Thread by @KHayhoe

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the South-Central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource’s Clean Energy Exchange. It ticked all my boxes--Texas + efficiency + clean energy + new tech + leading by example--yea! Highlights here (thread) cc @EEpartnership

https://twitter.com/EEpartnership/status/1115652345428418560

First, I asked everyone there to describe what they do in a word or two - always a great idea so you know who's in the room! Here's what they said:

Then, I opened with something you might not expect a climate scientist to talk about - how I'm truly grateful for the benefits of energy, and for the fossil fuels that have supplied most of our energy over the last two centuries and beyond.

Many still see fossil fuels as the answer to our big concerns like poverty, hunger, education, safety, lack of access to clean water, and more: because that's what helped us, so surely it's the best way for others too. But ...

By 2016, 20.5% of total final energy consumption (not just electricity) was clean energy—incl modern renewables, hydro, biomass, nuclear. In 2017, renewables made up 70% of net additions to global power capacity (55% solar PV, 29% wind, 11% hydro). Source: ren21.net/status-of-rene…

Today, telling people "they have to do it like we did 100 years ago" is like telling people they need to be investing in horse farms when Henry Ford is already turning out the Model T. Let's just say, my g-gma did not miss her buggy when she replaced it with a car 15 yrs later.

Fossil fuels also carry other costs: air pollution during combustion; soil & water pollution during extraction; and secondary impacts from volatile oil costs. See:
usnews.com/news/national-…
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23661893
thelancet.com/journals/lance…

Then there's climate change - the fact that by digging up and burning fossil fuels, we're wrapping an extra blanket around our planet that it does not need, and that's the main reason why the earth is running a fever. Watch: facebook.com/earth/videos/1…

Wherever we live, we're already naturally at risk from climate and weather disasters: heatwaves, drought, flood, hurricane, blizzard, wildfire and more. This @NOAA site tracks the number of $1B+ events since 1980 ... and TX is number one. Source: ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/mappi…

Today, climate change is "loading the weather dice" against us: making extreme heat more common, heavy rainfall more intense, hurricanes stronger, wildfires burn greater area. Source: science2017.globalchange.gov and nca2018.globalchange.gov

These risks are further exacerbated by the fact that our exposure is increasing as population + infrastructure grows, and our infrastructure decays. Last year, the @ASCE gave much of US infrastructure a failing grade. See: infrastructurereportcard.org

When it comes to climate change, as John Holdren said, we have three choices: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. We're going to do some of each; but the faster we reduce our emissions, the less we will have to adapt to, and the less suffering there will be.

It's true that when it comes to cutting our carbon emissions, Texas has a long way to go. But we have a lot of wind, and even the economics is tipping in this direction. Sources: awea.org/resources/fact… and news.utexas.edu/2018/10/25/ene… the latter thanks to @MichaelEWebber

We still need energy, today more than ever. And we also need to get to net zero carbon ems as soon as possible too. There’s no silver bullet but there’s a lot of silver buckshot: efficiency, new tech, old tech (biochar!), lifestyle changes + more. Watch: ted.com/talks/chad_fri…

So in conclusion, I used @polleverywhere to ask a roomful of people who think about energy every day, what gives you hope? And this is the answer I got 😊 So if you feel kind of down today, let me know - what would your answer be? And, share!