Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

[basilio]

There is a huge difference between having an isolated house off grid, or a caravan off grid and having millions of solar/inverter installations working in synch with each other and dealing with load shedding and system fault currents etc.
I'm actually surprised how quickly we have moved along with the process, it is a credit to the technical people IMO.

Timeline of solar cells - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2000–2019[edit]​

• 2003 - George Bush has a 9 kW PV system and a solar thermal systems installed on grounds keeping building at the White House[24]
• 2004 - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed Solar Roofs Initiative for one million solar roofs in California by 2017.[25]
• 2004 - Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius issued a mandate for 1,000 MWp renewable electricity in Kansas by 2015 per Executive Order 04-05.
• 2006 - Polysilicon use in photovoltaics exceeds all other polysilicon use for the first time.
• 2006 - California Public Utilities Commission approved the California Solar Initiative (CSI), a comprehensive $2.8 billion program that provides incentives toward solar development over 11 years.[26]
• 2006 - New World Record Achieved in Solar Cell Technology - New Solar Cell Breaks the "40 Percent Efficient" Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier.[27]
• 2007 - Construction of Nellis Solar Power Plant, a 15 MW PPA installation.
• 2007 - The Vatican announced that in order to conserve Earth's resources they would be installing solar panels on some buildings, in "a comprehensive energy project that will pay for itself in a few years."[28]
• 2007 - University of Delaware claims to achieve new world record in Solar Cell Technology without independent confirmation: 42.8% efficiency.[29]
• 2007 - Nanosolar ships the first commercial printed CIGS, claiming that they will eventually ship for less than $1/watt.[30] However, the company does not publicly disclose the technical specifications or current selling price of the modules.[31]
• 2008 - New record achieved in solar cell efficiency. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a world record in solar cell efficiency with a photovoltaic device that converts 40.8% of the light that hits it into electricity. However, it was only under the concentrated energy of 326 suns that this was achieved. The inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell was designed, fabricated and independently measured at NREL.[32]
• 2010 − IKAROS becomes the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space.[33][34]
• 2010 - US President Barack Obama orders installation of additional solar panels and a solar water heater at the White House[35]
• 2011 - Fast-growing factories in China push manufacturing costs down to about $1.25 per watt for silicon photovoltaic modules. Installations double worldwide.[36]
• 2013 - After three years, the solar panels ordered by President Barack Obama were installed on the White House.[37]

View attachment 178092Worldwide installed photovoltaic capacity in "watts per capita" by country. Estimated figures for year 2016.

• 2016 - University of New South Wales engineers established a new world record for unfocused sunlight conversion to electricity with an efficiency increase to 34.5% [3]. The record was set by UNSW's Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) using a 28 cm2 four-junction mini-module – embedded in a prism – that extracts the maximum energy from sunlight. It does this by splitting the incoming rays into four bands, using a four-junction receiver to squeeze even more electricity from each beam of sunlight.[38]
• 2016 - First Solar says it has converted 22.1 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity using experimental cells made from cadmium telluride—a technology that today represents around 5 percent of the worldwide solar power market.[39]
• 2018 - Alta Devices, a US-based specialty gallium arsenide (GaAs) PV manufacturer, claimed to have achieved a solar cell conversion efficiency record of 29.1%, as certified by Germany's Fraunhofer ISE CalLab.[40][41]
• 2018 - The first dedicated solar panel recycling plant in Europe and "possibly in the world" is opened in France.[42]
• 2019 – The world record for solar cell efficiency at 47.1% was achieved by using multi-junction concentrator solar cells, developed at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado, USA.[43][additional citation(s) needed] This is above the standard rating of 37% for polycrystalline photovoltaic

Thanks fro that. Very interesting. The rest of the timeline for solar cell development is also worth a look.

I checked it out and wondered why I couldn't see the Solar Panels President Carter put on the White House. Turned out the solar panels were in fact Solar Hot water panels !

