[MCN] One perspective on climate spending in "Inflation Reduction Act, " and some related stuff

[Lance Olsen]

The bill’s climate spending emphasizes technological fix, devoted to building, selling and buying the likes of batteries, heat pumps and solar panels. 

It lacks equal emphasis on reducing eventual consumer demand for energy, period. The bill suggests energy supply as before,  whether gained from drill, baby, drill or gained from mine, baby, mine followed by manufacture, baby, manufacture. It assures the comfortable that the comfortable lifestyle can go on as before, without need of individual/household “sacrifice.” 

However, in a first, IPCC has finally granted attention and ink to the importance of demand.

The spending bill, in contrast, is primarily a supply-side budget asking little of the ones who demand the most

That said, I’m glad to see it. 

It can’t and won’t stop climate danger/risk. Too much of that is built in, irreversibly, unavoidably, plausibly for decades ahead. 

But the bill’s climate spending can and to some extent will actually relieve some of the dangers we would have faced without it. And it adds clarity to what we’ll have to do next, now, with this (important ) step taken. We needed both the relief and the clarity on what we’ll need done next.

I’ll let it go at that. But we need to be working through plenty of interesting crosscurrents and trends, now and in the years ahead. For example, because mining is a water-intensive industry, and because there will be no batteries or solar panels without mining, should we be thinking of how to allocate water for mining where water scarcity has already been built in —  and seems likely to persist. What about farms? Food needs water. Will we be giving up food as a price paid for lives in the new technologies’ providence of same ol’ comfort zone?

And hey, speaking of risk, there’s the risk that some next Trumpublican president will install Donald Trump as, say, Secretary of Interior

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 <https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/05/sand-shortage-the-world-is-running-out-of-a-crucial-commodity.html>
Sand shortage: The world is running out of a crucial commodity <https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/05/sand-shortage-the-world-is-running-out-of-a-crucial-commodity.html>
https://www.cnbc.com › 2021/03/05 › sand-shortage-th... <https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/05/sand-shortage-the-world-is-running-out-of-a-crucial-commodity.html>

Mar 5, 2021 — The world is facing a shortage of sand — and climate scientists say it constitutes one of the greatest sustainability challenges of the 21st ...

 <https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a39880899/earth-is-running-out-of-sand/>
Understanding the Sand Shortage: Why We're Running Out of ... <https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a39880899/earth-is-running-out-of-sand/>
https://www.popularmechanics.com › environment › ea... <https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a39880899/earth-is-running-out-of-sand/>

May 2, 2022 — Sand. As a result the world's demand for sand has started to strip riverbeds and beaches bare. ... Speaking of Supply Chain Shortages .

 <https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/03/29/sand-pirates-are-driving-global-shortages-in-this-vital-construction-material>
Sand pirates are driving global shortages in this vital ... <https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/03/29/sand-pirates-are-driving-global-shortages-in-this-vital-construction-material>
https://www.euronews.com › green › 2022/03/29 › san... <https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/03/29/sand-pirates-are-driving-global-shortages-in-this-vital-construction-material>

Mar 29, 2022 — But demand is set to soar by 45 per cent in the next four decades, according to a new study. Leiden University in the Netherlands calculated ...


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1-Aug-2022 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
Climate change: Potential to end humanity is ‘dangerously underexplored’ say experts <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
Researchers call for a new ‘Climate Endgame’ research agenda and say far too little work has gone into understanding the mechanisms by which rising temperatures might pose a catastrophic risk to society and humanity. <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
JOURNAL <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119 <https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119>
 <https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960152>
EXCERPT FROM RELEASE

However, Kemp co-authored a “text mining” study of IPCC reports, published earlier this year <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022EF002876>, which found that IPCC assessments have shifted away from high-end warming to increasingly focus on lower temperature rises.

This builds on previous work <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13ef/meta> he contributed to showing that extreme temperature scenarios are “underexplored relative to their likelihood”. “We know least about the scenarios that matter most,” Kemp said.

The team behind the PNAS paper propose a research agenda that includes what they call the “four horsemen” of the climate endgame: famine and malnutrition, extreme weather, conflict, and vector-borne diseases.

Rising temperatures pose a major threat to global food supply, they say, with increasing probabilities of “breadbasket failures” as the world’s most agriculturally productive areas suffer collective meltdowns.

Hotter and more extreme weather could also create conditions for new disease outbreaks as habitats for both people and wildlife shift and shrink. 
The authors caution that climate breakdown would likely exacerbate other “interacting threats”: from rising inequality and misinformation to democratic breakdowns and even new forms of destructive AI weaponry.
One possible future highlighted in the paper involves “warm wars” in which technologically enhanced superpowers fight over both dwindling carbon space and giant experiments to deflect sunlight and reduce global temperatures.

More focus should go on identifying all potential tipping points within “Hothouse Earth” say researchers: from methane released by permafrost melts to the loss of forests that act as “carbon sinks”, and even potential for vanishing cloud cover.

“The more we learn about how our planet functions, the greater the reason for concern,” said co-author Prof Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
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“The gap between high- and low-income families has widened steadily since about 1980, hitting a new high every year since 1985. “

Business Week, November 21, 1994, p. 72.

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“The gap between high- and low-income families has widened steadily since about 1980, hitting a new high every year since 1985. “

Business Week, November 21, 1994, p. 72.




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