Bill McKibben on Project 2025:

They also promise to reach back to 2009 to reverse a crucial finding from the EPA that carbon dioxide causes harm, a position that undergirds much federal environmental regulation. Their plan would even abolish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which measures the damage we’re doing to air and water—because those findings are “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

[…]

And it’s even worse than that. The climate crisis—unlike most of our political woes—is a timed test; past a certain point, we can’t repair the damage. Once you melt the Arctic, no one knows how to freeze it back up again. And that “certain point” is approaching: Climate scientists have made it clear that emissions need to fall by half by 2030; Trump’s term would end in January of 2029, giving his successor… 11 months. Good luck.

The Planet Could Bear the Scars of a Second Trump Term… Forever

Project 2025: Roadmap to Venus.

What’s so sad is that, much like tobacco companies before them, they really don’t care about the externalities of their products. “Climate change alarm industry” :lol:

The World Will Be Swimming in Excess Oil by End of This Decade, IEA Says

Global oil markets are headed toward a major glut this decade, a global energy watchdog forecast, citing surging supplies and slowing demand growth for crude thanks to lower-emissions energy sources.

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/global-oil-markets-to-tip-into-surplus-by-end-of-decade-iea-says-c85688fa?mod=mhp

Coal is dead. Good riddance.

The first time Donald J. Trump ran for president, he slapped on a miner’s helmet and told coal workers they would be “winning, winning, winning” when he entered the White House.

Now, as Mr. Trump campaigns for another chance at the presidency, he rarely mentions America’s coal miners and has stopped making grand promises about their future.

The shift reflects political and economic realities, experts said. Top among them: Mr. Trump oversaw coal’s decline, not its salvation. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump gutted climate regulations and appointed a coal lobbyist to lead the country’s top environmental agency, 75 coal-fired power plants closed and the industry shed about 13,000 jobs during his presidency.

“Not a single coal miner went back to work or power plant saved,” said Erin E. Bates, a spokeswoman for the United Mine Workers of America, the labor organization representing coal miners.

“I think he’s realizing those promises were not met during his term and they’re probably not going to be met now,” she said. “Politically, it probably doesn’t pay for his campaign to make more broken promises.”

Two decades ago, coal produced about half of all the electricity in the United States. Today, it accounts for just 16 percent of American power generation. The industry employed nearly 180,000 people at its peak in the 1980s, but now that figure is about 44,800, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Coal began its slide around 2005 as the fracking boom started to produce large quantities of cheap natural gas, which proved attractive to utilities. In the last few years, the cost of power generated by wind turbines and solar farms has plunged, replacing natural gas as the cheapest source of electricity. Last year, power generated from onshore wind turbines and solar farms was about one-third of the cost of the electricity produced by coal, on average.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/climate/trump-coal-politics.html

‘Inconvenient truths’ for greens

There is a danger environmentalists “get into a bubble of clear-sighted, righteous agreement that if only other people had sufficient political will and shared our views, we’d be well on our way to the promised land”

Environmentalism is much harder than a few slogans and he listed what he called five “inconvenient truths” that need addressing

The first inconvenient truth is that closing polluting industries will in most cases result in imported replacement goods unless there is an equal focus on curbing consumption. Telling consumers they can’t have stuff is an altogether more difficult conversation to have.

The second inconvenient truth is that society must entertain some environmentally damaging activities like mining or the provision of infrastructure. “The question is how much damage? If we are not prepared to examine trade-offs critically, we will be dismissed as the dog that barks at every passing car.” Environmentalists oppose extractive industries but in the transition to zero emissions energy, demand will increase for metals needed for batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.

The third inconvenient truth is the call for green growth, which he said isn’t the easy economic and environmental win some people imagine. Tourism is not environmentally benign and renewable electricity is usually far more efficient and therefore less damaging than fossil fuels but will result in ecosystem damage. “The green growth vision of the future will continually trade one environmental issue for the next. We can’t escape that.”

The fourth inconvenient truth is that change is costly and not the win-win it is pitched as. “Environmentalists have to be conscious of the social impacts of these sorts of transitions.”

The fifth inconvenient truth is that arguing for degrowth is not an easy sell. “As a student of human nature, my hunch is that if we tell people that they can’t have the stuff they’ve grown to expect, they will turn to thinking about how they can take it from others.”

Just a reminder that this weather is indeed extreme. For anyone who can feel, and can read a graph, the pattern is alarming:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/climate/extreme-summer-heat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.000.e-Vm.9B61_NeAn8_Z&smid=url-share

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/20/landmark-supreme-court-ruling-throws-doubt-on-new-uk-fossil-fuel-projects

tldr: fossil fuel extractor have been claiming their projects are carbon neutral because the product will be used by someone else somewhere else. Someone likened it to tobacco companies saying their product did not cause cancer as long as it was not burned. The law has decided otherwise. A small hurrah!

