[✔️] January 7, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Jan 7 07:03:16 EST 2022
/*January 7, 2022*/
/[ carbon capture important for the future ]/
*Clearing the Air: Decarbonization Technologies Take a Giant Step Forward*
BY MARIE DENOIA ARONSOHN |JANUARY 6, 2022
“We wanted to figure out the cheapest way to take carbon dioxide out of
the air and we came up with something very simple: Take limestone, cook
it. Now you have CO2, to store or use, and calcium oxide. Put the CaO
out in the weather. It will draw down CO2 from air, to make limestone
again. Repeat. This is so simple, it is almost stupid. But we are
finding that we can convert 75 percent of CaO to limestone in less than
two weeks, just reacting with air in the lab. And, because the process
is so simple, it currently has the lowest peer-reviewed cost estimate,
of any proposed method for direct air capture.”
Two start-up companies are putting Kelemen’s innovation to work.
Heirloom Carbon Technologies based in California is committed to
removing one billion tons of CO2 from the air by 2035 by “looping” CaO
and CaCO3, as described above.
Meanwhile, 44.01, based in Oman, is focusing on storing CO2 removed from
air, by forming solid carbonate minerals below the surface.
Both represent a profound advancement in the practical application of
decarbonization science.
“It’s the most promising I’ve seen so far. And so it’s very gratifying
to finally see these things moving toward tests on the field scale,“
said Kelemen...
- -
“We wanted to figure out the cheapest way to take carbon dioxide out of
the air and we came up with something very simple: Take limestone, cook
it. Now you have CO2, to store or use, and calcium oxide. Put the CaO
out in the weather. It will draw down CO2 from air, to make limestone
again. Repeat. This is so simple, it is almost stupid. But we are
finding that we can convert 75 percent of CaO to limestone in less than
two weeks, just reacting with air in the lab. And, because the process
is so simple, it currently has the lowest peer-reviewed cost estimate,
of any proposed method for direct air capture.”
Two start-up companies are putting Kelemen’s innovation to work.
Heirloom Carbon Technologies based in California is committed to
removing one billion tons of CO2 from the air by 2035 by “looping” CaO
and CaCO3, as described above.
Meanwhile, 44.01, based in Oman, is focusing on storing CO2 removed from
air, by forming solid carbonate minerals below the surface.
Both represent a profound advancement in the practical application of
decarbonization science.
“It’s the most promising I’ve seen so far. And so it’s very gratifying
to finally see these things moving toward tests on the field scale,“
said Kelemen.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/01/06/clearing-the-air-decarbonization-technologist-take-a-giant-step-forward/
/[ Shell ruling in the Netherlands ramifications ]/
*What next for climate change litigation after Shell carbon dioxide
emissions ruling?*
Stewarts - January 4 2022
*In a pivotal moment for both environmentalists and corporations around
the world, the Hague District Court found that Royal Dutch Shell Plc
(“RDS”) owes a duty of care to Dutch citizens to reduce its carbon
dioxide emissions, at whatever stage those emissions occur. Stewarts
paralegal Thulasy Packianathan considers this landmark case and
subsequent developments.*
The judgment in Milieudefensie et al v. Royal Dutch Shell Plc provides a
clear indication that companies, as well as governments, will be
defendants in future climate litigation. Indeed, some such cases have
already been brought. The RDS case also reflects the broader global
consensus that corporations should take responsibility for the emissions
across their global supply chains.
*
**Background*
Almost 200 countries adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015, committing to
reduce global warming to below 2 degrees celsius, and recently agreed
the Glasgow Climate Pact at COP26 to keep this goal alive. However, as
international agreements bind only states and not private parties, the
decision of the Hague District Court came as a surprise.
In response to a claim brought by a group of Dutch NGOs
(non-governmental organisations) and thousands of individuals, for the
first time, a court ordered a private company (RDS) to slash carbon
dioxide emissions associated with its operations and products. By 2030,
Shell must reduce these by 45% compared to its 2019 levels (in line with
the Paris Agreement). RDS was held responsible not only for its own
emissions but also for those emitted by its suppliers and those
associated with the end-use of its products.
*The Hague District Court found that:*
1. RDS owes a duty of care towards Dutch citizens in relation to its
emissions across its entire global chain, which is independent of
the actions of nation states on climate change. It was not
sufficient for RDS to demonstrate compliance with prevailing laws
and regulations on CO2 emissions.
