Farmers in paradise leave their land to the country rather than to housing developers →

One of my pet peeves is people building fancy houses in pristine natural environments. Usually followed by a nice glossy spread in an architecture magazine with sentences like, “This wonderful house, designed by Mr Fancypants of Fancy Architects, blends in with its surroundings”.

Sure. Maybe it does.

But that environment will never be as beautiful again with that human containment box plonked down on it.

Talking of human-made objects being plonked, this may be the high point of plonking:

Crazy shit going down in China. Video: http://interiordesignideas.com/

Good work, China.

Plonkers.

I guess if the planet were infinite, I wouldn’t be so bothered. But it’s not. Everywhere you look in much of the world these days, there’s a fucking house in the way.

On that subject, this news story out of New Zealand warmed my heart:

“A New Zealand farming family has gifted 900 hectares of pristine land by the edge of Lake Wakatipu to the crown, saying it is “the right thing to do”.

“The stretch of land at the foot of the Remarkables range will become open to everyone in 2022, after being handed over to the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust for “the benefit and enjoyment of all New Zealanders”.

“Remarkables station owners, Dick and Jillian Jardine, whose family have owned and worked the land for 98 years, want to see it protected and loved for another century.

“Jillian Jardine said she wanted to see the biodiversity and “iconic nature” of the land protected in perpetuity and said her family had spent four years discussing the decision.”

This is the piece of land:

The Remarkables (mountains to the left) and the land to be protected. Photo: QEII Trust

Pretty gorgeous, huh?

Despite the new development going in to the right, that is.

It would be a hell of a lot better if that wasn’t about to uglify the scene forever.

I lived in Queenstown—just out of the picture around to the right—for a couple of years as a kid in the late 1980s, when it was such a tiny village it didn’t even have a supermarket! Now you have these developments going in everywhere, ripping the beauty out of the place. Some of the houses are quite nice, but some are godawful “low-cost” developments that make you want to cry.

I’m not going to lie though, despite the ongoing onslaught of housing, the region is still beautiful. Mostly. The question is: how long can it last? This absorption of human beings building fucking houses left, right and centre, people moving there because the area is so pretty, even though their 3-bedroom house is making it less pretty. Bah!

Ironically, protecting all this land under the Remarkables mountain range will probably help push up the house prices in the new subdivision to the right.

As the French would say: Pfffffff. Or, perhaps, “That looks very much like a Ponzi scheme.” (Kiwis will enjoy this little inside joke.)

Anyway, back to the glass half full. Good on Dick and Jillian Jardine for leaving this land to the people, rather than to a few 3-bedroom people. I salute you!

One small step for man, one tiny stumble for a happier planet →

From the Guardian:

“If a billion people around the world were to take a few small steps and make them into permanent lifestyle changes, global greenhouse gas emissions could be significantly reduced, a new campaign argues.

“These actions can be as simple as eating local food, forgoing meat at some meals, and wearing clothes to last instead of throwing them away after a few outings.

“The campaign, which is backed by businesses including Ikea, HSBC, BT and Reckitt Benckiser (owner of brands such as Cillit Bang, Gaviscon and Durex), is urging people to sign up to take at least one simple step that would reduce emissions.”

One can almost smell the greenwashing wafting off that bunch. Ikea? Gimme a break! How about making furniture that isn’t already eminently chuckable after twelve months before learning us stuff, my dear Swedish friends?

“Count Us In invites people to sign up online for the steps they want to take and a level of commitment, such as moving permanently to a different diet or promising not to fly over a specified period.

“There are 16 steps on offer, of varying levels of difficulty. These range from having your house insulated, buying an electric car or solar panels and opting to fly less, to writing to political representatives and reusing and repairing belongings rather than buying new ones.

“Some of the measures – such as turning down the thermostat and buying fewer new clothes – are ones that many people do routinely out of necessity rather than choice. However, the campaign aims to raise awareness among consumers that patterns of high consumption are unsustainable.”

Building furniture that lasts can also be sustainable.

When I decided to post about this article, I had a positive buzz about it. Then I saw all the big companies in the background. And then, not really a surprise, some pushback:

“Some climate activists not involved with the campaign privately expressed reservations to the Guardian, saying that large companies and governments must shoulder more responsibility.

“Joel Lev-Tov, a youth climate activist, said: “[I find it] absolutely disgusting. It’s blaming the consumers for their choices instead of the fossil fuel companies and big business who are emitting more CO2 than I could ever emit in my lifetime in a few hours. While I appreciate the intention behind their campaign … individual change won’t help us solve the climate crisis.”

The fact that I’ve not heard a word about this “movement” since the article came out is probably not a good sign.

If you’re inspired to give it a go nonetheless, here’s their website.

May the force be with you and your uncomfortable Ikea sofa.

US Emissions drop massively because of the pandemic →

From Greentech Media:

“The U.S. economy is on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 9 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, BloombergNEF reported Thursday.

“It's a sign of the impact that COVID-19 shutdowns and the ensuing recession have had on life in the U.S. When workers stayed home and the streets emptied out, it reduced emissions from transportation, which accounted for the largest decline at 4 percent of economywide emissions. The power sector drove another 2.8 percent decline, while reduced industrial activity lowered emissions by another 1.6 percent.

“The drastic reduction in planet-warming emissions did not result from concerted action on climate change, so much as an unprecedented and deadly pandemic. Without the COVID-19 crisis, the U.S. would have released just 1 percent less carbon than in 2019, BNEF estimated. The mandated cessation of activities to stop the spread of coronavirus led to the additional reduction of 8 percent.”