Congress Just Passed The Biggest Clean-Energy Bill Since Biden's Climate Law

Some good news on nuclear power. And the best news is that since it's bipartisan then it should be immune to partisan politics (assuming that Trump doesn't arbitrarily dismantle it like the Iran Nuclear Deal or the oil lobbyists change their tune once they start seeing nuclear power as a legitimate short-term threat to their business).

Interesting— I haven’t followed the news in a couple days and must have missed this. Not sure what to think about it— I hear Sanders and Markey were No votes, which gives me pause, although I’m generally pro-nuclear.

Not sure about Markey but Sanders is stubbornly anti-nuclear which is one part of his energy policy I recall disagreeing with back in 2020. Part of me suspects it is because he's an old fashioned environmentalist.

Denmark will tax livestock farmers for methane emissions

In 2030, Denmark is set to become the first country to start taxing farmers for gassy pigs, sheep, and cattle — the methane that livestock animals give out is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

The goal is to reduce methane gas emissions by 70% from 1990 levels, said Denmark’s tax minister, but the new law does not specify how it will change the economic livelihood of farmers.

Question - will Denmark's methane tax help to reduce global-warming/climate-change?

Here are my thoughts:

- farming of pigs, sheep, and cattle will reduce in Denmark, but will increase in other countries to meet the demand for these things. So no reduction in global methane emissions.

- if the other counties are less efficient than Denmark in farming these animals then global methane levels could actually go up because of the methane tax in Denmark

- there will be additional greenhouse gases produced due to the transport of farm products to Denmark. So global methane levels and CO2 levels could actually go up because of the methane tax in Denmark

Why is Denmark going to introduce a methane tax when it will have no effect, or possibly even make global-warming/climate-change worse than before the tax?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair



Written words unfortunately formatted for phone users, or spoken, take your pick.

What Trump 2.0 Could Mean for the Environment

As president, Donald Trump’s sweeping attempts to roll back federal environmental regulations were often stymied — by the courts, by a lack of experience, even by internal resistance from government employees.

But if he retakes the White House in November, Mr. Trump would be in a far better position to dismantle environmental and climate rules, aided by more sympathetic judges and conservative allies who are already mapping out ways to bend federal agencies to the president’s will.

“It’s going to be easier,” said Myron Ebell, who led the transition at the Environmental Protection Agency after Mr. Trump won in 2016. “They’re going to have better people, more committed people, more experienced people. They will be able to move more quickly, and more successfully, in my view.”

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump has promised to repeal federal regulations designed to cut greenhouse gas pollution that is rapidly heating the planet. Many of his allies want to go further. They are drafting plans to slash budgets, oust career staffers, embed loyalists in key offices and scale back the government’s powers to tackle climate change, regulate industries and restrict hazardous chemicals.

Trump and the climate deniers in the Republican Party are mind-numbingly stupid. No logic, no economic sense, no care for future generations, no facts, no evidence— nothing sways their absolute, unwavering commitment to destroying the planet.

Is the fossil fuel money and propaganda that powerful? Apparently.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/climate/extreme-summer-heat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.000.e-Vm.9B61_NeAn8_Z&smid=url-share — Mikie

"There is a graph saying it is extremely hotter now compared to 70 years ago!"
There is a graph saying people with left-wing views have lower testosterone in average than right-wingers. The difference is that the latter is scientifically presented.

Seems weird that anyone would want to harm the planet deliberately. They’re not stupid, they must know it will hurt them too? I wonder if something else is going on. The evidence does seem convincing at this point. Is it really money or what?

Is it really money or what? — John McMannis

There are all kinds of reasons. Some of it relates to a certain interpretation of the Bible, appeals to tradition, fear of change, etc. But mostly it’s the massive propaganda machine that has been well documented. See Naomi Orestes, for one: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

Anyone who denies the obvious at this point is, put simply and frankly, an idiot or a dupe.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-clocks-july-2023-as-hottest-month-on-record-ever-since-1880/

Do you think NASA is wrong?

Is "hottest since X" the same phrase as "extremely hot"? You are constantly asking these dumb questions.

Do you think this is correct?

"Air temperatures on Earth have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. While natural variability plays some part, the preponderance of evidence indicates that human activities—particularly emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases—are mostly responsible for making our planet warmer.

According to an ongoing temperature analysis led by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880. The majority of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15 to 0.20°C per decade."

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/global-temperatures#:~:text

Yes.

Do you think climate change, in the form of global warming caused by human activity, is an existential threat to the biosphere that we should be taking seriously?

It doesn't matter what I think, I don't make policy. If people worried about things under their control rather than things they will never be qualified to deal with, this planet wouldn't be so full of people who can't find the end of a queue.

Don’t argue with children, just put them on the ignore list like I do.

