
- - UN
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Pressuring for systemic change:
- What companies need to be financially pressured by investors and money managers?
Lowering carbon emissions is critical to directly confronting the #ClimateCrisis
Money talks in business and politics
Read Full 'Climate Change Power of Investment Managers' Interview at The Bulletin
10 biggest carbon-dioxide emitting firms in the world
20 companies have contributed over a third of all carbon emissions since 1965
100 companies responsible for 71 percent of global carbon emissions
Carbon Majors Database Report / 2017
Personal, Networking
Planet Citizen Action
The Challenge of Acting for the Commons
"Pledge for Nature" at the UN Biodiversity Summit
Leaders from 64 countries sign the Pledge For Nature to take action.
The Call to Action include measures to:
Slow down deforestation; eliminate unregulated and unsustainable fishing practices; and stop plastic being dumped into the ocean by 2050.
Conserve land; eliminate subsidies that harm the environment; transition to sustainable food production.
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"Thin Blue", Protecting 'The Commons', Enabling Life on Earth
"Tiny Blue Green", Oxygen in the Atmosphere, Food Source of the Seas
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- Earth Day flag
Planet Citizen Vision of Living Earth
"The Earth is my patient, and like any good medical doctor, I am compelled to advocate for her... Today, I see myself as a doctor advocating for... my patient, the Earth."
Planet Citizens
Strategies of Resilience & Survival
Earth Science to Protect a Sustainable Earth
New Definitions of National Security
- Personal action... Direct action...
- Green Network, GreenLinks action
Planet Citizen, Planet Scientist Activism
- "Have hope, Act to make a Positive difference"
- Shifting from a Scientist to Activist
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- Climate Action: Our Ethical Responsibility
- 198 Ways to Act, Count 'em
Global Climate Strike, Student Action
Students Worldwide Striking to Demand Climate Action Change
Kids in 123 countries strike to protect the climate
“This movement had to happen, we didn’t have a choice.”
An estimated 1.4 million young people in 123 countries skipped school Friday to demand stronger climate policies in what may be one of the largest environmental protests in history.
Going Global: Student #ClimateStrike
Student Climate Strike-March 15, 2019
- Think Like Rebecca, Creating Positive Change
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It's Your Time to Be Out in Front
Step Up, Get with the Action
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