Here’s the pretty plot:

Notice how California’s forest fires didn’t help very much. Forests can regrow though, which will offset this difference. Until the next fireapocalypse hits, at least.

Need some irony to get you through the day?

“The economic disruption of 2020 has inadvertently put the U.S. back on track to meet the commitments it made under the 2016 Paris Agreement, prior to President Trump taking the country out of that pact.”

Lol.

Reality is never far away though:

“This data also presents a messaging challenge for climate activists. This is the nation's best performance in modern history in terms of cutting carbon emissions. But it came about as the result of a historic economic slowdown that plunged millions into unemployment and jeopardized businesses across the country. That's not a recipe that Americans are eager to repeat.”

You don’t say!

"This is not a vehicle problem but an urban design problem" →

Lots of food for thought in George Monbiot’s Guardian column on electric cars last month. And I can’t help but feeling that anyone’s opinion on electric cars depends on just how much they think cars can—in general—be replaced by other modes of transport in modern-day life.

If you’re a rabid anti-car person, electric cars are an abomination. If you like your car, but see yourself as environmentally friendly, you’ve likely decided that electric cars are the solution to all of the world’s problems. If you’re a cyclist, you’re afraid of cars when you have to cycle on the road. Fuck Cars! says Mr Cyclist, every day. And so on.

George writes:

“A switch to electric cars will reduce pollution. It won’t eliminate it, as a high proportion of the microscopic particles thrown into the air by cars, which are highly damaging to our health, arise from tyres grating on the surface of the road. Tyre wear is also by far the biggest source of microplastics pouring into our rivers and the sea. And when tyres, regardless of the engine that moves them, come to the end of their lives, we still have no means of properly recycling them.”

I had no idea.

“Cars are an environmental hazard long before they leave the showroom. One estimate suggests that the carbon emissions produced in building each one equate to driving it for 150,000km. The rise in electric vehicle sales has created a rush for minerals such as lithium and copper, with devastating impacts on beautiful places. If the aim is greatly to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, and replace those that remain with battery-operated models, then they will be part of the solution. But if, as a forecast by the National Grid proposes, the current fleet is replaced by 35m electric cars, we’ll simply create another environmental disaster.”

If a Tesla lasts for 2 million km, it’s one tiny step in the anti-Co2 argument. But yes, having less cars out there in general would certainly help.

And from a more general, “What is Life? Baby don’t Hurt Me” kind of perspective:

“Switching power sources does nothing to address the vast amount of space the car demands, which could otherwise be used for greens, parks, playgrounds and homes. It doesn’t stop cars from carving up community and turning streets into thoroughfares and outdoor life into a mortal hazard. Electric vehicles don’t solve congestion, or the extreme lack of physical activity that contributes to our poor health.”

There is more encourage news, but with a small dose of danger included:

“Like several of the world’s major cities, our capital is being remodelled in response. The London mayor – recognising that, while fewer passengers can use public transport, a switch to cars would cause gridlock and lethal pollution – has set aside road space for cycling and walking. Greater Manchester hopes to build 1,800 miles of protected pedestrian and bicycle routes.

“Cycling to work is described by some doctors as “the miracle pill”, massively reducing the chances of early death: if you want to save the NHS, get on your bike. But support from central government is weak and contradictory, and involves a fraction of the money it is spending on new roads. The major impediment to a cycling revolution is the danger of being hit by a car.”

Where I live—Paris—the cycling infrastructure has been massively expanded since everyone’s favourite coronovirus arrived, including turning the main East-to-West shopping street, rue du Rivoli, into a massive bike, bus, and taxi lane, which is so surreal I try to go back once a week on my bike to check if it’s still there. Well, I did until I got locked down again into a 1 km radius from home a few weeks ago. Cycling in Paris remains borderline scary but the adrenaline is—I must admit—quite a fun rush.

Monbiot rounds up with a hint of hope for the future:

“Even a switch to bicycles (including electric bikes and scooters) is only part of the answer. Fundamentally, this is not a vehicle problem but an urban design problem. Or rather, it is an urban design problem created by our favoured vehicle. Cars have made everything bigger and further away. Paris, under its mayor Anne Hidalgo, is seeking to reverse this trend, by creating a “15-minute city”, in which districts that have been treated by transport planners as mere portals to somewhere else become self-sufficient communities – each with their own shops, parks, schools and workplaces, within a 15-minute walk of everyone’s home.”

“This, I believe, is the radical shift that all towns and cities need. It would transform our sense of belonging, our community life, our health and our prospects of local employment, while greatly reducing pollution, noise and danger. Transport has always been about much more than transport. The way we travel helps to determine the way we live. And at the moment, locked in our metal boxes, we do not live well.”

Basically what he’s saying is that trains are the answer, right? Lol. Ok, I may be biased. Though a good long train trip through some nice mountains is definitely a solution to at least half of life’s problems, I find.

Ciao.

Fossil fuel workers switching to renewables jobs →

From the Guardian:

“Many within the UK’s declining oil industry are looking to the renewable energy boom to future-proof their careers and be a part of something bigger than any one project or company.

“Matt Wooltorton, 38, from East Anglia, joined Scottish Power to work on the East Anglia offshore windfarm in 2016 after years in the North Sea oil and gas business.

“I have colleagues who I used to work with who would definitely like to transition from oil and gas into renewables. These windfarms are built to last for 25 years, so those are really long-term jobs being created. You could really see the opportunities emerging where I live on the east coast of England, and it’s exciting because there’s a wake of opportunity that comes behind these projects for businesses in maintenance work,” he says.

“There are people, often contractors, who come on to these projects for the money but you often find that a lot do end up wanting to stick around. There’s a real sense of doing something worthwhile.”

