Hotter than the human body can handle →

July 01, 2021

“When the full midsummer heat hits Jacobabad, the city retreats inside as if sheltering from attack.
“The streets are deserted and residents hunker down as best they can to weather temperatures that can top 52C (126F).
“Few have any air conditioning, and blackouts mean often there is no mains electricity. The hospital fills with heatstroke cases from those whose livelihoods mean they must venture out.”

Portland has air conditioned stadiums to hide out in. Jacobabad has taps.

“This city of some 200,000 in Pakistan's Sindh province has long been renowned for its fierce heat, but recent research has conferred an unwelcome scientific distinction.
“Its mixture of heat and humidity has made it one of only two places on earth to have now officially passed, albeit briefly, a threshold hotter than the human body can withstand.”

What threshold is that?

“The researchers examined what are called wet bulb temperatures. These are taken from a thermometer covered in a water-soaked cloth so they take into account both heat and humidity.
“Wet bulb thermometer readings are significantly lower than the more familiar dry bulb readings, which do not take humidity into account. Researchers say that at a wet bulb reading of 35C, the body can no longer cool itself by sweating and such a temperature can be fatal in a few hours, even to the fittest people.”

For Jacobabad:

“Jacobabad crossed the 35C wet bulb threshold in July 1987, then again in June 2005, June 2010 and July 2012. Each time the boundary may have been breached for only a few hours, but a three-day average maximum temperature has been recorded hovering around 34C in June 2010, June 2001 and July 2012. The dry bulb temperature is often over 50C in the summer.”

Pakistan is a fascinating place; it’s also going to get totally pummelled by climate change; from glaciers melting (plus flash flooding) in the north—with an eventual lack of water for agriculture when the glaciers have mostly melted away, to heat from its location close to the equator, not to mention unchecked population increase.

And that’s just the start of their problems.

[Photo credit: Mehboob Ali showers under a hose at a water filling point, where he fills canisters to sell in Jacobabad, one of the world's two hottest places. Photo by Saiyna Bashir]

Meanwhile, in Canada →

June 28, 2021

Meanwhile, in Canada:

“Lytton in British Columbia soared to 46.6C (116F) on Sunday, breaking an 84-year-old record, officials said. A "heat dome" of high pressure parked over the region has set new records in many other areas.”

The old record was 45°C in 1937. So not only did this beat the record, it bet it by 1.6°C, which is a bit mindbending.

“Lytton was not alone. More than 40 other spots in British Columbia set new records.
“Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips told CTV: "I like to break a record, but this is like shattering and pulverising them. It's warmer in parts of western Canada than in Dubai."
“He said there was a chance of topping 47°C somewhere.”

Slightly down the coast and across the border:

“Portland International Airport recorded a record high of 108 degrees on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.”

That’s 42°C.

Portland actually reached 112°C at one point (44.4°C).

If you want a glimpse of the future, how about this photo of a “cooling centre” in Portland where you go to basically not die from the heat outside:

It’s pictures like this that gradually slip into our consciousness as “the new normal”, without us even realising it, if we’re not careful.

As for Seattle, it got hit with a relatively chilly 40°C, all things considered.

If only we could pin these records on something!

I’ll let CNN do the talking here:

“The planet is trapping roughly double the amount of heat in the atmosphere than it did nearly 15 years ago, according to an alarming new analysis from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Researchers say it's a "remarkable" amount of energy that is already having far-reaching consequences.
"It's excess energy that's being taken up by the planet," said Norman Loeb, a NASA scientist and lead author of the study, "so it's going to mean further increases in temperatures and more melting of snow and sea ice, which will cause sea level rise — all things that society really cares about."

I’m sure the last few days’ heat records are just a coincidence.

French startup planning 'hotels on rails' for 2024 from Paris to Europe and Brexitland →

June 24, 2021

From the Guardian:

“Less than a decade after Europe’s night trains appeared to have reached the end of the line, a new French start-up has announced plans for a network of overnight services out of Paris from 2024.
“Midnight Trains is hoping post-Covid interest in cleaner, greener travel will generate interest in its proposed “hotels on rails”, which aims to connect the French capital to 12 other European destinations, including Edinburgh.”

Paris to Edinburgh, holy fuck a duck!

“The founders say the aim is not to match the famous – and expensive – luxury of the Orient Express but offer an alternative to the basic, state-run SNCF sleepers and short-haul flights.
“Key to the service will be “hotel-style” rooms offering privacy and security, and an onboard restaurant and bar.”

Who knows if they’ll get off the ground but they are on the same (correct) track as the Austrians: Better sleeping options including individual rooms if you want them (and want to pay for them).

The restaurant and bar car would be a total bonus.

This might come across as a harebrained scheme but get this: It’s backed by Xavier Niel, a French billionaire who entered the French telecoms market with his company Free and basically made it affordable to have a phone and home internet again in France (some of you in other countries would swallow your tongue if you knew the prices going in France. Sorry about that.)