They were taken taken by the Reagan administration who also ended the extensive R and D wind and solar programs established by the Carter administration. That does back to what I was saying previously.

Where Did the Carter White House's Solar Panels Go?

One of the 32 solar-thermal panels that captured energy on the roof of the White House more than 30 years ago landed this week at a science museum in China

www.scientificamerican.com

By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers.

 

[basilio]

Getting back to what is unfolding because global warming has gone unchecked. These were some of the warnings scientists made back in the 1990's

Satellite data reveals Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than we thought​

News
By Stefanie Waldek
published May 24, 2024
Seawater rushing miles beneath the glacier makes the ice more vulnerable to melting.

Comments (0)

Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. (Image credit: NASA)

Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting fast; this much, scientists already know. However, according to a new study, it's melting faster than we thought — and that spells trouble for sea-level-rise projections.

Using observations from the ICEYE Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation, a joint project between the U.S. and Finland, researchers have taken a detailed look beneath the Thwaites Glacier for the first time, specifically at an area called the grounding line. This is where a tidewater glacier (that is, one that flows into the ocean) transitions from being anchored to land to floating on the sea. Here, physical processes contribute to a tidewater glacier's ice mass loss, which is why it's crucial to study this boundary.

The researchers discovered that the grounding line wasn't an abrupt transition as expected. Instead, Thwaites Glacier has a tidally controlled grounding zone stretching between 1.2 and 3.7 miles (2 kilometers to 6 kilometers) wide, with warm seawater intrusions reaching a further 3.7 miles (6 km) inland during spring tide. This widespread contact between relatively warm seawater and the glacier "will induce vigorous melt of grounded ice over kilometers, making the glacier more vulnerable to ocean warming," according to the study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And that means it's melting faster than our current models have predicted.

Satellite data reveals Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than we thought

Seawater rushing miles beneath the glacier makes the ice more vulnerable to melting.

www.space.com

 

[basilio]

This is a better explanation of the accelerating undermining of the Thwaites glacier.

Warm ocean water is rushing beneath Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier,' making its collapse more likely

Warm seawater flowing into the glacier's underside could significantly accelerate the process of its collapse.

www.livescience.com

 

[sptrawler]

Getting back to what is unfolding because global warming has gone unchecked. These were some of the warnings scientists made back in the 1990's

Satellite data reveals Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than we thought​

News
By Stefanie Waldek
published May 24, 2024
Seawater rushing miles beneath the glacier makes the ice more vulnerable to melting.

Comments (0)

View attachment 178094
Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. (Image credit: NASA)

Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting fast; this much, scientists already know. However, according to a new study, it's melting faster than we thought — and that spells trouble for sea-level-rise projections.

Using observations from the ICEYE Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation, a joint project between the U.S. and Finland, researchers have taken a detailed look beneath the Thwaites Glacier for the first time, specifically at an area called the grounding line. This is where a tidewater glacier (that is, one that flows into the ocean) transitions from being anchored to land to floating on the sea. Here, physical processes contribute to a tidewater glacier's ice mass loss, which is why it's crucial to study this boundary.

The researchers discovered that the grounding line wasn't an abrupt transition as expected. Instead, Thwaites Glacier has a tidally controlled grounding zone stretching between 1.2 and 3.7 miles (2 kilometers to 6 kilometers) wide, with warm seawater intrusions reaching a further 3.7 miles (6 km) inland during spring tide. This widespread contact between relatively warm seawater and the glacier "will induce vigorous melt of grounded ice over kilometers, making the glacier more vulnerable to ocean warming," according to the study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And that means it's melting faster than our current models have predicted.

Satellite data reveals Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting faster than we thought

Seawater rushing miles beneath the glacier makes the ice more vulnerable to melting.

www.space.com

IMO it is at a stage where who knows the outcome, all that we can hope is reducing emissions is enough.