You win some, you lose some:

“The government hailed offshore wind as “a British success story” only weeks before the coronavirus lockdown descended on the UK. Since then record levels of wind power generation contributed to renewables meeting almost 50% of the UK’s electricity needs in the first three months of this year, driving coal-fired electricity to lows not seen since the first power plants began generating in the industrial revolution.”

And it’s not over yet:

“The growth in renewable energy has accelerated in line with fast-falling costs, kickstarting an industry that in 2018 contributed turnover of more than £46bn to the UK economy and employed almost a quarter of a million people.

“The most startling collapse in cost can be seen in UK waters, where the next generation of offshore windfarms is due to be built for less than a third of the cost to energy bills of their early predecessors. Onshore wind turbines and solar farms are now so cheap they can be built without any subsidy at all.”

The Brits are really going for it. From coal in the Industrial Revolution to massive offshore windfarms today, they’ve certainly got a way with energy sources.

Amusingly, some of the press or the “press” in the UK has become rather obsessed with another energy source: the hot air coming out of Boris Johnson’s mouth as he deflects coronavirus deaths with talk of wind turbines.

[Cover photo of Courtney Doughty who does maintenance on Norfolk’s offshore wind turbines. Photographed by Patrick Harrison.]

Renewables continue to kick coal's sorry ass →

Despite the clusterfuck that has been 2020, renewables continue to power ahead:

“Global renewable electricity installation will hit a record level in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, in sharp contrast with the declines caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the fossil fuel sectors.

“The IEA report published on Tuesday says almost 90% of new electricity generation in 2020 will be renewable, with just 10% powered by gas and coal. The trend puts green electricity on track to become the largest power source in 2025, displacing coal, which has dominated for the past 50 years.”

In Yo’ Face, Coal! Or better: In Yo’ Coalface!

“Renewable power is defying the difficulties caused by the pandemic, showing robust growth while others fuels struggle,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director. “The resilience and positive prospects of the sector are clearly reflected by continued strong appetite from investors.” Fossil fuels have had a turbulent time in 2020 as Covid-related measures caused demand from transport and other sectors to plunge.”

They’re expecting 1/3 of the world’s electricity to be renewable in less than five years.

Given how this renewables lark seems to operate, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens faster. It’s unfortunately analogous with climate change predictions: the bad shit seems to be coming for us as fast as the extreme predictions say, not the middle-of-the-road ones.

For example, Greenland is so melting right now.

If only those coronavirus recovery funds were not being pumped into fossil fuels, eh?

“The prospect of a global green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is hanging in the balance, as countries pour money into the fossil fuel economy to stave off a devastating recession, an analysis for the Guardian reveals.

“Meanwhile, promises of a low-carbon boost are failing to materialise. Only a handful of major countries are pumping rescue funds into low-carbon efforts such as renewable power, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.”

You win some, you lose some. There’s only one planet though.

An ode to untouched pristine lands and the terrible humans that want to touch them

It can be hard to believe sometimes that parts of the planet remain unviolated by humans.

That there are places you will never go to, places to hold in your imagination like dreams of unimaginable perfection, full of ice and snowcapped mountains and migrating caribou, places where polar bears den down for the depths of winter and migrating birds make the sky come alive, far from humans and the death they bring, death of everything pure and pristine and good on this planet, and worse: the death of imagination, of what could be.

One of the most terrible humans beings to ever step foot on our fragile, life-giving Earth, this worthless cornurbation of yellow-tinged atoms that even the universe is ashamed of bringing into being, with a burn-it-all-down bunch of abysmal merry men at his side, has decided to violate, in a last, Covid-tinged gasp for infamy, one such remaining pristine place: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

To drill for oil.

I will not go into the details. I refuse to dwell any longer than is necessary on this abomination. The incoming administration is signalling it will do all it can to stop this; the announcement by the current gang of ghastly goons is simply spite puréed in with pure evil. May their posturing be a stain on their souls forever.

In 1930, Bob Marshall, a forester who had visited this Arctic region, published an essay in which he wrote:

“There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness.”

His text was seminal in the environmental movement of the 20th century:

“According to environmental journalist Brooke Jarvis, ‘Marshall saw the enormous, largely unsettled Arctic lands he had explored as a possible antidote to this—not another chance to keep chasing America's so-called Manifest Destiny but a chance to finally stop chasing it.’ Even for Americans who would never travel there, ‘he thought they would benefit knowing that it still existed in the condition it always had.’ ‘In Alaska alone,’ Marshall wrote, ‘can the emotional values of the frontier be preserved.’ “

I stumbled upon this passage after putting down my words above, a lonely last-ditch stand on the importance of imagination. Marshall simply used the words ‘emotional values’ instead of ‘imagination’.

Sometimes it’s good not to feel completely alone.

There's the good news, and then there's the good news. And it's all from Australia! →

Despite ongoing coronavirus catastrophes, and despite the fact that we’re probably still doomed (just thought I’d slip that in there), there’s been heaps of pretty good climate news lately.

On top of the US electing someone who understands the concept of “Science”, we should probably mention my nemesis Australia as it perhaps starts to learn from its mistakes:

“The world’s largest power station is planned for a vast piece of desert about half the size of greater suburban Sydney in Australia’s remote north-west.

“Called the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, its size is difficult to conceptualise. If built in full, there will be 1,600 giant wind turbines and a 78 sq km array of solar panels a couple of hundred kilometres east of Port Hedland in the Pilbara.

