[MCN] Another weekly post on recent climate-related trends, encouraging and not

[Lance Olsen]

High metal prices could delay transition to clean energy, warns IEA <https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEGSpTYqHY4iBJaHft_zS7kgqGAgEKg8IACoHCAow-4fWBzD4z0gw_fCpBg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
The International Energy Agency has warned that high mineral prices could delay a transition to clean energy, owing to the amount of metals needed for ...
Financial Times <https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMPuH1gcw-M9I?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>


A shortage of these metals could make the climate crisis worse <https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiUWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAyMS8wNS8wNS9idXNpbmVzcy9jbGltYXRlLWNyaXNpcy1tZXRhbHMtc2hvcnRhZ2UvaW5kZXguaHRtbNIBVWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmNubi5jb20vY25uLzIwMjEvMDUvMDUvYnVzaW5lc3MvY2xpbWF0ZS1jcmlzaXMtbWV0YWxzLXNob3J0YWdlL2luZGV4Lmh0bWw?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
London (CNN Business) The world won't be able to tackle the climate crisis unless there is a sharp increase in the supply of metals required to produce electric ...
CNN

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New York Times May 6, 2021
 
THE LITHIUM GOLD RUSH    Electric cars not as green as they appear
 
By Ivan Penn <https://www.nytimes.com/by/ivan-penn> and Eric Lipton <https://www.nytimes.com/by/eric-lipton>
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/business/lithium-mining-race.html? <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/business/lithium-mining-race.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210507&instance_id=30373&nl=the-morning&regi_id=93404205&segment_id=57451&te=1&user_id=07ed959112f9b7cc43299f111e692fa5>

Atop a long-dormant volcano in northern Nevada, workers are preparing to start blasting and digging out a giant pit that will serve as the first new large-scale lithium mine in the United States in more than a decade — a new domestic supply of an essential ingredient in electric car <https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/electric-and-hybrid-vehicles> batteries and renewable energy.

The mine, constructed on leased federal lands, could help address the near total reliance by the United States on foreign sources of lithium <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/business/energy-environment/10lithium.html?searchResultPosition=4>.

But the project, known as Lithium Americas, has drawn protests from members of a Native American tribe, ranchers and environmental groups because it is expected to use billions of gallons <https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/thacker-pass-feis-chapters1-6-508/f5d9956ac05f6601/full.pdf#page=177> of precious ground water, potentially contaminating some of it for 300 <https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/thacker-pass-feis-chapters1-6-508/f5d9956ac05f6601/full.pdf#page=63> years, while leaving behind a giant mound of waste <https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/thacker-pass-feis-chapters1-6-508/f5d9956ac05f6601/full.pdf#page=29>.

“Blowing up a mountain isn’t green, no matter how much marketing spin people put on it,” said Max Wilbert, who has been living in a tent on the proposed mine site while two <https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/bartell-v-blm-redacted/30ee73b1e939720b/full.pdf> lawsuits <https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/2021-02-26-thacker-pass-complaint-2-26/c00328ed92b85cfb/full.pdf> seeking to block the project wend their way through federal courts.
 
The fight over the Nevada mine is emblematic of a fundamental tension surfacing around the world: Electric cars <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/business/energy-environment/electric-car-batteries-investment.html> and renewable energy may not be as green as they appear <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/electric-vehicles-environment.html>. Production of raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel that are essential to these technologies are often ruinous to land, water, wildlife and people.


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Environmental Research Letters  Published 1 March 2021
Drivers of change in US residential energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, 1990–2015
Peter Berrill, Kenneth T Gillingham1 and Edgar G Hertwich

OPEN ACCESS pdf
1005 Total downloads
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abe325/pdf

