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Dave Levitan
@davelevitan
, 4 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
This new study found that direct air carbon capture and storage—basically, machines that pull CO2 out of the air—deployed at a scale capable of helping us reach 1.5 or 2 degree targets would use MORE THAN HALF of today’s total electricity production.

nature.com/articles/s4146…
It also warns that if we plan for DACCS as part of our general climate change mitigation strategy, but FAIL to deploy it at scale, it could result in a dramatic overshoot of global temperatures by almost a full degree. Which doesn’t seem great.
Still, the study did find that DACCS could actually help substantially if we really did scale it up. I’m uh, not holding my breath.
The study’s model runs found that if we DON’T use direct capture of CO2, instead using only BECCS (burning biomass for energy and storing the emitted carbon) and planting a shit-ton (technical term) of trees, we would need 50% renewable energy by 2030 to have a shot at 1.5°.
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More from @davelevitan see all

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Dave Levitan
@davelevitan
This study out yesterday that found no evidence for racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings is… interesting.

I have a feeling it’s gonna be used as a cudgel when the next shooting happens. But it might not say what some want it to say.

pnas.org/content/early/…
The researchers used characteristics of the officer involved, the county it took place in, and other factors to PREDICT the race of the person who was shot. This is different than “benchmarking” studies that ask if the number of people shot is more or less than we would expect.
Their predictions revealed essentially no racial disparities. The biggest predictor of race of the victim was “race-specific county level violent crime.”
Read 9 tweets
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Dave Levitan
@davelevitan
For… reasons… I am reading a 1983 EPA report titled “Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming?” and it is inCREDible.

Stunning consistency since then: “Current estimates suggest that a 2 degrees C increase could occur by the middle of the next century… 5 degrees C increase by 2100”
“political institutions stressed"
WHERE HAVE I HEARD ALL THIS BEFORE

“Many have dismissed it as too speculative or too distant to be of concern. Some assume that technological options will emerge to prevent a warming or, at worst, to ameliorate harmful consequences."
Read 23 tweets
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Dave Levitan
@davelevitan
Hey sure, I’ll join the pile-on as I read Gladwell’s big pot story (newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…). I’m two paragraphs in and I already went to the report he’s citing and found some bullshit.

Here’s what he writes versus one thing the report says:
Yes, he’s right that they say INHALED cannabis has limited data on this. But oral cannabinoids have an abundance of evidence, and they do in fact help a lot of people with nausea and vomiting. You have to say both things. Gladwell only said one of them, and sort of hid the other.
This piece is just rife with a combination of anecdote and relative stats without the absolute numbers. Oh, the incidence of schizophrenia has doubled since 1993 in “the northern part of Finland?” You mean this country, where almost all of its 5 million people live in the south?
Read 21 tweets

Related threads

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Mark Lynas
@mark_lynas
New Nature paper out today
nature.com/articles/s4158…
states very clearly what is needed if governments are serious about limiting global heating to 1.5C, as agreed at Paris.

Spoiler: No new fossil fuelled infrastructure, anywhere, ever. From now on.

Read thread for details...
Existing infrastructure - if operated until the end of its lifetime - commits us to 658 billion tonnes (Gt) CO2 future emissions. That's -

358 Gt from electricity (mainly power plants)
162 from industry
64 from transport, mostly on-road vehicles
But there's more: over 1,000 GW of fossil-fuelled power plants are planned, permitted or in construction. (20% in China).

That gives us another 188 Gt committed future CO2 emissions.

TOTAL: 846 Gt "if all proposed plants built and all infrastructure operated".
Read 11 tweets
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Robin Monotti Graziadei
@robinmonotti
"Carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, is being actively used in only a few places around the world. There's a reason for that: It's very expensive.": That's why they want to mobilize the public to pay for it rather than the energy corporations
eenews.net/stories/67718
"The process routinely saps 30 percent of a plant's power, resulting in the uncomfortable conundrum of having to burn more coal to clean coal-dirtied discharge. It also drives up the cost of electricity.": they want the public to pay more for their bills & use more coal too.
Rebelling for "Net" zero means rebelling to pay more for your electricity:

"Carbon capture & storage "could still hike the cost of electricity for consumers by 30 percent."

#ExtinctionObedience
Read 8 tweets
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Murray Worthy
@murraygw
NEW: We found that all of the $4.9 trillion the oil and gas industry is set to spend on production from new fields is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C - the ambition of the Paris agreement.

Here's a 📈thread ⬇️
We mapped how forecast oil production from existing and new fields compares to the 1.5C pathways, using the @IPCC_CH 1.5C scenarios and data from @RystadEnergy.

As you can see, oil production from existing fields exceeds the 1.5°C pathway - so new oil ≠ compatible. 1/7
And it's the same story for gas - production from existing fields exceeds the 1.5°C pathway until 2032.

So new gas isn't compatible with 1.5°C, at least for the next decade.

Which is a blow for the oil industry's claims that gas is the answer to climate change. 2/7
Read 8 tweets
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alison 🌈
@alisonborealis
Ok, pals, let's do a live read of this @EcofiscalCanada piece on carbon pricing.


#CarbonPricing
As @EcofiscalCanada says "costs of delaying meaningful action are increasingly evident, and the window for action to avoid the worst of these impacts is closing."

Costs of delay include:
- climate change impacts
- drastic policy shifts vs previous slow phase-in

#CarbonPricing
Costs of delay mean we have to act faster and more aggressively when we do act.

It's not cutting emissions by X% of baseline by 2030 with 30 years of lead time, it's 10 years of lead time.

Which means faster, deeper, more expensive changes we can't save up for.
#CarbonPricing
Read 85 tweets
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CCC
@theCCCuk
*New thread* Today we've published two new reports on UK #land use & #biomass setting out why they're important in tackling climate change & how our land can help to build resilience to climate impacts. Here's a summary of both: theccc.org.uk/wp-content/upl… and theccc.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
Kicking off with land use: Our report says fundamental reform to how land is used and managed is needed to deliver the UK’s climate goals. There is now a unique opportunity to define a better land strategy that can tackle the challenges of #climatechange. Read the Exec Summary.
Significant changes in land use could help reduce emissions by 35-80% by 2050. Figure 2.5 explains. Deeper cuts in emissions by 2050 require ↑↑ tree planting & peatland restoration, while the harvesting of biomass could help to displace emissions in energy & construction.
Read 12 tweets
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The Royal Society
@royalsociety
The UK could be #CarbonNeutral by 2050, meeting its #ParisAgreement targets, according to a new report from The Royal Society and @RAEngNews. Here are 8 technologies and approaches that could be vital (a thread) royalsociety.org/greenhouse-gas…
Forestation – whether it’s replacing lost trees or creating new forests, this technique means more trees. Better management could remove as much as 12 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
Habitat restoration – 80% of the UK’s wetlands, peatlands & coastal habitats are considered to be in poor condition. Restoring these could prevent previously trapped carbon from escaping, & store up to 18 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare per year royalsociety.org/topics-policy/…
Read 10 tweets

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