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Dealing with Climate Change & Justice
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Posted 7 months ago #
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https://heated.world/p/a-line-by-line-fact-check-of-the
...musky trump interview
Posted 7 months ago # -
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Trump’s Project 2025 promises billions of tonnes more carbon pollution – study
Experts say climate policies contained within rightwing manifesto would wreck US climate targets and cost jobs
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/14/trump-project-2025-climate
Posted 7 months ago # -
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You feel like you’re suffocating’: Florida outdoor workers are collapsing in the heat without water and shade
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Posted 7 months ago # -
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The millennium-old Persian technique of “qanat” features underground channels filled with water and shafts that bring the cooler underground air to the surface. Seville is doing the same, adapting a 1992 experimental qanat to use renewable power and – in a new twist – pumping the water to the tops of buildings, where it will trickle down inside the walls to cool them. Even the benches will be chilled.
It sounds like a luxury, but it is nothing of the sort. Heat has become a leading health threat to cities, and not just in Seville. Last year 645 people died from overheating in Phoenix. Counterintuitively, the fire trucks in Phoenix now carry ice, packed into body bags. Its first responders have learned through the experiences of the past few years that you can save lives by packing overheated people into ice – a cold-water immersion therapy used in extreme endurance tests, such as military training and marathon running – in order to bring their temperature down rapidly while whisking them to hospital.
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Posted 7 months ago # -
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In January 2023, the Scottish Government under then-net zero secretary, Michael Matheson, published its draft energy strategy, which included a pledge to “accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels” and considered a “presumption against new exploration for oil and gas” to “support the fastest possible and most effective just transition”.
But SNP ministers are poised to walk back their previous opposition to new fossil fuels developments and instead call for an “enhanced” version of the climate compatibility checkpoint drawn up by the previous Conservative UK government in its final energy strategy due to be published imminently.
SNP acting net zero secretary, Gillian Martin, has claimed her government’s plans would be consistent with “reducing emissions in line with Paris Agreement goals” and “could be used by the UK government and form the basis of international discussions on this issue”.
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https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/snp-oil-and-gas-climate-energy-strategy-4740976
Posted 7 months ago # -
in a new twist – pumping the water to the tops of buildings, where it will trickle down inside the walls to cool them.
Not so new: Seymour Cray did the same with the Cray-2 supercomputer 40 years ago, although he used Fluorinert and not water.
Posted 7 months ago # -
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Labour must ramp up renewable energy to meet 2030 climate vows, says watchdog
CCC says delays and reverses under Rishi Sunak have left UK drastically off track from Paris commitments
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Posted 7 months ago # -
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The satellite, named Tyche, will support British armed forces operations as well as monitor natural disasters, help map information development and track the impact of climate change globally, the Ministry of Defence said.
The washing machine-sized satellite, was designed and built in the UK under a £22m contract awarded to Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and is the first to be fully owned by the MoD.
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Posted 7 months ago # -
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As the world heats up, methane released from thawing permafrost and warming tropical wetlands is intensifying climate breakdown. But curbing it is achievable
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Posted 7 months ago # -
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“The reason we are doing this,” says Professor Phil Greening, co-director of a new hub that could help accelerate transport decarbonisation, “is that we have run out of runway to decarbonise using the traditional market forces. It’s not that they don’t work – they will work eventually. But we have run out of time.”
The question of whether the market can solve many of our net zero problems arises frequently around decarbonisation plans. It was there, for instance, earlier this year when I was looking at the market in short-duration lithium battery parks and the way National Grid ESO’s nature, as a neutral market facilitator may mean we are failing to design the best grid. It’s there around the issue of green finance, tree-planting and nature restoration. And it’s also there around decarbonisation of transport.
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Posted 7 months ago # -
No doubt this "digital twin" model will fall into the same "predict and provide" trap that all the traffic models fall into...
By not taking into account human behaviour and social interaction and just assuming that's all static...
AI, is by definition, trained on "what we did before", with all its inherent biases, not what could happen.
Because energy-use, transport and food supply chains are not some force of nature, but a product of human choices
One example of how twins would work is that it could help motorists and reduce carbon emissions through updating digital road signs with information on the shortest route out of traffic jams.
...is the equivalent of "rephasing the traffic lights", not to mention that navigation apps already attempt to do the same thing. You cannot "navigate your way out of a traffic jam" because everyone else is trying to do the same thing! This clearly shows they don't understand, and haven't incorporated, human behaviour into the model
Posted 7 months ago # -
You cannot "navigate your way out of a traffic jam" because everyone else is trying to do the same thing! This clearly shows they don't understand, and haven't incorporated, human behaviour into the model
Braess's Paradox? It is a common word round our way.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Three things come to mind here:
1. The good Prof and his team have reinvented 'Sim City'.
2. We actually know what works already.
3. You can model what you like - it makes no difference if decision makers will not implement policies and programmes proven to work. See congestion charging, workplace parking levies and road space reallocation - all things where there is real-world evidence of their efficacy.Posted 7 months ago # -
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“We’re in a climate crisis. We’re in a public health crisis; getting people walking and cycling and moving more are essential to solving both of those in the immediate term and in the long term,” she said. “There’s lots of evidence to show that will reduce the number of GP appointments by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, a year.”
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Posted 7 months ago # -
Good God. Time to shut the fossil fuel industry down, and throw the executives in jail.
Is there no end to the harm they cause?
Twenty-four brain samples collected in early 2024 measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight
A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, leading researchers to call for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution.
Studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels and bone marrow.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
Posted 7 months ago # -
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Opponents of the post-growth movement counter that a shrinking economy would be socially destructive, leading to a rise in unemployment, a reduction in tax revenue and therefore less money available for public services. This, they argue, would lead to increasing levels of hardship and destitution, which is already hitting marginalised communities the hardest.
However, economists in the post-growth movement say a planned and purposeful reorganisation of the economy would benefit the vast majority of people. According to their vision, this could entail an organised downsizing in production of things such as mansions, SUVs, industrially produced beef, cruise ships, fast fashion and weapons – all of which are profitable to capital but ecologically destructive. At the same time, there should be a massive increase in investment in what would benefit people the most, from healthcare, public transport and renewable energy to affordable housing, nutritious food and regenerative agriculture, which offer less profit but are also less ecologically destructive.
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He says no high-income country is “even close” to meeting their Paris climate change obligations, with even the best performers on course to take more than 200 years to cut emissions to zero at existing rates of mitigation.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/27/what-is-degrowth-can-it-save-planet
Posted 7 months ago # -
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She added: “This isn’t about beavers per se. It’s about the restoration of ecosystem function and resilience in terms of drought and flood management, biodiversity recovery and soil health. This will tick loads of different boxes, and there are tourism benefits too and getting the public excited about this idea of nature restoration.”
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The UK government is considering making further commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, likely to be announced at the UN climate summit this year.
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Greenpeace’s chief scientist and policy director, Dr Doug Parr, said: “These alarming findings highlight that, despite the UK joining a global pledge to reduce methane emissions by nearly a third by 2030, a proper British action plan has yet to materialise.
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Posted 7 months ago #
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