So this is the real deal.

One of the founders of Midnight Trains—Adrien Aumont—had this to say:

“At the moment there is no alternative for medium-distance travel [other] than flights or a bad night train. And the only way we can rival planes is to reinvent the train experience.”

(Or make flights proper expensive between European countries.)

“People want intimacy,” said Aumont. “They don’t want to be sharing a sleeping space with a stranger. They want privacy, security and a good quality bed. By offering a bar and restaurant we are also offering conviviality and a certain art de vivre.”

Get in there, Froggies!

Cash for leaving the trees alone →

June 23, 2021

From the BBC:

“Gabon has become the first African country to receive payment for reducing carbon emissions by protecting its rainforest.
“The UN-backed Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) has handed over $17m (£12m) - the first tranche of a $150m deal struck in 2019.”

First things first: Where is Gabon?

Population: 2.1 million. Size: about the same as the UK.

Here’s the clincher though:

“Nearly 90% of Gabon is covered by forest, which captures more carbon than the country emits.”

Amazing. It’s like Cambodia before Hun Sen and his merry henchmen got to work. Or like Indonesia pre-Nutella.

“Rainforests are vital for absorbing the globe's climate-heating emissions.
“Gabon has been able to show that it managed to reduce deforestation and so lower its carbon emissions in 2016 and 2017 compared to the previous decade, Cafi says.
“As a result Norway, through Cafi, has paid Gabon $17m based on a formula relating to the number of tonnes of carbon that would otherwise have been released. The rest of the $150m should be handed over in the coming years.”

Everything with a pinch of salt though. There’s both good and bad mixed up here:

“Gabon has launched a number of conservation schemes in recent years, including the creation of 13 national parks and a project to combat illegal logging.
“Nevertheless, the country wants to earn more money from timber and says it will continue to harvest trees and increase the value of the sector by processing more of the raw material at home.
“The charity Rainforest Foundation UK, which works on rainforest protection and community land rights, told the BBC that while money to protect forests is important, this payment "risks being a public relations exercise".
“It points to data from the monitoring group Global Forest Watch which shows that 2017 saw one of the highest rates of forest loss in Gabon since 2001.
“The government says that its monitoring shows that the country can maintain its carbon stocks through sustainable forestry.”

Still, these results from Gabon are more encouraging than usual. Let’s check back in a few years.

What it's like to work (and perhaps die) in Arizona's 46°C heat (115°F) →

June 21, 2021

From the New York Times:

“Across the West, housing markets and temperatures are both scorching hot. A punishing spring of drought, wildfires and record-shattering heat is amplifying questions about the habitability of the Southwest in a rapidly warming climate. But it has done little to slow the rapid growth of cities like Phoenix, where new arrivals are fuelling a construction frenzy—as well as rising housing costs that are leaving many residents increasingly desperate to find a place they can afford to live.
“Construction workers and landscapers whose sweat is fuelling the growth do not have the option of working from an air-conditioned office. Instead, they say they worry about passing out or dying on the job as 115-degree days come earlier and grow ever more common.”

I’ll bet this ends well.

“Mr. Gutierrez and his crew sometimes drive two hours to reach the new subdivisions creeping deeper into the desert. As the sun beat down, they put on gaiters and woven hats, but it barely helped.
“One of the members of the crew had gotten dizzy and nearly tumbled from a roof the other afternoon. Not even a bush was left in the newly cleared desert where houses now bloomed, so they huddled for shade under the rafters of unfinished houses.”

I’ll bet this ends well.

What’s amazing is that heat-related deaths are already a big thing in Phoenix, and if you’re homeless then you’re probably next in line:

“Being homeless in an era of mega-heat waves is particularly deadly, as homeless people represented half of last year’s record 323 heat-related deaths across the Phoenix area. The homeless population has grown during the pandemic, and activists are now worried that an expiring eviction moratorium will mean others will lose their homes at the height of summer.”

I’ll bet this ends well.

Cooling centres are an actual thing in Phoenix:

“Volunteers armed with maps are set to hit the streets in Phoenix soon to check on people and guide them to cooling centers, but Mr. Castro said he knew nothing of the 89 air-conditioned cooling centers operating across the county. The borrowed flip phone he uses during the day was useless in trying to find online maps showing free water and heat-relief tents.
“I didn’t even know they had cooling centers,” Mr. Castro said.”

So they now build fridges to store poor people during hot days. Livin’ the dream!

This is all happening in the world’s wealthiest country. Imagine the stories not been told in poor countries where living conditions are at a much lower baseline to begin with.

I think I speak for all of us when I say that building more houses in the desert is probably not the solution here.

[Photos: Juan Arredondo for the New York Times]

Baby steps towards relating flight prices to Co2 emissions →

June 17, 2021

Let’s face it, it has to happen: Flying must become more expensive and in particular, ticket prices need to be more correlated with the quantity of Co2 a tootin’ aerial missile pumps out of its backside.