2. RDS’s role as the parent company is to establish both the Shell
group’s general corporate strategy and more specific policies
relating to climate change to ensure these are concrete and targeted
enough to realise the reduction obligation that rests on the group.
The court found that RDS was not taking tangible steps fast enough
to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and thus owes a
“significant best-efforts obligation” to reduce its emissions.
*Legal arguments*
The applicants based their claims on the “unwritten standard of care”
established by the Dutch Civil Code. They argued that RDS’s activities
violated a duty of care to Dutch citizens pursuant to Article 6:162 of
the Dutch Civil Code, which states:
“A person who commits a tortious act (unlawful act) against another
person that can be attributed to him, must repair the damage that this
other person has suffered as a result thereof.”...
- -
What does this mean for other corporations and the climate change movement?
Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, there has been a global rise
in cases challenging governments and companies on their commitment to
the fight against global warming. As the pressure increases on companies
and nations to do more, the court’s reasoning in the RDS case could be
replicated in climate-related liability claims in other jurisdictions,
particularly given the emphasis placed by the court on international
treaties and “soft law” in interpreting the standard of care owed by RDS.
Donald Pols, director of Friends of the Earth Netherlands, reacted to
the decision by saying:
“This is a monumental victory for our planet, for our children and is a
step towards a liveable future for everyone. The judge has left no room
for doubt: Shell is causing dangerous climate change and must stop its
destructive behaviour now.”...
- -
*Comments and considerations following the RDS judgment*
Despite environmentalists’ optimistic response to the RDS judgment and
the increasing number of similar climate-related cases in the pipeline,
there is a risk that the targeting of individual companies to hold them
to account in this manner could have limited effect. To comply with such
rulings and keep shareholders content, companies may reduce their
emissions by selling their energy-intensive assets, thus removing them
from their portfolios. This will not help prevent global warming as the
assets will remain in production.
BP is a clear example. Last year, BP Plc sold its Alaskan oil complex,
thereby removing 8 million tons of emissions from its climate ledger.
However, carbon dioxide is still being emitted from the Alaskan oil
field. Indeed, some commentators expect emissions to rise under its new
operator and contribute further to dangerous climate change.
Ultimately, the real change needs to come from society as a whole.
Global demand for oil and gas-related products must be reduced to see a
true change to our environment. In the meantime, climate-related
litigation against both states and private companies will no doubt
continue to increase. All eyes of energy-intensive corporations and
climate activists alike are focused on RDS’ appeal.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ecab95bc-9e10-4f86-aced-82afad698761
/[ more tornadoes with global warming -- video- Yale ] /
*Explaining the historic tornadic weather events*
Jan 6, 2022
YaleClimateConnections
Local TV meteorologists across the cities and in media markets unused to
capturing national attention took the lead in warning of enormous risks
and impacts from mid-December historic tornado activity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZoOEXasiDQ
/[ great essay and opinion ] /
*Watching Don’t Look Up made me see my whole life of campaigning flash
before me*
George Monbiot
I’ve broken down on TV too, trying to explain the horror of the climate
crisis to those who wield power and do nothing
Tue 4 Jan 2022
No wonder journalists have slated it. They’ve produced a hundred excuses
not to watch the climate breakdown satire Don’t Look Up: it’s “blunt”,
it’s “shrill”, it’s “smug”. But they will not name the real problem:
it’s about them. The movie is, in my view, a powerful demolition of the
grotesque failures of public life. And the sector whose failures are
most brutally exposed is the media.
While the film is fast and funny, for me, as for many environmental
activists and climate scientists, it seemed all too real. I felt as if I
were watching my adult life flash past me. As the scientists in the
film, trying to draw attention to the approach of a planet-killing
comet, bashed their heads against the Great Wall of Denial erected by
the media and sought to reach politicians with 10-second attention
spans, all the anger and frustration and desperation I’ve felt over the
years boiled over.
Above all, when the scientist who had discovered the comet was pushed to
the bottom of the schedule by fatuous celebrity gossip on a morning TV
show and erupted in fury, I was reminded of my own mortifying loss of
control on Good Morning Britain in November. It was soon after the Cop26
climate conference in Glasgow, where we had seen the least serious of
all governments (the UK was hosting the talks) failing to rise to the
most serious of all issues. I tried, for the thousandth time, to explain
what we are facing, and suddenly couldn’t hold it in any longer. I burst
into tears on live TV.