 

[IFocus]

Those that keep trying to make it about the history and politics, rather than about the science, options, successes and failures.
All the discussions end up become a political stage and a psuedo election platform rather than about the issue and enriching the debate, it just ends up being about personality politics and left wing media vs right wing media, which in turn results in most threads morphing into the same theme.

News Corp bad vs ABC and ex Fairfax media being bad. Morrisson, Dutton bad, vs Albo, Bowen bad. those that dissagree vs those that agree,
rather than what is and isn't being done to mitigate global warming.

The Greens and activists are against LNG, which is understandable as it also will further contribute to global warming, but they are also against nuclear and dams which again is their perogative, but it does limit the options to effectively reduce emmissions quickly.

Then we have people who IMO rightly agree with using gas, as it is a net reduction in emissions, but in reality is still compounding the problem then in the same breath they say others aren't taking the issue seriously.

As for, do I reckon you living in a cave will change anything, actually no because most people have that very same attitude and is why most ingrained issues never change.
The very trait you actually were criticising others for, "why should I change, it wont make a difference", sounds very familiar.

So is global warming becoming unstoppable?
Probably, due to the fact no one really wants to curb their lifestyle and emmissions will increase to facilitate that lifestyle, be it with more food consumption, more material consumption as affluence increases in third world countries, more consumerism in first world countries and increasing population. Is it news corp or X or the ABC's fault, no it's people being people and always wanting more.

As someone said:
Presently the climate is changing at a pace unrecognizable in recorded history exactly as science has predicted, the 52 degrees recorded in Delhi is a terrible event yet not a mutter from many and still we are a long way from 2050 what then?

Are you advocating "cancel culture" where I cannot have an opinion?

 

[sptrawler]

Are you advocating "cancel culture" where I cannot have an opinion?

There is nothing wrong with having an opinion, same as there is nothing wrong with someone challenging it, that's where a debate begins.

 

[basilio]

IMO it is at a stage where who knows the outcome, all that we can hope is reducing emissions is enough.

We know what the outcome will be SP. The glacier will collapse. It has gone past the point of no return.

What is uncertain is when it will collapse - 5 years, 10 years , 20 years.
Also how the collapse will happen, what will be the effect on the ice fields behind it and how quickly will they move into the sea met and raise ocean levels by many metres.

 

[Smurf1976]

I checked it out and wondered why I couldn't see the Solar Panels President Carter put on the White House. Turned out the solar panels were in fact Solar Hot water panels !

Not sure if it's still in force but there used to be a law that required that heat in the White House must come from coal and nothing else.

As for the broader history of solar, the first grid connect system installed in Australia on an ordinary house was in 1984, installed by an electricity company yes as a research project. In Melbourne for the record.

That said, there'd been earlier attempts, as far back as 1953, collecting data with the thought that someday it'd be useful. This was done crudely at the time, simply a photographic light meter and a chart recorder, but nonetheless the idea was there that collecting daily records so as to have long term data would possibly be of use at some future time.

In the Australian power grid context, the first month that solar doesn't round to zero was January 2007. Not the first solar installation but the effective beginning of it as a significant thing. The big rush came in 2009 - at which point inspectors couldn't keep up and government promptly slammed the door shut on the subsidy scheme which slowed it down but didn't kill it.

 

[Smurf1976]

I was living in Northern NSW in the 80's . There was a a very effective off the grid PV industry operational which enabled thousands of people to have an electric household with Solar panels, inverters and batteries.

I've given some thought as to whether to post this, it's arguably getting a bit off the point of the thread, but I've decided to go ahead with the intention not of arguing but of, hopefully, elaborating on why others have reached the conclusions they've reached.

My real point here not being about the detail of energy production but rather, the overall climate debate. The facts and figures are the basis of my point, but the point itself is the debate and climate.

In the context of running a single house in that part of NSW I don't doubt that an off grid solar PV system can work. FWIW the energy industry itself wouldn't doubt it either - for the record there are oil fields pumping with solar power and there are hydro headworks operated by solar too. So even the "traditional" energy industry is more than happy to acknowledge that the technology works.

