It's conservatives' favorite argument against climate solutions: "it's too expensive!"

In @CC_Yale I tried to do a definitive debunking of this myth, also available @skepticscience short URL sks.to/costs. Please read it, then this thread (1/10)
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/11/fighti…
First, HUGE CAVEAT: we can't put a $$$ value on many climate crisis consequences like suffering, trauma, extinctions, lost biodiversity, etc., as advocates like @GretaThunberg & @sunrisemvmt remind us. Nevertheless, the economic case for climate solutions is a no-brainer (2/10)
Opponents like Trump & @NikkiHaley argue against a #GreenNewDeal by inflating its cost and ignoring its benefits. They're only doing the first half of a cost-benefit analysis, and doing it in a bad faith, bullshit way (e.g. see the thread below) (3/10)
The benefits of climate action (in avoided damages) are immense as my @CC_Yale piece documents. For the US alone $5-10 trillion by 2050 and north of $20 trillion by 2100. Not only lessened climate catastrophes, but cleaner air = better health avoiding ~1M US deaths by 2050 (4/10)
In fact, that may just be the tip of the iceberg. If climate change also slows economic growth, as some experts believe it will (though this is an unsettled question), due to compounding over time, it could cost the US alone north of $50 trillion by 2100 🤯 (5/10)
And climate damages won't be spread evenly. Developing countries near the equator are particularly vulnerable. In the US, southern states will bear the brunt, battered by stronger hurricanes & sweltering heatwaves. Ironically, those states vote for climate obstructionists (6/10)
Meanwhile, as @ProjectDrawdown has documented, many climate solutions more than pay for themselves over time. After initial investments for deployment, over their lifetimes they save money through lower operations & maintenance costs (7/10):
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/03/aggres…
For example, as @Lazard found in its latest levelized cost of energy annual report, solar & wind are the cheapest sources of new energy, even cheaper than continuing to run existing coal power plants. Crazy! (8/10)
The catch? Climate solutions do require big up-front investments for benefits that mostly take decades to accrue. It's like the Marshmallow test, where delayed gratification yields a bigger reward. Here, the reward is a livable climate, but we want immediate gratification (9/10)
So the fossil fuel-backed conservative shouts of "too expensive!" are effective, but in the long-term, they're exactly backwards. Climate inaction would cost tens of trillions of dollars, while solutions will more than pay for themselves over time (10/10).
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/11/fighti…

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More from @dana1981

28 Oct
So, what's happening in the Arctic now is kinda crazy, but also really important to extreme weather throughout the northern hemisphere. Read my piece today on the topic, but here's a Thread:
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/10/warmer…
First, the basics: there's a "positive feedback" (positive in the negative sense, Trump would say), like a mutually destructive relationship. Warming melts ice & snow in the Arctic, making the surface less reflective -> absorb more sunlight -> warm more -> melt more -> etc. 1/n
As a result, the Arctic is warming 3x faster than the global avg, and sea ice is disappearing fast. Half Arctic sea ice surface area and 75% of its volume disappeared in summers between 1979 and 2012.

Then 2014–2020 were the 7 hottest years on record. Guess what happened? 2/n
Read 14 tweets
1 May
Today @CC_Yale published my article debunking Michael Moore & Jeff Gibbs' garbage anti-clean energy film.

Fellow environmentalists, I'd like to have a word. Please read my piece and then step into my Twitter office, if you would.
yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/05/michae…
We've been fighting for climate action (without a lot of success) for over 30 years now. The reason we haven't won isn't that @algore or @billmckibben are secret evil villains, as Moore and Gibbs would have us believe.

It's that THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY ARE ACTUAL VILLAINS!!
Fossil fuel companies have spent billions of dollars undermining climate policy proposals, international climate negotiations, and spreading doubt about climate science among the public, even as their own scientists warned them about climate change before I was even born.
Read 9 tweets
21 Apr
There is soooooooo much misleading junk in this film. Most of it is focused on biomass from wood, which supplies 2% of energy in the US. And wind turbines are bad because ... they only last several decades and NIMBYs don't like them?

I yelled at the screen 3 times watching this.
The film's solution is, I guess don't use any energy because no source of energy is perfect? There's no comparison of pros and cons, no consideration of benefits at all. It only looks at the downside of every source of energy and thus basically concludes that civilization is bad.
My favorite part was when they looked at a former solar farm location in Daggett, CA, now just sand, and declared the revelation that it's become a "solar wasteland."

I pulled up Google Maps and found Daggett in the Mojave Desert. It's all sand out there!!! WTF?!
Read 8 tweets
15 Oct 19
@sarahknapton You should have dived deeper, because this article is full of inaccuracies.

1) "the warming trend is slower than most climate models have forecast."

False: skepticalscience.com/comparing-glob…
@sarahknapton 2) "In 1990 the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted that temperatures would rise by 0.54F (0.3C) per decade."

False: skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-p…
@sarahknapton 3) "Yet, some scientists argue that [CO2] is not capable of producing the extreme temperature rises seen in recent decades."

You can also find "some scientists" who argue the Earth is flat. There's a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming.
skepticalscience.com/global-warming…
Read 32 tweets
8 Oct 19
Really interesting report on California GHG emissions by @Next10: next10.org/publications/2…

A thread follows, with lots of pretty charts!

Overall, CA is doing well, already beating its 2020 target of bringing emissions below 1990 levels (1/n)
@Next10 But emissions cuts will need to accelerate in order to meet the state's aggressive 2030 and 2050 targets
@Next10 Transportation is California's Achilles heel, now over 40% of the state's overall GHG emissions.
Read 12 tweets
15 Mar 19
Wow, @AOC is the only one in the room (including Wilbur Ross and his lawyers) aware that 1) the proposed census citizenship question wording is substantively different from the previous version, and 2) such wording changes must be submitted to Congress law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/13…
For those interested in the details of the law that @AOC references, it says Secretary Ross must submit one report to Congress detailing the subjects to be included in the census [Section (f)(1)], and a second report with the census questions [Section (f)(2)] ...
Those are the 2 reports Ross answers that he submitted. But Section (f)(3) says that if the census topics or Qs have changed, he must submit a third report explaining to Congress why he decided to change it. @AOC caught Ross failing to do that after adding the citizenship Q.
Read 4 tweets

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