“This solar-wind hybrid power plant would have a capacity of 26 gigawatts, more than Australia’s entire coal power fleet. The hub’s backers say the daytime sun and nightly winds blowing in from the Indian Ocean are perfectly calibrated to provide a near constant source of emissions-free energy around the clock.”

I guess just keep in mind that deserts also have ecosystems and this plan is still five years off. Amusingly, given that they’re vaunting it as being non-intermittent (power all the time), the electricity it creates is actually going to be used to turn seawater into hydrogen:

“Most of it will be used to run 14GW of electrolysers that will convert desalinated seawater into “green hydrogen” – a form of energy that analysts expect to be in increasing demand as a replacement for fossil fuels in the years and decades ahead.”

And that’s not it for Australia for today.

“This week alone there were a string of extraordinary announcements. The New South Wales government plans to underwrite 12GW of renewable energy and 2GW of storage over the next decade, Woolworths is promising to run its supermarkets and operations on 100% green energy within five years, and the country’s biggest super fund, AustralianSuper, dumped its shares in Whitehaven Coal as it set a path to a net-zero emissions investment portfolio by 2050.”

More deets on the Aussie hydrogen revolution:

“Hydrogen has grabbed the attention of politicians and industry, including winning support at federal and state level in Australia. There are more than 20 smaller hydrogen projects under way across the country, but the hub dwarfs them. Hewitt says it will allow the fuel to be produced for less than $2 a kilogram, the level at which the Morrison government expects it to be cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.

“It’s amazing how fast the transition is coming,” he says. “All the technology we’re using is proven at demonstration level. We have the right backing, we have the partners and it will get done.”

Jeez Australia, you’re giving me goosebumps now.

“The second of Australia’s two giant renewable export projects is no less extraordinary in its ambition, and also has been granted major project status from the federal government. Like the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, it is billed as the largest of its type in the world.

“The $22bn Sun Cable proposal, backed by billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Forrest, involves building a 10GW solar farm with battery storage at the Newcastle Waters cattle station about 750km south of Darwin.”

Here’s a picture of what it’s going to look life, if it happens.

Photo: via The Guardian.

Crikey dick!

Perhaps the most crazy thing about this last one is that all the power is expected to be transmitted 3800 km via undersea cables to Singapore. Not sure I’m convinced of the total braininess of this one.

Ok, now let’s pause for a second. Take a deep breath. We’re barely halfway through the Guardian article about all these mental Australian plans.

There’s also the massive offshore windfarm being planned off the coast of the State of Victoria. And the massive battery being planned for next to Geelong (close to Melbourne). And the massive spread of home solar across the country’s houses. That’s massive!

Time for a stiff drink to help digest all of this crazy news out of wildfire Australia. Cheers Matey Potatey.

Storage, Storage, STORAGE! →

One of the big thorns in the side of today’s renewables is intermittency: the sun doesn’t shine at night, the wind blows when it wants to, and so on.

So you need back-up energy sources to fill in the holes between bursts of renewable energy. Typically that has meant coal or gas plants.

But all kind of crazy ideas are coming out to play these days involving energy storage that can be pumped into the system when the renewables are having a break. The most obvious storage option is batteries. But there are others on the horizon. From CNBC:

“Work has started on a liquid air energy storage site in the northwest of England, with the team behind the project stating it will be one of the largest energy storage systems in Europe.  

“Highview Power’s 50 megawatt facility in Greater Manchester will harness technology that uses something called “air liquefaction.”

“The system involves a number of steps: excess or off peak electricity powers an air liquefier. This cleans, compresses then cools ambient air, turning it into a liquid at -196 degrees Celsius (around -320 Fahrenheit). According to the company, this liquid air is “stored at low pressure and later heated and expanded to drive a turbine and generate power.” 

“The technology being deployed by Highview Power stems from an idea developed by Peter Dearman, the brains behind the concept of a “liquid air engine.” According to the U.K. government, Dearman — who’s been described by the BBC as a “self-taught backyard inventor” — worked alongside a team from the University of Leeds to develop the idea of “using air as a form of energy storage” when compressed and liquefied.”

I can just see the guy waking up one morning, lying in bed staring at the ceiling and it coming to him in a flash that you could store energy in liquid air. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I have ideas like that nearly every day.

Not.

There’s also been more and more talk recently about using pumped hydro storage, whereby you pump water up a mountain when the going’s good, and then let gravity take it back down through the turbines when the wind stops or the sun checks out for the evening. It turns out this is not even one of the new kids on the block:

“Cruachan Power Station, for instance, is a hydroelectric pumped storage facility housed in a hollowed-out Scottish mountain.

“The site was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965, with its final two turbines coming online in 1966 and 1967. Back in August, the Drax Group announced it would benefit from a £1 million upgrade to improve its efficiency.

”According to Drax, the Cruachan station uses reversible turbines to take water from Loch Awe, a 41 kilometer long freshwater loch, or lake. In order “to store excess power from the grid,” the turbines pump this water to an upper reservoir on the side of the mountain.

“The stored water is then released back through the turbines to generate power quickly and reliably when demand increases,” the business adds. The site can produce power in under a minute when required.”

The Queen was still a youngster when she opened that.

[Cover photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash]

The train news at The Points Guy continues to amuse me

The Points Guy’s website—luxury flying high in the sky with credit card points—just posted another article on…

Trains!

Screenshot from The Points Guy.

Lol.

Would you like a free glass of champagne in your superbly comfortable train seat, M’lord?

Actually, I would.

Note the ever-present subtly hidden half of the screen taken up with links trying to get you hooked on credit cards.