If you want to reduce aviation emissions, demand has to drop, and less planes have to fly. That’s it.

There ain’t no magical solution on the horizon for cutting off the poopin’.

Let’s not pretending that increasing the Co2 efficiency per passenger kilometre has meaning in a money-money-money civilisation.

On this note, this recent Guardian article is interesting:

“The German government is backing an extension of EU carbon pricing that will end free carbon permits for airlines, putting pressure on the UK to put in place a similar package to meet climate targets.
“The European Commission will propose a dozen climate policies on 14 July, each designed to slash greenhouse gases faster in line with an EU goal to cut net emissions by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.
“The package will include reforms to the EU carbon market and a border levy to impose CO2 costs on imported goods. All the policies will need approval from EU governments and the European parliament.
“Boris Johnson has pledged to give details of how the UK will meet climate targets ahead of the Cop26 conference in Glasgow this year.”

That guy and his pledges. Pinocchio has a lot of catching up to do.

So not only is this a planetary clusterfuck, it’s a EU vs Brexit clusterfuck too.

Fantastico!

Perhaps you were surprised to see that airlines in Europe still have Get-Out-Of-Jail cards when it comes to letting the Co2 rip? Basically, they’re still allowed to pollute because “Capitalism” and “Jobs” and “maintaining quality of life”.

But this is all shakier and shakier when it comes to jet planes.

In the UK:

“Ministers are concerned that the costs of transition arrangements to reduce emissions 78% by 2035 will dramatically force up the cost of fuel for transportation, including flying, potentially prompting protests and a backbench rebellion by Tory MPs.”

But this has to dramatically force up the cost of fuel. Where are we living? La La Land? You don’t get to put your fingers in your ears and pretend reality ain’t coming at you like a low-flying Boeing.

I’d personally love to do so, but being dumb doesn’t really help, either.

Ironically the UK government didn’t offer a sou to help save Eurostar financially a few months back, as Covid-19 basically killed the magic trains business under the Channel.

It looks like Europe will simply force the UK to add similar levies to flights between the UK and Europe, whether they like it or not. Even Boris playing a Joker won’t help fix this one.

These carbon permits are a joke anyway and need to be tightened up immensely in the years to come.

“Berlin this year imposed a national CO2 levy on suppliers of heating and transport fuels, set at an initial €25 (£21.50) a tonne. However, the plan to reform the EU-wide system and impose higher costs on heavy carbon users is facing pushback from some EU governments and lawmakers, who fear it could translate into higher household fuel bills.
“Brussels is under pressure to come up with a compensation scheme to ensure governments have enough resources to address the policy’s social impact – particularly on low-income households and people who rent their homes, Germany has said.”

Whenever you spot a mess on the horizon, inequality is often lurking in the background, waiting to make things worse.

Fun times ahead!

Virginia decides that another lane is not the answer: bring on the trains! →

June 16, 2021

A long and winding road of an article from the Washington post that I read so that you don’t have to:

“Ask Shannon Valentine how passenger rail rose to the top of Virginia’s transportation priority list and she will take you to the crawling traffic of Interstate 95.
“Gridlock has plagued the highway for decades, endangering the sanity of commuters while threatening the quality of life and economic growth of the region. The addition of high occupancy toll lanes in the past decade increased capacity, yet traffic jams persist.
“Valentine, Virginia’s transportation secretary, said widening is no longer an option for the corridor, which she said averages more than 350,000 people daily. One lane in each direction for 50 miles would cost $12.5 billion, she said, citing a study that looked at possible improvements to a highway that connects the state capital to the nation’s capital.”

Instead of directly explaining how they’ll loosen up this route with trains, the article then goes off on about 73 tangents about how passenger rail is on the way up in Virginia.

But first, where the heck is Virginia? Here is it:

Bumpy on the top, smooth on the bottom.

It stretches right to the edge of Washington DC and already has a few train routes in action, connecting up with the Washington hub in particular, which then connects to the North-East corridor where there are actually semi-high-speed trains running.

Some take-outs from the article:

In Virginia the push for rail is bipartisan. (Shock to the system)
“Virginia exemplifies Amtrak’s growth strategy of focusing on adding short-haul trips that compete with car rides and flights in urban corridors.” This is kind-of the strategy in Europe, with the bonus in Europe that countries are starting to ban short flights between A and B when there is a fast train between them.
“Trains are accessible to nearly 80 percent of Virginia’s population, up from just under 50 percent a decade ago.” I like this trend.

Good work Virginia!

[Cover photo: “An Amtrak train on the rusting Long Bridge crosses over the Mount Vernon Trail in Virginia.” (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)]

The heat is coming →

June 15, 2021

It’s 31°C today in Paris and 34°C is forecast tomorrow. That’s 88°F and 93°F and that’s plenty, thanks very much.

