Never has so much been at stake. Scientists have told us unconditionally that we have 10 years to cut fossil-fuel emissions in half before we hit the tipping point, when the collapse of the planet's ecosystems will be beyond our control. If Joe Biden doesn't win, it will be almost impossible to accomplish this.
But, even if Biden wins, we will need to fill the streets, make calls, recruit friends and colleagues to make him do the right thing. And, to insure he wins, we need to work like hell and get everyone to vote.
Climate SchoolAn important -- and well-documented -- new study from Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy quantifies what the plummeting cost of solar and wind power could mean for America. If we adopted policies for a rapid build -- out of renewable energy, it could supply 90 percent of our electricity carbon free by 2035, and that electricity would cost customers less than it costs them today. "Previous studies concluded either we need to wait until 2050 to decarbonize, or the bills will go up if you decarbonize," Amol Phadke, a co-author of the study, told reporters. "I think we really need to revisit these conclusions, because of the dramatic decline in costs."
An equally important new study from Carbon Tracker Initiative spells out what moves like that would mean for the fossil-fuel industry: the value of coal, gas, and oil reserves will drop by nearly two-thirds. Which means, of course, that the industry will also see its political power to block change reduced. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Another straw in the wind: In a report for the European N.G.O. Finance Watch, Thierry Philipponnat, a French financial regulator who serves as a European Union expert on sustainable investment, recommends making banks set aside more capital when they're making loans to the fossil-fuel industry, to take into account the risk that all that gas and coal and oil will end up stranded underground. According to his proposal, as the Financial Times explains, "the risk weighting for bank exposures to new fossil-fuel reserves would be increased from 100 percent to 1,250 percent." This would essentially make it impossible for banks to lend to projects expanding the fossil-fuel system. These are the kinds of numbers that change the shape of the future.
Now that unemployment is running so high, especially among young people and African-American and Latinx adults, here's a fairly detailed proposal for a Civilian Climate Corps, which is centered on community colleges and is designed to reduce not just temperatures but inequality.
If you're interested in climate and weather, one of the great teachers is Jeff Masters, the co-founder of the Weather Underground Website. The blog he started there, Category 6, has long been the most vital part of it, particularly during hurricane season. But for hard-to-imagine reasons, the owners of the enterprise are deep-sixing it. Happily, Masters and his colleague Bob Henson seem to be nimbly shifting the operation over to Yale Climate Connections.
ScoreboardIt's been incredibly hot in Siberia all spring -- hot enough that rapidly thawing permafrost destabilized an oil-storage tank, resulting in one of the largest spills in the region's recent history.
Climate change is made scarier when it interacts with other forces: David Helvarg offers a grim preview of what may be an above-average hurricane season, with all potential evacuations and shelter-in-place orders having to take place amid coronavirus fears. If you think there's anything abstract about all that, read Gaurab Basu and Samir Chaudhuri's account of Cyclone Amphan crashing in from the Bay of Bengal last month. The overlapping effects on people's lungs of wildfire smoke and COVID-19 could also make for an uncomfortable summer out West.
Three major insurance companies said that, going forward, they will no longer underwrite the giant Adani coal mine planned for Australia.
Warming UpNot music this week, but poetry in "Writers on Earth": a collection of stories and verse from young writers around the globe, confronting the fact that the planet they're inheriting is in grave danger. Here is an excerpt of a poem by Vani Dadoo, age 16, from India:
In my city
If you stand on the beach and see the sun drowning in the sea
and behind you there is a row of commercial buildings
you'd agree
that the dying, red sunlight seems to be gilding
the glass windows and the metal girders.
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