But to put some figures on it, there are 688,220 rooftop solar installations in Victoria, data current as of earlier this year so would be a bit higher now. The capacity of these comes to 4,733,666 kW so that's an average of 6.936 kW per roof which is a substantial system.

So how's it going?

Over the last 12 months these solar systems generated 5037 GWh of electricity.

Over that same period Victoria used 47,658 GWh of electricity, plus 54,722 GWh of gas (not including gas used to generate electricity so no double counting), plus 2778 GWh of LPG, plus 100,860 GWh of liquid petroleum fuels, plus 7027 GWh of biomass in various forms (including firewood).

Now looking specifically at yesterday, 3rd June 2024, the figures are typical for winter:

The rooftop solar panels generated 5.7 GWh, 59.7% below their average daily output.

Electricity consumption was 150.6 GWh, 16% above the daily average.

Natural gas consumption, not including gas used to generate electricity, was 200.3 GWh or 34% above average.

Then there's the petroleum fuels which, given it's a working weekday, were also likely above average. Even at the average level though it's still 284 GWh per day including LPG.

That reality is stark. There are 2,810,775 homes in Victoria, not all of which will be suitable for solar due to shading, roof types, high density apartments and so on and we've already got solar on almost a quarter of them. And yet all that did, today, was supply 3.78% of the state's electricity or approximately (making assumptions about liquid fuel use) about 0.87% of total energy.

No matter how you slice and dice that, small scale is not of itself going to replace fossil fuels in Victoria or indeed most places. No amount of plausible improvement in energy efficiency is going to close that gap.

Now here's where it gets to the crunch.....

Tell some engineers there's a problem with fossil fuels and we need to stop burning them and they won't fail to realise what I've just written, if there's one thing engineers do it's crunch numbers. That being so, we know what comes next - they'll start looking for places where large scale projects can be built. They'll look for places with particularly good wind resources that could be easily developed. They'll look for steep, narrow pinch points on rivers where dams could be built for hydro. They also won't fail to realise that a single 4 unit nuclear power plant could of itself generate 115 GWh per day. And they'll be well aware that a high capacity transmission system will be required in order to connect these to each other and to major loads eg Melbourne.

The trouble being, there isn't anything approaching universal support for actually building such things and this is where it all gets confusing. It's the crux of the point I'm trying to make here.

On one hand there's an argument put forth that there's a problem, an actual crisis, relating to fossil fuels.

On the other hand there's a rejection of large scale measures to end the use of fossil fuels. With the twist that those rejecting such measures include many of those saying there's a crisis.

That leaves the engineers stunned in amazement, and it leaves their managers thinking they'd better keep well away from all this since they've no idea how to handle it. And so the reports are buried and replaced with a seemingly safer plan to burn gas instead.

It also leaves everyone involved pondering just how real the crisis actually is if those most concerned about it are rejecting solutions to it? What do they know that the rest of us don't?

Personally I'm in that situation as are many. Go back 25 years and, having heard what was being said, I saw it as the greatest problem facing humanity. Today I'm far less convinced and that's the reason why, I've seen so much consistent rejection of solutions, by those who scream the loudest about the problem, to not have doubts about it all.

Now realise people right up to very senior positions in politics and business have seen and heard exactly the same with their own eyes and ears. They know that any major solution will be rejected, so they're not going to make the mistake of proposing one. Instead they're going to propose modest efforts to cut back but that's where it ends.

 

[basilio]

I've given some thought as to whether to post this, it's arguably getting a bit off the point of the thread, but I've decided to go ahead with the intention not of arguing but of, hopefully, elaborating on why others have reached the conclusions they've reached.

My real point here not being about the detail of energy production but rather, the overall climate debate. The facts and figures are the basis of my point, but the point itself is the debate and climate.