Meanwhile, in the US, a New York Times’ headline today was:

125°F is 52°C, by the way.

The closest I ever got to that was something like 45°C at a bus stop in southern Iran a few years back. Standing there, waiting for the bus, I could literally feel my body giving up. Thinking about actual survival was like a fuzzy buzz in my brain.

“A heat wave this week across the western United States, which is already facing the worst drought in two decades, will test electrical grids stressed by air-conditioning and endanger those unable to find relief.
“It reached 115 degrees in Phoenix on Monday, and temperatures are expected to continue climbing this week.”

Not good. Basically if you don’t have AC, it’s survival of the fittest.

“Parched regions that rely on air-conditioning may face power failures, which can be deadly in extreme heat or cold. More than 100 people died in Texas during a February storm that crippled the power grid as demand for heat increased at the same time as electrical plants went offline.
“The current heat wave is expected to be at its most intense and most widespread through Saturday, threatening to surpass the highest temperatures ever recorded in Arizona (128 degrees Fahrenheit) and Nevada (125). The world record of 134 degrees — which is now questioned — was set in Death Valley in California in 1913.”

The dirty truth: Bad shit like this has to happen to rich countries so that the upcoming hellacious nightmare starts to come more into focus for “everyday folk”.

Then maybe moves to fight back will switch into a higher gear.

Maybe.

[Cover photo: Smoke rising from a fire outside of Superior, Ariz., on Monday. The state is facing both wildfires and extreme heat. David Wallace/The Republic, via Imagn]

I'm not the only one to suggest new supersonic planes are this year's dumbest idea →

June 10, 2021

You may have spotted my post last week on a new company wanting to bring back supersonic planes.

Which is a dumb-fuck idea. Basically: moving faster requires more energy per km (one of the pesky laws of thermodynamics—can’t remember which one), and if that energy is jet fuel, there’s this stuff called Co2 being pumped out the back.

One of the world’s most famous environmentalists—Bill McKibben—also spotted this dumb-fuck idea for what it is. In fact, it’s the lead item in his New Yorker Climate Crisis column this week.

Given he uses the word ‘dumb-fuck’ slightly less than me (at least in print), some of his silky-smooth phrases are worth repeating here:

“An interesting question: Did the pandemic break something in the heedless momentum of human acceleration, or are we really going straight back to normal?
“An interesting test case: United Airlines’ announcement that it will buy fifteen supersonic jets, which would allow business travellers to fly from San Francisco to Tokyo in six hours, and take “day trips” across the Atlantic.
“Surely, we don’t want this. In part, of course, because it’s climate-insane. Supersonic planes, as Kate Aronoff points out, emit five to seven times as much carbon per passenger as conventional jetliners. United’s statement that the planes, which could be in operation by the end of the decade, will be “net zero from day one” is perhaps the best example yet of what an empty pledge “net zero” is turning out to be.”

Net zero lol.

As he notes, there was a related story this week suggesting that it was a good thing overall to have really rich people flying their private jets all around the world whenever they feel like it, I shit you not.

“By the way, if you want an example of creative greenwashing, here’s a piece making a case that more private jet travel may be “beneficial” for the climate. “Saying too loudly it’s better to have a few wealthy folks and their shiny jets instead of more widebody airliners arriving with budget travelers doesn’t necessarily go over well,” the author writes, adding that some companies have introduced “jet-sharing programs” so that “private fliers can carpool.”

Again on the general subject of getting airborne, travel by blimp looks like it’s going to become a thing, so that’s something at least to balance out the supersonic madness:

“More exciting than United’s supersonic order was the news that, as early as 2025, an outfit called Hybrid Air Vehicles may be offering regularly scheduled blimp service between cities such as Seattle and Vancouver, or Barcelona and Mallorca, or Liverpool and Belfast. According to the company, dirigible travel will emit ninety per cent less carbon dioxide per passenger mile than a standard airplane—and, by 2030, an all-electric version may eliminate emissions entirely. But I think the experience will be the thing: with no need for a runway (and no jet-engine noise), the blimps could land near the center of cities. And blimp passengers, instead of strapping themselves into a metal cylinder with tiny windows and enduring a cramped ride, will have huge windows to gaze out of and plenty of room to move around. Yes, there will be luxury options for the rich—that feature of our world won’t disappear. But these options do sound nice: a Swedish firm has already ordered a dirigible outfitted with deluxe cabins for trips over the North Pole. I’d save for years to do that once.”

I hope slow travel flourishes as a movement. For it to happen though, Americans need to get more holiday days.