Abstract
Annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from residential energy use in the United States peaked in 2005 at 1.26 Gt CO2-eq yr−1, and have since decreased at an average annual rate of 2% yr−1 to 0.96 Gt CO2-eq yr−1 in 2019. In this article we decompose changes in US residential energy supply and GHG emissions over the period 1990–2015 into relevant drivers for four end-use categories. The chosen drivers encompass changing demographics, housing characteristics, energy end-use intensities, and generation efficiency and GHG intensity of electricity. Reductions in household size, growth in heated floor area per house, and increased access to space cooling are the main drivers of increases in energy and GHG emissions after population growth. Growing shares of newer homes, and reductions in intensity of energy use per capita, household, or floor area have produced moderate primary energy and GHG emission reductions, but improved generation efficiency and decarbonization of electricity supply have brought about far bigger primary energy and GHG emission reductions. Continued decline of residential emissions from electrification of residential energy and decarbonization of electricity supply can be expected, but not fast enough to limit climate change to 1.5 °C warming. US residential final energy demand will therefore need to decline in absolute terms to meet such a target. However, without changes in the age distribution, type mix, or average size of housing, improvements in energy efficiency are unlikely to outweigh growth in the number of households from population growth and further household size reductions.

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Corporate secrecy over climate change targeted by Washington and California <https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEHMja8OZpb1DJFdoGnvTbkoqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowpbDpAzCm_hww3uXGBg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
California clean tech innovator Bloom Energy, with its noncombustion, low-emission fuel cells, is hardly taking the same approach to powering the planet as oil ...
Phys.org <https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMKWw6QMwpv4c?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>

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 <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05978-1>
Climate change has doubled the frequency of ocean heatwaves <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05978-1>

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"The woodland and forest may be considered from two points of view, (a) as a source of lumber supply, and (b) as a physical factor with effects on climate, erosion, and the flow of streams."

Henry Gannett, Chief, Forest Division, U.S. Geologic Survey
Forests of the United States : 19th Annual Report, (1888)Part 5, pp.1-3.

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Climate change: Amazon may be turning from friend to foe <https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEBlW3LY4dyhtdWQuiXe4fxUqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowpbDpAzCm_hww3uXGBg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
The Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20 percent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last decade than it absorbed, according to a stunning report ...
Phys.org <https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMKWw6QMwpv4c?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
 <https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEHsZtbXf7y9H-69WhHT8IOgqFwgEKg8IACoHCAow5v6PATDrwA8wruge?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
Excerpt

"We half-expected it, but it is the first time that we have figures showing that the Brazilian Amazon has flipped, and is now a net emitter," said co-author Jean-Pierre Wigneron, a scientist at France's National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA).

"We don't know at what point the changeover could become irreversible," he told AFP in an interview.

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One of Canada's biggest carbon sinks is circling the drain <https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiYmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm5hdGlvbmFsb2JzZXJ2ZXIuY29tLzIwMjEvMDUvMDcvbmV3cy9jYW5hZGEtY2FyYm9uLXNpbmstbWFuYWdlZC1mb3Jlc3RzLWNpcmNsaW5nLWRyYWlu0gEA?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
Canada's managed forests used to remove massive amounts of CO2 from the air each year. Now they emit CO2 — and that's before accounting for logging.
National Observer

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PNAS May 4, 2021 118 (18) e2024397118
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024397118 <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024397118>
Loss of resilience preceded transformations of pre-Hispanic Pueblo societies
Marten Scheffer,   <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6345-104X>Egbert H. van Nes,   <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3466-6284>Darcy Bird, R. Kyle Bocinsky, and Timothy A. Kohler

Abstract
Climate extremes are thought to have triggered large-scale transformations of various ancient societies, but they rarely seem to be the sole cause. It has been hypothesized that slow internal developments often made societies less resilient over time, setting them up for collapse. Here, we provide quantitative evidence for this idea. We use annual-resolution time series of building activity to demonstrate that repeated dramatic transformations of Pueblo cultures in the pre-Hispanic US Southwest were preceded by signals of critical slowing down, a dynamic hallmark of fragility. Declining stability of the status quo is consistent with archaeological evidence for increasing violence and in some cases, increasing wealth inequality toward the end of these periods. Our work thus supports the view that the cumulative impact of gradual processes may make societies more vulnerable through time, elevating the likelihood that a perturbation will trigger a large-scale transformation that includes radically rejecting the status quo and seeking alternative pathways.