Not to mention the sniff a whiff of desperation with the poll they’re running on the state of travel. If they offered me a complimentary plate of truffle pasta, a crème brulée for desert followed by a smooth digestif for answering it, I’d be all in. I thought that was how it was supposed to work in the world of laps of luxury?

My bad.

Here’s the second question in their poll:

The Points Guy survey question.

Never, you satan worshippers, never!

The next question was, “When will you feel comfortable with how much CO2 gets pumped into the atmosphere just so you can hop into a flying cigar death trap?”

The possible answers were:

  • a) I am awesome

  • b) I like puppies

  • c) I am more awesome than awesome

  • c) My grandchildren are dicks, who cares about the future of humanity.

I swear to god that was the third question.

I also assure you I’m still president. True story. Cross my heart and hope to die.

Two little facts

The world waits.

Meanwhile, the US formally withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement yesterday, one day after the Presidential Election.

This was not just symbolic strutting:

“The American departure from the Paris Agreement also means the end of U.S. contributions to a global fund to help smaller and poorer countries that bear disproportionate costs of climate change. The United States originally pledged $3 billion to help such nations transition from fossil fuels and adapt to a hotter Earth — the largest amount of any country, but still far less than America's fair share, given its cumulative carbon emissions.

“The Trump administration withdrew two-thirds of that money. At a meeting last year, 13 other rich nations, including the United Kingdom, France and Germany, doubled their original pledges, while the U.S. declined to contribute any additional money to the fund.”

Also, the Trump administration has been actively reversing ninety-nine environmental regulations. As of mid-October, 72 were completed and 27 were in progress. The full list can be found at the NY Times (may be paywalled).

Have a nice day.

The guy that used credit card tricks to fly around the world in First Class now blogs about trains

Before coronavirus, there was a website called The Points Guy, created by a guy called Brian Kelly. Its original purpose was to teach people how to obtain credit card miles awards in order to get flights paid for by “points”. Which therefore meant “teaching” people what new credit cards they needed for their “collection” in order to obtain said “points”.

This was a clever business idea, because credit card companies were willing to have click-through links on his website, so he made god-knows-how much money per successful transfer of “consumer” to “credit card company”. We’re not talking one cent per click Amazon kinda numbers here. We’re talking big dosh.

Over the years, The Points Guy website became more of a general travel website, with a focus on luxury flying, but even today it still revolves around “teaching” people what new credit cards to get. Here’s its current homepage:

In the old days (circa 2019), each time Google served me up an article from this website, it was almost certainly a gloating pile of maple-syrupy twaddle tapped out in a plane’s business or first class, 35,000 feet in the air, aiming to sell a kind of luxury dream to poor doofuses down on the ground.

Which meant getting them keen on credit cards.

Well. A lot’s happened since 2019.

2020 happened, for one.

Killer hornets were the icing on the cake.

Don’t lick killer hornets.

As you can see in the screenshot above, The Points Guy had to add a new menu item: CORONAVIRUS.

From one day to the next, their whole raison d’être went *POOPY POP!*

Who’s going to buy credit cards to get enough free bonus points to get upgraded on, say, a Greyhound bus or an Amtrak train? It’s all about the planes, right?

Funny you ask.

This brings us to the hilarious article I was just sent by Google’s newsfeed:

The Points Guy had to switch to writing about…..TRAINS!

This was definitely the highlight of my day.

Trains!

Lol.

You’ll see over on the right-hand side that the credit card push is still going strong, even as they are reduced to writing about…..trains!

Ok, so I don’t get sued, here are some disclaimers:

  • No, this isn’t the first time The Points Guy has written about trains. It was however the first time I was sent an article from them that involved trains. Their website’s search feature is a bit shit, but there seem to be 25 articles partly or mostly about trains in their archive. Nearly all of them are from the last couple of years, one of them seems to be duplicate; 2 were in 2017, 2 in 2018, 10 in 2019, and 11 in 2020. Maybe there were articles with trains from before 2017 but the search feature doesn’t help you find them. Still, you can’t help but notice a whiff of climate change refocusing in 2019 and coronavirus-refocusing in 2020. Their article entitled, Why trains are great for travellers who want to reduce their carbon footprint is a particularly cynical move for a website “influencing” you to fly business or first class.

  • The title of this piece is not strictly factual: it’s not really a blog, it’s an article from a website that makes cold hard cash off people by “influencing” them into getting credit cards. Also, the article in question was not written by founder Brian Kelly, but by Clint Henderson.

On that note, I get that The Points Guy is now not just a one-man show, and there are probably jobs at stake, so I don’t want to entirely shit on their breakfast.

*Yay, trains?

However.

Choosing to work for a company whose business model is based on “encouraging” people to sign up for a freakin’ library shelf of credit cards and “encouraging” them to be enablers in making planes fart out thousands of kgs of CO2 whilst they sip champagne high in the sky is not a neutral, consequence-free decision in my book.

So I have no qualms in saying: May their website go into a long, slow, train-filled decline.

Recycling solar panels: This is going to have to be a thing →

From Fast Company:

“The global surge in solar power is helping quickly lower the cost of solar panels and shrink energy’s carbon footprint, with around 70,000 solar panels being installed every hour by 2018, and an estimated 1.47 million solar panels in place by that year in the U.S. alone. But it also means that we’ll face an enormous pile of e-waste when those panels eventually wear out.

“By the early 2030s, as one large wave of solar panels is reaching the end of life, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that there could be as much as 8 million metric tons of total solar panel waste. By 2050, that could jump to as much as 78 million metric tons of cumulative waste. “We’re looking at an emerging waste stream which has the potential to go to pretty large volumes over the next decade,” says Andreas Wade, who leads global sustainability for First Solar, a solar panel manufacturer that is taking on the problem with a circular approach.”