In the context of running a single house in that part of NSW I don't doubt that an off grid solar PV system can work. FWIW the energy industry itself wouldn't doubt it either - for the record there are oil fields pumping with solar power and there are hydro headworks operated by solar too. So even the "traditional" energy industry is more than happy to acknowledge that the technology works.

But to put some figures on it, there are 688,220 rooftop solar installations in Victoria, data current as of earlier this year so would be a bit higher now. The capacity of these comes to 4,733,666 kW so that's an average of 6.936 kW per roof which is a substantial system.

So how's it going?

Over the last 12 months these solar systems generated 5037 GWh of electricity.

Over that same period Victoria used 47,658 GWh of electricity, plus 54,722 GWh of gas (not including gas used to generate electricity so no double counting), plus 2778 GWh of LPG, plus 100,860 GWh of liquid petroleum fuels, plus 7027 GWh of biomass in various forms (including firewood).

Now looking specifically at yesterday, 3rd June 2024, the figures are typical for winter:

The rooftop solar panels generated 5.7 GWh, 59.7% below their average daily output.

Electricity consumption was 150.6 GWh, 16% above the daily average.

Natural gas consumption, not including gas used to generate electricity, was 200.3 GWh or 34% above average.

Then there's the petroleum fuels which, given it's a working weekday, were also likely above average. Even at the average level though it's still 284 GWh per day including LPG.

That reality is stark. There are 2,810,775 homes in Victoria, not all of which will be suitable for solar due to shading, roof types, high density apartments and so on and we've already got solar on almost a quarter of them. And yet all that did, today, was supply 3.78% of the state's electricity or approximately (making assumptions about liquid fuel use) about 0.87% of total energy.

No matter how you slice and dice that, small scale is not of itself going to replace fossil fuels in Victoria or indeed most places. No amount of plausible improvement in energy efficiency is going to close that gap.

Now here's where it gets to the crunch.....

Tell some engineers there's a problem with fossil fuels and we need to stop burning them and they won't fail to realise what I've just written, if there's one thing engineers do it's crunch numbers. That being so, we know what comes next - they'll start looking for places where large scale projects can be built. They'll look for places with particularly good wind resources that could be easily developed. They'll look for steep, narrow pinch points on rivers where dams could be built for hydro. They also won't fail to realise that a single 4 unit nuclear power plant could of itself generate 115 GWh per day. And they'll be well aware that a high capacity transmission system will be required in order to connect these to each other and to major loads eg Melbourne.

The trouble being, there isn't anything approaching universal support for actually building such things and this is where it all gets confusing. It's the crux of the point I'm trying to make here.

On one hand there's an argument put forth that there's a problem, an actual crisis, relating to fossil fuels.

On the other hand there's a rejection of large scale measures to end the use of fossil fuels. With the twist that those rejecting such measures include many of those saying there's a crisis.

That leaves the engineers stunned in amazement, and it leaves their managers thinking they'd better keep well away from all this since they've no idea how to handle it. And so the reports are buried and replaced with a seemingly safer plan to burn gas instead.

It also leaves everyone involved pondering just how real the crisis actually is if those most concerned about it are rejecting solutions to it? What do they know that the rest of us don't?

Personally I'm in that situation as are many. Go back 25 years and, having heard what was being said, I saw it as the greatest problem facing humanity. Today I'm far less convinced and that's the reason why, I've seen so much consistent rejection of solutions, by those who scream the loudest about the problem, to not have doubts about it all.

Now realise people right up to very senior positions in politics and business have seen and heard exactly the same with their own eyes and ears. They know that any major solution will be rejected, so they're not going to make the mistake of proposing one. Instead they're going to propose modest efforts to cut back but that's where it ends.

I share many of your observations Smurf. If I was being blunt and realistioc I would just say people as a whole believe what they want or the most persuasive message they get.