I still feel deeply embarrassed about it. The response on social media,
like the response to the scientist in the film, was vituperative and
vicious. I was faking. I was hysterical. I was mentally ill. But,
knowing where we are and what we face, seeing the indifference of those
who wield power, seeing how our existential crisis has been marginalised
in favour of trivia and frivolity, I now realise that there would be
something wrong with me if I hadn’t lost it.
In fighting any great harm, in any age, we find ourselves confronting
the same forces: distraction, denial and delusion. Those seeking to
sound the alarm about the gathering collapse of our life-support systems
soon hit the barrier that stands between us and the people we are trying
to reach, a barrier called the media. With a few notable exceptions, the
sector that should facilitate communication thwarts it.
It’s not just its individual stupidities that have become inexcusable,
such as the platforms repeatedly given to climate deniers. It is the
structural stupidity to which the media are committed. It’s the
anti-intellectualism, the hostility to new ideas and aversion to
complexity. It’s the absence of moral seriousness. It’s the vacuous
gossip about celebrities and consumables that takes precedence over the
survival of life on Earth. It’s the obsession with generating noise,
regardless of signal. It’s the reflexive alignment with the status quo,
whatever it may be. It’s the endless promotion of the views of the most
selfish and antisocial people, and the exclusion of those who are trying
to defend us from catastrophe, on the grounds that they are “worthy”,
“extreme” or “mad” (I hear from friends in the BBC that these terms are
still used there to describe environmental activists).
Even when these merchants of distraction do address the issue, they tend
to shut out the experts and interview actors, singers and other celebs
instead. The media’s obsession with actors vindicates Guy Debord’s
predictions in his book The Society of the Spectacle, published in 1967.
Substance is replaced by semblance, as even the most serious issues must
now be articulated by people whose work involves adopting someone else’s
persona and speaking someone else’s words. Then the same media, having
turned them into spokespeople, attack these actors as hypocrites for
leading a profligate lifestyle.
Similarly, it’s not just the individual failures by governments at
Glasgow and elsewhere that have become inexcusable, but the entire
framework of negotiations. As crucial Earth systems might be approaching
their tipping point, governments still propose to address the issue with
tiny increments of action, across decades. It’s as if, in 2008, when
Lehman Brothers collapsed and the global financial system began to sway,
governments had announced that they would bail out the banks at the rate
of a few million pounds a day between then and 2050. The system would
have collapsed 40 years before their programme was complete. Our
central, civilisational question, I believe, is this: why do nations
scramble to rescue the banks but not the planet?
So, as we race towards Earth system collapse, trying to raise the alarm
feels like being trapped behind a thick plate of glass. People can see
our mouths opening and closing, but they struggle to hear what we are
saying. As we frantically bang the glass, we look ever crazier. And feel
it. The situation is genuinely maddening. I’ve been working on these
issues since I was 22, and full of confidence and hope. I’m about to
turn 59, and the confidence is turning to cold fear, the hope to horror.
As manufactured indifference ensures that we remain unheard, it becomes
ever harder to know how to hold it together. I cry most days now.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/04/dont-look-up-life-of-campaigning
/[ OK install your Tesla battery in your home -- anywhere under the
sun ] /
*How to Charge 240V Electric Vehicles with Offgrid Solar Power*
Jan 5, 2022
DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse
Parts List (affiliate links. first links load slowly!):
LVX6048 450V PV Input: https://watts247.com/product/lvx-6048...
PIP-LV6048 148V PV Input: https://watts247.com/product/hybrid-l...
4/0 gauge battery cables: https://amzn.to/3n2s2wi
Server Rack Batteries: https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/ser...
NEMA 14-50 Cable: https://amzn.to/3G2TQYJ
Solar Panels: https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/sol...
TClass Fuse: https://amzn.to/3FKtv1p
Solar Disconnect: https://amzn.to/3JvpqAn
Combiner Box: https://www.signaturesolar.us/product...