So, what are First Solar doing exactly?

“At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia. Right now, the holistic lifecycle approach isn’t common among other solar producers. But Wade says that now is the time to think about the problem. “Our aim for solar is to help our customers decouple their economic growth from negative environmental impacts,” he says. “So it is kind of a mandatory point for us to address the renewable-energy-circular-economy nexus today and not 20 years from now.”

This is already the law or becoming the law in various places:

“The E.U. requires solar producers to recycle products, and similar laws are in the works in some other parts of the world, including Japan and India. In the U.S., so far, only the State of Washington requires solar panel recycling; the majority of old solar panels in the country end up in landfills now, wasting valuable materials such as silicon and risking the spread of toxic components such as lead.”

Not a good look, U S of A.

Looking forward:

“By recycling materials, the total environmental impact of each panel drops. The original solar panel, Wade says, might last 30 or even 40 years. If 95% of the semiconductor material can be recovered and put back in a new panel, and the cycle continues to repeat, the original material could stay in use as long as 1,200 years. At the moment, because of the huge demand for solar panels and the fact that many haven’t yet reached the end of their life, the total percentage of recycled material in the company’s new panels is low. But it will grow over time.”

1200 years is a long time away. Let’s get this working at a large scale in ten years for starters, eh?

Sounds like a growth industry to me.

[Cover photo: First Solar]

Flat out of nowhere, South Australia suddenly goes a stretch on 100% solar power →

In a shock to many, including probably most Australians—not to mention the chief executive of the power company by the looks of it—the state of South Australia went just over an hour on 100% solar energy a couple of Sundays ago.

“The state once known for not having enough power has become the first major jurisdiction in the world to be powered entirely by solar energy.

“For just over an hour on Sunday, October 11, 100 per cent of energy demand was met by solar panels alone.

"This is truly a phenomenon in the global energy landscape," Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) chief executive Audrey Zibelman said.”

You don’t say!

Two more cool facts slipped into only one sentence:

“Never before has a jurisdiction the size of South Australia been completely run by solar power, with consumers' rooftop solar systems contributing 77 per cent.”

Really interesting how nearly all that power came from solar panels on people houses, fed into the grid.

There’s also a poet in the power company’s ranks:

“The next step is convincing more people to connect batteries to store cheap energy during the day.

"The grid needs to become increasingly like a set of lungs," AEMO chief external affairs officer Tony Chappel said.

"During the day, the lungs would breathe in and excess energy can be stored and then in the evening when the sun's gone down, that energy can be fed back."

This is probably not the right time to bring up zombie batteries.

[Cover photo: ABC News, Australia]

Apple says it will be carbon neutral in ten years →

From Bloomberg:

“Apple Inc. has gone carbon neutral. But in order to say the same for its flagship iPhone, it’s going to need help from Taiwan.

“More than three-quarters of the emissions that come from making Apple’s ubiquitous products come from outside suppliers, according to the company’s Environmental Progress Report. That includes Taiwanese electronics giants like TSMC and Foxconn, which still get about 90% of their power from non-renewable sources, according to company reports.

“That’s changing though. The firms are installing solar panels and buying power from offshore wind farms in line with Apple’s target of having all of its products be carbon-neutral by 2030. It underscores how climate pressure is increasingly coming not only from activists, but from within company’s own supply chains.”

Foxconn getting from 90% non-renewables to 100% renewables in ten years? Get the popcorn ready!

“Wind and solar power can be as cheap as fossil fuels, but they don’t produce at all hours of the day, so it isn’t feasible for major factories to run directly on renewables alone. Improvements in battery technology might soon change that, but at the moment Apple isn’t pushing its suppliers in that direction.

“Instead, Apple wants them to invest in enough renewable energy in their home region to cover their power use. That way even if a factory requires coal-fired electricity in the middle of the night, it will have invested in enough wind or solar to keep an equivalent amount of coal from being burned at other times.”

If you think about this for a moment, it half-makes-sense if they invest in so much daytime renewable energy that they power not only themselves during the day, but also say a nearby city or three—that would have still been using coal or gas power during the day. That’s the part that makes sense.

The part that doesn’t make sense is that you still have to power cities and factories at night.

The magical thinking is that a factory can pretend to be carbon neutral because it’s swapping its night-time coal-burning CO2 with “a drop” in CO2 emissions in nearby cities during the day due to renewables it produces for them.

But this can only go so far at night, and only nuclear is a high-capacity low-carbon nighttime source at present (but blows up occasionally causing other minor problems).

So, it may be a step towards less CO2 overall, but it’s only half a solution.

Changing the subject slightly, deep down I can’t help but feel that selling billions of energy-intensive shiny toys to the masses is not the way to save humanity as we know it, let alone the planet’s ecosystems, no matter what environmental claims you make.

But if this mega-company pressure pushes the whole grid green faster, then I’ll take it, I guess?

it’s not really clear though, is it?

For instance, is Apple growing faster than the rate at which it forces its supply chain to go “green”?

Who the fuck knows.

Also, ten years from now is plenty of time for the whole shebang (aka the planetary system) to go seriously downhill and the last thing we’ll be doing is checking back to see if Apple kept its word.

[The very lonely wind turbine in the cover photo is brought to you by Billy H.C. Kwok and Bloomberg]

Low-lying coastal property prices will gradually drop like oil company prices have and Florida is the canary in the coal mine →

From the epicenter of building shit at sea level, Florida, comes this doozie from the New York Times:

“If rising seas cause America’s coastal housing market to dive — or, as many economists warn, when — the beginning might look a little like what’s happening in the tiny town of Bal Harbour, a glittering community on the northernmost tip of Miami Beach.