Lol

Humanity fails to learn from 18 months of horror →

June 08, 2021

2020’s massive drop in Co2 emissions was way too good to last:

“Not even a global pandemic could stop carbon dioxide concentrations from spiking. They reached historic levels yet again in May 2021, the month that scientists compare CO2 concentrations from year to year.
“Planet-heating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged 419 parts per million this May, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That pileup of CO2 is comparable to where it was a little over 4 million years ago, when the average global temperature was about 7 degrees Fahrenheit hotter and sea levels were a whopping 78 feet higher than they are today.”

Give it time, jeez! We’re doing it so fast the laws of the land haven’t caught up yet.

“CO2 pollution dropped by about 6 percent in 2020 as people stayed home and businesses halted operations early on in the pandemic. But by the end of last year, pollution had already come roaring back. Global emissions from energy use in December 2020 were already slightly higher than they were one year earlier.
“2020 also marked five years since the adoption of the historic Paris climate agreement. Over the past year, governments faced pressure to ratchet up their commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions. The world’s current largest CO2 polluter, China, said it would stop releasing more emissions than it can capture or offset by 2060. US President Joe Biden aims to reach that goal by 2050. But so far, their aspirations have yet to be backed by ambitious enough actions to significantly slow down climbing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.”

If it takes until 2060 for China and 2050 for the US, the The Hunger Games or The Road will be looked back on fondly like chilled out days at the beach.

And don’t forget: Half the US target is based on ‘technologies that haven’t been invented yet’.

Lol.

If you’re looking for more giggles, here are some care of a report about biodiversity and the upcoming UN summit on the subject:

“The world is running out of time to reach an ambitious deal to stem the destruction of the natural world, the co-chair of negotiations for a crucial UN wildlife summit has warned, amid fears of a third delay to the talks.”

Save the remaining dregs of what remains of the ‘natural world’, they mean.

“Resource extraction, agricultural production and pollution are driving what some scientists believe is the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, with 1 million species at risk of disappearing largely as the result of human activity.”

They say ‘at risk’ without actually highlighting the fact that this is not some hypothetical future shitshow. It’s happening today. Go hang out in the bare remains of the Cambodian or Indonesian jungle, Brazil’s Amazon forest’s lingering bits and pieces, or even a field in the UK which the insects and birds have long fled (or been shot above), and then try pretending this is not already well underway.

“The world has never met a single UN target to prevent the destruction of nature.”

And this isn’t about to change.

Wish us luck, UFOs.

[Addendum: In this context, people bragging on Facebook about how awesome it is to again be able to fly halfway across the world to gawk at endangered ecosystems will be getting increasingly short shrift from me.]

In a surprise to no-one, foreign mining company in paradise didn't improve the life of locals →

June 07, 2021

From the Guardian:

“There is perhaps nowhere in the Pacific where the costs of extractive industries are as heartbreakingly clear as Rennell Island.
“The island, a tiny dot in the vast South Pacific that lies at the southern tip of Solomon Islands, is home to a few thousand people. And it’s starkly divided.
“On one side is pristine East Rennell, a Unesco world heritage site, which offers a glimpse of Rennell unspoiled. But in the last decade, West Rennell has suffered the triple assault of logging, bauxite mining, and a devastating oil spill from when a bulk carrier, hired by a mining company, ran aground on a reef.”

Here’s a picture of the protected side, just to set the scene:

At the other end of the island, you can do logging:

Or mine some bauxite (for aluminium, which makes my previous post on new batteries needing aluminium a little bit less alluring):

Or spill some oil:

Time to follow the money:

“While Solomon Islands government offers generous tax exemptions to mining companies operating on Rennell, companies do pay into government coffers. The governor of Solomon Islands’ central bank says that while exempt from paying export taxes, Bintang Mining Company, one of the major operators on the island, contributed SBD$142m (US$17.8m) in foreign exchange in 2020 and $131m (US$16.4m) in 2019.”
“But even current and former government officials have conceded that the way previous governments handled the process of land acquisition and granted leases for the bauxite mining industry did not abide by mining regulations and has harmed the community.
“Former prime minister Rick Houenipwela told SIBC last year: “Sadly, Solomon Islands have not benefited from the Rennell mining operations.”
“Amos Tuhaika, from Avatai Village, told the Guardian their forest, gardens and sea have been destroyed by extractive companies.”

Not so much as a peep in the article as to where those hundreds of millions of euros ended up.

As for that oil spill:

“According to a report by local and international experts into the spill, which was given to Solomon Islands government in 2019 and leaked to the ABC, the oil spill caused the direct loss of more than 10,000 square metres of reef and more than 4,000 square metres of lagoon habitat and economic losses of up to AU$50m. The report said the site could take up to 130 years to recover.”

Yippee! You lose your quality of life, your community cohesion, your environment is destroyed, and you have no more money than when you started.

Sounds like the locals got a perfect deal.

