climate change

The loss of his house hadn’t been confirmed at the time of the interview, but Gibson said his son had just sent him “a video of my neighbourhood, and it’s in flames. It looks like an inferno.” According to World Weather Attribution, January’s fires in California were made significantly more likely by climate breakdown. Factors such as the extreme lack of rainfall and stronger winds made such fires both more likely to happen and more intense than they would have been without human-caused global heating.

No. There are two causes of the increase in fires in Medierranean ecospheres – which California is.

One is the absence of goats. Not something that really applies in ericher areas of CA to be fair but the base reason is still applicable. Not clearing the brush. That increases the fire load, obviously. The other is that climate change should – if the predictions are correct – increase winter rains in such areas. Whci increases the growth of said brush whioch then dries back to tinder in summer. Increasing the fire load.

It’s *not* to do with higher summer temperatures for summer temperatures are always high enough to allow fires. These environments are, in fact, built – OK, adapted – to burn occasionally. Not allowing them to burn occasionally, or, not allowing and also not clearing the brush, increases the damage when they do.

And, yes, CA has been preventing people from clearling brush for a long, long, time now. On, you know, environmental grounds?

And that tool is cheap energy from the sun and the wind and the batteries to store that power when the sun goes down or the wind drops.

But *it doesn’t work*.

Batteries to carry an entire civilisation through a three week dunkelflaute just do not work as an economic proposition. Therefore this idea does not work.

Sigh.

It’s far, far, too political:

I had been dreading the treaty anniversary as an occasion to note that we have not done nearly enough, but in July I thought we might be able celebrate it. Because, on 23 July, the international court of justice handed down an epochal ruling that gives that treaty enforceable consequences it never had before. It declares that all nations have a legal obligation to act in response to the climate crisis, and, as Greenpeace International put it, “obligates states to regulate businesses on the harm caused by their emissions regardless of where the harm takes place. Significantly, the court found that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is fundamental for all other human rights, and that intergenerational equity should guide the interpretation of all climate obligations.” The Paris treaty was cited repeatedly as groundwork for this decision.

This puts into the law what Greenpeace thinks is clean, healthy and sustainable. Not what actually is. Thererfore the court that did this needs to be destroyed. Because it’s put the nutters in charge, that’s why.

This flawed deal might have been all that was possible, given the geopolitical headwinds – a US president who shunned the talks and is wedded to oil and coal, the rising tide of rightwing populism, conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, intolerable levels of inequality, and global economic uncertainty.

Inequality has to be in there, somewhere, right? But how does this lead to climate change?

Further, given that inequality is falling – and on a global level, falling fast – that would be a good thing, no?

The world is still on track for a catastrophic 2.6C increase in temperature as countries have not made sufficiently strong climate pledges, while emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high, two major reports have found.

Even – even – they are saying disaster has been averted and we can all calm down now. Which is good, no?

That this always was the correct answer is another thing…..

Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief

Because “tackling” always does seem to mean ship tonnes and tonnes of money to the poor thieves out there in poor world governments.

Brazil’s André Corrêa do Lago says countries should follow China’s lead on clean energy as conference begins

So that would be keep building coal plants?

That this is the Guardian’s lead story on the main page – yet another jamboree on the same damn subject really isn’t that now, is it?

But the true reach of fossil fuel tentacles is undoubtedly deeper as the lobbyists data

In a report about how fossil fuel companies send people to COPs etc.

“Tentacles” is just one of those words not to use, not unless you’re talking about how to cook Octopus.

Warming oceans probably fueling Hurricane Melissa’s rapid intensification
Climate scientists have long warned that warming oceans are making explosive storm development more common

But just one of those things. I’d have a great deal more faith in them all – and the Guardian etc – if they’d been running articles on “Where did the hurricanes go this year?”

We are – substantially – below average in hte number of ’em in 2025. But we get a piece about how climate change is making this one faster to develop – and yet not anything about how few there are.

You know, almost as if they’re being biased? As if you could believe such a thing.

So we killed off our coal use. At some significant cost too. In order to show the world how it should be done:

Coal use hit a record high around the world last year despite efforts to switch to clean energy, imperilling the world’s attempts to rein in global heating.

The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall,

Oh.

Trees store carbon as they grow and release it when they decay and die. Overall, tropical forests are thought to be carbon sinks – absorbing more CO2 than they release – and uptake is assumed to increase amid rising atmospheric concentration.

But nearly 50 years of data collected from tropical forests across Queensland has revealed this crucial carbon sink could be under threat.

About 25 years ago, tree trunks and branches in those forests became a net emitter, with more trees dying and insufficient new growth, according to the research.

In fact I’m sure we – collectively – knew this. Forsts are carbon sinks as they grow or expand and sources if they retreat or shrink.

How else does anyone think it’s all going to work?

And the vast expansion of boreal, chapparal and other forests as humanity retreats from the wild is therefore having what effect? It being, as with Net Zero, the nett effect that matters, right?

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) pump out nearly five times more planet-heating pollution than official figures show, a report has found.

The cars, which can run on electric batteries as well as combustion engines, have been promoted by European carmakers as a way to cover long distances in a single drive – unlike fully electric cars – while still reducing emissions.