No one cares what they think. Neither should you. Unfortunately I’m only reminded of their existence when they’re referenced in a post. That agree to disagree and the incel clown is still around is baffling.

See Naomi Orestes, for one: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. — Mikie

Thanks, I will.

just put them on the ignore list like I do. — Mikie

What ignore list? I don’t see that option. Who do you have on yours? Can it be anyone? Does it block everything they post or just some?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/897535

You can find it there. Yes, it hides all posts and notifications from anyone you put on it. The only thing it doesn’t hide is when someone who is not blocked quotes or mentions someone who is.

I have only a handful of people who I have nothing to learn from, contribute nothing, never have anything interesting to say, and are, frankly, idiots. I won’t say who, but if it ever appears that I’m never responding to — or interacting with — a person, it’s because I have them on ignore.

Try it— it’s great. Much less annoying. If you want to know some recommendations, PM me. On this thread I can name one: “Agree to Disagree.” Just a climate-denying troll. Maybe he’s been booted off by now, I don’t know.

On this thread I can name one: “Agree to Disagree.” Just a climate-denying troll. Maybe he’s been booted off by now, I don’t know. — Mikie

I am still here. Since Mikie has me on his ignore list I can say anything that I like about him. :grin:

Mikie has no idea what he is talking about, and doesn't realize how foolish he is.

- I do not deny the climate
- I do not deny climate change
- people like Mikie exaggerate the effects of climate change
- people like Mikie blame the wrong people
- people like Mikie promote solutions which won't work
- people like Mikie misrepresent other people's views. He calls everybody who doesn't accept his views a "denier", even when they are not denying climate change
- people like Mikie think that abusing people will make them do what Mikie wants
- people like Mikie don't understand human nature
- people like Mikie won't have a discussion (because Mikie thinks that he knows everything)
- people like Mikie underestimate the number of people who don't care about climate change
- people like Mikie enjoy being a troll, while accusing other people of being trolls

Mikie has no idea what he is talking about, and doesn't realize how foolish he is. — Agree-to-Disagree

From reading this thread and the conversations with you, that’s not how it appears to me. He’s also not the only one that’s called you out on your biases. Whether or not you’re a climate denier I don’t know, but every post of yours indicates a slant towards downplaying the risks. But you seem like a nice enough guy!
(Sorry Mikie for quoting people you ignore lol)

slant towards downplaying the risks. — John McMannis

A common climate denier and troll. Glad you can tell just by reading a few of his garbage posts. Quite right I’m not the only one that recognizes it or calls it out. But like most trolls, he just moves on to the next crappy denial line after the previous one has been thoroughly debunked. Utter waste of time. Might as well be talking to a bot.

And don’t worry about the quote stuff— His opinion is worthless to me. All climate deniers’ opinions are worthless.

Anyway, let me know what you think of Orestes’ book. Really spells it all out.

Whether or not you’re a climate denier I don’t know, but every post of yours indicates a slant towards downplaying the risks. — John McMannis

I believe that climate-change/global-warming is happening. I don't deny that.

The reason that most of my posts downplay the risks is that I believe that most of the posts from many other people exaggerate the risks.

I am a very skeptical person and I tend to take the opposite side to other people. However, I don't do this without what I consider valid reasons. My comments are meant to promote discussion and make people think. Something that Mikie doesn't like.

Here is an example. People are concerned about an increase in the global average temperature of 1.5 or 2.0 degrees Celsius. But most places on Earth have a difference in temperature between winter and summer of 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. Which do you prefer, winter or summer?

A lot of that difference in viewpoint comes down to the use of temperature anomalies, rather than actual temperatures.

Very few things in life are totally good or totally bad. But you will never hear anything good said about climate-change/global-warming. Why? What about having a longer growing season in many places? Lower winter heating bills? Moscow has an average temperature of 4 degrees Celsius. Wouldn't Muscovites welcome some global warming? Etc, etc, ...

The reason that most of my posts downplay the risks is that I believe that most of the posts from many other people exaggerate the risks. — Agree-to-Disagree

Where? I don’t see much exaggeration. If it is exaggerated, how certain are you that it is? Isn’t it better to assume some of the worst case scenarios, given the harm it might do? Are you a climate scientist? From those I read and hear from, this all seems like a very serious thing. It might not be the end of the world, but that’s a Straw Man argument to me. I’m not a scientist but I know they’ve been talking about this since the early 90s at least, and I can see evidence all around me that the world is warming, and though that may be good in some ways its bad in far more ways.

Here is an example. People are concerned about an increase in the global average temperature of 1.5 or 2.0 degrees Celsius. But most places on Earth have a difference in temperature between winter and summer of 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. Which do you prefer, winter or summer? — Agree-to-Disagree

But this is just silly my friend. Even I know that just because the number is low doesn’t mean it can’t have big impacts. If these are the thought provoking things you mention, you can’t be angry at people from dismissing you as unserious.