“With single-family homes selling for an average of $3.6 million, Bal Harbour epitomizes high-end Florida waterfront property. But around 2013, something started to change: The annual number of homes sales began to drop — tumbling by half by 2018 — a sign that fewer people wanted to buy.

“Prices eventually followed, falling 7.6 percent from 2016 to 2020, according to data from Zillow, the real estate data company.”

In a surprise to no-one not financially compromised by Florida’s housing market:

“All across Florida’s low-lying areas, it’s a similar story, according to research published Monday. The authors argue that not only is climate change eroding one of the most vibrant real estate markets in the country, it has quietly been doing so for nearly a decade.”

Here’s the plot for the percentage change in number of houses sold, year over year:

High risk means areas where more than 70% of the land would be under water if the sea rose about 2 meters.

And here’s the plot for the annual change in house prices:

I find this second one particularly fascinating. Until about 2009, you can see that there is literally no perception of risk or anything else at all separating the two groups.

Then, weirdly, it is around 2011 where the average sale price starts to drop less (but still drop), and it drops less for the more at risk areas!

And then in 2014, high risk area house prices rise on average year-on-year, whereas low risk area house prices only start to rise in 2015 year-on-year.

But the high risk area prices still keep rising faster than low risk area ones until 2017.

It’s beyond my pay level to understand this.

Perhaps coming out of the big recession in 2008, people that could afford it said, “Fuck it, let’s get a house with a view”, even if that meant being in a riskier spot near the beach, and of course houses with a view tend to cost more.

However, sales in the risky areas had already started to drop in 2013. So you have less sales, year by year, in the risky areas, yet the average price of these sales has been rising since 2014 and in fact continues to rise, though now at a lower rate than for low risk areas.

So, again, less and less houses are being sold in risky areas, but the average price of those that are still being sold is still rising fast (around 30% in the last year), though a little less quickly than in low risk areas (more like 40%).

However, prices are already decreasing in particularly low-lying parts of Florida:

“In Key Biscayne, an island 20 minutes southeast of Miami where the average elevation is 3.4 feet above sea level, sales volume in 2018 was one-third below its 2012 peak, and the parts of the island most exposed to rising seas saw the greatest drop. In the town of Sunny Isles Beach, in the northeast corner of the county, one particularly low-lying census tract saw sales volume fall by two-thirds.

“Since 2016, prices have fallen by 13 percent in Key Biscayne, and 9 percent in Sunny Isles Beach.”

In an amusing attempt for balance, the New York Times asked for reactions to these facts from the towns’ mayors.

“The mayors of each city took issue with the paper’s findings. Some argued that the recent declines are part of the natural cycle of Florida real estate and that the market has shown signs of recovery in the past few months.

“George “Bud” Scholl, the mayor of Sunny Isles Beach, said he didn’t think climate concerns explained the drop in sales volume, which he attributed to families that have lived in the town for a long time and were “simply holding onto their properties.”

“On Key Biscayne, Mayor Michael Davey said his city is addressing those concerns, seeking to elevate roads, protect beaches and bury power lines to avoid wind damage and power cuts as storms worsen. “We’re protecting our property value by doing these projects,” Mr. Davey said. “I don’t think the sky is falling.”

The last guy clearly doesn’t believe sea level rise is a problem in the local real estate market. He’s elevating roads just for the hell of it!

All that this article needed to be complete was a few quotes from the most neutral, truthtelling folks of all: real estate agents.

Well, is it your lucky day or what?!

“Real estate agents were equally skeptical. Oren Alexander, a broker at Douglas Elliman Real Estate who sells what he called “trophy properties” around Miami, said every part of the country faces climate threats.

“Hurricanes have reached New York City. California is burning,” Mr. Alexander said. “I’ll tell you firsthand from working with buyers, are they concerned with sea level rise? No.”

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe if you’re no longer looking to buy a place that already floods once a week, you’re also not going to be talking to real estate agents?

Just a guess.

Solar energy reaches historically low costs →

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away. “

Hot off the press from The Verge:

“In some parts of the world, solar power is now the cheapest source of electricity in history, thanks to policies encouraging renewable energy growth. That’s according to a new report released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“Solar is on track to become “the new king of electricity supply,” the report says, as prices continue to fall. It’s expected to dominate more and more of the market over the next decade, boosted by global efforts to tackle climate change. The EU, for example, set a goal to source 32 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030.”

Gimme some numbers, Verge.

“In most countries in the world, it’s consistently cheaper to build solar farms than new coal- or gas-fired power plants, the report says. For utility-scale solar projects completed this year, the average cost of electricity generation over the lifetime of the plant (called the levelized cost of electricity) was between $35 to $55 per megawatt-hour in some of the world’s biggest markets — the US, Europe, China, and India. Just four years ago, the global average levelized cost for solar power was $100 per megawatt-hour, according to the World Economic Forum. About a decade ago, it was $300.”

So, 10 years ago, $300, four years ago, $100, and now, $35-$55.

As a comparison:

“The cost for coal, in comparison, currently ranges between about $55 and $150 per megawatt-hour, according to the new IEA report — about the same as where it’s been for more than a decade. And the coal industry has been in decline despite US efforts from the Trump administration to prop it up. Globally, coal use probably won’t go back to pre-pandemic levels even if the economy recovers next year, the IEA anticipates.”

