We Are Going Over The Climate Cliff – At least these people are trying

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

Natural Gas will be the death of us. Let me repeat that. Natural Gas will be the death of us. Why? Because Capitalists will sell it as a bridge to renewables and humans will die half way across the bridge. Let’s be honest, METHANE is a much more corrosive long lasting green house gas. While using natural gas will decrease the Volume of green houses gases. It will speed up Climate Change. Humans do not want to face up to what is killing us – Greed sped on by a pernicious economic system. If we stopped venting green house gases tomorrow it would be a 100 years before the effects wore off. We are not stopping today, are we?

Illinois offering affordable solar installation for low-income housing

Go there and read. More next week.

Greta Thunberg – I can’t say it better or louder

Posted on September 26, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

In the past 12 years I have never posted an entire work. That is kind of the point here. To get you to go to other sites and read. Maybe on your own to go to another link to expand your world or you knowledge base. But Greta said it so well and what she said is so important that I am going to put it all up here. I am going to put up a link so NBC gets credit but there isn’t anything extra there.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/read-greta-thunberg-s-full-speech-united-nations-climate-action-n1057861

My message is that we’ll be watching you.

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency, but no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50 percent chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

Fifty percent may be acceptable to you, but those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice.

They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

So a 50 percent risk is simply not acceptable to us, we who have to live with the consequences.

How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions? With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than eight and a half years.

There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable and you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us, but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.

We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up and change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Thank you.

Thats all folks. More next week.

The Right To Repair Movement – Could it repair the Earth

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

This starts out as a technology issue. Farmers wanted to repair their tractors. Smart phone users wanted to repair their phones. But it turns out that if you follow that thread it leads to wanting to repair everything. Our broken economic system. To fixing Silicone Valley’s technology spew. Fixing our infrastructure so that it works. Not descarfing it and getting new. Maybe even preventing Global Warming. Too tall a task. Maybe not.

https://repair.org/standards

Green standards for electronics establish a consistent set of environmental leadership criteria for the design, use, and end-of-life phases of electronics. Since their initial development, green U.S. electronics standards have successfully pushed manufacturers to incorporate key performance criteria, including requirements for recycled plastics, the reduction of hazardous materials, end-of-life management, and energy efficiency. Historically, by setting a high bar and rewarding significant advances in green design, such mandates have shaped electronics design for the better.

Yet these standards—both in and out of development—have become increasingly ineffectual, as electronics manufacturers now constitute a large voting bloc on most U.S. green standards groups. Standards are arduous to update, and the criteria are often too easy for manufacturers to achieve. Thus, electronics standards, more and more often, fail to function as tools of environmental leadership. Industry and purchasers rely on these standards for guidance in identifying sustainable products—which further perpetuates the low bar that has been set.

U.S. green standards could again lead, were they to integrate challenging, inspiring green design criteria, including (but not limited to) guidelines for increased reuse and repair. Unfortunately, manufacturers have consistently opposed stronger reuse and repair criteria. As a result, green standards have systemically failed to incorporate strong policies that would enable repair, reuse, and product life extension for electronics.

Go there and consume the whole website. Mor next week.

Global Warming Is Speeding Up On Us- Here is part of the problem

Posted on August 22, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

One day I was in Mason City at my parents house, my mom said that “they” are going to build a wind turbine catercorner from Patty Jackson’s mom’s place. I was really surprised. I said who is “they”. She said I don’t know but they their headquarters are up where the civic center used to be. So I drove out toward rt. 136 but I saw nothing. I got to researching it and here are the two stories I found. Check out the dates.

https://www.pekintimes.com/article/20090415/NEWS/304159939

Mason County plans for wind farms

By Tara Mattimoe

Posted Apr 15, 2009 at 12:01 AM Updated Apr 15, 2009 at 2:22 PM

HAVANA — The Mason County Board took the first step Tuesday toward adopting an ordinance to regulate wind farms in unincorporated Mason County. With several proposed wind farms throughout the county, Mason will soon follow in the footsteps of other central Illinois communities and be host to the wind powered energy sources.The board did a first reading of the ordinance Tuesday, said City Clerk Bill Blessman. Adoption of the ordinance will be considered at the county board’s May meeting, he said. The main point in Tuesday’s reading, said Blessman, was to make the proposed ordinance available for public viewing.