Inventing new planes that pollute more than todays planes is not humanity's finest moment →

June 04, 2021

Into the category, Human Stupidity at its Finest in the Face of Climate Disaster, slips this report from The Verge:

“United Airlines has agreed to purchase 15 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with an option to increase that order to 50 jets, the companies announced Thursday. That agreement, though, is still subject to change depending on the outcome of United’s safety testing and also Boom’s ability to deliver on its promises despite never having built or flown a full-scale supersonic jet before.”

I mean it in the nicest possible way, but: THIS SHIT HAS TO STOP ALREADY.

Jesus Fucking Christ, humans!

“Both companies claim the jets will be “net-zero carbon from day one [and] optimized to run on 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel.” But neither provided additional details about what kinds of fuel they would be using or how they would achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
“Environmental groups are worried that faster speeds will equal more pollution into the environment. The global aviation industry produces around 2 percent of all human-induced CO2 emissions, but supersonic jets are known to be far more polluting. Boom says it will be carbon-neutral as a goal, but simply put, it takes more fuel to go faster.”

You don’t have to be an environmentalist to know this claim is total bollocks from a supersonic mile away.

The fact that such madness can still be going ahead in 2021 suggests that part of humanity is truly not ready to face the writing on the wall.

Chilling.

Jaime Lerner and the amazing Brazilian city of Curitiba →

June 03, 2021

I’d never even heard of Jaime or Curitiba until getting Bill McKibben’s newsletter in my inbox today.

Revolutionary urban planning by Jaime—the city’s several-times Mayor and son of Polish immigrants from Lodz—turned the place into a poster child for making a city liveable: pedestrian malls (the first in Brazil!), functioning public transport, city parks, the whole shebang.

Please do read this fantastic article by Bill written back in 2005. It’s pretty inspiring.

The reason this gem popped up today was because Jaime Lerner died a few days ago, after dedicating his life since the late 60s to make Curitiba a better place to live.

“In a recent survey (from the 2005 article), 60 percent of New Yorkers wanted to leave their rich and cosmopolitan city; 99 percent of Curitibans told pollsters that they were happy with their town; and 70 percent of the residents of São Paulo said they thought life would be better in Curitiba.”

Dude.

A life to be proud of.

The world will start to hold New Zealand farmers to account soon. Then what? →

June 02, 2021

Very interesting article from Radio New Zealand:

“Climate Commissioner Rod Carr has told farmers to clean up their practices or risk international punishment. Dr Carr told hundreds of people - including farmers - at an agricultural climate change conference in Wellington today that for the agricultural sector there would be no way to wriggle out of slashing emissions.
“He said in the past there had been a mindset in the agricultural sector that it should get exemptions because it was such an export powerhouse, but New Zealand's trading partners were increasingly making decisions based on the climate impact of products.”

I hadn’t though about it this way before. But he’s right. And this will probably happen faster than we realise—this decade probably.

Countries like China (huge export client) will probably turn a blind eye, given that their priority is still getting their population up to middle-income and higher-income status—no matter what.

But countries with big visible environmental movements are probably going to realise sooner or later that exporting products from such far-flung parts of the world is simply not a good stop-climate-change technique.

Of course, there’s always the argument of cargo transport vs plane/train/truck transport that will save various NZ export industries for a while, I guess. An example of this ‘paradox’: there are less carbon emissions per bottle from shipping Australian wine to the UK via cargo ship than there are trucking Sicilian wine to the UK (by truck + ferry).

Australia has an uncomfortable relationship with greenhouse gas emissions →

May 31, 2021

From the Guardian:

“Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped last year to levels not seen in more than 30 years due mostly to the coronavirus pandemic that put a handbrake on fossil fuel burning in the transport sector and slowed economic activity.”

This sounds fantastic until the uncomfortable truth arises that most of this was directly due to the pandemic and not very structural (except for some good renewables development). Things were already going pear-shaped again by the end of 2020:

“In the final quarter of 2020, transport emissions – which includes road and rail movement as well as domestic air travel – rose by 11% on the previous three months, reflecting the easing of lockdown restrictions and increases in domestic air travel.”

And:

“But the energy department data says long-term trends for other high-emitting sectors are heading in the wrong direction.
“Since 1990, the department data shows the annual energy used mainly to produce goods in heavy industry has risen 52% and transport emissions have gone up 43%.
“The department said there was also likely to be a growth in emissions from agriculture in coming quarters as sheep and cattle stocks increased following an easing of drought conditions and crop production went up.”

One of the least intelligence things you can do with emissions in Australia is:

“Australia’s globally significant LNG export industry was increasing the emissions in the stationary energy sector. Burning gas in order to provide the energy needed to compress it into LNG for export was “putting a big kick up on Australia’s stationery energy emissions”, said Saddler.”

Burning gas to compress gas! Double trouble!

Another elephant in the room is that all of these calculations don’t even take into account emissions from Australia’s apocalyptic wildfires in the 2019-20 season.

Remember this?

Matthew Abbott / The New York Times via Redux Pictures

Those bushfires released more Co2 than Australia does in a year.