Solar Panel Array Voltage Calculator:
https://www.solarchargecontrollercalc...
how to design a solar array wiring configuration:
https://youtu.be/C-k0WHJ4RxQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CfTEZdc1DA
[ thoughtful, interesting podcast ]
*This is The End: Pop Culture & Collapse*
Society & Culture
FOUNDATION, Deep Adaptation, Doomerism, and Real-Life Hari Seldons
2021-11-21
iOS Android Share
Content Warnings: Extreme climate change, Ecological/societal collapse,
Natural disasters, Hurricanes (loss of shelter, power), Past personal crises
Spoiler Warning: FOUNDATION S1 E1, “The Emperor’s Peace” (No spoilers
before the 2:00 time mark and after the 6:00 time mark)
LINKS
Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos (the best
single source to understand Deep Adaptation)
https://amzn.to/3qEJidu
"Deep adaptation: A map for navigating climate tragedy" (the paper
mentioned in this episode)
https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
Article criticizing the Deep Adaptation paper & movement
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/
Professor Jem Bendell’s response to the article above
https://jembendell.com/2020/07/15/letter-to-deep-adaptation-advocate-volunteers-about-misrepresentations-of-the-agenda-and-movement/
“To criticize Deep Adaptation, start here”
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/criticise-deep-adaptation-start-here/
Prof. Bendell’s general response to overall criticism
https://jembendell.com/2020/02/27/the-worst-argument-to-try-to-win-response-to-criticism-of-the-climate-science-in-deep-adaptation/
How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference,
by Dr. Rebecca Huntley
https://amzn.to/3cuCo2i
"Does hope inspire more action on climate action than fear? We don't
know"
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/5/16732772/emotion-climate-change-communication
“Does anticipating the possibility of collapse motivate prosocial
behaviors?”
http://iflas.blogspot.com/2020/06/does-anticipating-societal-collapse.html
“Climate science and collapse: Warnings lost in the wind”
https://jembendell.com/2020/06/15/climate-science-and-collapse-warnings-lost-in-the-wind/
International Scholars Warning on Societal Disruption & Collapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0frHoqXLB0&list=WL&index=93
Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet by Dr. Tom Murphy
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m
Do the Math (Dr. Tom Murphy’s blog)
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/
"Society could collapse in a decade, predicts math historian"
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-turchin-cliodynamics-society-collapse_n_586f1e22e4b02b5f85882988
Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American
History, by Dr. Peter Turchin
https://amzn.to/3HFODre
Curated playlist of all podcasts/interviews mentioned in episode
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1c8KrxJi9hTDLzWHPdyvlF?si=a111ffcd6d7546a0
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-q34cw-113869c
/[ mostly fiction -- top movies, many streaming video ]/
*Best Movies About Climate Change, Ranked*
BY RACHEL JOHNSON
Jan 5, 2022
Tackling heavy and often controversial topics in film is no easy feat,
and Hollywood has sometimes struggled with depicting the climate crisis.
*10 Snowpiercer*
*9 Beasts of the Southern Wild *
*8 The Day After Tomorrow*
*7 FernGully: The Last Rainforest *
*6 The Day the Earth Stood Still*
*5 Kingsman: The Secret Service*
*4 Princess Mononoke*
*3 An Inconvenient Truth*
*2 Avatar*
*1 Interstellar*
https://movieweb.com/best-movies-about-climate-change-ranked/
- -
[ This will change the types of movie we see ]
Eleanor Cummins/January 5, 2022
*Don’t Look Up Was Good for Climate Cinema, Even If You Hated It*
As critics debate Adam McKay’s latest film, perhaps the better question
is where movies about climate change should go from here...
- -
The real 2022 is shaping up to be fractionally better than Soylent
Green predicted. Last summer was the hottest on record, a mass
extinction is well underway, and Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United
States are surging once again, but humans are not routinely eating each
other (as far as we know).
Perhaps that’s why many of the climate change movies of our time have
forgone the action and adventure of postapocalyptic worlds and refocused
on the psychological and spiritual experience of impending doom. No
longer 50 or 500 years in the future, Downsizing (2015), Mother! (2017),
First Reformed (2017), Woman at War (2018), and Don’t Look Up (2020) all
show characters living in this dying world, right alongside the viewer.
Climate change’s two timelines—one fictional, the other terrifyingly
real—have converged. Characters and audiences are alternately
despairing, angry, and hopeful about our future.