Data shows PHEVs emit just 19% less CO2 than petrol and diesel cars, an analysis by the non-profit advocacy group Transport and Environment found on Thursday. Under laboratory tests, they were assumed to be 75% less polluting.

I wouldn’t trust a test by T&E. Not just wouldn’t but don’t. Should I be that way is another matter…..

The actual finding is that the ICE motors are used more often than assumed. So, BAD! But then I’d ponder, if the ICE motors are used a lot then that shows that hybrids, with ICEs, are important, no?

The people you hope would be best informed about the imminent threat of climate breakdown would be members of parliament. After all, droughts and storms affecting their constituents have been a recurring news item. The need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires an informed debate among parties.

As ever, the actual lesson of the Stern Review is not to have an emissions target. Rather, it’s to hve an emissions *price* and therefore we’ll have the correct amount of emissions.

Now, if someone would like to beat that into MPs be my guest…..

The majority of British households expect to restrict their home heating this winter to try to keep rising costs in check, according to research released as the price cap that dictates most bills rose again.

The fuel poverty charity National Energy Action said 58% of households told its survey they were likely to trim their energy use, a nine-percentage-point increase from the level in January.

Such a terrible surprise to some that budget constraints exist, that there really are opportunity costs.

Everyone, always faces budget constraints because there are always opportunity costs. Whatever energy prices – or whatever whisky prices – there’s always a trade off between how much heating, how much whisky one can have.

Tradeoffs apply to everyone. Elon Musk doesn’t have to worry about whisky or heating, true, but even he cannot buy both Wyoming and Luxembourg, a choice – a trade off because budget constraint – has to be made.

Three and a half years after war plunged Europe into an energy supply crisis, millions of households in Great Britain are braced for another winter of painful gas and electricity bills.

On Wednesday, the quarterly cap on charges will increase again. Despite a fall in wholesale gas prices, the ceiling for a typical annual dual-fuel bill will rise by 2% to £1,755 to help cover the costs of energy policies and network upgrades.

If gas is down and energy is up then it’s not the gas price driving energy, is it?

Biomethane not viable for widespread use in UK home heating, report finds

OK.

Gas derived from farm waste will never be an alternative to the widespread adoption of heat pumps, research shows, despite the claims of fossil fuel lobbyists.

And that’s the real claim here. Biomethane will never heat everyone so instead everyone must have electric fired heat pumps.

Because planners are never, ever, going to allow a mix and match according to circumstance and taste now, are they? Why, that would be a market and we know what planners think of those.

Labour is in a fight against “global network of rightwing billionaires” who want to undermine net zero for their “vested interests”, Ed Miliband has said.

The only reason my plans aren’t working is because the billionaires have it in for me.

He is set to announce a target of creating 400,000 new jobs in clean energy, doubling jobs in the sector by 2030

How super! Doubling the labour cost of the sector.

On Wednesday he will pledge to create a “fair worker charter”, which will mean that companies which receive public funding will have to guarantee fair pay, flexible working and access to unionisation.

The final rules could include enhanced pay, bonuses and sick leave, flexible working and contracts, as well as new access for unions, new rights for offshore workers and workers on the boards of publicly owned bodies such as Great British Energy.

That’s very fun as well. Who will be the first to say, on sight of the government chequebook, “‘N’ you can fuck off ‘n’ all”?

Smoke billowing from wildfires will cause a growing number of deaths around the world in the decades ahead as the planet continues to heat up, new research has found.

Wildfire smoke is expected to kill as many as 1.4 million people globally each year by the end of the century if planet-heating emissions are not curbed, according to a study published on Thursday.

On the other hand, if we provide everyone with a gas oven – so they’re not using solid fuels on open fires to cook indoors – then we’ll save more than 1.4 million lives a year.

So, swings and roundabouts, really…develop or don’t?

More than 40% of private renters in England and Wales were forced to ration their gas and electricity use last winter to afford their energy bills, according to Citizens Advice.

Energy must become more expensive in order to save Gaia. Thought everyone knew that?

Building the export cables for Norwegian hydro:

Conspiracy theories now flourish. In August, a film by ski coach and influencer Sindre Wiig Nordby alleged that the cables were built deliberately to make prices high enough for wind power to become profitable without subsidies. However far-fetched that claim may be, it reflects a deep erosion of trust.

But how far-fetched is it?

The extreme weather that fuelled “astonishing” blazes across Spain and Portugal last month was made 40 times more likely by climate breakdown, early analysis suggests.

The deadly wildfires, which torched 500,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of the Iberian peninsula in a matter of weeks, were also 30% more intense than scientists would have expected in a world without climate change, according to researchers from the World Weather Attribution network.

I live out in the middle of all of this – yes, a few local fires this summer – and they’re spouting toss. It’s alays warm enough to burn here. The native vegetation is built to do so even. One of th reasons for cork – the very thick bark of the cork oak – is to enable them to survive such frequent fires.

Changes in land use have compounded the rising regional risk of untamed infernos. Several hot Mediterranean countries have struggled to deal with the effects of rural abandonment and ageing populations, as young people moving to cities have left behind unmanaged farmland with overgrown vegetation that can easily burn.

That, however, is true. It’s the absence of goats.

Lying tossers.