The information, the science, the consequences around CC and how it will impact our world has always been clear. But getting "people" to acknowledge it and then bite the bullet on the changes required to address the problem was always a huge ask.

1) When it was first highlighted in the 1980's the problem was seen as many years ahead. On the one hand that should enable our society to take the long view and map out and start implementing a 30-50 plan that would address the issue. Sure... But human nature being what it is, procrastination starts to happen

2) One of the most significant changes required to overcome the problem, decarbonisation of our society, runs smack into the most profitable and powerful interest group in the world. Result : the rise of climate denier/questioning industry.
Is it really happening ? Why is it happening ? Does it have anything to do with human activity really? What about volcanoes/sunspots/natural causes ? Are scientists absolutely sure about this ? Shouldn't we wait until there is sufficient proper evidence ? And how devastated will the world be without the life giving energy of coal and oil ?

3) If in doubt trash the messenger. Once upon a time the scientific community was generally viewed as a source of quality information. Governments, people and industry took the science seriously.
In 2024, 30-40 years of relentless attacks on climate scientists and meteorologists has undermined the respect given to their work. It is quite ok in 2024 for politicians, business leaders and commentators to simply dismiss out of hand the facts around what is happening to our warming world. And they get away with it.

I don't have an easy answer. I reject out of hand the suggestion that actually CC is not that serious otherwise these leaders would be super serious.
I think they have all given up. The long steady change program died in the 1990's. The quick more desperate effort was supposed to be ignited by "An Inconvenient truth". But the lies of the fossil fuel lobby won in the end. We moved but nowhere near as quickly as was required.

In 2024 we have a very limited horizon of climate normality. The effects of global heating are being experienced around the world, in the oceans, on the Poles. The uber wealthy have been buiding escape hatches. The rest of us? Just living quietly desperate.

 

[sptrawler]

Just a head banging exercise @Smurf1976
an absolute waste of breath.

 

[sptrawler]

It is a shame, maths obviously isn't an activists strong suit, the sums are very stark. The enormity of the issue is obvious to those who understand energy, unfortunately many don't.
From your post @Smurf1976 these are startling numbers.
From a recent post I did, in 2016 Australia was already at the forefront of per capita solar installations and at the end of the day a major component that we are trying to mitigate is per capita domestic use.

There are 2,810,775 homes in Victoria, not all of which will be suitable for solar due to shading, roof types, high density apartments and so on and we've already got solar on almost a quarter of them. And yet all that did, today, was supply 3.78% of the state's electricity or approximately (making assumptions about liquid fuel use) about 0.87% of total energy.

 

[investor13]

Since when is pointing out the bleeding obvious lecturing, if you have alternative view put it up.

Fact is the conservative US Republican party departed from the science in the late 80's for pure politics no doubt funded by vested interests.

UK conservatives continued to follow the science no doubt harder to buy off.

Here in Australia we get bombarded by conservative US style rubbish pushed by the foreign own News Corp and for some reason people buy it.

I see lots of finger pointing by many demanding certain standards that they in turn fail to meet themselves.

As for individual action look at past environmental groups failure trying the same as you well know.

and the democratics and Labor party science and reality and became the party for the global elites in the 80s and 90s whilst pretending to care for the working people & the brain wash leftist
the news corpse is trash but forign owned leftist globaslist gutter trash "the guardian" and tax payer anti westeen and communist ABC and SBS appeals to the product of a dumbed down society
war get this american stuff as our economic and investment is basically USA 2.0 with past 20 years largly china



*dont even comment on environmentalism as it indicates ad you have little idea on reality works, digging endless toxic product from the grohnd, disrrucxtion of the land and tailings waste pumped in to water ways, slave labour, black slavery
dig dig dig net zero as we need to tax people for eating meat and poluting the air ways

The human cost of cobalt: Modern slavery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Most of the world’s cobalt is extracted in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But to get it, hundreds of thousands of Congolese people labor with no other means to survive. On episode three of On Point’s special series -- cobalt and the human cost of mining.

www.wbur.org

Child Labor in African Mines: Where Are We Now?

www.wilsoncenter.org

\https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cobalt...cratic-republic-congo-cbs-news-investigation/

 

[Smurf1976]

Just adding to the above that I do fully agree about mindless consumerism. It's a shocking waste and completely unsustainable in every way.