So this is all marketing BS basically, coming from the Australian Government as it tries to keep a straight face as it jogs away from the flames.

Perhaps the Australian Green Party’s leader sums up Scott Morrison and his government best:

“The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said Taylor’s “crowing about emissions reductions” relied on “a renewables transition he’s trying to slow, a Covid-related transport shift that he cannot prolong and a coal production drop that he’s trying to reverse

The Australian government is so far up the bum of the Australian fossil fuel industry, not much is going to change until Australians decide they’ve seen enough photos of charred Koalas. Clearly this point has not yet been reached.

Community investment in new European night train company just went live!

May 27, 2021

As I write, community investment in a new Dutch-run European night train company called European Sleeper has just opened.

Here is a link to their website for more information.

The train will go from Brussels to Amsterdam to Prague, and vice versa.

One positive thing to note is that the project is in association with the private Czech bus and train operator RejioJet who reinvented pleasant bus rides (Student Agency) in the Czech Republic 15 years ago, with free water, comfortable seats,and functioning toilets. This is probably a good move.

In the time it took me to write these few lines, the initial offer sold out!

In less than twelve minutes.

[PS: this post is not investment advice, just a heads up!]

The ongoing battery revolution →

May 26, 2021

From Forbes:

“Range anxiety, recycling and fast-charging fears could all be consigned to electric-vehicle history with a nanotech-driven Australian battery invention.
“The graphene aluminum-ion battery cells from the Brisbane-based Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) are claimed to charge up to 60 times faster than the best lithium-ion cells and hold three time the energy of the best aluminum-based cells.
“They are also safer, with no upper Ampere limit to cause spontaneous overheating, more sustainable and easier to recycle, thanks to their stable base materials. Testing also shows the coin-cell validation batteries also last three times longer than lithium-ion versions.
“GMG plans to bring graphene aluminum-ion coin cells to market late this year or early next year, with automotive pouch cells planned to roll out in early 2024.”

So, no lithium mining at least.

“The new cell technology, Nicol insisted, could also be industrialized to fit inside current lithium-ion housings, like the Volkswagen Group’s MEB archicture, heading off problems with car-industry architectures that tend to be used for up to 20 years.
“Ours will be the same shape and voltage as the current lithium-ion cells, or we can move to whatever shape is necessary,” Nicol confirmed.
“It’s a direct replacement that charges so fast it’s basically a super capacitor.”

So instead you need aluminium (bauxite mining or recycling) and graphene (graphite mining or recycling). Nevertheless, aluminium can be recycled easily and basically indefinitely.

Today’s fun fact: you can also upcycle plastic to graphene! It’s beyond my pay scale as to how it’s done, but that’s pretty amazing.

Even lithium is moving into larger-scale recycling now too.

The scale, cost, and energy requirements of battery recycling is one of the next frontiers in helping rich people in rich countries avoid having to make tough personal choices in order to limit their Co2 emissions. You can interpret that as you like.

[Cover photo care of GMG]

The future of tourism in New Zealand →

May 25, 2021

From the Guardian:

“The days of allowing tourist hordes to some of New Zealand’s best-known natural attractions are over, the government has signalled, as it unveiled new plans to protect the environment and reconsider the role of tourism in its economy.
“The tourism minister, Stuart Nash, outlined on Tuesday plans to “reset” tourism for a post-Covid world – planning for fewer international visitors and attempting to diversify the economies of tourism-dependent towns.
“Some of the country’s best-known natural attractions, such as Unesco world heritage site Milford Sound-Piopiotahi, will be transformed to take far fewer visitors. The dramatic slopes, still waters, and frolicking fur seals of Milford Sound-Piopiotahi have attracted millions of visitors.”

Which is quite a lot for essentially pristine wilderness in the middle of nowhere.

“But the site “cannot return to its pre-Covid state”, Nash said. Previously, it had been under “significant pressure” from 870,000 annual visitors – a deluge of people that Nash said undermined the infrastructure and cultural and environmental values of the place.”

As it turns out, this is exactly the subject of my photography exhibition on Milford Sound and international tourism on at the Auckland Photography Festival starting next week. More details here.

The elephant in the room:

“Tourism is a major part of New Zealand’s economy. According to Tourism Industry Aotearoa, it is the country’s biggest export industry, making up about 20% of total exports. Tourism spend makes up a large chunk of the country’s overall economy, accounting for more than 5% of GDP, and directly or indirectly employing 13.6% of the national workforce.”

It will be interesting to see how the various interest groups in New Zealand society come to some sort of compromise on this, going forward.

The NZ government is putting at least some money where its mouth is:

“Nash outlined more concrete plans for the government’s new vision, including a $200m package, more than half of which will go to struggling South Island towns hit hard by the border closure. As well as supporting some businesses to reopen when visitors return, large chunks of the funding would be devoted to helping businesses and communities to break their dependency on international tourists. Twenty million dollars would go to the popular Queenstown Wanaka region, “to help develop alternative industries”. Another $15m would go to the “transformation [which] is needed to protect Milford Sound-Piopiotahi”.

