US DOE has blocked reports for more than 40 clean energy studies. “There are dozens of reports that can’t be published,” said Stephen Capanna, former director of strategic analysis who quit in frustration in April 2019. h/t @dan_kammen cc @SolomonG_Rinvw.org/2020/10/26/tru…
.. while claiming that energy efficiency - a powerhouse win-win solution which could reduce US carbon emissions a whopping 50% and save $700B - is all about making people's windows tiny (?!) aceee.org/sites/default/…
... and that wind energy, which supplies 20% of Texas' electricity, is a bird killer. Well sure...but compared to fossil fuels, windows, and cats? It's quite literally microscopic; plus there's lots of cool new tech to reduce wind bird deaths further. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
If the current US administration has any goal, it appears to be to return the country to the good old days of being a second-world country ... while the rest of the world, led by China and India, surges ahead into the future.
By the way, the above photo is my great-grandma Lucy. My great-grandpa was a strong advocate for technology so just 10 years later this was their family photo (and we have plenty of home movies from those days as well - how amazing is that?). Which is exactly my point.
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Press release from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy claims science + tech highlights of Trump's first term include "ending the covid-19 pandemic" and "taking action to understand and protect the environment." politico.com/news/2020/10/2…
The truth? The Trump administration has or is in the process of rolling back over 100 pieces of legislation that protect the "clean air, clean water, and resilient environment" the press release claims to have protected. Source: statista.com/chart/18268/en…
The Trump administration also deliberately misrepresented the findings of the National Climate Assessment and just this fall hired new appointees who explicitly reject the science to "consult" on the NCA process in the future.
Mrs. Eunice Newton Foote (1819-1888) was a women's rights advocate & pioneering scientist. In 2020, @EarthSci_Info + @Roland_Jackson reanalyzed the data from her groundbreaking 1856 study to show you could estimate a climate sensitivity of 2-3C from it! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…
Climate sensitivity is the equilibrium change in global mean temperature resulting from a doubling of CO2 relative to pre-industrial levels. It's usually represented as a probability distribution with a mean value around 2.4-4.7. Here is a recent review: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/…
Why don't we know the value for sure? Because we've never seen this much carbon going into the atmosphere this fast with these precise initial conditions. We are conducting a truly unprecedented experiment with our planet. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…
What does a scientist's life look like? Follow #dayofscience and check out @science_a_thon for dozens of fun examples! Here's my day, below.
My #dayofscience began in France...virtually, that is! I'm on the scientific advisory board for @ENGIEgroup who's aiming to be the first carbon-neutral energy company. We met in person last year (below) but this year was a virtual MS Team mtg with colleagues from around the world
Next, I headed over to Ohio to talk to the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission about mitigation and climate resilience. It was a hybrid event with the host being live and me online. Lots of questions + great discussion!
However, overwhelming people with scary facts - while it may jolt the complacent out of their complacency - will only have a long-term positive result if the person receiving the information already knows what they can do to fix it and is empowered to act. And most people don't.
Instead, when we talk about climate change, two most important things to focus on are: (1) how climate change is affecting things, people and places we care about, and (2) what we can do - individually, collectively, and globally - to FIX it.
Climate change is not a religion. It is a science.
Do I believe in it? No.
I look at the data, and the data is clear: it's real, it's us, it's bad, and the time to fix it is NOW.
By continuing to present it as a "belief", the media is feeding the explicitly-promoted narrative that climate change is a false, earth-worshipping religion that must be rejected by all true believers. Promoted by whom, you ask? Anyone who wants us to reject climate solutions.
So what question should moderators - or ANYONE - be asking politicians? It's simple: ask them how they are going to FIX it. What they are going to do to keep people SAFE. How they are going to ensure the US's clean energy FUTURE. In a nutshell, how are they going to do their JOB.
Science: we have now the highest carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in 15 million years and the highest carbon emissions from humans ever. In the U.S., carbon emissions WERE ticking down, but headed back up in 2017. Source: EPA
And in terms of global carbon emissions, as far back as scientists can go in the paleo record, the closest analog to today was over 50 million years ago and at that time best (tho v rough) estimate of avg annual emissions = only about ONE TENTH of today's. science2017.globalchange.gov