Meanwhile, as I wrote about previously, oil company share prices appear to have begun their long, lonely cratering to zero as this brave new world bursts forth like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

[Cover photo: Church of the King]

Ex-Tesla exec Straubel aims to build world's top battery recycler →

How to Build One Business Right on Top of Another One 101 (from Reuters):

“Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel wants to build his startup Redwood Materials into the world’s top battery recycling company and one of the largest battery materials companies, he said at a technology conference Wednesday.

“Straubel aims to leverage two partnerships, one with Panasonic Corp 6752.T, the Japanese battery manufacturer that is teamed with Tesla TSLA.O at the Nevada gigafactory, and one announced weeks ago with e-commerce giant Amazon AMZN.O.

“With production of electric vehicles and batteries about to explode, Straubel says his ultimate goal is to “make a material impact on sustainability, at an industrial scale.”

How are they doing so far?

“Established in early 2017, Redwood this year will recycle more than 1 gigawatt-hours’ worth of battery scrap materials from the gigafactory — enough to power more than 10,000 Tesla cars.”

The end goal:

“Straubel’s broader plan is to dramatically reduce mining of raw materials such as nickel, copper and cobalt over several decades by building out a circular or “closed loop” supply chain that recycles and recirculates materials retrieved from end-of-life vehicle and grid storage batteries and from cells scrapped during manufacturing”

Tesla is already talking about bringing in cobalt-free batteries, so might have to scratch that one off the list, the way things are going.

The big-picture concept is not hidden subtly in their logo:

I wish them well.

The great unravelling: 'I never thought I’d live to see the horror of planetary collapse' →

If you got past the title, you’ll probably have the guts to read to the end.

Otherwise, probably not. Go take a joyride in an SUV or something, and join us back here tomorrow when perhaps there’ll be a happy story to distract us all again.

From the Guardian’s series by Australian writers talking about getting through 2020 and beyond, climate scientist Joëlle Gergis goes hard and goes fast:

“The relentless heat and drought experienced during our nation’s hottest and driest year on record saw the last of our native forests go up in smoke. We saw terrified animals fleeing with their fur on fire, their bodies turned to ash. Those that survived faced starvation among the charred remains of their obliterated habitats.

“During Australia’s Black Summer, more than 3 billion animals were incinerated or displaced, our beloved bushland burnt to the ground. Our collective places of recharge and contemplation changed in ways that we can barely comprehend. The koala, Australia’s most emblematic species, now faces extinction in New South Wales by as early as 2050.

“Recovering the diversity and complexity of Australia’s unique ecosystems now lies beyond the scale of human lifetimes. What we witnessed was inter-generational damage: a fundamental transformation of our country.

“Then, just as the last of the bushfires went out, recording-breaking ocean temperatures triggered the third mass bleaching event recorded on the Great Barrier Reef since 2016. This time, the southern reef – spared during the 2016 and 2017 events – finally succumbed to extreme heat. The largest living organism on the planet is dying.”

Fun times. Fun times.

“I mourn all the unique animals, plants and landscapes that are forever altered by the events of our Black Summer. That the Earth as we now know it will soon no longer exist. I grieve for the generations of children who will only ever experience the Great Barrier Reef or our ancient rainforests through photographs or David Attenborough’s documentaries. In the future, his films will be like watching grainy archival footage of the Tasmanian tiger: images of a lost world.

“As we live through this growing instability, it’s becoming harder to maintain a sense of professional detachment from the work that I do. Given that humanity is facing an existential threat of planetary proportions, surely it is rational to react with despair, anger, grief and frustration. To fail to emotionally respond to a level of destruction that will be felt throughout the ages feels like sociopathic disregard for all life on Earth.”

Just in case you were wondering, yes, the essay does gets worse:

“We are being forced to come to terms with the fact that we are the generation that is likely to witness the destruction of our Earth. We have arrived at a point in human history that I think of as the “great unravelling”. I never thought I’d live to see the horror of planetary collapse unfolding.”

Anything at all you can offer us that ressembles…hope?

“As more psychologists begin to engage with the topic of climate change, they are telling us that being willing to acknowledge our personal and collective grief might be the only way out of the mess we are in. When we are finally willing to accept feelings of intense grief – for ourselves, our planet, our kids’ futures – we can use the intensity of our emotional response to propel us into action.

“Grief is not something to be pushed away; it is a function of the depth of the attachment we feel for something, be it a loved one or the planet. If we don’t allow ourselves to grieve, we stop ourselves from emotionally processing the reality of our loss. It prevents us from having to face the need to adapt to a new, unwelcome reality.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where we actively avoid talking about hard realities; darker parts of our psyche are considered dysfunctional or intolerable. But trying to be relentlessly cheerful or stoic in the face of serious loss just buries more authentic emotions that must eventually come up for air.”

Then it’s back to the grim stuff. Sorry about that:

“While I hope this will be the summer that changes everything, my rational mind understands that governments like ours are willing to sacrifice our planetary life-support system to keep the fossil fuel industry alive for another handful of decades. I am afraid that we don’t have the heart or the courage to be moved by what we saw during our Black Summer.”

And then she moves in for the knock-out punch:

“Increasingly I am feeling overwhelmed and unsure about how I can best live my life in the face of the catastrophe that is now upon us. I’m anxious about the enormity of the scale of what needs to be done, afraid of what might be waiting in my inbox. Something inside me feels like it has snapped, as if some essential thread of hope has failed. The knowing that sometimes things can’t be saved, that the planet is dying, that we couldn’t get it together in time to save the irreplaceable. It feels as though we have reached the point in human history when all the trees in the global common are finally gone, our connection to the wisdom of our ancestors lost forever.”

This barrel of laughs was brought to you by the Guardian, Joëlle Gergis, and Reality.

[Cover photo: Adwo/Alamy]