It's escalated dramatically in a short space of time.

When I was a kid, people still fixed appliances. Now they bulldoze entire houses rather than fixing them.

Not so long ago the idea of a car being "written off" meant a major crash and the question's you'd have would be about injuries or worse. Today cars are written off for relatively minor mechanical faults.

Then there's the sheer increase in consumption. Pretty much everything's been scaled up dramatically compared to even one generation ago. Never thought we'd see ordinary people having what amounts to a cinema screen in their lounge room as just one example. And the issue there isn't the energy to run it, it's everything else about it, not least the short by design lifespan.

Or I could say that I recently walked past a primary school oval early in the evening and there's kids out there playing soccer under lights. Lights? On a primary school oval? Go back just one generation and the only sports grounds that had lights were the MCG and so on, not suburban school grounds.

And so on, everything's been scaled up.

Even cars. A current model Toyota Corolla is heavy enough that, by the standards of 45 years ago, it would be classified as a "large" car. Meanwhile what's considered a large car today would, in terms of weight, have been considered a commercial vehicle just one generation ago. That extra weight goes a long way to undoing the benefits of more efficient engines and so on.

Etc same with everything. Technology has improved efficiency but humans have decided to scale up consumption rather than using it to save resources.

So changing the energy supply side is, realistically, the only thing that's going to actually stop the use of fossils. Anything else humans will just undo it by scaling up and increasing the number of humans too.

 

[basilio]

As 12 months of record heat stack up, scientists unpack the impacts around the globe ​

A new report by a team of international climate scientists shows the staggering amount of extreme heat days each country across the globe experienced last year, with the majority made more likely by human-induced climate change.

It comes as the world hits an alarming climate milestone, with data showing last month was the hottest May on record, marking what has now been 12 consecutive months of unprecedented global heat.

Australian National University professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, who specialises in extreme heat, said it served as a stark "wake-up call" on how severe things were becoming.

"Last year was our hottest year on record and, to some extent, that was no surprise," Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said.

"But it's the fact that each month has stacked up on top of each other, and we've not had one month below the record, that has been quite surprising."

Earth has recorded its 12th month in a row of record heat — so when will it end?

As the world hits an alarming climate milestone, a new report by a US research team shows the staggering amount of extreme heat days each country experienced last year, with the majority made more likely by human-induced climate change.

www.abc.net.au

 

[basilio]

Something else we can blame China for with regard to global warming. It seems as if their rapid clean up- of smog has been a major contributor to the recent sharp increases in temperature.

Pollution Paradox: How Cleaning Up Smog Drives Ocean Warming​

New research indicates that the decline in smog particles from China’s air cleanups caused the recent extreme heat waves in the Pacific. Scientists are grappling with the fact that reducing such pollution, while essential for public health, is also heating the atmosphere.

By Fred Pearce • May 28, 2024

Pollution Paradox: How Cleaning Up Smog Drives Ocean Warming

New research indicates that the decline in smog particles from China’s air cleanups caused the recent extreme heat waves in the Pacific. Scientists are grappling with the fact that reducing such pollution, while essential for public health, is also heating the atmosphere.

e360.yale.edu

 

[basilio]

On the positive side of tackling CC

How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy​

China has achieved stunning growth in its installed renewable capacity over the last two decades, far outpacing the rest of the world. But to end its continued dependence on fossil fuels, it must now move ahead with planned reforms to its national electricity system.