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America's 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90 ... <https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/>
https://time.com  <https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/>

Welfare works: redistribution is the way to create less violent ... <https://theconversation.com/welfare-works-redistribution-is-the-way-to-create-less-violent-less-unequal-societies-128807>
https://theconversation.com › welfare-works-redistributi... <https://theconversation.com/welfare-works-redistribution-is-the-way-to-create-less-violent-less-unequal-societies-128807>
Mar 12, 2020 — Welfare works: redistribution is the way to create less violent, less unequal ... One solution to avoid potential instability is to redistribute wealth ...

Redistribution of Income and Reducing Economic Inequality ... <https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/03/bourguignon.htm>
https://www.imf.org › fandd › 2018/03 › bourguignon <https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/03/bourguignon.htm>
Spreading the Wealth. Fiscal instruments can reduce inequality, but some yield short-term results while others bear fruit over the long term. François Bourguignon.

Redistribution, Inequality, and Happiness | NBER <https://www.nber.org/digest/aug01/redistribution-inequality-and-happiness>
https://www.nber.org › digest › aug01 › redistribution-i... <https://www.nber.org/digest/aug01/redistribution-inequality-and-happiness>
How concerned are citizens about inequality of income and how much do they support the government redistributing wealth as a means of reducing social …

Two cognitive tendencies help explain why low-income voters ... <https://www.psypost.org/2020/08/two-cognitive-tendencies-help-explain-why-low-income-voters-often-oppose-the-redistribution-of-wealth-57837>
https://www.psypost.org › 2020/08 › two-cognitive-ten... <https://www.psypost.org/2020/08/two-cognitive-tendencies-help-explain-why-low-income-voters-often-oppose-the-redistribution-of-wealth-57837>
Aug 28, 2020 — A new study explores cognitive processes that may explain why many who stand to gain from the redistribution of wealth continue to vote ...

Redistribution of income and wealth | Government at a Glance ... <https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/79321fa3-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/79321fa3-en>
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org › sites › content › component <https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/79321fa3-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/79321fa3-en>
Redistribution of income and wealth. One of the most pervasive consequences of the 2007-08 economic crisis has been the increase in income inequality to ...

It's Time to Redistribute the Wealth | All Debates | Debate ... <https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/its-time-redistribute-wealth>
https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org › debates › its-ti... <https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/its-time-redistribute-wealth>
It's Time to Redistribute the Wealth. Economic inequality has become a linchpin of modern politics. As nations around the world face a reckoning on racial and ...

Is Support for Income Redistribution Really Falling? | The New... <https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-support-for-income-redistribution-really-falling>
https://www.newyorker.com/ <https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-support-for-income-redistribution-really-falling>

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NASA : Greenhouse Gases Data Pathfinder
 Human activities have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 47% since the Industrial Revolution began. 

Find data on carbon dioxide and other climate-warming gases -- along with resources for using these data -- in the new Greenhouse Gases Data Pathfinder.
 https://go.nasa.gov/3uwOH5H <https://go.nasa.gov/3uwOH5H>

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Nature, Vol 461:10 September 2009 

BOOKS & ARTS 
Call for a climate culture shift

A new book describes the rapid reshaping of human priorities needed to save the planet from global warming. Some of that change is already under way at the community level, explains Robert Costanza. 

Down to the Wire:Confronting Climate Collapse
by David W. Orr
Oxford University Press: 2009. 288 pp. $19.95
 
“A worldwide movement rejects the idea that we are fated to end the human experiment with a bang or a whimper.” 

1st 2 paragraphs : 


In the fight against climate change, humans will need to do more than switch to energy-efficient light bulbs and buy ‘green’ goods. As environmental scientist David Orr points out in Down to the Wire, what is needed is a radical shift in culture that alters our priorities. The question is whether that task, which seems impossible, can be made to happen. Orr’s book, along with recent research and social initiatives, give hope that it can. 

There is a growing scientific consensus that humanity is rapidly approaching a global climate catastrophe. Although we have increasing knowledge of the dangers and costs ahead, there is little time to avert a disaster. Orr acknowledges these dire circumstances, but does not wallow in despair or defeatism. His book is a clear-sighted view of what we need to change now. 




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