Washington Post: “If humans escape climate scientists’ gloomiest projections, if we buy ourselves time to adapt to higher seas and fiercer heat waves, we will likely use more electricity than we do now, and we will make it without emitting greenhouse gases. Today, the United States is running a natural experiment in electricity generation, with… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Energy
Groundwater Gold Rush
Bloomberg [no paywall]: “Banks, pension funds and insurers have been turning California’s scarce water into enormous profits, leaving people with less to drink…Some of the world’s largest investment banks, pension funds and insurers, including Manulife Financial Corp.’s John Hancock unit, TIAA and UBS, have been depleting California’s groundwater to grow high-value nuts, leaving less drinking… Continue Reading
Report Identifies PFAS Injected into at least 1,600 Oil and Gas Wells
Industry-Friendly State Disclosure Rules May Shield Far Broader Use. “Previously unpublicized information unearthed by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) shows that since at least 2013, oil and gas companies have used more than 21 tons (43,000 pounds) of a class of extremely toxic and persistent chemicals known as PFAS in hydraulic fracturing of oil and… Continue Reading
LocalView
LocalView is a database co-created by Soubhik Barari and Tyler Simko to advance the study of local government in the United States. “We introduce LocalView: a comprehensive dataset of over 100,000 real-time U.S. local government public meeting videos from 1,000+ localities (and counting). If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that attention,… Continue Reading
2022 Fossil Fuel Finance Report
Banking on Climate Chaos – Any bank supporting any company that is expanding fossil fuels is driving climate chaos: “Fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached USD $4.6 trillion in the six years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $742 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2021 alone. This… Continue Reading
Artifical Intelligence and Climate Change
Quoted from: Couillet, Romain, Denis Trystram, and Thierry Ménissier. “The submerged part of the AI-ceberg.” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, September 2022. Via No Tech Magazine – “The energy consumption of a single training run of the latest (by 2020) deep neural networks dedicated to natural language processing exceeds 1,000 megawatt-hours (more than a month of… Continue Reading
Welcome to Heatmap
“We hope to do climate coverage a little differently. Heatmap is a new media company focused on the biggest story in the world: the great climate and energy transition. We’re your guide to that transformation reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We seek to understand the new planet that’s emerging and help you… Continue Reading
Lead was removed from gasoline decades ago
So why is aviation fuel still laced with the metal — a neurotoxin tied to developmental problems in children? “Toddlers in California’s East San Jose, who live directly below the flight path to Reid-Hillview Airport, have concentrations of lead in their blood on par with children tested at the height of the drinking water crisis… Continue Reading
Worsening climate shocks risk distracting from efforts to reduce carbon emissions, creating ‘doom loop’
“The world is entering a more difficult stage of the climate and ecological crisis where its symptoms are drawing attention away from efforts to tackle its root causes, according to a new report published by the IPPR and Chatham House think tanks. Huge resources are being deployed to respond to the growing number of climate… Continue Reading
Nine years of ranking the most influential companies driving tropical deforestation
“2023: A watershed year for action on deforestation – For nine years, Global Canopy’s Forest 500 has tracked the policies and performance of the 350 most influential companies and 150 financial institutions linked to deforestation in their supply chains and investments. We are three years past the 2020 deadline that many organisations set themselves to… Continue Reading
Where and how to charge an electric car for free
MarketWatch: “Buying an electric car opens an entirely new world of driving — like never needing to pay for a single drop of gasoline. Yet just because you bought an electric car or truck doesn’t mean you need to waste time and money when it’s time to charge. See: How much does it cost to… Continue Reading
5 Reasons You Should Wait to Buy an EV
MakeUseOf: “Not too long ago, electric vehicles were seen as impractical purchases reserved for people trying to make a statement. But EVs have morphed into very practical transport that you can use daily, with realistic range and charging times. Even the price of EVs are become more accessible, with more affordable choices for sale. But,… Continue Reading