The proposed ordinance sets forth various regulations for turbines and wind farms built in Mason County. According to the ordinance, 1,000-foot setbacks are required between towers and any primary structure, and all towers must be placed at least 1.1 times the tower’s height from public roads, transmission lines and communication towers.

https://www.lincolncourier.com/x2011266604/Wind-picks-up-in-Mason-County

Wind picks up in Mason County

By GateHouse News Service

Posted Mar 15, 2011 at 12:01 AM Updated Mar 15, 2011 at 2:11 PM

Two different wind farm corporations have been securing leases in Mason County, according to county officials, who say the tax revenue a wind farm could bring would be welcome.

Mason County Board member James Miller said two wind energy companies have secured leases in Mason County, though the specifics of the companies’ plans are still unclear. The securing of leases is typically the first thing wind companies do before testing and, ultimately, obtaining the permits to erect the turbines. Overall, the process can take a few years.

However, when completed, the wind farms could prove a financial boon for the county which has lost population since the 2000 census — something that affects tax revenue for local governments in the county.

“The county would love to have (the wind farms), and for the school districts this is a big deal,” Miller said. “Some one or two or three of them would benefit.”

Please notice the last article was in 2011. 9 years later it is still “ongoing”/ At this rate they will put up the turbines when the prairie catches on fire.

Got there and read. More next week.

Two Weeks Ago I Said Trees Would Beat Global Global Warming

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

This week’s articles says – Not Likely. I say the trees are a good start. The point is that some people argue for trees or solar panels in the desert for instance. But the desert is an ecosystem that trees or solar panels would disrupt. Deserts are not “throw away” ecosystems. So we can only deploy so much of each. This is why i think geothermal is the ultimate solution.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/07/10/reforestation-climate-change-plant-trees/#.XS870XtOnct

planting trees — Planting trees, while beneficial to the planet, is not an easy solution to climate change. (Credit: Janelle Lugge/Shutterstock)

Last week, a new study in the journal Science highlighted the role forests could play in tackling climate change. Researchers estimated that by restoring forests to their maximum potential, we could cut down atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) by 25 percent — a move that would take us back to levels not seen in over a century. Though the study brings hope in the fight against climate change, other experts warn the solution is not that simple.

The study, led by scientists at ETH-Zürich, Switzerland, determined the planet has 0.9 billion hectares of land available to hold more trees — an area the size of the continental U.S. Converting those areas into forests would be a game-changer for climate change, the authors suggested.

“[The study] is probably the best assessment we have to date of how much land could support tree cover on our planet,” says Robin Chazdon, a forest ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut not involved in the study, But she is quick to point out that restoring forests is not as simple as it sounds.

Go there and think. More next week.

If We Plant Trees We Can Beat Climate Change – This is Bob Croteau’s solution

Posted on July 5, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

What they don’t tell you that you would have to plant enough trees to cover North America TWICE. That is a trillion trees. Now we could do that. The cool thing is that saplings soak up huge amounts of Carbon so we might get a decade of Global Cooling which we could use. But we would need a second solution for Ocean Acidification. I am sure we could do the acid thing eventually. Still, getting a trillion trees? Well we shall see.

https://www.dw.com/en/planting-1-trillion-trees-could-stop-climate-change-argues-study/a-49478494

News

Planting 1 trillion trees could stop climate change, argues study

Planting a massive number of trees is the most effective way to combat global warming, scientists have said. Reforesting an area the size of the United States could capture two-thirds of manmade carbon emissions.

A report from Swiss scientists published on Thursday said an effective way to stem the catastrophic consequences of climate change would be to plant about 1 trillion trees. This would take up an area roughly the size of the United States, but there is more than enough room, according to the study published in the journal Science.

“Every other climate change solution requires that we all change our behavior, or we need some top-down decision from a politician who may or may not believe in climate change, or it’s a scientific discovery we don’t yet have,” researcher Tom Crowther told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “This one is not only our most powerful solution — it’s one that every single one of us can get involved with.”

Over decades, the growing trees could suck up nearly 830 billion tons (750 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to the study. That’s about as much carbon pollution as humans have spewed in the past 25 years.

Crowther added, however, that while this was a cheap solution, it would not work without emissions cuts. Researchers emphasized that there are also behavioral changes that would work faster, such as cutting animal products out of one’s diet.

Go there and read. Hope it happens in my life time. More next week.

Carlinville Got Solar Going On – Blackburn College and Carlinville School District seek solar

Posted on May 16, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

This is so amazing. This is everything I hoped for 30 years ago or so. We do not need coal. We do not need oil. We do not need natural gas. All we need is ourselves.