Concrete plans are good.

Tough decisions to make for America's National Park Service →

May 19, 2021

From the New York Times:

“For more than a century, the core mission of the National Park Service has been preserving the natural heritage of the United States. But now, as the planet warms, transforming ecosystems, the agency is conceding that its traditional goal of absolute conservation is no longer viable in many cases.
“Late last month the service published an 80-page document that lays out new guidance for park managers in the era of climate change. The document, along with two peer-reviewed papers, is essentially a tool kit for the new world. It aims to help park ecologists and managers confront the fact that, increasingly, they must now actively choose what to save, what to shepherd through radical environmental transformation and what will vanish forever.”

Part of the crazy back-story is that this report was semi-secretly put together during the “Trump clusterfuck-for-the-planet” administration:

“The team behind the report kept a low profile during the Trump Administration, when the Park Service was at the center of frequent political battles. In 2018, for example, managers tried to delete humanity’s role in climate change from a report on sea-level rise. The day before President Biden’s inauguration, they began publishing their papers, which were years in the making.”

Best managers ever lol.

“Decisions about what to protect are especially imminent for forests, where changes are leading some researchers to wonder if the age of North American woodlands is coming to an end.
“In the United States Southwest, for example, research suggests that, in the event of wildfires, up to 30 percent of forestland might never grow back because global warming favors shrubs or grasslands in their ranges. Joshua trees appear likely to lose all of their habitat in their namesake national park by the end of the century.”

In Acadia national park:

“The models show that of the 10 most common tree species in the park, nine of them are predicted to lose habitat over the next 80 years, either declining a lot or disappearing entirely,” Dr. Miller-Rushing said. That includes red spruce, which make up 40 percent of the trees in the park. If those disappear, much of the forest floor would suddenly open to the invasive shrubs, which would fill the open space faster than any manual effort could stop them.
“Right now, park managers are still finding new red spruce saplings around the park, which is a good sign. But things could change very quickly — much sooner than 80 years from now. “That decline could be rapid,” Dr. Miller-Rushing said. Red spruce is very sensitive to drought. “You could imagine a scenario where we get a drought combined with an insect pest or pathogen. That could knock back the spruce really quickly.”
“It’s already happened to the red pine. Almost every one of the species in the park has been wiped out over the past 6 years by a single invasive insect, the red pine scale. “That’s likely how a lot of these transitions will happen,” Dr. Miller-Rushing said. “Not slow, but fast.”

And to think that all of this is a simple consequence of humans pumping too much Co2 and methane into the air over a tiny 100-year stretch in the Earth’s 4.5 billion year-long lifetime.

Surreal.

[Cover photo: Abraham Miller-Rushing, the science coordinator at Acadia. John Tully for The New York Times]

Australia Just Broke a Major Record For New Solar Panel Roof Installations →

May 18, 2021

From Science Alert:

“Australia, one of the world-leaders in household rooftop solar panel uptake, has once again broken its own record for the number of solar panels installed in a year. In 2020, installations were up nearly 30 percent from the year before, according to an analysis from Australia's national science agency, CSIRO.
“It shows that while their federal government leaders are lagging behind on climate action, everyday Australians are doubling down on renewable energy, installing more rooftop solar panels than ever before and beefing up the size of their rooftop arrays.
"Sustained low technology costs, increased work from home arrangements and a shift in household spending to home improvements during COVID-19 played a key role in the increase of rooftop solar PV systems under the SRES," said Clean Energy Regulator senior executive Mark Williamson, referring to a national scheme in Australia that allows homeowners and small businesses to recoup some of the costs of putting the panels on their roofs.”

Good work, Australians! You’re not short of sunshine, that’s for sure.

“At the year's end, Australia had a total of over 2.68 million rooftop solar systems on homes – which means one in four households are now soaking up sunlight and converting it to electricity.”

That’s pretty good, mate.

“Australia might be building new renewable energy infrastructure, including large solar arrays and wind farms, at a per capita rate ten times faster than the global average, in recent years. But it still trails behind other countries in the total amount of energy it generates from renewables.
"Denmark is generating about two-thirds of its electricity from renewables – non-hydro renewables – and it has a population a fifth of Australia, so their per capita annual generation is many times that of Australia, and similarly for Scotland," renewable energy expert Mark Diesendorf from UNSW Sydney told the Australian Associated Press in early 2021.
“All the while, solar cell scientists have been testing new-fangled configurations with materials other than silicon that can capture more parts of the light spectrum and could be used to build more efficient solar cells – and they're smashing record after record, too.”

Solar is kicking ass right now.

[Cover photo: BIM/E+/Getty Images]