By Isabel Hilton • March 13, 2024

Last November, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry shook hands on a pledge to triple renewable energy globally by 2030. It was hailed as a welcome revival of climate cooperation between the world’s biggest and second-biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and offered hope that the two veteran climate negotiators had found a way through a blizzard of negative diplomatic exchanges to keep alive the prospects for greater global ambition on tackling climate change.

In one key sector essential to that ambition, however, the Chinese government can argue, with some justification, that it is China, not the United States, that is in the lead. In a world in which national climate targets are being missed, the speed and scale of expansion in China’s installed renewable capacity is unmatched.

In 2020, for example, China pledged to reach 1,200 gigawatts of renewables capacity by 2030, more than double its capacity at that time. At its present pace, it will meet that target by 2025, and could boast as much as 1,000 gigawatts of solar power alone by the end of 2026, an achievement that would make a substantial contribution to the 11,000 gigawatts of installed renewable capacity that the world needs to meet the 2030 targets of the Paris Agreement. Fossil fuels now make up less than half of China’s total installed generation capacity, a dramatic reduction from a decade ago when fossil fuels accounted for two-thirds of its power capacity.

In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, then doubled additional solar in 2023.

When the International Energy Authority issued its assessment of the pledge to triple renewables globally by 2030, it pointed out that the 50 percent increase in global renewable installations in 2023 was largely driven by China. In 2022, China installed roughly as much solar photovoltaic capacity as the rest of the world combined, then went on in 2023 to double new solar installations, increase new wind capacity by 66 percent, and almost quadruple additions of energy storage.

For the past two decades, China has been notorious as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, a country that also uses as much heavily polluting coal as the rest of the world combined. How did it also become the world’s renewable powerhouse?

Part of the answer goes back to investment decisions made in the mid-2000s when China’s decades-long phase of rapid GDP growth was coming to an end. Labor costs were rising, and China’s development model, with its overwhelming dependence on coal, had plunged China into multiple crises of air, soil, and water pollution. In the first decade of this century, China’s emissions more than doubled, and by 2006 it had overtaken the U.S. to earn the unwelcome title of the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by volume.

How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy

China has achieved stunning growth in its installed renewable capacity over the last two decades, far outpacing the rest of the world. But to end its continued dependence on fossil fuels, it must now move ahead with planned reforms to its national electricity system.

e360.yale.edu

 

[SirRumpole]

Something else to think about, Nitrous Oxide.

Greenhouse gas with 300 times the warming power of CO2 accumulating faster than ever

Levels of nitrous oxide, one of the top three greenhouse gasses, are still going up as is the usage of nitrogen-based fertilisers, global report shows.

www.abc.net.au

 

[sptrawler]

Something else to think about, Nitrous Oxide.

Greenhouse gas with 300 times the warming power of CO2 accumulating faster than ever

Levels of nitrous oxide, one of the top three greenhouse gasses, are still going up as is the usage of nitrogen-based fertilisers, global report shows.

www.abc.net.au

And its popularity is increasing.

'It's flat-out stupid': Warnings on the dangerous rise in use of 'nangs'

Doctors are seeing an alarming spike in the number of young people using "nangs" — small canisters of nitrous oxide gas designed for whipping cream that can cause brain damage and death.

www.abc.net.au

This Perth teenager tried ‘nangs’ at leavers. Now she is bedridden in hospital

Molly Day, 19, can no longer walk, eat or shower without her mother’s assistance after becoming indefinitely bedridden by nitrous oxide poisoning.

www.watoday.com.au

I'm addicted to nangs - now I'm bed-bound and can't go to the toilet

A teenager has issued a grave warning over inhaling nangs after her addiction to nitrous oxide canisters left her unable to walk.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[IFocus]

I dont normally watch vids but as Sabine Hossenfelder Quote, a German theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, author, science communicator, YouTuber, musician, and singer. She is the author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, which explores the concept of elegance in fundamental physics and cosmology, and of Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions.

I thought I would have a look.

If you don't want bad news then dont watch its not good.