Shining a Light on the Solar Array

https://www.cusd1.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=1552877&type=d&pREC_ID=1678920

School Board discusses solar energy

Go there and read. More next week.

They Include Natural Gas – It is still a good day

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

All the stuff I have been posting lately is real good news and I am so happy about it. If there is plastic in our food sources (especially fish) and the planet virtually shuts down because man has denuded it. What does it matter? I am trying to be optimistic but it is tough.

https://news.yahoo.com/britain-set-first-coal-power-103853088.html

World

Britain set for first coal-power free week in over a century

By Susanna Twidale

ReutersMay 8, 2019

LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) – Britain, the birth place of coal power, is set to go seven days without electricity from coal-fired stations for the first time since its 19th century industrial revolution, the National Grid operator said on Wednesday.

Britain was home to the world’s first coal-fueled power plant in the 1880s, and coal was its dominant electric source and a major economic driver for the next century.

However, coal plants emit almost double the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) – a heat-trapping gas blamed for global warming – as gas-fired power plants, and were moved out of Britain’s cities from the late 1950’s to reduce air pollution.

As part of efforts to meet its climate target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent compared with 1990 levels in the next three decades, Britain plans to wean itself completely off coal-fired power generation by 2025.

Go there and read. More next week.

Batteries Replace 195 megs of Natural Gas – Every day in SoCal

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

I do not need to bemoan, because this is a real good thing, but BEMOAN I shall. Now that the feed backs loops have begun to kick in. They were only speculation before. And now that the plastic has begun to swamp the ocean and permeate our food chain. This maybe a little bit too late. Had we done this type of thing 30-40 years ago our species would not be in danger. Still it is a good step. But maybe it would be better off to just plant a trillion trees, to give us breathing space literally for this type of thing to catch up

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sce-picks-major-battery-portfolio-in-place-of-puente-gas-plant#gs.84l0ki

Energy Storage

Southern California Edison Picks 195MW Battery Portfolio in Place of Puente Gas Plant

How a California community succeeded in pushing for a reliability fix that will see the installation of storage projects rather than a natural-gas peaker plant.

Julian Spector April 25, 2019

What started as a routine gas plant procurement ended as a testament to the changing electrical grid.

This week, utility Southern California Edison selected a roster of energy storage projects to supply local capacity needs around the coastal city of Oxnard, instead of the 262-megawatt natural-gas peaker plant it had chosen previously.

If regulators give their approval, Strata Solar will build and own a 100-megawatt/400-megawatt-hour system in Oxnard, and dispatch it on behalf of SCE.

This system will tie for largest lithium-ion battery in the world when it comes online in December 2020; the AES Alamitos plant of the same size is due around the same time.

SCE wants to complement the massive battery with a portfolio of smaller units, ranging from 10 to 40 megawatts, scattered around the area. Developers of those smaller include E.ON, Able Grid, Ormat, AltaGas and Enel. Swell, which aggregates fleets of home batteries into grid assets, won a 14-megawatt contract for behind-the-meter demand response.

Go there and read. More next week.

More About Our Wonderful Children – Complete with pictures

Posted on April 4, 2019 by Doug Nicodemus

I will move on to other subjects next week. But I just want to gloat some more. GLOAT Gloat gloat.

https://www.envmatters.org/loc/Mar_15_2019_Youth_Climate_Strike.html

Youth Climate Strike

March 15, 2019

(Pictures Below!)

While the government and a majority of the adults piss away the future reveling in their short-term goals and lives, the youth are protesting and striking the prospects of a very bleak future left as legacy by mainly the powers that be who have ignored the climate crisis for over 50 years. Scientists world-wide have warned us and warned us that now we have only about 11 years left to truly embark on a road to zero carbon emissions because of the very real threat of global warming, death to species and oceans, and permafrost melting, leading to the release of many ancient diseases and the heat up of the atmosphere leading to crop failure, sea level rise, and billions of deaths in our near future and a collapse of the ecosystem that supports all life on this planet.

What the youth demand is at least a Green New Deal or an honest effort by the leaders to truly take on the problem of global warming. The need to do so has never been more urgent. There are also some among us adults that stand with our youth and are in solidarity with their efforts to strike from going to school until the leaders listen to the truly educated.

Chicago Youth for Climate Action

NBC News on US Youth Climate Strike March 15 2019

Youth Climate Strike US

Sunrise Movement

Extinction Rebellion Chicago