Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit
The road to nowhere.
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I don’t use AI very much so found this article interesting. AI not holding back here.
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Things were looking kinda promising mid-Feb when temperatures dipped to 1.4⁰C above pre-industrial but we are back to 1.7⁰C and are averaging that for the year so far. A critical couple of months ahead, we really need La Nina to do her thing.
James Hansen:
“An ‘acid’ test of our interpretation will be provided by the 2025 global temperature…we expect global temperature in 2025 to remain near or above the 1.5°C level…2025 might even set a new record despite the present weak La Nina. There are two independent reasons. First, the “new” climate forcing due to reduction of sulfate aerosols over the ocean remains in place, and, second, high climate sensitivity (~4.5°C for doubled CO2) implies that the warming from recently added forcings is still growing significantly….High climate sensitivity implies a large contribution from amplifying feedbacks: water vapor, surface albedo (sea ice/snow) and clouds. The feedbacks do not come into play immediately in response to a climate forcing, but rather in response to the global warming caused by the forcing….feedbacks stretch out the response time, so, within a decade or two, higher climate sensitivity yields a significantly greater response…our main concern is the danger of passing the point of no return , when the warming induces shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and that, in turn, locks in sea level rise of several meters….Such increased freshwater injection, rising temperature of the ocean surface layer, and increased rainfall over the North Atlantic Ocean {are} predicted to drive AMOC shutdown within 2-3 decades …” -excerpts from the brief report
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Similar problems here in Australia. Here is a summary:
- Electricity in Britain is expensive because it is not renewables that set the wholesale price, but gas.
- The most obvious solution would be to increase the amount of time that Britain can manage without recourse to gas-fuelled electricity. This would mean that a cheaper form of electricity would determine the price more of the time. But it would require lots more investment in renewables.
Why Britons pay so much for electricity
Almost all the time, expensive gas sets the price
Burning the midnight gasPhotograph: Getty Images
Mar 10th 2025
When campaigning for office Labour named five priorities, from kickstarting economic growth to halving serious violent crime. Progress has been patchy, at best. But on one of its five “missions”, making Britain a clean-energy “superpower”, there is some cheerful news. In 2024, for the first time, renewable energy (mainly wind and solar power) generated most of Britain’s electricity.
In addition to providing environmental benefits, renewables are supposed to help cut utility bills, because they generate electricity much more cheaply than gas power stations, Britain’s main source since the 1990s. The secretary of state for energy, Ed Miliband, stresses that renewable energy is “desirable, because it can lead to cheaper, more secure electricity”.
Chart: The Economist
But there is little evidence that renewables are making electricity cheaper. According to the International Energy Agency, which tracks end-user tariffs, in the rich world British industry pays the most for its electricity, often by an astonishing margin. Prices are 50-100% higher than in most of continental Europe and more than three times those in America (see chart). British households also face painful tariffs. Although they benefit from a regulatory cap on energy prices, this is adjusted quarterly and has been rising since October. On February 25th Ofgem, the energy regulator, announced the latest increase, a whopping 6.4%, to take effect on April 1st.
Electricity in Britain is expensive because it is not renewables that set the wholesale price, but gas. Despite increasing capacity, renewable sources cannot provide a steady supply of power all the time. Wind turbines stop turning on calm days; solar panels provide little electricity when it is cloudy (and none at all at night). So Britain still depends on gas (as well as on nuclear stations, which provide baseload power) for the rest. The overall price of electricity needs to be high enough to keep gas stations in business. Since gas prices have doubled in the past year, that means dearer electricity.
Most other countries use the same system, known as marginal pricing. But it affects Britain disproportionately because the country almost always needs some gas-powered electricity, even though it is meeting a declining share of demand. Research published in Energy Reports in 2023 found that gas sets the price of electricity 98% of the time in Britain, compared with a European average of 58%. Countries on the continent benefit from more interconnected networks that make it easier to import electricity when demand outstrips supply.
This affects the wider economy. For companies, high electricity bills erode profits and hamper investment. British steelmakers pay £37m ($48m) more for electricity each year than they would if they faced the same prices as their German competitors, according to UK Steel, a trade body. Energy-intensive manufacturing is affected most, but hospitals, supermarkets, airports and offices all guzzle lots of power. Higher overheads hit their bottom line (or, in the case of the National Health Service, the public purse).
As for consumers, in 2021 the average household spent 3.5% of its disposable income on utilities, including gas for heating and cooking as well as electricity; today that figure is around 5%. In England 13% of households are below the poverty line and live in homes that are hard to keep warm.
What to do? The most obvious solution would be to increase the amount of time that Britain can manage without recourse to gas-fuelled electricity. This would mean that a cheaper form of electricity would determine the price more of the time. But it would require lots more investment in renewables. Though government efforts to speed up approval for solar parks and onshore wind farms are encouraging, sufficient extra supply is unlikely to come on stream quickly.
In any case, more wind and solar power brings problems of its own, because Britain is spectacularly poor at dealing with excess renewable supply. Despite improvements in battery technology, capacity is far too small to store the volumes of energy needed to make a real dent in electricity prices. National Grid, which operates distribution, actually pays wind farms to switch off when the network cannot deal with surplus supply. That lifts network costs, which already account for a good chunk of end-user bills. Pumped hydro facilities could, in theory, store more energy, but Britain has few of them. They need elevation (a mountain, ideally) and reservoirs above and below, as they work by using excess electricity to pump up water, and then release it to generate electricity during periods of high demand.
So British electricity bills look set to remain eye-watering until either gas prices fall sharply or storage improves. This will make the government’s desire for stronger economic growth all the harder to fulfil. ■
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An extremely violent system which has left a big mess. Their summer could be very eventful. Not a great time to be eroding the very things that can protect the American public.
Rapture!
GREAT NEWS!
I just saw a YouTube ad from our new friends and not in anyway Insincere, Trumpets of Patriots. Anyway, it said Climate change was totally blown out of proportions!
What a ■■■■■■■ relief
AND
he’s going to get rid of welcome to country.
It’s totally legit.
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Anyone who trusted Bill Gates to do the right thing hasn’t been paying attention.
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It’s time to “eat” the super Rich, Viva la revolution!
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The jig is up. Billionaires follow where the money and further enhance their position through propaganda and marketing.
The narrative has been shifting and world is changing its tune.
I wonder if there’ll only be tariffs on dirty coal?
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I mean, its not entirely inaccurate. The West has been pouring money into green solutions, while China has just been smashing through fossil fuels.
It’s pretty contradictory too. All of our coal and gas exports to China come back to us in the form of products which our overly-materialistic society sucks up.
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“BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL”
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What’s your take on NOAA getting crippled and datasets on climate getting either deleted or no longer produced?
I think we need to wait and see what exactly the impacts are. I’d be very surprised if the they were deleted or no longer produced.
Part of the successful campaign against change is the reassurance that you can’t do anything so you should continue on your way as you were. An overly materialistic society is one that relies on individuals making the laziest and most selfish choices. Same applies to the societies as a whole.
Australia is much closer to the US than it is to Denmark, community welfare sits way back from so called personal freedoms in the scheme.
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