Viewers still vociferously debate the creative value and political
utility of each new installment in our collective horror franchise. For
most critics, Don’t Look Up failed on all fronts. The movie, which is
both an allegory (it’s not climate change, it’s an asteroid!) and a
political satire drawn directly from the headlines, has been widely
criticized for its “wake-up-sheeple howl,” in the words of Rolling
Stone, whose critic didn’t find the movie “funny, or insightful, or even
watchable.” And “it’s hard to think about who, exactly, is going to be
moved to make changes to how they live their lives by Don’t Look Up,”
according to Vulture.
To be both hilarious and motivational is a tall order, but it’s the bar
writer-director Adam McKay set for himself. Contrary to the critics’
opinions, a quarter-million IMDB star reviewers seem to think that McKay
cleared it. The last act—smarter and more somber than the rest—may have
even roused some of them to further action (including this writer, who
walked out of the theater finally committed to dietary changes). But
whatever one’s reaction to this latest climate film, at the very least,
we’re talking about it.
While rage, even when repellent, and sadness, even when all-consuming,
are worthy of representation, imagining a response to the crisis seems
hardest of all.
For there’s a strong case to be made for a “more the merrier” mindset
with “cli-fi” in every genre. We now live in a world that is
“trans-apocalyptic,” as climate futurist Alex Steffen recently told
Elizabeth Weil. “We’re in the middle of an ongoing crisis, or really a
linked series of crises,” Weil elaborated, where our lives are
increasingly “defined by ‘constant engagement with ecological
realities,’ floods, dry wells, fires. And there’s no opting out. What
does that even mean?” Art could help us find out. The more TV shows,
books, and movies depicting climate change—and the more variety of
climate consequences depicted—the better. But “the climate crisis is
also a crisis of culture,” novelist Amitav Ghosh wrote in The Great
Derangement in 2016, “and thus of the imagination.” While rage, even
when repellent, and sadness, even when all-consuming, are worthy of
representation, imagining a response to the crisis seems hardest of all.
In 2014, the science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin was awarded the
National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to
American Letters. “I think hard times are coming, when we will be
wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live
now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive
technologies, to other ways of being,” she said in her acceptance
speech. “And even imagine some real grounds for hope.” Two years into
the climate’s “decisive decade,” that real, hard hope—a hope rooted in
action, not magical thinking, with all the compromises and attendant
details—is still largely missing. Where is the marriage plot set in a
carbon-regulating city that successfully retreated from the fire lines,
or the gangster film about organized crime in renewable energy? The
sitcom about a family whose full house is on stilts above the waterline,
or the Wall Street movie about emissions pricing?
Perhaps the closest thing we have is Woman at War, an Icelandic film
about Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir) a choir director who moonlights
as an industrial saboteur, strategically disrupting the local aluminum
plant. While it’s set in our extended pre-apocalyptic present, the
movie, equal parts puckish and poignant, pushes the conversation
forward. When Halla finally gets the chance to adopt a child—a little
Ukrainian girl orphaned in a war—she is forced to weigh her risky
environmental commitments, all aimed at a better future, against the
responsibility of caring for another human being in the here and now.
Though there is a twist that shouldn’t be spoiled, Halla ultimately
chooses the child. In the last scene of the movie, when their bus
flounders in a flood somewhere in Eastern Europe, Halla carries her
daughter above the waterline, slowly wading toward the nearest shore. As
the folk music swells, the challenges they face are clear, but it’s like
Halla’s own mother always said: Finna lausnir. Find solutions.
https://newrepublic.com/article/164926/dont-look-up-movie-good-climate-cinema
/[The news archive - imagine acting on this 40 years ago ]/
*On this day in the history of global warming January 7, 1982*
January 7, 1982: The New York Times reports:
"Mankind's activities in increasing the amount of carbon dioxide and
other chemicals in the atmosphere can be expected to have a substantial
warming effect on climate, with the first clear signs of the trend
becoming evident within this decade, a scientist at the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration said here today.
"The changes are in prospect because of excess carbon dioxide put into
the atmosphere as humans burn coal, gas, oil and wood and cut forests
for agriculture and other purposes. More recently there has also been an
atmospheric buildup of methane, nitrous oxide and other chemicals as a
result of agriculture and industry, said Dr. James Hansen of the space
agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
"Dr. Hansen spoke at a session of the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science here and amplified some of
his remarks at a news conference."
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/07/us/warming-of-world-s-climate-expected-to-begin-in-the-80-s.html
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